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Xbox Leadership Shakeup, Live Service Burnout, and Sony’s Remake Problem
83 Plays19 days ago
In this episode, Spencer and I end up talking through the Xbox leadership changes and what that could mean for where Microsoft is headed. That turns into a bigger conversation about live service fatigue, Sony sitting on its legacy catalog, and why some companies treat preservation like it matters while others don’t. It’s one of those episodes where we start in one place and gradually realize what we’re actually frustrated about.
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Transcript
Introduction of Episode 134
00:00:21
Speaker
Hello and welcome to episode 134 of Unqualified Game Chat. I'm your host, Azar Lopez, and with me today is my best friend, Spencer, the Legacy.
Mental Health as a Superpower
00:00:35
Speaker
Hey, everybody. Hope you've been doing this. This like, what, three, four weeks in a row? It's pretty good. I think we're killing it. I didn't want to do it today. And I'm here. Yeah.
00:00:45
Speaker
That's how he's like, and fuck that. But you know what? He showed up for you. I I'm definitely the more that I understand adult ADHD, the more powerful I become.
00:00:58
Speaker
And don't don't let me stop there. Don't let me stop there, Spencer. Let me get more mental illness. Let me get. Let me back i'm like let me let me collect them and let me come back. And I will let you know the depression how I've anxiety. Yes. How I've been bipolar. Yes.
00:01:14
Speaker
And then they become my superpower. Mix them all together like a cake. Yeah. A nice little- Feed a raw egg by itself. Cacophony of- It'll give you a protein, but that's about it. But you mix it with sugar, you mix it with flour, then got a whole new thing. if you mix all these mental illness illnesses together, you got you got a ah whole beautiful
Nostalgia for Old Commercials
00:01:33
Speaker
thing. Who's that fricking Nutribullet guy? There is a Neutron. like jimmy who's jimmy neutral Who's this Jimmy Neutron guy? You know what? Nutribullet influencer.
00:01:42
Speaker
old guy neutral bullet influencer dustin had no off that's not his name it's an old guy in the infomercials where he's selling the neutral bullet and he's really old and he he's all buff you remember when it was called depression oh yeah you tune in commercials for depression yeah You have too high of self confidence. I get that down.
00:02:09
Speaker
Boo boo boo boo boo. No, wait, that was the Doug. And sure I
Fashion Experimentation and Mishaps
00:02:14
Speaker
definitely went Doug intro there. Yeah, that was right. I was thinking of the fun dances that they do with the dancing with the govi look govi. Oh, yeah. I just asked.
00:02:27
Speaker
Yeah. What's the oh, oh, oh, Zemp? No, that's that's O'Reilly. yeah i was like i think it was i don't even know does it have a song yeah they have uh in canada it's just a bunch of oh things they're like i just asked oh it's a it's song but that's how it's not working on us see we just proved in real time that these ads they They don't have the sauce. Get the fuck out of here. I can still sing ads from the early 2000s. don't know any fucking Zephic ads.
00:02:59
Speaker
I can sing drug-free ads from 1997, but I don't give a fuck about Zepgaria or are Luck Bound. Just try to measure up to the fucking Juicy Fruit guitar guy. Just try.
00:03:13
Speaker
You know what it is? i hate bright colors. Yeah. and all those commercials are very vivid. and it They're for the TikTok generation. Oh, it pisses me off, man. It pisses me off. I'm not a very bright colored guy. i like bright colors. Really? i do, yeah. think I do. I like the Game Boy Color Blue a lot. like the ah Yeah, I dig that.
00:03:38
Speaker
ah take that I'm trying to think of something I like that's that's bright. The blood in Danganronpa. Yeah, that's a that's a fun, vivid color. um i used to really hate pastel.
00:03:50
Speaker
Yeah, i could go I could give or take past that. Yeah, I could yeah take or leave pastels. I'm good on it. I've had enough. It's like Easter and spring. Okay, yeah. Pastels work in that kind of season because it's the vibe. But it's summer. Come on. Summer? No. Summer's for like hot, intense colors.
00:04:08
Speaker
it reminds it It's just like marshmallows and I fucking hate marshmallows, dude. It like reminds me of church. It's very like churchy color pastels. Like an Easter. you' thinking know Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. we yeah fact yeah it's a lot There's a lot of Yeah, I don't think pastels... I think the further you get from spring either way, the less pastels work for October? Forget about it. forget about it yeah There was a month where I thought I could wear pastel like sweaters and stuff and I thought like I was being like really whimsical and quirky in my like off pink like You were being a manic pixie dream boy. you know like i thought it was cool
00:04:48
Speaker
Like I see people at like PAXs and stuff where like an anime girl and like a very pink pastel-y or light blue sweater. And I'm like, I could do that. I can't, guys. yeah I can't. here's the i You know what? You can. You just got to like figure out how to rejig it for you because like i also have that kind of thing where i'll be like i really want to like i'll have like a briefing or like this fashion style specifically i really want to right now it's circular sunglasses i really want to make circular sunglasses work for me um that's there so the sunglasses are tough how big are you going are you going tiny big i like
00:05:26
Speaker
I like big. I like big. I like big. It's, a yeah, I'm going to make them work for me this summer. Yeah, why don't you why don't you debut them on this show? I could. i could Yeah, next episode. It's going to the circular sunglasses episode. I got them already. I'm ready. Yeah, no, I think you can. You just have to figure out how to, like, make it work with you because everyone's different. But, yeah, I don't know. i'm Yeah, because I'm trying to mix up my look, too. So there is a...
00:05:54
Speaker
A degree of like what works best. I like Levi's. I usually buy five 11s. Now I haven't bought jeans in a while. Okay. So I go to Macy's the other day and when I was 12, the Levi's that I bought were five 14s.
00:06:11
Speaker
They didn't have five 11s back there. For some reason, my brain gas lit me into thinking that I always wear five 14s. Five 14s is what I've worn from Forever.
