Xbox's Subtle New Shift in Strategy, PlayStation Doing More with PC # 385

Episode Transcript
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(00:12):
You are listening to Video Games tothe Max. Hello, and welcome to
another edition of Video Games. SoI'm your host, Sean Garmery with me
is usual, mister Morison and joiningus today, mister Endi Isbelle. How
are you, Sarah. I'm doinggreat. Thanks you for having me back.
Yes, so it's good to haveyou back. So we are going

(00:33):
to talk about the whatever you wantto call that nothing burger big news not
so big news from Xbox yesterday afterthey had their podcasts and what they announced
was actually happening, some other teasesthat they made, and then some things
that maybe if you're reading between thelines, might be happening in the future.

(00:58):
Also, Sony Maids all right,Sony's head money guy, guy that's
looking at things right now. Hirokito Toky made some interesting comments as well
about they possibly doing some more withPC and how aggressive they could be with
that. We're also gonna be We'vebeen playing some games. I've been playing
the New Bandishers goes to New Eden. Mark's been playing Persona thirty reload,

(01:22):
try out that Pacific Drive demo.We can see Solitaire two, some other
things. Ran Newsman playing some gamesas well, and some other news happening
aside from those things, so we'llget all into that and more. All
right, let's get through this prettyquickly. Here, do some housekeeping.

(01:44):
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(02:05):
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(02:29):
of course you get relative broadcasting.They cover pretty much everything that has to
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(02:52):
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lot, and yeah, appreciate everybodyhere, So Randy, thank you for

(03:13):
joining us again. You can alsocheck out Randy's are on our Sports Report
on YouTube, and you can alsocheck out his new show Bad Brackets,
which I've been on once already talkingvideo game controllers. I did link it
on the description of the last episode, so and then you I forgot what's
the most recent one is? SuperBowl Moments is the most super Bowl ninety

(03:35):
sitcoms coming out on Monday. Hey, there you go. See, I
just watched this thing Natural Geographic theyto rewind the nineties on Hulu. They
had like ten chapters. Again,they talked a lot about ninety sitcoms.
So I'm sure all y'all have yourfavorites. There's a lot of yelling.
There's a lot of yelling in thatepisode. Good good, It's good to
have ones where you have a lotof yelling and funness there. So all

(03:59):
right, maybe we're not gonna hopefullynot do as much yelling on this show
here because we're about to get Idon't know, and maybe Mark will it
will surprise me here to start yelling. I don't know. So let's get
into this Xbox podcast. They diddrop it like a podcast. They didn't
even do premiere. I thought theywere gonna do some kind of like,
Okay, we're gonna show this likeit's live or whatever. Maybe it's not.

(04:20):
They didn't even do that. Theyjust dropped it, and you're sitting
there waiting for like five minutes afterthree o'clock Eastern, like where is this
thing? You know? And itfinally does appear. It was twenty two
minutes. You can go. It'spretty quick to find. At least they
didn't overly stay there welcome and talkforever. I guess let's just go over

(04:40):
what they announced and then we candiscuss it. They announced that it's only
four games that are coming to otherplatforms Nintendo and PlayStation. They did not
name them. On that show.Phil said that they have deals with the
partners have deals already in place.There was rumors already about a possible Nintendo

(05:02):
direct that was going to occur yesterday, and that leads a lot of speculation
to they probably just wanted to giveMicrosoft their platform to talk about this,
and then Nintendo's gonna do something nextweek, and then that's where you're gonna
get the announcements of what seems tobe High Fi Rush pentiment see If Thieves

(05:24):
and Grounded, because he mentions thatthere's two community driven live service games,
and then he mentions there's two smallergames that were never meant to be these
big franchises that sell your box orwhatever. That they didn't mean to be
these big first party games, andso they want them to have more life
on other places. And then hesays for sure neither one of them are

(05:46):
Indiana Jones and Starfield. But healso later in a vergeon of youew does
not shut the door on anything elsenot coming to those systems either. He
says that they they can't with theway the industry is rightly say that nothing
else is ever going to come totheir just right now. This is what

(06:08):
we're doing. Basically, we're experimenting. What happens with those games will probably
tell you what's going to happen lateron. And they also announced that there
is new hardware coming once again.They probably are going to put their foot
in their mouth with Sarah Vaon sayingthis is going to be the most technological
leap you're ever going to see whenthe console comes, they said, that's

(06:29):
the last generation. This is notthe most I mean they can I don't
know how this is the most powerfulsystem or whatever that's out there, but
it's really not. So they've alreadysaid this once, so I guess why
not do it again. Try toget your shareholders to get all excited about
your nextbox and your people that arethat are Xbox only people as well.
They did mention that you you don'thave to worry about your digital library and

(06:54):
all of that stuff that's going tocontinue happening. They kind of shut the
door on the whole there's going tobe any more sports coming besides the ones
that are already there, because it'svery hard on console licenses and all that
stuff. They didn't talk about physical, but I mean we can get into
that. And then also that they'regonna give some kind of update on hardware

(07:15):
this fall, so some kind ofmid gend thing. Maybe the leaked one
that we saw was like a trashcan receptacle or some other one. I
guess we'll see when that happens.And they're gonna do the Summer showcase again
in June, so I guess Mark, I'll come to you here. Do
you feel any different than you didthe last week after we did the episode

(07:39):
about what they said or didn't sayon that podcast. It's pretty funny.
I think three of those games makesense. Pentiment Hi Fi Russian Thieves Grounded
is kind of a weird one becausewho cares like they don't have like it's
not popular like the A Thieves andit hasn't been popular for years, so

(08:00):
that's odd. And then trash Like, Well, the one thing that is
going to make the new Xbox reallybe the big powerhouses Connect three point zero
and I finally bring that back anddo it right this time right. The
one thing I forgot to mention isthey did mention day one game Pass will
continue all of their games releasing gamePass, even the activision of Lizzard ones
and also Developed four is coming onMarch twenty eight to game Pass, and

(08:24):
they did announce that there's thirty fourmillion subscribers. Now, of course it
looks like about nine million of thoseare the people that they basically forced over
from having xbus Live Gold into thegame Pass Core, which you know there
is a little bit different from whatPS plus does. PS plus did the
same thing, they forced everybody over, but you only get the monthly games

(08:45):
and then online. At least,game Pass gives you more games than the
ones that you get from just PSplus and you're paying the same price to
ten dollars and it only costs adollar top grade to regular game Pass,
where it's a PS plus top gradeto extra costs like five more dollars they
were from four to five. Butof course you are getting a lot more
games there, so it is whatit is. We'll have to see what

(09:07):
happens if Sarah Bond has to windup coming out and saying that the people
that are on that first tier gamepest don't get the Dobo four. But
we'll see what happens there. ButRandy, any thought on like what was
announced? Do you if you're anXbox only owner, do you feel better
about this or are they just delayingthe interval or what do you think?

(09:28):
Well, if I'm an Xbox onlyowner. Do I feel better than I
did six months ago? Or afterthe internet overreacting after the exploded. This
is the whole reason, if thewhole reason, they're having this right,
because yeah, this is at thebeginning, they weren't planning to do this,
and then they look very uncomfortable attimes talking about this. Also,

(09:52):
yeah, they wanted it, well, they said they wanted They were planning
on doing this, and they wereworking on it since December or whatever,
and then they had to change theformat a little bit because the Internet exploded
over nothing. And that's what Ilaughed so much about all of this.
You and I talked about it beforeI was able to watch it, and
then I was able to watch itlast night and looked at some different reactions

(10:13):
and stuff, and everyone's like,well, that was nothing. Well what
did you expect? It was neversupposed to be anything. It was just
there, like late winter, earlyspring update on stuff. Now that the
activision Blizzard stuff is getting closer tobeing completely wrapped up and everything is starting
to fall into place, and that'sall they were going to do, and
then the Internet exploded. They're like, oh my god, everything on Xbox

(10:33):
is going to PlayStation and we're goingto lose our libraries and they're like no.
It was like, so now everyone'supset because nothing happened. Well,
nothing was ever going to happen,but the Internet just threw all these rumors
out. So Xbox of course hasto respond and go, hey, just
chill, everything's fine. We're testingthe waters with some stuff. Sony's testing

(10:54):
the waters as we'll talk about laterwith with more games going to PC and
trying to different things. And yes, exclusivity is changing. It is the
way of the world, unless you'reNintendo because they continue to live in their
own world. But I think companiesare understanding. You put it on your
system first, and then after ayear or a little bit later, when

(11:15):
it's all right, hey a sequelis getting ready to come out, you
put the old one on other consoles. You test the waters there, you
try to get a bigger fan baseand go, hey, you like that.
The second one will be on XboxDay won on game Pass or like
we've said since game Pass originated,Hey you could play. You could spend
seventy bucks on Call of Duty,or you can come to game Pass and

(11:37):
play for free. You just onyour game pass subscription and it's all going
to work out. So that's whatI loved about all of this. Everyone
freaked out for a week and ahalf over rumors that were absolutely absurd.
Xbox came out and said, thoserumors are false. Here's what's really happening,
and everyone's like, well, where'sthe big news. Why'd you do
this podcast? There was no bigreveals, there was no anything crazy.

