Netflix Offered Microsoft $500 Million for Xbox Adaptations

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 reviews for yet another Game of the Year contender. And the Sharks are circling the Switch 2. It's going to be a good one because we have Turbo Sean on the show.

Sean, how are you doing?

Better. I also caught the sickness that Jan had the past week.

I'm just not down with it.

You never are. You never get sick. You never go to the bathroom. I think you're just like a puppet or something. I get sick.

Like those first few weeks of the school year, I get sick constantly. And then, and I think I just like, I speed run it. So by the time you guys are like being introduced to these things, I have long had them and built up the antibodies.

That's the difference there. Yes.

That's science right there.

It is. It's just the truth. It's how it works, you know? Yeah. But I'm glad you guys are all seemingly feeling better for the most part.

Yeah, you know, slamming some Dayquil as directed and like getting a lot of rest over the past week. Yeah, I'm feeling better. I'm ready to start traveling and probably getting sick again in like two weeks.

Yeah, for sure.

It really the dry airplane air always does make me feel a little bit under the weather. And then I'm like, am I sick or is it or is this something else? And then 50 percent of the time, who knows? Yeah, y'all have been busy playing Phantom Blade Zero, which we'll talk about here in a second.

Between so many games, Jeff.

I'm balancing three incredible video games right now. It's just, it's... It's one of those, like, you know, like, like you and Dan like to be like, I could be flipping burgers. I could be flipping burgers. I have to tell myself, I'm like, oh no, how do I play all these video games for my job? But I am, uh, I'm struggling to find the time for all of them. That's why, for example, yeah, we'll, we'll get to them in a second here, but I don't have a fan of blade zero review. Cause, uh, just cause the timing, you know, we were very busy with the bombathon and then we come back, we get our codes. It's like, ain't no way I'm finishing this game. That apparently is a little bit longer than I thought it was. thought it was

and also writing a review and getting coverage right and everything like that but yeah uh we'll you know we'll be talking about tomorrow in depth on the bomb cast i'm probably gonna i guess sit down with jerf because he's like really into it and do a do a quick look or whoever's around and yeah we'll get some footage together for everyone so we can uh we can share our our thoughts on the game a little bit more yeah.

I uh i've kind of uh You know, the list is long of games I need to be playing, but it's Castlevania right now.

Man, Belmont's Curse has really hit me hard.

You?

You into it?

Jeff, right now? If it wasn't for Pragmata, game of the year right there.

It's so good.

Oh, my God, yes.

It's so good, right?

It's so good. It's incredible.

I'm sorry to chime in. It's phenomenal.

It's so good.

It's so good. Thank you, Jan.

I mean, part of it is just like, it's like hitting the tone really well, but then it's just like a.

Very finely crafted Metroidvania. Like, I don't know if it's the S tier Metroidvania. I don't care.

It's so good to go from one month to the next, all the little clues they give you for some puzzles.

That shit is popping off in this game. It's so well done.

Jeff, that's why I'm liking it so much. It's not just another indie Metroidvania. Look, I'm a little tired of the formula. I've never been that into it. I'm tired of every game being exactly the same. I'm glad that they made something a little more combat focused and a little more in the moment traversal focused. Like the whip, like whipping on, like latching onto someone. I've been streaming it.

And so like. It's been very fun sort of just like, you know, watching people's reactions to me figuring out, oh, on this screen, I can whip, attack, whip, attack, whip, attack, and like zoop all around the screen. Never touch the ground. Get to the top. Never touch the ground. I love that kind of movement in a video game. It's awesome.

I can't believe Mike Minotti self-reported like a bitch that he only played like 30 minutes of it before screaming about it on the internet. Like, I didn't know that until I played the game. I'm like, wait a minute, this man only played the first one. That's like 20 minutes, Mike. Why are you complaining?

Shut up.

I definitely had like a similar arc, but I'm glad I'm on the other side because this game has just been.

It's kicking ass.

It's so freaking good.

The things that have gotten me into it, it has been like once I got to Dracula's castle, that certainly unlocked something in this game where it's like, oh, there's the flea man. And here's the bone statues that spit fire at you. seeing all that familiar stuff helps for sure but really it is these uh these quests that are not overbearing but once you notice them it's like oh oh man i'm like connecting the dots myself and you don't have to necessarily you can kind of just like do you can play this game like you play you look on the map you see the part of the map you haven't unlocked yet the little fuzzy cloud like i'll go there and it's like okay i can't figure that one out so i'll try this next one

But as you're doing that, the game gives you pretty low key clues, uh, that are not like, uh, they're not like, oh, you're dumb.

You should do try this. No, they are like quest upon themselves.

And they develop, and they're interesting, and one's very different from the next one.

Like riddles, kind of.

Yeah, a little bit like riddles. And then you see a painting, and you're like, well, that painting's sticking out. I know who that is. And you're like, oh, okay, yeah. Once that unlocks, oh, yeah, now I'm exploring this whole area and finding these secret passages I hadn't seen before. And you'll probably notice that on your own, but if you don't, the game will tell you.

It's very clever. And then, yeah, you're right. It just.

feels great in the moment the combat is very well done and um.

Do you have a favorite weapon oh um the twin swords because the twin swords is what allows insane movement options where you can whip attack an enemy and then so like uh we'll talk about this a little bit more tomorrow as well yes um but the whip attack then allows you so so what it is if no one's played it yet is uh the whip is like a grappling hook and you can use it to latch on to points in the environment or enemies When you latch onto an enemy and you immediately press the attack button, you do a follow-up attack while Rose is heading towards the enemy. With the twin swords, you whip the enemy.

When she does the attack, she lands on the other side. But the twin swords has this thing where if you delay the next input... Her next attack becomes more powerful. So you whip attack. She's on the other side. It lands perfectly so that you have the timing down to do the follow up.

I didn't realize that.

And then she turns into a spinning ball of death and decimates even like the hardest of enemies.

It's so much fun. I, uh, I.

Yes, I have the salmon. Nice is asking, have I gotten the whip weapon yet? I'm on the second whip. I believe the, uh, the thorn whip.

Um, okay. Yeah. The whip does a lot of damage. That's what I'm using right now. Yes.

