#54: eGirl Arms Race

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But enough chatter, how about you on to the show? Greetings and salutations, welcome back to Sacred Symbols, a PlayStation podcast. This is episode 54. My name is Colin Moriarty, I'm joined as always by the hot but now I guess cooling.

Chris Ragon, because your AC is getting fixed, I saw. Yeah, on Wednesday, the first day of VidCon after a month, basically, of asking them to fix it. That's really awesome timing. That sucks.

Yeah, it's great. You're going to VidCon, that's an Anaheim, right? Yeah. And our friends actually at Studio 71 that sell our ads here on Sacred Symbols are having a party.

It's funny because they reached out to me and they were like, well, we know you don't want to go. But do you think Chris would want to go? And I was like, yeah, I'll tell you new immediately. Oh, yeah, no, they know me well enough to know that I don't want to do anything, except for the podcast.

So yeah, I didn't realize VidCon started during the middle of the week. I've only been once, so I don't recall. It's a weird time to start, but I don't know. I guess that's what it is again.

It's not so does it normally happen in July. So yeah, happens later August. It usually happens in June. June?

Oh, I don't remember being there. It's shortly after E3 usually. Oh, well, that would be convenient actually for a lot of people coming here. Oh, yeah, 100%.

But I guess they don't care why they care about other people, about other conferences. Chris, we actually have a questionnaire from the audience. James Eden has wrote us into his own Patreon. He says, hey, Chris, how are you doing?

That's all, yeah. So I figured we'd inquire about your wellness. You're doing OK. Things are pretty good.

I had to get a new phone though while I was in Vegas because my phone melted. Did you leave it in the sun? I guess so. No, what happened was the waterproofing seal?

Like it's like a black kind of foam that's inside the phone. It got so hot that the waterproofing seal melted into the phone and destroyed it. That sucks. Yes, I had to get a new one while I was in Vegas.

Were you insured? Was your phone insured? Yeah, yeah. It wasn't too big of a hassle.

But it was still just like, of course, this would happen on a trip. Yeah, that sucks. Yeah, I saw you in Vegas. I wrote on one of your Instagram pictures.

Someone's got to stop you at some point. I don't know who will be. Maybe it'll be me. We'll end up finding out.

But you need to be stopped. You were like basking in the sun. Now Vegas is a great place. It's one of you said, because the only place I've ever seen a phone, because Erin likes to go to some of these resorts and just lay out by the end of the sun by the pool.

And her phone, I've never seen it except for her phone in Vegas. It literally shuts off and says it's too hot to turn on. Yeah, which is so fine. I'm like, wow, that's if you leave it in the sun for like two seconds, it's over.

Yeah, it's hot over there, man. It's ridiculous. It's like 110 degrees. Very hot.

Like on a low end. Insane. Did you go in any casinos? Yeah.

Yeah. The casino thing isn't really my thing. I do like that things are open way late. Oh, yeah.

You walk around like 4am. Yeah. People like there's a bunch of people walking around. It's exactly my style.

But I don't know. Oh, casino thing. It's not my vibe. It feels a bit too.

Yeah. It's just slot machines and everything all over the place in the Vegas airport. It's funny. Well, I'm glad that you're back and that you're alive.

James, thank you for your inquiry on Chris's health. We appreciate that very much. Name it. Kenny wrote it on some Patreon.

Remember supporting some Patreon. The comment that comes last and that's you early at free access to our show. The ability to make your questions, comments, concerns, and ideas just like Nate did. You said, gentlemen, it's time to get serious.

Is baloney just a hot dog pancake? I don't like this one. See, now you guys are getting a little too flippant. This is getting abstract.

Is baloney a hot dog pancake? Do you think that that's really true? Because wouldn't that be any cold cut? If you slice a piece of ham, is that not the same as a slice of baloney and therefore as a slice of ham also a hot dog pancake needs to be a cake, right?

That's what pancake is. It's better. My thing is a cake needs grain in it, right? Yeah.

Like pancakes have some sort of wheat in them or, yeah, I agree with you. I think that this is, I think you're being a little flippant. It's kind of ridiculous. It's like it's a frisbee, a plastic sandwich or like a plastic pancake.

Who cares? If you watch Parks and Rec, you'll know that a frisbee could be a plate or a bowl, but yeah, not anything edible, unfortunately. God help us all. So Nate, you know, I appreciate your guys' inquiries in this regard, but I ask you to ask, well, let's really narrow down to the brass tacks and ask the questions that only matter.

