# [[MFP01 - “Let’s Push Up Our Glasses and Get a Little Nerdy” with Peter Spezia]] Transcript This transcription was completed on March 4, 2026 with the application MacWhisper on macOS. This was done automatically, without human input during the transcription process. The transcription used the Parakeet v3 model. My hope is that by offering this transcription – however accurate it may be done by a machine learning/AI – will help you, the listener. I’d love to offer full, proper transcription some day, but that is not feasible at this time. Thank you for listening and reading. I hope you enjoy the show and that this document was helpful. Enjoy. --- **Speaker 1**: Hey everybody, welcome to the Max Frequency Podcast. *00:00* **Speaker 1**: I'm your host, Max Roberts. *00:04* **Speaker 1**: Um, and as you may have heard in the *00:06* **Speaker 1**: trailer summary episode previously. *00:09* **Speaker 1**: Uh this is a new project for me on maxfrequency. *00:12* **Speaker 1**: net and I'm trying things out. *00:15* **Speaker 1**: And for the very first episode, I'm super excited to have longtime friend and longtime podcast host, Peter Spagia, with me. *00:18* **Speaker 1**: How's it going, Peter? *00:26* **Speaker 1**: Hey Max, how are you? *00:27* **Speaker 1**: I am well. *00:29* **Speaker 1**: I'm super excited. *00:30* **Speaker 1**: about this, about talking to you. *00:32* **Speaker 1**: Um there's a there's a lot going on in 2021. *00:35* **Speaker 1**: How how has we're already *00:40* **Speaker 1**: Almost a quarter of the way through it? *00:43* **Speaker 1**: We're in March. *00:45* **Speaker 2**: How is we've got those memes going on where, you know, we're thinking about March 2020 still. *00:46* **Speaker 2**: And then 2021 it's just it's right up on us. *00:54* **Speaker 2**: We've got the video game industry impacted by COVID delays. *00:57* **Speaker 2**: We've have you know still the news starting to trickle out. *01:02* **Speaker 2**: Whether it's Nintendo Directs or things like that. *01:06* **Speaker 2**: So uh it's an interesting time. *01:08* **Speaker 2**: Yeah. *01:11* **Speaker 2**: How how is your *01:12* **Speaker 1**: 2021 gone so far? *01:14* **Speaker 2**: Well, I'm healthy. *01:16* **Speaker 2**: I I think first and foremost that's the most important part. *01:17* **Speaker 2**: I hope everyone listening out there is also healthy, whether they're *01:19* **Speaker 2**: lining up vaccines for through their work or whatever. *01:23* **Speaker 2**: I mean you know hope fingers crossed that the United States at least can, you know, get through it, uh slowest of all throughout the world. *01:25* **Speaker 2**: But *01:32* **Speaker 2**: That aside, uh, life is good. *01:33* **Speaker 2**: Uh I'm engaged, so that's great on the personal news front, and yeah, just very, very happy on that front, still playing games, still *01:35* **Speaker 2**: like to talk about games podcasting. *01:44* **Speaker 2**: Uh it's it's a busy time keeping work and everything balanced, but uh pandemic aside, very good. *01:46* **Speaker 1**: Awesome. *01:54* **Speaker 1**: I'm so and congratulations for the uh third time, but actually with my my voice this time, I'm so excited for the both of you. *01:54* **Speaker 2**: I appreciate that. *02:02* **Speaker 2**: Thank you. *02:03* **Speaker 1**: She just wrapped up Hades, right? *02:04* **Speaker 2**: So for the past year or so, as you know things got more and more serious, she'd played you know games on the phone, I think like many people do. *02:08* **Speaker 2**: But you know, had some exposure to console games overall in college, but not the kind to sit down with the controller. *02:18* **Speaker 2**: And so it's been uh a delight for me to see her over the relationship. *02:27* **Speaker 2**: You know, learning we each learn new things from each other. *02:33* **Speaker 2**: It's what you do in relationships, right? *02:35* **Speaker 2**: Mm-hmm. *02:37* **Speaker 2**: But uh one of her biggest things is learning about *02:37* **Speaker 2**: console games and the game industry and how to play games with a console and it was an interesting challenge for me to *02:41* **Speaker 2**: you know, figure out how to approach this slowly and you know kind of introduced to the controller. *02:49* **Speaker 2**: So I think the first game I showed her for her to try playing was since it was late 2019 it would have been Sayonara Wildhearts *02:55* **Speaker 2**: Okay. *03:03* **Speaker 2**: Yeah. *03:03* **Speaker 2**: And that, you know, just you have the left analog stick and you have one button. *03:04* **Speaker 2**: Whether it's A on Xbox, you know *03:09* **Speaker 2**: Was it B on switch if we but you know we played it on PlayStation 4, so uh it'd be the X button, the cross button. *03:13* **Speaker 2**: And so one button on the face and then one analog stick and uh w short enough, honestly, so you're not *03:18* **Speaker 2**: feeling too overwhelmed by the length of the game. *03:26* **Speaker 2**: So uh from there it it's gone to it was, you know, Life is Strange, kind of learning about the camera in a, you know, consequence free *03:28* **Speaker 2**: sort of environment, you know, you're not trying to fend off enemies. *03:37* **Speaker 2**: It's it's a low, you know, laid back, narrative driven environment *03:41* **Speaker 2**: Uh and then like it's Assassin's Creed. *03:44* **Speaker 2**: Uh she loves history, so diving into that has been fascinating and you know she watched me play two. *03:47* **Speaker 2**: She then played Brotherhood and *03:53* **Speaker 2**: Really picked up and ran with it and uh now it's Hades. *03:55* **Speaker 2**: I'm I'm so impressed, and it's really interesting to see like from *03:59* **Speaker 2**: Uh a way of like learning about games in this pandemic quarantine environment. *04:03* **Speaker 2**: Uh it's it's been really cool to see. *04:08* **Speaker 1**: Is d what what Assassin's Creed is her favorite? *04:10* **Speaker 1**: Her favorite, I think *04:14* **Speaker 1**: Oh gosh. *04:17* **Speaker 1**: Has she played all of them yet? *04:19* **Speaker 1**: Have we gone through the whole thing? *04:20* **Speaker 2**: She hasn't played all of them yet. *04:23* **Speaker 2**: And then you *04:30* **Speaker 2**: You're like restarting then with Connor and it like it was it was a no-go. *04:31* **Speaker 2**: Um didn't get on to to Black Flag or anything like that. *04:35* **Speaker 2**: So then went into origins, uh you know, kind of the newer stuff *04:38* **Speaker 2**: Because there's an interest with like the Witcher Netflix series to eventually try that game. *04:42* **Speaker 2**: She saw me play a bit of that. *04:46* **Speaker 2**: So eventually it's like, well, here's Assassin's Creed kind of mixed with that Witcher style. *04:48* **Speaker 2**: Uh I you know, I think she really enjoyed Origins and then just also she finished Odyssey recently, a full full completion of Odyssey. *04:53* **Speaker 2**: So uh yeah, she's I th I think like she mentioned that she like she likes *05:01* **Speaker 2**: Two and how like she's she's mentioned how like if two ever gets like a full proper remake, not just a remaster in the Ezio trilogy, that'd be the dream. *05:07* **Speaker 2**: Um, but I feel like she's liked whether it's you know brotherhood, and she wasn't too hot on revelations. *05:18* **Speaker 2**: Uh between you know brotherhood, origins, and odyssey, like each have had their benefits. *05:23* **Speaker 1**: Yeah, I've I'm still a big Brotherhood fan myself, but I really Black Flag was actually a turning off point for me, which is I know I'm in the minority on that one. *05:29* **Speaker 1**: But I was not I was not a fan of the ship controls and I felt like *05:39* **Speaker 1**: I didn't. *05:43* **Speaker 1**: So basically you won't see me play uh Skull and Bones whenever that comes out. *05:44* **Speaker 2**: Oh, I mean if that is ever going to be a thing. *05:48* **Speaker 2**: Along with the TV show. *05:52* **Speaker 2**: Oh my gosh, that's right, oh yeah. *05:53* **Speaker 2**: I put in way too much time in Odyssey. *05:56* **Speaker 2**: Like I did, you know, every little *05:58* **Speaker 2**: side quest everything, you know, whatever I could. *06:01* **Speaker 2**: And that was 132 hours with the DLC all told. *06:04* **Speaker 2**: So yeah, that that was a bit crazy. *06:07* **Speaker 2**: After beating Valhellen the last yeah holiday *06:09* **Speaker 2**: season here though. *06:12* **Speaker 2**: That's about it was 72 hours for story completion and about 90 for some map cleanup. *06:14* **Speaker 2**: That's another *06:20* **Speaker 2**: beefy game. *06:21* **Speaker 2**: And I I really like where big Assassin's Creed fan, a big fan of where that's going. *06:21* **Speaker 2**: It's it's kind of like a neat direction that they're pointing in for finally paying attention to the modern day story. *06:26* **Speaker 1**: Oh. *06:32* **Speaker 1**: So they finally brought it back to like modern time, like real people stuff. *06:33* **Speaker 1**: That's a big focus now? *06:38* **Speaker 2**: Well, they kind of started that in the Origins and Odyssey stuff, but it was way in in the background and they continued this *06:39* **Speaker 2**: story with this character Layla, who was a Templar-turned assassin. *06:47* **Speaker 2**: But in Valhalla, I feel like they kind of looked at like, alright, how can we *06:52* **Speaker 2**: Uh you know, Assassin's Creed has just been a mishmash. *06:57* **Speaker 2**: I mean the Ezio trilogy was like trying to do stuff with with the animus and like really introducing that stuff. *06:59* **Speaker 2**: And then once it started to go into black flag, as you know with the modern day story, it was like *07:05* **Speaker 2**: It's about Sages and Juno and they didn't know where exactly they were going. *07:10* **Speaker 2**: There's you know, the Helix which is Upstergo's video game console or whatever. *07:15* **Speaker 2**: And so then with as Origins was kind of like a new start, they're like, all right, let's *07:20* **Speaker 2**: Let's kind of start fresh. *07:25* **Speaker 2**: And I feel like Valhalla, they took a look at like all of these different threads. *07:26* **Speaker 2**: How can we pull them all together? *07:31* **Speaker 2**: Roll in a little bit of the Norse mythology, make it all *07:33* **Speaker 2**: work with this idea of the iso, the precursors, and then like propel it forward into something interesting for the next game. *07:36* **Speaker 1**: It's it's pretty neat. *07:44* **Speaker 1**: Okay. *07:45* **Speaker 1**: I I'll keep my eye on that because I always did like that modern day stuff *07:46* **Speaker 1**: Um yeah, I I feel like we're in the minority there, but yeah, it's I I always thought that was so cool. *07:50* **Speaker 1**: I remember my friend in high school pitched it to me. *07:56* **Speaker 1**: Uh the first time I ever played Assassin's Creed was at his house on an Xbox. *07:59* **Speaker 1**: I wanna say it may have been Brotherhood that he had. *08:03* **Speaker 1**: He had this huge, like deep, big old tube TV in his room uh and I played on that and he was like yeah and there it's actually all simulations, cool. *08:06* **Speaker 1**: And then I played them all on my PS3. *08:15* **Speaker 1**: And I really like the one through three run of games. *08:17* **Speaker 1**: Mm-hmm. *08:21* **Speaker 2**: Yes, yes, Dell. *08:22* **Speaker 2**: I mean, yeah, the easy sell is the the historical side of things, but yeah, when you have a thread that kind of connects it all together, it's it's a it's a good series. *08:23* **Speaker 1**: I um I was at a game shop the other day. *08:31* **Speaker 1**: Um I had to drop my car off and it was on a side of town I don't normally go to and there's a shop there I like to go to. *08:35* **Speaker 1**: And I was surprised Abby actually picked out a game for her Switch to play. *08:42* **Speaker 1**: And she uses her Switch solely as an Animal Crossing machine. *08:47* **Speaker 1**: Um she's got like four hundred and twenty hours in it. *08:52* **Speaker 1**: It's wild. *08:56* **Speaker 1**: I've gotten every penny back on that switch. *08:57* **Speaker 1**: Um and she grew up playing The Sims 2 on her computer. *09:00* **Speaker 1**: She still has *09:03* **Speaker 1**: every expansion because DLC for The Sims came on discs back in the day, I guess. *09:04* **Speaker 1**: Oh, right. *09:10* **Speaker 1**: So they s they have a tub full of that, but so she's kind of been that sort of just very casual. *09:10* **Speaker 1**: design and make and those kind of games. *09:17* **Speaker 1**: Um but she saw is it two point hospital, I think *09:21* **Speaker 1**: Oh yeah, yeah. *09:25* **Speaker 1**: And she saw that and she was like, I want to get this. *09:27* **Speaker 1**: I d I don't think she's played it yet, but I was surprised to see her *09:30* **Speaker 1**: pursue something besides Animal Crossing. *09:36* **Speaker 1**: So but that was kind of cool. *09:39* **Speaker 1**: I've tried we mostly she likes to just watch me play. *09:40* **Speaker 1**: So that's how we *09:46* **Speaker 1**: We mostly do things we've done all the Telltale games. *09:47* **Speaker 1**: Except Batman and Borderlands. *09:52* **Speaker 1**: Well The best ones, arguably. *09:55* **Speaker 1**: I mean except for Season One of Walking Dead. *09:57* **Speaker 1**: Borderlands is my favorite, but those two actually were a work gig, so it wa she I mean she could have watched me, but I was playing *09:59* **Speaker 1**: way differently than we normally would. *10:07* **Speaker 1**: Um I'm very excited for Wolfamon Us season two, if that ever finally comes back. *10:09* **Speaker 1**: But it's cool. *10:15* **Speaker 1**: I like watching her play and learn things and just see how she 'cause *10:15* **Speaker 1**: She's a completely different person. *10:21* **Speaker 1**: I used to back in high school think, oh yeah, if I could find a girl who plays games, that'd be awesome. *10:22* **Speaker 1**: Like hard g the dream. *10:28* **Speaker 1**: I know I love I love watching her play Animal Crossing and her being so into it has kept me like on the beat of it, knowing *10:30* **Speaker 1**: Like I pay way more attention to Animal Crossing news than I ever would normally. *10:40* **Speaker 1**: And it's fun to see her get so excited. *10:44* **Speaker 1**: I love watching her discover her own things and stuff that she likes. *10:46* **Speaker 2**: It's funny you mentioned that. *10:51* **Speaker 2**: I was thinking about that whole like outdated do you call it immature way of thinking, like I want a gamer girl when I'm gonna be. *10:52* **Speaker 2**: No, and it's like *11:02* **Speaker 2**: I I would much rather like you have the right person, the person that is the one for you. *11:03* **Speaker 2**: But it's so rewarding to like learn new things for each other. *11:10* **Speaker 1**: Yeah. *11:14* **Speaker 1**: She she does she's like making earrings. *11:15* **Speaker 1**: She does a lot of crafty stuff and the stuff she makes is it blows my mind. *11:18* **Speaker 1**: I'm like I have I would never be able to do this stuff *11:22* **Speaker 1**: Yeah, and that's amazing. *11:25* **Speaker 2**: And especially as you said, like when if they try to like branch into a new genre or like try something new in in that field that you're like, that's *11:26* **Speaker 2**: That's more rewarding than just saying, oh, well, yeah, just she she plays games. *11:33* **Speaker 2**: So I I'm right there with you. *11:38* **Speaker 2**: Like it's it's super rewarding and heartwarming, and it just it makes everybody closer together. *11:39* **Speaker 1**: I'm I'm curious, has um Megan played Pokemon yet? *11:46* **Speaker 2**: She has. *11:52* **Speaker 2**: Yeah, and I feel like that was another one of our early games, like while *11:53* **Speaker 2**: Controls were simple. *11:57* **Speaker 2**: We did uh fire red. *11:59* **Speaker 2**: Uh so kind of start with like canto, start it easy. *12:01* **Speaker 2**: But you can't go like all the way back to Game Boy graphics, right? *12:05* **Speaker 2**: So you had to have, you know, some appeal of the Game Boy Advanced look. *12:08* **Speaker 2**: And you know, you had the up, down, left, right. *12:12* **Speaker 2**: Um, you know, because she had played some Pokemon Ghost, there was some familiarity with some of the characters, some of the types, like that it was it was uh tough to kind of go into the whole type chart. *12:15* **Speaker 2**: But you know, with enough repetition, like now she's got that