Dragon Age & FC Underperform: Is EA in Trouble? - Kinda Funny Games Daily 01.24.25

Summary

Kinda Funny Games Daily: Dragon Age & FC Underperform: Is EA in Trouble?
Release Date: January 24, 2025
Hosts: Greg “GameOverGreggy” Miller, Tim Gettys, and Blessing Adeoye Jr.

---

Introduction

In this episode of Kinda Funny Games Daily, hosts Greg Miller, Tim Gettys, and Blessing Adeoye Jr. delve deep into the tumultuous financial state of Electronic Arts (EA), analyze the latest console sales trends, and explore exciting developments in the gaming world, including a mysterious new boss in Mortal Kombat 1. The discussion is rich with insights, community interactions, and expert opinions that shed light on the current state and future prospects of the gaming industry.

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1. EA's Financial Woes: $6 Billion Market Value Loss

Timestamp: [00:00] – [16:45]

The episode kicks off with alarming news about EA incurring a staggering $6 billion loss in market value. This financial downturn is primarily attributed to the underperformance of EAFC 25 and Dragon Age: The Veilguard.

• EAFC 25's Decline:
  EAFC 25, a flagship live service game, experienced a slowdown during the Christmas period, leading to diminished live service revenue projections. Analysts highlighted that Ultimate Team, a significant revenue stream for EA, is crucial for maintaining consistent earnings.

  Monif Nathanson, Analyst at VGC: "Ultimate Team has come to be viewed as a near Swiss clock of interactive media bookings growth. If it's stagnant, it puts enormous pressure on EA to fill the void."
  [13:30]

• Dragon Age: The Veilguard's Underperformance:
  The BioWare RPG released in October failed to meet expectations by 50%, reaching only 1.5 million players instead of the anticipated 3 million. This shortfall is a significant blow to EA, especially considering the high expectations for a beloved franchise returning after nearly a decade.

  Greg Miller: "When we talk about Dragon Age: The Veilguard missing by 50%, that seems like a massive miscalculation."
  [15:04]

• Industry Implications:
  The discussion underscores a broader concern about the saturated gaming market and shifting consumer preferences, with players gravitating towards established live service games like Fortnite and Call of Duty, as well as older titles that maintain a dedicated fanbase.

  Tim Gettys: "The gaming market is all over the place... it's a very interesting stage where when you have a talented team like BioWare putting out Dragon Age, a beloved franchise, and now it just doesn't hit."
  [17:49]

2. Console Sales Update: PS5 Leading Ahead of PS4; Xbox Series X/S Lagging

Timestamp: [41:00] – [53:21]

The hosts pivot to discussing the latest console sales data, revealing that the PlayStation 5 (PS5) is now tracking ahead of the PlayStation 4 (PS4) in the U.S. market, while the Xbox Series X/S is lagging behind the Xbox One.

• PlayStation Dominance:
  According to Matt Piscatella, Executive Director at Circana, PS5 has surpassed PS4’s sales pace, indicating robust continued demand for Sony’s flagship console.

  Matt Piscatella: "PS5 lifetime unit sales are 7% ahead of PS4's pace, while Xbox Series trails Xbox One by 18%."
  [43:21]

• Xbox Struggles:
  In contrast, the Xbox Series X/S has failed to match the performance of the Xbox One, with Sales declining by 38% compared to the previous generation. This gap highlights the broader challenges Xbox faces in rekindling the same level of consumer enthusiasm.

  Tim Gettys: "Xbox Series X/S lagging behind Xbox One... it's telling of the current situation."
  [50:29]

• Future Outlook:
  The discussion touches on Xbox’s strategic shift towards an open ecosystem and the integration of services like Game Pass across multiple platforms, including PCs. However, the hosts express skepticism about whether these strategies can fully compensate for the lagging hardware sales.

  Tim Gettys: "Xbox Series X is the most powerful console ever... but it doesn’t sell as expected."
  [52:36]

3. Video Game History Foundation's Digital Library Launch

Timestamp: [60:03] – [63:15]

A beacon for gaming historians and enthusiasts, the Video Game History Foundation (VGHF) is set to make its digital library publicly accessible starting January 30, 2025. This initiative will provide unprecedented access to rare and archival materials that chronicle the evolution of video games.

• Library Features:
  The digital repository will include never-before-seen game development materials, artwork, press kits, and promotional materials from iconic titles. Additionally, more than 1,500 out-of-print video game magazines will be available, fully text-searchable for ease of research.

  Chris Scullion, VGC: "After years of collecting, cataloging, and digitizing video game history materials, the VGHF is finally opening the virtual doors to its library."
  [61:18]

• Hosts' Excitement:
  Tim Gettys shares his personal excitement, recounting a visit to the VGHF’s physical archives and expressing enthusiasm about the digital accessibility.

  Tim Gettys: "I was overwhelmed... this is just history of all of this stuff."
  [62:50]

4. Mortal Kombat 1's Secret Boss: The Floyd Fight

Timestamp: [63:16] – [66:17]

The gaming community is abuzz with the discovery of a secret boss fight in Mortal Kombat 1, featuring the enigmatic character Floyd the Pink Ninja. This hidden content has sparked widespread excitement and collaborative efforts among players to unlock this elusive fight.

• Discovery Details:
  Wesley in Pool at IGN reports that Floyd can be unlocked by completing a series of Floyd challenges, though the exact sequence varies per player, adding to the mystery.

  Wesley in Pool, IGN: "Players are working together to try to crowdsource the answer, but the exact process remains unknown."
  [64:26]

• Community Involvement:
  Modders and data miners, like the Thinny, are actively dissecting the game to decipher the requirements needed to trigger the Floyd fight. The rewards for defeating Floyd include a new, visually stunning stage, enhancing the game's appeal.

  Tim Gettys: "It's so fun to see the community come together to figure this out. I love every single thing about this."
  [65:16]

• Creative Naming:
  The hosts humorously link Floyd’s name to the legendary band Pink Floyd, suggesting a playful nod from the developers.

  Tim Gettys: "Why is his name Floyd? Pink Floyd. And why is the purple ninja named Rain? Purple Rain."
  [65:53]

5. Astral Chain Director Leaves Platinum Games: New Beginnings?

Timestamp: [66:22] – [68:27]

In intriguing industry news, it appears that Takahisa Taura, the director of Astral Chain and designer of Nier: Automata, has likely departed from Platinum Games to establish a new venture, possibly named Eel Game Studio.

• Departure Indicators:
  Observations from fans noted the removal of Platinum Games references from Taura’s social media handles and the formation of a new company in Tokyo, distinct from Platinum's Osaka headquarters.

  Tim Gettys: "Astral Chain director likely leaving Platinum Games is big news."
  [67:35]

• Future Implications:
  The hosts express mixed feelings, acknowledging the outstanding work Taura has produced while speculating on the potential impact of his departure on future projects.

  Greg Miller: "Astral Chain was great, so hopefully, whatever he ends up working on next is going to be a banger too."
  [68:21]

6. Wii News Channel: Super Nintendo Online Announcements and More

Timestamp: [69:05] – [71:05]

Wrapping up the main stories, the hosts introduce the Wii News Channel, covering smaller yet noteworthy updates in the gaming landscape.

• Super Nintendo Online Games:
  Announcements include Fatal Fury 2, Super Ninja Boy, and Sakura Hakun joining the Super Nintendo Online repertoire, delighting fans of classic titles.

  Tim Gettys: "Sonic X Shadow Generations has sold over 2 million copies. That's a big deal!"
  [69:52]

• Upcoming Releases and Events:
  Highlights include the Silent Hill series, Genshin Impact 5.4 update Moonlight and Misted Dreams, and community-driven events like live streams and beta tests.

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Conclusion

This episode of Kinda Funny Games Daily provides a comprehensive overview of EA's financial struggles, shifting console sales dynamics, and exciting community-driven discoveries in games like Mortal Kombat 1. The hosts offer insightful commentary on industry trends, supported by engaging discussions and notable quotes that enrich the listener's understanding of the gaming world. As EA navigates its current challenges and the console landscape continues to evolve, the insights shared in this episode are invaluable for gamers and industry enthusiasts alike.

---

Notable Quotes

• Monif Nathanson, Analyst at VGC:
  "Ultimate Team has come to be viewed as a near Swiss clock of interactive media bookings growth. If it's stagnant, it puts enormous pressure on EA to fill the void."
  [13:30]

• Greg Miller:
  "When we talk about Dragon Age: The Veilguard missing by 50%, that seems like a massive miscalculation."
  [15:04]

• Tim Gettys:
  "The gaming market is all over the place... it's a very interesting stage where when you have a talented team like BioWare putting out Dragon Age, a beloved franchise, and now it just doesn't hit."
  [17:49]

• Wesley in Pool, IGN:
  "Players are working together to try to crowdsource the answer, but the exact process remains unknown."
  [64:26]

• Tim Gettys:
  "It's so fun to see the community come together to figure this out. I love every single thing about this."
  [65:16]

---

This summary encapsulates the critical discussions and insights from the episode, providing a clear and engaging overview for those who haven't listened to the podcast.

Transcript

[Snow Mike Mike]

Today's stories include EA lost $6 billion in market value, an update on PS5 and Xbox Series X sales and S. And we have fans that have found a secret boss in Mortal Kombat 1. We have all that and more today on Kind of Funny Games Daily. Tim, shake it out. It's Friday.

[Tim Gettys]

Oh, I'm shaking.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Shake it out. Ladies and gentlemen and mbs, welcome in to Kind of Funny Games daily for Friday, January 24, 2025. I'm one of your hosts, Snow Mike. Mike. And of course I'm joined by the master of hype, Tim Gettys.

[Tim Gettys]

Let Tim not host today. We did our production Mike host today. And we knew it was going to be me and you on the show, which always a very, very fun time and I'm very excited for. But I was like, you know what, Mike, are you comfortable sitting in the hosting chair today? Because I don't think we've done this.

[Snow Mike Mike]

I don't think we've done this.

[Tim Gettys]

And I'm very excited to see what type of show you're going to run, Tim.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Well, as you can see, I've already fumbled the bag, so, you know, it's going to start off rocky. We're going to get into the flow. It's Friday. It's Friday. Fun things going on on Friday.

[Tim Gettys]

What are you looking forward to most today?

[Snow Mike Mike]

A good shit list with Bless.

