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Episode 188 - Foo For Thought

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 6m·analyzed·Mar 6, 2023
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.031

TL;DR

Stern reveals Foo Fighters pinball; American Pinball teases Galactic Tank Force amid crowded March reveals.

Summary

Dennis and Tony discuss the newly revealed Foo Fighters pinball machine by Stern, analyzing its three-tier pricing model ($7k-$13k), design team, and gameplay features including upper playfield on Premium/LE models. They also cover American Pinball teaser campaign for Galactic Tank Force, expressing concern about the reveal timing amid a crowded March featuring multiple game launches at the Texas Pinball Festival.

Key Claims

  • Foo Fighters pinball has a 1,000-unit LE run at $13,000; Premium is $9,700; Pro is $7,000

    high confidence · Dennis provides official pricing from Stern's announcement

  • Pro model is three-flipper, Premium/LE is four-flipper with upper playfield

    high confidence · Dennis describes mechanical differences between tiers from game reveal materials

  • Foo Fighters preliminary sales have been strong

    medium confidence · Dennis states 'preliminary sales have been strong on the game' but acknowledges Stern games typically show strong preliminary numbers

  • James Bond pinball reveal/launch was significantly worse than Foo Fighters

    high confidence · Dennis and Tony discuss James Bond's problematic launch and poor ongoing sales

  • Valhalla by American Pinball was limited to 500 units and had slow production/sales

    high confidence · Tony and Dennis discuss Valhalla's performance since October 2021 launch

  • American Pinball is expected to reveal Galactic Tank Force at Texas Pinball Festival in March

    high confidence · Dennis states 'my assumption is American Pinball is going to try and have the game at TPF' based on reveal timing

Notable Quotes

  • “I like it having a storyline built into it. I think that gives it legs.”

    Tony @ ~28:00 — Endorsement of narrative-driven game design for band pins, contrasting with traditional jukebox approach

  • “I'll be honest. I will be that guy. I would probably, if I had the premium, try and find a pro trans light to replace it.”

    Tony @ ~22:00 — Reveals collector preference for Pro artwork aesthetics over Premium despite gameplay features

  • “It half rolled my eyes and looked at Dennis like he physically injured me by making me watch it it was really bad”

    Tony @ ~48:00 — Strongly negative reaction to Galactic Tank Force teaser trailer animation/presentation

  • “Maybe sabotages is the wrong word, but I'll use that. Sabotages Bond sales at this point.”

    Dennis @ ~37:00 — Suggests Foo Fighters' successful reveal further damages already-struggling James Bond sales

  • “I think this game needed to come out before now.”

    Tony @ ~58:00 — Criticism of American Pinball's delayed Galactic Tank Force release timing

Entities

Jack DangerpersonTanya KleisspersonRaymond DavidsonpersonZombie YetipersonEddie HickspersonStern PinballcompanyAmerican PinballcompanyFoo Fightersgame

Signals

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Collector preference for Pro artwork/trans-light design over Premium/LE despite gameplay feature disadvantage; common enough that multiple listeners have expressed similar preference

    medium · Tony states he would replace Premium's trans-light with Pro's; Dennis confirms 'not the only one' expressing this preference

  • ?

    business_signal: American Pinball's delayed game release cycle creating competitive disadvantage; Valhalla (October 2021) to Galactic Tank Force (~March 2025) gap suggests production or design challenges

    medium · Tony states 'I think this game needed to come out before now'; Dennis agrees they 'gotta hit one of those shows' (TPF or Chicago) to avoid killing momentum

  • ?

    competitive_signal: March 2025 reveals creating unusually crowded competitive landscape: Foo Fighters, Galactic Tank Force, Scooby-Doo, and rumored additional reveals all debuting at Texas Pinball Festival

    high · Dennis and Tony discuss crowded March with Foo reveal, American Pinball reveal, JJP reveal, and Spooky's Scooby-Doo all competing for attention at TPF

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Jack Danger explicitly interested in making pinball 'weird again' and pushing design boundaries, evidenced by unconventional in-lane alley-pass target design and upper playfield integration

    high · Dennis references Jack Danger's social media statements about making pinball weird; novel alley-pass mechanic in Foo Fighters layout

  • $

    market_signal: Valhalla by American Pinball (500-unit LE) did not sell through and has had slow production ramp, suggesting limited collector demand and problematic company positioning

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.201

0:00
Welcome to the Collected Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, March 5th. This is episode 188. I have a name. It's Tony. You have a name. Should I go Jim? Croce? How do we say the last name? I'm not sure. Write into eclecticgamerspodcast.gmail.com if you know how to say Jim's name, because he has a name, but I'm not sure how to say it. Yes, you are, Tony. I am Dennis. And before we go into our introductions, I would want to go ahead and thank all of the Patreon members, and I'll call out those that actually have just recently joined the Patreon. So at the high support level, we have Kevin H. At the intermediate support level, we have picked up Cause and Kineticist. And at the basic support level, we have picked up X-Ray. Now, we're only up to 51, Tony, so do not fear. We did have a Patreon member leave. So we are at 51, I believe, is the count with that departure. Because the goal, of course, is 60 to compel pain. But anyway, again, if you want to support us, you can go to patreon.com slash eclectic underscore gamers. Tony, it's been two weeks since we did the last episode. What's going on? You've recovered, I hope, from Polar Plunge. I have recovered from the Polar Plunge.
1:30
I've gotten good feedback on the videos and my costuming. Your costume was great. I thought it was great. I enjoyed it quite a lot. And it seemed like everyone knew who you were. Yes. It worked out better than I thought it would, considering I ended up having to go with the wrong shirt. I did. But since that time, I have, I found a game called Waves of Steel. which is an indie game that's available on Steam that is a kind of modernized riff on the old Naval Ops Combat Gunner game that was on the PS1 back in the day. I don't think I played that. I played it a lot because basically in the old Naval Ops game, you were a captain of like a little destroyer that got ripped through dimensions and thrown into a new world, and you were fighting it out, but everything was in like insane schizo tech. So the whole game was based around driving your little destroyer around, killing other ships, and then upgrading your destroyer with insane stuff until you end up with larger ships and you've got a Gatling 16-inch gun and laser cannons and wave motion beams and all the insanity.
Galactic Tank Force
game
James Bondgame
Valhallagame
Guardiansgame
Scooby-Doogame
Metallicagame
Alice Cooper's Nightmare Castlegame
Texas Pinball Festivalevent
Dennisperson
Tonyperson
Jersey Jack Pinballcompany
Spooky Pinballcompany

high · Tony notes Valhalla limited to 500 units with slow production since October 2021 reveal; Dennis suggests 500 units is underwhelming for company of American Pinball's size