00:06:25
Speaker
Yeah. So I bought a pair of five 14s. Now these are straight leg five 11s are slim and they're a little tight. ah Five five 14s are straight leg. Fine. yeah They're not baggy. They're just straight leg, but they are. They're a little baggy.
00:06:41
Speaker
I had to wear them for three days straight to get used to seeing myself in baggier pants. and in the And in my head, dude, I'm walking around. like I'll go to the gym or I'll go to the store.
00:06:52
Speaker
I'll walk to Target or something, and I think everyone's laughing at my pants. I do that too, yeah. that i When I did the sunglasses recently, I was like, everyone's looking at me and being like, that guy fucking stuck. That guy sucks ass.
00:07:06
Speaker
That guy, I hate him. i hate I want to kill him. I'm going to kill him right now. This guy sucks. Meanwhile, literally no one cares or is noticing because they're all like thinking that or they're like, oh, I have to go get food. Oh, I've worked so hard. They're thinking about things that matter to them. They're all like, wait a minute. I've detected someone with a slightly different clothing choice.
00:07:27
Speaker
They should be killed by firing squad. I'm going to commit a hate crime. Yeah, I definitely need to get over all... Don't quit me saying that. We need to get over that. This is the year. is This is the year we take
Uniqlo Collaborations Excitement
00:07:42
Speaker
chances. We take big fashion risks. Yeah.
00:07:46
Speaker
i'm i'm I'm all in on Uniqlo now. Loving Uniqlo. Uniqlo's a good one. you didn't close great They got... Oh man, March. They have crazy... They got the Pokemon collaboration. That's exciting. and they got yeah jump collaboration. and I'm a big jump head.
00:07:59
Speaker
So I'm. Oh, they have the one piece stuff up there. They one piece. They got Jujutsu Kaisen. They got Yu Yu Hakusho. They got Hunter Hunter. They got. My least favorite thing about those drops is that there's only like.
00:08:11
Speaker
One or two good shirts. that's And they sell out. The Jump one, they're all sick. Because they're all different series. So they're all like, it's not like all Jujutsu Kaisen. So you're like, oh, I only want this one. It's like, there's like two Jujutsu Kaisen. So you're like, alright okay. But then it's like, oh, but there's also like, i don't know, Slam Dunk. Oh, but there's also Dragon Ball. So it's like, yeah. i Yeah, when they did that Final Fantasy one, they all sucked.
00:08:38
Speaker
I'm so mad that I missed that though. I'm so mad. Which one would you have gotten? Seven. Yeah, seven and eight were the coolest ones. All the other seven could look like shit and i would still get it because it's seven. It's my baby.
00:08:51
Speaker
It's my favorite game ever. I have to. um Yeah, I made a deal with ah Bailey that he can't even ask to review the next Final Fantasy 7 because I know he will. yeah and ah And I made a deal with him saying that he can review the next Kingdom Hearts.
00:09:08
Speaker
And i will I won't even step on his toes. yes i will I won't even get in his way. ah What do they call in the Hollywood? A blank check movie where it's just like, it's all you, baby. It's all you, baby. Yeah. Yeah. well ah i won't I will not ah be an obstacle between you and Goofy's big ol'. Yeah, Goofy and Donald and Max maybe. Throw Max in there. Yeah, throw... throw max that place what's What's that place that we're all stuck in?
00:09:36
Speaker
What are we stuck in right now? Quadratum. Quadratum. See? unreality i walked there. I walked to Quadratum. He got there way faster than the fucking development team has. so There you go. You know, it's such a bummer. So for the people watching who don't know, ran a Kingdom Hearts podcast from like age 16 till like 20, 22. Do we have a clip? Do we have a... I mean, it's all on iTunes. It's all still up. I'm going Okay. Yeah.
00:10:09
Speaker
Roll a clip, Azario. Jamie, roll it. Jamie, can you look that up? Kingdom Hearts World? yeah can you look that up? I just want to say real quick, that was a joke. I disavowed Joe Rogan. I just want to make sure. just Well, everyone. Nobody's this seat out of context. being like, Spencer watches Joe Rogan. The fact that everyone listening knew who you were referencing yeah says more about them than it does about You're all in trouble too. yeah I've never even listened to one episode. We're all in trouble. you move We're all in trouble.
00:10:36
Speaker
we're out That's an understatement.
Kingdom Hearts Podcast Reflection
00:10:39
Speaker
So I ran the Kingdom Hearts World podcast with my pals. And so that was like during the KH3 Great Wait. um But, you know, you got side games. It's a long wait. It was like it was a long wait, but you got, like, Birth by Sleep.
00:10:53
Speaker
You got 3, 5, 8 Days. You got Coded. You got you got all these games where i was like, okay, these are fun, like, smaller games in between. Since Kingdom Hearts 3, we got... a rhythm game and a canceled mobile game and they shut down the not canceled ones the union cross is that the one yeah they cut they shut down union cross they deleted they like canceled missing link i think that's what it's called yeah they didn't even do the offline one no wasn't that supposed to be like the zora or whatever whatsoever Yeah, or it supposed to be... just making up names at this point, man. Was it Uzora or it the... Uzora, yeah, yeah, yeah. The mass... Yeah, so it was like him as a kid or something, supposed to be canon and they kept being like, this is going so important. And then they were like, well, not that important because we're killing it.
00:11:39
Speaker
um Yeah. But this wait has been really long and we haven't gotten anything. So it's like... Damn, like that's that sucks. Like, I think that part of that is just games take so much longer and so much more expensive, which is a huge... I mean, all entertainment. Look, TV shows are like six episodes a season every 12 years. it's like, what the fuck is going on? Frasier has like 24 episodes a year and Kelsey Grum was high off his fucking gourd the whole time. So clearly they're able to do it.
00:12:04
Speaker
But um I sound like a fucking madman. Yeah, oh you know too much. i know too much. I'm tapped in. But I mean, like... king of hearts 4 shouldn't be like this long after you know it should it should come on come on guys why'd they tease it why'd they do yeah why did they tease it why did they show and literally they didn't learn from any of their past they didn't learn from versus 13 they didn't learn from a guido 13 they didn't learn from 13 13 they didn't learn what a disaster come on yeah i love you square you're right favorite You make all my favorite games, but you got a fucking. Yeah. I really need to know what the Lacey is up to. and They're the they're the person who they've gone to the gym two days. They're like, yeah, I'm losing weight.
