#427 | You Remain Selfless, Cold, and Composed

7 Sep 2026 · 3 h 30 min · 89 chapters

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In short

Sacred Symbols (PlayStation podcast) episode 427 is a wide-ranging discussion that mixes: (1) pre- and post-State of Play talk, (2) football season hype and Madden/NFL streaming, (3) listener Q&A and podcast etiquette, (4) personal life updates (sleep schedule, coffee, home routines), (5) a major Boston terrier health update, and (6) gaming/industry commentary and community chatter (including Sony digital ownership legal debate and GTA 6 character thirsting).

Guests (and who’s on the episode)

No traditional “guests.” The core hosts are Colin Moriarty and his son Chris Raegan. Executive producer Dustin Firman joins. Other voices are limited to listener emails/messages read by the hosts (e.g., “Nat Patterson,” “Mercury as 13,” “Brent Jasperson,” “Vince 2077,” “Nat Patterson,” “Adam Kell,” “Iron Curtains,” “Nat Patterson” again, etc.). A referenced/mentioned guest is “Kiwi Talks” (interviewed previously) and “Vince Ingenito” (planned tech issues), plus “Hogue” (legal expert) mentioned as a future guest.

Key claims

  • Football is back; Colin is streaming Madden NFL 27 as the New York Jets coach and claims a 2-1 start.
  • Madden’s realism is impressive but the modern playbook is overwhelming for returning players.
  • Podcast etiquette: good shows avoid interrupting; “freight train” interruptions make listening uncomfortable.
  • Legal/industry: Sony’s defense about digital game ownership is described as “ludicrous,” with interest in bringing legal expert Hogue back.
  • Personal: Dustin’s pre-recording ritual includes lunch (often turkey sandwiches) and coffee; Treble the Boston terrier may need further neurology follow-up.

Notable examples

  • State of Play coverage (Western + Japanese) was streamed early; VOD is available.
  • Listener examples: paper towels in guest bathrooms as a “game changer”; Wendy’s cash-change story highlighting coin confusion.
  • Dog example: Treble’s neurological distress signs (paw curling, dragging, acupuncture/injections) and upcoming animal neurologist visit on the 21st.

Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.

Chapters

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Post-Stream Reflections

0:00 to 0:27

Colin and Chris discuss their recent streaming experience and sleep schedules.

“DraftKings is now live in all 50 states.”

Post-Stream Reflections

0:33 to 0:55

Colin and Chris discuss their recent streaming experience and sleep schedules.

“FedTax pass-through may apply in Illinois.”

Post-Stream Reflections

1:20 to 2:26

Colin and Chris discuss their recent streaming experience and sleep schedules.

“I'm joined as always by my son, Chris Raegan.”

Game Plans and Family

2:26 to 3:57

The hosts talk about plans for playing a new game and family visits.

Recording Decisions

3:57 to 4:33

Colin and Chris reflect on their decision-making process regarding recording.

Podcast Network and Community

4:33 to 6:29

Discussion on their Patreon support and the podcast's network offerings.

“But it's all about the audience with Sacred Symbols of PlayStation Podcast, episode number 427 and all the other episodes as well.”

Upcoming Guests and Topics

6:29 to 9:36

Colin shares plans for upcoming guests and discussions on legal topics.

“About the RSS feeds not really working the way they should.”

Fan Interactions and Football Insights

9:36 to 12:01

The hosts read listener questions and provide insights on football and gaming.

“So we'll get back to that in about a month.”

Madden Football Experience

12:01 to 14:00

Colin shares his experience with the latest Madden game and reflections on football.

“So I'm glad that I'm turning more and more people onto that show.”

Madden Gameplay Insights

14:00 to 16:42

Learn about the complexities and realism of the latest Madden game.

Show all 89 chapters

Listener Appreciation

16:43 to 17:26

Hear a heartfelt message from a listener dealing with mental health issues.

“I'm a huge fan and have learned so much about the games industry by tuning into this.”

Listener Appreciation

17:38 to 19:04

Hear a heartfelt message from a listener dealing with mental health issues.

“Keeping your money safe from fraud deserves to be a priority and Cash App treats it that way.”

Listener Appreciation

19:08 to 20:51

Hear a heartfelt message from a listener dealing with mental health issues.

“based on just about any player in any sports matchup you can imagine.”

Pre-Recording Rituals

20:52 to 27:57

Explore the quirky pre-show rituals of the hosts and their food choices.

Food Preferences and Sauces

28:00 to 28:38

The hosts discuss their unique food preferences, especially around mozzarella sticks and hot dogs.

Sandwich Preparations

28:38 to 30:19

They share their sandwich-making habits, including the challenges of ingredient management.

Daily Routines and Coffee

30:19 to 31:26

The hosts reveal their morning routines, focusing on coffee selection and preferences.

Light Preferences and Atmosphere

31:26 to 32:54

Discussion about the hosts' preferences for lighting in their homes and its impact on mood.

“If it's too dim, it feels depressing to me.”

Video Game Character Discussion

32:54 to 35:12

They delve into a discussion about character design in video games, particularly in GTA 6.

Bathroom Etiquette

35:12 to 36:38

A listener shares their experience with paper towels in guest bathrooms and its benefits.

“I always hated how wet the hand towel would get when people's people were over and just never thought to do this.”

Bathroom Etiquette

37:21 to 37:50

A listener shares their experience with paper towels in guest bathrooms and its benefits.

“wait is over football is here and so is draft kings draft kings is now live in all 50 states One app, every sport, nationwide.”

Bathroom Etiquette

37:52 to 38:20

A listener shares their experience with paper towels in guest bathrooms and its benefits.

“FedTax pass-through may apply in Illinois.”

Podcasting Etiquette and Skills

38:20 to 41:36

The hosts discuss podcasting etiquette and the skills necessary for effective communication.

“Said, hey guys, I want to talk about podcast etiquette.”

Listener Feedback and Controversies

41:36 to 42:01

They react to a listener's feedback about their podcasting style and discuss online responses.

Listener Reactions and Blacklisting Theories

42:01 to 44:29

The hosts discuss the reactions of listeners and rumors about being blacklisted from Sony.

“Like people don't like, no matter how much I say, like they don't understand that I'm turning things down usually.”

Observations on Society and the Future

44:30 to 46:58

A poignant story about a young man at Wendy's sparks a discussion on societal issues and education.

“What's the thing that gave away that they were a listener?”

Fast Food Quality and Experiences

46:59 to 49:41

The hosts reflect on their experiences with Wendy's and the decline in fast food quality over the years.

“I think people don't know fundamental things.”

The Wawa Experience and Fast Food Evolution

49:42 to 52:19

A humorous recount of a disappointing experience at Wawa and discussions about the evolution of convenience food options.

Gasoline and Post-Apocalyptic Scenarios

52:20 to 55:48

Discussion on gasoline, its octane ratings, and post-apocalyptic scenarios involving fuel.

AI-Generated Content and Its Absurdities

55:49 to 56:00

The hosts discuss the implications of AI-generated content and its inaccuracies in educational materials.

AI-Generated Maps and Periodic Tables

56:00 to 57:46

Explore the bizarre phenomenon of AI-generated educational materials.

Understanding Pre-Order Money Flow

57:46 to 1:00:15

Gain insight into how pre-order payments work within the gaming industry.

“You might remember last week, someone wrote in with a really thoughtful question, which was, what happens to money in pre-order?”

Reflections on State of Play

1:00:15 to 1:02:56

Discuss the recent State of Play presentations and their effectiveness.

“If you didn't watch it live with us or on your own or in VOD, you're not really missing anything.”

Grading the Presentation

1:02:56 to 1:08:59

Analyze the quality and content of the latest PlayStation State of Play.

“C minus D plus something like that in that range.”

Anticipating Future PlayStation Releases

1:08:59 to 1:10:00

Speculate on what the future holds for PlayStation releases and marketing strategies.

“But I also don't want to give any credit.”

Discussion on Showcase Branding and PS6

1:10:00 to 1:11:54

The hosts discuss the current state of PlayStation showcases and speculate on what might be held for the PS6.

“And it looks like they've kind of just gotten rid of the showcase branding.”

Compelling Games and Personal Preferences

1:11:54 to 1:13:50

The conversation shifts to the hosts' opinions on recent game aesthetics and their preferences in gaming styles.

“different aesthetic going on here, guys.”

Sponsor: DraftKings

1:13:50 to 1:14:45

DraftKings sponsors this episode with a promotion for new customers.

“DraftKings is now live in all 50 states.”

Game Updates and Announcements

1:14:45 to 1:24:00

The hosts review new game updates, trailers, and upcoming releases in the gaming industry.

“Nationwide based on sportsbook predictions and free-to-play sports contest availability varies by state.”

Exploring Uncanyon: A New Puzzle Adventure

1:24:00 to 1:25:13

Learn about the game Uncanyon and its gameplay mechanics.

“Uncanyon is a puzzle first adventure set in a forgotten world that emerged and once flourished in the folds of converging unparalleled universes.”

Rev Noir and Rhapsody in Scarlet: Upcoming Titles

1:25:14 to 1:26:40

Discussion about Rev Noir and the intriguing Rhapsody in Scarlet game.

“Number 12 was Rev Noir, which we saw earlier this year, and I think that game looks really cool.”

Rhapsody in Scarlet: Unique Concept

1:26:41 to 1:27:13

Hear why Rhapsody in Scarlet stands out in the gaming landscape.

“I think we have to give credit where credit is due.”

Character Design and Theme Analysis

1:27:14 to 1:28:29

Analysis of art style and character design in Rhapsody in Scarlet.

MicroPunk and Classic Game Releases

1:28:30 to 1:30:45

Overview of MicroPunk and classic titles being added to the catalog.

“They showed the game MicroPunk, which is launching on PS5 in October, and it will launch into the PlayStation Plus game catalog at the extra and premium tiers, which is pretty cool.”

Saros Updates and Player Feedback

1:30:46 to 1:35:01

Details about updates for Saros and community feedback on the game.

“This is a 2004 PlayStation 2 and GameCube game.”

Gran Turismo 7 Developments and Future Plans

1:35:02 to 1:37:44

Discussion on Gran Turismo 7 updates and future expectations.

“I thought it was a great game, but it is not Returnal by any stretch of the imagination.”

Until Dawn 2 Announcement and Expectations

1:37:45 to 1:38:05

Anticipation for Until Dawn 2 and its development insights.

Anticipating Until Dawn 2

1:38:05 to 1:42:28

Discussion about the upcoming game Until Dawn 2 and its potential.

“I don't even want to know or see more about this.”

GTA 6 Controller Release

1:42:28 to 1:46:14

Overview of the new GTA 6 controllers and their features.

Upcoming Game Previews from State of Play

1:46:14 to 1:49:10

Insights on various games announced in the Japanese state of play.

“Number three, Monster Hunter Ascendance.”

Evaluating Game Quality

1:49:10 to 1:52:00

Critique and thoughts on the quality of new games being revealed.

“That was definitely one that stood out to me in the Japanese one.”

Discussion on Upcoming Game Releases

1:52:00 to 1:52:50

Learn about the recently announced games and their expected release dates.

“This was Daba Land of Water Scar, which is a China Hero game that was announced some time ago.”

GTA 6's Impact on Sales and Industry Metrics

1:52:50 to 1:54:05

Explore the viewership metrics of GTA 6 and its impact on console sales.

“last Thursday following its exclusive debut earlier that day on Netflix It should be noted here that YouTube and Netflix count views very differently.”

Take-Two’s Legal Actions and Potential Outcomes

1:54:05 to 1:55:48

Understand the implications of Take-Two's leak probe and the potential consequences for those involved.

“That's 31.1 million complete views of the half an hour presentation.”

Sony’s Digital Ownership Controversy

1:55:48 to 2:00:41

Discuss Sony’s arguments regarding digital game ownership and consumer awareness.

“And I wonder if we'll wake up one day and they will have arrested someone or at least conclusively say who it was or something like that.”

Debate on Legal Arguments and Consumer Expectations

2:00:41 to 2:03:09

Engage in a debate over the validity of Sony's arguments regarding digital game licenses.

“Given how silent they have been, you know, it's just funny that they would come out and say this.”

Critique of Sony’s Corporate Communication Strategy

2:03:09 to 2:06:00

Evaluate Sony's communication failures and their impact on consumer loyalty.

“It's these companies must be brought to heel.”

Sony's Customer Loyalty and Competition

2:06:00 to 2:09:28

Discussion on Sony's consumer loyalty and the impact of competition on its market position.

“And I think that they're relying on their unusually high level of customer loyalty, which I think is only surpassed by Nintendo.”

Larry Kootenan's Departure from Housemarque

2:09:28 to 2:13:44

Analysis of Larry Kootenan's departure from Housemarque and its implications for the studio.

“Next story, this is an interesting one that kind of came and went, but I feel like it's somewhat substantial.”

Square Enix Goes Private?

2:13:44 to 2:19:21

Exploration of the speculation surrounding Square Enix potentially going private and its effect on stock prices.

“So they write here, quote, Square Enix Holdings published a statement to shareholders on September 1st addressing claims about the company potentially going private.”

Exploring PS5's New Live TV Features

2:20:01 to 2:22:04

Learn about the new live TV offerings on PS5, including free films and channels.

“Anime includes Naruto, Sailor Moon, Hunter, Cross Hunter, Death Note and more.”

Iron Man Game Update and Expectations

2:22:05 to 2:23:43

Discussion on the Iron Man game footage and what to expect moving forward.

“So there's this footage of Iron Man going around.”

Alan Wake 2 Experience and Sales Reflections

2:23:44 to 2:27:08

Insights into the gameplay and themes of Alan Wake 2 and its disappointing completion rates.

Dustin's Gaming Adventures and New Releases

2:27:09 to 2:31:04

Dustin shares his gaming experiences and thoughts on upcoming titles like Onimusha and Plague Tale.

“from a plot standpoint and from a presentational standpoint.”

Halloween Game Review and Impressions

2:31:05 to 2:34:00

Dustin gives an overview of the Halloween game and his early impressions of Onimusha.

“I have those options and Alan Wake 2 waiting, and then like you said, Wolverine.”

First Impressions of a New Game

2:34:00 to 2:35:06

Discussing initial gameplay experiences and mechanics of a newly acquired game.

“So that's kind of a more in progress, but it runs great on PlayStation 5 Pro.”

Balancing Upcoming Game Releases

2:35:06 to 2:35:43

Talking about the challenge of managing multiple game releases on the horizon.

“I was saying when you were gone that I pre-ordered it and it's preloaded and ready to go.”

Show Must Go On Despite Challenges

2:35:43 to 2:36:28

Acknowledging the absence of a co-host and the need to continue the show.

Listener Questions and Audience Engagement

2:36:28 to 2:37:25

Addressing audience questions and reflections on past show formats and lengths.

“segment where we would just read basically copy.”

Discussion on Sony's Digital Transition Concerns

2:37:25 to 2:40:46

Analyzing reports of Sony's potential hesitance toward digital game releases and its implications.

“Apparently, publisher blowback was bad enough that they were potentially skipping PlayStation for future releases.”

Debate on Physical vs Digital Game Sales

2:40:46 to 2:42:13

Exploring the financial dynamics between physical and digital game sales in the industry.

“Rather, the digital sale is inherently worth more.”

Indie Developers and Market Responses

2:42:13 to 2:44:25

Discussing the impact of digital trends on indie developers and their market strategies.

Naughty Dog's Future and Community Response

2:44:25 to 2:48:00

Examining the ongoing negative sentiment towards Naughty Dog and strategies for overcoming it.

“Naughty Dog wrapped filming on Intergalactic, yet nearly every comment under the studio's post on X was venomous and openly hostile.”

The Anticipation of Greatness

2:48:00 to 2:49:27

Discussing expectations for upcoming games and their potential success.

“Frankly, I think this happened a little bit with The Odyssey.”

Debating GTA's Pre-Orders

2:49:28 to 2:50:49

Analyzing pre-order trends and public perception around GTA 6.

Critique of Social Media Responses

2:50:50 to 2:52:14

Examining the negative narratives around game releases fueled by social media.

The Role of Quality in Game Success

2:52:15 to 2:55:17

Exploring how game quality influences public and critical reception.

“That was totally driven by social media and it absolutely worked.”

New Review Aggregation Platforms

2:55:18 to 3:00:30

Introducing video games critic.com and discussing its impact on reviews.

“And, you know, you know, I'm just going to throw out a little prediction here.”

The Validity of User Reviews

3:00:31 to 3:02:00

Debating the usefulness and reliability of user-generated game reviews.

“I think generally speaking user reviews aren't really helpful.”

The Value of Video Game Reviews

3:02:00 to 3:05:32

Discussion on the usefulness of user reviews compared to critic reviews in gaming.

“It seems like the earnest reaction from the players is that it's a pretty high quality piece of software.”

The Future of Collecting Physical Games

3:05:32 to 3:09:05

Exploration of what may replace physical games for collectors in the future.

“Connor Campbell wrote in and said, hey, CDC.”

The Evolution of Special Editions

3:09:05 to 3:12:53

Discussion on the appeal and future of special and collector's editions in gaming.

“And so they would do like it because they still had tickets to sell and they had to do the rounds.”

Potential for a 3D Mega Man

3:12:53 to 3:16:00

Consideration of the future of the Mega Man franchise and the possibility of a 3D game.

Thoughts on Mega Man Dual Legacy

3:16:00 to 3:18:13

A discussion on the upcoming Mega Man Dual Legacy and its implications.

“So that's I don't know what the future holds.”

Adapting Mega Man to 3D

3:18:13 to 3:20:38

Exploration of the challenges and possibilities of transitioning Mega Man to a 3D format.

“I probably have overthought it because I think about this a lot.”

Industry Challenges and Furloughs

3:20:38 to 3:25:38

Discussion on Bit Reactor's furlough decision and its implications for the gaming industry.

“I do think this is necessary, and this is kind of how it works in other entertainment mediums.”

Reflections and Closing Thoughts

3:25:38 to 3:28:07

Final thoughts on gaming trends and personal reflections from the hosts.

Introduction of Hosts and Guests

3:30:00 to 3:32:00

Meet the hosts and guests of the episode.

“John Zile, Johnny Waffles, John Cordero, Jonathan Coates, Jonathan Cortez, Joosh, Jorge Pal, Joseph Baker, Joseph Lopez, Josh Godfrey, Josh Gravelick, Josh McKinney, Josh Schullinger, Joshua Smallwood, J.P.”

Introduction of Hosts and Guests

3:32:05 to 3:32:32

Meet the hosts and guests of the episode.

“On behalf of Boothill Casino in Kansas, FedTax Pass-Thru may apply in Illinois, 21 and over, void in Canada.”
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Transcript

Automatic transcript. May contain errors.

0:00Colin Moriarty:Dave Portnoy here. The wait is over.

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1:17Dustin Furman:Greetings and salutations. Welcome back to Sacred Symbols, a PlayStation podcast. This is episode number 427. My name is Colin Moriarty. I'm joined as always by my son, Chris Raegan. Chris, good day to you again. How are you feeling? Yeah.

1:30Colin Moriarty:Not fantastic. Yeah, you're hurting at this point? No, I mean, like, I got some sleep. We did a stream covering the state of play, which was, I think, 5. 5.30 my time, 8.30 your time? Yep.

1:51Dustin Furman:so early for both of us but very early i mean like so early for you it makes me want to throw

1:55Colin Moriarty:up in my mouth just thinking about it yeah it's my day's a little bit just screwy right now and then after we ended the stream i had to go run some errands so i got i got about an hour and a half of rest which is like fine but i feel weird man feels we'll do the we're off today we'll do

2:13Dustin Furman:we'll do the best we can i went back to bed as well i got like three hours more of sleep and i actually feel fine now do i look fine no i always look tired and shot but i feel actually pretty i woke up and i'm like oh that's about i probably closed the loop i probably got enough sleep all things considered because i got about five hours before the stream as well chris of course is talking about the uh vo well it's in vod now but we did the live stream for the state of play which we'll talk about in a little while um both the american or western one and the japanese one um so yeah we were up at the ass crack and you can go watch that on youtube now if you want it's good to see you chris as always you too dustin firman hello executive producer good to see you

2:47Colin Moriarty:today my friend how are you doing good i'm on coffee number three now did you go to sleep no no sleep for me in between no sleep in between i'm good i i thought about it and i'm like i actually think it's gonna make it worse yeah it could if i sleep for a little bit yeah so i decided to nod to right before we started recording i got something in the mail a little uh physical game oh orbitals that game looks really orbitals i'm annoyed though because i want to play this with holly which playing with the baby it's going to be a little more difficult it's going to take forever to play this game holly is going tonight to pick up her friend from college who lives who's from new york city lives in the bronx new york city she's coming to stay with us until monday so i'm like well this this isn't happening yeah she may be just we can just make her sit and watch yeah why not you know but so that'll have to wait i have other stuff to play though we'll talk about later so that's out of context that's funny by the way we could just sit and make her watch could be yeah just sit and watch a little girl little girl sit in the corner

3:57Dustin Furman:and take a seat and go ahead and watch what's about to happen here go ahead and watch us play

4:05Dustin Furman:oh my god well yeah that's fun pretty good exciting good yeah uh it was funny like when we were done with the vod i was thinking in my head my head i was like should we just record now i thought that too and then i was like i don't know about that like it felt right for about an hour you know like it would have felt right for about an hour and then i would have been like two hours and i've been we got to wrap this up yeah so like ultimately we made the better choice for the audience. Probably the worst choice for us. But it's all about the audience with Sacred Symbols of PlayStation Podcast, episode number 427 and all the other episodes as well.

4:39Dustin Furman:Yeah, so I got like five hours of sleep before the VOD or before the stream and then got three after, so I'm feeling okay. But it is three. It's 311 right now. Oh, today seems like a good day. Should we do a little singing? Chris, you be SA and I'll be Nick and we'll sing Beautiful Disaster. Okay? let's do it you want your what do you want to sing which song

5:07Colin Moriarty:i'm not singing now man come on man come on man i can't do that shit oh my god well chris was basically waterboarded this morning yeah he was it was awesome loved it it was like um uh clockwork orange like his eyes clipped open i've ever seen that movie yeah have i yeah yeah i've worked orange yeah i see i watched it once uh it was interesting i like crazy crazy movie i like kubrick a lot in fact i think the shining is like one of the greatest movies of all time i wasn't i i felt so uneasy after that i mean that's the whole whole point yeah of the movie yeah i'd like to watch it again.

5:53Dustin Furman:Kubrick's big three are the shining clockwork orange and the moon landing in 1969. Yeah, moon landing. Oh, right.

6:00Colin Moriarty:Yeah. All right.

6:02Dustin Furman:Well, it's good to be here with you guys and good to be here with all of you out there. Hope all of you are well enjoying yourselves as the summer wanes. We're now in September of 2026. The year has gone by very quickly, in my opinion. They say time goes quicker the older you get. And I feel like that is true because I feel like time is accelerating yeah and uh can't believe it we look back we only have a few months left of the year um but welcome all to sacred symbols our weekly uh playstation podcast we go live uh early i'm so tired too i guess maybe even more tired than i thought we go live three days early and head free every week over on patreon patreon.com slash last name media like well over 12 000 of you support us over there each month right now and we appreciate that i couldn't do without your support over there early ad free access to all the shows in the network that we have nothing to do with as well we have an xbox podcast our network a nintendo podcast our network and so on and so forth so nice value rich at uh um proposition let's call it at five dollars a month of course you also get the ability to submit your inquiries to the show you'll hear them throughout the show you use the thread in the news feed for each of the different shows ours goes live wednesdays and it's deleted thursdays discord access if you want to deal with uh some of the most autistic people you've ever met in your life even more so than me uh rss and spotify feeds they're a little botched right now I don't really know what's going on for some people.

7:23Dustin Furman:I can't do anything about it. I can't do anything about it. Is it for you too?

7:26Colin Moriarty:A little bit. We've gotten some writings about it. Yeah. About the RSS feeds not really working the way they should. So I don't know what's going on.

