826: Whimsical Skips

Hey, everybody, It's Tuesday, February sixth, twenty twenty four. I continue to be surprised by the dates, but I'm happy to be here, and I'm happy that you're here. Welcome to the John BombCast, Episode eight hundred and twenty six, powered by in sixty. I am your host, Jan Ochoa, co captain of the ship, helping me navigate the wide, wide, difficult world of news. He's squeezing for news. Look at that that iron grip pleazer thing, the iron claws coming for you. Jan.

That's right, I'm here, and I'm glad to be back. Honestly, I missed the BombCast. Jeff Grub is here, folks. How's it going, man? I feel great now. I feel secure. You're gonna hold on to me tight with that iron claw. Absolutely, these pinky fingers have never been stronger. There we go, There we go, rounding out uh the three giant bomb folks on the pod. Today we have our own alkaline

trio. Jeff Becklay. Nice nice way to work that in there. I watched half of The Iron Claw last night, and zac Efron, when you first see that, man, you're sort of like, what's happened? Here are my eyes playing tricks on me. Is this some sort of prosthetic situation? Like, what exactly is happening? Is he actually that swollen that dude loves sucking up his body for acting. There's something just on. Someone's not clicking with my brain. When I first saw him, I'm like, that's

not a human being. That's not a person. That is wrong. That is a man whose metal has been tested by hitting his head in the game. He is a wild cat. And speaking about wildcats, he's here for a good time, not a long time. We got our dear friend from kind of Funny snow Bike Mike is in the house. Hey, oh what up, giant bomb crude, thanks for having me on this lovely Tuesday. And man Zach is just ripped and I love seeing it, you know,

Oh yeah, absolutely, snow Bike Mike, I got. I gotta tell you, like, I was feeling a little frazzled, nah, because you know, I stayed up a little too late, I was drinking a little bit too much coffee. I was getting a little bit difficult with my coffee grinder because the partner, bless her heart, got me a beautiful sorry, is your partner the coffee grinder no, no, no, no, no. She bought me a coffee grinder for Valentine's Day in our anniversary, and

then here I go fudging it up. I'm like, yeah, I got a podcast an hour, an hour, I can fudge around and recalibrate this, you know, fast forward forty minutes and I look at the time. Oh no, oh no, you gotta get this pot on the road. Snow bike Mike stroll in with your your your beautiful smile audio listeners, the energy audio listeners. I can't tell y'all enough how much of a calming, happy presence, snow bike Mike just radiates. It's thanks Dan, It's true.

Like I don't think we ever got to hang out in real life just yet, but like, uh, it's tough not to smile when you're around Mike. I love you know that. You know that, guys, And it's gonna be a great Tuesday. We got a lot of awesome stuff to talk about. It get to, you know, just hang out and chat with all of you. A lot to share. I don't know if y'all know, but I've been playing Final Fantasy seven. Yeah no, there's a cat in the game. You know that there's a cat. You didn't know

that. I saw that. You not knowing that, and you know, we're like Dan, just a delight watching you play. Actually, you know we were we were gonna talk about the news up front, but Mike, I want to hear about your your adventures in Final Fantasy seven. A man, I am on a grand adventure through Final Fantasy seven remake. It is my first time playing a Final Fantasy game, is my first time really getting through it. And you know, it has been a journey with Cloud and

the gals and some of the crew from the Avalanche. We've been having some fun and you know, we just dropped part of the plate. It's tough. It's tough. I I gotta say, I think I saw your tweet admiring Jesse on the Avalanche crew, and I was like, I clapped my hands and I stood up him, like that's my man right there. That's a man of taste. Forget Tita, forget Eric. Jesse is the right choice there. She's caring, she's energetic, she's got a great energy about

herself. She's down to possibly commit some eco terrorism, you know what I mean. Yeah, yeah, and she comes strapped, she's she's decked out in Knight armor that may or may not be appropriate for the situation, But are you do your time? You're digging your time with eco terrorism and looking

for Maco, and then you know, I am digging my time. I am missing the love triangle that is Kingdom Hearts after I've just started Kingdom Hearts one and into Chain of Memories, so I missed that kind of you know, Ricky Sora and uh, you know Kyrie's love triangle. I really loved that. Not getting that here, but it is a ton of fun. I'm excited to play all the way through this and then go on to Rebirth when that drops. But it's been a great adventure. Hell yah, Hellia.

Any any intentions on trying to sneak in the Little Deal C chapter before Rebirth? One hundred percent? You know, I've been asking people, do I have to watch the movie? Do I need to play the DLC? And everybody's kind of nod in their head. Yes. So we're gonna make that happen. We're gonna make that happen. Hell Yah, Hellya. Ricky is what I'm gonna call Ricou from now on. I don't, yeah, Ricky, I don't. I don't care what anyone tells me. I'm updating

the Kingdom Heart's lore actively, folks. I'm logging onto the fandom wiki right now, changing it to Ricky. Well, gentlemen, how's how's everyone else doing good? Doing real good? All right, Well, I've been mentioned I've been going on walks every morning. I started adding some skipping in there because my someone, my discord, told me it's really healthy to do that, to skip. Yeah. Absolutely, I do it like one hundred yards at a time, probably four times on a two point five mile walk.

My heel hurts, hurt myself skipping, I think. All right, Johnny, So like what's as opposed to running? I'm just I'm just sort of confused, like why skipping isn't that? Mostly I'm doing it because I knew it would kind of upset you that it's not upsetting me. If anything, I would you all, I'm not upset. See, I think people canflate me being upset with me. I don't know another word. Uh, And that's the truth. Like if I were driving down the down the road and

I saw skipping down the sidewalk, I wouldn't be upset at that. I would not be mad at that would you be scared, though, I'd be I'd be scared. I'd be like, oh, wow, he's gotten some really good news. I guess, how how high are you getting off the ground on these skips? Are they efficient like distance traveling skips or are they like whimsical skips. I just couldn't be happier that you are asking me that,

yeah, because like I was like thinking about it today. I was doing like like the high skips, like getting a lot of air, and I'm like, I kind of feel like I can go pretty fast if I like start like trying to propel myself forward and try to get distance. And I started doing that and I was booking, I was flying. I was

getting some speed, so I can kind of do both. But you could feel if you like really think about it and you like use your leg to propel you forward, you can get a lot of speed and it feels really cool, actually cool. Jeff Beckler, you it isn't cool. You're like deconstructing skipping. You're like, I don't know if you guys have done it, but this changes the way you can move. You tried to hy motherfuckers tried skipping. It's out there. We're making it real. I'm into alternative

walking and it is sick. Let me tell you, Jeff Beckler, I can I ask you a personal question? I mean, why not? Who cares anymore? Anytime you've ever seen your father, have you ever skipped it to him? Hell no, there's no way. I'm maybe skipped in the opposite direction. So you skipped away from your loo, Mike, Mike, Mike Backlar's dad's name is Lou. Okay, I just wanted to make sure I love it now the show. You've made me dizzy. I'm physically dizzy

from that. What are you doing well, folks? Thanks for joining us on a wonderful episode of The Giant Podcast. Shouts out to Mike, everybody for rolling everybody, Uh get holy ship. Good for you than you to have the guts setting up the pieces, set up the pieces. Uh you know, since we got bike here, let's talk about the news. All news, baby, let me skip to that news. We needed your expertise here, Mike. Oh, thank you, thank you. I think we're

all looking at grub over here for this news. But yeah, that's gonna be. Yeah, let's get into it. I've got some news here. Let's start with whatever one's freaking out about Xbox may bring its games to PlayStation. Rumor suggests Microsoft plans to release several first party games, including Starfield, Hi Fi Rush, and See If Thieves on rival platforms like PlayStation five.

Starfield, which launched in August twenty twenty three, was a success, and Microsoft aims to bring it to PlayStation five after the release of the Shattered Space expansion, so basically it'd be like a year or more of Xbox exclusivity seems to be something that could be common across a lot of Xbox games going forward. And what's strange here is it's all been rumored so far and leaks. Microsoft has said that they are going to have a business update next week to

kind of confirm what is happening. So basically they are confirming without confirming it, but we don't know exactly what the details are. This has led to a lot of anxiety about what's happened about the future of Xbox. Primarily, the concern is people are looking at a slippery slope of Okay, if people can get all these games on PlayStation, why would you buy an Xbox? And then if there's no reason to buy an Xbox, why would Microsoft make

an Xbox? And if there is no Xbox, what happens to all those digital Xbox games that I bought that that are going to go away? Now, there's no real reason to believe that that's going to happen other than you know, kind of following that line of thinking. But this is where a lot of people are a lot of Xbox fans are worried. I wonder how you guys are feeling about this. There's you know, Phil Spencer said they're going to talk about it next week. Like I said, we don't know

exactly what that's going to look like. It seems like from what I'm what I've heard what other people are saying, they're still not sure what this looks like. They're still having arguments internally about what they want to do with all of this. That's crazy. That's crazy. It's crazy that there seems to be this much ambiguity and uncertainty, especially as high as Phil right, So

that's odd. But also why not there's no rules anymore? Uh, you know, they're real people with you know, a huge sort of situation on their hands. So yeah, just in terms of that perspective, I think that is you know, pretty wild for sure, snow Bike Mike, You're in the Xbox scene in a big way. I'm sure you have heard many people that listen to your shows and other content creators voice concerns. What what are you worried about? Or are you worried about this at all? Yeah?

What are you telling them? You know? Thankfully? Like you got okay? I'm keeping my mouth shut right now. But I have seen everyone from left, right and center, and it is a weird feeling. Right. There's no official word on this. We truly don't know if it's true, false, or real, whatever you want to call it, but the rumor seem to be red hot, and it is something where you can easily jump to that slippery slope and go to that conclusion of work, ma'am,

what happens now? What am I supposed to do as the consumer? And I totally feel like all those feelings are valid. Right as crazy as we've seen on the internet, you can definitely get to that point of like, man, your boys, Snowbike Mike has put thousands of dollars of his hardened running into the Xbox ecosystem, and if all of a sudden that was gone, what am I supposed to do, right, Like, that's crazy to think about, but that seems so far away from what a deal is gonna

tree. Well it's next week, right, I don't think he's coming out like, hey, we pulled the plug, y'all, sorry to talk about it. What do you think you're going to say next week? Like, what do you what do you think is going to happen? Truly, and honestly, I think Phil will come out and say we are going to start releasing a number of first party titles onto other platforms. Right. We've seen

this vision from Xbox. They've talked about the ecosystem and trying to get onto screens and meet players where they're at, right, And so I don't think it's that crazy to see a future where Xbox first party titles release maybe a year later, maybe even day and date, available on PlayStation, Nintendo Switch in other things, right at full price, I, as the Xbox consumer, still have game Pass, So hopefully that deal still seems enticing to me

at fifteen dollars a month. But there is a conversation to be had of if all these games are going to start to go onto PlayStation, should I just be buying a PlayStation and buying that. But I do think we will see philed next week go hey, we're gonna put first party titles over on other concerts. How do you think he quells concerns about the slippery slope? Do you think do you think he like reiterates, hey we are I mean, I feel like words aren't gonna be enough. But do you think he's

gonna come out and say, hey, we're gonna keep making hardware. How do you think he threads that needle? Yeah? I don't know, Jeff. I think that's the difficult part, right because once we start down this slope of first party titles going over there, you have to justify why I need this box? Right And I think as of right now, if you step away from the box, PlayStation doesn't have much competition, and we start to look at that in an angle. But for me, the justification is

the box. Why do I have to buy this box when everybody's moving to PC, people of course love PlayStation for their exclusives. I'm worried that whatever he says, we're going to jump to conclusion no matter what, but it will be interesting. Can he really look at me and say, hey, all ABK Games and Bethesda Games. Those are going to other consoles and not just the first party titles. It's a weird dance that we're gonna play here

that I'm worried no matter what he says. I mean at this point, no matter what Fill and the team say, people are going to jump to their own conclusion and lose their mind. So that's how I feel like we had such a great year in twenty twenty three and we are setting it up to be like, hey, we're moving forward as an Xbox here and this is gonna be good, and we have just really had a tough start to

twenty twenty four. In that I think it's like, Okay, whatever he says, the thing I'm most interested in is something he probably might not illuminate too much. And that is the fundamental underlying reasons why they are making this change. Tell me, what is the reality on the ground that is making you think we we have to change things up and we have to start putting Starfield out on PlayStation. I'll h I said this on Game This Mornings yesterday.

I'll reiterate it reiterated here that that is one hundred percent a change they were just they did they had decided several years ago and up until recently that games like Starfield would be one hundred percent console exclusive to the Xbox what meaning not coming to PlayStation. So this is a big change. This isn't something that was like always in the cards, are always going to happen. They changed their mind. What is happening that's causing them to change their mind?

And if we can understand that, we probably would be able to like forecast out like exactly what this looks like. Are is the reality on the ground so rough that it's like, well, yeah, they actually are thinking about going third party or something like that, or it's just like, hey, they need a little bit of extra money on top and overall the more money is still coming primarily from Xbox consumers on Xbox hardware. Or if that's not the case, then really does happen next? It's it's gonna be again.

It's gonna be tough for him to communicate a lot of this stuff, but I think he's gonna have to be very candid, and I think he's kind of used up a little bit of his his cachet here in the past where they've said one thing and then a few months later maybe a year later if something happens that feels like the polar opposite. So like again, like, how does he communicate that? I mean, let's take off the fanboy hat that is always seen on snow bike mic and let's talk real business numbers here.