And then, you know, it does the thing where it's like, you know, has a little spark at the end of the whip. And if you hit the enemy in that spark, it does more damage. And I, I just love that. It's like a nice little challenge, especially in a game like this, where it is about the movement. So it becomes about the spacing and kind of landing in the right spot.

And, um, yeah, I, I'm just there are times where I finish a room.

I'm like, that looked awesome. I'm going to record that because I just felt like a badass. And then you go back and watch the video. It's like, yeah, that looked awesome. I looked like I knew what I was doing, which is only the case half the time. But yeah, very, very into it, which is like, man, Metroidvanias, I've been playing them back to back right now.

Well, dweller to this. And then they're just they stay good.

Yeah. It's funny. Cause I'm, uh, you know, exploring the, uh, egomanias on like the DS and GBA for the first time I fish Aria. And now I'm, uh, my bedtime game. One of them is a dawn of souls. So I'm also playing that. Um, and I will, I will say the contrast there. Um, Teasing aside, Mike does have a point that it feels not like that traditional Castlevania style formula presentation and everything. It is kind of doing its own thing. But it's also like when you know that, yeah, the Dead Cells people got a chance to make a Metroidvania in the Castlevania series. This is yeah, this is what it is. That's what it feels like. Like I was nodding my head along to the music. I'm like, oh, I like this dirty industrial rock versions of Castlevania songs

that they're doing. It's really good. Yeah. but it's also not what you expect out of Castlevania. Both things can be true there.

Yes, the vampire killer, what's the name of the song? Blight Years, I.

Think is what plays when you first get into the castle. It builds up, it builds up, it builds up, and then you get through the first boss fight or whatever it is. It's maybe not like I would listen.

To on a CD, but in this environment with matching the visuals and everything, it's, it's, it's really, it's hitting hard.

And yeah, like I'm not, I'm not one to talk.

Like I didn't like Donkey Kong country too as much because they changed the characters. Like that's how affected by change I am.

So I definitely get it here.

I have like a trick now I do now with something like this, because I was feeling the exact same way as Mike and I think Dan about this. It's, I try to like just take myself and like remove it from a timeline and be like, You know, a lot of these feelings are exacerbated because I'm like, this is the next Castlevania game. And this is what Castlevania is going to be like in the future. And it's like, no, that's not necessarily how it's going to be. This is just one more game from a bucket of Castlevania games.

And if I were to pick this out alongside all those other ones, I feel differently about it. So I kind of try to been looking at it through that prism of just like, hey, no, this is not necessarily the future of what Castlevania can only be. It's like, oh, am I glad I have this one as well? I am for sure as I'm playing this. All right, let's get started with the show, everybody. A lot of good games right now. Go play some. Meanwhile, hey, we're Giant Bomb.

Go to giantbomb.com slash join, become a premium member.

A lot of you have.

We really appreciate it because you are supporting independent games media everywhere. Supporting us doing things our way. We really appreciate it. It's going to get you ad-free versions of our shows. It's also going to get you exclusive access to premium-only content. We have Nine Lives of Mr. Mistoffelees continuing on. We have, yes, Dan and Drew are back.

They are playing through Metal.

Gear Solid Peace Walker right now.

Me and Mike are going to hop in there occasionally to help them out on four-player missions because they're playing cooperatively.

That has been a ton of fun. Go check that out.

Abby is working on putting together 13 Deadly Sims 2. Just go check out all the content. There's that in the works and plenty more. This is the run. We'll be returning soon with Minesweeper. We just finished Sewer Shark. Go check that out. By finish, I mean we did the run, you know, the one run. Don't worry about the testing. All of that stuff is on GiantBomb.com. Sign up at GiantBomb.com. As far as this show goes, most weekdays, I, Jeff Grubb, will help piece your gaming life back together.

That includes breaking news and maybe even some of our own original reporting. For all these topics, I'll get the input of a bona fide expert who will make me look smart.

If you are watching live on Twitch, welcome.

You can always listen to the show later on podcast feeds by searching for Game Mess Mornings or find the RSS feed on GiantBomb.com. You can also catch the show later with chapters and timestamps on YouTube. Hello, YouTube. All right, we have a lot to get into. So let's start the morning mess with those Phantom Blade Zero reviews that we talked about. 92 on OpenCritic, I believe over on Metacritic on PC, it's 88. I think it might be similar on PS5. Some glowing reviews here, though. The Sixaxis' Nick Petrositi, yeah, Petrositi gave it a 9 out of 10 and says, Phantom Blade Zero is spectacular, occasionally gloriously ridiculous, and packed with reasons to keep exploring. But more than anything,

Phantom Blade Zero is a challenging friend that I'm gagging to spend more time with. Then PlayStation Universe, Ben Fellows gave it a 10 out of 10. Ben writes, Phantom Blade Zero is an absolute masterclass in action RPG design, offering some of the finest combat, choreography, depth, and world building I've ever had the honor of experiencing. Watching S-Game elevate their foundational roots into a grand scale AAA marvel where their passion blazes through every frame is nothing short of astounding.

While minor camera quirks.

And invisible walls occasionally pop up, its breathtaking kung fu punk aesthetic, rewarding exploration, and razor-sharp Sha-Chi blade mechanics make it a flawless triumph from start to finish. And then on the other end of the spectrum, Emma Kent at Eurogamer gave it three stars out of five. This game is exceptional in so many areas, the animation, the beautiful environments, and when the combat works, the sense of flow is incredible.

Street fights with multiple opponents feel so cinematic and so satisfying, allowing you to be truly creative and expressive with your fighting style. Then you walk into a boss battle and feel all that power fade, like you're waiting your turn to get hits in with a wooden sword. This slows the pace of the early to mid game in particular, and I wish S-Game had been prepared to speed us through to the real meat of its gameplay a little faster.

Combined with other smaller issues and niggles, plus the pretty unremarkable narrative and lore dumps, it just takes the shine off what is otherwise a very impressive action title.

Sean, you've been playing it. What do you think?