7:35Dustin Furman:Yeah, I don't either. I did tell someone that if we keep getting complaints, I'll bring it up to Patreon. I just don't want to bother them if it's only like a minor thing. But if it's more than a minor thing, we will. We will, of course, bring that up. And of course, Sacred Symbols Plus each and every week are a supplement to the show on Patreon.com slash Last Stand Media. I interviewed the guys from Stop Killing Games last week, as you requested, and hope you enjoyed that conversation. I had our friend of the show Kiwi Talks, great interviewer on the show recently to talk about his process. We dove deep into Halo campaign Evolved, which was fun.

8:04Dustin Furman:We were supposed to do Marvel Tocan, and I think we'll be doing that soon-ish. I was supposed to record with my old friend from IGN, Vince Ingenito, and he always has tech problems when he tries to use Zencaster with us. So Dustin's going to reach out to him if he hasn't already and try to figure that out. and then um this week will be morsela um we'll have him back on to talk about a lot of different things you were just on his show dustin i was yeah silicon nice guy i like uh it's a fun i have

8:31Colin Moriarty:it's the second time i've done his show and i uh i always enjoy it look forward to it yeah i do too

8:36Dustin Furman:he's a really i like him a lot he's a nice person uh let's see mercury as 13 says hey ccd i hope you gents are having a great week colin any plans on having hogan to discuss the legal aspects of sony's digital only push in their most recent defensive said push where they say quote reasonable customers know they do not own digital games to buy when they buy we'll talk about this later of course as reported by bgc while lack of ownership of a license may be stipulated in the eula as a lay person i think this is a ludicrous defense and i would be interested in what hoax take is and how defensible the language would be should sony face any regulation and legal action i think legal stuff has stacked up sufficient that we can have hogan again in the coming weeks so i'm gonna look into that it's a little more it's not difficult to get hogue it's just that he works he was working at his own firm for a while then he got sick as everyone remembers so now he's out of that but um he's working for a different like he's working for a firm now so he has a more normal job billable hours and all that kind of stuff so it's hard to get him during the day and so i will try to get something on his calendar so that hopefully we can record with him and answer some of these questions in the weeks to come um that was a part of your that was part of your he had a little thing here thanks I'll hang up now and fend off Sony Vikings raiding my digital library everyone needs to calm down sacred streaming continues as well we just did the state of play stream so you can check that out on VOD I streamed Madden NFL 27 last week I thought it was going to be a dud it ended up being a really popular stream in which I am the coach of the New York Jets bringing the Jets to glory and we're two and one in my season believe it or not I would kill if the Jets were two and one after three games this year we'll get back to that and And I want to get to the games before they happen in real life.

10:15Dustin Furman:So we'll get back to that in about a month. The season starts a week from Sunday for the Jets. So that gives us a little in real life. So that gives us a little bit of time as well. Brent Jasperson wrote in and said, what up CDC? Been listening since the podcast beyond days, but I finally decided to write in. This one is for Colin. Apologies for the nerds. I was looking for something to get me hyped for the upcoming NFL season. So I finally gave heed the call. Listen, what a recommendation. I was laughing almost immediately when I jumped into an episode when where the guys were shaming each other over how much they spent on the producer's wedding gift.

10:42Dustin Furman:So Colin, let's put the football brain to the test. Who's your Super Bowl matchup this year? And who's your must draft fantasy player? Thanks for all the years of great content. Super Bowl matchup. I'm not going to go into the fantasy. It depends on where you pick. I just did my first fantasy draft yesterday for the year. I almost forgot about it until 10 minutes before it happened. So it was good that they sent out a text message reminder. Or it would have been on auto draft. And who knows how the team would have gone. Super Bowl matchup. Let's say the NFC, let's say the Rams and the AFC...

11:15Dustin Furman:god i want to do something bold on the afc like what about the bangles roaring back what about that that'd be an interesting one um as far as heat the call is concerned i've said this ad nauseum about that show um it is sacred symbols for in a way for football it's so fucking whacked out and funny um and i even have lockmart listening to it just to, because he actually did it voluntarily, but just to see like what they do, because I want to kind of, I kind of want to copy some of the things they're doing, to be honest. They're one of the few shows that like inspire me. And so I'm glad to, I know you guys aren't into football, but if you do just tune in one day and listen, you'll see like in 10 minutes, it's pretty fucking hysterical.

11:57Dustin Furman:Like I'm not even sure, like it's actually way more funny, I think, than our show. And they're really fun. So I'm glad that I'm turning more and more people onto that show. say hello to your mother for me wrote in and said colin you are the coach of the jets you need to calm your ass down every time one of the players makes a mistake which is a lot because they are the jets you freak out the players see that and will quit on you you're a leader of men treat them with respect and keep your emotions in check deflect in public and criticize in private we believe in you and your team it is funny because i am watching it like i am not the coach but rather actually just a fan so i'm like calling the plays and then i'm like freaking out every time something bad happens it really makes no sense at all also i wanted to say this i played madden for many years i know football fairly deeply especially for a cat more casual fan like i never played the game right like the game of football and i've said before that fifa or i'm sorry madden taught me everything i know really about early on about football about how you you know what the positions are and the different formations and it was very useful in that regard so i last played madden regularly probably in the ps2 era i've talked about juke mania that was like the league that i had in college with my friends we had ramon on to talk about that once where we like had standings going on for like years and we would and we would play like madden 2003 or something but i've really not been into it since then and i gotta say guys two things about madden one positive and one that's not really negative but it's negative for me it's a really impressive game like it has come a really long way there is a lot of shit in that game to do and when i see that i'm like 70 a year seems crazy from the outside and yet i totally understand how a sports fan and a football fan gets sucked into this every year there is just so much going on in the game but that's the second thing i wanted to say too was having not played in a long time i'm totally overwhelmed by it like i remember madden being so much easier not from a play standpoint but just like here's the playbook here are the different formations here a few options blah blah blah it's like dude i i people it was funny during the extreme because like i don't even know like i'm like i can't read the playbook quick enough the play clock's going there's all these different options i'm like freaking out i'm making bad choices and then i eventually had to kind of just lament and say like i guess i got to go with some of the recommended plays because i can't even get to the playbook i have no idea when this got so complicated but it is much more realistic in a way because it gives you all the different options so it's a very rich game and uh i kind of don't know why I didn't expect that but and by the way when I turned it on first song that came up in the game 311 which I thought was really weird it's like how did you know now that is not now I was wondering is it was just going in alphabetical order perhaps at the beginning I don't really know oh but but I thought that was strange so I wanted to say that as well yeah I

14:42Colin Moriarty:mean I would I would imagine you haven't played Madden in so long that like jumping into a new one is probably pretty yeah it it is probably a pretty advanced version but my curiosity would be like for year to year how different is it you know right right how different is this maddened

15:00Dustin Furman:from the last one like probably not really right right right i agree it it's when you go to the broadcast mode you can like change the camera angles and people told me to go into broadcast mode i'm like this looks real i mean like until we were making fun of it because it's madden the the collisions and animations are still fucked up because it's like they're doing a million calculations you know the the linebacker is running into the running back with the ball and then it's doing all dice rolls so they're bouncing and it's like takes a minute for it you know to so there's like weirdness but when the game is still or when they're just about to snap and they're doing kind of motion and stuff like that i'm like this looks fucking real straight up it's it's it really is amazing um from that perspective but god there's it's a very dense and rich game and i feel like i actually understand it more now from the modern lens of why people might spend 67 or more i mean that you the one of the biggest selling games in the country right now is the is the football double pack which is college football and madden together so just want to throw that out there that I thought was really interesting and uh if you're into the realism of the game even to an overwhelming degree it's so funny there's like it's like click r3 to bring up coaching options and then like press right to to while like all this is going on to sub players and then go through like the the entire playbook like I always understood when you're playing Madden on SNES or PS1 or whatever it's like this is not the whole playbook there's no way but it's I'm a normal person and this is manageable it's like no here's the whole thing and i'm like i don't even know man like i can't i can't figure this out in 30 seconds literally 30 seconds i gotta like so anyway doesn't mean

16:42vince 2077 wrote in and said hey cdc just wanted to give you guys a heartfelt thanks for everything

16:47Dustin Furman:you do i'm 27 married with two beautiful boys and lately i've been dealing with what my therapist calls manic depression i know that's personal but the show has sacred symbols plus have genuinely been a huge help when i'm having a rough episode or just need to let someone else think for me for a while. I'm a huge fan and have learned so much about the games industry by tuning into this. The fact that all this is$5 a month is honestly insane. Thanks for being there and even when you don't realize you are. Good luck out there and I guess I'll go take a bath with my plugged in PS5 that has a disk drive.

17:15Dustin Furman:If you have manic depression, you're in the right place. We're glad to have you here. We all understand completely. Merch, lastdaymedia.store. We appreciate you

17:31Colin Moriarty:picking up t-shirts sweatshirts and so on there sacred symbols is sponsored by cash app shopping online is great but you got to be careful because scammers are out there and they want your hard earned money sadly i've nearly got roped into a few including trying to buy a laptop when i was in ninth grade from craigslist but thankfully my dad was able to see the obvious scam and help me out, but it would have been really nice to have a backup like Cash App. 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 biometric authentication to access your account.

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18:52Colin Moriarty: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.

19:05Dustin Furman:Sacred Symbols is sponsored by PrizePix, the daily fantasy sports app that implores players to make predictions based on just about any player in any sports matchup you can imagine. Learn more now at prizepix.com or on the PrizePix app and use the code sacred when you sign up for a pretty sweet perk. Hear me clearly, listeners. Football is back. Can you believe it? I certainly can't. I spent most of my summer floating around in my pool, staring at the blue sky above, dreaming for when we get our beloved gridiron action back. Well, the summer has officially waned, meaning whether you're into pro football, collegiate football, or more, it's just about go time.

19:38Dustin Furman:And you know what can make your football season even better? Playing daily fantasy via prize picks. Prize picks is unique among your various sportsbook and prediction markets in that it all revolves around a fantasy-like approach in which you pick anywhere from two to six players at a time across just about any sport and league you can imagine, all the while pinning a more or less guess on each. So let's say that in an upcoming game, you think Patrick Mahomes will throw for more than 300 yards, while in a separate game, you think Lamar Jackson will keep it on the ground for fewer than 50 yards, while Justin Jefferson shows off in a third game with more than two receiving touchdowns.

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20:37Dustin Furman:Download the PrizePix app today and use the code sacred, that's S-A-C-R-E-D, to get$150 instantly in lineups if you win your first$5 lineup. Again, use the code sacred to get$150 in lineups if you win your first$5 lineup. prize picks run your game all right people complain that we had a pretty short uh stretching of the legs we don't have to linger here too long we had it last week people said it was too short so i i put a few more questions in here but we don't have to linger too long if we don't want to i know we're all kind of tired tropical yeti wrote in and said hey sacred voice this question is for dustin i'm curious what his pre-sacred ritual is i imagine him grabbing a coffee turning on the window ac dimming the lights turning on the neon sacred symbols and perhaps do we have a neon sacred symbols no yes no oh he means no yeah i got i understand i was like we have that's fucking awesome i didn't know that i'm shot dimming the lights turning on the neon sacred symbols and perhaps doing the lebron chalk toss you know that no that's like i think he you know like the hand chalk he like yeah throws it in the air like claps and throws it in the air it's a very famous thing sounds wasteful um i'll pretend to be on the 49ers 53 man roster and listen didn't isn't lebron didn't you go to the sixers or something recently what the fuck am i asking not asking the right insane insane question dustin what is your what is your

21:57Colin Moriarty:pre-game or your pre-recording ritual pre-recording ritual he got about half of it right that usually about noon 11 30 i'll eat lunch either leftovers recently i've been making turkey sandwiches oh i love it like like cold cuts yeah just a little turkey sandwich with some

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22:19Dustin Furman:cheese and some chips and well tell me more about that sandwich like what kind of turkey it's just aldi turkey oh jesus christ aldi turkey just fine what kind of what kind of cheese

22:30Colin Moriarty:pepper jack cheese

22:33Dustin Furman:huh what else you put on this thing that's it chips just dry yeah i like going dry you're eating all the chicken or all the turkey and pepper jack cheese on white bread uh i think

22:46Colin Moriarty:it's technically uh like a whole grain not whole grain but it's it's brown in color and it's dry no mayonnaise nothing yeah no you put chips right on it dude you're eating like you're in you're

23:00Dustin Furman:literally eating like you're in in pentamon or something they didn't have pepper jack cheese i

23:04Colin Moriarty:don't think you told me about how you were eating when micah was gone about to bring up some private conversation.

23:11Dustin Furman:All right. So yeah, Micah was gone. Micah was gone. She went to New Hampshire to see her family. I stayed back to be with the dogs. And by the way, Treble's kind of in trouble again. I don't know if people remember. Yeah.

23:24Colin Moriarty:Holly told me that.

23:25Dustin Furman:Yeah. So people remember Treble, one of our Boston Terriers, a smaller one, our female one. She's five now. She has like neurological problems that mess with her ability to walk. So it was like all fucked up with her front paws for a while she basically curls her paw which is like a sign of neurological distress um she's also working with probably like three brain cells another sign of neurological distress but anyway we we got her like we got her acupuncture and they gave her injections and she was fine she was like yelping in pain when this was happening we felt so bad for her and they were making us nervous because they were like you know she might need spinal surgery and then you might need to think about doing the humane thing and stuff and i'm like i'm not putting my dog down so you know like that's not happening so anyway she kind of started doing it with her back legs and even dragging her back legs and i'm like fuck so we went to the uh vet just to kind of check up on her yesterday and they were like yeah like you know they bent her foot over and usually when you bend it's like you like standing on your toes like bending them over you would just stand back on your foot but the vet would just turn her foot feet over and she would just stand on like that and they were and they were like because we thought it was luxating patella which is a knee problem that's very common for boston's and in fact rush had that and we had surgery for it right so uh it's scary i felt bad micah start like with the doctor left and micah started like crying i felt i felt because it's like she's so small and she's so sweet and she's such a good dog she's has no regard for her body which i don't think is helping her at all like she's a fucking total roughhouser and just crashes over the house and falls and her feet are so small that like we have to buzz the fur underneath her feet so she has better traction and I'm like you're just looking at her you know and you're like what did you do to deserve this shit you know like so it was really it's heartbreaking so on the 21st we have to go back to the animal neurologist and see what happens and they really helped her last time and I hope that they help her this time but it is so sad you know I just feel bad for them because you can't communicate with them right you know and you want to just and i've said this before we've talked about the show that like what would you say to your dog if you had 60 seconds of salience like 60 seconds worth of like you have to you can plan it out it has to be said like you can't say like the micro machines guy but you got to say it somewhat lucidly but like what would you tell your dog you know and i've always thought about that like if you if like you could just tell them like five or six or seven important things like when i do this it means this when i ask you to do this it means this do you like this what you know that kind of like and then and it's over after 60 seconds that's all you ever get it'll be so so interesting and i would love to have that time with her to just be like take it easy man you know you're yeah you're you're roughhousing too much and you're hurting yourself so yeah we've been dealing with that as well anyway a little bit of a distraction uh chris we have one for you oh i'm sorry dustin yeah we totally yeah you i'm sorry i'm sorry we went down

26:23Colin Moriarty:three different rabbit holes so i'm gonna i'm gonna wind it yeah let's unwind it let's unwind it you were saying that my my food was dry yeah very and then i and then i countered by saying

26:33Dustin Furman:what you ate when micah was away oh right right oh so what i ate when micah was away what all right so micah so michael left friday so i had cold cuts cold cuts that night she bought cold like you know real boar's head cold go right that night and then uh for my midnight snack i had more cold cuts the next day i went to brunch with my sisters and then for dinner i had was it no so for dinner i had nachos with i and i made sausage oh and like onions and peppers and stuff and just and like dipped it so it was very good i thought i used to do that back in the day and then the next day uh and then that night i had maybe cold cuts again and then the next day so sunday i had nachos for dinner and then nachos for my midnight snack and then she got back monday that's awesome nachos and cold cuts dude that's all i had you didn't even make a sandwich i don't know i made sandwich like you know with mayonnaise and cheese and whatnot pepper turkey and honey ham uh at at the deli on the round that's what it's called right deli right Dustin do you know the deli in Ohio oh deli on the circle the circle yeah I was close yeah very close circles around um that's my sandwich there is that is that particular combination so yeah well I mean it's it's a far cry from the mozzarella hot dog but the mozzarella hot dog that's legendary dude absolutely legendary well because why wouldn't you have a mozzarella hot dog if that was an option I mean I'm not against it like a mozzarella

28:10Colin Moriarty:hot dog now do you put the the marinara sauce on top no i don't like i don't like marinara sauce

28:16Dustin Furman:with the with with mozzarella sticks i like to eat them raw like you know raw dog them raw dog see you don't like see we can compromise your con yeah you like the raw mozzarella stick i like the raw sandwich yeah then we have in common i still dress it like a hot dog though that's oh you just okay interesting marinara like i hate shitty marinara sauce maybe it's because i grew up eating good marinara sauce like all the time with my there's a lot of marinara sauce it's just trash like dude it's a lot of it is fucking trash like trash trash trash which is crazy because it should be it should be a slam dunk yes like it feels like something that's like how how is this so inconsistent like if i was able to dip it in my mom's you know tomato sauce that would be different i would do i would dip anything in that you know when i was a kid my mom used to give me a bowl like when it was getting ready because it was reducing and then she would just give me like a bowl and bread and i would just eat that shit all day love it right love it so that's different but but you still have to dress it you know you use ketchup or mayonnaise i mean i sometimes

29:21Colin Moriarty:if i have a sandwich like i would say like maybe like 60 of the time if i have a sandwich it's a dry sandwich thank you it's like it's wild because it's that last little bit of just like is this really worth like i'm just hungry i want to eat like the second it's like completed it's just like i'm ready to eat it like i'm not i'm not trying to like be a chef here yeah it's like a

29:45Dustin Furman:a perfect experience nothing says being a chef like putting hellman's mayonnaise on a

29:50Colin Moriarty:on a sandwich yeah well i would i would argue that it's more like the uh what is it that um oh my god like the vinaigrette kind of stuff like i would prefer that oh like the thing you in a like a bottle you like shake it a little bit over yeah like like uh that's that shit's good but like and i love that stuff but if i'm making a sandwich by myself like and i the idea of like us getting that assortment together it's it is a lot it's annoying making

30:19Dustin Furman:sandwiches is easy but it's annoying because it's so many ingredients you got to take them all out and i'm very persnickety where like i put things with away one at a time mike always makes fun of me where it's like i'm done with this and i wrap it up and i put it away so like i take forever to

30:30Colin Moriarty:get my food ready yeah now yep so lunch and then i'll usually read over the show notes again i'll read them some i'll check in the night before usually colin's not done with them yet the night before i don't call you do you see me like my little icon up here yeah sometimes i do

30:48Dustin Furman:yeah because what i do is i get the news together and i get as much as i can together but there's always something i have to add the next day so it's never quite complete right yeah review the

30:56Colin Moriarty:show notes make coffee now right now what's on the rotation is an ethiopian coffee uh from onyx which i'm not a i'm not super big on onyx coffee but that's what my local coffee shop has pretty good though a little too mainstream for me a little mainstream uh but it's pretty good i like it and then the ac is on at 69 degrees also there's no dimming of the lights this is what the lights look like in here 24 7 i don't need the overhead light on yeah i hate light

31:31Dustin Furman:micah gets mad at me for that like i want i like everything dark and dim like a single lamp well because like sometimes i go we have like these high hats in our living room that we never use and sometimes i go in there when i'm not around for the day and she like has them on i'm like you have these on because i'm not here because it's it's like you're being abducted by aliens in here right now it's like it's it's it's like the the fucking spotlight coming down

31:53Colin Moriarty:and I'm like, Jesus Christ, why is it so bright in here all the time? I like the light. I like the light. If it's too dim, it feels depressing to me. Sometimes.

32:06Dustin Furman:It could be as bright as a burning star, and I'm still going to be depressed. Sure. Yeah, I guess.

32:18Dustin Furman:I can't argue with that. What can you possibly argue with that? What can one say? Yeah, precisely. Like I said, manic depression, you're in the right place. Yeah. Anything else, Dustin? We took a long time to get through this one. That's okay. We wandered far away.

32:37Colin Moriarty:That's about it. That's about it. It's not really that exciting. But we made it exciting, I think.

32:44Dustin Furman:Yeah. Adam Kell wants to know something from Chris. He says, this is a formal stand down being issued to one Chris Ragoon. for the offense of public lusting over lucia from grand theft auto 6 while it is undeniable that she's indeed a thick latina public displays of horniness should not occur please refrain from future twitter posts of similar nature and resume gooning to lucia in private thank you for your

33:05Colin Moriarty:attention to this matter she's crazy i did i did i did nothing i think i tweeted that she's she's so hot it pisses me off yeah that's because like she's like there's something about that character model man because she's like she's it's weird to see a video game character that like is hot but like isn't in like a like not like a cammy street fighter way like that's what i'm used to like the like the hyper kind of like ridiculous like oh this is so fake but it's like fine like this looks like people that i've seen you know what i mean like this looks like a person and not in like a oh modern video games have like you know they scan people in most of the time i would i would say 99 of the time they scan people into a video game and i'm looking at i'm looking at the character render and i'm like yeah that's a person that's scanned into a video game right right it's good and it's like you know the details you know way better than it used to be but like that's a you know that's a fucking character model and then like halfway some of this trailer i'm like looking at it i was like that's a fucking person like that's that shot of her in the uh what is in the club where she's like sweating i'm like that's a person dude like it's crazy that's a

34:26Dustin Furman:that's sad man yeah well it's it's the fidelity of the game is unmatched and she is hot yeah i mean it's the first thing i noticed when it's like look at her ass it's the first thing everybody

34:37Colin Moriarty:notices by the way it's like every every this is not just me man like what are we what are we what are we doing but um yeah go to defend chris ragun have you seen what people are doing online recently i don't know if i want to know well out of comparison like you know lightly talking about her being hot okay i've seen some shit on twitter and i'm sure both of you have too and many of the audience of the public display of gooning yeah and chris is nowhere near that line yeah that's true so let a man let a man breathe let a man thirst let a man maybe even on the main timeline you know god bless it i say thank you i'm just appreciative this is what i am

35:19Dustin Furman:i understand completely um well adam you tried you tried better luck next time iron curtains wrote in and said re paper towels in the guest bathroom for parties colin this is a late follow-up on something you talked about weeks ago but i decided to take your advice on having paper towels in the guest bathroom and tested it out for my girlfriend's birthday party this past week. Absolute game changer. I always hated how wet the hand towel would get when people's people were over and just never thought to do this. Just wanted to say thank you for helping keep our hands dry. I told you this is a big move.

35:51Dustin Furman:Big boy move. Have a house party or have people over put paper towels in the bathroom. Get rid of the towels in there because it gets gross.

36:00Colin Moriarty:Yeah.

36:00Dustin Furman:You just have a little bag in there and then you throw it away when you know no big deal at all.

36:04Colin Moriarty:You ever been to someone's house, you wash your hands and you use their hand towel and then your hands smell.

36:10Dustin Furman:Yes. I mean, it's great. It's so it's disgusting.

36:12Colin Moriarty:Vile. It's absolutely vile. Yeah, it's quite vile.

36:15Dustin Furman:People that have stinky towels. I never understood. You know, like. People take a shower and then it's like, I'm going to take a shower with this towel that smells like fucking asshole. Then I'm going to wipe it all over my body. It's like, well. That's an option and a choice, but you could just now there are some people that are really crazy about things. My mom uses a new towel every time she showers. and that's always been her thing and when i lived with her when i lived with her you know when i first moved to virginia for those months she would ask me like do you want a new towel do you want to i'm like i'm good using a towel for even almost a week because i dry it out you know but like yeah people just throw them in the corner and then these it's gross man oh so you don't have to share a towel what'd you say you ever had to share a towel

37:01Colin Moriarty:with another man probably yeah i would assume so thankfully it wasn't me but that had to happen at the um the handsome phantom uh packs airbnb sharing it's out yeah someone's just got to air dry in that position and just stand there yeah and wait not ideal dave portnoy here the wait is over football is here and so is draft kings draft kings is now live in all 50 states One app, every sport, nationwide.

