Pokémon Card Pulls, GTA 6 Excitement, and PlayStation 5 Pro Teasers | Game Junction Podcast

What if the next Pokémon card you pull is the one you've been dreaming of? Join us on this exciting episode of the Game Junction Podcast as we share our post-Christmas cheer and recent Pokémon card pulls from the Crown Zenith set, including some truly epic finds like the Unholy Trinity and a rare Masquerade card. Our love for Pokémon such as Gardevoir, Celebi, and Mew shines through as we discuss the sheer joy of collecting for personal satisfaction. We also chat about the tools we use, like PKMGG, to track our collections and our hopes for better grading capabilities for TCG Pocket cards.

Switching gears, we dive into the gaming industry's latest buzz, from the anticipation surrounding GTA 6 to the rumored Switch 2 launch and its potential impact. We share our thoughts on GameStop's pivot towards collectibles and the possible showcase of the PlayStation 5 Pro at the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show in January 2025. Plus, there are insights into the transition from PS4 to PS5 and the challenges that early AI adoption in gaming technology presents. As a special treat, there's a lively discussion about Rare's legacy and what we might expect from their upcoming project, Everwild.

In a whirlwind of gaming excitement, we reflect on the monumental success of Animal Crossing: New Horizons, take a deep dive into the art style of a hypothetical Mario and Luigi game, and ponder the future of beloved franchises like Star Fox. From the rumors of a new Pokémon game potentially launching

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Chapters

• 0:01 Pokemon Card Collecting and Pulls
• 8:41 TCG Pocket Card Pull Strategy
• 17:26 GTA 6 and Switch 2 Discussion
• 26:51 GameStop Collectibles and PlayStation Announcements
• 38:14 The Future of AI in Gaming
• 47:29 Benefits and Challenges of Remote Work
• 53:48 Ease vs Trails 2024
• 1:02:35 Rare's Gaming Legacy and Everwilds
• 1:07:24 The Future of Star Fox
• 1:18:13 Video Game Reviews
• 1:24:06 Mario Luigi Brothers Art Style Discussions
• 1:32:31 Year in Gaming Reflections and Surprises
• 1:40:38 Sony Spider-Man Universe Movies Discussion
• 1:53:43 Switch 2 Launch With Pokemon Legends?
• 1:58:50 CDPR Exodus and Witcher 4 Concerns
• 2:06:06 Cartoon Network Game Delisting and Licensing
• 2:13:05 Cartoon Network Ownership and Switch Leaks
• 2:24:07 Nintendo Release Strategy Analysis
• 2:30:03 2024 Game Reviews and Plans

Transcript

Brandon Hurles: 0:01

Hey everybody, Welcome back to the Game Junction Podcast. We're here for episode 113. How's it going this week, Mark?

Mark Trobough: 0:08

Not too bad. Hopefully that doesn't mean it's bad luck. 113? 13?.

Brandon Hurles: 0:15

Yeah, hopefully that's not bad luck. We don't need no bad luck around here. Got enough of that already. Yeah no kidding, don't need any of that. Yeah, so we hit obviously this. Any of that. Obviously, this is right after Christmas. How was your Christmas man?

Mark Trobough: 0:30

Quiet, not too bad for the most part, I can't complain.

Brandon Hurles: 0:33

Any cool Pokemon pulls. You told me you would be opening up some cards.

Mark Trobough: 0:39

For the most part, no, not really Going through reorganizing some stuff. I had a few neat ones because I had all of the. I don't think I pulled them, I think I already had them. I think I pulled one or two, but I can't remember what set this is for. It might be Crown Zenith, but I had all three full arts of the. Oh, what is it called now? Oh, my God, the Unholy Trinity right. Oh, what is it called now?

Game Junction: 1:04

oh, my god the unholy trinity right I was gonna tell you.

Brandon Hurles: 1:09

Josh in our discord and in the game he pulled this card this week. Uh, I think he sent this to me on Christmas. I can't really see what that is uh, it's uh car mean card 217, for this is for tw Masquerade. It's worth 68 bucks raw, 140, psa 10. So I mean it's pretty good. That's a pretty dang good pull.

Mark Trobough: 1:36

It might have been just plain Scarlet, but I gotta double check. I think it was Scarlet and Violet. Tell you what I pulled on TCG Pocket.

Brandon Hurles: 1:42

I pulled this, this Mew, then I pulled Celebi, still missing the one Mew.

Mark Trobough: 1:51

Celebi's a good Pokemon to use, if you can set it up properly.

Brandon Hurles: 1:54

What's funny is that my three favorite Pokemon are Gardevoir, celebi and Mew. Those are my three favorite Pokemon.

Mark Trobough: 2:00

I forgot. It was in the base set for Scarlet and Violet. It's the Ralts, crayola, full Art and then the. Gardevoir EX Full Art. No way, those three art cards essentially tell a story, Do you?

Brandon Hurles: 2:18

have it in where you can grab it? Is it around you anywhere? I would love to see that, because Gardevoir is my favorite, yeah, anyway. So it was a pretty good Christmas, you know, just chill with the family, stuff like that. It was a good time, pretty good time. No game pickups or anything. But I did get. I mean I already showed some of the stuff from Mark that was in the Anime Junction cast. You can watch that over there, go over there to the YouTube on the Junction Network and you can check that out. Good stuff there. I did pull, obviously for our audio listeners. I apologize, but it is the gold Mew again today, so it's one of the hard cards to get in the set. I can't seem to get the second Mew EX, though that's below this. One Can't seem to get that one. Pulled this one twice, pulled the other Mew five times. I pulled it five times, so I pulled seven Mews, but I can't get the one Mew EX that's below the gold card.

Mark Trobough: 3:24

Yeah, so this was the base set for Scarlet and Violet Pokemon card. On how you're going to be able to see it. It's not the best because my camera doesn't want to auto-zoom. I do see.

Brandon Hurles: 3:35

Ralts in the picture. Let's see For audio listeners this is a Ralts.

Mark Trobough: 3:43

So, it's the first one with with ralts uh and the girls like they're unpacking. Then it goes to uh creola, uh young adult has curly and stuff like that curly, sorry my bad. And then it's like it's like a whole set, and then that's really rad art of or ex where it's uh oh I need that guard. But now they're older, kind of like grandparents and stuff like that's my favorite pokemon of all time.

Mark Trobough: 4:07

It's crazy you pulled this because and they're not terrible cards, they're all like about, they're like 20 to 50 range or something like that. That's pretty cool. But I was saying, because I did like this set and I like the full art store, I was like this might be the first ones I actually send into an actual, like proper grade. You might might actually get these ones graded just just to have them, cause I like these cards. Who knows what I'll actually get out of them.

Brandon Hurles: 4:27

Yeah, that's. That's the thing about grading. It's like if it's something that you like and you want to hang on to, you don't want damage, it's good for you, not not for the money aspect, though.

Mark Trobough: 4:39

It's good because you like that Pokemon, or you're getting stuff graded because it's already a valuable card but you can turn like a $200, $300 card into like a $5 to like a $1,000 card, if it's like, if you're able to get like a PSA 10 or something like that.

Brandon Hurles: 4:52

My hope is that we get to be able to grade the TCG pocket cards. That's what I keep hoping.

Mark Trobough: 4:59

You know, because I do have it pulled up, because I swapped it to using the PKMGG to track all my cards and stuff like that, so you can track your collection, the percentage, and it also tracks the real-time price. But they also have a selection to track your Pokemon Pocket cards. Obviously you have to go in and update it manually, but for the Mythical Islands, genetic Apex and the Promo 8, you can go in and be like you can track it on here as well bro, I ain't tracking 1200 cards.

Mark Trobough: 5:24

Eventually the tct pocket's gonna have trading. Yeah, and for those, ideally, because we I mean genetic apex, I'm outside like the full arts, just having like all the pokemon, all 280 or 270 cards, like I'm a handful of handful away. Yeah, eventually, once you have trading outside of the, the full art ones, the rare, with just the hard pulls to get for just the base set, just to at least have one of every Pokemon, those ones would be a lot easier because it's like I just need one rare or something like that, one that's got a decent pull rate but you just can't pull that exact one.

Brandon Hurles: 5:54

Have you pulled all three Mews in the new TCG Pocket set In the Myth of the Island?

Mark Trobough: 6:05

I've pulled five of the Mew non-EX card and I pulled two of the gold.

Brandon Hurles: 6:07

But I haven't pulled the other one. That's like the Celebi card. That's a regular EX card.

Mark Trobough: 6:12

Non-gold, I think the I'm pretty sure I'm missing the full gold one, the one that you pulled. I can't, I have to pull that one.

Brandon Hurles: 6:17

That'll be good for trading, because if you pull any more of the other one then we could trade. I can't seem to pull that card. Look, I'm not ashamed. They had a holiday sale and I bought some gold. I ended up pulling that Mew. Then I pulled it again, which is frustrating because I can't seem to get the base EX one, the non-gold card, which I kind of wish they had done a gold.

Mark Trobough: 6:43

Celebi as well. I'm sitting on 67 out of 68 and I've got eight of the rare ones I'm missing the 32, which is the Mew EX I'm. I think that's the last base set one I have, because I have the 33, so it's the one. That's just the Mew. I've got two of those and then I have the Mew EX, the yeah, that's the one I'm missing. And then I've got the Mew, the full art with the little stuff with the little rainbow around it.

Brandon Hurles: 7:19

I unlocked. I pulled so many of those. If you pull three of them, you unlock the icon. So my icon's Mew now. If you pull three of those, you unlock the icon. So my icons me, you now people, three of those. Oh yeah, so I think.

Mark Trobough: 7:26

I'm missing. Yeah, cause I need to. I'm missing two muse One's, the gold one you have, and then the last card I actually need to pull is the UX out of the base set for the for the 68. Then I'll essentially at least the rare ones you gotta pull and I'm missing a handful as well for Genetic Apex. I've got that one close.

Brandon Hurles: 7:47

Yeah, I've got less than 20 I need for that one.

Mark Trobough: 7:50

But, I'm missing three specific yeah, I'm missing three specific Pokemon I still need from the Genetic Apex to unlock the secret Mew quest or something like that, to get that Mew card out of that set.

Brandon Hurles: 8:04

Here's some of my pulls, because I've got that Some of my good pulls. Very hard to see you. Sorry for our audio listeners.

Mark Trobough: 8:11

I got the gold shard. Yeah, just not to capture from your phone.

Brandon Hurles: 8:14

Yeah, unfortunately, but yeah, I still need that Zapdos.

Mark Trobough: 8:19

I don't have that Zapdos yet because there's a quest right now for getting that Zapdos, but anyway, besides Pokemon T-Series, shoe Pocket, we got some cool pulls from that it's a fun little thing to do, especially with the current quest where you're getting free packets and free speedups and stuff like that, with the holiday stuff for the Mythic Island or whatever they're calling it.

Brandon Hurles: 8:41

I am paying for the Premium Pass again. Kind of a shame. I never stopped paying for it.

Mark Trobough: 8:45

It's like $10 a month.

Brandon Hurles: 8:48

You get one extra pool a day.

Mark Trobough: 8:50

I guess that's an additional 30 packs right Like 30 to 31 packs a month. Yeah. That is quite a bit At least if you're trying to actually complete a set. It's worth the money. Yeah, Fair enough especially if you think there, probably sometime in january, we're going to drop the next new full set after genetic apex because, I don't know but the, the.

Mark Trobough: 9:15

It's taken like a few weeks to get the bulk of those. But it's a significantly smaller set with like 70 cards at least if you just want the, the one of any variant. But even with the, the special ones, the, the full or whatever the proper term is for it, there's not a whole lot of them compared to the genetic apex, which is closer to a size of some of the actual card sets, yeah, which can get pretty big, especially if you're trying to go after every Some of the sets. If you're trying to go after every single variant, there's like 400-some cards. But you've got cards that either need special stamps or that you need to get from a world tournament or you have to be from a promo or you have to go to some GameStop or EB game or something like that.

Brandon Hurles: 9:56

I wonder if that's going to happen on TCG Pocket what? Do you? Mean Go to a distributor and you can get this.

Mark Trobough: 10:04

They'd have to update the app to be able to do something like that. I don't think there's a way to do it right now. Like to scan?

Game Junction: 10:08

like a QR code for Pokemon. I mean maybe, but I don't know.

Brandon Hurles: 10:12

We can get a card there and get the QR code or something like that and it's single use.

Mark Trobough: 10:19

I mean, they kind of already do that with.

Brandon Hurles: 10:21

Yeah, yeah.

Mark Trobough: 10:22

I mean fair enough, especially if they're trying to keep profit in-house because it's a mobile game. True, that is very true, because most of the financial benefit from that is either cosmetics or speeding up the ability to buy unlocks for new cards. Right yeah.

Brandon Hurles: 10:40

Yeah, I'm curious to see where it goes. I'm ready for the trading because obviously cards I need I would love to get. I can't believe you're one away from finishing that set. It's crazy. I don't know how you get such good pulls. Somehow you get you got like a Mew and Ansel being one deck.

Mark Trobough: 10:56

Well, anytime I do like a special event, whether it's the solo quest or the quests, any kind of quest you can do to get the little speed-up icons to pull the 10, that's usually what I go after hard to pull those. Yeah, fair enough. I think outside of the $10 a month I've only spent maybe once or two times that I've spent actual money to buy the speed-up stuff. But I'm not trying to go out of my way.

Brandon Hurles: 11:22

I think I have twice as well. I like to. I had a holiday sale so I did the $10, and you get like 160 gold. Yeah, but I'll be sitting on like 60 or 70 extra gold. It's the only reason I did it. I was like, oh, that is a lot of gold.

Mark Trobough: 11:37

I'm like, yeah, I'm sitting on like 50 or 60 of the little hourglass things already. So I'm like, whatever, it's like five bucks, whatever. Yeah, fair enough. It's usually more beneficial when you're still trying to build out a set. You still have quite a few cards you're missing. Once you're trying to get down to one or two, it's not worth it. At that point I'll just sit on the three pulls a day for the most part until I get the extra ten. It takes me like a week or two to get. Yeah, as well as you cause you. Also you have the mystery polls. So the ones that I missed, I went through and I hearted them or for like a wishlist of them. So I know exactly when they pop up on the, on the, on the wonder trade stuff. So I'm like, okay, I got that one. I might use a few speed ups for that to try to pull the one I'm looking for. Yeah, that makes sense.

Mark Trobough: 12:28

I've pulled a few things. I think I've pulled two variants of the Lapras from the Genetic Apex. I was looking for Nice. I think I've got most. I'm sure there's a full Lapras, but as far as all the base set Lapras and the Lapras EX, I'm pretty sure I've got all those for the Genetic Apex that I'm sitting on. That's sick, dude. You get such good pulls. It's RNG, it's just a matter of luck. It's like open regular packs of cards, you know you're going to get certain rarities, so after a while the bulk of the cards, except for the actual hits, don't really mean a whole lot. Then again, unlike the actual game, because obviously you get those points every time you open a pack which you can then turn and buy cards. But I was just going to try to max it out the best I could to get the gold ones, because those are probably going to be the hardest ones to actually pull in a pack. Yeah.

Brandon Hurles: 13:13

Somehow, at least in real life, I pulled those, I pulled that gold Charizard, I pulled it four times. That's crazy. But there's a bunch of other like little, not a bunch of other. I'm less than 20 away. I think I need 17 for the previous, the genetic apex, or am I saying it right? Genetic apex.

Mark Trobough: 13:30

I think that's how you say it.

Brandon Hurles: 13:32

Okay, for that one, I think I need 17. This new one I still need like 22. I just keep pulling the same cards over and over and over, but we'll move on from that. Obviously, you can find us on YouTube, twitch, tiktok, instagram, facebook threads all of the usuals on social media all through the week. We are posting every single day. Also, if you want to give us a follow over on or a subscribe over on the Junkshoe Network YouTube, we have the Anime Junkshoe Cast and we also stream every Saturday at 8 pm Eastern Standard Time, so you can catch us there playing a different game every week. We played everything from Call of Duty to what. What else will we played?

Mark Trobough: 14:14

We played all kinds of play well all kinds of yeah, I think what are we trying to play Warhammer tomorrow? I thought you see, if these, these, I can't remember yeah, need to install, by the way.

Mark Trobough: 14:26

Because I'm probably going to try to do that on PC and I guess I can put it out now, at least for those that are watching live, because I didn't get a chance before. We got live Supposed to be streaming Sunday but I had some stuff with work come up, so I'm not going to be able to stream this Sunday, which kind of sucks but I might try to stream New Year's Eve if I've got the time to do that. That'd be sick Kind of make up for it.

Brandon Hurles: 14:48

Okay, I'll put. I have to put that out because I just put the schedule out.

Mark Trobough: 14:51

Yeah, I found out today I was like I'm going to drive somebody down to Salt Lake and that's like a well, that's three hours there three hours back, so it's like a full day, yeah, day. Yeah, it sucks, okay, that happens periodically.

Brandon Hurles: 15:08

It's just one of those like god crap, I wasn't planning on having to do it, so yeah, fair enough stuff happens, uh, but yeah, well, I think it's funny, the fact that you didn't finish that title headline until, like what?

Mark Trobough: 15:15

15 minutes of the podcast yeah, well, we got into tcg pocket and this is what we do wholesale, because you brought up the cards I know it's tcg pocket I was like, hey, what's up, mr cards? I know.

Brandon Hurles: 15:25

Hey, what's up Mr Coffee over there on the YouTube? How's it going? Man, hope you had a great Christmas. Yeah, I hope it was a good time. Obviously, happy New Year. Appreciate you coming.

Mark Trobough: 15:35

Oh, my God, I didn't know about the Christmas, it just remembered something. Have you had the chance to see the? And this came out like a few months ago, the Skyrim brain rot video on YouTube? No, I have not. What's the part one? Part two it just goes over pretty much the introduction.

Brandon Hurles: 15:52

introductory quest oh my god, okay. So what's the deal? What's the whole it?

Mark Trobough: 15:58

essentially takes like Gen Z brain rot terminology and throws it into Skyrim with the actual voice. Okay, I'm listening. Have you ever wanted to hear Skibbity, toilet and stuff like that and Riz and stuff like that? Never, once in my life have I been like hey, pick out. Yeah, it was made by CG Mattis. I guess Gen Alpha slang, it's so funny.

Brandon Hurles: 16:25

What's it?

Mark Trobough: 16:25

called it kind of wakes up Skyrim intro, but it's Brain Rot by CJ Mattis over on YouTube and it's so funny Because it kind of starts off. It's like, oh, griddled right into that Imperial Mog huh, what the heck? Same as us that and that beta over there. Oh, it's so funny.

Brandon Hurles: 16:49

So random but hilarious.

Mark Trobough: 16:53

I love it. Skibity was fine until you rizzed along. Sympire was chill AF. It's so bad and funny at the same time. I think I died laughing watching this.

Brandon Hurles: 17:04

So I've heard about Skivity Toilet, but I never watched it. I don't think I want to from what I've heard.

Mark Trobough: 17:09

I'm just so irrelevant in internet slang at this point.

Brandon Hurles: 17:14

Thank God I'm not terminally online.

Mark Trobough: 17:16

I don't know why that popped in my head when you said Christmas, but it did.

Brandon Hurles: 17:20

It had no correlation, a little different there, but I'll have to check it out. I got it saved, all right, so jump into the news. There's a little bit of stuff that's going on with Rockstar Games. December 27th, they made a post which was today apparently sparked outrage, so here's the context of this news. Apparently there was supposed to be some kind of big news. Supposedly this is what was going around online.

Brandon Hurles: 17:54

Grand Theft Auto fans have been expressing disappointment on social media, targeting the latest post from Rockstar Games. Instead of releasing a GTA 6 trailer a second trailer Rockstar Games tweeted out a second trailer. Rockstar Games instead tweeted out a reminder about the Rockstar Holiday Sale. So their tweet said this week is your last chance to save during the Rockstar Store Holiday Sale, where they're selling, obviously, digital copies of the games as well as like hats and shirts and stuff like that. But apparently it was going around that there was supposed to be a second trailer that was supposed to come out and that didn't happen. To help rub salt in the wound, if you add up the numbers in the shop link, they equate to 27.

