Game Scoop! 847: PlayStation Takes Its Toys & Goes Home

Summary

Game Scoop! Episode 847: "PlayStation Takes Its Toys & Goes Home"

March 6, 2026 | Host: Damon Hatfield | IGN & Geek Media

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Overview

This week, the Game Scoop! crew—Damon Hatfield (host), Mark Medina, Sam Claybor, and Justin David—tackle a news-packed episode centered on two seismic shifts in the games industry:

• Xbox’s imminent transformation into a PC hybrid console, codenamed "Project Helix"
• PlayStation’s major reversal on its PC release strategy for single-player games

The crew also reacts live to Capcom Spotlight news, discusses the rapid failure of the live-service game High Guard, shares impressions of hit titles like Resident Evil Requiem and Pokémon Pecopia, and wraps things up with Mega Man fan contest shenanigans and listener mail.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Xbox’s Project Helix: Console-PC Hybrid Confirmed

[02:21 – 11:00]

• News Drop: Xbox CEO Asha Sharma confirms the next-gen Xbox ("Project Helix") will natively play PC games, blending the lines between console and PC.
• Immediate Panel Reactions:
  • Justin David: "If it plays PC games, then it’s a PC, right? This is a PC that plays Xbox games." [03:41]
  • Sam Claybor: "A console is a freaking PC. They’re just computers. That’s all they are, right?"
  • Discussion spirals on what defines a console vs. a PC (closed system, price, upgradeability).
  • Mark Medina foresees high pricing ($1,200–$1,500) but expects multiple SKUs.
  • Justin: Appreciates Xbox’s bold marketing swagger despite being in a “back foot” position:
    "Even planting the flag of, like... we’re gonna lead on performance. It’s console war stuff, but I’m here for it." [08:30]
  • Concerns about whether "console" as a term is even applicable anymore.
  • Hopes/Speculation: Will it support Steam, Epic, GoG, etc.? Mouse/keyboard? How open will the system be?

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2. PlayStation’s Exclusive Reversal: PC Strategy Walkback

[12:20 – 18:38]

• News Summary: Bloomberg reports Sony will stop porting single-player games to PC after a period of PS5 exclusivity; only online/multiplayer titles will continue day-and-date or easily follow to PC.

  • Possible reasons: Underperforming PC sales, negative impact on PlayStation’s unique brand as a result of wider multiplatform launches.

• Panel’s Analysis:

  • Justin David: "Putting all your games on PC is... coming from a position of weakness in the console market. That’s the only reason you’d do it." [16:38]
  • Damon Hatfield: Argues the novelty of PS exclusives on PC wore off; initial PC ports (Horizon Zero Dawn, God of War) did well, but more recent efforts saw "diminishing returns."
  • Mark Medina: "Much more beneficial for them to have people in their ecosystem... It's just bean counters looking and being like, 'Hey, less people are buying the PS5 because they think the games will just come to Steam.'"
  • Compares PlayStation's new approach to Nintendo’s long-term policy of keeping its titles platform-exclusive—and their financial success.
  • Sam Claybor (joking, ref PC gamers): "They’re totally getting cucked by Xbox, who’s going to put all their friend-slop exclusives and garlic-like crap clones... on Steam. What a terrible week." [17:55]

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3. Capcom Spotlight: Resident Evil, Mega Man, and More

[02:21, 47:13 – 49:22, and scattered]

• Resident Evil Requiem: 5 million copies sold at launch. The panel praises the opening sections and discusses the divisive latter half of the game.
  • Sam Claybor: "The game literally goes back to that first part of the game two more times after the part that they don’t like." [23:02]
• Mega Man Boss Fan Contest: Community picks the next Mega Man boss from 10,000+ entries; panel riffs on the absurdity of entries like Cleansers, Sweepers, and Cactus Man.
  • Damon Hatfield: "I would agree with Sam. I think Cactus Man sounds the best here." [48:31]
• Onimusha: New trailer dropped, but no release date.

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4. Rapid-Fire Failure: The Short Life of High Guard

[33:45 – 45:52]

• High Guard: Launched Jan 26, 2026, dead by March 12—just 45 days post-release.

  • Mark Medina (who played and reviewed it): "The big criticism for the game was... I played it for one evening and I was done. There was nothing else to do." [34:27]

  • The hosts debate the futility of the current "live service roulette" business model:

    Damon Hatfield: "What business sense does it make to just spend all that time and all that money working on a game that has to be a hit right away or else... you shut it all down?" [37:31]

  • Cites Tencent’s involvement and parallels to big studio cost-cutting culture.

  • Lessons: Early access/beta, fostering organic community, influencer marketing—none are a guarantee. The crew reiterates the risks, especially for new multiplayer titles in a market dominated by Fortnite, Apex, etc.

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5. Hit Games: Resident Evil Requiem & Pokémon Pecopia Impressions

[24:42 – 32:00]

• Resident Evil Requiem: Damon, Sam, and Mark discuss progress and lore details. Panel praises both style and substance.

  • Damon’s question: "Was Leon always this cool?" [24:11]
  • Sam: "Only in [Resident Evil] 4... In 2 he’s a noob... In 4, he’s a badass." [24:18]

• Pokémon Pecopia: Justin’s new favorite; finds the game’s hybrid mechanics (life sim + Dragon Quest Builders + Stardew/Minecraft) highly compelling:
  "What it actually secretly is, is it’s like... Dragon Quest Builders, which I love. And it’s much more like that than Animal Crossing." [25:11]

  • Sam and Justin discuss Pecopia’s checklist-style gameplay, surprisingly deep lore, accessibility for Pokémon and non-Pokémon fans, and the creative freedom the game offers.

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6. Games as a Service: Should They Expire by Design?

[49:26 – 54:14]

• Listener Mail: Mason from Texas asks, "Would service games succeed if they launched with a known end date or content roadmap?"

  • Justin David: "The problem is the exact opposite—they want to believe this is a treadmill that will last forever, the party will never stop... consumer confidence needs to be intact." [50:34]

  • Sam Claybor (contrarian, humor): Proposes Peter Molyneux–style "apocalypse countdown" ideas where the game world ends after x years; 3D print your final avatar as a memento.

  • Group conclusion: Gamers want permanence and continuity—knowing something will end is a turnoff for engagement or spending, though a creative twist could work for some titles.

  • Notable Quote: "Modern video games are toil, right? ... The idea of that all being, quote-unquote, not for anything? It’s horrible for gamers to contemplate. I mean, it’s all a grind." – Justin David [53:28]

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7. Gaming Nostalgia & Listener Reflections

[54:34 – 60:01]

• Multiple listeners write in to explain why they re-listen to years of Game Scoop! episodes: nostalgia, following the show’s evolution, "comfort food" value, and the unique personalities.
• Old segments and running jokes remembered fondly; Damon’s early policy to confiscate guests’ phones for focus came up.
• Panel expresses honest gratitude—and disbelief—at superfan dedication.

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8. Other Standout Segments

• Market Trends in Shooter Genres: Third-person cosmetic-focused shooters (e.g., Fortnite, Marvel Rivals) now thrive over first-person; more incentive for microtransactions.
  • Mark Medina: "It allows them to make more money because it's worth it to buy the skins because then people get to see the skins that they're buying." [42:56]
• Video Game 20 Questions ([61:15 – 77:40]): Featured game—Sky Kid (Namco/Sunsoft), a lesser-known NES arcade side-scrolling airplane game.
  • The group gets close but doesn’t win; tribute to deep NES trivia.
• Bonus Banter: Resident Evil lore jokes, discussion about the Daniel Craig-era Bond films, and some vivid descriptions of wild viral videos (fast object sorter, bizarre internet challenges).

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Notable/Entertaining Quotes

• On Xbox Helix:
  "If it plays PC games, then it’s a PC, right?" — Justin David [03:41]

• On PlayStation's Shift:
  "Putting all your games on PC is a... position of weakness in the console market." — Justin David [16:38]

• On High Guard’s Failure:
  "What business sense does it make to just... shut it all down if it’s not a success in the first week? In what world, what sort of business plan is that?" — Damon Hatfield [37:31]

• On Service Games:
  "They want to believe this is a treadmill that will last forever, the party will never stop..." — Justin David [50:34]
  "Modern video games are toil, right?... The idea of that all being... not for anything? It’s horrible for gamers to contemplate." — Justin [53:28]

• On Resident Evil Lore:
  "Fun video would be: Is this a real or fake Resident Evil lore fact? You would never be able to tell." — Justin David [23:39]

• On Mega Man Bosses:
  "I think Gabe Newell is Valve Man." — Mark Medina [48:09]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [02:21 – 11:00] Project Helix/Xbox as a PC/Console Hybrid
• [12:20 – 18:38] PlayStation walks back PC single-player strategy
• [24:42 – 32:00] Resident Evil Requiem and Pokémon Pecopia impressions
• [33:45 – 45:52] High Guard’s quick collapse and live service risks
• [47:13 – 49:22] Capcom Mega Man boss contest results, Onimusha
• [49:26 – 54:14] Listener mail: Should live service games be finite?
• [54:34 – 60:01] Listener nostalgia and old Game Scoop! memories
• [61:15 – 77:40] Video Game 20 Questions (Sky Kid, Namco/Sunsoft)
• End: Extended post-show banter on Bond films and in-jokes

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Tone & Style

• Language: Informal, playful, self-deprecating, occasionally irreverent
• Vibe: Knowledgeable but fun—a mix of sincere industry analysis, rapid-fire jokes, nostalgia, and genuine audience appreciation.

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Final Thoughts

This episode of Game Scoop! captures the crossroads the gaming industry faces in 2026, blending expert breakdowns of Xbox and PlayStation’s tectonic shifts with banter, trivia, retro love, and listener engagement. Whether you’re keeping an eye on the future (console-as-PC, exclusives wars, multiplayer “roulette”) or waxing nostalgic for Mega Man bosses and NES obscurities, this scoop has “a little bit of everything”—including, of course, the pickles.

Transcript

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[Damon Hatfield]

What's up Everybody? Welcome to IGN GamesCube. I'm your host Damon Hatfield and joining me this week are Mark Medina.

[Mark Medina]

I'm here baby. Nick's not here.

[Damon Hatfield]

What?

[Sam Claybor]

Sam Claybor hey, it's fantastic to be here.

[Damon Hatfield]

And Justin David. We got a great show for you this week. So much going on There's a Capcom spotlight happening right now that we can react to in real time. I know they already announced that Pragmata is being moved up a week. That's interesting. There's also good news about Resident Evil Requiem doing very well right out the gate. $5 million or 5 million copies sold at launch. So that's everything's coming up Milhouse for Resident Evil Requiem. But first, breaking news just today that coincides with what our headlining topic was going to be anyway. Asha Sharma, new CEO of Xbox, confirmed today that the next generation Xbox is going to also play PC games. She also revealed has the codename Project Helix. So it's true. It's finally confirmed.

[Sam Claybor]

Nothing that the Umbrella Corporation couldn't have come up with.

[Justin David]

It was crazy. I mean, like, I had such a busy day today and I stepped away from my computer for 12 minutes to go eat the world's fastest saddest lunch and. And I came back and sat down on my computer to new Xbox consoles.

[Mark Medina]

He's never leaving his desk again.

[Sam Claybor]

And there's some details with this, right?

[Mark Medina]

I mean, not really kind of.

