Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is Awesome! PlayStation & EA Have Layoffs # 387

Episode Transcript
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(00:13):
You are listening to Video Games tothe Max. Hello, and welcome to
another edition of Video Games to theMax. I'm your host, Shaunagommery in
here with me as usual, misterMark Morrison. Marcus got some stuff going
on at his apartment today, sohe does not have the camera on,

(00:33):
but we are going to be talkingabout a lot of stuff today. It
is felt like you basically get theduality of the game industry in this entire
week that has happened, layoffs fromgiants in the industry in both Sony for
PlayStation studios EA laying people off,and you get smaller studios laying people off

(00:56):
like Deck nine is super massive,and you get big announcements like Saber Interactive
and Toys for Bob going independent orprivate, and then you get a huge
game releasing in the middle of allthat, Final Fantasy seven Rebirth, all
coming out in the same week.Mark actually got a review code so he

(01:19):
got to play it a day beforeeverybody else, and then I got,
you know, I got the releasedates, so he's significantly farther than I
am. But we're going to talkabout the game today as well, and
all the other stuff I just mentioned, all right, So just really quickly
here, let's get housekeeping stuff outof the way. Do appreciate you.

(01:42):
Whether you watch live you wish youcan do on all of our platforms,
and that's W two network, onYouTube, Facebook, Twitter, all of
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on demand on YouTube W two overas well if you want to do it

(02:06):
there, and you can also listenon podcasts. It does come out a
little bit later on podcast because I'mediting the audio. So just be aware
that you know, YouTube, itcomes out immediately, podcasts it might even
be the next day, depending onhow busy I am with work. So
that being said, make sure yousubscribe on YouTube because you don't get just

(02:30):
what we do here. If youlike entertainment, if you like movies,
we have a whole crew Rowers forbroadcasting, Mark Rillis and all his crew.
They do a great job reviewing movies, TV shows all that. They
just did their Oscar Contenders breakdown.I'm sure they're going to have Dune too
review on Monday or Tuesday, sogo look out for that if you subscribed

(02:50):
to the channel, you'll h thatreview out there. And then Taught to
Kekey covers everything that has to dowith anime on the new stuff. So
if you like keeping up with theseason animes, they do that and they
do a great job of that.Not Taught the game, Sorry, they'll
talk with Cafe. They do agreat job with that over there. So
that being said, with the promotingthat is over with, let's go ahead

(03:15):
and talk about that. Even thoughI just want to give a shout out
again thank you to Hayes Madson forjoining me for the special kind of interviewed
impressions discussion of fon Fitness and Rebirth. He did a review for Inverse which
you can go check out. It'sin the description as well. Also shout
out to Andrew over there at theatter Haven who did a great review for

(03:36):
them. But thank you again toHayes for being on with me and and
so, you know, just wantedto give that a shout before we start.
But let's go ahead and start withthe the cool stuff, the the
non sad stuff that involves gaming thisweek, because I feel like almost everything
that involves gaming this week is superb. Few things it's kind of sad.

(04:00):
So let's discuss the game here.Like I said, Mark got to got
a review copies, so he goton the twenty eight, so he's had
a whole day and the change toget a lot further than I have.
I've had to work in between andall that stuff. So Mark, I
mean, how far are you now? I'm in chapter four. I just

(04:26):
like met Ufi. Basically there's areally annoying boss site with her or not
with her, but she's like growingsome some big underwater snake thing. Yeah,
I like it. I imagine youdo too. I'm glad to hear
you like it. Yes, I'mway less further than you are. I
literally just got to the because andI don't know if I'm gonna be able

(04:48):
to play a little bit between nowand twelve when I get off at all.
But literally, I've just been havingso much fun between exploring when you
get out of calm, going aroundfinding things I already found, like the
first big sword that you get.And yes, uh thank you at GBN

(05:12):
for noticing that our thumbnail is Tifa. Of course she's She's the best girl
of the entire offensey seven, Soyou gotta promote that, but we'll talk
about that in a second. Likewhat what do you think about I guess
it's overall thoughts about the game,like how it makes different from remake And
do you think this makes this,I guess a better game than the remake

(05:36):
just having all of this in here, Yeah, because it's if you think
about remake was a very linear game, like it did have a few spots
where it was kind of opened upa little, but it was buying,
buy and large. You know,just get to the next area, you
know, keep keep doing that,and this one like you barely even touched

(05:57):
me. I mean it's just likeyou go to the main area, or
you go to like the main questa bit to eventually, but it's like,
oh, in the grasslands, there'sliterally like twenty five things to do.
Go do that if you want instead. Some of them are all great.
I don't like the combat trials much, especially like the you got like
three objectives like kill the enemy withina time limit, staggering enemy, and

(06:18):
pressure and enemy and the pressure inthe enemy is kind of the annoying one.
Everything else is good, Like Ilike the Summon Materia little mini game.
I like the objectives like just like, yeah, I like, like,
I like everything else pretty much.I think they're climbing the tower thing
is kind of funny. Yeah,I definitely got the ees on that one.

(06:42):
I think it looks really good.I saw someone bitching about how like
she was like is there this onTwitter last night? He was like,
oh, it looks it looks worsethan an remake. You know, are
you high? Like what do youknow? What are you talking about?
Yeah? You know. The thingis, I think people are not understanding
that there's a bigger not that theydon't understand, it's is they're not like

(07:03):
factoring in there's a bigger scale here, like yeah, like look at how
much more stuff has to render,Like well, remake was just like you
know, think of like the slumsand you know remake. It's like,
yeah, it's it might look somewhata little more high fidelity or like a
little better, but that's because youhave to render a very small area like

(07:26):
this, Like it's not like it'snot like Dragon's dog mark. It's like,
oh, if you can see youcan get to it. But this
is a lot bigger of an openworld than remake. What, So,
Yeah, it's good. I wouldrather take the hit on visual fidelity and
have a lot more stuff to dorather than looking slightly better and having less
to do. Yeah, I mean, I guess I get their point,

(07:48):
right, And if you like toplay, and especially because it's such a
combat heavy game, the performance modeissues are an issue, right. It
is a problem if you want toplay in that mode and then you feel
like you can't because it dips sometimeseven and and you know there's blurriness and

(08:11):
stuff like that, like you know, yeah, she was complaining about like,
oh the shoulders like look a littlemore blocking cut scenes and then say
who cares, Like, yeah,right, because it focuses on that more.
But I didn't think it was abig deal. Uh. So far,
it looks fantastic period, just fromall the stuff that you're you're able

(08:33):
to see in that game, justand and the way the characters are.
I mean, they only looked greatfor a PS four game with remake,
but then add them in for whatis now a for sure a PS five
game, they look even better.And that's just fantastic to me. The
only thing I don't like visually,and I talked to you about this was

(08:56):
like I know this they did alittle of this in Remake, but it
was a lot more noticeable in thisgame is when they have like they can
do cut scenes where like you're lookingat through Cloud's eyes at people, or
it's like first person in like Earthor keitha get like super up closed and
it's like, this looks really weird, Like they I just went through the
first time they do that, whichthey've shouldn't in the cut scenes too,

(09:18):
where they go up to the thething that tells you basically you can go
run a choco bow and then theyask Cloud like, oh, can we
really God? Yeah, yeah,he forgets even closer to you, and
I don't have a problem with itbecause they're they are really trying to give
you the whole. Hey, thesethese three have a thing with each other,

(09:39):
and we want you to feel thatfrom Cloud's perspective, Like as if
you're feeling it right, doesn't botherme necessarily, Like I get what they're
going for. Remake was a hornygame. This game is a horny game
even more when you're in the othergame. So like they they are really
from the beginning telling you, Imean, before you get out to calm,

(10:00):
Barrett has that thing about Arithmetics wereon a date and Bears like,
I think that's the last one fora while, because, uh, you
know, we're just about to getserious here, and then they kind of
pan to each one of them goinghuhuh, like what you know, and
it gets to that pretty quick.What do you think of the card game?
Oh? Man, I love thecard game. Queen's Blood is so

(10:24):
freaking great. You'll learn not tolove it eventually, because I'm at a
point where like I don't have anylike I'm facing off against enemies are like
way stronger than I am, orhave like way better decks, and it's
like I don't have newly not buyany of the card pass I do I
have? I have them all theseoh I can get. I also like

(10:45):
wait for the guide. I'm like, oh, it's the most optimal deck
or whatever, you know, likesomething like that. They have different starter
decks as well, like that I'veI noticed I saw because I was looking
at you know, videos for tipsor whatever. Because the I beat the
first two, the crying guy andthen the person that like blocks himselves in
a in a circle, and thenwhen I got to the third one that

(11:07):
has to like the ventilacus thing Ilost like ten times in a row.
I did the first three fine,and then the quest later on where you
got to recover it's in calm.Actually you had to recover this like Bartender's
deck or card. I did thatone fine, but everything else since then

(11:28):
I just get like demolished on Like, yeah, that's what's happening to me.
Was I had to like really keepstudying every time I was playing because
they they have a strategy. Youjust have to like figure it out eventually.
And I'm like, oh, she'sjust being really aggressive at trying to
take all the board away from me, so you kind of have to be

