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POKEMON BREAKS SALES RECORDS AND DECENY - Add to Party 11.30.2022
9 Plays2 years ago
This week we discuss Pokemon Scarlet & Violet, GoW Ragnarök (spoiler free), and more!
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Transcript
Introduction and Co-hosts
00:00:15
Speaker
Welcome to Add to Party, a friendship simulator masquerading as a new show. I'm your host, James Hartwell, and I'm joined by Charles Jamot, and I'm joined by Andy K.
00:00:28
Speaker
And is this like a new is this a new thing now or are you going to are you going to just be like Andy? Just a single name. Oh, I can just go by Andy. Listen, OK, I am struggling through life.
COVID and Tasting Beer
00:00:45
Speaker
Yeah, I am feeling very sick. I appreciate it. And keep going, white man. Keep going. I decided I have Covid. So that's not how that works.
00:01:00
Speaker
because someone at work yesterday said they had it, so now I have it. That's how it works. It happens that fast, just like that. And I'm drinking anyway, so I'm not helping myself at all. And this beer is gross, but. Although, I will say that, okay, shut up. I will say another proof that I have COVID. This beer I hate that I've been trying to finish. It tastes a little bit better today because COVID has ravaged my body.
00:01:30
Speaker
And it's now what's the kind I don't like, Charles? The heifer vice is that half a vice? You know, it's really gross. You don't like your wheat ales, Andy? No, I don't. It's disgusting. But I bought it because the name was Bubbler and I thought that was funny. So I bought it and it's gross, but not as gross because I'm a sick baby. The baby.
00:01:57
Speaker
See, funny enough, I started feeling not that great this morning.
Puppy Disruptions and Nap Talk
00:02:02
Speaker
That's because I had four hours of sleep. Oh, I'm sorry. So. But, you know, taking a good half hour nap, not two hours, Charles. No, no, that's it. That's how you get into a trap. I will say I will say this puppy has ruined my millennial mid-afternoon nap.
00:02:24
Speaker
Oh, it's the worst. That nap is what keeps gets you through the day. Oh, that's why I've been so tired lately. Because you don't get how long is your nap is your nap a half hour to an hour, 45 minutes. You guys and your expeditious naps. I don't know how you can do it.
00:02:43
Speaker
Andy when you take a nap and you wake up you feel better. That's not how it works. No, no, no You just need to you need to find your time is all what you need Mm-hmm. I can't I can't maybe one day I'll give naps a try like when I went through that phase trying to get give baths a try because I don't like baths and I don't think I like baths still and
00:03:07
Speaker
I'd like to, but I like the idea of relaxing, right? I think that's a very, um, interesting experience, but, uh, baths are too scary and maps are unproductive. Quality of the bath is highly dependent on the quality of the tub. Well, I don't have any type of fancy tub. I only have an apartment. Yeah.
Bathroom Luxuries and Mishaps
00:03:31
Speaker
This is going to be an awful bath.
00:03:32
Speaker
Well, who has a nice tub? Do you have a nice tub? Well, one of my apartments had a claw foot, but I mean, it was also my shower, so. Yeah, my tub is my shower. Yeah, I mean, yeah, that's usually how most people's situation is. But I mean, have you ever seen a claw foot tub, Andy? Yeah, they're beautiful. Yeah, I had one of those that that was you could have a nice bath in there.
00:03:56
Speaker
Oh wait, really? I would have thought them the same as my tub. I've honestly updated myself a little bit better. I don't think I necessarily need a bath situation, but I do need a sitting bench in the shower. Oh, that would be nice. Yeah, there's been a couple times in my life where that's had an opportunity for me to experience, and oh, it's nice.
00:04:23
Speaker
Did you use it in Hawaii? I did. Yeah. I just sat there and let the water caress over you as you thought about all your life's problems. Yeah, you know, you do that thing where you also could like just like lean your put your rest your head against the wall as you sit down, beat up. Just think about it.
00:04:42
Speaker
The only thing that would have made it better, although it did happen with me, is if blood could leak out of my knuckles and slowly circle the tree. But when I cut up my foot, it did do that. Oh my god, no, no. Yeah, I do remember the crime scene of the bathroom that one time. It was just blood all over.
00:05:03
Speaker
You're lucky I'm bleeding too, or else this would be weird. Listen, we didn't get charged any damages for that place, so. Really? Really? Even though we used an excess amount of towels. Let's see, the screen door fell out again and then that one, that
00:05:21
Speaker
that fucking live laugh love style sign fell in the middle. Well, that was the ghost. That was the ghost.
Airbnb Adventures
00:05:29
Speaker
I'm curious, though, James, you did get yelled at for the amount of towels. Oh, he sent me a message. He was like, I'm going to charge you extra. And I was like, all right, tell me what it is. And then he never told me anything. And I'm like, all right, then we're done here. And he never charged you extra. Nope. Good. We did burn through a lot of towels.
00:05:51
Speaker
But I don't feel like people were reusing towels. Yeah, I don't know. He had a washer and dryer. It's like, I have to do two loads. Yeah, it's a silly thing. It's not like they were damaged beyond repair. He just put another load of laundry in.
00:06:11
Speaker
It's really hard to feel bad about it. Yeah. And didn't that become a thing where like, well, I think Biden said something about, you know, like those Airbnb's are making you do the laundry now. We need regulation or something like that. I'm not making that up. Well, yes, there's a proliferation of weird charges on rental properties. They're like, also, while you're there, could you mow my lawn?
00:06:38
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Just like real weird stuff. And I don't know. It didn't sound like we had any of that. Our guy didn't request that we do laundry, hence the boatload of towels. Well, technically, we're supposed to rent the full month, right? Because of the Hawaii regulations. Shh. Shh. Shh. Allegedly. Allegedly. That was his problem, not ours. Yeah. And that's why you can't raise.