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38:07Colin Moriarty:Non-withdrawable rewards issued as$50. Click to claim every seven days for 21 days.

38:12Dustin Furman:Terms at dkng.co slash offer. Limited time offer. Nationwide based on sportsbook predictions and free-to-play sports contest availability. Varies by state. Let's see. Nat Patterson wrote in. Said, hey guys, I want to talk about podcast etiquette. you three are some of the clearest most listenable voices not only in gaming but in podcasting generally how is it that some people who make a living or partial living from podcasting can't seem to observe the basic stuff like letting someone finish a sentence before barging in over top of them makes for such an uncomfortable and clumsy listening experience for the consumer how do you guys make sure you're keeping the conversation as listenable as possible for the audience and what do you think other podcasters could learn from your example cheers from down under it's a really high compliment and i do think we are good at it and i listen to a lot of shows and good shows are good at it and bad shows are bad at it.

39:00Dustin Furman:I think we know each other pretty well. We also step on each other all the time. I just, I think the important thing is to back off. I think what people do is they freight train through and they're like, now I'm coming in. And Chris, I mean, it probably happens 10 times that episode where I'm like, I'm sorry, Chris, I interrupted you. You just, you just acknowledge it and then you say nothing and let the person finish their thoughts because of course we don't have the total human connection here of being over the screen that would not happen in person typically yeah and also interruptions come off much better when it's in person i wanted to bring this up though from nat because there's a football podcast i listen to that does this and it pisses me the fuck off it's it's specifically i think a sports illustrated product and it's hosted by a guy named albert breer who i like and he has a guy named connor or who i really like and albert interrupts connor so much that i literally start saying out loud while i'm like working out or something i'm like can you shut the fuck up like why why do you keep there have been times where like he has interrupted him six times in a row like on the same topic like he just keeps going and i'm like this is so uncomfortable and weird like i don't understand how you don't understand how to have conversations with people part of conversating is saying things and then listening and bouncing those things back and forth it's not that complicated it's literally the art of talking our fucking cavemen brethren did it

40:22Colin Moriarty:so i like the idea of uh micah doing your own thing and then you're on your the elliptical and then i don't know where you just shut up yeah like she probably does hear me i'm like jesus like

40:33Dustin Furman:shut up you know like how many times you gonna interrupt poor connor or please leave him alone so yeah that really resonated with me but i i take that i take compliments on the mechanics of our podcasting very seriously because it is a skill and it's one that not a lot of people are great at and I'll take it. So thank you.

40:52Colin Moriarty:Yeah, that is a common thing. You'd be like, oh, I could do a podcast or like you see a comments like these guys suck. I could I could do a better podcast. This is like, go for it, dude. Now, there are there are some people that I've met that are naturally great at podcasting like Lockmore. Yeah, Lockmore. Yeah, Lockmore immediately somehow was amazing at podcasting. That's, you know, amazing for him. I was not like when I came on I had a years of doing it with nobody listening but I built up the skill I'm still working on it but I think that is a little underestimated that it's like oh well it's just talking into a microphone you know I could do that like you can but can you do it well right maybe maybe if you're Lockmore wow really hyping them up huh I'm jealous I'm jills he just showed up on constellation then everyone's like this guy's amazing and they're

41:50Dustin Furman:right yeah yeah when we were talking we had dustin and i met this week and i was saying that lockmort is the closest we've ever gotten to another dig in in that like and that like he seems like people just love him and uh and there's like no there's almost no one that doesn't like him it's it's very alien for me because half the people that listen to this probably hate me right so by the way i i don't know if i um i only saw this because someone tweeted it at me but on reset era they were freaking out there was a whole thread about me did you see that i did see it it was i looked i briefly looked for the person's email address like his username because i was going to email him and be like when you wrote this were you crying or were you pissing or were you shitting or perhaps two or three of them all at the same time but i was watching him and it really struck me because I was like this person listens to the show why are you listening if you're that person you're corny as hell and you have no power over me none

42:57Colin Moriarty:the thread was about how we have received codes from Sony now

43:04Dustin Furman:like that I'm on blacklisted from Sony and I'm like I've been there's this theory that I'm like widely blacklisted and I don't know why. Like people don't like, no matter how much I say, like they don't understand that I'm turning things down usually. There are certain companies that I don't hear from, but there are many companies that I do. And there's this theory that like, I am like verboten, you know? And it's like, I don't think so. Also, I think these people think it's NeoGAF still, you know? NeoGAF had real power. Like people that worked in the industry posted on NeoGAF, like NeoGAF was a very, for people that don't know, NeoGAF is still exists, but NeoGAF kind of melted down some years ago.

43:41It spawned this offshoot called Reset Era, which is like really amongst the it's like the Mos Eisley Cantina video games.

43:50Dustin Furman:So like just a bunch of just herbs and losers. But they're all over there now. But so they're like NeoGAF without any without like a fraction of the numbers and without any of the oomph, you know. so it's it kind of comes off as sad because like neo gaff would often like dictate terms to like the way things went back in the day as anyone who was around during like the ps2 and ps3 eras especially um but yeah like i i read things about me sometimes and i'm like damn like this person's a listener and then you have to kind of like engage with it on that level and be like yeah people really do hate watch and listen it's not just a thing we say and i can't relate to that because I don't do that with anything.

44:30Colin Moriarty:What's the thing that gave away that they were a listener? Let me see. If you could remember. Yeah, let me see if I can find it. If anything sticks out. I don't want to get too in the weeds with it, but I am curious. I didn't see anything about this.

44:45Dustin Furman:Yeah, oh, here's the thread. Here, I'll put it in the chat.

44:48Colin Moriarty:Yeah, they shut it down. Yeah, because they don't give me any attention.

44:53Dustin Furman:Yeah, no platform. Oh, there was a quote. This is what gave it away. There is a paragraph quote from a random Jaffe stream about something I said, and I'm like, damn. You are like in the weeds in the weeds. Like, you kind of love me. It's interesting. That's crazy. One of the things that they were mad about was that I was on Michael Malice's show. You guys know who Michael Malice is? Mm-hmm. I love Michael Malice. He's a friend of mine. I think he's fucking hysterical. I have no idea who that is. And so he does a show called You're Welcome, but it's Y-O-U-R Welcome. So stupid. right but anyway anyway that was so funny um you have no power over me i don't know when you're gonna realize that or anyone really yeah all right well the thing is they do have power over certain people they definitely do each other yeah look what happened easy eyes right and me right like they definitely have power over each other they have no power over me none nothing's ever going to happen because of anything they say.

45:56Dustin Furman:So yeah, that was an interesting one. All right. Let's see here. We have a couple more to get through. Demetrios Rodriguez. I like this one. You're going to enjoy this one. Says, good afternoon, CDC. I want to tell you about something that genuinely disturbed me. I stopped at Wendy's before going to see a movie with my sister. The restaurant was empty, so I went inside and ordered. The young man at the register struggled with the menu, which was already a red flag. Then I gave him cash and he was supposed to give me$1.47 back. He gave me 151. I pointed out the extra four cents and he couldn't tell the difference between a nickel and a dime.

46:25Dustin Furman:I had to explain the value of every coin to him. Then he looked at me and said, please don't get mad at me. And honestly, I wasn't mad. I was just stunned. It made me wonder, did he fail himself? Did his environment fail him? Did the educational system fail him? Or all three? Before I left, I told him, with a name like Cartier Balmain, you better make a fucking sports phenomenon because you're going to have future problems if you don't lock in. I walked into Wendy's wanting a burger. I walked out questioning the future of America. what is this Cartier Balmain thing this quote I meant to look this up I don't know what this that particular quote means but I like this whole thing because I've also experienced these issues with cash where like people don't I don't really pay in cash for things anymore you know there used to be places where you had to pay in cash I used to go to a convenience store in San Francisco like this mom-and-pop place and they would not take cards so but it was like really convenient because it's a convenience store so you'd always go in they're worth cash and they were quick on the draw.

47:21Dustin Furman:We really do have a problem. I think people don't know fundamental things. It feels like I don't know how you're getting through life in the, in the modern era like this. These are the kinds of things I would expect people didn't know before phones and before the internet. And I just wanted to point out Demetrius, you're not wrong. You're not alone. I've noticed I've noticed as well. I've been, in a situation where you know a job where i've tendered cash it's not fun i don't like it yeah

47:52Colin Moriarty:but i take yeah the environment fits the situation what are you doing at wendy's yeah what are you doing at wendy's in the year of our lord 2026 that is an interesting question yeah wendy's has gone downhill so far and i just saw like a week ago there was a tweet from like some shareholder thing where they're like yeah we've really skimped on quality now we're trying to earn back uh you know customers it's like yeah no shit so i mean i i hate wendy's now yeah so they really collapsed down the tier list uh because i remember they used to be like it used to be like yeah dude we're going to wendy's wendy's was kind of like the target

48:39Dustin Furman:of those stores where it kind of had a little bit of a higher quality a high a better reputation you know what i mean yeah like then going to walmart or something and then yeah they did fall apart there's that shitty one do you ever go do we ever go chris to the shitty one in santa monica there's like a really bad one in santa my guy i used to go and i never you and i never went to a wendy's okay yeah there was a wendy's i don't remember exactly where it was but somewhere near my my place in santa monica and i used to walk there and it was disgusting and i used to just go there like occasionally just because i was i was in the mood for wendy's but it was it was like damn what happened here and they really they were the all in the in the mcdonald's burger king taco bell paradigm see if you follow me here they were like the alternative and they were good and when i was in high school so you guys were like in elementary school you probably remember this they really like roared back like they were like becoming like really big the dollar menu and the really aggressive advertising with dave thomas and like his daughter i don't know if that was really his daughter or whatever and that's just constant shit going on and i used to go there all the time and then i haven't been in many years there's just so many better options funny enough the the night i believe it was the evening of our show in richmond micah and i were driving back to our place in the suburbs and we were like let's go to wendy's i haven't been in i haven't been wendy's since i lived in santa monica we went we drove up and the guy on the the drive-thru was like i'll be right back and then never came back we might have waited five minutes or something like that and then we went to wawa and i i came i came up with wawa with dagan like before wawa became a more of a phenomenon diggin has lived in philadelphia since the early 90s so i've been very familiar with wawa's game for a long time and wawa used to be like and it still is really good but i went so the fun thing about wawa as what's the fun thing about wawa you go in you could order whatever you want whenever you want right you go on the little screen i go into this fucking wawa so this is after the wendy's situation we go into wawa and i go to the screen and they have like this very limited menu and i'm like what is that what i was like having a meltdown almost mike was like you got to like what is the big deal and i'm like you don't understand because she didn't understand i'm like no you don't understand you're supposed to be able to order whatever you want you know what i mean um and then she's like we can't go to another place you gotta wow i forgot i forgot there's actually an interstitial part of the story that's funny so we went to wendy's the guy never came back then we went to mcdonald's the good mcdonald's they were out of french fries so i was like michael was mad at me but this was just like all right let's just order i'm like no like this is this is like half the reason you come here i'm like let's just go to wawa

51:15Colin Moriarty:that i'm sorry no it is it is like i going to mcdonald's going to mcdonald's and not getting the fries is fucking freak behavior in my opinion what's the point what are you doing

51:28Dustin Furman:it's uh it makes no sense you know yeah yeah so then the third stop was wawa and at that point i was because i i really was seriously gonna be like i can't order here and i think i think mike was like shut the fuck up because i think it was literally like you could order like a sandwich with turkey or like it was not the wawa experience like the thing where you just you're typing away for like five minutes you do whatever you want and there's like actual people in there and there's shit i was like i was aghast i was like isn't the whole point of wawa this this is the point they let me down bad and i haven't had wawa since believe it or not because i put i was put off by it that much you know this would never happen at sheets no it wouldn't i would be able to order a burger at sheets although wawa's the the what i've noticed is wawa has been a very influential brand and sheets because now there's like a bunch of these like random gas station things that sell real food it's like a thing now yeah and that wasn't a thing at all when i was a kid not not even a little bit there that didn't exist at all i never that's what made wawa so interesting but i don't know sheets is good though i like sheets but there's others now there's all these other random ones that i see where i'm like oh this is like yeah yeah there's like a speedway that's one of them yeah we have one of those around here yeah it's gonna come that that feels gonna become too saturated and then it's gonna reduce down just like the fast food restaurants have to these different tiers and it will be about like different quality and price points as opposed to just the ubiquitous experience of being able to get an egg sandwich while you're filling up with 87 unleaded you know get get yourself some

53:12Colin Moriarty:mac and cheese at Wawa 87 unleaded use get you the you use the gasoline's government name

53:19Dustin Furman:when I was a little kid like a really little kid I thought those were dates 87 90 93 yeah and I thought well I thought that was the pro I thought that was like the provenance of the gas like the gas that was 93 was more expensive so I was like oh this is the newer gas and people are buying like the old and i think i was like 10 or 11 when my dad explained to me i was like that's not what it is i actually don't know what what the number i just know

53:46Colin Moriarty:what the number is that i need for the car you know isn't it like the purity or something yeah

53:51Dustin Furman:it's like you put like my for my mom's night like my mom drives we've talked about this on the stream she dies like a nice corvette she has to or quote has to put in 93 i think into that or whatever as opposed to like 87 i think but let's see what the number it is about like the reduction i think of the of the gas and like the quality of it let's see what are the numbers with

54:11Colin Moriarty:gas octane the number of the gas pumps show the fuel's octane rating which measures how well the gasoline resists premature ignition or engine knocking under pressure okay yeah nicer car

54:27Dustin Furman:because 93 would have been too late they have here 87 89 91 that's what i remember because that's around the time when I figured it out because I was like oh 91 so this is the new gas the 87 gas that's kind of sound logic for a nine-year-old sure when you see it sure of course if you had if you were in 1991 and you were using gas from 1987 it just wouldn't work but I didn't know that at the time and that's what always breaks post-apocalyptic stuff for me oh the gas yeah it's like you know oh there's gas here we'll put in this thing it's like you it will work still but you apparently you need an enormous amount of it like once it starts to reduce like an insane amount of it for it to be of any use to you at all which i always found interesting but what are you gonna do yeah we need that post-apocalyptic gas that would be an interesting thing too is like in a world like in the walking dead or something if someone had like a small oil refinery still going you know like i never watched too deeply into the walking dead but there's that part where they get to the nice town that's like still kept up and they're like mowing the lawns and doing everything like that right which i thought was really cool and i would love to see something like that in the last of us um but like imagine if people still had like these things going like water refiner like water purifying stations and refiners like they're the only one and they're still and they're still figuring it out but it's really a little bit but it's like the most valuable

55:42Colin Moriarty:shit that's new it's kind of something there well this well before we get this guy's talking about this guy this cashier not knowing how to count or not not knowing what the uh what the value of coins is i don't know if you guys saw the uh that ai textbook where like an ahead like an ai like it was like a whole lesson plan in this textbook that was like it was like the map of the u.s and like south carolina was like sort of quanto and all of these different things like a completely gibberish periodic table of elements yeah i saw that i almost didn't believe it was a map that was reduced by like equivalent

56:25Dustin Furman:populations is that the one you're talking about where they reach oh i know i don't think so

56:29Colin Moriarty:necessarily i think it was just like here's here's the states you know just to teach kids what the states were and it was like sort of quanto and all these fake names because it was just like an ai generated united states map and an ai generated periodic table of elements full of fake like i think uh it was like a ai generated like phases of the moon and it was all gibberish it's insane and it's like real it's like a real thing i didn't believe it too and then like i saw it pop up a couple other times and like people real people report on but i'm like bro that's uh

57:06Dustin Furman:hopefully we're not making any decisions based on that periodic table with the wrong atomic numbers and shit right oh my god causing like massive explosions and i love it man i was thinking you were talking about i saw a map recently where they're like if if you redrew the map if you if you redrew the map to make 50 equivalent states based only on population and they were naming them all sorts of different things too which i thought was interesting so like some of the states are huge and some of the states are like a little nub yeah yeah um and so on even smaller than probably rhode island would be okay uh let's get into the news we have a inquiry here that i think is a clarification that and a few people wrote in about this.

57:45Dustin Furman:I appreciate it. You might remember last week, someone wrote in with a really thoughtful question, which was, what happens to money in pre-order? Like before the product exists? And we have an answer. I changed my name so you'd read it, wrote in. Said, hey boys, if you care to cover the GTA 6 money floating again, I've worked in pricing and compliance for years and wanted to add a couple of items on the question from last week. Take this with a grain of salt or a grain of salt as I'm in the banking and pharma industries, but I may or may not have worked on a certain type of account for a certain company that makes a certain enormous MMO.

58:16Dustin Furman:The money, if paid directly, what would that be? What do you think is World of Warcraft? Activision? Either that or Final Fantasy 14. Yeah. The money, if paid, I'm going to think it's Activision because he's probably Western. Yeah. The money, if paid directly to the publisher, would go to them just like any other money service account. They would deal with the chargebacks, alert, fraud, etc. and actually have different pricing structures. Think how Visa and Costco have unique arrangements. For a major relationship between a partner like SIE and a major publisher like Rockstar, Activision, EA, etc.

58:45Dustin Furman:There are likely terms in the marketing or other agreements about cash flow. They probably pay Rockstar biweekly and net out any changes in future months invoices. Rockstar can probably book all of this revenue regardless as the volume above and beyond pre-orders would cover any fluctuating items for quarterly reports. For some random indie game, this wouldn't matter. But on the scale of these major publishing partners, there's going to be arrangements on timing and payment. All the best. That makes a lot of sense to me. And it's true, and I know this from my own experiences, is that you are paid out from the publishers on different cadences, but depending on the publisher like it's just a kind of a sometimes you have to reach a threshold to get paid out or request a payout sometimes you just get paid out on weekly bi-weekly whatever it would be for you so that makes a lot of sense it is a really good question and what he's saying he dealt with the big problem of why it would be difficult to for money to change hands before the product existed is that they deal within these it's probably like rockstar gets x and then there's a bunch of chargebacks or whatever and then then why the next week or the next two weeks is minus those chargebacks and the money is still liquid enough where you can just absorb these these costs constantly that makes a good deal of sense and i also love the idea he brought this up and i have read about this in the past about because he says how visa and costco have unique arrangements it is interesting that the credit houses do have like special relationships with a bunch of the big companies where like there are kind of secret rates and like you have your own people to deal with like um liaisons at the company that you just go straight to as opposed to like us we take visa on our storefront, but we have no one there like advocating on our behalf naturally.

1:00:11Dustin Furman:So I appreciate you writing in about this and other people did as well with some clarity. So thank you. All right. My boys, let's get into the news. And we'll start with the state of play. That's what we got up for. If you didn't watch it live with us or on your own or in VOD, you're not really missing anything. Let's go around the horn and give our top thoughts for people that don't know. there were basically two back to back although i think they were a little redundant with each other and i'm not entirely sure why they did this as opposed to just so the first day to play was english was western oriented in english with japanese subtitles they showed 21 games and three miscellaneous items and then they did a japanese one that was in japanese with english subtitles and they showed 18 games but if you combine these lists together you could have probably done a 33 game or so fuller without redundancies sort of thing.

1:01:09Dustin Furman:I don't really know exactly what they why they did this, but I think they want to speak. I got to say, I'll be honest with you, I think they just want to speak more to their Japanese audience. And I feel like they feel like they haven't been doing a good job of that. And I think they're right. So I think that's probably all there is to it. But let's talk about what we thought. Chris, high level thoughts before

1:01:22Colin Moriarty:we get into the individual games uh that was that felt to me this state of play both of them really these felt like ah this could have been an email really like I I can't remember really like the biggest surprise to me and and I'm sure we'll get to it was man eater and the rest of it was just kind of like either updates to things we knew already or stuff that i i'm under no circumstances ever going to touch or play so like it was for me that was like a if i were to give it a letter grade that would be like a be like a d dude or like maybe like a c minus like i don't know wasn't nothing there for me but oh sorry i'm sorry well i mean like like you said i do think it exists specifically for the purpose i mean even just the timing kind of gave this away like how they do at the time that they decided to do this it's just like yeah they're speaking to their japanese audience so it's like of course it's not going to appeal to me yeah well it's still worth noting though that the first one was for us and that didn't speak to us yeah they say

1:02:30Dustin Furman:that but i don't know it wasn't yeah it's 5 30 in the morning yeah 6 a.m on on in california where

1:02:39Colin Moriarty:like most playstations like on the west coast where most most places are first party like i know this wasn't for us really like this it's crazy it felt obligatory which i think was the thing

1:02:51Dustin Furman:dustin wanted to what talked about rather during the pod but all right so what was your letter

1:02:55Colin Moriarty:grade a d i i if i'm being i guess it could have been worse it could have been stuff that i really hated there i guess Yes. C minus D plus something like that in that range. Okay. You know. Okay.

1:03:09Dustin Furman:Not F but like. Yeah no no. I think certainly not. Maybe Dustin disagrees though. Dustin what are your 40 ,000 foot thoughts here?

1:03:17Colin Moriarty:Yeah well I said on the stream that this state of play feels like a marketing obligation. The state of the marketing obligation for this one where you know you start out with a Resident Evil movie clip and that looks fine and good. like yeah movie looks cool but like also we're watching a state of play uh and then it's just i don't want to say mostly but a huge portion of this was updates and new trailers for things we've already seen which isn't necessarily bad but i think partially what was off for me is just that a lot of these update trailers we saw last week yeah at gamescom and so there was no time to even like oh look it's uh it's more metro uh gameplay it's like oh we saw we saw metro last week it's cool seeing more uh there were a couple interesting things in there uh chris mentioned man eater too i thought that looked pretty cool uh this the jury's out on what the end quality will be about this but that rhapsody and scarlet game was certainly unique and different uh so there were some exciting things too like the release day of final fantasy 7 revelation cool but again some of these things are still so fresh on the mind and a lot of them just feel like okay well we need to we have an agreement that we're going to show off this game uh we're going to and we need to remind everybody about ghost of yote and wolverine again and so if an average state of play which is what we talked about in the past where you give them c's which is like average it's like okay you fulfilled you had a lot of updates maybe one big announcement in there but this didn't have one big one it didn't there wasn't one like oh announcement the whole time so for that reason i gotta give it a d d yeah these nuts these nuts should be noted too that like even on average state of plays when there are when when it is littered with updates it's at least updates that we've not seen you know what i mean it's at least updates that are like they're at least fresh and new to us even if we don't give a shit about them or they're for games that we don't play at least at least they're like it's like new information but a lot of the updates like you said we're just like we saw these last week oh another thing too is the ghost of yote bit in the the Japanese part just where they're talking to the voice actress that did that was what's her face Atsu it just went on and on again I

1:05:59Dustin Furman:agree with you 100 % I also think that was for the Japanese audience to like you know this is a game we made really in mind you know from their perspective with you in mind you know here's some yeah I agree with you 100 % I think that even if that's the case it was too long yeah i i am seeing the vision but i i don't think it was well executed it's good for them to pay more attention to japan they made a huge mistake they know that remember they are selling a ps5 deeply subsidized in japan that is regional locked because they're afraid people will import it because it's that cheap so and japan loves physical games too

1:06:37Colin Moriarty:yeah i wonder they're not happy with them over there i still feel like there's such a culture

1:06:41Dustin Furman:divide between us and the Japanese gamer. I've talked a lot about when we were young, there was a real mystique about Japan because we really didn't know anything. A great example of this is Dagan and I recently sat down with our most recent episode of Knockback was about the movie The Wizard. The Wizard famously was the reveal of Super Mario 3. Something like that wouldn't even be possible today because by the time that movie came out, Mario 3 had already existed in Japan. We just didn't know. No one knew, so it was like this new idea but it's like this game is literally out you know and they're like revealing it like it's some new thing and so there was a huge barrier between us you would think that that would have collapsed more with the rise of the internet and in a lot of ways it has but i still feel like we're disconnected from that scene where like it's like how are you feeling what's the vibe um and i've i've reflected a lot on how i think there are so many secrets think about i think about all the things i know about what that i don't share with people about western development about people did this and this guy said this and this game did this that shit's definitely true in japan and we don't and it's these two silos it's like the soviet union in the u.s we're like just two knowledge bases that are and it's frustrating and so i think like the so when you see the japanese state of play it's like yeah that's endemic to the to the disconnect because we're just not we're not getting it anymore um and it's a little bit annoying but anyway all right so c c minus right chris is that what you said cc minus yeah i would say c minus on like a

1:08:13Colin Moriarty:in like a gen in a generous c minus d plus i think is where i would i'm closer i'm closer to d plus all right so let's just call it d plus that's okay d plus and then dustin you're at d

1:08:24Dustin Furman:yeah d's nuts i'm gonna give it a c um here's my thing is it's very difficult what are we grading If we're grading the value of the presentation, then it's more like almost an F, right? But I'm trying to be holistic in viewing it as, okay, like the games, like are there games? And the reality is, is there's probably like a dozen games here I want to play. So it'd be pretty disingenuous for me to be like, yeah, it's an F or a D, but the games look great. It's like, yeah, the presentation didn't warrant a lot of merit, but there are good games here and I don't want to be unfair to them. But I also don't want to give any credit.

