Latest / The Game Business Show / The video game industry is not ready to lose boxed games

Transcript

The video game industry is not ready to lose boxed games · The Game Business Show

0:00
SPEAKER_02: You go to Astrobot though, 55% of Astrobot sales were physical.
0:05
SPEAKER_02: So more people bought that game in the box than they did as a download.
0:08
We know that the industry has been struggling in general for
0:12
the last few years.
0:13
And the government of Quebec last year took a look at
0:16
everything that was happening
0:17
SPEAKER_00: and decided like,
0:18
SPEAKER_00: you know,
0:18
now is exactly the time when we want to be kind of like messing
0:22
with this whole tax
0:23
SPEAKER_00: credit thing.
0:26
SPEAKER_02: Hello and welcome back to the Game Business Show.
0:29
SPEAKER_02: This week,
0:29
SPEAKER_02: physical games retail is on its knees and I'll share why even in 2025,
0:33
SPEAKER_02: this is a real challenge for video game companies.
0:36
SPEAKER_02: Bungie's marathon has been revealed and the internet,
0:38
SPEAKER_02: or at least the social media algorithms are skeptical about it.
0:41
The US tariffs continue to play havoc and threaten to play even
0:44
more havoc on an
0:45
SPEAKER_02: already beaten up video game industry.
0:47
And Shira Yashida's extended retirement tour continues with
0:50
criticism aimed at
0:51
SPEAKER_02: Nintendo Switch 2,
0:53
SPEAKER_02: a console I actually got to play this week.
0:55
SPEAKER_02: But first,
0:56
SPEAKER_02: let me introduce our guest host for the week,
0:58
someone I spent the best part of eight years working besides
1:01
and remains one of the
1:02
SPEAKER_02: very best journalists I've ever worked with.
1:04
SPEAKER_02: It's Brendan Sinclair.
1:05
SPEAKER_02: Hello, Brendan.
1:07
SPEAKER_02: Hey, Chris, thanks for having me.
1:10
SPEAKER_02: There's the patent enthusiasm I love.
1:15
SPEAKER_02: Welcome to the show.
1:17
SPEAKER_02: You're at The Logic now.
1:18
SPEAKER_02: What's The Logic?
1:20
SPEAKER_02: What's that about?
1:21
SPEAKER_00: The Logic is a Canadian business in tech industry.
1:25
SPEAKER_00: website.
1:26
SPEAKER_00: We cover just news with a distinctly Canadian angle.
1:30
So I'm still getting to write about the video game industry
1:33
here and there,
1:34
SPEAKER_00: but mostly where it intersects with,
1:36
SPEAKER_00: you know,
1:36
SPEAKER_00: Canadian interests.
1:38
SPEAKER_00: Well,
1:38
I did see a piece which you may have sent me a few weeks ago
1:42
about the tax break
1:44
SPEAKER_02: situation in Canada.
1:46
SPEAKER_02: It seems like it's
1:47
SPEAKER_02: gone a bit wrong.
1:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:49
So this is a fascinating story that's been playing out in the
1:53
industry here is just
1:54
SPEAKER_00: like what's happening with Quebec and Montreal for the longest time.
1:59
When you talk about the Montreal development scene,
2:02
it's like,
2:02
well,
2:02
there's tax credits there.
2:04
SPEAKER_00: The government's paying them.
2:06
SPEAKER_00: to be there.
2:06
SPEAKER_00: And that's why Ubisoft,
2:08
SPEAKER_00: Warner Brothers,
2:10
SPEAKER_00: Eidos,
2:10
SPEAKER_00: Square Enix,
2:11
SPEAKER_00: that's why all these giant companies came.
2:14
And we know that the industry has been struggling in general
2:18
for the last few years.
2:20
And the government of Quebec last year took a look at
2:23
everything that was happening
2:24
SPEAKER_00: and decided like,
2:24
SPEAKER_00: you know,
2:25
now is exactly the time when we want to be kind of like messing
2:29
with this whole tax
2:30
SPEAKER_00: credit thing.
2:31
SPEAKER_00: They've changed it up.
2:32
SPEAKER_00: They haven't cut it entirely.
2:34
SPEAKER_00: They've made it a little bit less generous.
2:37
SPEAKER_00: And one of the big things that they're taking,
2:40
like the first 18,000 or something of every employee's salary
2:44
is not eligible for
2:45
SPEAKER_00: the tax credit.
2:47
And the problem with that is that you've got a lot of
2:49
businesses in Montreal and
2:51
SPEAKER_00: Quebec that have been there for,
2:53
SPEAKER_00: you know,
2:54
decades relying on this because this tax credit was in the 90s
2:58
that it was introduced.
2:59
And they've kind of baked it into all of their business
3:02
dealings for like,
3:03
SPEAKER_00: this is how we make our profit.
3:05
SPEAKER_00: And some of them,
3:05
SPEAKER_00: you know,
3:06
SPEAKER_00: service providers of the keywords sort,
3:09
SPEAKER_00: localization,
3:10
SPEAKER_00: Q&A,
3:11
SPEAKER_00: testing,
3:12
SPEAKER_00: they tend to run on very thin margins.
3:15
SPEAKER_00: They get by by doing a lot of work.
3:18
SPEAKER_00: Also, you know, those people might not be paid the best.
3:21
SPEAKER_00: So if you've suddenly got,
3:22
SPEAKER_00: you know,
3:23
SPEAKER_00: a whole bunch of people making like $50,000 to do your QA testing,
3:27
SPEAKER_00: and then a third of the tax credit on that is no longer,
3:31
SPEAKER_00: you're not getting that money back from the government,
3:34
that could very easily take what is a profitable and
3:37
sustainable business and push
3:38
SPEAKER_00: it onto the other side of the ledger.
3:41
SPEAKER_00: So this is just like the tax credit changes at the same time Ubisoft.
3:45
SPEAKER_00: We know they're having issues.
3:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
3:48
And Ubisoft,
3:49
they employ about a third of the Quebec game development scene.
3:53
SPEAKER_00: The studio in Montreal is huge.
3:55
SPEAKER_00: It's almost 4,000 people.
3:56
SPEAKER_00: They've got Quebec City, Saguenay, the hybrid VFX studio is in Quebec.
4:05
SPEAKER_00: Ubisoft is such a load-bearing pillar of the Quebec game industry.
4:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
4:10
SPEAKER_00: And they're having a tough time of it right now.
4:14
SPEAKER_00: And suddenly these,
4:15
SPEAKER_00: these changes come in and that that could,
4:16
SPEAKER_00: uh,
4:17
SPEAKER_00: threaten to destabilize the industry in some really interesting ways.
4:21
SPEAKER_00: I think we talk about the,
4:23
SPEAKER_00: the wider story in video games right now,
4:27
SPEAKER_00: which is tariffs and how the,
4:29
SPEAKER_00: just the uncertainty.
4:31
of what it's going to be like tomorrow versus what it's like
4:33
today and how that
4:35
SPEAKER_00: just taints everything and puts a blanket on any kind of investment.
4:39
And for the most part,
4:41
software developers have been exempt from these sort of tariffs.
4:44
But this is a situation in Quebec with the tax credits where
4:48
now that we've seen
4:49
SPEAKER_00: things like the Quebec government scaling back on them,
4:52
SPEAKER_00: in 2019,
4:52
SPEAKER_00: Alberta...
4:55
SPEAKER_00: had a conservative party government that was elected.
4:57
And one of the first things that they did was get rid of the
4:59
tax credit that
5:00
SPEAKER_00: Alberta had,
5:01
SPEAKER_00: which did not help Bioware very much at all.
5:04
SPEAKER_00: These tax credits,
5:05
SPEAKER_00: just because now companies know they can go away,
5:10
SPEAKER_00: which they always could technically.
5:11
SPEAKER_00: But if you didn't have cautionary tales to point to,
5:15
SPEAKER_00: to say like,
5:16
SPEAKER_00: oh,
5:16
SPEAKER_00: wow,
5:16
SPEAKER_00: yeah,
5:17
SPEAKER_00: that really messed over these companies.
5:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
5:20
SPEAKER_00: now I think they're very much more aware of this,
5:23
SPEAKER_00: and that makes the tax credits less enticing than they were before,
5:29
SPEAKER_00: because there is some uncertainty surrounding them.
5:31
Although it is a Canada-Quebec-specific story here,
5:36
I think it has a lot of implications for...
5:39
SPEAKER_00: the wider industry,
5:41
any place that there are tax credits or any place that you have
5:46
companies looking
5:46
SPEAKER_00: to find,
5:48
SPEAKER_00: you know,
5:49
SPEAKER_00: inexpensive labor pools to send the element off to.
5:53
So it's all tied up in this big knot of uncertainty surrounding
5:59
the industry right now.
6:01
SPEAKER_00: And I worry, but, you know, I'm a worrier.
6:04
SPEAKER_00: So...
6:06
Well,
6:06
I think it's interesting because in the UK,
6:08
we hated the tax credits.
6:09
SPEAKER_02: For years,
6:10
there was this campaign about how the brain drain in the UK dev
6:13
scene was caused by
6:14
that everyone was going over to Canada to work because that's
6:16
where all the big
6:17
SPEAKER_02: studios are being formed because they had all the tax breaks.
6:19
So the UK's reaction to that eventually was to introduce its
6:22
own tax breaks.
6:23
And now we're starting to see more and more places just have
6:26
these tax breaks.
6:26
SPEAKER_02: And there's a train of thought to go,
6:28
SPEAKER_02: actually,
6:29
SPEAKER_02: if we've all got tax breaks,
6:30
SPEAKER_02: do we need any tax breaks?
6:32
And I guess that becomes when you were just sort of canceling
6:35
each other out a little bit.
6:37
And now we're starting to see people open up places in areas
6:40
that just have low
6:40
SPEAKER_02: labor costs or,
6:41
SPEAKER_02: you know,
6:42
SPEAKER_02: exchange rates and places like that,
6:44
SPEAKER_02: where you're right,
6:44
SPEAKER_02: you know,
6:45
SPEAKER_02: you could open a studio in the UK,
6:47
but the UK has got a series of different challenges linked to
6:49
Brexit and stuff.