(11:58):
No, it was just calm down, everything will be just fine. It's
the internet makes me laugh sometimes Ido see the whole There is still mixed
messaging, right, there's still notconcrete. Nobody came out and said,
hey, this is just a force. I mean, he did try to
say that on the podcast, butthen he kind of he'll does this a

(12:20):
lot where he'll say one thing andthen he'll go and talk on a something
he thinks that a lot of peopleare not going to see because it's not
on video or not on some kindof digital stream, and then he'll kind
of say something else. And that'skind of been the issue sometimes with Phil
when he's it's great to hear himsay these things, right, It's great
to hear somebody talk because this visitis so closed off so much, but

(12:46):
sometimes he talks like too much,right, And why are you going to
say on the podcast? No,I don't want to mislead people and make
them think that other things are coming. But then you go on the verges
in and you say, oh,but I can't really say that there's never
going to be nothing else coming either. But that's those are two comments that

(13:09):
do not contradict each other. Theirplan right now are these four games.
That's their plan. Their plan rightnow does not involve Starfield, it does
not involve Indiana Jones. That statementis his own thing. Now on the
verge, he's saying, but Ican't say forever that also can be true
in five years, could their gameplan be different? One? Yes,

(13:33):
So it's not he's not going,well, it's only these four. Absolutely,
these four. He never said thatthey're playing right now. I'm saying,
and I agree with you, Randy, I'm saying, I think for
the Xbox owner, that's what theywant to hear, right, The Xbox
owner that doesn't want to have togo anywhere, doesn't want to have to
think about anything. They want alltheir stuff to always be on this thing.
And that's what they got mad aboutright. They don't want the toys

(13:56):
going over to somewhere else. Youdidn't get that because let's I think there's
some I don't think the reports weretotally wrong. I think what they did
was Phil was around when the XboxOne came out, and they know what
happened with the Xbox One. We'retrying to go too far in the future
and nobody wants that and they're notready for it yet. And everybody goes,

(14:18):
oh, you know what, I'mselling my Xbox right now, I
don't want this. If you slowlystart putting games and every year you put
maybe one, everybody starts getting usedto it and it starts not being that
big a deal. So maybe Starfield, Anymania Jones were being considered at one
point and somebody goes, ah,wait a minute, Phil. Phil's like,

(14:39):
wait, wait, let's not jumpthe gun and put everything over there
first. Let's do this, seewhat happens, and then we'll see who's
right. Because I do think thatthere's people in Microsoft. This whole thing
about there being a battle between XboxEbel, Microsoft people, I think that
really is happening. I think there'speople saying, we want this right now.

(15:01):
We want the money right now,and they're going, wait a minute,
hold on, we're almost there.Let's okay, you can have it.
We're not going to put everything overthere yet, because it is going
to disrespect the people that buy thebox, right, It is going to
disrespect people that are longtime console owners, as he says, right, So
I don't think it does unless it'sday one, does disrespect anybody, right,

(15:24):
But this is the point, right, even if you do Aniana Jones
like three months later, that's stillkind of shitty. Like maybe a year
later, all right, we cankind of deal with it. But I
think if you're talking about people,aren't I think people are not being so
mad about the Sony thing right nowbecause nobody's definitively said we're gonna put this
thing day and date. Right.It's him saying, oh, we want

(15:46):
to be more aggressive about PC.But he's never saying, oh, well,
we're going to go from a yearto this timeline. There's no timeline.
He's just saying, at some point, we're probably going to do more
with PC if you go and telleverybody, oh, Aianna Jones just came
out, but two months, threemonths later, it's going to show up
on PlayStation to get pissed. That'show it used to be, right,

(16:07):
Exclusivity deals used to only be threemonths, didn't Tom Raider like when a
year? But still there's been otherones. There were a few months you
get it here or whatever, orhow call of duty. Back in the
day, you would have maps thatwould show up on PlayStation two months before
Xbox. It's not a big deal. And yes, I'm coming as somebody

(16:30):
who's more of a PlayStation guy,and PlayStation is very not They're not Nintendo,
but they're very tight knit about whatthey release and they're barely sending stuff
out to the PC years later.But nobody should be upset or feel like,
oh I I spent money on thisbox and now I don't need this
box. You have game Pass onyour Xbox. Game Pass is never going

(16:53):
to come to PlayStation, so thatright, there is a reason to get
your box or get it on yourcomputer whatever. That's their mo is to
try to get everybody on game pass. Using these four games as a test
is a perfect try of all.Right, So, like Mark said,
Grounded was not very popular on theXbox, Well, maybe the Switch community

(17:15):
is going to really buy into it. And they're really going to get into
it. Let's give that a shot. Maybe PlayStation gets into it, who
knows. Obviously it did not workout. I tried it. It was
not for me. Whatever, Butso why not just it's far cheaper.
Just throw it out there on anotherconsole, give it another try and see
how things go. See a thievesas continue to grow as more content comes

(17:37):
out. Hey, we'll give youthe test stuff here on PlayStation, but
if you want the new content,then you have to come to Xbox.
Right, this stuff just revolves.Anybody's out there going, oh my god,
I can't believe so and so gamemight end up on a different console.
I'm screwed. Nobody bought an Xboxexpecting Indiana Jones to be this great

(17:59):
system some seller. So if threethey are looking at it from that perspective,
like somebody that they're looking at bringingother people in. Indiana Jones does
have some cashing of people that arenot gamers, right, yeah, I
guess, but they're not Those peoplethat are not gaming don't care what they're
playing it at. Those people arealso like forty and over, So well,

(18:22):
yeah, that's true. That's that'sthe problem with Ana Jones like,
you know, let's say Blade isnot exclusive, which it seems like it's
not from all because I think ifit was a suon they would have said
something by now that Blade has astotter bigger chance because Marvel was more of
in the sitegeist right now than uhthan say, uh, Indiana Jones.

(18:47):
But you have a point, Randy. I don't have a problem with any
of this stuff personally because I ownall the systems, but I get it
from the perspective of the people thatall I own is an Xbox. I
don't want to go buy FC.I don't want to deal with the stuff
that happens with the pat You don'thave to, you know. So here's
the way for those that only ownan Xbox. If those games go to

(19:08):
other systems, it doesn't mean they'renot coming to Xbox. You still get
your games. They're not now.It's different if my Xbox bought Activision and
when we're going to come out withan exclusive PlayStation Call of Duty game that
will not come to our own system, then you can have a problem with
it. But if you only ownan Xbox, who cares whether games go

(19:33):
So what about the So I'm lookingat the perspective of right, if I
own an Xbox right now, itdoesn't mean But when I'm looking at anybody
that wants to come into the ecosystem, the shorter you make the window,
the more ability somebody has to wait. And therefore, why do I need
to buy an Xbox If all ofthe games are going to eventually come to
PlayStation in two three months or whatever, that's it. That is the selling

(19:59):
place. The game Pass by itselfcan't sell. I don't think game Pass
myself can sell the call. That'sjust me enough. And now they're trying
to get the money for the games. Their games have not been at the
same level as Nintendo and PlayStation,and they understand that. That's why they
went out and bought all these differentcompanies, and then they try to make
them exclusive and then they went,oh wait, it's not making our user

(20:21):
base go up, so now let'stry to make money on of these games.
So that's what I also don't understandfrom gamers. All we talk about
every time I come on the showis layoffs. We're going to talk about
more layoffs on this show. Theytalked about it at the Dice Awards.
Layoffs, layoffs, layoffs, sonow you want to hinder what a company
can make on their game, whichmaintains more layoffs allow these companies to make

(20:42):
as much money as possible. AndI think that's what Phil Spencer and Microsoft
are trying to do. All right, we've had them on Xbox. Let's
try to continue their growth and theirrevenue sharing and their revenue streaming so they
can make another game and they don'thave to layoff a third of their company
after their game comes out. Noneof this is an issue to game I

(21:06):
don't understand, Like, if you'reso worried about Xbox dying because of this,
Phil Spencer said it. They're notgoing to make a decision going I'm
trying to kill my creation. Thisis not VisiC Man bringing the nWo into
the WWE or Vinsic Man doing otherstuff behind the scenes. Is none of
this. They're trying to do thebest for their system. And the other

(21:26):
thing I just want to bring up, and I want to get a Mark's
point on this too, because heand I collect games, So he and
I are a different aspect or adifferent group than a lot of people,
those people that are worried that theirdigital library is going to disappear and everyone
was freaking out about this. Anybodycare about their Wei library? All those

(21:48):
old Nintendo games they bought on theirWei shop? Has anybody gone back and
played any of those? Digital issuper simple to download and play and it's
easy access, and then we forgetall about it. So if for whatever
reason it ever did die, nobody'sgonna go back and play their Xbox three
sixty ten years from now. Chillpeople. I everone freaks out about stuff,

