What’s the truth about Nintendo Switch 2 sales?

This week, Epic lays off a thousand employees. We dive into numbers around Nintendo Switch, too. The VR industry reacts to the end of Horizon Worlds, and we celebrate our one-year anniversary. Hello, and welcome to the Game Business Show. We are officially one year old. It's been a fantastic ride so far. We've done 100 shows now. We've had over 3 million of you read or watch or listen to us. It's been an absolute delight. Um I have to say, it's been stressful at times, and ups and downs, and who knows if this is going to work, but I've enjoyed the learning process so much. But, and what I want to say is as much as I am the face of this, I'm not the only one that makes this this episode this this show happen. Um I have had fantastic support and advice from sort of fellow journalists and podcasters, but specifically, I want to make sure I give a shout-out to my producer, Richard Wilcox. Um I could not have gone through this year without him. Uh an absolute wonderful person, fantastic video editor, and and and producer, and

just been a completely essential part of the Game Business. I didn't call him out on my recent LinkedIn post around our our anniversary, but he's the behind-the-scenes reason this has worked, and and and you know, I just want to make sure that I I give him absolute credit on this. I've also obviously had support from Geoff Keighley. He's always been quick to reply to a text. He's always on the other end of a phone. He's been a fantastic backer of the Game Business. Um and lastly, we we had other support as well. We had um Alex Boucher, and he helped us secure sponsorships last year, and secured some vital financial support. But also, I got to say all the PRs and sort of people in the industry have given me this incredible access. I really don't take it for granted. Thank you for all those interviews. Um and hopefully hopefully they're worthwhile for you. And of course, thank you to our paying subscribers. And speaking of paying subscribers, we have a promotion going on right now for the people interested in supporting the Game Business. So, until April 1st, you can get 20% off a subscription to the Game Business. Now, that subscription gets you access to our

weekly show that we put out on a Monday called the Game Business Micro. It's a short version of the show. We discuss the news, share my views on those news, and that means you're well armed for the week ahead. That's the idea behind it. It comes out every Monday morning. It's becoming increasingly popular, which is great. And paid subscribers also get our monthly market report where we talk about how how the video game industry performed over the month prior. And also, you get access to our live events, too. If you're interested in going to the Game Business Live in LA and you're paying subscriber, you can register for no additional cost. It's part of your subscription. So, um all of those reasons is why you should consider uh subscribing to the Game Business. And best of all, right now, we're offering a 20% discount. So, you can find out how to get that discount by reading the newsletter or just by visiting the gamebusiness.com. It's all over that. We will be promoting it. It ends on April 1st. Right. Enough about us. As much as we'd love to celebrate our news, and I'm we're bound to talk about it a little bit more when our guest comes on in a moment. But we have a lot of big things to talk about, including these quite shocking

Epic job cuts. I have to say, it's quite a surprisingly brutal cut um going on there. We're also going to talk about the truth behind the performance of Nintendo Switch 2. I've got some data around how that's performing. And we're also going to talk about how the VR industry has reacted to the end of Meta's Horizon Worlds on the Quest store. And to discuss those topics, we're going to welcome back Stephen Totilo, the writer reporter at Game File. Um he was our very first guest host on the show way back in March 2025, and it's going to be exciting to have him back on 1 year later. But before we welcome Stephen, let's do the news. And the story that broke yesterday is that PlayStation has closed down Dark Outlaw Games. If you're not familiar with that studio, it's cuz new one. It was founded last year by former Call of Duty Zombies boss Jason Blundell. It's actually the second time Sony has parted ways with Blundell. He had been working on the project with them as part of Deviation Games, which was an independent studio. But, that game was canceled in 2024, and then Jason got hired by Sony. Sony is sort of cutting some studios at the moment. They closed Bluepoint

earlier in in the year, as well. Sony's first-party output has generally slowed down a little bit. There's a few reasons for that. Games just take longer to make, and and of course, they've been sort of pushing live service a little bit more. They're still putting out projects, though. It just released Marathon, obviously, from Bungie. That was a big, big play. They had Ghost of Tsushima out in October. It does seem to be focusing on these bigger projects these days. I have to wonder with changes in the competitive landscape, perhaps there's less pressure for Sony to ramp up its development output. And by that, I mean, if Xbox is putting all their games on PlayStation, what's what's the incentive to try and sort of match um Xbox's output, for instance? I'm sure that's not the case. I'm sure it's just a very competitive video game landscape, where ultimately games find it hard to succeed, and decisions need to be made if a game isn't quite working out in development. But, obviously, cuts are always disappointing. Um speaking of disappointing news and cuts, got a couple of stories here. TIGA. Now, if you don't know who TIGA are, they're the UK trade association that specialize in the development side of the industry. They're calling on the UK government to respond to what it says is the sharpest record decline in the country's game

development sector. And they they did this report with Making Games in the UK. Employment has fallen at the fastest rate ever measured, and startup activity has dropped to a 15-year low. UK game development sector lost 1,537 jobs, a 4.5% drop, which is the fastest rate of decline ever recorded, and the first time since 2011 that numbers have declined instead of grown. And another trade body said that the number of new studios formed also fell 30%. That's for a third year in a row. There are now 2,110 game studios in the UK. That's down from a peak of 2,175 in 2023. Um and what TIGA says would solve this is if the UK government could enhance the video games expenditure credit, which is the tax relief that the UK team offers on video games. It's not just the US having a hard time. It's it's affecting things everywhere. Um speaking of hard times, we talked about this actually on the micro this week, Ubisoft's Red Storm Entertainment will cease making video games. Um, that's going to result in 105 jobs lost. The studio will remain open working on the Snowdrop engine and handling some other services such as customer relations. Now, Red Storm is an iconic

studio. It was made to work on Tom Clancy games in 1996. Ubisoft picked it up in 2000. It launched Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon. It's part of Ubisoft's roster studios. It was working on a Splinter Cell game, a VR game um, two a few years ago. It was working on a expansion to The Division. Both of those are Tom Clancy games. Not an expansion, sort of a spin-off to The Division. That was canceled as well a few years ago. It's part of Ubisoft's goal to save 500 million euros between March 2023 and March 2028. I have to say, it's a slow cut all of this going on. In January, Ubisoft closed its Stockholm and Halifax studios. A few weeks later, it announced plans to cut 200 jobs from its Paris division. There was also cuts at Ubisoft Abu Dhabi, Red Lynx, and Massive Entertainment. In February, it cut 40 jobs at Far Cry 6 and Splinter Cell developer Ubisoft Toronto. This month, it's been Red Storm. I'm not sure this gradual death by a thousand cuts is the best way to boost the business. Morale must be extremely low. I I think there's just an element of how easy is it to make really successful games when they when the staff are fearing the axe all the time. I did talk about this a little bit more on the micro this week. But,