6:50
SPEAKER_02: Is it better off to outsource or QA to India or things like that?
6:54
SPEAKER_02: But it's coming at a,
6:55
SPEAKER_02: you know,
6:56
SPEAKER_02: with all these talent pools,
6:57
SPEAKER_02: these groups of people who have,
6:58
SPEAKER_02: you know,
6:59
SPEAKER_02: set up homes and places
7:02
where there's a blossoming game development scene,
7:04
if that suddenly becomes under threat.
7:05
If Ubisoft was to close any of its Canadian studios or do
7:10
anything in that regard,
7:10
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
7:11
SPEAKER_02: I should think they wouldn't.
7:12
SPEAKER_02: Or even if it's just they severely reduce the size of that team.
7:16
SPEAKER_02: That's a lot of talent in that space looking for work.
7:21
SPEAKER_02: And there's not much incentive necessarily to set up there,
7:24
SPEAKER_02: I guess,
7:25
SPEAKER_02: in the same way that there was before.
7:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
7:27
SPEAKER_00: I look at the tax credit issue.
7:28
SPEAKER_00: I've always been fascinated by it because on the one hand,
7:31
SPEAKER_00: like,
7:32
SPEAKER_00: yeah,
7:32
like look at Quebec as an example of what tax credits can do
7:36
for a development scene.
7:38
SPEAKER_00: It turned...
7:40
montreal specifically into a worldwide development hub and some
7:46
amazing games have
7:46
come from it and there is a development scene there now that
7:49
owes a lot to the tax
7:51
credits even if they were mostly aaa kind of developers taking
7:54
advantage of it
7:55
SPEAKER_00: originally
7:56
SPEAKER_00: Now you've got Sabotage, Thunder Lotus, Kip Fox Games.
8:02
SPEAKER_00: There is a scene,
8:03
SPEAKER_00: Red Barrels,
8:04
SPEAKER_00: of independent developers,
8:07
SPEAKER_00: publishers in Montreal,
8:09
SPEAKER_00: in Quebec,
8:11
SPEAKER_00: that are...
8:12
globally relevant and producing exactly the kind of successful
8:17
businesses and
8:19
culturally relevant work that was sort of like a best case
8:23
scenario for the tax credits.
8:25
SPEAKER_00: But on the other hand, is this something that
8:29
SPEAKER_00: the government should be doing is like picking sectors that are,
8:34
SPEAKER_00: you know,
8:35
we are going to privilege this sector over some other generic
8:41
IT firm or some other
8:44
SPEAKER_00: little corner of the economy.
8:47
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not sold on whether or not they definitely should be.
8:51
SPEAKER_00: But once you start doing it,
8:54
SPEAKER_00: once you build something like this,
8:56
SPEAKER_00: then you have,
8:58
SPEAKER_00: you know,
8:58
SPEAKER_00: a thriving sector that is dependent on.
9:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
9:03
SPEAKER_00: these tax credits.
9:05
SPEAKER_00: And it really is,
9:05
SPEAKER_00: like you were saying,
9:06
SPEAKER_00: an arms race,
9:07
where a lot of other people have been accelerating their own
9:10
tax credit programs.
9:11
And British Columbia,
9:13
a couple of months ago,
9:14
they extended their tax credit.
9:16
SPEAKER_00: They expanded it from like 17.5% to 25%.
9:18
And they made it permanent because before it was like,
9:21
we need to renew this every few years.
9:23
SPEAKER_00: And so there's other people going in the opposite direction with it.
9:27
SPEAKER_00: In some ways, they painted themselves into a corner here.
9:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
9:31
SPEAKER_00: It's like,
9:31
SPEAKER_00: if you're going to do this,
9:32
then you really got to kind of do it and stick to it for the
9:36
people that have been
9:38
SPEAKER_00: attracted by the texture that were like,
9:40
SPEAKER_00: okay,
9:40
SPEAKER_00: we're going to invest in your region because of that.
9:43
SPEAKER_00: And we're going to build our businesses.
9:46
SPEAKER_00: Or when you have the tax credit,
9:48
SPEAKER_00: you know,
9:49
SPEAKER_00: communicate that it is,
9:50
SPEAKER_00: you know,
9:51
SPEAKER_02: this is this is a temporary use.
9:53
SPEAKER_02: One of the biggest,
9:54
biggest issue I see is that the tax credits and they change now
9:57
that they're sort
9:57
of encouraging people to hire more senior staff and not bring
10:00
through the juniors.
10:01
SPEAKER_02: Isn't that part of the changes?
10:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so it used to be that there was a cap on the total salaries.
10:08
Like you'd get the tax credit on up to $100,000 of each
10:13
employee's salary.
10:14
SPEAKER_00: And now they're like, cap's not there.
10:17
And that really sort of pushes people to hire the more
10:21
experienced developers
10:23
SPEAKER_00: because they want more senior people,
10:25
SPEAKER_00: more influential decision makers to be located in Quebec.
10:30
SPEAKER_00: They want the heart of the business to be there.
10:34
SPEAKER_00: One of the biggest complaints about the tax credit that critics have had,
10:38
SPEAKER_00: I think,
10:38
in recent decades is just that it has mostly been foreign
10:43
companies that have
10:45
SPEAKER_00: thrived with the tax credit.
10:47
SPEAKER_00: Ubisoft is French companies.
10:49
SPEAKER_00: Square Enix, Japan.
10:50
SPEAKER_00: Eidos was... UK.
10:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
10:53
Yeah,
10:54
and Behavior Interactive is the largest homegrown,
10:58
like Canadian-owned success story.
11:00
They've done fantastic,
11:02
especially with Dead by Daylight,
11:04
but they are an outlier.
11:07
SPEAKER_00: And so the thinking was that these tax credits,
11:11
SPEAKER_00: they're really just helping these foreign companies.
11:14
SPEAKER_00: Canada doesn't own any of this.
11:16
We're making money and sending it off to the IP owners and
11:19
other companies.
11:21
SPEAKER_00: That's been an issue.
11:22
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
11:23
SPEAKER_02: Well,
11:23
SPEAKER_02: let's switch to an even more challenging topic,
11:26
SPEAKER_02: which is our main one for this week,
11:27
SPEAKER_02: which is about video games retail.
11:29
SPEAKER_02: Now,
11:29
the reason why this was going to be our main topic this week is
11:31
I had a story,
11:32
SPEAKER_02: not the biggest story in the world,
11:33
SPEAKER_02: but certainly a story.
11:34
SPEAKER_02: Unfortunately,
11:35
SPEAKER_02: I sat on it for too long and it got out there last week,
11:38
SPEAKER_02: which is the UK retailer Game is closing its HQ and its warehouse.
11:43
Game is owned by a retail group called Fraser's Group,
11:47
most famous for the Sports Direct.
11:49
SPEAKER_02: stores, they have been really causing havoc at game in recent times.
11:53
SPEAKER_02: They've emerged game systems with their own,
11:55
SPEAKER_02: which means that game stores are unable to do pre-orders.
11:59
SPEAKER_02: They're unable to do pre-owned anymore.
12:01
So game is no longer able to do the basic things that games
12:03
retailers are sort of
12:05
SPEAKER_02: known for.
12:06
SPEAKER_02: If you talk to game store staff,
12:07
SPEAKER_02: and I don't just mean the store managers,
12:09
SPEAKER_02: I mean people in that head office,
12:10
SPEAKER_02: they're quite,
12:11
SPEAKER_02: they're a bit of dismay at the situation.
12:13
They are hoping things will stabilize and they can start
12:16
reintroducing some of the
12:16
SPEAKER_02: things that have been taken away.
12:18
SPEAKER_02: And although I do appreciate that optimism,
12:20
SPEAKER_02: my experience of this stuff is that it rarely goes back.
12:24
That's a negative story for the UK scene,
12:26
very specific story,
12:27
but it's not the only one.
12:28
If you've been paying attention to the news lately,
12:30
GFK retail data,
12:31
again,
12:32
this is for the UK.
12:32
SPEAKER_02: I do have some European data as well.
12:34
So physical video games fell by 26% in volume in 2024 and 34.5%
12:41
in revenue in 2024,
12:43
SPEAKER_02: which is a startling figure.
12:45
SPEAKER_02: For the first quarter of this year,
12:47
SPEAKER_02: physical video game sales are down 29% in volume and 27% in revenue.
12:50
SPEAKER_02: It's not...
12:53
SPEAKER_02: stabilizing anyway.
12:55
SPEAKER_02: Now, a lot of that decline is because of the Nintendo Switch.
12:59
SPEAKER_02: Nintendo is a dominant player in the physical games market,
13:02
SPEAKER_02: which we'll come back to a few times.
13:05
SPEAKER_02: It had a week of release late last year.
13:06
SPEAKER_02: It didn't have as a big... It had a Zelda game.
13:08
SPEAKER_02: It didn't have its big Zelda game like it had in 2023.
13:11
SPEAKER_02: It had a Mario game in 2023.
13:13
SPEAKER_02: As a result,
13:14
SPEAKER_02: in the UK,
13:15
SPEAKER_02: 4.4 million Switch games were sold in the UK last year,
13:18
SPEAKER_02: which is still more than anyone else.
13:19
SPEAKER_02: But that's a drop of 1.8 million games over the year before.
13:23
SPEAKER_02: By contrast,
13:24
SPEAKER_02: PS5,
13:25
SPEAKER_02: which is also relatively retail friendly,
13:27
SPEAKER_02: not as retail friendly as Nintendo,
13:28
SPEAKER_02: but relatively,
13:29
SPEAKER_02: they saw a drop of 800,000 units in 2024.
13:30
SPEAKER_02: PS4 saw a drop of 600,000 units.
13:32
SPEAKER_02: They went from 1.8 million PS4 games sold in 2023 to 1.2 million.