Right, we're in third place. Your console is being outsold three four to one by PlayStation and Nintendo Switch. We all know that, right, And we're all about the business. We're all about money. And when you look at it, right, you've seen as much consoles as you could sell. You're probably starting to slow down on the flip side game pass subscribers. I'm sure we're not seeing a rocket boost from Starfield and Beyond with these first

party titles. You have to go and meet the players where they're at. You have to get more eyes on your games. And if that is selling these games on other platforms and getting that seventy thirty cut of whatever the price is going to be, I think you got to look at and say we're doing that right. And I'm sure if we're at Microsoft and it's all about the money, I'm sure that is a business thing. And I think people you know, got scared on the rumors. But in all honesty, isn't

that what business is all about? Having these hypotheticals, having these conversations. I'm blown away that people wouldn't think that they've had these conversations of well, what if we did put Halo on another platform? Right, we get micro transaction dollars, We get them to pay for the price up front on this, Our studios get more money, our team gets more money than we can continue to do this. So on the business side of things, it makes

total sense. Right, You've probably capped out on the people that are buying xboxes, You've capped out, you know, capped out on game Pass subscribers. We need more lifeblood into this. I do think that this is the business decision here, and if we're talking business, yeah, this is probably

the right move to do. Yeah. I think it's we are so used to looking at it through the lens of PlayStation versus xbox and sometimes Nintendo in there, and so like, when we look at it, look at things through that prism, it's very easy to be like, well, they should do this to overcome that, and they just aren't really ever looking at it that way. It is always about we are investing this amount of money into

this initiative and we need this return to make it all make sense. And if you know X is not equal, Y, we're gonna have to change things. And I think they're at a point where and I just hit the hell out of my microphone. I think we're at a point where they have exhausted most of the options for them of getting the growth that they need when

it comes to that Xbox versus PlayStation dichotomy. I think that they are now like, Okay, we have to actually start thinking outside the box and accept that, Hey, if Starfield couldn't do it, we don't have anything else that's going to do it. Hey, people are excited about Perfect Dark. Sure is there any world where Perfect Dark changes the entire landscape? But it gets a bunch of people to come over to Xbox from PlayStation or to get

an Xbox alongside their PlayStation. Probably not. And even if it does, it's like, well, that's just one game. You're gonna need five games like that. And we're looking internally and yeah, some of these games are good, some of them are gonna be great, But to get all of these games to that point would take so much time, so much money. We're and even if we do all spend all that time and all that money, there's no guarantee that they're actually gonna come out to be the game of

the Year contenders that we need. So I think they're just broadening their their base here so that they can have a more risk of friendly environment when they go forward. And I think they're also trying to leap frog the current battle because if you like shift over to like what's going on with Sony. Yeah, Sony's in the lead, They're the selling Xbox, you know, three to one, it feels like, and they still have a lot of challenges

before them. So it's like, why would Xbox try to get themselves in the position where it's like, Okay, we're overcoming PlayStation just to be confronted with a bunch of challenges that really didn't get you out of the muck that you're in. So I think that that is what is really happening here, And I just it's hard for people who have been so conditioned to, hey,

consoles are consoles and they work in one way. Now those things are changing, and it's just going to take a minute for people to get used to that. Cause I think Xbox has been saying this for a while and

now here it is. I think it does. It does shed light on the idea of like you have to not battle the past, right like you can't you know, to look at like this industry right as this like you know, console war like from that viewpoint is an antiquated sort of like philosophy, right, like It's just it doesn't hold any water in twenty twenty four.

And I think like you use this opportunity as a way to kind of like you know, look a lot of that's water under the bridge now and like you said, like you have to prepare for what this very rapidly evolving business is going to possibly ring, right and with that and how fast it changes to simply like you know, retroactively repair some sort of like console war

thing is not the move. I mean look at the same time, like you spend seventy billion dollars on acquiring a lot of stuff and things are like, hey is this are what are what fight are we fighting right now?

Right? Like what are what are what are we exactly doing? So I think a lot of that comes into the calculus a pointment chat like points out and them it's a good point, like ps fanboys are gonna be like, they're gonna pay seventy dollars for Microsoft games on PlayStation that people were getting for you know, fifty dollars per month on game Pass, and they're gonna be

like, this is a victory. It's like, how is this in any way a loss for Microsoft by getting people to spend seventy dollars on their games like that weren't spending money on their games before? It is when you look at it through that lens, it's hard to see this as anything but an

improvement on the situation that they're currently in. And I think the criticism has been dated on on their on their business map conations, right, Like the criticism and the and the analytics have also suffered the same sort of like looking in the past methodology like without a doubt, right, Like who is it

benefit to stay like that? And I just think, look, obviously, hands get forced when when rumors start to circulate, and in the sort of media landscape we all occupy, you have to speak to these things right away because silence is worse than anything you can do now. Right, So, uh, you know, maybe all maybe this plan is rolling out ahead of schedule, but yeah, like there's no way. Microsoft is like scratching its

head, like how do we win the console wars? Right, it's not that they flat outset I mean they told that to your face right when films on your show. That's us, yeah, right to you. When he came on the couch, he basically echoed that again, they are not trying to win the console war. And I heard that like okay, yeah,

sure you say that. But and then like it took a long time, like a couple of months of like hearing that over and over and ringing around in my head to realize, oh, they're telling the truth and that we're going to see that reflected and their choices going forward here pretty soon. Because you can't be like, well, we're not fighting the console war anymore and

then keep doing things the same exact way. Obviously, they have to look toward a future where things are different, and it does feel like we are in a situation where things will be different. I don't think consoles are going

to go away, like that's that's not happening, even for Xbox. I don't think consoles are going away, but kind of getting your position your stuff in a future where Xbox can be this thing that is more malleable and more portable and ready to go when there is a new opportunity for hardware to show up on If you know, like suddenly TVs start shipping within Xbox os or something like that, it's probably not gonna have something like that won't happen,

but something along those lines that could very quickly change things. But right as it stands, right now, if Xbox continues doing things the way that they had been, that is not necessarily an opportunity they would be able to latch onto very quickly. They would be too slow. They're kind of forcing themselves into a situation where they have to think creatively about how they can get growth out of what they have. Now, where do we go next week? Jeff, you know, you ask me, what do you think? He

says. We look at this and we kind of know, you know, we've heard them in the past say, you know, we're battling against the Googles and the Amazons, not the Nintendo's in the PlayStations. That's why we are going after the Abks and the Bethesda's, because we don't want them to be swooped up by others. You know, we look at this cloud streaming

world. Is there a world where he says, hey, you know, game passes everywhere now we've worked it out with people, even like that sounds like an insane thing, right, because there's so many games on that third party wise that we'd have to talk about. But is there a word where he goes, hey, we got the puck and we're just selling the puck. Now, this is where you're gonna be. You can stream it, you can do this, but like, we're not doing that anymore with the

console you got back. Are very excited because you said the word puck a couple of times. It was awesome. Now listen, I think that thing. He's going to spend a lot of the time time during this business update reassuring people that the way that they like join like purchasing games, the way they like enjoying games today will continue working for a very long time into the future. And that's going to primarily mean silicon in a box under your TV

that runs the games locally they know. I mean, hey, if the Xbox Series X only ends up selling thirty million units throughout its lifetime, that's like better than the GameCube. That's a lot that's better than probably most other Microsoft hardware initiatives. That's still something that you can work with. It just can't be your only pillar. And I think that them trying to get that

idea across will be difficult. But I think that they're not going to come into this be like, well, we're giving up what we have to go get something new. We're going to try to keep as much as we as we do have, and we know that that is going to disincentivize some of you for wanting to buy hardware. But as long as you keep buying our games, we promise we're okay with that. That's another thing that they've been saying for a very long time as well, and I think it's we're now

getting to the manifestation of what that actually looks like. Yeah, I mean. At the same time, Phil has also said that game Pass is just supplemental. We know that people are buying games still that is where the market is, and putting it on PlayStation, putting it on Nintendo. If that happens, I think it's only a positive on the business side of things. They can still look at you and say, well, we sell the box, you can play it in the cloud or if you got a big PC

rig. You can get game pass still and not have to spend that seventy dollars right off the rip, and there you go. That's our business market now, and it seems like that might be I think that is the plan. That is what we're living in. You have the console, you have the ecosystem, and you can get it all for fifteen dollars a month. That's a great deal being Bata Boom you can play this or Hey, if you're a PlayStation fan, you love those great exclusives they got over there,

you like that hardware, that ecosystem. You can buy all of this for seventy bucks or whatever that price is going to be. That makes business sense to me. That would be something I would walk into the boardroom and say, Hey, Starfield didn't sell that well, or we capped out on what we sold here for Starfield. Let's go to other consoles with these games that we got in Indiana. Jones big name that's gotta go. Right, you look at Starfield, that's a big name. That's gotta go. Blade.

We talked about Blade and how everybody was like, hey, kind of weird. Didn't put game pass at the end of that, right, anything Marvel related. Guess what, we can make a lot of money off of that. So that's got to go to And you know, we live in a world that's all about constantly online, trying to take as much time as you got out of your day, trying to keep your attention get into your wallet through micro transactions. Halo Infinite probably would have done a lot better than it

did if that was on a whole lot of platforms. And I know here an Xbox fan say that is insane to think, but we live in a world where it's all about being everywhere. We live in a Fortnite world now, and everybody wants to chase Fortnite, truly and honestly, and so that's

probably what Halo and more games should have done. Yeah, I don't think there's any guarantee that this Xbox strategy is going to work, but there is a chance it does work, and there's I think there's a smaller chance but still a significant one that we look back ten years from now and be like, Wow, Microsoft got way ahead of the curve here, because what is

PlayStation doing. They're spent there, got ten twelve live service games, the and the that they're trying to make and they're gonna probably launch them on PC day and date, but PlayStation PC day and date, and we're gonna look a like Manda if you were on Xbox and mobile and everywhere on day one, ready to go. And I think that's what Mi Microsoft is exactly trying

to start right now. And I think this also gets them the momentum they need to eventually win that conversation at the negotiation table when they try to get game Pass onto PlayStation. You know, we do know that that will have to look differently right at the third party games. But if people are, you know, buying these Xbox games on PlayStation, and then you know, they build up a good relationship with Sony overtime. You know, Jim Ryan's

leaving. Jim Ryan was very competitive. Who knows, maybe the new leadership is a little bit softer on that, and it will It would take a couple of years, but maybe they can kind of get this in a situation where it's say, hey, we're all gonna make more money, right, let's just let's just all work together. What do you what do we need

to make this happen. It can't start with game Pass on PlayStation. It has to start with, Yeah, we'll sell Starfield on there, and of course we're gonna keep selling Call of Duty on there, and you know what, here's Halo. We just don't believe we're in that fight anymore. We know what, We're trying to get attention, just like you, and you're gonna get thirty percent of everything we sell on your platform. Let's get game

Pass on there. And I think that this conversation continues probably to frighten Xbox fans who want their hardware, But I just don't think that any of that means that the hardware goes away. I also think, you know, maybe

I'm a little sort of like antiquated with this thing. I bring up a lot, but like, would you agree that even now, they have still yet to like fully bridge the gap between the fact that you know, PC gaming is ninety nine percent a Windows product also yeah, a Microsoft product also, right, Like, I feel like that's the thing that everyone just sort of knows in the back of their mind, but they've not really just made it actualize it in a way that is tangible, right, Like, Yeah,

you could argue with like all the game Pass ultimate has bridged the gap a little bit, but like there still seems to be a little bit more juice to squeeze out of that. I have a conspiracy theory about that, oh hear it. I think that part of what's happening now and again conspiracy theory. This this is just like random thoughts occurring to me in the middle of the night. So some conspiracy theory is based in like it's based in

a Colorado night. Baby, let's go. I just want to be clear, right because that word, yeah, it's it's just me like you maybe fantasy booking a little bit. I think one of the reasons that they might be doing this is they are they spot an opportunity that is probably about ten years out, and that opportunity is Gabe newele retiring and Steam going up for sale and whether or going public and Microsoft stepping in and being ready to go

to pick that up. Now that is I know, people are immediately gonna be like, hey, anti trust all this other stuff, and you're absolutely

right, Yeah, what about operating systems on computers? They seem to be able to go around that pretty well, like right, and also like you know, we don't we don't know what the political landscape is going to be like at any time, at any point in time, they could very easily find themselves in a very monopoly friendly environment that would approve that without any issue.

Lena Khan is not going to be there forever, and I don't necessarily think that that would be great for the industry, but I do think that there is a part of them. It's like we have our eye on Steam. That's a privately held company. It will not be that way forever. Like Gabe Nole's not that I'm probably not going to pass that on to his kids. So because he have kids, has his knives. Yeah, there

we go, we got there. It is, so I think that that is like them, Like, Okay, let's kind of put ourselves in a situation where we are. We have a lot of games everywhere, and when we're ready to when Steam is at a point where we can jump in, We're ready to go because we're the company that makes the most sense to take it over. Uh, we'll see again ten years out. That's very hard to plan. But yeah, conspiracy theory, like I said, yeah,

no, I'm comfortab labeling that. I thank you absolutely, this might makes some fucking sense. And then uh no, yeah, who knows. I guess my question to you is if if I'm attempting to like join you in this, you know, theater of your mind, right, Like, why would Gabe going away automatically result in like this valve for sale? Well, I mean it's a privately held company. I mean it's not it's not publicly owned, So sure, I think that he was Probably it would be like

when George Lucas retired from Star Wars, kind of similar that. Oh, okay, okay, it would be very I think it would be very similar where it's like, Okay, I want to make sure that this kind of gets into the hands where it can continue. Now. I think Gabe Noel has a you know, sortid history back and forth with Microsoft. I think sometimes he feels very good about them, and sometimes I think when he left the company he wasn't feeling too great about him. But it seems like they

have a decent relationship now, and I don't know. I think Microsoft would try to position themselves and say, hey, we can take care of this and make sure it can be everything it needs to be and will you know, maintain your way of doing things and all that stuff. But it's Microsoft wanting to do this and kind of like maybe thinking about that long term doesn't mean it will happen, doesn't mean game Newel will do it, but I think they think it's a possibility. Jeseu, I'm sorry, I brought up

the whole p seasoning Listen. I got a bunch of conspiracy theories. You guys really want to go. Let's one more, one more, Let's hear one more thing. It's it's about steel beams. You don't want to hear that one? You don't, Okay? Yeah, sorry guys. Jeff,

you talked about softening the blow for Xbox players next week? Right, is there a world where we maybe speed up this ab k, you know, hold off that we've been sitting in and he can share with us, maybe some game pass announcements or maybe something is coming our way, because I think, like you said, the Xbox fans are gonna be up in arms. They have been all week and beyond. You know, how do you soften

this blow? Is it something like, hey, we got these games finally on game passes, Slip that into maybe, you know, give me a little bit of a cookie with this ship sandwich. What do you think we're going to see? Yeah? I think they probably have to have something like that, ready to go. They are their hands are tied a little bit with Call of Duty, right, All the contracts involved with with Sony is going to limit what they're going to be able to do with Call of Duty

specifically, maybe even for legacy games. Maybe not for legacy games. We'll we'll find out. But I yeah, I think if they have something cooking, they should present it alongside all of this and say, hey, this is how dedicated we are. We made all these moves because we believe in Xbox. The argument that they just spent sixty nine million dollars so we're in this for the long haul is actually very convincing. They just need to put

a little bit of that on display. To your point, snow Buck Mike, I think that's just something that needs to be seen by people a little bit to remind them, oh, yeah, they spend all that money, They're not like going to go away. Things just might look different and we're willing to buy that now that we're seeing, Okay, this is what we're going to get out of it. So yeah, I think that's a strong possibility. Also, like doctor Mike in the Twitch Shadow want to call out,

so there's a lot of cheerleading going on here. Know, we put our business hats on and we go, m that would make money. I like this right, But let's go from an Xbox fan boys Jeff jen Actually, I want to hear from you Xbox fanboy over there. Give me, give me negativity, give me the give me the hate on why this cannot happen? What is that hard line of like this can't happen at all?

I think it's a you know, you talked about this at the tippy top here, Uh, you invest so much time in a specific platform, only for the rug to get swept underneath you of like, well where did all that money go? But I think the realization there is like just because those games are somewhere else doesn't mean you don't have those games anymore. Like I don't know, or at least I'm not tuned into the PlayStation fanboy talk.