[Justin David]

Well, just that it plays PC games right now.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah.

[Sam Claybor]

So what you're telling me is that this entire time we could have just made consoles that play PC games this whole time?

[Justin David]

Yeah, that's what I'm going to say. Like I've said it many times on this show. I'm going to say it again. The Xbox series X is my favorite console of this generation. Generation. I like Xbox. I like the franchises. But this announcement, it's so. They're so clever with how they like. Yeah, we're making a new game console, a new Xbox. And by the way, it plays PC games. And I'm like, wait a second, wait a second. Like if it plays PC games, then it's a PC, right? This is a PC that plays Xbox games.

[Sam Claybor]

No, Justin, it's a console that plays PC games. Okay, so all Master Race stuff, all the Neo Nazis out there that are just somehow. We didn't have to go through any of that. Just from the very start, they could have been like, oh, would you like Ms. DOS word processing on your Super Nintendo? We could have done that.

[Justin David]

Yep. Understood. That clears it all up for me.

[Damon Hatfield]

They did put a couple of PC games on the Nintendo 64.

[Justin David]

They did Starcraft 64.

[Sam Claybor]

It is funny to think about. Look, first of all, they have their own, you know, games for Windows. So it's like they don't. They don't mean that. Like, the easiest thing to think about here would be like, oh, it just boots up. You could play Steam games on it. But it's not going to do that because.

[Mark Medina]

No, I think it will.

[Justin David]

I think it will. There's Epic Game stores, obviously. You know, they've been talking about that for a while.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, Yeah, I think it'll be Epic Steam. I think it'll be. It'll be their Windows full screen experience on console.

[Damon Hatfield]

But good old games on there.

[Justin David]

Yeah.

[Mark Medina]

Any of them humble?

[Sam Claybor]

What about a mouse and keyboard? Mouse and, or keyboard?

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, you could do one or the other. Can't do both. Yeah. I, I think this long confirms what we've all known. Right. Is that they're kind of going the hybrid way. I, I question the word console. I, I've long thought that. I'm not entirely sure that there is going to be next Xbox console games.

[Sam Claybor]

Okay. I think it's going to be joking aside. And I have a lot more jokes. Just a lot more. A console is a freaking PC. They're just computers. That's all they are. Right. So what?

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, but they're closed.

[Sam Claybor]

What makes it play PC? Well, they're not though, right? You can just put Netflix on your Xbox and all this stuff too.

[Justin David]

It's like for some.

[Mark Medina]

But those are approved apps, right? They're not like.

[Sam Claybor]

But if you're saying PC is close to. It's close to whatever works on Windows or Mac, it's just. That's nonsense. It's a nonsense difference.

[Mark Medina]

No, I don't here.

[Sam Claybor]

The point is that consoles are a lot freaking cheaper than a PC and they plug into a television.

[Mark Medina]

That's what is going to be. This thing's going to be $1300. They've already, they've even said like this is going to be a high quality experience. They know that this thing is going to be.

[Sam Claybor]

What if it's not over?

[Mark Medina]

I think it will be. I don't, I don't think there's any prayer that it's not anywhere from 12 to $1500. There is also likely going to be multiple versions of it.

[Justin David]

Yeah, I mean I'm going to buy it. I like it. You know, I like xbox, I like PC gaming. I'm into it. And this is, I mean, look, this is a thin announcement so we don't have a ton to talk about, but not for nothing, like I think that the code name and the font and little logo are pretty slick. Like it passes that kind of like first, like, ooh, that looks cool. Like, you know, so yeah, I like all that stuff. But like it just, it's very, you know, I'm just very tickled by like yes, we're announcing our next generation console. It plays PC games. That means it's Windows.

[Damon Hatfield]

Like this is a Windows machine and nobody likes Windows.

[Sam Claybor]

I, somebody must like it.

[Mark Medina]

Nobody likes Copilot. When it says console and it says Xbox games, I think they mean Xbox Series X Games because their whole play anywhere initiative I think has been a way for people to start building up their Xbox PC library to soften the blow that the next console is just a PC and that is where you'll play the game. So game, you know, I can't, you know, whatever that year's Call of Duty will be for PS6 and PC and that PC version will run on the Helix. I think that's what it is.

[Justin David]

Yeah, I think, I probably agree with that. I mean, obviously we'll find out more in the months and years to come. I, I like, look, this is marketing speak. It's a two sentence announcement. But even, even just the commitment, the claim, like they say in their announcement, we will lead on performance. And you know, look, don't take them at face value. Watch ign, watch other people to sort of do the benchmarks and see how these different games run. But like even planting the flag of like, like Nintendo doesn't ever claim they're gonna lead on performance. Right? So I like, I like kind of the bold.

[Sam Claybor]

No, they brag about not leading on

[Mark Medina]

performance, but Xbox always does that. Right. Though they've done that since the one year.

[Justin David]

But I like it, I like that they're, you know, look, and again I say this as a fan, but Xbox is on the back foot undeniably. Right. And so I like that they're not giving up on their stuff swagger, right? That they're like, no, like, I like, I like, I like the statement we're gonna lead on performance. It's, it's, it's, you know, it's console war. But I'm here for it.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, I, I think, I think the device is going to be cool. I think it's gonna be super powerful. I, I, the device, I think it's gonna be super expensive. I refuse to call it a PC or a console. It can't be both.

[Sam Claybor]

I don't know. I, I think, I really do think console implies they're gonna get a bunch of stuff to be running at really high power for a cheap price. I think that's what that means. And the reason why PC is that a PC, you can open up, change a bunch of parts in it, make It a better PC, a console, there is an advantage to not doing that because you actually build a thing around these, you know, the set of parts that you can, as a group save a bunch of money on. That's why when you buy like a. You know, in 2001, when you bought a Gateway PC, it was cheaper than building your own PC because they, like, figured out all these ways to cut corners and cram everything in the box. That's what a console has always been. So if you cram everything in the box, make it really powerful, make it have some kind of ecosystem where you can play Steam games up, I don't think it'll be that expensive because I don't think anything's going to be expensive. If we ever solve the basics here, which is like, you know, either everything's going to be expensive on Earth because inflation's insane, tariffs are insane, AI is making everything expensive, or, or, or like we solve all those things and another console comes out. Like, it's not going to be because they want to make it the most powerful console.

[Justin David]

This thing, this thing's going to be $1,300, and it's going to play PC games and the PS6 is going to be $1,000.

[Damon Hatfield]

That's.

[Mark Medina]

That's exactly what I was going to say. Like, I think it's going to be expensive, but compared to the competition, it. It'll probably seem kind of normal because

[Sam Claybor]

by then we're talking about Big Max, which will be $25. Right. So that's the. I'm sorry, what's the new. What's the new one that.

[Justin David]

The.

[Mark Medina]

The big arch or something? I don't know. I saw the video, the CEO eating it, and it was the worst. It was the worst thing I've ever seen.

[Sam Claybor]

See, that's when you have to be thankful of your new Xbox CEO. When you see something like that happen. If you haven't watched that, everybody go out and watch the new CEO of McDonald's introduce the new, you know, what did he call it?

[Mark Medina]

Product, like 10 times.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, I love this product.

[Justin David]

Like, I think that. I think that being the CEO of a video game, you know, of Xbox or a PlayStation, is an incredibly hard job. It's an impossible job. But what is not hard is saying, like saying the right stuff is so easy. Just say, we're going to have the most powerful console and we're going to have exclusive games that you all love, and then that's it.

[Sam Claybor]

He says, I'm going to eat this for lunch later.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, it's just, it's just a double quarter pounder.

[Mark Medina]

It's all it is with the Big Mac sauce.

[Sam Claybor]

You know, according to fractions, it's a half pounder.

[Mark Medina]

I feel bad that Justin tried to keep it on the rails there.

[Justin David]

I just. I like that. Yeah. I like the.

[Damon Hatfield]

Oh my mouse bite.

[Justin David]

Wow.

[Sam Claybor]

Yeah. What a good.

[Mark Medina]

Have you seen that picture of RFK on the plane with Trump? And they're all like, they have all that McDonald's and he just looks like, he just looks miserable. That's what this is invoking. But this guy's actually trying to sell the product.

[Justin David]

The thing is, as soon as the camera turns off, I'm going to eat the whole thing.

[Sam Claybor]

It's like, like, even though this went viral for being unappetizing and sad, it still made me want McDonald's. For the first time in 25 years, I even thought about McDonald's till now.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, I also love his quote. And of course the pickles.

[Sam Claybor]

Do you see that the box for it looks a lot like a Series X?

[Mark Medina]

Oh, I didn't.

[Damon Hatfield]

I feel like you could add that anywhere. You're listing things like the new Xbox will play Xbox games and PC games and of course the pickles. Okay, get back, get back on track. So next Xbox plays PC games. There's a Steam machine that's going to sit under your TV and can play a bunch of Xbox games and a bunch of PlayStation games that have already been released. Whereas PlayStation. This was going to be our lead story today is sort of walking back their their strategy of bringing their games to PC some after some period of exclusivity on PS5, they're returning to console exclusivity, at least for their single player games, it seems so. This comes from a report from Bloomberg says while Sony will continue to release online games on PC, single player games will now remain console exclusive. This is a significant strategy shift. Bloomberg suggested poor recent sales of PlayStation games on PC and the risk to the PlayStation brand were to blame for the policy shift. And in case anyone has forgotten, they have actually put out a lot of games on PC in recent years. Just in the recent the last few years, PlayStation has allowed PC gamers access to Spider Man 1 and 2 and Miles Morales, Horizon Zero dawn and Forbidden West, Returnal, Beyond Two Souls, Ghost of Tsushima, The Last of Us, Parts 1 and 2, Days Gone, God of War 2018 and Ragnarok, Ratchet and Rift Apart, Sackboy, A Big Adventure, Uncharted Legacy of Thieves Collection, Stellar Blade and Until Dawn. So they've been doing this a Lot. And if they're changing Mark, what do you think would be causing the change of heart?

[Mark Medina]

Well, I mean they, the article says poor sales, right? Which is, you know, of course, like, I think it's very short sighted for them to put, put games on PC and, and be like, okay, we got, you know, however many sales, you know, $500,000, a million dollars, whatever that, whatever the number is there, there are much smarter bean counters looking and being like, hey, less people are buying the PS5 because they think that the games will just come to see Steam. And so instead of chasing the short term win, we need to force people to buy our console because every game sold on their console they get a cut of. Right. So it's like you buy, you buy Horizon on Steam and PlayStation gets 70% of that while Gabe Newell gets the other 30%. So it's just much more beneficial for them to have people in their ecosystem.

[Damon Hatfield]

But if someone buys Resident evil wrecking on PC, PlayStation sees none of that.

[Mark Medina]

Whereas if they bought it on PS5, they get 30%. Right.

[Justin David]

The games were single player action adventure games and they were years and years and years old. Like buy this game that is four years old, full price. We put it on a new platform. It's nice, it's nice if you're only a PC gamer and you have a high end PC. It's great to have the option, but it's not like they shouldn't be all like surprised Pikachu face when the games didn't sell very well. Like, you know, they were old. Like it was all old news by the time they released almost all of them.

[Mark Medina]

The ports were also kind of famously bad.

[Justin David]

Well, some of them like Mixed bag,

[Mark Medina]

Spider Man 2, Last of Us, they, they came out and they weren't great. I think Horizon was pretty good though.