[Tim Gettys]

Going to be great.

[Snow Mike Mike]

A great kind of funny game showdown. Of course, you know, we got stars in the bars.

[Tim Gettys]

I hate it.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Yeah, Greg's gonna get after you. I'm excited to see what show, what games he brings to you and then Kingdom Hearts too.

[Tim Gettys]

So you were talking about the games cast we have coming up. That's gonna be you and Bless once again doing a shit list. What a combo the two of you have been yesterday. The two of you got to sit down on the couch and play a bunch of Ninja Gaiden too.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Tim, it looks cool. Yeah, it's a cool.

[Tim Gettys]

I know you didn't get to play.

[Snow Mike Mike]

I didn't get to play.

[Tim Gettys]

Bless was playing. But like, what are your. What are your takeaways from it?

[Snow Mike Mike]

High speed, super violent. Looks fun. Looked shows its age just a little bit in certain gameplay moments where you don't have the lock on and the camera gets a little wonky. But them elevating it through UE5 looks really good.

[Tim Gettys]

Right.

[Snow Mike Mike]

The performance looked to be solid. Wasn't jumping on frame rates on the Xbox. I was really pleased with that. Of like, man, am I going to play this right now for the first ever time, or am I waiting for four hours out in the fall? I don't know where I fall. Because it looked difficult as well.

[Tim Gettys]

Oh, it's. Yeah, it is. You're kind of known for it, you know, four souls. There was Ninja Guy.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Yeah. That difficult.

[Tim Gettys]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Ninja Guy.

[Tim Gettys]

Didn't I like that was the franchise on Xbox. I'm so surprised, you being the Xbox guy, that you missed out on this, because growing up, like, the original Xbox 2003-2005, that era, it was like, what? What does the Xbox have? A question that we've asked so many times, we know the answer now. Yesterday's showcase was a banger, and we got a great line first half of 2025. But back then, there was the question of. I remember being in. In high school, and it was like the fights between the PS2 and the Xbox, and I'm over here rocking for the gamecube. Not much has changed. I love that. And the Xbox, it was like, all right, they got Halo, they have Ninja Gaiden, they have Splinter Cell, and that's it. Oh, here's Cool Tour. That was it.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Give me the games you were playing, because I'll tell you what, I was playing at that time, too. Those are the big four Fantasy Stars. Guitar Hero Links. Okay. Fusion Frenzy, Medal of Honor, Early Call of Duties. Like, it's always funny, whenever we talk about these games, I go, man, I never played Ninja Gaiden. Where was I in 2004 and 2008 when these games were being played? What was I playing? And then I go back, I'm like, I don't know. And then I think, oh, snap, we were playing Guitar Hero and all that.

[Tim Gettys]

That does make sense. But my question for you about Fusion Frenzy, did you have Fusion Frenzy, or did you just play the demo that came with him?

[Snow Mike Mike]

No, we had Fusion friends.

[Tim Gettys]

Really?

[Snow Mike Mike]

Yeah, we played a lot of Fusion Frenzy.

[Tim Gettys]

I played the hell out of that demo. I don't know a single person that actually owned that. Oh, yeah.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Hell, yeah, bro. We love that game. That and Fantasy Star Online. Me and AJ Tessera played a lot of Fantasy Star Online.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah. Like, what's wild to me, though, just to give you some, like, context for this, Like, I would say that Ninja Gaiden on the original Xbox was talked about by video game magazines the way that a ghost of Tsushima is Talked about on PlayStation nowadays. Or, like, I mean, I go as far as saying an Uncharted. Yeah. Like, it was that level of game for Xbox.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Well, yeah. Remember Your boy, Snow Mike.

[Tim Gettys]

Mike.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Living under a rock. I wasn't reading any magazines back then, you know, we were just gaming. Whatever game we got, we were just gaming, bro. That's all I can tell you. Tim, I love you. And so, yeah, I'm very excited about it. Of course. Watching Bless play was awesome. One day I'll get my hands on the sticks. Did you jump in at all and try? Because I know.

[Tim Gettys]

Yes, yes. I actually never played through two at all. Also, one was freaking hard. Like, one is a game that, like, if I'm being completely honest, I doubt I actually beat. But it was. That was the era again. I was like, what, 14 or so? Yeah, Me and current. So he'd be sleeping over at my house, and we would just trade the controller off, back and forth. Who ended up playing more? Him. But did you really beat Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth? You know what I mean? Does it matter? We're gaming, baby.

[Snow Mike Mike]

We're having good time. We are gaming, Tim. Does it matter? Matter is right now, a lot of people are bringing up the Halo 3 Hayabusa armor.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah.

[Snow Mike Mike]

This doesn't have anything to do with each other, do they?

[Tim Gettys]

It does.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Stop it.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah.

[Snow Mike Mike]

That's crazy, Tim.

[Tim Gettys]

Now, Mike, can I blow your mind?

[Snow Mike Mike]

This is me learning for the first time.

[Tim Gettys]

Have you ever played Dead or Alive?

[Snow Mike Mike]

They had the fighting game and the volleyball game.

[Tim Gettys]

Yes.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Yes.

[Tim Gettys]

Would you believe it's in the same universe as Ninja Gaiden? To the point that, like, there are multiple characters, including Ryu is in a playable character in the games, not just as, like, a bonus character. Like, okay, the story. And there are other characters that are like. Remember yesterday? Where they're like, oh, and for the first time, you get to play as all these other characters in Ninja Garden 2. Yes, they're dead or alive characters, but again, now they're also Ninja Gaiton characters. It's one thing. Crazy stuff, man.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Good for them. That. That means they were big back then. That was. That's cool.

[Tim Gettys]

Oh, yeah.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Okay.

[Tim Gettys]

Oh, yeah.

[Snow Mike Mike]

They still make Dead or Alive.

[Tim Gettys]

Been a while.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Been a while.

[Tim Gettys]

Been a while. Dead or Alive 6 was the last one. That doesn't sound right.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Okay. Okay. I like that. Well, good for them, Tim. Of course. You know what else it is? It's Friday, and that means we're back for more kind of Funny Games Daily, each and every weekday, we run you through the nerdy news you need to know about, live on YouTube, Twitch, and of course, on podcast services around the globe. If you love what we do, consider supporting us with the kind of funny membership available on Patreon, YouTube and now on Spotify and Apple podcasts. To get all of our shows ad free, watch us as we record them live and get your daily exclusive show from the mind of one Greg Miller. What do you think he'll do it today on?

[Tim Gettys]

I don't know. Probably something very upsetting to me, Greg. This new unaged Greg. You know what I mean? I don't like it. He's going too far.

[Snow Mike Mike]

There's no way to rein it in 2025. I'm bringing it.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah. And by bringing it, it just means torturing Tim Gettys.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

I. I would argue that I might not be the one that deserves it least at this company.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Okay.

[Tim Gettys]

But I'm definitely in the short runnings.

[Snow Mike Mike]

For that, you know, top 3 of people who don't deserve it. Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

Thank you. Thank you.

[Snow Mike Mike]

I mean you might. You are probably number one.

[Tim Gettys]

It's in that era.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

You know, like I'm in that group of people where it's just like I just leave me alone. You know what I mean? The life is torture enough.

[Snow Mike Mike]

You have to remember that. There's the big three. Okay. In his eyes.

[Tim Gettys]

The big three.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Andy.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Nick, you.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah. Big three. What does that mean?

[Snow Mike Mike]

Like the big three that he can joke around with.

[Tim Gettys]

He knows that he can prank.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Yeah. He can buy an only fans receipt, send it to someone's front door. Watch the podcast for a good laugh on that one.

[Tim Gettys]

For sure.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Those are good. Try ins right there. And of course, watch yesterday's Alien in review that went live today.

[Tim Gettys]

Yes. It all begins everybody.

[Snow Mike Mike]

First time that your boy Snowbike Mike will ever truly keep up with watching the movies and in review at the same time.

[Tim Gettys]

So I know Chris Anka is loves these movies.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Loves them.

[Tim Gettys]

Right. And so because of that, I feel like you have that nice in. Are you besides that interested in watching these or do. Are you feeling like, oh, this is like a more social thing like I know you like to do?

[Snow Mike Mike]

Yes. No. I grew up watching avp.

[Tim Gettys]

Okay.

[Snow Mike Mike]

I've seen a couple of the later on predators. So I am very interested in this. These are movies that I pitched to Nick for Mike and Nick's 80s action movie watch alongs. But he always held him back because he knew this would eventually happen. And so I, I've been waiting for this. I'm very excited about this. And yeah, I have Chris watching him with me, which is like watching it with Nick.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Well, he'll just tell you all the cool stuff you want to know while it's happening, which I love. Yeah, it's the best. And so, yeah, this is, I mean, you see me every single week. I listen to all of the interviews. I just don't watch the movies 90% of the time. So this will be the first time I'm going to keep up with everything.

[Tim Gettys]

That's great. And honestly, I recommend that for everybody. This is a very big undertaking doing these alien movies. I know it's been very requested over the years and I'm excited, man, because I know there's some really good highs and there's some really low lows and that usually means a good interview. So stay tuned everyone.

[Snow Mike Mike]

This last movie was really, really good though. Super high. Of course, we're an 11 person small business. All about live talk shows. Today you get kind of funny games daily. Then after that you'll get a games cast, which is Mike and bless giving you. We're gonna react to the top 25 games of all time. Hit me with two best sports games. Best sports games.

[Tim Gettys]

NBA Street Volume 2 gotta be on the list. The sports include skateboarding.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Yeah, of course.

[Tim Gettys]

Tony hawk's Pro Skater 2's probably on the list.

[Snow Mike Mike]

You think Kelly Slater's surfing will be on it?

[Tim Gettys]

Kelly Slater, pro surfing. Sean White's pro snowboarding.

[C]

Wait, do you think wave race 64 is on?

[Snow Mike Mike]

Oh, wave race is a good call. How about hydro? Yeah, here's the fun one. Of course we'll, we'll save for the podcast. Like, you get into the weeds now of like, what is a top 25 sports game? Because there's, you know, cultural significance. Who's the COVID athlete? What did it do at the Times? You think of Madden 25 with Madden on there celebrating John Madden, that's a big deal. Right? But like, what are you adding to the gameplay? Is SEGA Soccer Slam going to be on this?

