transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:17] Greetings and salutations, welcome back to Sacred Symbols A Play Station Podcast. This is episode number 407. My name is Colin Moriarty. I'm joined as always by my son, Chris Ray Gun, who's looking today like a mid-level Sopranos mobster, like you're made, but you just got made.

Speaker 2:
[00:33] Right, right. I've still got to go through the hazing.

Speaker 1:
[00:37] Right, right. You're kind of still on some bullshit tasks, but you're one of the family. You had the little ceremony.

Speaker 2:
[00:44] Yeah, I'm driving people around mainly.

Speaker 1:
[00:46] Right, right. It's good to see you. How are you?

Speaker 2:
[00:49] Good. Just got back from a walk. It's nice out. Thank God. But I got my coffee. I'm ready for the day. I don't know. It's pretty low-key, which is good. I thank God for low-key weeks at this point.

Speaker 1:
[01:10] Drinking a coffee here, I see. Is that from Starbucks?

Speaker 2:
[01:13] It is. It's basic bitch coffee.

Speaker 1:
[01:16] That's all right.

Speaker 2:
[01:17] I was craving it. I was like, you know what? Yeah, I don't want to do anything.

Speaker 1:
[01:21] You got to be a basic bitch sometimes. That's all right. I'm trying to cut something out here. I'm going to put it in the Discord for us and our staff Discord. Oh, here I'm getting it ready now, putting it in. All right, there it is. Oh no, that's not it. There we go. That's what it says on the bottom of it. It says fire weather statement because it's so hot and dry here. My weather, instead of it's saying.

Speaker 2:
[01:45] That's crazy. I've never seen that here where fires happen often.

Speaker 1:
[01:53] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[01:54] That's kind of nuts.

Speaker 1:
[01:55] Yeah, it's very distracting because it's just sitting there. It's just this fire weather. Oh, now it says 89 degrees sunny. Okay, we're back because it's so fucking hot already. I got to tell you this though, that solar power, we're turning right now. I'm at almost 500 kilowatt hours for the month already. Big time, big time production. Very, very excited about it. Chris, good to see you as we're in the fire weather statement era of Virginia. Dustin, good to see you as well. Are you in the fire weather?

Speaker 3:
[02:25] Not quite the fire weather, but you reminded me that the other night Holly and I were in our car. We were driving, cutting through like a nicer neighborhood up at the top of the city. We're driving and then there's just a small flame on the side of the road. Like there's some leaves on the side and it's slightly on fire. So we called 911 and was like, hey, there's a small brush fire on the side of the road. And then we drove, when we were coming back, we drove by, there was a fire truck there. And I was like, I've never seen that before in my life. Somebody lick, licking, flicking a lit sig, licking a flick sig. So be careful out there. If you're smoking a sig while driving, which don't get me wrong, that sounds amazing. Sounds great. You can't be licking your flit sig out of the car.

Speaker 1:
[03:20] You know, you're unable to speak right now.

Speaker 3:
[03:23] No, yeah, it's not a good omen. It's not a good omen for the show.

Speaker 1:
[03:27] We're really at the beginning of the show. And I don't know how it's all going to go from here.

Speaker 2:
[03:32] Seeing seeing an undomesticated flame is quite it's it's it's something.

Speaker 3:
[03:37] Right.

Speaker 2:
[03:37] You know, it's it's a weird experience. I remember my first year in LA. I saw I was in an Uber ride coming back from LA. X and I turned I turned I saw a shopping cart on fire and I was like, oh, yeah. Interesting.

Speaker 3:
[03:50] There's nobody around the fire.

Speaker 1:
[03:52] It's like dead rising out there or something like that. Yeah, the fire situation is scary out there. I remember. Remember the Chris, you were in California at the time, the Bel Air fire where you would drive down. I don't know what highway it was, but you drive down one of the highways and it was just totally demolished on both sides of the highway. Like a jump the highway was like the craziest thing I've ever seen in my life. I believe.

Speaker 2:
[04:13] Yeah, I remember that happening. I didn't. It's weird. Like I've never been in the vicinity of any of these things. Like there was one, I think, like in the last year or so, right? Like where I remember being surrounded by foot. Like you check the app and it would be like. If it was like a war, if it was like a feed of like troops coming in, I would have been fucked. You know what I mean? But it's just fires. I was like, ah, that's fine. I should be. I should be OK, maybe. But it is weird, like adjusting to the fact that like fires are like a thing that just happened. It's very odd. You know, it's not. It still kind of doesn't compute to me that it's even possible.

Speaker 1:
[04:50] I love the idea of before whoever, you know, tens of thousands of years ago, figure out how to make fire, that fire would just be for potentially hundreds of thousands of years. Hominids would find fire after like a lightning strike or something. And then they would keep it going. Very interesting. And it would be like the precious thing. And then maybe that's why they went in the caves. And and then since they were able to protect themselves and be up at night and all that, then they started maybe talking and thinking about things. And very, very interesting. So did I even introduce you?

Speaker 3:
[05:19] Yeah, I think so.

Speaker 1:
[05:19] OK, I don't know.

Speaker 3:
[05:20] That's because that's the I started the the Flixig.

Speaker 1:
[05:23] Right, right, right. And after that, of course, of course, of course, because I didn't know if I brought up the fire and then I just started talking about that. Then you talked about the lipstick. And I don't know if I introduced you properly, but it's too late to even know.

Speaker 3:
[05:33] Who knows? Who knows at this point?

Speaker 2:
[05:35] It's impossible to say.

Speaker 1:
[05:37] It is. It is impossible to say, but it's good to be here with you guys today. Yeah, just another another Thursday in paradise, as it were.

Speaker 3:
[05:45] Colin, how are you?

Speaker 1:
[05:46] Oh, really? That's so nice of you to ask that.

Speaker 3:
[05:49] Thank you.

Speaker 1:
[05:52] I'm hanging in there.

Speaker 3:
[05:56] I could take it a step further. Oh, and also introducing the host of the show, Colin Moriarty, the CEO of Last Stand Media.

Speaker 1:
[06:03] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you. That's so nice of you.

Speaker 2:
[06:06] See, now I've got to wait. Now I've got to wait 20 minutes before I ask him. So the genuine.

Speaker 1:
[06:13] Oh, man. See, now you're working on like the Colin level, like the Jerry Seinfeld, Larry David level of like when we thank our parents for cooking for us. I got beat at Easter, by the way. I don't know if I told you that someone beat me to thank everyone first. I was really upset about it. What are we talking about? Oh, yeah, it's just it's just another another day in paradise, man. April, April, mid-April. Got to mow the lawn tonight. And I mean tonight. Like I'm gonna have to wait until like 730 to mow the lawn, because it's so fucking hot. But it's getting out of control. Yeah, what ended up happening was my lawn, as we've said, is taken care of by this really great guy who, you know, I mow my lawn, do all that. But he put every month he comes and puts some new stuff on it, some fertilizers and all this. And I was concerned that my lawn wasn't like roaring back properly like a month ago. So I messaged him and he's like, oh, we gave you a treatment this month, but we'll just come give you another treatment. And I'm like, OK, but it just seemed like everything was latent. So now my grass is growing like. Like it's insane, I have to mow it like every four days now. So or and it's going to be like clogged. It's going to be one of those things, Dustin. You know when you like you got to like stop and get all the shit out and yep, it's just too thick for my you know, my regular consumer mower.

Speaker 2:
[07:27] How many how many acres do you have?

Speaker 1:
[07:29] Oh, I don't have any acres. I live on a like a maybe like a quarter of an acre or a third of an acre.

Speaker 2:
[07:34] OK, all right. That's not so bad. Did I have to mow? I used to have to mow like I think two, two and a half acres and it was just like on a tractor, I hope. Yes.

Speaker 1:
[07:44] Yeah, I was going to say, because I have a push mower. So, right.

Speaker 2:
[07:48] Well, for that size, that makes sense.

Speaker 1:
[07:49] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[07:50] But like, you know, yeah, no way. Oh, my God. The thought of doing what I used to do on a push. I would I would not have survived. I would have absolutely been, you know, a statistic.

Speaker 1:
[08:01] I would have loved you using the push mower, but like the the analog one just has like the turning blades that you see in like 50 sitcoms.

Speaker 2:
[08:09] No fucking way.

Speaker 1:
[08:10] Yeah. On Long Island, my old house, I lived with my dad. I lived on about an acre and we had a tractor for that. That was fine. But then when we moved to another house, we had maybe a half an acre or a third of an acre or something like that. And then we got the push mower. And I like the push mower. I don't mind the push mower.

Speaker 3:
[08:24] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[08:24] But some of my neighbors have big enough yards where they use the the tractor and it's nice. It's a nice look, you know, but so my I'm sorry.

Speaker 3:
[08:32] Self-propelling.

Speaker 1:
[08:34] No, no, no, no, no.

Speaker 3:
[08:35] My dad has that.

Speaker 1:
[08:36] I don't I don't really like that.

Speaker 3:
[08:38] I don't need it, but it's cool. Yeah, I don't need it.

Speaker 1:
[08:41] And you got to go slow when you're mowing people. I've seen people go to family going too fast. You got to go nice and slow. And it's an electric mower, so it's really light. Oh, I think with the the the gas mowers, they're just way heavier, you know, and a gas mower is great. I just I like my electric stuff. I have all of the cobalt stuff, which is the lowest like home, you know, house brand. It's all the blue.

Speaker 2:
[09:04] Right. Yeah. The blue stuff.

Speaker 1:
[09:05] And then I look. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[09:07] The electric stuff is a lot better now. Like I remember when electric stuff, electric tools like that used to be like a joke. And now it's like, why the fuck would you ever not? Like, my dad has an electric chainsaw and he's like, dude, have you seen this? And I was like, what do you mean? No, of course not.

Speaker 3:
[09:22] Hey, we've seen this chainsaw, son. I show you this.

Speaker 2:
[09:25] It's like the last time I was over, he took me out to the shed. It was like, hey, look at this. He just has this this miniature electric chainsaw. And it's so it's upsettingly lightweight considering it's a chainsaw. Like you could theoretically dual wield them in like combat and be like kind of effective with it. It's like, ah, I don't know what you're doing here, dad, but it's cool.

Speaker 1:
[09:45] Chainsaws scare me. I don't like I don't like chainsaws. I don't want to ever use one.

Speaker 2:
[09:50] They feel unruly.

Speaker 1:
[09:52] It's a lot of power in your hands. Yeah, a lot of power. I did buy so alright, so there's the. I like the different color comment. The colors right? You got like Milwaukee's red, right? House Florida is orange. Yeah, and so and some colors. You know there's a little bit crossover. So I got the cold. The Cobalt stuff. I got the Cobalt mower. I got the blower. I got the Weed Whacker. A couple other accoutrements. But then Micah had like just a Craftsman. So red screw gun or something. And then they have all these interchangeable batteries. So then I was like, oh, so we're kind of going to be Craftsman people too. So I ended up getting like a head trimmer that was Craftsman. But that's the way they get you with these is like the interchangeable batteries. And I was thinking at first that I was like, oh, I must be saving some good money by not having to get gas and all the rest. But then every so often, every few years, you have to kind of replace your battery or it stops holding its charge. And then it's like, it's kind of 601, half dozen and the other. But I enjoy my I'm on year seven on my Cobalt Mower and she's she's a beast. No problem. She's still going. You know, so proud of it. Proud of proud of her performance, especially this year in such challenging conditions. Welcome to Sacred Symbols, A PlayStation Podcast. We go live each week. You can get us three days early ad free every week over on Patreon, patreon.com/laststandmedia could not do without you. We appreciate your support over there. Early ad free access to this show and all the other shows is a major perk in our network over there. But of course, you could submit your inquiries to the show and all the other shows in the network via the threads and the news feed each week. You can get Sacred Symbols Plus, which we'll talk about in a moment. Or well, actually not early. You'll get access to it. That's that's that's period. That's we get access to a Q&A, name and the credits, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Discord. RSS feeds. Discord. Or I'm sorry, Spotify access. Already said Discord. I really like this idea, Dustin. I can't escape the idea of the purge of the Discord every year. And how much I love that idea. It comes up so often that I'm like, it's got to... We're going to do it at some point. It's going to be very fun.

Speaker 3:
[12:02] We need to figure out a fair voting system. Keep it clean.

Speaker 1:
[12:08] If you lose, you're out of Patreon. You're out of everything. You're gone forever.

Speaker 3:
[12:12] See, you take it so much further than I would. I would just say you're out of the Discord.

Speaker 1:
[12:15] I just think it's funnier that way, though.

Speaker 3:
[12:16] Yeah. OK.

Speaker 1:
[12:17] Like, it's funnier that you're a paying customer and then one day you just get voted out.

Speaker 3:
[12:24] It's great.

Speaker 2:
[12:25] Your best bet is to just not participate. Right.

Speaker 1:
[12:29] Exactly. Oh, my God. So stupid. Such a stupid idea. But you're right. It would be easily manipulated, I believe. Now, Dustin, I see here on PSN Profiles that you played Saint Slayer, Spirit Sacrilege, and you beat Pacer and Gihorn.

Speaker 3:
[12:47] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[12:48] So you got pretty good far into the game. Did you get any further into like the parts of the game that we never showed?

Speaker 3:
[12:53] I think so. I guess I don't know if I could say what the next level is.

Speaker 1:
[12:59] The underground level?

Speaker 3:
[13:00] Yes. I did.

Speaker 1:
[13:03] Nice. Nice. Very excited. Very excited. Saint Slayer comes very soon. It's a lot of anticipation right now at Lillimo games. See how this thing does. You can technically pre-order the game on Xbox. It's interesting. We didn't know that until we start getting pre-orders.

Speaker 3:
[13:19] Oh, wait. It'll be out today on Freefeeds.

Speaker 1:
[13:22] That's right. It will be. Oh, yeah. So if this St. Slayer comes out April 20, this will go live April 20 on Freefeeds, like Dustin said. $10 St. Slayer's Spear of Sacrilege, our 2D NES style side-scroller. We love it. I'm biased, of course. Very, very interested. We just passed 12,000 or 13,000 wish lists on Steam. So I don't know how the game is going to do on Steam, but something's happening on Steam for us. It's not going to be this huge thing or whatever, but we're going to do much better on Steam. And again, I told you that, I think Ben was the one that told us this because Ben Smith is doing our PR for St. Slayer. And he was saying one of the things he told us was that what he's learned in his experience is, games do well on Steam translate to console. Games that do well on console do not translate to Steam. So you want to do really well on Steam. And that's easily easy to translate. It could be available everywhere, obviously. So buy us on Xbox, on Switch. Switch One could be playable on Switch Two. I've been told that it's Steam Deck verified. So that's good if you're a Steam person. I think it's also available to stream on PlayStation. Oh. And we think Hubroxia 1 is too. I think they think after a certain, we re-released Hubroxia 1 as people might remember. So it might be like some sort of sequence of like games after this date are just going to be in some way streamable. So I think that that's true, but I don't know for sure. But anyway, $10, PS4 version gets you the PS5 version, PS5 version gets you the PS4 version. I think that's basically it. I also talked to Barry a little bit. I'm sorry, Dustin, what were you gonna say?

Speaker 3:
[15:04] And the vinyl is available.

Speaker 1:
[15:05] The vinyl, that's right. The vinyl is also available.

Speaker 2:
[15:09] That's cool, I appreciate that stuff.

Speaker 1:
[15:10] Yeah, it's something I'm, Dustin was way more involved in that than I am. I have no involvement in that.

Speaker 3:
[15:15] I was in one meeting. I was in the first meeting. I was connecting people, but yeah, it's from J Squared. I'll put the link in the description, but it looks so cool. I've never seen it. I mean, they can do all kinds of different vinyl colors now, but this like purple and the white beams coming out, it has like a guide with it. So I know people want a physical edition from Last Stand. We will do that at some point, right, Colin?

Speaker 1:
[15:41] Yeah. So as I explained, people always like the little machinations behind the scene and explain this, but like you pay for your ESRB rating, and if you do a digital version and a physical version, you pay for separate ESRB ratings. If you wait 90 days from when your game goes live digitally, you get a substantial discount on your ESRB rating for your physical version. If you do it before that, it's irrelevant, it's $5,000 or $3,000. Those are the two different prices. Now, for Sony, it's like, oh, it gives a shit or whatever. But for us, it's like, well, that's a lot of money. We're just going to wait. I think we're going to do a run of 2,000. It will also let me see how popular the game actually is, because I'm still sitting on hundreds of copies of Herbroxia. Is Herbroxia the last one we did? No. Tri Breaker.

Speaker 3:
[16:28] Tri Breaker. No, not Tri Breaker.

Speaker 1:
[16:30] We never did Tri Breaker. What is the last physical? We did Super Perils of Baking and then Herbroxia 1, it must be.

Speaker 3:
[16:35] It's Herbroxia 1, that's why.

Speaker 1:
[16:37] That makes sense. So yeah, Tri Breaker, we never did. So maybe the game becomes mega popular or whatever, and then maybe we do more, but I think we'll do 2,000. And those I am confident. I'm already set up with these Asia soft and stuff, so we just have to wait for literally that 90th day we can submit to the ESRB. So I think that that ends up being something like May, June. It's like mid-July. And then we'll get the games manufactured. I think we'll get them in the States late August, early September, and we'll do everything else in the background as we're doing that. The box and the art and the instruction manual and some other shit I want to do for the special edition. And then my hope is that we'll sell it for Christmas. So like October, November, something like that. That's the idea. But don't wait because I don't know for sure. I mean, who knows what happens from here. And it's $10. Come on, man.

Speaker 3:
[17:25] Come on.

Speaker 1:
[17:25] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[17:26] Come on, man.

Speaker 1:
[17:27] Come on. We have Starbucks coffee. What did you say?

Speaker 3:
[17:31] Does we need you to buy everything by on every platform, by the vinyl and then by multiple copies of the physical. If we do it. Send a message.

Speaker 1:
[17:41] Right. Exactly. So did you see that someone owns like five copies of a box? Yeah, I think on a spike. And I think that's literally like two and a half percent of the entire run or something. So funny. The funny thing about about Saint Slayer is just again, like my biggest question is like, how hard is it? I don't know. I don't know anymore. We'll see. We had a nerf tri breaker a little bit. I think this will be good. There are different difficulty levels. So.

Speaker 3:
[18:14] Yeah, I'm very, very I find it challenging.

Speaker 1:
[18:16] You find it challenging. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[18:18] So based on when we stream the demo, I was like, I really would like to play through all of this and not be so frustrated because this isn't my kind of retro game. I have no experience really with classic Castlevania style games made. So I play I was playing on uneasy. I was playing it on easy. Thank you.

Speaker 1:
[18:38] You played it on easy.

Speaker 3:
[18:40] I was playing.

Speaker 1:
[18:40] I've never played it on easy before.

Speaker 3:
[18:42] Well, good. Someone should test the game. Yes, someone should.

Speaker 1:
[18:48] So what definitely should test the game? We had we had a few we had a few people tested. It's we're good. We're good. I found a couple of things we can hot fix and like patch the games really easily. But it's funny how the game. Breaks or what it or how it did break like the things you would encounter. It's like this is a 2D side scroller. It's so annoying to think about how much worse it would be with a 3D game. Just just in my mind, I'm like, oh my god, this is so fucking annoying. And then you would take screenshots of the problem. But since it's like it like you would just get like there would be things like glitching or whatever, but you can never get it in a screenshot because it would just capture the frame. So it would look perfect in the screenshot. I'm like, I'm telling you, it's not it's not perfect, but it is now. Barry's been been patching into a fine sheen. And yeah, I've been I've been working on a project related to same slayer. We'll see. We'll see. You're going to do Sacred Symbols plus. This is both of you on it, me, Chris and Brad and Brad. Wow, that's Brad.

Speaker 3:
[19:55] Last night, I was telling him, like, if you want to, Chris and I got it, but you don't have to. And he's like, no, I need to do my duty. Yeah, what he said, he said he need to do his duty.

Speaker 1:
[20:03] No one cares more about Last Stand than Brad. That's so obvious.

Speaker 3:
[20:06] Certainly. Yeah. Certainly.

Speaker 1:
[20:09] Certainly. Certainly, yeah. Wow, you were.

Speaker 3:
[20:23] Oh man, just give it to him.

Speaker 1:
[20:28] Very, very funny. Let's see. What have we talked about already? I'm so confused. I'm a little off right now, but I'm also on, so I don't want anyone to be too concerned. Sacred Symbols Plus. All right. So that's you guys, because I have this other thing in here. We're not going to do this. We'll do this another time. I'm going to delete this. Just did an episode about Saint Slayer's soundtrack, which is really good. That's related to the record, of course. The marathon, spoiler cast, Chris hosted people really into that. Love that. So go check that out. Conversations with game developers and games industry people and so on and so forth. All that sort of thing over there. I believe the review discussions and spoiler casts will continue to roll out at a greater volume in the month or so to come, because we have Mouse, which I think we'll do something with. Pragmata, I think we'll do something with, and we'll talk about that in a little while. We'll talk about both of those games. And then I'm sure we'll do, obviously, do some, definitely do something with Saros. So, and I'll do something with Saint Slayer as well. The thing is, I don't want to be too promotional with Saint Slayer. Then again, I don't care that much. I'm going to do a lot with Saint Slayer as well. Sacred Streaming, Starfield. We just did Starfield. God, that fucking game, man. I've been playing it a little bit every night. And I'm like, I fucking I can't with this game, dude.

Speaker 3:
[21:43] Like, Colin, after the stream, Holly always says, like, so how'd it go? I was like, well, I think Colin was bored. I think I was bored. And I think the audience was bored. But we had a great time. Yeah. I mean, specifically about the game was.

Speaker 1:
[22:03] Man, that's some game, dude, I'll tell you. I don't know what I'll talk about it more when we get into what we're playing. I don't know what the fuck they're thinking with that game. So we have that we did. Dustin and I did a kind of a conversational office hours style stream. I don't know. Oh, so this is what I want to talk to you about. And to get you guys' feedback about this too, we kind of preliminarily talked about this again, Sane Slayer related. I had a meeting with Barry yesterday and the rest of the team to talk about a few things. And I was talking about kind of like, I was thinking about streaming the game, the day the game comes out. And then I'm like, I don't know if that's, and then I think you said it, Dustin, when we were talking, right? I don't know if that's-

Speaker 3:
[22:40] And the audience was like, please don't.

Speaker 1:
[22:42] Yeah, don't, because it's too short, right? And I'm too good at it. So it's gonna, it would be fun. We've gotten feedback that the game has taken like six or seven hours for one of the critics that are playing it, beating it, beat it or whatever. And I'm like, that would be perfect to stream. Cause then you would get a third of the game in two hours or something like that. But I'm like, it's, it shouldn't take most people anywhere near that long. I don't want to spoil it. So I think we'll, I'll stream it. And then there's like Moriarty mode, which is like the mega hardcore mode and some, like some other things. So I think maybe in like a week or two, we'll do it. Give everyone a chance to, cause I don't want to, turn people off from, from purchasing the game. And I also don't want to spoil the game, but I want to promote it appropriately. So then I was thinking like, oh, maybe I'll do like a Lillimo playthrough. And then I'm like, well, that's kind of like a non-sequitur, right? It doesn't really make any sense. Then I was like, oh, it's 420 on Monday. But, but I'm like, I don't know. Is it even, is it okay to like have marijuana on screen so blatantly or like do anything like that? So like, I don't want, you know, I don't know what the rules are. Plus I'm 41. I think it might be time to like move on from 420. It's like I'm not fucking 18 anymore. Dude, like between the ages of like 17 or 18 and 23, 420 was probably like the biggest day of the year for me. Yeah, it was a great day when you're in college. Like you look forward to it. You circle it on the calendar. Everyone's ready. Everyone's got plans.

Speaker 2:
[24:08] You know, you have this whole so it's so funny. It's so alien to me.

Speaker 1:
[24:15] Pop culture is like in six ad six ad world.

Speaker 3:
[24:17] I'll tell you there a thing that is a 420 Hitler's birthday also or so it is. It is also an idea stream because you're saying I'm getting really high. You get really high and you play Wolfenstein 2.

Speaker 1:
[24:31] Wolfenstein 2 or the one to punch.

Speaker 2:
[24:35] Yeah, that is a good idea.

Speaker 1:
[24:38] Yeah, I do like that idea a lot. It's not a bad idea at all. Yeah, I don't know. We got to figure it out. I don't know what we're going to do. But we'll do so we'll do something. We'll figure it out. We'll obviously be live on Sacred Streaming on Monday at 1 p.m. regardless. Rob Persglov wrote in to us on Patreon. Remember, you can write in to us on Patreon in the news feed. The thread for each show. The thread, by the way, for Sacred Symbols goes live on Wednesdays and is deleted Thursdays. He says, Hello, Sacred Trio, boys, content warning has been released on PS5. Does this mean we can get a Colin Friendslop stream? Now he doesn't have to use a disgusting mouse and keyboard and can use the Chad PS5 controller. Thanks for all the shows. Deep cut Moriarty Wall fart. People love the Moriarty Wall fart. It's like one of the top five things that I've ever done and it's such a sad state of my career.

Speaker 3:
[25:23] It's resurgence recently.

Speaker 1:
[25:24] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[25:25] Has come up.

Speaker 1:
[25:26] Yeah. And I like just not really explaining it anymore. Yeah. This is what we were saying when Fallout 3 inevitably gets remastered, and that's probably going to be in the coming months, I assume, comes out. I mean, that's what the rumors are, at least revealed. There's going to be this whole new Colin Moriarty thing going on because he's obviously a major character in the game. And I'm thinking like we just change up the whole script. Yes, Colin Moriarty was named after me. Yes, that character is inspired by the real Colin Moriarty. I'm telling you, this is going to be a big thing for people. Fallout 3 is almost, it's funny to think about, it's almost 20 years old, so there's a lot of people that have never played it.

Speaker 2:
[26:01] Well, now Colin.

Speaker 1:
[26:03] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[26:04] What if they rename him?

Speaker 1:
[26:07] I've thought of that.

Speaker 2:
[26:09] What if they're like, we don't want this guy in here. Let's change him.

Speaker 1:
[26:14] I've totally thought of that. And that would be interesting, but I don't think they will.

Speaker 2:
[26:21] Yeah, I don't think they will.

Speaker 1:
[26:24] But to say that I've not thought of that would be a lie. I'd be lying directly to your face, in fact. Yeah. Do they ever say his name? They must in the voice acting, right? So I don't really remember. I just remember. I just think it's so like that's so funny and that was so annoying. And by the way, that was kind of like pre social media. When Fallout 3 came out, so that's going to be a big I'm telling you, I'm just I'm warning everyone now. Yeah, that's going to be a thing. It's going to be most annoying for who? For me. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 3:
[26:53] You don't like jokes that follow you around everywhere. Interesting.

