April 4, 2025 • 29 mins
In this episode of Digital Coffee Gaming Brew, host Fred Deister delves into various topics beginning with updates on Marvel Rivals, including the upcoming Season 2 starting April 11th with new heroes and changes. He also discusses the much-anticipated release of Titanfall 3, rumored for a 2025 reveal. Fred highlights the dominance of AMD in the CPU market, holding nearly 80% market share as of March 2025, contrasted with Intel's decline. Significant layoffs in the gaming industry and CEOs' accountability are addressed, alongside Amazon Prime’s new requirement for GPU purchases due to poor availability. Tariffs on China and their impact on gaming hardware prices are also examined, predicting a potential rise in costs. Finally, Fred emphasizes the importance of modding communities for game longevity and development talent.
🔑 Key Themes
- Marvel Rivals updates
- Titanfall 3 possibility
- AMD CPU market share
- Video game industry layoffs
- Amazon Prime GPU requirement
- Tariffs impacting gaming hardware
- Importance of modding in games
🌟 3 Fun Facts
- Marvel Rivals Speeding Up Hero Releases: From season three, Marvel Rivals is planning to release a new hero every month, amounting to 12 new heroes each year—an exciting pace for fans eager to see more characters from the Marvel Universe.
- AMD Dominates CPU Market: AMD has taken a significant lead in the CPU market, holding nearly 80% of the market share as of March 2025, thanks to the popularity of their Ryzen chips.
- Titanfall 3 Rumors: There’s hope for Titanfall fans, as rumors suggest Titanfall 3 could be revealed at the Game Awards in December 2025, providing a glimmer of anticipation for those who loved Titanfall 2.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Brett (00:00):
And welcome to a new episode of Digital Coffee Gaming Brew,
and I'm your host, Fred Deister.
If you please spread with this podcastand all your favorite podcasting
apps, you have a five star review.
Really just help with the rankingsand let me know how I'm doing.
But this week we're gonna be talkingabout Marvel rivals, maybe Titan
Fall 3:00 AM D, and the CPU marketand how it's going with that.
(00:25):
Also, talking about just the.
Terrible unreliability of thegaming industry and keeping a job.
It's difficult in that specific way.
And Amazon Prime and video cards,it looks like they are requiring
prime subscriptions for this one.
(00:45):
And then the main thing I'mgonna talk about is the tariffs
and how this is actually.
Going to impact us the most becauseof how gaming, hardware peripherals
are actually created and made.
So should be interesting.
So let's get on with the show.
I.
(01:11):
Mm, that's good.
All right, so first off is.
Oh, Marvel rival.
Season two is coming to April 11th,and this is gonna be including
a new map called Hellfire Gala.
Two new heroes andvarious team up changes.
The first new hero is Emma Frost,who will function as a vanguard
(01:31):
with telepathic abilities.
The second hero is Altron is describedas a career vil who will serve as the
main antagonist in the Hellfire gala.
Season Tron will be the lasthero to follow the game's
current three month schedule.
Starting with season three, a newhero will be released every month.
(01:53):
This change will result in additionaladdition of 12 heroes per year, which
could be a record for live service games.
Basically, we're gonna be getting a lotof new heroes a lot quicker because.
Why not?
Marvel has a ton of heroesthat they could borrow from.
Eventually, this is probably gonnago back down, but for right now, they
(02:13):
just have a ton of things they can do.
They can push it out pretty quicklysince they know what they're doing
and know what they want out of this.
So it should be interesting to seehow well this actually plays out.
But if you're looking for new heroesand something new from Marvel rivals,
season two should be interesting.
It's coming out in a.
(02:34):
About a week-ish.
Yeah, about a week.
It's coming out.
So be prepared for that.
Alright, moving on with.
Titan fall three seems to benot actually dead and could
be released somewhat soon-ish.
It looks like it could berevealed in the game of War 2025,
(02:56):
scheduled for December, 2025.
So this year you're gonna have a littlebit of a longer wait for this one.
So we've heard a lot about this.
Is that.
Apex Legends start off as basicallyTitan Fall three in some type of way,
or they were actually creating TitanFall three didn't actually happen.
They created Apex instead.
(03:17):
And then Apex Legends became apopular game for a while until no
one really wanted to play it anymore.
So now they're figuringhow to actually make.
Titan Fall three again, becauseeverybody loved Titan Fall two and
still being played for the most part.
I still like playing itevery once in a while.
It's a very fun game.
(03:38):
It has a lot of really great movements.
It was very slick.
It was very optimized, which is rarefor games these days to be actually
optimized except for Schedule one.
Schedule one seems to be one of thefew games very optimized for an early
access game, so we are seeing a lot of.
Interesting things happening.
I think specifically because I thinkdeep down, respon wanted to create Titan
(04:03):
Fall three, but EA screwed him over withTitan Fall two, putting him in a really
weird release schedule where it wasbetween Battlefield and Call of Duty,
and that kind of really hurt the games.
Growth because you had two really big FPSblockbusters and then you wedged in the
middle, which I didn't really understand.
(04:23):
You could have waited several monthsand then actually made it a lot
better that way, but teach zone,so hopefully this is actually true,
but take it with a grain of salt.
I'm not holding my breath, butI'm hoping it's actually true.
We're all hoping for this.
All right.
Moving on to a MD has nearly 80% ofthe CPU market based on Amazon US
(04:48):
sales statistics from March, 2025.
The Ryzen 7 9800 X 3D was the bestsellingCPU with over 6,000 units shipped
and it's projected to reach close to7,000 units shipped, probably not as
much anymore because of the tariffs.
We will see about that one.
The RYZEN 5 5500 is the second bestselling CPU with over 3000 units sold
(05:13):
AMD's total CPU sales amounted toapproximately 31,600 units or 78.74
market share whileIntel sales were around.
7,500 units are 21.6
market share, a MD generated about 7.8
million in revenue compared to Intel's 1.5
(05:34):
million.
