transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:08] Hey everybody, welcome to Game Mess Mornings with me, Jeff Grubb, your host from giantbomb.com. Thank you for tuning in. In this episode, we're going to be talking about why Game Pass is getting cheaper and a whole lot more. It's going to be a good one because we have Mat Piscatela on the show. Mat, how are you doing?

Speaker 2:
[00:24] Jeff Grubb, how are you? How fun is this? I'm very happy to be back. Yeah, thank you so much for giving me a shot. Let's do this.

Speaker 1:
[00:31] Yeah, no, I appreciate it. I know you work hard to get these reports ready. Glad to have you on the day of the report coming out. Definitely talk about that whole bunch more. There's a lot of stories where it's like, that'll be great to get Matt's input. So looking forward to it. But let's shift gears a little bit before we get into all that. What are you playing right now? I would like you got anything that you're into.

Speaker 2:
[00:52] So MLB The Show 26 came out recently. So I'm still deep into that. I'm about 150 hours in. It's my turn off the brain and listen to bombcast kind of game. Also doing Citizen Sleeper. I'm trying to get one and two done at the same time, which are really very choose your own adventure style, text heavy, adventure type games that are very well written. I'm having a really good time doing that.

Speaker 1:
[01:21] Absolutely. You have a good time with your Padres? They seem like they might be all right.

Speaker 2:
[01:28] As with anything from a Gen X Sicilian, I'm always waiting for the collapse to happen.

Speaker 1:
[01:34] Wait for the other shoe to drop?

Speaker 2:
[01:36] They're doing so well. It's like, they shouldn't be doing this well. But I'm going to go ride with it while I can.

Speaker 1:
[01:45] That closer seems like a lot of fun too. I don't know if people watching this will know, but he was a meme earlier in the season with his corn music for the walkout song and the lights flashing. He's a big boy too. When he comes out to that, it's like, okay, this is actually legitimately intimidating. I'm into it.

Speaker 2:
[02:02] He's a large human being. Throws about 104. That's a lot of fun. But you're always waiting for his arm to explode. But again, I'm just going to ride it while it lasts, like everything in life, I guess.

Speaker 1:
[02:18] Absolutely. All right. Well, that's fantastic. I saw you earlier this week posting about getting up early to get stuff ready. You're a morning person. Is that your tendency or what?

Speaker 2:
[02:29] Extreme morning. I'm usually working four to one, and my brain completely just melts. So yeah, it kind of helps doing the East Coast Hours. I'm in San Diego and the company is a lot of folks East Coast based. So that kind of works out in a lot of ways for me.

Speaker 1:
[02:44] Yeah, that's good stuff. Yeah, it's like the 1 p.m. shutdown is 100% universally true for me. I can work from 6 p.m. to 3 a.m. and I can work 4 a.m. to 1 p.m. That's definitely what works for me. Anytime that afternoon period, it's like why am I even doing anything? I should be horizontal, maybe on the ground, actually. I should be laying down like face down. But absolutely. All right, we should get into things. There's plenty to talk about. Let's explain ourselves. We're Giant Bomb. Go to giantbomb.com/join. Become a premium member. If you do so, you're going to support independent games media, which we really appreciate everyone who has come through and done exactly that. If you do so, you're going to get ad free versions of our shows. We're going to get a bunch of our premium-only content including nine lives of Mr. Mostofoli's. New episode of that is happening. You're going to get the limited series of Portal Pals, Marry Me Tomodachi, which is the Internet's hottest Tomodachi life dating show. That's a lot of fun. Definitely tune in for all of that if you're a premium member. If you're not, go ahead and go to giantbomb.com/join. Become that premium member. And if you can't, we get it, just tell a friend or show up for the shows. Hang out with us. Make this community bright and vibrant the way that you always do. As far as this show goes, most weekdays, I, Jeff Grubb, will help peace your gaming life back together. That includes breaking news and maybe even some of our own original reporting. For all these topics, I'll get the input of a bona fide expert who will make me look smart. If you are watching live on Twitch, welcome. You can always listen to the show later on podcast feeds by searching for Game Mess Mornings or find the RSS feed on giantbomb.com. You can also catch the show later with chapters and timestamps on YouTube. Hello, YouTube. All right, we have a lot to get into. So let's start the morning mess with the March 2026 US. Video Game Market Highlights Report from Mat Piscatela over at Surcanah. US. Video Game spending jumped to 12% in March, driven by console content and hardware. Crimson Desert, MLB, The Show 26 and Pokemon Bacopia were among several new releases fueling overall spending growth. There's plenty to get into here, Mat. But I wonder if you want to like give us the stuff that was really sparking your interest, things that you took notice of. What made your eyebrows raise?

Speaker 2:
[04:58] Well, I mean, growing 12% in March is great. Ending the first quarter 5% above last year is also very good. It's about as good of a result as anyone should have reasonably expected given everything happening. So in that respect, it's really great news to see that the video game consumer in the US is still very much excited to play games. And hey, I don't know if you do this, but if you put out great games that have good market appeal, turns out people will buy them. That's still true. So content still is king in all of that. I mean, really, though, the story is the big new releases. We had several led by Crimson Desert. Like you mentioned, MLB the show, Pokemon, Pacopia, Pacopia, Pacopia. Well, however, it's pronounced, really doing some work there. And really, the new releases help drive things in sales like hardware and even some accessory spending. So in general, like a very positive end result for the March numbers for sure.

Speaker 1:
[05:59] Yeah, you're right here. US projected total market video game spending reached $5.3 billion in March. That's that 12% increase when compared to a year ago. First quarter spending grew 5%. When we do like drop down and look at the chart of just the top 20 best sellers here, a lot of like you always compare it to last month's performance. And that column has new a bunch of times. We got a new for MLB, the show, new for WWE, Marathon. This is in order, everybody. Then Pokemon Pocopia with physical sales only. Monster Hunter Stories 3, Twisted Reflection. That was at number seven. Then we do drop down to like number 15 to see Crimson Desert there. That is physical sales only as well, right?

