Latest / Respec: Video Game Ramblings / Xbox cuts, Hairline face-off, and is less more in Assassin’s Creed? | Respec Ramblings 2

Transcript

Xbox cuts, Hairline face-off, and is less more in Assassin’s Creed? | Respec Ramblings 2 · Respec: Video Game Ramblings

• 0:03
  It is the 10th of July, it is hotter than Satan's
• 0:06
  taint, and you're listening to the Respec Ramblings
• 0:10
  podcast for Respec .net. With me, Alex Donaldson,
• 0:14
  and I'm joined this week by Tom Ory and by Mr.
• 0:19
  Kurt McKean, a good old friend and colleague
• 0:21
  of ours. How you doing, guys? Alright, I was
• 0:24
  a bit taken back by your rude opening. Is that
• 0:27
  what we are? Is that what we are? Well, it's...
• 0:31
  It's unseasonably, unfairly hot. It is tainty
• 0:36
  as well, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I put this
• 0:40
  top on and this colour is not good because it's
• 0:42
  a colour where we can't podcast for too long
• 0:44
  in this room with fans off because I will be
• 0:48
  looking very gross by the end of it. But yeah,
• 0:53
  how are you guys actually... Do you have fans?
• 0:56
  Do you have air conditioning? Obviously, we're
• 0:58
  British. I've got loads of fans. I'm the most
• 0:59
  popular games journalist. We're not talking about
• 1:02
  your only fans. Games media personality in the
• 1:05
  UK. No fans up here. I've got a fan downstairs.
• 1:08
  Window's open. I'm not wearing any pants, but
• 1:11
  it doesn't matter. Is that the American version
• 1:13
  of pants or British pants? I'll leave that for
• 1:16
  you to decide, Tom. Podcasting Commando is, you
• 1:21
  know, if we're establishing what this website
• 1:24
  is perhaps about, you know, I think there's worse
• 1:27
  things we could be associated with. And it shows,
• 1:31
  you know, we're open. We're open people. We're
• 1:33
  accepting of all kinds. So, yeah, I mean, Kirk,
• 1:39
  how are you? What are you up to these days? Tell
• 1:41
  folks a little bit about it. Obviously, I think
• 1:43
  a lot of people who are listening to this are
• 1:44
  coming at it from... um mine and tom's past history
• 1:47
  so they'll know you from the work you did with
• 1:50
  us and things like that but what are you up to
• 1:52
  these days yeah so uh we were running a company
• 1:56
  that did gaming coverage for mainstream sites
• 1:58
  uh but google changes basically destroyed us
• 2:02
  there which is excellent um but now we're doing
• 2:04
  newsletters gaming .fi side with his head chat
• 2:08
  um And we're talking to game devs, actors, and
• 2:12
  all sorts of people and trying to get down to
• 2:14
  their personalities. It's not just about the
• 2:16
  stuff they make. It's more like getting to know
• 2:18
  them and what makes them tick and trying to make
• 2:20
  them cry. Trying to make them cry. Well, you
• 2:23
  know, it's better than the usual way that media
• 2:26
  makes game devs cry, which is usually by a bad
• 2:31
  review. A bad review or by ringing them up and
• 2:34
  going, have you heard that there's going to be
• 2:35
  cuts? Yeah. Which just happened a bit this last
• 2:39
  week. Yeah, yeah. Sounds like bullying. Are you
• 2:43
  just bullying people? Yeah, but it's people I
• 2:46
  know mostly, so it's fine. Fair enough. I mean,
• 2:49
  that's what we were all about on VG back in the
• 2:53
  day. Speaking of devs crying, though, I guess
• 2:57
  let's roll into really the news topic of the
• 3:02
  week, which is... difficult and shitty and awful
• 3:05
  which is i think you'd have to have been living
• 3:07
  under a rock to not know about it the absolutely
• 3:10
  catastrophic cuts that are going to be happening
• 3:12
  at xbox if you have missed it or you haven't
• 3:15
  digested all of the details um the cliff notes
• 3:19
  are xbox has announced they're going to be laying
• 3:21
  off over 3 000 employees they're quoting 3 200
• 3:25
  but that's a very rough top line number so it
• 3:29
  might end up being a little bit more than that
• 3:30
  might end up being a little bit less than that
• 3:32
  but around 3200 um they're going to get rid of
• 3:36
  1600 now and then more over the the next 12 months
• 3:40
  um there's four studios that are leaving xbox
• 3:44
  entirely um so compulsion games who made south
• 3:48
  midnight and double fine obviously it's brutal
• 3:50
  legend and stacking and all these games um will
• 3:53
  go independent And Ninja Theory and Undead Labs
• 3:57
  have new buyers, but we don't know who they are.
• 4:00
  So it'd be interesting to see where they land.
• 4:03
  And then there's just brutal cuts elsewhere.
• 4:05
  25 % of Obsidian, Rebecca Valentine reported
• 4:09
  on Kotaku. Around 50 % of id Software, Game Developer
• 4:13
  and other places reported. Some really long time
• 4:16
  names, you know, people who've worked at places
• 4:19
  like Bethesda Game Studios for 20, 30 years.
• 4:23
  Hundreds of people out at ZeniMax online. It's
• 4:27
  pretty brutal. Kirk, what have you felt when
• 4:31
  you've been watching all this go down? What's
• 4:33
  your feeling been? It's just a fucking disaster,
• 4:36
  isn't it? I mean, Spencer is responsible for
• 4:40
  a lot of it. He's failed the company and then
• 4:43
  Ash has come in to fail it even more by the looks
• 4:45
  of it. She's in charge of federal jobs now, right?
• 4:49
  as well which is very funny yes um yeah i don't
• 4:53
  know it just feels like cultural dismantling
• 4:55
  and the way they've dealt with id software for
• 4:58
  example laying off the entire tech team if rumors
• 5:01
  are to be believed and and just then they're
• 5:04
  saying they want them to make their tentpole
• 5:06
  games faster with half the resources and they've
• 5:09
  put obsidian on fallout which is like a monkey's
• 5:11
  paw sort of situation where it's what people
• 5:14
  wanted but now they got half the team And they're
• 5:17
  probably not as passionate about that project
• 5:19
  as they would be about their own thing. And they've
• 5:22
  got to work with Bethesda's engine, which is
• 5:24
  going to create all sorts of problems because
• 5:26
  it's obviously changed a lot since New Vegas
• 5:28
  as well. So they've got to learn the tools. It's
• 5:31
  just every direction of it is just bonkers. Challenging,
• 5:36
  isn't it? Because the Fallout thing is a great
• 5:38
  example of you get... I've seen a few different
• 5:41
  reactions. One reaction has been, well, it's
• 5:43
  about damn time. Microsoft should have told them
• 5:45
  that they had to do that years ago. And you can
• 5:48
  see the logic on that argument, but the argument
• 5:50
  also becomes clearly this wasn't happening before
• 5:53
  now because either Bethesda or Obsidian or both
• 5:58
  didn't want to do it. And so now you've got these
• 6:01
  devs doing something that they really didn't
• 6:04
  originally intend to do. Tom, what's your thoughts
• 6:10
  on the overall? It's just sad, isn't it, really?
• 6:14
  You look at, like, I mean, we knew it was going
• 6:16
  to be a lot of people affected. It just, everything
• 6:20
  kind of leaked out, right? There was big stuff.
• 6:24
  Then you look at, like, if you look at Id, for
• 6:26
  example, who have been around for, what, five
• 6:32
  years? I don't know, a long time. And you think
• 6:37
  of them as, like, I guess how you think of like
• 6:39
  when you're a kid, you think of your parents,
• 6:41
  right? They're going to be around forever. Like
• 6:42
  they're just there all the time, right? They're
• 6:45
  like such a kind of staple of the games industry.
• 6:49
  And you figured that they had like Microsoft
• 6:52
  were talking about maybe suggesting that maybe
• 6:54
  they're going to lean more heavily on owned software,
• 6:58
  owned technology rather than licensed stuff.
• 7:00
  And they have technology that the company is
• 7:03
  like partly what it is because of the technology
• 7:06
  it made. um and now that all seems to have been
• 7:09
  like obviously still have it but the people that
• 7:12
  made it well that team's gone so yeah it's just
• 7:16
  sad that's happening and then you get thing like
• 7:21
  studios like uh um undead labs who as far as
• 7:28
  i could see were one of the few that had made
• 7:30
  a successful kind of almost live servicey game
• 7:34
  in uh State of Decay and 2 was really successful
• 7:38
  3 was looking decent and it felt like given the
• 7:43
  Xbox slate that was kind of like a reasonably
• 7:46
  safe bet as a game that was going to do quite
• 7:50
  well and that's been they've been cut loose Ninja
• 7:53
  Theory they've made I mean they were allowed
• 7:57
  I guess to make a fairly niche in Hellblade 2,
• 8:03
  but then the new one looked like exactly the
• 8:05
  kind of game that I guess people were saying,
• 8:06
  well, you make a game like this, that was going
• 8:09
  to maybe look like the kind of game Sony would
• 8:10
  make, right? As a Sony first party game. And
• 8:14
  they've gone. And obviously that's all because
• 8:17
  they're not what Xbox see as the main IP, the
• 8:21
  big halos, the gears, et cetera, the Forza kind
• 8:24
  of games, which they're focusing on, the fallouts,
• 8:27
  Elder Scrolls, et cetera. You kind of wonder,
• 8:32
  like, they've got all this, their new plan, I
• 8:37
  guess, is let's pump out more halos, pump out
• 8:39
  more gears, pump out more fallout, etc. But these
• 8:42
  games, some of these things they're cutting,
• 8:44
  like, there's going to be a void for a while.