[Damon Hatfield]

That's what I was gonna say. So Helldivers 2 was a huge hit. It was a bigger hit on PC than. Right, yeah.

[Mark Medina]

Which, which in this scenario would have still went to PC because that's a live service game. They're saying live service.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yes. Yeah. And it was also day one. It wasn't a port of an old game. And I think the first single player games that the initial wave were big hits on Steam. I think it was Horizon Zero dawn and God of War. 2018 and even days Gone was a surprisingly huge hit on Steam. But I think since then I think they've seen diminishing returns because I think the novelty of playing PlayStation games on your PC has worn off. Plus, you know, is the PC audience, you know, just waiting on Ratchet and Clank, Rift apart, you know.

[Mark Medina]

Right, right.

[Damon Hatfield]

Probably not. So if they're not selling that many copies on Steam and they are devaluing the PlayStation brand because every time you put a game there, that's one game you don't have to buy a PS5 for.

[Sam Claybor]

Yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

Maybe it just looked, in the long run it made more sense to keep games exclusive.

[Justin David]

Well, games on Steam. I mean, Xbox can claim all they want, like, oh, we just want as many people playing our games as possible. But like, no, like, putting all your games on PC is a. It's coming from a position of weakness in the console market. Right. That's the only reason you would do it. Like, you would much, much rather be selling millions and millions of consoles and having everybody in your console ecosystem. Like, it's really. It's really not that much more complicated than that, in my opinion. Like, PS5 is number one. And so they don't need to support the PC market. Yeah, the PC market's a threat. It's a competitor to them. Right.

[Mark Medina]

I was going to say the same thing. Like. Like, even if it's not a financial thing, they let Xbox run the test on what for your brand. And I don't care how much people love Xbox, whatever, we know that that brand is diminished given the fact that their games are everywhere. Right. And so PlayStation might have looked at that and said, that's our future. If we keep going down this path that people want, everyone will just get a computer. They'll just get the Steam Deck and the Xbox Helix and they're going to play our games there. We don't want that. We want them to buy a PS6.

[Damon Hatfield]

They can also look the other direction and find an example of someone enjoying phenomenal success without ever putting a single game on Steam.

[Justin David]

Nintendo.

[Mark Medina]

It's Nintendo.

[Sam Claybor]

So think of what a terrible week this is for PC exclusive fans. I won't use the term. So this week they get God of War, Ragnarok, last of us, taken away from them in the future. They want to have these games in their PC anymore, and they're totally getting cucked by Xbox, who's going to put all their friendslop exclusives and garlic like crap clones. You can only play on Steam. You can only play those on Steam on a console. Can you believe it? Can you believe it? What a terrible week.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, what a terrible week to have a curse.

[Sam Claybor]

What are the other PC exclusives these days? Is Arc Raiders a PC exclusive? I don't even know.

[Justin David]

I mean, it's, it's.

[Sam Claybor]

Yeah, there you go.

[Mark Medina]

Anything? Early access. Like, I just played Windrose all weekend and I'm like, man, I would love to sit on my couch and play this with a controller.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah.

[Sam Claybor]

Do we even care that the Steam, that the Xbox can play Steam games?

[Justin David]

I mean, the PC exclusives are like, you know, the, the games with little guys running around, like, you know, Paradox games or Dwarf Fortress likes, as I call them.

[Sam Claybor]

Or what about the Factorios.

[Justin David]

Yeah, exactly. All those.

[Damon Hatfield]

That's on Switch.

[Justin David]

All those nerd games where, you know, you just lord over your little minions with your keyboard and mouse.

[Mark Medina]

That's.

[Justin David]

Those are.

[Sam Claybor]

Those are PC games cocked by Helix.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

Well, interesting times ahead.

[Justin David]

Yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

What has been happening? We still have. There's still no news coming out of the Capcom spotlight.

[Sam Claybor]

Well,

[Damon Hatfield]

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[Sam Claybor]

The longest part of the process, I'm

[Justin David]

thinking, is going to be staying on

[Damon Hatfield]

hold with my current provider, trying to break up with them.

[Justin David]

I mostly use it to just scroll

[Damon Hatfield]

on social media and click things that I like anyway. So why am I paying like several hundred dollars a month to do that? Stop paying way too much for wireless just because that's how it's always been. Mint exists purely to fix that. Mint Mobile is here to rescue you with premium wireless plans starting at 15 bucks a month. All plans come with high speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. Bring your own phone and number, activate with ESIM in minutes and start saving immediately. No long term contracts, no hassle. Ditch overpriced wireless and get three months of premium wireless service from Mint Mobile for 15 bucks a month. If I were in the market for a new wireless plan, I'd be looking at Mint Mobile. If you like your money, Mint Mobile is for you. Shop [e-mail] Gamescoop that's mintmobile.com Gamescoop upfront payment of $45 for 3 month 5 gigabyte plan required equivalent to $15 a month. New customer offer for first 3 months only. Then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details. Then let's talk about resident evil requiem. 5 million copies so far. We talked about this last week, so we're not going to dwell on it. But I'm still making my way through it. I've left the hospital and now I'm in that big open area with Leon. And I saw people in the Facebook group talking about how the first half of the game is like the best Resident Evil has ever been and the last half of the game sucks.

[Justin David]

Oh no.

[Damon Hatfield]

And I know Sam was like saying this is not how he felt last week. And so far I've done like that first big boss fight that a lot of people are talking about. And so far I'm not. I'm not. I'm still enjoying it so far. So we'll see.

[Sam Claybor]

We'll see how people that are saying that haven't played the game because the game literally goes back to that first part of the game two more times after the part that they don't like.

[Damon Hatfield]

Okay, cool.

[Mark Medina]

I think you'll like it. I liked it. I. I do. You are Coming up on the part that people say that they don't like, but I think it's fine.

[Sam Claybor]

And it's like two hours of kicking ass is Leon. And it's really fun.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

They bring back a character who I think we're. It's from like Resident Evil 0. Is that right, Sam? We don't need to name the character. But like, I didn't know who this was. I thought it was someone else. And then Sam was like, no, no, no. This is this, this other person I didn't know.

[Sam Claybor]

It's like a look alike villain.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Sam Claybor]

Which is really confusing.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah.

[Mark Medina]

And has the same like powers and shit.

[Sam Claybor]

Yeah, yeah.

[Justin David]

Resident Evil lore is someone that hasn't played a Resident Evil game in probably almost 20 years. The lore is just unbelievable. It's just like, like here'd be a fun project, a fun video would be like, is this a real or fake Resident Evil lore fact? And like, you would never be able to tell.

[Mark Medina]

That's because the game used to be about zombies. And it's not.

[Damon Hatfield]

I mean, there's still a lot of zombies in this.

[Mark Medina]

There are a lot of zombies, but there's a lot of other things too.

[Sam Claybor]

And they call them zombies, which I always.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yes, I saw. Leon had just had a line last night like, this place is crawling with zombies.

[Justin David]

Also.

[Damon Hatfield]

Leon always was Leon always this cool?

[Sam Claybor]

Yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

I feel like 100% whole zeitgeist of

[Sam Claybor]

he only in four. In two, he's a noob, remember? So he's just learning the ropes and they're welcoming him to the police station. And four, he's a badass though. He's saving the president's daughter.

[Damon Hatfield]

That's true. And then he, bad dude style, takes her home by riding a jet ski across the Atlantic Ocean.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

I love Leon. He's so great.

[Mark Medina]

He's very cool.

[Damon Hatfield]

Is it the same actor from the RE4 remake?

[Mark Medina]

It is.

[Sam Claybor]

It is.

[Damon Hatfield]

Okay.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

That's cool. That's very cool.

[Sam Claybor]

Yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

Okay. Well, Justin, what have you been playing instead of Resident Evil Requiem?

[Justin David]

Well, I just started playing Pokemon Pocopia. And I love it. Even as someone. I'm not a big Pokemon guy. It's really cool so far. And like, I like it even more. And you know, these are very early impressions. I played it last night and a little bit this morning and I, you know, I knew I thought I would like it. It's like, oh, it's a Pokemon game that sort of crossed with Animal Crossing and crossed with Stardew Valley. So it's a Little bit more of like a life sim. But I like it even more than I expected it to, because what it actually secretly is, is it's like. It's a Dragon Quest Builders, like, which I love. Dragon Quest Builders. And it's much more like that than Animal Crossing. I see that.

[Sam Claybor]

Game Boy, that's cool.

[Justin David]

Yeah, it's super cool. So it's a little bit like, you know, like a Minecraft or a game. You know, you have some freedom to sort of, you know, create terrain or destroy terrain or sort of build things how you want, but it's a lot more guided and directed. And what you're doing is you're trying to build these. There's these little puzzles to make a habitat for a Pokemon, and sometimes they give you little clues of what the habitat is. Like, you have to put four pieces of tall grass next to a rock, or you have to put, you know, flowers next to a tree. And like, I'm in the early game, so they're, like, very kind of simple habitats. I'm assuming they get a little bit more complex later and so sort of meeting those requirements for, like, what do I need and how do I want to build out my space. So the fact that you get to be creative and kind of build out your area how you want, but. But it's. But it's still guided and directed is. I don't know. It's like. It. It. It's really compelling so far.

[Sam Claybor]

And it's not annoying from the start either. It's. No, it has a good first couple hours.

[Justin David]

And I think that. And. And, like. And I say this with. With love and affection, but, like, this is a checklist game, right? Like, just gives you a. Yeah, it gives you a laundry list of kind of chores to do, like, pick up these sticks and gather rocks and do this. But, like, it's sort of the best example of that kind of game I've played in a long time, I would say, so far.

[Mark Medina]

Dude. So smart to be like, you're ditto. And that's your explanation for why you can do everything. It's great.

[Sam Claybor]

There's some, like, sad lore behind that. Ditto. And, like, where are the humans? Like, what's going on? Is all really cool. I think it's funny to compare it to Dragon Quest Builders because I've never even heard of that game. And so now I have a great.

[Damon Hatfield]

They made two of them.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah.

[Sam Claybor]

I have a great game to play after this, which is great because I'm loving it. And, like, what I've taken away from it most of all is that so you're doing. There's 200 or so habitats and 300 Pokemon. But so there's a lot to figure out. There's a lot of combos to do and a lot to sort while you're doing that though, like so far like everything, every time you unlock a Pokemon they do something useful, right? So it's like I'm really curious about the late game reasons for unlocking are. And like what the complexity becomes.

[Damon Hatfield]

Super cool.

[Justin David]

I love that. Like, you know, I like games. This is a weird comparison to make, but it reminds me a little bit of a Vampire Survivors where like something weird unlocks something new and then that thing unlocks something new and then that thing unlocks something new. And like the connection like the map of like, you know, I unlocked a Hitmonchan and that gave me this move and that let me do this and that let me unlock this and that let me unlock this is like really complex and cool and like, you know, it feels like you're kind of peeling apart layers of an onion. I really, I really like it and I feel like, like I'm not a Pokemon person. I've actually never played any of the Pokemon role playing games. So it's like, you know, I don't. I know them as someone that's been in the video game space my entire life. But like, I feel like if I was a Pokemon fanatic, I'd be losing my mind over this game. And so they, they are even just someone as like, you know, just, just as a fan of video games, like it, it totally works on that level too.

