With no GTA, what are the biggest games still to come in 2025?

Hello and welcome to the Game Business Show with me, Christopher Ding. This week, yes, we're going to talk about Xbox. Of course we are. But with GTA no longer in the year, what are going to be the biggest video games of 2025? Nintendo says it's planning potentially smaller games to counteract lengthening death cycles. PlayStation first party hit Hell Divers 2 is coming to Xbox. Video game du responds to the stop killing games petition. And they've got a whole lot more beside. But before we dive into that, you may see there's somebody here. It's time to introduce my co-host, long-term friend and colleague, former editor-in chief of Games and Shop Biz, and current communications manager at Digital Bandidos. I always get that name wrong. It's James Bachelor. Hello, Chris. How you doing? I'm all right. I hear you've launched a game. I have. I've survived my first game launch. Tell us tell us about it. Soul Stone Survivors available on PC, PS5, and Xbox. It's our first major launch as Digital Andidos. is a it's a survivors like so it's kind of like your your vampire survivors and stuff but this one leans really heavily into the power fantasy side of things and so you go from like the the the developer game

smithing was basically saying like he wanted to have that feeling of power and so forth that feeling of going from level one to level 100 in about 10 minutes which is very much up my street as you know anything that's hard work is not my thing it's such a PR James you've changed I know I know it's scary it's it's honestly terrifying here you are you went straight into the pitch I wanted to know how the personal experience for you was for the journey of laing your first game. Well, last last time I was on I was so determined like not to say anything cuz I didn't want to become that PR and then it just it just falls out. No, I'm really enjoying it. I'm really enjoying like kind of the change of pace and learning so much about kind of the the process of releasing games. It is amazing how many hoops people have to jump through to get a game even onto a system. Like and that's not that's not to say like the you know the certific certification process like it's just really interesting like how thorough it is um and like how hard developers work right up to the wire. Um how much is involved in kind of promoting a launch and getting it out there. How carefully you have to choose that launch window and like all the other factors that are out there like the you know competing

for noise. I never kind of underestimated the job of PR. Now I'm in it. I realize I was right. like it's it's a lot harder than I thought it was. Yeah, I always thought it hard to the point where I I don't do it. I didn't go in that direction. Well, thank you for joining the show. Um, normally we dive into our big topic, which we will do in a moment, but I wanted when we recorded the show last week, James, um, we had Rebecca Valentine on, our former friend and colleague. Um, but, um, and we recorded it literally as the news of the Xbox cuts was Love it when that happens. Yeah. We were recording the episode and I kind of knew it was coming. Yeah. But I what could I do? Um, so I mentioned that there was something happening, but I couldn't talk about it on the show last week cuz I didn't know what the details were. We did do a piece. So if you go on the game.com, I've written a article about it. I've taken I've revealed my take on it. But to keep it short, you've all heard the stories by now. Xbox has made some cuts. They the game Ever Wild, I'm gutted. I gutted Everworld isn't coming out anymore. Perfect Dark remake isn't coming out anymore. Um, the Turn 10 studios reportedly sort of basically gone. I

guess it's the engine team left and their Forza Motorsports sort of gone. There's been some big cuts there at Xbox. I've given my views on it and you can read it on the gamebus.com. We're not going to talk about it here. Lots of people have given their opinions since and I've picked up on a few of these things. I've sort of come up with oh wonder if Xbox should be doing this in the future and here's the thing I think they are doing these things. One of those is they bought Activision Blizzard and Activision Blizzard are very very good at certain things. Really, really good. Right. Then you they've launched the biggest video game, biggest shooter in the world in Call of Duty. Microsoft have a loads of good shooters. Um I'm sure Halo, you don't want to, you know, put it on Treyarch, but I'm sure I'm sure they know a lot about what maybe Halo could do. And I'm sure they know a lot what ID Software could do and it software has got advice the the other way around. I really would love to see when you buy a company, the idea is growing together, stronger together. It's not just about adding things onto bolting things on or boosting up your service with extra games. What can Call of Duty learn from ID Software and Alec for as an example? What can Obsidian

learn from um uh they've worked with them before, but Bethesda and those sort of things that sort of work together? And I really would like to see th those sort of I know that the idea is they they're not lightly integrated. They do their own things, but I think seeing them work together would be a really cool thing for Microsoft Studios. I think that might help them a little bit. Um I do think sometimes Microsoft overthink things. They are very much about strategy. They always have been. It's all about, you know, and these are wonderful strategies. I actually agree with them. Things like subscription is an interesting strategy. The um Play Anywhere is an interesting strategy. Um all of that stuff is really cool. They're trying to push the industry forward. But obviously the important thing and the thing they have to get right, and I do think they've been getting it right lately, is the games. The games have to be right. It doesn't matter if the best strategy in the world, but if you don't have a hit games, not just good games, hit games. It doesn't matter. And I do wonder if sometimes they might make the strategy, the games fit the strategy. So maybe they've got a game that perhaps day in date in Game Pass might not make sense. Or maybe they release a game in a time that makes sense for Game Pass but doesn't make sense for the game. I I'm

I'm making some speculation there. I I do feel sometimes they make decisions that I do wonder if they're not thinking about the game. They're thinking about their business strategy and and and that's the important bit, but sometimes it's worth, you know, breaking it a little bit if it's in favor of delivering a hit. But the big one that I've heard people talk about, it was Alex Donelsson on the VGC podcast. I don't know if you listen to this, James. Um, he said Obsidian, do you know how many games Obsidian have released since they got bought by Xbox? Oh, they will have done by the end of the year. I mean, I know they've had is it three this year alone? Aowed, Grounded 2, and Outer Worlds 2. Yeah, they also launched Outer Worlds one after being acquired by Microsoft and Pentam. And Pentamon, right? They've done five games. And there are some Xbox first party teams that haven't released anything. And Alex's view on it, his opinion on it, and I thought it was quite interesting Obsidian are used to, they can't spend 10 years making a game ever. No. If they ever did, they'd go out of business, right? So, they have to deliver the games and therefore they do things that are perhaps within their wheelhouse. They know what they do. They only push boundaries a little bit. They don't go completely reinvent the wheel.