uh, yeah, it's death by a thousand cuts over at Ubisoft. Uh, this is slightly better news. Crimson Desert, which is that highly anticipated open world RPG, it launched last week. It received mixed critical reviews. Shareholders panicked and the share price of developer Pearl Abyss dropped nearly 30%. Nevertheless, the game has sold very well. It's now on 3 million copies sold and that's caused its share price to go up again. 23%. Shareholders are a nervous bunch, but the game is doing very well, at least financially. Let's talk about numbers a little bit. Circana released their latest market figures last week. The US video game market generated $4.6 billion in spending during February. According to Circana, that's up 1% from last year. This was because of a few things. Resident Evil Requiem did incredibly well and there was a 27% boost in subscription services which, you know, all of that led to video game content being flat compared to February 2025. Hardware was up. That was because of Nintendo Switch 2 which obviously wasn't on the market this time last year. However, PlayStation 5 once again led

the hardware market in both units and revenue. I have to say a 1% increase isn't a lot and when you think about how much of that increase is down to just a few things, Switch 2, Resident Evil and subscription services, that suggests that everyone else had a slightly harder time. We will have our market report out soon that you can subscribe as well and we'll dive into that a bit more. Speaking of better financial news, CD Projekt posted strong financial results. Revenue reached $235.2 million which is a 9% year-on-year increase. Overall profit rose 33.7% to $161.4 million. Cyberpunk 2077 was the big revenue generator for this. Revenue was up 12% on that game which has helped along with the Nintendo Switch 2 edition of the title and the base game entering the PlayStation Plus subscription service. So the idea is the game was in the subscription service and then people may have bought the add-ons on top of that. The developer also they invested over $140 million in game development last year. That included an unannounced IP but also The Witcher 4 which everyone's very excited about and Cyberpunk 2.

So good news there for you CD Projekt. Very very good news there. And I'll end with this drama which is Krafton versus the Unknown Worlds former leadership team. Krafton now must reinstate Unknown Worlds CEO Edward Gill and extend the terms on which his team can secure a $250 million bonus. This is the latest development in this ongoing dispute between Krafton and the leaders of Unknown Worlds which includes Edward Gill and Charles Cleveland and Adam McGuire. This is a big deal because Subnautica is a big game. Subnautica 2 is currently the most wish listed game on Steam. It has over 4 million wish lists. Now Krafton acquired Unknown Worlds in 2021 and Unknown Worlds was supposed to release Subnautica 2 into early access in 2025. And there was a a big bonus attached to that, that $250 million bonus. The leaders of Unknown Worlds are accusing Krafton trying to avoid paying out on that bonus by forcing a delay to the game. This led to a really big back and forth with legal letters and courts. Krafton accusing them of downloading company files and all sorts of things. Um now the Delaware Chancery Court has judged in favor of the Unknown Worlds

leadership and stated that Krafton breached the agreement by terminating their employment without valid cause and by improperly seizing operation control of the developer. Now, that means they Krafton have to reinstate the CEO who isn't really talking to them. It's it's it's a it's a doesn't seem like a sustainable situation. Krafton said, "While we respectfully disagree with today's ruling, we are evaluating our options as we determine our path forward. Today's ruling does not resolve the former executive's claim for damages or an earnout related to Subnautica 2. With further litigation still pending in the meantime, Krafton's immediate focus remains unchanged, delivering the best possible game to Subnautica fans." That's the news. You may have seen I missed a few things there, including about Nintendo and and the apparent cut in production for Switch 2. We also didn't talk about Epic's layoffs, but we will because I'm about to welcome our guest today. He is the reporter, the founder, the creator, the face behind the excellent Game File newsletter, a long-term partner, friend of The Game Business. It is Stephen Totilo. Hello,

Stephen. Welcome back to the show. Delightful to have you back. It's 1 year Well, you've actually been on since then as well, but 1 year ago, almost exactly to the day, since you were our first ever guest. Um how have you been?
Thank you for Thank you for bringing me back, Chris. It's a congratulations to you on the year of The Game Business. It's been fantastic to see um how you've built it in a in in a relatively short time.
It's I don't know if you had this. I know that you did similar things I guess at Axios and stuff before then, but I felt um I've learned I get such a thrill out of learning things and working out how to do video. I think somebody said to me the other day what was the thing I was most proud of in the last year. And it's a weird thing, but it was the fact I had to I went to see Shigeru Miyamoto, president of Sega. The interview was good, I think.
It was.
But what is something about that is I turn up to that, I didn't have my producer with me, Richard. Um I had to turn up with with tripods and cameras and set it up in a room. I'd never done anything like it before and interview this really senior person in video games and it came out really well. I mean, if

you watch it, like my head's a little bit too close to the top of the camera and there's loads of little bits that an expert would would pick at. But that for me was like just learning this stuff has just been um it's just been a thrill, really. I don't know if you have that when you did Game File, but that's what's been really motivating from my side.
Yeah, I mean, everything is a crash course. I think for me the the most startling thing to have to learn and deal with with with Game File, which is now going on for about two almost two and a half years, is the fact that I distribute over email as obviously a lot of people read the game business over email and realizing I mean, I had a little bit of this at Axios, but realizing how basically once it's out, you can't take it back. You can't bring it back to fix it. Um you know, I had a copy editor at Axios. So they can, you know, if I made a mistake the I you know, they would catch most of the mistakes. But being solo and trying to go from writer brain to self-editor brain, self-copy editor brain, and then self-publisher brain, putting that out there, I would, you

know, run into all these moments where I'm like, "Ah, I forgot this step. I forgot to change the URL." Or the headline isn't the right headline that I really wanted to put or the social copy was wrong or I got a fact wrong and I have to, you know, do I now send an update to readers?
Yeah. I'm sure you've never had that problem, right? You Every every edition you've sent out of the game business has been pristine, perfect, and flawless, correct?
Of course. I mean, I get called a Fallout 76, Fortnite 76 and the in like in like the strap. So yeah, no, I've done a few of those. I used to work in print. I used to work, you know, I did weekly magazines. And you had to you turn them out really. There's only four of us. And some of those issues were like 100 pages long. And we'd turn those out super fast. And once we called caught media media used that horrible thing where you just want to press undo and you can't. They see it sort of disappear off.
Have you messed up enough that you've ever emailed a correction? I don't feel like I've ever gotten one from you.
Um
I wonder if you've ever like gotten that close to considering oh I got I got to send something out.

