Xbox Developer Direct 2024 Reactions, The Reality of Gaming Subscription Services # 381

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, Sewn Garment,
here with me as usual, misterMark Morrison. And your cat,
Well, you have him back?Yeah, oh no, he is matty.
He does that when I'm holding him. He doesn't like that hold that

(00:33):
much. Okay, okay, Ohthat's key. Uh. Mine's the mon's
total opposite. He wants you tohold him all the time. Oh,
mine really hates it. I can'tdo it anyway. Yeah, that's how
my daughter's cat used to, Yeah, do not hold me, and then

(00:55):
eventually she got to the point wherenow she's she's cool with it. I've
had mine for ten years. He'snever cool. He doesn't attack you or
anything, but right, yeah,it's not his thing. So we are
here to talk about the Xbox Developerdirect that just happened yesterday, and we're

(01:15):
also going to talk about some newsregarding the It's funny. I thought I
was just going to talk about UBCPlus because that's how I decided to play
prens Y Persia lost Crown. Apparentlynow it's going to be in the news
because somebody had to open their mouthand say something that really wasn't controversial.
It's just it got taken out ofcontext about we all need to get used

(01:38):
to not owning our game and howthat is an issue or not an issue.
But we'll get into that. I'vebeen playing out testing out the Power
World to just hit game pass inthe game preview. It is an early
access also on PC, so justbe prepared for that, and I was
surprised that at what that game actuallyis. So that's a tease for you

(02:02):
there and whatever Mark is playing,we'll get into some other stuff. Hogwart
Cergacy bade some big news for theUnited States and more. All right,
so let me just quickly get throughthis housekeeping stuff, which I'm sorry,
I know it's not the most interesting, but we got to do it so

(02:23):
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(03:53):
so go get them some love aswell. Officially, I think we're
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up on your podcast feed probably latertoday. It's not like instant like the

(04:14):
YouTube, but it'll be. It'llshow up there. So let's get on
with talking about this developer direct markit was. It did not last very
long, breezy, like forty eightminutes, so I appreciated that they didn't
overstay the thing. But any generalthoughts on the games that are shown,
the how, you know, thehow they do the show is compared to

(04:35):
some of the other you know,what Nintendo and Sony does, Like what
do you think needs more finger snapping? How to figure out a way to
get that in there? Yeah?So what did you think about what they
showed? And that's fine, Ithink watch the hell Blay two thing.
I didn't play the first one,so it doesn't mean much to me,

(04:56):
so right. But the other waswhat was a fifth game? Because showed
five uh visical they had screens comingyeah, vision of man, Yeah,
who cares? Not your thing?Huh Well, I mean isn't that game
out or no, no it doesn'tYeah, yeah, no, sorry.
I thought that was like the remakersaying like okay, okay, I didn't

(05:16):
watch that but you know short signor yeah, I'm not a big man
a fan at all. Honestly,I never played him. Aura looked intent
like sluggish, I thought, AndI thought it was funny that, you
know, some of the development teamjust clearly wanted to say, it's five
who suckers, like just leave us, you know, like the one guy
that we don't have We don't havemonuments, you don't we have some other

(05:38):
stupid term for like the grand buildingsor like you know, yeah, well
no, it was like the pyramid. Like he's like you can the period
like they have like you said,like they're basically like you can create big
I think they're called like special worksor something like that, or great works
that that might be it, yeah, or like the whole like if you

(06:00):
pick a I forget that what they'rewhat they called it. But like if
you pick whatever empire you pick,you know you have a leader and it
has a special amit ability. It'slike wherever I heard this one before?
Right? Uh fine, I don'tknow it to be on consoles or only
be on the Xbox. But no, no it's not. It's PC PC
game Pass only, I thought,avowed Woul kind of it's avowed, right,

(06:25):
I thought that was kind of bad. What did you think that it
looked like that Horizon VR game butthis ain't a VR game. Yes I
did. I did see a lotof folks saying it feels like it's supposed
like it should be in VR,like because VR can't do like triple A
graphics that well, I mean,because you know what I mean, it's

(06:47):
the whole, it's the headset andthe computer in the headsets. What do
you expect? Like, so,yeah, it looked funky and it reminded
me of that Immortals of Avian game. You know that came out and bombed
Immortals a random game. Yeah,yeah, only like not as colorful,
and it's like, wow, likeI don't think this could be more planned

(07:11):
looking, but here we go,right, and that indie game, I
mean just gonna talk about that,but I thought that like kind of funky.
Also with the like the first personwhip stuff looked bad. Let's just
say that the gunplay and punching duplooks fine, but like he swung that
whip and it looks like it didn'tconnect with that guy at all, but
it somehow still did. Yeah,Okay, and that's the time Harrison Ford

(07:34):
isn't back. Well, I mean, did you really expect that it was
gonna be damn right? He canbe eighty five and still do that role.
That's what they did last year.And the fact that this first person's
gonna it's an interesting choice. Imean, that's what machine games does.
But I mean, you know,look good, you know Wolfenstein or more

(07:58):
wolf and Stein. I guess right, like that's the uh. I think
for the most part. For one, I want to make a point that
I thought they nailed the presentation ofthis. I think that that is.
It's great the way that they didit. I love the fact that Xbox
went from we used to do theseuh was it the Xbox I forgot what

(08:24):
they call them, the thing withMajor Nelson And they used to have Morgan
Web and all that in there,and they were kind of like these almost
like we're doing like a radio showbut on on on video and it's and
it didn't feel like it had anykind of personality, right, whereas now
we have these developer directs. Andhonestly, my takeaway from the thing was

(08:46):
I wish they did at least onemore throughout the year and not just maybe
it's something that they will they willkind of look into as it goes on,
but it is a great like trendsetterfor the year of like, Okay,
this is what we're gonna put outright, this is what we're going
to go with me. You hadlike a road map, yeah, exactly,

(09:09):
and that like hopefully will hit it. Oh, I mean, I
feel like most of them are goingto to hit it. I don't think
I have a problem. Hopefully toowill hit because I actually gave it a
firm release date and yeah, Imean right, I was gonna say that
our game, like you looked prettyfar along as far as that looks like
it gonna come out this year,I don't know. Did they actually show

(09:33):
any indie gameplay, Like, yeah, this show that was looks like it's
there's cinematics, but there's an stufflike when the third person Yeah there was
some gameplay, Yeah, I guess, but kind of like when they did
the switch a third person and he'scalming up the pole and then you know
when they're doing the whip stuff andthen other things where he's Yeah, it's

(09:56):
a mix of stuff. It's it'sa movie game, so you know,
I think for the most part.They they did this right in that you
know, Morgan web well, wedon't need that, but it's finely like
they it's they made it about thedevelopers, and I do appreciate that,
Like it was really cool to seethem like this is what they do,

(10:16):
Like this is the work that they'redoing. Like we're actually seeing them do
things with the game, whether it'sthe mocap on Hell Blade two or the
you know, going have Todd Howardtalk about how he's passionate about Indiana Jones,
which is interesting, like maybe hehad to have been going between both
Starfield and this at certain points,right, So that's I wonder how that

(10:39):
much, if at all, thataffected Starfield. But you know, the
the R history, I'm told theyit's pretty obvious that they love that game
and that you know, they talkedabout being informative developers and you know,
you're you're going in and looking at, uh the business of mana thing.

