The Weekly Download

Xbox drops Game Pass prices & Switch 2 sales surge in the US!

• Big Games Machine • Season 1 • Episode 27

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SPEAKER_01

The weekly download, a podcast about interesting game, industry news, brought to you by Big Games Machine. Hello, hello, hello. Welcome, welcome, one and all, back to the weekly download by Big Games Machine, your weekly wrap-up of the biggest stories in gaming. I am your host, Tom, and I am yet again joined by my co-host Alex. Alex, would you like to introduce yourself this week?

SPEAKER_03

Well, yeah, yeah, I I would. I would. I'm Alex. It's nice to be back. I I'm more so here at Big Games Machine. I'm a supporter of the daily download, but uh you do all the lift heavy lifting and the weekly download. You're the on screen channel. Always nice to join. That's right. Yeah. You're the talent. That's what they call me. I am I'm in the rotating chair that does very little rotation at the moment.

SPEAKER_01

No, well that's good. That's because we've taped it down and stopped you from moving around. But no, thank you, Alex, for for joining me. As always, I I remember last week we said that one week you'd host and I'd co-host. And we could have done that this week, but we'll have to no, not this week. Don't worry. I'm not going to spring it on to you. This week's top stories. Yes. We're kind of directly leading on from last week because last week we were discussing the internal memos that had been going around at Xbox about Xbox uh Game Pass being too expensive. We've now this week seen what that looks like in public, what that looks like in reality. Xbox announcing changes to the Game Pass pricing, as well as the removal of one of its biggest franchises, which we'll discuss later on as a day one title. So that's our real lead story this week. It's not Pentiment. It's not gonna be Pentiment, it's gonna be something else, isn't it? It's not Pentiment, I'm sorry. But Pentiment's a great game. Shout out Pentiment, very good game. We'll also be looking at the news that Koe Techmo, of course, recently uh released Pocopia and Neo3 earlier this year. Their success with sales has seen them revise their earnings forecast following that strong start to the year. And then our final big story for this week is the news that US hardware sales rose nearly 70% in March. And primarily that is being attributed to, not a surprise, the Switch 2. I think there's definitely a link between the success of the Switch 2 in March and uh Coe Tecmo's revision, and it's that big Pocopia-shaped hole that um everyone is.

SPEAKER_03

Certainly seems to be a trend on TikTok, the number of people I've seen that are like, I'm buying a Switch 2 to play Pocopia. Just for Pocopia.

SPEAKER_02

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, those are those are the three big ones for this week. We'll we'll cut away now, and when we come back, we will be taking a look at this news about Game Pass. We are going to kick off this week's episode with the story that Microsoft is both cutting Game Pass prices, but it's uh it's a I can't think of it, a monkey paw situation. Game pass prices going down, but the flip side of that is that Call of Duty going forward is not going to be a day one title anymore. So if we look at the the figures for this real quick, Game Pass Ultimate will drop from$29.99, this is in dollars, to$22.99. PC Game Pass will drop from$16.49 a month to$13.99. So a bit of a smaller change for PC Game Pass, but that's because it offers less. Um but a real big drop uh with Ultimate, obviously, as we've said, the how how the how are the economics working here? That's working because Microsoft and Xbox have taken the decision to remove Call of Duty titles from that day one offering.

SPEAKER_03

Of course it was.

SPEAKER_01

Well they've said that they Game Pass Call of Duty will come to Game Pass. It'll likely be at least a year after release, though, for the newer games.

SPEAKER_03

I'm just gonna I'm going to say that that makes it irrelevant unless you unless, you know, you're really into the single player thing, with but I think that's a tiny portion.

SPEAKER_01

We can just dive into this. We spoke about this last week. I think it was very clear that Xbox were going to change the pricing. And especially looking at Ultimate, what would be the easiest way to do that? We know that Microsoft left because of the last game, so Black Ops 7, because that launched day one on Game Pass. They lost out from their internal figures on hundreds of millions of dollars in those sales that they they would have got otherwise. So it feels like how can we make it cheaper, the the consumers get a better deal, and we get a better deal because we can actually monetize this big IP properly.