I really think the question about a taco being a sandwich or whatever, I think that's a little more inquisitive than asking a baloney as a hot dog pancake because there's no such thing as a hot dog pancake. What's a hot dog baloney? Yeah, why wouldn't you be able to inverse that? It's a pancake just a bologna, just a cake baloney.

Yeah, that's disgusting. You guys are out of your fucking mind. Western Kanemore wrote it in the ACC quick correction from last week's paper similes. You both talked about Disney divesting from Hulu in order to focus on their Disney plus offering.

In fact, the opposite Disney recently made a deal with Comcast, the second largest shareholder of Hulu next to Disney, which Comcast will sell its remaining stake in Hulu over the next five years to Disney for a total of $5.8 billion. If Disney's playing it all along with the game ownership of Hulu, I don't understand why they didn't just add Disney plus as a premium add on much like what Hulu and Amazon have been doing for years with their offers. I guess it's just one of the closest to Disney's full world domination. Much love.

I looked into this a little bit less and I think you're right actually. There is a weird divestment scheme going on to remove, I guess, MBC through Comcast, I'm only seeing Universal now. I guess it's getting rid of them. But the point I was making still stands that I think that the smaller and I think all the non-first party publishers should make a Hulu type game streaming or game pass like service.

And I'm not subscribing to Square Enix's Game Pass. I'm sorry. I just can't. No, why?

You can get all the episodes of the Final Fantasy 7 remake that's not coming out. I was looking forward to playing Final Fantasy 13.3. Lightning Returns. We mastered.

Some people really played all three of those. There really were three Final Fantasy 13 games. It's almost impossible to believe that that actually happened. Is that the first time that that's happened?

It's not there were three. No, no, but I mean, like is that the first time we've had a numbered sequel to a numbered sequel in video games? Because I can't think of any. I struggle.

I can grapple with the thought of like any other franchise that has had like a like a call of Juarez to six. Yeah. How fantasy 10 two is the first one I can think of? Yeah.

Before that, I don't think so. There are like, I don't even think since really. I feel like the only franchise that does that. Yeah, maybe Kingdom Hearts does that too because they have like Kingdom Hearts.

Remember when we played Kingdom Hearts 3? Or let's play. We actually played Kingdom Hearts 2.9 apparently. Yeah.

So I don't know that we technically fulfilled our list. By the way, my writer, Sophia, who writes side quests has been ill has taken ill as they might say in the Korean England. She has taken ill. And so our side quest episode this week is going to be delayed.

That's why I did last week. Chris is actually going up this week. Oh, and that's our Titanfall 2 chase for the Platinum Trophy. It is a really weird video.

I'll just put it that way. It's a very weird video. We'll definitely go back. You'll have to find out if you were successful or not.

I guess I got to go home and like actually try it. I'm not surprised. John Kerry running on a set AC and C machine. Patrons in the founding day of CLS with my first time writing.

Am I the only one that is concerned with a Wall Street Journal article you talked about last week? Specifically the part where so many talk about targeting big name games and the hardcore audience. My thought is, well, I put all your eggs in one basket. Most PS exclusives that I've been announced to feel very similar.

Third person action games. I agree with him. I agree with him. I had time to sue on this and I don't know if you have had to.

I keep returning to the question that he's asking which is why can't Sony do it all? I don't understand why. Because I agree with him. The Wall Street Journal focus on AAA, big games and stuff like that and smaller devs and smaller publishers feeling kind of shit on and Sony basically saying they'll just come anyway because they weren't able to do it.

I find a problem with some of this. I don't necessarily think that they're focused on big budget or bigger titles necessarily excludes them from focusing on a better UI or a better storefront or any of that. I don't see how those are getting the way of each other. But yeah, it's not particularly all that wise in my opinion to limit yourself to a specific kind of niche like that.

You're building the successor to one of the most popular platforms on planet Earth probably. Yes. It's weird. It's a weird business model.

I don't know. Maybe it'll help them out. Maybe the fact that they're focused on hardcore and their use of that kind of terminology indicates that maybe we will be getting some kind of controller customization and stuff like that. Maybe they will make an only controller because they're investing in this audience.

I don't know. I think there's a reason to be excited about it. But it's also like yeah, maybe you're cutting yourself a bit low there. Yeah, I just don't understand.

I agree. I don't know that there's necessarily an opportunity cost but Sony means making it seem like there's a lot of other things. But it is important to note that Wall Street Journal let's talk to anyone on the record. It's all sources.