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Raymond Davidson continuing pattern of designing/programming band pin code despite track record with other genres (Rush, Led Zeppelin); Foo Fighters marks first narrative-focused band pin

    medium · Dennis notes 'Raymond Davidson has always been on band pins' and teases that 'he finally does get one that will allow him to tell a story'

  • ?

    announcement: Galactic Tank Force officially confirmed by American Pinball through teaser trailer with character silhouettes and callout audio; reveal expected at Texas Pinball Festival in March

    high · Dennis links to NAP Arcade's coverage of official teaser; states 'very confirmed that it is galactic tank first' after latest teaser

  • ?

    product_concern: Concern about durability of thin stand-up targets in Foo Fighters lower playfield, drawing parallel to Star Trek recurring bend-out-of-shape issues

    medium · Dennis notes Star Trek left orbit target requires bending back every 50-100 plays; expresses concern about similar Foo Fighters targets despite acknowledging alley-passing may not be heavily used

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Stark contrast in community perception: Foo Fighters launch significantly more positive than James Bond; suggests licensing/theme execution major factor in game reception

    high · Dennis states Foo Fighters launch 'went significantly better than James Bond did' and suggests Bond licensing 'sabotages' sales; both hosts agree Bond had problematic reveal

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Band pin licensing enabling narrative storytelling approach (Foo Fighters fighting aliens) rather than traditional jukebox/concert format, expanding design space

    high · Both hosts discuss preference for Foo Fighters' alien narrative vs traditional band pin concert/jukebox gameplay; Tony notes this gives game 'legs' and lasting appeal