1:09:01Dustin Furman:there was nothing you had said it man eater 2 is probably the most interesting thing to come out of it that we didn't know about and which is i can't i love man eater and i can't wait to play the sequel i loved the first one that that reminds me so much of that ps5 launch era like that first year um and i i really that game was so was it didn't like it was like some old snl guy did the vo for it right was it like chris parnell or something like that some random i think you're right I think that sounds familiar um Chris Parnell and I think it was made Chris Parnell yeah and I think it was made down in Georgia which is interesting so kind of a cool little game yeah but so I don't know if that makes sense to you guys like presentationally I thought it was really flat and too long I think Dustin you're absolutely right it came off as obligatory I think what's interesting is that September is usually a fairly strong one I think historically from either a showcase point of view or a state of play point of view.

1:10:00Dustin Furman:And it looks like they've kind of just gotten rid of the showcase branding. Maybe they'll bring that back when it's time to show PS6. I also want it. I also I'm sorry, Chris. No, no, I was I was disagreeing. I also wanted to say that I wonder what they're holding in reserve for PS6, at least like the year leading up to it. Things that are going to not come out in the next year or year and a half are probably going to be native to PS6, not exclusively, of course. But you might not want to talk about some things yet. And I think that that might be it's why they're so hand strung marketing right now.

1:10:31Dustin Furman:There's just things that can't be acknowledged. And I think that's frustrating for them. So. I come out like C, C minus maybe, but I'll call it a C. I think there were some really compelling games in here. I just think there were a few surprises. But when I think about some of the individual games, I'm like, these games look fucking sick. So not all of them, a lot of Japanese stuff that we're not interested in and a lot of samey sort of things, too. I think Chris had said like the anime aesthetic is just becoming very worn out and it's true it's very similar to how I feel about kind of a western fantasy aesthetic there's very little differentiation between them if you have a very fine eye of course you can identify this this this and this but really they're all kind of it's like what AI has done to writing it's all merging into this one thing right and anime frankly and I don't say this in any sort of bad way I've loved anime since I was a little boy like you know I'm not a huge fan of it but I've always watched it and enjoyed it.

1:11:26Dustin Furman:My brother's really into it. It's always looked the same. And in fact, the stuff I grew up on, if you're talking about like Bubblegum Crisis or Ron Mahaff or old DBZ or whatever, like the stuff that I actually watched with Dagan when I was younger, that shit was way more differentiated by a fucking mile than all the stuff is today. Oh, yeah. And so it is getting a little long in the tooth. And I don't know why everything has to look the same. I'm feeling this way a lot about a lot of the wuxia action games coming out of China as well, where it's like we got to get a different aesthetic going on here, guys.

1:12:00Dustin Furman:All right, let's go through these things. We can go through this quickly if we don't want to linger on anything, but I have a whole order of operations. If it was a war, it began with an opening salvo of Resident Evil, the film coming out September 18th. Interesting. Looks cool. I actually don't mind them showing a film and I don't mind them showing at first it doesn't bother me they are they are trying to be a cross-media platform it would make a little more sense with their own stuff to do that but um they did it with a third party they have a good relationship with capcom i'll maybe see this if it come you know i don't who am i i'm never gonna see this one no let's do sacred symbols plus on it we could yeah we could let's do it uh i'll ask micah if she's interested in seeing i'll do it yeah okay sacred plus yeah

1:12:46Colin Moriarty:People have asked me if we're going to do it. Oh, interesting. Why not?

1:12:50Dustin Furman:No, I mean, it would be an easy one. So we'll leave that aside then. That was A, because there's A, B, C, and then 1, 2, 3, all the way through 21 on my list. A would be the first of the non-game stuff, but we get into number one, Wolverine. You know, I mean, it's almost here. Number two, Ghost of Yotei, Most Wanted, and the Echoes of, what is the, I didn't write it down. I forgot. some japanese name uh that we already knew about this october 1st oh seki kahara i think it is um we already know that these free update or i guess some of them is free update no these are the paid updates on pardon me um these come out october 1st as part of the complete edition so we already know about this i'll check this out the timing is not great but i'll definitely i really liked ghost of yote and um i like that they're supporting it not only with like a single player expansion, but a single player sort of horde mode style thing that I think will be very compelling.

1:13:46Dustin Furman:So there's that to you guys. I mean, we already talked about this. We don't have to talk about that any further.

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1:14:36Dustin Furman:Predictions offer void in New York. Non-withdrawable rewards issued as$50. Click to claim every seven days for 21 days. Terms at dkng.co slash offer. Limited time offer. Nationwide based on sportsbook predictions and free-to-play sports contest availability varies by state. Monster Hunter Wild Descendants expansion coming out in 2027. Dustin, I guess you'll check that out. You said you were going to re-engage.

1:14:59Colin Moriarty:Yeah, Brad and I will play it. I'm not particularly thrilled about it. There wasn't anything that amazed me. but we played the base game and we enjoyed it to a reasonable degree. It wasn't amazing, but it was good.

1:15:12Dustin Furman:Metro 2039 from 4A was shown and it has a release date, which was news today, February 4th. So pretty soon, this is the fourth Metro game in the core series. I thought it looked great. This is one of those things where I'm like, you can't hate on this. This looks fucking awesome.

1:15:29Colin Moriarty:No, I, yeah, I mean, this, this game looks great. It looked great. A week ago. Hmm. When we saw it as well. This is kind of the issue, right? Is that like it's the way that I feel about this whole thing is like it's the new stuff that we saw. Like, what's the new stuff? And it's like that was like, oh, that was all over the place. But this I mean, Metro looks great. Metro always looks fantastic. That lighting, man, they're just doing some wizardry with that lighting.

1:15:57Dustin Furman:Looks so good all the time. And like Dustin was saying, it's getting it says at the beginning made in Ukraine. yeah proudly stop getting political proudly yeah of course stop getting political i thought that was the funniest thing you said in the end that was very funny making a game under that level of duress is uh insane yeah like they've talked about i think how like people have been getting drafted and like just taken away from the studio and it was them and uh stalker too right yeah um that's a gsc game world yeah because i i thought they were both i thought that i think gsc moved to like Malta or something or like at least our headquarters 4A I thought bailed out too but I guess they didn't because I thought they would have moved to like the Baltics or something but I mean not that that's an easier trivial thing to do but I just I didn't know that they were still like in there really fully so

1:16:48Colin Moriarty:you think that there are AAA studios out there that are like kind of in crunch time right now and they just they're looking around at the people working and they're like listen they're building it on the mortar fire over they're building metro under mortar fire in the Ukraine right now so

1:17:06Dustin Furman:listen the Ruskies are I don't want to hear you complain yeah exactly the Ruskies are about to breach the fucking outer perimeter and these guys are shipping you know what have you been doing here

1:17:20Dustin Furman:that's awesome I love that I hope someone's doing that yeah and I hope someone's recording it

1:17:29Dustin Furman:all right number five was man eater two this is an all new game very very exciting shark pg as it were the press release says roswell georgia just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water developer and publisher tripwire interactive and co-development partner demiurge made a splash during today's zony state of play with the debut trailer for man eater 2 announcing the sequel to the 2020 eat them up sensation gaming's first open world action rpg starring a shark a shark pg shark pg is currently in development for playstation 5 it's also coming to xbox switch 2 and steam um for those that are unaware man eater was a game where you played as a shark and basically like terrorized the waters and it was super funny and interesting and unique and i i really really liked it at the time i didn't think we would see more about it or more of it which is um a pleasant surprise and a demiurge which is a boston uh based studio is i guess going to probably be making most of it and i guess triple r will be acting as the steward and the publisher and triple r is more known for the killing floor series and stuff like that so i think that's more where like the actual core studio is is has their minds in an era where we're so saturated with games i had noted on the stream that 800 games came to steam last week um which is fucking so the amount of games on the nes came to steam last week um stuff like this i thought would be starting to fall through the cracks and that they didn't get it spun up sooner indicated to me maybe it wasn't a big hit but maybe this is one of those things that just kind of burned for a while and they're like yeah let's let's do it again so i highly recommend the original highly very very fun game excited to see it and that's in 2027 all right number six is crimson desert charting the unknown update october 15

1:19:27Dustin Furman:crimson desert crimson desert um that game looked so fun to me coming up until like people started talking about actually playing it and then i'm like oh never mind yeah it's kind of how i feel about the Elder Scrolls. I'm good. Thank you. Yeah.

1:19:46Dustin Furman:B, the Lego set that's been leaked. The PS1, the original PlayStation 1994 PlayStation. A little bit of a throwback in there with Gran Turismo and Ape Escape. Kind of strange choices, I think. Both, if I'm being honest. But yeah. Maybe with more of a Japanese edge or more of a traditionalist edge. Gran Turismo obviously is like the original OG. hit I mean it's from 1997 1998 it's not it's not OGOG but it's the oldest series they still have

1:20:15Colin Moriarty:going um Radek uh pointed out on Twitter that they chose Ape Escape as one of the references but the controller you build is not a DualShock oh yeah I was about to I was about to mention that we're like that's it's kind of funny that that's the case that's interesting very interesting

1:20:40Dustin Furman:so there's that if you're interested it's 1 ,911 pieces I thought you were going to say dollars it might be it's a Lego set so who knows oh god number 7 was Final Fantasy Resonance which we know is coming out October 22nd I think it's obviously a reduction of this ongoing mobile game what is it called XVI or something is that the one

1:21:03Colin Moriarty:something like that

1:21:04Dustin Furman:who knows the big news here is that there's a demo so if you want to check it out you can i think it looks awesome by the way some people are saying because i always complain about the octopath traveler big human bosses and they're like but that's done in old final fantasy games and i'm like to a degree but think about like final fantasy four when you meet tella and he's just a little sprite because he's a human like you are or when you're fighting general leo or you encounter him and he joins your party in final fantasy six he's just a little sprite there's just some weird dissonance with the way that they present some of the stuff that I don't I don't agree with I don't think looks good but um Final Fantasy Resonance I'm gonna play the shit out of that game I think it looks awesome number eight Gundam Rogue Orbit launches March 5th looks cool I don't know uh anything about Gundam really so I feel like I'd be a total poser playing it but it does look nice I have never watched a Gundam like an actual

1:21:59Colin Moriarty:Gundam anime I've watched Evangelion of course but that's different I think the screen looks awesome and i was saying on the stream that armored core is made me more open to mech based combat and i thought this looked pretty good previous gundam games have never reviewed very well but this does look significantly higher quality than some of those past ones

1:22:23Dustin Furman:number nine is hunter's moon this game was actually revealed last year in the summer but it's been confirmed for PlayStation 5 with a release date of October 26. They describe it as a first-person historical narrative folk horror game. And Hunter's Moon is set over the course of one fateful night, the press release reads. Meet mummers dressed in folk costumes, evade capture by the witch hunters, and eavesdrop on a characterful, characterful, Jesus, cast of regular folk worn down by war and misfortune. Discover the secrets of this dysfunctional village on the brink as you embody an accused witch on the run for her life very unique stilted animation style they claim more than 100 fully voice acted characters and that aforementioned eavesdropping mechanic is fundamental to the game apparently so it sounds pretty cool um it's just coming out at a bad time there's just so many other things to distract you by the way the only comment on the playstation blog post is get a ceo with a higher iq sony all right iq score no iq

1:23:29Colin Moriarty:score yeah iq score that's so funny something funnier about saying iq score you're right

1:23:37Dustin Furman:oh my god so there's that that looks cool but it's gonna get lost in the sauce i think another one they have here is uncanyon that was number 10 this is a an adventure game being published by annapurna and developed by a studio called graceful decay and they write quote today we're excited to give you the first glimpse of what we've been building. This is on Canyon. Uncanyon is a puzzle first adventure set in a forgotten world that emerged and once flourished in the folds of converging unparalleled universes. You play as Sonia, a stranger to this land as she explores, she'll start piecing together, not just how to survive on Canyon, but why it needs her, whether she's ready for that role or not.

1:24:17Dustin Furman:So kind of a, a isometric puzzle game, puzzle action game. Looks pretty cool. Yeah.

1:24:25Colin Moriarty:It's got some trippy animations in it.

1:24:27Dustin Furman:looks kind of cool the gamekeeper is available now this was number 11 this was an xbox game from double fine now that double fine is out this was probably already planned to come to playstation anyway i don't think there's anything really conspiratorial about it but now that they're out um and on their own and we'll talk about them later i didn't expect this to come up so uh during this uh the trophies actually leaked so it was fairly clear this was going to come. They were on Exophase a couple of days ago, so they published too soon. But yeah, Double Fine's out and independent. They're going to need the money.

1:25:00Dustin Furman:I think they walked away with their IP anyway, and this was probably already in the works. So I think from all those points of view, they probably benefit, and so it's out right now, and it looks pretty cool. Again, I just don't think this is a good time to be releasing anything, and I wonder how well it's going to do. Number 12 was Rev Noir, which we saw earlier this year, and I think that game looks really cool. This is a Konami game. so we don't have to linger on that too much the other newer game though that they showed was oh I can get rid of this we don't need this do we need this open anymore get a CEO with a higher IQ score Sony we don't need that open let's see Revenoir is the action RPG so we don't need that so Rhapsody in Scarlet is the other game number 13 and I thought this was the most interesting game perhaps outside of maybe Maneater but certainly the most notable, I think, game.

1:25:52Dustin Furman:They write, Discover exhilarating combo-driven action mixing magic and powerful beasts in 1920s New York. And a representative from Konami writes on the PlayStation blog, quote, We're thrilled to have revealed Rhapsody in Scarlet, a brand new action game for PlayStation 5 during today's State of Play and State of Play Japan. Set in the jazz-filled streets of 1920s New York, Rhapsody in Scarlet is an action game where players can enjoy exhilarating combos by wielding magic and beasts. Behind the city's dazzling skyscrapers in lively streets and unseen conflict rages among those who practice magic and secret.

1:26:23Dustin Furman:Players take on the role of Ellie, a young magus or magus who finds herself swept up in the events that will shape her destiny. There is a trailer. Of course, they covered it in both the English language and Japanese language ones as well. And I think we all agree. I mean, I really kind of dig this. It's like an anime 1920s New York City. It's pretty neat. There's not many new ideas. I think we have to give credit where credit is due. I've never seen anything like this. So I'm very intrigued by this. And I think underlying that is just my hope that Konami really begins to figure it out. And I think they are.

1:27:01Dustin Furman:They are slowly emerging. Because Rev Noir looks really cool too. Rev Noir comes out in 2027. I don't think there's any date attached to Rhapsody and Scarlet yet. Dustin, what are your thoughts?

1:27:11Colin Moriarty:Yeah, I was saying that this was certainly one of the most unique looking games. I think it's to be clear I know what you meant Colin but while it is anime ish it's I would say it's more like Japanese game yeah okay sure yeah the characters don't look like Genshin and that's

1:27:29Dustin Furman:true yeah it's like Resident Evil-esque in um maybe a little more maybe a little more stylized

1:27:34Colin Moriarty:but yeah yeah you're right you're right yeah um but this looks really really cool um I like the you know the jazz music was a big emphasis they had like some kind of mafia some kind of a gay looking mafia guy you know that was uh extra spicy in there so that seemed kind of cool but um yeah i'm i'm interested i want to see more are you interested in either of these games

1:28:00Dustin Furman:chris rev noir much more traditional anime or rhapsody and scarlet a more unique japanese

1:28:05Colin Moriarty:approach to uh new york city i mean rhapsody looks i like conceptually what what rhapsody is i like the idea of like throwing the mafia like fusing the mafia and mages is kind of interesting like that's weird and not something that you would typically see the jazz soundtrack and like the the sepia tone or sepia tone i guess is the right way to say it uh new york city 1920s i i i like it until it becomes what the game is which is like you see these like really like really cool looking new york city streets with like the the oil like the lamplight and it's like this is cool and then it's smash cuts to like a character on a digimon in like a in like a desolate wasteland and then all of that character is kind of like not there it's I don't know it's I like it conceptually but I can't imagine that I'm gonna get into this I hope it does well because I think it's a good idea and I think it's a neat I hope they land the plane on it but it looks too it doesn't feel like it's really committing to that I'm a style yeah I'm

1:29:21Dustin Furman:we'll see I'm rooting for Konami I am interested I'm interested in this as Alucard might say. All right. His iconic quote. I'm interested in this. That is, it is his iconic quote. It's his catchphrase. All right. They showed the game MicroPunk, which is launching on PS5 in October, and it will launch into the PlayStation Plus game catalog at the extra and premium tiers, which is pretty cool. It's already in early access, I think on Steam. It's described as a mission-based cooperative first-person shooter. The press release as relayed by our friends at Gamatsu, they have a list of key features.

1:30:07Dustin Furman:One of them says fungicidal tendencies. Choose from an outrageous arsenal of advanced futuristic weaponry, then supercharge them in a one-of-a-kind grid-based upgrade system, blah, blah, blah. Guys, fungicidal tendencies should have been the name of the game. That's a fucking dope name. But nonetheless, I'll deal with Michael Punk as well. That's fine. Yeah, Early Access launched last year. I've never even heard of this game until today. I had to read a little bit about it. But it's a PlayStation 5 console exclusive, which is interesting. So that's coming if anyone's interested. And then classics.

1:30:41Dustin Furman:Number 15, 16, and 17 are all classics. Mega Man X Command Mission. Dusty Boy. What do you think? This is a 2004 PlayStation 2 and GameCube game. It's like an action RPG. A spinoff of X.

1:30:53Colin Moriarty:Did you ever play this game? No, never. I don't know anything about this game, but I can't say I'm just happy that it's a reasonable choice. It's not like here's some movie tie in Disney game. Here's Atlantis, you know, like Disney's Atlanta.

1:31:11Dustin Furman:Yeah, Disney's just there. I've said before, John, it's all I has to be through that guy, John Drake, who used who is now the VP of licensing at Disney, who was the third part ahead of third party of PlayStation. There is literally no doubt in my mind that that is the connection between this is all happening.

1:31:27Colin Moriarty:To be clear, I love some of that weird, obscure stuff thrown in the mix every once in a while, but can be a bit much. So to see some, you know, some more fan favorites was nice.

1:31:39Dustin Furman:So there's that Mega Man X Command Mission, the PS2 version. Of course, there is a GameCube version of it as well. Dino Crisis 2, another Capcom game. they released Dino Crisis 1 not too long ago right so that's cool sounds right Dino Crisis 1 of course was a PS1 game very late release came out right on the precipice of the PS2's launch in the fall of 2000 and then re-release of the original Ratchet & Clank as well standalone I saw a friend of mine James Stevenson who's the head of marketing and brand at Insomniac tweet out that it will have a new trophy list I think this is notable because Capcom, so Mega Man X and Dino Crisis 2 are obviously Capcom games.

1:32:24Dustin Furman:They don't do trophies in a lot of their classic games, which is disappointing. So like Onimusha 4 just came out or Dawn of Dreams, and that doesn't have trophies, which is a crime against humanity, frankly. So there's that. And then number 18, I'm very curious to see what you guys think of this. they talked about Saros. Updates are coming. The Zenith update later in 2026 will add new game plus and so on and so forth. But it felt to me, guys, like they kind of missed the mark on. I'm very curious what the feedback is that they're getting on Saros because a lot of the things that they were talking about in this is we noted when we were watching is it sounds like they want to make it easier.

1:33:08Dustin Furman:And I don't want I don't want that to be confused with accessibility because they are doing accessibility options, which is a very PlayStation thing. And that's different. It sounds like they are trying to make it easier to approach. And I'm like, Saros already is really easy. That's the problem with the game for a lot of people. So I am wondering if we are just alone on an island where like the actual feedback they're getting is like, oh, it's hard. Could that possibly be? Dustin, what do you think?

1:33:34Colin Moriarty:I'm not sure. I went to go to the PlayStation blog to see if there was a breakdown. There's no post on PlayStation blog about. no yeah no post very strange um but yeah i i'm not really sure what they're doing because it's it's tough because when we talked about sorrows and and did our spoiler cast we were on agreement that it was like yeah they must have gotten the feedback that it was that uh returnal was too hard so this was kind of their step in that direction um and then you know we all thought it was too easy and it sold poorly so as maybe they're like oh we still didn't we didn't go far enough with it i i'm not really sure i put in the chat all i could find by the way dustin

1:34:21Dustin Furman:when i was researching it's a gamatsu relay of something from house markets only two paragraphs it says quote the zenith update adds overlord rush a brand new mode where you can take off the powerful overlord and take on the powerful overlord enemies from the main game back to back go for a high score and compete with players around the world using integrated leaderboards and a throwback to the classic arcade style Housemarque is known for. So that's kind of cool. Then they write, This update also brings Eclipse Layers, a new game plus mode, which allows seasoned enforcers to put their skills to the ultimate test.

1:34:48Dustin Furman:After clearing Saros, players can return to the beginning and take on more challenging versions of the game. You can rise to meet these trials with even more progression options and new Carcassin modifiers to customize your experience. There are also new secrets and trophies to discover as you delve deeper into the Eclipse Layers. So they're not spinning it in their verbiage from Housemarque itself as something that's easier, but in the trailer, that was something they really nailed and so i wonder if they mention weapon loadouts in the trailer they did that that would be which which fundamentally makes the game easier uh that's why i don't it all wraps up into the car coast and modifier stuff where people are like you don't have to use them and i'm like i don't agree i don't agree that that's what the way they built the game it's not something buried in a menu it is front and center they want you to use it i don't I said it when Saros came out.

1:35:37Dustin Furman:I liked it. I platinumed it. I enjoyed it. I thought it was a great game, but it is not Returnal by any stretch of the imagination. And it's kind of disappointing from that perspective because I wanted more Returnal and you kind of got it, but kind of not. And I appreciate the old school spirit, Chris, of wanting to do something different. The old NES style, like we can't do a sequel. That's the same. We're going to give you Zelda 2. we're gonna give you Castlevania 2 we're gonna give you Mario 2 in the right did you know Mario 2 is Doki Doki Panic whoa so there's a spirit there but then I'm like but it was too reactive like the game is a reaction to Returnal as opposed to a continuation of it and I don't really quite understand that it's almost like they didn't like Returnal you know what I mean like internally they're like kind of the vibe I get I don't know a little bit a little bit all right so that's uh not dated yet but will come later this year and so keep an eye out for the zenith update presumably it's free all right and then quickly uh gran turismo 7 uh casanori was actually on the stream which is interesting you don't see him very often um and they talk about a bunch of updates coming to gt7 none of us play gt7 really uh i have nothing to say about it other than that i'll just keep nailing that gran turismo is this kind of slow burn thing for them right now where GT7 is actually growing in size and we were talking on the stream about I wonder what their plans are for the next Gran Turismo certainly they're going to have one for PS6 you assume but I wonder if they're going to kind of slow burn that a little bit slow play it because you don't really need to do anything right now and considering the value of Gran Turismo and how they could have easily ported it to PC and there were rumors that they did were porting it to PC and then they got cancelled kind of a wise move not to put it anywhere because it is such a huge hit it is still probably the most esteemed sim racer even though there are other competitors and i had noted on the stream that iRacing actually which is a big competitor to GranTersmo came to playstation this past week all right a few more here until dawn 2 release date january 28 very soon very soon indeed coming from fire sprite of course did you see that the word is is that actually the game is being co-developed by the guys that did that game dispatch did you see this ad hoc studios that they think they apparently did the story and a bunch of stuff for it which is interesting so um oh it says it here in the play stage box story crafted with ad hoc studios the creators of dispatch we partnered with our friends at ad hoc studio the brilliant minds behind the acclaimed dispatch so you can expect a deeply layered story packed with rich characters, razor sharp dialogue, fraught relationships, tough decisions, and yes, more than a few gruesome deaths.

