May 16, 2025 • 52 mins
This week we talk about EA starts to end work from home, Bungie uses stolen art in Marathon, Jade Raymond leaves Playstation first party studio, Switch 2 hardware specs detailed, Giant Bomb has new owners and much more. Click this link for my socials, all of my other content and ways to support: https://linktr.ee/baundiesel
00:00:00 | Intro
00:00:21 | Opening
00:04:18 | News
00:51:26 | Updates
00:52:05 | Wrap Up
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
This is the Bonfire gaming podcast episode 337.
I'm your host Morgan AKA Von Diesel, and this week we'll be
talking about EA ending work from home, Bungie still art
again, Jade Raymond is leaving her studio again and much more
(00:22):
So this week was it was interesting.
I, I think something I saw was a, a report and some posting
about EA has more employees now than they did a year ago by
about 800. And, and that's really
interesting because EA has done multiple rounds of layoffs as
(00:44):
recently as, you know, a few weeks ago.
That really goes against the whole narrative about EA, right?
That they're cutting all these employees, the cut costs and do
all these other things, which they're certainly doing to a
point. But you know, having more
employees than you had a year before is not what you would
(01:05):
expect. Because all of the conversation
is about the layoffs, firings, moving people around without
their permission or whatever. And it just reminded me how
often I don't think we do a verygood job as a gaming community,
(01:25):
but especially on the media sideof things of, you know, looking
at the whole picture and realizing that, yes, the layoffs
suck, veteran workers getting kicked is bad.
Losing that experience and, and,and all of that is a bad thing.
People who have relocated or whohave been at places for more
(01:47):
than a decade, losing their job sucks, right?
But it's, you know, sometimes kind of the the sky is falling
situation where I don't think people always fully, you know,
look around and realize, yeah, they did lay off 500 people, but
they hired 1300 people. And the the ploy there is
(02:10):
obvious, right? Like I'm sure over at BioWare, a
bunch of those devs who have been there for like 15 plus
years, the writing staff was wasprobably making pretty good
money. If you ever look and see what
some of even the entry level jobs and game dev, what they
start off at, they're pretty solid wages now for the work
(02:30):
they do, for the skill set that they have acquired, the money
that that took, the experience and time that took, they
probably isn't that great. But to ignore me, like me, I
look at how much I get paid compared to what I get paid for
the type of job I have. It looks pretty good.
So I'm sure those veteran people, the decade plus are
probably making extremely good money and you fire those people
(02:53):
and you know, they, they fired those 500.
They laid off those 500 people or did things to make them leave
and then hired 1300 say that's the number.
I'm kind of making it up. They're probably paying all
those people way less that they hired.
There's a really good chance they did save money in there.
I also don't know how it works with contract workers and all
that. I don't know if they're counted,
(03:13):
but I just, for me, it was just a moment of realizing that.
Because if you have asked me, hey, do you think EA has more
employees now than they did a year ago?
I'd say of course not. They've laid the ton of people
off. BioWare has like half of the
devs that used to have. And even though a lot of those
(03:35):
people didn't get fired, they still got moved around and some
of them have left. Yeah, of course they've lost
people. They fired all these people like
Activision or add a Respawn, things like that, and that's not
what happened actually. So yeah, it's just kind of a
lesson. This is in no way at all
defending those actions and the things they did.
(03:57):
And I still think it's really good to focus on layoffs and
things like that. But it just, you know, a little
things like that, little factoids like that just remind
me that, you know, it's easy to kind of get lost in the sauce a
little bit and to not remember entirely what we're doing here.
(04:19):
OK, let's get into the gaming news.
We're going to kick you off withmore EA conversation.
EA is moving to bring developersback into physical locations and
getting away from work from home.
So basically a communication went out to seems like all EA
employees this week. I'm recording this on the 16th
of May and the reporting on thishas been EA Nix's work from home
(04:45):
or whatever. That isn't entirely true.
I will say it's pretty convoluted.
When I was reading through the content of the actual e-mail,
now actually what I read throughwas a response from EA to IGN
clarifying the actual things that are changing and all of
that. I imagine it's essentially a
copy and paste of what they sentthe employees, but regardless,
(05:11):
from what I gathered, the goal is to get everyone in three days
a week to their office. There's a bunch of little
details though. From what I could tell right
now, it's only going to apply topeople who live within 30 miles
of their studio and people outside of that will be able to
continue doing what they've beendoing.
My guess is, my assumption from reading through this is that
(05:38):
they're going to get as many people who currently work there
to switch over to this and then everyone they hire from here on
out, it'll be like assume that you'll be moving where your
studio is and and all of that. Now, obviously what this comes
from is COVID there, there was remote work before COVID, but it
(05:58):
seems like the norm back then that they're trying to get back
to was that if, you know, if I got hired that Ubisoft Montreal
or, or, you know, whatever studio and, and wherever that I
would move there within a certain amount of time.
And then that's where I would live.
You know, I know a ton of peoplewho work at Ubisoft's Massive in
(06:21):
Malmo, Sweden, who aren't from there.
They move there and they picked up their lives and their
families and left their familiesbehind and went there.
And now they've been there for years, right?
And I'm not defending that practice, right?
Like I understand that during COVID especially it all these
game companies discovered, oh, we can hire people from anywhere
(06:42):
and they can just work from home.
We can set up security protocolsand set up, you know, ways of
meeting, doing meetings and collaborations and all this
stuff. And it seems like they got
pretty good at it. You know, we've had multiple
games come out now that at leastbegan or ended development, you
know, work from home entirely. And I'm sure, you know, a few
games have come out in the last few years that were developed
(07:05):
entirely. Work from home.
Obviously, that's not what EA wants to keep doing.
And they aren't the first ones. I believe 2K, Rockstar, Ubisoft,
I want to say Activision, you know, a ton of studios have
already done this. It's just EA seems to have the
ultimate EA bad kind of label right now.
(07:28):
So they're getting the law Flackfor what they've done.
And and that's fine. I get it.
It's it's been really interesting seeing the developer
reaction on Twitter. Pretty nonexistent because a lot
of EA devs aren't on Twitter anymore.
But I think it was over on Blue Sky where I follow a bunch of
them. There was a lot of having
nothing to do with any current news and then, you know, just
(07:52):
tearing into, you know, this idea of getting people to
pulling people from work, from home and all of that.
I think I don't, I'm not a game dove, just straight up and I
don't know what it's like to make a game.
The job I have is a pretty isolated job.
(08:13):
I work from home three days a week and the two days a week I
don't work from home. I only have to go into the
office for a short time, so it'spretty sweet.
I also work a job that is very driving basic outward, you know,
doing meetings out in the community and things like that.
It it makes sense. Basically 0% of my job is
(08:35):
collaborative or less than 5% we'll say with gaming, with game
development. It doesn't seem like that is the
same to the point where I would say that the average game
development job requires a lot of collaboration.
And like I said, from the game devs I've talked to, even from
the articles stuff I've read, itseems like they've found
(08:57):
solutions to a lot of those issues.
You know, whether it be at Zoom meetings or ways of being able
to, you know, work on test builds and stuff like that of
games, you know, at the same time or, or, you know, they they
figured out a lot of these issues, right.
But it also seems from the people I've talked to, and it's
(09:18):
very generational. It seems like that there is
definitely a vanguard, probably lots of the leadership in many
of these studios who has that old school belief of, you know,
people need to be in the office together doing that
collaboration or shooting the shit together or, or just having
that like human contact where you can argue and you can, you
(09:41):
know, show someone something immediately.
Like, Hey, come over to my desk and see this thing I'm I'm doing
while a whole other set of people and I and I've heard both
sides of this are saying, no, we've figured this out.
It works even like I remember with Dragon Age, the Vale guard,
that was a game that I believe was in large part developed
(10:03):
remotely. And then after the game came out
a few weeks or months later, they did like a big meeting at
their, the, at their head, theirlocation at their headquarters
or whatever, where everyone did come in and, or at least a lot
of people got to come in and, and meet everyone.
You know, you have to think that, you know, that you could
have easily worked on Dragon Ageof the Vale guard for four or
five years and never met most ofthe people you were working with
(10:27):
until after it came out and, andall that.
So I'm, I'm pretty mixed on this.
I, I know from my job, work fromhome works extremely well and
it's, you know, very useful. I, I can also see, I could hear
an argument for why this makes sense to do.
One of the big push backs on it,and it's definitely the case
(10:48):
where I work is that a lot of this is just these companies
being mad. They're paying leases or
whatever property taxes or whatever on these offices and
that they've, you know, spent tons of money on retrofitting
and, you know, filling with furniture and technology and all
the stuff and that they just want to justify that.
(11:10):
Again, I don't know if there's like any tax implications or,
you know, things like that. That's beyond my pay grade.
But I mean, I know with my work,the main reason they want people
to come back, it seems was that,you know, less than six months
before COVID happened, they did a multi multi $1,000,000
renovation of our main office building.
(11:31):
And the whole point was to bringwas to shut down a bunch of
satellite locations offices and bring everyone to this one huge
office. And they spent a ton of money
renovating that huge office and they sold off all of those
satellite offices literally in the months leading up to COVID.
Then we were all gone for two years.
And then it seems like a pretty big argument, or at least part
(11:54):
of why they wanted to bring us back into the building was to
justify that cost. They were pretty fair about what
they did. And, and no one or very few of
any people in my, in, in my building move there from
overseas to come work for us andstuff like that.
It's mostly local people anyways.
(12:14):
So it's, you know, not exactly the same situations, but I, I
don't know, I, I think it's an evolving situation.
We'll see what happens. I guarantee we're going to see a
lot of, I don't want to say a lot.
We'll see some turnover from this.
I think you'll see. This is one of those things
where everyone's going to stomp their feet and yell, and the
(12:35):
vast majority of people are justgoing to go with it.
Especially because, at least from what I saw for existing
employees, they're being pretty relaxed about how they're doing
this. That could change.
That may be temporary, maybe I read it wrong.
I don't know. But I suspect moving forward,
we're going to see a lot more stories of people getting a job
(12:56):
and moving to that studio, be itin another part of the country
or another country and things like that.
So we'll see how it plays out. And I hope that for anyone
impacted that you either find a better situation for yourself or
that you're able to, you know, take care of business.
So good luck to everybody, not good luck to Bungie or Marathon.
(13:20):
They have been caught using stolen art from a unaffiliated
artist in various parts of Marathon, their new game,
including the menus and and in the UI and such.