(11:48):
aggressive back. And then once Ifigured it out, I beat him on
the next try. But I haveto go by what was that? I
did go by one of the packsbecause well, yeah I got to boost.
But it's like, oh, theyhave a card where it's like,
oh, it's only one pip,but it has five attack power, and
it's like my one car. Ihave a bunch of like one card or

(12:09):
one pips that have like two attackpower. So it's like, do you
I wonder who's gonna win this one? You know? Yeah? I mean,
and that's yeah, that's the thingtoo, like you have to play
around with the different ones that kindof like add something, add an attack
power to the other one, andit's it's really it's really fun and I
can definitely see them making it itsown game at some point. Yeah,

(12:33):
especially like that Marvel Snap game.Yeah, it's a lot like Marble Slap.
There's it could it could be likeGwent for them where they could make
their own game. I was watchingthe VGC like Roundtable review and Alex Donaldson
from RPG site in VG twenty fourto seven, he he mentioned that they
could release an entire game that's justTriple Triad Queen's Blood and I forgot the

(13:00):
one that's that's like, yeah,Tetra Master. I think it is.
They could release all three of thosetogether for like thirty or forty bucks,
and I bet people would buy that, like crazy, Yeah, because Queen's
Went a Triple Tride are just sogood that it's it's amazing. They said
that they were working they worked onthis by itself for a year, just
Queens Bud, and it shows thatthey definitely did work on that. So

(13:24):
you've actually actually experienced some of themini games and things like that. How
do you enjoy them or I haven'tdone too many of them. I did
before Condoor one. That's kind offun. I'm on the third. I
just got like the third stuff ofthat. I like that, like each
region has you have to have whatthey call proto relic. But it's not

(13:45):
always the same mini game. Likethe first one is basically like just it's
basic, but it's just like battling. I forget the guy's name that there's
a goon of a group of goonsor like you know, there's like really
goofy like you know, group ofguys. But like the next one is
like the is doing that fort condorit's like tower defense type of thing,

(14:07):
and that's something I'll say, Oh, it's like that has that that's the
same thing as like, oh thisis a lot more involved than like one
might think, you know, becausethe first first time I did it just
fine, But the second round it'slike, oh, there are actual other
units that can do and there areunit limits, so I just can't keep
spawning elite you know guys, becauseI only got three of them. Yeah,

(14:28):
that's fun. I like the battlesystem. I don't I don't think
I actually liked the synergy stuff thatmuch though, Oh really, And I
don't like it because like it's predicatedon on you have to like use the
ability stuff of your other party members. So it's like, oh to use
a synergy cloud and Baird have tohave two ATV, well they've had to

(14:50):
do two ATV maneuvers or moves.But the problem is like when you're not
controlling the other characters, they suckand building up their ATV meter. Well,
the system is and this was thesame in remake. The it was
designed for you to constantly switch betweenthem so that you do both up the
ATV and then they have the shortcutsso that you don't have to be constantly

(15:16):
you know, pressing X and doingthe coming I know that, Yeah,
yeah, I mean no, Ijust meant like building the actual just met
her up though, so they canuse a TV stuff is like slow,
you know, It's just like Idon't know what it is. I don't
I remember liking her and remake,but I don't like playing as Earth in
this one much just because like hermain attack is incredibly weak and I thought

(15:39):
the magic to her but you stillagree with that either. She does have
a very good chronobuilt chrono slash ora chrono field something or other that's really
help, like ward shift thing aswell. She like changes teleports. Yeah,
yeah, I agree. She isn'tmy favorite to use because you know,
the game does have times where itforces you to use a party Yeah.

(16:03):
Oh yeah, fun fun and levelthree and Red thirteen is is so
much fun to use though, LikeI love just blocking and then raising up
his vengeance thing and then using thevengeance things. Yeah. See, I
don't block that often. I meanRed their team is actually I like his
I like the vengeance thing with justwith the siphon claw thing. I just

(16:26):
don't block super often. I mainlydodge instead. But I still think Barrett
is the best one in that gameto play as simply because there are a
lot of UH airborne enemies in thatgame and he's the only one you can
deal with them. Well. Theyhave the the one thing I will say,
I like the synergy abilities, theones that you have to use with

(16:49):
where you hold down are one.Those are great because you can you know
when you do the folio thing.There's ones that are just like the Sinner.
She like techniques, the dual techlooking yeah, and then the ones
that are the bladies you can dowith anybody, and Tifa has that where
Cloud will like slash in the airand then she'll kick you. Ask there,

(17:11):
and then you can actually like stayairborne more in this game than you
do and remake, which that thatreally sucked the remake where it's like really
Barrett and Earth were the only onesthat could deal with it, whereas they
made it a lot easier for youto be able to deal with the airborne
energy in this game. So yeah, but I still think there it's a

(17:33):
lot better or a lot more handy, just because it can just lay down
fire forever essentially. Oh yeah forsure. And then especially when he does
this like overcharge thing that like obliteratespeople quickly. Yeah, it's it's so
much more fun to do. Idon't think I'm a fan of the folio
system that much simply because like itdoesn't seem there's a lot of fun stuff

(17:53):
to unlock at the moment I'm gogo a little for that thing, and
it's like, well, either onlock centers just off you unlock abilities,
which like it's like, oh youcan use a wind ability without using right,
that's cool. I'd rather use acur ability with us an MP though,
because yeah, I get you,but those are also good because that
way you don't have to sit thereand no no, yeah, yeah,

(18:15):
yeah, have the materia like rightthere when you run into a boss.
So some slight damage increases, likeI got one for Cloud that's like increases
weapon damage by three percent, andit's like cool, Yeah they add in
things like that. That's that's uhnot totally uncommon. I agree with you,
Scott, that's I use triple slasha lot, not not just because

(18:38):
you can go in there with it, but also because usually you're fighting at
least three enemies at once and he'lljust oh yeah, take out a bunch
of health there with that too,so fun with that uh swamp boss and
in that area also oh the yeah, I'm I'm excited for that one.
Uh to see that realized final eventhough yeah, we seated in the trailers

(19:00):
already. But what do you thinkabout have you gotten Ufi yet or no,
she just popped up basically, orI'm still like under june On and
I think I get her when Ihit like top side june On. Yeah,
I can't wait to get to therebecause I've heard the Yufi is amazing

(19:21):
the playoffs. So yeah, Ididn't play Integrated, so you know,
I mean she was. She wasa lot of fun and Integrate, but
the way they take the Integrade stuffand then she fits so well with the
rest of the party that I'm I'mreally excited about getting to play as her
eventually. What do you think about, like, so, how much have
you experienced between doing all the sidestuff as opposed to like the story where

(19:48):
you are I did all I didall the side stuff in the Grasslands.
I probably want to as much inJune on just to kind of I do
kind of want to get the storyrolling a little. They can easily travel
back between you know, areas,so that shouldn't be too big of a
problem. A lot of those timesif it's kind of busy work, I
don't mind. Like I play Assassin'sCreed games, so I'm used to busy

(20:11):
work. Yeah. The thing forme that that has made it like they
just the characters themselves are so wellwritten and so well like you want to
be around them that I want togo exploring just to find the next little,
next little thing, the next littlecachet thing, and see what somebody's

(20:32):
going to say about this or howthey're going to talk to each other,
things like that, like they theyalready just in the things that I've seen
about what's experienced and and you know, don't want to spoil anything for people,
but I just want to be aroundwith those characters as much as possible.
So and that I think helps mitigatethe thing that you are doing a

(20:53):
lot of the side stuff as partof the experience in the game, because
they basically extended a lot of thingsthat take two minutes here, five minutes
here, thirty seconds here and madeit bigger, right, So it feels
like there's a lot of those gameIt's going to be like, all right,
we found ways to kind of makeyou feel like you're experiencing things and

(21:19):
making the character stories deeper, butyou're not really advancing the story that much,
I guess. So that's going tobe interesting as I get further in
the game to see how how thatgoes. The one thing I'll also say
is now that like now that youknow it's going or now that most people
know what goes on in that gameor that story because you know they play

(21:42):
fom Paint to seven or whatever likethe original one, Right, A lot
of stuff in this game makes alot more sense, or you can kind
of pick out like very funny,I would say easter eggs. Yeah,
they have Easter eggs, even fromother parts of the compilation. Like I
finished reading the Traces of Two passbook and there's a lot of stuff from

(22:06):
there that they already have kind ofmade note of, or if you read
that, you kind of get littleEaster eggs there, Like they really just
said, Yo, we're gonna takeall of this stuff and we're gonna find
ways to put it into the storyand make you feel like it is.
It really does feel like there's amultiverse thing going on. And if you

(22:26):
read a bunch of stuff or youyou know you've at least watched recaps of
all the other Final Fantasy seven things, Yeah, there's a lot more in
it for you. I did rewatchlike Avan Children a couple of days ago,
and man, it's crazy to thinkthat we thought that was like gonna
be the best it was ever gonnalook and it looks like you go back

(22:49):
and look at the PS three graphicswhen they did that demo, and it
looks just like that, and it'slike, Wow, we've actually got to
the point where this looks bad comparedto what they look like and remake and
rebirth. You know, don't worry. Just wait twenty more years, gonna
get a lot of Fantasy seven remakeagain. I'm hoping they're remaking other five

(23:11):
fantasies by that point. Anything elseyou wanna, I guess say about No,
it's really good. Uh you know, I'm not like that far ahead
or anything like I've played like atthe game or anything. I think there's
like fourteen chapters. So after this, I'm probably gonna go shopping and then

(23:32):
come back and then play for thenext eight hours. I wish, man,
I wish I would have been ableto have time off for this.
I can't wait till I get toSaturday at five. I'm done working until
Monday. I'm just gonna go freakinggame on the game for as long as
possible. Uh So why one?Yeah? Yeah? No? Gone?

