Day 0 Update #541 - The Payment Processor Problem

In this episode of the Day 0 Update: We talk about Mario Paint's arrival on NSO, Virtua Fighter 5's upcoming arrival on this console generation, and the latest updates on the payment processor problems plaguing the gaming industry. All this and more, up next!

Full show notes can be found ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Episode Transcript

(00:16):
Welcome to Dazer update for. August 3rd, 2025 I'm your host
Chris Emoji. And I'm Brandon Perkins.
Yeah, two man. Crew as I believe Dan Rib is in
EVO. Yep.
Doing work stuff and whatnot. Hopefully we'll have him back
for next week, but for the time being we do have plenty of

(00:37):
things to talk about. Yep.
One Nintendo Partner Direct endswith some announcements.
Not a ton. But there's stuff there.
We have an update on your big, you know, controversy of the of

(00:59):
the past couple of weeks with the big payment processor story.
Yep. Kind of happening and we also
have just a number of other things here, some acquisitions
and lawsuits and a bunch of other stuff happening here Yeah.
Before we get to that, we'll talk a little bit in plane and

(01:20):
I'll kick off here. I've been playing some Ninja
Gaiden Rage bound. I got the PS-5 version, seems
like the Switch version is. Not a good.
Version because it runs, I believe at 30 frames per second,
maybe runs more steadily on switch to, but from what I've

(01:42):
seen people say that version runs weird enough that it could
be nauseating for people. It seems like your best bet on
that. Says anywhere else this until
they're able to release a properswitch to version, but for the
time being. So yeah, this is a new Ninja

(02:05):
Gaiden game, 2D action platform,or I would call it.
It's really doesn't feel like the other games all that much,
which I think is for me, a benefit.
It's not super heavy duty on combos and that kind of stuff.

(02:26):
In fact, you're kind of more focused on dispatching enemies
as quickly as possible, usually with one hit or whatever you can
do. Or you can just run past a lot
of them if you want. But yeah, it's it features a
different character named Kenji,who is sort of training with Ryu
at the beginning of the game anddeals with this attack on the

(02:51):
village and goes out to fight the demons that have done so and
try to stop them at their source.
And kind of ends up getting tricked into, according to this,
I don't know, like lair of the demons, something like that.
At which point it switches over to another character.

(03:13):
I hear her name is like Kimura or something.
She is a shinobi for the the spider clan that is sort of the
the rival to reuse clan, the Hayabusa clan.
She has arranged attacks mainly like throw knives at enemies and

(03:38):
you fight a lot of the lot of the same ones, but that takes
place probably around the same time as the beginning parts with
Kenji. And so I believe the the way the
story goes, you're fighting yourway out of this to protect, you
know, the higher ups in your clan.

(03:59):
And then eventually you work your way towards fighting the
demons and in the same place as Kenji, whose souls gets bound
together. And then you're able to kind of
switch between them to use theirdifferent move sets.
And that makes sense for an interesting way to go because

(04:21):
you got 1 character that's, you know, mainly focused, one that's
range focus, some different abilities to them.
That makes for a nice, nice thing.
I've not gotten to the point where they merge together, but
it's been pretty fun so far. It does have some accessibility
options so you can tone down some of the, the damage you

(04:44):
take, that kind of stuff that issomething you want to do.
Those are a handful of other options you can mess with.
But for the time being, I'm going at it in the the natural.
Difficulties so far. Well, yeah, been enjoying.
It's every stage has three challenges to them as well as

(05:04):
there's some collectables in each stage that you can use to
buy. It's the one I know so far that
I can buy is these badges, I guess you would call them.
There's so much like the the holiday night badges, you can
equip 2 of them. And so I have one that's such

(05:24):
every time I get to a checkpoint, it'll refill my
health all the way instead of, you know, a chunk of the way I
forgot the other one is, but youget to buy a bunch of these and
some of them will make the game harder that way.
But yeah, it's it's been a lot of fun.
It looks really nice. It has some great movement

(05:49):
abilities because you have AI, forgot what they call it, but
it's it's essentially like a spin attack that you use on
enemies that can get you essentially like a double jump
kind of thing. There's that's there's the
ability to climb up on walls andeven on ceilings, which for the

(06:11):
kind of Super Nintendo era of games that this evokes, I still
don't ever expect to be able to climb up on the ceilings when I
do. So.
Yeah, it's been a lot of fun so far.
This is definitely a game peopleshould check out if you like
your your action platform or stuff.
Maybe also if you're into your Ninja Gaiden stuff.

(06:33):
So. Yeah, that's a.
That's a. Strong game.
Also been playing some more Donkey Kong Bonanza.
I'm in the third world now because I'm working my way
around. Usually it's not a great looking
world. It's like a desert dirt kind of
world, so lots of brown and red kind of stuff.

(06:56):
So that's maybe the the one not going to have on this the the
way this area looks. But that's the first one with
mine carts. So that's interesting.
To. Jump into and it has, you know,
a bunch more bananas and fossilsand such to collect.
So I'm working my way around on that stuff.
So that's been a lot of fun. I started a game called 64.

(07:23):
This is a Steam game sort of in the clicker slash idle genre,
maybe a bit of an automation sort of game to it.
You essentially starts it's it'sa weird game to describe, but
did you start with this machine that you hold the button, you
know the mouse button down on and it'll generate these cubes

(07:50):
all around. It's in sort of a, you know, a
three by three grid and then youclick on those to break them and
you get a currency out of that. And once you do that, you click
on click and hold on it again, bring up more and keep doing
that and eventually you'll unlock a second currency.

(08:11):
You kind of keep going through that and as you go, you unlock
some stuff on the the right sideof the screen that are sort of
these buildings and machines andsuch that you can build around
it to make the the clicking easier, that kind of stuff.
Now where I'm at, I have ones I'm using that will essentially

(08:35):
hold the the machine down so they keep spawning new cubes and
another one that will on the other side that will cool it
down so it makes it bring them up twice as fast.
And then I have machines around the edges that will essentially
break the cubes kind of thing. So you're kind of just

(08:59):
consistently getting these currencies and I think I have
three of them right now. There's like a yellow, purple
and a red one that I'm working my way through.
And while you're doing all this on the the bottom left side,
you're getting this like text change between like your
character and a buddy that they're texting and they're

(09:21):
arranging to Hangouts and everybody's like, Oh yeah, can't
wait for you to get over here. And then I generally I think
when you get a new either like machine to unlock or a new
currency unlock, it's updates the story with more stuff where
eventually like your characters like or the the buddy is like,

(09:45):
Hey, where the hell are you? You're supposed to be over here
now I'm coming. It's I just got some stuff to do
kind of thing as you're like still playing the game.
This whole weird thing where apparently your character has
been brought into another universe or something in other
worlds. You just disappeared and the

(10:06):
only contact you have with the outside world is with this buddy
and they're trying to help you out.
And I'll add, so that's where I'm at just like I'm trying to
figure out what's going on. So yeah, it's, it's a weird
little game, but not one that's all that expensive.
It's like 6 bucks. I got it during the the summer

(10:26):
sale a few weeks ago. So took it into it.
I got it almost to the point where it's automated and I guess
I can expand the, the operationsa bit.
You basically pay for more of these extractor kind of things
to deal with it and build the same thing over and over again,

(10:48):
I guess. So I've got machines that'll
convert currency to other currency and all that.
So yeah, it's it's a weird little game.
Not sure how much. More I'm going to play.
But I've been enjoying it so far.
It's just like a thing to put onfor a little bit.

(11:09):
So there's that. And then let's see the the last
one here. I've been playing more soulstone
survivors, which hit one point Olast month, I believe, or in
June. That's I'm enjoying the one of
the more noticeable things they've added is the a new

(11:33):
tutorial that is sort of story based, featuring a lot of the
the characters that you can unlock sort of working together
to try to take down the void King kind of thing, which I was
working on playing through that mission.
It seemed to suggest if I didn'tdo it right there, I was never

(11:54):
going to get the option to play it again as I was like, sure,
whatever. And you know, it has a lot of
voice acting and story stuff going on and you start to get
your group of heroes together. I go to fights one of the the
void King, either the void King or one of his lackeys or
something. And maybe if I would want, but

(12:17):
it felt like it was a souls, youknow, an intro souls boss that
just will eventually kill you. And then that's where everything
starts. I kind of kicks you back out to
the menus. I was like.
So did I. Lose all my stuff that I had
before from the early access andI found out like, oh, it's all
there. I have a few characters

(12:40):
unlocked, maybe had like 5 hoursin this game before the one
point O hits and I put a few more hours since then enjoying
it. But yeah, this is in comparison
to like Vampire Survivors, whichhas just one currency really.
And you're kind of just looking at the the challenge unlocks to

(13:03):
see what you have next to do this one, it's all about
grinding out these various currencies that use for the
skill tree, for unlocking characters and for doing, you
know, upgrading weapons and doing all this different stuff.
So you're kind of doing these runs that are fairly similar

(13:26):
without really without really like a ton of concrete things
you're going to get out of it besides just the currency.
Yeah, it's a it's a little bit alittle bit nebulous sort of
what's going on here. So these kind of games, I really
wish you could have like a, you know, a list of the challenges

(13:49):
you want to follow and sort of get updated on as you're
progressing towards them or things like in the skill tree
you want to focus on and all that.
So it doesn't have any of that. So just kind of like I gathered
a bunch of stuff. I'll see what I can use it on,
see if there's anything interesting.
I'm working on my way to upgrading the main skill tree.

