Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Yooka-Laylee and Gaming's Future- Kinda Funny Gamescast Ep. 19

Episode Date: May 15, 2015

Banjo Kazooie gets a spiritual successor, Yooka-Laylee, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5 gets announced with a few upsetting features, what consoles will exist in 10-15 years, and with Mighty Number 9 and a Castlevania clone on the horizon, will Kojima do the same with Metal Gear? (Released 05.08.15) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up, guys. Welcome to the first ever episode 19 of the kind of funny games cast. Now, guys, I fucked up. What did you do? Last week was episode 18. Yeah. This show's legal and I didn't even make it. It's so upsetting. Yeah, Kevin, Kevin brought up to me.

Maybe you're growing up? Definitely not that. You've grown up a little? No. Well, now the thing is now this is 19. So now this is a whole new thing. 19's when it really starts to get good, you know? No.

Mm-hmm. Okay. The coolest dudes in video games are joining me. today Colin Moriarty and Greg Miller. Yes, if you got the other Patreon exclusive episode of the Game Over Gregory show, Colin is still trying to clean his glasses. There's some real issue topic in here. Now, Colin, you know that oil and water don't mix.

I heard that. You know what happens to a toad when it gets struck by lightning? Mm-hmm. Same thing as everybody else. Shit happens, you know. Ladies and gentlemen, if you do not know, the Kind of Funny Games cast, it's our video game show. And you can get it over on YouTube.com slash Kind of Funny Games.

But if you want it early, oh yeah. You can go to Patreon.com. slash kind of funny games pay a dollar and you get it early that's not right no I was almost right I was always good about stuff the dollar gets you the exclusive episode every month that's going to be good one this month I can tell you that all right can we can't tell we can't tell you but it's definitely going to be worth the dollar it's definitely worth a dog wait is it was it I thought we weren't putting that up as an exclusive we're right there we're talking about the same thing but I thought we were just putting it up as a special one-off you know what

they're going to love that regardless of what happens in the exclusive episode you're going to shit your pants and call your mom. It's going to be damn good. It's going to be damn good. And also, exclusive episode is going to be good. Yeah. For sure.

But if you want to get this show early, you can go over to Patreon. $5. It gets you the audio. $10 will get you the video. And let me tell you, that's what you're going to want to do. Okay.

Because it's damn good looking at these faces. Yeah. Or you can just wait and you'll get it for free the next week. After it's broken up topic by topic on YouTube. On YouTube. com slash Kind of Funny Games on that Friday, you get the full episode and you get the MP3 on iTunes and all those other podcast services.

I'll get this one day. No, that was good. It was good, but I fucked up just with the dollar thing, but I tell you one, you guys, one day, it's just going to be fucking. Here's what I want to talk about. Again, not to keep making references, maybe you only listen to the kind of funny games cast, and that's fine. But if you listen to the Game Over Grady Show, you heard Colin,

given Kevin over there, the old, he's the opposite of a ballerina, rigamarole. Yes. But Kevin does these things to stay out of frame sometimes where he's like, he was pressed up against the wall a second ago, like slither and over there. Yeah, exactly. It's just like he tries. Like a broke. down solid.

Yeah. Can you imagine that? Just a short of Kevin as solid. Sure. I could see it. I can see the iPash and the not so solid stand. Yeah.

But the thing about it is, and I'm talking about Metal Gear 4 with the iPch, come on, don't try to throw up my face. It's weird that in these instances where he's trying to be quiet and trying not to ruin the show, he doesn't do the stumble thing.

But when it's just we're setting up a let's play and nothing's happening. That's when he's always three seconds away from destroying everything in the house. I feel like Kevin for, you know, Kevin doesn't move quickly, but he moves in a normal speed. but I feel like the directions in which he falls and stumbles indicates that he has incredible inertia.

Like, Kevin has a body that's always in movement. You know what I mean? He was. Dude, don't forget. He did beat Sean Finning in a foot race at IGN before we left. So yeah. Something about that's true. That happened.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But one of my favorite things about Kevin, and yes, we're going down this rabbit hole, is that he always needs to be in his mind as efficient as possible, even if it's not efficient for everyone else in the room. Right. So it's like he will always. need to make sure that if his laptop somewhere that his freaking power cord needs to be wrapped around the foot

of every, all four feet of the table to make sure that it like perfectly gets to where he's sitting so that it doesn't get in his way but it's literally like on my lap and I'm like why why are you doing this Kevin? And then without fail he'll trip on it and it'll pull the headphones and it'll pull

everything and I don't know if you guys notice this but he always takes his headphones and he like puts him on the side of the table and it's just like Kevin don't do that because you have fucking knock him over. Well, that's what I'm saying that this is Kevin, Kevin's normal state. You know,

I don't presume to know Kevin like you know Kevin. I've known Kevin just for a short time, but it always seems like his normal state is in a state. This is why I was talking about with inertia. Like his normal state is just that in which he is always stumbling. That's the way the world had made him and the universe finds him in every single day.

And I can understand. Not everyone can be as graceful as me. I think you need to reintroduce this show. This is the first episode, the only episode of the kind of funny. Kevin cast. Oh my God. No, it'll happen.

Anthony Carbone's going to make that. Oh, right. Yeah. It's going to be a weekly show of him talking about Kevin. All right. Kevin, I mean, Kevin's got a lot of skills and things, you know, upside. You know, it reminds me, you know, not everyone can be nimble. Like a cat.

Yeah, no. You know, I'm a nimble like a cat. And Cheryl always tells me, you know, she likes to throw my pillow off the better at me and I often catch it. Yeah. And then she's like, oh, you're very proud of yourself for how quick you are. Yeah. Yes.

See, I'm quick. I'm quick like that. But I don't have the technical. skills than Kevin has. See, so there's a little bit of a difference there. A little bit different. That's why we're, Kevin can use a soundboard, you can use a camera, but he falls a lot. I can catch things in the air using my goaltending prowess, but you wouldn't find me

editing a video. True. You understand? Kevin, you get it. I think I get it. All right, guys. So there's a lot of things have been happening in video games recently. Yeah.

And this last week, we got some teases a little bit last month for this, but it finally happened. We got the spiritual successor to Ben. Joe Kizui. Oh, yes. Thank God. You might have heard about this. It's called ukulele.

I had a little Kickstarter go up. And it's breaking all types of records and stuff. Fastest funded game ever. It got a million six hours. Suck it, Tim Shaver. It was a million pounds or a million dollars? Million dollars. Yeah.

So like 750,000. 700,000 pounds. Yeah. And so it's a pretty big deal. And it's, you know, it's kind of made it by former rare employees and stuff. It's kind of the dream team of people that you'd want to be making a venture Kazui, Andrew Toey, spiritual sequel. Yeah.

You know, and it has the, like, the guy doing the music, the guy that did the music from the Donkey Kong country series, David Wise, which is fucking awesome music, and that's so perfect to all this. And people are very excited about this. We got to see some, like, very early gameplay footage of it. We can see the characters, the logo treatment and all this stuff. And it's, they're nailing it. Everything about it is perfect.

Killing it. Killing it. My question to you guys, do you care about this game specifically? also do you care about 3D platformers do you think that they have a place in 2015 to be coming out is this a unique thing and is this just a nice little like is this the future of retro revivals like we've seen a lot of the 8 bit we've seen a lot of the 16 bit they're talking that there's going to be a 64 bit mode in this oh really yeah where like you know dumps it down and I think that's cool but does this matter so to take it the first do I care about this game now and I'm

being very honest, so don't throw my face. No. Might I down the road? Maybe. We talked about the Kickstarter and Colin and Greg Live. We went and did the thing. I think they're cute characters or whatever, but I was never a banjo fan. Like Banjo Kizu Kizui never spoke to me, so I'm really not like,

oh, this is what I've been craving. But I'm trying not to hold my just never caring, you know, my underbash uncaring of Banjo Kizui against this game. Because if they were to say, not naughty dog or whatever, but if somebody was to make another Jack and Daxter I'd be interested in playing that if it was more like precursor's legacy or whatever.

I'm talking about third person adventure. You know what I mean? And so I'm going to keep an eye on this one, but from the jump, no, I'm not super into it. I'm not super excited. Like it's not doing anything for me. When nuts and bolts came out and everyone at IG tried to convince himself,

that was a great game. I was like, I don't like this. I don't like this. What are you talking about, Brodvig? You know what I mean? Like, that wasn't a thing for me. It's just not a franchise that speaks to me.

So I don't want to hold it against this. But like, is the era of these games? games over or whatever. Like, it's been gone a while. I feel like you haven't seen anybody come out and really commit to this in a long time. That's interesting. I'm interested to see what happens in the genre. I mean,

what was the last one I think? Like, Ratching Tank probably and like that whole thing where there's like the Ratchet and Sly Cooper and... Yeah, Slive 4 might be the last one. Yeah. A of real like AAA consequence. And of course there's Mario, but... Yeah.