This is the fourth time Bungie has been caught doing this in
the last four years. The previous instances were with
(13:41):
various bits of Destiny 2 advertising and things like
that. It's weird, man.
This is really strange. This is not what Marathon needed
that this bad press after it hadkind of a, what I perceived as a
very lukewarm reception, and it's testing.
This isn't what they needed. I played Marathon.
(14:06):
I thought it was interesting, but as a, you know, as an
extraction shooter guy, somebody's played thousands of
hours of Tarkov and who also at the same time was playing Arc
Raiders, another upcoming extraction game and has played,
you know, the Division survival mode and all that.
It just has no juice in my opinion is all style 0 substance
(14:28):
to me. And now we find out that that
style was at least in small part, not even their own was
stolen. Now they've responded to this
and said it was a previous employee who's no longer there.
They, I, I swear that they've said this every time that
they've got, they've been caughtdoing this stuff.
And it, it's just like one of the weirdest parts about their
(14:50):
response to this was that they didn't address it on like the
Bungie account or anything. They addressed it on the
official Marathon Twitter account, but that marathon
Twitter account isn't verified and isn't like associated with
PlayStation or bungee or anything.
So, you know, in the recent years since the idiot took over
(15:11):
Twitter, you'll, you know, anyone can be verified, right?
And, and that was a huge problembecause you could just pretend
to be someone you're not. You could, you know that that
check mark at one time, you know, gave some kind of
notification of this person is who they say they are and has
some notability, right. But when that change when you
(15:33):
could just pay for it, then theyhad to implement the system
where like different colored checkmarks to to verify people
are like government officials orwhatever.
And then with like businesses like game devs or game like
studio accounts, they can be associated with the main
account. So if you look on, I want to say
it's like Bethesda's account or like the Doom account right now
(15:56):
or something, it'll have the Doom name and then they'll have
like their little check mark. And then beside that, it'll have
like the Xbox logo because that Doom account is associated with
Xbox, right? And you see this with a bunch of
with a bunch of these companies,this Marathon account that
addressed this stolen, you know,art issue that doesn't have
(16:17):
that. It's not, you know, if you just
looked at it, you would assume it was a fan account or like a
parody account or something. But from what I can tell, it is
the official like Bungie ran Marathon account.
It's just for some reason it's not verified and it's not
associated with Bungie or PlayStation or whoever that you
know, they would do their association with.
So this sucks. Obviously, like I said before,
(16:40):
this isn't the kind of attentionMarathon needed.
It already seems like it's goingto be a pretty underwhelming
game and then just kind of has no, just has no juice, man.
Like there was no like when evenwhen I played it was like, you
know, I'm kind of a weirdo who doesn't actually think that
Bungie's gunplay is really all that unique or good.
(17:01):
But it felt OK, I guess. But like the environments were
like kind of pretty in a way, but especially outside, they
were very bland. And it's just, it's that style
substance thing I talked about. Like this game just has no soul
to me when I was playing it. And, and beyond all of this
flash that they have with this kind of sort of unique art
(17:25):
style, which they stole at leastpartially.
And then to me always just looked like Apex Legends but
kind of more generic. So I, I don't know.
This sucks. The way that Bungie's responded
to it has predictably sucked andthere's going to be
conversations for a long time If, and I assume this is true,
(17:51):
Bungie was pressured by PlayStation to make this
Marathon project instead of a Destiny 3 during this whole was
it Jim Ryan, whoever you know, during this live service push,
which we're going to talk more about here in a minute.
If that was the decision, whether it was made by people at
Bungie or PlayStation or both, which is what I would assume if
(18:14):
the decision was made to make Marathon instead of Destiny
Three, I have to imagine that will be a decision that will be
regretted in the long run. So we'll have to wait and see.
Jade Raymond, who's I know her from her Assassin's Creed days,
she's I believe the creative director, was one of the
(18:36):
original creators of that series, but who has kind of
bounced around different studiosover the years since then, is
now leaving Haven Studios. This is a studio she founded I
believe four or five years ago, is a first party PlayStation
studio. And guess what kind of game
they're working on their their game is called fair games, which
(19:00):
used to have a dollar sign for the S and now doesn't as they
they just kind of announced quietly is a dial up the, you
know, start the horn, start the start the the band.
It's a live service game. It's like a heist live service
(19:22):
game that I I know, I think we've we saw it like a
PlayStation showcase or something, but it was like so
generic that I don't like I hardly, I do remember it, but
like I all I remember of it of being like, what are they doing?
Why are they making these games?Like no one wants these games.
And so now their founder has left.
(19:44):
This just reminds me so many of these other situations where,
you know, studio starts up, whether it's a choir there
starts up organically inside oneof these big publishers.
It's headed up by this big name everyone's heard of.
And then that big name leaves and and it's and it's over and,
and they're gone. So kind of like tango game works
that that made hi-fi Rush. You know, they, they, they got,
(20:07):
you know, they were part of the acquisition, the Xbox along with
Bethesda Zenemax. They they put out Hi-fi Rush,
which was a big change for them.Their founder, who is known for
horror games for the Resident Evil franchise, leaves after
hi-fi Rush comes out and then there's just no one left there
of note, right? Like, I'm sure there are a bunch
(20:28):
of really great devs there, but he leaves the studio loses all
their juice. hi-fi Rush doesn't really sell that well.
Their previous games hadn't soldwell, not since the first
whatever that that horror franchise, Evil Dead or whatever
it was called. And and then you know, it gets
it gets shuttered. Now they did get purchased by
(20:49):
another publisher and I have 0 faith at all that that's going
to work out. But I hope it does because hi-fi
rush was cool and I hope we get another one.
But this just feels like that and it's just another just
another tick on this. It's been bizarre, but this
continually bizarre saga for PlayStation it is.
(21:13):
We're going to talk about PlayStation here in a little
bit. They they've sold almost 80
million PlayStation Fives and that's all anyone talks about
because there's not a lot to talk about otherwise.
They've had good games come out.There's no denying that.
Astrobot won game of the year for a bunch of places last year,
but didn't make any money. They put out, you know, right
when this generation started, they put out a bunch of great
(21:33):
games, God War Ragnarok, Ratchetand Clink and all these, you
know, some of these games. Now, I think there's an argument
to be made that those easily could have been cross generation
games. They weren't really PlayStation
5 exclusives, but they made themexclusives so they could
eventually sell almost 80 million units of their console.
Like it was a smart move, even if it was kind of an artificial
(21:53):
move. But in between Ragnarok and now,
there's not been a lot. Spider Man 2 came out and it was
pretty good, but nothing didn't blow anyone's mind and it did
OK. I think it sold pretty well as
well. So good for them.
But other than that, it's mostlybeen these third party
exclusives that they pay for that aren't permanent that
eventually will come to other, you know, platforms,
(22:16):
specifically Xbox. And it just kind of continues
this weird decision making whereobviously before Jim Ryan left,
you know, that there was obviously, and it's so clear now
there was this big push for themto get a live service game
because they wanted that. You know, Xbox actually has
pretty good live service game, you know, presentations, all
(22:38):
these third parties have that aswell.
And PlayStation doesn't really. And and and they kind of had it
with Destiny too, but that game certainly isn't as popular as it
once was. And then now they're trying it
with other games. It's just it's strange like like
PlayStation is such an enigma tome.
If you've listened to this show for a long time, you'll you're
probably annoyed with how much Italk about this.
(22:59):
And I'm I'm truly not trying to do the console war annoying like
the Xbox good, PlayStation bad thing.
Like no, they, they all have their criticisms.
They all have their strengths for sure, But genuinely,
PlayStation has dominated console gaming, at least between
them and Xbox for a long time. Even you people always go back
to the 360 and the PS3. You're like, oh, you know, 360
(23:22):
did good. Not by the end of the Gen. the
PlayStation out sold it too. You know, even though, you know,
they and they definitely buried themselves at the beginning of
that Gen. with no with no games and the price of the PS3 was
hilarious. But they eventually caught up.
And I think you can still make an argument that the 360 was the
better console because of games,especially in services.
(23:45):
But at the end of the day, they still didn't sell more consoles
at, you know, even back then, and that's not the case now.
So PlayStation has always dominated by having good
hardware, great marketing, and, you know, good games, the some
of the best games and they've been single player games.
They've been shooter games or action adventure games like, you
know, for years. And I still think now it's been
(24:08):
a joke that every PlayStation game is a sad dad simulator
that's a third person action adventure over the shoulder
game. And and that worked.
And I'm not saying that's all they can do forever, That won't
work forever, but it should probably still be their focus.
And it's interesting that they've gone so far away from it
that they seemingly are barely even trying to do that anymore.
(24:33):
And and that's weird. Like it doesn't surprise me that
they would try other stuff. That doesn't surprise me at all.
But when you look at it and you see the way that PlayStation has
been doing things like, you know, we had Concorde, which was
another attempt at this live action service, this live
service thing with a new studio that, you know, it came out this
(24:55):
literally after like 10 days, they shut it down and shut down
the studio. And that's I don't want that for
Haven studios. I hope without Jade Raymond that
they can surprise everyone. Fair games ends up being this
huge success that they can go onto make a bunch of great games
and there's everything's secure there.
But that isn't the pattern. That isn't what's probably going
to happen. And that sucks.
(25:17):
And I don't blame fair games. I don't blame Jade Raymond for
leaving. I, I, I, I blame this company
that should in theory have the key to success that just keeps
fumbling it. And, and I think what frustrates
me and I complain about games media all the time is that you
see none of this reflected in the reporting on this.
(25:40):
I feel like the reporting on Xbox is coming around a little
bit where it's not so negative as it once was or no matter what
they did, it was a negative article.
I feel like things are coming around because they've been
putting out good games pretty consistently in their services.
The things that they've obviously been focusing on seem
to be playing out, but the way that like you just see, no, you
(26:03):
know, and in my opinion, critical takes on PlayStation
even after years now like years and years and years of what
seems to be mismanagement. You know what, what you know, we
we finally have another Naughty Dog game coming, but they
absolutely wasted resources and time on this Last of Us live
service game that they supposedly worked on what's or
(26:26):
what we saw what's Sony Santa Monica doing?
I'm sure they're making another,I would guess God of War game.
