Xbox and PlayStation Go Back To Their Old Ways?

Welcome to the Game Discover Co. Show, the place where you will learn all about game discovery, the games industry, and so much more. I am your co-host, Chris Plant, and I'm joined, as always, by my wonderful, brilliant co-host, Simon Carlos. How are you doing today, Simon?
Doing great. It's a bright sunny day. We have a number of agenda items to get to in in as much as we prep these things. And so, I'm really excited to check out what we have. I am shocked that it's a bright sunny day in Northern California because it is the rare truly heinous day in Southern California where it is somehow raining and also like a thousand degrees. So I am much happier to be inside talking to you about video games. Though I am I'm not happy to talk about our first topic which is the topic that never goes away. It is holy moly everything is getting so expensive. what are we going to do about it? And specifically, PC gaming is getting

expensive. We often talk about what's going on with the Xbox or the PlayStation or the Switch price increases, but PC prices are going up, too. And there was a great article on PC Gamer that dug into this. Uh the author, Jacob Fox, had a hell of a provocative headline. I've checked gaming PC deals every week for two years, and I'm not exaggerating when I say there isn't a single well-priced PC left. And he goes on to prove that mid-range rigs from last year cost $200 more this year with lower quality RAM. High-end cost $500 more this year than last year. Is this just the new normal? Are they ever going to go down or is or is it the opposite? Is it this the beginning of of the end?
Well, I mean I the reason that I wanted to highlight this was I do think we talk excessively about console prices and not enough about PC prices. And one of the reasons for that is that PC prices are

so variable, right? Like like uh there's so many manufacturers you can also upgrade your machine like uh you can put new RAM in your machine or you can put a new hard drive or even a new graphics card in your machine. So, it it's the one thing I would say is the big advantage that PC has is you're not um throwing away your old piece of hardware and getting a new piece of hardware. So, I think that's really advantaging PC. But, I thought it was interesting to see the PC gamer folks talk about this and they were sort of saying, well, you know, before the memory crisis, there were some, you know, decent RTX5060 gaming PCs as low as $750 on sale, I think. Uh but now they're sort of saying, well, that's $1,000 really. that maps uh honestly with you know what we're seeing in the console space but I think it is I just think it's under discussed since we talk about steam so much and steam is such an important uh platform and then I think sometimes we sort of forget that in order to get a new entry into this area maybe if you have an existing PC it's going to be cheaper to upgrade but if you want to

buy a PC and you don't have a PC it is as expensive as consoles right now.
Yeah. And do you think we're going to see more of the used market in the PC space as as this goes on?
Yeah, I I do because I think used is much easier to deal with in in PC and I think it is quite possible. Um, and also I I think that yeah, the secondhand PC space feels much I safer in some ways to me than the console space because in the console space like let's say you buy a secondhand console and it doesn't work. You have a limited amount of things you can do. But if you buy a secondhand PC and it's not working properly, you might be like, "Oh, it's just the RAM. I'm going to get new RAM." So, I think um you know, just the modular the modular nature of um of PCs is really playing in their favor. Although, yeah, I mean, the fact that everything is so much more expensive and I don't think, you know, I'm pretty sure that prices are never coming down, right? [laughter] I think I I think prices may not go up, but I I I don't really think I mean, I guess it's

possible. I should I should never say never, but if you look at most other types of inflation, it's been relatively rare. I shop at Target in the US and I will say postcoid, they have been reducing prices on some groceries, for example. So, it does happen, but I think that's very much in the minority. So, I think the prices we have for the prices we're going to stick at.
What do you think developers should be doing in regards to this? Like should most people making games be uh designing for lower specs than they would have initially thought? Like is is there an assumption here that people are going very few people are going to upgrade? The interest in the top end is which was already maybe niche is now even smaller or or is it kind of business as usual in terms of what you're designing? No, I think this is very unspoken and you make a really good point like you have to be really careful now about designing for high-end only PCs and I think the main companies that

have got into that trouble are um people who've who've been kind of a console first companies especially I think some of these Japanese companies have had trouble because they've been very console first and then they sort of come in and say well we've made this mainly tuned for the PS5 or the PS5 Pro and then we come in and say well we have got a PC version as well but by the time you've sort of done that you probably haven't tuned it correctly for various types of PC. And we also know that games that are natively lead lead made for a console, you often get kind of shader issues that you that are dealt with on console but aren't dealt with on PC. So I would say yeah I and also as you know right now many games are being made um in a in in a less technology first kind of way. So I think that's sort of the good news. the market sort of adopted and a lot of popular games now uh are you know aren't ones that have tremendously sophisticated engines or or you know incredibly high-end graphics but I think it's something to watch and I do agree with you. I think you know the idea that you could make a game

