Zelda Echoes of Wisdom, Silent Hill 2 Remake, and PS6 Rumors | Game Junction Podcast 103

Welcome back, gamers and fall enthusiasts! We're thrilled to have Mr. Thunderstache Gaming join us for a lively discussion on the gaming season in full swing and festive autumn plans. From the thrill of new games like the much-anticipated "Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom" to the cultural craze of pumpkin spice lattes, we cover it all without spilling any spoilers. 

We also dive into crucial industry updates that every gamer needs to know. From Software is setting a new standard with significant pay raises, while we tackle the controversy over Horizon Zero Dawn's remaster pricing. If you're into Halloween, you'll appreciate our thoughts on Xbox Game Pass's spooky offerings. 

Wrapping up, we ponder the future of gaming consoles and the exciting prospects they hold. The conversation spans the rumored PS6 and Switch 2, with a sprinkle of Pokémon game predictions to keep things spicy. We also touch on the ethics of console mods and emulation, while sharing our excitement for the Silent Hill 2 remake and a promising Avatar RPG. As we speculate on Ubisoft's turbulent future amidst leadership changes, t

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Chapters

• 0:08 Gaming and Fall Plans
• 16:10 Gaming Industry Updates and Releases
• 29:47 Legal and Industry Changes in Gaming
• 40:53 PC Gaming vs Console Costs
• 51:51 Excitement for New Gaming Releases
• 57:47 Gaming Mod and Emulator Ethics
• 1:05:24 Ethics of Emulation and Copyright
• 1:11:10 Silent Hill 2 Remake Reviews
• 1:22:58 PS5 Pro
• 1:30:47 Future Gaming Console Speculation
• 1:44:10 Ubisoft's Future and Leadership Changes
• 1:57:37 Ubisoft's Uncertain Future
• 2:07:38 Pokemon Legend ZA Release Speculation
• 2:14:32 Upcoming Game Releases and Controversies
• 2:23:41 Compliance and Creativity in Gaming
• 2:28:47 Avatar RPG Announcement and Gaming Discussions
• 2:34:58 Movie Critique and Nostalgia

Transcript

Brandon Hurles: 0:08

how's everybody going doing? What are we doing?

Mark Trobough: 0:11

yeah, no, it's been a crazy week. Uh, obviously we got um mr thunderstache gaming back for another week, how's? Everybody good, good, happy. How's everything going for?

Game Junction: 0:21

you Good, good, happy to be here. Been a busy week, I'm sure for everybody. It's that time of the year I think I talked about this last time I was on. I was kind of mentioning once we get into the second half of September it just gets busy.

Game Junction: 0:44

It does, oh yeah it does yeah ramping up into holiday seasons just around the corner yeah, between that and video games, man, it just gets so busy and when, when you're reviewing games, you're just like locked in every day. So, yeah, it's been super busy, uh, but I'm I'm happy to break away from sitting in front of the tv and and going hard on zelda echoes of wisdom to uh talk about some other stuff.

Brandon Hurles: 1:14

Wait, does that mean you beat echoes of wisdom?

Game Junction: 1:17

no not yet I'm happy to break from it, though, but uh it'll.

Mark Trobough: 1:22

It'll be done this weekend for sure you say that is this probably gonna be the first week and I'll actually get a chance, since I because I bought it when it came out but I haven't had a chance to play it yeah, I was hoping you would at least because I wanted to do like a spoiler free, like just thoughts on the game. Daggone it I mean I still share your thoughts, don't you're not gonna completely spoil it for me, because there's a lot to look forward to?

Brandon Hurles: 1:42

yesterday we opted to not talk about it, essentially on the nintendo bite podcast, because everybody hadn't finished it. But I just kind of. I just kind of wanted to briefly talk about my thoughts on it, but I don't want to like uh no, no, you, you two should definitely talk about it.

Mark Trobough: 1:57

You can still talk about being spoiler free. I mean, I still technically haven't beaten tears of the kingdom, even though I know how the game actually ends.

Brandon Hurles: 2:04

So well, I technically have, but I technically haven't, cause I'm going for 100%. So I'm still going through that game. So it just it never ends.

Mark Trobough: 2:16

Yeah, yeah, it's, it's never ending. But, yes, episode one, oh three, it's another week. It's been amazing. I know you kind of mentioned, hey, it's uh the that time of year again, as I'm completely blanking that for a second, and the funny enough, two things came through my mind. One, it's the most wonderful time of the year, almost because christmas songs are extremely catchy. And, uh, it's that time of the year because it's pumpkin spice latte time I'm not a coffee drinker. I don drink that, but I do know plenty of people that do.

Game Junction: 2:46

Yeah, I drink coffee, but in fact I got some right here my Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. But, as you can see, this baby is black.

Brandon Hurles: 3:00

Coffee is nothing but black coffee, always, I definitely have no problem with black coffee, especially as an adult. I'm just like, just let me get my intake. I'd also exactly steer away from the sugar any of the sugar content. I just know it's a no for me anymore.

Game Junction: 3:17

So yeah, I don't want to drink a coffee and feel tired and lethargic after drinking it, and that's what will happen when you drink something like a pumpkin spice latte. Now again, I know there's a market for it and people love it and they get it, and you know people can keep on going on and enjoying it, no problem. Yeah. It's not for me. Yeah, for those reasons.

Brandon Hurles: 3:43

As Mark knows, we have a big pumpkin festival here every single year.

Mark Trobough: 3:48

The worshipping of the pumpkins.

Brandon Hurles: 3:50

People travel from all over the country to come to this pumpkin show and it blocks the entire city block. Essentially, it's a pain to park. People are charging Mark, I kid you not. Last year people were charging $50 for a parking spot. That's crazy $50. Someone's getting rich Dang. So what I do is I just walk the extra mile from Kroger. I park at Kroger for free.

Mark Trobough: 4:20

Yeah, at that point and walk.

Brandon Hurles: 4:22

I'm like I'm not paying $50, dude, Are you kidding? Me I already have to pay eight dollars for freaking cheese on a stick dude yeah, I mean you gotta work off that fair food, you know.

Mark Trobough: 4:33

You know exercise is free at that point it's free cardio dude, no kidding, no kidding man.

Brandon Hurles: 4:38

But yeah, it's been, uh, it's been, a pretty good week, man. I'm, I'm ready for the fall. I know we're talking uh, we, we briefly mentioned it, but we're going to do something for the halloween special. We always do like specials for the holidays, so I think we're probably going to dress up or you know something like that, and just make it a little fun, make it yeah, more horror-ish.

Mark Trobough: 5:00

I don't know the last time I wore, but I do have a wig and a japanese schoolgirl outfit I can wear.

Brandon Hurles: 5:06

Pinboy Friday, right as you say.

Mark Trobough: 5:09

Of course, obviously, before we get into it just had two quick shout outs. I know this is kind of probably coming out a little late, but coming out Monday on the Game Junction channel on YouTube. I'll have a unboxing for the, the, the switch, the Hyrule edition for the. That goes with wisdom, because I'm blanking across the board a little late to it. I just haven't got around to filming it, but that will be up on Monday on the Game Junction channel. And then obviously we've got the main brainer doing the anime Junction cast on the Junction Network. That goes up every Sunday I about said Friday wrong, wrong day Every Sunday at noon Eastern and then as well on the Junction Network YouTube channel trying to, by Monday as well, get a separate anime related video out as well, because we have new it's a new fall season, so there's definitely some anime trying to give my thoughts on trying to obviously pump thoughts on trying to obviously pump up that you know get more content out and stuff like that.

Mark Trobough: 6:07

So one channel we're doing game stuff. Uh, junction network a little more I guess was supposed to be broad but got some anime related stuff. That's that's coming to that channel as well. So some good stuff to look forward to? Uh, I guess real quick. Did you have anything coming to your channels or any streaming you're doing?

Game Junction: 6:22

quick, shout out, real quick yeah, um, the next thing to come will be the zelda echoes of wisdom review, which should be early next week. And then, yeah, I have, I have a dry race board behind me which is crazy.

Brandon Hurles: 6:42

Oh yeah, I love it yeah.

Game Junction: 6:44

so next up is a game that we'll actually be talking about today silent hill 2. I'm going to jump into that, and then another game we'll be talking about metaphor refantasio, yep, and I'm going to try to sneak in two other games that are going to be probably a little quicker to get reviews out on, and one of them just went up on Limited Run on October 1st for the first time. Physically, the game came out in 2020. And it's called Pumpkin Jack. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah pumpkin jack.

Game Junction: 7:28

Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm gonna review that and then I am going to review the new ghostbusters 2 for regular nintendo. It was a europe exclusive, did not come out in the states, it was, uh, developed by hal laboratories, which, of course, super smash brothers kirby, super Smash Brothers Kirby, ventures of Lolo from the NES days, so yeah, great game and so, yeah, I got.

Game Junction: 7:50

I got a lot going on and I figured I'd try to inject a little bit of, you know, scary Halloween theme games in there with the Pumpkin Jack and the Ghostbusters we've also got me, and you pre-ordered the Halloween and Ash game, oh yeah. The Retro Alums that comes out. What the 18th? Yeah, so just before Halloween? Yeah, this October on my calendar is just absolutely bonkers.

Brandon Hurles: 8:19

It's crazy that we're in such a time where there are so many games that we're looking forward to both big, small, medium, and it's exciting, man. It's an exciting time to be a gamer. It is, it truly is. There's so much stuff for everybody, and you mentioned some of the things that I want to check out. There's way more. There's way more that I'm interested in.

Brandon Hurles: 8:46

I cannot wait for Gimmick 2, 2 because gimmick is my favorite platform of all time. Yeah, it's a good one, man. Yeah, and it's like, uh, I may have went down since, but it was like a 900 famicom card, which is crazy, um. So I actually played that for the first time when I had a buddy bring it over with this famicom tv, which is a really interesting experience and really cool way to play the game. Um, and I fell in love. I fell in love, um, I absolutely cannot wait for that. That's one I'm super hyped for.

Game Junction: 9:12

So, uh, yeah, one of the games with uh with an amazing soundtrack. But, as we know sunsoft, they were known for having amazing soundtracks on their games in the NES era, from from that to uh Batman, uh gremlins to the new batch Excellent games.

Brandon Hurles: 9:34

Oh yes, so much greatness there, for sure, so yeah, I guess we go right into it.

Mark Trobough: 9:41

A quick little like update for the nintendo switch online. We got two games coming back to it that a lot of people probably didn't know about. Uh, I know, I wasn't for sure. On october 11th we got f0 gp legend and f0 climax. So excited two classics because these were both on the game boy. If I'm not mistaken, correct gba.

Game Junction: 10:01

Yeah, legend was on gba and then climax, also gba, but it was only in japan yeah never came out yeah, finally getting a chance at that game yeah, which

Brandon Hurles: 10:14

is a big deal.

Game Junction: 10:16

It's pretty awesome. And then on top of that, f0 99, of course, is getting the saddle satellite view games. Yeah the teleview, yeah, which is you know? Again uh, a lot. Yeah, so many people probably don't know about the satellite viewers teleview, but you know this was a japan in the in the mid 90s, where you connect to the internet with your super nintendo, which is crazy. Play games, you know, like the internet with your Super Nintendo, which is crazy. And play games you know, like the Zelda game, the.

Mark Trobough: 10:49

BS broadcast satellite Zelda.

Game Junction: 10:51

that's right behind me. So yeah, super cool. We're all going to be able to experience that. I love when that happens, when we got Star Fox 2 on the Super Nintendo.

ThunderStash Gaming: 11:04

Classic yeah, great stuff when we got Star Fox two on the super Nintendo classic.

Game Junction: 11:06

Yeah, like great stuff.

Brandon Hurles: 11:08

Yeah, it's, it's a super exciting time for Nintendo. I think the surprise drop on those was like it kind of blew my mind because, you know, it just wasn't something I expected to see coming. And yeah it's, it's exciting. Man, I love F zero and I'm hoping, I'm hoping the F-Zero 99, these two games being brought over leads to something new F-Zero coming in the future, because I mean F-Zero 99, I can say this wholeheartedly I just jump in that game and run a few races and just kill some time, like I love it. Beauty of the game it it really is. I think it's very fun. I think it's a great concept. I thought Tetris 99 was a good concept. It's unfortunate that these games aren't going to stay because they're digital only, but F-Zero 99 really made sense. It's really cool.

Mark Trobough: 12:01

Yeah, I guess it's more. I just want to say real quick because, like the old, my only experience with that zero was the maximum velocity game on gba, which is the only one that I ever played yeah, great games, I mean I.

Game Junction: 12:14

I remember when we first, you know, got the super nintendo and the first time we played it we played super mario world and f0. Obviously both launch titles and those are the games we played first time playing it. And you know, f0, of course, is a futuristic racer, but back then, you know, in 1991, like it really did feel like the future, what you're experiencing, the graphics, and it was so much fun. Obviously, f-zero has barely been supported really since the GameCube era when we got F-Zero GX. The fact that it's coming back now and the way it is with f0 99, it does lead me to believe that we're either going to get a f0 gx remaster on the switch yep, switch to or we're going to get a new entry in the series. Because they're priming us right now.

Game Junction: 13:25

They've planted the seed. The seed is F-099. Then they planted a few more additional seeds by bringing over F-0, exxon, nintendo 64, with the NSO and then now the GBA games and of course we already had the SNES game. They have to do that because when you've had a franchise absent for as long as F zero has been, nobody knows about it. That's young. None of the young kids now like young kids today, kids that were born when the game cube came out. I mean, that's when they were born. They weren't playing video games yet and by the time they were of age to start playing video games, no one was playing the gamecube.

Game Junction: 14:10

In fact, people were still hating on the gamecube, probably back then, yeah, the gamecube really just came back into the retro, so to speak, spotlight in the last probably three or four years. Maybe I think COVID kind of helped it out and people realized that, oh yeah, this is. You know, despite its looks, this is a great gaming machine. Yeah, and so, yeah, yeah, I think that GX came out in what, 2003, 2004, 2003 or 2004.

Game Junction: 14:41

Yeah, ok, so 20 years ago, and no one knows about it. That's young, so you gotta reintroduce it like this. And you know I was thinking about it. I remember I was reading an article recently about how we're not gonna get Horizon 3 until we get first the Horizon live service game, and it's like what are you guys doing? Okay, and and so I got to think about it and and there's a reason I brought this up is because you know, all these companies are still trying this live service bullshit that we don't want and they're going to keep losing money. But then I I thought about f099, tetris 99. I'm like you know, this is nintendo's live service. These are their live service games. They're on nso, they're created exclusively for nso, yeah, there's no microtransactions, there's no gotchas, there's no bullshit, just video games. This is their version, literally, of live service. It is, yeah, this is the route they chose. And do you think it's better? I think it's. I think it's obviously better. They're not asking for for money after every race, are they? Nope, nope, I don't know.

Brandon Hurles: 16:04

I think it works for these particular games, while they are live service. It's different, it's done differently and you can earn things within the game without spending money and winning races and obviously the challenges. I mean, for goodness sakes, you can even earn, like, the coins to buy stuff right, like you can still earn the coins every week. There's weekly challenges. I'm an idiot. I've had a switch forever and I just started doing them because I just started realizing, oh, there's a bunch of really cool icons that I can add to the collection, like switch out and stuff. So I got all the links awakening ones from the week before last and then I got most of the new ones. I still got a few to get, like I think I got the bed and zelda and link nice. But yeah, I mean it.

Brandon Hurles: 16:57

It definitely works for nintendo and I enjoy it very much. It's a very. It's one of those games you can pop in and just play man, just jump in a race. Don't spend a bunch of time. You got 10 minutes to kill. Jump in a race, have some fun exactly, and it's nice yeah, I love it.

Mark Trobough: 17:15

Yeah, there's definitely nothing wrong with that. Uh, outside of the years and probably continuing news of bad, bad news, the game industry. There is a bright positive spot From Software is giving all its employees an approximate 11.8% pay raise starting in April of 2025. A game studio doing everything right and not losing money Just pumping out good games.

Brandon Hurles: 17:41

Yeah, somebody's doing something, right yeah.