(14:14):
There's a main skill tree, then I believe once you fill that up,
you unlock the ability to do skill trees for individual
characters. So you're kind of working your
way through all that kind of stuff so.
Yeah, it's still enjoyable and all that the the main conceit.

(14:35):
So far has been just picking oneof the areas, one of the handful
of maps that it has, running around, being up enemies.
Usually you're just killing a bunch of enemies to get these
bosses to show up, and after I think 5 of the bosses you're
done with that area, you can either leave and quit.

(14:55):
You can do an infinite version of that area.
So I guess you have certain currencies you want to unlock a
bunch of. That'd be a way to do it.
Or you can go to essentially like this gladiatorial arena
where you need to kill a bunch of elite enemies to unlock the
next boss, the the boss, then you have to do that five times.

(15:18):
You can kind of just keep doing that over and over again.
I think it gets a little more tough.
But yeah, it's kind of one of those, probably one of the
better games in his genre. But yeah, I've been.
Enjoying it a good bits looking forward to play some more of
this. But yeah, not really a ton to

(15:40):
stay on it just yet. There's a side mode.
I don't know when they added this.
It seems to be Cthulhu themed. At least that's the the icon
they're using for the the mode. So I assume there's some weird
stuff going on there. But yeah, that's that's Soul
Stone Survivor that's also on consoles now.

(16:02):
They added that a little while ago.
So I may get grab that one on PS-5 or something.
But for now it's going to stick with the Steam version and see
how it goes. But yeah, this is one of the
games that has like 400 achievements on Steam was just
like, I'll just grind out achievements.
See what else happens here. It has a bunch for.

(16:23):
Like, you know, killing a bunch of elite enemies at different
tiers. So yeah.
It's one of those games. So yeah, that's pretty much what
I've been doing. So how about you, Brandon?
Well, As for me, I, among other things, I started playing
Bowders Gate 3 again because I decided, you know what, it's

(16:45):
time. I might as well get started
again. And you know, it didn't take
long. Just suck me right back in
again. I keep forgetting just how
amazing that game really is and it is pretty much the desert
island game. If you only had one game to play
for the rest of your life, it would probably be this one
because there's just so many different things they shoved

(17:07):
into it. But on top of that, I also have
been playing Void Stranger againon my PC because I had been
talking a lot about 0 Ranger andI was like, you know what?
It's been a while since I playedFloyd Stranger, which was made
by the same developers. And yeah, that game gets
incredibly, you know, bang your head against the wall hard later

(17:31):
on. Because the essential conceit of
the game, of the game and it's gameplay is, you know, you're in
this sort of ruins or underground ruins or tomb or
whatever, and you're going down the stairs from floor to floor,
going deeper and deeper. And in every room is essentially
a puzzle. Well, most every room.

(17:53):
There's some others too, but that are based around the idea
of you have the power. You can only move like 1 tile at
a time, you know, up, down, leftto right.
And you have the power to removea tile from one area and then
place it on an IPT area where there's like a pit or something.

(18:13):
And you can use that across the pit and get to the exit.
But later on, they start throwing a bunch of other
curveballs at you. Things like suddenly you've got
these monsters you have to deal with, like these snakes that
move the same time you move, youknow, back and forth 1 space at
a time. Or the grubs that move the same

(18:34):
you do 1 space at a time, exceptthey go up and down.
Or the bulls, which are essentially will charge you on
site if you're on the same like line of tiles that they're on
and you can kind of bait them around, but they will eventually
get to you and stuff like that. And then they throw in some like

(18:58):
other stuff that you didn't realize you could do, but you
absolutely could do and always could have.
You just didn't think about it, which is that if there is a
particular, one of the things that they add on later on is
this button for a bunch of thesepuzzles where you have to place
something on top of the button. And the button will open up the

(19:18):
door that's covering up the staircase.
And this will involve anything from like a statue to a boulder,
you know, that kind of thing. But there are a lot of rooms
where you can't have any of that.
Instead, you have to find a way to trick one of the monsters to
get onto it, and that can involve everything from baiting

(19:38):
them onto the button to trying to time your movements so that
one of the monsters will go on to the button the same time you
are. And eventually you'll find out
that because the button itself technically rests on a tile, you
can actually take up that tile, button and all, and you can

(19:59):
place it in an empty spot where you can actually.
You know, move a monster over there and that will open up, you
know the thing for you. There's also like a bunch of
other hidden stuff that's just like really cool.
Every time you save the game, what happens is every like, I
think like every 28 floors or soyou come across this, this Birch

(20:23):
tree that will be, it's just like a room with like a singular
Birch tree under it. And if you go there, that's
where you save the game. And when the game saves, it
actually turns the game off. And when you go back into the
game, it'll open up and it'll belike this dream sequence where
you'll get like more of your character's past story.

(20:46):
It's actually really fascinating.
It's just that that game just has so many cool things for it.
It's just also incredibly difficult, but probably the one
game I've been most addicted to this week is a free game that I
was turned on to on itch dot IO.And we will be talking about

(21:06):
itch dot IOA little later on. It's called Social Democracy and
alternate history. And essentially what it is, is
it's a card based politics simulator where you are playing
the Social Democratic Party of Germany from 1928 to 1933, and
your primary objective is to make sure that Adolf Hitler does

(21:27):
not come to power. And the game kind of hammers
home the idea that in hindsight,Hitler's rise to power was
almost a foregone conclusion because the Weimar system was
incredibly screwed up pretty much on by design.
Because when you know, Franz vonPapen, who'd been the dictator

(21:49):
of Germany during the latter half of World War One, and you
know Kaiser Wilhelm the Second, all decided to abdicate and give
the people their Republic, they essentially sabotaged it because
they were extremely petty on theway out.
But anyway, the game starts 1928.
It's when the Social Democratic Party gets a huge chunk of the

(22:11):
votes in the Reichstag depending, you know, starting
out how much, how much support you're able to get.
You will then be given a bunch of things you can do you'll you
will almost certainly have to form a coalition.
Usually this involves starting out the game.
It's involves a grand coalition where you're essentially trying

(22:34):
to form a coalition with all of the major parties in the
Reichstag. At that particular point, the
Nazis are not there. They are barely a blip on the
radar at that point. So you're mostly having to do
with like the German Democratic Party, the Liberals, the Center
Catholic Party, you know, guys like that.

(22:56):
And also technically the Communists and we'll get to
them, but and. You.
Generally are then in turn you're like, you can then, you
know, decide who's going to be Prime Minister because you know,
you'll have like the the plurality of votes in the
Reichstag. Generally people I who I give

(23:18):
advice to play this game, you'regoing to want to get the guy
who's the head of the Catholic Center Party to, you know, be
Prime Minister or chancellor because you're going to want to
have that leverage. So you can then put, you know,
SPD members into various ministries and, you know, you

(23:41):
can do things like, you know, give, you know, Ministry of
Labor, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Justice, the
Reichsfair, you know, that's theGerman military stuff like that,
Ministry of Justice, all that type of stuff.
And then after that happens for,you know, the next several
months, you're essentially, you know, running Germany.

(24:04):
You're, you know, trying to, youknow, you're doing like
coalition deals. You're, you know, enacting
various policies through the various ministries the party
controls, which can include things like, you know,
increasing welfare spending, youknow, enacting like if you get a
guy in agriculture, you get likea national buyout law that lets

(24:28):
like the government by like unused or unprofitable farming
land and give it over to public control.
Inter me, you know, you know, get involved in like labor
disputes. And on top of that, you're also
dealing with like, you know, intra party stuff like funding
and where the money's going to go, you know, campaigning,

(24:51):
giving political rallies, putting money into the Reichs
Bonner, which is the SPD's paramilitary.
And then 1920 happens and the Great Depression happens and
then everything goes to hell in a handbasket.
And at that point you're essentially scrambling, trying
to juggle like a million plates at once while you know, the, you

(25:16):
know, the, the, the young plan is getting offered and the
banking system collapses. And that stupid little Austrian
dude with the weird mustache is getting more and more popular
with the people because the, because, you know, the
essentially the Reichschag in itself is just failing at what
it does. And it's not a difficult game or

(25:40):
even really that complicated of a game.
It's just that unless you are interested in history and
especially, you know, the, the modern history of Germany, the
subject matter can be a little esoteric, which is why, you
know, the game actually has likea, a like an encyclopedia or
glossary that sort of tells you like, OK, these are the various

(26:02):
parties. This was their, the ones who led
the party, the ones in leadership, This was their
policies. This is, you know, gives you
like a simulation of like what the major elections look like,
you know, that kind of thing. But yeah, it's called, like I
said, it's called social democracy and alternate history.
It's on itch dot IO. It's completely free.