that's PS tuned primarily from PS5 Pro and then turn around and make a PC version and have everyone say, "Oh, this is fine." Uh yeah, I don't think that's going to happen. So I think you have to be super careful. Yeah, I'm very curious to see where the trend goes between console versus PC because it felt to me I'm curious if you agree with this that PC was gaining a lot of momentum and traction over the last decade in change that people were realizing the value of it that the prices were coming down that you had options like the Steam Deck and as prices go up it goes back to that reputation that PC gaming always had which was oh it's really expensive and requires you to be a tinkerer and you're going to have to fix it all on your own. At the same time, gaming console prices are going up. So, I don't know if that makes PCs seem about equal or if it goes the other way. I I I don't know. But I'm I'm curious what that kind of, you know, back of the napkin

calculus feels like for the average customer when they're going and deciding between console and PC going forward.
Yeah. I mean I mean I think that what's happened is a lot of trending interesting games if you're paying attention to the internet on PC first and sometimes on PC only. So I think that's just just one thing where a lot of people are opting for PC because they won't be a PlayStation. I mean we see all these games all these games that keyword squat I always complain about this you know like there's a popular PC game that's not on Switch and then someone makes a game with a very similar name to try and get you know downloads and when people do buy that they'll be quite upset because it's not the game they were looking for. So I think yeah for for me I just that the agility of PC to host emerging games that you wouldn't have seen otherwise is the main thing and I do think that consoles are aging more than you would think like console players um you know I I'm stereotyping a little bit but you know sort of like core you know Madden NBA uh GTA players and I don't think those people are

always you know 19 years old. I think people who are 19 years old are not playing Madden and NBA as their as their kind of um sole thing. So So I think we're seeing a little bit of aging on on the console side at least on PlayStation and Xbox and we're just seeing the ability on PC. I mean the thing about PC is you can have any old PC and play a lot of a lot of friends I would say. So not quite any old PC but you know like a PC that was made in the last eight years probably. And so, um, I think that's really helping people, especially when maybe their parents or their relatives have have PC and they can just they can just come in and play. So, that's why I think PC is going to continue to be very dynamic.
Yeah. And you can always have the excuse of it's for work or it's for school or it's for something else. You can kind of justify it. We'll also talk a little bit later about that aging around games like Madden and NBA 2K and in these games that we associate as the Goliath of consoles and and where that is. But first, I want to talk about some more

stories. The platforms they're siloing up. They're get they're pulling back inwards. Xbox is, you know, pulling everything back to Xbox. PlayStation is centralizing around PlayStation. We have two news stories this week that are showing this. Uh, one is that we're not seeing the other platforms names on uh, Xbox game trailers like Minecraft Dungeons 2, even if they're actually coming to those platforms. And then right alongside that, we had the PlayStation's uh latest state of play, their streaming showcase where they showed a whole bunch of games and really put an emphasis on the PlayStation of it all, right? That you're going to play this on on your console. Are these two yearning for a simpler time when the real threat was the console wars? What's going on here? I mean, I think they realized, and it is interesting, the Xbox One, I'd say, is a little bit more

cosmetic because uh they they mainly made the changes to the trailers because Xbox fans were complaining at them, and they mainly made those trailer changes on the Xbox channel specifically. I think they put out different versions of the trailers that have the other SKs listed. But I think the the Xbox fans are basically like, you know, why are you doing this to me? I've been an Xbox fan forever and then you show me all the other platforms. I think that's a little more cosmetic. Um, I think the PlayStation stuff is a little a little less cosmetic maybe. Um, you know, and I think it is it, you know, it is things like if you look at the stuff PlayStation showing in its first party showcases nowadays, like Wolverine, like Until Dawn 2, Ghost of Yoai, you know, are those ever ever coming across at this at this point to to PC? It's a it's a little it's a little unclear. I I know they've already said um that they that they weren't bringing some stuff across, but I think what's happening is consoles have realized that if you do lean into PC, you do make a bit more money. Uh but then you're really underlining the fact

that that dedicated hardware is not necessary. And obviously obviously Nintendo has never really tried to port anything and Nintendo's first party stuff continues to go pretty well. Well, they are leaving a lot of money on the table by not doing that, but I think they decided that they a long time ago that they that they want to have Nintendo games on Nintendo hardware. And I think yeah, it's unclear to me whether PlayStation or Xbox are going to win doing this, but I think they are probably correct that the other method is going to end in them losing.
Yeah. Well, there are two things in different directions there. I want to talk about the Nintendo comparison in a in a second, but first what Xbox is doing this saying we're not going to have the Sony PlayStation logo on a trailer because it makes our fans upset and then maybe we'll have it on different trailers that those fans are are less likely to see. I don't what what's the point? Like what