• 8:48
  You can't just go, actually, let's have a new
• 8:51
  fallout next year, please. Like, it doesn't happen
• 8:53
  like that, right? So it feels like they're kind
• 8:55
  of gutting things. and then we go i don't know
• 8:58
  what they're going to do to fill this gap where
• 9:00
  there probably would have been all these other
• 9:01
  little games coming out to like people would
• 9:04
  have liked to maybe not have sold them amazingly
• 9:05
  well but it felt like that showcase when it seems
• 9:10
  like an absolute eternity ago now which was what
• 9:14
  last month um was actually like we came off the
• 9:18
  back of that and we're like yeah some good stuff
• 9:20
  here right good stuff and then most of that stuff
• 9:23
  it's now not even it's like an investor pitch
• 9:25
  on it yeah it's so it's so bizarre to look back
• 9:28
  at it now um but a lot of that stuff like i like
• 9:33
  thought looked pretty good obviously state of
• 9:35
  decay we talked about hellblade looked good um
• 9:38
  and it's just like those things that exist hopefully
• 9:42
  and hopefully the people that have that are picking
• 9:45
  these things up will continue there was some
• 9:47
  talk in the the the note wasn't there that the
• 9:50
  xbox for out that there was continued Possibly
• 9:53
  continue a bit of investment in them to get those
• 9:54
  games published. So they've got runway. All four
• 9:59
  studios have runway money. But this is actually
• 10:01
  the thing that I would say is that I've seen
• 10:04
  a lot of people saying, well, they've let them
• 10:06
  go. They haven't shut them down. So that's really
• 10:07
  good. And it is really good. But I don't think
• 10:10
  anybody should be under the illusions that this
• 10:12
  isn't a hard landing. Because like, so. You've
• 10:17
  got two versions of this hard landing, right?
• 10:18
  The harder one, without a shadow of a doubt,
• 10:21
  is the one that Compulsion and Double Fine are
• 10:22
  getting, where the situation therein is they
• 10:25
  probably don't have any games that are close
• 10:27
  to release, given how recently their recent games
• 10:30
  came out. So that's why there's no third -party
• 10:34
  buyer for those guys, because they haven't got
• 10:36
  anything imminent. So if you're buying them,
• 10:38
  you might be waiting two, three, four years for
• 10:40
  a return on your investment. So Microsoft's giving
• 10:43
  them some runoff money. to stand up projects
• 10:46
  of their own. But the thing is, that runoff money
• 10:49
  isn't going to fund Double Fine's next game.
• 10:52
  What that runoff money is going to do is fund
• 10:54
  Double Fine for a period of time. In that period
• 10:57
  of time, Double Fine's going to have to try to
• 10:59
  find a publisher or find investment, find a plan
• 11:02
  to self -publish in order to actually continue
• 11:07
  to operate. And if they don't find that by the
• 11:10
  time whatever deal Microsoft has given them expires,
• 11:12
  then... we could be in a situation in nine months,
• 11:17
  in 12 months, where we're looking at more cuts
• 11:19
  at those studios. So that's scary. And then the
• 11:23
  other version, obviously, the Ninja Fury and
• 11:24
  Undead Labs one is those guys have got games
• 11:26
  that are, you know, sort of in the final stretch
• 11:29
  that are within 12 months of shipping or so.
• 11:32
  So that's obviously really attractive for whoever.
• 11:34
  I don't know who it might be, a 2K, whoever,
• 11:36
  who might come in and go, yeah, we'll publish
• 11:38
  Day of Decay. But if that game is not... A hit
• 11:44
  doesn't meet expectation, whatever. Who knows
• 11:46
  what situation those studios will end up in.
• 11:48
  So it's a really rocky departure. Mind you, a
• 11:52
  rocky departure is better than the alternative.
• 11:55
  And I do think, you know, there were a lot of
• 11:57
  rumors. There was a lot of stuff said. And I
• 11:59
  do think there's never smoke without fire. And
• 12:02
  I think when a lot of that stuff was getting
• 12:03
  reported, stuff was getting reported because
• 12:07
  it was being looked at. and experimented with
• 12:12
  so you know a good example is you know um christian
• 12:14
  on the games business you know he was saying
• 12:17
  he obviously reported that obsidian was in talks
• 12:20
  and he said that ended up being not true at the
• 12:24
  time that he reported it but the reason he reported
• 12:26
  is he saw an internal document that was like
• 12:29
  the document that was about how they were the
• 12:31
  document about how they were going to pitch the
• 12:33
  studios that they were selling to other people
• 12:35
  and obsidian was on that document and so i think
• 12:40
  they were going what are we going to do which
• 12:42
  ones are we getting we'd have rich ones we're
• 12:43
  keeping which speaks to the sort of crazy way
• 12:46
  that microsoft has been operating or very last
• 12:49
  minute right that it seems like the thing about
• 12:52
  hellblade is well right it's not my sort of game
• 12:54
  but hellblade 2 was the exact sort of game that
• 12:58
  the xbox audience loves to show off in like clips
• 13:01
  and stuff to show this is how powerful our system
• 13:04
  is and that sort of thing It's like a rise son
• 13:06
  of Rome, right? It's one of those games where
• 13:08
  all those fanboys will share clips and be like,
• 13:12
  look how powerful the Xbox Series X is. The fastest
• 13:15
  and most powerful game console on the planet,
• 13:17
  I believe, is the official terminology. Exactly.
• 13:19
  And I mean, it might not be a big blockbuster,
• 13:22
  but it does something for the brand in that way.
• 13:25
  Well, I think it speaks to a changing of the
• 13:27
  guard, right? Because something I, my understanding
• 13:30
  was that State of Decay, for instance, was a
• 13:32
  particular favorite of Phil's. And so to see
• 13:36
  that go feels quite, his era is over. Although
• 13:40
  that one being going is weird because Asha talked
• 13:43
  about the sort of games she wanted and she talked
• 13:45
  about games that were creating social experiences
• 13:50
  and stuff like that. And State of Decay is exactly
• 13:52
  that. So I would have thought they would have
• 13:54
  wanted to have kept that. I was really surprised
• 13:56
  by that because it just felt like we've seen
• 13:59
  how bad Sony have been going after a live service.
• 14:03
  game right that is successful step decay is not
• 14:06
  it's not like destiny or anything but it is the
• 14:09
  kind of game that they could have a long long
• 14:11
  tail make good money off long term and it's just
• 14:14
  i don't quite get why they've dropped that as
• 14:16
  such but um it's the whole thing's bizarre like
• 14:20
  i'm kind of surprised that the studios have have
• 14:24
  been able to be sold off at all really because
• 14:26
  you look we look at what happened with when perfect
• 14:29
  dark got cancelled right and they failed because
• 14:33
  of what ip issues ownership i guess of perfect
• 14:36
  dark i mean we will we will see in terms of i
• 14:41
  mean that was a funny one because again that
• 14:43
  speaks to the difference in the eras so when
• 14:46
  2k was trying to buy perfect dark my understanding
• 14:49
  of that situation is that deal fell apart because
• 14:52
  of the impositions that microsoft wanted to put
• 14:55
  on the finished game after 2k had finished it
• 14:59
  so for instance microsoft was like we'll sell
• 15:02
  you perfect dark but we but i think it was something
• 15:05
  along the lines of we'll sell you the game we'll
• 15:08
  give you the leads the studio you can rescue
• 15:09
  the studio and stuff but we want to keep the
• 15:11
  ip or keep at hand on the ip maybe some sort
• 15:15
  of you know first first refusal on exclusivity
• 15:17
  of a sequel or something like that and the big
• 15:19
  thing was they wanted to make sure that game
• 15:22
  remained a day one game pass game. And if you're
• 15:25
  2K, you look at that and go, well, where's our
• 15:28
  money coming from then? And so then you end up
• 15:31
  in a situation where 2K were like, this isn't
• 15:33
  going to work for us, bye bye. Now, the one thing
• 15:35
  that's already been said is that State of Decay
• 15:38
  is not going to be on game pass day one. So whoever
• 15:40
  they've sold... It's not a... requirement at
• 15:44
  least i guess they could still they could they
• 15:46
  could strike a game but still but the point is
• 15:48
  i guess that was something that when they cancelled
• 15:50
  perfect dark in the phil era they weren't willing
• 15:53
  to entertain that idea and so perfect dark just
• 15:55
  literally didn't get rescued as a direct result
• 15:58
  of that it is my understanding of what happened
• 16:00
  um whereas in this case they appear to be willing
• 16:03
  to let stuff go same for like they've let compulsion
• 16:06
  go with their ips so compulsion owned south of
• 16:09
  midnight so that's one of the avenues that's
• 16:11
  open to compulsion now right in this difficult
• 16:14
  period of they need to find money they've got
• 16:17
  this award -winning game can they find a way
• 16:19
  to kickstart sales same for double fine you know
• 16:23
  ps5 version of kiln whatever they're walking
• 16:26
  away with their ip which is not something i think
• 16:28
  they would have done before the funny thing is
• 16:32
  though the um I'm not funny, but the notable
• 16:36
  thing is we're looking at the impact and we're
• 16:39
  looking at these studios and we're looking at
• 16:40
  the number of jobs within Microsoft. But game
• 16:43
  development is so decentralized now and game
• 16:46
  publishing is so decentralized now. I worry about
• 16:49
  the repercussions in a couple of months as contracts
• 16:52
  wind down or contracts that have already wound
• 16:55
  down at the end of this fiscal, the repercussions
• 16:58
  of those not getting renewed comes through. And
• 16:59
  you've already seen a bit of that in terms of
• 17:01
  like the IO interactive. Yeah. But that's across
• 17:06
  all departments. Like, you know, outsource PR,
• 17:10
  outsource marketing, outsource localization,
• 17:12
  translation, outsource distribution for consoles.
• 17:15
  There will have been massive cuts in those areas
• 17:18
  as well. And who knows how, one, how many jobs
• 17:21
  are going to go. Two, how that is going to impact
• 17:23
  the business. Jobs that aren't actually part
• 17:26
  of that 3 ,200 that are technically outside Microsoft.
• 17:28
  So they're technically not Microsoft's problem.