(23:52):
Oh, I was gonna say.I thought Scott brought up a really good
point. I love the fact thatthey don't sit there and have them talk
to each other over and over saythe same thing just because they feel like
they need to feel the day,they need to fill the dead air.
They just let the music and youwalking and you hearing stuff, and then

(24:12):
when your enemies just appear or whatever, it makes the when they do got
those moments to speak feel much betterthan hearing aras say the same thing five
times or whatever. They did agreat job with that too. Go ahead,
what were you gonna say? No, I was gonna say, I
actually gave this buddy. I gota friend of mine, a local friend.

(24:34):
I gave this game to next weekyesterday because he ordered the Collector's Edition,
the three and fifty dollars one,and he didn't get it. He's
not getting until Monday, and hewas pissed. Oh yeah. There's a
lot of people that got the theDeluxe edition also, yeah, and they're
not getting it till tuesday. Orthere's some people that they got it early

(25:00):
somehow. Like the shipping on thisstuff is so weird sometimes. Yeah,
like his copy it hasn't been updatedsince like twenty fifth Wow, It's like,
okay, cool, thanks, Buthe did get to start playing in
and stuff or yeah, and heuh, oh yeah, Well I was
going to say I picked up myThoughts edition yesterday. Also I kept that

(25:23):
pre order. Yeah, on thegame. But it's definitely a game I'm
not looking to. I'm so gladI'm not in your position. This is
the one, the one thing Idid not even want to bother Adam to
ask for a code, because Iwas like, if we get it at
all, I don't want to dealwith that pressure of feeling like I have

(25:44):
to hurry up through the story,like I want to experience stuff like you
know. Hayes was telling me thathe basically mainlined the thing and he finished
it in thirty five hours, andI was like, oh man, I
don't really feel like I want torushtrom fourteen hours in. I'm only chapter
four. Yeah, exactly. There'slike I've played I think the thing says

(26:04):
nine hours, and I'm where I'mat, like at the Chokabow Stables,
because I've just been wanting to explorelike all of Calm that I could found
every freaking chest I've gone around.I eventually got to the point where I
was like, you know what,I could probably do a lot more exploring
faster with the Choka Bowl, soI'm gonna stop walking around, but still,
like, you know, I justwanted to explore in that that that

(26:27):
area, so I can imagine whenwhen it gets to like gold Saucer or
other places that have more for youto do there, it's gonna be even
Yeah easy, I'm looking forward togold Saucer and they h forget the name
of the coast to Del Soul orthe fun that place is called. Yeah,
I guess it has something some puzzleor some card puzzle stuff in there.

(26:48):
I've heard go Gaga is U isabsolutely a nightmare to navigate, so
let's see what. Yeah, thechapter three are basically gonna been mine Metrominia.
Yeah, and like it. It'snot annoying to like navigate, but
it's like some areas in it arelike really dark for some reason, at
least on my TV, so Iwas like, I can't barely see what's

(27:11):
going on. No, that wasan issue with Remake too, with my
other TV. I have an oletnow so I don't have that issue,
but with my TV they used tosee my TV. I did have that
problem with Remake where it was timeswhere it was like really dark and I
had to go withjust the brightness onthe TV right so I could see what
I was doing. So yeaheah,it does have that issue sometimes, but

(27:33):
listen, I don't think we needto tell anybody that's a Final Fantasy seventh
fan or a found Fantasy fan.In general, you're probably already playing this
game. You're like loving this game. If you're like me or Mark,
you're probably sitting I'm at work,sitting here thinking about wishing I could be
playing the game instead of being atwork. So and I can literally touched

(27:55):
my PS five. So I can'timagine how that's for people that they have
a thing they have to actually goto the office. No, I'll touch
I find him briefly when I wentto my friend's house yesterday to give him
the game. The two funny thingsis I got this was my first time
in his house. Really Yeah,opened his door and he had a closed
door on the right side and likehis couch and this on the left.

(28:15):
I sat down and I heard Iheard kind of a loud snort from the
closed door, and I said tohim, as a joke, I was
like, you either have a pigin there or dog, because kind of
found like that that loud. Andhe was like, oh, no,
I have a pig. And Iwas like what, And he opened his
door. He was a sucking pigin there. And it wasn't like some
hot like pig, Like this thingwas like three hundred pounds you know too,

(28:37):
you know. I was like whoa, okay, and that's definitely a
pet there, you know. Yeah, And then went upstairs and he had
like he has his own like YouTubechannel. Well he shares it with a
friend. I think it's mainly hisfriends actually first, but they do like
gaming trips and stuff. And likehe showed me his game room and it
was like really cool, like youprobably would have liked it. It told

(29:02):
you to take a picture so wecan put it in here later. Okay.
Cool. But he has a bunchof Halo stuff. He has a
big, fun of fancy collection.That's awesome. Yeah, and he's like
the one person who agrees with methat final Fantay six game is underwhelming.
Better you're not like listen when you'renot necessarily the only person there. This

(29:26):
has been a battle ever since thatgame came out, and then of course
now with this game, all Isee is people being like, oh,
this is why sixteen sucked and blahblah blah. And it's like I don't
think we need to go to meanone game to go prop up the other
one they both can exist and bethere and sixteens DALC I'm sure is going
to be great hopefully. So yeah, we still got that coming here,

(29:49):
that's yea. But yeah, I'mexcited to keep playing more. Randy's been
telling me he's I think he's inthe methro of minds too, So we're
probably we're gonna have a spoiler castfor sure. I'm gonna try to see
when get Hayes and uh Scott andand even Andrew on to talk about all
that, because I'm sure when weget to that part of talking about what

(30:11):
are they gonna do and leading upto the third game, it's gonna be
interesting. Do you think that youknow, we to the story they have
left? Do you think they couldpossibly get this out fast? The third
went out faster than the four yearsbecause there's not like a ton left,
I don't think. So. I'msure they'll I think will probably be like

(30:33):
remade, pardon the fine, orlike just you know, put back in
the next game, like you knowthe car much? How big are they
gonna make it? Right? Arethey gonna let you explore everything again?
Like that's everything? But I thinkthey have a new areas of Gutai for
example. Oh no, definitely they'llhave well they have to, but I
meant, like, you know,part of seven the original is like going

(30:55):
back and and like getting stuff fromsome of the other places that you went
through. Are they gonna include everythingthat's in this game and then the stuff
they add into that game, orare they gonna section it off again and
just okay, the third one isall of these areas, and that's kind
of it, like I'm gonna beI'm gonna be more like that, but
I think like the two big areaslike June on the Gold or three big

(31:18):
June on the Gold Saucer, anduh, they kind of have to do
Midigar again somewhat. Yeah, Iwas gonna say that, look, but
that'll be like but that'll be acompletely different experience or like, you know,
a whole new environment. Right,Yeah, it's gonna be. I'm
holding out hope that they can maybedo it in three years instead of four.

(31:41):
But they're also gonna have to comeup with a bunch of different stuff
as well, right, Like right, there's only so much of the story
that's left. You're gonna have tolike make up a lot of interconnecting things
between. It's gonna they're gonna chuckthe whole ATV combat system and they're just
gonna fight monsters by playing theater rhythm. That would be interesting to say the

(32:02):
least. So all right, Imean, we could probably go on the
whole episode about this game, butnot going to because there is a ton
of news stuff to get to andunfortunately it's not all. Most of it
is very depressing compared to the funand excitingness of talking about this game.

(32:25):
Let's go ahead rip the band aidoff, and most of this week,
aside from the release of Rebirth,is huge layoffs at the at Sony and
PlayStation studios where this game was aPlayStation exclusive. Obviously third party, but

(32:46):
Tony laying off nine hundred people fromacross various studios, including their big ones
Naughty Dog, Insomniac with a suckerPunch as well or No the Gorilla I
think from Horizon. So it's it'samazing to think like Insomniac, who has

(33:07):
been carrying you, aside from NaughtyDog doing remasters and remakes this entire generation,
even they have to have layoffs.It really does show you where this
industry is at. Right now,and with Triple A Gaming is at right
now, Like, what did youthink about when they just kind of just

(33:29):
dropped this out of thin air?I mean they kind of alluded to it
with the with the financial stuff andobviously using that losing that ten billion whatever
it was and in stock doesn't hurt. It doesn't help either, but they
kind of said there was gonna besomething. But nine hundred people, that's
a lot, and just the factthat it just kind of comes out of
nowhere and your big studios too,like any any thought on that with with

(33:52):
where Sony's at. I think forthe let's see, I think for Naughty
Dog it is probably like gonna letthe people go who are making like that
left for debt, not left forgetsorry the last of Us Online thing because
that got canceled. So it's notlike you need that the staff working at
you know, I could see theInsomniac thing. I think, like,

(34:13):
I think it didn't sell like MarvelSpider Man two needed to sell like twelve
million copies to break even or somelike ludicrous number like that. Yeah,
it already sold eleven millions, soyeah, but it's still not quote unquote
profitable. So uh. Any anyand if it is, it's barely right,
you know. I mean that's kindof a longer tail game because you