Mark Trobough: 17:48

I guess the one thing, the only price range that was highlighted was the fact that they're for recent graduates starting from software. Uh, they get a salary around 260 000 yen a month, which is about, uh, about 1700 a month, going up to about 300 000 which700 a month, going up to about $300,000, which is right, around $2,000 a month for starting salaries. So it kind of gives you an idea, but something that they're at least able to give all their employees across the board a raise shows not only they're doing right how the industry should treat its employees, but how they should treat the fans. Make good games and, regardless of economic woes, if you make good games, people will be out there, they want to buy it. I mean, look at Blackmuth Wukong, a really good game that appeals to the core gaming audience and it sells extremely well.

Game Junction: 18:36

Yep, yeah, I was really happy to see this. Obviously, we see so much bad news with AAA development and even the smaller studios, right I mean, and Interactive. I didn't expect to see the entire staff of developers walk out. Yeah, you know, and I saw people in the tweets are like oh you know, they'll be fine, they'll just hire other developers. It's like that's not really how it works, man. That's, that's the heart and soul that you just removed that's a whole crazy situation.

Game Junction: 19:15

That's that, that one's wild it is, but to give a basically a 12% pay increase across the board. That's special because even in in tough economic times like we're in, like we've been in for the last few years, I think a select handful of people getting a pay raise is something to celebrate. Yeah.

Game Junction: 19:43

But the fact that they gave it to everybody like okay, dude, that's awesome, especially when you compare and contrast and you look at things going on at other big triple a developers just this week alone. Right, that we'll get to soon, you know, later in the show it's like man, this is good, good to see. So I'm happy and I I must presume. But the bird tree dlc did fantastic it absolutely did, yeah I enjoyed it yeah, everybody that I've seen playing the game.

Mark Trobough: 20:16

I haven't played it, it's not my style of game, but it's always good to see that p that they're making good games, not just coming out having their developers say stupid stuff to just cause drama and stuff like that.

Game Junction: 20:27

Exactly yeah, just follow the basics you know?

Mark Trobough: 20:30

Yeah, pretty much. But Brandon, I do have a question for you. Yeah, what's up? Would you like to play a game? Okay, so what's going on here? Just because obviously we're in October, it's Halloween month. Those that have Xbox Game pass ultimate will get two free horror movies this month until the 31st both saul and the devil's rejects oh, I might have to save those, then if you already have that, go and claim those. Yep till the end of the month, just uh, you know it is the season yeah, that's cool though I mean as long as they don't get taken away.

Mark Trobough: 21:08

It's always the issue with digital, but hey, if you're already paying for this, what's a free movie?

Brandon Hurles: 21:12

Yeah, that's true. Yeah, I'm going to have to claim those for sure.

Mark Trobough: 21:14

Yeah, but I know we did just talk about the Horizon going live service. There was some news around the Horizon remaster, so it came out that Horizon Zero Dawn will no longer be sold individually on Steam. It will be packaged together with. It'll be bundled with the Horizon Zero Dawn Remaster with a price point of $50 to match the standard price of the Horizon Zero Dawn Complete Edition, because you know we have to have multiple editions of it. So on top of the original, we bumped up the price to $40. Now it's $50, and you can only buy this one version of the game moving forward and I believe it also. I don't know if this got the same treatment on the.

Mark Trobough: 21:54

Epic Games Store. But I did know the original did get delisted, but I assumed it was getting a similar treatment over there as well, which is unfortunate to see, Completely unnecessary.

Brandon Hurles: 22:03

Completely unnecessary and a really bad move on PlayStation's part again. You know they just keep doing it over and over and over. You got to be logged in the PSN to play your single-player PC games Like come on man. Come on I can't defend these companies. I can't, I can't do it.

Mark Trobough: 22:20

They've either got really high highs and they've got really low lows. There's no in between with Sony right now.

Game Junction: 22:25

Oh yeah, this year's been wild for them. It's been a roller coaster of of exactly that Ups and downs all year and the lows have been real, real low. But oh yeah, yeah, I'm sure you guys saw as well that the pricing changed on the PlayStation store store. Yep, of course they increased the price and you know a lot of people have made the case like hey, you know, if you have a physical playstation 5, if you opt it for the physical version, you can just go to a game stop or good, on ebay you can buy the game for like 10 bucks and then pay 10 more dollars to get the upgrade. Now you got horizon complete edition for for 20 bucks.

Brandon Hurles: 23:19

That's why it's cheaper. I mean, I keep saying it, that's the workaround.

Game Junction: 23:24

So I I know people are upset about it, right, and obviously sony wants to make sure that there's no loopholes where they can, you know, go on the playstation store and buy the ps4 version for ten dollars and then pay the ten. I get that, I get that right. But again, if the price point is a real sticking point for people, which again it seems like it is in the comments, but half the time the people that are commenting don't even have any intentions of playing the game they just want to complain, to complain yep but again it's like hey, if you really want to play this and you want to get a better deal, there's better deals out there.

Game Junction: 24:09

There always is. So just think outside the box for two seconds, two seconds and go buy the game physically it's just a little extra work.

Mark Trobough: 24:20

Don't pay more money for a poor convenience that's just designed to sap money out of you for a game that didn't really need a remaster at the end of the day, but yeah this is the last of us yeah, all over again all over again.

Game Junction: 24:35

This is until dawn. All over again. Until dawn came out today the, the remake, and again we, we did, we don't need it, okay, um, it's still playable on your ps5 yeah, there's really like I get that you're going to take advantage of the dual sense and that it's going to have some minor graphical upgrades and the frame rate may or may not in some cases be improved yeah because you know, they, they, I almost feel like even if they can improve the frame rate on some of these games they may not like, even if they can on ps5, they may not.

Game Junction: 25:20

They may say, oh, we can do it on ps5 pro, though not. They may say, oh, we can do it on ps5 pro, though probably can get you 60 frames, even if they could get you 60 on ps5. That's another incentive for you to spend more money yep yeah and look horizon.

Game Junction: 25:37

I played it, beat it, I got the platinum on it and I did play all the dl, and the DLC was really good and I did on the Forbidden West as well. They're excellent games. But I played Horizon Zero Dawn a few years ago I think maybe three or four years ago on my PS5, and it was great. Yeah.

Game Junction: 26:00

No issues with it, nothing, nothing wrong. I ran it 60. So I don't know what more you can do, but hey, for ten dollars I'll probably check it out, because ten dollars is the right price. That's the thing to me. Ten dollars is the right price for an upgrade yeah, which is all it should have been.

Mark Trobough: 26:20

There's no way they did an extra fifty dollars worth of work like essentially a new coat of paint, an upgrade, upgrade, more or less.

Game Junction: 26:26

Yeah, like if you're buying this, though, for the first time, if you never played this game, ok, and you got a PS5 and you're interested in playing it. I actually think the $50 price tag is a really good value. For the amount of hours and the quality of the game that you're getting with all the DLC, I think $50 is a good price. I think that's what the Last of Us Part 1 remastered should have been. But that came out at $70 plus it was $100 for the Firefly edition right that's crazy.

Brandon Hurles: 27:05

Mark, we were talking about this before you even came on Thunderstache. We were discussing that I wanted that Firefly edition. I really really wanted that. But I didn't necessarily. I wasn't like, oh, I've got to play part one and play it for a third time again. But I knew that it was going to be super limited and I knew at some point I would want to check it out and it's just kind of neat, but couldn't get it. So they I mean there's no reason sony couldn't have printed more copies of the firefly edition and not made it so limited. But this is what sony does, so well, hey, right behind me too.

Game Junction: 27:44

Final fantasy pixel remastered I know, and I know, and I know they reprinted it, but they didn't reprint the anniversary edition which I wanted which is, yeah, that's what the fans of final fantasy, the longtime fans, really want it, and so, yeah, I don't know why they make it so limited, because it'll sell man, you can make more money. And again, if I'm a shareholder, I'd be like why are you doing this?

Brandon Hurles: 28:13

it doesn't why you leave the money on the table, because I would have bought that in a heartbeat. I tried and I mean it went up, but like what? At least my time, like 3 a or something, in the middle of the night it went up for sale. Yeah, yeah yeah. And that's why I missed it. I mean, I was sleeping.

Game Junction: 28:30

Yeah, I just happened to be at Denny's at that time. That's awesome. I got lucky.

Brandon Hurles: 28:37

Yeah, total luck. Fun stuff happens at Denny's man, I know. It always does, you guys ever see that video of the band playing at Denny's.

Mark Trobough: 28:48

Can't remember if I did or not.

Brandon Hurles: 28:48

to be honest, you gotta look that up. Sometimes it's hilarious.

Mark Trobough: 28:52

I'll definitely have to double check. I know last week we talked about, obviously, the ongoing legal between Nintendo and Power World and that constant butting of heads, but we did get news today. Obviously, power World launched on ps5 and a bunch of other countries last week, but today it launched on the ps5 in japan, regardless of the ongoing legal battle still moving forward with this. Uh, so either they are fairly confident or they're just, like you know, screw it.

Game Junction: 29:19

We're just gonna move forward with and whatever happens happens yeah yeah, I, I feel like you kind of have to at this point. Like, I'm sure internally they know what's going on, they know what the stakes are, like I'm sure they have a risk assessment team or at least a risk assessment advisor that can tell them what you can and cannot do as you're going into court. But to not release it would be, I think, almost throwing in the towel, in a sense like submitting to saying, hey, man, like, uh, I surrender, you know, like're going to get defeated if you do that. Like that sends a bad signal even to even to the judge, whoever the judge is going to be, like the big white. If you're not infringing or if you're not copying them, then why did you stop? Why didn't you release the game in Japan? That would be one of the questions that they get asked in court. So you just have to just continue moving forward, and you know you're, you're already in this deep.

Mark Trobough: 30:29

So it's not going to change because I know they came out on their, on their, on their japanese x count. We're like sorry for the delay, but it's it's out now, type thing. But yeah, because if you don't, it's like, oh well, are you trying to hide something? Do you look me? Regardless? The perception is you might look essentially guilty thing, which is regardless whether you're in the right or wrong. You just have to keep moving forward and then you know you deal with the fall because there's no stopping at this point.

Game Junction: 30:51

Right Because because the judge and the jury, they will judge you for that.

Brandon Hurles: 30:56

Definitely will. And the thing that makes this difficult is that the Japanese court system is so different. Japanese law is so different than here in the US. It just is. It's hard to you know. I don't know how they're going to deal with this, but I do know it's very different. I've talked with other people and it's going to be probably, you know, things that we just don't understand. We're not lawyers. First of all, we're definitely not Japanese lawyers. So it's going to be interesting to see how this plays out.

Game Junction: 31:27

Yeah, that will be for sure. I hope it's more, I guess, organized, less drawn out, than the whole Activision FTC stuff that we dealt with the last couple of years. That was interesting for a while and then it just kept going and going. You're like, OK, when's this going to be done?

Mark Trobough: 31:52

Right, Never will be. That's the joke, Right. But I know what the ongoing issue of the talk with you know the fight between physical and digital media is an ever moving forward issue. I know I've never been to the UK. I don't assume you all have ever been to the UK before.

Brandon Hurles: 32:09

Nope I haven't. No.

Mark Trobough: 32:11

Yeah. So this is less for this specific, but it's more about the topic. So the Play Magazine is shutting down after almost 30 years. In the UK Physical Magazine, this is their last one, which will be their issue 46. Uh, they're pretty much in. Hey, it's been a good ride, but we're finally finally shutting down. It's just the the sadness of physical dying. I know this is deals with them more with the magazine, but it's just a greater issue of of. If you don't move to digital and you can't succeed there, it's just going away. It just seems like it's a matter of convenience and the industry wants it to go that way because the industry can have more control you know, over games and stuff like that.

Brandon Hurles: 32:47

I actually own a few issues of the Play Magazine that I've imported throughout the years with covers that I've liked, and it's unfortunate that magazines now because we saw like with Game Informer, obviously that just stopped not long ago and I went and picked up the final issue because I wanted to have that final time of picking up that magazine and, uh, it's just, it's a part of history, something that I cared about very deeply back in the day. I mean, I I read Nintendo Power from front to cover multiple times. When they came out I had it. I had subscriptions from the year 2000 until the very last issue. I never missed an issue. So I love that magazine and I love the PlayStation Underground magazine and I love the Xbox magazine. They were awesome at the time but it's almost like you don't. By the time that comes out, all that news is way, way old. You know that they're sharing with how fast everything moves.

Game Junction: 33:48

Yeah, I mean stuff is old in 30 minutes, like as crazy as that sounds, it really is yeah, we're in the, the information era, right, and play magazine, I will just say that I I have bought plenty of issues of it. I don't know about you guys, but play magazine was always at, uh, barnes and noble, yeah, and where I managed in restaurants for 10 years at Islands, play Magazine was at that Barnes, noble. It was in the same shopping area, right, and so I would go over there and maybe hang out on breaks or something. I'd actually go check the video game magazines you know regularly and yeah, so I've read Play plenty of times and yeah, I didn't realize it's been going on for 30 years, but it makes sense if I actually think about when I was in the restaurant biz and yeah, yeah, it was a long time ago and it is a really good magazine.

Game Junction: 35:01

I grew up as well. Getting uh had a GM. Yeah, yep, game pro, uh, tips and tricks yep was a good one I still have some of the vhs tapes that they put out oh yeah, and of course that nintendo power, yeah, uh.

Game Junction: 35:20

For a very long time I have in my my barcade I have about at least 10 nintendo powers framed in a uh in a magazine frame. That's really cool, yeah, and did you have a I? Picked out my favorite covers?

Brandon Hurles: 35:38

did you have somebody do that or did you do it yourself? Because I know a guy that I did myself okay, all right yeah uh, yeah.

Brandon Hurles: 35:48

In the words of george mcfly if you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything yeah, I know a guy that uh, and he sells them a lot, like he does very well what. He takes the posters that were in nintendo power and frames those and he'll make like a custom frame that fits the poster to make it look like it's part of the poster. It's really really cool stuff, um yeah, yeah, it's nice.

Game Junction: 36:12

Um, yeah, obviously they had so many iconic covers too with nintendo power. But oh, yeah, same thing. I read those front to back. But again, yeah, by the time you get it, the news is, best case scenario, about six weeks old by the time it actually hits shelves. And I I do think there's still a market for magazines, but it cannot be current news.

Game Junction: 36:38

I think there is a market for retro gaming and I know there are like, yeah, I still get a couple retro gaming magazines, yeah, yeah so there's a market for, for the nostalgia aspect, like if if a company were to try and look at like egm game pro, nintendo power and be like, all right, what are the best things that these guys did? Let's make it into a monthly magazine. It's all retro, it's all old school and it'll bring people back. It'll be like, you know, stepping into a time machine.

Mark Trobough: 37:14

I think that could be successful, but you know, someone's gonna have to take that risk if they want to do it yeah, and then I don't know if you've heard the news I forgot to put this in the notes but an extremely rare W out of the state of actual California. They just signed a law into effect that'll go into effect sometime in 2025. That says you have to let your customers know if they're not actually buying the product, but they're buying a license for the product and this can be revoked at any moment. While it's not exactly what you want with digital games, it's a step in the right direction. But I also noticed a lot of talk. Then move to, to, to GOG GOG.

Brandon Hurles: 37:54

It's a platform that's DRM free and pretty much I tell you yeah, yeah.

Mark Trobough: 37:58

I prefer Steam, but Steam operates the same way that you know everybody else operates pretty much. Where it's drm, you know the license can be revoked and stuff like that. But they came out and said, uh, but their initial response was, uh, if only there was a storefront that actually lets your own games dot, dot, dot and stuff like that. And uh, they followed up like, hey, you know, we believe in actually letting you own your games. It's drm free. As far as like being a platform like that, I think gog is. Gog is absolutely great. I think that's the one thing. I think if Steam would move to, would make that the perfect platform for the consumer, because in every other way I think Steam is the most superior platform as far as PC gaming goes and you've got the Steam Deck right.

Brandon Hurles: 38:37

It's huge, yeah, it's huge. So you access your library that way. I am 99.9 sure that steam will not move drm free I, I just don't see it happening.

Mark Trobough: 38:50

I, I, probably not. It's the only problem, though, because everything, everything else steam does is is targeted toward the consumer experience and wanting to keep it there. Obviously, there's a controversy with uh, quote, unquote, uh, what's it called? Called, when you mass downvote a game, review bombing. Essentially, there's been some drama about whether it is or isn't review bombing and other stuff like that, but everything they do as far as their storefront is always geared towards the consumer, where maybe something like Epic's geared towards the game studio and publisher, prioritizing them first and then the game for second, stuff like that. But regardless of everything else, I think this is a step in the right direction if digital is the inevitable future and stuff like that.

