Latest / The Game Business Show / It was the biggest console launch of all time, but was Nintendo Switch 2 a success for third-parties?

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It was the biggest console launch of all time, but was Nintendo Switch 2 a success for third-parties? · The Game Business Show

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome to the Game Business Show.
0:02
SPEAKER_00: This week it is the fastest selling console of all time,
0:05
SPEAKER_00: but our third party publishers seeing the benefit of Nintendo Switch 2.
0:09
SPEAKER_00: We dig into the big Summer Game Fest numbers,
0:12
SPEAKER_00: plus we look at some of the key news stories of the week,
0:14
SPEAKER_00: including Xbox's partnership with AMD,
0:16
SPEAKER_00: Mind's Eye launches and falls over,
0:18
and an agreement is reached between SAG-AFTRA and the video
0:21
game industry.
0:24
SPEAKER_00: But first, let me introduce our guest host for this week.
0:27
It's none other than the former Polygon editor-in-chief and now
0:29
founder and host of PostGames.
0:31
SPEAKER_00: It's Chris Plan.
0:32
SPEAKER_00: Chris, welcome to the show.
0:33
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for having me.
0:35
SPEAKER_00: So Chris, fill me in.
0:36
SPEAKER_00: Last time we spoke, you were still at Polygon.
0:38
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
0:39
SPEAKER_00: What's happened?
0:39
SPEAKER_00: What is PostGames?
0:40
SPEAKER_00: What are you up to?
0:42
SPEAKER_01: That's a great question.
0:43
SPEAKER_01: I mean, briefly on Polygon, Polygon used to be a Vox Media company.
0:48
SPEAKER_01: Now it is a Valnet company.
0:50
SPEAKER_01: I used to work for it.
0:51
SPEAKER_01: I no longer work for it.
0:52
SPEAKER_01: But the,
0:53
SPEAKER_01: I guess,
0:54
SPEAKER_01: more interesting thing at this point for me is Postgames,
0:58
SPEAKER_01: which is this show that I've launched.
1:00
And maybe you can relate to this or anybody who goes really
1:03
deep into management at
1:04
SPEAKER_01: some point in their career.
1:05
SPEAKER_01: You always have this fantasy of,
1:08
SPEAKER_01: oh,
1:08
SPEAKER_01: yeah,
1:08
SPEAKER_01: but if I ever went back to the old thing,
1:11
SPEAKER_01: this is what I would do.
1:12
Oh,
1:12
I would go back and I'd be a critic or I'd go back and be a
1:15
reporter.
1:15
It's one of the funny things that happens in journalism is you
1:18
get really good at
1:18
SPEAKER_01: something and then you like manage your way out of doing that every day.
1:22
And this is the show that I had wanted to make for a really,
1:25
really,
1:25
really long time.
1:27
And finally had the time and space to do it and to kind of take
1:31
that risk.
1:32
SPEAKER_01: And then the show itself is just a weekly audio magazine.
1:35
SPEAKER_01: You launched ahead of me and made it way less stressful for me.
1:40
Our shows are very different,
1:41
especially in,
1:42
I think,
1:42
their target audience.
1:43
SPEAKER_01: But you really showed...
1:47
a version of this weekly news show that reminded me of the sort
1:50
of thing that I
1:50
SPEAKER_01: would expect to hear on the BBC or on NPR,
1:54
SPEAKER_01: where I'm like,
1:55
SPEAKER_01: I know I'm going to learn every time I tune into it.
1:58
SPEAKER_01: And I also know I'm going to have like a really nice time learning,
2:02
SPEAKER_01: that it's not just going to be,
2:03
SPEAKER_01: you know,
2:04
SPEAKER_01: watching the paint dry.
2:05
SPEAKER_01: My target audience is...
2:07
SPEAKER_01: 30 to 60 year olds who love video games,
2:11
but now have kids and have maybe a half hour a week when they
2:14
can really get caught
2:16
SPEAKER_01: up.
2:16
SPEAKER_01: And I really want to make sure that that half hour to an hour,
2:20
SPEAKER_01: that they're getting as much info as possible and that they're really,
2:23
SPEAKER_01: really enjoying themselves and that it's really,
2:25
SPEAKER_01: really well produced.
2:27
There are a lot of great shows out there that are for people
2:29
talking and finding their ideas.
2:31
SPEAKER_01: I do one of them.
2:32
SPEAKER_01: It's called The Besties.
2:33
SPEAKER_01: I'll plug that too.
2:34
But I feel like there are fewer of these shows where the
2:38
creator is writing a
2:40
SPEAKER_01: script,
2:41
SPEAKER_01: really planning out the beats of the episode,
2:43
SPEAKER_01: having a topic,
2:44
SPEAKER_01: having a theme,
2:45
SPEAKER_01: and that's what I've been setting out to do.
2:47
SPEAKER_00: I was worried that you were saying,
2:48
SPEAKER_00: I heard your show and I thought,
2:50
SPEAKER_00: oh,
2:50
SPEAKER_00: I can do better than that.
2:50
SPEAKER_00: That's fine.
2:51
SPEAKER_01: Definitely not that.
2:53
SPEAKER_01: Definitely had more stress.
2:55
SPEAKER_01: I was like, ah, damn, now I have to make it good.
2:58
SPEAKER_00: We're seeing that media shift, aren't we?
3:02
SPEAKER_00: Which is, there is an increasing number of these
3:06
SPEAKER_00: You talked about,
3:07
SPEAKER_00: I never really wanted to be the publisher of GamesIndustry.biz,
3:10
SPEAKER_00: or whatever my job title was in the end,
3:11
SPEAKER_00: head of GamesIndustry.biz.
3:13
SPEAKER_00: I was given this situation back in 2017,
3:16
SPEAKER_00: I think it was,
3:17
SPEAKER_00: where the boss of Gamer Network at the time,
3:19
SPEAKER_00: Rupert Lohmann,
3:20
SPEAKER_00: said to me,
3:20
SPEAKER_00: Chris,
3:20
SPEAKER_00: we're making some changes.
3:22
SPEAKER_00: We want to put you in charge of GamesIndustry.biz.
3:24
SPEAKER_00: And at the time, I thought that meant editor in chief.
3:26
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, oh, great, amazing.
3:28
SPEAKER_00: And he said, so we'd like to make you publisher.
3:30
SPEAKER_00: And I went, can I not be publisher?
3:34
Because publishers,
3:36
you know,
3:37
they deal with the commercial side of things.
3:38
SPEAKER_00: I don't mind doing the event side of things.
3:40
I've got a commercial brain,
3:41
but I didn't get something out of bed in the morning.
3:45
SPEAKER_00: And he said,
3:47
SPEAKER_00: you could do that,
3:48
SPEAKER_00: but we'd still have to put a publisher in above you if you did that.
3:50
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, oh, I had to choose between being in charge and doing...
3:54
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
3:54
SPEAKER_00: In the end, I negotiated a weird middle ground.
3:57
But it was the thought of going back to editorial writing and
4:01
talking about the
4:02
SPEAKER_00: things I like to do.
4:03
SPEAKER_00: You know,
4:04
I think it's interesting that I like to learn about as much as
4:06
I like to report on
4:07
SPEAKER_00: all the time was a big driving force,
4:09
SPEAKER_00: actually,
4:10
behind doing this and not having to run another Best Places to
4:12
Work Awards,
4:13
SPEAKER_00: which is a project I'm really proud of.
4:14
But I did 12 of them and I just it's a lot of work and it's a
4:18
lot of management and
4:19
SPEAKER_00: it's a lot of staff.
4:22
SPEAKER_00: It's a lot of meetings and yeah.
4:24
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying this is necessarily easier.
4:26
SPEAKER_00: It's actually, I think it's harder, but it's certainly more enjoyable.
4:30
I think it also speaks to the trend towards independent or at
4:33
least just smaller
4:34
creative ventures because the overhead on these and the way
4:40
that the internet
4:42
SPEAKER_01: has warped the revenue systems for these businesses,
4:46
SPEAKER_01: has made it so that you can have a lot of great ideas.
4:48
SPEAKER_01: You can get into a place of power at a publisher,
4:52
and yet that power is constrained by the increasingly difficult
4:57
challenge of making
4:58
SPEAKER_01: money.
4:59
It used to be with the newspaper,
5:01
there were all these different revenue streams.
5:02
SPEAKER_01: And then,
5:03
SPEAKER_01: yeah,
5:03
SPEAKER_01: you had some of the work that was really tough and laborious,
5:06
SPEAKER_01: but you also had a lot of the prestige work,
5:08
SPEAKER_01: the stuff that you got into it for,
5:09
SPEAKER_01: the stuff that's really going to be helping people.
5:12
And that becomes harder and harder as the ad dollars dwindle
5:17
and there is less
5:19
SPEAKER_01: opportunity to do those sorts of editorial projects.
5:22
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, in my case, the team had got smaller.
5:25
We still had to do all the commercial stuff,
5:27
the stuff that was generating revenue.
5:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
5:28
SPEAKER_00: But we reduced time on everything else.
5:30
But this is what I love about Post Games is that every show
5:32
that you've done so far
5:33
SPEAKER_00: is really creative.
5:34
SPEAKER_00: Like there are stories that are,
5:36
SPEAKER_00: or angles on stories that haven't been,
5:39
SPEAKER_00: like the latest one on AI was inspired in many ways.
5:42
SPEAKER_00: Like we haven't, I haven't seen stuff like that.
5:45
SPEAKER_00: And that's what this independent, that's the positive side.
5:47
SPEAKER_00: There's a negative side, I think, in that.
5:49
SPEAKER_00: When we've got a load of individuals doing things,
5:52
SPEAKER_00: it sort of,
5:52
I worry about the talent progression and bringing things to the
5:55
industry and the
5:56
SPEAKER_00: growth of the media space or the lack of it,
5:59
SPEAKER_00: which is why I'm worried.
5:59
But it does allow for this sort of level of creativity and for
6:03
it to be an
6:03
SPEAKER_00: affordable thing to do because you can
6:06
SPEAKER_00: lean on your readers, I guess, to fund it.
6:08
SPEAKER_00: But anyway,
6:09
SPEAKER_00: sorry,
6:09
I got distracted by saying I think it's a really creative show
6:12
with some really...
6:14
SPEAKER_00: Like I say,
6:14
SPEAKER_00: I said to you just before we press record,
6:16
I thought there must be pressure on you to keep coming up with
6:20
another creative
6:21
SPEAKER_00: concept and in pulling it all together in a show.
6:24
SPEAKER_00: It's...
6:25
SPEAKER_00: Excellent to hear.
6:26
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, thank you.
6:27
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
6:28
SPEAKER_01: in terms of the pressure,
6:29
SPEAKER_01: before I started work on a single episode,
6:33
SPEAKER_01: I mapped out a year of topics.
6:36
SPEAKER_01: Oh, really?
6:37
SPEAKER_01: And just knew, like, I know I want to do these.
6:40
SPEAKER_01: These are stories that
6:42
SPEAKER_01: I live for.
6:43
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, as life happens, you start throwing stuff in there.
6:48
SPEAKER_01: And now that's probably about like a year and a half.
6:50
SPEAKER_01: It's just because stuff keeps getting bumped.
6:53
SPEAKER_01: And do I think I'll hit all those topics?
6:54
SPEAKER_01: No.
6:54
SPEAKER_01: Do I think I'll have interest in all of them by the end?
6:57
SPEAKER_01: No.
6:57
SPEAKER_01: Do I think each of them is actually newsworthy once I get around to them?
7:01
SPEAKER_01: No.
7:02
SPEAKER_01: But I knew that I would only want to do a thing
7:06
SPEAKER_01: like this and really bet my life on it, quite frankly.
7:09
SPEAKER_01: If one,
7:10
SPEAKER_01: I thought there was enough out there that would interest people,
7:13
SPEAKER_01: and two,
7:15
SPEAKER_01: that I would not lose momentum or enthusiasm,
7:19
SPEAKER_01: right?