I.
The only Intel CPU in the top 10bestselling list were the core I 5
12, 400 F, and the core I 7 12, 700 Kwith a ladder selling over 1000 units.
The core I seven 12, 12,700 Kis priced at an average of $234
(06:01):
while the core I five, 12,400.
F is $33 cheaper and competeswith the Ryzen 5 5600 x.
So this is a big thing because beforeit was always Intel that was top dog.
They made the best CPUs.
A MD was the.
(06:22):
Ugly, awkward second child of theCPU market, and nobody really ever
bought from them until Ryzen came out.
Ryzen changed it all for a MD andreally hurt Intel because Intel
has not really been able to matchwhat a MD has done for since 2016.
So it's almost been a decade wherewe've seen Intel not do very well.
(06:48):
And this is not a good thing.
Hey, I like a MD.
I have a MD CPUs.
I still prefer a MD CPUs, especiallyin the Ryzen just because it's
just really, it's a reallygood chip for the price of it.
So I, and they allow for.
Longer, or you could use yourmotherboard longer for the current
(07:09):
chip set, with Intel, always you hadto upgrade to the motherboard to get
the new CPU and a MD was like AIMfour I think lasted for several years.
AM five, which is the currentone's gonna last for several years.
So that was a big thing.
A MD has always been good withmulti-core type of functionalities
and intel has always been good atthe single core functionalities.
(07:32):
But that has slowlychanged a bit for a MD.
They've gotten better at that, but stillIntel's a little bit better about it.
The other issue is that Intel chips have.
At least the recent ones have been runningvery hot and just not as good as it could
be, and the gaming performance hasn't beenthere for it, and a MD has been better
(07:53):
for that, especially with the 9,800 X 3D.
Even with the issues with asra,rock motherboards and burning 'em
out, they still are the betteroption specifically for that.
So we'll see what happens.
I just.
Just Intel has not gottenit together at all.
(08:17):
They've been really hurting becausethey just haven't gotten together.
They haven't figured it out yet.
They're beaten terribly by tsm, MCs,foundries, and their business model,
and that's not helping as well.
What I, unfortunately, my C is eventuallyprobably a sale to a MD for Intel.
(08:38):
Because I just don't see them workingout or a sale to somebody else because
I don't see it working out at all.
Now, I don't think a sale to Chinawill actually ever happen, 'cause I
think the US will actually block that.
But I do think an A MD Intel salecould actually be on the horizon, only
because just by last month's stats,they are woefully behind in sales.
(09:02):
That's not good.
Their GPUs aren't that great.
They're interesting and they have reallygood AV one encoding and decoding.
But they lag behind everything else.
Their frame generation or their DLSSalternative is pretty good in general.
FSR four is, I think it's gonna changethat again, but they are the third child
(09:24):
in all of this GPU market and they'rejust not doing very well in that area too.
So it's really hard to understandhow Intel's actually doing.
Because even prior to this a MD excuseme, apple was looking to use Intel
to make their silicon based chips andthey just weren't really set up for it.
(09:47):
And so they went with TSMCand the rest is history.
They're doing really well with it.
TMC is pro is second to none.
They're the number onecompany to make CPU chips.
Bare none.
It's just, it's no contest right now.
So it's interesting to seehow this is all playing out.
(10:10):
And what does Intel need to doto actually change this future
because it's not looking very good.
All on all honesty and Terrace mighthelp a little bit with it if they can
actually build and scale their business.
But right now it's justnot looking very good.
And.
I foresee looking at the sale to a MD.
(10:30):
It has been rumored before that thismight happen through the government, but
nothing's actually transpired from that.
But again, we'll see.
I.
All right.
Moving on to the CEO of ArrowheadGame Studios, the developer of
Held Divers two, was talking aboutthe in 2024, where the video game
industry ex experience significantjob losses due to massive layoffs.
(10:53):
Continuing to 2025 with a recentlayoffs of Ed Os Montreal and
striking Distance Studios.
He public called out for accountabilitiesfrom CEOs regarding the decision
leading to mass layoffs in the industry.
He stated that approximately 30,000 to50,000 jobs have been lost over two years.
If it's close to 50 K, that's25,000 jobs lost in two years,
(11:19):
or, yeah, 25,000 each year.
So 25,001 year.
25,000 another year.
The issue with a lot of thisis happening is because of the
games that they're producing or.
Putting out, they just aren't good.
They're not optimized very well.
They're a specific target audiencethat doesn't really like the
games any anyways, and they arenegating their actual customers.
(11:45):
So perfect example isDragon Age, the veil guard.
Gr.
The Dragon H Series is a great series.
Everybody loves the series, or DragonAge Origins is still the best one of
the series, but Dragon H two is okay.
And Dragon H acquisition was stillgood, but still in the same vein, dragon
Age, the Veil Guard came out and it waslecturing to us about gender I identity.
(12:09):
It was, had a character creator with topsurgery scars made no sense and it just.
The writing wasn't there.
I'm still playing it throughPlayStation 'cause it's free.
But that's the only way I would play this.
And I still don't likereally want to play it.
That's the funny part.
I'd rather play othergames like Schedule One.
(12:30):
I don't know why, butthat game is just fun.
And so they forgot to bring the fun in it.
Now, dragons Vil Guard is prettyoptimized for a BioWare game.
But with all the other issues thathappened, it just didn't do very well.
And I still foresee that Assassin's Creedshadows will still not sell very well
since we still have not gotten the numbersand everybody's oh, it actually sold well,
(12:54):
it's like you haven't given us numbers.
Esof has not given us numbers and theirstink is, their stock is still tanking.
So my issue is when you keep on preachingto us a very specific ideology that is
basically regarded or hated on for whatit does, you will not sell very well.
(13:19):
The problem is that this has been going onfor a few years and it's been catching up.
I think Covid, we werelike, okay, whatever.
We need to play some games'cause we're locked in here.