(11:00):
They talked a lot about that game. I'm surprised they got so much time
being a third party thing as well. Like you know, they talked about
how they designed the monsters and themusic and all that stuff too, and
avowed to me. My my thingwith the first person with a vowed is
it's shrawing for me. I didsee some of the VR kind of talk

(11:22):
about it as well, because thecombat kind of looks clunky. The combat
looks like it's not really hitting theperson that must, it doesn't feel like
a weight to it. Yeah,they have to fudge that stuff because there's
no you can't get like that accurate. And looks like they're kind of just
doing that with this game. Likeyeah, direction general direction of the enemy,

(11:45):
so good enough. Yeah, itkind of felt like Skyrim a little
bit too, you know, andit's, uh, but that's really not
what Obsidian is the best at.What they're known for is like the writing
and all of that stuff. Soyou know, like I kind of understand
it in a way of hey,this is what Look, this is a

(12:07):
game. It's a first you know, it's the first person kind of RPG
thing. But I don't know thatwe need to be expecting amazing graphics stuff
with this, like so you know, get get ready for that. I
guess in a way they did improveon as throughout, Like they showed some

(12:31):
of the combat. I think whenthey got to like the bigger enemies look
better, but I don't know,I'm still kind of I think it looks
a lot better than the first timethey showed it, right, But I
think that I don't know they it'snot one that I'm super excited about.
I don't know how you felt aboutlike Outer Worlds. It's obvious that that

(12:52):
it's there's kind of a connection tothat as well. I liked the Outer
Worlds, but Outer Worlds too hadlike a personality, right, like,
yeah, yeah, this just likeseemed really planned. Okay, I guess
where's where's the moonface man bringing himback? Yeah, And it definitely has
that feel also of like I don'tknow if this is necessarily like it doesn't

(13:13):
feel like that Triple A kind ofthing either, yeah, Right, Whereas
with helb A two, that's thegame I thought they were gonna do a
lot more with, and then itfeels like what Microsoft decided to do was,
Oh, we're gonna just uh,we're gonna just let them make a
sequel to that game, and that'swhat that game is, yeah, right,

(13:37):
Which I think it's out of respectfor that also, right, because
they could have just came in andsaid, look, no, you've got
to make this like God of War. You've got to make this, you
know, a bigger thing. It'sgot to be like twenty hours. It's
you know, you we're not gonnalet it's not. We don't want another

(13:58):
eight hour thing that people are justgoing to finish really quickly and whatever.
Like respect to them for letting themmake the game they wanted to make.
I don't know, you know,going through it, there's really not a
lot of gameplay and that thing.So I was trying to see if I
can find a spot where there's abunch of gameplay I could run through on
the video, but there's really not. It's a lot of them talking.

(14:22):
But that's the only game that hasa firm release day, which is you
know, May twenty first, twentytwenty four. You can actually preload it
right now on game pass. Idid that last night, and I like
the game. I don't know,yeah, preload in four months early,
huh, right. I love thefirst game, So if it's more of

(14:46):
that just on a it feels like, I guess the world is bigger for
her, then I'm totally down withthat. But yeah, I kind of
want to see what's going to bedifferent in this game. It looks like
the combat is not so much.It feels like more like the combat is
there to kind of you're trying toget away from the enemy and not so
much trying to fight the enemy.So I guess we'll see how that goes.

(15:11):
Yeah, because the first one alsohad like a puzzle element to the
combat at times too, so we'llsee if they changed anything on that end.
To me, you know, Idon't have a problem with the Indiana
Jones thing. Indiana Jones being firstperson to me makes sense. This is
what machine games does. I'd ratherthem focus on something that they know how

(15:33):
to do, as opposed to tryingto make the game third person and then
they have to go back into developmenthell because they don't do as well with
third person. Also, let's makeit different than Uncharted in tomb Raider,
right, because let's be real.Even though Indiana Jones is the originator and
they come and those games are inspiredby Anya Jones, especially Uncharted, the

(15:58):
first thing out of everybody's mouth is, oh, look, Xbox can't even
do their own thing right. Theyhave to copy and Charted, And I
think in a way they wanted toget away from that. They wanted to
make it feel like its own thing, like you are Harrison Ford, like
you are Indiana Jones, and notlike, oh, you're playing the character

(16:18):
of anyones. So I can kindof get that in a way. You
know, I should have made itlike that ancestry for a game where they
just copied Zelda instead, But yeah, no, I think all the games
they showed look good. I'm nota strategy for X persons, so our
our history, I'm told, isnot going to do anything for me.

(16:41):
But the other four games, I'mtotally down. I liked the Trial Fromana
game, I liked the remake.One was not very good me personally,
and you know, I love thegames back in the Superintendent days. So
yeah, I'm totally down for VisionsAmanna. I love the fact that they
think I think this is Microsoft flexinga little bit, like, Oh,

(17:03):
you thought that our only thing withSCREENIX is that we're getting pomp fancy fourteen
like so many years later. Ohno it's not. We're we're doing some
stuff with screens and we're gonna showthat by actually having this be in our
first party direct thing, which Ithought I found that interesting. I feel
like maybe there's more to come withthis, like, I don't know if

(17:26):
they're going to announce other stuff eventually, but don't worry scoringingx is I mean
PlayStation is flex sweet next month?Right, yeah, exactly. You know,
I don't know if they're going tohave something big to announce during that
the big one that they do inthe summer, which obviously that's the main
showcase for them. I think thatthat's also why they left some of the

(17:49):
dates undone, is because when theyshow you more on those games in the
summer, that's when they'll have morelike realistic release dates. And I don't
I wonder how far along Anianda Jonesactually is. I don't doubt that that
game could possibly get delayed. Yeah. Also, so it's great that all

(18:11):
of them on a twenty twenty fourdate. That's really good. I mean,
at least with Indy, Like theydidn't just show like the stupid name
and go like it'll be out eventually. Yeah, Indiana Jones in the perfect
circle. Interesting name there. Theydid show him actually making a point with
the story and all that. Doyou think it's gonna make any tie ins

(18:36):
to the movies at all? Beingin between I think guess the second and
third movie. No, No,not at all. But although they should
get John I Davies back in there. I do think Troy Baker does a
decent It does a pretty good atHarrison Ford. It sounded like him at
times, and you know, I'mfine with it. He can get so

(19:00):
Look, this is a well donedirect. Yeah, go ahead now that
when I got the guy who diduh it's another voice after named aj Locasio,
I think I'd have got him insteadbecause he he was like the one
doing Han solo and uh, likethe like in Star Wars games for a
little bit. I think he's abetter fit, but for basically a bigger

(19:26):
name or you know, so right, And I think they nailed a lot
of the cinematic stuff. They showedthe stuff with the music, how they're
trying to kind of make it feelsabout Yeah, exactly. That's that's what
I thought about too. When theyshow their music, I was like,
oh, I bet Yen's is lovingthis stuff if he does watch it.
But yeah, this is uh,it was a really good direct, great

(19:52):
way to tell us what's coming outfor the year. And now we'll see
what they wind up showing in Junefor that and yeah, there's Xbox has
some games, now, will theycome out? We'll see, Yeah,
at least we know, hey,help Blade's coming. The rest of it,
I mean, I would say threeof the three of those five games

(20:15):
will hit this year. I wouldsay the Man of Game, Uh,
you know it's hell Play too obviously. And then that are a game you
think I was gonna get delayed againif it does come out this year,
it'll be like way late. Let'sjust say that, or you know,
like November December type of thing.Yeah. The only game to me that

(20:37):
I was concerned might get delayed,and I'm fine with it if it does
is Indiana Jones. I think ifa vowed winds up being your fall game,
I think that's fine. Yeah.Obviously in the Jones would be huge
for them if they could get itin the fall way to get people that
are not huge gamers or whatever thatHey, that's a franchise that people know.

(20:59):
Even though it's a franchise that youknow, it's kind of for our
parents generation more than ours. Right, So, and obviously the Newest movie
did not do well, so maybethis will revitalize the Indiana Jones franchise a
bit more than the movie. Butyeah, I wonder if this is going

(21:21):
to continue also on if this gamedoes well, they're going to have more
Dana Jones games with machine games.I would like to see them do.
Wolf has sign three at some point, but I guess the future is is
left to happen there on that front, some a little bit of bad news
as far as Xbox concerned. Andthis is again I don't think it's so

(21:41):
bad. It's we got to understandthat there's a war going on still with
between Ukraine and Russia and soccer twothe dev team to signing to delay the
game all the way to September fifth, I think it is maybe it looks
bad in a way that man,they've been working on this game for a
while, but we still need tounderstand what like all that dev team is

(22:03):
going through and and I'd rather thempolish up the game and it's wait till
it's ready before we just decide topush it out the door because it's been
in devv too long or whatever.So it's only it's only been in development
for fourteen years, no, biggie, no, but I mean in earnest
they've really only been talking about itwhat for the past, like well,

(22:23):
it seems like four years, sothey may have been in development for a
while, you know, in thepre planning and all that stuff. But
you know, I think that theyfor what they have to go through and
everything, if they do get tocome out this year, definitely gonna be
maybe one of those gains for impactkind of things because of the story behind

(22:45):
it. But I'd rather them themwait and bring it out when it's ready.
It is an XBOS exclusive, Ithink for like three months or something,
so that another one in there forXbox whenever they it does come out.
Let's go ahead and get into thegames we've been playing here before we
get into the rest of the kindof new stuff anything you've been I knew

(23:10):
Wild Past dropped and Tuesday, andI had like a few bits in it,
so I played that little nice likenext week, So trying to ring
out as much as I can fromthat fucking game. Uh what else,
Yeah, it's more of the same. I picked up another I already had
one. I didn't know it everheard a retro gin No. It is

(23:33):
this like weird bootleggy ass cartridge.It's a Superintendo thing. We can play
Genesis games and a Supernintendo basically haslike the Genesis chip inside of it,
and you just using like the Supernintendofor like power and controller input. So
I saw I saw it into storeonline and I didn't grab it for me.