00:12:51
Speaker
And they get the satisfaction of telling people that and they go, I feel satisfied. And then they don't go anymore because they got that. sound So they said, yeah, this game's coming out. And then no game. No, nothing. Because they already got everyone going. I can't wait for the game. And they went, oh, feel like I've done something. We're good.
00:13:08
Speaker
You know, it's so big now. It's so big. It has such inflated expectations because of that. I think that was my big problem with with three, because if I playing back birth by sleep,
00:13:23
Speaker
and recoded and stuff. I remember having a great time playing those as a kid and and playing them now is kind of tough. they're They're fine. They're fine. I just. What was the one, the 3DS one with the... Dream Drop Distance. Yeah, see, I tried playing that. That one's rough. Yeah, but I remember having like a pretty good time with it on the 3DS. I remember buying a 3DS, and then that was my first game.
00:13:46
Speaker
I think Kingdom Hearts 3 also kind of retroactively fucked with that game a little bit, because you go back and you're like, oh this is where the story started to really... Because like, yeah, it's a meme about the story and it's partially true. But I would say up till like Birth by Sleep, it's pretty cohesive where you're like, you're able to follow it. But then with you get to Dream Drop Distance and it's like there's parallel sleeping worlds and you time travel by hopping through bodies and there's the true organization 13 and Mickey gets fucking chokeslammed in a chair and it's like,
00:14:19
Speaker
it's like there's a lot of there's a lot happening there's a lot of complicated that's where it's it maybe got a bit much and then three had to follow that up but what's what's crazy is i think i think two as an action game stands up i think two is one of the best games ever yeah i love king i have such a deep profound love for kingdom hearts in every aspect of it like yeah the gameplay is incredible the voice acting and and like characters are so incredible The music obviously is is like peak Shimomura.
00:14:50
Speaker
the added like the content especially when you get to final mix and it's like oh we threw in an extra boss fight that teases a prequel and it just has like the most go hard music ever there's so like what a game you know what's so great about it is that it doesn't forget one i yeah I feel like three three really gets to and starting in the Hercules world but not really capitalizing on the fact that we loved the tournament from one and two like the damn tournament Like, why? Like, stop fucking with things that already work. And the Final Fantasy characters are like, we don't need eat those anymore. it Yeah.
00:15:27
Speaker
No, they they are. these These are versions of them that exist in this world. They are actual characters in your story. You can't just be like, well, we don't need you And I'll be honest. I think they probably thought that it was going to fuck with Final Fantasy 7 Remake, you know, and people were going to try to, like, compare those two. it was probably a business decision that was made by some board member that's way above our pay grades you know like that's probably true it's it it's uh it's such a shame it's tough it's tough it says it's because i just like wish you could they they don't even give you enough to like speculate like back in the day we're fucking old but yeah a new femitsu came out and they showed screenshots from three five eight days and you can see blank and then people would make fake leaks where i remember there's a really convincing one for dream drop distance that was uh
00:16:16
Speaker
very well-made redesign of Lightning as a Kingdom Hearts character with like the struggle stick from Kingdom Hearts 2, the blue baton that you hit. And I remember and being like, that has to be real.
00:16:27
Speaker
ah And it was like, wow, that's so hype. And it wasn't real. But now it's like, what do you even speculate? like there's We got that weird JPEG of like 50 images. Yeah. Very. Yeah. yeah would Have fun. Have fun cropping this. and no I'm pretty sure to this day, like they've never sent like PNGs. Like literally everything I see is just cropped.
00:16:49
Speaker
Yeah. That like, what are you doing? What? What is this? It's like some rogue. Like it some rogue square. have no PR know how to zip PNGs and send them.
00:17:01
Speaker
You make a collage. What is happening? We can do that ourselves, guys. Yeah. Thank you. Who? Who? Who did that? What? That's such a weird... That's something like... Not even Nintendo would do that.
00:17:17
Speaker
It's weird. Well, long story long, Bailey's gonna be reviewing... Bailey's gonna be reviewing Team Hearts and Unicor's... And I'm gonna review... Final Fantasy VII. I went to... Value Village Canadian or you guys have it? We don't got no Value Village. We got Dollar Tree, man. It's like Goodwill. It's like Goodwill. Okay, we got Goodwill. I went...
00:17:37
Speaker
and they had the 2019 gundam oh uniqlo anniversary that's a good one for 10 bucks in my size that's a good one that's a nice yellow too i i know right i was just like i was in toronto i was walking around the the the value village boutique store as one does two floors and just kidding me one Just getting lost in the value. I saw some crazy stuff in there. But yeah, and I saw that and I went, golly gee, you know what? They have a lot of those like Facebook ad shirts that you buy dads. They're like, yeah, I'm a dad and I'm also this and this and this. and They had a lot of those. I guess a lot of dads are dying or giving those away. but um
00:18:23
Speaker
but But among all those, among all the this guy needs a beer shirts, there was Uniqlo Gundam. anniversary shirt uh so um i got that i'm very excited about that it's a good steal it's good when we talk to you about something that i think people will want us to talk about lay it on bro but i don't have as big in a big as big of an opinion as as it seems uh so slavery Let's don't have a huge opinion. like let's be Where do we, where do we start? Where do we begin? The people want to hear the ace bonanza take on slavery. Yeah. Well, I hint, uh, slavery's bad.
00:19:04
Speaker
That's the ace bonanza take. It's called clap in the music world. That's called clap pause, where you'll say something that everyone generally agrees with so that you could just get a clap. You can get it. Yeah. That's just bad. That's just tweeting. That's just literally what tweeting it. Like, yeah. should be like um like I agree with that. um Anyone else think Leon Kennedy is hot?
