Duskbloods Delayed to 2027

Hey everybody, welcome to Game Mess Mornings with me, Jeff Grubb, your host from GiantBomb.com.

Thank you for tuning in.

In this episode, we're going to be talking about a delay for a massive Switch 2 exclusive and more. It's going to be a good one because we have Jan Ochoa on the show.

Jan, how are you doing?

Grubb, feeling a little bit better, less, better for wear than worse for wear than last week. The sickness is slowly going away.

Yes, he transferred it to me. I understand.

Yes, exactly. Exactly. We said this in a meeting, but we're just having kissing parties in the back.

That's right. Making it happen.

Well, we're doing that while we're, you know, planning our big show where we're going to go over all the gossip about Ethan Klein and his marriage. Welcome here, everybody. We're doing it now. Let's get in all the juicy details. Jan, I've never met anyone who watches H3.

I don't... How... What is that?

Like, what is it?

I honestly don't even know what it is.

Um... I don't know either. Like, even before he made this pivot into being more of a weirdo or maybe just leaning fully into who he is.

Sure.

I didn't get the appeal then. And then, you know, he's he's since made this somehow has made this podcast empire. And I don't get it, Grubb. I don't get it.

I don't get it. And I don't understand.

They're live or podcasting for three, four hours a day, and they have all of this money. They have a studio space. Theoretically, they have professionals that work on the show, and the show sounds like garbage. And it looks like garbage.

Yeah, it sounds bad.

Yeah.

The clips have sounded bad that have been coming across me on my social media feed because.

I am reveling in his downfall.

I have no idea who he is other than, I mean, I've heard some of the clips like him and Hasan going back and forth or whatever.

I could tell he sucks. But I'm reveling in it.

And yeah, he just seems like one of them there narcissists or something. I've been curious about it this week, but I just do not know anyone who watches it.

I can't say that I do, and, like, you know, I understand that we are on a very specific pocket and corner of the internet.

Sure.

And, you know, I like to engage with folks that, like, have varied interests, as do you. I can't, I don't think I know anyone that watches that much.

Yeah, it's like, when I was trying to watch it, I was like, dude, this is a kid's thing? I'm like, maybe younger people, but certainly not kids. Like, there's just nothing... entertaining here.

I don't know, whatever.

It is a bit of morbid curiosity as it keeps getting served to me up by the algorithm this week.

Grub, the perhaps most disturbing thing is, hey, I understand folks being parasocially drawn to something, finding community in that, but for the love of God, go outside. But the most disturbing part is seeing that there are chapters of this podcast band-based grub worldwide that are having like support group meetings because of this podcast ending because of infidelity.

And the part that there's several things that bother me, grab a whole bunch of things. Uh, but for this fan base to now draw the line at, uh, cheating versus, I don't know, you.

Know, um, supporting child slaughter. Yeah. That seems rough.

And actively deep trying to de-platform, uh, female, uh, Content creators and attacking them and subterfuge like that.

I don't know.

I think I drew the line way back there. Yeah.

Yeah.

Just very confused. But maybe I was never meant to understand it. But yeah, thanks for going down the rabbit hole with me there on that one, Chad.

I appreciate it.

No worries.

Let's let's explain ourselves. We're giant bomb. I think go to giant bomb dot com slash join. Become a premium member. If you do, you're supporting independent games media. You are ensuring we can keep doing things our way. We're very thankful for you all being here in our community, making this all go around. and enabling us to do cool things, like come up with fun ideas and then executing on them, whether that is something we do on this show, we do somewhere else, or we do it as a premium exclusive show, which you can get if you are a member of GiantBomb.com.

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Yes.

Should be going up Monday afternoons. I know there's some folks complaining about the audio being a little low on the gameplay, but because it's premium, we can go in, adjust that, and swap Swappies.

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All right.

We have a lot to get into, so let's start the morning mess with a little bit of breaking news this morning, although hardly feels surprising. The Duskbloods, that Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive game from From Software, is officially delayed until 2027. This comes from Rebecca Valentine at Kotaku, as does a lot of our stories coming from Kotaku today.

As always, they're doing great work. FromSoftware has announced that its vampiric competitive PvPvE action game, The Duskbloods, is being delayed to 2027 for final adjustments to the game rules and balancing. While development of The Duskbloods is at the final adjustment stage, we have made the decision to move the launch window to 2027. This reads a post on Twitter from the official account. We apologize to players who have been kindly awaiting the release of this title, and thank you for your patience and support. During the network test, we saw active interest in the core concepts of the game, including combat, strategic depth, and player expression. To further enhance these aspects, we have decided to move the launch, allowing

time for final adjustments to the game rules and to balancing. This news will come as a surprise to basically no one from software fans have been speculating for months now that the game would be delayed following the aforementioned closed network test. Though the test largely seemed successful and did not result in a lot of positive buzz about the game.

There were criticisms that the game was confusing and didn't do a great job of helping players understand what they should be doing at any given moment. It was also, in my opinion, far too weighted toward the PvP aspects of which made those of us coming from FromSoftware's more PVE-oriented experiences feel out of our element. FromSoftware didn't specify whether either or either of those aspects is what it will be working on here, though, so we'll just have to wait and see what tweaks are made to the Duskbloods in the next few months. Let's see here. We don't have a new date, necessarily. You know, they're saying they're moving the launch window to 2027. That could mean anything.

I guess.

I feel like if it was going deep into 2027, they might have mentioned that just to get out ahead of, you know, we get to February and then FromSoftware gets inundated with, hey, where's the dustbloods? Where's the update on that? So I am still assuming relatively early next year, but we do not know.

Again, though, Jan, this is not surprising, right?

No, not surprising at all. I mean, especially if Nintendo also wants to shift their focus to Ocarina of Time coming out.

Yeah, which seems like the right move.

And just to further bolster everything else that they put out this year, you know, refocus on Nintendo Switch Sports Resort. Woohoo Island is popping off right now. Yeah, they're going crazy for it. Going crazy over there. As well as, like, all of the third-party stuff headed to the Switch 2, I could understand them wanting to pump the brakes. And I know people within our circles, this community... enjoyed parts of the dusk bloods but i can see other folks kind of being uh needing a little bit more of an on-ramp to figure out how how the game works and everything um maybe they're not familiar with how purposely a obtuse some from games can be um you know right uh it is a little bit of an acquired

taste um.

