What Does a Nintendo Game Cost in 2026? -OR- Should Physical Games Cost More? | Games For Breakfast

[music] GOOD MORNING, MATT. AH,
GOOD MORNING, WILL.
GOOD MORNING TO ALL of you.
Welcome to Games for Breakfast, THE ONLY INTERNET TALK SHOW WE TALK ABOUT THIS WEEK'S gaming and tech news, BUT WE ALSO TALK ABOUT LAST WEEK'S gaming and tech news. WE ALSO TALK ABOUT THE WEEK BEFORE'S GAMING AND TECH NEWS because this IS THE FIRST ONE WE'VE done in approximately three weeks, two weeks, a hundred weeks.
100 AFTER 10,000 WEEKS, I'M FINALLY FREE. UM, and also Nintendo specifically uh with the newest uh discussion about digital versus physical pricing,
which is going to be a lovely time. Uh, just so you know, if you are watching this show digitally, it will cost you, I would say probably like around the term of like 35 flexible bucks. Whereas, if you buy the physical copy, which is only available on minisk, uh that will

probably cost you 67 flexible bucks.
He used the the the Gen Z funny number.
Oh, I didn't even mean to.
That's kind of gross.
Well, that kind of made me sad.
Yeah.
Anyway, we have a great show today, no matter what type of media you are engaging with us on. Uh so, thank you very much for being here. Hello to Janet over on YouTube, Rocky over on Nebula, and of course Brad over on Twitch. Uh, how is everybody doing? HOW IS THE EVERYBODY?
Positive wrong answers only. What have you been up to in the last few weeks as we get into
Can't can't can't do that. Brad is immediately going to tell you that they've been licking all of the strange rocks and heisting.
You don't know. You don't know.
I know. I I feel like I know, Brad. I feel like I know Brad well enough to tell you that they will probably say that they have been licking all of the uh

foolish notes has filled like a million flexible bucks. Thanks for asking. [laughter]
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, you're right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. See, Red's been making lots of tasty rocks to lick during heights.
Sure.
Uh exactly. [laughter]
Found some mold to eat. Would not recommend. Yo, Aqua. Aqua. Let's go. Yes. This is the world I want to live in. Um, that's awesome. Very, very cool.
Cool. Cool. Cool. Cool. Cool.
Also a valid life choice right here. Um,
that that is incredibly true.
Yeah.
Uh, yeah. No. Uh, at no point uh [laughter] at no point uh for legal reasons has anyone seen 12 tons of KitKats. No one no one has seen 12 tons of KitKats. We don't know. We We know nothing. It's

fine.
It's fine.
Don't worry about it. Chat definitely had nothing to do with exactly 12 tons of KitKats disappearing somewhere in Europe. It's fine.
Now, if your 12 tons of KitKats, if you're experiencing them physically, that will cost you uh roughly 117 Nestle buckaroos. But if you're going to engage with them digitally, uh that will cost you a hope and a prayer and um they'll be able to take you there.
Yeah.
Um [laughter]
like it's not 12 tons anymore. I've been wor I mean what KitKats exactly.
That's some work.
Yeah. Exactly.
Less of digital, but regardless. Well, should we should we go um because I I do we have so much to talk about with with the Nintendo pricing, but I do want to talk ever so briefly about where I was for part of the time when I was gone.
Um I was at PAX DID WE DID EXTRA CREDITS DID A PANEL OUT THERE. I was actually on two panels. This is the first one as you

can see. Jeff is over on the left. We have uh Jenna Steber also over on second wind and uh wonderful video essaist. We have uh Jasmine that Bronzeville Bular uh right there there and then we got Jay Jmate from uh Design Delve and we were talking about the first hour of Resident Evil Reququum. And by the first hour I kind of mean the second hour in a chunk because that's a better section to talk about. We did design club over there and uh it was an absolute blast. It seemed as though it this might have been uh one of the largest panels we've done since co uh it it everyone kind of filled out. If you were there, I actually met some folks who watch Games for Breakfast Will and they say hello. Um and it was very very nice. I actually had uh and if if you're in chat right now, this is important. Someone came up to my beautiful fiance Jamie and said, "I love it when the goblin queen or something along the lines of," I love it when the goblin queen comes in and messes with the stream. If you are here, I would like to shake your hand digitally and it

won't cost you anything. The physical shake that would cost some sort of amount of flexible bucks, but we can't do that right now. Uh, it was an absolute uh blast. We had we had a wonderful time there. And then it was really fun because I got to switch gears and do a second panel an hour later, which this one is actually on the PAX YouTube now. You can watch it. Um it is basically uh so Jasmine has been the um the uh headwriter and narrative designer of the phenomenal game Fading Echo. Uh you can check that out. Uh the demo, it's a pretty dang complete demo over on Steam right now. Please go check that out. You will love it. And when you do, please wishlist it. But uh I got to be there uh wi with uh Sam Bayart who is the voice of Carlac and also uh that is Elise right there next to us who is the uh senior producer on the game. And we talked about their specific design philosophies around including uh voice actors and performers much earlier in the process of game design and development than you would in a traditional studio to try to elicit more of a uh complete and holistic effect on

the game story and experience that you have. And uh the the the conversation was phenomenal. If that sounds interesting to you, please go check that out over on PAX's YouTube channel. And I believe the Resident Evil one might be up in a couple of weeks. They they basically anything that was live streamed is already up on that channel. Anything that wasn't, they're going to trickle up over the next couple weeks, but it was an absolute blast. And it was also chat, you know me, I'm loud and kind of in your face. Uh and this panel particularly was a really good I haven't done this in a long time since my MTV days. Uh this was a really good exercise in doing the exact opposite of what I'm used to doing because when you're moderating a panel that you are not involved with that process, the the wind condition of that is very very different. It was very it was a fun exercise to be like I need to do we've all been to panels where the moderator kind of gets in the way of the information you're there and I tried so hard to not do that. Uh and I I think I

succeeded. So, it was very very good and I'm very happy to have uh done both those things. That's why I wasn't here with you and I apologize but worth
I think I think it was overall a good time and it was great meeting a lot of you out there too. So, if you were at PAX, you said hi. Thank you very much.
Okay.
Yeah.
Next up, we've got our our our main our main story of concern piece of note news of of the day.
This [laughter] this thing. All right. So, let's let's do the facts first.
Hit them facts
and then we're going to talk about feelings.
Oh, boy. Can we go back and forth
about what? Like a fact and feelings.
A fact and then a feeling.
Yeah.
So, let's do fact first. We're on a factf finding mission and then we're on a on a feeling finding mission.
Nintendo has released a press release that says starting with Yoshi and the mysterious book which is coming out this summer. They will be breaking price

parody. That is to say that digital and physical games will no longer cost the same. So the physical copy of Yoshi and the mysterious book will cost $70, which is in line with most of the Switch 2 exclusive games that have come out so far have been $70 US. Some of them have been 80, but most of them have been 70. The digital version of Yoshi and the Mysterious book will cost $60 US.
Okay, so this is weird and kind of a big deal. Actually,
it is a large it is a larger deal than I initially thought before we dove into this.
Right. So, okay, first off, the main reason that it's a big deal has nothing to do with the magnitude of the difference. That is to say,
correct. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We can get to that magnitude after too, but

that's not the that's not the meat and potatoes here.
It is merely that digital games are cheaper than physical games from the first party developer. Right? This isn't like a sale. This isn't like a a third party thing. This is a large one of the big three developing a firstparty game. And the cost is different for physical and digital. And this is it's weird. So I talked I talked a bit with Jeff about this last week. The main reason that this is weird is that the people who have been enforcing price parody between physical and digital games for the longest period of time are not the developers.
Nope. They're not
because why would they,
right? They're not the producers. It's been physical stores.