[Tim Gettys]

Well, so here's the problem with this, with the, the prompt and this is often the problem. Yeah, Mike, as you're going to learn, the more sh. Is what headspace are the editors in? Like, are they really trying to get. Are they equipped to make this list where they're thinking about the difference between Madden 04 versus, oh, seven. Oh, versus. You know what I mean. Cause that's what you want. Or is this just a list of like, what are 25 popular sports games? You know what I mean? Or even worse, are they just gonna say Madden the franchise?

[Snow Mike Mike]

Now you can't say that.

[Tim Gettys]

Well, you say that, Mike. Just wait till they do. Who wrote this list?

[Snow Mike Mike]

And we're gonna find out. Of course after that is today's game showdown for your lovely Friday. And then the stream is Kingdom Hearts 2 with me, Snowbike Mike of course. If you've been keeping up with my Kingdom Hearts journey, you'll know we are going through it right now. I have finally defeated Dance Water Dance. I'm so proud of you.

[Tim Gettys]

I danced with Water came out the other side.

[Snow Mike Mike]

I watched Goofy take a boulder to the head.

[Tim Gettys]

One of the most iconic moments there.

[Snow Mike Mike]

That we had to talk about. It was pretty wild. So keep an eye on for that of course if you're kind of funny member Today's Greg way is I don't know as Greg is coming in later this afternoon. So I'm sure you'll get into the mind of Greg here very very soon. Thank you to our Patreon producers who support us, Delaney Twining and Carl Jacobs. Today we are brought to you by Shady Rays and Rocket Money. But we'll tell you all about that later. Let's jump in to what will be and forever is the Roper Report. Today we have six stories, a baker's dozen. Love that story. Number one, EA lost 6 billion in market value following FC 25 and Dragon Age underperformance this news coming from Andy Robinson at vgc. Electronic Arts shares declined Electronic Arts shares declined more declined by more than 16% this week and $6 billion in market value following its pre earnings announcement that EAFC 25 and Dragon Age the Veil Guard had failed to meet its expectations. On Wednesday, EA warned the market that it would now expect a decline in its in its live service revenue for its current fiscal year after previously forecasting growth. Primarily, the decline was attributed to an FC25 slowdown during the Christmas period. In addition, EA said that BioWare RPG Dragon Age the Veil Guard released in October had missed its had missed its expectations by around 50% with 1.5 million players reached. By Thursday, the publisher had lost 6 billion from its market value of $37.3 billion. Following the pre earnings news, EAFC generates around 2 billion annually. Reuters reports that around 800 million of that is made up by Ultimate Team. Quote Ultimate Team has come to be viewed as a near Swiss clock of interactive media bookings growth. If it's stagnant, it puts enormous pressure on EA to fill the void, end quote, says Monif Nathanson, analysts.

[Tim Gettys]

Oh boy, these are bad, bad numbers Mike.

[Snow Mike Mike]

All of this.

[Tim Gettys]

Everything about this bad. We're talking about Dragon Age, a major IP in video games. Not even just talking about ea, talking about all of video games we're talking about a multi platform game. So the excuses of oh, it didn't sell well because xyz, you're running out of the variables there, right? Like this is more of like a, hey, it didn't work. That must have been a very expensive video game. You're talking about FC25 not hitting where they need it to the you can rely on it moneymaker. Them going as far as saying that it's the Swiss clock of interactive media bookings growth. Like those motherfuckers refined that sentence. And I bet that they talk about that all the time in meetings and they're just like, well, we got this Swiss thing right? This is scary.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Yeah, Tim, this is tough for ea who really relies on that microtransaction money from of course FC 25 and a number of their other titles. But I want to start off with Dragon Age not meeting expectations around 50%. So they made, they sold 1.5 million copies we expect with players, but missing that by 50%. They were thinking 3 million they were going to hit and they didn't hit that target at all. And this was a game that had a tough, this was tough. This was hard to watch. A game that I liked. I thought it was a good game to a great game. And there was just so much from social media to then finally getting it to the finish line. I don't know where that didn't hit. I thought that was going to be a mega hit.

[Tim Gettys]

I mean, yeah, I do think that it is a bit of a surprise that the numbers are as low as they are. I do think that there is a lot of factors against it. I think that we are in a very tumultuous era of video game marketing and how word of mouth at this point works against your game as much as it works for it. And I also just think it is a more saturated market than it's ever been from every level from AAA all the way down to the indies of indies and getting something out there to hit on the critical level, sales level and beyond that, that ethereal kind of just consumer acceptance level. Right? That's very, very hard even for the biggest, best games out there. But for them to miss by 50%, that seems like a, a massive miscalculation. And I will say that like when we talk about the stories of a Square Enix and their expectations for some of the final fantasies that were exclusive on consoles and them not hitting expectations into being like, what were those expectations? Ubisoft as well, them being more multiplatform but Sometimes the, the expectations for sales are just so astronomically out of whack for what's realistic. 3 million for Dragon Age Veil Guard, the first Dragon Age in a very long time. That is a quality game backed with multiplatform. Not hitting that 3 million by 50%. That's a really telling sign of. There's a problem in this industry with how video games are being made because I don't think that that is a, oh man, they, they were expecting too much type situation.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Okay, yeah, I agree with you on multi plat. Right. When I read that I do expect more than 1.5 million on a BioWare big RPG that should be hitting. It's been what, eight years, almost a decade since the last one. People want this. They want to see what that talented team can do. And it just didn't hit. It didn't seem to catch fire. And like you said, Tim, the gaming market is all over the place. I mean, we are in a stage where people are not getting off Fortnite, Call of Duty, Warzone. They're playing games from 12 years ago that they just love and want to be a part of. They're watching streamers play games and they're following those trends to play Roblox now. It's like, it's a very interesting stage where when you have a talented team like bioware putting out Dragon Age, a beloved franchise before and now it just doesn't hit. I. That makes you scared of oh, are we on the right path here? And that also leads my mind to. That's why we see Sony do live service games and think that's the way. Because you see a single player game like this that you would bet on is probably going to hit. And then all of a sudden doesn't you go, oh well, clearly the market doesn't want that.

[C]

Do you think that maybe the grander audience was maybe a little bit more trepidatious this time around with a new bioware release after Mass Effect, Andromeda and then Anthem. Right. Like, do you think there's a bit more hesitation that leads that gives a bit more context around this? Right?

[Tim Gettys]

Absolutely. Yeah, I, I still. You're so right, Barrett. I think like that's very important to talk about, but I also think that 3 million still cannot be too lofty of an expectation for a game like this. That. Oh yeah, that that again is like when you're putting that much time, effort, budget, resources, marketing, all of it into this thing, like 3 million for a game of this stature. 3 million is a lot of Sales, by the way, like a freaking lot. And you talking about the, oh, people are playing Call of Duty, people are playing their 12 year old games, all that stuff, people are still buying games. And when we see these big single player games getting into the 10 million up to 20 million sales, when you're talking about the big PlayStation stuff, you're talking about the big Nintendo stuff. It's like, it's not like there's not a market of people out there to buy games like this at $70 to amount up to this number. There's so many factors that go into this. But I will say like, this is one of those things I. There's a lot of things you can point to and be like, this is why it happened, this is why it happened, this is why it happened, this is why it might have happened. All that. And they're all right. But the facts are the expectations were 3 million for Dragon Age, Veil Guard and it sold 1.5. That is bad news. And you're coupling that with the other side, the live service side of what you're talking about, of these companies trying their best to make money and tried to have consistent revenue with different streams and they're saying that the FC side isn't hitting the way that it needs to. Yeah, we're talking about EA like we're talking about the big bad wolf of the games industry for decades at this point. And we've seen them kind of turn things around. EA has had a couple major wins in the last couple years that things like it takes two, right? Like having the, what's it called? Is it EA Originals? The, the imprint that it has. Like they take swings on different projects and some smaller things that have really hit, but they've also just had a lot of misses. And when you start adding those things up, when you think about all the Star wars licensing and how bad that fumble was with the microtransaction story of Battlefront 2 a couple years ago. But then you look at Respawn and you look at them just utterly destroying multiple sides of this. Respawn alone. If we're just going to talk about the big single player games and the online live service multiplayer stuff, Respawn alone has Apex Legends and the Jedi games. Right? Success. Major sellers. Major sellers in terms of units sold and major sellers in terms of skins and battle passes and all of that stuff, like EA does have that in certain forms. But to look at Bioware and to have the failure of Anthem than to have the misstep of the legendary collection to some Extent. But even then, what was the problem with the Legendary collection?

[C]

I thought people liked the Legendary.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah. Okay, so maybe that was a step in the right direction.

[C]

Yeah. But it does feel like a. I don't know if that's a big enough win for Modern BioWare to like earn back the trust of. Of their fan base when there are two more modern releases. Were huge missteps.

[Tim Gettys]

Totally my bad. I wanna, I wanna understand that because I, I was. I had a GTA definitive trilogy on the mind. I. I'm wrong about that. Yeah. The Mass Effect trilogy, people would like that. Andy, who's a big Mass Effect fan, he liked that. But then you had to get to this again. Dragon Age, Vailgard, a game that we know multiple people like, liked a lot and not everybody and not the game of the year. I mean, look at our game of the year list. It made a couple peoples top tens. Yeah, right. That says kind of like, all right, there's a quality game there for people. But clearly the market isn't backing that up. So I don't know, it's just concerning that even what should be layups are just like airballing.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Do you worry about Mass Effect around the corner now?

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah.

[Snow Mike Mike]

With what just happened here?

[Tim Gettys]

Oh, I mean, I feel like everyone should be more worried about Mass Effect than Dragon Age to begin with. Because Andromeda, you know, like that, like, that's like the, the other big thing is like there wasn't a. And I'm speaking a little out of turn here because I'm not that up on Dragon Age, but in recent times, in recent generations, there hasn't been a bad Dragon Age. Right.

[C]

Well, that's because there hasn't been a Dragon Age since.

[Tim Gettys]

But still, that's the thing. But they're like, so they're the. In terms of a franchise, it's not like the expectation was that Vale Guard wasn't going to be good. Yeah, you know what I mean?

[Snow Mike Mike]

Of course.