(34:35):
have to imagine though that Venom supposedVenom DLC or you know, side game,
We're use a ton of assets fromthat thing, so it won't be
They haven't even introduced the new gamePlus mode either yet. That's still coming.
Yeah, so there's gonna be thingsadded to that game to lengthen it.
For sure. I I I wouldsay it sucks. I mean,

(34:58):
obviously it does, but it doesn'tseem kind of as callous or as like
weirdly unemotional as like the Marvel andthe Microsoft stuff a few weeks ago.
The Microsoft stuff. The thing withthat was that had a lot to do
with redundancies and yeah, uh youknow the fact that they merged with Activision

(35:19):
Blizzard, and then it was like, well, you were you were supposed
to make the work environment better,but somehow you didn't because you're fire.
You know, you're letting all thesepeble. But then also it's like,
you know, we talked about youdon't need three people to do the yes
right, could you have re couldyou have put them into some other part
of Activision Blizzard maybe and I'm surethere were people that they did that with,

(35:43):
but you know, we're not there. We don't know. I think
the for me, the issue,the thing that I had an issue with
Obviously it sucks you seeple lost theirjob. Uh. There was Insomniac you
know, posted a something that youknow they were feeling very solemn, very
about this. I saw some postsfrom people that have been in Naughty Dog
for like almost twenty years, andit's such a part of them that they

(36:07):
have. They like literally they don'tknow what to do with themselves right now.
You know, they've been at thatjob so long. It's it's incredible
to think that they were now they'rejust gone or like the Tony Liverpool shut
down, That's exactly what I waswinning to. It's like how much have
they absolutely taken out the between Japanand the UK their studios, like just

(36:31):
it feels like they have almost erasedthose identities from from PlayStation aside from the
Astrobot studio, like a lot ofeverything else is American or you know,
Gorilla I think is what Swedish like. So it's it's crazy, it's crazy
that that's where we're at like ifyou look back at certain years of Sony,

(36:54):
like the UK was huge for PlayStationand like now that's that's literally gone.
That was when Andrew House is stillworking there, you know, like
that's why it's right. No,I'm kidding, but uh I talked then
of Liverpool stuff and like they haven'tmade a game in four years. They've

(37:16):
made a lot of the the likethe accessory stuff, right, like the
eyetolid Yeah those are yeah, yeah, star which is huge and it's time
right, but it's also like,uh, your dog and I think I
think one of the people there theywere making the VR games right as well

(37:37):
well, they said, like aremaking this big VR experience like the Fantasy
thing. Yeah, and it's likehaven't you looked at like rare like for
years they were stuck doing ship withyou know, connect and it's like by
the time, you know, they'veprobably only survived by making cr Thieves,

(37:58):
you know, oh, definitely,yeah they had. I think they would
have. They would have either donewhat Toyster Bob did, which we'll talk
about a little bit, or theywould have you know who knows if Yeah,
well, so I don't get theimpetus to like Okay, Singh Star
is done essentially the icoy like Idon't know if anyone who's a fucking camera
and the PS five right yeah,yeah, because the camera was was part

(38:22):
of having the PSVR one let alone. Also they kind of got included in
some of the bundles that you buywith the with the PS four Yeah yeah.
So yeah, they haven't made agame since twenty nineteen, right,
so it's like you had to eitheryou either should have pivoted to like being

(38:44):
an actual game, you know,making actual games, or there's no or
like you should have done that.Well, I mean, you know,
Sony probably set them on that pathand then it just kept getting increasingly delayed
and things like that. We knewthe Sprite one was having has had issues
at times. They're gonna see reductions, Uh, they're gonna be overall reductions

(39:06):
of various functions across SI in theUK, which again speaks to the whole
how much they have reduced their UKpresence, especially since the change of the
PS three and PS four and thenmoving over to America as well, whether
they kind of have their base now. The Twisted Metal Line service game has

(39:28):
been canceled that would have been interestingto see. I was just gonna say
nothing of value was lost. Hehas the PS five camera. Yeah,
it's just man's It sucks to seethis. And the fact that they canceled
the Twister Metal one but they didn'tcancel the Horizon one. I feel like

(39:49):
they should have. It feels likethey should have canceled both of them.
But I think the HoriZone is furtheralong probably yeah, and they probably see
more of a market for that asopposed to this Karkan. I think,
which, let's face an, onlyMark Car has done well and it's not
a life service thing. I mean, it's just yeah, I don't think
that the having the revival a littlebit with a TV show and wouldn't necessarily

(40:13):
really push that game, right.But that's the thing is you don't know
until it's out, because I don'tthink a lot of people were thinking about
that with Hell Divers Too, andthen it's there. I mean, I
think Hell Divers Too at least hadgood word of mouth and like the previous
game, and it's really fun withfriends, yeah, which helps. That's

(40:37):
the problem. Well, that's thething is Hell Divers Too is fun even
on your own or not on yourown but like it's random people, you
know, and that's so rare inonline games nowadays. Yeah, and they
they said they don't want to havePvP at all, to kind of keep
promoting that about the game as well, to make it fun and just.

(40:57):
And unfortunately, it feels like Sonyis starting to realize this live service push
that they went so aggressive on isstarting to you know, yeah, exactly
it is. And what they announcedtwelve and it feels like we've seen at
least four of them canceled at thispoint. So yeah, it's I wonder

(41:17):
if there's gonna be other ones thatthey cancel quietly or just it gets delayed.
Is Concord gonna wind up coming outthis year the way things are going,
I don't know. Herman Hosts alsohad basically a statement. You know.
A lot of the statement is basicallythey have to reassess with how they
do business now they are making toomuch investments in their their games. But

(41:44):
he says that in order to keepdoing their native driven stories and with the
quality bar they aspired to, theyhave to reevaluate how they operate. And
I guess they have to do thisso that they can because nobody thinks long
term that much anymore. Now it'slike how you can make the next quarter
work for you, and the layoffsdo that very quickly. Unfortunately, that's

(42:07):
yeah, it's it's just sad.Hopefully it doesn't mean that they're gonna I
fear that they're just gonna double downon this and not that they're going to
go the other direction, which is, let's start making smaller games again.
Let's not put these huge budgets intothese games and look at what's happening,

(42:30):
like, look at the indie scene. Look at aside from File Finance and
Rebirth, the game that's been talkedabout the most and aside Hell divers To
and Powward, has been Pilatro Andthat game is it's like a it's a
card game that it's just fun.Yeah, right, But it's not like
this graphics everything that oh my god, we spent gazillion dollars on this.

(42:53):
This is something that yeah, therewas a little bit of hype, but
everybody experienced it is like, ohmy god, I'm addicted to this,
you know. And that's what Sonyneeds to find is let's let's try to
do that but on a smaller scaleand not Okay, Spider Ran three needs
to be five hundred dollars, fivehundred million dollars. Now, you know,
it's like, I'm worried that theyare going to do that because they're

(43:15):
going to see it as Okay,well, now the game is on PC
closer to launch, and we're goingto get extra money there, or you
know, we're going to add inthis thing that that makes it to where
people are going to play it more. And I'm hoping they see the good
things about hell Divers two and notthe oh man, we need to make

(43:37):
that, but have more micro transactionsand have more of other things that people
don't want in the live service stuff. Just yeah, this when you include
this and then also the EA stuff, it just shows you that when the
two one of two of the biggestcompanies that are making a ton of money

(44:00):
on their games are laying off peopleand having issues, it really tells you
the rest of the story with theindustry. Honestly, EA makes so much
money off of all of their liveservice supports stuff, and then they go
and layoff six hundred and seventy peopleand it's incredible. It's incredible. Man,

(44:21):
Like they're about to they're probably goingto be making a ton of money
when that EA College football game comesout, if it's at least decent,
because they haven't released a new onein so long, and man, just
it's sad. It's sad to see. I hope this means that that you
know, EA indie label that theyhave doesn't mean that aside from Joseph fair

(44:45):
stuff, they're's not going to makegames with that anymore. They did say
that they're not going to do muchwith licenses anymore, like licenses that they
have to pay for. So theycanceled the the Respawn FPS game, which
we they just talked about literally andit sucks that we were looking forward to

(45:06):
that, Like can you imagine theRespawn doing a Star Wars FPS game?
That would have been so cool,and then they canceled it. They are
still doing Jedi three because I assumethat it's in some kind of planning stage
at this point. They have alicense, sort of a contracts anything to
make it. Yeah, and youknow, they do still have the Black
Panther and Iron Man game. Thoseare still happening apparently, because I'm you

(45:30):
know, at this point those areprobably far enough along they really can't And
then also you kind of know whatthose are, like, people are either
going to buy them whether or not. They closed Ridgeline Studios, which that
hasn't been around that long and theirCEO left like a few days before that.

