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 gonna be talking about more Switch 2 games getting announced, and did Peter Molyneux accidentally make a Cooking Mama game. It's gonna be a good one because we have Shawn, TurboShawn McDowell on the show. Shawn, how are you doing?

Speaker 2:
[00:29] I'm doing pretty good, Jeff. I've been busy, been playing some stuff, and looking forward to talking about that soon. Getting some retro achievements. That was my big thing over the weekend. Finally getting Cooking on those Wii retro achievements because I want that profile icon over there.

Speaker 1:
[00:46] Right, that's new, right? The Wii achievements were added in the last month or so?

Speaker 2:
[00:50] Yeah, roughly a month ago, I believe, because they have an event, the Wii rollout event, where if you get X number of points by, you get one point for finishing a game, you get a second point for getting all the retro achievements in a game. Certain games are worth double or triple points. And depending on how many you get during this three month event, or however long it is, through July, you'll get a profile icon, and I want to do that. But yeah, I've been working on Super Mario Galaxy. I was in the mood after the movie there.

Speaker 1:
[01:22] Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[01:23] A fun game, a little wonky controls-wise. That's always been my issue with it, is like how much Wii was in that game.

Speaker 1:
[01:30] Right. Necessarily so, right? No second analog. You kind of just have to go along with it, and then they kind of simplify some other things because of that.

Speaker 2:
[01:37] Right. I was streaming it, actually. I fired up the personal stream for first time in a while. Yeah, yeah. If everyone wants to watch, I'm doing that on the weekend. twitch.tv/turboshawn, S-H-A-W-N. And I was saying the whole time, when it's just being a 3D platformer, when it's just being a 3D platformer, no gimmickery, Galaxy is excellent. When it's all about the pointer controls and shaking and stuff like that, I'm like, yeah, that's where it gets a little annoying for me.

Speaker 1:
[02:06] The platforming gimmicks, the gimmicks that are platforming-focused, all really good and then they get even better, in my opinion, in Super Mario Galaxy 2. You're right. All the Wii gimmicks don't really hold up.

Speaker 2:
[02:16] The one that I think works really well is the slingshot stars, where you use the pointer and you fling Mario around an asteroid field or something. That's very fun. But other than that, I'm looking forward to playing Galaxy 2 as well. I think Twilight Princess is going to be next for me though.

Speaker 1:
[02:33] Yeah. The 3D Mario Platformers is one of the franchises that helped me realize why I do have such an affinity for the Nintendo 64. When you look at the complexity of what a game allows you to do during the N64 era, we really did go down in the next generation. Let's pull back, let's make things a little bit simpler, make them a little bit more open for everybody. I thought it's definitely admirable. There's a reason to do that, but I could do a lot more shit as Mario in Mario 64. I felt like I had more control over him than a lot of the other follow-ups there. Odyssey does bring it back in a lot of ways, but even then, I think I still think Mario 64 is the right way for Mario to feel. There's a lot of genres that do that, from that generation to GameCube. Galaxy games are still fantastic, though. It's not saying anything against those for sure.

Speaker 2:
[03:21] They're still very fun games. I just think they have issues, is all.

Speaker 1:
[03:25] Absolutely. All right. Let's explain ourselves for Giant Bomb. Go to giantbomb.com/join. Please, if you do that, you are supporting independent games media. We really appreciate you or anyone who has come through and has supported us. It means the world to us. It's going to get you. If you do so, add free versions of our shows. It's going to get you premium shows like Portal Pals, Nine Lives of Mr. Rastofli's, Grub Snacks Premium, which recorded like last Friday or Thursday, and finally just put up yesterday. Everybody, sorry for the delay there, but there is a new episode of that. On the premium site, again, that's giantbomb.com/join. Become a premium member. Thank you so much. As far as this show goes, most weekdays, I, Jeff Grubb, will help piece 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 bonafide 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 here with Geometry Wars inspired hit Sektori appears on the Switch 2 eShop. It's the biggest story of the year, everybody. This is from Olly Reynolds at Nintendo Life. Late last year, a critically acclaimed arcade game titled Sektori launched on PC and PlayStation 5. And now it looks like it's heading to the Switch. Developed by an ex-Housemarque employee, Sektori is heavily inspired by Geometry Wars with a mix of twin stick gameplay, hordes of colorful enemies and levels that morph at will. Asian eShop pages list a release date of the 14th of May for the Switch. Thanks to Reset Era for spotting that. And we seriously can't wait to get cracking with this one. It's that game, now it's on Switch. We always felt like that would happen. That is cool. I'm a little bit worried about that screen keeping up with that game. Just a little bit. I haven't had many issues. But that game is crazy enough where it's like if I was going to notice it in something, the sort of ghosting, the artifacts that happen, I might notice it with Sektori, a game I've played a lot on an OLED Steam Deck. So yeah, now's the time, right Sean? Everyone's going to get in?

Speaker 2:
[05:42] It's the biggest news story of the day, huh? Leading headline here.

Speaker 1:
[05:44] Okay, to be fair, it's not like a heavy news day. So I saw that, but I definitely would have led with this no matter what, Sean. So you got me, you got me, all right? You had me in the first half there.

Speaker 2:
[05:56] You do raise an interesting point though. Yeah, boy, that Switch 2 screen, the more I play in handheld mode, a fast paced game, I'm like, oh, I revisited Mario Kart there today. I'm like, oh, this is smeary. Oh, no, everyone was right. But yeah, Sektori, it'll be interesting to see how it looks on there. I do appreciate the extra resolution of handheld mode. I was firing up, I fired up Pokemon Violet for getting some Pokemon into Champions for, you know, me and Jandu, Pokemon Day Night Combat. And as I was transferring stuff over, I noticed, dang, 1080p looks sharp, huh? It looks real nice.

Speaker 1:
[06:34] Yeah, I mean, the screen just got big enough where it's like that 1080p, it's like, okay, now it's, especially when they just make the game for it because you don't have the interpolation there, it does make a difference.

Speaker 2:
[06:45] Yeah. Sektori, definitely one that I enjoyed while I played of. Not as hot on it as, say, you and Dan were, but I do think it's a very fun game that I'm glad to see. Is this the first console version or was it PS5?

Speaker 1:
[07:00] It was PS5. It was PS5 at launch. Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2:
[07:03] Well, cool to see it go more places then because I think this is a good handheld game. Really get in the zone while you're just wherever you are. If you think you're going to be watching TV, you won't be. You'll be focused on this game or bedtime or whatever. I think this will be a fun game for them.