But then we heard rumors that there was some kind of live
service multiplayer God of War game that they were working on
and that got cancelled. Like how many of these studios,
seemingly all of them did they distract and waste resources
with and waste time with, with this frankly stupid attempt at
(26:52):
getting their own Fortnite or whatever they thought they were
doing. And it and it looks like it may
not work out with a single try. The closest they've come is Hell
Divers 2 and that was made by a third party studio that they own
the IP of and they published it and it's very good and it's
still very successful. And it's almost kind of, I guess
funny in a way to realize that the only live service success
(27:15):
they'll end up having was from astudio they don't even own who
has recently. And I will talk about that.
It's not even the first party studio.
It's not one of the studios thatthey've distracted with this
attempt. It was a third party that they
are licensing with. So I mean, good luck to Jade
(27:36):
Raymond, wherever she lands. Good luck to Haven Studio and
all the people who work there. And hopefully they can, you
know, make it work, I guess. But it it's it's doesn't look
great. So we'll have to wait and see.
Digital Foundry has confirmed switch to hardware specs.
I suggest going to their coverage to get like the
(27:57):
absolute detail on it. The things I took from it maybe
being a little bit of a switch to hater or not hater, but a
little skeptical of it is that it is using.
And if you've listened to me long enough, you will know that
for years now, I've predicted that the switch to probably had
finalized hardware years ago, 2-3 years ago, and that they
(28:22):
literally just waited to releaseit until Switch one sales
dropped enough. Because even two or three years
ago, they were still selling a hilarious number of Switches.
They've I think they crossed the101 hundred and 4000 and 50
million unit mark fairly recently.
Like it's smart. It's smart business.
I'm, I'm not dogging Nintendo for being smart, but it also
(28:45):
meant that because they didn't know when they were going to
release this, they prepped it years ago and now the hardware
is going to come out and it's going to be day-to-day one,
which is frustrating because it's the same thing they did
with the switch. One.
I, I think that I don't think they waited and they tried to
get that out ASAP because the Wii U was such a disaster that
(29:05):
they got the switch out, which obviously turned their fortunes
around quite a bit. And and that was outdated mobile
hard mobile hardware like cell phone hardware.
The day it came out it was yearsoutdated already, but it still
lasted 8 years. They've sold a hilarious number
of units of it with likely an extremely good profit margin,
and they've sold a ton of games that they never discount on it.
(29:27):
So it worked out for him, right?Just like it's probably going to
work out with the Switch too. But seeing that it's using what
appears to be a 10 nanometer SoC, the chip that runs
everything, the GPU and the CPU,it's it's tech from like 2016 or
17 that it became popular in in like 2020, but that's still five
(29:48):
years ago. And that's what they're using
now. It does appear it's probably
like a customized and upgraded version of that old tech, but
it's still old tech. And the biggest thing being what
I think was really interesting is that it's Ampere NVIDIA
technology. So look for the GPU side of
things, which is the like, it's what came out in 2020.
So I want to say it's the 2000 series or 3000?
(30:11):
Is it even 3000 series GPU's I believe were Ampere, which means
that was the first generation that had ray tracing and that
had I believe DLSS. But it's that old version of it.
You know the the old 2000 seriescards can't run the newer
versions of DLSS. That's why during the reveal of
(30:34):
Switch to and a lot of the subsequent gameplay we've seen
from it, it doesn't have DLSS init yet.
It's probably because it's either going to use one of those
old versions of DLSS or more likely it's going to use a
custom DLSS version that especially third parties, but
their first parties as well are going to have to implement
(30:54):
custom I guess in it. And this is a seems like a very
similar story as the PS5 Pro. So the PS5 pro has this this
upscaling tech that they call PSSR.
And we've since then learned that it's really AMD another
graphics card producer. It's their upscaling tech where
(31:17):
they that they call FSR. And PSSR is really just kind of
like a hybrid of FSR 3 and 4, which is good, but it's, you
know, maybe not this super custom in house built thing that
they portrayed it as. It's kind of like a hybrid of
their graphics card makers tech,which is what it sounds like the
switch to is probably going to be using with with their NVIDIA,
(31:41):
some kind of Nintendo switch to specific version of DLSS.
That's likely basically going tobe DLSS one point O or maybe 2
point OI can't remember what the2000 cards could run.
So I mean that's fine. Like it'll still it's still a
good thing to have that tech, but it really just makes me just
like scratch my head, which I didn't mean to do, but it it is
(32:04):
strange that they're just so willing to to do this.
I get why they are that 10 nanometer chip.
I think current day, I think even the PS5 or something uses
like a four nanometer chip or something.
The smaller it is, the more efficient it is.
It uses less energy and you can make more of them at a time in
the manufacturing process. But they're more expensive,
(32:26):
right? The 10 nanometer chip, which is
ancient. This is like what they put in
like cars and stuff to run theirstuff, which is always way
behind current tech. It would be it would be super
cheap. It's this chip will be
hilariously cheap for them to produce, which is probably why
they're doing it to a point. But they're terrible on battery
(32:47):
efficiency, which is why you've seen, I believe the battery life
for Switch 2 is like two or three hours, which is OK, but
it's, you know, it's not great. It's probably not what people
wanted. At least inside they won't say
that loud because Nintendo fans can't complain about the stuff.
But it's just, it's weird. It's strange.
It's very weird to me. I, I don't know, I, I, I'm sure
(33:10):
you'll be fine. You know, they, they managed to
keep the Switch 1 popular and selling games and, and consoles
for eight years, even though it was outdated and this is a
slight upgrade. I guess it won't feel like it in
eight years when they finally replace it.
And I I just, I don't know, it'sweird.
One thing I was impressed by though, is it has 12 gigs of
(33:32):
DDR5 RAM, which is really, really good.
That's more RAM than the Xbox Series S has, which I believe
has 8 or 10, I can't remember. So that's impressive.
That will be really good like that's going to that will help
that console a lot, but I don't think it's going to be that big
of a deal in the long run. It's just Nintendo's weird man
(33:52):
and they'll get away with it andgood for them, you know, and if
you're a Nintendo fan and you'reperfectly fine with this, it
comes out and you love it and you play it for the next decade,
that's really cool, like genuinely good for you.
It's just as an outsider who's tried to justify keeping one of
these things and getting one of these things, I just can't.
I can't do it it. It just makes no sense to me.
(34:14):
We'll see if my daughter can change my mind.
Speaking of changing minds, Giant Bomb has been sold to the
hosts, Jeff Grubb, Jeff Baklar, Jan Jerome and I don't think
that's real last name, but that's why I remember and Dan
Reichert, all people who were host on Giant Bomb for the last
few years. Jan I believe is more of a
(34:34):
producer. He is on some shows, but he like
runs everything in the background for them.
They have they purchased it. They bought it from Fandom, the
kind of big conglomerate venturecapitalist company that buys a
ton of gaming related companies.We don't know what the cost was.
We don't know how much they paid.
I suspect it actually wasn't that much, but it was probably a
(34:54):
lot for them. Like, it probably wasn't that
much for a fandom. They probably just want to get
rid of this and not have to dealwith it, especially the
backlash. But it was probably everything
to those four guys. I swear I've seen that Mike
Minotti, who's a Gamesbeat journalist, maybe he was a
contributor as well on Giant Bomb.
I don't know if he was part of the sale or not.
(35:15):
I, I tried to look, I saw conflicting info, so I'm not
sure, but it was. But he's at least saying he's
going to be involved in Giant Bomb.
Still, they have a very, it's going to be very interesting to
see what happens with Giant Bombbecause right now there's this
groundswell of support. I'm sure their Patreon and their
memberships on their website probably popping off right now.
(35:38):
Super exciting, super cool, you know, whatever like that.
That's great. Problem is, is that that
website, the the YouTube channelon its own very likely doesn't
make even close to enough money to support one person with their
recent viewership that that willget a boost.
(35:58):
It'll be a short boost, but they'll get a boost from all
this. All the good vibes, right?
I'm sure their Patreon, I'm suretheir memberships on their
website probably make probably make way more money than their
YouTube or twitch. But it just, fandom sucks and
(36:18):
everyone knows that. And their dealings with them
sucked, but if they were making money, it probably wouldn't have
been as contentious of a relationship.
And now there's good vibes. We see Giant Bomb in, you know,
private hands again. But we're probably going to be
reminded why they were sold at one point and why they bounced
(36:40):
around to different companies who owned them.
And I, I'm willing to bet and, and and, and I think it sucks
that this is probably not going to last forever.
I'm glad they're giving it a shot.
I hope I'm wrong, even though I have some personal beef with
with them that only I care about.
No one there has ever even thought about it again, so
that's a whole different story, but it just goes along with what
(37:04):
I talked about. I think it was last week when
they announced that they were shutting down or that things
weren't going well, is that there's just gaming is a huge
industry, games media wants to be as big and it's just not.
And it's partially because I think there's just only so much
(37:25):
money for support or ads or whatever available.
I I think that the quality of work done in games media is just
I don't think it's great. I think it's pretty mediocre
from top to bottom with the verytop being pretty good with like
Jason Schreyer and basically no one else doing like real
reporting and not just commenting on rumours with hot
(37:47):
takes, which is what most quote UN quote games media seems to
be. And then giant bomb has evolved
into a thing where like I watched Jeff Grubb and Mike
Menotti when with their their own podcast that that they still
do to this day and and they wereboth games beat like
journalists, right? Well, then Jeff Grubb goes to
(38:10):
giant bombs with some other people and then a bunch of
people got laid off, which sucks.
And, and those people aren't back, at least not yet, and they
probably won't be because this operation is barely going to get
by, I think for a while. And, and, and like giant bombs
and entertainment channel. They, they definitely fancy
themselves as games media and they do some reporting, I guess.
(38:32):
But it's, they're, they're an entertainment channel.
They're, they're not, you know, they're, they're, it's not like
a hardcore, they're not trying to be a AVGC or a Eurogamer or
anything like that. They're like a silly channel who
does some news. And that will, it's probably a
better chance that works than a straight news channel.
But I, I just, I don't know. I'm, I'm really curious.
(38:54):
I, I will put the put some of myown personal thoughts aside and
genuinely from the bottom of my heart, wish them the best.
I would be surprised if this lasts more than a year.
So we'll, we'll see. Hopefully I'm wrong, genuinely I
hope I am moving over to the 2K CEO Strauss Zelnick, which is
just the coolest name. He claims that the GTA6 delay
(39:17):
was to try try to achieve perfection and that he does not
anticipate any more delays. We'll see that.
They're always good for two delays from what I remember,
even with Grand Red Dead Redemption 2 and stuff most
recently. But that's fine, that game looks
insane. Grand Theft Auto 6 looks so cool
that I I'll wait. I don't really care.