[Sam Claybor]

So I, I also like really respect Nintendo's like seal of quality that they actually use for games like this. They bring it out once in a while where you know, you can see the lessons they learned from Animal Crossing. Like that menu that pops up like looks like Animal Crossing, right? Like there's, there's things in this game and then there's like a sheen of Switch two graphics to it. Like things like I know it looks kitty when you're watching it in a video picture in picture on Game Scoop. But like when you see it like playing on your Switch 2, like it looks great. It just looks really good. It's not supposed to, it's supposed to be functional but it looks really good. So I like that about it. And then there's also like the. Why are you playing this game? Like to unlock Pokemon to make more things, to clean stuff. There's actually a through line good mystery because I love Pokemon. I've played all the RPGs except for maybe, like, I don't know, two out of 20 or something like that. Like, I. I know it really well, and it's always really boring to walk around and talk to NPCs. All they have to say is, don't you like Pokemon? Pokemon are your best friends. You know, I have an item that. That for you. Like, that's all that happens in them. And everybody's talking about friendship. There's this overall thing, like, first game, you get Team Rocket. They always have this kind of, you know, villain set that you're beating in gyms and all that stuff. This has nothing to do with that. You're a Ditto. And all the humans are gone, and it's a mystery. And that's cool. It's a cool setup because you're kind of in an apocalypse. Like, there's like, everything's just destroyed. There's a destroyed Pokemon center. There's all these Kanto region Pokemon. Like, the reason for being there is like, it's just. And like, you as a Ditto, are imitating your trainer from the start. And like, all the Pokemon are surprised about that. It's just cool. Like, it, like that lore is like, pretty good for Pokemon. It's not good for, like, humanity because it's really stupid, but it's good for Pokemon.

[Justin David]

Yeah.

[Mark Medina]

So the mystery Dragonite flying, that was you? Because I saw the Lapras and then he, like, he, like, turned it. I don't know.

[Sam Claybor]

You have. So far, all I can tell is Pokemon follow you. And because you're Ditto, when Bulbasaur shows you how to cut or grow grass, then you just have that ability because you. You can mimic the ability. Like right there, the Ditto. Just use Scyther.

[Justin David]

Yeah, you like the. Again, the early game impression is like, I'm pretty invested in, like, the lore and storyline of like, where is this all going? So, yeah, I'm into it. Nice.

[Damon Hatfield]

Well, I'm not a Pokemon guy either, but Kingo is, so maybe this is

[Justin David]

something we can together. So, yeah, you would have to. That's. That was going to be. My advice is like, Nintendo, you know, for how family friendly they are, like modern Nintendo games. And I know this is developed by what, Koi Tecmo, I think. But anyway, like, there's a lot of reading is what I was going to say. So, you know, just something to be aware of if you have little ones.

[Damon Hatfield]

Well, a little anecdote I could share that Justin will appreciate is Kingo's learning to read. And he brings home books from school that are like meant for him to read to us. And like the first time he reads you a book, it's like you feel like it's complete wizardry. Like my son can read. Oh my God. It's been really, really cool to watch.

[Justin David]

Yeah. Anyway, I felt that about when they learned to talk too. I was like, what?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, several, several of those milestones.

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[Justin David]

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[Damon Hatfield]

let's talk about a game that's been in the news a lot this year, but we haven't really talked much about Here it's not the type of game most of us would play, except for Mark. And that's High Guard, which was launched on January 26, a day of kings, and is being shut down March 12. So 45 days, it's just yet. The latest in a long line of live service failures that did not get much. Runway to try and succeed. This was of course announced at the Game Awards in December. It was the big finale for the show. And here we are, what, through two, three months?

[Mark Medina]

Yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

And it's gone. So you actually played this, Mark, right?

[Mark Medina]

I did, yeah.

[Justin David]

Yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

And we gave it a seven. It's, you know, it's apparently a good game, right?

[Mark Medina]

I mean, yeah, good games. You mentioned Runway, right. And like having a chance to be successful. Games set that for themselves. Nobody told them this game needed to come out in January. And the big criticism for the game was that I played it for one evening and I was, I was, I was done. There was nothing else to do. And then they quickly rushed out of 5v5 mode. That didn't change anything. It just made it where there could be more players. Yeah, I, I, I don't know. This is a weird one because people seem to be blaming the players a little bit on this one. You didn't give the game a chance. And it's like nobody told you you had to come out in January with no content. So like, everybody gave the game a chance. The game had 150,000 people playing it on Steam.

[Sam Claybor]

That was such a wild day.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah. And then they had half of that by the end of the day. By the end of the week, they had, you know, an eighth of that and now they're in triple digit numbers. That is, that is, that's nobody's fault. We played it. It's kind of boring. And so then we stopped playing it.

[Justin David]

These games are a little bit of a popularity contest, right? Of like, you know, you play it if other people are playing and if, and if, if it doesn't, if it doesn't feel like it's going to sustain itself, then anyone, like, maybe there's this millions of people that are kind of High Guard curious, right? And they're like, well, why bother? Like, even before, even before the announcement that it was shutting down and being canceled, like, do I want to? It's a risk to invest your time and effort and energy and money into a game if it's not going to, you know, if you don't have consumer confidence that it's going to stick around. At last.

[Damon Hatfield]

Here's the part That I just. I just cannot wrap my head around that. It's a new studio. Wildlight. Former, like, respawn Devs. They hired 60 people. They work on this game for four years. But then if it's not a hit right out the gate, they have to shut the whole thing down. Like I said, they didn't have to

[Mark Medina]

hear me, but I can't hear anybody anymore.

[Damon Hatfield]

Oh, okay, stop. Dan Gilbert. Mark has lost us.

[Justin David]

We hear.

[Sam Claybor]

I can hear him.

[Justin David]

Yep, I hear him fine.

[Damon Hatfield]

Check, check, check.

[Sam Claybor]

Damon was just making a really good point, though.

[Justin David]

Rip. I just want to. I just want to leave and go play Pecopia.

[Sam Claybor]

I know.

[Damon Hatfield]

Well, after this, I'm. We're going to Disneyland, just Kim and I. Oh, dang. Disney After Dark.

[Sam Claybor]

Is it a theme night?

[Damon Hatfield]

I don't think it is. I think it's just a Disney After Dark.

[Mark Medina]

Hello.

[Sam Claybor]

Hey.

[Mark Medina]

Okay. Sorry about that. All of a sudden, my sound just completely went out.

[Justin David]

Okay.

[Mark Medina]

Never had that,

[Damon Hatfield]

Like, what business sense does it make to just spend all that time and all that money working on a game? That has to be. It has to be a hit right away or else I would think you. You would. When you plan your release, as Mark was saying, you set it for a time when you have enough cash to give yourself a Runway so that if things don't go smoothly right out the gate, you can tinker with it, you can listen to player feedback, you could pivot. But, like, what if you're. You're gonna make a new restaurant, you build the building, you hire your whole staff, you hire your chef, you plan the menu, you get an interior designer to design the thing, and then if it's not a success in the first week, ah, shut it all down. I just don't. In what world, what sort of business plan is that?

[Justin David]

Yeah, G. Because this, as sort of perverse and sad and wrong as the decision is, it makes a little bit more sense at a big company, at a big studio. Because then it's like, well, you know, look, let's cut our losses. And. And, And. And, you know, like Sony and Concord. Yeah.

[Sam Claybor]

They'll do, like, literally with it. Right. They'll actually write it off as part of their losses that year.

[Justin David]

Yeah. So they can literally write it off. And that staff, they're like, well, we should just have them working on something else. But if you're. If this is your whole company and your whole business, what was the point?

[Damon Hatfield]

What was the point?

[Mark Medina]

Well, I mean, it has to be a 10 cent thing, right? Because it was. It kind of came out that they were the ones funding it. So Tencent is probably just doing what Sony's doing, which is like, all right, we're writing this off you.

[Justin David]

You.

[Mark Medina]

Are you guys gonna be able to turn this around? Probably not. All right, then we're done. And then they lose all their.

[Sam Claybor]

Does give you a. It does do a little bit to explain why so many things do in early access or do you part of Steam Next Fest and then do Alpha, then a beta and all this stuff instead of like this was an attempt at almost a stealth launch. Right. Like the surprise announcement. It's out right away. It's an interesting experiment in that but it just shows you that there's an ecosystem to building why people would care about your game. And unfortunately paying influencers to play your game a bunch.

[Justin David]

Right.

[Sam Claybor]

Like doing all this stuff that gets in front of people, it's really hard to do it without that.

[Justin David]

That's exactly. And that's the Apex Legends model. And that's what, that's what these executives at this company. So it's like, you know, Apex Legends was surprise launched and they did exactly that. Paid a bunch of influencers to play their game and sort of sustain interest until there is enough of an ecosystem of kind of organic interest from fans that it could sustain itself. And like they tried to replicate that exact same thing with highguard and the market has just moved now. It's a different. You build and launch interest in your game in a different way.

[Sam Claybor]

Yeah. And speaking of the market moving, it's super risky to put out multiplayer games right now. If you thought two years ago that Marathon was going to come out after a game that everybody likes a lot and it's going to have to go up against a game called Arc Raiders. Nobody would believe that. That just wouldn't even be part of the conversation. And these are just such risky things because the whole idea of these games is that you're gonna make money off people for a long time. This is big, like, you know, kind of hangout platform that people are going to buy stuff in and have as a live service forever and everything. Like that's like, that's a lot to ask. Like if you're making a aaa, you know, single player game and you're like, well, we're just gonna have to sell a bunch of copies of that. That's just a completely different model.

[Justin David]

Yeah.

[Sam Claybor]

And I don't know what's more risky, but it does seem like right now that putting out these big multiplayer games is a little bit more risky because boy, there's no community. You don't, you're not going to sell anything.

[Justin David]

I mean, I think that they're, I, I, I, I hope that these companies don't have illusions like they're not dummies. Right. I think that it, I think that it's, you know, 99 of them are going to fail and then one of them is going to be Fortnite and make literally billions and billions and billions of dollars. Like, you know, and then it's like if you're a 10 cent, you're like, well, okay, like maybe we should, we

[Damon Hatfield]

can roll the dice on that.

[Justin David]

Yeah, yeah, but like rolling the dice

[Sam Claybor]

on these like kind of single player big experiences. I just don't know. Like, it seems to me it's a better choice. Like I would, like, I would only be saying this if I hadn't known that like last year Mafia was this giant success for 2K. Right? Like, was it? Yeah, yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

I don't know if it was a giant success, but I mean, bigger than

[Sam Claybor]

Mafia should have been, right? It was like, you know, one of their top sales, like, situations for last year. Yeah. I think that like, you know, like there's, we're seeing these big multiplayer companies get taken out of that game and put into making these multiplayer experiences. And I just wonder if that's going to shift after the many, many times we've seen this fail. But maybe to Justin's point, you just got to gamble on that. One out of 100.

[Justin David]

Go ahead.

[Mark Medina]

I was going to say there's also something weird about perspective when it comes to these games. So you had Overwatch, which is first person and, and like people liked it. People love that game for a really, really long time. But something that Marvel Rivals did different, which was going into third person, it allows them to make more money because it's worth it to buy the skins because then people get to actually see the skins that they're buying and it causes them to make more money. Right. And so it's, I'm thinking about the Arc Raiders Marathon comparison right now. Arc Raiders. A lot of the, not only is it fun to play, but a lot of the pursuit is to make your character look cool, whereas Marathon's first person. Yeah, I don't care what my character looks like ever. So I will never care about buying a skin or anything from that game. So it makes me wonder, you know, the longevity for that. And, and that's why Fortnite's so huge. Right. Every time a new skin comes out, people buy it because they want to Be Grace from Resident Evil and actually see your character.