00:07:06
Speaker
You can't probably honestly. No,
Hotels vs Airbnb in Japan
00:07:12
Speaker
I don't know. Yeah, I mean, I've switched as I careen towards my Japan trip. I'm only staying in hotels now. No, no Airbnbs. Oh, really? Well, it's not even that much cheaper anymore. Yeah, hasn't the price has gone up significantly, as I understand.
00:07:31
Speaker
Interesting. Maybe that, uh, cause what's that about? Right? Like when startups and companies first begin, they, they go close to margin or add a loss to get us used to it. And now they got to make profit everyone. So Airbnb is just going to cost as much as hotels now. I mean, you could still find good deals, but it's like people who don't do the research are going to get screwed and then they'd be mad about it.
00:07:56
Speaker
Yeah, that's a lot of work man. I saw a photo of an $8 a night Hotel looks like in Japan tell
00:08:05
Speaker
Oh, yeah. And is that the one where they watch you? No, I mean, I wouldn't be surprised. No, it was just a whole. It looks like nobody nobody's cleaned it for 30 years. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I swear I was reading about there was some hotel in Japan where it's like eight dollars a night, but they live stream your room the entire time. Like, you know, you're doing it like that's part of the deal. You know what?
Japanese Bath Culture
00:08:31
Speaker
I might take that. Yeah. What?
00:08:35
Speaker
It's not like I'm gonna tell you guys what stream that is. Some stranger's gonna see me change or whatever. Yeah, I was like, let's just make sure we put this on adults only. Ooh, are they in the shower with me too? I don't know. Is there a bench in that shower? Then they can just watch me reflect.
00:08:59
Speaker
It'll just be a lot of me sitting. Andy, as a mildly tall person, I'm I'm hopeful that I'll be able to not have to bend my knees when I take a shower in Japan. Oh, I'm a little taller than you, Charles. So no, no, no. I'm just thinking how how bad it was. It depends. It definitely will depend. Yeah. They have the handle. Because, you know, that's fine. Yeah.
00:09:27
Speaker
Well, the other point is, you know, some of the situations is you're meant to be sitting down with the shower. Like you have a stew or you have a thing. I've seen the bathhouses in my anime. Are homes like that too? It'll depend on the house. Well, it just depends on the house. Some are. Sure. Some have the fun configuration where there's the bath and then the shower, but it's all one room. So the shower is outside the bath.
00:09:54
Speaker
Oh, sure. You know, I was reading Marie Kondo came out with a new book. What a time through. And she talked about how important baths are in Japan, literally for the purpose of cleansing your soul. It is a bathing. It is a bathing culture. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry. I might hit up a public bath. I don't have any tattoos.
00:10:17
Speaker
I mean, you feel it's not too bad. Are tattoos make you dangerous? Are you a Yakuza if you have tattoos? Yeah, but worse comes to worse. There is, if it's small enough to cover up, there is like bandages you can use to just kind of wrap it and feel weird about it. Oh wait, so you're like serious, serious.
00:10:39
Speaker
Oh, yeah. No. Yeah. You can't have tattoos no matter what they are. Yeah. What? Yeah. Yeah. There's like, you know, it's like someone that are like tattoo friendly, but the majority of them go to.
Marie Kondo and Bathing Insights
00:10:50
Speaker
Yeah. There's like, you know, traditional bath houses, the older ones, too. It might be a little bit harder. But, you know, the cool spirit of the way bath house in Ginza.
00:11:01
Speaker
No. You know, is that where it is? I don't know. That's it. I'm making sure the tattoo of my forearm tattoo is going to be big enough I could just wrap in a bandage tattoo. Mm hmm. Oh, yeah. I haven't heard about this. I mean, that's been planning it for a while. That's OK. I probably didn't bring it up. You did. I'll be very honest with you. You didn't.
00:11:30
Speaker
Do you want to talk about it? Or I know the thing is, you don't want to talk about your tattoo because you want somebody to steal the design. That's true. It's a pretty good design. It's Final Fantasy 14 related, and I can't talk about it because Andy hasn't isn't caught up with the story. Yeah, because it means so much to me. And I just go, this is something. And Andy, if I explain it now, it just doesn't get it. I just you know, that's fine.
00:12:00
Speaker
One of these days, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Like, you know, when you get into your 30s and you start to realize how much time you have and then you see how much time 14 takes, it just, it gets you thinking. That's a shower bench thought. Thinking, do I have enough time to catch up in a 10 year old MMO?
00:12:24
Speaker
Uh, listen, well, don't worry about it because the final fantasy 14 in two categories, best ongoing game and best community sport. Or you could watch the super cut on YouTube of all the cinematics. I honestly, I might, I don't know. It's I'd still have to play Bayonetta. Um.
00:12:48
Speaker
That game you were willing to compromise your values for? You only get so many of them. Shut up. We found out. You're right. You're right. You're right. Your values were already not aligned.
00:13:06
Speaker
That's fair. That's fair. I wanted it. That's another forbidden episode reference. Oh, oh, that was on the forbidden episode. The Patreon only episode. Yes, it was. Yeah. Well, then I have nothing to defend because I never said it. Andy thinks voice actors shouldn't be paid a living wage. OK, that is not true at all.
00:13:30
Speaker
I will let you misrepresent it, though, because there's no record to reference. So I don't. I mean, I have the MP3s. No, no, no, no. Mm hmm. Oh, listeners, if you want to listen to it, maybe if you tweet at us at. Oh, you know what? Never mind. And hive. We'll get our we'll get our hive or. Yeah. Well, I already said those. Oh, really? Yeah. You could buzz us on hive.
00:13:59
Speaker
I haven't heard of Hive. Isn't that a anime site? No, no, it's Twitter. It's it's it's really you mean high dive high dives. Oh, yeah. Oh, I can't keep track of that one post post news. No, we're all going to truth social. Jesus Christ.
00:14:24
Speaker
Well, I guess free speech is already alive there as well. That's true. News that I'm sure is going to be dated in a day. But Apple might be threatening to take Twitter off the app market. God bless. Do it. Do it. Elon's an idiot. Oh, Andy, you want to bring the Elon stands out on us? Oh, whatever. Don't do it. On stairs are just they'll be so angry if they were able to make money somehow with their investment.