Um, but they are used to they've got to get the game out, right? And it's more out of fear or anything. I'm not saying that's great. Microsoft team should you Microsoft should take away the fear a little bit. You do wonder if sometimes some of the teams and some of the studios are um Microsoft's wonderful about culture. Um they're wonderful about um creating very welcoming encouraging environments to encourage creativity. But there comes a point where you need to ship a game or you need to start seeing progress in that game. And his point being that a lot of the studios that are being closed or a lot of cuts are happening are the studios that either owned by Microsoft or owned by Bethesda who were perhaps are quite comfortable um and didn't they felt they could take their time which they can to a point and I and I do wonder and I do wonder so what do you do in those situations and the answer is be a bit more of a bastard right and I don't Microsoft's quite nice of it and I do and it's a weird situation to talk about this because you don't want studios to be if you start putting putting pressure on deadlines and putting stuff that's where crunch comes into And that's where people are being unhappy

and you don't want to rush games either. No. So, no. And actually finding the fun is a key element of it and that's how you deliver big AAA successes. But I think there's probably a middle ground between giving them the freedom, making sure they don't crunch, making sure it's a good healthy uh environment, but also that little bit of pressure to make sure that, you know, something comes out. Pressure that a company like Obsidian will feel knowing for well they have to survive. They have to deliver on that Kickstarter promise. I don't know. These are I'm sure these are all things these are things mic if if I if Microsoft know better than me about those sort of things but looking back looking hearing what people are saying I do wonder if uh if some of those things would be interested what Microsoft does say if you want to see the actual viewpoint on on all this and it's super disappointing I'm genuinely gutted um the game.com I did a piece last week on it um but anyway I want to get experts out the way before we delve into the main topic um and James you hosted this last time do you remember I was roughing my brain I was trying to remember what we discussed last time last time I put the hosting on to you as you used to do cuz you normally do the micro cast and here I am which I was very comfortable with. Yeah. Just hand you a question and then

I just have to sit quietly. Yeah. I'm aware that I've already done a lot of talking but I'm talking about games and actually this is where you you're much better than me at. So Grand Theft Auto 6 got delayed and then people said to me what else does what else is there in the year? Mhm. And I wanted to find out actually what are the biggest games coming out this year? Don't know if you remember. Do you remember the 12 games of Christmas? I do. I was thinking back to this when I was preparing for this episode. I was remembering that um that feature that we used to do. So like back on the publication we used to birth on around kind of Septemberish, wasn't it? We used to do like the 12 games are going to save Christmas and it was like right here's 12 games that are going to keep people coming into retail. They're going to be the biggest sellers. And we did that like every year for a good few years. And I do I I still find myself falling into that mindset. Suddenly once you hit June and you've got E3 or not E3 out of the way, what are the 12 games? I found it really interesting. We're going to go through the list that you've um prepared here, but I'm going to go on a brief ramble first if I may. Please. I just find it really interesting like I I know sometimes my head and I know your head get stuck in those kind of you know

our MCV days is like you what pre 2015 so the industry was completely different place but you you have those big games. You had those staples. You always had a Call of Duty. You always you often or always had an EA shooter. You always had FIFA. You always had a big Ubisoft game. And there was always a few big um third party games. You'd have a big game from each first party. And that was pretty much your 12 games. And I look at the slate now, at least I look at the the wish list now. It's like the staples aren't there. They the staples are different. There's not You don't look at it, it's like, oh yeah, that's a classic Q4 lineup. Well, it's interesting because I know exactly. I was going to say the same thing. I'm aware that I actually don't know what the big game is going to be. There used to be a time I kind of knew. We kind of knew. It was kind of obvious and okay I don't mean FIFA and Call of Duty that's still obvious but it was like it was all oh it'll be an Assassin's Creed game and and then some of them there might be a surprise or two in there but you could almost a clockwork I had to say we the reason why I James is hinting here I created a list

and what I did is I went to Game Discover um who gave me their list of the biggest games still to come out this year um it's actually slightly different James because one of them was missing from the list but um uh so I went so it was um I one was game discover that's wish list that's steam we could have done it via their hype score they've got loads of different ways of ranking what might be the biggest games of the year I also went to IGN they have a wish list system as well through their playlist and they get I got their biggest games still to come this year fan fandom who run games bot and also run loads of wikiers um uh wiks um they uh gave me a list of their traffic what games are generating the most traffic on their on their on their sites on their wikis and um and I and I also went to fan sensors who gave me a loaded social data. How many social posts, how many press articles fit? Went to a load of people to try and work out what the biggest games are. There are actually a few in here. There's a few surprises, but actually most of them I actually thought, oh yeah, I'm not surprised that's in the list. I'm not surprised that's in the list. I'm not surprised that's in the list. So, it's not as surprised as I thought it was going to

be. I guess a caveat there to add would be obviously like for the stuff based on wish lists. And this is the tricky thing about wish list. Wish lists are such a wonderful indicator of what people are interested in and are intending to buy, but they're not an indication of how many people are going to buy it day one because some people will keep it on their wish list until it's in in the sale or is a price point they like and like so it's really tricky balance of wish lists and how that translates into actual success. Yeah. So I it is it is it's certainly a different industry but actually and here's the thing the things that actually might not doing really well aren't on these lists. you know, we've just had was it peak just on four and a half million units, right? And that wouldn't have been on any list going into the going into this. So, it's worth noting that these are just the games that that are getting a lot of buzz, a lot of attention, a lot of wish lists. I'm going to start with the games that appeared on every list. And the one that appeared highest on every list is Borderlands 4. Yeah. Which I know is right up your street. I Yeah, I'm really intrigued to see how

this one does because I loved the first two Borderlands. I just played them to death. I don't think I made it through pre-sequel. Three was the biggest one in terms of sales success. And there was all that fer around the movie last year where the movie did not perform as well. Do do me do you want to do what the numbers mean for? Do you want me to do one? Yeah. Yeah. Drop me. Give me some numbers. So, Borderlands is the biggest franchise on this list, right? Uh the last game sold 22 million copies. It's the fastest selling game 2K has ever released. Wow. Um it's still got a bit of catching up to do on Bordlands 2. That's on over 30 million, but it's getting there faster at the moment. Um, there was the spin-off game Tiny Tina's Wonderland. Um, it's not quite the same level, but 2K said it beat expectations. And looking at European figures, it's not it's not that far off 4 million copies across Europe, which is actually quite a lot really. Um, so it's getting more than I was expecting. You're probably looking, I don't know, maybe around 10 million globally. So, that's wonderful. Now, you mentioned the movie. So, the movie was a box office flop. It generated $33 million at the cinema and

it was probably made on a budget of estimates between 120 to 150 million. But here's the thing. During the summer when it was included into PlayStation Plus Borderlands game so during the summer when that Bordlands movie came out, there's a lot of activity around the game. Yeah. So they did they put the game into the PlayStation Plus subscription service and according to Ampair 2.15 million people played Borderlands 3 in July last year. that rose to 2.16 million when the game was when the film was released in August. So that's two strong months. Borderlands 3 game sales rose 418% across Europe. Um so it's look it's huge and it still is huge. And um and Borderlands 4, it's the number three game on the Steam wish list. I know you probably got it as number two. Um but it is number three on the Steam wish list for according to Game Discover. It's number 10 on the IGN wish list which is a bit surprising to me. Matthew is actually ahead of it. It's a bit weird. Maybe IGN fans are just not Borderlands fans. Um, it's number one for fandom on traffic and according to fan centers, Borderlands 4 has achieved more press coverage and more social posts uh than

any other game um due this year. Um, obviously one of the but one thing I will say I should have said this beforehand um none of these lists feature Call of Duty, EA Sports FC, NBA or Madden. I found that really interesting but then again I guess this is wish list like there's no point wish listing Call of Duty cuz people know they're going to buy it. It's also very little's been shown about it. That's Yeah. But also, I think these lists are very naturally very gamey. Yeah. And it's like, oh shot, Borderlands 4 is one of the biggest releases coming up this year. Yeah. That's that's that's one for your uh uh uh surprise. You're much of a Mafia player. That's also on every list. No, I I really need to get into this series. Like I I hear really good things about it. I remember trying Mafia 2. I know Mafia 3 had its technical problems, but I think overall it was quite well received. Mafia the Old Country is going to be very different. It's in, if I remember right, it's in that August slot. Yeah. at the end of August, which is usually where like historically there have been some kind of not surprise hits, but like games that do you sometimes have a game that lands there that does very well. And you're

