← The Besties
The Besties
Sony Kills Discs, Nintendo Revives Star Fox
00:52:38
Griffin needed to take this week off, but our guest was more than prepared to talk about the week’s huge gaming news. Stephen Totilo, the founder of Game File and former EIC of Kotaku, explains the cause and fallout of Sony’s decision to cease physical game production in 2028. In more joyful news, Nintendo remade Starfox for the second time! And Frushtick and Plante have impressions to share!
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- [00:00]
Chris Plant
Y', all, I saw my life flash before my eyes this weekend.
- [00:04]
Ross Froshchick
Wow.
- [00:05]
Chris Plant
Literally saw my life flash before my eyes this weekend.
- [00:08]
Steven Totillo
Was it a happy thing or how
- [00:09]
Ross Froshchick
much of that time was just you sitting in a chair staring at a screen?
- [00:13]
Chris Plant
That's the problem is it wasn't that, but it's. You're not so far off. I. I desperately needed to organize our garage because, you know, like, you got to organize the garage if you want to organize everything else. That's going to be the place that you're moving all the storage. Right. So I'm going through it and what do I find? Most of the garages old video game collections. A lot of it destroyed from when the car drove through the house. But I decided to keep it. I don't know. I'm sentimental and I, like, I'm stacking it and I'm stacking it and it's getting higher and higher and heavier and heavier.
- [00:47]
Ross Froshchick
Okay, so this is now the intro to a Six Feet under episode is what you're talking about.
- [00:52]
Chris Plant
And I get to the point where I am now the fifth box up, and I'm like, I can do it. I am, people could probably guess, very short. I'm like, you know, like 5 foot 6 on a good day, I am lifting up this box full extension above my head. It weighs, I don't know, £50.
- [01:12]
Ross Froshchick
Oh, my God.
- [01:12]
Chris Plant
And as I'm doing it, I can feel every muscle in my body giving way. And it's that point where it's. I am not tall enough to get it all the way up, but I am not strong enough to now lower it. And it starts to tilt. And I see inside the box, I see an Xbox one and a PlayStation Slim about to be the end of my life. And my life is flashing before my eyes, literally in that like, oh, my God. This, this is what I have amounted to is these pieces of plastic.
- [01:51]
Ross Froshchick
I. Look, the Blue sky post would be so sad for like two hours. I promise you, they'd be so sad.
- [01:57]
Steven Totillo
The Slim wouldn't kill you. The Slim would kill you.
- [02:01]
Chris Plant
One definitely would. And then people would be like, oh, I'm sorry, you don't like to keep physical copies of video games. And I'd be like, ah, damn, my funeral's cancelled. My name is Chris to a Thomas Plant and I know the best game of the week.
- [02:33]
Ross Froshchick
My name is Ross Freshik. I know the best game of the week.
- [02:37]
Steven Totillo
I'm Steven Totillo and I know the best game of the week.
- [02:42]
Ross Froshchick
Well, do you? I'm gonna do this Part Fuck you, Plant. Welcome to the latest and greatest of home entertainment. It's the Besties. It's a video game club that goes all year round and just by listening, you remember. Welcome. We have a very, very special guest today. Griffin was not able to make it today, but we have a special. In exchange for Griffin, we have none other than Mr. Steven Totillo joining us, reporter extraordinaire. Welcome, Stephen.
- [03:07]
Steven Totillo
Thank you. I'm an honorary McElroy today.
- [03:10]
Ross Froshchick
That's right.
- [03:12]
Chris Plant
People are always comparing and mixing y' all up. Very, very similar is what I like to say.
- [03:18]
Ross Froshchick
Now, Steven has a long storied reporting history, but most recently, I guess not that recently because you've been doing it for many years at this point. He has been running a fantastic newsletter on it's gamefile news. Right is the shorthand URL. But fantastic daily newsletter that people should check out and subscribe to because it's excellent. And in fact, he had a late breaking story that is going to be the big focus of this episode, which we will, I guess, tease after the break.
- [03:48]
Steven Totillo
You were like, hey, I hear the topic, Steven, if you can be on the show. And I'm like, I have a feeling there's gonna be something else.
- [03:56]
Ross Froshchick
And indeed there was. We were also gonna be talking about Star Fox, Chris Plant. What is Star Fox?
- [04:02]
Chris Plant
Star Fox. They did it again. They remade Star Fox one more time just for kicks. And you know what? I'm not gonna lie. I was skeptical before. I saw how the game looks. Then I saw those sexy animals, everybody else, they suddenly are those skeptical ones. I'm the one who's like, yeah, I'm very into that. And I think we all kind of equalized in the end. So I'm excited to talk about this game.
- [04:26]
Ross Froshchick
Chris Plant is a big Andrew fan. That all sounds great. Thank you everyone for joining us. And we're going to jump right in after this break.
- [04:35]
Sponsor/Announcer
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- [05:40]
Ross Froshchick
Okay, Stephen, as you said, the timing couldn't have been better because we have one of the biggest gaming news stories. No exaggeration of certainly the last year, if not several years, drop the news. What has happened?
- [05:53]
Steven Totillo
Sony PlayStation may have just ended physical media for video games as we know it. They have announced today, July 1, that in exactly one and a half years, as of January 2028, they will no longer be producing video discs, physical discs for any new PlayStation games. It doesn't just mean their own games. It also means any third party games. So we can imagine come 2028 whether you're playing on a PS5 if the PS6 is launching that year, which now seems fairly likely, you're not going to be buying those games digitally downloading them. Discs will be no more. And really, unless Xbox sticks with discs for its console, seems unlikely. Yeah, then discs are done. I mean, I do wonder if there's a chance that there'll be third parties that'll be able to commission somehow the manufacturer and approval of discs for special collector's items and boutique options. But there's certainly been no indication that that'll be possible. We do see in other forms of entertainment, there's actually been a resurgence of interest in physical media. And so even though the entertainment conglomerates had gotten away from DVDs, Blu Rays and what have you, we now see that coming back in vogue and people finding ways to make those. Maybe we're going to get there eventually. But the big news is that something I think a lot of people thought was coming, many people feared was coming, is coming, which is at least on PlayStation, the biggest console that was using discs. There won't be new discs pretty soon.