Speaker 2:
[06:40] Yeah. On the chart, it only can reflect physical sales as well as digital from our digital panel participating publishers. However, when we project out all of that missing digital data from those charts, the ranking really is Crimson Desert 1, MLB the show 26 at two, and Pocopia three. So yeah, the way the charts have to be formed, only account for point of sale actuals rather than projections. But when we project, it changes the story a little bit.

Speaker 1:
[07:09] Just to clarify for people, that is just Crimson Desert you're talking about because that has the asterisk, and the other ones that have the asterisk. A lot of these other ones, like you said, you have a panel that does give you data, and so many of these do include digital, but you don't project on this chart, but you are able to project internally. You do projections, and you guys are pretty confident in that math for something like Crimson Desert. What does that look like? It's like, oh man, it sold every copy it possibly could at physical, and then we see this reflected in other parts of the market. How do you project as best as you can tell us? I'm sure a lot of that is internal only.

Speaker 2:
[07:43] Yeah. We have not only the physical data, but we also have several types of survey work we do. We have receipt panels, which we basically have a panel base that provides all of their purchasing receipts that we can triangulate data from. And of course, publicly available information. But we're watching this stuff all the time and triangulating that with even engagement data that we have. So we feel like we're able to get to a pretty comfortable range of error on some of these things. But yeah, there's always a little bit of error in any projection, but overall, especially with what Crimson Desert did on PC, they had a very strong month. And an overall would have led all titles in full game dollar sales. But that doesn't take anything away at all from MLB The Show 26, which had its second biggest launch ever behind only MLB The Show 21, which of course launched in a very interesting time period in gaming during the big boom. So but down the list, like even if you go through the other big titles that were new this year, in terms of franchise releases, WWE was among the best performing WWEs at launch. Pocopi did it incredibly well and even helped drive sales of Nintendo Switch 2 hardware. And even Monster Hunter Stories 3 making the top 10, and that's fantastic. So overall, like these new games did do pretty darn well across the board.

Speaker 1:
[09:07] Yeah. When I look at this chart as well and sort of read some of the stuff you're going through here, one thing I do notice as well is in that publisher column, a lot of Sony, like Sony, like their games are popping up on this chart. I think the number one question I think people would have is, hey, what about that marathon? Is marathon, like here at number four, including both physical and digital sales, is that good? Like we don't know. I guess that's the basic question I think a lot of us would have. I don't know if you know the answer, but Matt, is that good?

Speaker 2:
[09:39] Well, expectations and results tend to be different things, right? A reasonable sales projection versus what's a necessary sales target to make a P&L statement look good are also very different things. Overall, especially based on the PC performance, it's a very good start in the US for marathon. Will it have legs? Will it extend? Will it build an audience over time? Well, that looks like it's a little more challenging right now, looking at the engagement data we have. But perhaps they can get that going again with some updates, perhaps some price drops and other games have done it. But right now, a very good start, but looking a little iffy on the legs so far.

Speaker 1:
[10:20] Yes, it probably is the story of we will have to see six months out. If this thing is still hovering around on these charts specifically, it's like, oh, that's probably the good news that they're waiting to see. I don't think it's like there's no reason to be like, we got to be running up the white flag and declaring that we are going to submit for this game, obviously. But yeah, I think it will come down to how does it perform over time?

Speaker 2:
[10:44] And it's one of those things where games now, right? Like the audiences for games are very different. You could have a smaller yet extremely dedicated player base that could be just as successful for your game as a wider audience that plays a little bit less often or a little bit less enthusiastically. So it all depends on the individual game. What that performance might look like over time.

Speaker 1:
[11:09] You touched on hardware a little bit. I'll read some more of what you wrote. March hardware spending grew by 69% when compared to a year ago to 500 million dollars. Nintendo Switch 2 drove the overall gain while PlayStation 5 spending did increase by 3% compared to March 2025. Nintendo Switch 2 was the best selling hardware platform across both units and dollars for both March and 2026 year to date. With PlayStation 5 ranking second across both measures and time periods, that's a little bit of a flip. Up until this point, PlayStation 5 was doing a little bit better than Switch 2. Do you think it's the story of Pocopia coming in here and just flipping things on its head?

Speaker 2:
[11:45] It sure is. I mean, I don't know who's responsible. Someone's got to reset the doomed clock for Nintendo. When a big first-party Nintendo game shows up, things happen on the hardware side and that was the case for Pocopia. We're still trending or Nintendo Switch 2 is now trending 12 percent ahead of Switch on a timeline basis and that includes the first holiday for Switch. That's fantastic. When you compare the last couple of months, the boom or the boo scene in March for Switch 2 driven by Pocopia really helped. It really re-energized the platform. It's one of those things where you've talked about it before. Switch 2 had such a strong launch because they had so many units available that a lot of that demand was pulled forward because the units were able to be bought. So over time, it's not going to what we call a decay curve in gaming where sales decay over time for a product after launch. It's not that they're going bad, it's just the way the curve of the sales works. It's going to be different than any other platform in history because so many units were available at launch. This was expected. So now, we're getting these refreshes of these new games coming in that can boost those sales. And as long as that continues, should be no problem. Now, whether it's going to outsell Switch by the end of its life, who the hell knows? I don't.

Speaker 1:
[13:06] Who knows?

Speaker 2:
[13:07] But it's off to a fantastic start. And as long as content keeps showing up, people are going to keep buying it. Well, so long as the prices don't go through the roof based on what's going on with components and RAM. But that's a story for another day, hopefully.

