#422 | You're Asking Me, Will My Love Grow?

45:50Dustin Furman:And when it comes to money, well, money is very much worth protecting. Indeed, keeping your money safe from fraud deserves to be a priority, and Cash App treats it that way. With Security Lock, Cash App requires a successful face ID or a biometric authentication to access your account. It's like your money is protected by your own personal bodyguard, even if your phone is lost or stolen. Plus, if you're about to send money to someone new and Cash App notices something looking a bit off or that you may be falling for a scam, it will send you a warning before the money is sent to confirm everything looks right.

46:19Dustin Furman:Download Cash App and spend with peace of mind today. New Cash App customers can earn$10 if they use the code SECURE10, that's S-E-C-U-R-E-1-0, in their profile signup, and send$5 to a friend within 14 days. Terms apply. Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank. Banking services provided by Cash App's bank partners. visit cash.app slash legal slash podcast for full disclosures all right we do have a correction dirty flint wrote in a rare correction we don't have too many corrections these days i don't know why because we say things that are wrong all the time but he says hey lads pop quiz for chris did jonathan blow make limbo i asked because our sweet angel colin in the heat of podcasting hosting accidentally said he made it no correction from his co-host we all hope dustin returns soon he would have never allowed that to pass by please keep a deep interpersonal relationship with that chicken i did say that i was and i'm all right so i saw people say this and do you know what the game i was thinking of was braid obviously you braid yeah but it's funny when people the first person said that i'm like what do you mean you didn't make limbo and in my mind i'm like i i was thinking limbo was braid you know i'm like what are you talking about yeah and indignantly i like i went and like googled it i'm like oh oh braid yeah that's what i meant it's funny this comes up because i remember i i remember hearing that and being like no that's not right but but you you said it so early on in a very long segment to the point where like it felt so deeply unnatural by the time you were done organically speaking to go back because i feel like it would have came across like yeah i wasn't listening to anything about that right you know what i mean at the beginning you said that jonathan blow made limbo that's not true you're thinking of brain i thought it just would have been like the way that i think about it and to be fair this is incorrect this used to be correct by the way it used to be normal that you could rely on just a good faith charitable understanding of the audience that like oh we know we know that jonathan blow didn't make limbo it's like when people talk about the physical games like doesn't chris know that like vinyls and cds aren't like video games because it's proprietary hardware it's like yeah i'm talking about that it's specific like it's it sucks that that's how specifically like this medium is as opposed to every other medium where it doesn't have that restriction it would be nice if we could just have a physical way to just make these games without the project we should understand this intrinsically based on who we are and how long we've been talking about this and our level of like base knowledge of this industry and so i just assume that like ah people won't make a big deal about it they know what he meant it is what it is funny i i appreciate the correct you're absolutely right first of all i i appreciate the corrections i you're right though about that there's a lot of pedantic shit happening i guess is what it is and that annoys me only in a like people say things to me every once in a while it's not probably even really listeners of the show, but like people on social media and like drive by people where they're like, no, you don't understand.

49:27Dustin Furman:And then they explain this like really basic fact. Yeah. And I'm like, I've been in the games industry for 24 years. Do you think I don't know that? Oh, game source can't print their own plays. You should five discs. Oh, I never thought of that. It's like, I'm like, there's this old saying of like, it goes around. It's like a meme or I don't know what it is of going around everyone being like it is surreal for people to explain so wrong the things that you were there to witness firsthand and that's like a lot of the physical games thing is happening now where i'm like don't really don't you remember and i'm like i was there what are you like 22 you know like you don't have to explain it to me yeah but anyway yeah but i thought the flow of the show was a little bit was slightly more important than making that correction no i appreciate that I just assumed that people would just understand.

50:18Like, it's one thing that people are it's one thing that people are blatantly wrong for a long period of time. You know what I mean? For like for. But a simple misspeak to me is like, no, I don't know. I don't know how worth that worth it. That is. I'll be on the lookout for that in the future. And I'll interrupt regardless of. Yeah, just cut in. Just cut in. It's like, I'm sorry, sir. You're wrong on this. Just cut in.

50:44Dustin Furman:Yeah, this is why we need a. Pardon the interruption, you know, PTI, I mean, I know you don't watch it, but you must know that show on ESPN has been on for forever. They had this thing at the end with Stat Boy, who was like their intern, he ended up becoming a host of another show around the horn or whatever. But like at the end of the show, they would kick to him for like 15 seconds and he'd be like, what did we get wrong? And then he'd be like, oh, you said this guy had this many home runs, but he actually had this many home runs. This guy actually coached here and and they would like and it was it was kind of awesome.

51:10Dustin Furman:That's what I have been thinking about. Like, we need a producer. people know out there that i'm a huge fan of a podcast called um it used to be called around the nfl and it's called heat the call now or it kind of like split off and people remember that you remember chris that i was in the video of their them announcing their new video because i like talked about how they had broken up this podcast had broken up and they oh yeah marketing and stuff so football season's almost here again and i've kind of been tuning back into a lot of stuff and i was listening to their show and i'm like this show is so fucking good and i and it's so funny and it's so it's very much like our show like it's spiritually there it is the spiritual sacred symbols of like the football world it's crazy it's completely like i wish that you and dustin were into it and that the subject matter because i think you guys would find the show so authentically funny because they just they're just so silly and unserious.

52:09Dustin Furman:But then they get serious and they get in all the stuff. But I think one of their major advantages is they have a real producer. And I'm not saying Dustin's not a real producer. He's the EP of the entire company. But a guy who he's there, he's listening, he's on mic. He's not on camera. He's got a soundboard. They got chyrons. They got all these different things going. And I'm like, would that enhance our show? or is or see this is I think that the edge of it like we're on a razor's edge with this Chris is it taking ourselves too seriously and does it remove the je ne sais quoi of sacred symbols by having too high of a production value you know different cuts of like you know it'll be two of us then it'll go like you're talking for a while so it'll just go to you right or I don't know I don't know how that works I don't know I don't I don't want to There is a joke with us, right?

53:03Dustin Furman:That like the more I try, the less like the less likely it is to succeed. Like the things that I do that I don't even think about. I was like, that was great. I'm like, it's like the Lockboard episode. I'm like, this is literally like me. Like we didn't prepare for this. Everyone's like, this is the fucking best thing you've ever done. And I'm like, oh, good, good. So do we do we? I don't know. I don't know. That's like where my mind's been recently, though, listening to them. I think because that takes all of that shit off of them. And then they can really just be. Yeah, I mean, it would. Yeah, I don't know.

53:38It could it because in some ways you could argue it. It allows for somewhat less seriousness. Because you're not your own producer. You know what I mean? You're not on the lookout. You just get to be. So in some ways, it actually like it. It's kind of paradoxical because it does increase the production value technically. And it does it is technically taking it more serious. But at the same time, it like it. It frees you up a little bit more to be less serious.

54:06Dustin Furman:Yeah, I don't. I don't. I don't know, even with the footnotes and like, like, are they keeping the the timestamps for block? Like I didn't do it last week and I'm not doing it again now because it's like it's too like even that is too. It's like I I felt bad the other day when I was on with Jaffe. He said something to me and I missed it because I was like reading what was next or whatever. And I'm like, I can't. we got to get a production. We need a production. Like, I can't be reading the super chat and getting and queuing up the next story and doing this. And it's like, I really just want to host the show.

54:42Dustin Furman:Be really engaged. It's hard to do, especially with just two of us. Yeah. But Dustin will be back soon. All right. Christopher, let's get into the news. And I wanted to start with a PSA. And I'm very curious what you have to say about this, because I talked about it extensively with Jaffe on the sacred streaming, which most of you probably didn't hear because it's a different audience. So we'll go into it again. I won't go into it a little bit deeper. There is this movement that I wanted to acknowledge for the physical games thing that people are being, I think, very cynical about. Well, many people are called hashtag PS blackout.

55:22Dustin Furman:And have you caught up with this at all? Have you seen this? I know a little bit about it. Yeah, I'm not like I don't know. as of like this morning I'm not you know what I mean like I've been keeping up with it until last night right yeah I don't know if there's any anything new coming from it but basically the PSA I wanted to put out there to be fair is that for those that are interested there is someone trying to organize a week long blackout on PSN because of the physical game situation I'll read the letter that this person wrote I don't so I've seen it come from this Twitter account does it play one, which I'm pretty sure is.

56:02Dustin Furman:Yeah, working to ensure games and hardware remain accessible now and always testing commercial releases offline. So I think they have like a compilation of like what works and how does it work without being connected to the Internet by putting disks and other media into these various consoles. So they write this for several years now, Sony Interactive Entertainment has continued to grow further apart from its fan base, whether it's closing beloved studios like Bluepoint, pursuing a misguided live service strategy canceling fan events, leaving PSVR 2 to die, or being completely out to touch with the franchise as players want to see return, PlayStation has never felt more disconnected from its community.

56:35Dustin Furman:Ending physical discs in 2028 feels like the last straw. We understand there is only so much SIE can control, but with the decisions that are within its control, the company continues to mismanage the strong position it inherited from the PS4 era. There are so many issues with PlayStation right now that bringing back physical games would only be meeting players halfway. There is still so much more SIE can do. We miss Twisted Metal, SOCOM, Sly Cooper, and Resistance. We miss PlayStation Experience. We miss Japan Studio. With that, we are calling on PlayStation players to participate in an economic and gameplay blackout from Sunday, August 23rd at 7 p.m.

57:05Dustin Furman:local time through Sunday, August 30th at 7 p.m. local time. Players can participate by turning off their consoles or logging out for seven days. We feel that this period gives publishers and developers minimal impact while still giving players a voice. Now, this has been a controversial thing from multiple perspectives and I think reasonably so but I'm curious before I even get into that how what how does that strike you I mean it's I don't know if I feel any kind of way about it I mean like if you if this is something that you feel like you want to do do it I I'm all I'm all for like you know if a consumer base feels unheard or disrespected that they use their voice in any way that they can.

57:47And if that's the way that you feel like doing it, I think that's valid. I also kind of feel like I just don't know how much that's going to move the needle. Like, I really don't think this is going to be a decision that's going to be reversed at all. So, like, I think it will be ultimately fruitless. But as a display, I mean, it seems relatively harmless. You know, yeah, it's crazy.

58:11Dustin Furman:Yeah, I agree. Cody Jones wrote in and said, hey, CDC, I'm just throwing this out there as someone who basically buys exclusively physical games and hates the impending digital future. The PS Blackout is fucking retarded. Thank you for writing in. Thank you for writing in. My God. Thank you for telling. I really appreciate you. Very Kurt. Very.

58:32Dustin Furman:I disagree from a principled standpoint. I feel about this, Chris, the way I felt about and I this is kind of a weird example, but stuttering Craig's real game awards or whatever. On one hand, it's easy to be critical of someone doing something that probably won't work and won't be very good or whatever, however you feel about it. On the other hand, I think there's something laudable about doing something. I mean, so with Craig, and this is the argument I made and why people people were so upset when I had him on. I'm like, my whole argument is I don't I actually turned down the opportunity of like presenting an award.

59:11Dustin Furman:So I didn't want to be involved in it. I I'm not saying that. I'm saying I think it's cool that someone tried to do and is trying to do something. Instead, right, it's cheap. It's one of the great sayings because it is. I know that because I talk all the time. But like doing something about it is hard. We say that with our merch, right? Like I did something about it. I cut off all the foreign or at least unfair trade. You know, no Chinese merch, all that. I did it because talk is cheap. It's easy to say, oh, I support American. But I actually put my money where my mouth was. and you can say what you want about this movement and its likelihood of succeeding and all that i agree with you chris it's zero percent chance of it succeeding in my opinion you know like virtually zero percent chance yeah they put themselves out there they did something they did a fuck ton more than a lot of people complaining about it have done i will say that at least they tried to are trying to rally the troops this is yeah go ahead now here's the thing if they do it because this is august what is it august um let's see the dates are august 20 or august 23rd to august 30th so here's the thing as of right now this is still talk it hasn't happened yet you know they're not doing it quite yet and to be frank they are doing it at a period of time where there wouldn't be much to play anyway i mean that's exactly it it is kind of one of those things where it's just like i don't i guess that is really the only way that you would really make an impact because anything that you would do by logging off like if you logged off the week that gta 6 comes out they're not going to notice because it's all going to be up it's all going to be up regardless of what anybody does or even like even in september you know it would probably be up because there's a lot of stuff coming in September.

1:01:03So the timing is both convenient, but also I think is a period of time that would lead to maximum effectiveness for whatever it is they're trying to do, whether it is get their attention in some way by really sinking a sizable number of active users or whatever. But as of right now, it's still talk. They've not done it yet. we'll see how it goes when they actually like when the day comes and how many people actually do it and whether or not it it even makes a dent i just um and maybe it's maybe i'm cynical but like i just feel like there's just if there were enough people and again this is maybe somewhat circular reasoning but like i just kind of feel like if there were enough people who involved in this who did care or who really wanted this to mean something then the core situation that they're protesting wouldn't even be happening in the first place like if there were if there were a sizable number of people really really invested in physical games to the point where They would make a sizable impact on the PlayStation ecosystem by just not logging in.

1:02:20They they would still be making discs. You know, like I just kind of feel like it's self not self-fulfilling. I don't know what the exact word is. There's a term probably, but like it just kind of. It seems self-evidently, it seems self-evident. Yeah, it's inevitable that like in a way.

1:02:38Dustin Furman:or there's an inevitability to it because of the numbers is basically what you're saying and i i yeah i want to be clear it's like and i think people understand this what i'm supporting is like someone doing something because i feel like for the last month people have really just wringed their hands and there's like a petition that's like no one gives a shit about that kind of stuff you have you there someone has to you have to take action you have to take action and this is the first and only thing I've seen of someone trying to do something do I think it's going to work no and do I think there's a lot to be critical of in terms of the way they're presenting it yeah and this is the thing Jaffe and I got involved you know really into on the show on sacred streaming and I'll do it again here and I'm curious what you think is like I think this letter is that they wrote to like rally the troops is really all over the place and could have been it's full of some truths and it's full of some things that are nonsensical and things that don't help you.

1:03:40Dustin Furman:And it does, I think, all kind of revolve. And I think this is where getting critical of it makes a lot of sense is what they're asking for isn't only very much, but it's at a very opportune time. And so here, I'll go into a little bit of it. Chris, they say for several years, Sony Interactive Entertainment has continued to grow further apart from its fan base. I agree. Yeah, that's 100%. Whether it's closing beloved studios like Bluepoint, pursuing a misguided live service strategy, canceling fan events, leaving PSVR 2 to die, or being completely out to touch with the franchise as players want to see return, PlayStation has never felt more disconnected from its community.

1:04:16Dustin Furman:Again, that last part I agree with. PlayStation has never felt more disconnected from its community. 100%. Like, you have to be fucking blind not to see that. now now how now how you how you define community and how they even define community and what they see as their community these are all different things because they they would say like we have 150 million people playing on playstation like who is who is our community the people like this there's all it's the internet it's it's just this decentralized city-state structure right so it's like i so it's hard to describe that but from my perspective i think that's totally true however in those within those two truisms chris on the in this first paragraph there's some it's like beloved studios like blue points like yeah that was that was rough right but a misguided live service strategy it's not misguided and this is this is where i think and from my perspective starts undercutting the argument a little bit well yeah i understand it's been it's been botched but the idea of it being misguided means that from my perspective means that it was something that they should have never done at all and i'm like no you don't understand and this is where i think we can only beat this horse so much but this is where i think the people just don't understand the economics of all this it's like at some point you just don't understand you don't understand you don't get it like at some point you're you're being willfully obtuse about what they need to do and where they make their money they make half of their fucking money on 10 live service games of which they own one of them period sure so and so i just it's not that big of a deal but i just that bothered me a little bit i'm like we got to let this thing go man you could say like the botched lives are like bad moves made with live service but this misguided live service strategy it's like i don't know it's are we maybe projecting a little bit because it's the they did say pursuing a misguided live service strategy that doesn't necessarily inherently i mean we we could infer based on the types of people that like maybe that's what they mean but i do think it is a misguided live service strategy you know what i mean like it's not necessarily that that a live service strategy is misguided but their but theirs is yeah sure you know what i mean like you could make that interpretation of that i don't know if that's necessarily like you know accurate that's one of the that feels more semantic to me but i do agree that like there's a lot about the rest of this that kind of feels like even the blue point thing it's just like brother like blue point they were working on a god of war life service game you know like they kind of fucked themselves in a lot of because didn't they want to do that wasn't that something that they were like trying to yeah i think that they i think that they they pitched it and they should have been held but yeah like well that was the argument we made at the time was like i was like to be fair sony should have been like we don't care what you want right no offense like we bought you for a reason you know like we they didn't buy blue point for the for the um for the create for the creative team of incubating new projects they created they bought blue point for the reason that they were popular in the first place which is you make great remakes it's like it's like nix is being like we want to make something you know new and it's like get the fuck out of my office are you crazy you know what yeah that game and get the fuck out of my office all right but like the them closing blue point is like that i mean that's also on blue point in some way because like we've based i i can't remember the specifics of like the story because like we covered it many many weeks ago now but like i remember just reading reading up on it and being like oh they just completely like lost their way with the studio like they just completely like just were not they just i don't know where the where their heads were yeah it's it's hard to say what the original sin was with that because i agree with you that i think they thought they can do more than they could.

1:08:08Dustin Furman:However, they were put on like contract duty for God of War and I think filled their heads with delusions of grandeur, but this idea that like it's what actually happened with Nixis working on Saros too, where like they were really doing unique work on Saros and it's like, yeah, that's cool, but did you buy these guys to be contractors? I don't understand. I'll be curious to see what happens with Nixis. I think they'll be okay because they could probably just be used as contract, but anyway. This other stuff I agree with disagree with two canceling fan events so like he's talking about playstation experience i was at three of the four playstation experiences and they were great but i know for a fact sony didn't they i'm pretty sure i lost money on those and they they just didn't end up being this thing that they thought it was going to be and i think we kind of have to respect that um especially like i thought it was really cool actually but if you remember i anyone out there was added it's like the first psx especially was so small like this renegade small little thing and it was cool i really really liked it but i don't know that i blame them for getting rid of those things the fan like the culture of conventions in a lot of ways is morphed and is and is like pax we always talk about pax is like an irrelevant show now pax used to be huge huge like we would send people to cover it and stuff no one gives a shit like things have just kind of changed now it's like comic-con still does well and all the rest, but it's not really, there's a lot of regional stuff, a lot of smaller things.