00:14:56
Speaker
They didn't have to sell the shirt off their back
00:15:00
Speaker
Being a fan of a billionaire is like going to casino and cheering every time the house wins. Yeah. Yeah. And like licking the trash can saying thank you. Yeah, he said that, too. Yeah, I haven't seen these, but I like the comparison. And it's yeah, that's very interesting because that's literally what it was. Why would we cheer for a billionaire? But
00:15:28
Speaker
That's the power of manipulation. Andy, if you... I saw another stat I saw today. If you made... Oh, I can't remember what the number was. I think it was 80 grand. You made 80 grand a year.
00:15:43
Speaker
Uh, and started making that at the birth of our Lord and savior, Jesus Christ at 80 zero until today. And you saved every penny of it with interest. You would have only $8.3 billion. There would still be 30 people, Richard, 30 Americans, Richard.
00:16:05
Speaker
Oh, my comparison. The comparisons of wealth is insane. I saw somebody make a post on Reddit of like they visualized it by scrolling and literally like they're like, this is the point where this is the cost of a U.S. air carrier. And then there was like 90 percent of scrolling left to do. I just went.
00:16:27
Speaker
I gave up. I didn't get to the end. There was so much scrolling. That's how rich he is. Wow. It's like when they compare the size of stars. Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah.
00:16:41
Speaker
is is we literally can't fathom it. We can't. It's an unfathomable number. And yeah, we lick the toilet. They sit on and say thank you because I don't know. I like to. I mean, this would be at least entertaining if we had a crew similar, like, you know, show kind of like Arrested Development, right? Where Elon is just out of touch with money.
00:17:06
Speaker
So he does the same thing where Lucille Bluth was just like, how much does a banana cost? Like $20? And then he just overpays on everything and it never bothered him. Like that would be fun to watch. Like a dumb rich guy. But we don't have that. We have a guy disrupting everything, including the most used social platform.
00:17:30
Speaker
and just destroying it. And it does. It's not even a problem for him. Yeah, it's not like it's not. He can do that again. Yeah, he could do it and still be a billionaire, which is sad. Yeah. He's still part of the Trace Commas group. Trace Commas was this. That's a Silicon Valley reference. Oh, oh, the show, the HBO show that I never saw.
00:17:56
Speaker
It's a very good show. What is the one? I don't know. There's something where they all jerk each other off. Yeah, that's where they try to solve how to jerk off as many people in a room as possible as quickly as possible. There we go. I heard that one referenced a lot when it came out. It's so funny. Was it funny? Was it actually funny? Yeah, Kumail's in it. Pretty good show. Who? Kumail Nanjiani. Do I know them? Yes, you do. Don't worry about it. OK.
00:18:25
Speaker
I'm starting to worry. But oh, yeah, Andy, do you know what you do know? What do I know? Tell me, God, can I know something, please? That's the God of War Ragnarok is the fastest selling party title ever.
00:18:43
Speaker
Making money. In a tweet sent out by PlayStation on November 23rd, they announced the God of War Ragnarok is the fastest selling first party launch game in PlayStation history. 5.1 million copies sold as of its debut week. Remember that, remember that piece of information for our next story, but 5.1. Oh yeah.
00:19:06
Speaker
5.1 million in a week. Yeah. Also, a franchise record for God of War as well. I think also this is still considered a launch window game, which seems like what? Wait. Well, I don't know. They say it's this first party launch, which I'm trying to figure out what that means. It can't mean launch window. That's two years. It's only weird first party launch.
00:19:34
Speaker
But they've had other first party launches. No, no, no. OK. This isn't considered a launch window game. All right. No, no, no. We're good. I just double checked. OK. That would be.
00:19:45
Speaker
Charles, I know you have not been able to play due to your jet setting lifestyle. Andy, have you played God of War? I have not. I will. OK. I am about two thirds of the way through it. No spoilers, obviously, but I will say fantastic game. I think my opinion of it that I gave earlier is still correct, which is that Ragnarok, you need to play God of War 2018 to really appreciate Ragnarok.
00:20:13
Speaker
Oh, sure. Because there's a lot of there's a lot of callbacks to 2018. There's a lot of growth from the characters from 2018. So it's it's it's kind of like if you just played Ragnarok, you wouldn't get the full scope of what makes it such a great game. Charles or here's a non spoiler spoiler.
00:20:36
Speaker
Um, I don't want to know spoilers for it. Don't worry about it. It has a, it has a thoughtful discourse about drinking and its effects on families. No, it really does. I was sitting there like they're really doing this, huh? All right. Somebody had something to say in that range. Yeah.
00:20:55
Speaker
I, I mean, so I, what I find interesting is there exists people that will play this game that don't care about narrative. Right. Yeah. It's so weird. And it's weird because this game, yeah, it's an action game. It's a third person over the shoulder action. It's pretty fun. The action is also pretty damn fun. Yeah. Yeah. It's a great time. It's really fun, but it's connected and woven together because of this narrative. And I don't get those people.
00:21:26
Speaker
Like for me, knowing having played 2018 God of War, there's spoilers. There's this whole thing about Kratos and his son. And in this game, it's being expanded on. And there's so many subtle things, even in the opening hours of the game where you're like, oh, look at this little thing that shows that their relationship has grown.
00:21:54
Speaker
people won't fucking pay attention to that. That's weird because it's like it's such a like it's a important thing to understand and realize because it's like it's the main it's one of the main focuses of the game. Yeah. Yeah. Are you seeing things? Are you seeing things online of people not paying attention to this story? Oh, I mean, not really, but.
00:22:21
Speaker
It there is a non zero amount of gamers that are just like it's fair. I'm just here to pack, you know, smack it up. And I'm like, why play Babylon's fault?