is the strategy here? Because if microtargeting that specific type of exus user, hardcore fan, is there money in that? Like what what do you gain?
Yeah, I think Xbox honestly, and they do know this somewhat, is in a little bit of a no-win situation here because because the Xbox hardcore fan base has been has been diminished over time, but it is really what they've got now. So, and I think there has been a complaint that Asha Sharma at Xbox has been a little overreactive to fans yelling at her on social media, especially X, uh, which she is active on. And I think this could be an example of that, which is kind of like m, you know, on the other hand, there might be some argument, well, there is legitimate feedback from hardcore Xbox fans, but yeah, I think it's it's a little tricky because you because you end up maybe over overcorrecting for the for the minority

who are yelling at you. I think um you know I think Xbox uh is I mean honestly I think I think more of Xbox's issue right now is that their some of their game franchises are not firing on all cylinders. That's sort of more of the issue. And I think if they did have some killer franchises that were Xbox only then people would consider potentially coming back. I think PlayStation has a you know Xbox has some of that but obviously recently they haven't done that. Like Forza 6 is is is a multiplatform release, right? So they'd have to they'd have to go back a long way. Whereas on on PlayStation, Intergalactic, whatever that next Naughty Dog joint is, that is going to be, I think, PlayStation exclusive probably forever. And so then you might be like, "Well, crap, I have I I love Naughty Dog. I better pick up a PlayStation 5 to play that game." And obviously the big one coming up in the short term is that um GTA 6 is launching first only on PlayStation and Xbox. And so a lot of people will be picking picking up for that. Obviously, that's not going to stay. That that game should

be on PC fairly soon after.
Yeah. Well, I mean I I mean I How about the Nintendo side of it all? Because I I see your point of maybe folks at Xbox and PlayStation are looking at Nintendo and saying, "Well, look, it it works for them. They they're siloed. They're on their own thing. They are stable. All we want is stability. At the same time, their games cost a fraction to make. They have 30 to 40 years of um beloved and supported and honed IP. Uh and they're on a novel device. They're on a thing that is distinct from a PC. And it's like, yes, PC gaming handhelds are here, but not not in the same way. The the are they chasing the wrong thing? like are they are they looking at it and pointing to one, you know, signal when actually there are many signals

that they're not doing that could also be responsible for Nintendo's success.
Um, yeah, and and also I'd say if you look at console sales numbers, I don't think Nintendo is any significantly better than PlayStation, for example. So, I I I don't think but you know, and there is an argument Nintendo leaves a lot of money on the table by uh by by not doing this. I think it's a it's sort of a damned if you do and damned if you don't kind of thing. And at this point, um I think PlayStation and Xbox don't like the the financial trajectory they were on when they were doing the one thing. So they're like, "Well, we're going to do the other thing for a little bit." And it's not like they've slammed it in reverse completely. This is like a selective retargeting, right? So it's, you know, it's not like cuz like Minecraft Dungeons 2, that's going to be a multiplatform game. So they're not and then and they know that Minecraft is a big multiplatform IP. They're not going to be like Minecraft only on Xbox. Uh so so so I'd say this is more of sort of a a gradual reverse rather than a sort of slamming everything uh like like doing a

direct U-turn. But I think I think they are correct which is um hardware is becoming uh too commoditized and I think if you don't have unique stuff especially on the next generations then people are going to have trouble wanting to like PlayStation 6 like why do you want to upgrade to PlayStation 6 if your PlayStation 5 plays most of the good games that third parties put out. Um so that's uh you know so that's going to be a problem. What do you think is the best case scenario that they that they have in mind, right? Like as they're making this move, pulling everything inward, what would happen with PlayStation 6 and Xbox Series Y or Zed? Like what does this look like as an effective strategy?
I think you just need a robust enough set of games that people will upgrade to the next version of your hardware. I think the danger is PlayStation 4 users,