    • 2:50
    This game is like a modern version of that. It's indie. The graphics are fine. they're they're doable but you can still you start out with what's a very normal looking ship with normal gun type things and then you just slowly build it up until you have just raw insanity on it uh just for fun the other day i was driving around in a ship that had a giant drill on the front, buzzsaw blades on the side, a Gatling six-inch, a dual Gatling six-inch cannon on the front, and a laser shotgun, because why not? Laser pellets. Exactly. Very deadly. Yes.
    3:37
    So I've been playing that a lot. I finally finished the entire storyline of the game. I'll be honest. The storyline was whatever. I don't care. I skipped most of it. I just wanted to drive around. You just wanted to have buzz saw, laser shotguns. Exactly. Okay. Interesting. And again, this game was a big draw to me due to nostalgia, basically, because I used to play the heck out of the Naval Ops games.
    4:05
    I also decided to re-watch all of the Venture Brothers. And I realized I never saw all of the Venture Brothers. I'd never seen anything after season four. It's because it would be years between seasons, so it was very easy to lose track of. I think that was probably the biggest problem with building up support for that show. Yeah, no, I had never seen anything past season four. So seasons five, six, and seven were... They're quite different. They're very different than the first four seasons. Not bad. I won't say they're bad. I enjoyed them actually a lot more than I thought. Like the very first, especially in the switch between season five and season six, had major adjustments. I was like, is this really going to? No, it was still solid. It was real good, just in a different way. Right. Yes. But I really ended up enjoying it. Good. Yes. I like that show a lot. Well, I have been playing a new game. I actually have had it for a little while. I got it for Christmas. It's Plague Tale Innocence. There are a couple of Plague Tale games. And I was just sort of going through Amazon, looking at games, looking at things to put on Christmas list and all that. And I saw the Plague Tale games and they read interesting. I wasn't really familiar with them. So it's a stealth style game. You cannot hit man your way through it. It's not set up because you're like it's like taking place during, I guess, the Black Death. It's so we're like in very historic middle age esque France. because there's the Inquisition and there's all that.
    5:44
    And so it's been fun. Did you expect the Inquisition? I didn't. I thought this was going to be a game about rats. It's the Inquisition. Has begun the Inquisition. So anyway, I'm not done with that yet because it's started to get more and more challenging. But again, it's very much a puzzle game. Stealth elements, but there are a lot of sort of puzzle-y solutions to those sort of things. It's nothing particularly brutal. I wouldn't rank it up as hard as Hitman trying to play Hitman properly, for example. What do you mean trying to play Hitman stealthily? Stealthily. That's not properly. I don't know. In my opinion. Okay. So that's what I've been playing.
    6:24
    And then before we get into our content, I do want to thank Joe R. He actually emailed us and sent us a bunch of mystery Steam keys. he had done some charity donation stuff and got some duplicate games so he sent us a list of Steam keys but his email noted he didn't know which games were what codes so I have a list of codes and I have no idea what they are and I thought maybe we should do contests or something to give these codes away to listeners and then ask them just to tell us what game was it because we don't know. Interesting. I thought just FYI we have I mean, it's probably like a dozen codes, and I don't know what they are. So I thought, well, maybe we could, I don't know, do a game. Yeah, we could see that, maybe get an idea for a game. Let's brainstorm some options. We'll do some brainstorming. Now, what could be problematic, could be fun.
    7:23
    We could just pick one at random. Fire it up. Sight unseen. and just live stream it. I have thought about that as well. Maybe that's something we could do with some of the codes or the leftover code. How about we do this? For this episode, the first email we get, and it must be an email, to eclecticgamerspodcast.gmail.com. Whoever suggests for us a way, a game, or some method to dispense a code out, we'll get a code. I'll give them the first code that I have in the list.
    7:59
    There's no reason for me to randomize them because I have no idea what they are. So that's the call for this one is give us an idea, and whoever emails us first will get a code.
    8:09
    So there. We'll see what their listeners – they won't know. They'll be all like, oh, gosh, this is too late. I heard this episode three days later. It's too late to turn it in. It's like, you know what? It's probably not too late to turn it in. No one really listens to this show, so you have plenty of time. It's a lot of work, especially when I can't let you Facebook message it. I'm like, you've got to use email. Some of these people are probably like, I'm so busy with like the gram. Speaking of the gram, my eldest daughter, her dog is a Boston Terrier.
    8:44
    And we send dog-related, me and my daughter send dog-related and like specifically Boston Terrier memes back and forth. So we just have this ongoing chain that have just turned into farty boy references about Boston Terriers because they're little farty boys. And it's hilarious to me. I know. Nobody else actually cares. Well, maybe the one other Boston Terrier owner who listens cares. Boston Terrier. My grandpa was – that's all he would get. Well, he had an outside dog as well, but his inside dog was always a Boston Terrier.
    9:20
    And he always gave it the same name too. so we went through like four judy dogs i think as far back as i could remember or five there are a lot of judy dogs and they not even have a number or no that's judy dog all right no numbers would be impersonal just judy dog i think george foreman but with boston terry right speaking of george foreman let's go into the pinball section because george foreman never got a pinball machine. So that's the...
    9:50
    It is sad. But you know what isn't sad? The Foo Fighters. They're not sad because they've just got their own pinball machine. Compliments of Stern Pinball. That has now been revealed and that is the big discussion point for today. Now, there is a link that I have in the show notes to Nap Arcade's breakdown of the Foo Fighters pinball machine. I also do have a link in the show notes for people. If you want to watch Stern Pinball's game trailer. So that's not very long. The game trailer is not very long. There have already been live streams of the Premium LE and the Pro that you can go and watch. Now, as a reminder, those are not at Stern's site. Those are on Deadflips. So the game trailer stuff is on Stern's YouTube. I watched parts of both of the gameplay reveals. Those are on Deadflips YouTube, and I assume they're probably still available over on Twitch. But you can search them out for YouTube, and you can find them. I didn't want to stick a ton of YouTube links in, so I'm not putting all those in. Those are longer. So I did watch a portion of both of them. I spent more time watching the premium LE reveal than I did the pro, but I did catch a little bit of both. So let's go over some basics really quick. I do recommend people just go and load up an article because it's too hard to really describe the photographs and everything with this. But pricing. So this is a cornerstone. So it's going to be the three-tier model that we're very familiar with from Stern Pinball. Pros are going to be essentially $7,000. Premiums are going to be $9,700. And the limited editions, which they're doing a 1,000-unit run of those, that's $13,000.
    11:28
    The game's flipper count depends on which model. So the pro is a three-flipper game, and the premium LE is a four-flipper game. And that's because the Premium LE has an upper play field in the upper left portion of the game, which is accessible from the right ramp. Some other notable items is this is a six-ball total game, so I'm guessing there's a six-ball multiball, but I didn't really go in and find out, check how many balls are in the particular multiballs. the premium le models they have an alien abduction feature which has a magnet underneath what's known as the overlord air arena and it has a sculpted overlord toy you can kind of see that in the photos in the upper right portion of the game the premium le also has something called overdrive it's a ball save feature and what happens is they're using something called the dead post and what we'll do is that will pop up and it will allow you to deflect the ball from the left out lane back into play it's kind of amusing because on the pro that doesn't exist but the art still shows the feature it shows like a finger flicking the ball up to the right so it's like i guess a burn to anyone who decided they didn't want to spend that much money is hey you get to enjoy your uh your dead post flip uh artwork at least um i'd say that's the main stuff i want to start just in terms of the design team so people know. So the designer is Jack Danger. This is his first Cornerstone game for Stern. He did do a Jurassic Park Home Edition, which came out about two years ago, I think. Software, the lead on this is Tanya Kleiss, but Raymond Davidson is also doing code. You'll know Raymond, Tony, because he is who developed a lot of the rules on Rush