Brandon Hurles: 18:33

Yeah, so I don't. I don't know. You know what the deal is there. I wonder when we are going to get a second trailer for GTA 6 because, obviously, whether me or you care about it or not, I'm sort of like yeah, I'll definitely check it out for the channel for stream. Whatever, it's going to be a big game, it's going to be a mass, it's going to probably be the I mean, I think it's fair to say probably the biggest game of all time right it's going to be one of the biggest games ever.

Brandon Hurles: 19:02

I mean for a launch, I mean a lot of. To be one of the biggest games ever. I mean for a launch, I mean a lot of them are Probably the biggest game of all time.

Mark Trobough: 19:09

As far as a launch goes, what? Nine, ten months? At this point, I think it's some time around fall next year.

Brandon Hurles: 19:17

They did say 25, right, yeah, it comes out next year.

Mark Trobough: 19:22

As long as it doesn't get delayed, yeah which I'm not, that's a possibility?

Brandon Hurles: 19:26

I definitely think it's a possibility that it gets delayed For a game of this magnitude. If something goes wrong in development that we don't know about, all it takes is one day of wrong development, where something goes wrong in coding and it's like, oh, this is getting pushed out Three months, you know that's all it takes. So I mean, I'm still on the fence that it comes out. You know 2025. Because, being the magnitude of game that it is, you know all it takes is one little thing. That is a good question.

Mark Trobough: 19:59

What do you think would be bigger the Switch 2 launch or GTA release?

Brandon Hurles: 20:03

As much as I want to say the Switch 2 launch, I think probably GTA 6. I think Switch 2 is going to be massive.

Mark Trobough: 20:10

Don't get me wrong. You think the Switch is going to hit 10 million in its opening year.

Brandon Hurles: 20:15

It's such a tough question because the Switch is just. I mean it has been so massive.

Mark Trobough: 20:20

I mean to be fair this is an easy question because you're going to know, based off sales, really quickly how well each game does.

Brandon Hurles: 20:26

Obviously, the anticipation is bigger than I've ever seen for any console. In my lifetime the anticipation has been, I mean literally. I have followed all these launches, everything. It's our lifetime.

Brandon Hurles: 20:38

I remember following the launch for the GameCube and, like you know, this is going to be huge and it wasn't. And I thought it was. In my circle of people it was big, like you had one, joey had one, Like our, all our friends had one that was around us and I thought it was big. I thought it was huge, but then you see the numbers it's like, oh, this was a flop. You know, like we thought it was big in our circle.

Mark Trobough: 21:00

But but realistically it wasn't. Yeah, but it was a small staple size. The internet wasn't the same, I don't know. To be fair, then again, the Switch itself is about to be the best-selling console of all time. Yeah, it's very close, no game even usually comes close to selling the number of sales as far as consoles, outside of terrible console sales on cross-platform games.

Brandon Hurles: 21:20

I think it's fair to say that Switch 2 at least probably hits the top 5. Whether it's going to surpass the Switch, I don't know. That's very hard. The Switch is still going to sell for the next 3, possibly 5 years.

Mark Trobough: 21:35

Even if the Switch were to hit at least 50% of what the Switch 2 does, I think it easily outsells that. I think lifetime the Switch 2 will probably out. Think it easily outsells that. I think Lifetime the Switch 2, will probably outsell it, assuming it's continue to get good games. It looks like they're already going to use the same infrastructure and it doesn't have the flop that the Wii U did, which hopefully doesn't happen. I think Lifetime will outsell. There's the chance, just because you don't have the issue of hardware as far as the game could say probably hit certain milestones faster. But I think as long as the console doesn't completely flop lifetime, it'll probably outsell it. Just because, yeah, they're. When you're dealing with a game like this, like a lot, a lot of the sales are just gonna be pure digital, which means you don't have that kind of problem as far as like limits on on hardware, like they can only produce so many, so much hardware in a calendar year.

Brandon Hurles: 22:24

What's crazy is I've been to four different Walmarts this year. All are set up the same way, and this goes for Best Buy as well. Switch has the biggest presence physically out of all those consoles. Still, switch has three cases, playstation has two, xbox has one. That's how it's been set up, almost everywhere.

Mark Trobough: 22:44

It's got a larger showcasing at my Walmart than it does at my GameStop. It's always in the the games are always the small section. It's got a total corner and you can always find retro games and hardware, but the actual they keep in stock is the PS4, there's like three times as many PS4 games as there are Switch games. Isn't that weird? The PS4, there's like three times as many PS4 games as there are Switch games. Isn't that weird?

Brandon Hurles: 23:05

Yeah, that's weird. You're correct on the GameStop, because my GameStop is like that too. It's just got a small section of like three shelving units but is that an issue of good third-party support.

Mark Trobough: 23:20

There's first-party games on the Switch that I can't find, probably ever. They just sell it real fast.

Brandon Hurles: 23:25

What are you looking for? What would it be that I can think?

Mark Trobough: 23:28

of Any mainline game, but there's older games. I told you Not the. It was one of the Skyrim games, not the Skyrim One of the Zelda games when? They did it with the, when you played as every character oh you're talking about Hyrule Warriors. Yeah, that first game which launched on the Switch.

Brandon Hurles: 23:51

I don't see that one ever.

Mark Trobough: 23:54

I can't even find the second Warriors game Hardly ever anymore Really. Yeah, I don't see that's weird A lot of. Nintendo first party games. I don't really see a whole lot of them.

Brandon Hurles: 24:05

Unless they're brand new releases, it's like they don't keep older Switch games in stock. They don't ever. It seems like they don't ever get. Unless there's pre-orders, they hardly ever get extras. That's the case for my GameStop. If you pre-order it, you'll get it but it's like if you don't pre-order it, we might have it, we might not.

Mark Trobough: 24:24

If it gets straightened in, we'll have it. I'll talk about GameStop and they for some stuff. It's like oh, we only ordered an extra 5 to 10 outside of what was pre-ordered, and usually those sell out fairly quickly, and then they just don't keep any first-party games in stock, which is the frustrating part about the Switch.

Brandon Hurles: 24:40

Yeah, that is really frustrating.

Mark Trobough: 24:41

I don't know why that's the case, the PlayStation always has the biggest number of games, always. Yeah, I mean the Xbox has a decent number, but obviously the PS4 and PS5 just have more, better games. Especially the PS4 just sold better.

Brandon Hurles: 24:56

Yeah, I mean to be fair. I'm an Xbox fan. Obviously we're talking Xbox here, but the thing is the Xbox. I think the only reason it has more of a showing there is trade-ins. I feel like that's the only reason, because obviously there's a. You know, gamestop isn't. They might display a few Wii U games, they might display a few Wii games like mine has like five Wii games but obviously they're not displaying GameCube. They're not displaying N64, super Nintendo, nes. I have to ask behind the counter and say, hey, do you have any retro games? They'll show me. The retro games goes back to the DS and the Wii, that's it. They never had anything GameCube. I know you have, I know you have, but I'm just saying my GameStop, I have not had anything.

Mark Trobough: 25:43

No NES, no Super Nintendo, no, nothing. Technically mine isn't classified as that retro, but I can still find a decent Wii 360, PS3 games and I actually saw two NES games where they were. The two NES games were the Home Alone games, so they were terrible games to be playing with. They always have a handful of 3DS DS games, like they always have, but I periodically see they got it, they got always have a handful of 3DS DS games, like they always have, but they also you know the 64 stuff. But I was talking to him he's like oh yeah, we're supposed to send those in and they're supposed to go to the store, but they just keep them in store.

Brandon Hurles: 26:20

Yeah, tell them there. That's how I. I so wish, I so wish you uh were able to get the analog uh 3d Cause I'm like now is it'll now you're picking up the collection I'm like, like it'll come back around yeah. Hopefully it comes back around, Cause now, now you are picking up some uh, Mine is not classified as retro store either.

Mark Trobough: 26:43

But you can always find some stuff Because it also comes on the heels of talking with. Is it the limited run games partnering with GameStop? Yeah, is that right.

Mark Trobough: 26:55

Yeah, which kind of makes sense that GameStop needs to, because obviously they stock a lot of other stuff. But probably going more into the collectibles, whether that's card stuff and more on the retro stuff, have a reason for people to more into the collectibles, whether that's card stuff and more on the retro stuff, have a reason for people to come into the stores where they need to go, because obviously first party consoles they're at least we know like the 10. Microsoft and sony are going to push the digital as hard as they can. But whether it's you know, certain collectible stuff that has value or it's it's retro stuff on all their stuff would be worthwhile. Because I mean to be's retro stuff on all their stuff would be worthwhile. Because I mean to be fair.

Mark Trobough: 27:25

Retro stuff sells and card games sell as well. Especially, you know, if they remodel their stuff to be like hey, we've got valuable cards Because they're obviously GameStop is already advertising. Hey, we'll send in cards to PSA and stuff for you. So they're. It feels like they're starting to go that route. It's just they're slow-stepping it. Essentially.

Brandon Hurles: 27:44

Mr Coffey brought up a really good point. He said ARMS is a hard game to find physical. You know what? I actually don't have that game.

Mark Trobough: 27:52

I've played it, that's the problem with Switch games that we talked about Outside of launch. It's hard to find first-party games physical in the store. Buying them online is not a problem, but in the store it's so frustratingly hard that for Switch games they never keep them in stock.

Brandon Hurles: 28:07

Yeah, that's. It's really weird. My only collecting goal for the Switch is to get all the first-party games, which is easily feasible. I mean, if I need to order online, then that's what ends up having to happen.

Mark Trobough: 28:17

That's a feasible goal, but you'd like to buy it in-store, especially if you can get a sale on it and stuff.

Brandon Hurles: 28:22

That's the case. Gamestop has a sale right now. Buy two, get one.

Mark Trobough: 28:28

I think that's for used games usually, but at the very least, even if it's a first-party used game as long as the package isn't destroyed, I'll pick it up.

Brandon Hurles: 28:35

It's got to have original packaging, otherwise I'll pick it up and it's not half-ripped and destroyed and water damaged.

Mark Trobough: 28:41

It's got the game in the package. This is obviously with a kid.

Brandon Hurles: 28:52

Yeah, yeah yeah, for sure, no arms is a good mention, because I rarely see that and everywhere. And launch a few years ago, yeah, it was everywhere as a big game, as a big launch. So he said mine has the typical same games. You find it at every thrift store. So, yeah, that's interesting. For sure we've got. Apparently, there's a report the PlayStation fans should be watching for January the 6th. The press conference will stream online at January 6th at 8pm Eastern Standard Time. This is during the Consumer Electronics Show 2025. I didn't realize that was so soon. Yeah, I had no idea until today.

Mark Trobough: 29:28

Yeah, I can see this being more hardware than actual games for next year, potentially?

Brandon Hurles: 29:32

What would the hardware be? The PlayStation 5 Pro just came out.

Mark Trobough: 29:36

I don't know that's possible. You're just sitting here thinking I just don't know what we don't already know about what's coming out next year for PlayStation games.

Brandon Hurles: 29:48

It says the PlayStation 5 Pro will likely be the star of the show, though some game announcements are also possible. It's like PS is a weird one because it's a massive show.

Mark Trobough: 30:03

Very big show. It's general IT PC.

Game Junction: 30:06

It's not like a video game show yeah which is where you expect to make more space for hardware.

Brandon Hurles: 30:14

Yeah, this is more the tech side of things. So you expect this to be more hardware-focused, physical goods. So, obviously the actual hardware. I don't know If a game announcement came out, that'd actual hardware. I don't know. If a game announcement came out, that'd be cool. I mean rad. I think PlayStation probably needs it because I think there are a little slim pickings on the announcements side of things. Obviously, it was a big year for PlayStation with, you know, final Fantasy 5. Final Fantasy 7, rebirth, you know the third-party stuff. As far as first-party stuff, obviously, astro Bot, game of the Year. It was a big year for PlayStation. But I'd be curious to see if they do have some game announcements, because it seems like it's kind of slim pickings as far as the announcements for 2025. But I feel like there's got to be some stuff. You just had the pro come out. I feel like there's some stuff we don't know. But if it's announced CES, I don't know. I mean it'd be cool. It's cool to see that that's happening at 8 pm Eastern Standard Time.

Mark Trobough: 31:25

I mean two of the games. Potentially you might hear some stuff about what Is Death Stranding going to be exclusive or is that cross-platform?

Brandon Hurles: 31:32

I actually don't know. I can't remember, I don't know.

Mark Trobough: 31:36

I mean they might talk about more Ghost of Yotei and stuff like that, because that's supposed to go out next year. That is a first-party game. Yeah, that is a first-party game.

Brandon Hurles: 31:48

Yeah, that is a first-party game. At least it's a studio that publishes with Sony. But that's the only one I know about off the top of my head. I'm trying to go back and double-check. Ghost of the East Side is the only one I know off the top of my head, thinking about it right now without looking.

Mark Trobough: 32:01

There's other games coming out that we know about, but they're not necessarily necessarily first party games, because obviously you've got what? Uh, the next doom game supposed to come out next year? Yeah, you got monster, her wiles that launches in a few, in a few months. Assassin's creed that launches in february. Uh, another dynasty warriors games what's that? Split gate two. There's a bunch of games, but I just sometimes it's hard to tell what's an exclusive for Sony. Yeah, none of those as far as I'm aware are exclusives.

Mark Trobough: 32:31

If you've got a Valve, that game feels like it's going to flop, Because the only Microsoft game that you really know of is what Fable the only Xbox games that I'm thinking of exclusive, so it's getting another Metal. I'm thinking of exclusive Another Metal Gear Solid game next year aren't we?

Brandon Hurles: 32:48

what else? Xbox or something else I'm not thinking of, obviously, fable, fuck. It's something else I can't think of. I'm not sure I Like. I said off the top of my head, if it's not coming right to my head, obviously it didn't stick with me, so I'm not sure what you guys trying to go through and look real quick. Yeah, I'd be curious to see if there's anything else, because I actually don't know if there's anything other than Ghost of Yotai.

Mark Trobough: 33:18

There could be another game. They haven't told us yet.

Brandon Hurles: 33:22

There's definitely stuff in the horizon for sure that we don't know about. That's why I said I mean, like it's possible that they announce, you know something, let's see. I'm gonna look and see if there's any upcoming releases.

Mark Trobough: 33:37

Yeah, because Death Stranding 2 is only scheduled to come out for the PS5.

Brandon Hurles: 33:43

Oh, really Okay.

Mark Trobough: 33:44

I didn't know that yeah. At least as of right now, it's only scheduled for the PS5.

Brandon Hurles: 33:48

This isn't showing PlayStation exclusives, so I'm not sure yeah you've got Ghost of Yotei PS5.

Mark Trobough: 33:53

only that game's probably eventually going to come to PC. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is only scheduled to come out for PS5 right now.

Brandon Hurles: 34:02

Oh yeah, that is coming to PS5, isn't it I forgot so? Oh yeah, that just got on the PS5, didn't it I forgot? So did I? Yeah, I mean, that'll be a good one because, dang, is that a good game? Oh, my God, it's so good, it's such a good game. I had my doubts but I wanted it to be good because me and you like the Indiana Jones IP, but obviously the last outputtings movie-wise have not been good.

Brandon Hurles: 34:28

But this is like this goes back, this goes back to the original movies. I mean, this is, it's such a good game and I play. I'm playing it on PC. I'm currently playing it Probably about six hours into the game, six, seven hours into the game, probably like four different sessions. I don't. I don't get the game a lot, but uh, man, it is so good. I, I, I'm so excited about the game, like I'm hoping that they do another thing because it's coming to everything. It's on pc, it's on xbox, coming to, you know, ps5. My hope is that you know that this, uh, you know, gets enough good press, which's gotten. I haven't seen anything negative said about it at all. I haven't seen one single negative thing said about it. It's really, really good, man.

Mark Trobough: 35:14

I mean to be fair. There are a number of games that are coming to the PS5, ps4, Switch, pc, everything but Xbox. But that's technically not an exclusive. It's just not coming to Xbox for whatever reason.

Brandon Hurles: 35:26

Okay, oh, an exclusive. It's just not coming to to Xbox, for whatever reason. Okay, oh yeah, okay, so, wolverine, wolverine, obviously, big game, forgot about that. So that's coming, uh, 2025. So that's, uh, that's, um, what studios is it? Uh, the suit Spider-Man? Oh, yeah, you do, but I can't think of it. Sucker Punch, that's who it is Sucker Punch is doing.

Mark Trobough: 35:49

Spider-Man and stuff. I wouldn't remember that.

Brandon Hurles: 35:52

Yeah, so.

Mark Trobough: 35:56

I did think this was funny when it comes next year, because obviously we got the Legend of Heroes, the remake, but the Trails Through Daybreak is coming to everything but Xbox. And then the Trails in the Sky's coming to everything but Xbox and then the Trails in the Sky the first is only coming to the Switch.

Brandon Hurles: 36:13

Yeah, geez.

Mark Trobough: 36:15

Sometimes these releases don't make sense, but I'm assuming for the first. It's already out on some of the other consoles, so that's why it's only coming to the Switch, because I don't think that's the remake specifically.

Brandon Hurles: 36:28

Shout out to Jay, who just came in the chat. Appreciate you coming in and hanging out. Mr Coffee said CES would probably talk more about the AI tech and PS5 Pro. Yeah, I could see that. Yeah, ces don't do major game announcements. Remember, in the past, the biggest news out of CES was a collar-changing car and impossible burger. We do have the Hideo Kojima game where people's faces are screaming. That's supposed to be Xbox exclusive.

Mark Trobough: 36:58

Now I guess I could see this where they might talk about in a vague way, talk about potential hardware coming to whatever the PS6 is going to be in a few years, because that already has to be in development, at least as far as the designing testing. Yeah, uh, you think of what? Another three, four years probably for the ps6 to come out, so that they could start hinting like this is what we're doing with the ps5 and we might start angling. Obviously, the next year or two they might talk more about it, but some of the hardware they're trying to implement. In the next playstation you can see something like I think it's fair to say 2028 is PS6.

Brandon Hurles: 37:28

I mean, that gives you know that's eight years, that'd be a whole eight years.

Mark Trobough: 37:32

I would say, at the very least it's not coming out Holiday season 2026 is the earliest, but I think 2027 is the realistic window. Because you gotta think the console came out in fall of 2020. Yeah, so you're thinking you know it'll have been out for at least six years come next year, and usually six to eight years is an average console lifespan. So you're thinking 2026 at the earliest, but I think you know it's probably going to be closer to 27, 28.

Brandon Hurles: 38:00

I mean that's fair. Yeah, six to eight years is the average life cycle and considering we got the PS5 Pro exactly four years into, Basically exactly four years, when did the PS4 come out? That I don't know but, I, think PS4.

Mark Trobough: 38:17

Yeah, so the PS4 launched in fall of 2013. So that was a whole seven years. The PS4 had a lifespan of seven years before the PS5 came out. Fair Okay, you're probably looking at 2027 realistically. That's why that. That's 68 year window average. Just cause you don't know what they're going to do.

Brandon Hurles: 38:33

Yeah, I think 2028 is the latest. Um, but yeah, I'll, I'll be curious to see. They obviously got a lot of bugs to work out PSSR, so I feel like to me the PS5 Pro feels more like a beta test rather than.

Mark Trobough: 38:48

But I guess I'll say this Because you talk about the PSSR, but you're still dealing with core hardware that came out in 2020, that was developed in, like 2016, 2017. Well, I'm talking about the PS5 Pro.

Mark Trobough: 38:59

I mean, the issue is yeah, but there's stuff implemented but it still has to work with the base PS5 for all these games. So you're still limited on what you can actually do with the hardware upgrades. You're realistically looking like every new console you're. You know, it's been 10 years since you had a hardware upgrade. That hardware's long since been starting to become outdated.

Brandon Hurles: 39:19

I think that the biggest issue now. Obviously they fixed some stuff, like you look at Silent Hill 2, they fixed that PSSR is good on it. Now I think the biggest thing is they didn't upgrade the CPU, they only upgraded the GPU. So I think that is limiting it with the PSSR.