some of them may have, I mean, I'm sure Sony has surveyed for this. Some PlayStation 4 users may have wandered off to PC instead of upgrading to PlayStation 5. And I think the more you put all the Sony games on PC, the more likely it is that people will wander off to PC instead of upgrading to PlayStation 5. So, I think that, you know, the best case scenario here is that you have a good like a a good as good or better upgrade Nexus from to the next version of the hardware. And I think Sony is fine. They understand that it takes many years now and people are on people will be on place people be playing Fortnite on PlayStation 4 for the next 10 years. That's that's fine. But but they need enough people to upgrade to not run out of room. And I think the danger with all this hardware now it's more expensive. And I'm still wondering about this with Switch 2 is are you going to get the hardcore converting and then you just run out of people who want to buy it? And that's the real question still for Switch 2, which is if you look at Switch 2 install base right now, what was it? 70 or 80% of them own Switch One. So, have you have you just converted the hardcore and then you just completely completely run

out of juice? And I think that's what all of these companies including Nintendo are or should be worried about. Yes, [snorts] we are going to hit on that again in in the numbers for the sales this week because yes, if the goal is to have a couple games a year that are only available on your system, you're competing against PC where you have a couple of games each week that are only available for that system and are all the rage with your youngest player base. But I'll keep things moving. Um I want to talk about an interview that was had this week with uh Arrowhead CEO uh is it Shamsjourney Georgiani I think. Yeah.
Um who uh is responsible for overseeing the studio that created Hell Divers 2. And there are a number of things in this interview that was had over at gamesindustry.biz is that I think are interesting in kind of getting at some current pains in the industry and and

where things are going. And I'm curious what from this interview really stuck to you. Why were you excited to bring it to the show today?
Yeah, I just thought it was interesting because I think, you know, uh Shams has had a history in the industry that isn't just big AAA games. And so I thought it was interesting to see someone in charge of a uh you know, big game studio sort of saying small games things. And a couple of the kind of small games things he said was well I don't know if this is small games but the only thing that really mitigates risk is brand and recognizability I thought was a really good thing to say and I think uh I honestly think it's odd right that like companies like PlayStation have been putting out trying to do this big live service pivot with a whole bunch of me at least 50% brand new IP and then sort of wondering why I mean there's other reasons but wondering why it's slamming into a wall a little bit and I thought thought I mean maybe PlayStation was the brand but um yeah I thought this was just a good I rarely see people say that say that up front and it's completely

true you can mitigate your risk if you uh if you have high high recognizability of brand so yeah
yeah there maybe I'm overreading into this but I'm I'm going to give you a quote from the interview that's specifically about that and then give you my interpretation of it which is
the quote is people scream for new games and IPs, but they don't actually buy them. We tend to buy remakes. That's where we were uh at least very fortunate with Hell Divers in the sense that we were one of the lucky few who were able to get a breakthrough and establish ourselves. And that came through a certain bit of luck and the secret sauce that goes into making the game. It makes it recognizable, but also its own thing. And I'm almost certainly overreading into this line. It makes it recognizable, but also its own thing as the secret sauce. And that Hell Divers 2 is not legally Starship Troopers the video game, but it is as close as you can get without, you

know, infringing on any IP rights. And I think that I don't know if he would agree or not that that's part of why it has succeeded is that even though it is not its brand's recognizability that it has I don't know it's pulling from a brand a popular brand in a way that any other thing would and how often I see things pop on Steam when they are quote new but I can easily pin them to something else that I am familiar with.
Yeah,
it it's not an insignificant number of times.
Yeah, you you're right. And that's actually it actually makes the quote smarter than I gave it credit for because I think you're pointing out the recognizability thing is about do I recognize the kind of direction this is coming from, not necessarily do I recognize the IP. So he's sort of brand he's sort of saying and you're right I think Hell Divers was a hit because of a

common I it's a great game Hell Divers 2 but it's a combination of there was already you know the Hell Divers brand I think a bunch of people cared about not everyone cared about it it was more I think twin stick shootery it was it was different to two but um yeah then the recognizability of the of the kind of you know space marines giant bug stuff is is perfect so yeah yeah I I think I think you're right and I often counel people like you If you can't find a game that your game is very like that's been commercially successful, then sometimes you do have to be, you know, you might have to be concerned. I don't know.
Yeah. Yeah. There there were a few other quotes in in this piece that he has a way of saying one thing and kind of nodding to something else. And one was that uh for new games, even as a bigger studio, they'll quote be putting uh their games in the hands of players right away, as soon as possible, which sounds like early access. When you actually hear the rest of the quote,

getting your game in the hands of other players could be uh getting it in the hands of a hundred people who you can get a sense of like what they like and don't like, people who are hardcore fans of your game already. It could be getting uh animated gifts of your game live. It feels like what he's really saying is this old marketing routine of let's wait until it is perfect before we show the world. It just doesn't work anymore. And I'm curious if you, as somebody who w sees so many games going through the system, think that's entirely true when at the same time we have to worry about clones and people being, you know, kind of beat to market for their own thing.
Yeah, I mean, you do have to be careful. If you're not going to finish the game for a long time, then maybe you have to worry about that. But often if the game's more complicated, people aren't going to attempt a a clone of it. I think if your game is simple conceptually, then you might have to worry about that. But I I agree and this