So, GameStop, Walmart, Target, Toys R Us when they existed. Um, the other like the brickandmortar stores that sell these games have had deals in place or very or it may not be a deal. It might be an understanding.
Yeah, I doubt there's something written in stone. It was kind of a if you decide to break this parody, we won't carry your game because they realized that that would just take literally people out like out of their stores.
Yes. But then what happened was [laughter] everyone did things online instead and Amazon came rolling through with its uh what's the totally not phallic shaped anything and uh just plowed through brick and mortar uh like a like a like a bulldozer. And that kind of shook up this little deal

enough where I don't know how many people actually noticed it from the from the larger publisher side until right meow.
Right meow
because Nintendo looks like they noticed.
Um
uh so so so let me the bull has a really good point. Right. Um so if they didn't sell the game, people wouldn't come into the store, right? The the idea is that for a very long time, physical brick-and-mortar stores have had a lot of leverage. We've actually looked at this on Design Club before. The stats pre- pandemic were pretty clear that a very large volume of games were still being sold physically. And the idea was that if the store had enough leverage leverage to keep uh
I didn't I didn't know you were French
to um to to to make publishers afraid of losing net sales then they would be able to exercise this this kind of power,

right? Um, and and like Matt said, it's taken a while for people to catch on that that's probably not true anymore, right? Especially because like GameStop, right? Someone was asking before the show even started, is GameStop still relevant?
Yeah, that was Coffey's uh Yeah, Coffey's pre-stream question.
It it kind of depends right now.
So, yeah. I'm sorry. Yeah, I I will also point out that like while we use GameStop as a standin, a massive volume of games in the United States get sold through Target and Walmart, right? Target and Walmart are much bigger than GameStop because the while you individual person who is watching this show either on YouTube or live, you know, later on YouTube or Nebula or whatever physical mini,
right? Yeah. Or physical mini, right? Whatever. You probably buy games digitally or at GameStop, right? Or maybe someplace else. People who buy

games as gifts, which is a significant number of games for kids, normally buy it where they already do their shopping, which is Walmart and Target. They don't buy them at GameStop, right? So, like it's not we we use GameStop as sort of a standin, but physical retailers in general still sell an awful or have traditionally sold an awful lot of games.
Yeah. Now, as far as uh financially viable coffee, I mean, the short answer is no. Uh the the like it I think it's viable for still bigger box stores like Target and Walmart. I think from a GameStop perspective, it's not that I think having a bespoke brickandmortar store to sell video games at a chain level is an incredibly difficult thing to do in 2026. I don't think it is easy and you'd have to come up with something that truly made it stand out from the experience. Now, here's something that's

kind of interesting. I am of the generation where electronic boutique and Babages and then eventually GameStop they a while ago when I was a kid it felt like an experience to go there. There would be um sometimes either tournaments or events or there'd be like a dev coming in to do a signing kind of thing. Like it felt a bit more like a essentially what a mall used to feel like which was like a third place you could go and engage with a hobby that you like. The other one would be arcades, but that also is a conversation I'm not going to get into right now because it's a whole different uh death of a physical place. But um [snorts] I think GameStop specifically, as in the brand name of it at this point, has become so tarnished due to the meme stock nonsense BS that has sort of happened to it that that company is not focused remotely on the experience of selling you video games anymore. that company is focused on whatever will make

them some sort of profit, which is a dangerous place for a company to be.
Um, and also a a a definitively uninteresting one other than like, oh god, did you see what they did? Like that's kind of where GameStop is. So, I don't think GameStop as a place is financially viable anymore to sell video games out of a brick-and-mortar space. Um, I think this is a again this is total guesstimation here. I think what most likely will happen in the physical selling space for video games outside of Targets and Walmarts, and again, we're going to jump back to this parody story in a moment because I think that'll all affect this just sort of to wrap up coffees section. Oo, coffee. uh is I think it is far more viable to at this point perhaps have sort of a smaller mom and pop at a major metropolitan area store much like a friendly neighborhood g like game

store for like magic or things like that. If you if you could cultivate an experience that is special and feels worthwhile and you could get enough people involved like to be in the space and make it feel like a community where you were selling physical video games and having maybe had some arcade games or some consoles set up or tournaments or something, right? I think that could be a viable business option, but I think the reason that you don't see it, especially on a GameStop level, uh, one, it's incredibly difficult because you need to find a bunch of people that care. And two, you could make some money, but you won't make all the money. And the second you start making a little more than some of the money that another company that wants to kill you will come in and buy you. And so I think it's a really uphill battle at this point for any sort of space trying to sell that is that is again let me rephrase that is not a giant big box store that is selling everything. Uh I a Walmart, a Target Burlington Code Factory, I don't know. But like uh yeah, they sell games, right? Um
do they still exist?
They do. There there's one near me which

is weird.
Oh, the one near me went out of business. So, let's also address another thing.
Well, they're more than great coats.
I believe you.
That was their tagline.
Um, Frogs also has a really great point, which is that consoles are the only thing keeping physical sales alive, right? Cuz like my gaming rig, neither of my PCs has a disc drive, right? I have an external disc drive in case I need it for things, but like
yeah, mine's in a drawer,
right? [laughter] So the the main thing that's important to keep in mind about it is um yes that's true. However, again not the average gamer. You person watching this are almost by definition not the average gamer. The average gamer is a console gamer. Right. The the statistic
or or mobile.
If we want to widen it mobile,
right? Yeah. It's either console or mobile. It's not PC. PC is on the rise. PC is still a sub 50% fraction of all games.
I'm so curious what's going to happen

with the hardware shortages and the and the increased prices, which we're going to talk about some of that a little bit later when it comes to PlayStation. But like when it comes to PC parts over the next couple years, um I think PC is an incredibly was becoming an incredible growth market, especially with something like the Steam Machine or Project Helix if and when it comes out. Um, I'm so curious what the shortage is and the amount of money that this will actually cost to get in people's living rooms will do to this growth curve because I I I don't think it's going to be good.
So, all of that to say that there is a complicated relationship already in place between physical media and gamers, right? That's already the case. And it gets more complicated when we talk about the fact that some people really like physical media for archival purposes, right? as long as, and I saw this comment in both chats as well, the whole game is on the cartridge or the disc, right? That's
it's even gotten to the point where I was, it's so funny. So, sorry, we'll tangent here for a second because Nintendo has done an incredibly Nintendo

thing that we've talked about before, which is the game key cards, which is essentially you're buying a physical cartridge that is the the physical embodiment of the license for you to download the game. I don't love it. However, in a world where I would like it to be easier to buy and sell and trade and borrow these things, I think it's an okay halfmeasure. I don't tend to buy those to be perfectly honest, unless it's something I know I'm going to share. I like it as an option, but it is an half measure that I think is far god, it's it's like not even close to the word perfect. It's just like the weirdest Nintendo way to sort of try to make both sides happy and in in in a way make no side happy.
Yeah. So, so for the purposes of this, I think let's stipulate
that we are leaving the game key card conversation out of this.
Sure. that let us
because at the end of the day, unless you are backing up the physical

cartridge onto another thing due to with some third party nonsense, the experience if and again we know there's a caveat of unless the Nintendo servers go down, the experience of owning the physical cartridge should be in the next couple years the same either way across that board. Again, having broadband, all that stuff. We just kind of have to step away from that because the pricing differential is the is the weird
right
key here. But we actually we'll pick back at that as we go because there are some interesting points.
Yep.
Through there.
So some people prefer physical media for several reasons, right? The big ones are retain full ownership rights.
Mhm. independent of the servers being up, down, left, right, sparkle, whatever. Um, that was a Quark joke. You're welcome, science nerds. Um, the uh, right? And the ability to lend

it out to friends uh, easily, right? So, you retain full ownership rights. You can, um, play it whenever. you you're no longer bound in the same way to the to the um to the console manufacturer, right, or to the to the digital distributor. And you can lend it out to friends and family and move it around more easily, especially if you're a multi- uh console household, right? If you are in the odd position where you are a family of four and everyone has their own Switch 2, you might only need two copies of Yoshi in the Mysterious Book instead of four to lend them around to people or what have you. Right now, I fully admit that's a mythical situation, but I'm, you know, being hyperbolic to make or you could save 10 bucks. And well, there's another thing too. You could save 10 bucks. You could not drive to a brick-and-mortar store and or order

something online and wait for it to be delivered. You get it at the speed of your internet. So, like there's an instant gratification that I think we all especially our Steam users tend to enjoy, right? Like there there is there is a that that is one of the benefits of uh digital distribution. [snorts] The other the other being um everything has a pro and a con. Uh and I don't want to go too far into this too, but digital distribution historically has allowed for more games to be released overall, right? Like before you needed uh an in through a publisher like digital distribution is the lifeblood of indies. It's how things sort of become juggernauts. um that doesn't necessarily have to do with anything specifically here. It's just something to note that that infrastructure uh there's pros and cons to it. That is another one of the the small pros. Now

then it comes down to in my opinion sort of I'm going to hedge this entire conversation and so maybe this will get people on on my side or maybe people will rally against me. It'll make for an interesting conversation either way. I like this. I like this price differential. Um I don't know how much I'd like it if it if either the price amounts overall fluctuate or the disparity fluctuates but in certain directions. I don't know. But I'm saying in this particular case for Yoshi and the mysterious book, um I think in a world where uh again, it's so funny because the cost of producing something physical like this is obviously going up, the the flip side of that argument is hopefully it eventually goes down, but companies very rarely bring their prices down, but we're not there yet. We're currently in step one, so I'm trying to look at that until the inevitable price gouging happens.