Mark Trobough: 39:35

I think that's fair to say. There's probably a price tag tied to that as well.

Brandon Hurles: 39:40

No, for sure, and people are complaining about the $800, but you have to keep in mind.

Mark Trobough: 39:44

You upgrade the CPU, you're pushing to $1,000. At that point you might as well just get a computer.

Brandon Hurles: 39:50

at that point, yeah, you're really, really pushing price tag at that point, like you're adding in the CPU which, yeah, cpu is as much as GPU, but it's still an additional. I feel like it would have been an additional $100, probably Probably easily Just to an additional $100, probably Probably easily, just to have some kind of upgrade. But yeah, I think that's the biggest problem with PSSR. Now it is getting fixed across the board. We are seeing changes and they're figuring it out. But here's the thing when you implement a brand new AI machine learning model, there's going to be. Do you remember DLSS 1? 2? Do you remember the problems that happened along the way with dlss? I?

Mark Trobough: 40:28

don't think I used it. I use it well, because I I think there was. It wasn't implemented to the 20 series, right, right yeah, and it just to put it I went from that major issues I didn't have that problem. I went from a 10 series to a 40 series, okay, so I am like. I went from it not existing to it got in its third iteration, yeah 3.5, three and a half iteration at this point where we're at.

Brandon Hurles: 40:51

So I mean it had a lot of issues and it's got to work out the kinks. People got to figure out the hardware. They got to figure out the AI learning model. They've got to figure out all of that.

Mark Trobough: 41:02

So like this is.

Brandon Hurles: 41:03

PlayStation's first input into this right, Like they've got to figure it out.

Mark Trobough: 41:08

There's like two big things with that. One, when you're dealing with AI early on, it has a limited input. You need to interact with it to learn and grow, so early on it's going to be rough because it has a limited plate. Two, they are kind of treating, you know, the user as a guinea pig to pretty much the hardware yeah, because there's two things.

Mark Trobough: 41:28

With that one, the users will be far more probably creative in a lot of ways of trying to find issues or problems with the hardware as well as well. There's no incentive for them to put all this money development when the users are going to buy it and then they can just patch it down the road. You're. We already see that issue with the games. It's the same thing with hardware. They're releasing Faulty. They might have to deal with some refunds here and there, but at large, most people are just going to stick with it until you eventually patch it out.

Brandon Hurles: 41:54

Yeah, and that's the thing. That's why I said PS5 Pro feels more like a beta test, but it kind of has to be. That's kind of the nature of the beast, right. I feel like when you're working with an AI learning model like this, that's how it goes. The people, by nature, are going to be the beta test because you have to put it on mass. Sure, you can work with the people you have there, but once you're putting it out to the public and then you're working with millions of people, that becomes where you're really finding out the issues that people are pointing out and things that you know, where people get picky.

Brandon Hurles: 42:30

It's like Digital Foundry, when they do an excellent job, one of the best gaming channels period when it comes to covering the actual tech and software side of video games. You know working with, you know spotting out all the frame drops and all of the resolution issues and things like that Wonderful guide and channel for that stuff. And that's where you really, when watching that channel and really studying what's going on, that's where you see like, oh okay, so like PSSR is really having issues with this, this and this and it's interesting to see. But obviously it's coming along. People are fixing and finally patching things Elden Ring, silent Hill 2. The patches are coming along for games that support the PS5 Pro. So I feel like by nature, it kind of has to be sort of a beta test. I feel like there's no way around that.

Mark Trobough: 43:21

And I think, especially because you're dealing with AI, I think obviously there's a lot of pushback to it, but I think another one of those things like AI is inevitable. You can push back it, but you can complain about all you want, but that's where the future is going. Obviously, you don't know exactly where it's going, but I think back in the future when you're dealing with older tech like, say, cell phones pushback especially when you first had the smartphone the yeah, oh, that's never gonna take off nobody wants to use that and you could look at probably some older tech.

Mark Trobough: 43:46

That's just what I can read, especially from the childhood, because I was thinking about that and you kind of brought it back up. I'm sitting, I'm like, and obviously you've seen it in the games industry as a whole, people complain about it, but that's where, that's where the industry is going. Ai is going to be a pivotal role. You might want to say it needs there needs to be limitations here, there, but it's only going to get better and it it will replace some jobs. I mean, ai itself is probably going to create new jobs in and of itself because, yeah, yet new new tech replaces old tech.

Mark Trobough: 44:13

But it also tends to create other issues for for maintaining stuff behind the scenes. But I mean, I think it's just, it's inevitable at this point. It's just a matter of how you're, how you're going to implement it and use it because, used in the right way for both. You know, maybe, as far as like hard limitations, trying to overcome that problem, as well as in in game development not, it shouldn't create a handcrafted world, but in designing certain aspects of it and helping with development, it 100 should and will be used. Yeah, obviously you have to go in and tweak it, but it can.

Brandon Hurles: 44:45

It can help you in some mundane areas like yeah, I've got movements, things to go in and tweak it, but it can help you in some mundane areas. Yeah, boss, movements things like that.

Mark Trobough: 44:50

I'll tweak it. Yeah, some of the more just monotonous stuff. Yeah, Maybe it's just I don't know, it could just be planting trees or grass and what you go through and fix it after the fact. Just something that could kind of help with it, that's not taking away from but just adds to the development process.

Brandon Hurles: 45:03

Yeah, like you said, some of the mundane stuff some of the stuff we're repeating the process.

Mark Trobough: 45:08

Yeah, that's like a super simplified idea, but that's just like the first thing that came to mind and like a simplified idea is, instead of going through and planting a bunch of rocks and trees in the world, you can have it kind of put it out there and then you can go through and tweak it and adjust it as you need to, yeah.

Brandon Hurles: 45:27

No, I'm you need to. Yeah, no, no, I'm with you. I mean, that's that's where we're going. I swear we're heading. That's the new big thing right now people are going to. You know, push back on it. But like you were saying with the smartphone thing, I mean I was one of the people in a decade you're not screen.

Mark Trobough: 45:37

You know, in a decade you're not gonna remember that you ever push back against it because it'll be so ingrained into and you're right.

Brandon Hurles: 45:43

You're right, I forgot that I even ever pushed back on the uh, full, full touchscreen stuff. But when you go back, when you're in the moment, and stuff like that.

Mark Trobough: 45:52

Yeah, plenty of people are like this is stupid, I'm never going to use this. And now it's just everyone, just it. It is. It's just part of life. Nobody thinks about it anymore yeah, no, I'm with, I mean the you can find people here, there that might might think and complain about it, but at large large you just come to accept it because it adds to your life, because it's new technology.

Brandon Hurles: 46:11

I mean, that's how it goes, that's just how it is.

Mark Trobough: 46:14

Unless it's social media, then it's just a net negative across the board.

Brandon Hurles: 46:17

Yeah, for sure. Terminally online people. That's not good man, it's not good for you. You need some sort of communication there. But we got Animal Crossing, New Horizons breaks another sales record, so this game came out, obviously in 2020. Covid was what I would call the COVID game. I think it's fair to say that this was the game that kind of took over during that time. It definitely helped me for sure. Like I was on top of this game. I was home from work, like this game was kind of like everything.

Mark Trobough: 46:54

but I played it periodically, but after about like two weeks to like a month I just got bored of it.

Brandon Hurles: 46:59

I think it's going to be probably a good at least eight months, but then that's what happens with every Animal Crossing. For me is like I get super heavy into it and there's like a burnout. Yeah, there's like a burnout from it and then I just drop it, never pick it up again.

Mark Trobough: 47:14

And this happens every single animal crossing release well, then again, during during 2020, my life wasn't as as upended as some people's were yeah, I mean my, I mean I was.

Brandon Hurles: 47:25

yeah, I was home, that was it.

Mark Trobough: 47:29

My job requires me to be in. I can't remote work by job. I have to be in person to do certain aspects of my job. So it wasn't really an option for me.

Brandon Hurles: 47:38

To be honest, looking back, I wish that were the case for me. I wish that there had been zero time from home, because it's not good. I don't think it's a good thing. Uh, that's all the time.

Mark Trobough: 47:49

That's why I look at it, because especially the remote work can be great, but like, let's be feet, let's be real. When you're doing a job, the environment's everything, and sometimes just getting out of your house, even if you're just sitting in a desk, the environment itself can help you get into a certain mindset, compared to just because I just sit at home all the time. I'd be far and I don't know.

Brandon Hurles: 48:09

People can't do their middle work like they've had to sort of push back on the root work, because they're like I can't get anything done, I can't focus, I've got too many distractions, I can't do it.

Mark Trobough: 48:19

Yeah, so um yeah, I mean you're seeing the push back now, people wanting to stay home. But I'm like at large, like I, just I don't think you're better. It's harder to manage people when they're not in the same location. Yeah.

Mark Trobough: 48:31

And, to be fair, it's harder to get stuff done. Maybe in a rare exception it is, but at large it's just like you just want to get a paycheck and kind of be lazy and yeah in same, because like, yeah, you, you, this job, you can only work in a city and where you're at, the cost of living is way too high. So there's a an issue there, but that's that's an issue at large, of well, all these industries are in major cities and that's very clearly a problem yeah, yeah, that's a whole other discussion.

Brandon Hurles: 48:58

You know I don't want to go down, but uh, but yeah, animal crossing new horizons sold over eight, eight million physical copies in Japan, breaking the sales record for physical copies, which is crazy to think about because we're thinking about Japan, a much smaller country has sold over 8 million physical copies, not counting digital, so that's pretty insane. That's a huge achievement, it looks like. According to Famitsu, animal Crossing, new Horizons moved more than 15,000 physical copies in Japan during the week of December 16th through the 22nd. It's enabled the highly rated Switch game to exceed 8 billion copies and is at exactly 8,008,343 copies sold. New Horizons also dethroned Pokemon, red and Green as the best-selling physical game in Japan ever for multiple sources, previous record held by the 1996 Game Boy title, which is Mark you think about that. That's pretty insane, man. It dethroned Red and Green, which was the number one selling physical copy.

Mark Trobough: 50:01

That game sold ridiculously well. That's what it tells you. That is.

Brandon Hurles: 50:04

That's crazy. So it's been that long since a game has sold that many physical copies since the Game Boy.

Mark Trobough: 50:11

But you gotta think about how popular Pokemon was back in the day.

Brandon Hurles: 50:14

It was massive.

Mark Trobough: 50:16

It was huge. The Pokemon craze was like a legit thing. It was huge.

Brandon Hurles: 50:20

I mean it surpassed every medium. You saw it on the news. I remember multiple times seeing it on the news, like how popular it was. The trading cards, the games.

Mark Trobough: 50:31

Yeah, because you said that? Because, for what? The week of the 9th to the 15th, animal Crossing was the 8th best-selling game in Japan. With what? 13.5 thousand copies.

Brandon Hurles: 50:43

Yeah, that's crazy.

Mark Trobough: 50:47

That's crazy. Unfortunately mean it's currently outselling Scarlet and Violet, what I'm sorry it's still getting beat out by Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. It's the third best-selling game in Japan per per week.

Brandon Hurles: 50:59

We're talking by the way, not like all time it still is number one that past week. I mean fair enough, I was looking into it.

Mark Trobough: 51:10

We love that game. As of June 2023, the worldwide sales for that game was what? About 45.85 million copies? That's globally, so it's probably hit 50 million copies globally since then.

Brandon Hurles: 51:26

Yeah, that's Mr Coffee in the chat said I tried Animal Crossing once, not for him. It's definitely like a cozy game. Yeah, that's what I hate. Saying that. I hate that. I'm not into that. That cozy thing makes me think like people that lay in their pajamas all day with a blanket. That's what I think about.

Mark Trobough: 51:45

I mean, that's the type of game it is.

Brandon Hurles: 51:49

Yeah, I guess it is that's exactly what a cozy game is.

Mark Trobough: 51:51

It's just a game. You sit and relax. Yeah, but let's not put it in those words.

Brandon Hurles: 51:54

Let's not put it in those words though.

Mark Trobough: 51:56

That's exactly what the game is.

Brandon Hurles: 51:59

That term was made up this year. Let's be fair.

Mark Trobough: 52:02

No it's been around for a few years. Oh, come on.

Brandon Hurles: 52:05

No Cozy game. Hey, cyberlariat, yo, I see trails in the thumbnail. Yes, we did put trails in the thumbnail. We were just talking about you the other day too. By the way, cyberlariat obviously is the one that's hanging out with you during your trail streams. Mark was going to stream that again Sunday.

Mark Trobough: 52:25

Actually the plan is to stream, since I. Actually the plan is to stream, since I can't stream it sunday is, I'm gonna stream at new year's eve.

Brandon Hurles: 52:31

What day is new year's eve? Tuesday night? It'd be, should be tuesday, so I'm gonna try to stream monday night and I'm probably gonna play an rpg um. I don't know what yet because I'm still playing rebirth um, but I plan to go back and play Um I. Well, I still got ease to play, but the problem is I don't want to start it now, cause they just announced that the new expanded version of the latest ease game like it just announced that. So I'm like I don't even want to open it.

Mark Trobough: 53:00

No, no, the um, not that not what we're going to be talking about. That's why I want to finish that.

Brandon Hurles: 53:09

I just want to go back and finish that game and then I can play the remake and see I'm talking about. I'm talking about.

Mark Trobough: 53:12

Ys Nordics oh sorry, I was talking about Ys Trails.

Brandon Hurles: 53:14

No, you're good. I think I'm good on replaying Because Ys 10 Nordics they just announced the. It's called Ys 10 Crowd Nordic, so it's like an expanded version of the game. I thankfully have not unsealed my copy of the game, so I'm thinking about just selling that, waiting for this to come out and play that, because it feels like it feels mundane to play this and then play the new expanded version of the game that's got extra content and all that stuff. So I'm like I'm kind of glad I haven't started it yet because they just announced us like the other day Actually.

Mark Trobough: 53:48

I ask you because I on the on the video just went live today on the Junction Network and we're talking I was talking about the, the new trails and stuff like that, the remake and then the dawnbreaker, daybreak 2. But in that same thing they were bringing, they're bringing back the ease versus trails sky next year, yeah A 20 game on the what the PSP essentially.

Brandon Hurles: 54:07

Yeah, I guess we just gotta talk about that. That was in the thumbnails. That was one of the things we were gonna talk about. Just a shout-out. Cyberlarry said you gotta ping me in the Discord when you stream it, dude. So Mark's gonna stream on New Year's Eve For audio listeners. If this comes out before then, I hope it does. You know, if this comes out before then, I hope it does.

Mark Trobough: 54:26

Then you know, the funny thing is I'm just gonna be picking up where I was Two years ago. Essentially it was kind of crazy to think about. You're like a figure break and come back to game. Like I for the most part remember, remember what, what I did with the game.

Brandon Hurles: 54:38

Yeah, that's good. I mean for RPGs, like France's metaphor. I picked it up again the other day after not playing it for, like I Don't know, two weeks Maybe, so I hadn't played it. I picked it up again the other day after not playing it for two weeks maybe I hadn't played it. I already forgot everything. I already forgot the controls, everything. I'm like, oh my gosh, this is a problem.

Mark Trobough: 54:56

It's an older game so the controls are a little bit more simplistic and you have the turn-based combat, so it's kind of hard to forget that. Maybe some of the tactics and stuff.

Brandon Hurles: 55:04

Yeah, I'm really excited about this Ease vs Trails game. I think it's really really cool. Obviously it's a PSP game, so it's finally being brought over, brought over to modern hardware and obviously in the US and stuff like that. But it's called Ease vs Trails in the Sky Alternative Saga. You can obviously look up the trailer for it. There's a one-minute trailer on YouTube. I think the game looks really cool. I obviously never had the opportunity to play the game, so I think it's really cool. Falcom is doing really really good things. I mean yeah, because I said this is what more of a it's like a.

Mark Trobough: 55:44

Well, they had it tagged over on steam as a pvp 3d fighter. Yeah, it's like a fighting RPG. It's, it's what they're two popular series coming together in a crossover game. Really, it's really weird.

Brandon Hurles: 55:56

Um, it's obviously like its own secluded story, that's what it's called alternative saga. So it's like another universe essentially, uh, but it's really cool to see these two franchises, which are two amazing RPG franchises, be brought over like together. It's just weird, but it's really cool. Yeah, it's, like you said, like an action RPG fighter. Very hard to explain. You really got to watch the trailer, because even the trailer, I feel like, doesn't exactly give, like it's not good at defining what the game is. To be fair, I just re-watched it again. Um, like you look at it, you're like is this like like a 3d smash brothers game? Like, is this like a? You know, I can't say.

Mark Trobough: 56:39

they say they're bringing it up. Uh, beautifully remastered graphics, uh, for displaying hd and 4k screens, as well as 60fps support. Though, to be fair, this is the Steam version, featuring couch and online multiplayer with rollback netcode for the first time, including English voice, acting from a familiar cast of the Ease and Trail series, a vast material collection of wallpapers and soundtracks from various Falcom titles to unlock PC-centric features, including mouse and keyboard support, arbitrary aspect ratio up to 5.4 and 21.9 and more. Obviously, those key features were exclusive to the PC, but I'm sure some of them are going to be brought over. I assume it will be full HD, 4k or whatever you can do in 60 FPS on every platform that it comes out on, at the very least whatever the platform supports.

Brandon Hurles: 57:23

PC is, I think, all that.

Mark Trobough: 57:25

It's coming to right now I'm looking at the Steam page, so I know that for a fact.

Brandon Hurles: 57:32

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's only PC. Let me look here See if I can find out. Yeah, it's just PC right now. So that's interesting that it's only PC right now. But my guess is that it does get brought over to console and it's like a limited run games release or something like that. That's my guess. I feel like that's.

Mark Trobough: 57:54

If it was a PC, they'd fix out the bugs and eventually port it over from PC. It's developed for PC. It's got rollback netcode.

Brandon Hurles: 58:01

It's 100% a fighter. Rollback netcode is for fighting games, so yeah, this is primarily like a 3D fighting game. That's interesting that it's got rollback netcode.

Mark Trobough: 58:10

A lot of the screenshots they have of it on the store page make it look like it's still like the 2D fighting game. It's upgraded graphics, but it's still like a flat plane on the screen.

Brandon Hurles: 58:20

It's just defined by Falcom as a crossover fighting game.

Mark Trobough: 58:27

Yeah, if you pull up the Steam page, what they have on there looks like a remastered of the original game. It still has those old pixel-like graphics.

Brandon Hurles: 58:35

It says it's similar in concept to Super Smash Bros, city of Final Fantasy and Tales of Versus, which I didn't know existed, by the way, tales of Versus I might have to look that one up too. It's apparently also a crossover fighting game. Yeah, no, it's cool stuff, man, because two franchises I love. I've been kind of harping on these franchises here lately. Yeah, cyber Larry's incoming to PC Full English voice acting as well. It goes up to E7, I think. So I have some catching up to do.

Mark Trobough: 59:03

Yeah, I think that was one of the big selling things. I think the older games just didn't have any voice acting. It's the old, just straight text. Remember, with the old Tales games, at the very least, yeah.

Brandon Hurles: 59:11

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure At the very least it was limited.

Mark Trobough: 59:13

I can't remember. It's been so long since I played the game. Yeah, I swore when I was reading some stuff about that fully voice acted.

Brandon Hurles: 59:23

That's cool. I mean cool full English voice acting. I'm all for it. That's cool. I mean, obviously they're putting some time and effort into this, because full voice acting for a game is not necessarily simple and easy to do.

Mark Trobough: 59:37

I still like the old 2D style graphics, potentially some of the pixel art of the old games. I still like that style. There's no need to change, but sometimes it's nice to have voice acting with the text on screen or something like that but I also do love where ease is gone in 2024.

Brandon Hurles: 59:53

Like it's really really cool to see like they transitioned very well from that, obviously from a pixel game to a full a fully 3d, yeah, full 3d game that just looks great, plays great, has a good story, good memorable characters. They've done it very well. Cyber Larry said I don't play with English voices, but cool for people who do, that's fair enough. I mean, japanese voices are cool too as well.

