Protectiveness of First Party IP

Greetings and salutations, welcome back to Sacred Symbols, a PlayStation podcast. This is episode number four hundred and thirteen. My name is Colin Moriarty. I'm joined as always by my son Chris Raygun. Chris, good to see you today, my friend. How are you? I'm okay. I'm all right. I w I was uh I was up late last night watching nature documentaries for some reason. Hell yeah. Love that. David Attenborough? Not specif I mean, every everything is kinda that though, isn't it? You know what I mean? Like people try to do it. The David Attenborough, it's like it's like a baseline for that kind of thing. Yeah, he's he's awesome. Didn't we just talk about him a couple of weeks ago? I feel like we did. Yeah, because he's like a hundred or something, right? Yeah, and I was watching him on an in an ant documentary. That's what it was. Did you this has Almost nothing to do. I don't know why this reminded me. I don't know why this conversation reminded me of this. Did you see that Robert Pattinson is playing Chris Hansen in a movie? Dustin, you sent me that. But when I went to respond to it, I couldn't find where you sent it to me. Oh, it's in the general chat of the Oh, with Discord. In Discord. I went to re so I saw it and then I w I I saw the message. And then I didn't have time and I watched it later and then I went to respond to the text. And I was like, I could have sworn Dustin showed me this. Yeah, it was it was up a bit 'cause Maddie was posting some I don't know some bullshit wasn't important and it got buried. Um Yeah, interesting. So what is that movie? So it's about it's literally about Date line. And like the people that killed 'Cause that guy killed himself, right? And then like that that whole thing like kind of blew up for NBC. And that's why he had to leave. I think so. You would know. I I just saw that teaser trailer pop out of nowhere and I was like, What? And then I watched it. And I was like, Okay. River Panson's a great actor, like honestly, like He ha he somehow continues to not have the s he's not had the same voice in any movie I've ever seen him in. Which is interesting to me. I'm just like no nobody really Does that kind of thing anymore, but like the t the trailer opens up and he goes So you know how this looks. And I'm like I was like, this is job sold on whatever this is this is an insane premise. Robert Pattinson is Chris Hansen, but I'm I'm down. Yeah, I'd like to know more about that because They got into a bunch of legal inbo. I think they got sued at the time. And then but he just does it still on his own. Like w not even under the protection of NBC. So It's called what is it called? Something with Hans Hansen versus Predator or something? Hansen versus Predator was one of them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or at least I know that was one of the things he did. He's uh 'cause I I think the guy I've told you guys this in the past that like one of the first people that were caught in that was this rabbi from Maryland who was my my friend in college's rabbi, which was oh shit, amazing. You know, that is that is actually crazy. True blue. It's his company. True Blue, right, right. It's like a y a pretty popular YouTube channel. I watch it sometimes and he's like, thank you for watching, but there's something you should know. And then he like but then he like goes in his his His intonation is excellent. Like S tier. Very funny. He's got a great way of delivery. It's good stuff. So you know it gets a little bit old now, you know, like it's like all right, how many the thing is like how are people still getting caught? That is the you'd think that when you know you're being watched, it's probably a trap. You you'd think that In the in the uh I don't know. Community. Let's say. You'd think that the uh that he would be like the Baba Yaga or something. Right. Right. Like it's just like oh, you don't think Chris Hans is out there? He's like the boogie like Slender Man. Or something. Like he's out there waiting to get you. You you don't think there's anything suspicious about being asked to go to like a home? Like I I don't I don't know. It just seems kinda crazy all of it. But it it really does. Like I don't understand people don't understand about that there being a materially high percentage that you are being. Fucked with. Yeah. And This has been now going on on TV for 20 years. But you know how y you know how I feel about it, though? I feel the same way about that that I feel about You ever see like a I mean I I I guess it circles back, but yeah You ever see like nature documentaries and been millions of years of evolution behind these creatures, right? And then like a roach just wanders up. To like a chameleon or something. You know? As if it doesn't understand like as if by now it shouldn't know. The rules at this point. Like no. I'm just like, I guess. Yeah, it's just the it's like us with uh how we didn't change for like 300,000 years. Like we discovered fire and then nothing nothing changed. Because you have to have 'cause like there has to be a cockroach. Understands. And then is able to par away and survive that information. Right. There is there is like the the the upper percentile cockroach that just kind of get like, Hey, don't go over there. That's a lizard. He needs to be knowledgeable and breedable. Right. And survive and then be able to parlay that information. There was that really one smart roach that could have taken them to glory, but He was a fucking loser. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the problem. Complete dweeb, Clef Pallet. Huh. Uh Yeah, he it's interest I've thought about this a little bit about like How many times did humans like Primitive humans discover things. The same thing. Oh, before it could be like permanently communicated. In other words, like metallurgy, right? The idea of like taking the stuff stuff and melting it down. That must have been discovered a bunch of times. And then people just died. Like they did it accidentally. I've I've thought about that a million times. It's the same thing with like language or agriculture. It's like We they eventually got it and it spread, but like it must have happened. Yeah. This is like a first person to discover something. But then there's the first person to discover something and not die. Right, exactly. And and be able to convey the Convey the the the value of it, I guess. It's so interesting. Love that shit. And and and and it as we say all the time, unknowable. Unknowable information. Never know. Yeah. Which is the Anyway, that's me. That's what I'm doing. Yeah, welcome to Sacred Symbols. It's good to see you as always. Um LA, what what's going on in LA with the election? Is it is it is it as uh heated as it seems from the outside? I have d I have not noticed a single thing. Really? Yeah. I is there an election going on in LA? Well the I think it's like the first round of the mayoral Stuff with uh Bass and Spencer Pratt? Oh yeah. That's the guy from the uh reality show, right? Yeah, because that's it. Is it the OC? Uh no, I th I well may oh no that wasn't a reality show. Uh uh Laguna Laguna H beach. Laguna Beach or something like that. It was like one of those shows. Yeah, I remember hearing that name and I was like, Oh, that's a reality TV show guy. So I assume now that that's That's the person who's gonna win? I don't know. I don't have any insight. I have no idea. Oh yeah, I thought I I was just interested 'cause everyone's talking well, not it seems like it's a big talking point. I w I wonder what it's like actually there. Well you now we know. Yeah. Yeah. Fair enough. To be honest, I like I'm so I'm not invested in California as or like LA as a s like I I don't give a shit Yeah, I don't care. I mean I I care I care more about The entire East Coast. Right. Quite frankly, that I than I care about LA. But I mean uh I'm sure something's going on. Yeah, I feel this I feel the same way when I lived in California. I was like, I don't really care. Yeah, I can just leave it any time. Right. I don't have I have roots here kinda but like not like you know, like uh it's not real. But I think uh There was Like an epoxy warehouse that was like kind of expl like almost going to explode. In Orange County and then it they just didn't And that was kind of a big story for like a a day or two. It's like is it gonna explode? Interesting. It's down by uh by Bradley. Yeah, Bradley could have been could have been uh Could have been uh uh permanently etched as a shadow into a wall. Right. A nuclear bot a nuclear shadow. Um Dustin Furman, executive producer. Good see you today, my friend. How are you? I am just fine. Couple things going on. First of all, I got a hot date. Tonight. Uh to go see Backrooms movie. Oh yeah. So I'm excited about that. And then tomorrow I'm going on a Well I wanna call it we're calling it a camping trip, but it's in a it's in a cabin. So it could be considered glamping. Yeah, that sounds all right. That's right. But that's that's fine. It's not it's about You know, being with the boys. Hanging out, drinking some beers, being away for a little bit before it's baby time. So yeah. Looking forward to that. Uh so Well see, I I'm unsure how much even reception I'm going to have. So Don't worry, nothing content wise is gonna be mixed up. Lockmort's gonna be watching over things. It's a it's like a little pre trial for him. So it's all gonna be scheduled. All he need the he literally has one thing to do. He has to set Defining Duke live on YouTube on Sunday. Yeah, we'll see. That's it. I'm still waiting after that. It's Thursday today. He didn't he say on the stream that he would have his new edit Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday? That is correct. That's correct. First of all, who says something like that? It'll be done either Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday. And then he misses all three of them. Wildly unimpressed with it right now. Yeah, go on. We didn't ask for a deadline. No, he gave him he volunteered. He gave himself a deadline. Three of them. And then he d he didn't meet his own deadlines. So it's it's not pressure from us. But the once you give the deadline, it's like You did it. You did that to yourself. So Curious guy. Last stand right in, man. Said Sir Dustin, now that the big wigs at A twenty four reposted your tweet about seeing backrooms. Where will your A twenty four logo tattoo be placed? That is true. Also, how was it? But you haven't seen it yet. So you're saying that that's what you were going to do. So those aren't your pictures. My pictures are just from Google images. I just went and searched Pittsburgh Mills, which is that did that get a lot of likes that tweet? Uh yeah. I was shocked because I I knew I was like oh people will find this interesting, but That tweet in particular Uh has half a million views, twenty seven K likes, one point seven K retweets. I don't think I've ever had twenty seven thousand likes on anything I've ever said before. Yeah, I I don't know. So The uh but yeah, eight twenty four retweeted it. So now here's what I was considering, Colin. Mm-hmm. Uh both For last stand and for my own YouTube channel, I have a strict I keep the same policy, like I'm not uh taking any gifts of or like travel and And doing advertisements for video games. Let's start taking the bag on movies, A twenty four? I can I'm willing to show for it. You know, I guess here's the thing though, they don't need me. Yeah. Posted that tweet like a chump. I got them half a million views of advertising and I get nothing out. Zero dollars. You got you get some Elon bucks, I guess. I'll get the I get like a hundred dollars every four months, so Yeah, I think I made sixty dollars the last the last pay quarter, which is like I'm not even trying to make money, but I'm like, All right, it's fine. It's something, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. I'm curious, Colin, because you're not I've heard that like to people outside of the internet culture. Explaining the backrooms to anybody is like Literally impossible. Yeah, you can't do it. Like you don't you have no idea about what backwards is, right? No. It's an image that became popular from 4chan. about like a space between reality where there's only Like yeah, liminal space with like yellow walls and stuff like that. And so This Literal kid, like I think he was 15 years old, made a YouTube series about it. And now he's twenty one and he directed this movie. For eight twenty four. On ten million dollars and it's going to make like eighty. million this weekend. People are being really weird about that. It's like oh I saw like a conspiracy theory about like they got an older guy directing this. Like a twenty one year old can't direct the movie. As if we as if we don't have like As if Sam Raimi didn't do Evil Dead when he was like twenty one or like Steven Spiel worked at Jaws when he was like twenty six. Yeah. These this this has happened forever. Yeah, I mean weird. I would imagine certainly that he would need assistance in how to operate a Hollywood level film set. But a girl's direction, it's like, come on, man. That's okay. Yeah, there's always assistant directors and direct and assistant directors and directors of photography and all that kind of thing there's a there's teams. I d I I don't know. That was crazy to me. I was it's like, are we living in the same reality? I guess not. So that's all that's going on. For me, right. And now Colin. How are you? Oh. So interesting you asked that. Thank you. You want to I'm I'm a I'm fine. Yeah, I'm well. Uh tired. As always, uh not sleeping great, but I think a lot of that has to do with just I I texted you last week. I was like quite the time to unwind for my LexaPro. Oh yeah. Um Really great timing on that. Like nothing happens for years. And I'm I'm a I'm a zombie, basically. Um But I feel good. I'm losing weight randomly, and I think it has to do with The Lexa Pro? Oh, I thought you were gonna say the trophies. Oh, the trophies the trophy scare caused Colin to lose weight. I can believe that. I respect it. I was getting now, I'm much more muscular than I ever w have been. I mean I'm not musc, you know, I'm not like a muscle man by any structural imagination, but for me. I have a lot more like muscle bulk on my Arms and chest especially, but my legs are pretty big too, so I try not to and that's heavier than you know fat weight, so I try not to like judge too much, but when I left California, I was between one eighty and one eighty five and I really wasn't working out at all at that point. And then I got up to almost like one ninety five. In fact, it's a joke. with Micah where like we went to the doctor and I always take her I always take her with me back there because I I'm like I need someone else to listen. Like, you know, like if there's like like the things they're telling me, like I'm like I feel like I forget half the shit that they even say to me. And they weighed me. And it was like 193 or whatever, and I'm like, I'm like, I don't buy Mike thinks it's so funny because I was like, I don't buy that. to the nurse and I asked for another scale and she just looked at me and then we went into the room. That is crazy. Why? Very, very funny. Uh well I'm just like I couldn't believe that I was I I was that heavy. But then I I have been weighing I try to weigh myself too much because I feel like it becomes an obsession. So I just weigh myself randomly every couple weeks or whatever and I I'm down to like 183 or something. And I'm like, that's like w what I was weighing when we started Sacred Symbols. Um so I I feel I feel so from that perspective, I feel pretty good. Micah thinks a lot of it comes from me just not snacking. Instead instead of le like I love cashews and like weird shit that's just like really high calorie. And I try to eat some of those after dinner, like, you know, when I'm snacking it, but then I just snack and snack and snack and snack and she's noticed that I just have exceed instead leaned into just eating like a second. Not a meal, but like kind of. Like I'll make like four eggs in a bagel or something. And then that's just like so much better for you. Uh, ironically, then whatever else was going on. So yeah, so that that's good. I'm feeling good there. Uh Gardens are looking good. The pool is done, except for I have to get the liner. Um But uh everything back there is done. I paid for it. Very painful. Check the right. Um What else? I don't know. I guess that's kinda it. It's hot as fuck. Um And yeah, that's uh that's basically it. I'm just playing, you know, trying to play some games and enjoy some you know, it's uh playoffs for the the Knicks. Uh then I'm not a basketball fan, but the well I like basketball. I don't really like the NBA. I think the NBA kind of sucks, actually, but the Knicks are uh In the finals. I don't know if you saw that, Chris. Yeah, I did which is a huge deal. Um They been they've been doing really well, apparently. Like insanely well. Yeah, this is their first trip back to the finals, I guess, since the late nineties, which I remember that I was in high school. And they people don't realize how bad the Knicks are. like historically, 'cause they're like a a big New York team, but it's like they're like not they they have done shit. They're more like a brand. Um At least in in my experience. But they're doing so well that I know about it. You know what I mean? Like that's how Gwell they do. Like, I have no reason to know that. I've never paid I don't think I've ever paid attention to I don't know anything about basketball. At all. I think the Knicks are literally the only team that I I know of. Interesting. You don't know the Celtics? What's that? Uh, interesting. Yeah, like I I thought that that was a football team. Oh yeah, that's that's a b that's a basketball team. I I've been so I've been w you know I've said it before. I I I I love all sports, really. I love sport, but the NBA is so whack, like that the The flopping that's going on, especially in the Oklahoma City. series and just the the fucking constant traveling and const like it's like they don't call anything. It's just a we it's just weird. College basketball, in my opinion, is so much better to watch, but The game is awesome and I've been kind of paying attention to the Nicks just for the spiritual kind of I'm from born and raised in New York. I know how painful the Knicks have been for a lot of my friends for many years. You know, th it w then in the nineties they were decent. The Ewing era. Um But uh Yeah. So it's just from that perspective, it's it seems historic. I'm I'm rooting for them. And they swept the cabs, so now they're they're just waiting for the whoever wins on the West Coast so they can rest a little bit and see. See what happens. Anyway. So uh that and and of course we're in the uh ESPN. Doldrums where I'm like watching softball. By the way, I I've been meaning to shout this out. I might have done this in the past. Um let me see if I can There is a thing Called Well me see major Leag with the ball. Yeah, there's a thing called Major League Whiffle Ball. M L W that I've been watching on YouTube. And uh it was started by these like kids years ago. And it became it's gonna become this thing. where like they have sponsors and like their videos get shipped. Dude, it's so good. Like I l I guess like it' it's a wiffle ball league, but like with the Trappings of like real TV production. And like stats and all it's very exciting so I've been watching a little bit of that. It's fun. The summer is a little bit uh a little bit tired. From uh the T V perspective. I used to hate the summer when I was a kid. Because for like it was night it was n I always like the fall and the winter more than the summer, but so crazy. But like I like the time off. But I hated I hated TV just stopped. And you don't you're not really aware of that when you're a little kid. And it's not really relevant anymore in the streaming era, but like when you're a little kid, it's like, okay, everyone's seasons are done. And now there's nothing. Like but reruns and bullshit. And all of the rest. And I hated that when I was a kid because you like wanted to sit down and watch something, but you just couldn't do it. You just couldn't and you just didn't realise like I I never I never knew like when I was watching Nickelodeon. Or whatever. And uh Clarissa explains it all would come on or something. I'm like, I have no idea when this first aired. Like we're watching some some second season episode like many years later. You just had no idea. It was it but now but then you get older and you realize like, oh, this is the same shit over and over and over and over again. And I've been watching these reruns forever and there's no new content. So we don't long for that on YouTube. Certainly not. Welcome to Sacred symbols. The PlayStation Podcast goes live each and every week. We've gone live each and every week since July 2018, believe it or not. We are our our anniversary's coming up. Pretty quickly. Which is exciting. Uh, which would be July The July second? I have to look, I have to r to to remember, I don't really remember anymore. Shocking. Patreon.com slash last day media for early ad free access. to our show and a bunch of other perks as well. You get access to the Discord, uh, where a bunch of crazy people post. Uh RSS feeds and Spotify feeds if you wanna get the podcasts early and ad free without having to deal with Patreon itself, which is fine. You can just connect them. And send them over there. The ability to submit your inquiries on the threads in the newsfeed each week, you'll see and hear those throughout the show. I've already heard one of them actually. So get involved in there and of course early ad free access to these shows and Sacred Symbols Plus as well. Supplement to sacred symbols. Sacred Symbols is sponsored, remote therapy that can help you where you are. Lear more for yourself at betterhelp.com slash symbols where you can get 10% off your first session. As we roll into the summer months here in the northern hemisphere, have you considered letting all of this extra sunlight act as a sort of disinfectant? See, simply being outside in nature and under the sun can be good for you, mind, body, and soul, and that alone is great. But when it comes to your mind, your spirit, and your outlook, Therapy can be an exceptional force multiplier, because even if the sun is blazing, you may feel a little darker and colder within. As someone who has gone to therapy on and off since the early nineties, I can speak firsthand to its efficacy. Yet I also understand that there are enormous barriers to entry for lots of people. 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Visit medexpress.co dot uk slash podcast to learn more. Um So I'll get into this first. Sacred Simples Plus. I just recorded in an excellent episode. Uh of the show. with uh I have my notes here actually. Um Michael Kemp is his gu is his name. is his YouTube channel, T-H-E-K-E-M-P-Y. And uh he recently put up a video about the real Uncharted Four, like. what it was supposed to be before Amy Hennig was fired. And it was a great conversation. We go uh we go on, I think, for almost two hours. Um And he's so interesting and knowledgeable. I think people are really, really gonna like that episode a lot about the things he discovered and how he discovered them. and all of the rest. And so please look forward to that on Patreon.com slash last day media imminently. We also did a deep dive PS six conversation recently. We're gonna get to Saros and Pragmata. Uh Imminently. I think we'll record both of those next week. And then put those in the can. I was telling Dustin before we started recording as well that uh Gregory Loudden, the director of Saros, is gonna be on Sacred Plus in the coming weeks as well. I've been talking to house mark. About that. And uh that's basically it. We'll have Jaffy back soon as well and do a few other things. And then sacred streaming, we do have to talk about this. So I played chess last week. That was really fun. We were just relaxing and hanging out. Uh we did Pragmata. And Marathon, a bunch of stuff with that. Saints Slayer platinum run, vampire crawlers run. But what we're gonna do over the next few streams, I think. is kind of focused on this E three like era that we're in right now in the calendar. So Monday. First. at one PM we'll do state of play bets live. Um, and so uh I'm actually recording with Brad for Summenstein this weekend. to free up a schedule. So we'll do that. And then the state of play will be Tuesday, the second will do that. And then I don't really know if we'll do anything in between that. I have to like look at the schedule, but I think that following Sunday, which is the seventh. Is the Xbox conference. And I think we'll do that. And what we'll do. is we'll do that in lieu of a Monday stream that week. So I don't wanna do too much. Yeah, I think I I think enough's enough, to be perfectly honest. So that's kind of the plan. So there will pr almost certainly not be a stream on Monday the eighth. Because we will stream the seventh, which is a Sunday for the Xbox conference. So I think that that's kind of the preliminary plan. And I have to see who's available for all this stuff. But I assume the state of play stuff will be the three of us plus Brad. And then for the Xbox stuff, I don't know. Maybe we'll do it with the Dukes or something. So please look forward to it. Uh Griff Mo wrote in and said, Colin. Did the Patreon numbers see an increase following the recent free episode drop and the f associated media coverage? As an early PSN adopter and avid trophy collector, I truly appreciated your coverage. Enough to re-subscribe. Thank you for advocating for the community. Do you have any updates regarding the ongoing fight? Yeah, we had a nice bump, but I I didn't I we made it free, so it's not like We could I felt like it would have been really disingenuous for me to do that. That would have been a really big boost for us probably if I didn't do that. But it felt like I was kind of I don't want to say preying on the audience, but like I don't want to make money like that. It's we're trying to do Something good. Um or I am. It has really nothing to do with anyone else. Uh Updates. Yeah, not really. I mean, I am Mike and I have talked about it extensively, like I've spoken to Sony extensively. and given them a lot of information. We know a lot more about the situation than we've said publicly, as I said last week. 'Cause I don't think there's a a reason to talk about a lot of it publicly. I don't think it serves any purpose, but certainly that information privately um rendered is useful. Um I am I don't want to say I'm frustrated. I am bummed, I guess, sad that like it the story didn't really get picked up very much. I do appreciate Those who did write about it, um and cover it. Uh Kitaku, we talked about in Push Square, a bunch of different outlets have written about a PlayStation lifestyle. And people have covered it on their podcast. Spawnwave covered it on their podcast. Mystic. Thankfully covered it on his YouTube show. I'm grateful and thankful for all of that. But Us running this up the flagpole in a more public way would have and does require a lot more than that. And I can't force people to cover this thing that they're just not interested in or that they think that their audience is not interested in. And without that backing, it just becomes me bitching. And I bitch about everything. So it's not like that's gonna be very useful. Um So I'm kind of bound right now because I don't really know in which direction publicly to go. I know what I want to do and what I'm doing privately. Um But I think without a willing media and game space willing to kind of help me run this up the flagpole and make this a big deal, it's not gonna go anywhere. I mean, that's just the reality. So I've come to quickly accept that. And I've had a lot of private conversations trying to get people to cover things and trying to do it. Not for me, like Again, I got my account back. and my account flagged and, you know, hopefully locked down in some meaningful way. So it's not for me anymore. But it was it was really not for me that day. 'cause I got my account back. became for trying to stop this from happening to other people and convince Sony that they should do something about it. Now I have read interesting points and I think it's true. Should Sony be dealing with this behind the scenes? And I know that they are in a way. Like I know they're investigating it. I've talked to them extensively. and trying to out. They're not gonna say anything. Because and that is true, and that is kind of a bind for us because If they're like, yeah, we fixed it, then that's just a challenge. Right. to fuck with it again. And rather you just want to make it so that slowly the Nefarious powers that do this to innocent people on PlayStation Network will just try to find an easier corporate target. Nothing else needs to really be said. So I'm continuing to press behind the scenes. Um, I don't know that I have any Further updates. I I'm of a few minds with a few things like Again, talking to Hogue, and this isn't for me, I wouldn't want to be involved in this because there's no need for me to be involved in it. I got my account back and also it's just not something I want to deal with, but like For the many thousands of people that have clearly lost their accounts, it's like I refuse to believe that there's not some sort of class action. possibility with that. Like It just seems like it's straight up theft. And I think the thing that bothers me about it is that a person gets their shit stolen from them. And then the company that's supposed to help them shuts them out. And that to me is just so painful to think about and so awful. You know, you care about PlayStation, you buy their games, you do all these things, and then they just they don't give a shit. after a while. And I understand their perspective of saying like things get so muddled by design behind the scenes that they simply cannot verify who they are talking to anymore. There comes a point where it's like, we don't know who owns this account. And I'm like, but that's that's you getting confused. Like you let that happen. So it is my hope that They're pay they certainly are paying a lot more attention to it. And I'm gonna keep banging the drum and I am I appre I put out on Twitter I appreci I I uh I was like, I would like to do like sh I I don't usually do podcast appearances. Occasionally I do, but I turn most of the shit that I get offers down. But I was like I would be happy to do l larger shows of size in order to kind of get this to do this, but I just never even got the opportunity. A lot of people reached out to do their shows and we reached out to and Mike is still reaching out to those people. I don't want to be a dickhead. Us doing smaller shows makes no sense. Right. Like because we're not trying to do things by volume. We're trying to do things by meaning. So like if we only had one platform or another platform to use, we could just do another show on this network. You know what I mean? Right. So I wrote to some of the people. I wrote to some of the people specifically. People I've been on their shows before where I'm like, it is no disrespect to you. I will be happy to do your show. at a time in the near future this summer or whatever, about another topic. That's not it at all. It's to say that like we need Bigger shows to cover this. Otherwise we are spinning our wheels. Literally running it up, not literally, but running it up the flagpole. Um if we do like small shows with a thousand viewers, it's like, well, that doesn't do anything for me. That doesn't do anything for us or the story at all. It's fun. and I'll talk to you about something else. So yeah, those are the kind of conversations we've had. It's become quite Frustrating because People have fallen into the trap that I have fallen into, had fallen into, and will still continue to fall into in many different ways, which is that There are so many things to focus on. What do you want me to do? It's it's it's kinda how I feel about like what's been going on in Ukraine. I'm like, I don't know, dude. There's a bunch of other shit like closer to home. You know what I mean? Like. Conflicts and things that involve us. Like I can't, I can't I don't have the bandwidth. to deal with all this geopolitic. And it's the same thing in The real world where it's in in my world, where it's like I got Eight million other things to worry about, man. Like I can't only focus on this. I need people to take it off my plate and help me. And that's not happened. So you can't really the but the point is you can't blame them. Because that was me. So What's gonna unfortunately probably happen is someone else is gonna get there. Their shit's stolen. At some point of of note. And then we'll have this entire conversation all over again. Yeah. So I'm trying, guys. I don't I don't know what else to really do. And I will I will say two things. in ex in exiting this topic for now is about coverage, is that it's clear that some people didn't cover it because they don't like me. Which is fine. But I think a little bit I don't want to say unprofessional but strange. People report news. I fucking hate half the people that report this shit. But I don't ignore it. It's like I am I am beholden to the news. Wherever it comes from. That's the way it works. So I f I wanna say that kind of sucks. And the other thing that kinda sucks is and I I did say this on the stream is that Uh some of this is also about people protecting their relationship with Sony. And Um like one hundred percent. Absolutely no doubt. And I'm of multiple minds with this where I'm like, well. Let's put it this way. Um I just They have no games anymore. Like a couple of games a year. I guess the hardware is coming out, but it's like what Do you really need from them to protect any like your access to Wolverine? Or something like that? And I also think, especially in speaking, I I'm friendly and and I like the PR people at Sony. I'm talking to one of them for the how the Star O'S interview and I've been dealing with a very high ranking PR person about this about this situation. They're great people and they're nice and they're knowledgeable. Um It really has I don't think they're gonna stop working with you because you cover the news. Yeah. It's it's not like the leak of PlayStation Home, we always bring up a Kataka where they got blacklisted for like five years. That's different. And that's an extreme reaction. I under I guess what I'm saying in a very clumsy way is I understand everyone's positions. Mm-hmm. And uh I'm trying. to do my own and I w I also don't want to be annoying. You can tell when people start ignoring you. I've been doing this for a long time. So you don't want to get into that position. I think I've I'm already in that like we're ignoring you now position with the people in like the engineering fraud kind of part of the company I was working with. Like they just don't answer my emails anymore. And it could be eas it could be as easy as saying like you just There are directed's like don't talk to this guy. And I'm I'm not because there's anything wrong, but it's like you're saying too much or like we can't just You helped them. And that's it. And it could be as easy that. I even called the dude and left him a voicemail and he didn't respond to me. So I can take a hint. And I I don't want I don't want to be annoying. But I feel my heart feels so heavy for the many people that ha have are affected by this with n and they can't do anything. And it's in a state of permanent paralysis, basically. And that sucks. And I I want so I want so badly to get those people's accounts back. It really is, like I fantasize about it. 