If there is that talk or outrage, they're they're dancing on graves. No no, no, no, specifically that outrage of like oh, Horizons on a PC, Spider Man's on a PC. Like, I don't know, is that outrage equal to it happened at the time, but it's dissipated it's gone away. Mostly. Yeah, the thing is, I feel like Xbox with Game Pass specifically is set the tone that I would I don't want to say I want other companies to follow it, but it's just like it's an

amazing deal. But also stuff like, you know, I've kind of gone accustomed to how an Xbox controller feels in my hand rather than a dual sense. Remember that exactly, first time I held a three sixty controller, I'm like, Wow, this is perfect, and then like I had to go back to a PS three, a PS four controller, I'm like, it's a little hard. Guys. I knew I grew up with a PS one. I knew that I learned how to use analog sticks because of Ape Escape.

I like when they're you know, let's flip the dpad PlayStation, let's do that. But I don't know, I know the other thing that I

just can't take fanboy seriously, No, I just don't know. Yeah, of course, Jeff, But like, you know, is there an argument to be made of like, hey, we didn't see these three right, we talked about these acquisitions in two and now of like, hey we didn't give them time, right, We never got to the point we're pretty much hitting that point now of like, now the teams are making first party exclusive content that is justifying us owning the box that has the exclusives, Like you

know, we're just gonna always compare the PlayStation of Hey, this is the reason why I'm buying the box. This is why you don't have it. This is why we got it. You got to come over here and spend that money. And we never got to that point. We seem to be like right here at almost the finish line where it's about to begin, and we're gonna hit this cadence of shooting that off and going and I guess as a fanboy, right, you look at it and go, we were almost

there. Why did you now pull the plug on that? Right? And it doesn't seem like that's a smart business move of you give us five to ten more years, and that's when Xbox will be cooking. That's when people will be forced to buy the Xbox. They'll come to the ecosystem. We're gonna have all these great games. That's how it feels like it is on the fanboy side, right. We've talked about the business side, but on the fanboy side, it seems like we just ever got to that moment,

and you're giving up before we get to it. Yeah, I kind of see that, And then it's it's sparking a conspiracy theory that's been brewing. While okay, maybe not a conspiracy theory, but a conspiracy uh uh a view, I guess of. I see Microsoft and Xbox in a in the position that Sega was in, except this is by choice, right. Sega had to stop making consoles because it just was not favorable, had to become

a publisher, spread the love everywhere, and that that way. Microsoft is doing the same thing, but by choice, to spread the love and make make the money that way, versus being forced into a position. And like, all right, yes, we admit we're being outsold consoles and everything, but we're just gonna we're gonna lean into that. We're gonna lean all the way in. We're gonna be on your TVs, We're gonna be on your switch, we're gonna be on your PS five, We're gonna be on phones

again soon. You know, like that is a mildly appealing thing to be able to open up game Pass on my phone. I think, you know, I'm gonna go back to mix point a second here, But what you were saying Jen that like they are doing this out of choice. I think that's a little bit true. I think it's them recognizing that. And this is gonna sound like the Xbox tax argument. The fanboys were having a little

bit of go. But I do think that they look at the uphill climb and they see it's a little bit steeper for them, And I think that there is evidence for that. You go back to like when they did get the tomb Raider exclusivity and people didn't get excited. They just got mad at them and they're like, well, I'm just not gonna buy that game. I'm gonna wait and get it because you took it away from me. That didn't get people to switch over to Xbox. People don't switch platforms like on

PC where the store is free to download to get free games. So I think the Xbox has learned over time that their efforts in terms of producing exclusives only goes so far before it just like people are like, get mad about it, and it makes them more entrenched in the platform that they've already chosen

not be an Xbox. And I think this does speak back to your point Mike about like these studios, those acquisitions from twenty eighteen, though that early round, they didn't even really get a chance to put out games to make a difference. We should wait until that happens before we start making drastic changes to Xbox. I would say that that what's probably happened is Microsoft has looked internally at those games and like, none of this is going to change our

fortunes. Some of these games are very good, none of them are going to change our fortunes. And I think if you look back at like some of the games that did come out, like yeah, they made these acquisitions and then Death Loop and Ghost Bartokyo were PlayStation exclusives. Let's say that those were Xbox exclusives. Would that have changed ay thing? No way, no way. So I think that they are looking like Starfield couldn't do it,

nothing's going to do it. I think that's where they're at. Quick question for y'all, do you if if we see this future where Microsoft is publishing games on PlayStation regularly, does this kind of change the type of games that they're putting out, Because I don't immediately equate someone that is buying a PS five to play something like got a War or Horizon to be the same person

that's picking up Halo or Gears of War? Do you get Microsoft kind of trying to go for that triple a big budget single player experience, like Sony has been kind of crafting their audience to become that years ago? What was that? What'd you say, Jan Or would you say? Jeff? No? I said, I don't think that changes that much? Like you just you know the is your is your question? Like? Do they change who they are? What audience they are trying to reach? Is that what you're

saying? Yeah? Like they they they broad in the appeal of like all right, we've been trying to do multiplayer shooters for forever. Now let's let's pull it. Uh, since we're gonna be on Sony platforms, let's make the games that already appeal to that audience. Uh. I don't. I don't like, on its face, I don't necessarily think so. I think, you know, I think as it's played out the last half decade,

like, it's really hard to make a game that's awesome. Yeah, it's very hard to make a game that's especially one of those big budget games. Yeah, like make it's hard to make a game, full stop. It's hard to make an amazing game. Yes, Microsoft could have been making those single player over the shoulders sad Dad games that that cost two hundred fifty million dollars and make them at a quality level that they would need to be to sell well enough to justify them. They would have done it already. It

is something that's very hard to do. So I don't think this change is in suddenly going to mean like's that they're gonna make. There's gonna be a ton of those because now they have access to the PlayStation audience. There probably will be a couple of those. I think there probably are some that's already in the works. But I think Microsoft is very happy not to be in the business of having to make though every one of their games like one of

those games, which is kind of where PlayStation's at. That's one of the we go back to the challenges PlayStations facing. That is a challenge for them actually that they've put themselves in themselves in this corner where their games need to be of a certain budget level to even register with their fans anymore, and Microsoft trying to keep a little bit more like, hey, we can put out anything. The problem is, like you know, pentiments just not registering

the way like some of these other games do. And so yeah, there's these dalliances are great, but I think they're like, Okay, can we find a middle ground where we put a ton of games that are very different? Microsoft's going to keep going in that direction. Yeah, They've They've been different companies for a very long time. I mean, so you know, I think if anything, it affords Microsoft a bit of flexibility, then maybe

they felt they didn't have, you know, two years ago. Okay, Okay, so we all agree that World of Warcraft is just going to be on game Pass next week. Yeah, yeah, it's real that that subscription better going game Pass because I'm sick of paying fifteen dollars for that monthly. Plus my game helped me out. Phil Spencer's wait, well you play World of Warcraft too? Yeah, dude, I'm a wow boy. Wow. I know that I didn't know that. My whole life is like a dragon

right now. You say I'm a wow boy makes me think you're a soujiman called wowboy. I'm just gonna like just it pops up wowboy like asshole does in like a dragon. Gotten good? Stuff. All right, we got

some other news to get to, including Nintendo financials. Nintendo did very well over the holiday sales a period in the ninth In the nine months ending at December twenty twenty three, it reported growth in both sales and net profit, possibly due to Switch, his final Christmas season before it's successful successors anticipated release later this year. Despite declines in hardware and software sales, it had much better profits, So it's making more money from things that probably cost less for

it to produce. Some highlights. Mario card Eate is at sixty million it sold. It sold three point five million in the last quarter alone, which which is more than most games ever sell. That's just crazy. The game's been out for what seven years, and it's a port of an older game, so it's the same age as my kid. What the fuck is the name? Oh? How is that possible? What is happening? Uh?

In terms of like the like hardware they sold, let's see about I have the numbers here for how much the swo Okay, the Switch is at one hundred and thirty nine million units sold total. That puts it about about fifteen million off the pace of the game of the ds I believe and the PlayStation two. Uh we we we only have a limited amount of more time with Snowbike Mic. But Mike, I want to get your take and what your opinion is. Maybe your conspiracy theories are on what the switch successor might look

like. Now I've pitched to the crew here jokingly. Uh, you know, let's go back to two screens. Let's get a let's get a sandwich joint going no, all right, no right, no, no, no, backler. Remember my other conspiracy theory of Nintendo's gonna make a wearable They're gonna they're gonna have a watch that goes with their mentality sensors back, baby, At least that's lighthearted, you know, Like it's not something that's like really somber and scary like two screens that way, like it's macabre. It's

like you're just remembering Hotel Dusk, very very negative. That's true. Yeah, I mean I have great memories of that game. I just uh, we're just not going back to that clamshell situation. We're just not. But Mike, where where does your thought train go? Well? As someone who has bought a lot of joy cons in his day, I'm really hoping that it's the exact same thing that I can slap these joy Cons on. You know, just give me a better screen and a better processor up in this

thing. Uh yeah, I don't know. I don't know where my mind goes on this. I'm not the biggest Nintendo guy. I enjoy the games. I am amazed when I always see these numbers, just the stranglehold that they have on the video game landscape and how awesome the games can be, and how many audiences it speaks to, right from kids to adults everywhere in

between, Like they just get it and they do it. But man, oh man, when you play that thing and it's not a first party game, you go, dang, this thing is old and it's I need something better. So for me, I love the versatility. I want the Switch to stay the same R and I want the Switch version two to be able to sit down on my couch and plug it into the TV, pull it out and go on the go. I think what they did with that this generation was amazing. I love the idea of the joy Cons being able to

be pulled off and you can pass them to a friend. That is cute, that's novel, that's smart as well. If I was a kid back in the day and we were at the lunch room, all three of us together, and I was able to pull those off and we could just play them right there. That's the radest thing around, right. It is smart on the business side, And so really, all I'm hoping for is a beefier, maybe chunkier switch version two point oh, similar to what I got

with the Steam Deck. I would like them to do that. So that is my hope. That's my conspiracy, is that it stays the same, just upgraded hardware and you can use your joy Come, let's get chunky. Let's get chunky with it. Yeah? Why not chunk here? It could put on some pounds and I'm putting I win to wait right now, you know? Yeah? Bare so yeah, hold on to me. Yeah, I got I got a bigger battery than ever. I want my next switch

to to have a bigger battery than ever. Were you go? Am I the only one who's deeply uncomfortable with just how this thing still sits in its dock? Like? Am I the only who's just like every time I still slide my switch in my dock, I'm just like, this feels bad. This should be a better You never liked inserting your card into card readers, did you, backl are? No, at least you get that like spring click action where like the switch is just sort of like it's docking in a

way that just doesn't feel comfortable. And do you know, like what's actually happening is like there's like two little switches in the switch dock for lack a better term, that once you put it down, it actually pushes the USB like a latch up so that it doesn't it can't an avatar people drift, right, or when a dog gets lipstick. Yeah, exactly all right, and on that wait, wait time out, wait time out? For real, I need a cross section of a dock of a switch doocking like,

OK, you're telling me there's like little prongs that expose its port. Yes, it's just filthy. I take it all back. I take it all back. That rules. We're gonna go in and during a break with like Tweezers and just like push it and see what I'm gonna take. I'm gonna take TAM's ear cavity camera and get some up close uh uh picture of like that thing happening. I need to see it. Well, one last thing before we get snow bike Mic out of here. Uh, the Nintendo does

say that it's current and ongoing. Main business is the Nintendo Switch. They did not bring up the switch to during this financial report. They are still being very coy about it. I just want to get everyone's answer real quick. Do you think after hearing this that when we get a Nintendo Direct, whether it's you know, this week, next week, or whenever, that they will mention a switch to Like after hearing that, do you think it's more or less likely a snow bike Mike? What do you think? No?

I do not think that we will see one at this next Nintendo Direct. I think it is imminent, but I don't think it's up next. The focus is still on the hardware currently, the switch, and the games they have for it. So for me, I don't expect us coming out of the next one going get ready here it comes. I don't think we'll be at that point. Yeah. I think I'm in just the same boat.

I think they're going to take their victory lap with whatever next direct they're taking, and then after that that's them sunsetting the current switch and then moving on to whatever wat like that they're doing. I like the way you phrase that. I think that's right. Yeah, I think they carve out something in twenty four to talk about switch to totally. Yeah, but like but like you know, the rumors are still there could be a direct this week, next week. Sometimes I don't think that yet, Okay, okay,

and I agree. I think that's right, Jenne. I really like the idea of treating this next direct as a victory lap. I think they can do that. Maybe drop Metro Prime for like news guy, let me believe all right, I'm it's I know it's just inherently funny, but let me believe it's. Yeah, someone else has to start saying this. I want you to finish the story, all right. I want you the story,

Greb. That's another thing. I was doing my walk today. I was trying to smile like Cody Rhodes, and I'm not going to explain that. So just if you want to go to break jam, please get me out of here before we go to break snow bike Mike, thank you so much for gracing us with your presence, your present, Biels, He's a present here, folks. Uh. Tell the folks at home where they can find

more snow bike mone What up, everybody, it's your boys. Snow Bike Mike want to give a big thank you to all the audience for letting me be a small part of their day, to the Giant Bomb crew for having me. Of course, it is a blast getting to hang out with this

crew. You guys are all incredible and amazing. You are part of my daily life and most importantly, if you want more snow bike Mic in life, you can find me over with the crew over at kind of Funny Games, Twitch dot tv, Slash kind of Funny Games, YouTube dot com Slash kind of Funny Games. We're talking all things nerdy news and of course playing

video games. Until then I'll see you again. Thanks, boys, Or take a quick breaking break and you know, we'll say goodbye to Mic in our own private way, and then we'll see you back with some more news in some games. Right after this, I'm looking out my window and what was formally sunny skies has now been covered in gray and overcast because the sun and the joy that was snow bike Mic has has left us. Yeah, that's true, but but don't forget overcast skies best for even lighting. That

is very true. Hey, you know how I wouldn't shut up for the longest time about iPhone fifteen shooting in luck. Yeah, I finally upgraded yo, that shoots in log A minute long clip four K twenty four. I never saw this twist coming. It's five gigs, y'all. Huh, yes, it is data management. Yeah, that's a lot. Like people are like and we're gonna be playing triple A games on our phones. It's like,

what the rest of a four is? Seventy eight gigabytes? So you're gonna put that on your phone when you're shooting in log exactly, especially in b next next place we go, I'm not even bringing the big camera anymore. I'm just gonna shoot all in log. There's there's software that there's apps that will let you like color correct on iPhones too, right, Like yeah, you can do you can pretty much do everything on it, right, and like you could do all that jazz there. I'm pretty sure some hot

louts. You got some hot lots on your iPhone yo, yo, yo, you are a dirty LUTs ya. No, come on, y'all know they'll double up the spot here. But let me tell y'all, I fell for like one of those lut bundles. During the holidays because they were like, oh, it's sixty percent off and I tried it. They're all garbage, and the thing is garbage lots. I kind of know what I'm doing

when it comes to color correction, and this is all garbo. I think it's like I've only played around with that stuff from like a surface level, and even then, I'm like, man, doing lut and color correction stuff on a touchscreen small iPhone is like, I don't want to do that, but I think it's awesome that you can. Oh, oh, hold on, what happened? I mean we're still recording, so we're just going on the podcast the shan. At one point during the news or something, I

started using my keyboard and forgot to mute. So if you could just get that out of there, thanks, Bud let me. Did you just like turn off obs just hard quit? That's rough? Yeah, that's that hasn't happened. Yeah, there we are. Okay, Now the camis are all messed up. Oh, I guess that that's because of Oh maybe it just didn't save after but Mike left. Do you do you use DaVinci Resolve when you are color correcting it? Like the by Far the accepted standard. Right

stop us. I'll still use Premiere when it just like uh, like a quick edit or like perhaps you're editing your coworker going to it. Results started as color reduct like color correction, like that was its whole deal and now it's everything. But yeah, and then like uh, when I when I try to do any of the color correction in Premiere, it just doesn't work right, Like none of the sliders or or or dials are dialing it in, just like it makes sense with Resolve. But anyway, I believe we're

back. No, No, I'm glad you brought up snow bike Mike and uh attempting to make a correlation between this the cloudy skies. That's a I think that dude, That dude has an infectious energy, who is just such a pleasure to be around. Good. I think it's yeah, I mean like that's the other side of the conversation. I guess you know. We always bring both sides. That's what we're known for, fair and balance.