1:09:32Dustin Furman:I don't blame them for getting out of that. You know, I have I don't know if this is like me just it could be confirmation bias in some way, but like I really do think there's an argument to be made that like, look, everybody's gotten crazier. No doubt like fan communities are I think way more toxic now than they've been in probably maybe ever as far as I'm aware like I've never like it's so bad out there. and i think a lot of that could have been mitigated if if we just like had if we still had e3 if we still like if we had reasons to kind of come together a lot more and whereas now it's like we just never do and now it's just like oh nintendo comes out with their like they're like really polished you know like here's fucking donkey kong or whatever and then that's it donkey kong's having again yeah and sony comes back and sony comes back with their equivalent thing and there's like there's no real tangibility to it i don't know i i kind of don't think it's it has nothing to do with how things have gone but that's right psx is one of those things that where it's just like it is what it is it's gone just like e3 and all good things i mean psx has been gone yes psx has never existed in the lifetime of this podcast so it's not like it's a you know but whatever yeah and again i'm not myself trying to be too panantic i just want to go through what i think i my problems with this letter he says leaving psvr2 out to die i feel like this is really unfair i i think vr fans have to understand that it's not so much sony as much as it's like it's just a niche and no one really cares yeah and i actually again i've been so critical of sony for many things as people know but for the for the vr stuff like they were believers they were true believers they did it again i don't know how you yeah i was surprised they even i was surprised they even did it again yeah you know they really believed in it i think it's kind of i think it's kind of disconnected from reality pardon the pun that you can look at them and be like yeah they left psvr2 out to die it's like i can't even believe they gave you psvr2 right they really really wanted to make it work they really really believe that this could be like a new frontier of gaming.

1:11:48Dustin Furman:Maybe it still will be one day. I don't think so, but I like it. But to say they left it out to die, like when I go to PlayStation blog or look at the games coming out and I'm like, there are still PSVR two games coming out. Like that to me is the exact opposite of it. They could shut certification down. They're probably selling vanishingly nothing on that thing. So I disagree with that completely. And I think that that's a stupid argument. And or being completely out of touch with the franchise that players want to see return. I think that that's somewhat true, but I think we'll get into this a little later in the letter.

1:12:17Dustin Furman:I think I don't think people are thinking of the financial realities of bringing these things back. I don't I think they're way too stubborn about bringing some things back, and they're way too stubborn about keeping certain things around or propagating. We talk about this with Horizon. Horizon can be present. I like I love Horizon, actually, but like doing all of this Horizon, I think is too much. There's room for you to do other things. So whatever. They say also ending physical disks in 2028 feels like the last straw. We understand there's only so much SIE can control. Now, I do believe it.

1:12:46Dustin Furman:I do agree. It does feel from a lot of people's perspective, like like the last straw. And I feel that. I do disagree. We understand there's only so much SIE can control. I'm confused what they mean by this, because SIE controls it all. They made the decision. Well, I guess economic factor, like like how much demand there is or like I would assume, right, because that's the only thing that's not in their control. Right. But it's I think that's the way I read it, too. But it's kind of like a non sequitur. in the in the in the letter ending physical discs in 2028 feels like it's the last straw we understand there's only so much si you can control it's just it's just a weird i don't know i i don't i don't mean to be ripping this thing apart i just feel like there just could have been a better way to more effectively communicate this but anyway i'll cut to the chase sure because there's two things that i think really are we could be really critical of here i really do have a problem with the idea where this this this third paragraph feels so unnecessary it says there are so many issues with playstation right now that bringing back physical games would only be meeting players halfway there's still so much more si can do we miss twisted metal socom sly cooper and resistance we miss playstation experience we miss japan studio it's like i made this point to jaffe i'm like i don't even have to look spider-man 2018 sold more than every Twisted Metal, Socom, Sly Cooper, and Resistance game combined.

1:14:06Dustin Furman:So that's not to say that you're wrong to miss those things. I miss them too. I fucking love Resistance. And I was a big fan of Sly Cooper. So I totally get it. Yeah. But it ignored. There's something about the core that refuses to ignore that they don't really drive the ship anymore. and by the way I say that as a I don't drive it either my purchasing behavior doesn't mean anything to them it's nice money in their pocket but like I'm not driving I'm I'm on another graph like with different trends and shit like they they're I'm not their guy anymore and I just think that at some point we have to we don't have to you do whatever you want but like except that things have changed and I just feel like Japan studio would still exist if their game sold if resistance was this huge hit then it would have kept going the last like hooper game which you know to be fair with it was sansaro it wasn't sucker punch didn't sell well i don't know i just felt like it was a distracting thing but the thing everyone's really being critical of chris is the and this is what you're saying the blackout timing and this is where i think like i appreciate what they're saying and i think that they did this because they realize that it's probably the only way you can really get people to even to try to agree to something like this.

1:15:32Dustin Furman:But August 23rd to August 30th, I mean, what are you asking anyone to sacrifice at that point? By the way, I believe that the Call of Duty beta happens during this. So again, these numbers are going to get demolished by the people that are coming in, just like what happened with Black Ops, the re-releases. To me, so what I would have done, instead of just being critical of them, I'll give them what I would have done if I was doing this, which was like, I would have just said like, we're not locking in in September. Like if you really believe what you say, like stay offline when they need you the most.

1:16:04Dustin Furman:This is the last month, the month they're counting on in their quarter. And this is where you can fucking hurt them. I mean, that's the big thing is like, if you time, use their timing against them. Why did they announce the disc thing in July? Because July is the beginning of the fiscal quarter and it gives them an enormous amount of time for this to wash out. right? You use that against them and hit them at the back end of the quarter where there's no room to back out, where if you guys got organized by the millions, you really could hurt them and they couldn't hide it. On the numbers would be illegal, you know, it would be fiduciarily illegal for them to do it.

1:16:44Dustin Furman:And then they would be asked questions about like, why did this happen? Why did this happen? Why did this happen? And September was when you hit them. Yeah, but I think people, because it's not only Wolverine, which is going to be huge, but all of the other releases, Onimusha and Control and Dawnwalker and on and on and on and on. I just.

1:17:09Dustin Furman:This shit's supposed to be hard. There is a relationship between how hard it is for you and how much it hurts them. And the easier it is for you, the less it hurts them. The relationship is totally tied together and it's really up to you guys. So as I said at the top, Chris, and I didn't mean I'm even sticking with this for so long, but as I said at the top, I applaud someone for doing something. And I don't think people should be criticizing it from that perspective because no one did anything for a month or almost a month. And at least someone tried to do something. But I think that it's not asking nearly enough and it's not it's not militant enough in a way.

1:17:49Yeah, I agree. it needs to be stronger i think september is a good time and you know what even just and i know they even say in this in this letter where it's like we feel that this period gives publishers and developers minimal impact while still giving the players a voice so they're trying to actively not um step on the toes of people making games they just kind of want they're trying to hurt playstation without hurting the people who make the games and put them on playstation which is kind of difficult to do um especially if you're just on one console but like yeah i mean my suggest it would be like yeah in september like just especially if you have another machine like if you have a pc if you have an xbox like play control on xbox you know play play these other games on pc or whatever if you can't like just just log out because that would i mean it would it would do it probably i don't know wolverine's gonna be huge so you're gonna have to contend with the fact that like they might not even notice

1:18:46Dustin Furman:right well that's what i'm saying i think it's going to come out in the wash like i don't even just because the timing is bad for the call of duty beta but so i think two things can be true right i guess that's what i'm saying good on you right i think it's great and i hope that people join you if they feel passionately enough about it but to what you're saying chris about them even trying to like kind of protect the developers and the publishers or whatever is like in a guerrilla war which is what you're basically trying to wage at this point this digital like this thing that you're trying to you collateral damage is part of it you like in fact they might have even more sway on sony's decisions than you do yeah that that is yeah and if these guys come back with numbers that are bad if bandai namco is looking at dawn walker and be like this shit's soft well how could this how could this have happened to this game and and they all tie it back and they realize they look at the numbers and they realize it happened to everyone.

1:19:45Dustin Furman:Again, I think I understand that that's asking too much because it's not going to happen. But that's September would have been the perfect month to hit them. And really, it would have been interesting. Tokan comes out the 6th, I think, of August. It should have this gotten organized and proliferated even earlier. Tokan might have been the way to do it if you wanted to like hold to account, like we don't want to really hurt anyone too badly. This one game will be the target basically. And it's a second party game. so it's gonna it would hurt sony very specifically and arc system works would be fine so it's like they'll they'll be fine without if this game doesn't do well so but yeah i just think september would have been the time to really show your grit because that would have been that would have fucking obliterated them and if people really could have gone after them at that point because there are like six or seven big games including a big first party game and yeah but i understand that that's not going to happen and so that's not the plan you make and whatever yeah and by the way If it somehow turns out that this is way bigger than we assume it is, and it actually does end up manifesting in a way that isn't offset by Wolverine and all these other games coming out, then that's awesome.

1:20:54I have no desire to not see that. You know what I mean? I'd be curious. I'd be very interested to see that happen. I just doubt it. I'd be ecstatic to be proven wrong because I'd be like, oh, that's interesting. there's a lot more people out there who care and actually give a shit enough to do something that's awesome so i'd be happy to see that personally i still don't know if it'll really make them reverse their decision but uh it would be cool to see because if for if for no other reason it would prove to me that people actually like it's like the polar opposite of that that call of duty boycott steam the group that we talk about all the time the iconic boycott modern warfare to Boycott Modern Warfare 2 or 3 or whatever

1:21:37Dustin Furman:and everybody's playing it. It's so good. On launch day. Love it. Alright. Well, I think I'll skip this. We've said enough, I think. Alright. Let's get into some of the news of the week now, Chris. This happened right after we published last week, so this is... Yeah, it happened the day we published the show, so it's old news, but we gotta add it to the record. God of War Olaufei Still feel like I'm saying it wrong. I don't know. Comes out February 16th. 2027. So very soon, comparable to when they showed it. I'm looking forward to it. I mean, I don't know that I'm like that excited about it, but I feel in my gut that it's going to be great.

1:22:18Dustin Furman:I mean, even when Ragnarok came out, I'm like, you know, I'm not like that enthused about it. You can't not play that game and be like, yeah, I mean, this is a great game. Not so into like the world and everything like that, because that's a matter of more subjective taste. But I assume we'll both be there day one for this. yeah yeah i'm excited i think look i think it's a that's a good time i like this it's a little bit tricky because we knew that this was happening in some way because we paid so much attention like i i would imagine from like a layman perspective they just if they just heard about laofay from like the last presentation that they gave and it's that soon that's a good cadence you know what i mean of like of announcement to release like i that's what i want to see more of.

1:23:02I don't want to see, you know, oh, we've been working on this for seven years. And it's like, all right, I don't care. I don't want to wait. I don't want to wait seven years.

1:23:10Dustin Furman:Yeah, I agree. It's very Fallout 4 coded. Yeah. Michael Bagby wrote in and said, hi, sacred gents. What are your thoughts on God of War's February release date? It's going to be a competitive month with Tomb Raider, Metro, Persona and Fable already scheduled to be released. Do you think someone can move or are these games too important to be delayed into the next financial year? I think that that's a problem. That's exactly it is is a lot of companies financial years and March 31st and begin April 1st. So if they want to ingest the this these big releases in their financials, especially true for Sony, then you have to get it out by March.

1:23:50Dustin Furman:And and unfortunately, these things do matter to them and could really fuck with things. So I also think that the thing about Tomb Raider is I think Tomb Raider moved to February. So they're not moving again. Fable announced their date. We'll talk about that in a minute. Persona could move, but I actually don't think Persona is too because that's the Persona for remake, I think. Right. I don't think that's too contingent on anything else going on around it. It'll do well. Metro might be the one that would suffer the most, but I think a lot of people are interested in that game, too. So I think there's February feels a lot like September and that there's just going to be a lot stacked on top of each other.

1:24:26Dustin Furman:you'll have to make choices and I imagine people will get to these games but um I don't know I don't think anyone's gonna delay out of there maybe I maybe Metro would be the one that would be most likely because that game is probably most meaningful to the specific publisher but Angel wrote in about something people have been tuning into and he says hello CNC did Sony announced that God of War Laofay gleaming the cube release date so nice reference release date so close to fable as a stab at Xbox and retaliation Xbox putting it pulling the Halo trailer seen a lot of speculation about Sony doing this to stick at the Xbox and hurt Fable PS5 sales, but I haven't seen anyone give a reason why.

1:25:01Dustin Furman:Thanks and have a good weekend. I don't... It could be something to compete with them, but I don't think so. I think that they just kind of chose their date. They probably had this date internally marked for a while, potentially before we even knew of Fable's release date as well. But I will say this. To me, it is totally counterintuitive that Sony would want to hurt Fable on PS5. not only is that cutting off your nose to spite your face literally in that you'll just make less you're making 30 of every copy they sell on your on your own console why would you want to hurt yourself but if you're that if you're sony you want them to do well it's actually really important that they do well on your platform at the very least you make it painful for them to start taking games away again and i don't know if you saw the pictures were going around like sony you know that sony has like its new tagline i think it's like it happens on PlayStation or something.

1:25:53Dustin Furman:Have you seen this? And no, I haven't. And they had these like banners at San Diego Comic-Con or whatever Comic-Con is going. What would just happen? Was it San Diego? Yeah, it was. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they were like, you know, hanging and one of them was Halo. And it was like Master Chief and it's like a PS5 and it says like it happens on PlayStation or whatever. And it's like. This is good for them. They do you have any idea how they were probably like cracking open champagne when they put that fucking thing together. They're like, we are literally making a PlayStation like and this is where you can see my like and maybe where Ash is a little upset is that like Microsoft went pretty far in licensing this shit to Sony to allow them to even do something like that is crazy and I imagine what they pulled out of the state of play which is what Angel is referencing is something that was fairly serious as well perhaps I mean we know we saw the trailer later but in terms of indicating where the where this relationship was it reminds reminds me a little bit Chris of when Microsoft acquired Bethesda, but, but they were already locked into ghost wire, Tokyo and death.

1:26:56Dustin Furman:Oh yeah. So like they were making these PlayStation games and they had to market them and do all this weird shit. You can tell that like Phil Spencer signed a different deal than what, what they would have done with halo. But I saw that and I was like, damn dude, they want, they don't want you to, they want, they think this looks awesome for them. Yeah. They're, they're expecting people to like stop and be like, what the fuck is that? is that real? How could that be? And so I don't, when people, people always have these conspiracies and I'm like, I think you guys think it's too personal. And don't get me wrong.

1:27:32Dustin Furman:It's personal sometimes. PlayStation spawned out of a deeply personal situation with Nintendo. Like they literally wanted to kill Nintendo because of like what happened with the PlayStation add-on for Super Nintendo or Super Famicom. And so I'm not saying passions don't get involved sometimes but like the idea it's like oh they spurned us we're gonna hurt their game on our platform with our own game release it's like no that doesn't really make any sense if you think about it yeah it's also worth noting that you know you did mention that they might have had this date locked in but also fable delayed into that space and also god of war 2018 i think released around that time i think it was like march yeah march yeah it was like early spring i want to say yeah it was early march if i recall and so like this is like late February it's like yeah or like mid February it's like that's seems about yeah I don't think it's anything like untoward or weird really and like you said I think it behooves Sony to have Fable actually do well on PlayStation so yeah I think I just I don't see it any other way I don't know why they would look at and be like let's hurt this game let's let's try to really convince them at a time where they're like teetering on not bringing games over anymore like we we got comfortable with the idea that we're going to get everything now we're not so comfortable with that idea anymore how do we convince them let's make sure that fable gets as much coverage as possible on playstation let's make sure to saturate the playstation store with fable let's make sure that everyone gets a little ad on their cross media bar for it i would be doing that i'd be like let's make it let's make them really think it's the same thing with halo there's some we'll talk about halo later but there's some indication that halo is doing soft on playstation but i'm like it's the best-selling game on playstation right now i don't know what you're talking about we'll see i mean maybe it's maybe it is soft it is the summer there's nothing to really play for a lot of people but anyway all right so there's that god of war laufe gleaming the cube comes to playstation 5 on February 16th, 2027.

1:29:35Dustin Furman:I'm sure we will all be playing it at that time. There's also information here from a reliable insider, Nate the hate. I hate that name, ironically. Yeah. But nonetheless, reliable, knows a lot of things, obviously well-connected. We've cited him in the past. He tweeted out that someone tweeted at him asking about intergalactic, and he responded about the release date that the intended target is 2027 for this game.

1:30:12Dustin Furman:What do we think of the possibility of playing this game? Maybe, I mean, so The Last of Us came out in June and that is kind of an interesting, that would be an interesting time to release it. Again, at the end of the first quarter. So you get that benefit. You could put it in the fall. I don't know if you so games like Uncharted 3 came out in the fall. I don't know if you want to compete like that. You don't have to. So I'm thinking like June or August or September, something like that, or like the obvious months to place it where it just dominates. It's just it's the game as opposed to putting it in October, November, where it's going to be dealing with the sports games and Call of Duty.

1:30:56Dustin Furman:And maybe there's Battlefield shit or some other shit going on. It's just distracting. so and and hey chris i mean outside chance let's assume ps6 is fall 27 although maybe it'll be spring 28 could be a launch game and by the way i'm not saying that it's going to be only on ps6 right exactly but like that would be kind of cool if they were like yeah actually it'll be a ps6 launch game and you can play it there but we can play it on ps5 and it doesn't really doesn't really matter what do you think yeah i mean i think it's very possible i think september is probably like a sweet spot um gives them enough time but it also like it's like right in that where they have the whole summer to work on it uh and it's not in that really hyper competitive window i mean i could yeah i mean i could see that um when was the last time we saw intergalactic it was was it last year yeah we haven't seen i think we only saw it once yeah let me see we only saw I'm trying to remember.

1:31:52Dustin Furman:Was it the Game Awards, right? Yeah. Or no? No, no, no. I thought it was at a... Let me see here. How is there such a huge Wikipedia for this already? That's crazy. Where? Development. Okay. The 2023. Focus on intergalactic. I don't know. Intergalactic.

1:32:19Why can't I find it?

1:32:20Dustin Furman:Why don't I remember? when was intergalactic revealed one year ago playstation oh no it was announced at the game awards yeah tga 2024 or so i mean yeah four to seven that's that's a good yeah that seems about right to me um given and it's one thing about like okay so like 24 to 27 that's that's a that's a three-year, four-year technically cycle. And, you know, it wasn't like in pre-production. At that point, we had a game to see, you know, or at least like a trailer. Like we knew what the game was going to be in some way, shape or form. So I could see it hitting that target. Yeah, I am. I'm so interested to see it.

1:33:09Dustin Furman:I really want to. I'll be careful with what I say here, I guess. I am I am curious to see if they can change the way people perceive it and I think that only happens with blowing people away with the game itself no more trailers no more I mean you can show that stuff later but like it's gotta be what does it's a hack and slash game it looks like right like yeah yeah and so it's like i mean you just get that vibe she's got a sword on her shoulder i mean it's like what does a naughty dog game look like that plays like that like i i i can't like i am truly intrigued by what they've done and i want to see it you know i want to see it for myself i guess is what i'm saying and and so yeah that's uh I think the game's going to be great.

1:34:16Dustin Furman:Obviously, I'm a huge Naughty Dog fan, of course, and I'm biased in that way. But just from a perspective of just interest in the game scene and how things are made and the pressure on a game and everything, this is a really interesting product. Because it seems like there's a lot of people gunning for these guys for some reason. And so you have to overcome it. You have to be great. You have to be truly special or it's not going to be sufficient. Yeah, you can't do the God Award Laufei thing. Oh, no. You can't do like you can't do 20 minutes of gameplay and it's really like five minutes of gameplay with 15 minutes of cut scenes.