And then we're like, okay,we can go out anywhere.
I'm tired of this.
AA or quadruple A fromUbisoft isn't great.
Skull and Bones was awful.
(13:40):
I didn't ever played it, butit just didn't look great.
Star Wars was at the time, not great.
It's better, but still I don't, whydidn't you just allow me to create
my own protagonist or character?
That would've actually been a lot betterand probably sold a lot better too.
So you had a ugly femalecharacter, and then you had
Dragon Age, the veil card, which.
(14:00):
Was lecturing us on gender I identity,which no one really wanted or cared
about, and a very lackluster writing.
Then you had Assassin's Creed Shadowsthat largely used, very controversial
history Plus with the non-binaryof some historical characters that
were never non-binary 'cause thatdidn't exist, plus gay sex scenes.
(14:23):
And it's really?
Do you guys not wanna sell anymore games?
And this is why Ubisoft.
Went from a publisher to an IPholding company instead because
they saw the writing on the walland it's not very good for them.
So there is a reason why it's been tankingso hard is because most of these games
that probably should have sold well,didn't because they don't understand
(14:47):
how to sell to their customers anymore.
It's all the activists that are in there.
They, you need to fire all of them.
Get the people that actually want towork actually like their, the customers
actually as one of the customers.
And that's why you willsell successfully again.
But this will keep happeningunless you stop with it.
(15:12):
All right.
Moving on to why the poor availabilityof GPUs have basically made a.
Amazon require prime subscription toactually order the GPUs because it's
so hard to get the A MD or the Nvidia.
It's even worse for the Nvidia GPUs.
(15:33):
Plus with the tariffs.
I don't think you're gonna see a lotof people jumping to spend $4,000
on a 50 90, since it seems to beuptick to $4,000 plus with the other.
Quote, unquote, budget friendly GPUs thatare inching towards a thousand dollars.
It doesn't look very good, and I thinkyou're gonna see a lot of hurt from this.
(15:58):
I understand tariffs area hard thing to swallow.
I'm not either for or against this.
I am watching this, which we'll be talkinga little bit about that later on, but
right now you're gonna have to actuallyhave an Amazon subscription to actually.
Amazon Prime subscriptionssay to actually get this now.
(16:18):
I think this is a smart move becausea lot of scalpers have been scalping
this and then inflating it to insaneprices, which probably won't seem
any insane anymore because of thetariffs going on with China, and
specifically it's to hurt China.
So this is why it's gonna be badfor gaming peripherals and gaming
hardware in general, because majorityof the stuff is being made in China.
(16:41):
It's being developed in Taiwanand then pushed over to China
to actually create in China.
And this is going to have a hugeripple effect in the gaming peripheral
slash hardware sector in general.
But
we'll see what happens.
And specifically what is goingto transpire from this, but
(17:03):
it doesn't look good at all.
It kinda looks it's not gonna be great.
Moving on to the modding scene andwhy gaming developers and publishers
should not negate the modding scene.
Now, some games have done a greatjob of modding and some games
(17:25):
have just not carried anymore.
I'm looking at you Battlefield.
Battlefield Two had a great modding scene.
It's why the game was played for so longis because the moders kept it going, and
that's how we got developers for squad.
They did the project Reality, desertCombat, or just Project Reality Modding,
(17:47):
which basically made it modern gamewith more vehicles, more weapons, a
little bit more realistic in a way.
And then what that led was to squad.
We also had.
Other types of modding goingon with Bethesda and Paradox.
Skyrim specifically had the longest shelflife because of modding and of a lot of
(18:11):
other developers have come out from that.
I think Adam Fall camefrom the Bethesda scene.
We also have.
Minecraft has a huge modding scene.
This is why the game isstill as popular as it is.
Maybe not the most popular gameanymore that's Fortnite, but still
a very popular game in general.
And so Splash Damage came about fromthe Quake era when the Quake engine
(18:35):
was like one of the most popularengines, and now it's not anymore.
Id dropped the ball on that one andEpic kind of took the reins on that.
But that modeling scene from.
Splash damage led to creating Quakethree Fortress, which eventually.
Allowed them to work with its software.
(18:55):
I think they made Quake Wars.
They made a Bethesda game called Brink.
They made a few other things,but the, it wouldn't have been
possible without the Moding scene.
And the Moding scene allows youto see your talent and hire the
top talent from the modding scene,because that's basically your best
way of saying, look, we've got somereally great talent that we could
actually bring aboard our developers.
(19:15):
And this doesn't second guess if they'llactually be a good employee or not.
Culture wise, they, they may notbe, but from a work standpoint, they
will probably help your business andyour game go along while, so this
is why modding is very important tobringing up the next generation of
developers, bringing more talent intothe business, and just in general
(19:38):
helping you sell more of your product.
But unfortunately, a lot of developershave stopped doing this because.
I don't know reasons.
They don't really givereally good reasons.
They're like, oh dice was like,oh our frostbit engine's really
difficult, so we didn't wanna domodding because it's really difficult.
I'm like, so you don't think that peoplecan figure it out and be smart enough
(20:02):
to figure it out better than you, ordo you just not want to do it because
it'll be very difficult for you to do it.
That's the biggest problem.
Right now that I see is just that issue.
So right now, this is where we're at.
I think more mod, I thinkmodeling should come back.
(20:22):
I think it's a great tool and Ithink that they're sorely lacking in
looking at fresh talent through this.
All right, moving on to.
Liberation Day, which happened April2nd of this month 'cause it is April.
(20:43):
And Donald Trump, to his word,has said that he will place
tariffs on countries that havereciprocal tariffs and that he did.
And this specifically was to hurt.
China, it wasn't to hurtanybody else but China.
The reason being is because China hasbeen flooding our markets and taking
(21:04):
our manufacturing jobs away from us,which makes us less self-reliant.
And so we could never really go to warwith China because if we go to war with
China and make all our stuff that weactually need, we would be screwed.