Mark Trobough: 1:00:20

But yeah, I mean, if you're going to read the text anyways, what does it matter?

Brandon Hurles: 1:00:23

Yeah, fair enough. Fair enough, we've also got rare's ever wild game may finally resurface in 2025. So I I found this very interesting because obviously rare is a is a huge company for both of us. I mean, like you, you, you know, looking at you know what banjo kazooie, uh jet force Gemini Conker's Bad Fur.

Mark Trobough: 1:00:47

Day You're looking at so many, it's the same studio at this point in time. To be fair, none of the people that developed those games are probably still at that studio at this point. No, I'm just talking about the studio. And they've been working on the Sea of Thieves for the past decade. At this point it's really been the only game they work on.

Brandon Hurles: 1:01:04

Yeah, pretty much, which was obviously a hit. I mean it took a little bit I feel like there was a little bit of a lull there but it's got a dedicated fan base and following of people.

Mark Trobough: 1:01:16

I mean it is a fun game. It's fun Like a PvE, pvp, a PvE.

Brandon Hurles: 1:01:21

PvP type game. I haven't played it since the year it came out. We're going to be playing it tomorrow. As of this recording, it should be interesting to revisit it, because I haven't even played it since Krakens were brought in, so it's been a long time.

Mark Trobough: 1:01:34

There's a lot of content in that game because it came out in 2018. So it's been out for what? Six years now?

Brandon Hurles: 1:01:39

Yeah, I haven't played it since it came out. I mean, we played it.

Mark Trobough: 1:01:49

I was playing it on the Xbox One S. Yeah, because I think when I played it back in like 21, 22, it was around the time they were doing the Jack Sparrow crossover stuff, like that?

Brandon Hurles: 1:01:52

Yeah, I didn't even know that happened. What a good crossover, though I mean, that makes total sense.

Mark Trobough: 1:01:57

I mean, it makes sense the whole pirate stuff like that.

Brandon Hurles: 1:02:01

But apparently Everwild was first revealed in November 2019 as Rare's next game, after the highly successful Sea of Thieves Studio then showed up at the Xbox Game Pass showcase in June 2020 with another stunning trailer for Everwild. It was claimed that Everwild was a mess behind the scenes, that Rare supposedly rebooted development on the game Over four years after its last trailer. Everwild's release window remains uncertain, but it seems Rare could finally break its silence surrounding the game in 2025. So I've been following this game since that because I was really excited Like they did good with Sea of Thieves. Obviously, it's like a totally different shift for the company right than what they were doing before, and like they weren't doing anything there for a while I don't know how long the gap was yeah, Sea of Thieves came out in 2018, and before a while, I guess they worked on Battletoads.

Mark Trobough: 1:02:51

that came out in 2020.

Brandon Hurles: 1:02:53

Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Yeah, yeah For.

Mark Trobough: 1:02:55

Xbox. But since then they what? Before Sea of Thieves, they did Rare Replay on 2015. It was just a remaster. And then I guess, kinect Sports 2014, 2014, killer Instinct, 2013. So, to be fair, they haven't really worked a whole lot of anything like the past decade.

Brandon Hurles: 1:03:07

They had like a good four-year wall there and like the games that they did before that were nothing like big I mean Kinect Sports, to be fair, Come on how many years. To be fair then, you look back and they had eight.

Mark Trobough: 1:03:23

They had 18 games come out in 1990. Yeah, I mean they were.

Brandon Hurles: 1:03:26

They were a big company dude, they were across every platform.

Mark Trobough: 1:03:32

I mean, yeah, you look like they're putting out games like at least like five games every year, like throughout the entire 90s, every single year. They were huge. I was trying to think of some of the other stuff.

Brandon Hurles: 1:03:44

You brought up that Battlestar game. By the way, that is an amazing remake, Really really freaking good remake, but still utterly hard?

Mark Trobough: 1:03:52

Yeah, because they had, like what Battletoads in 91 come out. They had another Battletoads for the Amiga in 92. Some Wizards and Warriors games, like all of 93, are essentially Battletoads. Slash Double Dragon games. That game came out on a bunch of consoles where they have this listed. And then Kazenu where's that exactly? You had Donkey Kong Country come out in 94. They put out Donkey Kong Country 3 in 96. Same with Land. You had Gold 9 in 97.

Mark Trobough: 1:04:25

Banjo-Kazooie, diddy Kong Racing, jeff Horse, gemini, donkey Kong. 64, like the nine, like the mid to late 90s, was like. I really feel like the peach yeah, it was the 64 era really.

Brandon Hurles: 1:04:36

Yeah, no, it was the 3D era. Obviously, the 2D stuff that you did was great as well, but the 3D era, you really? Think of Rare, because you see that symbol comes to your mind right away.

Mark Trobough: 1:04:46

you're like, oh, this is going to be a banger, like this is going to be a good game, Like when you think of the 64, that the introduction to 3D, but the Polygon 3D, you'd think of Rare games.

Brandon Hurles: 1:04:56

At least I do think about it as my childhood.

Mark Trobough: 1:04:57

Yeah, yeah. I mean other than like Super Mario 64 and stuff like last year, something like that, replayed the jet force sim when they brought it to the uh did you play the whole?

Brandon Hurles: 1:05:09

thing?

Mark Trobough: 1:05:09

you know. So I didn't completely be. I got decently, I got over halfway through the game when, like within like three days, just because I, I know, I know pretty much know, like the whole level design, what you need to hit going through. But I mean, you just think like those old graphics, like how they just had to deal with the limitations of the hardware and they just did it in such a really good way. The music fits the environment, even if it repeats. After a while you just go back and like, yeah, this is my childhood and I still like playing these games. A lot of the games still hold up outside of some certain, you know, hardware or controller limitations they had to deal with. Yeah, for sure.

Mark Trobough: 1:05:42

One of my favorite companies ever yeah because I was thinking of Jet Force Gemini, just because that's like the big one. Obviously, I think Perfect Dark is probably one of their more well-known games. Oh for sure, on game, the shooting mechanics aren't the best, but a lot of that just comes down to the limitations of the 64. That's part of the problem with that. Well, I do want to With the 64 controller.

Brandon Hurles: 1:06:01

Yeah, yeah for sure. Just to leave background to the ever wilds game, they put out a happy holidays. Um, they said happy holidays, whoever's seeing this, hope you're closing the year out in style. And as it's the day of fine gifts, of fine food, here's our off. Basically, they put out something that is an ever wilds like promo piece, like the image that they put out was of ever wilds. I think this game, I mean, like you, look back on it. Obviously it says says that they rebooted development, supposedly behind the scenes. We don't know for a fact, but you know, I'm excited to see what comes of this game. It'll be interesting to see them do something a little bit different in the recent history of Rare. But CyberLayer said happy holidays. By the way, paulgene1337 said I love Battlet. By the way, paul Jean1337 said I love Battletoads. So yeah, I mean there's obviously some people that also love.

Mark Trobough: 1:06:55

Rare as well. I'll say this Because I never owned the game, but I played it before In 2002, when they put out Star Fox Adventures for the GameCube. Outside of being attached to the Star Fox name, I still thought it was a solid game on itself, Maybe not the best Star Fox game Star Fox 64? That game's great when people talk about Star. Fox they only talk about 64, which was like what the second game they put out Did you see that that came to PC with full widescreen support.

Brandon Hurles: 1:07:19

Somebody ported it to PC. Yeah, it's on PC now. You guys check it out.

Mark Trobough: 1:07:22

I mean, that's like the weird thing. I think starfox advantage, starfox adventures should have been the proper transition for that series. But the problem was everyone got hyped on that one game. The problem they've tried different things since. But they either have to. They try to copy what they did for 64 and like it's too much, or they they do what they do for advantages and like, oh, it's not starfox it's like people are too, I love starfox. They can't disconnect it from the 64 I love stark Star Fox Adventures.

Brandon Hurles: 1:07:46

The problem with it is that it wasn't Star Fox Adventures. That's the problem with it. It was Dinosaur Planet and it's very clear to this day. I have a cartridge of Dinosaur Planet Very much obviously that was what it was meant to be.

Mark Trobough: 1:07:59

To be fair that concept where to keep Star Fox relevant. It needed to go that direction. Everyone pushed back. Then they went back years later to try to essentially on the Wii or the Wii U, which was trying to reimagine what the 64 was, and everyone hated it. So it's like, well, what do you want out of this game? Then you just want 64? Because anytime they've tried different things with the game and nobody likes it, so you just don't care about this IP. Is what it so like?

Brandon Hurles: 1:08:28

you just don't care about this ip is what it feels like. It's hard to say, I don't know that. I agree that that was. That was the direction it needed to go in I. Where was the pushback of starfox 64?

Mark Trobough: 1:08:34

because I never saw that no, that's where, that's where it peaked. Yeah, everyone loves it but anything they've done since it just gets hated?

Brandon Hurles: 1:08:41

oh yeah, for sure, because, like always, and, and you think starfox guard um, I think starfox ds did very well went back to, went back to starfox 64. People love that game, um, but what beyond that did?

Mark Trobough: 1:08:56

they did that with zero, trying to put a new spin on it.

Brandon Hurles: 1:08:58

People hate I'm like it has people hate it zero war.

Mark Trobough: 1:09:00

It's trying to do the same thing. The problem is like you're not even open to that ip coming back at all, because that's just one problem with four and you can't the the. The games industry is not where it was in the mid 90s when that game came out. Yeah, I can't get that game again. It's also a really like a lot of games. It's not a long game. You can beat that game in like under 10 hours pretty easily yeah, it's a very short game.

Brandon Hurles: 1:09:23

Yeah, I mean it's a starfox is a weird one, because I mean it was created as a game where you're only piloting the game but you're interacting with characters by them being in the vehicle and talking, and it stuck with that format before. Obviously, you didn't get Star Fox 2 until the.

Mark Trobough: 1:09:41

NES or the Super Nintendo Mini-Cam, but it needed to evolve past it after a while, because I mean, I guess you could kind of keep it flying. But you try something new and your fans don't like it, so it's like I don't think you're ever going to get another Star Fox game. I think the fans are just too ravenous. They won't accept anything that's not perfect, and Nintendo just sees it as a dead IP. Essentially, that's the problem right.

Brandon Hurles: 1:10:05

Only I'm wrong at this point. I'm thinking, like for 2025 or something like that, for the Switch 2, I would want to say that, yes, nintendo wants to do something with it, but it's like if the game's not going to sell, they're not going to put it out. And that's the problem with Metroid, right, like Metroid just doesn't sell, but the problem with Metroid is outside of that one game.

Mark Trobough: 1:10:26

the games haven't been hated, it just doesn't sell well, I can't figure out why.

Brandon Hurles: 1:10:31

I think it's just that they're not marketing it, right? I?

Mark Trobough: 1:10:33

feel like they've never marketed it right. No, but I think with Star Fox it's just the fans just are stuck in Star Fox 64 and they're like well, we've tried a few different things and you've hated everything, so why bother at this point? The problem with Metro is it just doesn't sell well outside of other. Yeah, but which? I like the story.

Brandon Hurles: 1:10:53

What's the reason that Star Fox? It's the same thing with Metro. What are the reasons that these IPs don't sell? Why we don't? Just because they're in the format. They changed Metroid and it still didn't sell either, with 3D Like format. They changed Metroid and it still didn't sell either, with 3D like the numbers aren't there.

Mark Trobough: 1:11:09

You got Adventures, which was a reskin on the GameCube, which wasn't the best selling console, and then you had Zero, which came out on the Wii U which is their worst console like to be fair.

Brandon Hurles: 1:11:18

The timing for what console some of these games came out weren't the best but it's also Star Fox Zero because of the console for one, but it's core fanbase was so ravenously. Yeah, I feel like you can't judge Star Fox Zero because of the console for one.

Mark Trobough: 1:11:27

I feel like that should just be thrown away, but its core fanbase was so ravenously against it. It's like, well, if you can't win your core, you're just not going to find a new market.

Brandon Hurles: 1:11:35

I played it beat Star Fox Zero. To be fair, it doesn't do anything crazy.

Mark Trobough: 1:11:40

It sticks with the traditional format for the most part, which is what the fans were asking for format for the most part, what the fans were asking for is that they went back, but for whatever reason it's also on a console. That wasn't bad. Other games sold far better.

Brandon Hurles: 1:11:52

Yeah, and I didn't hate Star Fox Zero. To be fair, I didn't love it either. I kind of went away from it, kind of being like it was fine. That's kind of how I felt. But again I feel like there was probably a lot of other factors we don't know about going into that in the Wii U being what it was. I love the Wii U. My Wii U safe is plugged up, so I don't judge for, like the actual hardware. I think the hardware was good. I think it was marketed wrong and it was named wrong and that was it. I think that's about it.

Mark Trobough: 1:12:21

I think the other problem with Metroid is a lot of the games are just older titles, so you're stuck in a world of the 2D scrolling.

Brandon Hurles: 1:12:29

Oh, that's.

Mark Trobough: 1:12:30

Nintendo's fault. No, the core five games are fun but to be fair, where you are right now, you have a hard cap on 2D side-scroller games. Even if it's a really good game, you're gonna have a cap even on the Switch, which sold really well.

Brandon Hurles: 1:12:45

But Dread is the number one selling Metroid game, so I don't think that that was a great move, that's not by a whole lot to be fair, yeah, but also it hasn't been out that long so it's the best selling within less than two years.

Mark Trobough: 1:12:59

Prime series should have been where it is, where it's going, those games should sell well. It hits a lot of what modern gaming is turning into.

Brandon Hurles: 1:13:09

I think it's probably going to surpass Dread, because I think that it's going to be a cross platform game. I think it has to be a launch title.

Mark Trobough: 1:13:17

At this point I think they need to get that series to sell. But to be fair, when you look at Prime 1 and 2, prime 1 and 2 weren't bad games. There were two things going against them. One, they're stuck on the Gamecube, which didn't sell all that well, and Prime 1 came out right around the time that Halo Evolved came out. And Prime's a good game. It got really good reviews. The problem was it's on a console that's not the best and it came out right around the same time that one of Microsoft's best selling games launched as well, and it just did around the same time that one of Microsoft's best-selling games launched as well, and it just did a lot of things better than this game did with a lot of the core themes.

Brandon Hurles: 1:13:54

I don't know that it did it better. I love Halo, but I don't know that it did it better.

Mark Trobough: 1:13:58

It had the multiplayer aspect of it on the Xbox.

Brandon Hurles: 1:14:00

That's probably the only thing it did better.

Mark Trobough: 1:14:01

I love Halo, To be fair it had, overall, probably a better written story, because Prime the Metroid games aren't. They're story games but it's not the same narrative as, say, a Halo game is A lot of it's. You know, exploring, reading text, trying to figure things out, like exploring a world by yourself, the whole feeling of isolation. And then by the time you had 3 come out, it's a sequel that was on the Wii which sold well, but for whatever reason. It's a sequel that you know was on the Wii which sold well, but for whatever reason, it just didn't. It's probably them just not properly marketing the game.

Brandon Hurles: 1:14:31

Fair enough.

Mark Trobough: 1:14:32

The Wii is to be fair. The Wii was not seen as a gamer's hardware. It was seen as for for kids and for old people.

Brandon Hurles: 1:14:41

You're a loser.

Mark Trobough: 1:14:41

You've got a lot of casual games. To be fair, the hardcore gaming demographic stuck with the 360 and the PS3. Not me, they didn't necessarily get the Wii Not me, we were also kids when they came out.

Brandon Hurles: 1:14:54

So let's see what year did the Wii come out 2008?

Mark Trobough: 1:14:57

2006.

Brandon Hurles: 1:14:58

2006,. Yeah, we were in middle school. Yeah, that sounds about right. I remember bringing Wii Sports to school when they got all I got a Wii because they were so hard to get.

Mark Trobough: 1:15:09

The 360 was what true gamers got back in the day. The console war was between the 360 and the PS3.

Brandon Hurles: 1:15:17

We're getting off topic, but I never bought into the console war thing. I've always done the Nintendo and the one other console thing. I've always done that.

Mark Trobough: 1:15:26

Nintendo's always done their own other thing because they've had to. That's what I'm saying.

Brandon Hurles: 1:15:32

That's why it's always been Nintendo plus another console.

Mark Trobough: 1:15:36

When you think of those. I don't want to say casual, but your person that just plays a few hours a week plays your Call of Duty style game they're going to get a Nintendo console.

Brandon Hurles: 1:15:48

They're going to get a PlayStation or Xbox, but then you see the Wii sales.

Mark Trobough: 1:15:49

Call of Duty, fifa and sports games.

Brandon Hurles: 1:15:51

The Wii sales, I mean. They speak for themselves, though, so it doesn't really matter whether it's a casual console or not, it sold.

Mark Trobough: 1:15:59

Well, a lot of those sales were coming from people that weren't normal gamers, that's kind.

Brandon Hurles: 1:16:08

I want you didn't get the core demographic.

Mark Trobough: 1:16:13

The ones that are going to actually religiously play video games weren't really bought in. They may have had a Wii for one or two Nintendo games they liked, and that was it. They weren't really going to buy games for that cost. I know people only bought it for Wii Sports, that's the thing when you think of core gamers people that are actually playing it a lot like we are now. They would have gone for the 360, the PS3, especially if you were limited on money as well.

Brandon Hurles: 1:16:39

Yeah, I was like super invested in the Wii. It was kind of maybe even a little unhealthy.

Mark Trobough: 1:16:45

No, that's just what I'm saying. Where Prime 3 had going against it, it was on the Wii. That wasn't necessarily seen as a cod machine, even though it had some of those games on there.

Brandon Hurles: 1:16:56

Yeah, I get it the first three Prime games.

Mark Trobough: 1:17:00

Games that should have sold better if they had launched on the Switch would have sold better, but they had a lot of stuff going against them, that which hurts game sales.

Brandon Hurles: 1:17:08

Yeah, mr Coffee brought up.

Mark Trobough: 1:17:10

Prime 4 should sell really well yeah it, should it should?

Brandon Hurles: 1:17:14

Mr Coffee brought up about Starlink which was kind of like a side story for Star Fox which was legit.

Mark Trobough: 1:17:21

I mean it was, it was very good, it very good, but it was only the Switch version. But the whole Starlink game was an absolute failure, the game itself.

Brandon Hurles: 1:17:31

I was only invested in it for the Starfox portion of it, but it wasn't so marketed as a Starfox.

Mark Trobough: 1:17:37

Yeah, it wasn't. You needed to get an actual weird control thing.

Brandon Hurles: 1:17:44

It had a lot of stuff. There was some stuff working against it. He said do you hope Metroid Prime 4 will sell because the history has shown that Metroid is a bigger game domestically? Cyber Larry said I have your stake in this conversation. I was a PlayStation key growing up. Mr Coffee said we was the tickle me Elmo. Everyone wanted, the grandparents loved it. Both online games like cod. We just got flooded with shovelware.

Mark Trobough: 1:18:09

That's unfortunate Elmo. Everyone wanted it, grandparents loved it, both online games like COD.

Brandon Hurles: 1:18:11

We just got flooded with shovelware. That's unfortunate.

Mark Trobough: 1:18:13

Switch does too. I mean to be fair, the Switch, but hey, that's why I'm so adamant that it needs to be a launch title, to get it out there that it's a good game and to sell. Well. If it's one of the five or ten games when it launches in its first year, it helps boost the sales but get a lot of people who may not have played it, A lot of people who play Dread. Maybe they never played a 3D Metroid because they're kind of hard to come by, especially if you don't have a Wii or a Wii U.

Brandon Hurles: 1:18:39

Yeah, the easiest way to play is the Metroid Prime Trilogy, which is on the Wii and technically, wii U if you get it digitally. So I.

Mark Trobough: 1:18:51

But yeah, this will be the first time a lot of people will have even had access because, like we talked about this before with older games, the access to these games, is not easy at this point, yeah which is unfortunate.

Brandon Hurles: 1:19:01

This is another reason we should have Metroid Prime 2 and 3 by now. I think it's ridiculous. We're in December. We thought we would have had it months ago.

Mark Trobough: 1:19:11

I mean Prime 1 should have the Prime 1 remastered. Should have probably sold better than it did. But I mean, who knows what? It had a lot going for it. Is that why.