(22:11):
You're never gonna play them again.It's okay, Mark you are you?
Are you by? I see youbuy retro games all the time.
You're on here talking about the retrogame you just bought. Maybe you don't
necessarily open the box every time andplay each one of those games. But
what do you think about Let's theydidn't talk about physical games at all here,

(22:33):
so they're saying, basically, maybewe shouldn't expect that after Xbox series,
your physical games will continue to workgoing forward, but your digital library
will. Does that concern you atall? That? Uh? Yeah,
somewhat, because they I don't knowif it's x I don't know if Xbox
is really done at but like Steamd list stuff or even delete stuff from

(22:56):
libraries occasionally, right, so thatthat's a worry. I'd much rather have
a physical copy of the game,like spec Ops the Line, for example,
that just got delisted a few weeksago or a month ago or whatever,
that it can always play then hopingthat you know, the store funnel
be up or the download service willbe up. I mean, yeah,
you have a point, and thatis always why physical gaming is is good

(23:19):
in that respect that even if theydo something to make it to where you
can't update the game anymore or youcan't play it while you're online, you
could always put your system in offlinemode and be able to continue to use
it that way. But I thinkit is evident that Xbox is going fully

(23:41):
digital. They already do a lotof the first first party titles. The
disc that's in the box is basicallya it's there for you to install the
actual whole thing on the system,and therefore it's really not doing anything.
But they're really the first ones,right, they they're already we've we've talked
about that. There a lot ofstores are removing you know, there's European
stores that are removing them. Yeah, yeah, yeah, But I mean

(24:07):
this is more of a push towardslike everything. I mean, Nintendo's seems
to be like the one that becausethey have the cartridge and all of that,
and they make the deals with Walmartwhere you can buy the games ten
bucks cheaper there and all that stuff, they seem to be kind of okay
with continuing. The things is Nintendois continue trying to continue the status quo
as long as possible. Right theyare. They are cool with exclusives.

(24:32):
They do not want to put anythingon anybody else's box. They are living
in their own world, and theyare benefiting from living in their own world
because they're selling like hotcakes. Andthey're fine. Right, we'll see what
happens with the switch to But they'realso not spending as much on games as
Xbox and Sony are, right,and like you said, sustainability, this

(24:55):
is what this whole thing felt liketo me. We are trying to continue
to have Xbox exist for another twentyyears or whatever, and this is the
way. Tony may not do itright now, but they will get it
eventually, and we're trying to openthat door. We're hoping that by doing
this it shows the other companies thatyou can't also do this and it doesn't

(25:19):
hurt you and ye, why likethat's the big question, Like they want
it to happen, I guess,or you know, they want to be
around for twenty years. But theyof the four consoles they've made, only
one of them has been a success. Right stop or just admit defeat and
to take come you know, thethird party developer and publisher that people want.

(25:42):
But they he did at meet defeat. They're not trying to fight with
Sony and Nintendo on that same uhno, because this is him, right,
this is him literally saying like wewant Xbox feed rund for twenty years.
You just said twenty years or whatever. So it's like, okay,
they say fuck it and put Haloon PlayStation and shut it all down.
The reason why they can't do thatis because we just saw what happened,

(26:03):
right the two weeks of people goingnuts and the like. These people didn't
evangelize the console en us they lost. Oh well, I don't know.
I just so, I mean,killing your entire fan base to go as
a third party publisher doesn't If Microsoftjust said, okay, we're shopping the
Xbox for putting Game Pass on PSfive and switch like, all right,

(26:26):
fine, what if Okay, buthere's the thing. What if Sony and
Nintendo say we don't care whether youdon't make Constant anymore, we don't want
game pass on our at all.They can still become a third party developer,
publisher and sell their games to peoplewho actually want them fair enough,
fair enough. I mean, that'sthat's an interesting strategy. I just don't

(26:47):
I can I understand what they're tryingto do. They're trying to they have
the money to continue to do this. Number one, they can. They
can continue to make consoles, uh, sell them at a loss or whatever
the heck, keep the that fanbase happy, make it destill the entry
point while they figure out everything else, right, Because it's not like Internet
is gonna get any better for peoplein five years or three years. Even

(27:10):
it seems like the next console generationis coming really quick in twenty twenty six,
twenty twenty seven. The Internet's notgoing to be better for people by
then. So the cloud is stillnot going to be the thing that they
want it to be. So fornext gen, you have to have a
console. I don't know about fiveor ten years from now. If it's
it's gonna be any better at thatpoint or not. They may never get

(27:30):
to realize that whole cloud future.We may never get to that point.
Will everybody just have one PC thatyou put games in and everybody just becomes
a publisher except for Nintendo maybe,Who knows, but I guess let's let's
try to put the Sony thing inhere as well, so we kind of
have a little bit more conversation onthat. Sony did wonderful sales wise.

(27:53):
I'm not going to go through allthe numbers. You guys can read that
if that's your thing. I don'tthink we need to spend twenty minutes on
that they sold well, The gamessold well. They have one hundred and
twenty three million active users. PSplus is apparently dropping very much like the
game pass. Subs are dropping justbecause you know, I think people are

(28:15):
realizing that just subs in general wasjust it's getting ridiculous for everything. Also,
again, the whole PS plus premiumthing is is such a ripoff still.
But that being said, they hadto lower the forecast of their PS
five sobs from twenty five million totwenty one to be fair. All the

(28:37):
forecasters were saying that apparently twenty fivemillion was always way too much for them
to broadcast, so they're kind ofhaving to come back to reality a little
bit. Hell Divers, too,is doing amazing. It has two hundred
something thousands concurrence on Steam. Mywhole timeline is sequel enjoying Hell Divers.

(28:57):
It's forty bucks and they did agreat job with that. But it's also
showing I think that the Heroki Tokeyis talking about, our games are costing
too much to make. We needto start being more mindful about how much
we're spending and development when we makethese games, and we need to figure

(29:17):
out a way to continue to sellmore of our games, more of our
console. But our console selves maystart declining because we're in the latter half
of the generation. So therefore weneed to get more out of our games,
and we may be going to moreaggressive towards p teacher. He doesn't
give a timeline. He doesn't sayI'm undoing what Herman Holst and Jim Ryan
said. He just says that that'swhat I think we need to do.

(29:41):
I've been sitting here with all ofour teams. We have great teams.
We love our teams. They arevery motivated all that stuff, But then
he keeps talking about the money.He's a money man at the end of
the day, Like he's that's whathe's focused on again, sustainability right of
the of the kind of of gamingmoving forward, Mark, we know what

(30:04):
your mind said. Oh it's aone, two, three years later.
Whatever. What if the PC gamescoming to PC gets the the it gets
smaller and smaller. What if we'retalking about not just the live service games,
but some of the single player gamescome day and date or two or
three months later or whatever. DoesPlayStation fans need to start going crazy like

(30:29):
Xbox fans did all those years agowhen when they first announced that. No,
because it'show me like a two thousanddollars computer to run any PS four
PS five game? All right?Last, and also like, uh,
PC gamers aren't the same as consolegamers, And that's fine. Yeah,
And I think, uh, misterToky is realizing that right that PC gamers

(30:52):
are not the same as console gameUh Randy, you're the PlayStation guy.
What do you Let's say that theydid announce that they're going day and date
with all of these games. Dowe all do? We all need everybody
needs to start selling their PS fivestomorrow, and and uh, you know
because Marks one hundred percent right,if I sold my PS five right now,

(31:14):
I could buy one component for thecomputer that I would need to be
able to run these games and agood thing. And that's fine, Like,
I'm not going to go against whatI was just saying about Xbox guys.
As a PlayStation guy, put thegames out there, right, I'm
with Mark. PC is a differentarea than these consoles. The day and

(31:36):
date and Microsoft, Yeah, that'sit would feel a bit weird, but
maybe that's where the future goes.But as far as PC stuff goes,
get it out there. I dolike that they do it in a more
of a staggered way because then youpossibly get somebody that that does have a
good PC and they play the gameon your PlayStation. And then six months

(31:56):
later, a year later, afterall of the updates come out or whatever,
or people you want to play thisgame again. Then all right,
now the PC versions out there.Now we have all these accessibility options,
you can mess around with all youryour your PC optimization stuff, and then
all the DLCs in there and youcan do all this stuff, and then
they buy it again. So Imean, how I see that all the

(32:19):
time with with like five fataty seven. It is like, all right,
I can't wait for the PC portto come out, so they play it
on the PlayStation and then they buyit again on the PC. And they
do that with all of these games. So I think that is the more
optimized way. I mean, youcan shorten that time for sure. But
that's the other thing where once againI've brought it up many times. We

(32:39):
talk about layoffs, and we talkabout issues in the industry. Everything got
too ballooned. Games take five tosix to seven to eight to nine to
ten years now to make, andthat's if everything goes well. Things go
wrong and then everything gets backed up. Naughty Dog, everyone's going, when's
their next game going to come out? What was supposed to be the online

(33:00):
game, and that's not happening now. So now who knows when the next
Naughty Dog game comes out? Yougotta love it, Thanks Sean for taking
us over the heat off of it. But now companies are trying to figure
out a way to make the moneythat they're trying to make to keep the