This game slaps, Jeff. It is very, very good. It feels like we have been in a little bit of a rut with action games here where we haven't had the next big one, the next, the next one that like stands toe to toe, even if it's not revolutionizing, the one that stands toe to toe with like your devil may cries, your bayonets, your Mel gear risings, like the all time greats of the genre. And this is the one that I feel like is going to hit for a lot of people. And it's really hitting for me too. Um, I'm like 10 hours in, don't know how long it is. Uh, that's part of why we don't have review covers. Um, so yeah, I'm curious how long it is, too, because, OK, so this is something that people have been asking me about. It's like how

souls like is it because I see it and I see its similarities to other games, especially in the presentations. It's like, OK, it looks like it might be faster pace. Looks like it might be souls like it is very much in the vein of something like Stellar Blade where. it is decidedly character action. They've just like taken inspirations from that. They take bits and pieces, just small bits and pieces, right? Like your healing system is you get to, you know, this game's equivalent of the bonfire. It's, it's a bell that, uh, sold the main character will ring.

And then like gives you a chance to like, stop, reflect a little bit, uh, do a little, uh, upgrading whatnot and stuff. Uh, and then that also refills your refillable health, uh, um, potions uh basically and so in that sense it's souls like in terms of overall structure and the fact that's not level based but rather you're like going around a world map it's mostly just linear mostly just going down hallways like you would in a character action game but combine that with the fact that like jobber fights aren't necessarily spectacles for you to like just style on these lower enemies and like do your really cool combos it's more about know kill them and get an item or something so you can progress it

does feel souls like in that way but the combat is very fast paced and it is like if you're like me and you want that you want that pacing in an action game you want the combat to be fast you want them to get you from boss fight to boss fight relatively quickly so you can do those really cool things i was thinking of like when you were talking about oni musha jeffy you were like i just just get me to the next boss fight I think that Phantom Blade Zero does a good job of getting you to the next boss fight, whether it's a mini boss or a major boss, whatever it is. They kind of just want to speed you along because the bosses are a little more difficult. They are, you know, you might hit your head against them a little bit

in that souls like manner, but they want to get you there. They want to have these cool moments. It's Melgear rising down to the point of like this industrial metal, but rock Chinese inspired song will kick in with every boss fight. Like there's like different ones, too. And so it does feel like that Melgear rise of like, yeah, songs that kick in to like get you amped up and like get you ready to fight this boss. which is particularly effective if you're going to be fighting it over and over a couple of ones. Like the first major boss, like, you know, it was a bit of a hurdle for me while I was understanding the systems that the game was trying to lay out for me.

But the actual combat itself revolves around, very Metal Gear Rising, parry everything, either by holding the block button down to take those hits with the sword, or one by one parrying the attacks. And then there will be either a blue flash or a red flash, where blue is a big parryable attack, red is a big unblockable attack. And so you need to decide in the moment, do I hit the parry button, do I hit the dodge button?

And so it keeps you on your toes, and it's very, very fun. The choreography is insane. You know, the way that they motion captured everything. And so it looks very fluid. I would say that I think the thing that everyone will need to understand going in is that the game may present as a game that is all about parrying.

It's more about blocking because the game has this the shot. She that was mentioned in the reviews. That's your stamina gauge. It refills when you switch weapons. And so that leans into the game being about like the swords master, this weapons master who's switching between all his different weapons. You will need to just hold down the block button. And by blocking attacks, you actually do deplete the enemy's stamina.

You don't just have to do the perfect parry. The perfect parry will just like not reduce any of your stamina. But when your stamina is all the way down, you have to switch weapons. And so you switch to your other weapon that might be might play a little bit differently. But then you have a new stamina bar to work with.

And so the way they balance that is that the weapon switching is on a cooldown. So you can't just do it over and over to get infinite stamina. It's sort of like that becomes like part of the dance as well. OK. Yes, that's what the entire game is. It's a dance. It's all about balancing these systems. It's all about taking turns with the opponent. And so in that way, again, a little more of the Souls influence, a little more deliberate while still being fast paced. And I think they've struck that really, really satisfying balance that a game like Stiller Blade was trying to hit. That is very fun. And even if it's incorporating elements of a game and a style that I usually don't like as much, I'm not into Souls games and I'm usually

not into their style. I think this has struck just the right balance of learning just the right ones to take and incorporate into that character action style that like I can be on a difficult boss by, you know, 10 hours in where I'm like, oh, this is taking a while here for me to like learn exactly how to beat this boss. But then like, you know, I calm down. I think about the systems. I think about like, OK, just just learn. Just take it easy. And it's really satisfying.

You get that souls like satisfaction of hell. Yeah, I beat this difficult boss a little later into the game. That is very fun. And so I am having a great time. By the way, if you hear me say souls and you're like, ah, difficulty, like I'm not afraid to say, like, I just don't like difficult games. There's difficulty options. I'm playing on the middle difficulty, the normal one that defaults to. There's a more difficult difficulty. There's also like a nightmare one. I think you need to finish the game on first where it's like, the more difficult one, they talked about it. So the state of play, the more difficult difficulty and limited number of deaths, you're like, huh?

66 deaths. That seems like a lot to work with. It won't be a lot to work with. But there's also an easy difficulty, like a story mode difficulty. If you want to tone things down a little bit, cause it's like, you're not afraid to admit it's just a bit much for you. That's cool. That's chill. And they have that option for you as well.

Very cool.

Um, I saw some people asking again, yes, there's going to be a quick look. You said you're maybe going to run run one with with Jerf. Yeah, we'll have that up here pretty soon, everybody. And yes, a lot of people here have been playing it. So we'll have a more in-depth conversation tomorrow on the Bombcast.

I have not tried it yet.

My plan is to boot it up this afternoon and this evening and play a few hours and kind of ask you and some of the other guys some questions because others have had it longer than I have. So, yeah, looking forward to hearing more. And, yeah, man, the game seems like it's really hitting for a lot of people.

It's out this weekend. It's out later this week, I think.

Yeah, I want to say Thursday, I believe.

Yeah, okay. That sounds right. So later this week, everybody. All right, let's keep going here.

Arcane now has until mid-December to find a buyer as Microsoft extends its deadline. This is from Chris Scullion at VGC. Microsoft has extended the deadline for Arcane Studios to find a buyer before it's closed down. A report published last week in French outlet Le Monde claimed that the Dishonored and Deathloop studio is looking at multiple forms.

Of takeover, though the fate of the studio is still unclear.

