452: IS PLAYSTATION KILLING PHYSICAL GAMES?

Yes, we are f***ed

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Speaker 1: That was wrong. Button First podcast.

Speaker 2: We're doing great, everybody.

Speaker 1: It's the Internet. You're busy. Let's do this. Welcome to

the Game as Deicides Podcast. This is the podcast where

we decide everything about the world of video games so

you never have to think for yourself. I'm your host

Jeff Greben with me is.

Speaker 2: Jahn Turbo Sean mcdowald.

Speaker 1: In today's episode, PlayStation has killed video game more closures

at Xbox and Rhythm heave and groove. That's pretty fun.

But first, Sean, how are you doing.

Speaker 2: Everything's on fire? Yeah, it's on fire.

Speaker 1: Okay, I can panic. I can. I can handle that much.

I don't know if I can do anything else to

fix the situation, but I can certainly panic. Yeah, it's

all on fire. It's bad. It's a crisis. Gonna I'm

gonna go on vacation here. I'll be out next week, everybody,

And while I'm doing that, I will play some old

video games and try not to think about it, because

that still works. They can't take that from me. I

mean they'll try, but they can't take that from me.

Speaker 2: No, we can always go back to retro if we

look at why I've been playing. Later, that's like all

I've been doing. But it's always a good time, even

if the news about news stuff is a bit dire

this week.

Speaker 1: Yeah I am. We're packing up, we're getting things going.

So you know what, everybody, we are gonna make it

a little bit of an expotit expedited show tonight. You know,

we'll still plenty of fun and me and Sean won't

skimp on talking about all of what's going on in

games right now. So we'll get to that here in

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Speaker 2: Well, you see, he was really like you know, stressed

and worn out after that vacation he just took, so

he needed to also go watch a baseball game before

three weekend.

Speaker 1: I get it, man, oh boy and vacation from the vacation.

All right, let's see, with all that out of the way,

we're gonna get to the big topics of the week

right after this. All right, Sean, let's just dive into it.

It is all coming apart, unglued. All the bad things

are happening at once. Let's go into some semblance of

an order here. Physical disc production ending in January twenty

twenty eight for new games releasing on PlayStation consoles. This

says a sid human over at the PlayStation Blog wrote

this up as consumer preferences in the broader entertainment industry

continued to shift away from physical discs to digital. Physical

game disc production for all new games releasing on PlayStation

consoles will be discontinued starting January twenty twenty eight, Following

the state, new games will be available in PlayStation store

and at retailers in digital formats only. This transition has

no impact on games that already released or will be

releasing prior to January twenty twenty eight in disc format.

This is a natural direction for Sony Interactive and Entertainment

to adapt consumer trends, as the general preference for digital

media significantly outpaces physical discs. I guess let's start there, Sean,

you think that is that? I mean, we know it's

trending in that direction. Do we think it's trended in

that direction so heavily that this is just a not

what do they say a natural direction for the Sony

Interactive Entertainment Corporation.

Speaker 2: I would not say it's trended in that direction that hard,

because no, that would mean that like ninety plus percent

of your business is digital, and it's not ninety plus

percent across the board. There's still malny of people out

there buying physical games for one reason or another. You know,

the age old statement is like Internet issues and whatnot,

and you might live somewhere where there's data caps, or

you're not slower or whatnot. Also still valid reasons, but

more than ever, it's rough out there. People need to

cut corners where they can, and buying physical games is

an easy way for them to do that and pick

up use games. Physical games go on sale cheaply more

often than digital games, and people aren't People need to

rely on wherever they can to save a bucket. A

lot of times that is physical on top of so

many other reasons. So it does feel bemature is maybe

the word when like, even if the business is trending

that way, the fact that's not the vast, vast majority

of the business feels like they're just trying to find

a convenient excuse to really clamp it down on the

whole production line for games and have full control over

the market on their platform.

Speaker 1: And I think we kind of can see the perfect

ish storm that they are finding themselves in as the

reason to maybe pull the trigger on announcing this right

now and solidifying this January twenty twenty eight date. Grand

Theft Auto six did just get announced as a code

in a box, and then they do have a PS

six that's coming, And I think the expectation for even

people who are diehard physical collectors has been for a

long time now that the PS six is not going

to launch with a disk drive built into that thing.

I think even optimistic people were feeling a little bit

pessimistic about that. This feels like it all but guarantees that.

In fact, Andy Robinson talked to was as and peer

analyst Peers Harding Roles, and it's his opinion that based

on this, there's no way the PlayStation six will launches

before this January twenty twenty eight date. And yeah, so

with the pressure on one side of PlayStation six is

going to be digital only for or the large part

or maybe entirely, Like they are not saying anywhere in

the statement shit sid Chuman did not say anywhere in

the statement Sean like, and we're gonna give you a

way to keep playing your physical games in the future.

They don't say that. So I think we have to

sort of read as this is like the hardest and

harshest scenario, which is there won't be a way to

do that. So on one side, PS six, no disk

drive whatsoever seems very likely. And then this opportunity where

Grand Theft Auto has sort of set the expectation. I

think they're like, let's just barrel right ahead and go

for it. And I think it's led them into the

scenario where it does feel premature. I I kind of

always thought they would just let it peter out, sean

like they would just say, let's here is a PlayStation

six with an external drive, and it's it's more expensive

than it has any right to be, but we're gonna

make quite a few of them. You could buy one

if you really want, and then the people who want

to keep put on keep putting on discs can do so.

And that's not the way they're going. They're just cutting it.

Speaker 2: Off, right. It feels like they're just taking convenient excuse

after convenient excuse to add this all up to give

them a reason to cut a cost right now as

component costs are higher than ever before and they are

trying to maximize profits like now, before there was it

the Sony specifically not PlayStation but Sony. One of the

C suite executives I forget who towards the top said,

you know, we're going to try and maximize our existing

user bases.

Speaker 1: CFO said that, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: I forget exactly what their statement was, but basically, we're

gonna milk PlayStation fans for everything they're worth. It is

like what the statement was, and this is one of

the ways they can do that. They can maximize profit

by Okay, if you're the only game in town figuratively,

if you are the only store around, you get to

unilaterally decide what games cost. And PlayStation has been moving

towards this since twenty nineteen when they got rid of

ad digital game keys. These do not exist for PlayStation

at storefronts anymore.

Speaker 1: What is this then that they're saying here, Okay, so

following this, yeah, I'm just going to ask it for myself,

and I'm sure maybe you'd have an answer. Following the

state new games will be available in PlayStation store and

at retailers in digital formats only, that's stunt me. But

what is that about?

Speaker 2: Okay, So as of right now, there are no keys

for games or PlayStation at retailers. If you want to

buy a digital PlayStation game, you either need to use

your linked payment method or you need to go to

a store and buy PlayStation gift card. So they have

clearly been wanting to like lock things down for a

while now, and now we are at the point where

they are saying we're getting rid of the physical too.

So going forward, Yeah, this is a weird statement of saying, like,

the digital games will be available at the PlayStation store

and at retailers. I can only assume that means that

they will bring keys back in some variety some way.

I mean, certain retailers like Amazon and best Buy will

email you a code and that's the alternative to physical

media at this point. And I think the language there

is also like covering a sort of new type of

cross gen period where like codes in boxes will be

an extremely common thing for them until we get to

the point where they either get rid of codes entirely

or they do just bring back the codes as gift

cards and that's all the games you can get at

retail going forward.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean great, Theft Auto six is a key

in a box? Right, So do they do they need

PlayStations help to do that? I assume they would, right,

they would need play Yeah, PlayStation xboxes help to do that,

So clearly they're ready to they're ready for that.

Speaker 2: Right, because whenever someone manufactures a first party console game,

you need to work with the first party in or

do that like Limited Run for example, they need to

work with the platform holder in or to like physically

manufacture the discs because there's you know, the discs are

DRM to hell, so like they need to come from

the first party, and then they need to be manufactured

by whoever has the partnership with the platform holder as well.

So when it comes to even something like a code

in a box, that company is working with PlayStation Nintendo,

xbox whoever, in order to like manufacture that exact specification

box with like all the legal ees and whatnot, and

like all the logos being correct in every thing. So yeah,

Rockstar and Sony are working together to put out a

code in a box as like a partnership there, like

as if it were a disc. All right.

Speaker 1: So I mean, like, as someone who has been primarily

digital for a long time, now, this still is like

clearly the writing on the wall is I'm also going

to be paying higher prices. I was already playing paying

slightly higher prices, like when I was not buying games

secondhand or waiting for physical to go on sale, which

like you said, does happen more frequently. But now there

will be even less competition. And yes, like you said,

they kind of unilaterally can set the price and they

can you know, still strong arm these retailers with these

codes in boxes of like they're going to have even

more control over that stuff as well. So and I

don't I just don't expect nearly as many games to

do the code and box thing. I think it's going

to be kind of here and there. The biggest games

will get those and they'll go to Walmart and that's

kind of it.

Speaker 2: Yeah, that might be like even what collector's editions start

doing Some collector's editions already do that, like you get

a code alongside it as far back as like you know,

this was a small release. I remember my Sonic Mania

Collector's edition came with a code on a metal card,

is what we got. So yeah, absolutely, And that's the

thing that everybody should be worried about and should be like,

you know, apprehensive about. Is like you mentioned, even if

you're not a person who buys physical games yourself. Biscal

games have always kept the market in check because it

is an open market, free market. Once you have a

physical good that you purchase from the first party, you know,

I have a little bit of insight on this working

retail for a while there, Like you know, they purchase

it in bulk for a set price from Sony and

then they get to set the price manufacturers suggested retail price.

They get to them sell that to someone else. And

that's why you get sales on physical games so often

is bec as they're trying to clear inventory of this

physical good and Arthur at that and so that has

made it so that Sony can't say it's their platform,

they can do whatever they want. That has always kept

in checks that they don't say, hey, everybody, publishers seventy dollars,

we really don't want you to drop it lower than that, ever,

seventy dollars, because Walmart can set up for whatever the

hell they want. So that's why there's always been competition.

It has made us, like digital only purchasers at least,

you know, know that things won't get too bad out there.

But if the only way to purchase the game is

through PlayStation directly, that competition has gone, and it's worse

for all of us.

Speaker 1: Well, I mean, the very least. We can rely on

the digital stores being open forever. Anyway, let's get to

this next store of Storia. Sony is closing the PlayStation

store on PlayStation three and Vita. This is from Chris

going at VGC. The timing of this, man, what the hell.

But I think it's also like last time they tried

to do this, where they closed down the PlayStation stores

on PS three and Vita, which they did try to

do back in twenty twenty one. I'm sure that's in

the story somewhere. There was big backlash and they stepped

off and like, all right, we'll keep it around for

a while well, now you'd kind of double these things up.

Let people get mad at the disc thing, and this

thing's kind of actually going under the radar a little bit.

Obviously people are paying them up, but it's like this

is the kind of thing where it's like, oh, okay,

I guess we don't have the energy to be like

furious at both. So this one's going to go through

this time, and it kind of probably always was going

to go through this time, but for sure, but demand

to have these things the same time to be like

by digital. Also, we're closing a digital store. It looks insane, John.

Speaker 2: Sorry, I just got sent a link to an article

from The Verge from minutes ago, headline Sony's PlayStation disc

factory is already being repurposed.

Speaker 1: Geeesuses man, w I mean yeah, I mean that's the

word going around. Is like they've been planning this for

a long time, that they have been meaning to make

this happen for a I mean, it sounds like they've

been planning this since like twenty twenty, twenty twenty one,

and here we are. Yeah.

Speaker 2: Anyways, as to the story you just talked about, this

is a one tube any way. Anyway, anybody who gets

mad that we only have shit to say about Xbox.

Don't worry, we got plenty of hey for the other

three platform holders.

Speaker 1: My fuck up tonight as one.

Speaker 2: Of those nights. It just reads as incompetence on PlayStation's

part to pair these together. Like, I can only assume

the thought process was, Yeah, like a look over here

or get all the bad news out of the way

type of strategy. That's not what you're doing. You just

look like morons when you announce, hey, everybody, the future

is all digital, and then at the exact same time

you say, hey, everybody, digital stores are going away. Yeah.

Speaker 1: It's just crazy.