Um, I think on one hand game preservation is incredibly important and it's great you can buy a cart that's a little bit more expensive to have the physical cartridge. It does stink that it is the more expensive option, but that's also kind of the world that we live in. At the same time, it does highlight how much more expensive this hobby has gotten. and and uh it in no way or in many ways does not feel great to do. So there's an argument that these things are important enough where either a company should take the the bullet for it costing uh more to do it on physical or um that archival should be important enough to the company to sort of do it on their own. Um, but overall I think in the in the really real world that we live in, something like this was both inevitable and I think actually I think I actually

I keep going back and forth. I I I don't want Here's what I don't want. And I think this is a small lever in in this direction. I'm hoping it sticks this way. What I don't want is the price parody secret handshake between brickandmortar stores and game publishers to make it so well if we have to raise the price of physical cartridges or physical discs for any reason be it even fuel for shipping right there's no problems with gas right now. Um, again, completely unpolitical show. Uh, but the but what I don't want to see is, oh well, the cartridge has to be $70 now, so the digital one's $70 now. And I think this is a tiptoe in the direction of saying that they don't want to do well, they would want to do that. They don't think that's sustainable.
Yeah.
Does that make sense? It's it's a ping-pong thing back and

forth. I'm going to while you say your piece will I'm going to catch up on chat because
yeah I [clears throat] feel like so I feel like a lot of people are sympathetic to the to the not even the people who like physical games particularly the people who like physical games are sympathetic to the fact that they understand that there's a supply chain cost right because you have to manufacture the game and then you have to put on a container ship and then you have to take it somewhere and that is all added expense and then you're paying for um retail space right now the other interesting thing that you generally don't talk about is that when Nintendo sells you a game for $60 directly, they get more money than if GameStop sells you a game for $70, right? Nintendo makes a lot more of that money because they only the only charge that they really need to handle is tax, right? Everything else is negligible because they because they have vertical integration from uh development to point of sale, right? So, one could argue that the price differential here from the $70 to $60 is in fact uh nowhere near just the savings of the

$10 it would cost to get that cartridge from a production house to your hands.
Yeah. So, um that's one whole part of it. The other whole part of it, and I'm kind of interested to hear what people think about this weird psychological concept,
which of these is the standard price? Which of these is the baseline? Do you believe, as many people do, that $60 is still the baseline price for a big three AAA game? This is certainly a big three AAA game. This is Nintendo's latest mascot, character, flagship game, right? It is a Yoshi game. Those are a big deal, right? Okay, cool. Is it a $60 game with a $10 markup for buying a physical cartridge, or is it a $70 game with a $10 discount for buying digital? And you might say

that those are the same thing.
And everyone in chat should say which one they think it is right now because I'm so curious.
I'm so curious to just I I am Well, I have my thoughts. I don't want to poison the well.
So, so, so yeah, Chad, sound sound off- which which one you feel like it is
because um is not the same as the glasses half full or half empty. This is actually like a really important psychology uh thing.
70 is base, 60 is markup. $10 markup on a $60 game.
Okay, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. $10 markup. 70 is normal.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
So, like [laughter] survive, you monster.
Wait, hold on.
Is that Yeah. $75.99 [laughter] USD, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. [snorts]
I like I like this one. It's a $40 game

with a $20 Nintendo markup and a $10 physical markup on top of that.
I mean, yeah. Like I think what this does come down to is this really does come down what it comes down to is what it comes down to. Um the concept of value not to be confused with filling your cravings at the circus of value mind you. But like what we actually are like and that for the longest time growing up a video game for me was $50 or $49.99 and is creeped up to 60 and it stuck for 60 for a while and now it's kind of all over the place with the price of indies versus like I think if you buy Mario Kart World physical like with the game on the cartridge I think it's 80
correct but if you buy if you get the digital code with the Switch 2 it's 50.
It's 50. So, and we're starting to see I think there was wasn't there another news story about um some some larger retailer doing

dynamic pricing. It might have been PlayStation, but it might have it might have crashed or
PlayStation is doing dynamic pricing. Yes, that's like a whole other
It's a whole another thing and and I I don't want to get into that. But my point is everyone's going to value a different experience with owning andor playing a video game. And I think it's kind of because now there are multiple ways to do that when before before Steam, before digital distribution, it was you go to Toys R Us or whatever and you buy Castlevania and you go home and you put it in your Nintendo like that. That is one experience that you can when you average out what people will pay for that experience, figure out what it will cost.
Hold on. Hold on. I'm gonna I'm gonna flashbang the audience real quick. Oh, no.
It's more than that, Matt. It's the experience of going to the store, getting it, cracking it open in the car, and trying to read the instruction manual underneath the street lights as you drive as you as you ride home in the

back seat of the car because you can't wait to experience the game because you remember manuals, right? You'd like read the manual on the way home to put it in the console. Okay, great. You're old. Take your medicine. Great. Uh, Mirthth, it is specific. That is a childhood memory that I have of myself is going to because I I went to Toys R Us multiple times before I could afford it through like saving up uh allowance and stuff. And so I'd always like I my mom my mom would let me cuz at Toys R Us they didn't they used to go to the wall that would just had papers hanging and they only had so many papers as they had copies in the back. And so what I would do is I would take a paper and walk around the store with it and then when we were leaving I' I'd go and put the paper back because I couldn't afford it yet. And I did that like three or four times until the day that I could actually afford it. Uh so I have a very visceral memory of buying Castlevania for the NES at a Toys R Us. Um yeah, that wall was great copper. Absolutely. So, so but now right the experience is so different for everyone

else and what we value specifically will no matter what these pricings will be because it's so disperate, it's not going to be able to make as many people happy most of the time as the as a singular experience did. Um, I think this is what I want to see now cuz this is one game and obviously Nintendo's like trying it, but the way they announced it was specifically like, "Hey, we're doing this and we're starting here." Um, I'm very curious to see how this moves with like the next first party game from Nintendo. What is the next first party game from Nintendo? Do we know? I believe there is another first party coming out later this year, but I don't that's also a topic of much contention because there was a giant leak of Nintendo's entire schedule. So, I don't know when I look for stuff. I'm not always 100% sure what Nintendo has announced versus what was on the giant leak sheet because the leak appears to be rather comprehensive and credible,

which is kind of a bummer.
Yeah. Just sort of looking down the the sheet here.
Yeah. Yeah. There's a Fire Emblem. I think there's there's a there there is a apparently an Ocarina of Time remake coming out in time for holiday 2026 which I will be injecting straight into my veins.
Yeah.
Um without question or hesitation. Uh
I guess is uh and there's a rumor of a Splatoon.
There's a rumor of a Splatoon. Tomodachi Life is either out or soon, but not in the window for this.
Yeah. And then even though the my most anticipated is Dusk Bloods, uh, which is not a first person, but you got the drift. That better be on a cartridge. It better be on a goddamn cartridge.
You know, Dusk Bloods is rumored to be multiplayer only.
But,
see, this is the thing. You're right. Does that make logical sense? No.

Do I want it? Yes. Okay, that's fair. Valid.
Uh, I I specifically bought the UK special edition because it came with the steelbook disc of Night Rain, which you still need an internet connection to play even if you're playing by yourself. Uh, this goes back to value proposition. And value proposition, we talked about this, I think, when we were talking about um re the reselling of Magic cards.
Yeah.
Right. Um, value proposition can mean a multitude of things and they don't have to make logical sense. You could, the argument could be you want to make sure that what you're doing with your money makes is not something that is damaging to your well-being overall if you're doing things that are outside of the normal use parameters of a thing and you're wasting money and burning it where you should be taking care of yourself, right? Um, but I think that's that's what I mean by it's different. Like I understand that Dusk Bloods would not be playable off of a

server.
Okay.
Does that make logical sense? No. Do I still want it on the cartridge? Yes.
Yeah. Okay, that checks out reasonable.
But I think that that let's even use that as the the farthest end example. My my non-logical desire with stuff like this with the pricing differential here. I do think it does open up more assuming for the time being that prices will not be gouged. It opens up more options for people to experience these things in the ways that they want to experience them. Um, and at the simplest level, I think everyone does understand that the production of a physical object, no

matter what that is, even if it's a disc, but the plastic that goes into the case or whatever,
right,
costs more money than zeros and ones going over the internet. And so I think we're now at a time where both brickandmortar stores are weak enough and people understand the concept of downloading a program or game so ubiquitously now, right, that breaking the parody does not seem at all crazy and almost seems like it should have been done that way forever. Now, the last thing that I will say, and I think this is dastardly by Nintendo. I again never never suspect malice when incompetence will do. But the prices of both Mario Kart and I believe Donkey Kong Bonanza, was Bonanza $80 as well?
I I don't remember.
Am I crazy? Anyway, the the questioning

the the Mario Kart being 80 I we should check that. Could you check that real quick while I kind of make my point?
The remains at 70.
Okay. With Mario Kart being 80 and the questioning of where the value prop sort of is, it feels like perhaps that could have been done if one were wearing a tinfoil hat to make this new move of parody breaking seem like more of a deal than an upcharge on a on a perceptual level. Because if the games if if people are questioning games were 70 or $80 for the Switch and then all of a sudden well no physical 70 and digital 60 well that in your brain feels a lot better. So you have a baseline understanding of what's going on and uh perhaps uh some some latent knowledge in the back of your head also says either of these is a good deal.