SPEAKER_03

Gonna sit here and huff and puff a little bit about the maths on that though, because it's$72 difference a year, which is the price of COD. So if you're a COD player, you're losing out massively. If you're not a COD player, it's great news. Um you were probably in any way, and you're you're now then not paying that money that you would have been paying. I wonder, I wonder if it's like just not enough. Like looking at these numbers, I'm like, if you play COD, you might stop by a game pass and just play COD and like not worry about the one or two extra games, and then they lose out on the guaranteed ongoing subscription model side of it. And then the people that don't play COD weren't downloading it anyway. So I wonder where I'm sure they've run the numbers. I'm sure they've run the numbers, and this sits in the happy medium on the Venn diagram. Oh, I'm sure they have. No, I I'm sure they have. But like where like I wonder how big that center, the Venn diagram in the middle must be a massive overlap for this to make sense. And I don't need to see that data, I guess is my point.

SPEAKER_01

I I I think to continue on from what you've started, Alex. I think to me, it feels that it was a case of we'll we'll put COD on there, we'll put Black Ops 7 on there, let's see how much more, let's see what spikes we see, not necessarily long even longer term subscribers, but just for a few months around that release. Does it have a good enough impact? I think it clearly hasn't had a good enough impact, and it goes back to what you said, where they've looked and gone, if we drop the price, so it's so Game Pass is this much cheaper a year, that pretty much does equate to what we will hopefully get back from the sales of Call of Duty. And and obviously we can't forget that this is this is a wider thing where Call of Duty you can buy it if you want to play it like on PS5, you have to buy it. There's no way to access it through Game Pass. So I guess they've been able to compare. I know that PS5 has a lot more unit sold, so the the player base is bigger, but I imagine they've probably compared the sales from Black Ops 7 on PS5 to what everything that's happened with it being on Game Pass and how many people have bought it independently.

SPEAKER_03

Or just how many people have played it that are on Game Pass and how many people, but yeah. I mean, the one thing that I would say, and I I can't remember if I said this when we spoke about it last week, but my thinking was if they put Call of Duty on there after six months, it means that the people that bought Call of Duty have a new influx of people to like revitalize those maps, bring it in, possibly add DLC that they have to pay for on top of that if they want that. And I think that makes sense. Again, they will know if this makes sense. But in my head, that's why it's like it's the difference between it being they'll add it after a year. If they're adding it after the next Call of Duty game comes out, I think it's it's the worst of all worlds in all of these. But if it's six months, I think that benefits the people who have Game Pass, they feel like they're getting that bonus, they still get the game for free while it's still relevant and they can still jump in and play multiplayer. And then the people and that because they don't care about COD as much. And also for the players that are in and are massively committed to COD, they might be seeing like the kind of standard drop-off of the people who bought it, and there's fewer, fewer of them aren't there anymore. And maybe you when you see that kind of spike you get each time DLC drops, that's not there. Suddenly there's this influx of new players.

SPEAKER_01

One, they feel like kings because they're murdering people that haven't played it in forever, and two, well, that that was always the Christmas I said that with all the big like multiplayer games that would launch in October and November, you'd get to Christmas, the Christmas period, and then be like, oh, everyone sucks. Yeah, everyone's all new.

SPEAKER_03

I'm gonna clean house.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Uh they've said that it will be at least a year. I think it is going to be the worst situation you described, which is the new one comes out a month later, the old one gets added to Game Pass. Although I I think the flip side of that is that it still probably helps player populations on Xbox. And I guess we've crossed played more widely.

SPEAKER_03

I haven't played COD in so long. I don't know if there's any overlap, but like if one game is still locked off, it just means that you're you've got two massively populated servers. I think somewhere in there that there's a good middle ground, especially if DLCs aren't included. And I think that's the other difference. Because if you're giving somebody the game for free and you jump in and you're playing with your mates and they're like, come and join us on this map, and it's not there, suddenly you're incentivizing DLC sales on top of the free game. You're like, well, I got the I'm playing the game for free, so I don't know how much DLC is.$25 for maps, I guess, for a drop if that's the same. So I'm gonna find out.