Speaker 1:
[07:18] Yeah, it's a game that overwhelms the senses. For sure. You can't cannot. It's one of the things I like about it. It's a meditative meditative because it's like, you know, I have to throw every single one of my faculties into this game to be able to handle it at the level that I was trying to get to. And it was really good. I got into the I think I got into the top 10, right? Yeah, if not, I was like right there. Maybe I was like number 11 in the world or something like that. I can't remember off the top of my head on Steam. It is a little bit like, oh man, now there's going to be a new leaderboard. I should probably get in there and set a score. That's a dangerous road for me. I played a lot of this game. I actually haven't told anyone this yet because it's kind of kind of embarrassing. And also, it's one of those things where when I say it out loud, it's like, I'm going to be so annoyed by it. I'm going to have to do something about it. And right now I'm trying to ignore it. My Steam Deck, I was on vacation in Michigan last year and I brought it with me. And I was like, I charged it before the trip, but I must have like had it. I must have hit the button in my bag. And it was like running in my bag and it was on. And the battery just drained to hell. And I got, I was tired one night and I was trying to turn it on. I'm like, I know it's got a full battery. So I was just kept trying to turn it on. I'm like, what's going on here? It seems like it's about to turn on. And by doing that, I was just draining every last little bit of battery out of that thing to the point where it just zapped it and it would not come back to life. I basically just wiped some internal storage. The OS wouldn't work. I couldn't reinstall the OS. So Steam, I worked with, I RMA'd it. They sent me a new one. And the only thing I really played on that thing for weeks was Sektori. And to the point where when I got done with it, I'm like, all right, I'm moving on to other games. The right analog stick was squeaking because I had played it so much. I think I had already worn out the right analog stick on that thing. It was, and I kind of have to like blow into it or use some compressed air and that'll fix it for a day. And then the next day it's squeaking again. And it's really annoying. I get bothered by that sort of thing, Sean.

Speaker 2:
[09:10] This also makes a lot more sense than how you originally told the story of your system just magically died. I just suddenly, I don't know if you yourself comes together.

Speaker 1:
[09:17] Well, look, I mean, yeah, we don't have to get into the details of who did who. And maybe I said some things while I was still trying to get my replacement unit, so who could say? But yeah, play Sektori. That's a real good game. Yeah. All right, Yoshi and the Mysterious Book Previews went live yesterday. They also put an overview trailer out today, so that that's worth tracking down, because it's a little bit more interesting than I was expecting. And you can see me react to that, because Baccalaure and Will went out to New York City to see the game. We put the quick look sort of thing that we have of that for the preview. It's out now, you should watch it, because it is a different game than just a regular Yoshi platformer, or just like, hey, run to the goal, and maybe find a couple of secrets. It is almost combining the cozy game stuff with a platformer, where you have these interactions between the different enemies. What's the Wario Land game that does that, where when Wario runs into a certain enemy, he catches on fire and can solve puzzles? Was that three?

Speaker 2:
[10:20] That's like most of them after a certain point. I want to say two-started.

Speaker 1:
[10:24] Two-started, yes. It's a little bit similar to that, and a little bit similar to Breath of the Wild's chemistry system, where you could feed a certain spicy chili pepper to one enemy, and that will cause them to have a different effect, and then you could take that enemy, who's now blowing out spicy bubbles or whatever, to go and interact with a different enemy, and now because they're getting hit with the spicy bubbles, they are producing a different effect themselves. And as you interact with these enemies, not even enemies, they're just other like wildlife, and Yoshi's almost a scientist doing research on them, and that's what he's writing into the Mysterious Book. You get to name them. There's a real cozy game atmosphere to it that I was not expecting, and I think it's not gonna change my opinion on these Yoshi platformers of like, now they're the depth of Yoshi's Island that I loved, but it could be different in a good way.

Speaker 2:
[11:16] Okay, so he's not a scientist, he's a Pokemon trainer. He's got Pokedex, Jeff.

Speaker 1:
[11:22] It is, yes. I think that's also a good way of looking at it. Yes.

Speaker 2:
[11:25] Interesting. Okay, that makes it maybe immediately more appealing, because I think the big question was, what the hell is this game? What are you doing in this cute little platformer here? I have not, I've been so busy, I haven't even watched a quick look of it, but that's interesting. So in general, people seem a little higher on it than before, is like the overall vibe.

Speaker 1:
[11:48] I think people are like ready to give this one the benefit of the doubt in a way that when this game was announced, I think a lot of us have gone, we've done that before. We've given these Yoshi games the benefit of the doubt. With the expectations, like maybe this one will be more like Yoshi's Island. And that's, so I think because they're not asking us to do that same thing again, because they're like, no, we're doing something different. People are like, okay, maybe this could work. And it's not, it is certainly lackadaisical, which is what I've always said about the recent Yoshi games. I think that's the best word to describe them. It's still that, now it's sort of like flipping that and like making it its strength of we're going to get like, there's no reason to rush to the end, explore these worlds, jump around as Yoshi. You're going to still be able to eat enemies, turn them into eggs, throw them at things, still find secrets. There's five, you know, flowers to find in these levels, all that stuff still here. But now we're adding another couple layers on top of that and making it complex in an interesting way. And so, yeah, I think people are a little bit more optimistic than they ever would have been on this game had it not tried something different.

Speaker 2:
[12:52] Yeah, because it seems like just in general, leaning into the cozy vibe that Yoshi has been going with for a while now. And so I think, yeah, maybe that's a good sign if people are a little more optimistic. Maybe even that's a strong way of playing it. But are, like you said, willing to give it a chance and not just write off as, well, this is a game made for the youngest of kids. And that's why it's so simple. Maybe there's something else here. I'm really curious about this one. I'm interested to see how it lands.

Speaker 1:
[13:21] Yep, yep, same. I am now adding it to the one where it's like, I think a bunch of times me and Mike will be like, hey, what's coming up for the Switch 2? And we name a bunch of games and not this one. I'm not gonna forget this one anymore. I think now I'm like ready for it. Now it's out next month. Gonna be pretty easy to remember it. But no, something flipped a little bit here when Bacalar was walking us through it. And Bacalar seemed to enjoy it, which is always like, I wonder what Jeref's gonna think of this. And the fact that he seemed to be coming away being like, there's something here has me, has piqued my interest for sure. All right, up next, Ys Memoir, Revelations in Celceta. Man, I don't know, man.

Speaker 2:
[14:00] Ys Memoir, Revelations in Celceta.

Speaker 1:
[14:04] Celceta, all right, close. Reviews, they're in. It's got an 80 on OpenCritic. 7 out of 10 from George Yang at Nintendo Life. Ys Memoir is a good entry in the long running action RPG series, but it's far from the best despite the game's title. The plot is forgettable, but the explosive combat, charming characters and booming soundtrack are engaging enough to keep your intention until the credits roll. Adol has had more memorable adventures on Nintendo Switch, but mapping out the great forest of Celceta, Celceta you said, is still a fun time for me. Then a 9 out of 10 from Maddie Fisher at Dual Shockers. The bosses are a little weak, and it is a bit on the shorter side of the JRPG spectrum at 20 hours, but I feel like there's a genuine strength of the game, or that's a genuine strength of the game I should say. If you've never played Ys before, this is a great entry point for any newcomer. And then 7.5 out of 10 from Zubikon at CG Magazine. Ys Memoir is another entry into the long-running series of action RPGs by Nihon Falcom, while also serving as a great jumping off point for newcomers. So I think there's this a franchise that people often say, hey, where should I start? And it sounds like, you know, if you are, if you're okay to spend the money on a game that people are like, hey, this is pretty good, but it's a good entry point. I think that makes some sense to me. Although I would probably go like, why wouldn't like you're, a lot of people are saying there are better ones. Why shouldn't I just start with the ones that are clearly better? But hey, I don't know. I've not played a lot of these games, Sean.