and Led Zeppelin. The artist on this game is Zombie Yeti, who you'll be familiar with, Tony, because he did the art on Godzilla, Deadpool, and pretty much every Stern game you love the art package of. And the main mechanical engineer on this was Eddie Hicks. So I have, as I noted, watched a little bit of the gameplay. I'm assuming you probably haven't had a chance yet to see any of the gameplay on this. Right. I didn't watch any of the gameplay. I'm terrible. So looking at the photos, and in our internal notes for Tony, I have gone ahead and I've included the first photo, Tony, that you'll see is the one of the pro. And then the one below that in the green is the SZLE. So you'll be able to easily tell them apart from the upper play field. But what do you think? My initial thoughts are, I think this is a pretty interesting layout. I do get where Jack Danger in some statements online, because I do follow him on social media, like his Dead Flip channel. He has noted a desire to make pinball weird again and things of that nature. And this is different. I think you can see some of the new blood aspects to it. One of the items that I think is kind of interesting that I didn't talk about in my summaries, but if you look kind of closely at the bottom of the play field, the in-lane configuration, he's got these targets in there designed for alley passes to hit. so you for a lot of people call it shat scene which i kind of don't like that name because it's completely nondescript and it's so inside baseball but that's what yeah i'd say most pen heads are going to call it shat scene but alley passing is the technical term so it's when you let the ball go to the end of the flipper and then you flip and then it goes uh back through the opposite sides in lane so there's actually like a stand up there that can be hit i've never seen that before uh i think it's a cool idea it's a cool idea my my only concern and you know hopefully they've tested it enough is will those do those bend out of shape with strikes i mentioned that because the little thin stand-ups that uh block all the ramp shots and orbits and stuff on stern star trek like the one at that left orbit every like 100 50 to 100 plays i have to bend it back into position because it just gets hit so much uh this might maybe they don't get hit that much because not very many people do alley passing but but it's a cool idea i'm just i do wonder how it will hold up but uh but conceptually i like the idea i've noticed this slings are seem to be a lot smaller a lot less real estate as well to give you more open area in that in that lower third which is a i'm cool with that idea it kind of reminds me of uh premiere would sometimes do different sized uh slings uh sometimes one being much smaller uh these obviously look pretty symmetrical to me but the real estate is a smaller which is interesting probably to give you easier accessibility to some shots so looking at the pro uh one of the things that i i've noticed is the you've got the let's kind of go from left to right on that image okay so just really really quick it looks like there's some uh some targets on the far far left above the left sling then you've got the left ramp that left ramp seems to horseshoe essentially back around to the left flipper then you've got the center ramp or center left ramp which is accessible from the upper flipper because this is the process of three flipper game looks like we got multiple shots uh accessible there as well uh from that flipper there's also like that little inner orbit with a spinner it looks like uh around that overlord not it's not the custom sculpt because it's the pro and then you got that right ramp which is what lets you in this case go around and feed to the right flipper And if you scroll down that right ramp will go the opposite way That right ramp above that upper right flipper goes into that upper field which seems to have two loop options. So that kind of reminds me of the upper area of Rob Zombie. You remember with the little quick loop you could do with that? But this looks a little more like there's more. There are two shots here, not just the one little loop.
    17:06
    So you've got that. And I guess there's a whole like diverter option where either you hold something up to let it go in there or whatnot, because you can see that it also does have the wire form that will feed back from that area all the way down to the lower right flipper. And then most of the other shots look pretty much the same, because obviously the addition or subtraction, depending on how you think of it, is that upper playfield. Though the Overlord toy with that hidden magnet and everything is all going on and looks a lot cooler on the premium with the sculpt.
    17:40
    So I think it looks interesting. Based off of the very, very limited gameplay I have seen, if I were in the market for this, and I'm not, I don't know the Foo Fighters, and I look forward to playing in a location, but it's not a game I'm really considering getting. I would probably go pro because I normally don't like upper play fields and the two loopy style shots don't seem like I would have a lot of fun with them for the price so I'd probably just go pro but those would be my initial thoughts so based off the images and stuff what do you think? I'm going to agree with you for the most part I do like the pros traditionally I have liked most of the pros better than the premiums play-wise. It could be different. I do like the... Some of the things that I really can take or leave with pros are the stand-ups. Like Godzilla would have to be a premium. This stuff's too much... There's too much better on the play field for me than to take the pro. But then, like Game of Thrones, I always preferred the pro. Guardians of the Galaxy, I preferred the pro. So I'd have to see and actually play on this one to see which I prefer. But, again, I'm like you. I'm not huge on the upper play fields. Just have to see how it is. I do like the art, I mean, but it's Zombie Yeti. Who's surprised that I like Zombie Yeti art? So I would probably. I'll be honest. I will be that guy. I would probably, if I had the premium, try and find a pro trans light to replace it. Oh, okay. Well, you could probably order one. I mean, they're not like sacred. Because I prefer the pros trans light with the van to the trans light that is available normally. You aren't the only one I've heard say that they would take parts of the pro and stick it into another art package overall. So you are not alone. What do you think of this? We haven't discussed it yet, but I'll throw it out there. What do you think of this idea? Okay, so this is a band pin, but they're going with this theme of them fighting aliens. So they're telling a story here. It's not just like a jukebox. I like it. I really like putting something in so it's more than just the standard music pin or the, oh, it's a concert. You're playing a concert or you're doing whatever. I like it having a storyline built into it. I think that gives it legs. I think that's something that would give it more of a lasting ability because it doesn't feel – I say that, but I'd still sit down and play Metallica any day of the week.
    20:29
    Yeah, but that's probably more because Metallica is such a strong game overall. Right. A story can help if the game – well, I think the layout looks interesting. I am jury still out. Obviously, we haven't played it on whether or not the game is fun. The story could help make it more fun than it might otherwise be. Yes.
    20:46
    Yeah. I also think I've I've I've teased that Raymond Davidson has always been on band pins. And yet again, here he is. But he finally does get one that will allow him to tell a story and not be here. choose this track with an owl on it right or choose that just just like i prefer storytelling based games myself and i've never owned a band pin so again uh i i think the only other instance though they argued it wasn't a bad a band pin was a spooky with alice cooper's nightmare castle which tried to tell a story and in their instance they they felt they they went so far away from it that it wasn't really a band pin anymore. I don't necessarily agree, but I see the perspective. I can see the perspective. I mean, because it's similar to like Weird Al is very much, it's not just a concert. It's got a, I don't know if you'd call it a storyline, but it is a different take on a music pin. Yeah. Though with them, a lot of that is because it's on that platform, they're able to do so much with the screens that they can really change sort of the immersion approach that a traditional pinball machine just can't do. Right. now you know Foo Fighters better than me I'm not a big Foo I recognize some of the songs when I hear them but I wouldn't have been able to tell you the names of any of the songs so they have 15 songs in the game and I'll read them out really quick it sounds like most people that I've heard from that are Foo fans like the overall selection though of course everyone has the ones that they wish were in so the songs listed are All My Life, Best of You, Breakout ever long holding poison i'll stick around learn to fly monkey wrench my hero run something from nothing the pretender this is a call times like these and walk yeah no i think it's a fine selection of foo discography uh i've got no i've got no issues with it there's nothing really outstanding or that i feel like isn't in there that should be in there I have no problems with it I like this entry kind of moving the timeline forward of where we're pulling music pens from I like Foo Fighters well enough they probably wouldn't have been my