'Cause I know what it would mean to them. to like have a list of people and be like, let's do this. Like, like here are the account names here are the like get it all together and get these people to their accounts back. Like you can do it. So we'll see. And I'm sorry that it's not been more effective. I feel like I've done everything I could. Public. Yeah. Merch, last amedia.store, T shirts, sweatshirt, stickers, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Appreciate you over there. All right, let's get into some topics discussion. And uh we already did one because we'd already talked about back rooms. So we only have a few more and then we'll get into the news of the week. There's quite a bit to get through there as well. Kennedy wrote into us on Patreon and says, Hey, CDC Colin. Do you think people are using AI to craft questions that you're more likely to read? Is Sacred Symbols using AI questions unbeknownst to you in the audience? You mentioned that there are certain members of the audience that know how to write the kinds of inquiries that you will choose. However, what if there's a fine tuned algorithm designed to pander to your specific taste, churning out slop? that you're eating up we week after week. I'll take my answer off the air. It's possible. I will say I don't want you to underestimate how much I rewrite some of this shit. You know, like I try to get new names and things that I think are interesting on there, and I often have to like fix and rewrite things. So like the things you're hearing are some like yours, I don't think I mess with it all, Matt. And many people can write in cogently. Often I'm fixing and writing and deleting and adding things to people's inquiries. to make them readable. Because a lot of you are illiterate. Um As it turns out. So Are they using AI? I don't know. I don't know. Some of them should be, honestly. What what yeah, I mean. Some of them should maybe use the AI to at least auto cor use the auto correct. Maybe not write it, but You know, run that through. Yeah, that's a good point. This makes sense. Yeah, do it. Make my life easier, who cares? At this point. Yeah, if we're really good to shit. So yeah, possibly people are are using AI to craft their questions, but I wouldn't uh I wouldn't give anyone too much credit. About their writing. Hartford the whale wrote in, I think that's a Mall Rats reference. Says I blame you three. Everyone is writing in about warm fuzzy meetings with other sacred members, but I was hit with the opposite. I was invited to a neighbor's Memorial Day weekend cookout and it is a nerdy crew mostly centered around Magic the Gathering. Oh boy. I knew a few people, but I kept to the fringes of conversations until I heard something that got me excited. A group of people were discussing what order they put their shoes and socks on. With excitement in committing a sumicide, I jumped into the conversation asking who listens to sacred symbols, hoping to get a stand down. I was met with silence. Imagine the fun I had trying to explain why the number one PlayStation podcast in the world was discussing what order to put your shoes and socks on. After doing so, I could be described simply as the gif of Homer Simpson. Backing into the bushes to disappear. Thanks, guys. Come on, man. You can't be Magic the Gathering people. Doldrums. Yeah, we're a step above We're a slightly higher class. Evident evidently not. Maybe not. It seems like you were too un too uncool for the magic of the gathering. I think This is a I I in my opinion, this is a rookie, rookie mistake. A rookie social mistake. Right. It's just like, Oh, people are discussing a topic and instead of simply discussing the topic with them. You've jumped into has anybody seen this? And the th and the this that you're talking about, by the way. Is a hyper specific podcast. About the games industry. No. It's not like a movie or something. You know what I mean? Where it's just like, Oh yeah, all right, I've heard of that, or most people like that's you can't be doing this with podcasts. Podcasts are such an awkward thing to discuss at a, I would recommend never bringing them up. Personally. There's there's no I can't think I genuinely cannot think of a situation where I would be like Do you guys listen to this podcast? Because the answer is never going to be yes. Right. It's two m it's two mic little micro communities. Yeah. Yeah. It they're so long and there's so many of them. What do you like? What are you doing? Yeah, you got you can't blame us for this, is what I'm trying to say. Yeah, I think you're right, Chris. I think um I think it was blunderous. I think Wonderful. Mat map. Yeah. It's a perfect perfect adjective. I think uh Magic the Gathering, I've said it before, I liked magic in the 90s. when it was I used to play it a little bit. I think it's too It's too much for me now. It's too there's too much going on. There's too many cards. It's all about money now. Although I think Wizards of the Coast is a little better about that. Like they overpublish and overprint shit. I think to fuck with people, which I th I would do the same thing. Like I can't we didn't we say this a few weeks ago that I like don't I do not understand why Nintendo doesn't just pu print the fuck out of Pokemon cards. It is literally like almost free. The all the money goes into the design of the cards and like and all the like printing the card. Yeah, like the shit. If you make the cards less rare though, then the chase desire goes down. And you sell less packs because people are buying the pac in hopes of that rare chase card. Yeah, I guess. I just I feel like I feel like if that's your mentality, that's fair, but it's then then therefore not about the sanctity of the game, which to Wizard's credit, they did magic they they were worried about the sanctity of magic. You know, as a game. And Because uh because as I understand no one really plays the Pokemon game. Is that true? Like w people do play magic. Like they play it. Well Yeah, there are people that play Pokemon, but it is much smaller than the people that collect it. There's so many more people that just buy and collect it. than actually play it. You gotta tap the mana, bro. Turn the card sideways. I never played the Pokemon card game. Not once. I think it was just like what are we doing? There's already games for this. Yeah, like just go play Pokemon. Yeah, just go play Pokemon. This already this already exists. I card games are so alien to me, genuinely. Like I just I authentically do not they did they do not work for me at all. Cards are so black. I like the idea of a card game. But it's it's you the problem with it, Chris, is that you you have to find other people to play it with you. I I remember that with Star Wars customizable card game, which I got into in the late 90s, where I'm like, I'm the only person that has this. Right. So what am I gonna do? Magic, at least, other people around me played it. Yeah, yeah. I wonder where my magic cards are. I don't think I sold them. I wonder if I just unintentionally have valuable cards because I really was playing in like ninety six, ninety seven. The white lotus. Yeah, that's like the it's not like is no like a hundred thousand dollar card or something crazy like that. Yeah. Um I think that's it. Right. You might. Yeah, maybe I do. I mean I'm sure that I played with them, so they're not gonna be in good shape. I didn't bend them or anything, but I'm sure like the uh the edges are all fucked up and I was also seeing a thing, Dustin, you probably know more about this. People complaining about that rating system. for cards like the rating company and how they like refuse to give people 10s. Oh, PSA. Yeah. Yeah. No, and I was reading this like this synopsis where they were like they give famous people tens. And then they give everyone else nines. Yeah. Pristine cards. To my understanding, they're wildly inconsistent. So I don't know whether there's like a famous person conspiracy. I mean, clearly they would want the person that's like making content like, Oh, I just got my cards back from PSA. Let's do big reveal and then it's like, Oh my God, it's a ten, you know? That looks good. That makes people want to send in. Is there a rival company? Uh I know there are multiple. But I think PSA is kind of the big one. But Kind of like a little nice little interesting. When you think about it. It's like it's a self perpetuating company. Right? Yeah. Damn and graded games, dude. Created games is a huge business now. And I hate it. Yeah. I I feel I don't know. Yeah. I don't know. Well yeah, I think we actually might get into some of this later about collecting games. I don't know for sure. I don't know if I kept that question or not. I think you did. It's at the end, but we'll we can do it then. Hardford the whale. God, I love Mall Rats. Oh, I wanted to speak on this. On his specific scenario. Yeah. I've noticed there's a thing with a lot of our audience that I think we do have a unique audience in that While it is We have a unique audience. We have a unique thing going on where We are not small. We're not huge, though. There's like, you know, many gaming podcasts that are much bigger than us. But our level of audience interaction. super high. Whether that's through Patreon, uh like people signing up or comments or whatever, like our level of interactivity I'm probably blows a lot of bigger podcasts out of the water, I would assume. So I think that there's audience members that get an assumption about how big the show is. Based on that. And that's where Hartford fucked up. It's like no no no, as Chris was saying, it's like it is Still very niche. It's a niche podcast. When I go to Too Many Games, which is like one of the main retro conventions. in the country. Nobody knows who I am who I'm the who I am there. Oh, God. What a dream. It's yeah, it's nice. I mean there are not I don't want to say nobody. When we're doing our panel, there are listeners there. that are there to come to the panel, but by and large, overall. It's not like you and Greg at PSX where you needed security to go to the merch store. Yeah, that was crazy. Do you remember that? Were you there for that? They shut down the merch store for us. I think I was actually nearby because it was right. I did I tell you that it was the one like the one place where I felt truly famous? Oh, I'm sure. PS where I was like, I really am famous here. Which is like I like I've like everyone knows who I am here. I I kinda hated it. Well that was your first interaction with Brandon. I think I told you about you were running somewhere and Brandon was like, Hey Colin. And you're like, hey. And then you just kept running. And call and Brenda was like, Yeah. I don't really know him, really. That was calling. I uh yeah, strange. Strange. Um yeah, it's it's I um I'm probably much more someone would a uh someone that was working on my backyard would ask me is like, do you get recognized? And I'm like, Occasionally, but like I don't really go anywhere. So it's not But I have been dead, dead up I I'm pretty sure that The person that um We go to this restaurant pretty often and the like the owner of the of it, I think, knows who I am. 'Cause he always like he like shakes my hand and stuff like that when I come in. Like Oh, fine. Like during dinner and stuff like that. Or whatever. And I'm like, hey. And I'm like, I don't think I don't think I I'm not as famous as you think I am. For for this area, I'm pretty famous, I guess. He thinks you have a food podcast. Yeah. Yeah. And he's a really nice guy. I like him a lot. I mean, it's a it it great food. But yeah, I I I've th I've I've tried to read into that. It's like I told you when I ran in like I was walking through the neighborhood and I was like walking past these two girls and they were like, Are you the streamer? And like my heart sank. Because I thought for like many years, I'm like no one in this neighborhood knows who I am, which is awesome. And then like shit, someone Someone recognized me. And then it started kind of circulating around people who I was. And now I I the last year or so I see like people are a little Not everyone, but some people are like a little nicer to me, maybe. Mm. And things like that. I'm like that's interesting I'm not first of all I think You're over I think when you do something where you ha have like a presence of some sort on on the internet, that's like no matter how big you are, that's a big deal to a lot of people. And I'm like, no, you you could I'm like pretty minor, actually. Um but I remember my heart sinking so bad when they said that 'cause I was like So I think I told you like I walked by them diagonally because I didn't want to come behind them on the sidewalk and scare them. They're like just two like 14 year old girls or whatever, and I'm like walking really fast, like trying to get my heart rate up. So I just like and and so like I walk diagonally like across the street and then they're and I'm like, Excuse me, I just didn't want to scare you. That's what I said to them. And I I walk and then they're like, Are you the streamer? And I was like Uh. And feel like their brother or something, or like a dad, or someone that they know said it. I'm like, fuck, like who is it? Who? Blew up my spot. Just say no. Yeah, that would have been funny, but like now. I think I did that to somebody recently at a I was at a flea market recently and they're Oh no no, I was I was at a um Do you know those uh boxcar races? That they do? The Red Bull. I was at one of those recently. Whoa. W I mean it was it was really cool. The thing the thing about it though is that like It's so everybody crowds up against the thing, so it's kinda hard to get like a real like front. Roger. to it. And so they have these big screens. So it was I was it was basically I was watching the YouTube feed outside. For most of it, but it was cool. But like somebody was like, Are you Chris Reagan? I was like, No. Which is like it's not real. Because like I I was wearing this I think too. So it's just like I'm wearing the same shit that I always wear, so I'm clearly the I don't know anybody else who has an army patrol cap that walks around like this. So he knew I was lying. But he laughed about it. He laughed about it. So I think he he appreciated it. So it's uh It's always uncomfortable when when you get recognized as like a really uncomfortable I'm glad it's never happened to me at like a doctor's office. Oh, yeah. Or something like that, you know what I mean? Like oh man. I'm in I'm literally in scrub right now. I Do you remember, Chris? I uh you probably don't, but like when I first moved here Like I'm I left Christmas twenty nineteen. And so I was here like beginning in twenty twenty. And uh I was like Like I was here for a little while and I was like just kind of casually dating this this girl. And We went to dinner. And she was asking me, like, do you get recognized like for and I'm like, No. Not really. You know, like I used to more when I was like did bigger things. And then dead ass someone in that restaurant recognized me. To the point where I like we thought it was hysterical because I was like it looked like a setup. Yeah, yeah. It's like that it's like that fortnight kit. We talk about all the time. I love that. I love that's one of my favorite memories of me and you is like is just us bitching about Fortnite and walking by that kid in Los Angeles. You can't esc you can't escape Fortnite and then like immediately. Like on the on the time. It's just some kid talking about V- Bucks or something. It was crazy. It was like we were just on some random street. It wasn't even like not even like Colorado or any of these bigger places or be or ocean or anything, we're on like, you know, some fucking side street. Walking to the diner. Yeah, we're walking to that diner. What was that diner again? The is it Izzy's? Izzy's. Yeah. You brought your straw. Right. I used to bring Yeah, you remember that? So in Santa Monica, I think it was all of LA, but it might've just been Santa Monica, they they wouldn't give you plastic straws anymore. They'd give you the shite. paper straws and so I I bought plastic straws that I was on when Chris and I were any I'd go on anywhere I would bring up plastic straw then. They've largely undone that. Like there's not a lot of paper straws anymore. It's so disgusting. People were like, This doesn't work. No, it's fucking gr also Who cares? I'm sh I'm sorry, like Think about, like, seriously, think about it. Like think about it. Who gives a fuck about plastic straws look around? plastic bag thing is much more sympathetic to me. We have literal islands in the Pacific Ocean made of them. Right. Like to me, I'm like plastic straws, like what a bull the basically they were like, we gotta do something. The the thing that's most annoying that will do the least amount. Okay, let's let's make everyone use paper straws. And that will and we'll pretend that we've revolutionized everything. Go fuck yourself. Do you remember how we used to have paper cups and plastic straws? Yes. And then they ch now all the cups are plastic, but suddenly the straw needs to be paper. Right. Now that's a that's an issue that's a good observation. Why? Why we we just made we're still we're still in the the like positive on plastic 'cause the stupid plastic cup. Go back to the paper cup, it's fine. There's no problem with the paper cup. I'm gonna get rid of the paper cup, to be honest with you. But but I mean I'm not saying it the the pl the paper cup was not as bad as the paper straw, I will I will say but I still hate it. I hate it like The thing about the the paper cup is that it always felt like it was going to be as bad as the as the paper straw. Like it always felt like I always felt like I was gonna accidentally crush it. Or tear it. I never did, but I was always anxious about it. I never liked it. It was like a thin there's like a thin layer of wax between you and disaster with those cups. You know? Like I I don't Dinner I don't go to Chick fil A really anymore 'cause like it's like what w you will you long for it so much until you have access to it. Then you're like, I don't really want to do this anymore. It's it's exactly what happened to me with In and Out and like how I crave the fuck out of In and Out now, but I couldn't even you couldn't even pay me to go to In and Out by the time I left California. You know? I was like enough. And so, but they got rid of the styrofoam cups, right? Which is a very southern thing. Um, and because people don't realize it like that whole thing is to keep your drink cold. That's why they do it. They're not trying to be dickheads. It's because they're huge in like Alabama. Where it's you know eight hundred degrees. So And by the way, speaking of temperatures, we're We're in the midst, I said this on the stream, right, Dustin, we're in the midst of the European air conditioning, the yearly European air conditioning debate. on social media right now if anyone has been privy to that. Um Where it never ends. They'll complain about it being seventy-five degrees, which is like what it's every day here in Virginia, and then They'll Say like they can't they have they can't do air conditioning. So just get an air conditioner. Just Just get an air conditioner. It's fine. You'll be fine. Yeah. It's worth, you know. not dying of heat stroke. I'm telling you straight up that this explains the discrepancy between the European and American economies as far as reduction per person. They are so heat exhausted. Oh, I bet I'm not even being facetious. Imagine living in a place where you have no air conditioning. And it's just fucking muggy and hot for and like what are you gonna do? I mean you can see that you can see that literally. And just comparing New York and LA. The just the speed that people move in New York City 'cause they're like, I'm fine. You know? I can go. I'm not exhausted. Over here people are like chill. They they walk as if they've got nowhere to be. Right. It's the only way you can live. Yeah, it's because I and I get it. Yeah, I've I've done twenty minute walks when it's the sun's out. It's like you're not moving fast. Why the fuck would you? It's gross. It's horrible. You're in a you're in a catch twenty two. It's like the old adage about how like the best way to stay dry during rain is to walk slow because you're lowering your Uh I guess the the square footage that you that the rain contain at any one time. Right, 'cause you're not running into like a ton of forward facing rain. It's like you're you're exposed to the sun I'm a very fast walker by nature. And it's like Or so is the idea to get out of the sun as quickly as possible? Or is the idea to like m manage your time in the sun so that you are not overheated? I think there's, you know, six of one half dozen to the other. But I'll tell you man. The hottest place I ever I ever was in my life was Palm Springs. Palm Springs. Yeah, Kristen, you and I have talked about this, where I like I literally Like, uh I mean, I'll admit it, like I almost fainted. I I got up from dinner and like went outside. I like I you know, I had a few drinks in me and stuff and I'm like, dude, like holy fuck. Like this is crazy. This is crazy. That people live like this. Is that clip of uh Larry David fainting? Yeah, yeah, like yeah, when it w when he finds out that his wife has cancer. Dude I Palm Springs is s I think it was like a hundred and seventeen or a hundred and eighteen degrees or something, and I was like I How does it how The construction workers who built this place didn't know something was wrong? Why would you b why it was it's insane to me that it's as hot as it is over there. Like it makes no sense to me. We have so much space in the United States, it's like the one thing we don't need is more space. It's like you don't have to live here. Yeah, you don't have to, dude. You're in you're like right next to Death Valley. I just It it's awful. It like I I think Palm Springs is really cool, but I was there and I was like, this is insanity. I can't ever come back to this place. Uh it's like Vegas in the summer too. It's like holy fuck. Holy fuck. If you got a really if you got like a really cold pool, I bet it's awesome. Yeah, yeah, definitely. You know, like I bet like that Palm Springs with a pool probably is the sickest thing ever. 'Cause you're just n you're all you're always in the state of like a maximum I don't know. I don't know how to sp like maximum comfort, I guess. Because you're always getting relieved from the other thing. Whereas like here it's just like I'm not really being relieved when I go outside. It's just like slightly colder. It's like you don't have to live there. There's no nothing binding you to this land. Like a tithe. A tithe, right? Yeah, like you're a surf. Like you you they sell the land and you go with it. Right. Oh God. Hard for the whale. Um Thanks the fun conversation that spawned off of your uh inquiry. Your anodyne inquiry about Magic the Gathering, which is a game people still play. By the way, M you know, Magic the Gathering, I will say this as far as video games are concerned, I don't know if you feel this way, is much more Xbox encoded. Do you remember that the Magic the Gathering games were actually Xbox exclusive? Like that a lot of them never ever came to PSN. I yes. Do I vaguely remember this. It was like one of the weird things. Like if you're a Magic fan, you the good chance It's like what we say about MLB the show. Like you're kind of passively a baseball fan, you're probably a PlayStation player. If you were a magic person for some years, you were probably an Xbox player. Yeah, get the fuck out of here. Snap the show for you. Go to the defining duke. Podcasting. Leave me alone. Sacred Symbols is brought to you by Shopify. When we started our merch store, figuring everything out on our own felt super overwhelming. sourcing products, figuring out the shipping, an inventory system, a website, and so much more. And as soon as you figure one thing out, another always seems to pop up. Finding the right tool to figure everything out was essential. For us and millions of other businesses, that tool is Shopify. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10% of all e-commerce in the US. From household names you know, like last stand media, to brands just getting started. Get started with your own design studio. With hundreds of ready to use templates, Shopify helps you build a beautiful online store that matches your brand style. The best part, Shopify is your commerce expert with world class expertise in everything from managing inventory to international shipping to processing returns and beyond. Start your business today with the industry's best business partner, Shopify, and start hearing. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at Shopify.com slash sacred. Go to Shopify.com slash sacred. That's shopify.com slash sacred. Andrew Single wrote in and said hello, esteemed gentlemen. About five years ago I wrote in asking what I should name my now four year old son. I'm pretty sure you guys settled on the Tetris piece Smashboy. Now my wife is expecting again do in a few weeks with a baby girl. The question is simple, what do you guys want to name her? Tifa 2B Millennia. The naming rights are available and I await your response. How about roll? Oh. Keep the Mega Man stuff going a little bit. Hold I have a problem with the question Mm-hmm. He never confirmed if he named his son Smash Boy. Right. So why should we even spend time thinking about this? That's a good point. And offering suggestions if he didn't use our fucking last one. Is it at least Is Smashboy at least the middle name? Jonathan Smashboy Singo. Yeah. What's the hell of a name, Smash Boy? I think you kind of you fucked up if you didn't take that now. Two B's kind of a cool name. You don't want to but why would you wanna name your own daughter after a a deeply Like Tifa, like a sexualized character. That's the thing with all all that's the thing with all three of these, to be quite To be honest. Like it's just it's a little it's a little Melania's like the least of the three, but sh she's got like a thing on it, like I I don't I don't know. I I the Queen of Rot? Yeah, but she's naked, right, isn't she? Isn't that her whole thing is that she's like kinda She's d decaying, I guess. So it's not like Particularly uh nice to see. Maybe in phase two. Oh yeah, in phase two she is. That's when her Yeah. I I don't know. I'm uncomfortable. Yeah, don't name your don't name your daughter Tifa. Yeah, don't do that. You can't do that. Um It is a it's a decent name it's a decent name, to be fair. To be terrible. How about splash woman woman? Mega Man Line. Mm. What else? Yeah. I don't I don't have any good ideas. Aloy. Clyde. And from uh Pac Man. Clyde and they all have different personalities too, right? Like programmers. One like one always follows you, I think. Right. One oh ways. Right. Anxious avoidance. One has uh one's On Lexapro. Yeah, one schizophrenic. Oh my God. I don't know. I don't know that I have any ideas. I mean I'm really my my all my energies are with Dustin's child right now in terms of That's gonna be a big big one for me. And uh don't know. So I don't know. I don't know. I don't have any answers for you. I just don't yeah, I I think The options you you presented are too weird. It it reminds me of uh when everyone was naming their child Khaleesi. Oh yeah. Without understand like without the I I remember saying that at the time over and over again, like, you don't know how this ends. This could be and you kinda look like a dickhead now, not to spoil it. You know you sho you usually uh Lois. That's a good name, I think. After family. Well I was thinking I was thinking more Superman, but like yeah, I guess that is the second most famous Lois. Indeed. Um It's a good name. It's like there's a lot of older names that I think are kind of like they've gone out of style like people don't use anymore, but I think this is still a pr perfectly good name. Like Lois is far from a Gretchen, you know? Gretchen, yeah. I knew at least in my opinion. Yeah. You know a Gretchen? I knew one in middle school. Yeah, Gretchen. Is she still with us? Uh I've never talked to her since then, so Probably not. To be fair, probably not. Yeah. Um Yeah, Gretchen's Yeah, that's an interesting name. Lois is a good name. I mean there's a whole thing Jerry Seinfeld like having an obsession with that name. Obvious reasons, I guess. Um Then there are ones where like you don't really know like what are you thinking with that? You know, uh Edna. Edna's rough. Yeah. I mean that's fine, but it's like you gotta be, you gotta be born 45. years old. You have to be Yeah. Yeah. No no no younger. You have to be born an elderly person. There's there's a character, like a child character in a Handmaid's Tale named Agnes. Agnes. And I'm like, yeah, that's another like you gotta be old to get you have to be named something else. And then when you're 60, we can rename you an Agnes. That hard consonant into another hard consonant. Edna. Agnes. Rough, dude. Yeah, the G into the N. Yeah. I don't like it at all. Yeah. Hopeful there's n no one with that name listening right now. Yeah, sorry. Don't worry, we have no female listeners. Yeah. I'm the silent minority wrote in and said, Hi guys. Quick question, is it just me or does this show have way more drama than any other podcast out there? What is going on? I don't think we have any real drama. This simply can't be true. I think we're just crazy. And I think there's a fine line of difference between those two things. My opinion. Drama. I don't. Yeah, there's first of all, there's gotta be real like podcasts out there probably have real drama. Look what happened with Jaffe when he was on that podcast. Oh yeah. That's real drama. What did you do you did something to them? I can't remember exactly. Dels so what did he do? What did he do that he got in trouble? Oh, he made fun of uh the owner's like wife or something. I think he mentioned the owner's wife's vagina or something. Oh right. That's right what it was. Yeah. It's a little worse than making fun of her. Yeah. Jeff a little worse. Jeffy has his flares with the drama, like the the picture of the guy's grave or the dad's grave, and he said this is an Xbox. Use a flare for that. Dude, that is one of the all time funniest things I think I've ever seen a rather scene that be like, man, oh man. Ha ha ha ha ha. 