1:34:53I would argue you show no story at all. Yeah, or like or like minimally as possible. I would say you just like listen, this is maybe like a mission set up or whatever for like a minute. And then just I want to see what this game plays like. I don't even need like unbroken. I don't even need like the 20 minutes on unbroken like I even just a highlight. you know what I mean like a nice trailer that shows me like what am I going to be doing what is special about this that's all I really need out of it um I have no expectations of I expect that it's going to be good I can't imagine that most like really there's a lot of cynicism around in the games industry in general but like I really do think most things that we play are just no less than good really like most things are pretty good you know that I've that I've experienced anyway they might not be to my taste or whatever like there's there's good games that I play where I'm like I'm not really into this at all but like the last offensively bad game I played or like the last game that I thought was like this is really not good it's been a minute so I can't I don't expect that from Naughty Dog really yeah not at all mine's I was probably the last game I played where I was like yeah that's right that was pretty what is going on here with this game but um it's interesting to think about this is a weird weird way of saying about like who knows who knows what so what i mean by that is naughty dog knows that it has to

1:36:19Dustin Furman:release something really impressive we know that naughty dog knows that they have to release something impressive and so like what comes out of that because like they they literally will can't would I'm not I want to be quick I'm not saying anything's happening I'm saying they would literally cancel this game before they release something that like wasn't up to snuff you would imagine right no matter what it took like even if it was like more years more money yeah so out of that massive level of pressure I mean not to be too on the nose but it's like a diamond could come out of something like that yeah it's like but the problem with Naughty Dog and it's only a few studios that really are going to deal with this.

1:37:00Dustin Furman:I think CD Projekt actually is probably going to deal with this after Witcher and Cyberpunk is like, you can't necessarily keep this up. Like, it might not really be possible. At some point, it becomes subjective matters of taste, and you lose that level of prestige. It's going to be very difficult for these studios to last in this in this space of incredible expectation. And every time you hit it and buy yourself another five years is probably like a huge victory for you on the inside. So I guess what I'm saying is like, this is a unique game from that perspective in that it is coming from one of those studios that like oddly has to prove it again.

1:37:50Dustin Furman:And it's just like CD Projekt with Cyberpunk. Now, a different sort of situation because Cyberpunk was totally fucked up, but like everyone will look a little bit skeptically it and I actually think um the CEO of CD project had said that recently where I'm pretty sure correct me well if anyone out there correct me if I'm wrong but I think he said something along the lines of recently like we understand why people are upset like we do we did you know we haven't really recovered we've done like the best we could and it's like yeah that's a tough tough situation but anyway getting off the topic Colin blowing out the frog log memorial candle wrote in today gents with the Lao Fai release date revealed and an assumed mid-late 2027 release for Intergalactic.

1:38:31Dustin Furman:It made me wonder, where the hell is Uncharted 5? Upon re-examining the teaser, is there any chance it was actually a teaser for Untold Dawn 2, given its tropical setting? Hopefully not, else I'll hang myself. And listen, I don't think that was Untold Dawn 2, no. But it is a nice theory. That could be. Where is Uncharted? My theory is that that is the game that Neil is producing. and I feel like Uncharted could pop up at any time and I don't mean the the game coming out it's just like you wouldn't be surprised if a trailer just showed up one day at a game awards or something for it I mean I just I'm not going to let go of the fact that I think that this game has been in development where and how and who's making it and to what end I don't know but I just feel like you can't let Uncharted go and and with cross media synergies being what they are I think that the last of us benefited an enormous amount from the HBO show yeah a huge amount many millions of copies of both games sold because of it I think they realize with Uncharted and they're being there's going to be an Uncharted 2 movie I believe like you don't necessarily want to have a movie tie-in game you just want to have something to take advantage of it with and it would be it would be kind of a shame to not have something ready to go I mean that was what they were trying to line up with Twisted Metal and I get it and you want to do those things so just from that perspective alone i think it makes a lot of sense to have one going all right chris marvel token is going um or at least it was going in the open beta it's closed now but there were major problems for it on pc did you see any of this at all people were having a lot of difficulty with it on pc it seemed like it worked fine on playstation but um as the game is right around the corner coming out august 6th the developers over at Arc System Works, and I assume Sony as publisher and intermediary, revealed on their social media feeds that, and I think this is a pretty interesting letter.

1:40:27Dustin Furman:They write, quote, Tokon Warriors, what a weekend. Thank you to everyone who jumped into the open beta and joined the fight. This is exactly why we run these, to get the game in your hands and find what we can make much better before launch. To our PC players, message received. The team is already hard at work on the performance you deserve with improvements lined up for day one. reducing overall cpus cpu usage to improve performance fixing frame rate drops and lag resolving an issue causing unnecessary shader compilation at startup improving compatibility when streaming with obs and discord addressing rollback netcode and crossplay issues we are also working on fixes for a number of other reported issues so again the game is just around the corner i actually got a note from sony pr telling me what the deal is with getting codes and i've I told him I'm not interested in the code.

1:41:12Dustin Furman:I'm not going to play the game and I don't want early access anyway, but trying to get code for Chris and Dustin and Brad. So hopefully we'll have some sort of coverage on it. I've also been talking a little bit behind the scenes to Vince Ingenito, my old friend at IGN, who's an expert in fighting games. We'll do a token centric episode in August for sure. So look forward to that. Did you get in? Did you try the beta at all? I actually didn't. I think Dagan might have played it, but I don't think I have talked to him. What did you think if you played it? Yeah, I didn't even see. I've been kind of locked in on very specific games over the last couple of years.

1:41:48Dustin Furman:Well, that makes sense with Halo out especially. Yeah, yeah. So I didn't get around to... I did not get around to playing it. I'm curious about it, man. It does look... From what I've seen about it, it does... There's a Marvel vs. Capcom kind of look to it that I'm kind of excited about. But, yeah, no, I didn't take part in the test. I don't know anybody who did unless maybe they I mean, they have no reason to tell me, I guess. I'm not like the person's like, hey, let me know if you're ever participating in PlayStation beta tests. They don't people don't think to text me or anything, but I think.

1:42:27Yeah, I'm really curious about it. I'm looking forward to it.

1:42:31Dustin Furman:KY's life wrote in to this point, said Colin, you said on Sacred Streaming that you don't play fighting games. I don't either but the Marvel token beta was free and fun to me similar to the old Marvel versus Capcom games why aren't you compelled to even try it especially considering the PlayStation is publishing it I don't care who's publishing it I don't I don't play Gran Turismo I don't play MLB the show I don't I don't care about who's publishing the game but yeah I don't I really like fighting games I think they're super unique and interesting it's funny in a way this is kind of a simplistic way and it can be reduced too much of looking at things but fighting games are so uniquely video games in other words The Last of Us was easily made into a sequential TV show of the story of the game and it's fun to play and be in it but you're getting it fighting games are there's something so visceral and instantaneous and it's over in two minutes, it's over in a minute, it's over in 30 seconds.

1:43:38Dustin Furman:It's, it's, so growing up as a gamer, especially in the arcade era, you know, in the 90s for me and the SNES and having an older brother who was obsessed with fighting games and obscure fighting games. I mean, Dagan's a fucking huge fighting game nerd. I grew up with them and I love those games. Street Fighter 2, all the iterations of Street Fighter 2, You know, I was like, I liked Mortal Kombat one and two and three when I was a kid. I don't really like Mortal Kombat anymore. A lot of the SNK stuff, which was Dagan's bread and butter. Like Samurai Showdown. And, you know, so. And even obscure stuff shit like the Ron Mahal fighting game and all we had all sorts of things.

1:44:18Dustin Furman:And then I got into Street Fighter Alpha and Marvel versus Capcom and Street Fighter versus X-Men and all the rest. But really, by the turn of the century, the last fighting game I really was invested in was probably Marvel versus Capcom 2 on Dreamcast. and Powerstone also on Dreamcast, which was a little bit different. But as I've noted many times, when I got into journalism and got over to IGN, I realized how bad I was at them. I thought I was actually pretty good, like a good fighting player, but I'm not. And it's not really fun to play if you're not, in my opinion, it's like playing chess.

1:44:53Dustin Furman:There's no purpose in casually playing chess. You're just going to stay bad at it and you're just not going to have fun. you really got to put some time into it like make yourself to beef yourself up and make yourself worthy of being able to like stay around and play and meaningful meaningful play and if you're not going to do that then where's the fun in it that you get the shit kicked out of you in those games like you really do like you get the shit kicked out of you if you don't know what you're doing and to me i i don't find that fun so it's just not for me anymore but i but i i appreciate it i like i like evo and all those things and i like watching it and i love the excitement around and all that.

1:45:27Dustin Furman:And I hope Tokan does great, but it's just not for me. And the whole like, especially with PlayStation publishing thing, I don't think you're accusing me of anything. I just I find that weird because like, who cares? Yeah, that's not necessarily a relevant thing for me. All right. I thought this was interesting. I just wanted to bring this up about Dragon Age. Series we hold near and dear to our hearts here on on sacred symbols. I have to close these windows. Here we go. This website FRVR is it fervor I assume well anyway they spoke with Mark Darragh who is the creator of Dragon Age yeah and he had a few interesting things to say so I guess they wrote these stories in a prelude to a podcast appearance he's going to do on one of their shows so kind of like spinning out these things when I was at IGN I used to hate doing this shit like I would interview people and then I would be so excited right because I'd be like oh we have this great interview people going to sit down and watch it And then what they would make me do would be like, what's like the four most interesting things he said?

1:46:31Dustin Furman:Just write news stories about all those. And I'm like, so what was the purpose of doing this whole thing where we're just going to like spin out the stories and it's like, it's to stop other people from spinning out the stories. It's so defensive. So I think they're doing something like that. But anyway, Dara said two things about Dragon Age that I thought were interesting. One about the idea of there being a new one and one about a collection of Dragon Age games. And of course, he's not at EA anymore. but he said the following on the FRVR podcast as spun out or fever fervor podcast as said by or as spun out by these guys it is really interesting in terms of its candor quote I think if it was happening I think it was happening because of EA's complicated relationship to shipping games at all he says and this was in regards to the Veilguard the fourth Dragon Age game being so like having such a struggle getting out the door and they're not doing any very well.

1:47:28Dustin Furman:So he says, quote, I think it was happening because of EA's complicated relationship to shipping games at all. Someone once described to me EA as a hedge fund with a video game hobby that it wished it didn't spend so much money on. And I think that remains true, which is pretty, pretty rough thing to say for your ex-employer. Following the worrying sales of Veilguard, Dara doesn't see anyone trying to get a new Dragon Age game off the ground. He says, quote, I have no concept of who could, would possibly pitch that at EA. EA owns a frightening number of IP that are dormant. What I've heard is if you go and decide you're going to make a game based on an IP, the instant you're about to start, suddenly like three different people who you think control it come out of the woodwork and essentially rip you apart and chew you up and spit you out, end quote.

1:48:07Dustin Furman:So in other words, he's saying that, you know, people try to, you know, probably for the security of their own jobs are trying to create ownership over these things and really bog things down. And it is true that EA does own a shit ton of IP. Because of course, they famously buy studios and close them down, or at least that's what they've done. He continues later, quote, the problem is I don't know who at BioWare would pitch a Dragon Age. And I thought that that was a pretty interesting admission from him just in and of itself. You would assume it'd be someone at BioWare, but I guess it really is the ship of Theseus.

1:48:37Dustin Furman:So the other option, he continues, is somebody else within the EA organization decides they're going to pitch a Dragon Age. And what I expect would happen is if they try to do that, someone at BioWare would essentially become one of those people jumping under the vents to rip that person apart. I suspect that it wouldn't happen for a variety of reasons. So it sounds incredibly dysfunctional there. But there's this other interesting thing, which is about the idea of getting the collection of the original three games, which are the Dragon Age games that people really do like and appreciate if you're into them.

1:49:07Dustin Furman:So he explains in the podcast that he wanted to do something called the Champions Edition, which would be Origins, Dragon Age 2, and Dragon Age Inquisition. so he says quote i think what you want is a champions edition that was always my plan like we're going to do a champions trilogy we're going to kind of retroactively turn this thing into one of those three games with three different important figures and we're going to group them in collect them together into retroactively turning them into a trilogy and um he continues that the major problem chris is that mass effect got its own trilogy re-released because it was on unreal engine, but Dragon Age was on the proprietary Aurora engine.

1:49:46Dustin Furman:And he says, quote, there is basically no one at BioWare anymore that understands the Aurora engine. There's basically no one outside of BioWare anymore that understands the Aurora engine. So unlike Mass Effect, which is Unreal, there are basically no companies that can help you, end quote. So Dragon Age would sell well. I think he talks about that a little bit in the podcast. It would certainly sell well if you re-release those games and maybe revive things, but not in the cards. We're not Dragon Age fans, but I did want to acknowledge that piece of news because it is a little bit unfortunate.

1:50:13Did you play any of the Dragon Age games?

1:50:15Dustin Furman:I don't recall. I played a little like a really little bit of Inquisition in the early Xbox One PS4 generation just because, you know, there was really not much to play at that point in time. And I thought it was OK. I just I didn't really it didn't grab me. but I'm also just not I'm also just generally not a fantasy guy I like my sci-fi I like my contemporary I like my horror but like there's something about fantasy it was like fantasy's got to be pretty unique to grab me and and Dragon Age just kind of was like I'm sure it's great like I just I just did never it never hit with me even Witcher didn't hit with me as you know to the degree that other things have so it's like my taste for fantasy is just completely off he Dar is an interesting guy because he started as a programmer like on Baldur's Gate and shit like that yeah and then he ended up and then he ended up as the executive producer of like all the Dragon Age games and I think was even the original executive producer of the fourth one before because that game was in development forever yeah but yeah he's an interesting interesting guy and I do feel bad for Dragon Age fans I think Maddie's a Dragon Age fan I only played Origins and I was really underwhelmed by it personally.

1:51:39Dustin Furman:But I also understand that it was not really meant to be played on a console. And that's where I was playing, especially on PS3, which was struggling a great deal with it at that time. Yeah, that collection would be kind of a nightmare. Because like, yeah, it's that Aurora engine and then Inquisitions on Frostbite, remember? Right. Yeah, they moved over to Frostbite. for uh for inquisition so like that would be a i guess it wouldn't be the most insane undertaking i think the master chief collection is like 11 engines or some shit like that so it's like it wouldn't be the craziest thing but like for dragon age for an ip like dragon age i would imagine like the that'd be kind of a rough sell yeah on the other hand it's like you're right and yet on the other hand with ea being so cash strapped simply because of the leverage buyout you you think you think they would you would think they would be turning over rocks yeah that like get anything yeah um but maybe not i mean maybe that's just a poor use of your resources it's funny man that last dragon age game just kind of came and went like a fart yeah i would play a dragon age collection like if they were all in like one convenient package i would i would try it out because i really it was a half-hearted attempt when i tried inquisition i was just kind of like yeah maybe yeah that was i never i never even tried origins or two i know two is like kind of uh controversial they got that out in like a year yeah they made it really quick like really quickly it's almost impossible to like think about some of the development cycles of some of these games i think about that with new vegas yeah like what they made it in like less than two years i think it's like what i have how did you how is that possible to even do something like that it's incredible it's it's so quaint it's so quick it's so funny like i was watching like a interview with cliff eb cliff blizinski like where he was talking to somebody about gears he was talking to jimmy fallon about gears three or something and he was like jay found was like how long does it take to make one of these and it's like oh like you're looking at like two and a half years triple a i'm like oh my god can you imagine to be back in that in that time it would be in pre-production i was two and a half years i know that was such a perfect amount of time at that at that time dude like two and a half years is the exact right amount of time to wait for something like that yeah because it gives the studio a few months off and then three and then they can deliver in three years to the date of the next game or whatever which is good stuff yeah i agree i miss it i totally agree um i'm gonna skip this one actually because i think this is we already talked about this all right a little unorganized with this this week i'm sorry about that all right this next story this has come up before but I wanted to discuss it again just to kind of add it to the record one more time IGN wrote about it they say Square Enix dev Yoshi P says Final Fantasy 6 8 and 9 remakes would probably have to be released in 4 or 5 even 5 installments I'm getting really frustrated about this conversation but I want to get more into this and obviously I really love Naoki Yoshida I mean he is a I mean, he's great, but and obviously most well-known and beloved for Final Fantasy 14, but I love him for Final Fantasy 16, of course.

1:54:54Dustin Furman:They write here at the Final Fantasy 14 fan festival in Berlin on Sunday, Final Fantasy 14 director producer Naoki Yoshida invited Final Fantasy 7 remake series director Naoki Hamaguchi to the stage for a chat over the 75 minute Naoki's room section. The two Final Fantasy devs discuss their motivations, upcoming Final Fantasy 7 slash 14 crossover content, excuse me, and the future of the series. However, one comment may have quashed fans hopes for Final Fantasy VI, Final Fantasy VIII, or even Final Fantasy IX ever getting the remake treatment, especially weird since Final Fantasy IX was getting the remake treatment.

1:55:26Dustin Furman:We have no idea what happened to that. The talk of remaking other Final Fantasy games came up when Hamaguchi named Final Fantasy VI as a big influence on his life. Quote, Final Fantasy VI is the reason I wanted to work in the games industry, and it will always have a special place in my heart, end quote, he said. He added that whenever he mentions this in interviews, it inevitably sparks hopes and headlines that Hamaguchi will remake Final Fantasy VI, something that he always has had to deny. Yoshida added, quote, I understand fans' feelings, but please think about it. He then went on to explain why these remakes would be such a huge effort to develop and release.

1:55:59Dustin Furman:Quote, Final Fantasy VI is an incredibly huge game, and the same goes for other titles like VIII and IX. Since Final Fantasy VII Remake, I understand why people ask for these remakes, but if we did remake these other games, we would probably have to release them in four or five installments. end quote. I don't understand what they don't understand about what they did with Final Fantasy 7 and that it can't be replicated like that. And that no one is asking for that. No one wants that. The Final Fantasy 9 remake, that's the other thing is they're talking about it like they weren't remaking Final Fantasy 9 at some point, which is well understood that they were and that something obviously has gone wrong.

1:56:36Dustin Furman:But no one wants Final Fantasy 6 to be remade like Final Fantasy 7. Right. I don't know why they think that. We don't need to see that. And the only reason Final Fantasy 7 remakes remake earned a three game trilogy and was blown out like that was because it was so deeply changed because that was part of the meta of the entire game. So you can't by nature of that replicate it without looking kind of lame to being like it's Final Fantasy six, but it's a little different. And to me, I'm like, no, I just think like when people say they want you to remake it, just do the 2D HD kind of style Final Fantasy six remake or whatever.

1:57:19Dustin Furman:I don't know why they're making it seem like it's such a huge heavy lift. I don't give a shit if they ever do it, by the way. In fact, I think it would be somewhat dangerous to do Final Fantasy six again, but it's my favorite and it's an amazing game. but it was kind of ballsy what they would do with seven and if they and if they did get away with that amazing level of artistic license then doing something much closer to home and not reformed but just made beautiful again i think would be kind of cool and an obvious way to make money but yeah i i i question i question this greatly like i because because even like i played through a like a fair bit.