down. *12:25* **Speaker 2**: Um and it's also, you know, baby's first JRPG, right? *12:28* **Speaker 2**: Well, she was watching me play Persona 5 Royal. *12:32* **Speaker 2**: I'm like, this is kind of like *12:35* **Speaker 2**: The higher like on a more recent end of these Japanese role-playing games, but like it's kind of good to have a foundation. *12:37* **Speaker 2**: So yeah, that's a good point. *12:43* **Speaker 2**: And so *12:44* **Speaker 2**: Uh now she's most of the way through Heart Gold Soul Silver. *12:45* **Speaker 2**: She did play and beat Sword, so like after she beat Fire Red, it's like, well now let's see. *12:49* **Speaker 2**: where Pokemon is currently and so I mean because she has uh Switch Lite as well so yeah so she's uh also digged into uh some Pokemon. *12:55* **Speaker 1**: Is *13:04* **Speaker 1**: Is she excited for the diamond like or she maybe not excited in the way I mean it, but is she interested in these diamond and pearl remakes? *13:06* **Speaker 2**: I think she'll get there, uh especially as she's like going through the generations. *13:14* **Speaker 2**: It it'll be it's a different order for sure. *13:24* **Speaker 2**: I mean it's it's a game we're going to get. *13:27* **Speaker 2**: I don't know at what time she'll be playing them. *13:28* **Speaker 2**: Right. *13:31* **Speaker 2**: And then I did show her the *13:31* **Speaker 2**: the legends footage. *13:33* **Speaker 2**: I'm like, this is where they're going and it looks kinda cool. *13:34* **Speaker 2**: So I mean I I think like she's building to that. *13:37* **Speaker 2**: Um yeah, I'm sure she's be always down to to play Pokemon, but *13:41* **Speaker 2**: Yeah, I'm I definitely have the bigger history with that series though. *13:46* **Speaker 1**: So I'm I'm excited for sure. *13:50* **Speaker 1**: That's that's actually one of the things I like reasons I thought to have you on the show because *13:52* **Speaker 1**: It Pokemon is 25 this year, and as far as I know, you've been playing Pokemon your whole life from the beginning. *13:59* **Speaker 1**: Um *14:07* **Speaker 1**: Right? *14:08* **Speaker 1**: You've you've been there from day one or roughly. *14:08* **Speaker 2**: Yeah, day one. *14:11* **Speaker 2**: I mean so when it's important to clarify that when they talk about Pokemon 25 and *14:12* **Speaker 2**: You see it on Twitter when ESPN of all things put out a tweet that was like Pokemon turns twenty-five today on February twenty-seventh, twenty twenty-one. *14:17* **Speaker 2**: And like, who did you start with? *14:27* **Speaker 2**: Uh you know with they started with fire with uh Pokemon Red and Green. *14:29* **Speaker 2**: Who'd you start with Bubble Star Charmander Squirtle? *14:32* **Speaker 2**: And all the comments are like *14:35* **Speaker 2**: Don't you mean red and blue? *14:37* **Speaker 2**: So like okay, yeah, it started in Japan with red and green in 1996. *14:40* **Speaker 2**: Then they came out with the red and blue version and we got the red and blue version over here in September 28th and 29th in 1998, something like that. *14:47* **Speaker 2**: And yeah, so I was right there, um, you know, as the TV series *14:56* **Speaker 2**: The anime rolled out a month or so before the games did. *15:00* **Speaker 2**: I was I was right there. *15:03* **Speaker 2**: So yeah, I was full in it right from the get-go. *15:05* **Speaker 2**: And I've I've told the story before on *15:07* **Speaker 2**: My different podcasts or whatever, but even more effective was the fact that I was ten years old. *15:10* **Speaker 2**: Ash Ketchum was ten years old. *15:16* **Speaker 2**: So it was like boom *15:18* **Speaker 2**: Like right at that perfect intersection in 1998 and uh I've been hooked ever since. *15:20* **Speaker 2**: I I think I see you know see people *15:26* **Speaker 2**: Uh you know, as you get older and older there was the different memes of uh it was awesome in elementary school and then it you know *15:28* **Speaker 2**: Yeah, middle school, yeah, okay. *15:36* **Speaker 2**: And then it wasn't cool to like Pokemon in high school. *15:37* **Speaker 2**: But you get to college again and it's awesome. *15:39* **Speaker 2**: Like I I've just always played and like, you know, you share that affinity with those who like the series and there there's a *15:42* **Speaker 1**: a unique connection there. *15:50* **Speaker 1**: Have have I told you my story with Pokemon before? *15:53* **Speaker 1**: I I can't remember. *15:57* **Speaker 1**: You should tell me anyway. *15:59* **Speaker 1**: Okay. *16:00* **Speaker 1**: Um I in ninety eight I was four. *16:01* **Speaker 1**: Um *16:05* **Speaker 1**: So I went into kindergarten in the at five, uh, in Ohio, and I was in Pokemon at that point, like the cards at least. *16:07* **Speaker 1**: Um, cause I remember I stayed on the bus, missed my bus stop because I was trading carts with people, and the bus driver got mad at me. *16:16* **Speaker 1**: That's a traumatic event that probably therapy should solve. *16:23* **Speaker 1**: But um *16:27* **Speaker 1**: She made me ride the whole route before she would take me back home. *16:28* **Speaker 1**: It was wild. *16:31* **Speaker 1**: Um but anyway, I I had the games, I had the card, I was you know, in it all the way. *16:34* **Speaker 1**: And I don't know, maybe *16:40* **Speaker 1**: Six, seven years old. *16:43* **Speaker 1**: I don't know, first ish grade. *16:46* **Speaker 1**: We lived back in Indiana at this point. *16:48* **Speaker 1**: My parents thought *16:51* **Speaker 1**: I was too obsessive with like Pokemon in the games and just all this stuff. *16:53* **Speaker 1**: Like I was too into it. *16:58* **Speaker 1**: And I probably was at on some level, like probably at an unhealthy like amount of time I was playing this stuff. *17:00* **Speaker 1**: Um, but their solution was to make me get rid of it all. *17:06* **Speaker 1**: No. *17:11* **Speaker 1**: The games, the toys, all of it, gone. *17:12* **Speaker 1**: But here's the real kicker is they made me shred *17:15* **Speaker 1**: the Pokemon cards. *17:20* **Speaker 1**: Like more therapy. *17:21* **Speaker 1**: Yeah, nice. *17:23* **Speaker 1**: Oh yeah. *17:24* **Speaker 1**: We we joke about it now. *17:26* **Speaker 1**: It is super funny. *17:28* **Speaker 1**: Like *17:30* **Speaker 1**: the the hatchet has been buried a long time ago. *17:30* **Speaker 1**: Um but the cards just made me put them in the the paper shredder. *17:33* **Speaker 1**: Uh *17:38* **Speaker 1**: Hurts. *17:39* **Speaker 1**: And so now that Pokemon cards are going for hundreds of thousands of dollars, and I've always been a person who kind of like is meticulous about just keeping my things in really good condition. *17:40* **Speaker 1**: I sent I send them uh news articles about, you know, Charizard going for three hundred thousand dollars. *17:50* **Speaker 1**: I'm like, see? *17:56* **Speaker 1**: Yep. *17:57* **Speaker 1**: We could have been wealthy. *17:57* **Speaker 2**: Mm-hmm. *17:59* **Speaker 2**: No, absolutely. *18:00* **Speaker 2**: Oh gosh, that's it. *18:01* **Speaker 2**: That's awful. *18:03* **Speaker 2**: I mean I had like an egg timer to you know you can only play Game Boy in like forty-five minutes a day and we'll keep track. *18:03* **Speaker 1**: That sounds awesome *18:10* **Speaker 1**: I um I didn't come back to Pokemon until Diamond and Pearl. *18:11* **Speaker 1**: I was thirteen at the time. *18:15* **Speaker 1**: Um so I spent a ton of time in Diamond and Platinum. *18:17* **Speaker 1**: So I'm really excited about these because like *18:22* **Speaker 1**: In a weird way, Diamond is my first it like feels like my first Pokemon game, even though I played blue. *18:25* **Speaker 1**: I still *18:32* **Speaker 1**: I actually remember before we moved I I bought blue from a friend for five bucks and I didn't tell my parents so that they wouldn't make me throw it away. *18:33* **Speaker 1**: So I still have that. *18:43* **Speaker 1**: Um and I even I used to be the kid so like with Diamond, I at thirteen I made PowerPoints. *18:44* **Speaker 1**: or keynotes um to like show I was old enough to play these things and do these things. *18:54* **Speaker 1**: I did it with with Pokemon, with Zelda. *18:59* **Speaker 1**: I couldn't play Zelda as a kid. *19:02* **Speaker 1**: Um *19:04* **Speaker 1**: And Metal Gear Solid. *19:05* **Speaker 1**: Oh yeah. *19:07* **Speaker 1**: And I actually I believe we were on a show one time because I remember you *19:08* **Speaker 1**: G uh my parent I s I said something like my parents won't let me get it 'cause it's rated M and you mentioned Eva and it would be Eva's fault. *19:13* **Speaker 1**: I just left her out of the keynote at that point. *19:20* **Speaker 1**: I just said *19:23* **Speaker 1**: And it's rated M for partial nudity 'cause of Raiden. *19:24* **Speaker 1**: Look at him running around. *19:27* **Speaker 1**: Eva was a secret. *19:29* **Speaker 2**: Oh I feel you with the uh the making of the powerpoints though I had to do that for a a GameCube. *19:31* **Speaker 2**: It was like our first *19:35* **Speaker 2**: game console in the home. *19:37* **Speaker 2**: So like it definitely had to make the pitch there. *19:38* **Speaker 2**: You're right. *19:41* **Speaker 1**: Yeah. *19:42* **Speaker 1**: So when blue was released on the 3DS virtual console. *19:43* **Speaker 1**: And I was like, I don't remember how old I was. *19:49* **Speaker 1**: I was between 18 and 20. *19:52* **Speaker 1**: Like I'm in college. *19:53* **Speaker 1**: I decided to make a PowerPoint. *19:55* **Speaker 1**: And I still have it. *19:58* **Speaker 1**: And I I put on this Ash Catchem hat and like put the p T on the TV in the living room and like just leaned into it real hard. *19:59* **Speaker 1**: It was awesome. *20:08* **Speaker 1**: And my mom's adorable. *20:09* **Speaker 1**: My mom's still uh *20:10* **Speaker 1**: cracks up um one of the slides says like there's no witches and devils in it and she thinks that's the funniest thing. *20:12* **Speaker 1**: Because I couldn't play Zelda because there's a witch in Link's Awakening. *20:19* **Speaker 1**: My parents really had no idea what they were doing. *20:22* **Speaker 1**: And they have since fully apologized and admitted that and it's like I said, it's funny now. *20:25* **Speaker 1**: Um but uh *20:30* **Speaker 2**: It's like that preacher who goes like the why why why and then she's talking about oh the Pokemon and they evolve. *20:33* **Speaker 2**: Yeah, that's the whole point *20:40* **Speaker 1**: Yeah, I should show you the PowerPoint later sometime. *20:42* **Speaker 1**: It's I think it's pretty classic. *20:45* **Speaker 1**: Um so y Pokemon had this big direct, twenty-five years old in Japan. *20:47* **Speaker 1**: I want to talk about we can talk about the whole direct, but that opening five minutes, they did this like walk through Pokemon history and *20:55* **Speaker 1**: Like that hit me and clearly I missed like the arguably the golden years of Pokemon. *21:08* **Speaker 1**: No pun intended with *21:14* **Speaker 1**: Gold and silver and then sapphire and and ruby and emerald. *21:16* **Speaker 1**: I mean, I missed that period. *21:20* **Speaker 1**: I don't r have a a love, you know, an affiliation for that time. *21:22* **Speaker 1**: But I just, I don't know, seeing everything in order over time and just seeing how the games, the TV, the cards, the merchandise, the people, like *21:27* **Speaker 1**: Over 25, it just hit me. *21:41* **Speaker 1**: And like when Pokemon Go came up, it just took me back to when that game came out and everyone. *21:43* **Speaker 1**: was playing Pokemon Go. *21:51* **Speaker 1**: I worked at Chick-fil-A. *21:52* **Speaker 1**: We'd end our shift at 11 o'clock at night and we'd walk around the shopping center till like one in the morning playing Pokemon. *21:54* **Speaker 1**: Like *22:00* **Speaker 1**: How did that hit you as someone who has been playing, you know, from ninety-eight on? *22:01* **Speaker 1**: I mean, you've played them all *22:07* **Speaker 2**: Yeah, it was magical. *22:09* **Speaker 2**: Um, granted, I don't know how they could have done it any shorter, but it it it did run a little long. *22:10* **Speaker 2**: And especially when you have the certain *22:16* **Speaker 2**: Anime popped up. *22:18* **Speaker 2**: It's like, well, yeah, they did different series of anime, and I get why you mentioned it, but it's like, up, we're in a new generation. *22:19* **Speaker 2**: There's the anime segment. *22:25* **Speaker 2**: Um it did make me realize, yeah, some things I missed. *22:27* **Speaker 2**: I probably I was about 90% of like yeah, I was in that, but like uh e-reader, no, not necessarily. *22:29* **Speaker 2**: Certain things that were Japan only, no, not really *22:36* **Speaker 2**: Um, but yeah, just uh it's amazing because uh Pokemon is the largest media property in the world. *22:39* **Speaker 2**: Period, bar none, like they've got the *22:46* **Speaker 2**: the income data, the revenue data to back that up and it to have that documented so well over that amount of time. *22:50* **Speaker 2**: Uh it shows you it makes you feel old, uh that's for sure. *22:57* **Speaker 2**: But *23:01* **Speaker 2**: Uh it shows you like where it's been. *23:01* **Speaker 2**: Uh you know, I we've talked on different podcasts I've been on where there was nothing like Pokemania *23:04* **Speaker 2**: And there has never been anything like Pokemania ever since. *23:13* **Speaker 2**: And you can theorize that, you know, maybe it's because uh you know now with media on demand and there's so much of it *23:18* **Speaker 2**: that people's interests are so varied, they're so spread out all over the place, and you know, we're all so busy that uh attention is just too *23:27* **Speaker 2**: disparate, it's too spread out. *23:36* **Speaker 2**: But back in the late 90s when Pokemon hit and was a megaton. *23:38* **Speaker 2**: I felt like all the attention was there. *23:44* **Speaker 2**: And I I know it feels like for me that like that was the pinnacle of, you know, that kind of hype and attention and *23:47* **Speaker 2**: cultural consciousness when when Pikachu as a character is up there with Mario and Santa Claus and Mickey Mouse, like that is serious. *23:55* **Speaker 2**: Cultural cachet. *24:04* **Speaker 2**: So I I think it's amazing to see like where it's been and just how it's continued. *24:06* **Speaker 2**: Uh the whole strategy of you keep marketing your base games to the next generation of children so that they grow up and they're continuing loyal customers. *24:10* **Speaker 2**: I mean *24:18* **Speaker 2**: Brilliant. *24:18* **Speaker 2**: We'll see how Legends plays out from there. *24:19* **Speaker 2**: Uh but it's it's so smart and it's just been a continuous uh amazing strategy to watch, honestly. *24:23* **Speaker 1**: It it blows my mind. *24:29* **Speaker 1**: I actually *24:31* **Speaker 1**: Um I looked up like what platinum and diamond are going for, just like loose, because I I traded those to GameStop for probably thirty dollars or something 'cause Pokemon games retain their value. *24:33* **Speaker 1**: Platinum like is going for $90 alone. *24:44* **Speaker 2**: Oh my god. *24:48* **Speaker 1**: What? *24:48* **Speaker 1**: I don't I don't understand why it's doing like why it's so much, but it is *24:49* **Speaker 1**: There are like if you were into Pokemon as a kid, I feel like on some level you're still into it or aware of it's just so powerful how *24:57* **Speaker 1**: how aware people are like uh like you said, I mean you do Pikachu's in the Macy State parade for Pete's sake I'm for forever. *25:08* **Speaker 1**: I people know *25:16* **Speaker 1**: what a Pikachu is, you know, or a Charizard. *25:17* **Speaker 1**: Like they're just it's iconic and powerful and every it has this staying power that's insane. *25:20* **Speaker 2**: And it's it's amazing that, you know, I think, you know, even then, like they didn't in that big montage, like they talked about live action movie with Detective Pikachu and you know breaking into that. *25:28* **Speaker 2**: They didn't talk about all the anime movies that like they have *25:38* **Speaker 2**: 20 plus of them now? *25:42* **Speaker 2**: Like it's it's it's wild. *25:43* **Speaker 2**: Like it there's so many opportunities. *25:44* **Speaker 2**: And they just only you know glance over merchandise. *25:47* **Speaker 2**: That's a whole cottage industry in itself. *25:50* **Speaker 2**: I mean, for you know, legitimate