I happen to if I got like a major fact wrong, I think. And there's been times when I've had interestingly the topic that I'm going to bring about today on today's show. I've done things which haven't gone down well. Right? So and and it's like well, was I was I too was I too much with it? The angle I took on this was it a little bit too fierce? Had I not fully considered the variables? It's the thing with this industry. It's so you think you think this looks bad. You know, you saw this Bloomberg report recently about Nintendo and and the the reduction from 6 million to 4 million which we're going to talk about in a moment. But actually those production tweaks ups and downs is quite common. And it's if I was a journalist writing that story I was like I don't know how significant this really is. Like how how much of a of a thing is and sometimes I put something out and you know, maybe I over egged it. Or I at least I haven't done it deliberately but maybe in hindsight I have. But then I just talk about it later on in a different show. I sort of course correct it.
Can I So you know, you send you said you sent out

you did 99 editions of the show when you wrote your your your sort of address to readers about the state of the game business. Over 100 articles sent out. I'm curious what were the big what were some of the biggest surprises of the things that people were more interested in than you thought they would be? Where you're like okay this this I thought this was going to be like a small thing or this is a thing I worked on for half an hour and it was one of my biggest things.
The biggest is the number one feature {slash} video edition of the show is with Jag X. And I have to say when I put it out I thought it was a filler episode.
Yeah, that surprised me when I saw that in your rankings.
It's really surprised me and um you know it doesn't surprise me that um uh the Patrick Söderlund and Bart one was so popular. That didn't surprise me at all and but it did surprise me that the Jag X one was.
And actually the lines of service ones have
done I think perhaps cuz it goes to the cuz obviously I'm I'm aiming my pieces at business people but every now and again you do something on RuneScape it gets into the RuneScape community.
Mhm.
Do something on World of Warcraft it gets into the World of Warcraft

community. And watching that sort of um spiral into deep conversation has been the most surprising. What surprises me one of the questions I always ask because the strategy behind the game business is however you want to if you're somebody listens to stuff you can listen to it. If you like to watch it you can watch it. So whenever I come across someone particularly if they say they listen or watch I'm like okay, you got to have tell me how, when, what's the scenario you're in. And a lot of it like six out of 10 I think um we did a little Gamescom thing me and Richard did. Um and it was um it's when they're walking the dog.
The dog walkers, yeah.
But I've had I I don't know if I should name them because I I you know it wasn't wasn't like it was on the record or anything but I had a very very very big name in the industry US games industry come up to me at the Game Awards, introduce themselves to me. I hadn't met them before. It was a very nice time and they told me that they watch the show a lot. I went oh, question, where do you
Mhm.
where do you how do you watch? And they said on TikTok. And that was when I I was and I was like I'm going to put a little bit more

effort into TikTok going forward now. But it is but it all of that stuff surprised me and
We're on somebody's TV right now, right? Didn't you say that you you are The Game Business? Hello to whoever has put us on the television.
There's there's a there's a very very senior person at Xbox who um every now and again will say I'm watching the latest show and he would just put a picture of him He would take a picture of himself and the background is this giant like I don't know how big the big the TV and it's huge and it's just my huge face on his on his screen. Um and it's that stuff always I that's cuz I still When I launched, I have to be honest, I hoped this would be the case, but I was ready to pivot fully to newsletters. That was my I was I was in that mindset that that's probably what we'll do, but we'll try this. And I'm pleased that people do engage in it in different ways and that's been pretty good.
I I have one more question just about this is that I don't have a dog, so I don't know how long a dog walk takes and how close you are optimized to dog walking length, but it sounds like that's successful. Do you have a dog? Like how long do
I don't I take it How long do you take the Okay, so that's a good question. I

and that's probably a piece of Maybe that maybe cuz I do two episodes a week, maybe they do it over like multiple
I Yeah, I don't
I don't know. The new show's about an hour, but the new the feature show's about 30 minutes, so it's And then if you watch the micro, that's um 15 to 20 minutes, which is only for paying subscribers to the micro, but um
I love the micro.
So I don't know. That's a good question. Maybe that's my next one rather than just asking them, you know, where and how like how long is your dog walk?
Well, according to our dogs, 10 years 10 years ago, so this is old information. There may be new science in dog walk lengths, but according to our dogs, how long do you walk exercise your dog? People are saying 45 to 60 minutes. Oh, this is running off the leash. Okay, that's not what we wanted. Adult dogs, this is from Woofie's website. This is the first things from Google. Adult dogs typically need at least 30 to 60 minutes of walking per day. So you know, you're on the upper end of the dog walk length right for you with your episodes, but that's good.
Yeah. Perfect. I'm the perfect
This is like Sorry, Xbox executive watching this on your television. You want You want video game business talk, we're getting there. We just had to talk

about dogs first.
Phil Spencer told me once that he listened He listened to at least one episode on the treadmill. So I'm like and he told me the name of the episode and I thought, "Well, that's a good old run there, Phil. Well done." It was a He watched the listen to the whole thing. Um How and how things going at Game File? It's I'm always I loved I know that there's all these new these big breaking stories which are fantastic, but I do love it when you do things about fonts.
Yeah, the fonts of PlayStation. Yeah, I mean that was news in the sense that it was a talk from GDC and I had a good time at GDC ran into you which was a pleasure as always and I like to go to some of the panels and just find interesting stuff that people are talking about. So, the installment of Game File that you're talking about was about some folks from the centralized creative services team at PlayStation about fonts and branding for Destiny 2 and the Horizon series and that was just interesting to learn some of their process. And then I just did a story this week that I thought was

The AI one.
Intriguing and maybe harrowing for some folks as you're reading this. Um, Definitely something that I imagine many subscribers to the Game Business will be interested in which is a company called Ecomark that is using AI, machine learning and other advanced technology to try to basically stop leaks. They're the guy who did it who runs the company Troy Batterberry was previously at Microsoft for a quarter century, but he'd been working in missile defense and so he's got a lot of thoughts about classified information and military secrets and stuff. And so they've come come up with a bunch of different techniques so that if there's a company email, if there is a summary presentation about a game or even if there's a game itself with footage that there's ways to create unique identifiers that are imperceptible to any individual person but would make each copy of something identifiable to their systems and so I wrote a bit about that and I just you know, you see so many different ways that people are saying AI is going to change gaming and when I saw this on the GDC schedule that AI could maybe stop

video game leaks. I'm like that's very provocative. I need to go check that out and I'm so fun stuff like that. It's always fun to find these stories.
You died the I sort of look at the headlines of those those talks and I go yeah not for me but then you you just dive in a little bit deeper and you find these little gems. It's really good.
Yeah.
Um
Yeah.
I really I I enjoyed the AI one. In fact it made me think that that's something that I might look to cover at some point. Obviously Game File is my number one crossover audience so I know that there'll be lots of people here that you know know exactly what we're talking about. But there's one of these stories I didn't talk about before you came on which was epic.
Yeah.
Because I know that you did a thing talked about it yesterday.
Yeah. For me it was quite shocking that the scale of this um layoffs and and cuts that they're making.
Right.
Um Epic have laid off a thousand employees
Right.
from their business and that they're together they're making um over 500 million dollars of identifiable cost savings in contracting marketing and closing some open roles. The reasons that they gave for this is you know the industry-wide challenges of slower growth, the console market being down, and Fortnite having a bit of a tough time um it's certainly compared to they

