You are listening to Video Games to the Max. Hello, and welcome to another edition of Video Games to the Max. I'm your host Seanc Garmer here with me as usual mister Mark MORRISONI and well, Mark, it finally happened. Not only were the leaks right, but we got the switch to announcement. Yeah, yes, with a whole lot of two minutes and thirty second amount of video of info from Nintendo.
We'll talk about that. It was so little info that I was just like, what's the point of doing a special episode just to be on here for like ten minutes talking about it and then that's it. I'm as well as Wait, and they did show one game what we presumed to be Mark Carton on, so we'll talk about that too. We'll talk about when they're going to
next show anything about the Switch Team, which is April second. Also, Sony is not without news in this week as they cancel two more of their live service games, so we'll get into that, some news about how Xbox could have possibly have been killed off in twenty twenty one before they even bought with as the and a few other things, along with some games I've been playing and Mark as well, So we'll get into all that and more right after that.
All right, well, let's go ahead and get on with the housekeeping to get that out of the way here. This is your first time listening or understand, we do appreciate you. You can watch us live usually around this time,
the seven o'clock hour on Mondays. You can watch live on YouTube, Twitch or Facebook to network there, or you can just wait and watch on demand on the YouTube channel, or listen on podcasts as well wherever they're podcasts and the YouTube and basically comes right after the podcast comes out a few hours later, but I try to have it come out except for last week. I'm sorry that came out like on Thursday morning. Is ran into some
issues there, but it's there. So aside from that, if you described to the channel, you not only get what we do here with videgos some ass, but if you like other things besides video games, we got you covered there. You have anime with the Otago Cafe folks, and they just had their first episode drop about the winter twenty twenty five season. So if you're watching any of the shows from Winning twenty twenty five, you can join them and talking about it or enjoying the ones you do
like or whatnot. And then also you got the movie stuff with the rilers, you're broadcasting people, so anything has to do with like TV shows, movies, music, mostly on the metal side, and a few of the things. They cover that over there. So anytime there's a big movie drop, I think pretty much got the review for it the next week, So definitely want to go check that out. If you're in the big into the entertainment stuff, well
that's pretty much it for the whole housekeeping stuff. Might as well to start out with the kind of BIGI ish, well not big at this point, but still was big news when it dropped last week. The switch To is pretty much everything the leaks said it was. We got the exact render that if you happen to pay it to the Internet at all, had the exact look with the black with the neon colors. So I have the neon switch at launched the one with the blue red, so do you, and they decided, I guess that's gonna
be the one skew. It's just basically they inverted the colors just time. So it's it's more like the switch to got some edge to it. We got the black with the neon and the blue and the red or pink whatever the heck color that is on the invert on the side with the actual like controller parts where you take off the joy cons. It's basically essentially you
were right about that. And then you know, we the one thing that the leaks did hint at that we did get a shot of in this little two minute trailer is the joy cons will be able to use as mice, and you see them kind of pop into the like wrist strap thing that got used. I didn't hardly ever use it because I hardly use the joy cons separately, but apparently those you could pop that pop the jury cons into those, and you'll be able to use them as mice. This time around, the IR sensor
has been removed. Uh so that's one thing that will not be around for this version of the switch. And the screen is much bigger and you can tell that when they show off the trailer also, you know they showed Mark RT nine and they also kind of just show off that the joy cons are bigger as well.
The buttons are bigger, but there was everything is bigger on the switch, which was a complaint from I think you h and many other people like the joy Con controllers are way too small, regardless of what size your hands are.
I don't I don't mind the size necessarily. I just find the orientation of this to analog stick. Some buttons, well.
Yeah, but there they were a pain to hold, regardless of you know, they weren't nice to hold. They weren't nice to like unless you had a small child using them.
There really wasn't. It wasn't nice to hold on. We did not see anything accessory wise a side from that, so we don't know what like the pro controller is going to look like anything like that, because they pretty much this felt like we have to get ahead of this, we have to control this back to what things used to be, where we can tell you when things are
going to come out and whatnot. So we're going to put this out so that people stop talking about it, stopped giving out leaks, won't want any more information out there. So that's what's going to happen. And then on April second, we're going to get more. And that's pretty much it, aside from showing off Mario Kart nine, which if you look closely, there's twenty four spaces available on the track. Now, which is leading me to think that that's what's going
to be the new online space for that. And I forgot to talk about the new The kickstand is now like the old kickstand where you can actually bend it down, which is really annoying. Mine snapped off to the point that I no longer have mine on my original switch because it was so flimsy that you could literally have that thing like just kind of like dangling even if
you aren't using it. So yeah, and then you also got to see the magnetic the way it magnetically connects to the to the switch, which it was a point of connection of people. I don't know, if what did you think of that. There's a lot of people concerned about, Oh, my kid's going to break that, or the joy cons will break that. This little connector here that goes inside the switch.
I guess it depends on how small or big that thing is, or if it can like once it's once it have a like if it can somehow be recessed inside the switch itself to protect it. Ah, I mean it all depends on like the actual strength of the connector, and you no one knows that yet.
Yeah, it kind of depends like is it malleable, Like can you move it around a little bit so that it's not just a thing that's stuck there and your kid can't like put it on the side and just smash it against something. The only thing I can think of is somebody also trying to really hard put put the joy con in, But I doubt that that's gonna happen much. You know, It's just I think obviously it's it's like you would have with the Switch one. Just you know, if you're gonna give it to your kids,
just let it be known that something could happen. They could break the joy con. Still, it's still the same kind of type of device, so you know, get ready for that. I think for the most part, it's it's not going to be the big thing that people are
worried about it being. I think it'll be fine. You know, the same kind of thing applies that you probably might have had with Switch one, Like any dangers you have with that system of your kids breaking in or whatever, it's gonna be with the same thing with this system. Although it does seem to show that in that little picture where they were really messing around with the joystick, that they seem to have figured out the joy Con drifts, so you will have the joycond drift issue this time
around with the switch to So that's good. Murray Cart nine is Murray Cart nine.
Anything you know that isn't a part of a Mark cart.
We again, So what did you think about this as a whole, Like, did anything surprise you at all? Anything that you're kind of like, okay, that that is what it is.
I got. I guess I got two thoughts. My first is I think the thing looks kind of ugly, like maybe not the console itself, like the joy cons are just like very flat in the whole way. Oh it's you know, it's red and blue on the inside or whatever. That's not who cares, you know, Like yeah, but.
I mean they'll have a gazillion versions of joy Cons that you can buy separately.
And that's what it takes me off, as like yeah, like I have to wait two years to find it, to find a good looking one or you know.
Yeah.
And the second thing is like, I know you said it last week, this thing is coming out in April or you know, summer at all.
I would not be surprised if still compound the summer I.
Don't think so that April is gonna be like the big tech uh you know Tech showcase or you know Tech.
And the games also well I don't names.
But I think like summer around July or August, you're gonna go like, oh, here's here's the full launch lineup of Switch games or Switch two games, you know, everything coming out day one.
So yeah, I mean, part of the reason why they could announce, aside from obviously want to get ahead of it and control the conversation again.
Is oh, yeah, it is.
They wanted to allow third parties to go with that. You can now announce that you're making games ye Switch, which you know, that's that's a big deal in itself. Like before they had to kind of like, oh, yeah, there's another system we're making a game for. We can't talk about it, but you kind of know probably what
it is. Now they can outright go oh yeah, this is coming to Switch right, So probably by the time we get to April, we'll be able to kind of sort of figure out what some of the third party stuff is. Like you said, while we wait for the first party, do you think for sure mariok cart nine is a launch game?
Yeah, becaus the one they showed. I mean and considering how long theoretically it's been in development or you know, this is the this is like the one.
Yeah, they didn't have to develop a Mario Kart eight. They poured it that over from the WUS, so they've had that entire generation to make a Mario cart nine. It's like, yeah, it's totally conceivable if this is a launch game that they've been developing for a long time now. Uh, you know, Randy kept telling me that, it's like, oh, no way, this is a this is one of those like launch window games, and this is gonna be something. I'm like, no, man, this is the one game they
showed during this thing. If they're taking that time to make you sit there and wait another three months or whatever to not show you another game running on this system from Nintendo, this is a launch game, and this is gonna be the launch game.