[Justin David]

That's an interesting. I mean, in addition to the economics of, like, you know, how the game makes its money, there's. There's a. There's a game design, like the FPS. Like, for what, 20 years, FPS was like the dominant genre. And obviously Call of Duty and Battlefield are still some of the biggest things on earth. But, like, you know, but. But like, look, Fortnite's third person, right? It is not an FPS. So it's like there's been this kind of shift under our feet, kind of in plain view, but until you kind of say it out loud, it's interest. Like, you don't think about it as much of, like, maybe the era of, like, the dominant FPS is just kind of like, it's just. Maybe it's over.

[Mark Medina]

People want to see their.

[Sam Claybor]

They want to see that. But they bought well.

[Mark Medina]

And like, even like a game like Cyberpunk, six years later. We made a video about Cyberpunk, like, a month ago, and all the comments are like, but did they. It was like. And everything that's been added to the game that since launch, and all the comments on that video are still. Did they make it where you could play it in third person now? And I'm like, I don't. I wouldn't want that.

[Justin David]

But, like, that makes me sad. I feel like that's. People that don't. That don't get it.

[Mark Medina]

No, I know, because I think Cyberpunk is. Is wonderful in first person. I think games like Skyrim and stuff like that in third person are not great.

[Justin David]

And that's different. There's a difference between an FPS multiplayer shooter and a decision to be experiencing this world from a character's eyes. And the storyline of the game takes place in that character's head. And so it's important for you to sort of see out of that character's eyes and be immersed in the world. So, you know, I don't know, let's leave Cyberpunk out of it.

[Damon Hatfield]

Leave it alone. So with High Guard, some people were saying it was being the last big reveal at the game Awards that doomed it from the start. I don't know. That didn't do it any favors. But it's a new studio that nobody knows, a new ip. They have to partner with someone to make the announcement. Otherwise it's just this developer on Twitter that nobody knows saying, hey, we have this new free to play game coming out and no one's going to pay any attention to it.

[Mark Medina]

Right. I think you could theorize all this stuff. Did Jeff Keighley kill the game, blah blah blah. I think at the end of the game, at the end of the day, if the game was good, people will play it. Yeah, like I, I, I think that's all it boils down to.

[Justin David]

I mean it's a lot of, there's a lot of hindsight, you know, and sort of backseat, you know, backseat driving of like. Yeah, in hindsight there's all these op EDS and think pieces around how that reveal doomed it and yada yada. And then how weird it is that they revealed it at the game awards and then never like just never updated their social feeds again for weeks and weeks. But Damon, I, I think I agree if like you're an indie dev, you're a small dev, you know, like reveal your game of the game awards, yes or no. Like you know who's, who's not picking yes in that scenario.

[Mark Medina]

There's also just been from the devs discourse about like yeah, about it being written off from the start because of that announcement. But like I just don't buy it. They had 180,000 people playing on day one. People tried their best.

[Damon Hatfield]

Not quite, it was not quite a hundred. It was like 99 something.

[Mark Medina]

Regardless, people tried their game, they gave it a shot and they didn't like it. You blame it on whatever you want.

[Sam Claybor]

So just to, just to make sure that nobody thinks I'm crazy. Mafia outperformed sales. I think it did. We reported that at 800k in the first month that it was out, but it seemed to have done 1.2 million or more after that. And then there's a call in which Strauss Ellick said if you give consumers great narrative experience, that's a lot of fun, somewhat contained and at a fair price, then you can have a perfect result. So they were chalking it up to the cheaper price for that and then they said it outperformed the company's expectations and they compared it to a high point in this article written by some site called Gamespot that said it was the high point of the Take two earning call because of the GTA delay causing the company's stock price to pull.

[Mark Medina]

I'm sure, especially after Mafia 3. I'm sure that they were stoked with how well this game performed. Yeah, I also really like this game. I think it's great.

[Sam Claybor]

Me too. Great game.

[Damon Hatfield]

Still very good looking. But remember Sam, resident Evil did 5 million right out the gate.

[Sam Claybor]

Yeah. Well, we can't all be Leon S.

[Damon Hatfield]

Kennedy it certainly can't. Okay, we've got breaking news out of the Capcom Spotlight.

[Justin David]

No.

[Mark Medina]

What do we got?

[Damon Hatfield]

As is tradition, they held a contest for Capcom fans to pick to design a boss for Mega Man.

[Justin David]

Good. Oh, no.

[Damon Hatfield]

They've done this. Going all the way back to at least mega man 2. I don't know if they did it for the original Mega Man. So they had over 10,000 entries. Capcom picked the best 20, and then the community chose the six winners. But only one of these winners will actually be in the game. Anyway, here are the winners. Would you like to hear their names?

[Mark Medina]

Yeah.

[Justin David]

Here we go.

[Damon Hatfield]

Cleanser Man.

[Mark Medina]

What?

[Damon Hatfield]

Wait a minute. I'm just putting this together. Sweeper Woman.

[Mark Medina]

Wait, hold on, hold on, hold on. Okay.

[Damon Hatfield]

Recycle Man.

[Justin David]

Okay.

[Damon Hatfield]

Cactus Man.

[Justin David]

Okay.

[Sam Claybor]

Oh, that's gotta win.

[Damon Hatfield]

I love Cactor, Juggle man and Valve Man. And I can't believe there hasn't already been a Valve.

[Sam Claybor]

Well, there's already been a guy that pumps his own head.

[Justin David]

How is he not?

[Mark Medina]

I think Gabe Newell is Valve Man.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah.

[Mark Medina]

Why did the first three have like such a cleaning based, you know, theme? I thought that was gonna be the whole theme. And then a cactus.

[Sam Claybor]

A very clean country. Walk around those streets. You can't even throw stuff away in a trash can.

[Damon Hatfield]

There aren't any. Aren't even trash.

[Mark Medina]

That's Sweep Woman.

[Damon Hatfield]

Sweeper Woman.

[Mark Medina]

Sweeper Woman. Got it.

[Sam Claybor]

So that'd be the second woman after Splash Woman.

[Damon Hatfield]

I would agree with Sam. I think Cactus man sounds the best here.

[Justin David]

Oh, no, there's Sweeper Woman.

[Mark Medina]

Oh, that's.

[Damon Hatfield]

She's in the Maid. She's a maid of it. Well, if there's a community vote, that's gonna be the winner.

[Justin David]

She's got a vacuum.

[Mark Medina]

It's a bit sexist.

[Justin David]

Recycle Man, I think Cactus Man. Cactus man and Juggle.

[Mark Medina]

That's just Captain Planet as a robot.

[Sam Claybor]

Okay, okay. I could have done a better Cactus man, but I'll take it.

[Mark Medina]

That looks like a boss that would already exist in.

[Justin David]

It does. Yeah, exactly.

[Damon Hatfield]

They also showed a new over a gameplay overview trailer for Onimusha, but no release date, Unfortunately.

[Mark Medina]

That's just a character from arms. The Juggle Man. Oh, this one too. These are just arms characters.

[Sam Claybor]

He's a. He's a fireman.

[Mark Medina]

He's a. O. Yeah.

[Sam Claybor]

That's funny. These are really cute. Yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

Okay.

[Mark Medina]

I do like them.

[Sam Claybor]

Cactus man has to win.

[Damon Hatfield]

Let's check in with the listeners.

[Justin David]

Hey, listeners.

[Damon Hatfield]

Listeners. Remember, you can always reach us at the email address game scoop.com. just like Mason from Texas did, who says with the shutdown of High Guard just announced after it had only been live for a few months. I'm more ashamed than ever to say that I am a games as a service fan. Don't be not going to be ashamed

[Mark Medina]

of so am I.

[Damon Hatfield]

But it's obvious for everyone to see.

[Sam Claybor]

Only Mark should be ashamed of this.

[Mark Medina]

I don't want to. It is none of my business how much money I've spent on Marvel Rivals. I don't want to know. Don't tell me

[Damon Hatfield]

it's obvious for everyone to see that this business model isn't sustainable for anyone other than Epic, maybe Blizzard. I know there's lots to say about the art, style, gameplay, monetization, etc. But what I would like to offer as a solution to the service games industry and for your conversation consideration is this. Would games as a service games be more successful if they released with an end date in sight? Like if a game like Destiny released with a content roadmap for three years and then said that was the story they were telling and after that they're

[Sam Claybor]

moving on to hold on, we already solved this. The solution to see more but. Okay, that's the solution. See more buts.

[Justin David]

I think that the. Sorry, it was the question done or was there more?

[Damon Hatfield]

Do you think gamers would respond to that?

[Justin David]

That's all I think the problem is the exact opposite is they want to believe that this is a treadmill that will last forever, the party will never stop and all the time I'm investing in the loot I'm investing and the money I'm spending, it's the exact opposite of that, of the moment. There's an inkling that hey, this MMO might be in trouble or this gotcha game might shut down or this live service game game might not be around in a year or two. You've instantly destroyed your credibility and your ability to sort of keep. Keep your. Like I said, it's consumer confidence. They need to have some confidence that there's intrinsic value in like the money in the, of the skins and stuff they're putting into the game. Yeah. And so I, I think if they knew that this was only going to be around a certain amount of time, then nobody would would care. They want to, they want to believe in the fantasy that this is a forever game.

[Sam Claybor]

I want to believe I'm going to take the opposite. I, I believe what Justin's saying. I, I agree that Baltas, all disagreeable, plead the other side so the other side of this would Be, It'd be really cool to do a countdown game where there's like a countdown to an apocalypse or something where you are actually like working that into your narrative and at the end of it somebody wins a million dollars.

[Justin David]

Yeah, that's a Peter Molyneux joint for sure. A Peter Molyneux game. 100%. It's like in five years this game's going to shut down and the world's going to blow up and then something insane happens at the end of it and nobody can ever play the game again. That's such a cool idea.

[Sam Claybor]

What about if at the end of the game your final character, they printed a little plastic model of it and it's all the stuff you put into it and all the things that you added to that character become a visual 3D printed model that you get at the end.

[Justin David]

Yeah, yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

Here's what would happen. Mason from Texas, here's what would happen if they announced, Bungie announces Destiny 3 and they're like, we have a three year roadmap and then we're going to shut it down. If Destiny 3 is successful, by the time that end date comes around, Sony is going to be like, I don't think so. Yep, I don't think so.

[Justin David]

Thanks to the power of friendship and all of your efforts combined. Great news, everybody.

[Sam Claybor]

The world has been saved.

[Justin David]

Yeah, the world's been saved. Another three years.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yep.

[Mark Medina]

Now I, I think humans are, I think we, we like collecting things, right? Like the whole thing with the, with the console generation between PS4 and Xbox One is, as Phil Spencer has said, we lost, you know, the worst generation to lose because everybody built up their digital libraries on PlayStation and you know, I have my 25 or so platinum trophies over there. If the PS6 and, and project Helix came out, they were like, no backwards compatible, no, you know, trophies, no nothing. Then, then there would be quite the decision on which console you go for. But right now, like, I'm a lifetime Sony man, because that's where all my games and stuff are. And same with like Rivals. Like, I know my account's not worth anything, but I'd like to know that in 10 years all of my work is still there. And if you told me from the start that Rivals is only going to last for three years, then yeah, I probably wouldn't spend any money.

