May 30, 2025 • 51 mins
This week we talk about rumors that Xbox’s Handheld is on hold, The Division 2’s DLC review, Playstation giving big discounts, Elden Ring Nightreign is out, EA shutters another game/studio 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
00:00:20 | Opening
00:09:20 | News
00:49:45 | Updates
00:50:14 | 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 339.
I'm your host Morgan AKA Von Diesel, and this week we'll be
talking about Xbox's handheld ison hold, EA shutters, Black
Panther, my The division Two DLCreview and much more.
(00:21):
We have gone through another week of multiple examples of how
the industry, for better or worse, is changing.
It is it's self correcting, it seems like.
I don't, I don't want to be callous.
I don't. I'm definitely not defending any
of the big publishers and, and corporations and stuff who are
doing all of these really brutallayoffs and, and, and things
(00:44):
like that. But I do think it's worth
talking about how it it's it, itseems like things are just
coming back to normal and, and normal isn't good when it
involves a bunch of people losing their jobs, games being
cancelled, studios being shut down.
We're going to talk about this with EA and the Black Panther
(01:07):
game they were working on in thestudio that subsequently as
being shut down along with the game.
We'll get further into that. But it just, the, the more it
happens, the less surprised I am.
And I don't like that. I don't like that it's almost
feeling normalized or, or like it's, you know, a thing that we
(01:30):
just need to accept. I, I don't feel that way.
I feel like there should be pushed back.
There should be criticism as these companies are laying
people off. They're also, you know, their CE
OS are getting these huge bonuses and stock buybacks, all
this crap. But then there's the other part
of it, which I talked about, youknow, in the last couple weeks
where, you know, EA, which is the company we'll talk about
(01:53):
today, is doing all these layoffs And they've done, you
know, hundreds, if not thousandsof layoffs over the last couple
of years. But they have more people this
year than they did last year. Like they, they've actually
grown And, and I don't think a company hiring more than its
firing necessarily negates the, the, the negativity or, or the
(02:15):
bad practices or, or whatever, you know, whatever you want to
talk or talk about or consider it.
But it does add more context to the story, I think.
I think it adds the context thatwe don't really talk about or
consider. The the dirtiest part about that
is that industry wide, it seems like there's a lot of people
(02:37):
getting fired or laid off and then they're just being replaced
by cheaper people. And I understand like that's
kind of how business and corporations work.
It's an ugly part of just, you know, corporate life in general.
And I think it's especially gross in the games industry
because maybe even more so than the music industry or movies or
(02:59):
TV. With gaming, I, I feel like the,
the ladder from your frontline game developer, the creative,
right? The, the person who, you know,
makes the texture art or models,the, the, the characters or
makes the plant that goes on theshelf and in the room or the,
(03:24):
the sound designer or the, you know, the writer for the
narrative part of the game. Like all of those people, the
creatives, the people who aren'tinterested in bottom lines and
corporate crap. I feel like that ladder seems
like it's the shortest in the entire like creative industry.
(03:45):
From those frontline devs to like the CEO in gaming.
It seems like gaming has the shortest, you know, stretch from
developer to, you know, senior dev to pub, you know, producer
to, you know, head of the team or head of the studio and then
up to the suits, Right. And and I feel like that makes
this seem especially gross. And I could be wrong.
(04:08):
If you're involved in one of these other, you know, music,
TV, movies, whatever. Maybe you can tell me I'm wrong.
But it really does seem like that relationship between suit
and creative is so direct in gaming that it makes this stuff
feel worse. It feels like there's more, you
(04:29):
know, dabbling like in, in movies.
The impression I'm under is thatoften in movies and TV, you
know, a movie is made essentially by a, by a
corporation by, by a company that springs up to make the
movie and then disappears. And all the people know that
they're there for that project and then they're gone.
And, and it's, you know, every movie that gets made is
(04:49):
basically it's it's own little company that pops up.
It gets populated with all theseworkers.
You know, essentially everyone in that industry is a contractor
and they come in, they do the thing and then they all disband
and, you know, they, they work together on other projects and
maybe certain directors or whoever have, you know,
favorites to bring on every time.
But with gaming, you know, you're, we're supposed to have
(05:10):
these established studios that, you know, keep, you know, long
term veteran developers and, and, and you know, blah, blah,
blah. And, and, and we're used to
that. You know, we're, we're used to
seeing developers who guy, we look at people like Todd Howard
and stuff who are at their studios or, you know, under the
same company working on the samefranchises for, you know,
(05:32):
multiple decades for 2030 plus years.
And it just seems like that's not compatible with the
corporate world, right? And it seems like it, it's
always kind of been like this. And I think I've talked about
this before where, you know, these layoffs and stuff, this
has always been a thing. I, I just think that as we're
more connected through social media, as, you know, things are
(05:55):
more transparent and more, you know, publicized.
And as, you know, games media focuses more on this stuff.
The old days of starting game, agame, you know, production, you
know, round, you know, firing the production, hiring a bunch
of people, especially a bunch ofcontractors.
(06:16):
You make the game over two or three years and then everyone
gets fired. You know, that's how it's kind
of always been. But I feel like it used to feel
kind of like the movie industry where that was expected and, and
now it doesn't feel like that. And, and I think there's a lot
of reasons for that. I think it's because mostly
games don't take one or two years to make anymore.
(06:37):
Where back in the day you could get brought into a project, work
a couple years, get that game out, put on your credits and
move to a new game, new studio, new project, whatever.
Well, now games take four or five plus years and you know,
that, that ends up being these huge chunks of people's careers
and then those games get shut down.
And, and I think that's like oneof the toughest things about all
(06:58):
this stuff. And you know, the, with the
industry shrinking in general, it seems like, or, or
consolidating maybe is the better word, which we've been
seeing for years is that, you know, I, I've talked about it in
my discord where there's a few game devs in there And, and how
rough it is that it seems like we have, you know, that there's
probably so many devs out there who have been in game
(07:19):
development for 5-10 years without a single shift game.
And, and that's, that's horrible, right?
Like, think about, like, even for me, you know, in the current
job I'm at, I've been here almost 13 years.
There's definitely a pathway where there's game developers
who started their careers the same time I did in my current
job, who maybe have been lucky to ship one or two games.
(07:44):
Now I'm sure there's plenty of people who who have shipped
more, but it it's just Alan it, it sucks and it's so hard to
talk about because I want to talk like realistically about it
and calmly and without being toosensationalized and hyped up.
And you know, we see it. It's just it's kind of
frustrating when I see fairly well renowned and well known
games journalist and stuff like taking the like easiest, kind of
(08:06):
laziest takes on this stuff of just like it's just always just
the same like copy paste outragethat they posted last time.
Instead of like getting into it and like figuring out what's
going on and talking to people and getting like actual insight.
It's just kind of, you know, outrage and I would argue bait
almost to a point, but but that's maybe too tough.
(08:30):
But I, I don't know, I don't know when it gets better.
I don't know if it really ever does.
I think we see what's going on with EA is probably a great
example, even a giant publisher like them kind of narrowing down
the franchises they're working on, which unfortunately means
they're probably going to be less experimental and less
interested in doing unique things.
(08:52):
And then we'll have to hope that, you know, Indies and and
and other types of spin up studios and stuff can be the
ones who really are innovating while these big kind of legacy
publishers and studios kind of turn into these kind of legacy
machines, you know, which like Ubisoft is another one that's
done that. So I don't know, we'll have to
(09:13):
wait and see, but I will remain eternally optimistic.
OK, let's jump into the gaming news.
The Xbox handheld has reportedlybeen put on hold.
This was blown up by a bunch of people.
I don't. I can't even tell at this point
who the original reporting was. Just Cordon, Insider Gaming and
(09:34):
a bunch of other people have putthis out.
It's not been confirmed by Xbox.They don't really need to
confirm anything, actually, at least in my opinion.
You know, Phil Spencer has talked about a handheld, but
they've never given any dates. That's all been speculation and
rumor and so on. Even then, the speculation on
(09:55):
this handheld wasn't until afterthe next Xbox to to replace the
Series S&X, which is probably still two or three years away.
And so it's very likely this handheld anyways wasn't expected
for three or four years, right. And and so it's, it's been
interesting. So some of the more, some more
of the reporting that's come outabout this is that the Xbox is
(10:18):
doing this, putting this projecton hold because they recognize
that the Windows platform right now, which would be used as the
operating system just isn't verygood for handhelds at the
moment. There is some some speculation
that Steam recently opening up their Steam OS which is on the
Steam Deck to all handheld platforms and it being extremely
(10:42):
good and outshining the current Windows operating system on
these handhelds may have factored into this.
I would be surprised if that's the case.
I suspect this is probably been something they've been
considering for a while. This seems like a good idea.
Like it's so interesting to me that so much and obviously, you
(11:02):
know, the a lot of the games media and influencers and stuff
maybe kind of enjoy, you know, ripping on Xbox whenever they
get a chance to it. It really seems like this being
portrayed as like this like big failure or something like that.
And and instead of that, I thinkit's a smart move.
(11:22):
Now that's obviously because I'ma little biased myself and
things like that. So, you know, this all falls in
the middle, but if you know, oneof the most consistent negatives
and concerns I've seen from people about an Xbox handheld
has been, you know, the hardwarecan be as good as as they can
make it. But if it's still this clunky
version of Windows on there, then it's not going to win
(11:45):
people over, especially when there's competitors like Steam
OS, which now can in theory beyond other hardware.
And so that could end up being ahuge competitor for Xbox trying
to get into the handheld market.Not to mention the existing
switch to hardware, which is going to be around for, you
know, it's coming out in a few days before I record again.
(12:06):
It'll be out and that's probablygoing to be around for the next
6 to 8 years at least. And we'll get a huge, you know,
part of the market, even if it'sinferior technology.
And we also have heard these rumors of PlayStation wanting to
dive back into this opportunity to do a handheld.
So if they do it, they need to do it right.
(12:26):
And it seems prudent that if they don't think they can do it
right, then they shouldn't do ityet.
And it's just, you know, I go into this all the time, and I
know I'm an Xbox fanboy in a bigpart, but it's still hard for me
to see this stuff. And you know, we're in this
situation where you know, like PlayStation has has had like a
(12:50):
really weak generation in a lot of ways.