13:40
SPEAKER_02: Xbox,
13:41
SPEAKER_02: they've never been the biggest at retail,
13:43
SPEAKER_02: but that dropped by 300,000 games in 2024 as well.
13:45
SPEAKER_02: So everyone dropped.
13:47
SPEAKER_02: But if you kept up with all of that,
13:48
the drop in the number of physical Switch games sold was bigger
13:52
than the drop of
13:53
SPEAKER_02: PS4 drop,
13:53
SPEAKER_02: the PS5 drop,
13:54
SPEAKER_02: the Xbox Series X drop,
13:55
SPEAKER_02: and actually the Xbox One drop combined.
13:58
SPEAKER_02: So Nintendo has a down year.
13:59
SPEAKER_02: Retail has a down year.
14:02
SPEAKER_02: That was just the UK and say similar story in Europe.
14:05
In terms of units sold in 2024,
14:07
physical game sales were down 22% to 56.5 million units.
14:11
SPEAKER_02: That's GSD data.
14:13
SPEAKER_02: And again,
14:13
SPEAKER_02: this was primarily driven,
14:15
SPEAKER_02: although not exclusively,
14:16
SPEAKER_02: but primarily driven by a drop in Nintendo Switch.
14:19
SPEAKER_02: game sales.
14:19
SPEAKER_02: Now,
14:20
SPEAKER_02: considering this,
14:20
SPEAKER_02: you might be thinking,
14:21
SPEAKER_02: okay,
14:22
SPEAKER_02: but there are a lot more Nintendo games this year,
14:24
including some pretty huge ones in Mario Kart World and also
14:27
Pokemon Legends ZA,
14:28
SPEAKER_02: which are games that typically sell millions in boxes.
14:31
SPEAKER_02: Across Europe,
14:32
new game releases on Switch can account for up to 80% of its
14:36
sales can come from
14:37
SPEAKER_02: the physical games market.
14:38
SPEAKER_02: I garbled that.
14:39
SPEAKER_02: But basically 80% of new physical games on Switch can come from physical.
14:44
SPEAKER_02: So it's a big deal.
14:44
SPEAKER_02: And there's also other games like Metroid and Donkey Kong.
14:47
SPEAKER_02: So it's potentially a strong year this year.
14:49
SPEAKER_02: But then came the other killer blow,
14:51
SPEAKER_02: which is during the Switch 2 reveal,
14:53
SPEAKER_02: which we talked about this a little bit on the Switch 2 podcast.
14:56
SPEAKER_02: But Switch 2 games will be cheaper digitally than they are physically.
14:59
SPEAKER_02: And this was actually a shocker for me,
15:01
SPEAKER_02: more shocking than anything that came out of that Switch 2 reveal.
15:04
SPEAKER_02: Because no major games company,
15:06
SPEAKER_02: no platform holder has priced digital below physical before,
15:09
SPEAKER_02: in part to protect the physical retail stores,
15:11
SPEAKER_02: which,
15:11
SPEAKER_02: you know,
15:12
SPEAKER_02: amongst other reasons.
15:13
SPEAKER_02: So for that to happen here and for Nintendo to be the one doing it,
15:16
SPEAKER_02: you know,
15:17
SPEAKER_02: one of the most physical retail friendly companies.
15:19
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I didn't see that coming.
15:21
SPEAKER_02: As I said,
15:22
SPEAKER_02: we had Game on the podcast a couple of weeks ago when that news came out,
15:25
SPEAKER_02: and he kindly said that he understood the decision,
15:28
SPEAKER_02: but admitted it was a challenge for them.
15:30
SPEAKER_02: And it is.
15:31
SPEAKER_02: If by doing this,
15:31
SPEAKER_02: Nintendo significantly increases the digital market share for its games,
15:35
SPEAKER_02: then that will be a real blow to what's left of games retail.
15:39
SPEAKER_02: It's certainly been a string of bad stories for physical games retail.
15:43
SPEAKER_02: And you can understand why Nintendo would do this.
15:46
Cartridge costs are high and they want to try and keep the
15:48
pricing down where they can.
15:48
SPEAKER_02: But also,
15:49
SPEAKER_02: if physical games retail is dying,
15:51
SPEAKER_02: if it is going away,
15:52
being so dependent on the box sector for game sales is not a
15:56
great situation to be in.
15:58
SPEAKER_02: So growing those eShop sales has got to be a priority.
16:02
SPEAKER_02: So yeah, bad news for shops.
16:03
Physical game sales down by as much of a quarter last year and
16:06
the company
16:07
responsible for the biggest slice of the physical games is
16:09
pushing digital with
16:10
SPEAKER_02: cheaper pricing.
16:12
SPEAKER_02: It feels...
16:15
SPEAKER_02: If you're working in that side of the industry,
16:18
SPEAKER_02: it's quite...
16:19
SPEAKER_02: But I don't know what it's like.
16:20
SPEAKER_02: The physical retail seems drastically changed anyway.
16:22
SPEAKER_02: There's barely any presence of video games on the high street.
16:24
I don't know what it's like in Canada,
16:26
Brendan,
16:26
but I'm guessing it's a similar situation.
16:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's not good.
16:31
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
16:31
there's GameStops here and they are the same as what I hear
16:36
everywhere else,
16:37
SPEAKER_00: I think,
16:37
SPEAKER_00: where it's like mostly Funko Pop and other merch.
16:40
SPEAKER_00: And then there's a show of the games.
16:42
SPEAKER_00: Toys R Us here got rid of their game shelving section.
16:46
SPEAKER_00: We still have a Toys R Us, which is nice.
16:48
SPEAKER_00: But they got rid of the game shelving section and they replaced it.
16:52
with a pop-up store for hmv so that they can sell vinyl yeah so
16:59
it's records the
17:01
the dominant entertainment media form of the 70s and early 80s
17:07
has replaced video
17:08
games on the shelves because that's viable business than
17:12
physical games here and
17:14
SPEAKER_00: yeah the the nintendo pricing thing is is
17:17
Interesting to me because I think digital has always been
17:22
cheaper than physical,
17:24
SPEAKER_00: generally speaking,
17:25
but mostly that's just because you get deals afterwards that go
17:30
deeper and deeper.
17:32
SPEAKER_00: You know,
17:33
you wind up with Humble Bundle kind of stuff where they just
17:36
shovel games you'll
17:37
SPEAKER_00: never play that you can add to your backlog for a few bucks a pop.
17:40
SPEAKER_00: It's interesting that they are splitting the price now for new releases,
17:46
SPEAKER_00: like day one,
17:47
SPEAKER_00: that digital would be cheaper than physical.
17:49
SPEAKER_00: I think that sounds like the actual significance here,
17:55
but we've been paying a premium for the physical version in
18:00
other media for a while.
18:02
SPEAKER_00: you know, Blu-rays or the vinyls that you get at Toys R Us now.
18:09
iTunes was just sort of like when it launched and it was like
18:12
10 bucks an album or whatever.
18:14
SPEAKER_00: That was already undercutting the cost of a new physical CD.
18:17
SPEAKER_00: So it doesn't strike me as being that much of a, oh, now we're doomed.
18:24
SPEAKER_00: Because I think like physical was kind of doomed before.
18:28
SPEAKER_00: And it will transition to the period where...
18:30
SPEAKER_00: It exists, but it is very much a niche, sort of, that charges a premium.
18:38
SPEAKER_00: And the question is whether,
18:41
SPEAKER_00: you might be getting to this,
18:42
whether or not the hardware makers will actually still include
18:45
cartridge slots or
18:46
SPEAKER_00: disk drives or things like that,
18:47
SPEAKER_00: which drive up the cost so that you can enable a physical.
18:52
SPEAKER_00: Well,
18:52
SPEAKER_02: it's worth talking about the fact,
18:54
SPEAKER_02: so I mentioned that number,
18:55
SPEAKER_02: that headline number,
18:56
SPEAKER_02: like in terms of revenue down by a third in terms of video game sales.
18:59
But I think it's worth stating this is a problem for certain
19:03
parts of the market.
19:03
SPEAKER_02: So I mentioned Nintendo, right?
19:05
SPEAKER_02: So I said Nintendo,
19:06
80% of new game sales for them when they release a new game is
19:09
sold in a box.
19:11
SPEAKER_02: So if the box set game set was just disappear overnight,
19:13
SPEAKER_02: if there are fewer people selling boxes or,
19:15
SPEAKER_02: you know,
19:15
SPEAKER_02: that kind of thing,
19:17
SPEAKER_02: then that's a problem for Nintendo.
19:18
SPEAKER_02: But it's not just Nintendo, obviously.
19:19
SPEAKER_02: Video game consoles and accessories are dependent on retail.
19:22
SPEAKER_02: You can't download a headset.
19:24
SPEAKER_02: But even certain types of games.
19:26
SPEAKER_02: So here's some data.
19:28
SPEAKER_02: Obviously, naturally, this is me.
19:30
SPEAKER_02: Big action shooter games are typically very digital.
19:33
SPEAKER_02: So in the UK last year,
19:34
nearly 81% of Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine 2 sales were sold
19:38
via digital retailers.
19:39
SPEAKER_02: And this was also the case.
19:40
SPEAKER_02: broadly speaking, across Europe.
19:42
SPEAKER_02: Sports gains a little less, but still very high.
19:45
SPEAKER_02: So 73% of EA Sports FC25 sales, such a name, were digital.
19:50
SPEAKER_02: 76% of F124 sales were digital and 70% of WWE 2K24 sales were digital.
19:54
SPEAKER_02: So still very digital.
19:54
SPEAKER_02: You go to Astro Bot though, 55% of Astro Bot sales were physical digital.
20:05
SPEAKER_02: So more people bought that game in the box than they did as a download.
20:09
SPEAKER_02: And there are others like Hogwarts Legacy.
20:11
SPEAKER_02: So one of the biggest games of the last two years.
20:13
SPEAKER_02: In the UK, 45% of that game sales were physical.