Brandon Hurles: 39:37

Yeah, and something I want to bring up too. Just, I've heard the discussion a lot with the move to the next generation of consoles. Or let's say, you know, I I don't even know if xbox will have a legitimate full console next generation I hear so much uh that people are just going to move to pc and and I can understand why I can get it at that point. By the time the PS6 comes out, the way that things are, you get the PS5 Pro $700, right, I mean, at that point, for a while I didn't get that because I wasn't a PC gamer. And I do finally have a desktop Still haven't really played any PC games on it yet but I finally have a desktop still haven't really played any pc games on it yet, but I do have a big, big, big chunk, um, of games on gog and and steam and stuff like that.

Brandon Hurles: 40:33

But I can understand and see why people would want to move the pc after this console generation. I legitimately do, but it's going to be pc and they own a switch. It's always that it's like I own a playstation and I own a switch or I own an xbox and I own a switch, right, like it's always that because you want to play those first party nintendo games. But I can see why people would want to just move the pc, because the games are going to be digital only. There's not going to be any physical ps6 games.

Game Junction: 41:01

I'm certain of that you see, I think people like the idea of it yeah they like the sound of it.

Game Junction: 41:08

It almost feels good to say I'm gonna do that, almost like a, a threat in a way, like I'll just do this. But guess what? Nobody does that. Very few people, a very small percentage, actually jump console ship yeah and will say, hey, I'm going to go to PC. Now, look, I got a PC, I got a laptop, I have Steam, I know how to build computers. I started building them when I was a kid with Microsoft dude. Me too.

Game Junction: 41:40

So I know how to do all this stuff, but the average person, even more than the average person, they don't know how to do all this stuff. But the average person, even more than the average person, they don't know how to do this. Yeah, they. It's scary to them to think about trying to because everyone says, hey, if you're gonna, if you're gonna go pc, what is any pc? Anyone from the pc master race you could say what do they tell you? What do they say? You got to build it. You got to build it If you're going to do it best way to do is build it, they do, everybody says it, yeah, it is, it gives you

Mark Trobough: 42:14

a feeling of like I built something myself, an understanding of how the actual hardware works, as you kind of put stuff together and stuff like that, and then you know it's just an accomplishment of I put this together. I didn't just buy a box that's just ready to go there's a convenience to that.

Mark Trobough: 42:29

But there's also like a a level of accomplishment Plus when you upgrade stuff. You don't have to upgrade the whole thing all at once unless you wait like a decade to upgrade. You can. You know part here, so you know you don't have to drop, you know, fifteen hundred dollars or so all at once. You can do a few hundred here, a few under there and stuff like that and slowly upgrade and keep everything up to date and stuff like that, personalize it as well I bought a pre-built pc but, mark, as you know, I've already upgraded several parts on.

Brandon Hurles: 42:57

I've added, I've added extra ram, I've changed the cpu, so I've done stuff. I'm going to get a new graphics card. So it was. I had not built a PC since I was a kid, so Windows 95, 98 era, so I hadn't messed with any.

Brandon Hurles: 43:13

Yeah, way back, going way back. You know XP, all that Vista around that time. So it's been a while since I had built a PC. But I got this. I got a really good deal on this pre-built and I knew I was going to upgrade from there. So I went with the 14th-gen CPU and I plan on upgrading the graphics card. But I added overkill on RAM. What is it? 98? Whatever, way too much RAM, but it comes in handy. It helps with podcasts. I don't have any issues, but I like adding to it and I learn along the way because things are different than they were back then and I like to learn.

Brandon Hurles: 43:55

I like to learn. So it's cool. Yeah, it was pre-built. The best part about that is the cables are all tied underneath and it looks tidy and nice and probably better than I can do. But I plan on doing stuff to it and I plan on divulging more into PC gaming myself. I'm a console guy at heart, but it makes sense. I mean, when I buy a digital game or buy a physical game like here's the thing, here's why I only have four series x games physically, because if it says smart cloud on it, that means all it is is a key on a disc. You don't. Yeah, there's no point noting it.

Game Junction: 44:32

You might as well buy a digital zero.

Brandon Hurles: 44:34

So that's why I own four, because they don't have that. So it's really frustrating because I like xbox, I like all the consoles. I would love to continue to collect for the series x, but it's like I'm not going to buy the smart cloud games, I'm not going to buy a key on a disc at that point, I will just get the digital.

Game Junction: 44:52

It's stupid, so that's how I, I agree with you completely there and, um, I think going the PC route is great, again, I do it, you do it, mark, you do it. You have a PC. It's just most people the majority, the majority are not going to do it. They don't want to go into a BIOS menu. They think that if they press something they're gonna screw it up and there goes their investment. People have a lot of fear there, right, and so I don't see a transition happening like that. Uh, however, yeah, I, I think it would be of great value, especially when you're talking about the PS5 Pro and everyone says it's $700. It's not Okay, it's truly $850. Out the door, let's not kid yourself. Taxes and the stand is $850. Here in Arizona it's like $855 with tax. So that's what it really cost and that's not with anything extra. You don't get two controllers, you get one. It doesn't have a packing game outside of Astro's Playroom, which is obviously comes on all the Playstation.

Mark Trobough: 46:21

so I think it's got a higher up front cost but you get, I think, better overall you can do more than just gaming with the computer. There's a lot of other stuff that you can do with a pc. Um, the games just generally run better because you know maybe at the low end you're not getting, you're not seeing the difference, but you know at a mid to upper grade level you know if you're going all digital anyways, games can run better. The ability to mod games and stuff like that as well. As if you think long term, just in the cost of your games alone, you can save money. Big one is like Steam with Steam sales. You wait a few years, you get a game that came out for $70 and now you got it on sale for like $10 and stuff like that which happens all the time on Steam.

Game Junction: 47:02

But I think the biggest thing with people and playing PC games is they don't know what they need. They don't know what getting this graphic card means and how it translates and how long is it going to last for and how will the game run. What do I need to do to optimize? There's too many questions for people that just want to be able to buy a console, buy a game and know that it's going to run exactly how it's supposed to run.

Game Junction: 47:37

And that's what the majority want. There's a small percentage of adventurers like us that are willing to go down the PC route and do both. It's just a small percentage of people ultimately, but I think it's a great deal.

Brandon Hurles: 47:54

Yeah, and I mean, I've said it so many times I love all the companies. I want all of them to do well, because competition is good. I don't want to see xbox disappear and as much as I might you know, I don't know why, but potentially get made fun of for getting ps5 pro. I am getting it for the channel. I do legitimately want to check it out for the channel. So I bought this way ahead of time in case the disc drive was out everywhere, which it started to go out, like you couldn't get it anywhere there for a minute. Yeah, um and uh. What's crazy is I wanted to bring up is that the ps5 pro. You can still pre-order it right now.

Brandon Hurles: 48:30

Pre-orders did not sell out. They did not sell out. People thought they were going to be gone, like that. So people were buying them up, putting them on ebay, and they're not selling because it's still available. So did you get anything? By the way? No, I didn't know. I'm going to wait for the game. Stop one, um, but I am going to get it. I'm going to wait for I'm just going to wait for the game. So you're going to get the game stop, uh, digital?

Brandon Hurles: 48:57

obviously yeah, because they're only getting the digital yeah I, I got really upset that I couldn't get any of the 30th anniversary stuff. Well, it's 12,300. I know.

Game Junction: 49:08

I tried.

Brandon Hurles: 49:09

I waited an hour and a half before I was ready to go and as soon as I got in there it was an hour queue and I waited the whole hour and they were gone.

Game Junction: 49:17

So when the queue opened, I got in with and it said seven minutes for me, wow, to get in. And uh, I, obviously I. I came very close. I was able to get a, uh, 30th anniversary. Uh, what was it? The dual sense, dual sense edge.

Brandon Hurles: 49:40

Oh, yeah, I was interested in that too. That sold out. Yeah, I know I. I was interested in that too, mark. You said that's what you wanted to get, was that?

Mark Trobough: 49:50

yeah, it's what I, what I would like to get, but you know, yeah, I tried for that too.

Brandon Hurles: 49:54

That was going to be like my secondary option, and then I was even going to consider the portal, but I did, I've got. Oh, I got the portal too. Did you get the portal? Yeah, I got them both pre-ordered.

Brandon Hurles: 50:04

I just think it looks nice, but unfortunately I mean our portals right over here it has major freaking issues. So it's like if I bought that it would have stayed in the box, and I'm trying to not be a box sealed collector anymore, cause I used to do that a lot. I'm trying to not do that like if I would have got the 30th anniversary edition of the, the ps5 pro I. I don't know if I would have opened it, but it's also like you've got, you know, basically 800 sitting there in a box and it's just well yeah, if you could have gotten that one, honestly there's no reason to open it.

Game Junction: 50:44

As far as the value goes, yeah, because if you keep it sealed, the amount of equity you'd have in selling it you could just go buy a ps5 pro, digital or physical, and it's it's free if you look at just from an equity standpoint, because if you got it it's going to be worth four or five times the amount you paid for it which is totally true.

Brandon Hurles: 51:09

But the thing is is I didn't want to sell it, I wanted it.

Game Junction: 51:13

Yeah, it's tough because it's pretty bad ass yeah.

Brandon Hurles: 51:17

I think at the end of the day I probably would have opened it and I know for a lot of people that'd be sacrilege. Opened it, um, and I know for a lot of people that'd be sacrilege. But I'm legitimately trying to not be that sealed collector anymore because I used to be so bad that I would buy all these limited run games and never open them, and then buy them digital too, and I'm like what am I? What am I doing with my life? Like why am I? I? Just like there's nothing wrong with it if you can do it. But it's just like why am I doing this, this? For me it doesn't make sense. For you know, I just buying the game twice. I don't know. I was doing that for a very long time. You know Premium Edition games and Red Art games and all that jazz. I was buying them all up. I got super heavy into. I mean, I bought the very first limited run game for the Vita. I was in there for a long time.

Game Junction: 52:09

Yeah, we've both been doing limited run for a long time right?

Brandon Hurles: 52:15

Yeah, I love the Vita. Mine's hooked up here on the little dock here and I play it all the time. I've got it modded and I think it's a great handheld. I think that the OLED Vita still holds up to the OLED Switch legitimately. If you put them side-by-side, it is incredible how much that holds up Just side-by-side. Put it on the same game or something like that and look at it. That screen is just crisp and beautiful. Man just looks so good. Um, but yeah, I don't. I don't know what we were really talking about there no went down a whole, whole rabbit

Mark Trobough: 52:54

hole but I guess we go and move on to the next thing. Uh, quick little update. Uh, metaphor refantasio. Finally, uh, got a rating. It's rated t for teen here in the US, 13 and up. Launches on the 11th, which I believe is next Friday, a week from when this is being recorded, this game launches. But for those that want to get a head start on it, the demo's out now. It's been out for a week or two. At this point that goes through, I believe. The prologue yeah, it's like they call it prologue demo, and it's whatever progress you make in. That is supposed to transfer automatically over into the actual game, assuming it doesn't pull a Star Wars Outlaws. It gets bugged and they're just like oh well, sucks to suck, it sucks to be you.

Game Junction: 53:39

Yeah right, I'm very excited for this game.

Brandon Hurles: 53:43

So am I, and I definitely want to play this game. So am I, and I definitely want to play this prologue. I love when companies do this, where it transfers over, you know. So you start the game and it transfers over.

Mark Trobough: 53:54

I just I like the demos yeah, I just like the demos in general starting to make a comeback.

Game Junction: 54:00

I felt like they were gone for like a decade or two at this point, yeah, I felt like they were too, and that was unfortunate, because there are some games like I would say at least what 90, 95 percent probably of games that come out. I know I'm gonna like them, I don't need to play the demo, okay. But there there are a few games and I was unsure if I wanted it, and then they announced there was a demo and I'm like, oh, I finally get to take advantage of one, and then when it carries over, like for instance, unicorn Overlord, oh gosh, yeah, so I don't. I historically have not played much in the strategy RPG genre and I was like you know, this game looks unique, it looks like it could be really good. I want to give it a chance. Maybe I'll wait for it to go on sale or something. Yeah, and I'll pick it up on Black Friday. Then they announced there was going to be a demo. I'm like, okay, I'm in the midst of playing Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, so my own world there.

Game Junction: 55:17

But I took a day out before the game came out, so probably about a week before Unicorn Overord came out, I tried out the demo. I was like this game is so good and so I ended up pre-ordering it, and so there you go, you know, like, that's why you, that's why you should have demos. I, especially if you know that people are interested but they might be on the fence a little bit. Yeah, throw a demo out there if you're confident in your product and so real happy about that. And I don't know if you guys know, but Metaphor Fantasio was reviewed by Famitsu earlier this week, so they're the only publication to have've reviewed out and they gave it a 37 out of 40, which is the same score they gave to persona five Wow Royale, and they said the game is over 80 hours long and obviously, uh, they had nothing but great things to say about it.

Game Junction: 56:29

And so, yeah, I am super excited because I saw a few impressions maybe three weeks, four weeks ago, uh, back when the impressions embargo lifted, yeah, for all the content creators and people were hyped about like they were raving over it and low-key beginning of the year. Even towards the end of last year, when I knew it was coming out this year, I said I feel like this game could be possibly game of the year material, at least in the discussion. I feel like it has the pedigree for it. So very interested to see. Yeah, I'm very excited about it.

Brandon Hurles: 57:08

I know Mark pedigree for it, so very interested to see. Yeah, I'm very excited about it. I know, mark, you're excited about it. I think it's probably going to be one of those games where we might be able to do a joint video on it and talk about it, because I know we're definitely both very excited to check it out. So I think it's going to be an awesome game.

Mark Trobough: 57:25

I'm super excited, oh definitely I, so I think it's going to be an awesome game. I'm super excited, oh, definitely. I know Thunderstache over here shared something from Taki Udon about the stock brightness versus the Super 5 OLED. What do you know? What's going on with that? Oh yeah.

Brandon Hurles: 57:39

I briefly talked about this on the 10-byte podcast. We go ahead and take it away. Yeah, so this is really interesting.

Game Junction: 57:47

A company is essentially offering a OLED mod for your Switch Lite and so far, based on the feedback of it, it sounds like there may be a future mod in the works to mod your stock Switch OLED. And you might say, why would I do that? Why would I mod my OLED Switch to put in another OLED? But they've done side-by-side comparisons of the modded oled versus the stock oled and it's not hard to see the difference right, and you guys know how good the oled switch looks beautiful yeah yeah.

Game Junction: 58:42

So I saw the side by side. I'm like okay, okay, yeah, like interesting, this looks really really good. So and so, for anyone with like a switch light, if you want to, if that's your only switch and you would be interested in possibly upgrading your screen, it's pretty affordable actually I ordered.

Brandon Hurles: 59:07

I ordered one for the switch light oh cool.

Game Junction: 59:10

I can't wait to see your your thoughts on it, because it looks beautiful yeah, I'm really excited about it.

Brandon Hurles: 59:16

I briefly brought it up but I didn't think anybody on the 10 byte podcast cared too much about that, so I just kind of passed over it. But I'm I'm really excited. I love mods. I was actually going to ask you you're into mods, then For consoles, yeah. Okay, cool, so I might be able to hook you up with a company that's doing a new GameCube mod. If you're interested in doing that, I can get you hooked up on that. Actually, I can show you it. I haven't put it out.

Brandon Hurles: 59:44

yet I love mods. I've got a modded GameCube already, so I need to get a new GameCube to do this mod. But it's called the Flippy Drive. Oh, cool. Okay, so it's a solderless mod, super easy. Anybody can do it, so no soldering and it basically does the same thing that the Peekaboo does. However, it has its like customizable menu for the games and they're also adding an ethernet adapter to it, because obviously I've got one for my gamecube but obviously they're very expensive right the broadband adapter. Yeah adapters are very expensive yeah, me too.

Brandon Hurles: 1:00:24

Um, I still play fantasy star on it, but they're going to offer an attachment for that. That's going to be cheaper for people, cause this flippy drives like 20 bucks or something. It's like super cheap, like really cheap. Yeah, it's very, very cheap. So it's definitely a cool mod and I definitely want to shout it out because they're putting a lot of work into it and they're consistently trying to improve things. Like they've got future plans for it too.

