The future of Xbox and Pokémon's 30th anniversary | Week in Mobile Games podcast

Hello and welcome to the pocketgamer.biz podcast week in mobile games where we chat about the week's news and provide some insights. I'm Craig Chapel, head of content at pocketgamer.biz. With me as always is our news editor, Aaron Asel. How you doing Aaron? What you been up to?
Yeah, doing well, thank you. Not been too eventful this week to be honest. Usually I I try to bring, you know, I specifically go out to do something entertaining to bring to the podcast, but
you live just through this podcast. I better do something.
Yeah, we only exist when we're, you know, being watched by by our audience.
If a tree falls in the woods, does it make a sound? It's like that, you know.
So, yeah, nothing that exciting going on to be honest. I guess I've mainly been, I guess, hyping myself up and chatting to friends a lot about the Pokémon anniversary that I think will be quite a big topic for this podcast cuz quite a

few of my friends are into Pokémon. So, we've all been, you know, it's like, oh, you know, we're right on the precipice of finally getting some news, you know, basically set up the year ahead of whether it's going to be a good year for Pokémon and kind of the Switch 2 more broadly. like we don't know a lot of what's going on with the Switch 2 yet this year. It's like if there's a big, you know, Pokémon game that that might carry the year or if everyone hates on it, you know, that might not be so great. But, um, I think inevitably people will say the new Pokémon looks rubbish and then it'll sell record amounts anyway.
Yeah, it's like Groundhog Day.
But yeah, that's kind of it this week. I say I've not not done anything that exciting.
But you've got some Pokémon stuff in the background.
Yes. Yeah, I do. So, we got Garchomp from Diamond Pearl as well.
Yeah. Um, we got Rowlet from Sun and Moon. It's one of my favorites. Who's on a Pikachu Cup? And then my head's blocking it, but if I spin the other way, we got an old-fashioned Huian

Pokeball from the olden times when they, you know, used to be made of apricorns as the as they call them in the Pokémon world.
Wow.
Um, which is quite cool. Well, it's quite heavy actually, but um yeah, I thought I'd I'd dress the set a little bit for for the special occasion. And
it looks like it looks like you're suffocating a puppet behind you as well.
Yeah, he's always there. I don't know. He's just in shop today. Um someone So I was doing an interview earlier this week and someone asked me like what what's with the like sealed muppet on the wall. So yeah, the story there is um I I kind of made him actually in America when I was like eight at like a big toy shop and
he's been trapped ever since.
He he has been he hasn't breathed Yeah. in um the better part of well like 15 plus years. But um he's he's still he's still rocking around. For anyone that can't see this and you're listening, it's just this it's just this this

plastic bag that's uh hanging off the wall and inside uh it's like seal by the looks of it by the tightness of
He looks quite stressed on camera.
He's very stressed. He's stuck in this bag for 15 years or however long it's been.
That's fine.
But no, you know, he's heard that there's this, you know, Muppet Show reboot. You know, he's waiting for his shot.
All right. Uh right. Thanks, Aaron. And yeah, Pokemon's 30th anniversary on the 27th, so maybe when the show comes out. And I've also I don't know if it's in shop really. I've tried, but there's a lot of Pokemon uh behind me as well. I've got like a m I say a massive. I've got like a large uh Snorlax plush. And then I've just got figures of the classic starters, Squirtle, Charmander, Bulbasaur, Eevee. I'm testing my memory. Eevee, Growliff, Torchic, Genga. I think that was all of them. I know the the originals and then Torchics in there for some reason.
I was going to say there's a little bit

of diversity beyond Red and Blue. Then
that's because my sister got me cuz she couldn't get something I said I wanted as a child and asked for Pokémon for Christmas. She uh she doesn't know any of them. She's just I'll just Anyway, stuff that I've been up to quickly. So, I watched a film called The Running Man. It's Glenn Powell in it and it I think it's based off a book. Is it Stephen? Is it another Stephen King one? Probably. Anyway, it's based off a book, I think. But it was also it also used to be a film with Arnold Schwarzenegger in it. And you basically in this film, you basically you're on the run for 30 days and you just have to survive. People are trying to kill you. Like the public will get rewarded. There's hunters after you. It's all televised. I I honestly think the pre premise is is kind of hilarious. So, I quite like it. And then the film was like it was okay to good, I would say. It's like there's so much action which is kind of great at times but then I remember it was like after an hour 15