It's not as if Sony is only talking about certain things. They might not even have certain things figured out, assuming the console is still 16 or 17 months out. We're still going to get indies on PlayStation 5. I would be shocked if we didn't.

That'd be insane. I can't imagine it. No indie games at all. Yeah.

I don't think that that's what they're saying or the he's saying. Sony does say that they expected they'll just come anyway. But the point is, why not just invest in making sure you're treating these people right as well? Because I think independent games and smaller games are actually quite essential to the success of a console.

They're largely selling on smaller games. They have these big ten-fold games but people buy shit tons of small games. They like to play their Stardew Valley and all that on their Switch. So, Sony had this really great relationship for a long time with indies.

Like I said, you swear it on their shirts. So many love indies was a thing that was a banner in their building and all sorts of stuff. It's a little weird when you think about the early PS4 era when some of the best games on the console were actually small games like Housemarks, the Rezzo-Gone is the best launch game on PS4. Yeah, like Journey and stuff like that.

Yeah, exactly. These are some first things, Housemarks obviously being second party but even games like Mercenary Kings and there was a lot of early stuff that actually was much better than a lot of the shit we were getting from AAA developers. I just fear that if you aim too much, it sounds a lot like an Xbox strategy from back in the day. And it didn't actually work out that well for them in the long run because they were focusing on Summer of Arcade for a little while then they stopped then they were focusing on their big AAA games.

Then the Xbox one came out and only cares. If you've got to have that long tail commitment, I think. So, I'm sympathetic to this fear, Chris. I'm sympathetic to this fear.

Now, before we move on, I mentioned on Twitter right before we started the show or actually before we started recording it. We are going to do the Sacred Simples episodes beginning in August. And I want people to know, so I think Sacred Simples Plus is what it's going to be called and it's a perfect name. And it'll basically be just ancillary.

I want it to be more than a half an hour, less than an hour, spin off conversations about important topics. And so I want people to start wrapping their minds around what that might mean. I think it's going to be really exciting. So sometimes it'll be spoiler cast.

Sometimes it'll be me just reading a mailbag or Chris reading a mailbag about a game recently. But a lot of times it'll be fun to expand on something we talked about, but we weren't able to really delve into. I don't want to wait the store. I don't want to wait the show down with 45 minute conversations about one topic.

And then let's move on to number three. Yeah, not exactly. I just want to speak by the rest of the numbers. Yeah, exactly.

So this is going to happen. We'll probably record them back to back if we can. But sometimes, you know, and we have to figure out the way I look at it is it'll often be me and you. Sometimes it'll be me.

Sometimes it'll be you. And I occasionally assume maybe we'll get some other people involved as well. Yeah, but I think that just expanding the ecosystem a little bit, having more conversation, more humor. The thing about our audience is that our audience likes two things.

They like to laugh and they like hard information. Our podcast is incredibly informative, but it's also incredibly zany. And so I want to also carry that over to our sacred symbols plus as well. So I just want to bring that up so people can give them us their feedback.

Yeah, the general idea. Here's the structure of it. For people that don't, that are curious. It'll probably go live.

I assume on Fridays. And then on Monday, the following Monday, it'll go live for anyone on Patreon. So anyone with a dollar supporting the dollar above. And so basically the way I look at it is if that's all you want, if you just want the dollar sub and there's four to five episodes per month, you're paying 20 to 25 cents an episode.

That's a pretty good deal. Yeah. And they won't all be for you. Like some, you won't want, if I have a deep dive on a tails game or something, you might not want to listen to that.

But then it's just 25 cents in the dream. So it's not like it's a huge investment. So yeah, I love everyone's feedback about what they think we should do. And I think we'll be rolling that out in August.

Yeah, it'll be fun. I like to use the word zany there. It is a fun word. It is a reverent is another good word.

Is zany like, what does that really mean? Like of zane? No, I don't know. Having much zane?

Yeah, having, yeah, I guess the word zane, you know, zane, yeah, I don't know where the word comes from zany. We can look it up. Would you like me to look it up? No.

Okay. Well, I was just genuinely curious. Well, if you're genuinely curious and then I asked if you want me to look up and you just said no. No, no, I guess I guess I'm partially curious.

I don't have enough to really care that much. Too zane. It's not a verb. Yeah.

So Chris, that's kind of the plan with that. The other thing is that we're going to record episode 55 right after this. I think we talked about last week. Yeah.

I'm going away for a little while to see family and report back simply pathetic. I'm so stressed out when I have to leave. Basically leaving my domain ruins about a week of my life before I leave. Oh, yeah, for sure.