Speaker 1:
[27:00] Nothing's ever enough for you.

Speaker 3:
[27:02] It just is interesting.

Speaker 1:
[27:03] Yeah. Maybe be more like Brad.

Speaker 3:
[27:08] Yeah, you're right.

Speaker 2:
[27:08] Oh, my God.

Speaker 3:
[27:09] You're right. If I could be taller.

Speaker 1:
[27:14] He cares about this company more than anyone.

Speaker 2:
[27:21] Just give me ice, just ice, this fucking coffee. They just gave me just a cup of ice. That's infuriating.

Speaker 3:
[27:28] What did you get specifically?

Speaker 2:
[27:29] It's mostly ice. I got this hazelnut espresso thing.

Speaker 3:
[27:33] It's like pretty good.

Speaker 2:
[27:34] I like it, but it's like. They gave me like a drop of it, and it's like the rest of it's fucking ice. Yeah, it's like, what are we doing? It's what I hate about like most iced drinks anywhere is that like they use the ice as an excuse to skimp on what they're what you're paying for, and I hate it. And then they look at me weird and I'm like, hey, no ice. Like, what are you a freak? You don't like cold things like it's cold, surely. Are you crazy?

Speaker 1:
[27:57] Yeah, that's that's how I feel about Coke out of the out of the fountain. You don't need to put ice in it. It's already cold.

Speaker 2:
[28:03] Exactly. How long are you sitting there with like your your your drink that you're letting it get fucking what hot?

Speaker 1:
[28:10] Yeah, it doesn't make any sense. It's nonsense. And then and then it's getting cooler because it's melting water into your drink. It sucks, doesn't it?

Speaker 3:
[28:16] Yeah, I was going to say you made the right move, though, like Starbucks. You got to get something sweetened in it because you eat it like Starbucks coffee. It's just no. Yeah, I always get the vanilla sweet cream cold brew.

Speaker 2:
[28:29] Oh, I used to do that. I used to do that, too.

Speaker 3:
[28:32] Very good.

Speaker 2:
[28:32] I do. That's like that's like on the three rotations. It's like that. It's like that this. And I think there's like a brown sugar shaken espresso thing that I get every so every so often. But like anything else is kind of like, eh, I could just make this.

Speaker 1:
[28:52] Coffee, man. I'm going to tell you. You'd be like Ramon and have the little chemistry set.

Speaker 3:
[28:58] Oh, I do.

Speaker 1:
[29:00] Fucking doogie house right now.

Speaker 3:
[29:00] Is he a Chem-X man or is he a Aeropress?

Speaker 1:
[29:03] I don't know. I don't really know, to be honest.

Speaker 3:
[29:05] Does it look like a dick pump or does it look like a cone?

Speaker 1:
[29:09] It looks like a cone.

Speaker 3:
[29:11] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[29:11] I think so. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[29:13] Yeah. The Aeropress looks, I've been told, suspicious.

Speaker 1:
[29:17] Well, the economy these days, you can get, you know, you make coffee out of it and you can fuck yourself with it.

Speaker 3:
[29:22] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[29:23] You got to get multiple uses out of your purchases now.

Speaker 1:
[29:26] Right. That's exactly right.

Speaker 3:
[29:27] And dual use. Right.

Speaker 2:
[29:29] And multipurpose.

Speaker 1:
[29:31] Merch at laststandmedia.store. T-shirts, sweatshirts, hats, stickers. You like that segue? Paul McFerrin wrote in and said, Hey guys, Colin, your very own Richmond Flying Squirrels, the Giants AA affiliate, played their first series at the new CarMax park last week. They also rolled out a bunch of new logos and altering uniforms. Some of the best in the miners, if you ask me. They got me thinking, are we going to see the Allegheny Hogs get a redesign soon? Any new design ideas in the works? Love your stuff. So just to give everyone an update, yeah, everything's in play. The Allegheny Hogs trademark has been submitted. We just have to get cleared and then there's going to be, you know, interested parties can file against it and whatever, whatever. So it's going to take a couple months. But then once we're through that, then we'll get everything going. I'm confident that we'll have this done sometime this summer, I assume. And then, so once we have that, then I'll be much more confident spending more money. You have to remember, like I paid money for that logo that we're not using, and then I paid money for the lawyers, and I'm going to pay money again for the new design. So we want to just make sure we're doing things in sequence so I'm not like dumping money away. But I'm happy we made this decision. I think this was the right decision. The longer that's gone on about it, the more I'm like, I would have just been so worried the entire time. Like, we have this cool idea, we made money on it once, and then we get like a cease and desist because it's too similar, someone's going to be annoying, and I just want to make sure we're buttoned up. I don't want to have any problems. It's the last thing I need in my life for fucking more problems. I have enough problems. All right?

Speaker 2:
[31:00] Carmex Park, that's the name?

Speaker 1:
[31:02] Yeah, it's the new ballpark. I have not obviously been to this new ballpark yet. I have been to Flying Squirrels Games. They used to play in a place with an outfield wall. I guess Bleacher is so steep that it's crazy how steep they were. Scary levels of steep. I love a good minor league baseball game, though. So I'll go at some point.

Speaker 2:
[31:26] God, I really don't like these names, man. crypto.com Arena, I don't know.

Speaker 1:
[31:32] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[31:32] I don't know. I get it, I guess. So free advertising, although one could. I don't really know how much like. How much advertising that actually really truly is, because it's not affiliating yourself with anything that's even remotely relevant to what you're doing, but. I don't know.

Speaker 1:
[31:49] It's the Staples Center that really got it all going, you know, 30 years ago or so, and I think. Almost every like I think Yankee Stadium is one of them Lambo where the Packers play is one where they're the few places not named after a company now. And at some point it's going to be like, you know, Nathan's Hot Dogs, Yankee Stadium or something.

Speaker 2:
[32:12] Yeah, it's going to be, ah god, that's so fucking tragic.

Speaker 3:
[32:16] There's a bit of an uproar the last few years in Pittsburgh because we used to have Hines Field.

Speaker 1:
[32:20] Right.

Speaker 3:
[32:21] And that's like, you know, Hines Ketchup in Pittsburgh. Hines brand was, I don't know if it was, you know, they were originally here, they're not here anymore. But people in Pittsburgh really care about Hines shit. And now it's Ascure or something.

Speaker 1:
[32:34] Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. They changed it a couple of years ago.

Speaker 3:
[32:37] People refused to say it. AccuShirt, is that what it is?

Speaker 1:
[32:40] AccuShirt, what is it?

Speaker 2:
[32:41] Yeah, you can't rename it. It's like Twitter with X. It's like you can't at a certain point, like something enters the public consciousness of something and it just can't. It really can't be undone. That's the same thing with the Sears tower. Like the Sears tower is the Sears tower to me. Like, I don't know who the fuck owns it now, but like it's Sears is gone. Sears is long gone. By the way, do you know anything about like what's like what goes on with Sears when they like close down? Because I swear to God, I have not seen a Sears shut down and get replaced by another store. They've always remained like a skeleton of a Sears. They're all just remain empty.

Speaker 1:
[33:18] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[33:19] I feel like there's like a contract thing or something.

Speaker 1:
[33:22] Like they might own the real estate or something or.

Speaker 2:
[33:26] Maybe, but like it occurred to me like, because I went home and the Sears that I used to work at shut down like seven years ago now probably even longer. And I went back and it's still Sears. And I'm like, who the fuck?

Speaker 1:
[33:40] Interesting.

Speaker 2:
[33:41] What is going on?

Speaker 3:
[33:43] Our Sears turned into a trampoline park.

Speaker 2:
[33:46] Oh, interesting.

Speaker 3:
[33:46] So there is something else there.

Speaker 1:
[33:48] Is it like, is it is it? Big is like good.

Speaker 3:
[33:52] It's an anchor store of our very, very dead mall.

Speaker 1:
[33:56] Yeah, that's what I was going to say was because I watch a lot of dead mall content on YouTube. I love dead mall content. And, you know, it's like, is the mall OK? Is it dying or is it dead? And the sign of the dead mall is like the one-off stores and things like entering. It's over at that point. Yeah, yeah. It's it's so I always look at these things, too, and I'm like, why would you I understand? Like, you know, you have I'm an entrepreneur. I'm totally I totally get it. You want to find a space for your barber shop or like your collectible store, whatever. It's like the mall. I don't think so. It's not going to work for you.

Speaker 2:
[34:28] Depends on where you are, really. Like, there are malls here that are, like, mega populated.

Speaker 1:
[34:34] Oh, yeah, of course. There's always going to be big malls. I think there's just way fewer of them. The outdoor are the third street in Santa Monica. The outdoor mall. Yeah, I love that. I used to go there all the time.

Speaker 2:
[34:44] Yeah, that's still packed. What is it? The Grove? Still packed. The Americana still packed.

Speaker 1:
[34:53] California, Southern California has all the outdoor malls, which is great. Love that.

Speaker 2:
[34:58] It is nice.

Speaker 1:
[34:58] Yeah. We have an outdoor mall here, actually, which is pretty popular. That's where the Apple Store is. But then there is also a dying mall in my area, which I think might be the mall that Chris Chan used to go to. Oh, fun. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[35:11] Oh, which one is it? Chris Chan Mall.

Speaker 1:
[35:14] I don't remember what it's called.

Speaker 3:
[35:16] The Charlottesville Fashion Center.

Speaker 1:
[35:19] That's going to be. Oh, that's when he lived in Charlottesville. That's all right.

Speaker 3:
[35:21] Right.

Speaker 1:
[35:22] That's far away.

Speaker 3:
[35:22] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[35:22] I don't I don't know. I don't know. It doesn't. Who cares? Why does he keep coming up? It's because I keep bringing him up. It's a problem. All right. Topics of discussion. I'm going to hit you guys with a series of things from the audience of announcements and and declarations and all these things. You're going to feel good. Then you're not going to feel so good. Then I'm going to lift you back up. OK, and then we're going to get into the rest of the show. Day013 wrote in and said, Hey Colin, Dustin and Chris, my name is Jess and my husband and I are a long time listeners from Northern Ontario, Canada. He like you Colin is a platinum whore. He's never written in before because he's still thinking of the perfect question. So I'm taking his first write in away from him by using this account to ask you to do me a favor. She wrote favor with a U. Let's let him know altogether that Player 3 will be joining our video game family in late 2026. When he hears this, he'll probably be thinking, holy shit, this is awesome, but will I have enough game time? Dustin, please ease his mind for me. How are you planning to juggle being a first time dad while still getting game time in? Would love to see some onesie merch from you all at a Toronto live show one day. Oh, and what the fuck is going on with that Hassan Karamon guy? Karamon guy, did we ever get an update or resolution? I can't.

Speaker 2:
[36:36] I forgot about it.

Speaker 1:
[36:37] I can't. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. But let's focus on the good news. Yeah. Congratulations. Player three. Cute. Like that very much. Congratulations to you guys. Dayo and Jess, did she say his real name? My name is Jess and my husband and I are a long time listeners. No, no, no, no, no name. So. Can't go beyond that. So I'm lifting right now. We're feeling good. Right. Right. Very exciting. Um, Dustin, any advice for how are you going to do? You better figure this out, by the way, because your job's on the line, buddy. Oh, if you're not going to be keeping up with your video games.

Speaker 3:
[37:16] Oh, no, no, I'm not worried about that. Now, first of all, I got to address how funny it would be if Dayo is a timestamp user. And he just completely misses it.

Speaker 1:
[37:27] Yeah, that is that is that would be so I'm sure his wife will. You know, they'll listen to it together and. Very cute.

Speaker 3:
[37:36] Yeah. So well, congratulations. The fact that you're finding like, is my impression correct that she said, let's let him know all together. Right. So he's like, I'm hearing about this for the first time here on Sacred Symbols.

Speaker 1:
[37:51] I know that we've never done that before. We were we've we've few divorces have circulated around. We've had a few other issues, but never this. Never this rare to get good news.

Speaker 3:
[38:01] Interesting. Well, congratulations. It's tough. I can't give any advice because I don't know yet. I certainly have to make time for video games, but I'm in a very blessed and fortunate situation where I have to make that a priority for my job or else I will not be good at my job. And I feel bad because like if you got in nine to five and you're coming home, you got to be a dad after that. You got to see your wife. And then there's a little bit of time for gaming in there, hopefully. So I think you'll figure it out. And especially people keep telling me during these first few months, the babies just sleep a lot. So focus in, get all the gaming in that game as much as you can now.

Speaker 1:
[38:48] Yeah, who knows what will play through all of Final Fantasy 14?

Speaker 2:
[38:53] I would just I would imagine just like the types of games you play, just kind of shift for a little bit, right? You probably like lean into like, maybe like Balotros and stuff or those types of things. Yeah, for the brief period where you like can't get a lot of like, I don't know. I've seen too many parents able to game in parent at the same time to think it's really that big of a deal. I think a lot of the stress of early parenthood is like largely overstated. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I'm sure it's difficult, but like, I mean, this idea is like, oh, my God, you're going to want to kill yourself and you're not going to have time to fucking do anything. It's like, ah, surely there's time to do things like. It's a baby.

Speaker 1:
[39:31] Yeah, just leave it. Just leave it.

Speaker 2:
[39:33] Just leave it alone. Don't crush it. You know, don't don't roll over on it in the middle of your sleep. And you're fine.

Speaker 1:
[39:39] Just let it be. To learn to take care of itself.

Speaker 2:
[39:43] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[39:45] Now, here's another uplifting one. Timothy Bryant wrote in that said, Hello, CDC, hope you guys are doing well. I've been struggling with my weight and doing nothing to change it for the better part of a decade. The final straw finally came when I bent down to tie my shoes. And the only way I could do it is if I held my breath since my stomach was in the way, which quite honestly pissed me off. I decided right then and there to do something about it. On January 30th, I decided to make these changes. Only eat between the hours of noon and eight. No fast food whatsoever. I only drink water, no candy or cakes, smaller portions and working out at least four times a week. On January 30th, I was at 285 pounds. As of March 30th, I am down to 264 pounds. And I can feel every bit of that weight gone. I can tell weight was being lost because my wedding ring now spins off my finger and my hand even more slightly. I'm sorry. Spins off my finger if my hand even moves slightly. And I can take off my Apple watch without unlatching it. I just want to thank you personally, Colin, for always being so honest about being responsible for your weight loss because I think about that every time. It's gym day and it pushes me to keep going. I don't know if you will read this on the show. If not, just know I appreciate you for always being real. If you do read it on the show, for anyone out there who is also struggling with their weight, just start. Doesn't have to be as extreme as what I'm doing. You don't have to see immediate results. Just start and try to maintain a consistent habit of being more healthy. It's worth it. Timothy, good for you. Congratulations. It's a reminder to me, I'm getting a little lax. I'm in the 185 to 195 range pretty much always, the last five years of my life, but that's way heavier than I used to be. I feel like I'm trying to maintain a higher and higher weight. I'm trying to maintain a weight. It used to be like, I'm trying to maintain 180 or 175 or 170. Now it's like, I'm trying to weight 180. And I understand I'm more muscular than I've ever been in my life. So there is some weight to that, but I need to, but it's not all of it. I've been, and I'm getting older. It's one of the major reasons why I'm trying to just totally get off Alexa Pro, because I'm convinced that it's making me, it's making weight stick to me. I mean, it definitely does. It's just a matter of if it's going to matter when I get off of it. So little things, it's very good. I wanted to congratulate you, Timothy. That's a big deal. 20 pounds in two months is a lot. And you know, you don't have to. The big thing for me with this is I don't believe in making like these hard and fast rules. Unless you're like abusing something like you're an alcoholic or something like that, then you really can't drink anymore. Right. But to me, it's like you eat. Enjoy yourself every once in a while. Just make concessions. That's all you have to do. Like I'm never going to cut anything out. I'm always going to have pizza and I'm always going to eat burgers. I'm always going to do these things. I know it comes with this deficit of being like, well, you can't outrun your, as they say, you can't outrun your diet and all of those sorts. But I'm like, I'm just trying to be healthier. I'm not trying to be svelte. And I'm also not trying to ruin the few things that I enjoy eating. So I think it's all about balance. And now that we're in the spring and summer, yesterday I did a hard run on the elliptical and then I went in the backyard and I smoked a joint and I drank a beer. So it's that time of year where it's like, I'm going to be drinking more. I got to be very careful, watch everything a little bit. Yeah. So I just want to throw that out there. Timothy, good for you. Yeah, it's a big deal.

Speaker 2:
[42:58] No, it's good. It's hard to do that stuff. It's hard for me especially because like, I don't know, the health kick stuff is always difficult for me to stick with because like my metabolism is so high that I don't have an obvious reason. You know, I feel like a lot of people like they gain, they gain a little bit of weight and they're like, oh man, I don't fit in my clothes anymore. I got to do something and it kind of kicks them into gear. I don't have that. I have like the problem. The inside of me probably looks like a really deeply unhealthy 14 year old boy. You know, just like, oh yeah, I'll have it's 3 AM. I think Doritos are good for right now.

Speaker 1:
[43:37] That sounds wonderful.

Speaker 2:
[43:39] It's no, because I feel horrible. I still feel terrible. But like there's, but then like, oh, oh, you know what I'll do? I'll eat a salad for breakfast and work out and then immediately feel awful as well. So it's, I don't know, man.

Speaker 1:
[43:53] It's just life.

Speaker 2:
[43:55] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[43:55] Got you down. It's weird.

Speaker 2:
[43:56] It's like it's a gift and a curse, I guess. But congratulations. That's a lot of weight.

Speaker 1:
[44:01] I really miss, I mean, I don't think there are actually any around here, but in my old neighborhood, I used to eat sweet green. We went to sweet green, I think. Yeah, we went a few times. But I used to go there all the time. And I missed the shit out of that place. Because that place was so good and it was like, I would actually get two salads and put them in a big Pyrex bowl.

Speaker 2:
[44:20] I remember.

Speaker 1:
[44:21] Yeah, you remember that. And that's all I would eat for a day. But it would be like, I don't know, I like eating good, healthy, natural food. And my cake cooks really, really great food. And, but it's tough to make the proper dressing and do all these kinds of things. I don't know. It sucks. Cause I have no aversion to healthy food. I like tofu. I like vegetables. I like all this shit, but I just don't, I don't eat it. I'm the same. All right. Everyone's feeling too good now. Caleb Greer wrote in and said, Greetings, gentlemen. Sorry to bring the mood down, but I wanted to give a special shout out and RIP to my dog Juno, who passed away Monday after 13 years. I adopted her from a shelter when she was about one year old, and putting her to sleep after her battle with cancer was the hardest thing I'd ever have to do. I was not prepared for the utter grief and emptiness of losing my best friend, but your shows have kept me going through the week. Thanks for your service truly, and everyone give your pups an extra hug today. Our hearts are with you, Caleb. I'm sorry to hear this. Yeah, the worst, the absolute worst. I still live in fear every day of my dogs die. It's really great. It's wonderful, wonderful thing to feel, because they always say it's like you sign up for the best and worst day of your life or whatever. Yeah. But I wanted to read that because it felt weird to ignore it, but also I didn't want everyone to feel too good.

Speaker 3:
[45:47] Sure.

Speaker 2:
[45:48] Yeah, that makes sense.

Speaker 1:
[45:50] 13 years, good life, RIP and peace, Juno, of course. Be well. Jaffe's dog just passed away.

Speaker 3:
[45:57] Yeah, I saw that.

Speaker 1:
[45:58] As well. I talked to him privately about that. I texted him actually, and then he emailed me back and emailed me a picture of him with the dog in the room or whatever. When they do it and you hang out with it. I was like, it's so sad. Because I've yet to be in this position, but I know that they say some people just can't be in the room. And they say, you got to be in the room, dude. You have to do it. But your last moments with your dog or whatever, it's like, what the fuck?

Speaker 3:
[46:33] My parents with Neko, also RIP in Peace.

Speaker 1:
[46:39] Me and Neko had a relationship.

Speaker 3:
[46:41] Yeah, you had a little thing. They had someone come to their house to do it, which I thought was really nice, because he was always so afraid of going to the vet. And it's like, you don't want to take him there for his, like him be afraid for his final, you know, and he was not doing well either. So that's an option as well. But yeah, I can't even imagine. And I am I mean, I've had other dogs pass away when I was younger and it was traumatizing. My one dog specifically died from a heart attack when he was not very old. And so it was a huge trauma for a whole family. But yeah, when I mean, Colin, you're mentioned about, you know, Russian trouble. It's like with Frisk, like it's like I'm. I always I always say, you know, I told Holly your joke, I was like, Colin always says he hopes he dies before Rush. That's honestly, I mean, I have a kid coming, so I really can't say that anymore. But I get it. I get it.

Speaker 2:
[47:36] It's it's it's terrible, dude. Like it's I think it's the main reason I don't have an animal right now. I'm just like, yeah. That's the stresses, but I'm just going to be I'm neurotic already. Yeah, you know, I know. I don't another thing. And then I used to freak. I used to freak the fuck out. Like when my my we would let the dog out and she would like run and she'd go a little too far. And I'm like, a deer is going to run out of nowhere and trample this fucking bitch. I'm going to lose this dog to some psycho deer. I hate deer so deeply.

Speaker 1:
[48:04] Oh, yeah, they suck.

Speaker 2:
[48:06] I know people who've had their dogs trample to death by deer, like straight up, like multiple. More than one.

Speaker 1:
[48:12] We should go to Long Island during a hunting season where you can indiscriminately kill as many deer as you want for X amount of time, like whatever it is, the X amount of weeks.

Speaker 2:
[48:21] I would absolutely do.

Speaker 1:
[48:22] That's a thing on a Long Island, if people don't know, is that like, they deer are so destructive on a Long Island that every year they and we invite, people can come from anywhere, but it's mostly people from upstate. And it's like, just come and fuck them up.

Speaker 2:
[48:37] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[48:38] And they do.

Speaker 2:
[48:40] It's, it's, it's quite great. It's, it's so funny hearing like talking about this. And then like there's, there's everybody who's not native to like the Northeast. So it's like, oh, that's so, it's so cruel.

Speaker 1:
[48:52] Yeah. It's, it's, it's cruel until you hit three in a year in your car or something like that. And you're like, Jesus Christ, how are there so many? It's crazy how many deer there are. Everyone, everyone on the line hates deer. My dad has, he takes a, it's not a real, it's not like one of his real guns, but he has a BB gun. And like they go and eat shit around his yard. He just goes and shoots the shoots at them. They get them to go away. Like, you know, like pop.

Speaker 2:
[49:12] Yeah, I got to. He has like, it's like they used to. They ate all of our shit.

Speaker 1:
[49:17] Yeah, they everything up.

Speaker 2:
[49:18] They have no regard for anything. I hate that.

Speaker 1:
[49:20] Yeah, they suck. They can jump over fences like big fences. Yeah. Oh, my God. Yeah. Only in the Northeast do you have any like, it doesn't seem like anyone even knows or gives a shit, but like, yeah, they'll fuck everything up. They'll eat everything in your yard.

Speaker 2:
[49:33] They think they're cute everywhere else. Like, they think you're they think you're an animal for like wanting them to die. And it's like, no, man, they got to go. I have this video that, well, I don't have it, but like me and my friends every now and again, we'll share this video in a group chat. We have it, it's really fucking morbid, but it's hysterical to me because I hate deer. Whereas it's like a bunch of them jumping off of a fucking highway because they're too stupid to understand what a highway is. So they just plummet and die. It's just like a, there's like six dead deer on the highway. And I'm like, oh, warms my fucking heart, I have to say. Can't stand them.

Speaker 1:
[50:10] Sorry. Yeah, no, they got to go. They got to go. No, no. I've seen so many deer carcasses in my life, in my neighborhood from people just hitting them with their cars, like hundreds growing up.

Speaker 2:
[50:23] It's never enough.

Speaker 1:
[50:24] After a while you realize like, yeah, something's fucking going on here with it. Plus we're on an island, where are they coming from?

Speaker 2:
[50:30] Yeah, they're crossing the bridge.

Speaker 1:
[50:33] Yeah, like some shallow bullshit somewhere. I don't even, it's like, what are you doing?

Speaker 2:
[50:39] There's like a really like just just out of the, there's like a land bridge.

Speaker 1:
[50:42] Right, right.

Speaker 2:
[50:43] Like it's like a really thin, so stupid. Oh God.

Speaker 1:
[50:49] Oh fucking dear. What were we talking? Oh yeah, so the dog, the dog situation. Very sad Caleb. I remember talking to this, I think I brought this up in the past, Ryan McCaffrey from IGN, old buddy of mine. He's always had a boxers. They don't live tremendously long, unfortunately. Some of these bigger dogs. And I remember one of his dog, I think it was Maggie was her name, I want to say. She died and then he really struggled to, like he was the guy who talked to me about, like he would go to almost like, I don't even know what to call it, like your animal died anonymous or whatever. I don't know what you would call that, right? Like dog loss anonymous or whatever it was. And he was the one, he was telling me, he's like, some people, I never really thought about it, and it's obvious when you think about it, but it's like some people get a dog immediately. Some people never get over it. Some people can never get past it or whatever. And I'm like, to me, I feel like you got to sit with it and then you got to move on. You got to get back on and get another one, in my opinion, at some point, and keep it going. Like whatever breed you like, male or female dog, whatever it might be. And you'll probably fall in love immediately with that dog too. That's usually what you... So give yourself space, but then be open to...

Speaker 2:
[52:10] Yeah. I think it is healthy. Not to immediately move on because I think you're not really addressing things. But I think when my dog, my first dog, well, the first dog that I remember growing, there was dogs like when I was like two that passed away, that I don't really remember that much. But when my dog that I had during communion, when I got my communion, passed away when I went to, like, I think after college. So she was like 19 or something. It was a long ass time. And I remember, like my parents, I think they waited about a year before somebody offered like, hey, we have this puppy. And they were like, you want it? And they're like, yeah, all right. And they love that dog now. And so it's like it's the same thing. But you need some time. But I think it's healthy to keep it going. It allows you to just form a new connection. And like, why not? Like, it's it's not replacing. I kind of I'm annoyed when people say it's like, oh, you're replacing the dog. It's like, it's completely different. It's completely different. It's like saying like, oh, you had another kid. What are you replacing your kids? Like, no. What are you talking about? It's insane.