Yeah this is the kind of thing where like you just you see them uh uh like going to work with Nintendo and Nintendo is like, it's from software.

They'll figure it out. But from software does really does their own thing. Yeah.

And, and I, I think the maybe thing, maybe that is sort of coming to a head a little bit in this situation where they tried something and it's a little bit unproven for them, not entirely unproven, but it's a little bit unproven. And yeah, that, that is maybe reaching a new audience on switch to, or again, a relatively new audience. And it's like, yeah, it doesn't feel, feel like this thing was going to necessarily hit the ground running which you know even for uh god what was the uh elden ring multiplayer game called night rain night even night rain hit the ground running like it took off immediately and then it popped off it continued to pop off and maybe they were just getting the sense that there was not that energy behind Duskbloods. So

then the question becomes, you know, what do these changes look like? Like, they're certainly not going to turn this into a single-player game. That's not happening.

We know that.

There was never any risk of that happening. So then what do these balance changes and rule changes end up looking like? How do they guide people into the fun a little bit more easily?

I think maybe they just add a little bit more hand-holding, a little bit more tutorialization. Maybe that opening on-ramp of experiencing the game, they have a couple more text boxes, a couple bit more GIFs happening while they explain a mechanic or whatever. I ultimately see this working out in the Duskblood's favor, because you're going to potentially have more people with switch twos after this holiday, because folks will be picking it up for Ocarina of time. Um, let alone black Friday, this Christmas holiday season, there will be more people with switch twos. So there will be at least a bigger audience to try and, uh, sweep their attention. And, you know, getting into that public beta, that, that, uh,

network test was, uh, a little bit confusing. Like I, I had applied for it, didn't get an email about it, but it turns out I was picked for it. I just had to recheck the website. So maybe they run another public test now that there may be more people involved into that pool. I can only see this working out for them. I don't think this is any doom and gloom for the Duskbloods at all.

Yeah, I was I was never able to get I was invited, but I never was able to access the test.

I think I know what I did wrong now. And yeah, it was on me for sure. Yeah.

Either way, though, it was definitely something where I was I was excited to kind of see it.

The response didn't surprise me.

Like, I think most people want something, but most people that like are in our space that are thinking about, they play a lot of games. They come to FromSoftware games for specific things. And it is stuff that has previously been provided by Dark Souls and Sekiro and Elden Ring. And sure, Night Rain did find a massive audience, but it's like, that is not.

What people think of first when they think of FromSoftware.

So this game always had a little bit of a having to explain itself problem.

And it seems like, you know, when it did explain.

Itself, it confirmed a lot of the preconceived fears that people had. And then, and then that meant it had a little bit of an uphill battle and that just would have required it to kind of do everything right. And I think that network test revealed there was a lot left. They could have done to, again, guide people into the fun a little bit quicker here. I, I, I think you're right. Like they can let this holiday season go by and they will be at no risk of being forgotten. The switch to will sort of be, it'll be going from strength to strength. I mean, we're going to talk about it here in a second, but demand very high for switch to consoles, despite the price increase, it's almost like the price increase barely even happened. Like

Nintendo did find a very creative way to just, thread that needle there and they haven't really missed a beat. So demand very high. And that is before Ocarina of Time has actually come out. So yeah, they'll kind of go into next year with more people with Switch 2s than ever before. And, you know, in fact, let's, let's like shift over to that right now. Somehow the Legend of Zelda Switch 2 Walmart fumble, it has, it's gotten much messier.

This is according to Kenneth Shepard over at Kotaku. Yeah.

Yesterday, several The Legend of Zelda fans got the unfortunate news that their Walmart pre-orders of the new Triforce-adorned Switch 2 consoles were being canceled a day before they were supposed to arrive, which is today, October 29th. Now, the day is here, and the situation has somehow gotten worse, with stores reportedly telling workers to expect delays and missing stock in the days leading up to the Ocarina of Time remake's launch next week. A Redditor posted an internal memo being sent to Walmart employees regarding in-store pickup for the Zelda Switch 2 systems, which says that some stores may not get the device today due to supply chain delays.

Workers are instructed to provide consistent communication to customers who pre-order the Switch 2, while the impacted orders are still in transit. Workers have tried to scan systems that have arrived at their locations today. And they're finding a point of sale block on the devices and are being told not to override the block, which will remain in place until at least November 6th, a full week after the devices announced launch date to ensure.

That preorders are fulfilled. There's the post here. We showed up at Walmart at 6 a.m.

Spoke to an electronics person, someone working in the electronic section section and, uh, was told that they were unable to scan the consoles that they had in stock, which was three units. Um, they suggested waiting until seven, which is when the electronic section truly opens at seven.

The console wouldn't still not scan.

The employee went back, went into the back and came back with, um, that internal memo basically from Walmart and Nintendo. And it seems like this is happening at Walmart and other stores like target as well. Um, Yeah, I mean, look, Walmart seems to be an especially bad case here. But yeah, I think Nintendo very much underestimated the demand for this Switch 2 console. And it really just, like, you look at it, if you are Nintendo.

They have played this mostly perfectly of launching the Switch 2 with the built-in trapdoor of Mario Kart included. So that gave them the wiggle room to move the price around. And right as that price increase was going into effect after giving people months of headroom that it was going to happen, so that encouraged sales through that period. As that happened, they have all of the details about the Legend of Zelda, this Legend of Zelda system, sort of coming in to swoop in to replace that.

And that just carried demand even higher. So.

The only issue now seems to be they haven't made enough of these things to sell to people who want to buy them.

I mean, these are happy problems for Nintendo. Definitely stinks for the consumer, of course. Especially unfortunate to, you know, perhaps you're playing the pre-order roulette and you don't get one at Nintendo of America, Best Buy, other big box retailers. So you have to go toward to Walmart or maybe Target because Target's also being affected here. Um, and ultimately to not get your stuff. I do see some lucky folks in, in our community saying that they did, they, they are getting a controller today.