It's a very terrible way of doing things.
Since we haven't had actual like abig war in a very long time, I really
(21:26):
would call him the Iraqi war in theAfghanistan war, a quote unquote war.
But we hadn't actually had areally big war in a very long time.
It made sense.
It was cheap rocks you could actuallymake and people got rich off of this.
The issue is that gaming alsodid this, especially the hardware
and the peripheral side of it.
(21:46):
'cause I used to work for some of them.
And what would happen isthat they would develop.
The technology in Taiwan, ship it off formass production in China and then they'd
ship it to the United States to be sold,and it worked very well for everybody.
They make cheap products,cheaper products, some for a
(22:09):
reasonable margins, get rich.
Now the problem is that Vietnam andChina and Vietnam is very screwed
right now with all these deals.
They're very screwed.
They have a massive tariff on them,and so what's going to happen is
that a lot of the peripherals aregoing to go up in price right now
(22:30):
until they figure out where to goto actually make it more affordable.
Now, everybody says tariffs is a tax and.
Yes and no.
Tariffs are a way of changing behavior.
So if you do a tariff saying, I don'twant you to do this, but do this
instead, people will generally do it.
They might huff and puff and get allmad, but they will generally do it.
(22:53):
The issue is it's a gamble too, becauseyou may not actually get those jobs.
You could and you could not.
It really depends on.
Just the factors and just theincentives that you have for
building in America, quote unquote.
So like Corsair Razor Logitech,all them could actually figure
(23:15):
out a way to manufacture here.
Aada, like a bunch of 'em.
T SMCs already had dealswith the Trump administration
for creating foundries here.
Intel already has a foundryin here, but looking at the
other ones, we are seeing that.
It's gonna be a short term hurt.
(23:36):
Long term, not really sure.
Can't dictate the future, but at least inthe short term, we are gonna be hurting.
Pricess are gonna go up.
Nintendo Switch two might go up too.
'cause they actually withheld thepre-orders because they just don't know.
About the price.
Right now, the priceI think is around 500.
It could be up to $600, so thatcould actually hurt even more.
(24:00):
And so when you actually bringprices up, people consider it.
They're like do I really need this?
Can I just use this switch in general?
Do I really need to switch towith its mouse controls and I
have to buy a new micro SD expresscard, and that's more expensive.
And and then all my games, ifI wanna upgrade 'em, I can.
Some of 'em will be free.
But the other ones, like theZelda games will not be free.
(24:23):
It's a paid upgrade.
Like you have to factor all thesethings, is the Mario Kart world or
whatever it's called, really worth it.
And so these are all thefactors that go into it.
Like keyboards.
Like keyboards are great, but.
They can last a really long time,and maybe some of 'em are cool,
but it's do I really need tospend an average right now is 200.
(24:45):
Before the tariffs, it couldbe 300 to $400 now because
they're not made here anymore.
And business are gonna be like, lookit, can we absorb the cost or not?
Can we move production here?
Can we ramp it up eventuallyproduction so we can actually.
Bring this cost down and so weare not actually having to inflate
(25:08):
prices and then kill our business.
That's gonna be the main thing.
Products being made betterhere for the most part, yes.
I remember having a Phillips soundsystem, has a CD player and everything.
That thing lasted 16 years andprobably would've lasted longer
if I didn't get rid of it.
That thing was built like a beast.
I thought it was gonna die afew times and it never died.
(25:30):
It kept going and I think that wasthe last one that was made in the us.
So yes, generally speaking, not makingit in China makes better products,
especially in the United States.
The other issue is that China's gonnabe in a world of heart 'cause most of
their population don't, can't afford.
(25:52):
Of this stuff.
And so they've been trying to goto a more consumer type of economy
where their actual citizens buytheir stuff, but it's not working
because the communists are like, howmuch power do we give the citizens?
And they don't wanna give 'em too much.
And so you have this issue wherethey just flood markets destroy the
internal economy or the local economy,manufacturing jobs and everything else.
(26:14):
Take that over.
And that's how they get rich.
And so what Trump's trying to dois look it, we're done with this.
It's gonna be here or nowhere.
So this is where we're at.
Prices are going to get more expensive.
I'm not sugarcoating this whatsoever.
They're going to get more expensive now.
How much more expensiveit could be a 20% uplift.
(26:37):
It could be even more.
I.
But I would say about conservatively10 to 20% price increases on
things is probably pretty goodconservative estimate right now.
So just be prepared If you'retrying to build a new system.
I wait a year or two,
or I piecemealed upgrades, maybeyou're like, maybe I don't need a new
(27:03):
pc.
Case, maybe I don't needthe top of the line ram.
Maybe I don't need this.
Maybe I could figure out how to do apiecemeal, maybe I just buy an A MD
motherboard and CPU and then I canjust upgrade the CPU when I need to.
These are the things we'regonna have to figure out.
GPUs are screwed because they'realready expensive enough and
they're gonna be more expensive.
(27:24):
I probably see the 50 90going to about 4K, maybe 5K.
The 50 82,000 to 2,500, the 90 70xt, probably a thousand dollars to 50
70 ti probably a thousand to $1,500.
It is gonna get expensive quick,and the third parties are all
(27:48):
making their stuff in China.
That's gonna get expensive quick untilthey move their production somewhere else.
Or Vietnam makes a dealwith the United States.
Or something else.
But right now stockmarket's gonna be hurting.
If v's gonna be hurting,a B'S gonna be hurting.
Intel's gonna be hurting.
(28:09):
They're all gonna be hurting becausethat's how investors look at it.
And uncertainty is not their best friend.
So we're gonna be hurting a little bit.
We'll be forever.
I don't know.
I can't predict the future.
I want you to be aware of these tariffsare not specifically to harm us.
(28:30):
They're specifically to harm us.
A very specific country that haslooked upon as very aggressive
and wanting world domination.