Speaker 1:
[13:21] Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's a story for almost every other day on this show. But yeah, I think, you know, we last time I had you on, we definitely were having this exact conversation of it did well at launch. We'll see how it does through the holiday. The holiday certainly wasn't bad. There was some mixed signals maybe, but it seemed like at the end of the day, it was like, no, it was a pretty good holiday. But we're still kind of waiting for, hey, are those people who are waiting on the sideline that don't rush to get something just because it's available, going to step in. And this is the exact thing that I think we're like, is something like this going to happen? The fact that it did happen at least once throughout the life cycle of the Switch 2 is a sign that Nintendo does still have something there that they can work with, right?

Speaker 2:
[14:02] They still got some juice. They know what they're doing over there for sure. And when you look at something like the PlayStation 5, interesting, like you mentioned, we did see a sales increase for PlayStation 5 in March. But I got to tell you, a lot of that happened in the last few days of the month following the announcement of the price increase and before the implementation of the price increase. So that little window there really accounted for that growth. And so it's going to be very interesting to see what happens over time. Now that price increase didn't really find its way all the way through retail until around April 15th.

Speaker 1:
[14:37] It took some time, right? Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[14:39] As units sold through and then the new units came in and they got the higher price. So that impact of that price increase is going to be a little bit delayed because of that. But it's going to be super interesting to see just how well PlayStation 5 continues to sell after those really quite significant price increases.

Speaker 1:
[14:57] Yeah. I mean, if I'm Sony and I'm trying to like, you know, I feel these pressures on these sides, I want to sell as many PlayStation as possible. I want to set the price as high as possible because our cost are as high as they possibly can be right now. It's like, this is the best case scenario with the, you know, trump card in your pocket of Grand Theft Auto 6 comes along here later this year and people forget about the price because they just need to play Grand Theft Auto 6 that bad. At the very least, they do seem set up for that to be a possibility, right? Like the sales certainly could decay more over the intervening months up until Grand Theft Auto 6, but I'm sure they are expecting that with the hope that, yes, but the people get used to this price by the time Grand Theft Auto 6 is here. Yeah, that sort of wipes people's mind clean, and like whatever it is, I got to pay it, right?

Speaker 2:
[15:43] Yeah, and it's a hell of a tightrope. All of these companies are having to walk right now because the pressures on the cost side are enormous. The demands from the consumer base are large, and consumers right now, particularly in the US, are facing incredible price pressures from everyday spending categories like food and housing, which has been that way for a while now, and the prices have been increasing rather dramatically, and now, of course, gas, which is costing billions in additional spending every month. The pressures on the consumer are immense, and now we're slapping these price increases on everything. Gaming, it's a very delicate tightrope to try to walk in. This is all new. This is all new territory, new world, nothing really in history to look at, to give you a guide about what to do. So everyone's just trying to figure it out. And as I'm sure we'll talk about later when it comes to Game Pass, sometimes you can boost prices up, and then when that doesn't work, you bring them down, you're trying to find the right balance, and that's what everyone's trying to do.

Speaker 1:
[16:52] Yeah, I've been thinking about it because of the SNK stuff and the backlash against Saudi Arabia owning that, and thinking about the way things are so interconnected. And think about plastics being in everything, and it got me thinking, does rising cost of energy increase the cost of petrochemicals? And it's like, of course it does. Even if it's just the cost of the energy to produce those things, and it's like, oh yeah, it raises the prices for everything across the board, and everyone keeps saying it's like, there's no reason to expect those prices for energy to go down anytime soon. And I'm certainly no expert, so I'm just kind of listening to everybody and being like, okay, when? And people give timelines of a year to two years out, and these companies, the uncertainty was already there, and it seems like every week there's a new dice getting thrown that is just as uncertain. So they kind of just have to assume worst case scenario a lot of times, right?

Speaker 2:
[17:46] Yeah, you have to have multiple scenarios in your planning, and no matter who you talk to, no one knows, right? Everyone has their estimates based on assumptions, but no one knows. So you'll get estimates across the board about even things like whether it's energy or the price of RAM or RAM availability, like exactly when things start improving, and you'll hear estimates from later this year to 2030. So there's a lot of scenario plans. You just kind of have to wing it and see how it goes. I mean, I'm sure on the whiteboard over at Valve, there's a whole bunch of price points and release.

Speaker 1:
[18:26] Yeah, that whiteboard probably looks insane. Yes.

Speaker 2:
[18:29] Exactly, because things are changing so quickly and rapidly. Yeah, it's a mess out there, Jeff. I don't know if you knew, it's kind of wackadoo.

Speaker 1:
[18:38] I'm starting to get that sense for sure. Okay, before we move on, two more things. Tell me what we should take away from Sensor Towers data. I know you guys partner with them for the mobile market. It does, in a lot of ways to me, feel like there's a bifurcation, a separation between what happens on the side that we usually talk about on the show and what happens on mobile. But where are they connected and what signals are you getting from there?

Speaker 2:
[19:02] So it's interesting is that the mobile market's also matured. We're seeing the same type of behavior there that we are seeing on the console and PC side, where these big behemoths just stick around at the top of these charts and you get some mixed in every once in a while, but then it goes right back. It's mostly stagnant, just like the console market. So right now, what they're seeing is like Pokemon goes and the Monopoly goes, they'll kind of battle back and forth based on events. I don't know if you've heard this before, but like big content drops will reinvigorate the mobile market. So a lot of the same types of things that we're seeing on the console and PC side, of course, mobile continues to be the biggest segment in video game spend. In March, spending was down a little bit in mobile. But on the console and PC side, we more than made up for it. So we were able to get to that overall spending growth. But really, these two markets are much more similar than they used to be in terms of the behaviors around them.