ones, and then you've got the knockoffs and all that. *25:53* **Speaker 1**: But I mean it's it's huge. *25:57* **Speaker 1**: Abby's family still has *25:59* **Speaker 1**: I assume all of, if not most of, the Pokemon toys that um all the girls had when they were kids. *26:02* **Speaker 1**: They still have the Pikachu N sixty four and the box. *26:08* **Speaker 1**: Oh wow. *26:11* **Speaker 1**: The bo the box is sunfaded 'cause there's a window in the particular closet, but like *26:11* **Speaker 1**: Sometimes I'm super thankful that my um in-laws keep everything. *26:16* **Speaker 1**: And that's one of the things. *26:22* **Speaker 1**: It's so cool to just *26:23* **Speaker 1**: see the legacy unfold and really it's I mean it's been around uh my entire life, it or most of my life. *26:27* **Speaker 1**: I there were two years unaccounted for, I suppose. *26:36* **Speaker 1**: Two to four. *26:38* **Speaker 1**: But it just *26:40* **Speaker 1**: It's incredible to see the the legacy of it. *26:41* **Speaker 1**: I love it. *26:45* **Speaker 1**: Um after that they brought they they showed off details for *26:46* **Speaker 1**: uh a real throwback or the follow-up to a throwback Pokemon Snap coming back on the switch. *26:51* **Speaker 1**: Are you pumped *26:58* **Speaker 2**: I am. *27:00* **Speaker 2**: I am. *27:00* **Speaker 2**: I you know Pokemon Snap's one of those games where it's like it's one of the better spin-offs out there. *27:01* **Speaker 2**: Uh the big hang up was always that it's it's too short, especially once you know what you're doing. *27:06* **Speaker 2**: I mean there's sixty-three Pokemon in that game *27:10* **Speaker 2**: You know all the tricks, you can go through it one to two hours. *27:13* **Speaker 2**: Like that's it's easy. *27:16* **Speaker 2**: Uh but there were also a lot of Nintendo 64 limitations. *27:17* **Speaker 2**: So uh if you're looking off at *27:21* **Speaker 2**: uh you know the different levels uh they're gonna be in this one. *27:24* **Speaker 2**: All the generations of Pokemon that they're bringing in. *27:28* **Speaker 2**: It seems like the foundations are still there with how do you lure Pokemon? *27:31* **Speaker 2**: You know, mm-hmm. *27:35* **Speaker 2**: I hope that the the sensing of, you know *27:36* **Speaker 2**: camera artistic vision is is still there, you know, kind of intact. *27:39* **Speaker 2**: Because for the Nintendo 64 version, it was all about is the Pokemon in the center? *27:43* **Speaker 2**: Well what if you want it *27:48* **Speaker 2**: Just to skew a little bit, just for an artistic look. *27:50* **Speaker 2**: No, no, you lost that times two bonus. *27:52* **Speaker 2**: So I I I hope that you know the AI, the the program is a little better this time around. *27:55* **Speaker 2**: Uh but it looks really *27:59* **Speaker 2**: True to form in a way. *28:01* **Speaker 1**: They d they seem to be leaning into the artistic side of it a bit. *28:02* **Speaker 1**: They showed off like all this filters and stamps and you know, editing and sharing those pictures, which *28:07* **Speaker 1**: uh you know, feels actually like the modern day, you know, equivalent of taking it into a blockbuster and getting your pictures printed. *28:14* **Speaker 1**: Um social media parallel, yeah. *28:22* **Speaker 1**: I can see all of the I can just see the Twitter and Instagram accounts that are gonna have a field day with um *28:27* **Speaker 1**: you know, really good looking Pokemon shots on Pokemon Snap. *28:34* **Speaker 1**: It you it's cool to see it come back, especially after *28:39* **Speaker 1**: I feel like it's a cult classic within the Pokemon community. *28:44* **Speaker 1**: People are like, we want more snap. *28:49* **Speaker 1**: We want more snap. *28:51* **Speaker 1**: And they just keep making *28:52* **Speaker 1**: more games and more spinoffs and stuff. *28:54* **Speaker 1**: But it it it it's interesting to see them finally come back to it now on the Switch and, you know, twenty twenty one *28:56* **Speaker 2**: Yeah, I think it's just it's an interesting way to talk about you've had this vocal minority for so long. *29:04* **Speaker 2**: It's certainly not the majority of Pokemon fans. *29:10* **Speaker 2**: I mean uh that much is clear. *29:13* **Speaker 2**: But there's this vocal minority and you always think like, well, they're not listening. *29:15* **Speaker 2**: They're just gonna stick to their guns and do what works for them and *29:19* **Speaker 2**: It seems like there is this modern contingent inside Game Freak that is kind of listening and caring a little bit more about. *29:23* **Speaker 2**: Well, now we've had all these generations of players grow up. *29:31* **Speaker 2**: We should probably throw some bums their way too. *29:35* **Speaker 1**: Maybe they're just waiting for that entire generation to grow up and *29:39* **Speaker 1**: have children of their own possi you know possibly increase that be like kids we're playing this I know um I want to say *29:43* **Speaker 1**: I wanna say Corey over from My Life in Gaming on YouTube. *29:52* **Speaker 1**: Um I remember he recently said in like a *29:56* **Speaker 1**: They did their what they played in 2020 video and one of the things was like Pokemon Snap. *30:00* **Speaker 1**: He played it with his kids and he was excited to see if they would be into Pokemon Snap 2 when that came out. *30:06* **Speaker 1**: Uh which seem is now sooner rather than later. *30:12* **Speaker 1**: It's April, right? *30:15* **Speaker 1**: Is when that's coming. *30:16* **Speaker 1**: Yeah, April thirtieth for new Pokemon Snap, yeah. *30:16* **Speaker 1**: It's *30:20* **Speaker 1**: I'm I want to talk to Abby and see because I don't I think she had Pokemon Snow. *30:21* **Speaker 1**: I want to see if she has like an affili you know, affiliation for it. *30:25* **Speaker 1**: Um I still have *30:29* **Speaker 1**: Pokemon Snap in the drawer with all my other N64 games. *30:31* **Speaker 1**: A good garage sale pickup that day. *30:34* **Speaker 1**: That was a good one. *30:36* **Speaker 1**: Got that with puzzle. *30:37* **Speaker 1**: Yeah, yeah. *30:38* **Speaker 1**: Do you have like what's your favorite spin-off? *30:39* **Speaker 1**: Because I realized I have a lot of spin-offs that I've played throughout the years and you you don't I didn't really think of actually how many there are. *30:42* **Speaker 1**: It's kinda hitting me now in the most. *30:51* **Speaker 2**: Yeah. *30:59* **Speaker 2**: There's that old one on Game Boy Color that was, you know, still for *30:59* **Speaker 2**: Yeah, the Gen 1 and all the things that we're gonna do. *31:04* **Speaker 1**: Does it have the Rumble Pack with the AAA battery? *31:05* **Speaker 2**: I have it. *31:08* **Speaker 2**: Rumble pack on Game Boy Color. *31:10* **Speaker 2**: It was the coolest. *31:11* **Speaker 2**: Um, I feel like I've I've said like there's if there's one game I feel like I'm really good at one game that's it's Pokemon Pinball for Game Boy Color. *31:13* **Speaker 2**: Just a lot of weird niche Pokemon nerd things in there too. *31:22* **Speaker 2**: Like *31:26* **Speaker 2**: Uh I believe it's the oh gosh, I think it's like the red field on on the you got the red and blue maps or whatever. *31:27* **Speaker 2**: Mm-hmm. *31:35* **Speaker 2**: Um *31:36* **Speaker 2**: Like just different little music cues in that game. *31:37* **Speaker 2**: Like I I'm I'm not I'm kind of blanking on the accuracy of it, but there's a music track in that game where it's *31:41* **Speaker 2**: The instrumental version of the very first anime opening in Japan. *31:49* **Speaker 2**: The Pokemon Ghetto Daze. *31:55* **Speaker 2**: Uh so it's it's like, oh this just little melody that here in America okay it's a fun little gameplay. *31:58* **Speaker 2**: It's like no that's like actually means something. *32:03* **Speaker 2**: Like when it's coming from Japan. *32:05* **Speaker 2**: Cool little stuff like that. *32:07* **Speaker 2**: Uh I've been a big fan of also, you know *32:08* **Speaker 2**: How they integrate Panel DePon into uh Pokemon Puzzle League on N64, Puzzle Challenge on Game Boy Color. *32:11* **Speaker 2**: That's a neat little spin-off. *32:18* **Speaker 2**: uh learned from the podcast over at Smasher Pieces that because of all the anime integration and all the the four kids anime lines, whatever, Pokemon Puzzle on N64 was a game that only came out in the West *32:20* **Speaker 2**: That was not a game that came out in Japan. *32:32* **Speaker 2**: So a little interesting things like that. *32:35* **Speaker 2**: Uh yeah, so I mean, there are just a ton of them. *32:37* **Speaker 2**: Uh I don't think I ever got to playing *32:41* **Speaker 1**: Troze or Ranger or Mystery Dungeon, unfortunately, but you know, a lot of the older spinoffs were definitely my my jam. *32:43* **Speaker 1**: Back when Diamond was coming out, my returned Pokemon as it were, Ranger was coming out, and so was Mystery Dungeon. *32:51* **Speaker 1**: And um *32:59* **Speaker 1**: I had Ranger because it was the only way at the time to get a mana fee in Diamond. *33:00* **Speaker 1**: It's like I want that. *33:04* **Speaker 1**: So I did that and then uh I played uh *33:06* **Speaker 1**: Blue rescue team, uh, on the DS uh and then Explorers in Time was the sequel that I played. *33:09* **Speaker 1**: I I hadn't played anything since then. *33:16* **Speaker 1**: I loved in blue, if you had red, you could use a DS in the GBA slot to like do trades on one system. *33:18* **Speaker 1**: I thought that was so cool that you could do that. *33:27* **Speaker 1**: I've always wanted to *33:29* **Speaker 1**: pick up a copy of red and actually do it, but I've got a DS cart for explorers in time and like I've heard that's the best mystery dungeon game. *33:31* **Speaker 1**: And that was the one I enjoyed the most out of those. *33:38* **Speaker 1**: It's I think like *33:41* **Speaker 1**: Lately I've been thinking of Mario as well, 'cause he last year was his thirty-fifth. *33:44* **Speaker 1**: And I was thinking of all the different Mario games kind of out and I remember that, you know, Mario's done he always does basketball and golf and all these different things. *33:50* **Speaker 1**: And he was even in Dance Dance Revolution. *33:58* **Speaker 1**: Actually, I was re-watching Nintendo old Nintendo E3s maybe a week or two ago and *34:00* **Speaker 1**: Dance Dance Revolution Mario was announced. *34:06* **Speaker 1**: It's like he's finally coming to Dance Dance and people were clapping in the crowd. *34:08* **Speaker 1**: Um What a game. *34:14* **Speaker 1**: What a game. *34:15* **Speaker 1**: But I I feel like Pokemon *34:16* **Speaker 1**: has a better track record with their spin-offs. *34:20* **Speaker 1**: And like they do wildly more different things, I think, than consistently like here's a sports game. *34:23* **Speaker 1**: I don't think there's a Pokemon sports game unless you count poking, but *34:29* **Speaker 1**: I don't know. *34:33* **Speaker 1**: They seem to be more bold and what they try and experiment with and seems to be more successful. *34:33* **Speaker 2**: No, I I I think you're right. *34:42* **Speaker 2**: Like they try all sorts of genres, even when you look at something like *34:43* **Speaker 2**: Pokemon Conquest. *34:47* **Speaker 2**: When it's like channeling the whole like Nobunaga's ambition and you're making it like a fire emblem like strategy game, but with Pokemon? *34:49* **Speaker 1**: Like it's and they really try bold things. *34:57* **Speaker 1**: Isn't there a MOBA? *35:00* **Speaker 1**: W from who isn't Riot behind it in some capacity? *35:02* **Speaker 1**: Or n or am I thinking of someone else? *35:07* **Speaker 2**: Tencent. *35:08* **Speaker 2**: Tencent is uh working on it. *35:09* **Speaker 2**: It's Pokemon Unite. *35:11* **Speaker 2**: They announced it at uh direct, I think it was early last year. *35:12* **Speaker 2**: It's it's still not out. *35:16* **Speaker 2**: They're they're working on it. *35:16* **Speaker 2**: But yeah, they're they're going into the MOBA space. *35:18* **Speaker 2**: They announced something like Pokemon Sleep a couple years ago and we don't bat an eye. *35:20* **Speaker 2**: They're like, okay. *35:24* **Speaker 2**: They're gonna try this thing, sure. *35:25* **Speaker 1**: I'm a I'm a big uh I've been sleep tracking for years with an alarm on my phone, and I'm just saying I'd be down to try Pokemon sleep tracking, see how that goes. *35:27* **Speaker 1**: Get a little snorlax action going. *35:37* **Speaker 1**: I w it if if what my wife says is true, that might be pretty accurate. *35:39* **Speaker 1**: So *35:44* **Speaker 1**: Um I yeah, they do all sorts of crazy stuff. *35:47* **Speaker 1**: Is it Is it possible *35:51* **Speaker 1**: To through like all the services and trading, is it possible to get Pokemon from like blue and red to modern day? *35:54* **Speaker 1**: Because I know there's like a certain cutoff *36:03* **Speaker 1**: point, but through Pokebank and like trading through the Game Boy to the DS or something, do you know? *36:05* **Speaker 1**: Like how far back can people actually bring their Pokemon? *36:12* **Speaker 2**: If I remember correctly, you know the only way to go back and do uh Gen 1 Gen 2 all the way up is through the 3DS Virtual Console. *36:16* **Speaker 2**: Because once you bring it into bank, like I think they had some way. *36:30* **Speaker 2**: See, because those those Pokemon to push up the glass and get a little nerdy. *36:34* **Speaker 2**: In Gen 1 and Gen 2, their stats were calculated differently. *36:39* **Speaker 2**: Right. *36:42* **Speaker 2**: They didn't have all of the stats. *36:43* **Speaker 2**: So there was some way with these transfers into bank that they were able to convert it up, calculate it up, so to speak. *36:45* **Speaker 2**: You can't get, you know, mons off of a a Pokemon Blue cartridge from Game Boy. *36:52* **Speaker 2**: Like that, they're they're unfortunately stuck there. *36:57* **Speaker 2**: I think there is a way you can go from Gen 3 up *36:59* **Speaker 2**: 'Cause you're putting the Game Boy Advance cards into your DS, you're you're doing all that, going PAL Park, I think, uh, in Gen 4 and all that. *37:03* **Speaker 2**: the dream world in gen 5 and it goes from there but I think there is a way to do gen 1 and 2 it's just those have to be on virtual console. *37:11* **Speaker 1**: Huh I wonder *37:21* **Speaker 1**: Uh 'cause I went recently on um like a homebrew kick um on my three DS and my Wii U and uh GameCube and stuff because my goal was uh *37:23* **Speaker 1**: has been backing up. *37:36* **Speaker 1**: I went on this big kick of backing up all my games and my save data and stuff and um got I was started thinking like all this is gonna go away and die. *37:37* **Speaker 1**: I need to digitize it and back it up. *37:45* **Speaker 1**: Um it's really cool to see your GameCube save data on your computer. *37:47* **Speaker 1**: I don't know if you've ever it's great. *37:51* **Speaker 1**: Uh melee my melee save will live on. *37:53* **Speaker 1**: But I know at least *37:56* **Speaker 1**: Unlike the Wii U, I'm able to do this with DS games, but I can take my actual save from the game and put it on the virtual console. *37:59* **Speaker 1**: I wonder. *38:07* **Speaker 2**: There's some theorizing that could be possible. *38:17* **Speaker 1**: Oh my gosh. *38:19* **Speaker 1**: I'm sure people 'cause I s *38:20* **Speaker 1**: The Pokemon community is hardcore. *38:24* **Speaker 1**: Oh, undoubtedly. *38:27* **Speaker 1**: I know I remember you were tweeting the day of the direct or or something, and I don't remember exactly what you're saying, but you *38:29* **Speaker 1**: along the lines of you were not looking forward to the the negative hot takes from the diehard. *38:36* **Speaker 1**: What is what is what is the deal with that man? *38:41* **Speaker 1**: Why can't people just enjoy things? *38:44* **Speaker 2**: And I you know there are some people who I think rightly so said you described every fandom. *38:47* **Speaker 2**: And yes, fair. *38:52* **Speaker 2**: But uh the Pokemon community in the last couple of years were making the big stink about the national decks *38:55* **Speaker 2**: And why didn't why didn't we have every single Pokemon ever created into Sword and Shield? *39:03* **Speaker 2**: Why did it take DLC to bring only some of them into it? *39:09* **Speaker 2**: And it's *39:14* **Speaker 2**: I I feel like, you know, you see similar