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Episode 270 - What Can Defeat Pokémon?

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·52m 6s·analyzed·Apr 26, 2026
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.028

TL;DR

Pinball rumors: Stern/Transformers vs JJP/Sonic; whether 2025 has anything bigger than Pokémon.

Summary

This episode of Eclectic Gamers Podcast covers pinball rumors (Stern's Transformers Gen 1, JJP's Sonic the Hedgehog both rumored for 2025 release) and speculates on whether any upcoming game can match Pokémon's cultural impact. The hosts discuss the appeal of various licensed IPs to different player demographics and conclude that Pokémon's massive franchise recognition likely cannot be beaten. The episode also includes listener emails and transitions to video game news including Resident Evil's sales success and Xbox Game Pass pricing changes.

Key Claims

  • Stern's next game is rumored to be Transformers, specifically Gen 1, planned for release by summer 2025

    medium confidence · Tony discussing pinball rumors; characterized as unconfirmed rumor mill

  • Jersey Jack Pinball's next game is rumored to be Sonic the Hedgehog, planned for release by summer 2025

    medium confidence · Tony presenting rumor; noted that JJP is pausing Harry Potter LE production to work on next game

  • Stern tends to announce games immediately before shipping starts, while JJP has longer lag between announcement and shipping

    medium confidence · Dennis explaining industry patterns based on observation

  • JJP is currently building so many Harry Potter machines that they have backlog orders for LE editions

    medium confidence · Tony discussing production capacity and strategic pauses

  • There is a rumor that Stern is working on a Kiss remaster

    low confidence · Tony listing multiple rumors including 'another remaster from Stern and that it will be Kiss'

  • Fallout is rumored to be a Stern fall release (possibly based on the show)

    low confidence · Tony presenting rumor; unclear if based on games or Fallout TV show

  • Spooky is rumored to release either Gremlins or Goonies this year

    low confidence · Tony citing rumor about one of two titles

  • Zen Studios has ended its partnership with AtGames

    high confidence · Richard A. email citing official Zen Studios announcement about platform partnership ending

Notable Quotes

  • “I think there is a very solid chance that JJP announces first, but I still would think Stern would ship games first... Stern does not tend to announce a game until immediately before shipping starts.”

    Dennis — Key insight into different announcement strategies between two major manufacturers

  • “Mathematically, franchise-wise, the answer would be no, there's nothing bigger because Pokemon is the biggest franchise that exists. It's bigger than Star Wars in terms of making money.”

    Tony — Context for discussion of whether any 2025 release can compete with Pokémon's cultural dominance

  • “I think especially Gen 1 Transformers is going to have a bigger nostalgia hit for the people that are currently in the pinball hobby than Sonic.”

    Dennis — Assessment of appeal between two rumored major IPs

  • “Goonies and Gremlins, those are both really good collector themes... I wouldn't, if I was an arcade operator, I'd be like, you gotta be kidding me. They're too niche.”

    Tony — Illustrates tension between collector appeal and location/operator needs in pinball market

  • “Pokemon is Pokemon... people have been it's just it's Pokemon has transcended generations too much.”

    Dennis — Explanation for why no other 2025 title is likely to match Pokémon's impact

Entities

TonypersonDennispersonStern PinballcompanyJersey Jack PinballcompanySpooky PinballcompanyAmerican PinballcompanyBarrels of FuncompanyPokemonproductTransformers Gen 1productSonic the Hedgehog

Signals

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Multiple pinball games rumored for 2025 release including Transformers (Stern), Sonic (JJP), Fallout, Kiss remaster, Gremlins/Goonies (Spooky)

    medium · Tony listing common rumors in community; characterized as unconfirmed 'rumor mill' rather than official news

  • ?

    machine_intel: Analysis of whether Transformers or Sonic will announce first and ship first; different strategies between Stern and JJP

    medium · Dennis explaining that Stern announces immediately before shipping while JJP has longer lag; speculation about June vs May announcement timing

  • $

    market_signal: Discussion of how different IPs appeal to different player segments: Transformers/Fallout for nostalgic collectors, Pokemon for location/family players, Gremlins/Goonies for hardcore collectors only

    medium · Extended analysis of appeal of Transformers vs Sonic vs Fallout vs Gremlins/Goonies to different pinball player demographics

  • $

    market_signal: Location operators prefer broad appeal themes (Pokemon) over niche collector themes (Gremlins/Goonies); theme choice impacts operator buying decisions

    medium · Tony: 'if I was an arcade operator, I'd be like you gotta be kidding me. They're too niche'; discussion of Pokemon selling to arcade operators because 'people are going to know what it is'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Recognition that older IP themes (Goonies, Gremlins, Big Trouble in Little China) do not transcend to younger generations despite being touchstones for millennial/Gen X pinball players

    high · Extended discussion of how younger employees unfamiliar with classic 80s/90s films; Pokemon transcends generations while older themes are niche