(45:51):
It's only been around since twenty twentyone. They were supposed to,
you know, make like a narrative, build battlefield and that you know,
I don't know how that's gonna go. And then just man, it sucks
to see this again where Andrew Wilsonhaving to come out with a statement that
basically says the same thing. Theyhave to reevaluate and decide that they're not

(46:14):
going to do stuff with licenses andwhatever. Right here, here's the problem
with that kind of philosophy. It'slike, okay, we're getting into licensed
game business or you know that thatstuff. What else do they got going
on? Well, they still gottheir sports games that basically anchor everything else
they do. Yeah, but it'ssports, And I say, okay,
but that's I would say eventually that'llbe diminishing returns to an extent because it's

(46:37):
not like one of those games isyou know, it's not like, oh,
FIFA twenty twenty three is that muchbetter than twenty two or something like
right, But I mean they saythe bunch of my not having to pay
the license for FIFA for one.So now they prove that by having the
licenses to just the team, theycan do you a sports FC and do

(46:58):
a ton of money that way.And then also you know you've got yeah
Madden, I'm sure there's that's stilldoing great. And then you have there
are other there are other stuff likeBattlefield I think is the big thing for
them that has really faltered because ithasn't been able to stack up to call
of duty and so it's always seenas a lesser. And then you have

(47:22):
you know, the other things outthere, so Battlefield kind of going down
on them is not not helped atall. Yeah, that's I agree with
you with the A is that Okay, you're gonna make some original I P
outside of doing remakes, which youknow they did the Dead Space one just

(47:43):
came out a couple of days ago. Okay, okay, sorry, no
problem, you told me this isgonna have I figured no, I was
going to say. The other stuffthey have going on, it's like you

(48:04):
know, Mass Effect, which iskind of yeah, that's way far away.
I mean, they still got dragonAge as well, right, red
Wolf. Yeah, and that's youknow, it's not like they got a
ton of original stuff. Yeah,but that's the thing. They have spent
so much a development on dragon Agethat that thing needs to be a hit,
yeah for them, And I mean, by all intensive purpose, there

(48:27):
probably will be. But it's like, it's not like we haven't gotten games
like that in the meantime. AndI wonder if that falters for any reason,
how much of an effect that's goingto have on EA as well.
Let's hope not like we don't wantto see any of this stuff get worse,
but it does show again like wherewe're at where the overabundance of hiring

(48:53):
and everything else during the COVID periodis now starting to kind of falter back
down. I'm going to group allof this stuff together because really a lot
of the stuff that has happened thisweek is kind of like a state of
the It really is sort of likea state of the industry type of thing.
From Embracer Group finally having to somebodydecided to escape from Embracer Group before

(49:19):
they were closed or had most oftheir staff let go. Saber Interactive made
a deal with them for five hundredmillion to go be owned by private investors.
It looks like Gearbox is very closeto being sold off to another company
that's not beneficially said by anyone that'skind of like somebody close to the matter

(49:42):
or whatever. So won'll see ifthat even happens. But uh Rannie Pittsford
also had like a cheeky statement togive to Kataku where he's like, oh,
I'm glad that you guys want tomake up a story about what's going
on with us. But it's goingto be interesting to see what he says
that you should like, even anngood to want. Yeah, and that's
the the crux of it is,Like I think if Brains was starting to

(50:05):
realize, like, Okay, we'regonna have to start doing a bunch more
than just laying off people. AndI'm glad these studios are able to still
exist. Maybe they own I mean, maybe they don't, but it's more
or less the good parts of Embraceror more like well known stuff. Yeah,
Saber said they're still working on thekode toor remake. We'll see how

(50:29):
that goes. That's how we wereother problems as well. Uh I mentioned
Toyster Bob. They reached the dealwith Microsoft and Activision Blizzard to go independent.
I think this one is more aboutthey they already laid off people.
I wonder if there was a situationwhere somebody went up to whoever it is

(50:51):
and they were talking about where whatelse can we cut and maybe Toyster Bob
came up, you know, andI'm not sure if it was philed,
if it was the company themselves thatkind of went up to them and said,
Hey, if all you're going tohave us do is just work on
call of duty or you're just gonnacut us, can we just be our

(51:14):
own studio and still kind of bepartnered with you? And Mike's had a
little better about divesting or like,if a company wants out, they can
they can get out a Bungan well. I mean also, remember they still
have the FTC thing, so thishelps them actually in their FTC case by
saying, look, we just divestedan entire studio. We have no problem

(51:38):
doing what we need to do tomake it known that we are not trying
to be a monopoly or whatever whateverthe FTC is trying to claim that they're
going to ruin the industry. Obviously, there's probably there's probably other nefarious things.
I'm sure they want to be ableto acquire other studios or perhaps another

(52:00):
publisher down the line. So themore they can do to kind of have
things to show to the governing bodiesand say, look what we did the
last time we bought something. Youcan't really go and try to tell us
that we're going to, you know, do bad things for the industry.
So I think on that end,this is good for towards to Bob.

(52:22):
This is good for them to beable to make whatever is that they want
to make. They can still partnerwith that division Blizzard or mark An,
Xbox doesn't. It probably means theywon't be exclusive, or maybe there's some
kind of time exclusivity or something,and then it eventually go to the PlayStation,
which is good for them, rightThey need to be able to have
the game on as many places aspossible. I see it as a good

(52:44):
thing. I know there's a consolewarriors out there that are pissed that Xbox
has allowed one of their better studiosthat came in this deal to go away.
Yeah, like yes, exactly whatI'm saying is I saw some folks
getting upset because I feel the sameway. Toyster Bob was one of the
only reasons I even cared about Microsoftgetting this because I don't care about Call

(53:07):
of Duty. I don't care aboutBlizzard myself. I know you do,
but I don't care about and Blizzardwould have kept doing their thing whether Microsoft
owned them or not. So like, one of the few things that I,
to me was great about this wasthat, oh, toys Bob might
be able to make Banjo Kazui remake, or they could make another crash,

(53:28):
like make a spiral. They coulddo whatever they wasn't doing Call of Duty,
right, they could, but theyweren't because when there was the last
time Microsoft made like a mascot platformer, uh super lucky. Still they tried
with that for a while. Yeah, it had like a DLC and a
sequel and everything that was. Yeah, that was one that was seven years

(53:52):
ago also and it got decent reviews, but I barely remember it. So
no, oh, yeah, Iagree with you. It's not not something
that I think a lot of peoplehave fond memories of it. It is
your spin off or still going upto them and going to you guys,
you're making you're making blinks the TimePaper three and good luck. No.

(54:13):
I mean that's the thing too,right, Like Microsoft, Phil has said
that he doesn't want to force thestudios to make something that they don't care
about. And it's look, thisis good. They're still existing, they
get to keep their employees, theyget to make something. They're already making
a new game. Apparently they're goingto show it off at some point.
Who knows if it's going to bein June at the showcase or it's going
to be further down the line.What do you want to bet it's going

(54:36):
to be a platformer, you know, But that's cool. They need stuff
like that, So I'm this isgood, you know, a good thing
for Saber as well, that they'renot involved with that ridiculous mismanagement that is
Embracer Group. So and then likethe other stuff that's also included in this

(54:57):
is Deck nine, laid off People, super Massive, laidoff ninety people.
Super Massive is the people that makethe foy the original until Dawn, not
the one that's getting remade right nowfor PCNPS five, and even the Star
Citizen legos of people. And thenalso you have the other side of the

(55:21):
coin, which is indies are doingwell. But the problem is the funding
has started to come off the rails, right, the vcs and all these
independent funding people are not putting moneyinto video games because of what's going on,
And so small indies like the SaltSea Chronicle Studio they had the halt

(55:45):
production completely and layoff people because theycouldn't secure funding. And that's the problem
too, is like there's not alot of places outside of the Xbox ID
program or like whenever Sony, theones that Sony are funding, or some
of the bigger ones, like Ican't think of the super giant et cetera,

(56:07):
et cetera that can fund these games, right, so a lot of
these indies are not finding for youknow, develover things like that, Like
you're you're not finding funding for theseSo, like, what's gonna happen?
Are we gonna see a lot morekickstarters start coming up again? You know?
How is indie gaming going to continueon that? I think kickstarters for

(56:30):
some indie games is fine, butI think like the big kickstarters, you
know, the uh, massive massiveChilie, but like the telt Taeltale,
the Tim what's his name? Tim? Like yeah, like that stuff.
No well, I mean, butthat's Xbox now, so well, I

(56:51):
know, but it's not like thatwas before they were Xbox. But I
mean like that, you know,the yeah, five million dollars in kickstarter
money or you know stuff like that, like people have money to give less
in general like that. So it'sgonna be interesting to see how that goes.
It's like it it just shows thatwe're it's in this period right where

(57:12):
we are probably going to have maybenot this year, probably especially after April,
we're gonna start seeing less releases perhapstwenty you know, we're gonna see
a big gap between now and twentytwenty five. Twenty twenty five might have
these big ultra hits. Obviously,everybody's waiting for GTA six, that's the
between the switch to and GTA six. That's gonna be the shot in the

(57:34):
arm for the industry. But it'sa lot of waiting until then, right,
and there's gonna be a lot moreof this. It's gonna be a
lot more layoffs, a lot moreof studios losing people possibly closing I hope
not, but unfortunately this is notthe end. It just sucks that,
man, when we're seeing the bigplaces the big console makers. It feels

(57:58):
like everybody that's not and Son theseJapanese but they are much more American now.
Like, yeah, it feels likeeverybody that's not a Japanese company because
of the the lass that Japan hasobviously help as well, everybody else is
like letting go people, right,And I mean it doesn't mean that Nintendo
couldn't turn around and let go peopleat Nintendo America and inn Toun of Europe