Well, but there hasn't been a Mario 3D platformer since Galaxy 2. And that was... There has. I mean, the 3D world. That's not really a 3D. But there's still 3D platformers. Yeah, that's still like a 2.5D kind of. Like to me, I mean, not literally 2.5D, but that's like kind of a half step. But yeah, you're right.

I mean, it is still a 3D platformer. Sure. But not in the way we're thinking of this with open world. Like, yeah, these are more like... Run up to that tree. Yeah, collect the thongs. Exactly. That's what I was thinking.

Whenever I think it's fucking games. Run up and hit the fucking tree. That's, we've 30 platformer. That's part of it. You think you're going to hit a tree in this game, Colin? Guarantee you will. probably hit a tree in this game. Now, do I care about this game? No, not at all. But that comes from someone who I didn't care about Banjo-Kazoo when it came out either. So I was like, I was just in a

different space in gaming that time. So I don't have the love of that era of rare games that other people do. And I appreciate that people, you know, and that's not necessarily, I like double seven and stuff, but, you know, there's, that portion of Rare's history is something that people very fondly remember. I remember more of like the Donkey Kong country era and something like that was something a little bit before where, like, that was their stride. They hit their stride. A few things hit me with this. First of all, the name ukulele is awful.

I know that some people, I know some people like that name, and I know it's Project ukulele like with the U, like the instrument. I think that name is awful. I just, I have to, I have to say that,

like, it's interesting, and I might be in the minority on that because I have not seen many people say that, but I hate that name. Really? I think it's awesome. I think it's so perfect for what this is.

For what it is, in what it looks like, it all sounds very cuty and syrupy. Like, I think it fits fine. Yeah, it might fit. I just like when I heard that,

I was like, I look at it. I look at it. And I'm like, ugh. You know, like, but that doesn't really matter. Games have bad names all the time and, and that's a totally an opinion-based thing anyway. Are 3D platformers dead or do they belong anymore? Of course they belong. They have a place.

I think that it would be hypocritical of me to say as someone who doesn't really care much for the genre anymore and really never did care much for the genre that, I love Mighty Number 9 or something like that. And that has a place, but that, like, this does that. That's very silly. I mean, I think this is actually going to have, from the Kickstarter alone, obvious is the day as long as this is going to be a much bigger deal than something I might have done or not. So it would be hypocritical in me to say, like, well, I want all these 2D shovel night-like platformers and I want my Japanese role-playing games from Itso-Metric View and all this kind of stuff,

but I don't want, you know, I don't think this to play. That's stupid. That said, I think that 3D platform is of a place in time. I think that, like, 3D platform is proliferated in the mid-to-late 90s because that was the most natural way we were going to explore the polygonal world that we were given for the very first time. So that made the most sense. And until we figure out that shooters and everything else can basically do the same thing,

this is what we did. We made cartoony, blocky fucking platformers that people like ate up and loved, whether it was Mario 64, whether it was Banja Czoo or whatever it was. And I wonder then what's different because I feel like you and I came of age in that time. I always talk about the Blockbuster Game Pass when I'd go there and some rent game after game. And there were so many of these. And I feel like that's why I'm satiated. I don't need another one of these.

Like, you know what I mean? I'm not craving this because it's coming and gone already for me. And even Ratchet and Clank, right? Where I'm like, a crack in time is probably the best Ratchet game ever. And I couldn't even fucking get through it because I was so sick of Ratchet and Clank. Not even the genre. Just the fact that there were so many Ratchet and Clank games. You know what I mean?

So I'm just done personally. And I wonder where we get into the people. I know, I know Marty over IGN has been wanting this. He loves these kind of games. This is what he's into. You know what I mean? He's super stoked that it's back. And it's just that interesting thing.

You can never say why somebody likes something and something. But this is something like I liked these kind of games. I enjoyed these kind of games. But I closed the book and pushed it away, whereas other people are still crazy. Yeah, I mean, I guess that's me. Like, 3D platformers are, that's my genre. You won't buy a, you won't buy a Vita until Crash is on there. That's one of my things, you know?

And it's just like, I love that so much in 2D platformers as well. But like 3D platformers, I mean, that was growing up in the 90s is like a kid around 10 years old. That's perfect. You know what I mean? There was so many, whether it was banjo or like rocket robot on wheels or like. That was sucker punch's first game. There's so much weird shit like that. You just,

that everyone has like gecks, you know, Spyro, Crash, like Mario, all these things that you just played. And they're so good and so amazing. Like,

Rayman, uh, two. And it's like, we haven't seen that for a while. Yeah. All the, probably the worst game ever.

But there's so many, so many games. But like, for me, I think one of my greatest regrets when it comes to gaming is I never played banjo. Ever. Either one of them. And it's like,

that's crazy. me and it's like blast for me because like for the type of games i like everyone's like tim you would love these things yeah and i just never did and i was waiting for hd releases and nothing ever happened but i want it and i but i remember i rented it one time from blockbuster and i was turned off to it and the reason for that you hate dog bears no it's the um the collectathony stuff like i wasn't into that like i liked the mario for the the obstacle stuff and for the platforming crash is kind of the same way like crash in a lot of ways is more like Mario the than Mario 64 is.

It's more like Mario Bros. Mario 64 is where it's just get to the end of the level. Sure. There's obstacles. Get there. Mario 64 was kind of like starting the whole collect-a-thon thing. But then Banjo just fucking was like, go, there's a million things to collect. And the Donkey Kong 64, which I also, Donkey Kong Country, one and two, two specifically, some of my favorite games ever.

Three, good. Yeah. But then Donkey Kong 64 came out and, like, a lot of people have fond memories of that game. I hated that game. because it was just all it was collecting things for no fucking reason. Well, I mean, I think that this, from what I've read about ukulele, like, and one of the selling points of the game is that it is a collectathon. Well, but what's interesting to me about it is I read their Kickstarter.

They even say they're like, yeah, we have the guy working on our team that made all the collectathon stuff in Docog 64. We've had a stern talking to with him, and everything in this game now has a reason of why you're collecting it. And I think that's something that I like. Just collect all these things like. Like a big problem I had with like Mario 64 was like the the blue coins that you got to get. Oh, I love that.

That's fucking horrible. There's just no reason for a lot of it. It's just like they're just there. It's just an extra challenge. That's all. Yeah, Peach needed them to do laundry. She,

yeah, they don't have insweet laundry at the mushroom kingdom. So I didn't know if you knew that about that. No. It's very old. It's a whole rigmaral. That's how Mario Sunshine ties together with it. But Ratchet and Clank is one of those series that I love.

And I agree with you. It's just like there's just too many of them. Yeah. I luckily kind of got into it in the right way where I played the first one, didn't play any of the others on PS2, and then came into the PS3 version. So it's like I didn't get overwhelmed by them. So I still think of it fondly and I still want more of it because I didn't get beat over the head with it. Right. But I liked those games because it also kind of had the like, it wasn't so much a collectathon as much as it was a platformer and actiony shooter-y things.

Sure. That was fun. That was that extra layer there. I'm interested by this because I feel like it's a passion. thing so it's being made to be a very good collect-a-thon like i feel like there'll be a lot of thought put into the things you're collecting and why you're collecting them and how you're collecting them and all of that and it just excites me to see a 3d platformer being built from the ground up for next gen like not nintendo though because nintendo i know you mean do their thing but like

for ps4 and x-mx1 and i think that i like i'm gonna play this game like i know that and like yeah it looks like super kitty and stuff i love it I think they're nailing it. I love the name. I love the logo. I love the character designs. It's just, this is what I envisioned this game being.

And even without having played Banjo Cazoozee and Banter Tui, I think this is going to be good. I'm shocked that you're so excited about it having not played banjo because Banjo is a really well-remembered game, I think for good reason, again, from the kind of golden era of what Rare was doing with 64 when they were still kind of in the fold. There's a lot of reasons, though,

that this game is exciting, interesting beyond like the continuation of the bandroozooie kind of legacy because A, the look and feel, I don't want to say the feel because we don't know what the game feels like. The look of the game, the logo and all this, it has the dare you to fucking sue me kind of work. Which is one of those things that I really like because it reminds you a lot of Mighty Number 9 where it's like you're not going to do anything. Like you're not going to give them what they want so I'm going to do it. And just like in a Funnace, a guy to do that with a Mega Man clone. These are the guys are the guys to do that with a banjo

clone so they're going to do it. The other exciting thing is that a lot of these guys peeled off of Rare a long time ago. So, you know, Rare has been owned by Microsoft and has been ruined by Microsoft for quite a while now. But if you look at these guys credentials, like, these are the guys that worked on, like, the deep cut. And I want to see deep cuts in terms of, like, their obscure games, but the deep cuts in terms of like how long ago some of these guys were working on Rare games, whether they're Donkey Kong country, which started in like 94, 95, or whether you're talking about the N64 games, which concluded in 2000. So these guys have been peeled away from that era and those

kinds of games, some of them for a long time. Yeah. Some of them, though, going all the way up to, like, some of the last good rare games like Viva Penaata, which people love. Yeah, and that was, Viva Penaata was, I would say, people do love that game

and for good reason, maybe the last thing rare did that anyone cared about. Yep. And that was a long time ago. That was almost 10 years ago, which is unbelievable. Yeah, it is.