[Tim Gettys]

But in terms of franchise, you look massive. But in terms of developers, there was trepidation going into Vailgard because of Andromeda and Anthem and all of that stuff.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Like, oh man, let's jump into some super chats. Of course. Don't forget you can super chat with your thoughts and opinions throughout today's show, anytime over on YouTube and we'll get you involved in the conversation. Like BAM25 says, I feel the 3 million sales was a pretty reasonable goal being on three different platforms. These sales goals for Dragon Age doesn't feel like a square thing. Like you said before Tim, being multi plat, I think that goal should have been achievable there. And then EJ writes in, says as a longtime Dragon AIDS fan, I 100 percented bail guard and I was incredibly disappointed with it. Lacking connection to the past games and the writing quality, the low sales doesn't surprise me. So there you go. A big fan who played a lot of it doesn't, isn't surprised by that at all. Let's talk about FIFA though.

[Tim Gettys]

Let's talk.

[Snow Mike Mike]

That's a big one there, Tim. Of course FIFA FC 25 slowing down during the Christmas period. When you think that would pick up a big live service game, their yearly annual title that is, you know, really boosted by, by this analyst saying 8 million 800 million is made up by the ultimate team sales.

[Tim Gettys]

So Mike, this is me definitely asking you as the sports guy, me as a loser that has never touched a ball in my life, do you think this has anything to do. And I'm. Am I even right in bringing this up as a question that it's not FIFA anymore, that it's fc?

[Snow Mike Mike]

No, not at all. I don't think, I don't think the title change changed.

[Tim Gettys]

Was that this year?

[Snow Mike Mike]

Yeah, that was. I would be truly surprised if someone looked at all of us and was like FC actually changed the sales numbers and people didn't buy it as often as f FIFA did because they got confused or something. No, I don't think that at all. I think with the way the world is, they know exactly what FC25 was, which is FIFA. I think it is the ultimate team of burning people out. I think every single year that you come out with the same thing, people eventually will slow down. There's no World cup happening right now. The Olympics drive a lot of that as well. Also just the day to day of is this exciting and I think will we see in the next five years to slow down of these card games like ultimate team in NBA in FIFA. This might be a sign of the times that it could be.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah. And that is the thing about all of these different systems and microtransactions and even just annual releases of full price games and even just games that are a buy it once and that's it. Like all these different ways of monetizing video game products. There's timelines that I think eventually run out. And as the world and technology changes around them, like you can't just get comfortable and be like, like well it's gonna work this way forever because like look what happens to happen to Physical media in so many different ways and what's happening to it even now in video games. But when you look at music and movies and everything like that, right, Things just change over time. Like the ipod came out and all of a sudden digital music is the way people listen to music. And that changed how music is made. Spotify comes out now you can stream anything without even buying stuff. You just have a subscription. That changed how music is made. I think that we are at a point now that the live service kind of the, the ultimate team card based stuff that has worked so well for 10 years in these sports games, right?

[Snow Mike Mike]

Ultimate team, yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

Maybe even longer, right? Because I remember those back when I was at ign.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Yeah, we're definitely at a decade of.

[Tim Gettys]

That, like that stuff. It might be reaching the, the end of the line. I still think it'll be here for a while. But there, there's going to be something new that comes in that everybody latches onto and kind of figures out and becomes the new thing. Because people just get over shit over time. And also just the money dries up. And once the money dries up, nobody's going to push this shit.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Well, we know that it's still a juggernaut, right? It's still up on the top 10, top 15 sales charts every single year at the end of the year. And somebody wrote in fc they changed the name last year. So two years now, but still it's still selling, it's still up there. It's just how do you get innovative with ultimate team now? I think it's the really big one for a lot of people of we've seen the same game modes all the time. How do you go a little bit deeper into justifying why I need to buy these cards? Because it is tough. You know, every single year it's the same cycle, right? You jump on the new game, you buy cards to make the ultimate team of 11 to 19 players on your, on your roster and then you play and then you do it all over again. And then every single year it gets all erased. You go to the next one, right? So what do you do to get that exciting and innovate on that? EA has to figure that out. But I mean, will it bounce back, Tim? Do we see EA now bouncing back?

[Tim Gettys]

I mean that's the thing. Bounce back. No, I don't think that you really can bounce back when it's just been this like insane growth up and up and up. And now it's like we talked so much about Ubisoft over the last year. And we're going to continue to. But we might not be talking about them next year. Right? That is very doom and gloom. But is it very. Or is it just kind of. And I don't think EA is going that way. But when you look at it, what is ea? It is ip. And if they fuck up all of their ip, they're nothing, right? They have FIFA or fc. It's still doing great. Like it's. Even though it's dipping, it's still the.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Best sports, it's still the best soccer sim in the world.

[Tim Gettys]

They have respawn. But we're coming up on eventually the third of the Jedi games. Right? Apex is still killing doing its thing. But like if they've. If they. I don't even want to say fucked up. Dragon Age. Dragon Age isn't selling. Dragon Age is not hitting the way that it needs to. I don't think that the next Dragon Age is going to fix that. And if, even if it does, what are we talking seven years from now? You know what I mean?

[Snow Mike Mike]

Yeah, of course.

[Tim Gettys]

Mass Effect. Is it going to work? You go down the list, it's like at a certain point what single player EA games are there? What multiplayer EA game. They fucked up Battlefield.

[Snow Mike Mike]

They fucked up Battlefield.

[Tim Gettys]

Like it's just when you, when you like poison the well so much, what value are you actually having? What excitement is there when EA puts on a showcase? What are we looking for and hoping that they even announce. When you see that EA logo pop up, does it make us go or does it make us go? Is it this? Is it that? And I feel like EA and Ubisoft, the two biggest third party publishers, multi platform specifically over the years are getting less and less and less exciting and have given us less and less reason to trust them that their products are going to be great.

[Snow Mike Mike]

It's tough.

[Tim Gettys]

But then there's Respawn. I don't want to forget about Tim.

[Snow Mike Mike]

I could go down the list, right? You have the Sims, right? People get excited when they send see the Sims pop up. They have respawn with knowing that a Star wars game is around the corner or anything that talented team could do that gets you excited. Right? So it is tough of. Yeah, I totally get that. Your trust starts to wear down and go away. But they still have titles that you love and people get excited for. Yeah, let's keep it going right now. Of course I want to bring in one of the. You're wrong. Just to jump in with Zany Loop before we go says EA did not give sales Data and only mentioned 1.5 engaged players, which probably includes the EA subscription players quote coming from Forbes. Dragon age engaged approximately 1.5 players during the quarter, down nearly 50% from the company's expectations and quotes from Forbes. So it might not even be sales as well, Tim. Including of course, subscription services as well.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, yeah. A lot of, A lot of maybes. But no matter what, that doesn't make things better.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Does not make anything better. Is right. You know that.

[Tim Gettys]

Tim.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Let's had this story.

[Tim Gettys]

There's a couple of other super chats.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Skate 4.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Joey Radstone says skate 4 needs to be a big hit for EA.

[Tim Gettys]

It does and it won't be.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Tim, I have major concerns about Skate4 being a live service early access title. That's going to grow with you. I, I love the idea. Right. I can see the vision of where we are in 2025 and beyond of like, hey, this is what we want it to be. But like as a die hard skate fan, that's not what I want it to be. I want a skate title ready to go that is fully made and ready in like actual product. I don't want to just grow with it. I, I don't know about Skate4 on this one, Tim.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, I mean it's. I don't think that they've given us anything since the announcement of it to be like, oh, hell yeah. Hell yeah. Exactly. Right.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Well, we'll see. We'll see a lot more player testing this year, which is the exciting part. Like at the same time they've been building this, we have not seen it yet. So we are waiting to like get hands on the stick, see what they're building out. Maybe this is something different where it's like, oh, you actually innovated on this title and made it worthwhile. It is a concern and a worry. Let's jump into.

[Tim Gettys]

I just want to be clear. We don't want it to fail.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

Like we want this thing to succeed.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

[Tim Gettys]

It's just we have our doubts.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Gate.

[C]

We love skate and someone brought up an interesting aspect to it is like, is skateboarding hot with the newer generation of kids? You know, like, are kids jonesing for a skateboarding game today? Because I feel like the success of a skateboarding game today is going to live and die. Not by our generation, but you know, kids who are in high school or going into college and stuff, are they looking for something like that today?

[Tim Gettys]

I think the reality is as many kids, if not more, are actually skateboarding now than they used to.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Okay.

[Tim Gettys]

But I think that when Tony Hawk's pro skater came out, like that changed the game and made skateboarding popular in the mainstream. Even if you don't actually skate and you just are like adjacent to the culture to some extent. And that also happened during the X Games era of it. Like if Tony hawk landed the 900, like there was that perfect boom in the late 90s, right. I think that now it is just, it's less of like a counterculture thing and it's more just part of culture, you know. So I think the numbers are there, but I just don't know if the a video game necessarily is going to be backed by the people that actually skateboard. I think it's going to be more. It needs just to be a great video game and I think that that's a very tall order for EA skate for in 2025.

[Snow Mike Mike]

So we'll see. Let's kick it over. Of course. Hey, it's Friday. Thank you all so much for tuning in and supporting us. We're very excited to have a great Games daily with all of you. We will come back right after a word from our sponsors.

[Tim Gettys]

This episode is brought to you by Shady Rays. Get ready for the season ahead with quality shades built to last. Our friends over at Shady Rays have you covered with premium polarized shades that won't break the bank. Shady Rays is an independent sunglasses company offering a world class product rated five stars by over 300,000 people. They have hundreds of options to choose from, so you're bound to find the perfect pair to match your style. Plus, if your shades ever go missing or take an unexpected hit, don't sweat it. They have the most insane protection in all of eyewear. Every pair is backed by lost or broken replacements. If you don't love your shades, exchange them for a new pair or return worry free within 30 days. Y'all know I've been outside a lot in the sun playing Pokemon Go and it's such a great experience wearing my Shady Rays when I'm out and about looking dope. Exclusively for you. Shady Rays is giving out their best deal. Head to shadyrays.com and use code funny for 35% off polarized sunglasses. Try for yourself the shades rated five stars by over 300,000 people. That's shadyrays.com use the code funny. This episode is brought to you by Rocket Money. You sign up for something, forget about it after the trial period ends. Then you're charged month after month after month. The subscriptions are there, but you're not using them. In fact, 85% of people have at least one paid subscription going unused each month. Thanks to Rocket Money, you can see all your subscriptions in one place and cancel the ones that you're not using anymore and save more money. Rocket Money has helped multiple members of Kinda Funny learn that they are still paying for things they totally didn't even realize. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions. It monitors your spending and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings. Rocket Money has earned over 5 million users and has saved a total of 500 million in canceled subscriptions, saving members up to $740 a year. When using all the app's premium features. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and match your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Go to rocket money.com kind of funny today. That's rocket money.com kinda funny. Rocketmoney.com kindafunny snow mike. Mike has turned into Andy Cortez. Why?