20:17
SPEAKER_02: You go back to 2023,
20:18
SPEAKER_02: more people bought Spider-Man 2 in a box than they did at launch anyway,
20:22
SPEAKER_02: than they did as a download.
20:23
SPEAKER_02: Now that might have been because of some hardware bundling,
20:25
SPEAKER_02: but it's still,
20:25
SPEAKER_02: you know,
20:26
SPEAKER_02: more people bought it from shops than they did from digital stores.
20:28
SPEAKER_02: Assassin's Creed Mirage, 49% of sales were in a box.
20:30
SPEAKER_02: Resident Evil 4, 45% of sales were in a box.
20:35
Now,
20:35
you might say that,
20:36
you know,
20:36
you go digital only or the physical goes away.
20:39
SPEAKER_02: People just move to digital.
20:40
SPEAKER_02: And that's probably true.
20:41
SPEAKER_02: And in fact,
20:42
SPEAKER_02: even in the physical space in the UK,
20:44
over 80 percent of all the revenue made on physical video games
20:47
were made via
20:48
SPEAKER_02: online retailers like Amazon.
20:50
So less than 20 percent of physical game sales were actually
20:52
made in actual shops
20:53
SPEAKER_02: like we get on high street or in shopping malls or retail parks.
20:58
SPEAKER_02: But although some will,
20:59
SPEAKER_02: maybe even a lot of customers will move to digital,
21:01
SPEAKER_02: there will be some lost customers.
21:03
SPEAKER_02: And today's world where the focus is on...
21:06
SPEAKER_02: We're trying to get growth back to the games industry.
21:08
And one of the things I think is a problem with growth is that
21:10
every games company
21:11
SPEAKER_02: at the moment is focused on increasing the average revenue per user.
21:15
So they're just trying to get people to pay more for the games
21:18
rather than trying
21:18
to necessarily widen the pool of players because that's proven
21:20
to be quite
21:21
SPEAKER_02: difficult at the moment.
21:22
SPEAKER_02: That's not necessarily an issue on an individual company basis.
21:25
SPEAKER_02: Profit is obviously...
21:27
SPEAKER_02: Paramount at the moment.
21:28
But from an industry point of view,
21:30
we need to try and grow the audience for games.
21:32
I think that's the only way we as an industry can get back to
21:35
proper growth is if
21:35
SPEAKER_02: we unlock new customers.
21:37
SPEAKER_02: And the death of games retail does not help that.
21:39
SPEAKER_02: But at the same time, there's no going back.
21:41
SPEAKER_02: We're in the situation we're in.
21:42
But I do think there's a lot we can learn,
21:43
the digital space we can learn from retailers.
21:46
I've seen a bunch of people that I used to work with when I
21:48
used to work at MCV,
21:49
SPEAKER_02: which was a retail magazine.
21:50
SPEAKER_02: Lots of the store managers,
21:52
sort of retail buyers and people that worked in retail teams
21:54
are now cropping up at
21:55
SPEAKER_02: game publishers.
21:55
And I think that's quite smart because when it comes to
21:58
discoverability crisis,
21:59
SPEAKER_02: when it comes to convincing customers,
22:02
SPEAKER_02: they're actually getting a good deal on the things that they're buying,
22:04
SPEAKER_02: which is a big topic at the moment.
22:06
SPEAKER_02: And we can talk about that a little bit.
22:08
SPEAKER_02: I think retail is actually quite good at handling these situations.
22:11
SPEAKER_02: They're kind of the experts in this area.
22:13
So it might be worthwhile bringing some of these people into
22:16
the publishing.
22:17
You know,
22:17
there used to be a time where you could buy your game from 10 stores.
22:20
SPEAKER_02: You could go to Blockbuster,
22:21
SPEAKER_02: you could go to GameStop,
22:22
SPEAKER_02: you can go to Walmart,
22:23
SPEAKER_02: you can go to Best Buy,
22:24
SPEAKER_02: you can go to all these different places to buy video games.
22:26
now if you there's basically in the console space there's
22:28
basically four retailers
22:29
three retailers e-shop well four amazon e-shop playstation
22:33
store and the xbox live
22:35
and it's the marketplace and then that's it i think there's
22:38
room for us to get
22:39
better there um learn because ultimately we can talk about how
22:42
bemoan the death of
22:43
SPEAKER_02: retail but it's it's it's happening and it's accelerating
22:48
And we as an industry that's trying to manage all of these
22:50
other challenges that
22:51
SPEAKER_02: we're facing,
22:52
SPEAKER_02: growth challenges,
22:53
SPEAKER_02: tariff challenges,
22:55
SPEAKER_02: tax break challenges,
22:56
we could do without losing customers because we don't have
23:00
means for them to buy
23:01
SPEAKER_02: physical boxes.
23:02
SPEAKER_02: That's what I think.
23:03
SPEAKER_02: There's my rant.
23:05
SPEAKER_00: I agree.
23:08
Every transition creates problems and there are people that are
23:12
left behind.
23:13
But a lot of the criticisms that I have of the industry for how
23:18
they have managed
23:19
the transition to a digital world are more about the ways
23:24
they've transitioned to a
23:26
SPEAKER_00: business model that allows for unlimited spending.
23:30
from each individual customer i think the industry has has
23:34
shown a lot of restraint
23:37
in the other hand on keeping retail as part of the equation for
23:43
as long as they
23:44
have yes uh i think they had the technical ability to do you
23:51
know straight digital
23:53
SPEAKER_00: distribution i mean they showed it with the psp go
23:57
SPEAKER_00: in the late 2000s.
23:59
SPEAKER_00: And yet they still stuck with supporting physical goods,
24:04
SPEAKER_00: not pricing them differently until this point,
24:08
SPEAKER_00: and keeping GameStop,
24:11
SPEAKER_00: which was a thorn in the side of the industry for years and years.
24:17
I don't think that they actively undermined them as
24:22
enthusiastically as I would have expected
24:26
given what GameStop's business model was and given the volume
24:30
of complaints that I
24:31
SPEAKER_00: used to hear about GameStop's business model.
24:35
SPEAKER_02: What I find a little bit funny is a lot of that was around pre-owned.
24:38
SPEAKER_02: And one of the biggest complaints we get now,
24:41
SPEAKER_02: one of the biggest,
24:41
SPEAKER_02: not complaints,
24:42
SPEAKER_02: I guess,
24:43
SPEAKER_02: but conversation points is,
24:44
SPEAKER_02: oh,
24:44
SPEAKER_02: legacy game sales are so strong now they're eating into new game sales.
24:48
And the complaint obviously back then was pre-owned was killing
24:50
legacy game sales.
24:51
SPEAKER_02: But obviously there was,
24:53
SPEAKER_02: but the truth was there was actionable data that showed that,
24:57
SPEAKER_02: you know,
24:57
SPEAKER_02: I think a game had a stat.
24:59
It was like 91 or 92% of people that traded in their games at
25:02
game did so against new games.
25:05
SPEAKER_02: And obviously, this is why we talk about pricing.
25:08
SPEAKER_02: I'm going to say, so you may have seen the Marathon news this week.
25:11
SPEAKER_02: There's a new Bundy game by Marathon and fans are,
25:14
SPEAKER_02: again,
25:15
SPEAKER_02: the social media algorithms are telling me everyone hates it.
25:18
SPEAKER_02: I'm sure that's not really the case.
25:19
But there's a lot of conversation around the price of it and
25:22
whether or not it's
25:22
SPEAKER_02: offering good value.
25:24
SPEAKER_02: And a lot of people point to the fact that, you know,
25:27
video game pricing has stayed the same for so long and $80 for
25:32
Mario Kart World.
25:33
SPEAKER_02: When we factor in inflation, we're not really seeing a price rise at all.
25:36
SPEAKER_02: We might even be seeing a price drop, blah, blah, blah.
25:39
SPEAKER_02: And they're saying the same with the hardware as well.
25:41
But I don't really go along with that argument completely
25:43
because that's what is
25:44
technically happening with game pricing and what is really
25:47
happening with game pricing.
25:48
SPEAKER_02: So I'll give you an example of this.
25:49
And this may seem like I'm going to start off positive,
25:52
but it's not entirely.
25:54
So you can't escape the negativity around the Switch 2 pricing
25:56
at the moment.
25:57
SPEAKER_02: I can.
25:59
SPEAKER_02: I don't have to make a purchasing decision on Switch 2 yet.
26:03
SPEAKER_02: Well,
26:04
SPEAKER_02: it certainly seems to me,
26:05
SPEAKER_02: if you're in the game space,
26:06
SPEAKER_02: every time I go on a Facebook wall,
26:07
SPEAKER_02: I see a big article.
26:08
SPEAKER_02: What's interesting,
26:08
SPEAKER_02: I saw this article being pumped into my face,
26:11
SPEAKER_02: which was,
26:12
the full version of The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild and
26:14
Switch 2 will cost
26:15
SPEAKER_02: you $90.
26:15
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
26:17
SPEAKER_02: And that's based on the fact the game costs $60 on Switch 2.
26:20
SPEAKER_02: And if you want the DLC, it'll cost you another $30.
26:23
SPEAKER_02: And the idea being,
26:24
SPEAKER_02: I think,
26:24
is to try and give the suggestion that if you want to upgrade
26:26
your copy of Breath
26:27
SPEAKER_02: of the Wild to Switch 2,
26:28
SPEAKER_02: you're going to have to pay an obscene amount of money.
26:29
SPEAKER_02: But obviously, the headline's technically true.
26:32
SPEAKER_02: But in reality, that isn't true.
26:34
SPEAKER_02: Most people who want to play Breath of the Wild on Switch 2
26:37
SPEAKER_02: probably already own Breath of the Wild and probably own the DLC as well,
26:41
SPEAKER_02: in which case the real price is $10.
26:43
SPEAKER_02: And if you happen to have a Nintendo Switch Online subscription service,
26:46
SPEAKER_02: it actually costs you nothing at all.
26:48
SPEAKER_02: And indeed, that's how much it's costing me.