00:19:23
Speaker
And then everyone's go, that's so true. so true. and So we have the the big news that everyone is kind of talking about navigating right now in this space is, uh,
00:19:37
Speaker
um Phil Spencer and Sarah Bond leaving Microsoft. That's, that's a, last week was a big week, huh? Yeah. It had that. It happened like on a Friday or something like, yeah, it happened like Friday afternoon. Yeah. That was weird. it They were,
00:19:54
Speaker
After nail they were there for like 40 years or something. um yeah Phil Spencer served as Xbox chief and Microsoft gaming
Microsoft Leadership Changes
00:20:04
Speaker
CEO. Crazy. And Sarah Bond served as Xbox president.
00:20:10
Speaker
And everyone thought she was going to be the successor because it sure seemed that way. Yeah. Phil helped write the ship after Xbox One disaster. And it was like, oh, she's definitely next. cause Yeah. And then they both leave the same day.
00:20:28
Speaker
um Who's this new person? Yeah. She's... a she She headed up Microsoft ai before. and that's where everyone's kind of... That, and she she said, like, in the letter, she was like, I'm new to the world of games. And it was like...
00:20:46
Speaker
that's a really high position to to have to open up with. I don't know anything about this. And I'm not saying she can't learn or anything like anyone can. It's not. It's fucking video games. It's not rocket science. But.
00:21:01
Speaker
Yeah. ah yeah You have to wonder at that point is like, but so So your work your primary work and knowledge is with AI, because cause all that info came out about her be like saying that AI has to fix birth rates because they're dropping. um It's like, okay, so your specialty is like ai and you don't know anything about this industry, and you're going to head one of the three pillars of the industry. I don't.
00:21:29
Speaker
At what point is it like maybe the qualifications aren't there for this? I feel like these people um don't even see gamers anymore. they see um numbers on a... oh yeah They're all analysts at this point. They're all just like...
00:21:44
Speaker
yeah Okay, what what kind of spike does saying this genre give us at this time? How many eyes can we get on on this? what What can we shake up in in in this territory?
00:21:59
Speaker
um Right off the bat, there's some been some rumors that Microsoft is is leaving gaming, and that's not going to happen. Yeah, one of the original co-founders of Xbox, he was like, i think they're going to sunset it because this what you do when you sunset. Obviously, i not going to say that guy doesn't know anything because he made it, but I don't think that's... That doesn't seem like that's just from past the stuff. That doesn't seem like that's the course.
00:22:23
Speaker
I think it's going to get... and shitified as people say like the that term for making things worse while getting more profit so like like during covid shrink flation it's like that where it's like smaller packages with less food in it but it costs more and it's redesigned so that you don't really notice it has less in it i think that's going to keep that like the the capitalistic squeezing of every drop of juice out of people But I don't think Xbox. Why haven't they done like more games like Pentiment or like, yeah, like I feel like I feel like there's like and I I'm not an Xbox. I don't consider myself like I've only had the original Xbox and Xbox game. Yeah, I I don't consider myself an Xbox gamer, but I i do think that people
00:23:17
Speaker
are a little unfair to what Xbox has produced within the last five years versus what Sony has. Yeah. And I think what's crazy to me is that Sony studios either close or just don't release anything. Yeah. And Xbox studios have been releasing stuff, but they're so subpar. There's there's so like lacking.
00:23:47
Speaker
Pinterest in a weird spot. It's in a weird place. crazy, yeah. and and But people give grace more to Sony for some reason in the gamer space. Not not necessarily in the media space. In the media space, they yeah yeah they do drag Sony. But I think as a gamer, we see the general gamers see Sony as like the profit. I think it's because Xbox is...
00:24:11
Speaker
failures are more public they and they make news because they're more so like someone on their google discover will see ig and be like xbox fucked up phil spencer says sorry and they're like oh yeah xbox fucked up again but playstation stuff it's more like like you find out like this week where it's like oh, they've been trying to make games as service thing for like five years and canceled all of it and did all that. Like, it doesn't necessarily come out at the time.
00:24:36
Speaker
So it's like, oh, no news is good news. Everything must be fine with Sony. But then you find it all at once like, oh, they tried to make like God of War game as a service. They tried to do whatever, like...
00:24:49
Speaker
And then you go like, oh, there they might just be better at not talking, not showing the mistakes that they're making. Yeah. they're just they're happening This whole games of a service thing is oh like like like the idea of it is is getting a little out of control. It's still out of control.
00:25:10
Speaker
I'll tell you that the reason why we so we're seeing them and the reason why they're just falling off is that There was a big round of funding last year or a year or two years ago that just went into a lot of like indie dev um like this star. There was like a starlight revolver or something like that.
00:25:31
Speaker
It just shut. it they The studio just shut down. But all of these studios got funding from this like, I don't know. i don't know who funds shit guys. I try to like, I'm not in that world. I wish we don't even have funding a noisy picks.
00:25:49
Speaker
so So I don't know how it works, but I do feel like there are, there was this idea that we want them to be the
Games as a Service Model Challenges
00:25:56
Speaker
next fortnight. We want to be the roadblocks. Let's let's under understand let's invest in these, in these projects, um, AI is around now. So you probably, we probably will stop seeing them.
00:26:07
Speaker
so many of them at shows and stuff we would go to we would go to pax and stuff and we'd find them yeah it's online and you could craft and but they're all the same they all do the same and they're all going to be dead in two years it's like they require that sounds mean but the investment is just like you're you're asking too much from your from from a game how many ongoing games can one person play when we're working more than ever to make like less money, like everyone's super stressed and has no time.
00:26:37
Speaker
So like to to be like, oh, you can just play this one game forever. But then be like, oh, also these six other games you can play forever. There's not, because they're free or because they're forever, the progression is slow and kind of dragged out. So you have to play it more to get more.
00:26:54
Speaker
And there's just not time to do that with all the, like truly I think it it is literally like the lottery to these companies where they're like, Well, yeah, there's like a 99% chance that this game will crash and fail, but there's that 1% chance we're going to win the lottery and be the new Fortnite.