1:58:00I've played through Final Fantasy VII Remake. I played through the overwhelming majority, I think, of Rebirth. And I can tell you right now, it's just like, you could have cut a lot of this. Like, I didn't need the little mini game where I'm like picking up the boxes and moving them so Cloud can be like, what is this? Like, I don't think these need to be like many, many parts. I think you're just kind of stubbornly like adding shit that you don't really need to add. Like, you could just make a straight. even if you did it at the fidelity of final fantasy 7 i kind of don't think you would need multiple parts if you just focused on what the games actually were do you know what i mean like i don't know like i get the sense of like because because what is uh final fantasy 7 remake is like what like the first third of the yeah i think they're like third third third basically yeah yeah and it's like twice as long as the first game is as the original game is so it's just and that's the entire game so i'm like i don't i kind of don't i don't know if i really believe that when they say this shit when it's like oh it would take five we would need to make five triple a games just to capture the essence of final fantasy i'm like listen i'm sure these are great games but i think you're kind of overselling this a little bit what are we talking about you

1:59:15Dustin Furman:definitely are in that well what's funny is they have an example of how this could work i didn't play it but i understand i understand what it is in dragon warrior or dragon quest 7 where dragon quest 7 dragon warrior 7 or dragon quest 7 the original is way bigger than not only final fantasy 6 but a lot of other even modern jrpgs that game is notoriously huge and what they did when they remade it was they made it shorter way shorter apparently and yeah they tightened it up and it's one game now i don't want you to cut a single inch off of final fantasy 6 the point is is that Final Fantasy 6 is not nearly as big as that game is and they figured out how to do it and they did it exactly the way people would want to do it which is in this reformed kind of 2D HD or just more beautiful look.

1:59:59Dustin Furman:Final Fantasy 6 is a really big game. It's really big. Shockingly so. It's got two huge halves and I totally get what they mean but I think they're overthinking it because they're getting lost again in like the idea of Final Fantasy 7 requiring this sort of meta remake where right and it didn't require that that's what they did and it really worked and it's a huge game but you shouldn't do that again. you should never even dream of doing that again because you're not going to get away with doing it again you you you threaded the needle so perfectly why would you ever want to fuck with that again don't lose sight of what people are really asking you for when you're when people are requesting these games then again leave them alone for all i care i don't yeah i'm not clamoring five six is one of my favorite games of all time and i am not clamoring for a remake of it i would be very excited about it i would be very critical of it if it's not good and that's that's obviously the risk you run but i i think they absolutely fucking i mean well we we don't know how it's going to end but final fantasy 7 remake is exceptional in my opinion where i'm like this is awesome this is so awesome dude and rebirth was awesome i loved it loved it just think they're doing an amazing job and just the the playing with your expectations and the subtle tweaks in the story if you're a fan of that game and that's why i get so frustrated when people just play it like raw dog it and don't and I'm like no it's not even me calling you a tourist or something it's me saying like no you really should part of it yeah you really shouldn't do what you're doing you really should play the original because it's a sequel basically right it essentially is in a lot of ways yeah it's like the many worlds interpretation of events right all right Chris this one's for you crazy taxi world tour is getting a closed network test and And you can, I think, sign up soon.

2:01:45Dustin Furman:Yeah. So you go to the website, which is Sega.com slash crazy dash taxi, and then just click around and you can apply for the closed network test on any platform you want, including PlayStation five. It's also available on Xbox Series X and S and on Steam. The following countries can participate. The US, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Argentina, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Japan, South Korea. Taiwan in bold for you to call Taiwan a country Sega India Australia New Zealand Singapore Malaysia Thailand Indonesia Philippines Vietnam and Hong Kong unfortunately we will not be able to accept all application or applicants into this test the test begins August 31st are you interested in getting involved I know we're both very excited about this game I just never do this kind of thing so I'm not going to do it here but yeah yeah yeah i was going to do it and then i saw that you needed a sega account and i'm just like i'm all right we're gonna get into that a little while with halo too um yeah yeah the well you have some time to decide the sign up period is july 28th to august 31st and it will be available in english and japanese only the test actually runs from the 11th to, let's see, September 11th to September 13th.

2:03:06Dustin Furman:September 12th to September 14th. Oh, so that's the same time. It's UTC versus Pacific time, I see. So time to get into it if you want. Go check it out at Sega's website if you're interested in signing up. Yeah, you can celebrate 9-11 with a nice, pad of crazy taxi. It's a good time. Celebrate the 25th anniversary of 9-11 with the crazy taxi closed test. two maps six cars four characters various car tune-up options i'm looking forward to this game very much yeah yeah i i want more i don't know maybe this is a bit selfish i want more journalism done about this because i do i still want answers regarding their ai thing oh right right right because i i do like i don't think any i get to be fair i don't think they've been giving any interviews of any consequence but like i that kind of needs to be i'm excited about it i love Crazy Taxi with all my heart.

2:03:58But I would like some clarity. I would like to, and it's really just transparency. I want to know exactly what was done. You know what I mean? I want to know how it got, like, is the game AI generated in some capacity? Are there assets that are? Was it concept art? Is, you know what I mean? Like, I just want to know. Because that is important, I think. But I'm looking forward to Crazy Taxi, man. I just love that soundscape and that style of game. It's just so, so inherently nostalgic to me. Thank you.

2:04:28Dustin Furman:Crazy. Crazy. Taxi. Good impression. All right. Bad news from Games Industry Up is that I wanted to share. They write new data suggests layoffs will affect 14 ,259 people by the end of 2026, up 78 % from first forecast of the year. So they continue, quote, new data from the ASGC Games Industry Layoff Tracker predicts job losses will reach 14 ,259 by the end of 2026. representing a 78 % increase over an initial forecast for the year. In January, ASGC projected 8 ,025 layoffs would take place in 2026. This figure has already risen to 9 ,781 as of this update on July 26. The person who, oh, I forgot.

2:05:14Dustin Furman:We actually talked about this guy. Remember this guy was at the Game Awards and people were really critical of him. Remember Amir Satvat? I think this is the guy. He worked for Tencent. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. But he was doing this tracker and people were kind of like, you know, I think they were conflicted a little bit. But he said, quote, the pace of layoffs is accelerating faster than our models initially predicted. Not good. Europe and North America represent. 95 percent of all layoffs. North America accounts for 66 percent of layoffs and 79 percent of affected workers. Europe accounts for the other 30 percent.

2:05:55Dustin Furman:um bad news i don't know how now it's worth noting that the layoffs this is a layoff tracker but doesn't count net worker numbers if that makes sense so in other words some of these people will find their way back in sure but it's not looking good out there man and and a major jaffe and i we're talking about this a lot but the major question is like really what happens to the american game development scene because there are a lot of really great studios here it's just and they make great games and some of them will always make great games some of them will exist forever they will but it's going to be really onerously expensive to compete at this point when you're making games of like resident evil for like 50 million dollars which would cost a sony studio and California, no joke, three or four hundred billion dollars.

2:06:47Dustin Furman:That's like not an exaggeration by any stretch of the imagination. So yeah, how do you compete when you're all selling on a global market to the same customers? It's it's bad. It's bad, dude. Like I know that there are different rules. Europe has really good pro worker rules as well, but they're still having a lot of layoffs. But I know that in Japan, for instance, like it's a little different laying people off there. and that's fine. But the reality is, is that they're benefiting from this global situation where they're making their games for a fraction of the cost and then selling them to us.

2:07:22Dustin Furman:It's the same thing if you're in Eastern Europe. It's the same thing even if you're in the Middle East. It's certainly the same thing if you're in China, South Korea, India. If you're in South America, even if you're in Mexico. I just, I'm not feeling good about it. I don't think we need American games per se because it is like, It's like, what does that really mean? But I think we want to have a vibrant game development scene. I really feel like a lot of it is going to ultimately come down to probably these distributed teams that are either supported by overseas talent or if I were one of these teams, I'd be like, we really need to do away with our footprint.

2:08:00Dustin Furman:Let's get rid of our fixed costs and give ourselves more leeway to stay alive. Everyone work from home kind of thing. but yeah a lot of people think that that's just not an effective way to make games some studios like moon have always made games like that but other studios really want to be in person i don't know dude and a lot of that by the way though a lot of the in-person stuff it should be noted a lot of that is security so like people are like you know dicking around with these modules all the time sending builds back and forth and all these things that's how everything with grand theft auto got leaked it was through like discord and everything you don't want people fucking around with that kind of stuff.

2:08:39Dustin Furman:I understand that, too. I don't know if you have anything you want to add, but I'm just I feel like we got to have our eyes wide open. This is going to be. It's bad, bad for America. Yeah, I mean, I think I don't know, man. I think it's kind of I think that's I think that's kind of it. Really, I mean, like the same slowing down. And I really just to the degree that any of this can bounce back. It's like, well, how does it bounce back? Really? I think the future is probably going to be. Yeah, it's going to be. overseas. It's going to be game studios popping up in emerging markets, probably. Japan will be healthy.

2:09:12Eastern Europe will probably remain pretty fairly healthy.

2:09:18But I don't know. In America, it's probably just going to be all indies. I would imagine.

2:09:23Dustin Furman:Yeah, or the behemoth studios that like. Can justify themselves still, but even then, it's if you own Sucker, Sucker Punch made Yote for really cheap. I mean, I guess if you want to talk more about like Naughty Dog and Intergalactic and how that's no doubt hundreds of millions of dollars I would assume I mean there's just there can be no doubt about that didn't The Last of Us Part 2 cost 250 million or so it's like how did that how did this cost less than that it's no way it probably cost way more 224 right I think yeah something like that yeah and it's like it's crazy I look at that and I'm like okay well you made your money back no doubt like your game was huge but you even have to look at it from their perspective and be like why would we make games here you really have to look at it that way it is so expensive to make games here and you again you look at things like resident evil or even i think pragmat is an even more stark example because that game was in development for so long and they obviously restarted it at some point and it cost them probably by their standards a lot of money but they got it out the door like that's the kind of game that would have probably been canceled because they've been like we can't spend more money we already spent in the way it's like we spent a hundred million dollars on this fucking thing already like you and and it's and we have to do it all over again when you're paying your people literally twenty eight thousand dollars a year which is a normal salary at you know the low rungs of a game studio in japan which is unheard of in the united states and reasonably so you're just dealing with different this is this is the downside of globalization and and unfortunately with digital stuff you can't you could but you really can't do anything about it it's not like a tchotchke it's not right a screw factory or you know what i mean like it's ip and creativity and it's all these moving parts and it's just going to gravitate towards what's cheapest now all economies gravitate towards what's cheapest but at least we can try to control that and we do in a way you know um we talked about tariffs and stuff like that in the past but with this this this kind of thing it's what trump i remember trump bringing up like this idea of tariffing even movies and stuff like that and it's unclear whether you could even do that like what would that look like and stuff it's just different so you have to compete and since you can't compete maybe you just have to accept what it is unfortunately i don't know man um i'm uh i'm i'm sad about it because i feel like a lot of we have a huge you know we're american and we have a massive american audience and i don't want to dissuade people from trying to get involved in these spaces but it's onerous and dangerous if you're not in a place that really can ride for a while and and justify themselves it's going to be dangerous out there and these these numbers are bad and i i do i want to know where it all nets and i think that's kind of unknowable you would have to do like real deep analysis on that and and even then you wouldn't have the right numbers but like you would have to figure out like what everyone's head counts were some cross-referencing of linkedin or something it would be this it but it's like is it negative 5 ,000?

2:12:23Dustin Furman:Like, what is it? Because that really is the number that matters the most. People shuffling around is not ideal, but like when they all sit down, when the music stops, how many of them have no chair? And then we'll have a better idea because if it's something like 5 ,000, it's like, okay, that's like, what is that? That's like 15 Naughty Dogs. that's so many people that are just out never never to get back in not only for their own economic sanity and their own professional direction all the rest but just for us as an industry we lost them anyway yeah chris new ps plus games for august announced these games will be available beginning august 4th and these are for everyone on playstation plus at the essential tier.

2:13:14Dustin Furman:So that is everyone. So, of course, if you're at extra premium, you get these as well. These games are part of your subscription, so download them for free if you'd like as part of your subscription. They'll be available from August 4th to August 31st. The big game here is Dying Light 2 Stay Human Reloaded Edition. Dying Light 2, I never beat. There was something weird about it. It's a game I've always wanted to go back to. And what's funny is that I actually played Dying Light the Beast and did beat that. Which apparently is somewhat of a reaction to Dying Light 2 and some of the things people didn't like about it, which I think is why it worked.

2:13:51Dustin Furman:It wasn't great, but it was it didn't recapture the magic of the original Dying Light. Maybe that's not possible, but that's part of the available slate of games. The cooperative multiplayer adventure teamwork game. So friend slop, I'd assume you would refer to this big walk. Is available. and then finally signal it signal us which is a i think a puzzle driven like horror game but i could be wrong about that yeah and then august 6th playstation plus members will get a marvel token fighting souls playstation plus pack including five avatars and a set of in-game result screen character poses oh very exciting anything in here for you this week or this month i'm sorry yeah i mean i would like to try dying light 2 again it didn't grab me when i first played it but i also was kind of playing it under weird circumstances like i had i owned it but i was kind of not home i was i was in a different state like visiting so i was like kind of playing it like not in my ideal environment um so like that i i'm curious about i am curious about big walk i'm fairly certain big walk is releasing into ps plus oh is it let's see yeah it's because it's coming out because i was wondering because i was i had my eye on this game and i was like i didn't realize oh you're right yeah you're right it is it's coming out on august 4th um but it's coming to ps plus so that's that's kind of interesting that's strange yeah for a ps plus essential game that's strange yeah fascinating but like that i've been curious about that one for a while.

2:15:26It looks interesting and cute. Signals, I've heard a lot about. I've heard a lot about Signals, but I don't know anything about it at the same time.

2:15:34Dustin Furman:Yeah, I'm looking at it now. I did see this game back in the day. It came out in 2022. It looks cool actually. I think I might have to check this out as well. So yeah, I'll add that to my list. But yeah, some good games for people to investigate if they're interested. A few other quick things we can touch on. Just wanted to acknowledge that Gran Turismo is getting... I feel bad that we don't talk more about Gran Turismo. It's a big PlayStation IP. Just none of us really play racing games. So I saw this news pop up, and I thought I would add it to the record as well. Moza Racing, M-O-Z-A, becomes an official partner of the Gran Turismo World Series.

2:16:08Dustin Furman:This is a peripheral manufacturer, and they make sim racing hardware, founded back in 2012 by a bunch of engineers, whatever. You can read the letter on Gran Turismo's website, grand-turismo.com. but they announced that they are making a Gran Turismo wheel and that's pretty interesting I guess native support for Gran Turismo 7 on this wheel nothing else to really say about it but I feel like we just don't talk about this game and yeah what's funny is that as we well the last time we talked about it Chris you might recall we were noting that like it's getting bigger which is weird what do you mean like Gran Turismo 7 is actually gaining monthly active users Oh, right, right, right.

2:16:53Dustin Furman:So there's like something about it. And it was one of those games, remember during the PC release era, which wasn't that long ago, everyone was always kind of a little flummoxed why they weren't releasing it on PC because there's such a huge racing scene on PC if you know where to look, iRacing and all those other games. But, and of course, Forza Horizon, which is a little different. It's a little more arcadey, but those games are present there. So anyway, I feel like we don't talk about the series very much and I just wanted to say something about it. So new GT wheel coming. These guys are no joke, man.

2:17:24I'm visiting their website right now. There's something called a haptic motion system. It's four actuators for$3 ,000. Fucking crazy. The racing community is no joke, I guess. They put down the money.

2:17:44Dustin Furman:Yeah, this gear is crazy. I don't even know what the fucking actuator is. Just got a car. Yeah, what are you doing?

2:17:55That's how I felt about sports games for the longest time.

2:17:58Dustin Furman:It's so interesting. So, yeah, they sell. They just sell the holder of the steering wheel. Like, I guess it's like some sort of engine. That's like a rectangle. And then you attach it. And these things are like$1 ,000. You build it yourself, I guess. It's kind of like a PC. Yeah. Where you mix and match parts or whatever. This is fucking crazy, dude. Yeah. And so you know why this is a big deal? So I could have looked into this more. I just didn't. They've never been compatible with Gran Turismo. So if you look at the game, it's like Assetto Corsa, Dirt, the F1 games, Farming Simulator, interestingly, Forza Horizon, some cart games, Mudrunner, which is a good one, Project Cars, NASCAR Heat.

2:18:44Dustin Furman:So yeah, they've had like everything but them. So that's probably why it's a big deal. yeah man this is a I I love this sort of boutique cottage industry shit that's going on around games that's that's really always gone around on around games but it's like those big trucker setups it's like dude just go buy a fucking big rig and go drive your parcels Christ's sake that's what you want to do with your life do it all right Capcom released their financials I just wanted to acknowledge that Resident Evil has surpassed. Let's see here. Where is it? Have they said that they say? Well, it's in here somewhere.

2:19:25Dustin Furman:Eight million copies sold. Pragmata, though, 2.5 million copies sold. Game of the year. Congratulations to them. Also, Kingdom Come Salvation has been trademarked. People are assuming this is in Europe, by the way. This comes from Gamatsu. People are assuming this will, of course, be the next Kingdom Come game. Safe assumption. Atari according to Deadline.com has signed a 10 movie deal with Universal and are trying to develop films I got to sit down with someone over there I mean obviously we're good friends with Jason Polanski who's their executive producer but like Atari is really aggressive right like in the last couple of years just buying studios releasing a bunch of games doing a bunch of deals I'm feeling it it's especially interesting with the IP that they're making available for film because and I'm sure they had nothing to do with it.

2:20:16Dustin Furman:It's like there's multiple versions of Atari, but you remember Atari sold a bunch of their IP. Yeah. Or I think actually lost it in bankruptcy hearings. So that's a shame, but they still own a lot of things. And finally, I wanted to bring this up. This is a weird one. This is making the rounds on PSN profiles right now. There's a game called Volcano Princess coming out. It's not important what it is. It's like some sort of creepy, weird Japanese simulator game. What's weird about it is that it has 235 bronze trophies all in a single platinum list. This has never been seen before. And there's a lot of conversation going on for.

2:20:54Dustin Furman:All right. So. I'll explain this in a brief way for people that aren't into trophies. Everyone knows what achievement points are right on Xbox and you get a thousand points per game, right? But we know how those work up because you get 10 points for this and 50 and it tells you. So Sony system is is based on a point system, but you don't see the points. So I think bronze is worth 20 points. Silver is worth 40. I think gold's worth 60 or something. Platinum is worth 200, like whatever, whatever it is. The number of bronze, silver and gold trophies that you put into a game has to reach, I think, between one thousand one hundred and fifty and one thousand three hundred points.

2:21:34Dustin Furman:It could be somewhere in that. And then you're able to be certified. Your list is certified and you put a platinum trophy on it. It doesn't count. Everyone's within that list. That parameters that list. This list is worth 3 ,825 points. And everyone's like. So I actually wrote on the PSN profiles forum because a lot of people are talking about it. I'm like, this can mean only one of four things, I think. Either this was a mistake, like a certification mistake that they just got away with. They had a dispensation to do something like this, which is possible. You could have always done this and no one knew.