Brandon Hurles: 1:19:19

Like are they just like Metroid Prime 1 is good enough and then we'll just skip the 4? Like is that what they're thinking?

Mark Trobough: 1:19:32

is or is it? You don't know. It makes sense?

Brandon Hurles: 1:19:33

no, it doesn't it doesn't, because they need to have access to modern hardware for these people to understand what the hell is going on in the story?

Mark Trobough: 1:19:36

yeah, but I think prime, the primary master, didn't have a hold on marketing.

Brandon Hurles: 1:19:39

It was kind of like a oh, here's a thing and they just kind of threw it out which they did go with the 40 price tag. But other than that I feel like which they did go with the $40 price tag.

Mark Trobough: 1:19:47

But other than that, I feel like Prime 4 needs to be the gateway to go back to, say, playing Prime 1, 2, and 3. A launch title helps expose people to that style of game. Could you?

Brandon Hurles: 1:19:56

see 2 and 3 coming out after 4? They're like let's see the sales for 4.

Mark Trobough: 1:20:02

It doesn't make sense to come out that way. It doesn't.

Brandon Hurles: 1:20:04

No, it really doesn't. It would make sense to come out that it doesn't.

Mark Trobough: 1:20:05

No, it really it really doesn't. It would make sense to release them, you know, a few months from from when that game's come comes out, to continue to build that hype. But at this point I've got no idea what they're going to do with prime two and three at this point, I don't care if it's remastered. I just want the games ported to play them yeah, fair enough.

Brandon Hurles: 1:20:21

Uh, all right. So we got legend of heroes kai no kise, farewell oh, zamora Hence PC in 2025. So another JRPG. Obviously, we were just talking about Legend of Heroes, with you going back and playing the games, so I was watching the trailer on here. Definitely seems to be released on Steam. It looks good the game visually looks very good.

Mark Trobough: 1:20:45

I'm glad we're finally getting a lot of these games finally being ported over. Yeah. The Trails games. Legend of.

Brandon Hurles: 1:20:51

Heroes games. It has ultra-wide screen support, steam Deck support, so they're doing all the right things. It says, in addition to traditional Chinese and Korean, it is now available in English, so that's definitely really cool to see. I think this. I could be totally wrong because obviously I haven't had the opportunity to play this. It was not released here, but I think that this is a side story game. I could be totally wrong.

Brandon Hurles: 1:21:21

It says it's set during Operation Star Taker. The game follows Calvert's 23rd president, roy Graham Hart, and his National Scale Project. So I think this is a side story, but I think it's a canon game to the story. My understanding, that's what I saw reading some of the comments. So definitely, definitely, really cool. I mean, I'm all for these Japanese, you know, chinese, korean exclusive games coming out over here. I love Falcom. Like I said earlier, I love what they're doing, so it's really really cool to see.

Brandon Hurles: 1:21:53

Obviously, I had that thumbnail and I was pretty excited for you to see that, yeah because back in 22, they brought the Kai version over.

Mark Trobough: 1:22:01

It's on Steam At 60 FPS. I guess this would make sense. It's more of a side story, yeah, I think it is.

Brandon Hurles: 1:22:09

I know it's got a lot of characters involved in the game, so I know I'm reading some of the comments, the very first comments on this tweet here we got. Somebody says is it another game or same one as Kuro 1? I don't know what that means. Somebody else said if no full voice acting, then no. Last game Barely had any.

Mark Trobough: 1:22:30

I mean to be fair what they did with the graphicals for Kai. Just looking at these screenshots on the Steam page looks like they gave it a nice coat of paint to make it look good but still kept that stuck camera, that 2D, 3d, pixel art kind of style.

Brandon Hurles: 1:22:46

What's also cool. So I didn't put this in the notes, but Falcom has also shared a tentative list of their upcoming titles in the latest financial report. The list is comprised of already released games, those announced to be in the works and unknown entries. So we've got games like let's see, we got an unannounced Trails series title in development, an unannounced E series title in development. We also got we obviously know about Trails in the Sky, first chapter, which for you, I feel like that's obviously going to be the starting point this remake for Trails, the very first Trails game. That's going to be really the way for you to go. I'm going to play it too. That's really cool to see all four of them remaking some of these older games that were stuck on older hardware PSP and stuff like that. They need to be accessible. Like we said, either it needs to be ported, it needs to be remastered or it needs these games have got to be accessible for people. I think it's really cool that they're doing that. I'm really excited for that. It's obviously in development. Right now that looks like there's an unannounced Nintendo Switch title, which we don't know what it is. Man, they've got a lot. This company is doing a lot.

Brandon Hurles: 1:24:06

Cyberlarry said A finally a fan translation. Oh, never mind, it's Mainline Trails. He said Kiseki equals Trails, it's basically Hero 3. Kind of Kiseki is the next Mainline Trails game. Okay, all right. Well, mainline Trails game. So there you go.

Mark Trobough: 1:24:24

The more you know. I'm all about the name too, they take it from our local trails experts.

Brandon Hurles: 1:24:29

Yeah for sure. So I found this interesting. This is more of like a how do I put this? What kind of article would this be? More of a? It's not really news, but an interview came out. It's kind of news, I guess. An interview came out that Mario and Luigi Brothers news. I guess An interview came out that Mario Luigi Brothership could have been a different art style, taking inspiration from Acquire and Square Enix's HD 2D games. That would have been interesting. So that was the only reason I put it in here.

Mark Trobough: 1:25:00

So they referenced specifically Octopath Traveler, which would have been a neat art style.

Brandon Hurles: 1:25:04

But I think it would have been worse.

Mark Trobough: 1:25:07

I just saw Octopath Traveler. I was like, oh, octopath Traveler, people know what that game looks like. Yeah, for sure. I still think they made the right decision. I just don't think it would have been the same game. Yeah, the bright poppy, the artsy color, that's what a Mario game is. To be fair, outside of the RPG or the Paper Mario games, the Paper. Mario games should probably play more like Octopath Traveler, with more color, pop and, you know, a lot more stuff going on.

Brandon Hurles: 1:25:30

obviously Paper Mario for sure could do it.

Mark Trobough: 1:25:32

I think it could pull a game that did like.

Brandon Hurles: 1:25:34

Yeah, martin Luizio doesn't. The 3D art style fits it far more. I agree, and I think it's an excellent game, really good RPG. It's very fun for what it is. I haven't beaten it yet but I'm like 18 hours into the game so I know I don't have a ton more to go. Based on the story, you're far more into the game than I am. Yeah, you got to play some more man. You got to use that break. You got going on Play some Threesome Mario and Luigi.

Mark Trobough: 1:25:58

I think it's better than a 77. A 77?, which is a top-critic rating.

Brandon Hurles: 1:26:04

I think that's a pretty fair rating. I rating I think that's a pretty fair rating. I would actually, where I'm at so far, I would probably put that at 8 out of 10. So it's pretty close to what I would rate it I mean it's only a 3% difference.

Brandon Hurles: 1:26:14

I think it's a really good game. I think it's got visually. It's got some like I don't think it's visually a beautiful game or anything like that. So I think there's some problems there, but I think that comes down to the hardware. I feel like this would have looked way better on Switch 2. But I think that it doesn't. I still feel like it doesn't take full advantage of what Switch does offer for what it is. I feel like there's other games like, for instance, tears of the Kingdom Obviously it's not a game on that scale, so that's probably you know and it's being developed by AlphaDream, so it's not actually being developed by Nintendo. So like there's some stuff there where it's like you know, another studio's developing it and stuff like that.

Brandon Hurles: 1:26:59

So I feel like there's maybe a little miscommunication there with some things, but the story's maybe not like not the greatest in the world, but it's a really fun RPG. I always put the Mario Luigi games because prior to this one I still like this game a lot. But, for instance, brothers in Time. I rate that game like a 10 out of 10. I think it's an essential RPG. You think back to Mario Luigi. What's the one on GBA called Gosh dang it? I can't remember RPG. You think back to Mario and Luigi. What's the one on GBA called Gosh dang it? I can't remember. There's obviously Bowser's Inside Story. I think that's a very good game. Probably like a good 9 out of 10.

Brandon Hurles: 1:27:36

For me, those games are just really really top tier games. They were definitely way above average ES games, if you ask me. But yeah, I think this is probably the weakest of the entire series. I played all of them and beat all of them. I think it's probably the weakest of the entire series, but it's still good. That's not to say it's bad. And I think a lot of my problems come down to the visuals, where I don't think it's visually a beautiful game or anything like that. I think it's got some problems visually, definitely some hiccups along the way as far as frame rate goes and things like that. But again, still good. I'm not talking down the game at all. I think it's still really good. I've had a lot of fun with it. I've just been playing it in between stuff because the story is mildly there. It's not like anything crazy it is a Mario game after all but it's still really good.

Mark Trobough: 1:28:35

For what it is. It's a really fun little game with essentially a bunch of mini dungeons type thing.

Brandon Hurles: 1:28:40

It's still really fun. I really enjoy it. A subscriber earlier said also unannounced Switch title is probably Ys Memoir. We already know about easement more, though I've got pre-ordered. It could be it could be it could have been. Maybe came out prior. So we didn't. Yeah, Could have been that for sure. Uh, okay, so we got Pokemon, TCG pockets, um launches new Matt. So just to quickly head back on this, I just didn't know we were going to talk about it for as long as we did before, but the mass outbreak event is going on currently, so there's a bunch of news, the electric theme or whatever it is.

Brandon Hurles: 1:29:17

Yeah, yeah, there's a whole bunch of stuff that you can unlock and stuff like that. You can get extra packs, you can get icons, everything's like that. So there's stuff you can unlock along the way with the Mass Outbreak event. So we do know they're going to do stuff like Pokemon Go. Obviously that's already being done. And we had just talked about, I think, anime Junction cast right when we were talking about why aren't they doing anything for Christmas and stuff like that. I was like why aren't they doing anything for the holidays?

Brandon Hurles: 1:29:44

well, I mean you can, you can do some special codes or something.

Mark Trobough: 1:29:49

Now, it's now if you walk in every day you unlock stuff, so I've got an extra pack yesterday and today, so there is oh, no, sorry, I was thinking of the scarlet and violet the only, like they had some codes that are that are good, the only good one was like a specific type of uh, one of the starter, like the, the fire starter oh, you can get a bunch of like like free, bunch of free, like evolution stones and stuff like that.

Brandon Hurles: 1:30:10

I'll have to. You have to. Is there a list of the codes? You have to send them. Send them over to me if there is because I want to put all of that, I try to. I try to do all the codes I can, even though not like actively playing the game. But you know, let me pull up yeah the game.

Mark Trobough: 1:30:24

but you know, yeah, so they said that there's no expiration date, but via the internet you can get the mythical peach-a-berry.

Brandon Hurles: 1:30:36

Ooh, I love a good peck-a-berry.

Mark Trobough: 1:30:41

I think that was the specific one because obviously through January 1st, if you have, you can get all the evolution stones through two different codes. You can get some vitamins, uh. You can get a special uh fu, uh, fuwekoko. The codes go through january 1st and then through february you can get like 30 quick balls, expert belt, uh, yes, sobies, uh, palmon, stuff like that. Nothing, nothing super exciting, but I guess it's something I don't know about, the what, the mythical peach of berries and I don't know how that, how that affects the game. So I usually don't get into that, I just want to.

Mark Trobough: 1:31:12

I beat the story actually called a peck of berry index peck of berry whatever, I guess I could drop it and I'll drop in all the okay, appreciate it so we've got metaphor, reefy and Tazio.

Brandon Hurles: 1:31:34

Director comments on the possible sequel. So basically they did a little interview talking with the director. They said a potential sequel along with possible consideration for a full-fledged series. Director Katsura Hashino has said this is in the latest special double issue of Weekly Famitsu Magazine. Hashino says there's no concrete plans to make a metaphor series but he does hope that it can be someday. Hashino then there's no concrete plans to make a metaphoric series but he does hope that it can be someday. Hashino then notes that Metaphor ReFantasia started with the goal of creating a third JRPG series which is standing along Shin Megami, tensei and Persona, saying he hopes that he can turn it into a flagship title that represents Alright. So I think for sure 110%. This is going to be their third series they're going to be focusing on. So I think it's going to be SMT, persona, metaphor.

Mark Trobough: 1:32:27

I mean to be fair. Metaphor is gangbusters. They say what ReFantasia was Atlas' fastest selling game? Of all time, which just means it's probably one of their better selling games, which means it's almost guaranteed to get a sequel, just because it sold really well, I think it has to.

Brandon Hurles: 1:32:41

I think it has to yeah with that being the fastest selling and the best selling and stuff like that. I mean, atlas just puts out bangers anyway. The last S&T game that came out was really really good. Persona 3 Reload was really really good. Though I haven't finished the game, I'm a good like 60 hours into the game, so I put significant finished the game. I'm a good 60 hours into the game, so I put some time into it. I love it.

Brandon Hurles: 1:33:04

I think it was probably one of the most overlooked, although in my little circle of people on the interwebs a lot of people were talking about it, a lot of people were playing it, but I think that there was just so much that came out that people kind of overlooked it. It was like a remake, so it was like it didn't hit as many people, though it did really well. Persona 3 Reload, from my understanding, did very well and was up there as one of their best-selling when it came out, and then Metaphor came out and then conquered that again. But I still feel like for some reason, I feel like Persona 3 Reload probably just didn't get as much attention as it deserved, because 2025 was a bigger year than I anticipated, because last year was so good with gaming 2024 says, when there were highs, they were really high highs, but also had some of the worst lows.

Mark Trobough: 1:33:56

Really, yeah, some of the worst flops of all time happened this year. Look at this year. All the flops were all AAA. Some of the worst flops of all time happened this year. Look at this year. All the flops were all AAA. Some of the better, best games were more the indie slash single or AA titles For this year or last year For this year.

Brandon Hurles: 1:34:17

Okay, so I'm looking here at some of the Alright. So we got Skull Bones for this year, suicide Squad this year Senua's Saga, hellblade 2, which was a good game, but it was way too short. It kind of almost wasn't a game. It felt like more of a tech demo. But it was very good and visually probably the best game of all time Visually hands down, no ifs, ands or buts about it. But the substance wasn't there, if that makes sense. It felt like more of a tech demo. Star Wars, outlaws, concord, dragon Age of Elgar, so that was all like the big AAA gaming flops for this year.

Mark Trobough: 1:34:56

The big AAA were all flops, All the successes. None of those would be AA. Some of those might technically be AAA, but not the traditional AAA games you would expect for some of the big releases of this year.

Brandon Hurles: 1:35:06

We'll see the big ones for last year Atomic Heart who cares? Modern Warfare 3, I don't know that that was a flop. I don't think any COD is a flop.

Mark Trobough: 1:35:16

They've never flopped. They're going to sell well.

Brandon Hurles: 1:35:20

This list is stupid because these are for spoken. Okay, that was a flop, that was triple a game. Last of us, part 1, pc. Yes, is a stupid list there, mine but that's that's important.

Mark Trobough: 1:35:30

That's not gonna say the worst review games 2023.

Brandon Hurles: 1:35:36

Never heard of it. Redfall yeah, that was definitely a flop. Everybody wants you switch. I don't think anybody cares.

Mark Trobough: 1:35:43

It was a game that shouldn't have been this list also lists Modern Warfare 3.

Brandon Hurles: 1:35:47

That's interesting. I don't think I think a COD can do less than other CODs have done, but no Call of Duty has ever flopped, if you ask me. I don't think any of them flopped. Am I right in saying that?

Mark Trobough: 1:36:01

because it's just such a massive IP people are going to play it no matter what. If anything, most people probably just play it for the multiplayer, yeah.

Brandon Hurles: 1:36:10

Yeah, so I don't.

Mark Trobough: 1:36:10

It's like every sports game. They could be terrible, but it's still going to sell. Well, it's still going to make money.

Brandon Hurles: 1:36:15

I pulled up three lists and 2023 doesn't look like anything like 2024, with the AAA flops. I mean Starfield, yeah, this list is saying Spider-Man 2. Like that game was a 9.1. It was not a flop. These lists for 2023. So I just I don't think to me, 2023 was one of the best years in gaming since, like I don't know, 2003, 1996. You look at, like, the releases that came out, these pinnacle years in gaming 2017. 2024, it did way better than I expected it to do, being that 2023 was so good. Sure, there might have been peaks and valleys, I don't know, I don't remember. I just remember it being a banger year and I was like man, this might be been peaks and valleys and stuff. I don't know, I don't remember. I just remember it being a banger year and I was like man, this might be the best year in gaming ever, but 2024 did really well. Would you say that it was a good year in gaming? I mean, I can't keep up.

Mark Trobough: 1:37:17

I think 2004,. For AAA, it was an abject face plant. But for indie to AA gaming, I think triple a, it was an abject face plant.

Brandon Hurles: 1:37:23

But for for indie to dub to double a gaming, I think it was an absolute success yeah, there's been so much that has come out this year that like I mean look at like metaphor for a lot of good talking about that's like a hundred hour game, easy, right.

Brandon Hurles: 1:37:35

So, oh yeah, like there's these games that came out that are just like even I like got back into call of duty a little bit and like I haven't, I just haven't cared for like a while. It was mostly cause I was like, well, I'm doing like the series of collecting these games, so I was like I might as well, like you know, revisit a little bit and kind of enjoyed the multiplayer with that and like I played with a couple of friends that haven't played with in a very long time, which was really nice. That's the first time I revisited with some friends. There's been a lot this year that has come out. There's been games that we didn't expect to kind of like. We didn't expect to kind of like Marvel Rivals. We expect that to be an absolute flop. We're making fun of the game for months and months and months. Look at it. It's a huge success.

Mark Trobough: 1:38:23

We thought that was a flop period. I guess it just shows the Japanese developers are better. Is it a Japanese-developed game? Pretty sure it wasn't developed.

Brandon Hurles: 1:38:33

I mean like to be fair. At the end of the day, the game is not really completely different than Overwatch. I think it just does it better than Overwatch 2 does. But it's not like by a mile or anything. It's still very much an arena shooter.

Mark Trobough: 1:38:48

It was developed by both Marvel Entertainment and NetEase Games. Netease Games is a Chinese company. Oh, but it was still, you can tell in the designs it wasn't developed by Western.

Brandon Hurles: 1:39:01

It's got those gotcha mechanics too, if it had been developed by a Western developer.

Mark Trobough: 1:39:06

All your female characters would have looked like a bunch of lesbians Am. I wrong in saying that Look at every other Western female game Ambiguous yeah. That's exactly what you would have gotten. Character design sold it. That it was. It was developed by Eastern Studio. Yeah, yeah, I mean it's just slightly wrong, but yeah it's.

Brandon Hurles: 1:39:30

You know, asian developers yeah yeah, and that makes sense because it's got that. It's got that sort of gotcha paint to it. It's sort of got that with. I guess it's not exactly it wouldn't be considered a gacha game, but it's got that flavor to it. If that makes any sense at all. Yeah, no, yeah, but yeah no. I mean we like kind of liked it. We played it more than once, we streamed it I think twice right. Like we're considering maybe streaming it again for a community game, since it is free.

Brandon Hurles: 1:39:59

so we'll see. But yeah, I mean I kind of liked it and I played it off stream. So I played it probably four or five other times by myself. Yeah, I mean, you know, this was just like there was some unexpected things this year that I definitely was not, it wasn't on my radar at all, that I definitely didn't plan on playing. That I actually really enjoyed and yeah, it's been an unexpected year. I think that, like kind of looking back, you know, for this episode, what would you say? Because I guess we're going to be diving into that here shortly. Let's go ahead and cover the rest of the news and then we'll dive back more into kind of revisiting the year. But we got Sony Spider-Man. This is non-gaming, but it was pop culture related. I found this very interesting. I really wanted to take on it. So this is Sony Spider-Man Universe movies. The CEO says we're destroyed by the press. These are not terrible films. So we're talking about, we're talking Venom, we're talking Madam Web. We're talking what else?

Mark Trobough: 1:41:05

Madam Web was a terrible film.