[Justin David]

No. Modern, modern video games are toil, right? And, and they, you know, and it's work and it's checking off boxes and the idea of that all being quote unquote, not like, not for anything. Oh, wow. Wow.

[Damon Hatfield]

Wow.

[Sam Claybor]

Celebrate. We're all gonna die.

[Justin David]

That's. It's like, you know, it's. It's horrible for gamers to contemplate something like that. I mean, it's all a grind.

[Sam Claybor]

That's all. That's. That's human existence, though. That's the. That's the human condition. We're all grinding for nothing. And, you know, even our progenitors will all be dust one. We're all gonna die.

[Justin David]

Worm food in the end. And you cannot take your Fortnite skins with you when you.

[Mark Medina]

But I hope that my rivals so

[Sam Claybor]

many things with gold.

[Mark Medina]

I hope they persist this long after I'm gone. It's going to be part of my will.

[Sam Claybor]

Are you happy with this answer, Mason? Are you happy? What if we told you there's only going to be a thousand five hundred episodes of Game Scoop?

[Damon Hatfield]

Would you be happy?

[Mark Medina]

Would you still watch? Instead of.

[Damon Hatfield]

Okay, well, instead of looking forward, let's look back a little bit. This is Charlie Gadson. Our friend in San Diego says last week, in response to Justin, Mark mentioned he would go back and listen to old gamescoop episodes while working a warehouse job. Yeah, I don't believe this is an uncommon practice. The ever loyal gamescoop fan sees the show like one of their favorite bands. It's always fun to go back and listen to their old stuff from time to time. Over the years, I've listened to the whole Gamescoop catalog three or four times.

[Sam Claybor]

Wow.

[Damon Hatfield]

The most recent happened a couple years ago while grinding through the harder VR battles in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. I even took the time to write down some recurring segments, inside jokes or overall themes the show had in the earlier days that have gone extinct. I plan on sharing these in full when the show officially hits the 20 year mark this summer.

[Mark Medina]

Wow.

[Damon Hatfield]

In the meantime, here's one for Scoop Nation. Damon used to confiscate everyone's phones before the show started, as he demanded 100% focus, as he should.

[Sam Claybor]

I don't remember that.

[Damon Hatfield]

It's this sort of dedication to the craft that has allowed the podcast to survive, all while literally all other gaming podcasts have gone the way of the dinosaurs.

[Mark Medina]

I. I hate clicking on podcasts and you just see everyone. They're just all on their computers. I hate that. Take my phone. I agree with that, Damon.

[Sam Claybor]

I don't. I'm only saying because I don't remember listening and hearing that. Was that. Was that a thing that you did?

[Justin David]

That must have been the very.

[Sam Claybor]

Because it was like a policy or

[Damon Hatfield]

something like That I. I think Greg probably just, like, annoyed me by looking at his phone one time. That's it.

[Justin David]

I'm like, this is 100 a great.

[Mark Medina]

I have a. I have a very distinct memory of Damon being like, do you really need to be on your phone right now? I was like, well, someone got in trouble.

[Sam Claybor]

The worst thing about that is that you were actually the person that suffers there because you had to touch everybody's phone and they took it into the bathroom with them. Just. Just minutes before that.

[Mark Medina]

Just get a basket. Put your phone in the basket.

[Justin David]

I mean, dude, I was.

[Sam Claybor]

Basket of bleach. We're clean, man. Fine.

[Justin David]

I'm glad this topic came up because I was. I represented my opinion poorly, which is like, I completely get. And I respect. Respect. So, first of all, we love all of our fans and thank you so much for going back and listening to old episodes. But the part that. That was a little bit baffling to me was people that go back to episode one and like, all right, back to one and I'm gonna.

[Sam Claybor]

They think they should start with your first episode, is what they said.

[Justin David]

Like, time capsule, like picking random things, episodes here and there and going back and like, you know, doing reruns. Like, that totally makes sense to me, and I respect it. But the. But the. You know, let's just run it back and do it again. That's. That's the part that, like, man, I just. It's.

[Sam Claybor]

It's.

[Justin David]

It's. It's amazing that there's people that. That will, you know, give us that much of their time in a time.

[Sam Claybor]

I'd like for someone to tell my wife that they've listened to me tell the same jokes more than she has, and they enjoy it.

[Mark Medina]

You think you got it bad? Try being a game scoop fan.

[Damon Hatfield]

Okay, so that's settled.

[Sam Claybor]

And she's not going to listen to this episode, I'll tell you that much.

[Justin David]

No, that's.

[Damon Hatfield]

That's settled. Let's put that one to bed. So this is Nick from Wisconsin. In episode 845, Justin asks, what was the point of going back to listen to old episodes? Mentioning

[Mark Medina]

we want people to like our show. What are you losers doing?

[Damon Hatfield]

Rustin said it didn't make sense. Damon countered that there's more than just news that is discussed, which is very true. I personally have gone back to listen to old episodes recently as I was looking for more things to listen to while I drive and have found it quite interesting to see how the show and host have evolved over the years. I originally started listening to Gamescoop around 2016. I missed out on the early years so when I went back I started as far back as Apple Podcasts has available which is July of 2010.

[Mark Medina]

Wow.

[Damon Hatfield]

It has been quite interesting to hear people like Damon from back then to see how much he's matured over the years. I think it's true.

[Justin David]

Wow.

[Damon Hatfield]

It has also been fun to hear when people who are still at IGN join the podcast for weeks such as I recently heard the first episode Sam was on as well a few with Brian Altano.

[Sam Claybor]

There was a first episode. I was always there somewhere.

[Damon Hatfield]

I believe I There was also an episode I listened to recently where one Andrew Goldfarb wrote into the show as a listener. Also, I would argue that those old episodes actually had less topical news and more veered into games flavored entertainment shows with things like knocking boots, frequent recurring discussions of bathroom etiquette, general partying and also just general antics of Greg Miller. And even the video game news from then I do find interesting because it's the PS3 and 360. They're blind spots for me since I only owned a Wii at that time. That was more of a waning of my video game hobby during those years. Anywho, thought I would throw out my thoughts on why us listeners find it interesting to go back to old episodes.

[Sam Claybor]

Who is this?

[Damon Hatfield]

Keep up the great work and scoop. And that.

[Sam Claybor]

I like how Nick from Wisconsin recounted that episode. It was like and Damon looking a little hurt.

[Justin David]

I just want to say again that I apologize and I it didn't look this is an extemporaneous podcast where we're speaking off the dome and I didn't represent my point very well on that episode. And I'm very glad that everyone and I and I do like obviously I'm goofing around. Like I do genuinely understand why people would go back.

[Mark Medina]

It's just.

[Justin David]

It's just the listening to hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them. That's the part that like it just is misaligned.

[Mark Medina]

Warehouse jobs are really, really boring.

[Sam Claybor]

I just want to be on the record and saying that I always thought that Damon very mature.

[Damon Hatfield]

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

[Sam Claybor]

Compared to the other chuckleheads I worked

[Mark Medina]

with at the time.

[Sam Claybor]

Close your eyes, exhale, feel your body

[Justin David]

relax and let go of whatever you're carrying today.

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[Sam Claybor]

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[Sam Claybor]

Oh my gosh, they're so fast and breathe.

[Mark Medina]

Oh, sorry. I almost couldn't breathe when I saw

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[Justin David]

Oh.

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[Damon Hatfield]

1-800-contacts.

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[Damon Hatfield]

Okay, okay. That brings us to video game 20 questions and our suggestion this week comes from John Peacock, who actually has an anecdote here. We'll find out his location at the end.

[Sam Claybor]

That's just required.

[Damon Hatfield]

I just listened to the most recent GamesCube episode and heard about your 6 year old son asking you to play Fortnite. Oh yeah, as a fellow dad, I thought I'd share my experience for a bit of a background. I'm 48 years old same and though I played shooters pretty regularly back in the 360 generation, my current take games has a fair bit of overlap with yours. Mostly retro indie games, card games, strategy, tower defense, etc. When my son just turned 6, he came home from school in December of 2018. Said dad, why won't you let me play Fortnite? To be clear, he had never asked me to play Fortnite. We had never even talked about the game before. I told him I knew very little about the game, but we could check it out together to see if it was appropriate. I was thrilled to find there was a split screen mode on the Xbox Bucks. So we downloaded it, turned off voice chat, muted the other players and jumped into a game. We had no idea what we were doing, but played a few rounds because he was enjoying himself and I was enjoying hanging out with my son. After a couple matches we moved on to something else, but he let me know how much fun he had. So a couple times a week we'd play a few matches in split screen. Before long we began to figure out the map, learned how to revive each other, started completing quests, etc. And soon we were both having a blast with our regular gameplay sessions. After about a month of this, my wife started to come hang out with us while we played. My son really wanted her to try, which she did. She's not much of a gamer, had never played a shooter, began to enjoy completing quests, reviving teammates, unlocking characters and dances, etc. Before long, it evolved into my wife and me playing split screen on the Xbox while my son played in the same room on the switch, all in the same cross platform game lobby, playing family Fortnite matches every night after dinner. This went on for two to three years until eventually my son became more independent with greater interest in other games, and the family play sessions became less and less frequent. But to this day, playing Fortnite with my son and wife are among some of my favorite family memories. And now, as an annual tradition, when my family asks what I want to do on my birthday, I reply, order sushi and play some family Fortnite once again. Last month for my 40th birthday, we sat down and played a single round of Fortnite together after dinner and got a victory royale. The perfect ending to my day. I will also mention the various crossovers in the game like Marvel, Star wars, etc. Led to my son becoming interested in other cultures that I enjoy. Because of this, we started regularly reading comics together and watching movies with much greater frequency. And then years later, when Epic bought Harmonix and integrated their version of Rock Band into one of the Fortnite game modes, it helped expose my son to some of my favorite music as well, exposing me to some of my son's favorite new music. So I have no idea if your experience with Fortnite will be as positive as it was for my family and me, but if you do give a try with your son, I hope you both have as much fun as we did.

[Mark Medina]

Nice.

[Damon Hatfield]

And end. End story.

[Justin David]

That's amazing. I mean, what. Like we've been kind of goofing on live service games a little bit this show, but like definitely shows, you know, the power, cross platform multiplayer, no barrier to entry, just download and play. It's very sweet. Very.

[Sam Claybor]

Just the quickest extracurricular thing. I watched the Light and Magic magic season, the second one. Yeah. And there's an entire episode about the Jar Jar reaction, which is like an amazing documentary to watch. The internal team at Lucasfilm produced an episode about something about how people. The back.

[Damon Hatfield]

Really critical.

[Justin David]

Yeah.

[Sam Claybor]

Like that was. It's incredible. Like just watch that. It's like kind of hard to watch. Yeah, really, really good.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, it's like kind of a, you know, it's kind of a bummer watch, but also just super interesting.

[Sam Claybor]

And because it's about light and magic, George Lucas is like, you don't need to care about what people say about the character. All they're saying is that it looked realistic.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah. And also, you know, if he really said that, they say something like, you know, he said in. In 20 years, they're gonna love it.

[Justin David]

It.

[Damon Hatfield]

Which. Which is true.

[Mark Medina]

It kind of happens.