7:20
SPEAKER_01: So,
7:20
SPEAKER_01: so far,
7:21
SPEAKER_01: yeah,
7:21
SPEAKER_01: I've done,
7:21
SPEAKER_01: well,
7:22
SPEAKER_01: now I'm about to do a second episode on AI that's kind of a two-parter.
7:26
SPEAKER_01: I've talked about sex or lewd games,
7:29
SPEAKER_01: and I have some stuff coming up that I'm really excited about.
7:31
SPEAKER_01: There's a Broadway composer
7:34
SPEAKER_01: who is taking a leave from being a composer to create a video game,
7:39
SPEAKER_01: and I can't wait to tell this story,
7:41
SPEAKER_01: right?
7:42
SPEAKER_01: And it's a lot each week.
7:44
I am producing between an hour and an hour and a half of audio
7:47
content that's
7:48
SPEAKER_01: pretty produced each week,
7:50
SPEAKER_01: but it's so much easier when it's a story that you want to tell.
7:55
SPEAKER_01: And like the second I wrap on one, I'm like, oh, great.
7:58
SPEAKER_01: Now I can go do that one that I'm still excited about.
8:01
SPEAKER_01: We should talk again in like six months and see where I am.
8:05
SPEAKER_01: But right now I haven't lost like any of that fuel or that momentum.
8:10
SPEAKER_00: Well, now I bring you on to a business podcast.
8:12
SPEAKER_00: I love it.
8:13
SPEAKER_00: This doesn't drain.
8:14
SPEAKER_01: I live for this stuff.
8:16
SPEAKER_01: I like I love I was just at SGF and I love I mean, I'm a journalist.
8:22
SPEAKER_01: professional gossip, so I love talking the biz side of things.
8:26
SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, I missed you at Summer Game Fest.
8:27
SPEAKER_00: I was obviously still there as well.
8:29
SPEAKER_00: I know.
8:30
SPEAKER_00: We did a show last week, which was a bit of a reaction show to it.
8:33
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
8:35
SPEAKER_00: I've got some numbers about it,
8:36
SPEAKER_00: and we'll talk about those in a moment,
8:37
SPEAKER_00: but did you see much?
8:38
SPEAKER_00: Was there something that, anything that inspired you out there?
8:40
SPEAKER_00: Obviously,
8:40
SPEAKER_00: you don't want to spoil forthcoming post-game shows,
8:43
SPEAKER_00: but...
8:44
SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
8:44
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
8:45
SPEAKER_01: happy to talk about it.
8:46
SPEAKER_01: The two things that really stood out to me personally,
8:49
SPEAKER_01: and not talking like,
8:50
SPEAKER_01: do I think these things will be successful,
8:52
SPEAKER_01: was Pragmata,
8:53
SPEAKER_01: the Capcom action slash shooter slash puzzle game.
8:59
A great thing about doing this for so long is you can see the
9:03
future in some way.
9:04
SPEAKER_01: And I worry a little bit about my visions for this game,
9:08
SPEAKER_01: which is I put the controller down and I was like,
9:10
I can't wait to talk about this game in 10 years when everybody
9:13
decides they love
9:14
SPEAKER_01: it.
9:15
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if anybody is going to buy it when it comes out,
9:17
SPEAKER_01: but holy moly does it have a mid-2000s Sega vibe to it,
9:22
SPEAKER_01: and I adored it.
9:23
And then the other one,
9:24
I can't remember if you talked about this last week,
9:26
was Ambrosia Sky.
9:28
SPEAKER_01: No.
9:29
SPEAKER_01: The new game from Soft Rains.
9:32
And Soft Grains,
9:33
for people who don't know,
9:35
it's a new studio,
9:37
but with a lot of talent.
9:38
SPEAKER_01: My friend Joel Burgess runs it, former Bethesda, former Ubisoft.
9:43
And it has a very,
9:45
I don't know,
9:46
somewhere like Prey,
9:48
I guess,
9:49
the game that comes to mind.
9:50
SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay.
9:51
SPEAKER_01: Arcane, but with some really great story.
9:54
SPEAKER_01: One of the writers on the story did, oh, dang, is it Mortician's Tale?
10:00
SPEAKER_01: I think is the right name of it.
10:02
SPEAKER_01: But it was a fantastic indie game about basically the funeral business.
10:07
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Mortician's Tale.
10:09
SPEAKER_01: And this game is also dealing with death in some very interesting ways,
10:13
SPEAKER_01: and I kind of can't wait for it.
10:15
SPEAKER_00: Oh, wow.
10:16
Well,
10:16
I can come on to Pragmata because I do have some positive
10:18
statistics about it.
10:19
SPEAKER_00: Yeah?
10:20
It reminded me of PN03 and Vanquish and that sort of Capcom-y
10:25
sci-fi thing.
10:26
SPEAKER_00: And I really enjoyed the combat as well.
10:27
SPEAKER_00: It's interesting,
10:28
SPEAKER_00: though,
10:28
a couple of people I talked to had the exact opposite reaction
10:31
to Pragmata.
10:32
SPEAKER_00: But most people I spoke to had the same reaction that you did,
10:35
SPEAKER_00: which was one of the best things that I played at the show.
10:38
SPEAKER_00: There's some statistics.
10:39
SPEAKER_00: Some of these statistics are already out there.
10:40
It's worth remembering that the game business is co-founded by
10:44
Geoff Keighley.
10:45
SPEAKER_00: I've heard of him.
10:46
SPEAKER_00: And I'm here talking about the performance of Summer Game Fest.
10:49
SPEAKER_00: I'd love to tell you that I'm completely an independent voice in this.
10:53
SPEAKER_00: I'll try to be, but there is an element of inevitably slight bias there.
10:56
SPEAKER_00: But the numbers, the numbers are numbers.
10:57
SPEAKER_00: And if you talk about the Summer Game Fest Showcase itself,
11:00
SPEAKER_00: which I never quite remember the actual name of it.
11:01
SPEAKER_00: I think it's just called the Summer Game Fest Showcase.
11:03
SPEAKER_00: It had 50 million views collectively.
11:06
SPEAKER_00: I don't quite know how they worked that out.
11:08
SPEAKER_00: It's not quite the Game Awards numbers, but it's a huge number.
11:11
It's actually the second biggest showcase this year behind the
11:13
Switch 2 reveal,
11:14
SPEAKER_00: which sounds pretty impressive.
11:16
SPEAKER_00: They say it's an 89% year over year peak viewership growth.
11:21
SPEAKER_00: If you look at Level Up Analytics,
11:22
they've done a lot of comparisons here to try and give us a bit
11:25
of a sense of what
11:26
SPEAKER_00: does that number actually mean?
11:27
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
11:28
SPEAKER_00: They say the peak viewership is 3 million.
11:30
SPEAKER_00: And compared to other showcases during that week,
11:34
SPEAKER_00: so that summer showcase event,
11:35
SPEAKER_00: 3 million peak viewers is ahead of Xbox,
11:37
SPEAKER_00: which had 2.2 million peak views.
11:40
And the PlayStation State of Play event,
11:41
which is just behind it on 2.1 million.
11:43
SPEAKER_00: If you look at the year before,
11:45
the opening events of the Summer Game Fest showcase in 2024 had
11:48
2.3 million peak
11:49
SPEAKER_00: viewers.
11:50
SPEAKER_00: It's a big jump on that.
11:51
SPEAKER_00: And it's even a jump on the 2.5 million that was recorded in 2023,
11:55
SPEAKER_00: which was the previous record.
11:57
SPEAKER_00: So I, Jeff, is understandably pleased.
12:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
12:00
About that number,
12:02
if I look at the other showcases,
12:03
the Xbox showcase was weaker this year.
12:05
SPEAKER_00: Last year's showcase had 2.7 million,
12:07
which was the previous record actually for the whole Summer
12:09
Game Fest period.
12:10
SPEAKER_00: But of course,
12:10
SPEAKER_00: last year's Xbox showcase was the big Activision,
12:13
SPEAKER_00: Xbox,
12:13
SPEAKER_00: Bethesda crossover with Gears of War,
12:15
SPEAKER_00: Fable,
12:16
SPEAKER_00: Doom,
12:16
SPEAKER_00: lots of big games.
12:17
SPEAKER_00: It was a big hype.
12:18
SPEAKER_00: It was being hyped up quite a bit.
12:20
SPEAKER_00: And this year's one I thought was great.
12:22
SPEAKER_00: Loads of interesting games in it.
12:23
SPEAKER_00: but a little bit less dramatic in terms of sort of AAA attention.
12:27
Actually,
12:28
Sony's State of Play this year did slightly better than last
12:30
year.
12:30
It did 2 million last year peak viewers,
12:32
and this year it was 2.1 million.
12:34
SPEAKER_00: So overall,
12:34
SPEAKER_00: when it comes to the direct-to-consumer stuff,
12:37
SPEAKER_00: lots of people watched,
12:38
SPEAKER_00: it seems like.
12:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
12:39
SPEAKER_00: And I think people are becoming tuned into those.
12:43
SPEAKER_00: Did you watch all of them, Chris, or do you sort of catch up afterwards?
12:46
SPEAKER_01: There were, I think, roughly 50 of these, so I didn't see all of them.
12:51
I admired the people I saw in Blue Sky who were doing that
12:54
service for everyone.
12:57
SPEAKER_01: I'll be very honest.
12:59
I don't have a tremendous amount of interest in this window of
13:06
trailer releases.
13:08
And the reason is I don't find it to be the moment when big
13:13
companies reveal their
13:15
SPEAKER_01: best,
13:16
SPEAKER_01: like whatever,
13:16
SPEAKER_01: like big,
13:17
SPEAKER_01: big surprise twist.
13:18
SPEAKER_01: I feel like this is for me the middle tier of things.
13:23
SPEAKER_01: And I think there's a pretty clear reason for that, which is
13:26
companies now have access to their fans via all these different
13:29
directs so if they
13:31
really want to make a big splash they don't want to do it when
13:33
everybody else is
13:34
hopping into the pool that said what i adore about this change
13:40
is i think that's
13:41
SPEAKER_01: better
13:42
for the for the industry all around i think it is better that
13:47
we have discrete
13:47
moments that we're not doing this thing that only made sense
13:51
when we needed to get
13:52
video games in the new york times that one time that they would
13:55
get there each year
13:56
right like that was a function that e3 served of get everybody
14:00
in the same room um
14:02
it just feels the idea of having to do it all at once for me
14:06
feels like a bit of a
14:07
SPEAKER_01: relic
14:08
SPEAKER_01: That said, still wonderful to see everybody.
14:10
I will say this about SGF and what I've heard from people who
14:14
program there.
14:16
SPEAKER_01: people love it, who are on the game publisher side.
14:19
SPEAKER_01: And I'm not tied to Jeff, so I'm happy to say this.
14:23
SPEAKER_01: Like,
14:24
SPEAKER_01: you will talk to people from,
14:26
SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna name names,
14:27
SPEAKER_01: but from different game development studios,
14:30
SPEAKER_01: and they will talk about the turnkey nature of it.
14:33
SPEAKER_01: That you come in,
14:35
SPEAKER_01: you pay a pretty reasonable set fee,
14:37
SPEAKER_01: you can pay a little extra,
14:38
SPEAKER_01: and they even do some decorations for you.
14:41
SPEAKER_01: that it's all ready for when you get there.
14:43
SPEAKER_01: And I've used to work E3 and working it was a nightmare.
14:49
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
14:50
SPEAKER_01: having to get fabricators,
14:51
SPEAKER_01: having to get all these different,
14:52
SPEAKER_01: you know,
14:52
SPEAKER_01: vendors,
14:53
SPEAKER_01: having to set up,
14:55
SPEAKER_01: to build,
14:55
SPEAKER_01: to break down.
14:56
SPEAKER_01: It really was a truly a miserable experience.
14:59
SPEAKER_01: And that was for a pretty small stations that I worked at.
15:02
SPEAKER_01: For these bigger things, just cost a fortune and it was a headache.
15:05
SPEAKER_01: And this just feels like a much better setup, at least for
15:09
SPEAKER_01: the relationship between the press and the publishers.
15:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so you're talking about Play Days specifically, right?
15:15
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
15:16
SPEAKER_00: I hear the same thing.
15:17
SPEAKER_00: E3 was LACC, which had its unions.
15:20
SPEAKER_00: You couldn't do anything.
15:21
You couldn't even move things from one part of the building to
15:23
the other without
15:24
SPEAKER_00: having to use one of their union workers to do that,
15:27
SPEAKER_00: which always ramped up the costs of these things,
15:29
SPEAKER_00: made it.
15:29
SPEAKER_00: You know,
15:30
SPEAKER_00: the year E3 got cancelled,
15:32
the cost of booking a booth at E3 was less than almost every
15:35
other video game
15:35
SPEAKER_00: event.
15:36
But when you factor in all the costs that come with it,
15:39
it immediately skyrockets above it.
15:41
SPEAKER_00: And of course,
15:41
SPEAKER_00: by doing it in the location,
15:42
SPEAKER_00: they did it,
15:42
SPEAKER_00: which is a kind of nice location when you're in the locations around it.
15:48
SPEAKER_00: It's not so nice.
15:49
SPEAKER_00: But it doesn't have any of that.
15:51
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, it's quite turnkey.
15:53
SPEAKER_00: I mean, when it comes to announcement events, I do sometimes get
15:57
I think I always find it very hard when I sit through stuff
16:00
where I've got a
16:00
SPEAKER_00: certain preference in video games.
16:03
SPEAKER_00: So when I watch a Nintendo Direct,
16:04
SPEAKER_00: I almost certainly always enjoy it because I'm just a big Nintendo fan.
16:07
SPEAKER_00: So I like most of the stuff I see there.
16:09
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
16:09
SPEAKER_00: I go to Summer Game Fest.
16:11
SPEAKER_00: I like certain Xbox games, but I don't like all of them.
16:14
SPEAKER_00: Same with PlayStation.
16:15
SPEAKER_00: As an individual trying to enjoy these things,
16:16
SPEAKER_00: I find it a little bit,
16:18
SPEAKER_00: I can find it a little bit hard.
16:19
SPEAKER_00: And in fact,
16:20
SPEAKER_00: I kind of like the fact I can sort of skip over,
16:23
SPEAKER_00: it's a retro Japanese RPG,
16:25
SPEAKER_00: I'll skip over this one,
16:26
SPEAKER_00: you know,
16:26
SPEAKER_00: those sort of things.
16:28
SPEAKER_00: And it's not that I, you know, I don't think everyone could do that.
16:30
SPEAKER_00: I think that's quite interesting.
16:32
SPEAKER_00: I did think there was a bit of variety this year.
16:34
SPEAKER_00: I say that there was a lot of games.
16:36
There was a lot of online multiplayer shooters that looked a
16:39
little bit cartoony.
16:40
SPEAKER_00: There was a lot of grim, dark sort of Souls-like games.
16:44
SPEAKER_00: And oddly,
16:44
SPEAKER_00: there's a lot of weirdly animated sort of cartoony games,
16:47
SPEAKER_00: I think,
16:48
SPEAKER_00: probably Cuphead inspired stuff.
16:50
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of licensed stuff, actually.
16:52
SPEAKER_00: Game of Thrones, Dune, James Bond, obviously Lego stuff.
16:55
SPEAKER_00: And obviously lots and lots of retro stuff.
16:57
But I actually thought when you started looking at all the
17:00
different buckets they
17:01
SPEAKER_00: sat in,
17:01
SPEAKER_00: you know,
17:01
SPEAKER_00: even this one set in the 1940s,
17:04
SPEAKER_00: I did get quite a lot of variety.
17:06
SPEAKER_00: There was also a lot of similar looking things,
17:07
SPEAKER_00: which obviously is part of the...
17:09
SPEAKER_00: You asked about Pragmata.
17:11
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
17:12
SPEAKER_00: So I'll start with trailers, right?
17:14
SPEAKER_00: None of these numbers are going to surprise you.
17:16
SPEAKER_00: The biggest trailer...
17:17
SPEAKER_00: of Summer Game Fest was Call of Duty Black Ops 7.
17:20
SPEAKER_00: According to Level Up,
17:21
SPEAKER_00: it generated over 85.3 million views,
17:23
SPEAKER_00: but it was neck and neck with Resident Evil Requiem,
17:26
SPEAKER_00: which managed 84.6 million views.
17:28
SPEAKER_00: Resident Evil Requiem,
17:29
SPEAKER_00: I felt,
17:29
SPEAKER_00: was like the sort of standout surprise,
17:31
SPEAKER_00: yeah,
17:32
SPEAKER_00: announcement of that event.
17:34
SPEAKER_00: Even though we thought it might be there,
17:35
SPEAKER_00: they did a great job of tricking us into thinking it wasn't going to be.
17:39
SPEAKER_00: The one after that wasn't actually a game demo at all.
17:41
SPEAKER_00: It was The Witcher 4 and The Legend 5 tech demo.
17:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
17:44
Which actually kicked off the whole period,
17:46
if you count Epic's state of Unreal address.
17:49
SPEAKER_00: That had 67.2 million trailer views.
17:51
SPEAKER_00: And number five was the Xbox hardware, the ROG Xbox Ally.
17:56
SPEAKER_00: I'm just calling it Xbox handhelds.
17:58
SPEAKER_00: They did over 50 million views.
18:01
SPEAKER_00: Other games, Marvel's Tokon was the number five most viewed trailer.
18:05
SPEAKER_00: Sea of Remnants did really well, which was interesting.
18:08
SPEAKER_00: 37.4 million.
18:09
SPEAKER_00: Persona 4 Revival, 26.2 million.
18:11
SPEAKER_00: Then it's James Bond, 24.7 million.
18:13
SPEAKER_00: Deadpool VR, 24.4 million.
18:15
And rounding off the top ten was the year three character
18:18
reveal for Street Fighter
18:19
SPEAKER_00: VI with 24.2 million.
18:20
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
18:22
SPEAKER_00: Trailer View.
18:22
SPEAKER_00: So those are the top sort of performing, and I'm not surprised by those.
18:26
I was going to do a big deep dive analysis into wish lists and
18:30
followers on Steam,
18:31
SPEAKER_00: but Simon Carlos did that over at Game Discover,
18:34
SPEAKER_00: so I'm just going to quote him.
18:35
SPEAKER_00: Fantastic.
18:37
SPEAKER_00: Resident Evil Requiem was the big winner on Steam as well.
18:40
SPEAKER_00: It was new on Steam that week.
18:42
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't, hadn't been on there previously.
18:44
SPEAKER_00: It immediately went to nearly 30,000 followers, nearly 620,000 wishlists.
18:47
SPEAKER_00: It was number one regard.
18:49
SPEAKER_00: But number two was most wishlisted was Pragmata, just shy of 350,000.
18:55
I think Capcom games just do tend to do very well with that
18:58
sort of audience.
18:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
18:59
SPEAKER_00: And it's been awaited for a while.
19:01
SPEAKER_00: There was some positive press around it.
19:02
SPEAKER_00: I think that certainly helped.
19:04
SPEAKER_00: Other big games in the wish list.
19:05
SPEAKER_00: Atomic Heart 2 is in there.
19:06
SPEAKER_00: Grounded 2 is in there.
19:08
SPEAKER_00: I'm not surprised.
19:09
SPEAKER_00: Sequels to games for established audiences, really.
19:12
SPEAKER_00: There were, though, a couple of surprises.
19:14
SPEAKER_00: Did you remember the body horror game Ill?
19:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
19:17
It was the third most followed game on Steam and the fourth
19:20
most wish listed game
19:21
SPEAKER_00: of the show on Steam as well.
19:22
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
19:23
SPEAKER_00: So that's Game Discover data.
19:25
SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't have predicted that at all.
19:26
SPEAKER_00: It was actually the 12th most viewed trailer as well.
19:28
SPEAKER_00: It got more people viewed that trailer than Silent Hill F trailer.
19:31
SPEAKER_00: Just about.
19:32
SPEAKER_00: It was quite close, but...
19:33
SPEAKER_00: I thought that looked great.
19:34
SPEAKER_00: So that's a game by Team Clout.
19:36
SPEAKER_00: They should be pretty happy, I imagine, with those.
19:38
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
19:38
SPEAKER_01: I mean, this is classic Steam in that I'm like, I have not heard of this.
19:44
SPEAKER_01: Oh, it's the most popular thing?
19:45
SPEAKER_01: Oh, it looks pretty good.
19:47
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
19:48
Again,
19:48
when a thousand games get shown in a week,
19:50
I guess this is what happens.
19:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
19:53
SPEAKER_00: Well,
19:53
SPEAKER_00: the other one,
19:54
SPEAKER_00: and this wasn't even shown during the bigger...
19:56
SPEAKER_00: Well,
19:56
SPEAKER_00: it was shown during the Future Games Show,
19:57
SPEAKER_00: which is popular,
19:58
SPEAKER_00: but it's a lower profile.
20:01
SPEAKER_00: That's the sixth biggest showcase of the Summer Game Fest period,
20:04
SPEAKER_00: behind PC Gaming Show,
20:05
SPEAKER_00: behind Day of the Devs as well.
20:07
SPEAKER_00: But they had a game on their stage called The Expanse Osiris Reborn,
20:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
20:11
It was actually the second most followed game of the show on
20:14
Steam and the sixth
20:15
SPEAKER_00: most wishlisted game on Steam.
20:16
SPEAKER_00: It's from Alcat Games.
20:18
SPEAKER_00: They know what they're doing.
20:19
SPEAKER_00: People know who they are.
20:20
SPEAKER_00: It's based on an established universe.
20:22
SPEAKER_00: It looked a bit Mass Effect-y, but it's done really, really well.
20:25
Another game that I didn't...
20:26
I hadn't...
20:27
You talk about games you hadn't heard of.
20:28
SPEAKER_00: I'd leave from Member Ill, but I didn't...
20:32
there are things um across my career at different publishers
20:35
where you just knew
20:36
you could say a word and it was like traffic gold when i was at
20:41
uh the verge one of
20:42
our jokes was like fish content if anything was about fish for
20:46
whatever reason
20:47
SPEAKER_01: Boom.
20:48
SPEAKER_01: Instant.
20:49
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
20:49
You find a way to tie the verge and fish together and like you
20:52
were swimming in it.
20:54
And another one that I did not appreciate is The Expanse in
20:58
entertainment coverage.
21:00
SPEAKER_00: Oh, wow.
21:00
SPEAKER_01: And I've heard this from a lot of different people.
21:02
SPEAKER_01: The Expanse's following is...
21:05
hard core and they will show up um the second i saw that they
21:11
were making this game
21:11
i just very very good sign at least for that initial bump those
21:16
people are going to
21:16
show up day one and get that game yeah i'll keep an eye on that
21:20
one yeah there were
21:21
some clear winners some big numbers on the showcases can i ask
21:24
you a kind of an
21:26
industry question because i just i mean this is like my chance
21:30
while i'm on this
21:31
SPEAKER_01: show
21:32
SPEAKER_01: Resident Evil 9.
21:34
SPEAKER_01: This one puzzled me to no end.
21:36
SPEAKER_01: Everything about it.
21:37
Because we got the surprise announcement,
21:40
which was cheeky and like,
21:41
I get that and I like it.
21:43
SPEAKER_01: What I didn't expect was we were demoed it at Play Days.
21:49
SPEAKER_00: And did you have a chance to see?
21:50
SPEAKER_00: I saw it.
21:51
SPEAKER_00: I didn't play the game.
21:52
SPEAKER_00: Some people played it.
21:53
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
21:53
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I didn't see it.
21:54
SPEAKER_00: I didn't play it.
21:55
SPEAKER_00: I saw it.
21:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
21:56
And I had a chance to see it and what was absolutely peculiar
22:00
about it is it feels
22:02
SPEAKER_01: like this game is like years away from release.