had a fantastic 2024 Fortnite and 2025 was sort of a lot more hit and miss. Simpsons did well and whereas others did not. And that led to some cost but didn't didn't you discover that thousand is from 5,000 they have they had before this news?
Yeah. So the the thing that gets a little bit lost in some of these layoff stories is that we lose sight of what the hiring numbers were and it doesn't mean that the layoffs themselves are not significant um to the people involved or even to the company involved but um you're right. On Tuesday Epic said we're laying off a thousand over a thousand people and they didn't say out of what head count. I checked with the company and they said basically that they were at 5,000 people and the layoff of the thousand to bring them to just over 4,000 or over 4,000. I don't think they said just so over 4,000 people, right? So it's a 20% cut 5,000 to 4,000. But if you were good to go back and look at the most recent prior to that cut that was in 2023 and I think it was September when they announced when Tim Sweeney announced a cut of 830 people and at the

time they described that as 16% of the workforce. And if you did the math at the time, it implied that their head count was around just over 5,000, maybe 5,200 or so. In 2023, and if they cut it to just over 4,000. So, to put that just in order, in 2023, they go from over 5,000, they cut to over 4,000, and then just earlier here in 2026, they were cutting from over 5,000 to over 4,000. What you can infer from that is that between clean those cuts in 2023 and the cuts in 2026, they hired possibly as many people as they had let go in 2023. So, the head count of Epic had grown had regrown. After in 2023, they were like, "Well, we we we were too big." Well, they made themselves that big again. And then they found themselves in a spot where, based on how they decide things, they were like, "No, we have to cut."
Yeah. It's difficult to know with Epic. They always seem to be doing so well, but I always think with them they have always They're fighting the biggest companies. And whether that's in the

courtrooms with Apple and Google, or whether it's sort of competitively against Steam, or competitively against Roblox. I mean, they don't do anything really small in any way. And these things are These are almost impossible behemoths to try and take down and try and impact. And they have to spend so much money in order just to make a dent in these markets. And And you know, they're not they're not winning against Steam, you know. Epic store has grown and they've And it's doing very well, but it is Well, it's not It's grown. But the Steam has grown more. And then you've got Unreal Editor for Fortnite hasn't quite caught on in the way that I think that they had imagined or had hoped.
Right.
And then you've got the Google deal, which every time I talk to a mobile developer about that deal Epic's done, I just get like a shrug. We did that in to a scope plea this week, and I asked them how big a deal is this, you know, better you know, cheese you're getting from Google. And he his literal response was, "Uh it was like And it's And it's And so, Epic are doing all of this effort, spending all of this money, putting all this energy into these things and um I imagine it it can it's just costly. And

yeah, they have to sort of redeploy. Yeah, when I interviewed Tim Sweeney when I interviewed Tim Sweeney a few years ago and asked him about how much money they'd spent on a legal battles, I think he the quote he said was that it cost them about a billion dollars in his estimate. That was I assume a matter of combination of legal fees and lost revenue from just having cuz basically they took themselves off of iOS by putting, you know, putting in their own payment systems and basically breaking Apple's terms of service and then, you know, filed a legal battle against them. They are fighting, as you said, a lot of the biggest companies. They also though are partnering with many of the biggest companies. So it was only 2024 that they announced that Disney was making an equity investment of over a billion dollars into Epic.
Yes, of course.
They have big deal with the LEGO company that we've seen manifest in some projects and I believe others I think are still supposed to be forthcoming. They have major investment obviously from Sony, from Tencent which has you know, big stake in them. We don't know when you talk about kind of the opacity of their their finances, we

don't know what these stakeholders are expecting.
Right.
And and if there is any pressure from those stakeholders in terms of Epic's books, there's constant speculation about Epic potentially considering going public and then what do you want your finances to look like if you were to do that? I don't have any inside information as to whether that's something they have planned. But another thing that I think about, Chris, is The Simpsons. Last fall, Epic introduced a basically a redo of Fortnite, a whole new Fortnite Island completely themed from The Simpsons. This was years in the making. It was arguably one of the best Simpsons video game experiences ever created. Obviously they had to pay licensing to Fox and whoever else you have to pay to get the access to The Simpsons. And it lasted a month.
I know.
And they removed it. And there is a philosophy around live service games where you move things from one thing to the next, but you do sometimes lock in certain modes, notably

by the way they were canceling or winding back a couple of modes as part of the the cuts this week. Ballistic is going away. One of the rhythm experiences and other experience. But I wonder had did they leave money on the table by not continuing this Simpsons experience? Are they in some cases not just not building some things that they should be building, but at least in this one case did they take something apart, dismantle something that they should have kept going, and is there something flawed about I don't know the way that they're managing some of the some of the content or some of the creation.
Well, I think we forget sometimes how difficult it is even for these live service games because we we talk about how they suck all the time out of the market and they're causing a challenge for the rest of the industry, but it's a challenge for them as well. As the rest of the industry tries to come up with innovative and new ideas and big games Right. That can take people away from Fortnite. Fortnite then has to do the same thing to keep them. And then you get then you raise the bar, which obviously is good

for consumers. But you talk about the Simpsons thing was excellent, and they followed that up. I'm trying to get my timeline right with that Kill Bill crossover partnership thing they did with Quentin Tarantino, which I don't know if that did much for them. Um and then they did a Harry Potter promotional thing around some items and stuff near near Christmas around their Christmas and promotions around Fortnite. Um the numbers I've I've looked at the numbers before, and you know, December was is always their strongest month, and it and it was as well. But you do I do have to wonder if it was just two months of Simpsons, would that have been a bigger thing? You know, did those other things was the investment they put into that worthwhile? And I think that's when that's a question I think we always we all have as individuals in this industry. We have to ask ourselves, is it worth the energy? Is it Are we better off making You know, the Simpsons thing, as you write, was so huge, and it was so strong. You compare it even the South Park thing they did. Why why don't I keep it around? People like it. Like the sort of saying like Well, I they do tend to they do bring it back though, don't they sometimes? They do go right, we're taking it away and then it comes back like, you know, a year down the line or 6 months down the line and stuff. So, I

guess there's that opportunity.
Sure.
But yeah, it But I do wonder if my slightly old-fashioned way of looking at video games that I just wanted I'm I'm a great example cuz I only I only touched The Simpsons Fortnite thing once very briefly. My plan was to go back to it and by the time I got round to it, it'd gone. And that is the particularly for interesting cultural thing like that cuz that appeals older, right? Cuz it's you know, we we talk about Fortnite being for the for the sort of teen audience. And The Simpsons is is an iconic, you know, iconic series, but I do wonder if um it that's something that dads were doing with their children or moms are doing their children and things, but
know that right, that that's the most cutting-edge thing for them to be working on, but there have If you compare like what what what is The Simpsons based on, right? Well, you know, maybe it was initially a comic strip, but it's but it's a it's a TV show that's had over 30 seasons. They didn't run one season and say, "That's enough. We're moving on." They kept it around, whereas we see this manifestation in the video game of Well,