00:27:09
Speaker
And if we don't try to get that 1%, we're going to so mad at all the money we could have made. So they throw out all these over and over. They're like, hey, maybe Suicide Squad Kill the Justice will be the new Fortnite. Hey, maybe Marathon will be the next Fortnite. Everything has to be like that. Maybe Marvel's Avengers will be the next Fortnite.
00:27:28
Speaker
and it's I would say whether those games perform well or don't, those companies get money back from taxes well they they can they can write those losses off real quick and i think it's a shame because there's you can certainly draw comparisons to the trend in the past of Modern Warfare and Counter-Strike are really big. Let's add a multiplayer mode to our game. And that at the time, there was that feeling of like this does God of War Ascension doesn't need fucking multiplayer. Lots of games got multiplayer that didn't need it, but that was a segment of the game.
00:28:04
Speaker
So the core game was could still play God of War Ascension. You could still play local PlayStation All-Stars. You could still play Bioshock 2. ah So when the online servers shut off, It's like, oh, there might be trophies you can't get, but that's it. You can play the core game. But now, and basically, entire games are that trend of like always online. whatever ah like Instead of it being an add-on to an existing game, entire games are being built to try and be Fortnite.
00:28:27
Speaker
Which is funny because Battle Royale was essentially an add-on for the original Fortnite Save the World, which sucks. um and so Instead of Sony klush closing down Bluepoint, I don't know why they...
00:28:42
Speaker
didn't do like a Bloodborne remake or a PlayStation All-Stars that exists within Astro Bot.
00:28:52
Speaker
Yeah. You know, something like that. Like that's all Astro Bot is, is licenses. Like what about a mode that gets into Astro Bot where it's just PlayStation All-Stars? Yeah. you just find Like literally that's the thing. The thing, because I made like a snarky post about I almost said Blue
Value and Strategy of Gaming Remakes
00:29:08
Speaker
Sky. I think that's a film company, Bluepoint. Oh, wait, Blue Sky's the app. Fuck. Bluepoint um the i think blue sky i think someone Blue Sky also made Vectorman. I'm getting off topic. Okay.
00:29:21
Speaker
Fucking talking about Vectorman on a 2020 set. Fuck
00:29:25
Speaker
So, yeah. So, I think Bluepoint, it's crazy to me that that whole thing happening because, like, this is an era where, remakes are doing really well.
00:29:36
Speaker
Like I would, for, I would say for the last generation to now, like PS4 and PS5, like the, whether it's remasters. So like the Mega Man battle network or the new star force, or if it's full remakes, um, should like medieval,
00:29:52
Speaker
i don't know if Final Fantasy Remake is really a... It feels like a remake, I don't know. But like Shadow the Colossus and and Final Fantasy Tactics and all these things where it's like people clearly want an accessible way to play these older games that might have...
00:30:13
Speaker
not like aged poorly, but they might be more rough around the edges. Like things have been smoothed out. There's that kind of feeling when you go back to a lot of PS2 games, specifically like not turn-based ones.
00:30:24
Speaker
They're like action ones where there's a roughness and you're like, oh yeah, they figured that out after. Yeah, i figure you get lost a lot. You get lost. The save points are too far apart. You're confused about some. You to redo shit a lot because, yeah And it's like, it's those are great games, but there are like things where it's like, oh yeah, I forgot that like,
00:30:43
Speaker
mid ps3 is when they figured out well you can compare it to like early nintendo games were like sure the game the the most of the games are only three stages long but they were so hard yeah good luck getting through them so like there's a huge abundance of those games that blue point specifically could have been incredibly useful for i think people would up uh ah jack and dax the remakes sly remakes uh infamous remasters like infamous one and two or or in festival of blood i forgot about that um like there's so many playstation has this huge library of of past games if they want to go further remake ape escape because astrobot kind of did and it fucking he doesn't know what to do with their ips man they have no clue what those and developers that those developers that worked on those games
00:31:32
Speaker
aren't there anymore no but it's like that's what blue point would be so useful to yeah that's why you need that mimicking that like and that's like i don't love how nintendo does it i don't like i think the best way the the the best two ways to do it were backwards compatibility but that's not gonna that's we're way too far off for that to happen um and then i didn't mind ah like the virtual console or the PlayStation classics where you could just get the original game as it was um for like 10 bucks yeah and play. Like those are great. I'm not thrilled that I'm going to spend...
00:32:14
Speaker
in Canada, 30 bucks on fucking Pokemon Leaf Green. But at least I can then play Leaf Green on my Switch. Like, that sucks. Like, and I know that by it. They have the Pokebank on there too?
00:32:25
Speaker
ah they They said they would in the description, but they removed that line. So I don't know. I don't know. but um But it's like, so yeah, I don't like that strategy, but at least...
00:32:38
Speaker
Cause I like emulating shit too, but I like prices coming down. So if that, really that if the, if the poker bank gets on there, then the price of those will a hundred percent look at a path of radiance fireball.
00:32:50
Speaker
Yeah. I can't what like 400 to $600 for years. Yeah. It's on the, thank God they did that. And they're doing that with a Pokemon Coliseum and XD. That's going to be wonderful. Um, but yeah, like there's so many games that could use interesting, like not even,
00:33:07
Speaker
changes just like slightly smoother remakes uh which is why i think i was so puzzled and kind of frustrated by blue point being shut down because like demon souls you can see you know people argue that they they missed the vibe of demon souls and that's fair but they it was a very fun game and they certainly nailed the more like visceral aspects of it and i didn't play the shadow of the colossus remake i think i previewed it at psx but what are you doing giving them fuck like what they did with demon souls yeah nobody believed in that game when it when sony first fucking uh developed it uh with with from software that's why atlas had to fucking publish it so yeah i remember that so so like you're giving them a game that nobody believed in that everyone's already passed because dark souls one two three yeah bloodborne we're already out yeah Why not start at Bloodborne beyond me? Sure. Let's go to Demon's Souls, a fucking 15 year old game on PS3. Or even like if Demon's Souls was like, okay, you're going to, this will help you figure out how to kind of work with the Souls gameplay in the remakes that you can do Bloodborne right after.