'Cause it was everyone just likes being mad at Jathy. But that was fucking Like that's objectively funny. I audibly there's so few there's very few tweets that I laugh out loud at. I think maybe I can count on on my on one hand in the last like five years the tweets that I've laughed out loud at. That is the that is one of 'em. I Howled when I saw when I saw that. Because I would have never thought to say something like that. I know it's so I feel like I'm in that mind. I don't mind saying shit like that, but like It wouldn't have even occurred to me. Oh that's good shit. That's good. God bless you, David Jathy. All right, let's get into the news. Yeah. It's time to do that. We begin with a few or a couple FYIs. I wanted to begin with this first FYI, which comes from the PlayStation blog. In fact, both of them come from the PlayStation blog, but we'll start here. MLB the show mobile from San Diego Studio. is now available globally. So we've been covering this game for a little while and we know that it was emerging in certain smaller markets that are baseball friendly, like the Philippines. where they can test out and see what's going on with the game. And now it's available. Anywhere you are with your Apple or Android device. It's uh free to play. Although there are gonna be microtransactions in it for you to if you want. And Here's the bullet points they have for the game, by the way. Best in class MLB the show gameplay on your phone. Team building with Top's cards, tops the brand, featuring today's stars and legends of baseball history. Gameplay that combines on field action with a deck building strategy made for fans of MLB the show. Shorter experiences designed just for mobile, with all new mini game modes for a new way. compete. So you can go check it out. Pretty interesting. I I like what they're doing here. And I think this will actually work for them, but I will say, and I remember us noting this many times or several times after we've talked about this game in the past. Ultimately this game needs to connect to the game on console. And I'm not saying that you need to be able to play it. And a carry over, though, that would be pretty cool. I mean, remember Vita did that. where you could like play on your Vita to carry your season over to the PS four and then carry it back to the Vita and that's super cool. And that would be neat if they could do something like that. But rather I look at this as like something like on the old VMU or Pocket Station, like something you can do. to Mate to Get a player better or or do do something. Man some managerial shit or whatever. wherein it really makes like a whole ecosystem for the MLB of the show. Cause I think that that would be really attractive for fans of the game. because people like my my nephew's obsessed with MLB the show like the people that play that game love it. And so instead of giving them two different experiences, which is cool for now. hopefully they'll be able to tie them together and make them this cogent one thing. And uh This is a game that needs to be on. mobile. And I'm glad that Sony has decided to pursue this. And ironically This will probably be their first success story of any note in mobile, and they didn't need us an external team to do it. So Good on them. Are you guys uh Uh you're not baseball fans. I I I I wonder I mean It's kind of worth checking out because it's free. It's like, but what is like really? The big deal and then you'll get microtransacted into the fucking Into the atmosphere buying your card packs. Yeah. I don't like video games being on my phone I think. Yeah, I'm not into it either, you know. I like having the I like it's I I guess it's an old school mentality now, but I like having devices for specific things. I like that my phone doesn't have video games on it. I like that my video game m console isn't a phone. Although I guess you could Yeah, like the N gauge. Yeah. Oh the iconic N gauge. We're getting to the point where like there are probably a lot of younger people that don't even know what the N gauge is. Oh, a hundred percent like which is I bear I don't have any reason to know what it is. I just I I would only see it At software et cetera. When I would go to get like video games or whatever, it would be there would be this like little Not even like a particularly big presence, but it would be like a little sliver of like a booth or something. Like engage. I'm like. Dude, I thought it looked so cool when I was a kid. And I like I remember telling my dad, like, oh I really it would be so cool. He's like, You're not getting a thought. 'Cause I was like eight or something. It's like what would I It's like I didn't uh the phone aspect was kind of cool, but the idea of like, Whoa it's phone and its game console. Dude, and the games for Ng just look Absolutely terrible. There were some weird ones too. Wasn't there wasn't Morrowind or something like that on Engage. Like something insane like that. Let's see. Morrow and Engage. Am I making that up? The Elders travels Shadow Key. Shadow Key Shadow Key. That's so. I remember that 'cause I was an intern at IGN when Ngage was like prevalent in any way. We even had an N gage part of the site and like hired an N gauge editor, as I recall. And it had like its its brief moment. You know, it really never had a moment, but it was like relevant for a little while. Like it had an E three presence and There were two models of it. Like there was a launch model and then like a an updated end gauge. So it had They at least tried. Yeah, no. Yeah. It's uh I'm looking at gameplay of this uh Shadow Key now and uh It's both better than I thought it would look. Considering it's a phone from like two thousand five or whatever the hell? But uh Mmm, this ain't it. Yeah, it was a weird, it was a weird one. And the side talking thing, do you guys remember that that you had to hold it to the side to talk into it? And it became like that was a very early internet meme. There was even a website called Side Talking, I wanna say, where it would be like just pictures of people doing that. Did I think that's the I feel like I remember playing a call of duty mobile game on like flip phones a long ass time ago. Yeah, I think those yeah. They were there were these like there was this idea that you would really play meaningful game experiences on those screens, which is so funny. You can barely do it on a beautiful iPhone. I knew that. With like no refresh and like five colors. So side talking. Good times. Alright. So that's available. Go check that out if you want MLB the show mobile. For all you baseball fans out there, we are in the midst of baseball season, of course. And then the other FYI is that marathon season two arrives June second. We already know this, and this is the day of state of play. So I assume this will have some sort of presence in the state of play as well. We could talk about this as much or as little as you want, but the big news here is that the uh game will be free to play. For a week. So they write in part on PlayStation blog quote, What secrets lurk in the dark as night descends on Marathon's second season? Season two is coming June second, bringing new challenges, new opportunities, and new ways to play. You'll be able to try you'll be able to try out season two for yourself with Marathon open play week from June second through ninth. During open play week, by the way, if you look at the PlayStation blog, there is an egregious, it's like Four spaces. between the dash after two and the nine. What are we doing? Hell yeah. I mean, that's not even like one space. That's like it's like come on, guys. During open play week, the full game will be available on PlaySt five, no PlayStation Plus membership required. Any progress you make will carry over. Into season two. Guys gonna be playing with a bunch of scrubs? What do you think of that, Chris? This will help the game? I don't know. I mean I think so. I think Marathons Odd. Like I think That first week of a new season is kind of imperative. And so I do think it helps to This is not surprising is what I'm saying. Like, because I think they did this with the first season It's a good way to get people in when everybody's like starting fresh and everybody's like n people aren't Prouncing you with their insane gear right off the jump. Although they have map math knowledge and stuff that'll help them, no doubt. Yeah, I mean I they put out a I actually don't think it'll be at the state of play now because they did a uh They already put out like a Vidock and a trailer where they go into things pretty extensively. So it'd be kind of redundant now. But Everything in it looks fucking cool. Like they've got a pitch black map, there's like flashlights and shit. like actually like truly dark. Which is something that I've lamented with a lot of games. Like a lot games like say it's Oh, it's a nighttime level, but it's like it's really daytime blue, you know? It's daytime with blue. And it's like I can see perfectly fine. I don't need this flashlight at all. So I like that they're leaning into that. It looks uh I don't know, it looks cool. But also like there's a lot of factors going against marathon, some earned, some unearned, that I don't really I don't know. I think it will bump. But like I don't know how much of a difference it'll make. It'll depend on how the the game lands. When people actually try it. Captain Canada wrote in and said greetings and salutations CDC with the announcement of a free to play week for marathon beginning June 2nd, alongside the season two launch. Do we feel that this is Sony hitting the panic button? Well this meaningfully move the needle for marathon. I'm guessing that the game will be discounted during the free trial week to encourage buy in players who enjoy it. The game looks and plays great, but I worry that at some point Sony may view it as unsustainable. I'll hang myself in a closet for sexual pleasure like the late great David Carradine and listen now. Thank you for that, Captain Canada. Uh Thus and is Sony hitting the panic button. No, no, no. Absolutely not. I don't think so. Uh I think uh A panic button would be a much more drastic measure like permanently making it free to play. I think would be a panic button moment. But Uh, I think this is awesome making this free to play for A week, I think it would be a great decision even if the game was doing insanely well in terms of numbers to be like, hey It's You know For a multiplayer game like this, and maybe your friends asking you to play it or something like that, it's like, you wanna maybe Be able to try it out. Uh, and the fact that it's a whole week. Can really give players enough time to past the terrible onboarding of the game. And that's one thing that they're working on there saying like we know the the onboarding is bad. We know that the questing at points Doesn't work very well. And in that buck that Chris mentioned is all things that they're talking about and addressing. And so I'm most curious about this. It's just that Marathon the the the people that have stuck with Marathon in the last three months. insane hours into this game in three months. And I think that It has been percolating even outside that core player base. People are like, okay, well, maybe there's something to this game. Uh, but maybe they don't want to spend the $4 to to check it out because they don't know. They don't know if it's going to be for them. And so giving people that opportunity after all of the word of mouth of from the actual players, not some fucker of the Steam chart on Twitter. from the actual people playing it. I I don't know. It could really be a big boost. It could also not. Uh, it it's hard to say. Like season two, they're making some Drastic changes. to the game, the way the gear system works, there's like a whole new character stat section that they're adding. Yeah. And so it's possible While I it feels unlikely based on what I've seen, I think it looks amazing, but it's possible it doesn't land. And the seven days just confirms to people that they're like, nah, I'm not interested. But I I think it's a great decision. And I'm curious too how they in terms of Captain Kana saying like Uh is the game, you know, is will Sony view it as unsustainable? In that video doc, uh, and things that the director has said, they're already planning like up to five seasons of this game. So I think marathon is safe for the foreseeable future. Um Sony could pull the plug early, but I just think that there's too much momentum. with Marathon in terms of like They see the potential. They see how many hours the players are playing. They know something is here. It's just how do they Morph that into something that is probably a little more uh palatable to a general audience 'cause They made a very expensive Niche game. And they they have to change things it's very hardcore. They're they've already kind of like softened a lot of it. And they're talking about that P VE mode too, which I think will help. I think uh I would've actually maybe even Maybe even when the PvE mode. Draps. I would maybe even do another free free weekend, to be honest. Like I don't I don't know. I I don't think that's like a bad strategy with an extraction game, really. Like I think I I would even suggest that maybe at the beginning of every season it's available for free for a short period of time. That's exactly what I'm so I'm so glad you said that. I was gonna say that is like I why not just make that a thing. Yeah, I just think it it It benefits It benefits kind of everybody. And it also, I think, builds Some goodwill in a time where Bungie like desperately needs that. Again, for reasons earned and unearned. I think uh Yeah, no I From what I saw the update, I think it looks great. I th I think it looks really cool. Um I think they've Tightened up some of the pain points. Not all of them, because it is still going to be like a very skill based game, but Uh, I've had some friends who I didn't anticipate jumping on to marathon. I've seen them on marathon now. Uh, they weren't on for like the first like They they w they weren't on until like in the last week and I saw them was like, Oh, you're playing Marathon? I was like, Yeah, I'm trying to get my feet with and I just told them like Everything's gonna wipe. In like a week. You know that, right? And they're like, All right, I'll just I'll just jump in for season two or whatever. I don't know they should still play, they should learn the maps and stuff. But There is a thing with the end of the season where I'm like, I'm not really playing that much right now. 'cause I'm just like, Yeah it's I'm more excited for what the what the season two is gonna be. Yeah, they nighttime map looks sick. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to roll. No, yeah, I'm I'm done. I was gonna say I I I think they need to make some sort of uh I'm an outsider to the game, obviously, but like I and I love the idea of everyone wiping and starting again. So I'm not saying that that's a bad idea, but there needs to be something about your account or something, like some Maybe there is and I just don't know this. Like you should get like some sort of armor or skins or something like that, like carry over and uh memorialize forever your accomplishments in this. Yeah. In ways that don't unbalance the game, but rather just let people know that you're good or that you did something. I think that's a cool idea. They They had an emblem. They have like em emblem right now are that. kind of thing where it's just like I have an emblem now, it's like it's like level one hundred or whatever. And I I I'll keep that. Like even when even when it resets and when back to level zero, I'll have the that one hundred badge or whatever. Sure that I was there. Uh, and there's some like other stuff too. There's there's like badges for like, oh, you were in the server slam and and the alpha test and stuff like that. So I think they've they've got some of that. I do want there to be more in that regard. I do think um I understand the idea of going with classes and characters because it's good for like silhouette recognition and it's good for like Intel gathering where it's just like if you see a silhouette, you're just like, Oh, I know what character that is. I know what abilities I'm dealing with. But I do I I would be lying if I said I didn't miss that, uh bungee customization of being able to choose your armor pieces or whatever and and be rewarded armor pieces based on what you did. Like that is a cool thing. that uh they kinda left in the dust, which is a bit of a bummer but I like uh I like Marathon a lot. I know people think I'm like pretending somehow. As if I would dude, there are games that I really like that I can't play for more than like, you know, twenty hours. And I put like almost 300 hours into this. I I love it a lot. Um, and I'll be playing season two. We'll probably have like a meaningful We I think I talked about it in the Discord. We might have a meaningful, bungee oriented. Sacred. I would love I would love for you to do that. There's there's a lot of good people for you to pull from for that. Yeah. I'm curious. What that week looks like and scheduling and all that stuff, but there's a lot to talk about really. I think it's all interesting. Yeah, we'll definitely we'll definitely do that time allowing. Um We'll let Chris handle that. It is. Yeah, I'm interested in how they can salvage Marathon. Uh salvage is really the wrong word. It's fine. Like it's doing it's I think it's a cool game. It's doing well. I do think actually in the next story we're talking about though, we're gonna talk about which is bungee related, it we get there's an interesting piece of information people are not tuning into because there's other interesting stuff in this story that people are more tuned into. So we'll get into that now. And by the way, I know people are tired. Some people are tired of hearing about Bungie and Marathon, but like we are as I said earlier in the show and I say all the time, we are captive to the news. Like Sony bought this studio for no reason. This game is r extremely relevant to the ecosystem. And uh go blame Jim Ryan. Go to the UK and fucking knock on his door. And blame him. Don't blame me. But the next story comes from Bloomberg, Jason Schreyer over there. This story went live, I think just a maybe a day or so after we were last recorded. So People that listen to the show sequentially will remember that we were recording and the news broke and we were able to include the news that Destiny Two would no longer continue. So that's kind of where we left it. And then we had a sort of on the fly impromptu conversation about what the future might be, including the potential of a Destiny three. Then Jason pu we published the podcast. Jason published the story and gave us more clarity, kind of undoing a lot of that conversation. And here's what it says. It says, quote, Sony group corpse bungee unit is planning a significant number of layoffs as it ends development on the long running online shooter game Destiny Two. According to people familiar with the studio's plans. The company doesn't have a new project lined up for Destiny 2's development team after the game comes to an end next month, according to the people. who asked not to be identified because they weren't authorized to speak the press. Bungie doesn't plan to immediately enter production on a Destiny 3, they said. The number of job cuts. was unknown. Bungie's staff are looking to pitch and begin development of new projects including in the Destiny franchise, but none have been greenlit. And there's no guarantee that any will move forward in a challenging market that has led companies like Sony to raise prices and cut costs. Headquartered in Bellevue, Washington, Bungie is one of the most expensive studios to operate. given the cost of paying tech savvy workers in suburban Seattle and the longevity. Of its staff. Bungie is also investing more in the extraction shooter marathon, which has not met sales expectations. Since its March release. So that that's new information that I feel like no one is talking about. That's actually maybe the most interesting part of this. But which the company hopes will expand its player base over time. The studio has moved some staff from the Destiny team to Marathon in recent months. So We can expand on this more, but again, I want to reiterate though the big news here is that there's gonna be layoffs, uh, and that's sad, I felt like that was somewhat obvious. Um If you're spooling things up and people are pitching, you do not need. This team and remember we said last week that I think the team has gone from fourteen hundred people to something like It's like in the seven hundreds now, right? And I think it's gonna go down to probably the Five hundreds at the m Most? Mm-hmm. And that's some bloodletting. It can't be I I don't I feel bad even saying it over and over again, but it just just to predicate the conversation around like What the fuck did Sony do this for? Like this is a level of financial suicide that I've I've never seen them execute. In ever. Even Concord makes this look like the they could this is like five Concorde. So um It reminded me of like Joe Biden. This is like five nine eleven. So But uh just to just to delinger first on the idea that I think it's fair to assume Marathon didn't sell great, but I was wondering what Sony's expectations were. And and that if they were savvy enough to understand that this wasn't gonna go great for them. And so that it didn't meet their expectations internally makes me feel like you guys are still bullish. Why are you what don't you get about what's happening here with the studio and these kinds of games and under your tutelage? I think that that's a kind of a concerning point. You think it would have met their expectations and that they realized what they had, especially with the lack of advertising, which seemed deliberate. We we we we talked Even on PlayStation Network, it's as if the game doesn't exist. They they could very easily plaster it everywhere. They don't. And I don't know that's been the truth since before the game came out. And I I always wondered if that was because it's becoming more tailored to your tastes. And so I wouldn't see things like marathon. But I see things like football club. and Call of Duty and things I never play. So it's not that, I don't think. I did get a marathon screen on my PlayStation store the other day. but it's ironic because I already own it. On PlayStation, so I was like ah, good one. Yeah. I've never seen it before. That real estate is valuable and Sony has paid money for that real estate. whether through lump sum payments or, you know, different So like if if your game is is featured, it might be a different cut for you. You know, that kind of thing. So you don't want to waste that space. There's no more premium on a game than your first party games. I I I don't I don't really understand that, but Let's let's talk a little bit about this, Chris. Um layoffs, not a huge surprise. Sad. We'll see like what the bloodletting is there. The bigger Problem I think is What have you what are you doing? Like what have you been doing? Did you you didn't get anything else going? So Gummy bears was taken from them. We know that. So we have to be fair. Yeah. Right? Like that team and the people working on it and the game were taken. I don't think that that was gonna be the next big thing they were doing anyway. seemed like an incubation project, not on like riots fighting game and all this other shit. It's like it's not really the meat and potatoes. Yeah. Destiny 3 seems like such an obvious Why else would you even bother getting buying the team? And people seem really upset about. This. So what is your take? Yeah. Well I I do want to mention too because like when when the news broke last time we had so little time to really Take it in. It happened while we were all it was also happened in the middle of discussing something else that was quite serious. So like there wasn't really a lot to uh A lot of time to take it in and and reflect a little bit. And so like the the reaction to destiny kind of going away is actually way stronger than I thought it would have been. Um But I do get it because like that was a third space for a lot of people, and for a long time, like there's there's not a lot of third spaces really around anymore. And that was kind of uh a place. Uh, and although I felt that they ended it with Final Shape, clearly they even have an end screen for it that is unlike any other ex expansion that they have. Like they it's literally thank you very much in like Latin. Bungee. Like you don't really see that unless they're done. So I was prepared for it, but Um It is Yeah, I I get why why it's like a bummer. that that's going away in in a way that's like probably seems a little bit silly to the outside person. It would be like Colin if like a jet's disbanded or something. Right, right. You know what I mean? It's just like w that this has been like a a thing for me for like r a really long time. Even I was kind of bummed about it. As time gone as time went on, I was like, Oh man. Yeah. It's weird knowing that I can't really go back and there won't be any like it's it's like a friend where it's just like I hope he's doing well. And then you find out he's gone. Right, right. Um But as far as like this whole um You know, them having incubation projects or or not. A lot of And look, I I know a lot of it's rumors and speculation or whatever, and none of it's like necessarily you know, for sure. But like based on what I know about some of the people that I know who have had connections to the studio who have reached out to me, or just uh the stories that I've heard going years and years back, going decades back now at this point. Um The management team is one of the worst team management teams in the business. Like it it is insane how many times proper projects are pitched by the staff. That do not get picked up by the executives because it's like uh no, we're not doing that. Well, we're not gonna do it. They just th the executives decided, like there was a I think there was something that like it was decided earlier this year that they were going to stop doing Destiny. And the team didn't know about it. They found out like a lot of them found out the way we found out. Yeah, that's not that's not just crazy. And you and you can tell, by the way. You can tell that that's the case based on like their their write-up. They had all this stuff ready to go. And then they're just like I I guess we'll I guess we'll put it out for on June and that'll be the end, I guess. You know, like you can tell like there's like a very un impromptu feeling to it. Um And so like And there there were te there were uh there was that game Payback that Luke Smith was was heading years and years ago. We probably reported on it. on the show. which is like a destiny oriented project that like never got off the ground. I think it was like a third person kind of thing, which would would would have been kind of interesting. Yeah, definitely. Um Uh There was Pitches about various other projects in Destiny. I think there was like a a Destiny Infinity. Or something like that pitched. where they would go back to like one major expansion a year. kind of like tamper things down, but also like deliver that was Not brought forward. And then Just nothing. And so I don't know. I I really don't know what to make of it. It is it is crazy that they never greenlit anything. I get that they had bu uh gummy bears or whatever, but that was that was taken out a while ago and Destiny two, in my opinion, has been in a transitionary period outside of itself for a while now. And I don't think I think the team knew that. And we're trying to get things off the ground and then there was like no desire from The decision makers to do it or or whatever. Like I I don't It is all genuinely crazy. Like some of the shit that I've heard is insane. Like I'm fascinated by I I wish I cared to like Do anything with that shit, but like it's it's it is bewildering. That um Then it's been bungled in the way that it has. Do you have anything you'd like to add, Dustin? Yeah, it's The Downfall of Destiny is an interesting one because in in on one hand I think about it like Alright guys, you got You're over over ten years. of destiny related content, which it was always meant to be A ten year Project. So it was more than expected. On the other hand, though, you do see successful MMOs like World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy Fourteen that just seemingly go on forever. And they of course have ups and downs expansions that are good uh expansions people don't like. So why couldn't that be the case for Destiny? It's funny 'cause I think There's a small part of me, and Chris, maybe you can check me on this, but I'm like Destiny died because the Destiny fans weren't playing Destiny anymore. And sure, there was that hardcore group that was always there. But After Final Shape, and you could argue that it's like Well, Bungie didn't deliver in the post Final Shape era. And that kind of killed the game because people weren't there. If Bun if if Destiny was still thriving in the way it was. then it wouldn't be gone. Or there would be it would be an easy way to confirm Destiny three. Now, do you want to blame I I blaming the players is stupid because it's like if the content isn't good or not there, then why would they expect them to show up? So it's like Bungie kind of did this to themselves in the fact that Destiny was no longer a desirable game for those players to keep coming back to. I think that's val I think the I mean the onboarding on Destiny is terrible. Yeah. Bungie makes really great complicated games that are like surprisingly deep in comparison to what you think they would be based on just like first look, but like at the same time, they're also like they're so systems. They are so systems heavy. That like Systems on top of systems on top of systems. I'm a veteran Destiny player I jumped on over the weekend, I have no idea what to do. You know? Like it is insane the amount of shit that they've added to the game, even in just a short period of time that I've been gone. So I mean There's a lot of reasons. I think the I think the big reason though is that Destiny is expensive. Like whether we There's a lot of comparisons to other live service games and I get it. But like There's no triple A live service game, really. Like there's expensive life service games in the sense that like, oh, we have, you know, Fortnite's out and it's expensive to maintain. There's like a bunch of licenses attached to it. But it's Fortnite. You know, it's not Destiny, you can you can look at it and you can feel how expensive it is. Compared to like other live service games in the in the space. And so I think that's a problem. Um, I think onboarding is an issue. I think player retention after you've ended your story is an issue. But I again I thought that I've In my mind that was intentional. In my mind it was intentional for them to be like, Hey, the final shake, that's it. We're gonna put out Marathon now and then uh maybe afterwards we'll do like a third Destiny or whatever. Because the thing that I felt was like Well, maybe they just don't want to do Destiny anymore. Because that's also valid. They didn't want to do Halo after 10 years. They didn't want to do a Halo after five years. And then they were contractually obligated to do like Three more games. So It stands to reason to me it's like, Well maybe they just didn't want to do Destiny anymore, but then You hear stuff from the team, it's like no, we we wanted to do a lot more, actually. And so now I don't really know what to feel because I'm just like, if it's something that you did because you genuinely like, oh, the passion's gone or whatever, and it's like if we put anything out, it's gonna suck. I can respect that. In fact, I I actually think that's like really cool. But if you actually wanted to do shit and then the executive's like, eh, let's not do it. You couldn't figure out a make a way to make it work? What did they buy you for? Man, I don't know. If not destiny. I don't know. And here's the thing too. Here's the thing too. I love