So we wanna stop that, obviously,
but we'll see what actuallyhappens in the future.
Can't tell the future.
All I know is the short term,there's going to be a price pain.
(28:53):
And you're gonna fill it or not buy it.
Anyways.
What do you think?
You think I am crazy and that thisis not gonna happen, or that I'm
a Trump loving person because Ihaven't been railing against him.
Whatever.
I don't know.
Leave the comments in below.
But thank you for listening toDigital Coffee Gaming Brewer.
(29:14):
Really do appreciate it.
Please subscribe to thispodcast only favorite podcast,
podcasting app, five Star Review.
We'll just help with the rankings.
Let me know how I'm doing.
And join me next week is to talk aboutwhat's going on in the gaming industry.
All right, guys.
Game on.
Get those games that youactually have fun with.
Maybe not buy that new keyboard for alittle bit and see you next week later.
And welcome to a new episode of Digital Coffee Gaming Brew,
and I'm your host, Fred Deister.
If you please spread with this podcastand all your favorite podcasting
apps, you have a five star review.
Really just help with the rankingsand let me know how I'm doing.
But this week we're gonna be talkingabout Marvel rivals, maybe Titan
Fall 3:00 AM D, and the CPU marketand how it's going with that.
(00:25):
Also, talking about just the.
Terrible unreliability of thegaming industry and keeping a job.
It's difficult in that specific way.
And Amazon Prime and video cards,it looks like they are requiring
prime subscriptions for this one.
(00:45):
And then the main thing I'mgonna talk about is the tariffs
and how this is actually.
Going to impact us the most becauseof how gaming, hardware peripherals
are actually created and made.
So should be interesting.
So let's get on with the show.
I.
(01:11):
Mm, that's good.
All right, so first off is.
Oh, Marvel rival.
Season two is coming to April 11th,and this is gonna be including
a new map called Hellfire Gala.
Two new heroes andvarious team up changes.
The first new hero is Emma Frost,who will function as a vanguard
(01:31):
with telepathic abilities.
The second hero is Altron is describedas a career vil who will serve as the
main antagonist in the Hellfire gala.
Season Tron will be the lasthero to follow the game's
current three month schedule.
Starting with season three, a newhero will be released every month.
(01:53):
This change will result in additionaladdition of 12 heroes per year, which
could be a record for live service games.
Basically, we're gonna be getting a lotof new heroes a lot quicker because.
Why not?
Marvel has a ton of heroesthat they could borrow from.
Eventually, this is probably gonnago back down, but for right now, they
(02:13):
just have a ton of things they can do.
They can push it out pretty quicklysince they know what they're doing
and know what they want out of this.
So it should be interesting to seehow well this actually plays out.
But if you're looking for new heroesand something new from Marvel rivals,
season two should be interesting.
It's coming out in a.
(02:34):
About a week-ish.
Yeah, about a week.
It's coming out.
So be prepared for that.
Alright, moving on with.
Titan fall three seems to benot actually dead and could
be released somewhat soon-ish.
It looks like it could berevealed in the game of War 2025,
(02:56):
scheduled for December, 2025.
So this year you're gonna have a littlebit of a longer wait for this one.
So we've heard a lot about this.
Is that.
Apex Legends start off as basicallyTitan Fall three in some type of way,
or they were actually creating TitanFall three didn't actually happen.
They created Apex instead.
(03:17):
And then Apex Legends became apopular game for a while until no
one really wanted to play it anymore.
So now they're figuringhow to actually make.
Titan Fall three again, becauseeverybody loved Titan Fall two and
still being played for the most part.
I still like playing itevery once in a while.
It's a very fun game.
(03:38):
It has a lot of really great movements.
It was very slick.
It was very optimized, which is rarefor games these days to be actually
optimized except for Schedule one.
Schedule one seems to be one of thefew games very optimized for an early
access game, so we are seeing a lot of.
Interesting things happening.
I think specifically because I thinkdeep down, respon wanted to create Titan
(04:03):
Fall three, but EA screwed him over withTitan Fall two, putting him in a really
weird release schedule where it wasbetween Battlefield and Call of Duty,
and that kind of really hurt the games.
Growth because you had two really big FPSblockbusters and then you wedged in the
middle, which I didn't really understand.
(04:23):
You could have waited several monthsand then actually made it a lot
better that way, but teach zone,so hopefully this is actually true,
but take it with a grain of salt.
I'm not holding my breath, butI'm hoping it's actually true.
We're all hoping for this.
All right.
Moving on to a MD has nearly 80% ofthe CPU market based on Amazon US
(04:48):
sales statistics from March, 2025.
The Ryzen 7 9800 X 3D was the bestsellingCPU with over 6,000 units shipped
and it's projected to reach close to7,000 units shipped, probably not as
much anymore because of the tariffs.
We will see about that one.
The RYZEN 5 5500 is the second bestselling CPU with over 3000 units sold
(05:13):
AMD's total CPU sales amounted toapproximately 31,600 units or 78.74
market share whileIntel sales were around.
7,500 units are 21.6
market share, a MD generated about 7.8
million in revenue compared to Intel's 1.5
(05:34):
million.
I.
The only Intel CPU in the top 10bestselling list were the core I 5
12, 400 F, and the core I 7 12, 700 Kwith a ladder selling over 1000 units.
The core I seven 12, 12,700 Kis priced at an average of $234
(06:01):
while the core I five, 12,400.
F is $33 cheaper and competeswith the Ryzen 5 5600 x.
So this is a big thing because beforeit was always Intel that was top dog.
They made the best CPUs.
A MD was the.
(06:22):
Ugly, awkward second child of theCPU market, and nobody really ever
bought from them until Ryzen came out.
Ryzen changed it all for a MD andreally hurt Intel because Intel
has not really been able to matchwhat a MD has done for since 2016.
So it's almost been a decade wherewe've seen Intel not do very well.
(06:48):
And this is not a good thing.