minutes or something like paused it and I was like oh my god there's still like 50 minutes left. It felt like it been going really slow. So I don't know it's going to end okay. Let me know let me know in the in the comments on YouTube what you think. And I also just a quick shout out for if anyone's ever watched The Night Agent season 3 is on Netflix and actually it's gone from that's gone from an okay show, you know, it's watchable. Typical Netflix. I think this season was incredible. There's always something interesting going on. Lots of interesting plots, interesting characters. One of the villains is fantastic. Yeah, really good stuff. Anyway, right, we'll we'll kick off. So, a few shout outs. Pocket Gamer Connects coming at you uh March 9th. PG Connect Summit San Francisco Almo May 27th 28th the first day is like a networking thing June 15th 16th we're in Barcelona July 30th Shanghai Helsinki October 30 and 14th nearly got it wrong Bangkok October 27th Georgia November Grand Canaria in

December got the mobile games awards in August during Gamescom and uh we got top 30 being announced for the US game makers mobile game makers at San Francisco right uh we're going to uh we'll jump into it and obviously the big news. Uh, obviously the big news of the past week, I think it broke on a Friday, which is kind of insane, was that there's been a change in the Microsoft or the Xbox leadership. So, Microsoft executive VP of gaming, Phil Spencer, he's retiring. So, he's been leading Xbox over 12 years and he's leaving the firm after 38 years, which kind of makes, you know, people have to leave eventually. Um, and he he and he came in after Domx, so you know, the disastrous Xbox One reveal and he's been kind of picking up the pieces ever since. But we'll go into a bit more of that. Um, but that's that that was no easy job ever when they stepped in cuz then they immediately lost ground to PlayStation. Sarah Bond, the president COO of Xbox, has also left, which was quite a

surprise cuz I think a lot of people would have thought she would just she would basically step into the top role. Um, and she's probably been kind of positioned to do that for a while, but in the end that that didn't happen. Interestingly, when the announcement was made, Microsoft did their announcement and Sarah Bong gets one paragraph, I think, if I remember right, in comments from Phil Spencer, just like no other mention. A few hours later, she releases a LinkedIn post and it it says she'll remain on as a special adviser for a bit, but yeah, she's leaving that and had her own comments. Um she fact she said it was just time to to leave officially was the reason. So who's coming? So Asha Sharma who's the former Instacart COO and MetaVP. She is now leading Microsoft's games division. She is the EVP and CEO of Microsoft gaming. I guess with her is president for game content the studios Matt booty has been promoted to EVP and chief content

officer for Microsoft gaming. So really big moves to try and struct attempt to structure some pretty ridiculous forts. So if I think for Phil Spencer's reign, like I said, I think he they've just had it's almost a poison chalice because they lost so much ground with that just dreadful Xbox One reveal and PlayStation, if you remember the ad, like it was so bad that people were so confused uh by what was going on. Then there was interesting. You could argue like Xbox One was a bit ahead of its time as well uh to be fair in some in some cases. But they were trying to do like different things like they're trying to do a bit more think digitally. Remember if anyone remembers the time there was the always on sort of controversy whereas now it's actually kind of standard really things are everything's kind of online but at the time Adam a guy called Adam Or I can't remember his role. Is he head of studios or something? I can't remember. as a creative and uh I think he he

basically lost his job over putting always on on Twitter back when Twitter was a bit more influential or a lot more influential, however you want to look at it these days. So anyway, there was you know there's a lot going on. It didn't work out. Connect didn't work out, etc. And Phil Spencer has then kind of joined the lead become like the leader of Xbox. So what does he do? How do you how do you regain that lost ground? So over over many years, over many E3s, if you remember, they're always announcing, okay, well, here's here's the new studios we're getting. You know, there the new games that are going to be coming out. It took a long time to put together. And then eventually they put together this game pass strategy. Um, which given a lost stick in the past, I think it's actually actually quite pretty good or it was at least pretty good value. They obviously raised the prices quite substantially, but I think it just never reached that mass that it needed to be. I'm not saying that no one uses it obviously, but I think it just never reached that critical mass where it's it makes financial sense to be