Wave Race Switch to.
Yeah, they did, you know, give you a little verbiage about this is gonna play Switch one games, which we already kind of knew. But there's a lot of people that are kind of skeptical that, oh they're saying that.
You know, I'm a little skeptical just because the actual verbiage was like it'll play most or you know.
But that's really just anything they used that IR sensor is not gonna work.
So like Labbo so my switch, my switch, flash Cardinals work.
Okay, Yeah, that's you that wants to use that thing. I'm mostly people are using the actual legit games. No, you know, the lavo is probably not gonna work. The at home circuit things probably not gonna work. The what's we're calling, uh, the ring fit probably not gonna work. That means they probably have to come out with a new ring fit with a new game. But that was come on, they're gonna come out with a ring Fit two. I mean we know that at some point.
I actually I would actually wouldn't agree with that necessarily, Like.
Well, Ringfield once sold, so well, I don't think they would not come out with that. Yeah, you know, I'm not worried so much about the ones that are not gonna work. It's going to be a very small amount. Uh, and it's probably not gonna be any of the ones that were like dying to make sure we go play, right, So I'm sure that that's fine. It's you know, it's the thing is that the leaks kind of killed the excitement, which is what a Hedecki comite kind of came out,
was just blasted the leakers. It was like they deserve to just living s uh for for that, which, Yeah, but I don't think Nintendo would have even shown us anything. I think their entire date was we were going to show this thing off in April second, after cenne Blade Chronicles X has come out, after Donkey Kong has come out, Like after all the games that we told you were when he coming out are out, and you're waiting for
the next batch of games. Uh, even though now there's a rumor that apparently we're still going to get the last switch one direct next month, uh, to kind of give us those games that are going to be still part of the Switch one library before we ever get the the switch to like full on announcement that we'll get on April second. I really feel like, damn, that's a long time to wait. I thought that February would have been when they give out everything. Maybe maybe, but it's yeah.
I also like the thing is so it's like an all CGI trailer, Like yeah, that too. It would have been nice if like an actual one is shown Yeah.
I really think they didn't actually want to show this at all, and they just put it out there because they didn't want anybody else saying things that are not true and just be like, hey, look, this is the official thing. This is all we're saying. Anybody that says anything else after this, it's you know, it's bs uh
that's it. You know, uh what. I still think that even though they announced those tour dates that are apparently going from like March to June, I think they're they're hitting Japan in like June first or something they have released they released to Switch One before those completed the
first go around. Also, I still I'm still holding onto that June late June release date because they could show off pretty much everything in April, even through the pre orders, like that day after the director is over, and then tell you, okay, June twenty third or whatever, or the late June Navy July where this is coming out, and it still gives them time to have that entire first wave come fell out and then you recoup for the holiday season, which I think is what they want to do.
They don't want to run into the problem of this thing sold out for months and months and holiday season comes and they can't parents can't buy for their kids. If you have it come out in October November, that's it. It's not gonna happen, you know. So, and they said supposed that they have a whole big supply chain with twenty million switches that are ready to go, you know, being made and ready to go be out there in
the wild. Obviously, don't know how much of that wave they're going to release in that first window, and if they're going to stagger it all or whatever. But I don't know. It just feels like that's the idea. I don't know that release. I just don't feel like releasing in October November helps them at all with that idea. But you know, that's just me. I could be totally wrong. What makes you think it's not it's not coming in like summer at all, aside from just the.
They want the Christmas or they want the big seasonal buzz. But you can still have that though, No, I mean it's not as big.
If you don't launch exactly in that window, it's not as big.
Yeah. Well, I do think PlayStation launched at that window. I do think Xbox launched that window you know. I don't know though, Yeah, you know, go to the go to the Dallas tour that's happening, like you know, in three months and when they're not looking to steal it. Oh yeah, oh yeah, I got the first switch too, taking taking bids right now on eBay.
I'm sure they will have that under lock and key like crazy of.
Any form like the Ocean's eleven style team to steal the switch.
Yeah. I thought about it, and I was like, you know, it's gonna be just a better looking switch. I don't need to spend that money to go see that. I'm good, all right, we know what it's gonna be. So but all right, that's the switch too. I'm sure there will be more leaked info as weeks go on about you know, some games at my release and all that kind of stuff. Do you think that for sure Mario three D Mario is is coming on April second, it's gonna get shown off.
Or I'll say no, but I think it should, like I hope it is. Let's say that. But because obnestly it was a long ass time ago, and now they did that three D World one or you know that kind of port the Bowser's Fury thing, but like that wasn't like a full Mario game, and that was kind of old, so they should be working on one, but who knows.
Yeah, I think for sure that's gonna be the one more thing, right, Uh, they'll start off with Mario cart nine, they'll show off some more things, and then that one more thing will be I mean.
I'm sure they'll show off the two things I also expect to show off is like the Zelda up a thing and then oh yeah, and then.
I wouldn't be surprised that Metroid Prime four is the gets shown off in the February direct if that happens. Uh, they don't really need to. I mean, they might spend a little bit of time with it just to show us what, how better how much better it looks on switch to Yeah, yeah, but I don't know that they need to spend and I'm sure Pokemon Za that will be the Pokemon Presents thing, so they won't. I don't know that they will get you know, get a hold
out of attention there. I'm just excited to kind of see what are some of the things that we don't know anything about that get shown off, Like what are the surprise games.
I think honestly, Uh, the one I want to take to the surprise that I think it will be coming is like Mario Maker to three.
Oh you think so? Yeah, I can see that, especially with the mouse controls.
Yeah, And I thought, like one, dude, who's like, you know, Mario Maker two's like streamer and like that community is fine, but it's still not as good as Mario Maker one, And like the like the reductions they made from one to two is like really weird. So if they kind of went like all that with three, it'd be nice.
Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if there's there's a lot of talk about whatever Sacririze game is. I think you joked about it, but actually more as time goes on, I'm like, could he really be working on a kid risk game? Because you know, I just can't see him doing another smash, Like he's getting up there, you know, like, could he do another smash? Is that the next thing from him? Or is he going I feel like he's doing something smaller that's not smash, But maybe I'm wrong.
Just that wouldn't be out of the room. I feel like, unless he's already done with that and they're just writing to release it and then he is working on another Smash or something.
But yo, man, I think it's a problem. It's it's a problem of like also like Mario Kart nine, like it always has to be bigger and better, or at least bigger.
I actually think that some of the you know, because they show the DK looks different more like the of the movie one movie Mario the movie DK. Like I wonder it makes me think that, Like I wonder if they're just kind of going back to basics. Also, like it's just like, Okay, this is just Mario Kart with more racers, some other cool thing, and we've a had it over the years, but it's not gonna have a
gimmick like eight did. And then they can kind of add that on because this is gonna be the Mario Kart for the entire generation, so you know, you don't need to just be fancy and add and have it be like all that. They can add tracks and add things as it goes on. You know, I could see Smash doing the same thing because man, as much as I'd love for it to be Ultimate plus more, I
just think that they're not gonna do that. Like, I don't I don't know what they're gonna be able to bring in all those people again, all.
Have like like the old eight smack or the old twelve smash for others characters. My dance is to four to one, yeah, and then have like forty fire amm characters. That'll be it?
What uh yeah? Talk about like man, y'all really want you know Sacrin stud he loves his Fireale characters. Why not? Yeah? But I mean, look, there's a lot of time from here to now for them to reveal things and announce games and stuff like that. So we'll get more as the week's kind of go on. But let's move on here to Sony. This was not expected, even though there's also been hints by Nathan Hate as well that Sony is also going to have their own like state of
Play or whatever in February. But their news is that they have now canceled two more live service games, and one of them was a big one. Blue Point was apparently working on a God of War live service game,
and then Sony Ben was. We've known they were working on a live service game for a while, we just never knew what it actually was, and that one has been canceled now, so Essentially, Blue Point and Sony Ben might as well get ready for play six because by the time they come out with a game, you won't be talking about Place five anymore. Right, But what did you think about when you heard this, like just then deciding to like, out of the blue cancel it.