(26:22):
And I've quite enjoyed it. But yeah, that's what I've been
playing. All right, so yeah, let's get to
some news. First up here we got your
PlayStation Plus essential lineup for the month, which has
some interesting games. So this will be starting on the
5th August 5th. First up here we have Eliza P

(26:48):
for PS-5 and PS4, the cleaned souls like featuring, you know,
sort of a version of Pinocchio in sort of a Bloodborne style
world. Very good one of these.
So definitely worth checking outfor that.
So there you go. Yeah, for PS4 there's Daisy,

(27:15):
fairly popular, you know, zombiesurvival game that is server
based, so you're occasionally able to work with and fight
against other people trying to do the same thing and all that.
So yeah, there's that. And the last one here for the
PS4, My Hero 1's Justice 2. This is the second 3D arena

(27:40):
fighter in the My Hero Academia universe.
Yeah, that one's probably prettysolid.
But yeah, there's your lineup with Liz P being the the
headline game here, So yeah. There you go.
Yeah, definitely going to give lies lies PA shot like that's

(28:03):
that's been a game that's been on my radar for a while.
It's just I got kind of burned out on souls like so.
But yeah, that I'll definitely be giving that one a shot when
it, you know, really when it's comes out, when it's on put on,
when it's put on. PS Plus Tuesday.
Yeah, so there you go. Let's see.

(28:27):
And Next up, a Nintendo Switch Online got its own release for
the week, which is 1 people beenwaiting for for a while.
Oh yeah. This is Mario Paint for the
Super Nintendo. Yep.
Which on the Switch 2 allows youto use the joy cons in mouse
mode yeah, for this. And on the Switch 1 you need a

(28:51):
Ausb mouse to plug in or one with a little USB dongle,
something like that. But yeah, this was a a game that
I had back on the date back in the day on the Super Nintendo.
It was a very weird release because it came with a mouse,
Yep, and all that, and a mouse pad and it made for a really

(29:15):
interesting game, but I don't know that I ever really messed
too much with the the art stuff.Which?
Was largely like a version of Ms. Paint for the day.
It's mostly like the little minigames with the the mouse and fly
swatter. If you know that from Waria.
Where? That's where.

(29:35):
That came from and also the the Music Maker, which was also a
really cool part of. It yeah, that Music Maker, that
Music Maker had a long ass lifespan.
Like you can still find people doing using the Music Maker on
that thing to this day on YouTube.
Yeah, it's I think that's makes me really wish they would do a

(30:00):
follow up and not like make it, you know, like a modern Music
Maker kind of thing, but just allow you to have like more
ability to save stuff and exportit as you know, MP threes and
all that kind of features make it a more modern, fleshed out
version of this whole thing. So yeah, that's that's a game

(30:25):
that's well worth checking out if you have Nintendo switch
online. And alongside that, they've also
put the the soundtrack on Nintendo music on that app.
So if you want to just listen tothe good music, that's something
you can do. So yeah, there you go.

(30:46):
Fun little part of Nintendo's Super Nintendo history.
Yep. So yeah, we do have some other
Nintendo news that has happened.As of today, it seems like
Nintendo announced that they were going to be increasing
prices on hardware for the Nintendo Switch.

(31:08):
One the different models there. I could double check the store
at this point because I think Targets accidentally posted
prices early when this was announced.
So let me see here Hardware, what kind of hardware we got

(31:29):
here? I'll switch to stuff and let me
see. OK, Yeah, the the Switch OLED
model is now 399 instead of 349.The Switch light is 229 instead
of 199 and the the regular Switch is now 339 instead of a

(31:50):
300. And I think the the bundles they
have here are probably also bumped up a bit.
I believe the alarm O clock has been bumped up from $100 to one
O 9. So yeah, the the pro controller
is $80 now the regular one. I'm not sure if these joy cons

(32:15):
changed at all. I believe the joy con 2
controllers have increased in price from let me see what
they're at right now Yeah they're $100 from 95 bucks to
$100 was very expensive. The pro controller 2 and went

(32:36):
from 85 bucks to 90 bucks. I think the cameras was 50 and
that's 55. So yeah, the switch to is
normal. The yeah, the game cube
controller is now 6999 instead of 65 bucks.
So yeah, a lot of these got bumped up by 5 bucks or so for

(32:59):
that. So yeah, they're dealing with
tariffs, especially as Trump's latest round have started or are
about to start for many countries.
And so, yeah, they were talking about this for Canada, and now
the US is getting it as well. So people are really blaming

(33:22):
Nintendo for this. So I'm getting greedy.
And it's like, that's not what'sgoing on here at all.
They don't want to charge more for these things if they don't
have to. But but, you know, Trump and his
stupid tariffs are forcing theirhands with all this.
So yeah, even the amiibos might have been, might have gone up.

(33:47):
Yeah, a lot of these are saying 20 bucks for them.
And I'm like, I don't think thatwas the original price, but
yeah, that's more fun. Got to pay 20 bucks for a
goomba. Yeah.
This economy so yeah that's unfortunate yeah I believe like
all the nso controllers have gone up the 64 controllers 55

(34:10):
now super Nintendo controllers 35 which is probably a very
reasonable price for that but yeah that's that's unfortunate
I. Don't.
Know if you have anything to add, Brandon?
I mean it was kind of to be expected because of all the

(34:30):
tariff bullshit, but it still sucks.
Yeah. Just means they're going to have
to shell out more cash for Christmas this year.
Yeah, but yeah, it's especially when you see a lot of people
online or blaming the wrong people for this because, yeah,

(34:53):
they should know that if you voted for Trump, this is what
you voted for. So, yeah, we'll have to see how
this this goes. But yeah, that's a that's a
shame, yeah. It's a shame.
Yeah, let's see what else we gothere.
Also happening on Tuesday, we got Konami announcing a week in

(35:16):
live broadcast, which is saying is going to be an hour and a
half, which is plenty of time todisappoint every week in fan for
whatever they're going to announce here.
So it'll be at 4:00 AM Pacific Time, at 7:00 AM Eastern Time
and I believe later in the evening in Japan or they're

(35:37):
probably primarily announcing stuff.
I will see. Yeah, they already put the
remaster earlier this year or one and two.
Maybe I'll do more. That's but they probably also
talk about the the mobile game Star Leap that is also coming
out at some point for PC and mobile.

(35:58):
I'm not sure what else they might.
Maybe they'll do remasters of three and four, which I believe
are probably the two least likedgames in the franchise list
among the mainline ones. Yeah, I.
Believe 5 is the other good 112 and 5 it'll just suck it up and

(36:21):
put those all in the trilogy package and then you can charge
60 bucks for that and get more money out of people.
I don't know. We'll have to see what they're
going to do with all this so. There you go.
Your latest little tease of sweetened news.
Yeah, yeah, it just I. Swear that I really don't know

(36:46):
if these guys know what to do with this franchise anymore.
Yeah. Just straight up.
Well, they're making a mobile game, so they're doing a lot of
Japanese companies do yeah, we'll see.
We'll find out what their what their plans actually are.

(37:08):
But we do have some other games that have gotten dates.
We know the Slime Rancher 2 is going to be out September 23rd.
I'll be hitting one point O on PC and be out on Xbox and
PlayStation 5 on the same day. So yeah that'll be interesting
that physical editions they've announced one through IM8 bits

(37:32):
for 35 bucks you get some special artwork.
What else here poster, some slime stickers and exclusive
sleeves. So some cool stuff there yeah
I'm looking forward to this. I like the the first game a lot.
It was a very fun one of those kind of crafting survival games

(37:54):
with a unique hook of essentially farming these slimes
rather delicious gems and building those nice little
containers for them with where if you filled up too many of
them they could literally climb up on each other and get out.