(39:38):
Like it's just when it comes out, I'll play it.
That's kind of where I'm at withbasically everything.
It is kind of interesting that along with this came a bunch of
rumors that Red Dead Redemption 2 is being worked on to come out
on the Switch to. And my kind of joke, but kind of
serious is that they'll just release the PS3 or, or did it
(39:59):
come out? Was it PS4?
The PlayStation 4? Xbox One version?
Like maybe with a 60 frames patch if it can do it, but they
still haven't even done that on the Series X or the PS Five.
Maybe it all comes at once, I don't know.
But you know, considering the switch to is around the same
power as a PlayStation 4, actually a little bit less, but
(40:20):
it has DLSSII can't imagine it would be that insane for them to
put it on there. It's just going to be an old
version of it, which is the onlyversion right now for consoles
at least. So we'll see what happens with
that. Doom, the Dark Ages, My own
first impressions. I talked about this game last
week. It's scoring pretty well, did
pretty, I think it's like 85 or so, a Metacritic and open
(40:42):
critic. My thoughts on it are I played
through the 1st chapter of it, which is mostly just an intro
chapter. I get it like like it's one of
those things where I know there's people who like that
type of game and it does that sowell.
Like it's the best right at that, you know, very arcady,
very because, you know, they people kept saying that this was
(41:04):
like a slower paced game. It's at least to me, it's not
and it I just don't, it just isn't my thing.
I like more strategic games. It doesn't even I like first
person shooters. I just like slower paced things.
And this game it's so frantic and the way you have to try to
manage your ammo and your armor and your health and, and, and by
(41:26):
doing certain things and, and it's more manageable in this
game than in like Eternal or the2016, at least in my opinion.
But I still just, it's just exhausting and it's, and I'm not
having fun. I'm just getting like mentally
exhausted playing it. And like, oh, there's like
moments I'm like, oh, well, that's really cool.
But for the most part I'm just like, OK, here we do that.
(41:48):
Oh, I need to make sure I do this to get more health or ammo
or whatever. And I need to go find that key
card and I go find it or the keyor whatever.
It's probably not for me. I don't plan on continuing to
play it, but I get it. Like, I know that there's an
audience for this and for peoplewho are in that audience, I get
why it's being rated the way it is.
(42:08):
I understood the same thing withEternal in the 2016 reboot.
I get it. Not for me, but if you're into
these type of games, definitely check it out.
One of the interesting things was I played on Series X and it
Rand crispy. It was very perfect, no problems
at all. Apparently on PC, at least for
some people, there's lots of issues with it just running at
(42:30):
all or having to reload like predownloads and things like that.
It seems like the issue seems mostly with the Xbox app
version, but maybe that's just what we're hearing.
But overall it is strange that that didn't get talked about
more before release because I assume some people play it on
PC. So it sounds like the issues may
be fairly isolated but big enough that you're hearing about
(42:52):
it. So even in my own discord
multiple people were complainingabout it.
So we'll we'll have to wait and see if hopefully they fix that
stuff up quickly. Hitting some of my final stories
here real quick. Kojima says that internal
reviews of Death Stranding 2 areeven better than Death Stranding
one. Goodness gracious, who will have
(43:12):
guessed that some internal reviews are really good for
Kojima's next game? I will remind you, and this is
the only comment I'll give on it.
Please remember that we were told that Red Fall got like 8
out of 10 reviews in their internal reviews.
So if you don't know what that is, it's where they normally
contract a like a freelance games journalists who may maybe
(43:36):
they're well known or not to come in and do anda like a
protected review of their game. It's supposed to be independent.
It's supposed to be like unbiased, but they're paying
them to do it. They're bringing them into the
they're giving them the special treatment.
They're probably talking them directly to get the review.
(43:57):
I just, it seems like it's not avery reliable way to get
feedback on your game. But maybe I'm wrong.
I think Red Fall, I think that'sthe game.
I I'm remembering that they werelike, oh, it tested well
internally. And then it comes out and it's
like one of the worst games I'veever played.
It's just, yeah, is what it is, I guess.
And then they. Kojima also says that he has a
(44:20):
USB drive that he's going to pass on to his studio with like
thousands or hundreds of game ideas that they can try to
fulfill after he's gone one day.So old Kojima's, he is like 65,
I think. Like he's not young, like he's
not old either, but he's not, you know, he's not the spring
chicken. He's he's being very, very
(44:41):
thoughtful about his eventual passing.
So hell, Divers 2 Studio Arrowhead says that the next
game will be 100% self funded and 100% in their own control.
They didn't come out and say it,but it sounds like it's likely
going to be a multi platform game.
I still think it's insane that they didn't that they still
haven't released hell divers 2 on Xbox.
(45:02):
It would only help PlayStation like it would only bring them
more revenue and it wouldn't even be seen as them putting
like a first party game on Xbox.It's it's a third party produced
game. They just own the IP.
Right? But it's Playstation's gone
PlayStation. I can't believe that they
haven't done it yet. I doubt they will.
(45:23):
It's just I really believe they are so scared of showing any
kind of weakness to their customer base who seems like
very personally invested in the whole console war thing.
Still, I, I just I, I think thatthey're happy to put Xbox games
on their platform, especially when they're the top three
sellers for whole months, but they just I don't think that
(45:48):
they can do it themselves. So we'll have to wait and see if
that changes, but I'm really excited to see what Arrowhead
does next with hell divers. That game is, I'm not as into it
as some other people are, but it's still it's a very, very,
very good game, Very impressive.Microsoft is laying off 3% of
their staff. It will impact Xbox.
We've heard like nothing else about this.
(46:08):
So I don't know. I I'm not aware of any specific
studios or people who have been let go, at least in the gaming
side of things. No one's talked about it.
This this announcement came out.It was big news for like a day
because it equates to like thousands of jobs.
Microsoft is a gigantic company so 3% is a big deal.
And they did specify it would involve all departments
(46:31):
including Xbox. I haven't seen anything yet.
I'm hoping it didn't affect anyone, but whoever does affect
hopefully they get back on theirfeet.
Star Wars outlaws has released their the DLC pack called a
pirate's fortune. I checked it out last night.
It it it was really cool. I'd love that game.
I love that world. So more of that is cool.
(46:51):
I hope to play more of that soon.
There there. I've seen rumors that that's the
final bit of content for that game.
That wouldn't surprise me because I anticipate the
Division Three starting full production soon and that's the
team that's probably going to work on that game.
So right now we know that Ubisoft Massive, who made this,
they're continuing work, I believe on avatar.
(47:12):
They're still working on Star Wars Outlaws.
They still have a team doing thedivision two content, you know,
post release. We anticipate the the Division
Three begins production soonish.So I I have to imagine that
outlaws team will drop down and do that.
But then I'm also under the impression there's another game
they're working on that's unannounced right now because of
(47:35):
some people I know who work there who who aren't going to be
on Division Three. I'm curious to see when or if we
ever hear about that. Let's see here.
Sony's considering APS 5 price hike do the tariffs.
Of course they are after Xbox did it.
I'm sure they are going to do itas well and them announcing that
(47:56):
they might do it. Oh, maybe.
Oh, we'll see who who knows That's 100% them trying to drive
anyone who's was considering getting in that PlayStation 5 to
just go ahead and do it. They're they're certainly going
to raise those prices. There was recently the big deal
between China and the United States where they both dropped
their tariffs. I think the, the China's tariffs
(48:16):
on the US now are 10% and US tariffs on China are now 30%,
down from like 160 something percent.
That's only a 90 day deal. And, and the problem is that
there's no predictability with most, you know, countrywide
leadership. You, you there, there's
predictability or you know, thatthey, they, they don't do things
(48:38):
just on a whim or, or, and they don't do things that take effect
immediately with this administration in the United
States, literally anything couldhappen any day.
And so, you know, maybe we'll see Xbox drop their prices again
due to those lower tariffs. Maybe we'll see PlayStation jump
up their price ASAP so that people, you know, don't realize
that they don't have to do it, or at least not as big as they
(49:00):
might do it. I have no idea what's going to
happen. This is, it's insane.
So, and they also announced thatthey've sold over 77 million
PlayStation 5 units. Pretty impressive.
Good for them and then stellar played is coming into PC.
So gooners unite. You can finally mod what appears
to be one of the most mediocre stories in the game ever with
(49:23):
some good gameplay and just the most generic big boobied women
you've ever seen. You can you can get them boobies
out I guess on PC. We'll, we'll see how long it
takes people to to mod that. It's probably already modded.
I did see that they are still restricting that game in like
120 countries for some reason, even though it doesn't require a
(49:45):
PlayStation login. PlayStation strange, man.
They been, beyond all the other stuff I talked about that they
seemed like they were kind of getting into the PC side of
things. And then everything they've done
there has just continued to be kind of a crap show.
Like they, they just don't seem to take it very seriously and
they hamper the product on therea lot.
Not to mention that they wait for their first party games
(50:08):
sometimes at 3:00 to 4:00 or five years to put them out on PC
after console. I, I don't know, I don't get it.
But they're the ones making all the money.
We'll let them keep doing that. As for content updates, the only
thing I really have this week isI did start a new YouTube
(50:29):
channel. It's called Bond Diesel Archive.
It's where I'm going to put all of my stream Vods, mostly from
Twitch, but if I ever stream on YouTube, that's where they will
go as well. I hated how cluttered my YouTube
channel was where every time I'drelease, you know, maybe I would
stream a couple times in a row and I put those Vods on my
YouTube channel and it would getto the point where like all of
(50:50):
my YouTube videos were just Vodsand I didn't think it looked
very good. If someone clicked on my
channel, I didn't really want them to watch those.
If they want to, that's cool. So I started a different channel
just to keep those there. Not really because I think
people are going to watch them, but more so because Twitch
deletes Fods and I don't know, Iwant to keep that stuff.
(51:10):
I think it's kind of a neat thing.
So I saved as many as I could. I threw them over there already.
And then any further streams will get posted over on Von
Diesel Archives. So if you want to go subscribe
to that Channel, I would appreciate it.
And that's where we're going to wrap this one up.
So thank you for listening to this episode.
Subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast app, leave a
(51:33):
review on Spotify or iTunes. And subscribe to the Von Diesel
YouTube channel to get all of myvideos, including this podcast.
Thank you to everyone who supports as a YouTube member or
Twitch subscriber. If you are interested in
supporting this podcast and all of my other content, please
check out the links in the show description.