But, you know, what's exciting is that these guys are going to get back to their roots and this, the platonic, whatever they're called, like this is going to be

their first game. And they've worked together in the past. It's not like a hodgepodge of, you're going to find your talent, you're raising your money. it's like a kind of a proof of concept. These guys are going to work with each other.

And just like they did in the past, and I think that there's a great reason to be excited about finding that, again, I hate using this term because it's so corporate, but the synergistic kind of like relationship that they all have had with each other, making AAA core games that have sold millions of copies. So it's not an unproven team.

These guys are, it's like going back for one last hurrah for some of these guys probably. I'm going to play it, and I'm interested in it because I'm interested to see how it captures the essence of those old games. And I like playing new games that feel old. I mean, that's why I like shovel night.

So that is the reason why I like Shibble Knight. So because it feels like it came from 1990. And I'm sure that ukulele is going to feel like it came from 1999 or 2009. And that's so cool. I think that's what I'm most excited about for this is the fact that like I never really kind of imagined that we get a 3D like that generation game. You know, from like PS1 to PS2 era type of game. And that's so fucking awesome that we're going to start seeing retro games based on the next generation of kids growing. out playing games.

Yeah, and it makes me feel old. You know, that this is, that banjo is a retro game. I remember when Banjo came out clear as day. I was like an 11th grade. It's like not that old. But like, but that is the,

that is the retro. That is retro now for a lot of people and a lot of people that kind of look fondly back on that. And it is when you think about it, the natural evolution. I don't think that we would have seen. The pixel based like kind of spright based things we've been seeing where the,

we're natural because that shit's awesome. But like this shit can be awesome too. And so it makes a lot of sense to, um, to have that evolution, especially with a lot of the things from that era not having held up in an aesthetic way very well like everything that inspires

Mighty Number 9 or Shovel Night still holds up and I don't think you can really stay the same about some of the games from the 3D platform era when everything was polygonal and it was fucking ugly as hell and people were still really figuring out how to do things because by the time we got to the 8-bit era people forget that we had already dealt with other consoles or developers that dealt with other consoles and figure out a lot of these problems

and so that is the natural evolution. This was like these 3D platformers were shown like they're their raw state. And as I wrote in the history of naughty dog on that I wrote for IGM what was so funny is that no one even knew what to do with those games. Like in isolation, Sega,

Nintendo, and Sony all came up with totally different solutions to the same problem. And that's what you got- Sega didn't come up with a solution. Well, they had Knights was one solution and then and then what Knights was kind of of, you know, its own kind of track based more linear but open game. And then

Mario was like a completely open game that lacked textures because they didn't have the room. And then Crash was a textural heavy game that was linear. Those were their solutions and that was like what was so fascinating They had no idea No one knew what the other hand was doing And so this won Yeah

And clearly And so I'm excited about it I'm also interested in what it means for Kickstarter Because It seemed like Kickstarter's been waning Quite a bit in terms of games I mean games have not been getting funded And at the same clip as they were when Double Fine was using them

These guys fucking murdered it It wasn't even like this game Came and got funded These guys are gonna get millions of dollars more than they have They got a million in six hours. And, like, that's crazy. I think one of the, and I might be wrong about some of this, but I think the most funded thing was the Veronica Marr's movie.

And that got a million in four hours. And that's crazy. Like, that's not that far off. Yeah. Like, I would have never thought. Well, how many people have been waiting for this forever? You know what I mean? Forever people have been waiting for a spiritual successor,

if not just another banjo, right? Yeah. So they have that kind of power and oomph behind what you're doing. You have these people who are behind the games. Come on and do it. It's interesting. It is. I'm still surprised, though.

I know there's a lot, but I didn't know there was that much. Yeah. You know, like, it does surprise me that I mean, like, you know, something like Mighty Number Nine, like Mega Man, Banjo Kizui. I wouldn't necessarily say Banjo's the bigger game. You know what I mean? It's the more relevant game, though. It's funny how we've seen this evolution in terms of, like, Mighty is a good example

where, you know, Mighty Number Nine got a substantial amount of money. And it took time, but they did it in Ifuni did his thing. But this was funded more by people like my age or Greg's age that grew up with these games. And now the people that grew up with Banjo, in their formidable years have money. And so they're going to fund this game. You know, that's the funny thing is that they don't have to go ask their parents anymore. This is like, I'm going to make this fucking happen.

And as my own opinions on crowdfunding of kind of ebbed and float over time, I mean, this isn't a game that I think couldn't have been published because I think there are probably publishers that are interested in this game maybe before they released it. Maybe they didn't even try to get a publisher. I wonder if this game will get a publisher, which will piss me the fuck off. They do. because they don't need it.

But this is a game that could have solicited some interest, but they didn't need to do it because the crowd was even more excited, and it's more beneficial to them. The funny thing is that this game is probably a really long ways off. But, you know, I'm interested to see how this does it. I'm interested to see, like, what kind of momentum this can create for other Kickstarter that might be coming out in the near future for similar kinds of games. A crash.

I want crash for it. Well, they're going to have to get the permission to use that. I'm sure, I am sure Activision is going to make a crash game at some point. At some point. It's going to come and it's going to be terrible, Tim. So that's the, that's what you can hang your hat out. Oh, I know. I know.

All right. He's just going to be a Skylander. This is a really good segue into topic two, which is today, this is a little outdated for you listening, but Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5 officially announced. Uh-huh. I am super excited. You've been waiting for this game forever, too. Forever, man. Tony Hawk, specifically the pro-stater.

Pro skater. My fucking jam. Yeah. I love it so much. I loved it all the way through, all the way even to, you know. American Wasteland. Whoa, that's a deep cut. You're getting deep out there.

But, like, pro skaters were definitely the best ones to me, and I love them. One, two, three, and four. So good. Waiting for five. I even like the HD, like, remake, reboot collection thing that they did a couple years ago on PS3 and 360. Finally announced five, and I'm reading through the article today, and I'm fucking stoked. And I start seeing the screens. I'm like, hmm, this looks just like the HD.

If you told me this was the XD thing, it would be fine. They're doing that shit. start reading and I'm like, oh, oh, it's coming out on PS4 and Xbox 1 and then later on PS3 and 360, that's great. Oh, there's projectiles in submissions that you shoot out of your skateboard. Why? Are you sure now? Because we read it on Conoroggle-Rag-Live.

Are they amazing? Maybe you're throwing something? Whatever. That was in Thug 2 and it was stupid. It was-thug-Thug-Thug-2 were great games, so. No, Thug was great. Thug 1 was great. Thug 2 was a product of the era.

Like it was like, what's great? Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. What's also great? Jackass. Let's put them together because there's some overlap. Van Margera. Yeah.

But it was good though. He's right at the center that Vem diagram. I mean, people hate on Thug 2 and I don't think it's fully just. But I mean, it's definitely not as good as the other ones. All right.

But anyway. You're shooting these goddamn projectiles. And like, that sucks, man. It's like, how do you start this sentence saying it's Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5? It's going back to the first four. Oh, here's all this fucking bullshit that no one wants. Yeah.

There's no one out there that's like, I wish, I wish my skateboard could shoot things right now. Maybe there is, but like, not in this game. Definitely not in this game, God damn it. So my question to you guys is what are features or what are things in games that you like that suck? Games you like with features that suck. Yes. There you go. Nailed it.

Good job, Colin. Yes, yes, yes. A media thing jumps to mind is uncharted one when the only way to throw grenades was by using the six access. and you're like, fuck you, fuck you, Sony. Why would you make anyone put this in their game? You know what I mean? Granted, two and three got rid of that.

Toot sweet. But it's like typical PlayStation stuff where they're like, we have this crazy new thing that has to be used so put it in your game and make it be used. Yeah. I mean, for my example, for something like that is Donkey Kong Country Returns on the Wii.

I was so excited for it. And it's like, you can't mess this game up. This is going to be great. And it was a great game, except for the fact that Donkey Kong has not many buttons necessary. If I can move with the deep, had, you jump, and then you roll.

But instead of making the roll a button, you had to shake the damn thing. And it's just like that fundamentally changed the flow of the game. It was fine. It was still fun. It was still good, but it's like, why'd you need to do that? It's also imprecise. That's the problem. Yeah.

Yeah, Twilight Princess is the game I think about with that. Like, I wanted to murder someone when I played Twilight Princess for the first time because I couldn't get it on GameCube. I couldn't find it anywhere. I've told the story in the past about how I was a senior in college. I went to the store. I had no money. I couldn't afford a Wii.

I went and I'm like, I got my freelance check. I was like, do you guys have a Wii? And the guy was like, I have one. And I was like, fuck you. You know, like, and then so I had to wait like until the summer of 2007 to play Twilight Princess because the fucking GameCube version was like nowhere to be found.

Fucking infuriating. I remember being so mad. You still seem pretty pissed about it. I was because I think that I was largely sad. Not largely because I think Twilight Princess is in a very good game. But I was soured on Twilight Princess having to play it on Wii with those goddamn controls. I was like, this is an abomination.