00:22:32
Speaker
Oh, buddy, I even get that for free now from games. That's right. You can't. Yeah. And like Jay said, right, there are some people who didn't play the first one and are going to play this one and it won't feel as complete if you do that way. Yeah. So, you know, it's interesting. The story, the story, Charles, are you still where you were when the last time we talked about it? Um, you met that one character. Yes, I met that one character.
00:23:02
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. So you are about one third of the way through the game. I would say I'm about two thirds of the way through the game. Um,
00:23:13
Speaker
And yeah, it just keeps going. Um, there are definitely parts where I, I, this is kind of our mini review, I guess, where I'd knock at this point, but I mean, there are parts where I just kind of sit there and I'm like, all right, I. Want to advance the narrative and watch the cut scenes and I'll just do that. And then there are times where it's like, I don't want to do that. And I'll just go off and do all the side missions because it's like, I don't have time to feel the emotional investment of this story.
00:23:39
Speaker
Although there are some good emotional stuff for side missions. There are. There are, especially later in the game too. No, it's a great time and I highly recommend playing it. It shouldn't win game of the year. Should not. It's a 1B to Elden Rings 1A. I'll say that. Okay. All right.
00:24:05
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think anything is going to beat Elden Ring. Well, you never know. You never. I mean, look, the quality of the narrative could propel it over Elden Ring. Like I can understand people doing that. They're wrong. But I can see it happening. Sure. Yeah. Charles, do you have anything else you want to say about Ragnarok before we move on? Nope. OK.
00:24:34
Speaker
So remember how I was saying, remember that number 5.1 billion copies sold in its debut week, week, seven days. Yes. At full price, no game pass here. Well, that's Pokemon, Scarlet and Violet sold over 10 million units within three days of release.
00:24:52
Speaker
Mm hmm. Yeah. So double in half the time. That's a God of War Ragnarok. So this is we're starting the dunking on Pokemon segment of the podcast now. We'll be here for. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Pokemon scarlet violet came out two weeks ago, I think, at this point, came out the Friday before Thanksgiving. And boy, is it a hot mess. Mm hmm.
00:25:21
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's uh, like we all kind of gave our CS a pass because we were like on intent, you know, game freaks learning. This is their first open world game. There's going to be some bumps in the road. Um, and there's like, all right, they're releasing their mainline version of an open world Pokemon game. Let's see how that goes.
00:25:41
Speaker
Oh boy, it is bad. Uh, it is, uh, according, I have not played it yet. So this is all based on secondhand and anecdotal data and watching things, right? I've watched a lot of people play it. Um, but basically scarlet and violet runs like dog shit in doctor mode and is passable in handheld mode. Um,
00:26:03
Speaker
Just graphical errors, frame drops, pop in, anything you could, uh, not too many crashes. I've, I've heard of at least that far, but just like the overall playing experience is abysmal from a technical perspective. But on the other hand, apparently it's the best Pokemon game. Long time.
00:26:27
Speaker
So what is the people it's like the core gameplay of catching Pokemon and going through the world and the story are as good as they have been in a long time. Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And it's an interesting thing. Right. Like the most important thing is that core gameplay. And if you get it right, people can forgive you for a lot of things. Yeah.
00:26:51
Speaker
Yeah, and they are I um, and I definitely I am of the camp that when you take a look and see all these people's Footage of all the bugs they've found it is a disgrace like yeah it like you cannot believe that the most the world's pop most popular franchise the most
00:27:14
Speaker
like well off like it makes so much money every time most profitable so much money and these people release the game that has all these visible problems and bugs like but that's okay I can't get away with stuff like this I'm gonna tell you now but
00:27:35
Speaker
that Pokemon can and it just looks so embarrassing like if I were to take this some of this like these problems and like tried to do it myself individually and didn't have the Pokemon name to it people would like just be like this game should go back and you know people will want their money back this would be a cyberpunk level of I mean maybe not that bad but pretty damn close yeah yeah and cyberpunks in is that it was this buggy
00:28:03
Speaker
But their gameplay wasn't enough to save. Let people forgive it. Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm looking at the screen. That's pretty embarrassing. Yeah. Like the textures are pretty embarrassing. Yeah. Oh, no. And like listeners, maybe you don't know some of the words we've been saying, but like pop in.
00:28:24
Speaker
in a game is like when your character is moving around the world and then suddenly in front of you, a building pops up. It's not that it didn't exist anymore. No, it's just that the game couldn't show it to you until you were right in front of it. So things just appear out of nowhere.
00:28:41
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Or lag. The textures just look like they took a tiny square and copy and pasted it all over every object. And it looks so bad. This looks so bad. Oh, my God. Like, no, seriously, they have infinite money. They could take all the time in the world. This is greed.
00:29:03
Speaker
This is the flagship title game, Andy. This isn't even like a one-off thing. This is the tenth generation of Pokémon. The only reason this exists is greed. Yeah. They could have done a better job. I mean, yes, but also I don't know. Another comparison would be if Apple made an iPhone.
00:29:26
Speaker
And it didn't have any apps, and then sometimes the call would work. Like, it wouldn't work half the time. Like, that would be kind of the same example of, like, a company of such a high caliber, a considered high caliber, and then it's giving you a shitty product.
00:29:46
Speaker
This is pretty bad. I don't know. I don't know. I I don't know. I'm not invested in Pokemon. But here's here's the thing, Andy. What incentive do they have to fix it when they sold 10 million units? That's the thing. That's what's wild is that is this like so I haven't paid enough attention to Pokemon, but were they are they on a yearly cadence now?
00:30:12
Speaker
Not for me, not for mainline games. Generally, the way it works is you get a mainline game every three to four years, and then you'll get a remake of an older game. Sure. You know, in the in between. So this is the product of three to four years. I don't think it's too strong a word to say it's unacceptable. Like this is unacceptable for a game that took that long.
00:30:38
Speaker
But it sold 10 million, so who cares? That's right. Who cares? And everybody loves it. Yeah. Yeah. And that other thing. Well, I think the other interesting part, right, is that this is a franchise that is for people of all ages. Andy, tell me when you get to the classroom. Yeah. Yeah, it's on the classroom.