releasing these massive AAA blockbusters along with paying for other games to be on Game Pass. I've written about it before. I won't go too deep into it, but I think that strategy just hasn't worked out. I'm curious. So, there's what I'm saying. So there's that and then with Sarah Bonds leaving so reading around articles and maybe she was the one that was I think possibly under Phil Spencer's orders but like she was also championing kind of Xbox everywhere and maybe jury's out on whether that was ultimately going to work. I think because they haven't been able with the current leadership to get to that next generation. I guess at the moment we don't know exactly what that's going to look like other than the branding that they were putting out now. I think the problem is is now it is actually very confusing um to what you get and like how good is cloud gaming, how good is stuff on other devices. I think the messages necessarily work right now, but maybe in a few years it would have started making sense. I mean kind maybe, but we're just not going to see that kind of borne out anymore. Um so I guess

what's the new strategy? So Asha Sharma, I said where she used to work. I think what I didn't mention was she was the president of Microsoft's core AI product for for a couple years before she's been moved into this head of Xbox role. We'll see if she gets a chance over the next couple years what her strategy is if it ultimately is going to be her strategy or top down from Microsoft. There's been word about she's from an AI background. She mentions AI in her statement, but she says she doesn't want AI slop, which I think was a it was a good I think it was a good PR move to be like re back in people's fears about come from this AI role. What does that mean for the games division? But I I I and they've said it there won't be a top down directive. I think that was Matt Booty about using AI. They'll just use things where it makes sense. I I'm skeptical of that because if you're going to if there's going to be a massive shakeup of leadership, I guess it's the question of is Phil Spencer actually leaving and then like of his own accord. Was there a

bit of pressure there? I mean, he's been there a long time, so he could easily have just left, right? But it feels like there's just pressure top down. Like there's been like a hund probably hundred billion dollar investment in this games division over the past few years with that big acquisition of or Bethesda and then Activision Blizzards. Like what's what what is there to show for it? And I don't think there's actually a lot like they become the biggest publisher in the world in terms of their Xbox overall strategy. I don't think there's a lot to show for it and they've not been able to kind of see it through anymore. And the last few years we've been facing a lot been facing a lot of layoffs, right? So I'm curious what this appointment means. I'm curious what our overall strategy will be. I think it's going to be a bit painful. I think you know if there's a change in strategy, whatever that is. She's talking about kind of going back to the roots kind of focusing at least first. I don't know if it's first, but like focusing on console. If there's a shift there, I think there could be a lot of cuts and closures over the next couple years, but we don't know that. It's just a guess. I don't think that Xbox will disappear or any at least anytime soon.

But uh yeah, like I say, pay for time. Then I guess to to round out like mobile wise, I mean I think King will be fine. They were actually impacted by layoffs, but like if you were just if I was just to look financial figures at Xbox, I'm sure King is just well up there in propping up the revenue. That was such a good acquisition for them. I think it would be tough for anyone to buy other than maybe a Savvy Games group. I think I think King should be fine like doing what it's doing. Maybe there'll be cuts in the games that don't make the money that the mother ship of Candy Crush Saga makes. I think what they might stop doing is just making I think they'll stop making mobile games or maybe they should stop making mobile games at their teams. Now, they've just announced Overwatch Rush and I'm sure that's been in development for quite a while. But like King can't bring any of their IPs to mobile cuz it can only do this this kind of casual match free really and it has some others right but nothing on to

that scale and every time every time it's tried to do midcore over like since it was since since it went into mobile it's never worked ever so I think maybe the smartest move for them is to just just to not do that focus on yeah their console PC games bring back exclusives to that and then with mobile, just work with expert developers and teams elsewhere and do a part a licensing partnership and make proper mobile games. That probably means partnering with like a 10 cent or a developer in China, but equally maybe there's other teams around the world that they could work with, but I think that that's that would make sense to me. But I guess we'll see. I mean, they've obviously closed down was it Alpha Games in one of their layoff in one of their Yeah. round of layoffs and studio closes. I'd be surprised if there's much of an appetite for it. And lastly, the mobile game store. Whatever happens, I presume that is no longer happening that because that was only ever announced by Sarah Bond seemingly. Well, firstly it was announced, was it a fireside chat with Bloomberg if I remember correctly? And

then I think it was only ever talked about what once or twice more really on stage by an executive. It's like there to my recollection there was no really official announcement or anything other than like a landing page. By official announcement, I mean like uh written coms or something. So I I presume that's dead in the water. I don't see if they're not going to do an Xbox everywhere strategy, but I don't know that. It doesn't make sense anymore. I think they'll just give up. I I think they'll just give up on that entirely, especially if they're going to bring the focus back to Xbox console. So yeah, other than King, which there may or may not be layoffs there, and I think King's general, I presume hopefully fine since it brings in a lot of money. I don't think that's part of the future. So Aaron, what else have you got?
Yes. So, coming back to Pokémon, yeah, it's um either almost or has been or is the 30th anniversary by the time you're listening to this. Um we're recording it on the 26th, so just one day before the 30th anniversary, which obviously is a huge milestone. So, I've been putting

