Yo Videogames

Ok. Maybe that's hyperbolic, but this really was a solid gaming Christmas. Is anyone mad? Of course, there are people who didn't get the exact thing they wanted, and so they are mad as hell. But this might be the first year in a decade or close to where there's not only something for everyone, but there's MULTIPLE big somethings for most people. I am already thinking about what I will pick up in September, and what I'll budget for over the following months. And really, that might be the only mark against this... So many things are coming out in September that I have to wonder how the rest of the next year will feel. What about you guys? How do you grade summer announcement season?

Sony kicked off gaming summer with an hour long State of Play. Naturally, expectations were high. Did they deliver? I'd argue, yes. They bookended the SoP by opening with extended Wolverine gameplay and then ended with 20 minutes of God of War: Laufey cinematic gameplay. In between was a mix of promising titles, and a couple small surprises, like Kemuri. It felt very safe. Even the release dates: all of them pointedly avoiding GTA6 release. That's not really a mark against Sony in my opinion, but it does mean nothing will absolutely melt your face or blow your mind. Still, this was a solid State of Play!

I love James Bond movies. I grew up with them. I just talked about having gone through every Bond film a few weeks ago (there's 28, if you include The Rock, and you should!). When I watched the marketing for First Light, it looked like a Hitman game. A very well done, excellently made, Hitman game. And that meant I was out. I'm not hating on Hitman. Blood Money is a classic, and as far as I'm concerned the peak of the series because after that I never got into it again. World of Assassination is supposed to be incredible - if you love Hitman and haven't played it - get after it. This is by no means trying to talk you out of anything Hitman. But... Is James Bond right for a Hitman game? It didn't land for me. For whatever reason, James Bond means car chases, fast action, gun fights. In game form, that screams shooter to us. First or Third person, but shooter. Not stealth, not sandbox, not puzzles. None of those things are bad, and judging by the reviews IO interactive did a fantastic job. So, why is the game tracking low sales? Well, who is this game for? Hitman fans? James Bond fans? Uhhh... Uncharted fans??

Sony is making a bit of an event out of their summer State of Play - coming June 2nd. Summer Games Fest is coming just three days later; so I guess we know Sony isn't making any big announcements there. If they are giving so much of a heads up , they must expect this to be big, right? What do we think/hope this is? Well, we know Wolverine will take up a big chunk of the hour long show - they've said so. It's been a long time since we saw anything from Naughty Dog's Intergalactic - so I'm betting we get something. Matt has a big brain idea about something else Naughty Dog might tease. There's high hopes that this will be a Single Player focused State of Play.

There's no snappy title for this. My internet was a mess last week and naturally that means a lot happened in the industry. This is our catch up episode! We talk Game Pass price drop, Nintendo price increase (and how they seem to be trying to soften that blow as much as possible). We talk Saros, and StarFox. Plus, we talk RE9 now that it's settled for us and Leon Must Die Forever has been released.

This week's episode comes from Patron Scott M. He asked: what's a console that is too primitive or old for us to go back and play? Now, I am young. A baby even. Just a forever young, some might say devilishly handsome - I won't stop them - man. So, while I played an Atari 2600, and have seen a couple other gen one and two consoles, really things started with gen three and the NES, or even Gen four and the Sega Genesis. That being said, everyone has memories of playing the oldest consoles from the 70's because there are pizza shops all over that have the arcade versions. Given that we talked about a new Neo Geo being made, and who might want that... Does anyone want newly manufactured RCA Studio 2? No. But do we want a modern version of the Coleco Telstar Arcade from 1977? Uh, yeah I'd be down for a modern upgrade to that for sure. Also, we talk about how I plan to spend my eighties. In a few words? Drug fueled spiral unto death.

This is an eclectic episode where we catch up on some of the news floating around. First, we talk about the new Neo Geo being released along with 10 games. The console itself will be 250 USD, and the games $90 each. Or you can get a bundle of the console, and all ten games for 1k even. Seems steep until you compare it to the price of the original Neo Geo: 1k for the console, 200 bucks per game in 1990 money. Personally, I have to ask: who wants this? In this day and age, is this anything beyond a collectors item? And then it hits me: that's exactly what they said about the original Neo Geo. Maybe the universe is healing. Then, we talk about the new, lower, Game Pass price, and finally we talk about Shuhei Yoshida's comments about Jim Ryan. They should shock people because comments like this just don't really happen in the game industry, and especially not from the Japanese side. Makes you wonder how poorly Jim's tenure is viewed if Yoshida casually dropped these comments.

I'm alive! I spent last week fighting a sinus infection - sorry for the missed episode but as you'll hear in the beginning of this episode: it was gross as hell and unavoidable. There's a few topics going this episode, but the theme seems to be companies having too much money to be doing the layoffs they claim are necessary. We also talk Crimson Desert, Pixar, Disney Layoffs, and the Rockstar financial leak.

In this weeks episode we talk rumors and how I got got by a Zelda rumor. We talk insane pricing and while the RAM crash has begun, we doubt it'll ever drop back to pre-AI craze pricing. Plus we talk about the Disney/Epic Games rumors. Then, we dive into how exciting 2026 is for FGC. Marvel Tokon, Invincible VS, and Avatar are all coming very soon this year. And pricing is reasonable on all three games. Especially reasonable on Avatar. So, while the bad news, and the rumors still swirl - it is still shaping to be a great year for games.