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.156

0:00
Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, April 26th. This is episode 270. I'm Tony. I'm Dennis. Is it actually the 26th? It is. It is. I got the date right. I was like, I've got my tablet right here, but it's only showing me the time.
0:32
Yes. What's been going on, Tony? Anything? Any gaming? Any Brotato DLC? Well, no, that DLC's not out yet, but I've been playing Brotato some more, and I've been playing Domekeeper and all sorts. I've been playing lots of little things that I can play in, like, short snippets because I've been doing a lot of other stuff. Yes. So I'll go sit down and I'll play for a little, just one round of something and then I'll go do other stuff. It's getting to be that time of year, yard work.
1:04
Yeah, I did finally mo. All of that, yeah. So I've been concentrating on stuff. And it's getting to the end of the school year. There's concerts and art expos and just stuff going on all the time. Yes. No, that makes sense. Yeah, no, I haven't done much video gaming because work's been pretty busy these last couple of weeks. But I have gotten further in Outer Worlds, too. I've advanced the story and got some new companions and stuff, but I'm still on the same planet.
1:38
And then my wristwatch channel, Watches and Wonders, had just happened last week. So that's the big, like, that's kind of like the expo for you pinball fans. It's like that's their big event. So a lot of new models get released then. So I did some coverage related to that. So that takes time, of course, to do the videos and the edits. And I do have news, though. We actually have two new Patreon members, Eric and Derek. Will we get a Garrick? I actually know a Garrick. I don't think they listen to the show, though. Probably not. Merrick? There are Merricks out there. There are. But Eric and Derek both joined Patreon. We do appreciate the support. People can support us at patreon.com slash eclectic. Score. Gamers. All right. Now, Pinball. I'm not going to say there's no news. There's just no notable news, like news that we, you know, you have to rise above the fray. There's a threshold. Yeah. Yeah. Like a release. But like, oh, look, side art blades are coming out. We don't we don't really talk about that. We don't really talk about, oh, look, there's a code update to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. I don't know if there was or wasn't because we don't talk about that stuff. So I don't learn about that stuff. I don't know where Eric and Derek joined us as I think about this. It's probably for the video game stuff. But we do like that you've joined us. Thank you very much for joining us. We do appreciate it. But because there's no notable pinball news as defined by Dennis, I do have a couple of discussion topics. We don't have to spend a lot of time on them because, hey, we don't force these episodes to be longer than they need to be. But I just thought it would be kind of fun. The first one is rumor mill. Now, I'm not doing a rumor corner because these are not – this is not like everyone's heard about all this stuff.
product
Harry Potterproduct
Zen Studioscompany
AtGamescompany
Falloutproduct
Gremlinsproduct
Gooniesproduct
Kissproduct
He-Manproduct
Richard A.person
Aaron B.person
Sean M.person
  • ?

    product_strategy: JJP pausing Harry Potter LE production to prioritize next game announcement/release despite having backlog orders

    medium · Tony: 'they're not getting done with... orders out there... they're going to pause on for something' - indicating strategic business decision to move to next title

  • ?

    supply_chain_signal: JJP manufacturing capacity constrained by Harry Potter popularity; deliberate production pause for next game suggests capacity management strategy

    medium · Discussion of JJP building 'so many Harry Potters' that production must pause for next release

  • ?

    technology_signal: Zen Studios ends AtGames partnership for virtual pinball; impacts content availability on AtGames platform

    high · Richard A. email citing official Zen Studios announcement; Zen to release information on content availability in coming days

  • ?

    product_launch: Zen Studios discontinuing Pinball FX on Xbox; offering DLC sales before discontinuation; PlayStation renaming timing unknown

    high · Richard A. email: 'they're discontinuing on Xbox and on PlayStation... currently offering the DLC on sale'

  • ?

    content_signal: Speculation that Sonic game would likely use Sonic movie license with Jim Carrey audio content rather than game-native license

    medium · Tony/Dennis discussion: 'if they have the movie... this could do extremely well... it has to be the movie' for JJP Sonic