(38:14):
They also had the the hook of incertain areas, if they started
crossbreeding enough, they wouldstart turning into the dark
slime that could kill everything.
Better be careful and get out ofthe area when those are going
nuts. But yeah, this one, I believe
has more of a let's see, Yeah, you're on Rainbow Island and

(38:37):
have this big, like, facility for doing all this stuff in
versus. The original Gabriel kind of
just had that little nook area, but I believe you did.
You were able to kind of buy your way into other areas with
some more things to do. I don't know they ever really
got too far into it in that way.But yeah, looking forward to

(38:59):
this, the September release. We have another September
release here with Hotel Barcelona.
Yep. Little projects between White
House and cult games, The Sorry 65 and a suit of 51 working
together on this game. Yep.

(39:20):
As yeah, they're called a deranged blend of horror action,
grindhouse aesthetics, basicallycoming to this hotel turned
slaughterhouse kind of thing. Yeah, that basically sounds like
something they would make. Yeah, and it actually looks
really cool too. Yeah, got a really nice look to

(39:41):
it. It's a Metroidy kind of game, I
believe so. Yeah, that looks really nice.
Also has Co-op play so you can play with up to four players to
do some multiplayer stuff, I guess.
I don't know, but yeah, that looks really nice.

(40:02):
Yeah, with EVO going on, we got some dates for fighting game
stuff. The main one here, Virtual
Fighter Five Revo World Stage isthe one point O release of
what's been on Steam, but also for PS-5, Xbox Series X&S and
which two? At some point it's October 30th

(40:25):
which 2 is a later thing. Steam.
It's a free upgrade. I believe you had the PS4
version of What are the Virtual Fighter 5 ultimate showdown for
PS4? You can upgrade for 10 bucks
with all the DLC carrying over. There's a 30th anniversary
edition of this for 49 at 99 or 4949 that includes a bunch of

(40:51):
DLC with it at the Yakuza seriespack, a legendary pack, and a
30th anniversary swimsuit costume set.
Just in case you need to be reminded this is a Japanese
fighting game. They're going to give you a
swimsuit pack. So the regular price for this is
20 bucks, which seems like a a very good price for this game

(41:12):
that should be in game that's been worked on for the better
part of 20 years. Yeah.
They just kind of keep updating and upgrading and putting on new
platforms. Yeah, Well, I mean, part of the
reason they're doing this is because, you know, they're
trying to remind people, especially in the West, that
Virtue Fighter is, you know, a thing.
Because they're, you know, they're working on Virtue

(41:35):
Fighter Six right now as we speak, and they're trying to
revive the franchise over here, you know, outside of, like,
hardcore fighting circles. And, you know, also reminding
people that, yeah, it's not justa game that you can sometimes
play in Yakuza. It's an actual thing.
Yeah. But like, yeah, I'm cool to

(41:55):
find. It's cool to find it because it
is Virtual Fighter 5 is still a pretty great game so.
Yeah, what else is mentioned here?
Pre-orders get you a Sega Genesis customization item based
on the the hardware. Yeah, they introduce a new mode
called World stage, a single player mode, rebattle through

(42:16):
tournaments around the world andlegendary real life players will
appear as CPU opponents. So that's neat.
And Doral will join the game as a playable fighter who paid TLC.
So not even with the game. And then make sure to note that
you cannot use Doral in officialtournaments.

(42:39):
So. And surprising, but yeah, it
looks like it's a pretty good package there.
And let's see our last date here.
It's for one of the weirder games that is happening, Toxic
Crusaders, that is coming out December 4th for 2499 on
everything PlayStation, Xbox, Switch and PC from developer

(43:04):
Retro Wear. Yeah, just seems like a pretty
solid beat em up featuring the Toxic Crusaders characters and
such. Yeah.
Which looks neat for that. So yeah, nice to see.
Yeah, they're, I think, I think they're doing this partly to

(43:25):
sort of coincide with the wide release of the new Toxic Avenger
movie, and also to try and, you know, bring up some nostalgia
about the Toxic Crusaders, whichone of those weird instances
where a movie that was rated a very hard R somehow ended up
getting a children's cartoon. I feel like that was a pretty

(43:47):
common thing in the 80s. Weird, yeah, I don't.
And I I so so always find it weird how nobody ever questioned
it. Yeah, like RoboCop and some of
those kind of shows. Yeah, like RoboCop.
You like. You've seen the original
RoboCop, haven't you? Yeah.
Yeah, not exactly what you wouldconsider fodder for a children's

(44:09):
cartoon. And yet, that's exactly what
they did, and it apparently did really well.
So much so it influenced the sequels.
Yeah. And then like, there was that.
I know for a fact they tried to get like an alien cartoon made.

(44:29):
And I also know that, yeah, I'm.I'm kind of blanking at the
moment, but I know there were others.
Yeah, I'm trying to see what I can find here.
Let's see, this is just trying to show me movies.
Yeah, well, yeah. That's a that's a thing that you

(44:52):
can check out in December. Well, let's get to some industry
news, particularly this switch to.
We have some details on its first month of numbers which has
sold 5.2 million units in its first month through June, June

(45:12):
30th, which is very good, a signof sort of how how much they got
ahead of things on supply side because it is the fastest
selling console in the industry's history.
Yeah. Which is probably most because
it was the most available. Yep, they kind of they somehow

(45:35):
they did somehow managed to likeget out in front of this of the
of the scalpers on this one. Yeah.
So yeah, there's that 8.67 million software were sold
during the that time frame. This let's see, the Mario Kart

(45:58):
World is the best selling first party game as you would expect
5.63 million units. The base, there's like 190,000
Switch twos that don't have Mario Kart World and that's like
kind of funny. Yeah.
Like we got the bundles and thenothers pay the 80 bucks for

(46:23):
that. So yeah, that thing is off to
great start. So yeah, that's that's your
Switch news. Yeah, yeah.
We'll see how that goes over thenext couple months.
Yeah, because so far it's somehow managed to beat the

(46:43):
every other system curse for Nintendo so far.
Yeah, yeah. So there you go.
Let's see, we got some more EVO news.
Sony gave a final name for Project Defiant there, Wireless
Fight Stick, and it's been called the Flex Strike Wireless

(47:04):
Fight Stick. I'll be out next year.
Yeah, I'll be showing off at theYeah, Evo, the Fight Stick
museum and the Arc System Works booth.
Yeah, they've given us a bunch of details on this.
It has a simultaneous PlayStation like audio, so you

(47:27):
can listen to audio through thatthing with either the pulse
elite wireless headset or the Pulse explorer wireless earbuds
for some ultra low late see audio and voice chat experience
stuff. Seems like this will come with
an updated PlayStation like USB adapter as compatible with USBC

(47:48):
ports. It allows you to connect two of
these together through the the USB adapter for couch play or
cooperative play. Yeah, you can.
Also it says you can keep your Dual Sense wireless controller
on the PS-5 connected at the same time as the Flex Strike.

(48:11):
If you like to use it as additional controller for
navigating menus between fights,has adjustable controls.
It has the same control inputs on the dual Sense controller, I
think even like touchpad on there as well.
There are customization options here.
You can switch directional inputs with the built in lever

(48:32):
mode switch or lock in the layout and prevent accidental
inputs during a match with the dedicated lock button Yeah you
can if you just connected to your PS5A quick Press of the
PlayStation button can also weekthe console once synced.
I believe it also has the the gates for the for the arcade

(48:52):
stick there on the underside. You can essentially swap them
out pretty easily. So you can have, you know, the
round one, the octagonal or the hexagonal I think it is.
You can swap that as those out pretty easily depending on the
game that's needs it. So I believe it also comes with

(49:13):
a sling carry case. So if you need to take it around
and give you a little fancy caseto put it in, which looks neat.
So yeah, seems like it could be pretty solid fight stick for
people that need one for PS-5 and PC.
Definitely, and even it even looks comfortable to use.

(49:37):
Yeah. Yeah, I like the I like the way
it's designed. It looks nice and ergonomic.
Yeah. And also like the way the the
bet the buttons are arranged. It looks a lot.
It looks it. It doesn't look like you have to
like form like a weird claw handin order to use them.
Yeah. Like the only thing I've seen

(49:58):
people complain about is no leverless option.
Yeah, that's true. Which is like, yeah, I'm sure if
this does well, they'll do that.But doing that and this at the
same time seems like a good way to ensure nobody buys it.
I don't know, use people. But yeah, there you go.

(50:21):
That looks like that'll be neat.We do have some more Sony news
here as we they have sued Tencent over the game we talked
about was either the last year or earlier this year.
Light of Motorum, Yeah, they announced that very much looks
like, oh, you saw how Horizon 0 Dawn looks and you're like, what

(50:44):
if we do that as a free to play game?
Yeah, I mean, it's not even subtle.
Like they've they've got literally like everything the
the the the pseudo like post apocalyptic caveman look, the
giant robotic dinosaurs and animals roaming the place, the
greenery, the like weird sort ofblown out futuristic buildings

(51:05):
showing up in the you know, out in the wild with like nature's
taking over. Even the character looks a lot
like her like. Yeah.
Damn, that talk about a bunch ofhacks.
Yeah. I saw that the the document

(51:26):
itself went up and people look through it and yeah, they
mentioned that they 10 cent contacted Sony at some points
due to last year or the year before that they wanted to get
the license for Horizon to make a, you know, a new game that we

(51:49):
set in the in the east. And Sony turned that down.
They imagine they were also working on their own live
service Horizon game or about two.
They didn't want to have multiples of those.

