Unofficial Controller Podcast
Your number one weekly gaming podcast for all the latest Sony Playstation , Microsoft Xbox , Nintendo Switch and PC News. Retrospectives , Readers Mail and Industry Chat.
Unofficial Controller Podcast
From Factorio Fun to PS5 Pro review and Yakuza vs Dragon Age devolutions
What happens when a quirky cult storyline meets the gaming universe? That's the recipe George and Seb have cooked up in their latest episode of the Unofficial Controller Podcast. Kicking off with Pastor Longhorn's hilarious antics, they bring an unexpected twist to gaming conversations, setting the stage for an episode packed with humor and insights. Seb's latest escapade through the indie world of Factorio offers a thrilling exploration of factory-building with a space twist, weaving in parallels to classic arcade shooters that any nostalgic gamer would appreciate.
Our hosts take a trip down memory lane, pondering over the evolution of gaming franchises like Yakuza and Dragon Age. With their unique takes, George and Seb tackle the transformations these beloved series have undergone, contrasting their traditional roots with modern innovations. Whether it's the JRPG twist of Yakuza or Dragon Age's action-adventure shift, the duo doesn't shy away from critiquing the balance between staying true to a game's core and broadening its appeal. Alongside personal experiences and fantastical critiques, they paint a vivid picture of how nostalgia and innovation collide in today's gaming scene.
In the final act, the episode shifts gears to explore the broader gaming industry landscape, touching on everything from console ecosystem strategies to award show controversies. George and Seb dissect Xbox's brand pivot towards inclusivity and the PlayStation versus Xbox dynamic, reflecting on how these strategies impact gamers. They also share insights into the mysterious updates to delisted Activision titles and engage in a spirited discussion about the politics of Game of the Year nominations. Wrapping up with a humorous nod to their own award ceremony, the Poncies, this episode promises a hearty blend of gaming nostalgia, industry analysis, and the duo's trademark banter. Join them for a whirlwind ride through the gaming universe with plenty of laughs and insights along the way.
George and Seb rolling down the road RGT, riding shotgun, a heavy load, pastor Longhorn waiting to unfold An El Paso, texas tale's been told, one-armed being a sight to see. Pastor, preach, preach, set you free. Georgians said they'd bend the knee. Rgt nodding yes, in glee.
Speaker 2:Hello and welcome to the Unofficial Controller Podcast, your weekly gaming podcast, episode number I think. Don't quote me on this. Well, you're going to quote me on this, episode number 247. How can a show this mediocre be going this long? I know it's a question I ask myself on a daily basis. This week with me George, joined by Seb, aka the Triple S Hero, to my absolute zero.
Speaker 3:You've done that one before. I refuse to accept that. Let's do a retake.
Speaker 2:Pushpop to my pull pop.
Speaker 3:How's it going? I can do that. It's going pretty well. What about yourself?
Speaker 2:I've been off for a little while, so grateful to you and Scotty for doing the cult duties while I've been off. Obviously, pastor Longhorn still needs his spuds doing, still needs a cream in his dry skin. I've got to try and remember the law, the heft of law, that Scotty sort of added to the Pastor Care package. So we've done his dry skin. I think you cut his nails. I think I'm meant to have done his deep bath and his skin debriding.
Speaker 3:Or that he's missing out on all the fun outside of the gate, isn't he?
Speaker 2:I've never known a guy so desperate to get in a cult, then so desperate to get out of the call and then so desperate to never come back on the court it's. It's a little bit strange, but I'm hoping him and bobby can get the stars aligned and bust us out. Um, before we take the great ascension up to meet the talaxi or, uh, alien leader. But I don't think they came here to find out that there's a gaming podcast that's actually based in a cult, one that's very near to its end game as well. It's Heaven's Gate all over again. Deep cut for you there if you've got the time for googling it. But really, the question that's on everybody's lips, including mine, and I've seen you try and, one would say, succeed, or define my expectations by asking you Me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me what you been playing.
Speaker 3:I like that one, I like that one. Yeah, whatever I've been playing, I like that one, I like that one. Um, yeah, what have I been playing lately? Um, I've sort of been at a loss, at a loss of what I wanted to play on the triple a space, you know, because I was in my mind for some weird reason I think I'm so deep into the minutiae of video games now that I have a triple a brain which is like my main story centric games, and then I have like an indie brain which are like my indie slash relaxation brain of like these are the games I play to just relax, or these are the games that I kind of like I have an indie mindset on and these are the games I'm like, oh, I expect the highest of polish and the highest of AAA quality here. So I have on the indie side. Factorio is the game I've been playing. It's the most George game I've ever played in my life.
Speaker 2:Have you heard of this? By the way, I have heard of Factorio. I'm very intrigued by Factorio. I'm very intrigued by the multiple hookup automation of Factorio. By the multiple hookup automation of Factorio and well, without any further ado, I'm a gag. Considering this is what you would call a retro game. Considering how long it's been out, I'm a gag kind of. Am I a gag or am I a gog? I don't even know anymore. I'm going to say I'm a gag at this revelation, although I believe from memory it's an indie game.
Speaker 3:so therefore, in your wheelhouse. But this is one that kind of like blew by me, like I, I heard about it and I heard that it was like in early production back in like 2019, and then I think it it released to 2020 overwhelmingly possible, a positive review, got a switch release as well here, yeah, be happy about, yeah. So I'm like it got a switch release and I, you know, I was happy for its success, but it looked like a game that I just wasn't either going to have time for or I wasn't willing to like put other things down for, especially in 2020 when, like you know, yeah, when the new big, big boy consoles were coming out around that time, I just yeah, I, I overlooked it and so, whenever it's new, like quote-unquote, expansion just came out of, like, and this really wasn't like an expansion.
Speaker 3:I think this was like free patches that they've just been given with the game and people were talking yeah, and people were talking about it um, the space age, um, add-ons for the game to where, like, the whole point of the game of is that you make this factory, this automated factory enough to get a rocket off into the, into orbit and such like that. Yeah, that was my take on it. Yeah, and then like, so what what, though? When you do get the rocket into orbit, then it starts a whole new factory of, like, basically, I have to protect my factory and, because I found a new alien civilization, these bugs are out to get me.
Speaker 3:So it's almost like it becomes what is that game? Galaga, the one back in the day where you were shooting the bugs? Yeah, galaga, galaga, that's what it was. So, galaga, it becomes like galaga, with, uh, factoro, like skin on it, to where, like, you're still protecting the factory and you're still trying to set up, like these satellites, all these different infrastructures in space, all the while, while, like, you are trying to figure out, like, what is in space that you know is going to hurt me and how can I progress my civilization of factories further.
Speaker 3:So it's like that's where I heard it hit a whole new stratosphere of quality, because I knew this game was already like overwhelmingly positive in steam. That's when people were like no man, if this was a game that came out this year, this would probably be a strong contender for indie game of the year, and it just so happened that that was enough to want and I had a gap in my schedule enough to where I was like I'm gonna check this game out and I I regret that I didn't back in 2020, because this game's amazing. I think this is a george game of like you being able to dive into the minutiae of, like micromanaging a factory and it just sounds like what I know about you.
Speaker 2:You're exactly right, it's, it's, it's on my wish list for one of the better word and I've switched especially. I've always kind of like, seen it in the store. It's often on a deep, deep sale, by the way, you listeners. So if you want to have a little look, see, I'd check the switch store because it's it's been heavily discounted on there, but I've never pushed a button on it and I don't know why.
Speaker 3:Um, I think when I give one disclaimer before you before um, you go further with the switch part no no, it's so. The developers um from woob um woob software l um ltd. I think it's like the, the developers and the publishers for it, because they self-publish it sounds like what pasta calls lube when he hasn't got his teeth. Yeah, it does when he has that lisp. Um, but no, it's like um. They came out and said, like, the expansion patch is not available for switch. They couldn't get it to run okay, forget everything.
Speaker 2:I said listeners, um, but the base game is on there and obviously the base game with these new dlcs maybe they feel obliged to give it a deeper discount. I haven't looked, but definitely worth checking out. Um, every time I've gone to it, I've gone to it looking for I've gone on the switch at that moment looking for ano light, uh, for one of a better word and I found that and was very interested in it and then didn't download it. I think the last time that I was it piqued my interest was during the little big workshop addiction a couple of years ago. You know, with subsequent moments along the way I've looked at it and you're absolutely right in your assessment. It is very much my kind of game. I guess maybe I've been saving it for a rainy day, but with my current addiction, which we'll get to in my what you've been playing, I don't think I think it might be surplus to requirements for now but what?
Speaker 2:else have you? I beat metaphor actually. May I just go in on that one more time? So when you're in the space element of the DLC, is your factory still running on the ground?
Speaker 3:because I have. I barely have gotten to the surface of that part, but yeah, I do believe from everyone I've spoken to like it is, uh, like your factory and your factory that's in space are subsynth to each other. They're like, they're basically like two sides of the same big factory. I believe everyone's describing it so like wow, it's, it's factory one, factory two. You're not completely starting over. You're like bringing in some new mechanics that you've learned on the ground to the, the, the factory in space. Right, okay?
Speaker 2:that's uh. That adds another level of granularity to it, doesn't it? Um, that's interesting to me. Um, okay, so, so, yeah, that's finished metaphase. I can't even begin to say that right now. Metaphaseo, metaphylophane, metaphor metaphylophane yeah, looks great, uh, from I haven't pushed the button on it yet, I probably did you purchase it already no, okay, um, again, it's on my list of things to have a go at.
Speaker 2:um, I probably suppose now, with some of the things I've cleared up lately and games I'm replaying basically because they look fancy, I'm probably in a space where I could probably embrace it.
Speaker 3:I wish you would have bought that instead of Astro Bot, Not to say like anything. No, mate.
Speaker 2:I'll be honest with you. So do I, Because, apart from the first weekend of Astro and I know probably a lot of people switched off when I went in deep on saying I wasn't so keen on Astro Bot's full price release I don't think my opinion has even changed that much. If I'm honest with you, Seb, yeah, it's a good game. It's well put together To someone who's enjoyed every from the original VR to the camera demo on original PS4 when it launched through the um. So you got like a mini astro bot in the packing for vr, which I think is where a lot of people kind of first stumbled across him.
Speaker 2:I then obviously got the vr version of the game, which is glorious, if any. That would get vr too poor. It wouldn't even take that much work. Sony, if you're listening and I know you are because friend of the show, Shuye Hoshida, who I don't know if he's in the news section but is stepping back full-time and retiring the show and him have history, I must add. I think you need to go back and listen to the WASD live episode if you want to know the backstory of what I did to one of the industry greats Probably not my finest moment, if I'm honest, but you know it happened.
Speaker 2:Why that's not out yet, I don't know. It would have been a very easy cash grab and probably could have formed. It was a bit of a. It would be a little bit of a slight dig in the bones, but would have formed a great vr2 launch title. Um, but what do I know about gaming? Hence why I do a podcast, probably, um, but yeah, I, I kind of felt like I'd seen all these tricks already and that was bore out the deeper I went into astrobots. So I'll get there with it eventually, I'm sure, on a cold, wet, rainy day when I'm probably feeling less miserable about my life. Maybe astrobots for optimistic gamers and I'm a pessimistic gamer and really I'm a glass half empty kind of guy and therefore astrobot. Now, if I was a glass half full kind of guy, maybe I'd be like astrobot. I love this little guy. Let me see him jump for the six millionth time, just as really the first time as it was the last have you.
Speaker 3:Perhaps it's like you're over the genre of 3d platformers, because I I think I remember you saying you went super into odyssey as well, like you liked it but didn't love it. You know, like it was already.
Speaker 2:Yeah for me, I'll be honest, like the first, the pack-in Astro Bot and the VR game that we got historically. Now again, I must preface this by saying I'm slating it, but I do recognize that it's a well-put-together game. I do recognize, as a pretend industry professional, that this has got legs to be game of the year versus the competition. One would imagine it's going to be a very strong contender. I totally see it. Is it for me? Not in this moment. And you say about 3d platformers and maybe I'm over the hill with them. I grew up in an era where the n64 was the number one console and it was full of these games and it feels very much like a game from yesteryear. Now it's been done very well and there's kids out there that have never played a 3D platform, so they think this is amazing. And you're right, great link up mentally there, seb, with my takeaway with Mario Odyssey, and by the time I was done with it, I was done with it.
Speaker 3:If someone had come in at that moment, ejected the car out and burned it in front of me in some sort of ritualistic ceremony, I'd have clapped him so you know, I think that brings up an interesting question here like is do you feel like there would be a upcoming like 3d platform that would be of interest to you because, like donkey, kong 64.
Speaker 2:Getting a release on the nintendo switch online n64 portal would be about the only thing right now. That and I do believe that's imminent it would be about the only thing right now, but that's more of the nostalgia of replaying that game again.
Speaker 3:Right, Absolutely is.
Speaker 2:I'm not someone who went deep on that Snake game that came out. I wasn't someone who went deep on that ukulele game or whatever it was that came out. I'm trying to think what that Snake game was called. It got quite the response when it first came out and then I think that maybe some reviewers didn't like it so much and it struggled in sales. But there was a snake game.
Speaker 3:I know what you're talking about. It was like black, yellow and red snake, something like that wasn't it.
Speaker 2:It's probably going to be called slithered or something. You know what these software houses are like. It's going to be some snake based gag as a name, probably snake tail or something similar, right um?
Speaker 3:either, which I don't remember what you're talking about.
Speaker 2:I just you know that that was one of those games, one of those great games that didn't even stay in the zeitgeist for long enough to get remembered but was positioned as the next coming of jesus. Yeah, we've had a few of those in our time on the show. Uh, it won't be the first and it won't be the last. I do believe that snake game was in ray's boot. Uh, proper series, one moment probably, but uh, yeah, somewhere in the early 20s episode I think it was in the boot. So, yeah, no, I'm not into that. I'm not into really any of those.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, you know, like you know, I don't necessarily know if there would be any 3d platformer at this at this point in time, because I don't think you were.
Speaker 2:You were a huge into sack boy, right sack boy, the original sack boy, aka little big planet. I do have a little bit of time for cause it's got the creative element in it. One, two and three I thought were pretty strong efforts. Uh, I discount the car in because it's cash in at best. Um, but the sack boy adventures, that was a late PS4 game. I say late PS4 game, ps4 still going, so let's call it an early uh four game. I say late ps4 game, ps4 still going, so let's call it an early ps5 game, aka joint release. Sack boys, big adventures or whatever it was called, could have fallen into that formulaic route and admittedly it's not my favorite game of all time. That would be a big ask of any game. But I think what I liked about that was the way at that moment it was utilizing the music in the levels and the way the music interacted with the level I did actually find quite entertaining. Not enough to finish it, absolutely not. I don't think there's ever a game that was Snake Pass, snake Pass.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was like man, I was wrecking that brain. Snake, pass snake pass.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, yeah, that monumental game, god I can't believe that's probably had more air time than it's ever had on any podcast in the history of man. But you know who's the developer.
Speaker 3:You said who was the developer of snake pass. Yeah, um, let me see.