(33:20):
people still employed. I forget theguy's name. I've watched the end of
the Dice Awards. But one ofthe people for Balders Skate three when they
won Game of the Year. Ithought he said it beautifully, like everyone
out there that's doing all these projections, your projections are wrong. You over
project things, and then we can'treach your projections, and then you cut
people. And he hates to seeit, and I thought his speech was

(33:40):
fantastic. And that's the issue isthey're projecting, like as you said,
PlayStation way over projected how many systemsthey were going to sell, and now
they're cutting back. And luckily rightnow they're trying to find different avenues to
make up that money they projected.Instead of going, well, we're cutting
forty percent of Tony, that's whatwe need to do. Let them figure

(34:02):
out other ways to make money.Cut down on on production cost. We
don't need these over the top,crazy triple A games that take five,
six, seven years to make.Like, go out and and give the
money to these guys that take thesmaller games that take two or three years
that it's not as as costly.Go out and support those games. Show

(34:23):
these companies we're cool with that.Like once every so often, you can
give us the last of us Parttwo, but right, I want it
right. I want you to comeon to your part, Randy. I
think you make a good point inthat I think all of us that love
gaming maybe we don't care, right, but I do. I do see

(34:44):
the point of having the big moviegame, the big Santamna game. It
does draw people in, right,But if you want those games to continue,
they need to make money somewhere.I just want to I just want
to come on here one time wherewe don't have to talk about like now.
I agree, I wish we didn't, but apparently and brace or CEO
has to go talk shit also,so you know that we we have to

(35:09):
talk about it because this guy can'tjust shut up and not say anything.
It doesn't I don't know how thateven helps your shareholders to tell them that
the people are basically who cares,They're just numbers. We got to get
through it so we can make thebusiness better. Like yo, that you
don't you are apparently are are noteven human. You have no care about

(35:29):
any of these people that you justlaid off. You're just you are the
one that messed up. Actually youshould be the one resigning because you have
a hand and why did this damndeal with the savadis didn't work? So
why didn't you cut your your payand and and you know, resign yourself
instead of, oh, yeah,we are cutting a bunch of people and
who cares? We have to doit because it makes our business better,

(35:52):
yo, Like, man, atleast have some grace when you when you
say something like at least Phil triedto have grace yesterday and he said it.
It still sounds terrible and obviously doesn'thelp the Sarah bond, but it's
basically like ro row Xbox right afterthat, so that made it worse.
But he tried to be graceful aboutwhatever whatever. The the embrace the CEO

(36:15):
just did was actually horrible, youknow. So going beyond that, let's
avoid more of these things by allowingand understanding that conto gaming is changing and
that it's okay if something goes toPC, it's okay. If Xbox has
seen the window and they're not gonnagrow anymore and they got to figure out

(36:37):
some other way to grow. AndRobert is always gonna be on the conquerors
train. I don't know about that. Uh, if they haven't done Banjo
Gazoui yet I'm pretty sure we're stillnot gonna get conquered at this point.
We might get blinks to time sweeper, like Mark always says, before we
get conquered. So you know that'sthe thing, is h I think we

(37:01):
just need to adapt as gamers.We need to understand that even though I'm
not going to have the money forthe PC, if we allow these people
to have the game enjoy it.Look at what hell Divers two is doing
right now, Like, that's justmaking hell Divers two more popular, that's
just making people talk about your game. If you're Sony right, Like it's

(37:22):
a franchise that was hardly known,you released it day and day and on
PC people are eating it up,getting a squad together, paying forty bucks
each time on Steam to play itor or on PS five whatever, and
they're enjoying the game. And that'sat the end of the day. Isn't

(37:44):
that what you want? Like youknow, I get it if it ends
up like hurting the dev time andand whatever, and like you know,
I've heard scor Enix talk about thisand other folks are saying that when we
have to do the game for PSfive and then try to make it the
best on PS five A lot oftimes, that's why you get those bad
PC ports or whatever, because they'refocusing more on the one system than they

(38:07):
are on the PC. Right.Uh, maybe that does show why you
don't need to do everything day anddate. But some things it isn't bad.
Right. But also I guess somethingto discuss is they talked about no
major franchises coming out this year untilprobably like after March twenty twenty five,

(38:29):
So like no God of War,no Horizon, no One Charged, and
no nothing like that. Jeff Grubbdoes mention they mean we're gonna get an
Astro game. Please don't make itin VR only. Please let other people
are not in VR enjoy this game. We loved Astor's playroom. I think
everybody that loved that game wants tosee a bigger version of what that is

(38:50):
without VR and some other ones.You know, we know the Concord games
coming and a few other things.Mark, is it a big deal that
we're not having another Spider Man,another Horizon and all that. No,
because as a Sony guys said,you know five is already is already over
with, so kine of the times. No, it's it's fine, like

(39:15):
you don't need every year, doesn'tneed to be some blockbuster thing. It'd
be nice, but I mean Sonyis gonna have fanal Fantys seven rebirth.
That's all they need. That's that'sthe big game, right and it's also
coming in weeks. Yeah, butyou know it's the only time so that
it will be on or because theseam or the epic version will be at

(39:37):
least a year probably probably. Yeah, So they're good. And it's not
like Marcousoft is gonna blow out ofthe water this year either, so no,
probably not. And Nintendo this islike it's gonna be a quiet year
for them too, So perfect forSony because Nintendo's going to announce there what's
two and then that's it feels likethat's gonna be it because like after March

(39:59):
there's like nothing and they're not rushingto go do that. Nintendo director is
supposed to be a partner director.It's not even like Nintendo's going to announce
five other big amazing games that arecoming like they're it seems like they're really
trying to be quiet so that wheneverthey announced the switch to they can just
give you all the games that aregoing to be on that thing and not
have people waiting for the for what'sstill coming to the switch one. Randy,

(40:22):
you're the sony guy. I mean, does it bother you that we're
not going to have some big blockbusterto look forward to aside from Rebirth?
I mean, of course you wantwhat you like games Like I'm still surprised
a little bit that Ghost of Shushimatwo has not even been announced. Curious
where that is at. But doI need them know, Coach, Like
we talked about it last year,I don't have time to play a lot

(40:45):
of games. I still have gamesfrom last year. I'm trying to work
myself through. So it's fine.I'm with Mark. Not every year it
has to be an over the topyear. Last year was insane with the
top level of quality of games thatwe've got all across all of the consoles.
So if we have a slower year, which by the way, anyone's

(41:05):
like, oh it's a slow year, look at what these first three months
have for us, just because wedon't know what's coming out after April.
Everyone is is no longer doing theHey this is coming out in nine months.
They're doing a lot more of theHey in two months this comes out,
get excited now, and they're doingthe Nintendo approach. Like you say
Nintendo has a quiet fall, it'sbecause we haven't hit the Summer Direct yet,

(41:29):
so we don't know what they're doing. Once we hit the Summer Direct,
then we'll know what Nintendo's going todo in the fall. So just
because right now, like the bigtitles haven't been announced and it doesn't look
like Sony's going to have their ownfirst party stuff, We're still going to
have stuff to play in the fall. We're going to have stuff play in
the summer. And even if they'rereally it's if I'm wrong and we have

(41:50):
nothing to play in those There's eightgames that have come out in the last
two months already of this year thathave already hit my backlog that I would
love to go back and act shouldplay at some point. So I'm not
a quieter year. I mean andRebird somebody are gonna take like a whole
month from so like you know thatthat game is gonna be huge. Uh,
you know, we we've talked aboutsome of the huge games that everybody

(42:14):
come out here on the past fewweeks. Uh, there's Dragon's Dagma's two
is gonna be huge. There's othergames that are gonna be taking up your
time, uh in those months,So I think, you know, there,
it's not it's not the deluge ofgames that was last year, but
that's probably better. And also Ithink we got to think about, like
a lot of those games that cameout last year were delayed from years before

(42:36):
because of COVID, Right, soat some point we're gonna hit that time
where there's not this cavalcade games andwe're gonna have a bigger waiting time.
And that's okay too. You know, people are starting to kind of have
this like you have the Spring isthe new Fall, where you have a
lot of games released during that timeperiod, then you kind of have,
Okay, the summer, we're expectinga lot of people go outside and do

(42:59):
things, and then we're gonna goback and rape up for the fall again.
Like it's that kind of that's kindof normal. And I think I
think for Sony got a little messedup with the Last of Us multiplayer game
getting canceled too. I think thatwas supposed to be their big fall game,
and and credit to Sony, theydidn't take another company and go,
now you have to crunch because weneed a game in October November. So

(43:19):
I mean, to be fair,they also could have like waited to release
that Last of Plus Part two remasterlike later. They didn't have to do
it in January. I mean,it's not like season two of The Last
of Us is coming out tomorrow orwhatever. Like that's on them as well.
They could have waited, you know, but that that's they They know
what they have. They know that, like they have other franchises out there.