SPEAKER_02

I'm gonna find out there isn't I don't really have maps. I'm just gonna say that's not gonna be a thing, is it? I'm making stuff.

SPEAKER_01

To uh come and help us out. Now that we've got a precedent for big IP, big games being on Game Pass and then being removed. I I know that Call of Duty does feel like an exception to every rule in this, and and I think everyone's said this in the past before they said it was gonna come to Game Pass for these very reasons. But do you think there's a possibility that we will see other publishers, other developers, such as Bethesda, are we gonna see their games kind of maybe are they gonna come out of Game Pass? I I wonder if we'll end up in a situation where you can kind of pick and choose what you want. Because I I get the impression that these price changes are just the start, and I do wonder if we will see like indie Game Pass or oh, I want Bethesda games, I want Ubisoft games, I want this this exists.

SPEAKER_03

I mean, you know, PlayStation does a little bit of this, knowing extent next Netflix does. You have do you do have things that cycle in and out and in for a while and then gone. So you know not everything's there, and and you have that kind of rotation, and it's not a forever locked library. I mean, the difference there would be with Netflix, the things that cycle in and out of things that aren't owned by them. So it's deals coming and going rather than in-house stuff. I would be surprised if they went that hard on it. I wouldn't be surprised if they took away the day one, like PlayStation Essentials. No, Essentials is the one that the premiere premium ones. Well, you know, like you wait six months to a year before like God of War.

SPEAKER_01

Sorry, not to extras the middle one, isn't it? Premium is pre I think premium's the one where you get like two PS3 games to stream. Yeah, for yeah.

SPEAKER_03

But all of those levels, they're like that they're their their first party games, week of release, are not out. Not out on on the both services, even if you're paying the extra for them. So I wouldn't be surprised if that's the way they go. If you're really into it, you can get it now. That's not what Game Pass is for. It's for people who want loads of games whenever they turn on and are not really up on games in the same way. In the same way Stadia uh and Lumina, I think that's what the Amazon thing is meant to do, Luna, um, are trying to do or or tried, tried or are doing. Um I think that or or were doing, I think even Luna is changing that now. Um but I think the the the kind of bottom line of that is the can you still get away with charging$23 a month for that? Like at what point are you paying for for more?

SPEAKER_02

Or is the value higher, lower?

SPEAKER_01

The what you said there about the when it to me a lot of it comes down to the value. And again, I'd raise that point that I know Ashasharma apparently said in this internal memo, which was all about what is the value proposition of Game Pass, how do we make it valuable? I see that as less about let's have I'm very convinced on this TV model, like TV channel approach. I I think that's the direction it will go in with Game Pass, where you can decide which channels, which games you get after.

SPEAKER_03

Amazon Prime does it now, right? You you you you need Prime, but then you can get Paramount and you can get Discovery and you can get Shudder through it.

SPEAKER_01

I can see that happening because I think you could have you can have like ultimate, you can have like ultimate, you can have PT Game Pass, you can very much have like these branded services which are say with Ultimate, I mean, even at$23 a month, if you're going to keep getting day one games in there, even if it's not everything, it's still that's good if you carry around.

SPEAKER_03

It's a bargain.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. I I just I wonder if within a year we will have a situation where you can decide I want say say just Game Pass on its own, that's ten dollars a month, that's the base tier. For that, you get X you get this library, you get X amount of new games a month, and then on top of that, I think they will look at all the first party stuff and say, right, if you want Bethesda games, potentially day one games as well, but if you want the Bethesda library, that's another five dollars. If you want the you know Microsoft, that's another five.

SPEAKER_03

And yeah, I've got two things on that. One, how much do you think the baseline is for that then, and what's kind of included in the baseline. That's just something to mull over. The other thing just popped into my mind, and this is just talking about because I think it was a TV channel approach that you just suggested. Imagine if, because one of the things, like there are a lot of people out there trying to be streamers, all these different things that you kind of have to move into, right? And suddenly via game passing things, you're like, there is a wealth of games out there that you could you could be making content about. What if like TV here? Like, if you want to put on the football somewhere where people are going to see it, like the pub, you need a separate license to have to have that kind of entertainment license. What if something like that became attached to streamers? I shouldn't be putting ideas like that out in the street.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, that let's not Hello, is that somehow the second time we've mentioned the Nintendo Creator program on this podcast, but just a baseline. Well, it's like what if something like that popped up? I don't think that would be a winner with the public.