- [07:26]
Chris Plant
I want to get really deep into, into the video game of it all really quick. But I do want to give us some, like, context for what's happening and especially like the film physical media thing, because it is relevant here. Sony, part of the lead of the consortium responsible for the Blu Ray. I think there are people already concerned about what this means for those discs in general. And Steven's right that like physical media is, is coming back in a big way as those large companies are breaking away from it. So companies like Sony and Disney are saying we actually don't intend to make our movies into physical media and they are allowing these boutique labels to do it. There's a new Criterion Collection that's coming out. That is all of the Kubrick films. And that would have been unimaginable 10 years ago because you would have had to get all these people to agree to collaborate to make this. Now the studios are like, I don't really give a shit. I'm not in the physical media business. So I do wonder about like what Steven says of is there room for boutique labels? But if you're also the company that's making the players and, and there's literally no thing to play the disc on, where do the boutiques fit in?
- [08:39]
Ross Froshchick
Right. Because realistically, if indeed the PlayStation 6 comes out, what are we saying? We think it's going to be 2028 that year. You think, Stephen?
- [08:47]
Steven Totillo
Well, Sony can't be announcing this for 2028, or it seems unlikely they'd be announcing this for 2028 if they plan to launch the PS6 in 2027. This feels like the kind of announcement that you make ahead of whatever your strategy is for your next console. So we're thinking 2028 at the soonest. I talked to Piers Harding Rolls about this, he's analyst at Ampere and he said this makes it obvious that PS6 is 2028. He expects late 2028 at the soonest. And he also believes this pretty much indicates no disk drive. I've seen some people speculate that Sony's strategy for PS6 may involve a handheld version and that you would get rid of discs if you were going to handheld. I mean, obviously Nintendo with the Switch has used cartridges, so there would be another physical media option. So I don't think that fully explains it, but it does track that you would potentially not want to have discs if you were doing that. So yeah, what would Sony do? They weren't talking. I mean, I was pre briefed on the announcement, which is why I was able to have a big story on Game File this morning. Looking at it from as many angles as possible and some of the stuff I'd asked Sony about, they just, you know, they didn't have answers for. They may actually not even fully know. I imagine they do know whether or not they're going to offer a disk drive with the PS6, but they weren't saying anything about that. They certainly weren't saying whether there would be, as it has been in the case with PS5, a console, a version of the PS6 that has a disk drive in it that you pay a premium for.
- [10:21]
Ross Froshchick
Sure.
- [10:22]
Steven Totillo
Or if the disk drive would be a standalone thing, which I feel like. Was it the Xbox 360 that was sold?
- [10:29]
Chris Plant
Yeah.
- [10:30]
Steven Totillo
With a standalone DVD disc drive.
- [10:32]
Chris Plant
Yeah.
- [10:33]
Steven Totillo
So we've seen like little, you know, we've seen that kind of phenomenon in, in sort of half baked ways in the past. But would there be a standalone drive? In the story I wrote in in Game File today, I cited an interview I did with Phil Spencer, remember him, the former head of Xbox in 2024. And this was right around the time that there had been a bunch of leaks about potential Xbox plans that had come out of the ftc. Microsoft, you know, I wanted to buy Activision Blizzard. And one of the leaks showed this cylindrical Xbox series X that had no disk drive that was planned. And Spencer had gone public saying these don't represent all of our, necessarily all of our plans. And that device never came out. But this had prompted me to talk to him about, hey, you know, how much are disk drives even in your plans for future consoles? Given the fact that you clearly at least one point had the plan for this. And he makes a point and this is what I was wound up being worth resurfacing in the coverage today, he said game makers and game console makers are some of the last makers of home electronics that even use disk drives. And he said because of that, the cost to manufacture disk drives was increasing and that put, you know, financial pressure on the companies. So I've got to think that a Sony and certainly a Microsoft would be delighted to spare themselves the cost of making a disk drive if they could. And then maybe they are starting from that point for the next generation and then thinking, okay, well then what's the minimum. Minimum we need to do in order to satisfy any hopes anybody has. Even playing like backwards compatible games.
- [12:09]
Ross Froshchick
Yeah, well, I mean at that point obviously they free themselves from having to worry about manufacturing, shipping, working with a brick and mortar retailer over ordering physical media. Yes. Obviously from a consumer standpoint, I don't think it's a good thing. But from a their end business standpoint, like they are making the whole kit and caboodle. They don't have to worry about cutting that in any way.
- [12:31]
Chris Plant
Yeah. So I mean I think the challenge that they have is they're atrocious at messaging this timing wise. And this is not me defending the decision in general, but I do think there is a reality that I think it's like 8 or 9 out of 10 purchases are digital at this point.
- [12:50]
Steven Totillo
80%.
- [12:51]
Chris Plant
It is a lot of. Yeah, yeah. It's where a lot of people, you know, trend towards that seems to be a number that is going up. But at the same time to do this the same week that they announced that they're removing hundreds of films from their server. I'm not even sure you'll be able to download them anymore even if you had acquired them. Announcing it the same day that they say they're closing the PlayStation 3 and the PlayStation Vita download services right in the next year. I don't know why you would announce that, why you would say we're moving to digital only and look how precarious that is. It's a strange, strange choice in my guess.
- [13:33]
Ross Froshchick
No, go ahead.