I'm pretty neutral on the Sony Ben studios. One, they're the they're the days gone guys, I think so exactly. Uh, it is a profound mistake for them, for Blue Point, for you in that gott a war thing for two reasons. One is they're the ones who should be working on the blood Born remake. Like if not that, then something extremely in that vein, you know, just having to make a new one or you know whatever. It doesn't have to be blood Born, just a new a new game
exactly like that. They can do it. They do with Legend of Dragoon the way back in the day.
Yeahs interesting Also that like, sorry.
I didn't do a Legend of Dragoon remake, you know, to screw it.
I don't think they would would that even would that sell enough for them to really justify doing that. I mean, they'd be awesome if they did, trustly, but you know, go ahead, No.
I was gonna say what it kind of funny do.
Yeah, kind of funny. Had a big interview with Shuey Yoshida. He's basically his first interview after leaving Sony, and in it he talked about like why he thinks they haven't done anything with Bloodborne, and he says they're pretty much that's Miyasak's baby, and that if anybody's gonna do anything with it, it's basically like he hasn't had time that if there's a remaster, if there's a remake, if there's a sequel, he wants to do. And that's his idea about why.
They're fucking around, you know with whatever you know, this thing or much other crap. So's I can't either you do it or we're going to do it.
Yeah, well, I mean, to be fair, he can't work on Elden Ring and that it's time, it's big. But now that they're not working another ring, maybe they are now.
The second point I would make is they already tried to I mean, it wasn't my service, but they already tried to make a multiplayer castle or multiplayer got a war. It sucked off. So it's like what you're trying to sail the idea again, like how is this gonna be different? Or you know, like what I I even compared to like I could see like how a horizons there dawn, like a live service would work. I don't think it's
a good idea. I could, but I could see you at work or even like uh left uh not left for dead, last of Us, but like got a War, especially like this version of God a War, Like what is it? You know?
Yeah? And then also the worst part is that they didn't tell them ahead of time at all. They didn't find out anything until when everybody else found out, Yeah, which is kind of shitty, like.
And it's like what is this guy working? Would it just be like twenty four creators just throwing their axes at each other.
Yeah, That's what's weird is that, like a lot of this stuff, it just doesn't Why why are we even working on a God of War live service game? Like is this really? Jim Ryan or Herman Holst has been like, Okay, every single franchise that we have that has any cache
needs to have a live service multiplayer. Yeah, and it's like, Okay, the Naughty Dog one actually worked the first time why would you not have tried to put that out and see if it at least lasted for six months or more, like give it a shot, you know, Like, I don't understand why we just canned it. Okay, I understand Parsley. Why you know, Neil Druckman didn't want to be working on that, and he didn't want to allocate resource to
the studio to that. I'm sure that that would have affected the lost profit game whatever getting made, So you know, I get that. I get that in a way, right, But still like that game probably would have been fine, and there's a history of that being multiplayer and people actually liking it. Like you said, God of War is multiplayer. It's like nobody wanted that, who said let's make that
likes who's allocating time to doing this? And then you got, well, okay, Horizon sort of makes sense, you could do multiplayer with that. It seems to be the only like sort of one that we know about that has any kind of a big name attached to it still standing. The other ones are fair Games, which that's from that Haven studio, which we don't know if that's going to be any good, and it still has the reeks of there's a mill
in extraction shooters. What's gonna make this one better than the rest of them?
Right?
You got that gummy bears thing from Destiny the Destiny people that seems like they're trying to eight fortnite and that's I don't know, we'll see how.
It should just bring back Fat Princess.
Yeah you got Marathon which, okay, that's a known quantity, but it's also.
That sounds a good disaster, right Destiny.
People, So we don't know where that's going. But like, okay, the Twister Metal thing gone, the Deviation Games thing gone, the London studio gone, and the studio's gone. The Spider Man one, which that one could have been decent.
Yeah, no, that's another one. I don't really see how you do like a big online multiplayer Spider Man game. You can have like eight hundred thousand Spider Man swinging around the city or you know, like yeah.
Yeah, uh helld divers To is still going and Concord gone. So but okay, so like I never played it, how did that go to Sushima multiplayer thing work?
It was like four, it was like teams of four. You weren't like Fate. I don't the one time I tried it. Really it was like me yen to two other people were like doing a mission together. I think it was like hold the line or hold the hold the point or whatever, and were just like not against enemies that were like warming us. That's fine, right, but that like that, I wouldn't even consider that Live service
because live service has such a different connoctation nowadays. Yeah, it was just like, here's a multiplayer part, and like if they just wanted to do that with some of these games, like I guess that would work, you know, like like I actually didn't mind and charted fours like a multiplayer like the death match or team death match thing they did. But like them going like, oh, it has to be live service. That means season pass. That means like, oh, you gotta like we want players forever.
Yeah, you gotta constantly putting out content, which means you're you know, driving the developers of a wall with this stuff constantly. We were not getting enough engagement this week, so we've got to figure out something. You gotta have modernization, you gotta have all this stuff, right, it's not gonna It's just I don't see how any other than the Horizon one. I don't see how any of these things
are gonna last. And I understand like the Fair Gains one apparently is way too far in development where they can just cancel that, so that's probably why that's still going, right. And then obviously Horizon is Herman Holst, like you know, that's his baby, it's his studio he comes from, so obviously that's not gonna get Yeah, but it's just like they apparently did a review and decided that they needed to cancel these and it's just like listen between Herman
Halls and Jim Ryan. Apparently this was like their whole deal, right, the whole like let's let's do a million live service, and it's like this is this is shown to be such egg on their faces. I still don't understand how Herman Holts is to see co CEO if everything he's done aside, Look, I get it, okay, they also, uh you know, they're also the ones that decided on Astrobot. They're also the ones that decided on some of the
other decisions that have have come out since then. So you got to give them their props when they do make good decisions. But it's just like man so much of their decision to go forward with these lab service games has really become a thorn in their side, and it's become a problem for Sony entirely because these are your main studios that are now not doing anything for the rest of this generation to do that, so well, no,
that's what that's the problem, right exactly. Microsoft is gonna supply you with all the games that you couldn't put out. But it's like, it's interesting that economy that you have now, where Microsoft potentially could have anywhere from five to six games come out in this one year to Sony has nothing aside from whenever Fair Games is supposed to come out, and that's it. Like, what do they even have in the pipeline? They're like that Sony first party. I mean,
I get it, they're the main console. They have all the third parties in the world. They'll be fine that way.
But I'm just saying the one thing I can think of that presumably is still I would say fairly want along as Wolverine.
Yeah, like how much did that hack hurt them? You know? And having that bad play will build out there and like them having to go back into the like are we going to hear about that game at all this year, Like that's.
The interesting to the director, like left for Microsoft, like left for Rare.
Yeah, that's but yeah, it's just like there are so many questions now from Sony of just where do you go from here? Are you just basically telling them go back to making what you know how to do? Is this mean that we're gonna get Days Gone two now after you know they decided to kill that It's.
I mean, it's it's the same problem that whatever rocks they went through. It's like, why why would you tell a developer who is specifically known for making one type of great quality game, hey, do something completely different that's a huge gamble that you're you're somewhat unfamiliar with, and let's hope it works. And then it doesn't, and then everyone blames rock Steady and it's like, well, I mean,
I guess I partially blame them. They could have said no better maybe, but like they're not the ones ultimately who who can say no.
Yeah, I mean whatever is it the same kind of push too of what they wanted everything to be lab service lab service and that killed that you know, got thrown into their as well, Like this does not work people don't want this.
Did you see how Justice League ended?
No? I didn't.