Speaker 1:
[20:02] Makes sense. And then I always like to look at accessories as a way of like forecasting things out a little bit. Like because to me, you could tell me if this is wrong. I always feel like if people are buying accessories, it's because they plan to be investing more in games. They want to spend more time playing games in the near future. They're buying headsets, they're buying controllers, because they're playing games now. But they also expect to be playing games in the next couple of months. So when I see that accessories spending grew by 5% when compared to a year ago to $252 million, to me, that sounds like a pretty good jump. I don't know, is it?

Speaker 2:
[20:34] It is. And it's flat year to date. So this coincided with the big push on hardware we saw in the month of March. A lot of cases and organizers, a lot of people buying cases for their Nintendo Switch 2s. They just bought them in Pecopia. And that was a big driver there. So yeah, I'd agree. When it's kind of a trailing indicator in a lot of ways. But it does correlate somewhat to what we're seeing on the hardware side.

Speaker 1:
[21:01] Makes sense. All right, fantastic. Let's do this next story real quick. Diablo IV Lord of Hatred Reviews are in. This is the DLC for that game. We got an 83 on OpenCritic. Tather Cope at PC Gamer gave it a 90 out of 100, said Lord of Hatred brings a campaign packed with thrills and a systems refresh that revolutionizes the loot chase. And then Travis Northup at IGN gave it an 8 out of 10. Lord of Hatred gives Diablo IV an extremely satisfying conclusion, excellent changes to build crafting, and an in-game that could potentially go the distance. And then four stars from Sharif Sayed at VG247. Lord of Hatred accomplishes the near impossible task of delivering a game-changing expansion that fundamentally improves on the core of Diablo IV, and a weighty narrative conclusion that so brilliantly balances spectacle with the emotional heft essential for any fan of ARPGs. Mannequin, I'll ask you about a little bit of the business case here of the DLC, especially for a long-running franchise that has done this a bunch of times, like Diablo, these are often moments of reset and setting the game up for its long-term future, which we know Diablo always has. These companies look at it that way, right? This is a chance to put out the game that people are actually going to remember. So if they get it right, does it often pay off?

Speaker 2:
[22:23] Yeah, on the long tail, for sure, especially as it could be repackaged and reduced in price over time. I mean, Diablo IV is one of those games that no one really thinks about as being one of the big games that kind of stick around forever. But it isn't like that world like The Sims, which just keep on tugging along for that dedicated player base. And I mean, it's great to see that this really is going to deliver for that player base that's with it. Yeah, and over time, like, this is a game that will sell for 10 years or more as it goes on. So yeah, that's great to see.

Speaker 1:
[22:59] Mike's been playing this. He talked about it on the bombcast yesterday. So if you haven't listened to that, go give that a listen. Sounded like he was pretty happy with it as someone who I think was, who liked Diablo IV, but did not necessarily love it. I don't even know if that's a fair way of putting it. He just, he seemed happy with Lord of Hatred is how I'll phrase it. All right, we have to take a break. Plenty more to get into including our little chat here about how people are feeling about that Game Pass price drop. We'll do that after this. If you want to skip out on the ads, you could do so giantbomb.com/join, become a premium member, get you ad free versions of the shows. In the meantime, we will be right back. We're back with Game Mess Mornings. I'm Jeff Grubb. That's Mat Piscatela. Let's get into this next story. Analysts say Xbox Game Pass price drop is quote, unsurprising after Call of Duty failed to significantly increase subscriptions. This is from Chris Scullion at VGC. Analysts have said that Microsoft's decision to drop the price of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass isn't surprising given that the addition of Call of Duty had made little impact to subscription numbers. On Tuesday, Microsoft announced that it was dropping the price of Game Pass Ultimate from $29.99 or $30 down to $23. And PC Game Pass from $16.50 to $14. It's all mixed in here with pounds and euros and stuff. It also announced the future of Call of Duty Games would not be available on either service on the day of release and would instead be added the following holiday season. Speaking to GamesIndustry.vis, Serkana, Senior Director, Mat Piscatela, and Ampere Analysis Head of Games Research, Piers Harding-Rolls both agreed that this was inevitable. Given that Xbox's hope it would see a large growth in Game Pass ultimate subscribers by adding Call of Duty available on day one hasn't played out. Matt, it's the kind of thing where we sit back years ago, talk about the levers that Microsoft had that they could pull to push this thing forward. If Starfield hits, that's the big game changer. People loved Oblivion, they loved Skyrim, and that's the thing that could really change things. It didn't change its fate. Then it's like, well, they're acquiring Activision. Call of Duty is the next and maybe last big lever that they could pull. What's bigger than that? Now, the Call of Duty that did launch into Game Pass had some quality issues around it, but I'm of the opinion, and it sounds like maybe you are and you can explain it yourself, that that didn't matter as much as the fact that people looking at Game Pass are just not necessarily looking for that deal in particular. That didn't move the needle. The people who are going to get Game Pass already have Game Pass. What do you think?

Speaker 2:
[25:36] Yeah. Originally, Game Pass was situated as the best deal in gaming, and it didn't hold a candle to a giant bomb premium subscription, which really is the best deal in gaming if you think about it.

Speaker 1:
[25:48] I agree.

Speaker 2:
[25:48] Yeah. When Call of Duty first made it to Game Pass, we were talking about this just a few weeks after that happened. We did not see a particularly big bump in hardware sales. We didn't see a massive increase in subscriptions. Although there sure was an increase. And in 25, the same situation, we did not see any kind of bump when it comes to hardware sales and subscription spending increase, but just slightly. So in terms of the experiment, and it was an experiment, it didn't work out the way they wanted. I mean, Phil Spencer for years had talked about 3 billion gamers, and this was going to be one of those big ways to find 3 billion gamers, right? Is to bring these types of games to the service. But ultimately, like you said, in terms of the value proposition, $30 a month became pretty steep, which Microsoft itself recognized and led to the price decreases right now, which we were waiting for. I was kind of surprised they just dropped it on, just here you go, on a random Tuesday or whatever day that was. But hey, great, better now than never, right?