Basically the best thing about PlayStation has been that
they've sold a crap ton of units, all things considered,
especially because their lineup has been pretty weak.
It's been held up a lot by thirdparty studios and in games, you
know, kind of boosting it up with it, you know, temporary
(13:10):
exclusive deals and things like that.
But you know, it's actual first party output.
It's been pretty weak, which in the history of the platforms has
always been one of their big strengths.
You know the PlayStation 3 and 4both had insane lineups when it
came to to games and PlayStation5 has had basically a bunch of
sequels to PlayStation 4 games. Many of them probably could have
(13:34):
been PlayStation 4, like cross Gen. games and then like
Astrobot, you know, it's it's it, which has been interesting.
You know, their bottom line isn't suffering from it, so I'm
sure they don't care too much. But you know that the reaction
to this is so frustrating because it's like this is a
smart move like this is a good thing.
We didn't have a date on this. We had no idea when it was
(13:56):
really coming out if it was evereven going to actually make it
out. It seems like it was an early
production or planning anyways. So in it's just frustrating that
instead of, you know, this beingseen as like a prudent smart
move to correct the one of the biggest concerns about this,
it's being portrayed as some biglike failure by Xbox.
(14:17):
There has also been some side reporting related to this about
the next Xbox, you know, kind ofhome console to replace the
series X&S is still fully go. My assumption is that that
handheld was probably in very early planning stages where I
believe it was months ago at this point.
We were under the impression that the next Xbox hardware has
(14:41):
been like finalized. So it's very likely they're
getting into like the nitty gritty of that new console.
Now, that doesn't mean it's coming out like this year.
I definitely don't think it's come out in 2025.
There's been rumors about 26. I would say 27 is maybe even
more likely for, for a new Xbox console, despite the fact that
(15:01):
everyone seems to think that it's not actually going to
happen. Maybe it won't, but I think it
will. I, I, I, I think that that's
kind of their focus right now from a hardware perspective, and
I suspect you know, that they'rekind of in the middle of seeing
where this new strategy is taking them with focusing on
game pass and and being a lot more open to multi platform, you
(15:23):
know, situations and deals. What what I think people forget
about all of this stuff, whetherit's the multi platform strategy
that Xbox is playing with or whether it's, you know, Game
Pass in it on its own at any time.
If they decide or Microsoft or Xbox or whoever says this isn't
working, we can't keep putting our games on other platforms.
(15:45):
We can't keep doing Game Pass then they'll just end it like it
can change at any moment. I, I think that there's the kind
of this like assumption that youknow, nothing can ever change.
They have to stick with this strategy forever because some of
the other platforms are so stubborn to stick to their very
old school strategies. I think we're seeing a more
(16:05):
dynamic publisher here, a more dynamic platform where that may
not happen now. Personally, if I, if they turn
tail like tomorrow and stop gamepass or stop their multi
platform push, I, I think it would probably hurt them because
I think that they really need toshow that they're actually
dedicated to this to see how it actually plays out.
(16:26):
I, I think we'll see them kind of finessing their multi
platform strategy as time goes on.
I personally, as a, as kind of afanboy myself, don't love the
day one multi platform deals, not like with doom and stuff
like that. I really do think they need to
keep that, you know, 3 to 6 to 12 month exclusivity period to
(16:48):
to give some value to the peoplewho do have your own hardware or
are on your own, you know, kind of platforms.
And, and then the Game Pass thing, you know, basically just
pay attention to the quality of games going on to that, that
that will determine one, what studios are willing to do it and
two, how much money Xbox is putting into the deals.
(17:12):
And, and, and you know, like I said, I don't think we'll ever
see Game Pass go away entirely. But if it isn't worth it, we'll
just see the quality of games onit probably drop.
We'll probably see more of the situations like what we have
even now where only ultimate gets, you know, all the first
party games day one and then they come to standard later on.
That's, you know, where, you know, it's kind of exclusivity
(17:34):
within their own platform. Obviously that's only a game
pass though, so I don't think this handheld story is honestly
that big of a deal. I think it's probably smart by
them to not feel like they have to go through with this plan
just because it's been rumored already.
And I have to imagine their focus is on this next console.
I I, I, I think as much as people think that they've
(17:56):
checked out of that market, I, Idon't think they have.
In fact, I wouldn't be surprised.
I have a feeling their next console me is probably be more
successful than the Xbox Series SNX simply because they're
probably going to take the pressure off themselves to try
to directly compete with PS5 on like, you know, like for like
basis. I I think there's a really good
(18:17):
chance their next console comes out.
It's probably going to be a little bit more expensive than
the PlayStation and it's probably going to be really
good. And I think, you know, once they
stop emphasizing or even attempting to compete with
PlayStation directly or even Nintendo at that, you know, we
may see them do things that endsU making them more successful
(18:38):
and more competitive. I think one of the crucial
things is that the next Xbox andthe next PlayStation, the
PlayStation 6, which will probably come out, my guess is
shortly after the next Xbox thatthey aren't just copies of each
other again. This current generation with the
PS5 and the Xbox Series X essentially being the same
(18:58):
consoles with some really minor differences that essentially
come down. The gimmicks has really been
pouring, honestly. And, and you know, the while
there's been a few games where there's been significant
differences between them, for the most part there haven't
been. And I hope that changes and I
hope at the end of the day, I hope everyone's more
competitive. I hope in the next Gen. or the
(19:20):
next 5-10 years, PlayStation stops this stupid live service
push and actually starts making games again.
I, I hope that Xbox, you know, kind of figures out their
strategy and gets a little bit more predictable so people stop
whining all the time. And I hope that Nintendo, I
don't know, joins the current decade and makes hardware one
(19:42):
day that isn't too too generations behind.
We even know they'll still sell 100 million units.
Moving on to the next story, TheDivision 2 Battle for Brooklyn
DLC is out and I have completed it.
I've done the whole story. I haven't gone through every
single little side thing and found all the hunters and all
(20:03):
that. But I really enjoyed it.
I thought the story of this new DLC was it was neat.
It was cool. There's some nice little, you
know, surprises and things like that.
The the the whole rumor that this story doesn't really push
the grand story along too much seems to have come to fruition.
That seems like it, you know, itdoes add a little bit.
(20:25):
I can kind of see where they're going with it.
But this doesn't like, you know,for spoilers, I guess doesn't
like conclude the the the switchover of keener or even
Theo Parnell in in a big part. It's just kind of a Side Story.
And, and I think there's going to be a lot of people, and
probably me included, who are kind of unsatisfied with the
fact that like this DLC is multiple years in the making,
(20:48):
was delayed significant like a whole year last year.
And it, it, it just feels like like knowing the reality of the
development situation of the thedivision two at this point, it's
a miracle this even came out. But being less knowledgeable on
it, kind of taking a step back, it's kind of a bummer.
(21:09):
You know, like, I really hope that this was going to be the
bridge between division two and three.
And it definitely is. And I can't at least I can't
imagine it is. It seems like this really was
just basically like a Side Story, which is fine and it's it
was a great experience. I enjoyed it.
I I the world is cool that you get to explore it.
It's just thick with nostalgia. If you're a Division One player.
(21:34):
I just with so much of the post launch content for division two,
I've really wondered if you knowthe old saying of is the juice
worth the squeeze? And I've talked about this a lot
with division two and I just, I certainly hope that none of this
(21:54):
post launch development has delayed Division Three because
if it has, it hasn't been worth it.
Now, maybe financially, obviously they know their
numbers and all of that. Maybe it has been to them and,
and fair enough, right? But to me my my biggest issue is
they have convoluted the story of the division so badly during
(22:18):
the post launch of division two,where Division 1 was pretty
grounded. Lots of mysteries to figure out
that were left unfigured out at the end of the game in a good
way, but had a pretty good arc for itself.
It ends very satisfyingly. The post launch content for
Division 1 was pretty minimal, but it was definitely like I
think it added to it right? And then Division 2 came out, I
(22:39):
thought had a great base story and then the kind of in game
content that you played, I thinkintroduced some new stuff and
and kind of added to the whole experience.
And then Warlords of New York came out and I love Warlords of
New York. It's great.
But it's definitely a story thatactually seems like it was
supposed to take place in Division One or between 1:00 and
(23:02):
2:00 and definitely not at the end of two, because it just this
it just seems like you're stepping back in time when, and
that's my speculation, is that'swhat it was supposed to be.
And then so much of the post launch content since then has
been, in my opinion, kind of rough, whether it's been entire
(23:22):
stories that kind of didn't impact anything or if it's, you
know, been introducing some really, really not very grounded
concepts and stuff of, you know,multiple characters being
brought back from the dead or, you know, old story content
obviously being retconned and kind of, you know, whisked away
in the kind of hand waved. And it's they're in a tough
(23:47):
spot. And and I think that every time
they add more story to this game, it sort of feels like they
make it harder for the Division Three to like bring it back
together and then move the storyon.
So we'll see maybe I'm wrong, we'll we'll have to wait and see
about it. But overall, I thought this DLC
was really great. The missions are fun.
Some of them are extremely challenging, especially if
(24:09):
you're trying to play them solo.And, and, and I hope that even
if it didn't give us any kind of, as far as I know, any hints
about the future, especially Division Three, I hope that it's
successful enough that that dream of that game continues on
and we don't have to worry aboutabout that not happening.
(24:29):
So bravo to the small and and very hard working team over at
Ubisoft Massive, who and everyone who supported them in
making this DLCI had a ton of fun with it And let's let's get
work on Division 3. We have some PlayStation news.
They had a PlayStation days of play discount announcement come
(24:50):
out and man, they, there's some executives at Sony who are just
who are just grinning from year to year, man, it's they, they
put out this days of play announcement.
They do this every year. They always discount a bunch of
stuff PlayStation wise and it just a couple weeks after Xbox
raised the prices on all of their hardware and a bunch of
(25:12):
their accessories and stuff. PlayStation for I think it's two
weeks is lowering the prices of their consoles a bunch of their
hardware. This includes lowering the price
of the PS5 pro from I think it was 700 or 750 down to 650 which
if I remember correctly is now the same price as the raised
price. Or it might be even less of that
(25:33):
two terabyte special edition Series X, even though the Pro
does have a a decent power boostover the series X and then the
the base consoles are all dropped as well.