It was great. So they basically just had comic book panels like for the ending video, yeah, because they couldn't, you know, make any anything new. And the basic story was like, oh, everyone who died in the game, like all the heroes who died, they were all clones except for wonder ones who actually died. It's like, what, like, okay, yeah, but Batman, you know, he made these clones of all this and they're the ones who got taken over by
Brainiac and yeah, they're the ones who died. It's like, yeah, all right, cool.
It's like, all right, this is what we're doing here. Thanks. Yeah, yeah, I mean, okay, we got there's apparently another at least one more speed run level. Don't know if it's gonna be another set of speed runs that Asteroid's gonna have now. Yeah, but okay, you know Astrobat's doing fine, right, Like, you know, we that they can keep making Astrobot forever essentially and they'll be fine. Like okay, okay, we know Sucker Punch
is doing ghost Okay, that's coming. We know we get the next m we'll be the show and des Training two on the Beach, which that's the second party, right, and then that's it aside from whenever the heck Intergalacticts, right uh and then Wolverine. Like you said, everything else is got canceled or it's a live service or you know, and we don't know when that's coming, no idea what
this Convalaria game is supposed to be. But still like it's really just Sony is very fortunate that they have these They are that I'm more on console, and they have all these deals with for the exclusives on third party, or they have second party games like Celeblay named Rosa Ronin that kind of got you through, right, yeah, And that's basically what this It almost feels like this is what this generation is gonna be for them now since the live service games are not gonna do well and
the ones that are still around probably you're not gonna you know what. I don't want to disparage anything with fair Games or the Horizon one or whatever, you know. I want those devs to still be doing well and those people to have jobs. But it's just like again, like the ones that are sets of Hell Divers two doesn't mean that they needed twelve of those, and at least Sony is understanding that and they're not just putting
them out there to die. But it just sucks. You wasted your studio's time doing these games that ultimately no one wanted.
Yeah, where's the Tokyo Jungle Life service game?
That says a lot We didn't get to that point. Yeah, but hey, at least we know one game that's still happening right allday nights. So Song it's happening, Mark, It's real. It will release. According to Matthew Griffin, who handles their pr he says that even though they don't have a lot to talk about.
Yeah, it'll in the you know, in the grand continuum of time, I'm sure to release, but within our lifetimes it's still kind of an open question. You know, before that, before the earth explosion, the sun you know, expands, like, will release by then?
Maybe apparently they had plans to release in the first step of twenty twenty three, but development is still.
Continuing that by two years.
You know, they're just trying to make the game as good as they can. Okay, that's cool whatever, It's just like, I guess it's great that somebody said something but wow, it feels like they've just been radio silent on that game.
I mean that's like trying to make the game as good as you can is a noble endeavor, but at a certain point, you know, put the game out right, Like that's what kind of has killed like Duke Nukem forever, Like when that game three years and that game's launched, if they released it, then if they like they finished and released it, it wouldn't fine then taking ten more years, you know, when becoming increasingly like antiquated and outside of the norm like okay, okay, who cares.
Yeah, it still bothers me that it's like I don't know, you couldn't put out anything, like you couldn't have put out something telling people that that game's fine or whatever. It's just it's weird the I.
Mean it's telling that or in the Blind Forest, like the count in twenty fifteen that was two years too. Hollow Night and the Blind Forest made a sequel. Yes, it was damn good, Like you knows, it was like five years later, like, which is like I would say, is an acceptable like if they are really like breaking everything down and making whole new assets and everything, like that's an acceptable time. I guess for like a sequel, right, but yo, it's been eight years now for Hollow Night.
It just feels like every time we've had a big event, it's like you were like, Okay, this is the time, right, so song it's gonna get right announced and then nothing.
Yeah.
It's like but I at least it says something, right, you know, it is what it is.
Uh, just want go eventually be out, you know.
Yeah, it eventually at some point in our lifetime, he said, or maybe not just really quick wanted to mention at least some good things on somebody's end. They did donate to the Wildlife Relief or Wildfire Relief, sorry for the wildfires that have sadly killed twenty five people and displaced so many people and destroyed over like twelve thousand structures, including so many homes. Hart goes out to all those bullet are struggling with that. You know that that absolutely sucks.
But at least placesation having all these LA studios, you know, Naughty Dog, Insomniacs, Santa Monica, they all dominated a bunch of money for that, So that's that's good. And also really quick, they did announce the PS plus extra and premium games, which I think you can actually go download now.
God of what, Rag the Rock is on there, So you haven't played that yet and you do play the first one, I guess you can go play that for free on PS plus Lack of Dragon Guy Dan the Manuo Races Name, which was the you know, prequel game that came out for Infinite. Well, so if you wanted to know what is going on with Cure You before we get to Infinite, Well, they haven't played either game. Go check that out. It's pretty short, actually, and it's
pretty good. Let's Fall and Rain in the Sand. It's pretty decent.
Fall.
I've heard Sinai Wildhearts is actually really good. I would go check that out if I were y'all that like those kind of games, says The Sleepers. Also another great indie game, and New Anna Much Mutinatum whatever also out there, and also the like last if you have premium the Last like decent Indiana Jones game. Indiana Jones The Staff of Kings is out there if you have you know either PS four PSI The Medieval two also out there
on the premium side. So pretty pretty good month actually, if you haven't played some of these to go check out. But that's it on the Sony side of things. Let's move on to talking about Xbox. Here. We're gonna go back in the past with Xbox for a little bit. A report came out from a weird site that people
are saying it has credence. So this is not like something made up, but it's like, we we never really heard about this website called the Information that Satia Nadella before they bought x you know, Microsoft bought Bethesda, had the opportunity to absolutely just kill off Xbox entirely in twenty twenty one, right, you know, which was weird because
that was the year that Xbox did really well. They had forced a rise in five, they had had Infinite before you got the crap with oh the multiplayer doesn't have a lot of length and all that stuff, and it has some decent games like in the lead up as well to those two. It would have been kind of weird to see it like go out on a high note, I guess that way instead of seeing what you could do from there. But we know what happened after that. They decided to go the other route, of
which was that was the option. He was either kill off Xbox or go the right of buying publishers to increase the chance people, you know, subscribing to game Pass.
They went with the idea of buying publishers, which we know they bought with us for that year, and then they went and bought did the whole actmage of Blizzard king thing two years later just and then obviously that has kind of started to backfire a little bit on them because they still haven't they they go up and record for a game Pass, but we don't know the number, and probably most likely a lot of those people canceled after they got there. Fill the call of duty kicking around.
Yeah, I played for a month or two and then all right, subscribe once another game comes out.
And then also the idea was that they also were supposed to get a hundred million subscribers. That was part of the deal of like keeping Xbox around, and they had total twenty thirty to do it. Their strategy was by these publishers, get people to subscribe to game Pass, and then also get other developers and publishers to see that and go, now I want to be in game Pass too, And in fact it actually has gone backwards. You have less people wanting to go into game Pass.
Microsoft is offering less money for games that go into game Pass because they have their own games now to put in the game Pass. So why would I go and give a third party a bunch of money to go be in this thing that's costing as much money every year. I mean, it's it's also ironic that like this could be their best year ever as far as output goes, and then you know, I.
Mean they made one good.
Game well this year coming that hasn't.
Okay, sorry, yeah yeah, not not last year Okay, yeah.
Yeah, But it's just it's like, this is why they now gone the route of giving games to PlayStation and giving games to presumably switch to because that's the only way they're able to stay afloat at this now. Obviously, I guess again this year notwithstanding with all these games that they have in the pipeline, they could also believe
this year. But it's like, Okay, that's why you have the rumor of Halo and Gears and all that stuff coming, because they need all that capital and net income to show that this Xbox team is not just using their resources to make games that will then not translate the Game Pass subscribers. So do you think now looking back on I know that we've had these three or four years of this. Obviously it took it took them two
years to finally get the actors of Blair stuff. Another part of that was also that one of the investors talked about basically after Vision Blizzard has been disappointing that it wasn't worth the money. Do you think that they went down the wrong path of buying the publishers and and trying to put everything to game pass or was did they not just have they just didn't have any options.