- [13:34]
Steven Totillo
They're giving an 18 month notice period. So this is exactly 18 months. It's a year and a half. They're giving exactly one year notice for most countries for the shutdowns of the PS3 and Vita stores. They're doing an 18 month notice for the, the transition out of new games coming out there. I mean, I don't know that there's a good time to announce news that's going to really upset a sizable portion of gamers. If 80% of purchases on PlayStation 4 and 5 in the past Sony fiscal year, that's what the percentage is, were digital and not on disk, that means that 20%, that means that one out of every five games purchased on PS4 and PS5 in the last year were purchased on disk. And I've gotten some feedback that proportion of disc purchasers is higher in, you know, I guess developing markets where there's going to be less downloading and sort of bandwidth options and what have you. So okay, maybe that means that Americans and you know, people in Japan or whatever are more likely to have already been comfortable with downloading. But there's still a sizable number of people that buying the disc meant something to them and Sony doesn't have an answer ready for them right now about what options they'll have. Certainly a lot of people have gotten used to not owning physical copies of movies and music, but for some people they, they cherish that. And there's a lot of reason when you see how games disappear or when you see how of course only the top games are remastered and you may have some niche favorite that you're worried may go extinct. That to not know that there can be a disc version of that in the future is understandably alarming to a lot of people. And I don't really know how Sony could promise their way out of that. Regardless.
- [15:14]
Ross Froshchick
I mean, what ends up happening is the fan base ends up filling those blanks in as these games become literally unpurchasable anywhere. Piracy basically shows up and says, hey, you can still play this game that you love from 30 years ago, even though it's not available for free.
- [15:30]
Chris Plant
Yeah. The other part of this, that just terrible timing is hard drives are only getting more expensive, storage is getting more expensive. So I personally have been thinking of like, I tend to buy digital, but I should be buying more stuff on disk. Even if you're having to load it from the disk onto the hard drive. Yes. Not having to worry about the bandwidth, having it there, having it stored in a place on your shelf versus, oh, if I play, let's say, the new Call of Duty in two other big AAA games, most of my storage space is taken up. It's just all bad timing all around.
- [16:13]
Steven Totillo
Some of the feedback I heard today from readers, especially in reaction to that rising percentage where in 2016 it was little more than 26 or 27% of people downloading, buying the download version versus disk, and then in 2025 going up to 80%. And some of the feedback I heard from gamers was saying basically there's a thumb on the scale for Sony when it's, when it's reporting those numbers, that it has become more inconvenient to buy games physically, that there are smaller print runs of physical games, that it's more of a hassle. Now I think that in some regards, some of, some of that may fall on Sony, some of it may fall on, you know, the unpleasantness, relative unpleasantness of buying games physically in certain places that you could go to buy games physically.
- [16:57]
Ross Froshchick
They do not clean those gamestop carpets. I'm just,
- [17:02]
Steven Totillo
that's sort of what I was getting at and that there are reasons, but also the value of the disk and what it actually is has been diminished over the years. So there's a great site, community service called Does It Play? And they have an index of over 3000 games. You can search online for Does It Play? And you can check their database and you could punch in a game that has ostensibly a disk version and then you can find out what's actually on the disc. And so in the case of, say, 007, FirstLight, you know, wonderfully critically acclaimed game from IO Interactive earlier this year, a James Bond game, and only the game's first level is on the disc. So, you know, Chris, what you're saying about, oh, I'm going to buy physical media, I'm going to sort of shore myself up and be able to have these things that protect me from some of the vicissitudes of people removing games that I thought I purchased access to. Well, buy the disc version of 007 First Light and PlayStation, all you got is the first level to play. So hope you really like that level.
- [17:59]
Chris Plant
It is a good level, but not that good.
- [18:02]
Ross Froshchick
That is fucking grim. Yeah, and obviously the digital downloads percentage is only going to skyrocket come this fall with GTA coming out and not having physical media associated with it.
- [18:13]
Steven Totillo
Yeah, I mean, Take two, basically. If you look at the sequencing of this, I don't know who's aware of what, but you have Take two and Rockstar basically putting this news out there about having a no disc launch of GTA 6 in a way that really like, yes, it kicked up some backlash, but people are so excited for that game and so interested in putting money down for that game. And they do that one week prior. And then Sony is able to say, hey look, by the way, no new discs or any games. One of the things that'll be interesting to see is also this transition. Right. So you can imagine there'll be big PlayStation games coming out from first and third parties in November of 2027, for example. And I'll be curious what the print run is on those discs and how well supplied they are going into 2028. One of the big unknowns we have is what this is even going to physically look like at retail locations once Sony makes this transition. They had nothing to share with me about are they committing to still selling game boxes? We know GTA 6 is going to be in a box just with a code inside. Will they still sell game boxes? Will they switch to just cards that you buy that have a scratch off code? And so then try to envision what does it look like at Best buy, target, at GameStop, wherever else, when you go to the PlayStation section, how do games get noticed? There's decades of history of box art designs and the shapes and the sizes of box art of video game boxes that were all about trying to grab people's attention. And so that'll change in terms of even if they switch to cards. You know, we've all been to stores where you see like the kiosk that has like all of the gift cards and everything, you know, that you can spin around is that the PlayStation section of the future. You just spin it around and hopefully the, the game that some company wants to sell has a catchy enough little like, you know, credit card size or
- [20:09]
Ross Froshchick
they just stop caring and they just use their own marketing means.
- [20:14]
Chris Plant
I mean, speaking of retail, we gotta talk about the person I'm sure everyone's concerned about, which is the GameStop CEO. How is GameStop responding to this. Are they just ebay now? Is that the plan? They just need to get the hell out of this business.
- [20:31]
Steven Totillo
They should buy a console for every copy of a game they're gonna sell. And so when you buy the game, you're actually buying it installed onto the console. And so physical media switches from the disc to those things that were falling on Plant's head in his garage. Like, oh, that is great. I just got bonked with the eight pound copy of GTA 7.
- [20:54]
Chris Plant
Oh well, I think it would probably be a copy of Bonk. You know, I live for the irony, man.
- [21:00]
Ross Froshchick
Crazy story. So glad to have Stephen here giving us some proper context to it. I think we should take a break and after the break we will dive into a little bit Star Fox. But before that we are going to share some big, big news that is coming in the world of besties. So stay tuned.