00:31:02
Speaker
Literally, the characters are moving at like maybe five frames a second. Yeah, this is really bad. They look like it looks like they are like blinking in and out of existence like in stop motion. Just like this is so bad. Ten million. But this is 10 million. Not because well, I don't know. I don't know if everybody read the reviews and then ran out to buy it. But Detroit gave it a six.
00:31:32
Speaker
And I don't know how lenient other people have been But Detroit pretty much called it out that like this game is like in a terrible condition But it's still fun. Yep, and that's the problem. That's the thing. It's still super fun. The story is good The characters are good IGN 74% Metacritic
00:31:54
Speaker
They have talented designers. They just have poopy. Programmers. Yeah. And according to Elon Musk, all you need is programmers. That's it. That's true. Maybe Elon Musk should buy Game Freak. He should buy them and then fire everyone and then say, let me look at your code. How many lines of code did you write this week? Show me the 10 lines of code that have the most impact that you've made in less than six months.
00:32:23
Speaker
Well, you don't know why that's funny. You've never written code and I'm not going to bother explaining it. I just I don't know. It's just amazing how much money they make off these things. And yet they turn this out. I mean, it's not all in dollars, but, you know, if you want to just extrapolate that to dollars, that's they made six. They made half a billion dollars in three days. Yeah. On a game that certainly didn't cost as much a God of War.
00:32:53
Speaker
Oh, God, no, no, not even close. Yeah, not must be so infuriating to like Santa Monica. Yeah. And I mean, like, imagine being in the boardroom right now, though. Right. And you say like, guys, we released an unacceptable game. You know, we really need to spend, you know, another year on development and everybody just realizes, no, you don't to spend a year on development means a year of lost revenue.
00:33:22
Speaker
Well, there's no penalty. You're just losing money by doing a good job. If you do a good job, you lose money is the is the cadence of Pokemon. It just blows my mind. It blows my mind. Don't do a good job. They don't need to. They don't need to. I mean, here's here's the hope. Right. There's there's a lot of cultural differences in Japan where almost almost all this development is coming from. There's a lot of
00:33:50
Speaker
weird and complicated business structures for people to do their jobs in the offices there. Maybe some of them will die. And then they have they have to. That could be it. That will change. Are you just saying that there's boomer managers or whatever? Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, you remember Ballon Wonderland, guys. We got to remember. Yeah, true. But listen, greed is cross-generational. It is. But that's the whole thing.
00:34:20
Speaker
Yeah, it's like one of those things where they always kind of hope like Nintendo will license out Pokemon to like a Western studio like one time just to see what they do. That would be interesting. They shouldn't develop all this crap in-house. I want a Devil May Cry-esque Pokemon game, but made by a Western studio and not playing. We did get a Tekken game. We had Pokken. That was Japanese still.
00:34:48
Speaker
But it wasn't internal to Game Freak, though. True. They can do whatever. I don't know. I don't know. If people are having fun, I guess, what does anything matter, right? But looking at this gameplay, it's pretty shocking that a game that can sell 10 million three days looks like this. They don't need to try, and why would they? It would be in their worst interest to try harder.
00:35:18
Speaker
It's just money lost. Don't worry, Andy. The ROMs are out there and it's going to run at 60 frames per second on Yuzu.
00:35:27
Speaker
You know what that is? Yuzu is the switch emulator. Oh, oh, play it on your steam deck. I'm sure it'll run better on. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. That would be illegal. Yeah. Oh, sorry. Sorry. Don't don't do that. That's illegal. But I have a sneaking suspicion. If it were to be emulated, the steam deck could handle it. I think have a feeling.
00:35:54
Speaker
Yeah, I'm pretty sure. Oh, what a bummer you guys. I don't know. I saw I saw a great Andy. This will.
00:36:03
Speaker
You know, people are quick to blame, like the switch and being like, oh, the switches fall. They can't handle these things. And then people show like Xenoblade Chronicles three next to next to Pokemon and go, no, that's not the switch's fault. No, it's not. It's not. It's not that like the studio is too ambitious. They're just not technically competent. And that's I mean, obviously on the outside looking in, it's
00:36:31
Speaker
That's a big statement to make, but seriously though, seriously, like, look at what Xenoblade 3 can do. Look what even Bayonetta can do. A Pokémon game shouldn't look like this, but it can. It can. Oh my god, it looks so bad. Oh, it looks so bad. And make 10 million in the units and seconds. Yeah, make half a billion dollars.
00:36:57
Speaker
This looks like a worse than a GameCube game. Oh, 100% worse than GameCube games. This is insane. 10 million. That's it. You can poop that out. I don't know. And Nintendo hasn't apologized or anything. But again, it's not even Nintendo's baby. It's Game Freak.
00:37:17
Speaker
They won't apologize. They'll just be like, look how many we sold. Yeah, exactly. And also there will never be a performance patch for this. Just oh, yeah, they never they never update their games like that. Yeah. Why do they care? They don't need to. They're on to the next game. Oh, my goodness. I wonder if they're embarrassed. Maybe not. When you make that money, it's hard to be embarrassed when you're sleeping on a pile of money. I guess. Yeah. Yeah. I wonder if I would be embarrassed.
00:37:46
Speaker
Like, if I made a bajillion dollars off of that game, would I care more about the money or producing something to be proud of? I don't know. Am I supposed to be proud of it? What if I clocked out in my head? Yeah. He said, all I care about is the money. Did I make money?
00:38:09
Speaker
Like, I guess, do you want to be proud of what you do? I feel like when it comes to games, there's some type of like art. Oh, God, then it's the whole thing about what is art. But like, I feel like a game you'd want to be proud of. It's something that is more like directly enjoyed. Like a lot of them just inspire joy. And I feel like you'd have some type of emotional investment in that being to be proud of.