I think they should have had better options, or you know, like I think the Activision Blizzard kinking is kind of a huge It's still like a boon bobble because you know, say about U Weeksoft or Square or whatever they made, they put out typically three or four games a year
that the Vision puts out one game a year. No, realistically, I mean they might have had like the Crash Bandicoot trilogy the one year, or like twenty Hawk one and two the other year, but like they only put out Call of Duty, and yeah, Blizard you know is a mess, uh or is like a huge, huge mess right now. I don't. I don't. King doesn't really enter into the conversation for me because I don't know that Spade and I don't.
Care until they get their mobile store going. King is basically just there giving giving them money with people buying those games, you know, spending money on those games that they were doing before Microsoft.
But like, yeah, like I like realistically, like okay, let's say game Pass spikes, Like the month Call of Duty comes out, It's like, okay, but what happens the next month or the month after that? Really, like, how how much does it go down? Like for the amount of money you know, Microsoft bought, you know, Activision four they should have bought honestly, like Ubisoft and Sega or Ubisoft in the Square or a Square in Sega or you know.
I mean maybe I don't think Squared every Sullivan necessarily, but I meant like that's the type of more option they were, like to be more forward thinking options they should have done is by by a developer and a publisher that can put out games. I agree with that games plural, not game They with that.
Yeah, I think their idea was, Okay, we're gonna get Call of Duty, which that means we get a lot of revenue. We get a lot of money. People will come to game Pass for that. I definitely probably they probably thought that they could get things going with that division, with with the Blizzard side of things. The problem is that all these franchises are not you know, Wow is on Wow.
They just have a twentieth anniversary, So that's a twenty year old game. Yeah you're not You're not getting new players to Wow. That's your damn sure.
Yeah, it's it's just another revenue source that's not gonna get more people in the door to play in that game.
Uh, Like I said, I mean, I know it'll be very bad. It just happens, or it will show like real desperation. But once they say, hey, subscribe to game Pass, you get Wow for free, or we're combining to Wow subscription, bet and game Pass like that, that is a bad time. But you got to get people to play a while again.
Do you like, I've seen a lot of the I've seen a lot of it online and I and I look at it and go it's a great idea in theory, but it's like, can you go do you think they could go backwards at this point? Could they just kill game Pass and just say, okay, we're going back to the model that everybody else has. You have to buy our games and that's it. Do you think that that could help them at all? Do you think that basically they might as well just that's it. We're just a
third party publisher now. If they have to kill game Pass.
I think that the problem is if they tried that, too many people like you would revolt and would never buy another Microsoft game again.
I mean I still buy their games now, so that doesn't I would hate it because that's then another thing on top of that, we're going to talk about a little bit of another cost of games of like I know, other slew of games that are now on the pile of man okay, I really I another slew of things that I have to go, man okay? Which ones do
I really want? Because I no longer have the ability to go okay, I'm gonna play all these games in game Pass, so I don't need to, you know, think about buying them off the bat or whatever if I want to talk about them for the podcasts or write about them or whatever. You know, I think they can
go backwards as far as like, will people accept it? Yes, The problem with going backwards now is that you gave away all of your exclusives, so you cannot all of a sudden go oh yeah, we're no longer bringing that the PlayStation or bringing out the PlayStation. You already brought everything, so you have you you literally not as well. Just if game Pass goes away, you might as well it's killed the console and tell me you're a third party publisher.
The next step would be, hey, we're bringing all those like we're bringing all those things back to exclusive Xboxes or Xbox Control. But like the problem is who cares or you know, like the damage has been done to so many of those franchises that it's like, oh, I mean they have announced Halo is going to be a multiplatform or anything. But if like if somehow Halo ended up on PS five and then like for the PS six and whatever Xbox new console, they're like, nope, it's
gonna get back to Xbox. Like yeah, right, I'm good, or you know, like they haven't been good shepherds with their franchises, so that's it. That's like the other issue.
Yeah, I just think that it's game Pass is there exclusive. So if you destroy game Pass, especially if you destroy before you get to the new consoles, you may as well just don't even bother putting out a console because you have no reason at all for someone to subscribe to your tip, for somebody to buy your console outside of just oh, I want the one that says Xbox on Yeah, but there's nothing in that ecosystem that goes, Okay, here's the reason why I need to buy this Xbox
and and that's that's the point. Is like now they have to hold on to game Pass for dear life, because it's the only thing that is a driver for this entire marketing thing that they're doing. Of everything's an Xbox, right, Like, the only thing that helps you if you have either an Xbox console or a PC game Pass or whatever is game Pass. So if you buy it on PlayStation or Nintendo, you can play the game, but you know
you're not gonna have game Pass. So now they could, but again, it's like if everybody already has all of your stuff, you're just essentially selling a console where you get to say, well, this is where it came from, but there's nothing like great in order to have it.
So it's just like they're really in this test twenty two, where I hope for them this year hits all the games so that they can justify why game passes to be around and all the stuff or whatever, and just for these studios also because they need wins.
But it's a bit like, I mean, it's almost kind of like the PS two GameCube Xbox uh you know battle back in the day. Like, yeah, PS two obviously had like the largest amount of like interesting or like quality game Xbox had a clearer power differential if developers like made it that way or programmed it. But outside of Nintendo, shit, like the GameCube is like terrible. It's like, well, it can more or less handle the PS two, like, but it can't reach the Xbox, and a lot of
these games look kind of worse. So it's like, yeah, if you don't have Luigi's Mansion and Animal Cross and propping this thing up, why do you have a GameCube at all? Right?
But that's when Nintendo was able to dev eight and go, Okay, we're not gonna care about graphics anymore. We're gonna care about innovation being different, right.
Right, Hey, I worked out for the next year next.
Year exactly, it did. But this is sort of Microsoft's way of being different of just like, Okay, we're gonna put our games on everything, and help to God that everybody wants to go this way, and you know, and it is welcoming, it is accepting. It's nice in a way that they're doing that, but it's still kind of like if there's ever an opportunity where Sony is not putting out banger after banger after banger, and Nintendo's kind of in this waiting period. I we don't know when
the Switch two is gonna come out. This is the year where you can gain some kind of traction. Microsoft really needs to hit this, and I really do think that they also need to like put Halo, put Gears, put something on the launch of the Switch too, so that we know your games are out there, and then hey, that's gonna sell more for you on on the Switch as well. Make the Switch their console that people want to go play your Microsoft games on or whatever, even
if they're the older ones. But I think it's out there for them to be able to grab. Will they ever not be in third place? I think that's really hard at this point with the way Sony and Nintendo were dominant, and the Switch too looks to keep things the same thing for them, but they can keep themselves viable and that's the important Brolocks survive till the next next time, and that's that's what they got to do. Yeah, yeah, and exactly another role dice, will we get to another
year where oh man, could Sony like lesson? That was another thing I was gonna bring up to I forgot what the Sony thing is. There was a lot of people talking about, now, oh well, this means Sony's really gonna shorten that gap with PC. They're gonna start releasing even their single player games day and date to recoup
some of that money something that Microsoft already does. You think Sony could do that as a way to like, well, we got to get some of the money back from these studios all the time and investment that got wasted at putting like let's not maybe not Ghosts of Yota, perhaps and that's let's say, even what if ghost comes out like three months after the game instead of two years? Did you see that happening?
No? I still think it'll be like their usual cycle, just because they want it to be that way and they want I think it's like they want their console owners to feel it's not special at least validated for buying the console in the first place.
Right exactly, that's part of it. And also they wanted to double dip right of later you get to make the big announcement of oh it's coming to PC right by it here, even though it didn't as long as they keep having that PSN thing where you have to log into PSN, and that seems to not be as great as they want it to be.
But people are like so but hurt about that? Who cares? Like honest, it's like you're specifically in the regions like that PSN isn't in there, Like how many people is that? Really?
But the technology is so good that they should be able to have a thing that identifies whether you're in one of those regions or not.
I think the skiing does that though they say basically like when you go to buy it, you might say like, hey, you're in a region that this doesn't support, or you know, like yeah, even even if that's not the case, like even if you're like you know, from the USA buying the scene and people are all outraged by signing the PSN. It's like, don't remember games Throne those live. That's such.