Yeah. It's just, I just, I kind of dread it. It's not dread, I don't dread being with my family. I dread the travel.

Yeah, I dread the travel. They're like going to the airport and like standing in line next to a bunch of fat people who are just like screaming and sweating. Yeah, just, I just can't do it. Didn't we talk about last week too?

Why? I just don't understand how you're going to be on an airplane in the morning. It's going to happen. I understand if you're on like the fucking nine o'clock at night flight in a warm place and maybe you're a little stinky, but that I can't fucking, it's a epidemic.

It's really, just fucking bathe yourself. Wash your balls and all these other things. By the way, I don't know if you saw my tweet about this. A gutter kid in Santa Monica threatened to slit Lola's throat.

Why? I guess there's no why to these kinds of things. And then I was like, I couldn't believe it. I was like, what the fuck did you just say?

And then he told me I should slit Lola's throat because she's dangerous. And so I'm adding all of this craziness. By the way, I tweeted about this. Gutter kid or gutter punk is a specific term, by the way.

And that's a self-described term. People think that you were just talking about like gen-ch stuff. He didn't come at us or anything like that. Actually, I got in his face a little bit.

And you guys tell by the way, when you're in Santa Monica, these guys are so used to shit-talking tourists and people that aren't from here and stuff like that. I think he was a little taken aback that I actually engaged him. He had probably three or four inches. I mean 100 pounds on me.

So I think he could have squashed me like a bug. But I'm typically a pacifist, but you're going to talk to my dog. And tell me that my dog's throat should be slit. That's a weird thing to say to someone.

Yeah, I think weird is a bit of an understatement. That's a weird one on me. That's a weird one on me. And yeah, so some of the reaction online, I actually lost the patron because of the because of it.

I'm like, oh my God. See you later, I guess. I don't know what to tell you about that. So combining the dog drama with all of the preparation for leaving has indeed frazzled me quite a bit over the last few days.

And I'm preparing for knockback and watching some films and preparation for that and taking notes. I don't know. I'm almost ready for this vacation to just be over. If that makes any sense to you.

But I know that once I'm there, I'm going to be quite pleased. No, exactly. That's like a story of anybody who works from home who's going on vacation basically. So hopefully there are no gutter punks in Philadelphia.

I want to threaten- whoa-la-la-la-la. Can you imagine threatening violence to Lola? No. Can you imagine that?

I can't imagine threatening an animal that isn't currently attacking me. It wasn't like an active threat where he came out with a knife, but that's like a specific thing where you can't say that to someone. You know, like you can't say that. Oh my God, dude.

Sam I don't know why we pay so much money to live here. It's like, Aaron can't even go outside safely. I don't even walk around with my wallet at night. I was like a jumped.

Yeah. It's not some place that I don't want to live. Yeah. It's just a very strange place.

I like Sam I don't got a lot of style. I think it's got a lot of spirit. You know, but there's something I just can't stand like. There are parts here that are like dirtier than New York.

It blows my fucking mind. Insane to me. It was great. I was with a bunch of you like last time I was here and they have those trash cans with like the split green on top of it that says like trash and recycling.

So you put in, but like they both lead to the same exact bit. That's so funny. You said that dude, Aaron and I were just talking about those a few weeks ago about how I never even because I used to carry a little poop around to be like recycle. First of all, I hate these things cans paper.

Whatever. There's too many options. I'm like, it's all going in one bin. So I don't know.

At San Francisco airport was the funniest where there was like eight trash cans. I'm like, it's all going in one trash can. I just can't. I'm not sitting here.

So yeah, we were talking about that. It was just all waiting. Cause I carried a little poop around for everyone not assuming that that was a garbage can. But they're garbage cans.

Yeah, they're trash. It's all trash. The recycling is on the bin. It's like a placebo effect to make people feel a little bit less shitty about throwing recyclables into the trash.

I brought Loli out to the walker out like four in the morning last night before I went to bed. And there was a dude in front of my building who was clearly waiting for me to come back. And so I would let him in and then steal a bunch of packages in our lobby, which is what always happens in our lobby. So it forced me to walk into the back of my apartment and come to the back door.

It's like, I should be with you. Yeah. I'm not saying it's exclusive to San Amontagal. It's pretty zany up there too with the homelessness and the gutter pump problem here.

Exponentially worse, I have to tell you. Yeah, exponentially. Yeah. Unsafe.