(43:43):
I think Nintendo also has that thing. They just had all their big
games release, Like what else isthere? I think at this point,
Metro Prime four is going to bethe big launch game aside maybe a three
D Mario that's been cooking there.But like Metro Prime four has been so
we do haven't heard a word ofit for so long that at this point,
do we really needed to be likethe last big Hurrah to switch one?

(44:05):
Not really, you know, wejust had that with Zelda and Mario
Wonder and all that stuff. SoNintendo is good. They're fine, you
know, they're they're doing their thing. Yeah, So I think that's the
takeaway. Ah, yes, Robert, it'd be cool if we did get
a new Mario Galaxy. Still don'tknow why we don't have Mario Galaxy two.

(44:27):
I'll switch. That's still just isweird to me that that that game
did not come. But that beingsaid, let's move to uh talking about
we were talking about our games thatwe're playing. Let's talk about those games
here, Mark, you've been playinga Persona three reload finally, or yeah,
I've been. I think I'm inAugust. Okay, you're you're pretty

(44:51):
far. Yeah, well yeah,I just meet like the fourth balls maybe
fourth or fifth Yeah, uh yeah, the teams, it's somewhat antiquated,
but it's still fun. Like thesocial interaction stuff is like different from Persona
five, and you can see like, oh right, this kind of sucks,
but I can see why you keptimproving it. I mean, but

(45:15):
like, why what don't you whatdo you feel like it's missing from Persona
five that it's like coming out afterwards. I think that a lot of the
characters in Persona three kind of lame, like the the Gourmet King, it's
like fat food obsessed dude, andlike you don't like in Persona of five,

(45:36):
like you pretty much immediately have agroup of friends and you know you're
hanging out with them constantly. Thisgame doesn't have that at all. It's
it's kind of funny, like thegroup barely seems to like each other,
which is funny. Like the gameplayis like the battlesystem is so good,
but yeah, like the first bosshaving a timer on it, which you

(46:00):
you wiped on a two times.I did it because I kind of knew
it was going on, or Iknew it was going to be annoying,
sort of went at it, orlike the Tartarists being all the same.
All right, I get it,but having an environment the same environment for
fifteen levels is kind of boring.Also, like there's not a ton of

(46:22):
places to build different stats or likeways to build different stats, so I'm
kind of having to follow like onehundred percent guide, even though I've kind
of screwed it up occasion, likeoccasionally just because I don't want to miss
anything. Yeah, that's kind ofwhat I've been doing too. I've been
just using a guide. And theguide I'm using is funny because it's like,
oh, go to Tartarus and grindit out to get forty thousand yen.

(46:45):
It's like I ran. I ranto that place twice, and I
barely got twenty thousand. Like,well, it's like you have to sort
of manage the what you get intoTartaris, and then when you sell all
the items, you have to likeget the equivalent of whatever it tells you.
And I barely did it the firsttime. Like when I went through,
I got to the point where Ihad no health items or anything left,

(47:08):
and then I was able to getto the level twenty two or whatever
that it gets you to and thenoh it ends. Okay. So then
when I sold everything, I barelyhad the forty thousand yen that it tells
you to have, and I'm like, okay, I guess I made it
through that one. And then ittells the next one is like, oh,
you got to get to floor ninetysomething and have one hundred thousand,

(47:30):
Yeah, one hundred thousand yen,And I'm like, we'll probably probably in
the same power. Yeah exactly,we're going the same guy. Yeah.
So, I mean, there's reallynot that many out there, and they're
also kind of like it's so weit. It is interesting because they added
that new feature for this one whereif you press I mean, I'm playing
on game Pass, so like ifyou press the the select button or whatever,

(47:54):
you can see what people did duringthat day. They kind of give
you a hint of like, Imean they had that five also, but
yeah, but that wasn't in theoriginal Persona Or do you feel like it's
missing something for not having the femaleprotagonist or no, I think all these
people, you know, it wasmaybe like deal c late down the road,

(48:16):
but they did work a lot ofthat game for to happen. I
feel like it's definitely gonna be It'sjust like Persona four Golden. They're waiting
to resell you this game again.They're they're gonna put it in like like
that battle. We have a Personafive World, should it count as a
new game for Game of the Yearor whatever. We're gonna be probably doing
this again for Persona three whatever theycall it. And to your point,

(48:43):
Robert, I also felt the samething with Power World. I'm not huge
in survival games. I did likeit for a while, but then it
did get to the point where Iwas like, Okay, this is just
kind of like we're playing with thePokemon, but we're doing survival stuff,
and it'd be cool if maybe Pokemonstry something like that, but it kind
of I got over it after awhile. And it is interesting that while
people are waiting for new content,they have dropped the like two thirds of

(49:06):
their their players right now. Soalso, I think hell Divers coming out
and really being in the Zecast aswell as kind of health with that too.
But yeah, anything else you wantto say about Persona, I still
like it. I don't. Iguess there's a good character. I just
unlocked her pretty much, so I'mlooking forward to it. But yeah,

(49:29):
following this guy is just kind ofannoying in spots. I agree with you
there anything else you've been I've hada few demos team demos. I tried
that Pacific Drive demo, which wasweird. I didn't like my Pace four
controller and the game does kind ofa bad job of towny like what it

(49:49):
has. It has like objectives,but it doesn't tell you like how to
do them correctly. Maybe that wasjust a demo problem, right, And
I don't think you'll like it becauseit is a rival game. Yeah,
Like that's my issue with it is. I watched that they released like a
ten minute gameplay trailer with the devstalking about it. And it felt like
they were in menus a ton waymore than playing the game, because it's

(50:14):
a lot of fixing your car afteryou go out there, and if oh
yeah, you get stuck out there, then you'll lose your parts and whatever
that you did, and it's like, man, yeah, like you said,
it really does feel like it's moreof a survival game with rogue black
stuff than it is about the things. I mean, that's what I kind
of expected, Like it seemed like, you know, but I think people

(50:36):
are gonna it's gonna be like awee happy few situation where people are expecting
one thing and it's not quite thatand unhappiness will follow. This has kind
of been a big uh things.Sony's been promoting a lot on the state
of plays. Randy, do youhave any interest in specific drive at all?
I don't think I remember ever seeingit, so not sure. Yeah,

(50:59):
that's the station Wagon game, stationWagon and sci Fi areas or you
know, yeah Apocalypse that one.No, not really no, yeah I
remember now just from this one imagethat box up anything else. I also
tried the Star Trucker game or thedemo that was cool. Yeah, uh

(51:24):
yeah, like yeah, you're drivingyou know, a truck in space and
it looks like a damn truck,which is hilarious. There's just like big
rockets attached to it. But goodmusic, uh, you know, good
atmosphere. It's a lot more involvedthan you would think, because like you
don't just have to worry about fuel. You have like system you have to

(51:45):
worry about like, oh, youhave a power system and it controls a
bunch of stuff and you can youknow, it's like almost like the Jurassic
Park fuse box or you know,they have to reach out the system with
that thing. But yeah, I'llplay that when it comes out. Fully,
it was interesting. Well, andI know you've been having fun reading

(52:07):
Sey Solitaire too, because I knowreading Sea Solitaire was one of your Yeah,
I got the full I got thefull version for beta testing, so
yeah, that's a lot of fun. Anything different from the first game that
no, okay, different a differentstory and it's slightly different like new abilities
kind of, but it's pretty muchwhat I would expect, but same,

(52:30):
you know, good good story,good solitaire action, that's what you want.
I've been I got Adventures Goes toa New Meat in for review.
My first like actual proper review forthis year, it's been by Focus Entertainment
and Don't Nod, so it's thosefolks, you know, life is strange
all that. It definitely has astory. It definitely has a story it

(52:53):
wants to tell. It's set inlike the sixteen eighties, so like you
know, basically fifty years before orafter America colonized over here, and basically
it's a story of there's ghosts andyou got to figure out why they're there,

(53:13):
and you're the banish or you're theone that this this town's been beset
by this thing and you're trying tofigure out why this happened, and then
you go and try to deal withthe ghosts that are there, and there's
a lot there's a lot of storydecisions you got to make, as in
usual Don't Nod games, so there'sa lot of dialogue. The the graphics

(53:35):
are really great in this game forbeing a double A title. It's just
the combat doesn't seem like it's youknow, the combat feels like it's just
kind of there. I don't know, if maybe I play it on something
that's not normal difficulty, it getsharder, but it definitely feels like the
skulls or whatever that you're fighting orkind of just there to give you combat.