Hey, I like a MD.
I have a MD CPUs.
I still prefer a MD CPUs, especiallyin the Ryzen just because it's
just really, it's a reallygood chip for the price of it.
So I, and they allow for.
Longer, or you could use yourmotherboard longer for the current
(07:09):
chip set, with Intel, always you hadto upgrade to the motherboard to get
the new CPU and a MD was like AIMfour I think lasted for several years.
AM five, which is the currentone's gonna last for several years.
So that was a big thing.
A MD has always been good withmulti-core type of functionalities
and intel has always been good atthe single core functionalities.
(07:32):
But that has slowlychanged a bit for a MD.
They've gotten better at that, but stillIntel's a little bit better about it.
The other issue is that Intel chips have.
At least the recent ones have been runningvery hot and just not as good as it could
be, and the gaming performance hasn't beenthere for it, and a MD has been better
(07:53):
for that, especially with the 9,800 X 3D.
Even with the issues with asra,rock motherboards and burning 'em
out, they still are the betteroption specifically for that.
So we'll see what happens.
I just.
Just Intel has not gottenit together at all.
(08:17):
They've been really hurting becausethey just haven't gotten together.
They haven't figured it out yet.
They're beaten terribly by tsm, MCs,foundries, and their business model,
and that's not helping as well.
What I, unfortunately, my C is eventuallyprobably a sale to a MD for Intel.
(08:38):
Because I just don't see them workingout or a sale to somebody else because
I don't see it working out at all.
Now, I don't think a sale to Chinawill actually ever happen, 'cause I
think the US will actually block that.
But I do think an A MD Intel salecould actually be on the horizon, only
because just by last month's stats,they are woefully behind in sales.
(09:02):
That's not good.
Their GPUs aren't that great.
They're interesting and they have reallygood AV one encoding and decoding.
But they lag behind everything else.
Their frame generation or their DLSSalternative is pretty good in general.
FSR four is, I think it's gonna changethat again, but they are the third child
(09:24):
in all of this GPU market and they'rejust not doing very well in that area too.
So it's really hard to understandhow Intel's actually doing.
Because even prior to this a MD excuseme, apple was looking to use Intel
to make their silicon based chips andthey just weren't really set up for it.
(09:47):
And so they went with TSMCand the rest is history.
They're doing really well with it.
TMC is pro is second to none.
They're the number onecompany to make CPU chips.
Bare none.
It's just, it's no contest right now.
So it's interesting to seehow this is all playing out.
(10:10):
And what does Intel need to doto actually change this future
because it's not looking very good.
All on all honesty and Terrace mighthelp a little bit with it if they can
actually build and scale their business.
But right now it's justnot looking very good.
And.
I foresee looking at the sale to a MD.
(10:30):
It has been rumored before that thismight happen through the government, but
nothing's actually transpired from that.
But again, we'll see.
I.
All right.
Moving on to the CEO of ArrowheadGame Studios, the developer of
Held Divers two, was talking aboutthe in 2024, where the video game
industry ex experience significantjob losses due to massive layoffs.
(10:53):
Continuing to 2025 with a recentlayoffs of Ed Os Montreal and
striking Distance Studios.
He public called out for accountabilitiesfrom CEOs regarding the decision
leading to mass layoffs in the industry.
He stated that approximately 30,000 to50,000 jobs have been lost over two years.
If it's close to 50 K, that's25,000 jobs lost in two years,
(11:19):
or, yeah, 25,000 each year.
So 25,001 year.
25,000 another year.
The issue with a lot of thisis happening is because of the
games that they're producing or.
Putting out, they just aren't good.
They're not optimized very well.
They're a specific target audiencethat doesn't really like the
games any anyways, and they arenegating their actual customers.
(11:45):
So perfect example isDragon Age, the veil guard.
Gr.
The Dragon H Series is a great series.
Everybody loves the series, or DragonAge Origins is still the best one of
the series, but Dragon H two is okay.
And Dragon H acquisition was stillgood, but still in the same vein, dragon
Age, the Veil Guard came out and it waslecturing to us about gender I identity.
(12:09):
It was, had a character creator with topsurgery scars made no sense and it just.
The writing wasn't there.
I'm still playing it throughPlayStation 'cause it's free.
But that's the only way I would play this.
And I still don't likereally want to play it.
That's the funny part.
I'd rather play othergames like Schedule One.
(12:30):
I don't know why, butthat game is just fun.
And so they forgot to bring the fun in it.
Now, dragons Vil Guard is prettyoptimized for a BioWare game.
But with all the other issues thathappened, it just didn't do very well.
And I still foresee that Assassin's Creedshadows will still not sell very well
since we still have not gotten the numbersand everybody's oh, it actually sold well,
(12:54):
it's like you haven't given us numbers.
Esof has not given us numbers and theirstink is, their stock is still tanking.
So my issue is when you keep on preachingto us a very specific ideology that is
basically regarded or hated on for whatit does, you will not sell very well.
(13:19):
The problem is that this has been going onfor a few years and it's been catching up.
I think Covid, we werelike, okay, whatever.
We need to play some games'cause we're locked in here.
And then we're like, okay,we can go out anywhere.
I'm tired of this.
AA or quadruple A fromUbisoft isn't great.
Skull and Bones was awful.
(13:40):
I didn't ever played it, butit just didn't look great.
Star Wars was at the time, not great.
It's better, but still I don't, whydidn't you just allow me to create
my own protagonist or character?
That would've actually been a lot betterand probably sold a lot better too.
So you had a ugly femalecharacter, and then you had
Dragon Age, the veil card, which.
(14:00):
Was lecturing us on gender I identity,which no one really wanted or cared
about, and a very lackluster writing.
Then you had Assassin's Creed Shadowsthat largely used, very controversial
history Plus with the non-binaryof some historical characters that
were never non-binary 'cause thatdidn't exist, plus gay sex scenes.
(14:23):
And it's really?