I believe 50 bucks or $100, making them all relatively or
significantly cheaper than theirXbox counterparts.
This it was interesting. Now this isn't a permanent price
(25:57):
drop. I'm sure they're going to go
back up at least to their regular prices.
This seems like a pretty obviousmove to counter the switch to
release, which is coming up herein just a few days.
One of the biggest strengths of PlayStation this generation has
been its unit sales of hardware and my guess is they want to do
(26:17):
at least a little a little bit to mitigate anything any damage
of the switch to may do to that.So it kind of makes sense for
them to drop it. I have to also imagine this
means they have A, at least in the United States, a ton of
inventory already here. And so that this is they're
they're probably going to be selling through a ton of their
(26:38):
non tariff hardware. And that's, I assume why they're
able to do this. It's it also raises the question
and it puts a bunch of pie in Xbox's face, but it raises the
question of, you know, did maybeXbox jump the gun a bit on those
price jumps? And it it's more and more
seeming like they, they probablydid.
(27:00):
I don't know a ton about the whole tariff situation and how
all this stuff works. But we do know that in the weeks
since Xbox raised their prices, there's been some tentative kind
of temporary deals with, I believe with China, between
China and the United States. I believe another one, a big
one, is a Vietnam in the United States because a lot of Chinese
companies make their products inVietnam and ship them and to try
(27:23):
to get around stuff. I'm under the impression that
the tariffs are still an issue, but not nearly as big of an
issue as it was with, you know, 150 plus percent, much, much
lower now, even though that could change any day because
things are so chaotic here in the States.
It's still with all of that, though, there still is a part of
me that wonders, you know, how big the smiles are at
(27:46):
PlayStation and how many people at Xbox are kind of maybe
shooting off some emails being like, hey, is it too late to
reverse those decisions? And I have to imagine it's not
an easy decision to make. So we'll see what happens with
that. I'm really curious what's going
to happen at the end of the daysof play with PlayStation.
(28:09):
Are they going to return the prices to what they were before?
Are they going to use that as anopportunity to then raise their
prices? So you have the old price, then
you discount for the days of play and then then you raise the
prices Maybe and maybe this is people's like last chance to get
these things cheap. We'll have to wait and see.
And then I'm really curious to see if Xbox will, you know, come
(28:32):
with their tail between their legs and be like, just kidding.
And either put prices back to what they were or what I've been
saying for a couple of years now, just take a hit on the
hardware because it's not moving.
You know, when they when they raise those prices, it was so
gut wrenching for me because it's like you guys have had this
opportunity to heavily discount these consoles that aren't
(28:55):
really moving that well. I'm sure there's a bunch out
there to be sold. Maybe there there have been
rumors that it's really hard to even find the series X or S
right now, but you know, maybe that's not connected and I don't
know, we'll just have to wait tosee.
I mean, maybe Xbox is thrown in the towel for this Gen. and
they're happy to just keep pushing their multi platform,
their PC side of things, game pass streaming, all that.
(29:18):
And they're not too worried about hardware until the next
one drops. And even then, I wouldn't be
surprised if it's kind of a hey,we have new hardware and it's
really, really good and fast. We're subsidizing it a little
bit so it's cheaper than making your own thing.
Get it or don't, we don't reallycare.
So I don't know. We'll have to wait and see.
But if you were looking to get APS 5 or PS5 Pro, this is
(29:39):
probably the time to do it because it's extremely
affordable at the moment. Elden Ring night rain has come
out. I genuinely forgot this game
even existed if you want me to be completely honest.
It has come out with a open critics score of 80.
This is the Elden Ring kind of spin off game that it's kind of
(29:59):
a rogue light. It's kind of an extraction game.
It's it, it, it's this more kindof procedural, even though not
entirely kind of multiplayer experience where you pick a, a
specific, you know, like a preset character and you go in
with other people to go into, you know, the Eldon Ring world
and the kind of greater from software world.
(30:21):
And, you know, try to get through this world and, and, and
beat this, you know, beat this thing.
So it's been really interesting.So they've announced already
they've sold 2 million copies and in like 24 hours, which is
crazy. But also if you listen to any
reviews or look on steam, like on steam, it has a mixed review
kind of status, which is surprising.
(30:43):
You know, Eldon Rings, one of the highest rated games ever and
you know, to a lot of people oneof the greatest games ever made.
And so I think that kind of accounts for these two million
sales because people just probably bought it blindly, just
like, oh, more eldering dope or people who are from software
freaks who buy everything they put out.
You know, probably that's I haveto imagine that's a big part of
the sales and good for them. Like cool, but I'm curious how
(31:09):
this plays out in the long run. There's all this talk about oh,
and steam, there's like 300,000 players, blah, blah, blah.
If I was a betting man, I would say that this is a ripe
candidate that in like a month we're going to see the articles
coming out and the content creators putting out their
videos saying what happened to night rain, You know, as as that
(31:31):
player base probably drops off pretty quickly and that's pretty
normal for single player games. And this has a component for
solo play, but this is primarilymeant to be a multiplayer
experience. And when, when you listen to the
reviews of this game, even for people who love From Software
games, from who, who like these kind of experiences, you know,
(31:52):
it, it seems like it's A at bestkind of a mild excitement and at
worst just kind of a, yeah, thisis this is interesting, but not
really a thing I want to do longrun.
And I'm curious if that plays out.
When it comes to actual players,though, we've learned very well
that even outlets and journalists and stuff like that
who seem to basically be normal people who just happen to have
(32:14):
these, you know, these audiences, they aren't always on
the mark. So there's a very good chance
that this ends up being super successful and long living.
I will say it, getting 80 Metacritic score or open
critics. Sorry, that's interesting to me
because you, you have to, or at least if you're me, you kind of
(32:36):
assume that 5 or 10 points of that are just fanboy points are
just people who just love from Software and it will always get
some benefit of the doubt. And so it kind of makes you
wonder like, you know, maybe this isn't quite the masterful
experience everyone thinks it is, but they put it out.
My my guess, and I don't think this is, I think this is maybe
even been disputed. My assumption with this game was
(32:56):
that this was a multiplayer component that they were
developing for Elden Ring itself, maybe for ADLC or maybe
for an expansion, and they just decided to spin it off into its
own thing to a standalone thing.And that's what Night Rain is.
I would put money on that. At least, you know, if, if, if I
could, I would. And, and so maybe the
(33:17):
expectations, you know, they've already sold 2 million copies.
That 2 million copies, especially if it's reusing
assets and it was already in development anyways, it's
probably already a success. And there's a ton of games out
there who would kill to sell 2 million copies.
So while this may end up going down this kind of like this like
weird thing they did, it'll likely still be very successful.
(33:38):
And, you know, even if it's not their best effort or the
greatest thing they've ever made, I suspect it's not going
to hurt their reputation at all.Speaking of hurting reputations
we have, EA has shut down the Black Panther game and shudder
the studio, making it cliffhanger.
This sucks. You know, this is kind of a
(34:00):
pattern. You can really look at this
stuff in two ways, right? You can look at it as a a
company like EA. We see this happening with like
Ubisoft as well. You know, these companies, these
these third party publishers, which are becoming fewer and
fewer, especially these big ones, these big AAA ones are
trying to survive, right? I know they make billions of
(34:21):
dollars a year. I know their CE OS take too much
of their own, take too much of the cut.
I understand that all all the issues that people have with
this stuff. But what I implore people to
consider is that, you know, the Ubisofts, the EAS, the, the two
KS, even, you know, we, we don'twant all of these companies to
(34:42):
be owned by PlayStation or Tencent or Xbox or, you know, or
like, you know, we, we, we don't, we don't want everything
consolidated, even though, you know, depending on your fan
loyalty or whatever, you may be more or less OK with it.
It, it's, it's not a good thing,right?
And so, you know, as easy as it is, and as understandable as it
(35:03):
is to hate on EA, to hate on Ubisoft, they, they still do
provide a, a service, right? Like like not everything can be,
you know, the these smaller publishers and stuff like that.
And you know, they have their niche for sure, but it's nice to
still have this competition withXbox and PlayStation, these big
(35:24):
platforms and and have these third party big AAA games like
what we get from these studios, at least that we hope we get.
So this blows, obviously that itcan't be that surprising.
I feel like we had not seen anything about this Black
Panther game, even though we hadheard about it for quite a while
on this kind of came at the sametime as when Iron Man was
(35:46):
announced. And to be fair, we haven't heard
anything about that either, but we've seen a ton of movement
around it back when the bunch ofBioWare devs got at one point
temporarily and then eventually permanently when but she's
BioWare devs got moved from BioWare to like EA motive.
That was because of Iron Man. And my impression is, especially
if you look at the people who got moved there, they must be
(36:08):
like heavy in full production. Very likely.
I wouldn't be surprised if they're in the, you know, kind
of the the the last half of thatright.
If it's a game that they're probably playing on putting out,
my guess would be next year, 2026.
And it just seems like it was further along and and maybe
there was a choice to be made atEA like, hey, we can keep
(36:28):
working on Black Panther or IronMan Iron Man is way further
ahead. Black Panther, you know, I don't
even know if it was in full production yet.
And it's easier to cut a studio and a game like that, even as
heartless as that sounds, because it is it, it sucks.
I'm, I'm never going to cheer onthis stuff right now.
What's interesting is this came along with EA talking about how
(36:50):
they're basically going to try to commit on and, and focus on a
much smaller variety of games and franchises.
Obviously talking about like their sports games, their
battlefields as well as some others.
And what was interesting about it is they talked about those
big franchises they want to focus on.
And then it was also a thing of like, oh, and we are still
(37:10):
working on the next Iron Man, the third game in the Jedi
series at respawn in Mass Effect.
It is comforting that Mass Effect, as someone who wants to
see that next game happen, comesup in these conversations.
I would say any game that isn't being brought up in these
conversations, that would not feel very good in my opinion, if
(37:32):
if I was someone working on one of those.
So I'm, I'm aware of, you know, someone who actually got laid
off along with this who wasn't at cliffhanger.
And I remember seeing in some ofthe articles that the, the
thought is, is that there were other people laid off at other
studios. The person I saw was kind of
like a community manager who I don't know what studio they were
(37:54):
currently working with. One thing I've learned about EA
is that they with the community people, they often don't just
have one community person for one studio forever.