parallels with another fandom that I'm you know deeply involved in, or have been at least for years, uh Super Smash Bros. *39:15* **Speaker 2**: as these downloadable content options open and uh call it a a selfishness, call it an immaturity, call it, you know, the the *39:27* **Speaker 2**: Anonymity on the internet allows you to just you spew whatever. *39:38* **Speaker 2**: Uh you know, there's there's a toxicity there that *39:43* **Speaker 2**: Is it necessarily present in other video game fandoms? *39:47* **Speaker 2**: I don't know. *39:51* **Speaker 2**: Something about Nintendo fandoms. *39:52* **Speaker 2**: I don't know. *39:55* **Speaker 2**: Yeah, there's there's a lot of passion there, but it's often misdirected in negative places. *39:56* **Speaker 1**: I remember this national decks thing and so the last new Pokemon game I played was X, so I'm I haven't played, you know, Sword and Shield or Let's Go or any of that. *40:01* **Speaker 1**: But, you know, you hear this stuff all the time and it it it bubbles up. *40:13* **Speaker 1**: But I have a friend, he's he's younger than me. *40:17* **Speaker 1**: Um he's a teenager at the time. *40:20* **Speaker 1**: And huge Pokemon fan, plays all the games hundreds of hours, does hardcore shiny hunting, you know, like the real way, doesn't *40:23* **Speaker 1**: We use um one's it pokes off and cheating and all. *40:31* **Speaker 1**: You know, he's he's into Pokemon. *40:35* **Speaker 1**: Um and he was just like *40:37* **Speaker 1**: You know, they're just taking the 3DS models and putting them in the game. *40:39* **Speaker 1**: There's no new work. *40:43* **Speaker 1**: It's just they're just ripping us off like just *40:44* **Speaker 1**: Really mad and upset. *40:48* **Speaker 2**: Taking those YouTube hot take talking points and spitting them back out. *40:50* **Speaker 2**: That's yeah. *40:53* **Speaker 1**: And I've tried and I again I'm out of touch with the scene, but I'm like *40:54* **Speaker 1**: This stuff is hard like game development is hard and they they have they have a supported *41:00* **Speaker 1**: Like a b are they over a thousand yet? *41:10* **Speaker 1**: I mean hundreds. *41:13* **Speaker 1**: Hundred nine hundred Pokemon? *41:14* **Speaker 1**: I don't know *41:16* **Speaker 1**: Eight, nine thousand Pokemon supported, detailed, updated, modeled for years, for for twenty-five years. *41:17* **Speaker 1**: I mean the the fact that Pokemon in the first game *41:27* **Speaker 1**: are still characters that are playable and loved and sought after in new games is insane just from that perspective and that they've maintained that kind of support and almost feels like it comes from a place of *41:31* **Speaker 1**: entitlement, but we don't we don't really own like I don't know, man. *41:45* **Speaker 1**: The Switch. *41:54* **Speaker 1**: There's a lot of Pokemon, man. *41:55* **Speaker 1**: Like *41:56* **Speaker 1**: Do you need them all? *41:57* **Speaker 1**: Maybe I don't know. *41:58* **Speaker 2**: Gotta catch them all as in. *41:59* **Speaker 2**: So doing the the quick lookup, Calyrex, who was the *42:03* **Speaker 2**: Uh the legendary that was with the Frozen Tundra DLC for Sword and Shield makes eight hundred ninety-eight. *42:07* **Speaker 1**: So *42:14* **Speaker 1**: Uh I doubt legends well legends may have new Pokemon, but it's set in the past. *42:16* **Speaker 1**: I mean they'll be over nine hundred within the next *42:21* **Speaker 1**: A few years or a thousand within the few. *42:24* **Speaker 1**: Yeah, a thousand within holy cow, the thousandth Pokemon's gonna be wild. *42:27* **Speaker 1**: Um whatever that'll I'm sure they actually *42:32* **Speaker 1**: I would think they have that already planned out in some capacity. *42:34* **Speaker 2**: But then it even gets to like with the fandom and *42:38* **Speaker 2**: We gotta find something to get up in arms about for better or for worse. *42:43* **Speaker 2**: I mean, so I mean let me ask you, Max. *42:46* **Speaker 2**: I mean, for Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, for it to revisit, you know, the games that brought you back into Pokemon. *42:49* **Speaker 2**: this this chibi art style. *42:55* **Speaker 2**: I love it. *42:57* **Speaker 2**: I I I like it too. *42:58* **Speaker 1**: And I think there's looks it looks exactly like the game. *43:00* **Speaker 2**: Yes, yes. *43:04* **Speaker 2**: And I think that's that's an interesting way of looking at it is that it looks as if we remember it. *43:05* **Speaker 2**: Now, granted, I did see different takes where I think there is some fairness to talk about how, you know, Pokemon kind of painted themselves in a tough position by *43:10* **Speaker 2**: Not promising anything, but by repeating the pattern of, well, we're gonna remake Gen 1 inside the Ruby Sapphire Emerald. *43:21* **Speaker 2**: It's gonna look like Gen 3. *43:29* **Speaker 2**: We're gonna remake Gen 2 inside Diamond and Pearl. *43:30* **Speaker 2**: It's gonna Heart Gold Soul Server looks like Gen 4. *43:34* **Speaker 2**: Uh, you know, for Omega Ruby Alpha Sapphire, we're gonna take those Gen the Ruby Sapphire Gen 3 games, we're gonna put it into X and Y. *43:36* **Speaker 2**: It's gonna look like Gen 6. *43:44* **Speaker 2**: And they're taking the battle system of Sword and Shield, here for Generation 8, when they're remaking Gen 4, but *43:46* **Speaker 2**: Yeah, this this new look for this new development team that's getting some assistance from Game Freak while they work on uh this new take of Legends. *43:53* **Speaker 2**: I think it looks great. *44:01* **Speaker 2**: I think, yeah, it looks just as if we remember it. *44:02* **Speaker 2**: Um the people uh who they look at Link's Awakening. *44:05* **Speaker 2**: And then they're like, oh, but I like this one, but I don't like this one. *44:11* **Speaker 2**: I think the w only one good take I've seen about that is that it looked like *44:15* **Speaker 2**: Nintendo Link's Awakening was committing to a vision, to a style, whereas d this looks like every mobile game. *44:19* **Speaker 2**: Well yeah, but also at the same time, if if you want *44:25* **Speaker 2**: this to happen while the game freak is focusing their main intention on the next big thing, you may have to take some sacrifices along the way. *44:28* **Speaker 1**: I I like how it looks I was talking with a couple of friends. *44:36* **Speaker 1**: Um we've been friends since *44:39* **Speaker 1**: uh eighth grade and um Pokemon came up and sa we were talking about old DS games and just that time and Diamond and um Pearl came up and we went on like a fifteen minute rate tirade about just um *44:42* **Speaker 1**: The underground and like building bases. *44:54* **Speaker 1**: That stuff's so cool. *44:58* **Speaker 1**: I'm so excited. *44:59* **Speaker 1**: I think it looks great. *45:00* **Speaker 1**: It captures the spirit, brings some things up to modern, like the battle system, I think. *45:01* **Speaker 1**: It is gonna be really cool to see that in action for myself, you know, on my own TV. *45:05* **Speaker 1**: It's I'm stoked. *45:10* **Speaker 1**: And uh if people don't like it, I mean that's the funny thing. *45:11* **Speaker 1**: They'll buy it anyway. *45:15* **Speaker 1**: They can vote with their wallet and not buy it. *45:17* **Speaker 1**: Like you don't have to buy if you want to play Diamond and Pearl, you can play it on your DS. *45:20* **Speaker 1**: It might be a little expensive now, apparently. *45:24* **Speaker 1**: But um *45:27* **Speaker 1**: You know, you don't have I've I've you don't have to buy it and play it. *45:28* **Speaker 1**: You can you know, you can pass. *45:33* **Speaker 1**: I promise it'll be okay. *45:35* **Speaker 2**: But it's gonna approach, if not surpass twenty million units sold. *45:37* **Speaker 1**: Like it's it's bonkers. *45:40* **Speaker 1**: It's it's gonna be great. *45:42* **Speaker 1**: Um *45:45* **Speaker 1**: Two more things about Pokemon, I think. *45:47* **Speaker 1**: I just wanted to gauge your thoughts on this legends. *45:49* **Speaker 1**: And is I've always said *45:53* **Speaker 1**: Arceus, but apparently it's Arc Arceus? *45:55* **Speaker 1**: I don't he said it a different way than I normally do on the direct, but the legends uh the *46:00* **Speaker 1**: Sinho Prequel. *46:05* **Speaker 1**: Yeah, I I think it is Arceus. *46:07* **Speaker 2**: I think for years I also said Arceus too. *46:09* **Speaker 2**: So I think it's one of those *46:11* **Speaker 2**: mm tomato tomato, but you know, the official Pokemon company says tomato kind of thing. *46:13* **Speaker 2**: So um you know, it it is a really cool idea. *46:18* **Speaker 2**: Uh I think I I heard the one take from one of my podcast co hosts, Joe De Vader, who said *46:22* **Speaker 2**: Uh if you're going after that feudal look, I would have really liked Johto. *46:28* **Speaker 2**: I think Johto would have been more beneficial to capture that feudal look. *46:31* **Speaker 2**: And hey, maybe they go back and do that. *46:35* **Speaker 2**: for a future game, but Sinnoh's gonna be hot right now with Diamond Pearl. *46:37* **Speaker 2**: They want to keep that momentum going. *46:41* **Speaker 2**: And it makes sense. *46:42* **Speaker 2**: You still have Mount Coronet as the central focal point. *46:43* **Speaker 2**: Um it's gonna be interesting to see what city they choose to have you know this this bustling town to be. *46:46* **Speaker 2**: I I love the takes of you know oh of seeing Cyndaquil, Rowlett, and Oshawat *46:52* **Speaker 2**: show up. *46:58* **Speaker 2**: And the h the whole takes of, you know, oh well, Oshawat, you know, when he evolves into Samurai, he's based on a samurai. *46:58* **Speaker 2**: Uh Rowlet, when he evolves into Siduai, he's based on an archer. *47:06* **Speaker 2**: And then that's almost like uh you know, Cinequil when he evolves uh into Tiflosian, like I think his name is like Bakufon or something like that. *47:10* **Speaker 2**: And like that name in Japanese is like playing off of uh something futile back in that time. *47:18* **Speaker 2**: So like that seems to be the reason why *47:25* **Speaker 2**: those Pokemon were chosen. *47:27* **Speaker 2**: Cool to pick them across the generations, but there's a a feudal strategy there, uh which it is neat to see. *47:29* **Speaker 2**: I think, yeah, for those who say that it looks rough that frame rate. *47:37* **Speaker 2**: Yeah, that that Qing Ling did look a little rough on the frame rate, I get you. *47:41* **Speaker 2**: But they're showing *47:44* **Speaker 2**: The concept. *47:45* **Speaker 2**: The game is still a ways away. *47:46* **Speaker 2**: Do I think it's hitting early twenty two? *47:47* **Speaker 2**: No. *47:49* **Speaker 2**: I think it's very optimistic to try to hit that so close back to back with holiday twenty one for *47:52* **Speaker 2**: Diamond and Pearl and then early twenty-two. *47:57* **Speaker 2**: I I'm not buying that. *47:59* **Speaker 2**: So I mean you know take the time. *48:01* **Speaker 2**: If you're gonna try to get a Breath of the Wild style Pokemon, taking inspiration, you see the shot in the trailer where the camera swoops *48:03* **Speaker 2**: behind the trainer and goes out in the field like that's right from the Breath of the Wild trailer. *48:10* **Speaker 2**: It it's really interesting to see because for a long time like yeah Pokemon and Game Freak their strategy is now we're gonna keep doing what we do. *48:15* **Speaker 2**: We make *48:22* **Speaker 2**: these incremental changes we keep hooking that young audience and it feels like with this the Utsunomiya guy like kind of being the face the presentation *48:23* **Speaker 2**: A specialist, not uh you know, one like Junichi Masuda, who's assisting uh with the Diamond and Pearl game. *48:33* **Speaker 2**: Junichi Masuda, uh original composer from Red and Blue *48:40* **Speaker 2**: But throughout the years was brought up he became like the game director, the face of the Pokemon series. *48:44* **Speaker 2**: And he still composed like all the battle tracks. *48:49* **Speaker 2**: Like that's like basically *48:51* **Speaker 2**: Hishtick, but it seems like Pokemon is transferring over to a new generation. *48:53* **Speaker 2**: A new generation of players who have played some of these open world games who see the trends in the industry. *48:58* **Speaker 2**: And I feel like having this *49:03* **Speaker 2**: Uh this kind of new face presenting shows that like that may be like the trend of where Game Freak is looking. *49:04* **Speaker 2**: Like maybe the dam is breaking and opening their eyes to new possibilities. *49:10* **Speaker 2**: It's exciting the thought of *49:14* **Speaker 2**: going out in the field and throwing a poke ball, uh, you know, battle unprompted and catching like that seems really cool. *49:16* **Speaker 2**: I a sudden dive dash roll to get into the wild grass. *49:23* **Speaker 2**: I mean *49:27* **Speaker 2**: The potential's there and I'm excited to see more from Legends. *49:27* **Speaker 1**: Yeah, it's I'm very curious to see how it all shakes out and the ultimate reception to it uh as it goes. *49:31* **Speaker 1**: It was um *49:39* **Speaker 1**: A lot of people were talking about how choppy it looked, how rough it looked. *49:41* **Speaker 1**: And um I think we'll we might touch on that. *49:46* **Speaker 1**: Here in a bit. *49:49* **Speaker 1**: You're right. *49:51* **Speaker 1**: Yep. *49:51* **Speaker 1**: But the just the last Pokemon thing I definitely wanted to ask you, because I I don't remember. *49:52* **Speaker 1**: You you've probably mentioned it before. *49:57* **Speaker 1**: What's your favorite *49:59* **Speaker 1**: game slash generation. *50:01* **Speaker 1**: You've everyone has one. *50:02* **Speaker 2**: Yeah, my favorite is hardcode soul silver. *50:05* **Speaker 2**: I think uh generation two with all that it did to *50:08* **Speaker 2**: Build on the lore of the game, you know, going into Johto, uh, but then the callback to Kanto and making that the big experience. *50:12* **Speaker 2**: And the the showdown with Red at the end. *50:19* **Speaker 2**: I don't think that's been topped *50:21* **Speaker 2**: Uh people talk, well Pokemon Rainbow, the open world Pokemon where you can go to whatever generation you want in an MMO. *50:22* **Speaker 2**: I guess it's pipe dreaming, right? *50:30* **Speaker 2**: But I I feel like everyone who *50:31* **Speaker 2**: comes up with those big fantasies is just really trying to recapture what Gold and Silver did and uh you know, Satoru Iwata the genius at the time to make that all work on *50:35* **Speaker 2**: the cartridge. *50:45* **Speaker 2**: A cartridge. *50:46* **Speaker 2**: Oh. *50:47* **Speaker 2**: But Generation Four was such a huge step up, uh, you know, for the battling f the the simple fact of splitting physical and special attacks *50:48* **Speaker 2**: Beyond just well, all fire types are special, all fire type attacks are special, and you know, all normal attacks are physical or things like that. *50:59* **Speaker 2**: No, it was based on the move *51:09* **Speaker 2**: Whatever the move is, does it make more sense for it to be a physical attack or a special attack? *51:11* **Speaker 2**: Go from there. *51:16* **Speaker 2**: Different stats come into play. *51:17* **Speaker 2**: That Gen 4, like that. *51:18* **Speaker 2**: was a big break and really shifted that. *51:20* **Speaker 2**: And so yeah, the remake of Gold and Silver there in Gen 4 with Hard Gold, Soul Silver, that's that's my personal favorite. *51:22* **Speaker 1**: That is also an expensive Pokemon game. *51:29* **Speaker 1**: That one oh my gosh. *51:32* **Speaker 1**: With the Pokewalker. *51:34* **Speaker 1**: Whew! *51:35* **Speaker 1**: I've I've basically recently learned *51:36* **Speaker 1**: Is no matter what I should have been buying all of the Pokemon games and just keeping them sealed because apparently it's a gold mine. *51:38* **Speaker 1**: Um wild. *51:45* **Speaker 1**: It's insane. *51:47* **Speaker 1**: Uh out of all the three Pokemon games I've played, I'd have to say Diamond, but that's pretty easy giving my history with the series. *51:48* **Speaker 1**: I wanted to *51:57* **Speaker 1**: Touch on the Smash Brothers stuff, because in this direct that in the Nintendo Direct that they had before the Pokemon Direct. *51:59* **Speaker 1**: Two directs back to back. *52:07* **Speaker 1**: What is this? *52:09* **Speaker 1**: Tw 2016, 17? *52:09* **Speaker 1**: Um They uh they announced