(52:10):
And so Sony seen this, it seems like they also earlier this year
contacted Tencent to figure out what's going on here and ended
up getting $0.10 asking again toget the license to avoid any
legal trouble here, which seems like the the aspect is like, oh,

(52:34):
even they seem to realize that maybe they're parking up the
wrong tree on this. The thing they're making
themselves up for an easy lawsuit and that seems like that
has happened so. Yeah.
This is very much the about light of motor room embark, you

(52:56):
know, encroaching on the horizonIP with a lot of this design
stuff. It doesn't it really doesn't
have all that much in common with the Nintendo lawsuits over
what was that game called? I forget what the one the
Pokémon gun scheme, but yeah, this seems like it's going to be

(53:20):
an interesting thing to follow. I could definitely see Tencent
trying to find a way to settle this, though I think part of
Sony's thing would either require a huge overhaul of the
game or shutting it down. So I don't know if that's going
to work for Tencent, but I've seen people try to hit this as

(53:45):
like Sony going after the littleguy and it's like $0.10, way
bigger than Sony. This is a company that owns a
lot of companies, other developers and such and has
their hands in a lot of other companies stock in a way that's
Sony is not anywhere close to them, so.

(54:08):
Yeah. Let's be interesting to see
where this goes. Yeah, it's going to be really
interesting to see because one thing you got a Japanese and a
Chinese company basically going at each other here.
And that's that is definitely going to raise some eyebrows.

(54:30):
But also it's just going to showlike, you know, the the strength
of IP protection laws, you know,both inside and outside of
China. Yeah, especially if 10 Cent is
intending to like make this likea globally accessed product.
If this was just a China only product, they probably would not

(54:50):
have much of a case to work withsimply because, you know,
Chinese law doesn't really respect IP protection
necessarily in that manner. And basically every country and
business that does business withChina knows that That's
basically part of the deal. But the fact that they're
actually trying to make this like a something they want to

(55:13):
release globally, that's going to be the real source of
conflict here. Yeah.
So yeah, that'll be interesting to see how this stuff is dealt
with in the courts. Yeah.
So yeah, there you go. The thing you assumed was going
to happen when that game got announced the has happened.

(55:34):
Yep. Mostly because Tencent did not
want to avoid it, I guess. So there you go And our last
story here before we get to someof these other stuff.
Atari has announced a new acquisition, They've acquired
Thunder Group, the Thunderfold Group.
They've acquired 82% of the outstanding shares and votes of

(55:57):
Thunderfold Group for approximately €4.5 million,
which is about $5.2 million in the US Yeah.
So this was a company that was going to be one of the big indie
publishers. They own the the Steam World

(56:18):
teams. They bought the Lawson Random
developer Zoinks, I think it is.Yeah.
They published Islanders, Vampires, Fall, and some other
stuff. They're hoping to be a big indie
publisher and seemingly stretch themselves way too thin and had
to cancel a bunch of projects asa bunch of their their releases

(56:43):
did not sell well in such a way that just bombed hard for them.
Which is a shame because like for as good as the Steamroll
games were, I believe the vast majority of the people that
worked on those games no longer works there because they were
ones that got shuttered when I think Heist 2 that released last

(57:06):
year did not do well. And so that team no no longer
exists. Yeah.
Just kind of a huge failure in this whole company coming to
exist. Unfortunately.
Atari probably is a better company to own all of that stuff

(57:29):
as far as they've been running things for the past few years.
They've been basically making a lot of smart acquisitions and
not trying to push anybody to beanything more than they should
be with like digital clips, justcontinuing to do more retro
collections. And some of that's, this gives

(57:52):
them at least some publishing expertise for Europe that helps
them out there for any physical publishing and whatnot that
they're doing over there. So yeah, that seems like a solid
pick up for Atari and hopefully they can do some of these
properties justice. How poorly the Thunderbolt group

(58:14):
was run so. Yeah, there you go.
Yep, on Atari. Yep.
Let's see, let's get to our nextsection here, which I've called
the payment processor problem. Yeah, this is, I mean, we, we,
we've kind of hinted at this over the last couple of weeks,

(58:34):
but it really became like a big deal over the last week.
As you know, the implications ofall of this sort of percolated
throughout the digital populace and we started to realize, yeah,
this is some bullshit. And they're basically
gaslighting us into gaslighting people into doing this yet.

(58:58):
And when we say they were talking to a about a very
specific group of people which which Chris is going to tell us
about really quickly. Yeah, Collective shout, we
talked about them before. They have sort of come forward
and taking credit for this stuffand has also done that again, as

(59:26):
I say, they claim that they're raising their objection to rape
and incest games on Steam for months and ignored were ignored.
So they approached payment processors because Steam did not
respond to them and did the sameto Itch for the same reasons.
And yeah, that's not great, but as prompted Itch as kind of had

(59:52):
to cobble together their response to all of this stuff as
they go because they're not super huge team like Steam has
been. They post their non exhaustive
list of prohibited themes present in card processing
networks that they are unable tosupport the sale of any works

(01:00:13):
containing these topics. Non consensual content, real or
implied underage or barely legalthemes, Incest or pseudo incest
content. Bestiality or animal related?
Rape, coercion or force related sex trafficking implications
revenge porn voyeur and hidden Cam and fetish involving bodily

(01:00:37):
waste or extreme harm Ed scat vomit and it's like it's a
developers can appeal of individual bands.
But with thousands of listings removed.
Someone I need to actually play these games to adjudicate the
claims. That's very much a thing that's
not going to be fixed anytime soon.

(01:00:59):
No. To say here, it's almost
impossible to come up with an exhaustive list of unacceptable
products to sell, so often we have to take content reviews one
at a time. If an issue arises with your
account that isn't already covered by our policy, then we
will contact you and share what options you may have.
Steam's kind of just found the stuff more easily and banned

(01:01:24):
that stuff, whereas this is nuking pretty much everything
that had the not safe work tag on them.
Though I think some games managed to slip past that and
others got it's got the the delisting without having that
tag. So, yeah, these are kind of
intentionally bagged guidelines that probably come directly from

(01:01:48):
what the payment processors haveas a list of things of that they
don't want to be running throughthem.
So yeah, this is sad to see, butwas not the the end of what we
saw here. As I mentioned last week, people
were very much fighting back against this, realizing that the

(01:02:10):
the collective shout group is not a large group supposedly got
this this action through just like 1000 people calling the the
payment processors about this stuff.
So people have been working in the opposite direction, calling
MasterCard, Visa, Stripe, PayPalabout this stuff and just trying

(01:02:33):
to bring up their concerns in a,you know, a nice manner, but
also wasting time as much as they can.
They cover somebody here that estimated his first call lasted
about 18 minutes and ended with him lodging a formal complaint
in the the wrong department. I called back two more times,

(01:02:56):
assured in each case that his frustration MasterCard, there's
payment system he uses through PayPal to buy games from Valve
were being recorded as part of his file in the company system.
So yeah, they've been fully aware of what's going on the the
the reps working there at all these companies.