Speaker 2:
[15:36] Yeah, I wonder, I think the name might be because they don't want people to know what this actually is, which is a remastering of the remake of Ys 4. Yeah. So the Ys games are kind of weird because chronologically, they go out of order from their number in the series. They just like put a story in here and there and a bunch of different places. But I have my understanding, because I haven't played much of the Ys series, my understanding is that they are kind of like Final Fantasy, kind of disconnected from each other, except that this series has the same main character in each one. I guess you'd say it's like The Legend of Zelda, how Link's adventures are completely disconnected, even if it is the same Link in each one, you'll just get references and stuff. Yeah, so I don't think this is a great jumping on point necessarily, but they don't want people to know that because the adventures are all disconnected from each other.

Speaker 1:
[16:32] Right, it can be in that the big numbering system that these games often do have, they are not afraid to go up to 8, 9, 10. That could be intimidating to people.

Speaker 2:
[16:42] Yeah, I wonder if playing Ys 10 just came out, like the definitive edition, that extra content just came out recently. I wonder if the 10 on that maybe scares some people off of like, oh no, there's nine stories that I have to catch up on here. And that's why they did, there's also the Oath in Felgana was also a Ys Memoire game. They call it Ys Origin or Ys Book One and Two like they have in the past. They just call it something else, maybe to not scare people off. I think that makes sense.

Speaker 1:
[17:15] Yeah, this idea of a character going through a bunch of different adventures and having different ways of doing that where apparently, yeah, Link, it's always a different Link. And apparently for this series, it's always the same guy. It's like, that's a distinction almost without a difference when it comes down to actually executing on the games. But if you're a big fan, it can mean something, but it reminds me so much of those big franchise book characters that get really popular. And then suddenly there's like 70 Jack Reacher novels. And you're like, how many times can this guy save us from nuclear Armageddon? It turns out 70 times. And it's like, oh, yeah, the stories are connected. It's the same character, but really one does not affect the other. It's a common thing in fiction. So yeah, it has its own version of that for sure. So what I'm saying is, Aldon, is that the character's name?

Speaker 2:
[17:59] Adol.

Speaker 1:
[18:01] OK, yeah, he's Jack Ryan from the Tom Cruise.

Speaker 2:
[18:04] Exactly.

Speaker 1:
[18:05] Yeah, no difference. OK, let's get this is the real big story of the day, Sean. Here you go. I knew you were waiting for this one. Players say Peter Molyneux's new God game is too much like Cooking Mama. This is from Claire Lewis at GameSpot. Peter Molyneux, creator of Fable and various popular God games like Black and White, has released what he says is his final game, the culmination of his life's work. That's a quote from him and proof that he's done a done overpromising and under delivering. Masters of Albion, a God game that launched in early access yesterday is that game. But rather than feeling like an omnipotent God, players say that the game makes them feel like they're trapped in a medieval version of Cooking Mama. The main game, this is a quote from I believe a user review on Steam. The main gameplay loop seems to center more or less around a Cooking Mama style minigame. One player wrote on Steam where the game's user reviews are currently mixed. Master of Albion's Steam page describes it as a bold re-imagining of the God game genre from the creator who defined it and explains that players can shape a living world as a God or step into it and experience it through its people. The game includes building, town defense and other typical life sim meets strategy game genre staples, but it also includes a whole lot of painstaking Cooking Mama-esque sandwich making apparently. For the majority of the time, you will be making sandwiches, cakes, soups, pies, etc. Not being an all-powerful godly hand, one thumbs down Steam review reads, you literally put the bread down, then decide what goes on top of the bread, then what goes on top of that, or what ingredients you put in the soup for each and every work order with a vague hint of what the client wants. The hints start out fairly easy. For example, the first request seems to be a sandwich with bread, dairy and nothing more. Clearly, this customer wants a cheese sandwich. But after watching a live stream in which the player fulfilled this request by making a sandwich with cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, rat meat and vinegar, and was still given a 10 out of 10 score by the customer seeking a simple cheese sandwich, I have even more questions about how this is supposed to work. There's more to this story here, but I think we have a pretty good idea of what's going down. This game is in early access, Sean. We should say that first.

Speaker 2:
[20:20] Okay, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[20:21] Yes, it's early access. It did just come out. This is the one where I think a lot of people will remember when it got announced. It was like, wait, isn't that the setting for Fable? Is he just like stealing from that? It's like, well, no, Albion is a, it goes way back, that's public domain. A lot of games have used that as a sort of stand in for England, Great Britain. I'm not exactly sure. I am no expert and have not read a lot about it, but and it was always, he's doing his own Fable thing again. He's like, well, no, he's gonna kind of do his god game stuff kind of black and white again or populous. And now it's here. And it does sound like another one of those like, what are you going for, Peter? Peter, what were you trying to do here? Have you seen anyone like watching streams, playing this game? I've not seen anyone sort of pick it up yet.

Speaker 2:
[21:06] No, this is like the inverse of people who I watch. This is, I can't imagine anybody I know picking up this game. Majority of your time making sandwiches and cakes and stuff, huh?

Speaker 1:
[21:19] A majority in the god game. Do you ever play Black and White? You ever play any of his previous god games?

Speaker 2:
[21:27] No, I haven't.

Speaker 1:
[21:28] Yeah, so that's one of those games where as a console gamer, I still noticed it because it was getting 90, 91% from PC gaming magazines and stuff like that. And I love the idea of, oh, you play as the hand and you can sort of pick up the characters and put them together in situations, or you could just throw them across the world and punish them and spike them and all this stuff. That's okay, that seems pretty interesting. And then, yeah, so to hear like this game doesn't focus on that stuff that really sort of made it a bit of a weirdly viral hit in a time where we didn't have those. It was, it's like, oh, now you're making sandwiches instead. What were you trying to go for? This does feel like filler until they can get the rest of the game made and they needed to start selling it. So it's an early access in what sounds to me in a very incomplete state. And I just want to be surprised if that's what happened here.

Speaker 2:
[22:19] That's interesting. And people's concerns about it strike me as, I feel like there's a disconnect between how they want to market the game and maybe what the game actually is, because I'm looking at the Steam page now and it looks like what the description says. Yeah, there's parts where it's a god game where you're building the town. And then, yeah, you have the floating hand. You can even like send out spells and stuff to affect the world. Or you can like, you know, slurp into a dude and walk around down there and do some stuff. So I wonder if, yeah, maybe they just have fleshed out the actual walking around more fabley stuff and they haven't fleshed out the god game stuff as much. That's maybe my takeaway from this.