Yeah,
just just a thought.
Yeah. As someone who's purely digital, I'm like, cool, great, excellent, awesome. But also at the same time, what's going on? What's So I guess I obviously the big
the concern that I have, right? And this is kind of weird is [clears throat] does okay Bonanza $70 in digital why is Nintendo giving us $10 a copy. Do they think they're going to make it up in volume? Like that's my real question, right? Like what what is the move?
Oh, why why they haven't dropped their other digital prices?
No. Why are they doing this at all? Do they do they think right because they've already they've shown that they're down to have flagship titles be the same cost. Right. So if Bonanza's $70 then

I'm going to say that I'm in the this is a $10 discount camp, right? Do they think they're going to make it up in volume? Now that's not hard to do with a $10 differential, right? On a 60 or $70 game, right? you just have to sell a small relative number of extra copies because of the discount to recoup that loss, right? But it does feel a little weird to me that they're doing this at all. Right. And maybe I'm just overly cynical and don't trust corporations at all and you shouldn't either.
Which that's your baseline. I mean, that makes sense. That that's what our baseline should be.
Yeah.
I mean, I think it's the most Nintendo move ever, right? They're announcing this change and they're starting it here. Are they going to go back and do it with their other titles? No. They don't change costs of their titles. That's crazy. Yeah.
Like because it already came out. Well, no. Donkey Kong 70 digital.
Yeah.
And it's like
I guess
I mean you can also wait for a like and they by the way as part of the announcement they did say that physical

retailers do retain the right to put stuff on sale. So, that is the other interesting thing is that like they um that that like if there's a copy in a Walmart bargain bin for 10 bucks, then you can get the physical copy for 10 bucks.
Yeah. Also, I like generic blue. And I think this is this is um this is precisely why it's these numbers. 60 and 70 are on the opposite side of the I need to justify the experience to myself line in my head. It's interesting how that works. Like, and it's not to say the 10 bucks isn't a lot of money. It it absolutely can be, but there's an experiential, and it could go either way, right? Like, it could be like, "Oh, well, I can't afford 70, so I'll get digital 60." Or, "Wait, a physical's only $10 more. That's not that much." Like, it there's there's different ways that you can justify getting one over the other with a $10 differential at $60 and $70.

Yeah. Uh and that was focus grouped and workshopped and probably a lot of psychological evaluation on groups with testing to see
they spent a lot of money picking these numbers.
Yeah.
Like why 70 and not 75? 75 is a lot more than 70 by the way.
Yeah.
75 is almost 100, right? Because 75 is three4ers of $100, which is a lot of money. But 70 isn't quite threequarters of $100. So, it's not 70 is only $10 more than 60, which is kind of like 50, which isn't a lot of money to a lot of people. The psychology here truly baffles.
Bananas.
Absolutely.
Bananas on a racetrack.
Yeah. Are we doing peak dev math? Yes. Th This is This is it, right? The the peak dev math, by the way, is so real. Like, it sounds like a joke when you listen to the to the quote from the peak devs about why Peak costs $8.

And they're absolutely not joking and 100% correct about the way that the human mind like categorizes costs.
Yeah. Also, Evan, you're right. Tax isn't included in their price. You're absolutely right. But that's also by design.
Yeah. The US taxes are a whole other issue of psychology specifically in the US. Uh by the way, so worth clarifying and reminding people on both sides [laughter] of the in and outside the US. Outside the US, it is very common to have the tax included in the sticker price.
It's also very common to uh not have price parity between physical and digital goods. It's almost as if will the country in which we live might have some problems.
Just a few. Right. And by the way, for everyone else in the US, the price on the shelf does not include tax because different localities have different prices. And the way that MSRP and taxes interact is funky because each state has its own uh sales tax, right? Maryland is

six and a half% I think right now.
Funky Kong.
Yeah.
All right. Well, chat, let us know. Do you think we solved this?
Right. Yeah. Are you Is this Is this going to change your mind? That's the other thing I want.
Yeah. Like it does does the discussion, how do I put this? Cuz like I keep going back and forth on a lot of different elements of this and it feels like whenever I land on a ah this is my opinion, I realize another thing, right? Like and at a certain point it is going to become a snake eating its own tail. like has the more you've thought about it on this show or just in general changed what your lizard brain gut reaction was when you first heard about this? That's kind of not necessarily like did Matt and Will say something smart or stupid enough to change your mind. A does talking about this more change the perception of where you

landed that instant you first heard about this thing?
Yeah. Because often times the first thing that you think is the conditioned response and the second thing you think later on reflection is what you actually think because it's not uncommon for you to have a snap judgment response which is normal, right? That's a facet of the way human psychology works.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Not really never knew about $60 games.
Yeah.
Game by-game basis.
Yep.
Yeah.
I'm I'm still put busy putting uh Hold on. I can give you a number. I can give you a number. I'm still busy putting 121 hours into my $25 game. So, you know, that's not even all the way out yet that I bought in early access. So, Aspire 2. Still one of the best values you could possibly get for your money.
So, anyway,
well, we've we've talked about this long enough. Let's move on to other stuff we'll talk about long enough. [snorts]

Hey, remember when we did an episode on the Nintendo patents?
Yeah. So, uh, Nintendo did a bunch of patents, uh, in an attempt to win some, uh, lawsuit against PAL World, among other reasons. And
but breaking news.
Yeah. Um, this is patent number uh 1243397 uh has essentially been pulled. It is a non-final office action and rejects all claims to the patent. Nintendo can appeal this and they probably will because again Nintendo has more money than you or I have to spend on lawyers. Uh and they do spend a lot of money on lawyers. They actually spend a lot of money on lawyers and lawyer eating sharks. And at this point they're just feeding lawyers to lawyer eating sharks and people
and then they got to hire the shark fighters.
Right. Yeah.
The toughest men in the sea.
That's true. Yeah. Um, so this will be

interesting. This is the second time that this patent has gotten quizzically looked at. Japan's patent office also kind of quizzically looked at it. Now the US patent office has also quizzically looked at it. So this is going to be an interesting development. It feels like this whole Nintendo pocket pair lawsuit thing may get settled in like the most bureaucratically boring way possible, which is actually kind of ideal in my book. Well, so I have I have a I have a theory for the US patents specifically. when we were doing this episode and we were working with our friends trying to get all the law stuff uh in in in order um I had sort of the the idea of like the way because I learned a lot about patent law by working on this episode with a bunch of different folks and um the way patent law seems to work is you submit a patent fully expecting that it's going to be

struck down or like it's not going to get through the process then you have to do an amendment. I forget what the the verbiage is called, but like you do that like a bunch of times until you whittle down that it's only uh a green table shaped like Zoey that has three eyes and smells of deep mahogany and like that's your patent cuz you can't prove that because no one can find other things that that uh that have that sort of same exact descriptor. What it feels like with these Nintendo patents is Nintendo went in fully being like, "All right, here's our wide birth patent. round one fight and then people are like you're in and they're like what [laughter] it feels like the US patent office was having a bad day or there was some just like or it takes years like but like something something was broken enough in the system where the back and forth didn't happen [clears throat] and now retroactively when so many people are calling it out they're like uh well yeah and now it's sort of going

back and getting struck down.
Yeah, exactly.
That's the vibe of what's what's going on. Again, no proof of that. But just from learning about how these things are structured, it does feel like [laughter] their first ridiculous one that they never expected to go through was just like doors open. [laughter]
Yeah, I agree. So, we'll see how this goes. Uh, but this is another big bureaucratic step in the whole pocket pair lawsuit thing and we'll we'll keep you updated as as things become uh worthy of updates.
All right, chat, are you ready?
Hold on. First of all, spin, how dare you? This is an a-olitical show. We never talk about politics here. I I resent that. And I'm sure this next story will have nothing to do
with anything political. Ready your rip bozos.