Speaker 2:Uh, sumo, sumo digital no words left in me to talk about snake pass here sumo digital is man like.
Speaker 3:They dropped up sonic and sonic racing, yep. And then they dropped um the texainsaw Massacre game and Snake Pass. Those were the three big games.
Speaker 1:Are they gone now? And they did like.
Speaker 3:Sackboy Big Adventure. Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 2:Sackboy and.
Speaker 3:Big Adventure, this last Sackboy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which, you know, weirdly brings us full circle back to what we were discussing. So seemingly I'm a massive fan of 3D platformers. I shall make sure I apologize to.
Speaker 3:Pasta and pay the penance for my crime. So were you a Dragon Age person in the past?
Speaker 2:I dabbled with. I was a Mass Effect guy, right? Okay, yeah, I dabbled off the back of Mass Effect type in what was billed at the time. If you read concurrent media from that time, dragon Age was billed as like the fantasy Mass Effect, and it bore fruit in the dialogue tree. It bore fruit in the, the bio-awareness of it, the action battleness of it all. It rang true, but the fantasy's gotta be my kind of fantasy. I'll take any sci-fi, I'll munch it down happily, like a cereal starving kid eating cereal. But fantasy needs to. It needs to be my kind of fantasy. And dragon age was a bit too meandering and I wasn't too keen on reading in-game lore to fill out the backstory. I find that that can be a lazy storytelling option if you're not careful and prefer to see it handled in a in a different way.
Speaker 3:But so the the reason why I asked is because I I've been playing dragon age veil guard and as a lone, I love dragon age and as a longtime fan of it, I I'm coming with the grips. I think you and I had a chat about this, you know I think we talked about this offline, didn't we?
Speaker 3:yeah, I have at the moment, yeah, yeah, for sure, where I feel like this was a game that had it's not dragon age in its dna, it's dragon age in its ip, though it's like it's sort of like the way you spoke about yakusa, um, like a dragon, um, like a dragon, the original one, where, like it is, they completely deviated from what was the original dna of of dragon age, but they made it into a mass, a massive appeal. You know, like the, I think this is a good game. I would recommend this to you more than I would to a traditional dragon age fan. You know, like this is a high budget action adventure game that's got. It plays very similar to god of war with a you know, some of the um especially right away.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna tell you now if that's how that's getting presented. I want nothing to do with it. I can understand that.
Speaker 2:Even though you could argue I balked at Bioware Dragon Age. I can't quite get my mouth around swallowing Ragnarok Dragon Age. I think that's a bit of an egregious step for me. If I'm honest, I can understand that. I can see why they did it. I do think that you know those games are slightly alienating to the wider mainstream. But then in our same conversation we talked about how dragon age flips from like a action battle turn-based system into a fully fledged um beat him up for one, for want of a better word or action RPG, call it what you like.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then on the inverse, we've got Yakuza. That ditches the action battle, beat-em-up, basically beat-em-up in RPG clothes, yeah, and then comes Masquerade in itself as a JRPG. They've both crossed paths. I don't understand it, but one has wider mainstream appeal and the other one went from beat him up to jrpg to attract wider mainstream appeal. I find it quite odd that they actually worked out for, um, yeah, worked out for them.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it worked out for both companies.
Speaker 2:Exactly Yakuza.
Speaker 3:Like a Dragon, I think, outsold a lot of the other Yakuza games, and then this is the highest selling Dragon Age game right now.
Speaker 2:I don't think I've said this on air before, but I think I've said it in private. Yakuza was my private little secret all the way up till Like a Dragon, and then everyone was playing it, and did that take the specialness off yakuza for me? Yes, it did, but it also cemented their decision to go jrpg, because they went. Oh well, we went jrpg. So now we've got all these extra big fans, right. This is great. It solidifies the decision making process, right? So will we ever see it come back? Just to dip into my my, what you've been playing? Yeah for sure, um, I've been playing the man who erased his name. Um, the superstitial episode between like a dragon and whatever the name one's called. I forget, infinite, infinite wealth. That's it, infinite wealth, um. So I thought, well, I need to get to Infinite Wealth. So I'm going to have to put myself through the process of playing this.
Speaker 3:You're actually going to play through Infinite Wealth.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I'll get there, It'll get done.
Speaker 3:Wow, you didn't like a dragon like that. You felt like it was a truer, though this is more like a dragon like it was a truer, though.
Speaker 2:Oh, this is more like this is more like a dragon and and and well, hmm, the annoying thing is the man who changed his name is beat him up yakuza, with the added twist of the lightning lasso. I mean, I've seen some stuff in yakuza games, I'll tell you now. I've seen some crazy ass stuff and I know it's not real. But accepting that kiryu has a light lasso is I'm so grateful for the beating up element. Back, I said this feels right, it feels good. Yeah, grind on, mate, get this done. Oh, wow. Oh, it's a cash in the using the like a dragon city, but that's fine, I'll give them that. I'm going to give them that. I'm going to give them that Because, you know, to make a superstitious DLC, it would have been a bit egregious to remap a new town or whatever. So I'll accept this for what it is. But then, when the Light Lasso came out, I was like, oh my God.
Speaker 3:Do you want?
Speaker 2:me to hate this franchise or or what you didn't like, the wonder woman lasso. What a ridiculous thing to put in a yakuza crime game, a crime soap opera for the longer listener. Uh, that's exactly what yakuza is.
Speaker 2:It's basically a japanese gangster soap opera it's weird, though, because it's also silly, like yeah, because at least the way oh, it is silly, and I know I'm picking hairs and I'm like, oh well, you know light lasso and then some you know part to remind me that, yeah, but george yakuza is also the game that's got this, this, this, this, this and in it is. It's also the game that's launching a pirate spin-off.
Speaker 3:It's also a game that launched a zombie spin-off.
Speaker 2:It's also the game that launched an historical samurai spin-off. George, what are you talking about? You're right, you're right. It just feels very odd, although I do enjoy using it. So that's what I'm gonna say on the matter uh, I've really thoroughly enjoyed grabbing them.
Speaker 2:I had a similar move in yakuza 6 or maybe 5 and 6, where you can swing a bit to clean house, and this I use in a similar way to back enemies off a little bit, to buy me some time. Because one thing I've noticed even in the early stages of the game they are not shy of swamping you with a lot of enemies. But it's been enjoyable. So, yeah, you're right. Uh, maybe these games need a mix-up every once in a while, and maybe the hardcore if I'm a hardcore fan, I don't know what to describe myself anymore but maybe the fans don't know what they need till they get it like a classic quote of we've got to mix it up and because if, if, like a dragon, I'll be honest, if like a dragon had been a beat-up, I think I would have enjoyed it more.
Speaker 3:Oh, I'm the opposite, but yeah, I understand that completely, though I think my problem with Yakuza as a series right now is this it feels like it has identity crisis to where it doesn't know what it wants to be.
Speaker 2:Yet it's like Mate it's got an identity crisis. It's been an unsurprising success, so now it's getting milked on every pantheon possible.
Speaker 3:Not every six months.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and I feel like they're very close to either eroding that game down to a point where no one cares anymore or at least from a continuation of the ip point of view and also from a new uh prospective buyer into the ip.
Speaker 2:yeah, I think they've almost, if they took a break over saturation point or total over saturation, considering the actual play time of some of these games. Um, if you want to do everything is life consuming it is to trot out a yearly or almost six monthly game from that franchise right now feels like a big ask. And there's a fan you want to support the product. There's a fan, you want to show sega that or rgg studio that you care um, but they're making it very, they're making it very difficult to show them right now. Um, a little bit like sony with all their products. It seems to drip out of them like sweat from a fat man on a treadmill. Um, yeah, it. Ultimately their companies are here to extract revenue from us through the medium and the product of a video game. So it's only right and proper that they try and get as many out as quickly as possible. But with that mindset comes an erosion in my mind of maybe not quality, because you can't argue that, but a definite.
Speaker 3:The luster is down, not there.
Speaker 2:You know like it feels like it's not there there's so many retread it feels like the luster's not there. There's so many retreads of the old systems that now seem to be solidified in baiting since Like a Dragon, that now it feels like okay. Well, it feels to me now like we're stuck with this. Yeah, for time, immemorial and long-term fans. I presume I've not actually looked to see if there's a Yakuza Reddit. I'm sure there is and I'd love to. You're going to get lost in the weeds, man. Yeah, I'd love to get stuck in there with you.
Speaker 2:Know, maybe other long-term fans as to whether they think this is great or not, and I don't know whether I'm the, you know, the quiet minority in my kind of not dislike, but certain, definitely very high annoyance that you've taken a franchise. I really quite enjoyed that. I still enjoy that. No, I would enjoy more if you just left it where it was. Um, it was greater then to provide a game that was a palette cleanser, but I prefer it if I choose my own palette cleanser and they just give me the game I want. So, yeah, yeah, here am I. It's interesting to see that you've had that same problem with.
Speaker 2:So if you dragon age yeah, if you quit veil guard now or is there?
Speaker 3:potential. I'm going back I I I'm kind of like lightly playing it but not like super invested in. That's a shame, because I normally devour the I've devoured the previous dragon age games. This one feels it feels like it should be made for me but not feels like it's made for me and I think it's. It's a mindset thing of like. I'm also sour and petty that I didn't get the dragon age game I want because this is like yeah, I know that feeling, yeah, it's the main. It feels like this this was made for the mainstream audience versus made for the hardcore fan base.
Speaker 2:It has question, I have a question, quick question, I have for you. You said it's ragnarok, like in its uh implementation of the. Everything from what I can work out, does that mean not quite right, but is it locked to a dragon age? I don't think you could ever maybe call open world open world, but is it? Is it in an open world map, or or is it locked on a basically linear journey? If you fight x, you have a conversation tree that can go one way or the other, but ultimately you're ending up at location b regardless no, so I think this is, this is how I say.
Speaker 3:It's like ragnarok, um, to answer your question, like the gameplay and the fact that, like it is very, almost like combo, based in the way. Like you know, like you can juggle enemies in ragnarok, you can, um, you would have, like these companions that were with you, whether it be atreus, or like some of the other companions. You get along the way and you can tell those companions to, at certain points, do moves, to kind of like combine the combine, like what you're doing as well, which is very anti-dragon age, because dragon age is more strategic.
Speaker 2:Well, like atreus, you utilize these people in the way you'd utilize atreus in ragnarok yeah, for sure, for sure, right like yeah.
Speaker 3:And then you have. I wouldn't call ragnarok open world, I would call it an open. It has open areas. So yeah, that's what I wanted to, that's what I wanted to clarify yeah, so like ragnarok, you um, via the what was it?
Speaker 3:the tree, I think you go to different areas that were already there and it's like right, you can go to any point in part in that area, as long as you had like the abilities to basically unlock different parts of the areas you know, like whether or not, like whether or not it'd be like the spear that you envisionally unlock, or whether it be like you know, some sort of ability you get. Dragon age is very similar and of like you can go to different areas and you can go to any point in those areas. That's generated. So, but it's not an open world game, it is open areas. So it's like a it's mad it gets to have its cake of saying we have open world-esque-ness to us, but it's not technically an open world game.
Speaker 2:It never was, was it? But I wondered if in the modern age they could get away with. It sounds like they they are yeah, this one's.
Speaker 3:You know this one is the second lowest rated dragon age game, but it is well received enough sales wise, as the highest selling dragon age game. But it also has it has like the writing of that reminds me of an mcu movie from phase four and phase five.
Speaker 3:So it's kind of like it's campy, but it's also like it has funny quips. It has like semi-memorable storylines there. But if that's not what people play dragon age for, you know like it. It has the bi-awareness of like some of the mass effect one, two and three era era to it. But it also has like mcu, like action, adventure moments and so like. It feels like a game where they, where they had like a checklist, so to speak, of like well, what do people like nowadays? They like the mcu movies. They like dragon a, they like mcu movies. They like god of war, they like a little bit of like tongue-in-cheek, they like base building type mechanics, they and they like a little bit of romance and they like you know, solving a little bit of romance, yeah and they're like solving a world ending quest and they were like, okay, now put that in dragon age format and.
Speaker 3:And they put that in a blender and put dragon hip on top of it and this is what we got and for a lot of people it's working, I think, like is it digestible?
Speaker 2:to you, or does it taste like dog food?
Speaker 3:it taste like you ever had a smoothie that you didn't quite, where you were trying something new, where the smoothie isn't bad but it's not like. You almost wish you would have got the flavors you really liked.
Speaker 2:You kind of yeah so you've gone in you feel a little bit fast and loose. Someone behind the counter's kind of seen that, look you arrive. Maybe you want to step outside your comfort zone. So the recommended chili and a kai berry yeah, that's 25 percent of the way through the cup you've bombed up in their face. Uh, is it that bad?
Speaker 3:no, I don't think it's like bombed up in the face. It's like it's flavors that you don't necessarily love, but it doesn't. But it tastes okay. It's true, yeah, and you can see how this would be good to some other people, but it's not because it's not the taste you wanted or the taste you were like craving. You kind of have, like man, I don't I have a bad impression of this.
Speaker 2:It's very similar to when I helped pastor drain down in the night and I got a little bit of something that I wasn't expecting. If I'm honest with you, yeah for sure. Uh, it wasn't.
Speaker 3:It wasn't but gross, but it certainly wasn't what I wanted yeah, I think the I think like the best equivalent I can possibly put of this is, like you know how a lot of people were expecting more of like an action adventure game from Star Wars Outlaws, but it was a lot more stealth game.
Speaker 2:Star Wars Outlaws is the best game. It's the best game. Beautiful game, beautiful game. It's probably my favorite game.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but you get it though I'll take it. I'll take it, yeah, but you get it. Though it's like I do you, but you get it. Though it's like you love star wars, outlaws, and you know, like for a lot of people they say like, oh, it's a good game, for you it's a great game and you know, like dragon age, I think, is a great game to a lot of people. But for hardcore dragon age fans it's probably just we're one happy to get any Dragon Age at all because it's been so long. And then two it's like this is good, not quite what we want, so it's not technically on that great level.
Speaker 2:I think that the video game companies now are willing to take an IP that they know has got recognition in the marketplace Dragon Age right. Even FIFA players heard of Dragon Age at some point in time in their gaming career, and I think it's quite easy to then. That's something. Dragon Age recognizability is something that you can attach a value to in an Excel spreadsheet, add all the other stuff in and you end up creating a game by numbers, and that's great, because what you're trying to do is attract. You just want as many sales as possible. So I think a lot of developers now are trying to make these things so multifaceted, like Star Wars Outlaws is a prime example.
Speaker 2:What do people like Stealth oh, let's put that in. What else do they like Shooting guns? Okay, let's put that in, put that in. What else is like shooting guns? Okay, let's put that in. But it doesn't mean they're the best bedfellows, um, and I think getting dragon age out there the way they have it's been a detriment. I always believed that dragon age had a very thin wedge of people that were actually behind it and buying every single release yeah, for sure it has a hardcore fan base it has a hardcore fan base that's actually very small in terms of its buying of the product.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're there. They're doing the cosplay at the local con. They've got a mural, they've probably got a tattoo, but it's about five people yeah, it's a niche audience, you know it's a very niche audience.