thinking of things like in the past we've had um Bioshock, which go back to 2007. The risk of going further back, I'm thinking Bioshock, I'm thinking Batman, but I'm also Borders Kate 3 was August. So August is this weird window where you beat the Q4 rush, but you're after the summer drought. But I am still confused by Mafia's release date and I'll explain why it obviously they delay GTA at two take two. This is different division of take two. It's a very busy summer for 2K. They've just releasing a load of games on Switch too. They just released Civ on switch too. They've got more to come. They've got WWE launching on Switch too. They've got Matthew in August. Borderlands in September. NBA will be around this slot as well. I'm like could you guys give yourself a bit of a break regardless regardless of my whether or not the release date's right. Mafia 3, you mentioned it there. There has been some Mafia remakes and remasters since this game, but we've got data for Mafia 3. Sold 7 million copies over four years. Um, that was the last time we saw a brand new Mafia game. Um, there have been, um, so it's a bit of a dormant franchise. It appears on every single wish list. So, it's number it's

number six on Steam wish list, number seven I think, um, according to Games Discover, number seven on the IGM wish list, number seven on the fandom charts, number four in press coverage, number nine in social post, just the lower half of the list, but it's on every list. And I just, and here's the thing, I'm bringing Mafia and Borderlands. The reason why I've stuck those two together, they're both 2K games. They're both Take Two games. And it's interesting to see in the absence of GTA, the two games that have suddenly jumped towards the top of the list are Take 2 games. So, it's a big year for Take Two, even without its big game. I don't think I really realized that Mafia is that popular. I like the GTA 6 is still the elephant in the room here because Yeah. I know it got delayed in was it April or May? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But by April, May most publishers will know what their Q4 certainly the AAA's will know what their QA Q4 titles in stuff will be locked in. So I have to wonder things like Mafia was that right? Ideally we want to get this out before GTA because how will it compare after G? I know they're not directly comparable titles but they are still a gangster related action ps if Matthew was coming

out in August and Borderlands in September to get out of GTA's way but Matthew's release that was announced after the GTA reveal. So they had a chance to move. But I here's the thing actually as I did this list I found out there's a lot more games coming out in October than I had expected. Um so um but we'll we'll get on to this now. The game the reason why I think the list I sent you James a little bit early was was was a bit wrong was because there's one game that isn't in the game discover wish list which is Hollow Night Silk Song. The reason for that is it's listed as TBC in terms of release date on Steam. So it didn't get pulled through. Once you pull it through it's the number one wishlisted game on on on on Game Discover. Now, Hollow Night Seal Song, I'm not very Have you played Hollow Night? No. This is a weird thing. My My only experience of Hollow Night is the the sheer anticipation for Silong. Yeah. Like, here's the thing. The original game, the last time they gave us an actual proper sales update on it was 2019 when it it was around 3 million sales. Now, it's a Metroid Vania Hollow Night. 3 million sales, by the way, is comparable to the bestselling Metroid game ever. And that was 2019. It's been 6 years since then, so the game would have easily surpassed that now. Um, it's

quite a culty game. It's difficult to know how hu if the huge online popularity is actually reflected in its overall sales. We don't know that um cuz they've not shared it. But look, I actually found it quite amusing how Silk Song's sort of re-reveal was during the Switch 2 Direct in a sort of montage of clips. It was blink and you miss it, wasn't it? Like it's like hang on maybe Nintendo like, you know, get back in your box. Metroid 4s were coming out. Um but um but it was it was it was um but an Xbox name dropped it during their showcase um around their um uh handheld that they showed. That's a rapid fan base. Look at the numbers. Number one wish listed game on Steam. Number five on IGN. Number four uh trafficked on fandom. Fan census uh social post and press articles is the number seven. I have no idea how big this game is. I know how we can hear the noise, but I don't know the the actual data on how how actual big it is. But um it's also on every list. So um and I think it's inevitably that's going to be one of the other big big games of the year. Um the final big game of the year

of course the one game is on every list and I had to I was a little surprised by this. Metal Gear Solid Delta Snake Eater. Oh um Metal Gear Solid Snake Eater is was actually a commercially disappointing game. Fans loved it critically very obviously but it was a disappointing game. It did around 4 million copies but I think Metid 2 did around 7 million copies. It's not the biggest game in the world. It is It is right now early 2000s nostalgia is big. Yeah. Um and so it hits that. It's also a genre of a game we don't see very much anymore. We've seen really games that go, "Oh, you remember when we used to have stealth games?" I do. I miss stealth games. Oh, good. Well, good news, James. One's coming out. Um but is well loved. It's also a game that from what I am not a Metal Gear Solid player. I apologize. I've looked into this. Metal Gear Solid 3 Snake Eater or Metal Golia Delta Snake Eater is um a game you can start Metal Gear on. Right. There is some nods to the previous games if you want to, but it's a it's a game that you can you can start. Um they've dropped the three from

the title if you noticed. It's Metal Gear Solid Delta Snake Eater, not Metal Gear Solid 3 Snake Eater. So, I think that's part of their play of trying to say, "Hey, this is a jumping on point. It's not just for the fans of the original game." But look, number eight on Steam wish list, number two on the IGM wish list, number five in terms of fandom traffic. Number six in terms of press coverage, number three in terms of social activity. It's on every single list. I'm interested to see how that one does because it's one of those games, as you say, like wasn't commercially successful back in the day, but was critically held up. Like people I anecdotally, I feel like people talk more about three Snake Eater than they do about two or even one. Like that seems to be the one that everyone's like that's the one you must play. So this is going to give like a whole new generation the chance to to see what all the fuss is about. whether that translates to success whether or not enough people are curious enough. I don't know. I feel like we haven't even seen much of it in terms of great detail. There's been a lot of kind of teasers and trailers and so forth, but we haven't seen granted people can just look up the old version, but I I

personally haven't seen enough between to find out what makes this the new shiny remaster that everyone Yeah. kind of like the Resident Evil remasters that um Capcom have been doing. Perhaps the hope is that this can hit, you know, have that same success. Can well with the Silent Hill remaster remake last year as well. Silent Hill F, which I don't we're not talking about today. He's actually on a lot of these lists. So there's um there is Konami seems to have a bit of a having a bit of a nostal moment really with with some of his classic brands. Um but yeah, I I I it's also by M. I think Virtuous are co-developing this one as well. Yes. So this is their second potentially hit game of the year. Um it I think it's obviously going to do well. How well could it break out? Could it go beyond just the Metal Gear Solid fans? Oh, you never know. Um, you say I if it was original game, maybe I I would be a little more confident in it. It's whether or not it can sell to more people beyond the people who played it back in the day. Right. Those are all those are the only games that appeared in every list, right? So, it's Metal Gear Solid. Uh, it is Hollow Knight, Mafia, and Borderlands