1:38:26Dustin Furman:I don't even want to know or see more about this. I'm looking forward to it. I love Until Dawn 1, the original Until Dawn 1, not the remake. And having more of this, I think, will be great. I am also, and I noted this on the stream, I'm curious, it's fairly clear Hayden Panettiere is in the game. They filmed a bunch of stuff for Until Dawn 1, brought her back if you beat until dawn one remake there's a bunch of things you can find it's not really a spoiler because a lot of it is just interviews with the actress and stuff like that i wonder obviously her work's done the game is probably finished at this point and they're just polishing it but i wonder if will it open with like a dedicated to will it have a thing in the credits you know how it's dead i'm just curious about that i feel like almost certainly yeah in the credits at least sad news there and yeah are you guys interested in until dawn too i think this is a day one for all of us probably i have a positive and a negative way to look at it yeah

1:39:20Colin Moriarty:uh everything all of these games from uh what is it super massive yeah super massive they're uh dark pictures none of them resonated with me and then the quarry is rock bottom yeah the quarry was i thought the quarry was pretty poor yeah fucking sucked and i remember just feeling like so ripped off from spending what 70 60 or 70 bucks on it um so on a positive look it's like well we've already seen hopefully rock bottom like it is unlike it is very unlikely to me that this game will be worse than the quarry uh but that's kind of the last taste in my mouth of these types of games so i'm not like thrilled about it but i'm open to it so i will certainly be playing it but a little bit of the the specialness of that first until dawn is kind

1:40:14Dustin Furman:of gone for me yeah i think some of the guys at fire sprite are from supermassive but it what you're saying is true in that based on their output and i know some people really like the dark pictures anthology i'm not shitting on them at all it's just and they just released a new one right 80 20 or whatever which just came out somewhat recently i just feel like is it possible that that was a like a they were lucky that until dawn hit how it did and that they and that the playstation audience was there as like it was an exclusive it came out at a really good time remember right before like that late summer right leading into halloween i think and 2015 i recall yeah i don't know we'll see what happens but it's this is a funny one for them to continue until dawn out of all like when you know we talk about the ip and it's like bring back these ip people want this this and this and they're like how about until dawn 2 and it's like that's cool

1:41:06Colin Moriarty:but you guys know what we want you know yeah you know for as much shit that we have given sony for their lack of stewardship this might be a case where until dawn was like heavily shepherded by sony and that's what made it great um and you also look at um uh the detroit developers Quantic dream. They can't do anything, it seems, now without Sony. So maybe they're, you know, to give them a little credit there.

1:41:39Dustin Furman:Yeah, I mean, definitely, dude. I mean, Sony's getting a lot of shit lately, and I think reasonably so, but they know how to make games, obviously. Now, it doesn't always work out. That 2015 also gave us the order, which I know is a more divisive thing. People like it, which is very short. All right, so until Dawn 2, January 28th, there are some pre-order stuff if you want to look now there's like costumes and things of this nature I don't see any early release though for which is too bad not a huge surprise I'm surprised honestly I mean I'm just gonna be real with you I'm surprised that not every single game isn't available early for 10 bucks why not yeah if I were Sony I'd be like yeah every one of our games would just fucking put$10 on it and you can have it three days early sure it's like what like fucking who cares it's a little weird to me all right see so the third and final non-game thing is the gta 6 controller i thought that was kind of cool there's two wireless controllers big the big vi roman numerals on the touchpad yeah one white one black with blue accents and um maybe i'll pick one up these are probably going to fly off the shelves there are$85 or your local equivalent and pre-orders begin um on playstation direct and probably other places too that are you know participating in uh on september 10th are you guys interested in these controllers i still kind of want the wolverine one i think i missed out on that though i don't know if they'll ever make more of them because they sold out pretty quick

1:43:12Colin Moriarty:these are definitely some of the best looking like game collaboration dual sense controllers that i've seen i really like uh the inner like blue and purple part the um the trans colors

1:43:24Dustin Furman:that yeah right right right yeah and the pink i like the pink face buttons and the um yeah yeah

1:43:30Colin Moriarty:i'm curious about it looks like the actual plastic is molded with the palm trees on the side be careful about that white one with those you know the ridges on there that's gonna yeah it's gonna to get grody fast i like the white one more than the black one which normally i'm a black controller guy but i i i don't need either one of these but like i said pretty nice and then so oh chris you have anything you want to say before we move on no i like the pink the there's something about the pink button it especially shows on the black i think it looks really cool yeah it looks awesome on the black the black with the black controller looks pretty cool i just i don't need a i just

1:44:12Dustin Furman:wish they would make more base colors you remember like the ps1 and ps2 eras where you could buy like you like could find any color you wanted basically of a controller and a memory card back in the day it's like let's get back into that a little bit especially because it's probably pretty high i mean i'm sure they're expensive to make but 85 for a controller is kind of fucking onerous dude i mean if you're going to do that at least give me some options all right and finally from the english state of play final fantasy 7 part 3 was revealed to come out april 8th and we don't need to see any more of the game i'm good on that now i won't subject chris to that dustin we've talked about that continuously so i don't think we have anything to say about it either it looks great

1:44:55Colin Moriarty:yeah i pre-ordered the the middle tier special edition only because i have the middle tier special edition for one and two oh yeah that makes sense and every time i get them i'm like i don't need this crap in here but i can't abide by the fact that i wouldn't have one of them at this point so i pre-ordered that just earlier today so revelation like i said boys comes out the eighth this does have 24 hour early access if you pre-order so that's something yeah i'm gonna be up that game's ass far just letting you know far all right the japanese one we can go

1:45:32Dustin Furman:through these fairly quick unless there's anything you want to say, especially because some of it's redundant. Dragon Ball Xenoverse 3, 2027. Fate Extra Record or Record, I don't know. January 28th, 2027. Interesting, new game, coming to PS4. I want everyone to look at my eyeballs. The PS5 is going to be in your life for the rest of your fucking life. It's never going away. Never. If PS4 is getting games 14 years 14 years after the console launched. I can't even imagine what's going to happen with PS5. And just so you know, that's the equivalent of releasing an NES game in 1999. Okay. Everyone on board?

1:46:20Dustin Furman:Number three, Monster Hunter Ascendance. We already talked about that. Number four, Dragon Quest Monsters, The Withered World. We've already known about this, but it comes out December 3rd. That's a good release window. for it. And I'll be curious to see how it does. It reminds me a little bit of when Square Enix, it was in 2022, I think, released Crisis Core, like December 15th. And it did really well. I think there's just something cozy about some of these games and seasonal, as it were. And it's cool to see Dragon Quest Monsters, not for nothing, make its PlayStation debut all these years later.

1:46:50Dustin Furman:It's been almost 30 years since Dragon Quest Monsters launched on Game Boy Color. So there's that the eminence in shadow phantom echoes was announced this is an anime licensed game someone actually knew what it was in the chat a few people did yeah we asked it actually looks pretty cool again though I always thought the sword sword art online games look cool too and we'll talk about that in a minute but can't play it without knowing the subject matter it just doesn't make any sense I do feel like a little bit of a poser i talked about this a few months ago about how fax anadu which is a nes game i really like is actually a like a nihon falcon like like trails game and i felt like a little bit of a poser not knowing that until literally very recently number six was rematch which is the soccer anime it's getting some sort of collaboration september 24th no one cares number seven was where the seed falls November 5th this is like a small game from Psy Games the guys that do Grand Blue Fantasy this game is a really cool idea but it looked really rough like I it was one of the few games they showed specifically during the Japanese state of play where I was like I can't believe you're showing it like this with like pop-in and weird frame rates and stuff like and it's gonna be ready this November it's not looking good but it's it's a vertical climbing game i don't know how to explain it really kind of looks like a team eco game to me like a bootleg team eco game but a team yeah i was about to say like relax yeah it's not let's i'm not getting care i'm not trying to get too tired of it uh gundam rogue orbit already talked about that what is world phase band control authority i don't

1:48:38Colin Moriarty:even know what the fuck that was i can't remember what these games were and this wasn't that long

1:48:44Dustin Furman:long ago world phase band oh my god was it called world world phase band control authority was that was that just not a game phase bound phase bound oh i'm sorry phase band world phase bound oh yeah here it is it comes up sorry about that yeah there's a thing that looked uh like it like briefly like it was exit eight yeah right right right it's uh craft and is publishing it so the pub g guys step into the city shadows as defenders against the paranormal your mission contain the phase-bound horrors the manifested fictions encroaching upon our world and the survival of humanity this actually does look kind of cool so there's that stupid never dies out october 21st i think it looks kind of cool to be honest with you gross it looks like some parts of it look

1:49:34Colin Moriarty:like there's parts of it where i'm like that doesn't look too bad and then there's other parts of it where I'm just where it feels like this looks grueling like I mentioned on the stream that there's like elements of the UI that really reminded me of like when I tried uh Suicide Squad Kill the Justice League and the UI was just kind of like a mess of colors and like really loud and really noisy and very style over substance um I don't really know I don't know what to make of this it doesn't look terrible but it definitely looks like one of those things that uh I don't know if acquired taste is the right term necessarily but yeah that might be looks quite specific

1:50:14Dustin Furman:all right uh number 11 was slash zero this game looks dope this is from a developer called street lamp studio it's a 2.5d side-scrolling game um it's described as slash zero as a side-scrolling action roguelike game as a time hacker your job is to travel across timelines and explore a cyberpunk world to use combat skills and strategies to piece together the truth and take down the lord of the void. Is what you see the truth? We're going to find out, I guess. Q1 2027 on PlayStation 5. That was definitely one that stood out to me in the Japanese one. The Japanese state of play. Dustin, I know one that stood out to you is number 12, the Echoes of Aincrad Genesis Maidens expansion for Sword Art Online.

1:50:52Dustin Furman:Looking forward to that very much. Number 13 was Digimon Story Time Stranger, a Hero's Eternal Legacy. This is an expansion, I guess, for that game. number 14 was a game called conk conq crown of no quarter you were promised the heavens but found only eternal purgatory unable to escape unable to truly die gather your forces across sea and land show no mercy and give your enemies no quarter it's time to bleed again this is by a studio called athena games it seems like it's their first game this one is another one that looked really rough i thought cool idea but a lot of the combat like the crowd combat that they were showing i was like this is bad like i like where i'm like i can't believe they let this go not sony but like the studio is like we're gonna show the game like this where like if you watch the crowds it's nonsense a lot of it yeah like it doesn't seem to work but i don't want to be too harsh on it maybe it's better than it seems and i like how it's called conk that pleases me very much 15 and 16 were rhapsody and scarlet and rev noir and i think konami did a deeper dive on these games as well if you're interested on their own.

1:51:59Dustin Furman:So you can check those out. I'm good on those. I don't really need to see more. Let's see. The penultimate game was number 17. This was Daba Land of Water Scar, which is a China Hero game that was announced some time ago. But they've announced that this game from Dark Star, a Chinese studio, will now launch on PlayStation 5 in the spring of 2027. And I think it looks pretty good. We'll see. a lot of these shiny hero games kind of come and go, but they do have a few big hits in there that are worth noting. We talked about Fist, the uncomfortably named Fist, the other day in the sequel that's coming out for that.

1:52:40Dustin Furman:But I thought this looked pretty interesting. And then finally they close with the Ghost of Yote stuff, which we already talked about. Yeah. So that's everything for this data plan. Are you satiated? I hope so.

1:52:52Colin Moriarty:I think so.

1:52:54Dustin Furman:All right. before we get into the bigger news here i thought i would acknowledge um gta 6 as the next piece of news so i promised we would get back to this variety reports that the extended look was the top of the netflix chart the week it came out with 31.1 million views in four days now this is interesting because it obviously happened with only six hours of exclusivity as variety points out and it was number one in 87 of 93 countries that Netflix tracks which is crazy they write here this is a really important point quote for comparison Grand Theft Auto 6 and extended look views have topped 17 million on YouTube just on the Rockstar Games account only as of the times of publication Tuesday so a few days ago a couple days ago the video was posted by to YouTube by Rockstar Games at 9 p.m.

1:53:43Dustin Furman:last Thursday following its exclusive debut earlier that day on Netflix It should be noted here that YouTube and Netflix count views very differently. Netflix defines a view as the total hours viewed for a title divided by its runtime, meaning one household watching a program twice would be counted only once. On YouTube, a view is counted as soon as any video, whether it's a short or repeating view or partial play, starts to play. That's big time. That's 31.1 million complete views of the half an hour presentation. Absolutely crazy. I don't know if you saw it was reported by the Game Business blog that sales of both PlayStation and Xbox were up 33 % on the back of, you know, respectively, on the back of the announcement.

1:54:26Dustin Furman:So huge, just absolutely huge. And then I also wanted to note, and this was reported by the website Torrent Freak, which we talk about every once in a while when we get into more technical things. they write that the uh leak probe is quote-unquote rapidly evolving as take two continues to seek out people's identities under subpoena and seal so that no one knows that they're getting going who's getting going gone after i i'm i'm feeling kind of confident they might figure this out now the the big thing is will they be able to get the people and i think that's a different question entirely people were making fun of me last week and i think reasonably so because i was saying like 250 000 is not a lot of money and i and by like but what i was saying was for what they did right and chris was saying like you sacrifice like there might be four of them it seems like based on transactions like uh on the blockchain and so it's like you did all this for 75 grand 70 grand i'm like you put a target on your back forever it's not to say that that's not a lot of money in a vacuum it's like can you like have second order reasoning like or is it just is it all about the money.

1:55:30Dustin Furman:It's like, now you like, if these people might be criminal, like they might not be able to really leave the places they are because they might get arrested as soon as they do. And it's like, you did all this for nothing. So I'll be very curious. This will be something that I want to touch on with Hoag, but I'll be very curious if they have figured out more than we think. And I wonder if we'll wake up one day and they will have arrested someone or at least conclusively say who it was or something like that. So I want to throw that out there as well. We'll keep an eye on that story as we go. this story has been making the rounds that I thought was fairly interesting.

1:56:06Dustin Furman:Video Games Chronicle reports, Sony says reasonable consumers know they don't own digital games they buy. Sony has told the court that reasonable consumers are fully aware that when they buy a digital game, that doesn't mean they own it. And they write, In June, four players sued Sony Interactive Entertainment for allegedly breaking California law by not making it clear on the PlayStation Store that players are buying licenses to games, not actually owning the games. The argument made was because PlayStation Store uses terms like buy now and confirm purchase. Players are under the impression they're buying a copy of a game that they own rather than a license to access the game that can be revoked by Sony at any point in the future.

1:56:39Dustin Furman:Now it's reported by GameFile, which is Steven Sotillo's blog. Sony recently filed this response to the lawsuit claiming that customers are not only told, quote, your purchase of this digital product amounts to a license, end quote, but that, quote, reasonable consumers, end quote, already understand this anyway without having to be told. Sony's argument is that because digital copies of games are not a finite resource and that because multiple people can buy a digital copy of the same game, that means no one actually owns it. If they did, no one else will be able to have it. Sony's filing reads, quote, by the way, that to me sounds fucking nuts.

1:57:11Dustin Furman:I just wanted you to know. Sony's filing reads, quote, as plaintiff admit, Section 1 of the SPLA likewise explains that the software is licensed to you, not sold. This makes sense. in the digital age, it is not plausible to allege that reasonable consumers believed they were obtaining ownership of a digital game. Were that the case, then plaintiff Edward Haycock would not have been able to obtain the game Resident Evil Requiem on February 25th, 2026 for$69.99 from the PlayStation store after plaintiff Jason Mendoza had obtained Resident Evil Requiem on February 14th because Mr. Mendoza, not Sony, would have owned it then.

1:57:42Dustin Furman:End quote. This is the argument that they're making? This is a fucking specious argument, dude. in my opinion it's incredibly dumb like it like i'm not even trying to be like body them or be mean it's fucking stupid that's such a dumb argument dustin what are your thoughts yeah i

1:58:03Colin Moriarty:the argument is so stupid and i was thinking like you're you're going to talk to hoag soon and i would imagine from based on previous conversations you've had with him is that uh it's in the agreement when you make the purchase so they can say that like oh well reasonable consumers they're fully aware they they agree to it when you buy it um so i i think this is dumb and i think that it's weird too it's ignoring the idea that there are a hundred percent uh places where you can have digital ownership you can buy something and you own it and it can't be taken away from you that exists um so it's just um the whole situation has been so funny in the midst of all of this uh you know physical game stuff sony sent out that reminder email that's like oh by the way i you don't actually own this like who who was thinking uh that that would be a good idea unless they're just so fucking cocky there they're like oh yeah you'll keep buying from us and your little uh you know your protest doesn't matter and uh oh by the way let's remind you about how we're in charge it's what it feels like whether that's truly intended or not it comes off that

1:59:21Dustin Furman:way for sure i mean if that's not intended then they they have very poor planning and communications in my opinion yeah so what do you think chris i think yeah it's it's it's almost one of the most absurd arguments i think i've ever heard um i you could make the you could make an argument that

1:59:41Colin Moriarty:like oh a reasonable person knows that it's a license because you know most people who pay attention to this stuff is aware of the situation and is aware of the you know the environment that surrounds this this conversation but at the same time it's not it's not really reasonable to assume that when you buy something, you don't own it. Like, that's unreasonable. That's way more unreasonable, in my opinion. So, like, it's... It's a bad argument. It's a bad argument. It's a cocky argument. It's a really tone-deaf argument, also. That's the kind of thing that stuck out to me. It was just like, that's crazy that you went out and...

2:00:28Colin Moriarty:You didn't have to say anything.

2:00:31Dustin Furman:In fact... Sorry, they had to defend themselves somehow in this lawsuit, but they didn't have to say that. Sure, but they didn't.

2:00:38Colin Moriarty:Right. That's what I'm saying. So like. Given how silent they have been, you know, it's just funny that they would come out and say this. Because like Dustin said, like there are places where you can just there is digital ownership. Also, isn't it technically aren't discs from. Correct me if I'm wrong. I could be wrong here. i i but there is like a bit of i'm having like a there's a bell ringing in my mind here where like even discs on ps2 are considered licenses yeah like like 360 yes which means well so like then the argument would still trade because if somebody bought the disc then yeah then the other person couldn't buy it because somebody else bought it and that's still the license so like It doesn't even really track with what they're trying to say.

2:01:27Colin Moriarty:This is dumb. Yeah, I hope the court is wise enough to be like, this is, you know that Billy Madison clip

2:01:35Dustin Furman:where it's like, that is the stupidest thing.

2:01:38Colin Moriarty:What you've just said is the most insanely idiotic thing I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber. for having listened to it. I award you no points and may God have mercy on your soul.

2:02:01Dustin Furman:Isn't there a story about that, about how like that didn't resonate with test audiences or something, but they kept in. There's something about that scene that there's like a story about how like they like kept it in or like that was going to get cut or something.

2:02:11Colin Moriarty:That's one of my favorite lines of anything. It's so good. That's funny. Dude, I know that by heart because it's just like that guy, Jim Downey, he's the guy from who did that famous Conan thing. Yeah, yeah. He's just older now. Yeah. He looks nothing. It doesn't look anything like him. It's crazy. Completely like digivolved into a different person. But yeah, it really is such an insane thing to say. I hope there's like sane people on that, like involved who can parse through that. And that requires, to be fair, that does require some sense of technological literacy to even parse through that in a way that maybe you could end up at the right conclusion.

2:02:52Colin Moriarty:but also like you can maybe make the argument that like a Luddite would, would listen to that and be like, what the fuck are you talking about? Like maybe it actually is kind of benefited that people are kind of disconnected and not really familiar. Cause they're like, what do you mean people you're charging people for something and they're buying and they don't own it. What do you mean?

2:03:11Dustin Furman:It's these companies must be brought to heel. I believe that I've been on record of that and that's what I'm trying to do. So I'm with my own congressman. So it's like, well, let's let a user listener letter talk about this. Greg and Goblins wrote in. Good name. This interview with Totoki is the last straw. PlayStation is now way worse than they were during the PS3 era. Then we had Sony that told us to get a second job to afford a console. Well, now we have an expensive old console with a likely unaffordable new console coming. And while that isn't entirely Sony's fault, instead of saying, okay, what can we do to keep our platform inviting and fun so people want to spend their money here?

2:03:49Dustin Furman:They're saying squeeze every dollar from these people and give them as little return as we can. I'm done. I want to stop here because I didn't put I forgot to put the story and it's not that important, I guess. But to Toki gave an interview, I think, with Wall Street Journal recently where he was saying basically like selling the consoles is not even really is not even really important to us anymore. Now it's like we have to make more money off of each user. I think that's kind of obvious. But again, you don't have to really put it in words that way. So that's what he's referring to. When the last of us two releases I released, I boycotted it completely because of Sony's disgusting treatment of YouTube creators covering the leaks.

2:04:18Dustin Furman:I canceled my pre-order and I never played or bought that game until the remaster I'm a huge PlayStation guy if I can do it others can do it I participated in the blackout I canceled my PS plus subscription I'm canceling my Wolverine pre-order and I'm not buying any Sony first party titles or new hardware until they change course or get new leadership I know they're here to make money but this whole year is too much they're acting like scumbags um there is some sort of disconnect in the comms package that they've put out the last year, let's say, that doesn't... Let me back up. It's what I've said.

2:04:52Dustin Furman:I don't even know who would communicate. Who's going to talk?

2:04:57Dustin Furman:You know, Nishino is not a very interesting character. Maybe it will be more interesting when we get to know him better. Tatoki obviously leads Sony itself. Lin Tao is obviously the CFO. We're not really going to hear from her. Herman Holst is... No one wants to hear from Herman Holst. Mark Cerny is not the guy for this. He's the tech guy. We'll hear more when PS6 is ready from him. I don't so it's like who is even the right like Sid Schumann's obviously like you know just a comms kind of blog PlayStation blog guy it's there's no one to say anything there's no one to sit down and have earnest and honest conversations they're afraid of exposing themselves and they've got to I would love to talk to them you know like on the record deeply about like what's going on here what what do you got like where's your mind at as a like where's your corporate mind at what are you guys focusing on and I think they are just so data driven that I don't think that they see the texture around them changing a little bit.

2:05:58Dustin Furman:Gaming is very tenuous. And I think that they're relying on their unusually high level of customer loyalty, which I think is only surpassed by Nintendo. And the momentum of being the default platform. And I also think it cannot be understated. And I don't mean to be mean or labor labor at this point, but they also just having competent competition. A competent competitor would have lodged its boot up Sony's ass this generation. It might not have changed very much, but they would have been very aggressive. And you're starting to see that out of Xbox now, but it's too late. So I think they're just walking around being like, well.

2:06:39Dustin Furman:Nothing changes for us. This is what I get back into, guys, about the idea of being a customer and being a user. and I think they're more interested in the customers. And that is a tenuous and dangerous path to walk because the consumer is fickle. Your fans are the one that keeps you relevant generation to generation. And that these numbers reduce heavily when you stop paying attention to a wider audience. I always bring up Wii U. Wii U is a really interesting machine because it showed you just what the Nintendo fan, like the hardcore will do anything Nintendo fan base was. And it was about 12 million.