and here's the thing too, right? Like I love marathon. I think marathon's actually An exceptional video game. In a lot of ways. If If you couldn't get Destiny back on track, as far as like if Sony saw Destiny, right, and they were like Not good enough. Like the the the uh The engagement. What You're gonna invest in marathon, though? Which is like way more niche, way more way more uh beleaguered. Technically? Like I don't The reason people weren't playing Destiny anymore is because it was over. They finished it. If you gave them more new Destiny, they would come back. And I don't mean more Destiny 2. I mean a proper like here's a follow up. A lot of people would come right the fuck back. So to me I just I don't really understand the logic of like You know, Destiny Two is not doing well, but it well, it was doing better than Marathon, and you're committing to Marathon, like I get is the growth potential I guess the growth potential for Marathon is higher. than the growth potential for Destiny Two is. And I think that that's true. I'm not really going back to Destiny Two, really. I'm probably gonna fuck around with the June 9th update for sentimental reasons and maybe check it out, but Destiny 3 would be the thing. To pull me back. And if they're not gonna do that, well then I don't know. Okay. I just feel like it's such a safe bet. You made you spent all this money on Concorde and you just didn't invest in Destiny? Like, I don't know it's just I don't know. I I don't know. It's weird. It's weird to me. The irony, I think, is that there's a uh There's like a mixture of of these Bad cascading domino effect decisions. that Sony has made around their their the entities that they own where in Like 'cause there there's a there's a fundamental problem in games like Destiny. that are inherent to all games like Destiny, which is that You have to keep spending. And the maintenance of the game becomes very expensive and onerous if you don't have a Final Fantasy 14 or a World of Warcraft or something where it makes it worth your while. And so you have to know when to say goodbye. Thus you have to plan. for that obsolescence before it happens. Right. And this is where I I brought up Riot earlier where I actually, though these things didn't work out for them really, it's like I respect that they realized like we have all of our eggs in one basket. At the time they did. They have what Valorant now too, right? Yeah. It's like we gotta do other things. We can't C we have to spend some of this money on other shit. We can't just keep doing League of Legends forever. Now maybe you can, but they're like we got they got remember they had the single player f role playing games that didn't really go anywhere. They have that fighting game that people are pretty mad about, but it's like And other things. And I'm like, Cool, like that's a that's a sign that like no, we're not obsolete yet. If we are obsolete, at least we have these Iron's in the fire. And as things go down here, we can kind of raise the boat here and or the tide and the boat will stay afloat. And I think Bungie, it's surprising to me. That They didn't see this happening behind the scenes and that, like you said. Obvious there are two obvious things you can do. Either you take your whole team many people, you know, of the eight hundred of your people or whatever, and you're like, we're gonna do something new. Like totally new. Which is bold and interesting, but you invest in that and you invest hundreds of millions of dollars in that. Or you're like, We're gonna do Destiny again. Which is the safer bet. probably a lower ceiling. Higher floor. And You invest in that instead. And it's kind of a surprise that it's It's so I guess what I'm saying is it's kind of a surprise that it's Destiny Three is not only not in development and hasn't been greenlit, but isn't probably all in development right now. That that's the the bigger surprise is like it should be years into development. And The other the the cascading effect I was that I was talking about is like Bungie came into the Sony family with like big balls. And we all kind of acknowledge it. It's like We're gonna do what we want. We're not in PlayStation Studios. Our games are gonna appear everywhere. And that level of bravado I think did trickle down to other projects and hurt, including the Naughty Dog project and other things, where it's like who uh where in hindsight it's like, Who the fuck are you? You know, look at your own house. It's on fire. Corey Sonya wrote in and said, Hi, CDC. What do you think about the speculation that Bungie's executive team were spinning up so many vaporware projects in order to increase their valuation to prospective buyers? and grow their payouts when they are sold again. I don't know the ins and outs of w no one knows the ins and outs of what happened behind the scenes with this deal. Back in twenty twenty two, apparently there were other suitors, including Microsoft. And I think that that was allowed the price to get raised to this onerous, ridiculous level that they they paid. They they paid almost as much for bungee as as Disney paid for Star Wars. It's a fucking joke. Um. And to be fair also, this was at a time where money was free. Right, that's true in comparison. Like a lot of a lot there were a lot of ridiculous acquisitions around that time that were like absurd. You're you're totally right. But remember, Chris, we discussed at the time, like this is such a huge purchase for Sony. Three point six billion dollars is nothing for Microsoft. And other big entities, but that's more than they've probably spent on every studio they ever bought combined. And I looked at I remember looking at it at the time and just kind of being like, This is This feels weird. It it's not part of your culture. You have this other thing going, it's w for what to what end and you would you would thought. At the very least, there would be something behind the scenes we didn't know, like there were these things that that Sony understood about games that are developing ideas, the numbers. I don't want to go and say like these guys were fucking around intentionally. Maybe they were, maybe they weren't, but like Do think it's fairly conclusive at this point that Sony got got. And that it's realistic to imagine that this deal Well not only cost Sony the entire cost of bungee. But more than that. Because Bungie's probably losing money. And they have to sustain it. So not only was that a sunk cost. of three point six billion dollars, but now you have to sustain this fucking Mm. I just, I can't get over it. Can you imagine how hamstrung they've been because of this? Like it financially, not in terms of their performance. But in terms of like Allocating your capital in other ways. That money could have gone to a bunch of other shit. And it's simply gone. And it's not easy like Microsoft can go like, Oh well We lost money on this Xbox thing or whatever, we'll just go and we'll we'll Create it with Azure. Or we'll create the capital with this or that. It's like Sony doesn't really have that option. PlayStation is the capital. Creator. Uh uh and even in their entertainment sphere with pictures kind of doing soft and music doing soft, there's like I just can't get over it. I I I c I can't believe it. that they just fucked up so badly to the point where They are so buttoned up. Externally. That you have to imagine the fucking fan and continues to hit the fan behind the scenes because of this. about all the money and time. They they've taken multiple hundreds of billions of dollar impairments. On fiscal reports just to start eating away. at what they know is gonna happen. And it gets into this next thing with Dylan Wednitsky. When Nieski says, Hey CDC, the narrative around Bungie right now seems incredibly. with fans deeply split over the shift from Destiny to Marathon. It feels like the only inevitable outcome left on the table is the total closure of Bungie. Is there a correct next step for Sony here? If Concord hadn't bombed, would Sony have had the capital and patience to bankroll Destiny 3, or is a full-blown sequel just too expensive to j justify in today's market? Curious to hear Chris's thoughts on this one, especially love all that you do. Chris has already spoken a little bit about that. We can get further into it. The one thing that I wanted to say here is that do think the closure of bungee's on the table. in the mid to long term. I don't know. Why you would You could just take you could just like ransack the company for talent and their IP and just close them down. You know, and It's like you're it's what happened with Halo. They lost Halo. You know, um and they're gonna lose destiny. in this next deal too. Like the idea that Bungie will cause some people will be like, Oh, they'll spin off again and pull this bullshit. I'm like Any bungee that spins off from this is gonna be so h it's gonna be so Fucked up. And wounded. 'Cause it's not gonna have any IP. It'll all have been taken. And the and their talent will probably whatever top 10 or 20 twenty percent of the talent will just be siphoned off. And then they'll be like, Okay, bye. And I really do think that that's like a realistic outcome. And maybe the most Maybe the most reasonable outcome. As opposed to we always talk about bioware, right? As not that they're as big or as important as Bungie. They're not. But like it's a sh fr it's like what is buy like bioware. What what are we doing? And it's the same thing with Bungie. It's like all these people are gone, like a lot of them have been gone. You you gave them all major buyouts and they took them and left. One of them is suing you, by the way. Um for all sorts for getting fired. I just think this thing's like a amazing clusterfuck. Like this is a This is maybe the worst thing Sony's ever done. When you just look at it financially. Remember, the entire PS2 era is an ex well. No, let's let's say I'm the PS3 era. Sony lost. Throughout the PS3 era a cumul of one billion dollars, that was like the net outcome. They lost almost four times that on this acquisition. So I have a little I'm a little it's easy upset at Bungie, and I think a lot of people are, and I am a little up e uh mad at Bungie and but it's like Be mad at the fucking people that that the hucksters tricked. It's no wonder. The longer you go on that Jim Ryan's gone. Right? Like it's it's it's but like it sucks that they that that's their scapegoat because I don't believe he was The ultimate decision maker. Well, he was this he was the he was the yes man. Not the yes man, it's the wrong nomenclature. He was the decision maker at the top, but there are people feeding him information. Is this good like you think he just like found he's like, Oh, we'll just do this. It's like no, they're like there are a lot of people probably like this is a good idea. This is what they're doing and this is what we can do and this is what it's worth and These people are still there, as far as I understand. Herman Holst is almost certainly one of them. Yeah. I keep saying that. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. I don't know. I mean it's it's it's possible. Um I think Again, it's it's it's such a monkey's paw of a studio because it's just like I I really do think they make some of the best shit ever. But then they have the they have They have this like team of executives or or higher ups or whatever the fuck that just do not know how to manage it. I think they willfully also like I I I would even go so far as to say is like I think they willfully like I I think they s I I think they were scam artists. Like genuinely. Like that the the the executives at at Bungie who were like in charge of like, Oh, this is our evaluation or whatever. Absolute. And by the way, this is not even This was true before that. Like I think there was like a famous interview that I can't remember where or like who said it, but like uh Uh Microsoft got into Bungie and Bungie couldn't get them out. There are p key people. from from Microsoft that kind of s got in there and like kind of brought that culture with them. And uh fucked it. And I think uh Will they close? I think it's possible. I think it's it would be so crazy. I mean I get it, but it's so crazy to me that like Bioware's been spinning around for ten years making garbage. Like objective trash. And that And that Bungie could uh Like I get the pr I get the price. Like I I get all that. But like from a holistic standpoint, it's like it's wild to me that like Bungie has a bigger shot of shutting down before bioware. Like it makes no sense. Yeah. Like from a quality standpoint. It's like it's just so it's such a sin for the industry. But I get it. Uh we'll see. I don't know. Uh I don't know what Bungie can do really. Um, I do think it'd be crazy of them to shut them down anytime soon just because it's like, brother, you spent all this money for what? And also the thing too is that you can siphon that talent, but like That's not really And maybe this is a bold statement to say, but there were there were bungee talent on there's bungee talent on the Concord team. There's bungee talent. All over the fucking place. But like I think you need like there's a there's something that happens when a group of people is together working on something. that I think you can't just like mix and match really. You can't bring this guy over there and expect that that's gonna have like Destiny level success. It's like no, the Destiny level Destiny was big because these people were working together. And marathon is as it is good and really good because these people are working together. I don't know if you can really like piece be on the I think the best case scenario is that you take the P the the best people at Bungie and maybe like spin them off into like a smaller studio where they remain together. But like I don't know if you could really like absorb like oh you go to Sucker Punch and it's like uh I don't think that works. Yeah, you're probably right. I I think maybe the best outcome would Or the most reasonable outcome is to just pare the studio down to four or five hundred people, which would make it like naughty dog sized. And then The the burn rate is gonna be in the tens of millions of dollars a year just for personnel. So the they're gonna have to make something big. And so you continue Maybe marathon's kind of done in quotes. There's obviously gonna be a lot of content, but maybe you have 150 people on that project. You take the other 350. And you make And this is what I wanted to kind of leave with is like everyone wants Destiny three. I'm like, yeah, I think a new Destiny probably is the right call, but just make it Destiny. And just make it so that like you never There's no there's not gonna be a Fortnite 2. Right. Like there's not gonna be an Apex Legends 2. There was an overwatch to, and as I understand, a lot of people think that was a huge mistake. Well now Overwatch Two is just Overwatch again. Right, exactly. So like you go back and you say it's what we say about Gran Turismo. Or like what the potential future of the sports games are. from 2K and from Sony and others. It's like make a platform. Make it so that like the the idea is that this is literally gonna be alive potentially for decades. And Well shit, they didn't they just didn't um In fact, I think they did. Epic not that has anything to do with this, but Epic just showed on Real Six. I don't know if you guys saw that, like there was Rocket League footage. And it's like we're getting to the point where these things are becoming so beautiful. that you could really justify keeping them around for a long time. You know? And that that won't really be a problem. Mike and I were talking about uh bit of a non sequitur, but same idea. About how Reggie Feasimi was saying recently that Phil's aim. was saying that uh they did the NES and S N E S classics because they were losing so much money on Wii U, right? And they needed to kind of Stay alive. Um And I just feel like you And then they stop at N sixty four. Which I thought was weird because they realized like these games don't really Hold up. They don't. Like from a visual perspective. It's not gonna be a problem anymore. And so you really can have a long view. on platform based games as a service in free to play games where in you could commit to them forever. And there really won't be like a resolution or frame rate or gameplay problem inherent in these things that are base. ten eighty or fourteen forty P and sixty frames. And then you can just up res and let things run better. and literally commit to this thing forever and have this platform. And I think if they had that now, I think Destiny actually would be in a bit of a different situation. Instead, they disney uh Disneyfied the the vault vaulting things away and segmenting them and putting the it's like no, like you have to instead. And what would be cool about Des uh Destiny platform would be like, as part of this, we're bringing everything back. Everything Destiny's ever done is going to be on this. Like from day one and you'll subscribe to it or whatever and like figure it out. Just figure it out. And I just feel like that That might be the future for them. But the the idea that there'll be a thousand person studio again or anything like that, I think that's that's done. And I and I always thought that they were looking at their numbers, it's like this is a major bloat, majorly bloated studio. Anyway, I think um I think you're right. I think probably One so there's two there's two things and then we can l move on. But I think Uh The first thing is that like a new Destiny game and like three, four, five years. I think the the second that logo pops up, it's gonna print money. You know what I mean? I think people people at that at that point especially where people are like nostalgic about it and they miss it. It's like we talk about Uncharted all the time. It's like how big an uncharted game's gonna be now that it's been so long. You know, and like how how excited people will be to see it. I think that's true. The other reality too is that like Dude, the economy is so bad. Mm-hmm. Like we just ha then we'll get into it later because there's a an inquiry about But like Operating bungee as is is so much harder today than it was even four years ago. Five years ago, six years ago. Uh to the point where like Yeah, if it was if things weren't the way they were. You know? The outcome or the the The future wouldn't be so bleak, I think. There would be a lot more wiggle room. Not that there would be a ton, but there would be some. And it's uh a lot of that's kind of eroded. And that's a bummer. 'Cause that's that has nothing to do with any of this. That's just like extraneous factors. But I think yeah. We'll we'll see what happens with uh Bungee. We certainly will. I'll be keep I'll be keeping an eye. Yeah, we all were will be keeping a keen eye on on bungee moving forward. And I I want them to find success with Marathon. I think they have something there. And I think they just have to accept it is what it is. It's at least it's something and you can build off of it and and find and buy some time. Uh we refer next to our story to MP first, a website we've been referring to quite a bit recently as they continue to Go into people's CVs and LinkedIn profiles and find interesting information. This one is about media molecule. And there's not too much information to work on here, but we do know that media molecule is working on something new. And we do know that it's probably something more game like as opposed to something tools oriented like Dreams was, and to a lesser extent it'll be planned and even was. Um They write that Media Molecules developer resume points to Open World title. And it says, quote, in part, the resume contains a brief description of the unannounced project that, while expectedly vague, explicitly reveals the inclusion of quote unquote open world content. According to the CV, the developer is the feature owner, main contact, and vision holder of various open world content within the title. While this doesn't definitively mean the game will strictly fit into the open world genre, it heavily hints at a larger, more non-linear experience of what the studio has traditionally delivered. The resume also goes on to detail other specific design responsibilities that might provide a picture of the game's core mechanics, notably It mentions tasks involving, quote, level blocking out of main points of interest, moment to moment gameplay, and interestingly, forage design. The latter mention implies that resource gathering systems could be playing a role in the game to some extent. maybe even pointing towards crafting. Or survival elements. That's all we really have to work on here. It's not much. I will say that I don't care. I mean, that's like my my literal answer to anything media molecule is doing. I will care when you have something to show me and there's something to be excited about, but you have gone so long. And somehow have survived a bloodletting that has And I'm just being straight. Sacrificed better studios. at the altar of finance. You better have something fucking good. And I'll care about it. When the time comes. But until then, you could describe whatever it is and I don't give a shit. Reminding everyone, of course, that if you don't count hair away and I know some people it's like Terway's cool. It was made by like fifteen people. The last full project that they did at Media Molecule was PlayStation Three's Little Big Planet Two. That came out in January. two thousand eleven. So Whatever. You know, like w it's it's it's we just said it about Bioware. It's like this and and all of the founders are gone, as I understand. I think they're all gone now. That was before the PSN outage. Right? Yes, it was the same year but before the outage. Yeah. Oh my God. 'Cause that feels ancient. Yeah. Yeah, I mean it is age. I mean it's that is in the middle of the PlayStation 3 era. And uh it's absolutely Bonkers. Yeah. Again, Terraway's a cool game. Dreams was an experiment that didn't work out very well, but I just I don't even know what to be excited about. It's like okay, it's like some team that's been fucking hobbling around for a a long time. It's not to say that what they can't do is or what they do can't be impressive. I hope it is. It's just to say that I'm not giving it any oxygen until like and speculating about it. Who cares? Yeah, we gotta see it. Um but also I I do have to say, like Hearing hearing that they're working on an open world game with crafting elements is is Deeply disappointing. To me. But like I mean, maybe it'll be great. Who the fuck knows? But like I mean that that from the get go, that kind of sounds like uh it's not really What I was hoping for. Yeah. What do you think, Kelsey? I think um I could see them doing something Cool. Like games like Animal Crossing or right now really popular Tomodachi Life. Those are games with High levels of Creator customization and input. And so while what Media Molecule did with Little Big Panet one and two and to some extent dreams of like We're gonna let you create a game. Uh within the game. Right. It's cool and was neat, but I think for most people at this point, they want to play Okay. They want to play the game that is made for them. And so Uh, my hope for whatever this next project is is that I think that that element of creativity is always going to be in media molecules DNA. But Hone though that creativity. into a game that's already established. Much like like an Animal Crossing is a very Creative game. In that you design your island. You decorate things. You can Um customize the different uh villagers and stuff like that. Add that type of customized, like a deep level of creator creativity into an established game. And so if it's an open world, crafting game where that's the focus of the creativity. I think then they could really have something. Who knows? This is we're not going off much. Yeah, there's just nothing to work off of in You're right that the creativity is based to their to their identity. And we need more of that, Wimsy. That's what's that's part of what Astrobot had brought back. And I think w has been missing. And a lot of that had been missing because media molecule had been woefully mismanaged for a really long period of time. And imagine if they didn't have the wisdom to let them make that Vita game back in 2013, 2014, they would have released literally nothing. In that time. There's no way that game bought them time 'cause that game didn't sell appreciably. It probably made money, but it like, you know, little bits considering they didn't spend a lot of money to make it to begin with. Um I want good things for them. I just I think there's a With the way m assets are moved around and the way money is spent at Sony and that there's only a limited amount of capital resource, which makes sense. I think it's fairly reasonable now to kind of be upset that certain teams were given the boot and certain teams survived. And You don't want to play around with people's jobs. You don't I'm not saying anything from that. I don't want anyone media molecule to lose m their jobs anymore, then I want people of Ben to lose their jobs. What I'm saying is is if you had a cut, why are you cutting blue point? Or, you know, and I I again I continue to be a little worried about house mark. And I hope that Sony's If it's true that uh 'cause I saw a Linier report that that r uh Saros's budget was seventy one million dollars. Which is reasonable, but if that's true. It's nowhere close to making its money back and probably never will. You know, and that kind of shit make if they if they really sold three hundred, four hundred thousand copies, that's that's like nowhere even remotely where they need to be. And now they'll sell more copies, maybe a million more copies lifetime, but at what price? And it still would be insufficient to make that money back. And so I worry about them. And I think that there's a level of Favoritism? Shown towards certain teams? And that's reasonable enough. But I feel like some of it is unearned. And so I'm rooting media molecule, but it's it's Maybe there's a reason to be optimistic. Maybe it's like so good. If you want to look at it the you know, if you want to look at it optimistically, it's like when they were making all their cuts and their budget cuts and stuff, it's like this is so good, we won't walk away from this, maybe? Could be. Little Big Planet was a revolutionary game. It's just that like they're different. So we'll see. Dustin, I'm very curious to see what you think of this next story. StrandQuest fortieth anniversary. I love the fortieth anniversary metal, by the way. Uh I think it's really cute. With the bow. The little icon they made. Dragon Quest Twelve has reemerged. It is now called Beyond Dreams. Used to be called the flames of fate. And it seems to be a more traditional style Dragon Quest game, a little more bright and airy and adventurous. As opposed to the darker, though unseen elements that we were promised for the original Dragon Quest I when it was announced years ago. Um Yosuke Saido and Yuji Hori, who obviously are the major players uh behind Dragon Quest these days at Square Enix, put up a ten minute video. Did you watch it? Uh yeah. They were so cute. Like oh yeah. Like with when they were like doing their little like hand gestures and stuff like that. What's up with Yuji Hori's hair? Love what he's got going on with his hair. Okay. Crazy look, man. So Dustin, I'm very curious to know what you think. They show a little bit of it of the game off. It looks very traditional, not unlike Dragon Quest 11. Um I said this in the Discord. And someone wrote in about this as well, Link DV wrote in and said Dragon Quest Twelve Beyond Dreams. Why does the main character look like he has the Spanish plague? Why is the title so much of a downgrade? Fires of Fate was a killer subtitle. Total reshuffle, Big Daddy Collin, 15 minute oral presentation on Square Nix's mishandling of their most storied franchise. Thank you for your donation. I did say in the Discord. That Character looks little B. His mother drank alcohol when he was in the wood. And I don't know about it. I couldn't I can't unsee like he looks weird to me. Game looks fun. It looks like he transforms into some sort of monster. Um, based on the footage. Which is cool. Very early to know more. of uh fine point on it for people out there, by the way, that didn't see the video and didn't see the presentation. Drag Quest Twelve's development has been restarted. They've scrapped the old version of the game. And it's realistic to think that this version of the game is years away. Uh wow. Dustin, hit me up. What do you think? Yeah. Uh so it is was, you know, very surprising to see uh the fact that they restarted development and while we didn't see very much of what was originally of you know final or final. Dragon Quest twelve, uh, with the other subtitle and it being a more mature you and I had many times over the years speculated on what that means. And For me, it was a little I don't want to say the announcement or the trailer is disappointing, but I was intrigued by this idea. of like a a little bit of a different direction. for Dragon Quest. I would still expect it in terms of its gameplay and overall to be very traditional. But the fact they were making a statement like this is going to be a more mature Dragon Quest game, I was like, Oh. That sounds kind of cool. So now that we get this new updated new version of the game. uh with a different subtitle and and seeing the the trailer for it, I mean, of course visually it's beautiful and looks so cool. But you're right in that it is Looks just like More dragon quests. And maybe that's okay. I'm not a longtime Dragon Quest fan. Maybe Dragon Quest fans just want purely more Dragon Quest that looks Vaguely like the previous Dragon Quest games, but There's a a a small part of me that's like, man, I feel like in terms of ambition. What we're seeing sounds like a little bit of a downgrade, but They had to have had some reason why that old version of the game just wasn't Working. So They made the call on it. Uh the fact that What is it with Square Annex? Is my question. I don't know, man. What is it about them not being able to make games that they've made for decades? They suddenly get we don't know how. They're like make another dragon quest. They're like we we don't know how to do it. We we lost the technology, we just don't know how to do it. We don't we don't know how to do it. And this keeps happening dude. As a Kingdom Hearts fan I remember the weight between King uh Kingdom Hearts two and three. course there were the side titles in between in the middle there that are a core to the story, but it wasn't Kingdom Hearts story. And here we are now. Kingdom Hearts three between You know, three and now the announced four, it's probably gonna be the same amount of time. Maybe more. Yeah. Between more. Uh, so I don't know what it is. with Square Nic in some of these games that they just don't feels like they don't know how to make them and they have to restart them or they get put on hold or something like that. The only thing that they've somehow been Well Final Fantasy Seven remake needed to be restarted. Yeah, that's true in Final Fantasy 15. Battle days with team. Um This keeps happening there's something There's something up there. Well, the trailer itself, when they show they show it, it it really reveals the problem of the the timeline, right? Because it's like Dragon Quest one, eighty six. eighty seven. eighty eight. Ninety, ninety-two, ninety-five. two thousand. Two thousand five. Two thousand. Well, technically twenty twelve or ten. Then you go to two thousand and seventeen. We're in 2026, dude. Like I understand the NES games were easy to make. They made them in a year, less than a year. Comparable to what they're doing now, but I agree with you. And this is what Mike and I were talking about when we were hanging out last night. I was like, there is something deeply wrong with Square Enix. Like there's something absolutely fundamentally wrong with it. And I was saying, remember we bring up that there's that um There's that like activist investor that owns like 10% of Square Enix that we bring up every once in a while and he releases like these reports about how fucked up the company is and that he wants to like basically seize the company. Um It's like Yeah. You uh what the what are you doing? We've been complaining about them for years. And they do get things really right. And I do. Well, this is a whole nother topic, but I think a major square in X problem is our Final Fantasy fans. And we can get deeper into that if you want, but As far as Dragon Quest is concerned. Dragon Quest should be the most straightforward thing they do out of the big