Speaker 2: It is so insane because like even if even if

all right, I did just yet, I think we have

a guest. I'm curious what this guest might have to

say about.

Speaker 1: I just have a little question from the jesh please.

Speaker 3: It's just if I'm sony computer entertainment. Mm hm, why

would I want to make video game?

Speaker 1: Right?

Speaker 2: It seems like you might not, nicky, It's like you

don't want to do that. Yep.

Speaker 3: Interesting, okay, ah, but I think, like Joshawn's point, it

seems like they could make money off of a video

game hah.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's wisdom. But that's where you're wrong, clearly.

I mean, maybe know better than us.

Speaker 3: And that's why. Listen, I just work for a company

that makes physical games. I don't know personally, it's been

a pretty chill week.

Speaker 1: Oh boy, I mean yea, I'm sure you guys were

giving full heads up though, No I knew what was

going on.

Speaker 3: Oh my god, yeah no, they let us know. Listen,

I've been sitting on this.

Speaker 2: For twelve months.

Speaker 3: They let us know ages ago, and it wasn't a

surprise to us literally at all. Oh yeah, no, it's

uh sorry, I will I'll get in and I'll get out.

This is one of the most insane things. Like I've

been obviously following video games for a minute, but this

is the most like we're obviously in a crash, but

everyone is doing a thing where they are saying like

everyone's pretending that we are not in a crash of

the of the market, of the economy, of this thing.

That it's like, Okay, Sony is obviously stupid, Like obviously

the people, obviously the people who are running this company

don't know what the fuck they're doing. But there's also

so deeply a lack of it interest in sustaining the

industry that on paper they are in that I'm like,

what do you what do you think you do? What

company do you think you work for? Because the company

that you work for, on paper is one that makes

and sells video games.

Speaker 1: Yep.

Speaker 3: So if you every day are like I think it's

we're gonna make it harder to buy video games and

we're gonna make it more expensive to buy video games.

When the option, when the choice, the binary choice that

people are going to be making in twenty twenty eight

if we get to there is do I buy groceries

or do I buy a video game for the PlayStation six? Yeah,

it seems pretty easy to me personally. I'm gonna buy

so I can keep living.

Speaker 2: Part of the ignorance I was speaking to is just

like a complete lack of awareness of what's going on

around us and saying, hey, and anyways, it's going to

be more expensive than ever over here as well, but

you'll still choose us, right, You'll still choose us.

Speaker 1: Right over.

Speaker 3: Over the Campbell's soup that you have vible y because

because you can't eat anything else, Like, it's just such

it's such short sighted behavior, which I've kind of felt

like in twenty nineteen early twenty twenty, I was like, oh,

I just think that Sony is going to shoot themselves

in the dick so thoroughly that it is going to

be Microsoft is going to do whatever the fuck they do,

and Sony is going to shoot themselves in the dick

so thoroughly.

Speaker 1: That they're actually going to be on parody.

Speaker 3: Vibes wise and working at working at the place that

I work and reading the comments too much to my

chagrin of the post that I write, I'm like, it

seems like nobody's happy, Like not.

Speaker 2: A single soul its happy day, no last like one

single morning, the vibes got insanely rancid to the point

that they are on parody with Xbox feels.

Speaker 3: Yeah, it's just a conscious it's a conscious decision that

they have made in an effort to rive the market,

like to go up market. But it's like, okay, just

just to do like very basic like consumer analysis. If

you now think that the person that you are trying

to set the PlayStation six two is the like open

ai anthropic employee who was making two hundred and fifteen

grand to like jack Off at the office.

Speaker 1: Yes, the prompt engineer please.

Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly how long do you think they're going to

have the jobs?

Speaker 2: Yeah? I like a Christian. You had this post the

other day of just say you don't want gaming to

be for poor people?

Speaker 3: No exactly, and that would be so much more concise

and like, honestly, I would risk assult it more, I

would expect it more.

Speaker 1: And it's clear that that is what's what happens across

the economy right now. The case shape economy is what

everyone talks about. And it's like, yo, yeah, everyone is

feeling pretty rough, but not this top fifteen percent. And

it's like, I mean, yo, you can make products for them,

but that is a smaller group of people. You understand that, right?

And this way forever.

Speaker 3: As a company who increasingly is making suffer that top percent, I.

Speaker 2: Am like a gang.

Speaker 1: What where do you think this ends? Uh?

Speaker 3: Because obviously it is not going to be forever, because

when when, not if when this bubble bursts, where do

you think people are going to be? Like how much

money do you think people are going.

Speaker 2: To happen that?

Speaker 1: Yes, I mean clearly they ended up in this situation

in the first place. Where where like because they were

not thinking head right. All these companies got out over

their skis during the pandemic and being like that line

is going up, it's going to keep going up. Let's

invest like crazy. And you know, it really is a

little bit of a we tried nothing and we're all

out of ideas a moment where it's like, okay, they

didn't try nothing, but their idea was concord in live

service games effectively nothing effectively, that was a nothing idea.

We all knew it all along, and now they tried that.

It didn't work, and so they're like, we kind of

have to just blow things up because that's the only

way to like make more money from like like Sean said,

getting back to that CFO comment of we have an audience,

We're going to make more money from that audience. We're

going to squeeze blood from the stone. And that is

not a long term strategy. That is a quarter to

court of strategy, and it's going to implode what happens

after that, and you're gonna be stuck with that. Like

you're positioning everything for the PS six to serve that

top part of the K shaped economy, and when that

does go barely up, you're gonna be left with a

lot of pissed off people who are not gonna forgive

you gamers like that. Yet we have short memories. I

made a post about the Grand Theft Ought of Six

is coming out, and they're counting on that resetting everyone's

memory and we'll just forget about all this bad news

because everyone's gonna be playing Grand Theft out of Six

And that's it's just not true. For a huge number

of people who actually gave PlayStation the power over the

last ten years, it was people so excited that this

company actually seemed like they were the ones that were

like listening to them and doing the video about sharing

the game of the physical disc game with your friends,

and they won in that moment. So to like to

forego that, to like forsake that it's it's just bad strategy.

Like you, they don't know that they run on vibes.

They don't realize that the gaming runs on vibes and

that they have poisoned it.

Speaker 3: And and I think the thing that's so unbelievably like

obviously all of us are are We're not outside looking in,

but we're like we're in the house looking at them

through like a kitchen window or some shit, like it's

an open concept home and we are looking directly into

the room everything. But it's like, okay, Grand Theft Auto six,

just take two seconds to think about Grand Theft Ato six.

People are going to finish that video game. It is

coming out. It is not going to be literally any different.

It is not going to create anything different than GTA

five did. It is just going to be another Grand

Theft Auto game. It does not even have the one

like the online exactly. It does not have the long

tail that when they announce GTA five if they were

like and also it's a live service game and.

Speaker 1: Like nothing like that, and and nothing is sort of

guarantees that when they try to launch that for the

whatever that looks like that is gonna have its own

set of obstacles of getting that audience back over like that.

Nothing is guaranteed then, and the whole like this is

all built on like this idea of like Grand Theft

Auto six can have that UGC component, the user generated content,

it could be roadblocks for adults. And that's crazy to

bet the farm on that. You can't.

Speaker 3: You just cannot, Like that is not an industry. The

idea of being like, oh, the Odyssey starring Matt Damon

is all of movies is basically the calculus that they're

trying to do. And it's like, okay, Gang, you know

that's not true. You just know that's not true. And

the idea that like, oh, we're going to release this

single player experience that will have a beginning and an end,

and the company that you are banking the entire industry

on has not said a goddamn word about the infinite

money machine that they have been building because obviously it's

not coming out until the PlayStation six comes out. Yeah,

because like that's why, because why would you release it

before then? If you're a rock star, you don't, you won't.

Why would you in the interim head your bet the

way that you currently have.

Speaker 2: It doesn't make any fucking sense. Rob. You brought up

them pushing for live service and that failing because it

is a stupid idea, right. I was reminded of this

post I saw from June twenty six. I was like

checking the dates. I'm like, is this old?

Speaker 1: No?

Speaker 2: This is from June twenty six of this year. A

quote from Hideaki Nishano, who is the current president of

PlayStation right ces.

Speaker 1: Yes, you CEO Sony Interactive Entertainment.

Speaker 2: Yeah, in an interview, a new interview with Famitsu. Again,

I checked the date on this to make sure. Yep,

it's a recent interview. We believe that live service games

are content that attract users on global levels, so we

want to continue to revitalize the market through both first

party and third party content. Yeah.

Speaker 1: Man, I would have a hard time quitting Heroin as well. Like, yeah,

and here's the other thing.

Speaker 3: If I just were, let me just check really quick,

who makes Grand Theft Auto?

Speaker 1: Who yeah makes?

Speaker 2: Don't check that.

Speaker 1: I don't think it says it says, it says that

it's Take two.

Speaker 3: It says it's Take two, and it's not.

Speaker 2: So you don't even make the Heroin.

Speaker 1: You don't you doing? And it's like it's like crazy,

Like you talked about it having a beginning and an end,

and for some people it doesn't though that game goes

off forever. But those people do play on PC when

we're talking about the single player experience. Obviously online does

make a lot of money for PlayStation Xbox, but you

already talked about the issues with that. But it's like

the The thing sort of like that they're not maybe

accounting for here, is that PC could still be on

the upswing despite the high cost of everything, because people

are going to go, what's the difference, Like, okay, PlayStation

I could buy discs and I really felt a strong

attraction of the platform because I was building my library

and it felt really good and I want to keep

doing that. That was a huge part of the people

sticking to that thing. And you take that away and

now it's like, once again, the PlayStation six is going

to look more like a sort of lackluster PC with

some exclusives. That's the thing, some exclusives, and there's recent

track record of exclusives. I'm not talking about the quality,

but their ability to deliver them in a timely manner.

And I'm also kind of not blaming them. These things

just got bigger than ever. Now that was everyone, right.

That's the part where.

Speaker 4: It's like two okay, so two things.

Speaker 3: That is their fault, Like they are the ones that

enabled an economy.

Speaker 1: Basic and maybe more than anyone else, like honestly, maybe

Sony more than anyone else.

Speaker 4: They continued to teach this audience that a video game

looked the way that Sony like that Sony first party

games looked like or look like right, they are behind

the shoulder.

Speaker 3: They are unbelievably well animated, voice acted, intricately designed, two

hundred million dollar Last of Us.

Speaker 1: Part two did on a PS four, which only happens

when you have all of the money spent in the world, right.

Speaker 5: It, So that's on them. The other part of it is,

like we we have so frequently right, like the build

has been you can expect if your PC.

Speaker 3: Is at least as powerful as whatever the most quote

unquote most powerful console.

Speaker 4: Is, you'll be fine.

Speaker 3: Yeah, if nobody can afford anything past a PlayStation four,

why are people going to be making video games that

are not going to look like, yes, this is going

to run well on a PlayStation four.

Speaker 1: This is a This is actually like a like the

waiting crisis, right, the crisis in waiting because because like

so they're going to try to sell us a PS six,

and we already talked at at nauseum on this show

about like how do you sell that? Then? How do

you make people excited about it? Especially when I think

we can all assume that PS five is going to

keep going for a very very long time in that

even a lot of first party Sony games, the big

ones are probably going to be cross gen for they

have to be. And I think, but I think I'm

sartain to think it's going to be the entire generation

because I think that handheld that they might put out

is just going to be a handheld PS five and

at that point that connects those two things forever at

the hip. And at the same time, Okay, fine, yeah,

the PS five is more is powerful enough, But they're like,

if you're a developer, you've got to start like, Okay,

we need to really rethink what we like, how we

try to make our game shiny and exciting and making

it take advantage of the most recent box seem like

a death trap at this point, and we got to

maybe just aim for the switch to nobody will have it. Yeah, yeah,

yeah exactly.

Speaker 3: And I and I don't this part, like I don't

know anything about but like if I was the company

that I work for, I would be like, okay, no,

it seems like as the most powerful you need to

make a video game, or the most the best looking

you need to make a video game is whatever the

best you can get out of the switch too.

Speaker 1: Yep, it doesn't map past that.

Speaker 3: It doesn't fucking matter.

Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I said for a long time now video

games do not need to look better than uncharted for

and don't. We should be doing right, We should be

using tools. Tools should be used to make video games

more easily that are at roughly that level. We can

increase resolution if there's headroom, frame rates. If there's headroom,

games don't need to look better than that when you're

spending exponentially more money to get the job done. And

to loop it back to a point that you mentioned,

Nikki of like us not necessarily being on the outside

looking and what about the people who are on the

outside looking at And that's what I'm always most curious about,

because to bring it back to the first story, Mom

and Dad walk into a walmart and they're like looking

for the game and they're like, where the hell is

the game? And the person points to them at a

gift card looking thing and they're like, the game is that?

And they're like, where's the box with the game that

I buy for a relative or for ourselves, for our

weekend entertainer or whatever. It's going to be a foreign

concept to them, and at the low end, people just

aren't gonna want to bother as a certain point. And

at the high end is what Grub mentioned of, well,

us nerds are going to try to maximize our dollars

and probably just go elsewhere. And it feels like there's

just a complete lack of foresight in some of these

moves from PlayStation of the really think that people are

so loyal to you that they won't swap because, let

me tell you, things looked real good for Xbox in

the three sixty era and one bad move was all

it took. One video from Sony was all a toy

to convert a lot of people to a platform that

faith all.

Speaker 1: Was better vibes based. It's so we just want to

feel good about the shit we're playing on, and PlayStation

had that. They've had it multiple times. I don't think

like the excitement for PS four had much to do

with the excitement that I had for like a PS

one or PS two. It's kind of like different generations,

but they found a way to like to transform it

and kind of make it work for the time. But

it was mostly about just sort of posturing against this

force that felt evil that was trying to take something

away from us, and now PlayStations have become that, and

it's that's means it's over, Like there's no kind of

no coming back from this in terms of like getting

these same people to trust you in that way again.

People will still want to play some of their exclusive

games that won't change, but like being able to like

just put it out and be like it's a PlayStation,

get you get it. It's going to feel very different

going forward.

Speaker 3: But does it even make any sense?

Speaker 1: Right?

Speaker 3: Like if you are I've moved, if I'm sure you

can tell who I've moved upstairs, I'm on the podcast now.

Speaker 1: Sorry.

Speaker 3: Is one of those things where it's like, Okay, Sony

can only put out so many video games every fucking year, right, Yeah,

Like like when how frequently do they think that people

are going to be like, oh well, I got to

drop everything to buy Intergalactic when yes, that game comes

literally at this rate once every seven to ten years.

Speaker 1: I mean there's and there's I honestly, like you know,

even like the last of us, those games sold all right,

but they are not the games that like sold. It's

like Spider Man and that's almost it for PlayStation. The

ones that like sell in the twenty five thirty million range.

And there's like there are games that make the world

go round and Sony like they are multi platform and

there's no chance of those changing. Those are the Grand

Theft Autos and the Red Deads and it's like from

games and it's like they have maybe had a chance

one day to have that relationship with from but that's

gone away and something happened. I who could say, like

something happened with that?

Speaker 2: One who could.

Speaker 1: Say, certainly not me. It's just it's just one of those.

Speaker 3: It's like the rate at which people will choose to

do literally anything else that like is so deeply like

not considered by everybody who has power in this industry

is insane.

Speaker 1: People were completely.

Speaker 3: Fine before video games, and people will be completely fine

after them. Like and there's and there's something like this

is my last thing, and I do need to eat

the pizza that I just got out of the oven.

But I'm like, for I have tickets. I have season

tickets to Angel City. Okay, one of those tickets, a

single season ticket is two hundred and fifty dollars every year.

That is, if you do the math, like two and

a half video games I absolutely get more enjoyment out

of going to those games like thirteen fucking times a

year than I do playing a video game. And that's

not because I don't like the medium. I love the medium.

I would not be here if I didn't love the

medium or the medium. But like the calculus that starts

to happen. Yeah, when people are like, okay, if I could,

instead of buying three games a year, go hang out

with people in the real world, interact with them in

a space that is tangible and real and has consequence

that I can literally see and makes me feel something

more easily and more readily than this medium that is

kind of inherently insular. I'm gonna pick the thing that

makes me feel something with other people way more frequently.

Speaker 1: And we've seen, especially like people are when they're giving

up spending, Like one of the last things people are

giving up right now is still travel. Like people want

to be traveling with their friends and families, and they

are like, I will do that, Like they feel like

they get a bigger bang from their buck doing that

than just about anything. And and video games are gonna

have hard time rating up there with that sort of thing.

Speaker 3: They really are you and it you just can't because

it's like it is the thing that.

Speaker 1: You do the most people, we are all freaks.

Speaker 3: If you're if you're on this show, if you're listening

to this podcast, you're not regular. Like the most people

are going to very quickly do the calculus and be like,

I could do literally anything else with this eighty dollars. Yeah,

telling me that the PlayStation six is a thousand American dollars,

I can go to New York and sleep there for

a week instead, Like, I'll just do that.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll just do that. Friends do not own a

Currence end console because they said I don't need this,

Like that's the thing that Like, it feels like more

and more companies are taking for granted the fact that

people have the ability to say no, and they think

that they have people so locked down by ecosystems and

everything across the board, you know, tech, games, movies, whatever

whoever it may be. They think they have people locked down,

and it's hubris. It's always hubris, thinking that they can't

do anything wrong. And then we see unforced errors where

they get cocky, they overstep their bounds and then people

just say no and they're like, oh, shit, we didn't

expect them to say.

Speaker 6: What happened in.

Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, but it really is a bunch of spreadsheet lookers,

a bunch of people who are like, Okay, this numbers here,

but what if we did this? It would add more

to the summer we already have. And they never imagine.

They don't have the capacity in their brain to look

at that barograph and imagine people living inside there that

are that are in a relationship with the company that

they work for, and and then will easily just break

that off if they feel like they're being mistreated and

it's like, no, you you do stand to lose something.

It's not all just going to be additive. There is

going to be give and take. And it's the humorous

it really is. It's a but I mean, yeah, it's

it's hubris because Huber's and panic. Yeah, it's it's like, Okay,

do you think any person on God's Green Earth, the

like an average person is going to know if a

video game that you made cost more than double oh

seven first light to make?

Speaker 2: Oh no, yeah, no, absolutely not.

Speaker 1: The answer is a flat no.

Speaker 3: But the trend that we are on is going is

quote unquote requiring video games continue to cost more than

that video game cost to me, right, which we sustainable.

Speaker 1: Forever, Like we've yes the fact the fact.

Speaker 3: That double A seven first like costs as much as

it costs to make considering what that game is a

game I love very much, but is obviously not finished,

it's not going.

Speaker 1: To pay off, Like what do you think where do

you think it's going to end? And it only pays

off if you get to do it three times and

and you in the third game is like just kind

of using the same technology as all ways, and then

like you get done doing that and hopefully you made

money at the end, and then you kind of have

to start that whole process over again. Because but people

get amaz games this day these days, really they get sick.

Speaker 3: But the Amazon's going to let them make all of

those games on Amazon will obviously they they haven't said

anything otherwise.

Speaker 1: Man, that's all right for sure. Thank you for letting

me crash your podcast anytime. Goodbye. Uh people check out

vgb's Nicky and John Warren do podcast together. It's great.

He's got a whole bunch of other stuff going on.

Be sure to check them out wherever they're doing stuff.

Speaker 7: I'm going the link on the description we need to play,

we pay you in the exposure.

Speaker 1: Of course, it's better better than yeah, better than money.

Uh okay, let's get to this other stuff. In response

to all this, Video Game History Foundation was like, look,

just a quick reminder, we've been pretty sober about this

for a while. Uh, we've not considered discs to be

some great preservation method for a very long time. Now. Again,

these are these are serious librarians, serious researchers of serious

academics over there at the Video Game History Foundation. When

they are talking about preservation, they are talking about it

in a holistic way. They are like, they want to

have not just the way the game was most experienced,

They want to have all the updates in between and

be able to represent that stuff. But really they want

primarily they do want the version of the game that

most people played and these days that has not been

on desk for a very long time. And it's like,

when I think the average person who is collecting a

library of games is talking about preservation, they are talking

about it's you know, it's better than good, it's good

enough because like, fifty years from now, hopefully this disc

still works, and if it does, I'll have a version

of this game that will will resemble the thing that

I mostly played, and if it has some issues beyond that,

that is something I'm willing to accept. As hardcore researchers,

that is something that they are like, No, this is

a problem that we are trying to solve, and we

have worked with this industry or tried to work with

this industry to solve it for a long time, and

they do not seem interested. If anything, the ESA, who

should be trying to create methods for these things to

be preserved for the history and the love of this industry,

they seemingly have no interest in that. So like what

we've been doing is what this we've had to do

from the beginning is sort of like turn the eye

toward piracy, which is where all this happens. And you know,

I think people are a little bit like upset with

Frank Sifaudi for saying, like, you know, discs aren't a

great preservation thing, but it is true and they are

trying to do their job, and he's right, he's right,

and he's pointing out to like the long term problem here,

which still has to be solved regardless of what happens

with discs, right.

Speaker 2: Yeah, Because I say this as someone who is a

fan of physical media, it's still a DRM to solution

in its current iteration. The fact that you cannot rip

your own PS up let's say PS five, because I

don't know PS four may have been correcked. You cannot

rip your own PS five disc and then just have

a backup that you can do freely with whatever you want.

Discs are not a distribution method for retaining that data.

They only exist to serve the DRM in a way

that is more accessible to people. And so you know,

this is another layer beyond what we were talking about earlier,

Like this level of preservation. Preservation needs to happen even

further beyond having any physical media of any way, shape

or form. Like DRM free digital is the only way

that something gets preserved. That's why, like Frank Sofaldi has

reached out to developers and gone to their house to

dump any S cards so that the data is preserved,

because that's the only way that we get it. And

they're they're doing their best over there at the VGHF.

Shouts to them, I love the Video Game History Foundation,

and they're trying their best to keep things preserved. As

best they can, and like right now, I saw Phil

Salvador talking about the Blue Sky today of like, right now,

there's an exemption where they they are allowed to like

jail break a system in order to make uh actual

legal purchases preserved from a library standpoint, But that's also

still not full and proper preservation because it's like, okay, cool,

we have you know, like let's say right now a

WEU that has every game on it. Well, we are

like right now tentatively allowed to like have that, and

like that is a way for us to keep the

data alive. But they can't like loan it out, they

can't use it for research with people. They don't have

that all backed up. So preservation is another nightmare on

top of what's happening right now. There's not a reason

why an all digital future is scary is because that

DRM is the enemy of keeping things alive. Imron had

a good post recently of if you want to see

what a digital storefront that doesn't care about preservations, like,

look at mobile gaming because anything that you remember about

mobile gaming doesn't exist anymore. And that is another big

problem in the all digital future. I mean the concept

of those going away forever.

Speaker 1: Part of the problem of what Frank was even talking

about is like every year, thousands of games come out

that have no disc versions, So like we've been concerned

about this since the first time that happened, and we'll

continue to be concerned about it. So yeah, it's yeah,

it's a big problem on top of all this, and

that doesn't feel like we're any workload. It feels like

we've taken steps backwards on that front constantly, and here

we are again, all right. Xbox is also reportedly thinking

about taking away discs for the next system. They seem

to have a disc to disc to digital thing that

they're testing where people will be able to take their

discs and turn them into digital licenses, essentially turning them

into game key cards. Is the thinking here, Sean, or what.

Speaker 2: The actual constructive criticism? Jeff, this is the one time

where you guys not reading this on GMM, really fucked

you guys.

Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, please, yeah, go go ahead and this help

me out here.

Speaker 2: If this works as reported, this is unequivocally a good

thing because what it is proposing, and this is reporting

from the verds right now, this could be an additional

layer on top of your physical purchases on Xbox to

preserve them for an all digital future where you pop

the disc into a system where they disk drive and

what happens is your account gets credited with that game digitally.

Speaker 1: Yeah, you get the digital entitlements on top of the

disc having this disc.

Speaker 2: So if it again, if it works as proposed, it's

only an additive thing. If they make it the only

way to interact with a disc, that's bad, and that's

the potentially bad part of this. We'll see how if

this works, how they spin it. I don't know. After

the PlayStation stuff, maybe they just take an easy win

and make it a nice additive thing instead of replacing anything.