They kind of move them around asthey are about to have a game
come out. So, you know, like if a, if a
studio is three years away from having the game come out, they
don't really have community people attached to that studio
(38:16):
because there's not really much to say there.
There may be someone who does some social media posting and
stuff, but you know, they, they kind of focus their, their,
their people on the game, like on the studios stuff, they're
about to have something big. So, so I, I can confirm that
there are definitely people who were laid off along with
cliffhanger in this Black Panther cancellation.
(38:37):
And you know, like I said before, it sucks.
It's it's barely even surprisinganymore.
And and again, I don't think we should allow that to make us
kind of cold to it or, you know,whatever, it's just another
layoff. Like no, these all suck and they
should be treated, you know, individually and and noticed.
But I also you can only get so upset every time they happen
(38:59):
because they're just going to keep happening and then and
that's awful. So good luck to all the people
who got laid off. I hope they all can find spots
ASAPI hope EA did what they typically do and tried to did
their best to place people internally before they were let
go completely. But you know that isn't always
what happens. There is a very interesting
(39:23):
chapter added to the former PlayStation executive doing
interviews. Saga Shuhei Yoshida, who just
left PlayStation within the lastcouple months and has been doing
a big media podcast tour ever since, calls subscription
services dangerous and was very much targeting Xbox Game Pass.
(39:45):
It's really, really interesting.So his Shuhei and Sean Layton,
another former PlayStation exec who I think works at 10 Cent
now, ironically, maybe more hypocritically, maybe more
negatively, have both been real vocal about Xbox and Game Pass
and. Like in this situation, it was
(40:06):
Shuhei was suggesting, from whatI gathered, that the
subscription services kind of make studios subservient to Xbox
and, and, and independent on them and things like that.
And it's just what's strange about these guys is, you know,
they, they don't work at PlayStation anymore, but man,
you would think they do like it's, it's very strange.
(40:28):
And, and, and if there was an Xbox dev doing the same thing, I
would, I would call it out as well.
Was it Mike Gabara or something who left there?
He made you think he works for PlayStation Now the way he talks
sometimes. So you don't really see it
happening the other way. And there's just existing
relationships and, and stuff like that.
I get it. But a lot of the stuff these
guys say is like kind of wild because it, it, it basically
(40:51):
seems like they don't have like a fundamental understanding of
game pass or, or like don't understand the Xbox is very
clearly trying to do something different than what PlayStation
is doing. That they're literally going to
different directions as companies.
And, and, and it seems like either they don't understand it
or they're like playing dumb, I guess.
(41:13):
And, and the question for me is just, it comes down to like,
isn't malicious or are are they just so entrenched in these
ideas they had as PlayStation executives, you know, kind of in
that mindset of, of doing what PlayStation does and which it
does very well, where they just can't even comprehend the idea
of someone else's strategy not being make console, make
(41:37):
exclusive games for console at full price.
You know, Shoehay is the same one who just a couple weeks ago
was like shaming people about like, well, if you just treat
your money appropriately, 70 to $80.00 games aren't that
expensive. You know, like some very old
school thinking going on, at least in my opinion.
And, and, and, and I think that it, it kind of sucks and, and
(42:01):
it's fine. Like these people, you know,
they probably do, they definitely have biases, right?
And that's fine. There's nothing wrong with that.
But my issue is that it propagates these conversations
because these people have big audiences and people that
respect what they say or at least like what they say because
of who they're singing it against, right?
And it it, it just, it, it really reinforces kind of bad
(42:24):
takes in my opinion. And, and I think that sucks.
I think it makes the whole conversation worst gaming
discourse is already an all timelow in my opinion.
And then when you have executives and he's like pretty
well known, like well respected people not making it better and
arguably making it worse. I just, I think it sucks.
(42:45):
And I, I think it's really strange the the way that this
has been happening. Like surely PlayStation could
have just found another place for you to work to save this
stuff. But to each their own.
We have the switch to come out here in just a few days before I
record again. We'll it'll be out on June 5th,
(43:06):
which is the day before summer game fest, which is kind of
wild. I have a bunch of predictions
about this and, and I don't think any of them are really hot
takes. I think it's going to sell the
most units for hardware ever. It's almost a guarantee and they
are going to push that heavily. I don't think it's going to sell
nearly as well as the switch. I don't think it'll even sell
(43:27):
half as many because I, I truly do believe the switch to is the
Switch pro we should have gottenlike 3 years ago and they didn't
do it because the Switch was still selling so well.
I don't think this console is going to have the same legs that
the switches had. And then I'm, I'm really curious
if we're going to see a similar situation as the PS4 and five
(43:49):
where we're going to see a ton of original switch users just
kind of be like I, I don't see any reason upgrade right now.
I'm still playing Mario Kart 8, you know, like I don't need to
play world that looks neat, but it looks basically the same as
what I have and I already have what I have and I have like 4
Switches, right? So I, I think it's not going to
(44:11):
sell nearly as well as the firstone and and I suspect that it
won't natively support third party games for as long as
people think it will. We, we know it has DLSS and that
is going to give it longer legs.It actually does have a lot of
RAM, a lot of good RAM in it, which is good, but it's SoC the
the GPU and CPU kind of combinedchip is it's really old and it's
(44:35):
extremely inefficient. We're under the impression it
may only have like 2 hours of battery life, which isn't great.
And I, I, I just don't, I don't think that even with the LSS and
a little bit more of this power,I will be very surprised if
future AAA third party games endup on this.
(44:57):
Unless they're streamed the way that they did with the original
Switch, which is not the best experience I've heard.
So I'm really curious how this plays out in the long run.
You know, they'll be fine. They're going to sell a ton of
this thing, but I don't think it's going to be the same like
sensation that the first Switch was, and I think that's OK.
(45:19):
I don't think they need it to beI I suspect the Switch has
ensured Nintendo's health for a very long time, not to mention
how they were already probably pretty well taken care of by the
we in their previous generationsas well.
So we'll see what happens. Let me know what you're excited
for for Switch to CD. Project Red has confirmed that
(45:42):
Cyberpunk 2077 sequel has entered pre production.
If you don't know, this game isn't being led by their
original studio but instead a new one that they've started in
Boston. I've seen a bunch of people
posting about this who work there who are like, oh I can't
wait to show you what we're working on and stuff.
It's not going to come anytime soon, but I think that's to be
(46:03):
sure if they just started pre production, that can be a
relatively expedited process. It kind of depends what they've
been doing before that. I assume doing some concepts and
and and things that prototyping and stuff, it could come
together relatively quickly. It is a sequel, so that always
makes things easier. But there's a pretty solid
chance this is a 2030 game, you know, in that window in that
(46:29):
area. And that's fine.
You know, they're working full-fledged on Witcher 4 right
now. I believe that's due out here in
the next year or two. That will then obviously carry
them for a couple years and thenwe'll start getting the hype
about the 2077 sequel. So I've, I'm definitely one who
was really negative on Cyberpunkfor a long time.
I've I've definitely come aroundon it in the last year or so,
(46:52):
especially when I got to play iton my relatively nice PC.
It's a pretty cool game. I still think it's way over
hyped and, and some pretty extreme ways.
I think it's actually still a, a, a relatively shallow game,
even though it has some pretty cool stuff and and they did some
good work on it post launch. I still I don't really get it.
(47:13):
I I I don't get the hype for a lot of the stuff.
It's, it's a very shallow world,in my opinion.
Just being in it feels very artificial, like you feel like
you're just around a bunch of robots, where I think other
games have done a better job of at least somewhat tricking you
into thinking that you're in like a living world.
But that's not what Cyberpunk is, you know?
(47:36):
It's it's, it's, it's good at other stuff and it's extremely
good at some other things and that does make me excited for
the sequel. So I will say my mind has
changed enough on even though I'm still kind of negative on
Cyberpunk 2077, when I finished it the most recent time, it got
me really emotional. I really enjoyed it and it
genuinely like hurt my heart to know that like we didn't get
(47:59):
likely all of the DLC and all the features and all of the
stuff that they originally intended.
I, I, I, I hurt for the game it was meant to be that you can see
clues of you can see bits and pieces that it was almost this
generational game that every, that they kind of hyped it up to
be. And instead it came out and it's
just, it's a, it's just a nice game.
(48:19):
It's a, it's a good RPG. So the wave begins for the
sequel. And then finally we have this
strange mind's eye game, the strange situation where so that
mine's eye is this game that just looks like a a game engine
tech demo to me. And the developer has like
(48:40):
thrown out accusations that they're being like attacked by
bots in it. And definitely like alluding to
it being Rockstar who is attacking.
I think some of the the people there are former Rockstar devs.
So they seem to think that GrandTheft Auto is coming after their
weird tech demo game. And apparently this game, it's
from the same studio that has like an engine where you can
(49:03):
like make your own games in it. And at one point, this was
supposed to be one of the games you can make of that engine.
But now they've said that Mind'sEye, the game will have a like
creator tool that isn't the existing engine tool.
It's super strange. This is a really weird game.
I feel like it's only getting attention because of all this
drama, because the actual footage we've seen, it looks
(49:26):
like it would have been really cool at like the end of the PS3
generation, but like it. But it definitely looks like one
of those old demos from back then, just with more modern
graphics. So I I don't really know what's
going on with that and I think we're just going to have to wait
to find out. All right, so we have the for
(49:46):
content updates. It's just summer game Fest is
coming up and the following upcoming week, I do plan to go
streaming it as well as the Xboxshowcase on the following Sunday
over on my Twitch channel. So that's just look up Von
Diesel over on Twitch and you can find me there.
Follow if you haven't already. So we can hang out and watch
those shows together. And and that's kind of all I
(50:08):
have for updates right now. It's I'm both busy and there's
not a lot going on and that is where I'm going to wrap it up.
Thank you for listening to this episode.
Subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast app, leave a
review on Spotify or iTunes, andsubscribe to the Von Diesel
YouTube channel to get all of myvideos, including this podcast.
(50:29):
Thank you to everyone who supports as a YouTube member and
or a Twitch subscriber. If you're 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
YouTube, let me know my Discord or hit me up on social media at
Von Diesel or at the Bonfire. That is all I have for this
(50:50):
episode of the Bonfire Gaming Podcast, so until next time.