If you have any questions or feedback, comment on Spotify or
(51:56):
YouTube, let me know in my Discord, or hit me up on social
media at Von Diesel or at the Bonfire.
That is all I have for this episode of the Bonfire Gaming
Podcast. O until next time.
This is the Bonfire gaming podcast episode 337.
I'm your host Morgan AKA Von Diesel, and this week we'll be
talking about EA ending work from home, Bungie still art
again, Jade Raymond is leaving her studio again and much more
(00:22):
So this week was it was interesting.
I, I think something I saw was a, a report and some posting
about EA has more employees now than they did a year ago by
about 800. And, and that's really
interesting because EA has done multiple rounds of layoffs as
(00:44):
recently as, you know, a few weeks ago.
That really goes against the whole narrative about EA, right?
That they're cutting all these employees, the cut costs and do
all these other things, which they're certainly doing to a
point. But you know, having more
employees than you had a year before is not what you would
(01:05):
expect. Because all of the conversation
is about the layoffs, firings, moving people around without
their permission or whatever. And it just reminded me how
often I don't think we do a verygood job as a gaming community,
(01:25):
but especially on the media sideof things of, you know, looking
at the whole picture and realizing that, yes, the layoffs
suck, veteran workers getting kicked is bad.
Losing that experience and, and,and all of that is a bad thing.
People who have relocated or whohave been at places for more
(01:47):
than a decade, losing their job sucks, right?
But it's, you know, sometimes kind of the the sky is falling
situation where I don't think people always fully, you know,
look around and realize, yeah, they did lay off 500 people, but
they hired 1300 people. And the the ploy there is
(02:10):
obvious, right? Like I'm sure over at BioWare, a
bunch of those devs who have been there for like 15 plus
years, the writing staff was wasprobably making pretty good
money. If you ever look and see what
some of even the entry level jobs and game dev, what they
start off at, they're pretty solid wages now for the work
(02:30):
they do, for the skill set that they have acquired, the money
that that took, the experience and time that took, they
probably isn't that great. But to ignore me, like me, I
look at how much I get paid compared to what I get paid for
the type of job I have. It looks pretty good.
So I'm sure those veteran people, the decade plus are
probably making extremely good money and you fire those people
(02:53):
and you know, they, they fired those 500.
They laid off those 500 people or did things to make them leave
and then hired 1300 say that's the number.
I'm kind of making it up. They're probably paying all
those people way less that they hired.
There's a really good chance they did save money in there.
I also don't know how it works with contract workers and all
that. I don't know if they're counted,
(03:13):
but I just, for me, it was just a moment of realizing that.
Because if you have asked me, hey, do you think EA has more
employees now than they did a year ago?
I'd say of course not. They've laid the ton of people
off. BioWare has like half of the
devs that used to have. And even though a lot of those
(03:35):
people didn't get fired, they still got moved around and some
of them have left. Yeah, of course they've lost
people. They fired all these people like
Activision or add a Respawn, things like that, and that's not
what happened actually. So yeah, it's just kind of a
lesson. This is in no way at all
defending those actions and the things they did.
(03:57):
And I still think it's really good to focus on layoffs and
things like that. But it just, you know, a little
things like that, little factoids like that just remind
me that, you know, it's easy to kind of get lost in the sauce a
little bit and to not remember entirely what we're doing here.
(04:19):
OK, let's get into the gaming news.
We're going to kick you off withmore EA conversation.
EA is moving to bring developersback into physical locations and
getting away from work from home.
So basically a communication went out to seems like all EA
employees this week. I'm recording this on the 16th
of May and the reporting on thishas been EA Nix's work from home
(04:45):
or whatever. That isn't entirely true.
I will say it's pretty convoluted.
When I was reading through the content of the actual e-mail,
now actually what I read throughwas a response from EA to IGN
clarifying the actual things that are changing and all of
that. I imagine it's essentially a
copy and paste of what they sentthe employees, but regardless,
(05:11):
from what I gathered, the goal is to get everyone in three days
a week to their office. There's a bunch of little
details though. From what I could tell right
now, it's only going to apply topeople who live within 30 miles
of their studio and people outside of that will be able to
continue doing what they've beendoing.
My guess is, my assumption from reading through this is that
(05:38):
they're going to get as many people who currently work there
to switch over to this and then everyone they hire from here on
out, it'll be like assume that you'll be moving where your
studio is and and all of that. Now, obviously what this comes
from is COVID there, there was remote work before COVID, but it
(05:58):
seems like the norm back then that they're trying to get back
to was that if, you know, if I got hired that Ubisoft Montreal
or, or, you know, whatever studio and, and wherever that I
would move there within a certain amount of time.
And then that's where I would live.
You know, I know a ton of peoplewho work at Ubisoft's Massive in
(06:21):
Malmo, Sweden, who aren't from there.
They move there and they picked up their lives and their
families and left their familiesbehind and went there.
And now they've been there for years, right?
And I'm not defending that practice, right?
Like I understand that during COVID especially it all these
game companies discovered, oh, we can hire people from anywhere
(06:42):
and they can just work from home.
We can set up security protocolsand set up, you know, ways of
meeting, doing meetings and collaborations and all this
stuff. And it seems like they got
pretty good at it. You know, we've had multiple
games come out now that at leastbegan or ended development, you
know, work from home entirely. And I'm sure, you know, a few
games have come out in the last few years that were developed
(07:05):
entirely. Work from home.
Obviously, that's not what EA wants to keep doing.
And they aren't the first ones. I believe 2K, Rockstar, Ubisoft,
I want to say Activision, you know, a ton of studios have
already done this. It's just EA seems to have the
ultimate EA bad kind of label right now.
(07:28):
So they're getting the law Flackfor what they've done.
And and that's fine. I get it.
It's it's been really interesting seeing the developer
reaction on Twitter. Pretty nonexistent because a lot
of EA devs aren't on Twitter anymore.
But I think it was over on Blue Sky where I follow a bunch of
them. There was a lot of having
nothing to do with any current news and then, you know, just
(07:52):
tearing into, you know, this idea of getting people to
pulling people from work, from home and all of that.
I think I don't, I'm not a game dove, just straight up and I
don't know what it's like to make a game.
The job I have is a pretty isolated job.
(08:13):
I work from home three days a week and the two days a week I
don't work from home. I only have to go into the
office for a short time, so it'spretty sweet.
I also work a job that is very driving basic outward, you know,
doing meetings out in the community and things like that.
It it makes sense. Basically 0% of my job is
(08:35):
collaborative or less than 5% we'll say with gaming, with game
development. It doesn't seem like that is the
same to the point where I would say that the average game
development job requires a lot of collaboration.
And like I said, from the game devs I've talked to, even from
the articles stuff I've read, itseems like they've found
(08:57):
solutions to a lot of those issues.
You know, whether it be at Zoom meetings or ways of being able
to, you know, work on test builds and stuff like that of
games, you know, at the same time or, or, you know, they they
figured out a lot of these issues, right.
But it also seems from the people I've talked to, and it's
(09:18):
very generational. It seems like that there is
definitely a vanguard, probably lots of the leadership in many
of these studios who has that old school belief of, you know,
people need to be in the office together doing that
collaboration or shooting the shit together or, or just having
that like human contact where you can argue and you can, you
(09:41):
know, show someone something immediately.
Like, Hey, come over to my desk and see this thing I'm I'm doing
while a whole other set of people and I and I've heard both
sides of this are saying, no, we've figured this out.
It works even like I remember with Dragon Age, the Vale guard,
that was a game that I believe was in large part developed
(10:03):
remotely. And then after the game came out
a few weeks or months later, they did like a big meeting at
their, the, at their head, theirlocation at their headquarters
or whatever, where everyone did come in and, or at least a lot
of people got to come in and, and meet everyone.
You know, you have to think that, you know, that you could
have easily worked on Dragon Ageof the Vale guard for four or
five years and never met most ofthe people you were working with
(10:27):
until after it came out and, andall that.
So I'm, I'm pretty mixed on this.
I, I know from my job, work fromhome works extremely well and
it's, you know, very useful. I, I can also see, I could hear
an argument for why this makes sense to do.
One of the big push backs on it,and it's definitely the case
(10:48):
where I work is that a lot of this is just these companies
being mad. They're paying leases or
whatever property taxes or whatever on these offices and
that they've, you know, spent tons of money on retrofitting
and, you know, filling with furniture and technology and all
the stuff and that they just want to justify that.
(11:10):
Again, I don't know if there's like any tax implications or,
you know, things like that. That's beyond my pay grade.
But I mean, I know with my work,the main reason they want people
to come back, it seems was that,you know, less than six months
before COVID happened, they did a multi multi $1,000,000
renovation of our main office building.
(11:31):
And the whole point was to bringwas to shut down a bunch of
satellite locations offices and bring everyone to this one huge
office. And they spent a ton of money
renovating that huge office and they sold off all of those
satellite offices literally in the months leading up to COVID.
Then we were all gone for two years.
And then it seems like a pretty big argument, or at least part
(11:54):
of why they wanted to bring us back into the building was to
justify that cost. They were pretty fair about what
they did. And, and no one or very few of
any people in my, in, in my building move there from
overseas to come work for us andstuff like that.
It's mostly local people anyways.
(12:14):
So it's, you know, not exactly the same situations, but I, I
don't know, I, I think it's an evolving situation.
We'll see what happens. I guarantee we're going to see a
lot of, I don't want to say a lot.
We'll see some turnover from this.
I think you'll see. This is one of those things
where everyone's going to stomp their feet and yell, and the
(12:35):
vast majority of people are justgoing to go with it.
Especially because, at least from what I saw for existing
employees, they're being pretty relaxed about how they're doing
this. That could change.
That may be temporary, maybe I read it wrong.
I don't know. But I suspect moving forward,
we're going to see a lot more stories of people getting a job
(12:56):
and moving to that studio, be itin another part of the country
or another country and things like that.
So we'll see how it plays out. And I hope that for anyone
impacted that you either find a better situation for yourself or
that you're able to, you know, take care of business.
So good luck to everybody, not good luck to Bungie or Marathon.
(13:20):
They have been caught using stolen art from a unaffiliated
artist in various parts of Marathon, their new game,
including the menus and and in the UI and such.
This is the fourth time Bungie has been caught doing this in
the last four years. The previous instances were with
(13:41):
various bits of Destiny 2 advertising and things like
that. It's weird, man.
This is really strange. This is not what Marathon needed
that this bad press after it hadkind of a, what I perceived as a
very lukewarm reception, and it's testing.