• 17:31
  Even from a cold CEO perspective as well, it's
• 17:34
  like all of this industry knowledge that's just
• 17:38
  going to leave the industry now and go to private
• 17:41
  sector jobs outside of the games industry. It's
• 17:44
  like, what a fucking waste, man. It's a huge,
• 17:49
  huge, as it always is when we get these sort
• 17:52
  of cuts, it's a huge loss because the amount
• 17:54
  of knowledge and expertise we lose as an industry
• 17:57
  is a massive bummer. They certainly had this
• 18:01
  recently, right? They gutted Bungie, right? And
• 18:04
  like, at the same time, they're saying, let's
• 18:07
  keep making live service games. But the studio
• 18:11
  they spent a fortune on to make live service
• 18:13
  games has been stripped back massively. It's
• 18:16
  all like, I get that maybe the thing that they
• 18:20
  were currently doing maybe wasn't making the
• 18:22
  money they wanted or whatever. But those people
• 18:24
  have done stuff that most studios dream of doing,
• 18:28
  right? Which is... making a hugely successful
• 18:30
  live service game, and then most of them are
• 18:32
  gone. It's hard to make sense of it other than
• 18:34
  from a let's cut the money now to save us some
• 18:37
  money in our next yearly report. It's a stock
• 18:40
  game, isn't it? At the end of the day, they're
• 18:42
  not thinking like a company that sells products.
• 18:45
  They're thinking like someone is beholden to
• 18:47
  their shareholders. I was literally told that
• 18:51
  there was an amount. of cents on the dollar where
• 18:55
  basically they were looking at studios and and
• 18:58
  things like that and going well if you're not
• 19:00
  returning more than x amount on every dollar
• 19:03
  spent that's not enough you've got to either
• 19:06
  change or go and so this is what's happened with
• 19:09
  id tech right like i said this on another on
• 19:12
  when i went on on chris drink show on the game
• 19:14
  business but i said about you can see a world
• 19:17
  in which um in which id becomes a jewel in microsoft's
• 19:22
  crown but the way the spencer era worked was
• 19:27
  there was no real rush to integrate and something
• 19:32
  i've been told is part of that is because of
• 19:33
  the success of minecraft like the the minecraft
• 19:36
  uh moyang acquisition left moyang alone and that
• 19:39
  was so successful made so much money off that
• 19:42
  they were like well this is the this is the the
• 19:46
  way you do it And actually, I've been told that
• 19:49
  LinkedIn, when Microsoft acquired LinkedIn and
• 19:53
  did it in a very hands -off way, the reason that
• 19:55
  was so hands -off was literally because Microsoft
• 19:57
  as a broader organization had learned from the
• 19:59
  Minecraft thing. But then they applied that to
• 20:02
  all these other game studios. And you can see
• 20:05
  a world where idTech becomes the de facto engine
• 20:08
  for a lot of Microsoft games. And if you end
• 20:12
  up in that world, idTech, the return on the dollar
• 20:15
  it gives you, will be way higher. And it would
• 20:17
  be worth keeping all those guys. They acquired
• 20:20
  Bethesda, and Bethesda had a lot of this inter
• 20:22
  -department stuff going on already, right? They
• 20:25
  had Arkane helping on the Wolfenstein games.
• 20:27
  Id would come in and show studios how to do guns,
• 20:30
  and they could have learned from that and applied
• 20:33
  it across their whole portfolio, but they didn't,
• 20:36
  so... yeah and it just and obviously there are
• 20:39
  then the there's the the loss of all the people
• 20:42
  and stuff like that which is a real bummer but
• 20:44
  also there's the video game fan losses so it's
• 20:47
  like we learned this week that id had pitched
• 20:50
  a perfect dark game and a doom multiplayer game
• 20:53
  and uh there was a original ip as well and it's
• 20:57
  like oh um and life is pain certainly for people
• 21:01
  who like perfect dark um and you know if you
• 21:03
  liked avowed sounds like avowed 2 is dead Again,
• 21:08
  just a real bummer. We'll never get another Pentament,
• 21:13
  that's for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Those are
• 21:17
  the sort of projects that just feels like there's
• 21:21
  a lot of missed opportunity within Microsoft.
• 21:23
  I think that's what we look at now. Like, you
• 21:25
  know, Pentament is a game that works as a portfolio
• 21:30
  play, and the portfolio play is... When you want
• 21:35
  lots of different types of games and lots of,
• 21:37
  you know, lots of scale and lots of variety.
• 21:41
  And actually, I think that's what this ultimately
• 21:43
  is, is this is the ultimate admission that Game
• 21:46
  Pass has failed. Because it's literally them
• 21:50
  going, throwing their hands up and going, we
• 21:53
  don't need these smaller games because we're
• 21:54
  no longer trying to get people to subscribe to
• 21:56
  a service. Do you think all of this is Game Pass
• 22:00
  or Call of Duty though? Or a mix of both? I think
• 22:04
  it's inevitably going to be a mix. I think the
• 22:06
  thing about Call of Duty is the catalogue business
• 22:08
  for Call of Duty is so big that even though they
• 22:13
  had a really bad year with last year's game,
• 22:16
  it was still a hugely profitable chunk of the
• 22:18
  business. They just put one and two to PC as
• 22:21
  well, didn't they? Well, this is what I mean.
• 22:23
  Yeah, it's that. And back catalogue is where
• 22:25
  I think they failed a lot on, like, I don't know,
• 22:29
  how you don't do like a very... cheap and dirty
• 22:33
  um like banjo kazooie double pack for the switch
• 22:37
  i just do not understand because i reckon you'd
• 22:39
  sell a million two million units um just doing
• 22:44
  that and it's never been something they've considered
• 22:48
  but i think it's also because they've had their
• 22:50
  eye on the prize longer term as opposed to so
• 22:53
  the idea of yeah we could do a banjo two pack
• 22:56
  and that would that would make rare profitable
• 22:58
  for two years maybe They're not interested in
• 23:01
  two years. They're thinking about longer term
• 23:04
  because Microsoft, the whole thing is they want
• 23:06
  to have growth every year, year on year on year
• 23:08
  on year. And doing something that only gives
• 23:11
  you a bump for two years is less relevant than
• 23:13
  plowing loads of resources into an ever wild,
• 23:16
  hoping you've got the next, the next Minecraft
• 23:19
  on your hands. So your thieves must have done
• 23:22
  gangbusters though, right? Because they've survived
• 23:25
  all this with, you know, ever wild being in development
• 23:28
  hell for however long. Yeah. I mean, they, They
• 23:30
  had some cuts before, right? But also, I think,
• 23:33
  yeah, Sea of Thieves is the example of, I don't
• 23:35
  think you can come out and make noise about how
• 23:37
  you're doing a Sea of Thieves movie and using
• 23:39
  it as one of the prime examples of what your
• 23:42
  goal is and then cut loads of people from Rare.
• 23:46
  Although people tend to forget, like, you know,
• 23:49
  Rare is the studio behind Sea of Thieves. But
• 23:54
  you look in those credits, loads of other studios
• 23:57
  help on Sea of Thieves. It's not just a rare
• 23:59
  game anymore. Sea of Thieves definitely like,
• 24:02
  it feels like it's in a like, not maintenance
• 24:06
  or something, but kind of a, it feels like they're
• 24:09
  gearing up for something else rather than that.
• 24:11
  That's in like, let's just put out some updates,
• 24:13
  keep the fan base happy while we do something
• 24:15
  else type mode at the moment, right? Well, it
• 24:19
  feels to me like, you look at what they're doing,
• 24:22
  like the new update that they're doing is sort
• 24:24
  of giving players... Creation tools. And what
• 24:27
  I see when I see that is we're handing Sea of
• 24:30
  Thieves to the players so you can make UGC and
• 24:33
  they're going to make Sea of Thieves 2. Or Robloxify
• 24:37
  and all that shit. Maybe, but I think it's more
• 24:40
  likely they're going to do a sequel. So you've
• 24:42
  got to think that's an Xbox One game. There's
• 24:43
  a lot of lessons they've learned. There's a lot
• 24:45
  of tech stuff they probably can't do on the engine
• 24:47
  as it is. So the time's probably come for them
• 24:50
  to do another one. But before you do another
• 24:52
  one, why not give the players ownership to keep
• 24:55
  that player base up for UGC? Anyway, it's a real
• 25:01
  bummer. And I think the true cost isn't quite,
• 25:05
  you know, shown yet. So we'll have to see how
• 25:12
  things shake out over the coming weeks. It's
• 25:14
  a bummer to be just starting out on this website
• 25:16
  and be having the conversation to be about stuff
• 25:19
  like this, though, that's for sure. There was
• 25:22
  a guy at Xbox who was laid off. He was there
• 25:24
  for like 37 years. And he was the guy who made
• 25:27
  the backcom part for Xbox, which was one of the
• 25:30
  biggest announcements. And he's just... And he
• 25:33
  was not just a 37 -year Xbox veteran, but a 37
• 25:36
  -year Microsoft veteran. If you look at the stuff
• 25:37
  this guy had worked on, it's amazing he didn't
• 25:40
  get transferred to another department. But I
• 25:42
  guess part of the problem is when you've been
• 25:43
  somewhere for 37 years, you're probably very,
• 25:45
  very expensive. It proves it's a fucking spreadsheet
• 25:48
  game though, doesn't it? They've just looked
• 25:50
  at you like cold statistically and gone, it's
• 25:53
  like you said, pennies on the dollar. I think
• 25:56
  big companies are always like that, right? It's
• 25:59
  not about individual contribution or anything.
• 26:04
  It's about like, what can we do to make this
• 26:07
  number happen based on these other numbers? Yeah,
• 26:12
  we've been there. We've been there. But yeah,
• 26:17
  it is a numbers game, but I just worry that sometimes
• 26:26
  they're cutting their nose off to spite their
• 26:27
  face. Sometimes they're not seeing the wood for
• 26:28
  the trees. But the other thing I'd say is it's
• 26:31
  like, I don't love everything that Asher is doing,
• 26:33
  obviously, and there's just horrific consequences
• 26:36
  for the industry at large in terms of the talent
• 26:41
  leaving and stuff like that. But what I will
• 26:42
  say is this is... all this is a reaction to everything
• 26:46
  that went wrong and the colossal overreach of
• 26:50
  the Phil era. Absolutely. You don't got to hand
• 26:53
  it to her though. No, absolutely not. I mean,
• 26:57
  we'll see. I mean, and yes, there is the irony,
• 26:58
  as you mentioned, this insane, cruel irony at
• 27:02
  the very end. So Asha Sharma, the Xbox CEO, was
• 27:06
  named, I think yesterday, just right after all
• 27:09
  the layouts, as an advisor to the US Federal
• 27:11
  Reserve. on a panel that deals with jobs and
• 27:15
  productivity. That panel's whole job, its whole
• 27:18
  goal, its primary goal, is to lower unemployment
• 27:21
  and make America more productive. And they've
• 27:24
  put her on that right after she's committed to
• 27:26
  laying off 3 ,200 people. The majority of them
• 27:29
  are probably in America. It's insane, isn't it?