This is the bonfire gaming podcast episode 339.
I'm your host Morgan AKA Von Diesel, and this week we'll be
talking about Xbox's handheld ison hold, EA shutters, Black
Panther, my The division Two DLCreview and much more.
(00:21):
We have gone through another week of multiple examples of how
the industry, for better or worse, is changing.
It is it's self correcting, it seems like.
I don't, I don't want to be callous.
I don't. I'm definitely not defending any
of the big publishers and, and corporations and stuff who are
doing all of these really brutallayoffs and, and, and things
(00:44):
like that. But I do think it's worth
talking about how it it's it, itseems like things are just
coming back to normal and, and normal isn't good when it
involves a bunch of people losing their jobs, games being
cancelled, studios being shut down.
We're going to talk about this with EA and the Black Panther
(01:07):
game they were working on in thestudio that subsequently as
being shut down along with the game.
We'll get further into that. But it just, the, the more it
happens, the less surprised I am.
And I don't like that. I don't like that it's almost
feeling normalized or, or like it's, you know, a thing that we
(01:30):
just need to accept. I, I don't feel that way.
I feel like there should be pushed back.
There should be criticism as these companies are laying
people off. They're also, you know, their CE
OS are getting these huge bonuses and stock buybacks, all
this crap. But then there's the other part
of it, which I talked about, youknow, in the last couple weeks
where, you know, EA, which is the company we'll talk about
(01:53):
today, is doing all these layoffs And they've done, you
know, hundreds, if not thousandsof layoffs over the last couple
of years. But they have more people this
year than they did last year. Like they, they've actually
grown And, and I don't think a company hiring more than its
firing necessarily negates the, the, the negativity or, or the
(02:15):
bad practices or, or whatever, you know, whatever you want to
talk or talk about or consider it.
But it does add more context to the story, I think.
I think it adds the context thatwe don't really talk about or
consider. The the dirtiest part about that
is that industry wide, it seems like there's a lot of people
(02:37):
getting fired or laid off and then they're just being replaced
by cheaper people. And I understand like that's
kind of how business and corporations work.
It's an ugly part of just, you know, corporate life in general.
And I think it's especially gross in the games industry
because maybe even more so than the music industry or movies or
(02:59):
TV. With gaming, I, I feel like the,
the ladder from your frontline game developer, the creative,
right? The, the person who, you know,
makes the texture art or models,the, the, the characters or
makes the plant that goes on theshelf and in the room or the,
(03:24):
the sound designer or the, you know, the writer for the
narrative part of the game. Like all of those people, the
creatives, the people who aren'tinterested in bottom lines and
corporate crap. I feel like that ladder seems
like it's the shortest in the entire like creative industry.
(03:45):
From those frontline devs to like the CEO in gaming.
It seems like gaming has the shortest, you know, stretch from
developer to, you know, senior dev to pub, you know, producer
to, you know, head of the team or head of the studio and then
up to the suits, Right. And and I feel like that makes
this seem especially gross. And I could be wrong.
(04:08):
If you're involved in one of these other, you know, music,
TV, movies, whatever. Maybe you can tell me I'm wrong.
But it really does seem like that relationship between suit
and creative is so direct in gaming that it makes this stuff
feel worse. It feels like there's more, you
(04:29):
know, dabbling like in, in movies.
The impression I'm under is thatoften in movies and TV, you
know, a movie is made essentially by a, by a
corporation by, by a company that springs up to make the
movie and then disappears. And all the people know that
they're there for that project and then they're gone.
And, and it's, you know, every movie that gets made is
(04:49):
basically it's it's own little company that pops up.
It gets populated with all theseworkers.
You know, essentially everyone in that industry is a contractor
and they come in, they do the thing and then they all disband
and, you know, they, they work together on other projects and
maybe certain directors or whoever have, you know,
favorites to bring on every time.
But with gaming, you know, you're, we're supposed to have
(05:10):
these established studios that, you know, keep, you know, long
term veteran developers and, and, and you know, blah, blah,
blah. And, and, and we're used to
that. You know, we're, we're used to
seeing developers who guy, we look at people like Todd Howard
and stuff who are at their studios or, you know, under the
same company working on the samefranchises for, you know,
(05:32):
multiple decades for 2030 plus years.
And it just seems like that's not compatible with the
corporate world, right? And it seems like it, it's
always kind of been like this. And I think I've talked about
this before where, you know, these layoffs and stuff, this
has always been a thing. I, I just think that as we're
more connected through social media, as, you know, things are
(05:55):
more transparent and more, you know, publicized.
And as, you know, games media focuses more on this stuff.
The old days of starting game, agame, you know, production, you
know, round, you know, firing the production, hiring a bunch
of people, especially a bunch ofcontractors.
(06:16):
You make the game over two or three years and then everyone
gets fired. You know, that's how it's kind
of always been. But I feel like it used to feel
kind of like the movie industry where that was expected and, and
now it doesn't feel like that. And, and I think there's a lot
of reasons for that. I think it's because mostly
games don't take one or two years to make anymore.
(06:37):
Where back in the day you could get brought into a project, work
a couple years, get that game out, put on your credits and
move to a new game, new studio, new project, whatever.
Well, now games take four or five plus years and you know,
that, that ends up being these huge chunks of people's careers
and then those games get shut down.
And, and I think that's like oneof the toughest things about all
(06:58):
this stuff. And you know, the, with the
industry shrinking in general, it seems like, or, or
consolidating maybe is the better word, which we've been
seeing for years is that, you know, I, I've talked about it in
my discord where there's a few game devs in there And, and how
rough it is that it seems like we have, you know, that there's
probably so many devs out there who have been in game
(07:19):
development for 5-10 years without a single shift game.
And, and that's, that's horrible, right?
Like, think about, like, even for me, you know, in the current
job I'm at, I've been here almost 13 years.
There's definitely a pathway where there's game developers
who started their careers the same time I did in my current
job, who maybe have been lucky to ship one or two games.
(07:44):
Now I'm sure there's plenty of people who who have shipped
more, but it it's just Alan it, it sucks and it's so hard to
talk about because I want to talk like realistically about it
and calmly and without being toosensationalized and hyped up.
And you know, we see it. It's just it's kind of
frustrating when I see fairly well renowned and well known
games journalist and stuff like taking the like easiest, kind of
(08:06):
laziest takes on this stuff of just like it's just always just
the same like copy paste outragethat they posted last time.
Instead of like getting into it and like figuring out what's
going on and talking to people and getting like actual insight.
It's just kind of, you know, outrage and I would argue bait
almost to a point, but but that's maybe too tough.
(08:30):
But I, I don't know, I don't know when it gets better.
I don't know if it really ever does.
I think we see what's going on with EA is probably a great
example, even a giant publisher like them kind of narrowing down
the franchises they're working on, which unfortunately means
they're probably going to be less experimental and less
interested in doing unique things.
(08:52):
And then we'll have to hope that, you know, Indies and and
and other types of spin up studios and stuff can be the
ones who really are innovating while these big kind of legacy
publishers and studios kind of turn into these kind of legacy
machines, you know, which like Ubisoft is another one that's
done that. So I don't know, we'll have to
(09:13):
wait and see, but I will remain eternally optimistic.
OK, let's jump into the gaming news.
The Xbox handheld has reportedlybeen put on hold.
This was blown up by a bunch of people.
I don't. I can't even tell at this point
who the original reporting was. Just Cordon, Insider Gaming and
(09:34):
a bunch of other people have putthis out.
It's not been confirmed by Xbox.They don't really need to
confirm anything, actually, at least in my opinion.
You know, Phil Spencer has talked about a handheld, but
they've never given any dates. That's all been speculation and
rumor and so on. Even then, the speculation on
(09:55):
this handheld wasn't until afterthe next Xbox to to replace the
Series S&X, which is probably still two or three years away.
And so it's very likely this handheld anyways wasn't expected
for three or four years, right. And and so it's, it's been
interesting. So some of the more, some more
of the reporting that's come outabout this is that the Xbox is
(10:18):
doing this, putting this projecton hold because they recognize
that the Windows platform right now, which would be used as the
operating system just isn't verygood for handhelds at the
moment. There is some some speculation
that Steam recently opening up their Steam OS which is on the
Steam Deck to all handheld platforms and it being extremely
(10:42):
good and outshining the current Windows operating system on
these handhelds may have factored into this.
I would be surprised if that's the case.
I suspect this is probably been something they've been
considering for a while. This seems like a good idea.
Like it's so interesting to me that so much and obviously, you
(11:02):
know, the a lot of the games media and influencers and stuff
maybe kind of enjoy, you know, ripping on Xbox whenever they
get a chance to it. It really seems like this being
portrayed as like this like big failure or something like that.
And and instead of that, I thinkit's a smart move.
(11:22):
Now that's obviously because I'ma little biased myself and
things like that. So, you know, this all falls in
the middle, but if you know, oneof the most consistent negatives
and concerns I've seen from people about an Xbox handheld
has been, you know, the hardwarecan be as good as as they can
make it. But if it's still this clunky
version of Windows on there, then it's not going to win
(11:45):
people over, especially when there's competitors like Steam
OS, which now can in theory beyond other hardware.
And so that could end up being ahuge competitor for Xbox trying
to get into the handheld market.Not to mention the existing
switch to hardware, which is going to be around for, you
know, it's coming out in a few days before I record again.
(12:06):
It'll be out and that's probablygoing to be around for the next
6 to 8 years at least. And we'll get a huge, you know,
part of the market, even if it'sinferior technology.
And we also have heard these rumors of PlayStation wanting to
dive back into this opportunity to do a handheld.
So if they do it, they need to do it right.
(12:26):
And it seems prudent that if they don't think they can do it
right, then they shouldn't do ityet.
And it's just, you know, I go into this all the time, and I
know I'm an Xbox fanboy in a bigpart, but it's still hard for me
to see this stuff. And you know, we're in this
situation where you know, like PlayStation has has had like a
(12:50):
really weak generation in a lot of ways.
Basically the best thing about PlayStation has been that
they've sold a crap ton of units, all things considered,
especially because their lineup has been pretty weak.