Speaker 1:
[53:18] The one thing I talk to Micah about sometimes, because I know that this is it's theoretically possible, and I think you'll be able to do it if you can't already do it. Do it. Short order is like basically cloning your dog. But like and you could do some pretty interesting scientific studies on nature versus nurture. Like you like if I got if I rush is a very, as all dogs are very specific dog with very specific personality, mega neurotic and weird and funny. Would he be exactly the same or would you have some fucking false facsimile of him? You know, where he'd look the same, he'd grow the same and all the rest. But the thing that I'm fixated on right now, I don't know if you guys have seen it is like the dog, the medicine for dogs in their older age and it gives them a couple of years or a few more years of life apparently. And apparently, did you read about it, Dustin, about like what it is? It's really interesting, like what it does. Apparently, if you have an older dog and you just cut back on its food, it makes its life longer. Like if you start slowly feeding an old dog less and you like remove the volume of food and I don't know what it would be to like two thirds or something or half or whatever. The dog's life is actually extended and that makes some sense because, you know, metabolisms are slowing down or whatever. But apparently what this does is it does that without you having to cut off your dog's food or whatever.

Speaker 3:
[54:41] That's like ozempic.

Speaker 1:
[54:43] Right, exactly.

Speaker 3:
[54:43] The dog, it makes them want to eat less. Interesting.

Speaker 1:
[54:47] So, yeah, so that's like what it is, I guess. And. But apparently you get it's going to pass the FDA, get FDA approval apparently, or it's in some sort of.

Speaker 3:
[54:59] I feel like that's cool, but at the same time, like. At least like with Neko, he had other medical problems that it was like. You didn't want to extend his life as as, you know, callous as that sounds, but like he was. His condition in the end, I mean, that's why you decide to put a dog down, is that it's like he his quality of life is not good anymore. So I hope that if people like, I wonder. How like I guess it depends on how early you get on it and if there's any other conditions involved.

Speaker 1:
[55:35] The other thing is that I'm glad you brought the putting, you know, a lot of people put their dogs down, which is a necessary thing, unfortunately. But I don't I tell Mike this, I'm like, I don't think I can do it. Like it is my hope that the dog, the dogs live a really long life and die naturally. That might be unrealistic. My cat died naturally. My cat Chun Li, who was 17 when she died. I had her from 93 to 2009. She just found her and she was dead. So I don't want to say I hope that happens because I don't want that to happen right now. Of course, but at some point, distant from now.

Speaker 2:
[56:11] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[56:12] God, I told you guys I was going to fuck you up. But let's lift everyone back up now. And it's not really for you guys, because you wouldn't really care, but I do. Colin Powerwashing the Lolita Express and not saying a fucking word to anyone written. A job is a job, dude. I'm gonna stop my business. What's going on at the temple? And all the other things, Colin, at this point, is there anything that could bring you back to PSVR2? Perhaps a port of Powerwash Simulator VR. We're not gonna talk about any of that. But we are gonna talk about this. Also, can the Buffalo Sabres get a shout out? This is what's important. We just broke a 14-year playoff drought and I've been as hard as a rock ever since. I do want to congratulate you. What an exciting thing. Buffalo Sabres are a hockey team. They have not made the playoffs since 2011. So long. And they made the playoffs this year. The Islanders didn't make the playoffs. They missed because they swooned at the end of the year, unfortunately. But I will be pulling for you, Buffalo Sabres. What an exciting thing for you and your fan base. And as a diehard hockey fan, as we all know, hockey is very equitable with playoff positioning. Half the teams make it. So to go all those years without making the playoffs is very much like the Jets. It's like that's a horrible thing. And now the Jets are the uncontested team in North American professional sports with the longest playoff drought of 15 years. So wanted to throw that out there. Congratulations, Buffalo Sabres. Congratulations to all the Buffalo Sabres fans. I see you. Very exciting news for you. And finally, I want to do, now we're going to segue, this is kind of like the missing link between topics of discussion and the game news. Cause I want to talk specifically about a game. I promised, you know, I like to reflect as games are coming out, we'll do this with Sorrow soon, kind of final thoughts as the game is about to come out. Mouse we're going to talk about in a little while as well, but Pragmata, Zach Dalton wrote in and said, Hey Sacred Boys, Pragmata is upon us and it is getting rave reviews from critics, myself included. Are you, who are you a critic for, Zach? And it's my game of the year so far, you seem, sounds like you've played it. However, I want to hear your opinion on the Discourse Online that Capcom made the game to appeal to pedophiles because of Diana's appearance. The subreddit was banned due to creeps and it seems like people are running with that saying because of her outfit and the fact that she's barefoot, that it was intentional by Capcom to draw on those kinds of people. I've even seen some people say that if you like the game, then you must be a pedophile and reviewers should have been up in arms about it calling Capcom out in their reviews. Seriously, what the fuck? Are people just too terminally online that they can't even play a game with a little robot girl without sexualizing her in some way?

Speaker 2:
[58:43] Oh my God.

Speaker 1:
[58:45] I think this is, it's important to say this because I've been seeing a few things about Pragmata, like just people and I'm like, you're telling on yourself.

Speaker 2:
[58:53] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[58:54] If you look at Pragmata and that's where your mind goes. I understand. What is it called?

Speaker 2:
[58:58] Rule. Rule 34.

Speaker 1:
[59:00] Rule 34. Have some discretion. Okay. Please, like please. So when I see that, when I see complaints like this, Zach, I'm not saying you're complaining, you're not. You're relaying the complaints. There are some freaks in the world. There's no doubt. We're all on the Internet. We all see it. But I don't think that that's what anyone's trying to do. And I think that if that's the way you interpret that character, the worst thing about that character is her name is Diana. That's only you. There are only Diana's that are over 50. You know, so you're not older. Diana's are not. I don't know if you guys know this. They're not named Diana when they're younger. They have a different name. And then and then at some point you're like, oh, this is Diana. It's like being named Gertrude.

Speaker 2:
[59:53] Right. Right. Right. I see what you're saying. They has a way better name than Gertrude, though.

Speaker 1:
[59:57] Yeah, it is. It is a way better name.

Speaker 2:
[59:58] But it's like a little unfair. But. Yeah, I don't know, man. Like, I look, I, I understand that this world is is really fucking bleak. And I understand why this is like in the public consciousness, like at a fever pitch, like I get it. But like, I don't know, man. The character design of Diana and Pragmana is unsettling to me, not for that reason, but because it just reminds me of those like it reminds me of those like porcelain kind of like dolls. Like, I'm bothered by her, like genuinely. Like, I think it would be difficult for me to form a connection with that character at all, because it just reminds me so it reminds me of like child Aloy a little bit. I'm just like, there's something a little. There's something a little off about this about this person, but. Yeah, I wasn't. I wasn't thinking about it in this way. And now you are kind of now. Yeah, unfortunately, like it does. What bothers me about it is that like, man. There are there's there's always going to be sickos. You can't really you can't really help that. But like, I don't think they built that game with the intention to appeal to like, that's that I think is a bridge too far. I think I have no, you know, I have no insight. Or I just call it a hunch that they didn't they didn't go into a boardroom and said, hey, say, hey. There's an untapped market of child predators that we can really capitalize on here at Capcom. Like, I don't know.

Speaker 1:
[61:44] That's funny, man.

Speaker 3:
[61:46] Dude, here's what I'm thinking. Yeah. He writes here that saying that because of her outfit and the fact that she's barefoot. Now. In this modern Internet era, people have started to lose some degree of shame.

Speaker 1:
[62:05] Yeah. I've noticed that.

Speaker 3:
[62:06] That is true. And if you I mean, if you have a reasonable kink like feet, OK, I don't relate to it. But there's plenty of people that have that. I mean, Quentin Tarantino puts it up front and center. Sure. But with all these kinks coming out and people finding places to gather, they've gotten they've become more bold.

Speaker 1:
[62:32] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[62:32] And up front about it. And now that's mixing in to everything else where it's like, oh, a child's barefoot, that's sexualized. And it's like, you got to calm down.

Speaker 1:
[62:44] It's too much.

Speaker 3:
[62:46] You got to calm down. You need hose off. Retreat to your subreddit, you know, collect yourself, collect yourself, go to your subreddit and discuss your. Like I said, reasonable kinks. And because obviously with this discussion, we're talking about people that have unreasonable kinks, illegal kinks, is that even a kink at that point? I'm not well versed in it.

Speaker 2:
[63:12] Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 3:
[63:12] It's a mental illness. We'll call it that.

Speaker 1:
[63:15] Sure.

Speaker 3:
[63:16] For sure.

Speaker 1:
[63:16] That's a nice way of putting it.

Speaker 3:
[63:18] So, yes, calm down and stand down, really.

Speaker 2:
[63:24] Yeah, stand down.

Speaker 1:
[63:26] Pragmata keep the woodshippers on standby. Yeah, for the next few weeks. And a few people might out themselves over this time. You want to pay close attention. Pay close attention.

Speaker 2:
[63:43] I will say that character is a little creepy to me. I don't know why.

Speaker 1:
[63:46] She is a little creepy, but that's what's so interesting about it. There is a total supernatural weirdness to this. It's a fucking weird. It's totally weird.

Speaker 2:
[63:54] No, I know. But I see people are like, oh, she's so cute.

Speaker 1:
[63:57] And I'm like, no, she's...

Speaker 3:
[64:00] I don't know about that.

Speaker 1:
[64:01] It's on the razor's edge of cute to demonic. There is something weird about her. It's supposed to lull you in, oh, it's a little girl.

Speaker 2:
[64:12] Yeah, like a goat.

Speaker 1:
[64:15] Right, that's right.

Speaker 2:
[64:16] You know, it's like they're cute, but they're also Baphomet.

Speaker 1:
[64:20] Right, that's exactly right. I was so glad you said that, because I was like, oh, like, that's very demonic. Yeah, right.

Speaker 3:
[64:23] Right. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[64:24] They're freaky eyes that no other animal has. I hate the God. You ever see a goat's eye, like close up? It's really distressing. It's like it's one of those things where it's just like, hmm, I don't know about this.

Speaker 1:
[64:39] I'm afraid to Google it.

Speaker 2:
[64:40] You should Google it right now.

Speaker 1:
[64:41] Yeah, I guess I will.

Speaker 2:
[64:43] Have you actually never seen it? I don't know. It's really difficult to-

Speaker 1:
[64:47] Oh, it's like a slit.

Speaker 2:
[64:50] It's really fucking weird.

Speaker 1:
[64:52] Holy moly. Yeah, don't wonder they thought these things were evil. I guess I never really looked into the eyes of a goat. Holy shit. Yeah, some of them are really-

Speaker 2:
[65:01] Yeah, I don't know, man. It's distressing. It's actually making me nauseous.

Speaker 1:
[65:05] Yeah, it sucks. I hate it.

Speaker 2:
[65:12] A value judgment of a goat's eyes.

Speaker 1:
[65:14] Oh, man. It sucks. So, but, pragmatid, more generally speaking, I've pre-ordered it, downloaded it to my machine. So, when this goes live, this podcast goes live on Patreon, I think it'll be available for everyone. I don't know exactly what I'm going to do first, because I'm still messing around with Starfield, although we all know what's going to happen with that, I think. And then Mouse is coming out, and then Mouse is out, this is out. By the way, I will talk again, I've been keep bringing up Mouse, we'll bring it up and talk about it more deeply later, but I went to buy it at midnight last night and it was not available. And then before I went to bed at like 4am, I was like, oh, maybe I'll just download it. And it still wasn't available. So I assume it's available now.

Speaker 2:
[65:51] It went live, I think an hour before we recorded.

Speaker 1:
[65:54] Oh, okay.

Speaker 2:
[65:55] It was so annoying because I remember I was up and I was like, oh yay, 9pm. That's usually like around West Coast time when it goes live. And it just wasn't. I was like, oh, it's one of these. Yeah, it's the kind of screwed me. I was kind of hoping to have like a lot of time into it before we recorded today, but they screwed me.

Speaker 1:
[66:14] Yeah, me too. Me specifically.

Speaker 2:
[66:15] They had it out for me.

Speaker 1:
[66:16] For you specifically, I understand. Yeah, I was like, oh, I guess I got to play more Starfield. Oh, Jesus. So that'll be out. And then, yeah, and then this is out. So I don't know exactly. And then Sarus, obviously. So Dustin, what are your what are your final pre-playing? We're all going to play Pragmata, I assume, right? So what are your what are your pre-playing thoughts of Pragmata?

Speaker 3:
[66:39] I'm so excited, man. I was seeing that a lot. I didn't read any full reviews, but I've seen tweets, people talking about their reviews and saying it kind of has a PS2 experience feeling to it. And I think that's cool. And I loved the demo for this game, both when I played at Summer Game Fest and the recent one that came out. And I really outside of that demo, like I really didn't get any of the story from that. And so I'm very intrigued by it. It looks like a beautiful game as well. Visually, I mean, the RE engine has been amazing. This generation outside of Monster Hunter Wilds. But yeah, so I'm very excited. I will be going and hopefully seeing if I can find a physical copy tomorrow morning. But who knows with stock recently of things.

Speaker 1:
[67:32] Plus you're apparently from that letter, we realize you're going to be dealing with a bunch of freaks.

Speaker 3:
[67:37] Oh yeah. If I go to Target to buy it, I'm here for Prongmono.

Speaker 2:
[67:41] I like the physical copy of a physical copy of Fragmata, please. You got to emphasize physical.

Speaker 3:
[67:54] It's too bad the amiibo is not out yet.

Speaker 1:
[67:56] Oh man.

Speaker 3:
[67:57] You're like, oh, come on man.

Speaker 1:
[68:01] Chris, where are you on this? Are you going to pick it up?

Speaker 2:
[68:03] Yeah, I think there's a couple of games that I'm a little bit more like excited about in the immediate. I really want to get to Mouse and I really want to get to Replaced because that's a game that I've been looking forward to for a while. It's kind of crazy. I almost forgot about it. It's been so long, but I want to get to those two. Then probably Fragmata. I would imagine that both of those games are fairly. I can't imagine that either of those games are particularly, you know, gruelingly long.

Speaker 1:
[68:33] Yeah, I think I understand as I understand it, they're both short-ish by modern standards.

Speaker 2:
[68:37] Yeah, so it'll probably be after Mouse I'm going to get to immediately, then replaced, and then probably Fragmata when I'm done with both of those.

Speaker 1:
[68:46] But Mouse apparently has some broken trophies, but I'm sure they'll fix those. The bigger thing is that apparently there's really not a lot of backtracking, and so there's a shit ton of missables in the game. So that's a little bit annoying, but we'll see. PowerPix does have a trophy guide. I might just look at the road map and see what I need to do, keep an eye out on. All right, so we'll have more to say about Fragmata in the weeks to come, and I'm sure we'll do a Sacred Plus episode about it at some point, because I imagine Brad's playing it probably, the Xbox boys are probably playing it. It's Capcom, we should all be playing it, because it's awesome.

Speaker 2:
[69:18] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[69:20] All right, let's get into some other pieces of news. I just wanted to start here, just an FYI, it seems disingenuous not to bring it up, though we always make fun of the game.

Speaker 3:
[69:26] Speaking of pedophiles.

Speaker 2:
[69:28] Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[69:31] Love that. Thank you for that, Dustin. That's very clever. An upgraded version of Roblox launches on PS5 today from the PlayStation blog. So Roblox is only available in the PlayStation ecosystem on PS4. And I was doing a little bit of research about this. There is no Xbox series version, but I wonder if that's just because it's so much better established in the Xbox space. Remember, Roblox came to Xbox One in 2015. It didn't come to PS4 until 2023, which is pretty crazy when you think about it. So that was a nice little lockdown exclusive for Microsoft Roll On Time. And now it's coming to PS5 natively. It will have 30% faster load times because of the SSD, and I think use the DualSense in some ways. So just wanted to throw that out there in case you have literally no taste at all. The next piece of news here comes from Matt Piscatella on Blue Sky over at Sakana. We don't have full data yet on the... wait, why isn't this loading?

Speaker 3:
[70:26] Mine's not loading either.

Speaker 1:
[70:28] Uh-oh.

Speaker 3:
[70:29] Blue Sky down.

Speaker 1:
[70:31] Well, let's see if I can find this. Hold on a second. You might have to close. We had to go away because Blue Sky is down, the social media network, so I couldn't... It's actually useful. That's actually kind of an instructive thing. That never really happens to us, but at the same time, it's like, should I be putting these in archives or something and just using them from there? Is it really that important? It's probably not even really that important. We're talking about video games, right? So anyway, I went to our friends at Push Square. They have the news over there so we can use theirs. They write, US PS5 hardware sales hit a 2026 high prior to huge price increase. This is not a huge surprise, I suppose. They write, unsurprisingly, US consumers flocked to the stores to pick up PS5 hardware prior to the console's enormous price increase earlier this month. Zircona analyst Matt Piscatella reveals that Sony's console enjoyed its highest sales of 2026 so far during the week ending April 4th. The system's price increase officially went into effect on April 2nd, but the news was announced a few days earlier on March 27th, giving consumers the opportunity to act. Piscatella says the system achieved calendar year highs for both unit and dollar sales and quote, US spending on video game hardware for the week nearly doubled when compared to the same week a year ago. So not a huge surprise, the PS5 digital edition is $600. It's $200 more than it launched at. So now I wanted to bring this up for multiple reasons. Number one, I think that's just interesting news. And I want to get into with you guys and get your take on price tolerance. Cause I wonder if even at these new prices, PS5 is still not beyond price tolerance for the average gaming consumer. So we'll get into that in a minute. Mason Mitchell wrote in though on Patreon, he says, greetings boys. Matt Piscatella reporting the small surge in sales before the PS price hike and Tom from Moore's Law is dead explaining how the PS6 will be in the $600 range. Makes me struggle to see how PlayStation sells much at all from now until next year. I know GTA is imminent, but it's an end of year deal. And if you don't already have a console, I really just don't see the game selling $700 consoles without a discount. You think they need a GTA 6 bundle. I wonder where your guys heads are at with this. Chris, let's start with you. The obviously people are, they learned about this price increase. You have to be pretty well connected to have known the price was going up, but everyone activated and they went and bought the console. I wonder if they're still, obviously, the higher the price goes, the more intolerant the market is going to come towards buying it. And yet, I wonder if this price increase will really materially matter. This goes into, and I'm not saying it's good. I want people to be really clear. I'm not saying the price increase is good. What I'm saying is by the time we get the Grand Theft Auto 6, that's going to be the price of admission. It is what it is. What do you think about this, about the increase in sales and the likelihood or unliklihood I guess that the PS5 will struggle on sales now that it's $600 at minimum?

Speaker 2:
[73:22] I think, well, I'm not surprised by the spike in sales. I know anecdotally from a lot of people who were specifically waiting for the price to go down as expected from every previous generation who just decided, you know what, this is clearly not going down anytime soon. I'll just bite the bullet. I'll get it. I want. And a lot of those people, by the way, jumped on specifically for GTA. Like, I think there was no there was no extreme reason outside of that for them to really jump on. They just didn't want to spend 900 dollars on GTA 6. So I think it doesn't surprise me that it did well or that there was a huge spike because the price hike was so drastic that I would imagine that even for the people who aren't well connected, like I knew people who were not that well connected, who texted me about it. Like, did you hear the Play Stations go like 900 dollars? I was like, yes, I did. It's my job. Some friend you are. But so that doesn't surprise me. Will it slow like is the question like, is it going to slow like momentum of the PS5 going forward, like going forward now that they've kind of got a lot of momentum out of the way? I think probably a little bit. I think ultimately they are still the de facto leader in this space. And as we've all noted before on various episodes of the show at this point, this thing will sell regardless. It seems like there's I don't know if it's inertia or if it's just like the perception of it being a default and also just the natural existence of, you know, people are being activated all the time. People are deactivating from the space. People are activating from the space. People are aging into the demographic that would be interested. And so like, I think, I think it'll still be selling, but it would not surprise me at all if momentum slowed quite a bit, maybe not substantially. But the next big thing is going to be GTA for sure. And I think GTA is going to still sell a ton of a ton of consoles. So I don't think they have anything to worry about, really.

Speaker 1:
[75:43] I'm actually moving things around in our document because I think we'll talk about that next. That makes a little more sense.

Speaker 2:
[75:48] Also.

Speaker 1:
[75:49] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[75:49] Also, I don't know if you saw, like, I'm pretty sure, like even even what is it? The the Oculus just raised. I think the Quest headsets went up in Price 2. So like this is not going away anytime soon. You know, these price hikes are either here to stay or going to continue.

Speaker 1:
[76:07] So yeah, I think I was I appeared on Broken Silicon, Moore's Laws, Dead Tom's Podcast. A few days ago when we talked deeply about this stuff, people should listen to it. It's a great episode. I really enjoyed being on the show with Tom, as I always do. And we were talking about that about just, we talked about all the stuff, but the universality of price increases and how there's this kind of theory, at least in some corners, that Sony is trying to kind of like, you know, is picking at the market and taking advantage of things. And I'm like, they don't want to do this, dude. They have, they're winning right now. Like this is not, this is not what they want. This is so bad for them and they're probably freaking out. He also was saying, though, the good news is, and we won't talk about PS6 too much in this episode, but that there are signs that things are softening and that component pricing will be cheaper and that you can even imagine a Sony serendipitously dropping the price of PS5 again right around Grand Theft Auto. So, and that this also feeds into why PS6 might be so much cheaper than people think. But anyway, we can get all that at the more appropriate time. Dustin?

Speaker 3:
[77:21] Yeah. So, as far as it, is it too prohibitive for them? I think that obviously for some people, like the PS5, to buy a brand new PS5 may now be out of reach. But as we were talking about when the price increase happened, there are still options for people to get PS5 at a cheaper price. Whether you get a refurb one from the PlayStation Direct, at least there were a week ago, some good options or even locally. Like I saw our friend of the show at Main Level Games, he has PS5s in his shop that are cheaper than GameStop used right now. Not everyone has a local game store, but you got Facebook Marketplace. So there, I'm not saying it's ideal, but I'm just saying there are options to still acquire a PS5. I think that to some degree, I know that right now economically, everyone's spending more money to just survive and exist. Everything costs more and it sucks. But I just noticed with these kind of high desire technology products, that while there is a lot of complaining about a price, and don't get me wrong, you'll see me complain about the price of things all the time. The desire is still too high. That it's like when GTA 6, the previews start coming out, the reviews hit. It's like some people will put it on a credit card. They shouldn't go into debt for it. But think about like every year, there are people that buy the new iPhone or they upgrade regularly when they don't need to. They buy an iPad or whatever. And again, to touch on, that could be changing right now with the current economic status. But I just find that people are in their actions are less price sensitive than they say in terms of what you know, complaining.

Speaker 1:
[79:28] That's exactly right. That's where my head's at with it as well is there is a barrier in a line that will be crossed at which time the price sensitivity will increase. But I think people online overestimate people's price tolerance. Gaming has... It depends on how you look at gaming. I know gaming is... We say this is very value rich in terms of hours played and go backwards and play things and they become cheaper and virtually free if you wait long enough and all the rest. But the bleeding edge of gaming has always been for people with a little bit of money. And I don't think that that's really changed too much. And your exposure to the market, to the bleeding edge market will change depending... Like when I was a kid, I had no money. So even though I had these new consoles, I could only buy a few games and that kind of changes for people over time. But for me, for like I say, I, my eyes water when I see the pricing of the consoles now. I'm like, this is just so out of whack. But you have to compare it to everything else, including computers and the component pricing. And then those who can exercise greater economies of scale will bring the price down. But I wonder if this is about as high as it's going to get. Who knows? I think we've thought that over and over again. But I also think that this tension is, so we, all right. So we've already, in my opinion, the increases over time have already eroded away like inflation.

Speaker 3:
[80:59] Right?

Speaker 1:
[80:59] That inflation was a really big deal 2020, 2021. Right? So that's kind of big. Now we're back to like normal inflation, 2, 3 percent. So that's kind of baked in. Then the tariffs, right? That was a huge global shock. And then that kind of got baked in and the tariffs have been flat, right? So there's nothing new to evolve towards. This only leaves component pricing. And thus, if the component pricing is relieved, and you see this, right? We were talking about this, Dustin, you might have seen this. I don't know if you did, Chris, is like... It's so funny because Tom had this theory that a lot of these companies are buying shit they don't even need to make sure that no one else gets it. And now that's like coming home to roost, apparently.

Speaker 3:
[81:40] Right. Because it's like Sam Altman, his had like a word of intent or letter of intent to buy all this RAM. And now it's like, uh...

Speaker 1:
[81:48] Right, exactly.

Speaker 3:
[81:49] Maybe not.

Speaker 1:
[81:50] And I saw that, what is it? Half of all data center expansions or whatever are now on hold and permanently canceled in the United States. I don't think it's, I don't think it means the technologies are going away or whatever. I think it just means that they probably don't need as much as they thought they did. And the adoption is not there and thus the prices should stagnate if not go down. I don't know. We'll see what happens. But good news there anyway. But I wanted to, I was going to bring this up later, but we brought up Grand Theft Auto and Mason did in his letter and Chris and I were talking about it. And so it makes a little bit more sense to bring it up here. As well, which is, I don't know if you guys saw there was a and I don't want to report on it too deeply. This is kind of what we the tension we have with the Insomniac leak. Rockstar was hacked and people released a bunch of information. The information is out there and being circulated. I feel like it's worth reporting on that. I obviously don't condone just like with Insomniac. I don't condone what happened to Rockstar. I think it's wrong to do those kinds of things. I think as I'm reading it, at least now, I realize at the time of recording, Rockstar was threatened by this hacking group to say like, we're gonna release all this shit if you don't pay us. And they're like, we'll just release it. So to me, that's, I like not playing with the terrorists and just being like, well, whatever, just release the data, I guess. But at least it's not the game. The one thing I wanted to focus on here though, were Grand Theft Auto Online numbers. We have incredible insight into data Grand Theft Auto Online and I thought I would put into perspective how big Grand Theft Auto 6 is going to be. Indeed, we got a letter from Dwayne Rockhard Johnson who says, Holy mother of Pearl, I know it's one of the best-selling games of all time, but the fact that GTA 5 still has that many players weekly, it makes that much money weekly is bonkers, especially on old hardware. No wonder that why they were never in a serious rush to get the next one out. Grand Theft Auto 6 is really about to be the best-selling anything of all time. So what he's referring to are these numbers. Now, I've gotten them from gtaforums.com. They kind of have them collated here. So Grand Theft Auto Online revenue by stream. The average weekly haul for Grand Theft Auto Online is $9.5 million, garnered from shark card purchases of $7.3 million a week and GTA Plus memberships accounting for another $2.3 million per week. GTAO, so Grand Theft Auto Online active players on a weekly basis. 9.9 million average active users per week. New users, almost $500,000 every week. Paying users, almost $400,000 a week. And the maximum average users over the last year is 15.4 million people playing Grand Theft Auto Online that week. Platform breakdown, I thought was really interesting. I will get deeper into this in a minute. PS5 has 3.4 million active users on GTA Online. PS4 has 1.8, almost 1.9. Xbox Series X has 1.1 and Xbox One has one. PC, not even a million, 894,000. Absolute dominance by PlayStation in this space. And really, really interesting stuff there. And then top countries by total bookings, the United States between September 9th and March 24th. So September 9th, 25, March 24th, 26. GTA Online in the United States grossed Rockstar $153 million. Absolutely insane. So just wanted to throw those numbers out there. And any thoughts here on the on the reveal of Grand Theft Auto Online's true might? All of these years, by the way, people might look at these numbers and be like, yeah, this is good. And I'm like, this game is really old. This is a PS3 game. I want I want to remind you. Just printing, printing money.