the next Smash Fighter. *52:12* **Speaker 1**: Uh *52:17* **Speaker 1**: whose names I don't remember, but they are from Xenoblade. *52:17* **Speaker 2**: Yes, it'd be Pyra and Mithra, the Thank you. *52:20* **Speaker 2**: The sword, the the Aegis sword, essentially. *52:23* **Speaker 2**: The spirit in the sword. *52:25* **Speaker 2**: Like they're not really sword users of the sword. *52:27* **Speaker 2**: Yeah. *52:31* **Speaker 1**: Xenoblade's getting more representation, uh, so Shulk isn't the only one in there. *52:32* **Speaker 1**: And I think now we have two DLC characters left. *52:37* **Speaker 1**: Is that correct? *52:42* **Speaker 1**: Yeah, two more left in fighter past two. *52:43* **Speaker 1**: Do you think Fighter Pass 2 is the last fighter pass? *52:46* **Speaker 1**: For ultimate? *52:49* **Speaker 2**: For Masahiro's Sakurai's sake, that yes it is. *52:50* **Speaker 2**: Um because if they pass it off to to Bandynamco, some internal team, like it just won't have the same like Smash Brothers DLC is *52:54* **Speaker 2**: Special because of the face that Sakurai puts on it, all the love, care, knowledge that he puts into uh you know, e uh how much he knows about each franchise, all the research he's done, whether it's *53:03* **Speaker 2**: personal knowledge or what he's done on the side. *53:14* **Speaker 2**: Uh it all the love and care that goes into each DLC character, I think it's not gonna be the same if it's just a an internal Bandai Namco team *53:17* **Speaker 2**: Let's make Fighter Pass 3 just for more money. *53:25* **Speaker 2**: You know, I think you need the love and care of for Sakurai there. *53:27* **Speaker 2**: And, you know, for Smash Brothers Ultimate and we'll *53:31* **Speaker 2**: Once you start adding all these different franchises and licenses, like it's gotta be the last Smash game, right? *53:34* **Speaker 2**: Even if you port it to a future system. *53:39* **Speaker 1**: I was gonna s how do you top this? *53:41* **Speaker 1**: How do you top the moment? *53:44* **Speaker 1**: When they reveal Ultimate and it you see Snake and it sh it g it clicks. *53:46* **Speaker 1**: It's like everyone is here. *53:51* **Speaker 1**: How like how you can't *53:53* **Speaker 1**: What do you do? *53:55* **Speaker 1**: The next smash ultimate two you just uh everyone's still here. *53:56* **Speaker 1**: You can't go high. *54:00* **Speaker 2**: Yeah, I don't I don't think you can get any higher. *54:02* **Speaker 2**: Uh so you just gotta think about uh if you port it to other future Nintendo systems and make sure everyone's along for the ride there. *54:04* **Speaker 2**: But let Masahiro Sakurai rest. *54:10* **Speaker 1**: The man needs a vacation. *54:13* **Speaker 1**: And just watching him play against himself with both hand one-handed on two pro controllers is just And he has like hand injuries, like wrist injuries. *54:16* **Speaker 1**: Like the man is out. *54:25* **Speaker 1**: Yeah, yeah. *54:28* **Speaker 1**: He's so *54:28* **Speaker 1**: Ugh, he's a a crazy, crazy man. *54:30* **Speaker 1**: I'm so thankful for him. *54:33* **Speaker 1**: But the Smash community, I'm definitely more in touch with the Smash community. *54:34* **Speaker 1**: Good gracious, they're mean. *54:39* **Speaker 2**: Oh, yeah. *54:41* **Speaker 2**: No, it's another case of like they they can't take, you know, one win for themselves. *54:42* **Speaker 2**: Like really there there was not one character revealed that you were *54:48* **Speaker 2**: happy with. *54:53* **Speaker 2**: It didn't have to be a dream character. *54:54* **Speaker 2**: You didn't have to be holding out hope for Gino from Super Mario RPG to pin all your hopes on that. *54:55* **Speaker 1**: I was only holding out for Gino because of the brawl days. *55:03* **Speaker 1**: Yeah. *55:07* **Speaker 1**: Just the old leaks, but like, come on, guys. *55:07* **Speaker 1**: We've got over *55:10* **Speaker 1**: 80 characters now? *55:13* **Speaker 1**: It's insane. *55:15* **Speaker 1**: Incredible. *55:16* **Speaker 1**: It's incredible. *55:17* **Speaker 1**: Sephiroth, they actually got Square to come back and say yes. *55:18* **Speaker 2**: Yeah. *55:22* **Speaker 2**: What? *55:23* **Speaker 2**: That was incredible. *55:23* **Speaker 2**: I mean *55:24* **Speaker 2**: Yeah, so I think it's another case of is it just Nintendo fans? *55:25* **Speaker 2**: Uh you know, I there's a certain selfishness in in that. *55:30* **Speaker 2**: Um yeah, I think people need to understand, like, take your win. *55:35* **Speaker 2**: Even if it it's not a character that doesn't mean much for you. *55:40* **Speaker 2**: I I've played a little bit of Xenoblade too. *55:43* **Speaker 2**: So I am generally aware of who Paron and Myth are. *55:46* **Speaker 2**: They're not the characters I wanted in the gamer. *55:50* **Speaker 2**: You see YouTubers like Alpha Red and you just, you know, bless his heart. *55:52* **Speaker 2**: So happy for him. *55:55* **Speaker 2**: Like pegged that one a long time ago in in his wish list. *55:56* **Speaker 2**: But uh, you know, you just take *56:00* **Speaker 2**: Take solace in you know the characters that have been revealed already, and uh someone out there is is beaming with joy at these reveals. *56:04* **Speaker 2**: It Sakurai is not catering only specifically to you. *56:11* **Speaker 1**: Well, speaking of catering, um my I've had the we've t I've talked with um Logan. *56:16* **Speaker 1**: Uh *56:24* **Speaker 1**: Uh Logan Moore. *56:24* **Speaker 1**: And he thinks Waluigi is gonna be one of the last characters, one of the last two to finally like just *56:25* **Speaker 1**: He's Soccer will do it for the the meme, which I think would be pretty incredible. *56:33* **Speaker 1**: But my like my pipe dream, so to speak, like the only thing I think that could top cloud *56:39* **Speaker 1**: Uh I'm cause you know the order of like reveals was Sonic, Snake, uh like just how'd you do this, and then uh Cloud *56:46* **Speaker 1**: I'm like, how do you top cloud and Sephiroth is close if not equal or whatever? *56:57* **Speaker 1**: Like Sakurai do it. *57:02* **Speaker 1**: Put Goku in the game. *57:03* **Speaker 1**: Like, come on. *57:05* **Speaker 1**: Like how you that's the only thing that would blow my mind, I think. *57:06* **Speaker 1**: I can't think of anyone else that would just *57:09* **Speaker 1**: Utterly shock me, uh, to be included in the game. *57:12* **Speaker 2**: Yeah, you're pulling from my uh co-host from my show me your news podcast days. *57:16* **Speaker 2**: Boy oh boy. *57:20* **Speaker 2**: Yeah, Goku Talks. *57:21* **Speaker 2**: I you know, Sakurai's always said that it's it's video game characters first. *57:22* **Speaker 2**: And so that doesn't necessarily apply to Goku. *57:26* **Speaker 2**: But at the same time, you know, I yeah, and and like and I couldn't I can't predict him. *57:28* **Speaker 1**: Like you can't predict No, he's a he's a bad man in the best way possible. *57:34* **Speaker 2**: Yeah, yeah. *57:38* **Speaker 2**: So uh while it seems like, you know, uh who will the last two characters be? *57:39* **Speaker 2**: While the internet talks about Crash Bandicoot a lot, I think it it makes a lot of sense. *57:45* **Speaker 2**: I think it'd be great for the *57:50* **Speaker 2**: You know, you had the Microsoft representation with Banjo, you have the the rivalry of old school PlayStation, it'd be a great unification *57:52* **Speaker 1**: uh of you know mascots and and uh it the game awards when he had Sean and Reggie and Phil up there. *58:00* **Speaker 1**: Uh exactly. *58:10* **Speaker 2**: And I think, you know, even though what Activision owns Crash Bandicoot, but uh just for Sakurai is big on video game history, uh yeah, I think that would be great. *58:10* **Speaker 2**: But I'm not gonna say that that's a sure thing. *58:20* **Speaker 2**: Uh no. *58:23* **Speaker 2**: So uh so I it's tough to guess. *58:25* **Speaker 2**: I mean, do you think, oh well, does Sakurai with, you know *58:27* **Speaker 2**: uh say like the first person shooter genre and like you know do we go all the way back to the Doom Slayer, Doom Guy because of how important that is. *58:31* **Speaker 2**: Is there a way that he can tone him down to to still get that you know E ten plus rating like I *58:40* **Speaker 2**: It's hard to say. *58:45* **Speaker 2**: I think at this point I got Joker from Persona Five. *58:46* **Speaker 2**: I got Banjo from Banjo Kazooie. *58:50* **Speaker 2**: Like I'm *58:52* **Speaker 2**: over the moon with those two. *58:53* **Speaker 2**: Like I can't ask for anything more. *58:54* **Speaker 2**: Like I can't be eaty and and asking for that. *58:56* **Speaker 2**: I mean, would Professor Leighton be great? *59:00* **Speaker 2**: Yeah, absolutely. *59:02* **Speaker 2**: But I'm not gonna be like *59:03* **Speaker 2**: Sakurai where's my puzzle solving top hat man? *59:04* **Speaker 1**: Like you know. *59:09* **Speaker 1**: Oh the the banjo amiibo comes out um end of this month. *59:11* **Speaker 1**: I'm excited about that. *59:15* **Speaker 2**: Like that that's crazy *59:17* **Speaker 1**: And the fact that every all the characters still like are uh have been revealed and will be revealed are also gonna get amiibo. *59:18* **Speaker 1**: I love amiibo, man. *59:26* **Speaker 1**: They're the perfect little statues. *59:27* **Speaker 1**: Um *59:29* **Speaker 1**: Do you miss like the days of the the brawl days and the updates and all that stuff? *59:30* **Speaker 1**: Because sometimes I do. *59:38* **Speaker 2**: I miss the daily news update nature of it all, yes. *59:40* **Speaker 2**: I I think it was the perfect *59:45* **Speaker 2**: pre-hype culture environment. *59:48* **Speaker 2**: Did it get a little unruly at times? *59:50* **Speaker 2**: Yeah. *59:52* **Speaker 2**: I can't even imagine what it would be in an age of full-blown social media. *59:53* **Speaker 2**: Oh my gosh. *59:57* **Speaker 2**: Uh, but for its time there was there was something special about it. *59:59* **Speaker 2**: Yeah, I I look back on that fondly. *01:00:02* **Speaker 1**: Ugh. *01:00:04* **Speaker 1**: I just I'm hard pressed to think of a um a game closer to modern times that has had *01:00:05* **Speaker 1**: a similar pre-hype like pre-release cycle of just excitement. *01:00:13* **Speaker 1**: It doesn't have to be every day today, but just *01:00:20* **Speaker 1**: the anticipation for Brawl just I again I was watching those old E3s. *01:00:23* **Speaker 1**: Um and one of them was the one where Iwata revealed the the revolution at the time, uh the Wii. *01:00:28* **Speaker 1**: and talked about how, you know, they were gonna have online play on the Wii and uh and Smash Brothers was gonna be one of the the of the first games on the Wii. *01:00:35* **Speaker 1**: Um I think even in the presentation he said at launch, uh that didn't pan out. *01:00:43* **Speaker 1**: Um and you know, he's like, and I will be able to beat Reggie every day. *01:00:47* **Speaker 1**: Um I d the *01:00:52* **Speaker 1**: Maybe it was just that time where Nintendo was in a real stride with with Twilight Princess and the the overall just success of the Wii and Melee was you know still is. *01:00:55* **Speaker 1**: Um *01:01:07* **Speaker 1**: f beloved maybe a little too much. *01:01:08* **Speaker 1**: Um but there is an energy to Brawl that I just don't think's been matched. *01:01:11* **Speaker 1**: Not just with Smash Brothers. *01:01:16* **Speaker 1**: Um *01:01:18* **Speaker 1**: But just any game really in general. *01:01:19* **Speaker 1**: I can't I'm hard pressed to think of like do do you can you think of anything? *01:01:21* **Speaker 1**: 'Cause *01:01:26* **Speaker 2**: Well, you know, it it's funny you mentioned that. *01:01:28* **Speaker 2**: Um I I don't think that uh the prolonged nature of the pre-release hype cycle for Brawl, I think, is unmatched. *01:01:30* **Speaker 2**: You're right. *01:01:37* **Speaker 2**: But I think it's been redirected, consolidated in a way, because uh when it comes to these Super Smash Bros. *01:01:38* **Speaker 2**: reveal trailers *01:01:48* **Speaker 2**: It's a format that the fighting game industry has copied wholesale because they see how well it works. *01:01:50* **Speaker 2**: To have that moment to distill that like that energy, that that's your day. *01:01:58* **Speaker 2**: That's the day in game news is that happened. *01:02:03* **Speaker 2**: And that even came from *01:02:07* **Speaker 2**: For Super Smash Bros. *01:02:09* **Speaker 2**: Brawl, you know, Sakurai had the subspace emissary story, as you're very well familiar with. *01:02:10* **Speaker 2**: But the whole idea of how he didn't like how those cutscenes that he worked so hard on *01:02:15* **Speaker 2**: They got put on YouTube. *01:02:23* **Speaker 2**: And people who weren't playing the games they were they were oh yeah. *01:02:25* **Speaker 2**: Well they were they were watching that, and so *01:02:28* **Speaker 2**: I think that's his answer was he let's put the attention into these character reveal trailers. *01:02:30* **Speaker 2**: And we saw that start with uh 3DS and Wii U and to continue into Ultimate. *01:02:36* **Speaker 2**: I mean *01:02:40* **Speaker 2**: Yeah, the cloud reveal trailer, uh, magical for bayonetta to end that uh that fighter ballot in in 3ds Wii U. *01:02:41* **Speaker 2**: Uh the the Ridley at E3, right after that that big snake moment everyone is here. *01:02:49* **Speaker 2**: Ridley happens. *01:02:53* **Speaker 1**: Dreams dreams came true that day. *01:02:56* **Speaker 1**: You're you're so right. *01:02:59* **Speaker 1**: It really is it is being consolidated into these reveals. *01:03:01* **Speaker 1**: I mean, even with Pyra and Mithra here *01:03:04* **Speaker 1**: Maybe this the direct opened up with with Xenoblade looking thing. *01:03:07* **Speaker 1**: It was like, ah, maybe in Xenoblade. *01:03:11* **Speaker 1**: And then real quick me and my friends figured out we're like, oh, this is the Smash reveal. *01:03:12* **Speaker 1**: And it kinda watch for the uh *01:03:18* **Speaker 2**: Yeah. *01:03:21* **Speaker 2**: You gotta watch for the uh the not actual gameplay footage. *01:03:21* **Speaker 2**: That that's the big tell. *01:03:25* **Speaker 2**: Because I know I fell hook, lion, and sinker at the uh the Joker reveal at the Game Awards. *01:03:26* **Speaker 2**: Oh my god, I would talk about an incredible moment. *01:03:31* **Speaker 1**: That's the other end of the spectrum. *01:03:34* **Speaker 1**: Just the uh absolutely shocking surprise. *01:03:35* **Speaker 1**: Just like *01:03:40* **Speaker 1**: And that set the tone for what DLC could be. *01:03:41* **Speaker 1**: And then that pass ended on another Fire Emblem character. *01:03:44* **Speaker 1**: Um, you know, it just has this energy back and forth and back and forth, but there's some really high highs. *01:03:49* **Speaker 1**: And I I hope they go out on a really high note here, at the very least for the last character. *01:03:56* **Speaker 1**: Just I'm not saying my character or Goku or whatever, but just someone really big and exciting and *01:04:02* **Speaker 1**: Just cool and unexpected, I think, would be a really great way to hopefully wrap up Sakurai's time with uh *01:04:08* **Speaker 1**: Smash. *01:04:16* **Speaker 1**: For sure. *01:04:17* **Speaker 1**: The man who needs a break. *01:04:18* **Speaker 2**: Yeah, give him a vacation. *01:04:20* **Speaker 2**: And you know, you people always talk about that that byleth reveal, right? *01:04:21* **Speaker 2**: But *01:04:24* **Speaker 2**: I I think you gotta remember Sakurai loves Fire Emblem. *01:04:25* **Speaker 2**: Yes, it loves Fire Emblem. *01:04:29* **Speaker 1**: It's his game. *01:04:31* **Speaker 1**: Like, you know, in the end, Smash is his. *01:04:32* **Speaker 2**: Yeah, I he's like *01:04:35* **Speaker 2**: crazy huge King of Fighters fan. *01:04:37* **Speaker 2**: So yeah, is it a huge surprise that Terry got revealed? *01:04:39* **Speaker 2**: Well no, it shouldn't have been. *01:04:42* **Speaker 2**: But he's talked about in columns for years of how *01:04:43* **Speaker 2**: He went to arcades and trashed people in King of Fighters and he felt really bad 'cause he beat up, you know, this this one person who was on the other side of the arcade from him, 'cause you you can't see the way it's set up in Japan *01:04:46* **Speaker 2**: And it's just like, oh man, like I wish like I could make a game that's really accessible that anyone could play kind of on an equal footing and bappa