(58:21):
or whatever, but it just itjust shows the differences in labor law things
like that that make it to where, man, we have to, uh,
we have to like let these SeaBowl go because this is how we're
going to push forward. And itsucks that again, just bringing this up,
why do the c suite people,why do the CEOs and all these

(58:43):
other people never have to outside ofI think Deck nine actually did say that
their CEO is taking a pay cutor whatnot. But it's just like it
sucks to see that it's all ofthe employees what have been an intended Yeah
exactly, you wanted did that,but yeah, it's just man, it

(59:05):
it sucks that like these people canmake these bad decisions because there's so many
people that are getting into game,you know, the higher levels of these
studios or these publishers that don't knowhow gaming works, and they think that
this is like any other venture thatthey buy. It's like, oh,
we need you to make the nextFortnite right now, and you're gonna make

(59:29):
it in the year. Like that'snot happening. That takes years, four
or five years. Maybe Fortnite isalready so dominant. Yeah, and it's
all you know, I mean,Disney this infested billion dollars into it or
whatever. So exactly, it's likeDisney said, screws trying to make our

(59:50):
own. We're just gonna freaking givethem money so we can make a deal
and get some profits there. Theyactually did kind of the smart thing.
Even as much as I hate thefact that Epic is getting more help with
stuff because you know whatever, Butlike Amazon figured this out with with their
games, right, Like New Worlddidn't show up in a year. That
took them a while. That thinggot delayed. We didn't. There was

(01:00:13):
time where you thought it wasn't goingto come out at all. I mean,
it wound up being actually pretty good. But then, like you know,
it's kind of just there. Nobody'sreally talking about it. Another thing
too, is even mobile gaming toa certain extent, it's starting to see
decreases like Apple Arcade. There's astory that came out from Mobile gamer Biz

(01:00:34):
that they talked to various people thatApple Arcade is not the thing that it
used to be. Right, they'regetting lower, less and less and less
payments to people that that make thegames. They're cut they're canceling game projects,
they're they're not funding them the waythey used to. There's somebody was
quoted as saying that it feels likethis thing is going to there's an air

(01:00:58):
of death around it. Like there'speople that obviously enjoy it, and they
did, they did good things withApple Arcade. It still sucks that fantation
is stuck on that thing. Ireally want to play that game, but
I'm not buying a freaking iPhone oreyeproduct to play that. But you know
that's the last uh who know SukaGucci Joint by the way, if you
don't know what that is. Butit shows that like even the biggest of

(01:01:23):
the biggest mobile provider in Apple isinvesting less in games right because they know
it takes a long time. They'resupposedly thinking about it now because Netflix has
has made a bigger investment on theirend. But you know a lot of
people say that they're going to dothings and they don't do them. So
when you have a lot more negativebeing talked about in that article than positive,

(01:01:45):
I think again, it just showswhere we're at, where people really
have to make changes with gaming,Make smaller investments, make smaller games,
make games that aren't these huge budgets, go back to doing double a.
This whole thing about everybody going everywhere, thing that's still left to the we

(01:02:07):
don't know yet, because I thinkFinal Fantasy Sevin Rebirth proves that exclusives still
do matter because how many people overhere are owning Look, let's be honest,
there's probably not a if you lookat the big spectrum of things.
Are there people that are only Xboxgamers and that's all they own? I'm
sure there are, But there's alsoa lot of Xbox gamers that also own

(01:02:30):
another console because they know that there'sa lot of stuff that for a while
nothing was that wasn't coming to Xbox, right, But still, how many
people are over here that only ownan Xbox? Going on? Man?
I wish you coulday POMP Final sevenrebirth right now, you know, And
I don't know, we'll see maybemaybe Phil Spencer's right, Maybe he's right
and that let's let's put some stuffon the other console. But right now,

(01:02:52):
exclusives is still part of the game. And with the way kids are
now where, you know, havinga PC might be something they want do.
If you're so many, do youreally want to go put your stuff
day and date there and make itto where Well, now I don't have
to buy a PS five at all, So I don't know, it's you

(01:03:13):
made your choice and go live withit. Yeah. I mean, like,
hey, you got Halo, that'sall you need. Hey, I
mean that is why I bought anXbox. So they did put out the
Halo Infinite just maybe it wasn't thegame that we all wanted it to be.
I mean, it's still going technically, so yeah, I guess right

(01:03:35):
now. It just sucks like theyhad their report come out not too long
ago that they did have DLC stufffor that game, and that's what I
liked about that game was the story, and sucks that they cut all that
and then never made any of itfor that at least, like you said
we talked about last week, theTV show is doing well, So I
don't know how much that's really gettingpeople to play the game, or you

(01:03:55):
think none, because I barely seepeople over talking about TV Like, I
mean, what, uh, thatfeels like TV shows in general now,
I don't know, aside from Showgun, which seems like it's gotten a little
bit of the site guys, Yeah, it feels like that's TV shows in
general for the most part. LikeI mean, I think it's the problem
also, like they're barely promoting Haloas a show or like you know,

(01:04:17):
you know, you don't see likea trending ads for it or anything.
I do see, like I've seenads for it on other streamers, right
like when I'm watching something else,that's one of the commercials that appears.
But it's not like, you know, I'm going to my store and I'm
seeing a Halo r T adverb orwhatever. When you look at all this

(01:04:38):
stuff that that happened this week,I mean, what what comes to your
head? Like, are what areyou worried about? Are concerned about or
anything? I guess it's just prooffor their I guess for the proof that
like it's either going to be TripleA or Indy, like there's nothing nothing
in between. Yeah, I thinkwe just kind of might need to understand
that the meaning of what Triple Ais right now may not be the big

(01:05:00):
budget thing that we see right now, and it maybe straddling that line between
what we used to say was doubleA and now it's the new Triple A.
Because number cannot go up forever,they they have to rain that stuff
in so and it'll it'll be allthe more funny when next month when Square
goes we sold eighteen million copies ofRebirth and also laying on five hundred people.

(01:05:27):
Please don't say that we don't needI mean, that'd be awesome if
they sell eight million copies of Rebirth. I don't think they will, but
it would be cool to see themsell what was it They got to like
four point five million with Remake,so it would be nice to see them
get to like that five million,six million mark or something. It seems

(01:05:49):
like there is really a lot likeI mean, obviously, I think the
thing with Remake was it were inthe pandemic at that point, so the
hype around that was there. Butwe were concerned with other things. Obviously,
I feel like Rebirth has so muchmore hype around it now than Remake

(01:06:09):
did at the time, and thereare really a lot of people that are
just on that. I do seethat. Like the problem Square has with
this game is that a lot ofthe trends that involved Rebirth are people trying
to figure out what the heck rebirthis as far as like how it relates
to Fall Fantasy Sevin uh and doyou need to have remake? Do you

(01:06:30):
have to have played remake? They'lltell you no, but you have to
like it does Gidney sense. Itliterally ends right after it literally starts where
a remake ends, like it's youknow, so, oh this is kind
of well, this is a spoilerfor Rebirth, but it happens extremely early.
It was extremely It was very funnyto me when I realized when you're

(01:06:51):
doing that Knebelheim incident part right,or when Cloud is telling the story,
what happens that's in that demo?He's right, you know, so on
that demo, you and suffer OffI think are like level forty, yes
exactly, And then I realized,oh, wait a minute, you're not
You're not Cloud, Like that's Zach, and I'm like, yeah, exactly,

(01:07:14):
he's the actual strong one. Cloudjust kind of a piece of ship.
Well yeah, yeah, thing isis. But like that was what
I was talking about earlier about likethe easter egg, Like, yeah,
you don't know that going in likethat doesn't anything like tick up on that.
But oh no, that's what's coolis if you do know what you

(01:07:35):
could tell in his mannerisms as well, like yeah, he starts doing his
squat throat exactly, he does thesquat thing. The way he talks,
he's like much more upbeat than Cloudactually is. So ye, also,
yeah, go ahead, go ahead. I was gonna say it also kind
of made me think that like keepthis kind of sociopath, yes, but

(01:07:58):
because like they would what his soldieris like, and you know, the
all caps soldier like you know,dude in green eyes and cool armor,
and Cloud is like just a lowercaseor you know, yeah, yeah,
grunt. You know, yeah,it's just like an infantry man. So
it's like, shouldn't she tell him, you know, but she just kind

(01:08:19):
of goes along with it. Maybeshe thinks, oh he's crazy. So
yeah, I mean that's the wholepoint of that too. I don't want
to get too far right laugh.Yeah, but that that that is kind
of things that they allude in thegreater breadth of seven. So yeah,
yeah, I mean it'd be fun, it'd be it'd be funny. It's

(01:08:41):
just like all these developers band togetherand made their own game and then destroyed
everything else. Yeah, I woulddefinitely hope that. Also, you know,
we had a game in form ofLegos some people as well this week.
Like I'm hoping that all these developersand you know, I don't know
if the journalists can do this,but like, man, if there's ever
a time of unionize, unionized,now, like get if you can figure

(01:09:05):
out how to make this work withinthese beer companies, you gotta do it.
You got to get some protections,especially the United States, where it's
like literally oh hey, you're firedgoodbye, you know, or you're laid
off. Here's like a few monthsseverance, but can't really do anything about
it, because we can. Wecan let you go at will and and