Speaker 3:
[86:05] What do you think? Yeah, it is crazy that I mean, on PS5 alone, you know, almost three and a half million weekly active users, not just people that like have logged on or whatever or something like that. Like this is active users. To me, this says, first of all, that while we will be getting a new GTA online with Grand Theft Auto 6, they're going to have to keep supporting this. Like, why wouldn't you continue? There's going to be a clear drop off when those. What was it? You know, three and a half million PS5 users switch over to the new GTA online and also probably some PS4 users that are going to upgrade and switch over as well. But it's crazy, man. I think I mentioned a few weeks ago, there was a YouTuber I was watching who I think was in Pakistan that was checking out like video game stores and electronic shops. And the guy in the store was like, oh, we sell the most Xbox 360s because that's the cheapest console that plays Grand Theft Auto.

Speaker 1:
[87:10] Oh, interesting.

Speaker 3:
[87:11] Now, obviously that doesn't apply to Grand Theft Auto in my mind because those servers were shut down. But just around the world, the desire for GTA 5 is so high. And also the second highest platform is PlayStation 4 still with 1.8 million users. So they're holding on. It takes like 10 minutes to load in.

Speaker 1:
[87:37] It's unbelievable.

Speaker 3:
[87:38] To GTA Online and PS4.

Speaker 1:
[87:41] Chris, what are your thoughts here seeing all this? I was also curious about because some people are comparing here that there's some Red Dead Online numbers in here as well. And that that game is like so much softer, which I guess makes sense. But yeah, they're barely they're making about a half a million dollars a week on Red Dead Online. As an example, that is, you say that, but that's 20 times less than they're making on Grand Theft Auto Online and GTA Online. So it's like, why bother?

Speaker 2:
[88:10] Yeah, I don't know, man. That's, it's not, I gotta be honest. I think like these are really good numbers. I even thought it was more than this. Like just because it's so, the success of GTA is so obvious that I thought it was even crazier. I would have been like even like 30 million a week. But like 10 million, I mean, that's still fucking incredible. And it's, and it's like, they're making, what is that? So 10 million a week was about like 400 something thousand for 400 million a year. Just on Grand Theft Auto, if that's your average weekly.

Speaker 1:
[88:51] Yeah, I mean, that's the whole point is like, you can't go wrong in that. Plus most of these people bought Grand Theft Auto 5 at some price too. So like they're paying twice plus they're, yeah, they're spending a lot on these shark cards and stuff. It's just, it's, it's actually kind of like a mystery world to me where I'm like, wow, there really is like this whole vibrant ecosystem still for this game.

Speaker 2:
[89:16] It's a dream scenario, man.

Speaker 1:
[89:18] It's going to explode like they are. And this goes into where the money comes from as far as, I mean, we all know this inherently, but to just take all the time you want. I mean, at some point, you have to shitter get off the pot. You're going to start eating and these things are going to start shrinking, but and there's some eagerness, I'm sure, to turn over and start getting the billions of dollars that they're going to start making a Grand Theft Auto. But it's crazy stuff.

Speaker 2:
[89:41] Yeah, it's it's it's kind of a huge. These numbers are amazing. They're unsurprising. We, you know, we've we've known for a while. Like, I guess anybody clued into the space knows that GTA makes a stupid amount of money. But like seeing it and seeing the hard evidence and understanding exactly the numbers, it's it's it's great. Dude, even even Red Dead Online is kind of crazy, like not compared to GTA, but like compared to like a lot of other like, I would imagine there's probably a lot of devs who are like, damn dude, I would kill for Red Dead's numbers.

Speaker 1:
[90:14] Yeah, for a half a million dollars a week.

Speaker 2:
[90:17] Yeah, that's crazy.

Speaker 1:
[90:20] What do you guys think about the softness of PC? It does go to show you that it's obviously not a priority for them for a reason. I mean, you would think PC would be a massive boon for them, but it's not. It's actually almost an irrelevance. It's a rounding.

Speaker 2:
[90:35] Yeah. I wonder if that's I mean, inherently, PC is like, I don't know, maybe people will disagree with disagree with me here. But like, I don't know, sitting at your desk and playing a video game is kind of inherently less relaxing than just like sitting on your couch, playing it on a TV. There's also the fact that like PC is a wide open platform where there's a lot more experiences available to you. So technically, there's more competition on PC than there is. And even in our modern console markets that are fairly backwards compatible in comparison to previous ones, there's still probably infinitely less available on them compared to the PC space, which is like you've got HIO, you've got all sorts of different storefronts and different games, and a lot of different competition. It makes sense to me that GTA, with its massive appeal, would be most popular on the most accessible machines that tracks to me. But it is surprisingly low, I think. Like the degree to which it's low is kind of surprising.

Speaker 3:
[91:47] I had heard this from somebody and I looked it up to make sure. Apparently GTA Online on PC has really bad hacking issues. For example, I mean, this is anecdotal, but there's multiple places I'm seeing around the Internet. A post on the GTA subreddit says GTA Online is unplayable because of hackers. And all the comments are like, yeah, play in a private server, play somewhere else. So that could be part of the problem is that just like no one wants to play there because there's a guy that's running across the map in the air with an infinite rocket launcher or something.

Speaker 2:
[92:25] Can you can you turn crossplay off? I would imagine so, right?

Speaker 3:
[92:29] Like, I don't think GTA has crossplay.

Speaker 2:
[92:32] Oh, does it not?

Speaker 3:
[92:33] I don't think so. I mean, look, GTA, that's kind of surprising.

Speaker 2:
[92:38] I guess there's a big enough player base. Wow.

Speaker 3:
[92:42] It's fascinating. Really was a thing.

Speaker 1:
[92:44] PC gamers ruining everything for everyone. That's yeah, so surprising.

Speaker 3:
[92:48] Listen, I played Marathon, bro. So does Chris. Yeah, you can't play ranked right now.

Speaker 2:
[92:55] You can't.

Speaker 3:
[92:55] I've never played ranked because all I've heard is that there are hackers and cheaters.

Speaker 1:
[92:59] I don't understand how people touch it. I'm so ignorant on this stuff, obviously, but it's like, how are they figuring out how to do this so quickly?

Speaker 2:
[93:06] I don't know.

Speaker 1:
[93:07] And why is it so easy for them to do?

Speaker 2:
[93:09] There's yeah, well, so in Marathon's case, there's different ways to cheat that are not readily apparent. The one that's most common that is most easy to get away with is people queue at the same time in ranked, and then they form these kind of united squads that anybody else who matches in with them are completely fucked, which is technically cheating because you're planning outside the game to coalesce in a situation where you can't naturally, the game doesn't let you do that for a reason. But then there's other stuff like wall hacks and stuff. I have not, I gotta be honest, I've never even been remotely drawn to ranked in Marathon. Even before I heard about this stuff, because the game by itself is already plenty competitive. I don't need, I would need this extra try hard mode. But I've heard that that mode in particular is ruined. And so PC is definitely hacker central, which is unfortunate, but it is what it is, I guess.

Speaker 1:
[94:11] Shepard Commander wrote in and said, hey gents, regarding Colin's tweet about the huge player base of GTA Online to this day on PS4, I got to ask, is this really a surprise? The PS4 sold 120 million units, I believe, and it was the dominant platform when GTA Online came out. The comparison to Xbox is somewhat weird given how much smaller the console numbers are. It's not a huge surprise that even the PS4 with its huge install base is above Xbox Series console, sold one third of the amount of the PS4 sold. I think by far the much bigger news here are the incredibly low PC numbers. What say you? I'm not saying you're doing this, Shepard Commander, but this is a cope, as the kids say. The PS4 came out 13 years ago, that there are that many people still pull, it doesn't matter how many machines it's sold, it doesn't matter how many machines are active. And that you have that level of active user base above a current gen console is insane, in my opinion. I don't know how else you possibly can get around it. It doesn't matter. It's the equivalent of still playing on PS3, basically.

Speaker 2:
[95:17] Yeah, especially this deep into... Like, it would be one thing if the new consoles were only out for like five months or something. You know what I mean? Because you'd inherently be like mega limited compared to the previous. But like, we're... How deep are we into this? We're six years into this.

Speaker 1:
[95:35] The... I also, I noticed this when I tweeted it out because it was just... I thought it was just an anathine tweet. I was just researching. I'm like, wow, that's incredible. Like... But then obviously everyone gets upset about everything. It's like... What do they say? Hit... Hit... Hurt Dogs Yell? Or whatever. Hit Dogs Yell? It's like enough already, man. You know, like... Not everything is an insult that you need to take umbrage with as well. It's just an observation. It's a really interesting observation. And you could... And if it makes you feel better that PS4... That there's more people playing Grand Theft Auto Online by a wide margin on PS4 than playing on the Xbox series. Okay. I mean... If you don't see why that's crazy, then more power to you. That's why you listen to the show. You can learn a little bit. You're listening to a show such as ours. All right. We're going to talk about a couple of upcoming PlayStation games now. One announced, one unannounced, but widely acknowledged. Both of these news articles come from a site that we've been citing a lot more. In recent months and maybe over the past year, and they used to be much more relevant back in the day, MP First. In fact, I could be wrong, but Dustin, we've talked about this in the past. Didn't Nick Colandra launch MP First or something? The guy that does the escape stuff now. He has some history, I think, with these sites, which is interesting. But anyway, they're coming back with all this news. I want to start, and so congratulations to them because it's great. I want to start with this. They write, report, God of War Faye spinoff claimed to feature, is it Tyr? Tyr, yeah. And multiple mythologies. It's been four years, they write, since Santa Monica Studio released God of War Ragnarok, and since then, the studio has kept silent on what they're working on. Well, nothing has been announced so far, rumors have surfaced that Santa Monica is working on a new entry in the franchise. The one that's a spinoff that stars Faye and not everyone's angry dad, everyone's angry dad, Kratos. We've already covered a little bit of this. Seems the rumors surrounding the God of War spinoff is gaining steam and more info about it has surfaced. And we here at MP First have also spotted new reference to the project as well. Now, they go into what they know so far and then add a little bit of their stuff. So I'm going to just read it here. They say, quote, A report way back in 2023 from Fandom Wire mentioned how the spinoff will feature two main characters and it won't include Kratos. Though it mentions how the Spartan hero will make an appearance somehow. Since that article went up, the author has since corrected some of the info. And in a comment from a now deleted Reddit post clarified how the prequel will star Faye, Kratos' deceased wife, and not Freya as they were led to believe initially, as well as Tyr, the Norse God of War. The comment also mentions how the player will have a companion that's some kind of gelatinous cube. A talking sword will also be present in the game, which is said to be Merlin. Yes, that's odd. We agree. In addition to that, they write, the prequel also explore several mythologies such as Mayan and more, which isn't surprising to those that played God of War 2018. At the very least, we here at MP First can confirm that East Asian mythologies will be a part of it, as we've heard that elements from Chinese and Japanese mythologies will be a part of this new entry in the series. Having said that, game development is a fickle thing, and as such, things are always subject to change, though we expect those to be present in the final version of the title. And then they go on to say that Tom Henderson in Insider Gaming said that he heard that the game would be announced this month. I don't know when they would do that. I mean, we're only halfway through the month, so I don't know if anything's possible, I don't know. Dustin, anything here interesting to you? Kind of precious new information about the God of War, Faye, spin-off? I will say this one thing about it. I don't like the idea of, and it's kind of a gross way of putting it, but it's like blowing your load. It's like, we don't need all of these mythologies, like focus on one and like really break it open again. Like why rush through all of it? There's so many cool options, so I don't want to prejudge a game, but I'm going to from that perspective and just saying like, just do one thing. Like it would have been cool if we was like, oh, just the Inca or just the Maya or just the Egyptians or whatever. So the idea of having all this shit in it is kind of whack. I also just again want to reiterate what I said when we found out that this is apparently Corey's game, which is I'm like, it's so corny that this is what he was working on the entire time. What a disappointment. But again, so I'm a little down. All right, Dustin, go ahead.

Speaker 3:
[99:57] I'm most intrigued by this gelatinous cube companion. You know, what's his motivation? What's his story? What's his character arc? Sounds kind of weird, but I like weird stuff like that. And yeah, I agree that doing everything, you know, all these different gods at once does seem like you're blowing your load a little bit. But maybe we can get a Buddha boss fight out of this. You know, he takes takes up the sword. He's done with his passive ways of peace and you got to fight him.

Speaker 1:
[100:29] You got to do it. What about Merlin being in the game?

Speaker 3:
[100:33] Yeah, so a talking sword, which is said to be Merlin. Very interesting. I, I don't know. I remain. I don't know if skeptical is the right word. I guess cautiously optimistic just because it is Corey. And he's shown that he makes very, very good games despite us maybe being a little bored with. We bored with God of War. Just like. I don't know. I don't even know how to feel about it, but if it's revealed this month, then we won't have to speculate much longer. It's a lot of this week we thought, well, like we were getting ready for a state of play. But did Micah tell you, Colin, that she she messaged me and she's like, we're trying to figure out their state of play. Do you think there will be one? Because I need I want to buy ribs to make for dinner. Oh, yeah, I was like, I told her, I was like, if it's not announced by 3 p.m. today, this was yesterday. I'm like, I don't think it's happening, but who knows? So yeah, no state of play this week. Maybe next week.

Speaker 1:
[101:37] Yeah, maybe next week. Yeah, I don't know where that rumor came from, but because I think, isn't Xbox going this week? So it could be possible that they both selected, arbitrarily selected the same date. They learned, you know, both learned a bit and one pulled out to do it at a different time. But by the way, Micah's just going off with the grilling and the smoking. She's going off.

Speaker 3:
[101:59] Some ribs, man. I love ribs.

Speaker 1:
[102:01] Yeah, me too. Ribs are great. Chris, anything to say about the new, not too much new detail, but some new texture for the God of War game, the Faye game that's apparently coming?

Speaker 2:
[102:11] Yeah. I mean, this sounds like a mess. I mean, this is my initial read on what we know so far. I'm sure maybe it'll all come together. It'll make a lot more sense. But like, I don't know, man. I hear gelatinous cube and a talking sword. And I'm like, oh no, bro. It has, it's reminding me a little bit of a, what is it? Oh my God. What's that game? Forspoken with like the talking, the talking inanimate object where it's just like, even though we'd rather be separate, we've got to work together. And it's like, all right, all right. I don't love the, I don't love the sentient talking item thing. Like I just, I've never, I don't know. That trope to me has always been a little bit corny.

Speaker 1:
[103:00] Yeah. It's, it's a, it's not exclusive to games, but it is a game trope because it's a way to have exposition while you're playing, you know? I think that that's the whole thing.

Speaker 2:
[103:10] Yeah. And I get it. I, I just, I don't know. This, this just kind of seems like. It just seems like a lot of people, like pitching everything and somebody in the room being like, yes. But maybe it's maybe it's great. And Cory Barlog hasn't given us necessarily a reason to doubt him. But at the same time. I, I know, because Cory Barlog was responsible for 2018 and it's been a while. You know, like he's he's not necessarily been on like a generational run. As as it were, you know what I mean? Like he made a really good title with 2018 and even that game retroactively has some some, you know, revisionist criticism going on with it. So. We'll see. I'm open to it. I'm look, I'm curious about it. I will play it, but nothing I'm hearing about it is particularly nothing I'm hearing about it. It makes me go like, oh man, I'm really excited. You know, if anything, I'm just curious about what they're working on, and I would like to see it.

Speaker 1:
[104:15] Yeah, it's. I want to be clear that I think it's unfair to be too hard on something that we don't know very much about, and so I want to be fair to the game. My disappointment in it merely comes from the fact that this is what Corey was doing, because I think we all just assume that God of War's mantle was being taken by someone else, and we might finally get something else out of Santa Monica, literally for the first time since Connecticut. So 25 years. And then these rumors being like, no, it's just more God of War.

Speaker 2:
[104:49] Yeah, the opportunity cost of it not being a new IP from Santa Monica is disappointing.

Speaker 1:
[104:54] That's kind of how I understand people probably feel this way about Horizon, and it really is all about the IP that you're tuned into. I want more... God of War is like Uncharted and like Horizon and a few others, where it's like, you could do this every five years, probably in perpetuity, and be totally fine. See, the problem with Assassin's Creed for all those years, in my opinion, just as an outside observer, was it was just too much. It's not that Assassin's Creed can't be ever present. It's that they were annualizing Assassin's Creed. That's too much.

Speaker 2:
[105:23] Multi-annualizing. Right. Multi-annualizing in some cases, because then they have like that one year, or they had a couple years.

Speaker 1:
[105:29] Or the PS3 version, or the PS4 version.

Speaker 2:
[105:30] Yeah. Where it's just like, what was it? Oh my God. I can't remember. Rogue. Assassin's Creed Rogue, and I think Assassin's Creed. Was it Unity?

Speaker 1:
[105:42] Unity, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[105:44] And it's just like, dude, two games that, there are different games releasing at the same time. That's insane. Like you've lost the fucking plot if you're doing that.

Speaker 1:
[105:53] To me, like, I think there is, that's just way, that's too much to ask out of the players, too much to ask out of a fan. I think for some of these bigger IP, it's like two games a decade is, you could do that forever. You could do an uncharted game like that forever. You can do God of War like that forever. It's where you get all these interstitials and then things start getting interrupted and it's like, all right, so now are we getting another God of War mainline game too? And then you have the God of War remakes and you also had the Blue Point God of War game spun up for all those years and it's too much. I don't know what you don't understand about that. That's too much God of War, just like we were kind of getting in, maybe even getting into that realm with Horizon and so on and so forth. So I understand in this era of expensive development and big bets or whatever, you might want to stick with things that you know, but it's just, I'm just disappointed because I always just read it. It's my own fault for reading it like this, but Cory is like, all right, I'm done with God of War. I'm going to go do something else. And that's just kind of what I assumed. And so I thought it would have been anything else. And I know that this is going to be a different sort of God of War game with different characters. And I think it's going to be very attractive. And I think we said it's like there's no reason to think that it's not going to be great. It's just. I'm kind of sick of God of War. Like, I want to see what all Santa Monica could do to Gorilla's credit, not that they stuck with Killzone nearly as long as Santa Monica with God of War, but like they did move on and gave us Horizon. And I wouldn't mind seeing them move on again at some point. We only get the new things if studios are willing to do so. And I'll just reiterate that we would have never gotten unchartered if they didn't want to, if Naughty Dog didn't want to get off a crash and Jack, and we would have never gotten Ghost without Sucker Punch wanting to move off a sly and infamous, move on. Yeah. All right. Some information also from MP First about Physint. Physint, of course, was revealed, what, 2024? And we know that this is kind of the new espionage thriller coming from Kojima with PlayStation Productions in a second-party capacity. I think everyone assumes it's going to be a PS6 game. I think that's fairly safe to assume. I think in 24 slash 25, Kojima had said they're about going to take about five to six years to make the game, so we won't see it till 2030 at the earliest. But they say here, report Hideo Kojima's Physint new casting details on Earth, teasing a villain. So there's not too much here of interest, but we're, I think this is one of the few games we have to talk about that's upcoming, that's kind of unknown. And so let's give it a little bit of feature here on our show. They write, quote, while we don't have many details since development has barely just begun, we already know some of the cast. True to Kojima's style, the roster features Hollywood talent, including Charlie Frazier, Don Lee, and how do you say this? Minami Hamabe?

Speaker 3:
[108:43] I guess.

Speaker 1:
[108:43] Minami Hamabe? Japanese, I assume.

Speaker 3:
[108:45] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[108:45] Kojima has also noted that further casting, scanning and performance capture for the title would kick off later this year. That process appears to be well underway as we spotted some new casting details that further confirm the character roster is moving forward and that performance capture should be kicking off very soon. These new casting calls offer a bit of insight into the project, revealing its internal code name, which is Shimmer. It's also revealed that Mary Ueda will be the casting director. Ueda is the founder of the motion capture company Pivot Motion, and they worked with Kojima on Death Stranding 2. As for the content of the casting call, while it doesn't reveal really anything mind-blowing, it helps us picture the kind of title Kojima is going for and definitely reinforces his return to his action espionage roots. They write, the calls are looking to fill the roles of multiple passengers on a hijacked bus. Among them are a mother holding her newborn baby, five teenagers of different ethnicities, two other male passengers, and lastly, an antagonistic character with a German accent. Out of these characters, the one that stands out is definitely the villainous type. Interestingly, the roles description is for Mads Mikkelsen in Hannibal but with flair, a nod to an actor we've already seen working with Kojima. A few other small details are provided, noting his complexion is slim and his personality is quiet but intense, and confident in a psychotic way. There's a strong emphasis on the German accent requirement, which makes us wonder where the setting could be, though it's hard to conclude much with so few details. Still, chances are that this role isn't for the main villain but rather a minor antagonist, as an open casting call would be irregular for the type of Hollywood A-listers Kojima tends to cast for lead roles. It's also worth noting that because we haven't seen a trailer for obvious reasons, casting work could be for early vertical slices meant to establish the game's tone. Shooting for Shimmer is scheduled to start around June of this year, which gives us a rough timeline of when we could see the game. Death Stranding didn't start development until 2022 and the game was released three years later, but he said obviously that he wants to go longer and I highly doubt we'll see it this decade. So nothing too interesting there, I suppose, Dustin, but something to add to the record. Where are you on this game? What do you think? Timing, content, I mean, anything to say?

Speaker 3:
[110:50] I want Robert Pattinson to be the lead. There's already been speculation about that. There's a photo of him and Kojima together. And I just think he's great. And I think it would be awesome. I looked up some of these other people that were already cast in the project. The one that the Japanese woman that you mentioned, I lost where her name is on here.

Speaker 1:
[111:13] It is Minami Hamabe.

Speaker 2:
[111:17] Minami Hamabe.

Speaker 3:
[111:19] She is in Godzilla Minus One.

Speaker 2:
[111:22] Yes, she is.

Speaker 3:
[111:23] Chris, you speak a little Japanese.

Speaker 2:
[111:27] Speak a little Japanese for him, Derek.

Speaker 3:
[111:28] Yeah, but yeah, I have no idea. I feel like this is going to take forever. Like, you said not this decade, and I think that's probably right. Mid-PS6.

Speaker 1:
[111:42] Yeah. Maybe should PS6 come out next year. Yeah, mid-PS6 seems to be seems to be a good goal. Sounds like me. I mean, German accent. Europe based in Europe. I mean, it could be Kojima since the very beginning, Metal Gear has had a fascination with the United States, and obviously much of what he does is in the United States. It would be cool to kind of change a little bit, make something more European or foreign to us, home to someone else. I wouldn't mind that. So the German accent, that doesn't really say much of anything, but Robert Pattinson, that's the guy from the vampire movies, right?

Speaker 2:
[112:22] Twilight and Batman.

Speaker 1:
[112:23] Batman, right. I liked him in Batman.

Speaker 2:
[112:26] He's good.

Speaker 1:
[112:26] I actually saw that.

Speaker 2:
[112:27] He's a really good actor.

Speaker 1:
[112:28] Yeah, I like him. Anything you want to add to this, Chris? We're obviously all Kojima fans. We're going to be eating these little morsels up for years to come, I assume, as we learn more about the game.

Speaker 2:
[112:38] Yeah, it's I'm I'm sure I'm looking, dude, I don't know. This thing is so far away that like it's in that territory of like, I don't even know if I should be excited because like who the I don't know, am I going to live that long? Is a bus going to hit me?

Speaker 1:
[112:52] Right.

Speaker 2:
[112:53] You know, it's it's kind of in that territory. It was like, I hope I live to see it, but I hope we all live to see it.

Speaker 1:
[113:00] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[113:02] I look, it's it's cool. I like the talent that he chooses because it's like, it's it's legitimate Hollywood talent, but it's like it's understated. Like I knew I knew these people like from them. Like I know I know Charlie Fraser was in, I think Mad Max and like and what was the Hamabe was in minus one. Don Lee's kind of everywhere. I feel like I feel like I see him all the time.

Speaker 3:
[113:27] He's in that.

Speaker 2:
[113:29] No, I don't. I don't think that's Don Lee. You got that out. I got that out of Don Lee. I've seen like he's because he's in that that game that like may or may not be canceled, right? Like that. Yakuza kind of spiritual success.

Speaker 3:
[113:46] Oh, right, right, right, right.

Speaker 1:
[113:48] Yeah, I wonder what's going on with that. Hopefully they've someone's come in and kind of is working to finish that game.

Speaker 2:
[113:54] Yeah, but. He's I've seen him in a lot of things, too. So like, this is cool. And if there's anybody that I give a pass, like normally, I don't know, man, if I heard that. If I heard that, like, I don't know, Sucker Punch was was casting their next game and they got like. I don't know, Kelsey Grammer for it, I'd be like, whatever, you know, like, I don't I don't know if I give a shit, but like Kojima is so Hollywood and he kind of the stuff that he does with traditional Hollywood talent is so weird and so out there that it almost it's it's almost in and of itself an exciting factor of it that's removed from from like just standard star power for like a standard script. You know, it's going to be weird. You're going to see these like really big names doing some of the weirdest shit you've ever seen. And so that in and of itself is kind of like a more exciting than just seeing like, I don't know, random A-list actor cast in random AAA studio game. You know, like what was that terrible, terrible game that I think you were like really excited about? And that it like, it was the Rockay or something?

Speaker 3:
[115:05] Oh, Crime Blocks.

Speaker 1:
[115:06] Oh, Crime Blocks. Yeah, that's what it was, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[115:09] Yeah, and it had like, I don't know, I don't even remember the names, but it was just like, it was literally just a bunch of recognizable names. Like that's the kind of thing that I usually associate with, but Kojima typically nails it. So like, I'm looking forward to it, but it's so far away that it's hard for me to feel anything about it, really. But I look forward to it and I hope it's I hope it's interesting and weird and cool and exciting and worth the wait.