it's here for a month and then it's gone. Now, another thing that's notable I think about how Fortnite is being managed and and part of what was interesting about Tim Sweeney's note on on on Tuesday was him saying we haven't done well enough to create Fortnite experiences that excite people, you know, whatever that's code language for in terms of having some seasons that have flopped or or whatnot. Um but there's been a lot of talk about the fact that the video game Peak just got a skin in in Fortnite and Peak is very much the kind of where gaming is actually at right now, right? In that it's you know, so-called friend slot gaming. It is a game that only costs, you know six to eight dollars when you when you buy it you know I interviewed one of the co-creators of it and it came in earlier in the year and he had the $8 is $5 quote that
That's all correct.
And and of course this skin costs more than that but what I think one of the things that I think are some people taking note of was just the kind of game

that they were making a Fortnite skin about. So much of what we have seen in terms of Tim Sweeney and and Epic's view view of the metaverse has been about brands for people of our generation recognizable people of our generation. So whether it's Star Wars, Transformers, Simpsons that we just discussed. Yes, there are some younger skewing ones that K-pop Demon Hunters was in there recently, right? Um but the I think it was, right? Was there K-pop Demon Hunters or am I making that up? Am I willing that into existence?
I I think I'm pretty sure.
Um but um PEEK is PEEK is like a game for like the youth, right? And they have Yes, there was a K-pop Demon Hunters. Um PEEK is a like a game that like younger people are playing. It is what a lot of you know these big companies wish they had the agility to create and to see Fortnite tap into that to me is a sign of them saying, "Okay, this is some of the zeitgeist that we need to be pulling in not just the things that block you know blockbuster movies are based on or that

you know this sort of old guard entertainment giants are producing but we need to bring in things that are from that more kind of popping up out of nowhere indie spirit kind of creations certainly at least in the video games. And I think that's that's that's that's an intriguing acknowledgement by them of sort of where the excitement is and that and what excitement they want to be associated with.
One of the things that came out of that recent Epic Store update back in January was that Epic Store games can now if you buy a game on an Epic Store you can get like a skin or an item or or something in Fortnite.
Right.
I mean they have done it in the past with games like Borderlands and Alan Wake, but they did it with Resident Evil Requiem. The plan was to like get to a point where they're doing 100 of those a year. Yes. A part of me does worry that's a lot. That's a lot of a um promotional items being flooded into that game. I don't play Fortnite enough to know if it's a problem, but you know what was shocking me to I was shocked to me about that 500 million dollar cuts um number in there in their blog. That's I

think about the same as what Ubisoft are looking to cut over 5 years between 2023 and 2028. Put that into context.
And that's in addition to the 1,000 over 1,000 people being laid off. They said that the 500 million Epic did would include you know, contract work that they would be ending um roles they wouldn't be hiring. So, maybe they maybe they had a job listing out there that pays 100 million dollars. So, that's just one one one one job.
Um but but for the most part, no. It's it's a That's a good question as to what that what that entails and what sort of curtailed ambitions that indicates. So much of Epic's business in theory should be a money machine, whether it's the Unreal Engine, which in theory is some you know, architecture that so many developers would need to use to create new games, or you know, Fortnite just having such a massive player base that in theory you could figure out how to make good money out of it. And there's obviously skepticism and pushback, right? My my LinkedIn feed is full of people who are you know, who were laid

off by Epic um who are in shock. I you know, feel horrible for those folks.
Mhm.
I see articles um you know, in various gaming outlets talking about the credentials of some of the people who were laid off and a fair number of them sound you know, quite integral to the development of Fortnite past and present. And so, there's I think a lot of questions about was this necessary? What does this mean uh for you know, how the company is being managed and questions being raised about that. And I can't make those judgments myself, but I think it's worth acknowledging the employees' your frustration and and bewilderment as to some of what's happened.
It's It's very easy in the US if you need to make cuts to make the cuts, and if you need to hire back, you can hire back.
Yeah.
Um where, you know, because of the way the employment laws uh work, it's a lot harder to do that in the in Europe, and it's even harder to do that in places like Japan. And so, the you know, the early data you pointed out of them basically having hired back all the people they laid off in 2023, you know,

at least close to that. Maybe they I don't know. It's all speculation, isn't it?
Yeah, that's the head count, and we don't know the locations, right? And so, when we see when we see head counts being replenished, Electronic Arts had been laying off 5% of its workforce year after year, 2023, 2024, and then your head count kept going up. But what was less clear when I reported that story last year was where are they hiring and when they replenish. And that, I think, could potentially really tell the story of what actually happens when you see these shifts in head count. Let's talk about Nintendo.
This is a topic that I keep getting a lot of I mean, if you get dragged into console war conversations, I'm trying to I'm I've started to avoid ever engaging in them anymore. Um but I get I get dragged into it sometimes, and I try not to.
So, the console wars were ended?
Well, that's what I thought.
that was one of the Trump wars that was ended.
Immediately.
You'd think so, wouldn't you? But apparently um everyone still needs to compare Metacritic scores between first-party PlayStation and Xbox studios. Apparently, it matters.
Yeah.
Um there There are mixed messages around just how well the Nintendo Switch 2 is performing. Um we know it had this

record-breaking launch. Um it's still trending above pretty much every games console ever in terms of sales. It's actually in the US, it's the number two fastest-selling games device of all time behind the Game Boy Advance. Um Nintendo raised expectations. Its projections um its its initial projections were quite low, but they raised them, and they still look set to hit those hit those numbers they rose it to.
Right.
They're still having some hit games. The Switch 2 exclusive Pokkén Tournament um has 2.2 million copies in just under a week, which is a fantastic result for a spin-off Pokémon game.
Mhm.
But then came we did we started this in a way. We sort of did a report that said that Switch 2 in the West had a relatively soft Christmas. And what I did was comparing the first Christmas of Switch 2 to the first Christmas of Switch 1. It was over November and December. It was 30% down in the US.
Yes.
Um, then came Nintendo's comments during its own financials where it revealed that its international sales were somewhat weaker than expected. So, that's sales outside of Japan. And then came Bloomberg's report that said Nintendo has reduced production of