- [21:19]
Sponsor/Announcer
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- [24:10]
Ross Froshchick
Okay, welcome back. We are going to talk about Star Fox in a second but before we do that, I wanted to share some news.
- [24:16]
Chris Plant
Wait, what news?
- [24:18]
Ross Froshchick
Yeah, it's actual news.
- [24:20]
Sponsor/Announcer
What?
- [24:21]
Ross Froshchick
So I mentioned this several weeks ago. Actually it was on Justin's last formally last episode where he was appearing on the show on a weekly basis. We have been working on trying to put together a live show for the besties featuring Christopher Thomas Plant, Ross Froshchick, Griffin McElroy and executive producer Justin McElroy. And in fact it is happening. We have a date for it. It's happening on October 9th at the Town hall in New York City. It is actually the same exact weekend as New York Comic Con. So if you want to make it a whole nerd weekend, you can do that. That is an option. We're going to be doing an artist pre sale which means like only our fans will be able to like buy tickets first. That starts on Tuesday, July 7th. And as a way to head off the ticket buying bots, we're going to put the link up on our Patreon. You don't have to be a paying, you don't have to be a paying member, but you do have to be a member. So you can be a free member or a paying member. We like paying members too. Doesn't matter. Either way you're going to get the link and to buy tickets on July 7th. It'll be around noon on July 7th, so please keep an eye out for that. If you haven't become a member of the Patreon yet. Good excuse to become a patreon member. At patreon.com thebesties you can be a free member and still get access to tickets. Paying members of course also get access. That's the news. Very exciting.
- [25:44]
Chris Plant
Cool news.
- [25:45]
Ross Froshchick
We'll have more coming in terms of details as we get a little bit closer. But wanted to share that. Obviously Griffin wanted to be here to share that news as well. But he was dealing with some Stuff, but wanted to tell you all as soon as we could. Again, that pre sale is going to go up July 7, which is this coming Tuesday.
- [26:02]
Chris Plant
We haven't booked him officially yet, but we did think maybe like a tight five from Steven. Just a real good intro comedy set, a warmup routine.
- [26:12]
Ross Froshchick
Yeah, you can do it.
- [26:12]
Chris Plant
I'm known jokes, feeling it.
- [26:15]
Ross Froshchick
You can start working at it.
- [26:16]
Chris Plant
It's you and Shrier just doing a good cop, bad cop routine. It's gonna be great. I don't know who's who.
- [26:22]
Ross Froshchick
Okay, with that news out of the way, we are gonna talk about the Star Fox remake, which I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, it is a third time they've made Star Fox.
- [26:31]
Steven Totillo
Some fuzzy math. Everybody's like, oh, they made the game. So, I mean, plant, come on. They haven't really made it as many times as people said, have they?
- [26:39]
Chris Plant
They made it the first time they made it Super Nintendo to Nintendo 64 to Nintendo DS.
- [26:44]
Ross Froshchick
Well, we're not counting Super Nintendo.
- [26:45]
Steven Totillo
See, that was the original game. This is prop, this propaganda. People want to say it's been remade. It hasn't been remade that many times.
- [26:51]
Ross Froshchick
Okay, so they made the original game, which was Shadow Fox snes. I'm not counting that. Because this game theoretically is not based on that original game. It's based on Star Fox out on the Nintendo 64. Then they made a. Which was the first? The 3DS version or the Wii U version? Do you remember?
- [27:12]
Chris Plant
Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. I got it. I got Star Fox 64. You're right, you're right, you're right. Yeah. The Super Nintendo version is separate from this version. So star Fox 64 to star Fox 64.3D for the Nintendo 3DS to star Fox Zero a decade ago, different game. For the Wii U, maybe.
- [27:34]
Steven Totillo
Different game.
- [27:35]
Ross Froshchick
Is that dramatically different? What do you mean?
- [27:38]
Sponsor/Announcer
Is it.
- [27:39]
Ross Froshchick
It's got, you know, they redid, but, like, the structure and the story of the game is the same, right? Same story.
- [27:45]
Steven Totillo
I don't think so.
- [27:46]
Sponsor/Announcer
But
- [27:48]
Steven Totillo
that's the Wii U one where you're using the GamePad to look around and everything.
- [27:52]
Sponsor/Announcer
Yeah.
- [27:52]
Ross Froshchick
The good news is no one played it because it was on the Wii U. So basically they've only had, what, two vers? This would be the third. So welcome to the new era of Star Fox. Also a new era for Nintendo, selling $50 remakes of classic games. Kind of an interesting approach. A quick recap of what this is.
- [28:16]
Chris Plant
$50, good or bad? I don't know where we're at.
- [28:19]
Ross Froshchick
We haven't gotten there yet.
- [28:20]
Chris Plant
Okay. Okay.
- [28:21]
Ross Froshchick
For people that aren't aware what Star Fox is seems unlikely, but I'm going to say it anyway. It's a third person Flying on Rails shooter where you're controlling this spaceship and you shoot guys and occasionally you go in a tank or a submarine and etc. You play as a fox. Okay.
- [28:40]
Chris Plant
Hey, can I just add one quick correction? Really quick. Star Fox zero was a reboot, so I believe it was the same story generally, but it was like new levels. It was basically a new game.
- [28:55]
Sponsor/Announcer
Yeah.
- [28:55]
Chris Plant
So Steven's right. All of you Star Fox nerds can just chill the fuck out.
- [29:01]
Ross Froshchick
This is the third time they've remade Star Fox 64. If you don't include that.
- [29:05]
Steven Totillo
No, second time they've remade it.
- [29:06]
Ross Froshchick
They made it. Well, okay. Second time they've remaded it.
- [29:08]
Steven Totillo
You're right.
- [29:09]
Ross Froshchick
Third time they've made it.
- [29:09]
Chris Plant
Okay, now we can talk about the game, which is why we're.
- [29:13]
Ross Froshchick
Steven, what did you think about Star Fox? This re release of Star Fox on Switch 2?