26:50
I actually think,
26:51
oh,
26:51
I'm getting these two big game upgrades for nothing.
26:54
SPEAKER_02: Mario Kart World is actually a similar thing.
26:57
SPEAKER_02: So in the UK, Mario Kart World, the box version is £75.
27:00
SPEAKER_02: We've never seen a game be that high.
27:02
SPEAKER_02: So that's what all the headlines are.
27:04
But millions and millions of people will be getting that game
27:07
the way I'm getting
27:07
SPEAKER_02: that game,
27:08
SPEAKER_02: which is through the hardware button that they're promoting at the start.
27:12
SPEAKER_02: And the hardware bundle in the UK prices Mario Kart World at £35.
27:15
In fact,
27:16
it's the cheapest I've ever bought a Mario Kart game of all time.
27:19
SPEAKER_02: And of course, if you buy it digitally, it's a little bit less as well.
27:22
So there's the technical truth in the headline that game prices
27:25
are higher than ever,
27:25
SPEAKER_02: but the real price is actually less for a lot of people.
27:29
SPEAKER_02: But this was also the case 10, 15, 20 years ago.
27:32
SPEAKER_02: Games didn't cost £50 or $60 10, 15 years ago.
27:36
SPEAKER_02: They didn't.
27:37
SPEAKER_02: The recommended price might have said that.
27:39
SPEAKER_02: But that's not what people actually spent.
27:41
SPEAKER_02: Retailers would always knock a few dollars off.
27:42
SPEAKER_02: There'd always be a bit of a price war competition.
27:45
SPEAKER_02: There were trading solutions.
27:46
I remember going into game with four old copies of tightwood
27:49
like FIFA and getting
27:50
SPEAKER_02: a brand new one for a pound.
27:52
SPEAKER_02: That's one of the offers they used to do quite a lot of.
27:54
SPEAKER_02: I think I bought Assassin's Creed 3 back in 2012 for £35,
27:58
SPEAKER_02: I think,
27:59
SPEAKER_02: from Tesco,
28:00
SPEAKER_02: I think it was,
28:01
SPEAKER_02: for Xbox 360 that was on.
28:02
SPEAKER_02: And in today's money, that's 50 quid.
28:04
SPEAKER_02: Whereas the only option I have for Assassin's Creed Shadows is 70 pounds.
28:08
SPEAKER_02: So I think that's what the real price was.
28:10
SPEAKER_02: And then there's what the real prices are today.
28:12
SPEAKER_02: And there is, for me, there is an increase in pricing.
28:15
SPEAKER_02: So I understand that.
28:16
And going back to our point on the retail side of things,
28:19
that's where retailers came in.
28:20
SPEAKER_02: They were really quite good at giving you that
28:24
SPEAKER_02: In a way, they used to call it basket spending.
28:25
SPEAKER_02: You might have seen it as,
28:26
SPEAKER_02: you know,
28:27
SPEAKER_02: I don't know,
28:27
I always hated it when I went to a shop and someone was trying
28:29
to tell me,
28:30
SPEAKER_02: hey,
28:30
do you want to buy a controller with that and buy this for that
28:32
and buy that?
28:33
And I know other people,
28:35
they end up spending more and they end up feeling good about it.
28:38
Whereas now I feel people are spending more and feeling
28:40
terrible about it.
28:41
SPEAKER_02: I do think there's a retailing skill here that we've lost a little bit.
28:44
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I say that.
28:45
SPEAKER_02: Ubisoft Plus,
28:46
SPEAKER_02: the subscription service they've got,
28:48
SPEAKER_02: I think it's called Ubisoft Plus,
28:49
basically allows you to rent Assassin's Creed Shadows for like
28:52
$15 or whatever,
28:53
SPEAKER_02: or £15,
28:54
SPEAKER_02: which is an interesting digital retailing solution.
28:57
Nintendo used to do those vouchers you could buy where you
29:00
could get two Switch
29:01
SPEAKER_02: games for reduced price if you got this voucher.
29:04
SPEAKER_02: And obviously,
29:04
SPEAKER_02: when it comes to legacy games,
29:05
SPEAKER_02: as you mentioned,
29:06
SPEAKER_02: there's always these Steam sales.
29:07
SPEAKER_02: There's always these big promotions.
29:09
I just don't think we necessarily go deep enough on that kind
29:12
of thing when it
29:12
SPEAKER_02: comes to digital retailing.
29:14
SPEAKER_02: I think there's a way of getting,
29:17
SPEAKER_02: it sounds really mercenary,
29:19
but sort of encouraging consumers to spend more whilst still
29:22
making them feel good
29:23
SPEAKER_02: that they're getting a good value out of it and getting a good deal.
29:27
I'm not sure they're feeling that at the moment,
29:28
which I think is where a lot of this...
29:31
SPEAKER_02: You know,
29:31
SPEAKER_02: with the Switch 1,
29:33
SPEAKER_02: I got it for 100 quid less because I traded in my Wii U.
29:37
And that's pretty much the case for every piece of hardware I
29:39
had before that.
29:40
SPEAKER_02: And with the Switch 2, I don't have any option.
29:42
Nobody's promoting a trading offer for the Switch OLED or
29:45
whatever that I've got.
29:46
SPEAKER_02: I just have to buy it and have this old console sitting on my shelf.
29:50
SPEAKER_00: Because there's no secondhand gaming market to sell the trade-in to now.
29:55
SPEAKER_00: I will say your point of view is a little bit different from mine,
29:58
SPEAKER_00: because you mentioned Tesco and that,
30:01
SPEAKER_00: and I remember a lot of complaining about that,
30:04
SPEAKER_00: about supermarkets in the UK discounting the new release games.
30:09
SPEAKER_00: My memory of it in the US and Canada,
30:12
SPEAKER_00: to a lesser extent,
30:14
SPEAKER_00: is just that new games didn't really have...
30:18
sales like that around no it was definitely it was different in
30:22
the uk it was lots
30:22
of price wars for a period of time in the uk and i think that's
30:26
a lot of what we're
30:27
seeing now digitally is that there just is less competition
30:32
because if everything's
30:34
going through you know the nintendo e-shop anyways you're
30:36
buying it from nintendo
30:38
SPEAKER_00: and i think people generally have like
30:42
a platform that they prefer to play on,
30:45
whether it's PC,
30:46
Xbox,
30:47
Switch,
30:47
whatever.
30:48
But they aren't likely to like look at the PlayStation version
30:52
of this game is cheaper.
30:54
So I'm going to go away from my main platform if it's Steam or
30:58
if it's Switch or
30:59
SPEAKER_00: whatever and get the PlayStation version for that.
31:02
I think it would have to be really like a deep cut to actually
31:06
win people over for
31:07
SPEAKER_00: that and that you don't get those kind of cuts on new release games.
31:11
SPEAKER_00: These days,
31:12
SPEAKER_00: I think the best you get is like,
31:13
SPEAKER_00: what,
31:13
SPEAKER_00: a 10% discount at launch from the digital storefront.
31:18
SPEAKER_00: And that's not about competing with other storefronts, I think.
31:21
It's just about getting you to actually pull the trigger on a
31:23
purchase right away.
31:26
So when consumers don't have choices between competitors that
31:31
are engaged in the
31:33
SPEAKER_00: kind of aggressive pricing that you were talking about,
31:36
SPEAKER_00: it's not going to happen.
31:38
SPEAKER_00: that these prices magically get offered at a nicer price point.
31:42
SPEAKER_00: So I think the hobby is,
31:45
SPEAKER_00: despite the advent of free to play,
31:46
SPEAKER_00: I think it is getting less affordable.
31:49
SPEAKER_00: And you can see that even in the equipment that you need to buy it.
31:53
SPEAKER_00: It's super weird to me that they raised the price of the PS5 again.
31:56
I look at where the industry has been heading in the last five
32:00
years and stuff just
32:02
SPEAKER_00: doesn't get cheaper anymore.
32:04
SPEAKER_00: Right.
32:05
SPEAKER_00: And then there was a pandemic,
32:08
SPEAKER_00: supply chain problems,
32:09
SPEAKER_00: and now there's tariffs and trade wars and everything.
32:11
SPEAKER_00: But we have not seen things budge towards being cheaper.
32:17
SPEAKER_00: Like, has anyone had price cuts?
32:20
SPEAKER_02: No, no, we're going the other way.
32:22
SPEAKER_02: Everything's getting more expensive.
32:23
And I understand why,
32:25
you know,
32:25
I'm a business journalist,
32:26
I get what's going on here.
32:27
SPEAKER_02: But I mean,
32:28
SPEAKER_02: there's a prominent games industry person said to me,
32:32
SPEAKER_02: opera used to be the most popular entertainment form in the world,
32:36
SPEAKER_02: or one of them.
32:38
SPEAKER_02: We can't bank on video games forever.
32:41
SPEAKER_02: You can bank on it being around forever.
32:43
You can bank on artists creating stuff and everybody wanting to
32:46
support those
32:46
SPEAKER_02: artists and buy those things.
32:48
SPEAKER_02: But the business component of it,
32:49
SPEAKER_02: whether you love it or not,
32:51
SPEAKER_02: is what drives all of this big,
32:53
SPEAKER_02: expansive investments and concepts and money.
32:58
SPEAKER_02: Lots of people can make a living out of it.
33:00
And that requires,
33:01
I just think it requires an element of audience growth.
33:04
And the fact that we've got to this point where it seems to
33:06
have slowed and
33:07
SPEAKER_02: increasing those prices and making it more prohibitive,
33:10
SPEAKER_02: I don't think that solves the overall industry problem.
33:13
SPEAKER_02: But,
33:13
SPEAKER_02: you know,
33:14
SPEAKER_02: it might solve the problem in the short term,
33:15
SPEAKER_02: but I think there just needs to get to a point of how do you
33:19
SPEAKER_02: Now, it's interesting.
33:19
I talked to Jackbox Games this week about their service they're
33:22
doing with Amazon
33:23
when they're trying to get games into the hands of everybody as
33:26
easy as possible.