• 27:32
  If you wrote that in a comedy sketch, it'd be
• 27:35
  too on the nose, I think. Yeah, yeah. It's like
• 27:38
  proper brass eye stuff, isn't it? But yeah. So
• 27:44
  from one story, we talked about Xbox. Let's quickly
• 27:47
  talk about Sony. Obviously, the news last week
• 27:51
  before the site had officially launched was about
• 27:54
  Sony announcing that they're going to be discontinuing
• 27:56
  the production of PlayStation game discs or certifying
• 28:01
  new ones. So there'll be a cutoff. Is it 2028,
• 28:06
  the cutoff? I think so. Early January, 2028,
• 28:09
  I think. So basically any game out after that
• 28:12
  date, you won't be able to get a physical version.
• 28:14
  You'll just be able to get a code in a box or
• 28:16
  a digital download. The reaction to this has
• 28:19
  been pretty visceral, I would say. They can't
• 28:23
  tweet anymore, can they? No. And there's a petition
• 28:26
  which is over, which I think is pushing towards
• 28:28
  a quarter of a million signatures. I guess my
• 28:31
  question is, is this totally a losing battle?
• 28:34
  Do you think? Yes. Yeah, it is. It's done. This
• 28:39
  was done ages ago. They shut the factories down,
• 28:42
  didn't they? They're not reversing it because
• 28:44
  I don't see how, like, this is a, like, to be
• 28:48
  clear, like, I'm, I haven't bought an actual
• 28:52
  game on a disc for a long time. I'm not against
• 28:55
  ownership and having collections. And I feel
• 28:57
  sorry for everybody that wants game preservation
• 29:00
  and having physical discs and collecting stuff
• 29:02
  and putting it on their shelves. But from a,
• 29:04
  is this going to affect me point of view? It
• 29:08
  isn't, probably, because I just don't. Like,
• 29:10
  I own probably about six games. Literally, my
• 29:13
  house has six games and three of those, four
• 29:15
  of those are PGR games. So I don't have, like,
• 29:19
  a massive desire to collect. I've never collected
• 29:21
  stuff. What I do think is bad is that, like,
• 29:26
  I'm me, a 40 -year -old man, but as a kid, I
• 29:29
  used to buy games all the time. because I traded
• 29:33
  everything because I didn't have enough money
• 29:34
  to buy and keep games so I literally would go
• 29:37
  and trade not just games I'd trade everything
• 29:39
  and like had a PlayStation trade that in for
• 29:40
  an N64 had an N64 trade that in for another PlayStation
• 29:43
  because I got bored and wanted a PlayStation
• 29:45
  back etc and I think if you are like that audience
• 29:49
  that is relying on that to just to experience
• 29:53
  more stuff and just jump from one thing to the
• 29:55
  other it's a massive shame that that's going
• 29:57
  to be no longer an option but i don't think there's
• 29:59
  any coming back from it like i think this essentially
• 30:02
  has been happening for well over a decade probably
• 30:05
  the build up to this act that like i think there
• 30:08
  was like we've already had consoles released
• 30:10
  this generation but don't have disk drives in
• 30:13
  them right um and i can't see i i i fully expected
• 30:18
  the next consoles not to have a disk drive at
• 30:20
  all I think most people probably would have thought
• 30:23
  that, if they thought, maybe they hoped they
• 30:26
  might, or the option to have one, but I think
• 30:29
  it was inevitable that this was happening. I
• 30:32
  can't see, I mean, this is all at Sony now, Xbox
• 30:35
  are clearly going to do the same thing. You don't
• 30:40
  think that a short -sighted Xbox desperate to
• 30:44
  score points is going to do it? I don't think
• 30:46
  they'd include it, but a disc drive add -on,
• 30:48
  for instance. I think an add -on maybe, but then
• 30:51
  they've got to commit to making the stuff, right?
• 30:54
  And I just don't think it's worth it for them
• 30:56
  particularly. And then Nintendo, I think obviously,
• 30:59
  I think Nintendo is slightly different in that
• 31:01
  their audience is slightly different. And like,
• 31:06
  maybe it's just a naive way of seeing it, but
• 31:09
  I still think like a Switch game is a birthday
• 31:13
  present, a Christmas present, right? A lot of
• 31:15
  people buy their kids or their family members.
• 31:19
  like a switch game for christmas right whatever
• 31:21
  and if that disappears like it's already hard
• 31:23
  enough to buy kids stuff as it is because all
• 31:25
  the things we had as kids are gone right you
• 31:27
  can't buy them a bloody film because everything's
• 31:30
  on netflix or disney or whatever um but yeah
• 31:33
  i think nintendo would probably see stick around
• 31:35
  with physical stuff for a while i can't see even
• 31:38
  then you said nintendo stick around physical
• 31:40
  stuff for a while like nintendo put out the hyper
• 31:43
  mainstream animal crossing -esque pokemon spin
• 31:46
  -off and it wasn't on the cart. Do we know if
• 31:51
  carts are cheaper to produce than Blu -rays?
• 31:54
  No, discs are way cheaper. But was it a game
• 31:58
  key thing? It's a game key card. But the reason
• 32:01
  you do a game key card on Nintendo is because,
• 32:03
  yeah, and this comes to Kirk's question as well.
• 32:05
  So fabricating discs is way cheaper than consoles.
• 32:09
  I mean, that was true in the 90s. That is why
• 32:12
  that was the deciding factor. for Hironobu Sakaguchi
• 32:16
  deciding to do Final Fantasy VII on PlayStation.
• 32:19
  Although the load times and the CG movies and
• 32:22
  all this stuff was of interest, the thing that
• 32:25
  he's on the record saying, the thing that convinced
• 32:27
  him was when Sony was like, oh, by the way, it's
• 32:30
  X number of cents per disc, whereas a Nintendo
• 32:35
  cart was X number of dollars. There's also the
• 32:38
  funny thing with Nintendo of, I think this is
• 32:40
  still true. It's definitely true in the past.
• 32:42
  But I'm pretty sure it's still true that all
• 32:44
  Switch cards, all of them, are all made in Japan
• 32:48
  by Nintendo. And this was always the case going
• 32:51
  back to the 90s. So if you're Ubisoft, you can't
• 32:55
  make your own Switch cards, fabricate them in
• 32:57
  a factory in China, then ship them. You have
• 32:59
  to buy the cards off Nintendo at the cost Nintendo
• 33:02
  sets, and they ain't cheap. And so the reason
• 33:05
  game key cards exist is because obviously when
• 33:07
  you buy those cards, you also pay more for the
• 33:10
  data size on the card. So if you buy a key card
• 33:13
  and if you ship your game on a key card instead,
• 33:16
  you can pay much less because you only need a
• 33:19
  cart that's like got 12 gigabytes of space just
• 33:23
  to hold the base data. You can still trade that
• 33:25
  though, right? That game can still be sold. Which
• 33:28
  I think is like maybe the audience for this isn't
• 33:32
  as big as I think it is, but I think there's
• 33:34
  a big difference between like as much as it's
• 33:37
  kind of a middle ground, I guess. You're not
• 33:39
  getting the... game preservation angle that you'd
• 33:41
  get of like which i think has been gone for a
• 33:44
  while to be fair right things that rarely ship
• 33:46
  with everything complete on a disc and that's
• 33:50
  it right there's billion patches for everything
• 33:51
  but at least with the key card stuff game key
• 33:56
  you can then go to your local game store and
• 33:59
  go i'll give you 20 quid for this but he's not
• 34:01
  that new game store yeah that's true the the
• 34:04
  the online local game store that only dare to
• 34:09
  buy switch games from now on but um i think there's
• 34:13
  gone i was just gonna say in an ideal world like
• 34:15
  the savings that they're making on not having
• 34:17
  to make the boxes for the games and stuff would
• 34:20
  come to the customers but that's not going to
• 34:22
  happen is it they're still going to be 70 quid
• 34:24
  and they're going to stay that price and for
• 34:26
  a year or more you know so look at nintendo games
• 34:29
  they don't really go down in price not for a
• 34:32
  long time yeah i mean nintendo it lives in a
• 34:36
  different world to be fair i mean the preservation
• 34:38
  angle i will say that's something i feel quite
• 34:42
  strongly about and the funny thing with the preservation
• 34:44
  element is that what it means is i hope that
• 34:48
  consoles get cracked way sooner to give you a
• 34:52
  specific example right if you want to play the
• 34:56
  fucked up version of cyberpunk 2077 from launch
• 35:00
  you can go and buy a playstation 4 disc or an
• 35:02
  xbox disc at computer exchange disconnect your
• 35:06
  console from the internet and play that version
• 35:08
  of the game. It's a time capsule. But if you
• 35:11
  obviously got a digital version on PC without
• 35:14
  doing piracy, there's no way to play that version
• 35:17
  anymore. And that's one thing that we'll be heading
• 35:20
  towards. And the only way you avoid that is by
• 35:23
  having the games able, having consoles cracked
• 35:25
  enough that games can be dumped. And a really
• 35:28
  good example actually is Elden Ring, right? Where...