is the other thing again I see rarely from big studio owners comments like we're going to show people the game super early and yeah I don't think he means early access he means and he might not be publicly but he means like a like a few months into development we're going to show a bunch of a bunch of people this and which I think is absolutely the right thing to do because you just end up going in off in directions that people don't like and the only way you can tell is if you if you show them. So, I think, you know, for bigger companies, that's still pretty radical, right? If you think again all the PlayStation live service stuff, I'm sure they have been doing some kind of testing, but I don't think they've been like, "Oh, well, people said this, we better change up the game." Like, I I I still feel like they're kind of like, "Oh, we gathered some information. Let's wait for the marketing to kick in." Uh, which is a a kind of a a different a different way to do things, I think.
Yeah. There was there was one last quote in this that I'll just tap on then we can keep moving. But he talks about AI and how it's being used in the west

versus the east. It's a very long quote about how in the east it is just being taken advantage of right away. There's no qualms is a tool and it's powerful and we're going to use it. And in the west there are questions about the ethics of it and the divide between programmers. And the quote goes on and on and on. It's all very very delicate. And then it ends with the West will be slower on the uptake, but the uptake will still happen. And I'm curious if this is kind of where a lot of CEOs are at when it comes to video game development, which is I'll talk a lot about it. I'll say kind of the right things, but ultimately I believe we're all going to the same end point. Is that what you're hearing from people?
Yeah. Yeah, it also depends like AI is such a broad term at this point, but what I would say is, you know, a lot a large and increasing percentage of coders in the games industry are using AI to increase their productivity

significantly and no one's really talking about that. That's happening currently. Uh, and so I I think that's really the hidden the hidden revolution so far, I guess I'd say, but that's happening in in all programming. Like speak to any programmer who's who's used that who's used AI and they're just like, "Yeah, I get gets done. I I I don't have to code a system from scratch, you know, I can just I can just tell it to do the system. People people are less worried about that generally because um it doesn't feel very creative. [laughter]
Um so so yeah, so so I'd say from that from that perspective, yes. And I do think over time we may see more AI uh art and audio. But I mean I think and I've sort of been on record. The reason I don't talk about AI much in the newsletter is I think it's relatively unimportant right now to what's happening in games because um really what's happening in games is it got so easy to make games that people are making games without a lot of AI except AI code help and there's already far too

many good ones. And so I I and I don't believe that slo like sloppy AI design stuff is actually going to increase the amount of good ones. I think you know if you've seen um you know anything that's made mainly with AI certainly on the game design side it's not great most of the time. So, so yeah. So, so I mean I think that clearly there clearly might be a turning point when someone's like, "Oh, um, I understand how to do co-op only platformers now. I'm going to churn out 100 co-op only platformers with different themes using AI heavily." Like if that happens, then that's going to be interesting. Uh, but I but I think in I I I think in general right now, yeah, AI probably besides the coding side, probably over overd discussed. Um, you and uh I I don't I don't think either in the east or the west it's going to be a a super big deal for games, but I could be completely barking up the wrong tree here because who knows, right?
Well, either way, you set up uh the

final big kind of topic perfectly with the are we going to be drowning in co-op platformers very soon. We're gonna talk about last week versus this week in new games, but it's the uh beginning of a new month, which means it's time to reflect on the previous one. August top new PC console games revealed on the game discovery code newsletter. What blew up? Yeah, I just wanted to talk about this because we talk about weeks sometimes, but sometimes it's good to go back to the month. And a good example for this is does uh there's this game how to fish. And I think if I was talking about How to Fish on a Tuesday, if I did, it hadn't really got that big. And uh uh but it's one of these friends sloppy games. I think I talked about it briefly, but it got it got giant and ended up selling, we think, over six million units uh in in August. That's obviously at like5 to 7. So it's not a very expensive game, but it's a great example of again the sort of from nowhere. I think it's like a two person