2:22:10Dustin Furman:which is possible, I guess, or the rules changed and it's really unclear what's going on there. So I am not saying anything else. This is not interesting to anyone that's not into trophies, but I just wanted to throw that out there that I don't really understand what's happening here. This is a very good because like if this is if this is possible, this is a big deal. Like I was saying on the on the forum, like this could be the biggest thing that ever happened to trophies and might actually be the shakeup it needs because it basically indicates that studios could just kind of do whatever they want at this point and if the trophies are worth getting and make the game more robust and interesting I have actually no problem with it so a boring thing for most people out there in fact the game comes out the day we're recording this but I wanted to throw that out there nonetheless it's making the rounds in trophy circles and I thought people might find that interesting no one knows how it's possible I guess we'll find out soon enough this game it seems insane because i'm looking at some of the trophies and one of them one of them is called wise papa and the thing is become a reliable mentor and have a papa is wise score of over of uh greater than 25 yeah there it is yeah you papa righteous papa yeah i don't know papa is brave what is going on bro interesting yeah it is it's just a weird thing like it's i don't know how i don't know how it's possible very strange chris it's time to get into what we're playing we're playing halo so we'll get to that shortly i'll just go really quickly here and say i'm playing two other things or was playing two other things so i did the power wash i was in the power wash simulator 2 mode did all the star wars dlc i had noted that Actually, the first expansion for Power Wash Simulator 2 had come out in the spring, and it was for Adventure Time.

2:24:00Dustin Furman:Another IP I have no familiarity with whatsoever. So, of course, I naturally bought it. It was on sale on PlayStation for the summer sale or whatever, so it was like$6 or whatever. I'm almost done with it. I've done everything but one stage. And it's fine. I have no relation to the IP at all. Micah was into Adventure Time, so she's been explaining some things to me. But I missed that whole thing. Were you into that? I know what it is. I know what its aesthetic is. I never got that into it. What is even the date on it? Let's see. 2010 to 2018. It's actually not quite as old as I thought it was.

2:24:42Dustin Furman:I thought it was more like the mid-aughts. There's that. I'm trying to, again, just bang things out in preparation for games that I wanted to be prepared for this fall. So I downloaded, I bought, downloaded and beat Onimusha 2 Samurai's Destiny, which is 2002 sequel to the 2001 original game. It's funny, like I didn't remember very much about it at first. I remember the first Onimusha really well. And I really enjoyed that game a lot. The second game is really fun to play, but I think it it loses itself a little bit. And one of the things that it it does, and this is where I was like, oh, I remember this.

2:25:19Dustin Furman:I remember how fucking annoying this was, was there are four other characters in the game that you can actually play as briefly and they'll accompany you on these different missions. And it's cool in that there's basically this like butterfly effect sort of thing where your relationship with these different characters will affect who's with you and whatever. So you can you have to play the game through at least four times to see everything if you stick with each of these characters. but it's all determined by this gift system so you find all these different various items and then you have to like kind of assume based on the interests each person's interest if they'll like the gift or not and it was actually apparently only recently with the release of the pc version last year that people actually broke open how the gift system really works so now there's a really fine way to get through the game and get what you want done but it is a very tedious system and I don't really know that it has any place in a game like Onimusha.

2:26:10Dustin Furman:It's a little weird. So because they add like, there's like a storefront. There's just, they added a lot of accoutrements to the game that I think kind of bloated it. The original Onimusha could be beaten in like 90 minutes. It's not a very long game. So I understand they wanted to have more to it than that. It is still very fun to play. Sword-based action combat, pre-rendered backgrounds, stiff camera angles, all the tropes of the time. it's fun. I don't want to spoil too much of it. I think it gets a little goofy, too. So anyway, I played that. I was like, well, I get the platinum trophy. And I'm like, it's just too tedious.

2:26:48Dustin Furman:You have to beat the game four times, which is not really that big of a deal because when you know what you're doing, you just run through it and whatever. But I'm like, I don't want to do this. So I moved on to Halo Campaign Evolved. Mm hmm. Playing Kellen Kessinger wrote in and said, hello, my dynamic duo. I'm about to fire up the Halo remake for the first time and thought I would share a little tidbit Halo came out on November 15th 2001 that was two days after my first birthday does that horrifying I hate knowing that Chris I'm very eager to hear what you think of Halo you platinumed it did you not I did I did platinum it somehow now did you do it straight up because i heard that there's a way to to cheat oh yeah i assume they'll patch it but yeah that's exactly why i raced for it because i was like you're you're gonna patch this and then like a bunch of people are gonna have this trophy and then it's gonna mean nothing anyway so like ain't no fucking shot so like this to be fair there is a there is a trophy for a legendary all skulls on run which in my opinion and i think of the opinion of most people who play halo should not be a trophy it should not be an achievement that should be something that you get like a special bit of armor or something right right like an inclusion like it's such an obnoxious request that for that one i was like no i'm using like and i the second i saw that you could do it i was like i'm i'm doing i'm doing it this way do you think they'll fix it or you think they'll just leave it i think they will fix it because it is it's a weird bug it's a very bizarre workaround yeah you have to like go to a checkpoint right and then like so how it works and and before i get deep into this i do want to get i do want to hear what you have to say about it first before I go into my deeper thoughts.

2:28:29But the way the workaround works is like, so the legendary All Skulls on, it's like it's legendary difficulty, all the difficulty modifiers activated. There's a playlist for it. There's like a specific, it says play Lasso and then it'll take care of everything you need. But there's a setting in the normal campaigns where you can kind of set your own damage. You can kind of set your own modifiers. I guess for like, if you want like a four-year-old to play you can up the you can up your health and you can up your damage you can make it bottomless clip you can just customize your experience so what you can do is you can play lasso with those difficulty modifiers all the way up and then your health is max and your damage output is max and you never have to reload and it it's not that it counts towards your lasso progress it just allows you to play that progress with those modifiers on but if you then take the modifiers off then Reese and and then start the first level and collect the skull in the corner of the first room it creates a checkpoint as if you've completed the level on legendary all skulls on so I just did that for all of them because I was like this is an egregious I respect the lasso a lot I think it's an awesome thing it's crazy that people can do it but to lock to put a trophy behind that I think it's obnoxious I think it's a crazy thing to do that's so alienating in my opinion so i but every other trophy i got legitimate legitimately because i was just like why not um but so i did i did 100 it which is nice it's my ninth platinum i think um nice good for you i think and and just to have a platinum trophy in a even just popping trophies in a halo game was very surreal but i do want to hear what you have to say about it first before because i have so much to say about it and i don't i don't want to poison the well so yeah how are How are you finding it?

2:30:19Oh, yeah, sure, sure.

2:30:20Dustin Furman:I don't know how far deep you're into it, but. I'm, I just did the library, got through the library. So that's like what, halfway through? Maybe not even, I don't know. That's, I would say, yeah, that's a little bit, you're right at the midpoint basically or a little bit after. All right. So I like Halo a lot and I think that the things I like about it are things I still like about it. The things I don't like about it, I still don't like about it. and one and this is something you can really speak to a lot more authoritatively where i was like what is going on with these weapons like there's so much in the game that wasn't in that i don't remember being in the game originally like a huge selection of weapons i actually went and looked at them like what when i picked up the energy sword or whatever or the blade or whatever i was like this wasn't in the first game and then but i i started reading about it i'm like oh i kind of like what they were trying to do here they basically were like retconning the game and like giving it more continuity.

2:31:19Dustin Furman:Apparently, like there are certain enemy types that really weren't in the first game and things that like really should have been there. But where I'm like, that's cool. So I dig that. I think that the game looks and runs great on PS5 Pro. I've heard that it doesn't always run great on other hardware or whatever. And I will say that when I started fighting the flood, I guess, I mean, the game's fucking 25 years or whatever. When you start fighting the flood in the library, the game did start like stuttering where I was like, whoa. yeah where it like started degrading almost like where i was like is this part of the game like is no like where it's like it it almost felt like it was yeah good they become like a slideshow kind of right it's not that the game's frame rate drops it's that the characters the animation frame rate for the characters on screen drops it's very odd everything was melting kind of like because you're moving forward and the enemy and things and things show but things are falling down the point of view if that makes any sense so yeah when um that was very weird but generally speaking that it's the technical fidelity is fine and it's funny how much i remember of the game which is not a huge surprise i mean i i played it for the first time in 2003 and then i i most recently replayed it a few years ago on on master chief collection so and i was saying that on twitter that though it is so surreal to play it on playstation it is a little less surreal just because i just played these games in my mind's eye that the original trilogy anyway but i feel like i actually the library stage really brings this out in my opinion halo is just too big in my opinion i understand the the spatial stuff and i don't mean space i mean like spatially on the maps is really great for vehicle combat for multiplayer for lan a lot of these places were made with those things in mind I assume.

2:33:01Dustin Furman:But like there are parts of the game where I'm like, I'm just you're just going, going, going, going, going, going, going. And I'm like, where are we going? What are we like? Why am I doing this? Why? Why are the environments so huge? And I do appreciate that they added a way, ironically, a waypoint to the game. So you don't have to like, because sometimes you're like looking around like, where am I supposed to go? The fuck am I doing? Did I go this way already like I remember having those problems with Halo now I'm not the smartest person in the world obviously with these games but um so I think that like a lot of those same problems still exist because it's it's still the same game I with with new trappings but I really do enjoy I enjoy the mystery of the first game the humans have some beef with the covenant you don't really know what it is there's this and obviously you learn everything later but but the point is like going into it fresh and I'm not a huge Halo fan so I'm like yeah I don't really remember the details so it's like it's like the humans have this problem with this this the covenant and then there's this ring world Halo which is in and of and I remember so well when I first played the game on Xbox back in the day I bought it with my Xbox and I loved just the the the the background of the of the ring going up and yeah the topography of it that the the the weather structures like it's so fucking cool right and then you find out that it's some sort of weapon then you find out that the covenant have are scared of something they found on the on the on halo then you find out that it's the flood and i i loved i remember feeling this way originally too is like watching everyone fight each other.

2:34:50Yeah.

2:34:51Dustin Furman:And there's that part where you're like, where you first encounter the flood and you're escaping. And you're basically just running through rooms of the covenant and the flood fighting. And you can get involved. But like, I was like, this game is so, there's so much cool shit about this game. And I do think from my, I got a more of a layman, but from my perspective, I'm like, I like, I like this, but I know that they've added a lot of things, subtle and not so subtle. That have affected the experience for a lot of people. Unreal Engine, obviously, I think. Makes everything look a little more vanilla.

2:35:26Dustin Furman:I think Halo already, and this is a personal opinion, already suffers a little bit from a design deficit in that and a visual design deficit in that sci-fi is so difficult to do. It's it's the mass effect thing where it's like everything's clean. Yeah, no lines, no seams. And I'm like, that's cool and that's good. but in unreal engine it looks almost too good yeah and and there's something there's an uncanny yeah it's something weird it feels fake i mean obviously it's fake but it feels like it's fake and so there's that and i don't know i i really i just think a lot of it is just a lot of it is just open and just happening the trappings of the game in terms of the story and what everyone's doing and i love master chief and whatever i think it's he's an interesting character he's goofy looking i was saying he i remember making fun of him when you and i were talking about it last time where it's like he looks like a 90s motocross dude it's like he's so from that era yeah when you look at him visually but yeah i've really enjoyed it so yeah i'm gonna finish beating it i'm playing it on normal i always love i found i'm not really looking for anything too deeply but it's like i haven't found a single skull i remember saying this with uh when i played combat evolved or um right uh yeah combat evolved on uh on master chief collection where i'm like you really gotta look for shit and that's one of the things that I think this game does really well and one of the things I love about third person shooters that I think is an understated part of the boomer shooter culture that I think Halo isn't a boomer shooter but comes from that culture which is for yeah for what I interrupted you to correct you like the audience wanted you said that person oh sorry yeah right yeah first person shooter there's something about the boomer shooter secret stuff in stages doom the doom trilogy the new Doom trilogy does this really well where it reminds you that they used to make these geometries and then beg you to go find your way up and around and through them if you want.

2:37:24Obviously, there's a path around, but and you feel like you're breaking the game, but you're not.

2:37:28Dustin Furman:And I know that that's where the skulls are because that's the boomer shooter essence. That I think is that Halo is at that. That transition away from the old type of games like GoldenEye was one of the last boomer shooters. and that was a couple years before. So I don't know. I really, really like it. And I like that. But one of the things I really love is the difference between the human weapons and the covenant weapons. I love how the flood uses both of them when they fight, which is cool. And I like that. The little subtleties of the weapons. So human weapons use ammo clips. but if you have like a plasma rifle you can't do like you assume that they bring it to some room and like charge it so you can't switch between them so you're constantly roving between them and just the difference in feel of them the different weight the lasers or the plasma weapons seem more powerful but they seem like they have less heft there's a lot of cool subtleties and so i imagine myself just being in that situation and just grabbing whatever you have and constantly picking up weapons and i just dig that there's a there's a sense of groundedness to it i really like but anyway i'm interested in what you have to say about it yeah i mean i i agree with a lot of the stuff you said like i overall i really like it i think it's a good i think it's a really solid way to experience a halo for the first time if you've never if you've never played it i it's it's weird i've played this game so many times so there are things that bother me that aren't really wrong with it it's just i have a i have an affinity for like a certain like the original delivery of certain lines like sticks out to me or it's just like oh it's a little bit better but like i think your average person's not going to notice it i there's a million little nitpicks i have um but ultimately i don't really have a like i think it's ultimately good my only real two points of disappointment i think are i think the ai is a little wonky like the it's strange i don't know if this is to account for the fact that you can sprint now or if it's to account for the fact that like you can have four player co-op or something but i feel like elites are everywhere there's like there's encounters specifically in truth and reconciliation and i played it on heroic first and then i went to legendary but like you run into a room and there's like 10 elites and i'm like this is too this is insane like this is too this is too too much and i think they do that because the the ai is a little bit dumber than halo one so like i think like the elites don't dodge as much and they're not they don't rush you as much and even the flood doesn't sprint at you or maybe they do but because you can sprint it doesn't really matter you can kind of get away from them a lot easier it's still fun because halo is ultimately even a gimped version of halo is still very very fun in my opinion so like it doesn't really detract too much some of the cutscene direction is a little bit awkward there's like long pauses and kind of there's when johnson's first on screen he like kind of stares at the camera and you're like what this is a little there were a few awkward moments i noticed too where i'm like how did that get through like yeah like it seems like it's a little wonky i think i don't think it's a bad game by any means but like it kind of brings me up to my second point of disappointment where I was just like I feel like if you were going to retouch the original halo I feel like they didn't do enough to change it like I would have wanted to see way more change like they changed the library completely which I'm grateful for that that mission was a slog and even in this version it's still kind of repetitive but they did a better job of like this puzzle rooms and stuff right and so like it's better and I'm just like man I wish they would have done more of this throughout the entire game you know like i like i wanted to see a different version of uh the silent cartographer i wanted to see a different version of the pillar of autumn i wanted to see it and they do it sometimes like in there's a final level that they change a lot the library change a lot before the the first level where you find the flood is really awesome i think that like they did a great job atmospherically and i it's it's weird it's kind of all I don't know if it necessarily justifies its existence as a remake it's not like a Resident Evil 2 Resident Evil 4 Dead Space you know what I mean it's not that because it's not that transformative or it's not like it doesn't invalidate the original which would have been cool to see personally but it's I guess it's fine that it doesn't I had a great time with it I platinumed it I like the way it feels.

2:42:18The shotgun in particular, I love the way the shotgun feels. Like it pulls back. Like the recoil on, it's awesome. And it's satisfying to see the Flood fight and the way they look. And it's good. And the music's good. And it's hard to really talk about because any negative that I have is so inherently subjective. Outside of performance issues like we talked about, the stuttering, I do think the cutscene direction is objectively wonky. I do think the AI is objectively dumber and I, but that's really it. And those aren't necessarily bad per se. They're just not as good. I think there's, there's an argument to be made that this is a great way to play Halo for the first time.

2:43:03Cause there's all the accoutrements of like modern stuff. Like there's sprinting and there's aim down sites.

2:43:09Dustin Furman:Yeah. I like the sprinting and aiming. I was going to say, I like that they've added. Yeah. I mean, I think it's fine. those those kinds of things with because like there there's a we talk about doom and stuff where there's like there's an argument to not do that in in more kinetic games you know um yeah but it's not quite that fast so no it's it's it's i think it's very good and i like that they brought some halo 2 and halo 3 weapons and systems like you can hijack vehicles now yeah i mean that's something i even noticed noted and i'm not even like a huge fan of i'm like these are not right like yeah i don't remember this you know which is cool but what i'm saying what i'm saying is like they they did so much to the game systems right like they brought weapons in they brought like mechanics in like the plasma pistol didn't use to emp vehicles when you fully charge them that was in three and afterwards but they brought into one and it's like this is cool i like this but also like but the levels are exactly the same except for one which is massively transformed and it's just like well i can sprint now shouldn't this shouldn't this layout be a different like shouldn't this be more transformative and there's these weird things like even the trophies like when you beat when you beat uh silent cartographer the trophy is called b30 which b30 is the code name for the original level when it was being drawn up right so it's like oh it's like oh this we got to figure we got to polish up b30 that implies a level of familiarity to the player that like if you assume i know what b30 is why didn't you include the stuff that i'm very obviously aware of which are like the cut wildlife that was supposed to be in the original campaign the original combat of all that was that had to be cut for time it just kind of strikes me as a bit of a missed opportunity i guess it's a good it's a good reimagining of what halo one already is with some of the accoutrements of the future games that i think do make the game a little bit more dynamic and a little bit more fun but i i was kind of hoping for like a more um from the from the ground up transformative kind of thing because I think Halo 1 would benefit from that and I think it would do a good job of showing us what they intend to do going forward because as much as as fine as this game is and good as it is knowing what I know now knowing that they don't have a project in development You know what I mean?