22:06
SPEAKER_01: There's barely,
22:07
there was not much to show as in it is a Resident Evil game and
22:11
they don't show
22:11
SPEAKER_01: combat and it is one of those like,
22:14
they have one of these and I feel like every one of the most
22:16
recent modern Resident
22:17
Evil games where you kind of do the indie horror thing of just
22:21
hiding from a big
22:23
SPEAKER_01: scary unkillable thing.
22:25
Perfectly neat and absolutely strange decision I felt in terms
22:30
of introducing the
22:31
game to people because it doesn't really show most of the
22:34
mechanics of the game.
22:35
SPEAKER_01: And on top of that, it kept cutting away.
22:39
SPEAKER_01: It kept doing these like blackout moments where they'd be like,
22:41
SPEAKER_01: well,
22:41
SPEAKER_01: that's 30 seconds of the game.
22:43
SPEAKER_01: And here's another 30 seconds later on in that mission.
22:46
SPEAKER_01: And I just don't,
22:48
SPEAKER_01: I don't,
22:49
SPEAKER_01: sometimes I see things and I just from an industry marketing level,
22:53
SPEAKER_01: I don't understand why I'm seeing them.
22:55
SPEAKER_01: And that was a big one for me.
22:57
SPEAKER_00: I will give you my theory, but also a little bit about Capcom.
23:00
So Capcom often release a game in what they call the Capcom
23:02
slot,
23:03
which is February,
23:03
March.
23:04
SPEAKER_00: And they often ramp up their coverage from around the E3 before.
23:08
And then they begin with something there,
23:10
then they'll do something new at Gamescom.
23:12
They probably release the thing we just saw as a demo,
23:14
knowing then,
23:15
like in September.
23:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
23:16
And then they do a big thing in the beginning of the year,
23:18
and then they launch it.
23:19
So in terms of the release cadence,
23:21
the reason they show a little bit of it.
23:22
SPEAKER_00: Regarding,
23:24
SPEAKER_00: so that demo is interesting because I was,
23:26
SPEAKER_00: if you read the Eurogamer piece,
23:28
SPEAKER_00: this is Alex Donaldson actually went and played the game.
23:30
It was one of the few people that actually played it and I
23:31
spoke to him after he played it.
23:32
SPEAKER_00: I wanted to know all about it.
23:34
SPEAKER_00: So in that trailer,
23:35
SPEAKER_00: there's that bit where they,
23:36
SPEAKER_00: do you remember,
23:36
SPEAKER_00: where they climb on like some trolley to get a,
23:40
SPEAKER_00: she climbs on some trolley to get a screwdriver off the top shelf.
23:43
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember this bit?
23:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
23:45
In the game,
23:45
they cut,
23:46
so you looked away and then suddenly the trolley's there.
23:48
In the demo,
23:49
you have to move the trolley to that position in order to climb
23:52
it.
23:52
When you move the trolley,
23:53
things fall off the trolley and make a really loud noise,
23:56
right?
23:57
SPEAKER_00: And then you hear the creature outside the door going...
24:01
SPEAKER_00: And Alex told the story about how he turned his lighter off.
24:04
SPEAKER_00: He said, don't move.
24:05
SPEAKER_00: Don't make any more noise.
24:06
SPEAKER_00: Just do not move.
24:08
SPEAKER_00: Do not move.
24:08
SPEAKER_00: Waited for the noise to stop from the monster.
24:10
SPEAKER_00: Thought he could get going again.
24:12
SPEAKER_00: He lit the lighter and the monster was right there, right?
24:16
SPEAKER_00: He squealed, right?
24:17
SPEAKER_01: Show that!
24:18
SPEAKER_01: Show that!
24:19
SPEAKER_01: Let me be clear.
24:23
SPEAKER_01: I'm not even criticizing Capcom because I'm not that stupid.
24:26
SPEAKER_01: Because nobody is on a heater right now more than they are.
24:31
SPEAKER_01: They seem to know what they're doing, but it truly puzzled me.
24:36
SPEAKER_00: I think the reason that,
24:37
SPEAKER_00: because here's the thing,
24:37
they kept talking about this being a bold reinvention or a
24:40
change of direction of
24:40
SPEAKER_00: the franchise.
24:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
24:42
SPEAKER_00: And what we were shown was neither.
24:44
SPEAKER_00: Right.
24:44
SPEAKER_00: And because it was a horror game.
24:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
24:48
SPEAKER_00: We saw a horror game and we saw a monster stalking them.
24:51
SPEAKER_00: This is exactly what they did in Resident Evil 2.
24:52
SPEAKER_00: It's what they did in Resident Evil 3.
24:53
SPEAKER_00: It's what they did in Resident Evil Village.
24:55
SPEAKER_00: Right.
24:56
I've seen this and it's done very well and it's effective and
24:58
I'm a Resident Evil fan.
24:59
SPEAKER_00: So I was...
25:00
SPEAKER_00: On board with it,
25:01
my theory is they've shown everybody the horror of Resident
25:05
Evil before they start
25:06
getting us into what the combat's like and where perhaps it
25:09
goes a little bit
25:10
SPEAKER_00: different to Resident Evil.
25:12
SPEAKER_00: So often you find companies do it the other way around.
25:14
SPEAKER_00: They show you a completely different game.
25:16
SPEAKER_00: Everyone goes, this isn't what I want.
25:17
SPEAKER_00: This isn't Resident Evil.
25:18
SPEAKER_00: I don't like this at all.
25:19
SPEAKER_00: And then they go, no, no, we're doing the other stuff too.
25:22
SPEAKER_00: And by then point, you may have lost people.
25:24
SPEAKER_00: And I think this is a way of going,
25:25
SPEAKER_00: well,
25:25
SPEAKER_00: we assure the fans,
25:26
SPEAKER_00: this is still the horror of Resident Evil.
25:29
SPEAKER_00: And then maybe when we get to Gamescom or whatever,
25:30
SPEAKER_00: they'll show us whatever it looked,
25:32
SPEAKER_00: whatever that,
25:33
SPEAKER_00: you know,
25:34
SPEAKER_00: bombed out Raccoon City segments like or whatever.
25:37
SPEAKER_01: I hope they let me go like punch a volcano.
25:40
SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm bringing back that Resident Evil.
25:42
SPEAKER_01: That'll that'll be great.
25:44
SPEAKER_01: No, don't bring that.
25:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you're right.
25:46
SPEAKER_01: You're right.
25:47
SPEAKER_01: You're right.
25:49
SPEAKER_00: But yes,
25:50
I suspect there's talk of it being a little bit more
25:51
explorationary and there's
25:53
SPEAKER_00: loads of speculation on what it could be.
25:54
SPEAKER_00: And I took it as this was more of a, don't worry.
25:58
SPEAKER_00: Because they kept talking about it being a reinvention.
26:00
SPEAKER_00: Jeff said on stage, I saw their vision for it and I was blown away.
26:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
26:04
And I'm like,
26:05
I'm blown away because I love this stuff,
26:06
but it is,
26:07
it's...
26:08
SPEAKER_00: It's Resident Evil.
26:09
SPEAKER_00: That makes a lot more sense.
26:12
SPEAKER_00: I like that, yeah.
26:13
SPEAKER_00: That's my theory on it.
26:14
SPEAKER_00: I suspect the next stuff is going to look quite different.
26:17
SPEAKER_00: There are some numbers that aren't positive.
26:19
SPEAKER_00: This proves that I'm not fully...
26:21
Because I was interested in what the media coverage was like
26:25
because it was facing
26:27
SPEAKER_00: some pressures,
26:28
SPEAKER_00: the media,
26:28
SPEAKER_00: over last year.
26:30
Some of it's specific to this year that isn't going to be
26:32
actually reflected next year.
26:34
So I got some data from Press Engine,
26:35
which tracks all video game articles.
26:37
SPEAKER_00: And the keywords that are used in those articles,
26:39
SPEAKER_00: there are services out there that,
26:41
SPEAKER_00: outside of Press Engine,
26:42
SPEAKER_00: Footprints,
26:43
SPEAKER_00: there's something similar.
26:44
SPEAKER_00: And I actually looked at Footprints' data and I compared the two,
26:46
SPEAKER_00: and it's roughly,
26:47
SPEAKER_00: so I'm relatively confident these numbers are.
26:50
SPEAKER_00: If they're not completely right, at least trends are the same.
26:53
So Press Engine sent me the numbers of articles featuring the
26:57
term Summer Game Fest
26:58
SPEAKER_00: between the start of May to June 12th.
27:00
And that number was 5,653 articles across the internet on that
27:03
term,
27:03
those terms in particular.
27:07
SPEAKER_00: Which sounds great, but it's heavily down on the year before.
27:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
27:10
SPEAKER_00: Where there was 9,761 articles that featured the term Summer Game Fest.
27:14
SPEAKER_00: This is across the board.
27:15
SPEAKER_00: If you look at the platform showcases,
27:17
SPEAKER_00: the PlayStation showcase for the first three days after it aired,
27:20
SPEAKER_00: so the day it aired and the three days afterwards,
27:22
SPEAKER_00: It generated 2,186 articles.
27:25
That's a drop of 3,035 articles published over the same period
27:29
for the 2024
27:30
SPEAKER_00: PlayStation State of Play.
27:31
SPEAKER_00: So again, a drop of nearly 900 articles.
27:34
The Xbox showcase,
27:35
again,
27:35
over three days,
27:36
went from 6,675 articles in 2024 to 2,735.
27:43
50 articles in 2025 i'm hoping i've got that right that was
27:47
absolutely huge drop
27:48
there there are some big reasons for this some of which is
27:51
unique to this year one
27:53
is there were fewer big games the media outlets tend to focus
27:56
on the big stuff you
27:56
know this and if you compare this year to last year in terms of
27:59
big to play seo
28:00
SPEAKER_00: friendly titles there just weren't as many
28:02
Another really big one that's particularly unique to this year
28:05
was Switch 2.
28:06
We revealed in the game business that press didn't receive
28:08
pre-release hardware or
28:09
games until the day the console came out so they weren't able
28:13
to get reviews and
28:14
coverage of ready for the Switch 2 launch and the Switch 2 of
28:16
course landed launch,
28:17
SPEAKER_00: landed straight on top of Summer Game Fest.
28:20
I know at least of two media publications that had to pull back
28:22
slightly from
28:23
SPEAKER_00: Summer Game Fest in favor of Switch 2 reviews and general coverage.
28:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
28:27
SPEAKER_00: Also there's things like embargoes to factor in.
28:29
SPEAKER_00: We've still got coverage going up now from the Play Days events.
28:32
SPEAKER_00: So these numbers aren't completely final.
28:35
SPEAKER_00: SGF was a little earlier last year.
28:37
SPEAKER_00: So all that needs to be taken out into account.
28:39
But the big one that isn't unique to this year is there's just
28:41
a drop in media
28:42
SPEAKER_00: coverage for video games generally.
28:44
SPEAKER_00: And there's also a fall in websites covering video games.
28:47
So for the Xbox showcase this year,
28:48
there were 640 publications that covered the event.
28:51
SPEAKER_00: That's a drop of nearly 400 publications over 2024.
28:54
SPEAKER_00: For the PlayStation State of Play event,
28:56
SPEAKER_00: the number of publications that wrote about that dropped from 835 to 604.
28:58
SPEAKER_00: So that's not quite as bad, but it's still...
29:03
SPEAKER_00: Pretty big drop.
29:04
SPEAKER_00: And for Summer Game Fest all up,
29:05
SPEAKER_00: for the entire of May to early June,
29:07
SPEAKER_00: publication count went from 1202 in 2024 to 833 in 2025.
29:13
SPEAKER_00: So again,
29:14
almost a 400 drop in the number of places that use the term
29:17
Summer Game Fest in
29:17
SPEAKER_00: their coverage.
29:18
SPEAKER_00: We spoke about this on the show about... Yeah, go on.
29:20
SPEAKER_01: I'll just top in really quick.
29:22
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
29:22
SPEAKER_01: obviously,
29:23
SPEAKER_01: I of all people,
29:24
I'm not going to deny the changes that are happening to the
29:26
games industry and
29:27
SPEAKER_01: outlets closing.