SPEAKER_03

And I think the rest of this is it would it would only be it would only be uh a tax on successful streamers. Like they need to be over like a hundred thousand, over a hundred thousand.

SPEAKER_01

The wealth tax, the wealth tax of streamers. We're coming for we're coming for the one percent of streamers who are earning too much money from Game Pass. I I have nowhere to go from that.

SPEAKER_03

So I think the last thing Alex derails it with the worst idea ever. I think it's a terrible idea. That's why I could terrible.

SPEAKER_01

Well, Nintendo have done this. Again, people look up the Nintendo Creator program because that's what that was.

SPEAKER_03

Um I my my last thing on this the what it could do is remove the ability to copyright strike. That could be the what you get there. Like you you then own the license to stream it.

SPEAKER_01

But that's one of the gives me very big like yakuza or mafia vibes where you're basically paying for like protection to not get copyright struck. Again, this is what Nintendo did, and people did not like it. No, that's true. That's true.

SPEAKER_03

Okay, let's move on from this horrible idea.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, the last thing I wanted to say is that Ash Asharm has come in and made and in such a short amount I think it's been 60 days now, in such a short amount of time, it's already changing so much. And I and I think that this latest change with Game Pass, it's another sign that we are moving on from Phil Spencer, we're moving on from that formula of doing things. Okay, new theory.

SPEAKER_03

I know I've got to stop doing these. One last theory. They knew, like, I'm sure like the price didn't go up, and then Phil Spencer was like, uh, I've had enough. I've just put the prices up. Still too negative, I'm out the door. What if they knew Call of Duty was gonna come off and you can't just take it off without giving something back? So Phil Spencer fell on his sword, became unpopular by putting the price up, and this was always the price they were gonna put it down to, pulling it out.

SPEAKER_01

You Alex, you are well aware of the fact that you can't entertain me with such ideas and not have me believe them. I do believe that one. That was that does make a lot of sense.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. I uh like if you've got to do something that's gonna be unpopular, better to do something, better to put it empty and like an old person. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01

Maybe. I I mean I think we'll give we'll look to move on, but we'll give credit to Xbox, whoever's making the decision of when these things happen. I think that they are I think it's a really good move again from Sharma to, you know, come out and make these changes. And I think that people it's$7 a month. As you said, Alex, by the end of the year, that's another full game. And you cannot underestimate how much money that is for people to be able to go and do that and not lose. I think I know I've said it before, I don't have the data. I don't think the crossover between people who want Game Pass and people who want to play Call of Duty was big enough to justify kind of ripping up the pricing structure the way they did. So although I'm st I think that it's still more expensive than it was without Call of Duty. So you know that that's a question of value there. But anyway, I think definitely Microsoft moving in a more positive direction, especially if we're looking at consumer reaction, because uh, this is a few days old at this point as we're recording this, and all I've seen is really positive responses.

SPEAKER_03

So absolutely, but but it is also worth pointing out, and I just checked this because I I hadn't looked at the price in a while, and it's something that I realise we haven't covered within this. All these Xbox players who buy who might just play Call of Duty, even if they do that, you've got to remember they're still paying$120 a year, probably not ten dollars a month if they're playing monthly, probably a hundred dollars a year, just to be able to play online and have access to that level of game pass, the essentials, which is the online play. So when I was thinking it was eighty dollars for the year of having the the difference there, there's still an Xbox fee on there to play online, which I think is something we hadn't.

SPEAKER_01

Can we get an online for free? Come on, now it's not 2010 or whenever I don't even know when Xbox started charging. But I was PlayStation was I think 2014. I feel like Xbox Live was kind of day like day and one charging.

SPEAKER_03

I think it was before 3-6. I don't I don't remember.