(23:53):
She brought it over like last week, and then I was looking through
my stuff and I was like,wait a second, and I already had
one in the box. Wow,now I have two of these things,
But are you gonna sell the otherone? I might. I mean,
it's not that valuable. It's likekicking bouts or twenty bucks for whatever,
so I may just yeah, butyeah, other than that nothing. I

(24:15):
do want to play that Prince ofPersia, but I an't the money for
it, so right, Uh,I played a little bit more of the
Prince of Persia at least got throughto the part where you are in the
demo. So it does have likean intro where there's more backstory and stuff.
Yeah I figured that. Yeah,and then the intro actually lets you

(24:37):
it is. It does serve asmore of a twot world than the demo
does. Like you actually go throughthe whole process of Okay, go through
the town while you're fighting, andthen there's a big boss battle at the
end. Which I hadn't gotten toa boss pedal when I finished. When
I got through my part of thedemo that I did, the boss bottles
are fun that really does test youon your combat and knowing when to dodge,

(25:00):
being able to parry because some ofthe peries, some of the peris
are unblockable, so you have toknow when, okay, well I got
to dodge this one instead of perry. And then there's the perry that actually
the one that turns yellow where youcan do the awesome combo thing if you
do it right, but that thetiming window is so small it's not always
easy to do. So the firsttime I think I died, and the

(25:22):
second time he got me all theway down to barely and I had him
down to that same much and Ijust went took one swing and I was
like, oh, he killed him. Great, And that was fun.
So yeah, I'm up for moreboss battles with this game. The problem
is now, if I don't playit before next Friday, I don't know
when I'm gonna play that game again. So I did try out a little

(25:48):
bit of Power World, which thatgame, like I said, just came
out today and it is in earlyaccess, so you know, just to
be prepared that you're playing an earlyaccess game, and it tells you straight
up at the front that that's whatthis is. And I'm actually surprised because

(26:08):
I didn't. This game kind ofmakes it look like it is really just
Pokemon, but you're controlling the charactermore and you also have guns. It
doesn't really like explain itself that it'sa survival game. So I was kind
of in for a shock a littlebit when I start the game and it
wants you to start crafting wood andstone and build stuff, and you're building

(26:33):
your base and all of that.So that's interesting. But hey, you
know what, sometimes you need thatother aesthetic that you're used to to get
you to play a game that youdon't normally, right, So I normally
do not play survival craft games likethat. But the fact that there is

(26:56):
like a Pokemon aesthetic thing where youare capturing monsters and battling them whatever,
but there's no like, oh,hey, I'm trying to capture them to
catch them all, or or gobeat a bunch of evil gym leaders,
or there's none of that that isnot in here. It's this. They're
the story that's here is like withlogs and stuff like that. Yo,

(27:18):
it's what about Team Rocket though,did they show up? No? I
mean there are like other people andand like there are other like people figures
in here, but they're really herejust to like disrupt you. They're here
to like mess with your base anddestroy it and things like that. So
and and the the pals, whichthey're all like, you know, really

(27:42):
cute and whatever. The pals arereally there as like a means to an
end. Uh. They all havesome kind of function to help you in
the world. So like one ofthem might be the one that helps you
build a certain thing or helps youget a certain artifact that you need or

(28:02):
whatever. And also there's certain thingsthat you can't build until you find that
certain pal that you So it soundslike the system from a Fantasy Star Online
with the mag system. Okay,maybe that's but I mean they're yeah,
they're you know, it's like ohyou need you know, a water type
to build a bridge or you know, yeah exactly something like that. But

(28:26):
yeah, I mean I've been I'vebeen actually enjoying it. Like I said,
you know, I don't normally playthese kind of games, so having
this kind of thing that I'm usedto being able to like kind of help
me get through is actually really interesting. And yeah, I kind of it's
cool that that you kind of learnedthat this game is different than than what
you expect. But definitely the palsare worth going to get, like getting

(28:52):
to control your your character is good. Just just be ready. I guess
that if you if you're not asurvival game person, this this may not
be the thing it reminds me of. I mean I reviewed it, I
think a year or two or ago, but that v Rising game on Steam
Okay, yeah, I remember youtalking about that. Yeah, where you

(29:12):
know it's like, oh, itlooked like a vanta. It looks like
a Vampire Diablo kind of, right, is that it's like nope, you
know you're tapping down wood and building, and don't you have to like uh
at night is when you have togo and try to kill people to yeah,
because you can't got the sun becauseyou know wrecked. So yeah,

(29:33):
I'm not that far into it.Like I've gotten a few pals and and
I started to build my house orwhatever, and then I had to start
getting ready for that because it didn'tit came out of like three in the
morning Eastern time, because they actuallydid it based on Pacific, where the
PACIFICA came out at twelve twelve am. Then it came out here at three
am. I got up early toplay a little bit that I could,
and then I had to start we'restill moving things and and then it had

(29:56):
to start getting ready for this.So but yeah, I I've I've been
enjoying it. I'm probably gonna playmore this week before the big game that
both of us are probably going tobe playing and talking about next week Lack
of Dragon Infinite Wealth comes out andTechna comes out that day too, so

(30:17):
I mean we're not gonna be bothplaying that. Also, I actually like
Tekan, but I'm it's not somethingthat if I get that game, it'll
be when it goes on sale.I dislike checking a lot. Oh okay,
so it's one of the finding gamesyou don't like. My old college
used to have a tech in Ithink it was a technic two arcade machine
set on free play, and Imy time is more valuable than this,

(30:40):
alright, fair enough, Yeah,that's kind of all I've been playing.
I still had to do a lotof movie and stuff, so I probably
would have played more Prince of Persiaand had more to talk about it.
But yeah, I'm hoping this weekwe finally get done with all the movie
and I can get to kind ofbeing in regular, regular mode and kind
do things. But yeah, speakingof we're on the I did mention Christ

(31:04):
of Persia that is on Ubisoft Plusthat you can go and pay your eighteen
dollars a month, which actually thatmakes it the most expensive of the streaming
services because PS Plus and Game PassUltimate are both sixteen ninety nine. That
is seventeen ninety nine actually, Soto kind of go into the news thing

(31:25):
evolving this, a Ubisoft except decidedthat well, he's like promoting Ubisoft Plus,
right, he's talking about how theyfeel like they have this. They
rebranded it into Ubisoft Plus Premium,which makes it to where you can play
it on PC and Xbox and Luna. You just have to connect your Xbox

(31:48):
account to it, and then itwill have the game show up in your
library once you download them, verymuch like game Pass does, and it
actually does show up on the mainscreen too, so if you have usow
Plus, it'll tell you, oh, there's games you can go download and
stuff, so and if you wantto play like recent stuff, you know

(32:08):
they're not just precupersure. There's thatthe Avatar game, which is actually pretty
decent, and the Assassin's Screen Mirage, which you didn't like very much,
right, but there are other peoplethat have been liking that. There's something
else to be said about that's nowwhat two games that have come out on
that fifty dollars price tag. SoI wonder if they're going to be doing

(32:30):
that a little bit more often totry to get you to subscribe instead of
getting you by the whole game.We'll see if that's kind of their their
mo I do think that that kindof goes along with the whole We talked
about this when we talked about thewhole the Triple A. Well, I

(32:51):
talk with Jeff, and then Ithink I talk with you as well.
The whole Triple A budgets are gettingout of control. So we have companies
making smaller double A games, andI think that's kind of going to be
some part of a trend that we'reseeing with Xbox and ub Soft. Both
we're okay with making double A games, and you probably need to start being