Speaker 2:Now they could have brought out dragon age 4, but if they brought it out to the people that bought one, two and three, uh, it would be, in the modern era, a financial disaster. They needed to do something that flipped the script. That made a casual go. Do I get the new COD or do I get that new Dragon Age? I remember liking that on 360 back in the day. I think that's what they've gone for. You've got to wonder is it insulting to long-term fans or is it at the benefit of the company that makes the game and the gamers wide the wider gamer market and also then retrospectively good for the original dragon age fan, because at least it's put dragon age back on them? I don't know it's.
Speaker 3:It's a weird sticky situation because what you're saying is how all the dragon age fans feel like of like saying some of them do like this game. I want to say, like no Dragon Age fan likes this game. But you know, like this game has to do well enough, because Bioware was on his deathbed, like if this game would have, if this game would have like collapsed on his face after Anthem and after you know Bioware's recent failures, then Bioware might be dead Agreed. So the fans of so fans really wanted to come out and support this game, which is why it sold well, because, like, if Bioware dies, there's no more Mass Effect, there's no more Dragon Age.
Speaker 3:And you know, like people love those type of games and love those type of studios. Is it what we envisioned, what we wanted out of? Like people love those type of games and love those types of studios. Is it what we envisioned what we wanted out of? Like Dragon Age, a lot of people would probably say no, but you know, at least it's one a some Dragon Age into those, like the developers in that studio, more importantly, are still alive. And it's like a tricky situation because, like, if you're an OG Dragon Age person, you probably want this game to do well enough for the studio survive, but not well enough that this is the new model going forward.
Speaker 2:You know like, yeah, I totally agree it's exactly like I've got going on with the accuser and probably countless other franchises for sure. I kind of hit the road a little bit with that with the new final fantasy. When it went to the sort of devil may cry juggle, juggle type fighting mechanics I felt like the series is peaking. 13th, the chrysalis, was great. The fighting and the timed sliders for fighting gave it that immediacy of a, I'm going to say a beat-em-up, but not quite. But it certainly put pressure on you to make a decision because in JRPGs you could put the controller down, make a cup of tea or coffee, come back and then decide what you're going to do. 13 didn't give you that moment. It was like right, make a decision, because the slider's on countdown. It's like, ooh, I've come up with something good here and I thought that was enough pressure and enough change to make JRPG relevant in the modern era. But obviously that didn't stick to make JRPG relevant in the modern era. But obviously that didn't stick. They took the turn in 15 to the kind of Devil May Cry style fighting, which I didn't mind because I enjoyed everything that surrounded that a lot but maybe didn't like that element of it as much. But obviously when the next iteration came along 16 and 7. 7 I kind of discount. It's dead to me. 16, I'm saying it, I'm saying it, go milk another cow. Guys Just capitalizing on nostalgia, and you can see the ever-thinning again referred to ever thinning wedge of returning sales.
Speaker 2:Yeah, as we get the different interstitials come along, it's obvious, um, people are caring less. After that initial like, oh, I'm playing through that level I played through when I was 12. This is great. I'd like to see the completion stats for Final Fantasy VII Remake Part 1. I bet they're low and I bet they're even lower for the second one and they'll be even lower for the third and I think for me that's an important metric they'd need to take away and think about. Is it because they spread the butter too thin on the bread? Is it because most people have never finished final fantasy 7 past the first four hours and therefore that first interstitial part that we put out is good enough for them to scratch that itch? They're not going to finish this, so who cares? Uh, I don't know.
Speaker 3:it'd be interesting to I wonder the relevancy of the ip in 2024. Like I, I honestly I don't think. Like kids growing up now I don't think, care about final fantasy, so I'm like look, final fantasy remake was never for kids.
Speaker 2:It was for frustrated 40 year old men who probably haven't, you know, felt like they were king of a video game, since they had no responsibilities and lived in their mom's basement. I think that's people like me, right? Someone sat there on youtube. Now I dare you speak about gamers like this. Uh, well, don't worry, don't panic. Uh, ted from arkansas, because I'm that guy. Yes, you know, I drank the kool-aid. I'm the full paid up member of the living in your mum's basement and, uh, not losing your virginity until you're in your mid-50s. Um, I'm that guy I am that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's weird, you know, but I do want to get back to the question of been playing george, because we do have some news stories. We want to talk about this episode so classic, you and me episode.
Speaker 2:It's going to be eight hours long, uh, and we're only just getting to the news, um, so tell me, what more have you been?
Speaker 3:playing, sir. That's pretty much it. You know, nothing else is really relevant at the time and I'm sort of. Today they announced that you know a lot of press aren't getting early codes for Indiana Jones, so I don't.
Speaker 2:That's normally a bad sign Normally a bad sign. Hang on though you say a lot of the press, some of the press are getting codes oh, for sure you gotta I.
Speaker 3:I imagine the igns and game spots of the world are going to ucb getting a code for this.
Speaker 2:Can you confirm or no?
Speaker 3:I do not think so at this time. I'll have to talk to mr ind Indy and Last Name Jones about this. But you know, like as of right now I don't think so. It is day one game pass, so you know, there's that excuse as well.
Speaker 2:I mean, you know, I think we've done probably you know we do terribly well, yeah, for sure. I think that kind of hmm, that would normally be a point of very much concern do you want an early code for Indiana Jones?
Speaker 3:what's your anticipation for this game?
Speaker 2:it boils down to this if other outlets are getting codes, what did we do wrong?
Speaker 3:you're the kid who just wants a lollipop because everyone else got one. Well, I want you to have the lollipop, I don't plan on playing.
Speaker 2:Why do you want me to?
Speaker 2:have to play indiana jones I think that seems more of a punishment to me. Listen, you were the person that said only 40 year old virgins will buy this game and you're absolutely right that I think that needs to be on a t-shirt. I think to think that an eight-year-old kid is going to be asking for games pass so he can play indiana jones. It's not going to happen. The wheelhouse for these people are the people that grew up now. It's interesting stat because gen x grew up with video games and Gen X probably still forms, bizarrely, the bulk of people that actually still give a rat's ass about single player story driven games. I think if you flip that metric to the 16 to 24 year old, they want online gaming and not that bothered about what the old man plays, like Ragnarok. That's an old man's game you know, proper old man's game.
Speaker 2:You can hear it now, so it seems strange. Yeah, the ip's got some value and it's interesting that microsoft decided to take it on as an ip of their own within their own wheelhouse. Now, obviously, obviously, all the microsoft news about that going multi-format, that's not the topic of conversation here. I want to frame it up this way Seb, look at you drinking with your pinky out.
Speaker 3:It's the only way to do it. Man, Gentleman style, I love it. I don't remember what I saw as a child, but there was some movie that I watched and the guy had his pinky out the whole time. I'm like I'm adopting that, and for years it just became a habit now I love it.
Speaker 2:I gotta dock my cat to an american gentleman that drinks with his pinky out a bottle of soda as well I have.
Speaker 3:You know this is the only the finest of apple juice I love a bit of apple juice.
Speaker 2:I used to find it I hated it for so long and I realized that I actually really loved it. So, yeah, there's a revelation for you. I do too. I want to frame it like this Ubisoft has the ability to launch on multiple platforms. No problem, they are a software developer. Microsoft obviously previously was locked to its own ecosystem and its own consoles, and let's frame it up like that for now.
Speaker 2:If Ubisoft struggled to get what is, a bigger IP off the ground I was going to say not arguably, but the bigger of the 20th century Fox, lucasfilm stable off the ground and get the recognition. Indiana Jones has got to do one hell of a run out the gates just to get past that. And then I start to think about, even if that goes multi-format, much like Outlaws was. I am struggling to see that game recouping its marketing budget, which will be equidistant to its development budget. I don't see this game being profitable. Yeah, yeah, I'm not going to argue that. I don't think that maybe people like me might enjoy an indiana jones game, albeit first person.
Speaker 2:I'm not going to deny that and I actually think that you know, if they get the source right, this could be a good game. But is it a good game for that eight-year-old kid? No. Is it good, good game for that eight-year-old kid? No. Is it good enough to get that 14-year-old kid off map? No. Is it enough to get that guy off Call of Duty? I just don't think it is. And that's the audience that you're fighting for Now. You either build it for less or you accept that it's going to be a long-term return on sales. But how do you guarantee a long-term return on sales from games pass?
Speaker 2:I saw some pretty damning sales figures the other day, you know, in terms of xbox's penetration of the series s and x in the worldwide marketplace versus the aging but beautiful switch and obviously and obviously the uh, the white powerhouse is the PS5, which up until recently was the lesser powerful console to the Series X, and I mean they hit everything out the gates that one would imagine they'd need to hit. We've got the most powerful console Check, big Bill. We've got that. Awesome work, guys, xbox Division doing great. You've got some IPs we're working on that but we've got this indiana jones thing coming out right, so everybody needs to play this for it to work.
Speaker 3:That's right, big bill so xbox has kind of stumbled over the years and I think, like you know, I do question leadership there and I do question, like top level decision making skills because, like I, oh yeah and I don't mean to take shots at people, you know, I know their jobs are kind of hard, but like it is for one no one shows up. It doesn't matter how good your console is, if there's nothing of demand to play, like you have to have something of demand to play, which is why I think, like you know, like if you have spider-man on the other side, god of war on the other side, uncharted, and such like that people show up because that feels like a must, that feels like game watching game of thrones, the house of dragon on hbo, the last of us on hbo versus netflix, where you might watch a reality tv show in cobra kai, like you know what I mean like yeah, nothing on netflix feels like it's in demand that people stop and say like, oh, oh, my god, did you watch that? No, it's like.
Speaker 2:But the thing is what I've struggled with over the years is it's actually really hard to get someone who's in the xbox ecosystem to take a step out for a moment and have a look what they've actually got and what they've been given and what they're living and dealing with. And I sometimes think, think to myself wow, you know, I don't know whether you're in that deep in the ecosystem that you don't look out, but you know, I remember in the past as a youngster I had an Xbox. I used to look over at the PS2 and be like, wow, they've got some great games and games that aren't even ever going to get published here. And the same is true now on the series x. Like, yeah, we've got games pass and I've got more games than I know what to do with, but a lot of them I've already finished. We've been down this road, but yeah for sure.
Speaker 3:So I I think that's why the sales of xbox have been like almost two. I think they said like I think I read the other day, it was like for every three playstations is sold an xbox, whether it be a series s or a series x. So so it's almost like 3.5 to 1 odds there, but I actually think the metric's gone up, since that was probably muted?
Speaker 3:yeah, probably so. So you know, like I think a lot of people are saying, well, if I'm not getting what I want out of this console and ecosystem, I'll just go to where I can get it, more so than, like there are the diehards that are still going to stay oh, absolutely. But like there is for every franchise and platform, for sure, for sure. So I'm like, but I do feel like people go where people go, wherever, like the most popular, the most successful things are, like you know, for better, for a better analogy here, it's like there are people who are going to argue to the death that iphones are better than android phones. You know, like, exactly, there are people who are just going to argue that they have. No, they might have some logic behind it. They might have no logic behind. It's a brand and it's popular behind it. But people like to go where they feel like the value is, and xbox hasn't proven that they have the value.
Speaker 2:It's it's almost a difference, I suppose, between going into walmart and buying yourself a samsung tv or a sony, yeah for sure versus, I don't know, tech corp. The tech corp's got better specs, the tech corp's a better price. The tech the I don't know what I called this tv anymore the tech box or whatever I said initially. Right, it's got this, this and this. It's got vrr. It's 8k, it's 120 hertz, it's 400 quid. The samsung, exactly the same features, or maybe less is 600. Yeah, more samsung's walk out that store than tech cup tvs. And I kind of get it. You know what you're getting with samsung. And although this tv is arguably better in specs I'm sure you know someone's on deep dive this tv is great and it all objectively is and say the same for xbox no one's buying it now, which is why I wonder.
Speaker 3:So this is a cool conversation to have because, like if you heard our episode last week with me and scotty, where everything like xbox is moving to the marketing campaign of everything being xbox, they showed the commercial of like a fridge, a switch, like a switch not switch, but a steam deck, a um, a laptop, a phone, and they all has. Each one of them has a tagline this is an xbox. Because they're moving, they're trying to move away from the ecosystem of a box to creating an ecosystem of a brand, of saying anything you own with internet can be an xbox. Now I think it's brilliant, but I think it's also a defeatist mentality of saying we can't sell the consoles, so you know we're going to. We can't win by the rules that have already been established, so we're going to change the rules of the game and we're going to try to win that way I mean, or at least do better.
Speaker 2:Let's take that to its extreme form. They've spent a hell of a lot of money in the acquisition of activision and blizzard. They're hell of a lot of money in the acquisition of, uh, activision and blizzard. They're hell of a lot of money. And what they're saying now is that we're going to see the remuneration on those billions through people playing cod warzone on their washing machine. Big phil, just stop and think for a moment what you're actually saying, because you're killing this brand and I, despite you, know my current sort of playing habits. I'm an xbox fan. I was there on the og box. I was there for the 360 day and date. Uh, I got the first one in the launch window, but the 360 in the end killed my enthusiasm for the brand. Now I've got I skipped Xbox One, but I've got a Series S and an X kicking around that I can lay my hands on at any moment, at any moment have I used them? No, no, I haven't it's crazy, isn't it?
Speaker 2:that's pretty telling. I got up the other day and I thought, oh, I wonder if the new flight sims out. And then I sat back down again and thought, no, there's a lot of craziness behind flight sim man. A lot of craziness hey, but I just want to quickly um, what's this news you got here? Is this news? Are we news ready?
Speaker 3:because I want yeah, yeah, I wanted to pull this up because, like, what we were saying was kind of cross-correlating with some of the news stories we had today ah, okay, well, just quickly, if I may be so bold yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 2:While I've been off air, I I've acquired a PlayStation 5 Pro.
Speaker 3:No no.
Speaker 2:George, two out of three ain't bad. The VR is dead, although I have some hope because I saw a diving game the other day which was giving me great vibes. I shared it on the show's Discord the trailer. I was like this has got kayak vibes. I'm into this. You know there's a reason to dust off the VR2. The portal I fought hard against. I was like I don't see the point of it. I think it's a waste of money, I'm not getting it, I don't want it. Then it launched and I started to see some things popping up on Reddit and thought, hmm, maybe I'm not thinking of this the correct way. So I thought I'd take a risk and got one, and I have thoroughly enjoyed it. Oh, you're loving it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the portal's a great bit of kit. You know, the news last week that you and Scotty covered so well was a stealth drop of the cloud gaming as well, which I thought was pretty cool. I thought it was a good way of doing it, the way it was dropped. I wouldn't say it was a stealth drop per se, but it was as close as you can get in this industry and I thought that you guys handled that really well and some solid, salient points raised about that and I think that further adds gravitas to the requirement that a port will actually make sense in the modern world. Yeah, for sure, um. Way more than I initially gave it credit for.