Speaker 1:
[27:00] Yeah, exactly. I wonder like, do people come to you when they come to you for data? Are they often asking about player behaviors and how they can change consumer behaviors? How do we get people to spend money here instead of there? Or is that something you're like, look, we look at it after it happens. Trying to get people to change their behaviors is difficult. Is that the wall that Microsoft is running into with gamers that were stubborn, we're stuck in our ways? Or is it just like, oh, Game Pass, we could see it's already expensive and we know it's going to have to get more expensive to justify all these games and people aren't biting because of that?

Speaker 2:
[27:38] To give them the credit that I think they deserve, Microsoft and Xbox in particular have always been willing to try things and break out of established norms. Whether they have succeeded all the time or not, certainly debatable. But a lot of these cases, like you can have your research, you can go talk to players, you can say, hey, what would you think about this or that or the other? But ultimately, you don't really know until you execute a plan. You say, all right, well, we think this is how this is going to go, but until we actually throw Call of Duty into Game Pass, we're not going to know what's going to happen. And now they do. So, you know, when one of the biggest questions we've had, I mean, sometimes questions in social media and forums that fans have are ridiculous.

Speaker 1:
[28:24] Ridiculous, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[28:25] And sometimes they're the same conversations that are being had in the industry. Whether or not Game Pass or other subscription services hurts or harm sales is the same arguments and discussions internally that they are in the fan base. And there is no, like, really crisp or clear answer to that even now. Some games benefit. Some games do not benefit. There are all kinds of opinions all over the place about whether it's good or bad. Right now, Microsoft believes that taking Call of Duty out of this equation is the best thing for the brand. And perhaps it is. We'll have to wait and see.

Speaker 1:
[29:06] Yeah. For me, I'm at a point where, like, as someone who talks about this stuff kind of constantly and for a long time there, it was like, hey, well, Xbox is trying something that makes it newsworthy. That makes it worth bringing on to shows like this and having conversations about it. I'm definitely at a point now where it's like, I think we're a little bit at the end of that story of them trying these big interesting ideas. It's like, they are, they're retreating a little bit and the novelty of Game Pass, from both my perspective of observing it and I think from the gamer's perspective of the best deal in gaming and Xbox's position of this is the future, all that sort of like run its course now and Game Pass is just another one of those things that's an option for people off to the side and they have to sort of find a way to maintain it. Is it shifting into a long-term maintenance mode?

Speaker 2:
[29:56] I don't think that's the goal.

Speaker 1:
[29:58] No.

Speaker 2:
[29:58] That's kind of where it's sat, right? And what's interesting is the recent reporting around whether or not it's going to become more of an all-a-cart type subscription bundling service where you could pick and choose potentially different types of programs that you could put into a Game Pass subscription. I saw someone somewhere say that Game Pass could go from being the Netflix of gaming to being the cable bundle of gaming, which I thought was a pretty interesting take on it. And ultimately, what looms over everything right now is the hardware component part situation and whether or not these things will get so expensive that a whole bunch of people will be shifted to things like cloud and what impact that could have long term on things like subscriptions if people can't afford hardware or it's easier for them to do something else. It's more of a longer term question. But these are the things that you got to think about when you're planning out a 5 to 10 year plan, right?

Speaker 1:
[30:53] Yeah, I think maybe one last question I have about this. One thing I'm thinking about is, okay, so they've dropped the price. And that's certainly one of the things people have been saying. It's too expensive. But I think a lot of people looking at this are looking like, yeah, I mean, it's dropped for now, but it's going to go back up. They like Xbox, Microsoft, have they reset the clock in such a way where like we recognize the price was too high, where it's like, it's going to be difficult for them to raise the price on this thing again for a couple of years or or what?

Speaker 2:
[31:24] Memories are short.

Speaker 1:
[31:25] Memories are short, aren't they?

Speaker 2:
[31:27] Yeah, they're very short, especially in gaming and things change very quickly. We'll have to see what the response to this is. This is a pretty big drop in price from previous level, and it's going to be very difficult to get a subscriber increase enough to offset that lower cost per user. We'll have to see if that works. If this works incredibly well, and then all of a sudden, okay, we're getting content creep again, we're getting more content, oh, jeez, the math is out of whack again, we have to raise the price, that'll be a very interesting conversation. But for right now, with this transition at Xbox, they're saying all the right things. They're doing these things that seem to be finding a lot of positive feedback from the player base. We'll see if they can expand on that and really re-energize the brand, which is right now, it's struggling a little bit.

Speaker 1:
[32:18] Yeah, it certainly is hard to, as gamers who love to make these brands part of their identity, it's got to be hard to build that narrative internally as a person who wants to be a fan. Be like, hey, here's what Xbox is. It's that there's no real great answer to that right now, for sure. All right, let's move on to Miyamoto, who says he was surprised Mario Galaxy Movie reviews were even harsher than the first. This comes from Chris Scullion at VGC, who's going to have a lot of stories on the show. Everybody shouts out to Chris. Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto says he's surprised at the negative critical reception to the Super Mario Galaxy Movie. As reported by Famitsu, Miyamoto conducted a group interview with Japanese media to mark the local release of the Super Mario Galaxy Movie. During the interview, Miyamoto was asked for his views on the critical reception to the film in the West, where critics' reviews have been mostly negative. Miyamoto replied that while he understood some of the negative points aimed at the Super Mario Brothers Movie, he thought the reception would be better for the sequel. It's true, the situation is indeed very similar, he said. Actually, regarding the previous film, I felt that critics' opinions did hold some validity. However, I thought things would be different this time around, only to find that the criticism is even harsher than it was before. It really is quite baffling. Here we are, having crossed over from a different field, working hard with the specific aim of helping to revitalize the film industry. Yet, the very people who ought to be championing that cause seem to be the ones taking a passive stance. Miyamoto is working in a field that is different than the one he's had before. I think that he does bring a lot of his ways of doing things that he applied to video games to create success. I think he is applying that to movies too as much as he can. He's not making these movies, but he's involved in making these movies. He is credited as executive producer. I do think that they go to him when they have questions about what he wants. I bet he speaks up when things go in a way that he doesn't think that they should. I think that's reflected on the screen. I think he's like, I'm making the movies I want to make. This works for games. It's going to work for movies. I think there's a part of me that's like, actually these are two very different things. The things that make games good that Miyamoto is good at, are not necessarily what's best for a movie. Yet I had a fun time at the film. Whatever. I enjoyed it. I'm glad it's making a lot of money because I want them to make more of it. But I don't know. What do you think? Have you seen the Galaxy Movie? Do you have an opinion on it? Do you think Miyamoto is just a little out of touch here or what?