Brandon Hurles: 1:41:07

All the Sony Spider-Man movies. I'm sorry, I'm talking about the new Sony villain universe, if you will, the Venoms, and not just Madam Web. What else was there To be fair?

Mark Trobough: 1:41:22

it's not.

Brandon Hurles: 1:41:26

Oh, I know what you're talking about. Blade, no, not Blade, no, no. No, this was um. I like Blade 1, at the very least. No, this is a newer movie, like 2022. I can't remember, I'm not sure.

Mark Trobough: 1:41:38

But I think, yeah, their movies are bad, but that's like Marvel as a whole, Like all their movies have been bad recently.

Brandon Hurles: 1:41:45

Okay, so we got Madam Web Venom. Let there Be, Morbius was the one I was thinking of, Morbius, so he's the.

Mark Trobough: 1:41:52

The movie that got memed into re-releasing at theaters and nobody watched it because people were just memeing it on. Well, I mean first of all, you have.

Brandon Hurles: 1:41:58

Jared Leto playing the character, so that's a meme in itself. But yeah, Morbius is awful and the best thing they've done are the animated movies, which were both fantastic. I feel like you know, like Madam Web, I watched it because I like Spider-Man Horrible. I watched Morbius Horrible. I mean it feels like I've watched the newest Venom, but I've heard horrible things about it.

Mark Trobough: 1:42:26

I'll say this it feels like they're falling into the same trap that dc has, where their live action's just terrible. Like they can only do animated movies. Like whoever that works, the animated stuff is great. The live action is just becoming just just slop to push out the door mr.

Brandon Hurles: 1:42:40

mr coffee said I also forgot about craving Hunter. So there's that one as well, which is also I don't think it's come out yet or it's about to come out no it's already out.

Brandon Hurles: 1:42:48

I'm pretty sure it's already out. I think you can look it up to double check. But he said Cyber Larry said I refuse to watch any of those Sony films. He also said I think Jared Leto could come back as Morbius in the MCU, but not as a main role but a supporting role in the Midnight Sun show or film. He could be good at something like that. I don't know, man, I think Jared Leto is a joke.

Mark Trobough: 1:43:13

I think a lot of their movies and TV series have just become garbage. So I think it's just Marvel as a whole, because definitely, since you've had the war and stuff like that, well what?

Brandon Hurles: 1:43:26

was the, the movie that, oh, deadpool wolverine, though kind of reinvigorated a little bit of hope reinvigorated a little hope in me, though, that there might be still some stuff that they can do that I enjoy, because that movie was fantastic.

Mark Trobough: 1:43:42

But at large, since you've had oh my god, what's that Endgame? Yeah, since you've had Endgame, I blanked on the movie.

Brandon Hurles: 1:43:50

Since you've had that it's just been a straight you've had some good movies, but it's been largely just downhill, For sure a decline. I feel like until. Deadpool and Wolverine.

Mark Trobough: 1:43:59

It was a pretty fast decline, and then you had a bunch of other movies and it goes back down, yeah, but Sony, I think it doesn't account for that really.

Brandon Hurles: 1:44:07

It's obviously not an MCU.

Mark Trobough: 1:44:08

Marvel as a whole though it's not just Sony, it's all the MCU movies have become garbage. Yeah, I mean like I would say.

Brandon Hurles: 1:44:16

I want to say that even the stuff that I didn't care for, I don't think was necessarily garbage, of what? I wanted, it was just I didn't care for it. I was burned out.

Mark Trobough: 1:44:30

You're getting into the the lesser characters that just nobody cares about at least to be real at large. That's what I want to see. That's part of the problem. There are lesser characters and you've got lesser writers doing the job, so yeah, cares yeah, I mean I.

Brandon Hurles: 1:44:39

I think there's a lot of problems with that.

Mark Trobough: 1:44:40

You had to I don have actually heard of Kraven that aren't super into Marvel.

Brandon Hurles: 1:44:45

Well, if you watch the 90s Spider-Man animated series, everybody knows Kraven.

Mark Trobough: 1:44:49

Everyone's heard of Thor Kraven, like some of these characters. Nobody's Unless you're super into it at large. People haven't heard of Fair enough.

Brandon Hurles: 1:44:58

Tell me I'm wrong. No, I mean, I'm wrong. If you watch 90s Spider-Man, all of these characters are huge.

Mark Trobough: 1:45:04

Your main market is the casual viewer and if they haven't heard of it. They're not going to go see it. Let's just be real.

Brandon Hurles: 1:45:13

It's not going to push numbers obviously.

Mark Trobough: 1:45:16

And you've got lesser actors doing lesser roles let's just be fair. And it's got lesser writing. So there's a bunch of stuff. You've had marvel, mcu have beginning progressively worse. People will start see bad movies, but after a while they notice a trend. They're just gonna stop watching your movies. That it doesn't matter. Craven could have been a 10 out of 10 movie but because of the the record as a whole, less people would have gone to see the movie, just because it's like a snowball spiraling. Once you lose somebody it's really hard to get that person back. If you lose 50 million viewers that loved your first movies and they hated the next 10, it's hard to get those people back. It's going to take a while to get them to come back.

Brandon Hurles: 1:46:01

I would love to be wrong about certain things, especially when it comes to like stuff that I did, you know, really care about or really enjoy at one point, like cause, before you know, everything pre-end game like I cared a lot about, I was like very invested in them. So you cause I thought I thought I just thought the movies were great there was only like one movie Pre-Endgame there was one bad movie.

Mark Trobough: 1:46:24

What was that? Doctor Strange. No, it was Captain Marvel. Was it the one right before Endgame? I thought it was Captain Marvel.

Brandon Hurles: 1:46:35

Didn't Captain. Marvel come out after Endgame? No, because she was in the movie yeah you're right, hold on, I'm sorry.

Mark Trobough: 1:46:45

That's the only one that I saw anybody hate on was captain marvel I was mostly because the actress and what her comment, her stupid comments.

Brandon Hurles: 1:46:51

That's, that was the reason why it started a trend of, even if your movie is good.

Mark Trobough: 1:46:56

Your actor goes on stupid crap and people perceive what the actor says. Is it being in the movie? They don't like what they say and they don't it's this whole thing.

Mark Trobough: 1:47:08

People in your industry developers, producers, writers it doesn't matter what's in your game. You come out and you say stupid stuff on the internet, and it does two things. One, it's bad PR as a whole and it gives your haters ammunition to push out bad publicity that other people will eventually pick up on, I think, and then they re-re-push it back out. It's just like sometimes you're like I don't care what you think or what you're trying to do, let your game speak for yourself. You kind of you say stupid stuff and it it's gonna provoke a negative response from from your community as a whole, especially when a decent percentage of at the least a large percentage of your Vulcan community is just at the frothing of the mouth looking for it. They get it, they're going to blast it out there and everyone at least a decent portion of the community is going to hear it and they're just going to be like oh, you say this thing. Well, your whole game's bad.

Brandon Hurles: 1:47:55

I don't even want to touch it.

Mark Trobough: 1:47:56

I don't even want to touch your studio that with internet culture.

Brandon Hurles: 1:48:01

now you can't do it because there's too many people to come at you. In an instant the article comes out you're done?

Mark Trobough: 1:48:09

How are you not getting training so you're not to come out and antagonize your potential audience? Because at the very least, it will be used against you, regardless of what you think. It's just bad PR tactics. I don't care what your actual view is. You might fully believe what you say, but going on the internet and saying it like people look for this stuff.

Brandon Hurles: 1:48:27

They will go into your history and dig into stuff, making these comments along the way, with both video games and movies. Do you think they should have certain guidelines that they have to follow with what they say in public to PR you know, the press it's a hard line because, like not be allowed to say certain things at all, or people go on Twitter or something like that.

Mark Trobough: 1:48:49

That's technically their own account. It's not officially tied to the company. But the problem is people find out. It's just one of those things where it's like you can say that.

Brandon Hurles: 1:48:58

But if you have money on the line like you could potentially lose money for saying the wrong.

Mark Trobough: 1:49:03

No these people might have a relatively small audience their average likes might get 10 likes and they come out and say a stupid thing and it blows up. It's like people have Twitter brain. You're just thinking about the initial I gotcha, or this is what I say, and then it gets blown up. You delete your tweet. It doesn't matter, it's already out there. And then people will be like oh, let's dig in. Oh, he does this, he's promoted this, he works for this industry, he's doing on this game, and then that all gets blasted out and it's just. It's just bad pr. When it's it doesn't need to be there. People are already gonna find stuff to not like about certain games with the whole dei stuff. Then you come out and you back certain things up. You say things that weren't even had nothing to do with the movie not exist in your game that people didn't know about.

Mark Trobough: 1:49:46

But then you say that and then the assumption is that belief is then projected onto whatever you're making, whether it is or isn't and then it just. It's just, it's bad pr. It's just like if you want to say something stupid, a, b, uh, use anonymity on the internet. Yeah or b. Just don't say certain things on the internet, because it's like have you not learned?

Brandon Hurles: 1:50:07

regardless, if you think it's a hyper minority, yeah it doesn't matter, it's just not as quite understand, because, like when I, when I, when I, if I'm on the line for something that's big, that's not mine, I, this is not my thing, I'm just in it like how are you not incredibly careful? Because, in my head at least, for me, I don't know twitter brain.

Mark Trobough: 1:50:29

It's terminally online thinking, it's short-term thinking. That's why, after the body of people doesn't say these things it gets blown up not healthy from like a few people to see it and then a lot of the times, either they private, they delete their account, they the tweet, but the problem is it's already out there, it's already been blasted 10 out of 10.

Mark Trobough: 1:50:47

You have the whole Streisand effect. Like it doesn't matter what you do, you've said it. There's no. There's no pulling back from that, unless you were to be out in front and being like I was wrong or whatever. Like that'd be the only way. But a lot of people don't believe that. They believe what they say and it's just. You know, say what you want about people turning on, it's on both sides, but like it's just, it's general pr stuff you need. What you say is on the internet forever. We look, we learned this 20 years ago. It's like there's certain certain things.

Mark Trobough: 1:51:17

Yeah I don't know, it doesn't make sense you're just an idiot, like it's just there's no long-term thinking about what could happen. Say, you blast out, you've got a few people following you or a few hundred people, and on average you might get ten likes a tweet or something like that. The problem is it takes for you one thing to say to get blown up and then it's just whether that's your intention or not. There are people out there looking for stuff to attack you with. You know this. At this point. Why would you make your situation far worse?

Brandon Hurles: 1:51:45

Yeah, it doesn't make any sense to me.

Mark Trobough: 1:51:47

Because, let's be fair, especially with a game I didn't think was going to flop, when you're dealing with Dragon Age, it essentially did flop, more or less it looks like it lost money. It kind of shows that these people do have there is an influence and a distrust and a not alike for certain things. So you're coming out and just making the problem already worse, like it's going to end one of two ways either you know you're, you're just going to work on smaller projects, you're gonna be fine, or you're gonna eventually be out of a job because your games don't sell and your studio closes, which is just you know. You know 101 of economy.

Brandon Hurles: 1:52:22

If you make a product that nobody wants, you're gonna be out of a job yeah, I, I don't know it's, it's tough, because I just feel like people need to not be idiots. That's how I kind of feel.

Mark Trobough: 1:52:34

Yeah, you know it goes down to the bigger issue of a lot of your audience wants one thing. You don't give it to them, and it's a whole issue in and of itself. But the very least, don't make a problem worse by by coming out and saying certain things that you know are going to be amplified and used against you as proof of like x, y and z, why yeah, this side is right and this side's wrong.

Brandon Hurles: 1:52:54

That makes sense now I'm with you for sure. Mr coffee said current day mcu movies aren't made for comic book fans, they're made made for mainstream audience. Cyber Larry said I'm still they always have been, uh, that the only true bad MCU film is Thor, the dark world. That, to be fair, that movie was pretty bad. I forgot about that one. That was a rough movie.

Mark Trobough: 1:53:13

I don't know if you watch that one, I think that came out after, uh, infinity war Did? I'm pretty sure it did, which would just go to prove my argument 100% it came out after the fact, 100%. I feel very confident in that it came out 2013.

Game Junction: 1:53:30

I was going to say I was like yeah, way before that.

Mark Trobough: 1:53:35

Okay, so there's at least two ones, but two bad ones yeah but to your point, I get what you're saying for sure.

Brandon Hurles: 1:53:43

We also got for last small news topic. We got Pokemon legends, ea rumor reveals release date and starters. Do you know what we got?

Mark Trobough: 1:53:53

going on. Yeah, this was the coming in. Essentially, it's being rumored that it's legends. He is coming out May 16th, which would then more than likely say, well, this game is rumored to come out, then you're expecting the Switch to come out around that same time you expect this game to be a launch title if it's coming out next year. This would be a.

Mark Trobough: 1:54:14

If you don't have a, say, mario game and you obviously don't have a Zelda game, well, pokemon's your next big game that would, in theory, be able to sell consoles. That's a first-party Nintendo game. Those are your three big IPs.

Brandon Hurles: 1:54:24

I wonder. So what was the date? May May 13th, Is that what you said?

Mark Trobough: 1:54:31

May 16th. You're speaking like late spring.

Brandon Hurles: 1:54:35

Well, we for sure got Switch 2 by then, I would think.

Mark Trobough: 1:54:39

It makes more sense in March because well say they came out and announce it sometime in January, january, february a month is just not long enough to properly market a console. Three to four months makes a lot more sense.

Brandon Hurles: 1:54:51

Here's what's confusing, because I think it comes out in April. That's my guess. I think it comes out April. So it's like when are we getting the announcement? It's got to be early January, right, Because you've got to have a couple months leading up to that console to anticipate it for the modern At least three months from announcement two.

Mark Trobough: 1:55:10

That's the shortest window.

Brandon Hurles: 1:55:11

I still think it's closer to four to six months.

Mark Trobough: 1:55:14

You think so May would be on that. May would be what? Four months?

Brandon Hurles: 1:55:18

Are you saying this would be potentially a launch title, along with Metroid?

Mark Trobough: 1:55:24

Metroid's. Are you saying this would be potentially a launch title Along with Metroid? Well, Metroid is not going to sell the copies for a launch title. A Pokemon game would sell the console. Especially if it's exclusive to the console.

Brandon Hurles: 1:55:33

Have we ever had a Pokemon launch title?

Mark Trobough: 1:55:37

For a console?

Brandon Hurles: 1:55:38

No, have we got it I don't even think we have for that. I don't think Pokemon's ever been a launch title. We've had Pokemon. Dash and stuff like that, where it's like a mainline. This is technically mainline, like a big title, not a Pokemon Dash or anything like that.

Mark Trobough: 1:56:02

Let's try to double check, to be fair though I mean. To be fair though I mean Pokemon would sell, especially if they decided to say hey, this is exclusive. It's like next-gen. To be fair, I think that's what they should do, probably with Prime 4. It's designed for the Switch. 2. It's exclusive to this console. Like to be fair, you need you think.

Brandon Hurles: 1:56:21

Prime 4 should be exclusive to this console.

Mark Trobough: 1:56:22

You think Prime 4 should be exclusive Rather than I think it would benefit from the hardware upgrade.

Brandon Hurles: 1:56:32

I thought you said you thought it was going to be cross-platform.

Mark Trobough: 1:56:35

I do think it will be, but I still think the game would benefit if it was developed for the Switch. I agree with that Graphical fidelity, I think that's why the reboot, the development happened was the switch to. I'm still with that which is hardware has, is is obvious, at the end of its life. It has hard limitations. Yeah, I do think pokemon. If it was to be a launch title, would make more sense to just be exclusive, because then it forces people that want to play this game to then buy the next console.

Brandon Hurles: 1:57:05

So I was looking at when it doesn't need to be exclusive. When did the reboot for Prime 4 happen? Because I was looking here. When did DLSS come out? It came out February 2019.

Mark Trobough: 1:57:18

Reboot happened in like January 2019, I think, but it was early 2019.

Brandon Hurles: 1:57:22

I wonder if that had anything to do with this. I mean, like, as far as the Switch 2 hardware is concerned, I don't know I have no idea to be at this point. I'd be curious if that had anything to do with it, because we know it says DLSS, so I'm curious if that. They're like oh, this brand new technology is out, let's take advantage of this brand new technology is out.

Mark Trobough: 1:57:44

Let's take advantage of this. I think this comes down to whatever this announcement is will tell us, because is it going to be backwards or is it going to be hard for the Switch 2?

Brandon Hurles: 1:57:51

What does your gut tell you? That you think it's going to be cross-platform?

Mark Trobough: 1:57:55

I think it's primarily developed for the Switch 2, but it'll be cross-platform. But I think obviously it will play a whole lot better on the Switch 2. For sure, for sure, pokemon. Like if you wanted a launch title to sell the console, it makes sense for Pokemon to be it, as well as it be exclusive to the Switch 2 and it not be backwards compatible to the regular Switch. You need a reason to buy the new hardware. Yeah, I agree. Having a cross-console game doesn't push the hardware sales like you want it to.

Brandon Hurles: 1:58:22

Just go back to what you were saying. They were saying Love and Thunder came out after. That was the one you were thinking of for Thor.

Mark Trobough: 1:58:29

Oh, okay, yeah, Because I thought that was the worst Thor movie, because that's Thor 3, right? I think so.

Brandon Hurles: 1:58:35

I think so.

Mark Trobough: 1:58:35

Yeah, 100%. That's what I was thinking of. I swore the worst one came out after.

Brandon Hurles: 1:58:41

Yeah, I knew that there was one that came out, I just couldn't remember what it was.

Mark Trobough: 1:58:45

So you said one thing, I thought a different one, yeah no worries, all right.

Brandon Hurles: 1:58:50

So we're going to get into a couple questions before we jump into the big news, because there was just a few things we had there, one of the big ones being a switch to some leaked rumors stuff, and then also something that Mr Coffee sent me Actually stuff. And then also something that Mr Coffee sent me Actually. Let's hit that real quick, because he sent me this in a message, so let's bring this up real quick, or he tagged me on it. Let me see, let's check Notifications. Okay, so here we are. We got this is crazy. So this was 23 hours ago.

Brandon Hurles: 1:59:25

Permaband on Twitter put this out. They said I'm just going to read word for word what the tweet says. It says it looks like the whole news of a lot of CD Projekt Red devs are leaving. Cdpr is not just real, but it's practically exodus levels of leaving Ship of thesis and action. The director of Witcher 3, wild Hunt, has even opened his own studio, now named Rebel Wolves. Many ex-CDPR staff joined him, including the lead writer and narrative director of Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077. This again does not fill me with optimism for Witcher 4. The when has CD Projekt Red ever failed us in the writing? And have faith. It is CD Projekt Red counter argument. I personally question how much of the writing team is CDPR as we actually know them. Either way, I'm looking at Rebel Wolves with interest. I hope they get started on something soon, because I'll say this.

Mark Trobough: 2:00:24

We knew for a while that the Witcher 3 Riders, the development team is not the same as the Witcher 4. When it came out, it was announced it's like, yeah, but let's be fair, that game came out in 2015. It's been almost 10 years. How many of those same people would still be there? To be fair, CDPR has not been shy in being prominent about and they've won awards. When it comes to dealing with DEI, we know, they're heavily into that stuff.

Brandon Hurles: 2:00:51

I worry about that. So much for Witcher 4.

Mark Trobough: 2:00:53

To be fair, as much as I loved Cyberpunk 2077, there's very obvious elements of DEI into that game. It's just not super in-your-face. It's not in your face but it's there and it's present. It's obvious, it's very obvious that it's there.

Brandon Hurles: 2:01:08

Yeah, yeah for sure. Which is unfortunate because it's like all right, so we're starting to see this. What's this going to be for the next big game? I think it's. I have, I have a gut feeling.

Mark Trobough: 2:01:19

it's not going to be good, which is unfortunate because I love Witcher, let's be fair, because it's wanting to say have like ideas, but it's the trend of certain studios and the industry as a whole is what I tend to look at. Let's be fair. There was a decent game there. It was shorter. It's not like Cyberpunk.