2:45:38Knowing that there is no halo around the corner, like in a year or two, that they kind of have to start up from scratch, basically. This would have been a good stopgap between that. But now that I'm aware of that, I'm thinking like, well, what the fuck are we doing now? Because I don't really have a sense of what, I don't have a sense of what you're going to do going forward because you've not really flexed your muscles here in the ways that I wanted to see. Now there's prequel missions, which I don't think you've played yet. No, no, they give you the option originally,

2:46:05Dustin Furman:but I was like, I'll do that later after I beat the game. sequentially they come in last anyway um okay but those are kind of they're fine but the dude you want you want to talk about bad cut scenes that's

2:46:23that's that's that's where they are man like there's a i think the worst cut scene i've ever seen in the entire franchise is in those prequel missions like no i'll keep an eye on that i'll see if you'll know exactly what it is i think because even to somebody who doesn't care like they'll see it's like what is this why is this happening but um yeah it's it's it's imperfect i think it's no less than good though which is what i expected because it's it's halo at the end of the day and halo is just like on a formulaic level just inherently well designed and uh it's kind of hard to fuck it up i am i'm it's what you touch on something so interesting

2:47:00Dustin Furman:which is like I don't know why they don't have a grasp on Halo. You would think that that would be. The most important thing you would do as a first party, I mean. Since Xbox made a decision a long time ago that they were just going to and I don't think there's anything really wrong with it if this is the decision you make, but like they're going to kind of stick with the same shit. Halo, Forza, Gears, etc. And if that's the case, then you got to treat them with great care. in other words they made the decision that they made and then they're like and we're also going to not do anything fun with it and i'm like but you halo should be your north star it it should be yeah like if that's like if that really is the defining xbox game and xbox series and it is then everything should be so deliberate and so well thought out it's kind of like the confusion i think a lot of people feel with star wars and disney it's like how did you botch this so bad this is like the biggest thing you have what are you doing it's weird yeah it's weird and it's and it is unfortunate too because like i do think there is like an element of like pressure i really don't think there is a single bad halo game honestly like i there's there's ones that i really don't like but like it's never been less than good and i do think but that original run was so good that like it's it's a level like anything that doesn't meet the quality of like really fucking good might as well be garbage and i do think there's an element of that like where there's people beating this game up a lot in ways that i think is a bit but like it's i don't know about that like it's it's very fun it's a very good way to experience halo i think but there are issues where just like i'm sure like you noticed the the stilted cut scenes which is crazy because in halo 2 anniversary like they were so good why didn't you just get blurred to do it again right like why did you do i can because i know you did it in house i can tell because there's there's motion captures on the grunts that look fucking weird as hell and i'm like it looks like food fight that charlie sheen mocap movie from like the late 90s early 2000s where i'm like this is not that i this is not as final as it should be for what this ip means for your brand like you need and i and i understand by the way i know that they they put this out now to avoid gta 6 i know it yeah yeah in other words there's no time to to sit on it yeah they were they were like we can't wait we got to put it out now because we can't put it out on november 15th is the that's the anniversary is the anniversary that's where i am sure they wanted to put it and then where's gta 6 now oh november 13 something like that i think yeah it would it would be fucking obliterated so they they made a call and they were like okay let's get it out still so they say they made a call they they brought it forward it needed a bit more time i think it's not catastrophically fucked but it needed a little bit you could tell like in some areas like yeah i could definitely see that too you would note of the ai like the ai does seem a little weak like sometimes the ai is doing weird shit too like that so not even not even not being aggressive or whatever but just doing weird things where like shooting into corners and doing i'm like what are you doing yeah they're not i didn't yeah just things that they could probably clean up you know with one a few more passes a couple more months yeah it's it's a little unfortunate because I do think like I get it but like I think CE is important that's like historically I think it deserves a little bit more love and care than this and to see it rushed out like that is kind of I don't know it's a little disappointing especially when there's nothing around the corner that you could imagine was subsuming like it would be one thing if they had like a main project in the works and it was just like they couldn't donate you know what I mean like they had resources that were primarily on that and it's like okay you still shouldn't do it but at least i get it but now i know it's like oh there's nothing and it's like well so is it going to be five more years now for another halo game and then there's and there's no pvp in this you know so it's already it's kind of half halo ce not yeah i wonder all of it i was thinking about that chris i wonder if they're gonna add it and like i think so maybe it wasn't the initial idea maybe it's not even possible but at the same time knowing that there's such a gap or seemingly such a gap between halo products it's like well we have nothing else to do it's just it's just surprising i'm just surprised by how badly they've botched their handling of it and the unfortunate thing about if people think that this is an imperfect remake it's the second remake isn't it of halo well it's the it's well technically it's the only remake because they did anniversary is like they touch the visuals up but it's the same game running running underneath it like because you can do the graphics toggle it's kind of like um didn't final fantasy uh tactics kind of do the same thing yeah they didn't have a toggle yeah or something like that um so it's the lines are blurry i i don't really know what you would call that because it's not a remake i think is like dead space resident evil 4 resident evil 2 sure this this version of combat evolved um you know that was more like a i don't even know like it's not remaster i guess remaster is like the best way to put it really um they had remade cut scenes by blur for halo 2 right um but right right so i i say that only because and i guess it doesn't really matter one way or the other but it's it's just like you kind of used your opportunity to remake it so it really needed to be you can't do it again so no yeah you can't do it again and also like if the rumors are correct this is only the first remake of of the the original trilogy so you're gonna make you're gonna remake halo 2 now and if this is the quality bar that you're going to set for halo 2 is like i don't know man i don't know halo 1 you could kind of get away with because halo 1 is kind of it's a it's a little busted it's a little it's finicky it's kind of awkward it's in this weird area of space where it's it could use some touch touch-ups and you wouldn't lose much necessarily some people would argue that you'd lose a lot but like i think generally speaking most people are going to play this and they're going to be like this was fun halo 2 is going to be like you're in direct competition at that point with handmade cut scenes by blur one of the biggest like well-renowned you know cgi houses in in the world hail to anniversary which is already like a well-regarded re-polish repaint whatever you want to call it with all the multiplayer intact by the way so like i don't know like i think it's kind of all downhill from here if they're trying to remake the rest of the trilogy like you're not you're kind of fucked i think good luck to you and i hope you i hope you nail it it gives me no pleasure to you know it would break my heart to see halo 2 come out and it's and it's fucked you know like that would be so sad for me but uh i just don't know how you outdo that original game and then also what you did in 2014 with the anniversary edition i don't know they're setting those they're setting themselves up for failure i think for no reason well we'll see i mean i i am interested in this idea that because i can see it going both ways where like they're you know xbox is re-establishing some exclusivity and you might want to take halo back but i'm like halo 2 is a multiplayer game like at its at its heart it's not like halo 1 is a land game yeah you know this this was a native xbox live game and i think i think it's coming to playstation i mean i and but i think we'll have years to wait and i don't think we're gonna have to worry about that anytime soon and of course the entire situation will be totally different by the time it even is ready to come out so yeah but uh anthony rodriguez wrote in about one thing that I wanted to bring up that I did have a problem with.

2:54:46Dustin Furman:It's not a huge deal, but I understand why some people would be annoyed by it. He says, hey, fellas, I need to rant a little about Halo campaign evolved. It was no secret from the jump that you would likely need an Xbox account to access the co-op features for the game. What I did not expect was that if you don't link your Xbox account, you can't access the game in any capacity. Unfortunately for me, this became an issue when despite in fact having an Xbox account made in case I ever needed it for something like this, the linking kept failing and I kept receiving error messages saying the login failed for almost an hour i tried doing everything i could just to get it to work trying different sign-in methods and even resetting my ps5s and internet connection only when i made a burner gmail account which allowed me to make a second xbox account could i finally access the game and at that point i was so furious i barely was able to have any fun at all playing with my friends then to make things worse the game is full of dog shit bugs and glitches that only added to my anger how could this be requiring online connection for a single player campaign is ludicrous if i wasn't able to play co-op due to linking issues they would have sucked but then i could have at least play the game offline solo.

2:55:41Dustin Furman:I've only ever had PlayStation, but was always jealous of Xbox having Halo. So this game was something I was truly hyped for, only for it to be marred by some nonsense. Have you guys had any issues with glitches and bugs? Problems playing with people online? I'm curious because my experience was basically ruined before I could even get to the main menu. I was surprised by, I didn't have all those experiences you did, Anthony, but I was surprised that you have to log in with a gamertag. Yeah, it's interesting. and I was like now part of me likes the pettiness it's like this is you know and in one way it's like yeah this is the are you guys really going to stop here here it is all we want you to do is make a fucking gamer tag right and you probably already have one I do you do like yeah so from that perspective I'm like it's not the end of the world but on the other hand I'm like why are you making me do this for the single player game?

2:56:34Dustin Furman:I'm, I'm, I'm totally with what Anthony said. If they were like, if there was a thing where it's like, ask you to make an account, you circle out. It's like when Ubisoft asked you to make an account, you circle out, go into the blah, blah, blah. If you want to try to make an account later. Okay. X. Then it says the pop-up says like, uh, you must make a, you must, uh, you must link a Microsoft account in order to play co-op. Okay. x and then just let me play the single player campaign i was a little bit annoyed by that it didn't put me off completely it took a few minutes i had to like i'm like what is my password and then i had a yeah i'm logged into xbox live in like three years probably and then i was like okay and then i connected it and it was it was what it was and it wasn't a big deal but i was a little bit surprised by that and i found it uh a little bit annoying but at the same time it's the right amount of petty as well where I'm like yeah why not I mean why not everyone knows what time it is so maybe you get what you can out of it and it's going to be good for their own telemetry and stuff too to see who's playing which I'm sure they want to know but did you know oh you must have noticed this yeah I mean I I think it just automatically did it for me because I think I have my I don't know I didn't have an issue signing in but i also have you know i play xbox games you know i mean i have i play them on pc i don't know like it took me like yeah but when you signed on on halo it didn't ask you to log like it must have asked you to connect your account i'm sure it did but it literally it doesn't stick out to me as a memory literally like it's just so it was because i had all that information on hand anyway i think i like use the qr code and just do it it's not yeah because i because i'm scanning on my i'm signing on my phone anyway so i think what i did i think i remember like i scanned it on my phone or whatever and then it immediately did it it took like 10 seconds so that's nice i mean that's that's not the end of the world but i am also like i'm in these ecosystems so like i'm signed in on xbox on my phone anyway for no reason i don't know why i am but so it's convenient for me um it's dumb that it's there like i i do think it's one of those things where it's like you should be able to have this like this should be like an x out window if you if you need it like what like what are we doing here like yeah again it reminded me of ubisoft where it's like i'm not signing oh I am signed up probably at some point, but I'm like, no circle.

2:58:48Dustin Furman:Leave me alone. I don't mind you asking me right away. Fucking the first light did the same thing.

2:58:55Dustin Furman:I just find it weird, but whatever. It's that's not the end of the world. Again, I think if I do think it's different if token is asking you to sign in a PSN or hell divers, I think that's different. And if it was asking me to sign in with multiplayer, I think it's different. I'm talking specifically about single player functionality, but whatever. I guess that indicates that, well, the game can't be played offline then. I guess so, which is crazy. And what I mean by that is if you have an offline machine, well, the game's not even on the disc anyway, but if it was, you still wouldn't be able to play it.

2:59:26I wonder. I might try that. Yeah. Because I have another PS5 that I haven't hooked up in a while. I might see if it runs on it. Because that would be so crazy. You have it on disc? No, but I mean, I could just install it and just unhook the internet. Because I don't like to unhook the internet for the place. my main playstation because it's just like it acts really it's it's like the thing with um whenever you unplug it and it gives you that sign that that screen where it's just like it tries to make you feel bad that you've unplugged it it's like you you really scared me don't don't don't unplug me like that like i might not work next time we can't spy on you if you do this yeah it's all right shut up but um yeah i don't know i i get why this is an issue but like I kind of feel the way I felt felt about like the hell divers thing where I'm just like I don't know whatever it's a game I want to play it's it's it's fine but it is crazy that like if if it really can't be played offline then like what the for just campaign is kind of crazy

3:00:31Dustin Furman:Chris we'll have much more to say about halo next week we'll get a few other people together we'll do a secret symbols plus episode we'll get into the story and all the rest too in the meantime let's end our episode as we always do with six questions comments concerns thoughts and ideas from the audience over on patreon patreon.com slash last day media submit your inquiries on the thread in the news feed each and every week the art thread for this show goes live wednesdays and it's deleted thursdays you've already heard a bunch of inquiries from the audience and here are six more video game bard wrote in and said hey plus he said hey c plus c minus D equals G.

3:01:02Dustin Furman:G. For gay, maybe. Does my 2026 gaming year fell off the rails in April when a new gamer friend of mine convinced me to try Overwatch with him? I dismissed the idea initially since I've tried Overwatch before and it had never clicked, but he assured me that it was much different and had undergone a major overhaul in the last year or so. I tried it and after a few hours was totally hooked. Since April, I haven't played much of anything else. I'm hopelessly addicted to Overwatch and have now spent nearly 400 hours in the game. I briefly tried games such as Saint Slayer, Mina the Hollower, and Rhythm Heaven, but the siren's call of Overwatch keeps drawing me back in.

3:01:35Dustin Furman:The only breaks I've had from it have been when I left my console at home for a vacation or one night my internet went out. Even my days have been consumed with it. Every free moment I have between work and family has been spent watching Overwatch coaching tips, gameplay highlights, or lore videos. It is all consuming and there seems to be no end in sight. My question is, when was the last time a video game so enraptured you that it seemed to take over your whole life? where you spent hours upon hours in the game itself and could think of little else, but getting back to it when you were away.

3:02:03Dustin Furman:I'll show up, cue for some competitive 6v6 kill a lonely pawn shop owner and rage when my team throws and listen. I don't even have a good answer to the question because I'll tell you why I wanted to bring this up because I've never played a game for 400 hours or anywhere close to it. So the answer is never. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. The reason I wanted to bring this up from video game bar, Chris, is he got got And He's one of them now. And and this is the new way that it's going. There's nothing wrong with it. It is what it is. But this is a casualty. I thought I thought the letter was so interesting because I'm like, yes.

3:02:48Dustin Furman:This is how it happens. This is a great illustration. Obviously, on one end of the spectrum, you attract people with these games and this is all they play and it's all they ever know. but on the other end of the spectrum are the people who could have been relied upon to play and buy lots of different games and existed more readily in the ecosystem getting sucked into these games too no one's immune to it and uh it's a great illustration of what is happening on playstation that's why i wanted to read that letter specifically yeah i just i was like yeah man now multiply your experience by many uh did have you ever been into overwatch i played over watch for about 30 hours or something like that maybe 50 it's in that range like around the time that it was like new and kind of popping like I remember I did play it I liked it a fair bit but it was one of those games where I was like I played it because like often like a lot it was it was the way I felt about Call of Duty honestly we're like back in the day where it's just like a lot of people a lot of my friends are playing it they want to they want me to play I'll jump on and I'll play and I'll I had fun with it but Overwatch definitely felt to me like this is pretty good but it also felt to me like uh this is definitely their first first person shooter you know like this is definitely like uh from my perspective as somebody who like really loves the genre and like it digs really deep into this shit like I could feel it like it's like okay they they didn't really they've never really done this before I'm sure it's better now than it than it was in some really key ways that frustrated me back in the day, but it's a good game.

3:04:26It didn't suck me in like that, though.

3:04:28Dustin Furman:Yeah, it's an interesting game to get so into so many years later. But I mean, that's that's the other interesting thing about. These kinds of games, I actually was reading a story about Warframe recently about how they're just killing, and I'm like, this game is 13 years old and it's like bigger than ever and it's funny that these games actually over time necessarily must attract new people and they and they still do even those that never imagined getting got the thing about this about getting got by these games is i know that i would get got by something it's just that i'm not really open to trying any of this stuff and it's not because i'm like trying to remain pure it's just i'm not that interested in it but i know that there's probably some bullshit like neverness to everness or some bullshit where I'd be like, oh, yeah.

3:05:15Well, you played the hell out of the division, though, right?

3:05:17Dustin Furman:And I did, but I did the division one and two. I love both of those games, but I feel like. And Overwatch is a more box style approach to a game. I get that, but I'm thinking more along the lines of like the ever perpetual game, like the division is a is still online, but it's not really relevant. You know, sure. God, I love the division, though. So good. It's so good. It's good. And I'm so disappointed by Heartland's cancellation because that might have been the one because that was going to be free. So, yeah, yeah, that might have been the one where I was like, God damn it. And now I'm the guy spending like, you know, buying battle passes and shit.

3:05:53Dustin Furman:I'm like, oh, fuck, even I even I got got. And when if and when that happens, you definitely know it's on because I broke. Yeah, man, I mean, I get it. Like PV player versus players is really satisfying because AI can only be programmed in so many different ways. Like even playing. Even playing like really dynamic games like I would argue like the original Halo games are like really like they have really good AI and they react really well. But there's only so many like permutations of things that you've never seen before happening. And with dealing with other players in a live environment, you're constantly seeing shows like I can't believe.

3:06:33that they thought to do that. You're playing against other people and so they're playing as other people will play and it's rarely predictable. And so you are getting a very, very distinct experience every time. And so I understand it. I've played many, many, many a multiplayer game at this point. And so I don't begrudge people for getting sucked into them. I could never stick to one to the point where it's the only thing I played. Even for Destiny, which I played, I think between Destiny and Destiny 2, I think I have like 1 ,700 hours, maybe 1 ,500 to 1 ,700 hours in that series. But in between rounds of Destiny, I was always playing like, oh, let me pick up Spec Ops the line and play through it.

3:07:15Or Biotrack Infinite. Well, not Biotrack Infinite. That was before, but you know what I mean. But there are people who are dedicated. I remember posting my time in Destiny because when they had this, when it was shutting down and they had a website that tracked all your data accurately. I was like, oh, cool. I'm kind of curious. And people were like, wow, I thought you played way more. I'm like, 1 ,500 hours is not nothing. And then I checked theirs. That's so much time. I know. It's an insane amount of time, actually. It's like way more than I thought. And you know what's upsetting is I bet there's way more.

3:07:51I bet I've spent way more across the Halo games. But then I click on their profile, and it's like 15 ,000 hours in Destiny 1. and I'm like okay alright you win

3:07:59Dustin Furman:I mean that's fucking a job you win then you totally you got me I'm like Walter Wade you got me you know there's always a little something when we bring up Overwatch though that I wanted to remind you of maybe I'll be Tracer I'm already Tracer what about Widowmaker no it's okay we can stop I can't experience this again

3:08:31i wonder how much that how much damage that did oh that song did to the you know it's funny that guy did the original star tank theme oh really yeah literally i think it's i think the living tombstone or something yeah the living tombstone yeah yeah which is a great thing actually it is good yeah

3:08:50Dustin Furman:all right chris next inquiry comes from pedro miguel who says greetings sacred going to keep it brief why is there so much animosity towards ball and gun gamers from certain sectors in the community as someone who buys nba 2k yearly to play with my casual friends i understand that sports games lack innovation and are riddled with microtransactions but is that considered enough to get despised online the holier-than-thou attitude from people in other genres who technically play the same with the games with a different coat of pain e.g french french i said french slop french slop and souls-like games is befuddling aside from the quality of the perspective games are ball and gun and sword and potion gamers really all that different if they stick to a particular genre why can't we be like racing bros and be friends this ball and gun gamer thing is like a new new nomenclature it is my entire life until this year it's it's i've heard in the last like like maybe like three like i i know like in the mid like early 2020s i remember first hearing i i mean look i get it um it's not necessarily that playing those games as a problem.

3:09:52It's just, there's a lot of people... How should I put it? This is kind of hard to describe. There's... I would imagine that the overwhelming majority of people who play sports games are fans of sports first. Mm-hmm. Whereas, I would argue that that's not really true for other genres. really i i think i think most other genres are like games first generally even first person shooters which like i think kind of get roped like lumped in with ball and gun um i think first person shooters are far more eclectic like there's like um a person who loves first person shooters isn't necessarily a fan of like i don't know war films or something you know what I mean, or like or even just abject violence in general.

3:10:48Right. Like there's there's there's a difference there. I do think people who only play sports games or only play shooters are missing out. Like there's like a lot to the tapestry of what makes gaming gaming. But I think really it's just easier to pick on sports fans because they're not as involved, really. Like they're not really around to defend themselves because they don't give a shit because they're out playing Madden or they're just not involved in the conversation because most of them are just not into games. in the same way that most people that are into other genres are into games and uh because they're not here to defend themselves and there's no debate like they just kind of become the de facto punching bag yeah you know that's what i think anyway someone wrote in about and i actually i

3:11:31Dustin Furman:think i responded to them privately about like what if we did a podcast for ball and gun gamers and i'm like but that's it's there's a conflict there because they're just inherently casual yeah um and there's nothing wrong with being casual but you don't make podcasts about things for casual players they don't care they inherently don't do not care and i told them we learned this lesson when i was a journalist at ign we invested heavily in mobile games coverage we invested heavily in world of warcraft coverage of minecraft coverage and when we learned was like no one gives a shit not because like if you're really hardcore about warcraft you know where to go for that stuff if you're so casual that you don't know where to go with that stuff you're not going to come to ign end for it there's like a sort of conflict there one thing i'll say though is i'm a ball and i was a more of a ball and gun gamer as part of my pastiche of fucking interests in games for a long time but i feel like we have to kind of give them their due if you take the serkana data as a generalization of thirds right a third of people don't buy games a third of people buy one or two games a year, a third of people buy more than two games a year that are on these consoles.