(54:00):
But I like exploring that old setting, the old time setting. The
all the characters that you meet arekind of interesting to talk to, and
and that story around it is veryinteresting. So I'm gonna keep tracking along.
I'm probably like four hours in andsee how it goes. But it
kind of reminds me a little bitof a Plaguetail, just you know,

(54:22):
you have more you're actually controlling thecharacters than I think too. And also
you have the like interesting dynamics ofthe this is a not only a woman,
but a black woman in those times, and you do get some of
those interactions of hey, you're notsupposed to be here, you're the servant.
What are you doing? Like youknow, and they actually have a
warning for that as well at thebeginning of the game that like, hey,

(54:45):
be aware they're going to talk aboutsubjects that for that time were not
great. But I do like thatthey they do go there. They give
you that sense of that time,that feeling of the time of Okay,
they did have to deal with thiskind of thing, but they're actually here
to help. So you got todeal with the whole. I'm actually trying
to help you here. Why areyou you know, talking to me this

(55:07):
week? But yeah, it's outfor Xbox PS five PC, so if
anybody wants to try it, Ithink it's actually pretty good. It is
full price, so you know,be aware of that. Robert mentions that
Skull and Bones is not a goodgame. Scott is also watching, he's

(55:30):
in playing, he's actually reviewing thegame. So I feel bad for him
what he has to has to dealwith playing this game because everybody I see
online, Uh, that game cameout today, it had the open bay
of last week. The words Isee online or this game is boring and
that's not good. When when wejust talked about last week, how eg

(55:51):
mot came out and defended why thatgame is seventy dollars because it's a quadruple
a game. But then the thingsthat you see on this game for you,
remember says it's certainly an experience,but it ain't a seventy dollars experience.
Remember remember five years ago when theyannounced they were going to make a

(56:14):
TV show based on it. Theydid, Yeah twenty nineteen, a female
driven TV show like Zones. Yeah, Oh my god, that's still coming
right. I'm pretty sure that probablygot canceled quietly, Randy, have you
been playing anything a lot of smallstuff? Been playing that Turn Up Boy

(56:38):
Robs a Bank or whatever it wason on game Pass. I'm getting near
the end of it. It's avery short game. Just rob a bank,
over and over, do a bunchof silly quests. It's it's silly
fun. I'm having a lot offun with that game. Did that Silent
Hill? The answer the message oryeah? The short message I think is
what it's called. It's fine,it's it's okay, it's free, which

(57:01):
it's there. I know a lotof people try to compare it with PT.
There are some PT aspects to it. The apartment building that you go
through is is littered with stuff.Some of the dialogue is a bit weird,
but it's a nice little reminder ofwhat Silent Hill is all about,

(57:21):
the psychological horror aspect of Silent Hill. And I think this is better than
the weird twitch streaming TV show thingthat they attempted to do. So hopefully
things are finally going in the rightdirection. But again, it's free if
you want to try. It's liketwo hours it's not the greatest thing in
the world, but it's definitely nopt I'll say that right now. But

(57:43):
it's all right. It was fine. I've been playing a lot of fop
ivey seven remake getting ready for Rebirth. I'm probably three quarters of the way
through it and getting close to theend of it. I still love that
game. It's it's so much fun, And especially now that I played the
demo for the or part of thefirst chapter of Rebirth, I've hit sections

(58:05):
in remake that like just already theconnections that they're they're making that I had
forgotten about. It's fantastic. There'sa scene that straight in both of them
that I literally hit on the sameday when I played the demo and then
was playing through remake. So that'sbeen a lot of fun. So yeah,
just mostly a lot of small stuffand just preparing myself for what Rebirth

(58:28):
is about to be. Yes,I also bet that ever we had seventy
dollars, have you noticed anything likedifferent now that you're like going back and
playing it after the you know,you're not. It's not like when it
came out and we're all excited andwhatever. Like I really going through those
middle chapters. I forgot how muchof a kind of a slog. It

(58:50):
feels like it feels like those takeforever. Yes, compared to the beginning
of the game. That feels likeit's going on a speedy pace or whatever.
I'm hoping Birth goes away from it. But I do feel like they
were worried about it being too shortof a game, so they were adding
a bunch of stuff. Actually,I just got through the Trade the Graveyard.

(59:10):
I loved that segment playing through itagain, but there are other segments
in it. I'm just about tohit the second time you go through the
sewers, and I'm worried about itbecause I hated that segment when you go
through that rat or whatever it is, I'm just about it to hit that
segment. The side quests are justas dumb as as remember them. But

(59:35):
yes, I have there were definitelyparts where it's like it's so great and
then it kind of slows down abit too much. And again, they
were trying to turn an eight hourpart of the original File Fantasy game and
turn it into forty or fifty hours. This would have it would have been
perfect at like thirty, Like ifthey just would have tightened it up,
and that's what I'm hoping for withRebirth is they've tightened up a lot of

(59:58):
that stuff, added in some openwor world aspects to add it into the
game time. But I'm sure thatthis is going to be a long game
for how much that they're going tohit in there, So I feel like
they don't have to stretch things outas much as they needed to for the
mid guard section because they're hitting somuch stuff. But just playing that demo

(01:00:20):
and the Memory of Nibelheim was twohours and we didn't even hit all of
it in that demo makes me wonderjust how much else is going to get
stretched out. And I'm excited forit, but there's there could be some
some low moments in this. I'mnot worried about that so much because they
showed like a gazillion minigame series,like there's going to be so much stuff

(01:00:42):
to take up your time in thatgame. Besides uh, the fact that
they brought because they could have leftFort Condor in that intermission DLC and said,
well, if you want to playthat again, it's it's you got
to play that. Like the factthat they took a step and actually made
it to where you're apparently geting controlthe characters, and they have that like
goofy little design in there and everything, Like they really went far with making

(01:01:07):
sure that you're gonna have all ofthese these mini games and things to do.
So and then they added the likerelationship stuff that wasn't in the original
and yeah, and the damn piano. Yeah, people are already starting to
figure that thing out. I cannotwait for six months. You'll play like
actual songs on that thing. It'sjust crazy. Yeah, I think it
is. It ends and it's justthrown in there. Yeah, I can't

(01:01:30):
wait for that game. And thesetwo weeks cannot go by quick enough.
I'll tell you right now. Iam not playing the second demo. Yeah,
that's coming out next week for people. The twenty first. I've played
enough. I'm ready for the twentyninth. Let's go. Like the only
reason I played the first demo wasbecause you could save your progress, and
after I played it, I go, I'm replaying this part anyway. Yeah,

(01:01:51):
exactly, So I don't Yeah,because you'll have that continuation of what
happens when it ends right there,So I'm ready. Plus they'll improve the
Performance this mood because I played InequalityMode just because I wanted to see what
it looked like on the TV.But when I went back and played Remake
and Performance when I was I turnedit on and I was like, oh,

(01:02:12):
okay, I can see the blurrystuff that they're talking about and everything.
Hopefully it does get improved and itdoesn't affect the actual game, because
that's what sucked about sixteen. Itgot marred by the technical issues at first
at the beginning. Hopefully there's notthe technical issues with this game for sure
with all the time that they've hadon it. So moving back into talking

(01:02:35):
about news here for a little bit, pretty much everything else that has to
do with news this week outside ofthe Xbox stuff, which it feels like
everybody was basically just waiting for thatthis week is layoffs and companies canceling games,
and ununfortunate passing away of Yoshitaka Riyamadue to ONUS complications. Of course,

(01:03:06):
this is the person that created thepsunconym series back in the nineties.
He's been helping Rabbit and Bear Studioswith the Iuden Chronicles one hundred Heroes that
comes out in April and he's beenyou know, big on that as well,
and then like the fact that hehe passed and then he also like

(01:03:27):
passed before the game even came out. It sucks like he's the scenario rider
for this game and man, likethe legacy of these behind it sucks seeing
this it's pass away like that.I mean, it's a shame, but
it would have been nice if youcould see hopefully Iden chronicles actually you know
good and Sweakiden was always good butnever got the popularity or the preskige.

(01:03:52):
Yeah, let's hope between this gameand then the remasters or remakes whatever that
are coming from remasters, Aconomy themselvesput a memorial something for him, but
they won't. Yeah, I wouldhope they they do, but ye I
can see where they They also don'tlike if you if you leave the company,

(01:04:15):
you don't no longer exist to us. It's like a ka, yeah,
I still want to know what happenedbetween them like that where it's like,
damn, we can't even acknowledge thathe really like did work on those
games and we sat here and madea collection and everything for it, and
we're making another collection like it's justyeah, but sadly moving on from that

(01:04:41):
to ben Ny Namgo. Due tonot having an Elden Ring like game that
propped up their entire sales for anentire year, saw a huge drop and
income from the last year. Whowould have thought ninety six point five percent
drop in income and eight point ninepercent drop in net sales their dragon Ball

(01:05:06):
in one piece games. Yes,good here that one Piece in dragon Ball
games are doing well. At leastArmored Corps was popular, but they canceled
like five games and also said thatthey are going to now basically have a
stricter policy when it comes to games. We're going to build an optimum,

(01:05:28):
well balanced title forfourlio, examine ourdevelopmental system carefully and strengthen that development with
an empass on quality. So kindof similar to what score Nix says.
They're trying to do not so muchquantity, but more quality. And I
think that's a good thing. Yes, I agree. Less anime arena fighters.