Mike got one, Mike got the system and, uh, and he's doing the thing that, that people do where it's like, okay, now he's going to hand off his old console to someone else. Like, and it's like, this is how Nintendo sort of always, um, retails the soil of, of their consoles. Um, especially these days where they don't have a lot of price decreases. So the move they do instead is let's get the suckers who buy everything. The Jeff grubs of the world to show up, to buy another one of these, we'll sell him six systems. And those other systems will either get handed down to kids sold on the secondhand market at a discount.

So we don't have to discount it.

Some people could just sell their old stuff and it kind of still works out in our favor. And, yeah, they're playing all the cards exactly right to get all of that. And in the meantime, I am like, oh God, now that it's here, I kind of wish I had this thing. And I'm like, look around, like, are they going to restock? And it seems like everyone tends to agree they will, that there is a plan in place to make more of these things.

Yeah.

If they do that, that's going to pop off as well.

I mean, they have to see the demand for it straight from like the pre-order, the pre-order amount, but also to, if, there are any loose special editions on shelves, which I doubt there will be after this new story, those immediately getting swooped up. So Nintendo has to be like, all right, well, we just got to make more of these. And it has me thinking that they, I know that they didn't necessarily plan for it to be this big, but this has to work into the calculus of, their next 2027 year of releases, right? Because they'll have Metroid. They will have that Kirby game. They're definitely going to have a Pokemon Switch 2 for wins and wins when that comes out next year.

That feels like the next moment to have some new SKU.

So they have to be working in like, okay, we still might be a couple years away from doing a Switch 2 OLED game. but we can definitely squeeze out more people getting this special edition, whether it's a pro controller, whether it's a whole new console.

Yep.

And in the meantime, if you are someone who went through Walmart, the answers just seem to be, you might have to wait a week to get your answer of like when you could, yes, fingers crossed to get the thing that you already pre-ordered.

I believe there were, I could be misremembering chat. Correct me if I'm wrong.

I think Amazon, cancel a bunch of orders, like not too long after they happened. Um, which is like, it's still bad, but a little bit better than this where it's, well, maybe not. Cause like if these do get fulfilled, that would be better than having your order straight up canceled. Cause maybe you weren't able to get one replaced after that.

In fact, very likely you.

Weren't able to do that.

Um, But yeah, so it's just been a mess so far, and the very few executives from Nintendo, like the ones in South America that were talking about this, all they've really said is, yeah, we should have made more, and hopefully they do follow through with that exactly.

I mean, like, you know, Greg, we mentioned happy problems. It just seems like Nintendo is not necessarily falling backwards into this, but.

No. I just.

Just based off of Nintendo's trajectory, and I say this with all the positivity and love in the world, they just seem to stumble into this because they are just doing their own thing, right? Like, they're not.

It does feel a little Mr. Magoo-like. Like, at this point, they almost... They almost... plan to be Mr. Magoo.

So it's still like built into their, their strategy, but it still feels very Mr.

Magoo. Exactly.

Just because we will, we'll talk about Xbox later, but you know, uh, it just seems like doom and gloom and, and too much corporate oversight at PlayStation, at Xbox, every other publisher, um, versus Nintendo as of right now being like, Oh man, y'all wanted more of these.

Oops. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

It's, uh, You know, it is a little bit bird in the hand is worth two in the bush or whatever, where Xbox definitely was part of this, had a strategy of, sure, we have an Xbox console that's doing what it's doing. But what if we disrupted the entire industry with Game Pass and tried all this new stuff? And they chased after that to the detriment of their core business. And now their core business looks truly in disarray. And again, we'll get to that in a little bit. In the meantime, though, we got to talk about This is pretty fun. New GTA 6 gameplay revealed inside South Park confirms dog poop is a weapon. This is from Kenneth Shepard at Kotaku.

Shouts out to Kenneth Shepard and, again, Kotaku with a lot of stories today. Grand Theft Auto 6 footage is trickling out as we get closer to the game's November 19th release date. The latest clip comes from not a trailer or social media post, but instead from an episode of South Park or South America as it has been rebranded in its 29th season.

What did we learn in this new clip?

Dog shit is a perfectly legitimate weapon in Rockstar's open world crime drama. The cross promotion was a surprise to viewers who tuned into Comedy Central to watch the episode Guinea Pig on a Stick, which features about 25 seconds of new footage. And the most revelatory thing it shows off is that dogs in the game could take actual dumps.

And if the player feels so inclined, they can pick up the dog's droppings and throw them at people in a fight. So the clip actually shows a person walking a dog with a baggie on their hand, getting ready to pick up the poop.

And then. what's his name?

Florida man comes along and, uh, he, he's like, okay, I'm going to disrupt that and, and pick a fight with this guy. Go pick up that poop before he picks it up with my bare hand and throw it right at his face and give him a good old stink face. And it's like, yeah, uh, definitely gross. Uh, and the right sort of tone for, for a South park. Uh, I just like, God, yeah, all of it looked incredible. Actually, it all looked, it looked amazing. And I'm like, God, yeah, this is the kind of detail that when they unleash it in this, the systemic world, uh, it does get me, it does, does get the gears on my head turning of like, okay, if I can do this, what else can I do?

And for me, it's always like, all right, what does that lead to?

I do pair this with like some of the stuff we're hearing about the wanted system where, um, Some of the reports are like, okay.

It's not just go hide for 30 seconds. Yeah.

To get rid of your wanted level at a certain point, you need to delete the evidence.

Oh, yeah. That's a great idea. That sounds fantastic.

And it's like, okay, so the things I do having consequences is the kind of systemic emergent gameplay thing that I would really want to see them dive deep into. And if that's what they lean into with Grand Theft Auto 6, Yeah, time for me to specifically get excited because that's a Jeff Grubb kind of game there.