Over 200 jobs are reportedly at risk should the studio fail to find a buyer. France's Florange Law means that any company with more than 1,000 employees has to undertake a search for a buyer if it plans to close a facility. As such, the report stated that Arkane had until November 13th to find a new buyer or the studio would be closed. Now, a new statement from Microsoft, supplied to PC Gamer, says that Arkane has been given an extra month as it continues to look for someone to help it get its Blade game over the finish line.

We have extended the consultation period by one additional month as we explore options, including finding a partner to support the studio through the development works still ahead.

That's according to Microsoft's statement.

This is a defined extension and we remain committed to keeping the work councils of the work council informed throughout the process. According to members of the print team, man, I'm not going to get that one ever, which represents workers at arcane. Basically it's their union. The studio's current project.

Marvel's blade is virtually finished with the union saying it would be a monumental waste. Should it fail to see the light of day? There's been some, uh, uh, stuff like Shrier was saying that, you know, based on what he's hearing, he would be surprised if the studio closed.

There's multiple avenues for them to move forward.

Sounds like this extension is part of Microsoft being like, Oh, let's make sure that there is enough runway so that it doesn't close down. Like while it's still in our hands and we look, like real jerk offs here. Cause that's what I think is, is at risk for them.

Right. Exactly.

A little bit late for that. Yeah.

So, okay. I, it's just, you know, this game virtually done. It just needs to get over the finish line. They probably will find a partner, but boy, every time I read anything about the story, it's like, how did arcane get here?

This should be a slam dunk to get this game out there.

Yeah, especially a Blade game right now. I don't know, man. Like, I'm jonesing for one. Blade's on my team in Marvel Tocone, and I'm like, that dude's badass. He does the super A. He's like, I'm a samurai asshole. I'm just like, man, I want to play this dude in a video game right now. Like, oh, geez, I can't believe we're at this point with this game and this studio. It feels very bizarre that... also apparently no one's biting that they're, they're not like they would have leads on a buyer right now, which I, I really feel like speaks to the state of the industry. If they can't like immediately find someone to scoop up something that seems like a slam dunk the way that we seem to think this game is. Right.

Yeah.

I mean, if, if like right now it feels like if Saudi Arabia is not buying, no one's buying.

And that's, I do, I think that does speak to like where video games are.

And, you know, I mean, more broadly speaking, like a big, a big game like this, I, it does feel like this industry's appetite for these kinds of games, not from first party has really, it's evaporating before our eyes.

I mean, I think that's what the EA, the whole EA story is about, right?

The, the idea would have been, You know, you are a publicly traded company and you can grow and grow and grow and kind of continue to get bigger and bigger returns. And you see your stock price go up. And they're like, no, we're at the end of the road of that. We don't think that's possible. So we are gladly going to accept this buyout to take the company private. That is the subtext to that whole thing is big games are done. This industry is cooked, at least when it comes to the way EA makes games.

And obviously a big game like Blade is in that mold, but you would think like, okay, Microsoft, this is the kind of thing that you keep saying you need big, like tentpole games to make people value your ecosystem. Here's something that feels different. It should deliver. And they just don't seem interested anymore. And if it requires more work to get it across the finish line, to polish it up, to make it into one of those games, they don't seem interested in doing that either.

Obviously they are not.

They are happy to sort of trade on the promise, like along the way of, Hey, we're going to make a blade game.

And that's the kind of company that we are. And then when it comes time to actually.

See it through, they get cold feet and they're like, no, we want nothing to do with that. Uh, Microsoft's problems though are well documented at this point. Um, yeah, this game feels like it should be able to come out and find an audience. So it's really just means like, Oh, are they going to have to turn to Marvel and be like, Marvel cut the check? Uh, like, is it in your interest to make sure this game does see the light of day? Is that their last partner here?

We don't know, but it does feel that way, Sean.

Yeah. And I think, um, something you said there really hit of like, uh, uh triple a gaming being a really rough spot and sort of disappearing like that that middle ground that it felt like for a long time disappeared for the longest time the middle ground was double a gaming like we we weren't really having like the thqs of the world exist anymore now it feels like that bizarrely because of the inflation of video games it feels like that that uh no man's land has moved up i think that's where you were getting at to like a standard AAA, which seems really weird, but that's how we see something like, unless you are a rock star with GTA 6 or Nintendo putting out their first party titles, or you are like an indie developer that

has maybe like ballooned up to AA, like a sandfall or something like that. In between, there's not much left and like studios are closing left and right. And the major studios like the EAs and the Ubisoft are closing down. Studios down and canceling projects and all these things. In a constant state of disrepair.

Just constantly turning things over, trying some new strategy because nothing they ever try sticks.

Yeah, it feels like you need to either be the surefire hit that will sell consoles slash the esports game of the year or whatever. Or you need to be like so careful and so sustainable because you're doing things on a shoestring budget. It's just is an awful state for the industry right now. Yeah.

And Pete XN does point out here, like probably the sticking point is there, there likely are a lot of interested parties in getting blade out. Uh, but in the meantime, that would involve taking on arcane and, and saving arcane because arcane is going to tie themselves to that game. Cause that is their lifeline at the moment. And I bet that's where a lot of these companies go. Well, we don't want a studio. We want to release blade, but we don't want to have to pay the people who made it. Uh, and hopefully that is, um, an obstacle that can be overcome. Hopefully the studio can find some equitable, equitable way to, um, maintain control over their destiny here.

And it just, that, that's the big question mark.

And it is Microsoft's mismanagement that led them into this situation in the first place. They did, they lived up to their side of the bargain. Sounds like they got a game made that is ready to go. And, and Microsoft's yes, state of constant disrepair as well, uh, is, is the thing that kind of led them into this situation, which is unfortunate. I, A studio like Arcane should be able to.

Find a home, though.

Yeah, you would hope so, at least.

All right, let's keep going. Actually, you know what? Let's take a break. Let's take a break.

When we come back, plenty to get into, including more developments in the Switch 2 hacking scene. We'll talk about that after these messages. If you want to skip out on the ads, we have a way to do that at giantbomb.com. Join the ad-free version of the audio and video program are there.

We will be right back.

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Easy to use tools and unmatched customer service. Hit up our friends over at merchant.tech slash giant bomb. It's game mess mornings. That's Turbo Sean. I'm Jeff Grubb. We are continuing on here with the next story. Switch 2 Hacking Advances from Homebrew to Extracting Game Files.