4. That was it. Which is an element of that is going to be though one of your lists is Steam, which is PC only. So, you're you're factoring out console games. Yeah. And it's also worth no but even like so games that appear on most lists. Metroid Prime 4 is what I'm going to start with now. Metro Prime 4 actually isn't in the social list either. Or is it the press covered list? Let me just check that. Uh it isn't in the uh it isn't in the No, it's in the social activity. It's not in the press rankings. That's in terms of press articles. Nintendo hasn't shared a great deal about it to be fair. So that's the reason why. Metroid Prime 4. This shows you the floor in the lists. Um it's uh it's not on PC obviously as you said. It wasn't on that list, but Metroid is not a big franchise. Um, it it did. It's high point. Do you know what the bestselling Metroid game ever is? Is it still Dread? It's Metroid Dread. It sold three million units by Nintendo standards. That's barely worth getting out of bed for. Um, Donkey Kong Bonanza, which isn't in any of these lists. I I would I have to imagine that's going to be the bigger seller. It's a bit more of a mainstream game, whereas a bit more of a family game, a little bit games appeal

to kids. Metroid Prime 4 is a hardcore gamers game ends up on these lists. As you say, it shows the gamer nature of these lists. I'm of I'm actually a mass It sounds like I'm being dismissive for Metroid there. I love Metroid. It's one of my favorite franchise. This is one of my most anticipated games of the year and I do believe it's a franchise that's due it's due to do better. You can see how well Hollow Knight does and that sort of genre of game does. It's an iconic character. Um a lot of the old Metroid games were a bit unfortunate. So the Metroid Prime 1, which was a big moment for Metroid, launched on the Gamecube, which nobody really bought. Um, I know there was some Metroid games on the on the Wii, but it was kind of the wrong Yeah. Nintendo audience at that point. Um, Super Metroid did very well. Some of the other Metro games launched late in the cycle of the of the of the platforms they're on. This is 4. It's crossplatform. It's on Switch One. It's on Switch 2. It's probably the last major AAA Nintendo Switch One game or just AAA Switch One game. Major depending on your point of view. Um, Switch 2, it runs really well. It looks

really good. Um, maybe this one can do 5 million units. I I like to think that there is an opportunity for Metroid to do step up. There's definitely an opportunity here. Like because of the success of Dread, I think people are a lot more aware of and more interested in the Metroid IP. Metroid Prime, like the original Metroid Prime was such a revered game. We obviously had the remaster on Switch One. Yes, that did very well. Yeah. to me that is still like the best one in the Prime series like and so I'm quietly hoping four leans more towards the because Metroid certainly 3D Metroid is a really interesting series to market because you show a trailer and it looks like a Halo style sci-fi shooter. It's not. It's a lot more about exploration and puzzle solving, scanning everything. And the demo that I played was quite at the Nintendo event. It's kind of it was at the opening segment. That's the thing which is the actiony bit. and and I I remember playing Metroid Prime when I was a kid. I wasn't I was wasn't that young, like 18 or whatever. And um and I didn't get it. I couldn't work out why I wasn't

shooting stuff all the time. I just come off Perfect Dark or whatever. Time Splitter. See, I was the opposite. I was playing it was like, "Oh, thank God I'm not shooting stuff all the time." Like I enjoyed the isolation and like I couldn't My brain couldn't connect it. And then years later, I played Metroid Fusion on the Game Boy Advance and I got oh oh this is what this sort of game's about. And then when I've gone back to Metro Prime, which with the the re the remaster that they did, I it is astonishing. It's astonishing work. So, I'm really excited for Metro Prime 4. Um, but I don't think it's the biggest game in Nintendo's calendar for the year. It's definitely not the biggest. Like, you know, DK Bonanza is definitely there and we're going to talk about another one which I think is probably even more popular and more more, but I just I'm I'm hopeful for it because going back to what we're saying about Hollow Knight, like there is an entire genre essentially named after or half named after the Metroid games. Yeah. So, like the Metroid games, regardless of their success, have had a an impact on the industry. Let's have Metroid have a little bit of that. Two popular platforms, um, great looking game, um, 3D games, which tend to appeal a bit more broadly. Um, maybe

this one will break out. I still don't think it's be a big hit. What I do think is going to be a big hit is Ghost of Yoai on PlayStation 5. Um, this is also on every list but the uh the Steam list obviously. Um, but the Ghost of Tsushima, which is the sequel to was a breakout hit for Sucker Punch and PlayStation back in 2020. They genuinely surprised like everyone was really they were shocked at how well it did. According to filings, it cost $60 million to make and they made nearly 400 million in in revenue. Am I going mad or like was that one of those August releases? I don't think Shishima was a big Q4 one. No, because Q4 was when the PS5 launched. Of course it was. Yes. It was that year. It was like after Last of Us Part Two. It wasn't in the It wasn't in this wasn't in the script. It's done about 13 million units. So, it did very very well the first game. But here, we know that PlayStation first party games, they can do 20 million plus. We've seen that. So, there is room for growth. Sony is planning a big promotion with this. They just announced a director, not a director, video showcase, state of play, whatever, whatever the term is. The recent Assassin's Creed game, Assassin's

Creed Shadow, is similar in terms of it's obviously had a similar sort of game, but it's similar in terms of audience and setting, and that did very well. It's worth noting that none of this guarantees success. Obviously, it needs to be good. Um, but it's been a long time since we've had a big storydriven PlayStation 5 game. Spider-Man 2 was probably the last big one back in 2023. Um, now I know people going Death Stranding 2, Chris, Death Stranding 2, a little bit less mainstream. That one is a little bit more uh It's not entirely It's not first party. Yeah. It's funded by It's funded by first party, but it's not developed first by Yeah. Death Stranding is more for me, Death Strand is in like the vein of Eternal. Yeah. Terms of it being a very specific audience where this one is sort of a broader play and the last time Sony did something like that was was Spider-Man. It's been a long time and I think fans love this stuff. They they love Astrobot as well, but like this is what they're waiting for. It isn't coming to PC yet. It isn't on the Steam wish list as we said earlier, but it's number three on IGN, number two on fandom, number three in terms of Over Press. coming to number five in social post. It's going to be massive and it's

coming out in October. And this is where I'm going to start saying quite a few it's coming out in October games. Um, Outer Worlds 2. Yes. Have you played the Outer Worlds? That's like your sort of game. Yeah, I enjoyed it. I I didn't get all the way through, but I I certainly enjoyed it. I enjoyed it. It was a lot more focused. It was a lot, you know, in a time when there when people were getting fatigued by like large sprawling open worlds to have one where all the areas are quite contained and it's easy enough to do like the quest within a a short distance. The writing was superb and like really kind of funny writing. I actually kind of preferred it to it's it's kind of Obsidian's take on Fallout. I kind of preferred it to Fallout. So this is So people told me that the Out Wars 2 is even more like Fallout New Vegas than the first game. I've not played either. So my my expertise on this I'm going what other people say to you. So the fact that you said it's like Fallout is great cuz I'm about to say that the game uh uh it's quite Fallouty. I'd be picking this one as a real real potential real real big hit. If it was called Fallout, especially with the second season of Fallout TV show arriving just before Christmas as it is