Epic laid off a bunch of leads on the Fortnite Team. Does this signal that Fortnite is slipping? Is this related to Epic going after Google and Apple app stores? We talk about this and more in this episode!

The guys at Digital Foundry put themselves in a bit of hot water because they absolutely glazed DLSS 5 - the new technology shown by NVIDIA - and it amounts to an advanced Snapchat filter. I'm willing to give them a pass if only because geeking out about tech is what they do, and I am sure this is very impressive on a technical level. However, NVIDIA is calling it "content control Generative AI" and they say it is just a tool. In one breath, they say it doesn't change anything about the art style or graphics, and in the other they proudly announce it makes changes at the "geometric level". But it's just a tool, guys. The devs have the control and it isn't meant to replace a team member, duh. Ofcourse then one need ask: why does it generate geometry, rather than say enhance/smooth like DLSS4.5?

Apparently this has been a thing for a few years now, but I just noticed it. March 10 - MAR10 - Mario Day. You get it. This caused us to start talking about the mainline Super Mario games and... Is there any other franchise as consistently good as Super Mario? And if there is: is it as long running as Super Mario? Probably not on either count. Additionally, we talk about current industry news (spoiler: more layoffs) and why Nintendo seems immune to making the same blunders everyone else is making.

We're talkin RE9 (mostly spoiler free). We're talking Capcom Spotlight (could have been a text). We're talking Xbox announcing Project Helix. (It's a PC).

It's like news breaks in chunks these days. Is that planned? It feels planned. In this episode we cover: Saudi Arabia buys the rest of EVO and announces plans for multiple cities worldwide to host their own. Phil Spencer has retired and his replacement is definitely a signal of what is to come. And Aussies are fun to hang with wherever you meet them. (Okay we don't really cover that but I do mention it.) In this episode we reference these articles a few times, and I recommend you read them if you have time because they add a ton of context: The Verge article about Xbox Leadership shake up (Sarah Bonds abrupt exit): https://www.theverge.com/tech/883015/microsoft-xbox-new-ceo-shakeup-notepad Seamus Blackley says Xbox is being sunsetted: https://gamesbeat.com/what-an-xbox-founder-thinks-of-the-new-xbox-ceo-seamus-blackley-interview/ Do I think Xbox is being sunsetted? No. If it gets back on track it is a big earner, and it fits with Satya Nadella's goals. Namely consumer cloud compute and AI adoption. I expect the next iteration of Xbox to have an AI assistant that you can't opt out of, and of course AI "tools" will be used in all projects moving forward. I expect it will be used as a selling point on every game. "New AI makes bots behave naturally!" "AI learns and adapts to how you play!!!!" " GenAI generated levels mean every playthrough is unique!!!!!!!!" Stuff like that. Do I think Xbox is being brought in line with Satya Nadella's AI push? Absolutely. Do I think Asha Sharma is going to bring about a new Xbox Golden Age? No. But I do think we need to wait a year to see what she actually does. Because this year will mostly be finishing up Phil's plans. We won't know her real priorities for 6 months minimum, and I am saying a year to be generous.

In the 90's and early 00's you typically saw multiple (2 or more) entries into a series per decade. That meant you could really fall in love with a series, and it also meant you could overlook an entry that sucked. This is a story about DragonQuest. It's a story about Final Fantasy, Resident Evil, Mario, Zelda. Basically all of the beloved franchises today. As development costs soar, development time does too, and that means you aren't getting as many games in a series per decade. There's pros and cons to that I guess, but one major con is that any single game that releases can tank a franchise, or company. Is there anyone who still has an output that looks like this? We think there is, and they are clearly doing something right.

Sony's State of Play 2026 finally delivers a show worth watching. If it were a competition (it is), this would be the first big win of 2026! 30+ games over 70 minutes. Some weird, some wonderful. Lets dig in!

No big surprises this time, but not a bad direct. I think we all know partners will mostly be porting games for Switch 2. We talk about the direct, what Nintendo's year is looking like and then finally: the rumored Xbox Magnus.

The VirtuaBoy re-release is one of those things where the more you look at it, the dumber it gets, but also if it brings someone a lot of joy to own: who am I to judge? I hope it DOES make someone out there deliriously happy. But all the games will be on the e-shop only, and only accessible via a subscription. And THAT is downright criminal. Because there will come a day when you lose access to that. Then, the VirtuaBoy becomes detritus that sits on your desk or in a closet. All of this to say the High Seas will be the only place to find these things and it'll be (insert company here)'s fault piracy makes the comeback it does.

Are we burned out? Probably yes. 2026 has started with 20 days of constant churning news. But there are good games coming this year. Games we should be seeing lots of hype for. Instead it seems like the hype train has derailed. So, why is that? What brings the hype back?

Clickbait title is clickbait. Sorta. Because Matt is back from his honeymoon, and maybe the industry is entering a new spiral phase... But the title is about Matt's honeymoon. We cover a lot this episode. Matt finally saw Titanic and he's got some feelings. I go a little overboard talking about Billy Zane. We discuss games we waited to play and are happy we did because they are great. It's an eclectic but fun episode. And it won't make sense until you listen to the episode all the way, but I just want everyone to know I pronounce Appalachia correctly and Matt is wrong :P