Do you guys not wanna sell anymore games?
And this is why Ubisoft.
Went from a publisher to an IPholding company instead because
they saw the writing on the walland it's not very good for them.
So there is a reason why it's been tankingso hard is because most of these games
that probably should have sold well,didn't because they don't understand
(14:47):
how to sell to their customers anymore.
It's all the activists that are in there.
They, you need to fire all of them.
Get the people that actually want towork actually like their, the customers
actually as one of the customers.
And that's why you willsell successfully again.
But this will keep happeningunless you stop with it.
(15:12):
All right.
Moving on to why the poor availabilityof GPUs have basically made a.
Amazon require prime subscription toactually order the GPUs because it's
so hard to get the A MD or the Nvidia.
It's even worse for the Nvidia GPUs.
(15:33):
Plus with the tariffs.
I don't think you're gonna see a lotof people jumping to spend $4,000
on a 50 90, since it seems to beuptick to $4,000 plus with the other.
Quote, unquote, budget friendly GPUs thatare inching towards a thousand dollars.
It doesn't look very good, and I thinkyou're gonna see a lot of hurt from this.
(15:58):
I understand tariffs area hard thing to swallow.
I'm not either for or against this.
I am watching this, which we'll be talkinga little bit about that later on, but
right now you're gonna have to actuallyhave an Amazon subscription to actually.
Amazon Prime subscriptionssay to actually get this now.
(16:18):
I think this is a smart move becausea lot of scalpers have been scalping
this and then inflating it to insaneprices, which probably won't seem
any insane anymore because of thetariffs going on with China, and
specifically it's to hurt China.
So this is why it's gonna be badfor gaming peripherals and gaming
hardware in general, because majorityof the stuff is being made in China.
(16:41):
It's being developed in Taiwanand then pushed over to China
to actually create in China.
And this is going to have a hugeripple effect in the gaming peripheral
slash hardware sector in general.
But
we'll see what happens.
And specifically what is goingto transpire from this, but
(17:03):
it doesn't look good at all.
It kinda looks it's not gonna be great.
Moving on to the modding scene andwhy gaming developers and publishers
should not negate the modding scene.
Now, some games have done a greatjob of modding and some games
(17:25):
have just not carried anymore.
I'm looking at you Battlefield.
Battlefield Two had a great modding scene.
It's why the game was played for so longis because the moders kept it going, and
that's how we got developers for squad.
They did the project Reality, desertCombat, or just Project Reality Modding,
(17:47):
which basically made it modern gamewith more vehicles, more weapons, a
little bit more realistic in a way.
And then what that led was to squad.
We also had.
Other types of modding goingon with Bethesda and Paradox.
Skyrim specifically had the longest shelflife because of modding and of a lot of
(18:11):
other developers have come out from that.
I think Adam Fall camefrom the Bethesda scene.
We also have.
Minecraft has a huge modding scene.
This is why the game isstill as popular as it is.
Maybe not the most popular gameanymore that's Fortnite, but still
a very popular game in general.
And so Splash Damage came about fromthe Quake era when the Quake engine
(18:35):
was like one of the most popularengines, and now it's not anymore.
Id dropped the ball on that one andEpic kind of took the reins on that.
But that modeling scene from.
Splash damage led to creating Quakethree Fortress, which eventually.
Allowed them to work with its software.
(18:55):
I think they made Quake Wars.
They made a Bethesda game called Brink.
They made a few other things,but the, it wouldn't have been
possible without the Moding scene.
And the Moding scene allows youto see your talent and hire the
top talent from the modding scene,because that's basically your best
way of saying, look, we've got somereally great talent that we could
actually bring aboard our developers.
(19:15):
And this doesn't second guess if they'llactually be a good employee or not.
Culture wise, they, they may notbe, but from a work standpoint, they
will probably help your business andyour game go along while, so this
is why modding is very important tobringing up the next generation of
developers, bringing more talent intothe business, and just in general
(19:38):
helping you sell more of your product.
But unfortunately, a lot of developershave stopped doing this because.
I don't know reasons.
They don't really givereally good reasons.
They're like, oh dice was like,oh our frostbit engine's really
difficult, so we didn't wanna domodding because it's really difficult.
I'm like, so you don't think that peoplecan figure it out and be smart enough
(20:02):
to figure it out better than you, ordo you just not want to do it because
it'll be very difficult for you to do it.
That's the biggest problem.
Right now that I see is just that issue.
So right now, this is where we're at.
I think more mod, I thinkmodeling should come back.
(20:22):
I think it's a great tool and Ithink that they're sorely lacking in
looking at fresh talent through this.
All right, moving on to.
Liberation Day, which happened April2nd of this month 'cause it is April.
(20:43):
And Donald Trump, to his word,has said that he will place
tariffs on countries that havereciprocal tariffs and that he did.
And this specifically was to hurt.
China, it wasn't to hurtanybody else but China.
The reason being is because China hasbeen flooding our markets and taking
(21:04):
our manufacturing jobs away from us,which makes us less self-reliant.
And so we could never really go to warwith China because if we go to war with
China and make all our stuff that weactually need, we would be screwed.
It's a very terrible way of doing things.
Since we haven't had actual like abig war in a very long time, I really
(21:26):
would call him the Iraqi war in theAfghanistan war, a quote unquote war.
But we hadn't actually had areally big war in a very long time.
It made sense.
It was cheap rocks you could actuallymake and people got rich off of this.
The issue is that gaming alsodid this, especially the hardware
and the peripheral side of it.
(21:46):
'cause I used to work for some of them.
And what would happen isthat they would develop.
The technology in Taiwan, ship it off formass production in China and then they'd
ship it to the United States to be sold,and it worked very well for everybody.
They make cheap products,cheaper products, some for a
(22:09):
reasonable margins, get rich.
Now the problem is that Vietnam andChina and Vietnam is very screwed
right now with all these deals.
They're very screwed.