SPEAKER_01

Well, we're in the minutia now, and this is really not that important to the wider point. So we'll uh we'll break away and then we're we're gonna take a look at Koei Techmo when we come back. Exactly. And we are back with our second story of the episode. I think we spent a bit too much time talking about Xbox, so we're gonna have to speed run through these stories. But anyway, Coe Tecmo has had a really strong start to the year, so it's revised its earning forecast. So we're seeing ordinary profit. That forecast has risen by 50% from 37 billion yen to 55.5 billion yen, and then operating profit, a bit smaller, only only up 16.1% in the forecast uh to reach 36 billion yen. Unsurprisingly, if we look at games, Pocopia inevitably was a huge driver of this. It shifted 2.2 million units in four days. It's caused some uh switch to sale jumps, which we will get on to later. There was also a nearly 11% spike in Nintendo stock. Koe Techmodow also have Neo 3 that's shifted a million copies since its launch. It's the fastest selling game in the series. So a lot of this success and these revisions can be tied to the fact that they've had a really strong start to the year in terms of game sales. The the flip side of this, and this is something that I wasn't aware of, Alex, I know you've got more context on on this in terms of Japanese culture, but Koei Tecmo, it's non operating in. Income is much higher than the income from their games department. So this is because they do a lot of work around investments and investment returns, and they're kind of seen as a very savvy investor. Its investments have outperformed its game business for the last three quarters. So essentially, Coe Tecmo are making a lot of money, in part thanks to making a life sim of the biggest IP in the world, and that's selling gangbusters, but also because they're just quite good at investing, which is a respectable position to put yourselves in.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, it's a strange thing. And it obviously exists in the world, but I think just to bore people. It lived in Japan for a quite a few years. We need a we need a like a little, I don't know, like an alarm or something. Here he goes. But but what surprised me when I went out there was just like the overlap. Because I went out, and the best example I think remains Konami, just because it, you know, when we look at that even as a gaming company, it it's had quite a strange journey, uh, especially in the last like 10, 10 years or so. Uh but you go out there and you're like, okay, this company does this in the same way that the majority of the time happens in the countries that at that point I was used to living in, uh, the UK and uh I was not living in, but knowing America. And it's like, okay, this company does this. It's kind of in this sector. Whereas in Japan, you get people that kind of venture in companies that venture into multiple sectors all at once, because it's it's quite a small country and you look for where look to invest where you you can and look to create wealth where you can. Uh and Konami has like leisure centers, they ran hotels, you've got I think broadly all entertainment, of course. Um, and you uh and then the game division, which is why and uh amusement arcades, uh, and which is why when um uh why when they closed down their game division, that was just like it's the it's not making money. All these other things are making more money, and then they come back to it now that they've given it time, saw the value. Well, we can make money with Castlevania. Exactly. But I do I I I do think it's like when you look at uh things like Cyberpunk and a lot of the kind of fiction of the the 90s, that kind of mass corporations that run absolutely everything, I think comes from people who visited Japan and kind of had this kind of culture shock of that. And it is becoming a bit more common now, but people still kind of stay a bit more in their lane. I say that as like Amazon is opening stores, like produce stores and stuff around the place. So it's happening more and more. But in Japan, it it pronounced how much overlap there is between things.