Speaker 2:
[34:43] I have not seen the movie yet. I'll see it in a while when it shows up on my screen downstairs. But you got to love and admire the passion and wanting to see people connect with what your vision is. But ultimately, that box office is pretty good, so who the hell cares? What are you doing, dude? Look at the consumer response has been so strong. Yeah, it's a bummer, but I don't know. I wouldn't feel too bad about it for too long looking at the box office.

Speaker 1:
[35:15] Right. Maybe you'll remember better than me, I think after that first movie, there really was that consumer response fueling interest in the games. The exact way that Nintendo said it, that's what they were doing this for. The expectation is that is going to probably be replicated this time around, right?

Speaker 2:
[35:32] Yeah. We saw a big bump in Mario Kart World Sales. We saw other Nintendo games pick up last month as well. I mean, sure. And the theme parks and everything else they're doing, it's all part of this big push. And people seem to really like it even if the critical flaws are there. Like, okay, like it's how it's just entertainment, man. Like, everyone does the same thing to some of the biggest games of the year, and they end up selling very well. It's just part of the deal. I don't know. Like, I get it. I empathize with them. But ultimately, like, I don't think anyone's bummed out over there about what consumers are thinking about it.

Speaker 1:
[36:16] So, yeah, I think it's like, you know, critics do, they want to come away, the film critics go to a movie and they're like, I want to know what it's about. I want to be able to talk about that and have a conversation with the film. And Mario movies are not doing that. I told the story on the bomb cast of listening to Justin McElroy talk about his kids and him talking to them about different movies and like, what's the theme of these Pixar films? And it's like, oh, they kind of understand. So, oh, it's growing up or it's this, and it's a little bit deeper. And then what's the theme of the Mario movie? And the kids just said Mario. And it's like, yeah, that's the theme of the Mario movies. And I think that's what a lot of people, including me, I think that's what a lot of people want from those movies. I want Mario and it delivers that.

Speaker 2:
[36:57] Or the Minecraft movie or whatever else is just a good time to go hang out and just turn your brain off for a little bit because I mean, damn, dude, the world's on fire. Like, let me go look at some bright, shiny colors and happy music for a little bit. Leave me alone. Like, totally get it.

Speaker 1:
[37:12] And that's honestly described exactly what it was for us to go as a family. It was, let's go in there, turn the world off, enjoy some bright colors and some familiar sounds and planet Star Fox and all that stuff. And it was a good time. Now, mission accomplished, mission accomplished. I'll have to spoil the movie slightly for you with this next story. I hope that's not going to ruin it. Miyamoto says he wants Peach's origin story in the Super Mario Galaxy Movie to remain canon in future games. This is from Chris Scullion at VGC as well. Shigeru Miyamoto says Peach's newly revealed backstory in the Super Mario Galaxy Movie may remain canon in future games. Basically, they just kind of changed where she comes from and her relationship to Rosalina. I won't get into the specifics, everybody, but I actually thought it was good. I'm like, this is a good way of doing things. It explains a couple of things I had questions about for sure. And he does talk about some of the reasons why he's like, why they haven't made these decisions in the past. I'll get to that quote here. Miyamoto replied that Nintendo has avoided going to the character's backstories too much in the past because it can limit what they can do with those characters going forward. But now that their past have been explored more in the movies, the plan is to try to establish this as the official lore in upcoming games. Because we don't always know what kind of game we'll make next, having too many character backstories can end up restricting us, Miyamoto explained. Again, this is to Famitsu, so this is a machine translation. I'm fine with being bound by the gameplay, but I didn't want to be constrained by a story we've created. This is the reason why we had avoided making movies for so many years. Until we made this film then, we hadn't decided on Peach's origins. But now that we've made the movie, it's become fun to expand on the characters in various ways. Therefore, I'd like to adhere to the backstory established in the movies as much as possible in future games. I do think it's interesting how making movies, and again, Miyamoto being very involved, has forced him to think about things he just didn't have to think about before. Like that doesn't serve the game, so I don't need to come up with an answer to where Peach comes from. But now that that is something they needed for this movie, he's like, oh, I can play with that in games and kind of running with that. Now, again, he's not day-to-day making games. He's an executive producer on all those. They do come to him to ask questions and stuff to people on those teams. But yeah, it does feel like Nintendo's becoming this like full circle media company where they make games and then they make movies and one informs the other. And that does seem like it's going to be a strength for them. Does that sound right to you?

Speaker 2:
[39:39] It's the Mario Cinematic Universe extending to everything else, right?

Speaker 1:
[39:43] It's got its fingers in everything. Yeah, it's spreading.

Speaker 2:
[39:46] Let's get a new ride at the theme park. It will explore these. I don't know, man. Like, that's cool.

Speaker 1:
[39:51] Sure, let's do it. Xacy and Chad says, The original Peach origin story is that she's a girl. Yeah, that's exactly right. And yeah, it worked for the games. But now I do think this could be a lot of fun as they go forward.

