YoVideogames!

Maybe my expectations were super low, but I thought this was a pretty good State of Play. Was it incredible? Face Melting? No. But there was something in there for everyone. And a couple things looked right up our alley. So, successful in my mind.

What did you grade this State of Play?

Capcom had a pretty awesome spotlight. Granted - lots of stuff from last year, but announcing demos for a lot of them was very cool. Personally, I got the main thing I wanted which was more info about Onimusha. Plus we got more eyes on with Capcom Fighting Collection 2 (which I couldn't remember the name of because ya boy started running again and I made the mistake of doing it too close to recording time. Find me here: a little breathless, thirsty and apparently woozy - BUT I'LL GET GUD I SWEAR). Beyond those two games, of course we should all be excited for Okami 2 and most of us are very excited by the new Monster Hunter.

Other whoozy brain farts (new band name): The Don Lee movies I was talking about Binging was the Round Up franchise. Very Fun, just solid cop movie shit and Don Lee is a tank as always. This franchise has the added benefit that many of the great Korean character actors are featured through out and you'll recognize them all over Korean cinema and TV after you watch this.

The recent Xbox Developer Direct was... Pretty dang good. Refreshing after several years of lackluster showings. Shortly after, Phil Spencer gave an interview that added fuel to this new fire. Xbox is committing to a new philosophy. Will Sony change things up too? Nintendo? Ok, probably not Nintendo; things are going well for them.

Nintendo has finally made an official announcement about the Switch 2. No real information was included/confirmed but there were hints to where they are going.

Additionally EA revealed a shortfall in sales with Veilguard. We discuss whether or not this puts Bioware in danger, but also whether their expectations would have caused a shortfall no matter what.

Yves Guillemot, CEO of Ubisoft, decided to address the rumors that Ubisoft is for sale. The buyout by Tencent failed, because the Guillemot family wanted to sell the company, but somehow retain control. Which, as you may already know, is insane. So Tencent apparently passed.

But Yves says Ubisoft is not actually for sale. in his words, they are exploring: "various transformational strategic and capitalistic options to extract the best value for stakeholders."

So, to reiterate, Yves says NO, Ubisoft is not for sale. It's just "for sale".

Now what does that mean? Which franchises could they sell off to save the body? Which franchises would anyone want? And most importantly, who would be a good fit for bringing the best out of those franchises?

Side note: We gave up on the no cursing thing. Well, I haven't as a resolution, just not gonna worry about making the show radio-clean. Matt explains in detail toward the middle of the episode.

Happy New Year! I hope you're spending this time with family, and friends - but if you have to work, I hope our sweet salty voices keep your ear holes good company.

2024 was a year full of lessons. Some good, some bad, but lessons nonetheless. And with those lessons we are going to try and pick out some trends for 2025 and beyond. Which is always fun because if we are right, cool, if we are wrong, fun. It's a win-win!

Matt's calling this one the Blue Sky episode. Which is not a reference to the new social media platform - no it's a concept that Walt Disney loved to use when brainstorming ideas for his park: aim for the blue sky and we will worry about reality later.

So we're doing that now, but with gaming hopes and dreams.

Suffice to say I was dead wrong about this years show. I was so confident it would be a nothing burger that I didn't even watch this year. I figured: if anything interesting is shown, I'll check it out later. Well, several interesting somethings were shown. Plus some surprises and oddities with the awards.

There's a lot of winking and speculating that there will be a couple show stopper announcements at TGA 2024 - we aren't so sure. Rather than speculate on that and get our hopes up: we talk about Indiana Jones, the on-going shifting power centers of the industry and general topics.

I have what is affectionately being called "Flu-vid" and maybe don't sound my best. Matt said I sound normal so if I sound like a corpse it is his fault and you tell him.

It's the 30th anniversary of PlayStation! So, here's a walk through the 90's with one of the best consoles ever. I was 5 when it officially released, and we did actually GET one until '97 - so all my memories of this system are jumbled until probably 97/98. Matt has clearer memories of the early years, but like most: didn't play it a ton until later, either. PlayStation had a slow start, but a grand finish.