Oh god. Rip bozo. UH, [laughter] turns out that lighting a million dollars a day on fire is not a good product to make. A million dollars. But what if I made a video of Sam Alman grilling a Pikachu? Will [laughter]
Would that make money for the shareholders?
No, it wouldn't. It would just destroy War of the World for no gain as you
NS.
Yeah. Who could have foreseen this coming?
I would say Fs in chat, but I don't want to pay respects to this.
No. [laughter] Sora, the AI slop nonsense machine uh has officially uh shut down. Turned out it was costing them roughly about a million dollars a day to run. Uh and much like many of the AI nonsense things

shoved down our throats on a daily basis, no one could figure out how to turn that number around into the positive.
Yeah. Because it's not possible to make money with this.
Yeah. like because you you you you would have to ask people to pay for it and they're not going to or you have to ad support it and then they'll stop using it. And either way, it's only remotely financially viable because they stole everything that they used to train the models on.
Yeah. By the way, they also uh Disney quickly and abruptly completely pulled out of their billion that's with a B dollar deal with Open AI.
And and nothing says no one is driving the car.
Yeah. [laughter]
More than this series of events. Bear is driving. How can this be? Um,

who some if accountability was a thing, my next thing would be like, "All right, who's getting fired here?" Like, what? Who got them into this and then they had to bail? But nothing is real, so it doesn't quite matter.
Yeah.
Um, yeah. I
No, I think this is the actual appropriate image for this, by the way. Uh, Matt sent me this and I was like, "Yeah, this is it. This is it." To be fair, I did not build this. This the first image is with with just uh aboard the Flash with the Sora side of the grave. That is from Kotaku. What I did add is the shocked Mickey,
which really makes it
uh how could this happen?
Yeah, I I I just feel like Yeah, this is this has sort of been one of the big signs that things are not going well in AI land. Um the other one is that OpenAI canceled a bunch of contracts and RAM prices fell. That's not really a huge story because RAM prices are so in flux that like to say that they fell is sort

of like when people report on like
they fell off a table that's already on a a 10,000 foot cliff,
right? Yeah. This well or like when people report on like what the what the Dow Jones did over lunch,
right? You're like, "Oh, it did like it fell like $3 over the lunch break. How you know? Oh, man." Right? That's it doesn't matter, right? that doesn't change the trend line. People report on dailies because it's because some people care about dailies, but if you look at the long arc, it's not significant.
So,
but yeah, someone someone called Disney and set up a a wakeup call at their resort to pull out of this deal right after
Yeah.
Time to get up. Time to leave your deal.
Um
uh Yeah. Rand prices fell 40% to only be 600 600% higher than last year. Correct. All right, it is now time for everyone's favorite part of the show where we uh generate organically

using organically generate uh some content for you while chat gets bad ads for things that the Twitch wants them to spend money on. So, we're going to do some fake ads while you get real ads for things that you can buy, but will be for things you can't buy. Uh and uh we'll be back in just a few minutes uh with the rest of the show. Bad.
Will, would you like to go first?
[clears throat]
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Here we go.
Hi there, everyone. Will from Extra Credits here with Matt from Extra Credits here. Next, Will from Extra Credits right over here. Uh, here to sell you organic slop. That's right. You don't need this artificial synthetic slop. You just need twitch.tvision/extrac. They'll give you all of the terrible idea slop, right, for way less money and way less environmental destruction. Like we work on like Oreos and coffee and energy drinks, right? Way less destructive, right? We can come up with terrible ideas at the drop of a hat. If

you're like, "Will, give me an idea for this thing. I'll just tell you words and that'll be that'll be better."
I like it. I like it, Will. I'm gonna, if you don't mind, I'm going to piggyback off what you did 100%. Hey everyone, Matt from the thing that Will just said that we're both from over here at twitch.tv/youtube.org. Extra credits. Listen, if you want to buy the organic slop that Will has just just poured poured all over you at this point, you want to you want to get pay it back. There's two ways you can do it. Okay, one is digital. And how you do it with that is you eventually just watch it here probably for free. And it doesn't cost you any green backs or anything like that. But if you want it physical, we will be releasing on UMD. That's right. Crack out your PSPs because that's the only way you'll physically be able to get this show for a bunch of cotes. Probably around 60k.

Okay. All right. Okay. Okay. Cool. Cool. Cool. Yes, Matt. Can I help you? He's stuck. I'm going have to reboot the mat lot.
GET IT ON LASER DISC NOW.
Are we done? [laughter]
No, we still have like a minute of ads left.
OH, NO.
YOU just [laughter]

Was [snorts] [laughter] the laser disc ad not did what? Oh man.
It's okay.
Oh boy.
Oh, I see now. Also, congrats to Thunder for catching the bot. Well done. Well, well done. Thunder got
Thunder got to take a clanker out back and execute him. Uh, it was great.
Oh, no.
Yeah, occasionally it happens. It's been happening less here on Twitch, but uh Thunder caught one. Good job, Thunder. See, and I go back to look at the slop you just had.
Didn't that feel nice?
It was better.
Nice enough as slop do,
right? Yeah. It doesn't have to be high quality. It just has to be like entertaining in the moment, right? I don't I don't know. Like I feel like it's it's emblematic of the fact that some of the fun like the hardest I've laughed is for stupid bits in a voice chat, right? like just just that I have like I feel like the humanity that is

missing from Sora is like typified. Okay, how many of you have this moment where you hang out with your friends in like a late night VC or whatever and someone says the dumbest thing you have ever heard, but it hits at the right time in the right way and you laugh until your sides hurt. There's a chronological experience to having a human interaction at a at at a at a a pinpoint moment in time.
Like saying or doing something right now will hit different than saying or doing something 5 minutes from now. And the small imperfections and rough edges that I feel like the amalgamation of AI slop tends to sand off that you get in those moments is what makes them stick and feel special.
Yes. [snorts]
Um and again I like that Will's example of of of engaging with uh organic slop or people slop or whatever we want to call it is

uh wording it that way too because in no way
there's a certain amount of Yeah. It's a certain amount of effort that goes into all of these different things, right? Like so it's not to say that one is better than the other, but uh I think WAIT, ACTUALLY, YOU KNOW WHAT? NO, I'LL TAKE IT BACK AND THEN we will move on. I will say that even me staring dead pan into the camera with Will chuckling and people making comments about me needing WD40 to continue on with the show. Um, all of that, even though it was in the moment the most minimal effort from all of us, all of that to get us there, again, not saying it's funny or anything, but like just to have that moment, whether it was good or bad, actually did take a lot of time and prep to get to that point, to deliver that, like even for even for you to have time to watch that,
right? like there's an intentionality of you all being here watching the show and when you engage with not even just the show when you engage with any kind of

art or media at all.
I do think that the human experience is knowing that it took some amount of time and effort to get there and that is why you are seeing it when it is just something dead like this. Um well heck even Disney doesn't think it's val valuable. So
you know what Disney might think is valuable though?
Oh what would that be? Will [clears throat]
Epic Games.
So, this is this is through the rumor mill. Disney hasn't officially announced anything.
No.
But the current scuttlebutt is
that Disney is waiting for the right time to buy Epic, which makes a kind of sense because Valve is not for sale. It also makes a kind of sense because Epic just had to lay off over a thousand people from Fortnite. We didn't really talk about that, but there that is a thousand people. That's like a quarter of their live service team,

right? Ridiculous, wild, unbelievable. Um, and so it's possible that Disney swoops in and buys them at some point. Now, why would they buy Epic specifically? Couple reasons. One, Epic has a digital storefront that could handle all of the digital distribution for Disney stuff. Two, Fortnite is not really what Disney wants, but could be made into something that Disney wants.
But also, they're already so entrenched in in Fortnite anyway. There's I think Marvel the Marvel skins alone like Yeah. And then the other big one is having full control over Unreal Engine, which I think a lot of people forget is an epic thing, right? But having full control over Unreal because Unreal is also used in animation.
Yeah.
Right. So like having full control over Unreal, being able to Unreal in-house, being able to guide the development of

Unreal and having having full control over the Epic Store is probably why Disney would do this if they do it. I'm not saying they will or won't. And again, this is just a rumor, but I do think it's a big it would be significant if it happened.
Uh I would like to say too that like I don't particularly want this just like I don't want any of these mergers and acquisitions. Um we are eventually hurdling towards there being one company. Um but the this makes sense for weirdly Disney and Epic at least from the on the corporate level from the from the amount of uh human uh damage for jobs and things
truly awful. Um but that's it is this is this is where we live now. Um
yep
you know but there is look

at some point enough monkeys banging on typewriters will eventually make uh some sort of corporation that isn't about just fleecing everybody for as much money as possible. Right? Like that that can happen at some point, right? Uh because every It all comes back to what will there ever be a group that just wants to make some of the money and the myth of infinite growth. Um,
yeah,
BUT THAT'S FUTURE US's problem and current US's problem.
Yeah. Yep. Yeah.
Yeah. You know what? Here we go. Uh, Mithril, I'll give you this. There's two of them. There's dropout and especially you might be watching this right now on Nebula. There you go.
Yeah,
that's literally one of the many reasons I am proud to be over there.
Yeah.
Um Yeah, that's a great point.

Yeah. Uh Okie dokie. [clears throat] Stormgate.
What is Stormgate?
Stormgate is a RTS made by the same crew that made um uh Starcraft uh Stormgate is a has been out for a while. It's not doing the best. Uh it's currently less than 50% positive on Steam with uh 26 in-game and a 24-hour peak of 42. So Stormgate on its face,
seven and a half million years of work.
Yeah. Um, Stormgate on its face and its own success is not why we're talking about it. Stormgate is uh the reason that we're talking about Stormgate is that they may be the first of many

online multiplayer games to suffer this fate. And we're kind of trying to call it out when we see it. So, um, let me let me, uh, pull this up. So, uh, Stormgate is currently multiplayer online only. Multiplayer online only RTS. Okay.
So, buy the physical cartridge,
right? The
It'll only cost you,
right,
57 dubs.
That's right. Um, and now Frost Giant Games is having to patch it to add in an offline mode because their online hosting partner for multiplayer servers, Hatherora, Hatherora, has been bought by an AI company and had all of their contracts with existing clients cancelled so that that AI company can use all of the resources to do AI slop.