Speaker 2:
[40:06] Yeah. Give me a movie where Yoshi dies forever. No, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. It's terrible. It's fine.

Speaker 1:
[40:14] Listen, this movie does have some Yoshi. But you could tell they're like, they just had Yoshi show up to have Yoshi. That's it. He's just there doing a couple of Yoshi things. And they teased them at the end of the last movie, The Credits. And then he shows up in this one. It's like, okay, now what are they going to do with that? And the answer is, he's just Yoshi. That's what they're doing with it. What do you mean?

Speaker 2:
[40:34] Put him back in the vault forever. That's fine.

Speaker 1:
[40:36] Just shove him back in that damn egg.

Speaker 2:
[40:38] Get out of here.

Speaker 1:
[40:39] Yoshi's Island is a great game and I love Yoshi. Gamers file class action lawsuit against Nintendo over US tariff refunds. This is from Nintendo Everything. According to a report from Game Files, shout out to Steven Titolo, who does great work on tracking down these legal cases, everybody. Go subscribe to the Game Files newsletter. A pair of gamers have filed a class action lawsuit against Nintendo. This will represent everyone in the US who purchased products impacted by a price increase between February 1, 2025 and February 24, 2026. Gregory Hoffert and Prashant Charan say they bought Nintendo products that saw a price increase because of tariffs. As stated by Gamefile, they are now claiming that the company will be unjustly enriching itself with any refund it secures from the US government over widespread tariffs last year that, among other things, hike the prices of Nintendo hardware and accessories. This is like the next parts that like the key thing here that they're kind of trying to argue. And less restrained by this court, Nintendo stands to recover the same tariff payment twice. Once from consumers through higher prices and again, from the federal government through tariff refunds, including interest paid by the government on those funds. God, I don't know, man, this seems kind of crazy. I want to hear what the court thinks. I won't be shocked if it gets like thrown out. But if it doesn't, I will be interested to hear the reasoning of all this because it does seem like that is a little scary for the kinds of companies that have a lot of sway in this economy and this government and in this country of, hey, we want to have the freedom to raise prices for whatever reason we want and then we don't have to, we won't want to answer for why we did that no matter what the reason is. And it's like, well, why shouldn't you? I don't know. What are you making this, Mat?

Speaker 2:
[42:31] Yeah, it's a complete mess. And this isn't the only one of these.

Speaker 1:
[42:34] No, it won't be.

Speaker 2:
[42:35] It's happening across the board. And now that the portal was established for companies to submit for reimbursement from the government, right? And some of the comments from the administration, particularly the president around how he'll remember what companies don't submit for those reimbursements. It's a very messy, sticky, ugly situation across the board. I'm also very interested to see where this goes. Consumer sentiment is strongly against tariffs. Seventy-two percent, I think it was, of our respondents in our survey work thought that tariffs increased prices and some of the estimates you see about how much tariffs cost the average consumer last year can range anywhere between $1,500 and $2,000 depending on who you talk to. It's significant. And yeah, as a consumer, you would expect some of those dollars to get back to you, will they? That's a great question. But this is going to take a long time to untangle and it's going to be very messy.

Speaker 1:
[43:39] Yeah. I mean, that is always the story with tariffs is they are messy no matter what. And usually the story is, they're so messy and entangled, we just don't get rid of them. They stick with us forever. Now the court stepped in and actually struck them down. And so it's like now we get the fun mess of actually getting to entangle them and seeing what that looks like. And it's going to be a mess in its own way. It's this is often the problem with tariffs is they just create so many more headaches than anyone can ever predict. And here we are dealing with dealing with it yet again. I think it's I want to see what happens with a case like this. And like you said, it's going to happen across the economy. We're going to see this over and over and over again. And yeah, I mean, the stated reason from a lot of these companies of why they raise prices is tariffs. I think it's less likely that if they just raise prices, that they're going to be like a lot of these cases like this will win. But if there's like fees added on top and they're called like tariff surcharges, those are the ones that might be a little bit more susceptible to something like this because it's just so clean cut. But again, we're going to have to wait and see what the courts think. All right, last couple of stories here. Ecco the Dolphin Complete announced. This is from Sal Romano at Gamatsu. A&R Atelier has announced Ecco the Dolphin Complete, a remaster collection including all versions of Ecco the Dolphin and Ecco the Tides of Time. Those are the first two games as well as a new Ecco game that extends the journey into the modern era. Platforms and release date were not announced. Fantastic. I like Ecco the Dolphin quite a bit. It doesn't seem to include Ecco Junior, people are asking. I don't see Ecco Defender of the Future here. I don't think that's included. Although these kinds of collections often do get updated later with free editions. I wouldn't be surprised if something like Ecco Junior gets added. You an Ecco the Dolphin fan, Mat Piscatela?

Speaker 2:
[45:25] I've played some Ecco the Dolphin, but every time I think of Ecco the Dolphin, I think of Seaman. I always wonder if Seaman is part of the Ecco the Dolphin universe, if it isn't, maybe it should be. Where is this Seaman collection?

Speaker 1:
[45:38] That's what I... Yes, they need to put those games back out. Absolutely.

Speaker 2:
[45:41] Yes. Let's get a remaster, remake of Seaman. What could go wrong?

Speaker 1:
[45:46] Nothing. Absolutely nothing can go wrong. Let's put some of these microphones built into the PS5 controllers. Absolutely. All right. Last couple of stories. Like I said, Ubisoft has scrapped its Animal Crossing competitor. This is from Jonas Mackey at Game Reactor. Altera is the name of that game. There was a time when like half of the games, or maybe more that Ubisoft were putting out could be described as Sims competitors or Animal Crossing clones or whatever. They had like the My, what were they called? Like My Babies with the Z and stuff like that. They had a ton of that stuff and it seemed like a pretty big business for them. And now we're in a world where when we do have these games like Animal Crossing, Empokopia and Tomodachi Life, they are popping off, but they do come from a handful of companies. And like you mentioned earlier, the Sims just chugs along and that audience is so dedicated. What do you think Ubisoft is thinking here? Like, we can't crack into this market or it's just not worth the squeeze or what?