three? Kingdom Hearts being a complicated, licensed game that's gonna take time. And Final Fantasy being something that always changes. Uh, Dragon Quest is tradition. You and I were both kind of into the dark idea. I think it comes from a I'm glad they walked away from it. Because it was clear that it wasn't working. Um, and I wan like you said, I wonder what that means, like what that looks like, but I think I can imagine what that means and looks like. If you think about Dragon Quest Eleven. Dragon Quest 11 becomes dark and that's part of the game and it gets darker and darker. But it's about a bright and airy like Dragon Quest games are bright and airy. They're they're full of monsters and joy. And it's dangerous and there's demons and evil wizards and all all sorts of things, but like It's got a lighter touch. And I wonder if that was what they were missing. I found this really interesting thing on um The Dragon Quest fandom that I thought I'd read. It's It's a sequence of events. Right? So May twenty seventh, two thousand twenty one, the game was revealed. as existing. So at that point you assume it was in development since 2019, 2018. Obviously the game came out in twenty seventeen, they ported it to a bunch of places, so you give them a little time. April 2023 Um They change the logo. June twenty twenty three. This is interesting Yuji Hori has a Zoom meeting with fellow workers about the game's development difficulties. such as targeting adult audiences and working remotely thanks to COVID. the game had at that point had been available for pre-order. April twenty twenty four. The Dragon Quest producer of the game had stepped down. I forgot that this happened. That like the pr the series producer was gone. over the problems and the delays over the game, which I think by this point was probably supposed to be out. And then May 27, 2024, Yuji Hori announced on Twitter that he was worried about the next mainline Dragon Quest game's development because of the recent death of Akira Toryama. and Koichi Sugiyama a while back, saying that Yuji will do his best without them both. And then um Last year he confirms multiple time that the game is in development still. At this point, I assume that they probably are like, it's we gotta go back to the drawing board. And if that's true, then this game will not come out until twenty thirty. I mean by Square Enix's own unless they're reusing a bunch of shit and stuff like that, I don't know, but Now We've made fun of them ad nauseum at Square Enix about like their release cadence and a lot of things that they they got totally wrong. Um and fucked up and it's so annoying. Mike and I actually were talking about like how I'm like, I think games like Harvest Stella and others actually had a chance of being something more if they just gave them space. but they had no idea how to even do it. And Now I said this and I believe this that a major problem they have are Final Fantasy fans. Because Final Fantasy 7 Remake and Rebirth are fucking excellent. Games. And Final Fantasy sixteen. is an excellent game. problem is not the execution of those games. The problem is how long it's taking them to make them. And I think the one thing that they have an advantage of in Square Innex, and this is true for all the Japanese publishers. is it's just so cheap to make games there. That So they get to make games under Japanese development rules of capital. and then they get to sell the games on a global market. And this works out to their major advantage. The opposite is true for the Western studios. So without a burn rate. uh that's significant, which they don't have because they don't pay their people anything. They can afford to do shit like this. They can afford for Final Fantasy 15 to take forever. They can afford for Final Fantasy VII Remake to switch developers. They can afford for Dragon Quest XII to basically be canceled and revived. It makes them look fucking stupid. And they need to they need to work and get things better the first time. And stop making people wait. Look at their competition with Sega. and persona. And what they're doing with the Persona Studio and they get out Metaphor and they have all the revivals or the Yakuza games. Or like a Dragon Games. Look at And I'm not comparing production values, but look at Falcom. They release so many games that their own fans can't even keep up. In one series. Really two if you count ease. Square Enix has these things that like these these bundles of games that are amazing. properties and they they don't know what to do. So We have Dragon Quest Twelve. And then the other thing that's interesting here, I thought as well, is uh and I don't do you play Dragon Quest monsters? Yeah, I've never played it. Yeah. So Drag Quest Monsters began in the late 90s. It was actually a Game Boy Color game. The new one is called The Withered World. It these games are not unlike Pokemon. In a way. You know, you're collecting monsters and all the rest. Um What's interesting is that this is the first Dragon Quest Monsters game to come to PlayStation. So Drain Quest Want Monsters The Withered World is coming to PlayStation Five. What was interesting about this, it it follows Dragon Quest Five. story which I think is interesting. One of the more inaccessible Dragon Quest games. I don't know if you picked this up, Dustin, when they were talking about the games on the video. They were like, we hope to get this out before Dragon Quest 12. And I'm like, well you hope. doing over there? What are you guys doing? You don't even know the order the games are coming out? Jesus Christ. They are getting old over there. When you look at the videos of them, it's like the same dudes forever. And Dragon Quest is so old. that it's like, yeah, these guys are getting up there in age. But um anyway, Chris, I'm not even gonna go to you, I assume you have nothing to say about this, but uh Dustin Dragon Quest Twelve? We'll keep a close eye out. On this. We need to. My only hope is that Maybe somehow the where Mixed up and maybe this was restarted. earlier than we think and so they're further along than we think. And I think you're right, Colin, that there there's certainly some Reusing. uh because they wanna use a curatoriyama's designs. Right. So they have to by virtue of that. Yeah. Yeah. So they they want to use that whether they retool those characters in the story I don't know, but I I would imagine they're not starting from scratch. They uh Say a w underwent a restart and development under a new structure. Yeah, we I'm wishing them the best. And I I don't want to make it seem like it's all bad. I think they've done a great job with external spin off games that have come out that are usually outside. I think Toast makes the um the Dragon Quest monsters games, but they they did obviously the Omega Force Musso Dragon Quest games that were great. Draquist Builders was really well received, both of those. And the Dragon Ball is the remix remix, right. I was gonna say one and two, three and seven are all very Well regarded. I think the bigger question from there is like, I guess this gives them time to go back and work on five, six Eight and nine? I think nine will be the biggest challenge because it's a mobile game. Or a handheld game? And I've said this before is that like I would love for them to get Final Fantasy X over here. There is an offline game version of that game. Oh, Dragon Quest. I'm sorry, Dragon Quest 10. There is an offline version of That game. And I know that a big challenge is just it's a lot of translation. And that's what's has always stopped Dragon Quest games from coming over quickly. until more recent history, but They have so in other words, they do have places to go. in the interim if they really map this out well. where it could all they could really get everything out and then culminate. with Dragon Quest Twelve. which would be pretty neat. And I'm I I God, I just I love the comfort of a Dragon Quest game. And and we we need it. And it's just so sad to think that it's just been so long. And it's a it's a shame. to have nothing for the 40th anniversary. Yeah. Yeah. It's it and we were talking about mismanagement. Look at Final Fantasy Nine, like it's almost certain that Final Fantasy I don't want to say almost certain, but it seems like Final Fantasy Nine remake has just been canceled. And you have to wonder like what that looks like. Like what went wrong with that? That game has been in development forever. Maybe it'll become like a final fantasy tactics style thing where it will just emerge one day. But We'll see. But yes, the uh character does look a little derpy. I think it's his eyes. It well, it is his eyes, and Mike had pointed out, and this is true, and this is a good point, that it seems to be surrounding dreams and sleep, hence the name. So he could just be tired. Like that's him like just being, and I'm tired. I always look tired, but the eyes are too far apart. I mean that's all there is to it. I see what you're saying. It's like it it looks very awkward. So it's not like the bags under the eyes. That doesn't bother me. It's the he they they're just they're too big and they're too far apart. He look special. I'll be the one that says it. In fact, Dustin, when I said that in the chat, you uh responded with a mirror. Oh I had to, dude. Yeah. You s you set it up too beautifully. I couldn't do it. I couldn't resist. All right, we have some news that just broke today from when we're recording. Uh I don't know if anyone really gives a sh I mean a lot of people give a shit but I don't know if we care. Call of Duty's new game this year has been confirmed. Call of Duty Modern Warfare four. It launches campaign multiplayer and DMZ modes October twenty third. The logo is I think but I think it it's supposed to look like an Asian character because the game apparently takes place in Korea, which is Kinda cool. Um So I appreciate that. We already know that it it is skipping PlayStation four for the first time since two thousand thirteen, which is Awesome. So we can finally move on. And it is not the last game to be moving off of PS4. I think we're going to talk about others. as well. You can pre-order the game for PS5 now if you want. Uh, there are there is some information on the PlayStation blog about multiplayer and the campaign and all the rest. And it says by the way that you play as a y uh A young South Korean soldier, which is Interesting. Uh, any excitement about this, Chris? Uh, Modern Warfare four. I mean I don't know. I kinda like the logo actually. I think I like I it looks distinct. I'm into it. Uh, but I honestly I don't know, man. Call of Duty has to In order for Call of Duty to work for me, it has to have been out already. And I have to hear from people that I trust that it's Not The same as it always is, and they have no reason to not make it the same as they always do. So like I'm I don't know. I'm going to assume that this is going to be a skip for me, but I mean Call of Duty's huge still. Even after uh last year's Uh blunder. And many blunders throughout the life span of the series. It just doesn't speak to me. I haven't cared about Call of Duty really since the original Modern Warfare Two. Like I fell off even before Black Ops, which people swear is like People people consider that to be like the the apex, I think, like the the highest quality. Call of Duty like Black Ops one and Black Ops Two. It was like peak. Um I fell off before that. So like this is This is Not really doing it for me. Yeah, we'll see what happens. I I think one interesting thing about this is that it's Infinity Wards game. So they they go again, no co development, which it they've been doing a little bit. Um specifically with I think Raven jumping betwey arc and maybe Sledgehammer or something like that. So There's that does an any uh interest in this game. An interesting wrinkle then if that has anything to do with our show is this will be the first version to come to Switch too. I saw that. I'm intrigued by this. I was very, very critical. of the last Call of Duty that came out, and certainly I wasn't the only one. Uh, that wasn't into it as we talked about the stats behind the last Call of Duty game in comparison to the ones before it. But uh I want to give them a chance because I while I don't consider myself like Call of duty guy. I have put like significant time. into most of them over the last few years. Uh it's not something that lasts all year until the next one, but for a good few months me and the boys play Call of Duty. And so I'm intrigued, particularly because there are people that played it. um like y YouTubers and stuff like that. And they sound very promising. uh their reactions to it. There is one really weird point that's in this PlayStation blog point a post that I also saw people talking about. Uh, where they're talking about Modern Warfare four introduced as Ballistic Authority, a new weapon first technology stack that unifies precision aiming, physics handling, blah blah blah blah blah. But here's the point at the end. The promise is simple. No bloom. No guesswork, no doubt. Every shot tells. And there's I I don't know if it's just in If you are shooting while not ADS. That there's no bloom. Really interesting. Yeah. So it sounds like they are making some pretty significant changes. Uh to the actual gunplay itself. And so With that being said, and also just I think that the look feels right. Us it it feels like a very strong course correction. From the last Black Ops what was it, Black Ops? Five? Six? I can't he can't remember which one they're on. It's uh yeah, Black Ops seven. Seven. Holy shit. Okay, so Black Ops seven. Now and anything can change in multiple, you know, a fucking beavers and butthead skin maybe by the end of the year. But Um Jesus Christ. As of right now, based on the what we've seen. I'm intrigued by it. I wanna see what the actual multiplayer and what these changes look like, though. Um We have a letter from Andrew Feisner, who says, Good day, sacred men. Modern Warfare 4 has been revealed alongside some interesting news. Warzone is leaving behind P S four this fall. You believe it should have taken this long and will it be a signal to start the Mass Exodus to start dropping last gen? Thank you for your donation. I did see that, and that's great news. So Call of Duty is totally leaving PlayStation 4 behind with all of its stuff. Um We've seen this with other, you know, M L B the show, we brought up Genshin Impact and others. I think it's just slowly gonna happen. I don't know if it's because they want to abandon their audience as much as they realize that they simply cannot start they cannot continue to spec to this technology anymore. The games can't be held back by these machines. if you want them to be interoperable with each other. So I think that has a major That's a major impetus behind them doing this. It's gonna make it cleaner and easier for them to not do an Xbox one version to not do PS4 version and to force everyone over. And it's obviously good for um the hardware manufacturers as well. Since Activision and Call of Duty is technically an Xbox property now, you definitely want people to move on from to new hardware. But I I think they if in a perfect world they would want to continue making games for P S four. I just don't think it's It's gonna work for them. So Modern Warfare 4 launches in October. October twenty third, pretty close to close to Grand Theft Otto. I wonder how it'll do this year. It it There was staunch competition with Battlefield last year, but it looks like Battlefield kind of fell off. I mean, but they certainly made a lot of money and they they did well. but it wasn't a permanent thing. And I wonder without that resistance if they will do better this year, but then Craneft Auto will be right around the corner. We'll see. It feels to me like Call of Duty is a diminishing property. It is all relative. Of course. It is still huge and makes a lot of money. But it doesn't seem to be what it once was. And by the way, no game pass for this version either. The whole purpose of the of the pr of the uh purchase of Activision. So funny when you look at it. It's like well, you guys are fucking Bungle that one. All right. Dustin, I wanna go over you to this one. I don't know if you saw this. Did you see this Digital Foundry video about PlayStation Three emulation? I did. So W basically the long and short of it, I have pushware story up here. You can explain it a little bit better, is that they did this experimentation with the Linux. PS5 Linux. So is it a jailbroken? PS five, that is their then running PS3. It's so funny how Sony is pretty cool with big companies like fucking with their hardware and then they don't really care. Um Like they work directly with the j with the Joel Foundry, you'd think you would ask them, like Can you not use the PS three emulator on your jailbroken PS five? But it's cool that they don't care. I think the big thing that's surprised to me is as I understand is because um of I guess perks in or or or quirks I should say in the emulation that While the games run at fairly nice resolutions, the frame rates are not great. Um and it seems like it's just much more complicated. So you can massage this a little bit better than than I can. Yeah, so basically there was um a way I don't know, through some kind of exploitation that you could install Linux on your PlayStation Five. And the PlayStation three emulator RPC S three uh has a Linux version of it. So Uh, they were able to try to attempt to run PlayStation Three games on PlayStation via this exploit and through Linux. Uh, and so the the video details like how these different games run. Um, so looking at like the article specifically, there are some games that are absolutely amazing. They mentioned Ridge Racer Seven. Running at sixty FPS in four K. Uh resistance fall of man, they say achieves four K at a largely locked thirty FPS. Minus some minor frame pacing issues. On the flip side. There are also games that just simply Barely work. To my understanding, it is how much of the game relies on the proprietary weird system uh uh the cell architecture of the PlayStation 3. Uh they mentioned Kill Zone Three and Motorstorm Apocalypse. Offload anti aliasing to the SPUs. So by disabling MLAA, both games are able to achieve decent results on PS five. via the emulator. So you have to disable your uh M L A. So This is Not surprising. To me. At all. Well when we've talked about getting PS three games to run on PS five. always been possible. but it's n was never going to be a plug and play situation. Uh It it's like right now there's been I don't we're not talking about in the show, but Recently there's been some Japanese content creators that got to see Metal Gear Solid 4. Running on the PlayStation. Uh and It's clear to me at least that they needed to do significantly. A lot of work. that game running the way it is on PlayStation 5. This isn't just like they're running an emulator. I w saw a YouTube video where they were talking about how like their in the PS5 version of Metal Gear Solid 4, there's like a totally different save system. implemented. Not that it operates differently, but it's like a new menu. Showing that it's not just like wrapping the game in some kind of, you know, emulation layer and then putting it on PS5. Like Middle Gear Solid one, I believe, and maybe even two. Maybe not two, but the first one did on PS five. So Yeah, it it it's kind of back to things that we said years ago that's like Sony could release some of these games. Uh on PS five. It's just the am the amount of work on a per game basis is going to variate. uh drastically. Just because the PS three man, it was It was w it was weird hardware and did thing like games needed to be coded. order to take advantage of it. Fully. Just needed to be coded specifically. For it. So Um, but yeah, interesting work done. I mean, Digital Foundry always does. weird stuff like this and interesting to see that like certain PS three games like they mentioned. are just like amazing. Like they run at many times the resolution uh originally through an emulator. I mean, that's cool as fuck. Uh not everything is getting that result. It's funny that they they they have they show here, I I can't believe I it's like what we were dealing back then, heavenly sword on PS3 running at 18 frames. Insane. Um during a very hack action heavy part. But that game is so good. It's so funny to think about how it's probably not very good, actually. Now are the are things capped thirty frames because that is all that would be possible to be rendered? I mean, w you would have to the in other words, you can't a game can't run in infinite frames, right? Because theoretically, because the frames would have to be Animated, right? Like there would have to be like you does that make sense? Hmm yes and no. Like certain games For example, like an e sports game like Overwatch, like in theory can run is whatever they're they have those games running at like insane hundreds of FPS. Right, but what I'm saying is that it's built to do that, right? Like as opposed to these games that they never thought would ever achieve more than thirty frames a second by any means necessary. And so they just don't Well Yeah, I I I know what you're I know what you mean. Like the the the frames don't exist. So theoretically even if you played the like even if you were to play thirty frames per second footage back at like two hundred frames per second, you would still get you would still get thirty frames per second. They would there wouldn't be like a smooth there wouldn't be like a smooth transition like you would see in like high speed footage of something, for example, where you get you get thousands of frames per second. Because it's real life. Well and you can see I I is that what you're gonna do? Yeah, yeah I that's yeah, I've 'cause I'm wondering like why the focus on resolution, which I feel like is so much less important in a way. Well Yeah. Well I I know well, I don't know how true this is of the games on PS three, but I know that there are certain games that are coded in such a way or programmed in such a way that the e even something as simple as like animations are tied to frame rates. And things like that. So like uh I I remember uh when Halo Two was being ported to Xbox One when they were doing the um The massive collection, a big issue that they ran into was a lot of the fire rates and animations were tied to how fast the game ran. So theoretically You could fire your gun twice as fast. If it was running at sixty frames per second, which was like not necessarily how you would want that to go. Uh, so they had to do a lot of like uh in engine tweaking to to make it work. But Yeah, I I mean I would imagine that There was just a cat because that was like the most that it would be reasonable to set it at uh there's a lot of PS three games that run at sixty. I think doesn't um Call of Duty Yeah, Call of Duty runs at sixty on um on P S three. So I'm not saying console can't do it, I'm just saying like I wonder if a gorilla made Kill Zone so that they never dreamed that it could even reach that frame rate. And so that's 'Cause other uh it doesn't matter. Um I just feel like the resolution stuff is because they I think they were saying they had Heavenly Sword running at five K. Which is funny. Um and then again, none of those games were meant to be. Heavenly Shore is probably what 720p or 1080 I or something. Um it was an early P S three game. So Anyway, just an interesting little experiment that they did. People can go check it out for themselves on their website, digitalfoundry.net. If you'd like. Uh let's see. Next story. This is a a brief one here. Everyone got emails if you, I guess, bought or downloaded at some point Destruction All Stars. Did you guys get these emails? 'Cause I think it was part I never bought it, but it was part of P S plus, I want to say. And so I might have gotten it that way. Anyway, the email says From May twenty sixth. So that's already happened two days ago from what we're recording. Destruction all stars and all associated virtual currency destruction points. will be removed from sale at PlayStation store and will no longer be available for purchase. Single player modes will remain accessible to existing users until N Wednesday, November twenty fifth, twenty twenty six, when all server support for Destruction All Stars shall be shut down. After the state, arcade mode single player challenges shall remain playable for returning players, however functionality and player experience may be impacted. due to the server shutdown, otherwise all remaining game services will be taken offline. Any virtual currency. Destruction points. currently owned by players can continue to be redeemed within available single player modes until Wednesday, November twenty fifth, twenty twenty six. Due to ongoing technical issues. Multiplayer services for D destruction all stars on PlayStation five consoles shall remain offline and are no longer available. We appreciate the support and enthusiasm. of the destruction all stars community. Your statutory right by the way, the last sentence is funny. This your statutory rights, if any, are not affected. Contact PlayStation support for assistance. In my experience, don't contact PlayStation Sport. Yeah. Uh for any assistance. Um statutory and then begin an R. And I was like, What is happening? Yeah. They they got uh they got funny people there, man, because this this this image. Yeah. They chose absolutely cra I've never seen that expression captured on a video game character before in my life. Yeah, but I see I know that because it's like, Well Yeah, that's Sammy. Uh good old Sammy. The um also destruction points. DP? Yeah, like what do we do? Like this like COD again oh it's COD points. It's CP. It's like can we D is nobody in the trenches aware. of like how to maybe like avoid these these problems. Too many too many currencies. Fake currency. Too many. Too many Star Wars imperial credit currencies. Yeah. Um Destruction of all stars. Interesting game. February, it came out in February of 2021. So it was like one of those like launch era games that probably was a little late. And so they had to push it. It was created by Lucid. Lucid's owed by a ten cent now, so then go fuck off. Um this was probably the biggest game they ever made. Lucid did make a game Dustin, you might remember it. Do you remember Jacob Jones? It was a Vita game. It was like a an adventure game. that I really like. I've never seen this in my life. Yeah, they did two of them, but only one of them came to beat them. Um That's probably like the game I I remember the most. Jake Jones is a really cute game. I really, really liked it. Uh it's got like a costume quest kind of vibe to it. Definitely. And um so they they did some of that, which was which was fun and um some port work. As I understand, they kind of are a port studio now. I think they work with Xbox. Um Primarily. So they were in over their head with this game. And remember, Lucid was the studio that was originally gonna do twisted metal. And it got taken away from them and given to Fire Sprite and then canceled. So they're on a little bit of a losing streak. There is an interesting part of the email, though, that I wanted to outline because I think it speaks to Um Hold on a second. We see if I can find it again. I think it speaks to what yeah, here it is. I think it speaks to what happened with Little Big Planet. They and they bury it in the email. They really should have started with this. Due to ongoing technical issues, multiplayer services for destruction all stars on PlayStation console shall remain offline and are no longer available. It seems like the game kinda got fucked. Maybe a little more quietly because it's not a very big game. This apparently also happened to um Firewall Ultra. on PSVR too. Where like the game got in some way infiltrated by people and like and remember m remember we were mystified by the Little Big Planet stuff because Little Big Planet's servers kept going up and down and then they just remained offline and they were just completely botched. And I don't really know how that happens. Like it's easy enough to understand something getting messed up by hackers and external forces, but you just can't salvage it. Like it's just like, oh, the UGC's gone. Like what is going on over there? Like your g your game, it's like, oh, I guess destruction all starts is all fucked up. We're just gonna th unplug it. It's like okay. I also wonder how many people were really even playing it. Yeah. Destruction of all stars RIP. Bozo. Yeah. All right. Easy. Fair enough. It's R P bozo. Fair enough. This is exciting news in the Moriarty household because I live with a big Witcher fan. CD project has revealed A new a third expansion. for The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt, which came back out out back on PS4 in two thousand fifteen, believe it or not. It's called Songs of the Past. It will launch not on PS four, but only on PlayStation Five for this next gen according to Xbox and uh in addition rather to Xbox series and P C. Fools Theory, an external team that I think CD Project owns, is working on it. They don't have much to say about it. They write Quote Songs of the Past will return players to the role of legendary monster slayer Garalt of Rivia. Is that how that's how you say it right? Gor Geralt? Gerald? For a brand new adventure when it launches in twenty twenty seven on PlayStation five, Xbox Series X and S and PC. CD Project Red is co-developing the expansion with Fools Theory, a team comprising industry veterans who worked on the Witcher three. More details on songs of the past will be released in late summer. twenty twenty six. The Witcher 3 has sold more than 60 million copies since its release in 2015 and is the winner of more than 250 Game of the Year awards and one thousand industry awards. What do we think of this, Dustin? The Witcher Three Wild Hunt Songs of the Past, the third expansion, the first expansion since 2016. It will have been 11 years. Very much like Borderlands too did, very much like uh Amelia did. This is obviously leading into the Witcher Four, I assume. Uh what do you make of this? I see what they have. And I think why can't I have that for me? You know? All the games that I don't really care about get this cool really late DLC, whether it's Borderlands and now Witcher Three. And no disrespect. to Witcher three. I think clearly it is a amazing game. I have I I've put significant time into. Uh never beat their main campaign. I think I was like Two thirds the way through. Yeah, I couldn't do it either. I was so overwhelmed. I think modern Colin Can do it. Yeah. So it's never a a series that really connected with me all that much. I think doing this as a way to bridge the gap is pretty cool. Pretty neat. You know, joked at the beginning 'cause I'm like, Man, um if imagine if they did A new bloodborne DLC. I would lose my fucking shit. If they did that. They won't. So I can just I'm imagining how it feels like for for Micah, for Lockmore, and I think maybe Maddie too. The fact that it's like, dude, if one of your favorite games of all time From what, uh, ten years ago? Uh over ten years ago. Now that it's like there's new content for it. That's insane. That must be so exciting. And like I said, I want that for me someday. Well yeah, we'll now's not we'll try to keep uh the dream alive for you. Thank you. Hearts of Stone was the first expansion that came out fall twenty fifteen. And then Blood and Wine was spring twenty sixteen. So it has been a long time. And it's interesting that Fools Theory Studio is like they said comprised of CD project veterans, but they're the team, I believe, that is remaking The Witcher one. as well. So they have They're doing work over there. And this is a better managed team. We're going to talk a little bit about Remedy, I think shortly, about like managing what you have and making the most out of it. And we were talking earlier about making games in cheaper places like Poland. We were talking about Japan earlier. And then selling on a global market. They have made so much money. on The Witcher three, that it's and Cyberpunk. That it's probably Hard to imagine. And uh I like them. I like C D Project. I'm rooting for them. I thought I liked the Witcher Three. I just wasn't it just didn't hit me at the time. I was overwhelmed by it. It was more of like my media. I was more of like when I was in my journalist era when I just didn't have time. I'm like I can't be playing this game for fucking ever. Like I have other things do, I don't really feel that way anymore. So I think I should give it I I probably will give it another chance at some point. Cyberpunk. is so good. Like one of the great games of the last ten years, easily easily. One of the great games of the list. I couldn't believe how good it was. Like I really could. I was like, this is really fucking great. Like I can't believe that you almost ruined it. Yeah. Like, how dare you? You know? 