33:26
Netflix talking about how they're trying to get their hands
33:28
into the games.
33:29
When they tell me these stories and I do these pieces and I get
33:32
a few gamers
33:32
SPEAKER_02: commenting on it going,
33:33
SPEAKER_00: oh,
33:33
SPEAKER_02: he's going to play that stuff on Netflix.
33:35
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, yeah, but it's quite...
33:36
SPEAKER_02: It's quite accessible, relatively cheap way of playing video games.
33:40
SPEAKER_02: And I don't think there's enough of those,
33:42
SPEAKER_02: generally,
33:42
SPEAKER_02: you know,
33:43
SPEAKER_02: unless,
33:43
except for the ones that are filled with microtransactions or
33:46
things like that,
33:46
SPEAKER_02: you know,
33:47
the ability to be able to play a video game from start to
33:48
finish in an affordable way,
33:50
I think is something that we ought to still be thinking about
33:53
as a business,
33:54
SPEAKER_02: but...
33:55
SPEAKER_02: It's certainly a challenging time.
33:56
SPEAKER_02: And I think the loss of games retail, it's not new.
33:59
SPEAKER_02: It's like,
33:59
SPEAKER_02: I'm not talking about something that,
34:00
SPEAKER_02: oh,
34:01
SPEAKER_02: games retail was here yesterday and it's gone now.
34:02
SPEAKER_02: It's been fading away and fading away and fading away.
34:05
SPEAKER_02: But as I,
34:05
SPEAKER_02: some of that data I showed that for some games,
34:08
SPEAKER_02: it's still really,
34:09
SPEAKER_02: really,
34:09
SPEAKER_02: really important,
34:10
SPEAKER_02: even vital.
34:11
SPEAKER_02: And so finding those ways of reaching those people,
34:14
SPEAKER_02: I think it's going to still be an important thing.
34:16
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, you mentioned Netflix.
34:18
I've downloaded a few of the Netflix games on my phone and
34:21
played through them and
34:22
SPEAKER_00: there's some really great games.
34:24
It kills me because I look at it and I'm just like,
34:26
this is still too much friction.
34:29
SPEAKER_00: It's super easy to download the Netflix version of the game.
34:32
SPEAKER_00: And if you're already signed into Netflix on your phone,
34:34
SPEAKER_00: then it's just,
34:35
SPEAKER_00: you know,
34:36
SPEAKER_00: sign in there and you're good.
34:38
But even that in today's world feels like more friction than a
34:44
critical mass of
34:45
SPEAKER_00: people are going to be willing to sign up for.
34:49
It's wild to me just how you need to like connect the feedback
34:55
straight up to the
34:56
SPEAKER_00: consumer's head.
34:58
And then you need to pump your slurry of content directly down
35:01
their gullet.
35:03
SPEAKER_00: Because if there is any kind of like activity required on their end,
35:08
SPEAKER_00: it's just like,
35:10
SPEAKER_00: oh yeah,
35:10
SPEAKER_00: but I've already got all these other things that I'm hooked up to.
35:13
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well, that's the thing.
35:15
SPEAKER_02: I'll be honest, that's one of the thinking behind the game business.
35:17
SPEAKER_02: I wouldn't phrase it like that.
35:20
SPEAKER_02: Certainly.
35:20
But the whole reason why we're doing these in podcasts,
35:23
we have videos,
35:24
it's in the newsletter.
35:25
You'll be able to read a lot of these thoughts in the
35:27
newsletter if you haven't already.
35:29
SPEAKER_02: It's on our social media feeds.
35:30
It's because rather than expecting consumers to come to us
35:32
because they're so busy,
35:33
SPEAKER_02: they've got so much stuff being thrown at them all the time,
35:35
SPEAKER_02: I'm just going to go to them and let you go,
35:37
SPEAKER_02: here you go,
35:38
SPEAKER_02: here it is.
35:38
SPEAKER_02: And that is what...
35:40
entertainment is today and Netflix are trying to do new things
35:42
with like TVs and
35:43
SPEAKER_02: phones and Jackbox want to be like on TVs and things like that.
35:47
SPEAKER_02: It feels more like a different conversation.
35:49
SPEAKER_02: Shall we talk about tariffs very briefly?
35:53
SPEAKER_02: It's a comparatively quiet week for tariffs.
35:56
SPEAKER_02: We did have the news at the weekend that electronics are temporarily,
36:02
SPEAKER_02: PCs and mobile phones anyway,
36:05
SPEAKER_02: temporarily exempt
36:06
SPEAKER_02: from the Taurus is actually linked to a Section 232,
36:09
SPEAKER_02: I think it's what it's called,
36:11
SPEAKER_02: investigation into semiconductors,
36:13
SPEAKER_02: which means the Taurus are almost certainly still coming,
36:16
SPEAKER_02: but maybe even in a worse way than possible.
36:18
SPEAKER_02: But consoles were never exempt.
36:19
Neither were controllers,
36:20
neither were merchandise or any of the products.
36:23
SPEAKER_02: Switch 2 cartridges were, which was a relative...
36:28
SPEAKER_02: boost for the physical sales of the Switch 2 games.
36:30
SPEAKER_02: But the reality is getting quite messy now.
36:33
SPEAKER_02: It's getting quite complicated.
36:34
SPEAKER_02: And it's still not entirely clear what impact,
36:36
SPEAKER_02: you know,
36:37
SPEAKER_02: this is the thing with a lot of people have said to me on social media,
36:40
SPEAKER_02: can't they just manufacture these things in the US?
36:42
SPEAKER_02: And not only do it take years to get this stuff spun up,
36:46
to get the expertise to build the factories and the warehouses
36:50
and do all the
36:50
SPEAKER_02: things that's required there,
36:52
SPEAKER_02: certain metals don't even exist in the US.
36:55
SPEAKER_02: It has to be imported anyway.
36:57
SPEAKER_02: So you end up in a situation where you'd still be impacted by tariffs.
37:00
The price of these products with tariffs being proposed one way
37:03
or another is just
37:04
SPEAKER_02: going to rise.
37:05
SPEAKER_02: And that's a real problem for video games right now.
37:08
SPEAKER_02: It's a real stress point.
37:10
SPEAKER_02: At this point, 2025 was supposed to be the year we got back to growth.
37:13
It was supposed to be the year that a new console and a couple
37:16
of big games was
37:17
SPEAKER_02: going to,
37:17
SPEAKER_02: at least in a short term,
37:19
SPEAKER_02: give us a bit of a bump.
37:21
SPEAKER_02: And then this comes along,
37:22
creates this whole world of uncertainty and it's going to
37:26
impact everything from investment.
37:27
We're already seeing consumers in China protesting it by
37:29
refusing to buy American goods.
37:31
SPEAKER_02: You're already seeing that actually in Europe as well.
37:34
SPEAKER_02: I'm not sure that's definitely going to extend to games.
37:36
SPEAKER_02: Even if these things,
37:37
SPEAKER_02: everyone sort of walks away from it,
37:39
SPEAKER_02: somehow saving the face and everyone and tariffs disappear.
37:43
I still think there's going to be some sort of harm from a
37:45
consumer point of view
37:46
SPEAKER_02: in terms of their perception and view of things.
37:49
SPEAKER_02: I don't have much to say.
37:50
SPEAKER_02: There's an article on The Game Business,
37:51
SPEAKER_02: which I put up,
37:52
SPEAKER_02: which is like an FAQ on what the latest is.
37:54
And I will be updating it as soon as something else happens,
37:57
which,
37:57
by the way,
37:58
may be the case.
37:59
SPEAKER_02: Twice I've done these shows,
38:00
SPEAKER_02: Brendan,
38:01
had to cut out or add in something after recording because
38:06
something has happened
38:07
SPEAKER_02: by the time I've recorded this and the time we put it live.
38:09
SPEAKER_02: And that may be the case now.
38:10
So if this sounds out of date to you,
38:13
then read the article on The Game Business.
38:14
SPEAKER_02: I will have updated it.
38:15
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
38:16
SPEAKER_00: So when you were talking there,
38:17
SPEAKER_00: it just reminded me of like,
38:19
SPEAKER_00: well,
38:19
SPEAKER_00: you know,
38:20
SPEAKER_00: in Canada,
38:21
SPEAKER_00: we're not exactly thrilled about buying American these days.
38:24
SPEAKER_00: No.
38:25
SPEAKER_00: And I think there's the last few months, the turmoil of it.
38:31
I think have made clear to a lot of people that they can't rely
38:37
on trade with the U.S.
38:39
SPEAKER_00: the way they used to.
38:40
SPEAKER_00: It was taken as a given that there would be access to the U.S.
38:44
SPEAKER_00: market, especially in Canada.
38:47
We have a subscriber survey for The Logic that we're running
38:50
right now about how
38:52
SPEAKER_00: the tariffs impacted your organization.
38:55
And the last question on it is,
38:58
do you think that trade relations with the U.S.
39:00
SPEAKER_00: will ever go back to the way they were?
39:04
SPEAKER_00: And it's still running.
39:06
SPEAKER_00: I guess it'll be closed by the time this actually airs.
39:09
SPEAKER_00: But taking a peek at the early results anyways,
39:13
SPEAKER_00: it was something like 80% of the people were saying no.
39:16
SPEAKER_00: It just won't be the same.
39:18
And our prime minister at the moment,
39:20
we're in the middle of an election campaign.
39:22
Mark Carney is saying like that era of close Canadian
39:26
cooperation with the U.S.
39:28
SPEAKER_00: and economic and military ties that we had.
39:31
SPEAKER_00: That era is over.
39:33
SPEAKER_00: We're absolutely willing to resume this.
39:37
SPEAKER_00: better trade deals and situations with them.
39:42
But we cannot go back to the kind of interdependence that we
39:46
had taken for granted for decades.
39:50
And I think a lot of the world looking at this has to come to
39:55
the same conclusion.