00:38:36
Speaker
And I don't know. I don't know. Maybe money is more important. I wonder if money would be more important to me. What does Kirby have to say about that, Andy? Oh, well, according to Kirby, the whole world's going to burn down because of this game. It's just it's the escalation of greed. Right. What is it you take and you give it in? She take a mile or something.
00:39:02
Speaker
I don't know. Eventually you outrun what the world can give. And that's what Pokemon is. And Nintendo is giving us that message with Kirby. I will buy. I will buy this game at some. You will. Oh, my God. They've got Breath of the Wild on the screen right now. Imagine if Nintendo released a Zelda looking like that. Breath of the Wild released five years ago. Yeah. Yeah.
00:39:29
Speaker
And Breath of the Wild, like, I don't know, even if Breath of the Wild was still as fun, would it be as successful if it looked like this Pokemon game? No, because people would be like, this console is terrible. Yeah, you you undershot it. Yeah. But we're going to buy it, James. Buy it, James. Oh, I'm going to. Once I finish Ragnarok. Listen, where are your morals or is this a moral issue for you? OK, I don't have any.
00:39:57
Speaker
That's also I love Pokemon. That's true. I don't buy I don't buy two copies like some people. Actually, to be fair, how many of that 10 million is? Oh, it's a non zero amount. Yeah, I mean, it's it's I would I would hazard to say like 25 percent of that sales is just the same people buying both copies. Yeah, which very smart. Yeah. Remember when a bunch of games would do that?
00:40:25
Speaker
where they just released two variation. There was even like a Shin Megami Tensei one that did it. What was it called? Like Bible kids or something? Bible monsters? Just releasing two variations and no one does that anymore except Pokemon. They're the only ones who can get away with it. And they're laughing all the way to the bank. All the way to the bank as they're copying and pasting textures. Including the thousandth Pokemon. Oh.
00:40:53
Speaker
That's right, baby. They finally hit the number one thousand. And are you ready for this? I'm my body. Oh, God, my body is ready. She's an old meme. No, but I already know. But let's let's let our listeners. Charles, have you seen it? No, no, no. And I want to I want the audience's minds to wander a bit. I mean, everyone remembers the first three Bulbasaur, Charmander, Squirtle.
00:41:22
Speaker
Mm-hmm, and I want to tell you over the years it like me who is not kept up They've gone through a range of things There is a literal Pokemon called al creamy which is just ice cream on the cone there is I forget the name, but it's literally just a sword. There is a trash Pokemon
00:41:42
Speaker
I have actually a Pokemon card of that one. It's a Aegislash, I think. Yeah, Aegislash, yeah. And it's of all form is a sword and shield. Yes, do a slash, yeah, I think. Yeah. And I think I've seen a Pokemon in Scarlet and Violet called like Tandemouse, which is just two or three mouse mice standing next to each other. Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. So Pokemon design.
00:42:11
Speaker
can go places, uh, some not very far from each other. Uh, so what can it be? All right, Charles, are you ready? Yep. Tell me about it. All right. The newest Pokemon is Goldengo. Oh, this is the one that was like the greedy Pokemon, right? It's just get stack of coins.
00:42:38
Speaker
Yeah. Charles, I want you to describe the gold dengue. OK, OK. All right. Imagine Gumby. Yeah. But instead of Gumby, it's gold and shiny and it's wearing a belt and it has what looks to be four hairs, but not not looking like human hair, but looking like some artist caricature of hair.
00:43:04
Speaker
And it has two circle two ovals for an eyes and a lopsided smirk and it has three fingers on each hand and it's a huge
00:43:13
Speaker
And that's about it. He's got attitude. Oh, yeah. Yeah. But he's literally a stack of coins. And there's coins around him at all times. Yeah. Well, that's because one of the we've talked about this, but one of the conceits of the new Pokemon games, the treasure hunt. And I believe he's like the end of the treasure hunt.
00:43:34
Speaker
Yeah, you have to collect a thousand coins in order to get or to evolve something into Cole Dango, who is just a stack of coins and really a manifestation of the greed of the Pokemon company. He's called a coin entity. Pokemon. Yeah, what type is this? It has to be steel, right? Well, no, gold isn't steel. See, does it kind of see the type here? I'll look it up. I'll look it up on Saraby. Hold on.
00:44:04
Speaker
Listen, he just trumps everything. Money trumps everything. You can get away with anything if you have enough money. So he's invulnerable. God, he looks so bad in every version. I haven't seen a version where he looks good. He also has a belt and I don't know what it's holding up. He is a steel ghost type. Steel and ghost. What does that make him weak against?
00:44:34
Speaker
Uh, he would be weak again. Taxation. The government. No, he's not weak against psychic, right? Steel is weak against fire. Weakness. He's, he's, he's two times fire, uh, ground and dark. Yeah. So ground fire and dark.
00:44:54
Speaker
But no four times, so that's pretty good. Also, here's the the flavor text for it. And Scarlett, its body seems to be made up of a thousand coins. The Pokémon gets along well with others and is quick to make friends with anybody. And Violet, it has a sturdy body made up of stacked coins. Koltenko overwhelms Zenmi by firing coin after coin at them in quick succession. Oh, my God. Kapow, coin. Yeah, it can just throw away its money and it's nothing.
00:45:24
Speaker
To me it looks like a wacky way wacky waving inflatable arm man as one man in front of a used cardio Very good comparison. Yeah It kind of reminds me of the whatever. What was the um? What was that claymation game? Oh clay fighter. No, it was an adventure game. Oh
00:45:47
Speaker
It doesn't hurt him. No. And then the next game they get, they did was Skull Monkeys. Well, oh, neverhood. It kind of reminds me. I don't remember that game. Oh, don't worry about it. I kind of remember the main character. Also, I like that Sarah B likes to say Goldengo is genderless. Oh, that is important because of Pokemon breeding. Yes.