Swedish team. Uh, and yeah, it's just it's just a lot of fun to noodle around with your buddies. So, those are the ones that continue. And that was sort of I guess the headline was the two biggest games of the month was was a Big Walk, which we've already talked about multiple times, and this game and this game, How to Fish. Uh, but but besides that, there was a bunch of other interesting stuff as well. It was a mix of sort of d what I call doublea in Indie, but you know, there's stuff like Iron Nest, that that heavy turret sim, which we I think we've discussed before. And then this game, this game, this game Restory, which I don't think we've talked about quite so much, which is like a chill electronics repair game, which just has really nice aesthetics and you're and you're pairing kind of early Zeros game consoles and like and like Nokia Enauage look alikes and stuff like that. And so and so that game did almost 500,000. So, I just think it's super interesting like these are not games that um I guess would be at the top of anyone's list all the time, but they do have, you know, like like um like like like big like um Restories

published by Tiny Build like they have proper people behind them. It's just I feel like the the scene is so difficult to predict nowadays. I don't know if anyone would have put like Restory in the top five units for the month, but it it totally did. So, yeah. Is it possible that we are at just the beginning of the kind of friendlop co-op era? Like is that the takeaway when I see these numbers for how to fish being I get it,5 to 7, but six million units is astonishing. Um in in in Big Walk 1.6 million is is nothing to blush at. So yeah, I I yeah, I think it's going to carry on because what's sort of happening I mean I'm starting to see it like a lot of these games have similar controls, right? And similar things you do in them. And so you can argue this is just like buying a new level for a game or it's like buying a Fortnite season pass. You're just buying a new game, but it's not that different to the old game.

And so I think we're seeing a lot of movement. Like if I look at the top 10, there was a lot of stuff in the $5 to $15 price range. Uh there was a game called Grain Rot which we haven't really talked about which is interesting because it looks a bit like Repo but it actually so it's fencop adjacent but it has permanent progression in it which I think is super interesting because almost none of these games have permanent progression right now the 100% flock games. Uh and so again that's sold over 200,000 copies at at $9 in its first three weeks. So yeah, I mean I I think we're going to continue to see this because there's just a high uh there's a high buying audience who like jumping between these games with their buddies. It's not always the same people, but if you look at some of the overlap with some of these games, it is like 40 or 50% of the same people who are jumping around between these games. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not I'm not trying to be perpetually apocalyptic here, but there's a chart that you have that's the top 10 new releases of August on Steam in terms of

gross revenue. And Star Wars Zero Company is number one. Like no surprise. Star Wars, you got Respawn, you've got uh the the new studio that is these like XCOM, former XCOM talents, but the it's just barely above How to Fish. Just barely. I get above it by an estimated like two and a half million. What does that mean? Like what does it mean that you can have that many people in this giant system that we have and advertising all those things and it is having to compete against and no disrespect to it but a game called How to Fish that was made completely outside of that kind of super structure.
Yeah. I mean and it's sort of on the record while Star Wars Zero company the dev team has had some issues. they had to um you know they had to furlow some people. Steven Tatillo was reporting

ahead of launch and I think it was you know a pretty expensive game to make. I mean it would not surprise me if it it's not particularly profitable in the long term because it's not doing that well on console cuz it's not you know it's an Xbox like it's never going to do that well on console. I think our estimates on console were like I don't know like it's 100,000 between the two or something. So it's going to sell fine and over time I think it is going to sell but uh to your point I mean the main thing this says is budgets got to come down uh you know if if even the number one game for the month zero company uh is uh by our estimates might have trouble recouping then uh yeah budget's got to come down and we're just going to see more stuff I think in and that's why I said I said double A note AAA because there's games like Mortal Shell 2 um which is doing pretty nicely especally It's doing nicely on PlayStation as well. You know, I'm imagining that game will gross eventually because we have it at $17 million for the month on Steam. I'm guessing that would gross 75 100 mil if

I'm just spitballing and but I'm guessing and and that game looks like it could have cost, you know, like AAA budget, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't. I'm pretty sure it's like a 15 or 20 million uh budget on on it. So again, so I think what is happening whether you like it or not is the budget's coming down. And then yeah, if you're on the west coast of the US and you've got and you've got a 50 person studio, that's $10 million a year just there. Like there's no way you could make Mortal Sh Mortal Shell 2 for $15 million. Like that's insane. So I I think yeah, we're just going to continue to see uh you know, high expensive areas pivoting away from games. People who were doing that have to get jobs in tech or something else, I guess, or do it solo. and uh and and we'll continue to see um yeah like like more expense more inexpensive games that don't look more inexpensive doing well like also Hell at Loose Vietnam's been doing quite well. I I again I don't imagine its budget was uh 50 million. I imagine it was it was it was less than that. So yeah.