2:07:21Dustin Furman:Sony's is smaller than that. There's no doubt. And if they stop, they're very lucky that they are the default and that they really can't be ignored. It's why, we'll talk about it more deeply later, but like the stuff going around post-Gamescom about how people are upset with Sony and they're threatening to withhold games from him. I'm like, no, they're not. They might be upset with Sony in some different ways depending on the size of them, but they're not upset with Sony. They have their eyes wide open and realize that they might not always need Sony and that's even worse for Sony, not for them.

2:08:03Dustin Furman:So are they acting like scumbags? I don't know if I'd put it that sharp of a point on it, but are they acting strangely? is there something very strange going on right now? Yeah. I've covered this brand a long time. People start pointing to the PS3 era, the early PS3 era, and I'm like, it's nothing like that. They weren't, with the exception of you'll get a second job kind of shit or whatever, it's like they just struggled because of the price of the machine and that they had good competition. It was a very important point of why PlayStation 3 failed in the beginning was because Xbox 360 was good.

2:08:40Dustin Furman:so I think they look at it now and they're like, really, where are you going to go? What are you going to do? You can go buy an Xbox. I mean, that's what, that's what they're saying. And it's true. It's like, you're not going to go buy an Xbox. Why would you do that? Yeah. And I think, but I think that it's just tenuous in the mid and long term. It's good in the short term. They'll be fine. But I think we all are very eager to see how this looks in three to five years. And I don't think PlayStation is going anywhere. And I don't think Sony is going anywhere, but I think that the,

2:09:11Dustin Furman:I wonder if they're making new fans or if they're acquiring new customers. You know what I mean?

2:09:19Colin Moriarty:Mm-hmm.

2:09:21Dustin Furman:And those are two different things. Yeah. All right. Next story, this is an interesting one that kind of came and went, but I feel like it's somewhat substantial. Larry Kootenan, the co-founder of Housemarque, is leaving the studio. housemark circulated a letter and it said quote after 33 years in the games industry and 31 incredible years at housemark the studio i co-founded with harry teekan in today marks my last day at housemark starting out in 1993 with terramark and then joining forces with harry to establish housemark in 1995 we had a passion for games but no real blueprint for building a business looking back i feel immensely fortunate we had the luck of being in the right place at the right time during three decades of incredibly incredible industry growth allowing us to stay fiercely independent for 26 years before finding a home within the PlayStation Studios family.

2:10:09Just to point out, when he's talking about Terramark, Terramark was his studio and Bloodhouse

2:10:17Dustin Furman:was the other studio that were put together to make Housemarque, in case you were curious. And they are still the oldest and biggest Finnish game studio. My core purpose as a leader has always been this simple, he continued, to facilitate an an environment where extraordinary creators have the freedom and protection to do what they do best. Together, we've achieved things I couldn't have imagined when we started. Pioneering finished game development on the global stage, creating studio-defining titles from Supreme Snowboarding, Super Stardust HD, and Resogun to our breakthrough AAA success with Returnal and our latest release, Saros, evolving into a premier AAA developer while maintaining our unique creative identity.

2:10:54Dustin Furman:And then he writes, a heartfelt thank you to my industry family. Beyond the walls of Housemarque and PlayStation, this journey would have been impossible without the broader games community. To the many friends, fellow founders, mentors, and industry peers across the world who have offered invaluable advice, a listening ear, or steady support over the last three decades, thank you. This industry is defined not just by the games we create, but by the remarkable, generous people who make up the global community. The wisdom, camaraderie, and encouragement you've shared with me personally throughout the years mean more than I can express.

2:11:20Dustin Furman:We have been planning this leadership transition carefully behind the scenes, he continues. On July 1st, Sammy Haksu Hakala officially stepped into the managing director role, and I have been supporting him and the leadership team through the end of the month to ensure complete operational continuity and stability. Housemarque's strategy and creative vision are in exceptional hands. As for me, after 33 continuous years without a major break, I am taking a rare and well-deserved breather. Starting in September, I plan to embrace what writer David Dida calls the concept of the man of zero, learning to simply be without, always striving for the next milestone.

2:11:52Dustin Furman:Let's see how good I am at doing nothing. However, you certainly haven't seen the last of me. I look forward to staying connected with the industry, attending trade shows, cheering from the crowd at award shows, and down the road doing some mentoring or consulting. To Hari, our partners at SIE, our global industry friends, and every single team member who has ever walked through Housemarque's doors, thanks for making the past 31 years the privilege of a lifetime. Remember our guiding light. Strive to be better professional and a better human being. Take care of each other, speak with courage, and keep pushing the boundaries of what games can be.

2:12:17Dustin Furman:Here's to the next decade.

2:12:21Dustin Furman:um i would imagine alari is now vested so he can leave this is i don't think great news for housemark i wonder i look at this differently than when brian fleming left sucker punch a lot of people were saying like oh sucker punch is in trouble and i'm like i don't think so i think sucker punch is perfectly fine their last game just sold what it's probably like more like six or 7 million now. They're fine. I think he just wanted out. And I assume Laurie Kooten wanted out too. I don't think Housemarque's going to get shut down or anything like that, but I wonder where their heads are at. Because I do think it's fairly obvious Saros is underperformed.

2:12:58Dustin Furman:And maybe they just need a breath of new air, some fresh air in there, some new perspective. And I wonder if they've even settled yet on what they're going to do next. They might not have. They might still be working on Saros for a while. They're a small team. So I don't know if you guys have anything you want to add on this, but I am sad. I've met a Laurie Cootin several times and they're all very nice people at Housemarque and I've always been incredibly impressed with their chops. They've always made really, really good games. And when they announced that they were going to walk away from arcade stuff almost 10 years ago now, it was really sad and they, and it sounded like they were done and they figured it out.

2:13:33Dustin Furman:And, and I, I am so glad they're with PlayStation because I think they would be in a lot of trouble if they weren't. So yeah, that's it. Just wanted to throw that out there. go enjoy your money right yeah exactly yeah that's the dream yeah you don't need to do this anymore it's hard to not be the main character anymore right it's hard to like walk away and be like oh i did like or this thing that defines you what do you do and that's what he's saying like i have to be the man of zero like that that is that has nothing theoretically i appreciate that perspective yeah all right i thought this was interesting automaton automaton-media.com who we cite when we talk about japanese news often because they translate a bunch of japanese stuff they write square enix firmly denies report that it may go private says claim and says claims are baseless the reason this is interesting as they write is because there were compelling rumors in japan that were so compelling that it's caused their stock to go up and they had to release a statement because of that.

2:14:33Dustin Furman:So they write here, quote, Square Enix Holdings published a statement to shareholders on September 1st addressing claims about the company potentially going private. Earlier the same day, the September 2026 issue of monthly Japanese magazine Sentaku reported that there was reason to speculate that Square Enix, a publicly traded company, would be going private. The magazine claimed that the speculation this time around carried more credibility than previous such rumors. The report was influential enough to trigger a rise in Square Enix's stock price at the Tokyo Stock Exchange. In response, Square Enix has explicitly denied Santaku's claims.

2:15:03Dustin Furman:The company stated that it had made no announcement regarding plans to go private and that there is no truth to claims that it is considering doing so. Recently, a number of major overseas companies have made moves towards going private, the most prominent example being Electronic Arts, which was recently acquired by a consortium, including Saudi Arabia's Sovereign Wealth Fund, the Public Investment Fund, and subsequently became a private company. Meanwhile, Devolver Digital has reportedly seen its stock price continue to decline since going public in 2021, even after business performance improved.

2:15:28Dustin Furman:Earlier this month, the company reportedly presented investors with a proposal to delist its shares. And this is an interesting one too. Meanwhile, the gaming community has also been paying attention to the recent decline in CD Projekt Red's stock price following the official announcement of Echoes of the Past, a major expansion to The Witcher 3 unveiled at Gamescom 2026. For publicly traded game companies, stock prices have come to be the subject of significant fluctuation not based on reception and sales release games, but also expectations surrounding titles still in development or even a single announcement.

2:15:59Dustin Furman:of course we've discussed this in the past guys that square enix does have a single activist investor in japan that owns about 10 of the company and they are pretty aggressive about trying to get the company delisted i think and maybe that's where the rumors are coming from but we'll have to keep an eye on that moving forward because square enix is a poorly run company i'll just throw that out there yeah when you look at bandai namco when you look at tecmo koa when you look at kind of its contemporary certainly capcom but like it's not it's not doing as well as it should be considering what it owns and the the kingdom hearts will be good for it final fantasy 7 3 will be good for it but like what's going on with dragon quest 12 when are we going to see final fantasy 17 and of course a bunch of other smaller things too 2022 2023 was a really weird time for for square enix because they were just releasing game after game after game after game after game it was just really really weird and i think they've they've pulled back and realized they need to do fewer bigger things okay um i saw this story on gamatsu i just wanted to report it because i think it's weird sony music entertainment japan so the label of sony that's outside of playstation playstation of course is a subsidiary of sony they have created a capital business alliance with gung-ho online entertainment and the reason that this is so strange is because PlayStation has nothing to do with it.

2:17:20Dustin Furman:Again, this is very similar to what's going on with Anaplex and PlayStation, or Anaplex and Sony, and specifically Sony Music as well. And we've talked about how in the past, Anaplex is publishing games, specifically the new game from the Danganronpa creator, 100 Heroes Academy or whatever it's called, that's not on PlayStation. and now sony another part of sony is making a 178.7 million dollar deal with gung-ho online entertainment that has nothing to do with playstation i'm kind of confused by this why are you sending it's it would be like sony making music deals it's like why are you what is this all about gamatsu writes quote the deal which is expected to close on December 30th, pending regulatory approvals, will make Sony Music Entertainment Japan the largest shareholder and an affiliated company of Gung Ho Online Entertainment.

2:18:14Dustin Furman:Sony Group Corporation, the parent company of Sony Music Entertainment Japan, will also qualify as an affiliated company. Both parties have entered into a capital and business alliance agreement under which they plan to explore joint development and operation of smartphone games, console games, and PC games distributed by Gung Ho Online Entertainment, promotion of collaboration initiatives for Gung Ho Online Entertainment games, and exploration of new projects, including the utilization of intellectual property of Sony Music Entertainment and its subsidiaries and affiliates. I don't know why if PlayStation was part of this that they wouldn't have access to Sony's IP, Sony Music's IP.

2:18:45Dustin Furman:I just think it's a strange one. Gung Ho is not a big company. They're probably best known for the Ragnarok games, you know, like Ragnarok Online and all that. The rest, they also remaster a bunch of stuff. They, I think they did a lot of the Grandia remasters for Sony. They've done a lot of the porting of games. Like I think they even do porting for Nihon Falcom with some of the trail spinoffs in the West. So you'll see their name pop up. But Ragnarok Odyssey and those kinds of games are probably the closest that PlayStation fans have ever gotten to them in the single player space. It's not a big deal.

2:19:12Dustin Furman:I just thought it was strange. I wanted to bring it up. Yeah. All right. And then let's see. Oh, this next piece of news. People are making a big deal of this, but I don't think it is. PlayStation blog writes live TV on PS5 launches today, bringing free ad supported TV to PS5 players in the US. they write starting later today live on live tv on ps5 will be available to ps5 players in the u.s offering a free ad supported experience from sony pictures television players can support and discover i'm sorry more than 100 live channels and a growing selection of on-demand entertainment including news sports movies tv shows anime and more all from the media section of the ps5 console players can access live tv on ps5 from the console's home screen by following these steps go to the media tab select live tv on ps5 icon select sign in with my playstation account to connect your PlayStation account and start watching.

2:19:59Dustin Furman:At launch, live TV on PS5 will feature a broad mix of programming across movies, TV, anime, sports news, and more. So movies include free films in the action, horror, sci-fi, and more genres with channels, including movies, fear by Lionsgate, 50 cent action, film rise, free movies, Sony one horror hits and Cinevault TV shows include the shield community, hell's kitchen, walking dead, forensic files, unsolved mysteries, deal or no deal fear factor, ice road truckers, et cetera. Anime includes Naruto, Sailor Moon, Hunter, Cross Hunter, Death Note and more. Sports include Fox Sports, NASCAR, NBC Sports Now, UFC, etc.

2:20:35Dustin Furman:There'll be news and weather and more. Don't think this is a big deal because it's free. So who really cares? I think people are bringing and being like, what is this TV? Everyone made fun of Xbox for doing this. I'm like, I don't think it's the same. But nice try. I'm not going to check it out, but it's there if you want to do it.

2:20:51Colin Moriarty:Yeah, my smart TV, sometimes like if like my PlayStation turns off, it just autos to this tv thing yeah mine does that as well has like the same kind of deal i leave it on there's a jojo's bizarre adventure channel so just every once in a while a random part of jojo will start and i refuse to put the subtitles on oh no i'll watch it for you know four or five minutes just to see like oh where are they at right now uh but yeah that's uh i'm not interested in really watching anything with ads for the most part but what's there's like a streaming service that has ads that's really popular to be uh is it pluto pluto's another one yeah pluto these are like pluto really big services i mean yeah pluto.tv god bless if uh you're i mean i guess like netflix i think the ad supported is maybe their most popular tier now

2:21:44Dustin Furman:so we are in the minority of caring about ads oh no doubt no doubt about that yeah so yeah that's an option it's a nice option available it's not like it's a being done for free on their point they're gonna obviously make money on it but it's like i don't see the big deal if it's just a free opt-in thing i don't think it really matters yeah okay and then the final piece of news is uh just a confirmation that that iron man game footage that's been going around is indeed the real iron man game so you might remember back in 2022 ea announced that it's motive studio which was founded as you might recall by Jade Raymond, right?

2:22:22Dustin Furman:That's right. Is that right? No, that's not right. Mode of Studio. Yeah, no, it was. It was founded by Jade Raymond. God, she's been everywhere. Released nothing. So there's this footage of Iron Man going around. Chris, I think I saw you talk about it on social media a little bit. They acknowledge that it's ready. They tweeted out, quote, well, that didn't go as planned, but now you know, and we've got a lot more to show you. See you when you're ready. I'm confused about the now you know part because I thought that they explicitly said this that they were making an Iron Man game so I don't know that there's anything I think it's more like now you

2:22:56Colin Moriarty:know what it is and what it looks like because like the the leaks were I don't want to say fairly extensive because like compared to other leaks it's it's really not but there was like an unfinished trailer there's like a fair bit of gameplay and they're not taking anything down either like they normally these things would be like copyright struck or you know they would be swatted off of every page that they were on but like they just decided to they decided to leave it up largely because I think the reaction has been positive like people seem pretty stoked on it and in this climate especially like that you need all the goodwill you can get so it's probably a calculated move to just be like yeah leave just leave it out it looks pretty cool I like Iron Man the character so I'll definitely check it out yeah I mean yeah it looks it looks like they've got a good handle on it i just it's it is one of those things though man like i just um if this is good it will be it will be the first it will be the first good video game where you play as like a superhero that can fly literally like we just haven't had one this entire time in the last like 30 years i think it's largely because the design of that is like fundamentally kind of rough to do yeah because if you want to get if you want to give the player like the if you want to deliver the authentically the the the power fantasy of flight then that kind of like naturally goes against like the limitations of what would make a good game it's why like there's a lot of like anthem people argue have like it has had like really good flying mechanics and like these like i saw people saying like the the old iron man games had good flying yeah but these are all terrible video games which is kind of fascinating because we've nailed flying and we've nailed superheroes for like years it's like why haven't we figured this out yet yeah so if they can crack if they can crack the code and do that kudos to them motive's a really good team so i hope they can do it yeah i'm excited to see more that's it that's all we have for the news all right boys let's get into

2:24:58Dustin Furman:what we're playing by the way we just took our break and i noticed the news did you see this

2:25:01Colin Moriarty:thing that xbox is capping it's cloud gaming stuff no i did see that yeah told you god i'm a prophet

2:25:08Dustin Furman:all right let's get into uh the things that we're playing here uh i'll go first alan wake 2 uh i'm almost to the end i wanted to be done by now i've kind of been trailing a little bit i could have beaten it last night but i needed to get to bed at a somewhat reasonable hour so i could be ready for the stream so i have i probably an hour to two hours left at most and i'll have platinumed it i want to play the expansions as well however now things are out and so i think i'm going to kind kind of move on for now after that. And then I'll go back at some point to kind of clean up the Night Spring stuff and so on that I haven't played yet.

2:25:40Dustin Furman:But I will say, man, I said it last week and I'll say it again. It's just so fucking good. It's so avant-garde and weird. And I love that they lean into it. And I'm really sad. It doesn't seem like a game people finished. I think it has a 23 % completion rating. game has sold about three million copies last they reported let's assume the completion percentages across all platforms are the same that's not even one in four people playing starting the game beating it and so fewer than a million people have even seen everything the game really has to offer and i'm such a shame because it is a um it's just a sad situation i just think they're doing extraordinary work and i don't know why more people aren't interested in paying attention and it really it goes to show you i think how little resonance people like us have in the industry today because a game like this i feel like is so like alan wake you get to you can imagine having sold 10 million copies or more based on it just being so strange and so unique and such a different take but people like the safe and familiar and i don't think that there's really anything wrong with that i think that that's normal and makes sense to me i just as a player of games and a player of a lot of different games i don't quite understand the thought processes behind people's behavior even when they buy into a game and then don't finish it.

2:27:07Dustin Furman:Because the game gets better and better from a plot standpoint and from a presentational standpoint. There's so much weird stuff in it. I don't even want to describe any of it because it spoils it. But just, again, a lot of the interplay between the live action stuff and the in-game stuff is just so cool and kind of the multi-world universe that they've created and all the connections to control. like you look at like a piece of paper and there's just a on the piece of paper like he looks at it and there's just a picture of that casper sterling guy or whatever the fuck the guy's name is from

2:27:36Colin Moriarty:control oh did you yeah national weather service severe thunderstorm warning destructive 80 mile per hour winds 80 mile per hour take shelter in a sturdy building away from windows no we're going

2:27:51Dustin Furman:that's crazy remember when i had the tornado warning and we just recorded through it yeah that's the kind of balls i need if you want to go dustin you can go go into the basement well holly's probably gonna want me to go with her let me see what she says stand by for a moment

2:28:05Colin Moriarty:yeah go go and chris will go into what he's yeah yeah well yeah so i have um i've been messing around with like a couple things like i've been kind of going back to silent hill 2 and and um playing a little bit of that i played a little i played quite a bit of bloodborne over the last couple weeks kind of in secret oh but i the thing for me is like i'm getting to the point where it's like so i have plaguetail installed and it's just sitting there but now everything's you know everything's like fallen into place and now it's like especially like right now it's the third on the day that we're recording this i haven't yet touched a plaguetail yet it's it's there am i going to be able to get deep enough into it by the time the more pressing stuff shows up and honestly the thing that the thing that kind of halted me on it was because you messaged us about the the wolverine codes and i didn't see that until later i was like oh fuck well if we get if we get wolverine that's gotta that's probably gotta be a priority because that's first party so like i want to get that but also dude onimusha man on it i honestly the thing that i want to play the most right now is onimusha because i'm hearing really great things about it also i'm just like i'm in the mood for something like that right now like this like i love i miss i only played the first onimusha to be fair i'm not like a storied fan or anything yeah but i loved it like there's there is something about that old that weird design philosophy of um killing the enemies and absorbing their shit you know what i mean like there's other games like fable has a little bit of that inner interconnected in um in fable 2 and stuff like that like i always like that as a mechanic and so to see that that's back and like apparently the combat's like way better and way more involved and it's a way deeper game it's just like that's so enticing to me and i'm really fucking i'm really excited i'm more excited about on emotion than I thought I would be knowing that it's so close.

2:30:13Colin Moriarty:So right now I'm in a bit of a paralyzed state. I think Blood of Dawnwalker is going to be the thing that I'm like, I'll wait. I'll put that to the side. It was getting more enticing to me as we got closer and closer to it, as we were hearing more things about how it played and the reviews just started pouring in. But that's a deep game, it looks like. and um so i don't know i think i could start plagetail i really want to play on emusha though i'll be thinking about on emusha the whole time i'm playing plagetail so like i think i just got to get on emusha out of the way yeah i think um

2:30:54Dustin Furman:micah got her copy of dawn walker today on xbox i think she's gonna be going into that i pre-ordered and pre-downloaded Dawn Walker, which is out now, and then Onimusha, which will come out by the time this is live on Patreon, like you said. I have those options and Alan Wake 2 waiting, and then like you said, Wolverine. Wolverine's in it. I gotta get something out of the way. Really, the wise move, I'm more excited. I love Onimusha. I'm a huge fan of the franchise, going back to the PS2 era, as everyone knows, but I am more excited about Dawn Walker because I love my vampires, and I love I just think it's really cool but really the wisest move Chris would be for me to just bang Onimusha out because it could probably be done quicker and then I could just put it away then Wolverine will come that would probably be fairly quick I would imagine like a Spider-Man game then maybe get into Dawn Walker after that or then Silent Hill I don't really know it's tricky man this is the time yeah we've been waiting I've been looking forward to this time that's the thing for like all summer I've been waiting for this because football is coming back too it's a week away so like And all the games are coming out everywhere.

2:31:59Dustin Furman:Getting into the fall. The days are getting a little shorter. It's getting a little cooler out. I'm like, yeah, we're kind of we're moving now. Yeah. Dustin, what's going on? You're back.

2:32:09Colin Moriarty:So we've gotten two warnings about 80 mile per hour winds. Holly's in the basement, so I'm going to go down with her. OK, that's fine. I don't know. I guess I should. We should probably end this and start a new. Session, because if I lose power, then we might lose everything.

2:32:24Dustin Furman:Oh, it's too bad because you're playing two games that are not even out yet.

2:32:28Colin Moriarty:yeah maybe i can talk about him real quick i'm not that worried about it but i feel bad that she's down there with leon and give us a quick rundown and then you can go give us a minute give us a solid two minutes uh halloween the game i've been playing it because jimmy was reviewing it he was like you should check this out with me you can talk about sacred i'm doing a video i was like great uh it's made with a lot of care and love for the original movie um it's it's rough uh the reviews on open critic are in like the 50s and in my experience playing it they have a huge rundown of what updates are coming but they're certainly not present in what they sent us for review there is a short single player campaign that's about two hours long that actually i was having a lot of fun with it was like get bonus for stalking your prey before you kill them as as michael of course of course uh though the multiplayer one person is michael and then there's all the other people the other people have to go and they have to uh try to get people out of the town so michael can't kill them it's really i found it very confusing also it's very hard to do any matchmaking because the game's not out yet so i feel like i didn't get the proper experience so i will follow up on it uh when the day one patch is out and i can actually do matchmaking but interesting game very very cautious on it though uh the second game is onimusha way of the sword which uh reviewers have had this game for weeks i just got it yesterday so i've only really put i don't know an hour and a half two hours into it and it's very very good uh the sword combat feels great it's a lot slower than a lot of the other games like obviously sekiro comes to mind immediately for me personally as that's my top tier game of this type uh and you move up way slower than that but i haven't even really gotten to like the intricacies of like the upgrades like i don't have a bow yet or anything.

2:34:39Colin Moriarty:So that's kind of a more in progress, but it runs great on PlayStation 5 Pro. At least you can unlock the frame rate if you want to like really boost it up. I'm very impressed with some of the more surreal imagery of the game that you didn't really get from the trailers, but in the game is pretty damn cool. So I again will have way more to talk about with that next week, but early impression is good.

2:35:08Dustin Furman:Excellent.

2:35:09Colin Moriarty:That's it.

2:35:09Dustin Furman:I was saying when you were gone that I pre-ordered it and it's preloaded and ready to go. But I don't know with Onimusha. And then Dawn, we were just talking about when you came in about how we're going to balance all these games. Right. Oh, it's going to be terrible. Because you got Wolverine, you got Silent Hill coming, you got Control. But what we were saying too, I'm just repeating everything we already said, that we've been waiting all summer for this. Yeah.

2:35:36Colin Moriarty:It's time.