- [29:20]
Steven Totillo
It's one of those where I played the original so obsessively that I didn't feel the need to. Like, I wasn't that eager to be like, oh, I gotta play this. I mean, I like to play a lot of games and I like to try different things all the time. And this was one where if the main draw is that it looks better, I'm like, okay. But I played it a bit at a Nintendo preview event in New York City. They'll invite media to go to rent a hotel space or something and they'll have a game there. And so I played it and like the muscle memory kicked in right away. Like the enemy patterns are the same, or at least they ones in the first level. The two levels I played were the same. You know, I knew exactly when to, you know, bank left or do the barrel roll and when to shoot the three enemies that were going to come in from the top right of the screen. And so I thought, oh, this is so similar that I life short, I got other stuff to play. So I appreciate that it exists that people can play it if they want, but I got other stuff going on.
- [30:15]
Ross Froshchick
It definitely seems like they are splitting the studios in a way where they're gonna do a relatively unambitious remake or something like that to balance the like Donkey Kong bonanzas of the world. This is. This feels like we're gonna cash a check a little bit and then we're Gonna get more risky with more ambitious titles.
- [30:39]
Chris Plant
It's tough because they're clearly doing an ongoing trend of have a studio remake a game, prove that one, there's interest and two, they know how to make it and three, they know how to make it in a way that looks modern and then you let them make an actual sequel. Right. Because if you put out.
- [30:59]
Steven Totillo
Where have you seen them do that? Talk that out a bit.
- [31:03]
Chris Plant
I would say like this is the Halo I think was like the original thing.
- [31:07]
Ross Froshchick
I'll give you a Nintendo example actually.
- [31:10]
Chris Plant
Yes.
- [31:10]
Ross Froshchick
Mercury's Theme is probably the closest to a Nintendo example where Mercury's theme came in, remade Metroid 2 into Samus Returns, made drastic changes to the structure of that game, but then they gave them like a full on Metroid dread release. Right.
- [31:24]
Steven Totillo
And I believe another example would be Grezzo. I think I'm saying, if I'm saying the name right, they remade, they invol, they did some of the 3Ds remakes of Ocarina and Majora's Mask, the Zelda games. And then they. I believe they also then did the Link's Awakening Switch remake and all that. Finally allowed them to work on an original Zelda game which was Echoes of Wisdom, which was the one actually play Zelda. So I think Chris, you're right on the money with that being a strategy. So this game is developed by Velen Studios. Velen Studios is staffed by a lot of people that used to be at what's known as Vicarious Visions. They have an extremely long history with Nintendo and making games for Nintendo platforms. They were one of the big GBA prestige GBA developers. Not that there were many prestige GBA developers in the West. They were making really good Tony Hawk games and what have you on the Game Boy advance back in the day.
- [32:14]
Chris Plant
They were like quite literally making magic. They were translating things or porting things to the GBA that didn't make sense. I mean they made a Rock band or a Guitar Hero game for.
- [32:23]
Steven Totillo
Yeah, with the thing you plugged into the ds there was like a. Like the.
- [32:27]
Chris Plant
Yes. Yeah, they, they were. They also ended up being very involved in the Skylanders franchise with toys with Bob or for Bob or whatever.
- [32:36]
Steven Totillo
So as Valance Studios, they got, they've done. They've had one previous, I think, you know, unarguably less well received project which is they made Mario Kart. I always forget the suffix on this one. Is it Drive Tour, something like that? The Mario Kart that involved the actual radio controlled Mario Kart that you could Buy.
- [32:55]
Chris Plant
Oh yeah.
- [32:56]
Steven Totillo
And then you drove it around your living room and. Yeah, the web aspect to it. Yes. And so that was sort of in keeping with them making that studio and the heads of studio making prior experimental gadget driven things like that Guitar Hero they made for the, for the ds or I think it was the ds. And so they made that game. And this is, this seems to be creatively a pretty successful as far as what I've seen from the reviews and very faithful execution of this. And does this then lead to them being able to make a bona fide original Star Fox game? We'll see. I mean the other thing, the other unusual aspect of this particular game is that it is the closest we've seen from Nintendo in terms of movie synergy. They have a Mario movie that comes out, Mario Galaxy Movie comes out earlier in the spring and surprise, surprise, it features Star Fox. Although not really a surprise because they included it in the marketing even though it was a surprise. So they clearly wanted to put the inclusion of Star Fox out there. I don't think we've ever seen, I mean, you guys, correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think we've ever seen an explanation as to how or why they even decided to include Star Fox, who's never previously been in a Mario centric work before.
- [34:11]
Ross Froshchick
I mean, yeah, I hate to say, but money seems like a good reason. They're clearly building the equivalent of an MCU with these Nintendo movies.
- [34:20]
Chris Plant
So like that.
- [34:20]
Steven Totillo
But like, what's your what? Like did they know they had a Star Fox remake coming so they were like, let's make a Star Fox scene in this movie? Or did they have creative ideas around other Nintendo characters to put in the movie and know far enough in advance that they could then commission a remake that maybe is faster to create? I don't know. I don't know what comes first. But we're seeing this and so I assume we're going to see in future, you know, what will be the surprise cameo in the live action Zelda movie next year. That also signals that we're getting a remake of whatever that is. If Link gets on a Jet Ski, at least we know. Wave race 64 remake.
- [34:54]
Ross Froshchick
That's right.
- [34:56]
Chris Plant
Finally, I will say for the game itself, the game's good and it did do its job of proving out is there room for modern Star Fox? A lot of things that I don't like about the original game on the Nintendo 64 or even the 3DS is the open combat fights where you're out in the big 3D world and you're spiraling around it feels like it takes away from the more curated experience. I didn't enjoy the ground battles or the underwater battles. There were like two or three, you know, levels in the game that really blew me away when I was a kid and everything else I could, you know, live without. The total opposite this time around.
- [35:40]
Sponsor/Announcer
The.