da Super Smash Brothers. *01:04:59* **Speaker 2**: Um boom. *01:05:08* **Speaker 2**: Yes. *01:05:09* **Speaker 2**: So I I wonder what the last two will be, and I'm not about to Yeah, I've I've tried to do that whole guessing game and it's beyond me now. *01:05:10* **Speaker 1**: It uh definitely I can't *01:05:19* **Speaker 1**: keep up with it. *01:05:22* **Speaker 1**: I I do I love I love watching them though. *01:05:23* **Speaker 1**: It it it really is the the news of the day when it happens. *01:05:26* **Speaker 1**: Uh I've friend old friends who don't play a lot of console games anymore. *01:05:30* **Speaker 1**: They still tune in for Smash reveals. *01:05:35* **Speaker 1**: Like Smash is the great uniter. *01:05:38* **Speaker 1**: The other what is that this pivot out of Smash and Pokemon and the the switch here, ironically, not planned at all. *01:05:42* **Speaker 1**: It's four years old today, the day we're recording. *01:05:51* **Speaker 1**: On uh March the third, 2021. *01:05:54* **Speaker 1**: Holy cow, it's been four years. *01:05:59* **Speaker 1**: It doesn't feel that long. *01:06:02* **Speaker 2**: It doesn't, it doesn't. *01:06:04* **Speaker 2**: And as as you referenced, it may make you wonder, like *01:06:06* **Speaker 2**: What's the future of the Switch? *01:06:10* **Speaker 2**: It's getting to be that time where it's around a couple years since Switch Lite and what's so on. *01:06:12* **Speaker 1**: You see that you see that uh *01:06:18* **Speaker 1**: Pokemon legends reveal and you're like, maybe the Switch can't handle this. *01:06:20* **Speaker 1**: Switch could use a little more power. *01:06:24* **Speaker 1**: Maybe a little or at least maybe a dock that like magically *01:06:26* **Speaker 1**: Gives it even more power than the current doc already does. *01:06:30* **Speaker 1**: Um Yeah, man, it's four years. *01:06:34* **Speaker 1**: Um it's uh essentially past eighty million units, uh seventy-nine point eight seven million units in four years. *01:06:39* **Speaker 1**: Uh *01:06:47* **Speaker 1**: It's on track this year to beat the Wii, which was a hundred and a hundred and one million units. *01:06:48* **Speaker 1**: Um it's actually in line with the DS. *01:06:54* **Speaker 1**: I I looked up the DS sales numbers like year to date of when things were being sold and *01:06:57* **Speaker 1**: Uh between four and five years of the DS's life cycle, it had been around eighty million units. *01:07:02* **Speaker 1**: So it's on track with the DS, which ended its ten-year run at 154 million. *01:07:09* **Speaker 1**: And that was with *01:07:13* **Speaker 1**: Do they throw the DSI in for They do. *01:07:19* **Speaker 1**: Yeah. *01:07:22* **Speaker 1**: Okay. *01:07:22* **Speaker 1**: Yeah, I think so. *01:07:22* **Speaker 1**: I s I still have my DSI. *01:07:23* **Speaker 1**: It's back there. *01:07:24* **Speaker 1**: I mean it's it's insane. *01:07:26* **Speaker 1**: Like the Switch is selling like bananas. *01:07:28* **Speaker 2**: I don't Well and you know what a time to look back at twenty seventeen though to think that *01:07:32* **Speaker 2**: I know it's only so many years ago, but maybe some people have forgotten that is Nintendo was at that point with the Wii U that like, you know, they're they're not dead, but if they make a wrong step *01:07:37* **Speaker 2**: they may be in trouble. *01:07:48* **Speaker 2**: Like they'd they'd have the the cash and all to stay a little bit of afloat, but you know, they really needed a winner and *01:07:50* **Speaker 1**: Boy do they. *01:07:56* **Speaker 1**: Yeah, I think I think Reggie said recently in an interview that the Switch was a make it or break it kind of console for them. *01:07:57* **Speaker 1**: Yeah. *01:08:03* **Speaker 1**: Um it's absolutely *01:08:04* **Speaker 1**: I've uh I love the Switch. *01:08:07* **Speaker 1**: I've been playing it actually quite a bit lately. *01:08:09* **Speaker 1**: It's so four like what do you rumors of a Switch Pro have been around for *01:08:11* **Speaker 1**: I feel like two years. *01:08:19* **Speaker 1**: Half of its life already has been when when are we getting this upgrade? *01:08:22* **Speaker 1**: Um and there were a lot of rumors early last year. *01:08:26* **Speaker 1**: I thought there was enough smoke there that I thought the fire was gonna *01:08:29* **Speaker 1**: reveal itself. *01:08:33* **Speaker 1**: But uh, you know, mum's the word, they r I think they're gonna continue writing it now. *01:08:34* **Speaker 1**: And I actually don't think they will release uh a Switch Pro or whatever they will an upgrade to the Switch. *01:08:38* **Speaker 1**: Uh this year I think that's next year. *01:08:45* **Speaker 1**: What do what do you think is the future here? *01:08:46* **Speaker 2**: I feel like you're right. *01:08:50* **Speaker 2**: There was enough smoke there when you're talking about like NVIDIA chips and things like that, and you keep an eye on that because that's the partner for Switch, right? *01:08:51* **Speaker 2**: Um, I feel like there was enough smoke to maybe think that in a normal world, uh, end of this year could have been possible. *01:08:58* **Speaker 2**: I I think yeah COVID pushes that back. *01:09:07* **Speaker 2**: Uh I think yeah, one's coming. *01:09:10* **Speaker 2**: You kinda have to keep up especially with these these big next gen boxes and how they're loading games faster than ever and they're they're pushing those specs like crazy. *01:09:12* **Speaker 2**: But *01:09:21* **Speaker 2**: I'm Nintendo's got the juice going right now with the idea of you know, for some people the dock is the solution, for some people taking it only on the go, handheld is the solution. *01:09:21* **Speaker 2**: Like it it works. *01:09:31* **Speaker 2**: But you're gonna have to find that the solution of how how do you you know continue that uh that sort of console base going *01:09:33* **Speaker 2**: Um what games can be played going forward? *01:09:42* **Speaker 1**: Do you only do you do games that can only be done on the pro and you have a like a new three DS situation? *01:09:44* **Speaker 2**: Right. *01:09:51* **Speaker 2**: And like that didn't work out too well for that system, but it was *01:09:51* **Speaker 2**: the smart thing to do at the time, I think, to kind of keep pace going. *01:09:55* **Speaker 2**: So they've got some questions to answer. *01:09:58* **Speaker 2**: I feel like, yeah, if if we were in a normal environment, end of this year would have been *01:10:00* **Speaker 2**: A good prediction, but I think yeah, next year early optimist, yeah. *01:10:05* **Speaker 1**: I I actually think it could be in line with legends and I could even see *01:10:10* **Speaker 1**: uh the sequel to Breath of the Wild kind of being close to that launch as well. *01:10:17* **Speaker 1**: Definitely. *01:10:21* **Speaker 1**: And I mean talk about *01:10:23* **Speaker 1**: I mean w I remember, I think everyone remembers uh the Breath of the Wild like date announcement trailer. *01:10:25* **Speaker 1**: One of the best video game announcements trailers of all time. *01:10:33* **Speaker 1**: time. *01:10:36* **Speaker 1**: Sometimes I just watch it to like hype myself up for the day. *01:10:36* **Speaker 1**: It is oh so good. *01:10:40* **Speaker 1**: And you know, and it just *01:10:43* **Speaker 1**: Everyone kind of thought at the time it was like, I really hope Zelda's on day one with the Switch. *01:10:45* **Speaker 1**: Like I they really kind of need that. *01:10:49* **Speaker 1**: Let's go, you know, come on. *01:10:51* **Speaker 1**: And then the date hits and it's like *01:10:52* **Speaker 1**: March 3rd. *01:10:54* **Speaker 1**: Day and date. *01:10:55* **Speaker 1**: What a special day. *01:10:58* **Speaker 1**: I I can only imagine it had to be the same for the Wii in Twilight Princess. *01:10:59* **Speaker 1**: of just this fervor for a new Nintendo console um and a new Zelda game kind of hand in hand. *01:11:04* **Speaker 1**: And I really I could see them doing that again here. *01:11:11* **Speaker 1**: They did it with um *01:11:14* **Speaker 1**: Majora's Mask in the new 3DS when that came to the States. *01:11:16* **Speaker 1**: Uh the new 3DS XL launched with Majora's Mask 3D. *01:11:20* **Speaker 1**: Um obviously the Switch with *01:11:25* **Speaker 1**: that and the Wii. *01:11:27* **Speaker 1**: I mean, Zelda's been a da a day one sort of console both for new stuff and revisions. *01:11:28* **Speaker 1**: Yeah, I'm I would love to see it. *01:11:35* **Speaker 1**: Um I think that's a really good guess. *01:11:37* **Speaker 2**: And you think when you're pairing it with a game like The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild, I mean *01:11:39* **Speaker 2**: For as amazing of a video game year as twenty seventeen was, for that to be the runaway, you know, game of the year. *01:11:44* **Speaker 2**: you know, games since have looked to would be like how can we design our open world better? *01:11:53* **Speaker 2**: I think yeah, to set that up. *01:11:58* **Speaker 2**: Yeah, right, exactly. *01:12:00* **Speaker 2**: So I think that's a good pairing that, you know, if you want to get attention to Switch Pro, especially if you want it that hardcore audience to follow, yeah, that's *01:12:02* **Speaker 2**: It's quite a good game to start that with. *01:12:11* **Speaker 2**: And and then, you know, the open world Pokemon game too. *01:12:13* **Speaker 2**: It's it seems like a sound strategy. *01:12:15* **Speaker 1**: I my fear my fear is *01:12:18* **Speaker 1**: That Nintendo is going to keep going with these um limited edition theme switches. *01:12:22* **Speaker 1**: Uh Animal Crossing, Super Mario Bros. *01:12:27* **Speaker 1**: And um at some point this year they will continue to celebrate Zelda's thirty-fifth anniversary and uh reveal a standard Nintendo Switch. *01:12:30* **Speaker 1**: Or a switch light, who knows? *01:12:39* **Speaker 1**: Um, that is Zelda themed. *01:12:41* **Speaker 1**: And I'm gonna be so upset. *01:12:43* **Speaker 2**: They've already revealed those Joy-Cons, yeah. *01:12:46* **Speaker 2**: Maybe they put it in an actual system *01:12:48* **Speaker 1**: I I do have uh the Joy-Cons ready to go, um, along with the game because uh me and Zelda themed items go hand in hand. *01:12:51* **Speaker 1**: I still I still have my Wiimo. *01:13:01* **Speaker 1**: Uh *01:13:03* **Speaker 1**: My Majora's Mask 3DS. *01:13:04* **Speaker 1**: I've I've got the the Wind Waker Wii U. *01:13:05* **Speaker 2**: Yes. *01:13:08* **Speaker 1**: Remember that? *01:13:09* **Speaker 1**: The only special Wii U. *01:13:10* **Speaker 1**: Oh yeah. *01:13:12* **Speaker 1**: I really hope they they don't and they save it for the Switch Pro, because eventually there will be a Zelda system, I'm sure. *01:13:13* **Speaker 1**: Um we'll see how that goes, but I I have a feeling that they're gonna milk us for all we're worth. *01:13:19* **Speaker 1**: As is their right. *01:13:26* **Speaker 2**: But honestly, good for Nintendo. *01:13:28* **Speaker 2**: I mean, you look at their stock today, $75. *01:13:30* **Speaker 2**: 40 or so a share. *01:13:34* **Speaker 2**: It was *01:13:36* **Speaker 2**: 2878 a couple days before switch launch. *01:13:37* **Speaker 2**: I mean so yeah they were in some dire straits. *01:13:41* **Speaker 2**: They're they're doing well. *01:13:43* **Speaker 2**: And they've hopefully they can, you know, open that *01:13:44* **Speaker 2**: Theme park once things get better in Japan. *01:13:47* **Speaker 1**: Yeah, and here in Florida, they're they just actually announced the construction for uh that new Universal Park which will contain *01:13:50* **Speaker 1**: Super Mario um has begun. *01:13:58* **Speaker 1**: So Oh, I can't wait. *01:14:00* **Speaker 1**: Oh my gosh. *01:14:02* **Speaker 1**: I'm gonna have to. *01:14:03* **Speaker 1**: It's gonna be one of those things uh d when you live so close to all these theme parks and new stuff comes, it uh *01:14:05* **Speaker 1**: Sometimes you're like, do I really want to fight the crowds for this? *01:14:12* **Speaker 1**: Like I can just go and but Nintendo Land or Super Nintendo World, I'm being like, whoo. *01:14:14* **Speaker 1**: I might have to fight the crowds for that one. *01:14:20* **Speaker 1**: Um because when it opens, crowds will be able to be together in the open all the time. *01:14:23* **Speaker 1**: And it'll be great. *01:14:30* **Speaker 1**: Yeah. *01:14:31* **Speaker 1**: I'm Nintendo is riding high right now, and I'm really looking forward to their future. *01:14:32* **Speaker 1**: And I think uh they've got some good stuff lined up, but I'm *01:14:36* **Speaker 1**: Switch needs a little juice, so hopefully they get that out there. *01:14:40* **Speaker 1**: I wanted to also I wanted to ask you. *01:14:43* **Speaker 1**: I saw this article the other day, or I think maybe been last month on The Verge. *01:14:46* **Speaker 1**: Talking about Mark Cuban, Shark Tank Man, um investing in like some podcast app that basically is gonna have let hosts talk to listeners live. *01:14:51* **Speaker 1**: And I I actually uh quoted the the article on Twitter and said so a a radio talk and show because that's exactly what it is. *01:15:02* **Speaker 1**: And then Mark Cuban's company would make money off of that somehow, I'm sure. *01:15:11* **Speaker 1**: And it made it reminded me of your show that you did, the Power Switch, where you had a a call-in radio show for video games and it was a podcast format. *01:15:17* **Speaker 1**: And I was I was a fan of that. *01:15:26* **Speaker 1**: I was actually on the show um at one point episode *01:15:27* **Speaker 1**: 38 on September 23rd, 2017, and I called in a couple of times as well. *01:15:30* **Speaker 1**: Use Discord to have people call in *01:15:36* **Speaker 1**: But I I saw this article and then you see Clubhouse kind of taking off in this social um media where people just jump on calls and talk and now Twitter's doing it with spaces. *01:15:38* **Speaker 1**: It's like *01:15:50* **Speaker 1**: How does that stuff make you feel? *01:15:51* **Speaker 1**: Like I feel like you were you had the idea to take something from radio and sports and bring it to games. *01:15:54* **Speaker 1**: And it it didn't uh uh you don't do the show anymore, as far as I'm aware. *01:16:01* **Speaker 1**: If you have been, I'm sorry. *01:16:06* **Speaker 1**: I've missed it. *01:16:07* **Speaker 2**: No, no, I do not do the show anymore. *01:16:08* **Speaker 2**: But but how's that make you feel? *01:16:11* **Speaker 2**: It makes me feel like the idea was right. *01:16:14* **Speaker 2**: The idea is still there. *01:16:19* **Speaker 2**: No one has *01:16:20* **Speaker 2**: Done it since. *01:16:22* **Speaker 2**: You know, I I keep always thinking, like, you know, there there are two podcast ideas that one I did get to try with the power switch, as you mentioned. *01:16:24* **Speaker 2**: The other, like I've always kicked around in pilot form and you know did at one point, you know, way back when 12 years ago, oh my gosh. *01:16:33* **Speaker 2**: Uh but I love *01:16:41* **Speaker 2**: talk radio, especially when it comes to sports. *01:16:45* **Speaker 2**: I love you know debate when it's when it comes to sports. *01:16:48* **Speaker 2**: These are the well-tread formats and genres when it comes to *01:16:52* **Speaker 2**: formats on radio or formats on television. *01:16:57* **Speaker 2**: And as the video game industry grows more and more, I've always thought, you know, we need *01:17:00* **Speaker 2**: Uh the industry needs there needs to be some sort of call and talk radio format to talk about game news, ideally *01:17:05* **Speaker 2**: in the moment, you know, on the day when the conversation and the topics are hot. *01:17:13* **Speaker 1**: When that when that smash character is revealed, when Ridley shows up, people need to talk about it. *01:17:17* **Speaker 2**: Yeah, yeah, and so there's that, but I I'm a big big sucker. *01:17:24* **Speaker 2**: Love pardon the interruption. *01:17:28* **Speaker 2**: And so *01:17:30* **Speaker 2**: the the less than half hour debate format of the day, you know, week, whatever format you want to do that in, uh so digestible in in podcast format. *01:17:31* **Speaker 2**: It just takes the right host, the right combination. *01:17:40* **Speaker 2**: Like it's it's been ideas that have just always *01:17:43* **Speaker 2**: stuck with me. *01:17:46* **Speaker 2**: And so when I see these different uh you know formats pop up with yeah Mark Cuban and and you know Clubhouse and