This isn't what they needed. I played Marathon.
(14:06):
I thought it was interesting, but as a, you know, as an
extraction shooter guy, somebody's played thousands of
hours of Tarkov and who also at the same time was playing Arc
Raiders, another upcoming extraction game and has played,
you know, the Division survival mode and all that.
It just has no juice in my opinion is all style 0 substance
(14:28):
to me. And now we find out that that
style was at least in small part, not even their own was
stolen. Now they've responded to this
and said it was a previous employee who's no longer there.
They, I, I swear that they've said this every time that
they've got, they've been caughtdoing this stuff.
And it, it's just like one of the weirdest parts about their
(14:50):
response to this was that they didn't address it on like the
Bungie account or anything. They addressed it on the
official Marathon Twitter account, but that marathon
Twitter account isn't verified and isn't like associated with
PlayStation or bungee or anything.
So, you know, in the recent years since the idiot took over
(15:11):
Twitter, you'll, you know, anyone can be verified, right?
And, and that was a huge problembecause you could just pretend
to be someone you're not. You could, you know that that
check mark at one time, you know, gave some kind of
notification of this person is who they say they are and has
some notability, right. But when that change when you
(15:33):
could just pay for it, then theyhad to implement the system
where like different colored checkmarks to to verify people
are like government officials orwhatever.
And then with like businesses like game devs or game like
studio accounts, they can be associated with the main
account. So if you look on, I want to say
it's like Bethesda's account or like the Doom account right now
(15:56):
or something, it'll have the Doom name and then they'll have
like their little check mark. And then beside that, it'll have
like the Xbox logo because that Doom account is associated with
Xbox, right? And you see this with a bunch of
with a bunch of these companies,this Marathon account that
addressed this stolen, you know,art issue that doesn't have
(16:17):
that. It's not, you know, if you just
looked at it, you would assume it was a fan account or like a
parody account or something. But from what I can tell, it is
the official like Bungie ran Marathon account.
It's just for some reason it's not verified and it's not
associated with Bungie or PlayStation or whoever that you
know, they would do their association with.
So this sucks. Obviously, like I said before,
(16:40):
this isn't the kind of attentionMarathon needed.
It already seems like it's goingto be a pretty underwhelming
game and then just kind of has no, just has no juice, man.
Like there was no like when evenwhen I played it was like, you
know, I'm kind of a weirdo who doesn't actually think that
Bungie's gunplay is really all that unique or good.
(17:01):
But it felt OK, I guess. But like the environments were
like kind of pretty in a way, but especially outside, they
were very bland. And it's just, it's that style
substance thing I talked about. Like this game just has no soul
to me when I was playing it. And, and beyond all of this
flash that they have with this kind of sort of unique art
(17:25):
style, which they stole at leastpartially.
And then to me always just looked like Apex Legends but
kind of more generic. So I, I don't know.
This sucks. The way that Bungie's responded
to it has predictably sucked andthere's going to be
conversations for a long time If, and I assume this is true,
(17:51):
Bungie was pressured by PlayStation to make this
Marathon project instead of a Destiny 3 during this whole was
it Jim Ryan, whoever you know, during this live service push,
which we're going to talk more about here in a minute.
If that was the decision, whether it was made by people at
Bungie or PlayStation or both, which is what I would assume if
(18:14):
the decision was made to make Marathon instead of Destiny
Three, I have to imagine that will be a decision that will be
regretted in the long run. So we'll have to wait and see.
Jade Raymond, who's I know her from her Assassin's Creed days,
she's I believe the creative director, was one of the
(18:36):
original creators of that series, but who has kind of
bounced around different studiosover the years since then, is
now leaving Haven Studios. This is a studio she founded I
believe four or five years ago, is a first party PlayStation
studio. And guess what kind of game
they're working on their their game is called fair games, which
(19:00):
used to have a dollar sign for the S and now doesn't as they
they just kind of announced quietly is a dial up the, you
know, start the horn, start the start the the band.
It's a live service game. It's like a heist live service
(19:22):
game that I I know, I think we've we saw it like a
PlayStation showcase or something, but it was like so
generic that I don't like I hardly, I do remember it, but
like I all I remember of it of being like, what are they doing?
Why are they making these games?Like no one wants these games.
And so now their founder has left.
(19:44):
This just reminds me so many of these other situations where,
you know, studio starts up, whether it's a choir there
starts up organically inside oneof these big publishers.
It's headed up by this big name everyone's heard of.
And then that big name leaves and and it's and it's over and,
and they're gone. So kind of like tango game works
that that made hi-fi Rush. You know, they, they, they got,
(20:07):
you know, they were part of the acquisition, the Xbox along with
Bethesda Zenemax. They they put out Hi-fi Rush,
which was a big change for them.Their founder, who is known for
horror games for the Resident Evil franchise, leaves after
hi-fi Rush comes out and then there's just no one left there
of note, right? Like, I'm sure there are a bunch
(20:28):
of really great devs there, but he leaves the studio loses all
their juice. hi-fi Rush doesn't really sell that well.
Their previous games hadn't soldwell, not since the first
whatever that that horror franchise, Evil Dead or whatever
it was called. And and then you know, it gets
it gets shuttered. Now they did get purchased by
(20:49):
another publisher and I have 0 faith at all that that's going
to work out. But I hope it does because hi-fi
rush was cool and I hope we get another one.
But this just feels like that and it's just another just
another tick on this. It's been bizarre, but this
continually bizarre saga for PlayStation it is.
(21:13):
We're going to talk about PlayStation here in a little
bit. They they've sold almost 80
million PlayStation Fives and that's all anyone talks about
because there's not a lot to talk about otherwise.
They've had good games come out.There's no denying that.
Astrobot won game of the year for a bunch of places last year,
but didn't make any money. They put out, you know, right
when this generation started, they put out a bunch of great
(21:33):
games, God War Ragnarok, Ratchetand Clink and all these, you
know, some of these games. Now, I think there's an argument
to be made that those easily could have been cross generation
games. They weren't really PlayStation
5 exclusives, but they made themexclusives so they could
eventually sell almost 80 million units of their console.
Like it was a smart move, even if it was kind of an artificial
(21:53):
move. But in between Ragnarok and now,
there's not been a lot. Spider Man 2 came out and it was
pretty good, but nothing didn't blow anyone's mind and it did
OK. I think it sold pretty well as
well. So good for them.
But other than that, it's mostlybeen these third party
exclusives that they pay for that aren't permanent that
eventually will come to other, you know, platforms,
(22:16):
specifically Xbox. And it just kind of continues
this weird decision making whereobviously before Jim Ryan left,
you know, that there was obviously, and it's so clear now
there was this big push for themto get a live service game
because they wanted that. You know, Xbox actually has
pretty good live service game, you know, presentations, all
(22:38):
these third parties have that aswell.
And PlayStation doesn't really. And and and they kind of had it
with Destiny too, but that game certainly isn't as popular as it
once was. And then now they're trying it
with other games. It's just it's strange like like
PlayStation is such an enigma tome.
If you've listened to this show for a long time, you'll you're
probably annoyed with how much Italk about this.
(22:59):
And I'm I'm truly not trying to do the console war annoying like
the Xbox good, PlayStation bad thing.
Like no, they, they all have their criticisms.
They all have their strengths for sure, But genuinely,
PlayStation has dominated console gaming, at least between
them and Xbox for a long time. Even you people always go back
to the 360 and the PS3. You're like, oh, you know, 360
(23:22):
did good. Not by the end of the Gen. the
PlayStation out sold it too. You know, even though, you know,
they and they definitely buried themselves at the beginning of
that Gen. with no with no games and the price of the PS3 was
hilarious. But they eventually caught up.
And I think you can still make an argument that the 360 was the
better console because of games,especially in services.
(23:45):
But at the end of the day, they still didn't sell more consoles
at, you know, even back then, and that's not the case now.
So PlayStation has always dominated by having good
hardware, great marketing, and, you know, good games, the some
of the best games and they've been single player games.
They've been shooter games or action adventure games like, you
know, for years. And I still think now it's been
(24:08):
a joke that every PlayStation game is a sad dad simulator
that's a third person action adventure over the shoulder
game. And and that worked.
And I'm not saying that's all they can do forever, That won't
work forever, but it should probably still be their focus.
And it's interesting that they've gone so far away from it
that they seemingly are barely even trying to do that anymore.
(24:33):
And and that's weird. Like it doesn't surprise me that
they would try other stuff. That doesn't surprise me at all.
But when you look at it and you see the way that PlayStation has
been doing things like, you know, we had Concorde, which was
another attempt at this live action service, this live
service thing with a new studio that, you know, it came out this
(24:55):
literally after like 10 days, they shut it down and shut down
the studio. And that's I don't want that for
Haven studios. I hope without Jade Raymond that
they can surprise everyone. Fair games ends up being this
huge success that they can go onto make a bunch of great games
and there's everything's secure there.
But that isn't the pattern. That isn't what's probably going
to happen. And that sucks.
(25:17):
And I don't blame fair games. I don't blame Jade Raymond for
leaving. I, I, I, I blame this company
that should in theory have the key to success that just keeps
fumbling it. And, and I think what frustrates
me and I complain about games media all the time is that you
see none of this reflected in the reporting on this.
(25:40):
I feel like the reporting on Xbox is coming around a little
bit where it's not so negative as it once was or no matter what
they did, it was a negative article.
I feel like things are coming around because they've been
putting out good games pretty consistently in their services.
The things that they've obviously been focusing on seem
to be playing out, but the way that like you just see, no, you
(26:03):
know, and in my opinion, critical takes on PlayStation
even after years now like years and years and years of what
seems to be mismanagement. You know what, what you know, we
we finally have another Naughty Dog game coming, but they
absolutely wasted resources and time on this Last of Us live
service game that they supposedly worked on what's or
(26:26):
what we saw what's Sony Santa Monica doing?
I'm sure they're making another,I would guess God of War game.
But then we heard rumors that there was some kind of live
service multiplayer God of War game that they were working on
and that got cancelled. Like how many of these studios,
seemingly all of them did they distract and waste resources
with and waste time with, with this frankly stupid attempt at
(26:52):
getting their own Fortnite or whatever they thought they were
doing. And it and it looks like it may
not work out with a single try. The closest they've come is Hell
Divers 2 and that was made by a third party studio that they own
the IP of and they published it and it's very good and it's
still very successful. And it's almost kind of, I guess
funny in a way to realize that the only live service success
(27:15):
they'll end up having was from astudio they don't even own who
has recently. And I will talk about that.