(01:03:18):
So yeah, yeah, I mentioned, let's see, yeah, there's people
on Blue Sky organizing all this stuff.
So if you need your call list, phone numbers to call and
scripts ideas and all that kind of stuff for what to talk about

(01:03:38):
all that kind of stuff, that's definitely a thing to do because
yeah, they very much are recognizing this.
We'll talk about exactly how they respond to it, but.
Yeah. And it's going to get really
interesting because there's going to be this a lot of finger
pointing that's going to go on after the fact where like all

(01:04:01):
the, you know, the car going to be like, no, no, no, no, it
wasn't our idea. It was their idea.
Yeah. That type of shit.
So I mean they what I think is really hilarious about this is
do you remember the thing that happened on?
I think it was the thing that happened on Pornhub a couple
years back where this one group managed to can scare like the

(01:04:23):
owners of Pornhub so much that they ended up just basically
just straight up site wide band all of their independent and
amateur creators and basically forced all of them to re
register. That happened with a group, I

(01:04:44):
think they were called Exodus international or something like
that. And it didn't really work.
Like the whole thing just kind of bounced back because it
caused us so much of A furor that it ultimately it the only
thing it ended up doing is it ended up like taking a lot of
amateur and independent creatorsoff of Pornhub and just made

(01:05:06):
them go over to only fans and fansly.
This is basically going to have just the same effect.
Yeah. They're, you know, they, they,
they aren't really going to accomplish anything.
The worst that they're going to do is just either make a new
platform come into existence or it's going to be like a small

(01:05:29):
inconvenience for a couple of months.
Yeah, that's about the extent ofit.
And I think they, they, and keepin mind, I want to make this
clear, Collective Shout masks itself in the guise of feminism,
but it is very much not a feminist organization.
It is very much like an evangelical Christian group from
Australia. And from what it's being

(01:05:53):
suggested, they're not even really that big.
It's just that they managed the they found the secret formula to
sort of gaslight all of these payment processors into freaking
out. And now the illusion is slowly
clearing and the payment processors are starting to
realize that they kind of made ahuge mistake here, and they're

(01:06:14):
going to have to. It's going to take a while to
fix the damage, but it will eventually.
Yeah, we'll see. So, yeah, itches first, like big
reworking of things for what they're going to do with all
this is that they have reindexedall the free adult games, ones

(01:06:40):
that don't have to run through apayment processor with that.
And they are working on finding a payment processor that could
deal with the not safe work games that are charging for it.
Which has me wondering if they would be able to allow more of

(01:07:00):
these games to change to being free to kind of get around that.
We'll see. Well, yeah, that's at least a
decent solution for the short term.
We'll see. But yeah, that is their whole
thing. Yeah.
Because I believe all four of those companies, MasterCard,

(01:07:22):
Visa, Stripe and PayPal, all have policies against supporting
this kind of content, even if they try to frame it as being
worse than it actually is. So, yeah, that's a that's a fun
whole thing here. Like Stripe that has worked with
Itch for at least a decade, havesaid that they both will not be

(01:07:48):
able to take payments for content designed for sexual
gratification. Just like, boy, that's that's a
policy to have on the Internet where that's a lot of things
that people do. So yeah, we'll see, see what's

(01:08:08):
going on here. But the stuff is still evolving.
And yeah, we ended up getting public statement out of
MasterCard. That's for them.
Tries to claim they haven't doneanything here.
They haven't made any requests. Yeah, here it is.
Let's see. MasterCard has not evaluated any

(01:08:30):
game or required restrictions ofany activity on game creator
sites and platforms, contrary tomedia reports and allegations.
Our payment network follows standards based on the rule of
law, but simply we allow all lawful purchases on our network.
At the same time, we require merchants to have appropriate
controls to ensure MasterCard cards cannot be used for

(01:08:52):
unlawful purchases, including illegal adult content.
And it's like that last paragraph, there is the
certainly holding a lot more weight than it should.
As yet, none of these games really are illegal, no in any
way. Maybe in certain jurisdictions,

(01:09:15):
but that there's ways to deal with that.
But yeah, saying that they only allow lawful purchases on our
network. And it's like, boy, that's
that's not what's going on here.And also saying that, you know,
we haven't made any requests to restrict, you know, game stuff

(01:09:39):
on any of these sites or platforms is like, boy, you sure
may not have made specific requests, but you certainly
scare the shit out of them of losing a ton of business if they
don't follow your guidelines with all that.
So yeah, which definitely does not ring true and definitely

(01:10:02):
feels like it's a bad idea for making this kind of statement
because it makes it a more real thing for the general audience
that has maybe heard about this stuff happening.
But it being on games that they would never consider checking
out, that it would be no major issue.
Putting this out makes it a muchbigger thing and kind of very

(01:10:24):
much puts a target directly on Mastercards back for this.
So yeah, I believe Steam, yeah. Valve has said that while
MasterCard did not communicate with it directly, concerns did
come through payment processor and banking intermediaries.
They said payment processors rejected Valve's current

(01:10:46):
guidelines for moderating legal comment content on Steam,
setting Mastercard's Rule 5.12.7MasterCard eval statement here.
MasterCard did not communicate with Valve directly, despite a
request to do so. MasterCard communicated with
payment processors and they're acquiring banks.

(01:11:06):
Payment processors communicated this with the valve and re
replied by outlining Steam's policy since 2018 of attempting
to distribute games that are legal for distribution, and
processors rejected this and specifically cited Mastercard's
Rule 5 dot 12.7 and risk to the MasterCard brand.
There's like, boy, I don't know that's anybody pays attention to

(01:11:30):
the MasterCard brand for that reason.
That's a very silly way to go about things.
But yeah, that that rule specifically states a merchant
must not submit to its acquirer and a customer must not submit
to the interchange system. Any transaction that is illegal

(01:11:50):
or in sole discretion of the corporation may damage the
goodwill. The corporation will reflect
negatively on the marks. Let's see.
It also adds here the sale of a product or service, including an
image, which is patently offensive and lacks serious
artistic value, such as by way of example and not limitation,
images of non consensual sexual behavior, sexual exploitation of

(01:12:14):
a minor, non consensual mutilation of a body or body
part and bestiality or any othermaterial that the corporation
deems unacceptable to sell in connection with a mark.
I guess violations of this rule can result in fines, audits or
companies by the payment processors.

(01:12:36):
And it's like, yeah, that's that's a very broad rule.
Yep. Especially in terms of games
where it's like non consensual mutilation of a person or body
part. It essentially mean any action
game with blood and gore could be taken down, which I don't
think they would ever really require that.

(01:12:59):
But yeah, the it's like this other stuff doesn't seem like a
thing that is a part of these games, but there could be
aspects of it, I guess. But I don't think in the way of,
you know, essentially what they're saying, rape and that
kind of stuff. I don't know.
But yeah, that's very much like lying in the face of their like

(01:13:21):
we haven't, you know, made any requests of this since like
seems like you're lackeys that are intermediaries between, you
know, Valve and yourself are making these requests on behalf
of you. Yeah.
Are doing that. Yeah, which means might need to
have a bit of an inquiry and what one hand is telling the

(01:13:43):
other, buddy. And it's like, who, who are
these, you know, people or companies or whatever that is
how that works. Like are they evangelicals here
essentially working on behalf ofcollective shout, the sort of
the people, the insiders that's they have them access to that

(01:14:06):
are able to pull these strings in a way that's MasterCard
certainly doesn't want to seem be seen as the company bowing
down to that kind of pressure. But I don't know, maybe they are
OK with that. But yeah, as we know this, this
continuing unabated would be very bad and obviously would

(01:14:26):
lead to a slippery slope of banning any sort of content with
queer. Themes to it.
Any kind of sex which could go all the way to your God of wars
and all that kind of stuff. Yeah.
So yeah, not a great place you want to go if you don't stop it
here. And, yeah, but the way it's

(01:14:53):
looking, you know, so far, it's looking like this is going to be
a bit of a headache, but it's temporary.
And it's going to be a, you know, another blip on the radar
in about a year or so. So it's just infuriating
because, you know, it's part of like, you know, because we're
also having to deal with like the upcoming, like, you know,
the age restriction laws that are coming into effect for, you

(01:15:16):
know, social media and everything.
So it's all just kind of coming to a head.
Yeah. But, you know, I'm, I am
confident that it will, you know, that it will work itself
out. But it is infuriating that there
really are just the these this small group of people who were

(01:15:37):
so convinced of their own, you know, specialness that they
thought they had to essentially impose themselves on every other
human being on the planet. Yeah.
And that's fun to deal with. So yeah, that's going to do it

(01:15:57):
for the main news part of the show.
We'll get to the partner direct,whatever you want to call it
here. That's seemed like an all right
show. But also, I would say before we
get into anything else here, that seemed to show exactly the

(01:16:19):
kind of dire third party situation on the Switch to right
now where you're not getting a ton of new experiences.
This is a lot of like, hey, you see those games that are coming
out everywhere else? We're also getting those, which

(01:16:40):
is cool, but also not interesting for a direct like
this for people like me. I was like, all right, there's
there's interesting games here, but I would play them elsewhere.
Yeah, instead of my switch too. So yeah, let's let's start
running down here and we'll havea few that I've removed because
they're already covered elsewhere.

(01:17:01):
You know, a real new news. We did start off with a new game
from Capcom Monster Hunter Stories 3 Twisted reflection a
new game in there like monster collecting RPG series yeah,
which looks pretty nice also come into PS-5 Xbox switch to in

(01:17:24):
PC next year. So yeah, switch to is not going
to be the only place for this like it was for the the first
few games. So I'll be able to check it out.
And yeah, it looks like they've done a good job upgrading this
for, you know, a modern console looking things.
So yeah, it's got that that anime look to it as I go.