3:12:40Dustin Furman:These people are very much in the middle or the third option, more like us. And they're part of the vibrancy of what keeps these platforms alive. Madden and Football Club and NHL and NBA 2K and all these games are massive sellers, comparable to almost everything else that comes out. and you can't ignore that because it's not like one does good and the others don't it's like no the person who buys mlb the show probably buys madden probably buys football club probably buys nhl and nba 2k maybe three of five let's say two of five and it's like that's important they're they have playstation plus and xbox live accounts because these games the interesting thing about these games too about sports games in particular is that they are irrelevant on pc these are console people because they are inherently like i've always been surprised by that chris like you go and look at the madden numbers like madden is one of like the biggest games in the united states year in and year out and you go to and you go to steam it's like 10 000 people it's like do you have any idea how many people are playing this on playstation and Xbox right now it's probably in the millions a day that are playing it and I just so I I think it's like what I was saying about the decentralized city-states like a holy Roman empire kind of thing where it's like everyone's got their own little territory but it's kind of the safety and general well-being of all of us require all of us you know right and I don't have any problem with them especially because they really have no presence.

3:14:19Dustin Furman:It's as you were saying, if their presence in the industry was weighted to the sales of their games, there would be a show about sports games 20 times bigger than Sacred Symbols. But it doesn't exist because it's just the nature of it. So I want to say, let's show them a little respect because they buy games, they spend a lot of money, they have subscriptions, and they're very much a part of this. And I have a little bit of that genetic code in me. I bought, I was the guy that used to buy Madden every year. I used to buy NHL every year. So, and what's funny about those games too, is that they become lifestyle games.

3:14:59Dustin Furman:And it's one of the reasons why I stopped playing them because I think, oh, maybe I said this to Jaffe, but I might've said it to you last week is like Madden would hit a lot harder for me if it came out like in the offseason now that makes no sense and it does technically come out in the offseason it comes out in preseason but like if it was like you're tired you have no football here's here's football in march now of course everyone's like what's stopping you from playing in a march in fact it's it's like dirt cheap but i'm like it just hits a little different like i know that if i play madden when madden's out i'm gonna be watching football i'm gonna be listening to football content i'm gonna be playing football video games it's too much so that's one of the reasons why i kind of backed away from sports games was i was not getting what i wanted out of them anymore because they require a lot of time if you're only going to play them casually you might as well not even bother not because you have to be good or bad at them you don't have to play them online or anything but just because it's all about like investing in seasons and franchises and the but the the careers of players and fake players and it's and before you know it you dump an enormous amount of time i used to review the nhl games back in the day when I was a journalist and it was a lot.

3:16:05Dustin Furman:So now the gun gamer, I think, is a little more nebulous because the reality is that there are not that many gun games the way we used to define them. When you think about boxed gun games, right? You have Call of Duty, Battlefield, and Borderlands in the last year. I mean, that's basically it. A lot of those guys are elsewhere too. And what's funny is that they might be more casual. Yeah. There really are no outside of eFootball and a few other examples. There's no free to play sports games. And actually, the guys that play these sports games spend enormous amounts of money in them. Yeah, they might be more hardcore than some of you out there.

3:16:44Dustin Furman:You better watch yourself. Maybe. Yeah. So what sort sword and potion game? I'm an eclectic gamer. I don't even know what because sometimes people are like, oh, you're really into this and you're really into this. And I'm like, I'm really kind of into everything. I mean, there are genres that unlike music where I really will listen to almost anything. There are genres where I'm like, I'm not playing. But generally speak like an adventure game. Or yeah, I think I tried Broken Age and I was like, I like this, but like not enough to I can't think like this. I can't do this right now. Yeah, I can't.

3:17:18Dustin Furman:I can't play Maniac Mansion when I was a kid. And I'm like, I can't do this. I like I can't. I can't think it's like, oh, the sponge goes on the door. And then like, that's the key. Like, I can't I can't figure that out. I'm too stupid and impatient for that stuff. But like, I mean, I am, dude, I love shooters, dude. Like, shooters are my bread and butter. I love them. I can feel like what engines something is on just moving around for like a couple seconds. Oh, this is id tech. I can tell by the way the cameras move. Like, it's just like, I love them. But most people that I know who play games casually, like they don't play shooters like that or they don't care, you know?

3:17:57like it's it's it's fine i think everybody's got their niches uh i actually don't think there's anything i wouldn't play um there's stuff that i assume i wouldn't like but i will try anyway just on the off chance that i like that library game that i talked about a couple episodes ago where you're just like which by the way i guess has spawned like an entire fucking subgenre yeah there's probably like 10 copycats of it already yeah but it's weird because like one of them i i didn't i probably should have checked uh before but like i didn't anticipate talking about it uh there's another one where it's just like organizing vhs tapes in a video store and it's like the same it's the same thing it's the same ui and everything but i'm like is it the same ui in a blatant ripoff sense or is it the same ui because it's the same people you know what i mean like i couldn't quite tell it's like and i didn't look into it because i was like whatever i'll figure it out but like that's a game i didn't think i would like and i ended up enjoying it and i was like okay like there's there are surprises like that every now again um and it's why even even games that i end up not liking i try to go back and revisit because a lot of it is a lot of his headspace a lot of it is like whether or not you're ready to receive a certain game or not i really do believe that what makes whatever whatever makes games click for people is like is ultimately like a house of cards i really do believe like oh the lighting being like a hue like literally one hue lighter or like one hue darker like that that's a subconscious thing that might make it click less significantly for like a different or like the gun model being angled in a certain way it's like that's going to be a turnoff to some people just visually because it'll it'll be like a disconnect even if they're subconsciously aware of it so like whenever something does click for me i'm like i'm in i'm inherently curious as to why and i'm always like it's like that library game was one of them i was like why does this work what is it about this i still don't really know i'm fascinated by it speaks to like i think

3:19:48Dustin Furman:the or like the organizational and inherently organizational nature of the human i think we like order well right anyway maybe not maybe not collectively but i don't know i i think uh i think we're again we're all part of this fabric and yeah i so i agree with you like people do have this holier-than-thou attitude but i think we should be thankful for them and again maybe i'm related to them in some way so maybe i'm a little protective of that but i also think that people that don't play sports video games, and I think there is a lot of ignorance on sports and sports video games in the gaming space, is they're insanely deep.

3:20:25Dustin Furman:These are not bullshit games. They do come out every year and they don't change very much by nature, which is too bad, but they simply would not sell over decades like they sell with no fail, like nothing. You know, like there's no year where it's like, oh, Madden bombed 50%. it's always killing and now people are paying a hundred dollars for early access and doing all these things these games it's not a joke like i i i hope people out there that are familiarize yourself with these games you don't have to play them but go watch like gameplay or go watch someone stream one of these games they're deep and they're complicated and they're well made especially games like uh two nba 2k is very well respected mlb the show is very well respected and madden is very well and you know and slash college football everyone's gonna have problems with all of those games and people will write it i'm sure and be like everyone hates it's like no they don't not everyone hates these games these games are fucking cultural icons go to a dorm go go go to like go someone's house if they get home from work and they pop down on the couch and see what they play and see how and see how fucking irrelevant and stupid it is dude it's so funny like this i have very vivid memory of like when we first moved upstate away from away from the city and we moved into this new neighborhood and i was trying to like i think my parents were like oh we're just trying like get uh chris to meet some of the other kids in the neighborhood i was like all right so i went over there was this kid who lived like right at our bus stop and so he was just like i would just stay over his uh house for a little bit before i went home and i remember he's like hey you want to you want to play some games i was like oh what games yeah and it was all sports literally like an entire like row and i was like nothing nothing else and i remember being like choose your poison i gotta i gotta go i gotta like i think i played madden for a little bit and i just i i indulged it but like i never went back again i was like i can't do it i have nothing to converse about yeah he's not your guy no it's not my guy it's it's fine like people don't have to be other people's guys but like that was that i remember it vividly because i was like oh i can't i i didn't understand that that was a real person like i knew i because i had friends with sports games obviously but they were also like you know here's war of the monsters or like here's like some weird here's hunter the reckoning and like they had other things it was just kind of like a like a little flourish to their collection like even i had like i said rbi baseball in one of the last episodes that's not true it was like mvp baseball i think i had mvp baseball 2005 i think i had another sports game as well but it was like in the tapestry of the the broader collection that I had.

3:23:06This was all Madden, all NHL, and then I think all NBA 2K or something like that. It was basketball. No baseball, no MLB The Show or anything like that. Yeah, that would have been

3:23:17Dustin Furman:the most approachable for you, probably. Probably, yeah. Ironically. But yeah, I just, yeah, they're real out there, man. And they're serious. I bet that kid still plays. Yeah, they're dead serious. It's a way to vicariously get your game, your sport fix. I'm an enthusiast of football and hockey, so I get it. It's like I'm always engaged with it. I always want to engage with it. And sometimes there just can't be enough. And when I was a kid and I had more time, man, I was up these games asses, dude. Constantly playing sports games as part, like you said, as part of the fabric of everything else.

3:23:53Anyway, Pedro, thank you for writing in.

3:23:56Dustin Furman:Tyler T wrote in and said, hey, Sacred Crew, I understand you have to talk about it, but this physical games drama is getting pretty old. Added that the constant news cycles that portend a number of existential crises facing the industry, and this really does feel like the least fun generation I can ever remember. Minus, of course, all the great games. How important do you think it is for the industry, Sony in particular, to capture a little of that fun again? To surround the great games with an equally great industry experience. Maybe we are at a point of audience volume where it simply doesn't matter and the machine churns on, but right now, outside of the great games, it's a fucking slog to be an enthusiast of this industry.

3:24:28Dustin Furman:Cheers. I agree, but I think what's important about this, Chris, and why I wanted to bring this up is it's all kind of within ourselves to get out of the games what we want. And it is a very negative time in the industry. I think that's inherent to shows like this because we cover the news and the trends and the decisions that these companies make and all the rest, and it's not great. But it's easy enough for the normal person to disconnect. Remember, through all of this shit that's happening in the industry, PlayStation is doing great. they want to be doing better. Console sales are flagging or lagging because of the, of the hardware crunch and the games aren't quite where we want to be, but like, you'll see the financials actually come out tomorrow.

3:25:15Dustin Furman:I'm, I was going to see maybe even record a pickup, but I'm like, we'll just do it next week. But it's like, we'll see how it's doing. And by the way, the financials will not account for any of the stuff with the physical game stuff. We won't know any of that until October. So that will run through September. So and we're in that quarter right now. But what I'm trying to say is who cares about the money really? But what I'm trying to say is like, look at all the people that are having fun. Clearly. Yeah. And try to try to. Remain within the bounds of that. There are like 150 million ish users of PlayStation, like monthly active users.

3:25:51Dustin Furman:I imagine most of them are having an extraordinary amount of fun on PlayStation. we have to keep in mind that we are deep deeply connected enthusiasts i was actually looking i was just reading stuff on psn profiles about the trophy system like the history of the trophy system which i knew but they had some interesting data in there and they had the breakdowns of like where people are based on their trophy level like this percentage of people are at this level this percentage at the level i'm at it's 0.3 percent i bring that up because it's like that's not the normal experience yeah manifestly and so we have to remember we are a rarefied group of nerds that live and die by this shit but for most people it's just an accompaniment to their lives and they are enjoying it and so if you want to have fun again don't depend on the companies to provide you the fun atmosphere use the games that they provide to have fun instead and i think that's totally within you i'm not that guy but yeah i like riding and dialing but yeah i don't know i think i think it's a drastically less fun industry to keep up to date with or to or to be involved in the conversation like the conversation online if you're in these spaces is so bad like um and quite frankly i'm just kind of i don't know i'm bored of the cynicism personally yeah i am too like i'm really i'm really kind of over it like i get it i i have issues with campaign evolved right you know and i and i brought them up i had fun like i i finished the game and i was like that was a good time and i check online as everybody hates it and then like it's like okay that was a little at a certain point you just kind of have to be like all right i think i'm just gonna disengage and it's hard it's hard for us particularly because we have to we have to engage we have to you know what know what the fuck is going on but i think there's like a subconscious way to do it where I'm just kind of like, yeah, I'm not really engaged here in this nonsense.

3:27:52I saw the most insane shit that I've seen. I'll tell you about this, where there was a thing with Comet Evolved recently. In the last day or two, it was a little bit before the game came out properly, so during the early access period, where people were playing, and there are bugged hitboxes in the Pillar of Autumn, like the first bit of it,

3:28:16Dustin Furman:where you're in the bridge and you get the gun oh oh shooting at like the people on the bridge yeah yeah and and there were people like because there's an easter egg where if you kill the marines in that bridge like they they kind of set a squad of invincible marines after you to kill you they're like the master chief has gone rogue like and they it's really cool it's not cool i didn't know that but there's some bugged hitboxes where like some of the characters take way more shots to kill than it usually should just take a headshot and i literally saw this where it was like somebody's saying like oh they coded the female npcs to be unkillable

3:28:52which like first of all no you can't kill them you can kill every single body every i did it just to prove a point but i just remember being like i this is so unfun what are we doing like we're like schizophrenic hallucinating like woke conspiracy theories now over bad coding what's more likely that it's coded poor that this rushed game is coded poorly or that they like they've made sitting marines sitting female marines invincible in this one room even though you can kill them immediately after you walk out it's like it's I don't know like there's a distinct lack of like Occam's razor or like basic critical thinking going on in the critiquing space here that just makes it like it does make it miserable to pay attention to but the games are fun and the experiences that are waiting for you on your machines is fun so like I think it's better to just focus on that I think if you can if you can choose to just distance yourself from whatever the fuck because i really do believe a lot of the a lot of the conversations online are just like not even real i think a lot of it is like bots or like just fit or to the extent that it is real it's people like over exaggerating things for engagement or whatever so like there's no real authentic conversations anymore so you can just kind of discount those really entirely and just focus on what you're having fun with and what you're excited about and you know when things are wrong obviously talk about what what things are wrong but um i don't know i'm so bored of it yeah i i agree i i know i i say this a lot and i think people think it's dismissive but i mean it it's like some of you not all of you not most of you some of you don't like video games right like you don't like them and it's like being a film enthusiast like a cinephile

3:30:43Dustin Furman:and but you you're predisposed to hate everything do you really like them or are you like stuck in a different part of your life are you stuck with this assumption about who you are if you look around the industry and look at the actual products and you can't find anything to play if you have nothing to like you don't like games you don't and i i think that's okay but i think that some people have to kind of accept that about themselves because i think some people are wrapped up in an identity or wrapped up in in a static nature of themselves wherein maybe you did love them at one point maybe they're just not for you anymore i don't know how you can look around the industry and even look at the games coming out in september of which there like a half dozen like whoa like yeah great looking shit from control to wolverine to onimusha to blood to dawn walker to silent hill to whatever it's like i just i just think there's like this this notion that

3:31:50Dustin Furman:i have this theory i guess what i'm saying let me back up i have this theory that because there are so many releases and i think i've articulated this to you before chris because there are so many releases and so many good releases and people find them but there are like these micro communities of people usually that are finding them and not many people are playing them not no one rallies around what's great anymore because there's like 10 great things at once and so everyone's kind of disparate and there's no overwhelming force of like wow isn't this a moment those kinds of games are exceedingly rare.

3:32:20Dustin Furman:They happen, but even when big games, I'm so amazed by games. Crimson Desert is a great example. Actually, that game came out earlier or it came up earlier where it's like no one talks about that game. But that game sold millions of copies and people loved it and people are still playing it, but everyone's moved on to something else and then to something else and then to something else, especially in the summer. It's so funny to say this acutely, July 30th. At this point, 15 years ago, maybe even 10, but certainly 15 20 20 there was nothing coming out this month last month or next month the the dam would break with madden and then that would be basically it and then september and then october then you really be rolling that was a big deal yeah with summer of arcade back in the day was that like you had like summer games coming and they were like smaller games but there was there but there were things in the summer and i was like oh my god there's stuff to play in the summer i remember that distinct like distinctly because even in game magazines every time you would flip through like release date was never like there was never a summer game i think incredibly rare i think these kinds of gaps and you're absolutely right and i think these kinds of gaps exist because those kinds of times with a dearth of releases forced everyone to kind of marinate and backtrack and then coalesce around certain things that they loved i think that that's how there i i really believe n64 benefited a lot from this even though it was a console that barely sold 30 million copies and there were not very many games for it because there were so few games for it the games that mattered really fucking mattered and they still resonate to this day you're about to see that with ocarina of time coming back out this year later this year is like that's a great game but man did they have time to focus on it and i think a lot of it just has to do with that it's a bad it's a good situation in a bad situation because we're in the golden age and yet there's no evidence of it if you just look granularly because no one seems to like anything But actually, there's so much to love.

3:34:16Dustin Furman:I was reiterate, it's within everyone to kind of treat the hobby however you want to. I like having a critical eye towards the business. I like studying it and understanding it and the good and the bad and really beating these companies up when they do bad things. But I also try to celebrate the things that they do well. And I do think that there's just a lot of people that refuse to ever celebrate anything. They think it's like they think it's bootlicking. and and and like these these companies exist to to to delight you dude and and event and let them yeah or or it's it's either something is the the greatest thing ever or or it's literally evil you know those are the only two like there's no such thing as like something that's very good but you can critique it true you know like it's it is this like this strict binary which is um really really annoying because i feel like it didn't used to be like you could you could have a really nuanced and you still can to be fair like I don't want to make it seem like everything is fucked but like broader like in the broader space like online like it's it's kind of done like that's that's long gone yeah there's a lot of games coming out and they're really good they have a lot of flaws that's normal I don't know crazy I get why people feel a certain way there's a malaise but man, the products are good.

3:35:42Dustin Furman:September has the potential of being like an all-time month, in my opinion. Just based on the sheer number of releases, like it's like there's a lot, man. You have to make choices, like real choices about what you're going to play and all the rest anyway. Taurus wrote in and said, howdy boys, what are the chances the PSN infrastructure can bear the load of everyone preloading GTA 6? Do we think PSN can stay online for when the game releases so that it can verify licenses and unlock the game for players. Man, this must be an urgent issue for them. The PlayStation Network went out a little bit last week and people were freaking out about it, which I thought was, I was laughing with Jaffe on it.

3:36:20Dustin Furman:I'm like, it came off as very touristy to me. That did because everyone's like, see, see, and I'm like, are you new around here? PSN goes down all the time. Yeah. But I imagine they are going to be fully prepared for a crush of people. I think we've learned long ago and I think it's true that they use Amazon web services. And I think that was part of why things went down. And so I imagine, I mean, I don't imagine, I know it because I worked at a place where we used it as well. It's like you go to them and you say like, we need this much bandwidth. You literally, the entire purpose of using these modular servers is to get the bandwidth you need at all times without having to pay for your own stacks.

3:37:01And then I'm way over my skis on this conversation.