It's not even the first party studio.
It's not one of the studios thatthey've distracted with this
attempt. It was a third party that they
are licensing with. So I mean, good luck to Jade
(27:36):
Raymond, wherever she lands. Good luck to Haven Studio and
all the people who work there. And hopefully they can, you
know, make it work, I guess. But it it's it's doesn't look
great. So we'll have to wait and see.
Digital Foundry has confirmed switch to hardware specs.
I suggest going to their coverage to get like the
(27:57):
absolute detail on it. The things I took from it maybe
being a little bit of a switch to hater or not hater, but a
little skeptical of it is that it is using.
And if you've listened to me long enough, you will know that
for years now, I've predicted that the switch to probably had
finalized hardware years ago, 2-3 years ago, and that they
(28:22):
literally just waited to releaseit until Switch one sales
dropped enough. Because even two or three years
ago, they were still selling a hilarious number of Switches.
They've I think they crossed the101 hundred and 4000 and 50
million unit mark fairly recently.
Like it's smart. It's smart business.
I'm, I'm not dogging Nintendo for being smart, but it also
(28:45):
meant that because they didn't know when they were going to
release this, they prepped it years ago and now the hardware
is going to come out and it's going to be day-to-day one,
which is frustrating because it's the same thing they did
with the switch. One.
I, I think that I don't think they waited and they tried to
get that out ASAP because the Wii U was such a disaster that
(29:05):
they got the switch out, which obviously turned their fortunes
around quite a bit. And and that was outdated mobile
hard mobile hardware like cell phone hardware.
The day it came out it was yearsoutdated already, but it still
lasted 8 years. They've sold a hilarious number
of units of it with likely an extremely good profit margin,
and they've sold a ton of games that they never discount on it.
(29:27):
So it worked out for him, right?Just like it's probably going to
work out with the Switch too. But seeing that it's using what
appears to be a 10 nanometer SoC, the chip that runs
everything, the GPU and the CPU,it's it's tech from like 2016 or
17 that it became popular in in like 2020, but that's still five
(29:48):
years ago. And that's what they're using
now. It does appear it's probably
like a customized and upgraded version of that old tech, but
it's still old tech. And the biggest thing being what
I think was really interesting is that it's Ampere NVIDIA
technology. So look for the GPU side of
things, which is the like, it's what came out in 2020.
So I want to say it's the 2000 series or 3000?
(30:11):
Is it even 3000 series GPU's I believe were Ampere, which means
that was the first generation that had ray tracing and that
had I believe DLSS. But it's that old version of it.
You know the the old 2000 seriescards can't run the newer
versions of DLSS. That's why during the reveal of
(30:34):
Switch to and a lot of the subsequent gameplay we've seen
from it, it doesn't have DLSS init yet.
It's probably because it's either going to use one of those
old versions of DLSS or more likely it's going to use a
custom DLSS version that especially third parties, but
their first parties as well are going to have to implement
(30:54):
custom I guess in it. And this is a seems like a very
similar story as the PS5 Pro. So the PS5 pro has this this
upscaling tech that they call PSSR.
And we've since then learned that it's really AMD another
graphics card producer. It's their upscaling tech where
(31:17):
they that they call FSR. And PSSR is really just kind of
like a hybrid of FSR 3 and 4, which is good, but it's, you
know, maybe not this super custom in house built thing that
they portrayed it as. It's kind of like a hybrid of
their graphics card makers tech,which is what it sounds like the
switch to is probably going to be using with with their NVIDIA,
(31:41):
some kind of Nintendo switch to specific version of DLSS.
That's likely basically going tobe DLSS one point O or maybe 2
point OI can't remember what the2000 cards could run.
So I mean that's fine. Like it'll still it's still a
good thing to have that tech, but it really just makes me just
like scratch my head, which I didn't mean to do, but it it is
(32:04):
strange that they're just so willing to to do this.
I get why they are that 10 nanometer chip.
I think current day, I think even the PS5 or something uses
like a four nanometer chip or something.
The smaller it is, the more efficient it is.
It uses less energy and you can make more of them at a time in
the manufacturing process. But they're more expensive,
(32:26):
right? The 10 nanometer chip, which is
ancient. This is like what they put in
like cars and stuff to run theirstuff, which is always way
behind current tech. It would be it would be super
cheap. It's this chip will be
hilariously cheap for them to produce, which is probably why
they're doing it to a point. But they're terrible on battery
(32:47):
efficiency, which is why you've seen, I believe the battery life
for Switch 2 is like two or three hours, which is OK, but
it's, you know, it's not great. It's probably not what people
wanted. At least inside they won't say
that loud because Nintendo fans can't complain about the stuff.
But it's just, it's weird. It's strange.
It's very weird to me. I, I don't know, I, I, I'm sure
(33:10):
you'll be fine. You know, they, they managed to
keep the Switch 1 popular and selling games and, and consoles
for eight years, even though it was outdated and this is a
slight upgrade. I guess it won't feel like it in
eight years when they finally replace it.
And I I just, I don't know, it'sweird.
One thing I was impressed by though, is it has 12 gigs of
(33:32):
DDR5 RAM, which is really, really good.
That's more RAM than the Xbox Series S has, which I believe
has 8 or 10, I can't remember. So that's impressive.
That will be really good like that's going to that will help
that console a lot, but I don't think it's going to be that big
of a deal in the long run. It's just Nintendo's weird man
(33:52):
and they'll get away with it andgood for them, you know, and if
you're a Nintendo fan and you'reperfectly fine with this, it
comes out and you love it and you play it for the next decade,
that's really cool, like genuinely good for you.
It's just as an outsider who's tried to justify keeping one of
these things and getting one of these things, I just can't.
I can't do it it. It just makes no sense to me.
(34:14):
We'll see if my daughter can change my mind.
Speaking of changing minds, Giant Bomb has been sold to the
hosts, Jeff Grubb, Jeff Baklar, Jan Jerome and I don't think
that's real last name, but that's why I remember and Dan
Reichert, all people who were host on Giant Bomb for the last
few years. Jan I believe is more of a
(34:34):
producer. He is on some shows, but he like
runs everything in the background for them.
They have they purchased it. They bought it from Fandom, the
kind of big conglomerate venturecapitalist company that buys a
ton of gaming related companies.We don't know what the cost was.
We don't know how much they paid.
I suspect it actually wasn't that much, but it was probably a
(34:54):
lot for them. Like, it probably wasn't that
much for a fandom. They probably just want to get
rid of this and not have to dealwith it, especially the
backlash. But it was probably everything
to those four guys. I swear I've seen that Mike
Minotti, who's a Gamesbeat journalist, maybe he was a
contributor as well on Giant Bomb.
I don't know if he was part of the sale or not.
(35:15):
I, I tried to look, I saw conflicting info, so I'm not
sure, but it was. But he's at least saying he's
going to be involved in Giant Bomb.
Still, they have a very, it's going to be very interesting to
see what happens with Giant Bombbecause right now there's this
groundswell of support. I'm sure their Patreon and their
memberships on their website probably popping off right now.
(35:38):
Super exciting, super cool, you know, whatever like that.
That's great. Problem is, is that that
website, the the YouTube channelon its own very likely doesn't
make even close to enough money to support one person with their
recent viewership that that willget a boost.
(35:58):
It'll be a short boost, but they'll get a boost from all
this. All the good vibes, right?
I'm sure their Patreon, I'm suretheir memberships on their
website probably make probably make way more money than their
YouTube or twitch. But it just, fandom sucks and
(36:18):
everyone knows that. And their dealings with them
sucked, but if they were making money, it probably wouldn't have
been as contentious of a relationship.
And now there's good vibes. We see Giant Bomb in, you know,
private hands again. But we're probably going to be
reminded why they were sold at one point and why they bounced
(36:40):
around to different companies who owned them.
And I, I'm willing to bet and, and and, and I think it sucks
that this is probably not going to last forever.
I'm glad they're giving it a shot.
I hope I'm wrong, even though I have some personal beef with
with them that only I care about.
No one there has ever even thought about it again, so
that's a whole different story, but it just goes along with what
(37:04):
I talked about. I think it was last week when
they announced that they were shutting down or that things
weren't going well, is that there's just gaming is a huge
industry, games media wants to be as big and it's just not.
And it's partially because I think there's just only so much
(37:25):
money for support or ads or whatever available.
I I think that the quality of work done in games media is just
I don't think it's great. I think it's pretty mediocre
from top to bottom with the verytop being pretty good with like
Jason Schreyer and basically no one else doing like real
reporting and not just commenting on rumours with hot
(37:47):
takes, which is what most quote UN quote games media seems to
be. And then giant bomb has evolved
into a thing where like I watched Jeff Grubb and Mike
Menotti when with their their own podcast that that they still
do to this day and and they wereboth games beat like
journalists, right? Well, then Jeff Grubb goes to
(38:10):
giant bombs with some other people and then a bunch of
people got laid off, which sucks.
And, and those people aren't back, at least not yet, and they
probably won't be because this operation is barely going to get
by, I think for a while. And, and, and like giant bombs
and entertainment channel. They, they definitely fancy
themselves as games media and they do some reporting, I guess.
(38:32):
But it's, they're, they're an entertainment channel.
They're, they're not, you know, they're, they're, it's not like
a hardcore, they're not trying to be a AVGC or a Eurogamer or
anything like that. They're like a silly channel who
does some news. And that will, it's probably a
better chance that works than a straight news channel.
But I, I just, I don't know. I'm, I'm really curious.
(38:54):
I, I will put the put some of myown personal thoughts aside and
genuinely from the bottom of my heart, wish them the best.
I would be surprised if this lasts more than a year.
So we'll, we'll see. Hopefully I'm wrong, genuinely I
hope I am moving over to the 2K CEO Strauss Zelnick, which is
just the coolest name. He claims that the GTA6 delay
(39:17):
was to try try to achieve perfection and that he does not
anticipate any more delays. We'll see that.
They're always good for two delays from what I remember,
even with Grand Red Dead Redemption 2 and stuff most
recently. But that's fine, that game looks
insane. Grand Theft Auto 6 looks so cool
that I I'll wait. I don't really care.
(39:38):
Like it's just when it comes out, I'll play it.
That's kind of where I'm at withbasically everything.