together like quite a fun and hopefully insightful article, compiling multiple industry voices and kind of their opinions on Pokémon as a series, how it's achieved such longevity and uh kind of how they've made a brand that, you know, it goes beyond games and I guess lessons to be learned for the rest of the industry. Um, so yeah, I guess if you're kind of interested in, you know, what someone from Angry Birds thinks of Pokémon and Mijiwan and even Pokémon Go's perspective on the kind of broader series. I think this is kind of like a cool crossover of worlds in this article. I've quite enjoyed putting it together. Um, so yeah, check that out on the site. Um, it's beyond plugging my own work. Um, so the there's a Pokémon presents on the 27th. They always do one for Pokémon Day, which um, again, as of

us recording, we don't really know, you know, we haven't seen it yet. It's not out yet, but I'm expecting like synchronized updates across their many mobile games. TCG Pocket actually just launched its latest pack um in the early hours of this morning which is based around Scarlet and Violet Pokemon uh from the 2022 Switch games. So yeah, usually in these kind of presentations they um show off kind of updates tied into the anniversary for all the different games and I think that's only going to be scaled up for this 30th anniversary. So like Unite will probably have a new character maybe from Scarlet and Violet as well to kind of keep things cohesive as Pokemon Pocket's done that. Like Cafe Remix will get a showing which will remind everyone that exists for the one time a year that kind of yeah seems to get a big mention. I mean it obviously it's been going for years now so it must be doing all right. Pokémon Friends came out last year whether that gets a content update.

um Masters that will so that's um its 6.5 year anniversary as well as being the Pokémon franchise is there. So I think that will probably get a bit of a spotlight probably overpowered new characters to celebrate. My suspicion is that there'll be another Red like the protagonist from Red and Blue called Red cuz that feels like an appropriate kind of call back and tie into the 30th anniversary. Also, there's so many alternate versions of Red in Pokémon Masters. Like, he clearly does well in the Gacha cuz they've used him so many times in like different outfits, I guess. Also worthy of note that Masters recently introduced a battle pass. So, maybe they'll plug that during the presents. Um, there needs to be some big stuff because they So, some actual news that isn't me predicting what the news is going to be is they announced last week that Fire Red and Leaf Green are getting ported to the Switch

and they they're releasing on the 27th. Um, but the fact that they release they announced it last week instead of it being part of this presentation, I think implies that there's going to be something newsworthy enough that it would overshadow that even if you know suddenly they shadow drop these GBA games.
They haven't announced the next console game, have they?
No. So, so yeah, that was um where I was leading on to next. Um, that I think it has to be the new main series game like generation 10 tomorrow. It makes too much sense because so Gen 9 was in 2022. The marketing opportunity just feels like it kind of writes itself to do Gen 10 for the 30th anniversary. And I think this is actually the longest gap between main series games if you don't count Legends potentially in my lifetime. Um, you know, it'll be like four years between main series games if it comes out this year. And for a long time they

were like every year or at a stretch every two years. So, obviously these days they've kind of broadened out a bit with like DLC and spin-offs and stuff, but I I can't see them not announcing Gen 10 and it coming out this year as kind of a big push for the Switch 2 as well. I kind of I've tried to avoid kind of rumors and leaks, you know, if if any of those rumors end up being true. um cuz I don't really like spoilers, but like people have been, you know, going on about Gen 10 for years cuz obviously that is the next one. But yeah, I'm kind of I'm cautiously optimistic. I'm hoping it will be I'll see it and then think like, well, yeah, okay, now I need to get the Switch 2 cuz that looks, you know, very cool. But my more reserved expectation is like I'll be thinking like, yeah, I will want to play that. It's a shame it still looks like, you know, a Wii game or, you know, a bit outdated, but um because they're still