    • 3:18
    The rumored next Stern Pinball game is Transformers, specifically Gen 1. Okay. The rumor of JJP's next game is that it's Sonic the Hedgehog.
    3:33
    Okay. Now, I'm just saying that for context because additional context is both of these, the rumor is, are planned to be released soon, like soon, soon, by the summer.
    3:49
    Which one do you think, I'm not asking which one you think should, which one do you think is actually going to be, I'm going to use the word revealed, that can include the teaser trailer. Which one's going to be announced first? Let me put it that way, announced. Do you think Stern announced it? Because I know you and I had a conversation, I think two, maybe three episodes ago, where we talked about the next cornerstone. And if so, this is the next cornerstone. You were leaning towards June. I had argued May. I have since heard more people actually think June is realistic for that. But then I heard and Zach and I kind of covered this on the last episode of the Pinball Show that supposedly because of what they're doing with Harry Potter production, it does look like J.J.P. is planning to drop whatever is next pretty soon, like not waiting till Expo in the fall, but soon. Interesting. So, I mean, in a way, it's a dice throw. It is a die start. What's interesting to me is I think there is a very solid chance that JJP announces first, but I still would think Stern would ship games first. Okay. For the simple fact that Stern does not tend to announce a game until immediately before shipping starts. Fair. And while JJP has gotten better than they used to be, there still tends to be a longer lag time between their announcement and their actual shipping starts.
    5:18
    So it's entirely possible that JJP makes the first announcement, but Stern gets games two people first. Okay. Yeah, that's kind of interesting. I'm not going to say split the difference. You're very specific with that. But I'm going to go ahead and my current inclination is that Stern will – I agree with you. They're going to ship games first. I also think they're going to reveal first. And the only reason I say that is because, one, we know Stern loves their three cornerstone models. So we know – We're there. We're like, it can't be later than June, can it? Like, it can't, right? It could, but it can't, right? You get it. You understand. For those – because they're listening. I'm doing a lot of hand motions here. But you can't. Yeah, hypothetically. It could be. Like there's a statistical chance, but it's zero. Like that's what I'm saying. It could. It won't. But it could. Yeah, there you go. That's much better. It could, but it won't.
    6:19
    Other than a desire – and I could understand J.J.P. having this desire – to get out ahead of Stern. They have so many Harry Potters that they're building. I mean, it's so popular. And that's part, again, some of the nuance here is my understanding is that they're not getting done with, like, there are more orders out there for arcade, not arcade, excuse me, whatever the middle tier is. LE, the LE edition, like, because they've been building all the CEs because it's the one with a nice art package. But the Ellie one, like there are orders out there that they're going to pause on for something. And the only something is to get the next game built and out. Right. And to me, it's weird. I mean, if that's their decision, then yes, I guess they're going to because my prediction without that was going to be, oh, they're going to release around Expo because they need to finish building Harry Potter because those orders are in and it's a popular game. Like, just do it. Like, keep building what's working. But, you know, there are license agreements and all of that stuff. Part of the reason why I mentioned that the rumor is JJP is Sonic and Stern is Transformers is I wondered, do you think there's a value in JJP or Stern, for that matter, getting out ahead of the other one? Like, what's the Venn diagram on Sonic and Transformers here? I'll be honest.
    7:45
    I think especially Gen 1 Transformers is going to have a bigger nostalgia hit for the people that are currently in the pinball hobby than Sonic.
    8:02
    Sonic's from a similar time frame. Right. I just think the level of popularity is different. Mm-hmm. But I could be wrong. Well, there's some interesting – let me add some more flavor or color or whatever, whether you're taste or visually oriented to complicate or maybe further refine that.
    8:24
    Broadly, I agree with you. Let me just put it that way. Yeah, I think there's just – I don't know. It's maybe because of the stories. The initial Sonic didn't have much of a story. Transformers was all about stories. And so I think there's a stronger tie to remembering stories. And that's why I think it has, you know, there's more fondness for those sort of things. But Sonic supposedly as part of what is rumored with the game is that they have secured a lot of call outs like audio clips. But the early games don't have Sonic speaking. So what exactly version of Sonic are we getting? I know he started talking later, like later stuff. I haven't played a lot of the modern Sonic games, but there have been shows. Is this the movie? That's my guess, is that they have the movie. Meow. Which means they hopefully have a bunch of Jim Carrey. That would be my thought. In a way, if they've got the movies and it's all like the Jim Carrey show, this could do extremely well. It could. Otherwise, the movies aren't that old. I don't, you know, it's like. And the thing is, is Sonic is this weird lore. Like, because Sonic was a game that was generated, I mean, back in the day and a lot like a lot of those other games that came back there that had the most bare bone excuse for the reasoning for the game. And then they started plastering all sorts of lore on the back of it.
    9:58
    And, you know, building all these new characters and all this other stuff. It has a very specific kind of niche fandom that is very, very big into Sonic stuff, but it's never felt like it had the same overall size as Transformers, in my mind. Right. I would agree. It's a much more niche, much more specialized kind of thing. But I would think if they have it, it has to be the movie. It has to be.
    10:35
    I mean, it seems like if it was Stern, I'd be like, absolutely, it's going to be the movie. I don't know with JJP. It could. They could strike a deal with Sega and do the game. I mean, it's not Nintendo. I could conceive of it. I mean, Sega used to do pinball machines. Right. I think they'd be better off if it was the movie. Oh, okay. I mean, if it's not the original games, I really wonder, like, is there, like, a hit Sonic? Like, my understanding, like, you mentioned, like, Sonic's kind of got, like, a cult. So there was a whole time when everyone was just, like, bemoaning what Sonic games became because they were no longer the old platformers of old or even, you know, platformers in general that just started. Sonic just started to do a lot of stuff, and it just never – It's because Sonic became the Mario. Yeah, but unlike Mario where when Mario pivots in genres, people seem to be kind of okay with it generally. With Sonic, it seemed like generally they're not okay with it, and they've been frustrated with a lot of this stuff. I don't know. It's weird.
    11:42