But the way it would work is that you pop

the disc into your Xbox One or your Xbox Series X,

and then your Microsoft accounts credited with that game, so

you can play it even with the disc ejected. Like,

I genuinely don't know how much you know about this

because you've been like mostly digital for so long. But

the way it works right now is when you pop

a disc into a system Xbox or PlayStation, it copies

over all data, it can.

Speaker 1: Form a desk and installs what it can right yeah.

Speaker 2: Yeah, text withss server to update with any additional data

that may be necessary for the last version, and then

every time that you want to play the game, the

disc works as a key, and basically you always need

the disc in in order to play that game. And

this is just proposing, well if you didn't need that part,

what if, like we assume, oh, you have the game,

you just pop the disc out, you pop in our

disc in, and then you just swap between the games

and not need the disc in at all times. So

if it's additive, that's really cool because presumably you would

also be able to install the disc and do it

the traditional way as well. This is a something that

PlayStation would, in my opinion, need to do if they

need additional future because what's going to happen that the

PS six doesn't have a disc drive of any way,

shape or form.

Speaker 1: And they have all these backward compatible discs that are

backward compatible toward nothing.

Speaker 8: Yeah yeah, because like PS five, a lot of people

have purchased digital, sure, but PS four most of us

were still physical and just our discs are not gonna

do anything at PS six.

Speaker 2: You can't like just say that that library means nothing

and erasees. So like, you know, the one glimmer of

light in Xbox from the past couple of weeks is

if this works out, and keep saying it because you

know it's reporting, we'll see how, if anything, this actually

pans out. This is how a bridge, a stop gap

should work into a digital future, even though I still

don't like that digital future.

Speaker 1: This is something I mean, they have to have a

solutter then That's that's what's always read to me, Like

it's like they have to have a solution of some kind.

This would be nice. Now, there was the separate report

that I was referencing on Game of Mornings this morning

that they are going to get rid of disks like

just like just like PlayStation like and that.

Speaker 2: Way, and they probably will like it probably past writing

on the wall forever now Xbox wants to be all

digital and they've always wanted to do that.

Speaker 1: Yep, yep, all right, let's see. I will be curious

to see, like you just you just would think if

Sony had a solution in mind, they would have gestured

toward it in that press release. A EXI human wrote,

So it's I think that's why it's kind of right

now feels safe to assume the worst. I don't know,

it's weird, all right, yeah, and then Rockstar in the

news again as a game developer rights or. Chris Kerr

at Game Developer explained that the people who were fired

for trying to form that union allegedly have created kind

of a laundry list of other toxic issues at Rockstar

to help bolster their case, such as paying inequity, and

that pay inequity often being gender based, mandating crunch, including

having a checkbox on your contract employee agreement that says

you waive your rights that you would have in the

UK or on the British isles for protecting you from crunch,

and then weaponizing bonuses excuse me, which always just sounds

like a real nightmare, where a lot of the pay

that eployees got at Rockstar was bonus based, so it's unpredictable,

which is already kind of frustrating, but it's often, you know,

it's it's determined by a single person above you, and

therefore you have to sort of treat that person with

kid gloves, cause they can just decide on a whim

that you're not going to get your bonus, So it

would create a sort of climate of fear, I would.

I would guess, now, all these things, it's like, yes,

these feel like maybe sometimes small fries compared to this

idea of retaliation for firing someone for trying to join

a union, which is just so clearly evil. But it

does pile up and it adds up, and I'm sure

this stuff will help them. Does it surprise me to

here that Rockstar still has stuff like this? It's it

maybe is not the uh devastating crunch of old, but

of course all that stuff is still kind of in

there somewhere, right.

Speaker 2: Yeah, And it all seems really gross considering what we are,

you know, running towards with GTA six set to be

like the biggest media launch of all time, all weeks

of them just still just try to squeeze every employee

for every little ouse that they can, when there's so

many our solutions. Presumably they have enough money that they

don't need to do this.

Speaker 6: I don't know.

Speaker 2: Maybe that's not the case, but almost assuredly they would

after that game comes out, and the fact that they

would want mandate Crunch to like get the game out

a specific date so they can meet a specific quarter

earnings quarter or whatever. Is just it is so disgusting

to me, and I hate seeing everything you mentioned about,

like weaponizing bonuses as well. It's just wild that company

who is going to be on top of the world

here is still resorting to these tactics.

Speaker 1: Yeah, just a quick quote here. When the bonus is

particularly good, it can be a windfall, but often the

bonus is disappointing and one can end up being paid

considerably less than expected for the year. The reasoning given

for this is often nebulous and consistent between departments, even

inconsistent between team members within the same department, and sometimes

hinges on completely sub subjective or retroactive criticisms. So yeah, cool, cool, cool.

Speaker 2: Cool, Yeah, he continues, shocker.

Speaker 1: So there was some whiplash with Obsidian. This morning. Chris

String had a podcast where he was like talking on

the Game Business, which is his podcast uh, where he

added Obsidianto the list of Arcane Compulsion, Double Find Engine

Theory non dead labs as teams who were negotiating to

try to either avoid being shut down or or being

in the process of shutting down, or maybe getting spun

off or sold. Jason Tryer followed up pretty quickly and

said that there are no negotiations and obsidient is safe,

and it's like, how does this happen? And to me,

like that is the story here For the most part,

I'll say that I don't like dream didn't just say that, Like,

he didn't just make that. He did not make that up.

And I know he didn't make that up. I've kind

of since this happened, I kind of went and looked

and it's like, yeah, that's that was going around inside Microsoft.

I'm not like hearing this from other reporters or anything

like that. Inside of Microsoft. This was going around that

something was happening there. But it's happening so fast, and

we do know that it's the case over at Microsoft

and Xbox right now that they are making decisions within

like a twenty four hour period, and these are the

kinds of decisions that previously under the previous leadership would

have taken weeks or months, and now she's turning these

things around instantaneously. And that is you know, you can

go back to the Gears of War e eday thing

where I said that everyone's like that can't be true,

and I heard stories of Xbox employees leaving the Xbox Mixer,

which was happening at the same time that we were

doing GB at night. When I said that, and they

were turning to each other and going, is this true?

They didn't know. It happened so fast it did not

have time to filter through that place. It sounds like

things just happened very fast with Obsidian, and maybe they

weren't ever like at the risk of being shut down.

But I don't know if it's as clear and clear

as like they were always safe. And Jason tried, didn't

say they were always safe. He just said no, no negotiations,

and they're safe. Now. I think that it is a

fucking clown show over there right now.

Speaker 7: Shot, it sounds what a fun place to work, uh

huh to all those people or those families that depend

on that jobs and and that ship, Like.

Speaker 6: What the are you doing?

Speaker 1: What are the studios that are going to have layoffs

on Monday? Seem to still not know the number that

they are going to be laying off that's happening on Monday.

Tomorrow's a holiday, so this weekend's just gonna be able

to what's that fun?

Speaker 2: A fun way to spend the holiday?

Speaker 1: Huh yeah, right, Like so like it's gonna be a long,

dark holiday for a lot of people at Graham and

then they are going to get bad news. A lot

of people are going to get bad news on Monday.

And and that's like there's also reports of like they

were actually going to do those uh those layoffs this

week and then they slipped it back to next week.

It's gone back and forth a couple of times, because

again they're just flying by the seat of their pants.

And the way that they are sort of justifying this,

Sean is you want to hear this. Uh, it's got

to start up mentality. You see the new xbox, Uh

move fast and break things. Yeah, yeah, move move, move

fast and break things. And you could just justify anything

by saying that you could just break things like that's

and then walk away, which certainly feels like what's happening

right now?

Speaker 2: Yeah exactly. So Yeah, to go to the top of

the segment, this uh the story. I saw some clowns

saying like, oh, people are saying that Obsidian is in trouble,

and then real journalists Jason Schreyer shuts them all down.

And know if any of those dinguses hear this, no

conflicting reports happen journalism oftentimes when sources are different, and

that's often the case with journalists, where like the sources

will be different, and maybe one person has a source

lower down the chain, one person has a source higher

up the chain maybe, And I would say, like apartments,

look for the space where both things can be true,

And I would say the same thing here exactly. And

so it's just a matter of Okay, well, isn't it

possible that this was going to be true? And then

things change, you know, like you've said this, Nate has

to say it all the time, like plans change, things change,

And so we know for a fact that Xbox is

moving so fast and loose by their own admission here

seemingly reportedly that yeah, they are making decisions out of

whim Ash's making decisions out of whim Matt if he is.

And that's why, like all of this fucking sucks, and

why I think management specifically are fucking ghouls over there.

It's why, on a personal note, I do try to

avoid saying like fuck Xbox, because I don't want to

say I'll want in any way, shape or form, have

that think someone think that I mean, like, you know,

fuck Obsidian or fucked double finder. I think the people

who are working or they're trying to still just make

cool things and they didn't necessarily want to do so

under Microsoft. That's why I want everyone to remember that

porportions are the problem. Corporations are the enemy. That's why

Microsoft is the enemy. You may like Xbox, you may

like the games that they make. I know I certainly do,

but Microsoft is a fucking problem. And when you have

Satya and Asha and Matt making absolutely god awful decisions

to affect people's livelihoods on a whim off of a

Twitter poll or something that is flown shit, it's immaturity.

It's probably why Phil and Sarah who you know, they

didn't make great decisions all the time, probably part of

why they got the fuck out there.

Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's a deep lack of you know, ethics,

the deep lack of integrity. It is.

Speaker 6: But the like.

Speaker 7: Work in construction, and I have like three four guys

sometimes and we get desperate when we don't get jobs.

Speaker 6: To like to give them to work with them, Like

it's crazy and it's for four people.

Speaker 7: And if people manage thousands and they don't give a fuck,

those are a thousand some families that like rely on

their jobs the economy. Then, well most people, even in

North America, they don't have like health insurance. They need

that ship. It is it is a lack of like

humanity that it's always at me. It's crazy to me.

Speaker 2: I don't know.

Speaker 6: I guess so based off I ran out of wards.

Speaker 2: You know, it's crazy, that's fair.

Speaker 1: Absolutely blames, Yeah, absolutely for sure. So yeah, I'm going

to try to like burying my head in the sandalmicus.

I will be on vacation next week, but my heart

is going to be with people, yes, and my heart's

going to be with these people. It's like it's, uh,

it is going to be a dark day for this

industry and it's gonna like these feel like mortal wounds

at a certain point, like the industry will move on,

but it's like, I don't know if I care about

the industry anymore. I uh, certainly care about the hobby.

This is like that then, and I think we like

it's going to be up to us to kind of

figure out ways to enjoy this whole thing without bringing

up Xbox and PlayStation on every show and throw Nintendo

in there as well, Like we got to sort of

find the joy elsewhere, yes, and let let these big

companies figure their shit out over there while we enjoy

video games. Over here, We're gonna enjoy video games like

they and are doing that.

Speaker 2: That's exactly That's exactly why you will often hear like

me and you and a lot of our co workers

prop up things like PC and Steam and stuff like that.

Not because we're saying like yeah, not because we're saying like, hey,

buy an expensive machine that is better so you can

be elitist that old you know, PC master race mentality,

which is always bullshit. It's simply because we want to

support people more directly. We want support developers more directly,

and we want cool artists to make cool things. And

it always feels like when we have stories like so

much of what we talked about basically everything we've talked

about so far on today's show, it feels like corporations

gang in the way, first party platform holders gang in

the way and punishing the people who are making the

money by making the cool shit. And so we just

want to lift up, you know, the cool people making

the cool stuff as much as we can in whatever

way best supports to them. And we you know best,

it is easily accessible to us, and that's why we

have these criticisms. It's just because you know, that's my

last like plead you to like the end of fanboyism.

I swear to god. People don't support a brand, support

the cool people who make the cool thing.