(33:12):
okay with that too, because wecan't afford to keep just making grandiose,
crazy triple A games all the time. So a way that they can also
get revenue is with the cub SoftPlus premium thing, and interesting that it's
not on PlayStation also, but Philiptrim Blay, the director of Subscriptions are
eb Soft, says that he claimedten percent of subscribers had never previously played

(33:37):
any of the company's games before,which is interesting. And then also the
ubu Soft SVP, Chris Early,is the one that kind of made this
comment where he says the point isnot the force users to go down one
route or the other. They havethe option of purchasing or subscribing, but
in order for subscriptions to continue torapidly, gamers have to get used to

(34:01):
not owning their games. And thisgot blown up because gaming sites kind of
misconstrued this a little bit in orderto get people to do for clicks,
and this sorted a whole firestorm ofpeople talking about, oh, so you
just doesn't want us to own ourgames and all this stuff. It led

(34:22):
into kind of a rabbit hole ofa lot of talk about game subscriptions and
where they're at. We had MattPiscatella come out from Sircana and talk about
how subscriptions have been flattened and they'reonly like ten percent of the market and
the way people consume games. TheLarry and Studio CEO Spendvinky, who most

(34:43):
people will probably know as the guythat was talking at the end of game
you know, the game Awards,and then they shuffled him off as well.
He also had a big thing onx Twitter about how basically explaining their
whole why we're not going to putour games on game subscription services, you

(35:04):
know, saying that there's nothing wrongwith having the suscript service, but they're
not in favor of that because theydon't want a monopoly happening with subscription services
where it's the only way that wecan consume games, because we won't have
games like Balder's Gate three, becauseyou won't you only have a certain amount
of people that will control what getsput out on that subservice. And basically

(35:29):
the way that they got to pitchBauler's Gate three with a lot of idealism
and a lot of oh, well, you're gonna be able to do this
and this and this and this andhaving all this freedom is going to make
people want to play this game.You won't be able to really do it
that way when you're trying to getpeople to play constantly on the subservice.
I know how you feel about subservices, so I kind of think I know

(35:51):
your answer, But like, whatdid you think about all this? Like
does he still have a point orno? Well, it has a point
for Ubisoft that like, oh,we want to we want to grow up
scription service so that, you know, but it's like that that point doesn't
translate to the gaming public that muchunless you're part of the service. Like

(36:13):
if you don't use their service,you know, then you're screwed. And
you know, I think the pointhis point, well, the fear is
like what if you puts out agame that's only on the service that you
can't you know, you can't buy. It's like, okay, well I
guess I'm not going to play thatone then. And the other fear is
what happens if the service goes awaylike number A game tap mm hm.

(36:36):
They had a few like exclusive gameson that thing that I don't think it
ever right, Yeah, well,I think most of the games have you
had to buy the games, butstill it's a whole service that went away,
right, and then they had togo refund people. Yeah, and
all that will everybody do that,right, because people didn't have to refund
anybody. They could have just theycould have just said, Okay, we're

(36:59):
gonna give you a PC to allthese games that you have and that's it,
right, Like okay, well youstill have the game, but you
know that's it. And and theyactually went further and just refunded everybody.
And and I do see your point. I think he also talks about this,
right. He says, you don'thave to worry about that because your

(37:23):
save is not going to go anywhere, whether you unsubscribe or subscribe. It's
locked to your system, so itwill be there. And if you want
to come back later and play again, like months later, and resubscribe,
you can do that. You'll knowby the fact that the service is still
around that you can have faith inthe service. You can have faith that

(37:44):
it will be there. And Ikind of get his point, right.
So the same thing with game passright like PS plus, you can download
that game, you'll have it forthe length of time that it's on that
service, and then if it goesaway, your save is still around,
So if you want to buy thegame later, you can do that at
But I think that this kind ofproves this whole theory of it's not going

(38:07):
to be dominant, it never willbe dominant. It's not the same thing
as movies and TV and music,where those things are less investment for you
as a time sink, right,where oh yeah, I want to go

(38:28):
watch this movie for two hours,and that's it, Like, oh I
feel like watching this movie. I'mgonna go find it on whatever service is
on, I'm gonna watch it,and then I'm gonna not think about it
again. Right. I think gamesare a much different thing because it's a
time sink, like you have togive time. It's not just that it's
also a money sink like in thisexample, like let's say you want to

(38:51):
watch you know down periscope. Youknow, yeah, it's okay. You
can you can either stream it probablyon Amazon Prime or Netflix or whatever.
Or it can rent it probably forfour bucks from iTunes or whatever, or
it could I mean that's only twentyfour hours, so but still, or
it could buy it on iTunes orAmazon or whatever for like five thirteen bucks

(39:14):
digitally, right, But that's twohours, so you know, you can't
you can't like rent a game likethat, Like, yeah, I just
want to rent. I would justwant to rent rent Prince of Persia for
a week and I'll play you know, five bucks and you know, beat
it then and there. I meantechnically you have a month. But still

(39:36):
I think one one problem I havewith this kind of also is, at
least in some services is like,if it's describing to Netflix, there is
a very large library of craft,you know, movies or TV shows or
whatever. Right, Obsoft there's alibrary, sure, but only Ubisoft game
And if you're not into those oryou know, I mean like let's say

(40:00):
you don't like far Cry or it'sHassen, it's Creed, It's like,
okay, well that's about of thislibrary. Yeah. I think that's what
EA figured out very early on,is that I don't think we need to
have our own We have our ownEA play, but why don't we just
tie it to game pass right andmake the library bigger? Right, And

(40:21):
the other the other problem kind ofit is like it feels like these services
are kind of just praying on peoplethat like they're just hoping you forget you
even have it definitely. Yeah,there's definitely that. Yeah, you know,
and I there's that's certainly a waythat they make money is hoping you
forget right and then also having constantcontent drops that go, oh but you

(40:45):
know what, I want to watchthat, so I'm gonna stay subscribed,
right Yeah. But the problem isis like an Ubisoft can't maintain a constant,
you know, drop of content.No, I agree. I think
eventually ubi Soft is going to mergewith like with the service at least I
think that either that becomes part ofXbox Game Fast as well or something where

(41:07):
because I know it's an alternative,right, They're still having people buy Prince
of Persia. People are still goingout and buying Prince Persia Lost Ground.
People went and bought out bought atthousand s pree Mirage. The thing for
me, like I said, isthat you be saft. I wonder if
this will stop you be Soft fromputting the game on sale so quickly.
Is the fact that they you haveanother avenue to play the game. If

(41:30):
you don't want to go out andpay fifty dollars, you can go and
pay eighteen dollars for one month playthe game. And then if you want
to wait, which is what I'mgonna do. I'm gonna wait until it
does go on sale, and I'llbuy it then because I do enjoy the
game, and I do think thatit's well made and it deserves you know
who people to go out and buyit. That the so eventually they get

(41:53):
two buys of the Apple, soit's not bad. I don't know if
eventually they can't keep up with theand they do end up merging it with
Xbox or whatever, and it allkind of just becomes one out of you
know, one huge giant levery.But I think they also do this because
they're gonna have those Activision Cloud gameson there, so it's a way for

(42:14):
you to, oh, it maynot be on Xbox Game Pass, but
if you subscribe to this thing andyou need the cloud for it, you
can play them on here. Andit's a way to get people to subscribe
to U becy plus that way too. So I don't care that these things
exist as long as it's never theonly option, not like Spotify kind of

(42:34):
is now for music, where Imean, there are other music services,
but there's so much music that like, I mean, yeah, you can
go and buy it on iTunes whereyou can go and try to find the
CD or the vinyls somewhere or whatever. But as long as it never gets
to that point where it becomes thethe priority way of playing games, I'm
fine with it. I'm cool withit being an option, right. I

(42:57):
should always be able to own mygame with is what I have a problem
with Nintendo. I know it's theirretro stuff, but I hate the fact
that I can't go and just buyGolden Sun one and two, right,
so they told you that crap twicealready, and the we and the WEU.
It's like, I know, butthat's the point though. They should
have just made a virtual console thatif they're making a big deal about the

(43:20):
Nintendo ID, right that it's theNintendo ID goes with you to the next
console, Why couldn't you have madeone more virtual console where your purchases go
with you, just like PlayStation andXbox have done. I don't understand when
I get it. Nintendo wants youto subscribe to this thing, and they
probably feel like you wouldn't subscribe ifI could just buy the game that I