Speaker 2:I think if you go in the time machine, listen to some earlier episodes, I was ready to lose my whole life over. You know I'd lost my um, just everything but tony. Why are're wasting time on this remote play device? There's already backbone out there. You're wasting time. I was wrong. I was wrong on that. I was wrong on the VR2 being good, although it's still a great bit of kit. We're still waiting for that killer app.
Speaker 2:Some can argue maybe we got it in Metro. I would say no, we did not. And then PS5 Pro. I didn't see the point. We haven't pushed ps5. I was wrong. I think we actually.
Speaker 2:In fact, I have said on a few episodes the reason these new cons, the benefit of these consoles not making any fan noise, is also a great benefit of hiding the fact that probably since day one, they've been up against a brick wall of well, we know they have. They're up against a brick wall of 30 or 60 FPS and that's your lot and you have to pick either poo-poo graphics on your next-gen console or good graphics in a slideshow. That's not a choice. You want to be presented out the gates on your big purchase. Ps5, I have to say, takes all those problems away.
Speaker 2:I have a 60 hertz telly. I don't have a 120 hertz or VRR, but ever since I bought this TV back when it first came out it's a Sony set I haven't had a console that's maxed it out. I now have a console that makes this TV down there cry and the enhanced visual quality that you get and this is the other problem I think they've had. I saw the videos of the Pro on a 480p or lower on a mobile phone screen. Seeing the difference on a compressed YouTube video was going to be difficult.
Speaker 2:I actually think this is also going to prove difficult for all console generations moving forward past 5 pro into the 6 and whatever xbox give us next the ability to showcase to you the visual updates, because they're going to be small. Going forward on youtube is going to. It's going to cause a little bit of fan upset because it it looks crap, but in reality, seb, I have to admit I've enjoyed the greater draw distance. I've enjoyed the what feels like enhanced load times. I've had lots of fun playing the remastered version of verizon. I've damn near finished that for the third or fourth time.
Speaker 3:Uh, it looks great and can I ask a question though? Like do you feel like so one? Did you keep your old um ps5, of course, or did you trade it in? And I'm not into that, not anymore.
Speaker 2:Okay, so you still have you, so you still have two to both ps5s, right, I realized how ridiculous that sounds when you say it out loud. Uh, up until I haven't gotten there yet, oh god, it gets worse.
Speaker 3:Okay, actually, as you were so you, but you have both your ps5 still. I I want to ask the question, though, um, to me, like I'm wondered, here's the big question a lot of people are going to ask has the incremental differences of, like, the draw distance, the visual, the visual amplifications, the, the I guess you could say the load times? Let me let me.
Speaker 2:Let me answer this right now, in the best way I can.
Speaker 2:Absolutely not, um, but let me preface that you know. Yeah, for sure, is there an. And when I say absolutely not, I'm saying it this way if you already own a ps5, and things are a bit tight, do you need to upgrade? Do you need to upgrade absolutely 1000? No, okay. Or the alternative, though, is this do you play get? Do you play your ps5 a lot? Okay, answer to that question. That. Take us to the next one. Yes, I do. Okay. Do you want the best version of whatever it is that you play whenever you want to play it? If the answer is yes, there's another yes in the camp for the pro. Yeah, for sure. Do you like new stuff? Yes, um, do you like?
Speaker 3:new stuff, do you?
Speaker 2:like new stuff? Yes, that's honest. That's very honest. Do you? Do you want the improved form factor? And I was surprised by how much smaller the pro is and the base launch 5 it is. It's tiny, okay, um. So I've suddenly got way more room in my setup and I've got much better ventilation for the PS5 Pro, only because it's that little bit smaller. That makes sense. Do you own? I don't. But if you own a 120 hertz TV with VRR, that's another reason why you need PS5 Pro.
Speaker 2:Okay, if you've got that, if you've got one of those tvs and you've got a base five, yeah you're gonna get some value. Don't get me wrong, but the pro is going to make that tv sing like a freshly born songbird and if that's what you're into, then go for it. Absolutely go for the Pro. But Sony never said PS5's dead or not very good. Therefore everyone's got to drop everything and get the Pro. No, they're not saying that. They're saying there is a higher value option out there.
Speaker 2:If you want to go for it, will it hold you back in your enjoyment of the games to stick with your base ps5? Not at all. Here's another metric for you if you are, if you skipped now, I think, based on my experience with the ps4 pro, I think a lot of those initial pro users probably looked at the ps5 and didn't see a visual upgrade that was worth it. I know when I went from pro to five, I was underwhelmed. Okay, uh.
Speaker 2:So if you have been sitting on the fence waiting for a reason to buy a ps5 and you've got a ps4 pro or you've still got a base ps4, if you're transitioning from xbox or nintendo or just deciding to get a console and you go down to the shop tomorrow, yeah, would it make sense for you to get a pro? Absolutely it would. Absolutely it would, because it's going to take you potentially midway to the ps6 gen without needing to upgrade again. Just depends when you put that money in. Yeah for sure. Great, right, so sure it's a multi-headed beast. Is it essential, like Oxygen, to get a PS5 Pro? No. Is it essential to get a PS5 Pro if you've got a PS5? No.
Speaker 2:But if all the other answers to the questions are yes, in the sort of tick boxes I gave you to this point and you are well enough off to actually afford it, then it's a good buy, not behest of feeding your kids or paying the north or anything like that but if you've got the spare money, or alternatively, if you trade your base PS5 for cash or sell it on a local selling site I think the demand's still there for the base console and then use that money to offset the difference between what you've got and the Pro. Also a yes for you, okay.
Speaker 3:It feels to me like the iPhone 14, 15, 16, 17,. Whatever we're on now, whatever iPhones are on now, the base model, the, whatever the premium, the ultra would be, I mean again, mate.
Speaker 2:That's a great example of the. You know the split between the two products. Like if you bought an iPhone 17, right, is it functional? Is it usable? Has it got good graphics? Yeah, if you buy the 17 Pro, does it have all of that? Yes, it does. But If you buy the 17 Pro, does it have all of that? Yes, it does, but does it have a little bit more? Yeah, it does, but you're going to have to pay for it. Okay, yeah, and I feel it's the same with the Pro. Would I recommend someone go out and buy one tomorrow just for fun? No, no, that would be crazy.
Speaker 3:You're knee-deep in this ecosystem as well, though you know like a lot of people scare me a little bit.
Speaker 2:When I got the pro it's like oh crikey, I look a little bit too all in here for a multi-format show.
Speaker 3:I need to be careful, um but no, no, you're, you're a playstation shield now nowadays, you know, you got that yeah, yeah, at this point with the portal and okay, well, if you've got any new.
Speaker 2:If you've brought any news, that's not solely playstation, because this is now a PlayStation podcast. I've decided I don't think that's ever right, because often gamers have multiple systems. I've got one, you do. You've got the deck. I've got series S and X. I've got PS5, base and pro. I've got remote play on this gadget and that gadget. I've got a switch, like yeah, there's news there, there's, there's stuff there. Um, one thing, I wanted to. One last game I've been playing and I'll make it very short, so keep that on the screen is I've been playing city skylines it's a seb game right there, one or two.
Speaker 2:Number one.
Speaker 2:Okay, gotcha, I've had it in the library for ages and I thought do you know what? This is? Pretty good to have slumming on the portal, yeah, and I somehow looked into a remastered version of one. That's not necessary, but you know it does make things a little bit prettier. I like it, although I've worked a couple of things out now and it's not difficult that game. Once you work it out, you can just build whatever you like without really too much stress.
Speaker 2:It doesn't have the outside threats like Anno no for sure not. It doesn't have the kind of conquering elements to it of Anno. Anno is primarily a city builder, but with conquering elements to it, naval, I hasten to add. So I'm enjoying it but and I thought this would be an almost abyss like hole I would fall into but within about oh, don't get me wrong I'd be mucking around, but within about 24 hours I realized that I'd probably gone as deep as the game would. Let me go. Everything else was going to be doing different prettiness around the town and if the town's working and the tax revenue is coming in, you're giving everything they could ever wish for. Does it matter if there's a tree there, not really here. Have a pre-made park instead.
Speaker 3:boom, problem solved yeah, yeah, um, city skylines is an interesting thing. I I equivalent to being a cozy city builder.
Speaker 2:Like you know, that's a that is great, because you're right it I should have seen it in that light actually said ever the ever the illuminate man, illuminated man. But uh, it is. I was thinking it was too easy, but you're right, it's a cozy game that really, with some sim elements, just allows you to build your dream town. Damn it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so it's more. I equivalent it to being more of a cozy simulation versus you know, something like Frost, yeah, and.
Speaker 2:Civilization, different things like that. It's at the raw edge of cozy, I'd say. I wouldn't say it's. It's not a comfortable pair of slippers, uh, but it is maybe a fleece lined jock strap there's never any.
Speaker 3:Like you said, there's never any external threat that would just like jack everything up and take everything awry. You are your biggest enemy because, like, if you don't manage your money well, you know like everything could go.
Speaker 2:You know the worst damage I've done to myself is getting too greedy, too early on on the tax and people kind of like leave your town. It's like, oh, now I'm gonna have to drop them even further down, get even more in debt, just to get them to come back. And now, if I put them up one percent, they're done like oh god, what am I gonna? Yeah, if you don't go into the tax screen, it never becomes an issue, but if you do, things start to unravel quickly.
Speaker 3:Here's a cool trick about that Like, turn up the tax like 3% or 4%, hit the fast-forward button and when they start actually getting angry, drop the tax right back off to where it was. You don't have to drop it back below where it was, just drop it back to where it was and do the same thing with businesses and do the same thing with um, with the industrial, and back and forth, and back and forth. Hit that fast forward button and like in 20 minutes real time, you can make like 10 grand. You know, like 10 grand to spend something on. It's a and as your city grows you know what?
Speaker 2:there's times early game where 10 grand's a lifesaver. It really is, it really is. But like, let me tell you something now. I've currently got my city to the point where I'm raking in. It's still only early days. I haven't't filled every square, far from it. I've probably only populated a third of the grid. I'm raking in 4,932.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's good. So have you bought any expansion territory yet? None, okay, that's perfect. Then You're in a good place. Have you unlocked the metro system yet?
Speaker 2:What I find quite odd about the public transport is I've unlocked public transport but its utilization. It's probably too soon to put it in the sea, but its utilization is so low I deleted it. I deleted it from the city.
Speaker 3:I was like no, no, it won't become a thing until you add more stops and I think your people, your town population actually gets super high. I'm I'm greedy like um, what is it? Scrooge, mcduck and so like. So here's, here's my strategy. And like getting money fast in the early game, I make it like industrial industrialization is huge in the early game unless you make a very highly educational town super quickly, which is very hard to do on a that's damn near impossible.
Speaker 2:Yeah, especially if you're going through the lots, not skill tree, but the way the advancements trickle down to you. It's hard to have the cash to and you don't have access. You get access to elementary school and then there's like I don't know if it's like free dlc or what, but then you get the community school, which is kind of like a halfway house high school, uh.
Speaker 3:But you also need the yeah, you got the community school, the public library and the, the elementary school. Like are they?
Speaker 2:then they have spin-offs like institute for arts, which is an alternative high school. Then they have likeinoffs like Institute for Arts, which is an alternative high school. Then they have like community school.
Speaker 3:Forget about that. One, don't touch that. One Touch the Institute of Technology one. It's like, yeah, and that one's really good, but like I. Here's another trick of the trade of like, if you're playing Cities, skylines and you feel like you need money early on, or like towards the, the middle point, like make your industrial point in a different map or a different zone than your, than your live point, not only because, yeah, I'm all over it, even when I first started playing industrialization, the sewage dis, uh, the sewage discharge, the industrialization.
Speaker 2:And if I went, you know traditional power generation and not, you know, cutting edge modern tech yeah, for sure I grouped all that down right at the bottom of the map, away from everybody.
Speaker 3:Um, because that dirty brown cloud, it does my editing oh, yeah, that's, that's the sludge, the, the toxic waste in the sludge, yeah, the the.
Speaker 2:The water gets all poopy and the air gets all dirty. It's beyond real life.
Speaker 3:Uh as in, it's ridiculous to, oh for sure make sure the water is downstream in the game, by the way oh, mate, I'm all over that.
Speaker 2:I had this really great setup where I kind of picked up in this kind of holding reservoir that I know it kind of it filled with the river and then round the river kind of comes down and then all the way up the side and my discharge point this is classic, george, this is I've got the discharge point as close to the map you can't build this, you don't own this land point as possible so the charge actually fires out the map. That's funny, that's so funny. And my water, even there is would be totally clean for drinking. But yeah, all from the other side of the island because my guys deserve the best oh yeah, I'll be honest with you.
Speaker 2:I'm pretty much I'm manhattan and I'm firing all my sludge and discharge straight into queens. I love it.
Speaker 3:It's their problem to deal with. It totally is. So, as soon as you get the tollway available, make the tollway like. Put two tollways on the path of like between your housing and the industrial points.
Speaker 2:Two tollways. I was thinking of putting tollways, you know where the map kind of hard hard creates a highway. Yeah, yeah, the two feed points. I was thinking of making it a toll to get in and a toll to get out.
Speaker 3:If you don't like that, then stay I, oh man, I wish I could show you like one of my maps that I built like a while back, but like I did that, but then I removed, I removed the entry point into my city of, like you know, like there's two points that dip down into your city from the highway. Yeah, remove those suckers and make a new, new road from the highway that gets into the city, and it's a one way. It's one way. And then make another one that dips out into the city, and it's a one way, it's one way. And they make another one that dips out into the city, and it's a one way. You have a one way tolls on both of those junctures and then you jack up the price all the way up all the way up to three dollars per per trip, round trip, and you could like easily get fifteen dollars of fifteen thousand dollars off of those two tollways.
Speaker 2:Perfect. Hit me up with this fresh news you sexy hunk of a man.
Speaker 3:Okay, so this one, which one are you seeing right now on your screen?
Speaker 2:We're seeing the Deadpool, transformers, spider-man and other Activision games. Get mysterious updates on Steam.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, this is from Men's Journal of Pursuit, written by Rahul Majum, major major drawer. Yeah sorry, I'm gonna call him my jumdar because it's my jumdar that's good one.
Speaker 3:It's an m yeah, my jumdar, okay. So something's happened with activision delisted games on steam. Several games published by activision that were later removed from the store have been updated on the back end with updates as recent as last week. This includes updates to games and their DLCs in the class titles like Deadpool 2013 version, spider-man, shattered Dimensions, transformers, fall of Cybertron and Marvel Ultimate Alliance. Proof of these updates can be seen on SteamDB and the free database that keeps track of Steam back-end content. It's the same database that's shown us that vows unannounced hero shooter deadlock had attracted over 15 000 players. According to steam db. These updates have seemingly added new content to the storefront, like store screenshots for one, and they've added let's see and they've added many more additional content right there.
Speaker 3:So, george I, I brought this story up because, like a lot of people were crying, crying, moaning, rightfully, so that you know, call of duty was basically the sole eye in xbox's. You know vision regarding the buy of activision blizzard, and they were complaining that. You know when are we going to see some of the? You know what I think is going on here.