It was hard enough when
you know the profitable thing we just talked about,
right? It was hard enough when we couldn't get hardware for our computers because AI was driving up the price of RAM and graphics cards and everything else. And now companies can't get hosting because their hosting partners are getting yked by AI companies, too. Gross.
Yeah. Also, I've seen a couple things in chat being like, "Yep, time to blame AI again." And it's funny because sure, yes, but also, isn't it strange how nearly every problem, nearly every problem we've discussed on this show here and for the last couple weeks, you can kind of trace back to this thing that is vastly

unpopular. It's not because it's not because we love talking about AI.
It's because that's what the conversation is now because it's being shoved down every hell co-pilot is coming to Xbox soon.
Yeah. We we we did a we did a brunch a solo brunch where I I read through the news and that was a big topic of conversation as well. Um, yeah. I I think um now I also want to be clear, Stormgate is not dying. Stormgate is not the the the the folks at Ross Giant have said, "Hey, we're issuing a patch so that you can play offline. However, we are still committed to working on finding a hosting partner." Now, are they going to be able to? Who knows? Are they going to be able to find one and stay afloat? Also, who knows? They're tiny at this point, right? Like this is not again this would be a very different

story if it was a bigger game, a bigger a bigger team, but it is like the fact that it can happen to any game is still newsworthy. Yeah.
Like
so we hope they we hope they find a new uh digital home for the way that they meant to play this game soon.
Yep.
We will see how it shakes out.
All right, [clears throat] Matt.
Yes. Do you know what I think is the most important part of crossover properties?
Making uh things that are aimed at a specific audience appealing and attractive to people who aren't part of that specific audience.
You didn't give me a chance to guess.
Which is which is why I'm proud to announce that I'm so happy with the new Mass Effect rewrites.
Yeah. Uh, Mass Effect TV show apparently was close to getting green lit uh over at Amazon. Uh, but there is a rumor that they want the show to be rewritten first

to be quote more appealing to non-gamers. Now, I'm going to give the charitable take first because headlines are weird and they can pop like everyone loves dunking on these people because they make it so easy to do it. But let's let's back up for a second. Perhaps the script itself felt like it was too complex for the current BS era of television that we are in where everything needs to be almost like a second screen experience. Um, and the shorthand that a outofouch exec could have said was, "Oh, this is complicated like the game. Make it feel less like the game." Right? That's the that's the the most generous take that I can give it in the current media landscape,
right?
But

the take I probably believe more is it probably felt too first screen content. It felt too much like something you'd have to pay attention to to enjoy. Again, I don't know. It could also be awful. I have no idea. But let's assume that it's not for a moment. But to get this note feels less like, well, make it less make it appeal to non-gamers and more like can you make this appeal to people that are also scrolling Instagram and that sucks.
It do. It it it do indeed. I have um Yeah. Yeah.
And listen and and generic Yeah. It could be as simple as a script makes no sense to anyone who hasn't played the game. But [sighs]

that doesn't feel like it though. Like it could be. You're certainly correct that that could be it, but it doesn't feel like that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The police squad conundrum. There you go. Um, yeah. I I look I don't have I mean look Amazon Amazon did a great job with Fallout. They did um they they did what I think successful adaptations should do and they built on uh a game's world without like nailing like having it dance around themes in the story and places but not having a sort of retelling of it. Um, I don't know. It's been a long time since I played Mass Effect. Um, and I did love those games. Mass Effect feels like the world is cool, but the special thing is the

characters and your playthrough of those characters.
Yeah. So like Fallout because you make your own character and there's sort of more archetypes than like NPCs that are beloved forever in like those Bethesda games, right?
Um that feels like a different assignment and a more easy one to adapt outside of the OG game stories than say a Mass Effect. Yeah.
What we don't want, I think, or what would fail would be a new story in the Mass Effect universe with none of the characters. But also, you have to be careful about adjusting what those characters are because not only is everyone's Shepherd individual, also the experiences that everyone has had with the characters throughout the game are very individual and personal. It's very hard to tell a story in a game that's about tell in in in the style of

a game that's about telling a unique and personal story. Like even just Paragon or Renegade Shep like those are two radically different playthroughs.
Yeah.
Right. That
so I Yeah. And look, this could very easily just be a um a headline kind of thing. We got this from PC Gamer. uh it does sort of like even if the note is given in good faith, it's too complicated for whatever reason, etc. Um I would posit that anyone who kind of cared about the space would probably say something like, "What can we do to make this appeal to more people?"
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah. like and not not even like in a in a manipulating the conversation kind of way, just in a like methodology of why you're making a show.
Yeah.
You're making the show to evangelize to people who have never played Mass Effect, right? Because there aren't

both. You want people that have played Mass Effect and you want you need to be it bigger than just the people who played Mass Effect,
right? Because there aren't enough people who have played Mass Effect to justify the kind of production cost that this television show is going to incur.
Yeah. Yeah.
There just aren't right.
Yeah. So,
yeah. Um, backlash incoming. Yeah.
But yeah, we'll see. We'll see how it goes. Anyway, I just liked this graphic, too. It was fun.
Yeah, it's [laughter] good. Uh, okay. Now, for another story which we will entitle everyone point and laugh.
Oh,
you may now point and laugh at GameStop. There is a interview with a former GameStop executive, um, Larry Cooperman. And as part of this, one of the quotes, I'm just going to read you the quote, which I just
I think the quote is important.

I think the quote is important. Um, I joined GameStop for two years as their head of electron distribution on the on the PC side, recall Coopermanman. I thought I was good. That was going to be my forever job. Ironically, that didn't work out. I guess back in that time it was completely different management uh than is at GameStop now, but GameStop thought that electronic distribution was just a passing phase and brick and mortar was going to come back strong. I've seen the future. It looks just like the 1950s, but that really didn't happen. So, there was a time I I'm trying to remember the name of what um what the name of the company was that GameStop bought that was sort of a dist digital distribution platform.
Oh, uh that was Stardock.
Star Yeah. Like basically they they were going to dive into this until some of their head the high-ups basically said

like nah that's just going nowhere kid.
Yeah. Dren Drenen was the first uh was the first online store thing.
So
well it's the same reason why we're only releasing this show specifically on eight track for just three slices of the smoothest cheddar.
That's right.
You know.
Yeah.
Um because we're we're innovators. We're we're freeth thinkers. We're futurists.
That's right.
Um,
we're we're going to release it as an NFT video tape with the little thing pushed in that prevents you from recording it.
No, you break that off.
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Break that off. And then you have to cover it with tape
to make it so you can record again. Is that right?
I think that's right. That sounds correct.
It's been a minute. It's been a minute since I've protected my my uh taped episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Yeah, that's that's right.
[laughter]
It it it just it's it's kind of funny to me that we're we're seeing more and more that like people didn't believe like the

companies that are doing poorly now are the ones that didn't read the trends correctly. And it's funny to me that GameStop is one of them in the same way that it's funny to me that Blockbuster went under because they wouldn't buy Netflix. Like it could be a it could be a Blockbuster. Like I I need people to understand that there's a world in which Blockbuster bought Netflix and Netflix never existed and was now just a branch of Blockbuster. There's a world where Viacom bought YouTube.
That's a horrific world.
None of us would be here, right? I mean, we'd be around. I'm sure we'd be we'd exist, but our jobs wouldn't exist. Yeah. No, our jobs wouldn't exist. I worked at Viacom when they passed on it. And walking through the lobby when the news hit at 50 and 50 in Broadway, everyone's like, "Why didn't they buy that?"