Speaker 3:
[115:38] I realized my mix up here. Maybe it is racist. Benedict Wong is who I was thinking of in Weapons. He's in only was in Eternals.

Speaker 2:
[115:48] Right.

Speaker 3:
[115:48] I believe at least that's what this screenshot is showing me.

Speaker 2:
[115:51] Yeah, Benedict Wong, I think was in the. Is was he in Doctor Strange? I'm not sure. I don't remember Doctor Strange. I never saw Eternals, so like I never associated him with Marvel.

Speaker 3:
[116:04] Oh, and he's in that gang of Dragon Dragon, right?

Speaker 1:
[116:07] And yeah, that's what he was saying.

Speaker 3:
[116:09] Yeah, I'm connecting all the dots.

Speaker 1:
[116:12] I'm sorry that Asian people all look the same to you.

Speaker 3:
[116:15] Yeah. It's crazy. I go when I'm at Japan, everyone is.

Speaker 1:
[116:20] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[116:20] I'm like, wow.

Speaker 1:
[116:22] I thought you were a little more in tune with your own culture than that, but apparently not.

Speaker 2:
[116:27] Oh my God.

Speaker 1:
[116:28] More first party news here. I'm very curious to see what you guys think of this. This is being reported by Variety, which is of course the well-known TV, movie, film industry, music industry publication. They write Bloodborne video game getting R-rated animated movie adaptation from Sony. They say PlayStation's Bloodborne video game is being developed into an R-rated animated feature for Sony Pictures that the studio says will embrace the carnage that made the game so popular. Is the carnage what made the game so popular? Sanford Peniche, president of Sony Pictures Entertainment Motion Pictures Group, promised during the studio's CinemaCon presentation that the long-rumored film will be very true to the gory spirit of Bloodborne, which follows a traveler who journeys into a Gothic city full of nightmarish creatures. What's with them? Bloodborne was developed by From Software and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment, which shares a parent company with Sony Pictures and PlayStation. The film was co-produced by PlayStation Productions, Lyrical Animation and creator and gamer Sean McLaughlin, better known by his pseudonym Jack Septic Eye. For the uninitiated, McLaughlin is a gamer who has spent years in the world of Bloodborne, whereas digital adventures are tracked by 48 million online fans. The film is the latest in a string of video game adaptations, they write. Sony Pictures and PlayStation Productions recently announced the adaptation of Helldivers, directed by Justin Lin, who is selling several Fast and Furious films. It's another guy for you to get confused, Dustin, there. And starring Jason Momoa. The studio also recently completed filming a screen adaptation of Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda. Wes Ball, the Maze Runner, will direct, with Benjamin Eben Ainsworth and Bo Braggison starring as Link in Princess Zelda. Series creator Shigeru Miyamoto is producing the film. So we have no more information about this. People are really hung up about the Jack Septic Eye stuff. I'm less hung up on that. He is a producer. It's a very important job, but also meaningless, depending on the nature of the producer. We always talk about this. The bigger thing is why are they so obsessed with the goriness? I've never heard... I've played Bloodborne. Obviously you guys have played Bloodborne. I've never heard anyone talk about the gore as the reason. It's the atmosphere is the reason. So I wonder if they're fully understanding this, but what are our thoughts here? Anything to say?

Speaker 3:
[118:29] So I wonder, first of all, if this means anything for some kind of Bloodborne-related game, because let's break this down. With every PlayStation Studios movie thing, they have at least tried to have a game out. OK, Uncharted, they had the Uncharted Legacy of Thieves collection. With Last of Us, they did their various ports and the combo packs, stuff like that. They attempted to make a Twisted Metal game. Did not succeed, of course, but they tried. So could this mean that maybe they're going to try to spin up, even if it's something basic, a Bloodborne remastered? Obviously, we've talked about this numerous times that, especially with all the Bluepoint stuff, that they wanted to do it. They said, no, there's something weird from software. I don't know. I'm just putting out there as a possibility. Second thing, the Jacksepticeye stuff. This is a little weird to me. I don't know Jacksepticeye. I don't watch his content. I know who he is, of course. I have no issue with him. I watched his video on his channel with his announcement of this. I found it a little bit odd because a lot of the video is him like saying, I am I was feel like this is what I was born to do. All of my career has led up to this, and that's great. And he's like, I am the huge Bloodborne fan.

Speaker 1:
[119:58] I have a Bloodborne tattoo. I have these Bloodborne statues behind me. And I'm like, dude, anyone can tattoo whatever they want on themselves, and anyone can spend multiple thousands of dollars on these statues. Like, I don't care. It's what I'm saying is like, good, you spent you invested a lot of money and your own skin on Bloodborne stuff. And he does go on to say, like, he has played plays the game multiple times a year and, you know, his fans about that he's like a big fan. And that's great. But I was talking about this on my stream the other day that have you guys seen the Kanye clip where he's like, I like some of the Gaga songs, but what the fuck does she know about cameras? You know, and I'm like, I like some of the Jacksepticeye stuff. What the fuck does he know about making movies? Right. And you're right Colin, that a producer role can mean a lot of things. You know, it can mean a lot. It can mean a little. I wonder if this is a situation where am I disconnecting? No, you're my good.

Speaker 2:
[121:02] You're good. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[121:03] Chris gave me a weird look and I saw this section thing.

Speaker 3:
[121:06] No, it's it's it's my thing. It's sometimes it'll say like disconnected and then reconnected, but then nothing will change.

Speaker 1:
[121:14] We're good. We're fine. This is subverted. I think I wonder if Sony is going for a play where. The Iron Lung, who is that Markiplier?

Speaker 3:
[121:26] Right.

Speaker 1:
[121:27] You know, you have a YouTuber attached to a movie IP that's a game or a game IP that becomes a movie. It's a very different scenario, though, because Markiplier stars in it. And I believe he put up a lot of his own money, and I think he directed it.

Speaker 3:
[121:42] Also, he made the movie.

Speaker 1:
[121:45] But I wonder if they're looking at that and they're like, maybe we should start attaching well-known YouTubers to these game related IPs. So I don't know. I don't. I'm not trying to diss Jacksepticeye. I don't know him and I believe that he's a big fan. But as Kanye said, what the fuck does he know about making movies? Other than this is a branding opportunity, which I just when I think of YouTubers that I would attach to a Bloodborne movie, I think of Vaati Vidya. But he's the guy. He is the guy that if they were like, he's attached as producer, I'd be like, holy shit. This thing will be amazing if he has power involved with it. So it just feels weird. All of it feels weird to me.

Speaker 2:
[122:31] Yeah. The I don't know anything about this Jacksepticeye person. I'm looking at him now. I didn't even know he was Irish, which is interesting. So I'm totally disconnected from who he is. I know the name. It's an unfortunate name. I'll be honest with you. It's an unfortunate name to go by having septic in your name. Yeah. Not, I don't know. I don't know how I feel about that. But I do think it's an important thing. And you said it, you said it, Dustin, in the reiterators, you go over to Chris is like, producers, there are all sorts of producers. They're all going to be called the producers, an associate producer, an executive producer or whatever. But it's, it's, and I think Chris would know this is like, it's infamous in the film world of like producers that don't do anything. Like the names attached to things. I remember there are like all sorts, you'll see all sorts of weird ass names pop up when you, if you pay attention of things that are happening or whatever. So sometimes it's just like the, a producer is literally the facilitator of things getting done. I mean, that's the easiest way to describe a producer. That's true in games as well. So it could be, and this reminds me a little bit of, you hear this from a lot of actors is like, a lot of people for casting calls and whatnot, like are not even interested in you if you don't have a social media presence or some sort of other thing going on because they rely on that for you to promote their products. It's a symbiotic thing that didn't exist 10, 20 years ago. So there's that as well. So I'm not so mad about it, but I'm also not a huge Bloodborne fan, so I don't really give a shit one way or the other. Chris, any thoughts here to share?

Speaker 3:
[124:07] I mean, I'm not so deeply familiar with Bloodborne or even Jack's familiarity with it. Like I've met Jack, like I think like maybe like twice. He seemed fine, but like there's nothing, I don't know him, you know? So I can't even really speak to anything as far as like, oh, he, the only conversation he had with me was about Bloodborne, you know? I don't even have something like that. So, I mean, it is, it's interesting only because you would imagine that somebody with the following that Jack has and the presumable like financial stability that somebody like that has, attaching them to a project like this, I don't know, is it like a keep us on the straight and narrow kind of thing? Because like, it'd be very easy for them to make decisions, be like, actually, we're going to do this. And then he's like, well, I'm gone. And people are going to know about it. You know what I mean? Like, I wonder, like, because if you do care about that, if he does really care about Bloodborne, then like. It's not not an asset. There's a lot of shows, namely, I think of The Halo Show, because it's the one that's so it's near to me, where I'm like, damn, you could have just avoided a lot of this by just getting even just a. A moderate fan in the in the in the writers room or in like the production hall. And they kind of didn't. And that show suffered because of it. And I think. It helps to have fans in there. On some level, like again, you don't need to be a fan to make the movie. You don't need to be a fan to like, you know, write it. But I do think it helps to have people who like are really familiar with it and really excited about it and really deep into it. Involved in the process, at the very least, to steer the ship. I'm sure there's a lot. There's a lot of series, right? For each of us, we're like, if we were asked to give notes, we'd be in. We'd be in a perfect space because we might not be able to write from like the ground up. We might not be able to structure it or even like figure out the nitty gritty of it. But we can look at a script and be like, that's fucking wrong. You know, or like an outline and be like, no. You can't do that. So I would imagine that, like, maybe that's I would hope that that would be his role and he would he would probably be completely fit to do that. But we'll see. Video game adaptations are getting better. Definitely. And so I think it's kind of we're hitting a stride now where it's no longer a complete death knell to hear that a video game movie is being made. We're approaching that comic book kind of that comic book movie renaissance. I don't know if we have our Spider-Man 1 or our X-Men yet. I don't know if we've we've had that. We've definitely had it success wise. But I mean, like critical wise, I don't know. I don't know if we've necessarily had that yet. But the success of these things are proven and they're being looked at more seriously. And so it seems like they're taking it more seriously. And this could easily blow up in their face because like a YouTuber has no reason not to just leave and make a public fuss about it if things don't go well. And that's very risky. So I don't know.

Speaker 2:
[127:33] One thing I will say that I disagree with Dustin a little bit on is like his his tattoo and his statues or whatever. It's like, yeah, anyone could fake their way into doing that. But it does say something about the kind of person that he is generally a fan that would ink his body or spend thousands of dollars on those things. And it reminds me of like, would you want me involved in a Mega Man project? I have a shit ton of Mega Man toys and my dogs are named Russian Treble and all these kinds of things. It's like, yeah, anyone could do that. But it probably indicates that you might want to have me involved in your or at least like someone like me. So I'm not saying that's like all you need. But I in a producer role, that's kind of ideal. You want to be fair to him, though I don't know him. The other thing that I'll say is, yeah, like what do you know about this? And it's like, I kind of understand that more. And it is different like YouTubing and obviously the production has changed over time and people are very sophisticated on YouTube. There's amazing shit on YouTube. Chris is one of those people that has made that kind of stuff where it's like, this is very high quality. I think that the only way you learn is by doing. And so this could be obviously a huge advantage of his own career, but it reminds me of like when I started getting in the game development and people could say like, well, what do you know about making games? And the reality is, is that like, well, literally nothing, I didn't know anything. I mean, I was around the making of games all the time. I would visit studios and interview people and stuff, but like being in the trenches and doing it, nothing. But six games later, it's like, I know a lot. Actually, we got a funny message. I thought you would appreciate this from someone. It was a joke, obviously, maybe half a joke, where they're like, Colin, you always instruct us on how many codes you get when you release a game and how everyone lies to you when you say they don't have codes. So with that and said, can I get a code for Saintslayer? And I'm like, well, no, I'm swimming in codes, but no, you can't have one. I'm sorry, Dustin, you were gonna say that.

Speaker 1:
[129:30] Well, yeah, I was gonna say that my argument for your situation, it's like, you didn't know how to make games, but you weren't immediately attached to a Mega Man.

Speaker 2:
[129:40] Right, that's true.

Speaker 1:
[129:41] You know, and the thing with, I guess my point about his video that I just found, I don't I don't want to ding him too hard for this, but I just found it odd that he led with I'm a big Bloodborne fan. Look how much money I've spent. And then he said he plays it twice a year. And I'm like, I just I really don't care about your statues, bro. Like I have an Evangelion poster that cost me $150 because it's it's from Japan when it came out. And I had the Collector's Edition. So are you happy I'm involved with the new Evangelion series? Like, no, yeah, I have no business being involved with the new Evangelion. But I don't know, I don't want to sound like I'm taking it so seriously. Like, I don't want him involved because honestly, it's like good. If he's a great he's a big fan and he's attached and he can help market the movie. I think that's a great thing. I'm just pointing out a little bit of the weirdness in his video.

Speaker 3:
[130:33] Yeah. Well, the thing, too, about him is that like if I were him or if I were somebody like him, like if for whatever reason, like people came to me and they were like, hey, we know you're a big Halo guy. You're going to produce this thing. I'd be like, yes, I'll do a better job than all of you. But I would know I would also know who to communicate with. I would also know who to bring on board. And like if I were a Jacksepticeye, the first person I would be talking to is Vati. I would be like immediately like, you've got to be involved in this somehow. I don't know if a producer necessarily has that level of pull, because like the producer is like a very, it's a very tiered system. Like tier, like it's not like producer tier one or producer tier three, but like functionally, that kind of is how it is. There are producers who are in name only, you know. Pinos. And there are people who are like really like, you know, nitty gritty involved and like making, making genuine, like granular decisions on like every bit. Like it's a very kind of nonspecific term. But if he has like any level of leeway, I would be like, if I were him, the first person I would be like, all right, we're going to get this guy involved. I don't know if in like a script supervisor kind of position or like what, but like he should have a consultant. He's got to be there. And I would say the same thing if I was like a halo guy, I would be like, we got to get him experience in here. We got to get like the X, X, X, Y, Z content creators involved because I know it's content creation and I know it's like measly compared to Hollywood, but like these people know their shit. And they're going to be able to save you a whole lot of grief. What are you saying?

Speaker 1:
[132:08] Another person they should consult? Miyazaki. Just an idea.

Speaker 3:
[132:14] Yeah. That would be good.

Speaker 1:
[132:15] The creator of the world of Bloodborne.

Speaker 2:
[132:17] The man who's standing in between us getting the game re-released.

Speaker 1:
[132:22] The man who shut down Bluepoint as Colin stated.

Speaker 2:
[132:26] Thanks for that. I didn't realize you were the king of PlayStation. Appreciate that. Holding everyone hostage with your stupid fucking game. All right. One more piece of movie news. I actually did a lot of research. Well, not a lot, but I went and read about some of what's going on with this because I was so curious because this has been a story for 20 years or so at this point. The Hollywood Reporter, another site that we sometimes source for film and TV news and so on. They write Metal Gear Solid movie in the works from the Final Destination duo as they ink Sony First Look. Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein have become among the more in-demand filmmakers in town. Now Sony has snapped them up for an expansive deal that will cover all of the studio's films labels. They write, quote, just a year ago, Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein were a filmmaking duo with humble indie horror roots prepping to release their first sizeable feature, Final Destination Bloodlines from New Line Cinema. Now, thanks to that movie's critical and box office success, Lipovsky and Stein, who first met 17 years ago as competitors in Steven Spielberg's filmmaking reality show On the Lot, have become one of the busiest movie makers around. They are so in demand that Sony Pictures has snared them, signing the duo to a sweeping and expansive first look deal, which covers all of the studio's films labels. Under this deal, Lipovsky and Stein's newly launched company, Wonderlab, will develop films for the duo to direct and original projects that they will produce for other directors. The focus is creating wildly fun commercial character-driven genre blending films. They are currently meeting potential executives to help lead the company. As part of this deal, the duo will direct Sony Columbia Pictures' adaptation of Metal Gear Solid, the pioneering video game created by Hideo Kojima. It would mark the first time the blockbuster title, a stealth combat action game with sci-fi and spy features, would be brought to the screen. Father and son team Abhi Arad and Ari Arad are producing the feature.

Speaker 3:
[134:18] Oh, no.

Speaker 2:
[134:22] So they get more into it or whatever with Metal Gear Solid. Now, I went and researched this and it's funny you say that. The first rumors of a Metal Gear Solid film are from 2006. I was reading about this that apparently David Hayter himself wrote a treatment that was turned down by executives and that at this point, they wanted Paul Thomas Anderson to direct it. Who I've only ever seen Boogie Nights. I was looking at his filmography and I'm like, I haven't seen any of these movies, but he hasn't done very many. He's done like 10 movies or whatever. Then Snake was going to be played by either Viggo Mortensen or Hugh Jackman. It's really a sign of the times. So interesting.

Speaker 3:
[135:00] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[135:00] And by 2010, that project was dead. Because the big thing is that this is either the third or fourth attempt at getting a Metal Gear Solid movie, depending on how you look at it. So then in 2012, Columbia Pictures, which is the same brand here and Sony has owned Columbia since the 80s, this is when Avi Arad got involved. Now I want to know more about, because I don't know anything about this shit. He's a producer to this day of all the Spider-Man movies. And he was the producer of X-Men and Blade or whatever. So I want to hear more about this, you would know more about this. And at this point, so that there was this 2012 thing, they got involved, nothing really came up. And then 2015, so this is the third-ish time. They wanted Jordan Voight Roberts to direct. And he directed, I think his only film that he ever directed was Kong Skull Island. But he does a bunch of commercials and he did apparently PUBG commercials and Destiny 2 commercials and so on. At this point, they had Oscar Isaac playing Snake. And I thought this was a really interesting piece of the little tidbit here. This never happened, this never went anywhere. And 2015 is the infamous year that Metal Gear Solid 5 came out and Kojima was out at Konami. So that's probably why everything went pear shaped. But you guys might remember that there's a character in Death Stranding called the director and it's Jordan Voight Roberts. That's him. So there's a connection to that third film. So this is the fourth attempt. Now, let's go to you, Chris, first. What's your what's tell me more about this about these guys? Because I don't know. I know the names and I saw their filmography of extensive production credits in the Marvel world, especially. So what are your what are your thoughts here?

Speaker 3:
[136:35] Yeah, yeah. Look, Avi Arad produces a lot like he's definitely he was like pretty instrumental in like the Spider-Man movies early on. He's most famous in my mind as being the person who's like, let's get three villains in Spider-Man 3. You know, like let's let's do three.

Speaker 2:
[136:54] Let's pack it.

Speaker 3:
[136:55] Let's pack it. Yeah, more toys like it's just it's very I don't know. I don't want to say he dooms projects because like ultimately these things make money. I think they make money more so because the IP is just. Objectively, like impenetrably successful like Spider-Man that Spider-Man trailer in the first day got more views like the new one, by the way, the fourth Tom Holland Spider-Man movie. I think that the trailer has like orders of magnitude, more views in like a like a day than GTA 6 had cumulatively. You know what I mean? So like Spider-Man is huge. He's hitched his wagon to a pretty good horse, I would say. But I don't know, like as a producer, like he every time I've ever seen him give an interview, it's just that he's so clearly just like not. I don't know, he's just not the guy, man. You could get better. You could get better people than him. Again, he doesn't doom projects, but he makes he makes them questionable for sure. Based on I haven't kept up with him since back then. But like, I mean, I've seen the Spider-Man movies and they're fine. You know, like they're not anything to write home about. So we'll see, I guess, how this shakes up the other names. I'm not super familiar with, but I've known about Metal Gear Solid movies like coming and going. I've heard I've heard about that my whole life.

Speaker 2:
[138:23] So maybe they'll actually say it seems like they're actually motivated. There's no they're not associated with PlayStation productions, which is interesting. I guess not that interesting because it's not their IP, but you think maybe they would want to use that expertise, which has done pretty well so far.

Speaker 3:
[138:38] I will say before, I think a lot of projects that previously were brought up and killed, and brought up and killed over the generations or over the decades, I think they're going to start coming to fruition now purely because of what I said earlier. We are in this early stage of like a renaissance is too maybe high value of a word, like an early renaissance of video game adaptations, comparatively to like Mario Bros in the 80s or Street Fighter, back in the 90s or maybe even late 80s. I can't even remember when that movie came out. But we are in a different space now where like if something progresses enough, there's a pretty good chance that it's going to be made. Whereas in the early 2000s, things were entirely written, in some cases, casted and set to direct and all these things. Then they just fall apart because I don't know, the industry was too young to figure out how to negotiate these deals. The industry is a lot older now, it's a lot more mature. It knows how to interact with transmedia stuff a lot more than it did in the early 2000s. I think famously, the Halo movie was shot down because Microsoft was like, no, let's not accept any offers. It's brilliant, brilliant strategy because they thought that they could just leverage how in demand the IP was and they were like, oh, well, no, we've got other things to make. What are you talking about?

Speaker 2:
[140:01] It doesn't all hinge on us.

Speaker 3:
[140:02] That we own. So no, we're not going to pay you, we're not going to give you 100 percent toy rights into this or merch rights to this film franchise that we're going to be making, it's insane. So the industry just knows how to interact with these spaces a lot more. I think this Metal Gear movie is going to happen.

Speaker 2:
[140:26] I just wanted to say this before we move on. Columbia, anyone out there watching, Columbia Pictures from Columbia, Sony Pictures, Konami, etc. I'm available to play Fat Man. He wears the big bomb suit. I'm not nearly big enough to be him yet. Maybe by the time this movie comes out. But I played hockey my whole life. I'm great on skates. I love to drink. Now, I don't make bombs. I didn't make a nuclear bomb in my bedroom when I was a child. I love that little lore about him, how he made like a small nuclear warhead or whatever. It's like, how? Where did he get the uranium? The plutonium?

Speaker 3:
[141:08] He enriched uranium as a child.

Speaker 2:
[141:10] But I'm available if they want to put him in there. And I'd love to play him.

Speaker 3:
[141:17] You say you're not as big as him, but they could use like gandalf tricks to make you make you appear bigger.

Speaker 2:
[141:26] I just love the I love that. I love that fight with him in Metal Gear Solid 2, where like you see him at first and he's just skating by. You know, they don't really ever.

Speaker 1:
[141:32] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[141:33] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[141:33] So good. Oh, it's so fucking good that he's so fat that he has to get around skates. All right. I saw this over on Video Games Chronicle. This is crazy just because I can't believe that this guy doesn't know any better. They write Spider-Man model appears to tease new PlayStation game now deleted post. It says in an Instagram post published on Monday, Ben Jordan posted an image of himself gearing up for performance session. The post was accompanied by the message, IYKYK or if you know, you know, and a spider emoji. The post was soon deleted, but not before it was archived on Reddit. Jordan typically works as a model and is only acting credit so far for PlayStation's Marvel Spider-Man games. It's been speculated that the capture could be for Insomniac's upcoming Wolverine game, but with the title due to release this September, that seems unlikely. I highly doubt that's what it's for. Maybe it's for an expansion or something. I just think this is so funny because it's like, what is wrong with you? I don't know, man. I'm so surprised by like, we were talking about, it was Christopher Judge, I think that was getting interviewed by someone or whatever, and he didn't know he was being interviewed or he wasn't being recorded. That's a little different. But you putting this out there with if you know you know with the Spidey, it's like what? And he's doing the Spider like.

Speaker 3:
[142:43] He's doing the Spider-Man, yeah, the fingers, the handsome.

Speaker 2:
[142:46] I'm sure they were thrilled. I'm sure Sony was amped.

Speaker 3:
[142:49] So stupid.

Speaker 2:
[142:50] Chris, Spider-Man 3, you think?

Speaker 3:
[142:53] Yeah, I mean, I would assume. It's about that time, right? You kind of figure. Yeah, I mean, I don't know what else to say. Like, it is funny to me that like. It's our people when when people get a gig like this, are they not hyperprotective of it? The last you replace the guy, right? That's what's so wild about it is like he understands that he's like replaceable because he is the replace.

Speaker 2:
[143:29] He's a good boy.

Speaker 3:
[143:30] So like. And that was for like, I don't even remember. Like, I think there was like some rumor story about like what that originally was, right? Like why that original guy?

Speaker 2:
[143:37] Yeah, I don't remember.

Speaker 3:
[143:38] Because they said it was like, oh, he wanted the new model to match the voice more. And it's just like it matches the voice less. So like, that's clearly not that's clearly not the reason. There's something different going on. But I don't know, I just can't even get in the headspace of doing something like this.

Speaker 2:
[143:55] Dustin, did he blow it?

Speaker 1:
[143:59] Oh, yeah, he definitely blew it. I just I don't know how people aren't trained to some degree. Maybe it's a Spider-Man curse, Chris, with like Tom Holland. You know, because he was always leaking stuff.

Speaker 3:
[144:10] Yeah, he was always spoiling things.

Speaker 1:
[144:12] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[144:13] Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 1:
[144:15] I would kind of hope. I mean, Spider-Man 3 would be cool, but I want the Venom game. I want the Venom spinoff. So I'm hoping it's for that.

Speaker 2:
[144:24] It could be for that.

Speaker 1:
[144:25] But it could be either.

Speaker 2:
[144:26] It's not for Wolverine. It's not for Wolverine unless it is an expansion because Wolverine's got to be pretty much done at this point. Alicia H wrote in and said, Hi, CDC. With Marvel's Spider-Man 3 now essentially confirmed thanks to the photo of Ben Jordan and Mocap circulating. I have to ask how big of a role you expect Peter to have in the next installment in the franchise. At the end of the second game, we see a Peter that is ready to settle down and hand over his duties to the younger, but finally ready Miles. I assume this meant the third game would fully lean into Miles as the sole lead, but with a few Peter moments sprinkled throughout. This would also allow for the trilogy to be equally paced with both protagonists, one focusing on Peter, two on both, and three on Miles. What do you all think? Will Insomniac keep Peter's role as the forefront or make a bold move and have Miles lead in the next game? I mean, I always thought it was inevitable that that was what it was going to be, but he has to be in the game. So I assume that you're right, Alicia, that that's what they're going to do, and I assume that's what you think, too. Chris is to move totally into Miles.

Speaker 3:
[145:24] Yeah, I think that's how the comics seem to be going, as far as I understand. Like, I mean, Spider-Man's, as far as I know now, he's just like, he's not been Spider-Man, Spider-Man for a while. Like, it's really Miles. So I would imagine that the game's going to go that route. I could see them killing Peter because Peter's not allowed to be happy. You can't have that. You can't have a happy, thriving Peter Parker. It ruins it. I can't relate to you. So I think they're going to go with Miles and presumably end it there.