Mark Trobough: 2:01:40

Is this perfect, wonderful game it launched way like years like it was a big problem and it took them forever to fix this game, which then eats into development time of other games. So that's that starts it, releasing broken games. Then you're like, well, if you're willing to do this, what do you what else? You're willing to trim the fat on and be lazy on? Well, the next obvious thing is your writing. To be fair, yeah, maybe your world doesn't doesn't pop. Well, I think the the world designs the last to go, because that's like the biggest thing that can sell, like, oh, look at this game, we could do this, and that we're just not gonna tell you about the writing until the game launches yeah, um, I I don't think it's, I don't think it's obviously not good news if all of that is accurate and there is like an exodus level.

Mark Trobough: 2:02:27

I mean to be fair, it's kind of a wait and see at this point, because now you're dealing with the whole. There's like a whole issue of the people going back and forth with Ciri being a witch. That's a whole discussion in and of itself. With what With Ciri? There's like a whole, and I just don't know enough about the lore of the world or the books, but there's like a whole issue with the lore as far as. Could Ciri even be a witcher? The idea based off the lore. Are they changing stuff? Could Ciri even be a witcher in the?

Brandon Hurles: 2:02:58

first place.

Mark Trobough: 2:02:59

There's a whole discussion going on of like could this even bend the direction? It's not that she's the main character, but could she even be a witcher in the first place? Because it's a whole and there are probably people that that are into the lore that could go both ways on this, because I've seen it, but like I just my myself, like I just don't know enough about the lore, I don't have any books I've only played the witcher 3 and I didn't get that big into the war.

Mark Trobough: 2:03:25

It's a whole issue. People, some people saying oh, she absolutely can't. People like no, absolutely not, I'm just like, well, regardless of that that that might not even be the issue of the witcher 4, the writing could just be absolutely crap to be yes, yeah it's for me.

Mark Trobough: 2:03:39

It's like I was like the writing hasn't been the worst, but I I'm like industry-wide trend says it's kind of where we're going and it's not good, but I'll remain to wait and see. It's not like a whole. The moment we saw the Veil Guard we were like, oh yeah, this is very obviously dog crap. Like I want to wait and see and actually have proof of that's the way they're going.

Brandon Hurles: 2:04:00

Yeah, I'll just say a couple of comments we had. Mr Coffee said she's a witcher, but the issue is her elf blood shouldn't make it possible. And then Lurgitus said she's a witcher, so it's definitely going off the rails. The books are hold on, so it's definitely going off the rails from the books, so hopefully they can spin a good story.

Mark Trobough: 2:04:21

Well, we do know, because I did watch some stuff in the past day or two, the fact that they didn't making her a witcher I can't remember his name but the actual writer of the books that these games are based off of. They didn't even bother to say like hey, is this even possible based off of your books? That the game is based off of.

Mark Trobough: 2:04:38

There's a whole issue because some people say where it's like. I have seen like a you want to call it a middle-of-the-ground argument. It was like in theory, like she could, but some people are saying like, yeah, but Yennefer and Geralt would have never allowed this or we never would have been okay with this. Based off of 1, 2, 3 in the books, gotcha, it's like no, like we wouldn't even agree to her going down that path and stuff like that, gotcha.

Mark Trobough: 2:05:05

I have seen an argument I'll say it's middle of the road because it's not a hard, absolutely yes, absolutely no. And the fervent argument. It's more the middle, the one that makes the most sense to me, in the middle ground of like, based off the lore, it probably is the best argument to go down. But I'll just have to sit with other people that actually properly played all the games into the lore, read the books and just know a lot of this general knowledge. But I mean, until this game comes out, it's going to be a discussion because I mean it's the internet, it is what it is, and well, to be fair, a lot of people aren't willing to give them the, aren't willing to give the benefit of the doubt, because we've done this before and we've seen what we've gotten from these other games as a whole, so a lot of people will remain skeptical or not going to give that. You're going to have to prove me wrong, that this isn't the way you're going.

Brandon Hurles: 2:05:53

Well, yeah, I guess we'll just have to see what happens, because I'll be curious to see what happens for sure.

Mark Trobough: 2:05:58

There's going to be an ongoing discussion for the next few years.

Brandon Hurles: 2:06:01

I think so too. We'll just transition over to the other news that we have. I didn't realize what time it was, so we got Grumpy Face Studios, who was involved with Cartoon Network, is getting a bunch of games delisted. So this is their tweet. They said we are not involved with the decision to delist our Steven Universe, the Light Trilogy games or our Teeny Titans games. We're also unable to speak on it further. All questions about the sunsetting of the game should be seen to Cartoon Network and WB. We are heartbroken, which is crazy, to see a studio come out and say this that's involved with, obviously, cartoon Network.

Mark Trobough: 2:06:36

They made the game, but the website it's hosted on shut down essentially.

Brandon Hurles: 2:06:40

They're being delisted on Steam. No, these are being delisted off of Steam as well, yeah, that makes far less sense then it doesn't so we got OK KO, let's Play here Samurai Jack Battle Through Time, which is a freaking awesome game. I mean, that was a really cool game.

Mark Trobough: 2:06:55

I'm sorry.

Brandon Hurles: 2:06:58

It's under the Cartoon Network which you said. No, these are separate from the website thing. So these are actually no, no, no.

Mark Trobough: 2:07:03

But are they tied to Cartoon Network? As far as Cartoon Network owning these games? Yeah, because they're delisting them. Okay, then what it sounds like is the studio doesn't like it, but there's a licensing issue there. There's a legality licensing issue where it has to be, delisted until that gets sorted behind the scenes is what this sounds like.

Brandon Hurles: 2:07:24

Interesting to see, because now the Cartoon Network website no longer exists. All it does is transfer you straight over to Max to watch Cartoon Network.

Mark Trobough: 2:07:33

Yeah, because they own Cartoon Network.

Brandon Hurles: 2:07:35

Yeah, which is unfortunate because that 32 years, 32 years of the website, which is crazy.

Mark Trobough: 2:07:41

That just shows Cartoon Network dropped off. It's not the same company. It was 20 years ago. It's one of those things where it's like it was a series of progressive bad decisions that essentially ran that company more or less into the crowd.

Brandon Hurles: 2:07:57

I'm unaware of what would have caused this. What bad decisions would it be? Besides the progressive of like you mean their cartoons that were coming out. Like their decision on what was coming out, the leadership is bad.

Mark Trobough: 2:08:08

I mean, for the big thing is like well, if that site's shutting down, it means nobody was going to that website. Right it was. It was a net loss of money, which just means whoever was running it or managing it yeah ran to the ground or you weren't able to adapt to a changing landscape yeah, that's crazy man.

Brandon Hurles: 2:08:25

I'm just like thinking back to the hours and stuff that we spent on that website.

Mark Trobough: 2:08:31

To be fair, that was like peak of flash games. For sure, small people would make games and then would push them on to other projects, but it just feels like they were unable to adapt to move their games to other hardware and stuff. Just feels like they were unable to adapt to move their games to other other hardware and stuff like that. Maybe it's free to play on on a phone or on the, on the switch or on steam or something like that or like a five dollar game, but yeah, it just felt like it just feels like it's it.

Mark Trobough: 2:08:55

Cartoon network just isn't the same company. It was like in the last decade how many good shows have cartoon network actually pushed out that were like new IPs? Or when was it they stopped doing in-house animation, because we know that stopped at one point, like a lot of these old Cartoon Network cartoons were developed in-house.

Brandon Hurles: 2:09:13

And then they started outsourcing.

Brandon Hurles: 2:09:15

Add on to that, they did put out a couple other tweets and some replies. They said also beyond supporting us, please continue to support all things Steven Universe and efforts to hashtag renew Steven Universe 2, and be sure to let your feelings about what's happened known to the powers that be. We're going to continue to fight against this as much as we can. The whole situation with the delisting is horrible and will always hurt, but ultimately we just love making games. We'll continue to channel our passion and enjoyment into that. Having kind folks like yourself following along with that and supporting us means the world. And then another reply from them. They said this means a lot to us, thank you. We'd be so grateful to have anyone who enjoyed our Steven Universe Light Trilogy games or Teeny Titans Try out our current game, castle Doom Bad, or just follow along. So it's interesting to see a studio really come back hard on A decision for games to be do listed.

Brandon Hurles: 2:10:08

They, they are that this is a smaller studio. They obviously put, they've obviously put their passion in this because they're they're retweeting all this stuff and they're they're tweeting these replies and stuff like that. So they're just. You have to put, put yourself in their shoes, the amount of hours and stuff that they spent developing these certain games that they're probably attached to them emotionally in some capacity.

Mark Trobough: 2:10:31

I think there's a chance for these games to come back, but that's why I feel like this has to deal with a licensing legality issue behind the scenes, which is why it was taken out of their hands, because it's very obvious this studio doesn't have the IP to these games, so there's a legality issue there that forced these games to be delisted. That's what this feels like to me.

Brandon Hurles: 2:10:53

Yeah, that's. There's some things going on, for sure, obviously, right.

Mark Trobough: 2:10:58

At the very least, it pushes more of the idea. It's like well, at this point, maybe you should take what you've learned in these games and develop your own IP to where this won't happen to you ever again, because, like, let's be fair when you're dealing with licensed IPs, at any time that rug can be yanked out from underneath of you, regardless of what you do Because they don't own these games. They don't own these IPs Like IPs. That's also the other problem when you're dealing with licensed stuff like this.

Brandon Hurles: 2:11:22

Mr Coffee brought up a really good point. He said was Cartoon Network even relevant in the world of YouTube and said kids don't really watch cartoons from one source anymore. I think that's a really good point because I don't think they ever adapted well to streaming and to. Youtube culture and all of this. I don't think they adapted well to it.

Mark Trobough: 2:11:41

Yeah because, let's be fair regular television while it's still around. It's a dying medium.

Mark Trobough: 2:11:47

It's the older generation, people in their 50s and 60s and older, that are really the only ones that are kind of keeping this around. Even a lot of them are what do you call it back in the day? They're cutting the cord, they're going all digital. Oh, I cut the cord a long time ago. Regular television, 10 years ago probably, is going away. Maybe not completely, but it's not what most people watch. But, yeah, it's like they never properly adapted to both streaming and to the YouTube world I mean what YouTube started in like 2005, when YouTube first came around.

Mark Trobough: 2:12:16

Yeah, cartoon Network was still doing well, but it was, I think, around 2008 is when Cartoon Network started to decline.

Brandon Hurles: 2:12:23

I think they still put out some good stuff that I didn't necessarily care about, like Steven Universe, for instance. I know it has a huge cult following.

Mark Trobough: 2:12:30

I didn't necessarily care about it, but objectively it was never made in-house. So that's the problem when Cartoon Network stopped making cartoons in-house firsthand. How do you know that?

Brandon Hurles: 2:12:42

I mean, I didn't even know that they outsourced anything, so that's news to me. But no, I think that's a really good point. They definitely didn't adapt well to streaming and you can see now they're on Macs, but how many people do you know that talk about Macs? That's all I want to know, because I don't even have it. I don't think I've ever had it. Mr Coff Coffee said this also. This isn't also a Cartoon Network issue? This is a Disney problem too. Do children even recognize who Mickey Mouse or Goofy are? Yeah, so I mean that's you know, it's a good point. Like Mario's, now more recognizable, it's the most recognizable franchise in the world. Isn't that right, isn't?

Brandon Hurles: 2:13:23

Mario, now more recognized than Mickey Mouse or something According to New Generation.

Mark Trobough: 2:13:28

Mickey Mouse hasn't been relevant in quite a while. Yeah, that's more of a Disney not known with the Disney properties.

Brandon Hurles: 2:13:34

Yeah, yeah, and then a shout out to the Rushmore Show. Thanks for coming in here.

Mark Trobough: 2:13:40

Another good podcast yeah, okay, so I guess maybe it was when they were sold, because Warner Brothers currently owns it, but apparently, apparently Hanna-Barbera is the ones that started Cartoon Network is what this looks like, but obviously the ownership moved around.

Brandon Hurles: 2:14:00

I'm trying to dig around and figure out, but Larry just said I love Cartoon Network and it was my favorite channel. Yeah, I mean, I loved it too. So what?

Mark Trobough: 2:14:23

you looking up, I'm trying to figure out when they started outsourcing animation.

Brandon Hurles: 2:14:29

Yeah, Mr Coffee said it's been passed around. I didn't know that that's news to me, but it's not like I've been necessarily.

Mark Trobough: 2:14:37

Sometimes it's hard to find resources on a short notice, like digging through.

Brandon Hurles: 2:14:41

I'll type in ownership. They're owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. Now let's see. With their history we got August 1986, Turner Broadcasting.

Mark Trobough: 2:14:54

I'm pretty sure the whole cartoon stuff was all made in-house via Cartoon Network. They did their own animation. They outsourced it to different studios.

Brandon Hurles: 2:15:01

So it looks like. In 1994, hanna-barbera's New Division, cartoon Network Studios, was founded, started productions on what A cartoon Essentially like Cartoon. Cartoon Network Studios was founded, started productions on what a cartoon essentially like cartoon.

Mark Trobough: 2:15:11

Cartoon is what that was.

Brandon Hurles: 2:15:14

All those were animated by Cartoon Network stuff like Cow, chicken and Robot in the Big City and then essentially they started outsourcing stuff because Steven Universe was not made by Cartoon Network.

Mark Trobough: 2:15:26

I'm pretty sure it's not their IP. Warner Brothers might own it, but I don made by Cartoon Network. I'm pretty sure it's not their IP. Warner Bros might own it, but I don't think Cartoon Network owns it. That would make sense.

Brandon Hurles: 2:15:38

They just put it on there.

Mark Trobough: 2:15:40

It's just the but that also would make sense.

Brandon Hurles: 2:15:43

If Cartoon Network is the one delisting these games, then why would it be? If Cartoon Network owns the one delisting these games, then why would it be If Cartoon Network owns the game for Steven Universe? Why do you think they own Steven Universe?

Mark Trobough: 2:15:52

Different companies probably own Steven Universe, from Warner Brothers to whoever animated it to the game Gotcha. It's a licensed game to that studio. That makes sense. Even if the studio's owned by Warner Brothers, it's still licensed out to them. They don't own it. Oh so, if anything, even if the studio is owned by Warner brothers, it's still licensed out and they don't own it. So if anything behind the scenes changes, it can just be pulled from them because it's not their IP.

Brandon Hurles: 2:16:13

Mr Coffee put in the chat Turner, time Warner, aol, time Warner and then just time Warner, warner brothers, at&t and discovery Apparently all of the cards network.

Mark Trobough: 2:16:24

So yeah, I mean there's several different people that have their hand in the pie. So that because, to be fair, like just because you have like one major corporation, say you've got Corporation A, where there's one, two, three, four, five corporations and all those might have a piece in Corporation 1A, well, they're all under the same umbrella. There's different, technically different companies that own them and stuff like that, and there's different legality licensing and you could have, say, 10 owned by something that company a doesn't own, or something like that, and it becomes a whole mess of legal issues and stuff like that.

Mark Trobough: 2:16:56

That's always. It's like. It's like the same with game. It's why license ips have always been the hardest to deal with and for some studios to tell to come out and bring back because you have issues, legal issues, licensing issues, people you have to pay and move money around to get stuff to make it happen. Compared to this game belongs to this studio, so they can do whatever they want with the ip okay, well, yeah, that makes sense.

Brandon Hurles: 2:17:17

So I guess we sort of got an answer without knowing anything.

Mark Trobough: 2:17:20

It's very easy to understand probably what happened is there's other things going on that forced that just pretty much pulled it out of the studio's hands. For that one specifically, All right.

Brandon Hurles: 2:17:30

So, uh, on Christmas we got a tweet out. So context to this was uh, next handheld on Twitter, that that's their their handle um tweeted out they were going to be releasing images of the switch to on Christmas and, uh, they did tweet out image. So, if images of the Switch 2 on Christmas, they did tweet out image. So if you are watching the audio you will have to look up the image I'm talking about. But it is next handheld on X. He put out this holiday season. I couldn't resist sharing this gift with you all. Some might call it an early reveal, but I call it the best kept secret of the year. This is an interesting image because to me this image looks off Looking at the background. If you really zoom into this and kind of look at it, it doesn't look real to me, like it looks like a fake background Like it looks like an AI background.

Mark Trobough: 2:18:29

A few posts later that day he said he posted a picture of something and said it's all just AI generated.

Brandon Hurles: 2:18:32

I think that was a joke. I replied to the comments. I don't think I was yeah, that I didn't know. It's hard to tell sometimes I mean like just look at the tweet replies to that first picture because, like you'll see, I mean somebody put all you want for Christmas is likes and engagements. Let's see the image is 100% real, guys. Someone said it's not AI, just zoom in. Look at the details with the eye emoji. Obviously it's like a joke somebody said nice. Ai buddy.

Mark Trobough: 2:19:02

Somebody else says I don't necessarily believe that it's real. I would mean skeptical, but I mean.

Brandon Hurles: 2:19:08

So apparently, websites that test the. I don't necessarily believe that it's real. I would remain skeptical, but I mean, who knows? So apparently, websites that test the.

Mark Trobough: 2:19:17

It's called Site Engine that tests whether an image is AI came up, 99% generated AI. Yeah, it's hit or miss. Some of those are hit or miss, though sometimes Images are far easier to tell AI than say something that's written.

Brandon Hurles: 2:19:29

I mean, what's your take on, for instance, the stand on, it being two double kickflip stands? I don't think that's going to be it.

Mark Trobough: 2:19:37

I think they're going to go with something far more robust. That's why I didn't think it was real. I think Nintendo's kind of already said they want to go the whole robust route, because you look at what they did for the uh, for the oled switch. It's a far more robust sand a full-on leg correct.

Mark Trobough: 2:19:55

That alone just kind of like. This is kind of fake, but because nintendo won't come out and reveal it, that it just breeds a bunch of people coming out and pushing stuff out. It's like every game or console release. There's so much stuff that's out there it's hard to figure out what's real and what's fake.

Brandon Hurles: 2:20:06

So I just will be skeptic and be like I'll assume it's fake until proven otherwise, when you get the official announcement, yeah, so he put out another image on christmas where it showed some details with, like, for instance, the switch to logo being just basically the switch joy cons with the two there, um, but to me that two looks off like, if you really scan in and look at it, like I've got it zoomed in 150. Some reason that two looks off to me like it doesn't look like something that would be legit it just looks fake.

Brandon Hurles: 2:20:41

It's really what it comes down to I even put out an image of the dock Now.

Mark Trobough: 2:20:46

But it doesn't even need to be AI to be fake. This could just be all good old regular Photoshop. He had something and then went in and tweaked it after the fact.

Brandon Hurles: 2:20:56

The dock looks more believable to me Because we pretty much know that the handheld is. I mean, we do know that the handheld is going to be bigger and that it's going to protrude more out of the dock than the Switch 1 did. The dock looks more believable to me than anything.

Mark Trobough: 2:21:15

All I can say is this is the fact that it's such a vague image just kind of goes against him. It's not like high def, high quality images which you would expect from an actual leak One hour ago. The way he's. It's not like high def, high quality images which you would expect from an actual leak One hour ago. He, the way he's showing it, makes it just look so fake and not real. Why would you not take a high quality picture and prove otherwise?

Brandon Hurles: 2:21:38

Yeah, the pictures are not good. Well, I mean the one picture, low quality, intentionally vague. The first picture looks fine, but everything else it just looks off, it doesn't look legit. But then the picture of the doc. I've got it zoomed in just at 100% so I had regular size. I'm like why is this so blurry?

Mark Trobough: 2:21:57

This feels like one of two things Either it's intentional baiting and trolling or it's just something he did just for engagement.

Brandon Hurles: 2:22:04

Their location, says.

Mark Trobough: 2:22:06

Kyoto, japan too. That doesn't mean anything though. How many people live in? Japan, that don't have access to this, that wouldn't be willing to lie.

Brandon Hurles: 2:22:13

For sure. And then one hour ago he said I opened the kickstand and found micro SD express engraved. I don't know what that means, but Well then, post a picture of it A high-quality def.

Mark Trobough: 2:22:24

Why are you just going to say that he's deaf? Why are you gonna say that he's got no replies to it? Um yeah, I don't know. Uh, it feels straight fake.