[Sam Claybor]

So, yeah, I thought it would happen more than it did, but it has happened. And then the other thing is that there's a new Lucas gift shop in San Francisco that just opened the Presidio to, like, no fanfare. But it's so cool. It's right by the Yoda fountain, and they sell wine made just from the vines at Skywalker Ranch.

[Damon Hatfield]

Oh, cool.

[Sam Claybor]

Just brought home a bottle of wine made at Skywalker Ranch.

[Damon Hatfield]

It's, like, nice.

[Sam Claybor]

There's not a lot of vines there. It's really cool.

[Damon Hatfield]

Anyway, okay, John Peacock says. P.S. in 2024, I submitted a list of 20 question game suggestions on behalf of my son Lowell, who is now 13. Jedi Survivor was selected, which the crew got in 20 questions. At the risk of being greedy, I will submit my favorite Redacted. That has never been on the show. Redacted. And as Sam and Justin will surely want to know, I'm from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I've been listening to gamescoop since year one of the podcast.

[Sam Claybor]

Nice.

[Damon Hatfield]

And with that, let the questioning begin.

[Sam Claybor]

Great show at X Ray Arcade in Milwaukee this summer is really fun. I love that.

[Justin David]

Milwaukee is a great city. We got good hints from that Redacted, so I appreciate that.

[Sam Claybor]

We also lost last week, so we need rip.

[Justin David]

Okay. Okay. Well, okay, we'll be serious. Did this come out in the 70s, 80s, or 90s?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yes.

[Justin David]

Great.

[Sam Claybor]

Oh, can you see. Can you see your butt in this game?

[Damon Hatfield]

No.

[Justin David]

Oh, okay. It's goldeneye. Maybe it's goldeneye.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah.

[Sam Claybor]

Yeah.

[Justin David]

But you could see your butt if you were screen sniping, like your multiplayer opponent.

[Sam Claybor]

You don't. You can't see your butt in StarCraft.

[Justin David]

That's true. We don't know who you are in Starcraft. You're the commander. You're buttless. Okay, did this game come out in the 90s?

[Damon Hatfield]

No,

[Mark Medina]

wait, you already asked that. You said 7800 and 90s.

[Damon Hatfield]

But he asked about the 90s specifically

[Sam Claybor]

because the answer was yes to 70s, 80s or 90s.

[Mark Medina]

Oh, it was. Oh, okay. Okay, let's see. 70s.

[Justin David]

But how many games can you not see your butt from the 70s and 80s?

[Sam Claybor]

Well, if you're in a helicopter, you can't see.

[Justin David]

Could be Spy Hunter. You don't see your butt in that

[Damon Hatfield]

I want to put that on a shirt. Could be Spy Hunter. You don't see your butt in that.

[Sam Claybor]

Did this game come out on the nes?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yes.

[Justin David]

Sweet.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yes.

[Sam Claybor]

It was also an arcade game at some point.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yes, it was. That's five

[Justin David]

Spy Hunters alive. Certainly is. Are you. Are you most prime? Are you controlling a vehicle? Mostly in this game, yes.

[Damon Hatfield]

Okay.

[Justin David]

That's why. That's why you can't see your buddy. Could be Cobra Triangle. Is that in arcades? What?

[Mark Medina]

Blaster. Blaster.

[Sam Claybor]

That's the boat game, right?

[Justin David]

I don't think. Yeah, it's the boat game.

[Sam Claybor]

That's a cool one.

[Justin David]

Yeah.

[Sam Claybor]

Blaster Master was not in arcades, so.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, this is. This is my blind era.

[Sam Claybor]

Was this. Was this developed in the United States?

[Damon Hatfield]

Was it developed in the United States? No.

[Justin David]

Does this game take place in. Is this a sci fi game? No, it's not. It's not a space. You're not in a spaceship. It's not Life Force or Gradius or

[Sam Claybor]

is the V. We determined you are in a vehicle for most of the time, right?

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, probably like a plane maybe. A plane.

[Sam Claybor]

Is it a drive E car?

[Damon Hatfield]

No, it's not a car.

[Justin David]

Not a car, not a spaceship. Could be Cobra Train. Could still be Cobra Train. Okay. I mean, is it. Are you. Are you. Is it an airplane?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yes.

[Mark Medina]

And that's 10B17 bomber.

[Justin David]

Yep. 1941, 1942.

[Sam Claybor]

Capcom.

[Justin David]

Is this a Capcom game?

[Damon Hatfield]

No,

[Justin David]

but an airplane game? Could be. What? Space Harrier. But, you know, you definitely see your butt in that afterburner. Not on NES. No, you're right. I was thinking. I was thinking 80s, that might have been 89. I don't know.

[Sam Claybor]

Well, maybe afterburner was on the NES.

[Justin David]

Maybe it got made a face. I don't think Afterburner was on the nes. Was it?

[Sam Claybor]

I don't know. It could have been a black cartridge game eventually.

[Justin David]

Really? Is an Afterburner made by sega?

[Sam Claybor]

Yeah, but so is Vindicators and.

[Justin David]

Or what?

[Sam Claybor]

Not Vindicators. Sorry. There's a series of SEGA games that made it onto the.

[Justin David]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Sam Claybor]

What's the one called?

[Justin David]

That's an interesting, interesting bit of trivia. There's. Okay, NES and Arcade.

[Sam Claybor]

Was this made by sega?

[Justin David]

No, NES and arcade airplane games.

[Sam Claybor]

Time Pilot, but I don't think that came to nes.

[Justin David]

I would also call Time Pilot a sci fi game. I think.

[Sam Claybor]

Yeah, I don't think I would know. If there's an NES port, it'd be top down or side scrolling.

[Justin David]

Yeah, that'd be helpful.

[Sam Claybor]

Is this top down?

[Damon Hatfield]

No.

[Sam Claybor]

So side scrolling Entail Spin is a Capcom game.

[Damon Hatfield]

You may have just narrowed it down to exactly one game.

[Justin David]

Yeah, I was gonna say they're like.

[Sam Claybor]

Yeah, I think so. I think it could be like, like a really. Well I'm trying to think of like it could be like a really early arcade game.

[Justin David]

Side scrolling plane game. Plane game. I don't know. I don't, I don't. I don't have an NES mind palace the way that Sam does. Yeah, we're not made in America.

[Sam Claybor]

Well, is this based on a license? No, because I thought maybe it'd be like a. They'd ported some movie to that.

[Justin David]

How many questions do we have?

[Damon Hatfield]

You have five questions and a guess.

[Justin David]

Okay. It was. Yeah, yeah. So probably made in Japan. It came out in arcades.

[Mark Medina]

Gradient.

[Sam Claybor]

Like there wasn't a lot of.

[Mark Medina]

Any of these games are called shooter things.

[Sam Claybor]

There's that game Stinger, but I think you're like a little spaceship in that, right?

[Justin David]

Yeah. I was thinking about Xevious until I found out it was side scrolling.

[Sam Claybor]

Stinger is so cute. Is that Konami?

[Justin David]

Are you Kami. I don't, I can't picture a Stinger.

[Sam Claybor]

You're like a little ship with like you can shoot and stuff but you have like for some reason like boxing gloves. It's a good little cute series.

[Damon Hatfield]

All right, five questions and a guess.

[Justin David]

I know, we're trying. Damon. I don't even know. Like I said, I don't have a great enneagram. I know a lot of NES games but not the whole library.

[Sam Claybor]

I don't even know if it was developed in Japan, but I presume it was.

[Justin David]

I presume it was.

[Sam Claybor]

Is this company still around?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yes, that's 15.

[Sam Claybor]

Is it Konami?

[Damon Hatfield]

Nope.

[Mark Medina]

So Capcom.

[Sam Claybor]

We already asked if it was Capcom.

[Justin David]

Yeah, we asked about Capcom and Sega. But Namco.

[Sam Claybor]

Namco would be. Let's see, let's think of the Namco games.

[Justin David]

I mean, you know, I can't think of any plane like Dig Dug.

[Sam Claybor]

Pac Fan.

[Justin David]

Yeah. Rally X. Stupid Nappy.

[Sam Claybor]

I mean Nintendo.

[Justin David]

I was thinking about if there was a Nintendo game. Pilot Wings not Balloon Fight.

[Sam Claybor]

Or they, they actually have this. Okay, this is not the game, but they have a game called like Sky Pilot or something like that that they made that didn't come to the nes.

[Justin David]

Yeah, maybe it is. Maybe we did Nintendo make a flying arcade game? Not that I, I mean not. I mean, maybe. I don't know. Am I gonna be mad if I, if I can't recall what this is?

[Sam Claybor]

Yeah, I can't think of the Nintendo situation.

[Justin David]

That would be. That, that would make sense. Is it made by Nintendo or Namco?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yes. Two questions and a yes.

[Justin David]

Maybe regret phrasing that question that way.

[Sam Claybor]

I think it's a Namco. I'm just having trouble figuring out what that is.

[Justin David]

I, yeah,

[Sam Claybor]

I mean I can't remember who made Time Pilot at this point, but that's not really side scrolling. That's kind of like on a single screen, right?

[Justin David]

What else did Namco make? I, yeah, I can only think of their like early, like early NES games. I don't know what they were up to in like the late 80s.

[Sam Claybor]

Is Namco.

[Damon Hatfield]

Is Namco one question and a guess.

[Justin David]

Okay.

[Sam Claybor]

There's these games that are like,

[Damon Hatfield]

I'm

[Sam Claybor]

trying to think of even the names of them. They're like, you know, they're about like prop planes. Like Red, Red Baron is a, is a vector game.

[Justin David]

Yeah. But it's not. Yeah.

[Sam Claybor]

And then there's like, yeah, I might not know what the game is because it's like so it was so unappealing. There's probably a game about flying called like High Fly or something. But I'm thinking it still could be like World War II themed, you know, or World War I themed or bombing or strafing or something like that.

[Justin David]

They did Namco. They were all like, they were Galaxian and Galaga and you know all those. What did they do that wasn't sci fi because they were Xevious too.

[Sam Claybor]

That was Namco and side scrolling, which is interesting, right?

[Justin David]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sam Claybor]

I don't know if we know this one.

[Damon Hatfield]

All right, time to land this thing.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, I'm out. I was never in.

[Justin David]

Is it, what were the, is it like with the Namco Museum? I'm trying to picture games that were in that. I don't even know if this game was in that.

[Sam Claybor]

Yeah, yeah. I don't really know where to go. Like I just, I'm kind of curious if it was a World War II game, but I don't think so.

[Justin David]

All right.

[Sam Claybor]

Yeah, I don't know. I don't know.

[Mark Medina]

I give up. Damn it.

[Damon Hatfield]

Does everyone give up?

[Justin David]

Yeah.

[Sam Claybor]

Yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

All right, well you came very, very close. I believe this is a World War I game. It I, like I said, this is the only side scrolling game where you fly an airplane that I can think of on the nes. And what's even more interesting is that you, the screen scrolls from right to left.

[Justin David]

What it is?

[Damon Hatfield]

Sky Kid.

[Justin David]

Sky kid.

[Sam Claybor]

I was trying to think of that name Because I could picture like there's these kind of generic sounding games like that.

[Mark Medina]

This is weird. Going the. Going the other way.

[Justin David]

Why are you going this direction?

[Damon Hatfield]

I don't like it like a prop plane. You always have to pick up a bomb and then drop it on target.