I can't. I can't believe I'm fucking playing this game like this. You know, like, why can't I just plug in a goddamn GameCube controller and play the game? You know, like, that was like just a, that was like, oh, this Waggle shit is driving me nuts. But it did, it works sometimes. I thought it worked fine in Mara Galaxy, for instance. The Waggle did not bother me. Yeah, me neither.

I couldn't stand it. Mario Galaxy felt shockingly good to me, like considering how unorthodox that whole control style is having the nut, like the Nunchukes. Yeah, for me, was out sitting there. I'm like, this is so beautiful and cool. I have trouble with the perspective they're putting me in. I'm missing jumps I shouldn't miss and why can't I use a fucking controller. But features I think about, I mean, my beloved

resistance franchise has, you know, like the whole thing with the resistance games that makes them special, other than I think their story which I think is awesome is, the secondary effects of all the weapons and how like the bullseye, for instance, like you can tag an enemy advanced warfare, totally ripped it off. Like you can completely fucking ripped it off.

And that's one of the things I asked him when we were on the show. I'm like, you know, did you get inspiration from other things? because this is clearly the Bulls Life from Resistance, is you tag an enemy, and then they just go behind covering the Bulls, like, follow them. You know, like, that was one of those cool things. But that kind of thing always felt tacked on where I'm like, I just want to play a shooter.

You know, like, I don't need all this stuff I'm never going to use. I'm using it because I feel like I should be, but I don't have to. Those are the worst features in any game is like when it's there and you don't have to use it, and therefore you don't. Like, I don't like those kinds of options. Maybe some people do, but I don't like something where it's, like,

tacked on to be different, but you don't actually need to use it. Making systems more complicated. and they should be to try to inspire you to do something different with it, right? And this is a very Greg Miller example of this, but you can apply it to your favorite game, Ghostbusters. And the fact that I was so excited to play Ghostbusters

and have a HD Ghostbusters game and be a Ghostbuster, right? And like they are like, we modeled the proton pack and made it look exact. And then we gave it three different shooting mechanisms and features and it's shooting like blue electric.

And it's like, what are you fucking doing? Just give me a proton pack. I want to just be a Ghostbuster. I don't want all those different ass crap. Yeah. I mean, I think my application that's Pokemon where it's just like there's so

many shit in these Pokemon games now where it's like there's beauty contest and dress them up and you do all it and it's like why? Like no one wants to do this stuff like this isn't fun and it's like now then they if it was all side stuff whatever but it's like they found a way to force it into the main

story of each game. Yeah. And so you have to get at least one gold medal in the freaking talent contest. Sure. God damn Pikachu needs to sing. That's just annoying as well. It's not cool. It's a tale of the oldest time right now but forced in multiplayer right freedom worse was a great fucking

30 hour experience by myself or playing with christine or whatever but then now there's missions i need three other people for i'm gonna fucking find three other vita i don't want to organize that room and do all this different stuff just let me play the game the way i want to play the game and now you're fucked and i think you know we're ragging on games but there's

games of deep of deep complexity but i'm saying there are games of deep complexity that nail complexity the game i think about is final fantasy tactics that game is fucking crazy deep, insanely deep. You know, like to the endth degree, how you play that game,

how you structure your party, how you learn classes, how you buy items and weapons, how your characters die permanently, all these kinds of things. But it all felt like it needed to be there. And that's what makes a game like that a masterpiece when, and Final Fantasy Tactics is definitively a masterpiece, is when the game is overflowing with depth.

Another example, Civilization 5, when a game is so deep where I played Civ 5 for a fucking insane amount of time, I still don't really understand the entire game. But, but, you know it's all there and it makes sense. When you meet someone like we met with Sid Meyer or whatever, it's like, this guy just knows what he's doing and it all makes sense. And there's a complexity to it.

With something like tactics, I think about our tactics ogre where it's like deep on a class base system, deep on a grid base system, the turn base systems, the weapons and armor, the magic, the way your characters evolve and level up and so like that. And it all makes sense and it all fits. That's the beauty is when a game is so systemically complicated yet, it works together like a beautiful, like a beautiful, like, you know, play on a stage or something. and every piece is right in place and nothing feels out of place

and then that's... So on the other end of the spectrum is you can have deep complexity with games you like and they work. But I think simplicity is often king. You know, we think about Mario World, for instance, on Super Nintendo is not that different

for Mario One. It just, it has more stages and you have a few more powers, but basically the games are the same. They're very familiar if you could see one and the other. If you can show Colin in 1988, Mario World in 1991, you would understand how to play the game.

Yeah. Little small iterations are often better like that And I think simplicity is often king And that's why a lot of the games that we love most I think are the simplest You know, and I don't mean simple in that They're easy, I mean simple in that you can understand them And it's the rigors of playing them

That can be difficult Yeah Not the complexity of the systems You know Nintendo's good at that generally Nintendo's very good at that There's only a few games that they don't nail With that like Fire Emblem

I don't think like in a instance Like that's not a series that resonates with me I don't think they make a good strategy Well what's interesting I mean I love Firearmol I love it so much But what you're saying about tactics just being completely right

and every system is necessary. Like with Fire Emblem Awakening, it has the support system where it's like you team up and stuff. And it's great and it's fun and all that stuff. But it's like, it's not necessary. And it does feel kind of like, here's more stuff, just have more stuff. That's the way I felt.

I mean, Fire Emblem Awakening, I think was the last one. That was the first one I had like really, really, really delved into because my big problem with Fire Emblem and it was just from reading about it, I'm not sure how overstated the issue was, was that there was a linearness to Fire Emblem where like it wasn't, The cool thing about tactics was that you could just play at your own speed, kind of.

If you're not ready for the next mission, you could just go back and fuck around. And you really couldn't do that in many Fire Emblem games. Well, like, Awakening was probably the most, at least the ones I played. It's the most open where you can kind of go back. And that's why it was sold to me with a people where I'm going to get into it. And I was just like, I don't. But even then, it was not legit. No, no, no.

It was still just like, oh, you can go back and face some random enemies a couple times. Right. Like, and so I felt constrained. And that was my problem with firearmone. Also, that game just didn't resonate with me. I thought I was going to love it. I love. And it just didn't resonate with me.

There was something off about it. But I want to give Nintendo a credit where credit is due. And obviously Nintendo's, you know, intelligent systems, for instance, or Nintendo's other developers, there's a lot of, they understand, firemum's a bad example of it, but they understand the simplicity mantra and how that can create depth. If you get to Star World in Mario World, for instance, there's nothing simple about it. You know, but like, but playing it is simple. Yeah.

you know, it's just mastering it isn't simple or finding all the Yoshi coins isn't simple even though you know the tools are all there, you just have to figure it out. Yep. I like those kinds of games. Not games that put in, that put in just extraneous shit

to make it seem deep even though it's not. If I only need a machine gun to be a shooter, I'm only going to use the machine gun. Yeah, no matter how many other different guns. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so another for me, a feature that I was like, ah, this is so unnecessary. I don't want this was Flood in Mario Sunshine

where it's like, I just wanted to play Mario. It's like, I wanted Mars, 64 again. I just want to run around and stuff. But then it's like when you play it though, it's different. And it's like, oh shit, you were right, Nintendo. You were actually right. This is good. It's not what I wanted. I still want this other Mario, but like you created something awesome with this.

And that might be one of the very rare instances where there was a feature that I was like, no, don't do this and it ended up being awesome. Well, I think that about Tony Hawk and it's freaking... Projectile modes? Probably not. You don't know. It sounds stupid, but I mean, I'm you know, I'm waiting to see

what they're going to do with this. I'm a huge Tony Hawk fan from way back too but I only played like the one two and three I guess and then I just I'm over and I remember I remember buying that game thrash or two because it was supposed to be like more realistic me know it's a fucking second suck but I was really into those skating games for a while

that's like one of the one of the only surviving pictures of me ever playing game in that era is me playing Tony Hawk on my PlayStation I got to dig up that picture it's horrifying but uh what's horrifying it's just it's just Colin in 10th grade okay

so sounds horrifying horrifying horrifying So I'm going to wait and see approach. It sounds dumb. But Tony Hawk was kind of always dumb. It is. I mean, that's the thing. Like Tony Hawk's always been, it's very arcady. It's very, let's get a high score. Can I do that? Oh, I can. How can I? Can I do it better?

And like, I love that type of shit. And it's like, oh, Spider-Man's a playable character and like Darth Vader or Darth Mall or whatever. It's like, that's awesome. I love that stuff. Officer Dick and all this shit. But like, getting that again, I want nothing more than that. Because I'm that type of guy.

I just want the experiences I loved again with a shiny new coat of paint. But I look at this coat of paint. I'm just like, oh, this looks like the same PS3 HD game that I played a couple years ago and the physics were slightly off. Yeah. And it's being made by the same guys, the Robomoto. And they're like, we had a hit before.