- [35:41]
Chris Plant
That stuff really does it for me, which is weird because the gameplay itself is effectively the same. But the visual fidelity adds a lot because who even knows what the hell you are looking at in a big open 3D world on the Nintendo 64. It's just random shapes and actually having
- [36:04]
Ross Froshchick
an idea of frames per second. Like it was not running great.
- [36:07]
Chris Plant
Yes. The world that you are moving around, having a purpose and a function, you know, what you're shooting at, it adds a lot. There's a ground level where you're chasing a train and you're basically trying to keep up with it and destroy parts of it, while there's also an air attack coming at you while you're on the ground. And that having some visual fidelity to it feels really spectacular. It feels like a cool action set piece. Is it still Star Fox? Does it solve the problem of. This game is three hours long and it is ultimately built for people who like to score, chase and who want to get higher and higher rankings, which was not me then and is not me now. Yeah, like, it's still that game and that game is. That style of game is not maybe as popular as it was even back then. So I think the game will evolve from here. But I found myself bought in. Like you, Steven. I went into this pretty skeptical of the game itself, really curious about the art direction. That was what pulled me in. And it ended up being actually what kind of sealed the deal for me.
- [37:23]
Ross Froshchick
Yeah, I personally thought it was fun. I love the original. I have very fond memories and very impactful memories because the original was the first time we used a rumble pack, if I recall. So it was like a huge moment from a video game historical standpoint. I it to me, the gameplay feels like pretty dated and aged to the point where I needed. I felt like I needed more modernization beyond just the visuals to make me feel like this was a really new experience. And I think I would again point to that Mercury Steam Metroid 2 remake where they like really, they hit the major beats of like, you're going around hunting Metroids, but really took the reins a little bit and. And redesigned it and I think a more modern way, which I thought helped A lot. So I could have used more. I like, after you finish like a run, you unlock this challenge mode. You can replay individual levels and like go after specific little mini challenges. So that gave a little more hook to it. But like the stuff you were unlocking was essentially pointless and things like that. They all spent. But they also spent like some time on multiplayer modes which are like pretty creatively designed. They almost have like a battlefield element to them. But I'm not realistically going to play a lot of multiplayer Star Fox. So, you know, the length and breadth of the value of that seems kind of limited to me. I just wanted them to be a little more ambitious is really the. My takeaway.
- [38:47]
Steven Totillo
You know, when we were Talking earlier about PlayStation moving away from discs and some of the questions people have about preservation, one of the things when I went to them about that and I said, what do you have to say to people who are worried that they're going to lose access to games they care about? And they came back to me with a statement where they said, and it didn't really address the, does the copy of the game you get stop working? But they said, we love games here at PlayStation. And one of the ways we've continued to keep games available is through emulation and through remasters. And so arguably a release like Star Fox is a method for Nintendo to make the classic design of Star Fox 64 available. Certainly Nintendo can still and still does make the emulated N64 original available. But looking at something like this, do you guys actually feel like this is a valuable extra kind of offshoot of game preservation that you would like to see kind of the classics kind of modernized just to keep around.
- [39:46]
Ross Froshchick
I wouldn't even look at it like a value just for game preservation. I think there's a value in reevaluating games that were old and dated in different ways. I think Capcom's done this amazingly well with the Resident Evil remakes. Sure, they're modernizing those games in a way that makes them more playable, but the core of them remains sound. And so I think there's value in that. The big question it brings up is with the re release or remake, I should say, of Ocarina of Time, like, is that all we're getting is like basically the Star Fox treatment, which is the original game, just with prettier graphics and not a whole lot else. And that to me feels like a big missed opportunity and a letdown. But they're also facing the tides of, like, people love this game, they're obsessed with this game, it needs to be exactly the same.
- [40:31]
Steven Totillo
We'll talk about games that they've already remade. They already made a pretty faithful remake. Not easily accessible anymore because it's on the 3Ds. But a Volcarina of Time and the history of the Zelda remakes, be IT Wind Waker HD, Majora's Mask on 3DS, Link's Awakening on Switch have at best been graphical upgrades. Link's Awakening is, I guess, on par or equivalent to what's just been done with Star Fox and star Fox 64. But in none of those cases was there anything beyond player convenience additions in terms of additional content and design. Right. So you can more easily toggle the water boots on and off in the 3DS version of Ocarina of Time, for example. So, yeah, it'll be interesting to see if this Switch remake of Ocarina is more like one of these Resident Evil rethinks of it. There's also a thing that they've dabbled with in. I can't remember if it was Pikmin 3 or 4. I think it was 3 that they reissued on the Switch. And it was faithful in terms of what had been released originally on Wii U, I think. Wii U? Yeah, it was Wii U, but they added prequel missions and then epilogue missions to it. And so the conceit was we're expanding the story how Olimar or whoever got here, and then we're gonna show you a little bit of kind of the aftermath of what occurred. And that allowed. I remember really enjoying those missions when I played that. And I felt like this was also a way for a development team that had put their hands around the original and faithfully recreated that to then demonstrate their ability to do something more in these margins of the game that then wound up being almost like the bonus content of it. And so with star Fox 64, for example, being remade in Star Fox, yeah, that would have been cool if they added like a few other planets that you like, an alternate branch. Right. The game is designed where you always start on the first planet, Corneria.
- [42:23]
Ross Froshchick
Right.
- [42:23]
Steven Totillo
And that you branch out in three possible directions. And so what if there was a fourth branch? And that would have been fun to have seen them allow Velen to. To design that. And so, yeah, it would be. I. I would. I would enjoy that. I feel like you. Since you can already play Starflight 64 on the. On the retro console Nintendo Switch Online, and you can play Ocarina of Time on that, I'd be up for something that's more creatively ambitious in terms of reinterpretation.
- [42:50]
Ross Froshchick
Crossbow training in the Ocarina remake. That'd be fun.