Brandon Hurles: 1:00:48

So if you've got that in your gamecube, they've, you know, firmware updates, things that they're planning to do they're going to add on to it. So it, it, uh, it's not like the peekaboo is kind of just the peekaboo and it stays there right, like you don't really do anything else with it. Yeah, and it works perfect. I got the full library on there. It's great, but this one they're, they're adding more stuff. So it's really really cool. And they're adding, uh, the capability I don't know how it works exactly, but basically to use bluetooth controllers so you don't have to have like a blue retro mod like the. Um, I don't know if you know the company blue retro, but they make like the stick.

Brandon Hurles: 1:01:25

Yeah, so you don't have to have that yeah, I got.

Game Junction: 1:01:27

I got it on my ps1 classic yeah, I do too.

Brandon Hurles: 1:01:31

Yeah and uh. So there's definitely a lot of potential there for that. But yeah, I'm excited to check out that. That super oled. I think that's going to be pretty cool. Make make better use of the, the switch light and more reason to use it, because I play in handheld a lot, uh, but the switch oled is just so hard to beat so it's like I can't go. It's hard to go back. You know what I mean. It's it's hard. No, it is. There's no reason to go back. Yeah and it. It's gonna be cool to see. For sure it'd be. I'd love to see somebody do it in their zelda switch. I think that would look really cool. Somebody's going to open it up, do that?

Game Junction: 1:02:09

He did on his Twitter.

Brandon Hurles: 1:02:12

Oh, did he? I'll have to look that up.

Game Junction: 1:02:13

Yeah, within the last day or two You'll have to check it out. And then I would be interested, when you get yours, if you do a side-by-side with your OLED Switch and the Switch Lite, because I have a feeling, just from what I can see on his twitter, that his super uh oled 5, whatever yeah that screen quality is better than the current oled really good.

Brandon Hurles: 1:02:43

I I know it looks really really freaking awesome.

Game Junction: 1:02:45

I think it's yeah, I'd like to hear from you and see what you truly think about it.

Brandon Hurles: 1:02:50

Yeah, definitely, and then I'll try to hook you up with the guys for the Flippy Drive, because you might enjoy that as well. I think you'd like that. I got to find another GameCube, though, because I don't want to mess with the one I've already got fully set up. I've got all the games on there. It's soldered. I just want to get a different one. This is solderless, it's removable, and you know I love GameCube, so why not have a second GameCube anyway?

Game Junction: 1:03:15

Yeah, so it's just a soft mod, right.

Brandon Hurles: 1:03:18

No, it's hard to explain.

Game Junction: 1:03:24

Like is it a software mod?

Brandon Hurles: 1:03:24

So here it is Okay, yeah, so here it is okay but it's it's got its own customizable menu that you can use, but it also uses swiss, so you can go back and forth, um, and there's just a lot like they're planning to do. You can follow them on twitter, like the stuff they're doing is really, really cool. I'm I'm so excited to see what continues to develop from this Called Flippy Drive.

Brandon Hurles: 1:03:51

Flippy Drive yep, okay, cool, yeah and I'll get in touch with the guy that sent it out to me and I'll see if I can get one sent out to you as well.

Game Junction: 1:03:59

Thanks, man.

Mark Trobough: 1:04:00

Yeah, that would be dope. We got some news that the Ryujinx devs of the Nintendo Switch emulator were just served as cease and desist by Nintendo and via Nintendial on TwitterX. It was kind of rumored that this was because the Echoes of Wisdom was released two weeks early and it was using this emulator. This is one of the reasons that the Nintendo essentially went after them, which is, you know, emulators are great.

Mark Trobough: 1:04:31

But you know, is it an issue with current gen consoles being emulated, stuff like that, as far as like potentially coming into, uh, leaking stuff and or, you know, breaking into profits and stuff like that? Because it's one thing if it's like a 20 year old console being being emulated, obviously nintendo is going to be nintendo with their lawyers, but it seems like less people don't care about old games, old consoles really the only way to keep old stuff alive and relevant but for new stuff it definitely creeps into a morally bad legal area and stuff like that yeah, I've said it time and again if it's a current-gen console where you can go and buy the games in the stores, still I don't support doing that whatsoever.

Brandon Hurles: 1:05:18

But if you're talking about NES and Super Nintendo man, I've got Everdrives for days I think that's fine. If there's ways, you know some of these games.

Mark Trobough: 1:05:27

There's no other ways to play them, right like, yeah, it's pretty much your only way, unless you're spending hundreds of dollars on old hardware that's been uh, refurbished and you know, hundred dollars on the old, old game cartridges and stuff like that yeah, I.

Brandon Hurles: 1:05:42

I just I I wouldn't support it for for current switch hardware, like as far as illegally getting new games for the Switch, like that. But if we're talking about even back, I guess it would be back to the Wii. I think it's fair game. If things aren't accessible, people are going to find ways to play it. That's how I feel. Yeah.

Game Junction: 1:06:08

If the console is still in production or it's still on store shelves, then you gotta say like this is off limits, you can't do that yeah not, not when we're trying to actively sell it.

Game Junction: 1:06:23

And the thing is is like hey, if you're gonna do that, that is your decision, whomever it may be in. Hey, if you're going to do that, that is your decision, whomever it may be in the world. If you're interested in doing that, but if you are, yeah, don't show it on YouTube For sure. That's the thing, and it's like that's the problem with all of this, so you can do this in the comfort of your home. If you want. The problem with all of this, it's like you can do this in in the comfort of your home. If you want the, the chances of the, the fbi coming to your house and and arresting you is probably very slim. Obviously, if you're just, if you just have the games, but if you're showing the actual game running on your emulation on YouTube, it's always going to be an issue. This is basic stuff. We know this, you know. I think what a lot of people were wondering earlier this week when this information first came out was the story was that Nintendo went out to his house.

Game Junction: 1:07:35

Yeah there are lawyers in Brazil. That's where he lives. Yeah. So obviously they took the trip out there. It was a big enough deal to go to your house and a lot of people thought that he got paid to have the project canceled Because Brazil has certain laws where there's certain protections when it comes to stuff like this. Yeah, and it's interesting, but it's like similar to China, you know, where hacking and copyright stuff is a free-for-all there. There there really is no copyright laws.

Game Junction: 1:08:14

You can get whatever you want in china yeah and brazil, from what I've gathered, is very similar, if not, if not entirely the same, and so a lot of people thought that this guy was protected and that nintendo must have went out there and gave him an offer. And so what was interesting about this tweet is he confirmed that there was no offer. Yeah, it was, uh, a cease and desist. He said no money involved. So there you go. So now we know the what actually happened there.

Brandon Hurles: 1:08:55

Right Got crazy.

Mark Trobough: 1:09:01

What's your thoughts, mark? I just I just think it's crazy, but I mean you can see it coming, not not surprising that it's going to do this. That's, they've got a reputation for it. It's just dealing with the legalities of different countries and stuff like that. Yeah.

Game Junction: 1:09:17

What I will say is I'm glad that they were able to come to an agreement and that no one's going to jail. Obviously, we've seen that. We've seen prison. We've seen oh yeah, prison. We've seen someone the guy with the last name, bowser that's going to be having his wages garnished for the rest of his life, which?

Brandon Hurles: 1:09:41

come on, that is just absolutely absurd, man yeah.

Game Junction: 1:09:46

So I would love it if this is the direction they went from now on. Uh, but again, it's tough because when there's emulation on your current games that are on store shelves and you got, what was it? Tears of the kingdom, what was it? Two, two million or something, yeah, two million people are playing it illegally. I mean, it was a $70 game, so 2 million times $70, that's how much money at least that you lost, which is messed up.

Mark Trobough: 1:10:22

You understand why they'd be upset yeah, that'd be $140 million if everybody of all those those people went out and actually bought the game. There you go. It's a significant amount of money. That's. That's a whole budget for some games.

Brandon Hurles: 1:10:35

Yeah, yeah it's crazy, man, I mean it's crazy it gets into. Uh, it can be a pretty deep conversation on this.

Mark Trobough: 1:10:45

It's, it's just, it's, it's wild for sure yeah, uh, but I mean for a game that comes out next week on tuesday. Uh, sound, the silent hill tour make is getting a lot of positive reviews across the board, a handful of tens and stuff like that, like from ig, ig in japan, voxel, psx, brazil and stuff like that, but it's sitting in 87 on a Metacritic and an 89 on the Open Critic.

Game Junction: 1:11:10

This is pretty exciting because when this was first shown, a lot of people were very concerned, to put it lightly. There were things, there were changes in the game, visual appearances and some of the characters that people were not happy about. Yeah.

Game Junction: 1:11:33

The game itself looked choppy a little bit For being a remake right Of a PS2 game yeah, on PlayStation 5. It just didn't look very fluid in the first trailer the first time they showed it, right, correct. So people were upset because for a lot of people, this is the greatest horror game of all time for a lot of people. And so that was concerning because it's like come on Konami, like come on dude, like come on dude, you know, get it together. Remember who you were right, like you guys knocked it out of the park for decades, what, what's going on? And so that was concerning. And then it was the developers uh, blooper team, right, yep. And so again a lot of people are like, ah, they've messed up some stuff, like blooper team hasn't done great on some things. That was that's the general consensus. So there was a lot of concern overall and seeing these reviews and either this obviously this isn't all the reviews I I watched a review, uh, this morning, and I didn't even know the embargo was today.

Game Junction: 1:12:57

I just, you know, got on youtube kind of checking around for any any new news maybe. Uh, oh, look at this guys, look at this. Oh, look at this guys, look at this. It says donald j trump is calling me right now.

Brandon Hurles: 1:13:12

Does it really oh it says voicemail now but,

Mark Trobough: 1:13:15

now it does.

Brandon Hurles: 1:13:15

Yeah, getting pretty funny oh man, you're about to talk to him and everything right, uh breaking live.

Game Junction: 1:13:25

But uh, you know checking for like some switch to news, see if there's anything going on, and I watched it. You guys ever watched reviews on gaming bolt?

Game Junction: 1:13:38

yes, yeah, yeah yeah, they gave it a 10 out of 10, so that's not even on here, that's. That's one of the publications that gave it a perfect 10. And I've been watching their stuff for a while and I respect their scores, and so to see a 10, I'm like oh shit, wow Impressive. And then I saw more 10s and so this is pretty cool, it's good to see.

Mark Trobough: 1:14:04

Yeah, it definitely is.

Brandon Hurles: 1:14:10

I mean, yeah, I would definitely say, when they first showed off silent hill 2, I was so disappointed. I was just so, so disappointed. I'm like are you kidding me? And and the other problem was the game that they put out for free. That was basically like a short demo. Uh, yeah, it was supposed to be PT. Basically was horrible, it was horrible.

Game Junction: 1:14:30

It wasn't good.

Brandon Hurles: 1:14:31

And I'm like, is this what we're getting now for this iconic franchise? Like, is this how you're representing this franchise? But now it does look like they definitely turned things around. I feel like maybe they showed they must've showed some some old footage, they something I don't know what it was. It looked terrible before, but I'm very hyped for the game.

Brandon Hurles: 1:14:51

I love Silent Hill 2. I think a lot of people won't say this, but I think Silent Hill 2 for the PS2 still holds up the way that it is. I think it holds up, you know, and a lot of survival horror games are, you know, hit or miss, tank controls and things like that. You know, I think some of the Resident Evils are a little hard to go back to. But yeah, I'm hyped for it. Man, I'm ready. I hope it does scare me. I hope it brings back that fear and sort of tension that you got when playing Silent Hill 2, because that was kind of the thing, right, you didn't know what was going to happen anywhere that you went. So I'm pretty excited about it. I know, Mark, you're not really a horror game fan, right?

Mark Trobough: 1:15:38

No, but I mean I'm glad people that are fans of these games are getting it and getting what they want and look like it's going to be a really good game. It's just, you know, kind of like the the souls, like game.

Game Junction: 1:15:47

Horror is not not a big genre that I'm into, unfortunately, so you know, I played this game when it came out, like when it first came out, and it didn't touch it since. So crazy I had to look it up. It came out september 25th 2001. Wow, so I, I don't. I don't remember any of the details. I really don't. No, so for me, I don't. I get to basically revisit it like it's new, which is great yep, yeah, I.

Brandon Hurles: 1:16:19

I don't remember everything that happened either, and I mean, I played every silent hill down to the really crappy vita game. That basically wasn't a Silent Hill game. I played them all and it's hit or miss. The HD collection was horrible. I don't know what they were thinking with that. That is an absolute piece of dog crap for PS3. Yeah, that was terrible. But yeah, I'm hoping for the best for this man. I'm really excited, for sure. I do want to shout out a couple people here real quick. Um, we've got, uh, bish man ezek wheel, uh retro lou over there on the tiktok saying what's up, brother? Uh, we also got look like there's a couple people on the twitch. We got mr coffees in the house. He said, hey, I kind of like the vita version, um, and he said should have answered talking like trump, right, yeah, yeah. So I'm hoping for the best for that game for sure yeah, so we've got.

Mark Trobough: 1:17:23

Uh, for those that are actually still into halo infinite, apparently 343 is bringing a third personperson mode to that, which I guess some people like. Some people are like I don't see the point in this, but if anybody's still actually out there playing that game, hey, you got third-person mode coming soon.

Game Junction: 1:17:39

Yeah, I thought that was interesting.

Brandon Hurles: 1:17:42

It's interesting. That's about it.

Mark Trobough: 1:17:44

That's the best of that, Like oh, it's interesting, I don't play the game anyways, this is not going to bring me to it. But for those that play the game and what you know are interested in it, it's nice to that there, that they're getting at the very least.

Game Junction: 1:17:54

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So we'll see how it is. I personally won't see how it is, but check it out either.

Brandon Hurles: 1:18:01

On the opposite end of the Silent Hill 2,.

Mark Trobough: 1:18:11

Starfield's Shattered Space. Reviews from the critics are extremely mixed. It ended up 57 on the Metacritic. They are not fans of it.

Brandon Hurles: 1:18:21

I wasn't a fan of the game. I was very disappointed by it. Personally, I was very hyped for that game. I was like was like, finally, man, we got a big xbox game coming that's gonna, you know, take over and and make everybody super excited. But nope, definitely didn't get me yeah, it's tough.

Game Junction: 1:18:42

I I enjoyed bethesda, enjoyed fallout, fallout 4. I put a lot of time into uh a big reason yeah, big reason I bought the xbox series s or any any xbox right? The main reason yeah was sure bethesda was the fact that I really want to play indiana, indiana Jones when it comes out. I want to be able to play Fallout. And, of course, as we know, indiana Jones is now going to be coming to PS5, so it doesn't matter. And Starfield is nothing. It's not on the scale of Fallout. No, it's not.

Brandon Hurles: 1:19:24

Unfortunately, it's truly not. It's unfortunate because I was very excited for that game. I was waiting all day to play that. When it came out, I was super excited that night and I was just like what? I don't think it's a terrible game. I think it's a very mediocre game, that there's like a thousand other games like it that I would rather play. That's how I felt. I felt like it had I had its problems. The space travel that was kind of non-existent. You know, that was the big thing.

Brandon Hurles: 1:19:57

I'm like yeah, I'm gonna travel through space like come on or a game about space.

Game Junction: 1:20:01

You should be able to travel yeah through space and I think, I think it's that, I think it's the, the randomly generated stuff yeah yeah, and I think it feels a little sterile. There's not a lot of stuff going on, not a lot of things to do, it's just it's not that fun, and I played it early access too. I played it the few days before and I was really excited to play it and it just didn't grab me that early well, I had the game pass ultimate oh wait, then I must have got the I played early then too.

Game Junction: 1:20:54

Yeah, you probably played it early too yeah yeah, and I definitely didn't buy it, absolutely not. You don't. You don't buy xbox games. I mean, like people don't buy Xbox games.

Mark Trobough: 1:21:07

No, they go Game Pass.

Brandon Hurles: 1:21:08

I mean, yeah, that's the thing I love my. The reason that I like my Series X the way that I do is the backwards compatibility. That's why I like it the way that I do. Other than that, it has become a Game Pass machine, which again unfortunate, because I would love to collect more physical Series X games, but the SmartCloud thing it's on 95% of the games. I'm just not going to do it. I'll just play on Game Pass and I guess I don't own it. Whatever, what am I going to do about it?