first pick from this kind of era but I know your hope is that if this game does well it will encourage other 90's era games, because they first came out in the mid 90's we're probably thinking things like Nirvana Soundgarden maybe Cake. Oh, cake. That'd be interesting. That'd be good. I mean, there's a bunch of stuff out there. They could reuse those disco balls from Deadpool Premium for disco lemonade. So, yeah, there's a lot of mid-90s stuff out there that I would really like. I mean, I know the ones I'd really, really like would never, ever happen. But there are some ones I think could be really good. So, I've got high hopes for it, and I am looking forward to playing it. Yep. And this is very preliminary. I've heard preliminary sales have been strong on the game. Granted, preliminary sales from Stern games usually are. Right. So we'll have to see if it has legs. But this reveal, this launch, has all gone, I was going to say, significantly better than James Bond did. Honestly, how could it have gone worse, though? Right. And I think that lends support to the whole James Bond was severely injured by the licensure. I do think so. I will go ahead and say, based off of how things – I don't think – everything went so smooth for Foo Fighters. I actually think this – maybe sabotages is the wrong word, but I'll use that. Sabotages Bond sales at this point. I don't expect – I expect Bond to be a short run. I do too. I think those of you who bought Bond, I still think they'll finish the code and everything just – I mean, reports are that game is not doing well. It hasn't been doing well for a while. And I think even with completed code, I mean, I've played it now.
    24:59
    It's fine. It shoots all right. Yeah, it's not a layout problem. No. So – and code can help it, but I think everything overall has just poisoned the well enough that it's not going to be one of those games that gets two or three rounds. It's – and we could be wrong. I mean the question is if people come around on it, do they come around too late? Like people came around on Guardians while they were still making them, and Guardians ended up having a really long run. People came around too late on Stranger Things and couldn't get them anymore. Right. So we'll have to wait and see on that. But as usual, the new hotness gets the most attention, and Foo Fighters is definitely the new hotness. Speaking of new, let's change topics to American Pinball. This was touched on in our last episode. We had some information already. There was a teaser trailer, I believe, when we did the last episode that was talking about something out of this world is coming in March and we'll have the American Shield symbol from American Pinball. I do like their new symbol. I do too. so all right another they've now got two teasers out for galactic tank force they had one that just recently dropped and i do have a link in our show notes for people to go to nap arcade which has a write-up on it and also has the video embedded so you can go and watch it is very short tony actually just watched it uh before we started recording i watched it this morning um tony i would love your thoughts on the latest teaser trailer we now it's super confirmed that it is galactic tank first the first teaser trailer did say that i don't think we talked about the teaser at the time because i think it came out after we did our our episode and it only said it down at the bottom like in the yeah down on like the licensing yeah spot interesting choice uh it gave you some silhouettes of some characters and stuff um and in this instance you get a little bit of what i'm assuming is some of the call-out audio from the game and some skills of art from the game were they still i don't they were like semi-motion they were like um dynamic motion like the like the halloween powerpoint yeah jamie lee curtis hiding in the closet a little where there's a little bit of everything that was wrong uh with the animation choices of halloween is personified with her hiding in the closet and the that still animation of like the skirt or whatever hanging from the closet rod. Anyway, we're not here to talk about Halloween.
    27:29
    Your thoughts, Tony? Your sigh is kinder than your addition. Your sigh is kinder than Tony's initial reaction to the trailer. All right, I know I'm cutting in. Tony's initial reaction to the trailer was not good. That's my kind way of saying that you thought it was really bad. I mean it's really bad it was really bad I mean when I watched the trailer I like half rolled my eyes and looked at Dennis like he physically injured me by making me watch it it was not what I hoped for but it's a teaser it could be anything well you agree though that I mean with a game like Galactic Tank Force they gotta lean into the camp Oh, no, they definitely have to lean into the camp. I mean, if they didn't lean into the camp, it would be an even bigger issue.
    28:28
    I just, I don't know. I don't know if it was the little video snippet or just the super campy voice acting thing that it just, it did not, you know, tickle my fancy. obviously there's not much else we can say because we still haven't seen haven't seen gameplay haven't seen any i i have seen some far away photos of the game but not enough to make out the layout with any you know i can't talk about it not that i was sworn to secrecy i just i haven't seen enough to be able to tell you anything of use like we could with the foo fighters uh photos um what do you think about let's assume i mean they've made it clear that this game's reveal is this month. So given that we'll be at the end of the month at TPF, my assumption is American Pinball is going to try and have the game at TPF for people to play, which is exciting for us. It is. What do you think, though, about them doing this reveal in what is looking at? We're going to touch on another one here in a moment, looking like a very crowded month, because while Scooby-Doo was revealed several months ago, it wasn't at a show until Louisville. And so TPF is going to be the show that a lot of people are going to play it at. Yeah, I think that. And, of course, Foo. And Foo is going to be there. And I think they really don't have a choice. I mean, we kind of touched on this a little bit before we started recording that there's a lot of good shows throughout the course of the year, but the really big shows are TPF in March and Chicago in October. And if they want to really get it out there and get it in front of some people, It needs to hit one of those shows.
    30:12
    So if they do all this teasing and do a reveal and then have nothing at TPF, that's going to hurt them. When was the last time American had a machine come out?
    30:23
    Was the expo we were at, right? That was when they had Valhalla. Yeah. So that was 21? Yes. October 21. They had like five Valhallas on the floor, and we got to play it. And those have just trickled, though. I mean, maybe not trickled as bad as, like, Cactus Canyon remake LE, but not – it's been – for a game that was limited to 500, it's been a slow production. Right. And is that a – yeah, is that a – just no one had the interest? No one cares? I've heard it's both. I've heard – not no one, obviously. uh i i've heard some of it's probably supply chain issues that everyone faced but i i have heard that like they didn't sell out right so uh yeah i agree with you i think that i think this is more of a have to it's been so long and the game wasn't let's assume they sold 500 that's not a hit is it for a game for a company that big i wouldn't think right i mean that's less than tna 1.0's run out of spooky years ago which was 550 i just i mean to be fair that was a better game than valhalla but i i do agree with i do agree with you on that however a spooky run ran and maybe still runs a smaller crew at the time than american seems to americans very what i keep using the word top heavy they got a lot of designers on board uh it's anyway i think this game needed to come out before now. As a consumer, I love the idea of all this stuff being at Texas. If I were American, I would be very upset that I ended up dropping my reveal when JJP is dropping a reveal, Stern is dropping a reveal, there's a rumor about another reveal possibly happening this month, and then of course the Spooky's finally starting to get the Scoobies out. So you're not competing against a reveal, but you're competing against a first-time hands-on experience for a lot of folks. And the issue that you pointed out I think is key. Texas and Expo in Chicago are the two big, big pinball shows. And this, as a non-licensed theme, needs pinheads to get behind it because the average consumer is not going to buy this game because they're not going to know anything about it. Right. And I think, in all honesty, this is probably one of those things that just kind of worked out this way because typically there's not been a major release leading into TPF. Typically there's not been anything huge rolling in. And I can see where they could have planned to do a major release and roll it in there thinking that, well, most people don't have anything huge, huge rolling in here. So this will be our time. And then everyone else just went, no.
    33:24