Speaker 1: Yep, yeah you can. Being fans of people is real cool. Yeah, yeah,

I know. I think I this is a story for

a very long time now, like of like why like

PCs specifically has been like okay, that seems like where

the future still is. And it's just think about games

that came out of nowhere and succeeded, and that has

happened consistently on now Steam and all those platforms have

a lot of trouble, a lot of issues of their own,

but if you think about, like if you had an

idea for a game and it wanted to give it

the best chance to come out of nowhere and succeed,

whether it's like one of these recent friends Slap games

or going back to the Battle Royale and stuff like

that that's happening in usually an early access on PC,

often on Steam, but you go back to Minecraft that

was not on on Steam, that was just outside of

their a you know, a kerbal Space program that was

outside of Steam. It just was an open platform where

you can have an idea and an audience. It's willing

to try out new ideas, and it's kind of all

happening there. So it's like an open platform. And and

now Linux does feel like it stands a fighting chance

for the first time in forever, a truly open platform that.

Speaker 2: I'm gonna spend my weekend is getting cashios replaced over

my baz Eye installation is probably what I'm gonna do.

Speaker 1: Hell yeah, yes, Like that's there's there's reasons to be

hopeful in some of these spots. It's just the corporations

we are our relationship has done. We cannot rely on them.

Speaker 2: Anymore, right, And there might there might be a super

chat where this is more relevant, But I'll just bring

up here before I forget. It's something that I was

thinking about earlier today about like people will inevitably point out,

like you know, talking poorly about a day platform when

you are a PC player, And I want to make

sure that's very clear that the reason that I'm okay

with something like Steam, for example, is deterrence because Valve

can't be stupid because PC is such an open platform.

We got them by the balls because the threat of

piracy is always hanging over them. That's why Gabe had

that quote forever ago of like, you know, if people

are resorting to piracy, that's an issue with your platform. However,

you afraid your just.

Speaker 1: An issue, not a camera what he said, not a

pricing issue, it's a services issue.

Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, like we always have that deterned against them

of Look, if you fuck up, we'll wait. We will

wait for a crack, we will wait for other means

to get the game. We will wait to support a

developer directly. We don't have to use your platform. And

they know that. And that's the thing that I like

about Valve. Gabe is a multimillionaire. He's ryan around on

his yachts and whatever like that. But at the end

of the day, Valve as a company, they're not stupid

because they're smart enough. People running it are smart enough

to know we just want your money. Yes, give you

the good We'll give you the service and the way

that you want it as long as you give us

the fucking money. And guess what, that's all I want.

Off of business I just want you to give me

the thing I want. I hand you the cash. We

go our separate ways. I don't have to say I'm

a fan of Steam, I don't have to say I'm

a fan of Valve. You give me the game and

we're good. The transaction has ended.

Speaker 1: Yeah, and if the alignment that we have here, which

is kind of what we were talking about with with

Sony Microsoft, maybe there was a time where they aligned

with our interests. That's certainly what PlayStation postured themselves as

during PS four, where they were aligned with gamers, and

I consider Valve to be aligned with me in this

moment where I prefer open platforms and I think that's

the future, and that has, to their credit, been their

modus operandi from the beginning, from the beginning of Steam,

they've been like, open platforms is what we will always

choose when given the option.

Speaker 2: How Steam keys are so great because because we don't

have to buy from them, even if we're using their platform,

we can go to like green Man Gaming and get

the game they get eight zero cut yes, yeah, yeah,

like because again it's like retail, the transaction has already

happened in whatever way that may between Valve and the

publisher and the authorized reseller. So it's like it is

that free market that to bring it to the top

here that Sony is getting rid of. That competition is

important and that's why how you have a thriving digital

platform that people actually like is by just giving people

what they want. And it's not that hard to give

people what they want and we'll give you the money, yep.

Speaker 1: All right, And then that speaks to the to the

competition right where it's like, yeah, they like even if

you're talking about steam Keys, they're still competition to keep

price depressed. And I just it's hard to argue that

like Valve Valve, steam does not have good prices, Like

that's that's a difficult thing to make that point. It's

like it seems like they often have the best prices

and if they don't, a competitor selling steam keys will.

So yeah, all right, let's do this last one real quick.

Unannounced Metroid RABBITUS rated in Brazil, right, wrong.

Speaker 2: One, the wrong horn?

Speaker 1: What the fuck? Sean? You hate Metroid?

Speaker 3: Now?

Speaker 2: No, dude, my computer is fucked up. Windows is ass

I'm clicking on the wrong things constantly. What can I

even click on here can I click on golf clap?

Is it gonna give me that one?

Speaker 6: I'll do it.

Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll take it. No, I got masters Combs instead.

Speaker 2: Read the headline again.

Speaker 1: Jeff unannounced Metroid RABBITUS rated in Brazil.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I hate windows.

Speaker 8: Uh.

Speaker 1: Hey, what the hell, Sean, what's happening here?

Speaker 2: Good? I need some good news. I had this one's

because I need some good news today.

Speaker 1: Job. A July twenty twenty sixth edition of a sort

of diary of things that have been submitted to a

Brazil ratings agency seemingly includes Metroid Ravenous from a company

called Nintendo of America, with the production year being twenty

twenty six.

Speaker 2: It sounds to me like, finally we're getting that two

D Metro follow up.

Speaker 1: That's like, oh god, I disappeared and it disappeared from

so just so people know it's not up anymore. It

went up and they took it down.

Speaker 2: Yeah, Like, and really, this is just they were gonna

make another two D metright eventually. It is just a

question of when and so like, assuming that this is

a real thing that may exist in some form, I

don't know.

Speaker 1: Hey, remember when.

Speaker 2: Metroid dread got leaked Jeff, do you remember what year

that was?

Speaker 1: No.

Speaker 2: Two thousand and six. So we'll see when this game

comes back. Ye, true, but eventually it will, and I

need a glimmer of hope because the day has been

goddamn depressing days. I'm gonna choose to say, hey, we're

getting new metroight eventually.

Speaker 1: Tell you what Metro Dred came out October twenty twenty one.

It feels like that's the right amount of time. It

came out on a which one, So now you put

out the sequel and switch.

Speaker 2: To Yeah, wait, it's gonna be great.

Speaker 1: All lines up. Fuck you, I'm getting my hopes up

for this year.

Speaker 2: Andy or someone of VDC corrob rated this, didn't They

have a story of saying that.

Speaker 1: People, I mean, when they posted that's where I first

saw this. Is that VGC posted this and then and

so usually I know them. They have a pretty high

bar for publishing and they kind of only do it.

But then people separately said that Andy seemingly corroborated it.

I'm not. I didn't go out to find that myself,

but people in chaper.

Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, we won't put words in Andy's mouth or

anyone else's mouth. But just like Brawdy speaking, it seems

like there's a little bit of smoke, and I'm really

excited for the.

Speaker 1: Enough smoke of that. Like I said, I'm getting my

hopes up. Like, let's let's do this. Yes, all right,

let's go ahead and take a break. We'll come back

read super chats. We'll be right back after this. Everybody,

all right, we're back with game. Mess decides. Uh, Sean,

let's do the super chats.

Speaker 2: The fuck is this from Missouri? Matt? Thank you for

the supertas always, but thank you Mike and whoever for

the content. Also, I heard you are getting rid of

the disc based version of the show. I know, weak joke.

Go watch Dan try to use a fishing rod on

min Max.

Speaker 1: No, don't do that. That's so that's painful. I need

to see an Yeah, man, I really want to put

out some content on on various old forms of media. Uh,

you know, we're doing a We do have to do

a zine over at a at Giant Bomb. We talked

about that during the bomathon. So that's a start, but

maybe we got more coming. We'll figure it out.

Speaker 2: Well, we'll figure out talk to Addie, figure out how

he did or whatever. Oh yeah, lex Lutie. Everything is

so cool and normal, yippie smiley face.

Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, it's like not like these things are.

This news is like hurting the stock price for a

lot of these companies. Obviously some of these things would

be welcome by investors boot job cuts and so yeah,

of course it's not. But uh, like the fire that

we feel is not showing up like on Wall Street

or something for this industry. So we talk about like

a crash. That's a clearly something is happening, but do

we call it a crash. It's it's something like that.

It's something akin to a crash, but it's not something that,

like you, definitionally we'd be able to understand, like how

how would this would be put into textbooks or something

like that. It's we're gonna still be pulling the strings

apart of like what is happening in this moment. I

think for a very long time.

Speaker 2: Yeah, JD. Camp is Ronaldo the Yankees of soccer. Yes, well,

I think fifth Tannin of soccer, like oh yeah, go away.

Speaker 1: All right, And that was that was a salt that

diff was doing. I thought about that. Yeah, man, that

really is with a goddamn good yeah man, and he

was groping that lady.

Speaker 2: Outer having three one three ri ip video game.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I've been enjoying those where it's like video game

company like successfully makes video game, decides to end their product,

their popular product, video game, and it's like, yeah, that's

where we're at.

Speaker 7: Iwis her old people talk about lay stage capitalism and

like hold like you're ruined movies in Hollowood and I

was like, oh, that's not going to happen. And now

it's happening to video game. It's like, oh wow, they

were right.

Speaker 2: Yep, zombie porn, says call Mike and Jesse. Y'all hat hat.

Speaker 1: I listening? When he is off, we leave alone the

Cleveland streamer, all right, he just does what he.

Speaker 2: Needs to canonically, the Cleveland Streamer.

Speaker 1: That's right, that's right, that's him.

Speaker 2: Ryan Allen won three three games may be dead, but

ever request legends rules. Not sure how new peeps would

take it, but I'm real experiencing losing my early twenties

all over again. Putus.

Speaker 1: Does it have any sort of multiplayer whatsoever, because my

understanding is it's supposed to be some sort of single

player reimagining of EverQuest content. But I've not looked in

into it beyond that being told to me, so I

don't know neither.

Speaker 2: That seems cool though, Yeah, that's a neat idea.

Speaker 1: Okay, cool. Well, then when I get back, I will

beg Mike to make Yeah that's fine, that's better.

Speaker 2: For interesting, okay, okay from hex prof I have been

buying physical games for PS five and when I finished

beating them, I give them to a friend so they

can enjoy them too. This is the most upsetting news

in video gaming to me.

Speaker 1: Love you guys, I mean, just like sharing things you

love with people.

Speaker 2: Is all right, so cool, It is so.

Speaker 1: Cool, and video games have been that from basically the beginning,

or at least any as far as anyone who is

playing video games today is concerned. It's been that way

from the beginning, and so yeah, taking that away in

such a permanent way is yeah, that's rough.

Speaker 2: By the way, that's this is maybe a good time

to mention, because I saw in the chat that it

seemed like I neglected to mention with the Xbox disc

to digital thing. By the way, so like when you

put the allegedly when you would put the disc into

an Xbox it cris your account with a digital copy.

If you give it to someone else or you sell it,

it credits their account instead, and it takes a transfer.

Speaker 1: It takes yeah, just transfers instantly, which I.

Speaker 2: Think I did mention that's that's part of why I

think that would be cool. And also everybody needs to

do that if they are going all digital sony, that's

pretty convenient to do so on like that because hey,

it's a nice bonus on top of the physical and

it's a way to actually like keep a use mark alive,

well happy, even just a little bit, you know.

Speaker 1: You know. Yeah, I think like we were like came

off especially negative one game of Mornings, this one, because

it's like just starting off thinking like, ah man, this

must have been the plan originally with Xbox one, and

so this stuff has just been lying and wait for

them ready to this stuff because it's like they can't

do it with Xbox three sixty and it's because they

never thought they were going but with Xbox one they

were gonna have all this to digital stuff.

Speaker 2: So yeah, right, this disc too digital presumably would not

work like they you know, the reporting from the Verse

said it would not work with Xbox in three sixty games.

And there's some language apparently going around in Microsoft of

like it may not work with all discs because it

needs the information. So presumably, yeah, the discs are ID coded,

like you.

Speaker 1: Said, some sort of unique idea.

Speaker 2: For that original Xbox One plan and that I actually

think that maybe why PlayStation doesn't have anything like that

where you go is because they never wanted to do

something like that.

Speaker 1: Right, and yeah, maybe that's nuts.

Speaker 2: I mean, like, and we have we have friends like

Nick likes to say this, like the original plan for

the Xbox One was good comma actually and kind of

not wrong. Is just like people were so not depending

on the Internet at this point that it just sounded

like a bad thing to be dependent on server check

in any way shape reform. But I think now that

we're moving towards by our games digitally, and also the

store is on a timer. Now we're in that dystopian future. Hey,

a disc work the transfer license somedthening doesn't sound so bad.

Speaker 6: Was the title of our generation.