The duality of man, yeah, the duality of jan Right, I have more news if you guys would like us to continue here, Let's wrap up this like nintended by looking at this list of sixty five games that have all sold at least a million copies on the Nintendo Switch. And that's only the games that we know of that have been publicly confirmed to sell a million copies. This list is comprehensive. There's a lot of stuff on here. Metroid

dread number thirty eight with three point zero seven million copies sold. Anything on here surprise you, guys? Astral Chain, Yeah, you do you even know what that is? No? A, Yeah, it's like a platinum game, right, I actually never played it. I always meant to. That's one I've like a not even deep cut, but it's one I missed on the Switch. I'm like, eh, I should maybe go back and play that, because I've played almost all the games I wanted to play on

the Switch. I think Luigi's Mansion three is criminally low on this list. You think, well, I mean, though it's fourteen million copies, I still think that's a crime. Yeah, listen, it's a great game. Fourteen million copies. It's just so much more than almost any other thing nothing ever sold. Now. I know. There's there's two titles here that surprise

me, one being Pokemon Scarlet and Violet reaching twenty four million copies. And I feel like when that was in its launch window, everyone saw how janky the performance was. Yeah, yet everyone still bought in and dived in. It looks like they've already well, you can't take Fanboy seriously, so you can't take them seriously. They'll they'll have their outrage, but they'll still dive all the way in. They'll hold their nose and take out their credit card.

The Metopias sold one point eight million copies. Is that right? It's a it's a three DS like me based rpgh okay dungeon whatever you say, sure, appropriate response, like you're right back a lot. Yeah, but the things real Yo Ring Fit Adventure has sold fifteen million copies and they've I believe that, but they've done nothing with it afterwards. Yeah, but I believe that. It's eighty dollars. I think they're like, the thing they're

doing is cash and checks. I think that's the kind of all They're like, Hey, the thing's gonna keep selling. We're happy about it. Yes, so sure. Yeah. It did slow down a little bit because it used to be in the top ten and New Super Mario Brothers Utiluxe went back into the top ten above it after selling another five hundred thousand copies, likely because of the movie. The movie got, like the revenues from that showed

up in these earnings. They made a ton of money from that, like a ninety one percent increase in revenue from non gaming endeavors for Nintendo, and that's a big part of it. Super Mario Odyssey's sold another seven hundred thousand copies in the last quarter, Super Smash Brothers Ultimate sold another one point two million copies, Animal Crossing another one point four million copies, and Mario Crede Deluxe, as we said before, another three point five seven million costs.

Astonishing, absolutely astonishing. I think what's also crazy is what is this but bars one? Well, sure, but one third of the top fifteen are Pokemon games. Oh that yeah, yeah, that's honestly, it's almost surprising

how many games aren't Pokemon games, because Pokemon just like sells automatically. So the fact that we have like Super Mario Party right there at twenty million copies sold for Super Mario Party out selling basically any PlayStation or Xbox exclusive outside of I think Horizon and may be like last the most last less part one, Yeah, like that. Yeah, the Super Mario Party outsold just about anything that's on any other console by itself here as an exclusive. Yeah, even

like in an offshoot like New Pokemon Snap. This is sitting pretty at like twenty like two point four million. Yes, it's uh, never gonna change. No, I mean this is the software sales, honestly. So the Nintendo's investor relations page does a good job of kind of keeping track of the

history of how things have sold. And we talked about the Switch hardware selling very well and it's approaching all time levels of maybe it could outsell the PS two by next year or something like that, which would make it the number one best selling hardware of all time. But the software, like even when Nintendo has very successful hardware, like the three DS was really successful, it did very well for them. It wasn't as successful as the DS, but

it only sold about three hundred and eighty million pieces of software. The Switch is at one point two billion pieces of software. It's the first time Switches ever sold. It's the first time Nintendo hardware has ever had more than a billion pieces of software moved for it, and it's flown past that to one

point two billion. So the closest they had before that I think was maybe the Wii or the DS, and I think both of those were around nine hundred and fifty million, so twenty five percent more than they've ever done before just from software. So it's a big part of that is more games are coming out than ever. But honestly, you just can't do that if people

aren't buying games. People love buying games for their Switch, and that's going to be like the biggest challenge for Nintendo is keeping that momentum onto the switch too. And I think that's the like when we start like, uh, you know, game theorying out, like how this is going to work. That's the biggest reason why I think most of us assume the Switch two is going to be very similar to the Switch because they don't want to fuck that

up. They want to keep that going as much as possible, Right, Yeah, I mean you that's yeah, Yeah, that's like they're bread and butter at this point, right, Like I'm not going to my Nintendo Switch and playing Mortal Kombat one on it. I'm going there to play Arms,

a superior fighting game on the Switch. I still think we are not like really digesting these numbers, they are like unfathomable, like I that is just a one point two billion, yeah, and I mean to be fair, like you put this the WE and the DS together, like that's actually they still did more, but because games cost they weren't as expensive then and it was and then then on the other side, there was a smaller market back

then. But I still like still one point two billion on any single device I think, you know, PlayStation usually does right around a billion, I think, and they and they have like huge third party support. That's the thing. Like Switches had pretty good third party support, but it still doesn't have Call of Duty, it doesn't have Madden, it's got a shitty version of FIFA NBA two K doesn't really sell that well on there as it sells

well enough for them to keep making it. But like those third party games that really power the PlayStation to get to a billion pieces of software sold to each generation, Nintendo's doing it with mostly first party and then a bunch of indie games that sell really well and then a handful of third party games that two I was going to say, we need to consider the Sueka factor here, of course, like more Switches did the did that little water in games

sell? How many? How many pairs of joy cuns do you think there are out in the wild? Oh? Jam, why would you? Why would you write? So we're at one hundred and thirty nine million switches, so we're talking about pairs, so you got to assume there's at least and fifty. I think you're probably right, like, because I'm just like, conservatively, let's say there's one point seventy five for every switch. There's almost certainly more than that. Yeah, because how well did the switch lights sell?

It's actually selling really well. Uh oh that was, And that's one of the little tidbits of news. Uh it was the best selling of the three like two million of the three million in the last quarter were switch lights. Oh dang, all right, but history historically, the the OG switch out sold it for most of the time. Now, I think the O lead is kind of number two, and then the OG switch, which has mostly been sort of sidelined as the the O lead gets into the Zelda bundle

and stuff like that. But I think we're at a point where a lot of switches that are selling our second dairy, you know, the tertiary switches or for younger people like for kids, and it's like, oh, let's just get them the switch light. You know, they don't need to They're not gonna be playing on the TV. This is just gonna be theirs. It's going to stay in the room most of the time. So I think

we're seeing that's how things are shifting a little bit over time. I guess last thing, do you guys think the switch out sells the PS two, Because I'm still like, oh man, another fifteen million units if the switch to or I'm sorry, the possess they switch to PlayStation two if the switch to launches this year, I think it'll be pretty hard for Nintendo to sell another fifteen million switches. I mean you could. This is just the This is more a math problem, right, I mean yeah, I mean we

look it out. It's definitely not impossible. And if they find a way to keep the switch selling even when the Switch two is out there, it's inevitable. If there's yeah, especially if there's crossover gen games, right, Like, yeah, I think that will seal the deal. How sure, how much of those PS two lifetime sales factor in like post PS three? Like people just yes, all the it's all every year the PS two. That one hundred and fifty million whatever it is, fifty five million is the

whole ten years that the PS two is selling. And is that also like the slim as well? Yeah? Yes, yeah, because presumably like even even when switch two comes out, like, presumably there's gonna be this regular switch price drop. Wow, I guess yeah, yeah, there may be. They're presh isn't Isn't that a thing in the past. Definitely. The reason that they might not do it is because I think they will have a much more expensive switch to and so having the switch still as three hundred and

then switch to little three fifty. Right, it's the medium popcorn thing where it's like, well, why wouldn't I just get a switch to for fifty dollars more or one hundred dollars more. So they might go that route, but they could they could just as easily drop it by fifty dollars. You're right, we'll see. I just don't know how much they're going to care to sell switches once the switch to is out, because they rather throw them

out. Yeah. Well, I think that they they learned the lesson of the three DS and the WE or especially the three DS moving to the switch that people that they sell games to these days are ready to move on pretty fast. And you know, maybe the PS four like speaks to a different

dichonomy where a lot of people kept playing games on their PS four. But I think maybe that audience behavior is slightly different for Nintendo, where they are a lot of people that buy a lot of Nintendo games have bought a probably a handful of switches, two switches, maybe three switches, And when you're dealing with that kind of behavior, they're going to be ready to pick up a switch as soon as or switch to as soon as possible. All right,

let's get out the Nintendo news. Suicide Squad came out, and it's kind of in a weird situation where sure, some people kind of like it, but the metacritic is at like sixty one, sixty two. Maybe it's moved since I last looked, but low sixties and it's but it did top the sales in the UK. Chris Dring over Games Industry I Biz did clarify though it sold about half of what Guardians of the Galaxy sold in its first week. Hoch you mommy, Wow, hotchi mommy is probably the correct response

to that. So when you put it that way. When you put it that way, it's like seven years for a studio as expensive as rock Steady. Yeah, there is no universe in which this is anywhere near what it needed to do. I know we covered this game right a little bit.

I think everyone should watch that. I also think everyone should watch Ralph's skill up video on Suicide Squad, which is I think he does a really good job of articulating like the fact that, like this game is really impressively like from a production value, like it's impressive, but like almost everything beyond that is kind of dead on arrival. I think he puts that into a really good, uh sort of conversation there. But when you put it like that

against guard that is, that's that's wild. Yeah, we're not even talking about Avengers, right, We're not talking about like, oh, it's in the range of what Avengers did. It's like, no, it did worse than the game that did significantly worse than the Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy, and I think Guardians a Galaxy. I can't remember what we said what one two million copies sold? I think it was like one point five million, So WHOA, that is gonna be rough whoaoa, whoa. Here's the

thing, y'all. What I think you like it? You? Yeah, okay, okay, explain the game umbling mechanic in it that's keeping you glued to your seat. You haven't gone to the games part yet. There's a different gambling mechanic that's gotten me glued to my seat. Uh, you know, we'll talk about that will be the hot topic on a BCR this week because Tam and Lucy have beaten it and I'm gonna I'm gonna jump in.

I'm gonna yeah, they both play. Yeah, they were both like I think Lucy had some very nice things to say about that presentation side of things. I watched some clips of that just popped up on social media, so I was like, oh, I'm gonna seek out the story. But they were story clips and I thought it was very funny. The writing is very good. I've heard rise and how well they did that that. Yeah, well we'll get there when we No. I'm happy you feel this way,

Jane. This is good. This is this is what opinions are all about, aren't they. We'll talk we'll talk about in games a little bit on this episode, but yeah, I'll jump on on BCR. I'm gonna play some of it this week, and I'm gonna have a lot of questions for you. Who are you who's enjoying it? And Tam and Lucy who have beaten it, and I think they both have mixed feelings about it, all

right. Elder Ring may get a mobile version from ten Cent Tense through an in house development team is repoortly working on a mobile version of elder Ring. However, the project faces challenges and attacking the game's original design to a mobile

platform. Really you don't say yeah, like I we don't even have to say the thing out loud, right, yeah right, It's like, yeah, that was useless, useless the use of my the pixels on my screen here to put those words up there, because we all already knew that that would be very challenging. This is how Typing of the Dead was created, right where they're like, no one's gonna like gun, what are we gonna do? Well, we could make keyboards. You want to zombies and keyboards.

It turns out like Typing Other Dead. I'll be very happy. It's a great drinking game. Oh fun, listen, this this makes some sense because phones are so powerful and this game is so popular. I see how you like, Well, I can do it and do it, but I don't know if the elder ring on it, well, I don't know. Guess it gets an impact, yeah I have. I mean, honestly don't know anymore. If look, obviously, the controller thing is the issue.

I think if you know people connect controllers through their iPhones, people like, that's fine, we say that controllers are an issue. But the thing is, there's a whole generation of gamers that have acclimated it to playing fps's. Yes, they suck, they constantly suck. Yeah, but like for someone else, that's all they know. Like, you know, I'm saying they're bad at games, right, is that what you're saying. I don't know.

I think they're bad. Like it's funny, doesn't matter because this doesn't matter because it's if it's a whole generational universal decline, then we're all at the same level. Anyway, I asked the I asked my kid the other day because he was playing Rollblocks on an iPad and you know this guy who like obviously just you know, went to town on Spider Man two, and I say, like, what do you like better? What do you what do you like using better? And he he genuinely like it didn't even occur

to him that like he could have a preference. And maybe it's just like a human sort of understanding of like having opinions on things issue. But I also think he like is not considering it in the way that we do. Maybe we are coming from an older school like idea of like one has to be better than the other. I think for him, it's just like, whatever it is, I'll do it. No, dude, Like there's there's like a whole group of like Splatoon players that swear by the tilt controls.

Mmy, that prefer that over dulsticks. Yeah, I mean, Dan does absolutely. I mean so it's like people from all generations have grown to really love gyro aiming. That's something like I keep Delicious keep Yeah. Yeah, I keep trying to force myself to use that, but I just can never get used to it. Persona Leaker who has a good record of getting things right with When it comes to Persona and Atlas Rumors says that Persona two and

Persona four remakes are both both in the works. I think that's that's pretty interesting. Persona two is one that like is I think very difficult for fans to go back to. I've never touched it. I do know it's got Hitler in it, so that's gonna be fun. I want to see how they update that. It's great. Yeah, that's right, it's it's pretty. That's gonna be a They're just gonna take it out, right. I know they didn't take out the shooting yourself in the head in Persona three.