2:35:37Dustin Furman:It's go time. so here we are all right you go and be safe and we'll just finish the show without you thank you i'm sorry yeah sorry get out of here goodbye i'll see you guys next time all right chris we're back we've lost dustin he got taken away by the storm sucked into it like dorothy tragic absolutely tragic unbelievable but the show must go on and so we end this episode of sacred symbols as we always do with six questions comments concerns thoughts and ideas from the audience over on patreon.com slash last day media you submit your inquiries on the thread in the news feed each week you've heard a bunch of your inquiries throughout the show already here are six more and then we'll wrap things up please don't be mad the show is going to be shorter than usual because dustin's not here i don't want you to be upset everyone gets upset when the show is between three and four hours long i can only do so much yeah god forbid and look how tired i am

2:36:27Colin Moriarty:look how haggard i am please isn't it crazy that we used to like because we used to have a whole segment where we would just read basically copy. And the show was like an hour and a half.

2:36:39Dustin Furman:Yeah. Now I shouldn't have ever stopped writing it because it would have probably been shorter. But I like the long. I think the audience likes the long show. I kind of just like dicking around. I can do this every day. You know, like it's just like it's just talking to my friends about whatever. It's the easiest thing in the world. Well, I'm happy to do it. And I always hate that you and I have talked about this before. I've always hated the arbitrary like oh we're running along oh let's wrap this up it's like it's a podcast just get out you say whatever you want you're not on fucking network television you're not Ted Koppel you know I mean you have a we have 22 minutes to work with all right Chris Storm Warren was the first person to write into us and said hey folks did you see the reports coming out of Gamescom that Sony might be getting cold feet about the digital transition.

2:37:28Dustin Furman:Apparently, publisher blowback was bad enough that they were potentially skipping PlayStation for future releases. Since Com believed that publishers were a major reason for the transition in the first place, does this change your outlook at all? Could it be that publishers from some regions, Japan, EU, etc., are more against it, while others U.S. are more for it? Curious of what you make of all this. I don't want to call people's reporting into account because people that I trust and believe I've seen say things like this. I just don't think it's really representative of the corporate outlook of what's really being said and how people really feel.

2:38:00Dustin Furman:Let me give you a few specific examples. I saw that one of the guys, I believe from Digital Foundry, had said something along the lines of, and it's not verbatim, but something like, some companies are upset because they even make more money off of physical games than they would digital games. And I'm like, I've never seen that reflected in any company's financials ever in years. So I don't know what that, like that seems to me to be so almost outlandish. it doesn't make any sense what company is selling more physical games than digital games unless you are like limited run games or something it's like who yeah you know um but i do think you speak to something storm warren that is probably true and it's probably why it was so acute at gamescom which is that the physical scene is probably bigger in those spaces certainly i mean definitely in japan but in europe as well um and so it could just be more pronounced there do i believe that a company is going to skip PlayStation because they're not releasing physical games?

2:38:56Dustin Furman:No. I don't believe that. I mean, maybe some small game that like wants to do a physical run of 5 ,000 copies or do I think a game of consequence is going to skip PlayStation because they're issuing digital physical releases? No, I do not believe that. Like I'm just straight up and it would be insane to do that. That would be cutting off your nose to spite your face in a way that would be like unimaginable. But I believe it was probably a big. Discut point of discussion and contention. I don't think Sony is changing their plans. I don't see any evidence of that. I still I'll say I've said it a million times that I think that there's a way for them to do it.

2:39:34Dustin Furman:I don't I think every day that passes by it becomes more unlikely and I don't know why you would withstand so much damage. When you were just going to turn things around, what do you have to study or figure out that would take you this long? I just think they announced it what July 1st, right? Yeah, so it's been more than two months i don't i i just i just think it's they're just like it's it is what it is and i think the proof will be in the pudding when the financials are out in october then we'll then we'll see if they hurt or not over it but what do you think of this chris have you did you see these various rumors about the discontent with sony at gamescom no i what i saw

2:40:11Colin Moriarty:was a bunch of people got their shit stolen i saw that too awful i mean awful just awful where's the security that is exactly that was the craziest story that i saw at a gamescom was uh i can't remember exactly the people i can't remember the names of the people involved so my apologies on that but like a bunch of indie indie people it's a massive deal but i didn't see anything about that that kind of took center stage as far as like drama or like news at a gamescom i heard i heard literally nothing about sony considering reversing course because publishers wanted us were considering skipping playstation like that that never even crossed my feed so by the way i found the quote it's from

2:40:53Dustin Furman:john lineman he's from digital yeah yeah so and i have no beef with them or anything i'm not trying to like coin one out but this is what he said he said quote i spoke to a lot of developers and publisher people about it and they were largely very upset a lot of these companies actually see a lot of return and in fact the majority through physical sales i feel like this is really going to affect a lot of businesses and quote what business i mean if you're talking about smaller developers and publishers and not even developers if you're talking about smaller publishers an east asia soft a uh even a neon falcom and nis and x seed i assume that there's some truth to that but even then it doesn't really make any sense because these companies all brag about how well they do on pc some of these games are doing half their sales on pc that's all digital cut down the middle, then remember, it's not one or the other, like six of one half dozen or the other, as we like to say.

2:41:45Dustin Furman:Rather, the digital sale is inherently worth more. So if you're selling a physical game, you have to sell more of them, probably almost 2x to make the same amount of money. That doesn't make any sense to me. Like on face value, like this doesn't make any sense outside of the small niche, micro publishers and whatever else. And I'm sure they are affected by it. I'm positive they are. We talked about it when it immediately happened. I'm like, you're on a little bit for limited run games you're like what the fuck are we gonna do yeah because we have to go all in on switch i guess and maybe hope they reverse things for ps5 which again i don't think they will so i don't know to me i'm like the bigger the bigger the company the less likely it's going to be that they give a fuck and i i'll just reiterate that if you're ea capcom activision if you're any of the first parties certainly nintendo has already indicated this with the key card stuff they all want out there's just no doubt about that whatsoever in fact people are giving plaudits to the xbox um stuff with um putting their games on you know the digital the disc thing from xbox one and then they read the games and they have like a digital receipt of it it's like you can even argue that that's them getting out of discs like no matter how like you spin it yeah it's like people are like look at this and i'm like i didn't think this is actually indicating that they want you to make your games digital so you shut the fuck up i i so i don't i believe that there's a lot like i've been to gamescom twice it's a lot of fucking people from all over the world in the industry a lot of people have their own interests and their own game things and going on and i know from my own experiences that making printed games at a small scale and selling them yourself is high profit um so for them i believe it but like the bigger games a lot of devs and publishers it makes it he says it makes it seem like it's people of uh i don't want to say of substance that's mean it's not what i mean it's you know people of of volume and weight in the space and they're the ones that are going to dictate the terms not the micro prop publishers that are publishing 5 000 physical games at a time right their their discontent is not really relevant if you believe the adage which i do and i said earlier in the show of the customer versus the user and how sony sees this now but i'm surprised you didn't see any of this stuff about about yeah there was a lot but i think a lot of it is just i don't know we'll see but the thing is is that i believe some like even digital foundry like they know people they obviously know a lot of people i just wonder how this is being

2:44:09Dustin Furman:um i just people i feel like people are taking things very uncritically you know like think about that for a minute who's making more money physically than digitally what are you talking about the house who in whose finances public public finances we see is that reflected it's not even remotely reflected in the big publishers so again but yeah the the theft

2:44:31Colin Moriarty:stuff i read about too and that's awful that was the bigger thing for me like i yeah my my algorithm is a is a my algorithm is mostly now at this point just like a really cursed dlss 5 yeah renders yeah some of them are really there's this one from half-life that is like one of the funniest images I think I've ever seen it's like my favorite thing in the world yeah I think I've seen ones of like cloud and a few others that are strange there's one really cursed like Zelda see the eye one that's like it actually made me sick like

2:45:10Dustin Furman:looking at it KB wrote in with the second question, Chris, and he says, Hey, gents. Naughty Dog wrapped filming on Intergalactic, yet nearly every comment under the studio's post on X was venomous and openly hostile. I know you've said the best way to deal with that kind of discourse is to simply remove yourself from it, but it increasingly feels like this hostility is cascading into spaces that were once relatively insulated from it. Is this just the reality for Naughty Dog going forward, where every announcement is immediately met with scorn and disdain? Is this because Neil is directing it, or is Sean Eskig's game to be met with the same hostility?

2:45:42Dustin Furman:Is there anything the studio can realistically do when this level of aggressive contempt is constantly being shoved in its face. Everyone has a breaking point. If you're Neil, how do you keep finding the way to pour years of energy into something when the tenor of the conversation gets nuked the second the Naughty Dog logo appears? Thanks. What do you think of this, Chris?

2:46:00Colin Moriarty:I don't know, man. I don't, I'm not so convinced. I think, I think you just show the game when it's ready to be shown and let the game speak for itself. You know, I think that's how you, that's how you quell or that's how you prove wrong it's not going to it's not going to convince the people who are pushing the narrative for their own selfish gain like those are people who are like they're you know they're they're gone already you know like they have a financial uh social clout based reason to kind of be on the train that they're on they're always going to be on that train and they're going to be sourcing outrage from whoever the fuck you can source outrage from but i think ultimately people care about video games and if you show something that looks if you show something that just looks inarguably cool then i think most people will i think most people will come around i agree with you i think it's going to be tough

2:46:58Dustin Furman:yeah i think it'd be annoying for sure yes and i think if the protagonist was different i don't know if they'd even be dealing with this at all it would be like the lasting effects of what people look at as a woke last of us two right but i agree with you chris that this can be turned around like that on a dime if the game blows people away and that's why people were conjecturing about and i knew intergalactic wasn't gonna be a state of play i knew that for a fact but like people were conjecturing about it there and I'm like it's got to be at a even if I didn't know that it's got to be at about a it's got to be a bigger grander more intentional showcase of the game I'm not even sure the game awards make sense right I kind of feel like Sony needs to announce something where it's like it's just gonna be 30 minutes of this um not unlike what you know showcasing God of War for a while and although that was part of something bigger of course I think they have their work cut out for them.

2:48:02Dustin Furman:But I think if they believe the underlying product is truly great, and I suspect it is, and people are playtesting the game and stuff like that, it's like, then I think that they can just shut people up by virtue of it being great, and then the people that hate things automatically or by instinct, I think will be marginalized in this respect. And this happens every once in a while. Frankly, I think this happened a little bit with The Odyssey. right oh yeah the the there are peculiar things about the odyssey no doubt but the idea that i was going to do poorly or be bad i thought was weird because it's christopher nolan so obviously it's going to be good and it's people like him and and it's going to be it's going to do well and both of those things were true so in hindsight you look back at a lot of the people postulating about its performance and realizing like well you're kind of stupid for thinking that this thing was going to ever do poorly you know and we talked about that on the show like where i like i I was like, the way people discuss this movie, you would think it was going to bomb and then it just murders.

2:49:06And you need something like that in the realm of reality where it's unavoidable and you can't ignore it.

2:49:13Dustin Furman:And I think that that's a tall order for most studios, but I think Naughty Dog is going to be able to deliver something like that. And I think people will shut up really quick when they see it. That's my assumption. And those that don't and want to hold on to that hate are just going to be marginalized and look strange. I think that's their best bet.

2:49:28Colin Moriarty:yeah yeah i i really i think these these campaigns are becoming a less and less of it like people are just kind of tired of it like we see we're seeing a little bit of this with gta now there's like the usual suspects kind of like right uh i don't know you couldn't pick a a stupider target it's it is it's outrageous there i did you see that i think that the

2:49:52Dustin Furman:projection is like five million pre-orders and people are like that's soft this is a billion dollar game and i'm like people it's five billion pre-orders for a digital product it is not a physical pre-order like it was because people are like oh it's trailing behind grand theft auto 5's pre-orders and i'm like gta 5 was a physical game two generations and 13 years ago that anyone's putting their money down by the millions on this thing that they do not need to pre-order yeah to get there's no perk to pre-ordering it there's nothing like except for like you know like these odds and ends that you can get right before the game comes out i think it looks pretty good and yeah i agree with you completely like you have to be absolutely reputationally suicidal to think that grand theft auto is not going to murder it's going to sell tens of millions of

2:50:39Colin Moriarty:copies yeah it's it's such a stupid it's such a stupid argument but people are getting tired of of this shit and especially like gta is like the the most recent obvious one like the odyssey was the thing before that and now it's just like guys what do you what are you doing like there's like a shot of like lucia doing a one-handed reload of a shotgun and like this is like the thing that you're okay yeah she's girl bossing okay i really sometimes want to be like what are you gay like i don't like i really like what is going like i don't i don't get it like fundamentally

2:51:14Dustin Furman:like that's what we were saying about all the ball sucking dick sucking i'm like right you're doing tricks on it all like i'm like are you what is this like it's okay it's okay you don't have to i'm not judging you but there's something about it that's a little weird and yeah like yeah it's like just look at her ass or whatever if you're just if you need a distraction it's okay but like yeah it's a weird target it's a try hard target and their unfortunate reality is i've said this before the only people stupider than those people that make these videos and do all these things are the people that watch and listen to them so yeah you're you're never like a failure like what happened with the odyssey didn't blow up in anyone's face because everyone involved is too stupid you know what i mean right the same thing's gonna happen with intergalactic the same thing's gonna happen with grand theft auto this it's like it's just gonna be this never-ending story of uh of failure and then complicity in the failure but then of course just getting away with it

2:52:10Colin Moriarty:yeah and then too stupid to realize that you've even failed it's an amazing superpower to be just unaware of the fact that you've failed you know it's crazy it is a um

2:52:26Dustin Furman:it's a difficult situation just because i feel like social media matters so much in the modern era it's how people market and promote things yeah these things are often disconnected from each other but i think i think it would be foolish to ignore the reality like Like we brought it up like the Bud Light stuff that happened. That was totally driven by social media and it absolutely worked. You know what I mean? And then you look at things like that and you're like, it's possible. But then people make presumptions about outcomes based on things that have happened. And it requires energy. It requires you even being on the right side of things and having a good taste for what the market is actually going to determine.

2:53:02Dustin Furman:I think the Bud Light thing actually was a misstep and a mistake. But is it a misstep and a mistake to have Elliot? What's her name? Elliot Page in the Odyssey. see i don't think anyone really cared you know what i mean even though you discussed it on social media or whatever so i think ultimately the thing that those things have in common

2:53:21Colin Moriarty:and the things that the differentiating factor here is the is the quality of the product like realistically speaking bud light i mean look man like first of all no one no one's really drinking beer anymore like that's true it's just me at this point it it literally is older people who are the who are the audience that that kind of outrage for the Bud Light thing would have worked on anyway so yeah of course but in like I'm like a mad a Christopher Nolan movie like no bro like 50 year olds 60 year olds 15 year olds 20 year olds like everybody's involved in this shit and everybody wants to go see that shit everybody wants to play gta 6 i think that's really the the thing it's like you have to you you've got to make intergalactic just undeniably cool which is tricky which is you know naughty dog could do it they might not and who the fuck knows but if anybody if any first party studio could do it it probably is them and especially if they understand the task at hand if they if they're smart enough to really clue in on the fact that like we need to blow people away and we need the game to speak for itself we almost can't we almost shouldn't even have anybody on screen talking at all and if they're smart enough to also understand that they can't do the god of war thing they can't do 20 minutes of gameplay and like 15 minutes of it is narrative you know you gotta show people the meat of why this thing matters and why it's cool and why people should be excited about it yeah and as long as they understand that that's the assignment

2:55:08Dustin Furman:I will say I think they understand.

2:55:11Colin Moriarty:Yeah, I would hope so.

2:55:15Dustin Furman:Yeah, it'll be it'll be interesting to see how this all plays out. And, you know, you know, I'm just going to throw out a little prediction here. You know what I think will be the. The the next weird target, it won't be a big target, but it'll be it's an obvious one is Silent Hill. Because it's got a black protagonist. It's a PS5 console exclusive, so it's not going to sell probably very well. It's coming out at a very crowded time. so people are going to point to that game it's probably going to underperform and then people are going to be like see you have some woke black character right yeah and it's like i'm telling you

2:55:43Colin Moriarty:i'm surprised i haven't seen i'm surprised i haven't seen more of that to be honest with

2:55:47Dustin Furman:with silent hill give it time yeah let it come out i'm looking forward to that game though especially because it seems like it's like mostly non-violent which i i dig that reminds me of that game outlast that i bring up sometimes oh yeah so yeah what will happen i don't know man i i think it's it's a it's a tough it's tough to to to thread this i think it's almost unknowable what's going to work and what's not in a way and you have to be very deliberate from the moment you have to almost you have to almost take advantage of people you have that's the that's the shitty thing about this being too cute by half marketing where it's like well we can't just show you anything because then we have to be aware of all this stuff you're going to hate so we have to kind of almost manipulate you which has always been marketing but we have to more actively manipulate you into thinking like oh it's this and it's this and we want to show you this and i'm like yeah that sucks you can't just show things as they are because people can be like look at this woke bullshit you know um or whatever brings a game down and undermines a game but we'll keep a close eye on this i will be very intrigued because i i think it's i think it's fairly obvious intergalactic is going to be a nine plus on metacritic and by the way i'm just saying this based on their pedigree i haven't seen the game i don't know i'm just telling you from my my gut it's gonna be a huge game for sony it's gonna sell very well and there's gonna be endless bullshit about it i feel it we all know it yeah all right jordan ray wrote in said sup fellas oh i should be i'm keeping the footnotes like doesn't ask me there we go sup fellas i don't have much of a comment just curious to hear if any of you looked into video games critic.com the new aggregate site set up by Thomas Maler of Moon Studios attempting to create a more accurate and transparent database of reviews but with a greater weighting on player scores over time versus critic scores seems like an interesting idea thanks I did see this but only because people seem to be melting down by about it I know Thomas and he's been on the show before and I emailed him to ask him if he wants to come on and talk about this because I'm very intrigued by it like you said in Jordan in your commentary here in your question video games critic.com is just a new website that aggregates what already exists out there it seems like it's more sprawling in terms of its reach comparable to metacritic especially and it incorporates a lot more um random youtubers big youtubers but you know youtubers that you wouldn't otherwise see scored and the idea is to give people a more readable and accurate view of how games are by giving players more of a weight than critics I don't fundamentally dislike this idea and I'll go back to what I say over and over again I like when people try new things what is so offensive about that if I'm telling you my first instinct on this it's that hit dogs yell I mean like there's a lot of people in the industry that seem unhappy about this and I don't really know why other than that it undercuts their own authority and they act like i've said this i don't think people realize this but i've said this before metacritic's formulaic it's not a bunch of numbers divided by the number the amount of numbers it's not that at all and you don't see people ever complaining about that when i was on when i was at ign and i reviewed hundreds of games my review counted more than any other review posted because it is weighted almost an order of magnitude more than some at least it was other than other outlets and that formula is secret no one really knows exactly how it works you can try to reverse engineer the numbers and people have done that to like say like if you put these inputs in you get this out output maybe it is this so 1.x you know 1.2x 0.8x whatever and people and that's like a very bullshit way of doing things in my opinion um and no one seemed to care in fact like metacritic scores determine bonuses and if games are going to get but you know sequels will get greenlit and and yet it's this arcane number that no one even really understands how they come to it like no it's never leaked so i find it a little like again hit dogs yelp kind of thing where it's like well this was working for you what is so offensive about this now there is a problem of course chris which is that i don't think player reviews are very useful either they're often they're often weapons and cudgels and that's not useful so that's not really the answer either i'll just reiterate the answer is to not score things but if you want to agree if you want to agree that everyone likes to score things and they do then i don't see why having a transparent platform like this is a bad thing other than if you're trying to maintain your own power structure so people kind of faint like you know on their fainting couch about this it's like give me a break dude you know like what is the big deal first of all it's probably not going to be anything it's something that like they put together on the side he's fucking releasing no rest for the wicked I don't think he has an enormous amount of time to be dealing with this

3:00:46Colin Moriarty:but what do you think what are your thoughts yeah I mean I think it's fine like if this doesn't seem to be super disruptive it's just something it just seems like a cool little side project for somebody that's interested in this kind of thing. I'm in agreement. I think generally speaking user reviews aren't really helpful. They seem to be more like if comment sections could be algorithmically scored kind of thing. It seems to be whatever game has the most controversy going about it, justified or not, is going to suffer at the hands of review, user reviews, especially if there's no

3:01:30Colin Moriarty:especially if there's no if there's just no guidelines or like or if there's no protection of like oh in order to review something you have to like actually play it for a number of hours or whatever so like it's not really that useful what it what it is useful for i would argue is games where games that have escaped the zeitgeist of like the cultural conversation like if there's just nothing being said about a video game at all then this is like awesome you know if it's if something's managed to avoid any controversy or avoid being like this awkward cultural war you know i'm looking at uh endocopia the game that i talked about last time 89 no one's talking about that game there's there's no cause behind that game there's no skewed kind of thing going on with it.

3:02:22Colin Moriarty:It seems like the earnest reaction from the players is that it's a pretty high quality piece of software. And that's cool. The issue comes in when it's, when something like intergalactic gets thrown on here and then it's, well, how much is, how much does that matter? Really?

3:02:39Dustin Furman:But it's not going to be a popular point of view, but I'll say it is that like, I actually think user reviews are even more useless than critical review, critic reviews. like you know like i think there are certain locations where i would be more liable to believe a user review i think steam is the biggest example of that because you can see how much a person's played they have a reputation you see all that and you believe what they say but even that's aggregated in an uneven or in an even way which is inherently uneven so i can go on there and be like game sucks balls give it you know thumbs down and then someone gives it a really thoughtful review thumbs up and it's just a 50 because we both said opposite things right so that itself is fundamentally broken but i think it is and we see with hell divers and token and everything in our own space it's like these are used as cudgels the reviews are literally changed to hurt the game or help the game or get people's attention at the moment it's just it's nonsense so it is trying to aggregate a system which is in hell it's it's aggregating a system in which the subsystems are broken the critical subsystems broken the user review subsystems broken and so it's like well what are we even doing here these numbers are all they're none of it's accurate um But I appreciate the attempt.

3:03:48Dustin Furman:I have a lot of questions about it. And I do think there's some pretty cool things on it. So one of the things is they do have most player aligned creators, most player aligned press like that are rated based on your reviews that aggregate towards the user reviews. But again, it's a cool idea. This can be gamed. If this website, for instance, were to become big and important, then it might convince an outlet or a person a creator to say like what is what not what i do i think but what do i think everyone else thinks because if i can nail that then i will be one of the most player aligned creators and i will look really good and i think that that beckons an uneven response as well but there are things that can't be games that i think are really cool for instance they have the best deals right now great games at 20 plus off on steam playstation xbox and Nintendo ranked by how good the game is, not just how deep the cut is.

3:04:45Dustin Furman:I think that's kind of cool. So there is cool things in there. It's like, yeah, is this game good and is this game cheap? Is this game on sale right now? Should you pay attention to it? Does a trend say that this game might go on sale later that people like, etc.? There's a lot of cool things here. Again, hit dogs Yelp, though. I want you guys to remember that. Yeah, I like it. It seems well-intentioned. And I like Thomas Maler, too. So I like it.

3:05:10Colin Moriarty:I don't have any problems with Thomas Miller.

3:05:14Dustin Furman:It's unfortunate. He's been pretty much openly spoken at this point about how he wants to bring Ori to PlayStation. And it's like, come on, man. I hope Microsoft just lets that happen at some point. That'll be nice. All right. So videogamescritic.com if you want to check it out for yourself. Cool idea. Let us know what you think. Connor Campbell wrote in and said, hey, CDC. Oh, I got to do the footnote again. There we go. discs are going away but many of us still have the itch to own something and stores are still selling shelves that need to be filled what do you think will take the place of physical games for collectors in the future i personally collect art books and over 200 in the collection here are for video games books are one of the few mediums that shook off their digital replacement plus i always enjoy incredible artwork and seeing the ideas that didn't make the final cut books will be my go-to at least until ai art takes them away from me as well give that chicken some after Thanks for all that you do.