SPEAKER_01

Do you think do you think I if I'm trying to put myself into the position of someone who's very high up at Coe Tecmo who will, I'm sure, be infinitely more smart than me and make all the good decisions that they have been making. I guess what's really good for them is that unlike a lot of other companies within the the video game space, of course, that's where we're we're talking from, they're solely generating income through the games. If the games don't sell, if they don't not Koe Techmo, everyone else. If their games don't sell, if they have something where they lose a lot of money on a project, they have to cancel stuff, that's a really big concern. Koe Tecmo is essentially ensuring that they can keep doing these smaller projects, and I think that's something else I'd highlight is if you look at the games they're releasing, they're not putting huge budgets behind stuff. They're, you know, it's they're making double-A games, they're doing remakes, a bit like Square Enix, which we've touched on before. But they can ensure that they're they're sustainably making money through their games by not taking any silly risks, but they've still got all of this other investment in the background, so that if they ever have a weaker period, they'll they'll probably be okay because they don't need they don't need Pocopia to have sold as well as it has. It's kind of the the icing on the cake that they've already made.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, and and I think a lot of Japanese company, and it comes down to this is the idea that there is still not entirely it is shifting, but there is still a kind of far more traditional job for life approach in Japan. So you know, comatec mode, probably like if something happens in one division, you probably get shuffled around and put somewhere else and some guy that was making let's say Neo3 had done really poorly, suddenly he finds somebody he or she finds themselves in like the accounting division for a couple of months until something else comes back. I was gonna say we we've just finished up Hokopia. Guess what we're doing next? What accounting.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Uh and I'm I'm oversimplifying that, but there is a lot more kind of um the way they diversify allows a bit more of that safety.

SPEAKER_01

Um safety, security, stability.

SPEAKER_03

Um diversity does that in any in any area though, doesn't it? Like you want to spread spread your risks.

SPEAKER_01

I wonder if that stability that this other stuff they do, these investments they do as well, makes them a much more attractive partner for third party as well. I think that the team that made Pocopia were behind Dragon Quest Builder, so I think that's definitely why they were chosen. But I imagine that because they, you know, because Nintendo, the Pokemon Company, Game Free, they can look and go, okay, we've got a great, reliable partner here. They can make good games, but they're also they're not going to be, you know, laying off loads of people, hypothetically. They're not going to be in trouble. If we want to, in five years' time, make a sequel, they'll probably be okay. So I imagine that stability really helps Koe Techmo out. And and yeah, these these revisions, I don't know a lot about business and I don't know a lot about money. Forecasting that your profits going up 50%. Yeah. That's it's pretty good.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

So it's it's nice. But I think we'll we'll we'll wrap there. Then we come back, we'll be looking at more, not quite as big numbers, but they're in a different currency. So smaller by default. But when we come back, we'll be looking at the the US hardware sales for March. Our final story of the day is here. US hardware sales, Alex, they rose 69% in March, year on year, primarily thanks to the Switch 2. So total US consumer spending in the industry was$5.3 billion in March, a 12% year-on-year increase. But hardware sales is where we're really seeing that explosion. 69%, around$500 million, specifically inevitably being driven by the success of the Switch 2. We've just spoken about Pocopia. I think obviously that has helped. The Switch 2 remains the fastest selling hardware platform in Circana history, which they track from 1995, and it's currently outpacing the Switch, the original Switch, by 12%. If we look at the same 10-month-speaking likely due to having more supply, as much as any. Yeah, I was gonna say that's I think oh god, now that nine years, wow, that's how old the Switch is at this point. But yeah, notoriously the Switch was a nightmare to get hands-on with. So I think very much this is a degree of the hype around the Switch 2. As we've said, I think Pocopia's probably been the biggest driver of systems since the thing came out, and which definitely accounts for a lot of this increase. I will say though, of interest, PS5 also having a 3% increase year on year in March. So are we seeing the the Switch 2's success boost other hardware, or is this a price hike thing? Is what I'm wondering. I'm wondering if people are recognising that it's about to go up in price.

SPEAKER_03

I'm wondering if there were people that were maybe sat on the fence about a steam machine or getting a gaming PC going, have just been like, these prices are getting out of hand, at least at least the PlayStation. I mean, it is and actually did they announce a price increase that didn't take effect? Because people were getting it before an increase as well.

SPEAKER_01

Because the increase was mid-April. Yeah, I wonder if people also I think up a yeah, a percent of it probably is that.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

But I if we just shift from hardware to software, MLB, the show 26, was first place for March. I think that's the only I think the US is the only country in the world where MLB is going to be the top performer for the month. We'll make we'll we'll see where it ends up in in Japan as well. It's my baseball, my baseball flag up there. But then I guess Mr. Major League Baseball, it's all gonna be Americans. I forget baseball is more international than most American sports. Yes. But Pocopia also in the top five, although I think a lot of stock issues, especially in the US, on the physical one, which I think will have held that back. Interesting though, for you, Alex. Of course, we can't do an episode without talking about Resident Evil. Requiem is really having strong sales as well, continuing to stay strong in the US. It's already the fifth best-selling Resident Evil game of all time in the US, despite only being available for two months. So again, we're we're seeing we'll we'll talk about Capcom in the rundown as well, but Capcom having a really good Really, really good year.