00:46:12
Speaker
Uh, I don't know. It's I just, he's also got big poochy vibes from the city. There's so much attitude he has. Yeah. Um, I, at one streamer I was watching did say, um, you know, all the 3d models of the Pokemon or whatever, but what he most looks forward to is when someone goes in to make rom hacks and then makes 2d versions of it. And here you can see like a 2d rendering of him and he like looks much better.
00:46:43
Speaker
Yeah. Thousand Pokemon, you guys. You did it. I think the article said there's a thousand and eight. Yeah, I think. Oh, there should have been eighth or no. Eight thousand and eight is boobs. So that's going to be a while. Yeah. Yeah. Don't worry. They'll get there, buddy. They will now that they know how much they can make for how little they can do. We're going to have boobies before you know it.
00:47:14
Speaker
God, how embarrassing. Audience, I swear to God, as someone that works in a technical field, it's so frustrating. What's frustrating, that they can do this and get away with it?
00:47:34
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. It's greed. Greed works. And maybe, yeah, it's just the people are clocking in, clocking out. At least I hope the studio has profit sharing, right? I hope the developers are at least getting a cut of this and it's not just going to a few. Let it go to all the developers, everyone involved.
00:47:57
Speaker
What a kind thought. Yeah. Bless your heart. I know. That's the, that's the only silver lining to this is I hope all the people at that studio are getting away with money. But imagine if all this money is just going to a couple people, then why would anybody working on it care to be a fly on the wall?
00:48:22
Speaker
Oh, game freak. But James put money in their pockets. I will. Oh, they're not. I haven't updated them with national decks numbers yet. OK, that's why. Sorry, I was being a Pokemon nerd for a minute. What about the the V VI score? Is that a thing? Ivy and Ivy. There you go.
00:48:47
Speaker
The IV, the number, I've heard of that. There's also EVs, which are the earned values. Ah, crap. I don't know. Pokemon's so complicated. It is. I don't get into that. That's the pro scene. Do you collect them all?
00:49:06
Speaker
You know what? My partner asked me that the other day and I think I did at one point collect them all. I think it was in the gold silver area I had every Pokemon.
00:49:17
Speaker
I never I've never had a living Dex, though. Do you know what a living Dex is, Andy? I don't. So there's filling out your Pokedex, which is right. You have captured or evolved every Pokemon, right? Mm hmm. A living Dex is where you have every Pokemon. So it's not just, you know, that you had a Bulbasaur and you evolved it to an IV sword than a Venusaur. You have a Bulbasaur, an IV sword and a Venusaur in your box. Oh, my God. That's a living Dex.
00:49:45
Speaker
You had a living Dex? I've no, I've never had a living. Oh, okay. I, I, um, I definitely probably caught them all in the Johto region. So two 51. Yeah. Okay. Does Pokemon have a chow garden? Can you like go and see them running around? Oh yeah. You do in this game. There's a pick. You have picnics. Okay. That's cute. And he can pet them. Yeah.
00:50:11
Speaker
Whoa. Okay. And he's like, all right, I'm one over. Having picnics with 10 million. Oh my God. That's pretty cute.
00:50:21
Speaker
Uh, anyway, I see something less cute. No, this is Tinkaton. Okay. This is a new Pokemon. Uh, it's fairy steel, which is also like the craziest typing you could have in Pokemon. Cause it's the least week to most things. Um, and you know how I see how is this big hammer? Yes.
00:50:41
Speaker
They talk about in the new game that a Pokemon introduced to short and seal sword and shield Corvallis, which is a steel flying Pokemon, can't fly because Tinkatons will block them out of the air in the Paldea region. And if you look at their hammers, they look like the corpses of Corv Corvallis. Oh, my gosh. Oh, that's I need to zoom in on this.
00:51:09
Speaker
Yeah. Hold on. Let me zoom in for you there and then go look up what a core of Alice looks like, Charles. Well, oh, my God. At least you're having fun. Yeah, Pokemon's weirdly dark sometimes. You know, that's what I would like to do to display the course of my enemies as a here core of a night. So if you can look at Corviknight there.
00:51:33
Speaker
Oh, I guess I don't see it. Well, it's because he's steel. So it's like they take their steel bodies and they kind of turn them into the papers. Yeah. Go back to tickets on real quick. Like if you can see like that dark and pieces like the outer wings, it's just being wrapped around. Yeah. Oh, and then like whatever color scheme as a Corviknight is the thing. Yeah.
00:51:56
Speaker
Yeah. Well, you know, at least they're, you know, using their kill. Right. They use all of the Corvid. They use all the ports. So, uh, really there's something honorable to that, I would say.
00:52:12
Speaker
Really beautiful. It is those everybody better bet you getting that money Everybody at that studio better be getting tons of money. I swear to God. How many people are at game Freak? Let's see 10 people Oh, here we go here. So here's what it says in the flavor text for Corviknight Corviknight can't serve as a taxi service of paldea because the Pokemon's natural predators will attack it while flies a danger to customer and
00:52:42
Speaker
National Predator, the Tinkaton anyway. A hundred and sixty nine people. That's not a lot. That is not a lot. Not a lot. And they were looking. They were working on Arceus and this game at the same time. They are. They have three teams now. One is always working in a mainline game. One is always working on a spinoff game and one is always working on a remaster.
00:53:08
Speaker
A hundred and sixty nine people. That's it. Yep. They better not be overworked either. Oh, there's some great articles about the crunch culture in Japan that came out recently. We don't have to get into that. Hey, guess what? Yeah, Microsoft may not get Activision. We'll see. Oh, that's right. So some news came out this week that the FTC is likely to file a lawsuit to stop Microsoft 69.
00:53:38
Speaker
billion dollar takeover of Activision Blizzard. There's been a lot of weird back and forth between Sony and Microsoft, least of which is Sony going, Microsoft wants us to be like Nintendo. And I'm like, I don't. OK. Yeah, Sony's being a big baby.
00:53:59
Speaker
Oh, I mean, no, I mean losing call of duty would be terrible, but at the same time, Microsoft is like doing everything they can to make this deal go through offering Sony like, um, contracts to say you have kind of call of duty 10 to 15 years or something like that.