spaces and Jeff Keeley trying to you know do something on on spaces, uh things like that, it's *01:17:47* **Speaker 2**: It makes me think like there is there's promise there, but it's it's gonna be some time before someone else takes up and runs with the idea to a success that like I *01:17:59* **Speaker 2**: envisioned and hoped originally. *01:18:11* **Speaker 2**: The the tough thing is like in a an age where internet marketing yourself is at an all-time difficult high. *01:18:13* **Speaker 2**: Uh it's it's so it's so so trying and so tedious and and it's tough. *01:18:19* **Speaker 2**: Uh but *01:18:24* **Speaker 2**: you know, to get that audience uh you know kind of devoted there and so how how do you grow that audience? *01:18:26* **Speaker 2**: I feel like when I was doing that that power switch show, one of the toughest *01:18:32* **Speaker 2**: moments I had doing that was, you know, like let's try to do some episodes live on Twitch, right? *01:18:37* **Speaker 2**: Twitch is the audience there and you know *01:18:45* **Speaker 2**: if you know, they'd call into that, you know, that podcast or talk shows or whatever they had a channel and they'd see something like that, maybe that'll get their attention, help grow the audience of people who are *01:18:48* **Speaker 2**: Passionate and no discord and can can maybe talk about uh you know the game news in a productive way *01:18:59* **Speaker 2**: And uh, you know, had you know trolls come across one of my live shows and they called in and it just it *01:19:07* **Speaker 2**: you know, hurt. *01:19:15* **Speaker 2**: That that sucked. *01:19:16* **Speaker 2**: Uh to have you know just to be, you know, kind of shell shocked by that. *01:19:17* **Speaker 2**: And I feel like that's *01:19:21* **Speaker 2**: The big challenge, honestly, when it comes to that kind of you need someone to uh you know kind of screen the calls and moderate there was *01:19:23* **Speaker 2**: Yeah, moderated. *01:19:31* **Speaker 2**: There was a way I was trying to do that at the time, and it worked well for a smaller audience, but you know, it didn't have the idea to win it if it ever scaled big, right? *01:19:32* **Speaker 2**: Right. *01:19:41* **Speaker 2**: So even then, you know, the this fireside app, the the one Cuban in is investing in, like I I feel like there *01:19:42* **Speaker 2**: uh they still have to launch it first of all. *01:19:50* **Speaker 2**: Like it's still in development. *01:19:53* **Speaker 2**: It's in beta. *01:19:54* **Speaker 2**: Um I will be very interested to see where that goes and yeah, if anyone in the industry ever actually takes off with *01:19:56* **Speaker 2**: either the the talk radio kind of call in format or, you know, the the PTI debate format for games. *01:20:05* **Speaker 2**: Because it's *01:20:12* **Speaker 2**: It's right there. *01:20:13* **Speaker 2**: And uh I've I've taken. *01:20:14* **Speaker 1**: Yeah, it it really is. *01:20:17* **Speaker 1**: It really is. *01:20:19* **Speaker 1**: Did you listen uh in on Keeley's call with Reggie? *01:20:20* **Speaker 1**: I think it was a we last week *01:20:25* **Speaker 1**: I did not yet, no. *01:20:27* **Speaker 1**: Um so I did. *01:20:28* **Speaker 1**: I I decided 'cause I I I f I found Clubhouse very interesting. *01:20:30* **Speaker 1**: Um *01:20:35* **Speaker 1**: I mean I'm in Clubhouse and then uh Spaces I on Twitter and Twitter has been my bread and butter for far too long. *01:20:36* **Speaker 1**: And so it was super fascinating with it. *01:20:44* **Speaker 1**: I actually recorded the call and I I even threw it up on my YouTube channel. *01:20:45* **Speaker 1**: I was like, this should be up here and uh for posterity's sake and no one seems to have *01:20:48* **Speaker 1**: said, hey, take that down. *01:20:53* **Speaker 1**: Because it was just a l that's the thing about Clubhouse and Spaces is this alive and in the moment thing. *01:20:55* **Speaker 1**: And you can definitely tell uh *01:21:01* **Speaker 1**: That some people uh don't have the equipment or know what they're doing. *01:21:04* **Speaker 1**: Um it it's very rough in the sense that it's it is live and it is what's happening now, and it's giving uh access to *01:21:08* **Speaker 1**: m millions of people to just talk and pretend they know what they're talking about. *01:21:17* **Speaker 1**: And it some people do know what they're talking about and they hop they have panels with other people and that's interesting. *01:21:21* **Speaker 1**: Uh but I I find it an interesting space where things could take off. *01:21:28* **Speaker 1**: And I'm Keely now is trying to do a weekly thing on Thursdays. *01:21:33* **Speaker 1**: I put uh tomorrow I'm gonna try and catch it. *01:21:38* **Speaker 1**: But it was interesting to see people virtually raise their hand and Keeley would choose them out of a hat and bring them up. *01:21:40* **Speaker 1**: on stage to ask a question. *01:21:51* **Speaker 1**: It r honestly reminded me of um like a panel at a convention. *01:21:52* **Speaker 1**: You got a lot of packs or something. *01:21:56* **Speaker 1**: But instead of walking around awkwardly with a microphone, these people could ask a question or two and have *01:21:58* **Speaker 1**: famous people answer them. *01:22:04* **Speaker 2**: And I'm But then what happens when someone goes bubba buoy, bubble buoy, or something like that? *01:22:06* **Speaker 1**: So this the the the the one with Reggie, uh one of *01:22:12* **Speaker 1**: The people, he did he wasn't quite like that. *01:22:16* **Speaker 1**: He um he asked Reggie, he started off with *01:22:18* **Speaker 1**: Do you know who Dunky is? *01:22:24* **Speaker 1**: And I was like, oh boy, here we go. *01:22:25* **Speaker 1**: Okay. *01:22:28* **Speaker 1**: All right. *01:22:28* **Speaker 1**: It did turn into like a nice compliment. *01:22:29* **Speaker 1**: He was like, Dunky, you know, Dunky's how I *01:22:32* **Speaker 1**: you became aware of who you were, which I thought was interesting in and of itself. *01:22:35* **Speaker 1**: Like Dunky Dunky has educated people on the existence of Reggie Fizeme, former president of Nintendo of America. *01:22:39* **Speaker 1**: Like that in my head that would never happen, but *01:22:46* **Speaker 1**: according to this person, it did. *01:22:49* **Speaker 1**: Um and he he he thanked him for that and was like, you know, I love I I watch what you do and I I think it's great. *01:22:51* **Speaker 1**: And then *01:22:57* **Speaker 1**: Then he suggested that Reggie follow Dunky on Twitter, which again kind of leaned back into the the joke. *01:22:58* **Speaker 1**: It was it was lighthearted, it could have derailed really hard, um, but thankfully it didn't *01:23:03* **Speaker 1**: And I that's the part where I don't quite know how how this could grow in it for for games in that sense. *01:23:10* **Speaker 1**: I don't know. *01:23:20* **Speaker 1**: I *01:23:20* **Speaker 1**: It's interesting. *01:23:21* **Speaker 1**: It's very experimental right now. *01:23:22* **Speaker 1**: But I always I I think back to you in the power switch and was like, but we already tried that, didn't we? *01:23:23* **Speaker 1**: Um and it it feels like that because I was involved with you and your community and like I was aware of it, but *01:23:29* **Speaker 1**: Sure. *01:23:34* **Speaker 1**: It's the scale of it. *01:23:34* **Speaker 1**: And I really the other thing about like Clubhouse in particular and Twitter to an extent is like Clubhouse, you there's not a brand, like you can't have a brand account on Clubhouse. *01:23:36* **Speaker 1**: So to speak. *01:23:48* **Speaker 1**: Like you can't have the the IGN Clubhouse channel. *01:23:48* **Speaker 1**: Like who's talking for that? *01:23:54* **Speaker 1**: Who represents that brand? *01:23:55* **Speaker 1**: And on Twitter, there are brands obviously on Twitter, but again *01:23:57* **Speaker 1**: If IGN hosted a space, so many names to keep track of, if they hosted that, like who is representing that account, so to speak, it's better to have individuals, which I think is why Jeff. *01:24:02* **Speaker 1**: doing it and bringing someone on. *01:24:15* **Speaker 1**: I think he's having Joseph Farris on tomorrow to talk about his new game, It Takes Two. *01:24:17* **Speaker 1**: Like that draws people in. *01:24:23* **Speaker 1**: But I don't know how you could have a brand do it. *01:24:26* **Speaker 1**: And so *01:24:28* **Speaker 1**: To me, that seems like a possible limit of growth for gaming. *01:24:29* **Speaker 1**: You need the personality, not so much the brand recognition. *01:24:34* **Speaker 1**: And if so, how do you draw that back to *01:24:38* **Speaker 1**: your site and not to the individuals hosting it. *01:24:41* **Speaker 1**: I I don't know. *01:24:44* **Speaker 1**: It fascinating times. *01:24:45* **Speaker 1**: For sure. *01:24:47* **Speaker 2**: And Jeff Keeley gives it legitimacy, for sure. *01:24:48* **Speaker 2**: Uh definitely has the audience to kind of *01:24:51* **Speaker 2**: Grow and tap into that. *01:24:54* **Speaker 2**: And he's got the connections to bring in great guests. *01:24:55* **Speaker 2**: I think I'm at the Reggie. *01:24:58* **Speaker 2**: Right, exactly. *01:25:01* **Speaker 2**: So I I think I'm at the point where like I'm *01:25:02* **Speaker 2**: more interested to see these kind of ideas work as show formats for the game industry, whereas in my younger years it would have been like, yeah, it should be I I can take the charge. *01:25:05* **Speaker 2**: I have the know-how. *01:25:14* **Speaker 2**: I can do this. *01:25:15* **Speaker 2**: I think I can *01:25:15* **Speaker 2**: talk it out and all that, but at this point it's just like the you know, the ideas are there, the technology is continuing to grow. *01:25:16* **Speaker 2**: I I just yeah, it'll be interesting to see this kind of *01:25:23* **Speaker 2**: uh format be tested and tweaked and prodded and see where the flaws are and see if honestly the internet is ready for a a positive productive conversation. *01:25:27* **Speaker 1**: I don't know if the internet's ready to be positive so to sp so much. *01:25:38* **Speaker 1**: Then maybe one can be curated. *01:25:43* **Speaker 1**: Let's let's say that. *01:25:45* **Speaker 1**: Definitely. *01:25:47* **Speaker 1**: I *01:25:48* **Speaker 1**: Yeah, yeah, we'll see how moderation tools and things like that are involved with um clubhouse and spaces and *01:25:48* **Speaker 1**: fireside whenever that decides to launch um and how that'll take a hold. *01:25:57* **Speaker 1**: I feel like a bunch of companies are trying to reinvent podcasts and really *01:26:01* **Speaker 1**: like podcasting, like how it works and Spotify and things like that. *01:26:07* **Speaker 1**: And it's like, well podcasting's fine, but how do you re-invigorate the the format of the show, not necessarily how you make *01:26:11* **Speaker 1**: Money off the show or deliver the show. *01:26:18* **Speaker 1**: Right. *01:26:25* **Speaker 1**: needs to have Breath of the Wild. *01:26:26* **Speaker 1**: Maybe. *01:26:31* **Speaker 1**: Um and speaking of Breath of the Wild from earlier in the Sweet Reveal trailer *01:26:32* **Speaker 1**: about the launch date, uh, music. *01:26:39* **Speaker 1**: I b uh you threw this in here. *01:26:41* **Speaker 1**: Because I I don't remember this. *01:26:44* **Speaker 1**: Uh well I didn't add this. *01:26:46* **Speaker 1**: It's uh just not that I didn't remember it. *01:26:47* **Speaker 1**: I know I didn't add it. *01:26:49* **Speaker 1**: Um, you threw this in here. *01:26:50* **Speaker 1**: You you do have a podcast now. *01:26:52* **Speaker 1**: Um, you've been doing it for over a hundred episodes. *01:26:54* **Speaker 1**: Uh original sound chat. *01:26:57* **Speaker 1**: Where you and Joe is it De Vader? *01:26:59* **Speaker 1**: Yep. *01:27:03* **Speaker 1**: Yep. *01:27:03* **Speaker 1**: Yep. *01:27:04* **Speaker 1**: Joe De Vader. *01:27:04* **Speaker 1**: Talk about two different video game soundtracks, composers. *01:27:06* **Speaker 1**: And really the kind of like the history and synap, you know, general information about the game. *01:27:09* **Speaker 1**: You've been doing that for a hundred episodes. *01:27:16* **Speaker 1**: Um *01:27:18* **Speaker 1**: What you tell me about that. *01:27:19* **Speaker 2**: Yeah, so I I threw this in here because I mean at the end of the day, if we we get back down to plugs and who I am and what I'm here. *01:27:20* **Speaker 2**: So like yeah, this the show original sound chat. *01:27:27* **Speaker 2**: We've done this for more than two years. *01:27:30* **Speaker 2**: We've *01:27:32* **Speaker 2**: hit an episode every week since then and like that's that's always daunting and uh kind of amazed that we've been doing that since then. *01:27:33* **Speaker 2**: But yeah, it's it's the idea that Joe and I, we each bring a game of our choosing. *01:27:41* **Speaker 2**: to the show that we want to talk about. *01:27:46* **Speaker 2**: And it's all in a love of video game music. *01:27:48* **Speaker 2**: You know, w what are these these soundtracks that we love? *01:27:51* **Speaker 2**: Important game music that we'd like to talk about. *01:27:54* **Speaker 2**: Or sometimes when, you know, people recommend games *01:27:57* **Speaker 2**: Some you know we haven't played them. *01:28:00* **Speaker 2**: Sometimes it takes some learning, some some know-how, uh some research. *01:28:02* **Speaker 2**: So the gist of it is yes it's the people stories and the critical tracks behind the games. *01:28:07* **Speaker 2**: So *01:28:13* **Speaker 2**: I feel like if you're gonna try to appeal to beyond an audience that lives and breathes games, you know, there are gonna be games that some people don't know about or some people aren't too in tune with the game industry. *01:28:14* **Speaker 2**: So you kinda have to like *01:28:26* **Speaker 2**: open up the conversation of like what the game generally is. *01:28:28* **Speaker 2**: What are some of the basic, you know, information about it. *01:28:31* **Speaker 2**: What is the game? *01:28:35* **Speaker 2**: Is it a 2D platformer? *01:28:35* **Speaker 2**: Is it a a 3D open world action event? *01:28:37* **Speaker 2**: You know, things like that. *01:28:40* **Speaker 2**: But then you can kind of get into the nitty-gritty some of the development details neat little trivia that you can pull out of it. *01:28:42* **Speaker 2**: Those are always really interesting to you know *01:28:49* **Speaker 2**: doing these deep dives into interviews and old archives and, you know, reading all that and try kind of relay some of that information for those that do care a little more about games. *01:28:51* **Speaker 2**: And then you get to the soundtrack and when it comes to uh the composer, you know, first and foremost, like the the main composer, because will we then tie, you know, an individual or a band or *01:29:01* **Speaker 2**: Who's responsible for the music for the game? *01:29:13* **Speaker 2**: And then do research there. *01:29:16* **Speaker 2**: You know, s some neat stuff that you we come across there. *01:29:18* **Speaker 2**: Like *01:29:22* **Speaker 2**: What instrument did they play growing up? *01:29:22* **Speaker 2**: What was their path to working in video game music? *01:29:24* **Speaker 2**: Uh now that we've reached, you know, we're recording episode 111 this week. *01:29:28* **Speaker 2**: Once we get to that point and we you know double up the composers and we have talked about so many already, you start to hit a certain point where if you want to revisit certain game franchises or or certain games and you've already talked about the composer *01:29:33* **Speaker 2**: Well, now you're digging into mm well people who contributed other compositions to the game, or a a vocalist, a musician who worked on the game. *01:29:45* **Speaker 2**: Uh you know, for example, Journey. *01:29:55* **Speaker 2**: We didn't cover Journey early on. *01:29:57* **Speaker 2**: We talked about uh *01:29:59* **Speaker 2**: Assassin's Creed Syndicate was a game I brought to the table, but that was the composer Austin Wintory. *01:30:00* **Speaker 2**: Well Austin Wintry's primarily known for his work on Journey, but when we get to Journey eventually uh okay, Austin Wintry did all the music *01:30:05* **Speaker 2**: Let's focus on Tina Guo, the the cellist who is featured in in the game's music. *01:30:13* **Speaker 2**: So I mean, then she's got a a a career, a history, worked on so many different games. *01:30:19* **Speaker 2**: So *01:30:23* **Speaker 