SPEAKER_03

And because they're putting out really good games, and they've bit had a great run of a lot of elements like that recently, and exciting to actually the next one being news later, I'm I'm imagining being outside of their like traditional franchises. But yeah, I I think in I've been I've seen all sorts of numbers throwing about about how well it's selling, but then you sit with like okay, how many versions of our RE4 does that include? How many versions of the original Resident Evil does that include? Like it's probably depending on where you begin or stop that measure, it's probably it's certainly one of the biggest sellering sellers in the first month and beyond that. Great to see because it's an amazing game. Can't sing its praises.

SPEAKER_01

So here we are, this week's rapid rundown. We've got a few quick little stories to have a look at. The first of these is that Sanrio. If you don't know Sanrio, you will know Hello Kitty. Yes. So Sanrio is the company behind Hello Kitty. They have announced their own game brand, the aptly named Sanrio Games, and plan to release 10 games in the next three years. So another example we're starting to see more and more of these companies that traditionally would have outsourced game development. And now I think looking at the opportunity and the revenue potential and thinking, okay, if we can bring this in-house, I imagine this 10 will involve console games, it'll involve mobile games, there'll probably be some live service in there too. Uh so yeah, interesting to see such a big company with such big brands taking their own steps and saying, hey, we want to control our destiny in in video games.

SPEAKER_03

Oddly, tie so many stories are interconnected, right? This ties back to the idea that Japanese companies diversify and cross things. This is certainly all in entertainment. And we've seen Disney in the past take big swings at gaming and it go up and come down and it it not work out and then downscale and outsource and license and then bring it back in-house. And obviously, Sanrio has done a lot of outsourcing before and license its game a lot, license its titles a lot from Miffy and and uh Hello Kitty. Um but I think it makes absolute sense to kind of bring that in-house and own it, especially as I imagine it's going if it's going to be a lot of mobile with a lot of cosmetic. Why have somebody else in there taking a cut? Just make that it'll it'll last for years. It's it's not like Sprint Project, if it's on mobile, it'll continue to do well and the license is what's going to carry it.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I any it's the right steps for any company if they've got the capital to do it and they've got the IP. There's you look how many people in the last few years have been laid off. There's definitely the talent out there to build these teams up and build these studios up, and it feels like now is a really good time to do it because of the fact there's such an excess of talent that's looking for the opportunity. But okay, we'll go from the cute world of Hello Kitty to abandoned moon bases and other such things, I believe, which is the part as well as a Android, human Android in Pragmata, which is Capcom's.

SPEAKER_03

I was weak thinking we were talking about that Predator game, Predator movie.

SPEAKER_01

Sorry, Pragmata. Pragmata is the the name of the well, the the big story at the moment. Sold a million copies in its first two days. As we said, new IP from Capcom. Capcom are having a great year, but it's nice to see that not only are their legacy titles doing really well, but something new, something different. I believe something that was announced a long time ago as well. I think it was 2021 where Pragmata was first announced. Um, but yeah, it's launched, it's done really well. I'm hearing very good things about the performance on Switch 2 as well, which is nice to hear. And I I've had my eye on this one because I think it looks good, but it's nice to see that not only are the reviews strong, but it has been rewarded with a hefty, hefty uh milestone so quickly.

SPEAKER_03

Absolutely. And I I'm excited to pick it up. I will be picking it up. Um, I must admit, like this is where the the uh frustration of moving away and and most of my content being digital now, because I'm seeing it it it there are discounts on the physical versions and things. Uh and I the Switch 2 version does seem to be having a few it is a little shakier than others, but despite still being incredibly good. Uh but yeah, I'm I'm excited to jump onto it. It seems like a really interesting twist on uh shooters and it's super stylish. They had a huge display for it at um Gamescom, which I I was too fixated on RE9 predictably to actually try it. But they were obvious they've obviously put a lot behind it for a new IP comparatively for for a lot of places. So great to see that being rewarded. Uh and I'm excited to try. Yeah, maybe we'll see a crossover. In my head with Resident Evil.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, maybe. Or San Rio, who knows? Yeah. No one knows why I'm referring to that.