Yeah, Grubb, I'm happy that the advertising team, the marketing team, is just having fun with the game. With as big of a title as GTA 6 is, people are going to buy it regardless, right? People have been waiting for it. But to do fun stuff like this, to pop up in South Park, And then to do that takeover of Miami that we talked about last week. And to try and reunite Daft Punk, they are throwing their weight around in, I guess, a good way. And I know that folks may be tired of hearing about GTA 6 and just want it to come out already. But, you know, I think this is good excitement building up. I think we're all excited to get our hands on GTA 6. I think I'm also just excited to see the random shenanigans

people will do. I know that there won't be any GTA Online stuff for quite a while, so that community is going to have to hold off, but I think there's going to be some fun, silly shenanigans popping off and popping out of it. I know that I may not have been the biggest Red Dead Redemption 2 fan, but I am a fan of people getting tomfoolery happening in that game and seeing that.

Sure, yeah.

I'm just imagining that, but on steroids and in Miami, maybe bath salts.

I mean, my my hope here is that, you know, we weren't alone in criticizing Red Dead Redemption 2. I, you know, I wrote very early on my feelings and why I felt very comfortable calling it a disappointment for Red Dead Redemption 2. And then the ball media guy, Nakey Jake, he did a video on it where I was just like, oh yeah, this is someone who is running with those points to the point where it's like, oh, this is exactly how I felt. And that was a very popular video. And it wouldn't be surprised if that criticism does get internalized and Rockstar says, okay, what can we do to address that?

And I'm getting my hopes up that this is the game to do exactly that. And if it does.

like if they bridge that gap of like, okay, they're promising a reactive open world. If it's actually reactive and it's actually open to the point where my experiments of, I have an idea and that leads to things unexpected that now I have to deal with, which I do not think mostly happened in red dead redemption too. It happens a little bit. It's very, very tiny. It doesn't have like a cascading effect.

Sure.

If they get that right here. Yeah.

I'm, I'm ready to get very excited, but, You know, God, weeks away. Weeks away. Less than three weeks away now. So looking forward to seeing it.

I have to find my PS5 again.

Hell yeah.

You've got to stop burying it in the woods, Jan. I just don't get why you do that. It's just so fun, Grub. Just geocaching yourself, hitting yourself in the head, and you're like, oh, I can't remember where I put it. All right, let's see here.

You know what?

Let's take a break when we come back. We'll get into that, I don't know, Ashley Sharma just lying to you. She doesn't have to lie to investors. She's not allowed to lie to investors. So she has to lie to you instead. We'll get into that when we get back after these ad messages. If you want to skip out on these, go to giantbomb.com slash join. Become a premium member.

We have the ad-free versions of the show there. We will be right back.

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It is Game Mess Mornings. I am Jeff Grubb. That's Janet Cho.

We continue on with Xbox says there's more demand than consoles available as hardware sales continue to fall.

This is from Ethan Gotch at Kotaku.

Microsoft still can't manufacture enough Xbox Series X and S units six years into the current console generation. That was one of the messages from Xbox CEO Asha Sharma coming out of this week's earning call with Analyst. The company is trying to push a refurbishment program to help increase the available supply ahead of the 2026 holiday season and the launch of Grand Theft Auto 6. Console sales remain constrained by supply with more demand than consoles available, she posted on Twitter. We're working to get more consoles into players' hands, including through our expanded refurbishment program. We're making progress with a lot more work ahead. This is what she said in response to them putting out their latest

financial report. which if you just dig in a little bit, uh, Chris Kerr has this information for us. Chris Kerr, uh, from, uh, who has got a vertical slice, vertical slice dot news. I believe it's where you can get his stuff. Uh, Xbox hardware revenue fell by 29% in fiscal year, 26 driven by lower volume of consoles sold. Xbox hardware revenue fell by 25% in fiscal year, 25 driven by lower consoles, volume of consoles sold. That is, um, the message from Xbox in the documentation it files.

With the SEC for its investors.

What they say is they're selling fewer consoles and two years in a row now, they've had at least 25% year over year decline.

In revenue.

And then she goes out publicly and says, it's the demand, or it's the supply, not the demand.

And it's just.

Like, yeah, this is another situation where it highlights my specific issue. I mean, the fans of Xbox don't have to feel this way. I, I have to like not respect you. If you, if you just let this person lie to your face, uh, to say like, Oh no, everything's going great. And, uh, it's just, we just can't make enough to satisfy demand. And that's why sales are down. Uh, and we just know that can't be true. Uh, like looking at the September Sir Canna report again, that was the worst September for, uh, Xbox sales in the United States ever. And the previous worst before that was last September.

So it is just new low every year. Things aren't changing. And she's got to come out and sort of put on this brave face. And I have to ask, why can't we just say what it is and then talk about the plan to sort of change the demand so that people actually do want to buy this console? And the reality is because I have to assume that That isn't their strategy. The strategy isn't sort of to change the way people feel about Xbox. It is to sort of position Xbox as it is in its best, the best, give it the best look so that they can shed it in some way. But, you know, that is, they just don't care to sell this thing anymore to people.

They do not.

And I think it's starting to feel like lipstick on a pig at best here.

Jan, what do you think?

Yeah. Completely, well, not completely, but similar enough circumstances that we were talking about at the beginning of this episode with the H3 podcast and kind of like feeding delusions and everything and telling you, no, this is what it is. This is what it is, despite the harsh reality being so loud, almost louder than the actual podcast itself. It is also happening here where The concrete evidence is out there.

We just talked about the Sarkana report last week, and we showed off the numbers. Several people, not just Matt Piscitella, not just Sarkana, not just Vertical Slice, are showing the concrete numbers here that the CEO is blatantly lying to you. So I just don't understand, if you are a fan of Xbox, how you can continue to trust this company.

I understand... The brand loyalty to an extent where you feel like you've made this part of your personality, your parasocial to a faceless brand. But for the love of God, like pull the wool off of your eyes and see the actual stink happening in front of you.

Yeah. And Jamie H.