Speaker 7: He came from the future to warn us and when

you listen to him.

Speaker 2: Sure, Uh, next is g Nitro. The past year I've

been discussing with friends how I'm uninterested in the next

console generation now Sony and Microsoft are guaranteeing I won't partake.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, and I think that's what we'll keep

getting at on on this show and the others is

that you don't have to there's other ways to enjoy

video games, and uh yeah, and and then that and

that is not just go get a PC, you know,

it's go get your old stuff out. And those are

still very good games.

Speaker 2: Yeah, Like it's very important video games, Like you know,

jokes aside, jokes aside, video games are not over. You

can play the old stuff. You can like find the

cheapest route to PC. If you want do PC. Your

PS five is gonna be good for a while here.

And even if, like you know, I don't like digital

games on console because it is an extremely drm to

lockdown platform, But if that's how you choose to interact

with them going forward, you can as well, and like

you know, that's your right to do so. And video

games will just keep trucking all along, even if it

looks different and a lot of people, including myself, aren't

gonna be happy about it. Rives is next, not that

Nintendo wouldever disclose the info. But the Okarna Time remake

has the original engine under the hood. What do you

think the chances they looked at the decompilation code while

making the game are I can't tell you with certainty

zero zero. Because companies can license open source software, they

don't like doing so because of the theoretical possibility of

that person, individual team, whoever it may be, then wanting

to say, Okay, but now you gotta give me my cut,

and they just don't want that legal mess.

Speaker 1: YEP. Nintendo especially has avoided that or try to avoid

that where they can.

Speaker 2: Yeah, it's why, like you know, the NSO games run

on emulayers designed from the ground up by NERD and

this is why it takes so long for NSL games

to come out. YEP, that to like work with the

emulayer every same time they add a new game. Next

is from Banjo Kazuois sixty four. We are going back. Damn.

Was PlayStation's decision to move their corporate headquarters to USA

and twenty sixteen a massive mistake and the genesis of

a lot of their current issues. I hope you guys

have a great fourth and long weekend.

Speaker 1: I would say that it was simply indicative of the

mistakes that were already happening, the issues that already existed.

It just like that did not cause the problem, but

they're The desire that led to them moving their headquarters

out of Japan certainly led to a lot of where

we're at, you know, and the big part of that

was the unsustainable nature of the games that they produced,

the most of just being like, they need to be

globally appealing instead of they need to be PlayStation games,

which to me is kind of what happened, right. I

think I think they made PlayStation something else. The PlayStation

game means something else, But there was a time where

a PlayStation game meant one thing, and then it needed

to be something else to appeal, appeal globally and to

then that meant that meant let's get out of SAPAM

where a global company, and a global company is headquartered

in the United States.

Speaker 2: So yeah, I think it goes to something that Nikki

said when they popped in of you know, people expect

a PlayStation game is a certain look a certain way,

and that was to look Western, to look like an

uncharted game, to look like some Naughty Dog would make

and internally they just was like like like a movie.

Speaker 1: When when theatic yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: I think it was just them betting big on their

Western studios, on Naughty Dog, Insomniac and Arthur, and wanting

to be closer to them in general, like you know,

headquarters to studios, and I think they just bet big

on that, and that's why we also saw things like

them closing Japan Studio and whatnot. So I think the

stupidity would have happened no matter what, like it would

with any company, and that was just an ext edeting

of the process. Perhaps Taco Belmont's great name as always

no discs just makes PS six feel like a worse PC,

and at such crazy prices, I think I'm better off

just playing PC instead. At this point, he's seen.

Speaker 1: This, Yeah, I mean, this is all this stuff is

the reason that they did pull back on bringing their

games to PC. It's like, oh, it's gonna be hard

to make a distinction between these platforms going forward. We

need something that's kind of the only card they had

to play. Yeah, not paying for online and Steam sales,

you're gonna end up saving a lot of money, even

if you pay a little bit more for the hardware

up front.

Speaker 6: That the machine looking a little more sixy Hey.

Speaker 1: What I mean? I keep using that thing and it's

just it's so handy and so simple, and I just

if it was just one hundred couple hundred dollars less expensive,

it would be the easiest recommendation in the world.

Speaker 2: Yeah, let's see. Next would be there's a lot of

super chest nice. I'm trying to make sure I keep

track of them all as they move up. So thank

you everybody. The hext prop is back. Game stops open

box policy for quote unquote new games with game codes?

How do you even try to trust that Normanis and

grandparents still shop there? At times? You can't, So like

GameStop would have to change the way they do things,

which if you don't know, is still that you know,

they'll have a case on the shelf that you know,

then you they'll they'll put the disc in for you,

and then you walk out of the store with it.

So like, there's no such thing as stealed games in

store purchases for game stops, at least mine mine still does.

I don't know if yours locally has changed that anybody

out there, But like if you buy them. Yeah, they're

they're usually in bad shape and everything like that. If

you buy them online usually they will be sealed, especially

if it's brand new. But also you could get one

that's from a store and they say it's new, so

they would they would have to change that at this point.

Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, I just I think that they're going

to have to like make that stuff feel a little

bit more special than it does now because yeah, normanis

and grandparents, it's still that's some of the audience. Clearly,

none of these decisions are being made with that in

mind though.

Speaker 2: Next is from Christopher Gardiner. I have to disagree with Sean.

Consumers did this to themselves. It's hard to blame companies

for not choosing uh, not producing physical games when ninety

percent of the market is choosing digital. Love you guys, dumb.

Speaker 6: Victim blame like the straight up they don't.

Speaker 7: They shouldn't have the right to take out take out

like like consumer like, you know, they no matter how

little people use it, you know.

Speaker 1: I think this kind of gets to the heart of

like so many of our issues of like they're just

corporations and they need to do what makes them the

most money. That is almost they're the definitional reason that

they exist to make the most money for their shareholders possible. Therefore,

if there is something that costs money and it doesn't

make as much money as an alternative that makes more money,

already they aren't naturally as as sort of an animal

would go to water, they are going to going to

go in that direction, and no one here disagrees with that.

I think it is. I think what's happening is we've

seen this happen so much in our lives. There was

a chart I saw today that I reskeedd of the

decline in third spaces, the decline and like bars in

our areas, bowling alleys, arcades obviously, like marinas, just things

that people that humans can go to, and because there's

fewer of them, they all cost more because that's the way.

That's also part of the key shaped economy, right, you

make fewer things and you make them more expensive and

more premium to appeal to the people that actually still

have money. And we're losing all these things because people

aren't going out and spending money doing those things, and

that makes them more expensive. So less people are going

out and spending money doing those things. So now we're

getting even less of them, and it's circular, and I

just like we have to sort of at some point

step back and say, when do we get to have

a say in how our lives are affected by these things?

Like where? Why does democracy end when it comes to

the free market? Why do we no longer get a

say in how we purchase our games because it's what's

best for sony. It feels like if we're supposed to

live in a society where you know, every person has

a say in the way things goes, a lot of

people I think, would still vote to have physical games

still be a thing. Now we can't. Can we force

a company to keep making physical games if we don't

lis in that? Like state? Isn't that the state running things?

And it's like that's not necessarily what I'm saying, but

more more say in how our lives go is I

think what people are trying to get at when we

are voting for democratic socialists these days, and when we

are at the whims in mercy of a company that's

saying that we are at the whims in mercy of capitalism,

and we know how that goes over and over again,

and blaming consumers just feels like we don't actually get

to any answer there. That's us going, well, what do

you expect? We wash our hands and we move on

to the next thing that it's going to get closed

down in front of our very eyes, and I just

we have to we have to find a new way

of doing things. We have to find alternatives. And in

some countries there have been there's like the government will

give money for people to create things, and because the

United States doesn't do that, it sort of sets a

precedent and sets a way a standard that we kind

of just go, well, that's the way things are. Yeah,

and we kind of we have to like draw the

line eventually and say, you know, they've gone this far,

this far, no further. And I don't know when we're

going to do that, but they keep pushing me pretty hard,

and I feel like it's the time's coming.

Speaker 2: Yeah, And specific to gaming in particular and the PS five,

Like I was trying to say the numbers as they

were as accurately as possible, because the number does make

a difference, and make a difference, yes, it's not as

reference referencing ninety percent of the market choosing digital first

of all, if I'm looking at the same report they

are referencing, it's eighty five percent. Eighty five is not

one hundred. And also that's eighty five in a quarter,

not specifically the entire year. And so yes, if digital

is approaching, you know it's it's been in the seventy

to eighty percent range. And yeah, sure a quarter can

have eighty five percent, but it's very important to remember

like what games are coming out in that quarter, and

like who is purchasing because of like DT six DT six,

a lot of fucking people are going to walk into

Walmart to pick up GTA six because a lot of

people who want that game, when the biggest games on

the planet are still going to want to go into

a physical retailer to pick up that game because that's

just how they buy video games, because they buy like

one video game of generation, and so you know, the

the split would shift a little bit. My point is

until digital is almost entirely one hundred, you know, we're

talking like ninety seven to ninety eight percent of sales

are digital. Sure, I understand at that point getting rid

of physical, but even when you get to that point,

the point that you brought Jeff of the free market

give us a choice that is so important, and that's

the thing that we're actually mad at because even if

people choose digital, they are choosing digital. They're not forced

to pick the only singular option that is available on

the table. They can go somewhere else if they want to.

And that's what's important, and that is what's being taken

away from us.

Speaker 1: Yes, exactly, Sean, and like and you know, just to

like reiterate your point there, Like, I'm looking at this

chart now, Game and Network Services Segment Supplemental inform from Sony.

Here's how it breaks down. Game software is the total

for the fiscal year of fiscal year twenty twenty five,

they sold a total of two point six million pieces

of software. And then they have two line items below

that where these are sub items. It's physical and digital.

So this is not like eighty five percent of a

game that is sold physically, well, eighty five percent of

those copies are actually all digital. No, it's eighty five

percent of total game sales are digital. That means all

the digital only games are included in that. So if

you actually look at a game that is physical and digital,

it is not going to be eighty five percent, it

is going to be much closer to sixty forty. That

is like, that's my gut reaction. That is me kind

of I'm definitely pulling that number out of my ass

a little bit. But that is going based on like

covering the stuff back when the numbers definitely got reported

and it was forty sixty four long time, forty digital,

sixty physical. Then it went fifty to fifty kind of

halfway through the PS four and stuff like that, and

then it kind of only ever got above there a

couple of times for a game that is on both

I bet it's much closer to sixty forty.

Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, and that it's very important to like, you know,

read the data as accurately as possible, and that there's

a request to not demand just please keep that in

mind when we're you know, quoting numbers.

Speaker 1: And like I can also I could be guilty of

the same line of thinking as a super chatter though, Sean,

Like when people talk about, hey, they don't make good

romantic comedies anymore, like especially once to go out to

the theater, it's like, yeah, because the consumer stays home

and watches those on Netflix, and they'll watch the crappy

ones and it kind of doesn't matter. So why would

someone make that movie if they can, if it doesn't

feel like an event that gets people out there? But

you know, so I could do that same thing of blaming.

Speaker 2: The trying to find the logic. I get.

Speaker 1: We try try to find the logic, right, So I

get this line of thinking. It's just like there's there's

more going on and we can't help. But you and

I be inundated and all this stuff, so it's like

we see through it a little bit more.

Speaker 2: That's all exactly, okay. Next is from Rob Foster Cosgrove.

Physical media news is bad all over, but the AU

market is fucked. You can get physical games on launch

date twenty to forty dollars cheaper than digital down here,

possibly is about to skyrocket for US twenty to forty

cheaper physically than digital. That is bad.

Speaker 1: That's crazy, And that's just like cause that market is

an afterthought to the digital stores and so they don't

care to like try to position things competitively. That sucks, dude,

I'm sorry, And and that's what's gonna happen kind across the

board here.

Speaker 2: And I I'll you know, I'll claim ignorance on this

one because I don't know how bad it is in

that market. But like Christian, I know you have a

problem with this all the time of like regional pricing.

Oh yeah, some people, some publishers just not doing it

and so things are insanely inflated for you when when

they should be priced, you know, the price should be translated, right, Yeah.