Yeah. I I want to keep things rolling, but I will just follow up on something I said earlier about uh Madden and NBA 2K and these sorts of games aging in and in and being kind of stuck on console. Madden, the obvious top new release of the month both on PlayStation and Xbox around a combined 2 million units, but doesn't even show up in in the top uh 10 for Steam. And I I think that is like if if ever there were a an explanation of a clear divide. Um that that feels like one. Uh people are just playing different things in different places. But I want to keep things going and I want to talk about uh what we just had happen this past week and what we have coming up this upcoming week. So what was last week? What what were the the big surprises?

Yeah, I mean just to blast through kind of the big guys and I I I had to I wrote some of this in my newsletter on Friday for for our paid users and it was at the end of the August roundup. So I was pretty shell shocked by then but I but I managed to get through it and really yeah the four big guys last week which were all pretty expected if you look at their wish lists were uh Onimushia uh which is doing excellently. I think it's at 75,000 CCU and it's doing good on console last I looked as well. Blood of Dawn Walker. We expected that to do well. I think we've discussed it before and it's doing good. It's a bit quirky. It's just under very positive reviews, but I think people are finding enough in it that it's doing pretty nicely. Um, and then NBA 2K27, actually worth noting, uh, did, you know, despite the fact it didn't have many wish lists, went all the way up to almost 30,000 CCU on Steam alone. So, again, basketball pretty strong still in in places. And then and then Bomb Banana, which was the uh- woppy co-opy bomb diffusal game. They they went out at a pretty aggressive their

launch discount got them under $5. So those folks are really going for range here. And I think we had them at 20,000 CCU uh on Friday and I think they've actually gone up since then. So again, that's another example of a microbudget game where people are um yeah, I had a I had a brief conversation with someone related to that game about discounts and I was um yeah, I I was sort of a little advocating on the side of being more conservative, but I think you just the argument is that you just want to you just want to blow the top off the game and so you should be more aggressive because you're you're going to make your budget back either way. So that was what uh so so so that was what what Bombardana ended up doing and then I think this upcoming week just has a couple of notables. One particular is War Dogs. And I've talked about War Dogs a little bit recently, but War Dogs is shaping up, you know, it's a tactical shooter. It's like, I think a 100 person uh in a game. It's and it's shaping up to be a big hit. It has 1.3 million wish lists. I think we have it already at 500,000 pre-orders on Steam and we might be low on that even. So, uh definitely War Dogs, not I don't feel like it's not

at the front of everyone's sensibility right now, but Warog's just got to be very big. So, I guess that's the end.
Yeah, it's it's giving me really MAG energy. Do you remember
I do remember bag? Yeah,
it it's like three teams and you're fighting over control of an area and lots of people. Uh, also looks very destructible. Looks very cool. And anything else? Uh, I see I know Valheim is finally entering 1.0.
Yeah. Yeah.
Assume it will do a Okay.
Yeah. Yeah, and actually we're going to put some stuff in place cuz I I've had this complaint recently when stuff hits 1.0 if when if something has a big update sometimes like body cam had a really big update uh last week, but it wasn't a 1.0 and and the CCU went way up and I only noticed by mistake. So, I'm going to add a new chart somewhere in our pro back end for me, but also for other people who use Pro, which will be like which games have radically more CCU than they did a week or two weeks ago because I think that's something we need to keep an eye on. And I think yeah, Valheim is clearly clearly going to be

one of those. Um, and then the other stuff, um, I guess there's that game is that game Wonderberg, which is like you're like a little house on wheels. It's like a like a vehicle combat rog like super cute. I featured in the newsletter before that's got 500,000 uh wish lists. And then Halloween the game, which is in advanced access right now uh and is about to come out. I think I saw on Steam DB it already had 20,000 CCU in advanced access. So that game is clearly going to do well. That's from a line of uh horror. I think it's the same guys did the Friday the 13th game, right? Which got delisted.
That's right.
Yeah. Which got delisted for weird IP reasons. So, I think they're just sort of jumping back in and they've got a bunch of fans. So, yeah, I think that should do well.
Yeah. Making a video game with a major uh horror movie IP seems so risky considering those IPs are perpetually in states of disarray. Uh yeah, my my uh personal calendar we like to talk about the bubble warogs showing up there uh which is not a type of game I would play ever. So the fact that it's like no you

should still know about it I think gets at that reach. Same with Valheim and hey there's a new Hot Wheels game coming out that looks pretty fun. Hot Wheels a perpetual surprise IP in video games. They always seem just to perform uh a little better than you would think. Yes, that all sounds about right. I have one last thing for you before we wrap up. And I have my usual question of the week, which is Xbox is limiting the hours on its cloud service for people who want to be playing games that way. And this is confounding to me because on one hand, you have fewer people using your consoles and you also have hardware prices going up. And on the other hand, you're saying we want to limit cloud use or make you pay more for it if you want to go over your allotted hours. So what is it like? What where where are they hoping that their customer is directed?
So I have a particular theory on this