not that it needs to be the most graphically enhanced thing in the world. They still cut some corners, I think, which they it's harder to argue for that with how much money the Pokémon series makes. Um, but I do enjoy the games. I liked EA, but I'd like something a bit more with a bit more spectacle, I guess.
That's what some fans are clamoring for. I feel like they feel like they still look good for what they're trying to do.
It's an example of I get the money, but it is an example of like a studio the one hand. I think they they release these games pretty sharpish these days now. They've always got something coming out.
And so I guess the turnaround's pretty tight, especially if you've got like hundreds of Pokémon and hundreds of animations in the game. That's the main thing you're focused on. I They look fine. Sure. Yeah. I think people like to see more spectacles that look a bit better. I don't know. The other end is okay. Well, let's make it I don't know how much they cost, but you know, let's let's make it look like
I don't know as realistic as possible or

at least stylistically like as expensive as possible we could look and then it it becomes part of the conversation of unsustainable games. Yeah, I guess cuz you know I just like Scarlet and Violet then were kind of open world and I think they're quite flawed games and they look pretty bad and like stuff's popping in and out as you're going around. And I think one of the real ones that stood out is like there's a windmill and the further you go away from it very quickly you just see the frames dropping until it just doesn't move anymore. Um, so like or bits where there's like a little quest where you have to lead some Pokémon somewhere and so like it's like main story you have to gather up a bunch of sun flora which are like sunflower Pokémon and so like you have to do that and they look like they run at like four frames a second and like everyone has to do that. So that's another bit that so you know but I say I think the fact that this is kind of the longest gap between main series games is encouraging that they must have had more time to work on it.
True. And yeah, I guess if it's going to be open world, you know, like games like

Breath of the Wild kind of nailed that and look, you know, they don't look super realistic, but it looks really nice. You know, I'd be happy with something on that level. And considering that's like 9 years old, like hopefully Breath of the Wild level graphics aren't like too high a bar. Not to turn this into like hating on Pokémon. I'm, you know, massive fan. Excited for the anniversary.
Thanks for that, Aaron. We're going to move on. I think we'll do these ones fairly. The the rest of the story is fairly quick. I always say so one of the new stories I got this week was uh so the UK's committee of advertising practices is a sister organization of the advertising standards authority also known as the ASA which is a regul which is an advertising regulator in the UK. They have issued an enforcement notice over loot box transparency in ads and also for app store pages which surprised me. It is based on stuff that was released last year. So th this has been an ongoing conversation and now they've

I guess just enforcing like previous uh rules. So the regulator said that the use of loot boxes in a game must be clearly and prominently displayed in ads and on App Store and Google Play Store listings. The enforcement notice comes as the group claims it has seen a number of cases where the presence of loot boxes hasn't been made clear on app store listings. Publishers have been given three months to review and amends their advertising. From May 26th, 2026, the organization will begin actively monitoring apps or listings and will take enforcement action if rules aren't being followed. So using enforcement action can even mean like getting your ads taken down, fines, etc. I think fines. It said wordings such as includes random item purchases or contains loot boxes are likely to be enough to be compliant with the rules. These need to be located in a prominent place and players to quote shouldn't have to click expand tabs or scroll through log descriptions to find this information.

So I asked them a couple questions and just over email and they said we asked like if the enforcement notice on sorry we asked is the enforcement notice on app store listings like does that present an overreach? Because actually in the last year in one of the things that they released there was a discussion around overreach which actually sounded like maybe they were but I guess they've decided it is not. A spokesperson said this was based on like I said previous ASA rulings which looks at whether ads make clear that games contain loot boxes. They stated in guidance issued it was established that the app store listings fall within the scope of the organization's advertising code. That's because the presence of loot box is considered material information, but that is information that the average person needs to take an informed transactional decision. The advertising rule state that ads mustn't omit material information. We asked why publishers and not platform holders were being targeted and a spokesperson said publishers are ultimately responsible for ensuring their ads follow the rules.

Just previously ruled that built-in disclosure labels that indicate a game that includes inapp purchases are insufficient for loot box use. Apple and Google have been made aware of of the enforcement notice. So, it's it's pretty it's actually pretty serious. Um I'm curious what the actual results will end up being. If you can just ignore it, take a bit of slap on the wrist or there'll be actual like severe penalties, especially when it's to do with your app store listing. That's pretty savage. And as with all of these things, just I'm just obviously publishers, you know, have to take responsibility for their own advertisement. But I surely there is some responsibility there for platform holders the apps or Google Play to make it obvious that it's loot boxes if that's the issue in the UK. So that's where they say at the top of them it's like includes inapp purchases and contains ads. Maybe that just needs a tick box for developers so they can go contains loot boxes right that would be sufficient. That's prominent I would assume. But yeah the onus is always put on on publishers. Not to say again that they're not that it is their game. Their