• 35:31
  And I should say, before someone shouts at me,
• 35:33
  obviously I know there's no way on PC because
• 35:35
  you can back up your Steam data, game file data,
• 35:39
  and use piracy to boot it. But I mean, there's
• 35:42
  no natural way. You can't just put a disk in
• 35:43
  in that way. And Outer Ring is also a really
• 35:46
  good example where, God, they were changing and
• 35:48
  iterating that game so much in the run -up to
• 35:50
  launch that... I had to scrap guides that I'd
• 35:53
  written during the review period because the
• 35:56
  stuff I'd written was irrelevant because they'd
• 35:58
  patched the game. They were moving NPCs around
• 36:00
  and shit, weren't they? It was crazy. But again,
• 36:03
  that base version of Elden Ring is on the disc
• 36:05
  and you can totally go and experience that if
• 36:07
  that's what you desire. So on that front, the
• 36:10
  preservation thing, it bums me out a bit. I think
• 36:13
  another good example is when Rockstar made those
• 36:15
  remasters of the old GTA games. They cut music
• 36:19
  out. You know, there was a lot of problems with
• 36:21
  like artwork and, you know, weird textures and
• 36:24
  stuff. And they replaced the old versions with
• 36:27
  those games, you know, and it's not the original
• 36:29
  game, is it? No, but at least in that case, you've
• 36:32
  got the original game on disc. That's the sort
• 36:34
  of, it's today's original games. Like GTA 6 is
• 36:37
  the, again, GTA 6 is an example of like, that
• 36:40
  is a digital only game. And if Rockstar lands
• 36:43
  in a situation where there's something offensive
• 36:46
  and it's more offensive than they thought and
• 36:49
  they patch it out or they run into a rights issue
• 36:54
  with a billboard or with a weapon, that was one
• 36:56
  of the things in those remasters is that those
• 36:59
  old GTAs came out in an era when the weapon companies
• 37:02
  didn't pay attention to video games. So if you
• 37:04
  had an Uzi, you literally had an Uzi one -to
• 37:07
  -one. And now these days, everything's got to
• 37:09
  be slightly weird. to avoid getting sued. And
• 37:15
  they had to replace all the weapons in Vice City
• 37:16
  for the remastering. So if something like that
• 37:18
  happens to GTA 6, what will happen is a patch
• 37:20
  will come down and then everyone will have that
• 37:22
  version again. But I suppose that's small potatoes
• 37:24
  compared to the cash element, like you say, of
• 37:31
  games. Do you think Rockstar had been talking
• 37:35
  to Sony about this disless future for a while
• 37:38
  and that gave them the... going out to say, look,
• 37:42
  we're not launching on disc. I reckon they've
• 37:44
  just seen that CX has got about 800 copies of
• 37:47
  GTA 4 in it. And they've gone, we're not getting
• 37:50
  any money off those. Yeah. So I know that I know
• 37:54
  they get a lot of their stuff. They get people
• 37:55
  in via the online stuff as I write. But I don't
• 37:58
  know if all of it to me feels like they just
• 38:01
  want complete, not Rockstar as such, but the
• 38:03
  platform holders just want control, complete
• 38:05
  control. everything they sell right i mean they
• 38:07
  did this before didn't there were those you remember
• 38:09
  those online codes we used to get in the box
• 38:11
  you have to you have to put a code in you only
• 38:13
  get one and yeah i remember yeah they gave the
• 38:16
  online pass yeah yeah i bought a pre -owned copy
• 38:20
  of one of the ufc games and got at home and the
• 38:22
  code was invalid i was like for fuck's sake can't
• 38:25
  we play the game it's crazy i just paid like
• 38:27
  20 well you could play right but you couldn't
• 38:28
  play online right yeah but that was that was
• 38:30
  what i was wanting to play you know yeah yeah
• 38:32
  yeah yeah i um yeah weird Well, that segues us
• 38:37
  nicely, though, because from publishers having
• 38:38
  or company console makers having absolute control
• 38:42
  to a console maker doing something that they
• 38:44
  have no control over. And that is the news of
• 38:47
  this week that the Nintendo Switch will be discontinued
• 38:51
  in Europe in early 2027. So not even a long way
• 38:55
  away in like six months. It'll still be sold.
• 39:00
  But basically, you know, once they've. reached
• 39:04
  that point they won't be manufacturing anymore
• 39:05
  so once the stock that is out in Europe and Europe
• 39:10
  by the way in this definition is anyone that
• 39:13
  works through Nintendo of Europe so that's the
• 39:16
  UK even though we're not in the EU or whether
• 39:19
  we are in Europe geographically of course and
• 39:20
  maybe that's Australia as well I'm not quite
• 39:22
  sure it is often the case that Australia runs
• 39:25
  through the European offices it's basically nintendo
• 39:30
  hasn't said why they're doing this but because
• 39:32
  it's eu only um it's pretty clear that this is
• 39:36
  due to there's some new eu legislation which
• 39:39
  you're going to notice in all your electronic
• 39:41
  devices which is that any battery powered device
• 39:45
  that takes like a lithium ion battery or whatever
• 39:47
  has to have easily replaceable batteries like
• 39:51
  a consumer has to be able to buy a battery a
• 39:54
  new one take the back off with minimal nonsense
• 39:57
  without voiding their warranty and put a new
• 39:59
  battery in. Which is good, right? This is a good
• 40:02
  thing. On my last phone, my battery swelled up
• 40:08
  and that's it. It's fucked, right? And I couldn't
• 40:10
  do anything about it. It's out of warranty. That's
• 40:12
  it. I could have spent a fortune buying a new
• 40:14
  battery, but because it's not just an off -the
• 40:16
  -shelf, like, easy thing, it wasn't worth it.
• 40:20
  But yeah, I mean, I've disliked built -in batteries
• 40:23
  for a while because... Like the PlayStation controllers,
• 40:27
  right? Like I've had multiple of those just die
• 40:30
  on me. I've had multiple. I've had one. Is it
• 40:34
  the Elite controller? It's the Elite controller,
• 40:35
  right? It has a built -in battery. Not one of
• 40:37
  my early ones. Those died eventually. In my house,
• 40:42
  that gets used a lot. So maybe it's unfair to
• 40:44
  say that those died. But that would have been
• 40:46
  fixed. I just would have had to whip out the
• 40:49
  battery and put an ear in. So it's a good thing
• 40:51
  that this is happening. I don't have anything
• 40:54
  else to say on it. It's just I'm happy that things
• 40:57
  can be fixed. I think it's an arbiter of things
• 40:59
  to come, right? It's like you said, everyone
• 41:01
  is going to have to abide by these rules. So
• 41:04
  you're going to see it hit other products. Actually,
• 41:07
  there's a Switch 2 revision coming to Europe.
• 41:10
  It's obviously going to be the same machine,
• 41:12
  but the only difference is going to be it's going
• 41:13
  to have been retooled to allow the battery to
• 41:16
  be swapped. But Nintendo has obviously decided
• 41:17
  it's not worth doing that revision for the...
• 41:21
  for the 10 year old 10 year old 10 is that right
• 41:24
  i think so i don't know 10 it is 10 next in february
• 41:29
  or something it's 10 in february i think that
• 41:32
  sounds about right yeah it was it was around
• 41:33
  that time of year wasn't it just reminders of
• 41:36
  our own mortality yes um but yeah little story
• 41:41
  but i think interesting um little sign of things
• 41:44
  to come and hey some good some good like governmental
• 41:48
  legislation like this is the thing we're talking
• 41:51
  about the death of the disc and ownership and
• 41:53
  stuff like that and not feeling like you're renting
• 41:54
  games you've got this stop killing games thing
• 41:57
  moving through the european um commission and
• 42:00
  maybe the commission could come up with something
• 42:02
  that actually forces action on the part of publishers
• 42:05
  and platform holders like this is forcing action
• 42:08
  um it's not all bendy bananas apparently Do you
• 42:12
  think they could come up with some sort of way
• 42:14
  to trade digital games? Is that something they
• 42:18
  could do? Well, I think they could come up with
• 42:20
  anything they wanted to. And would they ever
• 42:22
  want to do that? Absolutely bloody not. The thing
• 42:26
  is, why would they be wanting to? Because the
• 42:30
  scenario is, I've got a digital game. I could
• 42:33
  sell it back to Sony or whatever, right? And
• 42:36
  then they give me half the price. And then to
• 42:39
  someone else, that digital code. is essentially
• 42:43
  worth the same as it always would have done.
• 42:45
  So they could sell it to someone else for full
• 42:47
  price, but then they've just given me 30 quid
• 42:50
  that they didn't really have to do. I don't think
• 42:52
  there's any way that's happening. What I will
• 42:55
  say is where we can get a bit better is like,
• 42:57
  I do think like Switch 2 is like, and actually
• 43:00
  it's on the Switch 1 as well, isn't it? But the
• 43:02
  virtual cartridge stuff, where in a family account
• 43:05
  situation, you can pass those virtual cartridges
• 43:08
  back and forth. And you can pass them back and
• 43:11
  forth between consoles. It's really good. And
• 43:13
  hopefully more of them are better at that. So
• 43:16
  Microsoft are pretty good about that as well
• 43:17
  in terms of, you know, you log into your account
• 43:19
  on any Xbox and one quick online authentication,
• 43:22
  you've got access to everything. But that obviously
• 43:24
  is no substitute for selling your games back.
• 43:26
  Was it the PS3 that had it where you could have
• 43:28
  like five accounts on the same? like because
• 43:30
  i'm sure i did it with a few friends would like
• 43:33
  have our accounts on each of those playstations
• 43:35
  you just have access to your whole library so
• 43:36
  the police coming around they they they got rid
• 43:40
  of that pretty quick when it comes to ps4 gen
• 43:42
  so yeah yeah it's um it's an interesting one
• 43:46
  moving on um just a quick you know obviously
• 43:50
  we launched the site this week um so there's
• 43:53
  been a lot going on um But just, you know, some
• 43:57
  quick little highlights. Tom, you reviewed Assassin's
• 44:00
  Creed Black Flag Resynced. Do you want to give
• 44:07
  folk a bit of a quick summary of your thoughts?
• 44:10
  So, yeah. So I think Black Flag is, I don't know
• 44:14
  if it's considered the fan favorite Assassin's
• 44:17
  Creed game, but it's definitely up there as like
• 44:19
  the one people go from the older school ones
• 44:21
  before they went all like vast RPGs. style right
• 44:25
  like we've got the witcher but in assassin's
• 44:28
  creed style um i think it's the one that people
• 44:31
  go i love that's the one i love it's like amazing
• 44:33
  the assassin's creed game that everyone should
• 44:35
  play so i guess that's why they went for this
• 44:39
  one first as a remaster remake rather than going
• 44:41
  one two etc i've never i'd never played bat flag
• 44:45
  i mean i say never played i probably did because
• 44:48
  i played everything but i never played it much
• 44:50
  like i'd got burnt out pretty much on Assassin's
• 44:53
  Creed games after. I think even though this is
• 44:55
  officially called 4, I think there were probably
• 44:58
  at least 6 before this, right? There were other
• 45:00
  ones that weren't titled with numbers and stuff.