which is based on like Xbox has unfortunately on its way up done all kinds of optics to make stuff look better. And I've done like some columns on this in the past where I pointed out all their game pass growth. I think they sort of fooled themselves on their game pass growth because a lot of it was converted from Xbox Live Gold and they didn't count Xbox Live Gold as game pass. So they were just like we've got so many new game pass subscribers and a lot of the people were just upgrades from as they gradually phased out gold. So I think another example is they were under a lot of pressure to show cloud growth. So, one of the things they did was they built into the Xbox dashboard a really easy way to cloud stream on your Series X and Series S if you're a Game Pass subscriber. I am reasonably sure that a lot of the milestones that they've talked about with cloud gaming are actually people playing on their Xbox. Uh I'm guessing it must be like 80% of their cloud hours are on the Xbox. That's my guess. And the people do not think this because they because they never that they never disclose it because they don't want to. But but you know, it's just really useful. When I had a I don't sorry Xbox, I don't have a

game pass subscription right now. But when I had a game pass subscription, I would definitely do this as a new game. It's an 18 gigabyte download or you can click the play on cloud button. So I would I would go check it out. So I'm guessing some people get stuck if if their performance is good. Why would you ever download the game? So So that's that's my guess about what's going on here. They have they have too many people on Xbox playing. And I think I have heard there's some people who play uh who play mobile who play Xbox RPGs for very many hours on their mobile devices. So I think that's the other thing. Like I've heard people say they play Persona on cloud mobile. It
It's just so weird though because like isn't this what everybody wanted? And by everybody I mean Xbox. I mean Google when it was promoting Stadia. This idea of you know like yeah why should you ever download a game again? Hell, you should be able to see a link and you click it and you're in in the game immediately. And it I don't know. It feels like what

we've discovered is cloud gaming cost a lot more and not become profitable fast enough. And sure, that was a pretty cool idea, but maybe we need to figure out those costs first.
Yeah. I mean, I think we're on to the next thing, aren't we? The next thing is AI. And at this point, Microsoft has far more things to be wor, you know, far more things to be worrying about on the AI side than than these than these guys who are spending 50 hours a month streaming for soda on their mobile phones and costing costing them hundreds of dollars a month. So, so, so I think yeah, so they're just like, shut it down. And, and I agree, it's not an amazing look for Xbox, but um it's probably the correct thing to do for the business, frankly. And I think people I think people will forget about it in in in a couple of weeks that I don't think there's going to be anyone I think anyone saying my entire Xbox experience was based around streaming cloud for like 30 hours a month. So I I think I think it'll be okay. But to your point, as with most platform moves right now, like no platform is making an a move that looks optically good at this point. Everyone is just sort of like dabbing at

the bleeding, unfortunately.
Yeah. Yeah. Well,
that's a great place to end it. You know, I always love to end on a on a real uplifting note. The weather's nice there. You know, we we have that going for us. Um, thank you all so much for listening. This has been another episode of the Game Discovery Co Show. If you enjoy the show, listen to us on YouTube, listen to us on the newsletter where you can find that inbed, listen to us on your podcast app of choice. We're a bit of everywhere. I am Chris Plant. You can find me wherever. But Simon, where can find people where can people find more of game discover co?
Yeah. Yeah. So, so game discover.co is our main address. And something I keep actually forgetting to mention in this uh podcast, which is hilarious, is you know, we do one of our main businesses is licensing uh data to bigger game companies. And it's called Game Discover Code Pro. So, you can find more information about that on uh uh on

gamesiscover.co. And we have about 110 companies that do that. And I think it's kind of funny. I was talking to Chris about this offline. I'm like, you know, one of the reasons we set up this podcast is for fun, but also it's about talk about our company. And I've consistently failed to mention this is our core business in fact. So um I appreciate everyone who subscribes to the feed newsletter and also everyone who has plus, but obviously you know we spend a lot of time analyzing uh we have this big software as a service back end for uh for uh for games pro. So yeah, just a reminder we have that. And if you work for a bigger company and you're not using Pro, maybe uh you should consider giving us an email.
I can also say as someone who formerly ran a big video game media publication, I was even having to decide what games get made and I was relying on this data these tools so much. Um I can only imagine how useful they are for people who are actually making the video games and not just reporting on them. Uh, hey, thank you so much for doing this as

always, Simon. I'm I'm happy that we get to do this together. And thank you all so much for listening. We'll see you next time. Bye.
Thanks, everyone. The season.