Speaker 2:It's, it's nice that you frame it up through the lens of quality. You're not getting an update yet these damn near 10 year old games in fact, yeah for sure, eight old games are getting an update. I my first thought when you brought this up and I saw the games mentioned in that. My first thought when you brought this up and I saw the games mentioned in that second paragraph if RGT and sadly RGT can't be with us because they're breaking the fourth wall for a minute F's in the chat for RGT. He's put his back out and he's not a young gentleman anymore, so it's just taken a little bit of time to bounce back. But if he was here I'll get him to run the numbers, because last time I dipped into this world and I hadn't dipped into it for a while. But I think the Transformers fall off.
Speaker 2:Cybertron and war for Cybertron are rapidly accumulating high-volume prices or high prices in the UK, especially secondhand, I'd imagine Devastation probably is. I think Spider-Man, shattered Dimensions, has always been quite an obscure game that people were willing to pay money for. I think off the back of Deadpool vs Wolverine there's been an uptick in the value of that game and considering for a free update that they can lob out with not too much in there, and I'd like to see the update list of what was actually changed, because I shouldn't think that much. They've offered people on steam a chance to get this game a lot more affordably and, more importantly, allow people to double dip on these without worrying too much about having to acquire a ps3 so they can play that or get their old console out.
Speaker 2:Here is a cheap alternative to games that shouldn't be rising in value but bizarrely actually are. Do you think that's the take they've done here? Someone's just done some quick maths and gone. If we get James, the Work Experience Boy, to bang out a couple of patches, we could maybe get some more revenue, because with an update, does it bump it up the steam listings? I presume it. Maybe does. It certainly got some attention shown on it through men's journalcom.
Speaker 3:Yeah, this, this site, kind of circulated through all the the major sites. I, my theory is, george, I think Activision AKA Xbox AKA Microsoft is trying to get these games ready for Game Pass and for reselling purposes as well. Like, I think, the updates that they were talking about, the new additional content is basically like screenshots, it's basically like gameplay captures. It's small minutiae things. Yeah, exactly exactly. It's just, it's modernizing these games in a way to where, like, they are ready for modern day consoles, not necessarily, I also think that the price is prompted.
Speaker 2:I think that's absolutely correct. I agree 100. But I also also think these games have become slightly harder to acquire and therefore, if they dropped on Games Pass or Steam tomorrow, people are probably looking to take advantage of a software-only price.
Speaker 3:Yeah, keep in mind, these are delisted games right now on Steam, so I think they're going to relaunch these games More to my point.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because there are games in their back catalog that they haven't breathed back onto the storefront. Yeah, it depends how long their IP lasted on these as well, because that's got to be a consideration. Because if you're going to rock Deadpool back out a game from 2013, did the licensing contract allow you to continue with that whenever you like, or you're gonna have to pay again for the license. Or is there like a peppercorn deal where after 10 years, if you're still selling these, we only get 0.1 of a cent back?
Speaker 3:uh, it's got to be something that makes it profitable for both probably disney and for xbox here. So I imagine, I imagine like there was probably some back end like very low percentage who the hell on god's green earth is buying these on steam I?
Speaker 2:I for one, will throw my weight behind the transformers cybertron series. I think it's great we never got that third game we deserved. Uh, not in the way we wanted it anyway. There's some arguments say that that third game ended up being a film tie-in. Uh, but it was awful and it certainly wasn't continuation of that series. But those two I liken them to Space Marine in their play style, the PS3 one and maybe even this latest incarnation, full of spectacle, grand scale, very much for the Transformers fanboy. I pre-qualify as one of those. I'm a Gen 1 advocate and these games played straight into that wheelhouse. The fact that they had the Cybertron forms as well in the seekers and and other things made this game very much of interest to me. The fact that I think in the second game metroplex uh makes an entrance and he's huge and he wrecks house and you know maybe you sell them as packs you know the Transformers packs, the, the Marvel you know the Marvel collection.
Speaker 3:I have no idea what the strategy would be. Um, you'd be surprised on how well old retro games, what quote-unquote retro games, do on Steam, and you know, I think I. I think what we were talking about earlier, about Xbox's strategy of like this is an xbox of them, them. This is a good way of like bolstering the catalog without having to do very much for game pass, because that's their ecosystem right now.
Speaker 2:I thought it was worth noting that you know I think it's interesting and if you haven't played I know that deadpool is, is meant to be a a pretty good version of a Deadpool game if you want to get in there. But the ones I would want to throw my weight behind and recommend to anybody listening if you haven't played them, depending on age, because obviously you need to be in that Indiana Jones pre-discussed age wheelhouse to find any satisfaction. In World War I for Cybertron, I'd imagine, but if you're in that wheelhouse or slightly intrigued, I'd imagine. But if you're in that wheelhouse or slightly intrigued, you could this they are a fun while away of probably four or five hours per game. You know, thoroughly enjoyable If you've got a younger sibling or a son or a daughter and they're kind of half interested in new Transformers series or the, the prime film or the one prime film that's been out recently.
Speaker 2:I actually think that there's some mileage there. A lot of these films are also tied to, obviously, things that are doing reasonably well in the cinema right now. If you think about it deadpool, transformers, marvel's always up to something, isn't it? So spider-man 2 so I can see why they might want to put these up. The only ones I can get behind, as I said, was transformers, but yeah, whatever yeah, it'll be interesting to see.
Speaker 3:I I figure in january or you know, like it is game award season and like to do like announcements during game awards. Like xbox specifically announced the series x at at the game award show. I figured that you know this might be a small announcement that they kind of tease to people that they're doing something with the old Activision back catalog.
Speaker 2:Bit desperate if that's their news for the Game Awards. But OK, people, people paid millions to get a trailer on there. We're going to rock up with a trailer for Transformers dude.
Speaker 3:It's crazy. It's crazy, so I want to move on to this. The next news story here.
Speaker 2:I think I'm gonna choose this one right here george um bellatro have you heard of this little game still under contract to bellatro, or or is this your own volition?
Speaker 3:this is a my own thing. The contract ended a while ago, so take that for what it will. So I want to you know the reason why I want to ask this.
Speaker 2:Like speaking of game awards, where's my share of that part of the contract, by the way, or is that I'm gonna hook you up on the next bonus oh, yeah, yeah okay, yeah, fine, oh, so you know here.
Speaker 3:Here's the thing, though, george. Um, have you heard about the controversy around the game awards, about, like, the games nominated specifically for game of the year?
Speaker 2:I very much have. Yeah, and you know it's bizarre that like december's come around this quick, because you, you know, at the beginning of the year, with the way things were slewed up, you know it felt like we had a few games out there scrapping for some attention for game of the year. But as we get to december, I don't feel like much of that's born fruit. And I I presume you're referring to the elden ring dlc. Yeah, that's, that's exactly right. Yeah, right, in that wheelhouse of game of the year as a piece of dlc.
Speaker 2:I'm in agreeance with the majority here, although it does speak to what feels we've discussed uh, at least for the last three months, I think, between you and I about how this year has ended up being like, very lean compared to what was alleged to be the best year in gaming ever. Um, this year rocked up and it's it's been a bit dry, said. I see the controversy and I do think Star Wars Outlaws probably would have been better suited. I'm still on the contract, seb. I know you got to see out your Bellatro deal. Let me see out this Ubisoft shill deal.
Speaker 3:My bad, my bad, go ahead, go ahead, make the money.
Speaker 2:It's Game of the Year in the Poncies, by the way. I can't wait for that episode. Every year we have our own award ceremony called the Poncies. It'll be interesting. It'll be interesting If Star Wars Outlaws doesn't win. There is no show, so you better come up with a prize for it to win. Most updated game after launch of 2024. That might be.
Speaker 3:Most updated game might realistically be the award it should win, but you know the reason why I brought this up. So you know, game of the year um the game of the year awards. For everyone listening, it was very controversial, of like, what was actually nominated? It was, I believe it was astrobot um wu long, fallen dynasty, yeah, or yeah, wu long it was. What was this elden ring, you know? Shadow of the earth tree? It was dang. What was the other one? Oh, metaphor um final fantasy 7 and and bellatro. So those were the games that were nominated for the Game Awards for Geoff Keighley's Game Awards show that happens at the midpoint of December.
Speaker 2:Geoff is also a friend of the show. He used to be on it in the early days. Yeah for sure, Kind of. We actually sent a group of people to sit in his garden.
Speaker 4:Hey man, this is good to see you On the other show you'd be like that can't be right.
Speaker 2:But we did have a mobilized, almost military unit that was uh stalking in his uh basically kind of hiding in his garden. It was.
Speaker 3:It was quite the uh, it was quite the story so, george, you know like, the reason why I brought this one, this one up, is like so I agree with a lot of the majority that I don't think Elden Ring should have gotten a nomination. I think it should have got its own category for best DLC or best expansion.
Speaker 2:You know, like I think totally fine and it would be a deserving winner. I'm not a massive fan of Elden Ring but I would say it'd be a deserved winner of that category. Although Trained Sims got the East Coast pack of the UK, that I think would probably outstrip it.
Speaker 3:But you know it's very niche, very niche, yeah, so one of the reasons why I thought this story was relevant to what's going on is because, like I would have loved to see another game get the shine, because ever since elden ring, uh, ever since uh bellatro got nominated, it jumped up in sales. After receiving five nominations for the game awards, the title has earned 700,000 727,000 over the past week alone, since the nominations came out. Do you know what that game could have done? Like, don't get me wrong, elder ring has already had his time in the time in the sun. It also made a boatload of money, boatload of money and still making money. I would say, do you know what this game, do you know what this game's nomination would have done for another game? This could have turned the tide around for Prince of Persia and the narrative around Prince of Persia not doing well, you know that set her. Did that come out?
Speaker 2:this year Because I felt like that was a 2024 game.
Speaker 3:It is 2024 still, george, but yes, it came out in January of of 2024. I get what you mean to say, 23, but 25 is fine.
Speaker 2:I don't know what you, I don't know what universe I'm living in, but I'm in a flying car right now.
Speaker 3:As far as you're concerned, so yeah, january uh I believe it was january like a dragon infinite wealth um tekken and you know tekken and prince of persia all came around the early january, february time and those games reviewed you know really well, especially tekken like a dragon infinite wealth was around 89. I believe tekken was around 89 where's infinite wealth?
Speaker 3:infinite wealth's not on that list and I think, like that reviewed, I'm gonna be honest. But like what really surprised me, bellatro is in the 90s. No surprise there. But like um black myth, wukong is the lowest rated game to ever get nominated for the game of the year awards.
Speaker 2:It'll win, you think it'll win look based on the fact it's there was such a low review metacritic review score. Not that that really matters, uh it's got an 81 compared to I would say we dispatched og tom to uh play that and provide some feedback on that game and um, as he said in the el paso tapes episode, he sees no reason to continue with it, and that's rare for him. So there's something not quite right about Black Myth Wukong, in my humble opinion.
Speaker 3:For what it's worth, I think it's a decent game. I think it's a good start of a series.
Speaker 2:It's a decent game. It's maybe a good start of a series, but it's not game of the year contender.
Speaker 3:No, not in any world should Black Myth Wukong be on there and elder ring be on there. But imagine what 727 thousand dollars in sales a sales boost would have done for prince of persia. That would have, after the year they had with star wars, slow sales with the year they had of like prince of persia coming out and doing a nothing burger and you know, that studio going kaput because of that. That could have saved that studio's life, at least helped that studio come back from that. Tekken could have used that bump. I would even argue some indie games like Animal Whale was really popular earlier in the year.
Speaker 2:Animal Whale is a way better entry than Shadow of the Earth Tree.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure, 120%, but I think that whenff's putting this together, you know he's got to fill the room as well with people that are paying for tables. Let's not forget this is an award show. Or what's an award show, george? It's just a record. You may think an award show is just this free, gratis event to bestow uh creditations, where creditations are due for producing a great piece of software, but that's not the case. If anyone thinks that an awards show is solely existing for that reason, you're badly mistaken. This is Geoff Keighley's cash cow. Think how much people pay to get an add-on. Think how much people pay to get a sponsorship deal. Think how much because of the penetration of the product and actually how recognized it is in the industry. Now, yeah, it was the right thing to do to go out there and make. You could argue that the BAFTAs are actually the true Oscar of the Video Game Award or the Golden Joystick or some other stuff that they've got going on, but Jeff.
Speaker 3:Keen is my new Golden Joystick's a little more fan-voted, so I would probably say more. I would probably say what BAFTAs and DICE DICE is one that's very industry-voted.
Speaker 2:The BAFTA's definitely an industry-voted thing and a friend of the show, mike Rouse, is a BAFTA judge for the games, so you know he used to give us a little bit of insight in one of his episodes into the process behind it. He's given us a little bit of insight in one of his episodes into the process behind it. But no award shows. They are basically just cash revenue generators for whoever is the all-seeing eye behind the scenes and the all-seeing eye behind the scenes of this award show is the mighty Jeff. Is it hard for him to sell tables if the games that are nominated for the game of the year are a couple of two-man indie teams?
Speaker 2:Not that these are, but you catch them adrift. You need ea to rock up. You need ubisoft to rock up. You need sony to rock up. You need xbox to rock up. You need ninty to rock up. You need these large names take this industry award seriously and you also need them to turn up en masse at five grand a ticket per table, per chair or whatever it is, to pay for this, uh, shindig, and also allow jeff to live the life of luxury between december and november uh, each year.
Speaker 2:So it's also there's a political element to these choices big time and I think there's also a mainstream box ticking exercise of what do we put in here that someone's going to recognize and get behind a tree? Put a from software thing in there, because if you go against from software you're not a proper gamer. Bellatro quite deserving of its position. Astro Bot based on its Metacritic certainly not mine, although I can see the window, which that could be positioned in, for sure, and therefore Ergo equally welcome at the table.
Speaker 3:I would have preferred Helldivers 2 over that, though at that point.
Speaker 2:I would argue that Helldivers this is a great point. I would argue that Helldivers 2 has ended, although it burnt bright, but for probably quite a short time window.
Speaker 2:But while it was alive and burning it did remarkably well on sales. It reviewed, probably equidistant to Black Myth Wukong, it's influence on the industry far outweighing, uh, black myth wukong's god of war sort of from software light version of itself. I think that the narrative is if you got in a time machine and came back to this year, the talk around the water cooler would be of Helldivers moments. It wouldn't be of Black Myth Wukong moments.
Speaker 3:And I read like I'm going to read a quick snippet of like like a couple of games that received higher Metacritic score just over Black Myth Wukong, that probably could have used this Dragon's Dogma 2, like a Dragon Infinite Wealth Power World, and that probably could have used this dragon's document to like a dragon infinite wealth um power, world infinite wealth, yet power world that it took over for a little bit animal.
Speaker 3:Well, hell divers, yeah um warhammer 4000, tekken, stellar blade and dragon age blade dude yep and the legend of zelda's echo of wisdom, all reviewed higher than oh, and not to mention silent hill 2 I was gonna say that in the preamble.