- [42:54]
Chris Plant
I want to go back real quick before we wrap to that question that you had of how does this work as game preservation, if at all? And I think it's important to say I don't think it has anything to do with preservation. And I think the reason it doesn't is because these companies are deciding game by game what it looks like. The fact that we just had this entire conversation, right, of like, what type of thing is it? Is it one for one? Is it totally different? Are they adding, are they subtracting all of this? And I worry when I hear Sony saying, like, this is one way we're thinking about it. The, the trouble is that the choice, in my opinion, shouldn't belong to them. The games just should be available, right? Like, that's, that's what preservation is. Preservation is the things that the studio likes and the things that they don't like. I will say also to go back to the Zelda point, the challenge with Nintendo is we usually don't know who's making their games until they are literally out. And knowing who is making that game would tell us a lot. If it was another partner studio like this, I would bet that it's probably pretty similar. If it is the Zelda team, I would think that this is them getting their hands back into the, the dungeon model of Zelda. If you wanted to go back after Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom and go back to a different type of Zelda game, going back and remaking Ocarina of Time and changing it in interesting ways, that would be once again a great way to like, learn safely in a way that you can still make some money and then you can go and make a new game after that. So, yeah, I'm very curious. There is roughly a million question marks around a game that we've seen effectively a single image from.
- [44:42]
Steven Totillo
Guys, I have an idea. Yeah, a million dollar idea might be a ten million dollar idea. Whoa.
- [44:48]
Ross Froshchick
You ready? Are you sure you'll share it?
- [44:50]
Chris Plant
Remove the duh.
- [44:52]
Steven Totillo
Oh, no, I'm not going to add a word to the beginning. I'm going to add something to the end. The Legend of Zelda. The Ocarina of Timeline. Timeline link no longer just moves between age 7 and 14. He moves through the Zelda timeline, the unified Zelda timeline. Well established that all Zelda games are connected. This is not controversial at all. He moves to Zelda 1. He goes to a link to the past. He is going. He's playing that ocarina, and he's in games of every generation.
- [45:27]
Ross Froshchick
I mean, it sounds like you're pitching an illumination movie.
- [45:30]
Chris Plant
That does sound like a pretty good elimination. I'll be honest. I'd go see that. That sounds great. I'll see that right after Secret Life of Pets 3. Hey, how about we wrap up the section and then we can hop into our honorable mentions before we head out?
- [45:46]
Ross Froshchick
That sounds great. Actually, we have some reader mail. Before we do that, I want to read some reader mail. This one comes from Corey. We were talking about Friend Slop games. Stephen, are you familiar with the genre Friendslop?
- [45:56]
Steven Totillo
Oh, very familiar, yeah.
- [45:58]
Ross Froshchick
Okay. Corey writes, hey, I think that everyone likes games known as Friend Slot. Most of these games are made with love for people to share. And that's not slop. I would humbly suggest a different name for the genre. Co Opies. Like Co Op with uppies, please. I don't know about that, but they're generally about traversal and helping your friends. I don't know. How do you feel? Because there is coffee.
- [46:25]
Chris Plant
Sounds like a drug.
- [46:26]
Ross Froshchick
It does.
- [46:26]
Chris Plant
I feel like I'm like, I'm on co opies.
- [46:29]
Ross Froshchick
Friendslop does sound like a pejorative, though. And I do think it's different from, like, me personally. I define Friendslop as it needs to be a little bit shitty. Right. It can't just be like a co op game. Right?
- [46:41]
Chris Plant
Yeah.
- [46:42]
Sponsor/Announcer
I've come to.
- [46:42]
Chris Plant
I've come around to liking Friendslop. I totally get why people. Some people do not like it, but I think the slop represents the not wasting gajillions of dollars on your project term. Like, I think there's something to the idea of making something that is rough around the edges. That said, it's tough because slop is used in so many negative ways, like AI Slop. So I. I get it, but I do. I have developed a kind of a warmth for the phrase.
- [47:11]
Steven Totillo
In December, I interviewed Nick Kamen. He's one of the lead developers of Peak, one of the most successful Friends Slop games. And I asked him about the term and he said he liked it. He was fine with it, but he recognized it can be used in a derogatory fashion. But he was pretty comfortable with it. So, I mean, if people making it don't fully mind, then, I mean, who else should we worry about?
- [47:35]
Chris Plant
It kind of reminds me of walking simulators. I remember people didn't like that term, but, like, I like walking simulators. I find that a really enjoyable term. I love having a nice walk.
- [47:44]
Ross Froshchick
Anybody have any honorable mentions to talk about? Anything they're playing, anything they're watching, reading, you name it. Steven, you can go first.
- [47:52]
Steven Totillo
I've got two nine year old twins and always, I'm always looking for things that will excite them to read. My daughter is really into reading lots of graphic novels, Baby Sippers Club and other kind of graphic novels targeted to her as my son. It can be a little trickier, but we just rediscovered, I rediscovered, I guess the the All Star Superman 12 issue series written by Grant Morrison, drawn by Frank, Quitely, released over a decade ago, maybe even two decades ago. And a little bit, a little bit complex for him. A lot of stuff is happening kind of between the panels and with implications, innuendo or inference. And yet he was fascinated by it. He'd barely ever read any comics before and it was just a kind of a really fun parent and kid opportunity to sit down and sort of follow this story of a Superman who is told in the first issue that he is going to die soon. And it is kind of from there on kind of an exploration of how good this guy is and how amazing he is and how none of that amazement really has to do with his powers, but more about how he treats people. And yeah, my son and I had a great time. All Star Superman by Morrison and Quitely.
- [49:08]
Chris Plant
That sounds so nice. Mine is kind of for you, fresh though, really for both of you, because you both like puzzle games. I lost track of a video game a decade ago, maybe more. Couldn't find it, forgot its name, gone forever. And then while surfing through Steam this week, I finally found it. And that game is called Starseed Pilgrim. It is a very retro looking, almost Atari like, but with brighter colors, puzzle platformer. And it is a game where you truly have no idea how to play it. It gives you nothing. You just need to start moving items around in this 2D space to create the world around you. When you plant like seeds, it will grow blocks. Maybe it grows eight yellow blocks straight up. Maybe it grows kind of like a weird tetronomo piece, like a zigzag out of green blocks. Maybe it has different effects when you line those seeds up next to each other. It is now, I think might seem kind of quaint and it is really not interested in
- [50:23]
Sponsor/Announcer
you.