because it's not Fallout. I still think it's going to be a big hit. So, the first game, this is did 4 million units by 2022. Right. Nice. That doesn't include Game Pass. It's not players. That's units. That's sales. Yeah. Um it's not Fallout numbers, but it's big numbers. It reviewed well, but it wasn't super high scores. It feels like what you'd expect from a first game. our first crack at this and it got, you know, 80s in the in sort of Metacritic um a little bit low on Switch. I always get excited for a sequel to a game like that because, you know, they're going to all the things that people didn't quite like, they'll tweak and change and all the things that they wanted to put into the game, they didn't have time to put into the game, they're going to stick into the game. It's that classic sequel. The first one is always like kind of the proof of concept. Do people like this? Is this enough to like do that? And then the second one is like, right, people do like it. Let's do this properly. Going back to how what we were talking about earlier, Borderlands 2 leaps and bounds ahead of the original Borderlands. I think that's where the series success really started to take off before it hit the heights of three. This should be and Borderlands 2 is still held up as the best one in the series. This should be

hopefully the Borderlands 2 of their series. Yeah. Well, or the Mass Effect. Yeah, Mass Effect or the Time Splitters too. Yes. Yeah. Xbox is clearly going for this and it received a standalone video after it summer showcase presentation. That standalone video, Microsoft's done three of these now. So they do their showcase and then they do a focus on one game at the end of it. The first one was Starfield. Second one was Call of Duty and The Outerorlds 2 is the latest one. So they're going for this. If you would you watch the video? I wasn't planning to. It was just on the background when I was No, I missed it. It's on my watch list. See Ben Schwarz is the is the he's like the uh it's a very funny video. It's very much in the vein, but it's Ben Schwarz is in it and he does the whole like I'm the commission of sequels or whatever it is. And um for those that know Ben Schwarz is not very British known, I don't think is the name. He's obviously the voice of Sonic in the Sonic the Hedgehogs movies, but um he's very well known in the US. He's he's in loads of loads of things. He's also in the afterparty on Apple TV. Um there are way bigger things he's been in, but I really think everyone should listen watch the afterparty on Apple TV. So, just wanted to drop that in there. Fair

enough. But um not giving a shout out to the reboot of DuctTiles then. I I forgot about that. David Tenants in that. I should definitely have done that. Um, so this is I think they're going for Xbox is going for this. This is their big Christmas game. Um, it looks great. It's on every platform. Um, I do wonder if perhaps a different publisher would have said make it a Fallout game. They didn't. They're going for this franchise. I like that. I like that. We We need more new IPs rather than convert everything to established ones. We're talking about I mentioned this in the article I wrote. You know, we do criticize Xbox quite a bit, but I genuinely feared when they bought Paul, and I still fear it a little bit when they bought all these studios that they've got Call of Duty. Do they need Wolfenstein? They've got I know they're different games, but like similar audiences. They've got Doom. Do they need Gears of War? Do they've got FA? They've got Elder Scrolls. Do they need Fable and Aval? But actually, in terms of the actual actions, they're still doing South of Midnights. They're still doing Clockwork Revolutions. They're still doing Keepers. They're still doing The Outer Worlds 2. They're not They're still doing a vow. They're not going, "Nah, you might as well just focusing on the big franchises." and they've got a

lot of them now. Um uh so they're not doing that. And this is one of those games that I think could become a big franchise. But interesting, it's not super high on the lists like um it's not in the Steam Wish. It's not in the Steam Wish lists. It is if you go to full top 20. Yeah, it's number 18. Um but in the top 10, it's not in the top 10. Yeah, I I think you it's also there's a Games Windows element to it. There's a game pass element to it as well. Um, number nine on IGN, number six on fandom, number eight in terms of press coverage coverage. It's not actually in the top 10 for social posts. The numbers don't suggest anything too huge so far, but keep an eye on it. I think it'll creep up. There's a vibe around it. There's a vibe and there has been like since the the original teaser where like and I loved that the teaser was a perfect example of why these games are fun is like the the te it was good a few years ago and it didn't actually show anything and then the narration was very explicit about how they have nothing to show. They only have the title and the logo and it was just and I think I think that got people talking about that got people's interest. Yeah, I think I just keep keep an eye on it. I think it'll creep up.

Um, Little Nightmares 3 is my next one. Um, now this game is also due in October. There's a lot of October games. Um, Little Nightmare is I'm always surprised at how well this is done. Right. I I I profess ignorance. I forget about Little Nightmares and how well it does. It's Bandamo's biggest western game. Yeah. Right. 20 million copies of the first two games have been sold. Um, you can get it on pretty much every platform as well. They're like they're super getting it everywhere. It's one of those it's is an arty sort of horrory I don't know why even though it's nothing like it. It gives me a sort of Five Nights at Freddy's sort of vibe to it cuz it's sort of sort of a sort of a it's got a very kind of indie vibe to it but with the strength of a big publisher behind it and it's got that horror aesthetic but it is a horror game but it's it's almost like a accessible anyway. It's horror game but it's not traumatizing. Yeah. Well, maybe it is. I actually don't know. But a little bit of pre there's a bit of pressure on this one because little little nightmares is the brainchild of developer Tacia. They created the first two games. They were

bought by Embracer and Vandamoa owned the IP. God. Yes. So Vandamo sought a new studio to make Little Nightmares 3 and they're working with the horror experts over at Super Massive Games which made Until Dawn. They worked on the Dark Pictures uh series of games. They're a safe pair of hands. They're a decent studio. Whether or not they're the ones to really light up the franchise in a new way, I can do it, but we'll have to see. TC is developing their own game which looks a bit like nightmares. This is historically this is always interesting when you've got the developer of an IP who loses that IP but makes something similar and I mean outer worlds is is you know they didn't have the IP for doing a New Vegas 2 so they mowed their own thing. There's so many examples there. Dying Light Dead Island yeah Dead Island Dying Light like it's this football man championship manager football manager the iconic one. Um their game's called Rihanna. That game doesn't have a release date yet. There's some speculation about in 2025, but not enough for me to put this in this list. I wouldn't have put it in the list anyway. Wouldn't have made the list. But

this is this is video games as you quite rightly pointed out. We've seen people go from Sin City to City Skylines, right? We've seen people go from Harvest Moon to Stardw Valley. We've seen people go from Championship Manager to Football Manager. If Little Nightmares 3 doesn't, it doesn't have to be bad, but if it doesn't light up the world or inspire the fans in the way the first two games did, they might go, "What's that other one? what's our old friends at Tacia making? So, if there is pressure on it um and they might end up but uh because it's one of those series will have dedicated enough fans that will be aware of Tacia's game and be keeping an eye on it and and I mean blime me you you'll have fans who are just stubbornly like no I'm not I'm not playing Little M 3 cuz it's not Tacia like so they've got they've got some challenges. Yeah. Yeah. But look at the giving them benefit of the doubt. Number five on the Steam wish list, number six in the IGM playlist. Uh the fandom uh list doesn't actually have it. Uh I should have put this down. Um um fan census has it in the No, it's on there either. Um