    That brings me to my other discussion point I had, though, because we're talking, of course, a lot about these famed, storied, popular IPs, Of which I think generally everyone would agree Sonic and Transformers are both popular IPs in the world. Like people know what those are.
    11:58
    Do you – obviously Stern launched the year with Pokemon and Pokemon is now out and people are playing it. A lot of them are on location. A lot of people have ordered it.
    12:10
    Not really getting into the gameplay and the quality of the game itself. Do you think there's something that will launch in 2026 that will be – I'm going to air quote it and people are going to see. They're quotes, hence I'm saying it, bigger than Pokemon. So let me give you some stuff. I've already mentioned Sonic and I've mentioned Transformers. There's talk that there will be another remaster from Stern and that it will be Kiss. I know I'm bringing up the remaster, but yeah.
    12:41
    The other big rumor, these are all common rumors. I can't be in certain rumor cornerstones. The other big rumor from Stern is that Fallout is the fall. Is it the games or is it the show? I don't know. It doesn't matter. The rumor is it Fallout and the rumor is it Elwin It doesn matter It doesn matter There is a rumor that for Spooky I hearing two that they either got gremlins or they got goonies And it one of those two that drops this year
    13:12
    There's also a rumor that He-Man is floating around. We know there's a new He-Man movie coming out. I haven't heard that it's based off of the movie. There was once upon a time, supposedly American Pinball had He-Man. That obviously didn't happen then. But there's new ownership of American Pinball. Or someone else like Barrels of Fun may have acquired it. And of course, we know about the rumor of Dungeon Crawler Carl, but by all accounts, that is not a rumor for this year. So I would not include that one specifically. But given what I've thrown out there, there are a few other things. Again, I'm only hearing Sonic right now is the next JJP, and I don't know if JJP would plan to do two games this year. We know they did get to the point where they could do two games. There was a while I've been hearing that they had either Maverick or Top Gun. I don't know since I still haven't moved forward with it, but I'm going to throw that back out there.
    14:02
    There's probably way more than what I'm mentioning, but those are like the big ones that stand out to me.
    14:10
    Mathematically, franchise-wise, the answer would be no, there's nothing bigger because Pokemon is the biggest franchise that exists. It's bigger than Star Wars in terms of making money. It's made more than anything else, and it's not even close. So no, nothing is going to be bigger than Pokemon. But we're talking about Pinball, like locations, collectors, tournament players, however you want to view it. And some of this stuff, like the big thing with Pokemon is it's a little after, other than the games, like a lot of it's sort of after our generation. Like it was a little like it was I remember seeing the cartoon was on when I turned the TV on in the mornings when I was in grad school. Right. I didn't grow up as a kid with Pokemon. Correct. So some of this other stuff might appeal more to the kid in us. Some of the other stuff might appeal more to whatever we were into, because, again, it was in high school I first started to play Fallout. But Fallout is still with us. It is. And it's still a game series that I really like. It is. I just don't know if it's going to have the same. I think of everything we've talked about, Fallout or Transformers Gen 1 are the most likely. And I don't think either of them will actually be bigger than Pokemon.
    15:31
    I wanted this to be exciting, but sadly, I agree with you. I just people have been it's just it's Pokemon has transcended generations too much. Yeah, it has. Plus, the game's approachable, but it doesn't have super long ball times. And people, a lot of parents who collect, they want to have a game that their kid wants to play. I know plenty of them that have been like, oh, daddy, I like that. And they use that as their excuse to buy a game for themselves. And I don't fault you. It wasn't for me. It was for Junior. Junior wanted it. I totally – you know what, guys? I'm not faulting you for that. Use that more in your lives. Use that as – use it. But, yeah, one where it's like – I mean, Zach had told me he does sell to some arcade owners. Like, a number of them reached out to get games to get Pokemons. Oh, yeah. Because they're like, people are going to know what it is. Heck, yeah, they will. And will people know Sonic? Yes. Will they know Transformers? Sure. Fallout? Less so, unfortunately, even though that's the one I'm most excited about. Goonies and Gremlins, those are both really good collector themes. Yes. Not themes I would bother putting with, like, I wouldn't, if I was an arcade operator, I'd be like, you gotta be kidding me. They're too niche. No kid's gonna know what Goonies is. Yeah, they're way too niche. Guys, don't write into a CollectedGamersPodcast at gmail.com telling me how your kid will know what Goonies is. I really don't. I said one of the very first movies I ever sat down with my kids to watch Goonies. It's hyperbole. We watched Goonies. It's hyperbole. Every year we sit down and watch.
    17:04
    My kids are always like, Daddy, Daddy, it's time. You mother f***er. I knew it.
    17:20
    All right. This is all probably staying in. I'm just, there are beeps. There are beeps. I was just like, they're going to figure it out real easy. I was just like, I didn't even have my little sheet of paper initially. And I was just like, well, you're good, Tony. I wouldn't need the sheet of paper. And I went up, I trudged up the stairs and got it. And I think that kind of maybe set that up. All right.
    17:48
    I'm done. I'm done with the pinball segment. I don't want to talk about it. But no, I mean, in all honesty, you know, you know. No. Nope. You've been honest enough. I've been very honest. You've been honest enough. Joke time passed.
    18:04
    Those are movies that were touchstones for our generation that have not transcended time to the newer generations. I know a lot of people nowadays who've heard of them at best, but I have younger employees who work for me who, when we were having a conversation, to be fair, it wasn't Goonies or Gremlins we were talking about, but I was talking about having just recently rewatched Big Trouble in Little China, and like half of them had never even heard of it. It's like those where they know of something, it'll be from the meme. They might know about Artax and the never-ending story, but they've never seen the never-ending story. Right, and that's a very common thing. That's why I think as interesting as those are to collectors, they are not going to be anywhere like the touched. Yes.
    18:59