Game Junction: 1:21:46

Nothing, nothing, nothing. You can do.

Mark Trobough: 1:21:53

Yeah, I got some uh a list. Apparently there are 60 games confirmed to be uh enhanced for the ps5 pro for the handful of people that actually decide to upgrade. I know I 100 will not be one of them, uh, but of those 60 games, some of the standout ones obviously uh demon's Souls, gran Turismo 7, both the Horizon Forbidden West and the Zero Dawn Remaster, the Spider-Man games, wolverine, ratchet and Clank, rise of the Ronin, stellar Blade, last of Us 1 and 2, until Dawn, and obviously there's a bunch of other games as well out there. It's confirmed both on the PlayStation Store as well as over on X by at Zuby underscore tech. That was one report in this.

Brandon Hurles: 1:22:37

I will say I'm surprised that there are so many games at launch that are being enhanced by the PS5 Pro. I didn't quite expect that many games like right away. I would expect like 15, 20, you know kind of big games, but it's it's cool to see that so many are are being supported at launch. You know to what degree it's all different. Like mark, we talked about it last week how some of them were still not running even 60 frames, but some of them were like, oh, it's, it's improved frame rate, but we're not. You know, it's not a solid 60. Uh, yeah, things like that. So, like the improvements are going to be, you know, all over the place, but I have heard from digital foundry that the grand turismo improvement is the best that they saw.

Game Junction: 1:23:27

Yeah, yeah which makes I watched that video.

Mark Trobough: 1:23:30

Yeah those games look good, as is already, and stuff like that. Yeah, I do think it's funny, though, because I did put a few games in here like dragon age, the veil guard an upcoming game and like assassin's creed, shadows, which has been delayed, and stuff like that.

Game Junction: 1:23:43

Uh, more more fun stuff to talk about that coming up oh yeah, there's a handful of games like the ones you mentioned, like a dragon. Yeah.

Game Junction: 1:23:53

High rate, yakuza, metal Gear that's not out. There's a handful of games on here that aren't out and don't even have firm release dates yet. So, yeah, it's a way to fill out the list a little bit and, you know, get people excited. Uh, you know, ultimately I'm happy for everyone getting this. It just feels like we're at the point of diminishing returns on some of this stuff, and I think what's disappointing too is like games that you'd really want to play running at 60 frames still aren't, like Dragon's Dogma 2. When that got, I have the game. When it got reviewed, so many people were upset that it only runs at 30 and that there's not an option for a performance mode. Right, yeah, like, can we drop the resolution? And you know I, I get 60. Can you guys at least give us that? And they don't. And so now you get this ps5 pro, right?

Game Junction: 1:25:03

yeah and it's supposed to be super badass and it still is not going to run at 60 yes, it's crazy to me, like what?

Brandon Hurles: 1:25:15

what I don't understand is that it's using the pssr dlss. What is going on here exactly? It doesn't make sense to me. It's using this ai upskilling technology. How is this not happening to all the games? Like, how are we not running at a steady 60 frames per second, or even a steady I mean some games? Honestly, like you're flipping between 30 frames, 40 frames, 25 frames, like you're not even you know what I not even stuck at 30 frames per second.

Brandon Hurles: 1:25:51

It's crazy to me, but I will continue to say this. I will continue to say that, unlike the Switch 2, the PS5 Pro is going to be entirely different because it's going to be a very optional thing. They still have to make the games to run on the standard PS5. That's what they have to do. I mean, the PS5 will still be the prime focus over the Pro all day, every day, because the install base is going to be so much bigger. So it's like, how much improvement are you really going to get? It's going to be like the PS4 Pro where, sure, some games ran better, but it's not like even one-eighth of the library was improved from the PS4 Pro. It just wasn't. I mean, this is for the diehards of the diehards. You're going to get some improvements for certain games.

Brandon Hurles: 1:26:46

I am kind of shocked to see Demon's Souls on there being a launch title. That's cool. I feel like the third-party companies can take advantage of the DLSS or the PSSR, but the problem is it doesn't help the problem with the PS5 itself, where most of the players are going to be playing. So it's like is it even worth your time to develop this game to run better? Be better, use the PSSR when you got to make sure this game is running fine on the standard hardware where 95% of people are going to be playing. Most people are not buying a 700 console. They just aren't. I mean, we are, we're. We're already in a time where people are struggling to begin with, right like we're already in.

Game Junction: 1:27:36

Yeah well, people are already struggling yeah, the economy for a record-breaking console price is horrible I mean you can ask for a a worse economy to release a 850 out the door yeah console and you know you mentioned demon souls, like I have the game. I played it at launch, loved it Same, but if I recall the game looked really good. It ran at 60 and I just looked it up Base PS5, it runs at 60 with dynamic 4K resolution. So what am I getting on the PS5 Pro?

Brandon Hurles: 1:28:29

That raises a really good question, because I mean, the game looks great like we can throw a few more trees in there a little bit more uh smoke and some more shadows, and I mean I think so. It's that advanced ray tracing. I think it's probably what is going to be taking, what's going to be used the most for that. It's going to be showcased. I forget what the new advanced ray tracing is called. It's got a name. Yeah, ultra.

Brandon Hurles: 1:28:57

Yeah, ultra Ray Tracing, I can't remember. I think it's probably that. So things are going to look a little shinier, look maybe just slightly more realistic. With the sun and you know the weather and and the armor. You might see a little bit more glare on the armor and, uh, silly diminishing returns. I mean that's where we're at right, like well it.

Game Junction: 1:29:22

That's where we're at in my mind. Okay, I want to be, I do want to be fair here and, for example, brandon, you're, you are going to be my honest resource because there's going to be people talking about it on youtube and you know, I want to hear from somebody I know personally who has a 4K TV, who is totally into tech and fidelity, like you are, and I am too. Yeah, trust me, I'm very into it and I just I want to hear from someone who owns it. Yeah, truthfully, is it worth it? If you tell me, if you tell me, I swear, I swear guys, if you tell me, steve, that that video, they showed that video, that that Dana Carvey. Yeah.

Game Junction: 1:30:15

Showed Mark Cerny. It didn't do it justice. Man, like, I kid you not. It looks amazing and like, if you're raving about it I bet, all right, I'm in, I'm in. I said before I want to be sold. Yeah, I want you to give me a reason to buy. And they didn't. They didn't. Yeah, that's how I felt they didn't. But again, if it's just crazy and you really mean it, I I'll probably be in. It's tough though. It's tough though. Ps6 is coming out in a couple years that's the thing, right, you're investing we got switch to yeah.

Brandon Hurles: 1:30:52

I mean you're investing for what? Three years max of play, something like that. I mean we're looking at max. Yeah, we're looking at three years. It's ps6. I mean that's truth of the matter and it's like, is it worth it for a couple of years to even, you know, a slight improvement where, once the ps6 comes out, that pssr is going to be a improved for one and two, it's going to be implemented into all games, like the switch to where that's a built-in feature for developers from the get-go.

Brandon Hurles: 1:31:25

It's not like you know, it's not. You've got another system that can do it and you've got one that can't. So you've got to develop. You've got two separate teams working on stuff and you've got to optimize it for this system, to also optimize it on the $700 plus console. And it's like, if I'm being frank with you, I love tech but I I'm not like overly excited about it or anything like that. I I just don't have that excitement. I legitimately do want to dive into it and check it out and I want to let people know my thoughts, like what I legitimately think Is this worth it? Does it make sense?

Game Junction: 1:32:12

I'll give you an example, cause I a lot sometimes seeing is believing, especially when it comes to tech. So my, uh, my Ben Q X 3,100, I gaming projector Okay, when I try and capture it for video, right? Yeah, capturing it on a video versus you seeing it in person is completely different yeah night and day, and so it's tough to capture some things like that, and we know it was tough with the pro because of the compression yeah so that's why I'm like you, I'm going to give it the benefit of the doubt.

Game Junction: 1:32:56

I do want to hear what you think about it when you get it. But, again, the PS6 will be out, I presume, november, october, november 2027. That'll be seven years, yeah, and that would be, I I think, their longest life cycle, or right there tied, based on what I was looking at. And so, yeah, it'll be out in a few years. And here's the thing, though, is what I want to say is they've conditioned us, as gamers, to choose. They condition us to choose do you want 4K or do you want 60 frames? And I firmly go 60 frames always. I think it looks fantastic on all my 4K TVs, on the projector, so I don't feel like, in a sense, that I this is, and this is why I don't have a pre-order. It's like I don't feel like I need it because you've already conditioned me, you condition all of us, and I'm happy with where I'm at, and I can wait till ps6 and I gotta switch to. You know, we're gonna have Switch 2 next year.

Brandon Hurles: 1:34:17

Yeah, which is going to probably take most of my gaming time to be realistic, just like the Switch does. Now I've got all the consoles and the PC and I still play the Switch more than anything else.

Game Junction: 1:34:29

I play my PS5 a lot. I do. I play it a lot. Sometimes, I'd say most of most time, it's more than switch. Uh, it just depends, though, on the releases, right? Yeah? It does yeah I mean, I do play a lot.

Brandon Hurles: 1:34:46

But it's like yeah, I for me. I, I don't know. I guess maybe it is a type of games that I play more. I tend to gravitate to Switch. Or if I get sent a code or something, they're like hey, what console do you want it for? I usually go Switch. It depends on what it is. If it's a retro-esque game, I'm going to play it on Switch more than likely, yeah same.

Brandon Hurles: 1:35:10

If it's a game where visually it's like a stunning game, I'm going to play it on the PS5 or the Series X, so it just depends. It's a game-by-game basis for me.

Game Junction: 1:35:21

It is because you know that some games won't run good on Switch.

Brandon Hurles: 1:35:26

Yeah, they just won't. I mean, I played and completed the Witcher on Switch.

Mark Trobough: 1:35:33

That's brave of you.

Brandon Hurles: 1:35:34

Look, I think that. Sure. Sure, it definitely does not look nearly as good as it does on other systems, but for what it was one of those what they call impossible ports, right like that was the reason I wanted to check it out. I I am very intrigued by companies being able to put these very large games on the switch on a cartridge. I think it's fascinating. So, yeah, it is, I like to check it out. Plus, it came in a cool box set where you got like a book with it and it was in like a cardboard box. So I was like why not? I got on marketplace for like 15 bucks too, so I was like I can't beat that, you can't beat that yeah, you can't but I did want to bring this up quickly too, and then we'll move on.

Brandon Hurles: 1:36:16

But I didn't know this. A couple of days ago, ign posted that the PS5 30th Anniversary Edition pre-orders in Japan were restricted to people who had 30 hours of run time on their PSN accounts. That's interesting. That's the way to do it. It and that's a good way to keep bots away. That's smart. Why did they not do that here? I don't understand.

Game Junction: 1:36:42

I don't understand because the people in japan will respect it. People in america will complain about it on social media. That's the difference, of course. Course it will. The consumer will complain.

Mark Trobough: 1:36:56

It's there for the consumer to keep people from buying it up mass resale market and stuff like that. And 30 hours is not a lot of time to put on a console. On a PSN account. You just turn it on and it's going to rack up time, essentially.

Game Junction: 1:37:13

I think some people, probably me at times I know me at times for sure I play more than 30 hours in a few days. Yeah, it depends like some days I'm putting in 10, 11, 12 hours a day if I'm reviewing a game. But even when I wasn't, when I was working 60, 70 hours a week, I was still putting in easily 30 hours over the course of, like I don't know, 7 to 10 days.

Mark Trobough: 1:37:44

Yeah, yeah, it is crazy.

Game Junction: 1:37:47

Yeah, so it's not hard, is my point.

Brandon Hurles: 1:37:49

No, it's definitely not. And do you know when you're getting the controller and the Playstation portal, is it slated for the same time as the PS5 Pro?

Game Junction: 1:38:02

yeah. I guess November 17th was the date, and, uh, I'll pull up Playstation store.

Brandon Hurles: 1:38:12

You're the only person I know that grabbed the portal and I had it in my mind. I was think I was. I was debating on it because I was like I definitely don't need a second one. If I got it I would sell the other because I think I probably would use it. I don't know if I'd keep it in the box, but it is cool, it looks really nice. But that that edge I've been wanting. I've been wanting to get an Edge controller for a long time anyway, so I was hoping to get that, but it just didn't work out, unfortunately. Yeah.

Game Junction: 1:38:44

Yeah, I had considered getting an Edge for a long time, me too, because the price.

Brandon Hurles: 1:38:48

I just couldn't.

Game Junction: 1:38:51

Same.

Brandon Hurles: 1:38:52

Yeah, it's just so hard and then they did this, they, they fomoed us, and it's like you got to get it now or you're not getting it at all.

Game Junction: 1:39:00

So well, I didn't get an anniversary controller either, or playstation 4. I missed out on that when they did the 20th anniversary and I was like, man, that controller is like is really badass. I really don't. I don't buy multiple controllers, gotcha. You know what I mean. If a new color comes out, I'm not like, oh, I have to get that. I just don't. The controller I have is fine, right, yeah.

Mark Trobough: 1:39:29

Yeah, I guess before we. Oh sorry, what were you?

Brandon Hurles: 1:39:31

going to say, no, you're good, go ahead.

Mark Trobough: 1:39:34

No, because I was going to move us on real quick. Before we go into the Ubisoft stuff, I just wanted to hit one more. Sea of Stars. Dawn of Equinox is getting its free DLC on November 12th. I know this passed what was it? Tuesday on the 1st. They did a live stream, kind of taking an in-depth look at what was going on with that and stuff like that. I don't know a whole lot about this game. Have you had the chance to play it or not?

Game Junction: 1:39:56

yeah, yeah, I actually, um, I'm on the kick. I did the kickstarter, I funded it, helped fund it. So I have a physical copy and, uh, yeah, one. I will just say absolutely love the game, amazing game, amazing soundtrack. They brought in, uh, one of the one of it, or the lead composer from Chrono Trigger, which is a crazy get. Yeah, and yeah, I beat the game on PlayStation. I have one trophy left to get to get the platinum, but I won't say what it is, but it requires let me just say it requires me revisiting the game and with the DLC coming out next year, and then, of course, with this update which allows for co-op mode. Now.

Mark Trobough: 1:40:49

Yeah, which is really dope yeah.

Game Junction: 1:40:52

I might see if my lady wants to play it, because this is really cool. It's cool to build to a rpg co-op and it obviously kind of gives me those like old school secret of mana vibes where you can play you know three players. Yeah, yeah, I can't recommend this game more. Just so you guys know if, if you ever consider playing it, it is like very high up on my list of games that I would recommend I and I recommend it too.

Brandon Hurles: 1:41:22

and what's weird is I think that it finished off at a really good point and kind of didn't need dlc. Um, I'm glad that it's getting it, but I felt felt like it ended well, Like it wrapped the story up, so I was kind of surprised to hear that they were doing DLC to begin with. But it is cool. It's a great way to revisit the game. It's phenomenal. Mark, I know that you're like semi-into JRPGs and stuff. I think you would love this game. I mean, it's just a beautiful game, Like it's absolutely beautiful.

Mark Trobough: 1:42:00

No, it definitely looks dope for sure. Yeah, it's really cool.

Game Junction: 1:42:01

To confirm November 21st. I just logged in. That's the release date for the Portal and for the DualSense Edge Okay.

Mark Trobough: 1:42:14

Yeah, but for the Sea of Stars. I can't say for every other platform. But for steam it's on sale 30 off. So it's 10 off from 30, 35 to about 25, 50 right now on steam. So you can even get it now. That's, that's good till october 7th. So pretty much if you're watching this live. If not, uh, you're pretty much sol. But give that, give that a quick shout out.

Brandon Hurles: 1:42:33

Sorry, sorry to our audio listeners.

Mark Trobough: 1:42:35

We apologize yeah, unfortunately, but hey, still get the game it's. It's a 35 game, so it's not like you're breaking the bank with it. Yeah, but obviously it just seems like there's a never-ending pool of drama and we've got a bunch of stuff that that's popped over, like this past week, and I just feel like it never stops. Just ubisoft just can't stay out of the limelight for all the wrong reasons.

Brandon Hurles: 1:42:56

Right, I mean, steve's been sending me stuff all week. I've been sending him stuff like this. Has been going on and on and on is just not stopping.