Speaker 1:
[23:01] Yeah, I mean, that sounds right. And yeah, I think there's a lot of skepticism and chat about like, you know, this is just, you know, a half finished game and they're just trying to pawn it off as something maybe a little bit different so they can sell it and so yeah, probably, probably. I mean, that's the early access is, and I think should be the wild west. And that means occasionally you're going to get something that is maybe even potentially a little bit deceptive. So don't buy early access games unless you're sure. And you have that refund window. Definitely exercise your right to refund games on Steam. If within that two hour period, you kind of get the sense that things are off there. Yeah, just walk carefully with anything that's labeled early access. And I would certainly do. I mean, most people are just not even going to sniff this thing, let alone go and spend money on it.

Speaker 2:
[23:44] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[23:45] You know, Fables is supposedly maybe still coming out this year. They have not given us a date yet. Hopefully it is. I'm interested in that game still. Although, you know, this one I do not think is going to get to that point of being able to match the actual Fable that's coming out. But we'll see. All right. Let's go ahead and take a break, Shawn. We got plenty more headlines to get into after that. If you want to skip out on this, you can do so. Go to giantbomb.com/join, become a premium member, ad free versions of the show on the website. Until then, though, we'll be right back. It's Game Mess Mornings. We're back. That's TurboShawn. I'm Jeff Grubb. Let's get back into the headlines here with one for our Mikeys, everybody. We always do one for the Mikeys. Two Point Museum announces Artsy Fartsy. No, that says artifacts. That doesn't say Artsy Fartsy at all. Although, for some reason, it's always going to in my brain. Artifacts DLC, which is another fun pun. This is from Nintendo Everything. More DLC is heading to Two Points Museum and Siga, and Two Points Studio today announced that Artifacts is next up on the docket. It'll be available on Nintendo Switch 2 as well soon. There's a bunch of new content in this. Let's see here. The Two Point Museum Artifacts DLC introduces art-focused management to Two Point County, allowing players to collect and commission exhibitions ranging from famous work parodies like Two Point Gothic to interactive performance arts. Key features include a new art studio room where experts can create layered original art, a new museum location called Undy Docks, and an expedition map based on Zara Fitzpockett's sketchbook. The DLC also adds art experts over 27 art exhibits and themed items for gift shops and cafes. Man, you know, again, I'm just kind of throwing in there because I know Mike likes this game so much. I do wonder like how DLCs for this kind of thing do. Is it like Sims-like where the people are into these things, just they'll schlorp all these things up and just can't help themselves? I don't know. I would assume so. But what do you think?

Speaker 2:
[25:44] Oh, I know I'm not one of those people.

Speaker 1:
[25:46] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[25:47] This is some Mike has some Mike stuff. Hopefully doesn't wander on in here and I want to talk about it for about 20 minutes straight. I'm always glad when games like this get some neat little DLCs like keep people who are invested in the game, interested in the game and give them something new to do. Because it does seem like Two Point Museum is the kind of game that lends itself well to just, yeah, you add some new stuff to play around with the museum, maybe some new layer of the management sim of it all. I can see why that would be appealing.

Speaker 1:
[26:21] It is the kind of thing where when I played some of that game, I definitely felt this in the way Mike has talked about it. This is the exact kind of stuff that they would like. Where it's like, hey, I like going down these new paths. All right, now we're going to focus on a museum of this kind. And we are going to be able to do specific sort of rooms where cool stuff is happening with certain kinds of characters that I'm building. And so, oh yeah, they're delivering more of that and kind of making it a more fleshed out experience for a game that was already very well received. All right, let's move on here. More Shuhei Yoshida news. He's been talking a lot. I think this is another one where he had a couple of public appearances and had some conversations. He says he sees gaming's future as indie, not quote generic AAA games. This is from Devin McClure at GameSpot. Shuhei Yoshida, a prominent figure from PlayStation, plays over 250 games annually, focusing primarily on indie titles due to the time commitment required by AAA games. He argues that indie games possess a stronger creative resolve because developers can execute their specific visions without the extensive approval processes and market-driven safety common in large-scale AAA productions. Yoshida believes indie developers lead industry innovation by exploring unique subjects that eventually inspire larger studios. Reflecting on his career, he highlights the democratization of game development through digital distribution as the industry's most significant shift, allowing any creator to become a publisher. While he acknowledges the decline in physical game production volume, he notes an increase in the variety of physical indie releases and collector's editions. Looking forward, Yoshida predicts a rise in game volume and quality through accessible creation tools, though he warns that the saturation makes building and communicating with a dedicated community essential for indie success. This is a lot of stuff I think that we kind of intuitively know, stuff that has been proven like borne out a bunch of times. But I think it's certainly true at this point for me that the innovation does come from indies. And to me, Sean, innovation and novelty, things that feel new to games. There was a time where you could maybe expect that to happen from the big publishers, but in recent years and maybe going back for more than a decade and a half at this point, it does feel like indies are primarily responsible for the new ideas. And to me, and you can tell me if you agree with this or not, new ideas are still what make video games go around. Like it still feels like that's the thing that makes this business sort of feel fresh. Is that right?

Speaker 2:
[28:56] Yeah, absolutely. I think you're right. I think he's right. I think he's on to something here where indies are more and more important as especially as game prices go up, people are looking to indies both for affordable ways to play games as well as those new and interesting experiences that you're talking about. This is a concern that I've had a lot lately. I think a lot of people have just, this is like an opinion that I hear out of people I don't expect to be talking about it, of just AAA games feel a bit stagnant right now because there is that need to make the game profitable. And if you need to make a game extremely profitable because of how expensive it is to make a game, you're not going to take a risk on some bold new gameplay concept that may fall flat on its face. And some AAAs have tried that and they get absolutely roasted in reviews and stuff because it's not necessarily what people want out of that series or because sometimes you try something and it just doesn't land and that's fine when it's a small team. It can't be that with a big team. And so these more interesting ideas, these creative concepts, look at something like Peak, for example, you can't have a team of 200, 300, 400 people developing Peak and finding some way to put all these people to work and make it a big budget. You're playing a game, you can sell for $70 and have a bunch of microtransactions to keep it going long term or something. It needs to be the kind of thing that is made by a team of, you know, like five, 10, 20 people, and then they can sustainably sell it for somewhere in that like $8 range. $5, I hear it is often. Somewhere around there because that's how people can buy it. That's how the studios stay afloat. That's how the industry keeps rolling. Yeah, I think both of you guys are on to something here. I'm just like, it's concerning where AAA is at. I think Indies are a much more sustainable way forward.