• 45:03
  There were yearly as well at that point, weren't
• 45:05
  there? There was a lot of them, right? And I
• 45:07
  kind of stopped playing after, I think maybe
• 45:09
  the one before 3 came out. And then I picked
• 45:15
  up again with Origins and stuff. So this is like...
• 45:20
  a chance to see whether it was actually worth
• 45:22
  like why people love it and it's clear it's obvious
• 45:25
  why people love it because it's a it's kind of
• 45:27
  it gives you the kind of uh large scale kind
• 45:32
  of feel of an open world adventure without all
• 45:36
  the bollocks that goes into modern open world
• 45:38
  games like it's it's a lot of just floating about
• 45:42
  in a boat and having just seeing where you go
• 45:45
  dropping off an island seeing what's there doing
• 45:48
  a few fun little quests and stuff but you're
• 45:50
  not overwhelmed with stuff to do there's not
• 45:53
  a million different bars you've got to try and
• 45:55
  max out and level up and everything else and
• 45:59
  they've done i can't say how it compares to the
• 46:01
  original outside of what i've seen has changed
• 46:04
  but the combat is like it feels like how i kind
• 46:08
  of remember saturn's creed games being but it
• 46:11
  isn't like it's a lot um it feels if i think
• 46:14
  it's like back then it was super simple like
• 46:17
  it was super like everything was trying to be
• 46:19
  arkham right that arkham style like everything's
• 46:22
  like a quick counter counter counter counter
• 46:24
  and it felt a bit sort of like uh routine and
• 46:28
  sort of like you're just performing like a little
• 46:31
  dance around all these people and they're dying
• 46:33
  resist feels a bit more like involved there's
• 46:36
  more to the combat um the ship stuff is is great
• 46:40
  like it's like you get the sense that you're
• 46:42
  doing stuff without actually having like it's
• 46:45
  it's quite simple like it's not like it's not
• 46:47
  a simulation of running a pirate ship or anything
• 46:50
  and you manage to be in control off the boat
• 46:52
  and all the combat as well with all the cannons
• 46:54
  everything else that feel like too much it's
• 46:57
  just a fun fun game that doesn't sort of drown
• 47:01
  in all the other stuff which i think that's how
• 47:04
  assassin's creed games used to be before you
• 47:07
  got the classic like the meme -y like here's
• 47:10
  a picture of the Assassin's Creed map and it's
• 47:12
  just icons right and it's just every Ubisoft
• 47:15
  game is just climb the tower to reveal the icons
• 47:17
  type stuff this feels from an era before that
• 47:20
  slightly where it's still not a small game like
• 47:23
  to do everything in this you're looking at probably
• 47:25
  I don't know 25 -30 hours or something probably
• 47:28
  to see a lot of it all of the main stuff plus
• 47:31
  they added some new side stuff and they've added
• 47:33
  some new end missions and stuff um but it's just
• 47:37
  a kind of game that it feels like it's the right
• 47:40
  mix of like slightly sort of linear adventuring
• 47:45
  with a bit of questing and stuff around around
• 47:47
  to get you from place to place which i think
• 47:49
  for me works if you want that bigger more open
• 47:53
  feel like literally there's so much stuff to
• 47:55
  do you're you're never going to get bored this
• 47:57
  isn't that but i think uh it's just a it's a
• 48:00
  fun game looks amazing as well like i played
• 48:03
  on the ps5 pro it looks great um there was a
• 48:07
  bit i saw a bit of chatter about how like the
• 48:10
  original still looks amazing so why bother updating
• 48:12
  it it does look good if you look at it in the
• 48:15
  right way but it doesn't look as good as this
• 48:17
  like this is like it's the same i had similar
• 48:20
  feelings to when they updated the last of us
• 48:23
  for ps5 because the last of us is good looking
• 48:26
  game but the remake looked like proper great
• 48:28
  right and it made sense because they had the
• 48:30
  tv show and stuff get it up to date so people
• 48:32
  can jump in modern experience of that game this
• 48:36
  is similar in that this is like the game that
• 48:38
  most people remember with some tweaks but it
• 48:40
  just looks significantly better i mean for me
• 48:43
  i don't know what i'd love to know like the costings
• 48:47
  around this versus a completely new assassin's
• 48:49
  creed game because it feels like they could just
• 48:52
  mine this for a while now right like remake one
• 48:54
  remake two three could have a proper job done
• 48:58
  just don't do it leave it alone but i think there's
• 49:02
  there's this i've got an article coming might
• 49:04
  be out by the time this goes live about why i
• 49:06
  love remakes and i think there's a lot of like
• 49:08
  scope in it like people don't like it remakes
• 49:12
  as such because i guess they'd rather something
• 49:15
  new is being made or they don't want the original
• 49:17
  touch but i think as long as the original exists
• 49:19
  we talked about this earlier with like ownership
• 49:21
  of games and what they can do if it never gets
• 49:23
  released but in this case i could go back and
• 49:26
  play this on a ps4 and that's the original version
• 49:28
  by all the ps3 even um repeat but it exists But
• 49:33
  then this new version is there if you want it.
• 49:35
  And I think a lot of people do. Like, from what
• 49:38
  I've seen, this is tracking to do really well.
• 49:41
  And I think I'd be very much up for, like, this,
• 49:45
  but done for the other older Assassin's Creed
• 49:47
  games. Because I think people have got slightly
• 49:48
  tired of the new Assassin's Creed formula. I
• 49:52
  don't think... I wasn't mega into Mirage. It
• 49:54
  was like a... Like, it was fine, but I didn't
• 49:57
  love it. Forgettable. Very forgettable. And I
• 49:59
  think this just feels like it's... has more of
• 50:02
  a, like, the tone, I think, is much more fun.
• 50:06
  Better written than most Assassin's Creed as
• 50:08
  well. I do think it's funny that they replaced
• 50:11
  all the modern bullshit. I don't know if you
• 50:13
  remember from the original, those first -person,
• 50:15
  like, puzzle sections. Yeah. They replaced that
• 50:18
  with some shit in this where you're just carrying
• 50:20
  a chest around in this, like, weird... This weird,
• 50:22
  like, black, blobby cyber person from, like,
• 50:26
  a 90s CGI TV show or something. Yeah. and it's
• 50:32
  like fine but I mean to be honest it's just like
• 50:36
  I quite liked the modern day stuff the old Assassin's
• 50:38
  Creed games yeah I get I get why they've redone
• 50:41
  it because if you come into this without having
• 50:44
  played like because this was what the sixth game
• 50:46
  or something in Assassin's Creed series at that
• 50:47
  point you're not going to get that it wouldn't
• 50:51
  make any sense just throwing it out there but
• 50:53
  I do think there's a lot of like remakes I could
• 50:56
  see being a big it's already quite a big thing
• 50:59
  but some of these studios that are like publishers
• 51:02
  that are struggling to make money essentially
• 51:05
  make good enough profits like if there's a if
• 51:08
  these things are considerably cheaper to make
• 51:11
  than the next big assassin's creed why wouldn't
• 51:15
  you go back and do do this to the other ones
• 51:17
  because i think the audience would be keen for
• 51:19
  it even if the online commentary is maybe a bit
• 51:22
  more negative well look at night dive they've
• 51:24
  made a whole business out of touching up games
• 51:26
  and they do a fucking amazing job of it and then
• 51:28
  blue point until sony killed them was doing good
• 51:31
  stuff there as well so yeah that sounds that
• 51:36
  sounds good i might have to give that a go because
• 51:37
  i think i was i did i do remember playing it
• 51:40
  but i don't think i played it that much and i
• 51:41
  think it was because the third one annoyed me
• 51:44
  so much i was sort of i'd fallen out of love
• 51:47
  with assassin's creed at the time that Black
• 51:49
  Flag being the fourth. Even though it was good,
• 51:52
  it didn't bring me back in. I also remember that
• 51:54
  was a good year for action adventure games because
• 51:57
  that was our GTA 5 year. That was Last of Us
• 52:00
  1 year. So I'll have to give that a go. I should
• 52:04
  say I've been playing. I haven't had a chance
• 52:05
  to write it up because it's been so busy, but
• 52:07
  I will write it up. Rhythm Heaven on Switch.
• 52:11
  It's actually on Switch 1 as well, isn't it?
• 52:13
  But yeah, that new one is lovely. Those games
• 52:16
  are all the same. They're all like really lovely
• 52:19
  8 out of 10s. So there's another really lovely
• 52:21
  8 out of 10. Yeah, so there's that. Recommend
• 52:27
  people check out Tom playing Elden Ring, an Elden
• 52:30
  Ring piece on the YouTube channel. Don't bother.
• 52:33
  How are you getting on, Tom? All right. The main
• 52:36
  takeaway is I swear a lot. like far more like
• 52:41
  I showed this I thought before I show it to everyone
• 52:44
  else I show my son right because he's like me
• 52:48
  in that he's obsessed like he plays a lot of
• 52:50
  games right like obviously he does because he's
• 52:52
  my son and he idolizes me so he's like plays
• 52:58
  everything I was like watch this video what do
• 52:59
  you think you shouldn't you're not allowed to
• 53:00
  play it because it's an 18 or whatever but watch
• 53:02
  it whatever and I'm like literally swearing like
• 53:05
  all the time and now my daughter who watched
• 53:08
  it who's only five constantly says bollocks all
• 53:10
  the time now she just comes out and says bollocks
• 53:13
  and then she'll go something like you can't say
• 53:15
  the s word and then she'll say i'll say what's
• 53:16
  the s word and she'll say bollocks like she has
• 53:19
  no she has no clue but she says it all the time
• 53:22
  and the next episode actually is far worse like
• 53:24
  the amount of swearing in that is unbelievable
• 53:26
  but yeah like i i've never gone with those games
• 53:30
  really are you better or worse than miller though
• 53:34
  probably better minnow was always actually reasonably
• 53:36
  good he just made it seem like he he wasn't whereas
• 53:39
  i'm like at the point where i've decided like
• 53:43
  i literally can't learn how to do these play
• 53:45
  these games properly and i i'm thinking about
• 53:50
  playing it again for the next episode i already
• 53:52
  can't remember what the controls are to be honest
• 53:54
  like i'll have to do a little little run around
• 53:57
  before before i start recording Go for a range
• 53:59
  build, man. Make it easier for yourself. We'll
• 54:01
  see how it goes. I've read nothing about it other
• 54:04
  than I was being told that I should use flasks.