Speaker 3:You know, maybe it was too late, but then again we've seen late entries make it into the game a year before now the cutoff was like like, silent hill came off three weeks before the cutoff and this ends like to equivalent that to last year. It came out around the same time, alan wake came out and alan wick was nominated. So yeah, um, but anyways, um. Moving on to another story, you know, because I think that's interesting, take a. What do you take?
Speaker 2:on the, the award show, actually behind the scenes, being a cash revenue generator and therefore go. All of this needs to be taken Not our opinion, but the nominations need to be taken with a pretty chunky bit of salt.
Speaker 3:I think, first and foremost, people need to reframe the award show, as it is an award show, but it's not like I don't think it weighs as heavily as, say, like IGN, game of the Year of, like GameSpot, all the of those credited, heavily credited sites. This is more of a winter showcase of games that also, like part of the industry, internationally votes on, and 10 percent of that is the fan vote internationally votes on, and 10 of that is the fan vote.
Speaker 2:So it's almost like it's more akin to a all-star weekend for sports than it actually is an award show like the oscars, yeah, yeah, add that to my rather cynical cash grab element and, yeah, the award show start. Took a little bit, not great.
Speaker 3:No, for sure not hit last, uh, last story, because I know we're running a little long here. Sony's making a handheld console to compete with the rumored microsoft handheld console and the upcoming switch successor.
Speaker 2:This um, coming from the verge at from jess weatherbad, oh by the way, I don't know if this is news per se, but um, a couple of people have been sneaking around on linkedin and and found um some references to a name that could be. I think it's timeless travel. I think is the name the, the, the working name for naughty dog's next ip. That's alleged not to be last of us, although I can see this being a Last of Us game, but let's for a magic moment. It's not.
Speaker 3:I think the two different projects though.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm inclined to agree, and obviously also God. I couldn't get his name out of my head. And now who's the voice? Troy Baker. Troy Baker signed on. There we go, boom, in fact. Bring that up for me, seb. Let me feel like Joe Rogan for a minute. Bring that up, yeah, yeah gotcha.
Speaker 3:Can you read this right now?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can. Troy Baker confirms he's in Naughty Dog's next game. Director Neil Druckmann says it's the most excited he's ever been for a project.
Speaker 3:Just see if it references that LinkedIn post um, I see the variety confirmed um it more than one. Um, not this one, but I'll see if I can find it yeah, okay, so there's a reference to the ip name in.
Speaker 2:I think the linkedin very quickly got changed, which always puts a laser focus on it being pretty close to the mark, if I'm honest, because if it was just dribble, why change it? Um, try like linkedin leak or or something along those lines. Um, it should bring it up. Linkedin naughty dog, I think. Maybe it's called infinite travel or timeless, it was something along those lines, but I thought that was probably worth bringing up. It's only a little bit of uh, there you go, timeless travel. So I I had remembered it correctly. Um, unless that's not what I was saying at all. Um, but yeah, I find that to be quite interesting. It's also um referenced, I think, in the job description that it's an open world title, this timeless travel. So more leaning towards.
Speaker 2:I know when they made last of us 2, initially it was meant to be an open world game more akin to like either zombie, I think the game called zombie that was on Wii U and found a release on PS4 and Xbox. From memory, they wanted it to almost be like a roguelike adventure where you kind of tried to get a bit further each time. Obviously, that wouldn't have worked in the Ellie and Joel narrative, so there'd be even more people upset that that's about Ellie and Joel. Neil Druckmann says it's not and you'll find out within the first 15 minutes why. But yeah, I can imagine that probably didn't go over too well from the merchandise sellers.
Speaker 2:But I'm interested to see what comes of this because obviously Druckmann's gone on record. He says we don't want to be known as the Uncharted Last of Us studio. So we don't want to be known as the Uncharted Last of Us studio. So we don't want to. You know, constantly the problem in the modern day era is if you come up with a hit, you're expected to farm that until it's literally dead and no one cares about it anymore. And I think it's quite good that he said we don't want to be that and that they're indulging themselves with.
Speaker 3:Trying something new.
Speaker 2:If the story of this being a sci-fi or fantasy epic come true and all the evidence seems to point to it being so, um, that's brave, right, when most of the audience are sat there with a handout saying last of us three or maybe uncharted four, this is brave, super brave. To get people to care about new characters enough to buy this game is brave. And to put yourself behind the production values of your games to this point in an open world, super brave to be fair to naughty dog, yeah, they they've been.
Speaker 3:They've done well at reinventing themselves throughout the years, though, whether it be from crash bandicoot to uncharted to last of us, you know, I I think, like jack and dexter, yeah, that they have done a fantastic job of like evolving throughout the years.
Speaker 2:I don't argue all that evolvement took place before 2014. 2014, that's true. 2014 is the line in the Sansami where the industry changed to the sequel-driven world that we live in now. Much like the movies, I'm going to make a film based in Rome. Call it Gladiator 2. I know, but I'm going to struggle to link this back to the original series. Gladiator 2 will sell. Get it out there. Oh God. This is going to be horrible and it was um. So this is brave and I like it. It's either a sign that sony's got faith that the naughty dog name has grown beyond the ips and will sell regardless, or naughty dog themselves have maybe stumbled across the idea that their name is larger than their IPs and it doesn't matter where they put it, it's going to sell. So, yeah, a little bit of news there that I found interesting.
Speaker 3:PlayStation is also in a cool spot to where, like you know, outside of Concord, anything that they've printed, anything that they've done recently, has kind of like printed gold in a lot of ways.
Speaker 2:You know it doesn't matter how clean your underpants are on the day that no one wants to look at your underpants, but if the day that someone wants to look on your underpants you've got a massive skid, that's an issue.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, it is, yeah, it is, but yeah. So what do you take of the handheld story about PlayStation 1? Going back to the handheld.
Speaker 2:I think that we talked earlier in the episode. It's nice that everything's framed up this way, that the success of Yakuza and hopefully not for you the new direction for Dragon Age is born through and also framed up nicely in the fact that I talked about my love of the portal and its current guys. Btw, rumour on the Mill and we don't do leaks and rumors here that a refresh, refreshed, cosmetic update of a black only portal once you're sexy man once you've gone black, uh, seb, you never go back that's what I heard and always bet on it.
Speaker 2:To be honest, uh, yeah, I think that they you know that could be that that again is worth noting, but I think I get to go back to it. The success of the portal has in some way reshaped their lens onto needing to have a console, either a console that splits like a switch, and by that I mean I don't mean that the joy cons come off for anything deaf like that, I mean that it's dockable or it's handholdable. I think that's I wouldn't say it's taken them by surprise. They've got a hell of a lot more metrics than we've got access to, and I'm sure that they could see the writing on the wall of this being potential. Now I'm in two minds Are we going to get a dockable PS six or are we going to get a PS six and an accompanying, an accompanying handheld that will allow you to play those games, albeit pared down considerably, I'd imagine I think if we got a handheld from Sony that was anything more powerful than the PS4 Pro.
Speaker 2:Obviously you can wash the specs around depends on what tech's available at the time but I can't see this thing being affordable as a handheld and packing PS6 or 5 technology. I see this being affordable as a handheld with the ability to play the ps4 stroke 5 in some way classics library, I see this as a great. This handheld could also be a great gateway drug to your PlayStation Premium content. Let's face it, it sold a lot of portals in the last week Off the back of people being able to play that without the requirement for a PlayStation console. Technically rendering, I would say the portal, depending on how you want to look at it, a standalone handheld, albeit with the caveat you need Wi-Fi.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think it's interesting. I agree with mostly everything you're saying. I do think the games that it's going to be able to play is going to be substantially beefier than what we imagined, because the NVIDIA software and the AI software that they did with the PS5 pro is going to be yeah, the pssr, and even then more advancements into like, bridging that gap of like fidelity.
Speaker 3:And you know, fidelity and resolution with ai I think is going to be more advanced in the years to come, when this is the market. So I do think we'll get to see. Let me just last part three.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree with that, but it depends if this is going to be a true handheld and therefore the handheld itself would have to be doing the PSSR heavy lifting. I mean, technology moves at such a click these days it's hard to say, but I feel like the price point on the chips could be a lot. The price of technology might come back down, having to buy the screen as well, factoring the associated board and HDMI out and all that other ramble. This thing could end up being quite complicated, seb.
Speaker 3:I'd say about $350. I think $350 is an easy price for them to be, able to do.
Speaker 2:I know people are going to book against this, but we've seen that the PS5 Pro is 700 quid or thereabouts. Right, get ready for that. If that made you feel poorly, guys, the PS6 is easily going to be 800 bucks. Just to prepare you right now. Right now for that. There is no way it's going to be less so I think you know, the crazy thing is.
Speaker 3:It's like if that, if that happens xbox has a huge opportunity because it's it's it's the 360 and ps3 all over again.
Speaker 2:It might well be, but I can't see it, unless Xbox are willing to lose money on the consoles they're selling to bring people over at that point and let's face it, they're probably cash-rich enough to do that. In fact, it probably would have been better for them to spend their money on a war chest to do the consoles at 50 quid than it would have been to buy Activision Blizzard, because the games are going to be on your console anyway. Nice work, guys. But you've got it now and then in fact put it everywhere. So that also is a little bit defeatist, if I'm honest. But you're making revenue, one would hope, from somewhere.
Speaker 3:Not to mention I think they're going to come out before the PS6. I think the next Xbox is going to be next year or the year after.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's why we didn't see an interstitial machine. But it's also if that's going to be the next Xbox in 12 to 18 months' time, which is the rumor. I struggle to see it myself, but I can see also the reasoning, for it's easy itself going to have to be 800 bucks because it's going to have to uplift on the pro I don't think they're going to go power like I think, based on what they had in this generation and what, how far it got them, saying we have the most powerful console ever.
Speaker 3:I don't think that's the marketing strategy for this next generation. I think they're perfect what they're leaning on you. I think you know I hate to say this because you know it sounds like a broken record, but like, I think the june showcase and the quality of the games is the lesson learned from this past generation's debacle.
Speaker 2:And I do, I do like, I, you know, like, yeah, but how did it take until then to realize that lesson? Because that was a lesson that they were delivered during the xbox one era. That was kind. And yeah, I will defend the 360 and say actually, do you know what? They came out the gates with some new ip yeah some great stuff. It's funny for me to start here, but viva, pinata one and two great games.
Speaker 3:No wait though no, no, I I. It's actually a good game. I was just I didn't think about that in the list of games you were gonna illustrate, making the point here, you know mate.
Speaker 2:You know, in terms of ips, I think have had value, especially during the 360 era. Viva pinata had a spin-off tv show. Blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 3:I agree with you, I'm just, it made me laugh and thinking of viva pinata had a spin-off tv show, blah, blah, blah blah. I agree with you, I'm it. Just it made me laugh. And thinking of viva pinata after all these years.
Speaker 2:That's all, if anyone was going to come out the gate swinging with the xbox ips from the 360 era, it was going to be me and I was going to start there. So viva pinata one and two. Obviously, gears is a no-brainer. We saw an evolution of the forza franchise. I think the 360 saw saw the first Horizon game, if memory serves.
Speaker 3:Mass Effect made its name on the 360.
Speaker 2:Mass Effect 1 was locked. I'll give you that it was timed. Gears of War I think we had Banjo-Kazooie Nuts and Bolts. Maybe that didn't hit. They've got these franchises within themselves. Halo 3 was massive.
Speaker 2:Absolutely massive Halo 3 was huge and Halo 3 delivered on everything that it set out to do. It had massive player engagement. It was the talk of the town. It was probably the biggest IP launch to that point. At that point, yeah, great. Yeah, halo Wars as well. It's a franchise I think they've neglected. I think that's got a lot of legs. It's not anywhere near the love that it deserves.
Speaker 3:That library was stacked, because I mean.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, add into that things like Lost Odyssey and Blue Dragon or whatever it was called. You know locked JRPG exclusives that are still locked to the console today. Infinite Discovery, I think, was another one. You know some really great stuff. They nailed it on and delivered on the promise during the 360 era. Red Ring of Death was an unfortunate situation.
Speaker 3:I forgot Dead Rising was among those.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Dead Rising. Dead Rising was a locked exclusive that I think might become a timed exclusive.
Speaker 3:It eventually came to PlayStation later, but like it came to PS4, but obviously we got, dead Rising was a locked exclusive that I think might become a timed exclusive. It eventually came to PlayStation later.
Speaker 2:It came to PS4, but obviously we got Dead Rising 2 and 3 multi-format on everything at the time, all the Xbox and PlayStation. I think PC Crackdown was big at that time.
Speaker 2:Crackdown was massive. Another great IP that they kind of buried. Fable really hit its stride with Fable 2. I think Fable 1 probably didn't get the industry or wider recognition it deserved. I think it was a great game and a great first step. So they had it going on and then they dropped all that with the Xbox One to be the everything box and then dropped all that to be the most powerful console again. So what are they going back to now? Seb?
Speaker 3:I think I everything's cyclical, uh, in life, and, like all these things that go out of style come back into style, we see trends reset themselves. I think playstation is getting to be big boy, too big, too big for their britches. Playstation again what, like what they were with the, the ps3 kind of era, and I think it's ps2 era is where we're at. Yeah, true, true, and then, like, xbox is like starting to get closer to that. We're hungry, we're gonna take like we're only focusing on the games, like no one was gonna.
Speaker 3:No one said at that time xbox 360 is the most powerful console out there. It was the game box, though. It was the GameBox, though. It was the one you played a lot of these great shooters, great up-and-coming IPs that people were talking about. I think when you looked at that showcase back in June, you saw the fables, the South of Midnights, the perfect darks. I think everything goes back into that sort of xbox 360 era to where, like you don't make the most beefy box you possibly can, you just make a box that, in the end, put out the most bonkers premium games that you possibly can, and you do it at a clip before the, before your opposition has time to actually come out with theirs, because I'm like they. The 360 got such a big leap and jump on that playstation 3.
Speaker 2:It was off to the races at that point that is true, and if they're looking to replicate that strategy, it could work. But the only kind of breaks I'd put on that is that the, the original xbox, launched during the ps2 lifetime and hit a brick wall of penetration. Basically, they'd already got market saturation to that point.
Speaker 3:It didn't help that they also had boxes that were catching on fire and dying at that point too.
Speaker 2:No right. And people were kind of, Sony came out and said we're not going to be out until 2006. People had already grown tired of what the PS2 generation could do and therefore, if you wanted to experience next gen and, let's face it, some of those sizzle reels for the 360 were awe-inspiring. Probably haven't aged very well now, but at the time it was like my god, graphics can't get any better.
Speaker 2:We say that every generation and then they bizarrely do um, but you know, it's a great place to wait and the price point was super affordable, which meant that yeah, okay, I'm a hardcore Sony PlayStation 2 player. I want something new. I'm going to get the Xbox. It's affordable enough where I can ride this out and get a PS3 at the end of it. And I think a lot of people did do that. That kind of transient crowd kind of flipped from PS2 for half a gen and then flip back to ps3 for the balance of the gen. Then that transient crowd, which 360 done well to get hold of, just got sucked deep into the ps4 ecosystem. I think we've talked about gens to win or lose and they lost the worst one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yes, and you've got that many players on their system now that have either to PS plus or games have acquired naturally on the system. And I'm talking, I'm not talking physical games here, I'm talking um software. Only is is that people are too deep now to just move willy nilly as and when they please.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, I thought that too, but then, like the the point you made earlier about like everyone owning multiple consoles, I don't think it's a choose one box kind of I think that we are of the majority of players.