(01:05:49):
Please stop making every anime game thatyou make that isn't One Piece or
Dragon Ball a arena fighter. Wedon't need that. I'm sure people would
love to have their favorite anime franchisee sport in a different way. And
then yeah, forget forget that theyneed to double done and they jump forward
too. God please, let's notmention that game ever again. Uh yeah,

(01:06:15):
and Narrito didn't save them either,reently. So what's funny is like
elden Ring was still, like,I thin think one of the top twenty
best selling games the last year.Yeah, I mean it shows how much
elden Ring was amazing. And thenthey obviously people are getting ready for the
DLC that's gonna come out, uhthis year, you presume, So that
would help them whenever that DLC doescome, But for now, that's that's

(01:06:36):
kind of what they're dealing with.I mean, the problem last year is
they only released like two games oryeah, you know some of the nudo
game, you know, Armored Corpssix and the one Piece one Piece and
then the other one tells the SifoniaRing Mastered. It's like, yeah,
that didn't do that. And thenthey had that DLC for for tales,

(01:06:59):
but I think that didn't do thathot either, Yeahause it came out too
late. I mean that's the problem. And if you haven't played The Tails
of a Rise both of those games, that game is coming to Game Pass
and PS Plus by the way onthe twentieth, So get ready if you
haven't played that. Uh, I'msure you don't have time for a rainy,
but it's one to check out,not far fast, play a good

(01:07:24):
game. Instead, I'll play mygarbage. And first we have to talk
about Embracer again. I I alreadytalked about the terrible comments that their CEO
made today that was really unnecessary andhe really should have kept his mouth shut.
But they announced basically that, andI'm not talking about Lars wing for

(01:07:46):
it, by the way, Ishould have mentioned. But he also talks
about basically that even though they've alreadycut one three and eighty seven jobs,
uh, that they're in the finalstretch, but more cuts are coming or
could be coming, are probably arecoming, and that we're probably gonna hear
about them at some point other youknow, those studios may talk about that

(01:08:12):
before we you know, we announcedit ourselves. But basically, get ready
because more are coming. The terriblecase for a company, and they've also
canceled twenty nine projects. Not great. That's gonna work well to put stuff
out and they don't have anything soto start, they had one hundred and

(01:08:33):
fifty three unannounced schemes in development acrosstheir internal studios. By the time the
third quarter ended in December, theywere down to one hundred and twenty four.
That's a lot and also that's alot of damn games period anyway.
But Randy, I mean, thisis just another sad case of this company.

(01:08:54):
I am so tired of this goddamncompany. I can't stand it.
Yes it is. It's we allsaw it coming when they were like eating
up all these different companies and it'slike, this is not going to end
well, and yes it is.It's it's getting worse and worse. More
and more layoffs are happening. They'relike, well, we got to get

(01:09:14):
all these games out and make allthis money. And I don't think Embrace
the Group ever realized like how muchmoney it takes to make games and how
long it takes before you can seeany of that money back, And now
they're canceling them. And it's justthey made a lot of bad decisions,
are like bad you know bets,you know Saints Row or just for all

(01:09:38):
humans. It's like, really,you expect this money, like all all
the remasters that they decided to justhey, let's make this again. So
we can make a new game,and then the remaster doesn't do that well,
and it's like, okay, wellwe're not going to make the new
game now, and you got everybodyexcited for nothing, and then it's just

(01:10:00):
double A. Games can work.You just got to have the right people
behind them. And this is notthe publisher you want. I mean,
I watched like an hour and ahalf the Dice Awards before I fell asleep
because it came on at like eleveno'clock eastern over here. For Randy that's
not that big a deal. Cameon an eight pm over there, But

(01:10:21):
yeah, Greg, Greg Miller madea joke about the two things you don't
want to hear are the Internet's madand the Embraser group is because you know
you're gonna get laid off basically,and it's like or your your game's not
going to turn out well, andit's like, man, just it sucks.

(01:10:42):
It sucks to hear with this company. Is just I don't even want
to know what we're going to betalking about in all these weeks that are
happening with them talking about more stuffis coming because whenever we do finally get
to the light at the end,of the Tunnel. What's going to be
left, you know, like youover, it'll be the companies that are
still have a confirmed deal with Idosor I mean, but Christal Dynamis and

(01:11:06):
yeah, Montreal, that'll be aboutit or something Lord of the Rings related,
because they have to use the propertybecause it's the only thing they have
left that That last game was stellar, wasn't it. Yes, yeah,
I mean and even that they soldoff the rights to Amazon. They had
to sell off the rights to Amazonfor the tomb Raiders stuff as well,

(01:11:26):
so just to make money. Soyeah, not great. Another not great
thing Disco Elysium's developer and maker,z A I forgot how you say this
this name honestly zom or z Aslash Um. They've canceled what was supposed

(01:11:47):
to be an expansion to disco Elysium, a game that I know Yen's liked
a lot and that many people did. This was like a under the radar
hit the year it came out.Yeah yeah, it's a big I mean
well but like it was like oneof those you don't see coming, Like
this game came out and it waslike oh crap, wow, like balder

(01:12:08):
Skate before we got Ballerskate three likethis was like that. You know,
they actually canceled the sequel already theywere going to do an expansion, and
now they have to cancel the expansion, and now they're going to have to
lay off the people that were workingon Code Name X seven unfortunately. Uh,
you know, they went through thatwhole thing with the the game director

(01:12:30):
and the art director going at itabout who owns the rights to their company
and all that stuff, and theyjust have not ever since, like after
the success of disco Elsium. Justit's sad to see what has happened to
this company. Instead of going fromsuccess to success, they go from just
worse to worse unfortunately. So yeah, let's not I think the farthest way

(01:12:59):
we can get from it shouldn't callthem. Probably a good thing at this
point when it comes to a littlebit. But yeah, it sucks.
It sucks to see this for again, that dev that we thought was promising
really too to what's been happening herewith them. So yeah, sucks.
But on a good note, speakingof franchises continuing things, there is going

(01:13:23):
to be another Star Wars game,and respond is making it so already get
excited. About that, because weknow what RESPAWD does with Star Wars games.
They just make it with those.They're making a Mandalorian Star Wars game.
Is that already gets you excited?Randy? We're getting a Mandalorian Star
Wars game. Oh wait, wait, I want a baby Oda game first.

(01:13:45):
It'll be funny, it'll be playing. They can't get Pedro Pascal to
the voice. I mean they gotthe money. It's uh, there's this
game could work because wasn't that StarWars thirteen thirteen? What the fuck was
called? Yeah, it was agame for you paints helmet different but like

(01:14:08):
here you go, Yeah, no, I mean it could and you know,
Mandalorian is still one of the onesthat as Scott says, Star Wars
titan Fall, who knows, Yeah, it could have some elements of that
in there. I mean if there'sa series that you say you're making a
game about that, and people automaticallyare just as excited as you talk about

(01:14:29):
Mandalorian and people are there for that. And Star Wars Outlaws looks amazing and
that's Ubisov doing it. So imaginerespond getting to do this kind of thing.
Uh, and we already saw whatwhat they can do with their own
single player thing. So I'm downwith this, give me more, please,
even if prescal I would theoretically bedown. But there is a long,

(01:14:55):
long cemetery of abandoned or announced StarWars games that never came out.
Yeah, we'll see if it actuallyhappens. And you have to wonder with
them announcing it now, how farinto development they are. I mean,
how long is Mandalorian going to goon Disney So if this isn't coming out
for another four years, Mandalorian endson Disney Plus, Dore's anybody care about

(01:15:16):
a Mandalorian game at that point?I think so. I think there's gonna
it's another way to continue that,you know, And hey, if this
does well and it doesn't have anythingto do with it's a separate story from
the Mandalorian that's on Disney Plus,maybe that's a way to continue this as
well, you know. Beyond that. Yeah, I'm still surprised they haven't

(01:15:39):
tried to come up with a StarWars Jedi show on Disney Plus. Wonderly.
The only thing I can think ofis maybe that dude just doesn't want
to do it, maybe or theydon't want to spend the budget yeah,
do it because they already have aSoca Mandalorian and or yeah. So adding

(01:15:59):
an other one is they might feellike especially with them doing cost cutting right
now. But I wonder if thatwas ever a thought at some point for
them. I should have been justliked fuck the Ahsoka show, making a
lot of people like the Soka Didyou watch it, Randy or no?
No he didn't, Yeah, goahead, No, I just said you're

(01:16:21):
better off for not watching it.Any thoughts on the X Men ninety seven
trailer that I saw. We watchedthe trailer. I need to I watched
it. I have to watch alittle funky in spots. Uh. They
definitely like de emphasize like rogues assthere's always a problem. And some of

(01:16:45):
the voice acting looked sounded a littlea little weird as well like that,
And you know, you can say, like, oh, it's you know,
it's been twenty five years or whatever. Yeah, I guess, but
you know, maybe maybe recast himthen. Yeah, I don't. I
wouldn't expect everything to sound just likeit did back then. It's been a
long time. Yeah, as almostthey get scared of the show. I'm

(01:17:09):
good. Yeah, Yeah, Ilooked a lot more anime though, which
I'm not I'm surprised. I'm surprisedthat they went that route considering, you
know, Disney isn't always the biggestfan of anime. But yeah, yeah,
that is is kind of interesting tothink about too. On that front.
One last thing here that just alsoalong with the Mandalorian news that got