Speaker 1:
[30:59] Yeah, and it's a little bit frustrating, right? Because we talk about the risk aversion that these big companies had or have. And you know, it's like if they were to talk to gamers, like showing even like you have your group of friends that play games, if they were the focus group, right? If they were going to them, there's no way that even that group of people who I'm sure are money conscious and want to make sure that they're getting the biggest bang for their buck are going to be telling these companies, be more risk averse. Be more careful with your games. Be less weird. I think we all want like do something interesting, do something that surprises us. And it's like if we could just tell these companies they could hear us, they would be doing more of that. But they are like the message is not getting through to them, it feels like.

Speaker 2:
[31:44] Right. And you know, I'm actually happy you brought that up because yeah, my friend Grubb is moving towards indie games. Game Pass was a big part of that. And you know, some of them are still subscribed. Some aren't because of the price changes and stuff like that. It's funny, when we got together this week, the talk was, hey, did you know Game Pass is going down in price? Because that was relevant to them. And so that was very big news. But you know, we have something like Black Ops 6 comes out, and it's very fun. And then Black Ops 7 comes out. It was very clearly supposed to be DLC, but for the sake of keeping the Call Of Duty train rolling, they decided to sell it as a $70 standalone product. And nobody I know is going for that shit.

Speaker 1:
[32:24] Everyone's savvy enough to know what's going on.

Speaker 2:
[32:26] Exactly. But meanwhile, they see something like Peak or whatever indie game got added to Game Pass that week, or an indie game that they see on TikTok or whatever, and they pick up for like $12. And that's something that is immediately more appealing to them because it is that fresh experience that also doesn't cost a lot. And it goes back to that thing I was saying about AAA games kind of being stuck right now is because they can't put out something new and fresh when the safe thing is right there. And I don't think, I don't think they realize people are over safe, you know? We've gone through a lot of the big ideas in AAA games, and we're not seeing a lot of innovation. It takes something like Pragmata, which is like turning the third person shooter on its head a little bit to draw attention. And we see that with sales numbers, for a new IP, something weird and different as well, visually, to then turn around and sell a million copies in just that first weekend, is doing really well. And yes, of course, part of that is Capcom, of course. But also, anyone I show, I'm like, hey, check out a little bit of gameplay from when I was playing, here's this cool clip. And they're like, this looks sick as hell. I want to try this. Yeah, more risks need to be taken.

Speaker 1:
[33:46] Yeah, and it's, you know, we always point to Capcom on the show about, hey, that's one of the companies that's doing things right. And I think if we try to sort of diagnose, like, what is it that they're doing right, it is the marriage of, they're trying some stuff, they're properly refreshing and sort of re-fertilizing their most known properties, and then they're always marraging that with a level of quality, and we're going to make these things look good and look expensive. A lot of these big publishers are just that, they just make it look expensive. Obviously, some of the ones that are like the top of the top, like the Naughty Dogs, are able to have gameplay innovation and the most expensive stuff, and then their games cost an astronomical amount of money. But Capcom sort of figured out how to do it in a way that feels sustainable, and it's like, okay, that's what they're doing right. Kind of just doing a little bit of everything that has always made gaming good, and they're just doing it in a way that now looks like, oh, if I'm paying 70 or in some case like Prangmata, right, $60. Paying $60 for a game, this is what I can get from a publisher that really knows what they're doing, that feels really good. Then on the indie side of things, it's like once you get down below $30, you have so much more freedom to sort of just focus on the ideas rather than, hey, this thing looks big and expensive, and indie developers are running with that, of course. I mean, Slay The Spire 2 success is just, but oh yeah, that is a cultural thing at this point, that is caught on. And yeah, it does feel like that is going to be what happens. Those things succeed, it will filter up, Epic will steal it and put it in Fortnite.

Speaker 2:
[35:17] That is, I think, Slay The Spire 2 is a good example of where people actually do want more of it because it's not necessarily an oversaturated thing. You look for Slay The Spire clones on Steam, you'll find them, there's still a lot of them, but none of them are quite Slay The Spire. None of them are quite at that quality. And so I think that it's like tabletop gaming, you know, a new trading card game expansion, a new version of the board game you like that adds more layers. I think adding more of that exact same thing when you haven't been oversaturated is very appealing. But the difference between indie and AAA is like, because if we get a peak 2 where it's like, hey, everyone's got jet packs now, everyone's like, hell yeah, peak with jet packs, because we don't have a million climbing games yet. And so yeah, I think there's still room in that for indies in the way that AAA just doesn't have. And playing off what you said with Capcom, I think what they're smart about is the fact that they keep making video gamey ass video games. Really, Capcom's only downturn was when they tried being generic AAA video games that appealed to the West, quote unquote, in like the early 2010s there. That was the one time where they had like, no real bangers for a couple of years there. And they had to turn things around. And so they just went back to making PS1 and PS2 games, but with PS4 and 5 graphics. And everybody loves it. And I think more companies need to look at what they're doing if they want to have that success in the AAA space and not potentially put something out there that could see some success or could fall flat on space relative to the cost of making it.

Speaker 1:
[36:54] Right. And then the costs, I think, are the thing that indie developers would step in at this point and be like, look, yeah, we are happy to be the bastions of innovation and novelty, absolutely. But it's kind of rough out here for us right now. Not a lot of money going around. And one of the things that works against them is the recent model has been a small team sort of funding themselves, maybe often developers that have worked at bigger studios and might have some money in their pocket, spend six months to nine months making a friend slap game. Never a pejorative when it comes out of my mouth, a friend slap game. And it sells millions of copies at eight bucks a pop and it's like, oh, well, now that's your gravy train. And you didn't need a publisher to step in. So kind of publishers are like, what are we doing here? You gotta really tell us why you need our money to make something and you're not just one of these lottery tickets that's like, hey, we're another friend slap game or something like that. But that does lead into the next story of like, there are these indie successes that then sort of perpetuate more money coming into the space. Vampire Survivors creator Poncle has over 15 projects in the works. This is from Ben Lyons at Game Reactor. When Vampire Survivors made its arrival, the game quickly grew and caught the attention of millions of players. So many, in fact, that it took the small indie company of Poncle from a small fry to a rather large fish. Today, Poncle is in the business of game publishing too, using its wealth and pull to help other indie teams find their footing. But it also has grand plans of its own, including a massive expansion in development power and plans to open new studios around the world. Speaking with the game business, Poncle's chief strategy officer, Mateo Sapio, revealed a whole bunch of information about the company and its plans for the future. For one, it was revealed that Vampire Survivors has now reached as many as 27 million players. Obviously, it's on all kinds of different services, but a lot of people bought that game. It's on mobile. It's huge. And this success is enabling Poncle to commence work on over 15 upcoming projects with even more ideas in very early and rudimentary stages. Not all of these will be vampire related games, however, as Poncle is exploring some new avenues where it can, while simultaneously licensing out its engine to other creators and brands that want to make Survivors games of their own. With broad development hopes, Poncle is even soon set to open two new studios, one in Italy and one in Japan. Although this will seemingly be coming at the cost of its third-party publishing efforts, which are now said to have been paused. So it's interesting to see these companies try to navigate this space, right? I think we hear Indie Studio, they had big Indie hit, now has publishing ambitions. That is, they're going to work with their friends in the space to publish their games and try to find the next hit and some of them have success, and some of them are very good at that, and some of them find that pretty challenging, right? It's the hit-driven business of picking the next winner. I imagine, Sean, that would be pretty difficult, right? You gotta really put your taste on the line, and be like, is this thing going to pay off? I think it is, because I like it. And so, okay, that's a big bet when you start putting tens of thousands and then hundreds of thousands of dollars behind something. So in the case of Poncle, they're shifting from, all right, let's use that money to find these other studios that are making games to instead, let's fund our own studios. And this is something we haven't seen a ton of from an indie team kind of taking this stuff on. And I'm pretty, I'm into it. What do you think of it?