[Sam Claybor]

I wouldn't have thought of this as an arcade game either.

[Damon Hatfield]

I thought it was arcades in 86. Came with NES in 87.

[Justin David]

Yeah. I don't know. This game looks goofy.

[Damon Hatfield]

Developed by Namco and then published on the NES by Sunsoft. Actually. I just thought it was interesting that this was his favorite NES game.

[Sam Claybor]

Yeah, it looks fun.

[Justin David]

Sam, do you have a copy of this in your house?

[Sam Claybor]

Absolutely. Dollar Bin game that everybody has.

[Damon Hatfield]

The box art has like a guy. Let's see if they show it at the end. There's like. Anyway, the boxer has like a pilot. Like a World War II fighter pilot. You're actually a bird, as you can see at the top of the screen.

[Mark Medina]

Oh yeah, you sure are.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, you're actually like a bird man.

[Sam Claybor]

But the art. You're. The art in. In the United States was a man man.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, Y. But the arcade flyers showed bird.

[Sam Claybor]

That's really funny.

[Mark Medina]

United States wasn't ready for Birdman.

[Damon Hatfield]

Some corrections. Cobra Triangle was a rare game just made for nes, not in arcades. And after Burner came to NES alongside Alien Syndrome by I think Alien Syndrome.

[Sam Claybor]

That's what I was trying to think of.

[Justin David]

Yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

1010 published them on the NES.

[Sam Claybor]

Yes.

[Justin David]

I. I did not know after Burner was on the nes. I don't think I've ever seen the NES version of it.

[Sam Claybor]

Yeah, it's Black Cart Tengen.

[Damon Hatfield]

Well, nicely attempt. Thank you for the suggestion, John Peacock. Viewers, Listeners, if you have your own suggestions for video game 20 questions, email them to me at the email address gamescoopg.com and that is all the scoops that we have for you this week. Thank you, Mark. Thank you, Sam. Thank you, Justin. Thank you to Jobert. Working behind the scenes to make this episode possible. My name is Damon. This is IGN gamescoop. And of course there's the Pickles.

[Mark Medina]

Been waiting an hour to say that

[Damon Hatfield]

I shook you in my dream as hard as I can stand When I stopped you fell away Pockets full of sand Waking up a world away Cutting through through the air 7,000 miles to kill I'll see you when I'm there. I've been modified. I've been modified. Well, I guess it was worth a try But I've been modified.

[Mark Medina]

Which one's no time to Die. Is that the most recent one? Like the. Okay.

[Damon Hatfield]

Have you seen it, Mark?

[Mark Medina]

Yes, I have.

[Damon Hatfield]

So James Bond just gets blown up by a bunch of missiles. That's how he goes.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

[Justin David]

And, like, I thought. Because I. I knew. I knew that he died in it, but I had. I'd never seen it. I've never watched it. And so I thought that they'd, like, leave it slightly ambiguous and it's like, no, you see it. You see him get blown to bits.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, yeah.

[Justin David]

They so went out of their way to just make it completely. Like, there's no wink. Like, ah. Maybe it's like, nah, he dead.

[Sam Claybor]

I don't know.

[Justin David]

I mean, look, I didn't. I didn't love it, but I liked it. I thought. I thought the bad guy layer was, like, really good. Like a really cool evil guy layer.

[Mark Medina]

Who's the back? Is that Rami Malek?

[Justin David]

Yeah.

[Mark Medina]

Okay. I didn't know Skyfall is Javier Bardem, right? Yeah, Yeah, I like that one.

[Justin David]

Yeah.

[Mark Medina]

I like Skyfall.

[Justin David]

It is funny. It's like people really like the Daniel Craig Bond era, but in hindsight, it's like, there's five movies, you know, two of them are very good.

[Mark Medina]

Casino Royale and Skyfall.

[Justin David]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mark Medina]

Quantum of Solace is.

[Justin David]

Quantum of Solace is terrible.

[Mark Medina]

Terrible.

[Damon Hatfield]

I definitely didn't see all five, but I can't keep it straight.

[Justin David]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mark Medina]

What am I?

[Justin David]

What am I? No, Specter.

[Mark Medina]

Oh, yeah, Specter.

[Justin David]

See, that's what I mean. It's like people, like. People are like, oh, yeah, I like the. This era of Bond. But it's like. Yeah, but, like, the batting average, it's. Two out of five are good. Although I like, no Time to Die. But I like. Look, I understand why people don't like it. I like it because I think they leveled up the action and I think. I think James Bond action had been kind of, like, outclassed by, like, John Wick in movies like that for a long time. And this one, like, the Anadarmis action sequence in Cuba, I thought was, like, really well choreographed. And there's a really good oner where he's, like, fighting his way up the stairs. That felt very modern at the end of the movie. So I don't know. I liked it.

[Mark Medina]

They just went too hard with Casino Royale. Too hard out the gate.

[Damon Hatfield]

I do like that one.

[Mark Medina]

They could never live up to it. It's just too good.

[Justin David]

I watched all five because they're all on Netflix, so I watched all five of them the last couple weeks. Quantum of Solace is terrible. It's, like, terrible. It's actively bad.

[Damon Hatfield]

Is that the second one?

[Justin David]

Yeah, that's.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, that's the second one.

[Justin David]

First of all, it's incredibly low. Like, and I don't need every movie to be like, the world is gonna end, but, like, it's incredibly low stakes. Like, nothing that's happening in that movie matters. It's like, the bad guy's plan is just to steal water. He's just trying to steal the water in Bolivia. And that's it.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, that one. Yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

They pushed up the release date of Pragmata.

[Mark Medina]

They did April 17th. Now, I just like that they. That card that they kept using for all their delays, they got to use it for pushing it up now.

[Justin David]

Yeah. We regret to inform you. You can play our game earlier. Like, I'm still not done ranting about Quantum of Solace. Like, the. The. The bad guy is stupid and not intimidating. He's like, just a little dweeb.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yep.

[Justin David]

Yeah. And, you know, and. And. But the real sin is that it does. And granted, this is a. This is an artifact of when it came out, but it does that, like, shaky cam. Like, none of the action is comprehensible at all. It's all just, you know, cut the camera every second, and it's all shaking everywhere, and I'm like, this sucks.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah. That's the Bourne movies. I. I've tried to go back and

[Damon Hatfield]

watch them, because it's also Batman Begins the same way.

[Sam Claybor]

Yeah.

[Mark Medina]

I just. I love Matt Damon and the Born. I. I love the. The original Born identity, you know, when we were younger and so. But they're. They're unwatchable.

[Justin David]

I never watched this for the last one, like, the. The one where they brought him back. I didn't ever see that one. So what is this guy doing? I haven't been watching.

[Sam Claybor]

He's showing off some sort of. I can snatch things.

[Mark Medina]

It's like he's trying to. Are they just. Is he trying to get them to just land?

[Sam Claybor]

No, he's just trying to snatch them really fast. Oh, and he's trying to not. Not knock over the other.

[Mark Medina]

Okay, that was fast. Holy. Okay, it's pretty fast.

[Justin David]

I hadn't. I hadn't.

[Mark Medina]

Oh, he's pissed.

[Justin David]

Yeah. Get it together, bro. This is. This is your thing.

[Mark Medina]

Me sitting there with a full bag of Doritos?

[Justin David]

What a lo.

[Mark Medina]

Loser.

[Justin David]

Yeah, it's me watching the Olympics. Every time. I'm like, you suck.

[Sam Claybor]

I. I like how, you know, when you sit down to watch a video, you needed to Explain to you say, what's happening here? Joe Burt's description was. He's very fast.

[Justin David]

Yep. Nothing more needs to be said.

[Mark Medina]

Joe, Joe, you should have been on Sega's marketing team. You nailed it.

[Sam Claybor]

This is the kind of thing, though, where since you have never actually tried this, if you were to try this, you would probably be just as good as this guy.

[Justin David]

I don't know, man.

[Sam Claybor]

He just thinks he's very fast.

[Justin David]

I don't know. It seemed pretty fast.

[Mark Medina]

I'm pretty slow. I can admit it.

[Damon Hatfield]

All right, that squared away.

[Mark Medina]

Jesus, dude, that's crazy fast. Jobert, this might be the best one yet.

[Sam Claybor]

It's very fast.

[Damon Hatfield]

It's better than the girls that are trying to inhale cockroaches.

[Sam Claybor]

But maybe he'd be faster than them. Thanks. I had just forgotten about that.

[Mark Medina]

I missed that one.

[Justin David]

Oh, yeah. Well, don't look it up.

[Mark Medina]

I won't.

[Sam Claybor]

You should look it up. Actually, you know what? We all have to be on the same page with how bad, terrible it was to watch that.

[Mark Medina]

The last one I saw was the. The shopping carts one.

[Sam Claybor]

Imagine instead of pushing shopping carts, people were pushing cockroaches into your mouth.

[Justin David]

There's also. There's an element of, like, you know, when he puts him really close to frame like that, like, it makes it look faster. There's like a perspective trick almost.

[Sam Claybor]

What about his weird little flinches before he does the attack? It's like, I see my cat do that.

[Justin David]

Yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

Justin, have you played Resident Evil yet?

[Justin David]

No, and I will not. But I have played Procopia.

[Damon Hatfield]

Okay, I'll ask you about that. I did the spider battle last night. It was annoying, but it only took me one time.

[Mark Medina]

Well, it's not freaky. It's freaky.

[Sam Claybor]

That's only. Yeah, that battle is not difficult. It's just. It's almost qte.

[Mark Medina]

I mean, there's a part where you're on the building, but yeah, I. I don't. I don't remember having too much trouble

[Sam Claybor]

with it, but, yeah, it's funny. It's funny how surprising the spider is.

[Mark Medina]

It gave me the cheesy jeebies.

[Sam Claybor]

Really good at surprising you. But, yeah, it's also, like, popular right now because of how she lob. Like, that spider is like, I can.

[Mark Medina]

I can handle, like, Resident Evil 2 moving the dude's head and his, like, jaw comes off.

[Sam Claybor]

But that's.

[Justin David]

Yeah,

[Mark Medina]

that's like one of the. Oh, I know. You could go to a skeleton. It's like, it appears his jaw is missing.

[Sam Claybor]

The spider is also a reference to Resident Evil 2, right?

[Damon Hatfield]

Well, there were spiders, but not a giant spider like that.

[Sam Claybor]

What do you mean?

[Damon Hatfield]

They weren't that big, and they just crawl around the sewers, and they only take a shot or two from your shotgun.

[Sam Claybor]

Okay, but they're bigger than a dog.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yes.

[Sam Claybor]

All right. Those are big spiders, too. They did grow up by this game.

[Damon Hatfield]

Game?

[Justin David]

What were the things in the Lickers were in the original Resident Evil?

[Sam Claybor]

In the sewers. In this game, too.

[Justin David]

Hated those.

[Damon Hatfield]

Didn't the Lickers start in Resident Evil 2?

[Justin David]

I don't think so. I think they're. While they're in remake. That's the last Resident Evil I played was Resident Evil remake.

[Sam Claybor]

They're basically zombies that crawl around, but they also are blind. And so they're. They're. It's funny because if you're slow and

[Damon Hatfield]

quiet, they won't know you're there.

[Sam Claybor]

But this game places a strategically placed broken glass on the ground, and it's very mean.

[Justin David]

Great.

[Mark Medina]

I wish I could talk about Crimson Desert.