That was probably the right choice. Maybe you take out the Hitler maybe maybe maybe. Yeah. The shooting yourself with the evoker though, that is metal as hell. If listen, if I had an evoker, I would go back in time and shoot Hitler. All right. I just want to make that clear. I don't want to see his persona. Oh right, so that's that would happen. It doesn't actually hurt him. You have a mind, uh, all right? And then Square Enox is overhauling its development process

to improve game quality. Square is undergoing a comprehensive review of its development process to enhance game quality. The decision was announced by they just left you. It's something they had to decide to do. Wait, this should be better. The decision was announced by President Tak Takashi Kiriu during a financial briefing. The aim is to shift the focus to in house development for high profile titles, reducing reliance on external studios. This new structure, with improved quality checks

at earlier stages, will be implemented from April. The move follows Final Fantasy sixteenths launch, which fell short of expectations, leading to a fifteen percent drop of the company's share price. So it's like, start in April, guys, we are gonna stop fucking sucking. It's gonna be so, it's gonna rule, it's gonna be awesome. How do they make games and not know

that they make games? Also they are about to sell you a huge game, and they're like, we're gonna start making games that don't suck in April, but by Final Fantasy seven rebirth next month, it's like, I don't think Reworth is gonna suck, but still it's just a weird way of putting

things and how you just not naturally come to this conclusion. It doesn't inspire me with the most confidence, but I'm just gonna you know, it's yeah, very much that like you know, uh, forced recall, like activation, You're like, well, we only force a regal if it's killing this many people. Oh boy, finally, the Apple Vision Pro will not help

you crank it. Apple Vision Pro apples and VR headset has debuted with a hefty price tag, offering impressive technology for tasks like working from home and gaming. However, it lacks compatibility with VR porn, disappointing enthusiasts who anticipated its feature. Despite efforts to find workarounds such as tweaking Safari settings or Sorty to other devices or just desperately trying anything, users are still facing limitations and accessing

and accessing VR adult content. I want to see like that Apple Vision Pro subreddit and just see how many people are commenting trying to work together to collect it. I think you should leave guy in the car who sees a honk of your horny a bumper sticker, just like Ramon on the horn. We don't have to spend a lot of time on Apple Vision Pro. I just want to say that the vibe that was floating around the Internet when Google Glass came out is a grain of sand at the beach compared to the vitriol I

feel this time around with these absolute fucking freaks. I I'm so like also also what we didn't have last time with the Google the Google Glass was and I realized many many headsets have been introduced in between these two things. But I do think the level of their pervasiveness is matched, right where like they are like the thing that everyone is talking about in that sort of world. I also think the content creators are dick riding this thing in a way that

I cannot wrap my fucking head around. Yeah, I mean they write at certain point they like they can't help themselves, almost like literally they can't because I they gotta get on the next big thing and this could be it. So but like, and I understand there's this inherent need to like be enthusiastic about a thing or or be critical, which I have yet, you know, I don't know. I I like how Marquez has been covering it.

I think there's but the majority of like content creator around this thing, from my point of view, has just been so disingenuous and so weird and fucking annoying. I don't know. I mean, it bothers me, but I'm like, I'm a weird android guy who will still get mad when people like, look what Apple invented and it's something I've had for five years. Oh oh yeah, I think it's I think it's less that though for me, right, like, no, I know, I just that that is also

bothering me here. Sure sure, sure, sure, yeah. I mean I think it's like and anyone can just be like, oh, this is cool, Like I get that. I think it's cool. I think people are talking about this thing like in ways that I just don't think we have any real position to be making these assumptions about it. I do think it's

like, this stuff is inevitable. I think, yeah, people are gonna want to just plaster the world in their own they want to customize their world, and skin packs for the world will be a thing, and and having data pop up on people that walk up to you in your life and being able to see their birth date and their kids and stuff will be sure. I mean, it's almost an accessibility thing. This These things are inevitable. But people walking around in the mall wearing them look like fucking jerk offs.

And yeah, it gives me the hes. They always were they always were, Yeah, they always were wearing a head Sure now we know, now, we know you're right there. Now, it's just a self report right, like now you could you could have hit the fact you were a jerk off for a while. Yeah, it's just that I'm a big fan of Casey Nystat but just seeing that guy zoom on an electric skateboard that video. Did not love that video. Yeah, yeah, just like Casey No no,

no, no, no please right like the man. The stupidest part that I've seen from Apple Vision Pro are the people like talking about how great it is for as a camera and like you just see these people like with their VR helmets just going like, yeah, this is this is the angle I want. Okay, click, I'm like you, fuck you fucking idiot, just pull a camera out or a phone. Now, if Martin Scorsese

was doing that, I might be on board. But otherwise all right, but I want to see them hang Sam Raimi up with a vest or like a like apparatus so Sam Raimi can do his weird gimbal zooming up on someone up to like Bruce Campbell. I need that, Yeah, exactly. It's just gonna strap Bruce Campbell in five vision pros and just make real art. Finally, Uh, that's off of the news. That's all I got for you. This week, I'm gonna hand this show back over to you.

Jan. Hell of a segment there, Yeah, what a we got through it. What a wild show that's been. Well, you know, let's let's talk about some video games. What about that fellas? Yeah? Too many buts okay, oh oh god. It feels like I was in an Apple Vision Pro thirty five hundred dollars. That's insane. Though. Remember it's not just not for people. It's not for people. We say it's not for people, but people are peaking them up because it's like a new PC.

Sure, I mean you know, like, yeah, all right, if a Apple Vision no Pro comes out for this is I'm try like I got to add the Apple tax for like nine hundred ninety nine dollars one thousand dollars you guys in the market. No, And I don't again, like, I don't begrudge anyone forgetting this thing. I'm not. I'm not saying like you're a fucking loser if you one of these, I would definitely take

one if they sent me one with that course of course. Yeah, I just uh, I don't know if I have any real fundamental use for it. I don't think anyone does. I think that's the thing too, which is perfectly reasonable to say out loud, like uh, And like all the examples I see of folks using the Apple Vision Pro, it's just so they can have more windows up like exactly, which I don't. That seems to be like the killer app is that you can just like have your own workspace

in in ar. But I mean the killer app that I saw is someone was making dinner and they put a timer over one pot and a timer over other pot. Yeah, so they could look over and the timers just hung over those pots. Sure, and it's like, Okay, that's pretty fucking cool. Yeah, of course. And yeah, I mean and then when like it's timers, great, and when my glasses can do that in the form factor that they currently are, like, it'll be great, and that'll

be an awesome thing. Uh. But for even a thousand dollars, like Michael and Chat, I have done that with the metaquest three. All right, I have cooked with that thing on, and it is terrifying. Do you do you like watch like like a YouTube video like floating up above the sink or something or what. Yeah, that's what I was doing when I was like washing dishes. That's when when you're washing dishes. Yeah, So like for me, I'm much more interested in AR than than VR at this

point. And I know and and this thing is not AR, right, it's just VR basically right because it's showing because you don't see out the goggles. You do see that's the whole you can see through the goggles. I think it's more it's much more AR than it is VR. You aren't you seeing a camera vision of No? No, no, that's the medic quest. You see a camera, but it's actually so it's good enough that it might as well be AR. No, people say it's cameras, it's passed

through with camera. Okay, Okay, that's the point is that doesn't matter. But I'm saying is that, like I, I want to see my vision with your stuff overlaid my on top of and that's your preference, absolutely, But like using the meta Quest three a lot, we're at a point where it mostly doesn't matter. I think the camera quality and the Quest three isn't even like the very best, but it's well past good enough to the point where like this is acceptable AR. And I'm sure that the Apple Vision

pro is beyond that. Sure, what's wrong No, it just pains me inside. Like I see a lot of people saying this is the best piece of tech that they've ever used, and I'm just like, all right, I'm sure that it is. I'm sure that it is. But anyway, all right, videos heavy sounds heavy, the one you are down in the pocket. I don't, I get it. I get it, Like these are just small their nitpicks totally. If I if I got one, I would use it. Yeah, I would play around with it for sure.

Yes, I'm not going to drive with it on though. No, no, no, I'm not a piece of shit. It used to be, but I'm not anymore. I'll I mean, some slick back hair would fit well under I'll do some ar slobby stakes. Let's go. Hell yeah, gentleman. Steam Next Fest is going on, So there's a bunch of demos abound. Oh did you hop into something I did? I did? I hopped into Blastro Blastro. This is a roguelike game, so you know this may be up your your alley, mister grout. Does it have anything to

do with Balo that's the song? Or is it just? No? I wish it did because then it'd be extremely vibe, you know, it's it's a roguelike card game, and you just like a slave the spire, you were assembling a deck as you go along. But this just happens to tap into a recent hobby that I've discovered, that hobby being poker. So it is a poker roguelike of sorts, okay, where you are playing hands and your hands maybe you know, like, all right, you're just playing high

card. Cool. Oh you're gonna play two pair, all right, Oh you got a flush, you got a royal? All right? Cool cool cool cool cool cool cool. But so how it works is each card has a chip value attached to it, So an ace will be eleven face cards I believe, or ten, and then it goes on in numerical order, and depending on how many cards you're using in your specific hand when you're playing

it, that I'll add a multiplier. So if you use like I believe, if you do throw in two pairs, it'll multiply at times four I want to say. So it'll take that chip value that you're generating with your face cards and numbered cards and multiply that by four. And then with each different encounter or level, you have to exceed a or at least reach a certain chip value. So you're small blind, which is your first round here you'll have to reach let's say three hundred chips. The big blind will have

to be like six hundred chips. But where it gets funky, y'all, is you upgrade. You get the ability in between encounters to get joker cards, and these joker cards will add multipliers or different different aspects to your game. So say, for instance, one joker card will multiply your multiplier if you have if you're playing odd numbered cards or even number cards, or specific suits or specific conditions like hey, like you play three of a kind,

you're going to increase your multiplier by three. So then like it starts adding a little bit of complexity to there. And I should say you have fifty two cards to start out the game, and you have up to five hands to reach your chip value. On top of that, you can discard sets of cards up to three times in a round. But going back to how

you're accumulating cards, you're also getting tarot cards. And these tarot cards are kind of like wilds where they'll have different conditions, like all right, I'm gonna upgrade my queen to be a gold card. So now this queen will give me money if I don't play it, and if I end this round with it in my hand, or it'll increase the multiply multiplier or on top of that, it'll change the suit to be a wild so I can mix

and match with anything. And you quickly slam through this game and wind up developing your own play style, like I wound up just going straight for flushes, so I wound up leveling up my flushes, so and just trying to cater specifically towards spades and diamonds where I would be trying to destroy other suits, like I'm trying to get rid of all the hearts, all the clubs in my deck to just cater for bless you for space and diamonds in my

specific deck. And uh I was. I was just rinsing through where I would take care of the small blind, the big blind, and then like the boss within a round, within one hand, because I've already catered to uh get like a level five flush. Okay, I'm watching gameplay of this, you're describing it and this. Okay, So first off, it's called I think it's called Blatro nott Okay, Blatro Okay, this game has figured out a way to like turn poker into like a blind box slot machine.

Yeah, Like my god, like you just gave me a rush of dopamine saying words, spet that out loud and I fucked your ears up right, Like this is crazy, yo, And like the thing is so it's it's technically still in early access. Yeah, but I kept playing the demo and there was like no shut off time. The only thing that they're talking about of like, hey, yeah, we'll just have different variations of joker cards

and tarot cards. Another aspect to it is, yes, in between rounds they have these blind these blind booster packs backal are sure, and then some of those will have different foils in them, different in some of that stuff. It's so funny because poker is the original like buff game, you know, like it's the original of like anything with cards, right, Like there's always like weird rules like oh tunes are wild now, like you can you know, like and this just takes it to the end degree. Oh my

god. I love how like they describe it as a game where you play illegal poker hands. I also really like the way it looks. It's like it's very like big fonts, make simple fonts and like low fi UI. And then the the artwork on the cards is also sort of not it's not Game Boy Color, but it's like a generation beyond the Game Boy Color. But it looks like it's kind of staying in that and in that like limited palette, and I like that as well. The other go ahead, Greb.

I'm just gonna say, I'm kind of want to I'm gonna pla I'm gonna play this game, but I kind of want to watch you play. Jan We were so strapped on time if we could do some like next Best demos at something. Yeah, let me say how long this is running?

This game is out in two weeks. By the way, though it is like it, it is also such a smart card game because it's just a card game as well, because immediately one of the biggest issues that it took it took something like Slay the Spy a while to get adjusted to is the speed, and they just let you crank the game speed like from the jump.

Okay, so like you are you are melting time away. I stayed up last night because I had to go edit some stuff, and I was like, oh, you know what, let me go check out some of the demos to play for so I can talk about it on the podcast. Uh oh more And then oh boy, did I suddenly lose three hours playing this demo? Oh my god? But it is insane, Like I I feel like I am stealing the game right now by playing the demo because of

how full fledged it is. But u bilatro. It's also helping me identify poker hands, like just yeah, you're also practicing with it, so I can't encourage that. No, I'm kidding. Yeah, it's wild. This looks wild. It's yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm getting in there. I'm I'm going. I'm just going in the next fest right now. And I started downloading some demos and that's the one I'm getting right now. So

very excited to try that out. And oh god, I can't. I can't stop singing its praises like I could, uh if this was like on a phone or whatever, which I guess, like you could just like do steamlink or whatever. Sure it'd be like like oh no, I wouldn't. I wouldn't be here right now, guys, has anyone else been playing anything else? I've been playing a lot more like a Dragon Infinite wealth. I am at a point where you lose a member of your party and that like

permanently, uh one drops out two more hot back end uh. And so it's like now I have more party members, then I have slots in the party, and so it's kind of fun being able to be like, okay,

let's see how that works. And well through that time, the combat, which was already fun, keeps getting like like just you know, slight variations on, like now you could do this, and now the characters do these follow up attacks because there's such good buddies that they're just gonna run in and help you even if you don't necessarily throw someone at them, like at like how it worked before, and good news, you could still do that

as well. So you're gonna be doing a ton of damage all the time, and and that combat that was already fun, it's gonna be even funner. H And so I'm really enjoying that aspect of it. After Dan Doco Dare, I went onto back to my Dondogo Island, which is basically the animal Crossing Many game which they send you to like you have to go in there for a little bit and as part of the main campaign, but you can leave. I did not. I just kept playing it until I got

five stars. Oh, because it's super satisfying. It's simple. It's a simplified version of Animal Crossing, but the but it's actually got a lot more going on than you even expect. It's just like, oh, you're gonna be able to accomplish this in a handful of hours instead of something like Animal Crossing. You need to play it like a whole year. And I kind of wanted to keep playing it because it was just fun, like getting people to come visit my island and see seeing if I could satisfy their needs so

that they would have bigger tips. And as you're going through that process, you're able to try and you improve your island. You're able to attract more people that have more money, and so it's like, well, this is gonna be even more worth worthwhile if I keep doing this. But I have now veered back into the story and it's I'm surprised how easy it was to get right back in the swing of things. They did very wisely have the don Doco side quest distract you at a moment where it's like, once you

get back into it, well work, this is gonna happen. This is gonna happen, and then the drama is gonna get ramped up and we're gonna have some of our best like acting moments and all that stuff. So and I'm like really getting a feel for the city and exploring it and it's just all kind of coming together for a game I was already enjoying. I'm enjoying

it even more. It is like maybe thirty five hours in, and you know, thirty thirty five hours in, and I'm like, man, do I do feel like I am very a very long way from finishing this game. And it's like more and more games are showing up, more and more games are on the horizon, and I'm like, I hope I can actually beat this game, but as it stands right now, I want to. I hope too, But we'll see if I'm able to stick with it. As like things start coming out here pretty soon. Yeah, stuff is raping

up. I do enjoy that. I feel like Infinite Wealth has and reaching a wider audience than I expected. Like outside of it, I think it's it's sold like a million copies, much faster than any like a Dragon game is sold before. That's great. To hear. That's great to Yeah, I think I think it is officially popping off in that way that you were like, Hey, this game seems like it has potential to reach new audiences. I think it has officially done exactly that, and not like I'm among

them. I've played some of these games a little bit before, but I've never really gotten into them in the way that I have with this one. I think they've just really figured out what they are, and so like they are, it's very easy for them to like, Okay, we do this and this, and we're gonna make that stuff all better. And then when we try new stuff, well, we feel comfortable trying new stuff because we already know what works for us and that's already in the game and we have

a ton of it. So it's just kind of at a point where everything I do I'm enjoying, and the stuff that is the fundamental aspect of the game, the combat and the relationships between the characters, all that stuff is so top notch that it's very easy to get invested in it. Yeah. I think getting super into Infinite Wealth has kind of hampered my experience with Persona three reload, which we talked about at length with Terbo Sean like Manatti and