[D]

Oh man. Tim. Everybody throw out the visual triangle. Should have made an emote probably to prep for this moment. Prep for this momentous occasion.

[Tim Gettys]

It's finally here.

[D]

It's finally here.

[Tim Gettys]

The GeForce RTX 5090 courtesy of Nvidia.

[D]

This is the card, everybody. No, just kidding. It's not the card.

[Tim Gettys]

Give a dog a bone, everyone.

[D]

But what's really cool about this, Tim, is Kevin made a great observation earlier that the 4090 that you, if you want to bust that out, Tim is almost as thick as the 5090 box.

[Tim Gettys]

That's wild.

[D]

Like if you turn it sideways like, you know, like it's like the box is just a little bit thicker than the actual 4090. Shout out to Nvidia for sending us a. An RTX 5090.

[Tim Gettys]

Let's get in there.

[D]

Let's get in here, everybody. This is a little unboxing that we're gonna do right quick. Oh, oh, oh. I feel like I'm. I feel like I'm uncovering some sort of like uncharted puzzle or something. Look at that. These little slots come out. So one thing that was really nice is they also send out like just kind of info about even just the box, the case. Right? The little thing it came in, it's all. It's 100% plastic free, made of paper fibers and inkless. And it is inkless.

[Tim Gettys]

No ink.

[D]

There's no ink.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, it is. Without ink.

[D]

Pretty damn neat. But who cares about the box, right?

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah. Get in there, dude. Up.

[D]

Let's get the Freaking gra. Another little compartment right here, Tim.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah.

[D]

There's a. There's a little riddle in here. Just kidding. Open this little sucker up. Take off that front case.

[Tim Gettys]

Oh, my God. It is a tiny boy.

[D]

And here it is, Tim.

[Tim Gettys]

I love that we're at a point that this is what I consider a tiny graphics card, but it is. Dude.

[D]

Wait, Compare it to this RTX 5090 in my hands right here. This is not gonna be a Greg Miller bit where I pretend to fall on it and break it. This is an actual 5090 in my hands right now. And it's a look at the thinness difference.

[Tim Gettys]

Put it down here.

[D]

So one really, really cool thing is the RTX 4090 is A. It's got the big fan, right? The 5090 has two fans, Tim. It's got two fans in the son of a gun, all powered with, you know, them doing, hey, we'll get you.

[Tim Gettys]

We'll get.

[D]

Render one frame for you and then we'll use our insane AI to render three additional frames in addition to all of the other pixels on the screen that you may want. I'm freaking really excited to get this sucker going.

[Tim Gettys]

So we're going to. We're going to put this in your. Your computer. Yes, right in the lab. So we can show off all that DLSS4. Correct.

[D]

DLSS4, Tim. Super excited about this RTX 5090. This will be the top of the line and I love that. There's just a lot more facts about the cardboard box. But the actual. The actual 32 gigs of DDR7VRAM and powered by Nvidia Blackwell architecture with the new 5th gen tensor cores and 4th gen ray tracing cores.

[C]

Stance Dance Revolution.

[Tim Gettys]

Exactly.

[D]

The biggest question I always get is, what's the first game you're gonna fire up, Andy? Yeah, you know, and the first thing I'm gonna fire up is probably cyberpunk. It's hard to not say cyberpunk. It really is. Because anytime I fire up cyberpunk and see what the future looks like with ray tracing, with all of the beautiful. You know, it with the full path tracing. Right, Tim? It's not just, hey, we'll let you, you know, ray trace and have reflections on puddles. Let's do full path tracing. The way that, you know, movies are rendered. I'm super stoked to kind of see it in action. In addition to seeing it in action with all of the brand new bells and whistles that DLSS4 forwards you.

[Tim Gettys]

Dude, this reminds me of like the PS3 and then the PS3 Slim. Yes.

[D]

It's so wild because legitimately, as then.

[Tim Gettys]

With the power of like a PS5.

[D]

As they're presenting this on stage, I'm expecting this thing to be seven times as thick as the RTX 4090. Because when Jensen showed off the 4090 back in the day, I was like, whoa, that thing is freaking huge. How the hell is that gonna. Like my old case, I couldn't have fit a 4090.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, but this is just a good old two slot.

[D]

Yeah, little two slotter right here. But it's also just incredibly thin, meaning that, like, if you have any other slots on the back of your PC that you might want to put your elgato capture card or whatever other sort of, you know, trinkets you want to attach to your motherboard, this is going to afford you a lot more space as well, while giving you actually better kind of cooling. Because of the two fan setup and.

[Tim Gettys]

Looking at the ports here, we got. So there's three DisplayPort 2.11, HDMI 2.1, and then thanks to the Blackwell Architectures Innovations and DLSS4, the 5090 outperforms the 4090 by two times.

[D]

Absolutely. Buck wild.

[Tim Gettys]

There we go. Very excited. Andy, get out of here. It's all getting installed. Kevin, can you get this thing installed?

[D]

It's like a hoverboard. Tim, What?

[Tim Gettys]

Do you see what's happening?

[Snow Mike Mike]

It's like a hoverboard, dude.

[D]

So cool. So excited.

[Tim Gettys]

Welcome back to the stage.

[D]

Thank you, Nvidia. Thank you sending us one and for letting me geek out about it. I'm so stoked to play some games.

[Tim Gettys]

So cool.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Looks great too.

[C]

Should we have Nvidia send us something every day just to get Andy out of bed before noon?

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, all right. Hey, that'll be good. Let's get him his.

[Snow Mike Mike]

He's waking up early. He likes waking up early.

[C]

He likes waking up early.

[Tim Gettys]

He says. He says.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Tim, let's jump in. U S. PS5 sales are pacing ahead of PS4 while Xbox Series lags behind Xbox One. This coming from Jordan Midler at VGC. Story number two. PS5 console sales are tracking ahead of PS4 in the US while Xbox series console sales lag behind Xbox One. That's according to Matt Piscatella, executive director at video game industry analysts at Circana, formerly NPD Group, who has summarized the latest U. S. Sales data in the company's latest monthly sales report, which was published this week. Piscatella noted that PS5 unit sales are now tracking ahead of PS4s at the same point in both consoles life cycles. On the other side, Xbox series console sales are lagging behind the Xbox One, which itself fell behind the PS4, highlighting the widening gap between the machines. Quote through each console's first 50 months in the US market life to date ending December 24th for or ending December 2024 for both Xbox Series and PS5, PS5 lifetime unit sales are 7% ahead of PS4's pace, while Xbox Series trails Xbox ones by 18%, end quote, wrote Piscatella in the thread on blue sky. Though 38% through 38 months in the US through December 2023, PS5 led PS4 by 6% while Xbox Series trailed Xbox One by 13%. In August, Sony reported that the PS5 held or had sold 61 million units. While Microsoft doesn't report hardware figures, a report in the Wall Street Journal claimed in September that the Xbox series consoles had sold around half of what the PS5 had managed. @ the time. Piscatella posted on in posted that December, video game Hardware spending dropped 29% to 1.1 billion quote. Spending on PS5 hardware fell 18% when compared to December 2023, with Xbox Series and Switch each declining by 38%. Annual spending on the video game hardware finished 25% lower than 2023 at 4.9 billion.

[Tim Gettys]

I am not surprised by any of this. I will say I am heartened that the PS5 sales are as strong as they are okay. That in comparison to the PS4 that they, that they are up at the timeline where they are. And we did a episode of Gamescast a couple days ago kind of predicting the rest of the PlayStation's life. And I feel like I was a little bit more optimistic than some of the other boys were about the rest of the PS5's life cycle.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Okay.

[Tim Gettys]

And I think that this is a good sign there. I think that obviously we are in a a rut theoretically, based on all of the knowledge we have of the studios and live service games being canceled and us kind of being like, but where are the games that we actually want based on what we've been taught to expect from PlayStation with the absolutely incredible back half of the PS4, PS4's life. Will the PS5 have that? Can it keep up this pace of selling these consoles and all of that like that? Those are definitely big questions and we'll have to wait and see what ends up actually getting pulled out over there. The Xbox stuff, not a surprise, right? I feel like hardware clearly not the utmost importance to Xbox this generation. They've made the most definitive shift to an ecosystem. This is an Xbox. This is an Xbox. I guess technically this isn't. I don't think you can make a Mac an Xbox. Not yet though. But everything's an Xbox and I feel like that's their strategy. So it's like cool. I don't see this necessarily as bad news at all for Xbox. These are still healthy numbers. These are still numbers that are getting them a lot of revenue for hardware. That is fantastic. Right. It's not like the Xbox Series X. I don't, I don't have much experience with the S, so I'm not going to speak on it. But the Series X is a great machine that is I think a incredible place to play Game Pass games. Right? Like that is such a good investment to. If you're just going to do one thing and not want to buy hella games, but have hella games. You buy an Xbox Series X, you buy Game Pass and you're going to be set. Especially this year with so many hopefully amazing games coming out month after month. But even if you don't want to do that, get Game Pass somewhere else and they're fine with that. Like I think that that's. This is not a. This versus that. There's apples and oranges here more than there ever has been. But I do think that it is good that PS5 sales are pacing ahead. That I think is not necessarily something that is a guarantee when we're following up story number one of EA not meet reaching expectations.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Of course. Yeah. Tim, I'm impressed by the PS5 sales. We know it's been had a strong start. I think everyone out There wants a PS5. They know they're getting great exclusives from there. Xbox now showing their hand that you're probably going to get a lot of Xbox first party titles now over on that ecosystem. So it seems like the place to be. I do think we will see a rise in PC sales here very, very soon. I think that's going to be the new wave of everyone just wants a, you know, beefy gaming PC. I think that's what the kids will be asking for from this point forward.