SPEAKER_03

Maybe. Maybe maybe Game Pass. Maybe Game Pass. Um I don't think it's on Game Pass. No. Uh the bit that kind of jumps out where it sits in my mind is I'm hoping it sits somewhere in this experience. But there were there was this kind of beautiful period in the 2008, 2009 kind of time, when a load of like double-A titles came out, like Binary Domain, Vanquish, um, PNO3, uh, and this whole kind of like futuristic, cool, uh stylish action kind of stuff. Shooter games from Japan, and I'm hoping it sits in that vein because I really enjoyed those games back when they were out.

SPEAKER_01

I mean you you make a you make a valid point about the kind of like a nature of this. It's I respect the fact that from having seen the gameplay, I don't think this is a a normal game. Like it's not for everyone. I don't think the appeal here is to try is trying to be as wide as possible. You know, the yeah, on one hand it's a shooter, on the other hand, you've got like these line puzzles to solve, and I think that's quite a lot of friction for some players, but it's competitively priced. I think this is one that will be. I've seen it on Android for Switch for 40 quid as well already. Yeah, which is pretty I nearly bought it, I'll be honest. I really do want to play this. I'm trying to I'm in that moment now where I've having finished something, I finished Pokemon Fire Red like two weeks ago, and I've just gone through so much stuff since just being like, I don't even I don't even like games. What do I like? So maybe Pragmata might solve that. But yeah, I think that's we'll we'll wrap things up there. I thank you, Alex, as always, for not just being a co-host, but being a good one. I I always enjoy hearing your takes on things, even if the uh Game Pass entertainment license idea is one of the worst things I've ever heard. I said, what if I do it? I didn't say I want I want to be very clear on that idea to the hill. You're like, this is the best idea I've ever heard. Didn't if you uh if you're interested in more weekly download, in more news, in getting all the stories about the games industry, be sure to subscribe where you're watching, whether you're watching on YouTube, if you're listening on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes. We also have the weekly download newsletter as well, which you can access via LinkedIn. That will include the stories we touch on today, but also a lot, lot more. We also have the daily download newsletter, which is Monday to Friday, that also has the stories we talk about today, but a lot, lot more. So if you really want to know what's going on every single day, big stories, small stories, events, so on and so forth, you can subscribe to the daily download. All those links will be in the description, along with all the stories we have spoken about today. And I think with that, having done the sales pitch, that's that's me done. So, Alex, do you have any closing thoughts today? You didn't last week, so you're better this week.

SPEAKER_02

Wow. Wow. Pressures on. And now you've really is gonna kind of come slamming into me.

SPEAKER_03

The Game Pass Entertainment License is a great idea. Yeah, no, I think they should. I think that's uh No, I I think it it's really good. I it's a lot of interesting moves going on. It does feel we've been seeing so much doom and gloom, and I know that I mean I think we've seen newsletters recently. There's like every single thing in its like layoffs or downsizing, and seeing sales going well and profits going up, not that the profits are the reason, but that the cup that the the industry feels a bit more buoyant, even though there are other problems around it, obviously. Uh it's so it's so good to see and feel.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it's good to see, and I think this, if we look at the Game Pass stuff in particular, I I it's great. It's such a big win for players, for consumers, and I think you you know, hypothetically, this could make Sony re-evaluate what their things cost. It it could see you could see every you know company who has a subscription service now clock this and think, okay, we need to make sure that we're offering value to people. So I'll shock horror. I will always advocate for lower costs to play games. I know it's a very controversial take to have. But yeah, thank you, thank you, Alex. Ike. We've already said thank you to Alex, but thank you, Alex, for joining me. Thank you, everyone, for listening, and we will see you next week for another episode. Goodbye.