Speaker 7: He needs to adapt to what the the you know,

the income power of the depending power of the right,

the people that lives in that place. So sometimes it

gets you get games there are one hundred dollars and

it's like I can't spend one hundred dollars in the

video game this month. So yeah, right, it's stuff there.

Speaker 6: Good luck Australian, good luck.

Speaker 2: Good luck. Yeah all right. Next is from the Dubious Food.

My heart goes out to the impovers Sony Corporation during

this time of duress and hardship. I feel the need

to donate. Yep, thank you so much, Jay Tinch ninety

four It all caps infinite growth fuckers.

Speaker 1: Huh yeah, that continues to be the heart of it.

Where it's like, isn't Sony making more money than ever?

What else? What's the problem. It's like, yeah, but they're not.

I don't see where the next more money than ever

is coming from, so they have to kind of blow

up the whole house.

Speaker 2: Yeah, next is from Laosian, doesn't doesn't This opened up

Sony to the monopoly argument, and I would say it should.

But also, you know the lawyer is going to point

an Xbox and say, well, they still exist, and plaint

in a Nintendo and say that's our competition.

Speaker 1: Yep.

Speaker 2: You can only hope that some judge is going to say, no,

you borns, they're.

Speaker 1: Not right, because what factors into the pricing decision. And

it's like, we know that it was like competition with

the rest of the market, but yeah, the lawyer will

do tricks to make it seem like it is the

game on the Xbox, and it's like, no, the person

who is purchasing the game is actually usually not deciding

between getting it on a PlayStation and Xbox. It is

getting it digitally or at Walmart. And that's where the

competition came from and that's what defines the price.

Speaker 7: By the way, if this if di ever happened, which

is not gonna happen, but if it happens and he

gets to all the way up to whatever court to

what the Supreme Court.

Speaker 6: Guess who they're gonna side with.

Speaker 7: Like they're not gonna side with the consumer or whoever is,

like to say, with the corporation.

Speaker 1: I mean that's I was designed to protect oligarchy, is

what I'm learning recently. I'm sorry. Yeah, Like the Supreme

Court is there for a reason, and it's to do

exactly that.

Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, next is from Malley Miracle. I have never

seen an industry that hates their consumers more than the

gaming industry throughout the years.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, part of that's just us being cursed

with the knowledge of knowing these fucking companies, Right, but

you're not wrong that they especially once that just kind

of had it all. You have it all, You could

just keep kind of doing this and grow slowly and steadily.

But no, they can't do that.

Speaker 2: Like I was thinking about this earlier today, and I

was thinking of, like, who is truly evil? Who can

get away with evil stuff? And ah, right, music producers

because music industry is corrupt as hell. That's how we

get to stuff like Spotify and some rich ass dudes

just like make as much money as they can nobody

else gets anything, artists getting streaming revenue, which is like

fractions of pennies per play or whatever like that. So

that's the really really evil stuff. But yeah, yeah, that's

just because people can't talk back about music. Really. Hex

prof is back again. This same footshot happened with Unity

three D.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, these companies will kind of do a lot

of these moves of just making everybody hate you. In

one fell swoop because they think they found some new

money glitch.

Speaker 6: Yeah, Unity thing was crazy.

Speaker 7: They were like, if you if we're gonna charge you

as much, people like like how much people need stole

the games?

Speaker 6: Like wait, what, we don't gonna that's.

Speaker 2: Stupid, really dumb. Yeah, then we have slippery moose Cakes,

great name. Why not make the digital game slightly cheaper

and then have a print on demand system for physical

copies and you pay a little bit more because that

would make sense and they're not thinking.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, just you know, off like offload it.

You know, let one of these third party companies like

an iron a bit handle it for you, say, hey,

get big enough to do this for us, and or

just do it at the scale that you can do

it and sell it at whatever you need to sell

it at, and we could serve all these audiences, but.

Speaker 6: You're gonna get a better product.

Speaker 7: Also because like this, the people who is gonna make

the thing that the disc, they're not gonna make it obligation.

They're gonna make it because they're in that business. They

like that business instead of like the big companies.

Speaker 2: Uh, eat your vegetas is next. Xbox is being run

by Twitter and AI.

Speaker 1: Oh yep, and that's how the people working at those

studios feel. They're very frustrated because they feel like they

feel like they're the company is being run by Twitter

and AI. That's how they feel.

Speaker 2: So yeah, when you bring in a new leader, new

leader is supposed to have ideas of how to run

the company. She's not supposed to go to everybody else

and see what the armchair analysts want. Yep, hex prof

one more time, Sony and Xbox are competing for the

largest shit pile. Seems like that some days.

Speaker 1: Yep, it definitely does.

Speaker 2: Let's see and then my let's scrolled pass all of

hogs is next. Thanks for introducing me to dKu deals.

Last year, I got Dragon Quest three and Final Fantasy

Tactics for twenty bucks each have a good fourth.

Speaker 1: Yep, yep. If you are there, especially if you're hunting

for a digital game sales, Deco Deals continues to be

an excellent resource. They just kind of have a good

interface for finding sales.

Speaker 2: Yep. Find the deals where you can, right, Yep. The

drum Kit ninety two can't believe Xbox would make decisions

off community polls. Giant Bob would never do that. Unrelated

but can't wait for backlaur and the Cats suit meowiness.

Speaker 1: That's a good idea. I mean we should do something

with that.

Speaker 2: We should look that to a pole. Yeah, Laser Wolf

watching live Thanks the Holiday tomorrow and Mike isn't here.

Does he hate me?

Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what That's what he said.

Speaker 2: That's what called in. It was crazy laser Wolf.

Speaker 1: Yep. He's like, I think laser Wolf might be there.

I'm not going to be there today.

Speaker 2: Yeah, real jackass Uh Jedi Muss for Nintendo has made

mistakes and made bad decisions, but ultimately still believe their

solution to their problems is in making video games, and yes,

hit the nail on the head. Nintendo makes stupid business decisions,

anti consumer decisions all the time, at least they're making

video games in the process.

Speaker 7: They make so many video games, they're like they're having

like saved them enough, save for just in case for

a rainy day. They're like, we've got like a couple

of hitters here that we're just gonna sit on them.

Speaker 1: Yep. And then and then when they add new businesses

like movies and theme parks, it seems like they used

that as a way to launch new video games, which

continues to be the way they make money. So as

long as that continues to be the case, I will

continue to be like, all right, I think I'm once

again aligned with Nintendo, so I can still feel pretty

okay about it while recognizing they make many mistakes.

Speaker 2: Zombie Porin what tier leaker is the country of Brazil?

Speaker 1: That's an s tier leaker for sure, Tier one leaker

of the year.

Speaker 6: Please, I've been pretty leaky pretty good leakers. That sounds bad?

Speaker 2: You have knowledge, dang. Next is the drum Kid ninety

two number one just picked up Makin X on Dreamcast today,

looking forward to playing it this weekend. It seems rad

has anyone played it before? Thoughts on it? Yeah, this

is the shin Macgammi tense game that they put out

on Dreamcast.

Speaker 1: I believe was it? Is it like a like a

hacket slash game?

Speaker 2: Is that?

Speaker 1: Yeah? I think it's first slash interesting.

Speaker 2: Yeah, because the the like, I forget how many SMT

games are like this specifically, I don't think many, but

at least the first two PERSONA games had like first

person dungeon crawling. It seems like, yeah, they played off

of that. But hacking slash game.

Speaker 1: Man, that looks pretty slick, cool man, Dreamcast games rule

love the.

Speaker 2: Dreamcast h T bucket. While I have bought more digital games,

I bought physical games for my brother for birthday gifts

in the past. No more disc games, no more disc

game gifts will suck.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean god, I you know, I just remember

many times in my life giving video games physical games

to other people as gifts, and like, when you get

it right, it feels so good. So it's just a shame.

Speaker 2: Yeah, uh Nintenderic. The video game industry sure confirms my

thoughts on capitalism being a bad system every single day,

doesn't it.

Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not not really made any of it better. Like,

I mean, people will argue what capital is, what was

what got us the systems in the first place, And

I just it was academics and stuff. Yeah, yeah, I

mean the reality is like the history computers is, it's

all of it. It is all of it working to

get there. It is academics, it's uh, state funding usually

for military applications, but state funding that would fund science.

It is then like private entrepreneurs forget yes, yeah, yes,

since competition, right, but it is like that is the

history of computers. It is shows how when all those

things are healthy and working together, that it can actually

produce some really amazing things. And I think what we're

seeing is there is one part of that that is

quote unquote healthy, and that is capitalism, and the rest

of it's withering on the vine. And that's how things

go so bad.

Speaker 2: Anyone's wondering why I keep eating my hairs because I

have a fan over there blowing in this direction. Well,

the central air ac on me because we only have

so much of b in this frinkingdink apartment. Next is

boondog All Hobbies. Literally just saw a Sony ad for

a PS five disc drive for eighty bucks on Facebook.

I feel sick.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I just, I just, I mean, I don't get

why they don't just let it peter out. It would

be it's going they're going to get what they want anyhow,

Like people are going to just keep going more digital

than physical naturally, as as we just sort of talked about,

like these things could just happen because they could just

make it more convenient, and uh, yeah, I just don't

get why they don't let it happen naturally.

Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like it's so easy to do. It's all

they needed to do, and it's just you didn't have

to play things out this way, you know.

Speaker 1: That's yep.

Speaker 2: I don't see them reversing course unfortunately.

Speaker 1: Yeah, me neither.

Speaker 2: Yeah, hex prof snucknar one in here. Sony made happy

console game er sad? What the fuck?

Speaker 1: So?

Speaker 2: Yeah, did you see that GVG clip going around where

they have the good vibes gaming? I intro of just

like GVG pops up on screen at Casta them as

just John going fuck, that's good, and I was like, oh, no,

bad vibes gaming.

Speaker 1: Yeah, like butt blood curdling screams and it's just like

the event Horizon Ship or whatever.

Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like Mike just screaming NonStop during the BombCast

on Tuesday. Okay, zombie pouring, putting another one on a

lighter note after these heavy topics. If Dan were to

die via lightning strike, how long would it take Grub

to ask Finelli to join Blake Club.

Speaker 1: Oh yeah, like the ten fifteen minutes.

Speaker 2: Yeah sounds right. You know you got replacements lined up,

don't worry. Oh yeah, we have to in the case

of Dan Zac's ac. I love all the old game

content recently, Endurance run the handheld stream, this is the

run Blake Club, especially in this climate. I'm just getting

into retro achievements on Sean's recommendation p penis.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know. I keep thinking about, like, could

we do some content aroundtro retro achievements. Maybe we should

idea Yeah, okay, maybe we should start with like a

general stream kind of showing it off, and then maybe

go with a focused idea so we'll coot to it over.

Speaker 2: Got it's a structured idea.

Speaker 1: Okay, I love that. I love that. Okay, fantastic.

Speaker 2: Next The Doubler twenty three. I just bought the Last

of Us part one on eBay for forty five dollars.

It's still ninety dollars. Digitally, I'm saying, that's like Canadian

or something.

Speaker 1: It's just like you wouldn't have bought it, right if

that wasn't the op, if you didn't have the option

to get the forty five dollars verse right, the doubler, Like,

it's not like they lost forty five dollars. They gain

like what you got it on eBay, But it's like

like you got a chance to play it, and now

you're using the platform, you're engaged, And I think they

should take that as a win instead of looking at

this as, oh, this person would have spent ninety dollars

if they couldn't get it for forty five. There's no

way you were gonna buy that for ninety. So I

just don't again, like it might move a couple percentage

points of people toward spending more money, but a lot

of people are just gonna choose to do other stuff

with their time, like Nikki was saying.

Speaker 2: Exactly, And it's like, if if you can't get your

games for forty five dollars, you're just not going to

buy the thousand dollars machine. Yeah, so, and that's the

bigger problem for them in the long run. And then

last one for now. Cono necho sama. Hopefully everyone has

a fun and safe weekend. What's your favorite fire work

and grilled food?

Speaker 1: I like the firework that looks like the weeping Willow

tree where it kind of like all spreads down in

a really like satisfying and slow motion way. That's my

favorite firework. And then my favorite grilled food is I mean,

I like it all, but I know on a fourth

of July, I think I probably just do want a

hot dog. That's that's good stuff. How about you, Sean, I.