(43:43):
wanted, and well that you canonly you can only play on their hot
online multiplayer games subscribe. Man,Well that's the thing too, right,
Like there's still the purpose of Iwouldn't be able to play, uh,
I mean, I don't know.You know, you can buy those tracks
from Mario Kart eight that they cameout with separately, but like, I

(44:05):
wouldn't be able to play against peopleonline with Mario Kart. But I think
that that's also because they know it. They're online service most of the time
is not great. So it's likea way to hide the fact that they
don't put all of this uh youknow, development into having this amazing online
service. They get you to subscribebecause of the games, and then oh,

(44:27):
well you also have online and yeah. But I mean in this case,
I'd rather have them actually stick heronline shit instead of going, hey,
we put Golden Sun out. Yeah. It takes all of two minutes,
you know, they just drunk,drop the rum in the game boy
the later and go here you goright to me. It's like it kind
of sucks because of the fact thatlike their games hardly ever go on sale,

(44:50):
right, So it's like I wantedto I want to be able to
enjoy their old stuff while I maynot play some of the newer stuff all
the time, and and and andI kind of get people. I get
the people that that say, whichis why game Pass and ps pus and
all that also are kind of onthe where they've sagnated is because we got

(45:12):
to understand. We have to rememberthat there's so many people that just buy
one game or two games a year. Why bother having game Pass and pay
monthly for that thing? When allI want to play is Call of Duty
and Madden. I would just Iwould just buy both of those games.
And then why you know, Idon't. It's not like Netflix where I'm
gonna turn on Netflix to watch amovie or a show whatever to kind of

(45:36):
waite two hours. If I'm notusing that service at all, why why
pay for it? Yeah? Youknow, and I and I kind of
get you as well. Right,But you're also that you like having your
physical games. Uh, you know, you buy the retro stuff all the
time. So I'm one that hasaccepted the digital Uh. But you know,

(46:00):
we don't get like physical review copiesanymore. Well we don't, I
mean, but it's also because it'sit cost them way you'd have way less
people reviewing games. We're getting outphysical copies, you know. Yeah,
it's this is an interesting kind ofdichotomy of there's still a lot of people
that say, oh, this iswhere games are going. And maybe we

(46:21):
will see this eventually happen as moregames become digital and digital and digital,
but the fact that gaming is likethe one standout that continues to fight for
physical things. Uh. And we'reseeing a little bit of music as well,
right, We're seeing a lot ofthis. You know, my daughter's
generation, like uh and even ourgeneration right, going back to vinyl.

(46:43):
I recently bought her a vinyl recordplayer and she has vinyl records of her
favorite artists. And I think peopleare starting to kind of go back into
oh, I want the physical thing. But I think we're still not seeing
that that much with movie and TVshows as much. But games is just

(47:04):
that thing that like we need tohave the physical thing. And there's still
thumb. I still have physical gamesover there on this you can't see it
anymore, but the little physical standthat I have over there with my books.
I have physical games that either gamestop wouldn't take anymore, or just
I like to have them because youknow, like Years of War and Halo
and stuff like that stuff that Igrew up with, So you know,

(47:27):
I still think about it sometimes oflike, oh, they I want to
go get Found Fantasy seven Rebirth Physicalat some point, Yeah, I might
just to have the thing there andsay, hey, there's that game.
It works. I don't want toget into the whole whether you actually own
it or not thing that that doesn'treally have to do with this news.
But yeah, I'm sure it willbe something that that comes up again and

(47:47):
again as discontinues or or what happens. But I do think that the fact
that Xbox and PlayStation have already comeout with their own thing will prohibit I
don't think we're going to get themovie the movie and TV show thing that
we have right now. I don'tthink we're going to get twenty Ubu soft
pluses. I think Ubusoft is doingit because they need a way to to

(48:09):
kind of stay around and have anotherkind of avenue to make money. I
think we're gonna see way more likeEA play kind of decide that they're going
to be inside one of these thatalready exists. So yeah, I don't
I don't think we have to worryabout that so much with gaming where we're
going to have you know, tendifferent subscription services and it's the only way

(48:30):
you're going to play all these games, and you know, and like the
I should mention like that Retrokade oneis awesome because you're playing old games that
like are most of them are likeno longer able to be purchased or on
consoles that you know you can't playthem, or you obviously you're not going
to go play in an arcade likethat stuff is amazing. Like I love

(48:51):
the fact that that retrocade exists,But I don't think we're going to see
that proliferation of subscription surces, soI don't think we need to worries.
But moving on on from this topichere, just what did you think of
Hogwarts Legacy is officially the number oneSouthern game in the US. It speed
out Call of Duty. Uh Right, that's surprising because Call of Duty has

(49:15):
been slow, I mean slowly ina downturn like the past like this one.
Uh didn't review what great? Right? Modern Warfare two? Did?
I think? But that Vanguard wentbombed horribly, and I think a lot
of people just saw this is kindof like not the next step up or
like the next game. It's kindof I mean Dating said, basically,

(49:37):
it's like a glorified expansion pack.Yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean
the fact that they tied it intothat like Call of Duty Global thing.
Yeah, and part of it youhad to download Call of Duty Modern War
for A three to four, butthen also part of it you had to
download this other thing for And itreally did kind of feel like it was
supposed to just be DLC for ModernWar for A two, right, and

(50:00):
like all your stuff from Monern Warfaretwo comes in, which I think you've
never done before from like a previousgame. So yep. Interesting that we
did have some other ones you knowon here, So like the top ten
or so is some of the onesyou'd expect, then some some interesting ones
too. Hogward Segacy was this isthe United States, by the way,

(50:22):
also United States only, this isnot the entire world, right, Hogwart's
Legacy, Call of Duty Modern Warfor three, Madden twenty four. Then
you get Marvel spider Man two numberfour, Legend of Zelow Tears of the
Kingdom without digital purchases. So Iwonder if it would be even higher if
you had digital purchases in there.Diablo four, Call of Duty, Monern

(50:44):
War for two. Crazy that youalso have mon and War for two,
but I think having that DLC withthree and two kind of man people also
buy two as well, Model Kombatone, Star Wars, Jedi Survivor,
and then EA Sports FC, whichI wonder how much the FIFA name Chane
had something to play there, becauseI wonder if it would have been higher

(51:05):
if it was still called FIFA twentyfour probably and then Starfield right there at
number eleven, which I wonder ifit wasn't on game Pass it would have
been higher. But also the factthat it is on game Pass and it's
still number eleven, I think,so it's a lot too. Yeah,
it's kind of interesting that more tocombats on that list but not six.
Yeah. Well, I mean,but Mortal Kombat always out sells Street Fighter,

(51:30):
Like motal Kombat is like that gamethat if you don't like fighting games
or you don't understand finding games likeMortal commons a lot easier to get than
Star Street Fighter at least for me, Like no Street Fight six really went
a long way into fixing that problem. Yeah, but I don't know.
I think it's like the cachet thatMortal Kombat just has with casual you know.

(51:52):
So it's it's soba. It's crazythat it's in the top ten.
But that's good. I mean,start street Fighter six is there. It's
just number seventeen. I'm finally sixteen'sthere, you know, Resident before Super
Marl Brothers Wonder right there under Starfieldtoo. So yeah, man, even
old ones like marrak Cart eight andMinecraft still in here. The top twenty.