• 54:09
  So I googled what a flask was. That's the level
• 54:12
  of my knowledge of this game. So we'll see how
• 54:16
  we go. We'll grow as we go along. And maybe by
• 54:20
  this time in three years when I finish it, I'll
• 54:23
  be really good. Maybe. Can't wait for the Melania
• 54:28
  fight. That was fun. Yeah, I'm looking forward
• 54:31
  to it. That's the funny thing about Elden Ring.
• 54:32
  It's far more than the other Souls games. There
• 54:36
  does come a point when you turn the corner and
• 54:37
  it clicks. So we'll have to see if that point
• 54:40
  ever comes for you, Tom Lloyd. You're just miserable
• 54:42
  for the whole time. I should say, there's a couple
• 54:46
  of cool articles on our sister site, on RPG site.
• 54:50
  We obviously weren't fully operating, so we didn't
• 54:52
  do the Blood of the Dawnwalker preview, but there's
• 54:54
  a pretty good write -up on that on RPG. There's
• 54:58
  also this lovely interview with an independent
• 55:00
  Japanese dev who's done almost a solo game called
• 55:05
  Veritas Tales, Witch of the Dark Castle. This
• 55:09
  is a guy who used to work at Capcom, used to
• 55:11
  work at Vanillaware. But it's like a digital
• 55:13
  version of a physical game book. So, you know,
• 55:15
  you get a game book and you just flip through
• 55:17
  it and there'd be maps and you'd have a column
• 55:20
  down the side where you'd write in your character
• 55:21
  stats, sort of like an RPG in book form. He's
• 55:26
  made that in a digital form for PC. It's really
• 55:29
  interesting. So I recommend have a read of that
• 55:31
  interview. And there's a huge backlog of stuff
• 55:34
  on Respec because we... We're posting stuff long
• 55:38
  before we launched. I feel like oftentimes when
• 55:41
  we do this section, we'll just be highlighting
• 55:42
  a few things, but this week there's way too much
• 55:45
  to highlight. What have you been playing, Kirk,
• 55:49
  before we quickly do our last section? I've been
• 55:52
  playing Assassin's Creed, Black Flag remake.
• 55:56
  It's alright. And I've been playing shitloads
• 55:59
  of Night Rain, to be honest. Just doing all the
• 56:02
  deep -hilled night stuff. I got five wins in
• 56:05
  a row the other day. I was well chuffed. But
• 56:08
  I've gotten the reads of, like, making proper
• 56:10
  sweaty builds in that game, and it's very good.
• 56:14
  I've got this guy, Raider. I'm trading damage
• 56:17
  with all the bosses and just, like, standing
• 56:19
  and banging with them, and it feels great. I
• 56:23
  should go back to that. I haven't been back since
• 56:27
  the DLC came out. Yeah, see, that's what got
• 56:30
  me back into it. Until now, I haven't touched
• 56:33
  the DLC, and the new bosses are quite cool. And
• 56:35
  then you've got the amped up versions of the
• 56:37
  old bosses as well, which are really cool. Yeah,
• 56:40
  it's worth checking out. Are you two looking
• 56:42
  forward to it? Is it Dustbloods? Is it Dustbloods?
• 56:45
  Fucking can't wait for it. Because that's an
• 56:47
  online Souls night, right? Yeah, I mean, what
• 56:51
  makes me excited about it is I remember Miyazaki
• 56:53
  saying that the original multiplayer in the Souls
• 56:57
  games was inspired by him breaking down on a
• 57:00
  hill. covered in snow and then two people just
• 57:04
  driving up behind him and pushing him up a hill
• 57:06
  and it was like two strangers cooperating with
• 57:08
  me in that way made me want to implement multiplayer
• 57:11
  in a similar way and i just want to know what
• 57:13
  kind of mad thing he's done here with multiplayer
• 57:16
  because they've got they've got these systems
• 57:18
  in it where everyone's got like you know like
• 57:21
  werewolves among us everyone's got like their
• 57:23
  own objective or whatever so someone will be
• 57:25
  like you've got to team up with this player and
• 57:28
  then another one will be like you've got to assassinate
• 57:29
  this player Or you've got to kill this boss.
• 57:31
  So everyone's got conflicting objectives or cooperative
• 57:34
  objectives as well. And it would just be cool
• 57:36
  to see how those things interact with that formula.
• 57:40
  Yeah, I'm very excited. Also because that's being
• 57:43
  published by Nintendo, I'm curious about how
• 57:45
  his sensibility interacts with the Nintendo side
• 57:50
  producer, the thoughts they will bring to the
• 57:52
  table, the Nintendo attitude. Yeah, I can't wait.
• 57:58
  The game chat. Can I be like a knight in the
• 58:01
  game chat? My face change, but it lip sync to
• 58:05
  a undead knight or something. I wouldn't even
• 58:09
  notice the difference if it did. We will see.
• 58:14
  I'm sure we'll learn a bit more about that relatively
• 58:16
  soon. It feels like the time will come. We'll
• 58:19
  be coming up for that to happen. And I'm very,
• 58:21
  very, that'll be a game that probably gets its
• 58:23
  own Nintendo Direct, like a standalone Direct.
• 58:27
  I will probably watch it like six times to devour
• 58:29
  every detail. It's funny how every console gets
• 58:32
  their FromSoft game, don't they? They're like,
• 58:34
  I'll have one. Then I'll have one. And they're
• 58:36
  all just blood one. Xbox doesn't get one. Was
• 58:41
  Sekiro not Xbox time exclusive? No. I think it
• 58:45
  was on everything. The last time Xbox had a FromSoftware
• 58:49
  exclusive was, I'm sure, what was it called?
• 58:55
  Ninja Blade? Ninja Blade was good. Yeah, like
• 58:58
  it was a Ninja Gaiden knockoff. Ninja Blade 2.
• 59:01
  Did they do a sequel? I'm sure there was a sequel.
• 59:05
  Was there? Can I imagine that? I remember reviewing
• 59:08
  the first one. It was good. Good game though,
• 59:12
  Ninja Blade. Underrated. Obviously no Miyazaki
• 59:16
  involvement, but nevertheless. It was a good
• 59:18
  Ninja Theory. That and didn't From Software do
• 59:21
  Enchanted Arms? launch xbox 360 jrpg where one
• 59:29
  of the characters is the most offensively stereotypical
• 59:31
  gay people you've ever seen in your life um like
• 59:35
  that character could not exist in the form he
• 59:37
  exists in that game today wasn't from stuff behind
• 59:40
  tenshu as well or am i yeah yeah that because
• 59:43
  sekiro was like a spiritual successor yeah i
• 59:46
  loved those games yeah that'd be cool to make
• 59:50
  a new one yeah and so We're going to finish off
• 59:55
  with what will be a regular little drop, which
• 59:58
  is our retro respective. Hey, hey. Where we just,
• 1:00:03
  we're going to make everyone feel a little bit
• 1:00:07
  old, or at least those of you who are old feel
• 1:00:09
  a little bit old. Where we just talk about things
• 1:00:12
  that happened and games that came out on this
• 1:00:14
  week in the past on, you know, significant anniversaries.
• 1:00:19
  So in the last week, Pokemon Go turned 10 years
• 1:00:23
  old. which is crazy. I mean, were you on VG 24
• 1:00:30
  -7 Kirk when that was starting out or was it
• 1:00:33
  only later? Only later, right? I just remember
• 1:00:42
  when it was an assignment coming in and very
• 1:00:44
  few other people covered it and we were like,
• 1:00:46
  yeah, we're going to go for this. I remember
• 1:00:48
  us being all over it, yeah. I don't play it anymore,
• 1:00:52
  but I saw they did a big event in Times Square
• 1:00:54
  this week where they sort of recreated the first
• 1:00:59
  advert for the game in real life. And they had
• 1:01:01
  Mewtwo on the billboards in Times Square and
• 1:01:03
  stuff. And I did feel a pang of nostalgia for
• 1:01:06
  walking around. I got in my car and drove to
• 1:01:10
  places to meet friends, to walk around parks,
• 1:01:13
  to do specific events and stuff. I never got
• 1:01:20
  the appeal of it until I went to a Monster Hunter
• 1:01:22
  Now event in Tokyo. And I was just walking around
• 1:01:26
  with loads. And the Japanese people are obviously
• 1:01:28
  really into Monster Hunter. And there's just
• 1:01:30
  people everywhere in their phones and chatting.
• 1:01:32
  And the atmosphere is really cool. And if it's
• 1:01:34
  been like that around here, maybe I'd have got
• 1:01:37
  into it. But, you know, I live in Link. I caught
• 1:01:38
  a Bulbasaur at a National Trust once. Nice. That's
• 1:01:43
  it. That's my experience of Pokemon Go. Well,
• 1:01:47
  thanks for that insight. we've also got um i
• 1:01:51
  think this is a great one um 20 years old uh
• 1:01:56
  prey i think i reviewed that that's because you
• 1:02:01
  are pretty sure but that was obviously a human
• 1:02:04
  head joint um may that studio uh like rest in
• 1:02:10
  peace good game got the portals cool looking
• 1:02:13
  portal i just remember What about the intro to
• 1:02:15
  that game? Fear the Reaper. Is it Fear the Reaper?
• 1:02:19
  Yeah. Don't Fear the Reaper. Don't Fear the Reaper?
• 1:02:22
  I don't know. I don't know music. You don't want
• 1:02:25
  to Fear the Reaper, do you? Fear the Reaper?
• 1:02:29
  I want to Fear the Reaper. Do I want to Fear
• 1:02:30
  the Reaper? I don't know. The song is telling
• 1:02:34
  you to not, so. Yeah. Don't Fear the Reaper.