Brandon Hurles: 2:22:32

That's 100. Mr coffee said the background doesn't make sense. I don't think it does either the location, for, like the image, it's like what is it?

Mark Trobough: 2:22:39

it's just how the picture is taken. That's that I don't care about the background it's. It's what he's actually showing. Just looks fake and low quality it's's not a high-quality image. If you actually had somebody who was leaking this, you'd see the full quality stuff, the box, the actual console. You'd see everything. They would leak everything if they had access to it. You wouldn't get something like this.

Brandon Hurles: 2:23:01

It doesn't look real when you take a step back and try to figure out how it would make sense. It doesn't, I agree. I agree at that point because I feel like it doesn't make sense.

Mark Trobough: 2:23:11

Even the dock the side dock, just looks fake. But on top of that, because this was published a few days, like three days ago, via Game Rant, there's a rumor out there that January 8th would be the date that Switch 2 actually gets revealed.

Brandon Hurles: 2:23:22

What do you think of that? Isn't that the date for the PlayStation?

Mark Trobough: 2:23:26

event. Think of that. Isn't that the date for the playstation event? Uh, it's around ces, but obviously you nintendo might be there, but obviously they do all their stuff pre-recorded um january 8th.

Brandon Hurles: 2:23:35

I think that makes sense, because if we just wanted it coming out.

Mark Trobough: 2:23:40

Yeah, if it's coming out in spring, you've got to have at least, I would say, three months of build up, at least three months, 90 days yeah, I guess say, say you wanted to come out in May, you'd need to come out in January, but I guess, to be fair, I came out and said it before If they didn't announce it before Thanksgiving, they were going to wait until after the holiday season because they don't want to, negatively impact sales during the holiday, which is a very important time for sales.

Mark Trobough: 2:24:07

You know the Christmas window. You don't release stuff in that window because it hurts you. I'd be curious you will wait after the fact. So coming like a week after, like January 8th, if they wanted it to, that makes sense. But you know it's a wait and see.

Brandon Hurles: 2:24:20

I would be curious to see what this holiday season did for sales.

Mark Trobough: 2:24:23

I'm actually kind of excited to see what happens with sales brother. It's going to take a month or two to get those sales numbers in.

Brandon Hurles: 2:24:30

Does it take a couple months for Mitsu to get sales in? I thought Nintendo got it week by week, nintendo knows immediately, let's be fair.

Mark Trobough: 2:24:39

Well, there's two things you've got to think about. One, because when hardware gets pushed out to say Walmart, walmart pays Nintendo for those. Nintendo's already got the money and they have to turn around and sell it. And then they report the inventory of like hey, we've sold X amount, we need X amount more Stuff like that. That's why there's a delay, because if Nintendo just told you what they shipped to retail, well, not all those are always going to get sold. They might sit on a shelf for quite a while.

Brandon Hurles: 2:25:08

So you have to take into account the inventory and stuff like that you know they did the special edition Mario Kart bundle for this holiday season.

Mark Trobough: 2:25:15

So that's why it takes some time, because how many switches did you think they sent to just Amazon alone? That Amazon? Then takes and resells and Amazon doesn't want to run out of stuff, so they buy a lot that they might sit on for a while. So you have to. You have to take that into account too, because if it's just being sit in the in retail, on on storage, on shelves and stores and stuff like that, or in warehouses, the number would be way higher for that it's not actually shipped to us.

Mark Trobough: 2:25:40

You can't count it as a as a sale and right, that's so. That's why it takes a little bit of time. But nintendo's gonna to know and then once they accumulate everything, then they release it. They have windows where they do their quarterly stuff for their shareholders. That's usually when you get those numbers. They're just not going to be like we've sold 100 today, 1,000 tomorrow. That's just not how they're going to do it.

Brandon Hurles: 2:25:58

I just thought Famitsu got a weekly report themselves. Is that just on game sales, Software sales it depends? It also depends Like what's Nintendo?

Mark Trobough: 2:26:08

Do they want to release it quarterly or they might, once they have numbers of official release they sold whatever milestone then they'll come out and say that. They might come out and say that early. But well, I mean, there's, there's. There's just standardized ways they have.

Brandon Hurles: 2:26:23

I think January 8th makes I mean it's January, I feel like it has to, I feel like it has to be announced in January, because it just to me doesn't make sense. It's got to be a spring. I mean, we always get it, Just like the.

Mark Trobough: 2:26:36

Switch launch. Don't we always just get a general direct in January? Yeah, normally a January direct. Yeah.

Brandon Hurles: 2:26:49

Yeah, it's normally at the end of the month, which is kind of weird about the January 8th date, but I feel like, regardless, it has to be in January. You know, that's just how I feel. I feel like it has to be in January because it doesn't to me line up if it is going to be a spring launch, which obviously this is not there's. There's no damn way. This is a holiday launch, because to me that doesn't make sense. The end.

Mark Trobough: 2:27:07

I don really want to compete with some of those games and they wanted to launch on it, so but whenever they come out, announcement that before they even tell you, that's going to tell you because realistically you're going to have at a minimum four to six months. Like you're not gonna, you're not gonna win a release on this. It's not coming out in march. There's just not enough time to market, even if they announced it next week. I just don't think there's enough time.

Brandon Hurles: 2:27:27

If it gets announced in January, then I can see an April launch. I can see that and that would make sense. For if there's a different launch title than Pokemon but Pokemon comes out a month later to keep the momentum of the consoles being sold right away, that to me makes sense, more sense than a.

Mark Trobough: 2:27:45

Pokemon launch title. If you want to keep the momentum up, it would make sense to do what they did with the Switch, where you had Zelda launch and then you wait six months and you get a Mario game Like if you didn't if Pokemon wasn't going to launch title Mario launched with it too, didn't they both?

Brandon Hurles: 2:27:57

launch.

Mark Trobough: 2:27:57

No, Mario came out like.

Brandon Hurles: 2:27:58

September.

Mark Trobough: 2:28:00

It came out like six months later. You want to keep the momentum a month. Well, the momentum is not going to drop in a month, but it's six months when your next, probably your second or third big batch comes in. That's when you want to drop the game, to maintain the sales into, like the holiday season or something like that yeah, but.

Brandon Hurles: 2:28:14

Pokemon that would make like a month later. I could see that still, I could see I mean at that point why not just release it with try to sell Metroid. I still think they want to at least.

Mark Trobough: 2:28:26

Well, it would make more sense to then delay it by six months. I don't know you don't want to release games too close to each other because there's some people that would just wait that extra month.

Mark Trobough: 2:28:36

You need that delay to get them to buy and play this game and then you play there Because you've got to think a lot of people are going to play this casually, so they're going to play, like what, five to ten hours a week, which might take a few weeks to be the game, then they move on to the next one. So you, you don't want major titles releasing right next to each other because it's gonna the bigger one's gonna nerf the, the smaller, the two big titles like, let's just be fair, if you could only buy two of those games, you're gonna pick the, the bigger of the two and it's gonna hurt both. So you want, you want those games like releases of separated.

Mark Trobough: 2:29:06

That makes sense so they're not stepping on each other's toes. Either they both launch a release window or you're going to have a three to six-month window delay. That way you don't have to deal with sales stepping on each other's toes.

Brandon Hurles: 2:29:19

Larry just asked do you think it does release in April or March?

Mark Trobough: 2:29:25

I think it's closer to late spring, I would say March of the two. Personally, just cause I, I still think you want closer to a six month window from announcement to release. But that's also not assuming that the they didn't delay their announcement from the original plan from development. So they, they, they, they still plan on releasing it around the same time, but the, the the announcement got delayed for whatever reason. Gotcha.

Brandon Hurles: 2:29:48

I'm still on the April train, but I don't know. I mean, didn't Switch 1 come out in April? Didn't Wii U come out in April?

Mark Trobough: 2:29:58

It came out in March, but it was announced back in the fall.

Game Junction: 2:30:03

It's hard to say man, it's really hard to say with this one.

Brandon Hurles: 2:30:08

I still feel like this was meant to come out in fall of this year. I feel like it was meant to, and then for some reason got delayed.

Mark Trobough: 2:30:17

Oh, 100%, everything got pushed to the right.

Brandon Hurles: 2:30:20

Do you also think that it was probably supposed to be a fall 2024 release? And then it got delayed. No fall 2024 announcement.

Mark Trobough: 2:30:28

Release no fall. 2024 announcement release. No, I have announcement right before the holidays I mean that's what they did with the, with the switch one announced in like october I didn't realize, you don't announce it.

Mark Trobough: 2:30:39

You don't announce it like right before the holiday season, but you can announce it like in the fall because there's enough time where it's not necessarily going to impact your sales. I gotcha, yeah, I don't think you want six months of marketing time properly to get out to everybody and properly market it, I guess to close out what were your top three titles for this year that you picked up and that you played Games that came out this year.

Mark Trobough: 2:31:03

Yeah For a fact, it's going to be Stellar Blade and then blacksmith wukong and then the other one of. I'm trying to make sure I don't mix up games that I played, because I bought and played games for the first time this year, but they didn't necessarily come out this year. I gotcha, so I wanted to go through and, uh, double. Actually, you know what it might have been path of Exile 2. I might put that in that third slot. Okay, okay, I'm pretty sure that came out 2020. Yeah, they came out in December. Metaphor might end up being my favorite game. It's just I have a long way to go before I beat that game, but I had a lot of time, fun time with playing Path of Exile 2 my list is pretty similar.

Brandon Hurles: 2:31:45

It's kind of up in the air. I guess I'll have those games tied as number three.

Brandon Hurles: 2:31:50

I've got Metaphor being probably my favorite of this year. Stellarblade and then Astro Bot would be my three. I haven't got to play Blacksmith yet, I still plan to, so at some point I will be playing that. But again, like a lot of games, there's just been so much this year like there's a lot of other mentions. I mean you got like Ys X, which I have not got to play yet but I get, I guess would probably be, probably be in my list, probably knock out Astro Bot. But yeah, I mean like there's been so many, like not even counting all the Nintendo releases this year which somehow they maintained momentum Because I would have to say, to be fair, we've done three streams of it.

Brandon Hurles: 2:32:35

I love the game. I played it with my daughter, I played it by myself. I do think that Mario Party has got to be in my top five discussion For me personally of what I played this year, because I had so much fun playing that game. It's not something I expected to love as much as I did. This isn't best games of 2024, but this is just of what I played. I loved it. I thought it was a lot of fun. You enjoyed it as well. Mario and Luigi I really enjoyed. If I did a top 10, there would be a lot more games. There's definitely a lot of special mentions, for sure. I mean, I'm still playing Tears of the.

Mark Trobough: 2:33:15

Kingdom. I need to go back and finish the game. The only one I was for sure on is my number one game, and that was Stellar Blades, the game that came out this year, the one I had the most fun with.

Brandon Hurles: 2:33:25

The one I love, but I'm still stuck at a boss. Went back, tried to play it again the other day, just getting destroyed On the easiest difficulty.

Mark Trobough: 2:33:36

It took like a few hours early on, but once I got into the game I learned the combat and the bosses. Might I might die once or twice, but after that I was able to get past the bosses.

Brandon Hurles: 2:33:42

This boss is just doing me in.

Game Junction: 2:33:44

man, what boss are you stuck with the one where you fight the girl from the beginning. The first time you see her again.

Brandon Hurles: 2:33:54

I don't know if you see her again after this, but it's the first time at least that you see her again.

Mark Trobough: 2:34:01

I'm not going to say either way when she turns into mutated. Yeah, I know what you're talking about. Yeah, I can't get past her. It took once or twice. Then you kind of learn what you're doing, just learn the boss mechanics and I got past it pretty quickly, I think. I spent like an hour on that boss before I got past her. So it took me like three tries or something like that.

Brandon Hurles: 2:34:19

She's one of the harder ones. I've died too many times. It's not even fun by that point.

Mark Trobough: 2:34:24

I was innately familiar with the combat and the mechanics of the game. I remember at least a few of the combos that I used a lot.

Brandon Hurles: 2:34:34

My other problem is that I have a lot of breaks in between games where I'm game hopping. I do that a lot.

Mark Trobough: 2:34:37

I didn't have that. I played that game straight in two weeks and beat the game or something like that. So I got to the game pretty quick and that's all I was playing.

Brandon Hurles: 2:34:44

I bought the Nier DLC and I haven't even been able to use it yet.

Mark Trobough: 2:34:49

I thought it was an instant thing I didn't know.

Brandon Hurles: 2:34:51

you have to get to a certain point in the game to be able to get it.

Mark Trobough: 2:34:54

I didn't realize that You're far up in the game.

Brandon Hurles: 2:34:56

I haven't been able to get it.

Mark Trobough: 2:34:57

You then have to go back to the main area.

Brandon Hurles: 2:35:00

You have to have that tier or something to buy it from the cart.

Mark Trobough: 2:35:04

You're far enough in the game, but now you have to buy the tiers and then go and buy the outfits. You have to buy the tiers, okay.

Brandon Hurles: 2:35:08

Where do you buy them?

Mark Trobough: 2:35:10

You find the tiers and then those tiers those tier flyers? You use those to buy the outfits. How do you find those?

Brandon Hurles: 2:35:17

Are they just hidden in the game?

Mark Trobough: 2:35:18

If you just Google where they're at, you can pull up a map. Gotcha, I'm pretty sure you have to find his shop first, or something like that. I can't remember. You either find the shop first or you can just find those. I don't think there's a straight up quest for it. No, maybe there is, I don't remember.

Brandon Hurles: 2:35:33

It was the hardest thing.

Mark Trobough: 2:35:35

I got like half of the outfits in like two hours or something like that.

Brandon Hurles: 2:35:38

Well, I'll tell you what. We had a really good episode. I actually didn't expect to have as much to talk about.

Mark Trobough: 2:35:45

Obviously, we probably could talk more because we didn't talk about any of the topics, really, but that's okay, one small thing, and then we go like 20 minutes on a whole rabbit hole, 15 minutes on. Tcg. Pocket. It's a good discussion. Sometimes we don't always do that it's good. The straight news stuff sometimes is good.

Brandon Hurles: 2:36:02

This was a really good episode. I'm super excited, I guess. To close out, what are? Do you have any plans for 2025? Anything, whether personally or content-wise, or whatever it might be.

Mark Trobough: 2:36:18

I don't know what exactly is happening. All I know is I'm moving sometime in the summer of next year. That's something that's happening for a fact. That's huge, that's big.

Brandon Hurles: 2:36:25

Yeah. Hopefully everything works out what we talked about. That'd be cool when?

Mark Trobough: 2:36:33

I'm going after that Wholesale Completely up in the air, don't know what's going on, just know that's happening.

Brandon Hurles: 2:36:37

Could be in Europe sometime next year, who knows? Alright, well, yeah, I guess you got anything else, for you know, we got new year's Eve come up. I was trying to think if there was anything else I wanted to bring up for.

Mark Trobough: 2:36:55

No, I mean once we get back into the regular thing for the for the junction that we're kind of got you know off for about a week or so like that, but beginning to back into the swing when we get content out.

Brandon Hurles: 2:37:04

Yeah, you just dropped a new video tonight, right?

Mark Trobough: 2:37:09

Okay, cool, I didn't drop one last Friday, that was my mistake Back on the regular schedule for the podcast. And then trying to get these extremely apparently edit-heavy videos because try to take a 12-minute video and then you have a bunch of clips, overlays, but they can't be more than five seconds at the longest. Wait copyright reasons clip overlays.

Brandon Hurles: 2:37:35

I've never heard that before as long as there's no audio.

Mark Trobough: 2:37:40

It's from my understanding, well to avoid even dealing with the youtube's auto detection. You don't say you want to animate clips more than five seconds long. You're pulling specific stuff from like episodes. Five seconds is the limit before the auto detection may kick in and be like oh yeah, Wow, I didn't know that.

Brandon Hurles: 2:38:00

That's just being voiced over. I thought it was just an audio thing.

Mark Trobough: 2:38:03

Okay, even avoid the issue of even coming up and having to to dispute it, Whether or not it just has mental ties, just to avoid the issue altogether.

Brandon Hurles: 2:38:12

If you keep it under five seconds it avoids that problem, but that's extremely edit heavy Because you don't want to deal with that in the long run. I know there's plenty of videos that have been copyright striked.

Mark Trobough: 2:38:21

It's all been for audio on my end as far as the GameJunk stuff, like some of the videos we did, we had Delt very differently, so I got. Stuff. I got, so just to avoid certain things. So that's like worth a lot of the like. The headache comes in with a lot of the stuff.

Brandon Hurles: 2:38:39

Yeah, that kind of blows more than five seconds.

Mark Trobough: 2:38:41

You really don't get to see the ship because the last one you have seen Like if you watch an enemy review, more often than not you're not seeing clips for more than five seconds before it goes to something else.

Brandon Hurles: 2:38:51

But you can like cut and show more again, then right, like if you're cutting in between.

Mark Trobough: 2:38:55

Yeah, you just have to be constantly cutting, so the scene's always moving.

Brandon Hurles: 2:38:58

I gotcha.

Mark Trobough: 2:38:59

That makes more sense, it's not like a continually continuous video. Well, in theory you could do it and dispute it, or at the very least best case scenario you just can't monetize the video, and the Junction Network's not even near that. But to just avoid that altogether, you have to just edit it to where the auto-detection's not even going to be a problem for it.

Brandon Hurles: 2:39:20

My hope for 2024 is that the Junction Network keeps doing well, because it's doing very well. Your videos are doing great and yeah, I I mean you seem like you have a pretty good time doing them, so I mean that's cool, definitely, definitely excited about all the stuff. On that end I've got eight 2025 is gonna be good.

Mark Trobough: 2:39:37

I'm well. I've got two four to four hundred level, I call it. My last two college classes are 400, so starting the first full week of january when those start, I mean that's gonna suck for the next eight weeks, but as long as I don't fail those classes I will have my degree.

Brandon Hurles: 2:39:52

Heck yeah, man Never will I ever take a college class.

Mark Trobough: 2:39:55

I hate it with a passion.

Brandon Hurles: 2:39:56

Miserable, worst decision of my life College sucks, man, school sucks, all of it sucks. I hate it, not a fan, but I can have that done with. I made $20,000, maybe going back to school again, after just having done school last year.

Mark Trobough: 2:40:11

I think I owed them like $3,500 or something like that in student loans.

Brandon Hurles: 2:40:14

That's it, that's all.

Mark Trobough: 2:40:15

I have.

Brandon Hurles: 2:40:15

Yeah, wow, that's crazy. I have way more than that.

Mark Trobough: 2:40:19

I only had to pay that in a pocket because I was trying to get it done faster. Gotcha Okay. There Certain benefits of having your school paid for.

Brandon Hurles: 2:40:26

Yeah, that's cool, man. That's cool for sure. Yeah, 2025 is going to be huge for you, then that's going to be big stuff, man, it's going to be a big year regardless. Yeah, cool stuff. Well, I'm really looking forward to 2025. Like I said, when we come back, it will be 2025. It will be what the third or the fourth, I can't remember what day next friday is, but yeah, I think it's the.

Mark Trobough: 2:40:49

It'll be the third cool all right.

Brandon Hurles: 2:40:51

Well, we appreciate everybody watching live. If you are an audio listener, definitely check out the live show with us every friday, 8 pm eastern standard time. Um, or just check out, you know, the video over on youtube and stuff like that. Uh, we have a lot of fun doing it, so there's a lot more interaction and things like that. So if you check us out live, I think you'll probably enjoy the show as Mark's dancing over there. But, yeah, hang out with us, like I said, every Friday, 8 pm Eastern Standard Time. And then we are live every Saturday, 8 pm Eastern Standard Time playing a different game every week. We always announce those on the socials while we're playing Stuff like that.

Mark Trobough: 2:41:30

So anything else, mark, to close out, yeah, no, just the Sunday stream to get moved to New Year's Eve, but other than that, everything should be, you know, same as usual.

Brandon Hurles: 2:41:41

Cool, Alright. Well, we appreciate you guys hanging out. We'll see you all later. Thanks again, Mr Coffee. As usual, we appreciate it.