Speaker 2:
[40:17] Yeah, I think this is good for indies in general to like help raise each other up a little bit. By the way, because Chad was saying, to be clear, yeah, this is being passed around initially as they had 15 games in the works. And I don't know, 15 projects as in a game or two. They have some DLC they're working on. They have major updates that they're working on. That's what projects be.

Speaker 1:
[40:37] Yes, a variety of different. Yes, yes.

Speaker 2:
[40:39] There's a list later on. We're clear on that. Yeah. But when it comes to things that they're talking about, yeah, like helping other games get published and get off the ground and stuff like that. I think that's really cool because we saw that with, what wasn't it when you were talking last week about Dosa Divas? Is that the one that has the relationship with, what's her name, Chucklefish or whatever?

Speaker 1:
[41:01] Yeah. I think they have a different relationship with somebody.

Speaker 2:
[41:05] I forget the name because some of these centers in these studios.

Speaker 1:
[41:08] Outersloth. Yeah. Outersloth. Team. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[41:11] So some of these just names that are nouns kind of just run together in my head. Apologies, everyone. But it is cool to see these studios rising tide, right? Like helping each other out, helping get the games out there. Hey, we were super successful. So we'll help you get this thing out the door because we think that your thing is cool and people will buy it.

Speaker 1:
[41:32] And we know how to navigate this stuff now.

Speaker 2:
[41:34] We know how to navigate this stuff. We can help you out. And hey, did you hear that if your thing sells, everybody makes money? It's kind of, you know, how selling games used to work back in the day. We give you some money, you give us some money afterwards. We shake hands and part ways. It's all good. It's funny how we just had a good conversation there about Indies sort of slowly taking over some of the mind space of big AAAs, third-party AAAs. And now we have it where Indies have grown to the point where they're kind of just doing what the game industry used to be as AAA spirals out of control and it's just all about the quadruple A budgets that no one knows how to actually spend. Well, it's not like CEOs screwing everybody over all up and down the stack. No, it's just a studio who wants to make a game, makes a game, a slightly bigger indie studio helps another one out and they get the thing out the door as a publishing partnership. It's great. I'm loving this and I think that's certainly part of why Indies are just getting more and more successful is as you see more and more people kind of just helping each other out because they're like, hey, we love video games, we don't want video games to go away and it kind of feels like it might if we just leave things in the hands of these companies that have grown way too big.

Speaker 1:
[42:53] Yep, exactly and it's then to that final point about you got to find those Indie communities they could be a part of so that you can have a conversation with that direct audience because it's going to get saturated. There are going to be so many games for people to spend their money on. We're already there obviously and it's only going to be exacerbated. There is no sort of silver bullet solution to that. It's just putting effort into being like, hey, when a company like this puts out a game, a certain community notices because they like the people involved or the people surrounding it. And I definitely like view us over at Giant Bomb and say, we're part of that. And it's like, yeah, we definitely want to continue being a stitch in that thread over there for sure. All right. Let's keep going here. Shifting gears. More Call Of Duty Games are coming to Xbox Game Pass this year. This is from Evan Campbell at GameSpot. Microsoft might be dropping new Call Of Duty Games from Xbox Game Pass. And that's as in the new ones going forward. But that reportedly won't stop older entries in the first-person shooter franchise from arriving on the service sooner rather than later. According to PC Gamer, Activision is looking at bringing legacy Call Of Duty Games to subscribers sometime this year. There are tons of options considering there are only six Call Of Duty titles on Game Pass currently. The oldest is 2017's Call Of Duty World War II. While weirdly, 2020's Call Of Duty Black Ops Cold War isn't included. In fact, it was only last week that 2019's Call Of Duty Modern Warfare joined the subscription catalog. That leaves a huge chunk of the series to pick and choose from, such as 2007's Call Of Duty Modern Warfare, Call Of Duty Black Ops, or even going back to the beginning with the original Call Of Duty from 2003. Microsoft has owned Activision Blizzard for years at this point, so it's a bit odd so many Call Of Duty Games are MIA on Game Pass. Shawn, is it odd or do you have like a sort of a thinking of like why they've held back other than got it so it might be a mess to sort of navigate that as you try to make sure people are playing the new Call Of Duty while having access to older Call Of Duties? What do you think?

Speaker 2:
[44:55] Well, these games still sell. It's a big thing. That's why they're disincentivized from pulling them in Game Pass. I don't know if you've ever looked at buying an old one anytime recently. It's still that thing. It was kind of a meme there for a while there of Call Of Duty Games don't really drop below $20 on sale because Activision knows that they can squeeze people for every dollar with these things. Although that luster is quickly fading with the Call Of Duty series. So I think there's this interesting standoff between the community and Activision and now Xbox of, well, they could put more of these games into the service. Are people going to play them? Do people care anymore? Have we all kind of just been so frustrated with Activision and their handling of the series at this point that we're all just saying, you know what? No, screw you guys. I'm going to do something else. Or you know what? You guys play Warzone for free. I'm just going to play it for free and not give you any money because I don't want to give you any money anymore. And you still give me a little bit of that Call Of Duty itch when I want it. I think that back and forth has been very odd for a very long time. And you know, people have been talking for a bit here ever since the price drop on Game Pass got announced, and it's because they're removing new Call Of Duty games. Everyone's like, well, then what was all of this for then? Why did you go through these lengths? Like this all feels very bizarre that you just tried something with the biggest checkbook in the world and failed. And we're just not going to try to remedy that. We're just like reversing course altogether. That seemed like a lot of lives upended, jobs lost and just a whole bunch of other crap because you all couldn't get your shit together. I don't know. The entire situation with Call Of Duty has been messed up for a very long time. I think this is just another example of them figuring out what to do. How much do we put into our services? How much value do we give to the customer when we still know that people will buy these games on sale for $20 or even buy them full price for $60? There's a bizarre back and forth there that most of our franchises and gaming do not have.