It's been held up a lot by thirdparty studios and in games, you
know, kind of boosting it up with it, you know, temporary
(13:10):
exclusive deals and things like that.
But you know, it's actual first party output.
It's been pretty weak, which in the history of the platforms has
always been one of their big strengths.
You know the PlayStation 3 and 4both had insane lineups when it
came to to games and PlayStation5 has had basically a bunch of
sequels to PlayStation 4 games. Many of them probably could have
(13:34):
been PlayStation 4, like cross Gen. games and then like
Astrobot, you know, it's it's it, which has been interesting.
You know, their bottom line isn't suffering from it, so I'm
sure they don't care too much. But you know that the reaction
to this is so frustrating because it's like this is a
smart move like this is a good thing.
We didn't have a date on this. We had no idea when it was
(13:56):
really coming out if it was evereven going to actually make it
out. It seems like it was an early
production or planning anyways. So in it's just frustrating that
instead of, you know, this beingseen as like a prudent smart
move to correct the one of the biggest concerns about this,
it's being portrayed as some biglike failure by Xbox.
(14:17):
There has also been some side reporting related to this about
the next Xbox, you know, kind ofhome console to replace the
series X&S is still fully go. My assumption is that that
handheld was probably in very early planning stages where I
believe it was months ago at this point.
We were under the impression that the next Xbox hardware has
(14:41):
been like finalized. So it's very likely they're
getting into like the nitty gritty of that new console.
Now, that doesn't mean it's coming out like this year.
I definitely don't think it's come out in 2025.
There's been rumors about 26. I would say 27 is maybe even
more likely for, for a new Xbox console, despite the fact that
(15:01):
everyone seems to think that it's not actually going to
happen. Maybe it won't, but I think it
will. I, I, I, I think that that's
kind of their focus right now from a hardware perspective, and
I suspect you know, that they'rekind of in the middle of seeing
where this new strategy is taking them with focusing on
game pass and and being a lot more open to multi platform, you
(15:23):
know, situations and deals. What what I think people forget
about all of this stuff, whetherit's the multi platform strategy
that Xbox is playing with or whether it's, you know, Game
Pass in it on its own at any time.
If they decide or Microsoft or Xbox or whoever says this isn't
working, we can't keep putting our games on other platforms.
(15:45):
We can't keep doing Game Pass then they'll just end it like it
can change at any moment. I, I think that there's the kind
of this like assumption that youknow, nothing can ever change.
They have to stick with this strategy forever because some of
the other platforms are so stubborn to stick to their very
old school strategies. I think we're seeing a more
(16:05):
dynamic publisher here, a more dynamic platform where that may
not happen now. Personally, if I, if they turn
tail like tomorrow and stop gamepass or stop their multi
platform push, I, I think it would probably hurt them because
I think that they really need toshow that they're actually
dedicated to this to see how it actually plays out.
(16:26):
I, I think we'll see them kind of finessing their multi
platform strategy as time goes on.
I personally, as a, as kind of afanboy myself, don't love the
day one multi platform deals, not like with doom and stuff
like that. I really do think they need to
keep that, you know, 3 to 6 to 12 month exclusivity period to
(16:48):
to give some value to the peoplewho do have your own hardware or
are on your own, you know, kind of platforms.
And, and then the Game Pass thing, you know, basically just
pay attention to the quality of games going on to that, that
that will determine one, what studios are willing to do it and
two, how much money Xbox is putting into the deals.
(17:12):
And, and, and you know, like I said, I don't think we'll ever
see Game Pass go away entirely. But if it isn't worth it, we'll
just see the quality of games onit probably drop.
We'll probably see more of the situations like what we have
even now where only ultimate gets, you know, all the first
party games day one and then they come to standard later on.
That's, you know, where, you know, it's kind of exclusivity
(17:34):
within their own platform. Obviously that's only a game
pass though, so I don't think this handheld story is honestly
that big of a deal. I think it's probably smart by
them to not feel like they have to go through with this plan
just because it's been rumored already.
And I have to imagine their focus is on this next console.
I I, I, I think as much as people think that they've
(17:56):
checked out of that market, I, Idon't think they have.
In fact, I wouldn't be surprised.
I have a feeling their next console me is probably be more
successful than the Xbox Series SNX simply because they're
probably going to take the pressure off themselves to try
to directly compete with PS5 on like, you know, like for like
basis. I I think there's a really good
(18:17):
chance their next console comes out.
It's probably going to be a little bit more expensive than
the PlayStation and it's probably going to be really
good. And I think, you know, once they
stop emphasizing or even attempting to compete with
PlayStation directly or even Nintendo at that, you know, we
may see them do things that endsU making them more successful
(18:38):
and more competitive. I think one of the crucial
things is that the next Xbox andthe next PlayStation, the
PlayStation 6, which will probably come out, my guess is
shortly after the next Xbox thatthey aren't just copies of each
other again. This current generation with the
PS5 and the Xbox Series X essentially being the same
(18:58):
consoles with some really minor differences that essentially
come down. The gimmicks has really been
pouring, honestly. And, and you know, the while
there's been a few games where there's been significant
differences between them, for the most part there haven't
been. And I hope that changes and I
hope at the end of the day, I hope everyone's more
competitive. I hope in the next Gen. or the
(19:20):
next 5-10 years, PlayStation stops this stupid live service
push and actually starts making games again.
I, I hope that Xbox, you know, kind of figures out their
strategy and gets a little bit more predictable so people stop
whining all the time. And I hope that Nintendo, I
don't know, joins the current decade and makes hardware one
(19:42):
day that isn't too too generations behind.
We even know they'll still sell 100 million units.
Moving on to the next story, TheDivision 2 Battle for Brooklyn
DLC is out and I have completed it.
I've done the whole story. I haven't gone through every
single little side thing and found all the hunters and all
(20:03):
that. But I really enjoyed it.
I thought the story of this new DLC was it was neat.
It was cool. There's some nice little, you
know, surprises and things like that.
The the the whole rumor that this story doesn't really push
the grand story along too much seems to have come to fruition.
That seems like it, you know, itdoes add a little bit.
(20:25):
I can kind of see where they're going with it.
But this doesn't like, you know,for spoilers, I guess doesn't
like conclude the the the switchover of keener or even
Theo Parnell in in a big part. It's just kind of a Side Story.
And, and I think there's going to be a lot of people, and
probably me included, who are kind of unsatisfied with the
fact that like this DLC is multiple years in the making,
(20:48):
was delayed significant like a whole year last year.
And it, it, it just feels like like knowing the reality of the
development situation of the thedivision two at this point, it's
a miracle this even came out. But being less knowledgeable on
it, kind of taking a step back, it's kind of a bummer.
(21:09):
You know, like, I really hope that this was going to be the
bridge between division two and three.
And it definitely is. And I can't at least I can't
imagine it is. It seems like this really was
just basically like a Side Story, which is fine and it's it
was a great experience. I enjoyed it.
I I the world is cool that you get to explore it.
It's just thick with nostalgia. If you're a Division One player.
(21:34):
I just with so much of the post launch content for division two,
I've really wondered if you knowthe old saying of is the juice
worth the squeeze? And I've talked about this a lot
with division two and I just, I certainly hope that none of this
(21:54):
post launch development has delayed Division Three because
if it has, it hasn't been worth it.
Now, maybe financially, obviously they know their
numbers and all of that. Maybe it has been to them and,
and fair enough, right? But to me my my biggest issue is
they have convoluted the story of the division so badly during
(22:18):
the post launch of division two,where Division 1 was pretty
grounded. Lots of mysteries to figure out
that were left unfigured out at the end of the game in a good
way, but had a pretty good arc for itself.
It ends very satisfyingly. The post launch content for
Division 1 was pretty minimal, but it was definitely like I
think it added to it right? And then Division 2 came out, I
(22:39):
thought had a great base story and then the kind of in game
content that you played, I thinkintroduced some new stuff and
and kind of added to the whole experience.
And then Warlords of New York came out and I love Warlords of
New York. It's great.
But it's definitely a story thatactually seems like it was
supposed to take place in Division One or between 1:00 and
(23:02):
2:00 and definitely not at the end of two, because it just this
it just seems like you're stepping back in time when, and
that's my speculation, is that'swhat it was supposed to be.
And then so much of the post launch content since then has
been, in my opinion, kind of rough, whether it's been entire
(23:22):
stories that kind of didn't impact anything or if it's, you
know, been introducing some really, really not very grounded
concepts and stuff of, you know,multiple characters being
brought back from the dead or, you know, old story content
obviously being retconned and kind of, you know, whisked away
in the kind of hand waved. And it's they're in a tough
(23:47):
spot. And and I think that every time
they add more story to this game, it sort of feels like they
make it harder for the Division Three to like bring it back
together and then move the storyon.
So we'll see maybe I'm wrong, we'll we'll have to wait and see
about it. But overall, I thought this DLC
was really great. The missions are fun.
Some of them are extremely challenging, especially if
(24:09):
you're trying to play them solo.And, and, and I hope that even
if it didn't give us any kind of, as far as I know, any hints
about the future, especially Division Three, I hope that it's
successful enough that that dream of that game continues on
and we don't have to worry aboutabout that not happening.
(24:29):
So bravo to the small and and very hard working team over at
Ubisoft Massive, who and everyone who supported them in
making this DLCI had a ton of fun with it And let's let's get
work on Division 3. We have some PlayStation news.
They had a PlayStation days of play discount announcement come
(24:50):
out and man, they, there's some executives at Sony who are just
who are just grinning from year to year, man, it's they, they
put out this days of play announcement.
They do this every year. They always discount a bunch of
stuff PlayStation wise and it just a couple weeks after Xbox
raised the prices on all of their hardware and a bunch of
(25:12):
their accessories and stuff. PlayStation for I think it's two
weeks is lowering the prices of their consoles a bunch of their
hardware. This includes lowering the price
of the PS5 pro from I think it was 700 or 750 down to 650 which
if I remember correctly is now the same price as the raised
price. Or it might be even less of that
(25:33):
two terabyte special edition Series X, even though the Pro
does have a a decent power boostover the series X and then the
the base consoles are all dropped as well.
I believe 50 bucks or $100, making them all relatively or
significantly cheaper than theirXbox counterparts.