'Cause I remember I I played what, twenty two when it came to PS five. I wasn't gonna play it on PS four. It's gonna be a little to stinky. No, but Jesus No Um Chris, are you gonna play the Witcher 3 Wild Hunt songs of the past? No, I t the I'm kinda like with you guys, where like I I like I think that Witcher Three is objectively a great game. I think I've like I've experienced it and I've played Every time I play it, I get like thirty hours in and I'm like, I like this, but like I don't know, just something pulls me away from it every time and I just I I never stick with it. It's like a It's very peculiar. I think really, to be honest, I don't I don't gel well with the combat. And combat is kind of like a big I'm a I'm a big game feel guy, like a big game play person. So like I mean like it's cool that it's immersive and the stor and it's really well written and I appreciate all of that. But I just need I need more out of like the The moment to moment. than Witcher Three has but I I think it's cool that uh I like this this trend of um old games getting this like new This new shit out of nowhere. Me too. You know, I'm excited. You know what? I'm really gonna be so over the moon. When uh When that uh late generation prototype DLC comes. Yeah. That prototype. Yeah. Yeah, wow. I never played prototype too so I have no I have no feelings. I did platinum for a time too. Fascinating. Yeah, isn't it? That was probably a spyful item as well. Oh that's funny. Michael Bagby wrote and said, Hi Sacred Gents, with the announcement of the Witcher 3 DLC coming twelve years after the base game was released, is this going to be some sort of record for the longest gap between a single player game and an expansion? What do you think it will cost? And is it a good idea to revisit such a beloved game whilst working on a sequel? Thanks for all you do. It's materially a good idea. Like it's gonna it's gonna drive new copies of Witcher three. It's perfect. Like Witcher three is free. In terms of what I mean by that is it's from their perspective, it's done. Every game they sell is just free money. And investing a little bit to make that r revive that and get people, it's it's brilliant. I would again the only two I can think of off the top of my head, I'm sure there are others in the PC space that I just don't know. Cause I think didn't Diablo three or something get an expansion like really w way after something, but Something like that. That I don't play. But I thought of Borderlands too. And I bought a Vamor, like I said. Now Borderlands Two came out twenty twelve. And its expansion, the last expansion came out in 2019, which was really far away. That was to T's Borderlands 3. That was seven years, so nowhere near it. Omaler came out twenty twelve as well. earlier in twenty twelve than Borderlands. And that expansion came out in 2020. So closer, but still no cigar. So yeah, I think it is. The uh as I can tell, it's in the console space. I can't think of anything like that. In the PC space, there's probably some bullshit for civilization or Something, I don't know. I promise we would talk about remedy. And we'll do that now. The publication of the games business sat down with their new CEO, Jean Charles Godachon. who used to work at electronic arts. And uh in fact, he was like a guy that worked on a bunch of weird shit at EA like free to play games and mobile. He worked on Battlefield Heroes and FIFA and he even worked for um C C P on Eve On Maline, which is interesting. So he's a little bit of a weird fit, I think, and I think he has to do some ex some interviews to convince people that he's the right fit. But he said some interesting stuff here about remedy. that I thought was interesting. when he was asked. He said, quote I think I got chosen because I know exactly what remedy is and what needs to be protected, needs to be supported and needs to be grown. Remedy is a one of a kind studio. It's a studio that has amazing creative drive. It's a studio that has been messy here or there, and that's the beauty of the type of games that were that that were made and how. But I hope I could bring to remedy is vision on where the company could go. And where we can make some improvements. He said something which I believe one hundred percent. He said, quote, Remedy is one of the few studios which is genuinely supported by players. Um And I agree with, I believe that that's true. It's probably one of a dozen studios or so that has that. He continues. Even my announcement was something I loved because people were protecting Remedy. When I was announced, people from the industry and close friends sent me messages like, JC, that's awesome, congrats. And the last line was don't fuck it up. It was we love Remedy so much, don't fuck it up. That shows how much people love Remedy. Remedy is one of the is already one of the biggest game authors with very strong signature products. Now after seeing it from the inside, there's so much more we can give in terms of super strong authored, creative, crazy stories and gameplay. Honestly, we haven't achieved half of the potential. in terms of pr the products that we make. This is something that I uh believe one hundred percent. And he basically he goes on, people should go read the interview, you can listen to it too. It's pretty interesting He talks about how and we've reported on this that they made a deal before he became on board with Annapurna. to start getting their games in the TV and movie format. And this is the obvious thing for them to do. But one of the things that I was pleased to read is that this guy does seem to understand. that they are untapped. They don't really need to change. They need to figure out a different way to market their games. And I've always been kind of mystified by the lack of commercial success that their stuff sees. It seems like the kind of game maybe not Alan Wake won because it was kind of uh on the Xbox three six. I think Alan Wake won was kind of it was the wrong Allen Wake One would have done better on PS3. Like I i if that makes any sense. The audience for that kind of cerebral game was not on Xbox at the time. You know, it doesn't fit. I thought it was cool, but doesn't really fit. And I don't think they they've done themselves any favors. The epic deal with Alan Wake too has kept the game off of Steam. Some would argue that that is the only reason the game even exists. So you can't like overlook that they needed that money. the way I look at it when I look at control especially But Alan Wake to a degree as well, and Alan Wake to especially is like these games should be selling way more. These are the kinds of games that thought players of games wanted. And I feel like a lot of them don't know they exist. It seems like Or they're not positioned properly. And I feel like this guy understands that. Chris, how do you feel about all that? We're both huge remedy fans, so it's it' good to talk about. Th that is true. Yeah, like I mean I'm I'm kind of a mark for whatever they do, I think, um They just have a a really unique voice and a really weird way of doing this. I I appreciate I appreciate the The fact that they actually mix media, which like I feel like so few Like so few studios do. Um, if any, really that's more of like an animation thing, the idea of like mixing Mediums. But like especially after the the DLC for the last uh the Alway two DLC is so fun. Dude, it is so cool. It is so interesting and weird and and um Yeah, I I I agree. I think they they have a long I if they can manage themselves well, I think they have like a really bright future. I think I think the the best is yet to come, I think, for for remedy. But Yeah, I mean uh The the Allen Way too epic deal thing, like, I don't know. Like I I get that like they needed that money, but I I feel like they could have. I feel like they could have justified. Allen Wake Two's existed I feel like they could have gotten Allen Wake Two made sold and sold a shit ton on Steam. Like I d I don't necessarily buy that I think that was probably a bad deal in retrospect. Maybe at the at the at that point it was Maybe the the easiest way to go and I guess I can't fault them for that, I guess, but like They kinda gimp themselves there because I nobody I know fucks with Epic at all. At all. All my homies hate Epic. All my homies hate epic. Dude, I I have I have an epic account and I I never go on it. I've purchased games that I have for free on Epic. Don't we have I think I gave you my I forgot about this. Didn't I give you my Witcher 3 or my uh my Witcher 3 my Epic account that gives you free access to every game on the on the platform? It's not every game. It's like weird. It's like There's like some I know what you're saying. It's not every single game. But it's a surprising number of them, and sometimes when they just come out. But then there's some like like I remember Kronos was on there. But then there are things that are like weirdly not there. Like I don't really know what the situation is over there. But like and to be fair, I do I do go on there sometimes. I um I'm being a little bit exaggerating. But It's just such a Anytime I have to open something that isn't Steam, it just like it feels it it feels gross. And it's not even necessarily because I'm opposed to it, it's literally just the way they design these things. They designed They design uh Epic and and other things too. U Play was kind of the same thing. They design these things as if they're apps and not I don't even know how to describe it. Like they feel more like suitable to a controller than a mouse and keyboard, where steam feels very dense. It feels like it's made for a computer. And it's like epic it's like I don't even know how to find Like even just clicking around like w my library is insanely convoluted and buried under m multiple menus. It's a bad experience. So the Epic Game Store is is that what launches Fortnite? Yeah. So that's the main thing, I guess. But like I don't know anybody who has anything else from them. You know, it's usually. And that's it. Or the free game that they get when they log in. Yeah, I I I agree with you. I I la I forgot about that Epic account because that goes to show you how disinterested we are when we got that. And they're like, Here, this is like a a media pass and like you'll get like basically a bunch of shit for free at all times. And I'm like, damn good here. Chris, you got it. Rhythm Requiem. So Resident Evil Requiem and Ark Raiders are on this account. Boug both of those. At least they tried. Yeah. Uh anything you want to say about Remedy before we move on, Dustin? I'm hopeful for them. I think that I mean even Recently in the last few years there's been some decisions before this guy came in, like the um fire break. Fire break. Yeah, firebreak was weird, yeah. What are we doing? Let's get back on track with this. So You know before do to give Firebreak its its flowers. It's not It's it's it's a game that nobody wanted. That game plays remarkably well for a first person shooter from a studio that does not make first person shooters. Like it it plays like you know what you're doing. It's like, oh interesting. Yeah. I'm just I just don't think anybody cared about like I know I didn't care. Well, like right. It's like well, why would w it doesn't make any sense just from the perspective of you have this underserved community of of games, and then you think that you're going to take those single player narrative games and convince people that play them that they're gonna play this this asynchronous multiplayer game, whatever the fuck you may. Like it just doesn't make any sense. It's like you got to focus on what you're good at. And and you'll worry about this other stuff later when you have a when you have the audience you deserve, which you don't have right now. Yeah. It reminded me of uh it reminded me of Evolve. Where like I remember playing Evolve years and years and years ago, like a decade ago now at this point. And being like This is good. I don't care. Yeah, right. Yeah, Vob was I remember Vob being really weird. Like it we gave it a great review at IGM, but that game uh arrived with like a thud. It's a good game. Like I remember playing it, like this is good. But like I just I just didn't give a shit at all. Like it was too complicated for what like that game studio usually does. Which I think Is making really simple Great, easily playable p kinda plug and play kind of games. By the way, I say and I said asynchronous multiplier, I meant asymmetric. Right, right. All right, two more stories. We'll get through quick here. This one comes from Gamatsu. I thought this was interesting for you, Dustin. Persona four revival has been rated. In uh South Korea in particular. These ratings don't typically happen. Unless the game is somewhat imminent, I would say this calendar year. Does that surprise you? Mm no. Not really. Uh I think that I think that uh while we only just got a brief P's of it last year, which for some reason people were I mean, people complain about everything now, but there was Nothing wrong in my mind. Yeah, they showed like a few screens or videos, right, of like the environments. Yeah. I would imagine I don't know this for sure, so I'm speculating that Uh they had a really good pipeline set up in making Persona 3 reload in Unreal Engine. And while they still need to make all new assets, they can, you know, they have a base to work from. So yeah, I I guess it's a little surprising that I was if I if you asked me before this, I'd be like, Yeah, probably early next year. Um, which I guess it still could be if it's This will be at the Xbox showcase, you assume. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think we'll see it then. So I man, I'm so excited. What a coup for Xbox to have that game that's so intrinsically tied to PlayStation. through both PS2 and Vita to be at their their thing. Yeah. Well, dude, for Atlas Xbox fans aren't gonna buy that. They're not. I mean, maybe it'll be on Game Pass. So like Rabbi, I assume you. Atlas can get all this money from Xbox and they are going to make all their sales on PlayStation. It doesn't matter. Xbox fans don't buy games that Xbox fans are fans of. Yeah. So Yeah, that's why the whole dream of like the lack of exclusivity going forward is like that's just a that's a pipe dream. But the in my opinion. Maybe maybe timed exclusivity would be the best you can hope for, as I've said in the past. But yeah, it I wonder how Sega feels about the deal they made. Does it really matter because your shit just kind of gets out there? It really only matters at the point of original release. In other words, the first time you see it, you will have had to have naturally seen it during the conference, but afterwards it's gonna be on Play PlayStation's gonna cut your shit out and have a different splash screen and put it on their on their YouTube channel and it's gonna get fifteen times more views. And I I w I wonder I wonder how Sega feels about it. The money's nice, probably. Um You're kind of having your cake and eat it too and eating it too at this point because it's clear that Game Pass is simply a not a no growth. for them and it is what it is and therefore You're not really cannibalizing yourself, putting big AAAs into Game Pass if you have already taken into account what you would have lost. In other words, there will be probably very few new subscribers. And so you can just get your money. then go to the people that will never subscribe to begin with and you really haven't lost. In other words, other people have done the hard work of differentiating these these audiences over the years and now and now Sega gets in. I don't think I've ever seen somebody do in other words twice. I know that's a double it's a squared. Another word squared. Dustin, one other thing I didn't want to include it here. We're we're not gonna show it, obviously we're we're a video podcast, but we don't do any show any of this. Have you seen the Persona Six Leagues? Yeah, the protagonists. Where did that come from? Reset era. I I saw it on um And I guess some Japanese source. And I 'cause I saw that there was like a male protagonist and female protagonist. I think. I just saw it briefly in passing on Twitter and I didn't know how legitimate. It was. Depending on how you feel about the insiders and people that like power users on these various forums, it seems like they're real. And it it's not really a spoiler 'cause they the all the persona characters look exactly the same, to be honest. They're all designed in that same motif. So it's not like it's really that big of a deal. But I'm sure for a lot of people it'll be very exciting. The legend Persona Six character designs were leaked. So it isn't necessarily a male and female lead. I was gonna say I don't think they're ever gonna do that again. P six this is from Vice.com of all places. P six may feature dual protagonists, including a blonde male character and a female character. with red and black hair. However, new leak suggest the blonde boy may actually be the sole protagonist. So we'll maybe we'll see more of that at the conference too. Yeah. If these things are starting to leak, you would assume It's from marketing assets. You wouldn't let that stuff out. If you've kept that secret forever, it's gotta be through some third party, you would assume. We'll see what happens. Sega Sega announcing persona at the Xbox conference. Good for you. All right, finally. That was kind of mean. I didn't mean it so for it to sound so mean. Um Let's see. By the way, no one talks about metaphor Refantasio at all anymore. No, because it's a forgettable game. Retard Asian. I really liked it personally. Yeah. But it is it is forgettable in that. It's good. It is forgettable in that I don't really remember the minutiae of the story. I remember like how fun it was for me to play. I loved the upgrades in the character classes, though. It was quite satisfying. Anyway. PlayStation Plus games for June. If you have PlayStation Plus Essential, extra or premium, but this is at the essential tier, so everyone gets it. you get these games as part of your subscription at no additional cost. And it begins June second. So around the time you hear this on Free Feeds. The three games in question are Grounded? Fully yoked edition. PS4 and PS5, Xbox first party. uh multiplayer game that has been fairly popular and one was one of the first games to come over in the original four, as you might recall. Um That's um why can't I think of the team that makes it? The one that makes all their games. Obsidian. Obsidian, yeah. Um, so go have either of you played it? It's supposed to be pretty good. This is not my kind of game, but it's supposed to be pretty good. And I think it did marginally well on PlayStation. I played grounded really early. Like really early. Like I think it was like probably like we didn't have an early access or something back in the day? I think I think so, yeah. So like I I played it then. And I I it's it's good. It's a it's a very cute game. I think it's For what it is, it's very good. It's just it's just really not my kind of like survival games are really I'm kind of particular about them. And I don't think it really Hit for me? But I remember thinking, like, this is pretty good. Like it's it's better than I thought. I had more fun than I thought I would have with it. But ultimately I was like, I'm not gonna dedicate. I know I'm not gonna dedicate a a ton of time to this. Um But apparently it's very good now. Like a Currently that game's really grown. a lot since I played it. Yeah, I guess I guess so. It didn't have it didn't have like a lot of basic features when I was playing last and I still enjoyed it, so I'm sure it's I'm sure it's Particular kind of audience. Uh grounded, full yoked, be a PS5 and PS4. In fact, all no, two of these games are on PS5 and PS4. The next game on PS5 and PS4 is Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2. The fighting game that came out back in twenty twenty three. Published by the Crash publisher Game Mill. Although I think that this game is better than most of their stuff, right? This game did fairly well. Yeah, it's gotten in the critic. That's not so bad. Some of the characters in here are interesting. The Angry Beavers? Um, let's see, Garfield? Grandma Gurdy from Hey Arnold? Jimmy Neutron? What about Nigel? Yeah, he's in there. Wild Thornbury. He's in there. Nigel Thornbury. That'd be good. Pretty good. So not so bad. And then finally, Warhammer 40K Darktide. Only on PlayStation five. That came out in twenty twenty four. It was originally a P C game in twenty twenty two and then it came to Xbox Series in twenty three. So it came A little late. That's another series that seems to be more Xbox centric. We still have not gotten the remake. The Saber Interactive Remake of Space Marine One. Interestingly. Oh right. Which is a little annoying 'cause I'd like to play it. Um Yeah, that comes from the studio Fat Shark and it's a, I think it's a first person like action shooter adventure game. I don't really know. All right, any anything? I'm sorry, and yeah, go ahead. I was gonna say, I think Dark Tide is like not a spin-off, but it's the forty K version of Vermin Tide. Oh, which is sort of like a Left for Dead Yeah. Horred first person melee game. Cool. And then um There is a fourth game this month because It was part of the May lineup and because it's state of play or game of what is it called? State what is the sale called? Easy. Christ. So much marketing. They're gonna extend EA Sports FC twenty six through June 16th. So you actually still have access to that right now. You have until June second, however, to la add last month's games to your d uh download catalog if you want to grab them later. Nine Souls is p one of those games and Wu Chong. fallen feathers, but you have these games to look forward to. Nothing here for me. Can't always get what you want. It is a little bit of a Weaker library. I will admit. Um Toby Queef wrote in about this, he says. Hey fats. Listen, Colin, I understand your point that games as a service are where the money is and that we should expect Sony to focus resources there. However There are times when it feels like the single player is just flat out being ignored. Case in point, Junes PS Essential Games, three ostensibly multiplayer focused games. While I understand the focus on online multiplayer, don't they exclude the single player at their peril? Four of the top ten Dalone games in April were single player games, forty percent isn't nothing. I'm always just a little surprised by the unbalanced Plus release. lists because it makes it seem like these are made on the fly, these deals and they're not. You would think that you would be making deals and then trying to put them together in combinations that make the most sense. And so I agree you would want like some sort of what my ideal Double A or triple A f single player game. Multiplayer game. Indy game. That would be That would be my desire. Is that possible? I don't know. There's no doubt that this is an unusually multiplayer centric month, even by P S plus standards. So yes, you are absolutely right. And if you include FC twenty six, then it's then it's all of them. Yeah. Yeah. Alright. That's all we have for the news this week. My boys, it's time to get into what we're playing. I'll get out of the way quick. I'm been playing Progmata. I'm just about done with it. Uh I really, really love it. I think it's it's so impressive. And so well made and so interesting and I'm really enjoying it. I will be speaking about it more extensively on Summonsign next week with Brad and then we will certainly sit down and do a spoiler cast and review discussion. I I will play through it again on hard in the next week or two and uh take notes so we can have a good conversation around that. So I will bail out for now. Both Chris and Dustin are playing 007 First Light. Connor Hayes wrote in and said, hi guys, what's your thoughts on 007? I am loving it. From the great tutorial via a cool montage and the crazy pace, the story is going four hours in, I must say I'm I've really missed these linear ish and high production value games. We had so many of ten to fifteen years ago. And uh Ira dog Moms. By saying something horrible. I don't know. clicking immediately for me, but double O agents. Can we just give a special shout out to IO Interactive and the way they handled the release of Double O seven? A free deluxe upgrade and an extra day for pre ordering with many reviews coming out just in time to make an informed decision on it. I'll go back to drinking too many martinis and sexually harassing the casino staff. Yeah. I I love that as well. That I will say as I leave it to you guys that I really did dig how they did a pre order in which there was nothing to gain other than day of access in return for pre-ordering the game. Yeah. locking in that and and not wanting to mit having a little bit of FOMO as opposed to charging ten or twenty dollars for it, which is fine too, but That seems a very sensible way to do it. if you're confident in your game. And I dug that they did that. All right, guys, take it away. Dustin, let's go to you first. Double O7 first light. Yeah, uh I've been excited about this game for a long time. I fell in love with Hitman when Hitman 2 came out. uh on PlayStation Four and then Win the Hitman before that, and then Hitman Three, which is now the world of assassination. So it was really exciting to see Io Interactive be able to make a James Bond game. It felt like a perfect fit. And while I love the Hitman World of Assassination trilogy. A little bit janky. Like in terms of like the way the characters look. The fact it's a uh a sandbox game. It has its own little quirks to it. And Immediately from the get go with double oh seven. Io interactive, this is a huge level up. For them. Uh like W levels of quality that Uh I'm s I'm shocked by. Uh like this game is Crazy good. in terms of like across the board, like the the the visuals, like a lot of people have been sharing on Twitter, there's like an opening nightclub scene. With the like uh you know, not only just the lighting, but the like the level of density. of the amount of characters uh or NPCs in the level is really cool. Not surprising if you're coming from uh some Hitman two and three levels, but Yeah. Um So Initially in the opening level The opening level is like almost felt more uncharted ish than kind of a stealth game. And I don't want to say it concerned me, but I was like, okay, so this is the direction we're going in here. It's like a little more actiony on the rails. Uh, and then you go through the the the cool training montage that that Connor mentioned, which was really cool, but Then you get into like the first main level, which was uh well, I guess there's the nightclub level, but then you get to the first main level, which is the one that they showed in that live stream. And It's Really interesting because it's clearly has a lot of that Hitman DNA in it. the it's been tailored for James Bond specifically in like you have a cool spy watch that you can interchange different Cool spy tech into the So like right now the level I'm on, I have like a laser beam that shoots out. So you can use it to like burn ropes or you can just straight up burn people's eyes out with it, which is pretty fun. Um So Is definitely a more Uh What's the word on broad appeal in terms of a stealth game? Like hitman levels, as I said before, were like individual sandboxes where it's like, okay We have Five or six. kind of more scripted ways that you can Eliminate your target. Uh, but there's Really, you can do this however you want. Uh, and you can find that on YouTube where people do insane things. So double a seven on is a little different in that It's leaning more on that scripted aspect. But it's not that that doesn't have that level of creative freedom where normally in the in the few levels that I've played, the few actual levels outside of the very long intro. Uh Th there will be multiple ways to achieve your different goals. Um And sometimes it'll be like, okay, well, you need to get into this room. And it won't tell you how to do that. It's like, okay, well There's a guard out front. Do I distract him by using by hacking into a vacuum cleaner and turning it on so he's distracted. Do I find an alternate entrance in? And so that's where some of the cool like more creative aspects of The game happens. This, uh you know, it you're playing as a young bond, which I think is A really neat angle. I I think we talked about this last week or on some show that I'm not like a big Bond guy. I've seen quite a few of the films, but I'm not I'm not the guy to tell you like what is and wasn't isn't. Bond as a character. But I think what they've done here is really cool to see him, like, when you start at the beginning, he uh like is in whatever the like British air force is or something and finds himself in this crazy situation and that's how he gets introduced into the MI6 program. seeing the other double O's in training. Uh, and those characters are surprisingly Interesting and within the first few hours of the game had me caring about them, which I totally did not expect. From this game. At all. Uh, the the guy that's that's playing Bond, I don't remember what his name is, but I feel like is like super charming. It's got the right mix of like He's charming and quippy. But it doesn't feel like a Marvel movie constantly where they're like constant quips all the time. Patrick Gibson is the character. Patrick Gibson. I think he's been absolutely excellent so far. There's definitely some bond like some bond stuff in there that I was able to identify where it's like you bust through a room and then like he like, you know brushes his shoulders off, makes sure he's like, you know, still suave, and then keeps going, stuff like that. Uh so I I Well he plays Dexter in the Dexter prequel. Yeah, he's like someone in my chat told me that. He's young Dexter. Yeah, it's interesting. Or something. I'm seeing that. So I I'm ex extremely impressed by this game. It is I knew would be high quality coming from Io, but I I guess I just didn't expect this level Triple A Polish. to this game, especially because we were concerned when we first saw this game, first saw the gameplay. Not running well. Also, I I knew this last week behind the scenes, but then people have gone and tweeted this out. So it's not secret information. Last week. Reviewers were like They didn't have the game. And so it was concerning to me. I requested it and didn't get it. So I didn't have early access or anything like that. Um I was asking I was asking around what's that calling? Said owned. Owned, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean d it happens all the time, trust me. Um so I was asking around and like on Thursday, people still didn't have this game. It wasn't until Friday that people got access to the game to review it. And I was like, oh no. It's coming in. if that's the case, that reviewers, it's like a crunch weekend for people to get these reviews out. So Uh, but With that being said, the the final thing I'll say before throwing it over to Chris is I'm playing it on PlayStation. Professional. And it's excellent. It looks excellent. It runs almost entirely. Perfect from I can tell. There's been like a couple times where I've noticed the frame rate drop for just a split second, but it's nothing that really bothers me. Uh To my understanding, according to digital foundries reporting, if you play on PS5, you have an option between uh performance and quality, which is like a thirty versus sixty frames. On PS Live Pro, you don't have any options. And From there I haven't seen the the base PS five version, but they said that it looks better. Then the quality mode. On PS five. at sixty frames per second. So Uh if you have a PS5 Pro Uh, this game looks and runs absolutely excellent. And so those concerns that we had when we first saw it. For me at least are are totally gone. So Uh I've talked a lot, Chris. You're also Love Hitman. So you're excited about this. How are you finding it? Yeah, man, I uh I'm I'm kind of surprised by it. I think The and to be fair, it's not that I didn't think that Io could make great games. In this way. The types of games that they make are so different and so like The things that this game leans into are not things that that IO games typically lean into. It's it's like the The narrative and the the way that e even just the way that cutscenes and characters portrayed and Shown. It's just not typical of of their stuff because their stuff is more about like the the the sandbox is the star of the