    Yeah that a good point That a good point Let move to the next company because we talking about stuff All right so Jersey Jack Pinball I mentioned them in the prior segment It is now confirmed, officially confirmed, that Godfather is the next game, and the reveal is going to be a couple days after this episode. It's going to be on March 7th, so actually look at the game. I do want to note that I am glad that they've gone ahead and confirmed the name already. They were doing teasers this week, very strange teasers. So the Patreon got to enjoy my baby's first. My first time my baby's first isn't a duck sitting there holding a something. Because there were these photos with the designer of the game, Eric Minier, with the underside of the play field. And he's looking at it. It looks, I mean, there's this wiring and stuff everywhere. I saw that picture. All the photos are like him looking super serious.
    34:18
    It's an interesting strategy. Is that because of Godfather that make it all serious? I don't know. Anyway, but the way he looked at the picture with the wiring, I won't spoil my baby's first. People can join the patron if they want to look at the baby's first. But it made me think he was looking like at the like, oh, my gosh, what happened here? Not a yeah. It was more like, oh, dear, sort of thing. But anyway, it was fun. So I appreciated the photos. I do want to say, though, thank you, Jersey Jack, for confirming the name Godfather, because it has finally ended the ridiculous rumor that they were about to drop Harry Potter. A rumor, Tony, let me go on a little right here. A rumor that was so bad, it didn't even make Rumor Corner. And Rumor Corner is full of some of the dumbest nonsense out there ever. And I couldn't even put that in because it was so ridiculous. And people were talking themselves into it. And I was like, guys, it's Godfather. It was as serious black as the Godfather to Harry Potter, so it's just a code name. I mean, it spun into that. And it's like, guys, you lost the plot. You lost the plot a long time ago.
    35:35
    But if you add up the number positions of Godfather and you take each position and you add them up and you divide them by the number of years since the first Harry Potter. I understood a little bit because Jack Winery, the owner of Jersey Jack, founder of Jersey Jack Pinball, he on a not on JJP's page. He in reply to someone else had posted a photo of him in front of like images or posted a picture of images that were all games that JJP had made, but also included Harry Potter. and then his response when someone asked about it was to suggest and i i read it i read the screenshot of it it it definitely suggested not that jjp has harry potter but that jjp is about to announce it which clearly wasn't true he didn't say that it was something like i'd hold on to my money for uh for the next few days but it was in response to someone asking about harry potter because of the image it was a troll it was a troll job right it's interesting because i think this one might have some backlash.
    36:44
    Obviously, we can't really say anything about Godfather. We'll be talking about that in a couple of weeks when we'll have actually seen the reveal.
    36:52
    Much like Galactic Tank Force, I think this is very much going to come down to what the game looks like.
    36:59
    Eric, as a designer, is extremely well-respected by a lot of people. However, a couple of issues. The reason why I do the Galactic Tank Force comparison is Godfather, while it is a licensed theme, is a very weird choice. It is so weird. Very weird choice for pinball. A lot of people don't understand how it's going to work in the game. I'm sure it will make a lot more sense once we see it, but I don't know if there are a lot of people in the pinball hobby that are going to buy this simply because they love Godfather as a theme. Right, and that's the thing. I mean, if you're going to, and I've said this before, so this isn't new to anybody, But if you're going to go with the whole gangster motif in pinball in a way that is easy to understand what it would work and what you would do, you'd have to go with Scarface.
    37:52
    I mean, personally, as a moviegoer, I love Godfather. But if I was a moviegoer who was going to make a pinball machine, I would have picked Scarface. I could see it. I understand where you're coming from. I don't know if... I agree with you that Scarface is a better pick. I don't know what the ideal mafia pick is. I think you could get... Well, no, the ideal would be Goodfellas. That's where I was going to say. If we wanted to start listing mob-based... I could see where they came in and they were like, hey, Sopranos worked for Stern. We should do Godfather. It's better known than Sopranos. Like, well, maybe that's true, but Goodfellas would have been a better pick. Scarface would have been a better pick. The Departed would have been a better pick. There's just a lot of more things that you could work with in it than, I don't know. So many mob-style shows are actually very slow. So it's a question of, there's a way to do it. And I'm sure Eric and the coding team has thoughts on it. The reason why I actually worry a little bit more about this than Galactic Tank Force is the price point from Toy Story 4.
    39:19
    I don't think they're going to. This is a guess, of course. I don't think they're going to go back. So you're asking for some serious investment to get into a JJP machine. They have no SE version standard edition anymore. and it's like 12,000 or 15,000 pick your poison you gotta have a banger you've gotta have a banger and I just don't expect I just don't think it's going to be there most of the concerns that people have had with Jersey Jack games and these aren't like hates they're just generalized concerns have been is it going to be floaty are the flippers going to still feel kind of mushy is the code going to be multipol bonanza with where you've got like a mile of is like an inch of depth and a mile wide of water sort of thing where it's like some of the complaints about about pirates which ended up being a pretty respected game but um there were frustrations with how they they've taken you know there are a lot of concerns that people will have with anything jersey jack is asking for so much money at this point that they just it's got to be a tier and they didn't even start with an a-tier theme for pinball It's a great film, but not for pinball. We joked before we started recording about Citizen Kane. If you haven't seen Citizen Kane, watch it. It's a really good movie. Really good. It should never be a pinball machine. Ever. Never, ever. I just, I mean, yeah.
    40:50
    This is one of those games that feels like somebody was like, you know, I love this. the license is affordable or is within our means and I get to tell you what you're picking as the next game so do it. That's what it feels like. This feels like a personal choice by somebody. Kind of like Oktoberfest.
    41:18
    A personal choice of something that means something to one particular person but might not actually have the overall draw.
    41:29
    And I just, in my mind, I cannot fathom how you will make this work without making it almost a spoof of the movie without making it, how do you keep that tension and everything that was in that movie in a pen bone?
    41:51
    So one of the, there's like a little teaser trailer. I don't have a link in the show notes to it, and I didn't bring it up with you ahead of time, Tony. It was just because it didn't show anything. It was the Godfather theme, but it was played solo on an electric guitar.
    42:07
    Like, think about a slash rendition of – that's what I heard. That's not good. That doesn't help. That was the Dennis version. That makes it even worse.
    42:33
    This could go real bad for J.J.P. Well, they're planning two games this year, so I guess we'll... They're planning two games every year since the day J.J.P. was founded, and it's never happened. And I'm not holding my breath. Obviously, this one's coming out within a year of Toy Story. It is. So it's two within a year. I mean, we don't have to reset on January 1. That's true. So technically. So they've done it. They're about to do it. On Tuesday, they'll do it. Technically, you're right. And they've already got them boxed ready to go. It's technically correct. They're already ready to go. Yes.
    43:06
    So this is kind of interesting, though. So we mentioned Texas earlier. So it's sounding like, based off of these reveals and stuff, we are expecting Foo Fighters at Texas. We're expecting Godfather at Texas.
    43:18
    Scooby-Doo Pinball at Texas. Galactic Tank Force at Texas a lot of people think, myself included, that Project Carbon from Multimorphic at Texas I don't know that for sure but they've talked about it and normally Jerry with Multimorphic has a really big showing and he's going to be at Texas so with all that said I've got yet another one for you it's time for Rumor Corner rumor corner okay on today's rumor corner here is the rumor i am hearing that there is a decent likelihood that Chicago Gaming Company or CGC is going to reveal Pulp Fiction before TPF. I did not hear that it would be at TPF. But I did hear that the thought is basically that they're going to drop it in March and not the last week of March. I have been hearing that Pulp Fiction has been – we talked about it. This was on another Rumor Corner back months ago when we were hearing that it would possibly come out in Q4 of 2022, which obviously didn't happen. Right.
    44:44
    if you were CGC based off of what we just talked about and what all we expect at, at Texas, do you think they should reveal it in March?
    44:56
    I mean, if they could have it at Texas, it would be a great opportunity to let people play, especially we've been hearing like, it's like old school throwback style game, not like modern LCD stuff. Like I'm thinking like bond 60th with, I've always envisioned it with like score reels and stuff. I don't know if that's the case, but right. But single level, But that makes sense.