2**: It's it's a fascinating uh you know deep dive. *01:30:24* **Speaker 2**: You learn something new every week. *01:30:26* **Speaker 2**: I think it we certainly do during the show and working on it. *01:30:28* **Speaker 2**: And I feel like that's something that keeps us going for sure. *01:30:31* **Speaker 1**: I I certainly did. *01:30:34* **Speaker 1**: I so I listened to uh at the time that we uh you know, scheduled this our little show here *01:30:35* **Speaker 1**: I um uh it was Metal Gear Solid 3 and No More Heroes. *01:30:43* **Speaker 1**: Yes. *01:30:48* **Speaker 1**: And first of all, Metal Gear Solid 3 is my favorite Metal Gear game, so it was the perfect kind of episode to *01:30:48* **Speaker 1**: like really refresh myself on the show format and kind of just see where it is now two years later. *01:30:55* **Speaker 1**: And *01:31:02* **Speaker 1**: Holy smokes, you blew my mind. *01:31:04* **Speaker 1**: First of all, no one knows who's the voice of Eva is. *01:31:06* **Speaker 1**: I did not know this. *01:31:09* **Speaker 1**: And second of all, everyone thinks that it's Ariel from The Little Mermaid. *01:31:10* **Speaker 1**: Are you kidding me? *01:31:14* **Speaker 1**: Yeah. *01:31:16* **Speaker 1**: I showed *01:31:16* **Speaker 1**: So The Little Mermaid is uh Abby's favorite Disney princess movie. *01:31:18* **Speaker 1**: And so I played I was like Abby, Abby, Abby. *01:31:23* **Speaker 1**: You need to listen to this clip. *01:31:27* **Speaker 1**: And so I just I g went on YouTube and found like the Eva introduction. *01:31:28* **Speaker 1**: I was like, whose voice is this? *01:31:33* **Speaker 1**: And she didn't know at first and I said, it's a Disney princess. *01:31:36* **Speaker 1**: And then her eyes went. *01:31:40* **Speaker 1**: Or, you know, it could be a Disney princess. *01:31:44* **Speaker 1**: Holy smokes. *01:31:46* **Speaker 1**: blew my mind. *01:31:48* **Speaker 2**: You hear it and it's like, yeah, that's actually really believable. *01:31:49* **Speaker 2**: You h you hear those those tones there. *01:31:52* **Speaker 2**: But I mean yeah, what an episode to reacquaint yourself with. *01:31:55* **Speaker 2**: I think we're super proud of that one because uh we've kind of been hitting our stride recently with, you know *01:31:57* **Speaker 2**: Video game composers, musicians, like they don't have always the big followings on Twitter. *01:32:03* **Speaker 2**: They don't have, you know, the recognition for their work. *01:32:08* **Speaker 2**: And so trying to shout them out through the social media and promotion and all that good stuff *01:32:11* **Speaker 2**: I it's it's amazing some of the feedback we've received recently and so for Metal Gear Solid 3 when we uh we've talked about Notihiko Hibino who did a lot of the music in that game. *01:32:16* **Speaker 2**: Harry Gregson Williams also gets a lot of the *01:32:25* **Speaker 2**: The big name for the soundtrack. *01:32:28* **Speaker 2**: We talked about him for Metal Gear Solid 2. *01:32:29* **Speaker 2**: So like those were kind of covered. *01:32:32* **Speaker 2**: We had those covered. *01:32:33* **Speaker 2**: Oh, the vocalist for Snake Eater *01:32:34* **Speaker 2**: Well it's a woman known uh with the name Cynthia Harrell. *01:32:37* **Speaker 2**: And uh what's her story? *01:32:41* **Speaker 2**: And um my goodness, learning about mind blowing *01:32:42* **Speaker 2**: Yeah, yeah, like learning about her history and what she's gone through throughout her career and the interaction she's had with Hideo Kojima. *01:32:46* **Speaker 2**: But then to reach out to her and to get the feedback from her of how she listened and it brought her to tears. *01:32:56* **Speaker 2**: Like, are you kidding me? *01:33:03* **Speaker 2**: It's one of these things where it's like, yeah, you know *01:33:05* **Speaker 2**: Certain podcasts starting out if you have only a certain audience where you may not pull in the big numbers and and you know that's one thing, but when you get feedback like that *01:33:08* **Speaker 2**: When we had our episode for uh Sonic Mania and Street Fighter Cross Mega Man, uh when we got feedback from both T Lopes *01:33:17* **Speaker 2**: and Luke a rival Escabel to say like, hey, you guys did your homework. *01:33:27* **Speaker 2**: Like really nice job. *01:33:32* **Speaker 2**: This was great to you like it's so rewarding and it like it makes the show kind of worth doing to Joe and me. *01:33:33* **Speaker 2**: So you know *01:33:40* **Speaker 2**: We love talking about game music and game tracks and all that coming up. *01:33:42* **Speaker 2**: So definitely check out the show, original sound chat on podcast services wherever you go. *01:33:47* **Speaker 2**: That's that's where I am most visible, most uh *01:33:52* **Speaker 2**: Audible most often on the internet, so yeah. *01:33:56* **Speaker 2**: Yeah. *01:33:59* **Speaker 1**: Audible works. *01:33:59* **Speaker 1**: You you also wrote your favorite game soundtracks. *01:34:01* **Speaker 2**: So Well yeah, I just didn't know if like you had any certain game music soundtracks that really you know hit you or like that you want to see covered on the show or like favorites that always stick out in your mind. *01:34:04* **Speaker 1**: I do. *01:34:17* **Speaker 1**: Uh I listen video game music is like the reason I have a record player. *01:34:18* **Speaker 1**: I love my vinyl soundtracks and things like that. *01:34:22* **Speaker 2**: You collect the vinyls. *01:34:25* **Speaker 2**: I do. *01:34:25* **Speaker 1**: to get games like that I truly truly care about, like the music and the or the game itself. *01:34:30* **Speaker 1**: Sometimes I've bought stuff uh *01:34:35* **Speaker 1**: I was gonna say sight unseen, but maybe I should say sawn unheard. *01:34:38* **Speaker 1**: Um like I bought the Spider-Man PS4 soundtrack without hearing it first. *01:34:41* **Speaker 1**: But that panned out pretty good. *01:34:48* **Speaker 1**: Um it did. *01:34:49* **Speaker 1**: It did. *01:34:50* **Speaker 1**: At least the swinging song where you're swinging around the city. *01:34:51* **Speaker 1**: Um I piv I I pivoted around to look at it. *01:34:55* **Speaker 1**: I have the banjo Kazooie one. *01:34:57* **Speaker 1**: From uh Abby bought that for me for Christmas when you're I have three of the four Shovel Knight soundtracks and the fourth on the way eventually. *01:35:00* **Speaker 1**: Um so I'll finally have all of Shovel Knight. *01:35:08* **Speaker 1**: But and then Celeste. *01:35:11* **Speaker 1**: I listen to Celeste constantly. *01:35:13* **Speaker 1**: Constantly. *01:35:16* **Speaker 1**: It's unhealthy probably. *01:35:17* **Speaker 1**: But this actually *01:35:18* **Speaker 1**: sparked another question in me. *01:35:20* **Speaker 1**: But maybe I maybe I should let you answer the question about your favorite game soundtracks first. *01:35:23* **Speaker 2**: Oh gosh. *01:35:27* **Speaker 2**: I mean, yeah, I think, you know, the Persona series, there there are so many uh soundtracks that's so that's like *01:35:28* **Speaker 2**: quintessential. *01:35:35* **Speaker 2**: You know, when I think of game music, I think of that first. *01:35:36* **Speaker 2**: I also think of when it comes to Metal Gear, like when I there's the question of like what *01:35:39* **Speaker 2**: Game soundtrack, do you want to be the music that plays in your life? *01:35:44* **Speaker 2**: And I I think of Metal Gear Solid 2. *01:35:49* **Speaker 2**: Like that's just an amazing score. *01:35:51* **Speaker 2**: Um we talk about uh constantly I feel like Joe and I talk about how Chrono Trigger is the one that we had the most difficult time. *01:35:54* **Speaker 2**: picking our you know our critical tracks like narrowing that down like is just impossible so many great stuff there I think of near auto *01:36:04* **Speaker 2**: I think of Nier Automata, I think of Metal Gearizing Revengeance and its amazing boss fight themes. *01:36:14* **Speaker 2**: Uh and one that I have coming up in several weeks that I'm bringing to original sound chat, Final Fantasy XV. *01:36:21* **Speaker 2**: Yokoshimamura is just amazing. *01:36:28* **Speaker 2**: I mean her was a very good thing. *01:36:30* **Speaker 2**: She crushes everywhere. *01:36:31* **Speaker 2**: Amazing. *01:36:33* **Speaker 2**: But yeah, that one I feel like not enough people talk about how great Final Fantasy 15 score is. *01:36:33* **Speaker 2**: So yeah, there are just so many great *01:36:39* **Speaker 2**: So many great video game music soundtracks out there. *01:36:41* **Speaker 2**: So I just wanted to get a sense that we've also got Banjo Kazooie coming up, don't worry. *01:36:44* **Speaker 2**: That was one where it was like *01:36:48* **Speaker 2**: We've talked about Grant Kirkhope already and he did all the music. *01:36:49* **Speaker 2**: What are we doing? *01:36:52* **Speaker 2**: So we're kind of taking a little more creative route to to pick someone new for that that episode. *01:36:54* **Speaker 1**: But yeah, Banjo Kazooie will be coming *01:37:00* **Speaker 1**: Did you did you may you probably you seem more in touch with the music game scene than I am, but did you know that uh Yoko Shimura did Partners in Time, like the Mar and the G games? *01:37:02* **Speaker 1**: Come on. *01:37:14* **Speaker 2**: Yeah. *01:37:15* **Speaker 2**: She she's everywhere. *01:37:16* **Speaker 2**: And like it's it's amazing. *01:37:17* **Speaker 2**: Even going back to her original themes for Street Fighter 2. *01:37:18* **Speaker 2**: I mean, it's just a legend. *01:37:22* **Speaker 2**: So so good. *01:37:24* **Speaker 2**: I w will follow whatever she does. *01:37:24* **Speaker 2**: Uh it's even then you pick up, you know, composers like Nobuo Uimatsu, uh, you know, for all of his legendary Final Fantasy work and uh the news from this week of Fantasian *01:37:27* **Speaker 2**: of Hironobu Sakaguchi's Mistwalker, yeah, making this this fantasian game, an RPG uh for Apple Arcade, kind of meant to be a serious RPG in that *01:37:37* **Speaker 2**: environment uh with that's the game where they uh hand modeled all the environments and scanned in all those dioramas and it looks *01:37:48* **Speaker 2**: lifelike for those backgrounds. *01:37:56* **Speaker 2**: But yeah, Uematsu doing the score. *01:37:57* **Speaker 2**: I yeah, you kidding me? *01:37:59* **Speaker 1**: Fantastic. *01:38:00* **Speaker 1**: It's gonna be dope. *01:38:01* **Speaker 1**: So your question about favorite game soundtracks made me think about *01:38:03* **Speaker 1**: um this I guess this thing I do a lot and I'm I'm curious if you do it and maybe other people do it, but do you ever *01:38:08* **Speaker 1**: Like you want to play a game. *01:38:17* **Speaker 1**: You think you think about a game, you're like, man, I'd love to replay that right now. *01:38:18* **Speaker 1**: Um Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze. *01:38:22* **Speaker 1**: Man, I'd love a great platformer. *01:38:24* **Speaker 1**: And then *01:38:26* **Speaker 1**: You're like, man, well, I can't do that right now. *01:38:28* **Speaker 1**: I'm working or driving or whatever. *01:38:30* **Speaker 1**: I'll listen to the soundtrack. *01:38:32* **Speaker 1**: And you throw on those beats, David Wise coming in, you're like *01:38:34* **Speaker 1**: Boo. *01:38:38* **Speaker 1**: Boo doo. *01:38:38* **Speaker 1**: It's awesome. *01:38:40* **Speaker 1**: Uh and then after I'm done listening to soundtrack, I'm like, I'm good. *01:38:41* **Speaker 1**: I don't need to play the game anymore. *01:38:44* **Speaker 1**: So I like when I want to play a game but I don't have the time, I listen to the soundtrack, and then I get my fill. *01:38:45* **Speaker 1**: And I think that's interesting. *01:38:51* **Speaker 1**: Do you do that? *01:38:52* **Speaker 2**: Yeah, yeah, of course. *01:38:53* **Speaker 2**: And I I think when I think of Metal Gear Rising Revengeance *01:38:55* **Speaker 2**: The game, it's it's okay. *01:38:59* **Speaker 2**: Some people definitely dig it, but it's it's not one I want to go back through just for those amazing boss moments, but *01:39:02* **Speaker 2**: Yeah, you get those moments of you know those songs where he starts with the instrumental and then have the vocals kick in. *01:39:09* **Speaker 2**: Uh it's it's just it's magical. *01:39:18* **Speaker 2**: It's it's great stuff. *01:39:20* **Speaker 2**: So that's the one that immediately comes to mind. *01:39:21* **Speaker 2**: It's like, uh do I you know do I really want to play the game or do I really just want to listen to *01:39:23* **Speaker 2**: that that soundtrack. *01:39:28* **Speaker 2**: Um you know Near Automata is a beefy game. *01:39:30* **Speaker 2**: It's an amazing game, but do I just need to hear *01:39:32* **Speaker 2**: the amusement park theme and like then I'm I'm good. *01:39:36* **Speaker 1**: I can r I can coast off this for a while. *01:39:40* **Speaker 2**: Mm-hmm. *01:39:43* **Speaker 1**: Yeah. *01:39:44* **Speaker 1**: I've my my f now that persona's on streaming services *01:39:44* **Speaker 1**: Who I've been on a Persona 4 and 5 kick. *01:39:50* **Speaker 1**: Um even not that this is on streaming services, but sometimes they even throw on the brawl soundtrack uh to tie it into earlier because *01:39:54* **Speaker 1**: Whew. *01:40:02* **Speaker 1**: Oh, what a soundtrack. *01:40:03* **Speaker 1**: The uh Halberd. *01:40:05* **Speaker 1**: I love that level. *01:40:07* **Speaker 2**: Yeah, yeah. *01:40:08* **Speaker 1**: Anyway, I love it. *01:40:12* **Speaker 1**: Um video game music is great. *01:40:13* **Speaker 1**: And I love I I think the show you two are doing is actually *01:40:16* **Speaker 1**: Super smart. *01:40:21* **Speaker 1**: Um it's again the the the Metal Gear Solid 3 episode, which I'll throw in the show notes along with the Sonic Mania and the the actual page for all these episodes and stuff. *01:40:22* **Speaker 1**: I I didn't expect to learn so much. *01:40:34* **Speaker 1**: I was like, oh yeah, we'll listen to some music. *01:40:37* **Speaker 1**: It'll be great. *01:40:39* **Speaker 1**: And then it was like, Jody Benson, blowing my and then I found out, you know, he mentioned *01:40:40* **Speaker 1**: uh Cynthia Harold like her story and pointed me to the Kotaku article where he got a lot of information. *01:40:46* **Speaker 1**: So then I'm off reading about her and *01:40:53* **Speaker 1**: Super smart and um if anyone likes video game music or wants to learn more about people that do make the music in the games we listen to, um you definitely should check out Original Sound Chat. *01:40:55* **Speaker 2**: Thank you. *01:41:06* **Speaker 2**: Yeah, I I appreciate that. *01:41:07* **Speaker 2**: You know, video game music is a passion and yeah, tapping into that every week, uh it's it's always cool to discover new stuff. *01:41:09* **Speaker 1**: What where else people find you online? *01:41:17* **Speaker 1**: You're at uh Pete Speakeasy, right, on Twitter? *01:41:19* **Speaker 2**: Yep, I am at Pete SpeakeEasy on Twitter. *01:41:23* **Speaker 2**: That's probably the easiest place to reach out to me and say hey. *01:41:25* **Speaker 2**: Um yeah, original sound chat, that's that's the big thing. *01:41:29* **Speaker 2**: I also occasionally do uh some work for Nintendo World Report *01:41:32* **Speaker 2**: So check out interworldreport. *01:41:36* **Speaker 2**: com and uh you know give them a follow on their their social media. *01:41:38* **Speaker 1**: So cool. *01:41:41* **Speaker 1**: Awesome. *01:41:42* **Speaker 1**: Thank you. *01:41:43* **Speaker 1**: Oh, so much for joining me for this inaugural episode of this new podcast I'm trying out. *01:41:44* **Speaker 1**: So I really appreciate you taking time out of your your Wednesday night to spend it with me. *01:41:50* **Speaker 2**: Thank you for asking me. *01:41:56* **Speaker 2**: It's it's an honor on my end as well, and uh it's good to talk to you. *01:41:57* **Speaker 1**: All right. *01:42:01* **Speaker 1**: Thanks, man. *01:42:02* **Speaker 3**: Yeah, well I was gonna do that and but my parents had a problem with the M thing. *01:42:08* **Speaker 3**: Mine Hearing you have to shoot rubber duckies for life *01:42:13* **Speaker 3**: Wait, wait, wait. *01:42:17* **Speaker 3**: No, no, this is just in touch. *01:42:18* **Speaker 3**: Yeah, they had the well they had a problem with the partial nudity, I think. *01:42:20* **Speaker 3**: That was three. *01:42:25* **Speaker 3**: They have a problem with Eva. *01:42:27* **Speaker 3**: That's awful *01:42:29*