They have a massive tariff on them,and so what's going to happen is
that a lot of the peripherals aregoing to go up in price right now
(22:30):
until they figure out where to goto actually make it more affordable.
Now, everybody says tariffs is a tax and.
Yes and no.
Tariffs are a way of changing behavior.
So if you do a tariff saying, I don'twant you to do this, but do this
instead, people will generally do it.
They might huff and puff and get allmad, but they will generally do it.
(22:53):
The issue is it's a gamble too, becauseyou may not actually get those jobs.
You could and you could not.
It really depends on.
Just the factors and just theincentives that you have for
building in America, quote unquote.
So like Corsair Razor Logitech,all them could actually figure
(23:15):
out a way to manufacture here.
Aada, like a bunch of 'em.
T SMCs already had dealswith the Trump administration
for creating foundries here.
Intel already has a foundryin here, but looking at the
other ones, we are seeing that.
It's gonna be a short term hurt.
(23:36):
Long term, not really sure.
Can't dictate the future, but at least inthe short term, we are gonna be hurting.
Pricess are gonna go up.
Nintendo Switch two might go up too.
'cause they actually withheld thepre-orders because they just don't know.
About the price.
Right now, the priceI think is around 500.
It could be up to $600, so thatcould actually hurt even more.
(24:00):
And so when you actually bringprices up, people consider it.
They're like do I really need this?
Can I just use this switch in general?
Do I really need to switch towith its mouse controls and I
have to buy a new micro SD expresscard, and that's more expensive.
And and then all my games, ifI wanna upgrade 'em, I can.
Some of 'em will be free.
But the other ones, like theZelda games will not be free.
(24:23):
It's a paid upgrade.
Like you have to factor all thesethings, is the Mario Kart world or
whatever it's called, really worth it.
And so these are all thefactors that go into it.
Like keyboards.
Like keyboards are great, but.
They can last a really long time,and maybe some of 'em are cool,
but it's do I really need tospend an average right now is 200.
(24:45):
Before the tariffs, it couldbe 300 to $400 now because
they're not made here anymore.
And business are gonna be like, lookit, can we absorb the cost or not?
Can we move production here?
Can we ramp it up eventuallyproduction so we can actually.
Bring this cost down and so weare not actually having to inflate
(25:08):
prices and then kill our business.
That's gonna be the main thing.
Products being made betterhere for the most part, yes.
I remember having a Phillips soundsystem, has a CD player and everything.
That thing lasted 16 years andprobably would've lasted longer
if I didn't get rid of it.
That thing was built like a beast.
I thought it was gonna die afew times and it never died.
(25:30):
It kept going and I think that wasthe last one that was made in the us.
So yes, generally speaking, not makingit in China makes better products,
especially in the United States.
The other issue is that China's gonnabe in a world of heart 'cause most of
their population don't, can't afford.
(25:52):
Of this stuff.
And so they've been trying to goto a more consumer type of economy
where their actual citizens buytheir stuff, but it's not working
because the communists are like, howmuch power do we give the citizens?
And they don't wanna give 'em too much.
And so you have this issue wherethey just flood markets destroy the
internal economy or the local economy,manufacturing jobs and everything else.
(26:14):
Take that over.
And that's how they get rich.
And so what Trump's trying to dois look it, we're done with this.
It's gonna be here or nowhere.
So this is where we're at.
Prices are going to get more expensive.
I'm not sugarcoating this whatsoever.
They're going to get more expensive now.
How much more expensiveit could be a 20% uplift.
(26:37):
It could be even more.
I.
But I would say about conservatively10 to 20% price increases on
things is probably pretty goodconservative estimate right now.
So just be prepared If you'retrying to build a new system.
I wait a year or two,
or I piecemealed upgrades, maybeyou're like, maybe I don't need a new
(27:03):
pc.
Case, maybe I don't needthe top of the line ram.
Maybe I don't need this.
Maybe I could figure out how to do apiecemeal, maybe I just buy an A MD
motherboard and CPU and then I canjust upgrade the CPU when I need to.
These are the things we'regonna have to figure out.
GPUs are screwed because they'realready expensive enough and
they're gonna be more expensive.
(27:24):
I probably see the 50 90going to about 4K, maybe 5K.
The 50 82,000 to 2,500, the 90 70xt, probably a thousand dollars to 50
70 ti probably a thousand to $1,500.
It is gonna get expensive quick,and the third parties are all
(27:48):
making their stuff in China.
That's gonna get expensive quick untilthey move their production somewhere else.
Or Vietnam makes a dealwith the United States.
Or something else.
But right now stockmarket's gonna be hurting.
If v's gonna be hurting,a B'S gonna be hurting.
Intel's gonna be hurting.
(28:09):
They're all gonna be hurting becausethat's how investors look at it.
And uncertainty is not their best friend.
So we're gonna be hurting a little bit.
We'll be forever.
I don't know.
I can't predict the future.
I want you to be aware of these tariffsare not specifically to harm us.
(28:30):
They're specifically to harm us.
A very specific country that haslooked upon as very aggressive
and wanting world domination.
So we wanna stop that, obviously,
but we'll see what actuallyhappens in the future.
Can't tell the future.
All I know is the short term,there's going to be a price pain.
(28:53):
And you're gonna fill it or not buy it.
Anyways.
What do you think?
You think I am crazy and that thisis not gonna happen, or that I'm
a Trump loving person because Ihaven't been railing against him.
Whatever.
I don't know.
Leave the comments in below.
But thank you for listening toDigital Coffee Gaming Brewer.
(29:14):
Really do appreciate it.
Please subscribe to thispodcast only favorite podcast,
podcasting app, five Star Review.
We'll just help with the rankings.
Let me know how I'm doing.
And join me next week is to talk aboutwhat's going on in the gaming industry.
All right, guys.
Game on.
Get those games that youactually have fun with.
Maybe not buy that new keyboard for alittle bit and see you next week later.
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