We'll make it a hit again. And I'm just like, ah. I mean, here's my thing. For all the shit that I'm talking, I'm going to play this game. I'm going to platinum it for all intensive purposes. You're not going to platinum. I might. No.

I mean, I might be wrong about this. You got to see the trophy. Don't commit until you see the last. But whatever it is, I tried platinuming the HD one just because I really like this stuff. I like, I might have done it. I might be wrong. Someone tell me. I probably did it.

But anyways, I'm going to try. Okay, I'm good. I'm glad. I want you to enjoy this game. I don't want you to get too hung up on the projectiles. We don't know what that means. It could be anything. Maybe it's a Fast and Furious mini game.

I don't want that. Shoot Vin Diesel's necklace at Michelle Rodriguez's face. You won me over, Greg. All right, guys. Topic three. comes from at Project Garte. He wants to know. Project Gartee is online.

What are your predictions and how will the video game industry be like in 10 to 15 years? So that's 2025 to 30. Yeah. That's a long-ass time. It's just, you can never, I feel like it's so hard to make those. I mean, everything's going to look prettier.

There will be prettier games for sure. I don't think VR will be. a big thing. Like, it's, it's, for me, an evolution

of what we already have, and what does that mean? You know what I mean? Are we two a unified console? Are we two,

is Steam one over, and it's now in TVs and you're playing your games that way? Like, is it all tablet and mobile base. No way. Well, let's first ask a question of what consoles will there be.

I mean, the problem is that right before this console generation, we were, I was saying that I didn't think it had more than this console generation in it. And now this console generation is fucking killing it in terms of sales. And it's like, well, even if it turns out next time they sell none

they'll still be another generation after that yeah I mean you I don't know like we might 10 years might be at the tail end of the PS5 era but I don't know what that looks like you know all I know is this when we started at IGN Greg and I anyway the whole thing was oh man like no one's gonna be playing console games in five years

they'll be tablet and phone well guess what they were wrong like you know everyone was wrong and I'm so glad they were wrong because I want to play games on a fucking tablet or phone yeah now um it's not to say most people are, if you encounter anyone who plays a game, is playing on a phone or a table, but that is not the driving force of a majority of the industry in the sense that there's a few companies that dominate that space and no one else matters. You know, so for all of your kings or whatever, you have fucking a thousand companies that make

no money and toil about releasing games on the fucking ecosystem of complete, you know, just full of shit, basically. So it's hard to project in the future Even five years what the industry will look like Because people five years ago were so dead fucking wrong About like where the industry was going I think part of it might have been a backlash Because people were sick of hearing this shit

When this is not what they wanted Core gamers do not want this They do not want to play a game on a phone And so I think in 10 or 10 years You might see an ecosystem That looks a lot like today's With set top boxes and PCs With like Greg was saying prettier games

Probably saying playing many of the same genre is, maybe evolutions of those genres, maybe we get some new kind of ideas. But with how wrong the prognosticating about tablet and phone gaming was in terms of it killing what we do now and playing core games, my inkling tells me that it'll look more the same than different because that hasn't really changed since the mid 80s, right? It's not changed at all. The systems are just more powerful. That's it.

And the way we play games and download games now and play online, that's changed. but the whole foundation of holding a controller in front of a TV, I'm not sure that's ever going to change. Yeah, I think the big change from right now, right, well, the online will work out of the box. I think this will figure out the social features that won't crash a game like Tetris and make it unplayable and all these different things

to that, that point, you know? Oh, be good. So do you think that there will be another PlayStation? A PlayStation 5? Yes. Yes. Do you think that there will be another Xbox? Yes.

Do you think that there will be a Nintendo console? It's called the NX. We already know all about it. I don't think it's going to be a console. 10 to 15 years though. Well, I think that, well, that's a different question. Like, I don't, like the next,

there will be another PlayStation. Sorry, what I'm asking is, will there be a PlayStation in 10 to 15 years? Maybe. I'm not totally convinced it's a Sony product. And with Xbox, I'm not totally convinced it's a Microsoft product.

I think, I think Xbox spins off from Microsoft soon. Well, what do you think about Sony? PlayStation's just PlayStation. Yeah, but I think that they spin out? Yeah, I mean, Sony will figure out other ways to make money. I don't think that they've gotten the right. deal yet, you know, like to make, to get cash back for PlayStation if you're just own a piece of it,

not really control it or run it anymore. I think it, I don't think Microsoft wants Xbox anymore. I think that's somewhat clear. I don't know if you guys like read a lot of this, a lot of this stuff where it's like, it doesn't seem like they're interested in being in console gaming. It's actually like not making them any money at all. Yeah. Um, so there's been talk fray a long time for years about how Microsoft wants out. Um, and there were, there were rumors that Amazon was interested in Xbox and all sorts of things. Like, who knows like what, what's true or not. But I, I think Xbox persists and lives on and is successful. I am not convinced that Microsoft is the company that will be running it in 10 years.

And then so for PlayStation. PlayStation, I think, is more likely to be in the Sony fold. But again, it's not unusual to think that that would spin off as well because margins are low in games. It's not like running a supermarket where your margins like 4% or something like that. But you have to make money consistently to run the R&D for new consoles and control these studios and stuff like that. And I don't know if that companies that are so bulbous need the fucking chip damage money

that they get from these consoles. Yeah. Is it worth it to take significant losses, but only gain, you know, moderate gains when your console is doing well. That's kind of, like, that might be more suited to a mid-tier company or a smaller company,

which is why, you know, I think that maybe there is, there is going to be interested parties in some of these consoles. Do I think Nintendo will have a console in 10 years? No. You think NX is it for them? I'm not, I think NX is the end of the road,

and I don't think NX is a console. I think it's unhandled. So, so the, you know, or a hybrid, as we've been talking about forever. I hope it's that hybrid, man. but I think sadly Nintendo's flush with money we've talked about this before

they have a lot of money they don't have like Apple money or anything they can make mistakes but there's a lot of people talking that don't really quite understand business where they can make all sorts of mistakes that 20 billion dollar war chess will disappear like that

in a few years if they don't if they're not careful you know they put out another dud like the Wii you but these amoeboes the money the amoeboes are huge but again that's not a lot of money I know like they're making a lot of money but it's not like a piece of electronics

like something that is mass marketed you know and that's what they need i think nintendo would be smart to get into the and you know i i hate i hate i hate being that guy because people hate that guy you know that says it and people have been saying it for years it might be time for them to start making considering making games for other consoles but i think nx is their last attempt to not do that and obviously their deal with dna will will allow them to make mobile games which is a space they're going to thrive in and let's not forget their IP is worth a a fucking fortune so um and that's where the money is yeah the money's with mario the money's not with their hardware no one no one i hate i hate to be that guy but their hardware is just don't

cares. People care about their games and they tolerate the hardware. You know, you don't hear that a lot from Xbox One and PS4 owners where they're like, I'm tolerating the hardware because I want to play fucking Wolfenstein. No, they're like, the hardware is great. Oh, and they have games to play. You all you hear is like, this thing sucks, you know? Except for the people that like it, in which case they think it's awesome. Yeah, but you all drink the Kooli. That's your fault. Yeah, I mean, like, every time I, in 10 years, you'll look back and be like, I can't

fucking believe. I was saying that garbage pile that doesn't sink controllers for let's plays was so fucking good. And all that's just issues, but in 10 years, I'm still going to be looking back at the good games and the good experience. Yeah, you will. The games are not the console. Yeah, that's true, but still, like, when the games are made for the console and stuff,

I tie it together. I don't. I mean, like, I think, like, the last Nintendo console that I loved, or even, like, I loved the DS. I thought the DS was ingenious. You know, like, the way they integrated those two screens, the way that, that, that, I remember getting a DS, I told you guys that my friend, Louise from

Harvard lent me one before I bought one and I played Mario on a new Super Mario Brothers when I was at when I was at jury duty and like waiting and so I'm like this is insane you know I'm like I can't believe how fucking good this is and I felt that way about the GameCube too even though the GameCube was a dud I was like I fucking love this thing and I look back finally at the GameCube I'm like I love its little

discs and it's fucking stupid memory cards and its handle and its awesome controller and all these things and I look at Wii and Wii and I'm like oh god I remember the games being great Mario Galaxy for instance a fucking classic a classic unrivaled game in many ways. But I don't care about the hardware.

And Wii is even worse, where I'm like, I can't, like, we've used the Wii and I'm like, I can't believe that this thing even exists in the state. Like, like, it's no surprise that no one wants, like, and I'm not trying to be a dick. It's just like, it's not a surprise that a lot of people, no one's taking this thing. Because it doesn't work, you know? Like, it's not a revolutionary anymore. Nintendo needs to stop trying to revolutionize hardware and start revolutionizing

with their games. And that's their strong point. When they started getting too, they started drinking their, talking about Kool-Aid, I feel like they start drinking their own Kool-Aid in a way. being like, well, you know, we innovated with the we, so the Wii, you has to be another innovation. Yeah, it's like, can we innovate the name?