Yeah, they should have. [laughter]
Again, I'm thankful they didn't, but um yeah. Um, the the other thing here too is to your point, Will, like there's another bit of this article over on PC Gamer that's essentially like the reason why Valve and Steam won wasn't necessarily because the experience was better or smoother or anything than any of these other sort of online distributors. It's because Steam basically built community better than anyone else. They made it a place where you could see your friends online and talk to people and share reviews and like do all of those things.
And this goes all the way back to our first story about the digital physical price disparity and how there's a real case that the virtue of the digital isn't really the cost effectiveness or the convenience even. It's that you can see what your friends are playing and you can see what they recommend and you

can talk to them and you can like invite them to play a game of Slay the Spire 2 with you, right? Or whatever, right? Like the the the the community aspect that is integrated into that digital experience is the real point. And I think that's fair, right?
Yeah. Um, and I think what that sort of goes to show too is in in all of the conversations we're talking about with like current day social media places, even when we were talking about Discord and the face scanning and like all that stuff is like or or [snorts] um or you know what, I'll even I'll even do some shots fired to Patreon. Um, they are slowly trying to sort of value themselves as a tech company, but they're not. They're a customer service company. Um, and I think knowing what experience you can give to a user and sticking with that and and and leaning into your strengths and why people use you in the first

place and making that a more sustainable and better experience. We've seen in this space a very real example, the largest way people buy digital games right now. I maybe the iOS store might break it, but I'm just talking about like PC, right? Like,
yeah,
they they won because they built a community. The service is good and there's a bunch of problems with it, too. Don't get me wrong. This isn't just glazing uh freaking Steam.
Yeah.
But like they won because the experience was better and you could see your friends having a good time on it.
Mhm. That's correct. So the the lesson here in a in a world that is being uh again poisoned by getting all of trying to get all the money or trying to insert all this needless stuff into things is double down on what you're good at. Watch the market. Don't do what GameStop did, but also like figure out ways that you and your company's strengths can fill the holes in the market, not jump

onto a bandwagon you have nothing to do with.
Yep.
Correct. Uh, okay. Let's uh let's speaking of companies getting all of the money. Yeah, this one's pretty straightforward, but it's it's worth it's worth um it's worth talking about. So, I don't know if y'all know this, but shit's getting crazy out there. Um, essentially, uh, the the global trade of goods and services, particularly fuel, to get things moving, has, uh, gone a little wibble wobbledy, topsyturvy bowl of gravy. I have no idea why. And, uh, that basically has turned every everyone either real or imagined being like, well, up prices now because that's going to be the norm. Uh, and PlayStation has done just that. Uh, PlayStation has now

hiked their prices um a bit more. Now, it's funny, normally a console in its life cycle will go down in price. This is the first time, I think, in standardized consoles that um that over the course of the years, the cost of them has gone up.
This generation, yes, Xbox has already raised their prices um and Nintendo preemptively raised their prices on many Switch 2 accessories, right? And now Sony is taking their turn. So,
um, yeah. So, essentially, uh, I believe at this point, um,
I think the Pro is like $8.99, the digital is $5.99, and the standard with the disc drive is $6.49.
That's in the US.
Um,
this is a large increase. Uh, but it says a couple. Obviously, we could talk about the geopolitics that got us here. Everyone kind of, I think, understands that at this point. That's kind of boring. Here's something that, and this

isn't a turn a frown upside down kind of thing. This is just sort of a um a different angle of this story. What this also says to me, and with Sony's now commitment to um was it PSSR two?
Sure.
It there's a specific kind of rendering technology chat, please. Uh um um Brad and Janet, correct my terminology here, but they've implemented it with Resident Evil Reququum. They're doing it with a lot of first-party titles that is basically on the Pro specifically increasing the fidelity and the in the frame rate that you can get while keeping the resolution at 4K and making some things buttery smooth. Like they're basically doing software solutions on their old hardware. Yeah. The PSSR, I believe, is what it it's it's called.
Mhm. Um, what this does say is I think that Sony, even though every everyone's working on their next console, right? Of course they are. But in the environment that we are in,

that's probably going to hold off for a while because it's going to be too expensive to actually launch. Uh, Sony believes that the PS5 Pro specifically, um, yeah, Andrew, we'll get to that, dear. Yeah, we didn't even talk about the disc drive. Um, but I feel like this at least says it it shows a we are confident that this is going to be a contender for the next few years when normally feels like in a life cycle it would be winding down.
Yeah.
And I think it's coming [clears throat] out of necessity
but they're finding sort of ways around. This is a incred This is like a bold price hike.
Yeah. [cough] M. [clears throat]
So they both need it and must believe in it.
Yeah.
Mileage will vary, but there's something interesting to that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I I don't Yeah.
Yep.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
And uh I I I still am uh furious that the Pro doesn't have a disc drive. Uh yeah,
my Pro I have put a disc drive on. I bought it a while ago. Um, it's a fun little fun little non- tech project to install that thing.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
I I was going to move us on to the other Yeah. The other part of the Sony thing, and I think this goes to them believing in their ecosystem. Um, Sony is currently uh cleaning house on the PlayStation store as part of their ongoing effort to make it a reputable place. and they are cleaning out um slop. We're we're going to call it slop. Uh they are cleaning out a whole bunch of games that don't meet quality standards, that don't meet um you know, don't don't meet the the the level of quality that they want to have. Because we've talked about this before. All of

the major storefronts right now,
all of them have huge problems with what we would at best refer to as shovelware.
Yeah.
Uh and the amount of AI generated crap that has
not even AI generated. It could be, but also
just shovelware.
Yeah. Right. AI generated crap and shovelware and poorly done porn and like and and and and that is that has floated to the top, right? um is is finally reaching the level of Sony's notice and they're beginning to purge the store of that which I think is good and I think demonstrates that they have this commitment in the long term for their ecosystem. That means that while you might pay more for a PlayStation right now, they're doing things like this that will help demonstrate the value that you are buying into there with that ecosystem. And yes, Nintendo should absolutely do this, too. And the Xbox should do it, but they probably won't.
I mean, I'm I'm so curious. We're

working on an episode right now, which is basically the the working title is the rise and fall of the House of Xbox. Um, but the I'm so curious after going like deep diving into the company's methodology over the 25 yearsish that they've been making hardware. Uh, and even before that, like where where the next thing goes. I mean, I personally think they're going to try to I think before we were talking about making a a portable console, maybe that still might be the case, but they already kind of did it with the raw ally. I think that um I think they're going to try to essentially battle the Steam machine. That seems like what it will be. And the the the problem too is with the increasing cost of components and like with Sony just being like, "Yep, this costs a trillion dollars now." Um I think that's going to embolden a high price point for whatever Project Helix is.
Yeah. Um, but I also don't think maybe

I'll be wrong. Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised, but the I would argue, hot take, I'm sorry. Uh, I would argue that Xbox has not, other than Game Pass, I'm talking hardware, has not significantly iterated since the 360. I don't think that takes hot tried.
Correct.
They tried with the connect. Um they tried with an always online ecosystem that back then no one wanted. Um and now we're seeing like even the thing that outsold it this holiday season, the the Nex, the little cube that has essentially what the what the connect was to control games. It's like a kids console.
Um I saw it at PAX. It's pretty cool.
Yeah. It It also is the It's this big. Like it's small. I thought it was going to be the size of a GameCube when I saw like

renderings of it. It tiny.
Yeah.
Um
it's like an Ouya. It's like It's like Ouya sized.
Yeah.
By the way, if you remember that,
take the beds for your back.
Yeah, I know.
You remember?
So, so um how did I get on this tangent? I'm so sorry. Uh yeah, I I going back to sort of digital storefronts being very important in this ecosystem. If things are going to move in this in this way, again, it all goes back to physical and digital, you need to make sure as a company, if you're saying, well, this is a a premium price point thing that you're going to buy to experience this store essentially, you need to make sure that that store is clean.
Yep. Um, and a lot of places haven't and look, there's still a bunch of slop on the on the PlayStation store, but this is a good start.
Yes, absolutely.
Uh, okay. Speaking of games uh game stores innovating and doing new

interesting things, Steam has uh this is this is dredged. Now, this is take truckload of salt. This is dredged from a update on Steam DB that someone figured out and dredged out. And um yeah, isn't that old? That came out after Skyrim. Yeah, but yeah, but okay,
that hurt.
I'm now I'm going to make a lot of people hurt. When did Skyrim come out?
2011.
The first time.
Is that Am I right? Am I wrong? Hold on. Skyrim. OG
111 is is is what
I was right.
Yeah. Okay, great.
So, [snorts] Skyrim is in high school.
I'm also replaying it right now.
Yeah. Sky Skyrim is in high school,
just so we're all on the same page. Skyrim was in high school. Is is in high school right now. Okay, great. Awesome. Take your back, man. Um uh so one of the

things that has come out of
Wait, there are back meds?
Yeah, like pain meds for your back.
I gotta get some of those.
Right. I know. Um okay, so uh the feature that is being um projected to come out on Steam in the near future is frame rate estimation based on your tech specs. That now because they're going to have a a a large amount of data, right? because the seam overlay is an incredibly powerful piece of integrated technology with your games if you want it to be. You can also turn it all the way off, which is great. Um, you will be able to by putting in your text packs for the PC that you're running games on and based on their data that they're collecting have a way to estimate frame rates and performance for games before you buy them and install them.
It seems very neat. I have questions. Again, this is all sort of like rumor mill dug up kind of stuff, but like
you can do that on a base tech spec kind