(01:17:33):
announced like pretty much right before wedid the show, this hasn't been like
once again we're going with this ideaof Nintendo doesn't When is Nintendo going announce
to switch to Is it going tobe this year? Is it coming out
this year? Is it coming outtwenty twenty five? Another report already and

(01:17:55):
VU sees saying that they can't confirmit themselves, but they're putting it out
there that there's talk of Nintendo mighthave the Switch to come out as as
twenty five and not this year.Randy, where do you sit on like
when Switch should come out? Doyou think we need it now? I

(01:18:15):
mean, or do you think wecan win another year for when they're ready
they're ready? I think a lotof it is they they want to do
what they did with the Switch andhave a really banger first year for it.
I mean, you go back andlook at what the Switch lineup was
that very first year, and youstarted at with Zelda and you later on

(01:18:36):
that year had a new Mario,And I think that's what they're trying to
set up here, and maybe they'rewaiting for Metroid to finally get ready to
be a launch game and have thatthree D Mario that you were talking about
is also in that year. Iwould not be surprised if it got announced
this fall. We saw a biggerteaser around the Game Awards, maybe not

(01:18:58):
at the Game Awards, but aroundthat time, and then it just like
the Switch, it came out,it comes out in the spring. That
That is my belief, especially becausewe're getting farther and farther into this year
already and we still haven't gotten anthe announcement. Usually Nintendo, what it
was five six months after they announcedthe Switch that came out, So we're

(01:19:18):
gonna yeah, I was getting downthere as far as exactly, Yeah,
it came out of that initial trailerthat shocked us all, came out in
October, and then March is whenthe system came out, So you with
that is around that time, rightthey could they could potentially announce it The
original thought was that the reason whythey're having this partner direct in February is

(01:19:42):
that they're waiting for March maybe likeright tofore, Princess Peach is going to
come out, which is like theirlast like big game that they have announced
and then announced that they're doing officiallythe Switch to or whatever it is,
and then maybe you kick the candown the line to June or July,

(01:20:02):
where you're gonna say, Okay,we're doing the announcement, this is what
it is, here's the reveal whatever, and then come out in the fall.
But yeah, I'm with you.I'd much rather you have that killer
lineup of a year launch again likeyou did last time, where every month
you had something awesome to come out, and you're talking about Switch that entire

(01:20:28):
year instead of oh, well,we know three D Mario's coming, we
know Metro Prime for is coming,and then yeah, who knows what else
Nintendo has cooking there. I don'tI'm not in a rush for it to
come out this fall. I knowthere are people that are. I just
had a you know, our friendGary Randy. He asked me, you

(01:20:49):
know, I want to buy aSwitch for my kids, And I told
him hold off, don't buy itbecause the switch to is gonna get announced
and it's most it's likely going tobe backwards compatible with the Switch one,
which that also that report has alsocome out that it looks like it will
be compatible, so you can buythe switch one games, but you have
the switch too. He's like,man, I hope it gets announced this

(01:21:12):
year because he wanted to buy forhim for Christmas twenty twenty four. So
I do see that in that you'llmiss that Christmas window if you wait until
next year. But yeah, Ithink it depends on if Nintendo thinks that
they there's going to be dropping insales and they really need to announce it,
then go ahead. But I'm mark, I mean the is it a

(01:21:34):
big deal? If it doesn't comeout this year? I won't be this
year because it's too it's already kindof too late because even if announced it
in the spring, it'd be outlike the fall, and then you know,
the Christmas rush would just decimated.So yeah, next year, it'll
come out in the spring and that'llgive them enough time to catch up with

(01:21:56):
like making the damn thing. Yeah, especially also if you're if if the
timeline is still there, that PlayStationand xpots are going to release their mid
gen things in the fall. Whyare you going to release your new switch
thing that's gonna be even further downon the graphics front right along with them,
and then have like everything instead ofreleasing in the spring where you could

(01:22:19):
have your own window. Yeah,so I would have told your friend.
I would have told your friend,also, just buy a switch now,
because you know, two hundred buckstwo fifty for a used one. He's
not going to buy something news,He's he's gonna buy it. He's he's
probably gonna buy the O lead.And if you're gonna spend three fifty on
the O lead, wait till thenew one comes out. It's fifty bucks

(01:22:42):
more, and you get the newone. You don't have to worry about
at the time. Also, wedidn't know that the switch. There was
still the rumors about, well,maybe Switch two is not going to be
back compatible. So I told themyou might want to wait because if you
buy Switch one and then Switch togets announced and they say it's not that
sur patable, and then you havea system that you're buying games for that's
not going to be in use anymoreafter So, yeah, I do think

(01:23:06):
there are a bunch of Nintendo fansthat wanted to come out sooner rather than
later, but I think it's notthe worst thing if it does wait till
the spring, for sure. Sounless anybody has anything else they want to
talk about here, I think that'sit for this episode. There is some

(01:23:27):
things coming out between before we getto Reverb. The that played up game
is on game Pass. It cameout yesterday. It's basically like a co
op version of Overcooked, so evenlike it's like an online co op version
of Overcooked kind of but with youknow, not as cool graphics, I
guess. And the Mari versus DonkeyKong game, which seems like it's fine.

(01:23:53):
Yeah, it's played the four leveldemo. If you did that,
it's fine. Like you said,it doesn't should show you any of the
two new worlds that are in there, but it's a graphical update of an
older game, and it was fine. It's not fifty dollars worth of fine,
but yes, true Skull and Bones, which we've already heard from Scott

(01:24:15):
who's reviewing the game, is notseventy dollars worth of fun, but it
is. Uh, that's something ifyou really are interested, maybe you go
and that's this one was great forub sawt plus. Go spend your eighteen
dollars and play it for a monthand then unsubscribed and then you know,
maybe maybe you be soft won't.That's the one thing that I I'm sad

(01:24:40):
about is that it's that double edsword that we're living in right now with
gaming in that if this game fails, which it looks like it's most likely
going to, uh, there's peoplegoing to probably lose jobs over this.
I mean that we saw Shanghai officeis going to closet's be honest. Yeah,

(01:25:00):
and it sucks to see. Butyou also don't want to reward the
company and think that it's cool thatwe want them to keep making games like
this because you kind of don't wantthem to. But then also that means
they're probably gonna rely even harder onAssassin's Creed and Far Cry and whatever.
So you know, I guess youwant new ip but maybe not like this

(01:25:21):
one game that was getting a lotof buzz from the Steam. Next Vest
that's coming out this week as well, Balatio. It's like this cool like
card game. People should go checkthat out. Watch a trailer being seen
a lot of people saying that they'reenjoying it. So and Nightingale, which

(01:25:43):
is that online survival game that kindof has a cool setting of its own.
So that's coming out in the twentieth. They keep moving up the release
state. I think they're trying toget another game that's trying to get away
from the Rebirth stuff, the LastEpoch. It's kind of like a Diablo
like. It's coming out on thetwenty first. So I don't know if

(01:26:05):
that you're looking at that at all, Mark, I know you like those
games. No, I'm focused andstart out to three. Yeah, and
then you got Slight zero X,which looks cool. It's very bloody,
very glory, but it's one ofthose like side scrolling, like action titles.

(01:26:28):
I thought it was going to bebased on Slave zero forget that.
Yeah, and of course Specific Driveas well that Mark talked about though.
Yeah, yeah, that's that's goingto be out by the time we do
the podcast next week. So forsure, people, if you're interested,
there is a demo there. LikeMark talked about how sad Are You Randy
that they decided to release that Brother'sTale of Two Sons remake that the day

(01:26:50):
before rebirth. Just gives me somethingto look forward to later. I don't
have to play games the first daythey came out, especially a game that
it's a remake, because like Ialready know the story, so I don't
have to worry about spoiler. I'mexcited they remade it. Bad timing,
but all right, Yeah, that'sgonna be it for the show here,
Uh, Randy, thank you forbeing on. Go check out Randy on

(01:27:14):
the R and R Sports support everyweek. Go check out Bad Brackets.
That's a really fun show to gowatch. If you're you can go watch
our video game Controller one. Ifyou're yelling, it's just a fun show
we're gonna have. There's be aPokemon one pretty soon. Yelling on that
episode, so yeah, I canI put my I gave you my my

(01:27:36):
top four in the Champie already.There's gonna be a lot of yelling on
that one because Harry Broadhurst is onthis episode and he knows nothing about Pokemon.
Oh god, it's gonna be sohe's such a wild card for this
episode. I care for you andmy son to just yell at him.
That's that's gonna be something else.And I'm sure, there's so many people
that be like, why did y'allonly put through the one fifty one?

(01:27:57):
It's always been the one fifty one? What's wrong with you people? But
hey, you know you gotta haveother episodes of Bad Bracket. There's so
many pokemon you can do like fireBad Brackets. So yeah, let's make
sure you know you can listen tothe show on podcasts, go rate and
review all that stuff. Thank everybodyfor watching, listening, and we'll see
y'all later later bye,

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