    45:17
    If they do announce beforehand, I think with everything that's going to be at TPF, they only announce beforehand if they will have it at TPF. For the simple fact that if it is like we've heard, single level, old fashioned, kind of a throwback style machine, it will be so different than all of the other reveals that it will stand out on its own just because of its differences. But I think if they cannot have machines physically present and playable, push it back. just because there's been so much stuff dropped immediately before TPF this year. In a normal TPF year, do it. But with Godfather, Foo Fighters, GTF, and all already on deck, you've got to hit hard. That's it. You've got to hit hard or just walk away. You ain't first, you're last. Exactly.
    46:25
    Okay. What were you, rumor tanked? I was rumor tanked. Excellent. This TPF, man. I'm looking forward to it. I'm looking so, I mean, I always love TPF. I always look forward to TPF as a nice spring break and get away and reset.
    46:44
    But this TPF, I'm just looking so forward to, even above my normal desire to go to a TPF. it's just so much stuff going on at this one it seems like it's going to be absolutely insane well what insanity do you have for us in the video game segment well first we had an anonymous query yes I wrote this in because it came in and so I asked it to be anonymous so I kept it anonymous This is more of a tabletop question, though, for you, Tony. But I went and stuck it in here because we don't really have a tabletop segment this time. Right.
    47:29
    And I'll go ahead and read it aloud for you. Okay. It says, I admit I don't play any tabletop games, but the D&D OGL issue has made me wonder if there is a book or article about the theory behind scoring on games like D&D, Pokemon, etc. And, you know, sometimes that stuff does come up in video games, Tony. So what is the theory of the score? I don't know that there would be a book or an article about something because they're not really – that style of game is not really about scoring. I mean D&D can be if you choose to make it that way. You can always play with people that are the murder hobo, min-maxer, rules lawyer, trying to make the guy who hits the absolute hardest that's mathematically possible by bending the rules to the edge of breaking. but in my mind all tabletop rpgs not just dnd but all of them are more about a group of friends sitting around creating a story and telling a story uh and interacting in that way than it is about the scoring the scoring doesn't really matter so i mean if you if you're looking at scoring it's you know whatever you earn your your experience your loot but i think in reality it's just about having fun and with pokemon pokemon is another one where a lot of people have kind of make their own their own thing that's why this is the pokemon card game is this what he meant or i don't know i'm just thinking pokemon stuff in general i mean a lot of the people like pokemon video games uh they're they're just the completion things but a lot of people make their own challenges the uh ever popular nuzlocke's uh which involve permadeath and all sorts of rules to make them harder is something that a lot of people do but um i i i just i don't really have a good answer for this because i don't really i've never really looked at those games as a type of game where scoring is what you're what it's about yeah i my thoughts on it would be it does sort of since Since he mentioned the tabletop, not really playing tabletop, I'm guessing there are two different categories if that's the case. There's D&D, which is an RPG, and then there's collectible card games. Is there a Pokemon collectible card game? I thought there was. I wondered if that's because of the reference to tabletop.
    49:56
    So collectible card games, I'm not familiar with Pokemon at all, but I am familiar with Magic the Gathering. and so the theory on most of those style games is there's a life pool and the cards are all about you defeating the other person by draining the life pool and it that simple and there just different mechanisms they all work to do it different ways that the decks work um and so like with magic you know there are all sorts of uh tony and i used to play magic so it be uh in that game they're sort of colors that uh work together and most of the colors have different themes so like green cards are often about creatures with really really strong attacks and And then you could go, like, blue cards were all about countering and stopping the other player from getting to do what they want. And then, you know, black cards might manipulate more around, like, deck management and life drain. And it's just, they were, so how you want to play it depends on, like, the kind of thematic style that you have. And then you can build the deck around that concept. And then, as Tony noted with D&D, it's about going on an adventure. that's the you have a dungeon master who makes a story for you and you're going around and it's about actually role playing so it's about getting in character and doing that the scoring and stuff like all your stats and everything that is what influences your dice rolls so because just like with pinball there's an there's an rng element and the dice represents the random number and then depending on how you've chosen to play be it a min max or or anything uh you have modifiers that affect those throws.
    51:31
    So that's how that works. But the story itself is whatever the adventure the people want to go on. Right. So it's severely affected by how serious, how trolly, how your play group is. They can be whatever you want. It's just however you take it. Now, like a lot of tabletop games, they have like a victory point, a victory condition that you're working towards. like in Monopoly you're building money in some of the railway building games you earn points by having the longest train and the most trains and whatever and you build victory points in those type of games but yeah in like Pokemon style games and card games and especially in D&D and any other RPGs there's not really a win condition There's no, I mean, the win condition is you beat whatever person. I mean, yeah. You complete the adventure. That's the win condition.
    52:36
    But you're not, it's not actually, you're not against the, okay, let me rephrase. If you are playing with a good DM, the DM is not actively attempting to kill you and isn't against you. You guys are working together to have an adventure and to have fun. you can die those situations exist but you don't have a dm who is actively forcing you to die because he's the enemy right i think one of the interesting things about dnd style campaigns is it's different than how a lot of us would think about video games or pinball in that all right let's say you go on an adventure and at the end there's a dragon how you deal with the dragon is entirely up to how you want to play the game, assuming that the GM isn't manipulating in any particular way. So, for example, that dragon's going to have a certain defense and a certain amount of health, and you could literally chip it down and kill it. You could fight it and try and beat it and kill it mathematically. That would be an option. That would be how a video game would do it. That would be how pinball would do it. Complete these shots and you win the wizard mode. You could do it like that in D&D, but in theory you'd also have the option to negotiate with the dragon you would have the option to do something else that might environmentally immediately kill the dragon and you don't have to fight it like oh we did a cave in and the mountain fell on his head and he's dead because you can't survive having a mountain on your head all that sort of stuff is the flexibility of the rpg yeah because because by since you're not working within a locked-in framework uh such as in a video game you could do all of that you go anything from just the general coverage to like dennis said uh with negotiation i mean you could convince the dragon that hey um they'll provide you with food so you don't have to hunt and this and that and you can work together and create a kind of almost symbiotic relationship i mean there's all sorts of routes you can go there's never a set yes a set no a set way to uh uh finish any of that so it's just a very different animal i would highly recommend uh if you've not taken part in a dnd session uh to take part in one or or at least to watch like a let's play or uh a lie someone's online sessions they're just to get a feel for it and it doesn't have to be a dnd it can be there's a ton of rpgs out there i've tried several there you ever can get There's probably a local convention near you. Yeah, that's one of the things. I haven't done it since COVID, but there's a local convention every July that I would typically take a day off and I would go to. And I would literally sign up to play every RPG. That's how I got the RPG. My desire to play RPGs handled for a while because it's hard to actually get together all the time with my schedule and family and everything.
    55:37
    All right. So thank you for the question. Now we can formally move into video games. The video game segment we're going to start with. Some really interesting stuff is coming out of the Microsoft Activision merger.
    55:52
    The EU is supposed to have had their big decisions, and they've extended the decision deadline to the 25th of April after their last major discussion.
    56:04