of level, but as illustrated by my haunted PC, there's a lot of different things that go beyond tech specs. Namely, what you're running at the same time, what's open, what's happening. Like, so like it would be an estimate, but they'd never be able to like Well, maybe they can't. Like, maybe there's a range. Like, how do you think it would function, Will? Like, do you think it would
what would be the most useful way of I imagine that it does it based on free resources. You could do it based on free resources which would solve the what's running at the same time thing, right? Cuz like if you have
100 gigs of RAM, shut up. That's a number you could you could totally have.
Yeah, I No, I have it. I have that. That's mine.
Yeah. Right. Okay, cool. Great. And you're using 50 gigs of it on the 87 tabs of YouTube you have open that you swear you'll watch later, but you probably never will until you close them in shame one night when you realize that you're using 50 gigs of RAM on all of your YouTube tabs. Sorry, should have duck and covered for that one. Um, it will probably only see that you have 50 gigs of RAM free,

right?
Of your 150 gigs,
right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Absolutely. Um,
but the digital RAM is actually only 130,
right? You can download more of that.
You could download more RAM because you don't have to ship it anywhere. Do you see how all the stories connect?
Yeah. [laughter] Well, it's not all YouTube tabs. No, pretty sure it's all YouTube tabs, chat, I see you. Um, so I think this is really cool. I think this is another thing that has been a big problem for PC gaming, which is different specs run different games different ways. [snorts] And if Steam is having if if Steam is introducing a way to collect more metrics about performance, it may help further identify problems. Yes. With specific setups. For instance, I have a gaming PC that is multiple orders of magnitude more powerful than it should need to be to play one of the games that I dearly love in concept but not in practice, The Last Spell. But my PC, for

some reason, can't run it because it immediately drops the frame rate to like sub 25
for no discernable reason. and I can't make it not do that even at the most aggressively terrible settings for this pixelbased turnbased game. So perhaps if Steam is collecting information about resource utilization in games, they will be able to feed that back to developers. And of course, I have every confidence that this will be an optin system that you will be able to say, "No, please do not collect my data." Steam is pretty good about that. They're generally asking for volunteers when they're doing stuff like this. I'm very confident that privacy will be respected and you can opt in or out as you choose. So, I think it's an interesting project and I think it's another thing that I'm glad to come to Steam.
Yeah. I it it it'll be interesting if it if it actually does what it says in the tin once it actually is released.
Yeah. Um, I love I love I love I just

absolutely love the number of people who are trying to justify their open tabs rather than closing their open tabs.
Sometimes you need a tab open, Will.
Yep. Uh, okay. Last and by no means least, uh, a story that is here specifically as an excuse for me to geek out about Spire. Um, the Spy devs did one of their first interviews since Spy 2 entered early access and they have confirmed some things which we did not know and I'm so hyped for. They have confirmed that there will be more than five characters. Chad, Chad, I need to tell all of you that we were happy with five characters and they're like, "No, we're going to put more characters in the game."
Why not?
More than five characters in this game. There are also going to be additional modes to play the game, including one that is geared at being competitive. One of them is geared at being faster paced

if you don't have time, excuse me, to play a full Spire 2 run that doing more multiplayer stuff. Chat, I'm so excited. Now, you might be like, Will, why are you talking about this game? It's only like it's a $25 indie game. How relevant could it be? Oh dear friends, if I pull up on Steam DB the list of most played games on Steam right now, the top three are Counterstrike, Dota 2, and PUBG. And the fourth most played game on Steam globally is Slay the Spire 2, a $25 indie game about beating up a tower using cards. It's doing better than Crimson Desert or Rust or Arc Raiders or Grand Theft Auto or War Thunder. Like, it is incredible to see this game rising and they're just going

to keep improving. I really cannot wait to see where this goes.
It feels like um Spire is in a specific place right now. And again, as someone who does not play it, but even at PAX, there was a huge amount of hype about the board game.
Mhm.
And there was more cosplay. It like there was a ton of Spire cosplay there.
Um I was I was like more so than I think I saw more Spire than I did like Final Fantasy, which is interesting, right? There was a Halloween There was a um a Halloween cosplay meetup where it was the most Michael Myers in one place. They broke like a Guinness Book of World Records. Uh, which is which is hilarious. Uh, but yeah, there was just a ton of it there. So,
yeah.
Yeah, I think it's something that is permeating through a lot of different gaming. I will get to it eventually, but I got a I got a Platinum Returnal. Will I mean, come on.
Soros is coming out soon.
No, it's fine. I'm going to I'm going to be playing more
soon. TM
soon TM. Yeah, I will be playing more of it. Um, look forward to collabs on this

space. Uh, Matt, I actually have a I'm gonna ask you for a favor AT SOME POINT. OH, SHOOT. OKAY.
WELL, because I'm not in the I'm not in the Nebula Slack
and uh
Oh, you want just people who play over there if people play in Spire? Yeah, that's
I just I want to make more friends and play more Spire, Matt. That's all I want to do. That's easy peasy. That's what I want to do in my free time. So, we'll we'll we'll see. Um
we'll see how that goes. Uh but yeah, SP 2 is here to stay. It's a big name in gaming right now. Um, if you don't understand it and you want to come swing by the Twitch channel anytime, I'm probably playing a fair amount of it or playing with people or I'm always happy to talk about it. But I I it is truly baffling to me that it has stuck this long.
It's It's actually not baffling to me. Again, coming from coming, dare I say, we are in a timeline of media where the biggest things

are still making money, but they're not being I if they if they aren't built with a particular amount of I'll just use the the broad terminology of heart.
Yeah.
Uh they do not stick. Case in point, two major movies that have come out this week or not this week, in the last couple weeks. Project Hail Mary, dare I say, a perfect four quadrant movie made with a lot of love. Um, that is a large big budget thing that I feel like did have cultural sticking points for a couple weeks and felt like it was uh really in the space. Next, the Super Mario Galaxy movie. Again, I've heard it's fine, but I've also heard it's just wall-to-wall Tik Tok length references to things you might love. And again, that's a fine experience, but I don't think it's going to have um a a a it's not the that specific thing about Mario will not stick in the cultural zeitgeist. I think in in in specifically in the in the world of video games,

something like Spire, which did well with its first outing, right, uh was well known and now can be something that multiple people play together.
Yeah. is very it we are hungry in this space for experiences that allow not only us to to experience something new andor different than what we're used to but also to experience that thing together. I think that's honestly a reason why I gravitated towards night rain so much.
Yeah, I think that's true.
Um we are in a space where again I will tie it all back together. We want, even if we don't realize it, I think connectivity with other people in playing games. It's why I think uh board game and tabletop game conventions are doing better than video game conventions. It's why I think a lot of these games that you'd be like, how is this the third most thing played thing on Steam? It's because everyone's playing together and it's a good game and it gives you something a little bit different that's not the normal stuff that you get from the the regular old AAA space.

Yeah.
So, I don't know. I think uh I think it's endemic of the time we're in. We want something like this. We want something that feels original and collaborative and something that can build community much like much like Games for Breakfast that you've all joined us for today. So, thank you very much for that.
Exactly. So, Exactly. Exactly. So, and I think that means that all that remains to us here on Games for Breakfast is to really solidify that community to really crystallize this moment with Matt doing the same sign off we do every week. Uh because, you know, that's really one of the important moments that we use to like really, you know, bring this community together.
Exactly. Because you we what we want to make sure is that at the end of every episode of Games for Breakfast, we we we have everyone at the same time, Will included. He knows what's coming.
That's right. I
we have to we have to do the same outro cuz we're saying goodbye to each other until the next episode, which will be next week, by the way. I know we were off for a bit before this. We will be

back with Games for Breakfast next week. So, this will be a weekly thing for a while again. Um, and oh, also side note before I say goodbye and we all do the thing that we all know is going to be the exact same thing as every time. Thank you to the uh multiple people who have said things in chat that this is your first time watching live. Um, some people said they came over from the Nebula stream uh or the Nebula uh VOD that we get to upload over there and made it over here for the live stuff. So, we love seeing you there. We also love it when you're watching on Nebula. So, thank you very much because you can watch this whole long discussion with no ads anywhere. So, thank you no matter where you're engaging with us. We very much appreciate it. Uh, please message us on Blue Sky if you want to talk to us about any of the things we talked today. Uh, or you could on YouTube obviously tell us in the comments and we will get back to you over there. But, uh, yeah, I guess that's it. So, I guess the only thing is left is to say this goodbye, which we all know is coming every time. The MSRP for this episode of Games for Breakfast when you buy it on VCD is only $69.99 buckaroos. But if you actually

want to download that rip and get it onto your clicks player and or Betamax tape, all you have to do is Venmo Will's dog. Uh let's say 37 uh Flixel packs, but those are only coordinately available when you take the moola from when you downloaded it off of that iPod mini that was like left uncharged under your bed that you just had to like hook up with a lightning cable. What was before the lightning cable? I don't even know. But then you have to take that [music] piece of