Mark Trobough: 1:43:05

Yeah, so the immediate stuff that dropped today or maybe dropped a few days ago. But there was an article that I saw on ABC today that with news reports we obviously nothing's been confirmed that uh tencent and the uh gillamot family, if I didn't completely butcher that it's considering a buyout, it's all a 30 percent stock today, on friday, of its uh 30 percent jump up in its stock price with just the reports that hey, you're, you're essentially the shareholders are getting what they want. They want new leadership and I think ub they want new leadership and I think Ubisoft needs new leadership or else this company is not going to exist in a few years with the way it's going right now.

Brandon Hurles: 1:43:42

I mean I said it and I still kind of stand behind it that I just feel like they're either going to go under, they're going to have a massive layoff, or they're going to get bought out. Something's going to happen. Ubisoft is not going to have a massive layoff or they're going to get bought out. Something's going to happen. Ubisoft is not going to be able to keep on going the way that it's going. I mean, it's just not, it's just craziness. It's going to be one of those. And then tencent, obviously, if they buy it out, they have the money, of course. Um, yeah, big, big chinese gaming company. Yeah, massive, massive company. Um, I could see that happening.

Mark Trobough: 1:44:17

I could see that a hundred percent. At the very least you know they're the, the, the gilmot family is going to be gone and somebody else is going to be put in charge and at the very least there's hope that they're going to be able to right the ship. That's. That's a lot of work to do because at the very least your, your company's reputation is in the toilet right now yep it's pretty.

Game Junction: 1:44:37

Yeah, you know I think we talked about this probably a couple of weeks ago too, brandon as well is that I?

Game Junction: 1:44:47

I feel I felt like there was a a decent chance that if they bombed this holiday which again that I felt pretty confident in because I saw what was going on with star wars- yeah obviously this is something I we didn't even put a link out for it's not in our topics, but you guys probably know, and if you don't check this out, so Skull Crossbones obviously a Ubisoft game that bombed the live service game. I could not believe this, but apparently they lost between $650 and $850 million on Skull Crossbones. So that report just came out, I think within the last about on.

Game Junction: 1:45:36

Skull and Crossbones A lot of money. That report just came out, I think, within the last about 24 to 48 hours. So we're looking at okay, we know they're losing a ton on Star Wars Outlaws and they're doing all these patches. They have a patch roadmap and it's somewhat comical and embarrassing. It's like come on, guys, you should be better than this, but you're not.

Game Junction: 1:46:01

Um, you got that game skull and crossbones and you got the star wars outlaws and obviously, like I said, I think we all kind of knew it wasn't going to do good, based on just people's gameplay experiences with the game and, of course, some of the other crap in it the political stuff, and then Assassin's Creed shadows. I was very confident, and I still am very confident in that it was going to bomb. And then I mean, not only did it bomb, but it's not even coming out as of right now. It's sometime next year. They put a placeholder date in of Valentine's Day, which is weird, and then I heard that that date is just a placeholder, according to Ubisoft. They said we actually don't have a date, that's just a placeholder and you know, it just feels like they could definitely get bought out. I think this report was put out there for a reason and oh yeah, where there's smoke, there's fire. I would not be shocked if next week we hear that they're getting bought out and maybe this family that owns it Maybe they want out.

Game Junction: 1:47:21

We don't know them personally, right? Yeah, maybe they feel like I want to get out of this now because I don't like the direction the industry is going. I don't want to feel like I uh, I'm going to be bullied into maybe inserting certain things in my, in my games that I don't. Maybe they don't want to you know what I mean like maybe they don't want to put in politics and all this other horseshit that you got to put into these games today in order to appease everyone. You know, maybe they are old school, you never know, and they, they just want to make great games and not deal with all that crap. And so maybe they're like, hey, you know what, maybe we do get out now before it gets really bad, just lose everything you never know, because maybe they're not down with this stuff.

Game Junction: 1:48:20

I feel like and I I'm sure we've said this before, but you know, like these developers that are working on the games, they're told to do this stuff, like, yeah, you know, obviously this isn't part of their creative vision. They have to do this. They're told you need to do this. If you don't do it, you won't have a job. You know your con that would be you're not following your contract and it'll be ousted. So it's like you know it's corporate saying hey, we have to do this because this company says we need to add in this kind of character and that kind of character and you need to fit this into the storyline some way. And before you know it, it's like where's the creative vision? All creative directions lost because you have to do all this other corporate crap that they don't want to do, but they have to do it. Yeah, it's a bad spot yeah, it's never.

Mark Trobough: 1:49:17

It's never good.

Mark Trobough: 1:49:18

And then on top of that report, there's also other rumors coming out that on top of that announcement, partners with tencent, there's rumors that ubisoft might also cut their staff by 40 around 8 000 people would lose their jobs as a result of this buyout, probably because you're hemorrhaging a lot of money and you need to cut a lot of costs on top of God knows how much bloat is within the company, as is, but it's kind of a well, we need to clean house, fire a lot of people, your job's kind of useless and we're just going to wipe the slate clean and kind of start from scratch, which is just another tack on the years long, you know layoffs that have been coming from like every studio across the board.

Game Junction: 1:50:00

Yeah, and for reference because I looked this up, I just pulled it up again. But when I saw how many did the percentage of layoffs? I looked up to see how many employees they have. Says they have 21,000 employees and more than 45 development studios.

Mark Trobough: 1:50:19

Yeah, I mean, if they're cutting 40 percent, around 8000 jobs, you're probably closing a few studios at that point. That's like whole studios, whole departments that are just are just being let go Assuming that all these rumors are actually true. But I would assume, kind of like in a if it it's not bet out in a, uh, what's it called? Uh, it's a, like a type of bankruptcy. I just can't remember the exact type that, at least for here in the U? S, it's you're, you're fine for bankruptcy protections and that usually involves new head of the top.

Game Junction: 1:50:50

You're a lot of people getting fired because you need to recoup some of your costs and try to like like getting fired because you need to recoup some of your costs and try to like a, like a merger yeah, that that as well. In some cases it's what it kind of feels like they're doing. Yeah, and here's the thing like we've already seen this happen a lot, where a development studio that we like has had unfortunate circumstances to where they get bought out. Let's take embracer group, for example. Embracer group has bought out so many great development companies and guess what? They don't make games anymore and they're either closed or they're still open. They just don't make games anymore. They just haven't made games since then. It's been years. You just don't want to see that happen, but it just seems like bottom line. Ubisoft needs new leadership.

Mark Trobough: 1:51:48

Yeah, but that new leadership is going to come with a heavy hand and be like, okay, we need to cut a lot of fat off, you lost a lot of money so we can't afford you people right now. Yeah, uh, and then we just have to hopefully stop the bleeding, start putting out good games and the long road of you know rebuilding your reputation and hopefully you know making games that actually start making money. Because you can't put three massive titles out within the span of about a year because even even with this delay, it's still going to fall within the year of skull and bones star wars. Even even with this delay, it's still going to fall within the year of Skull and Bones Star Wars Outlaws. You can't have like three major title bombs and expect to have no repercussions from this.

Game Junction: 1:52:24

Now you can't. And If the Skull and Bones thing is just tragic because From from the beginning fans said we don't want this, Nobody said they, they wanted that game.

Mark Trobough: 1:52:39

No, I gave it a play to go forward. If it played like the, the other Assassin's Creed game, black Flag. Black Flag, that's I couldn't think of the exact title game. That was what people were hoping for and wanted and then, when it came out, like this, has nothing that we want. What's the point of this game?

Game Junction: 1:52:55

Yeah, this is literally just ship combat and it's a live service game. And the way a game quadruple. Yeah, they really screwed themselves there too, because you know that automatically. When you said it was a quadruple a game, everyone busted out their magnifying glass and that game was magnified from that point forward. Okay, let's, let's see what a quadruple a game is. You're gonna really have to wow me in order for me to buy this game.

Brandon Hurles: 1:53:29

Correct me if I'm wrong. Wasn't that funded by a Middle Eastern, either company or person? It was funded by somebody outside of the gaming space that funded all the money for that Quadriboy game.

Game Junction: 1:53:47

It was a Singapore government is helping to keep Ubisoft's ambitious pirate game afloat.

Brandon Hurles: 1:53:57

How ridiculous is that man?

Mark Trobough: 1:54:00

You know what's funny? This comes because back in January, it was reported that one of the Ubisoft execs was like gamers need to get comfortable with not owning their games. We need to go towards a subscription model. Well, who wants to pay for a subscription model? You just put out bad game after bad game and now your company looks like it. Might. You know, if this buyout doesn't go through and uh, assassin's creed shadows fails financially, like I wouldn't be surprised if you're on the on the verge of filing for bankruptcy at that point, which would be far worse, that's just like the first sign of your company's about to not exist anymore yeah, when they said that that was a first off, that was a really bad move for them to come out and say that, because you know every everyone likened it to the new world order, right yeah you're gonna own nothing and you're gonna be happy.

Game Junction: 1:54:55

I think everyone kind of connected the dots there and it's like you know everyone wanted to just say F you Like that's not the direction I want to go in. You know what I mean? It's none of us want that.

Mark Trobough: 1:55:09

So and it's. It starts the discourse that it's not and there is a moral and legal areas with. That was like well, if I don't own the game, then piracy isn't technically stealing because I never owned it in the first place. You start to see a lot of that discourse creep up.

Mark Trobough: 1:55:23

I see, like yeah like well, if I don't own the game and you own it, you take it away from me at any point and whatever money I put into it, I'm just out. You're just asking people to to. You're pushing maybe not everybody, but you're starting to push more and more people towards piracy and they don't. At that point they don't see this more wrong, because you're. You're obviously out to screw us at the same time. Just make money and then, when this game doesn't make money, you're just going to take it away. You know, you know get screwed and then buy our next game yeah, exactly, and uh, they're in a bad spot.

Game Junction: 1:55:54

They're just in a really bad spot and you know, I don't work there. None of us work there. We can only. We can only go based off of the things they've said, the products they've put out and what we've read and the projected uh direction that they're going in, that we see right and it's not good. Their trajectory it's not good, it doesn't look good no, it does not uh, but with this trajection obviously.

Mark Trobough: 1:56:26

There was a rumor from todd henderson about ubisoft's target to release 10 assassin's creed titles in the next five years, a mix of new and rem Like. Are they even in a position to do that?

Game Junction: 1:56:38

So I mean, guys, the math on that. That's a new, that's an Assassin's Creed, a new one and a remake every six months.

Mark Trobough: 1:56:46

Crazy. This is their plan to stop like oh, you remember this game. Here's a new coat of paint by the game, please.

Game Junction: 1:56:53

That's a joke, dude.

Brandon Hurles: 1:56:55

It's such a joke.

Mark Trobough: 1:56:57

But it's real. How are you going to make even just five new games in five years? How many studios would you need to be already deep in development for that? If you're rushing games that much, the quality is going to drop off.

Game Junction: 1:57:11

We've already seen a huge issue with quality the fact that you put out Star Wars Outlaws and the shape that it was in and you paid the money to use the Star Wars license, which again, that costs you money to go use it. Assassin's Creed is your IP. It doesn't cost you money to use your own IP. You went out and bought this license to make this game and you totally screwed up.

Mark Trobough: 1:57:37

So it's like anybody thought that was regardless of the game itself, just the, the state that it launched, as far as how buggy and broken it was in some aspects, the fact that anybody looked at that and said, yeah, that's good, let's release this.

Game Junction: 1:57:49

Well, yeah, it's, it's a stealth game and the stealth is broken. You can walk right in front of people and they don't do anything. They don't see you. It's like come on, this is stupid, it's crazy.

Brandon Hurles: 1:58:02

It's absolutely crazy. I get it. No what?

Mark Trobough: 1:58:06

are you saying Sorry?

Game Junction: 1:58:07

Just for the record. So Valhalla came out in 2020. And then Assassin's Creed Mirage, which, remember that is a smaller game. That was the whole thing about it is that it's not as long. It's not, as you know, bloated, so to speak. The Ubisoft bloat that came out in 2023. So it's 2024. We're not getting Shadows until 2025. Yeah, so it doesn't get another.

Mark Trobough: 1:58:41

It doesn't get another pushback with February, because at this point who knows that they decide to delay it, you know indefinitely.

Game Junction: 1:58:48

Right, so in a five year span we're getting three Assassin's Creed games. Tell me how you think you are going to give us Ten Assassin's Creed games. Tell me how you think you are going to give us 10 Assassin's Creed games in five years, when in the last five years you're going to give us three. How are you going to add seven to that and lay off how much of your staff again?

Mark Trobough: 1:59:11

40%. Up to 40%.

Game Junction: 1:59:14

Right. So just like, how are you going to do this? Do this man like, how do you come out with that news? So how do you? In the same week you say all that staff's gonna get laid off, your stock is in the, in the absolute shitter, and you say you're gonna make 10 assassins creed games. News comes out that you lost between 650 and 850 million on Skull and Crossbones. Like dude, what is going on at the top over there?

Brandon Hurles: 1:59:44

I wish I knew, because I cannot comprehend anything that they're doing. It makes no sense whatsoever it just blows my mind.

Mark Trobough: 1:59:53

It just feels like nobody knows what's going on right now. People are just saying whatever they want, or people are just like, yeah, that sounds like good, we'll just say this.

Game Junction: 2:00:00

You know, maybe this will get a good response yeah, that's why it all comes back to the leadership man and the lack thereof the lack of leadership.

Brandon Hurles: 2:00:12

what leadership? I feel like the leadership there has got to be all over the place. Nobody's agreeing on anything, nothing's organized there whatsoever. It's just got to be an absolute shit show.

Game Junction: 2:00:25

That's why I wonder. I would not be surprised guys, if next week there's news that they're bought out. They might be ready to say, hey, you know what? Let's throw in the towel, man. It was a good run, we did a lot of good things there. Let's just be done with it. Let's walk away, let's get our payout and let's go buy some beachfront property in a couple different countries. Call it a day, we'll sit back, relax and watch, watch the triple-a companies.

Brandon Hurles: 2:01:02

Uh, burn I mean, yeah, I keep saying it, I'll keep repeating it these companies have to burn to the ground. They gotta rise up like a phoenix if, uh, this is ever going to continue. A triple-a gaming, I mean, if we're being honest obviously you can attest to this, steve. Obviously we still love our AAA games, our Nintendo games that come out, but a lot of stuff that keeps my attention these days is a lot of indie releases, the Plucky Squire being a great example A lot of things that are unique and innovative and there's a bunch of bullcrap behind it and there's actually passion and love and game creation for the sake of love and passion, not for profit.

Brandon Hurles: 2:01:46

Right, right, and that's the problem. The investors and everybody that's involved in these companies are in control.

Game Junction: 2:01:55

They're the ones controlling the money, so like they are in control and they all have opinions and they're actually entitled to their opinions because they do own a part of the company, right? So you do have to listen to them. I, out of curiosity, guys, I just looked up uh, eves gilmott, his age, so he, of course he's the owner. He co-founded ubisoft in 1986 with his brothers, claude, uh, michael, gerard and christian. Okay, so there's five owners. Who knows how they split that up, maybe 20 each?

Mark Trobough: 2:02:34

that I would start with yeah, and they found.

Game Junction: 2:02:39

They found it ubisoft in 1986 and he was born in 1960.

Game Junction: 2:02:47

He is 64 years old, so one year away from the magic number of when you want to retire right at 65 yeah it if your company is going down and you know, like I said, they're older guys, so, like they, they should in theory be a little old school, right, a little hard-headed on some of the changes in the world. If, if I'm them, I'm like let's get out. Man, like we put our time in. I was born in 85. They've been doing this since 86. They've been doing this, all you know, almost my entire lifetime. I would say let's get out. Let's enjoy our last, however long we have on this planet, and enjoy it. We've worked hard. Let's get out now. Let's take this offer that we're going to get.

Game Junction: 2:03:47

Yeah the place already burning down. We already don't like all the stuff we have to do. We don't like the stuff that shareholders are always wanting us to do. We don't like having to include all the stuff in our games that we don't want to do but we have to, otherwise you know we're going to get canceled. But then if we do do it, we get canceled by the yeah, another group, which is the people who don't want it right? So once, not one side is always coming at you, right, and it's so. Maybe they're just like dude F it. We have money, let's get out of here.

Mark Trobough: 2:04:20

Yeah, enjoy life. That's what they do. If we stay here, they might lose everything. The whole thing just collapses underneath and they can't. You know, right the ship.