Switch 2 units temporarily down from 6 million to 4 million. Um, naturally, the internet is black and white on this. So, either the Switch 2 is the new Wii U and is on the cusp of collapse or or you're talking about it's going to be the best-selling games console ever.
Right.
There's no middle ground in this conversation. But I I thought I had there's so many numbers out there. I thought I'd actually dive into it. I've talked to so many people about it over the last month or so.
Okay.
I- Nintendo Switch 2 is doing well. I think it's worth it's worth, you know, making that absolutely clear. For the first 9 months on sale in the US, Switch 2 is 45% up over Switch 1. And it's even 29% up over PS5. That's in the US. That's Circana. In Japan, Switch 2 has shipped just over 4.8 million units in 9 months, just over 9 months. By comparison, it took 17 months for Switch 1 to hit the same number. So, it is doing really well, but the concerns don't come from nowhere. Um, I gave those statistics about how Nintendo's sales have softened. At the

beginning of this year, if you take January and February this year, Switch 2 sales were about 20% lower than Switch 1 managed to in January and February 2018. Those stats from Circana, about 45% up for the first 9 months. It's worth remembering the first 9 months of Switch 1 takes you to the beginning of December. Whereas the first 9 months of Switch 2 takes you to the beginning of March.
Mhm.
And that means therefore Switch 2 sales include its first full Christmas, where Switch 1 sales doesn't include its December.
Right.
So, so there's a the like-for-likes aren't aren't entirely um fair. Um there is some signs of some softening, but obviously a lot of the concerns, I think, are around what's going on around the Switch 2. So, you've got um the cost of living crisis and the impact that's having on disposable income. We had um Matt Piscatella on uh he did a presentation at the Game Business Live in June last year. And he showed a lot of survey data that's the kind of had 44% of consumers were cutting back on non-essential items such as games due to concerns around rising prices of essential items like food. Right. And

46% also they were putting off big purchase due to concerns about the economy. So, you've got that wider, you know, economic impact. There's some some people who might have wanted a Switch 2 can't get one. Obviously, then you've got that other issue coming from the other way where Nintendo uh have to deal with these rising component prices and these component costs, which means they're given almost very little room to be able to add value or do anything with price or anything like that to try and alleviate those concerns. So, that
Right.
That's the big macroeconomic issues. Um and I've got I've had it on the show before. I'm not entirely convinced Switch 2's had a particularly strong lineup of games. I don't know how you I don't know if you're a big Switch 2 player, Stephen.
Um a little less than I expected to be, but I don't know how much that has to do with the software lineup as it has to do with some some some some ways it has or hasn't fit into my kids' gaming appetite.
Mhm.
My kids got, you know, into playing games that a few years ago that really radically changed sort of what the TV is used for and while the Switch can be played off TV, so I thought the all of

us were going to be super excited about it because we certainly played a lot of Switch games over the last few years. And they have played Mario Kart World a lot. My son loves Dragon Drive. Um but like Pokémon Picopia, we've only been playing very slowly as they've been distracted by other things, for example. And Duck Hunt Bonanza made my my my son nauseous, so
Did it?
Yeah.
No, wow.
Apparently some players are kind of when they're sort of digging underground with the kind of get disoriented.
Oh.
You know, the same way that FPS's can can can nauseate kids. Chris, my theory all along is that the Switch 2 is going to be the 3DS, which fits into your like it's not going to be the Wii U, you know, that's the bleakest view, and it's not going to be a Switch again, which is or the DS, which would be another sort of phenomenal level system or the or I guess the Wii. The 3DS was technologically superior in all ways to the DS. It was if you were to make a checklist of all the ways that you would want the Nintendo DS to be improved, the 3DS did those and then some. Some people

didn't care for the glasses-free 3D, but you could turn it off. Um and the system came out. It had ultimately a very good lineup throughout its history. Early on, the system was prohibitively expensive to the point where the then CEO of Nintendo Satoru Iwata apologized, took a pay cut if I remember correctly. They cut the price significantly within the first several months of the system's launch. They created ambassador pro an ambassador program, which was kind of a make good for people who'd paid early, where they got exclusive access to some retro games that were never otherwise offered 3DS players to regular 3DS shoppers. That system got a lot of different physical iterations and got a lot of great games. The Super Mario 3D Land was particularly good. Link Between Worlds was a fantastic 2D Zelda. And it had a great Animal Crossing, great Mario, you know, some really really strong games. Yet just could not reach the phenomenal level of sales of the Nintendo DS. Why?

I would say because the DS caught lightning in a bottle and it managed to catch it in multiple times. It caught it with Nintendogs, a virtual pet game that was quite a sensation. They caught it with Brain Training/Brain Age, which really helped cross the DS over to a mainstream audience who began to use it. Um I think people might have trouble or kind of remembering this moment in history. Um they use it as a lifestyle device because this was prior to the ubiquity of lifestyle apps on smartphones. So, you could create at the time crossword puzzle program for the Nintendo DS or cooking recipe program for the DS. And people who would otherwise never buy a game system were buying the DS, holding it book style, and and and checking recipes. You had the phenomena uh you know, with the DS again, brain training, Nintendogs, but also like a really strong Mario Kart game, Mario Kart 7. And if that sounds familiar in terms of catching lightning in a bottle multiple times, that's the story of the Switch one, right? It's the story of Breath of the Wild, an all-time game in its first

year, of Super Mario Odyssey, an all-time grand game in its first year, and eventually Animal Crossing: New Horizons, one of the ultimate crossover games of all time to the mainstream, released in 2020. Those kinds of
Right as COVID hit as well.
Right. Those kinds of lightning in a bottle, lightning strikes three times, whatever cliche you want to use, that doesn't happen for most companies, even for one system. It's happened for Nintendo for a couple of systems with the Wii and the DS and any and the Switch. Um I don't think it's unreasonable to imagine that it's not going to happen for the Switch 2, and that the best the system might be able to do is like a respectable healthy, enjoyable run, but not the phenomenon that it's being measured against. There's a few reasons.
I think you're right. I think it's worth noting Nintendo handhelds typically do between 80 and 100 million. There are There is the Game Boy that did 110 million, but that was on the market for a long time.
Yeah.
And then you've got the DS, which, you know, did 150 million. But actually, you

know, the 3DS wasn't too far off what the Game Boy Advance did. And this if people forget Switch is a handheld. People compare it to the Wii U, but you should really be comparing it to to the 3DS and the DS. I think you're completely right to do that. Where things are little different is Nintendo's IP are a lot stronger today than they even were in the 3DS era. Like Mario is a much bigger brand today than it was. Pokémon is even a bigger brand than it was. There's There were definitely opportunities to do slightly better than the 3DS, but I agree with you on sort of generally I think if I'm I if even at the beginning of the generation, I thought the likelihood of Switch 2 doing what Switch 1 did it was kind of unlikely, but I don't think it matters and certainly not even to Nintendo in its bottom line because I think Nintendo's biggest opportunity from a business point of view is digital. And you look at you look at the growth of PlayStation Xbox. Phil Spencer said this a few years ago, Xbox One was a more profitable generation and more more successful generation in terms of money than the Xbox 360 era despite the much smaller install base. And that's because of subscription and that's because of digital downloads. You think
Right. Right. Right.
If more people are digital downloading