    Pokemon is Pokemon. Right. Okay. Well, we will go to the video game stigma because actually that's all I had for you guys. All right. A couple – we did have some people email in, actually. I think I got three. First, I want to start with – It's all about the Vig Games. There is a lot about the Vig Games. And first one was Richard A. giving some Zen Studio updates regarding virtual pinball. So I'm not quoting the email. I bullet out what was provided. He noted – and I just – I saw this as well. He emailed in. He had an email, and then he emailed this in, and I'd actually seen the article about it. Zen Studios has ended its partnership with AtGames. So they put out a very brief statement essentially just saying that they're going to release information related to content availability on that platform in the coming days, but that they're done. So I guess that's big news if you're into the AtGames version of the product. Then Richard also noted that Zen has finished with their big renaming. We talked about that. They were doing a renaming to put everything kind of under the Pinball FX banner. That's all done except on Xbox, which it's not going to happen because they're discontinuing on Xbox and on PlayStation. He didn't note – or I should say he noted he doesn't know when the date for the renaming is supposed to happen on PlayStation. However, because Xbox is discontinuing the Pinball FX being on the platform, they're currently offering the DLC on sale. So those of you who like to play Pinball FX3 on Xbox, if you want to get more packs, you can go ahead and get them now and get them on sale, I guess. And then finally, he noted that on Thursday, April 30th, World Cup Soccer is going to be delisted on all platforms and Williams Pinball Volume 10 will release. I'm assuming this is also Zen Studios. Everything was Zen regarding that. So thank you, Richard, for the updates. Now, Aaron B. wrote in, he did put in a qualifier asking, could Dennis do an imitation of Tony's voice for this one? So probably not because I don't have to beep myself a lot. So he writes, this will be my Tony take.
    21:12
    Curious to get your take on Bungie's Marathon. His voice is lower than mine, so I have to do it like this. Bungie's Marathon released last month. Is this a title that you have all tried out? From listening to your show, it seems like the kind of backstory and lore you would be drawn to. I so enjoy your show. Thank you for your honest thoughts and opinions on pinball video games and whatever topics you choose to cover. Aaron.
    21:33
    I think it's maybe a three. Is that Batman? It's a three. I feel like Batman. This is Batman. It sounds totally different. You sound like a non-cool Batman.
    21:46
    Don't judge it. It's a three out of ten. No judgments. You made my voice sound deep and wonderful. It is a lot lower. When I edit, I edit and do playbacks. I put us on like 2X or 3X. But it doesn't scale like podcast playback stuff does in Audacity. So I sound really high-pitched and you sound like kind of normal. And it's like, I know immediately of just by listening, I could quickly tell. This is Dennis talking. And Tony's more like... But because in reality it's like... And I'm all like... It's like that. Interesting. This is how our voices are different. Bungie's Marathon. I have not tried it. I've not tried it yet either. I've been following a lot of the stuff going on about it and the information coming out, but I've not... It's one of those games that I have, for a variety of reasons, decided I'm going to hold off until a good sale. Partially because I've got a lot of games right now that I've not started. And partially because I'm very much in the vein of not getting stuff when it launches anymore. And I've gotten to the point where I really want stuff to cook before I get into it. Yes. No, I have not actually looked into it at all. You may be right that it's the sort of backstory and lore that would appeal to me. For me, it's a little weird. Of course, I played a lot of the Halo games that Bungie did, and I enjoyed those. I also did the demo when Destiny came out, and I didn't like it, and I've kind of stayed away from Bungie ever since then, but it'll be something I'll entertain in the future. But right now, you know, I've got a little pile of games on my shelf here to hit after I get done with Outer Worlds 2. Like I've got a Mafia game to play. Mafia. Yeah, I've got Final Fantasy XVI or something to play. Like I got some big stuff that I still need to get. You got some time consuming. Yeah, yeah. After finishing Jedi, I was just like, let me go into Outer Worlds because that was one I was looking forward to. And so anyway, so no, I'm afraid I can't give you any honest thoughts or opinions about it. I can't because I've not touched it yet. Now, Sean M. also wrote in, and I think this one you're going to have possibly an easier time with. And he said, Hi, Dennis and Tony. My office is getting a PS5 that is limited to E-rated games only. Do you have any recommendations that are not sports, racing, or Astro Bot? Thanks. Regards, Sean. Thank you, Sean, for the email.
    24:21
    E. E is rated E for everyone. It is. Do you have thoughts? I have a very obvious thought. What is it? Lego games. Oh, that's so smart. I wish I'd looked it up ahead of time and said it first.
    24:32
    Yes. The Lego games. Here's the thing. Even some of the most boring of the Lego games is fun, and for a setting like having it in the office, they're multiplayer. Yeah, I'm wondering if this is like people waiting for, I'm imagining like a dental office or something like that. No, I was imagining a break room. Okay. Either way, though, even Lego games, the levels are short. Yes. So people can just pick it up and play as they go like – they don't require a ton of backtracking or anything like that. So, yeah, that's a pretty good one. Yeah. No, I think – because, I mean, Lego Star Wars, Lego Marvel, Lego DC, Lego Jurassic Park, Lego Lord of the Rings.
    25:13
    There's all of them. In my mind, for that kind of game, Lego is the route to go. Yeah. Yeah, there's a whole bunch of different types that you can look at.
    25:24
    Sackboy. The platformer that I haven't played the PS5 version, but I've played an older version. That would be a good one, though, I think, because it's harmless, obviously. I'm assuming, this is assumption. I don't know for sure that this is going to be rated E, but if there's any of the games along the lines of, like, Geometry Wars or those kind of block destruction games. There would have to be E. There's nothing, there's no violence. Right. Something along those lines I think would be very excellent in a big group setting And anything that any of those like Block Destruction or you know like Tetris E type games I don't know if there's any Tetris games on PlayStation. I would assume so, but or something like it. But stuff like that would be great. If this isn't like a dental office waiting room type thing, if this is like a break room office, whatever. Or, oh man, any of the dance dance type games would be really funny. Yeah, I'd also suggest simulation games if this is, again, something like a break room where people can spend the time with it. The farming simulators, the city simulators, those are E-rated games. I haven't played all of those. I used to play a lot more simulation than I did. To me, it's always been a little weird on a controller versus playing on a PC. It depends on the game. They probably have decent schemes at this point designed for it because it used to be ports that would struggle. But those sort of things I would suggest that I always liked is simulation games. But yeah, like Just Dance or something, that'd be great. If it's not going to bug people to have all the – again, I don't know the same. It's hilarious. The music and stuff is what I'm thinking. Don't have to break them too loud. Thinking of the people I work with playing Just Dance type games is just hilarious to me. Yes. My people would love it. That would be a good time for them. Because they always demand to play music bingo all the time. Yeah. Good times. And like all the songs, like they play enough of them that you're going to know what the song is. They just want to listen to music. They just want to listen to music and win prizes. Yeah, that's what they want. So speaking of prizes, we get the reward of actually going into the rest of the video game segment where you actually have news because video games are a big deal unlike pinball. There tends to be news, and like I said, I only tend to put in the news that I'm actually interested in.