One of them cornered errand in our lobby. Another one hid in our lobby trying to get into the elevator. I mean, it's crazy. It's a little mad Max to shop here in Santa Monica.

You guys are coming to visit. You know, Burbank's fine. Burbank's nice. You know, I'm thinking about maybe buying a house in the next year or so and I'm wondering where I should do it.

Cause Santa Monica is pretty expensive. I think I could probably afford something here. But I also feel like it's going to be engulfed by the ocean at some point. I think I want to go a little bit inland, but then I won't have that ocean breeze.

It's pretty cool here. Cool weather wise here. So a lot to think about. Burbank's really nice though.

It's not bad. Also Burbank will always remind me of J. Leno. Cause that's how I was introduced to Burbank.

Cause he filmed in Burbank and they always said that at the end of the show. I'm like, what's Burbank? Yeah, these have like Nickelodeon bumpers with Burbank on it. Yeah.

Very interesting stuff. Well, not really. Chris. What's going to know what we're playing?

You actually got to feel blank. You're not playing? Well, I've been working on some videos and I've also just been in Vegas. And I wasn't going to pack my PS4 and bring it to Vegas.

But I did bring my Switch. I've been playing my friend Pedro on Switch, which is good. I assume this probably coming to PS4 cause I'm PC and Switch and that's a weird combo. I anticipate it's probably going to come next once I want to PS4.

At some point, that is solid. When that comes out, and it will check it out because it's actually great. But nothing on PlayStation right now unfortunately. I played pretty much the same games we talked about last week, Bloodstained, Persona 4, and Resident Evil.

I'm still kind of shipping through each of them. Last week I had a lot to say about Persona 4 I think are two weeks ago. The game's picking up again a little bit for me. It really is an uneven game.

I just want to say I'm a little surprised by the nature of this game's substantial popularity with Japanese role playing games. I want to reiterate that. It's not amazing guys. I don't see it.

I'm not 25 hours into the game. That's enough time to really have a grasp on something. No Colin, it gets great 76 hours in. It's like Final Fantasy 13.

I remember that people say got really good 40 hours in. It actually did get good 40 hours in, but you shouldn't have to spend 40 hours in. If it doesn't get good 10 to 20 minutes in, I'm not. I'm sorry.

I got things to do. I'm totally with you there. So I'm continuing on with that. Bloodstained, I beat, I got some at mobile endings.

Dude, the Platinum Trophy is surprising to me. I wanted to talk about this if I might. The Platinum Trophy in the game has a really high engagement. It has like a 7 or 8% acquisition rate.

But it is a really, it's not hard. It's just a really time consuming Platinum where I'm 30 hours in the game. I still have, I'm still messing with the trophies. You have the grind, all these weapons and manufacturers, all this shit.

So I was surprised by that. I think it suggested to me that this game has a really hardcore audience. I'm going to really carefully watch that number as it moves because it suggested to me that it might not have actually sold as well as we think, but maybe it did. And finally Resident Evil 2, still playing through Jill's campaign.

Claire? No, it's Claire. Yeah, Jill's in the first one. So I'm working through that as well.

Tony Bertutich wrote it in what's on Patreon. He said, hey guys, Colin, I just watched your Bloodstained gameplay video and it was very intriguing. But I've never played Castlevania Symphony of the night. My question is this.

Thanks for all the work you guys do and thank you for making my work day a little easier. Good question. Bloodstained is so on the nose with Symphony of the night that I think you can only appreciate it with its fullest extent by having played Symphony of the night first and there's a wonderful PS4 port of Symphony of the night. So I would suggest starting there and then playing Bloodstained.

I think they're both excellent. Chris, let's get into the news. There's a few things to talk about here. Number one, it looks like a Batman Arkham collection is inbound for PlayStation 4.

If a leak from the always leaky Amazon UK branch is to be believed, by the way, this has since been confirmed, just so you guys know just very recently as the time recording of this. Web Psycho Monster relays not only the leaked listing, but also Box Art for the collection on both PS4 and Xbox One. The collection's leak description seems to indicate that the Rocksteady trilogy will be included here, thus keeping Batman Arkham Origins out of the mix. Quote, Batman Arkham collection brings you the definitive versions of Rocksteady's Arkham trilogy games, including all post-launch content in one complete collection.

End quote. The PS4 version will apparently get an exclusive skin, but that's all we know, other than a release date, which was also leaked September 6th. Batman Arkham Asylum's Rocksteady's first Batman game came in the PS3 and elsewhere in 2009, and was followed by Arkham City on the same platforms in 2011. 2013's Arkham Origins created by WP Montreal is considered part of the series and won't be re-released.