29:28
SPEAKER_01: But I would...
29:30
poke a few holes in these numbers,
29:32
or at least I would want to push at them a little bit.
29:34
SPEAKER_01: And I think there's a few things that I see.
29:37
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if these are true.
29:38
SPEAKER_01: They're just the questions I, as a reporter, want to ask.
29:41
SPEAKER_01: One is the decreased number of outlets that covered it.
29:45
I know that last year there was a lot more streamers at Summer
29:48
Games Fest and
29:49
streamers who were covering it and felt like a significant
29:53
decrease this year,
29:54
probably because I think streamers are realizing that they're
29:57
not journalists and
29:58
that these things are actually quite boring after you have the
30:01
excitement of going
30:02
SPEAKER_01: to one for the first time.
30:04
SPEAKER_01: So I do wonder about that.
30:06
SPEAKER_01: The thing that I would say about the fewer articles
30:10
and why I'm always skeptical of numbers about just broad and
30:14
total articles
30:15
SPEAKER_01: published is the value of an article,
30:19
SPEAKER_01: a single story on the internet changes month to month,
30:22
SPEAKER_01: let alone year to year.
30:24
And by that,
30:26
I mean,
30:26
I could say a Polygon in the past was something like this.
30:31
SPEAKER_01: We often would find that one great story that was a roundup per thing
30:37
did infinitely better than 20 short stories combined on all
30:42
those individual pieces.
30:45
SPEAKER_01: So if the goal here is eyes and attention on a game,
30:50
SPEAKER_01: it's not especially useful,
30:51
SPEAKER_01: in my opinion,
30:52
SPEAKER_01: if you said,
30:53
SPEAKER_01: hey,
30:54
SPEAKER_01: we went from 1,000 stories,
30:54
SPEAKER_01: then all of those stories got 500 views,
30:56
SPEAKER_01: to we went to 500 stories,
30:57
SPEAKER_01: but all of them got 20,000 views.
30:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
31:00
SPEAKER_01: It just is tricky.
31:06
SPEAKER_00: As we've known,
31:07
SPEAKER_00: we're talking about public...
31:08
SPEAKER_00: There are...
31:08
SPEAKER_00: If you look at the list of publications,
31:09
SPEAKER_00: if you look at the list of Press End,
31:11
SPEAKER_00: we did a piece a couple of months ago on this.
31:12
SPEAKER_00: Look at the list of...
31:13
SPEAKER_00: There are fewer outlets,
31:14
and there's ones that we know about that have either cut down
31:17
or disappeared.
31:18
SPEAKER_00: But there's a lot of really small,
31:20
SPEAKER_00: amateur websites in countries,
31:23
SPEAKER_00: non-England-speaking countries,
31:24
SPEAKER_00: that,
31:24
SPEAKER_00: you know,
31:25
SPEAKER_00: you may not even notice.
31:26
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of the drop in publications is around that.
31:29
SPEAKER_00: You're right.
31:30
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
31:30
I don't like to use these estimates of like the numbers of
31:34
readers these articles
31:35
SPEAKER_00: apparently got because I'm like,
31:36
SPEAKER_00: I don't really know how you work this out properly,
31:37
SPEAKER_00: really.
31:38
But the number drop isn't quite so high in terms of the actual
31:40
number of people reading it.
31:42
SPEAKER_01: It's a forever problem with data in journalism and games,
31:45
SPEAKER_01: which I feel like makes your life,
31:47
SPEAKER_01: I just imagine,
31:48
SPEAKER_01: miserable in some ways.
31:50
SPEAKER_01: It's two places where they obfuscate everything.
31:52
So you kind of have to take the numbers that are available to
31:55
you because good luck
31:57
SPEAKER_01: finding any data.
31:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
31:59
SPEAKER_00: If you said to me at the beginning of this event,
32:01
will there be fewer articles written about video games from
32:04
Summer Game Fest this
32:04
SPEAKER_00: year,
32:04
SPEAKER_00: I would have said yes.
32:05
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
32:06
SPEAKER_00: Simply for all the reasons that I stated above.
32:08
SPEAKER_00: It's not a surprise.
32:10
SPEAKER_00: And you're right.
32:10
SPEAKER_00: Here's the thing.
32:11
SPEAKER_00: I was at Video Games Chronicle.
32:12
SPEAKER_00: I ended up using their...
32:13
SPEAKER_00: They have a little header suite at Summer Game Fest,
32:15
SPEAKER_00: and I went there three times to do their podcasts.
32:17
SPEAKER_00: And they were doing this, and they still do this way, right?
32:20
SPEAKER_00: They're watching the press conference.
32:22
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
32:22
SPEAKER_00: And they're writing up every story.
32:24
SPEAKER_00: And I thought to myself, oh, I remember when I used to do that.
32:27
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
32:28
SPEAKER_00: We don't do that anymore.
32:29
SPEAKER_00: We much rather do a really, like, everything that was announced.
32:32
SPEAKER_00: Like,
32:33
SPEAKER_00: people,
32:33
SPEAKER_00: it's interesting the feedback I got,
32:34
SPEAKER_00: particularly from an industry publication,
32:36
SPEAKER_00: is that when they get the newsletter from GI and it's like 60 articles,
32:40
SPEAKER_00: whatever,
32:41
SPEAKER_00: they're like,
32:41
SPEAKER_00: oh,
32:42
SPEAKER_00: I can't keep up with that.
32:43
SPEAKER_00: Can't you just do me one story with...
32:46
SPEAKER_00: everything in it so I could see it all at a glance.
32:48
SPEAKER_00: And so we moved to that model.
32:49
SPEAKER_00: We reduced our coverage of E3 at the time, probably about 75%.
32:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
32:55
With that strategy of having a big story that really just
32:58
showed you everything
32:59
rather than having 50 small stories that sort of gave you a nub
33:03
to play that SEO
33:03
SPEAKER_00: game.
33:04
So it is,
33:05
there is,
33:05
you're right,
33:06
I suspect there's another element of strategy shift.
33:08
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
33:08
SPEAKER_01: And I expect we'll see it go down more and more too.
33:12
SPEAKER_01: Well, unless
33:13
SPEAKER_01: AI bots end up making the churns higher and higher.
33:17
SPEAKER_01: There's kind of two scenarios here.
33:19
SPEAKER_01: There's the human-made content and the robot content.
33:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
33:22
SPEAKER_00: But I still think it's important.
33:23
SPEAKER_00: And I think this is, I think the media element, we can focus on it.
33:26
SPEAKER_00: Oh, it's not, it's going down and down and down.
33:28
SPEAKER_00: But I still think it is important for the reasons that you give.
33:30
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's great the direct to consumer stuff's doing well.
33:33
SPEAKER_00: And those numbers are much bigger.
33:35
SPEAKER_00: But I do think it's that translation, that media depth.
33:38
SPEAKER_00: I think people do look to that once they've gone through the,
33:40
SPEAKER_00: they've watched the trailer,
33:41
SPEAKER_00: but all that's interesting.
33:43
SPEAKER_00: They want to hear that follow up.
33:44
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's,
33:45
SPEAKER_00: I think you're right.
33:46
SPEAKER_00: I think that's important.
33:46
SPEAKER_00: And Jeff believes it.
33:47
SPEAKER_00: You know, I know he's got the big direct event.
33:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
33:49
SPEAKER_00: He's invested in this.
33:51
SPEAKER_00: Play Days is an event that he does with the IM8Bit,
33:54
SPEAKER_00: which is all about getting the media hands on with these sort of things.
33:56
SPEAKER_00: I think it's important.
33:57
SPEAKER_00: And I'd like to see more companies really do that going forward.
34:02
SPEAKER_00: Don't take those numbers as a reason not to do it.
34:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
34:04
SPEAKER_00: Take those numbers as a reason to do it.
34:06
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
34:07
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'll just implore that even more.
34:10
SPEAKER_01: Again, yes to invest even more in good stuff.
34:17
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
34:17
SPEAKER_01: Like,
34:18
SPEAKER_01: if you do question those numbers,
34:19
SPEAKER_01: then the question should be where,
34:21
SPEAKER_01: if there are fewer places doing it,
34:23
SPEAKER_01: where are the places that are going to have great reach?
34:25
Where are the places that are going to reach my audience in a
34:28
compelling way?
34:30
SPEAKER_01: I think there used to be a bit of a kind of a shotgun blast approach of,
34:34
SPEAKER_01: well,
34:34
we do have a trillion outlets and they will write up literally
34:37
everything.
34:38
SPEAKER_01: And now I think there is all the more reason for,
34:41
SPEAKER_01: especially the publicity team or marketing team,
34:43
to have an amiable relationship with the press that is going to
34:48
reach an audience
34:49
SPEAKER_01: because they're rare and fewer than ever before.
34:52
SPEAKER_00: I did see quite a few publishers sort of target a handful of...
34:56
the Resident Evil hands-on demo elements was given to a very
34:59
small selection of
34:59
SPEAKER_00: people.
35:00
And I thought that was interesting because that means that they
35:03
went a bit harder
35:04
on that game coverage than perhaps they might have done if they
35:07
were one of 50
35:09
because they wanted to make the most of the fact they had some
35:12
access and something
35:12
SPEAKER_00: interesting that perhaps they wouldn't have done if...
35:14
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying they wouldn't have covered it,
35:15
but they probably would have just put it in amongst all their
35:17
other coverage.
35:18
SPEAKER_00: But you know more about that than me.
35:22
SPEAKER_00: I'll move on to our second subject.
35:23
SPEAKER_00: Summer Game Fest is fascinating.
35:25
SPEAKER_00: We could talk about it for ages.
35:26
SPEAKER_00: There's so many segments to it and so many elements to that thing.
35:29
And you're right,
35:30
I think companies don't have to announce stuff during that
35:33
week.
35:33
I still think it's important to have a lightning rod moment
35:35
where everyone pays
35:36
SPEAKER_00: attention to video games.
35:37
But I think it's great that people,
35:39
you know,
35:39
Borderlands did its thing at PAX.
35:41
You know,
35:41
there'll be a bunch of stuff at Gamescom,
35:42
a bunch of stuff at Tokyo Game Show.
35:44
SPEAKER_00: There'll be people doing standalone things.
35:46
SPEAKER_00: There will be, you know, Nintendo will drop a director at some point.
35:48
SPEAKER_00: I know they're just doing a Donkey Kong one.
35:50
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to follow that cadence,
35:52
SPEAKER_00: but it's still nice,
35:53
SPEAKER_00: I think,
35:53
SPEAKER_00: if you can,
35:54
SPEAKER_00: if your game does line up with that sort of summer window,
35:57
SPEAKER_00: there's a lot of people paying attention.
35:59
SPEAKER_00: And we saw some of the big wishlist winners that it can...
36:03
SPEAKER_00: When you have a few big games,
36:04
SPEAKER_00: not too many of them during Summer Game Fest or E3,
36:07
SPEAKER_00: other games can benefit.
36:08
SPEAKER_00: We often,
36:09
SPEAKER_00: often people used to say to me years and years ago that,
36:12
SPEAKER_00: oh,
36:12
SPEAKER_00: why would you announce your game at E3?
36:14
SPEAKER_00: Everyone's going to be covering the big Nintendo game,
36:17
SPEAKER_00: the big PlayStation game,
36:18
SPEAKER_00: the big Xbox game.
36:19
SPEAKER_00: When E3 went away,
36:20
SPEAKER_00: I actually had quite a few smaller publishers,
36:22
SPEAKER_00: double-A publishers,
36:23
SPEAKER_00: indie publishers,
36:24
say to me that those people came in for those games and then
36:28
they discovered the
36:28
SPEAKER_00: others.
36:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
36:29
SPEAKER_00: It was a trickle-down effect.
36:31
That's the reason why you've got games like Ill and stuff like
36:33
that do really well,
36:34
SPEAKER_00: because people came in for maybe Resident Evil.
36:37
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think it's...
