The Inside Byte

This week is full of highs and lows. Horizon Forbidden West and Cyberpunk 2077's next gen patch is here! Street Fighter VI gets announced! Nintendo is shutting down their digital stores of last gen! PlayStation is back to more censorship that even Nintendo doesn't follow. Than we finish out the show getting one last hype moment of Elden Ring before Friday's release!

We discuss a very strong Nintendo Direct showcase full of dream announcements for Tim Schaffer! Chrono Cross, Klonoa, Xenoblade, and a Japan only darling back on SNES coming back BABY!! Plus Uncharted movie looking to be what was expected...

We start off by getting Rudy in on the conversation about PS switching focus to LIVE SERVICE games and treating PS like a platform on multiple platforms and not so much on just the system being at it's core. Steam Deck is getting hands on by a few tech junkies and the takes they have seem super overly positive! We go into Gran Turismo 7's and Ghostwire: Tokyo's showcase. Nintendo Switch sales surpass Wii! Next new IP by the Shovel Knight team! Lastly, Google seems to do what it has always done and drop focus on a big new project far too soon.

We discuss more Microsoft/Activision acquisition updates and if subscriptions are what we want out of gaming, and than during editing I find out SONY IS NOW AQUIRING BUNGIE and put in a solo segment on it. Than Dying Light 2, Elden Ring, and Steam Deck become all GOLD and good to go! Game Pass goes BIG in January, than we close the show out with the conclusion to January bets!

What more needs to be said. This is the biggest news story in the video game realm probably since it's inception, I mean Activision has been making games since the 1970's for the Atari system. The IP's and studios now being Xbox first party games is staggering. We discuss everything from the morality, to what this means for studios being able to be more free, to World of Warcraft, to how Sony responds to this.

Sony has figured out how to solve the shortage issue of PS5 systems... just supply more PS4! We also discuss Stalker 2's delay, new Kirby and the Forgotten Land details plus release date which also sparks a top kirby games discussion, Ubisoft making big Xbox moves, Mario Kart 9 is going to have a new twist that we think we have figured out, and a new monthly segment we start this episode and its all about predicting review scores for the month.

More FAN-FAVORITE topic discussions revolving around NFTs and Kojima's Abandoned! We also get into Xbox canceling dev accounts than re-enabling them 2 days later. E3 going digital only again this year, and BIG PSVR 2 reveal!

Japanese gamers run a poll for their top games of all time and the top 10 is quite the divisive one (especially when looking at it from overseas), game subscriptions are using the same "free" games between services, Mortal Kombat Trilogy remake possibly coming, Halo Infinite in top Steam games for 2021, more Tencent nonsense, "Abandoned" is showing its ugly head again, Rudy finally going in on Psychonauts 2, we talk about one of the greatest satire films that hits a bit too close to home "Just Look Up", and lastly we go more personal with our top 2022 picks!

Got a PS5 or Series X/S for Christmas? Well no need to buy any games at retail price as we let you know the best games to play with your online sub that will have you set for months or even years. We than discuss the new Spider-Man and Matrix movies, if the Nier series is done, and our top most impactful moments in video game history!

Chase, a teacher for game development and creator of "whenslunchgames" (http://www.whenslunchgames.com/) is joining us in this episode to discuss the in and outs of the field. But first we go deep into all the 2022 game releases on all systems and even rank our anticipations on each title.