Speaker 2: Got some beer broughts in the fridge. I'm looking forward

to frying up. That's good stuff for sure. Yep, some beer,

brought some potato salad. It's gonna be a good time.

And then based on where I live, we don't do

fireworks here anyways. Based on where I live, we still

do fireworks here. So I like the little guys that

like spin around on the ground as like a sparkler

kind of thing.

Speaker 1: Oh I love those two absolutely.

Speaker 2: Yeah, for like a smaller scale one. That is it

for out Jeff and insane amount of super chest Thanks

everybody for support everybody.

Speaker 1: Yeah, it means the world, it really does, all right,

Good job, Sean reading all those let's go to a break.

We'll come back. We're gonna talk about what we've been

what we've been playing. Show has been going on a

long time. I'm trying to do a quick one like

goal pace and here we are. It's eleven o'clock. All right,

we'll be right back, all right, Sean. Uh yeah, no,

no segment tonight. We did have one maybe we're going

to do and Christians like, ah, we'll see how how

long we go. And I think we probably went too long.

So instead we're too long.

Speaker 6: Brother a game though for the next you know.

Speaker 1: Then yeah, time, We've got some stuff in our pocket

for when for next week and when I'm back after that. Okay, Sean,

what have you been playing?

Speaker 2: I can keep this quick, Jeff, because it hasn't been much.

I've been floating a little bit, so mostly some older games.

Hey actually, wait a second, way saying, yep, entirely old games.

This past week, that's the last time we talked. Uh,

you know a new game that is actually an old game.

I did play star Fox. I did do a full

run normal route and the hard route.

Speaker 1: Yep.

Speaker 2: And I think star Fox for an Intel switch too

is a very pretty version of Star Fox sixty four

and that's about it.

Speaker 1: Yeah, but yeah, and that's I mean, you just exactly

what it is. And uh, I think whether it's gonna

hit is going to depend a line on the person. Generally,

it seems like most people are like, yeah, that kind

of rules, and I think for me, it like I'm

in that bucket that kind of rules, with the caveat

of like I hope this just leads to more starfucks

and it does feel that way. But you know, as

far as playing this game, when I'm playing it, I'm

having a really good time, just like I always do

playing Star Fox sixty four.

Speaker 2: Yeah, and like it is one of those rare cases

where I do actually wish even as a budget game.

You know, I had the same experience with Invincible Verses

even as a budget game. For what's there, I do

wish it was even just a little bit cheaper, even

like ten bucks cheaper.

Speaker 1: At forty dollars, this is like a this is a

real banger.

Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, forty t that make sense. Okay, you're remaking

one of the all time greats. Like it probably did

take quite a bit of where to like put out

a game that looks as good. But at the same time,

there's not a ton of content in there unless you

really get into a multiplayer. So yeah, I still love it.

Though I'm a huge Star Fucks fan. It's one of

my favorite video game series and so seeing it sixty

four is a masterpiece of a game. Look this good,

having all the little flavor between the different characters and

everything like that. I love Kat in this game. They

overhauled Cat and she's awesome now and I had a

good time with it, even if Yeah, it's I think

it's an unexciting project. Is kind of how I would put.

Speaker 1: The characterization of all the characters. I know there's some

stuff that's added new you into that. I know you're

a Star Fucks person.

Speaker 2: Yeah, Like it's kind of all stuffed. That is alrighty there.

It's kind of like, you know, like when they really

address Samus being a bounder hunter and a bounty hunter

in the Prime series, it's like, this isn't necessarily something

you get in the two D games as much, but

it's always been there, so it makes sense for them

to all that out, and I think all the characters

are a characterized good in uh, the six Star fucks remake.

I think some of the voice performances are buying like

they're well done. It's just like there's not the character

of like, you know, Falco being from Brooklyn basically or

something like that. So I think they kid used a

little bit more of that, but it is nice to

like get some of the extra lore drops as well,

and you know, like, uh, I think it was revealed

in this game, like your cat being part of Falco's

old crew and like adding little bits of flavor like

that was really nice.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't I don't remember if the whole thing

about the the Big Ship being like the.

Speaker 2: Great Fox being on loan for eighty years.

Speaker 1: Yes, yes, having a Yes, having a mortgage, Yeah, mortgage.

That that that that Fox is still paying back even

though it's dead.

Speaker 2: I believe that's new.

Speaker 1: Yes, that kind of stuff. I'm like, oh man, there's

something about that that really hits. And I kind of

like kind of hope that is that is part of

the next game where it's like you are making money

to pay off the ship or whatever. That could be

a fun system to miss around with. I hope that's

what they're table setting here. No idea if they actually

are but if Vellin Studios is gonna get the follow up,

I think they can handle.

Speaker 2: I do hope. I really hope this is a repeat

of the Metroid situation where you know, Mercury Steam did

SAMs Returns to prove that they could do an original one.

I hope this is val and getting their chance to like, hey,

we did a great remake of Starfux sixty four NINTEO

season numbers angries, and they're like, yep, all right, yeah,

permission making a new one. Let's go, We'll get the budget.

Al yeah, So I mister now has a wider support

for retro achievements beyond just like the nes NS was

like the first core to get an updated with miss

retro achievements support. Now Super Nintendo Denesis and sixty four

and PS one, you can get retro achievements on your

mister choice, including my superstation over here. It was very cool.

I was streaming the r day ging achievements in Super

Mario sixty four on something resembling original hardware. That was

very cool. So I love that they add that and

then another sort of mod type of thing. I did

discover IW four X for the first time, which is

a community fix and mod and like framework for Modern

Warfare two, the original multiplayer on PC. Okay, yeah, and

that's had security issues for a long time. The performance

wasn't great, it didn't have controller support, and they fixed

all that. It's it's more secure now. It has a

server list where you can go, and there's like people

do community servers and stuff like that. There's performance tweaks.

So I was running at two hundred and forty fps

at fourteen forty p and it has native controller supports,

so I got to play with my Xbox with am

assist just like it kind of feels like playing MW

two as it should have been remastered this whole time

instead of just the campaign, and it feels like I'm

kind of even though it's only PC, it kind of

feels like almost play being able to use my controller

against people with keyboard mouse and then you know, like

with our people with controllers and everything like that. So yeah,

i W four x's name of the mod. I believe

there's some copycast scam sites, so I'll even like get

the r L I U S so.

Speaker 1: I W four dot com.

Speaker 2: Sorry, go ahead, Oh yeah, Mike, Mike knows, he knows

all about uh yeah, I W four X the number

four dot io is the r L I okay yeah

it uh. Me and my friends play at the R

night and it was like we're, you know, back in

high school, the good old days of just like you know,

staying up, like playing in Marrow Warfare two. It was

it was a fun time.

Speaker 1: Okay. Man, that's that's really cool, although very illegal according

to the es. Are all right, he uh uh all.

Speaker 2: Right, anything else, Sean, that's it from me, how about you, Jeff?

Speaker 1: Rhythm Heave and Groove. I reviewed it over in Giant Bomb.

It's doing all right in the on Open Credit and

stuff like that. Run at eighty three eighty four or something,

and I think that's about right. It is for me.

It's like, man, this is still rhythm Heaven. The songs,

the music really good. The games that you're doing are

in that right and that sweet spot of it's simple inputs.

You are either pressing a or one of the direction buttons,

and that's kind of it, and that's that's ideal. But

then like sort of the rhythms that come at you

or like sort of the setups for pressing the buttons.

So a lot of times there are audio cues. Those

will come hot and heavy, or they'll have some sort

of little twist to them, and you have to keep

up with it. So it's like that's where the depth

and the complexity comes from. And so it's simple and

complex at the same time. And so that's exactly what

you want from a rhythm game, but especially Rhythm Heaven,

it's always been really good at that. There's just something

occasionally a little off with the way the game looks,

especially like the menus. I wish I had like a

screenshot of that, open that first menu, but it just

looks like Unity placeholder stuff. It looks very generic. And

then that does cross over into some of the mini

games here and there, where I think the art looks

a bit stiff, a little bit generic, not across the board,

and a lot of times it's very cute and very

well done. Most of the time it is, so it's

just occasionally I'm gone, huh and I raised my eyebrow

a little bit, and then the song plays and that

sort of all washes away, and then you know, eighty

five percent of the time, it's like, no, this level

just looks really cute, this is great art. I'm having

a wonderful time with no caveats, so a worthy sort

of follow up to what has happened with Rhythm Heaven

and like one of these great fun games to get

at the somewhat discounted price on switch to a switch

and switch to of fifty dollars. I think this is

what this one is. So yeah, I don't know, have

you ever been into a Rhythm Heaven game. I'm not

sure if that's ever been your thing.

Speaker 2: No, just because you know, it is sort of one

of those that kind of just flew under the radar

in general, and I think I want to go back,

and I want to play not the Original Guy Translator,

game Boy Advance. I had to go through all of them,

so it's easy to do so now because I do

love warrio Ware and I do love rhythm games.

Speaker 1: So it seems like a me, that's that team Rhythm

Heaven megamix on it was three d.

Speaker 2: S right, it was at the yes three yes, yes.

Speaker 1: Yes, that's a that's a good way to sort of

get a good glimpse of the whole series for sure, gotcha, Uh,

that's kind of it for me. I've also been pretty busy.

There's you know, some other stuff I can't talk about

quite yet, but some stuff I'll be able to talk

about soon. Yeah, do that when I get back. I

think I think that's said Sean. Any other super chats?

Speaker 2: No, But did you see the message from one to

more Hussein in the chat?

Speaker 1: Oh? No, I might have missed it. What's up?

Speaker 2: He said? Hello? Everyone, please support the UTEP minors. Thank you.

Speaker 1: You and Nicky were talking earlier, and something I'm like,

is that Tam And I look down and my Instagram

just had a picture of this. Maybe AI created a

mascot for the U TAP minors and it just looks

like it looks like it sounds like Tam. It looks

so much like Tam. It was very distracting. Check out

you want to posted on Blue Ski. Everybody go check

that out?

Speaker 2: All right?

Speaker 1: Yeah? Like I said, any did you say there's no

other super chats?

Speaker 2: Nope. We are caught up long episode for a big

news day, So let's get out here, Jeff.

Speaker 1: Yeah, fantastic. Sean. Tell people where they can find you

on the internet, what you have going on, where they

could catch your streams stuff like that.

Speaker 2: Yeah, Turbo Shawn everywhere on the internet. Shawn I stream

nowadays on twitch do tv slash Turbo Shawn on Saturdays

and Sundays noon Central for like four or so hours,

and then I post the VODs over on my YouTube

channel the same name. You know what I asked people

to show up for, like the superstation video that I

put up on the YouTube channel, and hey, people showed up,

So thanks everybody. First week, just a VOD upload of

a stream that I did to get like over twelve

hundred views, was like really cool. So I'm glad people

found that informative. I liked doing stuff like that.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you were smart to kind of present

it like this could be a show as well. So

so that's a good way to do something like that.

So yeah, well done.

Speaker 7: All right links on the description for the people listening.

Speaker 2: Thank you, Christian.

Speaker 1: Well, I'll make Mike figure out what's happening next week, everybody,

but he's he's planning to do shows. Yeah, these guys

figure it out, probably exactly so, but yeah, so tune

in for last than nintend Dogs next Tuesday and uh

and decides on next Thursday. And then of course got

us doing stuff during the day over on Giant Bomb.

That's always happening and uh, this is the run just

started over there with Mike playing Sewer Shark and it's

uh we were we balk recorded a handful of episodes practices,

uh you know, tech tests, it's it's it gets wacky,

So definitely tune in for more of that on on Saturday.

But yeah, boy, I am looking forward to this, uh

you know, actually looking forward to the drive. I like

a roach, Sean, I like kind of hopping in the

van and yeah, just like sort of like, oh, I

have a something that can keep me engaged and I

don't have to think about anything else. You just got

to keep this thing going forward in a safe way.

So that's sort of a good way to begin to

begin unwinding at the beginning of a trip. And then man,

I just like Traverse City a lot. That's that's my

kind of sound. Thanks for listening, everybody, You're the best

audience in gaming. Have a good one, take care of yourself,

and goodbye.

Speaker 2: Let me see if Windows wants to give this one

to me.

Speaker 1: Man, for so long I fantasized about sucking their own dick.

Make sure you get a good screenshot on this ball.