However, 2015's Arkham Knight will also be in the selection rounding out the trilogy. Rocksteady was founded early in the 21st century and has pretty much only made Batman games since, with the exception of 2006's Urban Chaos Riot Response, their very first game on PS2 and Xbox. So this is not surprising, I guess. All of these games are already on PlayStation 4.

You just had to buy them, I think, individually. So now it's a collection. Yeah, I was confused by this, because I could have sworn that this collection existed already, but I guess they're just on the storefronts. Yeah, I think they released last year, so Chris, like, the Arkham Asylum and City combo.

Yeah, and then you have Knight and then it's all opening together. I also know that they're all currently on Game Pass right now. So I guess, I guess, all right, the collection works. It's a slow week, so that is truly the biggest news.

I'm going to be honest with you, I think, because it's me. Hey, man, it's July. It is. What's going to happen in July?

Nothing. Hopefully I'm meteor hits the Earth. Yeah, we're lucky. Number two, at the very last second PlayStation Plus games were swapped for the month of July and exceptionally rare act that requires some sort of explanation.

Thankfully, Web site Eurogamer pursued such an explanation that wasn't exactly satisfying. For those unaware, July's free PlayStation Plus games, as we talked about on the show last week, were supposed to be PES or PES 2019 Konami's annualized soccer game alongside an indie racing game, but suddenly, PES 2019 was replaced by a Sony-owned second-party game in the form of Detroit Becoming Human. In a brief statement provided to Eurogamer, Konami PR said, quote, This decision was made by SIE, and so please make an inquiry to SIE, end quote, SIE, of course, is Sony's new acronym. Sony, on the other hand, said something even more cryptic, quote, We have decided to make a change to the PS Plus games line up this month and will be offering Detroit Becoming Human instead of Pro Evolution Soccer 2019.

This was a decision we decided to make as a company and we apologize for any inconvenience, end quote. Eurogamer speculates that with Sony's so deeply in bed with EA's FIFA franchise, this might have been done to avoid trouble there. However, we'll never know for sure. I think Chris, a lot of people assume that this was actually done based on quality and complaints, but I don't think that's the case.

I actually think that FIFA inquiry is probably true. I think that's EA with probably like, what the fuck are you doing? There are literally PlayStation FIFA ads everywhere, and Sony was like, you're probably right, or Sony might have been in breach of some sort of contract, but I have a hard time believing they were like, oh, everyone's mad. You know what I like to think happened is that we talked about it on the show, and we complained about it.

And thus, as we typically do, will yet another thing into existence? Unbelievable. That's especially unbelievable because it actually happened before we posted. So there's some sort of telekinetic connection with these particular people.

We do. But that's good news. I think that makes a little bit more sense. I know that that's probably disappointing to some people, I would imagine, because they're probably looking forward to playing it.

Probably FIFA fans are probably looking forward to playing the competition, but Detroit become humans in great game. So go enjoy. And the fact that they had to put in a second or a second party, Sony owned property means that this was done at the last second, but I like Euro gamers' theory, I think makes a lot of sense. Brecklingquist wrote in and said, hey fellas, I'm writing in about the recent switch route that occurred with the free PlayStation Plus titles for July.

I was pretty excited about it as I haven't played Detroit yet, and I don't have much interest in soccer games. It sounds like it was a Sony decision rather than economy one, and I'm just wondering, is there any precedent for a game being pulled and replaced at the last second like this? Was this an example of Sony getting in the fan backlash? So we talked about that already.

I can't think of an example of this happening at the very last second. I remember this happening a few times when the games were announced and then they would be taken out. That happens actually all the time in the drop too. If you go back to old drops, there's a bunch of us tossed out, because they ended up not coming out.

So I can't think offhand of when they literally switched something seemingly at midnight hour because of something troubling on their end. Yeah, I can't think of anything either. It seems like a pretty rare, rare happenstance. What I'm curious about is because obviously we talked about Sony pays a lump sum dollars, they probably paid a seven figure sum economy for the game.

I wonder if they just had to pay that and not have it there, and now they're not going to pay themselves for Detroit, so there's really no loss, but they paid for that game. So I wonder how that all worked out too. And that's definitely a seven figure deal for a game of that caliber. So as opposed to what probably a six figure deal for the other game.

So we'll see how it all shakes out in the future, but we need more from PlayStation Plus. I think we all agree on that. Yeah. Number three, Chris.