Speaker 2:
[46:47] It was Imagine Babies, wasn't it?

Speaker 1:
[46:49] Imagine Babies, yes. Imagine. They had all those Imagine Cats. Imagine all kinds of stuff. That's what it was.

Speaker 2:
[46:54] The brain still works. Ubisoft is going through it, right? They've been undergoing some significant change over the last couple of years. I can only imagine all the projects that got canceled, that we've never heard about to begin with, as they've redone everything and how they're approaching the business. I mean, but yeah, this type of thing when you have established competitors and establish players in these spaces, breaking into them is exceptionally difficult. If you don't think you can do it, better to cut it while you cut it early rather than later.

Speaker 1:
[47:26] Yep, absolutely. All right, and then Street Fighter 6 Year 4 DLC Characters Leak. Maybe this is a rumor. There's a reason I'm putting here at the end. We don't know if this is accurate, everybody, but I'll let you know what people are out there saying. This is from Nintendo Everything. A new leak is making the round, which claims to have outed the identities of DLC characters for Street Fighter 6 Year 4. The character's name comes from RNK Lucius, who has an accurate track record for these kinds of leaks. Let's see here. The rumored DLC characters for Year 4 are Vega, Haggar, Gokin, I can't remember how to say his name, but that's like the guy that trained Ryu and Ken, and Tifa. The last one is a big name in particular, as it'd be a new crossover. Tifa, of course, is one of the main characters in Final Fantasy VII. I think the expectation is she would show up in Tekken but no, maybe she's showing up here. Sean was saying, who's our fighting game expert, that maybe because Capcom and Square Enix maybe had to work together because Alex, the most recent character, does some Final Fantasy style moves because it's based on Kenny Omega, who has a lot of moves named after Final Fantasy stuff, including One-Winged Angel. Maybe there were some conversations there already happening and it's like they got talking, like, why not put Tifa in there as well? So I won't be surprised if this is the exact list of characters. I would love to see Vega back and Hagar. That would be fantastic. All right. That does it for the headlines. Let's start wrapping up the show. We have the poll question for Monday. Let me get the most recent results for that by refreshing this page. Here we go. This is it. Which Zelda story do you think the movie is most likely based on? Options were Breath of the Wild, Ocarina of Time, or a different Zelda story. 22% think it will be based on Breath of the Wild, which I think is fair. It's like, what is that story again? 32% say a different Zelda story and 46% say Ocarina of Time. I think that is the safe money. If you want to go take all of that to the prediction markets and just make a fortune, don't do that. Please God, don't do that. What do you think, Matt? What do you think about this movie's story?

Speaker 2:
[49:36] Great. I don't know. All I know from playing all the Zelda games is you run around and you smash things and then your sword breaks. So hey, whatever. Cool. All of them are good. For me, great. Whatever people love. I love it.

Speaker 1:
[49:51] Yeah. I think they did just like take what they need. Just don't force anything. That will probably be the most awkward thing if they just try to force something because it was in one of the games. Just take the components that you need. All right. We have a new poll question. We'll get to this here in a second before we do that though. Matt, why don't you tell people where they could find you on the Internet? If that's even something that you want them to do.

Speaker 2:
[50:11] If you want to talk about video game sales stuff, why not? I'm on the blue skies at Matt Piscatela with 1T. Because anyways, it's a long story. I'm also on LinkedIn, but don't go on LinkedIn if you don't have to. Save yourself. It's terrible. But I'm over there posting things too because it's all about business. Yeah. Come hang out. Let's chat video games.

Speaker 1:
[50:36] Hell yeah. I love it. I always appreciate it. You do a great job of like people come at you with questions, and you always seem to do your best to give them an honest answer. You're like, yeah, if you were wondering about that, I have, here's what I can tell you. And I always appreciate that.

Speaker 2:
[50:47] Yeah. The video game's a long history of transparency. I try to break through that as much as I can without resulting in a lot of angry emails and phone calls. So I do my best.

Speaker 1:
[50:58] Exactly. It's like there's a lot of people that work at these companies. This is what, you know, I talked to them that they want people to know they do, but there's just a lot of reasons not for them, for them to not say anything. And that's where we're still at. All right. New poll question. Are you more interested in Game Pass now that it's cheaper? Yes or no? I know there's a lot of nuance there. I know it's like maybe you already have it. I like I'm not more interested in it, but I guess I'm happy. Answer this question however you want to interpret it. I just kind of want to get a general sentiment. Yes or no? Are you more interested now that it's cheaper? We'll get the results. We'll talk about it here on Game Mess Mornings on Giant Bomb tomorrow. Speaking of Giant Bomb, it's Wednesday. It's time for Blight Club. Dan's got like 40 minutes left in Space Ace for Super Nintendo everybody. So tune in. Maybe he beats it today. We'll see. That's going to be a lot of fun earlier today. Jan, am I correct that that that quick look, the preview quick look for Yoshi and the mysterious book went up? There you go, everybody. Go check that out now. Lots of cool stuff happening over on giantbomb.com. Thanks again, everybody, for tuning in and checking that out. Matt, thank you for hanging out with me today and talking about video games, man. I really appreciate it.

Speaker 2:
[52:04] Oh, thank you. It's always a blast. I really love being in St. Hyde. All the dude is out there. It's a good time.

Speaker 1:
[52:10] Yeah, we love it as well. You're one of the favorite guests. We'll make it happen again here real soon. In the meantime, thank you, everybody, for tuning in. Thank you for watching and thank you for listening. We really appreciate it. Until next time, have a good one. Take care of yourself and goodbye.