00:54:14
Speaker
But it's interesting. We will see. I think we all kind of said it might be a done deal, but you know, now it's kind of looking like unless some major concessions or sell offs where it's like, you know, oh, they get, you know, a lot of cult. They get a lot of Activision Blizzard, but they have to sell off certain pieces to other companies so that they can actually get the rest of it. We'll have to see. So it is getting more spicy. You'll have to see.
00:54:41
Speaker
I read an interview with whatever his face is. I forget the guy. Phil Spencer, is that his name? That is him. That is him. And he was talking about how this merger doesn't eliminate competition but helps them because they're mainly buying it for Candy Crush.
00:55:04
Speaker
They're buying it to enter the mobile market because Microsoft has no footprint there. Yep. And Candy Crush makes more than anything else combined. Yeah. Like it completely destroys Call of Duty and, you know, anything Blizzard's putting out like Candy Crush, just Candy Crush. It's insane. I mean, how much? Mm hmm.
00:55:27
Speaker
Yeah, I was to say that is a fair point and very true. I would definitely say that. I think the issue they're taking is the adverse effect on a segment of the so like it puts Sony and technically Nintendo, the Nintendo doesn't have Call of Duty.
00:55:44
Speaker
Um, into like this weird position because it's like, well, I guess we have to buy a Microsoft console now. That's kind of the thing, right? Hmm. It creates an anti competitive environment for concert sales. Um, I've also heard Phil center say, this is us like, you know, uh, we're, we're solidifying Western companies against, against, you know, Eastern European and Asian companies and things like that. So that's really, so I don't know.
00:56:13
Speaker
Yeah, it's a global move. Yeah. Well, and the other thing too, right, is every company is going to say whatever they can. Yeah. Like if I was Square, if I was Sony, if I was Sony's president, I would literally just be like, if this goes through, my family will die.
00:56:34
Speaker
Just say that yeah, whatever like, you know Because it's not it's a bad business move if this merger goes through and everyone knows that Mm-hmm. So say what you can say whatever like this is good news to to Sony in them because I'll be honest with you I don't think there's really anything that should be able to block this. I don't I don't see it see it but I
00:57:00
Speaker
Oh, that's it. Maybe they'll just get back and go, Microsoft, you know all those other times we let you off on antitrust lawsuits? Well, this is the one. Sorry, boys. Well, no, there's also office, but yeah. Yeah, yeah.
00:57:14
Speaker
They did nail them on office way back when, but no, I don't know. It's it's we'll see. Yeah. We'll have to see. But the thing I was reading, though, like the the the catch of the article, though, is Microsoft saying, I don't care if Sony gets Call of Duty. You can have it. We don't care. That's not where the money is.
00:57:37
Speaker
Well and then and Phil Spencer too is just saying like they can have it indefinitely like we don't care they want it in writing and he's like well okay I'll let the lawyers figure that out like he kept like pawning it off on the lawyers. I mean he asked to. Yeah.
00:57:52
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. But he was like, I can't commit to a number, but he's just like, we'll just keep doing it. We don't care if we do it five years at a time, 10 years at a time, you know, are opening it up. But they're like, we don't. That's not important to us. The call of duty isn't important to us. I mean, the other thing, the thing they have to be is like, OK, but you also can't put it on a game pass.
00:58:13
Speaker
It's like it goes to Sony and it can't be free on Game Pass. That's really what Sony is trying to get. Oh, because it's like, why would I buy it on PlayStation when I can? Yeah. Books a month and get it for free. You know, free equitation marks. I wonder if the FTC could get that granularity. Oh, they will. That's what. This is a merger fair, fair, fair.
00:58:40
Speaker
Um, so we are we are barreling towards the keelys this week this week, right? December wait, what is it? All right, or is it the fact? Oh, no, i'm seeing the ava movie on the eighth game awards is
00:58:57
Speaker
Oh, it's December 8th. OK, so I have one more podcast before it. But listen, who cares about the game awards because the most important award has been given out. You'll know what it is because we shall. We yelled about this last year. Yeah, which is Elden Ring has won the ultimate game of the year and the two six awards a game radar.
00:59:21
Speaker
You'll remember as we went through the ultimate game of all time list last year. It was very mad. Wasn't that like Dark Souls or something? Yes, Dark Souls, I think one ultimate game of all time, but I was like, fuck, maybe so. But yeah, so, hey, that's you're going to start seeing these accolades for Elden Ring just start racking up as the year end approaches, but.
00:59:48
Speaker
Oh, yeah. And one thing about the Golden Joystick Awards is I believe this one is fully popular vote by fans, you know, like a private panel. So no, Paul, we're just. Hold on. All tonight. Game of the year that in all public polls categories. Oh, yep.
01:00:16
Speaker
Well, also is the 40th anniversary of the Golden Game 40. It says the 40th. I don't know how. No, Pong just came out. Oh, no. I refuse to believe that the fucking joystick.
01:00:37
Speaker
votes for the ultimate game of the year in the 40th annual Golden Joysticks Awards. Yeah. Hold on. This goes back to PC Gamer magazine. That's why. Oh, okay. All right, fine. All right. Wait, has it been 40 years? Yes, Andy, we're old. Oh, my God.
01:01:00
Speaker
And as we watch Andy fade into a pile of dust, we'll see if we can reassemble him for another episode of Add to Party, a friendship simulator masquerading as a new show. I've been your host, James Hartwell. Jack slept the entire time this time. Hell yeah. And I've been joined by Charles. It's not creepy to go to a gaming convention as long as I'm with the group, Yamant. And I've been joined by. Oh, what if I've done that?
01:01:28
Speaker
Um, Andy, um, oh my God, 40 years, 40 years. Okay. 40 years though. Now you're old. Yeah. Long is older than that.
01:01:45
Speaker
40 years is like how old is mario old and also uh the mario uh the second super mario trailer came out today it's super good go watch it and watch it soon because andy might not be alive when it comes out good night