Christmas Eve says, like, yeah, let's do a fact check. Let's go to our local Best Buy, GameStop, et cetera, and see if they're still in stock. And I check every time I go to my Walmart. I just, you know, I like to walk through the electronics section. I have some nostalgia about that, about getting games off of shelves and playing kiosks that are like 12 feet in the air with the controller way down here. And you have to look straight up to play it. Yeah, I have affection for all that stuff. So I just go to check it out. And it's, you know, never what you remember it to be. But the Xbox section that used to be there, is completely gone. We're not talking about, we are not talking about a small little window now

that has three games and some Xboxes. It has completely been replaced by Nintendo Switch controllers. There is one whole wall for accessories for the Nintendo Switch, and it is now across from where the Nintendo Switch stuff originally was. That's been expanded into all these different games. Like there's a massive selection of Nintendo Switch and Switch 2 games, and then a windowed closet that has a multiple switch.

Systems in there. Like that is, I mean, that's the story. That's it right there.

The demand Walmart does not care about anything other than, uh, demand. And, uh, and so they are stocking way more switch cause that's where the demand is. And they don't care to be in the game of selling Xboxes anymore. Uh, you know, Anecdotal, but I think that we can add that sort of anecdotal evidence and on top of all of this very hard evidence to tell the story of what is really happening here.

And again, I just like what do we what do we think she's.

Trying to accomplish here by just outright telling a falsehood about what is the reason behind the numbers?

Because we can tell.

By looking at the numbers, that it is a demand that is the problem here and her saying it's supply. And look, I bet it is more difficult for them to make Xboxes right now because it's more expensive. So they are probably producing fewer, but that also sounds a little bit like a death spiral where if they produce fewer, it's harder to keep, like even on the secondhand market, it might be more difficult to keep the secondhand market prices down because there's just fewer floating into the system overall.

So that's keeping prices high, which will also lower demand because who's spending $ 500 on an Xbox Series S?

And it's just, no one should be.

No, no. I think that is the other part of the calculus that needs to be brought up when we add Nintendo to the conversation is that comparatively it is, so much more cheaper to get a Switch 2 versus a PS5, a base PS5, and like a PS5 Pro or any of the Xbox SKUs. I just don't understand what lying about this or trying to spin this narrative does for the brand, does for the product at all.

Because then you can go see this, like you said, on a Google search or a stock search at like a Target, at a Walmart, and it'll say low stock. Matt Piscitella just posted about on blue sky.

Yes.

I just don't know what, what is this supposed to do for the overall image of Xbox?

And again, like the one thing it could do, the one sort of justification I can wrap my mind around is it keeps this, this package of here's Xbox as a brand that is still beloved by a core group of people. And they are still true believers. And we are telling them the story we need to tell them. keep them in our corner and we will sell that package or, or license it or partner with someone so that they can build on that and take advantage of that audience and exploit them for whatever money. And it's like, yeah, that I could see why you would want to do that because you You clearly don't want to be in this business, but, uh, I mean, who are you going to sell this to? I mean that then there's all

these questions of like, what does that look like? They're probably very frustrated that EA got to the Saudis first. And so Saudi, Saudi Arabia is probably not ready to buy because this would have been sold to Saudi Arabia in a heartbeat in this environment.

And, um, They just sort of missed their window there.

It's hard to imagine anyone else stepping up, but yeah, it feels like they're just trying to keep things as contained as possible and, and keep the truth out of the zone of Xbox fans so that they can have some sort of thing to point to be like, look at how dedicated these people are. They will come along with this brand wherever it goes. So, you know, step in and take this over for us. And I just, they're trying to wait, wait it out until that is more possible. And it's hard to see that happening anytime soon.

Yeah, especially with the stories we were talking about last week or earlier in the month, Grub, about this prospective Project Helix costing up to $ 1, 200.

$ 1, 200 to $ 1, 800 is the range, yeah.

Right, $ 1, 200 to $ 1, 800. I can't imagine who would be willing slash want to spend that much money on that right now based off of the overall health of Xbox. Yeah. You know, we saw the CEO leave. I believe that was last week that happened. I just don't think there's a reality that Asha Sharma is with Xbox or at least had a CEO for very long.

She'll be back at some AI position not long from now and within the next five years for sure.

Yes. It all feels like AI psychosis, right? Yeah.

I mean, yes. Someone said vibe leadership and that, yep, that's what's happening.

Okay. Yeah.

Yeah.

That makes my tummy hurt.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, that's that's what we all have. We have to deal with the ramifications of that. And then we also have like, I guess I do this to myself.

You probably all.

Aren't occasionally checking out the Xbox subreddit or Twitter and just seeing people buying this this shit. And I just can't have any respect for that. I just cannot.

But we're the problem, Grub.

We're the Xbox haters.

Tell me. I love it. I do, actually. Go for it.

Blizzard explicitly connects WoW controller support with playing on more devices, like Project Helix. Hallie Longdale, World of Warcraft's executive producer and vice president, describes gamepad support as the first step toward broader device access. She specifically discusses Project Helix and points to people already running WoW on handheld hardware, such as the ROG Ally X. A console edition has not been announced. So this is just like, it's not concrete proof that they are going to release a console version, but they are talking more about it than they ever have before.

And the fact that Holly Longdale.

Did specifically name drop the Helix does make it sound like that is something they are trying to prepare for. Now, they might have to do that just because Project Helix is going to be a PC. And and there will be questions of like, how do we get this thing to run on, on this console? And they're like, well, it's a PC plug in a mouse and keyboard. And that won't be super satisfactory, especially if they have all these other plans in place to really bring full fledged support for controller to wow, which is the direction they are.

They are heading in for the very first time ever.

So yeah, Yeah, look, World of Warcraft on consoles, like we can even throw the Project Helix thing out the window. I mean, we can assume that might happen, but if they do this, they should also put it on PlayStation, right?

That's a game that's too big to keep it exclusive, but who knows, Jan? I don't know.

What do you think? I, you know, they have to see how popular Final Fantasy XIV is, right? And how big it has hit on consoles and how there's like a big subscriber base or player base is purely on consoles. TurboShawn, plays specifically with a controller for Final Fantasy XIV. So it just feels like a no-brainer to try and roll that support, not only roll that controller support out, but to roll that game out into as many places as people can play it. I was kind of thinking, like, who's really checking out WoW Forever? I know that Mikey is a big WoW head, but I had several friends, Normie friends.