really really enjoyed the elongated the there. Yeah, I I every other one of these I've put them where they're listed. I didn't do it for this one. I don't know why. Um so that's it. So there's the games that appeared in lots of lists. Um we gone through the games. So the games that appeared in all the lists. Uh I mentioned those earlier. The ones that have appeared in a lot of lists and all of them Metroid Prime 4 go to Yoai console games. Um, the Outer Wars 2, also a console first party game, uh, Little Nightmares 3. Um, I wanted to mention a few notable ones. Um, one is Ark Raiders. Do you know anything about this game? Uh, main thing I know I I didn't know about this until you sent me the list yesterday. Like, this is from the developer of the finals. Yeah. I don't know if it's related to the finals. But the finals was such a hit that automatically I think that makes it they make this a one to watch. Yeah, it is. It was going to be free to play. It's not now. It's an extraction shooter. and I go, "Uh, Earth." But look, number two on the Steam wish list according to Game Discover. It doesn't appear anywhere else, but that's um that's all right. Oh, wow. Okay. Um I I have seen the trailers. I've seen them. I've seen them being showcased. It looks very striking and the artwork's very striking. Exciting.

One game that also appears on a few lists, but low down is Pokemon Legends A. Now, this is I wanted to bring this up. It's on the IGN list. It's on the press list. It's on the social list. It's not on the GameSpot. So, the fan fandom fandom list. And obviously, it's not on the Steam list. It's not a PC game. Um, it's a it's might be surprising where this comes considering Pokémon's raid fan base. Yeah. Um, what I will say, do you remember the launch of Pokémon Legends Arcus? Do you remember how out of the blue that came? I do. Because it was sandwiched between was it between um there was there was a Pokemon launch the November before I think it was Brilliant Diamond Shining Pearl. It literally two months before. Yeah, two months before you which, you know, a lot of nostalgia for Gen 4. You then had Legends Archus, which was kind of tapping into sort of Gen 4 nostalgia, doing something completely different and then it was followed by Scarlet Violet the year later. Yeah. So, Pokemon have been known to release games. They always have a big game every single November and they'll have something somewhere in in the middle. It's a spin-off, but it was made by Game Freak. It's a proper It's actually a Pokémon prop game, but they broke all

the rules basically. But very late in that marketing campaign, the game went from being pre-orders are pretty low to absolute explosion. Yeah. Um and uh uh strong reviews helped. Um it did 15 million copies, which sounds like a lot, but actually Pokemon Sword and Shield and Pokemon Scarlet Violet on 27 million. Yeah. But it's still very very strong. It's a mega performance as in terms of Pokémon spin-off games is on another scale too. It's what you normally see. Um, this one, you would have thought having Legends Archus being so wellreceived and done so well that this would have reflected in anticipation for Pokemon Legends Z. And I'm talking a bit personally here. I actually have not been won over by the trailers for that. Um, it doesn't look at all like the last one. Um, people have been stung obviously by recent technical performances in Pokémon games. Pokemon Legends Arcus didn't run great. It ran better than Scarlet and Violet, but it didn't run great. Um, but look, if it's good, if it does, you know, we had this last time. if it's good like the last

one, a late surge, I think. And look, Pokémon is always going to be big. It's going to be big at at Christmas. And I think the reason why um um they've now not sandwiched it between Pokémon games and actually giving it its own spot. It's on Switch 2. Enhanced is on Switch One as well. Um it's obviously going to be a hit, but it's not at the moment. The data isn't showing it. Also out in October. Um I'm I'm intrigued because I'm I'm part of the raid Pokémon fan base as well. Legends Arc is my favorite entry in the series. I'm including the mainline ones. Yeah, me too. Me too. I love how it broke the rules. I love how it brought something different to the franchise. For me, it's the the purest um expression of that power fantasy of going out into the countryside and catching critters and so forth. I think you're right. Pretty much everything you've just said, like I think the the bitter taste left by Scarlet and Violet's technical problems, although I'm hearing it's amazing on Switch, too. So, I've heard that. Yeah. So, to the point where I I'm my daughter's a big Pokémon fan. I'm getting her Violet for her birthday in a couple of months. I might pick up myself Scarlet. Yes.

Um but but Legends is Z. I think a problem is is I don't know if this is why it's not winning you over is the scope seems to have draw been drawn back in too much. Like it's all set within one city. And yes, some of those city districts are, you know, overgrown wild areas. But the joy of Pokémon games is or one of the joys of Pokémon games has always been traveling around a large and varied land with different biomes, different Pokémon, and so forth. And this is just stuck in one city. That's the It's got local on Legends Arcus was it's kind of old-fashioned. It was set in a in a in a time before. Yeah. You had this central very monster hunter really. You had this central sort of little world, a little village you could explore, but then you went into these different areas. You know, here's here's the one with the volcano in it with the snow in it. Here's the one with the beach in it and and it and it felt like and this doesn't look and also Pokémon Legend Arc had an interesting art style and this is the class. This is the normal new Pokémon Go. So, I'm getting into the weeds a bit. It's not very businessy this talk. Sorry, I'll stop because I'm I'm about to start comparing it to Zutropolis. So,

it is but it it hasn't won me up with it. It hasn't won me over. But at the same time, I loved, you know, that catching mechanic. It was such a joy. So, I want it to be brilliant. And um and look, this is kind of a wait and see. If if the reviews come out and people like this is better than Archus or as good as Archus, I think it will turn a few more heads because Archus so was so wellreceived. But you've also got the thing of um the Pokemon series 30th anniversary next year. So anticipation is going to be the Gen 10 is next year. So I know Pokemon fans typically can't wait a full year before buying a new Pokemon game, but people know something big is on the horizon with this one. And I I think the last point I promise I'm rambling too much, but I think the fact that I think there has been speculation that is Nintendo suddenly going to reveal a 3D Mario for Christmas because it hasn't had one at launch. And you've got the Switch 2's initial lineup is you've got Mario Kart, DK, Metroid Prime, and Pokémon. And those are all big, but they're not like top tier.