No, just out of you. Everyone will get it. And the DS was a revolution too, and I feel like they just, you know, and then they added 3D to it. And it's like, oh, like, Jesus Christ. Like, you could have just called this DS2 and I would have been all over it, you know? Just, they, they're an interesting company.

They're the ones that are going to look much different in 10 years. I don't know that PlayStation and Xbox as a brand will be too unidentifiable. I think Nintendo might be unidentifiable for better or for worse. they might be even more flush with money. I can't wait to see how much money they make when they actually go with DNA and make these fucking mobile games. It's going to be insane how much money they can possibly make. So moving on from that then, what about Apple?

Do you think Apple will have a dedicated gaming console? No, I don't. They had one. But, you know, in the mid-90s and it didn't work out very well. But that was a different Apple. Yeah, the Pippin. And that was at the same time they were doing, like, Newton and all these, like, things that didn't work. But they were kind of ahead of their time.

Newton was quite a habit time, actually. Newton was a PDA for people that don't know. I remember Newden. But I think that Apple's, again, this is a question of margins, right? Apple makes tons of money with hardware, but they don't support it natively necessarily with their own software. In other words, they have iOS, and that works, and it's awesome, and I love it. And they have their operating systems for their computers and their tablets. But they don't manufacture the killer app.

They kind of let other people do the work. they make money. It's very much like what Steam does on PC. So I think that they look at this and they're like, no, I'm sure that they were thinking about it. I'm sure that they might have even made one and had it running, you know, and working on stuff. But I don't know that it sees the market. When you hear things about, when you hear about the rumors that Apple's trying to get into, especially cars, which is the fucking craziest thing that you might have heard about Apple with Project Titan. That tells me that they want margins. They want big things that can make lots of money off of it. And I don't think that consoles are the big thing that they can make lots of money off of.

So that, that to me doesn't, I don't know if Greg agrees, but that doesn't resonate. No, I do. I think the time is coming on. I remember when that seemed like an imminent thing, that there was controllers, but we've heard this rumor that Apple's doing this. And the fact that they haven't act on it yet means they're just not going to act on it. You know what I mean? Like, I still think the best case scenario for it, right, is then being like, all right, we see what Google Chrome's doing. So we're going to figure out with the next iPad, iPhone, whatever, iOS, that we have a dongle that we support that,

you put in your TV's HTML, and whatever you're doing on your tablet gets projected up there, or phone, right? And then it would be game makers, again, who are making the products like you're talking about, right, that are doing cool things with it

and using it in that sense and then kind of as a byproduct, Apple's in the console space where they really aren't. But what we're describing there is what I hope the NX is, where I hope it's a great fucking awesome controller I hold and I can take on,

take with me and play most of the games, some of the game, some part of the games on the go and come back and put it on the TV and do all that of their stuff. Yeah, it'll be an interesting. The NX is so fascinating because for the NX to work the way we want it to work,

they must technologically revolutionize consoles and the way we play traditional games in ways that the others have not. And you don't expect that out of their R&D today. Because they don't make powerful hardware anymore. And the NX better be fucking powerful. You know? Like I'm so sick of the whole, like,

the power doesn't matter. It does matter. But that's the thing right now. For what they're doing, think about it, the power doesn't matter. Because like you're saying they're not known for powerful hardware, right?

which works out in the fact that every year or every generation will say PlayStation and Xbox get meatier and beefier and do more and more and they need like there's no way to put the Xbox one stuff guts into something I can take with me right and play the game somewhere else if Nintendo's like going to do the whole thing we're marching the beat of a drummer I like how the Wii didn't go to HD when the Wii came out if they do something like that then maybe there is that chance for parody where it doesn't have to be okay you're playing this Zelda RPG on your screen with your nether. X, now you're leaving, so Link gets into this thing and goes to a different dungeon. You can only play dungeons on your NX handheld without being connected to the device, right? If they boil it down to where it's a, not a fucking, not blowing your socks off, but it's awesome games that can be on your TV, can be on the go. That'd be interesting. I hope that's not the case. You might be right, but I hope that's not the case. And again, it's all like injection.

No one has any idea what the fuck that thing even is or means and when we're going to see. I guess we'll see it next year, but I know. It won't be out next. But it's, it's, you know, I'm so, Nintendo frustrates this shit. out of me, man. And people that watch the show listen to us, no. Like, because they, they're always so close. You know, like, they're, like, that's the thing that bothers me is that they, they have some of the best developers in the world, some of the greatest minds in the world, a lot of

business sense. And they just strike out with the hardware. You know, like, they just, playing the 3DS is, is tough for me because I'm just like, why is this so weak? Like, why does it have to be like this? You know? Yeah. And I feel bad for their developers

because it's like they certainly want to make games that look better than this and play in a more revolutionary way and they're not given the tools to do that and that's really frustrating for me as what I always say is a lapsed Nintendo fan where it's like

it wasn't always like this I want the NX to be so when I see the NX when it's at E3 next year or whatever I want it to be fucking awesome you know I don't want it to be confusing remember the Wii roll out how nonsensical that was

when everyone was like Is it a console? What is this? Is it a controller? Is it an add-on to the Wii? I hope they're learning. I think they're learning. I don't think that Zelda's delay, for instance, has anything to do with

NX. I think that a lot of people think that's because it's going to be a crossover. I don't think that's true. Maybe I'm wrong. I think that that will be a Wii game. It will be the Wii's last hurrah. I want them to start fresh with a new foundation and a new set of engines and give their developer something to be excited about.

Give third-party something to be excited about. They must have third-party support. I don't care if people think it matters or not when they didn't have third-party support, their console started to fail. and when they had third party support their consoles didn't fail. NES, S&ES, and we all sold through the roof. It's because they all had plenty of third party support. And 64

GameCube and Wii don't have 30 party support and do not sell. You know, there's a direct relation to those two things. It's undeniable. So there's all these things that matter and if you want your games that be cross-pollinated with the consoles that exist now, you must make a powerful piece of hardware. So is there

anyone else that has a console? Amazon or someone like Activision or something like that? I think Amazon's imminent I'm curious what they're going to do. Amazon has a game studio. No one knows what they're working on. They hired a fucking shit ton of people from other places and paid them a lot of money.

And I don't know what they're doing. I don't know if Amazon's going to publish games. I don't know if Amazon's going to release a console. I don't know what I don't think Amazon might release a console because they did try to release their phone and stuff like that. They will for sure. They seem bullish enough on all that. And they're still building to that point where it feels like Apple built past it. You know what I mean?

Amazon, I feel, still has that chip on their shoulder. They want to be in that market space. Yeah, people have been awfully quiet and rightfully so because they're probably under NDA about what is going on over at Amazon. But I feel like it's just going to go the way not as disastrously, but more of an uya. Like, it's this thing that comes out and like, oh, interesting. Kind of like Amazon fires. They're just like, oh, that's interesting, but like cool.

I don't need that. Do you think anything for the market? Yeah. Do you think any third party, though, like Activision or something? No. No, there's no way. There's no money in hardware. like that's that's the point I'm trying to make is that

for these mega corporations that look at the bottom line making 5% of your money back is might not be good enough I'm I and that's where I get kind of the the whole Xbox vibe where I'm like I think that they want to spin Xbox off and those rumors again have been circulating people can read and Google about that those have been circulating for a long time um oh Northeastern's calling me to ask me for money probably um and uh you too too you know so I don't think I don't think the console space is a savory place that you

want to be necessarily if you're not already there because also carving out your niche and carving out your name means something. Remember that when Xbox is introduced in 2001 that it was nothing. No one cared. It ended up edging out GameCube, but it was quite a fight. And meanwhile, PlayStation 2 just put them both away. It's because PlayStation had time to establish itself. Just like when PS1 came out, it came out at a time where the in the in-between space,

where there wasn't any competition, something Sega tried to replicate with the Dreamcast, and it didn't work. So it's not wise to enter this space unless you have all of your ducks in a row, and that means having a dozen plus developers. That means like having your own IP. That means having exclusive deals with established their parties. And I hate to tell you, it's like an old boys club, man. It's Sega, you know, died and then, you know, or they're alive, but they died as a console, you know, manufacturer.

And it was just up to these three other guys and they have all their entrenched interests and their entrenched relationships. And it's going to be hard to break into that stuff. And that's, those are the things that really matter. Unless you were going to put billions of dollars behind your marketing and all that kind of stuff and, like, getting your games out and giving people great deals and stuff. there's no room for anyone else. And I don't think you want more people involved in a hardware manufacturer. That's the least important thing. It's who's making the good games.

And it's back to the ukulele topic with Playtonic where it's like they're making the game. They're making it for everything. I mean, if you're talking about it, I'm sure third party in the publishers, you're asking if they're going to get in the console market. I bet they want it all to fall away. They want it to get to just being a PC thing or whatever. One unified platform. So everyone, they can focus on one skew and not jump through all these hoops to make it work and do all these different things.

Yeah. God, that'd be so, so, so, so awesome. All right, guys. Monopolis never end well, do they? It's not going to happen anyway. I would love it. The Unified console thing is tough just because it means that two of the three must die. Yeah.