Speaker 1:
[47:07] Yeah, it's the Call Of Duty stuff that's made me realize that while these companies do have all of this telemetry, all this data on us, and they know what we don't like, the people sitting in the room then taking that data being like, all right, and therefore, here is the solution to that. Here's what we can do to change our fate. This is the easy path forward. They don't know what they're talking about. They are just as clueless as any of us about what would work in this industry and oftentimes more clueless. And the fact that they can oscillate back and forth between these different positions of what Game Pass is, whether Call Of Duty is in Game Pass, whether everything is in Xbox, whether everything is not in Xbox, just back and forth between all these positions. It's like, oh, there is no one obvious answer based on all that data. It is just a bunch of noise and they still have to try to suss out a signal. And they're struggling to do that. And it looks just like any other company that's like, hey, this current strategy isn't working. Let's bring in new leadership. And the new leadership is like, well, because we're new, we have to do things a different way. So let's go to the one alternative here. And it's like, well, that means Call Of Duty comes out of Game Pass. The price goes down after going up with everything. It's an Xbox now. Everything's not an Xbox. Yeah, it's it's weird to see. It's like, oh, yeah, they don't know what they're doing.

Speaker 2:
[48:19] It does seem like a weird thing where maybe Asha was looking to get a little goodwill going there and like maybe unilaterally decide we need to lower the price on Game Pass because that will make people happy. How can we do that? And the only business thing that they could think of was Call Of Duty's got to go then. Right.

Speaker 1:
[48:37] And it's like there's probably the easy one, because as you said, it really seemed like an experiment. They were testing things out in a way where it's like they didn't know. And so they're just trying all this stuff out and all of the consequences, all of the layoffs that might have happened, all this stuff, all that can be damned, because we got to find out what happens if we do this. All right. Annapurna announces Switch 2 ports of five games, with Sayonara Wild Hearts and Lorelei and the Laser Eyes out today. This is from Chris Scullion at VGC. Annapurna Interactive has announced Switch 2 versions of five of its back catalog games, two of which are available today. Those are Sayonara Wild Hearts, which is available now on Switch 2 eShop at $13, with a free upgrade for owners of the Switch version. The game, which was originally released in 2020 when Abafta, the Switch 2 edition features 120Hz refresh support and 4K support, and adds the Remix Arcade mode, which wasn't previously available on Switch. It's joined by Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, which is also available today. That one's $25, including a free upgrade for Switch version owners. It also supports 120Hz and 4K. Annapurna will be following this up with a Switch 2 version of Stray, which is coming May 28th for $30. A Switch 2 version will have improved visuals, 4K support, and improved framerate. Then in June, Switch 2 versions of Kata Takashi's Katamari Damacy, oh no, the Katamari Damacy guys, 2AT and Davey Rendon's Wanderstop. He's the one that did the Stanley Parable. 2AT will be released on Switch 2 on June 11th for $20. Wanderstop will be released June 23rd for $25. Annapurna has already put out, excuse me, People of Note, and then Mixtape is coming May 7th. Excuse me, Sean, go ahead and talk for a second while I clear my throat.

Speaker 2:
[50:27] Yeah, so I was looking at all of these titles, and I was curious how many of these already have Switch versions, and this is more of an announcement of they're getting upgraded to Switch 2. It does seem like quite a few of them are already, at least maybe all of them, are already on Switch 1, and this is more just about getting the enhanced versions.

Speaker 1:
[50:45] Exactly.

Speaker 2:
[50:47] But for some of these, it's going to be really cool, especially if they are increasing the frame rate, because, yeah, Sayonara Wild Hearts is one of them getting 120. I believe the story said, yeah. So that'll be really cool. I know I just picked up Sayonara Wild Hearts on sale for Steam, because I'd actually never played it before. Over at My Life in Gaming, the story, I think, said that's his favorite game of that generation.

Speaker 1:
[51:12] Oh, wow. Really?

Speaker 2:
[51:13] Yeah, because, again, I've seen a little bit of gameplay. I haven't played it before, but apparently he describes it as, like, it's just a music video, but with gameplay elements. I'm like, oh, that sounds really appealing. And so I picked up one. It's like $5 a day. And, yeah, this gets to something that we were saying a little bit earlier in the show as well, of playing these games out there and getting them to more people. Always a good thing. And this is the advantage of the Switch 2. They're better than ever and they are more competitive with how you can play them in our places. So it becomes less of a, you know, you don't have to think as much about, do I get on this platform or that platform? Because the Switch 2 version, especially of these indie games, are just as good as any other version now, which is very cool to see.

Speaker 1:
[51:57] Yeah. And I also included this story as something I think you're kind of alluding to here, like these are mostly Switch 1 to Switch 2 upgrades. And so we can have one of these stories and be like, this doesn't mean anything for like a Nintendo Direct, right? These are the kinds of things that probably, if they were going to be in a Nintendo Direct, would be in a sizzle reel or something like that. Here are some Switch 2 upgrades. It sounds like if there is a Switch 2 or a Switch 2 dedicated direct coming up, it's going to be jam-packed with stuff. These just wouldn't make the cut. So a developer like this can announce them all in one go, make something of a big splash, remind people like, oh yeah, Sayonara Wild Hearts, which I do think I'm seeing some of that in chat right now. People going, yeah, that game does rule. And, oh, I always meant to check that out. Well, now here's another good reason to do so. And they can get a little bit of that shine of, hey, we're on Switch 2 now, that thing that you're playing a lot of, while also probably not having the chance to be in a direct, like I said. So yeah, while there's a lot of smoke happening behind the scenes with games that are getting rated for Switch 2 and they haven't been announced yet, not everything is gonna be another check mark in that case. Okay, Tomodachi Life, Living the Dream tops the Japanese charts outselling the rest of the top 10 combined seven times over. This is from Chris Sculley at VGC. Tomodachi Life, Living the Dream has stormed to the top of the physical game charts in Japan, easily outselling the rest of the top 10 multiple times over. According to Famitsu's weekly software and hardware sales, the physical version of the Switch Life, the Switch Life Sim, sold 565,405 copies between its release on April 16th and the end of the chart period on April 19th. Half a million copies, physical only, in Japan. Yeah, that's a huge, huge launch. Now, it's not like Tomodachi Life was not popular in Japan. I think the Tomodachi Collection for the DS sold something like 3 million, Sean, and then Tomodachi Life, I can't remember what they called it in Japan, but yeah, Tomodachi Life for the 3DS was something like 6 million. And that was primarily in Japan. I think worldwide, I might have said that was in Japan, but yeah, worldwide it was 6 million. And a lot of that was in Japan and with some success across the world. Now it feels like, oh, this is going to have a switch bump for a franchise that was already doing very well. And on top of that, it does seem like it's going viral in the rest of the world. I still see it everywhere on social media. So yeah, this game is just popping off in a very Pacopio-like way, right?