It's going to be huge.

Hosting about... I got my wow forever character locked in and they've already pre-made their character locked and loaded their spots. So I think, I mean, it really.

Is like, you know, the call of duty was like, Oh, you know, all respect to Zelda, but this year is all about, uh, it's all about the grand theft auto and call of duty.

And it's like, I don't know, actually, if we're going to, we can put Zelda aside. Sure.

But it's about world of Warcraft and, uh, grand theft auto. Like those are the two big ones that actually this year.

Yeah. Um, it's, I, I, I'm curious to see, uh, how popular this will be and how much this will blow up. And, you know, sure, this is going to bring back lapsed WoW fans, but I'm curious how many new audience members this could potentially bring in.

Yep. Yeah.

I'll be curious to see, like, what WoW presented as a console first experience could, could, could accomplish on the heels of forever.

Absolutely.

Like re re amplifying all of the hype for, for world of Warcraft. That will be like some, like a one, two punch. They could really take advantage of, especially if it's like, you know, this year it's wow forever. And then there's like this, this undercurrent of testing the controller, testing the controller. And then next BlizzCon, it's like, all right, here's full fledged controller support. You could easily see it going that way.

Yeah.

All right.

No Man's Sky's Halloween update also puts the game on iPhone and iPad. Hello Games released the Forsaken update on October 28th. That is alongside the iPhone and iPad version. The studio advertises that the game now comes with 40 plus updates included. Like, you know, you pay once, you get everything they've ever done. It's only a four gigabyte download still. And you get free access to try the beginning.

It's stated as supported range starts with iPhone 11. God, is that thing like, that's almost like seven, eight years old now. In the third generation iPad Air. So a lot of devices should support this game, which the game is quite old. That makes some sense. Forsaken itself sends players into abandoned freighters, wrecks, and infested outposts to recover haunted technology and biological specimens. Rewards include like, you know, biomechanical Corvette components, a larva helmet, and a grub cannon multi-tool.

What the hell? Whoa. You're all over games this week.

It's very confusing to me as someone who's old and easily confused. Other additions include seamless travel to nearby stars. They've updated the game again. They've added a lot of new stuff. This is what No Man's Sky does. I think the story here is, oh yeah, they put this thing out on iPhone and iPad and that's another massive audience that this game can now go on to conquer. Now, you know, is this the kind of game that does super well on those devices? Not necessarily, but No Man's Sky just is a I don't know, a success unto itself.

And I don't think we can necessarily predict what it will do based on what other similar games have done. It's going to capture an audience and just continue to slowly build over time like it has everywhere else it has released.

It is a truly inspiring grub to see the turnaround. Like, I can't think of too many games that kind of like launched poorly and were able to like turn things around and then to continue that positive momentum and I know when Cyberpunk launched on consoles, it was kind of like poop. And they were able to turn that around, sway public opinion. But with No Man's Sky specifically, not only were they able to sway public opinion, but they're also like, hey, we're going to continue to give you new thing after new thing after new thing. At this point, well, not at this point, several DLCs ago, I've been too intimidated to go back to No Man's Sky again. deeply curious about what's happening in no man's sky for sure

but there is it feels like there is so much added to the game that i wouldn't know where to start.

Yep all right same uh but i am i i played no man's sky right at launch and enjoyed myself um and i've not gone back and i went back like once or twice i think when they added multiplayer we might have tried it out here on channel maybe i don't know maybe that's what we did just for a little bit very briefly um and there's been, you know, like 10 updates since then, uh, at least. So, uh, yeah, I kind of, I, not kind of, I always want to go back to this thing and really see it for myself.

Uh, but I also want to like do it justice. Yes.

That would mean like several playthroughs, like dedicating like a month or so to like really get in there and, and several hour long streams.

And that's hard to come by this.

Um, you know, we, we talk about like forever games, right? Like people just spending, uh, all of their time in a specific game that isn't an MMO, right? Like people will spend, uh, months of their lives immersed into red dead redemption too. I imagine that no man's sky is definitely like one of those other avenues for folks to just like fully divest themselves into.

Yep. Yeah.

And, uh, yeah, it is on like switch to as well. And obviously it would be if it's on other handhelds like phones. Uh, but it's like, yeah, I could see if you're getting into it there. Uh, you know, uh, toasted gyoza and chat says, I love it. So you say that gyoza.

Okay. I was just making sure. Uh, yeah, they say they love it on there.

It's like, yeah, if that's like, you just kick back and you're like, I pick up my switch and now I'm going to play an hour of no man's sky and do that every day. I could see that being very, very fun, but just, yeah. Shouts out to that game date. Hey man, they have a new game coming. Um, light no fire, the planet wide fantasy game that is still very much procedurally generated, but they're procedurally generating, uh, uh, It's like a static procedural generation. It's not like necessarily other procedural generation games where you load up a level and it's different than the last time you played. It's like they're using this to generate an entire planet that will then be the planet that everyone explores together. They

have not talked about it much at all since revealing it.

Gosh, when was that?

Yeah, it was several years ago now. Like the Game Awards, I think. I guess so. And it's like, Oh yeah, you know, they don't have to talk about it.

Cause every time they do one of these updates, you go, Oh, maybe they're testing out this idea and that that'll show up in light, no fire.

So yeah, I'm looking forward to that for sure.

At this point, grub, I just expect them to flip a switch and then no man's sky turns into light, no fires. Right.

Or you, uh, you find a computer in no man's sky and then the game is inside of that.

Um, yeah, I love that.

I know that we always have so many content ideas and we're purely limited by time. Right. Um, I want to find a moment in 2027's calendar when it's very, very light on game releases. And I want to do exactly like what you had just mentioned, Grubb. I want to spend all of my time in No Man's Sky and just try and get up to date with what's happening.

I wanted to do that with Warframe also. I'm kind of trying to do that with Final Fantasy XIV right now. It's just like we're obscenely busy. Yep. Yeah.

And I like doing a lot of stuff. I do. But yeah, I think that you're right.