their wording, their marketing, let you put creatives on your app store pages, but uh yeah, platform holders do seem to get away even though they're the ones that probably make it quite easy for everyone, including the the consumers. Platform holders need a reason to be with people coming after the revenue share, saying, "Well, what do they do for us?" This could be one one small example. Anyway, that's so that's really interesting. We'll see kind of the results of that in the second half of the
the loot box discussion never goes away. Aaron, what else have we got?
Yeah. So, my next story is about Ark Knight's Enfield, which has just sort of passed its first month milestone. So, this is Griffin's new gatcher, which released on the 22nd of January. So, I took a bit of a look at, you know, how it's performed early on. Um, and it made about 46 million in its first month. Um, so not bad. Um, and that's just on uh the Play Store and App Store. Obviously,

it's available on multiple platforms. And it had that um PayPal issue early on. So, kind of in spite of that, it's done very well. And even just on mobile, say 46 million. So, just over 60% of that came from iOS and then the rest from Android. Geographically, most of the spending has come from Asia so far. Uh, Japan and China kind of led the way with 39% and 28% of global spend so far, which a few weeks earlier, I looked at how the game had done in its first Fortnite. Um, and since then, Japan's kind of global spending percentage has increased and China's has gone down a little bit, which I thought was quite noteworthy. Um, the US has stayed in third at 10% over the first month. So, yeah, it seems like a pretty strong start. It peaked quite early on, which I guess is quite normal for for mobile games, but it's it looks like it's kind of establishing itself with the kind of typical gacha monetization trend that we

see where you kind of get a big peak when there's new content and then it quite quickly um drops off and then, you know, stays at a lower level until the new update brings more to the the gacha and then people, you know, go out and spend again very quickly in the first couple of days to get the new stuff and then it peters out again. Um so yeah, it looks like um the game's kind of establishing that that model like so the it peaked so I say it released on the 22nd of January. The current peak was on the 23rd and then it had kind of like two weeks of decline. I think it was 13 consecutive days that it declined, which obviously doesn't look great. But then on the 7th of February when there was new content again, like a new gata character, it suddenly spiked up again and then it's been trailing. Um, so yeah, I'd say it's off to a good start. Yeah, I guess uh there's there's more details in the full article, but as we got a few things to get through today, maybe I'll leave it there.

I uh I guess just quickly I mean the the amount of investment that appears to have gone into this game, it's pretty high. I mean, it looks great and I played it like two years ago,
the indication of like how long it's been in development. There was like a demo. I think it was two years ago at Gamescom and then last year's Gamescom, it was just it was just sort of promoted everywhere. So, very unfortunate the PayPal issue
you mentioned and I hope it, you know, always hope teams do well. I mean obviously if I just looked at estimates and this is only app store Google play this isn't uh those alternative payment methods or even like real China revenue other than the app store but like like say it has gone down like quite basically since launch it's gone down and maybe it's just the past week it has gone up again which is interesting because this week hasn't finished and it's already higher than the previous accords. So yeah, maybe maybe you know it's like you said about the different ges and it will just

kind of be back on the outro for the big launch. Best of luck. Um the last story I I just very quickly wanted to do, but I did touch upon it earlier. It's just that Blizzard has announced over O over O over O over O over O over O over O over O over O over O over O overwatch Rush mobile spin-off. Didn't expect it really of Overwatch and it really looks like it has this like is it like isometric kind of look? Well, it's a hero shoe, right? that I it just kind of has this look of like a mobile just like this never works ever except for like this is when has it worked so it worked with honor of kings in China not internationally they couldn't make it work abroad like it just never they've relaunched it like two at least two times it just hasn't worked and that's the world's most lucrative game so maybe maybe you could find a strong launch of that in China I don't know there's no evidence at the moment of that. So in the west like what else has succeeded? Mobile Legends has done really well to be fair. Clash Royale was it like its