Speaker 2:I think people like you and I are actually quite rare to replicate that level of investment. And it's not a I've got a bigger penis than you shout. But for the average joe let's say you're a 15 year old kid you'd have someone had to summon somewhere in the region of nearly the thick end of two grand to be able to play on every system and that includes steam deck, maybe north of two grand if you want to have all of that, and I don't think that's disposable income for your average joe. I think they pick a, they pick a box at the beginning of the gen and they and they then get behind that box and defend it regardless. They have to defend their purchase and that's here's why.
Speaker 3:Here's why I think, like what you're saying is true, but here's why I think microsoft is combating that with their new marketing push of everything is an xbox. Because, like, as a parent, it's going to be a very appealing thing to say I don't have to buy a new box. I just the tablet that he already wanted for christmas plays these games. The phone that he already got because he wanted a phone growing up plays these games. Like the tv that I, that I bought for myself, automatically comes with the xbox app. It's like once they crack into that mentality becoming the mainstream, it's off to the races. The pc that I, that I got him for school, also doubles as his gaming console. Like you know, like you get what I mean. It's like it's, it's smart. It's going to take a lot of groundwork to get off the ground, but, like I, think that that probably works in a paved the way for the future scenario.
Speaker 2:I think old stalwarts like me probably still want the thing that they bought to play their thing on. I think the next generation of young people coming through, um, and I, you know, I I put that marker when generation of young people coming through and I put that marker when I say young people coming through. I put that marker at mid-20s and down. They're not overly bothered about owning something, they just want to play something.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's the roadblocks. Fortnite generation it is a very different mentality those guys coming through.
Speaker 2:I mean, yeah, they can play roadblocks on their Xbox. Yeah, they can play roadlox on the PlayStation, but they probably just choose to play Roblox lying on their back on their phone.
Speaker 3:You know the crazy thing is is like our market and our window, our generations are like dwindling down. You know like a lot of people have less time for games and such like that. So you have to go for that newer market that does have the time to play games, that does have the investment to go for it, and also you know older generations us dying off all that kind of stuff. You know like there's, there's things there xbox is trying to make that investment of like we're going we lost the middle generation, basically the middle crowd. We're going we lost the middle generation, basically the middle crowd. We're going to focus hard on the young crowd.
Speaker 3:In the end, If we do get to pick up some laps gamers here or there, you know it's just win share, it's capitalizing on that part of the market. We'll take every victory, we can get sort of thing. But you know like focusing in quote, unquote on the Nintendo market's kind of easier for them to gain ground share than focusing in on the what. What now is a hard staunched playstation ecosystem yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2:That's a. That's an interesting point. Is a matured switch player likely to go outside of the nintendo ecosystem for a bigger boy game? Yeah, I think they are um where do you?
Speaker 3:and then that's the interesting point, where?
Speaker 2:do they want to get into? Where do they want to go?
Speaker 3:yeah, do they want to go to, where they can play games anywhere, and it doesn't matter. Now, the games may not be like the highest of quality, but they not be. May not be cinema yet, I guess it depends.
Speaker 2:They can play it anywhere it depends, I guess, on your journey to the switch without you know. I think it's hard to do a broad brush. But you're a kid, you grew up with the switch. Let's say it was your first console. You arrive at the gate of, like, what do you want for christmas, little timmy? Oh, I'd like a proper big boys console. Okay, you've got one at home switch. No, mummy, I want a proper one, okay. Um, I don't know which way they would. I don't actually know which way they would turn. I mean that there's logic to say that they might ask for a steam deck. Uh, as an evolution of the experience they've been having as a parent, though.
Speaker 3:When wouldn't it be easier for and you're a parent, I'm not, so you have a little more different perspective than I have Would Game Pass be more enticing than buying a lot of games for your kid over the period of time? It depends, right. I have a younger nephew. He loves Game Pass because he can try everything and he can play Forza. The danger with.
Speaker 2:Game Pass is they try lots of things and don't actually play anything and then go back to the game that they've all been playing, which is Fortnite. That's where we're losing gamers.
Speaker 3:That's the kids' attention span, though, yeah, that's the younger attention span too, though that's what they love to do by giving them roblox, by giving them fortnite, by giving them those quick hit games, we've actually diminished.
Speaker 2:We, or developers, have taken a role in diminishing their attention window. We've actually made this worse. I mean, what's the future of gaming three second games? Can you get red dead redemption 2 compressed into a three second experience?
Speaker 3:I very much doubt it but here, here's the thing, though, like and so two points here. Like one, microsoft has a way of of also being on the forefront of younger people's minds, because we said roblox and and fortnite, what's another game that young people have really minecraft. There it goes um, they have that nostalgia for minecraft. They have that inwards ground of saying, oh, I was a minecraft person, I'll go. They have that nostalgia for minecraft. They have that inwards ground of saying, oh, I was a minecraft person, I'll go into xbox. On another thing what the what's, what's interesting of what you just said is like the market itself, the developers, everyone, and the overinflation of the cost of games, everyone's telling us that they're moving closer to wanting to do smaller projects like which, you know, I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing. I think, like triple a becoming miles morales, size isn't necessarily a bad thing. I just want cost to reflect the downward size, you know, agreed, agreed yeah.
Speaker 2:So I'm like, and it needs to, if they still want to try out a mammoth gta 6, red dead 3, similar. I actually think the upper end of that scale has shifted towards like hundred dollars I wouldn't.
Speaker 3:I it would hurt at first, but I I would get it.
Speaker 2:But like if I was promised a 60 plus hour game that would take me on an emotional roller coaster that was unrivaled in any other format tv, music, film, whatever and it was 100 bucks and it delivered on the promise. It's a no-brainer, I think.
Speaker 2:I think that's off, rock up and think that they can charge 100 bucks per game. That it's not happening. Rockstar for sure. Market once a decade nowadays, yeah, that's worth 100 bucks. Um, ubisoft's monthly stroke yearly. Uh, franchise pumps need to be mars morale. Where we're thinking mars morale is mars morale is topics. Yeah, for sure they need to be 40 bucks or less. And again, if they play production standards, that's okay yeah, I agree.
Speaker 3:I think that's why we're seeing a hard market shift of like people in general going like I'm not going to pay and I'm not meaning to pile on to star wars outlaws here, but I'm not going to pay that much for star wars outlaws out of the gate. I'm not going to pay that much for yeah, for the audio listeners. George just flipped his mic and just zoned in like he was stone cold steve austin and he heard he was that's about on my because, I'm still under contract to ubisoft what?
Speaker 3:yeah, but I mean that's the. That's like that was a hard thing to swallow with prince of persia, though like it's a. It's a metroidvania game that looks, quote unquote, like most indie games that came to the market and those indie games are selling for one third of the price of a 50 brand new game. Question for you on a totally different topic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure do I need a game of chair because I'm like legs akimbo down here, like a hippie or a commune and yeah, we are a commune. But yeah, for sure is this a bit too fast and loose for a youtube video and do I need to wear a shirt and tie?
Speaker 3:no, no, I, I like it and like it it feels. You feel more american right now than I do, if I'm being honest, because you got the blue jeans right now. You got what? It's not a camo hat, but it's kind of like it feels camo-ish, you know yeah it's the sort of cap you go skinning and elking yeah, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 3:you feel like at any given moment you could be neighbors with, like brockard in Wisconsin, sort of you got to got that vibe going on to where, like, like you would know where Atwoods and which is a home which is like a, a feed store here in America, like you would know the location of the all those in the metropolitan area I've gone to count Atwoods. Oh, do you really? No, yeah, I was about to say it wouldn't surprise me, though, based on the way you were dressed right now. But like, but no, it's. It's one of those things to where, like, I I think you're dressed perfectly, you're. You have like a visual, very casual, approachable vibe. I think that's perfectly fine and so what about this?
Speaker 3:because I almost look like jeff goldblum I think that makes it more, more approachable.
Speaker 2:You know like that's all the audio listeners now gone. They're all youtube video addicts now because they want to be stretched out like jeff goldblum. Yeah, welcome yeah welcome to the video. You fast forward to this point because you've already heard the rest in your car. Here's me like jeff goldblum yeah, that's the screenshot, everybody.
Speaker 3:That should be the. That should be the, the cover art of this episode. You gotta not like you're. You're stretched out like jeff goldblum, but you also hang on in the other hand.
Speaker 2:Let's give them this right. So we know that they love to mess around with pictures in the discord. So yeah, take the jeff goldblum picture from the jurassic park, gif or wherever it is that you find it, and I will position my head now in screen. No, no breaks, so you can then photoshop it.
Speaker 2:Hang on, yeah, if you listen, if you're an audio listener, but we, I love you. I actually love you more than a video listener he really does, but you gotta give him a treat. So, if yeah, just get a worthers original out the center console and just bear with me for 10 seconds.
Speaker 3:I'll fill in time everybody. He's posing right now. He's kind of got a Derek Zoolander vibe going on where he's kind of like shifted his head to the side, where he's thinking about something deep but you can't tell how deep it is. Oh, he's posing to the side now. It's almost like the bird watcher.
Speaker 2:I want to give him choices. So when they cut and paste me onto Jeff Goldblum's naked body, you know I don't want a digital monkery job where it's like my skin toned into Jeff's and you can see the line I want. You know you're going to need to club together here, boys. I think we're going to need the best photoshop you possibly can. We need Finster game of badBinks to work in in almost a sinuistic tag team, with the triple threat of that being Digital Monkery coming in providing photos left, right and Chelsea. If you're wondering who all these people are, I think, if I may, I've enjoyed our news breakdown, but I think I need to put some brakes on it, because people We've got to tell them about the membership plan.
Speaker 3:man, that's what we're doing. We've got to tell them about the membership plan. If you like what you're hearing, the show is always free. But if you do want to contribute to the show and let us reach new heights, help us to reach new heights and just show your appreciation, acknowledge us like, like we're your tribal chief. If you will, this is where you can do it. The link is in the description below there are tears. What are those tears?
Speaker 2:oh, this is so slick, I feel like. I feel like a bird on the exxon valdez. We've got tears. Three dollars gonna get you read out on every show. I mean that's worth it. Uh, five get you read out on every show, I mean that's worth it. $5 a read out on every show and art merch yearly. I'm not sure how we're going to do that, but it'd be a t-shirt or maybe one of our infamous fridge magnets. You're going to get that yearly and we're doing art change, so bear that in mind. $8 is going to get you read out on every show, art much yearly and access to the inglorious chat. Yes, we've got a discord. It is free, but if you're a paying member of a supporter of the show, then you get a little area where you can then get a home down going with your like-minded ucp fans. And ten dollars is going to get you a read out on the show on every show. It's going to get you art much yearly. It's going to get you a readout on the show on every show. It's going to get you art notes yearly. It's going to get access to the glorious chat and you're going to get your quarterly zoom meeting with your host.
Speaker 2:Now the first two have been ran very successfully by our GT, and I do have the second one saved on the hard drive to upload to YouTube, if that's what you guys think you would like. If not, then I can send it to you privately. I'm talking to you, unglorious members, but, more importantly than not, if you're listening to this show and you've been listening to it since day dot and you feel yourself an OG member of the show, well, I'd recommend you join the Discord. I'd also recommend to expand your value and appreciation of the show. Uh, well, I'd recommend you join the discord. I'd also recommend to expand your value and appreciation of the show. Um, you get in at the mid-level. Uh, maybe five bucks, I think, is a great starting place. Uh, you're gonna also get george's special bonus because we launched our support package this year and we are able to give people the ability to get an early adopter box. Now, if you're listening now, you slept on it, pal yep.
Speaker 2:All right, it's on you, but I'm too late to apologize, it's too late to access the exclusive merch so you're not going to get the thelma and louise themed t-shirt. You're not going to get your episode of choice on cassette, you're not going to get any of that. But I recognize you and I see you. Yeah, you, how can you have listened to all this time and not be in the discord or help support the show? Shame, shame, shame on you. But it will also be free. We know you know rely on the show to getting through dark times and whatnot, and I never want to pay all that way. It'll always be here for you.
Speaker 2:But how can you resist, for $5, getting sent your choice of art as well? So you can either do album art, stingray, whatever, um, show you're going to get a t-shirt. I don't know why I said show you're going to get a t-shirt just for signing up. You can't even go into Costco, walmart, primark, none of those places can you walk out with a t-shirt of that quality for that price and you also get to support the show. And even at $3, it's less than a coffee. Guys, just don't buy a coffee on a Monday once. Next Monday, the Monday after that, the Monday after that, you can have a coffee. But just miss one coffee and you have paid for your UCP subscription for a month. What a great deal, anyway. All that to one side, equally so you don't need to pay a thing and you can join the thousands of other freeloaders, supporters and everybody and get the privilege of the show.
Speaker 2:You're the winners. You're the winners. Yes, sir, we appreciate every single last one of you, straight out the gates. We've got our wonderful Swedish, and I have to say the amount of love I'm seeing pouring from Sweden, a country I never thought we'd conquer. We're doing great, and the leader of that charge is the immortal Seanox, a subscriber and lovely person from Sweden. So thank you for that. You've helped us penetrate the ice block, which we super appreciate. Who's next Handsome, young said, or do you have the list?
Speaker 3:No, I was going to ask is this a new list, by the way? Because I'm like I did not see the penetration of Sweden on the list.
Speaker 2:You might not. So, seanox, if you missed your readout last week, then I'm going to read out your name again, seanox. Well done, we're up to speed with each other. Now I do have the old school list as well. It's not that old, because we seem to be attracting members. Yeah for sure. Like a four day old corpse tracks flies said so. Next is Carlos. I don't know why I said it in that way. Let me say it again for you, carlos.
Speaker 3:I'm getting used to some new teeth hold on, hold on, george, since you've been away, there's been a new tradition on the show that Scotty and I have started. You're going to have to adapt or die.
Speaker 2:Do you know what Adapt or die?
Speaker 3:Adapt or die. I'm adapting on the fly.
Speaker 2:What do I need to do?
Speaker 3:Okay, so we're reading out these names. Each name has to have a slightly different accent of some sort. These people have paid for the goodness. They have to get the goodness.
Speaker 2:Okay, so straight out the gates. It's the one man, george, fan club Carlos all the way from Australia. See if he can top that Seb, who's next Trestles New York. Okay, well, I'm gonna do. Ay, it's phone returns.
Speaker 3:Bada bing star.
Speaker 2:So that means I. Now then, mayor, to your right down, there is tingle tuna, did you know? Mekly like a real space monk. So I have the gaming grand. I'm out of. I'm out of, Like a real space monk. So I have the gaming grand. I'm out of safe accents without getting myself into some form of legal trouble Translation.
Speaker 3:You make it safe.