show. And I was immediately surprised at just the the level of quality. Um Right off the jump. I mean He really is crazy. I think As somebody who's not that much of a bond guy, I think They've done a really good job of endearing me to this world and this character. I think again, like the this dude's really charming and I think it works. Really, really well. There's aspects of this though that I do think like you can kinda see that this is their first time doing a game like the the gunplay, I think is really kind of awkward. In my opinion, I don't know if it's the weird crosshair that they have or just how many enemies they have thrown at you. at any given moment that it feels like the game's not really built. For it? The hand the hand to hand combat's awesome. Getting into a brawl and like doing like this Arkham stuff. Like it feels very Arkham coded. Uh, which is like I think great. But You know what this game reminded me of a lot? This game reminded me a lot of Splinter Cell Conviction. Oh where like I remember feel I remember feeling that distinctly during like some of these brawls. I mean, like, this is great stuff. And well I don't think Well I don't think the uh This is a mix of Hitman and Uncharted, and I don't think The uncharted parts feel better than Uncharted, and I don't think that the Hitman parts feel better than Hitman necessarily. But I do think the fusion of these things at the same time and being able to interact with these things and flow in and out. is unique and special enough that makes this game feel like particularly unique and interesting and fresh. Um I think It's a really golden Combination. And uh I'm really I'm really loving it. There's parts of it that I'm kinda like, Why did I spend time doing this? Like there's some like cutscene vignettes. Not cutscene vignettes even, but like there's some gameplay sequences that are literally just about conversation. Where like I had a moment where I was like in a car. And I was driving and I literally drove maybe like 40 feet and like pulled into a traffic jam and then it cut to a different section of the game and I was like, I don't know if I needed a Yeah. I don't know if I needed to play this. It seems like they're still trying to figure out like what to do in this new realm that they're playing in. And so I see that, but I actually I love it. I think I think this is a fantastic game. Um On I I I can't remember the number chapter I'm in, but I'm I'm like Ten hours into it? Um I've put a lot of time into it. Uh and I'm Approaching I what what feels like The final act. And uh so far it's it's it's it's really, really good. It's uh like congratulations to Io. It I just saw like two hours ago that they sold a uh one point five million copies already. in the first twenty four hours. So that's gotta be that awesome. They gotta be happy about that. And I and from what I've played so far, I think they they totally deserve it. I think it's uh I think it's exceptional. I think Just again, the jump from Hitman Three. Again, not from a systems perspective, but but just from like a presentational perspective and from a game feel perspective. Um It's so vast. that it's actually kind of crazy. And one thing I do want to point out that I did appreciate very, very heavily. Very subtle thing. When they give you the options for the difficulty There's a difficulty called intended. Which I was like Love that. I I love that you told me. Like I know that the it's obvious for most games because it's obviously going to be the middle one. But There's some where there's four and you're not quite sure. You know, it's like I know there's things that are widely understood, like Halo's heroic, and that's like the intended. But like I I just I appreciate that. Where's this like there's no confusion. This is how it's this is how you're this is what you're supposed to be playing. And you can choose to make it crazy hard or crazy easy from there. But Yeah, I just uh I think it's good. It's k it's a little campy. It's fun. Uh, I love the villains and the characters way more than I thought I would. At first I was worried about the villain, I gotta be real, but then uh But then it gets really good really quickly. And um Easy recommend. This is great. Um, shout out to Io. They're just uh a great studio and uh I hope they I'm not done with this game yet. I hope they do another one. Because I think I they can only get better from here? I think they o there's only room for improvement. You know what I mean? So I think it's fantastic. Two other things that you made me think of that I want to shout out about this game that I loved. There is a bluffing mechanic in this game. You can't do it constantly, like there's like some kind of like point system to the bluffing. In a situation where I totally decked this guy in the face and knocked him out. And then I saw there were guys right around the corner. So I hit the bluff mechanic and and and Bond was like Oh, dude, I just saw that guy's attacker. He ran off that way. And they're like, Oh and then they and I was like, dude, that was kinda s like it was dynamic in that I I took that guy out and that's that was the bluff used of Hitman as it's it's really cool. Like they're really good at building these systems. And and again, they're n it's not as dense as like a Hitman because it's like the whole point, but like The fact that any of that flexibility is there in a game that presents like uncharted a lot of the time is like is really fucking cool. Like That bluffing mechanic. I love running out of ammo and then throwing throwing a gun. Like throwing the empty gun at a guy and like taking him out. It is really it's just It's so cool. The uh the other thing I wanted to shout out is Particularly from the Hitman DNA is like Hitman, the World of Assassination, the level design in those is so Incredibly good. And that carries over. First nightclub level is like pretty small, but it's kind of meant to be like your first training real mission. But then you go to this mansion that that's what they showed off in that stream. Then I'm like, man, they They still got like this level is so cool. There's a giant chess tournament happening. Oh yeah, yeah. And so there's all these people in the center. There's these side rooms. Then you have to be up in like the hotel uh aspects. Um, like the underbelly with the kitchen and I'm like, man, these levels are so cool. Second level now uh that I'm on. I don't even know if I should say what it is. I'm not going to. Yeah, say it save it. There's there's stuff even with that level that you're talking about, the ch the chess tournament. Where I almost don't even want to spoil the like the premise of what that level is, but it's so if you're a fan of Hitman, it's so cool. Because it's like I wanna spoil I wanna do a spoiler cast of this game so so bad. I think it's so cool. 'Cause there's something I want to talk about that I'm going to do. We are going to do one. Uh Jason Polansky from Atari is going to lead lead that conversation. I probably won't be on it. So you guys can 'cause I won't get to it for a while. So We'll get that done in the next couple weeks. I know there's another mode. that is more open ended, I If I recall correctly, maybe it's kind of like the Hitman row like mode. that takes place in the different levels. And I believe that Io has hinted at that they're like once you be like this is just the beginning of this game, which makes sense from their pedigree with Hitman, but I'm just thinking I was already thinking about that that hotel mansion level and I'm like, dude There's a playground here. And it while it's used so well in the campaign, I was just thinking about like the hypothetical other missions that could be created within it. And I really hope that that ends up being the case. This uh It's really cool. So far, this might be It's too early to say, I guess, but like this is easily a contender for me. For like game of the year. Yeah. I think it's so cool and so interesting. It's so good. And so video gamey, dude. Like I just I love it. It's like so unashamed of like what it is. I'm definitely looking forward to it. I um I just don't have time. Mina's coming out tonight. So I'll be moving on to that next and I Need to finish up Pragmata and then I And then I yeah, I guess that would be up next after that. One thing and then we can move on, but like There's a there's a m there's a character in the game that's like a very main character. Uh it's the it's the the Bosque Greenway. Doesn't Oh yeah, yeah. Like I kept hearing this dude's voice and I was like, Who the fuck is this? Oh, is that Lenny James? Yeah. It's Lenny James and I've heard this guy. I was like, I've heard this guy before. Like, what the hell is this? And I realized like there was a point There was a point where I was like, This is he's the destiny to like voice the voice of God. He's like he's like the uh The guy in in the in the PvP that goes like, double down. Oh Triple Kill and I was like, Oh my god. This is really distracting. Yeah. For me particularly. But he's great also. Like everybody's really well cast and and really well. Great performances every all the whole time. He um the reason I know that is because I I I um I always talk well, I don't always, but occasionally it comes up that I'm I'm a huge fan of that really obscure CBS show Jericho about the nuclear bombing of the United States that was on for like one seas. And he's a main character in that. So I know him from that. And then he was in The Walking Dead. Yeah. He's got a great voice. But it's very distinct and I wrote it in like 'cause he was screaming he screams at you in the tutorial. By the way, one of the best tutorials I think I've played in in a in a long Like the way they present the tutorial is Genuinely so cool. That it's actually It's actually insane to me that this is the first time I'm seeing that take of a tutorial. Like it seem 'cause it seems kind of obvious in a lot of ways, but like I've never seen it before, so Yeah, a lot of great things to say about it. I I could gush about it for a really, really long time. And uh And they probably will at some point. In the future. Well, I'll look forward to playing it in the next week or two. Um I've also been honestly a little unexcited about video games the last couple weeks. Crogmata I've been trying to like dedicate time to and kind of get out of my funk, but I've been playing just a lot of chess and just kind of dicking around watching sports and stuff. I'm not I've not really been in it. It will break. All right, let's get into six questions, comments, concerns, thoughts, and ideas and wrap this episode of Sacred Symbols Up with inquiries from the audience. Remember, you can submit your inquiries over on Patreon, patreon.com slash last standia. The threads go live in the newsfeed each week for all of our different shows in our network. Sacred symbols threads go live on Wednesday afternoons and are deleted Thursday afternoons. So you have about 24 hours. Pedro Albaz wrote in and said, Hey C D C. With Mina the Hollower releasing this month with a 93 Metacritic score, topping First Light's 88 and Requiem's 89. I have seen some chatter online about it getting a score boost for being an indie game. While I'm excited to get into Mina and have no doubts of its quality due to the pedigree of its developer, I do wonder if Triple A games are treated more harshly. I mostly play indie games and love how they push innovation, Vampire Survivors, Slay the Spire, and Bellatro pretty much created their own genres. But I can see how they will rarely be judged but for br bad frame rates, outdated facial animations, bad voice acting, because in most cases they don't even feature such things. Are indies treated more softly compared to Triple A? Should games be judged against other games or against their own potential? I'll be curious to see what you guys think of this. I I do think that the indies are generally treated definitively more softly than Triple A games. But I wonder if That's reasonable. And I also wonder if it just, again, it's just another of these examples why this only really matters because of the scoring rubrics. Otherwise you could just read the text of the reviews and get the information you need. A hundred million, two hundred million dollar game is held to a different standard than a game like Mina. Whether or not that a game like Bellatro, like what standard is a game like Bellatro held by held to it's made by one person. It's just this random game. So I just think the standards should be different. But I think again it reduces down to the way we optimize these opinions towards one glance as opposed to convincing people to read. And there, therefore you have these kinds of issues where in if you read the review for First Light and for Mina, you'll probably understand where the person's coming from. A lot better. Uh, Chris, are indie games treated more softly? in reviews than Triple A games. I think undoubtedly, yeah. But I also think I mean, AAA games are trying to do more. So they have more Opportunities to kind of not deliver, you know, like like When I was playing Saros, I remember being like this is this is I remember feeling like, Yeah, this plays really great. Then There is that the we t I think we talked about some of the facial capture. And some of the cutscenes and how they're kind of they're stilted and awkward and They don't really feel like they're intentionally that way. A lot of indie games don't have to deal with that. They're not, because they're not trying to do that. They're not they're not even attempting. to recreate a realistic human You know. emotion or whatever. But most of them don't even have voice acting. And that's like fine. Um So I I don't know. I think it's I think it's a number of things. I think it's We should understand that yes, one person should be held to a different standard than a a fully funded multi million dollar team of hundreds of people building something that I I think I think it just makes sense to have different standards. Um, but also I d I do think it comes down to the fact that like they're just Ballatro is only doing so much. You know, and like It doesn't really have as many opportunities to fail at at what it's doing because it's so singularly focused. As a lot of indie games are. And to be fair, like there's a lot of, you know, really broad scope into games too that like I would I would imagine are actually Probably softer. On reception. that maybe d overplay their hand or maybe are stretch too thin. But uh I don't know, I I don't think it's that big of an issue. I think like what you said about the fact that it it does boil down to score. I think that's really the issue. 'Cause again, you can just read what people say. And then it be and then and then the problem goes away. Think it also gets into like what matters more to you, like a novel idea or like something that's beautiful and complicated and pr high production. That's a that's a totally subjective question. Dustin, what do you think? Yeah, this reminds me of how Uh, I mean it's brought up already, but Bellatra was nominated for the game awards for Game of the Year, and that caused quite a bit of discussion because it's like, Well, how can this Card game. be compared to what was it, rebirth the same year or something like that. Yeah. And yeah, not to Both of you, but I think Colin, you hit the nail on the head on the We're trying to apply a standardization, which is already kind of hollow in how it's used. to something that just cannot be standardized in terms of scores. Like each game is trying to do its own thing. Um and often scores should they be based on the own merits of what the game is trying to achieve? Is it being scored Relevant peers in each space should it be scored. What the entire industry's doing I Everyone has their own approach. And so Um the comparing and and contrasting of them just simply makes no sense. And it's what you said, Colin, people need to Read the review. Uh or I hope and I think one thing one like shining light in amongst all of the way this is handled in terms of reviews is that people Art. pluing in on individual people that they look to for their opinions, you know, YouTubers. Maybe people like us, people that listen to the show, surely. On like, okay, well what do you actually think? Not just like Here's the number. uh applied to it. So Uh I guess to answer the the other question too is like are indie games treated Uh more softly. Uh Probably. Probably. For sure. Uh I think there's probably some level of If we wanna get con conspiratorial that it's like, Oh, well, indie games are the little guys and they they're not part of the the big corporate system. And so there is a softness there, maybe to reviewing some of those games. Not all of them. There's certainly been indie games that have Not reviewed well. I think there is as much as I love yacht club games. And I think these Mina scores are are Probably pretty accurate. Um there probably is a softness for that. Because it's yaw club. And people love yacht club. And So I don't know. I don't want to take away, I don't want to like minimize the achievement that is meet in the Hollower because it is fucking awesome. But I could see that lingering amongst reviewers. Everything's contextual, you know? Like I think uh it it's like it's like a five star restaurant versus a food truck, you know what I mean? Like my expectations are s are kind of set with Triple A as far as like, okay, I'm sitting down at a five star. This is hundreds of millions of dollars you spent to make this. I better love this. Right. Whereas if whereas if I go to a food truck or something and it's just like and I have a burrito that's like absurdly good, I'm gonna be inherently surprised. You know what I mean? It's just gonna be like oh this is like like I don't expect and it's not that I'm expecting trash, 'cause obviously a shit food truck is going to be shit regardless. And a shit restaurant is going to be shit regardless, but I think your expectation of like Like if I have a great steak at a five star restaurant, I'm gonna feel either like, Yeah, that expect it. Okay. I'm not gonna feel great at I'm not gonna feel like surprised by it. I just be like, okay, good. And being surprised by something is kind of that that is kind of a big thing in in reviews. Like I I think I think about many of the games that I've played over times is o over the years and where have stuck out way, way more than games that I was expecting to be good and ended up being good. And uh That plays into it, I think, too. Yeah, I wonder if um Yeah, I wonder well you you've played Mina. Yes. Yeah, it's like I I I'll I'll be the judge of all this. I've been holding back for that time. Colin, we'll talk about Mina next week. Yeah, I'm excited. I'm excited. I hope it's available tonight at midnight, but I don't know. Um It's not available for pre order, so it means it's not gonna go live at a certain time. So they they lit you literally press a button to send it live and I don't know if the you have to kind of do it manually. So we'll see what happens. All right. Um Next question comes from Bird Oighty Five. Says to the podcaster formerly known as Magnanimous Colin Chris, that's Wild Raygun and Dusty Boy Dustin. Hello and good day to you all. Quick question regarding the PS6 handheld or the PSP. With Valve and their endless treasure trove of income being forced to increase the price of each tier of the Steam Beck Tite Steam Deck by two hundred dollars to a new base price of seven eighty nine. and the one terabyte model clocking in at a whopping 949. What chance does Sony have at selling a truly affordable handheld system in twenty twenty seven or twenty twenty eight? Obviously Sony can subsidize hardware costs with software sales and they have access to a much wider economy of scale, but surely, Val. should have been able to subsidise against its own software sales through the Steam platform. What does this mean for Sony's portable gaming future and our collective wallets? As always, I'll shut my fucking mouth and listen, thanks. Chris, I think you were bringing this up earlier, weren't you? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know, man. I think uh the best we can hope for is that hopefully this AI bubble bursts and then everything Everything kinda defilates, but uh it doesn't seem like that's happening. It may or may not. Um I don't know, dude. It it's looking pretty grim. to be honest with you. Like I I that Hike for the Steam Deck is insane. Because especially because not not just because uh not just for what the Steam Deck is capable of doing, which is just Quite frankly, just not. Even close to eight hundred dollars w I'm I'm s not even remotely close. Um But because you think about Valve. And what Like they don't need They're not in a they're not in a position of of really wanting. You know what I mean? Like they They're not the type of s company to like raise the prices of something just 'cause. They're doing this because they need to do it. And if Valve is doing it because they need to do it, oh my God. I I just I can't even fat like the w the PS six is gonna be at over a thousand dollars. Like a at this rate. Like there's no shot that it isn't. And so Uh It's I I don't know. I don't I don't envy the people who have to figure this out. And uh maybe some of the pressure can be relieved because some of this some of this is AI driven, which is like global. Some of this is uh an unforced error on our part with um, you know, tariffs and all sorts of shit. But like the Even if all of these things got resolved. My my worry, right, is is okay, we've gotten used to paying this much for X. If we get used to paying this much for X, is there a reason, even if there are no longer any economic factors pushing them to keep those prices high, is there really a reason to lower them back again? You know what I mean? No. No. But you could see a reality. I I I think it's potentially possible because the price hikes have been so egregious and so insane. That like maybe you might see something maybe you might see s things go back as far especially if the AI bubble does pop and then suddenly everybody's sitting on these graphic cards that are like half as Like half. worth of what they what they were when the A was was crash was uh was exploding. I don't really know what the what that looks like. But what is clear to me is that whatever the reality is today, it's not going to be alleviated by fucking next year. Maybe twenty eight is when it'll start to feel kind of okay, maybe. But even then it's like that's a that's a big That's a really big if. So I really think every console manufacturer Valve, PlayStation, Xbox certainly. They're not in an enviable position right now. What do you make of it, Dawson? So Yeah, I saw this because apparently I'm I'm looking at the IGN article that after this restock and the increased price, they are sold out again. So Apparently uh maybe there was a very small amount Awesome. I think the one thing that Sony and other console manufacturers, the the m we'll say the main console manufacturers. Not that you know, Valve is n no small company, but in comparison, right? Um, they do have an advantage of economy of scale compared to Steam Deck. put out the numbers of how many Steam Decks have been sold, but We've mentioned many times that it is still a very niche device. And so they're not making anywhere near as many as they will for an eventual PlayStation six or PlayStation six hand out or whatever. So I think that will be to Sony's advantage in trying to keep the price down. along with Colin what you've talked about with Tom from Moore's Law is Dead is that the other components outside of RAM potentially being made cheaper because of newer processors. Uh new processes and uh the different smaller chip size chip nodes and stuff like that. I don't know. It's it's gonna be weird. It's Tom has stuck to that they're trying to make the PlayStation six a a cheaper device, but When you see the Steam Deck go up three hundred dollars, even with everything I just said, it's it's just And and how much the PlaySt five has gone up in price. It's just So hard to imagine. being possible. I I continue not to get it myself. Like I I don't um I do understand certain fundamentals. Like Sony's probably locked in on price for a lot of these things. The thing is is that how can you cre let's say like they can make millions like in the low millions of these at this price and then they have to suddenly jack the price up. 'cause so they have to find like the happy medium. Um at its maximum price for as long as possible. And then hopefully we get back into the normal fun function of pricing prices going down. Which I don't think will be is we are in this really shitty situation now. I don't think we'll always be in the situation where prices will eventually kind of diminish for electronics. Not a new baseline like Chris was saying, but something where there would be no expectation that the PS six will really go up in price. I think we'll uh hopefully things will be fixed by that point. Um and more steady we'll see. I will say on s I've been saying this. I I I feel like this has kind of come more to the forefront unintentionally. So I'm not gonna say that I intended on this to happen. But I've been critical of the of the why. with this Steam Machine and Steam Deck situation. As you guys know. In other words, Valve doesn't need this hardware. One of its advantages is that it doesn't need to do this. It's actually its major fundamental advantage is it doesn't not have to invest in hardware. Everyone else can do that. They can simply sell you software. And I always thought that there was a tension there, and I've said it many times. Who were you really selling this thing to? Because in a world where the Sony must get a PlayStation in your hand. Or it won't work. Like nothing will work. And so they're willing to eat as much of the cost as possible, and they might even eat some of it and get it. Like where they're not profitable at all. But that and that's what happened with PS3, I you know, um, most famously. But They have to go into that position, meaning that the console will be conceivably as cheap as it can be. Steam can't really do that. There's no way that they're looking at this and saying, like, well, let's just sell this at cost. Why? Then what what did we do all this for? Why the fuck would we sell this at cost? They're already Steam players. They're already on Steam. And so in my opinion, you look at these prices and and I o I wonder how Morislav feels about this, and I you would know more than me, Dustin, for sure, is like They're charging a premium still. they're not taking out their own cut. They're probably making a couple hundred dollars a unit or something. The because otherwise it makes no sense. It's not the same situation PlayStation's in where it's like, let's just get these things in the wild. And then we'll make our money. Steam's already making their money. They chose to get into hardware. I still feel like I don't want to use the term. I remember saying this earlier too of some weeks or months ago. I don't want to say it's an unforced error. I don't think it's necessarily an error. I just don't understand what they get from it. That's all. Like I I I I just don't I think it's that simple. Well uh if Valve is also b like you mentioned, like they They don't need They don't need to be in any position. So they could have a catastrophic failure and and not even care about you know what I mean? Like they're they're the default Games marketplace. Like it's kinda like e even if the steam machine like completely fumbles and just nobody buys it, it's just like all right. There don't you think there's something there's something unintuitive about it, though, where in We always I I'm the one who puts this nomenclature on them, but like where I'm like it's the small L libertarian marketplace. And like the everything they do is cater towards a libertarian's philosophy. Then you create your own hardware. then you create your own operating system. Sure. And at that point I'm like, I don't know, dude. Like it's kind of not. Y they were like the VLC or something of like storefronts. You know what I mean? Where it's like we work we're interoperable, as basic as possible, as robust as possible. Don't worry about it. Nothing else matters to us. And I think the hardware thing They knew this originally, right? Like 15 years ago with the OEM stuff. I think they didn't read the market. situation properly. And this goes into them not understanding hardware. Yeah, I I well that's true. I I also just think they're in a rare just because the type of company is, because it's not publicly traded, because they're so uniquely in an advantageous position in the market is as far as like being again just the the the the backbone of PC gaming and just like they're not They're not really going anywhere. I think they're I I really do think a lot of what they do is motivated by like a a bunch of people in the studio being like This would be cool to do this. Let's try. You know what I mean? Like I I they're they they seem more like that kind of a studio than Anybody else like w there was no reason to make Half Life Alex. At all. Like there's literally no there's no good reason to make a triple A VR game. But they could, because if it failed, it didn't matter. And I think uh it matters more that uh their hardware might fail, but I still think they're in I don't know. They definitely didn't read the market right. They definitely didn't Anticipate certain e economic realities. But I I think ultimately they're kind of like a We're three hundred people. Whatever. Which is an amazing amount of power to have, really. But Yeah, it is. And and I I will to the point you're making, I will say that I appreciate their lack of complacency, like It's what we were saying about Riot when I was giving them their flowers earlier, about at least trying things, and they look at the situation and they're like, All right, like well what could we do? If we if we needed to do something, what is it? And I think they realize like, Well, the only option is to make hardware because We already dominate the soft we already dominate the storefront angle. I just think that their their users like the pliability of Steam. And that if you're gonna buy a console, just buy a console. Yeah, like like to to uh to I I still have a hard time It's what Dustin was saying. Like we we people I think v vastly overestimate how many Steam Decks have been sold sold, for instance. I think it's probably in the mid single millions, which is not nothing. Not at all. That's awesome. But that's not PlayStation 6 will be Sony will be dead. If the PlayStation sold five million units. You know, they'll be done. The whole company will be finished. So it's totally different expectations and So I I respect that that they realize I think they realize that they are the target. I think what everyone realizes now is like, oh, you're the problem. And it's not a problem for the players or the consumer. I mean for them. It's like Sony has long thought Xbox was their problem and they've been kind of vanquished and they look around and they're like, Oh, you're the problem. And Nintendo, I think. With the handheld mantra and all that, it's like you're a problem for us. Um And I think that they've drawn a lot of ire and now they have to maybe be offensive. And their moves. So Don't blame them for that, but I'm very conservative and I mean that in a small C non political way with my m money economics where if I were them I'd be like, We got it. Like let's just not even Like don't even bother. Th let's just we' we'll just hang out. This will be great. All right. Yeah. Adam wrote in and said good evening, my succulent sexual symbols. Our platinum trophy's getting easier. So often on our trophies I see comments on people saying they won't bother even playing a game because it has difficult or multiplayer trophies, which will affect them getting the platinum. I did a bit of very light research and notice a trend in a few places that led me to believe developers are favoring easy trophy lists. The Last of Us on PS3 and PS4 required you to beat the game on harder difficulties. Both The Last of Us Part One and The Last of Us Part Two do not. The grounded trophies are on separate lists. Infamous required beating the game on hard, both or of of the more recent ghost games do not. The older God of War games versus the newer God of War games. There are more examples of Studios old versus newer games that spring to mind, but I am sure there are more examples. Is this to cater to the for the specific audience of trophy hunters that play games exclusively for trophies and not for fun? Interested in your thoughts. Yes. Um He answered his own question. Yeah. Uh You even