It feels like something's missing. I've said that on the show before. Um, but now that we know that DK Bonanza is done by the Mario Odyssey team that suggests a 3D Mario, so I've been hearing a little bit about this, right? So obviously it's out in the reviews, people are reviewing the game, it is the Odyssey team, but it's not the exact same people who worked on Odyssey. There was some people who worked on Odyssey on it, including some of the some of some of the senior people who worked on Odyssey, but not all of them. Um, and again, I don't have the exact details. It's just what has been re revealed to me in some WhatsApp messages here and there. My point my point being like in the absence of a 3D Mario like your core Nintendo fans your core Switch to players like they're going to have the option of Pokemon and Metroid Prime most of them are going I not most I think there's a bigger audience for Pokemon Legends regardless of how well it weighs up against previous ones. Yeah, I think there's a bigger audience. Is Nintendo got another game out? I don't know if it'd be Mario only because you've just released a Donkey Kong 3D

platformer. Um, and there's a Mario movie next year and if you're going to have a Mario game, would you coincide with that a bit closer? It's all speculation. Animal Crossing. So, um, anyway, um, Twilight Princess HD. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's the big one. That's the big one. Scrap it or GTA years saved. That's why GTA delayed because they heard Twilight Princess ED is coming out. Maybe a Wind Waker HD. Uh, yeah. Um, should we move on to some other news? We probably should. Yes. Let's So that's that's those the games. We'll keep talking about the games that are coming out obviously, but those are the big ones from the from the with some data and some points that we should be paying attention to. It's a busy week for news. I really want to talk about some of these other stories. Um, one of the ones Oh god. Um, fanboys, James. No. Um, uh, move on. Um, so obviously I I I I I end up in their crosshairs quite a bit, but um I I just worry about them sometimes. Hell of 2 is coming to Xbox.

Um, okay. Right. I'm not talking about Xbox fanboys here. I'm talking about PlayStation. There's been people in my feed, PlayStation fans, saying they're going to sell their PS5 Pro because Sony has released a game over. Absolutely. So I understand it is actually um is actually being part is a Sony related um um uh relationship. This is Sony that wanted this to happen. Um Hell Divers 2 is a game that fits very well. It's a live service game. So Sony's reaction to live service games put them on PC. Xbox isn't the biggest platform in the world obviously. No, I find that really interesting cuz like it makes if you release something on Xbox, it makes sense to release something on PlayStation alpha because that is a much much bigger audience. It feels odd to me to go the other way. But I do think Hell Divers is quite an Xboxy game. It's an online shooter. Fits with their audience, doesn't it? It has that sort of vibe to it, which is why I'm surprised they're launching it on the same day, same week as the new Gears of War. That isn't odd. That is a choice.

Um, so that is a choice. That's the bit that surprises me. Hell Divers do come to Xbox makes sense. In fact, I see it in the same way as when they released LEGO Horizons, which all by the way also was a um PlayStation decision. It was not a Lego decision. um that was PlayStation. Look, we talked I've talked about this many times. We're in a world where video games costs are going up and getting audiences attention is harder. Putting your games out on more platforms is a way of growing that. Obviously, you don't want to hurt your platform business. Xbox is perhaps a little less worried about that for for being a smaller platform, but um but PlayStation doesn't want to hurt it platform business. Is putting Lego Horizons on Switch going to hurt PlayStation 5 sales? No. Is Hell Divers 2 coming out 18 months later on Xbox going to hurt Path 5 sales? No. So it's is that those are different those are different scenarios, but everyone's trying to grow their IP through films, through we recently had some more platforms, through mobile, through TV, through theme parks, through alarm clocks and the it's it's it's all

part of that. So yeah, I I I'm excited. Hell Divers is a great story. I love the story. Hopefully we can get We had Shams on the show who's the CEO of Arrowhead and and I'm hoping to get him back on. It's short in in short time I can talk about a bit of that. Also in the news, Nintendo was asked a question during its normally really really boring um um investor Q&A um where they were asked about the rising cost of video game development, the lengthening death cycles and what and basically they were concerned about the price of Nintendo games going up. But it's obviously a big issue facing the whole industry. Nintendo doesn't normally comment much about this. They do talk about how they are mindful of rising costs. He gave a answer about yeah we need to work out about how to bring cost down right yeah we everyone's doing that but he also said we also believe it is possible to develop games with shorter development periods that still offer consumers a sense of novelty we see this as one potential solution to the concern about rising development costs and software prices and we'll explore it from various angles within the company now this is I know Sean Leaden's probably doing

cartwheels this is what he's been saying for a long long time so many people have like yeah like there's been this real appetite and call for shorter, more focused games because so many certainly in the AAA space so many games are trying to be as mainstream as possible and appeal to everyone and you know the classic you know the adage is you know you appeal to everyone then you appeal to no one like so having something of a lot more focus also hopefully help with the Nintendo's like ongoing cadence of what one hit every month or two like they usually have like a game a month or two like that keeping them shorter is the way to ensure that pipeline yeah he doesn't actually say shorter, but I think what what I wonder, you know, there's got to be I think I'd be interested how Nintendo approached it because they always do things in slightly different ways. My brain goes to you've made Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. It took you 100 years to make. Um it it's very very good and now you've got going to reinvent the wheel again and do another seven years of six years of a Zelda death cycle or could you do a spin-off utilizing some of the stuff you done before the Majora's Mask style

following of time? Could you? Yeah, you can play around with new ideas and new concepts in the smaller game settings. You know, I think Bowser's Fury is a wonderful example. Actually, the Mario team made Mario Odyssey. Everyone says, "Oh, it's not been a Mario game since Mario Odyssey." Yes, there has. It was called Bowser's Fury. It was packaged in with the Mario 3D um world release. And it is short, but it's novel and it's interesting. It's brilliant. Like, my game of the year that year, I remember. I seem to recall. Like, yeah. No, it's the prime example. Well, that is a prime example of like the sort of stuff that we'd like to see like and it it gives you it gives you room to experiment and do different things that you can then feed into your larger longer in development. Um, and you know, we we said earlier about, you know, first game in a series being proof of concept. If you can do proof of concept in a smaller title that's kind of a spin-off and then take the learnings from that and then feed into your larger temple titles, I think that's an efficient way of doing things. Yeah. Miles Morales and Spider-Man. There's loads of these examples, but that's not what Nintendo's necessarily

saying. No, we don't know what they're saying. Tears of the Kingdom, Miles Morales confirmed. Yeah, but but I just think there are ways obviously they can do it. They can release more games without But also, they still want to do those big blockbusters. That's that's still got to happen as well. It's a matter of balance. Um, another story I I thought oddly I've sort of seen the headlines. I've read the bits about this and I sort of maybe stupidly not roll my eyes at it cuz I thought a fan petition about uh uh game access basically. But this one's getting a bit of traction. Stop killing games, the consumer-driven initiative that's asking game publishers to leave their titles in a playable state once support for those games have stopped. It's gone past a million signatures. And the result of that is the EU industry body. We used to know them as they're now called the video game. They're called video games Europe. and they represent obviously all the big games publishers, you know, EA, Activision, Warner Brothers, Take 2, that kind of stuff. Nintendo has weighed in. Um, they've said it uh uh they have said, "We appreciate the passion of our community. However, the decision to discontinue online services is multifaceted, never

taken lightly. It must be must be an option for companies when an online experience is no longer commercially viable. We understand that it can be disappointing for players, but when it does happen, the industry ensures that players are given fair notice of the perspective changes in compliance with local consumer protection laws. Private service are not always a rival option. What they talk about here, and this is genuinely the big, it is the legal issue, having a game that you are responsible for, an IP you are responsible for, putting it out there, and then that user doing stuff with it that you know, users doing that you're not supposed to, doing something illegal with it. Um it could not it's not about brand damage. It's about being illegal and doing things and then you're liable for that. Yeah. You're held accountable. You you private servers while from a players perspective perspective makes sense because you're giving the players the option to handle things themselves. You're also relinquishing control of your game and what happens in it. And but you're not relinquishing the accountability. You are still absolutely 100%. I I read the SV the sorry the video game share response and like I've