00:34:17
Speaker
Like I would get that. Oh yeah. Set the people up for success. You're just shooting them on the foot. Fuck yeah. That's what i don't get. It's like, there's, this is a ah great time to make,
00:34:29
Speaker
cool remakes especially for like younger kids like because i see a lot of feel like i rail rail on uh on poor zoomers a lot sometimes uh they get you guys have it real tough i'm not like millennials have it tough zoomers also have it tough so i i empathize and i'm not saying like a lot a lot of it's me memeing when i say like you the tiktok attention span and stuff but there are like younger people and i've seen lots of of posts online where people are like i can't go back to like PS2 games like yeah fair which crazy to me but it's fair it's fair like yeah they're they don't know they I think there's like a lack of appreciation right we go forward for like older things in general but well they see engines now they see like the frostbite engine they see like yeah you thats it even think of that you know and like when they don't understand what goes into game development, they only see the product of it. So they don't see like ah a pixel on a PS2 game that somebody had to hand make. And you can see that somebody um
00:35:31
Speaker
u created this character knowing that CTR lines were going to. Yeah. Yeah. The CRT lines make it like not able to see those details. It's.
00:35:42
Speaker
Yeah. But a Fortnite gamer isn't going to see that. They're not going to see that. That. ah what What went into where we see it and we're like, man, this this is so much better. Like I look at old Disgaea compared to like the 3D Disgaea and I get it. love I get why we do not like 3D Disgaea.
00:36:03
Speaker
Like, I mean, like it's 2026. So there's probably people going to college who have never who the entire time they've existed, microtransactions were part of games. Like, they never bought a game and that was it.
00:36:17
Speaker
So, like, it's like a different world to go back to the PS2 for them. And, like, obviously there's there's lots of Zoomers, and I'm sure Gen Alpha at some point, who are like, huge fucking nerds like we were and they're like yeah i'll download pcsx2 i mean a ps2 emulator i don't know of any um and they'll be like oh yeah i want to i want to play beautiful joe i'll get that and do and do that but the vast majority um would be like more excited to see in a nintendo state of play an announcement of like
00:36:50
Speaker
yep, we're remaking Mario Sunshine, then go to play Mario Sunshine on an emulator or a Switch Online or whatever. So like, yeah, I think that Shining Down Bluepoint was strange instead of just having them do...
00:37:07
Speaker
a remake of like any of Sony's Sony should have did a demon souls digital only 20 bucks, 20 bucks digital only. And then right after it releases announced bloodborne remastered that the bloodborne remastered physical edition, $60, but it comes packed with the demon souls.
00:37:30
Speaker
That would be a good idea. I just sold you a SKU and you fucked up, Sony. Wow. That is good. Put me in the board because I'd buy that. I could do the same thing with Jack 1, 2, and 3. Oh, dude. Just make it 50 bucks. Just like like get past your fucking ego for a second. Make that price something that ah a mom and dad can look at and be like, I don't give a fuck what this game is. It's brand new. It has posters everywhere in this fucking, uh,
00:38:00
Speaker
ah a room i'm gonna buy it when ratchet and clank released for 40 bucks or what what was that from ps4 i was a poor fucking college kid i couldn't afford taco bell you know and i still got that game on launch because it was only 40 fucking dollars that's a huge factor that's a huge factor to just be like oh this could be more and it's not i'm gonna buy it like Yeah, it's especially right now when everyone's broke. It's it'll be a great time. It'd be a great time to bring back PlayStation.
00:38:33
Speaker
ah Greatest hits. Be a great time to bring back Nintendo selects. Yeah, great
Behind-the-Scenes Content in Games
00:38:38
Speaker
time. would Throw a gallery in there. Throw a throw a I could talk about it now, but when you complete Resident Evil, you also unlock Requiem. You unlock like behind the scenes videos showing like the mocap mocap and stuff.
00:38:52
Speaker
I want that in every game now. Yeah. I agree. I want to see how the sausage is made. That's my favorite thing about digital Give me the fucking sausage. I want to look at it and I want I want to, I want to see, I want to see what goes in. I want to see the spices. I want to see the, I want to see the pigs get the tender, the tender, the tendal, the loins, the, want to see the loins, the loins, show me the games loins. But that is my favorite thing about digital eclipse collections is they always, they, like I played the Disney afternoon one and there was a bunch of design documents and shit. I was the, I think it was the Bubsy one had like,
00:39:29
Speaker
translation videos by, ah the but the guy who did my Clyde Mandolin, the guy who did the three English thing. And it was like, that's awesome. That's so cool.
00:39:40
Speaker
Yeah. Cause cause cause I've played this game, these games a hundred times. yeah want I want the extra shit. I want the, want to know i want to know how these games were made. I want to know silly little facts about it. I want to read the manual that I threw away as a kid because I didn't need it. Yeah, the Plumberman collection lets you open the boxes. Yeah, I like that. That was a nice touch.
00:40:03
Speaker
Very surreal to see the Nintendo logo on a cartridge on a PlayStation digital game. But yeah, no, it's... ah Bomberman Collection is a good game to own if you if you have people over at your house.
00:40:14
Speaker
Yeah, that's true. It's just fun. Just bring it out. They'll they'll find fun. so yeah I wish that they somehow, for the Nintendo version of that, were able to include Wario Blast because that's the only Bomberman game I played before now.
00:40:29
Speaker
and it was as a kid I don't think I've ever played that one it's just Wario versus Bomberman i it's such a weird no one seems to know it existed I only knew because my friend had it and I borrowed it that's but it was a Game Boy game and it was just Wario and Bomberman and it's Bomberman gameplay and you should just play as Wario and Bomberman it's awesome it would have been cool to include that See, I want to know the behind the scenes. Who pitched that?