This it was interesting. Now this isn't a permanent price
(25:57):
drop. I'm sure they're going to go
back up at least to their regular prices.
This seems like a pretty obviousmove to counter the switch to
release, which is coming up herein just a few days.
One of the biggest strengths of PlayStation this generation has
been its unit sales of hardware and my guess is they want to do
(26:17):
at least a little a little bit to mitigate anything any damage
of the switch to may do to that.So it kind of makes sense for
them to drop it. I have to also imagine this
means they have A, at least in the United States, a ton of
inventory already here. And so that this is they're
they're probably going to be selling through a ton of their
(26:38):
non tariff hardware. And that's, I assume why they're
able to do this. It's it also raises the question
and it puts a bunch of pie in Xbox's face, but it raises the
question of, you know, did maybeXbox jump the gun a bit on those
price jumps? And it it's more and more
seeming like they, they probablydid.
(27:00):
I don't know a ton about the whole tariff situation and how
all this stuff works. But we do know that in the weeks
since Xbox raised their prices, there's been some tentative kind
of temporary deals with, I believe with China, between
China and the United States. I believe another one, a big
one, is a Vietnam in the United States because a lot of Chinese
companies make their products inVietnam and ship them and to try
(27:23):
to get around stuff. I'm under the impression that
the tariffs are still an issue, but not nearly as big of an
issue as it was with, you know, 150 plus percent, much, much
lower now, even though that could change any day because
things are so chaotic here in the States.
It's still with all of that, though, there still is a part of
me that wonders, you know, how big the smiles are at
(27:46):
PlayStation and how many people at Xbox are kind of maybe
shooting off some emails being like, hey, is it too late to
reverse those decisions? And I have to imagine it's not
an easy decision to make. So we'll see what happens with
that. I'm really curious what's going
to happen at the end of the daysof play with PlayStation.
(28:09):
Are they going to return the prices to what they were before?
Are they going to use that as anopportunity to then raise their
prices? So you have the old price, then
you discount for the days of play and then then you raise the
prices Maybe and maybe this is people's like last chance to get
these things cheap. We'll have to wait and see.
And then I'm really curious to see if Xbox will, you know, come
(28:32):
with their tail between their legs and be like, just kidding.
And either put prices back to what they were or what I've been
saying for a couple of years now, just take a hit on the
hardware because it's not moving.
You know, when they when they raise those prices, it was so
gut wrenching for me because it's like you guys have had this
opportunity to heavily discount these consoles that aren't
(28:55):
really moving that well. I'm sure there's a bunch out
there to be sold. Maybe there there have been
rumors that it's really hard to even find the series X or S
right now, but you know, maybe that's not connected and I don't
know, we'll just have to wait tosee.
I mean, maybe Xbox is thrown in the towel for this Gen. and
they're happy to just keep pushing their multi platform,
their PC side of things, game pass streaming, all that.
(29:18):
And they're not too worried about hardware until the next
one drops. And even then, I wouldn't be
surprised if it's kind of a hey,we have new hardware and it's
really, really good and fast. We're subsidizing it a little
bit so it's cheaper than making your own thing.
Get it or don't, we don't reallycare.
So I don't know. We'll have to wait and see.
But if you were looking to get APS 5 or PS5 Pro, this is
(29:39):
probably the time to do it because it's extremely
affordable at the moment. Elden Ring night rain has come
out. I genuinely forgot this game
even existed if you want me to be completely honest.
It has come out with a open critics score of 80.
This is the Elden Ring kind of spin off game that it's kind of
(29:59):
a rogue light. It's kind of an extraction game.
It's it, it, it's this more kindof procedural, even though not
entirely kind of multiplayer experience where you pick a, a
specific, you know, like a preset character and you go in
with other people to go into, you know, the Eldon Ring world
and the kind of greater from software world.
(30:21):
And, you know, try to get through this world and, and, and
beat this, you know, beat this thing.
So it's been really interesting.So they've announced already
they've sold 2 million copies and in like 24 hours, which is
crazy. But also if you listen to any
reviews or look on steam, like on steam, it has a mixed review
kind of status, which is surprising.
(30:43):
You know, Eldon Rings, one of the highest rated games ever and
you know, to a lot of people oneof the greatest games ever made.
And so I think that kind of accounts for these two million
sales because people just probably bought it blindly, just
like, oh, more eldering dope or people who are from software
freaks who buy everything they put out.
You know, probably that's I haveto imagine that's a big part of
the sales and good for them. Like cool, but I'm curious how
(31:09):
this plays out in the long run. There's all this talk about oh,
and steam, there's like 300,000 players, blah, blah, blah.
If I was a betting man, I would say that this is a ripe
candidate that in like a month we're going to see the articles
coming out and the content creators putting out their
videos saying what happened to night rain, You know, as as that
(31:31):
player base probably drops off pretty quickly and that's pretty
normal for single player games. And this has a component for
solo play, but this is primarilymeant to be a multiplayer
experience. And when, when you listen to the
reviews of this game, even for people who love From Software
games, from who, who like these kind of experiences, you know,
(31:52):
it, it seems like it's A at bestkind of a mild excitement and at
worst just kind of a, yeah, thisis this is interesting, but not
really a thing I want to do longrun.
And I'm curious if that plays out.
When it comes to actual players,though, we've learned very well
that even outlets and journalists and stuff like that
who seem to basically be normal people who just happen to have
(32:14):
these, you know, these audiences, they aren't always on
the mark. So there's a very good chance
that this ends up being super successful and long living.
I will say it, getting 80 Metacritic score or open
critics. Sorry, that's interesting to me
because you, you have to, or at least if you're me, you kind of
(32:36):
assume that 5 or 10 points of that are just fanboy points are
just people who just love from Software and it will always get
some benefit of the doubt. And so it kind of makes you
wonder like, you know, maybe this isn't quite the masterful
experience everyone thinks it is, but they put it out.
My my guess, and I don't think this is, I think this is maybe
even been disputed. My assumption with this game was
(32:56):
that this was a multiplayer component that they were
developing for Elden Ring itself, maybe for ADLC or maybe
for an expansion, and they just decided to spin it off into its
own thing to a standalone thing.And that's what Night Rain is.
I would put money on that. At least, you know, if, if, if I
could, I would. And, and so maybe the
(33:17):
expectations, you know, they've already sold 2 million copies.
That 2 million copies, especially if it's reusing
assets and it was already in development anyways, it's
probably already a success. And there's a ton of games out
there who would kill to sell 2 million copies.
So while this may end up going down this kind of like this like
weird thing they did, it'll likely still be very successful.
(33:38):
And, you know, even if it's not their best effort or the
greatest thing they've ever made, I suspect it's not going
to hurt their reputation at all.Speaking of hurting reputations
we have, EA has shut down the Black Panther game and shudder
the studio, making it cliffhanger.
This sucks. You know, this is kind of a
(34:00):
pattern. You can really look at this
stuff in two ways, right? You can look at it as a a
company like EA. We see this happening with like
Ubisoft as well. You know, these companies, these
these third party publishers, which are becoming fewer and
fewer, especially these big ones, these big AAA ones are
trying to survive, right? I know they make billions of
(34:21):
dollars a year. I know their CE OS take too much
of their own, take too much of the cut.
I understand that all all the issues that people have with
this stuff. But what I implore people to
consider is that, you know, the Ubisofts, the EAS, the, the two
KS, even, you know, we, we don'twant all of these companies to
(34:42):
be owned by PlayStation or Tencent or Xbox or, you know, or
like, you know, we, we, we don't, we don't want everything
consolidated, even though, you know, depending on your fan
loyalty or whatever, you may be more or less OK with it.
It, it's, it's not a good thing,right?
And so, you know, as easy as it is, and as understandable as it
(35:03):
is to hate on EA, to hate on Ubisoft, they, they still do
provide a, a service, right? Like like not everything can be,
you know, the these smaller publishers and stuff like that.
And you know, they have their niche for sure, but it's nice to
still have this competition withXbox and PlayStation, these big
(35:24):
platforms and and have these third party big AAA games like
what we get from these studios, at least that we hope we get.
So this blows, obviously that itcan't be that surprising.
I feel like we had not seen anything about this Black
Panther game, even though we hadheard about it for quite a while
on this kind of came at the sametime as when Iron Man was
(35:46):
announced. And to be fair, we haven't heard
anything about that either, but we've seen a ton of movement
around it back when the bunch ofBioWare devs got at one point
temporarily and then eventually permanently when but she's
BioWare devs got moved from BioWare to like EA motive.
That was because of Iron Man. And my impression is, especially
if you look at the people who got moved there, they must be
(36:08):
like heavy in full production. Very likely.
I wouldn't be surprised if they're in the, you know, kind
of the the the last half of thatright.
If it's a game that they're probably playing on putting out,
my guess would be next year, 2026.
And it just seems like it was further along and and maybe
there was a choice to be made atEA like, hey, we can keep
(36:28):
working on Black Panther or IronMan Iron Man is way further
ahead. Black Panther, you know, I don't
even know if it was in full production yet.
And it's easier to cut a studio and a game like that, even as
heartless as that sounds, because it is it, it sucks.
I'm, I'm never going to cheer onthis stuff right now.
What's interesting is this came along with EA talking about how
(36:50):
they're basically going to try to commit on and, and focus on a
much smaller variety of games and franchises.
Obviously talking about like their sports games, their
battlefields as well as some others.
And what was interesting about it is they talked about those
big franchises they want to focus on.
And then it was also a thing of like, oh, and we are still
(37:10):
working on the next Iron Man, the third game in the Jedi
series at respawn in Mass Effect.
It is comforting that Mass Effect, as someone who wants to
see that next game happen, comesup in these conversations.
I would say any game that isn't being brought up in these
conversations, that would not feel very good in my opinion, if
(37:32):
if I was someone working on one of those.
So I'm, I'm aware of, you know, someone who actually got laid
off along with this who wasn't at cliffhanger.
And I remember seeing in some ofthe articles that the, the
thought is, is that there were other people laid off at other
studios. The person I saw was kind of
like a community manager who I don't know what studio they were
(37:54):
currently working with. One thing I've learned about EA
is that they with the community people, they often don't just
have one community person for one studio forever.