There is substantial excitement. I'm sorry, building for Monster Hunter World's upcoming DLC pack Iceborne. According to an interview on Game Informer as relayed by Website Push Square, the game's producer Rioso Sushi Moto. I'm sorry.

Nor did that Iceborne will be quote the last expansion, unquote. This is a sad fact for those who were hoping for more, but it's not a gigantic surprise. As Capcom is probably keen to begin working on the next Monster Hunter game. After all, Monster Hunter World is somehow Capcom's best-selling game in its entire history.

The Iceborne expansion itself will launch in early September. We now know it'll be the game's one and only major expansion. Is this surprising to you? Would you rather Capcom continue to build off of Monster Hunter World or make a new game?

Because I think that the impetus is on them right now to make a new one. This is the same problem I think that Battle Royale makers are going to experience, but it longer tails. This Monster Hunter World is the most successful Capcom game of all time, which is incredible. I mean, I think that's pretty wild.

Think about that. They're history. Street Fighter II. Bigger than Street Fighter II, right?

It's a long-known. It's crazy. Bigger than any Resident Evil game. It's a pretty wild thing.

That's no small feat, I don't think. But that Minecraft is what would you prefer that they do? I know you're not a player of the game, but if you were, you're a player of immersive, persistent games like this. Yeah, it's tricky because this is a game that if it's really their best-selling game of their entire history, I would have anticipated them to take a rock star approach the way they did with Panther 3.5 or...

Wait, is it 6? No, Panther 3.5. GTA 6 is starting to be rumored, but I think we're way lower. Yeah, but they kept that thing alive for a long time.

I assume that that would be the smart thing because it's the thing that's selling a lot and the thing that's got the biggest player base. So I anticipated that, I guess, a new game's fine as long as they keep going with the formula they got, but I don't know. I think I would have tried to milk this one for a little bit longer. Yeah, I think so too.

I'm a little confused by that. I was reading about it because I was like, wasn't Iceborn the only expansion? Yeah, and also it's kind of a recent game. It's not like Super Old at all.

Yeah, it came out January or February last year, right? Yeah, like something like that. Like within two years, which is not long. It's so funny, man, that they actually found just a massive success with this.

This plotting series, first of all, I don't like Monster Hunter. I think it's boring, but this thing was attached to handheld and attached to a very specific audience. And I remember when Vito was struggling, that the big claim was that they needed a Monster Hunter because Monster Hunter was so big on PSP and they segued to 3DS and that really fucked Sony a lot. So it was a really important game for handhelds, but it seems like, ironically, it's selling even better on console.

I can't keep up with how this is all working. It's the same with Kingdom Hearts actually where some of these games are on PSP and on 3DS and stuff, I'm like, are those selling better than the console ones and who's playing all of them? You got to buy all this hardware? Complicated issue.

It's a bit much, a bit much for me. It's a lot much for me, Chris. Number four, dubious rumors haven't circulating for a week or so about Polish Developer CD Project working on three Cyberpunk games concurrently. Word originally came from apparently bot translations from Polish website Bank Year, which talked to the team's president, Adam Kaczynski, and the team's CEO Peter Newbleiwitz.

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New... So it's gonna mess up Polish for sure. It's horrible. You know, it's funny though, because the Google Translate and back in the day, remember Babblefish back in the day?

That was an all the fist, the product. All the fist that used to be this old search engine and they were popular in the 90s and early 2000s because they had this thing called Babblefish, which is actually pretty advanced translator. And it's cool because you can take shit and put it in and get a general idea of what something says. But yeah, don't use these translations literally if you guys work out every of you who are working out there and website.

Although I will say that when I was in French in both high school and college, I would use Babblefish and translate all sorts of shit and then submit it as my own work. Okay? So you can do that, I guess. But what's up?

Then your article will get a C. Exactly. Then your article gets a C for fucking ineptitude. Number five, an obscure from software developed third person shooter from 2004 is coming westward for the very first time.

And it's happening sooner than you might think. Quirky publisher Devolver Digital is bringing Metal Wolf Chaos XD as PS4 and elsewhere on August 6 later this summer. And it will be the very first release outside of Japan. From software developed the game exclusively for the original Xbox and it only came out in Japan towards the end of 2004.

This wasn't the only Xbox game from work on during this era. However, the team also worked on its a toky-a toky series for the console. And then the game was a little bit more than the game from work on during this era. However, the team also worked on its a toky series for the console as well as games like Murakumo.