on Xbox and they're doing it via the Xbox store, Xbox get a cut of that and and it all it's super it's super beneficial. Whereas when you get to Nintendo most people buy Nintendo games Switch 2 games, not just Nintendo games in a box. That's still the case in Europe as much as 80% of video game sales um are for on the phone Switch on the Switch and Switch 2 are sold via physical retailers. It's the opposite way around on on Xbox platforms and PlayStations. What more digital than physical a little bit lower than Xbox. Um and all you Nintendo have to do is start increa- working out ways to increase that. And you look at Pokkén Tournament which why there wasn't enough stock at retail, I'm not entirely sure. Was it retailers didn't book order it? Did Nintendo hold back on it? I'm not sure. But whatever the reason was, we saw that consumers if they couldn't access the game physically, they were happy to download it. And I think that's such a positive sign from Nintendo's point of view. Their subscription service is quite popular, but it's really low that low priced. There's opportunities for

them there to sort of increase their margins and generate more revenue which if they need to that isn't So, they can end up leading finishing this generation with let's say 8 and 100 million Switch 2 sales and still have had a more successful generation than Switch the one generation. Not all about that install base figure. There were a few sort of other statistics. I tried to dive into how well the Switch 2 is doing as a game in terms of games. It's impossible. It's impossible to work this out. And Nintendo sold in 30 basically 38 million Switch 2 games during its first 7 months. By comparison, it sold 27.5 million Switch 1 games during that's first 7 months. But, Switch 1 with much smaller install base for Switch 1. And actually, if you do a sort of in you know, you do a look at the attach rate, that works out 3.7 games for every Switch 1 unit sold and 2.2 games for every Switch 2 sold. Um but, that doesn't account Switch 1 games which of course are fully compatible Yeah. With Switch 2. When you start work start thinking, "Well, hang

on. Switch 1 they sold 100 million Switch 1 games in that period of time." You realize you don't have the data in which to back it up. It's worth noting as well cuz of Switch 2 Switch 1 not being backwards compatible with anything. If you wanted games for it, you had to buy a game for it. With Switch 2, you probably had some games that were just being you know, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet ran a lot better on on Switch 2 apparently. I've not tried it. Um so, there is there is there's that. It's It's getting It's just impossible to work out if if Switch 2 actually has had what the install base situation is like. Um I do have some data on third-party games, but not a huge amount because there's this myth that third-party games don't sell on Nintendo platforms. It's not quite true. Minecraft, Lego Hogwarts Legacy, Stardew Valley, Just Dance, Crash Bandicoot, they all do really well. It's even sports games do well on Switch plat on Switch games. And sometimes an adult game like The Witcher 3 or Grand Theft Auto the trilogy
Cyberpunk
Yeah, well, yeah.
Well, it's not entirely clear. It definitely boosted sales of Cyberpunk in the year.
Okay.
Um and but I saw the numbers came in and they were quite they weren't huge.

And it's all down to expectations. My feeling, and I have no data to back this up annoyingly, my feeling of people who bought Switch 2 at launch are probably people that already had access to other platforms. Cuz you're the sort of person that's buying that day one. So you've probably got a gaming PC or a PlayStation or Xbox.
Which means you've already already got access to Cyberpunk. You probably already got access to Star Wars Outlaws, Assassin's Creed Shadows, and Final Fantasy VII.
Mhm.
And I think that's going to impact the performance of these games.
Resident Evil Requiem was an interesting experiment obviously or interesting sort of case point because it is um it launched simultaneously on Switch 2 alongside other platforms. I've got I don't have too much data on this but I have some from Europe. And we can see that around it varies by country but around 5% of Requiem sales came on Nintendo Switch 2. Which is really low but I don't think anyone is expecting Switch to be the primary platform for that. And when you talk about 5% of a very high number of sales, that's still a decent that's still a decent number. Um, people buying Nintendo consoles for Nintendo games. I've always said that. So if you have to make a game that kind

of suits those sort of people and those sort of games. Um uh but um it's again, I have data about third-party sales. I have data about um software sales for Switch 2 but it's it's relatively inconclusive. I I can't really draw a conclusion.
think like, you know, when people are kind of wondering about how Nintendo is doing, you're right that there's a few different ways that people might talk about it. So there's the silly console war way where people just want to understand or or be able to tell themselves how well is Nintendo doing versus Sony and Microsoft to prove that Nintendo, you know, is smarter or or or or or more foolish than those companies. Uh people other people will compare it to its past and you're doing a very good job of showing that it's very challenging to actually compare how the Switch 2's performance rates against the Switch 1's performance. You didn't even mention the movie that's about to come out and so
I'm about to, yeah. you have
Um, hi.
You weren't. You were going to skip it. You forgot. Yeah, the the the fact that they've diversified their business so much more

in the last few years which I, you know, I know you've also been tracking that story quite closely. So, you have movies and theme parks and other merchandise that they have they've definitely expanded upon. Uh, changes probably what their their, you know, what kind of need they have in terms of revenue from the games themselves. They're competing with themselves, as you acknowledge with the fact that they have backwards compatibility on the Switch 2. So, um, how much do they care about number of copies of Switch 2 games that they're selling versus they're continuing to sell legacy Switch 1 games, where I imagine um, there's probably some pretty good profit margins on games whose development has been fully, uh, um, you know, paid for a long time ago. You have questions about some of their financial experiments that they're doing. Look at the Switch 2 editions. So, here this week we have a Super Mario Wonder getting a Switch 2 edition. So, we've had at least Have we had about half a dozen now uh, Switch 1 games that have gotten $10 add-ons of, uh, of of

questionable quality. People have not exactly been raving about the quality of these Switch 1 expansions, but maybe financially it's been lucrative for a Nintendo to to do those. So, there's quite a few variables to potentially look at. And I really think you can walk out of that with any conclusion you want.
No, but but they're doing
Tough. It's tough.
The Galaxy movies, what's the conservative estimates is 160 million over a 5-day opening weekend. That's what they expected. That's what that's the conservative estimates from Deadline.
What the box office would be or what Nintendo's take would be?
Box office. Okay. Um, the company obviously mentioned the Wonder game. That's such a quite interesting because, um, they've really That seems to be targeted. That seems to almost cynically targeted at the at the Galaxy movies. Got Rosalina, already Rosalina in the game who's from the film.
Right.
The film has the Wonder version of Bowser Jr. in it. It ties into the Wonder they've got.
Interesting.
Um they've brought in just a lot of family-friendly modes and multiplayer modes and assist modes aimed at sort of

a younger audience, I guess, which the movie might be speaking to.
Mhm.
I think that was I think that's quite an interesting um I I don't think it's going to, you know, I'm not expecting huge things from it, but I think it's an interesting uh Hey, cuz they didn't really have a tie-in product for the first Mario movie. They didn't really have one for the second one either, but they sort of adapted things they've got they've had already to try and suit that and I think that's um that's quite interesting. Ultimately, I I will I'll end by quoting Strauss Zelnick who was on the show 2 weeks ago and I talked about, you know, Roblox being a challenge to Nintendo and he just replied with, "I don't think anybody's throwing a benefit dinner for Nintendo anytime soon." And I went There we go.
Yeah, they're fine.
They'll be fine and hopefully their employees are fine. We talked about Epic and the cuts. I think a lot of there's a lot of respect that people have for the fact that Nintendo, even if things aren't always going quite as well as they want, seem to keep their teams together to give them another shot at something in a way that we don't necessarily see that happening for other game companies. Hopefully they continue that that approach cuz that does seem to benefit everybody long-term.