3:37:05Dustin Furman:but what I understand about it is that there's a lot of danger in doing your own proprietary stuff because you have to make a shit ton of assumptions about your capacity. And it's simply easier, though not cheaper, but safer to outsource it. Because the cheapest solution would be for Sony to build this shit themselves, like huge server farms. But then it's like, well, how and why? It's our responsibility to replace the components and things go down. And then it really is our fault and all that kind of stuff. And so they offload all of that. And so because of that, I think it gives them a lot of flexibility.

3:37:38Dustin Furman:And I assume it will be all hands on deck. And by the way, that'll be true for Xbox too. They're going to get crushed. So they have to be alive and ready and willing and able to go. We're close now, Chris. I mean, it's almost August, September, October. I mean, we're just three months away and change. Yeah. Exciting. Still don't know anything about it. Everyone's getting real frustrated. I think it's great. I love it. I love that they refuse to say anything. I hope they keep it up as long as possible. I'm very pumped. Me too. I still have to get back to five and finish it. I was kind of losing steam on it, to be honest.

3:38:12Yeah, they're long games, man. Even the ones I love, like Red Dead 2 and GTA 4. I remember being like, this is really great, but it is long.

3:38:22Dustin Furman:Yeah, the Mexico stuff could have been like an expansion. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And yeah, we talked about the epilogue too. And the epilogue and that's in the first one, the epilogue in. In the second one, definitely should have been an expansion, I think. Yeah, because it's so crazy. It's like I want to I don't want to say it for people that for some reason not played it, but it's like, wow. That's a lot of game. That's a lot of game. Good for them. Yeah. Can't complain about that, I guess. Jack of all trades wrote in and said, greeting CNC Music Factory. It has often been mentioned and assumed that there is no appetite for the PlayStation 6 because of the myriad factors around component pricing, the shaky economic conditions, and lack of first-party output.

3:39:03Dustin Furman:How real are those assumptions considering the PlayStation 6 doesn't even exist yet in any official capacity? I just think it's a little presumptuous to think the console is dead in the water based on anecdotal evidence and industry vibes unless there are consumer trend points and data that you are all pulling at. Apple's an orange's comparison, but I think the Switch 2 selling at a respectable rate at a considerably higher price point than the switch one isn't something to scoff at in the current economic climate especially considering we haven't seen the same level of marketing and push from nintendo like we did with the switch one having killer apps like a new zelda or mario game to anchor a hardware launch to that is true switch one had zelda and mario within six months right which was zelda launched with it but but they they got mario that fall so it did really well and i do think switch two does portend well because we you've brought this up i think in the past crisis everyone no everyone hate like when When you looked at all the switch to pre-release stuff, when they would do like a tree house or whatever, and all the comments would be like, drop the price, drop the price.

3:39:57Dustin Furman:And then boom, that thing sells like meteorically, like the best selling hardware ever. Now it is true. Jack of all trades. And you note this, I think you're at least implying it. It is apples to oranges in that it's still way cheaper than what the PlayStation six is going to be, but it is fair. Chris to say this thing doesn't really exist. And we won't really know. Now I want to be clear what I'm saying. It exists. It's a, there's a console and there's a handheld surprise. but in in the in the the mind of the consumer the normal person you still see stuff all the time where people are skeptical they're like how do you that that might not be true it's like it's true but people haven't conceptualized it yet and you really can't judge it until they do because it might it's impossible it's shown and then everyone's like whoa yeah yeah and that i can well i've said that many times where it's like it's possible that like when we see it the appetite will begin um because there will be something to attach to there will be something to envision like A lot of it is envisioning it in your house.

3:40:54You know, like thinking about it and thinking about how it looks and what the controller is going to be, what the UI is going to be, all these different things go into that. I think the only thing I would say, though, is that by this time in previous generations, people were clamoring for the next machine, and I don't really see that this time. And I want to be very clear. The PlayStation 6 is going to sell millions of units. I think we I think no one's under the no one's under the assumption that it's going to sell like 100 ,000 units or something. It's like it's not going to be an abject failure.

3:41:29I just but I do believe that like if if the economy keeps going the way it's going and component pricing keeps going the way it's going and it's looking like it will like this thing is going to be not only unwanted broadly but incredibly unaffordable and so like and maybe that's okay with them because we are seeing a sony or we're seeing a playstation ecosystem that's very very different compared to generations past we're seeing a generation or we're seeing a hardware strategy that is probably more okay with extending the life of the previous generation because it buttresses in ways that they didn't necessarily have to in prior in prior generations like people are going to be playing ps5 for another 10 plus years and they know that now because people were playing ps4 for for that amount of time and it was significantly weaker hardware you know that people were eager to move on from so like dude by the end of the ps4 generation like those machines were chugging and screaming and my ps5 is fine yeah yeah same you know what i mean like even my base ps5 doesn't really like i'm sure like granted i don't play like crazy stuff on it i guess so like i guess i don't know but the ps5 pro is there and like i'm fine and most people are fine and i think it's really going to come down to like how alluring that handheld stuff is like like what is it going to be doing differently are we going to have a different ui like what's what's that experience going to be like because that's the stuff that's fun to play with and enthusiasts will be all over it'll sell millions it'll look like it's doing well for a little bit i think but i do think like that price is going to hit a wall at some point and then it's going to slow down and that's probably and you know what maybe they sell it for a higher price understanding that people will just be on playstation 5 and they could just make money off software and this will be like a boutique thing for like people who like really want to who are really eager for the next generation maybe they're okay with that maybe it's not this thing that we've thought about consoles being in in years in generations past where like they've got to move people over maybe they're looking at it as like a ps5 pro pro because why wouldn't you i guess in some ways it would it would benefit you in some ways to look at it that way so i don't know we're making a lot of assumptions it's not real you're right uh i just have a feeling and i i don't think it's like uneducated no i agree it all hinges on the price

3:44:00Dustin Furman:we all know what the device is and what it's going to do it's a playstation I think it's all I think that the way they win beyond launch where the enthusiast will buy it is just shocking people with the price in a good way where like I think if you even hit seven or eight hundred dollars like we said I think people would be like oh because I think people are just girding their loins expecting the absolute worst which is possible but I think Sony understands what time it is. And, but you're right. I mean, I think you're absolutely right. It's going to do well and then it'll probably end up plateauing.

3:44:34Dustin Furman:And Sony probably expects that. I was thinking about this though, Chris, the other day, you know, you see these release, these images for PC specs, right? Where it's like a GameX is coming out. Here's what you need to run on this, this, this, and this. They're going to start releasing that shit for PlayStation, I think, because there are going to be games for the PS5, PS5 Pro, PS6 handheld and PS6. And they're all going to have, they're all going to have different frame rates, different resolutions, all these different things. And I wonder, I'm interested to see how that plays out too, because they can really use that to their marketing advantage of this being kind of a soft generation wherein don't, don't go anywhere.

3:45:10Dustin Furman:If you don't want to, you're fine, but tantalize people by the amazing power of the new machines and for the PS exportable, the portability of it. So it's like, here's 4k 60 on PS six hardware on PS five pro. It'll be, 12 8 or you know 10 10 80 60 on whatever it'll be 10 80 30 and people will just eventually get tired of that shit plus hopefully the prices will adjust but again it's all hypothesizing i would love to be at sony knowing what they're doing and listening to this shit right yeah and seeing like what hits them really too close to home and what's there to be like these guys are fucking retarded yeah they don't know anything yeah so we're not even making a console yeah right so the other thing is i am curious i wonder if anyone has any information on it like externally you have to imagine that they have to have games in development outside and people it might be as simple as saying like create create the game towards this pc spec and when we get closer probably what it is right i would imagine because i expect the shit's going to leak at some point in a more meaningful way the leaks we have about well the reason we know what the hardware is is because all the manufacturing stuff but eventually the controller will leak i say this is the guy who leaked the dualshock 4 controller or confirmed it it was leaked to me like these things are are going to start popping up places and and it could even be first or second party it doesn't have to be third party because that's when the shit really leaks do you remember that the wii u leaked in a wind in a window reflection i want to say at like a Ubisoft student.

3:46:48Dustin Furman:Like there was something like where someone like saw it in like the reflection of a monitor. It was like something crazy. Like people get nuts when they feel like something can be in there. And so I think there'll be a little bit cagey about that too. And I'm sure the NDAs are pretty ironclad, but we'll know soon, I think. In the next six months for sure, I would imagine, even if not officially, unofficially, what this thing really is. and then we'll have a much more reason. And then we can really get into how we feel like it's going to do. Yeah. When do you think Cerny is going to come out and talk about it?

3:47:24Dustin Furman:Probably Q1, I would say. Get it going.

3:47:30Dustin Furman:And I think, yeah, I think if they're going to release it in the fall, I think you go Q1. But again, you might not want to even say anything too soon. The problem that they're going to come up against ultimately beginning, I think, in the spring is that it's going to start getting manufactured. And then things are really out of your hands because that shit starts walking away. And people... So you've got to say something and dissuade people from doing that kind of shit. Because there's a... I think that once it starts being manufactured in a box, there's no possibility. Like, you'll wake up one day and there'll be a picture of the box or something.

3:48:02Dustin Furman:Like, in some warehouse. And you're like, oh, fuck. There it is. And they're not going to wait that long. So you would assume it's got to be Q1. Unless the console comes out in 2028, like spring 28. But I don't think they're going to do that. we'll see yeah shiny Ryuji wrote in with the final inquiry he says with Silent Hill Townfall previews hitting this week what is what is you guys hype level since it's a stealth and avoidant game so yeah there are previews for it the game comes out as a PlayStation 5 console exclusive from Screen Burn Annapurna acting as co-publisher with Konami September 24th on PS5 I don't know how I feel about this I've been trying to ignore it I'll be honest with you I was kind I mean, people know this already.

3:48:46Dustin Furman:I was so blown away by Silent Hill 2 remake. And then I thought Silent Hill F was kind of disappointing in my opinion. I know Dustin really liked it, but I was like, that was more combat oriented, which is cool. I'm down for a Silent Hill game that's more avoidant and stealth based. I think fighting a little bit is cool, but like trying to avoid the fight and not even having really the means to fight. So maybe something even more like Outland no Outlast right with the camera Outland is the house marking yeah which is also great but not what we're talking about that's like a 2d that's the one with it like the yellow and blue or the blue and red it's like it's like Ikaruga almost or something like that where you're like yeah yeah I had no idea that that was them I think I that was on mobile right I think I played that on mobile it might have been yeah it was it was a rare house house mark did that with Ubisoft so it was like a rare third-party game they did during that yeah yeah I reviewed that back in the day they're a really really good game so I really don't know I don't know what to think because I've not been paying too close attention to it and I'm trying to stay away from it but it is it is like the more subdued game coming out in September and it comes out towards the end of September so for exclusives for console exclusives you're looking at Wolverine and then right into Townfall which is nice and coming off of Tocan which is kind of cool so I feel like the Sony PlayStation has no games thing is kind of well they'll never get away from it but it is kind of decaying if you pay attention and Saros earlier in the year too so starting to come out what do you think you have anything any thoughts on Silent Hill Townfall yeah I mean I'm curious about it Silent Hill's never been like my preferred horror series anyway like it's it doesn't have like a lot to live up to to impress me necessarily like I could be open to it I didn't I just wasn't that pulled in by F you know like I didn't even get it I was just kind of like this isn't really speaking to me um but if this is really like more avoided and more like stealth oriented then like i am i'm significantly more interested yeah the thing about f was well i i like i like that i beat it and then i started to play it again and i'm like i don't want to do this and that's usually the bad sign for a survival horror game because i really love replaying survival horror games whether it's dead space or chronos or the resident evil games or whatever it's always fun to go back and do them again.

3:51:07Dustin Furman:And I was talking to Micah recently about how, because Ani Musha does this too, where I love the Capcom convention of you beat the game a few times, you unlock some things and then they're like, all right, go beat the shit out of it. Like here's like the, here's like in Resident Evil, it's like here's the unlimited rocket launcher. Like it's trivial. And I love getting to that. I love getting to that position in those kinds of games. But Silent Hill never really, Silent Hill 2 is really cool because there's multiple endings. But yeah, Silent Hill F, I just wasn't feeling it. So I'm kind of, I'm not on the fence.

3:51:33Dustin Furman:I'm going to buy and play Silent Hill Townfall, but I am a little softer on it than I would have otherwise been I think different studio Konami's trying different things I appreciate that rooting for you Konami yeah I hope it's good me too so that was just gonna be like a it's gonna be I'm fixated on control that month but there's a lot coming out I don't know what I'm gonna do dude because it's like did you see by the way control supposed to be 50 hours to do everything in it so to do everything is that yeah yeah 30 hours to beat the game in 50 hours now that could be dev math we don't get dev math very much anymore because we don't do e3 and shit like that so there's like not these like blatant in these interviews anymore but i don't know what i'm five extra hours of playstation game like of gameplay exclusives of playstation right does that mean yeah i hate that shit it's such an insane um but we'll see yeah we'll we'll see though with with this chris because i i don't know how it's all going to shake out there's so many i don't know i don't know what i'm going to do i gotta just i I got to just make a selection because I really kind of want to play them all equally in the beginning of the month.

3:52:38Dustin Furman:So I think I just maybe even just whatever comes first is what I just get into and just go from there. And that might be the best use of my time. Yeah. All right. Let's get the hell out of here. It's time to go. That's all we have for this episode of Sacred Symbols. Chris, it was good to be here with you as always today. Anything to say as we go? What's on your agenda? Nothing. I'm helping a friend, the same friend move. But we're just unpacking. They're like walking distance. So it's like not a big deal. But outside of that, probably just get food. It's a pretty low key day. Nothing going on.

3:53:13I do have to do laundry like really bad. I've been ignoring it.

3:53:17Dustin Furman:Yeah, laundry is the way you have. You have out. Do you have to do it out and go? Or do you have a thing in your. You're like in suite of laundry. It's in a. It's not really far. It's like two doors down. It's not a building. Yeah. Yeah. It's not a hassle. it's just kind of like it's not a hassle to do it it's it's literally just the chore of like you know what it is though really it's the fact that it's so it's quarter based machines or it's an app that has like that has that connects to like some fake wallet or whatever but the issue is like the room that the laundry room is in has so like it's like lead or something oh it's like hitler's bunker yeah i got you so like it's such a t like it's like this weird balancing act to try to connect to the app before like right before i get in so it syncs up and then like it's back in and that's tedious and then also getting quarters is tedious because you have to go to the bank which i have to walk to the bank which is like a 20 minute walk in the fucking los angeles sun which is not fun yeah or yeah i guess you could go to because most cash registers don't have quarters anymore like it's crazy uh so it's really just that that makes it just tedious but i gotta do it well godspeed to you my friend what about you what do you got going i don't know i I was thinking about mowing the lawn.

3:54:28Dustin Furman:It's just so hot out. I don't really want to, but I really got, I really should at some point. So maybe I'll do that. And I don't know. Eat dinner, hang out, watch whatever the fuck's on TV. Like I just put ESPN on in the background. It's like the fucking biggest nonsense you've ever seen in your life on there at this point as we wait for the real sports to come back. So yeah, that's about it. But yeah, nice low key episode this week. Not too much to talk about. Sony financials again will have already happened by the time people hear this, but we just, we record it too soon. And so we'll get into that next week.

3:54:59Dustin Furman:All right, Chris, good to see you as always, my friend. Thank you again for your time. Be well. And thank you all out there for your love and kindness. We appreciate you. Patreon.com slash Last Stand Media for early ad free access and Last Stand Media dot store for merch. See you next time. Until then, goodbye. Take care, guys. Sacred Symbols, a PlayStation podcast, is a product and trademark of Last Stand Media and Collins Last Stand LLC and is proudly recorded in the USA. The show is conceived by, is written by, and is directed by me, Colin Moriarty. My co-hosts are Chris Raygun Maldonado and Dustin Furman.

3:55:32Dustin Furman:The show is produced by executive producer Dustin Furman. All of Last Stand's theme music is by my best friend, Ramon Narvaez. As you know, all of Last Stand's shows, including Sacred Symbols, are fan-funded on Patreon at patreon.com slash laststandmedia. The following names are at the producer level on Patreon, our highest tier, and we're grateful for your thoughtful and kind contributions to our independent endeavor. Thank you.

3:56:16Dustin Furman:Brad Lohman, Kevin Young, J.P. Lynch, Sweet Gray Mane Jones, Orchard, Zen Red, Keith Richards, Anthony Acure, Eddie Smith, Denny Woodnever, Uncharted Shinobi, WTF, Logan Little George, Emmanuel Perez, Brandon Runger, Zachary Wood, Brian Williamson, Vance Cody, Rallo, Gabe's New Gabe Cube, Dustin Spruill, Will Williams, Shane Brekke, Michael Mash Potato, Aaron Temple, Sweaty Magic, Lizard King, Nate Izod, Ellis, Albion, My Name is Mayo, Jason R. Zahn, Grayson Maxwell, Vega the Late, Whiskey Sin, Relentless Rex, The Fandom Traveler, Jad Rita, Terry Tip, Double Duty Dirk, Zach Cohen, Peyton Stone, Michael Buffel, Dan Root, The Shady Mailman, Christopher Morgan, Stephen Glashen, Josh Godfrey, Sketch McGetch, Betty Ann Moriarty, Electric MD, Tyler T, Norse Nuts, Omar, Jake C, Trey Woodward, Antonio C, Allen Einer, Jay Getter, Captain Verde, Bjorn Campbell, Jeff Mercado, Weary San, Trayland, Zainal Yuichi, Gregory Slavinsky, Gus, Remington James, John Zyle, Boots, Alex LaPare, Saul Balcazar, The Brain Worm Starved and Died Only the Idiot Remains, Who is Stephen Day, Mr.

3:57:38Dustin Furman:Finkler, Matt Flowers, Joseph Baker, Kendrick Caius, Jimmy Rodriguez, Dave Alvarez, Chris Galvin, Mason Bichard, Ollie Fritz, Robert Schultz, Saqib Alam, Colin Love, Daryl E. Naaman, Toby Ryland, Stewie 108, W. Patrick Montgomery, Christopher Devayo, Chris Morton, Aaron Betke, Mark Liberto, Roto24, Jonathan Coates, Sean Mason, Josh Gravelick, Joseph Lopez, Kyle Johansson, Carlos Algaret, Sonny Sides Up, Joosh, Martin Beck, Gavin, Jerome Ferreira, Nathan R., Joe McPartland, Gary Cavallo, Christopher Moore, Dennis Usel, Qualia Freak, Jonathan Cortez, John Schultz, Robert Byers, Anton K., Alan Tremblay, Ryan T.

3:58:24Dustin Furman:Mandel, Jean-Francois Forze, Tony Zuniga, Shane Miller, Chris Ritchie, Alex Cabrera, Alexander Suarez, Simon Conception Jr., Anthony Vasquez, Jorge Pal, Cannonball Jones, Mr. Tom, Phil Crone, Throw7, Josh McKinney, Michael Gates, Alex Gates, Cam Wallace, Gio Corsi, Joey Gondaliger, Omar Rosa, Alex Monez, Justin Payne, Justin Wagaman, Austin Riley, Paul Joyce, Chad Lewis, Joshua Smallwood, Shane Rayum, Don Lee, John Cordero, Matthew Ash, Brad Cooley, Eric Pryor, Kyle Martin, and MadMockMedia.