[Tim Gettys]

I highly doubt that. I, I mean I, I just don't. I, I think that's what we're going to see is there will be way more hardcore console players making the transition to BPC gamers. I do not think that the trend is going to shift to like people entering the ecosystems of video games jump into PC. I think that PC has such a long way still to go to be as user friendly as a console is. I think steamos and the plans that we've been talking about and hearing about might change that. But they haven't yet and I won't believe it until we see it. The PC market has grown exponentially in terms of video games. And I think that the evidence is shown by how many developers are putting their games on PC. Back in the 360 days, PS3 days we weren't seeing, we would not expect, we would be surprised if any of the major games we were talking about were also coming out on PC. There were PC games and then there were console games and then there was a couple that would go back and forth like a Call of Duty. But that was before Call of Duty is what it is now. And I do think that Call of Duty was a major shift towards the publishers seeing viability in releasing games on PC.

[C]

Yeah, and then the other thing like Mike, I get what you're saying because yes, a lot of kids are talking more about wanting a PC more so than I would say like our generation, like growing up did, right? Like it was all about the consoles. And PC has only grown more and more and more since then. But it is also affordability as well. Whereas the console market is still way more affordable than the PC market that a lot of these kids really want to get into. Of more higher end PCs that can play crazy ridiculous games. But maybe also at the same time they're really just wanting to play Fortnite. Right? So while there is a want from a newer generation of PC stuff, I do feel like families who are buying these things for their kids are probably sticking to the thing that is more affordable.

[Snow Mike Mike]

I get that. I think you do see a lot of affordability in the PC market now that are comparable to what you're buying on a PlayStation 5 at this time. Right. Just maybe a couple hundred dollars more. You can get a PC that would play the exact same games and be just fine for a kid that's 13 years old. Where I'm getting at is you're seeing a generation of kids now growing up off of iPads and iPhones from their parents. And now we're looking at a world of people online only talking about their PC. They're streaming on their PC, their favorite people or their content creators. The TV they're watching is PC, PC, PC. And I think that's what we're going to see a lot more of, is the switch move towards that. I I think PS5 and into PS6 will still be strong, but I do think we will see a, a strong rise in this mov.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah. And it just, I think it's. What's interesting is like again, I do think that we're going to see the, the pie chart of where games are being played grow on the PC side more. And I do think there's a million different reasons for that. I mean like even just talking about just Xbox here, there are less Xbox out there. There's going to be more people playing Xbox games on PC. So less Xbox, more PC. That all makes sense. You bringing up all the Twitch streamers. That is a subsect, but a major like subsect of people that want to engage with gaming content and buy gaming content. Yeah, they're going to want PCs, so that all makes sense. But I, I don't think that while I believe that we are going to see a world where digital eclipses physical game sales buy a. I mean it already is at a ridiculous amount. Like, I think it is going to eclipse it to the point of just being like undeniably the majority across the board. I think that we're not going to ever get to a point that more people are playing games on PC than they are on the consoles. I think that the sales of any individual game is going to be higher on, on the console than it is on PC for the majority of games. There's always going to be exceptions that are more PC focused. But I think that is the conversation. Right, but we'll see.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Now, looking at Xbox series lagging behind Xbox One, you're not surprised by that?

[Tim Gettys]

I mean, why would I be?

[Snow Mike Mike]

I'm a little surprised by that because the new marketing has pushed everything as an Xbox. But that wasn't the wording when we first went to this is the most powerful console ever. You need to jump on the Xbox series X and S. Now, of course we heard Phil Spencer during the interview say, hey, we lost the most important generation. But like at the same time, Tim, if we rewound what, four years ago when this was coming out, I would have expected this to hopefully get bigger than the Xbox One.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, I mean, I'm not surprised. Like, I mean just look at like I, I feel like the Xbox One and again, I'm, I don't need to like even give my own feelings or opinions on this. We know what happened. Phil's talked about what happened here. The Xbox One did not have enough high quality games to in the era of that meaning the most to sell Consoles and have people invested in that system. They didn't do it. So I think because of that like why would people buy the Xbox Series X? And I think the Xbox Series X time and time and time again during this generation has proven you don't need to buy this to enjoy the Xbox games that may or may not even be coming. We are now at a point that they're here, right? We're at a point now that I mean Indiana Jones incredibly well received. We are. We have a back to back couple months ahead of us that I think this is going to be a very telling time of. We are closer to having the dominoes fall down than we've ever been. And we've talked about this before and it's failed. We the dominoes were lined up with the Forza is going to lead into Redfall is going to lead into all that and it's like Forza great game of the year for ign. Game of the year nominee for game awards. Like there's been wins along the line but there hasn't been the back to back to back to back. I'm feeling more confident right now than ever but I don't think that that sells. Xbox Series X is necessarily and I don't think it needs to.

[Snow Mike Mike]

We also had two SKUs. The goal was to try to get you to have a second console. The more approachable Xbox Series S. I am surprised it just, it did not go the way that they thought there.

[Tim Gettys]

You need the games.

[Snow Mike Mike]

It's true.

[Tim Gettys]

When that was the strategy, you need the games now PlayStation call in Paris.

[Snow Mike Mike]

You know you can always jump in if you want to talk this but yeah, I, I'm surprised that it's lagging behind Xbox One. I thought they would have had a better boost, but it is telling. Like Phil Spencer said, we started to buy games digitally on that PlayStation 4 Xbox One era. Everybody was over there. They weren't going to jump ship. I mean you put out an Xbox Series S. I thought that would have gotten into more homes than we would have expected. Now we move towards hey, everything's an Xbox. There's possibly a handheld console. Sales aren't our end all be all goal here. We want to be a publisher that can put games anywhere. That's the new goal. I believe in that. I see that right from them. And so that's the new route they want to go with.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, I mean Yesterday, right. The six games shown including Ninja Gaiden Black 2 coming out, only one of them is not coming to PlayStation and.

[Snow Mike Mike]

We know that will probably come to PlayStation eventually.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, yeah, of course, yeah. Which, like, I mean, again, that's good. And I've said this before, like, I'm.

[E]

A little surprised they're all going to PlayStation.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, I wish it was day one, but it's not. But Paris, what's up, man? What do you have to say?

[C]

We lost your Paris.

[Snow Mike Mike]

That's all I have. They all come to PlayStation that he leaves me.

[Tim Gettys]

What? Yeah, we lost you. We heard you say they're all coming to PlayStation. Then you, we dropped you.

[E]

I, I, I only hear you if I turn on the YouTube stream. I don't hear you in Discord. That is weird.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Oh, hold on. We're muted to him or he's muted.

[E]

What the frick?

[C]

You might be, you might have us muted in Discord. Because I see, when we talk, I see our little bubble popping up there.

[E]

What the hell?

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah. Do you want to just talk for a bit? Want a Paris monologue?

[Snow Mike Mike]

Yeah, Paris, give me a monologue on the Xbox sales.

[E]

Sure, I'll monologue. So I don't have this weird echo back and forth. So I'll put you on mute. And I heard everything that you say. First of all, Tim, this is why X Cash still exists. I'm just saying. Just, just saying, by the way, it.

[Tim Gettys]

Can exist any day.

[E]

Brought up with the Phil interview that we did. God, was that 2023 now, or however long ago that was. He brought up how they had lost that last digital generation. People are pretty, pretty dug in on where, what ecosystem they're going to be a part of. Obviously Xbox has spent all this money with Activision and Bethesda and now we're at the strategy of you should just have that expectation that their games are going to be on multiple platforms. That's why they're doing this is an Xbox now, because they're trying to make everything in Xbox, every device. I would imagine we're probably going to see software improvements where they're going to bring more of the quote unquote, Xbox UI and the Xbox experience over to PC onto handhelds. We've already seen an example with Indiana Jones on Steam where you got the cloud saves from Steam can go back and forth to Xbox, things like that. They're just going to try and make everything seamless no matter where their games show up. Now, I understand people, there's going to be people that are upset about Xbox hardware potentially dying. What's going to happen with that? They've obviously committed to continuing to make hardware the next generation, but it's clearly not going to be the priority for them anymore. I think that's what all this marketing campaign is about. They're trying to get people prepared that the future is when they put out an Xbox game. It's everywhere and they want that experience to be where you want to go play it versus trying to tell you to come to where the hardware is. Because they're not gonna catch PlayStation, they're not gonna catch Nintendo. I think he has made that pretty clear. They've, they've lost when it comes to that. So they're not 100% ditching hardware and just becoming a third party. But you know, their hardware is pretty much a Surface device where it's just a reference model now I would imagine third parties are gonna get involved making hardware for Xbox, stuff like that. I mean I was at CES a couple weeks ago, you know, Jason Ronald obviously was there and we've seen what, what Valve is doing with Steam os. It seems like Microsoft is going to do something similar with a quote unquote Xbox OS as well where it's going to be on multiple devices. It's not just going to be on hardware that's made by Microsoft. So I mean it's going to be interesting future. I mean side note, on Gamertag Radio we're actually talking to Phil Spencer later today. So I kind of want to bring some of this stuff up to him. I mean it's to celebrate the 20 years of gamertag Radio but kind of want to slide some of this stuff in there as well as about this is an Xbox and just the future of their strategy with their hardware and their software and these games being multi platform so. So we'll see how the conversation goes. All right, ran off so I'll unmute so I can hear what you got to say.

[Tim Gettys]

Paris is the best. I, I agree with everything he said there. Also congrats on 20 years of gamer Tag Radio and good luck with the Phil Spencer show. That's going to be an absolute great question.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Ask him.

[Tim Gettys]

Paris, I wish we could have had a back and forth there because you brought up something that I haven't even thought about that I think you're right on the money on which is the potential of other hardware developers making Xboxes like making their own versions and stuff like that. That is a very interesting future that I don't necessarily think is going to be like the most popular gonna change the game in terms of numbers here but I do think that that is the future we're moving towards. And I mean even if it is Just a feature of a PC of a desktop that like it has an Xbox mode because of some type of Xbox OS that's really, really smart and at a certain point I think could become a fairly ubiquitous thing, at least across Windows PCs. But yeah, very, very, very interesting there.

[Snow Mike Mike]

I like that. All right, well, we'll keep an eye on sales, of course. PS5 up.

[E]

I'm jumping in thinking that you're. Can you hear me?

[Tim Gettys]

Yes.