(52:15):
Uh says a lot. You know, they're so Marna card will never
die No, And I'm sure they'reprobably already working on on Maria Cart nine
for the switch to or whatever.That's going to be. So yeah,
if they somehow make that into likeMario Kart nine Ultimate, where you have

(52:36):
all of the tracks from Martok Kurteight also, that is that's gonna be
insane. If they want to doingthat, I don't think they will,
but it'll be cool. I thinkthe problem with that is it runs into
the problem that Smack Brothers is goingto have, Like yes, you know,
okay, expecting the next game iscoming on, I wanted to have

(52:57):
all those old all the old shipsin the last game. It's like,
you know, the old and hadsixty characters or sixty tracks, like that's
not feasible for a launch game.Happy Friday to you came in, Glad
we're getting into the weekend. Yeah, that's I don't know how they're gonna
do this with Smash Brothers, likeyou gave everybody the Ultimate Smash Brothers essentially,

(53:19):
Like how are people gonna be okaywith like going back to what like
twenty characters or whatever and then yeah, potentially basically unlocking the same characters again
and then paying for the same charactersagain. That's even if they can get
some of those old characters back orsome of the guest characters rather, you
know, right on the non Nintendoones. But I feel like you okay,

(53:43):
Sonic, they don't have a problemhorn out Sonic like that. You
know, even Mega Man or oreven like Square Enix doesn't have a problem
with at least getting the fun Fantasyones on there. I don't know we're
gonna get sore again, like that'sthat was a once in a lifetime like
thing. But yeah, that's gonnabe interesting with with Smash Brothers. And

(54:04):
yeah, like you said, withMario Kart, it's been around this entire
time, So how do you getpeople to go from Mario Kart eighth just
got like fifty tracks added to itto oh, we're gonna suddenly accept Martyo
Kart nine, like they really needto somehow innovate even more to get people
to go down that route of gettingthese games. That'll be interesting what they

(54:27):
I mean, its soccera even goingto be involved with whatever the next Smash
Brothers thing is. That's that's gonnabe another thing that we'll have to see
what happens with that for sure.But looking into some a sad thing for
me. I've still been buying rockband Ford DLC here and there when they
have songs that interest me. Youknow, they they haven't really been putting

(54:52):
out the most amazing music ever sincethey kind of went independent, and and
even when Epic has bought them,they haven't really been doing that. They've
kind of just been putting out DLTHwhich still to think about for from what
twenty fourteen when that game came outto now still putting out DLC every week.

(55:15):
It's freaking amazing. And to goback to the you know, the
the start of rock band, theywere really the first ones that that made
you be okay with oh, wehave content coming out like they were.
They were one of the first servicegames really, you know, if you
think about it, especially Rock Bandfour, which like came out almost completely

(55:39):
just bare bones, right, andthen they've added stuff onto it and onto
it, onto it. Finally addedonline play a few years ago, and
all that stuff, like finally madeit the complete game that it actually is.
But ever since you had Fortnite Festival, I could see the riding on
the wall immediately Epic owns them.Eventually is gonna push people to to go

(56:02):
there. Oh, since I thinkrock harmonic, so you can see the
writing now all then well yeah,but like okay, they were developing stuff
for harmonics or whatever. But likethe moment that you have Fortnite Festival and
you're trying to get people to enjoythe same songs, yeah, and they're
on a constant change over on thatthing. Having rock band kind of be

(56:27):
around is sort of like a conflictof interest, I guess. So I
don't know, it's gonna be sadbecause I feel like we're eventually going to
get to the point where they're gonnasay, oh, you can enjoy a
rock band for the way it is. But we're not gonna do any more
stuff for it, and I'm reallysad for I feel like it's just inevitable
that sooner rather than later, they'regonna get to that point because they're gonna

(56:50):
start putting. I feel like they'reeventually gonna start putting stuff in a Fortnite
festival. It's not just songs.They're gonna start putting modes and other things,
and that will eventually be like,oh, this is if you want
to rock band five. Yeah,it's over here and for it right,
it's not We're not gonna get arock band five by itself, and that
that makes me sad as a rockband lover, as somebody that had rock

(57:15):
band showed me so much types ofmusic that I will always enjoy because of
downloading that song and going, ohwow, it's this band. I never
knew that they did this song,and then going down the rabbit hole of
enjoying other things by that band,you know, like it's just like introducing
my daughter to it, playing withmy friends, like going to parties and

(57:36):
and rock band is there, andthen like the fact that they announced so
that we're gonna try to make therock band instruments work with this with Fortnite
Festival, that also kind of spellsthe doom for it. But props to
Harmonics and that whole team for beingable to do DLC all these all these
years. It stops officially January twentyfifth is going to be the last week.

(58:00):
So yeah, it's it's coming,uh. It kind of rock Band
four always felt like one of thosethings like, Okay, they're just gonna
put out DC. It'll just keepkind of rolling along. And then yeah,
once once they did the Fortnite Festival, it was like, ah,
okay, this is kind of thisis this is getting to there. But
you know, pour one out,pour one out for the Harmocks and then

(58:21):
rock band Thumb. I was alwaysholding I hope that maybe Epic buying them
meant that they would do a rockBand five and instead, Uh, of
course, they just shoved everything intoFortnite because they have to keep Fortnite going.
That's their cash cow. It's thewhole reason they can. I don't
think I don't think they can goback to just being we make on real

(58:43):
engine right, like no, butyeah, the scary part for them is
like what happens if and when Fortnitefailed? Then it's like, Okay,
now we're fucked. Yeah, Likethat is kind of scary, right,
Like, will it ever become toa point where people just get tired of
Fortnite and it doesn't matter what youdo with it. It's like, oh,
we've moved on, right, well, we're doing something else. It

(59:05):
will be interesting to see what happensif this generation, like my my daughter's
generation behind us, uh, ifthey do get to that point where it's
like, I'm just done with Fortnite, right. I mean people probably thought
the same thing of like Second Life, remember that, you know, twenty
years ago, and it's okay,yeah, look look, how well let's
do it nowadays? Right, Yeah, but people probably thought about that about

(59:28):
wow, right, and that thing'sstill going so yeah kind of oh but
it's still going, like they're stillmaking content for that thing. It's it's
getting story new stories. Yeah.But I would say the difference between like
wow, in a request, Imean ever request one is still going on.
It's like they're not to like licenselike shit for it, right exactly.

(59:50):
Oh we put the terminator in this, we put Goku in this,
or you know, and I'm havingto sign deals and probably pay some amount
of money for that stuff right now, Okay, what happened when you've done
right out of pop culture and stuffto put in this game? Yeah?
Will they ever be able to runout of our culture? But it feels
like they can constantly just add people, and people are happy about people being

(01:00:13):
added to their speaking of something that'slike Fortnite, Uh like Splatoon foam Stars,
which I'm not going to do thatanymore cause screen X really doesn't want
you to keep calling it a Splatoonor whatever. They don't want. They
actually came out and said, wewould really love if you guys would stop
doing that and actually like come upwith with your own like genre name for

(01:00:37):
poone Stars because it's not like Splatoonactually, uh, people that have played
it said it's actually a lot differentthan Bluid Shooter. But that being said,
it is going to be on PSplus next, so I don't know
if you still describe a PS plusor not. But yeah, okay,
so both of us contend and playit together. I guess YenS could play
it, Randy could play it.That'd be cool if we could all the

(01:01:00):
four of us could just you know, try to play this together and check
it out for a whole month,so you'll have from whenever it is that
they put the game on in Februarytill March fifth, and then it will
actually cost money to buy Poe Stars, so it will cost thirty dollars.
So everybody that's not subscribed to PSplus and everyone wants to check out foone
Stars might want to go subscribe,pick up film Stars, check it out.

(01:01:22):
See if you like it. Ofcourse you have to stay subscribed and
order continue being available to you.But yeah, I mean, I think
this is a there's always been agood way to go for Sony. We've
we've seen it work with Rocket League. We know where Rocket League is now.
Obviously didn't work for Destruction All Stars. That game just wasn't that good
to be fair, right, Butit is starving a surface, right,

(01:01:46):
It is going and trying to getpeople to play the game. They wanted
to get a lot of people playingthis game and of course jump up hype
for it and everything else and getpeople to check it out. Do you
think it's it's going to do well? You think this will drum up interest
or maybe? I mean I've seensome previews and it was okay. It

(01:02:08):
depends on you know, how muchcontent act you have planned for it or
you know. That's why it's theproblem the big life service games is they
just kind of run out of contentat a certain point. And how long
will that ramp be or will itfeel fair to players? Yeah, they
they did talk about that. Also. They did say that there's gonna be

(01:02:28):
theme seasonal updates over the span ofa year at least. Yeah. How
long will take them hit the forthe numbers to dip down and for them
to break the hammer and the yoinsert Final Fantasy characters into the same glass,
you know, cabinet. Yeah,they've said that the characters are going
to be free that they add,but that there's going to be a six

(01:02:49):
dollar battle pass, premium season pass, whatever the heck you want to call
it, Yeah, to unlock othercharacters immediately and cosmetics. So there is
gonna be sort of a roadmap forit, at least that awesome Apex Legends
kind of things at seven Crossover shPlease, No, I was you made

(01:03:12):
fun of me like that and you'relike, oh, you're gonna play Apex
now right, They're like, Nope, this is not going to do anything
for me. I have nothing todo with getting some skins for that,
but there they basically are gonna trythis dual season pass structure and see if
it works for them. I dowonder like if some companies you know,