    27:57
    So no Donkey Kong? No weird Donkey game. Donkey! Okay, but Resident Evil Requiem has been very popular. Yes. People are liking The Return of Leon quite a lot.
    28:15
    They hit the 6 million sales mark in March, and they've now hit 7 million. Oh, wow. That it is by far the best-selling Resident Evil game ever. And I've liked the last two new ones. They've been really fun. I'll have to play them. That series has been out for, what, 30 years? Yeah, it's been so sad. And it is the biggest best-selling Resident Evil game ever. So congratulations to them. That's awesome to hear for a franchise to bounce back. Have you thought about growing your hair like Leon? No.
    28:54
    Okay. No. I don't know. I don't think I could do that. It may not be possible. I just remember when it first came out, it was like, okay. I did try to let my hair grow a little longer one time and actually be like long hair Tony. I was like, we'll try. We'll try. Oh, no. God, God, no. Have you ever thought about doing a whole bunch of steroids so you could be like Chris in Resident Evil 5 and punch a boulder?
    29:30
    I mean, yeah. Did you ever play Resident Evil 5? Is that the one? Is that the one where Chris punches a boulder?
    29:38
    That's the one where you play co-op with Sheva. Then yes, I've played that one with you. Okay. I played it with multiple people. Right. I think that's the one I've played the most of other than the original Resident Evil. I've never really played any ones other than the one we played co-op and the original. Okay. All right. I have to assume steroids because they punched a boulder. Yeah. Where's the boulder? Yeah. Maybe you were playing a Sheva so you didn't get to do the boulder punch part and I had to do it. It could be. I don't remember because I do like to. I don't like a lot of people take away my boulder punching part. Yeah. You got to be how it is sometimes. You got to make sacrifices. You do. And that boulder got sacrificed to roid rage.
    30:20
    That's still somewhere. That was back when they were like, quick time events are a great idea. Let's do that.
    30:27
    Starting with Leon and his hair in Resident Evil 4. It was all about quick. I hadn't played 4 when I played 5. I didn't play 4 until one of the kind of remasters. Not like the full on like they do now, but a touched up version that was in a later console. So that's one of the things I liked in Dispatch is you could literally turn the quick time events off. So you just make a decision. Yeah. In Resident Evil, when you played on higher settings, and I would play on harder settings after I'd get through the game, the quick time events got shorter. Like you had to react faster, and they actually got to be a bit of a bottleneck sometimes because I've never been fast. Right. But that made it incredibly difficult sometimes. Not very forgiving periods.
    31:11
    All right. Anyway, so very good news for them. Good news for them. Possibly good news coming out of Xbox, which is now once again officially just known as Xbox as opposed to Microsoft Gaming. Yes. They officially changed their name back to just Xbox. This new CEO, she is changing up all sorts of things. She is. So far, it's looking to me like she's actually making it make a lot more sense. I think so. It's been looking real good. I'm still waiting for the AI overlords, though, to come in and ruin it. I'm sure it'll happen eventually. But they've been pushing a lot of changes that look real good.
    31:47
    They have announced a reduction on Game Pass. The Ultimate tier is going from $30 a month to $23 a month, and the PC Game Pass is being reduced from $16.50 to $14 a month. And it's only been like six months since they did the increase. They like doubled it. One of the things they did when they made the increase is they pulled Call of Duty out. Yes. They pulled Call of Duty launch day out of Game Pass, and they were able to reduce the cost of Game Pass. Isn't it interesting how much it went down just because of Call of Duty? Right. Because it's such a big deal. And the thing is, because when the price jumped is when they initially announced the Call of Duty. Yeah, day one Call of Duty. And now they dropped it and the price dumps again. Which, in a way, I got, but on the other side, that was a huge price spike for everyone who didn't play Call of Duty. Right. Right, and it showed their Game Pass subscriptions were dropping. They were in all sorts of issues. A memo was leaked from her, an internal memo where she flat out stated that Game Pass had become too expensive and too rigid. They want to make it cheaper and more flexible to try and grab and hold the market better. And then she also put out an open letter talking about where Xbox is looking to go in the future where they talked about fans' frustrations at pricing and that their presence on PC not being strong enough. Really? I thought they got a lot of praise by PC people. Right. They made serious efforts. I think this is where they're aiming with PlayStation now because PlayStation made another announcement or in another set of interviews where they were talking about how they're pulling almost completely out of the PC market. Yeah, you mentioned that a few episodes ago. A few episodes ago, yeah. They've talked about it some more that it just – in their minds, they're cannibalizing their unit sales by doing PC releases.
    33:52
    But it seems like Xbox is going to be leaning the other direction. They also state that the new Xbox is going to be built to be affordable, personal, and open. I don't know what any of that means other than affordable. Yeah, personal scares me because that makes me think AI. It does. It also makes me think that the Xbox is going to be more, I don't want to say moddable, expandable. Like you'll be able to get like a base level Xbox with a tiny hard drive and maybe you can even go so far as being able to upgrade the graphics card of your main system. That's what I thought of with Open. Yeah. It was like it's going to be easier to customize the capabilities. Right. You'll be able to make it more plug and play. It could be like that thing PlayStation rolled out where they're using AI to get better personal information on the players to do a better kind of directed recommendation thing more than they already have, like stronger algorithms for that. And they also want to elevate creator-centric platforms such as Minecraft, Elder Scrolls, and Sea of Thieves because those, even years and years after the release, those are huge. Roblox is huge. Fortnite is huge. All those games have a certain level of player interaction that is different than a lot of other games. They're much more creator-centric, so they seem to be wanting to aim to make that a larger portion of the new Xbox when it comes out.
    35:25