39:57
SPEAKER_00: If you're a manufacturer selling things from China or Vietnam,
40:03
you have to understand that even if there is an administration
40:07
change here and you
40:08
SPEAKER_00: get someone that is more in the mold of past presidents,
40:13
that return to normalcy or whatever is one election away from
40:18
just evaporating.
40:20
SPEAKER_00: There is no...
40:22
SPEAKER_00: No certainty with the U.S.
40:24
SPEAKER_00: in the way that basically the entire world used to think there was.
40:29
So this is not a temporary situation that will,
40:34
you know,
40:35
everything goes back to normal.
40:36
SPEAKER_00: We are looking at a readjustment that will change the way,
40:41
SPEAKER_00: you know,
40:41
SPEAKER_00: obviously games,
40:42
SPEAKER_00: but everything.
40:44
SPEAKER_00: operates going forward.
40:46
SPEAKER_00: And the genie is out in the bottle.
40:52
And you're going to see people doing more working around the
40:57
United States,
40:58
I think.
40:58
You'll also see a lot of companies moving into the United
41:02
States to make things in the U.S.
41:04
SPEAKER_00: and sell things to Americans.
41:06
But I don't think there will be the same utter reliance and
41:10
dependence on the
41:11
SPEAKER_00: market that they're used to.
41:12
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
41:13
SPEAKER_02: But from a games point of view,
41:14
SPEAKER_02: obviously,
41:14
SPEAKER_02: it's the biggest market for video games in the world,
41:16
SPEAKER_02: particularly console games.
41:18
SPEAKER_02: And if you can't sell the hardware there,
41:21
SPEAKER_02: or you can't sell it at a reasonable cost,
41:23
SPEAKER_02: the impact is on jobs.
41:25
SPEAKER_02: And it's on jobs.
41:25
It's worth noting that US makes some of the biggest video games
41:28
in the world.
41:31
SPEAKER_02: This will impact those companies, those software companies.
41:34
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
41:34
SPEAKER_02: it's worth noting in 2019,
41:35
the ESA and some others managed to convince the government not
41:38
to impose tariffs on
41:39
SPEAKER_02: when they're tariffs on China to impact games consoles.
41:41
SPEAKER_02: It's possible they could do that this time.
41:44
There's still opportunities and we'll obviously be keeping on
41:46
top of all of that.
41:48
SPEAKER_02: I will end.
41:49
SPEAKER_02: It's a bit of a long one, this one, but we'll end on one, hopefully,
41:55
SPEAKER_02: Sort of lighter note, an unusually critical note, I guess.
41:58
Shira Yoshida has his extended retirement tour going around
42:02
talking about everything.
42:04
SPEAKER_02: Clearly the muzzle is off.
42:05
SPEAKER_02: But he had a pop at Nintendo this week, sort of.
42:08
SPEAKER_02: He referred to the reveal of the Switch 2 as being a mixed message.
42:11
SPEAKER_02: I think Nintendo is losing their identity, in my opinion.
42:14
SPEAKER_02: For me,
42:14
they're always about creating some new experiences like
42:17
designing hardware and
42:18
SPEAKER_02: games together to create something,
42:19
SPEAKER_02: an amazing new experience.
42:21
SPEAKER_02: But Switch 2, as we anticipated, is a better Switch, right?
42:24
SPEAKER_02: It's the larger screen, more powerful processor, higher resolution.
42:26
They even had a hardware person starting the screen like other
42:29
platforms do.
42:30
SPEAKER_02: It's possible to be that the Switch 2 isn't innovative enough.
42:33
SPEAKER_02: I'm not sure.
42:34
SPEAKER_02: I understand where this comes from,
42:36
but I think someone like Shu has been around long enough to
42:38
know that actually this
42:38
SPEAKER_02: is more in Nintendo's MO than I think people realize.
42:42
SPEAKER_02: The SNES was a more powerful NES with more buttons.
42:45
SPEAKER_02: The GameCube was a more powerful N64 with more buttons.
42:48
SPEAKER_02: The GBA was a more powerful Game Boy with some more buttons.
42:51
Even the 3DS,
42:52
I would argue,
42:52
I know it had a 3D screen,
42:54
just a DS,
42:55
a more powerful DS.
42:57
SPEAKER_02: The Wii U,
42:57
SPEAKER_02: in a way,
42:58
is the only exception following the Wii with a new innovation
43:01
as opposed to just a
43:03
SPEAKER_02: more powerful Wii.
43:04
SPEAKER_02: For me,
43:05
the Switch 2 being a more powerful version of the Switch is
43:07
just what Nintendo
43:08
SPEAKER_02: often do with their second consoles.
43:10
SPEAKER_02: So I'm not entirely sure I agree.
43:11
SPEAKER_02: And also,
43:11
SPEAKER_02: I think the game chat functionality,
43:13
SPEAKER_02: I played Mario Kart World and talk about that in a moment.
43:16
SPEAKER_02: So I'm not entirely sure I agree with him,
43:17
but it's certainly a bit of a consensus at the moment that the
43:21
Switch 2 is too
43:22
SPEAKER_02: similar to the Switch 1.
43:24
SPEAKER_02: I'm not going to give you my opinion, though.
43:25
I'm going to cut to myself from last week when I just played
43:29
the Switch 2.
43:30
SPEAKER_02: I played Mario Kart.
43:31
SPEAKER_02: I played Metroid.
43:32
SPEAKER_02: I played Donkey Kong.
43:33
SPEAKER_02: I played a bunch of games at an event in London.
43:35
SPEAKER_02: And I was joined by Andy Robinson from Video Game Chronicle.
43:38
SPEAKER_02: to share his views on it as well.
43:41
SPEAKER_02: And let's cut to that clip.
43:43
SPEAKER_02: We are at the Nintendo Switch 2 launch event in London.
43:48
SPEAKER_02: Well, preview event, I guess, press preview event.
43:51
SPEAKER_02: And I've played a bunch of Nintendo Switch 2 games for the first time.
43:54
SPEAKER_02: But Andy, this is your second time.
43:56
SPEAKER_02: Yes, indeed.
43:57
SPEAKER_02: I'm joined by Andy Robinson of Video Games Chronicle.
43:59
SPEAKER_01: I'm a Switch 2 event stalwart at this stage.
44:02
SPEAKER_01: I genuinely have been demoing some demos through press.
44:05
SPEAKER_01: You did it to me just a minute ago.
44:07
SPEAKER_01: You told me where to go on the welcome tour.
44:08
SPEAKER_01: I told the actual staff to get out of the way and showed you around.
44:13
SPEAKER_01: Has anything changed your mind?
44:14
SPEAKER_01: Anything you liked?
44:17
SPEAKER_01: The mouse controls probably convinced me more the second time around.
44:20
SPEAKER_01: I think it's easy to be a little bit cynical that I'll see a 30,
44:25
SPEAKER_01: 40 year old mechanic that we're all so used to on our PCs.
44:28
Can that really be innovative,
44:29
really be interesting on a console just by itself?
44:32
SPEAKER_01: But there's a lot of demos here that I got to spend a bit more time with,
44:34
SPEAKER_01: like Mario Party,
44:35
SPEAKER_01: for example.
44:36
where they demonstrate that the force feedback that they're
44:38
calling HD Rumble 2,
44:39
SPEAKER_01: and I know that was a big gimmick on the first Switch,
44:42
SPEAKER_01: but combining that with a traditional mouse actually does really work.
44:46
SPEAKER_01: It feels like more tangible.
44:48
SPEAKER_01: There's a minigame on Mario Party where you pull a toy car,
44:53
SPEAKER_01: as you would in real life,
44:54
SPEAKER_01: to charge it up and then release it,
44:56
and you can feel the tension in the mouse as you do it through
44:59
the force feedback,
45:00
SPEAKER_01: and it just elevates the experience more than if you were just on a PC,
45:04
SPEAKER_01: for example.
45:04
I use the mouse controls on Metroid and I was quite impressed
45:07
at how you can use
45:08
SPEAKER_02: the mouse controls and then to switch to normal controls,
45:11
SPEAKER_02: you just lift it up.
45:13
And the way I played the Metroid demo was in the more
45:16
explorative moments,
45:18
SPEAKER_01: I would play with gyro controls traditionally.
45:20
And then when I needed more precision,
45:22
say on a boss fight,
45:23
for example,
45:23
I switch the mouse.
45:24
SPEAKER_01: So that is quite cool.
45:25
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it is.
45:26
SPEAKER_02: What did you make of, because I played Mario Kart.
45:29
SPEAKER_02: Well, there's two types of demos here.
45:30
SPEAKER_02: I played the Grand Prix, which was great.
45:32
mario kart basically and then i played the is it what was the
45:35
name of the mode the
45:36
knockout mode which is um it's excellent absolutely uh game
45:42
changer also a bit of
45:43
free roaming beforehand which i i did see people enjoying um
45:46
with a bit of game
45:47
chat uh in between but i was i thought that was astonishing and
45:50
my initial thoughts
45:51
were i feel sorry for that sonic racing game that's coming out
45:53
this year oh
45:54
SPEAKER_01: goodness gracious yeah it's um
45:58
SPEAKER_01: Just by itself, it's Mario Kart on such a larger scale.
46:02
SPEAKER_01: The tracks are interconnected, they're seamless.
46:05
That mode demonstrates better than anything we've seen in any
46:07
demo so far,
46:08
SPEAKER_01: what they're trying to achieve with this title.
46:10
In the knockout mode,
46:11
you play through four courses that are directly connected.
46:15
You'll go for a city and then you'll go for a desert canyon and
46:17
then you'll be in a swamp.
46:19
SPEAKER_01: And it's all completely seamless.
46:21
SPEAKER_01: You don't really get to see that in traditional GP.
46:23
SPEAKER_01: But just by itself, the races, there's 24 players this time.
46:27
SPEAKER_01: It's complete carnage by the end, right?
46:30
SPEAKER_01: Playing is believing.
46:31
SPEAKER_02: I think it gets less carnage as it goes on.