(01:03:35):
are okay with putting these things outand if they don't last forever, it's
also not the end of the world. Like if they just have to come
out, get revenue, get someextra money as an extra way of funding,
and then just say, okay,after a couple of years or even
a year, just say, hey, we're gonna keep the servers up,
but we're not really not putting outany more stuff for it. Do you

(01:03:59):
think we can see that kind ofbe an evolution of a service game of
just maybe we don't tell you rightaway that it's only gonna last a year,
but we're gonna see if we canget this popular and it lasts a
couple of years, and then that'sit. No, because I mean they
can't do that. I mean theycould, but like if it's actually came
out and said something like that,but like, okay, you just eliminated
any and all interest in your games. I'm saying, they don't tell you

(01:04:24):
that it's gonna last, right butor whatever. Think about like you know,
Avengers, like they didn't. Idon't think anyone saw that thing,
at least initially shutting down, buthey, it did, I am.
But I think that's also where youfirst saw how, oh okay, there
is a chink in the armor insome of these service games, like even

(01:04:46):
a big ip like Marvel can godown if it's not good, right,
So that that kind of was thefirst one that was like, we already
had that a little bit with Destiny, but Destiny, we know that that
that game is. That's what thatgame is. They just have to keep
pumping out content and so I getpeople to not think about the things they
don't like about it, whereas eventualslike we wanted this to be the next

(01:05:11):
huge service game, and because itwasn't that good on the multiplayer side,
it didn't become that, right,Yeah, and unfortunately for them that sucks.
I did like some of the comeon the cons story and all that,
but again, as you know,we know what happened with that game.
I don't want to. I don'tknow, we don't need to indulge
going down that rabbit hole again.But yeah, let's see. Let's hope

(01:05:34):
film starts as good and it willget folks playing and they'll like it,
and who knows, maybe it'll beup for unlock. You know the film
gun Blood. Yeah, not tomention, they use some like ai art
in that game too, which youknow didn't raise the hire of funny people.

(01:05:56):
And I'm not that's not cool SquareEnix. Come on, we don't
need to be using ai art,Yeah, wonderful artists. We don't need
if it's good enough for magic togather and it's good enough for fucking phone
starffs. Well, here comes thethe sad part of the show where we
have to talk about more layoffs again. Uh. Embracer, of course always

(01:06:19):
leads away with this, you know, terrible situation. They have laid off
several people from Lost Boys, whichis a sports studio that worked on Portland
three and Tiny teenage Werderlians about Ithink the staff is apparently got up to
like four hundred people in twenty twentytwo, and according to aftermath that they

(01:06:45):
hit the studio with layoffs. Theydon't they didn't like say the amount of
people or give a percentage or anything, but they said a sizable portion of
people. According to one of thefolks that got laid off that yeah,
this happened, I can see that. I mean also like yeah, right,
but it's like it just further goesdown the whole of Embrace or just

(01:07:08):
absolutely ruined this, you know,right, like they they stocked up on
so many freaking studios seemingly endlessly,and then just now we're just seeing the
gutting of it, and it's sosad, all these people losing jobs and
everything else, and it just itjust really sucks to see, you know.

(01:07:28):
It's like it's different where okay,we all this always kind of happens
in the industry, like Okay,the game gets made and people get laid
off and because they had to rampdown whatever. But it's like when a
braceleted, it's just like on anotherlevel, it's it's just despicable and it
sucks, you know, don't oronce they put out that Destroy Humans three

(01:07:50):
room after, everything's gonna turn rightaround exactly. I don't even what is
the next Like they have some sortof big don't they have some sort of
big game that's coming out? Thatnew mud Runner game is that? Well
that but I don't know. It'sso hard to keep track of their nonsense

(01:08:12):
anymore. So yeah. Also anotherone, the Thunderful group, which they
own like around thirty different subsidiaries,like seven dev studios to publishers. They've
had the restructure and lost about twentypercent of their employees. So that sucks

(01:08:34):
as well. You know, Thunderfulhas made some really cool indie games or
at least publish them. One thatI loved a lot of, spear Fair,
So it sucks that, you know, more devs lose jobs. We're
just seeing this everywhere, Like Ifeel like this is gonna be again another
running theme of twenty twenty four.We're gonna every week. I'm doing this

(01:08:57):
also as a way to like kindof keep track a little bit just how
much we're having to talk about this. The other studio was dead by daylight
their behavior Interactive lost some folks aswell. They don't really give a kind
of an idea of how many people, but the fact that already they there's
actually a game developer fourhand more that'skeeping track of this. Video game layoffs

(01:09:23):
dot Com, Video games layoffs dotCom and apparently ten thousand, five hundred
people were laid off last year andalready around the three thousand people have been
laid off this year. Hey man, got to beat that record somehow getting
done early. No, but Imean it sucks for all those devs,
everybody losing jobs. You know,I really do hate the fact that we've

(01:09:46):
pretty much talked about this like everyweek this year already, and it will
probably continue to be that, AndI wish we didn't have to, but
freaking games studios and publishers just makingbad decisions and here we are. Yeah,
but hey, let's look on thebright side at least for the upcoming

(01:10:11):
games. For you know what's comingthis week. We already talked about Lack
of Dragon Infinite Wealth coming out onthe twenty six, also Teching eight coming
out the same day on to say, that's also crazy that we have.
I know, there's two different games, but you do still get a lot
of beating people up in Lack ofDragon Yakuza, you know, so interesting

(01:10:35):
that they chose that as well.But some other stuff that's also coming.
Of course, you can go andget that ten dollars upgrade of Last of
Us Far Too remastered right now ifyou want, or you can buy the
game. I guess. Yeah,I heard that the rope Blake thing is
actually pretty decent. Yeah, Iheard that too, a lot of people

(01:10:58):
complaining that this should have also beenread. But you know, but apparently
there's not like a ton of content, right that God of War Riding Rock
Valhalla was like more content than that. But you do get the full game,
and there's a lot of people thatstill haven't played that. Foo Like
I haven't played the whole full game. I think I got to like part
of the way through whatever and thenI just got started playing with you know,

(01:11:21):
other games or whatever. But yeah, I'll get that ten dollar out
grade one. That's ten dollars,yeah, to have the best version of
this game. Another code recollection alsocame out today, the two visual novel
like collection game that's on Switch.It switches like first, I guess,
big first big release of the year, So go check that out. It

(01:11:44):
again, it's gonna be very interestingwhen we get that direct in February.
What is Nintended going to announce.Are they gonna tease the switch to at
all? Because like right now theyjust have the three Mario remakes and then
Princess Speech and that's kind of it, yeah at the moment, So we'll
see what's going on with that.You know, we talked about power Roll
already and also there's the Grand BlueFantasy Reeling coming like a little bit later

(01:12:14):
in Yeah, its like mid February. I think, oh it did no
Amazon. I don't know if it'sokay Amazon. That's Amazon doing their thing.
Yeah that they love to do,which is so weird, Like they're
supposed to be about trying to getyou know, your game out there on
time. They I don't know why. They're kind of just okay with with

(01:12:35):
having your game come late. Ourroots of igor Cell is supposed to be
a really good indie game on PCthat comes up to the twenty fourth Check
that out. Uh, the ApolloJustice It's Attorney trilogy finally comes to our
current well they're the lasting consoles mostly, but still can be played on the

(01:12:55):
current consoles, So you can playthe Apollo Justice game in the two ladder
as Attorney games that you can.There's a lot of I'm a big fan
of its Attorney games, so Iwill eventually probably get this at some point
and go. Mecca Ball is goingto be on Game Pass and also on

(01:13:15):
PC. Go check that out.Yeah, so we're starting to get into
twenty twenty four proper here with thebig releases finally, and then the week
after that person at the relove.I'm excited. I know you're excited,
right you are you getting that?Or yeah, I'm getting the collector's edition.
So all right, well you finallywant to talk about what we I

(01:13:40):
think it's been like for a monthnow, Doctor Who, Christmas Special and
all that. Yeah, would youthink of the three episodes and then the
fourth, it was really awesome seeingDavid tennanback, you know, and Catherine
Tate as well. Obviously love thosethose two and it was it felt like,