36:38
SPEAKER_01: Developers and publishers knowing which is the right match for them.
36:44
SPEAKER_01: It's great that we have all these options now.
36:46
SPEAKER_01: I mentioned Ambrosia Sky earlier, that soft reins game.
36:51
And here is a game that hardcore game players,
36:54
game journalists are going to love.
36:57
SPEAKER_01: and you need to play in a very quiet environment.
37:00
SPEAKER_01: So,
37:00
SPEAKER_01: well,
37:01
that means PAX is out and you need to actually get people in
37:05
the room to play the
37:06
SPEAKER_01: game because it really benefits from being played.
37:09
SPEAKER_01: So where is that situation going to come up?
37:11
SPEAKER_01: We mentioned Pragmata.
37:12
SPEAKER_01: Like to me, that's like a perfect game for this for a larger publisher of
37:17
it really sings once you play it are you going to come are you
37:20
going to be able to
37:21
get all the journalists to come out and do a trip to play this
37:23
game maybe not where
37:27
the yes the big event's like does rockstar ever need to show up
37:30
at these like
37:31
SPEAKER_01: rockstar is going to be fine
37:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
37:34
Well,
37:35
I'll move on because I'm wary of the time and I've got so much
37:37
more to talk about.
37:38
SPEAKER_00: And the other one is that we just had the biggest,
37:40
fastest selling video game console launch of all time in the
37:42
Nintendo Switch 2.
37:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
37:44
SPEAKER_00: Three and a half million consoles sold in a matter of days.
37:47
SPEAKER_00: But we've been covering on the game business.
37:49
SPEAKER_00: We're talking about...
37:51
how we know Nintendo does well out of this stuff,
37:52
but what about third parties?
37:54
So I wanted to look into how third party games have done at the
37:57
launch of Switch 2.
37:59
SPEAKER_00: And this is how they've done.
38:01
SPEAKER_00: So Sakana,
38:02
SPEAKER_00: covering the US market,
38:03
they revealed to me that 62% of Switch 2 physical software in
38:09
the US was first
38:11
SPEAKER_00: party games.
38:11
So 62% of games sold was basically Mario Kart and those Zelda
38:15
Switch 2 editions.
38:16
SPEAKER_00: Now, you may think, why are you doing physical?
38:18
SPEAKER_00: Nintendo don't share digital data with any of the charts companies.
38:21
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't help.
38:23
SPEAKER_00: But also, Switch 2, Switch is a heavily physical console.
38:27
SPEAKER_00: Across Europe, 80% plus of a new Switch game sales are physical.
38:32
SPEAKER_00: So it's the opposite to Xbox.
38:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
38:35
SPEAKER_00: In that sense, a very physical platform.
38:37
Now,
38:37
Switch 2,
38:37
I have been sent some data for some continental European
38:41
territories.
38:43
I'm not supposed to see this data and I'm not going to give the
38:45
figures on the
38:46
SPEAKER_00: podcast for that reason.
38:47
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to cause problems for any of the data companies.
38:49
But what I'm going to say about it is that the digital things
38:54
are pretty much
38:54
SPEAKER_00: similar for Switch 2 as there was for Switch 1.
38:56
There's a couple of games that dipped to sort of 70%,
38:58
but most of them are 80% plus.
39:00
SPEAKER_00: Some of them even close to 90% of their sales were physical.
39:03
SPEAKER_00: So we're still looking at heavily physical platform.
39:04
SPEAKER_00: But anyway.
39:05
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
39:06
So first party games accounted for 62% of Switch 2 physical
39:09
software sales during
39:10
SPEAKER_00: the launch week of Switch 2.
39:12
CD Projekt ranked second in almost every market with Cyberpunk
39:16
and Sega also did very well.
39:17
SPEAKER_00: Sega was number three in the US.
39:19
SPEAKER_00: Now, I say very well.
39:21
SPEAKER_00: This number does not include the bundle of Mario Kart World.
39:26
SPEAKER_00: GFK in the UK,
39:28
SPEAKER_00: they say 86% of software sales,
39:31
of physical software sales for Switch 2 in the UK were of first
39:36
party games.
39:37
SPEAKER_00: So only 14% of games were third party sales.
39:40
SPEAKER_00: If you take away Mario Kart,
39:43
SPEAKER_00: So you can take away the Mario Kart World bundle,
39:45
SPEAKER_00: Mario Kart World bundle is included in that stat.
39:48
SPEAKER_00: It's actually 48%.
39:49
SPEAKER_00: So the Mario Kart bundle skews this quite a bit.
39:52
For the launch,
39:53
so in the US,
39:54
the launch of Switch 1,
39:57
81% of games sold were first party games.
39:59
SPEAKER_00: That didn't have a bundle obviously.
40:01
SPEAKER_00: And in the UK, the launch of Switch 1, 89% of sales were Nintendo games.
40:06
So even if you take this UK number,
40:10
89% for Switch 1 was first party games.
40:14
SPEAKER_00: 86% for Switch 2 were first party games.
40:15
SPEAKER_00: There's a slight shift there.
40:17
SPEAKER_00: That's probably more to do with the fact there's just more games.
40:19
Switch 1's launch lineup was Zelda,
40:21
Just Dance,
40:21
1-2 Switch,
40:22
Skylanders and Super Bowler Man.
40:24
SPEAKER_00: That was the entire physical lineup for Switch 1.
40:27
SPEAKER_00: For Switch 2, there's a lot, lot more.
40:29
SPEAKER_00: There's Hitman,
40:29
SPEAKER_00: the Cyberpunk,
40:30
SPEAKER_00: the Split Fiction,
40:31
SPEAKER_00: Hogwarts Legacy,
40:32
SPEAKER_00: Bravely Default,
40:32
SPEAKER_00: Yakuza 0,
40:33
SPEAKER_00: Sonic,
40:34
SPEAKER_00: Civilization.
40:35
SPEAKER_00: There's quite a few more games in there.
40:37
SPEAKER_00: These are just physical games.
40:38
SPEAKER_00: Well, Nintendo Welcome Tour isn't in there.
40:42
SPEAKER_00: I don't think these numbers are great at all.
40:43
SPEAKER_00: So Cyberpunk has done okay.
40:45
SPEAKER_00: It's the number two game behind Mario Kart.
40:48
SPEAKER_00: I understand in the UK,
40:50
SPEAKER_00: and I understand this is also true of all markets,
40:52
SPEAKER_00: or at least a lot of other markets,
40:54
SPEAKER_00: he has outperformed what The Witcher 3 did on Switch at launch.
40:57
SPEAKER_00: Or the Switcher, as some people call it.
40:59
SPEAKER_00: It's certainly the biggest third-party launch.
41:01
SPEAKER_00: But we're still not talking mega, mega numbers here.
41:04
SPEAKER_00: And there's some games that have done very poorly.
41:07
SPEAKER_00: There's some games that have done sub 100 units.
41:10
uh at launch of the switch 2 when it comes to third party um
41:14
before games um i'll
41:17
SPEAKER_00: do some caveats okay mario kart is why people came in for switch 2.
41:20
80 percent of switch 2 sales were the mario kart bundle so that
41:26
is that's going to
41:27
have actually people had a game straight away at launch it's
41:30
possible we're going
41:31
to see people who will put down mario kart and then start
41:34
looking around at what's
41:35
new and so basing this purely on the launch week perhaps isn't
41:39
entirely fair
41:40
there are no reviews for these games at launch there was if you
41:42
were trying to go
41:43
i've got mario cult what else should i buy what are the critics
41:45
saying we weren't
41:46
saying anything so there was no there were no reviews yeah so
41:51
again there might see
41:51
SPEAKER_00: a delayed effect on this but this is my personal take on this
41:56
I've been speaking to a bunch of third parties in the build-up
41:58
to Switch 2 and,
41:59
SPEAKER_00: you know,
42:00
SPEAKER_00: I spoke to Tate 2 and Strauss and Zelnick.
42:02
SPEAKER_00: They're very much asking Nintendo to deliver for them.
42:04
SPEAKER_00: They're saying, look, we've backed you.
42:06
SPEAKER_00: We've given you some games.
42:07
SPEAKER_00: Nintendo, you need to help us be successful on your platform.
42:10
SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, why would we keep doing that?
42:13
SPEAKER_00: Too many people come in for your games.
42:14
SPEAKER_00: How can we grow our games?
42:17
SPEAKER_00: But I still think they need to meet Nintendo halfway.
42:20
SPEAKER_00: The Switch audience is broader now.
42:22
SPEAKER_00: There are more adults that play Nintendo consoles than there were.
42:25
back in the 90s or whatever,
42:27
when perhaps it was more of a kid's machine.
42:28
SPEAKER_00: But Switch users expect to be able to plug in their game and play it.
42:32
That's what they expect,
42:33
you know,
42:34
and they expect to be able to take it out with them.
42:36
SPEAKER_00: They expect it to be flexible.
42:37
SPEAKER_00: When you've got a game like Hitman,
42:39
SPEAKER_00: which requires online connectivity,
42:41
SPEAKER_00: and then also is a game keycard,
42:42
SPEAKER_00: you have to download the thing,
42:43
SPEAKER_00: I don't think speaks to that audience effectively.
42:46
I'm not surprised Cyberpunk is the number one third-party game
42:48
because we had CD
42:50
SPEAKER_00: Projekt on the show about a month ago.
42:52
SPEAKER_00: They really thought about what the Switch,
42:54
SPEAKER_00: you know,
42:54
SPEAKER_00: they knew Cyberpunk's not the,
42:56
SPEAKER_00: you know,
42:56
SPEAKER_00: isn't a kids game,
42:57
SPEAKER_00: isn't a family game,
42:58
but they knew the Switch audience might be interested in it if
43:01
you can put the game
43:02
SPEAKER_00: on the cartridge and if you can make sure that it,
43:04
SPEAKER_00: you know,
43:04
SPEAKER_00: it adapts to both portable and the console environment.
43:08
SPEAKER_00: I just think Nintendo got to be careful.
43:10
They've done this before where they sort of scaled back or at
43:13
least softened their
43:14
SPEAKER_00: focus on first party in order to push third party.
43:17
SPEAKER_00: I think that would be a mistake.
43:18
People come into the Nintendo platform for Nintendo games and
43:22
then they discover
43:23
SPEAKER_00: the other games and they might try the other third party games out.
43:25
SPEAKER_00: But I do think third party companies, too many of these games
43:29
SPEAKER_00: were these game key cards.
43:30
SPEAKER_00: I'm not against the idea of them.
43:32
SPEAKER_00: I just don't think they work.
43:33
I just don't think they're not going to work that well on
43:35
Nintendo format because
43:36
SPEAKER_00: of the expectation of that audience.
43:37
SPEAKER_00: And indeed,
43:38
a lot of the games didn't do very well and a lot of them were
43:41
effectively digital
43:42
SPEAKER_00: download required titles.
43:43
SPEAKER_00: Did you play any third-party games on Switch?
43:45
SPEAKER_00: Do you have a Switch 2, Chris?
43:46
SPEAKER_00: Are you on board?
43:47
SPEAKER_01: I do.
43:48
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
43:48
the only thing that I've been playing outside of Mario Kart is
43:52
Fast Fusion,
43:53
SPEAKER_01: which is the $15 indie game that is excellent.
43:58
SPEAKER_01: And I think I've seen in the top 10 on the digital store,
44:02
SPEAKER_01: but I don't know what that means in terms of sales.
44:04
SPEAKER_01: No, no.
44:05
SPEAKER_01: Again?
44:06
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
44:07
It's hard for me to make sense of any of this for all the
44:11
reasons you mentioned.
44:13
SPEAKER_01: Just the fact that it costs so much.
44:16
And then you buy Mario Kart and maybe you buy a subscription to
44:20
Nintendo Online.
44:22
And at that point,
44:23
are you really just in the mood to spend more money on a game
44:27
that is...
44:28
old right like that's the other part these aren't new games
44:32
these are yeah some of
44:33
them that have already been out on the nintendo switch so i
44:37
don't quite get the
44:39
appeal i know that like cyberpunk i think is very clever in
44:42
that people who buy the
44:44
switch and only the switch maybe haven't had a chance to play
44:47
that do i think
44:48
people who want to play the new sonic or even hogwarts legacy
44:51
who also in a switch
44:52
are the type of people who have made an effort to go play those
44:54
games elsewhere
44:57
SPEAKER_01: Probably, I think.
44:59
SPEAKER_01: But again, it's tough to know because the data is so invisible.
45:03
The thing that I can't stop wondering about is where is Ubisoft
45:09
and what does this
45:09
SPEAKER_01: say about Ubisoft?
45:11
Because Ubisoft had a reputation with Nintendo for a while of
45:15
being the publisher
45:16
SPEAKER_01: that's going to make new weird things for the launch.
45:20
SPEAKER_02: Hmm.
45:20
SPEAKER_01: at Nintendo.
45:21
SPEAKER_01: Nintendo always tries to woo different third-party partners,
45:25
and it feels like a different set of them fall for it each time
45:29
at the beginning of
45:30
SPEAKER_01: the console cycle.
45:31
SPEAKER_01: I remember ahead of the Wii U being shown Call of Duty and being told,
45:35
SPEAKER_01: this is the grown-up third-party Nintendo console.
45:40
SPEAKER_01: But Ubisoft was consistent.
45:42
SPEAKER_01: You could expect a Red Steel,
45:44
SPEAKER_01: you could expect a Zombie U.
45:47
SPEAKER_01: They would have something kind of surprising.
45:50
SPEAKER_01: They seem to have a really good relationship with Nintendo,
45:53
SPEAKER_01: and now it feels like they're just trying to survive.
45:57
SPEAKER_01: hang on for dear life,
45:58
and I imagine you can't make a lot of space for Wii or Switch
46:03
to launch games when
46:04
SPEAKER_01: you're in that position.
46:06
SPEAKER_00: Possibly.
46:06
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
46:07
SPEAKER_00: the Prince of Persia,
46:08
SPEAKER_00: that Prince of Persia game they released last year,
46:10
SPEAKER_00: which I know didn't do great numbers,
46:12
SPEAKER_00: it sold best on Nintendo,
46:14
SPEAKER_00: right?
46:14
SPEAKER_00: It was a very...
46:15
SPEAKER_00: I know it wasn't an exclusive Nintendo game,
46:17
SPEAKER_00: but it was a...
46:19
SPEAKER_00: I think also the ideas of exclusive sort of over.
46:21
SPEAKER_00: So I've known that the Mario and Rabbids team have largely disbanded.
46:24
SPEAKER_00: Although Ubisoft Melanchthon exists,
46:25
SPEAKER_00: the people behind that game have gone and formed a new studio.
46:28
SPEAKER_00: I know they had pitched another title that didn't get approved.
46:33
I don't know why,
46:34
but it sort of never happened,
46:35
which was,
46:35
again,
46:36
I think tied to Nintendo.
46:38
SPEAKER_00: that that sort of team was doing those sort of things.
46:40
SPEAKER_00: They do have Star Wars Outlaws coming.
46:42
SPEAKER_00: But I think I agree with you.
46:43
SPEAKER_00: I think it's easy.
46:45
You can port your game to Switch 2 and you can probably find
46:48
some players.
46:49
SPEAKER_00: And if you do it right,
46:51
SPEAKER_00: like Cyberpunk did it,
46:52
SPEAKER_00: you might be able to find an okay number of players.
46:55
SPEAKER_00: We had Matthew Ball on the show and said,
46:56
SPEAKER_00: look,
46:57
SPEAKER_00: you're not going to,
46:57
SPEAKER_00: your big audience isn't going to be on Switch 2.
47:00
SPEAKER_00: People were interested in Star Wars Outlaws,
47:01
SPEAKER_00: if they were interested in Elden Ring or anything like that,
47:04
SPEAKER_00: they probably,
47:05
SPEAKER_00: they would have bought them on the other machines.
47:06
You can still do something on these platforms with those games
47:09
if you want to.
47:10
SPEAKER_00: But if you really want to succeed on Switch,
47:12
SPEAKER_00: you've seen it,
47:12
SPEAKER_00: like people say Switch,
47:13
SPEAKER_00: Nintendo third party games don't succeed on Switch.
47:16
SPEAKER_00: The traditional third party games that we think of don't.
47:19
SPEAKER_00: But Lego games do.
47:20
SPEAKER_00: They do really well.
47:22
SPEAKER_00: Just Dance does super well.
47:24
SPEAKER_00: Hogwarts Legacy did massive numbers on Switch.
47:27
You know,
47:27
it came out much,
47:28
much later and it isn't too far off PlayStation figures now.
47:31
SPEAKER_00: And there are games that do very well.
47:33
SPEAKER_00: Indie games, because obviously a lot of indie developers are...
47:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think Nintendo-inspired.
47:38
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
47:39
SPEAKER_00: They do really well on Nintendo platforms.
47:42
SPEAKER_00: So there is definitely a market.
47:43
SPEAKER_00: There's definitely lots of third-party success to have.
47:46
SPEAKER_00: And it's worth noting that the end of the Switch's lifecycle,
47:48
it got to the point where sales of first-party games and
47:52
third-party games were
47:53
SPEAKER_00: evenly matched,
47:54
SPEAKER_00: you know.
47:55
SPEAKER_00: So it certainly hasn't been a great start, but as I say,
47:59
SPEAKER_00: As you quite rightly say, there isn't actually a lot of things here.
48:02
SPEAKER_00: I was actually tempted by Hitman, and I never played Hitman.
48:04
SPEAKER_00: But when I found out I had to be online for bits of it,
48:07
SPEAKER_00: I thought,
48:07
SPEAKER_00: well,
48:08
SPEAKER_00: sometimes I play at a coffee shop.
48:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
48:10
SPEAKER_00: But anyway.
48:13
SPEAKER_01: Can I share my dream for indies on Switch, too?
48:17
SPEAKER_01: Because I don't think...
48:19
SPEAKER_01: We live in the post-Steam Deck world,
48:21
SPEAKER_01: and I know not every casual person,
48:23
SPEAKER_01: normal,
48:24
SPEAKER_01: sane,
48:24
SPEAKER_01: healthy person has a Steam Deck or a Rogue Ally X or whatever.
48:29
But it is a reality that like the bump that indie games got
48:32
when Nintendo Switch
48:33
SPEAKER_01: original launched is different than Switch 2.
48:37
I would love kind of like Super Mario All-Stars style packs of
48:43
indie games that I
48:44
could buy on the Switch 2 with a custom layer where I come in
48:48
and it's like I
48:49
SPEAKER_01: picked my little arcade of four or five games.
48:53
SPEAKER_01: I am inspiring this largely on the Shovel Knight
48:58
series which i think has done versions of this and again i'm
49:01
not talking about just
49:02
like you buy it as a bundle in the store and then it's five
49:04
games i mean a wholly
49:06
like original standalone arcade experience inside of a piece of
49:11
software i
49:12
understand that that sounds like an extra layer of navigation
49:15
for hardcore players
49:17
that wouldn't be appealing but i think there are real people
49:21
who don't know
49:23
what indie games are good or bad,
49:25
especially when you go onto the Switch shop now.
49:27
It is completely impenetrable in a gamble on what you're going
49:31
to get quality-wise.
49:33
And I think that developers need to start working together and
49:37
finding solutions
49:38
SPEAKER_01: for how they present their work and how they curate their work
49:42
SPEAKER_01: Because if the stores aren't going to do it, it's going to fall on them.
49:46
SPEAKER_01: So I'm hoping for something.
49:48
I'm hoping for some creativity in terms of how games are
49:51
actually distributed on
49:52
SPEAKER_01: the Switch to last.
49:54
SPEAKER_01: I think a lot of good stuff is going to get lost in this market.
49:57
SPEAKER_00: There used to be,
49:58
SPEAKER_00: back in the retail,
49:59
SPEAKER_00: physical retail days,
50:00
SPEAKER_00: okay,
50:01
this was always in collaboration with the retailers and
50:03
Nintendo don't seem that
50:04
SPEAKER_00: interested,
50:04
SPEAKER_00: but they used to do things like,
50:05
SPEAKER_00: these are the BAFTA winners.
50:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
50:07
SPEAKER_00: Here's the nominees for the Game Awards and they sort of,
50:09
SPEAKER_00: you know,
50:10
SPEAKER_00: whatever it is,
50:10
SPEAKER_00: you know,
50:10
SPEAKER_00: you could,
50:11
they sort of did these celebrations and often they work with
50:14
reduced prices or in
50:15
SPEAKER_00: collections and stuff like that.
50:16
SPEAKER_00: That's an interesting idea.
50:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I call up video games.
50:21
SPEAKER_00: Get this done.
50:22
SPEAKER_00: If you're listening, make that happen.
50:25
SPEAKER_00: Those are our big stories for the day.
50:27
SPEAKER_00: I do have some smaller stories,
50:28
SPEAKER_00: but we're sort of short on time,
50:29
SPEAKER_00: so I want to get through them relatively quickly.
50:32
SPEAKER_00: One of them is only relatively recently broken.
50:33
SPEAKER_00: It was broken on Wednesday.
50:34
SPEAKER_00: Xbox has partnered with AMD for future Xbox consoles.
50:38
in a short video Xbox president Sarah Bond said the deal is for
50:40
future Xbox devices
50:42
including handhelds consoles and cloud the multi-year
50:44
partnership between Microsoft
50:45
and AMD will see the two co-engineered silicon across several
50:48
devices and AI
50:49
powered experiences within a platform that is not tied to a
50:53
single store or device
50:54
and fully compatible with your existing Xbox game library I
50:57
wrote about this
50:58
already on the site again I think we kind of gather this might
51:01
be the direction of
51:02
SPEAKER_00: Xbox but Chris your initial reaction to the to that story
51:06
SPEAKER_01: Unsurprising, I think, is the general tenor here.
51:10
I hope that they have ideas about how they're going to respond
51:14
to what NVIDIA is offering.
51:16
I think seeing how well things run on the Switch and how
51:20
beautiful Fast Fusion is.
51:21
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
51:23
SPEAKER_01: I get the partnership.
51:24
SPEAKER_01: I get the history.
51:25
SPEAKER_00: We'll see how it goes.
51:27
SPEAKER_00: My thing with it,
51:27
SPEAKER_00: and I did say this in the article,
51:28
is this idea of an Xbox console that you can play your Steam
51:31
games on and basically
51:33
SPEAKER_00: Xbox becoming a PC that sits under your TV.
51:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
51:37
SPEAKER_00: I think it's an interesting future.
51:39
SPEAKER_00: Xbox has great strategies.
51:41
SPEAKER_00: I often think they do.
51:42
SPEAKER_00: I thought this Xbox Series X S strategy was a great one,
51:45
SPEAKER_00: but for some reason it doesn't always connect.
51:48
SPEAKER_00: Xbox has the games now.
51:48
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps they didn't have the games back then.
51:50
SPEAKER_00: It's a good pun.
51:51
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yes.
51:52
SPEAKER_00: It always sounds good on paper.
51:54
SPEAKER_00: It's whether it can deliver on reality.
51:56
SPEAKER_00: The idea of Windows, it feels like I've gone back in time 25 years.
51:59
SPEAKER_00: The idea of gaming Windows being the heart of this.
52:03
SPEAKER_00: You know, I spoke to a games exec.
52:05
SPEAKER_00: I did an interview with them,
52:05
SPEAKER_00: and afterwards they started talking about it,
52:07
SPEAKER_00: and he pulled a bit of a face at that.
52:09
SPEAKER_00: But...
52:09
SPEAKER_00: You know, they're the biggest games publisher in the world right now.
52:12
SPEAKER_00: They speak to all different audiences,
52:13
SPEAKER_00: hardcore PC gaming audiences,
52:15
SPEAKER_00: casual players,
52:16
SPEAKER_00: everyone in between.
52:17
If there's one company that can create a unified ecosystem that
52:21
crosses mobile,
52:22
SPEAKER_00: console,
52:23
SPEAKER_00: PC,
52:23
SPEAKER_00: brings all those things together,
52:25
SPEAKER_00: splits those things up individually,
52:26
it's the company behind Minecraft and Candy Crush and Call of
52:30
Duty and World of
52:31
SPEAKER_00: Warcraft and Diablo.
52:32
SPEAKER_00: Like, I just think it always sounds good on paper, I hope.
52:37
SPEAKER_00: Xbox had a bit of a rough time on the platform side of things,
52:39
SPEAKER_00: and I hope that it's,
52:41
SPEAKER_00: well,
52:42
SPEAKER_00: I'm paying attention.
52:43
SPEAKER_00: They're always interesting to write about, that's all I can say.
52:45
SPEAKER_01: It feels like they've spent 15 years planning for the future,
52:48
SPEAKER_01: and now the future is here,
52:50
SPEAKER_01: and now we're going to see if that plan actually works.
52:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they are a company in a constant state of transformation.
52:58
SPEAKER_00: We don't have too much detail on this,
53:00
but the US Actors Union SAG-AFTRA has suspended its nearly
53:03
year-long strike and has
53:05
SPEAKER_00: instructed members to return to work on productions.
53:07
It follows the announcement of a tentative agreement between
53:10
the union and video
53:11
SPEAKER_00: game companies,
53:12
SPEAKER_00: including Activision,
53:13
SPEAKER_00: EA,
53:13
SPEAKER_00: Epic,
53:14
SPEAKER_00: Insomniac and Warner Brothers.
53:15
While the union has successfully managed to negotiate on a
53:17
variety of critical
53:18
SPEAKER_00: issues,
53:19
SPEAKER_00: including wages in line with inflation,
53:21
SPEAKER_00: job safety,
53:21
SPEAKER_00: those sort of things,
53:22
they weren't entirely happy with the protections against
53:25
exploitative use of AI.
53:27
SPEAKER_00: But I think it sounds like they've reached an agreement on that now.
53:29
SPEAKER_00: And AI is an interesting opportunity for the industry.
53:32
SPEAKER_00: We saw Darth Vader in Fortnite.
53:34
SPEAKER_00: All of this stuff is interesting to experiment with,
53:36
SPEAKER_00: but I think we do need to get this sorted from the start.
53:39
SPEAKER_00: We need to make sure artists are protected.
53:41
SPEAKER_00: We need to bottom this out.
53:42
SPEAKER_00: I think the whole industry wants that.
53:43
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, we don't have
53:44
SPEAKER_00: a lot of details on what these exact protections are,
53:47
SPEAKER_00: but it's nice that people can go back to work.
53:50
I have a tentative interview with a representative from this
53:54
union that will
53:55
SPEAKER_01: tentatively run Friday.
53:57
SPEAKER_01: For anybody who wants to hear it, we'll see.
54:00
I am very curious because,
54:02
again,
54:03
I agree,
54:04
they've been in negotiations for almost two years.
54:05
SPEAKER_01: They've been on strike since July of last year.
54:10
i am i'm eager to hear what's going on because i do worry about
54:14
the inability to to
54:16
get this right from the start because i think the companies
54:19
realize they also are
54:21
very motivated to lock in the i would say uh anti-human
54:26
approach uh now because it
54:29
SPEAKER_01: will be harder to see that in the future rough times
54:33
SPEAKER_00: Speaking of rough times,
54:34
Mind's Eye from Builder Rocket Boy has finally launched after a
54:37
really unusual
54:38
SPEAKER_00: series of events ahead of its release.
54:40
SPEAKER_00: It arrived full of critical errors, bugs and poor reviews.
54:43
SPEAKER_00: Eurogamer gave it one out of five.
54:45
SPEAKER_00: GameSpot gave it three out of ten.
54:46
SPEAKER_00: IGN gave it four out of ten.
54:48
SPEAKER_00: I'm not one to pick on a game that doesn't deliver.
54:50
SPEAKER_00: It's not really what the show is about.
54:51
SPEAKER_00: But this story of this has been a bit of a strange one.
54:54
SPEAKER_00: And they released a short gameplay.
54:55
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you saw this, Chris.
54:56
SPEAKER_00: They released a short gameplay clip for the game about a month back.
54:59
And the amount of people that texted it to me and said,
55:01
what the hell is this?
55:02
SPEAKER_00: It was really a terrible demonstration of what this game was.
55:07
SPEAKER_00: They then followed that up with a better trailer.
55:09
SPEAKER_00: And I had two reactions to that trailer.
55:10
SPEAKER_00: One...
55:11
was they kept talking about what looked like pretty basic
55:14
gameplay elements of like
55:16
ducking behind a wall and stealth and controlling a robot as if
55:19
it was some form of
55:20
huge revolution in video games and i was like i've seen this a
55:23
hundred times before
55:25
that was my first reaction the other reaction was oh we don't
55:27
get a lot of gta
55:28
clones anymore i'd be caught i'd be caught out for this but
55:32
then trailers the
55:33
SPEAKER_00: trailers did get better
55:35
but then we had co-ceo mark gerhard uh suggesting some of the
55:39
negative coverage for
55:41
minds i've received was financed by someone i think that may be
55:44
implying former
55:45
employers as some people don't want leslie or build a rocket
55:47
boy to be successful
55:49
also days before the game was due to be launched build a rocket
55:51
boy's chief legal
55:52
officer and chief final financial officer both quit the firm
55:56
leslie benzies who
55:56
SPEAKER_00: runs build a rocket boy was at summer game fest
55:59
SPEAKER_00: but then didn't appear for some of his planned media appearances,
56:01
SPEAKER_00: which included talking at our event,
56:03
SPEAKER_00: The Game Business Live,
56:04
SPEAKER_00: which we held in LA.
56:05
SPEAKER_00: He'd gone home, he said, because of a family emergency.
56:08
SPEAKER_00: And now it's come out and it's a bit broken.
56:10
SPEAKER_00: My take on this story,
56:11
SPEAKER_00: and I could be completely wrong,
56:14
but my take on this is that they had a really ambitious sort of
56:16
metaverse vision
56:18
SPEAKER_00: for what was called Everywhere initially,
56:20
SPEAKER_00: which was the game they were making.
56:21
SPEAKER_00: This was before metaverse was even a term that we were using regularly.
56:25
It's sort of the industry's gone through that metaverse fad and
56:29
then come out the
56:29
SPEAKER_00: other side of it.
56:30
SPEAKER_00: Fortnite beat them to this user-generated content platform,
56:33
SPEAKER_00: which is what Everywhere was supposed to be.
56:35
They pivoted to Mind's Eye being the heart of the product,
56:38
you know,
56:39
the lead with the game.
56:40
SPEAKER_00: Mind's Eye is sort of a game made using Everywhere.
56:44
SPEAKER_00: There's also a user-generated content bit after Mind's Eye.
56:46
SPEAKER_00: I think it's a bit of a confusing proposition.
56:48
SPEAKER_00: I suspect they've had to get the game out for financial reasons,
56:51
but I feel that perhaps they've been buffeted a little bit by
56:54
the winds of the
56:54
SPEAKER_00: industry and what they've managed to come out with is not delivering.
56:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
56:59
SPEAKER_00: On any front.
56:59
SPEAKER_00: And in fact,
57:00
that's one of the reasons why I was eager to get him at the
57:01
show because I wanted
57:02
to talk about this journey they've been on and almost the
57:04
series of unfortunate
57:05
SPEAKER_00: events they've had to contend with to get them here.
57:07
SPEAKER_00: But they do say that he still would appear on the show.
57:10
SPEAKER_00: I don't believe it.
57:11
SPEAKER_00: But it's certainly been a really tough time.
57:14
SPEAKER_00: And it's not a fun story in any way.
57:17
SPEAKER_00: There's 400 odd people who work at Build A Rocket Boy.
57:20
SPEAKER_00: And this is this is
57:24
SPEAKER_00: I've ended on quite a bleak one.
57:27
SPEAKER_00: It's not a happy result.
57:29
They're saying they're fixing it but I fear that with a game
57:31
that needs community
57:33
and needs people building stuff and making stuff that they've
57:36
got a real uphill
57:37
SPEAKER_00: battle now.
57:38
SPEAKER_01: I would love a story on how games die.
57:42
SPEAKER_01: And that sounds really bleak.
57:44
SPEAKER_01: But what I mean by that is like,
57:46
we see so many different versions of how a game can be purred
57:51
into the world like
57:52
SPEAKER_01: this,
57:52
SPEAKER_01: which is,
57:53
SPEAKER_01: yes,
57:53
SPEAKER_01: this feels like obligations.
57:55
SPEAKER_01: It feels like contracts made this game into the world.
57:58
SPEAKER_01: The fact that there was an event at Summer Games Fest that was Hitman,
58:02
SPEAKER_01: but also this,
58:03
SPEAKER_01: which I had heard the event described by other members of the presses,
58:07
SPEAKER_01: Rough, to say the least.
58:09
SPEAKER_01: Especially this part of it.
58:11
The release of a video that clearly makes this game look bad
58:14
feels like obligation.
58:16
SPEAKER_01: All of it just feels like we're hitting these notes because we have to.
58:19
Then we have the opposite where things seem to get cancelled
58:22
because of tax
58:23
SPEAKER_01: purposes and benefits.
58:25
SPEAKER_01: And then we have things where they just go on indefinitely.
58:28
There are so many ways to play these kind of doomed projects
58:34
and none of them are good.
58:36
SPEAKER_01: And I always wonder behind the scenes how much of this is,
58:40
SPEAKER_01: yes,
58:40
we are literally stuck in a paperwork loop or we're trying to
58:45
do the right thing or
58:48
SPEAKER_01: We are trying to, you know, save as much money as we can.
58:50
SPEAKER_01: There's so many different ways.
58:51
And the kind of void of transparency makes it hard to really
58:55
tell anyone's motives on this.
58:57
SPEAKER_01: And that's,
58:58
SPEAKER_01: I think,
58:58
SPEAKER_01: why you do get the mudslinging behind the scenes of like,
59:01
SPEAKER_01: well,
59:01
SPEAKER_01: it's actually this person's fault.
59:03
SPEAKER_01: Who knows?
59:03
SPEAKER_01: Who knows how any of this went down?
59:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
59:06
SPEAKER_00: I remember my first job in games was a games tester,
59:09
SPEAKER_00: and there was a game,
59:10
SPEAKER_00: it was a very good game,
59:10
SPEAKER_00: it was a PlayStation game actually,
59:12
that came through the testing company six times over the course
59:15
of three years,
59:16
SPEAKER_00: and it was largely finished when we first saw the test.
59:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
59:18
SPEAKER_00: And I still never found out why.
59:20
It did come out eventually,
59:21
long after,
59:22
it was a PS2 game,
59:23
it was long after the PS3 launch.
59:25
SPEAKER_00: But I still don't know why that just kept coming back.
59:27
And I imagine there was some licensing issues or whatever that
59:30
was causing it.
59:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
59:31
Or maybe the team got moved on to something else or there was
59:33
bound to be some internal story.
59:36
Maybe this one guy was the one left over working on the title
59:39
and it was all added.
59:40
SPEAKER_00: But yeah.
59:42
SPEAKER_00: Chris, that's all we have time for.
59:43
SPEAKER_00: We are well over time,
59:45
but I enjoyed chatting and hopefully we can have you back on
59:47
the show at some point
59:48
SPEAKER_00: in the near future.
59:49
SPEAKER_00: That'd be wonderful.
59:50
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
59:50
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for having me.
59:52
We'll definitely pay attention to your interview with the
59:54
SAG-Aphra representative.
59:55
SPEAKER_01: Fingers crossed you all come together.
59:56
SPEAKER_00: We'll cut it out if we're too late.
1:00:01
SPEAKER_00: That's it for today's episode of The Game Business Show.
1:00:04
SPEAKER_00: We'll be back next week with another big executive interview.
1:00:07
SPEAKER_00: Until then, thank you for tuning in.