own take but you know that was kind of really innovative and it was also released 10 years ago. Um I just I hope it I hope they do well. You know again with some luck this happens all the time. Then Warcraft Rumble came out and it just didn't perform well. Right.
And what else have we seen? We've seen Ubisoft try and do it. I think we
get even like Pokemon Unite. I mean, it's still running. It's been going for like 5 years, but it's no like Go or Pokemon Pocket.
Like, is that the kind of game that Blizzard wants to release? Is that all right, but like I just
But yeah, when I watched the like game play that they put out, my immediate thought was like, "Oh, it's it's a MOA." And then, you know, reading through it, it's like, well, they're saying it's a hero shooter, but that looks like a MOA. And I've now seen these debates on like some slack channels where it's just like what is the difference between a hero shoe and a mobile when it's is it is it the perspective or I should chat about that. Obviously there's other key differences but effectively it was that so that was interesting and there's

different gameplay modes but uh and and yeah there was one other one I could think off the top of my head which was a Star Wars one that came out years ago. Force something I can't remember. I don't know force unleashed. I don't know trying to get confused with the film which is Force Awakens but uh that didn't that didn't do well. There's so many examples of failures in this particular genre as Overw Overwatch I guess quite recognizable. You got the Blizzard brand. So may maybe they can make something but you know Warcraft isn't unrecognizable. Do those fans, if you're just trying to attract those same fans, will they just play without this China play? Will they just be like, "Well, I've just played the PC version in the way that maybe they prefer." I don't know. It It just It's really odd one to me. I'm not And again, I wonder how much more we'll see of that in future under the new Xbox leadership. Interesting one. So, Aaron, round us out. What's the last one?
Okay. Yeah. Last one from me is So, I interviewed um Musame Pretty Derby um beginning of a new era. the film. So, I

interviewed its director, Ken Yamamoto, which was quite an interesting chat. There's an article on the site about it uh basically about adapting Umamuz, which obviously has been huge in Japan and done sort of all right overseas as well in the last kind of n months or however long it's been now. But yeah, obviously, you know, it's a multi-billion dollar game in Japan. So, and already has an anime series and things. Yeah, we talked about adapting it to the big screen for for cinemas and I guess the trans media trend more broadly uh and some kind of creative process and decision kind of stuff as well which was quite interesting to hear about. Uh yeah, it was so like the director said that he actually started playing Uma a couple of weeks after it came out in Japan and it was his first mobile game. Um and then you he happened to be I guess get the call to become involved in this film production uh which he said it

was about 3 years from that point to actually kind of you know finish the film. I think it was about 2 and a half years of production time. Um and so it came out in Japan in 2024. Uh, I guess part of why we're chatting now is that um I guess following the games global release last year now the film's coming to cinemas in North America also on February 27th. So on Pokémon Day, you can go and watch the new Umu film in North America. And so yeah, it was a good conversation like he talked about kind of the differences and and similarities of adapting because he's been involved in a lot of like anime productions. So, like the differences between adapting a game to anime compared to like manga to anime because he's um kind of been involved in like Attack on Titan and One Piece, but he's also been involved in game anime productions like Fate Grand Order and Castlevania. So, yeah, I guess quite a prolific uh director. Um, so like one

thing he said in particular that's different is he said on the animation side that a lot of games like their characters will have like great artwork where it's like a static I guess portrait of the character that you see but then that might be kind of difficult to translate to the film or you know anime film still but I I guess that's um you may have like the animeesque portrait in the game and then kind of the 3D model and I guess it's striking the balance of making that character to look correct in a a live kind of 2D setting. See, I thought that was interesting that that's apparently a bit of a a common sentiment in the industry that the art side can be more challenging for game adaptations than like manga into anime. Um he also talked about like yeah certain creative decisions like one of the characters um cuz obviously Ume has kind of girls with horselike um aesthetics who are based on real

raceh horses um like you know running around a track field. You know it's basically horse racing but they're girls. Um, and so he talked about like one of the characters they decided to um have sound effects that were more like um technological like he said um the hum of a vending machine, the clatter of a train and the roar of cars passing over a bridge which sounds like quite you know a unique way to I guess make that character sound especially fast I guess compared to the other characters who have kind of more normal sounds of a person running and yeah Just kind of little insights like that that I thought were quite interesting. Um, so yeah, it was a good interview.
It's a really great interview. Really interesting just to see that side of things as well. We was talking from the game side. So interesting just to hear. So from the other side and
so many good quotes like really insights in that article. So please do check that out if you're interested in either the franchise, the game or just in that kind

of trans media approach to things. Really really fascinating interview. Um, all right. We're gonna we're going to stop it there. So, thanks everybody for tuning in this week and hope you enjoyed the show. Thanks very much, Aaron, as always for being on.
Yeah, thank you.
And we'll see you on the next one.