    Microsoft has announced a deal with NVIDIA, just like the deal they announced with Nintendo. and what I would consider a major win for Microsoft, a U.S. judge has granted Microsoft access to internal Sony documents pertaining to the deal. They're going to have access to all of Sony's communications with regulators about the Activision deals, as well as details of Sony's own exclusivity agreements with game publishers since 2019.
    56:36
    Sony ain't going to like that. Oh, Sony is raging. They fought hard to prevent having all of that information released. This reminds me of that, what was it, Epic and Apple or whatever? Right, where they were having the giant fight over the Play Store.
    56:54
    But, yeah, no, this has become a major thing because at this point, Microsoft has been making the argument that all of the pushback to try and prevent this is coming from Sony, but Sony does this exact same thing all of the time. And we've promised we won't do it and Sony doesn't care even though they do it constantly.
    57:16
    And they've now been given access to prove or disprove that Sony has been doing it. And we know Sony has. I mean, Sony's admitted they sign exclusivity documents that are intentionally based around. They are the walliest wall of garden that exists. Yeah. So this will go over very interesting. I think this is definitely bringing an unexpected angle into it that I wasn't expecting because, honestly, I thought this would have been done by now.
    57:46
    So we'll see what happens. This could, like I said, this could blow up and backfire on Sony pretty badly depending upon how it goes, especially if it turns out that they have been being on the edge of legality with their own exclusivity agreements, and now they're arguing against this. So we'll have to see. We'll go ahead and step out on and go over to Square Enix. Square Enix has made a decision. They are ousting current CEO Yosuke Matsuda. the ouster is going to be is supposed to be voted on by shareholders in june to verify they are not creating a new position for him he is just going to be exiting the company i i thought i saw a headline on this and i i didn't read it so i wasn't sure he was voluntarily leaving or if he was actually being removed but it sounds like it sounds like it's a removal he's been with them for around a decade uh it's had some ups and downs mainly downs in the last several years marvel's Avengers did not pan out as what they thought it would be.
    58:54
    Forspoken, which was supposed to be the great big thing. I forgot about Forspoken. Yeah, no, it crashed and burned.
    59:01
    They sold off all of their Western studios and then immediately created new Western studios. I still, Tony, I still don't get it. That was the weirdest thing because they had some decent IPs in that stable.
    59:13
    They did. They sold them all off. Several of them they sold off to Embracer Group. Embracer Group, who's now one of the largest video game groups in the entire world, which makes it so hilarious that this whole Microsoft-Sony fight is going on. And it's 100% about their consoles. It's about their hardware. Right. Where the groups that put stuff out on all hardware at the exact same time and PCs are just like, okay, whatever. We own almost everything anyway. Oh, yeah, now we also own Lord of the Rings. I mean, that's Embracer Group. so uh so and don't forget the nfts oh yes and and his love of nfts and the blockchain jeez they're they're everyone else pretty much seems to have finally after after ftx just pivoted away i mean the whole crypto winner and all that i i mean we've had we've expressed our thoughts on crypto right probably more than we should have on this show but i do not get Like from a business standpoint, SE still like doubling down that this is the future and that they should be dumping money into this. Right. And I feel like that's part of this removal is that they are stepping back from that because the press they've gotten and the fan feedback they've gotten has been so bad. That said, the person who is believed to be the most in place to be the replacement does come from a blockchain background.
    60:42
    So it could be doubling, tripling down. So things may stay interesting. So I don't know. We'll see what happens once this is codified by the shareholders. also as you recall we had spoken end of last year a couple of times about Yuji Naka the former Sonic boss Chili Dogs who during his time with Square Enix was accused of insider trading he admitted it he totally admitted in court that he was insider trading he's like yeah no I knew about it I bought stock in this thing before it went public totally so we'll see how that works i mean maybe it's just like a cultural difference like in japan there's insider trading you just say yeah that's what i did yeah so we'll we'll see how that works for him i mean that's a it may be so slam dunk he's like he could be that would be you could get more mercy uh from the court for admitting you what you did that would that that would be my I guess, but I guess we're used to like the courts in the U S where they have video of you murdering somebody while holding your driver's license to the camera. And you're like, nah, man, that wasn't me. Nope. Nope. Wasn't me.
    62:05
    Wasn't me. That's almost as good as my godfather. So yeah, uh, we'll see. We'll see how that works out for him. But, I mean, it was a serious amount of money that he had invested in, too. Oh, yeah. No, it was. Yeah. I mean, this wasn't like, yeah, I traded 12 shares. Yeah. No, he swung big. And, you know, if it had worked out for him, it probably would have been pretty good.
    62:31
    E3 this year is happening, and it is in person. It is being run by the parent company of Eurogamer, or who's running it now.
    62:47
    Ubisoft has confirmed that they will be at E3, which will be interesting because they're in the middle of a major shakeup, supposedly.
    62:58
    They are looking at closing and condensing and getting rid of a lot of their offices and their groups. it's all still very rumor-based. Nobody knows anything for certain. What is known is it has been said that none of the game design groups are being affected. It's all of the other groups. So it's going to be more administrative from the sounds of it, which considering all of the administration problems Ubisoft has had in the last two years,
    63:28
    might be for the best for them. Nintendo, on the other hand, has confirmed they're not going to be at E3. They never are. No, I mean, they're not going to be there at all. They're not even going to do their kind of quasi-adjacent treehouse or whatever they call it? Yeah, they're not going to be there. Yeah, they're just like, we won't be there. We have nothing to show. Rumors are currently that even Microsoft isn't going to be back, but that hasn't been confirmed. So rumors still show, and Sony hasn't been there since, what, 2017, 2018, something like that. Yeah, they quit a little, like they quit a while ago. They do their own thing around the same time. is what they've started doing. Yeah, signing exclusivity deals. Yes.
    64:11
    Too soon? Right in here at the Gamer's Podcast at gmail.com if you're a Sony fanboy who likes what they do, like making Square Enix, well, I shouldn't say making, but having Square Enix sign deals where Final Fantasy is in perpetuity, theirs and theirs alone. Right.
    64:28
    Well, Final Fantasy XVI's exclusivity agreements only for six months, though Yoshida has said that the PC version will not be ready to go six months after release. So it'll be much longer. Yes.
    64:44
    And in just a bit of humor, I saw a piece that was talking about where someone was talking to Yoshida about Final Fantasy 16 and was asking for some information related directly to tying stuff together and crossovers and asset and stuff from Final Fantasy XIV.
    65:09
    And Yoshida said, well, we'll have to talk to the people over at Final Fantasy XIV about doing stuff like that, which was hilarious because that's also Yoshida. So all the memes popped up of Yoshida sitting at a table with a mirror on the other side of the table, like doing the big arguments about who can borrow what and can do what. he's playing chess against himself yes so and that's all i really had for video games uh this week because we had a lot of stuff coming on and we did well i think we had a a pretty dense little show i think so not overly long but if people want to let us know about it uh you can email us eclectic gamers podcast at gmail.com you can also go to facebook.com slash eclectic gamers podcast and send a message there through the Messenger tool. If you want to give us an idea to get a free Steam code for the first person who does it on what we should do to possibly give away some Steam codes, do the email, not the Facebook. I won't count the Facebook ones. And other than that, if you want to support the show and see the baby's firsts that I do, including the March one about Godfather, then you can join us at patreon.com slash eclectic underscore gamers. gamers any of the tiers gets you access to all of that stuff we're available on twitch twitter and instagram as eclectic underscore gamers and we will be back in two weeks that will be our pre-tpf episode uh you think we will at least on the pinball front we should have a lot more to be able to talk about regarding godfather i would hope so and i'm actually hoping that we'll actually have gtf details as well like some like that would also be nice so so uh look forward to the next episode but until then enjoy this one with the Foo Fighters and I am Dennis I'm Tony and we will talk to you in a couple of weeks goodbye everybody see ya