Let's talk about what this means.

Developer MissHexa66 has released OunceCake, a tool described as extracting unencrypted game data and executable files from Switch 2 games, updates, and DLC. It supports digital game cards and Switch 2 editions. Some weekend examples popped up, including Mario Kart World character models being extracted, Delta Rune files being extracted, and screenshots purportedly showing a Duskblood's beta directory. People very curious about that game. So basically just new tools for diving into the files and seeing what's going on there. ounce cakes documentation says the console loads the files normally then the tool copies them over a file transfer protocol ftp it doesn't provide system encryption keys or separate decryption method yet

twisted voxel meanwhile reports that researchers have also extracted switch to firmware files some accessible for analysis and others still encrypted these are a lot of like It's the I drink your milkshake situation. They are surrounding and finding the tidbits of, or the pieces of life that will lead to eventually emulation or getting games sort of decompiled or recompiled in static recompilations or whatever. None of that has happened quite yet. If it has, it's very in limited capacity, but these things do seem like they are positioning things where we see how fast emulation and hacking has developed on the PlayStation five. And now there's this swarm happening on PS or on switch to, I should say, Sean.

And I think we, by next week, things could be very different. It's advancing quickly.

What do you think?

What's the end game here? Because ultimately all of this stuff, all the PS five stuff and everything like that, it's just people throw a bunch of Claude tokens at the AI to have them brute force security measures and everything like that. When does it end? Like what? Yeah. I mean, I don't know.

It doesn't end. That's the thing is like we like.

The like people will just keep going because like the people who are actual hobbyist and we're and we're involved in this because they were part of a community. They are already backing off and don't want to manage these people who are just throwing Claude code into the repost and things like that.

The flow is. infamous legendary playstation hacker to hang up his cape because he was like i don't fuck with this anymore i just like y'all are not handling this stuff responsibly i don't think he said these words but basically you're taking the fun out of it too and because at a certain point it just becomes about brute forcing security measures and so okay what the companies are going to brute force their way back i guess it seems like such a weird and bizarre endless struggle that has uh invaded the gaming scene in this way without hacking consoles right now that i just i just think is a little tiring to keep up with because at this point it's like yeah of course the switch 2 got hacked yeah of course the playstation 5 is getting

hacked and we'll probably get over the xbox hypervisor if someone cares enough to take a look at that at some point i don't know it's it's a little hard for me to be excited about this stuff in the way that he used to.

I mean, this is not, this is not like, this still feels existential to me of like, Oh, we're not the cat out of the bag and we're not gonna be able to stop it. Uh, yeah, that that's the story here is, uh, it's not taking a lot of effort. You know, it is the Jurassic Park situation. No one's stopping to ask like if they should or like what the end game will be here. You're probably the first person to ask that question in relation to this stuff in a long time, Sean.

That's where it's at.

Like, no, the people who are responsible for these things are certainly not doing that. We are going to have to just deal with the ramifications because it's not going to cease. And obviously Nintendo is the one that would be the one to get most creative with. litigation and cease and desist. And they will, that stuff will come here pretty, pretty soon. They're not, there's even that won't be able to stop sort of the bubbling undercurrent of, I have a cloud account. I have tokens to spend, and I am going to do this because I want to prove that I can for the same reason people like cheat and video games, right? Where it's like, they just want to show that they, uh, can and makes them feel good.

In some weird way multiplayer game yeah exactly this is like yeah i have money to burn on the ai so i will just to get the thing that i want i feel like that's so misguided and so far removed from like i was super into the 3ds hacking scene yes the vita hacking the switch one was so cool when someone discovered hey i jammed a uh a paper clip i don't know what paper is anymore so i was trying to think of the word I jammed a paperclip into my Switch One. It allowed me to, like, basically short-circuit the security measure so we can bypass any hypervisor stuff and, like, get full root access to the system.

That shit was so cool. I was so excited to follow all this stuff. And now, yeah, it's just... What's even the point is kind of just where I'm at. So I think... Looking beyond that, the hack itself was pretty cool. The fact that I used Smile Basic, a Nintendo Switch tool, that honestly, I was always surprised that Nintendo, like, allowed, because the programming tool that allowed you to make, like, It's sort of like RPG Maker, but like more in-depth than that, especially since that was used to hack the 3DS at one point.

They were ready to go. They've already removed that game. They kind of removed it right away.

It seems like within hours, yeah.

There was a physical version of that, though, so I wonder how much that's going for. Although, you know, of course, I think there was, yes. You know, the thing here is... where once would have been fun to track down that thing that opens up these systems to these kinds of hacks, it's not going to be necessary for long. They'll find other ways to replicate it because, again, they have uh, uh, endless brute forcing tools to do that now.

So even, even the magic, even the magic of that's kind of gone.

This is perfect. I had to bring this up. Yeah. Carl German chat says we've gone from MacGyver to MacGruber.

Yes, definitely it is. And, uh, yeah.

And MacGruber, uh, as a huge fan of that movie, terrible, he's a terrible character. Uh, and that we are surrounded by MacGruber's now.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Um, Yeah, it is. This is a problem.

These companies are going to have to either solve or it will sort of deteriorate their way of doing business. And they make a lot of money, so they're not going to want that. It'll be interesting just to see how that plays, how they deal with this, because they are on the front lines of this in a lot of ways, big video game companies. And it will set the tone for how this happens in every facet of our lives, because this stuff is coming for everything.

It is.

You know, Chris person wrote that great story the other day about, uh, slop is infested everything, every hobby that you are interested in.

It is everywhere.

And if you have sort of any sort of predilection against that stuff, it becomes tiresome. As you said, it's like you, I check out a lot of times now. Um, And yeah, and that's going to come for everything. But that is like my my time and my interest. These are multibillion dollar corporations that can't have that. They don't have the luxury of checking out. They have to protect this stuff. And I have no idea what that looks like in this moment. No idea what that looks like.

Yeah.

The assumption I think everyone's make is, oh, we used AI tools to crack the security. They're going to have to use AI tools to reinforce the security because you need, you know, how do you catch a thief with another thief? That that sort of mentality there of they're going to have to.

Use the tool.