00:40:50
Speaker
How did that get made? No one knows yeah about that game. What happened there? like Yeah, you know, there's games. There's like ah mar the Mario, like ah they had Dungeons and Dragons with Mario or not Dungeons Dragons. Fucking puzzles and dragons. Oh, yeah, they did. Yeah, pretty sure. That shit was cool. You don't see that cool stuff anymore. You at least all these anime gotcha collaborations now. No one. No one makes a real, no one stands on fucking business with their collaborations anymore.
00:41:18
Speaker
gi me Give give give me a second. want, I want, yeah i want an Ian Hinder style energizer. Is that how energizer?
00:41:34
Speaker
Energizer in Hinder is the shooter one. They energize game yeah like a fighting game, but collab style. none Like, like almost like a Tekken.
00:41:45
Speaker
I want, I want Tekken fighting Tekken tag, Tekken tag arcade specifically. And you know what I will, I'll give Tekken the collab crown right now. Cause they,
00:41:56
Speaker
have been doing that i remember going to oh yeah you're right what do i say and they do that they do that so when they added noctis and negan oh yeah like what what the fuck is this and like now it's uh clive from 60 like yeah better than fucking better than uh mortal kombat whatever the fuck they're doing like it's just like boomer action like i and like some of them were like the horror movie characters work i think because supposed to be the jason one was cool jason and freddy were great how long ago was that that was like 10 years ago yeah that was more like 10 that rock they had jason they had alien they had leatherface they had yeah that was like okay those all work because those are scary bloody like murderous characters but like i'll even i'll even give you terminator like the original arnie one that they put in it should have been the genesis one that's stupid but having terminator himself it's like okay i can see him existing in the mortal combat world but like
00:42:50
Speaker
fucking Rambo Conan the Barbarian and the other Terminator, which is cool, but you've already, like, i got Ghostface was the best one, I think, because, yeah the whole but yeah, I think,
00:43:07
Speaker
And it you can have not fitting guests because like Soul Calibur rocked and it was fucking Yoda and Darth Vader. But yeah, I don't know. I think Tekken kind of, you know when it ate when it cannibalized Soul Calibur, I think they took the guest thing and that's why Noctis Shitter in it because... ah I'm just realizing that was Soulcalibur's whole thing and now Tekken has the the weird guests. I'm in this mindset that if you want to if you want to simmer down any
00:43:37
Speaker
like ah gamer discourse make a collab make a collab game give us know who else does it well vampires vampire survivors they they ran for like uh we're doing a collab with saga and everyone's like why and they're like we like saga yeah that was it and that was it and it's like that's sick and then eventually they did do like castlevania like everyone want but it's like yeah that's fun do that that's cool i'm i'm I'm okay with quirky, and I think i think this i this like Sony fucking modern Sony is not quirky at all. Astro is an outlier. think it's what's chasing the
Sony's Approach to Creative Games
00:44:17
Speaker
the art. We are art.
00:44:22
Speaker
Why not Twisted Metal, you know? like Yeah, we have fun. why are you making a fucking shitty show on twisted metal and not the game it's beyond me i'll also i feel like sony is at the head of like trying to be like the vibe of like they really don't want to make games they want you know what they said to the resident evil the the new resident evil director know what they said they basically said ah you can do whatever you want Oh, wow. yeah is i would Oh, that's um Zach. yeah Yeah, yeah. You know what?
00:44:59
Speaker
i'll give him I'll give him a pass. Yeah, he's going to do fine. He did Barbarian. I haven't seen Weapons yet, but he did Barbarian. Isn't he one the whitest kids you know thing? Isn't he one visiting it from that? Yeah. You know what? They get a pass for for for that one.
00:45:10
Speaker
You haven't seen Weapons yet? No, I still one. Ah, dude, it's good. it's ourarian Barbarian fucking... fucking slap. Yeah, dude. ah Anything Jason Long is in for horror, it's like... just made him the most unlikable character in the world. But he plays unlikable. I think he raises his hand to play these characters. Yeah.
00:45:33
Speaker
He nails it and he makes he does it in a way where you're not like happy. You're not hoping they die for fun. Like you you still empathize with them. You still have glimmers of humanity where you're like, there's still a person. Then he'll like he'll still be shitty and you'll be like, he keeps tricking me. Yeah. I keep wanting to see the rest of the face. Yeah.
00:45:52
Speaker
It's, yeah. I really liked him at Tusk. Tusk, I think. have to watch Tusk. My friend told me that it scared the show them when they were younger. which why Is that Kevin Smith? Kevin Smith, yeah. That's weird.
00:46:02
Speaker
That's a strange one. The movie idea came from like a podcast that they're had. They're like, i want to make a movie about a guy who turns another guy into a walrus. The next thing. Hey, you know what? side me It worked.
00:46:16
Speaker
Yeah, it's So, yeah, i think I think studios need to take
New Microsoft Leadership Skepticism
00:46:22
Speaker
chances. i think I'm going to give Microsoft the benefit of the doubt with what's her name? Asha Sharman. Asha Sharman.
00:46:30
Speaker
assha charmin um I'm going to see what she's about. I hope you that she does great. i'm good I'm going to look at her. If she is an analyst and she just and and if she does if she's not a gamer and she can pull back and look at this industry, not from a consultant, not from a boardroom view, from an actual like what gamers want, we'll see what comes out of that. If what we see is a bunch of fucking slop.
00:46:57
Speaker
yeah that was See her saying slop. worry that was like a hello fellow kids how do you do fellow kids i was like was commenting on some like grifter twitters too so clearly she bought it she bought a team she she she hired a team to to respond to all this stuff by the way guys that wasn't actually her they know i hope she does great no fucking ceo is going to be wasting time that they're not being paid on twitter Elon Musk. Yeah, that's that's Elon Musk.
00:47:29
Speaker
Yeah, I take that back. Yeah, you know what? There are lots of fucking loser CEOs. But you know what? she does I truly do hope she does great. I think it's completely fair to have reservations, and I certainly do. But I hope that she does great.