Speaker 2:
[145:58] Yeah, I would have to assume. I mean, that was the whole plan. I mean, during the leak, we learned that the plan was to end it with three and then move into X-Men. Is there a way to? This is like a real Marvel ignorant thing, but like, does Spider-Man ever interact with the X-Men? Surely. Yeah. Well, because I was wondering, like, will they tease it? I wonder if they'll somehow integrate the X-Men or something in it or just in the ending or whatever. I mean, we'll find out at some point. If that's still their plan too, I mean, people might remember the Insomniac League had them doing an X-Men trilogy. So then I think had them signed through 2038 or something crazy like that. So now this is a little disappointing for Insomniac. I think we all agree for that. But I will say this. I saw a tweet going around that was many, many thousands, tens of thousands of times, like retweeted and liked about how Insomniac has just fallen off for people or whatever. And that they're just becoming like a Marvel factory. And I'm like, all right, fair enough. But it is important to understand you don't even need to integrate Miles Morales like the game into this. Spider-Man, I don't even need to look to know that this is true. Spider-Man 1 and 2 have sold more than every Insomniac game ever made combined.

Speaker 3:
[147:13] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[147:13] And the idea that they're going to go back is nice, right? It's a nice thought. But like, didn't we find out that all-time best-selling PS5 games, Spider-Man 2 is, I think, number 2 or 3, and I think Miles Morales is like number 9 or something?

Speaker 3:
[147:35] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[147:35] These are fucking crazy numbers. And Spider-Man 2 is still in the top 20 best-selling games every month. Cumulative across all platforms. It seems to just silently sell hundreds of thousands of copies a month.

Speaker 3:
[147:47] I would imagine that it's the first. I would bet a good amount of money that like Spider-Man 2 and Spider-Man and like, you know, the Spider-Man series on PlayStation is probably, if not the first game that a new PlayStation 5 owner buys, it's it's in that. You know what I mean? It's like that's that's the introductory course. I would imagine it's the most accessible. It's like the most kid-friendly. So like you would imagine that like, you know, even younger players are probably going to jump on to that as opposed to like God of War and Last of Us is like no no seven, no seven or eight year old is like, I want to see what Joel's up to. Yeah, I mean, that's not it's not really in the nine year old's lexicon.

Speaker 2:
[148:29] He wants to play Day's Remastered.

Speaker 3:
[148:32] Right. So like, so I mean, yeah, I mean, it's it's a wildly successful series. It's making them a shit ton of money.

Speaker 2:
[148:41] It's over.

Speaker 3:
[148:44] Insomniac has found their place and it's it's it's it's here.

Speaker 2:
[148:48] It would be ideal to have it both ways. And I think we're kind of having it both ways. Like we are. So we learned a lot from the Insomniac. We also learned that they have this just they have ratchet games in development or at least one ratchet game in development. And it's just like this little line going to take a long time kind of thing. So they're keeping that going. But it seems like everyone else is working on the Marvel stuff. And it would be nice for them to bring back resistance or ideally just make something totally new. We haven't really gotten a new notable game from them and like their own IP since Sunset Overdrive. I mean, obviously, they did some stuff for PSVR, but or for just VR generally for Oculus really. But it's nothing of like a mass market appeal. It would be cool for them to do something else. But I get it. Like at the same time, it's like this is the one thing that is inarguably working for PlayStation first party is like actually the relationship with Insomniac is born incredible fruit. Spider-Man is intrinsically related with PlayStation now, and that's huge for them. So I'm not so mad about it.

Speaker 3:
[149:42] That's a wildly good association to have.

Speaker 2:
[149:44] Yeah, definitely.

Speaker 3:
[149:45] It's insane.

Speaker 2:
[149:46] It's so funny how full circle it is. We always talk about the Spider-Man font on PS3, but also like the Spider-Man move, Sony kind of getting the Spider-Man IP for film during Marvel's dire days and how that all came full circle. Then that relationship was established. They managed to segue it in the games and they made really, I mean, it's just clear by some of the sales. Spider-Man is even bigger than the Arkham games. I wonder what the sales comparisons between those two are. Are the four Arkham games, really even three Arkham games, and then Spider-Man, Miles Morales, and Spider-Man 2, I wonder.

Speaker 3:
[150:21] Yeah. I mean, in modern history, especially as long as games have been around, I think Spider-Man is the default superhero. I think before the games industry even existed, I think there was probably an argument that Superman was default hero, like the guy in his underwear with the cape flying around. Spider-Man is that character now. Every new superhero, like Invincible, it's like you have the, even Invincible, who is like a character of Superman is like, that's a Spider-Man like character. Oh, he's a young kid, he's like, oh, I don't know. You know what I mean? Like all of that is Spider-Man. And so, first through PS1, those games were doing well. Most Batman games outside of Arkham were. Quite bad for a while. I think there were like a handful of like, you know, here and there.

Speaker 2:
[151:10] N.E.S.'s Batman was excellent. That's like an excellent game.

Speaker 3:
[151:13] Sure, but that was like it was the NES to the 360.

Speaker 2:
[151:16] Yeah, it was.

Speaker 3:
[151:17] Was like this like a long, like. Collapsing, but like there was, I think there was like a, I think I could be misremembering this, but I think there was a Batman Begins video game.

Speaker 2:
[151:28] Yeah, there was pretty sure there was around that time.

Speaker 3:
[151:31] I think PS2, original Xbox. And that was a fart in the wind, man. And that was around the time that video game based or like, you know. Movie based video games were doing fairly well. Spider-Man 2 was, you know, it's a pivotal. That's like intrinsic to the game and games industry like that in GTA 3. You're like really early provable data points of like, oh, we can we can do open world.

Speaker 2:
[151:53] That's also the time of like the EA. Harry Potter games and the EA. Lord of the Rings games, which people also liked.

Speaker 3:
[151:59] Yeah. So like, I mean, Spider-Man is just trounced Batman in a lot. It's specifically in this in this medium for a fucking long time. So it's not surprising they've built a good association there. I mean, and they've got a good cycle, too, because when a new movie comes out, it's just new publicity for the game, really. It feeds itself. And so it's going to keep doing that for as long as Spider-Man keeps coming to the theater, you know.

Speaker 2:
[152:28] All right, let's get into this last story, which is quick. And it's that the game catalog is being updated on PlayStation Plus on April 21st with some new entrants. This is, of course, for PS Plus subscribers at the extra or premium tier, so not the essential tier that most of us are at, only if you have access to the game catalog. Some good games in here, I actually thought, if you're interested in checking some of these out. So we have the Crew Motorfest, the kind of that's a Forza-like, a Forza Horizon-like game, and that came out on 2023. That's on PS5 and PS4, by the way. Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered from Guerrilla. That's going to be available at everyone. Obviously, this will be on PS4 and PS5. Remastered is only available on PS5, but if you have the PS4, if you want to play on PS4, you'll get Zero Dawn Complete Edition instead. You have Sega's and Sports Interactive's Football Manager 26 Console, which came out late last year. Sports Interactive, of course, is the Sega-owned studio that is expert at the spreadsheet game, as they call it. Warriors Abyss, I read a little bit about this. I didn't know anything about this game. Warriors Abyss is from Omega Force. Koei Tecmo, have you guys heard of this? This is apparently a crossover, I didn't know this. This is a rogue-like crossover game between Ninja Gaiden, Atelier, Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors.

Speaker 3:
[153:50] Oh my god, it's all my favorites.

Speaker 2:
[153:52] Isn't that strange? I mean, it's a cool idea for them to do something like that for their own fans, but I didn't know that game existed. This one's in here, Squirrel with a Gun, which came from DD Creations in 2024. I always meant to get to this game, but I never did. I always thought it looked fun. The casting of Frank Stone, which is the Dead by Daylight spinoff from Supermassive and Published by Behavior, which of course makes Dead by Daylight. There's the game Monster Train. I did a little bit of research on this as well. This comes from a studio called Shiny Shoe, I think. Came out to PS5 in 2024. There's no PS4 version. This has been on Switch since 2021 and Xbox since 2020, so people have played this game, but I've never heard of it. Then a big one for me, Wild Arms 4 coming, the PS2 classic this month. This is, of course, MediaVision developed Sony published game 2005 in Japan, 2006 in the West. Wild Arms 4 is not very well considered. I don't think Wild Arms 4 is even very good, but I'm going to tell you this. I platinumed Wild Arms 1, 2, and 3, and thus Wild Arms 4, that will probably be a summer platinum trophy, I assume. There's that. People are disappointed, of course, about the inclusion of just one classic game, but it's still a classic game. Albert Hendrickson wrote in about this stone and says, Hey, CDC. It's awesome that the classic collection continues to grow. Today it was announced that Wild Arms 4 is coming out this month, and Time Crisis is coming next month with motion controls. I understand that the cadence of releases bothers some people, but you have to at least admit that if you had this as a physical collection, it would be impressive. Slowly but surely, it has become quite huge. If you tally the price up of the original releases, it's even more impressive. So cut the catalog some slack. As long as it's around, at least we know we will continue to get some retro re-releases. I don't necessarily disagree with you just because it's like, I'm not really here for these games anyway, so everything's kind of a perk. I don't really give a shit. If I really want old games, I'm going to go to Nintendo to do that anyway. They have a much better service for it and a much better selection of games. Did you see, Dustin, I wanted to ask you this. Did you see that they're re-releasing PS3 physical games? No. Yeah, someone has released the Infamous Collection, the Jack Collection, a bunch of random stuff recently. I was thinking of you. Weird. Did you look it up and see it? Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 1:
[156:08] I'm only seeing the YouTube video.

Speaker 2:
[156:10] I'll find it for you.

Speaker 1:
[156:12] They're also making a new Neo Geo unrelated.

Speaker 2:
[156:16] I saw that. The Neo Geo is very nostalgic for me because that was such an impressive machine and I especially loved it in the arcade. But. But yeah, it's interesting that they're doing that. I have to send that to Dagan.

Speaker 1:
[156:29] And it's not like a Neo Geo classic or something. It is straight up Neo. They're saying it's Neo Geo hardware and it plays original Neo Geo cartridges and they are putting out new reprints of Neo Geo cartridges games, which for anyone who doesn't know, is insanely expensive to buy and collect Neo Geo and extremely rare. Kind of interesting, but it is SNK. So yeah, be careful with your money. Dude, so as far as this PS Plus list game, Squirrel with a Gun is a 10 out of 10, seven out of 10 game.

Speaker 3:
[157:10] Hell yeah, that makes sense.

Speaker 2:
[157:11] Makes perfect sense.

Speaker 1:
[157:12] Some of you may remember, I played this over Christmas break last year. I got the Platinum. I love this game. It has many issues with it, but it is so cute and funny and the Platinum is really fun. It's not too hard. I highly recommend it. If you have the extra subscription, absolutely check out Squirrel with a Gun.

Speaker 2:
[157:37] I put the link in here, by the way, the site I'm thinking of is VGP Video Games Plus, which is a Canadian outfit. They have some interesting shit here. I don't know exactly how they're doing this, but it seems like they have relationships, I guess, with some of these publishers or just a lot of new old stock perhaps. But there are some things here that say that they are, well, I don't want to say I know, but people have been circulating that they were reprinting a bunch of PS3 first party things, maybe with Sony's permission. But I don't know if you see it here for you. Like up top, it says Painkiller, Hell and Damnation. And then it says THQ Nordic Variant. THQ Nordic didn't exist when the PS3 was even publishing games. So clearly this is a republish. So people are still getting PS3 games, I guess, through certifications somehow. I don't really, the game must have to exist. I would like to look more into this because the last PS3 game I remember even coming out was, what was that game? Remember that guy that made the old school, he was Canadian, he made the old school games like, Shake Down Hawaii. Remember that came to PS3 and I think he even came to PSP, if I recall. And I say this only because we would, at Lilymost, still make PS3 and Vita games if we were allowed. We would straight up launch them on those consoles. Not physically, but digitally. We would, remember we kept using an old game maker version, like this really out of date game maker version because it worked with Vita. Right. And once you updated to whatever game maker, we couldn't make Vita games anymore. So it's cool to see this, but I wonder what the rules are. And I just thought it was interesting. I wanted to draw out there for you, for any game collectors out there, but I'm sure there's more to it than that. But the whole painkiller THQ Nordic variant means that there was, again, there was no such thing as THQ Nordic.

Speaker 1:
[159:18] Right.

Speaker 2:
[159:20] When painkiller came out. Oh, it's the same thing here with Siberia collection, THQ Nordic variant. I wonder, man, I wonder. Very interesting. Yeah, like the Killzone collection. They have a bunch of Killzone collections. Ratchet collections, so on and so forth. So check those out. All right. That's all we have for the news. Let's get to what we're playing, my friends. And we'll begin with Chris. I don't know if you have anything you want to say, Chris. You said you're still playing Marathon. You're waiting for mouse. We'll talk about mouse in a moment. Is there anything you really, you know, are we all?

Speaker 3:
[159:51] Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I've been. I just wrote down like I done been waiting for the mousy game. Hmm. And they they fucked me by not having a normal release schedule. But now I'm still playing Marathon. It's interesting because it's like it seems like it's a new experience. Like week to week, they keep doing these experimental. Playlist and stuff. There's now like basically a free kit kind of rumble.

Speaker 1:
[160:13] Battle Royale mode.

Speaker 3:
[160:14] It is kind of a battle royale, but it is like people keep saying that.

Speaker 1:
[160:17] I don't agree, though.

Speaker 3:
[160:18] Yeah, like it's not fundamentally a battle royale, but it plays a lot more casually and it is. Pretty fun, like there's like kind of low risk. You kind of get to go out. You get to be a little bit more chaotic. You get to play it a little bit less safe and a little bit less strategic. It kind of becomes a allowed mess, but it is fun to just mess around with the sandbox with no fear, I guess, because it is a really good sandbox. But I've been dabbling with that. They've changed some of the iconography to appeal to yellow paint gamers, as I like to call it. It is more readable. But I also feel like it might be a little bit of a skill issue, a little bit, not all of it, but a little bit. But I don't have much more to say. I'm still really enjoying it. I was really looking forward to being able to. I was hoping to play Mouse PI really late last night and before the show, but they have a weird. I don't like this new schedule they got going on. I like when a game releases at night and I get to play it before bed and I get to think on it, maybe dream about it, wake up, assess whether or not I'm excited to go back to it. This whole 10 AM release schedule thing, not a fan of it, not big on it.

Speaker 2:
[161:37] Yeah, it's funny. I didn't use the letter, but someone had written in asking, with my experience at Lilliemo, what is with that? Can you set the time? I'm like, I honestly don't know. I think it might be where you're like 1201 where you're incorporated or something. Because one of the reasons I like the pre-order games right before the game comes out, like I did with Pragmata, is not only because it uploads the package or downloads the package for you and so you have it ready to go, but it also gives you the little countdown clock and so you know exactly when the game is going to be available. Pragmata is available tonight at midnight. Like from when we're recording this. So by the time you hear this, it will be available. But they had a pre-order and like you said also, I remember this in California, you would get access to games at nine, like you said the day before. I really don't know. I have no idea. So even with Sane Slayer, I'm like, I don't know when it's going to pop up. I hope it pops up at 1201, but I don't know for sure if that's going to be the case.

Speaker 3:
[162:38] I was bummed out. I was getting hyped about it. I was like, yeah, a new game. And then I checked and it wasn't there. And then I went online and they were like, I think somebody had tweeted at them. And then they responded with that stylized map that they always show of the world and the different, like this is when it goes live here. And I'm like, it's a lot more convoluted than just 12 o'clock on the East Coast. But do whatever you want to do, I guess.

Speaker 2:
[163:07] I'm grabbing it now, it's available now. I'm buying it now. Yeah, on the app, on my phone. But speaking of Mouse, Dustin, you've been playing it. And the Demons won't let me sleep road in and said, ola, fellas, just writing to let Dustin know that because he got Mouse PI early and liked it. He's officially a paid shill. Congrats. Thanks for all that you do.

Speaker 1:
[163:27] Thank you. Yeah, a couple of people have comments on my video saying that as well. So appreciate it.

Speaker 3:
[163:32] Yeah, it's fun.

Speaker 1:
[163:34] But yes, I have been playing Mouse PI. I finished it. I'll keep it light here because I know some of you don't really want to hear about it. And if you do want to hear about it, Brad and I talked about it extensively on Summon Sign. And so I'm mostly doing this to be respectful. The people are just excited to jump in. But it is very good, I would say overall. It's a bit of an odd case for me in that. The execution of the style, the 1930s no war, rubber hose cartoon, 10 out of 10 amazing work that they did between all the weapons, the enemies, the environment. I absolutely love that in terms of its gameplay. It is like very standard, extremely standard. And that's not a bad thing at all. If you love boomer shooters, you're going to love this. So one thing that might be disappointing to people, so I don't think they ever pitched it as this, is that while it is called Mouse PI for higher, none of the gameplay involves solving cases. There is like a thing in between missions where you're putting things on a board and you put all your evidence on there, but there's no like crime solving mechanics or anything like that. It is through and through a boomer shooter.

Speaker 2:
[165:01] So that's good.

Speaker 3:
[165:02] Thank thank God.

Speaker 2:
[165:03] I'm not smart enough to solve any cases.

Speaker 1:
[165:05] Yeah, there are there is surprisingly a lot of story and dialogue in the different characters you talk to. Of course, Troy Baker is Jack Pepper and he does a great job. My other small complaint, this game has way too many cheese puns. They are making cheese references and jokes constantly. It never lets up. There's a point where I'm like, OK, enough, like we get it. A cup of fondue after the case, you know, stuff like that. And you're like, OK, I get it. But overall, I really liked it for 30 bucks. It is, I think, worth that price. As Colin said, though, I didn't even think about this in terms of trophies. Once you beat this game, that's it. There's no level select. There's no new game plus. There's no kind of challenge modes or anything. So if there are trophies, I assume, that have related to collectibles.

Speaker 2:
[166:08] Everything's missable, apparently, except for the trophies you get for beating the bosses or whatever the stage is. Because it's, yeah, you collect baseball cards and all sorts of things in the game. So they were saying that some of it's near-automata, where you could buy some of the stuff you missed. But you still have to do certain things to get the things to appear. And because there is no backtracking or new game plus, they suggest that you make a ton of saves, manual saves. You apparently can make 100 manual saves. And so you should just make a bunch of those just to make sure you don't miss anything. But yeah, so that's something I need to know. The trophies are also broken, apparently, like I said earlier. And hopefully they'll fix that in short order. But it looks excellent. I mean, I can't wait to play it. 30 bucks? Not so bad.

Speaker 1:
[166:51] Yeah, it's a fun romp. And I'm going to play Marathon 2, of course. Yeah, last night, I'll just share one little anecdote. I was playing with the now legendary Pork Poncho. We're up in Pinwheel and a rook comes up, which a rook is a solo player that spawns in midway through the match, a scavenger type. And he's on the other side of the door. And Poncho is like, how are we going to play this rook? What are we going to do? And he's like, are you going to kill me? And he's and Poncho is like, no, man, no, if you're going to, if you're cool, we'll be cool. He's like, you'll adopt me. And the pork's like, yeah, he opens the door immediately, blasted him in the face of the shotgun and stabbed him. And I was like, damn, dude. He's like, a rook that's dead is a rook that can't shoot me. And I was like, yeah, God bless. And he's absolutely right. I will never.

Speaker 2:
[167:46] What do you say about the Viet Cong?

Speaker 1:
[167:48] I'll never trust a rook.

Speaker 3:
[167:50] It's hard to do. I had an army of them gang up on me, like like seven of them. I was like, well, that happened on our stream, too. But like they've been they've been congregating, like they've been like, you know, we can revive each other. Yeah. There's like a secret truce now that like all like they're like they've they've formed under one banner. And so like they meet up with each other. And it's like it's it's terrifying. But I don't know. I will say now is a really good time to jump into it if you've been curious about it, because that free kit playlist is really casual and really fun.

Speaker 1:
[168:23] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[168:23] Like if you've been curious about it, if you bought in just for like too intimidated by it, now is probably the best time.

Speaker 1:
[168:28] I support Rook on Rook violence because a Rook, I was in a gang of Rooks and they said they were all friendly. And then I was in drone wing alone with one of them. He murdered me.

Speaker 3:
[168:42] Lord of the Flies.

Speaker 1:
[168:43] In the secrecy of the group.

Speaker 3:
[168:45] It's fucking Lord of the Flies with the Rooks, man. You just.

Speaker 1:
[168:46] And I will never do it. I don't care. I shoot on sight. I don't care if I'm also a Rook. There's no camaraderie. Yeah, they're done. I put the Rook murder sticker on my guns that you can get that has like Rook faces crossed out.

Speaker 2:
[169:01] Oh, really? Oh, really?

Speaker 3:
[169:03] I didn't even know that.

Speaker 1:
[169:05] I don't get me wrong. I'm trying to get the upgrades to spawn as a Rook with a shotgun because I want to do that. Yeah, but if I'm a if I'm a normal runner, you better watch the fuck out because if we're in Pinwheel and we hear you just a footstep, we will find you. We will murder. We will pretend to be your friend and then put a shotgun in your fucking mouth. We pull the trigger.

Speaker 3:
[169:30] I matched up.

Speaker 1:
[169:31] I don't care.

Speaker 3:
[169:32] I was doing matchmaking. I was doing crew fill and I've noticed some people there because you can change your name on, you know, bungie.net or whatever and have have unique and I saw. So the enemies are usually like UESC Recruit or like UESC whatever. And I've seen people change their name to UESC Recruit. So like if someone pings them, they're like, oh, that's an AI. You don't got to worry about it.

Speaker 2:
[169:56] That's awesome.

Speaker 3:
[169:56] And I'm like, that's crazy.

Speaker 2:
[169:58] Love that.

Speaker 3:
[170:00] Smart. But Marathon's still fun.

Speaker 1:
[170:03] It's good.

Speaker 2:
[170:04] Well, as I anticipate, as we all anticipate Saint Slayer and of course, Mass PI for Hire, Saros, Pragmata and so on. I've been playing Starfield. I played Starfield for about 25 hours, I want to say, in game. And Mikey12 wrote in to us on Patreon. This is my friend Mike that I bring up sometimes. He says, ground control to major SS. Maybe you can help me out. I have almost 50 hours played in Starfield since its PS5 release and don't see myself stopping anytime soon. I've enjoyed learning all of the different systems, switching between quests and exploring, customizing certain settings to fine tune the experience and adding a few cosmetic mods. Apparently, this is not a shared opinion across the internet, with most comments being most boring game of all time and total piece of shit, all while I contemplated spot in my personal top 10. Please advise me as to why I'm retarded with bad gaming taste. Thank you for your attention to this matter. I'll hang up my Boba Fett bucket while jumping out of the emergency airlock and listen. Go Flyers. So he and I have been playing this game kind of in parallel and talking over text and we're having very different experiences with Starfield. Starfield is so fucking boring that I like can't even. It's not even that it's bad. It's just boring. It's perfectly competent. There are things to there's lots to do. It's an insane amount of writing and voice acting. There's all there's like over a thousand planets I think you can land on. Which is crazy. At least there's a counter of them. Maybe there's some of them are in a system you just kind of hover above them and study them or whatever. But there's all these different factions. There's a robust main quest. There's space battles and ground battles and deep customization and it's just so boring. And I can't sit with it for more than a couple or a few hours at a time without being like, I can't do this. Like I can't play this. And then I'm like, oh, and I kind of get eager to play it again. I'm like, oh, I'll do something else. And then I find a little bit of fun. And then the game kind of gets in the way of you having fun. Um, it's a strange game. And you could. And what's funny is that I look at it. I'm like, you should have done this totally differently. Who am I to really say? But I'm a hard, I'm a hard so-called hard sci-fi guy. I like that kind of stuff. I like all sorts of sci-fi, though. And I like these kinds of games. I like role-playing games and I like nonlinear games and open-world games. I think this is a game of it being a million light-years wide and an inch deep. And I just feel like I'm spending all my time on load screens, on my ship going from location to location, in these fucking annoying ass menus. Things are just inconsistent and don't work sometimes. Sometimes you just can't look at your area map for some reason. Sometimes you can't just do this. You can't travel to a place because your ship's not big enough. But if you travel to a star closer, then you can travel to that star. It's like this is fucking wildly cumbersome. And I think about Mass Effect. Now, I know that these are different games. Yeah, going for different things. But Mass Effect understood that you could have breadth. Like you'd go to these different systems and you'd mine them and you'd learn about them and it was fun. I loved reading all the fictional shit and that music that would play. Like that very Mass Effect music when you're in the menus and it's very pleasing and you're just learning and you're getting lore. In this game, it's like, no, you're going to land on the game. You're going to go to this system. There's five planets and like three moons. You land on all of them. Then you can scour all of them for flora and fauna and minerals and do all these kinds of things. But you never learn about the place. It's like, so the comparison of the Mass Effect is like, you go to a planet Mass Effect, it's like, here's the fake history of the planet. Discovered at this time, these guys got caught here. They discovered the moon was full of these minerals, whatever. Like some cool story. Here it's like, here's a bunch of data. And here's a bunch of things to do on the planet. It's like No Man's Sky, kind of. Like a really broke down version of No Man's Sky in a way. And I really wanted to like this game. But the thing that Micah keeps telling me, because she's in the room with me while playing it most of the time, and I'm lamenting it, and she's like, dude, everyone told you. You know, like, obviously, there are people that like the game and that love the game. And I think that's awesome. My friend Mike's one of them. And Moriarty, I see what's likable in it. I don't think it's bad. I just think it's fucking boring. It's like, oh, my God, let me just play. Like, let me do something. It's like, dude, I literally did this questline early in like the Sol system, our system, where it's like, go to the moon, talk to this guy, then go to Neptune and talk to this guy, then go to Mars and talk to... It's like, just let me play. Send me somewhere and like send me to a mission and let me shoot some shit and let me be somewhere for like a half an hour or an hour. And that's what Mass Effect got. There was all of these locations, but there was no purpose for you to go to any of them, so you couldn't. It's like, yeah, you could conceivably go... And Mass Effect 1 got into this a little bit where it's like, and everyone hated it. It's like where you could conceivably be like, go here and fucking drive the Mako around and find some shit. And they even did away with that. And I know that the linearity of the increasing linearity as we got to Mass Effect 3 and bothered some people, and it became much less of a role playing game and much more focused on third-person shooter with some open-ended hub world shit and some side quests and stuff. And I understand people's complaint about that, but it actually creates a finer experience. And Starfield should have been somewhere in between those two things. Instead, it seems like it was a game that was made in a bunch of silos. And then like a couple of years before it came out, they're like, all right, what do we do with all of this? And the answer is you make some really bloated, boring shit. I want to keep sticking with it because I see something in there, but it's like, I don't care about the story. The story is boring. You know, about like finding these things and like this secret power or whatever. It's like, I don't give a shit. And then all the side quests are just kind of random. Like, there's so much shit. Like, you can join all these different factions everywhere you go. It's like, it's cool. It's just it's overwhelming. It's it's nonsensical in a way. And I just can't believe how. How trite a lot of it is and how, like how. Annoying a lot of it is. Just everything about it is just fucked up in some weird way. And I don't know, I I can't believe that at one point, people thought this was going to be like the game of the generation. It's like this is. Nowhere near being in the conversation about the conversation about that, nonetheless, being in the conversation or being in that game. So it's funny. And I thought I kind of did. I don't want to say. I kind of bought into the idea that like it, people were being too hard on it in my mind. I'm like, it can't be that bad. Like it can't be. And again, it's not, I don't want to say bad because there's nothing. It's just, I don't know. And I was trying to articulate this to Micah too, is like games can even be boring and good. I know that's a weird thing to say too, but like I've been bored. Like the example I used for Micah was, I think civilization is kind of boring sometimes. You're waiting, you're going through these turns. There are these turns that are really important. And then there is turns where you just things are happening. And you're like, all right, like, got to wait for the next thing, got to wait for the next declaration or some fucking barbarian ship. And it's a little bit trite to get through all this stuff. But then you get to the real exciting part again. There's always something moreing you or something to do. Just as an example. And I always use Gone Home as the example of games that don't have to be fun, but can be impactful and interesting. This game just, it's just, I don't know, man. I don't know. I don't know. Allegheny Hogs got me straighter than Hormuz wrote in and said, hey, Sacred Gents, reports are saying that Starfield sold just 140,000 copies on PS5 in the first week. Assuming these numbers are close to accurate, how do you feel about this performance? I think Bethesda were hoping that the narrative around Starfield would change with PS5, but clearly they should have tried to turn the narrative sooner, so PS5 owners actually cared in the first place. That's the problem. We're going to talk about it later about Xbox's, this idea that Xbox might go back to exclusivity, which I don't think is going to happen, but it could. It's like, yeah, the downside to this is that you gave it so much time. It's the same reason why Forza Horizon 5 did well, is the same exact reason why Starfield didn't, because there was these years of percolation about how good that game was. There are years, fewer years, but years of percolation about this game where it's like, this game is kind of rough, but especially by the game studio standards. In a way, they're kind of lucky that they extracted that much. It's like we were making fun of Todd Howard when he was like, if you didn't like the game now, then you're not going to like the game now, which I thought was one of the great quotes, not verbatim what he said, but basically the idea. It's like, yeah, they were right. I don't know if those numbers are accurate or not. If they come from a linea, I generally trust their numbers, but they aren't rock solid. I'm sure they're wrong about some things. But if it's in the low hundreds of thousands, which it seems like it is, it's like, I guess that's successful. I thought it would have been a little higher than that just because anecdotally, it seems like a lot of people on my list are playing it.