I think that situation would be so stupid and nerdy and suck so bad.

That's where we are. Yeah.

So, yeah, it's exhausting. It's tiring. But that's kind of where we're at. And yes, the the unfortunate situation will continue until morale ceases to exist.

Yeah, Carl, I absolutely love McGruber, but he would be using chat GBT with disastrous results.

And that's wrong.

He would definitely be using Grok.

He would 100% just be, I just talked to Grok about this.

Yes, that would be him. All right.

Netflix reportedly offered $ 500 million for Xbox adaptations. Talks collapsed. This is from Dean Takashi over at GamesBeat. Netflix reportedly offered that $ 500 million to license Xbox games for adaptation. The deal fell apart because Microsoft countered by asking for $ 800 million. Doesn't seem like that's the only reason. Also, at the same time, Netflix is firing everybody across the board because people are watching TikTok instead of Netflix. And so there's a lot of changes happening over there. But yes, this would have given Netflix sort of exclusive rights over the remain anything that wasn't already previously licensed to some other production company. So that would have been a lot.

But now that deal is just not going. So it does seem like. Xbox is going to approach this as a IP by IP basis. We're like, Hey, we're going to split everything up and sort of just find partners for each thing.

No longer a.

Big deal with Netflix because Netflix doesn't seem interested anymore.

I don't know. This sounds like a bag fumble to me.

Kind of does. I, I saw that Jan Ochoa put his little cursor in Google docs, right?

500 million.

I like to assume because he can't believe the amount of money that's being tossed around here. Um, They asked for $ 8 million as a counter. $ 800 million now. If that is part of it, that's incredibly stupid on their part. But I also think that sounds like where we might be at with Microsoft now because they don't know how to make this division profitable. And it seems like you know, Asha playing by the seat of her pants here a little bit and just firing people left and right and like not having games in studios anymore. How do you make Xbox profitable? Just sell the rights, right? You know? Yeah.

And it's a, it is a, a burden or burden in the bush or two birds in the bush is worth one in the hand. They had $ 500 million and they're like, but what about, 800 million and, and I, that Asha Sharma does not have the context and her team probably doesn't have the context to know, uh, that money's not going to be there forever. That offer is going to like in a couple of years, video game movies will be passe. Like that is, it is going, it is going to be over the Mario's and the Zelda's.

Maybe those keep making money. Maybe they don't.

There's no, there's no guarantee there, but.

That party is going to be over soon and you're never going to get an offer like that again.

She's just got 1 billion on the brain, Jeff. She's just trying to work her way up to that 1 billion numbers. Everything she does.

Uh-huh. Doesn't matter.

Uh, for sure. Related to this, I didn't make a whole, whole story about it. Cause it's a little bit, I don't know, a nebulous Xbox COO, the first COO of Xbox, Helen Chang, uh, has departed after just three months. I think we did a story about this back a few months ago. Maybe not even that long ago. Maybe we only talked about it a few weeks ago. But she moved from basically being in charge of Minecraft and overseeing the deal that got Minecraft turned into a very successful movie.

And then she moved into the COO role at Xbox, seemingly with the purpose... Yes, yeah, this story sounds familiar.

Of.

now taking all the Xbox properties and licensing them out. Uh, she left after three months already gone. There is one source from Eurogamer that says she was terminated for policy violations.

That's not corroborated. So I, I just, it's one source out there. I don't know.

No one's denying it necessarily either, but just a weird situation as well.

Kind of related to this. Uh, yeah.

I mean, Asha made a big point in one of her, uh, state of the union where the hell addresses that she puts out there on xbox wire because i don't know co-pilot wrote it for um she was very proud of the fact that she handpicked this person it was like oh yeah this person was like you know i'll make minecraft and moe such a big thing like yeah yeah she's gonna be great in this role apparently not.

So yeah that checks out Matter of weeks. Yeah, that's very, very bizarre. That is the end of the details about this. What those policy violations might have been, no clue, no one's saying. And honestly, if you kind of go beyond Eurogamer everywhere else, it's just there's no details whatsoever about why she departed.

So weird.

All right.

Creative Assembly says the disastrous Shogun 2 remaster bypassed its normal oversight. I mean, we're going to be able to copy and paste this story a million times in the next couple of years, Sean. In an October 23rd statement, Creative Assembly's Roger Cullum said that the complete edition was externally developed and did not undergo Creative Assembly's usual internal reviews and quality assurance. This is what led to things like That samurai character being generatively AI'd into this detail-less statue that just had a couple of notches there where her face used to be. That's just one example of the issues with the game. There were also lots of bugs people were reporting. The game launched October 13th and

was pulled October 15th because of these bugs and complaints about apparent AI altered art. It's like it didn't even it's not people were even upset that the art was AI like altered. They were upset that it wasn't the thing it was supposed to be. The AI did a really bad job.

They were upset. That was dog shit. That was slop.

It was so painfully obvious, like low effort slop that people like this sucks. Creative simply acknowledged losing track of the external work. says its name is still on the game, so they take responsibility, and has assigned senior developers to work with Sega and the outside developer. Creative Assembly says it prohibits generative AI game assets internally and expects the same from contractors. The Shogun 2 situation remains under investigation. Okay, so there is a scenario here where we can chalk this up to the reason you go with a contract studio is so that you don't have to be, you don't have to divide your attention between what you're working on and what they are working on. You could sort

of divide and conquer. They can make money. That's not how divide and conquer works in art of war. I always use that wrong, but whatever I used it wrong. You divide and conquer and, and they can focus on that and then they sell it and you can get the money from that because you already paid them for the work. You have to assume at this point, every contractor is going to be using AI stuff and you have to double check that.

And they should have known better.

And the fact that they don't speaks to, you know, Rob Zachney was saying somewhere on one of those podcasts the other.

Day, how you do anything is how you do everything.

And if you were not, if you, if this is how you do this, you sort of damaged the reputation of creative assembly, creative assembly across the board. And now it will take time to rebuild that. And they're in a situation where I think a lot of people are going to be very skeptical of the next total war game and next creative assembly game.