46:33
It starts off with so many players because you knock out as you
46:36
go for each checkpoint.
46:37
SPEAKER_01: So it's a lot of fun.
46:38
SPEAKER_01: That really convinced me.
46:39
SPEAKER_01: As a fan...
46:42
SPEAKER_01: I wasn't sure before we got to see the big Switch 2 Direct,
46:45
SPEAKER_01: whether a Mario Kart game could really carry for me a launch lineup.
46:48
SPEAKER_02: I was expecting Donkey Kong, basically Mario, but with Donkey Kong.
46:51
SPEAKER_02: And it's not what that game is.
46:53
SPEAKER_02: And obviously, because Mario Kart is clearly the hero title, it's not...
46:58
it's not will it get the same focus when it comes out it's only
47:00
out a month later i
47:01
mean you always have to attach a caveat when you're being
47:03
critical of a nintendo
47:04
game that we're judging it on a nintendo scale right yeah it's
47:07
clearly going to be
47:07
a very very good game i have a lot of faith into it but i agree
47:10
with you it's um it
47:12
didn't it's very limited it's a small demo for what's
47:14
presumably a very big game
47:16
and i'm still unconvinced just how good the core mechanic is
47:19
the destruction the
47:20
SPEAKER_01: smashing through stuff i've been told that
47:23
Perhaps it would be better in a normal playing environment
47:26
because the sound is
47:26
SPEAKER_01: supposed to really elevate the feedback of smashing through the scenery.
47:31
SPEAKER_01: But still, I've got a lot of question marks around it.
47:34
SPEAKER_01: I'm eager to see more of what that game's about.
47:36
SPEAKER_02: It's interesting.
47:37
SPEAKER_02: I really enjoyed the Metro demo,
47:38
but it felt more like a demo built for a space like this than a
47:41
Metro game.
47:42
SPEAKER_02: And oddly, things like Welcome Tour, which I quite enjoyed.
47:45
I remember really enjoying 1-2 Switch when I came to the Switch
47:49
1 event eight years ago.
47:51
SPEAKER_02: And that obviously was a bit rubbish when it came out.
47:54
I think the press has become quite savvy now to which games are
47:57
actually a lot more
47:58
fun when you're playing them at an event with lots of other
48:01
journalists playing
48:02
SPEAKER_01: with you,
48:03
SPEAKER_01: with basically staff excitedly cheering you on.
48:06
I think we probably attach that caveat to the Mario Kart
48:08
Knockout Tour as well.
48:10
How funny is that going to be in a real-world environment when
48:12
you're getting
48:12
SPEAKER_01: absolutely battered by,
48:13
SPEAKER_01: you know,
48:15
SPEAKER_01: 23 other 13-year-olds from Eastern Europe?
48:17
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
48:18
Well,
48:18
you're surrounded by people screaming,
48:20
yeah,
48:20
girl,
48:21
when you click me.
48:21
We'll get a different kind of screaming,
48:23
presumably,
48:24
when you're playing on real Switch.
48:26
SPEAKER_01: If you've played for your game chat, anyway.
48:28
SPEAKER_02: Well, I mean, I've pre-ordered it.
48:29
SPEAKER_02: I'm excited for the console.
48:31
SPEAKER_02: Mario Kart does look like a step up.
48:33
SPEAKER_02: Donkey, I'm not too sure about.
48:34
SPEAKER_02: I enjoyed Welcome Tour.
48:35
SPEAKER_02: I enjoyed Metroid.
48:37
SPEAKER_02: It does feel like a continuation of the Switch story rather than a reset.
48:43
SPEAKER_02: And I don't know why I always expected that.
48:45
SPEAKER_02: It's kind of what people wanted.
48:46
SPEAKER_02: It's what I'm asking for.
48:47
SPEAKER_02: But I think when I see it,
48:49
SPEAKER_02: I'm like,
48:49
SPEAKER_02: oh,
48:49
SPEAKER_02: this is just my console carrying on a lot more powerful.
48:52
SPEAKER_02: Here's the next batch of games.
48:54
SPEAKER_02: Some of them Metroid will be playable on the older one and go ahead,
48:57
SPEAKER_02: which isn't quite as exciting as it used to be.
48:59
SPEAKER_02: But I think that's that's that's that's consoles now.
49:02
SPEAKER_01: That's consoles.
49:03
SPEAKER_01: I mean, this is Nintendo's PS5 Xbox.
49:07
series x moment right where we turn the console on expecting a
49:10
brand new experience
49:11
or older people like us do and you're like oh all my games are
49:15
there and it's it's
49:16
it's a smoother trend it's not the big reset that we've been
49:19
trained to to get used
49:21
to but maybe that's a maybe that's a great thing right it's a
49:24
better a better
49:25
switch um i really think that pretty much anything is going to
49:28
be able to run on
49:29
this console now if it can run ps4 games then it can run pretty
49:32
much anything right
49:32
SPEAKER_02: yeah
49:33
Yeah,
49:33
and obviously with modern developers going cross-generation and
49:37
it's fixed up.
49:38
SPEAKER_02: Well, thank you, Andy.
49:39
SPEAKER_02: Thank you for your opinions.
49:40
SPEAKER_02: And I'll go back to myself in the studio.
49:44
SPEAKER_02: That was my take on the Switch 2 after I played it.
49:45
SPEAKER_02: Brendan, have you been paying attention to Switch 2?
49:47
SPEAKER_02: You're not much of a Nintendo person, are you, Brendan?
49:50
SPEAKER_00: I am.
49:51
SPEAKER_00: You are a Nintendo person.
49:52
I've been much more of a Nintendo person than...
49:55
I think the Vita dying was what did it to me.
50:00
SPEAKER_00: After the Vita, I've been pretty much all Nintendo since then.
50:04
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I've been paying enough attention and...
50:09
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
50:09
SPEAKER_00: for years beforehand,
50:11
SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of people,
50:12
SPEAKER_00: myself included,
50:13
SPEAKER_00: were saying,
50:13
SPEAKER_00: look,
50:14
SPEAKER_00: Nintendo,
50:15
SPEAKER_00: we know about your whole innovation thing.
50:17
SPEAKER_00: We want to do new things.
50:19
SPEAKER_00: This time, please, just more powerful, the same thing.
50:23
SPEAKER_00: Do the obvious for once.
50:25
SPEAKER_00: Don't do like an innovation and force it in there and it sucks.
50:31
SPEAKER_00: Don't do that.
50:33
SPEAKER_00: Don't try and catch lightning in a bottle a second time.
50:37
SPEAKER_00: And they listened to us.
50:42
SPEAKER_00: So now this is, yeah, this is what we asked for.
50:44
SPEAKER_00: So be happy with it.
50:46
But I don't think of it as like a sign that Nintendo has
50:52
clearly lost its way or anything.
50:54
SPEAKER_00: I do think...
50:57
We're probably seeing a more clear glimpse of what Nintendo is
51:03
like in the future without...
51:06
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
51:06
SPEAKER_00: they haven't had Iwata at the helm for a while now,
51:09
SPEAKER_00: but Iwata was behind the Switch.
51:13
SPEAKER_00: Miyamoto is... I mean, hopefully he's taking the scare these days.
51:19
SPEAKER_00: Making movies.
51:21
SPEAKER_02: Making movies and museums, and he's in that space, isn't he?
51:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
51:27
he is not going to be driving Nintendo forward in the future
51:31
the way that he always
51:32
SPEAKER_00: has been in the past.
51:35
SPEAKER_00: And Nintendo was not just Iwata and Miyamoto.
51:38
SPEAKER_00: There's an entire organization of hundreds,
51:44
thousands of people that have a lot of them been there for a
51:46
very long time and are
51:47
SPEAKER_00: part of the fabric and the DNA of the company.
51:50
SPEAKER_00: So it's not like evaporating overnight or anything.
51:53
SPEAKER_00: But you have a transition in leadership here, and that is...
52:01
SPEAKER_00: that's going to have, you know, impacts on the way the company looks.
52:08
SPEAKER_00: Sort of.
52:09
SPEAKER_02: I guess maybe from a hardware point of view,
52:11
but Donkey Kong Bonanza is completely different to anything I
52:14
expected it to be.
52:14
SPEAKER_02: I'm not sure I liked it, as I said.
52:16
SPEAKER_02: And,
52:16
SPEAKER_02: you know,
52:18
there was Dragon Drive and there was all the sort of stuff that
52:21
you expect from the
52:24
SPEAKER_02: Nintendo weirdness.
52:25
SPEAKER_02: It just didn't necessarily come through in the hardware.
52:28
SPEAKER_02: It's a sort of, you know,
52:30
SPEAKER_02: It's the software side of things.
52:31
I think the most innovative thing they did with the 3DS was
52:33
never the 3D screen.
52:33
SPEAKER_02: It was the street pass stuff.
52:35
SPEAKER_02: That's the stuff I want to see about.
52:37
SPEAKER_02: But anyway, I think we've run out of time by the...
52:42
SPEAKER_02: As is always the case, it zips by when I'm talking to you.
52:44
SPEAKER_02: Or when we talk Nintendo.
52:46
SPEAKER_02: Certainly when we talk Nintendo.
52:47
SPEAKER_02: I'm probably a little bit quiet on Nintendo for a few weeks now.
52:50
SPEAKER_02: It has dominated the agenda a little bit alongside tariffs.
52:54
Hopefully next week there will be a little bit,
52:56
we'll have some other new stuff next week.
52:58
SPEAKER_02: We've also talked a lot about movies lately and Minecraft films.
53:01
SPEAKER_02: But next week,
53:02
SPEAKER_02: we will have a special feature show with another game studio,
53:05
SPEAKER_02: which you can stay tuned for that on the Tuesday.
53:08
SPEAKER_02: And then we'll be back for our news analysis show next Thursday.
53:10
SPEAKER_02: Brendan, thank you for joining us.
53:12
SPEAKER_02: It's a pleasure to be talking to you about video games again.
53:15
And for everyone watching at home or listening at home,
53:18
thank you for tuning in.