[E]

Okay, you can't hear me. I'm just going to jump in and keep going. So to your point, what you were just saying, Tim? Yeah, I mean, I think moving forward because Phyllis talked about the Xbox being a more open platform, he's talked about other digital stores being a part of their ecosystem, obviously Steam, Epic or whatever. Right. So this is just a guess, but it seems like the next Xbox, whatever they're going to make, is going to be some kind of hybrid device that is both a PC and a quote unquote console. And then that's going to allow them to let other third party vendors make hardware as well. So we'll see different variants of whatever a quote unquote Xbox is going to be. And it will. And he's also talked about it's getting harder for them to subsidize hardware as well. So I don't think it's going to necessarily be cheap, whatever it's going to be. But it's available to the 20, 30 million people that still want an Xbox. Hey, we're going to make this for you. But if you don't want to buy it, you can go buy something from Lenovo, you can go buy something from Acer, you can go play These game on PlayStation, you can go play them on PC, you can play them on Switch too. I just think they're opening the floodgates to that. Will it work? I don't know. Do I think it's weird? Absolute, frickin lutely. But that seems like where they're going.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Great.

[Tim Gettys]

Hell yeah.

[Snow Mike Mike]

All right, Paris, great to have you. Have a wonderful day. Have a great interview. Congratulations on 20 years.

[Tim Gettys]

Story number three.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Story number three. The video game History foundation makes its digital library available to the public next week. This coming from Chris Scullion at vgc. The Video Game History Foundation. The VGHF is making its digital library system available to the public for the first time next week. The first public version of the library will launch on January 30, offering digital access to some of the foundation's exciting special collections. Quote after years of collecting, cataloging, and digitizing video game history materials. The VGHF is finally opening the virtual doors to its library, wherever you are, end quote. The foundation said in the statement. The news was teased with high res images featuring Donkey Kong arcade flyer artwork and Final Fantasy 7 artwork. Although it says it plans to save the details for the big premiere. The VGHF says its library includes never before seen game development materials and artwork, press kits and promo materials from iconic video games. It also says it will feature access to more than 1500 out of print video game magazines which will be fully text searchable.

[Tim Gettys]

Dude, this is the coolest thing ever. Barrett. I just sent assets a ton of pictures. I actually accidentally ended up at the Video Game History Foundation a couple months ago because I would never be caught in a foundation legitimately accidentally, because I went to do the Rita's Rewind the Power Rangers preview at a Digital Eclipse and that's where like their offices are next to each other. And after we played, they were just like, oh, like Tim, their PR guy was like, like, Tim, I. I know you love like old video game magazines and stuff. You want to see something super cool. And I was like, sure. Like, where are you taking me? And he take me through a whole bunch of like hallways and stuff. And then I end up in this room that was just bookshelves covered with every single Nintendo Power Electronic Gaming Monthly game port. Like, that's the first issue of Game Informer ever. Like, they had every single issue of every video game magazine ever made. And on top of that, like so many like super rare things that, like, like flyers and booklets and promotional materials from like every E3, every CES, everything. Like, this is just history of all of this stuff. On top of a ton of like video games that only one copy exists of. Like prototypes of stuff, like very, very, very cool stuff. And they were telling me that they're working on digitizing it all. So we're here, it's happening.

[Snow Mike Mike]

We're here next week, January 30th.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, like being in this room, like I had a. I was overwhelmed, man. Like, I had to kind of play it cool. Like, it was like, this is insane. How much is around me that I just want. I just could sit there forever reading stuff. And now I don't need to sit in that room. I'd be able to do it here anywhere.

[Snow Mike Mike]

January 30th, you'll be able to have the digital access into the cool history museum. So you'll be able to jump in and have some fun. Tim. Tim seen it, so he's telling you how cool it is.

[Tim Gettys]

It's great.

[Snow Mike Mike]

That's awesome. Let's move on to story number four. Mortal Kombat 1's secret Floyd fight has breathed a new air into the game. Wesley in Pool at IGN has wrote Mortal Kombat 1's Big Conan the Barbarian update launched this week, and with it came the arrival of a secret fight with Floyd. The Pink Ninja, developed by Ed Boone and or Ed Boone had been teasing for years. Not only that, but if you defeat Floyd, you unlock cool, exclusive rewards, including the coveted new stage. But how exactly do you trigger the secret Floyd fight? Players are working together to try to crowdsource the answer. This community effort, led by Mortal Kombat modder and data miner the Thinny, has done much to unravel the mystery, but the exact process remains unknown. Here's what fans have worked out. A number of Floyd challenges must be completed before the fight with Floyd triggers how many. No one knows which challenges must be completed and in which order. Tim no one knows that either. Worse, it appears different for each player. That's not much help, is it?

[D]

Hell yeah.

[Snow Mike Mike]

It appears to be the case that you don't have to complete all 37 Floyd challenges to fight Floyd. It appears to be the case that players have different, quote, active end quote challenges, so there isn't a single process fans can rely upon. It's all a bit confusing, but the best advice right now is to do as many of these challenges as you can and eventually, hopefully, you'll fight Floyd. What is clear is that the Floyd fight has breathed new air Into Mortal Kombat 1. The new stage. The field seen in Mortal Kombat 1's announcement trail is gorgeous or trailer is gorgeous. So the reward is worth all the effort. And Floyd himself is sparking a deeper dive as modders try to work out the details of the move set which characters from the Mortal Kombat games have inspired in it.

[Tim Gettys]

We talk on this show so much about how sad the state of the video game industry is. I am so happy that things like this are still around these fun Easter eggs that every the community gets together, tries to figure it all out. I love every single thing about this. I saw this popping off yesterday and I my first thing was looking at that field like there's some of the gameplay of it in the field. I'm like this is gorgeous. This game is gorgeous. Shout out to Mortal Kombat 1. But on top of that, the chat has taught me something about Floyd that I I oh my God, it just makes me Smile so much. Why is his name Floyd?

[Snow Mike Mike]

Tell me, Tim.

[Tim Gettys]

No, think about it.

[E]

Yeah, sorry.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Pink Floyd.

[Tim Gettys]

Really? Pink Floyd. And why is the purple ninja named Rain?

[Snow Mike Mike]

Purple Rain.

[Tim Gettys]

Purple Rain. Yeah.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

Wow. Congratulations.

[Snow Mike Mike]

The team over there cooking.

[Tim Gettys]

Look at this level though. There's so much compression and but like imagine this on so much compression. Proper HDR like 4K. Like holy crap, man. I need people so I can boot it up.

[Snow Mike Mike]

And I mean also shout out to Conan. Looking good too. They always add the coolest characters. I love that. I love when they add the crazy one. Well, there you go. Go out there and get that one if you can. Yet still details are unknown on how you unlock it. That's the funniest part about this. Let's move on to our fifth and final story before the Wii news. One evidence grows as that our evidence grows that Astral Chain director Taka Isha Takahisha Tahora. I'm trying that you're trying. I almost had it.

[Tim Gettys]

I'm pretty sure it's Taka Issa Ta Ura Tarua.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Thank you. Could have quit Platinum Games. Andy Robinson at vgc. Astral Chain director and near Automata direct designer Takahisha Takahisha Isa Taka Issa. Thank you. Tahura looks likely to have quit Platinum Games. Last month fans speculated that the key creator could have made a career switch after he removed references of Platinum Games from his X handle. Now fans have noticed that that the change that he has changed his place of work on his Facebook page swapping Platinum Games for a mysterious Eel game studio. According to Japanese company listings, this appears to be new formation suggesting that Tahura Taura.

[Tim Gettys]

Yes.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Is either establishing a studio or going freelance. It is also potentially notable that the company has been formed in Tokyo and not Osaka where Platinum's main HQ is based.

[Tim Gettys]

Tim, a little. A little sad because Astral Chain kicks freaking ass. Yeah. This is interesting though. I was kicking myself after I did my Tim Gettys predicts the first year of the Nintendo Switch 2 a couple days ago with blessing because one of the predictions I wanted to make was Astral Chain 2. My October was a little light. I only had Halo Master Chief collection and I wanted to add a little bit more pizzazz. And when I was in the shower I thought this and I was like, oh hell yeah. And then I forgot about it. So then after the show I was like, damn it, I forgot Astral Chain. But now here we are probably not Astral Chains.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Okay.

[Tim Gettys]

If this is the the situation going.

[Snow Mike Mike]

On, that was a cool game back.

[Tim Gettys]

Then it was very cool, man.

[Snow Mike Mike]

I would like to see more of that.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah. But yeah, you know, this is. I don't know anything about this EEL game studio, so we'll see where this goes. But yeah, Platinum games all over the place, man. Like, you know, they're. Their. Their track record is inconsistent, I would say. But I feel like they've been pretty good recently, putting some out, some hits. We have Ninja Gaiden that we're looking forward to with number four coming out now. But yeah, good luck to this again. Astral Chain was great, so hopefully this, whatever he ends up working on next is going to be a banger too.

[Snow Mike Mike]

I love that. Tim. That's some big news. Possibly a new studio as well. Could be really big. But if I wanted some small news, where would I go?

[Tim Gettys]

You go to our last story, the WE News Channel, where we cover all the small news items that you need to know about.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Welcome to the Wii News Channel. New Nintendo Switch Online Super Nintendo games have been announced. Fatal Fury 2 Super Ninja Boy and Satua Hakun.

[Tim Gettys]

Finally, everyone's favorite. No, I don't.

[Snow Mike Mike]

I have no idea. What say you know this one, Tim?

[Tim Gettys]

Sute Hakun is. No, no, no, no.

[C]

What are they doing to me?

[Snow Mike Mike]

Tim Bear might know.

[Tim Gettys]

Where's DK6? Oh, I don't know any of these games, but we're gonna do like.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Donkey Kong 64. Put on a trailer. Let's see are we doing trailer?

[Tim Gettys]

What's Tsukun?

[Snow Mike Mike]

Sonic X Shadow Generations has sold over 2 million copies.

[Tim Gettys]

Hell yes, dude. I am big deal. So stoked about this. And this is just the beginning. Two million copies in just the first like two months or so. Like this game is going to continue to go on and sell and sell. Shout out to my boy Sonic. Shout out to the year of Shadow the Hedgehog Shout out to Sonic the Hedgehog 3 available on digital platforms now.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Tokyo Extreme Racer surpassed 14,000 concurrent players on Steam on launch day.

[Tim Gettys]

I need to check this out. It looks freaking awesome.