Right? Yeah. This situation is just baffling to me because it feels like a passing the buck in the way of, oh, it's not our fault. We didn't notice that the thing sucked. So you have to understand, you have to give us a pass on this one. We just didn't notice that was crap that we were selling you, which that's not, you can't use that as an excuse, man. You have to keep tabs on the contractors. Yeah, that you are putting this work to that. You're like, you know, paying them to, Hey, make this work for us or whether, whether it's internal or external, whoever made it, whatever the case, this is what needs to be QA'd and like, uh, uh, seen by human eye. Oh, wait, someone messed up here.

I need to get to the bottom of this. So this doesn't go to market. It seems like that part is what failed here. Uh, in this entire chain.

It's like, uh, And I can appreciate being bad at that sort of thing.

I am.

But that's the reason we have someone like Sean around. Like, you're very good at noticing. Yeah, that's the reason you don't do it.

It's the reason I don't do it. And there's a reason, like, I'm like, hey, it would be nice if we had a turbo Sean.

And now we do.

And it's like, you check to make sure, like, the closed captions are right on everything. And it's like, you don't have anyone like that checking this stuff before it reaches customers. A failure up and down the chain like that is the sort of thing that is unacceptable. And then coming out, like you said, mostly saying it was externally developed, like leading with that and then being like, well, our name's on the box.

We take responsibility.

That does feel like, well, they said the right thing. It doesn't feel in the spirit of the right thing. So, yeah, I'm going to be skeptical of creative assembly going forward. That's that's where I'm at now with this. So they're working on that the next aliens game again. Uh, I, you know, I want that game to be great, but I will be skeptical just because they have sort of, uh, lost the trust there a little bit with Shogun too.

Right.

Uh, All right.

Uh, last couple of stories here. Let's do these, uh, mass effect fans move from petitions to buying billboard space. People aren't giving up this fight yet. Sean, uh, there is a, a mass effect petition that has, it's like around 170,000 to 200,000 signatures. Uh, the creator of that Kayla Elizabeth also has a separate, we are mass effect campaign.

And that campaign has bought billboards outside of electronic arts. I believe, uh, The billboard is just like, hey, save Mass Effect.

Can we do something?

And the thrust here seems to be, hey, we either want you to reverse your decision, EA, or find some way to save this game series. And I think people are right to point out, Sean, that, man, it's people who are huge fans of Mass Effect kind of prioritizing the game before the people who made it.

As I was thinking.

Yes, right?

And that is a bad look, but that's how people feel about Mass Effect. It is a thing that they have taken ownership of, and I think it comes from the right place for the most part. But yes, it always feels bad to be like, no matter what, in a situation here, we're probably talking about all the people who were involved in making that next Mass Effect game being out on the street for the most part.

And yeah, you want more Mass Effect, but the damage is already done. I don't know. What do you think?

What a day for news. I think EA sucks. This entire situation sucks. And I'm not sure what anybody can do at this point to save it.

I'm like.

where do you take mass effect at this point we just talked earlier in the show about that that uh that gooey center in the middle of the candy bar that triple a space is diminishing where we don't see much of it anymore so are you gonna try to sell it to one of the absolute highest tier you maybe try to shop it around to a triple a uh in which case uh I don't know if you said this out loud, but apparently Windows Central says the sources indicate Microsoft is not planning a bid, which is like, that's the only one I would expect to bite at this point. And you can't really take that one smaller.

So I guess this one just goes in the vault for now because I don't see EA turning the decision around at this point.

Yeah, you know, it's... Like, after Baldur's Gate 3, right, that comes out and sort of proves, like, here's where RPGs are, and they fucking work, and everyone's excited about them.

You wonder, like, okay, does that.

shake the tree for the big companies that have some of these, like, other big RPG franchises that could sort of follow in its footsteps?

We haven't really seen that. And it feels like, yeah, that probably isn't going to happen.

And in the meantime, Mass Effect on ice, and there's several games that sort of are the spiritual successor whether that's you know fate of the old republic to a certain extent or this exodus game people keep pointing to there's um a a god another another game i'm failing to remember the name of but there's a couple of things that are in uh sort of line with that and say okay there's going to be spiritual successors and maybe they can prove it and not that feels like no even if they prove that thing can work i think Coming from the top down, these big companies just can't make it make sense for them in this moment.

So it just would have to be a change to the reality on the ground. And these companies are charging in an opposite direction where they are less and less interested in the audience that exists that was buying Mass Effect. That's the thing. There is not just a disconnect. Don't they like money? They do not care about the money of the people who have been buying games in the traditional console and PC gaming space for a long time.

if you are not part of this infinite money machine, they, they have, they've lost the sort of the plot there and they're not going to show back up until things change a little bit.

And it feels like for the most part.

That change would be a complete reset of the kinds of companies that are making game at that games at that scale. And, um, Mass Effect is definitely a, a, a sort of lost in that, in that process.

Yeah, I do. I know Mass Effect really hit it big with a casual audience like, you know, people I know who don't super closely follow games are in or were into Mass Effect back in the day of like sort of all age ranges. You know, I've worked places where like people a bit older than me were like really into it. I'm like, oh, cool. So it's not just like a younger generation getting into their first big space epic getting into it. Like people really loved it.

And I wonder if that Maybe also diminishes the potential audience if we have people looking at maybe a younger, more tech savvy audience looking at like Steam RPGs and looking at something like a Baldur's Gate 3. This doesn't need to be the most cinematic and flashy RPG on Earth. Still a good looking game and everything like that, but is more systems driven than it is graphics driven. If maybe we have those people checking out those games and.

the casual audience moving on to other stuff maybe like they don't see an audience there as much anymore the reasoning gets a little bit murky um but i think it also maybe is like a sign of where you know an rptv like this like you were saying maybe where it needs to go in this era of studios ballooning expectations of what a triple a cinematic game should be maybe Maybe that's like the theme of today. And a lot of these stories is just like, we, we needed to scale back and we're past the point of doing that, uh, reasonably. And that's how we end up with studios, closing projects canceled and whatnot. Yes.

So much of the kernel of, of like, where did this industry go wrong in the last decade or so it goes back to, uh, they were doing things one way and it's that letter from Phil Spencer of, and now the digital ecosystem has opened it up to so many other developers. And this advantage of we can get a game into retail and put it on a store shelf, and that is how people buy games. So we are only competing with, let's say, five or six other major games at any one time to now we are competing with a thousand games at any one time.