• 1:02:37
  Yeah. Right. That's why I've been going wrong
• 1:02:39
  all these years. Fearing it. But anyway. bloody
• 1:02:44
  good game um hey we talked about it earlier that
• 1:02:47
  was an id tech game that was an id tech 4 game
• 1:02:49
  um and yeah the use of the portals was really
• 1:02:54
  clever and the spirit yeah in my mind it like
• 1:02:59
  exists to say in the same space as darkness i
• 1:03:02
  don't know if that came out yeah 100 100 i agree
• 1:03:06
  like they think character models are quite similar
• 1:03:09
  yeah and like the main guy It was a year later
• 1:03:13
  than Darkness. It was a year later than Darkness.
• 1:03:16
  And they were both published by 2K. So there
• 1:03:18
  was an element of the 2K portfolio at that point.
• 1:03:25
  Both really good. I remember Prey being one of
• 1:03:28
  those really early 360 showcase games. Like,
• 1:03:32
  look at what this console can do. And that era
• 1:03:37
  when Microsoft enjoyed de facto exclusives. You
• 1:03:41
  know, like it wasn't on PlayStation because it
• 1:03:45
  was a PC game and it was easy to port to Xbox.
• 1:03:48
  They just ported it to Xbox, right? Something
• 1:03:50
  that Microsoft could no longer rely on. But hey,
• 1:03:52
  pray 20 years old, which is fucked. Also, hey,
• 1:03:58
  Game Within a Game, which I love. And it had
• 1:04:01
  like a Pac -Man knockoff, didn't it? In the bar
• 1:04:04
  at the start that you could play on the arcade
• 1:04:05
  machine. Yeah, it's a great bit of world building
• 1:04:08
  that whole intro was really. And then you don't
• 1:04:10
  go back to Earth for the whole game, do you?
• 1:04:13
  Nope. That's the only bit on Earth. And I'll
• 1:04:15
  forever, you know, be sad that we never got to
• 1:04:17
  see Human Head's version of Prey 2. Not that
• 1:04:20
  the Prey that we got, the reboot, wasn't good.
• 1:04:23
  Yeah, but Arkane was saddled with that name.
• 1:04:26
  They didn't want that. You know, that was Bethesda
• 1:04:28
  just saying, we've got a name. You're having
• 1:04:30
  it. And it backfired on them, unfortunately.
• 1:04:35
  Yes, unfortunately. Which we'll find out the
• 1:04:38
  fate of. arcane in the coming months i think
• 1:04:42
  um other ones uh last couple uh castlevania 2
• 1:04:47
  badminton revenge so that's the game boy castlevania
• 1:04:50
  2 um that's 35 years old i remember that game
• 1:04:55
  being good i remember the the game boy castlevania
• 1:04:58
  2 being an action game more than the nes one
• 1:05:03
  where it was full of esoteric annoying puzzles
• 1:05:06
  that were impossible to figure out about a guidebook
• 1:05:10
  Yeah. Game Boy was shit. No, mate. I think we
• 1:05:16
  should make you play some Game Boy games at some
• 1:05:20
  stage. I hated the Game Boy. They're even worse
• 1:05:21
  now. I've got one over there. I've got one over
• 1:05:23
  there. Rubbish. Great machine. One of the greatest
• 1:05:26
  machines of all time. Home to the best game of
• 1:05:29
  all time. Which is what? Tetris. I had a machine
• 1:05:36
  with just Tetris on it. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:05:38
  But it was a Game Boy game first. And lastly,
• 1:05:42
  we've got Virtua Fighter 5, which is 20, which
• 1:05:44
  I cannot believe. That new Virtua Fighter looks
• 1:05:48
  really good. So that's why I thought this could
• 1:05:51
  lead. Because I saw it and it's really interesting
• 1:05:53
  because it's a Shenmue game, really. Yeah, I
• 1:05:57
  like the way that, like, the parries are, like,
• 1:05:59
  really natural and stuff. It's not just, like,
• 1:06:01
  he's in a guard stance and then they punch his
• 1:06:03
  guard stance. You're actually moving the hands
• 1:06:06
  and stuff. That's always been the Virtua Fighter
• 1:06:08
  way. It's always looked more visceral and real
• 1:06:12
  than a Street Fighter or a Tekken. But I just
• 1:06:16
  wonder, like, I saw them at Summer Games Fest,
• 1:06:19
  right? And it was a fascinating, like... You
• 1:06:23
  get all sorts of appointments. Some appointments
• 1:06:24
  you go and you sit down and you play the game.
• 1:06:26
  Some appointments someone talks to you for a
• 1:06:28
  bit, then you sit down. Some appointments you
• 1:06:30
  don't play a game, but you watch a really lush
• 1:06:32
  presentation. You know, Resident Evil, Veronica,
• 1:06:37
  they had a really lush presentation and then
• 1:06:38
  the director answered a few questions for 15
• 1:06:41
  minutes. But this virtual appointment was a 90
• 1:06:45
  -minute PowerPoint. And just a very casual chat
• 1:06:49
  back and forth. And it was myself. Someone from
• 1:06:52
  GamesRadar and the YouTuber, fighting game YouTuber,
• 1:06:55
  RPG YouTuber, Maximilian. And the three of us
• 1:06:59
  just spoke to these guys. But I was like fascinated
• 1:07:01
  because I asked them about competitive stuff.
• 1:07:03
  And they were like, yeah, you know, we're not
• 1:07:06
  really worried about that. Like we'll release
• 1:07:08
  the game and then people will decide if they
• 1:07:10
  think it's competitive or not. If it's competitively
• 1:07:12
  balanced, which I've never heard a fighting game
• 1:07:15
  producer say anything like that before in my
• 1:07:17
  life. And I don't know if this is because it's
• 1:07:19
  RGG doing it and they're approaching it more
• 1:07:21
  from that Yakuza angle. Cinematic, yeah. Because
• 1:07:25
  they are doing that cinematic story which makes
• 1:07:27
  the Street Fighter World Tour stuff look like
• 1:07:29
  child's play. Is that a proper adventure? Yeah,
• 1:07:36
  that's what I mean. It's got four protagonists.
• 1:07:38
  Because I thought that's what Street Fighter
• 1:07:40
  was going to have. But it felt a bit more like...
• 1:07:44
  I don't know how to describe the world tour.
• 1:07:45
  More like an online portal, wasn't it? World
• 1:07:47
  tour was a training ground to teach you how to
• 1:07:51
  play the game, really. Whereas this is more of
• 1:07:56
  a, like I said, they've got four different protagonists,
• 1:07:58
  so you're switching back and forth perspectives.
• 1:08:01
  And I like the idea, a bit like world tour, but
• 1:08:06
  the problem with world tour is you can't, Street
• 1:08:09
  Fighter is just so iconic, you can't do too much
• 1:08:11
  to Chun -Li or whoever. I like the idea that
• 1:08:15
  all the old, well, not all, but the old Virtua
• 1:08:17
  Fighter characters that are in this game are
• 1:08:19
  like legends. A lot of them haven't been seen
• 1:08:22
  for five, ten years. A lot of them are in hiding,
• 1:08:24
  stuff like that. And so the way they're going
• 1:08:26
  to come into the story is probably going to be
• 1:08:27
  really exciting. So, yeah. But 20 years for VF5
• 1:08:31
  today, which is a great fighting game, and obviously
• 1:08:33
  has only just recently had a re -release. So
• 1:08:36
  I recommend it to anyone who's interested. But
• 1:08:38
  it's a Virtua Fighter game, so you do basically
• 1:08:40
  need a PhD to play it. I think that's probably
• 1:08:46
  going to do it for this week, gents. I think
• 1:08:47
  we've taken enough of people's time. Obviously,
• 1:08:50
  if you want to hear a bit more from us, our patrons
• 1:08:55
  get the lock -in, which is our after -hours extra
• 1:08:58
  podcast where we just shoot the shit some more
• 1:09:01
  very, very casually. You can back us on Patreon.
• 1:09:04
  You can head to respect .net and hit the Patreon
• 1:09:07
  link at the top of the site, or you can go to
• 1:09:09
  patreon .com forward slash respect net, no dot
• 1:09:13
  in the Patreon. url um or you can just read the
• 1:09:16
  site follow the site on blue sky on x on facebook
• 1:09:20
  whatever whatever platform you use that'll help
• 1:09:23
  you to get our uh get our stuff or join our discord
• 1:09:25
  server stuff is all available in there all those
• 1:09:28
  links are in the header of the site kirk you
• 1:09:30
  got anything you want to plug not really check
• 1:09:33
  out fires out chat gaming my what kelp scalp
• 1:09:38
  hair hair You can't fuck yourself. Look at the
• 1:09:42
  state of your life. There's more here than on
• 1:09:44
  yours. Mate, I could grow better hair than you
• 1:09:47
  if I wanted to. Go on then. I fucking will, mate.
• 1:09:51
  Challenge. I'm in denial. Actually, it's coming
• 1:09:57
  to blows now. Is it cheating if you go to Turkey,
• 1:09:59
  though? I would say it's a good commitment if
• 1:10:04
  you did that. I might just become a hat guy now.
• 1:10:10
  Well, if you want to see more of Kirk's beautiful
• 1:10:13
  scalp, you can hit up Firezied Gaming for some
• 1:10:20
  great... They are good interviews, to be fair,
• 1:10:22
  mate. They're enjoyable how it's not a promotional
• 1:10:25
  cycle for a specific game. I hope you get some
• 1:10:28
  Japanese devs at some point because that's...
• 1:10:30
  Yeah, that would be nice. I do have an article
• 1:10:32
  coming out on Eurogamer this weekend, I think,
• 1:10:35
  as well. It's 1 ,300 words about ladders, if
• 1:10:38
  you're interested. That sounds interesting, but
• 1:10:40
  I can't condone reading Eurogamer, unfortunately.
• 1:10:45
  Tom, you can't go ladders. You write about fucking
• 1:10:49
  plumbing issues and shit. That's a different
• 1:10:53
  side business, isn't it? That's my newsletter,
• 1:10:59
  Low Poly Mess. I've been enjoying it. It's like
• 1:11:04
  the Ravens of a Mudman. Well, it is the ravings
• 1:11:09
  of a mountain. It is. And on that note, thank
• 1:11:16
  you for joining me, guys. And thank you for listening,
• 1:11:18
  everyone. Say goodbye, Kirk. Goodbye, Kirk. Say
• 1:11:22
  goodbye, Tom. See ya. And it's bye from me too.
• 1:11:26
  See ya, everyone.