Speaker 3:
[179:44] Oh, interesting.

Speaker 2:
[179:45] But that's meaningless data really at the end of the day. So yeah, I'm not super surprised by its softness. I think, yeah, you gave the game almost three years to circulate about how bad it was. So I mean, the funny thing is, and this is true, and I think Reese from Alenia said this, is that if Starfield came out on PS5 at the same time, it would have sold probably millions of copies.

Speaker 3:
[180:07] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[180:07] So that's the funny thing, you know, is, and that according to him, it's only now past $300 million in lifetime sales, which is pretty bad for a Bethesda Game Studios game. He was saying they made that much money in a month when Skyrim came out. So, yeah, I mean, that's a big, a big difference. So yeah, that's what I've been messing around with. I'm not going to give up on, I'm not giving up Starfield yet, but I'm getting close, dude. And it does seem like it is filtering people. Like if you just look at the trophies, it's like, yeah, a lot of people are not getting far. Probably because it's fucking boring as tears. It's boring me to tears. All right. That's all we have for what we're playing. Let's get into six questions, comments, concerns, thoughts and ideas from the audience as we wrap things up. We always like to wrap things up by hearing from you over on patreon.com/lastdaymedia. You've heard your inquiries throughout the show so far. We put up our thread each Wednesday for $2 enough Patreon subscribers and you can put your inquiries in there. Here are six more that I thought were interesting to discuss. Crafton Picard wrote in, A few people wrote in about this subject and so I thought it would be interesting to talk about. I was a little surprised to hear this, but I wanted to give it an airing nonetheless. Says, Hey CDC, I just wanted to stand up for capitalism after last week's long winded rants.

Speaker 3:
[181:32] Yeah, it needs defense.

Speaker 2:
[181:33] I don't understand why everyone is claiming capitalism is a failed system after a few AAA studios go under, restructure and lay off some people. I understand having sympathy for people losing their jobs, but if there is one thing that capitalism is about, it's change. Government controls and central planning only make things worse. Let's not forget that half the reason for the console price increases are due to tariffs and inflation, which are entirely caused by government intervention in the economy. The market has spoken with these AAA studios. People don't want to pay for this over budget slop. Studios don't need to employ thousands of people to make a bunch of novel assets for generic open world games or first person live service shooters. Are any of you wanting for games? There are more amazing games than any of us can ever can play. And they're coming out constantly. Nobody can keep up. There are plenty of studios that have figured out how to make games at a reasonable price. It's only really some creatively bankrupt Western publishers with bad business models that are eating shit right now. And to that I say good. Let the failing businesses fail. They don't need propping up. Gaming is changing. Everything is always changing. That's the beauty of capitalism. It's creative destruction. You have to embrace it and not lament the fact that things aren't the same as they used to be. Movies have changed. Music has changed. This isn't a failure of capitalism. It's a success. Anyway, I hope you're looking forward to Pragmata as much as I am. Let's all reward Capcom like true capitalists and buy their game. Yeah, Chris, this was the first one I came across. I thought it was the most eloquent, so I used this one. But a few people wrote in about the same thing, saying like, oh, let's take it easy on capitalism. I want to be clear. I mean, if it's not clear, I am a capitalist. I think capitalism is a wonderful economic system. I'm simply stating that you have to mind the garden sometimes. You can't let it get overgrown with weeds. You got to make sure it's getting appropriate sunlight and water, because then it becomes a bastardized version of what you're looking for. We can reduce what's going on in games or anywhere else in the market for numbers on a spreadsheet and people getting moved around, these people get laid off, 10,000 people get laid off, 5,000 people get laid off and all the rest. But you can't let a system like capitalism spit people out with impunity and expect that capitalism will survive regardless of how effective of an economic system it is. That's all I'm saying is you got to mind the shop. People are the cogs of these machines. And you can't be so flipping about it that it's not part of the equation of what you talk about and why things matter. There's no doubt that a lot of studios are dying because they're simply ineffective. They lack the requisite talent. They don't have the right product. All those things are true. And you say creative destruction. I used that exact term last week. That is what it is. But watch... Let's not be flagrant about people's lives, about the necessity of having people gainfully employed and what it means to not have them gainfully employed. That's all I mean. Capitalism obviously gives us video games. There would be no video game industry without capitalism. It's not a natural thing. It's not a mercantile fucking market where you're trading wheat for Japanese role-playing games. So I understand. I'm not one of those people. Because I do think there's a real dissonance and a disconnect when people complain about capitalism in the games industry sometimes where it's like, what are you talking about? We're all here because of capitalism. But got to control it. Chris, you don't seem to think that this deserved any sort of defense.

Speaker 3:
[185:10] I wonder what I just think it's like if you're a real As a capitalist, you wouldn't have done this. You wouldn't have defended it for free, first off. Problem. First rule of the game, really. But I don't know, I just think, I just find a lot of it to be very, I don't know, the whole, oh, government versus corporations. Corporations are governments. Like they're micro government, like their own, they're their own monolithic, like systems with their, with exorbitant pull over our actual government. So that's kind of the issue, right? It's like, and this, by the way, extends beyond the games industry. And I think the games industry is like the least important part of all of that. And I'm not even like saying that, like certain systems shouldn't be profit motive motivated. There's a lot of systems that should be. And arguably, games should be one of those. But like also, like I just don't think it's healthy to have, all I'm really saying is that I don't think it's healthy to have a system that rewards cutting corners and, you know, squeezing as much as you can out of an individual like anything. And then not really being beholden to the people who got you there in the first place, who got your success. I don't think it's healthy to have strangers with a lot of capital come in and be like, we'll fucking invest in your company and not care about the product and then ruin it. Like, I just I don't think it's a good incentive to have. I don't know. I just think it's it's busted in a lot of ways. And it's not to say that people can't be rich. I think it's great that people can be rich and, you know, make a shit ton of money off of something that they love. That's cool. And I would want that to continue to be the case. It's just. I don't know. I don't like that my games are covered in fucking skins for twenty dollars. And like, I don't know, it's just like it feels like. They're just wringing everything out of these things, and I just I preferred it when it was a little bit more holistic and when it was still capitalist, but it was just a little bit more, I don't know, considered it, consider it or like. Ethical, I don't even want to say ethical, because theoretically always unethical, like there's, you know, there's always somebody being stepped on in some way, shape or form, but you got to pick your battles with that at a certain point. But like, it just felt to me that the games industry as I was growing up, yes, it's corporations, yes, it's money-motivated. Yes, it's, you know, you want to make a profit. But I just felt that they were a little bit more, I don't know, like respectful of how you felt about their desire to get money out of you. Like they were like, hey, we want your money. That's obvious. So let's make something really great. And like that demands your money. Where you're excited to pay it. I remember being excited to but to pay money for games. You know what I mean? And there's a couple of games that I still am. But like it's significantly died down for me, where I'm just like, I wonder what the catch 22 is for this. Oh, yay. A battle pass, you know, like, oh, yay. You know, half the game has been cut out and it's going to be sold, sold to me later. It's like, I don't know, it's depressing and it is worse. And it is a result of just kind of unchecked, you know, like this, this insatiable appetite for more at the expense of, you know, the health of not only the player base and the people, but like the people who make the stuff that we like. And so, I don't know, it's more complicated than that, but you shouldn't charge, you should charge for your services.

Speaker 2:
[188:49] Yeah, you fucked up.

Speaker 3:
[188:50] You fucked up.

Speaker 2:
[188:51] Dustin, anything you want to add?

Speaker 1:
[188:53] Yeah. So, Captain Picard, I don't want to be too hard on you because you've written in many times, always with good write ins, but. And it's hard because I also, as we've said many times, do not remember entire conversations from previous, previous episodes, let alone anything that happens. But I do feel like this is a little bit of an online moment where it's like. We were very critical. And because we didn't mention the positives, which I believe you did, Colin, it's like, oh, so you guys, I need to defend this. And it's like, no, no, no. Like, I think that basically everything that Captain Crafton Picard said is true. And we had, you know, that his what he said, his defense can be true. And all the criticisms that we laid out are also true of capitalism. And I think thinking back on our conversation, at least from my point of view, my main criticism is the stock market and how the constant fiduciary duty to make more and more and more and more money has oftentimes resulted in a lot of the problems that we're seeing, not just in video games, but in everything where it's like, oh, like, for example, someone like Chipotle, where it's like, oh, well, we need to be able to make more money. So let's start squeezing our customers a little bit. Let's start upping the price enough that they'll still buy, you know, because they like us. And it's like, oh, well, now we're going to lower the amount of food you get. Or in the case of video games, that's Chris was mentioning, like more skins, more monetization, things like that, where it's like, yeah, there is definitely something to be critical where it's like. And this is a point that you always touch on, Colin, is like, why can't enough be enough at certain points? And you do see that from privately owned companies often, where it's like, yeah, everyone's happy. Everyone's made a lot of money. We don't need to make money for other people that are only, I mean, I guess, financially involved, but passively involved in some way. So I think I'm perfectly happy of what I remember to stand by all of our criticism from last week and also acknowledge what he said is, yeah, definitely true.

Speaker 2:
[191:18] I think I also agree. I agree with what you said, and I agree with a lot of what he said as well. And I agree with a lot of what Chris was saying. I think all of these things can be true. I think that the, there are some just common things that you have, not common, there are obvious things that you have to consider when you're thinking about these issues. And I think one of them is, you have to have people to buy your goods. The idea of capitalism is to have circular spending where things prop each other up. And it is true that both tariffs, which I support, and inflation, which no one supports, are both caused exclusively by governments. That's true. And that's one part of it. But you can't go in the other direction and go to this gilded age, 1880s, 1890s, like insane wealth disparity, no concern for anyone, no labor laws, no unionization, no nothing. I don't know what people think is going to happen to capitalism. If people don't benefit from it on a per capita basis, the average person should be benefiting in material ways from capitalism or the system is going to be undermined, and that's what I'm talking about. So all the things you're saying are true, but I still think you need to have some sort of control. And yeah, what is enough? That is a question worth asking. I've said it a million times. I don't mean it to be a dickhead. I could have extracted way more money out of this operation, believe me, in a million different ways. But it's like, I don't want to live like that. Have covered with ads for the products that we cover, right? That we talk about, it's like, they're going to pay us so I can get more money. More money is great. I want more money. I just want to get it a different way. The thing that I think is a shame about the short-term public company thinking is that they have to feed the next quarterly statement or the next yearly annual fiscal statement, and they can't make mid and long-term choices that would make them more money later. That's the major problem with a lot of these layoffs. On one hand, these companies have way too many people working for them. I've often said that, a lot of the tech companies. On the other hand, there's really no attention paid to the longevity of a company when you have to hit these quarterly earnings. It's like kind of what's happening with Xbox. It's like, yeah, we have these margins stuff, but it's like, yeah, but you're in a different fight in the minute, in the minute to minute thing. Like you have to do different things to survive here, and then there's all different long-term goal. You can put those together, but it's going to take planning and sacrifice. So, I don't know. Maybe it's too humanistic to want those kinds of outcomes. And maybe it's me putting too much unspoken virtue into the market. But it is a system that has revolutionized the world. You have to be careful with it, because the other solutions to capitalism are not good. And you want to know what doesn't exist in some of those systems? Video games, or anything close to it, comrade. So, you want to be...

Speaker 3:
[194:46] Yeah, we're going to, we're, we're, we're capitalizing ourselves into that situation right now, man. That's, that's the issue.

Speaker 2:
[194:52] It feels that way.

Speaker 3:
[194:54] At what point do you not go like, well, we can't have a fucking 50% unemployment rate, you know, because that, at some point, that is going to happen. Like there will be like just machines and AI doing fucking the majority of things, maybe not in our lifetime, potentially, maybe though. So, I don't know. What do you do in that situation? Like, how ethical is it to just like let 50% of it? You know what I mean? Like, you have to address those situations. You have to cut those off at the root before they happen, before that's necessary, if you want to keep things going. And if you don't, then well, everything's.

Speaker 2:
[195:30] Well, that's why I think it's worth pruning now, as opposed to dealing with the solutions later, because the solution to really high unemployment rates is universal basic income. What we've learned, but we were talking about the inflation from COVID, that was caused by a form of universal basic income. So you would think that people would be like, oh, that's going to be bad news for the dollar. We should probably figure it out now, but no one cares about anything beyond what they can see in front of their own faces. And, I don't know, I feel like I'm a little, I feel almost stupid sometimes that I shouldn't extract even way more value. Because I'm like, well, fuck it, no one else gives a shit.

Speaker 3:
[196:12] Yeah, that's kind of what I'm thinking.

Speaker 2:
[196:13] But part of me is like, I don't still feel like you can make individual change, or at least try to do things the right way, and let the cards fall where they may, I guess. Yeah, Leon Scoliosis Kennedy wrote in, I don't know why that name, he says, hey, Sacred Lads, perhaps not newsworthy, but something that may be of interest to you. As predicted, we are beginning to see the start of games being marketed as AI free. Last week, the devs behind PhantomBlade Zero put out a tweet declaring that the game is in the final stages of development. Following this, they made clear their stance of the use of AI saying, quote, every single piece of content in our game has been crafted by the hands of real artists. We will not use AI visual tech that could alter our artists' original creative intent, end quote. Well, one might split hairs with a statement with the phrasing visual tech, possibly obscuring other ways AI might be involved in development. I think it's a step in the right direction. AI might be here to stay, but it's promising to hear developers swear it off. What do you gents think? As always, take care and have a lovely day. I bring this up for one reason. We're all tired of talking about AI, so we don't have to get deep into the AI conversation. I wanted to bring one thing up though about the use of AI. I was thinking about this, and this is a totally honest thing. We were talking about this at Lillimo, and I think I had brought up that we have a no AI policy as far as our art and all the visual stuff, the audio, all the rest. Really, that means for anything, the writing, none of that. But I was thinking about it where I was like, but as I was searching Google, as I was writing the story, Gemini told me a lot of stuff and pointed me towards a lot of things. I didn't verbatim copy any of the stuff, but one of the things I asked was like, give me a list of 20, or what were the most popular names of men in the Holy Roman Empire in the 17th century? Then it gives you a bunch of links, but it also gives you the list. I was like, is that using AI? Am I going against our own our own mantra of not using AI? But I'm not trying to use it. And my the end result of what I'm doing is the writing.

Speaker 3:
[198:24] Sure.

Speaker 2:
[198:25] And the writing is not AI at all.

Speaker 3:
[198:28] I think the moral obligation is generated AI wholesale. Like, I think that's the issue is like you're asking a machine to create something. You're taking credit for it and then putting it in the game. I don't think using AI as a search engine or like basically Siri. Qualifies in the same way.

Speaker 2:
[198:47] Yeah, I think you're probably right. Because that was just where my mind was where I was like, I wonder if it's disingenuous to say. And then that's what I was thinking of. I'm like, what should we have a declaration of no generative AI because AI is kind of implementing itself into our own workflow in terms of like, well, if I'm using Google, I'm Googling the same exact way as always. I'm just not clicking on as much as I used to, which is the entire idea of this Gemini push. But yeah, it's just something I was thinking of to be fair.

Speaker 3:
[199:15] I was like, well, yeah, I mean, if you didn't verify, if you just took its word for it, you know what I mean? It's like, oh, I guess Sally is a medieval name. And you didn't look further into it. I guess you could make kind of an argument that you're relying too heavily on AI, but even that still wouldn't be generative AI. I don't give a shit like there's so many AI. There's so many AI tools that people use all the time that have never bothered me. Like procedural generation in open world games, like Morrowind and Oblivion were made with like, you know, with that model where they procedurally generated the world and then they carved their own spaces into it. But I think it's fine, there's really no issue there. The issue really is ultimately like, oh, we're siphoning the collective art of like millions of people against their consent, by the way, to build a unique asset, not by hand, but just by just a prompt, putting it in the game and then crediting myself as like a 3D modeler or something. You know what I mean? Like that's the contempt, I think. I don't think anybody gives a shit if you googled something and Gemini told you something and you verified it.

Speaker 2:
[200:38] Yeah, one of the things that I find so useful about, because again, I have ChatGPT on my phone, but I really don't use it for my workflow. I just ask it weird shit. And then when I am researching or writing on my computer, I use Google. And so Gemini just comes up often. One of the cool things that I think both of them do is they give you the links to everything. So you can just go verify. It's like, oh, here's a record of names from the Holy Roman Empire that we're sourcing, and then you can go and verify. So it's cool. But yeah, I just wanted to throw that out there. It's like, if anyone's considered that. And what it means is a no AI declaration, if it really should be gen AI, which I think you're right. And then if you differentiate and then people are like, well, why you? So what do you do with AI that you don't want to say? And it's like, I don't think I'm doing anything with it. But AI is it's what I was saying last year when I discovered it with with game guides, where I was like, it's kind of the really elite search engine, you know, you can't deny that. It's amazing for that perspective.

Speaker 3:
[201:36] It it used to be it used to be better. I found now that it just gives me like a lot of just wrong shit. And it's just like, all right. Well, I haven't tried it in like a couple of months because I just I remember I I googled something through ChatGPT and then it like it told me something that I knew for a fact. It was just not true. And I was like, oh, well, I'm I'm kind of done with this at this point. You can't even do the one thing I needed you to do, which was be a better search engine than Google would be. But yeah, I don't know. I think. I mean, there's an argument to be made like AI as I know people are sick of me saying this, but like AI as we're calling it is not true AI anyway. It's not really what we imagine in our minds is like sci-fi AI. And I know some people are like, they're working on it. I'm working on it. But I'm trying to build AI. Leave me alone. But I just feel there's an argument to be made that there's some level of like dumb like incredibly trivial AI involved in pretty much everything that we do anyway. Like if we're if we're typing out a thing and then like the red underlined thing in Microsoft Word tells you you've spelt a thing wrong. That's not AI in a traditional sense, but it is an automated program telling like guiding your direction and like correcting you. It's like, hey. You you fucked up here, you should change this. You know what I mean? That's a computer essentially like influencing your workflow. It's like, well, I meant to dispel it. And you can actually like choose to ignore it. You know what I mean? Which so I don't know, I don't get too hung up on like these minor tools. The issue is like really like the plagiarism of of just stealing models and stealing art styles to the point where like, it's just you could tell when something's AI now because it's it's such a mix of every art style that exists that it's become this like. Trite, really obvious to spot, it's got that piss filter over it for some reason, always very odd. I wonder why that like where that comes from, but I think that's where most contention is and where most contention should be, really.

Speaker 1:
[203:45] But, yeah, I agree, Chris, that we need to we need to have more terms of what kind of AI and it exists, but people just don't use them. I think you saying generative is a really good point. It's reminded me because I was thinking like, I bet you pretty much every triple A game uses AI to some degree. Oh, we're using the broad term AI. It made me think of when Maddie interviewed Ken Levine. Maddie asked him about AI and he basically, I was looking over some of the transcripts and he was saying how he wasn't really that impressed with it in terms of most game development things, but he mentions that when they're training people, they're using AI as like a data repository. And so it holds all of the stories information and all of the different threats it can go on because of its crazy building block story structure. He said we even use it for training people when they come on board because it's interestingly like we have a database of our entire story. So if a new writer comes on and they're working on a script and they're like, hey, what is this? Why is Tom asking Hope about this? You can ask our story database and we'll give you an answer. Very interesting. So could you use the term and say, well, Judas is using AI for development? It's like, well, yes, technically, along with, as I said earlier, pretty much every other AAA game and probably smaller games too. But we have to be clear on what kind of AI. How is it being used as a tool? Because it's very important. And why we were still figuring out the vocabulary of all these things because it's so new.

Speaker 3:
[205:32] Yeah, it's also not accurate to what we even in the public consciousness have assumed to be AI. When we think of AI., we think of a truly simulated human consciousness that's like whole, like from all the sci fi that we've ingested over time. And we're not even fucking close to that. I know some people are like, they're building it in secret.

Speaker 2:
[205:50] It's there. It's real.

Speaker 3:
[205:51] It's like, OK, all right, brother. But what we're dealing with on a day to day is not that. And it's not even anywhere close to that. So that's that should be the main focal point. If we build them, if we build a real, like, synthetic human consciousness, that's fucking crazy cool.

Speaker 2:
[206:11] It's ethically dubious, but like, it's dangerous.

Speaker 3:
[206:13] I'm interested. Yeah, I mean, but that is what we're, I mean, presumably that's where the science wants to go. Maybe I'm just too ingrained in sci fi right now, but it could be interesting as fuck. I mean, that's the thing that's so frustrating is like, I would actually be genuinely interested to see what kind of art an actual AI makes, you know what I mean? Like just a completely like what a computer that thinks it's a person, like what art would it make? I would be genuinely curious to see that. If it's just a database being like, this is from fucking Bloodborne. Like I don't give a shit at all.

Speaker 2:
[206:50] Yeah, it's something that learns like that, like yeah, like can be nurtured.

Speaker 3:
[206:55] Right.

Speaker 2:
[206:56] Yeah, that would be very interesting. It is fascinating with what do they call it? A biogenesis where it's like the creation of life and you don't know how to do it. That might be the only way to do it is through silicon and stuff. It's fascinating. ZW wrote in and said, CDC, with the new Super Smash Brothers, and we visit this every so often, but I want to talk about it now, with the new Super Smash Brothers release all but guaranteed in the next few years, what do you think that the likelihood is that PlayStation would allow their characters to appear in the game? If it does happen, which three characters make the most sense to represent PlayStation? Thanks. Dustin, we have 0% chance. I was going to say we have a little bit of movement, right? Since we've discussed this last, I mean, some game, Nintendo IP has gone, or I'm sorry, some Sony IP has gone to Switch, like Patapon and Freedom Wars, Horizon, Sony Pictures is working with Nintendo on the Zelda movie. There seems to be a little softening between the companies. I mean, that's, I think that's a somewhat substantial thing. These companies don't like or didn't like each other at all. And I still think it's Sony keeping them out, not Nintendo. So you say, but you say zero.

Speaker 1:
[208:12] I'll OK, I'll change it to one.

Speaker 2:
[208:13] One, one percent.

Speaker 1:
[208:14] It's not completely impossible, but I don't know. I just don't really, I don't see it happening. I don't see that Sony want. I'm sure they're fine. As you mentioned, with certain games coming out, Horizon, the Lego Horizon. But I don't know if they want their characters appearing in a Nintendo game. I think that might be a bridge too far.

Speaker 2:
[208:42] Yeah, it's weird because it's like, why not?

Speaker 3:
[208:45] Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 2:
[208:47] Why would you want to be there? Yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 3:
[208:50] Well, I just think the framing is a little bit funny. Do you think, what's the likelihood that PlayStation would allow their characters to appear in Smash Brothers as if Nintendo is like, please, can we get Deacon St. John?

Speaker 2:
[209:05] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[209:06] It's Super Smash Brothers. Let's be real. If anyone is to benefit from it, it would be Sony to have a Kratos appear in Super Smash Brothers. That's huge and Nintendo is perfectly fine not doing that. I doubt they give a shit really. So the framing is a little bit funny. That's not to say that I don't think they're IP that are worthy of it. I always viewed Smash Brothers as this thing that should evolve into a celebration of the broader industry. I know that's not Nintendo's responsibility or motivation, but it does feel that way. You have Banjo in there, you have Solid Snake in there. The lines are kind of blurred already. So it would be cool to see, it would be dope as fuck to see Kratos and Master Chief and Mario fighting in a real Super Smash Brothers game. That'd be really exciting. But that's ultimately up to Nintendo and I just don't think they're that. I'm sure Sony and Microsoft would be chomping at the bit to do that.