    So we'll see what comes, but I've been pretty happy with what she's announced so far. In probably one of the worst-kept secrets in video games recently, Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resync has been announced. Wow. Well, who? I actually never played Black Flag. I didn't either, which is amazing because it's actually the one Assassin's Creed that seems like it'd be right up my alley with its type of gaming. I always heard really good things. I don't know why I never got to it. I played a lot. Yeah, they're doing some interesting stuff. It's coming out in July, like July 9th. Some of the pictures I've seen of the upgrade in images and stuff is a little rough in my mind. A lot of it looks like, I don't recall, I don't think I actually talked about it, but there was that whole little debacle that... Is it the G4 stuff? The G4 stuff. Oh, there was like one week where all of a sudden there were all these memes where it's like, hey, look, this is where the GeForce Experience turned on or whatever. Right, and it's just the most horrible AI overlay stuff. Yeah, like everyone's glowing. Yeah, it kind of felt like that. Some of the pictures I saw, it was like a little – there were the pictures where I was like, did they get the before and after mark backwards? Because I think the before one looks better. But a couple of the pictures I saw kind of had that feel to me.
    37:00
    They're having a $60 launch edition because games are $60 nowadays. And then they're launching a collector's edition that's $200. Wow. I hope that comes with a numbered plaque. I hope it comes with a lot. I hope it comes with an actual ship that you can sail on. And a mirrored back glass box. And a custom helmet. Click!
    37:28
    I still – all right. Do you remember when – I can't remember which Fallout game it was. I think it was a Fallout game where they came out with this Pip-Boy watch as part of the collector's thing.
    37:45
    Yeah. Do you remember? I don't think it was for Starfield. Maybe it was. No. I thought it was a Pip-Boy thing. I thought it was a Pip-Boy. For 76, you know, fall 76 or something. I still just remember where they're talking about this and they've got, what's his name, Todd. Todd Howard. Todd Howard is there talking about it. And this is a, the entire time in the video, you won't go back and look, you won't have to look very hard. Yeah, Todd's wearing a Rolex in that entire discussion. He does not put it on ever. And I'm just like, Todd doesn't want to be here. Todd thinks this is a piece of crap. Todd does not wear some battery-powered – Todd isn't even willing to fake that he's interested in this. He's just like, I'll hold it in my hand, but my real watch is not coming off of this wrist. And I just thought, Todd, you could have at least taken the Rolex off. You could have just worn no watch. You could have worn no watch at all. But, I mean, it could be worse. He could have gone the other extreme, and it could have been like the McDonald's. That's a big burger. Oh, there's so many comments. That was a fun week, too. The CEOs who make way too much money try their own burger challenge. Whoa I don even know where to start on this Come on dude It like bro come on Also, nobody here is going to sit and think that, hey, I make millions and millions of dollars. Normally, such people can't digest food like that. I believe you're capable of eating a McDonald's burger. You're not proving anything here. It also wouldn't surprise me if in one of your seven kitchens of your mansion, you have a Tony's pizza that you can throw into an oven because you know what? Rich people like to eat stuff like that too. Right? Here's the thing. Tony's pizzas are still very cheap. Honestly, I think they're cheaper than Jack's pizzas nowadays. And they're like the cruddiest little pizzas. Still, they're one of my favorite frozen pizzas. You see? They're just simple. Simplicity. All right. So $200. $200 comes with a bunch of extra stuff. I mean, obviously it has to, but not a ship book. Not a real boat. It could be anything. Maybe a boat. Oh, man. And playing the nostalgia game as a tourer, Echo the Dolphin is getting a remake release that includes remakes of the first two games and a brand new game. So this one game will have the first two games and an entirely brand new game. Okay. The reason I'm talking about it here has nothing to do with my all-abiding love for Echo the Dolphin because that doesn't exist. Right.
    40:48
    It shows up on a list of frustrating games to play. I think the first one does quite often. And I hear the second one's worse. I've only played the first one. But what's interesting is they have gone, in my mind, above and beyond. They have built in speed running support for the game. They've built in all sorts of streaming support into the game. And they have built in what they call a meta quest system that will allow players to create a custom course, choosing levels from all three games and putting them together in a specific way, saving them and releasing them a la Mario World. Oh, Mario Maker. Mario Maker of Echo games, and they're building in a speedrun leaderboard system and a speedrun. This game is being specifically built and targeted at speedrunners. I do think Echo has a pretty strong speedrunning following. I want to think I've heard about it, but I'm, you know, again, this is really just going off of games done quick discussions because I don't, I'm not in the speedrunning world, so. No, I just enjoy watching them. Yeah, because I have no speed. I'm not. Yeah. I played Battlefield 6 last night and not against bots. And I was just like, what? How do you beat me? Why am I so old? I can enjoy watching boxing without getting into the ring. Right. You don't actually have to get hit. Yeah, I don't. Isn't that neat? It's amazing. I can enjoy something without having to do it. Yes. I don't have to be the, oh, I could throw the football better than my home. Yeah, yeah. Sorry. I'm drinking my ninth beer. They're eating nachos that are balanced on my giant belly. Armchair quarterbacks are a thing for a reason. They're very much a thing. Well, why do you make that play? No, I'm not. With me, every time he screws up, what I do is I go, he needs to spend more time practicing, less time doing State Farm commercials. That's what I was doing. I was doing State Farm. He needs to do. Maybe he didn't have to show up on set all the time. He could remember how to throw a ball. He needs to spend, I'll tell you what he needs to spend more time doing. Curating the stuff happening at his steakhouse. I've not followed. Was there some scandal or food poisoning? No, not food poisoning. It's incredibly expensive for incredibly mediocre quality. Oh, okay. So it's just terrible. That's unfortunate. Specifically. For him and State Farm.
    43:22
    And Kelsey. Don't forget. He's in it with Kelsey. But he gets to go home with, you know, so. With Tay-Tay. Yeah. You think he'll be on her next album? Or just referenced?
    43:34
    I guess it depends if they're still together. I don't know if the references can get any better than he's already had.
    43:44
    Nintendo has finally putting out their single-player Splatoon game, specifically for the Switch 2, that was, like, announced when the Switch 2 was announced. Yeah. It's finally coming out in July. One of your kids really likes Splatoon. Yeah, she's extremely excited, specifically why this got thrown in here. There was a conversation about it. Okay.
    44:04