Speaker 2:He's losing it everybody he's absolutely unless you want a low, bright, low price, apu, uh, and I don't think that's right and proper anymore. So I guess, uh, uh, oh god, where did we get to balbora? Balbora, which means I get boba lo Labor going brown. How is Biscuit?
Speaker 3:He's doing good Everybody for the audio listener. Biscuit is my four-year-old labradoodle.
Speaker 2:No, it's not yours. I don't know if you know this, but I put some small print in your contract, which you obviously readily sign because of all the big books that you get. Oh, absolutely. But, you realize that Biscuit is owned by the UCP conglomerate. He's a UCP pooch, the UCP pooch. I couldn't say that. I'll tell you that. So I got going brown boba labour, which means you get.
Speaker 3:Mr, mr Marathon Gaming.
Speaker 2:Oh, you mean like accents, like that? Okay, so does it mean I get to see a little Master Elliot change?
Speaker 3:good old MS Shop the apples and stairs or the apps y'all are going to have to tell me this story about the apps, by the way one day.
Speaker 2:I don't even know it myself the next one hobby retro, which now, according to the new way we do things, I uh, I recently found myself just outside of nottingham and it's exactly the sort of place where you'd expect to find someone who's nowhere near berlin I heard that this person was like the carmen san diego of the show like oh, the where's waldo?
Speaker 3:you never know where they are, but you know they're nowhere near berlin. That's the only thing I know for sure all right, I'm gonna try to do my george rT impersonation when I first learned this word. Mumsy.
Speaker 2:I get the one man. Army RGT gets a whole fan club. Fair play to you All right, pete Brocklehurst.
Speaker 3:Which means I get the beautiful Billy Marmite.
Speaker 2:You got to take this next one because I got to bring us home. Man. Oh you oh right, you oh right. I was okay, that's in your contract as well yeah, it's in the contract.
Speaker 3:I gotta follow the rules so thank you to simon simon prike you you kind of have to do it like big E from the New Day whenever he's tirading. I'll tell you what.
Speaker 2:I know that you were probably challenging your New Day persona there, but what I actually saw what I actually saw, seb and this is going to be a deep cut for you is I saw Val Venus pre-towel rip hello ladies. Exactly what I saw.
Speaker 3:You dirty little rat sex fest you're talking about a deviant from the Attitude Era of wrestling. Val Medus was like a deviant man.
Speaker 2:It was the hand here. That was Val. Why did I just turn into an unmovable mannequin, like what happened? I just just did the robot. I mean further to the stereotype that I've got no styling and you've got all the dancing prowlers you sort of looks like you were ready to ballroom dance, but the music started to abruptly.
Speaker 3:You know, like it was like you, you're like oh, I wasn't ready are you ready yet?
Speaker 2:I almost forgot that I was a multi-articulated human being and kind of locked off like a 3.75-inch Kenner Star Wars toy from 1979. That's it. That's all I've got. That's all I've got.
Speaker 3:If we've done that, don't ever change, don't ever change.
Speaker 2:We've done a good chunk of the news. I think we've covered off some of the juicy stories this week?
Speaker 3:oh, absolutely. Um, it really gets to this point where I ask you, good sir, what you're hoping to play. Um, honestly, it's the week of thanksgiving slash black friday here in the us, so I probably won't be playing a whole lot of anything. Um, I am right now like I realized I skipped over some of the like the WWE 2K campaign this year of like, and I'm kind of got it kind of don't worry about it. I know what George feels about the new iteration of the.
Speaker 2:I had a couple of goes on it and I'll be honest with you, I was so far away from blown away yeah, I get that dead.
Speaker 3:I get that Dead. I get that the new combo based system isn't beloved. But, like I, it's one of those things to where, like this year, I'm I'm a pro wrestling fan and this year is like survivor series, like time of the year with war games and it's sort of interesting with like the OG bloodline of Roman Reigns versus Sosa Cola, so Sosa Cola, and then like CM Punk's on Roman Reigns side right now and you know, like you know all these things are going on.
Speaker 2:I think the product's in a great place. I mean, it's a wrestling show, but obviously with it going free to view on Netflix as well. I think that, um, I feel like the brands in the ascendancy. I don't know if it could ever eclipse the attitude here. I don't think it could ever eclipse what I refer to as the icon era. I don't know what the people call it, but you know the eighties, you know, yeah, for sure I would call that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the territorial icon era, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, that was a big moment for them. Then obviously they Obviously they dropped off. The product was not unsuccessful in any way, but it didn't hit those high points and the Attitude Era kicked in and they hooked into a zeitgeist at the moment and they ran with it. With the penetration of the mainstream, with Netflix, et cetera, beginning in January, I think it's on a worldwide deal that takes WWE to places it's never been before and I think once WWE has eyes on it, it feels the pressure to perform and historically always has. So.
Speaker 2:To me, the app was always going to be a tough sell. But getting in on an app that other people have already got, I think… Easy money, easy money. It's a no-brainer and you might not see… let's face it, you're not going to see remuneration through your tv deal with netflix. I don't think right. But you're going to see remuneration through physical appearances of shows all across the world. You're going to see it in merchandise sales going through the roof if you can get that character to hit, stick and go home. Uh, I'm talking stone cold towels. I'm talking stone cold cans. I'm talking stone cold drink coolers. I'm talking stone-cold towels. I'm talking stone-cold cans. I'm talking stone-cold drink coolers. I'm talking stone-cold toolboxes, all that ramble. There's a moment for that again. I don't think any of the stars that they've got at the moment and I think this is a good thing I don't think any of the stars they've got at the moment are already.
Speaker 2:They haven't been enough yet. None of them are that character, no, but I think with the eyes on, within that moment someone in the roster who's probably been overlooked will rise, because with that eyes on, you've got people never seen wrestling before. Potentially.
Speaker 3:It'll be the 360 moment all over again, because Austin wasn't like a main star. He was like that the promo of. Like the 316 promo, where he was king. That the promo of like the 316 promo, where he was king of the ring. King of the ring to another yeah, it was the.
Speaker 2:It was the kickstart of that and I think that's really what put it was already fully formed as stone cold in that moment. Yeah, he just needed the eyes on and recognition. Obviously, history dictates it. From that point onwards, the arena was filled with 360 316 signs. Yeah, for sure you know that's, that's wonderful, yeah they.
Speaker 3:They have a whole bunch of mcfoley's, but not enough triple h's and stone colds yet, and I think, like once they get to those, those characters, I'll even go as far as to say they've got.
Speaker 2:They've got brett hart's on the roster in a way.
Speaker 3:Yeah, brett hart, since yeah, they just need a sean yeah yeah, they've got those transitionary characters that normally go between eras.
Speaker 2:They're absolutely perfect. You know great wrestler talent, great mic work, great in front of the camera, the lot. But the brand's dipped and it doesn't have eyes on it.
Speaker 3:But it's about to get more eyes on than it has ever, ever had and to me they gotta nail that though, because the tyson and the tyson and what was it? Um, um, the paul fight kind of illustrated netflix's limitations there. Netflix isn't ready for that infrastructure of like a live show yet, but they need to be by in december.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't think we need to be worried about that. That was always going to get way more viewers. I think the viewer count for wwe is going to be way down on that. So streaming quality you think so?
Speaker 2:yeah, I do. Yeah, I do wwe, apart from a quick sort of coming soon part on the netflix, it's not broken the zeitgeist with the fact it's going to netflix, so I think it will be a surprise to a lot of people. I think you had to have been living under a rock or dead or possibly a druid in out of mongolia not to know that tyson was fighting jake paul on that day yeah, that's true, that's true.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, um, I don't really have anything I'm hoping to play. I'll probably play a little. It's going to be casual gaming for me, so I don't have anything like big planned. Um, I'm curious about indiana jones, but I'm not like super curious and stalker. Two just came out and I, even though I was rooting for that game, it came out with a whole lot of problems and I'm trying to wait for them to patch a lot of those problems up. You know what about you, george? What are you? What are you?
Speaker 2:probably tearing to. Well, I'm going to play a little bit of city skylines. Uh, I've been playing a little bit of mlb again recently. I mean, I don't dump, I don't dump everything on you that I've been playing. I try and pick out the interesting bits. So there'll be a little bit more mlb. I should imagine I've been enjoying that again. Uh, I needed a break, um, but now's that time, uh, getting ready for the new game coming out, so I'll give sony even more money.
Speaker 3:Uh, that's march, isn't it like march, early february? Yeah yeah late february, end of march, early, late fed.
Speaker 2:It's around spring training time, right. Yeah, mid-march, I would say, I think, is the release point for that historically. Um, the man who changed his name or erased his name I've probably said it wrong about 10 times on this episode. So don't it's, yeah's Yakuza. We get it. It's already in community corrections, I've already typed it. Now they're hearing this and going can I delete? Don't just leave it Just. Uh, yeah, we'd like the engagement. Yeah, we're desperate for it. So we say things wrong on purpose. So there's that. Uh, between now and next time I record, I might finish Horizon, if you've got a.
Speaker 3:PlayStation Pro update, so that'd be fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, like I said at the top, it's great, but there aren't any surprises to people who've finished it as many times as I have and that's starting to sort of come home a little bit in the third act, I would say. But initially it was great, it still is great, but it depends how many times you want to replay it.
Speaker 3:The breaking news right now is that the Last of Us, part 1 and Part 2, has now received a PlayStation Pro update. I thought one already had. It looks like some of the enhanceability is what I'm reading right now. Some of the accessibility stuff wasn't moved over and they added some patchwork to it, so maybe it's just a small patch.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, listen, I'm for it. To me the game was working well, but if it puts back in the accessibility features for people that aren't as fortunate as you or I said, I think it's a full boon. Fair play to him. I'm trying to think what else I've been grinding through City, skylines, frostpunk. I've kicked that to the curb. It's a great game.
Speaker 2:It got too heavy. It's not too heavy, it's just to play it through the way they want you to play it through. It's not as rewarding as I thought it would be. Oh, gotcha, you know the way the skill tree unlocks or the tech tree unlocks is a bit annoying. If you want to play through the story mode, that's also very restrictive. If you want to play in sandbox mode and on the map that you choose, it's quite restrictive. So it's a great game and I recommend it to everybody that's even mildly interested in those kind of games. But I don't think I could stick much on past a 7.1, if I'm honest. Maybe when it launched it would have had a fresher, higher score, but now, in the light of some of the other games like Anno, it's a 7.2 at best. That's not a bad score by the way. No, no for sure not.
Speaker 2:If Star Wars Outlaws my game of the year with a 6 out of 10, then it probably tells you everything you need to know about this game, and I contract to Ubisoft and Bellatro. But that probably brings us to the end of this episode. I need to get better at being on on video. Hi, youtube, I forget I'm recording this for you half the time. Um, yeah, I think that draws uh close. Nice little bit of closing news from you, seb. Is there anything else you want to deliver before I get pastor to tune up the band, or yeah, everybody.
Speaker 3:Um, uh, scotty's been putting out good work uh really good work on his youtube channel. Go check him out at marathon gaming at youtubecom.
Speaker 2:Um, definitely yeah, his latest game, care collection video, got me wetter than a starfish in the mariana trench yeah, so definitely go check him out.
Speaker 3:Um, you know like be on the lookout. The ucp is always doing some really cool things. Um, check out the Discord there. My podcast, the Single Player Experience, is releasing a drop of new episodes this week. Go check those out. Really really fun topics there. And you know, I want to issue out a challenge here. We're doing the Game of the Year Ponzi Awards coming soon. I want people, anyone who wants to participate in that, because I want to do a fan side of that as well, and this is the perfect time for it. So if you're listening at this point and you have a game that is released in 2024 and you think it deserves to be Game of the Year, send us a special message via Discord or the Instagram or anywhere else. We'd like to make a record of that and decide what is going to be the fan voted game of the year for the ucp so great, great idea.
Speaker 2:I think we've done it historically. That's a nice way of doing it. That brings in all the different touch points that we're on now. So we've got x, we've got discord, we've got um instagram yeah, let us know what the youtube as well, so if you watch, yeah, hello mom if you're watching this, if you want to let us know what the We've got the YouTube as well.
Speaker 2:so if you're watching hello mum, if you're watching this, if you want to let us know what your favourite episode was, you write it down there. You click comment and then you write it in. And just for the record, mumsy, yours and I's favourite game was Star Wars Outlaws yeah.
Speaker 3:I think it's pronounced a little differently, you know.
Speaker 2:Type it in six times Mumsy, okay, gotcha, gotcha, enter, enter, enter, enter. That's nailed, that one for fan choice Perfect.
Speaker 3:Did you hear the story about Star Wars Outlaws, about them not wanting Steam to publish? I mean, people were playing it at one given time lately, the Cuckoo playing mode? Yes, they wanted them to remove the concurrent player mode. Is that the story that the was it the verge broke earlier this week?
Speaker 2:and we talked off air about sort of youtube and all that sort of stuff. Yeah, to be honest, if you want to be on these platforms, you've, you've uh, it's not like audio, where you are behind a wall of anonymity. You've really got to show what you've got and I I think that Steam concurrent users is a metric to live by in some ways, as a studio should aspire to have the highest number there possible, and if you've got a low number, it's probably the fan base's way of saying you haven't got this quite right.
Speaker 3:Everyone also, before we go, a story just broke, um, not even, not even 24 hours ago. Star wars out. This comes from the inverse. Star wars outlaws. New expansion is a sleeper hit.
Speaker 2:I didn't see coming, was was wrote, I told you and you wouldn't have it from me, that is gonna be amazing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they're saying like the, the expansion content is being really good. I think it's the lando cal calrissian um featured content. A lot of people seem to like that um maybe to bring people back to the game.
Speaker 2:The only reason why I'm not playing it is because I bought ps5 pro and haven't. It's not pro enhanced yet oh kind of, but that's not Pro Enhanced yet Kind of. But that's not my problem. My problem is I have Star Wars Outlaws on physical, oh, and I don't have a disk drive. Oh, no, oh no. And with that we're going to kick it to the outro, because the only thing that's going to cheer me up is pasta singing voice.
Speaker 2:And that's all we have time for this week. Listeners, always thank you for your time. We look forward to the pleasure of speaking to you again next week. Until then, happy gaming and remember there's nothing wrong with being given an official controller. It's what you do with it that counts. See you set. Bye everybody. George and seb rolling down the road, rgt, riding shotgun heavy load.
Speaker 1:Pastor Longhorn waiting to unfold An El Paso, texas tale's been told, one-armed being a sight to see. Pastor preach, preach, set you free. Georgians said they'd bend the knee. Rgt nodding, yes, in glee. Join the cult in El Paso town when Pastor Longhorn's got his crown One arm high, the other down. We're the wildest show around. Sunday's hot, the desert air. Georgians said oh, feel the glare. Longhorn's words hang everywhere. Salvation found without a care. Sunday's hot, the desert air. Georgians said oh, feel the glare. Longhorn's words hang everywhere. Salvation found without a care. Rgt plays a sacred tune Underneath the El Paso moon. Longhorn grins from afternoon to the night. They'll see it soon. Join the colton in a pass of town where Pastor Longhorn's got his crown One high, the other down. We're the wildest show around. We're the wildest show around.
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