(01:17:50):
If you told me this was a againstion impact game, I had to
believe that about the camp Capcom logo there, but let's
see. Then we got a new Katamari game,
Once Upon a Katamari. It's coming to PS-5 Xbox
switching PCI find it funny that's it's only coming to the
switch, not the switch to. They made a big deal of having

(01:18:13):
different logos on the game pages in the direct.
So like, it has this one, it's aSwitch one.
If it has this one, it's a Switch 2 and it has both.
It's coming to both. And it was like, OK, yeah, this
Once Upon a Katamari, it's a newone of these.
Yeah, the first new entry in 14 years since I believe the Vita

(01:18:36):
game. So it's got a bunch of new
stages and music and all that, and you can sort of have a new
customization system for the Prince or any of his cousins.
There's 69 of them, just in caseyou need to know.
You can swap out parts to make them look the way you want.

(01:19:01):
So yeah, that looks neat. I'm always interested in more
Katamari. This looks like it has less
humix to it, so those are going to be fun.
That's out October 24th. Then it showed off new Just
Dance 262026 edition for October14th.
That's on everything. Let's see Dragon Ball Sparking

(01:19:23):
Zeros coming to the switch and switch to on November 14th.
It's a free upgrade, so you get 1, you get the other and all
that, so that's nice. I'm sure it won't run super
well, but you'll be able to check it out.
Then we got a game that's been rumored for a while, Plants
versus Zombies Planted. It's a a new like 4 KHD version

(01:19:49):
of Plants versus Zombies. It's kind of funny that the the
way they kind of extend the the screen for a 4K system is that
they just bunch of bushes at theend of the yard, which doesn't
make sense on the day mode because that was where the
street was. That's the whole premise yeah,

(01:20:14):
but yeah otherwise that's reallyabout it.
That's really changed here. Looks nicer.
All the same music, all the samecontent and all that I'm excited
for that That original game was one of my favorites, so always
up for more. That's Yep, maybe on October
23rd for 20 bucks on all these platforms.

(01:20:36):
So yeah, it's a yeah. Everything, PlayStation, Xbox,
Switch, PC, all that fun stuff. Then we got more EA.
They show off FC-26 for the Switch, Switch to certainly
looks better than it did on the first Switch.

(01:20:57):
It's on September 26th, they cancheck that out.
Then we got news that Bandon Amco is doing more Pac-Man World
remastering as they announced Pac-Man World two repack that's
on everything PlayStation, Xbox,Switch, Switch 2 and PC on
September 26th. Found it funny they announced 2

(01:21:21):
games for the same day right next to each other.
Not even giving them a little breathing room in this showcase
so. There's yeah.
But as we said about the first game, these are fine.
They're not amazing games or anything, but probably perfect
for kids. Something to play.
Oh yeah, definitely. So yeah, there's that.

(01:21:46):
They show up Final Fantasy Tactics again, because that
collection is coming out September 30th, but we already
knew that we're getting the switch to version of Persona 3
Reload on October 23rd, so you can enjoy that.
Let's see 60 bucks they got physical and digital.

(01:22:08):
You get a digital deluxe editionfor 70 bucks.
Comes with digital art book and soundtrack.
Yep. Then a digital premium edition
that's 90 bucks that includes the all the DLC.
Yep, yeah, like, you know, like I, I played and reviewed this
and, you know, it's still a really good and solid Persona

(01:22:30):
game. It's just, you know, it's, it
feels having it, you know, updated like this with like
modern graphics and everything. It's still somehow feels, you
know, less dense than the games that would come after because,
you know, Persona 4 would come out immediately after this and
it would essentially bury this game in just sheer popularity.

(01:22:56):
Not to mention like the amount of stuff you could do in that
game compared to what Persona 3 you could do.
But it's still definitely a great game.
Yeah, as Digital Premium Editiondoesn't include the expansion
stuff, which I forgot that was also a thing in the other
versions that people are annoyedabout.

(01:23:19):
So if you spend 90 bucks on thisgame, you don't get the the
expansion content, you have to spend another 35 bucks on that.
Yep. So yeah, that's I'm, I'm not
surprised, but I'm also surprised they don't just offer
a big bundle here. Maybe they will at some point,
but they know what their audience will do.

(01:23:41):
Yeah. So yeah, then we got to see more
of Hyrule Warrior imprisonment that still doesn't have a dates.
I believe it's supposed to be sometime this winter, so it
could be the end of the year or early next year.
But yeah, this the the Hyrule Warriors that set in the the

(01:24:02):
past in Tears of the Kingdom. So you're dealing with, you
know, semi spoilers Prince of Zelda being transported back to
the past in the history of Hyrule dealing with all that
stuff. So yeah.
And I believe they tease potential way for Link to be

(01:24:24):
involved in this, even though he's technically not in the past
alongside Zelda. But yeah, we'll see more of that
and get a date at some point. But there you go for that.
That's your one bit of Nintendo stuff here.
And then they show us some Madden, which doesn't look as
good as the other versions, but will still be pretty playable on

(01:24:48):
August 1st, 14th. Then we got an indie game in
here from Oink Games. Oink Games, Yeah, which they
primarily make tabletop games, but has made some Switch stuff
in the past. They announced Chilling by the
Fire essentially like a a neat little campfire simulation kind

(01:25:08):
of game where you can kind of hang out with friends and use
the the camera stuff to show your mugs while you're hanging
out and chilling. And they mentioned there's like
enough detail to the fire simulation that you have to, you
know, set your wet logs sort of outside the the fire so they dry

(01:25:32):
out first and try to keep the the fire going.
You get like XP out of this, they mention.
So yeah, that's neat stuff that's available now.
I believe it's 15 bucks for that.
Let's see. Then Apex Legends got announced
for Switch 2 on August 5th because you had that original

(01:25:53):
game did not run well on the Switch.
So this is not a huge surprise that they're doing it again on
the Switch to this should run a lot better for that.
So there you go. Then we got Hella, which is a
game that I guess got announced a little while ago, but they
essentially announced the Switchto version here, but it's also

(01:26:15):
coming to PS-5, Xbox and PC nextyear.
Yeah, this is based on Scandinavian folklore.
Open world adventure game though, has a really nice look
to it and really nice kind of vibes to it.
So looking forward to that. Star Wars Outlaws is coming to

(01:26:37):
switch to on September 4th. Could hopefully be a better game
than what originally launched onthe PS-5 and Xbox and PC last
year. That'll be a one benefit there.
Now let's see, we got to see more Kronos, the New Dawn, the
new game from Blooper Studio. Sort of their next game after

(01:27:01):
making the Silent Hill Two remake, which looks pretty nice.
This is on everything PS-5, Xboxswitch to, and PC and it'll be
out September 5th. 60 bucks for the regular edition, 70 bucks
for the deluxe edition. That includes 2 days of early
access on every platform except to switch to.

(01:27:24):
I guess the switch to doesn't necessarily support early access
in that way, at least not yet. We also have a physical dish and
if you want that some. But yeah, there you go.
Then they got Yakuza Kiwami One and two come to the switch to as

(01:27:44):
they keep the the Yakuza stuff going.
November 13th both of them will be out.
I guess the the first Kwami has been out on the Switch 1.
So that's a free upgrade for theSwitch 2.
But yeah, thing games otherwise.So there you go for that.
Then we got a newish game here called Good night Universe.

(01:28:11):
Yeah, that is coming to Switch. Switch to PS-5 and Xbox and PC
on November 11th. This is a spiritual accessor do
before your eyes. Same studio that made that game,
which was a neat 1. So yeah, these are new ones and
more fun stuff to do. So then we got a little bit of a

(01:28:35):
surprise here with NBA Bounce. It's a new NBA game from
Outright Games that seems to feature QC versions of players
and the mascots playing this. So I think it's generally like a
kids focused game for that. So yeah, that's on everything,

(01:28:58):
PlayStation, Xbox, Switch and PC.
That'll be out September 26th. Then announced the expansion for
Hello Kitty Island Adventure, Wheat Flour Wonderland.
So that's PS Five switching PC for sometime this fall.
Then they announced Romancing Saga to Revenge of the seven

(01:29:18):
Tennis 2 edition, a free upgradeI believe for that that's been
on the switch for a while or No 10 bucks for the the upgrade.
OK, yeah, it goes all out alongside a new updates.
I'm not sure what this is doing exactly, other than probably

(01:29:41):
better and looking a bit better,but yeah.
So yeah, there you go. That's another soccer game you
can play. Yeah.
And we got a Shinobi Art of Vengeance.
Yeah, this is, this is one of those titles that's been I've
noticed it's been getting some some attention right now.

(01:30:04):
Yeah, especially because the thedemo came out alongside this
showcase, so you could check it out on any platform.
I wish about everything, yeah. And that game's out August 29th.
We already knew that, but the the demo's kind of the new thing
here. People can check that out.
Then we ended. This with two Square Enix games.