Game Junction: 2:04:29

Not only that man, but this shit ages, you Like, it's probably Especially at that age the stress that it puts on you ain't worth it just get out.

Brandon Hurles: 2:04:41

It's not.

Mark Trobough: 2:04:41

No, not at all it's crazy, it's absolutely crazy. Yeah, uh, on a little bit of a lighter note, moving on, uh, we're getting rumors, uh, that we'll get. We're getting a pokemon legends z through a uh coming soon. As far as as a leak or a teaser or something like that, which begs the question, as far as, could we potentially see an actual proper trailer and release date when we get, say, the Switch 2 announcement or the Switch successor announcement? Do we get a bunch of games coming out on launch? Is this one of the other reasons they decided to potentially delay it? Because, hey, we've got a bunch of games that are close to coming out. So if we delay this, we can have a really solid lineup of launch titles for for the switch successor.

Brandon Hurles: 2:05:22

I do wonder if this is. I mean, it could be a launch window game, but it's like we think we're getting Metroid prime for as like a cross generation game. What else do we think we're getting? Could it be Pokemon Legends CA? Could that be the? Other big game, or is it something?

Mark Trobough: 2:05:43

else we've had a major mainline Mario game since essentially the Switch launch.

Brandon Hurles: 2:05:49

That would make sense potentially that's my thought is a big mark because that makes sense for Nintendo, right?

Mark Trobough: 2:05:55

launch with a big mario game you need one of your big uh flagship titles to launch with with your console right, right yeah and then say I don't know, maybe this, this game, launches six months after after releases. Hey, these are one big game. We don't want too many launching it right at once. But hey, this game will be coming to the next console, maybe it'll be a console exclusive to the Switch successor, I mean who knows.

Brandon Hurles: 2:06:16

I do wonder what's your thoughts on that, Steve. I don't know how big of a Pokemon fan you are, oh yeah, I love it.

Game Junction: 2:06:25

Okay, okay. Yeah, been playing since the original and I got it literally right when it came out. So I was there for all the craziness. I was there for all the craziness. I was there for pokemania. You, you always have batteries on you because, like, where I went and I mentioned this on the nintend bite is that I, I lived at the gym like we're. I was there from 10 to 10 during the summers. Yeah, I, we played basketball, were you?

Brandon Hurles: 2:06:57

all day was it the ymca? Because no okay no, it was.

Game Junction: 2:07:01

It was the community center, which you know is is very similar and you know, we we play basketball all day very competitively my whole life. But they also had a game room right and everybody had their game boys and you had your link cables, like it was in my duffel bag always, so I had all my basketball stuff in there, but the game boys in there too, and yeah, we're. You know we're trading pokemon, we're wheeling and dealing. It was fun, man, it was crazy, it was a. It was a fun time, it really was, and so I have fond memories. And to get into that question about pokemon legend za, obviously this is believable. The last time we saw it was february and it was a teaser to see it again. When we see the switch to that, it would make sense to see it at the same time, because, of course, this is what all the pokemon fans want to see and pokemon is still to to this day, extremely healthy, extremely profitable?

Brandon Hurles: 2:08:18

Yeah. Could you say bigger than ever? Yeah, because.

Game Junction: 2:08:24

I think so.

Brandon Hurles: 2:08:24

Obviously, the Pokemania was big, but I feel like it's way more mainstream than it was Cars the show everything.

Game Junction: 2:08:34

You have to look at the ages right In that. We grew up with it. Okay now, and we're all still fans. And now many of us have kids now, right, and now our kids are fans. So for a long time it was operating off of like one major generation yeah, that would. That was the original adopters. And now you're passing that on to your kids, just like all of us who grew up with regular Nintendo. Now we have our kids playing the Wii or we have them playing the Switch. So it's multi-generational, which means, yeah, as long as they don't F up, as long as they don't do something stupid, they continue to make great games. It's only going to get better, right. And yeah, the pokemon cards thing has been big. They got the pokemon card uh, game app or not game, but the pokemon card app coming out, and which seems like it's going to be pretty big it is, and it's going to lead to more sales and everything pokemon related yeah right everything.

Game Junction: 2:09:43

So good on them for doing that. Uh, pokemon goes still going. There's a lot of pokemon stuff going on, yeah, in in the world. What I think is that Legend ZA will come out next year. I expect it. I expect to get the new, whatever the new Pokemon is going to be in 2026. That would be the 30th anniversary of pokemon in japan, when it was uh pocket monsters yeah, back when it was called pocket monsters.

Game Junction: 2:10:27

And yeah, I think in 2026, that's when we get the new mainline pokemon, and 2025, no doubt, we're getting legend, za and as far as launch titles, here's the thing we've never received a pokemon game at launch let's see trying to think if there's anything usually pokemon will show up after there's been the install base well, the thing is it's weird with pokemon is there's always a new pokemon game that comes out when the next console is already out.

Brandon Hurles: 2:11:08

Always ultra sun, ultra moon. Switch is already out. You got what else is there?

Game Junction: 2:11:14

pokemon black black and white too, yeah 3ds is already out, so yeah, I mean it always happens, but yeah you know, I think it makes sense for the main line to be on the 30th anniversary of japan, because that's that's when it was created. Right, it makes sense for 2026 yeah it does, and and legend za like.

Game Junction: 2:11:40

I don't know if it'll be a launch title, because it really comes down to what nintendo wants to do. I expect a 3d mario next year, whether it's at launch or whether it's the big holiday game we'll see. I expect, expect Metroid Prime next year. I expect Pokemon Legends ZA next year and I will say I expect Mario Kart, because Mario Kart is going to be their big, evergreen title. Yeah.

Game Junction: 2:12:07

They saw for the first time what a evergreen Mario Kart could do for the Switch. With Mario Kart Deluxe, it is the best-selling game on the Switch. It's the best-selling Mario Kart could do for the Switch. With Mario Kart Deluxe, it is the best selling game on the Switch. It's the best selling Mario Kart game of all time by far. It's still in the top 10, like every week, for sales, for software sales, which is insane.

Brandon Hurles: 2:12:30

It is insane.

Game Junction: 2:12:30

Because this is the 2014 game that has had some add-ons, but it's a Wii U game that has had, obviously, the more tracks and characters. But this is your current Mario Kart and so, yeah, I expect that in year one, possibly at launch I've mentioned it because you do that that's a great way to really build your install base. It's a great way to get people to buy more controllers right off the bat. So you're selling accessories now and I don't know, man, like it just makes sense to do it again, like why wouldn't you really worked? And I expect Breath of the Wild as well. Yeah, I expect the 4K 60. Zelda, breath of the Wild 100%, and I expect a lot of Switch 1 games to benefit from increased performance resolution and frame rate.

Game Junction: 2:13:28

We've seen it in the code Paper. Mario. The Thousand Year Door has 2160 in their code.

Brandon Hurles: 2:13:35

It's in the code right now like somebody got uh breath of the wild on the switch running at 4k. I don't know if you saw that, but natively with with the switch, so very capable yeah, so I'm expecting a lot in the first year.

Game Junction: 2:13:51

But legends I do expect to see to see um with the switch to you know when they first do their sizzle reel yeah that that's gonna be there.

ThunderStash Gaming: 2:14:04

100 because that's a launch window title yeah, yeah, yeah, I expect, I expect I'm hyped for it yeah, I'm very hyped for it.

Brandon Hurles: 2:14:15

I thought Legends Arceus was awesome, even better than Scarlet and Violet. By far it's a better game.

Game Junction: 2:14:21

Me too. A lot of people think that too, which is great, great news for us that everyone feels the same way, because they know that.

Brandon Hurles: 2:14:29

Yeah. I still wonder, though. I've been wondering for a while whether or not we're going to get a new let's go, because I feel like that could also make sense for, like, a launch window game. I just I don't know if it was a one and done or if they could be like, okay, we got let's go, we got the mainline game, and then we got the legends games. Like it would make sense for them to have those consecutive games. Plus. They've got all the other spinoffs, like Mystery Dungeon, things like that, and it's not atypical to get some sort of Pokemon game every year, whether it's a spinoff or something like that.

Game Junction: 2:15:05

Well, yeah, it seems multi-tiered, Like we get the new mainline, we get a Legends and then we get a remake. So that's three years worth of Pokemon stuff and then you started all over again. Yeah.

Game Junction: 2:15:23

Right, like that's a console. You got a Pokemon game. Every year you get two remakes in the generation. You get two brand new main lines. Maybe we get two legends. It sounds like we probably will. If we get legend za, I would expect a second one, uh to come out on switch to you, would, you, would think. And then, yeah, they throw some mystery dungeons in there. Um, you know, obviously you can't really throw in uh new pokemon snap, because that was a remake of a remake, but maybe you know something along those lines.

Mark Trobough: 2:15:58

We know what to expect right, yeah yeah, I do wonder about that for sure but yeah, moving on, uh, we got some, uh, dragon ball sparking zero news, uh, so it's a mixture of a leak and download file size, so we got it was right around, uh, 30 gigabytes. It's about mixture of a leak and download file size, so we got it was right around 30 gigabytes. It's about 27 on the PS5, 31 on the Xbox, 29 on Steam. As far as like the size, with about, they say, a roster of 181 characters. So relative to other games, it's relatively small. Hopefully that's not the cost of you know, graphical fidelity and some frame rate. That's just a really well developed game. Cost of you know graphical fidelity and some frame rate. That's just a really well developed game. Yeah, as well as, uh, the fact that there was a leak, that the whole game was spoiled online as well today, which is never, never a good thing, but it's been happening a lot recently as far as games getting leaked recently sure has, sure has, yeah yeah, this is a reoccurring issue.

Game Junction: 2:16:54

It all goes back to the same thing that you know Nintendo, that everyone's mad at Nintendo for, but it's the emulation. You know it all comes back to that and it's like guys like just don't emulate until, like when the console is out.

Mark Trobough: 2:17:12

But you know, pirates are gonna pirate and people just want to spoil the game for people.

Game Junction: 2:17:18

Let me ask you this, though I didn't see any of the spoilage, I guess you could say Was it positive From what you guys heard? Is it good or is it bad?

Brandon Hurles: 2:17:30

I've avoided it.

ThunderStash Gaming: 2:17:32

I've been trying to avoid it. I've got to assume that it's a problem.

Brandon Hurles: 2:17:36

I've got to assume that it's a problem. I got to assume that it's good.

Game Junction: 2:17:38

I have to. I know a lot of people are hyped about it. Me personally, I don't want. I have never watched Dragon Ball. I respect, I respect it, I respect the fan base and I want to see, honestly, the fans you know happy and enjoy something like this. And I know a lot of the fans are super hyped for this game and I know why. So I'm not going to. I doubt I'd play it but I hope it's great.

Mark Trobough: 2:18:06

Yeah, but I guess in response to that, bandai Namco was essentially going after with, with takedowns and stuff like that, to essentially do what they can to stop it when it pops up. That was a thing going on as well. But I mean, it's just unfortunate that people either they they they can't just keep it to themselves, or they want to be kind of malicious about it but I mean it's like a I'm first type of thing, like I, I put it out there first and it's look at me, I'm better than you yeah, I, I never understood it, but

Game Junction: 2:18:36

it's like people who try to beat a video game as quickly as humanly possible that you've waited like five years for yeah, you're like.

Mark Trobough: 2:18:43

This game came out three days ago. How is somebody already platinum this game?

Game Junction: 2:18:47

yeah, that's like I don't even want to say what that's equivalent to. I want to keep this. You know, pg, but you guys know what I'm talking about. Probably is like come on, dude, thank you, don't? You don't want to, you don't want to do it that soon, man, like, take your time, enjoy the game. Yeah, enjoy the ride.

Mark Trobough: 2:19:09

But I guess there is any good thing is, if you're trying to, you know, missing the spoilers, you don't only have to wait less than a week. That comes out on the 10th, that's next Thursday, when this game releases.

Game Junction: 2:19:20

So a lot of games releasing right around the corner in October. Yeah, you got Silent Hill on the 8th, that on the 10th, Metaphor on the 11th.

Mark Trobough: 2:19:28

Next week's a crazy week for game drops.

Brandon Hurles: 2:19:30

Dude, I know, oh my God, I don't even know how I'm going to be able to keep up. The crazy thing about the Dragon Ball game is there's like 150 characters in it, like holy crap.

Mark Trobough: 2:19:40

It's like every character, the whole roster of all the series in that game. I know it's insane, Right around the same time that we're getting a new Dragon Ball, dima is dropping. Yeah, I know this October as well. It's crazy. Like yeah, dragon Ball's a crazy month this month.

Brandon Hurles: 2:19:54

No kidding, no kidding man.

Mark Trobough: 2:19:59

Balls to the wall. I mean, hey, if you're going to go, it's like the opposite of when it rains, it pours but you know, in a good way.

Mark Trobough: 2:20:06

Yeah, yeah, yeah for sure, but we did get some. It's never a week where there's no controversy, because I know we initially talked about it, where there was some drama last week about what? Yuji Horii's comments about the Dragon Quest three HD 2D remake as one of the original creators of Dragon Quest, but what? What is causing more controversy and or conspiracy theory or it feels like it's validating is the fact that they people went through after the fact. Not only did the media just kind of tone it down and brush it aside, but like a lot of these comments have been taken off and taken down off the internet, like they're trying to trying to hide something, like they're like oh, he wasn't supposed to actually say that type thing yeah, it was like it was scrubbed from the internet yeah, because it's.

Mark Trobough: 2:20:53

I mean, his idea was was like I don't know why you're censoring the game and stuff like that. Who cares about regulations? You know, showing too much skin, or you obviously wasn't a fan of the type A, type B. It's like why are? Why are we changing our game for another market? Like well, they can either accept it or just not play it. At that point, like why? Why are we making creative compromising or making creative changes that don't need to be there? That weren't a problem when this game originally launched, but now all of a sudden it's a problem?

Game Junction: 2:21:22

Yeah, and here's the thing when I originally and I still feel the same way because I know what he said the only reason it got taken down is because it probably upset someone in the cancel culture group, and it is what it is Like I read what he said and it's in this article and I love, love what he said, love it. And I know he said this. I stand by what he said. You can scrub it from the Internet.

Mark Trobough: 2:21:59

I'm sure the PR, pr people are like we got to get this off the internet, yeah right, but because that's causing people to be like what's going on. Why are you making changes now like this is a classic game?

Game Junction: 2:22:10

yeah, I'm like what he said was uh, you know, if someone in the west said this like a developer here?

Mark Trobough: 2:22:21

would be blacklisted, yeah, at least public, if they said it publicly. But it's starting a larger. It feels like it's validating what they call the, the gamer incels, that we are toxic. Like a major developer out of japan's come out and being like, yeah, I don't like this, and it's they don't like it because it gives the people they don't like fuel and ammunition to go after them that are making the changes, that are pushing for these changes.

Game Junction: 2:22:47

Did you guys read this last week what he said?

Mark Trobough: 2:22:51

Yeah, I did. I watched a few videos on it as well. Yeah. Other people definitely covering it, like the moment, like it dropped and stuff like that.

Game Junction: 2:22:59

You guys. You went over it on the podcast last week.

Mark Trobough: 2:23:02

We didn't after right okay, maybe I don't know if it was this one exactly, he. There was some mention about it, but it was just like he mentioned something. I can't remember if it was this exactly. I remember hearing about it last week, but it didn't really blow up till like a few days later, because it obviously it takes a few, a few days for the internet to catch on at large and stuff like that yeah, uh, I think, if you guys don't mind, I want to just read an excerpt from what he said yeah, yeah just so everyone can, uh, really understand where he's coming from.

Game Junction: 2:23:41

But he said that there were various regulations in place and apparently he's not allowed to show too much skin, which of course this was okay when the game came out in the 90s. And he said I really don't understand that If there's too much exposure, the age rating goes up, means we won't be able to sell it as an all ages product. So of course, e for everyone. Then he went on and said, under the name of compliance, it's like an absolute god and evil disguised as good. There's no such thing as content that doesn't make everyone uncomfortable, because beauty and ugliness, good and evil are different for everyone, which again I agree, totally true, yeah. And then he said there's a religious concept from the west, especially in america, that influences their approach to sex education. Right, their approach to compliance is really narrow-minded.