3:06:05Dustin Furman:As we discussed last week, Connor, on the show, books are the only entertainment medium more cost resistant than games and in fact are substantially cheaper. And I brought up the point that a study said that a$20 book in 1997 would cost$20 today. So which is like crazy value. If that's taken through all of books and all of the printed word, then that might be a very cost effective way to get things into people's hands. I do wonder though what people want because what was the motivating factor behind these collector's editions was it the physical version of the game plus the um the goods or was it just the goods i remember the controversy behind some i think darksiders 3 was one of them and others that didn't even come with the game back in the day and people like flipped out it seemed anathema to why you would even buy a collector's edition or a physical edition but that's really going to be the only option to keep that going and i also think publishers and developers but especially publishers are going to have some sort of some sort of commercial interest in keeping this going without the discs because there's money to be made there people want to buy this shit and there's some cool stuff that comes with games early i have some cool wolfenstein stuff and yeah so i don't know it's probably gonna be some combination of books and toys and soundtracks and all the right

3:07:13Colin Moriarty:you know what do you think chris yeah physical goods like any to any dude i love um special editions and limited editions and like i think there's there's some that come with like lore books and info what was it there was like lithographs and stuff like that yeah right yeah um and i i'm a big fan of that stuff uh i remember when that started happening like the the oh this this special edition didn't come with a game and for me i kind of liked it because i remember because i had i've always been kind of everywhere like i've always had generally speaking access to multiple consoles and sometimes i just i i wasn't sure where i was going to land especially back in the day before cross play and all that stuff like where you had to kind of be a little bit more intentional with where you were going to play if you were an agnostic kind of player now it's a little bit more trivial like there's there's cross play and cross save and all this stuff but I can't I wish I could remember the game but there was a game that I was I wanted to pre-order I knew I wanted it but I wasn't sure where people were going to be and so like it was cool to be like okay I could still get the collector's edition now I don't have to I don't have to make that decision quite yet I'm not nailed down to a piece of hardware yet but I can get the thing before it's out and then like when when we're all said and done where we're going to congregate is where we're going to congregate and I can make that decision later.

3:08:33Colin Moriarty:I liked that flexibility. The thing to me though is how do you, because collective editions, they're so hardcore and they are so, they're premium products even compared to like a full price video game so is that all is that going to take up the store shelves in that space like it's probably going to be a mix of stuff like that merch um games oriented the art books are awesome like i'm surprised more places don't sell those like i remember when i walked into even like when i would walk into game stop and i'm like you don't have art books here that's kind of crazy maybe they do now although like i can't imagine what game stops what shape they're doing now yeah

3:09:27Dustin Furman:when the ceo said that selling games doesn't even matter like that he's like it doesn't matter

3:09:31Colin Moriarty:that's so crazy what a world but yeah i would hope that some physical i would hope that the the physical space for video games instead of withering and dying kind of expands to be more than just a game in a case like that would be my hope um for the future yeah yeah i i love what

3:09:54Dustin Furman:you said about merch specifically i wonder if it could be more of a band like music industry like outlook on trying to yeah monetize outs the internet has been so i was talking about this with micah like remember when i'm sure bands still do this but remember like when we were younger bands used to appear on like they'd be on like k-rock or something that day and they'd be playing at the Hammersmith ballroom or something that night. And so they would do like it because they still had tickets to sell and they had to do the rounds. They were trying to get people. And you needed, you couldn't rely on the internet and Spotify and all these things to tell you when people were coming to town.

3:10:27Dustin Furman:Like Spotify is so cool because like it tells me when people are coming to my like area that I listened to. It's like, oh, did you know you like garbage? Did you know garbage? You know, just an example or whatever. Like they're coming to Richmond or whatever. I'm like, oh, cool. Garbage is not coming to Richmond, but. But we couldn't, we didn't have that. You had to like, you had to like see a flyer at the music store. You had to see a spot on MTV or be on a mailing list. Back in the day, street teams used to be a big thing. I don't know if anyone remembers that back in the day of like, there would be like enthusiasts that bands and acts would find in all these different locations and they would send them enormous numbers of demos and posters.

3:11:04Dustin Furman:And, and then music was able to, I think more than any other medium use the internet and leverage the internet. now everyone knows where all their bands are playing the most obscure acts ever are coming back playing clubs you know dates making money selling merch selling vinyl selling cds and tapes certainly they have their shit streaming the it almost like the streaming stuff sucks but it almost isn't in and for active bands it's almost irrelevant because the money's always made on the road anyway and now people know how to find you more than ever so it actually worked for you and it could be a similar thing here if you're able to leverage it of like yacht club has always been really good at this of like giving things giving people things to buy you know um yeah

3:11:48Colin Moriarty:so we'll see yeah i it's crazy because sometimes i'll go to places you go to game stop and okay they sell physical games those are kind of on the way out but like they sell the games and they sell the consoles they sell the accessories okay cool but then they have like i don't know like some fucking paltry there's like a rack maybe with like a triforce shirt and then i go to like this there's a place called box lunch which is like a hot topic spinoff it's like an offshoot or like a like a secondary kind of thing it's less focused on whatever hot topic is and it's more general and you go there and they got like pit boys and like doom doom glasses and all these like video game oriented like this like mario dice and like all this stuff that's like this is cool why isn't this at game stop like why isn't there just a place for this shit right because like in order because in order to find that stuff you had to wade through like you know an invader zim backpack and like a disney like a disney disney's monopoly or whatever and then you find like oh a fucking working pit boy or like a replica lancer and it's just like why is this here there should be a there's like there should be like a one like a one place for this this type of thing um they'd be wise to figure that out because like i think people like to people like to own shit yeah especially especially if they they know they no longer can reliably own discs if that's going away then there's going to be an extra desire right to be like well i want something to show my you know involvement in this medium why not service them i don't know

3:13:30Dustin Furman:we'll see i think players have to be amenable to it too not feeling they're getting shortchanged you know yeah maybe this has to do with like digital codes and other things like that that can help the fray cost for people i don't know we'll see we'll see it's a good question okay cool 91 wrote in chris and said greetings sacred boys colin i just beat megaman 11 and with recent footage of dual override i'm on a megaman high for megaman i just bought classic megaman legacy volume one and two and i'm enjoying myself my question is my question to you is what do you think the future holds for the franchise do we see more sequels of the classic series do you think do you see an entry in the series where they will give us that entry that shows us megaman's last stand that leads into the x series love the show and thanks for everything i mean that i brought this up because I wanted to hear what I'm sorry what Dustin had to say as well because I know he's more of a Legends continuity fan and Battle Network and stuff like that which and Maddie certainly Battle Network and Star Force there are all these different parts of Mega Man that I don't care deeply about and I always am interested in what people have to say about them you had brought it up though that the missing link in Mega Man for most people is Mega Man is the connection between Mega Man Classic Mega Man and Mega Man X something happens and that could be a game and that would be dope some game that is like half dr wiley and half sigma or like you fight some of the the cat like dr wiley style robots and you fight some of the x style robots like the mavericks that'll be kind of neat always brought up i think a 3d version like a triple a 3d version of megaman which i think would i think i just feel like is obvious and i don't know remember chris we were going over like capcom's own studies about like their franchises megaman was the second biggest thing they owned and that's like according to their own fans and that seems to be i think it was monster hunter or no maybe third it was like monster hunter resident evil mega man or something like that it was up there yeah yeah and it's like it's weird now resident evil and monster hunter have always been triple a monster hunter has gotten kind of gotten smaller over time but it's obviously very triple a it's weird to me to have this ip that people care about and relegate it to 20 and 30 games i just refuse to believe that they don't see some sort of future potential future branch of Mega Man as there's been five or six branches so far of a triple M 3D Mega Man.

3:15:47Dustin Furman:That seems to me to be a slam dunk and I refuse to believe that they're not doing that. I don't know what it looks like and I don't know if it will be any good if I was making it would be awesome. But then I'd have to quit here because I would have to probably do that full time. So that's I don't know what the future holds. I am excited about Dual Legacy. By the way, they did say this kind of pisses me off a little bit that they they're like Mega Man Dual Legacy is Mega Man 12. And we knew from reports that they were originally calling it Mega Man 12. And they've decided not to do that because they feel like it's overwhelming for people like that.

3:16:18Dustin Furman:And I'm like, who gives a fuck? Why are we changing everything for no reason? If it's Mega Man 12, then Mega Man 12 it is. We don't want people to feel like they need to play the previous ones. Well, why would they even be interested in this if they weren't playing the previous ones? I don't know.

3:16:36Dustin Furman:So yeah, you probably have nothing to really say about this, but again, it was more designed for me and Dustin so forgive me for that but

3:16:42Colin Moriarty:no it's well one thing I will say is that like a 3D Mega Man game is like that's a difficult thing for me to conceptualize like translating what works about 2D Mega Man to a 3D space that's a that's a tall order I think like I'm sure somebody can figure it out I don't think it's like impossible but like what I think of when I think of Mega Man or like the things that define megaman to me is that is that precision platforming and like and the how dangerous it is and making that in a 3d environment it's like that is tricky man yeah and i think people would also

3:17:23Dustin Furman:argue chris that they already have 3d megaman and legends and that that already is the 3d path but legends 3 was canceled when inifune left a long time ago 15 years ago and it's funny i can visualize it but i don't know if it's what people would want i don't speak for the megaman community by any stretch of the imagination so because i look at it as a third person shooter and there are basically two directions you can go in with that in my opinion you can have something it's a weird i'm just trying to stay within capcom references of something like devil may cry where it is very action and kinetic but it is mostly um you know it's not melee combat really or maybe there'll be a melee option maybe like well zero wouldn't be in it but like you know maybe there's a melee option but something very kinetic very fast um but third person shooting and then or i can imagine something that's more grounded almost like gears where like it's cover based and slow and different you know um and maybe like it incorporates the different weapons from the different enemies wherein you hide behind different barriers and stuff and they themselves are susceptible to certain weapons so like you're hiding behind concrete and you're fighting some some water enemy and so the water is eroding the concrete and you have to move on but then you get behind metal and the metal stops the water from coming through so you're safe so it kind of dynam dynamizes the the rock paper scissors aspect of megaman so i see it and i know there's people way smarter than me and way more connected to megaman at capcom that can probably see something similar i just wonder if they're willing to do it and shit even something like pragmata is kind of a model for what it could be like although i think that game is probably too stiff for it i think the bigger thing is is how would you incorporate megaman's telltale rock paper scissor choose your own adventure style which is vital in something that is 3d without it being either stage select which i think would be lame for a 3d game or and why i see it as an open world but a true fallout style open world where it's not beckoning you in one direction or the other, but it's like literally go do whatever you want and interact in all these different permutations, not unlike Link to the Past when you go to the dungeons in the dark world and you can do them in different orders, but it's the same world.

3:19:40Dustin Furman:I don't know. I probably have overthought it because I think about this a lot. Finally, Daniel Zarni wrote in, said, hey, CDC, with the release of Star Wars Zero Company and the news of the developer Bit Reactor starting a furlough with most of the team because the funds running out. I would like to ask the following question. How come we don't see that more with how volatile the industry is from other developers? This seems like the first time I've seen this and wanted some more perspective. I do know BitReactor had mentioned on some lawsuits too, but I am not up to snuff on that. Thanks, boys.

3:20:09Dustin Furman:I don't know anything about that either. It's funny. Zero companies out. I don't see anyone really talking about it, but I don't take that very seriously because it doesn't seem like, I mean, I've said this ad nauseum. Nothing has a moment. So apparently it's quite good. I believe it. I totally believe it. It looks cool. You know, if you're in like XCOM style things or whatever. I did see this, though. Did you see that BitReactor furloughed their team when the game came out? I did. And I now this isn't ideal, but we've talked about this, Chris, where. I do think this is necessary, and this is kind of how it works in other entertainment mediums.

3:20:48Dustin Furman:I think if I think if companies don't have the pressure. to pay people when nothing is happening, nothing is greenlit. You're burning potentially hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars, depending on the size of your team, tens of millions, depending on the size of your team every month while you're trying to get something going. The furlough thing with the hope to bring them back when they can get something off the ground. So they've kept the core team to pitch something new. And I also think they need to see how this game does. And it will probably do pretty well. And hopefully they can bring some people back.

3:21:15Dustin Furman:But I don't hate it. It's not the ideal, but it does go into the direction of what I've been saying about making games like movies or TV shows, which a lot of people have pushed back to me back on me about. And I totally understand that. I just think it's more fiscally reasonable. For instance, if you're making a season of now, you know more about this than I do. But if you're making a season of television, you're not getting paid when the season of television is not being made. You know, you get paid for the episodes you do, and then you go get other jobs or you get other gigs or you stand by or whatever.

3:21:41Dustin Furman:That's the way it works. Gaming has this weird software company mentality, which makes sense, wherein all of these products are constantly going but you're not microsoft and you're not making word and excel and supporting all these things you're making usually one game at a time and it's tough and you got to secure funding and get things greenlit and pass all these milestones so i kind of feel like this is economically reasonable and even um prudent in a way because it could it could actually ironically chris it could save all their jobs because it gives them time without earning money to find what they can

3:22:13Colin Moriarty:do next together yeah if they could just like keep a small team and just and then just hire back the

3:22:18Dustin Furman:people yeah like in other words like give us three months give us even six months it sucks we might lose half of you because you have to go get other jobs but the idea is that we don't keep you on for two months and then we're out of money and we just close down at least it's because there's an opportunity to pitch you know and i i think that that's good yeah i don't i mean i don't hate

3:22:36Colin Moriarty:the premise i think uh the issue ultimately is that like a lot of these old frameworks are colliding with a very new model that is no longer real like the reason that it made like if you worked on a season of tv and you were done yeah you wouldn't get paid anymore but it used to be that you would receive royals yeah you used to receive residuals you don't really have that anymore so that's a problem and it's it's by the way all these celebrities are doing their fucking podcasts like i know people are like sick of like oh the office podcast or like parks and rec podcast people are like oh why was what are these celebrities doing it's like they're getting their residuals they have to make it themselves right by doing these shows so i don't even really begrudge these people but like in video games where you know it's not really a thing like you're you don't get residuals for the if your game continues to sell well beyond you know it's it's just a it's a different system it's a different format so i i see what you're saying it's just um if if perhaps we had a system like that or if if perhaps a system like that was viable um maybe it wouldn't be such a big deal for a team to kind of disperse once a project is done because you would at least have some kind of um mechanism in place to ensure that uh these people can transition into different places a little bit easier in the way that we used to have for like Hollywood and TV that we do not have anymore it's um growing I only want to call them

3:24:18Dustin Furman:growing pains right because it's like we're we're we're a mature company we're a mature industry it's a new way of doing things but I I and I know it's very easy for my chair my comfortable chair to say like just you know BitReactor is just asking its people to give them time and that's not time people have they have mortgages and rent and they have kids and yeah and they don't have money and it's i get it i get all that but i do like the idea that in the long run it could actually save studios and not force them to spend money that they simply do not have in the hopes this outside hope that they go to gdc and they meet with the right person and they get the game pitch it's like it just slow down make a great pitch go find the right partners and um and and I also think it's important to be clear and I hope they were clear with bit reactor people.

3:25:02Dustin Furman:Maybe they were, we don't really know. This is the way it works here. Unless like we are doing gangbusters, like we can't afford to pay people when we don't have an active project. As long as people know what time it is, it's kind of treating your people like contractors, but, and of course, you know, I think people would argue back and I think rightfully so, like you lose institutional knowledge when you do this, but I just think the risk is too high in this financial climate to not to not care about that. you of course want to care about that but to just be like well what are we going to risk everything for that for our institutional knowledge um i'd rather risk the institutional knowledge and hope that we exist in a year so um anyway nice question sad story we'll see how it comes out if star wars zero company is supposed to be good like you said i think it'll probably sell appreciably it's a star wars game i'm sure they'll be back that's my feeling but who knows man all right so chris that's all we have for this episode of sacred symbols shorter one but please forgive us dustin's not here of course and we did a bunch of stuff this morning please forgive us we got to go yeah it's got to be over now there's no more to say oh dude i'm gonna sleep yeah i'm sorry to keep you up

3:26:12Colin Moriarty:so long no it's fine it is what it is but it's just like dude what uh and then there's all these games coming out dude i'm so it's some shot there's so much to do and it seems like there's

3:26:26Dustin Furman:so little time yeah it's it's it's a good sort of pressure it's an exciting sort of pressure but yeah it is a paralysis like you said yeah to not know how to really how to really proceed all right any closing comments before we go chris otherwise you're gonna go neat neapies neapy times yeah i don't know i think i'll probably make myself a little meal catch catch a couple z's cool yeah i don't know you're working the night shift sleep schedule no yeah yeah i'm all i'm all fucked up i gotta record tomorrow too like at like 11 a.m so like hopefully i can hopefully things are normal you'll be by then you'll be all right and then the weekend is here you can rest all you want get re-acclimated um yeah i might go dip in the pool and then uh i'm gonna eat i don't i'm too tired to work out today so i'm just gonna let it go and then uh yeah maybe beat alan wake tonight and then maybe go into dawn walker if i can but i want to make sure I'm awake and like enjoying it you know when you start a game sometimes and you're like I'm not I think that sometimes when I bounce off of games it's because of that where I'm like ah

3:27:30Colin Moriarty:that's usually that's been me with play tail the last couple because it's just like by the time I'm done with all the shit that I have to do it's like 1 a.m and I'm like I'm tired man I don't know I'm not really gonna be paying attention to this yeah you gotta you gotta be

3:27:45Dustin Furman:more tuned in all right my friend well see you next time appreciate your time as always appreciate you guys out there. We'll give Dustin your regards to maybe he's been flooded away in Pennsylvania. I don't really know. We'll find out. Remember, you can support us over on Patreon, Patreon.com slash last day media and last day media store for merch. We appreciate you and we'll 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 was conceived by, is written by, and is directed by me, Colin Moriarty.

3:28:21Dustin Furman:My co-hosts are Chris Raygun Maldonado and Dustin Furman. The show is produced by executive producer Dustin Furman. All of Last Stand's theme music is by my best friend, Ramon Narvaez. As you know, all of Last Stand's shows, including Sacred Symbols, are fan-funded on Patreon at patreon.com 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.

3:29:10Dustin Furman:Cooley, Brad Loman, Brandon Runniger, Brian Williamson, Cannonball Jones, Captain Verde, Carlos Algaret, Chad Lewis, Chris Galvin, Chris Morton, Chris Ritchie, Christopher Devayo, Christopher Moore, Christopher Morgan, Cody Benin, Conrad Pennyfarthing, Corey Beacom, Dan Nolan, Dan Root, Daniel D 'Amour, Daryl E. Neyman, Dave Alvarez, Dennis Usel, Denny Would Never, Don Lee, Donald Difford, Donald John Vaders, Double Duty Dirk, WTF, Eddie Smith, Electric MD, Ellis, Emmanuel Perez, Enrique Perez, Entishas, Frail Cabbage St. Matthews of the Diocese of Brig, Gabe's New Gabe Cube, Gary Cavallo, Gavin, Ghoststorm672, Gio Corsi, Grayson Maxwell, Gregory Slavinsky, Gus, Hush, Jad Rita, Jake C, Jamie Fraley, Jason Arzon, Jay Getter, Jean-Francois Forzi, Jeff Mercado, Jerome Ferreira, Jimmy Rodriguez, Joe McPartland, Joey Gondaliger, John Schultz, John Zile, Johnny Waffles, John Cordero, Jonathan Coates, Jonathan Cortez, Joosh, Jorge Pal, Joseph Baker, Joseph Lopez, Josh Godfrey, Josh Gravelick, Josh McKinney, Josh Schullinger, Joshua Smallwood, J.P.

3:30:21Dustin Furman:Lynch, Justin Payne, Justin Wagaman, Cam Wallace, Keith Richards, Kendrick Caius, Kyle Hagel, Kyle Martin, Lizard King, Logan Little George, Madmock Media, Miranda Grubba, Martin Beck, Mason Bouchard, Matt Flowers, Matt 20, Matthew Ash, Matt MGS24, Michael Buffel, Michael Gates, Michael Mashed Potato, Michael Vecchio, Mr. Tom, Morgan Ashley, Mr. Finkler, Mr. Molf, My Name is Mayo, Nate Izod, Nathan R., Neil Amon, Nick Amato, Norse Nuts, Ali Fritz, Omar, Omar Rosa, Orchard, Organic Produce, Out of Focus Bigfoot, Patrick Leslie, Paul Joyce, Peyton Stone, Phil Crone, Qualia Freak, Randall Holsey, Rallo, Relentless Rex, Remington James, Ray Lijah, Robert Byers, Robert Schultz, Roto24, Ross Marenka, Ryan T.

3:31:13Dustin Furman:Mandel, Saqib Alam, Saul Balcazar, Sean Mason, Shane Brecky, Shane Miller, Shane Rayoum, Silent Butt Deadly, Simon Conception Jr., Sketch McGetch, Spencer F., Steven Glasin, Steven Innerfield, Stewie 1 0 8 sunny sides up sweaty magic sweet jones terry tip the fandom travel dave portnoy here

3:31:33Colin Moriarty:the wait is over football is here and so is draft kings draft kings is now live in all 50 states one app every sport nationwide new draft kings customers sign up with code spotify spend five bucks to get 200 in rewards within 21 days includes all markets that's code spotify in partnership with DraftKings. The crown is yours. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER, 1-800-MY-RESET, Connecticut. Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org. On behalf of Boothill Casino in Kansas, FedTax Pass-Thru may apply in Illinois, 21 and over, void in Canada. Bet with DraftKings Sportsbook to get bonus bets that expire in seven days or trade with DraftKings Predictions to get predictions dollars that expire in one year.

3:32:17Colin Moriarty:Event contract trading involves risk of loss. Predictions offer void in New York.

3:32:20Dustin Furman:Non-withdrawable rewards issued as$50. Click to claim every seven days for 21 days. Terms at dkng.co slash offer. Limited time offer. Nationwide based on sportsbook predictions and free-to-play sports contest availability. Varies by state.

From the publisher

PlayStation's dueling State of Play presentations -- one for western audiences and the other for its native Japanese territory -- hasn't quelled the ever-increasing animus for the brand in some corners. Though widely considered a weak showing (we rank it somewhere between a C and F, depending on which one of us you ask), there were still some great games worth discussing, and we'll do just that. New announcements included shark-eating sequel Maneater 2, an eastern take on New York City with Konami's Rhapsody in Scarlet, old-school bona fides in SlashZero, and the uniquely liminal World Phasebound Control Authority. Plus, release dates flowed for the likes of Final Fantasy VII Revelation, Until Dawn 2, and Metro 2039, all excellent-looking titles. But underneath the surface, the same issues remain. Is Sony disconnected from the reality on the ground, or are we too busy misinterpreting the noise while dodging the signal? We discuss at length. Other news this week includes some Grand Theft Auto VI updates, the exit of Housemarque's co-founder, faux rumors of Square Enix going private, and more. Then, we wrap things up (as we always do) with listener inquiries. Do we believe the scuttlebutt out of Gamescom that Sony's development and publishing partners are upset with them? What do we think of the new website Video Games Critic? Does developer Bit Reactor furloughing staff indicate a future trend for sustainable game dev? Is Sacred Symbols the absolutely perfect podcast for the manic depressive?

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Please keep in mind that our timestamps are approximate, and will often be slightly off due to dynamic ad placement.0:00:00 - Intro0:16:34 - Pre-Sacred ritual0:28:26 - Chris Ray Goon0:31:09 - Bathroom paper towels0:33:04 - Podcast etiquette0:40:44 - Wendy's encounter0:52:21 - Money flow follow-up0:54:57 - State of Play1:46:37 - Netflix's GTAVI breaks records1:49:41 - Sony's comments on "digital ownership"2:03:08 - Housemarque co-founder leaves2:07:52 - Square Enix denies going private2:10:38 - Sony Music buys 24% stake in Gung Ho Entertainment2:13:06 - Sony brings live TV to PlayStation2:15:48 - Iron Man game leaked2:18:38 - What We’re Playing (Alan Wake 2, Mortal Shell 2, Halloween: The Game, Onimusha: Way of the Sword)2:29:30 - PlayStation getting cold feet?2:38:54 - Naughty Dog’s new reality2:50:52 - Video Games Critic2:59:12 - Physical games replacement3:07:32 - Mega Man’s future3:13:26 - Star Wars: Zero Company furlough
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