(01:14:03):
you know, he'd never gone away. It's like he's he's there the
whole time, just kind of waiting. I like the story and all those
the whole the whole Catherine Taste charactercan't know who he is or she's gonna
die. And then they passed iton to I don't know, it's rather
blatant messaging or whatever, but thepassing it onto her daughter. And yeah,

(01:14:29):
in that first episode, that's theonly thing I didn't really like is
like I get the message, Likethe message is fine, but it's so
obvious or so laytant, Oh mygod, Like did you learn nothing from
Cribnall? Like don't do this,like try to obscure this to Tad.
And it's funny because like I didn'tknow the daughter was a transactress. I
can kind of figure that out likehalfway through when they kept like saying it

(01:14:53):
basically yeah. But I was talkingto right after the episode he watched it,
and I was like, what doyou think of the transactress and he
was like he was trans Like youdidn't even know? Yeah, how could
you? I mean, okay,right, but I mean it, it
doesn't it's cool if they put thatin there, Like again, it's you

(01:15:15):
can. I get the folks thatare upset that it's blatant or whatever,
but it makes sense. The secondepisode is pretty good, yeah, and
the third episode is decent. Uhyou know Newpatrick Harris was cool. Oh
he was awesome as a toy maker, like that whole spice of your life
thing and the fact that he neverheard the song apparently and then he kept

(01:15:38):
having to hear it or whatever tobe able to do the part. I
can buy that because yeah, he'sAmerican, so told me. You know,
yeah, but they were so bighere, right, like it's you
know, his own thing, likeyou know, yeah, but what do
you think of the new doctor.Okay. The one thing I also didn't

(01:15:58):
like the quote vote by generation.I'm okay with they like to keep him
around. I mean, well Ididn't like the name. It's like okay,
no, but uh it felt weirdbecause I mean they just introduce it
and it's like, okay, he'veestablished that, like you know, the

(01:16:20):
doctors apparently the cause of regeneration orlike the the start of it, oh,
you know, over thousands of lifetimes. Because that's a whole stupid timeless
child nonsense. It's like, whywould this be the first one. I
mean, that's the I think it'sthe whole thing of making the new doctor
feel like he's he's free of allthe baggage and he's free of all the

(01:16:42):
the stuff that happened to the allthe other doctors, right, so he's
kind of his own thing now.And then that's when they go into the
new episode where he's like dancing inthe club or whatever. Like that's that's
why I really doubt they'll bring thatwill bring back Tenant though, like felt
kind of like the right off ofhim, you know, all right.

(01:17:02):
Maybe it's also it was also sortof a like a if this doesn't work.
Yeah, I mean maybe you know, but like, yeah, that
new guy, I think his nameis Shooty shoot yeah, yes, sign
you know that the episode he wasin, like you know, the main
one. Uh, he was good. I have the companion a lot.

(01:17:23):
Uh really yeah, it really givesanything, uh you know decent. I
thought it was interesting that, Likeit was the first time I think in
Doctor Who were like was like nota shitty family. Yeah, no,
I love the family dynamic two ofthem. Yeah, it's like new Doctor

(01:17:44):
Who, Like it wasn't like themom like Roses mom. She got better,
but Rose's mom, uh, Donna'smom and especially uh what Martha's mom.
We're all like bitter like it's constantlycan plaining about ship. So yeah,
this foster mom like not be likethat. Well, but then one

(01:18:08):
of them is like sick, rightshe that was a grand mom okay,
the grandma. Yeah yeah, butI'm as interesting though it merely got I
forget the actress's name. I thinkit's not Ruby, that's it Ruby.
When she got arrested in the timeline, then the mom like became like a
bitter, like she's just fuck it. But then you know, yeah,
it was a nice way to showthat, like Ruby had a positive influence

(01:18:29):
on someone, right, I thinkthat I can't never heard I know she
she's uh, she's important to likethe older doctors, the older lady that
kind of like throughout the episode isyeah, it's sterized that she could be
like, uh oh, there's somefemale female doctor who's like evil. I
forget her name. Yeah, Ramona, I think. But I thought that

(01:18:53):
was interesting. Like the way shechanges throughout the episode to the goblin stuff
was funny. The ranny that wasit. Yeah, I thought the goblins,
like, I know what they're tryingto do, but that goblin song
was terrible. I thought it wasfine for what it was. I just
had flashes back to like Star Warsthe Job of the Hut when they yeah,

(01:19:15):
okay, oh no god. Ithought they did better with like the
CG on this too, Like itlooked a lot better than what it has
been lately. Yeah. I actuallyhad that with the second episode when they
were in that starship, Yeah,this looks this looks really impressive, like
well, and then also when likethey're hanging in the air on the ladder
and they're using those gloves or whatever, like it looks like they really could

(01:19:39):
be in the air. It doesn'tlook like, oh, this is a
total green screen thing. Yeah,it looks like that Disney put in a
budget. Hun. Yeah, theDisney is helping in that way. I
didn't really have a problem with anythingnecessarily. Like it's not like there were
some folks saying like, oh,you already feel the Disney influence they added
this and added that or whatever,and that I didn't have an issue with.

(01:20:01):
I mean any any of you cansee the Disney influence with the console
room, It's like, wow,this is a big ass room. Like
yeah, it really does feel likeway bigger on the inside. Now like
bigger. It's a little sterile islein there, or a little like an
a septic, but like, thisis a big room. I feel like

(01:20:23):
they will eventually he'll be adding hisown like personality and stuff. Dude,
as the time as we actually getto like the episodes they added box Yeah
that's but yeah, more I've likedthe Yeah, I'm excited. I mean,
I'll watch more of them when theycome out. I think you said
April or whatever, Yeah April,yeah, uh yeah, I'm good to

(01:20:43):
see them off on more adventures.You can clear to see that Ruby's kind
of like the Rose Tyler Yeah,in that mold. But hey, I
really love shooting. I think likehe adds like a different dynamic, has
a lot of personality. I meanhe's a lot younger. He runs me
kind almost of like the Matt Smithdoctor but not yeah weird. Yeah,

(01:21:09):
I mean he has a little bitof his quirks, like the doctor,
like the kind of like usual doctorquirky kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah,
Like I love that first interaction hehas with the guy that he's there
with the wedding ring or whatever andhe's like oh yeah, and he's like
she's gonna say yes what Like youknow, I thought that was really cool,
Like that was well done. AndI don't know about this. What

(01:21:31):
do you think about the new Sonicscrewdriver? Yeah, it looks like a
TV remote. Yeah, and alsothe way that I mean they did it
in the Tenant one also but likeit a force sealed what. Yeah,
I mean I'm cool with adding newthings that the screwdriver could do or whatever,
but like, I don't know,just it looks'd always look a screwdriver

(01:21:55):
or yeah, like I had likethat wand to look to it. Yeah,
I mean that's the problem about oneof the issues that people didn't like
in uh Capouli's era with the SonicSonic sunglasses. Yeah, and he said
it was he said it was achoice of his because he was like,
oh kids, can you know,maybe kids can't afford a screwdriver or you
know, the replica toy, sohere's the cheap alternative. It's like,

(01:22:17):
I mean, kids can make believeanything. They could they hold the design
screwdriver like, you know, likegood cares. I mean, I get,
I guess, yes, you canbuy somebody a cheap ass pair of
sunglasses and they can wear it,yeah or whatever. But I can hold
his spatulate and sands the Sonic screwdriverfor all, you know, for all
little kids. That's very true aswell. Uh yeah, I didn't like

(01:22:39):
that. They should I should havecatched tenants one or make a new one
or something. But you know,son Yeah, I mean, so I'm
excited for the when the new episodescome, and we'll probably talk about him
weekly on here too. Yeah,it's funny to introduce a you know kind
of screwdriver. And they had itfor three episodes and that was it.
Well, you know, he's gotto have his own his own thing as

(01:23:00):
well. There So, but allright, that's gonna be it for the
episode today. Of course, youknow, like I said, next week
we'll we'll have some probably early earlyearliest thoughts on lack of Dragon, infinite
wealth and whatever else is going onin gaming in that week, So look

(01:23:21):
forward to it. Thank you forwatching, listening whatever it is that you
did. If you watch live,we'd really appreciate that as well. Thank
you so much. And of coursego subscribe to network. You get anytime
we do a show, it isthere, and of course you get our
other stuff that we do, andyou can go find us on podcasts to
just search video games to the max. And anytime we do a show it

(01:23:44):
will be there. So until nextweek, everybody, see you later.

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