Game Junction: 2:24:44

When selling manga in America, everything had to be categorized by age groups. For Shonen Jump manga they couldn't be sold unless they were rated for ages 13 and up, because there's a risk of lawsuits and the company also has to get insurance. And he said doing business with such a ridiculous country is really frustrating. Because of that, japan gets negatively influenced because you know they have to change their creative work, their creative direction to appease a certain group, which is america now, which sucks, because you know there's a lot of people who don't feel that way. We want you to create what you envisioned and enjoy it the way, the way you wanted us to, not the way someone said you have to, or an insurance company says you have to do this, or, yeah, this group or that group, we, we want the truest form, the purest form of your creation. I think that's how a lot of gamers feel, I think that's how probably majority feel, but there's small groups that are very loud yeah, and I just wanted to add on because he added one more thing.

Mark Trobough: 2:25:58

He said uh, in dragon quest, uh, you used to be able to choose between a male and female main character, but now you can't choose between a male and woman anymore. We have to label them as type one and type two. I really wonder who's even complaining about this. Yeah, we all.

Mark Trobough: 2:26:12

We all know where that's that that is coming from yeah, and so I love this yeah and then I just to say, because there was a correction after the fact by the translation where he mentioned in the scene where he mentioned Puritan, it was mistakenly translated as sex education. That was the only mistranslation from the original quote that was corrected after the fact. I believe it came out yesterday for that. Yeah, and bottom line line but the point still still remains the same yeah, it remains the same.

Game Junction: 2:26:43

We know the context of all of this and all I can say is that you know I've always, always loved dragon quest and I've always, I've always said that, like you know, I think I've I've said this before here and I know I have on the nintendite podcast. But I wish people in the uh the west experienced dragon quest and and gave it the? Uh the same respect as they do in japan, because you know, it's kind of reverse here, like the way we obsess over a final fantasy is the way japan obsesses over dragon quest. They have, they have a dragon quest day in japan. It's a holiday and a lot of people ditch work. It's crazy.

Game Junction: 2:27:26

I love yes it's so cool, I absolutely love it. I remember reading that I'm like this is so cool, but uh, to hear that that's how he thinks just made me even more happy. I'm like that's so cool, man. Like way to keep it real wait, way to say how you feel, and if people disagree with it, that's okay, you know, respect it, because there's there's things on the other side as well that we've all talked about, that we don't agree with. But hey, man, if that's how you feel, that's how you feel. I just want video games to stay video games, that's it.

Mark Trobough: 2:28:00

But it's very easy to see why those in the industry and then the games media space did not like this, because it gives a legitimate criticism and fuel to what they've been pushing for. It feels like a decade plus at this point. Yeah, it's at odds and it comes from somebody with a lot of influence and that has a that just has a lot of work and a lot of respect, where a lot of people can latch on and see like, see, we're not crazy, we're not toxic. You know there are people that back us up and I'm sure there's people in the industry that agree, but they're, you know, threatened into silence or, you know, risk of losing their job and being blacklisted as well.

Game Junction: 2:28:37

Yeah, and compliance by force yeah, and how I I agree with you and how I feel about the game is that you know I have it pre-ordered. I'm obviously still buying it. Yeah, I saw the news around it like these kind of things are kind of like ankle biters, you know, like they're. They're annoying, okay, but I'm not going to not support the game because I know there's a lot of outside influence that screws things up like this. And ultimately, yeah, is it silly that he asked that they have to do, uh, type one or type two and not man or woman? Yeah, that's so stupid so stupid?

Mark Trobough: 2:29:22

on many levels but you have heard people make the argument well, it's not a big deal, so why are you complaining? Well, if it's not a big deal, why did this change have to be in the first place? And I get it's like an ankle biter. But if you ignore it, you know those bites get larger. It's like, oh, we can take a little bit more here, like I think it's still still gonna be a good game. I I definitely want to play it, but it's just like you have to call out and be vocal against the bad, because you have to be like. You know the newspaper no, bad game company, bad. We don't want this.

Game Junction: 2:29:48

Get rid of this yeah, and that's why I was so happy that he said what he said, because he was thinking like his thoughts internally.

Mark Trobough: 2:29:57

His, his actual opinion is how we all feel yep, yeah, and that's how you know that it's all outside influence yeah, all these people are just in a in an echo chamber talking to themselves huffing their own up in their own farts. Be like, yeah, this is what everybody loves. These people are just toxic gamers yep uh, but I mean, I, I saw this. I'm like, yeah, I think this is. You know, this is just relevant, it needs to be talked about. I agree that's how I feel about it.

Brandon Hurles: 2:30:25

I'll definitely still be buying the game because I love Dragon Quest, but I think it's stupid dumb decision.

Mark Trobough: 2:30:31

You can support the game or call it the bad at the same time yeah exactly.

Brandon Hurles: 2:30:36

I'm very excited for the game.

Mark Trobough: 2:30:38

I legitimately really am, so just because I'm never not going to take the shot until it becomes ubisoft a little bad and be like yeah, no, there's no way your game's going to be good.

Mark Trobough: 2:30:46

I just refuse to support you but I mean I, I cannot take a chance to take a shot at ubisoft, um, but we, dad, do have some some good news. At the very least go out on a. On a positive note uh, avatar, the last airbender is getting a what they call a triple a rpg. Uh, that's coming be made with uh saber active and paramount games studios. I know I was a big fan of the cartoon. Uh, the live. First live action movie was absolute dog crap. And then the other, the new live action tv series, is okay, it's not terrible, but it all. It leaves me wanting to just go back and watch the original cartoon, cause I think it just works best there. But like an actual, not bad avatar game with actual money into it would actually be a breath of fresh air for this franchise. That I think I think a brand was in the same boat could actually, with with proper love and development, could could really thrive as a game I think it could make a fantastic game.

Brandon Hurles: 2:31:41

It's got an amazing story. Uh, it just makes sense. I don't know what went wrong with all the games that have came out, because I played all of them and I have all of them and they're just not good I think a lot of them suffer from those early like 2000s, like every adaptation game was like licensed cash grab and it was terrible.

Game Junction: 2:32:03

Yeah it started with the nes with ljn. Ljn was they're the one who started they got the licenses for like karate kid and who framed roger rabbit. Yeah, uh, nightmare on elm street like they. They had so many licensed games and they were all trash, because if you look Across the way you see games like DuckTales. Yeah.

Game Junction: 2:32:27

And Chippendale Rescue Rangers from Capcom. Yo Noid they're knocking it out of the. Yeah, they're knocking out of the park with licensed products, right, so you know that's what it was. Was, though, with a lot of these games, and I remember that airbender never had any good games nope no one that came out not not too long ago.

Brandon Hurles: 2:32:49

That was awesome, pretty bad.

Mark Trobough: 2:32:51

So, uh, oh, you mean, you still buy it there right now uh, I mean there was a game that was at least on steam, released back on september 20th of this year called the karate kid street rumble. I don't know if that's what you're thinking of oh, I have it.

Game Junction: 2:33:04

Yeah, he did.

Mark Trobough: 2:33:05

I'm talking about the, the karate kid, uh, from 1987 no, no, yeah, I know, but I thought brandon said there was another one that released not too long ago. I thought this was the one he was talking about.

Game Junction: 2:33:14

Sorry, oh, that is a great game. I reviewed it on my channel.

Mark Trobough: 2:33:19

They took it and fixed the props.

Game Junction: 2:33:21

It's actually good. Yeah, it's actually faithful to the movie.

Brandon Hurles: 2:33:25

I mean, yeah, I trust his opinion because I love Karate Kid too, so I do want to grab it at a discount still, though. Yeah, I would. Yeah, I still want to grab it at a discount, but I love the property, so I'm all for it.

Mark Trobough: 2:33:41

We all want every game to be good, whether it's a small or a big scale. It's just unfortunate that they're not all, like you know, knock-out-of-the-park games.

Game Junction: 2:33:50

Yeah, and Saber Interactive. You know they have a pretty solid history. They've done some pretty good work over the years. I've watched them and they seem to continuously be moving up in the development studio chain, so to speak. They're getting better properties, they're putting out better games. They're not just staying the same right, they're not just putting out the same stuff. They are, to me, improving.

Mark Trobough: 2:34:24

So I I feel pretty confident in it actually yeah, because I was pulling it up and look like saber interactive was involved in the space marines 2 game that just recently dropped, which is a really good game yeah, I've heard great things about that they've got a decent track record, at least a recent track record.

Game Junction: 2:34:42

Yep.

Brandon Hurles: 2:34:43

Yeah, for sure. Well, uh, do we got anything else? Mark on the docket.

Mark Trobough: 2:34:49

Uh, I think we got. I think the only other thing was uh, if you want to hit up about the the Joker too, but I think we got everything else.

Brandon Hurles: 2:34:57

Yeah, go for it. What's your thoughts on it?

Mark Trobough: 2:35:00

I haven't watched the movie, but apparently the audience and the critics for this movie are in agreement that this is a bad movie. With Rotten Tomato, the critics it's at a 39, and the audience score is at a 37, which means they just don't like it as a sequel to a really good first movie. It's just not doing well, from what it looks like.

Brandon Hurles: 2:35:21

That first movie is so good too, but I had a feeling, when they casted Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn, that just something about it just fell off from the get-go to me.

Game Junction: 2:35:36

I think it's a big red flag when the tomato meter and the popcorn meter are in agreement, because that very rarely, as we know, happens yeah, one side really bad movie, or it's a really good movie that everyone's in agreement on yeah, one side always, for the most part, thinks it's better than it is.

Game Junction: 2:36:02

It's usually us right. It's usually the fans going out and watching the movie think it's better than the critics and the fact that they both just say, no, actually this is trash and under 40% for both it's just that is. That is not good. And you know it'll be interesting to see Like I want to watch it for myself.

Mark Trobough: 2:36:28

Yeah, in your own conclusion.

Brandon Hurles: 2:36:30

Of course but I've heard it's like isn't it like a musical or like something?

Game Junction: 2:36:37

Oh, that's right, I did hear that.

Brandon Hurles: 2:36:39

Yeah, I think it's like a musical or something. So it's like a whole different type of movie and like the sequences all have to do with music.

Game Junction: 2:36:49

That's what I heard I just typed into Google is Joker 2 and it filled it out a musical well, there we go.

Mark Trobough: 2:36:58

Yeah, I mean I not to hate on musicals, but I'm not a musical fan, especially according to variety, how much you want to credit what you want to put into that website. They call it a juke jukebox musical with the 15 different songs in it oh god, so is this?

Game Junction: 2:37:16

uh, how they got lady gaga to do it was basically like hey, yeah, man.

Brandon Hurles: 2:37:25

It's a DC movie Come on.

Game Junction: 2:37:27

It doesn't sound appealing to me.

Brandon Hurles: 2:37:29

It doesn't sound appealing to me either.

Game Junction: 2:37:31

Look, here's the thing. We all know it Batman was best when Christopher Nolan was in the director's chair oh yeah and christian bale. That's when it was best I agree.

Brandon Hurles: 2:37:45

Okay, that was the best.

Game Junction: 2:37:46

That's when dc had period, I think yeah, oh, yeah, that's, but that's when dc was doing good yeah yeah, now nowadays, I you know they're just they're. They're so distant from marvel.

Brandon Hurles: 2:38:00

I feel like they could have competed more with marvel if they continued to make movies that were on the scale yeah of greatness of the dark knight trilogy right yeah, and then the justice league really didn't help the whole situation any until, like, the snyder cut came out, which is good, but that doesn't help.

Game Junction: 2:38:25

You know that was years later, yeah and he had to pull teeth to get that out.

Brandon Hurles: 2:38:30

Like the lengths he had to go to get that out was pretty ridiculous it really was and that's what we should have got from the beginning and it wouldn't have been so bad. But yeah, I, I feel like I feel like we, um, a lot of people are getting kind of burnt out on the like multiverse and you know, extended universe sort of deal, feeling like everything has to be connected in every single way, like I, I enjoy, um, a one-off movie Like joker had nothing to do with anything else and it worked. Yeah, I like that to me. I mean, like I think standalone movies are good too. You know, I don't think we have to have some sort of expanded universe, you know, for not every, not every movie needs a sequel, essentially yeah.

Brandon Hurles: 2:39:22

This definitely didn't need a sequel. I think it ended fine. I'll judge it for myself, but I'm not hyped for it or anything.

Game Junction: 2:39:32

No, I'm certainly not hyped for it. I miss the days of being hyped for movies like big movies.

Mark Trobough: 2:39:40

yeah, you just, you have to be hyped, but like reserved, skeptical, are they gonna like butcher the, the source material. Is it just not gonna be good?

Game Junction: 2:39:48

right, like it's like I'm wanted this movie to be good but I'm afraid someone's gonna like ruin it yeah, yeah, I used to go to movies all the time, go to the midnight showings for the big movies that I wanted to see.

Game Junction: 2:39:58

And yeah, I remember, uh, being in a line that went from the theater all the way across the parking lot to the sidewalk and it was 115 degrees out for to see independence day crazy so you know, I mean like we grew up in the age of summer blockbusters and the big movies coming out around the holidays and it's fun, and then it just kind of sucks because as you, we become adults and it's like you know we we can go do that now whenever we want, but this stuff's not there. It's not there as much. I feel like yeah.

Brandon Hurles: 2:40:37

Yeah, I agree, I agree with you, for sure. Well. I think that kind of wraps up the show. Right, we got anything else.

Mark Trobough: 2:40:46

Yeah, I think that hits everything. Obviously the show went a little longer than it normally does, but just a lot of news to talk about. It's been hectic every week. Always seems to be a lot of heavy-hitting news. Obviously it's hard to get to everything. Always seems to be a lot of heavy hitting news.

Brandon Hurles: 2:41:00

Obviously it's hard to get to everything, but there's always a lot to talk about, yeah, no doubt. So plug again what you got coming up, thunderstache, let us know what we got on the horizon again.

Game Junction: 2:41:08

Yeah, so on the horizon, zelda Echoes of Wisdom review. I am playing the game on hero mode and I am Going to 100% the game, so obviously it takes a tad longer to do all of that. All the side quests, everything that you know goes along with that. Sure, uh, I'm going to be reviewing pumpkin jack. It's a game that came out in 2020 and it looks really fun. It's like a 3d platformer. Obviously it is halloween theme. When I saw the trailer for it, it definitely gave me uh, was it? Was it jack? Is jack his name?

Game Junction: 2:41:49

it's been a while night nightmare before christmas jack, uh jack yep yeah, it gave me that like vibe totally that in the uh the, the pumpkin head guy from the movie return to oz, if you've seen that oh, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, but it's his own video game.

Game Junction: 2:42:06

Basically, I was like this looks really cool, yeah. So I got that coming. I'll be reviewing, uh, the new ghostbusters 2 for nes nice little retro review in there and then, uh, jumping into silent hill 2 and then metaphor fantazio. So, yeah, it's gonna be action-packed, it's gonna be super busy, but I'm excited. You guys can find me on youtube at thunder stash gaming, pretty much everywhere else, but if you go to my youtube, all my social media links are listed there.

Brandon Hurles: 2:42:39

Sweet, sweet. And then, mark, you've got. What do you got coming up?

Mark Trobough: 2:42:43

Yeah, so Monday on the Game Junction over on YouTube got the unboxing video for the.

Brandon Hurles: 2:42:51

Hyrule Switch.

Mark Trobough: 2:42:53

I keep blanking on the name of the game. I keep thinking of the Tears. That's not the right game. But for the New Zelda game that just dropped, we got the unboxing for the new Switch Lite, and then over on the Junction Network, we have another anime related video coming out on Monday as well. So we got two videos on two separate channels coming out Monday.

Brandon Hurles: 2:43:09

Awesome, yeah, and I've got a PSVR 2 video coming out, and then I'll also be doing something on Zelda, and then, of course, you can find me and Steve every Wednesday on the Nintendo Byte Podcast, so definitely check that out. Go over to Nintendo Prime's channel, check out the Clips channel, all that stuff, so you'll be seeing plenty of us. We got tons of stuff coming up, so we appreciate everybody watching listening If you're listening on audio. Thank you, guys, so much for all the downloads and all the support. We definitely appreciate it. Um and uh, yeah, I think that's all, so we'll go ahead and end off here. Everybody, have a good night. See y'all later have a great weekend.

Mark Trobough: 2:43:51

See y'all later.