Metal Wolf Chaos was its final original Xbox exclusive before moving on to next gen. From software was founded in the mid 80s and is best known for its demon souls slash dark souls slash bloodborne fanciences. It's most recently released with Sekiro, Shadow's Eye Twice, launched earlier this year in its newest announcement, its Elden Ring. A game at the studio is creating alongside Game of Thrones creator George RR Martin on behalf of publisher Van Dienemko.

So that's pretty cool. I was actually looking at some videos in this game. It's like a third person shooter. I don't really know if they've upscaled it.

It doesn't look very good. But I love these Xbox and Xbox 360 Japanese exclusives because there are a lot of them. You guys Microsoft was spending a ton of money trying to get people to play. Didn't work out very well.

People might remember that Tales of Asparia, which was a Tales game. I mean, like Tales game was an Xbox or 60 exclusive for a while. I've never been confused by that. I've never been just lying out to the store.

I'm like, what is this? They tried. I'm giving it to Microsoft. They tried.

There's a ton of games like that. So this is one of the more obscure ones from Froms, not McWorry. What's the armor core days? Yeah.

So we'll see how it all works out with that. But I'm excited to play that. Number six, a substantial post on the official PlayStation has brought to our attention three new games coming from niche Japanese publisher, Spike Chunsoft. All three of these games are coming to PlayStation 4.

The first game is Conception Plus, made in the 12 stars. This is an interesting release as this game was initially a PSP exclusive launch only in Japan in 2012 and has never seen the light of day elsewhere or on other platforms. Strangely, it's sequel Conception 2, Children of the Seven Stars, launched on both PS3 and Vita in the West way back in 2013. The second game is a new adventure game called Robotics Note Elite, due out in 2020.

Interestingly, Spike Chunsoft notes that it's sequel, Robotics Note's dash, may be coming Westward too. And finally rounding things out is an action RPG called the Crystar. Crystar is the closest of the bunch in the only one with the release date, August 27th. Chris, these are games, not for you.

Yep, I mean, hey, they're for someone. Yeah, Crystar actually looks pretty good. It blows my mind that they allow these things to happen though. Like they'll put out the second version of a game in a place where the first one was just not even normally playable.

Isn't that weird? It's weird, you think you would kind of cover your bases before you launched something. It's a very old school thing to do. It's like how we got Final Fantasy I, then we got Final Fantasy IV, then we got Final Fantasy VI.

We never got two, three or five in the West until later, but we call them one, two, and three here. Very confusing. So it's not very old thing, I agree with you. You would think they would have wanted to port that PSP game first, but it wasn't so.

I remember getting Atlas published. Essentially, Conception Plus, I'm sorry, Conception 2 was published by Atlas. So Spike Chunsoft's coming in and publishing the first one. This is an interesting one, Chris.

I'm interested when you think of this. Number seven, a new River City game is on route. It's called River City Girls, and according to a website at Matsu, it ties in intimately with the old school River City series, which is also known as Koonio Koon in Japan. Old school inspired American Studio Way forward, who I love, developed a game, and it was produced by Arc System Works, the Japanese fighting dev best known for their Guilty Gear and Playzew series.

The game will come to PS4 and elsewhere on September 5th. River City Ransom was originally developed by Fermik or Fermikon by now defunct team Technos. It launched in Japan in 1989 and on Western NES's beginning in 1990, a port came to Game Boy Advance in 2004. The Koonio Koon franchise actually preceded Ransom in Japan, and we didn't see many of these games in the West save stuff like Super Dodge Wall and Renegade.

So there's a lot of different old school games in the series. Are you a River City Ransom guy? Have you ever played that game? Not much.

I did like it when I played it though, but it just looked. It's so ahead of its time for people that have never played River City Ransom. It's an NES brawler with role-playing game mechanics, and it's really pretty advanced for the day and age. It's impressive when you look at it in retrospect, for sure.

So I'm excited about this. River City Girls, really looking forward to that. Way forward, excellent developer. They're best known for the Shantae series, which is excellent.

They also made Duck Tales Remastered, and they worked on Bloodstained a little bit as well. By the way, I didn't realize this. The founder of the studio, Way forward, I can't remember his first name, but his last name is Wei. I didn't know that.

Is it really? Yeah, so it's like a double entendre. That's cool. I like that.

I knew every day. Most underrated Way forward game, by the way, is what was that female vampire character, Blood Rain? Blood Rain. They did a 2D size roller Blood Rain game on PS3 in 2011, until that's pretty good.