Michael him. Last week on BCR, I spent some more time with Persona three Reload and talking about like total shifts. It is like absolutely wild going to the concept and the how fleeting time is and what you do with time

versus running around Hawaii with your hooligan friends. But I'm happy to say that I'm enjoying more of my time with Persona three Reload now that I've been told by the boys and the experts to focus less on all of the social links, because that was one of my biggest like anxieties about playing Persona five Royal is that I felt like, after a while I was playing that game with a spreadsheet of making sure I was maximizing all of my time throughout the day,

but hearing that all right, some of these ultimately there's not gonna be a good payoff, or there's not gonna be an amazing payoff to just just like real life, go with the friends that you like and go foster those relationships. The other game I've been playing besides the poker game and UH and Like a Dragon and Persona three Reload and the other game that we can't talk about mm hm is. I'm just typing this out for myself. Suicide Squad

killed the Justice League. Oh what's what is this? Let me tell y'all. Y'all, y'all like loot, I think it's called Unalive Squad Actually, so when we put this on TikTok later, Oh okay, okay, Sean, please please adjust. I don't like me, I don't like I don't know how to feel about that. Let me tell y'all. Let me tell y'all. This game isn't bad. This game isn't all right, So, like, you know what the criticism is, right, Like you know all that? So so well, waits what is the criticism? Look? I

mean I think I've heard some of it. I did not watch Skill Ups video yet. Let me say what I think it is, and then you guys can confirm if this is actually true or not based on what you've heard

or what you've played. Uh. It is a game that does have some fun elements in terms of moving the characters around and fighting, like there's actually nothing necessarily wrong with that, but the missions you're doing, the design around all of that is repetitive, right, And then the game doesn't know what it wants to be and that distracts from everything that is good about it. And then the performance is very good. Yeah, the visuals are very good,

and the storytelling and the humor is actually really on point. Yeah, I hear that. And the thing I'll add on to that that I've been hearing a lot is that it's too focused on gun play and oh, the characters are very similar, yes, and and that there's nothing really that you know, Yeah, Captain America played very different than like Hawkeye in Avengers, and like that is not happening here. Yeah, even with the traversal abilities, it's like, oh, y'all can kind of do the same thing.

It just looks different. But that being said, the movement does feel good, and I think that they've leaned into something that I completely forgot that Rock said he was really good at, and that's just creating really good and well animated scenes that pay a lot of attention. Everything looks top notch that I've seen, like, yeah, straight up, And then I forgot that this was one of Kevin Conroy, Kevin Conroy's last I think this is like the

last thing that's going to come out. I think the last pieces of work that where he was Batman, and I was like, when you approach Batman and you hear Kevin Conroy's voice, it's like, a I'll sit down, I'll stop clowning on the game. Fine, And yeah, he's just doing his he's in his bag. It's working really well. The voice cast that they got working really well. These cutscenes look really good. It's just the in between part of having to continue down the same loops over and over again

are a little bit I don't even want to say frustrating. It's monotonous, is what it is. It's weird to think this in twenty twenty four, but this is a I could justify paying sixty dollars for this game. Paying seventy dollars, on the other hand, is a completely different story where I think your money may be better served elsewhere. Despite liking the game, I've yet to play multiplayer, so I have no idea what that experience is.

Like. Everything has been single player. It's prise same. I've heard people say it doesn't improve things that all that much. Yeah, yeah, I am looking at the flow of the game. I could just see some of the missions going by faster, and you know, you're just mowing down. It's already a short game based on what we've heard about nine hours to beat it. Yeah, short and whatever, it's nine hours to beat it.

If that goes by faster and you spent seventy dollars on this, I could see you looking around being like, wait, what the hell Isn't this supposed to be something I'm supposed to coming back to? And I think most people are going to get past that nine hours and not have a reason to revisit, which is fine, I think in a lot of cases, but here it feels a little bit weird, just because again the way, that's the

way it's being sold. Yeah, And I'm trying to think back of like how I felt with Marvel's Avengers, and I remember thinking fondly ish about that because the story was also pretty okay, if not good, i'd say, but like the gameplay loop just wasn't there, And I don't see myself if I continue to play through Kill the Justice League, I'm sorry Unlive the Justice League that I would go back to to get better loot or or to like improve my runs or whatever. I also feel like they should have just made

this and focused on making this a single player game. Versus a multiplayer game, because then I think you would have more bespoke characters versus all of them feeling pretty samey while moving around. But that or even a coup game without the understanding of it being a live service game some way right where it's like, no, yeah, we have a multiplayer campaign in there, and the characters are very different because you you can play this campaign four times and it's

gonna feel very different because all these characters are very different. When it's like, no, you need to pick your character and stick with it and play with your friends and come back and you're gonna have a crew that's gonna be your suicide squad crew. And I think they get that. They work themselves into a shoot here, work themselves into a corner a little bit where I think that they began designing the game from those needs and it just did not

serve this game great in any way. Yeah, And it's a bummer because like when you jump into the cut scenes, like everyone has such a such very distinct personalities and quirks, then none of that is reflected in the actual like game play at all. So there's so there's like a disconnect there a little bit like a huge disconnect, you know, like you'll see like Harley Quinn emoting and like being like very true to that character and then like,

you know, King Shark is just a big shark. You know. This makes me think a lot about I want to say, like some of the reaction to Arkham Night when it came out, and I know that's eight years ago, right, yeah sure, but like wasn't there weirdness around like the bat cannon like batmobile thing? Oh yeah right? And like people were like, why is Batman just like murking fools? Like what's happening? Is this? What? What? Like? Is this such a a deviation from like

what rock Steady's good at or something like that. I don't know. I guess what I'm getting at is like, what's where do we go from here? I mean, you just said it grub in the news spot like this is having a bit of a rough launch. So I mean it's like people are calling this a stain on rock Steady that's going to be hard to wipe. Weigh. It feels much more drastic than that, right, It feels like does does a rock Steady going forward from this point with leadership that left

about last year? Maybe a little bit before that, but clearly in the run up to the release of this game, because that was before the delay. I think, does does a rock Steady like this need to continue? And it's and like, I don't want to be like, oh, they shouldlose the studio. I think they should find ways to keep rock Steady around and doing things. Sure, but I think what beyond going back and making a new Batman Arkham game. The idea of like, okay, building on

the future of rock Stay from this point feels very tenuous. Yeah, And I feel like it's already become tenuous with superheroes in its entirety, right, Like if you're not Spider Man, like I can't imagine shelling out to play a game right now, and like you're not playing as Batman, which I

feel like would have attracted so many people. But you know, I mean Gotham Nights, like even I feel like there's a giant fandom around those characters, but there was no fervor at all when they came right right, Yeah, those those fans are too busy just arguing online to play video. Yeah.

Yeah, it's kind of disappointed because I feel like d C has actually had some solid comic book runs, and like, I feel like we get too bogged down on the weeds because Zack Snyder has has infected everyone's minds and DC constantly chasing Marvel when it comes to their respective cinematic universes, when I feel like DC has had like a good grip on animated shows and for a

while video games too, at least with the Arkham series. So I, yeah, I don't know what this means for rock Steady of moving forward. Yeah no, And it's like it's just illustrative of like where the industry is overall, where how easy it is to go from being on top of the world making Batman Arkham games, all of them well received, all at you know, well received at the least some of them received as or considered to be some of the best games ever made. And then the economics change,

the incentives change. These companies look around and like, hey, it'd be cool if we had a live service game. And so one scrap project turns into another scrap project turns into now we're making suicide Squawks. That movie made a lot of money, and oh boy, people kind of hate that movie now, but hey, they made a lot of money. So we'll make a lot of money with that, right, And then the second movie comes

out and it doesn't make any money and it was during the pandemic. But it's like these the bad decisions can snowball so fast that when we talk about like these companies being risk averse, this is the example that is going to be pointed to going forward where they tried something slightly different and it just everything went wrong with it in terms of how it could pay off. And now now we're questioning the future of rock Steady and it's like rock Steady should be

around forever. They made the Arkham Games, and it's like, well, that's not the way it's gonna work. But don't you think it's like it is sort of manufactured more than it is risk right, Like don't you think this comes from like focus testing something to to sort of hell and like right, yeah, yeah, I guess, yeah, I you know, I

don't know. I think there is a a really difficult balance in the very long development cycle of a lot of this stuff, where enough time goes by and things kind of get lost or or there's a big enough detour from the original sort of vision that you you you can kind of lose your way along the way, if that makes sense, you know, yeah, and you know, and like people chat like, hey, no one asked for this, and it's like, yeah, I mean, no one explicitly asks for

a game like this, but you do look at the sales charts, and a lot of times it's games that are live service multiplayer components that are always at the top. I mean, we looked at the MPD chart a couple weeks ago for the best selling games of twenty twenty three, and it's like, oh, yeah, look at the Hogwarts. Olt sold all these other

games. That's a single pair of game. But then the MPD or sir Kana excuse me, they changed their name, put out a list of like and here's the games that actually are making the most money, no matter when they came out, whether they came on twenty twenty three or not. And almost no twenty twenty three game is on that list. It's all games that are live service that have been around for a while. Destiny is even on

there, and stuff like that. So people don't ask for it. But the wall, you know, the money speaks way louder than what people say online, at least to many of these executives. Now, is that a way to run your business? It is chasing that stuff ever going to work? I think we all know at that point. No. I think we've

seen it enough times that chasing that down is really difficult to do. The best you can hope for is kind of maybe getting on board if something new when it comes out of nowhere, like a power world or something like that, or a lethal company would say, hey, that's just popping up. Let's go see if we can help them out and get on board with that.

But trying to manufacture it is very difficult. It's very easy for us to stay here from our position and make these assumptions about like a game development, right Like me, I asked myself, like, is this the game Rocks that he wanted to make? Right like that? And that's you know, probably not. I think there's elements element sure, yeah, pretty much when it comes to like maybe the story, not the actual gameplay, because it's just such a vast departure from any of the Arkham games, right.

I mean, listen, I think most of the time developers don't want to be making games like this. That's not in every case, and I think a lot of times they're like, hey, executives are saying they want something kind of along these lines, could we do something like that? And I think they a lot of times get to a situation that's like, yeah, we believe in this to go for it, because you kind of have to tell yourself that at a certain point. But really the like the answer like

did it come from the developers or executives doesn't matter so much. It's just like, that's what happened, and so now this is what we have to

deal with. That's the dishwater. You got to soak in it. So I think it's yeah, right, you hope that other publishers and other companies will look at at examples like this and learn a lesson, But we've had these lessons a bunch of times before, and they kind of don't until everything starts collapsing like what has happened with live service games recently, and now everyone

is a little bit spooked. But before that, it's like, no, everyone is making their Sony's got twelve that they're making and it's okay, And I get at a certain point like you got to make a lot of bets to see one succeed, But it also just feels like this, isn't that distracting you from what you do well? And can you grow in a more sustainable way instead of just like we are all in on this thing, and now suddenly the House of Cards is tipped over and it's it's on the ground

and you're left with twelve live service games that no one was asking. Yeah, yeah, go be like Square decide to make good games. Yeah right, everyone should live their life the waar Square squear Enix does. Deciding to be better in April. It's so brave of them. They're so brave. I don't stop sucking in April. Two guys, all right, Me me too, Me too? Oh man, look at us, Look at us. I'm gonna be I'm gonna be the best me in April with Square,

is it? It's not even like failing up or like falling up the stairs. It's just like, I don't know, Like I feel like they're constantly finding twenty dollars in their pocket and be like, oh man, I'm gonna save this. I'm good at money. You others say like rock Steady is like WB Games was like the rumor mail for very long time, years and years, and it was true that they were trying to sell off their studios.

But it's like, this is another example of why that was so difficult, because they're gonna they were gonna sell you rock Steady, they weren't gonna sell you Batman in the Arkham universe. Yeah, you're gonna have to least that back from them, and that makes this game make even less sense. So it's just, yeah, it's a rough situation. I hope that rock Steady is able to just bounce back. Go make a Batman game, do do what works, make a Superman game even let's not go crazy, Yeah,

I mean, can do another Bruce. Let's go needs to be more emo. He's not sad enough. I want to. I want to, you know, it's like sad Dad Superman. I want Yeah, exactly, that'd be dope. Thanks make that. I you know, what the one we need is is super Dan sixty four, Dan Reikert playing Superman sixty four from Black Club. That's what we really need. Yeah, yeah, that's that's what That's what we gotta do. I did play one other game.

If if everyone else is through their stuff, yeah, I play. I played a game called Mortal Combat Mythology sub Zero because I at a certain point, I couldn't just sit there and turn right, Yeah, my turn, you breaking into jail. I'm using save states, So that is like it's like making it kind of a fun thing where it's like, oh, I

saw Mike do this, let me give this a try. A couple of times I did try, like to do that second level that Mike spent you know, six hours on like for shoot a couple of times and it's watching him. It's like, Okay, I can't. I know I could possibly do this, but why would I waste my life minutes doing something that we're forcing Mike to do? But that I did. I did. Look, I did some level select to see what's coming, and you know, I'm

not gonna I don't want to spoil anything. So I think most of it we should see most of it. I've not seen the vast majority of what's coming. I did jump to the last level just to see what it was like, and I got to the first enemy and he kicked my ass like twelve times. I could not get past the first enemy, so I'm like, I'm just going to run past him. And then the level just kept going and going and going, So I'm like, oh, do I have

to fight these guys? And so I fought him another about thirty to forty times and could not beat him. Now, my character isn't leveled up. I think so that that's a problem likely there. But I think that this, the amount of bullshit that is still to go in that video game seems monumental. It seems like there is going to be a lot to deal with still, and he is only on level three. At some point you're like, are we liable? At some point where we're like, is this considered

torture? I mean, listen, if you if you I made him sign the paperwork. Yeah, we're paying him right, so exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think we're in the clear. Feel good about that? I guess, yeah, I guess you know. Oh yeah, which we could we can review that game as well. Yeah, we're gonna try to get Tell the Tale of the Sun on Metacritic or our score for that after I played through that. Hell yeah too, h yeah we could that proper parties. Yeah, yeah, just be like put this up there please.