And so how do we stand apart?

Well, we no longer have that store shelf space to stand apart where it's like, we're in the store. That's how we stand apart. Well, we could try to build a loyal audience that shows up for our games. That's something Nintendo has done and a handful of others, Capcom, and we go through that list frequently.

Sure, that's possible. That's very challenging.

What we could do instead is spend more money than we've ever spent before on the next game make it look more expensive. And that is how it stands apart. Cause these other games can't do that yet. Well, that's, that's changed. And they've also reached the limit of their purse of like, Oh, with the money we were spending to stand out, to attract that audience of people who bought traditional video games at 50, 60, now $ 70, uh, that it has been limited and it's not getting that much bigger. And we, we kind of just, we can't do it anymore. It doesn't make sense anymore. Because there's only so many of them and they aren't buying enough of these games. And it's like, OK, whose fault is that?

Not ours.

Yeah, it's the end result of honestly Uncharted and The Last of Us. And I'm not specifically playing Sony because this success could have happened to anyone. Yeah, they saw the insane success. They're like, well, logically, we should do more of this. And you almost can't blame them because, yeah, of course, if you see pretty consistent, massive success, you just double down on that. But that backed them into a corner. And so they that's not sustainable for them anymore.

The other AAAs couldn't really keep up with that level of production value. That's how we get, you know, Microsoft trying something different with like the game pass and maybe quantity over necessarily quality. But you know what I mean? And that didn't work out for them. And so I think that we hit that inflection point. It was sort of just all downhill from there. And that's how we got here.

Real quick, Steam's personal calendar is out of beta.

I just bring this up because I like this tool a lot.

Game Discovery Challenge, and I think that this has been one where just about every week, I'll say, there's been three games on this personal calendar that have actually caught my attention. And I think this is a tool that I would want all the other stores to replicate, especially anything that has more than 100 games releasing on its store in a week. Obviously, Steam is the ideal candidate because that's still the laboratory for game ideas.

It's where most of these things show up.

But, yeah, I brought this up once and saw a lot of people, like, in chat previously say, oh, no, I like that, too.

I thought it was just a.

Me thing as a games journalist, someone who feels the need to play new games. It's like, no, it goes beyond that. And now they are sort of expanding it, although I think the tool's been there for most people using Steam for a while there.

But, yeah, out of beta, people could check that out.

And then....

Croc is getting an official physical Nintendo 64 compatible release.

Sean, let's celebrate, right?

Keep reading, Jeff.

Argonaut has partnered with Mod Retro, which is owned by war profiteer Palmer Lucky.

Boo!

Not just boo. Argonaut, don't do this.

I just can't fuck with anyone who fucks with Palmer Lucky. Like, it's that simple. Dude so obviously sucks. And it's not just the war profiteering. He was asked publicly a few weeks ago, if you had to start over and like make money right now, what would you do? And his answer was, I would solve the tragedy of divorce by doping people with oxytocin so that it can take advantage of the mammalian need.

To stay together with other people.

He is talking about drugging women to make them not get out of relationships they want to get out of. This is who you're working with. Get the fuck out of this now or I'll just never touch an Argonaut game again. Don't work with him. He is toxic. He is tainting retro gaming with his money. We know like he shows up to these retro game creators with checks to pay them to talk about the mod retro. That's the story I originally got from Retro Dodo. They take that money. You could just tell. They take that money.

I've seen others say that they won't. If you don't, if he's come to you and offered money, Mod Retro's come to you and offered money, come tell, and you turn it down, come tell me.

We'll have you on the show. You're a real one.

Let's talk about it. If you take that money, I want nothing to do with you. And that goes for you, Argonaut. This is not acceptable. Just these people try to ruin everything, Sean.

All right. They try to buy their way in. Don't let them.

Don't let them.

This is ours.

This is ours. They can't take it from us, even if they try to buy it.

That's all we got left. Y'all, did you hear the news today? Did you? Sorry, you had a bad drive to work today. Did you hear the news today? Don't let them take retro gaming from us as well. Fuck mod retro. Fuck Palmer look.

All right, that does it for the headlines. Let's get on to the poll question here in a second. No poll question from Friday. We did the bomb 12. I'll update that bomb 12. I've not done that yet. You'll see that on the website soon. I'll have a button there. You could press there on the left side that says like vote here and you can add your game for this week's bomb 12. We'll get that up and running soon.

A new poll question. Are you getting phantom blade zero?

Yes or no.

Look at the results and talk about that on Wednesday's show. While that's happening or while we wait for that, Sean, tell people where they can find you on the internet, what you have going on, all that, all that good stuff.

Turbo Sean, S-H-A-W-N is where you can find me all across the internet. You want to see me playing some Castlevania Belmont's Curse. That's my stream game on the weekends right now. I'm probably, what, like halfway through, so if you want to see me play that, you can do so on Twitch under that name. The VODs are up on YouTube under that name. If you want some background noise when Giant Bomb's not streaming, there you go. But otherwise, yeah, speaking of, you can find me right here on Giant Bomb.

I'll be joining you guys on the Bombcast tomorrow to talk more about Phantablade Zero, about I'm going to bring it up. Castlevania.

I don't care what Mike says.

And probably talking about Final Fantasy Resonance, too, because that's been my bedtime game. Oh, hell yeah.

Okay.

I've played so far, and you said it right. The writing's like a 16-bit RPG for the.

Good and the bad.

It goes both ways.

Yeah, it goes both ways.

And it's like, I can just take the good stuff and sort of ignore the bad stuff, which is what I want from writing in video games most of the time. Yeah, so it's going to be a good show tomorrow. The bomb cast tune in for that. Other things happening this week.

Yes. We'll continue on with blight club. Duke.

Mike is, is back. He's making proggies there. That game has probably shown us the worst it has to offer. At least I hope so. We'll find out more though.

This week.

We'll have a voicemail dump truck. UPF on Friday. We'll have some quick looks, all that good stuff. Check out GiantBomb.com to keep up with all of it and more.

All right. Let's see here. We did the poll question. We did that.

So let's do this. Sean, thank you for hanging out with me today and talking about video games, man.

I really appreciate it.

Always a good time, Jeff.

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

Netflix Offered Microsoft $500 Million for Xbox Adaptations

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