and as in so many things I'm always very I always try to see like both sides of the perspective. I very much live on the fence but and with this one I I you know I absolutely see where players are coming from. It is frustrating that you know the prime example for this I believe one of the things that kicked off the campaign was the crew. Like even when the crew was shut down because there's so many online features riddled into the single player you cannot play the single player game anymore. So the game you own is just a lump, you know, just a disc that does nothing. It's a coaster. I get the frustration there. But then reading the video games your response like, "Yeah, but private servers is a dangerous is a potentially dangerous alternative given that so many of these games are have the online only features built into them from the ground up. It is difficult and expensive to redevelop your game to operate offline. Um, so it's not as easy as, "Yep, you can still play it." Like, it's difficult. I'm I'm I'm really intrigued to see to see like if from this

campaign, regardless of whether or not he gets any kind of legal output cuz I think the the the campaign itself has got enough signatures that he now is on the way to being, you know, discussed in like various kind of legislatory places like, you know, the European Commission. I'm intrigued to see if even if there's no kind of solid outcome from this if developers um start thinking differently about how they make their games because we've we've talked about this before like live service games are struggling the the in the grand scheme of things large life service games are struggling. It is so incredibly difficult to launch a new live service game that can certainly like compete with like the likes of Fortnite and Roblox and so forth, but can even carve out a niche that is sustainable enough that you're getting enough revenue to keep your live service game going. So I think I would like to think developers are now more thinking right, we're going to develop this live service game, but what's our plan for if this fails? How do what do we do? Yeah. To ensure how do we future proof our game on the assumption of failure? Yeah. Or Yeah. what what orc is a

internal processes the company can have in order to make the game you know you know is that is a I I they it's clearly a problem um the solution isn't clear um and um but it's more complicated than just put it on private service um there's a couple of other small stories I'll touch on before we close up um Romero Games um have not closed down no um following the news that um um uh which they I think they they wouldn't name the publisher, but it's pretty obvious which publisher it was was uh was was releasing their game and now they're not releasing their game. So they've lost everything. And what's worth noting is a lot of people in the US don't quite understand. Oh, they've closed down. They've not closed down. They've said that staff said they're out of jobs. This is EU consultancy, right? So when you get made redundant in the UK, you have a process of um you have to go through a process, right? And it's slightly different in country to country, but you you don't just you don't just get your hand in a box and you walk out the door. There is a

process that has to be gone through. And um so if Romero Games are basically making all of his team redundant, he has to go through that process. It's obviously kickstarted that process, I assume because they don't have that revenue coming in anymore and they need to they need to, you know, um be prepared for that. But it sounds like they're also using this time in the process to try and secure a new publisher, new home, some new money so they can hopefully avoid having to lay people off. That's what's going on with Rome games. um for those that are a little confused um um about the um what's happening there. But again, one of the there's going to be a lot of aftershocks from the Xbox thing. It's worth noting games like Perfect Dark was being developed by Crystal Dynamics. It had some support by um Sumo, a lot um Ever Wild, I I don't actually know, but um but there's there's other people working on it, contractors, so few games come out now without at least some sort of outsourcing or co-development. So yeah, this is going to have a knock-on effect. Yeah, there'll be other companies that might have to make adjustments as a result of this. So, it's um it's it's always a shame to

see any studio in this position. Um so, I am I am gut to see what's happening to Romero Games. Um it's one of those cases though where hopefully like Romero Games I don't think is one of those companies that will ever like not exist at all. As long as the Romero are alive. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Even if it gets down to and I really hope it doesn't come to this, but even it gets to the place where it's just John and Brenda at home making games or planning to make games like they can grow it again. They they can they can reboot it. Yeah, I'm hoping that's the case. I I suspect that's the case. And finally, I end on a quite a small story. Uh where small story, if you live in Germany, the German federal government is increasing public funding for game development uh to 125 million euros. That's that's more than double. It's up from 50 million euros. Um, this is according to game the game the German games industry association which doesn't spell out game. It's great to see global investment continuing here in video games. We just seen some new measures in the UK. Um, some of the countries are sort of going the other way but um it's interesting

with the market going through its its contraction to see public spending sort of um coming into a little bit more. Um German it's all part of they've got some tax relief stuff coming down the line they believe. though this is sort of an interim measure but it's um yeah it's more investment in video games. This is really good. like they then I'm trying to remember I'm struggling to remember the details cuz we covered this a lot when we were at games biz and like I believe you know Matt Handraan our former editor and chief my my predecessor he lived in Germany of course he did um and so he knew a lot of the German scene I remember him saying like this is a really big deal like when the funds started coming like there was a long I think we covered like the campaign to try and secure the public funding and he he was just saying like this is a really big deal there are a lot of studios in Germany like of all sizes so and you know Germany's a big games market as well huge. So second biggest depends on the depends on the month recently. Germany, France and UK are the the triple giants of the of the European games market. And actually Germany's games industry, you know, we've recently had everyone's looking at exhibition 33 in France going

hang on where's ours? Okay. What's the German cliff of your Yeah. But equally before then it was like where what's the Italian CD project, you know, and so there's a lot of um there's a lot of Europeans looking over each other's shoulder going oh we've got a bit of that. Um so it's good great to see. Um, that's all we've got time for. One thing I forgot to mention, we're in person. We are. And the reason for that is we're at Develop Brighton. Um, which we I wasn't I don't have too much going on here. Um, and I don't think you do either, but this is our old home in a way cuz you used to when we worked at MCV Develop, uh, develop awards took place here. One thing I want to talk about actually, I don't even talk about trying to bring up the develop awards. Were you responsible for Kajjima coming? Oh, partly responsible. And the stampers? Yes. Right. this you see this is why the media needs your back James right is getting people like that to come to these awards so so I didn't have anything to do with the developer awards that was that was you for a little bit it was Michael French before you um and that was um that happened here at develop Brighton and then of course when we moved to games shop is the summer party that GI froze here and we were going to that to sort of reunite with

our old friends um later on um but yeah it's uh uh I'm I it's nice to be here it's nice I I've been up since half 5 this morning cuz I drove here this morning But walking along the coast, it this is one of those this this is right up there with Cologne in terms it's one of those places where you spend so much time in for a work event and you have such a good time at the work event that soon as you get here, even though it's been a full year, it feels like it was last week. Yeah, it's great. I'm looking forward to it and I know that we'll see each other throughout the rest of the show. Absolutely. But for now, James, thank you so much for joining us. No, thank you so much for having me back. It's been an absolute joy and we'll we'll we'll have you back again. Um I know that if I could, you'd be back every week. Um that's it for today's episode. We will be back next week. Uh, if you want to make sure you don't miss an episode, don't miss a newsletter, don't miss a post, go to the gamebus.com, put in your email address, you won't miss a thing if you haven't done so already. Or you can subscribe to us on our YouTube channel or via your podcasting platform of choice. Until next time, thank you for tuning in.