They kind of move them around asthey are about to have a game
come out. So, you know, like if a, if a
studio is three years away from having the game come out, they
don't really have community people attached to that studio
(38:16):
because there's not really much to say there.
There may be someone who does some social media posting and
stuff, but you know, they, they kind of focus their, their,
their people on the game, like on the studios stuff, they're
about to have something big. So, so I, I can confirm that
there are definitely people who were laid off along with
cliffhanger in this Black Panther cancellation.
(38:37):
And you know, like I said before, it sucks.
It's it's barely even surprisinganymore.
And and again, I don't think we should allow that to make us
kind of cold to it or, you know,whatever, it's just another
layoff. Like no, these all suck and they
should be treated, you know, individually and and noticed.
But I also you can only get so upset every time they happen
(38:59):
because they're just going to keep happening and then and
that's awful. So good luck to all the people
who got laid off. I hope they all can find spots
ASAPI hope EA did what they typically do and tried to did
their best to place people internally before they were let
go completely. But you know that isn't always
what happens. There is a very interesting
(39:23):
chapter added to the former PlayStation executive doing
interviews. Saga Shuhei Yoshida, who just
left PlayStation within the lastcouple months and has been doing
a big media podcast tour ever since, calls subscription
services dangerous and was very much targeting Xbox Game Pass.
(39:45):
It's really, really interesting.So his Shuhei and Sean Layton,
another former PlayStation exec who I think works at 10 Cent
now, ironically, maybe more hypocritically, maybe more
negatively, have both been real vocal about Xbox and Game Pass
and. Like in this situation, it was
(40:06):
Shuhei was suggesting, from whatI gathered, that the
subscription services kind of make studios subservient to Xbox
and, and, and independent on them and things like that.
And it's just what's strange about these guys is, you know,
they, they don't work at PlayStation anymore, but man,
you would think they do like it's, it's very strange.
(40:28):
And, and, and if there was an Xbox dev doing the same thing, I
would, I would call it out as well.
Was it Mike Gabara or something who left there?
He made you think he works for PlayStation Now the way he talks
sometimes. So you don't really see it
happening the other way. And there's just existing
relationships and, and stuff like that.
I get it. But a lot of the stuff these
guys say is like kind of wild because it, it, it basically
(40:51):
seems like they don't have like a fundamental understanding of
game pass or, or like don't understand the Xbox is very
clearly trying to do something different than what PlayStation
is doing. That they're literally going to
different directions as companies.
And, and, and it seems like either they don't understand it
or they're like playing dumb, I guess.
(41:13):
And, and the question for me is just, it comes down to like,
isn't malicious or are are they just so entrenched in these
ideas they had as PlayStation executives, you know, kind of in
that mindset of, of doing what PlayStation does and which it
does very well, where they just can't even comprehend the idea
of someone else's strategy not being make console, make
(41:37):
exclusive games for console at full price.
You know, Shoehay is the same one who just a couple weeks ago
was like shaming people about like, well, if you just treat
your money appropriately, 70 to $80.00 games aren't that
expensive. You know, like some very old
school thinking going on, at least in my opinion.
And, and, and, and I think that it, it kind of sucks and, and
(42:01):
it's fine. Like these people, you know,
they probably do, they definitely have biases, right?
And that's fine. There's nothing wrong with that.
But my issue is that it propagates these conversations
because these people have big audiences and people that
respect what they say or at least like what they say because
of who they're singing it against, right?
And it it, it just, it, it really reinforces kind of bad
(42:24):
takes in my opinion. And, and I think that sucks.
I think it makes the whole conversation worst gaming
discourse is already an all timelow in my opinion.
And then when you have executives and he's like pretty
well known, like well respected people not making it better and
arguably making it worse. I just, I think it sucks.
(42:45):
And I, I think it's really strange the the way that this
has been happening. Like surely PlayStation could
have just found another place for you to work to save this
stuff. But to each their own.
We have the switch to come out here in just a few days before I
record again. We'll it'll be out on June 5th,
(43:06):
which is the day before summer game fest, which is kind of
wild. I have a bunch of predictions
about this and, and I don't think any of them are really hot
takes. I think it's going to sell the
most units for hardware ever. It's almost a guarantee and they
are going to push that heavily. I don't think it's going to sell
nearly as well as the switch. I don't think it'll even sell
(43:27):
half as many because I, I truly do believe the switch to is the
Switch pro we should have gottenlike 3 years ago and they didn't
do it because the Switch was still selling so well.
I don't think this console is going to have the same legs that
the switches had. And then I'm, I'm really curious
if we're going to see a similar situation as the PS4 and five
(43:49):
where we're going to see a ton of original switch users just
kind of be like I, I don't see any reason upgrade right now.
I'm still playing Mario Kart 8, you know, like I don't need to
play world that looks neat, but it looks basically the same as
what I have and I already have what I have and I have like 4
Switches, right? So I, I think it's not going to
(44:11):
sell nearly as well as the firstone and and I suspect that it
won't natively support third party games for as long as
people think it will. We, we know it has DLSS and that
is going to give it longer legs.It actually does have a lot of
RAM, a lot of good RAM in it, which is good, but it's SoC the
the GPU and CPU kind of combinedchip is it's really old and it's
(44:35):
extremely inefficient. We're under the impression it
may only have like 2 hours of battery life, which isn't great.
And I, I, I just don't, I don't think that even with the LSS and
a little bit more of this power,I will be very surprised if
future AAA third party games endup on this.
(44:57):
Unless they're streamed the way that they did with the original
Switch, which is not the best experience I've heard.
So I'm really curious how this plays out in the long run.
You know, they'll be fine. They're going to sell a ton of
this thing, but I don't think it's going to be the same like
sensation that the first Switch was, and I think that's OK.
(45:19):
I don't think they need it to beI I suspect the Switch has
ensured Nintendo's health for a very long time, not to mention
how they were already probably pretty well taken care of by the
we in their previous generationsas well.
So we'll see what happens. Let me know what you're excited
for for Switch to CD. Project Red has confirmed that
(45:42):
Cyberpunk 2077 sequel has entered pre production.
If you don't know, this game isn't being led by their
original studio but instead a new one that they've started in
Boston. I've seen a bunch of people
posting about this who work there who are like, oh I can't
wait to show you what we're working on and stuff.
It's not going to come anytime soon, but I think that's to be
(46:03):
sure if they just started pre production, that can be a
relatively expedited process. It kind of depends what they've
been doing before that. I assume doing some concepts and
and and things that prototyping and stuff, it could come
together relatively quickly. It is a sequel, so that always
makes things easier. But there's a pretty solid
chance this is a 2030 game, you know, in that window in that
(46:29):
area. And that's fine.
You know, they're working full-fledged on Witcher 4 right
now. I believe that's due out here in
the next year or two. That will then obviously carry
them for a couple years and thenwe'll start getting the hype
about the 2077 sequel. So I've, I'm definitely one who
was really negative on Cyberpunkfor a long time.
I've I've definitely come aroundon it in the last year or so,
(46:52):
especially when I got to play iton my relatively nice PC.
It's a pretty cool game. I still think it's way over
hyped and, and some pretty extreme ways.
I think it's actually still a, a, a relatively shallow game,
even though it has some pretty cool stuff and and they did some
good work on it post launch. I still I don't really get it.
(47:13):
I I I don't get the hype for a lot of the stuff.
It's, it's a very shallow world,in my opinion.
Just being in it feels very artificial, like you feel like
you're just around a bunch of robots, where I think other
games have done a better job of at least somewhat tricking you
into thinking that you're in like a living world.
But that's not what Cyberpunk is, you know?
(47:36):
It's it's, it's, it's good at other stuff and it's extremely
good at some other things and that does make me excited for
the sequel. So I will say my mind has
changed enough on even though I'm still kind of negative on
Cyberpunk 2077, when I finished it the most recent time, it got
me really emotional. I really enjoyed it and it
genuinely like hurt my heart to know that like we didn't get
(47:59):
likely all of the DLC and all the features and all of the
stuff that they originally intended.
I, I, I, I hurt for the game it was meant to be that you can see
clues of you can see bits and pieces that it was almost this
generational game that every, that they kind of hyped it up to
be. And instead it came out and it's
just, it's a, it's just a nice game.
(48:19):
It's a, it's a good RPG. So the wave begins for the
sequel. And then finally we have this
strange mind's eye game, the strange situation where so that
mine's eye is this game that just looks like a a game engine
tech demo to me. And the developer has like
(48:40):
thrown out accusations that they're being like attacked by
bots in it. And definitely like alluding to
it being Rockstar who is attacking.
I think some of the the people there are former Rockstar devs.
So they seem to think that GrandTheft Auto is coming after their
weird tech demo game. And apparently this game, it's
from the same studio that has like an engine where you can
(49:03):
like make your own games in it. And at one point, this was
supposed to be one of the games you can make of that engine.
But now they've said that Mind'sEye, the game will have a like
creator tool that isn't the existing engine tool.
It's super strange. This is a really weird game.
I feel like it's only getting attention because of all this
drama, because the actual footage we've seen, it looks
(49:26):
like it would have been really cool at like the end of the PS3
generation, but like it. But it definitely looks like one
of those old demos from back then, just with more modern
graphics. So I I don't really know what's
going on with that and I think we're just going to have to wait
to find out. All right, so we have the for
(49:46):
content updates. It's just summer game Fest is
coming up and the following upcoming week, I do plan to go
streaming it as well as the Xboxshowcase on the following Sunday
over on my Twitch channel. So that's just look up Von
Diesel over on Twitch and you can find me there.
Follow if you haven't already. So we can hang out and watch
those shows together. And and that's kind of all I
(50:08):
have for updates right now. It's I'm both busy and there's
not a lot going on and that is where I'm going to wrap it up.
Thank you for listening to this episode.
Subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast app, leave a
review on Spotify or iTunes, andsubscribe to the Von Diesel
YouTube channel to get all of myvideos, including this podcast.
(50:29):
Thank you to everyone who supports as a YouTube member and
or a Twitch subscriber. If you're 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
YouTube, let me know my Discord or hit me up on social media at
Von Diesel or at the Bonfire. That is all I have for this
(50:50):
episode of the Bonfire Gaming Podcast, so until next time.
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