I mean, that sucked worse works, you know, and you like you don't have to like patch the game through unstable servers to get fucking Viva Pinata working, Like it's just it's just an overlay or it's just one more thing you gotta sign in through. And it's not like some separate storefront either, Like you're signing through it once and that's it.
I feel like at some point they might as well just get their own line. No, I don't, well, I know, but it's just like, if you're gonna really go down this road, I just get your own launchra and avoid the PSN thing, and that way maybe you don't get as many people getting upset, But I don't know. It's one way to but I guess then you're gonna get upset because even if you're playing it through Steam, you use the launchers.
Yeah, you know.
But moving on to what I alluded to earlier, h A big story that came out today is according to Matthew Ball of Epelon, who's an analyst, I don't know where he's getting this information. I don't know what industry
people he's talking to. He doesn't really say he just says that, according to the report and people that he's talked to in the industry, there is hope within the video game industry that the publisher take to will use the unprecedented excitement around GTA six in order to bump with the default price of the game to one hundred dollars.
That's dumbass in his head.
And you know, this also leads to them talking about, well, this could just lead to the game costing eighty dollars anywhere from eighty to one hundred dollars, and then would allow third party publishers to feel that they can now raise the price of their games to at least eighty dollars. We've heard, you know, We've heard Capcom talk about games
aren't expensive enough. We've heard other developers talk about how games should be more expensive that you know, not just inflation, but the game development costs so much more now that you know, we're lucky that we're even paying seventy but this would be the second rise in price in the same generation, which we haven't really seen before. I feel like it's a no brainer that Grand Theft Autos six
will cost more than seventy dollars. The thing is will that actually happen to the point where people will make their make other game, other publishers make their games also eighty.
Though, Well, here's the thing I think. I think, like Base GTA six will still be seventy bucks, but they'll sell like eight hundred different versions where it's like, oh, it's you buy the ten dollars extra extra one, you get you know, five hundred thousand dollars in cash and GTA online, or if you buy the digital Dlux version FO one hundred dollars, then then you get like additional character skins or you know, a new house or whatever.
I think still Base gaining at least seventy bucks. I think like they could try to get away with it being eighty and that one game might be able to pull it off, but that's it, like you know, everything else is. You know, if they try to make Madden be eighty bucks or called did You be eighty? But like Nose, they're too annualized.
I feel like that's where you are wrong, because that's all it takes is grand theft thought. It will be the springboard. I do think that they're going to take advantage of that to make grant that thought six, Base eighty dollars. I don't think one hundred dollars. I just don't think one hundred dollars they're gonna do it. I think one hundred dollars is too much.
I hated the way this guy phrases it was like, oh, game publishers are hoping this will happen.
It's like, I wouldn't be surprised if they are.
No, they are. The game developers aren't because they're not gonna get the money from it.
Well, no, game developers are not. But game publishers definitely are because they want to be able to charge more for their games. They definitely want to be able to charge more than seventy dollars. I'll tell you that right now. If somebody told them they can charge eighty dollars, they will.
But like the money, it's it's like, oh, the well, they can get it. I mean they want it, obviously, but it's not gonna go back to the people who made the game, or it's not gonna way back.
But it does help the overall industry if more people are spending more money per game that they buy and all that stuff, which that's the point, right.
My issue with it, no, because like you already said that. You know, games went from sixty to seventy dollars this generation, and hey, in the past two years, what have we had record breaking game lay off? You know, job layouts in the game industry, right, but that clearly doesn't happen.
No, okay, But here's here's my point in that if we're gonna say that Grand Theft, Auto, Madden, NBA two k H, Call of Duty, all these big games which people will pay the extra ten dollars to play because it's the only games they buy. So spending ten more dollars is not gonna be a big deal to them, and that's all it takes. Then all of a sudden you'll get Capcom going, ah, you know, maybe we'll make residue with nine eighty bucks.
You know.
Now, they they're also the ones that talk out of both sides of their mouth where they'll complain that seventy dollars is not enough, and then they charge sixty bucks for the latest game that they just released. So that's their problem. But like, I don't think they would do with Monster Hunter either. I think they would definitely charge
the dollars and that's it. But it will get if enough games do it, it will give the next time you go around, they may think about it, right, because the more it becomes commonplace and the more you're spending eighty bucks every time on those games, that's more revenue
for those publishers. Again, doesn't go back to developers. That goes about those publishers, and that increases the health of the industry along with switch to coming out and providing a big boot if you will, buying systems and games and whatever. That's the whole point of what he's trying to say. My issue with it is this is gonna go counter to what we need, which is we don't
need more revenue coming in like that. What we need is for publishers to understand that you have to lower the budgets of games, and you have to lower the size of the studio and which unfortunately increase the layoffs, but you need that. You don't need to then have an excuse to make bigger budge just because you're making bit more money every time you make a game come out.
So I hate the phrasing that he uses too. He's not wrong in the just base sense of what he's saying, but I would hate to see it happen, because that just gives the the big publishers more incentive to, oh, well, we can keep the process that the budgets the same, because now we're making eighty dollars every time somebody buys a game, and then if you nickel and dying with the special editions and all that, that's one hundred dollars,
one hundred and ten dollars. So you know, just I hate to see the industry get worse before it gets better, is what I don't want to see. Which that's what will happen. You have a lot more games costing eighty bucks, worse industry than what it was, whereas where people have to understand control and understand budgets. And I think, even, yeah.
Let me ask you this. I mean, because I know you really liked it. If fancy seven Rebirths, it's like twenty percent less of a game, Like if they cut out the Gunganga region, would you have like complained or would you have like felt like you didn't get your money's worth?
No, because you're gonna tell me that they just moved it over to part three, right although Gongaga.
Yeah, I'm saying like they just cut it out completely if they're just like, Nope, we're only going to make four regions, not five. H you know, here's here it is, that's it.
I would have gotten upset because.
About the story itself. I'm just talking about, like.
As long as as long as the story stuff that was in that region, which was awesome, is not being cut out, yeah, then I'm fine with it. If you're telling me they cut that entire arc out of the story because now that that whole part of Rebirth is not there, then yes, I would have been upset because that was one of the best parts of the entire game, was the story part, not the searching around Gongaga party,
you know. So yeah, I would have been upset, Like and I understand that, but I think we're already getting to the far where people are getting like the open world fatigue. Bro.
I mean, I took a big problem with Star Wars Outlaws. It's like, yeah, this big ass world, or they got like, you know, four or five planets and there's not such to do it most of them, or you know, it's just very Hey, this looks nice, I guess, but there's not a lot of content here because they can't if they underfill each planet with content it would have been eight times is more expensive and wouldn't have sold would
have sold ten more copies, you know who cares? Or like Spider Man two is like another good example, like they're gonna cut the game world down to like and it wouldn't have mattered really like, yeah, it's still fine, but yeah, it's like the problem of yeah, ballooning budgets. You know, they just can't say no or this.
And then it's also gonna make people make game they already have. There's a many complaints about there's too many games that enough people to go around them, right, so you make games more expensive. It's not so. I heard this idea today of like, oh, people are just entitled to feeling like you need to be able to buy every game. That's not true because games except Nintendo games
go on sale, So it doesn't matter. They're gonna go on sale, whether they're eighty ninety, one hundred whatever, they're gonna go on sale. And then people are still gonna buy them on sale because they don't magically have twenty more dollars to buy all these games. So that's the point.
If nobody is buying the game, guess what they're not gonna make the game, so you can complain about the entitlement of though, well the game should games should cost more because it's been you know, all that time, and blah blah blah. Listen, if nobody's buying the game because
the game costs one hundred dollars, it doesn't matter. That's that's the point is that, like if every third party, big third party game that comes out now is eighty instead of seventy or ninety instead of seventy or whatever the price, that means less people are gonna buy that game, except for Grand six because it is such a seminal, once in a lifetime, once in a generation game, people will buy it.