(01:30:28):
It's funny seeing people that were streaming this and then
watching the the first trailer here and it's like, oh, this is
Octopath Traveler, obviously. And then found out it's a new
game called the Adventures of Elliot's the Millennium Tales,
essentially them making what they're calling an action RPG in

(01:30:51):
the this, the HT 2D style. The demos out now on the switch
to that. They're planning to do a survey
afterwards, sort of like what they've done for some of the
other games in this style from Square Unix.
Yeah, I played a bit of this andyeah, it's, it's interesting.

(01:31:12):
The RPG aspect of this I don't think exists in this game.
It's not the demo. There's no experience you get or
anything. It's more Zelda style where you
get, we start off with I think 3weapons.
You have a bow, you have a swordand you have bombs you can drop

(01:31:34):
and enemies and grass and such will drop more arrows and bombs
as you go. The the bow doesn't really quite
work well for me because it's a very precise weapon.
You don't have like a freedom ofaiming that thing.
But the the sword has a Zelda style like beam.

(01:31:56):
You shoot out of it across the screen and you can aim that in
kind of eight directions depending on how good you are at
aiming it. You can take out enemies from a
distance pretty well and like kill them with that.
But you don't lose it if you take damage either.
It's just a core part of that isthe charge attack for that

(01:32:19):
sword. But where I'm at a little ways
in, I got another weapon that islike a almost like a not a whip,
but it's almost like a, an axe like thing on the end of it.
So you kind of swing that aroundand just kind of hold it to keep
doing that. It'll cut up the grass as you're

(01:32:41):
walking through it and destroy jars and all that kind of stuff.
So yeah, it and you're basicallyexploring this over world and
going to these little dungeons and such.
Some just give you more health. It doesn't do the four pieces of
the heart thing. So far I've done two of them

(01:33:04):
that mostly show you how different mechanics work and you
get a an extra bit of health foryour bar, which here is like a
tier shape which can break into half.
So I think. And yeah, you can spend the one

(01:33:25):
of the currencies on getting these.
I don't know what they call, I forgot what they call them, but
they're essentially gems that are bonus stat stuff where it's
like, oh, you're, you're damagedwith the sword is +2 or your
reach is, you know, have 100% extra reach, that kind of stuff.

(01:33:47):
Some of them are have like a positive thing and a negative
thing to it. And you have a certain amount of
points to equip as many of theseas you want.
And the point where I'm at, theyjust introduced the the notion
that you can do essentially setsof these to swap between.
So if you have different weaponsyou want to use in certain

(01:34:09):
situations and have the those gems slotted in or that you can
do that. There's a little bit of
platforming to this and all that's and yeah, it's, it's
definitely good. This is an an RPG because you'd
be able to grind out levels pretty fast because enemies

(01:34:31):
respond in the open world and all that's pretty easily.
But yeah, I've been, you can have a fairy with you as well,
who you can use for different things, right, Matt?
There's a Sprint spell that she has, and then there's a warp
spell. You can essentially move her
around with the right stick and if you get her over a gap, you

(01:34:56):
can warp over and sort of skip it.
That way she can also attack enemies.
You can also have her hang out, hide or stop where she's at.
I don't know why you want to want her to stop, but yeah,
there's there's options here. But yeah, it seems pretty solid.

(01:35:17):
I don't know if this is going toturn into a great game, but it's
very much a grinding game from what I've played so far.
Gone through a few different dungeons and nothing really too
complicated but some of the dungeons can be.
The one I went through had a bunch of little portals
essentially sort of like a like a a sand pit you could fall into

(01:35:41):
and go down to the level below. And like trying to figure out
the precise precise route I needto go through to progress.
Took a bit of time but the the boss fight ended up being pretty
easy because I just needed to bomb it a couple times to break
its shield and then was able to kill it pretty quickly after

(01:36:01):
that. It does have options for
difficulty stuff, but I don't remember if you could adjust
that in the demo or definitely things that are off limits,
especially some that are based on graphic stuff.
So. But.
Yeah, that seems neat if you want to see like a more actiony

(01:36:24):
game in this style that's comingto PS-5, Xbox, Switch to and PC
next year. So there's that.
So then they ended on Octopath Traveler 0, essentially A
prequel to the the other games that also has some tie into the
mobile game. If you go to the game's official

(01:36:45):
page, you can see them be like, yeah, we're taking some elements
of the mobile game because that was also a prequel thing, but
they're doing different things with it.
I don't know specifically. I haven't played much of the
mobile game, so I don't know. But I believe also if you have

(01:37:05):
saves from the other Square Enixstuff from this part of Square
Enix, like it's the other two travel, the Octopath Travelers,
and I figured what other games specifically?
If you have saves from those, you'll get bonus items.

(01:37:26):
It's doing some of that stuff. I think it might be a screen
here that explains it because there's 1000 screens on this
page of course there it is yeah.If you have saved data from
Octopath traveler one and two, you get some statue stuff like
the the core can see to this game seems to be like you're
building up your village almost in a dark cloud style, but I

(01:37:49):
don't think there's as much of Apuzzle element to it.
They also taken bonuses you get from having Dragon Quest 1 and 2
HD 2D remake, Dragon Quest 3 HD 2D remake and Bradley default
Flying Ferry HD remaster. So there's some of that stuff
yeah, that's out December 4th, so right near the end of the

(01:38:12):
year, PlayStation, Xbox, Switch and switch to in PC available.
They have a $230 collector's edition for this.
So if you want to spend a shit load of money on this game, you
can do that. Let's see.
It includes a ring. Ring of the flame bringer,

(01:38:35):
Japanese ring size 21. There's 8 sided dice of wealth,
power and fame playing cards. There's a continent map like
gaming mats. OK, an arrangement CD, an art
booklets, digital deluxe upgradecode, and if you pre-order you

(01:38:56):
also receive the travel precision sets, which is a whole
bunch of extra potions and shit.So.
Yeah, that looks neat. Not going to say it's going to
be like the most amazing Octopath Traveler game, better
than the other two, but looks neat for more of that.

(01:39:18):
So, yeah, there you go. That's your showcase.
Anything here that's particularly interested you,
Brandon? The shinobi one kind of does,
but honestly not terribly much. Yeah.

(01:39:42):
It's it's, it's honestly the third party stuff is kind of
weak right now, yeah. Yeah, for me it's like Once Upon
a Katamari and Plants versus Zombies.
Switch is like, yeah, but I'm not going to play them on Switch
or switch to maybe Plants versusZombies I'll get later.
Not just just to have it on everything, but now that's now

(01:40:06):
where I'm at. And otherwise there's nothing
else here that I'm going to planon Switch to.
And they all place hella next year.
But that's also far enough away.Doesn't really count as the game
is coming to the Switch to. Just yet.
Yeah, maybe Octopath Traveler 0,but I also need to play more of
the 1st 2:00. In fact, after playing the The

(01:40:31):
Adventures of Elliott demo, I was like, I need to download
Octopath Traveler again, make sure I switch to here because
like, I played a bunch of that and stopped because it's a very
tedious kind of framework that that game has because you're
just playing chapters of these different characters on.
So yeah, like, yeah, not much here.

(01:40:54):
Not much that shows that there'sthis, you know, a huge third
party presence here. And nobody's making anything
exclusive really, unless Nintendo's paying them too.
Because yeah, I think the only things that are exclusive here
is the chill by the fire. That might be it.

(01:41:17):
I were warriors, but Nintendo's publishing that.
So it's not doesn't really counton that.
Yeah, that seems to be it. But yeah, that's like, yeah, not
much here. That's only going to be on your
Switch to that's going to justify, especially for a lot of
these games are ones that are going to be very large file
sizes and take up a lot of spaceon your Switch to.

(01:41:41):
And I don't know that any of these are all that worth that
space. But yeah, that'll be up to the
individual person. But for me, this sort of shows,
like don't expect a ton of amazing exclusives anytime soon
for this thing that aren't coming from Nintendo.
Yeah. So yeah, I think it's going to

(01:42:03):
end up doing it for the show this week, unless you got
anything to add. Nope.
All right, Yeah. So thank you all for tuning in
and thank you to Brandon for joining this week.
Always. Hopefully we'll have Dan right
back for next week's show as theas the the releases kind of

(01:42:23):
continue on. Let me double check here what we
got and that demon Slayer games out this week.
Turbo kid radius origins, the House of the dead 2 remake and
ritual Raven and Mafia the old country.
So some neat stuff about this week, but yeah, if you enjoy the

(01:42:45):
show for like friends and family, know that you check it
out and select strangers that are also tired of payment
processors being assholes. So yeah, thank you all for
tuning in. Hope you have a good week ahead.
We will see you all next time. Have a good one.