- [50:25]
Chris Plant
It is a world that is waiting for you to discover it and if you want to walk away, it is okay with that. But fresh. I know you love a game where it is just a mystery of how does this work? Don't spoil it for me, yada yada, yada. And this is one that I remember playing. I could have sworn I played it in college. It says it came out on Steam in 2013, but I remember playing this a long time ago and really, really appreciating it.
- [50:55]
Ross Froshchick
Yeah, I remember it coming out, but I don't think I ever played it. And it's pretty, actually kind of good timing, I guess. It's like a year old at this point. But the developer Draken, I believe is how you pronounce that, released a game in 2025 called the End of Gameplay, which I think also uses this spirit of like very, you know, confusing or at least opaque systems in what appears to be a platforming game that is, you know, currently very well reviewed by the 36 people that reviewed it on Steam. So if you're looking for more games from the Starseed Pilgrim developer, the End of Gameplay is another one. I want to talk about my game, which is blueprints, which I continue to play. I know I've given everyone updates basically for the last two months. We're on day like 51, I want to say somewhere around there we have are still missing the last sanctum key. I will remain. I will keep this from being spoilery again because I know if some people haven't played it yet is worth playing. But we are closing in on it. I'm getting a little bit antsy because we're at a point where there aren't a lot of leads to chase. And so the few leads that we have do require the stars, no pun intended, aligning to sort of progress. But I'm sure there's stuff that we're just missing and haven't seen. Jason is very bad at not giving me hints. He likes hearing the updates. I talked to Jason Trier about the updates that I'm having within the game and I ask him not to give me hints and he is very bad at doing that. So I have to be mindful of just not sharing any information with Jason. But otherwise it's been going great. It's a great game.
- [52:44]
Steven Totillo
Definitely a blueprints highlight for me was when because he and I both had coded for the game well before it came out and he was just like he'd rocketed ahead of me, had his own blueprints, friend group finding everything and he's like, oh, you gotta catch up to where I am, whatever. And then I sent him the screenshot and I'm like, hey, Jason, what is this thing I found he's like, congratulations, you found the one secret that we haven't found.
- [53:12]
Ross Froshchick
And I was like, ah, ripping his heart out.
- [53:13]
Steven Totillo
I love it. That's.
- [53:14]
Ross Froshchick
That's great. So good.
- [53:16]
Steven Totillo
Little me stumbling across this little thing in the corner.
- [53:19]
Ross Froshchick
Well done.
- [53:20]
Steven Totillo
But that sounds terrific. There's still like one, I think, significant thing in the game that I've never done that the aforementioned Jason Schreier swears to me is well worth doing. And I was like, I just don't want to finish the game. I want to savor. You know, I want to have that for the future. But now I'm like, I have no memory of how to play this game.
- [53:40]
Ross Froshchick
Did you keep a good notebook? Do you have a notebook lined up?
- [53:42]
Steven Totillo
I mean, I kept a notebook, but it was a bunch of chicken scratch and like, you know, complicated diagrams that I'm sure would make even less sense to me than the game if I. If I open them back up. So I have no idea. I even had the thought pop into my head, should I just start over? But that also seems ludicrous. So, I don't know. I don't know, maybe it'll forever be un. Unfinished my. My play session with that game, but I. It's. What a great game.
- [54:04]
Ross Froshchick
Oh, my God. It's spectacular. And is once again eligible for the 2026 Besties Game of the Year because we decided to nudge it into this year because I couldn't play it last year because the colorblindness. So something to keep in mind. Okay, I think we did it. Stephen, thank you again for joining us. Where can people join the fun at Game File?
- [54:25]
Steven Totillo
You can check out Game File at gamefile News. It is a newsletter, it's a website. It's something you can sort of check out at your leisure because every edition is either free or at least the top of it is free. And then you gotta pay to read the rest. So there's a whole lot in there. I don't really believe in fomo. I hate that I have to charge for anything. So I try to give people as much as they can without having to pay. And I'm hopefully going to give you news that you haven't seen anywhere else. A lot of people are reporting about news in gaming and my goal, based on all the years I've been reporting, is to just to find things that nobody else is talking about or looking into in quite the way that I am. So check it out, let me know what you think. Game.
- [55:05]
Ross Froshchick
I don't know if anyone's given you the ace title, but I will grant it to you. You are indeed an ace reporter.
- [55:10]
Steven Totillo
Hey, thanks.
- [55:11]
Ross Froshchick
There it is. Okay, we did it. Thank you, everyone. Next week we're going to be doing Rhythm Heaven Groove. Oh, Chris Plant, can you recap the games we talked about?
- [55:21]
Chris Plant
Oh, my gosh. We talked about all the games. We talked about Star Fox. Oh, and then we also talked about blueprints. Starseed Pilgrim. And we talked about All Star Superman by Grant Morrison.
- [55:36]
Ross Froshchick
That's going to do it for us here at the Besties. Thank you so much for listening to the Besties.
- [55:41]
Chris Plant
What are we talking about next week?
- [55:42]
Ross Froshchick
I said Rhythm Heaven Groove.
- [55:43]
Chris Plant
Oh, sorry.
- [55:44]
Sponsor/Announcer
Sorry.
- [55:44]
Chris Plant
I missed that part. My brain is foggy, man. That thing almost fell on me and I just. I'm like in a time loop, you know?
- [55:51]
Ross Froshchick
Maybe you are literally in a time loop. You don't know.
- [55:53]
Chris Plant
Oh, no.
- [55:55]
Ross Froshchick
That's gonna do it. Listen again for the Besties next week. Cause shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best games?
- [56:06]
Chris Plant
Sam,
- [56:31]
Ross Froshchick
Besties.