(01:09:29):
that's it, you know. Likeso yeah, they really, man,
get some protections for you as aworker, if at all possible. And
again, it sucks for all ofthese developers, all of these people working
at these studios that this is thisis happening, and I don't know.
I really just hope that somewhere somebodyis talking in board room about actually trying

(01:09:55):
to how can we make the industrycontinue to exist and be healthier. We're
not going to crash. There's toomuch money being made for a crash.
This is not like the nineteen eighties, but it is. It's probably going
to get dire for a while.Yeah, unless you're Nintendo, which seems
to be just outlasting everyone and doingfine, and they the Pokemon Company had

(01:10:19):
a Pokemon Presents this week, whichkind of got overshadowed by everything else.
H literally, look, uh,there's there's nothing to this Pokemon Presents.
Everything was about the mobile games andwhatever. The new anime is going to
be on Netflix next week on theseventh, So if you haven't watched that
yet, I'm kind of excited tosee how it goes to the first one

(01:10:39):
without Ash. Uh you know thoseare going to have what wo get fully
translated, the one where like theending of Ash. Yeah, yeah,
yeah, I think that they releasedthose already. If I'm saken that they're
going to pretty soon, I'm notsure. I haven't like really into it

(01:11:00):
that much, but uh, thebiggest announcement was that there's going to be
a new Pokemon Legends game. Yes, Legends was the best thing they've released
in a while. Uh. It'sgoing to be based on the Pokemon X
Y universes called Pokemon Z A Zhyphen A or whatever they, uh you
want to term it. But it'sapparently going to be only set in Lumio
City, which uh it's based offof Paris because Pokemon X and Y were

(01:11:26):
based off France. It's not goingto include the rest of the Pokemon X
Y like regions. They might makeLoumeo City a lot bigger to compensate.
Uh, So it's I don't thinkit's going to be like where you're gonna
walk into the open lands like Arciusand you're gonna go to these other places
like it seems like they're just gonnahave different areas of the Loumo City they're

(01:11:48):
going to go to. But I'mhappy for another Legends game. It's funny
that they just completely skipped black andwhite, Like I guess Nintendo just doesn't
want to hear it, doesn't wantto go back to that universe. At
all. I don't. I don'tknow, or are they just planning those
remakes for later for when they noticedwhich two is going to be around?
Uh? Interesting, this is twentytwenty five. It did say Switch one.

(01:12:13):
Do you think that this is gonnabe? This confirms this is like
a launch window for Switch two gamethat or I know there's some rumor that
like the Switch to or whatever isgoing to have basically a boost mode for
Switch one game. So I meanthat would be cool. I mean that's
kind of what the PS two orwhat the PS five and and Series X

(01:12:34):
two for the previous ones. Soyeah, that'd be cool if a Nintendo
got to do that. Yeah,I'm excited to hear more about this game.
I want them to actually give ussome deats, uh you know,
and man it that's all you needto know. Scott says that yes,

(01:12:55):
officially, they have released the lastAsh episodes or it's called The Ultimate Journeys
and it is on Netflix. Sothat being said, there, thanks Scott
for the the info. I'm notgonna watch it most of the time,
kids, w B. Sorry,like looking at the the other kind of
thing that's going on with Nintendo isthey're they're involved in a lawsuit. Again,

(01:13:18):
they're involved in a court case orpotential court case. This time they
they went after switch emulator maker uZu. Scott mentions bold the stuff cable
in this economy, yes, uh, I only have the like ones that
basically watch lets you watch the thelimited the stuff that's on the antenna and

(01:13:41):
and the Latino channels, because Imean that's all my mom and grandma watched.
But honestly, yeah, most peopledon't have cable at this point unless
you have like YouTube TV or BhuluTV or some other But yeah, this
is uh, this is kind ofmore in your your area. Mark,
you know you, you and especiallyCarl from the Outer Haven y'all are big

(01:14:03):
on this. Just to kind ofset the stage really quick. They are
not going after us you because they'rean emulator. They're going after Uzu because
they promote piracy and they have datathat shows that a million people played Legend
of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom beforerelease and usually doesn't help itself by the

(01:14:25):
fact that they have a link ontheir website that it takes you to their
discord that has stuff in it thatshows you how to go around the switch
encryptions to be able to get thegames to work, and that's what Nintendo
is going after that they're promoting thepiracy on this emulator, and they want

(01:14:45):
the emulator taken down, and theyobviously want to be able to you know,
get some money from using for thelosses. Do you think Nintendo has
a case here or is this anotherone of those they are going to lose
again because you know, emulation issynically legal. Yeah, I think they
have a part whole case because Ithink I think one of the things that
like they said, is like itincludes some encryption keys that like Nintendo or

(01:15:06):
you know, like yeah, Imean it's the same thing with like PS
two back in the day emulation,Like you need the bios file from a
PS two to like run PS twogames and an emulator or at less you
used to, uh, Like Ithink emulation, well, I think emulations
should be legal for consoles that aren'tbeing told anymore. Like who's going to

(01:15:30):
care about you know, PS threeemulation or Xbox three sixteen at some yea,
at some point once, no oneshould. I mean, yeah,
but I can see an intend tobeing pissed that like, Okay, this
is this thing that's emulating the consolethat's on sale right now, you know,
and uh, there's always like thewink and nod that like, oh,

(01:15:53):
some people, some people do legitimatelyuse emulation for like legal purposes,
like the model Vintage gamer guy.I think he used it once or twice
for like showing like, oh,this is how I switch game can run
like unshackled from the switch basically.But I have full faith that that guy
actually owns the game that he's emulating. But like, yeah, most people

(01:16:14):
use emulation for piracy. I meanthat's kind of the open secret, right.
That's that's the thing is everybody that'scomplaining about how emulation needs to be
legal. Not everybody, but alot of people that are complaining about it
is I have a I don't wantto buy a switch. I don't want
to play games at seven twenty orwhatever, so I want I'm gonna because
Nintendo doesn't want to make a consolethat that is like the PS five or

(01:16:39):
the Series X, I'm gonna showthem how to run it better on my
PC. And because I don't wantto play it on the switch, I
therefore should have the ability to piratethe game. And it's like now,
that works. It's called entitled entitledasshole behavior. Like yeah, okay,

(01:17:00):
I feel I feel like I shouldhave I should have the capacity or I
should have the ability to use yourhouse. It's like no, like you
don't like this whole. They hidebehind the whole. Oh I'm going to
back up. And there are alot of people that do. They do
want to have backups of their games, and that's okay, that's fine.
That's what emulation is for, especiallyin this age where preservation apparently is out

(01:17:25):
the window for a lot of people, right, you know, to Yeah,
that's that's what I'm saying. Though. It's like I think preservation or
emulation or piracy should be fine forconsoles. Aren't that aren't being sold or
except you know, it's not exceptfor like used game stores or something.
But you can walk into the bestBuy and buy a switch or in theory,

(01:17:47):
like yeah, I mean you canright now, yes, but shouldn't
you shouldn't live down with some switchemulator on your Android phone and go like
all right, I gotta switch now, you know, like and not only
that, like you're playing the gamebefore it even comes out. Yeah,
so likely. Yeah, I guessmy question is how how do they know

(01:18:11):
that a million copies? I mean, is it just like a download number
or because I wouldn't trust that.Well, supposely they've had people, Nintendo
lawyers getting into the public discord thatZU has and they've been kind of spying
on everybody, and that's how theyfound out the whole stuff about how they
have very public a kind of justword documents or whatever that show how to

(01:18:36):
get around the encryptions. Basically,that's how they found out all this stuff,
right, And and that's the issueis they made that public. You
ZU messed up on their end bymaking this way too public. This should
have been a on the down lowkind of thing that only certain people know

(01:18:58):
and you, you know, onthe down low, passed it off to
your friend or whatever. You don'tmake it a public thing that that anybody
can access, pretty much, andyou made it really open and easy for
Nintendo to go, Okay, we'rejust gonna wait until we have enough you
know, stuff on you to beable to mount this legal challenge because they've

(01:19:18):
been through this afford. They've challengedemulators in the pass and lost. You
know, Sony challenged it during thePS one Days and lost. So it's
not like they haven't been around thisbend before. And also Nintendo has so
much money then they can literally scareUzu into just not you having this work

(01:19:38):
anymore if they want to. Right, Yeah, they did it with Valve
never Valve had that trailer for theSteam Deck that had to use you emulator
on it, and they quickly tookthat thing down and then they quickly took
down or they they probably encouraged thepeople that were doing the Dolphin emulator to
also take that off the Team storebecause know what's going to come after them?