see in S like Saros versus Returnals, a major example. I think Saros's platinum rate is already like 8%. Which is crazy. Returnals is one and one and a quarter or something. Um This has been long known. And I've said many times that w games that were considered easy to platinum in the P S three era would be considered not easy anymore. Like I I've said it a million times. I there used to be a little bit of a shame. It's like, oh, I platinum Cloudy with a chance of meatballs. I platinumed up. I platinum to where the wild things are. It's like looking at the the games people are platinum in now, those are way harder. The bladder. Then Those are ten, fifteen, tw like I platinumed Rango or w Rango, the the lizard. Yeah. And that was like twenty or twenty five hours, I think. It's like the the thing what was easy back in the day was that you could do it. Like like you would look at a list and be like, oh, I can do this. I just need to Get all the c as opposed to the games where it's like beat it four times, beat it on every difficulty, no stacking trophies. That kind of stuff. So that was what was considered easy then. And what are considered easy now are trophies that are truly Uh, I think I I heard double oh seven's platinum trophy is fairly straightforward. I think The balance is to make it attainable, but not too easy. And that's a that's a tough balance, uh, to strike. There's no doubt, Adam, that your instincts are correct. The God of War 3 is far more difficult to platinum than God of War 2018 or God of War Ragnarok, no doubt. Infamous one required you to Infamous One and Infamous Two both required two playthroughs to platinum. Um So yeah, you're not you're not crazy. Thank you for writing in. I mean games are also way longer now, generally. Like if you ask me to play through a forty hour game twice to get the platinum, like You can have you can have it. There was even there was a weird one, Chris, I remember when um Miles Morales came out that you had to beat it on New Game Plus to get the platinum. And even then that was kind of weird, even though it's a shorter game, you did have to beat it twice. And I was like, that's kind of weird. Yeah. Um, 'cause they usually don't do that. Or they'll they'll release a new game plus trophy later. That's not for the platinum. There's no doubt they're getting that feedback and Hard trophies are bad for games. Sometimes the game is so overwhelmingly good that it either doesn't matter or people still get the platinum Elden Ring's a great example of that. But oftentimes what's the yeah, what's the plan ring on Elden Ring? It's like uh It's like ridiculously high. I want to say it's like fifteen percent I would. Elven PSN. You find that on PlayStation profiles, right? Yep. Uh it's ten point eight. If you go to PSN profile there, I'll put the link in. If you're not logged in, it'll show you their rate first. You just have to mouse over the number and then you'll see the real one. So thirty seven point seven five percent of people on PSN profiles have it. Ten point eight percent of people on PSN have it. That's so high. Oh, that is crazy. Thirty seven is insane. Yeah, that's just for people that are logged in, though. I mean that's still that's that's an opt in. Um oh I see what you're saying. Yeah, because there there are 129,000 people on PSM profiles with the platinum, which is funny. Marathons is eleven. Weird. Yeah, marathons. I the the thing I wonder what they're gonna do with marathon because I've been really surprised with Helldivers trophies. Like they've not added any trophies. And I'm like, why? You should have added like literally added a hundred trophies by now. I have no idea what you're doing. W why are you going to add them? I don't know. Do whatever you want, I guess. What do I know? Colston wrote in and said, Hey C D C I'm an avid sports card collector as well as physical media. I think like m like my other many others, I like the history of it all. However, there is a monetary side of it too, of course. With some GameCube games and rare PlayStation games fetching upwards of a thousand dollars that had me thinking. With emulation on the rise and old hardware breaking controller systems, et cetera, do you think these collector collectors will go belly up? Who would pay $150 for a complete inbox PS3 game when you could potentially play it for free on modern consoles? I have hundreds of physical games and although they are priceless to me, it made me think, Am I sitting on thousands of dollars that'll soon be nothing? As my hardware breaks while I just have sitting discs I can't play. I've enjoyed the run up in my collection, but what do you think? Are physical collectors doomed or poised to be the next Scrooge McDuck? I'll go clean the man juice off my copies and listen, Jesus Christ. Dustin, what do you think of this? Cause I do think there is something to this, although I think he's oversimplifying it. Where in I don't know how long it's gonna go on where collectors are buying the shit to play. You know what I mean? Like because it does become a little ridiculous at some point. It is cool to have the CRT hooked up and you have the NES hooked up and all the rest, but like just go download an emulator. Go download the fucking Nintendo Online stuff and pla Zelda. Like what Like, why are you doing this to yourself? But I still believe that people will collect them to have them. And it's probably not unlike many other things. The the ideal situation of seeing art is not in your house. It's at a museum with the proper lighting and context forever, but yet people still buy artwork because it's valuable. And and they want it. And I feel like games will probably be the same, but I do believe that there are problems with the degradation of this stuff. Especially and I I will reiterate, especially with discs, I still feel like that's gonna be a problem. in the decades to come. And the hardware is going to be a massive problem. So What do you think? Do you think the costs will start going down? Is there a height in which it will plateau and go back down, or are we just always going to go up? I think it will continue to go up because uh collectors do not play the games they collect. Most of the time. That's been a like ongoing joke between me Um, like in my friend Matt and Ben, when we go to these retro conventions, it's like We always joke like oh I'm gonna buy this, but I'm never gonna play it. It's like that's not the point. Now, to be fair, there are many retro collectors that buy their games and play them. I'm somewhere in the middle where Like a few years ago, I played a bunch of games, like even expensive games that I bought for my PlayStation One. I played through all the Mega Man Legends games. I played both of my Tomba games, I played Sweet It One. Um, but That's a small percentage of the collection that I've purchased over the last few years, where there's certain things I've bought. Just to because I want it. Or maybe I I had it when I was a kid and I it's like, ah, I wanna have that. for the collection. And who knows, maybe I'll play it someday. Maybe I won't. Um So In terms of the pricing. Uh, 'cause I was doing I was thinking about this last night and then I was I brought up bunch of examples 'cause he's he was bringing up like if a game is re released does the value of that game drop? And I've always been curious about this as well, and the answer is sometimes. So some examples that I've thought of in particular. A game like Sweak It In Two. was a high value game. Normally in the three hundred, three fifty ish range. So fucking crazy. So when are these stupid games sitting around, you know, like in in m uh Degan's basement. Anyway, go on. So When did that remaster come out? Sometime last year. Yeah, last year. So we'll just say from January twenty twenty five, the price, the average price of a complete in box weekend into was two hundred and twenty five doll dollars. So it had gone down in price since like twenty twenty two or something. And now it's sitting at one hundred and fifty eight dollars. So we are seeing a a steady decline in the prices as we get into. since the remaster release. Big example. And one that pisses me off greatly. Because probably in twenty twenty three twenty twenty four, I bought Mario the Thousand Year Door. I paid one hundred dollars for it. And that is about the average price on price charting. Here we are now in twenty twenty six post remake. Forty seven dollars. So yeah. There are clearly examples of games that when they get remasters or remakes, they do drop in price. But it's not always the case. Like I looked up Uh long box Rayman on PS1. uh is consistently going up in price. It's which it's not crazy. It's seventy bucks. Yeah, and the long box stuff is probably all gonna be valuable uh in some way. But that g that goes to to it, where it's like, it's not necessarily about playing it. Or the availability to it. Rayman has been re re released so many times. Yeah. So it doesn't always affect Price. Um And even like I was curious, I'm like, okay, what about like a remake? Uh, that's like a a re like a real remake in terms of like not being the same game. A game like Silent Hill two. Uh, the original Silent Hill two, while it's at on a tiny dip, has continued to progress in price over the last five years. Peeking. in February twenty twenty six at two hundred and three dollars. For Silent Hill too. Whereas just five years ago was Eighty nine dollars. I have so much money in games it's like not even funny. Like these games that like are that have no right to even be valuable. Do you have rule of rose? No. What is that sounds familiar. What is that? That's an Atlas game. Uh P S one? PS two. is probably one of the most expensive games. Yeah and it's currently at its all time high at one thousand dollars. They must have printed like ten thousand copies of it or something. I mean it's like it's Wouldn't you If you were you would really only be able to control this as a first party, but you could invite publishers to do this with you if you made it. It's like if I were Sony, because remember we were talking about how that that Canadian retailer has like new print PS3 games. Like randomly from Sony's first party. Yeah, yeah. that are undercutting like the aftermarket. It's like if you were Nintendo. I know I know listen, I understand because I deal with it personally, but it's it's not trivial to make these games. It's like, why don't you just print like a bunch of GameCube games again? We don't know how. Yeah, we don't know how we lost like the technol like you know. Like to be fair, they make GameCube controllers. Like they in other words in other words, you would just think like if I were these guys, I'd be like, we could destroy these motherfuckers. And like and make a ton of money. by just re-releasing the games. Like and maybe even doing it through your own storefront. Like go get new GameCube games, go get new Wii games, go get new Wii U games. Go hit. new N sixty four games, NES games, S NES games. Like Just sell them yourself. And you and you it would be this double barrel thing. I'm a little I know that it a lot of it has to do with certification. But like the especially the first parties can just circumvent that and be like the games have already passed certification. You're not reinventing the wheel. Just print them again. That's all. Exact same disc. You don't even because a lot of people would be like, oh, put the newest firmware on it or whatever. It's like, don't even do that. Cause then it would have to pass certification. Just reprint the shit. And that wouldn't even be a problem before PS3. Make UMDs, make Vita games. I I just to me, I'm like, I don't know that it's it's not trivial, but I don't know that it's that heavy of a lift. And I think I think if anything the market around all these games shows you, there's a huge appetite. We got a bunch of DMs and messages from people when I brought up that Canadian retailer about the PS three games. People fucking went and rated that place. And you and we're talking about fucking ratchet and clank collection shit. Like who You know what I mean? Like not even like meaningful stuff, but imagine if they reprinted like Heavenly Sword. Yeah. Or resistance one. Or whatever. I don't know. So Yeah. I would like that. The the final thing I'll say about this is just that I think it is a It's it's not worth thinking about your collection in terms of dollar. Because the price is gonna go up and down. people that use it as an investment are dumb. And I hate that that's part of the space. Just Buy the games you want, if you can afford it. If there's an expensive game you want, it's worth it, do it. and enjoy it. And your way of enjoying may be sitting in on a shelf. And that's totally fine. Yeah, I think that's just trying it. That's why you want. It's really no different than the GI Joe is behind me. I'm not playing with them. In fact, I haven't played with G.I. Joe's since I was probably like seven or eight, and I was still collecting them for years after that because I like just having them. and setting them up and stuff like that. So I have no problem with that. I think the You're right about the investment thing. Uh uh don't take investment advice from me. Do what you want to do. But like I don't understand why you just wouldn't put your money in an index fund. Like if if like you're just gonna uh if that's what you're doing. hoarding these things to sell later, there's safer ways to invest your money. And ways that you don't have to deal with any of this shit. You know, like I so I don't quite get it from that perspective. Um, and by the way, I've been enjoying non-sequitur a little bit, but I've been enjoying seeing the videos of of the target people and the people at these uh Walmart shutting down finally these Pokemon poachers. Or these Pokemon. uh you know, scalpers. And and and them getting so upset to go cry. Right. Dust and I want you or Chris, I won't even go to you for that, because you don't collect physical games. Yeah, yeah. But I will go to uh both of you with this one. Graham Graham Waldripper in. And said hey boys, with news coming out last week that Quanic Dreams live service game, Spellcasters Chronicles, is being shut down in June after only being out for a few months. I worry about the studio's health. The announcement also mentioned an internal reorganization is coming, which means a fresh round of layoffs. Apparently development on Star Wars Eclipse will continue, but it's baffling to me that the studio attempted a game like Spellcasters. I know everyone wants their piece of the live service pie, but this feels like the ultimate form of square peg round hole. What do you guys think about Quantic Dream's overall situation? Been eight years since Detroit. I want more wacky and earnest David Cage experiences, but I'll be shocked if this game actually sees the light of the twin sons and Even if it does, I feel like it'll be a fart in the wind given the apathy around the Star Wars brand. Thank you for everything, keep hawking. Those hogs. It is true that Spellcatch Chronicles, which I don't think was ever even really officially released. I'm pretty sure it was in early access. Yeah. They pulled the plug on that. And there is some reporting out of French newspapers. I don't know if you guys have seen about how much of a shit show that development was in that they just they actually believed it was gonna be big. It wasn't like something they were just doing to try. They thought it was gonna be like a a success. I am a little worried about Quanic Dream. I mean I'm I'm not worried in the f and uh I listen, I don't wanna be totally flip. I don't really give a shit about Quanic Dream anymore. I used to really love Quanic Dream. But for multiple reasons, I don't really care anymore. Number one, they're not really in the PlayStation ecosystem anymore, so they're not like this interesting second party that we paid used to pay a lot of attention to back in the day, which we did. What what happened? What? I I was just out of curiosity, I was I was looking at uh The uh Spellcasters Chronicles. Yeah it's it's not. It's very generic and boring. The the the the steam chart peak is uh eight hundred and eighty eight. Yeah, good. Good use of your m time. Damn. That's rough. The um There are multiple reasons to be worried about them though, in my opinion. Realistic reasons, not just like reasons of feeling. Number one, Netties owns them. Uh, they bought them in twenty twenty two, I wanna say, and Netties is obviously pulling money from a bunch of different gaming projects. And it seems like I mean i isn't that what happened to uh Negoshis game? And a few others, Net E's is like getting out of all this stuff. So that's one very dangerous situation that they find themselves in. The second dangerous situation they find themselves in is that their Spotlight brand, which is their internal publishing brand where they publish external games. has been a fart. Not I I don't want to speak about these games from a personal perspective, but I did look them up from a Metacritic perspective. The four games they have published through this brand are Sea of Solitude, Under the Waves, a game called Les Fanga, the Time Shift Warrior, which I never even heard of until I looked it up, and Dustborn, which is obviously a game everyone's making fun of. These are all no more than mixed. on Metacritic. So they're not choosing the right games. And Star Wars eclipse I think S was probably a very good idea when it was Spun up. And now it's not gonna be a very good idea. Um unless that game is extraordinary in ways that can't even be really described. No one's gonna care about that game. in a in a way that is meaningful enough for them to have justified its extent. Like I you assume this game might take they might be ten years between Detroit and Star Wars eclipse. Um People know I'm a big Quanic Dream fan from their PlayStation trilogy. I think when they had PlayStation guiding them and producing the games, it worked out pretty pretty well for them generally. Beyond Two Souls again, I think was a little bit of a dud. But Detroit He Heavy Rain's awesome and Detroit Become Human is a great game. Um no doubt about it. So I think those things line up where it's like, well, you're not making any money from your publishing arm. You're probably losing a bunch of money from it. You're you just lost a bunch of money from Spellcasters Chronicles that was in development for a long time. You're about to lay a bunch of people off. You're owned by this Chinese conglomerate that is starting to shed its investments in gaming, and you have a Star Wars game in development. I'm not liking the way that's all lining up for them. It's like a r it's like a reverse infinity gauntlet. It's like all the worst possible Star Wars game. Everybody's gonna love this. It's the finity gauntlet. Ha ha ha. So that is so stupid. It is. It's just stupid as hell. It's good. I like it. So where where are you on this, Chris? What how you feeling about Quanic Dream's uh future? Oh man, I look I was I was never particularly bullish on Quanic Dream. I think they I think they make interesting stuff. I think uh David Cage is definitely one of those people that like I think is uh Interesting and eccentric enough that like I'm inherently curious about like anything that he does, but like none of his stuff is really Landed landed for me. Heavy rain is interesting, but I I I feel like I like heavy rain. reasons that are not necessarily intentional. Like, I think heavy rain is hilarious. I think I think heavy rain is like one of the Unintentionally probably like one of the funniest games that they've been. Well, Radic was putting up all the clips right of Of the no fail states. That's fucking hysterical. It just it becomes this like this clumsy idiots Like a really heavy story. And it's just like it's very I think he makes interesting things. I didn't f I didn't play Beyond Two Souls at all because I just kept hearing mm less than great things about it. And I was like, eh, I don't I don't really vibe with these kinds of games anyway. But What was the one he did after it was Detroit Become Human. I did like Detroit Become Human. Um so there is that, but like I've never been a Big on on their stuff and I can't even you can't even fathom. How uninterested I would be in A Star Wars game. in this genre of game that I already kinda don't fuck with, you know, that much. Uh, so Star Wars Eclipse is already like from the from the moment I heard about it, I was like, Yeah, it's not gonna be for me. So this does nothing for me. Like whatever I mean, hopefully, you know, the the people there can uh maintain Maintain the ship, but uh I of no personal consequence to me. We were saying earlier too. I think he the success of the trilogy, like their trilogy on PlayStation, Heavy Rain and Detroit especially did very well commercially. Is exactly what I was saying earlier about how I thought Wake was kind of on the wrong platform. At the time. And I feel the same way about Heavy Rain, where Heavy Rain on Xbox would have never been the success it was. Um, because it was just a totally different group of people looking for different Types of games. So I think I run like to Sony's credit, the Quanic Dream brand really was vibrant and useful for PlayStation for a while. And as I n I knew this well after Beyond came out, but that like they they I've said it a million times, like they don't they they didn't get along. behind the scenes. There there was no way that the three game deal was gonna be extended as far as I understood, no matter How well Detroit did. Um 'cause just don't think they wanted to deal with each other anymore and you can see that Ever since Sony cut them loose, they haven't released anything. So What do you think, uh Dustin? What do you think about Quanic Dream's future? Doesn't sound good. Um I don't know if I have much to add other that you guys Already I wonder It made me think of uh last week we were talking about Shift Up and they were like, Oh, we don't need PlayStation. And this is kind of in like an opposite sh situation where it's like, uh Maybe they need to PlayStation. Uh and the thing they did put out is already. shut down and was viewed as a a cash grab. uh by it's all whether it was intended or they thought it would be or not. Um Clearly they're Uh lack of guidance. is is showing right now. The uh the Detroit Become Human trailer and reveal is still one of my favorite PlayStation conference moments. Do you remember the trailer where it would like show you the clip and then it would zoom out and it would show you like the butterfly effect and it would go into like something else and it showed like exactly how complicated the game was. And I was like, this is awesome. That game it was the rooftop scene they showed over and over and over again. the guy getting shot in the head. Love that. Detroit was awesome Detroit was an awesome game. It really was. And heavy rain, I highly recommend heavy rain. It's weird. It's stilted. It's a PS3 game, but it is excellent. It reminds me of like uh It kind of feels like Like if Like if Deadly Primonition wasn't just good because it's Kind of awkward. You know, like it's like a proper I don't know, like i th there's something about that game that's like it is good. Like objectively, but it is also very f High comedy if if you play it right. No, it is. I think what it is is that it's it's very bold. And it comes off as Campion weird if you don't play it the way it was intended. Cause You could just like there's that the do you Do you remember it well? The the Yeah there's that scene where you're setting the table. Dishes. You know what I'm talking about? And like you could like you could like take you take the dishes out of the cabin, you could like slam them down, like, but you're not like supposed to. Right. And like everything about like you're supposed to be setting the table nicely and like hanging around, but you could just fuck around so bad and the game continues as if you hadn't done that kind of I think it's bold and interesting and like that was like um I appreciated heavy rain. For for that. Um sorry, I just got a text message. Final inquiry, my friends. Jack Trenton's illegitimate sunrodin. That's PSP Marcus. Said howdy fellas. With the massive gaps between modern game releases, do you feel Sony's first party studios are being too protective of their IPs? Sucker Punch's stance that only they can touch infamous feels less like quality control and more like asset hoarding. This isn't just about demanding more games. There are talented external or mid-size studios that would kill for a shot at Sly Cooper or Infamous or The Last of Us. Giving them that chance could yield incredible results while letting the original creators focus on new projects. Colin often mentions that Lucasfilm doesn't have a monopoly on good Star Wars ideas. They don't. In fact, I think they have a monopoly on bad Star Wars ideas. Look at Obsidian, they proved with Knights of the Old Republic 2 and Fallout New Vegas that external developers can take established universes and deliver masterpieces. I was fifteen when Skyrim came out. I'm thirty now. We cannot keep waiting ten to fifteen years for beloved franchises to resurvice. Isn't it time PlayStation embraces a more collaborative, publisher-minded approach? In their catalog. I generally agree with you, actually, but I do think there is a difference between some of the franchises you mentioned. Sly Cooper and Infamous are dormant. And at that point, I do think there should be Sucker Pun should produce it. They should guide it and shepherd it. But someone else should be making notes. And that's what I was saying about the infamous collection. Should they be doing that, and apparently it is external teams that are doing it according to the rumor. It's like it better be. Like what a waste of your fucking time. But The Last of Us, I understand the preciousness around that a little more, not because I like it, but because it's theoretically alive. There's an HBO series coming up coming up. There's almost certainly gonna be a third game. They talk about it sometimes. So I think once things kind of leave The zeichist of a studio for good. Sly Cooper's been gone for twenty years. the fourth game wasn't made by them. It's like, yeah, like not only should you not really have that kind of control, but you should embrace someone else coming in. and wanting to do something with it, you can guide it, you can write it, you can produce it. But yeah, let someone else do that stuff. And so I completely agree with you. And I think I do think the level of preciousness though, Jack Trent's illegitimate son, is based on the output of the studio. I think a lot of teams don't don't have any power. I think there are probably four or five teams that have all the power. No one's gonna make a grand turismo game other than Polyphony. That would never happen. Sucker Punch, Naughty Dog, obviously have that power, Santa Monica has that power, and Gorilla. I mean, that's probably it. I would assume. And even Horizon was made by others and is being made by others. I mean, there was a Lego game. made externally, there's the fucking MMO being made in Korea. So the answer is yes. Do you guys have anything you'd like to add to this before we go? Yeah, I can understand being Uh concern 'cause there are examples of like a an IP going to a new team. and killing it. older at this point, but I think about The non naughty dog Crash Bandicoot games or the non Insomniac spyro games where it's like, Oh, we'll have someone else work on this now. Uh, and they're just clearly not as good. I think there are examples of games that have gone to new teams and when there's the right level of care and maybe collaboration, with the original team that you can make something great. Uh This is a weird I'm sure there are better examples than this, but I was thinking about The near replicant. uh remaster slash partial remake that came out that was attached with uh toy logic. We're like, oh no. Mm-hmm. This is gonna be not good. Uh, but it ended up being really great. And no problems. So like I said, there's probably better examples, but I think that There's a way, a path forward where You can have Someone working on an infamous game and Sucker Punch can still be attached to it and and lead, you know guide them along the way. Not just like, okay, take this IP and do whatever you want. Who's a middle ground? uh that I think could be explored. We'll see what happens. Um, I think infamous will obviously be one of the if should it be real and uncharted to a degree too, depending on if you believe a game is in development and then who might be making it. 'Cause when Neil says he's producing another game, it could be a game that's outside of Naughty Dog two. Um Should that be uncharted, but I don't know. We'll see. We'll see. He is right about obsidian. I mean, they they did they did a great job. And in fact, Bioware began making someone else's a sequel to someone else's game. I can't remember what it was. They made a uh was it Never Winter Nights? Or something like that? Is it Baldur's Gate? Maybe Baldur's Gate is what it was, yeah. Bald as Gate. Was it Baldur's Gate? I thought they did the I thought they did the first one. I I'm trying to remember. Borderscape so behind on Bioware. I don't remember. Yeah, I'll just look here real quick and we'll wrap this up. Let's see games developed. Oh no, Baldur's Game one is Bioware, so it's not that M D Oh yeah, maybe that's what it is. Never winter nights. But Baldur's Gate still fits because Bioware didn't make Baldur's Gate three. Yeah, I'm trying to figure out. Yeah, I don't know. I I I think both I think both are valid. Like I I think uh mainline entries in very important living IP should be very, very precious. But I also think that there should be more flexibility in like spin offs and and and things where other developers should take stabs at it. Like I like with with the ensemble with Halo Wars. Like that was great. Like that was really cool. Like I I'm still kinda bummed that we don't have like More weird shit like uh Like a I think a Destiny Tactics would be so cool. You know, but like Um, for whatever reason those those games are just not uh Appeal to pitch, I guess. Alright, let's get the hell out of here, my boys. It's time to go. around the horn and say goodbye. Chris, goodbye to you. Be well. Have a good rest of your day. Any plans to share? You too, man. I uh I don't know, what's the I'm probably just um Continuing on with double oh seven. Maybe get into maybe start. Diving into Destiny a little bit in preparation for this last uh last major update which I was reading about during during our break and it looks it actually looks pretty cool. Yeah. Pretty pretty normal day. I'm gonna make some chicken. I'm gonna meal prep for the rest of my week. I got a bunch of You know when you have you I I bought a bunch of like fresh chicken and I was intending to cook it the day that I got it, but then I I got swept up doing other things and now it's like I kinda gotta I gotta make it I gotta make I gotta make all of it at once. So I'm gonna have like a shit ton of chicken this week. But uh Good formal day ahead. Other than that. Protein. Can't get enough. All right, we'll be well. See you next time. Dustin, goodbye to you. Anything you'd like to share? Goodbye. Uh as soon as we're off this call, I'm gonna go eat and then I'm leaving. to the movie. And then this weekend, like I said, I'll be away. Camp site, how many beers will I drink? God only knows. God only knows. Good luck. God only knows. God speed to you. So should be fun. Uh and then Fun week next week with the state of play. Yeah. It's it's gonna be some exciting stuff coming soon, which is great. So join us over there on the uh YouTube channel for the our streams. And uh you can find everything here on Patreon as well. Patreon.com slash last dammedia. We appreciate you guys. Uh for me, I don't know. kinda hanging out I gotta do some s oh my dad's coming this weekend. So See him at least a little bit. I got a bunch of work to do. I'll be recording with Brad on Sunday. Uh gotta pay everyone. Got to do the Q and A for the month. Odds and ends. Yeah, some some other things. So yeah, just work. Thank you all out there for your love, kind of support. Appreciate you. Patreon.com slash last daymedia for early ad free access and lastdaymedia.store for merch. We'll see you next time. Until then. Yeah. Take care, guys. Sacred Symbols, a PlayStation podcast, is a product and trademark of Last Stand Media and Collins Last Stand LLC, and is proudly recorded in the USA. The show is conceived by, is written by, and is directed by me, Colin Moriarty. My co-hosts are Chris Raygon Maldonado and Dustin Furman. 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