Basically. Like for them to go away. Or just bow out gracefully. And Sony and Microsoft are not going to bow at gracefully. So like I just think there's too much bravado. And rightfully so. I think Nintendo is the one that's going to maybe. And it's not going to be a Nintendo pride thing either.

It's going to be Nintendo's like looking at the bottom line being like, man. We got to ban. We can make a lot of money just making these. fucking games and partnering with. Again, and I've said it before, like, I think they partner with Microsoft. I don't think they partner with Sony. And saying, like, you know, because of the bad blood going back to CS and all that kind of stuff in the early 90s, like, wow, like, we can just fuck the hardware and make Mario for Xbox.

Well, so that's the thing, though. You're saying the two of them need to die in order for there to just be one. Do you think that Nintendo exclusively making their games for Sony or for Microsoft is enough to kill the other one? I think it's a, I don't think it will kill them. That would be a revolutionary thing. That would be like one of the craziest things that had ever happened in games.

In the world. Like if Nintendo went third party, that would be crazy. And if they were like, we're going to make PlayStation and Xbox games and they're just going to release out of it. If they were like, we have a 10-year partnership with Xbox, that would, I couldn't even think of news bigger than that. Yeah. In the gaming space.

Like, that would be insane and Sony would be in very bad shape. You know, not, they would sell and they'd have their hardcore fan base, but you suddenly, you know, The numbers stopped getting so big. The console that people bought just to play those games suddenly all go to this other place. You know, that's, it's like a dream. It's so funny because it used to be kind of talked about very quietly in like 2008, 2008, 2009, 2010. Like, oh, maybe Nintendo should just stop.

Yeah. And now it's being talked about louder and now people are getting more excited about it. You know, and now people are like saying it with gusto and, you know, maybe it'll happen. I don't know. What's interesting is. Kevin just texted me and he said NX, Nintendo Xbox. Oh. If Kevin's right, everybody, remember this episode. Now, it's funny, though, you talk about two of the three failing.

I always thought it would be the three failing. Like, I thought Steam had the right idea. And I think Steambox could have been their first step towards putting everyone out of business. And it wasn't because they overcomplicated it. Well, they don't want to make hardware. Right. Exactly. So here's 14 versions of a Steambox.

I'm like, well, no, fuck, that's not what people wanted. I don't blame them. They need an easy solution. I'm just saying what could have happened. That could have been the unified platform. If you would have done it this time, put it in down, gotten people behind it, and then slowly built on it. So the third generation is accessible and easy and everyone can understand it.

Yeah, I wonder. Yeah, Steam was the only one that could have disrupted. And again, I hate that Silicon Valley fucking term. But they could have disrupted the entire industry with a unified one platform that was made by Steam for Steam. Yeah. But they're wary, even with all their money of getting into the hardware business, that tells you all you need to know about how complicated it is. Steam had the most to gain and were probably almost guaranteed success.

And people who aren't trenched in gaming. Yeah. And they still didn't want to do it. Yeah. So, I mean, that, and it has people like, Nvidia, like, jumping all over that, like, will never break in. So it's, it's, which is, like, what, everyone's like, oh, the shield or anything? I was like, no.

Like, don't you understand how complicated it is to get into this fucking industry, you know? And, like, make a console and get people to give a shit about it and create legacy. I'm just holding out from Madcats, man. Oh, Madcats. They're always a step. Well, they're publishing. I mean, Madcats is, say what you will. Well, they're evolving as a company.

They're evolving into Mad Tigers. Damn. All right, guys. Final topic for the day, as always, comes from the users. If you have a topic, tweet me at Tim Getty's, like The Ghost Six did. With Inifune's Mighty Number Nine and Igarashi's Castlevania successor, do you guys see Kojima making the indie Metal Gear follow-up? Yeah, I could see that.

Good Lord, I would love that. I can see going either way where he does that or just to something completely fucking fucking crazy with robots. Yeah. You know what I mean? And either way, I mean, I'm in. But the idea of a fresh start on the ideas of Metal Gear and what made Metal Gear good. Right.

But in 2015 or 2016, 2018, whatever the fuck. Holy shit. That sounds so good. Yeah. Wipe away all the story that keeps so many people away from it. You know what I mean? And bring it in. Like, all right, we're starting fresh.

You're this guy. You're a super soldier. Let's have some tough gameplay. But there's still, like, not the codec, but something like the codec. And there's not the, you know, like the Metal Gear's, but there's something like. like the Metal Gears. I would love that. Yeah. Yeah, I think that I don't think Inafune, Inifune and Igarashi are different than Kojima because they made, they've all started, all of them started making games around the

same time in the mid-80s, but they, and they're all basically peers. But Inafune and Igarashi had to go in a different route because their stuff became more niche and like their, what they were doing became more suspect in terms of a money-making proposition, which is why they had to go to Kickstarter. or presumably, I mean, that's the rumor about Igarashi. Who the fuck knows what he's going to do? But Nafune went to Kickstarter with a lot of success. Kojima is going to go to a AAA publisher.

Like, I feel it. You know, like, I know it. Where do you feel it? In my balls. I feel it in my balls. Good, good, good. I've said it before. I said it on my video, I've said on other things.

Like, Kojima can do whatever he wants. It's different. You know, like, Kojima is a name. And I'm not saying, I love Inafune more than I love Kojima by far. But Inafune is in a house. sold name with gamers. Kojima as someone wrote, I don't remember who's saying, like, he's like the only guy that still puts his name on his games.

Like, Kojima presents. You know, Inifune doesn't do that. You know, and he's going to have such great opportunities that Inafune and Igarashi weren't provided, especially because he already has deep connections to the Western publishing world that, you know, Kojima's going to land at EA or Activation or something like that. I'm going to be really shocked if he doesn't land on one of these big publishers.

But say he does that. Does he make a Metal Gear clone? maybe I hope not I think that I don't know that he wants to do that and people forget that he made other games so it's not like that's all he can make I mean he made zone of the enders and stuff too so it's you know he has other ideas he wants to do other things he's always he's always talked about an eagerness to not make metal gear and you often have to wonder if he really even wants to make these fucking games you know or if it's just like he has contracts and he has bills to pay and they're paying him lots of money at some point if you're Kojima and they're paying you two million dollars a year whatever the fuck he makes I'm sure he makes a lot of money that which is probably part of the reason Konami need to get get rid of them. Eventually you're going to be like, fine, like, fine. You know, I can make $500,000 a year making what I want, or I can make $2.5 million a year, and I'm just throwing these numbers out. But $2.5 million a year and just making another Metal Gear game

and makes my life easier in the long run. I'm sure he's pent up with fucking ideas. And I'm sure the conversation is already happening. Like, that's the crazy thing. And, like, you wish you knew, like who was talking to him and the people that is, you know, you can imagine a company like Activision is sending a whole group of people out to Tokyo to talk to him. You can imagine EA courting him eagerly saying, like, we'll give you a

fucking studio. We'll make a studio. Do you think there's any chance of an announcement at E3? No. I think that this game has to come out first. Exactly. That's for sure the contract he has is that it comes out and then they finish even, it'll come out and then it'll still be like three months, four months like with DLC and what's happening on Metal Gear Online. Like there's definitely a gag order in terms of like what they're paying him through something. Gotcha. Yeah. All right. Do the new consoles have a killer app yet? Is the killer app still relevant? Asked title cur nope

t y l k er sure no the killer none of them have killer apps no killer apps are not are not uh necessary anymore

the the evidence is in the numbers it's that easy you know yeah the evidence is in the numbers yeah what do you tell your friend to buy on PlayStation 4 right like we can name a laundry list of games

and I know Reso guns at the top for Colin but it's not necessarily like you have to buy the PlayStation 4 to play X Mario 64 right Mario World yeah Sonic.

Yeah. To jamming Earl. I mean, imagine. I mean, think about this. Like, GameCube and Xbox, the original Xbox, both had killer apps immediately. And, you know, like, Halo was out in Smash. Oh, so, you know, and I think GameCube actually,

Xbox, I don't intimately know as well. I had an Xbox later. 2003, I got my Xbox, but I had my GameCube at launch. And what I always marveled at with the GameCube, and why I loved it so much was that it got better and better. By 2005, a GameCube was fucking. extraordinary. It didn't matter. Because no one bought it anyway. They were dropping the price.

Like extraordinarily. GameCube really struggled, as we all know and remember. And Xbox had similar struggles. And ultimately, GameCube settled around $22 million and Xbox settled around $24 million. Well, in 16 months, PlayStation 4 has already outsold the GameCube lifetime, which is fucking insane. And it has no Smash Brothers, and it has no Super

Mario Sunshine, and it has no beautiful Joe and no Resident Evil 4, and none of these games at all. Not even anything close. And that's like the crazy, that's the craziest thing is that it's well on its way in a month or two, it's going to outsell Xbox, and then it's going to keep going, and it's like why? And so

we don't know the answer to that. All we know is we can infer from that, that the killer app doesn't matter because Killzone, Shadowfall, and RezoGun and Second Sun, and all these games, The Order and Bloodborn, they're not the killer apps. They might be good games, but they're not the killer app. Is this just another example of us, like, we've experienced so many generations

of consoles and seeing that the killer app hasn't been around for a while? Like, you bought your PlayStation 2 because of DVDs, and it made sense that you had a PS2 when Grand The Auto 3 came out and Metal Gear Solid 2 came out. Those were your games. I think those were the killer apps though. But I mean, that was a year later, Tim.