It is kind of interesting that along with this came a bunch of
rumors that Red Dead Redemption 2 is being worked on to come out
on the Switch to. And my kind of joke, but kind of
serious is that they'll just release the PS3 or, or did it
(39:59):
come out? Was it PS4?
The PlayStation 4? Xbox One version?
Like maybe with a 60 frames patch if it can do it, but they
still haven't even done that on the Series X or the PS Five.
Maybe it all comes at once, I don't know.
But you know, considering the switch to is around the same
power as a PlayStation 4, actually a little bit less, but
(40:20):
it has DLSSII can't imagine it would be that insane for them to
put it on there. It's just going to be an old
version of it, which is the onlyversion right now for consoles
at least. So we'll see what happens with
that. Doom, the Dark Ages, My own
first impressions. I talked about this game last
week. It's scoring pretty well, did
pretty, I think it's like 85 or so, a Metacritic and open
(40:42):
critic. My thoughts on it are I played
through the 1st chapter of it, which is mostly just an intro
chapter. I get it like like it's one of
those things where I know there's people who like that
type of game and it does that sowell.
Like it's the best right at that, you know, very arcady,
very because, you know, they people kept saying that this was
(41:04):
like a slower paced game. It's at least to me, it's not
and it I just don't, it just isn't my thing.
I like more strategic games. It doesn't even I like first
person shooters. I just like slower paced things.
And this game it's so frantic and the way you have to try to
manage your ammo and your armor and your health and, and, and by
(41:26):
doing certain things and, and it's more manageable in this
game than in like Eternal or the2016, at least in my opinion.
But I still just, it's just exhausting and it's, and I'm not
having fun. I'm just getting like mentally
exhausted playing it. And like, oh, there's like
moments I'm like, oh, well, that's really cool.
But for the most part I'm just like, OK, here we do that.
(41:48):
Oh, I need to make sure I do this to get more health or ammo
or whatever. And I need to go find that key
card and I go find it or the keyor whatever.
It's probably not for me. I don't plan on continuing to
play it, but I get it. Like, I know that there's an
audience for this and for peoplewho are in that audience, I get
why it's being rated the way it is.
(42:08):
I understood the same thing withEternal in the 2016 reboot.
I get it. Not for me, but if you're into
these type of games, definitely check it out.
One of the interesting things was I played on Series X and it
Rand crispy. It was very perfect, no problems
at all. Apparently on PC, at least for
some people, there's lots of issues with it just running at
(42:30):
all or having to reload like predownloads and things like that.
It seems like the issue seems mostly with the Xbox app
version, but maybe that's just what we're hearing.
But overall it is strange that that didn't get talked about
more before release because I assume some people play it on
PC. So it sounds like the issues may
be fairly isolated but big enough that you're hearing about
(42:52):
it. So even in my own discord
multiple people were complainingabout it.
So we'll we'll have to wait and see if hopefully they fix that
stuff up quickly. Hitting some of my final stories
here real quick. Kojima says that internal
reviews of Death Stranding 2 areeven better than Death Stranding
one. Goodness gracious, who will have
(43:12):
guessed that some internal reviews are really good for
Kojima's next game? I will remind you, and this is
the only comment I'll give on it.
Please remember that we were told that Red Fall got like 8
out of 10 reviews in their internal reviews.
So if you don't know what that is, it's where they normally
contract a like a freelance games journalists who may maybe
(43:36):
they're well known or not to come in and do anda like a
protected review of their game. It's supposed to be independent.
It's supposed to be like unbiased, but they're paying
them to do it. They're bringing them into the
they're giving them the special treatment.
They're probably talking them directly to get the review.
(43:57):
I just, it seems like it's not avery reliable way to get
feedback on your game. But maybe I'm wrong.
I think Red Fall, I think that'sthe game.
I I'm remembering that they werelike, oh, it tested well
internally. And then it comes out and it's
like one of the worst games I'veever played.
It's just, yeah, is what it is, I guess.
And then they. Kojima also says that he has a
(44:20):
USB drive that he's going to pass on to his studio with like
thousands or hundreds of game ideas that they can try to
fulfill after he's gone one day.So old Kojima's, he is like 65,
I think. Like he's not young, like he's
not old either, but he's not, you know, he's not the spring
chicken. He's he's being very, very
(44:41):
thoughtful about his eventual passing.
So hell, Divers 2 Studio Arrowhead says that the next
game will be 100% self funded and 100% in their own control.
They didn't come out and say it,but it sounds like it's likely
going to be a multi platform game.
I still think it's insane that they didn't that they still
haven't released hell divers 2 on Xbox.
(45:02):
It would only help PlayStation like it would only bring them
more revenue and it wouldn't even be seen as them putting
like a first party game on Xbox.It's it's a third party produced
game. They just own the IP.
Right? But it's Playstation's gone
PlayStation. I can't believe that they
haven't done it yet. I doubt they will.
(45:23):
It's just I really believe they are so scared of showing any
kind of weakness to their customer base who seems like
very personally invested in the whole console war thing.
Still, I, I just I, I think thatthey're happy to put Xbox games
on their platform, especially when they're the top three
sellers for whole months, but they just I don't think that
(45:48):
they can do it themselves. So we'll have to wait and see if
that changes, but I'm really excited to see what Arrowhead
does next with hell divers. That game is, I'm not as into it
as some other people are, but it's still it's a very, very,
very good game, Very impressive.Microsoft is laying off 3% of
their staff. It will impact Xbox.
We've heard like nothing else about this.
(46:08):
So I don't know. I I'm not aware of any specific
studios or people who have been let go, at least in the gaming
side of things. No one's talked about it.
This this announcement came out.It was big news for like a day
because it equates to like thousands of jobs.
Microsoft is a gigantic company so 3% is a big deal.
And they did specify it would involve all departments
(46:31):
including Xbox. I haven't seen anything yet.
I'm hoping it didn't affect anyone, but whoever does affect
hopefully they get back on theirfeet.
Star Wars outlaws has released their the DLC pack called a
pirate's fortune. I checked it out last night.
It it it was really cool. I'd love that game.
I love that world. So more of that is cool.
(46:51):
I hope to play more of that soon.
There there. I've seen rumors that that's the
final bit of content for that game.
That wouldn't surprise me because I anticipate the
Division Three starting full production soon and that's the
team that's probably going to work on that game.
So right now we know that Ubisoft Massive, who made this,
they're continuing work, I believe on avatar.
(47:12):
They're still working on Star Wars Outlaws.
They still have a team doing thedivision two content, you know,
post release. We anticipate the the Division
Three begins production soonish.So I I have to imagine that
outlaws team will drop down and do that.
But then I'm also under the impression there's another game
they're working on that's unannounced right now because of
(47:35):
some people I know who work there who who aren't going to be
on Division Three. I'm curious to see when or if we
ever hear about that. Let's see here.
Sony's considering APS 5 price hike do the tariffs.
Of course they are after Xbox did it.
I'm sure they are going to do itas well and them announcing that
(47:56):
they might do it. Oh, maybe.
Oh, we'll see who who knows That's 100% them trying to drive
anyone who's was considering getting in that PlayStation 5 to
just go ahead and do it. They're they're certainly going
to raise those prices. There was recently the big deal
between China and the United States where they both dropped
their tariffs. I think the, the China's tariffs
(48:16):
on the US now are 10% and US tariffs on China are now 30%,
down from like 160 something percent.
That's only a 90 day deal. And, and the problem is that
there's no predictability with most, you know, countrywide
leadership. You, you there, there's
predictability or you know, thatthey, they, they don't do things
(48:38):
just on a whim or, or, and they don't do things that take effect
immediately with this administration in the United
States, literally anything couldhappen any day.
And so, you know, maybe we'll see Xbox drop their prices again
due to those lower tariffs. Maybe we'll see PlayStation jump
up their price ASAP so that people, you know, don't realize
that they don't have to do it, or at least not as big as they
(49:00):
might do it. I have no idea what's going to
happen. This is, it's insane.
So, and they also announced thatthey've sold over 77 million
PlayStation 5 units. Pretty impressive.
Good for them and then stellar played is coming into PC.
So gooners unite. You can finally mod what appears
to be one of the most mediocre stories in the game ever with
(49:23):
some good gameplay and just the most generic big boobied women
you've ever seen. You can you can get them boobies
out I guess on PC. We'll, we'll see how long it
takes people to to mod that. It's probably already modded.
I did see that they are still restricting that game in like
120 countries for some reason, even though it doesn't require a
(49:45):
PlayStation login. PlayStation strange, man.
They been, beyond all the other stuff I talked about that they
seemed like they were kind of getting into the PC side of
things. And then everything they've done
there has just continued to be kind of a crap show.
Like they, they just don't seem to take it very seriously and
they hamper the product on therea lot.
Not to mention that they wait for their first party games
(50:08):
sometimes at 3:00 to 4:00 or five years to put them out on PC
after console. I, I don't know, I don't get it.
But they're the ones making all the money.
We'll let them keep doing that. As for content updates, the only
thing I really have this week isI did start a new YouTube
(50:29):
channel. It's called Bond Diesel Archive.
It's where I'm going to put all of my stream Vods, mostly from
Twitch, but if I ever stream on YouTube, that's where they will
go as well. I hated how cluttered my YouTube
channel was where every time I'drelease, you know, maybe I would
stream a couple times in a row and I put those Vods on my
YouTube channel and it would getto the point where like all of
(50:50):
my YouTube videos were just Vodsand I didn't think it looked
very good. If someone clicked on my
channel, I didn't really want them to watch those.
If they want to, that's cool. So I started a different channel
just to keep those there. Not really because I think
people are going to watch them, but more so because Twitch
deletes Fods and I don't know, Iwant to keep that stuff.
(51:10):
I think it's kind of a neat thing.
So I saved as many as I could. I threw them over there already.
And then any further streams will get posted over on Von
Diesel Archives. So if you want to go subscribe
to that Channel, I would appreciate it.
And that's where we're going to wrap this one up.
So thank you for listening to this episode.
Subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast app, leave a
(51:33):
review on Spotify or iTunes. And subscribe to the Von Diesel
YouTube channel to get all of myvideos, including this podcast.
Thank you to everyone who supports as a YouTube member or
Twitch subscriber. If you are interested in
supporting this podcast and all of my other content, please
check out the links in the show description.
If you have any questions or feedback, comment on Spotify or
(51:56):
YouTube, let me know in my Discord, or hit me up on social
media at Von Diesel or at the Bonfire.
That is all I have for this episode of the Bonfire Gaming
Podcast. O until next time.
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