Speaker 1:
[210:16] You might be on to something, Chris, a little bit, that it also might be that. I don't know if Nintendo doesn't want it. You have to imagine that Microsoft. So there are Microsoft characters technically in Smash Brothers with Minecraft, Steve, Mike and Banjo and Banjo. But we don't have Master Chief or Marcus Fenix or Doomguy or something, which I mean, those may or may not work for various reasons. I don't think Doomguy will ever be in Smash. No, I don't think that would fit. Dude, if he like chainsawed a Pikmin in half. Captain Olimar.

Speaker 3:
[210:58] And that part that part is is rendered in Unreal Engine 5.

Speaker 1:
[211:02] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[211:02] And only that.

Speaker 1:
[211:05] I'm sure Microsoft will love that. But I think Nintendo wanted specifically the games that had, you know, presence on their platform with Minecraft in Banjo for many years ago, of course. But but I guess the other OK. So the other part of this question is who would be the three characters? From Sony, Ratchet and John Hunter from Bloodborne. That'd be John Bloodborne.

Speaker 3:
[211:32] It would have to be Ratchet, Ratchet and Clank. You could even argue Jack and Daxter, although it's like not a relevant IP anymore, like they fit with the vibe. Of Nintendo.

Speaker 2:
[211:45] Sly Cooper would be cool.

Speaker 3:
[211:47] Sly, those are the obvious ones, because they're the most Nintendo coded.

Speaker 2:
[211:51] Yeah, like I wonder if that was it, because you had said Kratos, Dustin, which I think is interesting. I've always said Drake, I think would be hysterical in it. I wonder like what, and Sackboy, obviously, I wonder, and even Astrobot and stuff, like I wonder what, where, if they even had one choice, because it wouldn't be three, it would be one to start. It would be like, who would it be? Kratos might be the best one to do, but I think that's kind of lame. Like it would be cool to do one of the more cartoony ones. Not that everything, like obviously the Fire Emblem characters and Snake and other, it's Cloud and the Belmonts and everything, like these are not cartoony characters, but they fit. I think Sackboy would be funny, but it's kind of obscure at this point. You'd really have to use it for the pop, like it has to be something good. I don't know. Ratchet and Clank might be the best, have an ice climber kind of approach or something.

Speaker 1:
[212:39] I think, well, this has kind of gone out the window, but I think they've, who's the guy? Who's the what? The main Smash Brothers creator. What's his name? Sakurai?

Speaker 2:
[212:50] Sakurai.

Speaker 1:
[212:51] Yeah, Sakurai. I think he said before that it's very important when they're using a character, they have to envision what the moveset is. You know, so like. What does Sakboy do?

Speaker 2:
[213:01] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[213:02] Other than jump.

Speaker 2:
[213:03] Yeah, Kratos is Kratos has a lot of options.

Speaker 1:
[213:07] A lot of options or even Astro Bot. It's like he doesn't I guess he has different abilities because he like picks up the different suits and stuff when you're playing. So maybe he would have a little bit.

Speaker 2:
[213:18] I think Drake would be cool, too, if they could lean into the guns, you know, like have him have all the different guns, which I think would be cool. Snake kind of does that. So but it wouldn't really fit. I just think that that would be really funny if they were able to do like a real Nathan Drake.

Speaker 3:
[213:32] I charted for Nathan Drake.

Speaker 2:
[213:33] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[213:34] Most inappropriate characters. Heavy rain guy.

Speaker 2:
[213:39] Oh, yeah.

Speaker 3:
[213:41] He he he.

Speaker 2:
[213:43] Ethan Mars. I remember I remember when we at at IGN, I've said this before, like it was so fun to cover PlayStation All-Stars because when it was still called Title Fight, because we would just make up all these these fake. I would work with the art team and they would make like a fake roster picture and we would put Ethan Mars in there. Like there would be like really cool shit that would be obscure and would like Fat Princess would be dope. Like there are characters where it's like if in a perfect world you even had 10 selections, you could really get into the nitty gritty and certainly get into like Fat Princess would be awesome and others but yeah, I don't know. It would have to be something like Kratos, I would imagine, maybe Aloy.

Speaker 1:
[214:20] Abby with a golf club.

Speaker 2:
[214:22] Yeah, that would be if they had a sense of humor, which they don't. No. That would be fun.

Speaker 1:
[214:30] Her ultimate smash ability, dude.

Speaker 3:
[214:33] That's great, yeah, it's the full seed.

Speaker 1:
[214:35] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[214:36] I don't think it's a 0% chance anymore. Like I really feel like it could happen. And I think that would be sick. And it's what I said. I think Nintendo would allow it. That's what's funny to what Chris was saying is like, I don't think Nintendo is begging. I don't think they give a fuck. But I think if the two sides came together and Sony was like, could we get like, I think Nintendo would allow it. I really think it's Sony that's being like, because why wouldn't they allow it? They have all this Xbox shit in there. Now, I know that the relationship between the companies are different, but their fan base, like the Nintendo fan base, is much more associated with PlayStation than it is with Xbox. The Japanese nature of the companies, the old IP and the old schoolness of it. It will be really, really fascinating for that. Is Crash in the game?

Speaker 3:
[215:24] No.

Speaker 2:
[215:24] That's the thing I wonder.

Speaker 3:
[215:26] That's the thing where it says, if it was going to be any Sony IP, I feel like it would be Crash.

Speaker 2:
[215:31] Then Xbox could just do it for them.

Speaker 3:
[215:33] Right. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[215:35] And Spyro.

Speaker 3:
[215:35] I don't know. Spyro would be interesting. Yeah, like there's so many characters that really belong in that game that aren't and so many characters that are in that game. Then I'm like, why did you waste the spot for that? Why there's seven fucking fire in the fire?

Speaker 2:
[215:49] And shit gets me so annoyed. Like it really I know it's a joke, but like it annoyed me when there was like when there was like three of them, I was like, whoa. What is it with these wasted roster spots? And now it's like, it sucks.

Speaker 3:
[216:01] Especially because they all played relative like it's just like it's a guy. It's another guy with a sword. You know what I mean? It's a stick. Oh, the fucking 17th stick man. Great. Like it's just the opportunity cost in my view was just like so high. And like three was like fine because you had you had Mario Luigi and like you had like a bunch of Mario, which Mario should get quite a lot of shine. But three was fine. Four was, you're pushing it. Five was, what are you doing? Six was fucking egregious and it just keeps getting worse from there. And I'm just like, bro, you could have had crash, you could have had all sorts of all sorts of like really hype, like really incredible placements. Instead, you just got like Marth number five.

Speaker 2:
[216:45] Yeah, it's it's awesome.

Speaker 3:
[216:48] Great choice.

Speaker 2:
[216:49] If they could keep the balance, because obviously the thing about Smash is that it's expertly balanced. I know that there are better characters than others, but like the game is fairly playable. It's not like Marvel versus Capcom 2, where like there are characters in that game that just really aren't like no one would play as, unless it was like a joker, like you wanted to like serve. Right. Exactly. Or role or like characters like that, where it's like there's no purpose of playing with these characters. If they can keep the balance well, it's like why wouldn't you could theoretically over the years, get hundreds of people in Smash Brothers. That would be what would be kind of cool is if they were leaning into that. We always talk about the meta of metas with Fortnite, but if they leaned into the meta of fighting games, because isn't Ryu in Smash Brothers?

Speaker 3:
[217:30] I'm pretty sure he's in Ultimate. I remember that being true. It's been a while since I played Ultimate though.

Speaker 2:
[217:36] I just think it's a cool idea and I'm always covetous of the Smash Brothers idea because I think it's a really neat thing. Sony needs to figure out a way to celebrate itself. Astrobot is that but I still think it's not great. It's a great game. It's not great at celebrating itself. Remember what I was saying? You really need to know the shit you're seeing in Astrobot.

Speaker 3:
[217:57] It's a very if you know, you know kind of game.

Speaker 2:
[218:00] All right. No one can stop Mr. Domino wrote in and said, hey gents, this one is mostly for Colin but anyone can chime in. Several weeks ago you mentioned that the PS2 was your least favorite PlayStation console. As someone who feels similarly, why do you think that is? For me, a big issue is that many of its best games are best experienced elsewhere. Trilogies like Sly and Jack got noticeably worse after their first entries. With all three platforms having solid exclusives that generation, I take the Xbox over the other two if someone put a gun to my head. What say you? Thanks for all the laughs, but let the chicken drive once in a while. Thank you for writing in. No one can stop Mr. Domino. I think I've identified why I feel this way and you guys are going to feel differently about it. A lot of people love the PlayStation 2 and I think the PlayStation 2 is awesome. I had the PlayStation 2 the day it launched. I had a shit ton of games on it. I played the shit out of it. I loved it. But I think it's the one generation where there were just a lot of options and the options were reasonable. They were good. If you think about the NES era, it was like the NES or the Master System, which had some good games but no volume of them, or like TurboGrafx and shit like that. So the NES was the clear winner and the SNES and Genesis generation, a lot of people would say that they're both equivalent. I disagree. The cool thing is that they have their own games and there was a reason to own both of them. I didn't have enough money at the time to do that. I didn't own a Genesis until later. Then the PS1 era, I didn't own a Saturn and the N64 and the PS1 were differentiated enough from each other where they felt very complimentary. The game releases were seldom enough where you could really keep up with both of them. I think by the time you got to Dreamcast and then PS2, and then the next year Xbox and GameCube, so Dreamcast 99, PS2 2000, and then 2001 for the other two, I just feel like there was so much crossover there and so much interesting stuff going on there, and it might be unique for me because that's when I actually had money, my own money for the first time because I had a job. I could afford all the consoles. I can afford the games. I spent all my money on games. I had nothing. I had no money ever because I would just buy games. I just felt like the GameCube was the more elite console with its catalog of games. There were great games on PS2, and then I think the Xbox when I finally got one in 2003, I felt so advanced that it brought its own thing. It brought me into playing games that I don't play to this day, but playing online and doing a lot of stuff, which the Dreamcast did to a degree too with sports games especially. I just think the PS2 was uniquely for me, uniquely crowded by other things where you could have a totally great experience just on PS2 that generation, but I feel like a lot of shit was happening off platform. I don't think there's really a lot of generations like that. 360 was probably the closest it ever got to that against PlayStation 3, but that's how I think about it in my mind, but I really don't know. It's just the way I feel it and I've always felt that way. The PS2 was very exciting for that one year and really before the other stuff came out or whatever, and really once the Dreamcast got canceled, then it felt like a lot more powerful machine, like it finally killed the Dreamcast and everyone was anticipating that, but that's where I'm at. So that's how I answer it. I don't know if you guys have anything you want to say, but.

Speaker 3:
[221:07] Yeah, I think I agree in some ways. I love the PS2, but it's definitely, it was of the machines that felt like it was, of the machines that Sony made at that time. So you figure like PS1, PS2, PS3, and even early PS4, the PS2 was the first time, or the only time that I felt like, or I guess PS1 through 3, I guess, is more accurate. It was the only time that I felt like it was kind of just, it was doing the least. Like it had the DVD player in it, so that was cool. But that wasn't really, I didn't really give a shit about that. Like I had a lot of cool games too, but like the Xbox was doing this online thing, it had the hard drive, you could do a lot with it. The Dreamcast had this own like weird identity to it. The GameCube had its own, like it was portable, it had the handle. Like if the PS2 felt more like a box that you just kind of played games on, and everything else felt like it had a little bit more intrigue from my perspective. But everything that generation was awesome, really. Like that was like a really great time. Yeah, it was awesome. Everything, everything was worth having. Everything had something worth playing on it. Everything was doing like its own interesting thing. You could argue that's also true of like the what is it? The PS3, 360 and Wii, like they were all doing very, very different things. But. Yeah, there was just so much like I wanted every machine back then, like I wanted a Dreamcast, I wanted an Xbox, I wanted a PS2 and I wanted a GameCube. I ended up just getting PS2 and Xbox. I missed out on the GameCube, missed out completely on the Dreamcast. I think I played at a cousin's house like a couple of times. I were playing Time Crisis. I was so envious of that thing, like the controller with the screen in it. It was so weird, man. An eclectic time.

Speaker 2:
[222:55] Yeah, the Dreamcast, I was so excited about it because it was so affordable, but it was just too easy to pirate on. Anyway, Sam Ward wrote in, said, Hey, CDC, there was a report from late last week about the remaster of Broken Sword 2 beating its Kickstarter goal within 15 minutes. After reading this, it got me wondering if there's still a market out there for these point and click adventure games. And if so, would any of you ever consider giving them a go? Thank you for everything you do and for making my work week a lot easier to get through with your content. So Broken Sword is an old series by Revolution Software that first came out in 1996. The first two were on PlayStation, the third one was on PS2, and then I think the fifth one was on PS4 and Vita. The fourth one was on PC only. But this is a fairly well-known and well-liked point and click adventure game from that era. And I remember, I never played them, but I remember them because they were covered in PlayStation magazine pretty heavily. The Kickstarter that he's referring to is for, so Broken Sword, the first Broken Sword is called The Shadow of the Templars, and they re-released that game, I think, like remastered it. And then that came out in 96 and the remaster was more recent. And then Broken Sword 2, The Smoking Mirror, came out the next year in 97, and that's the remaster for this that they got. And I think they got like half a million dollars for it on Kickstarter, which is awesome. I really, I'm curious what you guys think of this because I, I do like adventure gaming to a degree. It was loosely introduced to me in the NES era because we got some like bootleg versions of like Maniac Mansion and shit. But it wasn't until I played Phoenix Wright probably, that I really sat down and truly played what I would consider an adventure game. And there are games like Danganronpa and Professor Layton, which is coming to PlayStation for the first time later this year, which is amazing. I was so excited to see that. Because I love Professor Layton. That's more of a puzzle game, but an adventure game too. But I think a lot of it is about if you came up on PC or not. And though these games were available and playable on console, Point and Click adventure games are really home on PC. And so I'm not really into them. I played, I've talked about it in the past, how I played in high school in computer classes. My friends would always have like Police Quest, King's Quest, that kind of shit. Was Space Quest one of them, something like that. And the ones where you'd like type in words, like go left and then open the locker and shit like that. And I don't really like it. It's not for me. But I appreciate that people do. Dustin, are you a Point and Click guy? Do you like any of that kind of stuff?

Speaker 1:
[225:33] I did when I was a kid, but specifically kids PC titles. There's a company called Humongous Entertainment, and they released like the Pajama Sam series, Freddy Fish, Spy Fox, Putt-Putt. I fucking love these games. And my parents, it was great because I think they were really affordable at the time as well. Like you could pick them up for, I don't know, $10 or $20 or something. And so, and they were not like educational games, but definitely, you know, geared for kids. And I loved, dude, I fucking loved all of these games. And as an adult, like when I've tried to play a point and click adventure game, I really can't get into it anymore. The last one I tried to play was Broken Age, the one Tim Schafer. Yeah, with Elijah Wood, I believe in it. And it was cool. It's cute. Art style is great, but I was just kind of so it's not really for me anymore. I've always been curious about a game like Monkey Island or something like that. But just not my thing, but very nostalgic.

Speaker 2:
[226:45] Where are you, Chris?

Speaker 3:
[226:48] I'm in Los Angeles, but I think I think these are like, I don't know, I'm kind of where Dustin is, like I remember playing a lot of them when I was a kid to the point where like. I really can't even remember how many like it was a lot, though it was everything that doesn't was talking about. But I played like really obscure shit to like, I remember a game called like Darby the Dragon that I played a lot. It was like a kid's point and click game. I think I think I remember, although I don't think this is a point and click game. There was a there was a game called, I think I brought it up maybe in the Jeopardy, the Lenny Luce jocks. I don't know if that was, I'm not, I don't remember if that was point and click though. I think it was like kind of because you, I remember moving with the, I don't remember exactly, but I feel like it was that kind of a game. So I played a lot of these things and I really loved them. But similar to Dustin, like it's like when I've tried to revisit that genre, it's like I'm kind of left with something. I don't think they're good. It's just that like I'm looking for different things out of my games now. And I think, I think they're actually a very good like introductory genre. It's going to get people into like interacting with a screen, but like it's, it's low pressure. It's not like combat. It's not like reflex dependent. But like I really get a lot of joy out of reflex dependent stuff. I get a lot of joy out of like doing something in real time and, and like watching my actions have immediate consequences and being able to like change stuff off of that. And so it's the same reason why a lot of turn based stuff doesn't necessarily work with me that well either anymore compared to when I was a kid and I was playing like Command and Conquer and some early like turn based stuff. I'm just more, I look for different things now. And I appreciate them. I'm glad they're still coming out and I'm glad that they still have like their own kind of like core hardcore audience, like supporting it. I think it's dope. But I think I had the same experience with as a as Dustin with Broken Age as well. Where like I remember playing it and I was like, I like this. But I don't, I'm not driven to keep going. You know, I'm not getting what I want out of a video game from this. But more power to the people who like it, though.

Speaker 2:
[229:06] Little Collins Big Hole wrote in final inquiry says, Hey, CDC, hope all is well with recent reports from friend of the show, Jez Corden stating that Microsoft. Can we get some can we get some punctuation? Hey, CDC, hope all is well. This is all one sentence, by the way. Hey, CDC, hope all is well with recent reports. That's one sentence. With recent reports from friend of the show, Jez Corden stating that Microsoft is having in-depth conversations about bringing back exclusivity. How likely is it that that could actually happen? As Papa Colin says, once the genie is out of the bottle, it's out. But considering all the money Microsoft has, could they pull the trigger on this? I'll hang up the phone and get some water because these pretzels are making me thirsty. Thank you for writing in little Colin's big hole. This is the news of the industry. The last week is reporting from multiple sources, including Jez. I think maybe The Verge had something or something saying that these conversations are happening behind the scenes. I'm sure they are happening behind the scenes. I wonder what the conversations are and what the outcome will be. I think that's what we're all curious about, but seems impossible to imagine. I don't want to say impossible. It seems unlikely to imagine that they're going to go back on this. I don't know what they really have to gain from it, especially if they're going forward with a PC as their next console. It doesn't really seem to make any sense. It is true that some of their releases are doing softly on PlayStation comparable to some of the others. We have big successes like Forza Horizon 5 and Sea of Thieves. Grounded did really well. To a lesser extent, Doom. But on the other hand, we've had games that come and go. I think South of Midnight, maybe according to Linea, sold maybe 20,000 copies, which is not a huge surprise. I was talking about earlier, they have Starfield between 150 and 200. Might not be worth the squeeze for some of those smaller numbers, and yet, it just seems like the die is kind of cast, and I don't know why they would change, since I don't think there's any win condition for them to do so. Dustin, where are you on this?

Speaker 1:
[231:05] I think the only thing you may get is some launch-timed exclusives for the next console, but they will not be advertised as such. And I think it could be a big pop for that audience and really draw people to that launch, depending on what the game is. And then you'll see it come to either PlayStation 5 or PlayStation 6, I don't know, six months to a year later. Yeah. I think that I could maybe see happening just to try to push that console, but it won't be permanent.

Speaker 2:
[231:45] This is a problem, though, because this is what we were talking about with Starfield, if you space it out too much, you hurt yourself even more, and maybe you might not want to do that. I guess if you have confidence, it's what we were saying, it could benefit you, like it did with Forza Horizon. If you're confident games are good, like Fable. Well, we know Fable is coming day and day, that's a bad example. I guess Gears is probably the next one that could maybe not come to PlayStation.

Speaker 3:
[232:08] Gears is getting its own showcase, right?

Speaker 2:
[232:10] Yeah, I think that's soon. And Gears is, Gears 1 didn't do great on PlayStation. Not a huge surprise. I mean, it's old. I don't think they did really much to promote it. It's also not the iconic Gears game. As far as having Horde and all the other things, I think two or three would be the ones that people would really want to get into. But I expected that it would have done better. I just think they're kind of in between a rock and a hard place. They, it's going to be very hard to put the genie back in the bottle, as he was saying, and I just don't know. I don't know. I would love to know what they're thinking because I, I would think if that was those studios I'd want to proliferate our games. They've kind of been locked away. But I feel that way probably about all exclusive studios in a way, even Sony's. So any dots you want to share here, Chris?

Speaker 3:
[232:57] I don't know, man. I think it's, I think you've, the issue, the real issue here is that if they choose to undo this, right, they're basically saying like we've got to eat the cost of like $300 million development for, you know, for a lot of these games, bare minimum. And then these, and then we're going to lock them down to a console going forward after we've already had so much mixed messaging to the point where we're like, let's say best case scenario, you actually, you go through with this and it kind of works out like you get a lot of interest in your machine. Why should the customer base even believe that that will remain the case if you've already been so wishy-washy like, it's exclusive and then it's not, and then it's a time exclusive and then it's not, oh, but this time it's for real, guys. It's only going to be on this machine. Come by our machine and then you find out that it's going to come to place. You know what I mean? Like it's they've they've spent a lot of their. What I would argue is even just base level trust. You know, like on this pivot to the point where, like, I don't know, like I if they committed to it and they were OK with like eating the cost of like having a limited, you know, audience, like maybe they could reestablish Xbox as like a as like a domineering platform again. Like they have the IP to do it. It just it's just a matter of whether or not they're willing to eat all that development cost for to build that back up again after they've spent so much time tearing it down. And then what do you do with Game Pass? Like we're a lot of the situation is because of Game Pass. So like you cancel that. If so, that's another promise that you've just gone back on. I just it's a really kind of a no win situation, really. Like the only the only like the clearest, most safe path forward for them is to just be a huge multiplatform publisher and make a shit ton of money on every platform as possible. Get your games out day and date. So if if something fails, it doesn't even have a chance to percolate negatively. And like like we were talking about earlier, Starfield, like if Starfield launched day one on PS5, like it would have made a shit ton of money, I think. Like way, way, way, way, way, way.

Speaker 2:
[235:11] Oh my God. Yeah, it would have killed if they didn't space.

Speaker 3:
[235:13] So yeah, because there's a lot of anticipation for it. And at the time, people expected like something huge. So like, I, yeah, I don't know. I guess I'm kind of going in different directions with it, but that's kind of generally how I feel about it. I just I don't know how you. I don't want to say it's impossible to do it. It's just a matter of like whether or not they're committed to actually doing it and whether or not the audience has the trust that they're even going to follow through on the on that commitment. If they so choose to make it, which I just I'm not convinced. As somebody who grew up an Xbox guy, I loved the original Xbox. The 360 is probably my favorite console, probably ever. I was an early Xbox one adopter. I like that platform a lot and still do, but. I have no faith in that company to make their machine something that is worthy to invest in over something else that will ultimately have everything that experience has to offer and the stuff that it doesn't. So. I don't know. Xbox has a cool history and I'll always remember it and I'll always love it, but. I don't. I don't need a new one if you're not going to make your shit exclusive and you also can't. So.

Speaker 2:
[236:24] Yeah, I think I think the Activision stuff is always going to be multi-platform. I think the Bethesda stuff will obviously always be multi-platform as well, beginning with indie. And I kind of I remember saying this at the time, long before any Xbox game started coming out to PlayStation. I remember Blade. I was like, I bet you that comes to PlayStation. And we'll probably see more of that in the coming couple of years. But it's interesting, like the games they've already announced, should they like backtrack on them? I don't think they will, obviously. But it's like you already said Halo is coming, Forza Horizon 6 and Fable. That's at this point, like, why stop? Yeah, it would be a weird and arbitrary place to stop. I don't think they will. But we'll see what happens. And I've been very clear, I want them to. I think it would, it's going to be a great episode of SideQuest. So do it. Either way, I win. And on that note, it's time to end episode 407 of Sacred Symbols A PlayStation Podcast. Let's go around the horn and say goodbye to everyone, as we often do. Chris goodbye to you, be well, enjoy the rest of your day. Any plans?

Speaker 3:
[237:24] No, just editing and chores probably. I should do some laundry. You know, like there's like, you know, sometimes you got like quilts and stuff and it's just like, this is a whole, like this has to go in by itself because it's so big. And it's just like, I always put it off to the last fucking minute. So I might just go ahead and do that stuff. But low key day, I think.

Speaker 2:
[237:48] Fair enough.

Speaker 3:
[237:48] Mouse PI.

Speaker 2:
[237:49] Oh, yeah, me too.

Speaker 1:
[237:50] Me too.

Speaker 2:
[237:50] I'm going to be all over that later on. Dustin, goodbye to you. Be well. Anything you want to say before we go?

Speaker 1:
[237:57] Nothing I really want to say. I will be playing Marathon this weekend and losing everything at the Lose Everything Factory, Progmata, of course. Chris, I'll see you tomorrow for our group mailbag. Never done. Well, I think Colin, you and I have done mailbags together, maybe.

Speaker 2:
[238:17] Yeah, I think so.

Speaker 1:
[238:18] This is something new. We've never done a group mailbag like this. So let us know what you think if you're over on Patreon when that releases. And yeah, hope everyone has a great weekend or a great week if you're listening on Monday.

Speaker 2:
[238:33] Right, right, of course. Yeah, I got to I'm going to wait. I mean, it's five o'clock here a little after five. I'm going to wait till like 715 and then I'm going to mow the lawn. I got to mow the lawn. It's just so fucking hot. I got to like let it let it die down a little bit. So in the meantime, I'll get some work done. Maybe I'll work out too. I don't really know. And then yeah, ease into the weekend. I have a lot of shit to do with, with Saint Slayer this weekend, but it'll be worth it. And the game comes out Monday. So I hope you guys go check it out when it does. Have a great weekend. Like Dustin said, if you're listening early, if you're not, have a good week. patreon.com/laststandmedia for early ad free access, laststandmedia.store for merch. We'll see you next time. Until then, goodbye.

Speaker 1:
[239:12] See ya.

Speaker 3:
[239:13] Take care, guys.

Speaker 2:
[239:14] Sacred Symbols, A PlayStation Podcast is a product and trademark of Last Stand Media and Colin's Last Stand LLC, and is proudly recorded in the USA. The show was conceived by, is written by, and is directed by me, Colin Moriarty. My co-hosts are Chris Ray Gun Maldonado and Dustin Furman. The show is produced by executive producer, Dustin Furman. All of Last Stand's theme music is by my best friend, Ramon Narvaez. As you know, all of Last Stand's shows, including Sacred Symbols, are fan-funded on Patreon at patreon.com/laststandmedia. The following names are at the producer level on Patreon, our highest tier, and we're grateful for your thoughtful and kind contributions to our independent endeavor. Thank you.

Speaker 1:
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