Yeah, I had, I had a blurb and everything. Yeah, it was. It was a good blurb. It was very very concise, very cogent, as folks like to say. I'm someone who's read a lot of Metacritic blurbs, so it's like I can just I can fake this. Uh No, I just want to play the poker game. But there's no time this week. Ye I'm looking at I'm putting that on the Steam deck and I'm gonna have come to spend some time. Maybe there's time in between

after GMM on Thursday, before dump tru. Let's figure it out, Like I I got, I just downloaded a couple of Steam Next Nextras demos. What did I get here? I got? Oh? Yeah, yeah, I actually want to share some of the demos that I downloaded that I intend to check out. Checked uh Tales of ken Zera zoo. Uh this was uh uh I had the cool two D movement abilities Tarnished Blood, uh Tendril and then until then demo and shout out to until then because it takes place

in the Philippine. Nice. Oh that's cool. It gives it gives mad what's it called space, a space for the unbound vibes, and not just because it takes place in Southeast Asia. Right. I did download this never Grave game, which looks like a I think it's a roguelike Metroid Vana, and I can always do more of those. I'm gonna check out this home World three demo. I'm someone who played home World one when it first came out originally and haven't really touched the series since, so I'm like, it's

time to get back in home World three. Homeworld' is that like three dimensional space, real time strategy game where like the ships can move like anywhere in like a tank, and so there's like a lot to consider there, and I think I'm gonna point where like that might overwhelm me, but I'm gonna give it a shot. And then I got Star Trucker, that four X game Millennia, and this mech farming game light Year Frontier that has co op. I think maybe we should maybe we could all try to play that.

That could be that could be a fun one. That game is Actually it's out March nineteenth, so we'll be in Pacts team next ends Monday. It's it's seven days and there's like a thousand games apparently crazy. Yeah, so does that mean we know, Okay, okay, it's up until Monday, so maybe maybe Monday, and you know that Monday slide I did finish tail of the grub I did. There's a couple of things we're considering for like, you know, hey, just we got some time during the week,

we'll put it in that slot. But maybe we should do that first. Yeah, I just want to get a dose in the Giant. We talked about that. I think I want to make Dan play that. So, but we have time. We have time to get to that. Eventually, we had not enough time to play all the things we need to play, because other than talking about Suicide Squad, we should probably play Suicide Squad.

Maybe let's do it. I would I would actually like that. Maybe maybe sometime in April or whatever, we give Mike a reprieve and instead of Delight Club, it's like Delight Club and he can just play one palate cleanser. Okay, we'll see, let's see he earns it perhaps, yeah, oh yeah, he has to earn it. He did terrible on Dan Doko there last week. Negative points, right, It was embarrassing for everyone involved. I don't believe that he would choose to participate in the sport. What was

sully the name of Dan Doko there exactly. It's making a mockery of the sport. Yeah, record would say so respects the respectable institution. And he just uh, you know, his stirty feet all over it. Yeah, I didn't wipe his feet before he got into the mat like a good boy. Disgusting, disgusting folks. We're going to take another quick bricky break and then we will be back with electronic mails from you, the folks at home. Emails. BombCast Giant bomb dot com is the email address to send your

emails to write any and everything you want. It's a nice message for the crew, I'll send it to them. If it's a bad mess for the crew, I'll still send it to them to keep it every height, you know, and make sure make sure that everyone's all good and like, all right, I'll take this constructive criticism. I'm sorry my face looks this way. I'm sorry. And then if it's a coupon code, I'm not going to send it to Dan because that man doesn't believe in coupons. But I'll

make use on cupons. Just send them right to Paul Reichert. Coupon King coupon, He's coupon coupon Royalty over there. Wait, how are we all saying coupon I just say coupon, coupon. Coupon is like, I don't think it's a regional thing. I think it's a generational thing. I mean coupon. No one says, No one under forty says coupon. I think I used to say coupon because of my parents, and then I think I started saying coupon. I say coupon, coupon, coupon for that, I

think I definitely said I think I definitely used to say cupon. Funny word. Huh yeah, Man, you're saying it a lot. It makes me think like I'm a mogle, you know, like coupo, but likeuo coupon. Oh my god. Final Fantasy seven Rebirth, cut the check, like just google coupons. That's probably a thing already, Right, make us all be Googles. Let's all voice Googles in your game. I'll say coupo so

many times. I'll say for free, you know what? All right, next time we see Ben, we gotta we gotta like juice the squeeze and squeeze these the squeeze. I mean it's when it comes to Ben Starr. It absolutely you can say juice the squeeze. What does that mean though it means something else. It's like, yo, we gotta juice the pressure that. It's what happens when you get a Hong Kong in like a dragon infinite wealth. Have you met, yes, but no one does because you just

walk in. You're like, hey, you get yourself Hong koked and let's I think I know what it means, but they don't. They do not explain it. I think I know what a Hong Kong means. Listen, you go into a hotel room with someone to get Hong Kong. It's a good time. Let me be a moingle and Kingdom hearts for that's all I'm asking for. Ple me be a coupon in your diary. Did you guys see that clip of Sto like Mike seeing the cat thing in Final Fantasy Set?

No, I didn't see you. It's like it's like something something emotional is happening and and someone's in trouble and then the cat walks up and just goes, what is that is that thing? It's very good, I reckon I'll retweet it again. I recommend everyone watch it because his joint confusion is that Yeah, I don't know. I think he just he might eventually say that, but at first he's just like, what is that? Because it comes out of nowhere? Yeah, Cone, just put it in uh or

Cone just put it in chat. All right, I can watch it later if you guys want cool, beautiful beautiful gosh, all right, okay emails. First email comes from Jerry in Wisconsin. Thank you Jerry for putting the state you're in in parentheses for me, because I couldn't tell you what w I is. I would have said wyky key for some reason. That's no, it's that's the turbo Sean state. Oh okay, okay, shouts out

Shawn's neighbor bombers. Who do you think finishes their story first? George Railroad, Martin Gordon Freeman or Cody Rhoads. I can only I can only lend my thoughts to two thirds of this. I know you're a big you also want Cody, right, No, who's this railroad person? I'm kidding Like that actually did throw me for a loop for a second. I'm like, oh, oh, sorry, it's just a reflex now to say railroad. No, no, yeah, no problem. I think it legit goes in

the order, God, it goes Cody Roads. Then George R. R. Martin and then Gordon Freeman never finishes like twenty years. Yeah, they do a half like three and like twenty years. Microsoft, Microsoft, in their purchase of Valve will finish it. Now you're getting it. I'm subscribing to your substack. I know, Listen, Cody Rhodes is going to finish the story eventually. I do think that they want to like go for years

still with all this. Now whether or not they're able to actually pull that off will be a big question, but so far it's been fine to good. Yeah. I just I a Slash film put out an article saying that the Rock is trying to black Adam the WWE, and then I just definitely is that just caused so much psychic damage to me? But they could, like, listen, yes, he's trying to do that, but that is good for heat and having like someone be an authority figure taking advantage of their

position actually be the heel. If they can make that change, I think that works very easily and that keeps the Roman storyline going. Maybe I'm starting to believe Dan when he said that they might want to keep the belt on Roman until he actually does beat the record and has has had it longer than anyone ever, and that would be like twenty twenty eight or something. Oh my god, just I know. But listen, we're in twenty twenty four

and they could they could get there. I think that belt doesn't matter anymore. It doesn't. It hasn't mattered in years. Yeah, yeah, that's that's fair. That's yeah, okay, right, but what about the Oilers making history tonight and possibly beating the consecutive win They're very good at hockey. It turns out it's this scary team being even scarier than ever. Those fuckers. You know, you know it's not going got a fuck. Wait till

Saturday for another Red Wings game. You know that wrestling has kind of re entered the mainstream. When has it? Yes, I don't think it's ever left. I think it's very much part of everything. I wouldn't suck people didn't talk about it, Yeah much when you have, like you know, George Kittle, who has like a big game to worry about because he's going to be in the Super Bowl, and he's instead of worrying about that, he's worrying about Cody and wrestle media instead. Yeah, that's that's cool.

I get George Kittle's not gonna do shit anyhow. I'm still mad at him because I missed out on a lot of money because of him. I told you I watched half of The Iron Claw last night, and I'm you know, I'm watching it with Stace and you know, she knows next to nothing about wrestling, and me hanging out with her. I'm like, I'm I'm like a pro, Like you know, you're welcome. I'm no, no, look, I'm gonna take credit myself for this because this is just like

when you have five years of an obsession, you retained some Stacey. Shoot, no, I didn't get that deep into the weeds with her. But like there's a scene, like you know, it's we're like halfway through and they're like, you know, it's the part where like they're they're conditioning, uh Zac Efron's character to like be in contention for the belt. Right, did you guys see this? You saw The Iron Clay. I haven't seen

it yet, but I mean I know the story. So they're conditioning, they're getting him ready for like the NWA title belt, right, And they do a really good job of like comparing winning a belt in wrestling to like getting a promotion, right, Like that's basically what it is. It's like, it's a promotion, right, there's a lot of confidence in you, and they say you're ready for the next step. So she's watching this match and she's and she's like, you know, he's got to win this match.

And I'm like, well, what do you mean. She's like, he's got to win, like he has to prove himself to the rest of the of the wrestling community that like he's good enough. So if he beats this guy, he's then next in line for her for a contention. I'm not just like, oh, hell yeah, I'm like no, no, no, no, no, what do you mean? I like he pause on the movie he turned ninety degrees, and I'm just like, what are you talking about? What do you mean? This is all it's it's not

it's all arranged. Like they even go into great detail about how it's arranged. And she's just like, no, I think this one is. I think this one this damn it. She goes, I think this one is, like doesn't play by the by the pre arranged rules. I love I love this And I'm just like but then and then seen right after they like totally are like, oh that was a great like why didn't you get up when you should have? Like, and it totally erased all of that illusion

for her. And she looked at me and she was just like, Okay, I guess you're right. But but but did she really say all right, I got work. Brother, No, she didn't say it like that, but she said it in her own way, in her own way, and I thought that was really awesome. Uh, movies, all right, I mean, listen, that is we all know it's it's arranged. But in the moment where you're like, who cares? You want to believe? Of course believe? So of course that's great, That's fantastic. It's a

play, right, it's a play. Enjoy the play. Enjoy this some sweaty play any other TV show? Yes, enjoy this very sweaty play. Yes, sweaty plays plays the new Giant Bomb feature. Next email comes from Brandon, Hello, Bomb crew, I'm writing to see if you could wish someone special to meet a happy birthday. Emily's birthdays this week, and it would mean a lot if you could tell her happy birthday on the BombCast this week. Bonus points if she can get a special shout out from Jeff Backlar.

Oh my gosh, we me. You want me to to be the one to give out a special happy birthday to Emily. Yeah, I could do that. Happy Birthday, Emily, special shout out to you on this wondrous day. I don't know how old you are, but I'm sure whatever age it is, could and could she get a kiss on the cheek maybe even you know it's twenty twenty four and uh, you know what, you know you're being careful, You're right. I'll ask you if you'd like one,

I could send you on on a postcard that can be arranged. Just while you're listening to this, take your phone and if you're watching it on your phone, just next to that and just get it up right up? Is it on your cheek yet? Okay? There you go, ch it's your it's European. There, there you go, there you Sascoe birthday to you. Nope, that's one line I will not cross. It's a bridge too far. I'm not going to play into that bullshit. Happy birthday.

I hope it's a great one. Now put your phone on the top of your hand. There you go, Thank you, Happy birthday. You you kissed the inside of someone's palm. I don't know, like on top of your hand, you know, I got it? Yeah? Okay, Happy birthday, Emily, Happy birthday. Uh. Next email comes from Jeff in Quebec City. Quick, there's no time. Gujima has personally d m you and asked for an idea to add to his next desk strainding two trailer.

What do you suggest I go for a bass bass guitar wielding antagonist for an all that Scott Pilgrim style battle keep on rocking the free world? Jeff from Quebec's Okay, it's a boy, but he's the president, like president boy, just like like boss baby, but the president. But yes, boss baby, but like not a baby, so a little bit higher, and not a boss a president, so a little bit higher. So it's just amplified and every got it, got it, got it, got it good?

Good. I like, we are not that far away tangentially and metaphysically that far away from just like a pinball machine becoming and like reanimated and being alive and a person and in this game. Uh, for whatever reason, So do that for me? Be fun? That would be fun. I'd like to see that Okay, yeah, keep going, Yes, sorry. I want Dao Kajima to refined and rediscover William Shakespeare. And I want him

to make Romeo and Juliet, but specifically make Nomeo and Juliet. Yeah, of course, Okay, I need to find out what his whole Paddington arc was about a couple of years ago, Like how how has Paddington affected him as a as a storyteller? I need to know. Yeah, I need to know. That's a good question, and we can only hypothesize, right, Like what can we even do? Right? I want to see, Yeah, I want to see his house. I want to see I want to like go in his house and just be like whata you know? Like

what has he decided to surround himself with? Why do you have the apple pie tree from McDonald's, right, Like, I need to know. It would be great if it was just like an old McDonald's play place and he's got the the Hamburger prison thing the kids got trapped in, uh, just in his house. That'd be very cool. God, what is the deal with that puppet? I need to know? Uh? Okay, So, yes, is Kojama's bullshit still fun to you? Yeah? I think it's still fun. Yeah. In this for me, in this point where we're

getting the trailers, it's one million percent fun. It's a great ride. Mike Manatti's very over it. He is rolling his eyes a lot at all this stuff. Is he what's his position that it's just like a shark? Yeah, ham Sean both like eye rolly is the best way of putting it. But yeah, jump the shark. This guy loves the smell of his own farts, And I'm like, I don't. I don't think I deny any of them. That's true. He absolutely does love his own farts.

He loves his own farts. Uh. And and yet I'm still having a really good time with a guitar guy that is wearing a mask and then has the joker makeup on underneath, and like, of course it's fucking yeah. And up until now, uh Kojima was like one of these people that could sort of like get a pass for all this. But apparently we have people standing in the way of that mat Yes exactly, they're yucking his youm and I don't stand for it. How many autorn right on Earth could get away

with what Kojima gets away with. We were all we all mutually, universally agreed that like, you know what, there's one cat that's gonna get to have their cake and eat it too. And his name is Kachima, and that's okay, and we're all okay with it, but no two rotten apples in the bunch, and you I chose my words carefully, okay, backler

on agree. I love the idea that Sony is giving this man money and he comes back to them with like, well, he plays the guitar and it electrifies people, and he has this makeup on, but he wears a mask over it. Sometimes it's like they say, right, and they have to just be like, oh, you're a genius. How many people? Right? How many people find themselves in that position? Right? And watch someone's there if they are just making their harmless bullshit fucking let him go to

town, right, Very very few people. And not only that, but like he is also convinced very influential people in Hollywood that he's this sort of like cryptic genius and they all line up, they all line up to go to the circus and they're just like, pour your bullshit all over my head. I don't care if it's not gonna come out. I just I just need to be a part of I need to touch you creatively. You know, it's it's it's the Emperor's close. It's the Emperor's do close. And

and uh I it's not a bad thing. It's fun. It's hilarious to see Jordan Pele have to go up there and be like, man, I love metal gearsology Jordan Peel for a half y hour on this stage and was just like, I'm garbage compared to this man. You know, It's it's awesome. Insists that he called me his bitch, because that's that's what it is. So sick, it's so sick that this dude has this power, has this death grip on so many things. It's awesome. I think.