That's what I'm saying. It's like... But I mean, I don't think the killer app needs to be a launch thing, though. Like it happened to have been that way for a lot of the consoles. But I do think that Middle Gear Solid 2 and specifically, round of Donald 3 were killer apps for PS2. Sure. You know, and then like, it's funny that you say Smash Bros,

because I didn't even really think of that as a killer app. People fucking love that. That's one of the first. I know that. But like, Halo definitely was. like that thing, but I think that it was last generation that didn't really have that game, and I don't think it ever got that game, right? Yeah, I mean, you could, like, it's funny because, Killer App is an old term.

Killer App is an old computing term from before we were even born, about the things that you needed applications. It wasn't even games. Killer App doesn't even mean game, it's killer application. The thing that you could, like, spreadsheets and shit like that were like IBMPC's killer app in like 1982. too. That's why people bought them as all I can do math and like

compute and do like real computing on this kind of thing. Today like there's such a spectrum of things that we can do with these consoles that I think that and such a spectrum of games available on these consoles, if you ever go to PlayStation blogger or Major Nelson and you look at just the games that are coming out every week, it's like the killer app mentality has been replaced by

the volume mentality and there's a volume of, there might not be, PlayStation 4 might not have, I think Resolgun's a fantastic game, but it might not have the last of us in terms of its masterpiece. It's not PS4, but it's not a native game to PS4. But it necessarily doesn't mean that need that because PS4 already has a shit ton of good

games. And I think that people are excited about that. I think people are understanding more and more that the indie culture, the 10 to $20 game culture is what's going to drive these consoles and things like Bloodborn that come out or when Uncharted 4 comes out or whatever. These are like the supplemental tent poles that are really important.

But clearly the consoles are not selling because of them. It's something that people have to wrap their heads around because it's very unintuitive. It doesn't make any sense. You know, like and Titanfall is a good example with Xbox 1 like when Titanfall came out that month PS4 still outsold Xbox 1

didn't make any sense and then you could read into it and be like well maybe people bought Xbox 1 earlier because they were anticipating Typhold maybe that's possible maybe that's the truth but you would expect

I suspect we'll see something similar when Uncharted 4 comes out where Uncharted 4 comes out whenever the fuck it comes out in 2016 and people are like oh well there wasn't a huge spike in PS4's and it's like because people are just buying them anyway

so many people already have this anticipation. I think people just want them this whole console cycle the end of the Xbox 316 and PS3 cycle and then the Wii you kind of bombing and then PS4 and Xbox 1 coming out swinging and doing really well all of it's unintuitive none of it makes any sense like that through the conventional way we look at it.

Wii you should have been a huge success based on Wii but no one cared, right? Like 360 and PS3 just fell off a cliff. People forget that the console sales looks so impressive when PS4 and Xbox 1 came out by percentage because PS3 and Xbox 360 sales were so soft, you know? So that was like a comparison and we didn't expect that because a lot of good games were coming out at the end of the console cycle. now we have really no triple exclusives that really matter you know I don't mean that in disparaging way

it's just that there's nothing there like on PS4 I you know I don't know if Xbox ones feel differently but I'm not looking at Bloodbourne and being like I don't think BloodBorn is a great game BloodBorn is on a game that Bro guy walks into a store he doesn't really know much about games wherever he sees Bloodwin I don't give a fuck he didn't see a cool ad on TV and then go by

so like it's just it's so that's why the industry is so fascinating right now because none of it makes any sense it's so it's so weird Yeah, no, it's really bizarre. That's why the last question was so interesting that you asked her a couple questions ago about what the console space looks like or what games look at. Who the fuck even knows at this point? It's all unpredictable.

Not even guys that are really well respected. Like, Pact or any of these guys can possibly tell you what's going to happen. It's a wild space out there, man. That's what makes it so unpredictable and that's what makes it so fun. More saying wants to know. How come no one's talking about armored core? Because no one likes armored core. Armored core isn't as popular as you think it is.

As somebody had to review those games, no. I feel like it's one of those weird What are your thoughts on Armored Corps? It's not for me. I mean, Armored Corps is this thing that always existed over there. Yeah, but it's weird though because it's such a weird thing,

but like the people that like it really like it. The people who like it fucking love it. And I get tweets almost every time. I'm like, hey, what do you guys want us to talk about? Is it just more sign every time? It's not, no, no, no. There's a bunch of, I've made notes.

There's multiple people. It might be the same with a bunch of different accounts. But it's just like, it's crazy that there's definitely some Armid Corps fans that are like, wondering why it's not being talked about. And like that's a interesting thing to me that like, you know, as game sites like IGN, game spot and whatever, just try to stay relevant more and more just talking about mainstream

games and not so much focusing on the armored cores and stuff. It's like, I don't know, who is going to talk about upward core. Exactly. Yeah, there's fan sites and there's message boards and they're the communities you go to and the podcast you go to that are all about armored core. And like, that's a great example of like how you have to try to make it work, right? Like, that's a very, if the people putting out Armored Corps setting their expectations right, they can be an Atlas. They can be a company who's like, we don't have to sell that many copies of this, you know, niche RPG or whatever, the JRP.

But if they're trying to go out there and be in the middle tier that, you know, that, you know, that MUTHQ space, they're in trouble. You have to set your expectations. Fans are there for it, sure. But like, yeah, that's a great. I had not thought of Armored Core in fucking years until you just said that way. You know what I mean? Yeah, I mean, are they still making them? Of course they are.

Sure. Is there three coming out this year? Probably. That's just how those fucking things work. All right, last question for today. It goes back to the future topic. Jack Daniels 524 says, Nope.

Daniel Salas says, With smartphones around, will handheld consoles die out? We didn't really touch on handhelds too much. Will there be handheld consoles in 10 to 15 years? No. Yeah, that's, it's one of those loaded questions.

I wouldn't be surprised if there was a middling one that doesn't do anything well, but I mean, theoretically, no, there shouldn't be. Yeah. I don't see. And I guess it depends on what this NX is, if it's like what we're talking about, if that counts as a handheld or how it goes. But yeah, you figure, I still think, and I know O'Connell says PlayStation's crazy

enough to do it, I got to imagine the Vita's over. I got to imagine they vacate the handheld space here, you know what I mean, just with their current commitment level to it and how it's all been going and how even off PSP, the tailspin, the seven-year tailspin. But, like, yeah, Nintendo and the DS even, like, they've now got this with their partnership, right? are getting their games on mobile devices. Again, I still see them leaving hardware as well. So then are we counting like the Nvidia Shield?

There's always, I feel like it's always going to be a peripheral person doing something. But it's not going to be a thing in the industry that people are talking about. Sure. Like, I guess what I think about it, it's like, is IGN going to have a tab for that channel? You know what I mean? Like, is it going to, when you go to the front page, are you going to see the whatever the hell it is? Sure, sure, sure, sure, sure. You know, and I don't think so.

I think it's just going to be phones. Yeah, I don't think, you know, I was saying before, phones and tablets, you know, people were talking a lot and prognosticating a lot about how they would affect console gaming or just gaming generally didn't, right? Like, the effect wasn't there. The effect was there in a more

microscopic way on handhelds, clearly and demonstrably. So, like, the DS was 150 million plus sold, right? 3DS, nowhere near that. PSP, 80 million sold. Vita, not even close. You know, like, it's just clear as day. Like, it's obvious. And the games are

better and the consoles and the handhelds are better and it's more enticing you can do more with them but people don't care and I think that is because of the phone and I don't necessarily think it's even because of games or people playing games on the phone I think it's just like people like I'm entertained yeah I already got something Twitter and I'm just gonna I'm not entirely convinced that like there's a one to one thing where it's like I don't

own Vita I don't own 3DS I play games on my phone I think it's more I don't own 3DS I have a phone and I fuck around with it yeah I look at my mail I look at my Twitter I look on Instagram I don't need this other thing you know so I think that while console gaming is stronger than people expected it to be.

Arguably, you might even say stronger than ever in terms of the early sales of PlayStation 4 and Xbox 1. Who knows how it tails out at that point? We don't know. The handheld space is dying. It's obvious. And I think Sony's, yeah, I've said Sony's crazy enough to do another Vita. I think they still might be crazy enough to do it.

I think they've probably mocked one up and have R&D going on it, or maybe they just pulled the plug on it. I don't think it ever sees the light of day. I think Nintendo's the only one left that can really do it. And the NX will be probably that. But it'll be something unusual, you know. I'm very excited for that. Ladies and gentlemen, that is the first ever, episode 19, of the Kind of Funny Games cast.

Tweet me at Tim Getty's, your topics that you want us to discuss on the show next week, and until then, I love you.