00:47:41
Speaker
Yeah, as long as she brings back that dragon game, everything's going to be cool. Scalebound. s Scalebound. You know what? this has been a good This has been a week where I go, you know, back in the day when I went PS3 or Xbox,
00:47:55
Speaker
i there's no perfect choice but I think I think i picked okay. I think i i think the the future's a little brighter for me. dragons, man. Dragons are cool, dude. Who doesn't love a dragon? They fucked up with Scalebound by putting a dragon in it because that's what made me want it even more.
00:48:11
Speaker
That made you truly yearn for it and then they took it away from you and Tommy and everybody. The one reason I bought an Xbox, you know, like Or yeah, series at least. Was that on one? that was on i I mean, I bought a PS3 for Kingdom Hearts 3 and we saw how that turned out. So, you know, it was fun.
00:48:30
Speaker
Took an extra generation and a half to to get it. Yeah. I was like, surely if Kingdom Hearts 2 is on PS2, Kingdom Hearts 3 will be on PS3. So I'll get a PS3. It all comes back around. You're sold for out of it.
00:48:45
Speaker
um so That was a good discussion on it. I feel like somehow you can, if you were able to follow all that, congrats.
00:48:57
Speaker
Congrats. um We're not not the most on-topic duo. Yeah. I mean, it's 134 episodes They know what they're... They know what they're signing up for. And if you're new podcast, this is it. This is it.
00:49:11
Speaker
Yeah. Let me know. Let us know what you think about this whole shake-up yeah in the comments below. Who would you appoint CEO? Yeah. Who would you? Would it be me or Spencer? but Yeah. who Yeah. Are you team Zario or team Spencer? Who's going to be Xbox CEO? Out of all of our ideas that we presented on this podcast today, we want to know who you would pick or a write in third option. Would you like like the Burger King or something? Who would you? The Sneak King. the sneak Yeah, because that was an Xbox game. The Sneak Give me back fucking Sneaky. Take chances. Take the cheap best take chances on Sneak King. cheap ass chances give give a 15 person studio 20 million dollars to make sneak game too how much how much do games cost nowadays canada i thought well i was thinking 20 million for like the full budget but not even well what was clarib skier 30 30 million i think was uh think it was close to that yeah
00:50:17
Speaker
Give them the clear obscure budget. Give a team of 15, the clear obscure budget and and say, let, let's make a game. Let's not with consultants, not we'll, we'll do QA, but we won't let consultants come in here and tell you what's up. We'll, we'll focus more on QA. We'll focus more on getting people in here and giving feedback to you from their time, playing it, not from ideas that they want to put in your game. And we'll see what comes out of it because I do.
00:50:46
Speaker
I, I do think consulting is needed on like historical and cultural games, but I don't think consulting is needed on you went to high school. You don't need a consultant to tell you what high school was like. You know, like these, these, what even is a high school consultant? They had it on the, the life is strange. And that kind yeah. The, the high school. What what do you like?
00:51:08
Speaker
How often do can you get paid? It's all Gen Z though, dude. It's all like, we got to talk. We got to talk their language. I didn't, they don't talk like they do in life is strange. Oh my God. Yeah. I remember that was like the first thing I noticed that game where they'd be like,
00:51:20
Speaker
yo hella bruh and was like yikes first life is strange is really good though i disagree but we're all entitled to art why do you have any do you like any of them no don't like any them i don't like a stranger one i i really don't like life i played it and the whole time everyone was like oh you're gonna fucking loving it you're gonna best characters the best and time i was like i hate every character in this game maybe max is okay and everyone else i fucking hate and i hate this the characters and the story and the fuck like none of this appeal do you remember do you remember that best do you remember when the game came out and every journalist ign games about polygon they're all talking about that dungeon dragons
00:52:07
Speaker
that dungeon and dragons scene in the game where you, where you make a character and stuff. And they're all like, so this is the best scene of any. And when I played that scene, I remember hating it being so mad that I was subjected to it and not having fun at all and having, ah and feeling kind of, uh, feeling like you're feeling right now, admitting that, that you didn't like it. i I didn't speak up though. And so I applaud you for being so brave. I mean, I'm a lot later too. I'm speaking up in 2026 when even people who love Life is Strange are like the whole series. You're brave, dude. You're so humble too. Yeah, no, I remember. And I remember I went to E3 and saw the Before the Storm.
Critique of Life is Strange Series
00:52:51
Speaker
preview event yeah i remember that it was like i think you i think i remember you walking in after i did or i walked in after you did i was in the same group as angry joe i remember which was very strange to me and um yeah and the guy was like chloe wants to go to this concert and she wants to buy a t-shirt but they're 20 bucks so do you steal a shirt buy a shirt or pull the brake on the guy's car so it goes in a ditch and i was like what how would i do any of that and then everyone's like pull the brake pull brake and then they did that and then the car crashed and everyone was like she's the best character ever and i was like what like what like this is why why are those choices no i felt fucking insane because everyone always talked about how much they love chloe and i could not fucking stand chloe so i don't know but i don't know like i don't want to yuck anyone's young if you love that game that's great and i love a lot of
00:53:41
Speaker
like narrative adventure, choose your own thing. Like I love the walking dead season. Right. well You know what? I'm, I wasn't focused on the characters. I'm focused on the game, the game mechanics and and the actual like story impact. And I do think the first one was the only one that did that to me. And then I was chasing like this lesbian love story ever before.
00:53:58
Speaker
like right following that never like really really worked for me because i fucking hated close the game's like don't you want to save chloe and i was like no i want her to be fucking dead i don't want to go back and save her from the deflected bullet i don't want to fucking do in it like i want max to just like do good in school and yeah move away like that be a photographer somewhere be a photographer go leave all these annoying people That was a nice ah Life is Strange conclusion for you all. There you go, guys.
Episode Wrap-Up and Listener Engagement
00:54:29
Speaker
We'll see you next week, everyone. Thanks for hanging out. 54 minutes. You guys got spoiled today. Spoiled.
00:54:37
Speaker
We will see you next week. Bye. Bye Bye.
00:54:54
Speaker
Noisy pixel