I think the lesson to learn from this, folks is, you know, if you're if you're gonna do anything creative, don't don't try to explain it. Don't even attempt to explain it. Yeah, exactly, be as cryptic and incomprehensible as possible. It's not plotholes. It's just how you write, right, and like, especially if you're like he's pretty good at like eventually

patching his plot holes. To the way that make it look like it was all planned, and I think everyone knows it wasn't, and he kind of like he comes back around, he fixes things, but that just makes it more fun. When he starts creating these massive plot holes, You're like, oh, I can't wait to see how he jumps that gap. It's it's all kind of just part of the charm of Kojima. I think, uh,

he's the only one taking it seriously. Yeah, there's that too, which is amazing, which is almost like a Nathan Fielder thing, right, Like yeah, Like when I say he's good at like cover his plot, I mean he's good at like coming with explanations like, well, I guess that's an explanation for why that arm was haunted or whatever. Sure, let's you sleep at night wonderful, you know exactly, Like, yeah, it's patently absurd, of course, but I kind of like that he at least

has fun explanation. You know what if Yeah, I don't want them to explain the puppet anymore. No, we have everything we need to know. Yeah, yeah, right exactly. And then like, why does LEAs do have like neck arms, neck arms, scarf arms, scarms because they're fucking cool. That's starms Jesus, you know, I just yeah, I just want to be able to fly in the wall in Kajima's house one day to see what one of those production meetings is. Like imagine, I want everyone

to deposit this theory all right, or this this thought train. I'm gonna throw us all on. What if he's actually good at making movies? What happens then? I don't know, It's it's fun. I mean, like, you know, we we were in a situation at the Game of Words where we were like met some Kojama people for a second, remember that, and we were just and I was and in the back of my head, I kept thinking, like you're like in the factory. You're like in the

magic factory, Like what what's what is that? Like? Like what's in your like what's going on in your day to day magician? Is there a metal detector to get in? Is there a door to get in? It's like you're the closest person to working at the Wonka factory. We're gonna have you know, like, oh, no, actual Wonka. He is the Willy Wonka is next thing, so next thing, you know, just like Willy Wonka Kajima's gonna say, oh yeah, I'm a literate I don't know

how to read or write. He's like Charlie Day from higlyph Man, this guy can code. Yeah, all right. Two more emails. This one's from Cooper and San Jose shouts out to you, Cooper, morning, folks, I have a question for the keyboard King of New Jersey. I've been using an old Razor keyboard for the past seventeen years and figured it was time

to upgrade. I do a bit of woodworking in my free time, and I was wondering I should make a wooden mechanical keyboard in matching keycaps, as it's been done before, and if so, do you know what kind of switches would pair well with it? I'm looking for something that gives a solid, hefty click in feedback, but no, absolutely nothing about keyboards, so I figured I should ask the expert. Thanks for all your help, much love, Cooper in San Jose. Wait wait, oh my gosh, Oh

my gosh, Cooper, what are we doing, Bud? So, Okay, there's definitely been wooden cases for keyboards, right, and I think when you bet, there's been almost all wooden like builds that you'll see on YouTube of like, hey, can this work? I bet someone's done all wood and they've been commercialized too. They've been just like commercially manufactured. Like yeah, especially there's a there's like a there's like a Chinese brand that has done

a bunch of them. But anyway, like, yeah, it'll sound really good. I would suggest working with a very heavy wood, especially if you're the sound profile you're looking for is like deeper. The only thing. So what I would do is I would find like the PCB that you want this to fit with, right, so build the case around the PCB that you want your form factor to be for the keyboard, and I think you'll be

fine. Making a case is pretty easy. Again, you just have to like leave tolerances in room for all the other junk that goes inside of a keyboard to fit. You know. I'm also happy to help you out with this on the side if you want to write back and we can get a conversation going. For switches, if you want clickie switches, I don't know, like for me, for my taste, a clickie switch would almost be a waste in a wooden board because you almost want to have the board's natural

sound be the thing you fear and not the actual clicking. So maybe like a know, a linear or like a light tactile would work better in that, but again that's all preference. But yeah, and there's plenty of key cap sets that would match some sort of deep mahogany case that that I'm envisioning for you right now. I love this. I love this idea. I also don't know like how well certain woods cut, so you probably you would

know better being a wood person. But yeah, that's my advice. Heavy ass wood, like real heavy ass wood that and that can get really finely sliced up for what you're gonna need to do, and then pick that PCB, which you can find, you know, pretty much anywhere, and build it around that beauty. Someone sent a link of a walnut solid wood and resin backlit artists and key cap for the wasd Aarow space bar key set and for just those I think it's sixteen dollars. Is that so those are the

key caps? Yes, the key caps? Yeah? No, I mean I think for the space bard and the arrow key Oh sorry, right, so well, yeah, you know what that is, right, Yeah, yeah, it's and it's still pretty expensive, I think, yeah, like you would probably only put Yeah, like you would want a regular GMK set or PBTs whatever it is set for that for all the legends, right, and all the alphas whatever. But you could have specialized wooden ones, especially

for like the escape key too. I see something really really nice. Uh. Envisioning something real nice gets you something real, man. I have Like, where the fuck is it? It's it's down there. I have Like the one of the first ones I ever built was like a cheap wood keyboard. It's like it's almost like you gotta oil that. I don't think, so, I don't think you need to oil it. Maybe you could.

It's almost like bamboo, but bamboo's very light. Yeah, I mean if it's if it's like the we're talking about, like the wood finish, like they're saying that these key caps have resin on them and so you wouldn't eat oh, because yeah, so like maybe like it's like it's like it's I think of like a tooth, where like the tooth that's self is like the wood, but on top is like a covering on it, so you wouldn't need Yeah, I guess the resins on top is what I'm imagining. Okay

maybe, but anyway, Yeah, I love this idea. I love this project. I'd love to provide more advice if it will help you. There you go, There you go. Last email of the show comes from our dear friend Nathan from Tumwater, Washington. Nathan, Right, Sin, what's the longest time you've you've played video games in one sitting? Oh? I in college, I played Countershike for like eight hours. I played a couple of years ago, I did my marathon stream and it was just me playing

Pokemon Legends Archaeus for twelve hours. Oh my god. That's I think that's got to be the longest I played any one game for one sitting. I think I might have done like maybe six to eight hours of Resident Evil five with a homie mm hmm. Yeah. But most recently it's playing Blatro for like three hours when I should be sleeping or working. Do you guys have

like a like? I know, I have a very specific time threshold now, Like if I'm playing a game for more than two hours now, I think my threshold is like two hours now sometimes though, Yeah, if it's a game I don't notice it, I can probably go for about like jam was saying three four hours pretty easily actually, but it's hard to find that amount of time these days, right exactly, like one of my fine,

Yeah, when am I even finding that length of time? But I do feel a physical and mental wall, like even when I still do my call duty bullshit, like that's also a bit of an exhausting game. Perhaps that's not a good example, but I do feel like I, without a doubt, bump up against the ceiling where I'm just like, my brain needs to do something else right now. We can't be doing this, Yeah, I think so. I didn't feel that at all with Blatro unfortunately, or is

probably like more is it more passive? Right, it's more sort of like not that it's not it's like numbers go up type. Yeah, you know, like uh yes, there is strategy, but you can kind of like go into autopilot in your own head. But like a dragon time melter, especially when you get to done Doco Island and Prince of Persia an absolute time melter. Yeah right, Like I did not notice the time go by, sure, but persona three reload, I felt the time go by like increasingly.

Yeah, all right, I like you're playing that, not me. I I also get tired playing pinball. I mean that's a physical Yeah. Yeah, But if I'm playing more than like two three when I used to, when I do more of that's streaming, I would be like, oh man, if I'm doing this for like two hours, that's a that's a lot. I do want to I haven't streamed Venom yet. I have a Venom game here, and I would like to stream that very soon, so

I will do cool. I'd like to see that I did waste a lot of time, and I think I may have played this for like shamedly, like four or five hours. But Super Auto Pets. Oh, there's nothing to be ashamed about. Oh no, I'm just nothing but a shame of that game. And yeah, just just being locked in to that because it came out on phones, terrible, terrible for me. Can I can I ask you guys to do something for me, Like you guys have Steam open

on your computers in front of two I do actually? Can Can you go to your library and go to home and go to all games and sort by hours played and tell me, like, what's your most played game on Steam? Because for me, it's it's Eco at five hundred and forty seven point two hours. Now, the interesting interesting thing about ECO is that's a game that the way I played it, I played it twice and they are in

thirty real world day sessions. That's how long it takes for the asteroid that's up in the space to hit the planet that you're on, and it happens in real world time. Now, I played twice for five hundred and forty seven point two total hours at least, that's how long I headed on uh And if you do the math on that, so divide that by two and then divide that by like thirty days on average, I played that game for nine hours a day when I was playing it, so insane, that's real

scary. I got to assume a lot of that time I had to be the game was on and I wasn't at the computer or something, because otherwise I'm like, wait, no, way, I did that? How do I? Yeah? How do I? Okay? So if you go if the library tab at the top, yes, and then maybe hit home, yes, hit home, then scroll down past everything you should see like a selection of like shelves of your games, and I think the one at the bottom likely should be all games. No, I'm not seeing maybe I have

like a different view or something. Yeah, you can. You could. Then there's a you can hit the ad shelf button, I think, and do you see that below? Let's see if you soon I have added a game. Oh, choose shelf. Okay, yeah, choose shelf and go to all games. All games, yes, sworded by hours played. There's the shelf. Okay. Maybe actually don't go home, just go to the library. Yeah, just hit the library button. And do you see like what's new at the top? Yeah? I see this? Yes, okay.

I have close to seventy five hours in Team Fortress two. Okay, but then again I did not get into PC games until fairly recently. Right, My times drop off pretty drastically after that. It's a well. Battlegrounds is four hundred and twenty four hours, hit Man's one hundred and seventy three hours, Civilization five is one hundred and seventy hours, Man Rocket League one hundred and sixty hours. Jesus, I can't put some of these game quite

some time. Elden Ring was one hundred and thirty three hours. Oh boy. Yeah. If this was like including console stuff, it'd probably be some embarrassing numbers. Yeah, my my like Call Duty times on Xbox were like for Modern Warfare one it was two three thousand hours something in that range. I have fifty hours and awesome knots. I don't know if anyone remembers that it is a two million. I wonder, I wonder what mine is like,

I still can't figure this out. You look at on the left or the like the left, No, no, it were on the right. It's the main window. Oh okay, ad shelf, Yeah yeah, choot, and then choose shelf and you're gonna select all games, all games or by yes, time played hours played? Oh GTA five two hundred and seventy five hours no, wow, okay, okay, well boys, is that is that we Is that weird? No? G normal gaming? No?

I mean like I was just you know what counts. No, So, when Dylan was born, I spent a lot of time finding peace with my life in that game, sure, meaning I loaded a custom soundtrack into it that was mostly like eighties like like vice sort of style music, and I would just sort of like drive around in that place listening to that music just to be like finding finding that piece, if that makes sense. That's how That's how No, I hope that's a And the second game after that is

tear Down at seventy hours. Oh wow, and that's mostly my son. Yeah, crazy fun stuff abound. I'd like to hear the horror stories of how much time you at home have put into a video game. I think I saw Albert's a two thousand hours in one, which is insane. Yeah,

I bet it's I bet ultimately it is counter Strike for me. But because that wasn't Steam back then, yeah you know, yeah, yep, yeah, it was like at least a thousand hours in all the quality games up until probably the one after Advanced Warfare, and then I did a thousand hours in titan Fall and at least eight hundred hours and like titan Fall to

atlay some video games, huh yeah, it was a point. There was point where it's like I'm just gonna go home and that's when we're do I'm gonna work all day and I'm gonna go home and play play these games. And oh yeah, did you ever consider yourself good? Uh? Yeah, I mean like not great, but like you know, I would be paying attention to my KDR and occasional i'd get my call duty KDR up around two nice, I think is pretty good. I think one is good. Yeah,

that was pretty good. They would always be one to be like. I would settle in early on around one point twenty five, and then if I would actually work at it, I could get it up pretty high. There are some games though, where like Titan Fall, I think I was always a kind of around one ish that game. I'm like too busy having fun to worry about like my KDR. Nice, nice, nice, God. I think I probably spent too much time in Split two and two now that I think about it, too old to think about my KDR. You

know, yeah, right, folks. That does it. That brings us to the end of the show. So shouts out to you if you've stuck with us. That's that's all the shots that we're giving to you. To snow Bike Mic and to Emily because it's her birthday. We got a packed week this week. Game Mess has returned for the rest of the week on a good time. With that, Thursday, game Mess mornings will be pushed off to perhaps a game Mess brunch to cater to some some inner company stuff.

We also got Blake Club continuing this week. Godspeed Mike, Oh my god. It is currently planned that we will also be doing a power Bomb cast tomorrow as well, lots and lots of talk about within the wrestling world, voicemail, dump truck popping off as per us. Is there a Jeff Jeff's this week? Jeff? Uh No, The next one will be next

week, fantastic. We also are planning BCR this week. We will be talking about Suicide Squad with Lucy and Tam who have completed it, as well as jumping into I should say diving into Hell Divers two this Friday for UPF. I'll probably want to talk about film stars as well because that we're I think that unlocks at nine pm tonight. I think it's out now. I think it's out in some places. I think in the United States. Hey listen, could it could have unlocked now? Unlocked now? And hey,

you know, maybe we'll find some more time. I'm to uh squeeze in some more games. Perhaps uh I can convince someone to sit in with me while I play poker, the Poker roguelike. Listen, if we can, we'll find some time. Let's make it happen. I also just want to play poker. I don't want to do that. Oh yeah, oh yeah. We we have plenty of ideas here at giant bomb dot com. We're in no short supply of those. That is not the problem. It is

time. Oh also, you know, expect a certain video and follow up to a dumb idea that got brought up last week on voicemail dump Truck. Was it a dumb idea or was it a stroke of genius? It's a it's really good, it's well, it's a really genius dumb idea. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah content Baby, Do I have PlayStation Plus? This is the question I ask myself now. All right, Sorry, I don't think I do. I think I got charged for it like a couple months ago. Yes, Yes, A bunch of great stuff popping off this

week. Once again, thank you to Snowbike Mike for joining us at the tippy top of the of the show. Thank you, Jeff, Thank you Jeff, Thank you me, thank you for tuning in at home. I love and appreciate all of you, and I hope it stops raining in San Francisco soon because it's too wet. We'll see you next week for another episode of the Giant bombcasund Like this, the Giant BombCast is brought to you by expelling a small amount of air to create sounds out of your lungs. Next,