It is worth that until the next generation when they put it out again.
Well yeah, but you know what I mean, like it's not gonna come out. It's not something we're gonna have a grand thefoughto sevens, right, even even Manning Call of Duty all that stuff, because those people that buy those games, that's the only games they play. They will pay that.
But then that goes down to the First Worker Gaisons and even Assassin's Cree Shadows and uh, the ulteri Umias and all the other games that are not the absolutely huge games, those get affected every time you increase the price. So that's why you can't across the board do that because people will not buy your game. You know, Monster hundred sign but it could affect you know, say how many people buy Residenteval at launch, resid will nine at
launch or whatever. It's it's something that's not helpful in an industry sense because you're just gonna get less games being bought in more of the big franchises, and it's gonna affect again the smaller games, all that stuff that gets made. So I just I hope we don't see it. I'm worried that we are, because I just feel like rock Star's waiting. Rock Star is waiting to drop that price with the release. Inego, yep, the best game is eighty bucks. Deal with it. You love Grand Theft Auto six,
You will buy it. We know you will. And that's it. But moving on from that to I don't really even know what we have left to talk about here, but I know it's not as big as that. Also, I forgot to mention Microsoft also made some more layoffs. They laid off. I think it's like one percent of its employees. But part of it is in the gaming division.
Uh.
And also part of it is in I think that security and sales and stuff like that. So again sucks for those SEQUL hate seeing it. Hope these will find jobs quickly. Whoever were affected, Uh, the Guillo family and Tencent apparently. The latest with this is also from bloombird, is that they may basically take assets, the big assets from Ubisoft or small I don't know what size assets, but the important assets from you Soft, and then spin that off into a new company to basically get the
stench of Ubisoft off them. I feel like that's good in one way as far as like, Okay, we're no longer called gbsoft, but we're still making the Assassin's Creed ray Man and whatever other ip you decide is worth making.
The transit this is like, yeah, this is exactly how much of the wire have you seen? Yeah?
No, I've lost the whole thing.
Yeah yeah, this is exactly what happened when Springer Bell was talking to is like economics professor about like changing changing the name of the product. We're still having the same ship product. Like yeah, it's like okay, theoretically maybe it could work, but like the same people are still
in charge of fucking the company up. So whow would this you know, if he was like, oh, we're making we're making Ubisoft too, We're making some other French you know, French name or whatever, and hey, Assassin's Creed is here, and spend our cells here even though I won't make another one. And we're still making Dean Good Needle too, and it only take thirty more years. And you know
they said, okay, but you're still in charge. Any're the ones who wrecked who saw in the first place, So why would you first you at all?
We wouldn't that, that's to me. That's the point is like this doesn't make any sense other than this is the only way the Guimo family will accept ten Cent taking them over is it's not called Ubisoft, so therefore they feel like there's no legacy attached to it.
I don't think like the other shareholder would be would okay this either it's not going ago, Oh we're gonna sell off our main franchise is the family the company. Okay, you can get you get to keep our stock that's in the toilet right now. Like I'm gonna vote no on that. I'm just gonna vote them out instead, or you know, like I.
Don't, I don't understand, Like, if I'm tension, why would I allow the Guimo family to be involved in this at all? You are the people that have screwed up this company. Why do you get to continue to own it and continue to screw it up more, just with more people, just with different people putting money into it?
Like how about how about they can they can own the uh not not the Rayman franchise, but the Raven Rabbits franchise.
And it's like, if I'm gonna take this over, that means you're owning a lesser stake to the point where you cannot tell me what to do. Yeah, and you're essumially just there for the ride, getting money because you
used to own it. And you're allowing us ten cent to do what we want to do with your IP and with with the whatever ips we decide are still gonna be around, and just let it still be Ubisoft Because to me, if you're just changing the name like you said, and you're just continuing to keep everything the same,
it's not really gonna change anything other than okay. And then also, how does that make the people that the developers and the people working in your company feel that you couldn't even stick around on the ship long enough to try to write it or whatever. You just decided to get off and go lay off everybody else behind it or whatever, you know, And it's like that, it's
just to me, it's just a bad decision. Like I feel like whenever ten Cent wants to, they're gonna pull the trigger and this is gonna be an end of discussion. I feel like they're just kind of waiting around and they're waiting to see what Assassin's Creed Shadows does and then that will be the final nail that just says, Okay, Gimo family, we gave you the chance. This is it.
There's nothing else here, Like what else, What other rabbit are you gonna pull out of the hat that's gonna be able to generate buzz and whatever that's gonna get people to want to buy your game? Right now, Usawking comes out.
It's like, yeah, it's like it's like anti enthusiasm exactly.
It's like, I am not enthused about this at all. It's like assassage Creed has assassage Creed energy, And I mean, you're gonna play it or whatever. There's people that are excited about it, these people that have already played it. It seems like it's a good gonna be a good game. But it's like, is this gonna move the needle for you guys at all? You know, like, is this gonna move the millions and millions of units that you need to justify the teaming to make other things more screed games?
Probably not.
Again, it's it's like I said, it's it's always the same thing about giving people. People want what they want, and you're supposed to develop to deliver what they want, and the fact that you're like gonna go like, no, we know what you want or we know better and say we deliver like a somewhat mediocre Star Wars game with an unlikable main character, or like, uh, I don't know. People seem to like that Prince of Persia metro Vania thing.
I think they're crazy, but like it didn't sell well and like their other crap this like last year didn't sell pecularly well either.
They came with NFT Games, Mark two, yeah, and Extra Cliant.
It's like, okay, great. Meanwhile, you know, like I said, like I said, in the past, like people have been begging for more spinter Self for the that decade and get Extrafiant canceled. Division play Thing and that's it.
Division Video play Thing canceled.
Also well yeah, Heartline.
Yeah, it's like, okay, we got six Siege, we got your other live service stuff that's still hanging around. Uh. And then Assassin's Creed and whenever it is that you they honestly they better come out with US Winters game because they need something that's not Assassin's Creed, something that's not that, like you literally can be Assassin's.
Creed sat like Tom Clancey's Assassin's Creed.
Yeah, but it's like, okay they have they've basically run far cried down.
Yeah.
One where nobody cares about that.
Is also in the Crapper yeas anymore.
Watch Dogs they've done okay, Like those movie games have been okay. It's just they're just okay. That's the problem.
Yeah, that Avatar thing, like I know, Kyle liked it, and I like, okay, but like exactly, you know, fine, I guess.
And then Stolen Bones was terrible. It's like right, so and what like literally all they have right now is Sassage Creete Shaddos.
There was like a giant bomb community vote. I'mlike, which is the biggest biggest would be soft disaster this year and there was like eight different, eight different things for it. Wow, Okay, Like it's.
Like basically we're just literally you'd be soft living in perpetual hell the entire twenty twenty four and then twenty twenty five has not started out better because they've delayed Sassage Creed again, which is probably better for them. Marsh twentieth is a much better date than February, but still it's like it feels like we're just delaying the inevitable until we get to Okay, as Sassage cree shadows, it's
just fine. Uh and then what you know, it's like, oh, okay, maybe that Raymann remake is going to be.
Oh you know, I looked it up. Yeah, since you just mentioned it. We talked about last week about the Tokyo tragedy. Uh, this happened in nineteen ninety five, the staring gas attack in the subway. Yeah that that was the twentieth And it's like, yeah, they want to tell you this one day.
Yeah, I don't know.
Nobody thought about it either or move it up a day, Like, I don't think a day's gonna matter either way exactly. It's you may not want to do this this specific day, but you know.
Let's see me. So yeah, I don't always think about these things, but look, man, this is going to keep being a thing until I feel like Tencent just says, Okay, we're buying it, right, and that's it, and we're just going to keep living in this perpetual thing. We just talked about usoft in this way and that that's it. So speaking of another company that that lost that went
through layoffs, Godfall developer also suffered layoffs Counterplay Games. They've been working with Netty's at Jackalyptic Games on a game and it seems like that wasn't going too well, so they have had to cut staff again. Just this has been a continuing thing for the past like two years and sucks to see them doing this. Godfault wasn't that great either, Lotch game for the PS five. We knew where that went. So let's get on with the actual
games we've been playing here. You can't talk about one of them.