Speaker 2:
[54:29] Yeah, this makes a lot of sense, too, because I think Japanese gaming, you know, pace is a little bit different. They do have a tendency to like very social games, games that they can quickly share with another person, and portable games as well. That's why when I switch to a game or switch one game even is really popular, that does tend to pop off pretty hard because everyone's just taking it with them wherever they may be, or that's the system that they can fit into our lives a little bit easier. So it makes sense when something like this pops off, but the way it popped off is still a little eyebrow raising. That is because you look at the chart that they have here, and you see Tomodachi Life at 565,000, parentheses new, it's a new release. And then the next one under that, another new release, Pragmata, but only at 36,000. And this is just physical. I think even if you include digital, it's probably just going to go even higher, is the funny thing at this point. So that is very impressive to see. People just love this damn game, huh?

Speaker 1:
[55:31] Yeah, I mean, it's one that's like, I think it always fit well with Japan and Nintendo. And then it has fully carried forward that spirit. It's not like they've rubbed off any of the edges there. There's definitely some features missing to the point where even Emmy was like, hey, I noticed something's missing in this game from when I played it on the 3DS. And that's like the big point of contention on the Tomodachi Life subreddit. But first of, the singing, the concert hall is in there. There's no way we get to the end of this game's updates and we don't get that. That's my opinion. Maybe I'm wrong. It will be a mark against this game if that's the case. But my expectation is we're just waiting for an update to get that stuff. In the meantime, it feels more alive than it's ever felt before. More vibrant characters are just more interactive. They have their own houses in a way that's like you could kind of do that in the 3DS version, but it took some time and it was always if they were living together. Yeah, it just is the right game at the right time once again for this company. All right, that does it for the headlines, everybody. We got to get to the poll question from yesterday. Let's do that right now. I'm going to refresh, get the most recent results from our page over on YouTube. Are you more interested in Game Pass now that it's cheaper? Again, I just did yes or no. I wanted to see how anyone interpreted that. 70% say no, 30% say yes. I mean, 30% of people just saying yes, I am more interested now that it's cheaper. I mean, you would expect definitely a bump. That's a pretty big number, I think, Shawn. Again, this is our audience, 4,000 votes. But I think our audience is the exact audience that Microsoft's trying to win back over with this move. So it could work. Or do you think this is like a honeymoon phase?

Speaker 2:
[57:11] I think people are smart enough to know now that it is cheaper than it was when they raised the price an unreasonable amount. It's still higher than it was. They'll remember paying it for like, what, close to a decade that Game Pass has existed.

Speaker 1:
[57:26] And also like for now, right? And it's cheaper for now. It's like on both sides of that, where it's more expensive than it was when you were really excited about Game Pass, remember those days. And now also it's like, yeah, we've seen how this works. It goes back down in price for now. And then in a couple of years, wow, it's back to $30. When did that happen?

Speaker 2:
[57:44] Yeah, I was looking at the, I was trying to find the price history. Weirdly, bizarrely hard to find, like people haven't been keeping track of this as well as I thought they would. But yeah, Ultimate, because Game Pass went from just being Game Pass at $10 to then Ultimate existed, bundled with gold at $15, I believe. I think it was $15, then $17, then $20, then $30. And now back to, is it $23? It's $23 for Ultimate, right?

Speaker 1:
[58:10] Yes, that's right.

Speaker 2:
[58:10] That's what it is.

Speaker 1:
[58:11] That's $23, yes.

Speaker 2:
[58:12] Everyone I know is still just like, yeah, $23 cheaper than $30, still more expensive than $20. So, still not happy about that one side. I think they're going to get some people happier, but there's still a little bad will there, unfortunately.

Speaker 1:
[58:28] No, the bad will is here at Giant Bomb, everybody. Make sure you send love to Will. All right, let's see here, new poll question. Let's just do that now. Are you more excited about Yoshi and the Mysterious Book after the previews? Yes, no, I'm not reading all that, as in you're just not going to read the previews. But yeah, we'll get your results. Talk about it here on Game Mess Mornings on Giant Bomb tomorrow to wrap up the week. Speaking of Giant Bomb, Sean, we got, let's see, is it Thursday? It's Thursday, right?

Speaker 2:
[58:59] It's Thursday.

Speaker 1:
[58:59] So we got a voicemail dump truck, but we're going to be doing a talk over, right? There is that, yeah, the IDX. Yes, the IDX Xbox thing. We're going to talk over that. The Assassin's Creed thing will have happened by then. We might like talk about that as we get set up for this show or something, everybody, but we're not going to talk over the Assassin's Creed thing. So at 1 p.m. Eastern, we'll be back for the IDX Xbox, talk about some indie games. Always love to do that. Then 2:30 p.m. is voicemail dump truck. Then Marry Me Tomodachi is going to be after that. So it's a busy day here at Giant Bomb.

Speaker 2:
[59:30] Jeff, Mike would be remiss if you didn't mention, it's a very special voicemail dump truck.

Speaker 1:
[59:35] It's a very special voicemail dump truck, everybody. Matt Nick Muscles is going to be on the show. If you're not familiar, he's a very excellent YouTuber from the fighting game community and a bunch of other stuff. He knows his shit. It's always worth, I would say, just go watch his most recent video because they're always good, but his most recent one is about Virtual Boy and What Happened? What happened? Can I ask you, do you know the origin of What Happened? Because I think I do, but I could be wrong. I wonder if there's one that you know.

Speaker 2:
[60:04] I thought it was just Matt being silly when he originally came out with it, because I don't know when the Mickey Mouse, What Happened? actually happened. But yeah, I know he's used it in the videos before.

Speaker 1:
[60:14] Yes, because I was like, that's from the Mickey Mouse cartoons my kids watch. The Mickey Mouse is going, What Happened? And there's so many great quotes from that cartoon. I'm like, okay, Matt McUnlissell is a cool dude. He knows what's up. All right, yeah, that's again, that's 2.30 today. Hang out for that. It's going to be a fun one. All right. And you're producing everything today, right? So busy day for you?

Speaker 2:
[60:33] Yes, sir.

Speaker 1:
[60:34] Well, let's get you out of here then. Sean, tell people where they could find you on the internet and all that good stuff.

Speaker 2:
[60:40] TurboShawn everywhere, S-H-A-W-N. Like I mentioned, I got the Twist Streams going once again on the weekend, Saturdays and Sundays at noon Eastern. You can find me playing, for now, some retro achievement games, which in other words, just a chill hangout, let's play kind of thing. You want to just hang out, chit chat while I play some Wii games for the moment, maybe some other stuff in the future. And then yeah, TurboShawn on Blue Sky and everywhere else as well.

Speaker 1:
[61:08] Excellent. Thank you Sean for hanging out with me today and talking about video games, man. I really appreciate it.

Speaker 2:
[61:13] Always a good time, Jeff.

Speaker 1:
[61:14] Thank you all for watching and listening. You are the best audience in gaming. Until next time, have a good one. Take care of yourself and goodbye.