If we dedicate ourselves to like, let's pick one of these games and really go all in on it for a little bit. We could, I don't know, we could do it in a very fun giant bomb way. We just have to really approach that with some dedication. All right, let's see here some other stories. November's three free PlayStation Plus essential monthly games include Dead Island 2 and Tomb Raider 4 through 6 Remastered. Also, Monster Train 2 is in there, which should be in the headline, Chris Scullion at VGC. I mean, for a lot of people, that's going to be the big winner there and honestly might be the most beloved of those games if you played all of them. But yeah, not a bad month. Pretty good games in there. And this is on the essential tier.

You got to go in there and claim them. That's how it still works.

Go do that.

Sonic Dream Team has received a fan port to PC and Android. Does anyone remember what Sonic Dream Team is?

This was the one.

This is a Sonic 3D platformer action game, a real 3D Sonic game that came out exclusively to Apple Arcade two years ago, three years ago. Either way, a fan has now done a port of it. Hey, no vibe coding.

Here, apparently.

You know, I don't want to guarantee that, but people have been looking into it and they can't see any evidence of that. And that is always really cool. So, yes, it's like Generations says Turbo Sean.

Yes. And people seem to like it, you know. Yeah, exactly. Pretty neat.

And now it's been sort of rescued and you don't have to have Apple Arcade.

You can get it on PC.

You could try it on Android because it's still a mobile phone game if you wanted to play it that way. uh although because it's apple arcade and it's like full controller support and all that stuff because you could also play it on a mac with a controller so probably playing it that way and this this recompilation has added features like uh graphics options and things like that so geez it should be more full-fledged than the version you would get on ios devices up until now All right.

This is a yeah, let's do this one really quick.

Suspected Chinese intelligence asset had access to Jensen Wong.

Trump was briefed, but reportedly took no action.

U.S.

Intelligence reportedly identified someone with this is a New York Times big reported story from yesterday, I believe.

So U.S.

Intelligence reportedly identified someone with access to NVIDIA's CEO as an intelligence asset, informed Trump roughly a year ago, and Jensen still reportedly hasn't received a warning from the White House that.

This is the case. Alice Wong, also.

Known as Wong Lee, is a Chinese businesswoman associated with Megaspeed, a Singapore-based data center company buying substantial amounts of NVIDIA equipment.

U.S.

Officials already suspected Megaspeed of helping China obtain restricted AI technology. According to The Times, surveillance subsequently led intelligence agencies to conclude Alice was passing information to Beijing and revealed her close access to Jensen.

I wonder what that means.

Trump reportedly received a briefing roughly a year ago and chose not to act on the information. The Times describes his concern about disrupting NVIDIA's business and relations with China. Jensen reportedly, I mean, you can still just fucking tell them.

Just tell them. What are you talking about?

Jensen reportedly has still not received a defensive briefing, which is the kind of thing that happens. in a situation like this where the United States identifies that a, an important person, especially someone important to the economy is susceptible to, to, you know, espionage. And then they're like, given the full briefing, here's how you defend yourself. Here's what you can do.

And if you want our help, let us know that's still not happened. Although the article does not fully establish that Jensen has knowingly helped Chinese intelligence. It also like they say, like officials are like, look, He definitely started out unaware. It's very likely that he's still unaware at this point that this person is passing on information to Beijing.

But they cannot guarantee that he does know. They stopped short of that. But just, oh, yeah, I mean, that's right. This very important person to the global economy now, and our GDP report for the.

United States came out today, 3.5% GDP growth, all of that.

Is this AI scaling up and all the money going into that and the rest of the economy fucking broken.

And in the meantime.

The person who is most key to that, the CEO of NVIDIA, at least in some ways, seems to be susceptible to spying and espionage and Trump is doing nothing about it despite knowing everything about it.

Very fun, Jan. Yeah, yeah. That's right.

It's like, oh, yeah, we have to deal with these goddamn clowns, and they are in charge of so much.

They have so much power. Yes.

Hey, apropos of nothing, not because of this news story making my brain buffer for the past two, three minutes. Folks, go vote next week, please.

I voted today.

Go vote early.

I voted today, everybody. That was a lot of fun.

Go vote early if you can. Get that ballot in very early if you can, please. For the love of God. Do not wait until Election Day. And hey, please, look at me. Look at me here. Go vote, all right? I'll give you five podcast points if you vote. I don't think that's illegal. No, you can still do that. Yeah, go do it, everybody.

It's fun. I had a great time.

It's quick, easy.

A lot of helpful people there. A lot of people just doing their civic duty.

A lot of nice old ladies out front handing out voting guides to do the right thing. And they were great to talk to. And they were just like, make sure you check your thing. Make sure that your vote doesn't get swapped on the machine. They'll help you out if it does. So yeah, that's hell yeah, ladies, let's go.

And there's a lot of them. They're just out there all day, every day. Steph went to go vote the other day and I guess they were out there then.

So go vote. It feels real good.

Maddie Thorson, who made Celeste in Towerfall, says, for those who are asking, yes, we delisted Celeste in Towerfall on Xbox for We did this to support the BDS boycott. What a baller move. What a cool thing to do. Shouts out to Matty Thorson, who I adore. Celeste is one of my favorite games of all time. That game could very easily be on Giant Bomb's top 100 when we do that later today, everybody.

Matty Thorson is a baller.

I've made a grave mistake, Grubb.

Oh, no. I've made a grave mistake.

I forgot Celeste.

Well, look. Now, he already tabulated. You can't do anything now.

I can't. I can't.

It's too late. I bet it still makes it, though. Let's see here.

Incredibly based move by Manny Thornton. I love it when someone throws their weight around and boldly takes a stance for stuff that they believe in. It's inspiring to see. Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Uh, this week, uh, that pretty much just means today, not much happening tomorrow. A phantom blade zero is launching on PlayStation five and PC and that Zelda anniversary switch to is launching today. Although good luck getting it. Uh, we'll see what that looks like. Uh, also, uh, last story I have here. There's, this is a very localized personal story. Um, Jan, the portal's acting up even more than normal. Uh, the portal that leads to the giant bomb video store, which we are going to be streaming from tomorrow at 6 PM. Everybody 6 PM Eastern for premium members only. So you should become a premium member.