Right, I'll talk about that next week.
Is there any that you can talk about Marvel Hero all right.
A damn near ten years it's a eleven year old action rpg. Yeah, people have not working again on PC, like because after this like surprisingly not bootsy ass server emulator. Ah and yeah, you just like can like run the server emulator, like run the game and it worked. Uh it und percent working correctly, but it works well enough.
Like when I played it, like I was Cyclops and like I was facing I think this living laser boss guy and my CAF hits out land on him, wouldn't actually like connect or like it wouldn't register damage, but you know, I eventually got him down, and I still like that game a whole lot. You know it for like a Diablo clone, it holds up and there's a whole ton of content in there.
Doing as well. You know, you're probably doing as well as Diablos.
Right, And it's funny. Could you can you can run a sub server yourself, like basically like a single player server, but there actually is like an online server that people are like running, like you know, because that was kind of like a life service game and also back in the day. Yeah, so yeah, you can like join other people if you want.
Hey, that's great.
Yep, what about you talking?
Yeah, So I've been trying out a few games here. If you're not familiar with, you know, the Crypt of the Necro Dancers series. They have a game that's actually coming out in a couple of weeks that they announced. I don't remember exactly win, but it was like, it's like the next It's funny because it feels like this game should have evolved from, like the series should have evolved from Rifts of the Necro Dancer instead of the
other way around. But Christin the Necro Dancer has become rift to the Netro Dancer, which is essentially like them taking Christal Necro Dancers game and turning into like what if we became Guitar Hero?
Right, and you're you play it.
You can play of the controller, but you can also play it on keyboard. It's come up. It's gonna come out first on PC in February fifth, and then it's gonna come later to Switch and then I'm assuming to the other consoles. Uh so it there's a demo out
there on Steam you can play. It's pretty fun. You just use the three D pad the left, up and right, and that's your whole playing field and then you're basically just you know, doing matching the beats like you would in the credit of the Necroad answer, but you know, kind of like Guitar Hero style where you're matching it
at the bottom the field. So I brought back vibes for me as far as you know, playing rock band, Guitar Hero whatever, because I've the dongle broke for me, So I cannot play rock Yeah, that I cannot play rock band at all. I'd have to go buy one of those new controllers. Yeah, yeah, basically you cannot buy it unless you buy it on eBay, which sucks. Well, I don't have the drums anymore, so essentially we just
need to play the guitars. So that's how if I really wanted to, I could buy one of the new guitars, you know, the new one that they came out with, But it's.
Just with Fortnite or like their rock band thing and that.
Yeah that's what's funny too, Like that still doesn't really work with that either. But you know what's this game is actually like really good. So you're playing a Cadence, the same cadence as the Kings of hydro On or the other games, but you know, it has this in it, and it has bosses and stuff like that too, which you're kind of seen on the screen if you're watching on YouTube. It's actually pretty hard the way that they have the different characters show up on the screen and
move around and stuff. So it took me a bit to get good at it. But it's looks like it's gonna be short and fun and I'm looking forward to hopefully and maybe reviewing it when it comes out here in a couple of weeks. Another game that's coming out March twenty seventh also got a demo the same day as the Switch reveal, which is first Berserker was on This is a Soul's like, so if you're into those, well this this one's actually like, you know, working.
For me so far.
I got all the way up to the first boss and like got to like I got into like three fourced health and then he killed me the last time, and I was just like, Okay, I'm kind of done here. But it's I'm actually like really been enjoying it. It's it has like the self if you haven't seen the trailer that they think they showed it the the g the vgas or whatever. It has like this kind of cool like fel shad y look, so let's think it
could be from the anime. From an anime. But then also it's like not totally full of realistic either, but it looks good when it's running, like because you're you're seeing the back of his arm the whole time while you're running. It. It has all of the typical souls like trinkets. You can always save it the one thing that's there, and then if you die, you have to go through the entire set of enemies again until you get to the part where you were you have to
get your little soul back or whatever. When you before you can get all of your your upgrades and all that that you had. But I like his skill set. It's it's very simple. It's you know, just the axe and the sword, and then you can also have the different strikes and stuff. And I like the so far it's just the one setting where he's in a like snow ish level and he's in the inside of it and then you go outside you see the snow stuff
like that. So it seems that the demo's pretty pretty lengthy, is pretty gory as you see in the little trailer there. Uh and yeah, it's fun. I even have like these there's these like soldiers that you fight at the beginning and then eventually you get to like these bigger like monsters. And I actually got the soldier to fight with me, like I didn't kill the soldier, and the soldiers started killing the uh the big monster for me, which was weird, but it's good because they let me get to where
you actually get to the boss. It's just like this big yetty looking thing. So yeah, I mean I would tell y'all to check it out. It's if you like souls like this is right up the like more of a gory souls like of those, so I would check it out for sure if you like those. And Dinostaurur's origins also pretty good. I've been playing the demo for that too. Yeah, I have not beat I did not beat lou Boo. He's pretty tough. But the game is
is actually pretty good. Like I don't know that I would go buy it right now, but maybe on a sale or something. Definitely think about it. So the critics
are are loving it too. It has some pretty good, pretty good scores, so if you're a dynasty Warriors fandom and waiting maybe this is the one to check out for sure, And also been playing Tales of Iron, which is like a like an indie game that's also souls like that is where he plays a rat as two D but this one actually has the like where it tells you, oh, the red is to Dodds, so you know, you can dodge out the way, or the yellow is to like where you have the parry you can prry
out of the way. So so far it's been pretty good for me to get through. I've been enjoying it. Like the story with the rat and the guy you control, you're like one of the sons of the king that something happens to him and you have to eventually like take over and you know, just show that you were
going to be the next king or whatnot. They have a new second game coming out on the twenty eighth of January also, so I've been playing that to get ready to I might possibly be reviewing the second game called Whiskers of Winter, so there is there is some Game of Thrones tinge to this as well. So but yeah, I've been enjoying playing all those. Definitely a lot to go through. That's I got that off of I didn't know I had it on PS plus a couple of
months ago. I think it showed up on there and not not the one where you it's like one of the essential games. I didn't know it was part of that, and I was like, oh, you already owned this. I was like, okay, cool, I did not know that I owned it, So pretty sweet. But yeah, lots have been
playing recently. So yeah, So I wait for my first game of twenty twenty five, which is going to be either one of those, and then I think, I I think I really don't have like a big game I'm interested in until part Yackeys.
Though, right, which is but there's February, yeah.
Middle of February, but there's the Jordan's doing it for Out of Haven. So I'm probably gonna just buy it because I'm sure you will end up getting the.
So if if that happens, I mean, you have actually got you can.
Always show up on Xbox and then I'm I'm the one to because that's been our luck. Sometimes you really want it and then they're like, oh, well the COVID got his Xbox, right, But we'll see Mark is playing a certain fantasy game that he'll talk about next week. Apparently the embargo is on the twenty third itself, so we'll see. But all right, let's look at I guess games that are coming for this week here. I already mentioned one of them, but if often he's having rebirth.
The PC versions coming on the twenty third, Mika and the Witch's Mountain, which looks the decens coming on the twenty second as well, the end of Magnolia Bloom in the Mist that's the sequel to Enderlelease that you kind of like, I don't like it all, so that's coming. The Lonely Mountain snow Riders is apparently a skiing against in to come to Game Pass tomorrow, so y'all can check that out. If you want. The Jedi Power Battles Episode one, it's coming to Everything on the twenty third.
You can go play that that remaster if you want. Sensuality. Echo of Ada is the next like Van dy Namco thing that's coming this series X and p S five and PC, which is like you play as a like little mech that you go around and kill things and apparently has survival stuff in it that's worth checking out. And then next week. There's some lots of games coming, so we'll talk about that when we get to next week. But all right, so some things look forward to for
this week. Until then, We'll see you later, everybody, Buddy,