    We talked a few weeks ago about the reports that the Mass Effect TV writer were told that they needed a rewrite to make it work better for non-gamers. Yeah. In an interview or not an interview, responding to a question on Twitter or Blue Sky or one of those things, Daniel Casey, who's who's one of the show's writers and the executive producer of the show, replied that.
    44:35
    The first time he'd ever heard anything about that was in the report, and at no point has he ever been told that. So there's a huge outrage going on. We talked about it. Oh, yeah. It's like, look at how well Fallout worked with all the game stuff. You're going to turn this into the Halo show? Yeah, exactly. But Halo has an Escalade in it. We've got an Escalade in AK-47s in the future.
    45:03
    You might not have noticed it because you're too busy looking at Master Chief's face. He's occasionally they would they would pan almost for loaningly on to his helmet on the counter to remind the few gamers that were still watching. Oh, remember, this is the dude. Yeah, this is the guy. See, and here's the thing is nobody. This is why I love Dread so much, because they had Carl Urban and at no point did he take the helmet off. Wouldn't be character. Right. And it was such a good movie. But back to video games. Yeah. Dang it. We should have had a sequel to Dread. I wish we had a sequel to Dread 2.
    45:43
    So it sounds like that whole report was nothing. It was a rumor just starting trolling. Okay. So we'll see. So, Koei Tecmo, the company behind Neho 3 and Pokemon Pocopia that has taken the Switch world by storm since it released, becoming the best-selling Pokemon game of all time. Oh, really? Wow. Yeah. I guess people always wanted to be a creepy Ditto Pokemon person. Living like a post-apocalyptic Pokemon nightmare. Pokemon Nightmare. Pokeworld. The whole lore of this. It's dark. Yeah, it reads like one of those dark fanfic. I wonder if you get to the end of the game, you fall down in front of the Statue of Liberty. You blew it up. You Pokemon, you blew it up.
    46:42
    But they had to put out a revised earning forecast because their first quarter fiscals were so good. But because those two games sold so well, they had to revise their forecast for the year upwards, obviously. So good for them.
    47:02
    Dragon Ball Xenoverse 3 was announced, which is obviously the third Xenoverse game, which lets you build your own characters in the Dragon Ball universe. Oh, okay. This one, though, is set – it was originally called Project Age 1000, and it's set well, well after the end of all the Dragon Ball stuff. Oh, okay. So – Yeah, I've never played any of this. I've played Xenoverse. I've played a lot of Xenoverse back in the day of the second one. So we will see where that ends up – how well that ends up being. But the Xenoverse games have always been pretty fun. They've actually done a very good job between Xenoverse and Kakarot and a couple other of the Dragon Ball games that have come out in the last five to ten years. They've all been actually really good.
    47:54
    Was it Dragon Ball FighterZ? Fighters is how I always say it. I have played that. I haven't finished it, but I have played it. Yeah. I know that game still has a pretty good-sized following. It was the truest successor to Marvel vs. Capcom 3. Right. Because Marvel vs. Capcom 4 went with a very different mechanic. You always wonder when games like that, when they're known for a specific mechanic, they're like, you know what we don't need in this game anymore? The mechanic that everyone plays this game for? Yeah, I think they just, I mean, I guess sort of kudos for getting to experiment with something. Because they put in some other stuff, but it just didn't land the way that they wanted it to.
    48:36
    And then I thought I'd finish today up with our continuing Subnautica 2 drama. We've had a lot of water game discussion. There has been a lot of water. And you know, water levels are BS, man. Nobody likes water. They're the worst part of every Mario game. Yes, that's exactly what I thought of at first. Nobody likes water levels. They're terrible. To be fair, I love Subnautica. Water Temple in that Zelda game, nobody likes that. Right? Yeah.
    49:04
    Which Zelda game, Dennis? All of them. They all suck. Don't ask me. Nobody likes it. I've played very little Zelda, actually, so I don't remember which one I'm thinking of. Wind Waker. It's just a boat and water. Nobody likes Wind Waker. At least you can use tricks to make him go like super jet speed.
    49:19
    Now I'm probably thinking of Ocarina of Time. Well, no, no. It was Wind Waker that they used to do that. Yeah, I know. I meant the one with the famous water temple that the speed runners all complain about. Yeah. I think it might have been Ocarina of Time. It could have been. I also have limited experience with the new Zeldas, except for, well, yeah, no. Even then, I don't know that I have that much experience with them. But you have experience with the news of Subnautica. Oh, yes, with Subnautica. We got sidetracked. We got sidetracked. It was my fault. I threw a distraction. On the Steam page for Subnautica 2, the publisher's name has been removed from as Crafton and is now Unknown Worlds Entertainment to make it so it looks like it will be there. They're now listed as the publisher and the developer, looking like they're self-published.
    50:08
    Eurogamer reached out specifically to Crafton and asked about it, and they got the following response that they are focused on successfully supporting the early access launch of Subnautica 2. And that they have nothing further to share.
    50:22
    That was the entire response. Okay. So the dramas in this thing just keep getting more and more interesting. We'll see where this goes because that launch is coming. The early release launch is coming soon, according to Crafton.
    50:42
    But that information was released after the judge ordered it controlled back to the original people. But before they'd actually come in and taken over to make any decisions, the craft room was just like, oh, it's coming out in May, what, like 13th or something like that. So we'll see if that date holds or if it changes or what's going on. But that whole level of judicially involved everything is going is just it's going to be interesting.
    51:11
    It's going to be very interesting to see what happens. So but that's what I've got on the notes for today. All right. Well, people, if you want to reach out to us, you can email us, eclecticgamerspodcast at gmail.com or go to facebook.com slash eclecticgamerspodcast. And again, like I said at the start of the show, if you want to help us financially, we welcome it. It's patreon.com slash eclectic underscore gamers. We have three tiers, one for as low as a dollar a month, so it doesn't cost very much. We're available on Twitch and Instagram as eclectic underscore gamers. And we should be back in a couple of weeks. I don't think we're going to have a new major pinball release by then, But there will almost assuredly be more video game news. And if I don't have anything really substantive in the pinball section, we will come up with some new discussion topics or write them in. Write them in. We do get a lot of questions. This time it was all video game oriented, which is unusual. We usually get a mix with usually the majority being pinball. Very true. But until then, my name is Dennis. I'm Tony. Goodbye. See ya.