[Snow Mike Mike]

I don't know what this is.

[Tim Gettys]

It's an old game franchise that they. They brought back and like modernized. And it essentially just looks like a dope ass need for Speed Underground. Yeah, yeah, dude, it's cool. It's real cool. If you like cool cars and neon lights. Have I got the game for you.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Damn. Okay, okay, Tim.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Show Mike this. Come on, man. Okay, okay, let's go.

[Snow Mike Mike]

I'll check it out. I'll check it out. Fatal Fury Fatal Fury City of Wolves Open beta Test set for February 20, February 24 or February 20 through February 24.

[Tim Gettys]

Cool.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Keep an eye on that one. And Genshin Impact 5.4, moonlight and missed dreams launches February 12th.

[Tim Gettys]

Congratulations.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Are you Genshin fans out?

[D]

Blessings.

[C]

Super excited for that one.

[Tim Gettys]

I'm sure he is, Tim.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Let's jump into some of the super chats that I've saved for the end of the show. Snow 13 says, Love you guys. My KFG 10th anniversary shirt came in today. Can't wait to check it out when I get home from work.

[Tim Gettys]

Hell yeah. Thank you so much for your support.

[Snow Mike Mike]

AK writes in, says, Tim, please give Ender Magnolia a shot. Cool. Metroidvania that just released with great music. I love the first game but it felt very overshadowed.

[Tim Gettys]

Okay, Ender Magnolia. I'll have to check that out.

[Snow Mike Mike]

CJ splits on says, I just want to know where Tim got his MGS shirt.

[Tim Gettys]

MGS shirt?

[Snow Mike Mike]

I mean I think he's wearing a mute T shirt today.

[Tim Gettys]

Mewtwo. Yeah, I don't know what MGS is.

[Snow Mike Mike]

I mean maybe.

[C]

Sure is sick though, Tim.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Maybe Blessings Metal Gear Solid shirt yesterday.

[Tim Gettys]

Oh yeah, but he says, tim, you got a unicorn?

[Snow Mike Mike]

CJ?

[Tim Gettys]

I don't know. I got this from Instagram.

[Snow Mike Mike]

CJ wants to know CJ's writing Metal Gear Solid in the chat right now.

[Tim Gettys]

Oh I do. I did buy Metal Gear Solid shirt a couple weeks ago. I also got that. Instagram.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Oh, Instagram. There you go. There you go cj. Just speak Metal Gear Solid into your phone a couple times. They'll figure it out. Jeff Bull Jr. Says Mike, I've been seeing you stream Silent Hill too. Can you give some quick thoughts with it? It's my personal goatee of 2024. Great game, Tim. Have you played this one at all?

[Tim Gettys]

Silent Hill 2? No, not the remake. No.

[Snow Mike Mike]

It's well worth your time. You gotta play it. So much fun. Creepy music and setting and tone always keep me on my toes. Scary horrific monsters right there. Looking for my dead wife, you know. This time Colton says first super chat. Able to watch live for the first time. Keep up the great work. Also awesome shirt Tim. Soup.

[Tim Gettys]

Thank you. Right.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Sand and says Tim. Thanks for the Prince of Persia Lost Crown recommendation. A series I never cared about is one of my favorite games of all time now. Also, thanks for the kind of funny crew for keeping me up with the truck all night. Shout out choo choo choo choo. Tim says ES wrote in and says in. A year with genre defining RPGs being a decent Western RPG just wasn't enough. Dragon Age the Veil guard there. Yeah, that's unfortunate. I'd love to know what were the sales on Dragon's Dogma 2. Where did that sit? How did that go?

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, we didn't.

[Snow Mike Mike]

That was one we didn't really talk about towards the end of the year. Yeah, kicked off the year talking a lot about Dragon Dogma 2, but did not see much conversations at the end.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, I mean Capcom, I don't think normally talks too much about the games unless they're like astronomical record breaking stuff until they do their big like annual financial thing. So yeah, Bear brought this up. Here is we have as of April 2nd, 2.2 million. Right.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Okay.

[C]

2.5.

[Tim Gettys]

Oh yeah, my bad.

[Snow Mike Mike]

S'mores. And Oreos writes in and says split Fiction will be a banger.

[Tim Gettys]

I really hope. Man, I'm so jealous y'all got to play it.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Me and Andy got to play it with Joseph Ferris. It was a lot of fun. Very much looking forward to this one. It seems to be shaping up for another incredible game from that team, you know, and that's another EA original that we talked about where EA helps funds these smaller teams, these smaller projects that might not get the love. And you know, they found a really good one with him and his crew, that's for sure. Let's keep it going with a couple more to finish it out. David writes in and says about 25 hours in the Starfield on my Mac OS and loving it. Your Mac is totally an Xbox, Tim.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, so I got some of your wrongs actually I want to get to real quick. So we got Big Bad Beluga saying Preston and Holden RB in Ninja Gaiden will lock onto a single enemy for you to attack, like Zelda.

[Snow Mike Mike]

So we're going to teach Blessing that when he comes on camera.

[Tim Gettys]

Benny B. Good says Dead or Alive 6 is the most recent Dead or Alive from 2019, another one of the rare game series to make it to number six.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Wow.

[Tim Gettys]

AK said Tim is Tim said Apex Legend is still doing well, but it lost 70% of its Steam player base in 2024. And then he links up Paul Tassi Forbes article.

[Snow Mike Mike]

They've been having a tough time. A lot of these battle royales and live service games have been having a tough time. That's the ebb and flow of what will happen with those. We'll see if it bounces back. But you know, Fortnite is still holding the test of time.

[Tim Gettys]

Kebab says Game Pass is available on Mac, meaning that by Xbox Marketing, Tim's laptop is an Xbox. And then Grezik says xbox cloud gaming support on Safari so your Mac can be an Xbox. And then it seems like there's just other features that Max Mac has for Xbox. So I was just straight up wrong. And then Banderasan says Tim said Forza Horizon 5 was a game awards game of the year nominee, but it did not get nominated. It came very close to the cutoff and was only nominated for best Racing and best accessibility.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Thank you Tim for reading those you're wrongs. We have three final super chats will blaze through. Krogan writes in and says honest question is Xbox's approach to Game Pass and everything is an Xbox the beginning of the end of the current era of gaming for the worse.

[Tim Gettys]

Sorry, can you say that again?

[Snow Mike Mike]

Yeah, very interesting one here. Honest question is Xbox's approach to Game Pass and everything is an Xbox the beginning of the end of the current era of gaming for the worse.

[Tim Gettys]

I don't think that the everything is an Xbox is. I do think that Game Pass is and I also think that everything is an Xbox is a direct result of Xbox needing to kind of panic, shift their strategy to make up for the issues of Game Pass. And people can get mad at me for that. But that is what I believe.

[C]

I see where you're coming from. And also I feel like the this is an Xbox marketing strategy. It's like way too early to tell like what it's going to actually do if have any impact on the industry.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, I mean I think, I think that that part of it, it's going to work because it just means Xbox, it's, it's just a very fancy third party which I think is the best place for Xbox to be at this point.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

But yeah, I do think Game Pass is detrimental to the industry.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Love that Pokemon writes in another time. I personally worry that Game Pass will force a direction in gaming that will force other companies to comply or die with the focus on subs. Will Game Pass do what Netflix prime did to movies? Tim, you're just talking about Game Pass with that. Yeah. Do you see the future of like forcing the hand of Sony, Nintendo? Clearly you have Ubisoft or Ubisoft and EA both doing that as well. They have their own subscription services.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, but I think they're all kind of different. I, I, I, my read on that is like not a positive of what Netflix is doing. Right. I think that it is more of just like it's just it. I, I don't, I don't have time to get into all of this right now. But like the one liner that I will say is big budget Hollywood movies are made because they make up to a billion dollars at the box office. Yeah, those movies and the level of money being put into them, resources being put into them is going to get lower and lower. And barrier to entry is a Netflix subscription that is not paying enough for the movies to be made and TV shows to be made at the scale that they need to. And the subscription is going to keep raising and raising. Netflix is now 25 and that's just going to keep going up. But guess what? That's not going to make up for box office of movies in the same way that a $70 video game title is not going to be reached by game pass when you have to offer more and more and more and more and more constantly.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Disagrees with that.

[Tim Gettys]

They disagree.

[C]

No, I very much agree with it. And like seeing like how movies and tv, which I think like on a overall production level aren't nearly as expensive as what big video games are becoming. Seeing those fail and those struggle like it really is only like a question of when, not if, game pass really.

[Tim Gettys]

Starts to fall apart.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Final one Dasher writes in and says this is why it makes no sense for PlayStation to release on Xbox. You basically give Xbox the ability to have game pass for amazing value and have PlayStation games release on Xbox. Gamers will buy an Xbox or invest in that ecosystem.

[Tim Gettys]

Again, people don't want to hear this, but people buy, are still buying PlayStation exclusive games on PlayStation and Nintendo exclusive games on Nintendo and they're not buying the Xbox exclusive games on Xbox. And there's a lot of reasons why, but that's where this is at. I think that PlayStation currently has the luxury to be able to pick and choose. They're clearly experimenting, Lego Horizon Adventures being a great example of that. And then we're going to see, I think more and more especially as they see the success of PC gaming and the sales on PC. But even then they need to think about their strategy a bit and figure out what that's going to look like for them long term. And I don't know that that holds up. Going back to a conversation we're having earlier in the day of like what does the latter half of PlayStation games look like? Will there be a turning point that people aren't showing up and they're, they aren't selling their $70 prestige PlayStation Studio titles in the 10/4 million range of units. Until then they're sitting pretty.

[Snow Mike Mike]

Some good discussions here at the end. Thank you for writing in with your super chats. Tim, thanks for being an incredible co host putting up with me on a Friday. But it is Friday and we are far from done. Of course this has been kind of funny Games Daily. Each and every weekday we run you through the nerdy news you need to know about live on YouTube, Twitch and of course on podcast services around the globe. If you love what we do, consider getting that kind of funny membership on Patreon, YouTube and of course now on Spotify and Apple. So you can have the shows ad free, watch us record them live and get our daily exclusive show. Please enjoy the games cast with me and Blessing having some fun and then game showdown and a stream all coming at you live on Twitch. If you're on YouTube, make your way over. We'll see you soon. Thanks Tim.

[Tim Gettys]

Thank you. Good handshake.