So you can watch along with us. It's making different noises than ever before. And frankly, I'm terrified. And I, my understanding is, uh, We sent in some early reporters to go get some footage.

You have something for us? Yes, yes.

Heat on the street. I'm getting recon footage right now that we're going to play right now. A Halloween special coming out of the portal.

What the hell? That's terrifying.

I have word that maybe that particular video goes some places if you actually tune in to watch the real intro, everybody. You won't want to miss that. You won't want to miss the giant bomb video. Weekend Rental Club getting back together tomorrow evening.

Love doing these. This has been a lot of fun.

And we'll maybe find some spooky games, some weird games to celebrate Halloween together, everybody.

So look forward to that. All right.

Let's see here. That does it for all the headlines. Let's get to the poll question. I have this one from yesterday's show. I'm going to refresh and get the most up-to-date results.

All right. I did ask, hey, are you getting Grand Theft Auto 6?

And I just kind of wanted to test that out because we had that Sarkana story yesterday of the purchase intention higher than any game they've ever seen before.

And of course it is.

But 46% of our audience says, yes, they're getting Grand Theft Auto 6. And let's be clear, that's very high for our audience. Our audience plays a lot of different games. A lot of times we'll ask, hey, are you getting this?

And it kind of tops.

Out around 25%, 28% in that range. Maybe a couple of games. We'll get into the thirties here and there. Uh, it's, it's pretty rare to get something that's this close to 50, 50. And of course, these are the people just intending to get it right now before we've had reviews before we've had any real footage of real people playing the game.

Um, So, yeah, it's going to be a massive, big surprise.

But, yeah, I'm at a point where it's like, oh, yeah, the second I can play that game, I'm going to be playing it. And I wasn't feeling that way a month ago, necessarily.

No, no. I think I really love the idea that folks are taking, dedicating their time off to play this game.

Yeah.

And I'm just thinking, can I do that? Can I take time off from my job of playing video games? Yeah.

We just need to build it into work where it's like, uh, you know, we just do a 12 hour stream every day of that game or something like that instead.

And we just play a bunch of it, but.

How can we do eight simultaneous launch looks? Yeah. Right.

Like honestly, maybe like, cause that'd be fun. We could just hop back. We're like, Oh shit.

Look at this in my game. Uh, I don't know. Something like that could be fun. No promises, everybody.

We still have no idea how we're going to cover this thing, but it'll be fun once it gets here.

We'll figure it out on the fly.

This is one of those fun monoculture-type things and big events happening, Grub, right? Where it's like, okay, I'm glad it's not a massive tragedy or an atrocity happening that is uniting, potentially uniting folks. I like the collective fervor that is starting to build up for GTA 6.

Yep.

And I'm also glad that it is going to be out of the news headlines for the next year.

Yeah, I'd love to get through all of the follow-up things of who did this and that game. But yes, on the other side of that, you're right. It'll just be a game that exists and we can move on with our lives. All right, let's see. Any chance they try to get people to double dip later with discs? Ask Sam O'Neill. Yeah, there's always a chance they try that.

They'll try to, they'll find ways to get people to double dip. Well, will it necessarily be a disc version? I don't know, but I, I think I still will for a, uh, like a new limited version that comes out sometime next year, like a very, like a high end collector's edition.

They might go that route. Uh, all right, let's see here. We have a new poll question. Let's, uh, let's do that now.

Uh, would you try world of Warcraft if it came to console with full controller controller support?

Yes or no. We'll get the results of that.

Talk about it here on Game Mess Mornings on tomorrow's show here on Giant Bomb.

Speaking of Giant Bomb, yeah, today it's Thursday.

We're going to have Voicemail Dump Truck.

What else do we have going on, Jim? What time is the GB100?

The GB100 should be happening at 1.30 p.m. Pacific, 4.30 p.m. Eastern. Also, for premium folks out there, we're going to be having our Discord Town Hall before the Dump Truck.

Yes, here in a little bit.

So go on, get your questions in, pop into the Discord. There's a Q & A channel there. Go preload your questions, and we'll try and get through as many of those as we can today. But yes, voicemail dump truck. We will have our dear friend Lucy James on the program. We'll go over our GB100 today. And folks, it's going to be fun, goofy times. We're not doing a whole thing, all right? Mike is preparing a PowerPoint where we're going to talk about the games today. And I think if anything, it is just going to be fun to see what gets omitted from the list and what is on the list based off of our collective tastes. And folks, this is our top 100 lists are our individual favorite games, not what we consider the most important or the best.

Somehow Chuck still got it wrong. It's weird, you guys. I don't know. I don't get it.

Yeah.

No, I didn't. It's been fun to have these conversations already.

I am really looking forward to seeing what we come up with, especially if it is like really dumb, especially if.

It's like, oh, man, how did we end up with this mess?

That'll be even better because that's kind of what it feels like will happen with this way of doing it.

It's how you end up with last of us.

Number one, when no one had it, barely anyone had it in their top 25 over a kind of funny. And it's like, yeah, that's, so I'm curious to see what would happen when we go through that process. And then I did one day, I do want us to do it the real way where we actually sit down and talk it out and have several podcasts where we argue for hours about what should actually, what this list should actually look like.

But, uh, we'll get on, we'll do it one day. I, I can already anticipate several incredulous reactions of like, well, you mean this isn't on there. And then, you know, it's a collective list split eight ways.

And I can tell that Sean truly works at Giant Bomb now because he's like, I don't want to do that. It's like, I don't want to do the conversation. And hating having to have the game of the year and game of the generation and game of all time conversations.

He's been through it. He knows. All right, let's see here at this point. It used to be worse. Yeah, right? We have a pretty good time. All right, let's see. Let's start wrapping things up.

I think with that out of the way, I can say, Jan, thank you so much for hanging out with me today and talking about video games, man.

I really appreciate it.

It's the best way to start a Thursday, Greb.

Thank you all for watching and listening. You're the best audience in gaming. Until next time, have a good one. Take care of yourself and goodbye.

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