(01:20:01):
Well actually i think threatened to comeafter them already. So it's funny
because Rector artistill on Steam though.Yeah, but and there's other switch emulators,
this user is the one that's themost popular. So unfortunately they made
themselves stand out. And that's theproblem. When you make it very obvious,
you make it really easy for Nintendo. I mean, look, this

(01:20:23):
sucks as far as like people thatactually want to use emulation for what it's
meant to be for for the twothat are doing legitimately. But ninety eight,
do you think that this let's sayNintendo wins. Do you think this
has any kind of effect on emulationin general. Aside from just Uzoo,
people are always you know, they'llthey'll just fork it and you know,

(01:20:45):
instead of one or you know,instead of the Uzoo wanted it to be
fifty different Yuzuo offshoot. They won'thave a Patreon and they won't have the
discord, but yeah, people willstill be doing it. I guess.
I think I think it's twofold.Either for some people they don't have money
to buy switch or buy games.I can justify that better. I can.
I can see that, I cansee you know, the reason for

(01:21:06):
that. But for other people it'slike, hey, I want to challenge
to break the switch or I wantthis challenge. So can those people Yeah
no, But yep, this isthis is what Nintendo is doing right now,
is they continue to kind of justwe're mosing along until they whenever it

(01:21:27):
is that they do this announcer forthe switch too. They do have their
one new game coming out later thismonth, the Princess Peach Showtime, which
still I'm excited about and it's beenlooking good so hopefully that copy. I
have not pre ordered it yet,but I am. I'm thinking about it.

(01:21:48):
So another I want good thing thatcame out of Aside from the Pokemon
announcements, the only other really goodthing and Toyster Bob was Remedy getting to
purchase back the rights to Control andall future iterations of the Control franchise from

(01:22:09):
five oh five games for about eighteenpoint four million dollars. I mean,
that's no chump change. But yeah, that's awesome that they now own Control,
so they compair that with Alan Wakeand really be able to continue to
make those work together the way theyhave in the story. And also I've

(01:22:30):
meant to talk about this the weekbefore, but Alan Way two did sell
well. It's so one point threemillion copies. It's the fastest game,
fastest selling game to date for thestudio, which is another good good thing
for it because a lot of peoplewere thinking about, oh my god,
it doesn't have physical it's so badly. They're not talking about sales. That
means it's so badly. Well itturns out it didn't. It actually sold

(01:22:51):
pretty decently. So yeah, that'sgreat. I wonder if they can reach
the same deal with Rock Starts.I doubt it because well, I think
like rocks well, I mean they'remaking that Max pain, you know,
the one to remakes. Yeah,so I think they have a goodly a
better relationship with them than five hfive. You know, I don't think

(01:23:14):
it's necessarily that five O five wantedto give that up. I think it's
more about five oh five member.They had layoffs and things like that.
I think I was trying to getget in cast flow. They were trying
to get money. So it wasa way of like remedy kind of looked
at it and said, hey,what do you think about selling us back
the rights to control? And they'relike, we could use that money right

(01:23:38):
now. And I'm sure that thatopened the door for them to have conversation.
Uh So, I mean, look, a positive, a positive there
for this, that's what's going on. I tend to find it kind of
strange the whole public or you know, publisher developer dynamic, which like,

(01:23:58):
oh, we're going to publish agame, but we some own the rights
to it. What Yeah, Imean, but that's part of it,
right. I guess it's like you'rethey're doing a lot of the they're doing
all of the marketing work and allof the other stuff to make the game
happen to be out there for theconsumer. They're actually the ones making the
game that's gonna be on that discor it's going to be the thing that

(01:24:21):
is that you're gonna play. Andit's like, uh, it's like the
it's like the movie studios, rightor the music labels. They own your
music, they own your your movie. You don't really get to go out
and you could say, hey,I made the movie, but when it
comes to like selling it or whatever, they have the rights to sell it

(01:24:41):
however they want. And yeah,it's it's such a weird thing of like
how we how this is set up. It's just it is cool that we're
getting to see more developers make surethat they own their IP before they get
into these publishing deals and that that'sthat's positive. We don't I hate seeing
like something stuck behind a company that'slike never going to do anything with that

(01:25:06):
game and you don't get another gamein that franchise because the developer literally cannot
do anything about it. Yeah,and that's good that they were able to
do that. Honestly, anything elseyou wanted to no talking about did you
did you get to play anymore HellDiversary or has it been all? Yeah?

(01:25:30):
I played like four or five morematches basically gave up on the game
after like the one time he playedor he's saw music obsessed. I asked
him like last week, I'm like, are you excited for Rebirth? He's
like, yeah, might my ordersshould be here this is uh, Like
this was like Monday, He's like, my order should be here Friday from

(01:25:50):
play Asia. Play Asia, Like, why the fuck do you order from
play Asia. He's like, oh, that's that's that was the first place
that the soundtrack And I was like, oh, idiot, game not know
the soundtrack will be available at somepoint, they'll do it. Well,
the soundtrack is good, but I'drather, oh, I'd rather have like

(01:26:11):
the emotional or you know, thecontext of the game. You know,
yeah, I agree with you,Like I I will listen to soundtracks sometimes
that I haven't played the game atall, and that those subtwits are great
understandable, but yeah, once youhave the context for those, it makes
it even better. I do.I think it's uh. I just noticed

(01:26:34):
the other day they have these likeminiature figures of like Tifa and and Cloud
and Earth and Barrett and all that, and I was like, I want
these now because like all those figuresthat they make are like way too big
and I don't have a spot forthem like that not teeth and separate off
looks great and all. But myfriends and too he had like the old

(01:26:57):
mini fig or not mini the oldfigure into the blocky characters. Yeah,
they they had those release that somefood place or whatever in Japan, the
ones that are modeled after the forkcondor Yeah, looking ones. I was
like, man, why can't theyhave those come out here because I would
love to have like those on mydesk. I think they did, remember,

(01:27:18):
I do remember seeing that in thestore one, but you know that
was like years ago, so right, But yeah, did you see the
thing that that happened with Hell Diverstwo on Steam where they had some indie
games basically take all the information thatHell Divers two has on Steam and they

(01:27:41):
basically renamed themselves hell Divers Do No, but that doesn't surprise me because Steam
is kind of grinding about that stuffnowadays. Valve removed it pretty quickly,
but still, I'm sure there wassome people that bought that game thinking it
was on sale for like fifty percentoff, right, And yeah, I
hope they can get a refund becausethat sucks. Man, yeah, come

(01:28:02):
on, like you're you absolutely justtook your indie game then nobody was paying
attention to and then you try touse somebody else's info to get them to
buy copies of your game. That'syeah, but all right, I think
that that's going to do it forthe episode this week, I am going

(01:28:24):
to be on another podcast. Uhoh wait, a new record for Suicide
Squad twenty four hours under six hundredplayers. Look, I hate that for
rock City, but I'm not goingto say I for w B. I

(01:28:44):
don't give two crafts about Yeah,that's doing well. But so I am
going to be on another podcast thaty'all will be able to probably hear this
week. It's off it's based offof one of it's like the community show
off one of my favors podcast calledVideo Game Outsiders. They have a like
community show where like folks that arein the discord and stuff, they all

(01:29:06):
get on and talk about games andbut it's kind of like what we do
here, but more and of ayou know, less official fashion. We're
gonna have a lot of people onto talk about rebirth and some other things.
I'm gonna be on that one.It's actually recording like tonight really late,
but you know, he edits thatand everything, so I may not

(01:29:27):
be out immediately, but you'll OnceI have the info, I'll put it
into the description of this episode,so y'all can go check it out if
you want. It's called Vigo HappyHour, so if you want to go
find it on Twitch or things likethat, you can do that. So
that being said, there are gamesthat are coming out this week ahead.

(01:29:53):
I know everybody's still gonna be playingRebirth and stuff, but there are some
other games coming U. One thatI've been looking at because it was supposed
to come out like two weeks ago, the Thomaturge that comes out on PC
first on March fourth. That looksreally cool. It has like some persona

(01:30:15):
or not percent of like Shima gotMe Tensi stuff in there because you control
some beings and you're also like thiscool like detective like dark Detective Guy.
It is going to come to consoleslater, but right now it's only coming
out on PC, so if youwant to check that out, definitely go
do that. An older game,Euphoria to the Saga, is coming to

(01:30:38):
Everything today. It is out today, so you can go check that out.
Berserk Boy, which is kind oflike one of another one of those
Mega Man likes. I think there'slots of some metro Vania stuff in it.
It comes out for Switch at PCon the the six might be one
you might want to check out.Their mark too busy than Rebirth, Who

(01:31:02):
Take Hex Gambert Responds also comes outon the six as well. I've heard
a lot of great things about thisgame. I'm kind of interested. Hopefully
it is good, so you know, people will will check it out.
You know, there's some some decentstuff coming. But again, I'm sure
everybody is it's hooked on on Rebirthfor the time being. I take that

(01:31:27):
moment as dust Falls is going tohit PlayStation systems. You know, that
was the like narrative adventure game thatonly came out on Xbox previously, so
you know, go check that outif you want. For sure, Captain
Velvet and the Media of the Jumpis also out today. That's on Xbox
and PC as well, so andThe Outlast Trials is also coming out on

(01:31:51):
March fifth, So some some thingsthere for sure until we get later in
the month. In March where wehave the big really is Dragon Sagma two
and all that, so enjoy thatrebirth. Everybody, enjoy the week ahead.
And yeah, like Scott says Qone twenty twenty four, drowning in

(01:32:13):
video games, yes we are.I hadn't even gotten to play for some
one of three again after a while, I know you beat it, yah,
Mark added a stupid Elizabeth fight.Yeah you were telling me about that.
But until next week, everyone,uh, basically, go make sure
you subscribe on the YouTube, ontwitch, on wherever, go listen on

(01:32:39):
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.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist

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Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is Awesome! PlayStation & EA Have Layoffs # 387

CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist