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The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake is the most anticipated game of 2026 (that isn’t called Grand Theft Auto) · The Game Business Show

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: This week we reveal what will be the biggest video games still to come in 2026
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: that are not called Grand Theft Auto 6.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome to The Game Business Show.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: This week's show is sponsored by Keywords Studios.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Keywords is really the secret power in the video game industry.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's got 13,000 people across 26 countries and they're all about helping studios
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: to make their games,
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: get their games out there and support them afterwards on a global scale.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: They are big with technology,
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: they work with studios for long periods of time,
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: it's not just for a bit of quick work and they have some of the top specialists in
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: the world when it comes to making sure that players are having fun.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: Now one of their big areas is around game art.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: They've got experts that means they can produce creative work at scale
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: without losing the craft and the consistency or the intent and this ranges
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: from concept art to asset creation to full production pipelines.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: In other words studios can work with keywords to widen their creative capacity,
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: support their world building efforts and deliver art from the concept stage right
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: through to the final product.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to find out more there's a link in this week's newsletter
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: or you can just head to keywordstudios.com.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Now back to the show.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm joined this week by an old friend.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: He was the host of the Games and Job Biz microcast with me,
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: which was very much the precursor of this show.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: He is currently communications manager at Digital Bandidos,
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: and he's also a veteran business journalist and author.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's, of course, James Batchelor.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, James.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: How are you?
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm good.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: I was starting to think you'd forgotten me.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: I know you've had some much,
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: much more important and much, much better guests on, but it's been a while.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so I was like...
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: Is he going to ask me again?
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know what?
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's because I need to sort of portion you out.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'm still trying to coax you back.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's what it is.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to convince you.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: You're waiting for me to beg for it, I see.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: How are things going at Digital Bandidos?
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: You got a big game?
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: You got a demo coming out this week or something?
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: So we've got a big game coming up at the end of the year called Curse of Resthaven.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: Honestly, it's such a challenge to try and condense this into one genre.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: It is a single player narrative roguelite with deck building mechanics,
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: trading mechanics, a Majora's Mask style time loop.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's hard to kind of get across.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: That's your job.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: Your job is to get it across.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: Which is my job.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: I have to like draft this out and like really hone it down rather than just off
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: the cuff say this.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: No, honestly, it's absolutely incredible game.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's got this really cool like hand-drawn style.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I'm trying not to make this too much of a plug.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: The first ever demo is coming out this Friday as part
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: the 61 Indie Demo Days event, which is we're looking forward to.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's one of those games where, yes,
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: it's hard to explain,
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: but as soon as you play it, you get it and you hopefully love it.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, we're doing okay.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: Froggy Hick Snow is still doing nicely as well.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: So that's another one that we launched earlier this year.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: And we're just cracking on.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: We're kind of behind the scenes.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: We're finding ways to kind of help other developers, even if we're not directly the publisher.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: We're kind of working with them on helping bring their games to market.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, we're doing what we can for the indie space.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, it needs it.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the whole industry does.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: The whole bloody industry needs it, absolutely.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: We've had a bit of fun, James, since you were last on.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: George Corner's on the team now.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: Lovely George.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: I miss George.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, who of course was the sales leader on gamesy.biz.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, he, he didn't leave with us, uh, but we managed to, he's come across later.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we actually just hit a million views on YouTube on The Game Business Show.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: Congratulations.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's fantastic.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: I, um, I, When we did the YouTube thing, I was like, well, we'll see.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, my experience on GI, I wasn't expecting much.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: And it's still not, don't be wrong, most of the audience is on Substack.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: You have a load on Apple Music and Spotify as well.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, we're not really about numbers.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we're all about reach and influence and all that kind of stuff.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: But it is nice.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: I am surprised and pleasantly surprised that YouTube's done all right.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: We're not about the numbers, but the numbers do help.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: They do help.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: We are about audience.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: Do you remember Simon Maxwell, who was the publisher and the boss of Gamer Network?
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: And he, see,
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: when I joined Games Up is he gave me like a form to fill in about traffic numbers
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: and projections.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, well, business title, that's not, it's not what we're about.
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  SPEAKER_00: We're not about traffic.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: And then he would challenge me on that.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: And he goes, well, we do need traffic and we need audience.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's not.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because we used to say it all the time to anyone that joined us,
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: sure, that mobile piece may not do as well as that Xbox piece.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: But that mobile piece is probably speaking to a very specific group of people
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: that are the most relevant.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas that console piece is being picked up by all sorts,
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: which is the reason why the numbers are higher.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: So it's still the same.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: Still the same conversations we're having around.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: But it is exciting when we get big numbers.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: It does make us feel good.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: That is just the joy of B2B, isn't it?
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's reaching the right people, not the most people.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so this week we did a piece with RuneScape,
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: or last week we did a piece with RuneScape,
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: and it did exceptionally well,
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: because that game is a lot bigger,
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: older school RuneScape anyways,
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: a lot bigger than I think people realise,
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: it's massive,
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: and we did a piece last year on RuneScape,
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: it's actually the most read and watched Reviewed episode of The Game Business Show
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: on RuneScape.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: And this year's one,
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: RuneScape, isn't as big as last year's one yet, but it's not far off, right?
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm a bit like, well, what's that about?
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's because it's ended up on a RuneScape subreddit and it's also
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: a good industry story as well, but that's why it's done those numbers.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: The previous week I did one with Netflix on Unhinged.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: And the numbers were a lot, lot lower.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: But it got picked up by the BBC.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: And the BBC did a whole thing on Unhinged because they'd read it the episode of
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: The Game Business Show.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: And that matters.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: Those stories matter.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: They're really hard to get across in a LinkedIn post.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: So I go with the numbers.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: Being distracted, James,
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: so we've decided this week to look at the biggest games still
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: to come this year that's not called Grand Theft Auto 6.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: Now we have a bunch of charts in the newsletter.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: The data covers games coming out in August to the end of the year.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're wondering, I don't know why Halo isn't in this list.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's because that's out this week.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: Sports games are also not in this.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: Sports games didn't make the list anyway.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: But obviously NBA and Madden, EA Sports FC will be top of the charts.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's just the way those things happen.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: But we're going to leave them aside because they're always there.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: Now, because we're The Game Business, we're using data to tell us what those games are.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: We have trailer views, video views and article count from Level Up Analytics.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: We have wishlist data from Steam.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: That's kindly supplied to us by Simon Cardless and the folks at Game Discover.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: And IGN has also shared with us their wishlist chart too.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: So that's our old friends, that's old Pear and the folks at IGN.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: So we have lots of data points to go through.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's important we use data for this because, James,
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: if you and I were just selecting these games,
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: let's be honest,
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: it's just going to be number one, Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time remake.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway, James, kick us off.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: What is the most anticipated game this year that isn't Grand Theft Auto 6?
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: I reckon it'd be Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have the numbers there?
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have it in front of you?
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: I do have the numbers, yeah.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: So it is genuinely top of two of the four charts I'm looking at.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: I haven't got the IGN wishlist one, unfortunately, so that's all you.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: Top trailers,
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: 152 million views,
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: and that's a good nearly 30 million ahead of the second,
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: which is Marvel's Wolverine.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: Media coverage,
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: 17,300 articles,
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: although I imagine a fair proportion of that will be Where was the rest of it?
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: Because it was such a tease of a reveal.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: But, I mean,
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: that's significantly above The Blood of Dawnwalker,
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: which is the second most covered game, at 5,400 articles.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's third place in video views.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: So it's kind of third behind.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: Modern Warfare 4, Call of Duty, obviously is the most accumulated video views at 694 million.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: There's down to 553 million for Marvel's Wolverine.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: And then Zelda's there at 475 million at number three.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: But, you know,
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: number one in two of the charts,
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: number three in the other chart,
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: and obviously not on Steam wishlist because it's not a Steam title.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of anticipation for this one.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, IGN hopefully if you scroll across it might be there for you James
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: but it is actually number three in the IGN wishlist chart as well.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: I think the video views chart is slightly lower because there isn't that much
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: to talk about because it was a very small teaser trailer.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: These are obviously content creator views and all those sort of stuff.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: Jokes aside Zelda is the biggest game.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm interested in this one okay because James,
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: you know this, but the people that are listening at home, they may not know this.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: There are two eras of Zelda.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: There's everything before Breath of the Wild and there's everything after Breath of the Wild.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: There's basically two types of game.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: And the Zelda game that was before Breath of the Wild, it's a little bit more linear.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's still open worldish,
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: but you You go from dungeon to dungeon to dungeon in a select order and you beat
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: the boss at the end.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: Those games have been moderately popular.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: They're cult favourites,
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: they're huge fan favourites,
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: but the best-selling one of those was Twilight Princess that did just shy
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: of 9 million.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: The original Ocarina of Time did 7.6 million,
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: but most Zelda games, with the exception of those two, do under 5 million copies.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: That was pre-Breath of the World.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: Then Breath of the Wild happened,
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: and that game has done 33.8 million on Nintendo Switch alone,
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: it also came out on Wii U's, it's probably on 35 million now.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: Tears of the Kingdom,
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: which was the sequel to Breath of the World,
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: 22.56 million, so a completely different layer here, different scope.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: So Zelda's either sort of a relatively small niche game and then you've got these mega games.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: Ocarina of Time It's obviously in the older style.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: We're assuming,
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: we know nothing about this remake,
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: we're assuming it's going to be a traditional Nintendo remake.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: It looks prettier, it runs a bit smoother, but it's the same game.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now Nintendo has released some Zelda games.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: In between Breath of the Wild and Now that are in the oldish style.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: One of them is a remake, which is Link's Awakening.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: That was a remake of the Game Boy game.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: It is a 2D Zelda game that did six and a half million units.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: They did Skyward Sword HD.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: Which is a remaster of the Wii game.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: That did 4.15 million units as of December 2022.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: And Echoes of Wisdom,
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: which is the only original game they've done,
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: which stars Zelda and it's a little different, that's 4.1 million units.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: So those numbers are more in line with traditional Zelda numbers and not in line
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: with the new Breath of the Wild era.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: So my brain is going, oh,
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: Ocarina of Time is probably going to be around that level,
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: maybe a bit higher because Ocarina of Time is probably not going to be a sort
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: of Breath of the Wild tier is the Kingdom level.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: Having said that, Link's Awakening, as I said, was a 2D Zelda game.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: Echoes of Wisdom, also a 2D Zelda game.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: But also, I don't think it resonated very well, even though I thought it was pretty good.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: Skyward Sword HD,
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: and I know you and I share this view,
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: James, is probably the worst of the 3D Zelda games.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: So, I don't know.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: Could Ocarina of Time be different?
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: Could we be looking at a pretty big Big moment for this.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: And those trailer numbers for what is a very small teaser was,
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love to have heard it in person.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love to have been in the room when Ocarina of Time got announced.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: The roar would have been, even though it'd been leaked before.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: The screaming in the, in the old earth.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: Los Angeles theater would have been a, would have been huge.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: I'm really intrigued to see how this one does because kind of echoing what you've,
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: you've said, like,
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: We've got an entire generation of people who have been raised up on the Breath
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: the Wild, Tears of the Kingdom, massive, huge, open-world, systems-driven Zelda.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, sandboxy, yeah.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, sandboxy.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: I'm still getting viral videos of the stuff that people have made in Tears of
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: the Kingdom, but also tricks and exploits for people who find in Breath of the Wild.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: And Ocarina of Time is not that.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: And as you said,
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: almost certainly,
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: and I'm basing this largely on the Star Fox remake that came out a month ago,
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: This is almost certainly going to be a one to one remake.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: They might have like polished certain areas and expanded certain things,
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: but it won't be like a redesigned game.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: It will be one to one.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: If you've played this back in the 90s, you will know exactly where you are going in this one.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: But I think the difference is like with,
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: we've already had Link's Awakening as you say, we had Skyward.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: The hype around those games,
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: the prestige and the reputation of those games isn't on the level of Ocarina
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: of Time.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: This is held as one of the greatest games of all time.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: I think isn't it still like the highest rated game on Metacritic ever?
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: All like nine reviews that are on there for Ocarina
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: of Time.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but yeah.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: Its tagline was the greatest game of all time, right?
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly, yeah.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: The reputation it has, yeah.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: So the Switch generation that have been raised on like Breath of the Wild
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: and Tears will be intrigued by this and they will be more aware of this I'd argue
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: than they are of Lightlings Awakening,
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: Echoes of Wisdom,
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: Skyward Sword and I'm intrigued to see how they'll find
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: because I think they'll buy it on the hype and I'm intrigued to see what
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: the reception is and how word of mouth might help its long tail, I don't know.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of it comes down to how Nintendo see it.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: Because I've seen this before when Nintendo take a game like Luigi's Mansion and go,
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: right, we're going to make this big.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: And they put all their guns behind it.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's a good game.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: They know they've got a good game and they put all their weight behind it
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: and it does big numbers.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: Is Ocarina of Time,
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: are they going to go,
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: yeah, it's a remake or put it out like we did Super Mario RPG or stuff like that?
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: Or are they going to really try and go,
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: let's try and Push this quite hard amongst those Breath of the Wild users as well
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: as those classic Zelda fans.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: There's a Zelda movie obviously next year.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: We don't know.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: You have to second guess them a little bit.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: There isn't that much from Nintendo this year.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's interesting if you look at the go back to the chart,
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: the only other game in this list that's done really well,
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: specifically in the top traders list, is Nintendo Switch Sports Resort.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: That surprises me, by the way.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: Not because I'm looking forward to that.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: I just don't think, I don't expect a sort of casual sports game to make it into these charts.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: But that one has.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's a lot, it got shared a lot on social media by the looks of it.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really surprised to see
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: that up so high.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: Don't get me wrong, it looked great.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: I wasn't interested in Nintendo Switch Sports.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: This one weirdly does appeal to me.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: I think this is scratching the nostalgia it's for like that Wii era.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: But I have to wonder how much of like...
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: The attention around this and the view count is getting,
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: how much of that is people taking the mick out of the thumb wrestling demo?
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it might be a bit of that.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: That was the big meme or one of the big memes of like the summer game fest period.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: So this date is still shared with me from Level Up and Level Up has linked me to
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: a tweet to the loan that got two million views for this game.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: So that's interesting.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: So Nintendo Switch, that's obviously a lot more of a mainstream play.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: The other games that they've got is The Duskbloods.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: The Duskbloods doesn't make any... Well,
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: it actually makes the media coverage chart right down at the bottom, like number 15.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't make the trailer charts.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: It had seven and a half million trailers.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: The Duskbloods, obviously, is the From Software game.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's a PvPvE.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's a really big audience mismatch there.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: I know they're about to enter some sort of playtest scenario with that game.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: FromSoftware games are associated with PlayStation.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: I know that if you go back to GameCube era, there was Lost Kingdoms and stuff.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: But Nintendo sometimes signed these games to try and bring those players into their ecosystem.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: They did that with Bayonetta, famously.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: And if this game was the sequel to Bloodborne or a game in that vein,
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: this could bring those fans over.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's a multiplayer-y PvP thing or PvE thing, I'm a little...
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: Doubtful about it.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's always mismatch anyway,
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: and I'm not entirely sure it'll even appeal to FromSoftware fans in the way
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: that you might expect it to.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not made any of the lists, but that's the other game that Nintendo had this year.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, despite the love of Mario Kart and Splatoon and things like that,
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: Switch has never been,
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: and Nintendo in general,
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: have never been platforms known for online multiplayer experiences.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: That's not the go-to.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: My memory isn't, The Duskbloods like, it's related to Bloodborne.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: It certainly looks like it.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's something like it's set in the world,
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: but they can't name it Bloodborne 2 because of reasons or something to that effect.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: That was my understanding of it.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, it's weird.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, it's a title that's there to appeal to a very specific audience.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: But that very specific audience has already...
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: You've got other platforms
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: and plenty of things to play.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: From software is a major pull and I'm sure it will do all right.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just not expecting much from it.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't think Nintendo will be expecting much from it.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: The other game is Fire Emblem, which is out in September.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: That game is not on any of these lists, which doesn't surprise me because it's a niche.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: Ish game.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: But if you go back to the last major final game,
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: there was one in between,
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: but the last big one was Fire Emblem Three Houses, which was a moderate hit.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: And it was really popular, really well received.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then if you go back to Fire Emblem Awakening,
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: this game,
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: I think,
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: is being positioned as the sort of sequel to Three Houses,
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: which, you know, it did over four million copies, Three Houses.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not a tiny, tiny game.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's out in September.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway, my whole point is I wonder if Zelda...
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: It looks like the biggest thing they've got.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: Zelda is the biggest thing they've got.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: Unless there's like a September Direct where they suddenly reveal a 3D Mario or something.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: There's Christmas, which is not going to happen.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: This is absolutely their big bet.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: I'm intrigued, Chris.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: When do you think they could release this?
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: I think November 19th.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly where I was going.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: Genuinely,
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: I think Nintendo are the only ones who could launch this on the same day
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: as Grand Theft Auto and it wouldn't be affected.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I don't,
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: I think you'd launch it the same day as Grandpa thought,
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: I think it'd be mad, but I do think they could release in November for this.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I think for several reasons, one, it's a Switch 2 exclusive and GTA is non-Switch 2.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: Also, it's not like the game isn't going to get coverage.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: the thing is with a lot of games that are going,
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: or we're avoiding launching in November,
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: it's because your game isn't going to get the attention.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'll be honest,
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: if Zelda and GTA come out close together,
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'm getting Zelda because I'm of that,
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: I, that's, you're speaking to an, you know, You're speaking to me.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think they probably could.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: And they have a lot of Zelda promotion going all the way up to the movie,
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: which I think in the spring next year.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: So you'd still recommend they put it a little bit away from GTA because it is going
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: to suck up a lot of the oxygen.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: I've got in my head,
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: wasn't the original Ocarina of Time Out on like 22nd of November or something?
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like November was historically a...
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: A zelda release date, if I remember right.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: So the famous thing about upcoming time in the UK is they released,
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: I can't remember the exact date.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: I thought it was early December, but it was, they didn't have enough units.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: They sold out almost instantly.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: Very few units in the stock.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then they air shipped in copies of the game because they needed to get it out
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: before christmas it landed just before christmas that airshipment
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: and that's why ocarina of time was number one christmas number one when that used
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: to matter it was christmas number one in
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: the uk good times actually you know I'll go back there's a couple
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: of more stats here obviously this isn't the first remake of ocarina of time no
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: the other time it sort of came back was on the 3ds there was a you call it
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: a remake I mean it's very similar
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's a remaster.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's a remaster.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: We're into remake, remaster, reimagining, but it's remaster, isn't it?
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's the same game with a new coat of paint.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's very similar.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: It added 6.4 million units, which is actually above what a lot of Zelda games do.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I very rarely get Or predict sales figures.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: I would put Ocarina of Time Switch above that.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's definitely not going to hit like the 20k, 30k that... 30 million.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: 20 million, 30 million that Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom do.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: But I think it could maybe hit 10.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it won't do it quickly because it's a Switch 2 game.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, no, no.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: And we're still in the early days of it.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I agree.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: I think it could be very special, particularly as we're probably a long way away from Zelda.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: I knew we could talk about Zelda for ages.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's why I did it first.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to take the next one, James.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: Go for it.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to pick Call of Duty.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: So Call of Duty is in a really awkward, unhappy spot.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: So Black Ops 7, James, I know you missed this because you were out of the media.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: It was a disaster.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know,
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: Brendan Sinclair on the games in the shop,
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: he used to talk about predict the demise of Call of Duty and he was always wrong,
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: right?
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: If he'd have predicted it that year, he'd have got it right.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: Launch sales of Black Ops 7 was down 50% compared to Black Ops 6 in Europe.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: It lost its place as the biggest shooter of the year.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: It went to Battlefield 6.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's never happened before.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: Call of Duty is usually the best-selling game in the US every year,
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: unless Rockstar of a game out.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's normally Call of Duty is the best-selling game.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: But last year it was 5th.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: Ooh, that is low.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, according to Ampere,
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: Call of Duty HQ,
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: which includes Black Ops 6, 7,
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: Modern Warfare 3,
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: Modern Warfare 2, and Call of Duty Warzone, it had 12.3 million players in June.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: Just June just gone.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: But that's a whole 8 million lower than June the year before.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: So it's nearly lost 40% of its audience in the last 12 months.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: Now,
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: there will be some fundamental problems here that go beyond just court Black Ops
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: because it was declining before Black Ops 7.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: Black Ops 7 certainly was a bad result for it.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: I've been keeping abreast of the Modern Warfare 4 They do seem
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: to be generating some strong buzz.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: And as you notice from the charts,
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: Modern Warfare 4 is the third most watched trailer,
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: most watched trailers,
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: rather, in the charts, 119 million, so behind Wolverine, ahead of Marvel token.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: It isn't in the media coverage,
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: and this is fascinating because I spoke to,
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: I said, why is there no Call of Duty media coverage?
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: That does confuse me, yeah.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's all YouTube, right?
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so I actually spoke to Andy Robinson for VGC and went,
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: why don't the media cover Call of Duty so much?
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: Because we do a bit, he said, but...
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: That audience is all on YouTube.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, that's interesting.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know that.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, it's number one in terms of overall video views.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: So it's across all creators, nearly 700 million views there.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's not on the IGN wishlist, but that always can be a bit vague.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: So it's getting a bit more buzz.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's getting a lot more attention.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: People are being more positive about this one.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm fairly confident in saying that Modern Warfare 4 will be bigger than Black Ops 7.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: Black Ops 7 was very bad and this game does look stronger.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: There was also this weird pattern with Call of Duty
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: where you had like Modern Warfare 2 was really, really good and everyone loved it.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: And then Modern Warfare 3 wasn't and everyone hated it.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: And then Black Ops 6 was really, really good and everyone loved it.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: Black Ops 7 was also actually quite good, but people hated it.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so you have this sort of one year,
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: you have this weird cycle of they did this weird thing
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: when they did these two quick fire sequel things.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't seem to have worked.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: But we're in the up year.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: If following that pattern, this should be the year where this one will be really good.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: Its problem is a certain Grand Theft Auto.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: There's no chance that Modern Warfare 4 will beat Grand Theft Auto,
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: but I'm intrigued to see like how close it comes.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: I am not a massive Call of Duty player,
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: but my understanding is that Modern Warfare is still like the prestige sub brand.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: That's the one that everyone loves the most.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: Or is it shifted to Black Ops?
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: It shifted to and from a couple of times actually.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: It was a massive quality fan back in the day.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: Modern Warfare was the hero brand and it came out in 2007 and then the sequel was 2009.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: But then Modern Warfare 3 is when Infinity Ward had that implosion
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: and Sledgehammer had to take over.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: It was at that point that Black Ops started becoming the premium brand.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: And they're basically, they're both very, very strong.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: I think the movie is going to be based on Modern Warfare.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: I would imagine so, yeah.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's the quickfire sequel experiment that you mentioned that intrigued me
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: about this one because obviously like the reports I remember covering
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: where sources say was that Modern Warfare 3 The new Modern Warfare 3 was originally
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: an expansion or DLC for Modern Warfare 2 that got spun out into
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_01: a standalone release like the following year.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: And that would mean that this is technically,
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: if true, this would technically be Modern Warfare 3.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so they've had a bit more time to percolate on it a bit more.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_01: So this should be the stronger release in theory.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: And Activision Blizzard, they're not doing that anymore.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: They're not doing the quick, fast sequel.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: We won't have Modern Warfare 5 next year.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what they'll do next year,
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: whether they'll have a game or whether they'll do updates or invest in Warzone.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: The franchise is in, I don't want to say troubled, like not about to disappear.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: There's a time I would have said, what are the biggest games of 2026, excluding Call of Duty?
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not doing that anymore.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: But this Modern Warfare 4 is out 23rd of October.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, that's just under a month before GTA 6.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: So it has time to get the launch out.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: They don't get players, but it is going to hit into that GTA window.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it's now down to Activision Blizzard and Microsoft and their marketing team
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: and being able to,
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: how can we lean into GTA and the audience that will bring into PlayStation
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: and Xbox rather than lean out,
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: could we do some big promotions around Black Fridays and stales and stuff like that,
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: you know, when people put down GTA?
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's great to see it doing all right in these charts, but it's in a tough spot.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: Ultimately,
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: like even when Call of Duty is in a tough spot,
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: it's still selling like millions more than the majority of other games.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: At the top of the show,
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_01: you said that sports games aren't in this because we just know they're going
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: to come out.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: We know they're going to sell well.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: I kind of put Call of Duty, Call of Duty is like the gun sports game, as it were.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: So James, you pick the next one.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: What's the next game should we talk about?
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the next one must be Marvel's Wolverine.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's up there near the top of the charts for all of them.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_01: So 128 million views in top trailers, second only to Zelda.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's third in terms of media coverage, 5,300 articles written about it.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's second in video views, 553 million accumulated views, second only to Modern Warfare.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_01: It is top of IGN's wishlist.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's not on the Steam wishlist.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: That's because it's not on Steam.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: That's because it's a PlayStation game.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: That'll be why.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: God, am I out of touch already?
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: No, this is a big one.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_01: So Insomniac's Spider-Man games have done so well,
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_01: and they've really kind of raised the bar for kind of,
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_01: not licensed tie-ins, but licensed titles and original text.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: The comparison I would see is they've kind of done
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: for Marvel games what Batman Arkham Asylum did for DC games,
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_01: and they've raised the superhero game bar higher.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: I'm intrigued to see how this one does,
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: because this one is a lot more linear than the Spider-Man game.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: Spider-Man game is the usual kind of open world.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: You're in New York and oh, now we've got a bit of Queens as well.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: But it's pretty much the same sort of structure that Spider-Man games have been
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: since Spider-Man 2 in 2004.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: Wolverine's going to be a bit more linear,
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: lot kind of set pieces, lots of globe trotting in different locations and so forth.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a lot more brutal.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I am a bit of a Marvel fan.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: I enjoy a bit of Wolverine,
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_01: but I watch this,
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: personally,
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_01: I watch this footage and I'm like,
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: I really hope there's a way to turn off the blood.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: There is, apparently.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: Because there is so much of it.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of excitement for this one.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: Like, Insomniac have proven what they can do with superhero games.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_01: Marvel, as much as the MCU is kind of stalling a little bit,
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: the hype is building again for Avengers Dune Day at the end of the year.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_01: So Marvel has never completely lost its popularity.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_01: Wolverine's always been one of their biggest characters.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: This has got to be...
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: This is coming out September.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: So this potentially, what biggest game is September apart from sports games?
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: I think outside of sports and GTA,
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: this is probably the best game of the year because on paper it's got everything,
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: right?
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's a story driven PlayStation game.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: I know that it's not the open world of Spider-Man,
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: as you say,
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: it's more of a linear thing,
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: but those games also do well on PlayStation as we've seen with God of War.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's more God of War than I think Spider-Man.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it is.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: And those games do extremely well.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: Insomniac are just consistently brilliant.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: This is their fourth game.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: On PlayStation 5,
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: they had Miles Morales,
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: they've had Spider-Man 2, and they've had Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: All of those did really well critically.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: So you've got a great game.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: Sony are clearly putting their weight behind it.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: They were just at Comic-Con this weekend doing a lot
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: of promotion around Spider-Man is huge,
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: you say, first two games by May 2022, this date is really old, 33 million sales.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: Spider-Man 2 is not included in that because it came out later,
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: but that sold 11 million units in six months.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: So these are, you know, they're big games.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: There's a few things.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: I do think the violence is a bit much.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: Insomniac games are always in a bit like PG-13 or 12A.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's the Ratchet and Clank studio.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and they do do, obviously, Spider-Man is...
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: A lot more violent than Ratchet and Clank,
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: but it's still something that I wouldn't mind if I had a 12-year-old playing it,
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: right?
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: But I would mind Wolverine.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: And Wolverine, I don't resonate with that character quite as well as Spider-Man.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: Oddly, despite being a massive Insomniac fan, I'm not that excited for it.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: But on paper, it looks really good.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's actually one of two Marvel games that Sony published.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: The other one is this beat-em-up Marvel token, which I'm a bit out of that scene.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: I went to Evo last year.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: And went oh wow I can see why these games do really well in these charts
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: and this obviously is um this is there's been a couple of new fighters this year
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: the other one was invincible versus which also got a lot of buzz around it lots
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: of pre-release buzz and hype for marvel token um it's in the chart number four in
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: the trailers 98.5 million it hasn't had a huge amount
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: of media oh no that's why I'm lying I should have put numbers on this.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's number five in media coverage and it's hanging about.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's doing very well in those various charts.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: Let me just see where it is on the Steam wishlist.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: This one is coming out on Steam to confuse things about PlayStation
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: and published games, but it's not on the Steam wishlist chart.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's a fighting game,
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: so therefore it's naturally going to have a small audience,
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: but you have a dedicated and very active audience,
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: which is the reason why the numbers are so high.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously stars a lot of famous Marvel characters.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: They've done a lot of promotion for it.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: The beta weekend it just had, there was a bit of a backlash to the PC performance.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: There were some issues around that.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: But yes, two Marvel games, both from Sony.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: Wolverine will be the big one.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, absolutely.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_01: But like,
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'm interested to see how Token does,
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_01: because as you say, like, that is a very targeted release.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_01: There's a very specific audience there.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_01: The fact that it's developed, I believe it's developed by Arc System Works.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: You know, big fighting game developer.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, just the screenshots alone, it looks really...
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's one of those games you look at is like,
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_01: I am not the audience, but if I was the audience, I would absolutely get this.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_01: Like, it looks like kind of best of class kind of...
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: What game do you want to
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_01: cover next?
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I was thinking connections with two Marvel games.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_01: There were also two Star Wars games out.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_01: I ruined your segue.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so sorry.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, I was, I was, I was, we didn't at all.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: I was, I was thought maybe let's go try that.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go from Marvel to Star Wars.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: There are two Star Wars games in this chart.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: One, again, like Marvel.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, Marvel's quite high on both of them.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: There's two types of Star Wars game.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: Again, very different genres.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: One is Star Wars Galactic Racer,
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: which is number six in the trailers, 44.3 million views on trailers.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's doing quite well with media coverage, a little bit lower down 11, I think.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's in the video views, 121 million video views.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's number four on the IGN wishlist.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: This is a UK-made game published by UK Studio based on the Star Wars IP.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: I played this, James.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: Did you play Podracer back in the day?
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: Of course I did, yeah.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: That was a very arcade-y Star Wars game.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I only realised that because I played this one and it is not...
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: The pod racing thing is excellent.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like it was so excellent, but I crashed a lot because I realized that I can't just skim a wall.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that was how I got through the courses.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: And if you touch a wall, your thing blows up.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, wow, this is tough.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: very burnout-y.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: So in burnout, remember when there's a crash and then the camera does this whole sort of fit.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: And in Star Wars Galactic Racer,
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm driving through the canyon like this and suddenly I nudge somebody
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: and he crashes into a wall and there's a lovely replay of it.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: Then it cuts back to me and then I crash into a wall because I'm going really fast
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: in the canyon.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: But I thought it was brilliant.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: It looks incredible.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm surprised there's not been a Star Wars racing game.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: These data suggest it's a bit of a surprise not been a Star Wars racing game.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: In a very long time,
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: there was a couple,
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: there was a couple that followed it,
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: but then sort of from the early 2000s,
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: they just stopped and this marks a return to it.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_01: The last one I remember was, I think it was Star Wars Podracer, Racer Revenge.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: There was also Super Bombadracer, their cart version.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_01: Oh God, yes.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_01: I remember that.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: But all of this was around that, the prequel trilogy time.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_01: When Star Wars, yeah,
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: LucasArts were licensing out like Star Wars,
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_01: there were points where there'd be like three or four games coming out per film.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_01: You know,
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_01: I remember like around Attack of the Clones,
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_01: you had like the Clone Wars, which was like the strategy sort of one.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_01: You had Bounty Hunter, your action adventure.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_01: You had Jedi Starfighter, which was your dog fighting game.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah,
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: like pod racing,
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: they were capitalizing on when The prequels were huge and they were trying
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_01: to make them huge.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_01: This feels like good timing because we are in that weird point where it's
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_01: the nostalgia cycle, isn't it?
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's been 20, 30 years since the prequels.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: Therefore, the people who watch that grow We hated them.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_01: They were hated.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone hated the prequels for decades.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_01: And in the last five, 10 years, it's become like, oh, weren't they brilliant?
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_01: And all that generation, that generation was fantastic.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_01: There's so much nostalgia for like Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_01: So this is one of the This is a,
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_01: you're right,
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_01: it's surprising there hasn't been a Podracer game earlier,
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_01: but this is the right time to do it.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I think this could do quietly quite well.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_01: I think it will do really well.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's made by Fused Games, but that's almost entirely the Need for Speed team, right?
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: So these people know how to do this stuff.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: As a Doctor Who fan, I'm used to everyone saying, Peter Capaldi, what a rubbish doctor.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then two generations later going, do you remember the Capaldi era?
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it wasn't that good.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: And then we're going for that through Jodie Whittaker at the moment.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a weird feeling that rose tinted specs a little bit.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: But this game is not a pod racing game.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: There is pod racing in it.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: But there's like loads of different vehicles all the way from different eras.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: Even though it's set in a certain specific time place with characters and there's a story to it.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: It isn't just for people that love the episode one pod racer,
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: but it is clearly going to go to that.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, you're right.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's doing so well because of that nostalgia.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: It looks great as well.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: There is another Star Wars game coming out.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: Called Star Wars Zero Company.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: That's actually quite soon.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's from EA.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: It is quite low down in the trailer charts.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, technically it's off the trailer chart, 21 at 10.2 million.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's in the Steam wishlist chart, 652,000 wishlist.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: So it's doing quite well there.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: But it's sort of not in any of the others.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: This is another,
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: I think this has another nostalgic potential because it's basically Star Wars XCOM.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: But it's not generating quite the same noise as Galactic Racer.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: But I don't know.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think it matters.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: When you've got a game like this, these sort of games, it's a strategy game.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's certainly more niche.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's out next month, by the way.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's out on the 27th of August.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: And it can build and find that fan base and stuff like that all over time.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: If you look at how sort of fair access games do, I think it has that potential if it's good.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: I know this has nothing to do with this studio,
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: it has nothing to do with this publisher,
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: but come on,
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: stop messing around with licensed XCOM games and just make me an XCOM game.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, can't we just start building our own IP a little bit here?
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I think it's interesting.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's interesting because obviously Star Wars Outlaws didn't do very well.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_00: It missed.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_00: It was a bit of a disappointment if you go back to that Ubisoft game.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_01: Which angers me because Star Wars Outlaws is one of
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_01: the best Star Wars games I've played in years.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_01: Like it is factually brilliant.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't understand why it didn't do better.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_01: I think Star Wars is probably going for a bit of a malaise.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of noise around it.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: But I think the thing for me is being niche and going into targeted areas,
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: we're going to make an XCOM Star Wars game.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: Brilliant.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to make a racing Star Wars game.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_00: Rather than going, let's make a big blockbuster Star Wars game.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_00: You're going to make a Marvel fighting game.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's kind of where things might work for video games.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_00: I do think if you're going to spend that much money On even Insomniac
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: with Wolverine, I probably don't agree with that.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_00: But certainly if I was Ubisoft,
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'd have probably made The Division 3 rather than Star Wars because you didn't have
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: to share the revenue with Disney and all sorts.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, James, pick me, pick us the next game.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we're not going to go for all of them.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: But by the way,
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: if you want to see all of them,
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_00: the charts are in the newsletter and you can see all the games in there.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_00: But James, pick us another.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_01: The one I was going to pick was, I'm going to go with Control Resident.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_01: So this is coming out, this is second in the IGN wishlist chart.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_01: It is bottom of the top 10 in video views, 124 million.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_01: So still more than, it's just above Star Wars Galactic Racer.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's number six in media
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_01: coverage, 4,200 articles.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't, I was right down the bottom of top trailers with 10.7 million views.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_01: But I mean,
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_01: this one is particularly interesting because Remedy have been,
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_01: Remedy, Historically, perhaps a little niche in terms of their games.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_01: There's a big, big cult following around them.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_01: But they've never been like absolutely massive sellers.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: Control did really, really well.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_01: Alan Wake 2 then followed and has done well.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_01: My understanding is that Alan Wake 2 has done well over time.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_01: And here was, you know, A sequel.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_01: I'm intrigued about this one.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_01: Control, I am not a Remedy fan.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_01: Unlike people that we know, I am not a massive...
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you're a bit of a Remedy fan, aren't you?
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_01: I love Adam White, yeah.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_01: And Control is one of the two games of theirs that I actually really enjoyed.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_01: I liked Quantum Break, but Control I absolutely loved.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_01: This is interesting because it's a sequel, but it...
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_01: Goes a very different direction.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_01: The first one was very kind of third person shooting and lots of superpowers and so forth.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_01: And it was all set within this kind of brutalist, claustrophobic office.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_01: And then this has gone, it's not open world, but it's like much more open sections of levels.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a lot more melee and like almost superhero melee combat
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_01: with like weird powers and so forth.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so given that it's controlled it really well and was received really well.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_01: To go such a strange,
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_01: not strange,
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_01: such a different direction with the sequel,
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_01: I'm interested to see whether this pays off for them.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_00: Classic Remedy.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_00: They will never do this.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: But you're right,
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_00: we had Remedy on the show back in May and the big thing we talked about is that
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_00: the game should do better.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_00: You mentioned Alan Wake 2 did well.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_00: It didn't.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like, it's profitable.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_00: It wouldn't lose the money.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_00: But it didn't.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_00: It took them a while to get to profitability on that title.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_00: And it should have been a massive hit.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like, it's one of the best horror games made in...
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's up there with...
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's Resident Evil quality.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm not expecting it to do Resident Evil numbers.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_00: Those games are an exceptional thing.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_00: But even, like, it should be one of the better performing horror games.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_00: And partly,
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_00: I think,
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_00: that's to do with the fact their games are a bit strange and they're
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_00: a little bit unique and a little bit, you know, David Lynch-y.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I...
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_00: The whole thing is Remedy's publishing this one themselves.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_00: They learn how to publish games with last year's incredibly disappointing,
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: I've forgotten the name of the game now,
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_00: the live service game they released last year that underperformed for them
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_00: and they basically scaled back on that.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_00: But this one is they're publishing themselves so they can probably lean
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_00: into their weird little bit.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: They can embrace what makes their games unique.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying the publishers didn't get it before, but they really get it, Remedy.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm intrigued by it.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's getting a lot of attention.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_00: They're very good at PR, Remedy, and media really love Remedy.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_00: So the fact that it's done very well in the media coverage is not a surprise.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's done really well on video views, though,
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_00: even if it's not done quite so well on the trailer charts,
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_00: but it is in the trailer charts.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_00: I think it'd be Alan Wake 2 came out when Spider-Man 2 did and was in that sort of weird...
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_00: Crunch zone of October, I can't remember what year it was, 2023?
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_00: Where it was like, it was just all these big, big titles that came out at once at that time.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, famously, Alan Wake ended up being killed by Red Dead Redemption.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_00: And now we've got Control Resin in that kill zone of September.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_00: But obviously, it's not all about launch anymore.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, they're getting the game out well in advance.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_00: It looks interesting.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_00: I really want it to do well.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, it's interesting.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_00: Can I pick some new IP?
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_00: Go for it.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to pick two because we're running out of time.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_00: One is Blood of the Dawnwalker.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_00: Blood of the Dawnwalker is really interesting.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_00: We had them on the show earlier this year.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_00: This is a game from the former Witcher devs.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's basically vampires meet the Witcher with some sort of,
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_00: decisions that can't be undone and all you have to make decisions and things like
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_00: that.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_00: It is, it looks good.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_00: Publisher by Rando Namco, who are good at Western RPGs.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, they did The Witcher.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_00: They also published From Software Games as well, so they're good with this sort of audience.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_00: I think this is going to be a hit.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_00: If it's good,
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_00: I think it will be a hit regardless,
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_00: but I think it will be a,
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_00: it will be a,
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_00: it's not that high on the trailer charts,
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_00: just outside the top 15,
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_00: 15.4 million trailers,
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_00: but it's number two in the media coverage,
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_00: and it's number two in the Steam wishlist charts,
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_00: 1.47 million wishlists, coming out in early September.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's also, I'm, unless I'm missing something, is this the only Western RPG coming out this year?
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_00: I can't think of any other.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_00: Fable was due this year.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's now February.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_01: There's also, there's a lot of lingering hunger for a new Witcher game.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_01: So in the absence of that,
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_01: a new game by the Witcher developers,
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_01: particularly if it ends up being very Witcher-like.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know,
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_01: I know a lot of studio,
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_01: a lot of developers,
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_01: like when they break away and they start their own studio,
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_01: they want to make something completely different.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_01: But I think if there's enough crossover there,
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_01: yeah, I mean, like, you know, The Witcher 3's reputation is just absolutely huge.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's one of the most, you know, I think it will come down to how good it is.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm thinking like you know there's a thing with sort of European
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's going to do very well.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_00: How well will depend on how good the game is.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_01: As you say,
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_01: it comes down to how good the game is and how well Bandon Amkai
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_01: and Rebel Wolves emphasise that Witcher connection.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_01: Because I'll be honest,
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_01: when I first looked at these charts last night,
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, Blood of the Dawnwalker, I honestly had forgotten the name.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's very kind of word of the word.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_01: That's a good word sort of title.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_01: Do you know what I mean?
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_01: Not generic, but it's just I don't know what that means.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_01: As soon as I saw former Witcher devs, I'm now interested.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_01: So I think they really need to emphasize that kind of from the makers of.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_00: I think Gamescom is going to be a big moment for it,
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_00: as well as FTD Project will be there, the Witcher as well.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_00: So it's going to be a lot of noise around that kind of stuff.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_00: The other new IP I want to talk about is Beast of Reincarnation.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_00: Now this is a Japanese RPG.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's made by Game Freak, who are obviously very famous for Pokemon.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_00: Oddly, this game is not on a Nintendo.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's backed by Xbox.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's Game Pass day one, so that guarantees a strong sort of audience on day one.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's high on the list partially because it's out soon.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's out next week.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_00: So that that sort of naturally that's the thing with these charts.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_00: They are influenced a little bit by the games and help out sooner.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_00: It has featured, but it has also featured in both the Xbox and PlayStation digital events.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_00: So we have, you know, It has had a lot of push from the consoles.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's doing quite well in terms of media coverage.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_00: I think it will do even more because it's just had a load of stuff being said about it.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's in the top 10, 28.2 million in top trailers.
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_00: Surely it's in the bottom 97.7 million video views in the video charts.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's in the IGN wishlist thing.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_00: I think it could be...
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_00: The buzz is quite positive around it,
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_00: and it looks kind of nice for what was used to the technical capabilities
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_00: of Pokémon.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like, hang on, why don't... What?
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I'm waiting for.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I'm waiting for.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_01: When this comes out and is an absolute technological marvel and is done brilliantly
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_01: and like then the scrutiny on winds and waves next year,
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_01: even though obviously like,
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_01: very different platform,
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_01: you're making,
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_01: you're making this for like much,
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_01: much more powerful consoles than, you know, Nintendo's, even the Switch 2.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_01: But it does, it looks stunning.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I watched the trailers for this.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_01: I watched both the showcases in June.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I had to keep reminding myself, like, this is by Game Freak.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you proper squint.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's like,
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_01: if you took the logo off the trailer,
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_01: you would not be able to tell this is by the people who made Pokemon.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_01: It looks like a whole other class of game.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, the numbers are certainly positive for it.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_00: Go on James, you pick the next one.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm actually going to pick a chart.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_00: Can we talk about the Steam wishlets chart?
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, go on then.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of games in that.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, what?
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, exactly.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_01: It just emphasizes to me that Steam really is its own world.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's completely separate from the wider world.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_01: Console and PC space, like,
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_01: if you look at Steam on its own, like,
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_01: Blood of the Dawn Walk is like number two,
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_01: as you said, but,
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_01: Phantom Blade Zero,
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_01: Onomusha,
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_01: Way of the Sword,
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_01: Dawn of War 4,
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_01: those are like the other top,
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_01: the others in the top four, and those are much lower in the other charts.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_01: But, you know, you mentioned about new IP.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_01: There's so much more new IP in the Steam Witcher chart and it's because it's indie games.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_01: And you've got,
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_01: Nivalis,
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not going to go into detail on all of these,
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_01: but just picking out some that I know of.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_01: Nivalis Nights is, I believe, the developers of Cloudpunk.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_01: They are,
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_01: it's set in the world of Cloudpunk and they've made it,
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_01: it's kind of a cyberpunk life sim, is my understanding of it.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_01: Big Walk is the new one by Househouse and Panic.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the, Househouse is the Untitled Goose Game developer, I believe.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, lots of the weird kind of like job-based games like,
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_01: you know, Low Budget Repairs, Restoried Chill Electronics Repair.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_01: I look at the Steam Wishlist chart and I'm like,
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_01: it really shows that the PC gaming space is very,
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_01: very different to kind of the broader market.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_00: I know.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_00: People can talk about PC and consoles if they're the same sort of thing.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_00: They're really not.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_00: The audiences aren't really different.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_00: And there's heavy turret simulators in this.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_00: Hell Let Loose Vietnam, by the way, British-made game published by Team17.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_00: We don't talk about that very much.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'd like to get them on the show at some point.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, but also even things like Phantom Blade Zero, which is the wuxier sort of action game.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_00: It is technically part of a franchise,
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_00: but that game is very high in the trailers and the Steam wishlist charts,
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_00: not at all in the media charts.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_00: That sort of thing, like none of these games are the media charts.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, it's really fascinating.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_00: By the way, we talked about Patrol Reson earlier.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's number five in the Steam wishlist chart.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's true, yeah.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_01: And crucially, Grand Theft Auto is not coming out on PC yet.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_01: So these are the games that people are looking forward to
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_01: because they don't have access to Grand Theft Auto.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's certainly, it is an eclectic chart.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_00: I actually wanted to bring up,
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_00: because you mentioned Phantom Blade Zero there,
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_00: and sort of, I guess, leastly connected to that, it looks similar, is Onimusha.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_00: Played that at Summer Game Fest.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_00: I was a little bit like, ah, Capcom, why are you doing that?
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_00: You know?
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's like it was,
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_00: and don't be wrong,
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_00: it was okay on PS2, did all right, but it's not like the biggest thing in the world.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_00: But look, look at it.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_00: Underestimate Capcom at your peril.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_00: Number three in Steam wishlist.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_00: I played it at Summer Games first before.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_00: It was really good.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_00: It is in the top trailer charts.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's at number It's number 11 for 18.5 million views there.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's been covered quite a lot by the press.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's just behind Control Resident 3800 articles.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_00: And Capcom on such a streak of success,
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_00: Resident Evil Requiem into Pragmata and Onimusha looks like it might do all right.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think it's going to be the biggest thing in the world.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's also coming out in that kill box of September.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, sorry,
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_00: I was sort of derailed there from talking about Steam, but it's like it's in there.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's in that top get charts.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's a good one to pick out.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_01: I think the only other thing,
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_01: like looking across all the charts that strikes me,
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_01: obviously we've talked about Zelda Ocarina of Time extensively.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_01: There is one more remake that's doing the rounds, which is Rayman Legends retold.
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_01: I think the fact that you picked that out talks to our bias.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_01: I think it does.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_01: So what are the games that we like?
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_01: Well, no, I never played them.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_01: I just, it surprises, I'll be honest, no, that's not my bias.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_01: That is my surprise.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_01: I'm surprised that that is so popular.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, it is a little higher than I thought it would be, certainly.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_00: So this is like a 3D-ish remake of Rayman Legends.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know why it's not just a different game.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_00: I have said that to Ubisoft.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_00: Why is this being positioned as a remake when it's so different?
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's quite similar to it, but yeah, it's doing quite well.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's doing the top trailers, top 10, 24.2 million.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's had a bit of media coverage as well.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's even in the video views,
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_00: it's had a lot of chat around it, which, you know, I'm pleased by it.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not expecting too much from it.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think it's going to be the biggest game of the year,
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_00: but it's certainly doing all right with the numbers.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_00: Of course,
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_00: what we should probably talk about,
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_00: and I don't care about it,
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_00: and I suppose you don't care about it very much either,
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_00: is Gears of War E-Day, which is higher up a lot of these charts.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's number nine in the trailers, 25.3 million.
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's number four in media coverage, $4,600.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_00: I expect most of that.
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's people amazed that they're making it exclusive to Xbox.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_01: I was going to say that is absolutely the majority of the narrative around this game.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_01: Again, really interested to see how that performs because Xbox shifted away
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_01: from exclusivity for a reason.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_01: That reason perhaps being lower platform sales than the biggest platform on the market.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_01: I'm interested to see...
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_01: Because funnily enough,
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_01: I've been hearing a lot of them conversations like podcasts and stuff around Gears
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_01: of War and the debate as to whether Gears of War obviously is one of
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_01: the tentpole franchises for Xbox, but is the audience still there?
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_01: Is the audience that grew up on the original trilogy on Xbox 360,
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_01: are they still interested in Gears of War?
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_01: Are they still...
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_00: I don't mean no entirely.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_00: It is relatively popular in the US, Gears of War, right?
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_00: I think we come from a slightly European perspective where the franchise,
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_00: it does sell some copies over here,
• 50:41
  SPEAKER_00: but not very much,
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_00: which is the reason why I think they've utterly killed it in Europe.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_00: It will do all right in the UK because the UK has a decent Xbox install base,
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_00: but Europe doesn't.
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I think not putting Gears of War on PlayStation is going to hurt it quite
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_00: a bit outside of America.
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_00: But it isn't the hero title.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_00: It used to be, even though it's closely associated with the console.
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_00: But numbers are pretty good.
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of chat around it in October.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_00: So, and maybe this will be the one,
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_00: the whole thing about Xbox,
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_00: this whole plan of theirs,
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_00: all the layoffs,
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_00: all the closures and stuff, it's all about focusing on the core franchises.
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_00: And they've clearly identified Gears of War being one of those core franchises,
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_00: certainly one they believe they can bring back.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, that plan is new, Gears of War, E-Day has been in development for some time.
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_00: But, yeah,
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_00: we had Lucy James on the podcast and she just was very dismissive of it and some of
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_00: the fans were not entirely happy.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_00: But I think, you know, Maybe this will be the one.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's like games do stage comebacks all the time.
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to have to run out.
• 51:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to leave it there.
• 51:45
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to see the full chart,
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_00: by the way,
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_00: of all the listeners at home,
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_00: we have got, there's loads of games in this that's interesting.
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_00: Silent Hill Town falls in there obviously well.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's sort of in the middle of a lot of these charts.
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_00: Minecraft Dungeons has done well with the trailers.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't do so well with the media coverage, but it is in there as well.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_00: Dawn of War 4 is actually quite a big PC release, that one.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously made by a different developer this time from the Dawn of War normal games.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's in the charts as well.
• 52:13
  SPEAKER_00: There's a few games that aren't in the charts
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_00: because they're technically not new games that I think will do very well.
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll pick two of them.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_00: One is Lego Batman.
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_00: So Lego Batman obviously came out in May.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_00: It didn't come out on Nintendo in May.
• 52:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's coming out in Nintendo, I think in September.
• 52:30
  SPEAKER_00: And obviously that is a that the Lego games do very well on Nintendo platforms.
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_00: They're one of the third party games that do very well on Nintendo things.
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_00: They don't necessarily tend to do very well at launch on On Nintendo platforms.
• 52:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, September 18th.
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_00: They tend to do well over time.
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_00: They do well at launch and then they just keep growing and growing and growing.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_00: But that'll be a significant one for that game.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_00: The other one is Forza Horizon 6, right?
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's coming out on PS5 and apparently it's coming out on PS5 in 2026.
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_00: Not on the list because it came out on PC and Xbox back in May.
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_00: Forza Horizon 6.
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_00: Forza Horizon 5 came out on the PS5 last year and was a huge hit.
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_00: So this is...
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if that means that people four times and six come out
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_00: and PlayStation fans will go, we just...
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_00: Just got one, got that one a year ago.
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_00: Or they'll go, ah, we love that one, we'll get this new one as well.
• 53:23
  SPEAKER_00: I think that, but it will definitely do numbers, it will definitely do all right.
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_00: It is coming,
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_00: depends how close it reaches to GTA,
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_00: actually, I suspect, but that is a, assuming it's still coming in 2026.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_00: There's another game that's coming out to a new
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_01: platform at some
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_00: point.
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_00: I knew you were going to mention this.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, of course it was.
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, what game are you going to mention, James?
• 53:41
  SPEAKER_00: 007 First Light.
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_01: Millions sold within the first couple of weeks.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely the best Bond game in decades.
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_01: I might double dip myself, might pick it up on Switch as well.
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's about time the Nintendo audience saw how good it is.
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_01: So that's coming out at some point before the end of the year.
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think that's going to be one of the biggest launches.
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_00: Not for you, but...
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_00: Well, but, I mean, it is for me.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_00: First of all, it's brilliant, right?
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely brilliant.
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm the guy with the Goldeneye, signed Goldeneye poster on my wall.
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I know.
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, fair point.
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_00: Fair point.
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_00: And there is an association with Bond and Nintendo because of that game.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, I think it would do all right.
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_00: I just, I don't think it's going to trouble the charts come the end of the year.
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_00: James, thank you for joining us.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_01: No, thank you so much.
• 54:29
  SPEAKER_01: This has been a really fun episode to be on, so thank you so much for asking me.
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's just less layoffs, no disc, what's happening to the discs, none of that rage.
• 54:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's all just, let's look forward to some games.
• 54:39
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I think it's an interesting year.
• 54:41
  SPEAKER_00: Oddly, although there's lots of games on this list,
• 54:43
  SPEAKER_00: they're all quite lots of loads of different games.
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_00: Even in the September,
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_00: we're talking about September being this kill zone,
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_00: and I guess it is a little bit,
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_00: but Marvel's Wolverine, Control Resonant, Onimusha,
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_01: they're quite different.
• 54:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I think even if they're going to eat each other a little bit in September
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_00: because people are having to make choices.
• 55:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a big Fire Emblem fan.
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to get Fire Emblem, which means I'm probably not going to get Marvel's Wolverine.
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm probably not going to get Control Resonant that month.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_00: But I will get them because they look brilliant.
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, I think it's going to be good.
• 55:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's going to be a good year, plenty for everyone.
• 55:17
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously,
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just waiting for Zelda,
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_01: but there's other things to keep me distracted in the meantime.
• 55:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, me too.
• 55:24
  SPEAKER_00: Right, I'm going to now do the news, James, so I'll let you go.
• 55:27
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, thank you for joining us.
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_00: Good luck with your demo launch.
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_01: Cheers.
• 55:33
  SPEAKER_00: All that's left for us to do now is wrap up the news from the last week
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_00: and there were actually a few stories and there was a few financial results as well
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_00: and we're going to start with Crafton.
• 55:41
  SPEAKER_00: Now we don't always cover Crafton's financial results but Crafton launched
• 55:45
  SPEAKER_00: the Subnautica 2 smash hit game only a few months ago.
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_00: And it has paid off for them very well.
• 55:51
  SPEAKER_00: The Korean games giant saw its revenue shoot up 94.9% to $889 million
• 55:55
  SPEAKER_00: and operating profit rose 67% to $283 million.
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't just Subnautica 2 that did the business for them,
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_00: PUBG as well,
• 56:03
  SPEAKER_00: but obviously that The game was a real breakout hit,
• 56:05
  SPEAKER_00: even though we did see it coming.
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_00: It was dominating the Steam wishlists, but yeah, it did extremely well.
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_00: Sticking with financials, Capcom delivered incredible results really for Q1.
• 56:14
  SPEAKER_00: This is on the back of two things.
• 56:15
  SPEAKER_00: Resident Evil Requiem continues to do very, very well.
• 56:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's now sold 8 million units.
• 56:19
  SPEAKER_00: And also the new game,
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_00: Pragmata, that's a new IP as well, two and a half million copies that game has sold.
• 56:24
  SPEAKER_00: As a result,
• 56:24
  SPEAKER_00: Capcom's income rose 69.2% to $177.5 million,
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_00: while profit hit $250 million, which is up 67% incredible.
• 56:33
  SPEAKER_00: All results there for the folks at Capcom.
• 56:36
  SPEAKER_00: Let's do Ubisoft's financials as well.
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's a little bit older, this one.
• 56:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's a mixed results,
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_00: 255.8 million euros, which is down 9.2% over the quarter of the year before.
• 56:44
  SPEAKER_00: But the decline was due to the comparison with Assassin's Creed Shadows,
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_00: which launched in March last year and did very,
• 56:51
  SPEAKER_00: very well for them into the following quarter.
• 56:53
  SPEAKER_00: The Therm is feeling pretty bullish though.
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's just launched Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resync,
• 56:57
  SPEAKER_00: which has done very well and it's sold three and a half million copies.
• 57:00
  SPEAKER_00: So that's some more positive, a little bit more positive news out of Ubisoft.
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_00: A few negative stories,
• 57:05
  SPEAKER_00: Double Fine Productions reduced its workforce by 23 people,
• 57:08
  SPEAKER_00: or 25% of the team,
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_00: and this is following its divorce from Xbox,
• 57:11
  SPEAKER_00: obviously left the studio now,
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_00: it's independent,
• 57:13
  SPEAKER_00: it's still wanting to sign P,
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_00: it's trying to find new deals,
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_00: new publishers, as is Compulsion Games, the other studio that spun out from Xbox.
• 57:20
  SPEAKER_00: These are hard landings for these companies,
• 57:21
  SPEAKER_00: they've been given a little bit of runway cash,
• 57:23
  SPEAKER_00: but they have to find work fast,
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_00: and it's going to be difficult, it's a difficult market to do that in.
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_00: Also a company having a bit of a tough time is Wizards of the Coast.
• 57:31
  SPEAKER_00: So Wizards owner Hasbro recorded a $56 million impairment charge last week due
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_00: to its video game investments.
• 57:37
  SPEAKER_00: Several video games have been cancelled and now Wizards
• 57:39
  SPEAKER_00: the Coast boss John Hyatt will step down.
• 57:42
  SPEAKER_00: He's stepping down from September the 1st.
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_00: He's a former Blizzard exec.
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_00: He sort of handled World of Warcraft and he's been overseeing Magic the Gathering,
• 57:48
  SPEAKER_00: Dungeons and Dragons and the upcoming video games Exodus and Warlock.
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_00: Both those games are still scheduled for 2027.
• 57:53
  SPEAKER_00: They're big bets there for Wizards of the Ghost.
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_00: Some interesting stories,
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_00: Atari has signed a deal with Universal Pictures to develop 10 of its IP into games.
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_00: Those titles are Asteroids,
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_00: Adventure,
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_00: Berserk,
• 58:05
  SPEAKER_00: Breakout,
• 58:05
  SPEAKER_00: Centipede, Crystal Castles, Millipede, Missile Command, Pong and Yarl's Revenge.
• 58:09
  SPEAKER_00: None of them are particularly massive and I'm not entirely sure what
• 58:12
  SPEAKER_00: the plan is They don't screen blockbuster successes at the box office,
• 58:15
  SPEAKER_00: but who can see?
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure there's a plan somewhere down the line.
• 58:19
  SPEAKER_00: February is shaping up to be a really busy one for the video game industry next year.
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_00: We already had Fable, the Xbox reboot of the classic RPG franchise.
• 58:26
  SPEAKER_00: That was coming on February 23rd.
• 58:28
  SPEAKER_00: We had Tomb Raider Legacy of Atlantis coming on February 12th.
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_00: And now we have God of War Lofe, the big, big PlayStation game coming out February 16th.
• 58:35
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of female fronted games there and they all look excellent.
• 58:39
  SPEAKER_00: So busy, busy February for the video games industry.
• 58:42
  SPEAKER_00: The EU Commission has approved the $55 billion acquisition of Electronic Arts.
• 58:46
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the acquisition from a consortium of investors led by
• 58:49
  SPEAKER_00: the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund.
• 58:51
  SPEAKER_00: We have talked about this quite a bit on the show.
• 58:53
  SPEAKER_00: Check out the political episodes we've done with George Osborne to sort
• 58:55
  SPEAKER_00: of explain why the Saudis are so interested in buying EA and their investments
• 58:59
  SPEAKER_00: in video games.
• 59:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's eye-opening reading.
• 59:01
  SPEAKER_00: And a few final little stories.
• 59:02
  SPEAKER_00: Human Fall Flat has now sold 60 million units worldwide.
• 59:05
  SPEAKER_00: That game came out 10 years ago, which is deeply upsetting for me.
• 59:07
  SPEAKER_00: It feels like only yesterday.
• 59:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's been developed, of course, by No Breaks Games.
• 59:11
  SPEAKER_00: It was published by Curve.
• 59:12
  SPEAKER_00: So incredible results there for Human Fall Flat.
• 59:14
  SPEAKER_00: What a massive number.
• 59:15
  SPEAKER_00: And finally, Xbox is making classic games available on PC and via Game Pass.
• 59:19
  SPEAKER_00: The first four titles are Blinkster Timesweeper,
• 59:21
  SPEAKER_00: Fusion Frenzy,
• 59:21
  SPEAKER_00: Crimson Skies, High Road to Revenge, and Conker Live and Reloaded, that last one.
• 59:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's a remake of Conker's Bad Fur Day,
• 59:27
  SPEAKER_00: which is the game that inspired me to become a video game journalist.
• 59:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I love that game and I wanted to make sure that I referenced that story.
• 59:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's it from us today.
• 59:35
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, that's it from us for a week.
• 59:37
  SPEAKER_00: We're taking next week off a little bit of a break for We've been doing 135, 136,
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_00: I've lost count,
• 59:44
  SPEAKER_00: episodes of The Game Business Show as of now,
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_00: and that doesn't include our micros,
• 59:47
  SPEAKER_00: so we're having a little bit of a pause,
• 59:49
  SPEAKER_00: but we do have some really big episodes when we come back.
• 59:51
  SPEAKER_00: We have a major interview, well, two major interviews with big AAA game studios.
• 59:56
  SPEAKER_00: We've got some interesting companies you've never heard of as well,
• 59:58
  SPEAKER_00: plus a major,
• 1:00:00
  SPEAKER_00: three major publishers I think we're doing,
• 1:00:01
  SPEAKER_00: and One of the biggest video game legends you can imagine is coming on the show
• 1:00:06
  SPEAKER_00: as well.
• 1:00:06
  SPEAKER_00: All in the next few months, we'll of course also be covering Tokyo Game Show.
• 1:00:10
  SPEAKER_00: My first time in Japan.
• 1:00:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm very excited to be going out there to be interviewing some of
• 1:00:14
  SPEAKER_00: the Japanese game studios and games companies and Gamescom.
• 1:00:17
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, we're going to be there in a big way as well.
• 1:00:19
  SPEAKER_00: We've got some nice interviews set up there and we've got some breaking stories.
• 1:00:22
  SPEAKER_00: We've got some more data, lots and lots of stuff to look forward to.
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_00: Just not next week.
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_00: Next week, you're not going to be here.
• 1:00:28
  SPEAKER_00: But until then,
• 1:00:29
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for tuning in and if you want to make sure you don't miss those episodes
• 1:00:32
  SPEAKER_00: when they do land,
• 1:00:33
  SPEAKER_00: head to thegamebusiness.com
• 1:00:35
  SPEAKER_01: and put in your email address and
• 1:00:36
  SPEAKER_01: that way you won't miss an episode.
• 1:00:38
  SPEAKER_00: Have a lovely week.