Yeah, and actually, you know, it's what it was his reasoning around that. He famously said that he doesn't think they'll get to create You can You can only create yourself out of trouble in this industry. You can only build really cool things and it's a lot ea- in Can you And that's the thing I worry about Ubisoft and these sort of endless cuts that are going on. How easy is it and how motivated are people to make really cool things when they're fearing the ax all the time? I don't know. Um and Nintendo's quite a small not small organization, but yes, um uh so any all the people that are predicting in This is the Wii U 2. It's not. Um Steve, I've taken up too much of your time. I was planning to keep this nice and short. Um but um I did have one last story and I'll keep it really short, which is the um uh the Meta's Horizon Worlds has come off um the VR store um which uh the Meta the Quest store. And um we talked about this on the show a couple of months ago. Um this is probably the one good news that the VR industry has had this year. Um Meta sort of scaling back on VR has been a real concern cuz so much of the VR industry is around the Quest and the Quest store. But actually over the last few years

it's been tough for the Quest store because it's flooded with Horizon uh Meta Horizon sort of experiences and content. You know, you Google you you Google sorry, you search for a game or Meta store, you end up getting a bunch of uh things from the Horizon um um store. And I got a few quotes from people in the VR industry. Cassia Curran, who runs um a VR agency, told me that it's really good news for discovery um uh uh the the the um the Meta store would highlight specific world worlds from Horizon Worlds taking up valuable storefront space and shunting out games and apps that were independent of the platform. Also quite annoying for most users, the default library layout would have random worlds listed in with their purchased games and apps without their wish and consent. And this was basically, you know, what she's saying is that this idea that Meta was based on a brute force Horizon Worlds into people's by doing this sort of thing. Um Alchemy Labs, who make Job Simulator, actually their their quote is I'm encouraged seeing Meta's focus on the commercial health of the store having the same goal between the platform and the studios is good for the long term health of the ecosystem. It's no longer

being used as a way to just brute force Horizon. Horizon's now moving to the mobile um experience rather than the VR experience. That was a quick story there. It's just it's just that the this this news story about them is um this has had a real potential benefit to the discoverability and and the store experience for um VR developers.
I think I think that's a, you know, that's that's a hopeful take by the by people in a sector of gaming that has certainly been uh you know, quite rocked by by events. You know, it's not that long ago that if you were an indie studio, the thing to do was to make a VR game cuz there was so much funding available to you. We saw that wave come and go. Uh we've seen, you know, some of the the true believers in VR stick around all while other trends, you know, web 3 gaming uh or, you know, now maybe AI gaming have have come up and web 3 gaming seems to have gone. Uh hopefully, you know, there's a lot of talent out there making VR games and there's a lot of really interesting

ideas. To me, the main barrier that that format will always face is just the physical limitations of of that not putting on a headset is not for everybody and playing games for a sustained period of time can be physically challenging for some, but if there's a lot of really creative stuff, you know, the the rare times, and admittedly they are rare, that I put on a VR headset and I try some of the new stuff that's coming out, I'm I'm I'm quite impressed and um if this can somehow help because Zuckerberg is found something else to focus on and you know, Horizon, I think, was always kind of a of dubious quality and prospect for its future um in terms of whether that was really something that everybody wanted, uh maybe getting it out of the way is is the best.
There's still long-term issues for VR and Meta sort of general scaling back is not good news for the industry, but this is might be a a bit of a short-term bump. But, Stephen, I've taken up too much of your time. You've got so many newsletters to write. You're telling me you've got a billion to put out.
things.
My kids are off. My kids are off next week, so it's a spring break, isn't it?

Yes, yes, my kids, yes.
What are you doing? Doing anything fun?
Well, I'll probably take them to the Mario movie. They're very excited. We were just discussing this morning that um they want to go on opening day, so we're trying to think of a movie theater that won't be clogged full of people on opening day.
I would be I've booked my opening day tickets.
All right, okay.
Yeah.
And uh we we had bought ski tickets in the you know, months ago. It's not really ski weather anymore here, um but um we may there might still be a little bit of snow on a slope and we'd bought 3-day tickets and I'll use one of them, so you know, maybe we can use the second lift ticket. But there's a magic show at the resort that we're going to and taking the kids to a magic show. Well, hopefully
Oh, Randy Pitchford doing it, is it?
No, no, no, but I I got a video on my phone of him doing a card trick from a long time ago. It's weird
to he doesn't he own the Magic Castle in LA? Is that the one?
I have not kept track of of Randy's magic adventures.
a couple of years ago. It's incredible. Sorry, we deviated off.
No, that's that's fine, but yeah, I know I I I am digging out of some some fun uh

coverage interviews that I've done of through honestly all the way back to December, but I think there's some stuff that'll stand the test of time um including a fun one for later this week involving the developers of Claire Obscure Expedition 33 where I did something rather ridiculous ahead of interviewing them and then we talked about it. Um I think people will enjoy that one. So yeah, keep up with Game File if you can, but everybody support the game business and if you are not subscribing to the paid version, I think Chris you were running a sale. Um I love I love the micro. So uh you only get the micro if you're a paid customer. So sign up, people.
I'm going to I'm going to kick that out. We do we have a 20% promotion going on for the the paid subscribers going to celebrate our anniversary. In fact, Stephen, thank you. I'll let you back to the newsletter. I'm looking forward to the Claire Obscure. I've not heard of it.
Yeah, it's
the game um
Kind of a niche game.
I look forward to reading those. But thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you, Chris.
I look forward to having you back.

All right, likewise.
Well, that's it for this edition of the Game Business Show. Thank you to Steven for joining us in our anniversary edition. We will be back next week but a slightly reduced schedule due to the spring break in the US and the Easter holidays here in the UK. If you want to make sure you don't miss our next edition, head to the gamebusiness.com and sign up to our newsletter. You can also take us up on that 20% anniversary discount offer for for for premium access to the game business. Um but until next time, thank you for tuning in.