 Let's me have a packed show today, like seven different stories to get through. So, you know what? We're just gonna jump right in. We got our first story here dealing with Ubisoft. Ubisoft, look, I keep butchering their name. Forgive me, guys. I'm just not really great at pronouncing it. So, let's just establish that right now. That being said, they have a forward event that they just announced happening on literally the 10th of June. Now, that's really cool. And one thing I wanna talk about with this event is that they're live in LA. Now, this is quite fascinating because Ubisoft forwards in the past were basically all digital events. So, we think about the Ubisoft forward in 2021 and 2022. Those were definitely all digital events, sort of following the plan of Nintendo Directs. But then you get into, well, the Ubisoft forward last year where it was still a prerecorded event, but they had people on a stage. And this is the first time that they really returned to stages and they pretended they were talking to an audience that none of us could see. Now, maybe they had developers or something in the room and there just wasn't any noise, that we don't know. But it was still a sort of dry run it felt like at doing another live event. Now, very awkward for us to watch but clearly setting up that Ubisoft was trying to get back to really how we deal with E3 style events. And that was live press conferences. So, the fact they're saying live in LA suggests that they're gonna be doing a live in-person event for fans, game developers and obviously media. We don't really know because the invites and stuff haven't gone out. And whenever we get that information I'll let you guys know as well. I won't be attending in-person but we will be live reacting to it. Now, when it comes to the Ubisoft forward it's really about talking, what can we expect? So, I made a few notes here and really there's kind of three things that we sort of expect to see. One of them is the sands of time remake remaster whatever we wanna call that thing. Look, we've seen it before. It kind of got some negative feedback and then we saw it again and it looked a little better. And now it's been a while. So, we gotta wait and see what they're doing with that. I know that Prince of Persia game is a lot of people excited. Another thing is that they have a mobile version of the division called Resurgence that they actually had last talked about back in 2022 in a Ubisoft forward. And in doing that, well, they haven't really talked about it since they just said it's coming out in 2024. So, I fully suspect that we'll get an update on that mobile game. Now, I know a lot of you guys aren't that interested in the phone game but there is one game you probably aren't interested in and that is Star Wars Outlaws. Now, that game has looked utterly fantastic and is slated to come out this holiday but we don't have a release date. We do need to see more of the game. And honestly, it looks like one of the best Ubisoft projects in some time and that's saying something because look, Prince of Persia, The Lost Crown was really damn good this year. Assassin's Creed Mirage was pretty solid last year. Not the best Assassin's Creed in my opinion but still solid but then you got this year where like all in bones came out and it wasn't really that great. So, they need a hit here and Star Wars Outlaws looks to be it but we need obviously further proof and evidence, maybe even a playable demo would be really nice Ubisoft if you're looking for some ideas. But I guess another big thing to note here is that this is happening on June 10th and it's gonna end up being part of the Summer Game Fest week which begins on the 7th and Ubisoft sometimes teases games at Summer Game Fest and then does it at the Ubisoft forward. So, that shows some stuff to keep in mind and honestly it's just nice to have an announcement for an event this summer. I kinda wish Nintendo would give us a sorta heads up but instead they give us like a day. So, there you go. Now, let's get into our next story because it does deal with Nintendo because fans are getting really, really excited right now about the Mario and Luigi series because Nintendo seems to be really emphasizing it in a survey that has gone out to some fans. Now, I have the entire survey here so we're just gonna show images and kinda go over this. So, the first question on the survey says, this survey is about the games from the Paper Mario series, the Mario and Luigi series and Super Mario RPG. Before answering the survey, had you already heard of any of these Mario games then it just says yes, I've already played, yes, but I've never played any of them and no, but obviously the emphasis be in for us on the Mario and Luigi because we already had Super Mario RPG released last year and the Paper Mario series never went away in general. Now, they then go on to say and which one of these is your absolute favorite and they show Super Paper Mario, Paper Mario Color Splash, Mario and Luigi Super Star of Saga, plus Bowser's Minions, Mario and Luigi Partners in Time, Mario and Luigi Bowser's Inside Story, plus Bowser's Junior's Journey and then Mario and Luigi Dream Team Bros. You can see four of those games are Mario and Luigi games. I think they're really emphasizing, hey, we hope a majority of people picked the Mario and Luigi games, not the other two. So, there is that but they weren't done. The questions kept going. It says below you see a list of features that are common to most games from the Paper Mario series, the Mario and Luigi series and Super Mario RPG. Which of these features do you like? And you can see new gear, new world dialogues, the graphic styles, a whole bunch of stuff in there, the engaging story. So, you can see that Nintendo's getting feedback on what people like most about any of these Mario style RPGs. Then they had another question that said the Paper Mario games and Mario and Luigi games and Super Mario RPG usually include a variety of characters on the one hand. Completely new ones like Gino or Malo from Super Mario RPG but also familiar ones like Peter Bowser. Do you prefer new or familiar characters? So, I find that that question is fascinating because that could have a lot to do with how they shape future Paper Mario RPG and or Mario and Luigi games. So, I find that to be really cool. Then they said when thinking of the behavior or appearance of the familiar characters, which of these statements would you agree with most? I prefer all characters to behave and appear like they do in the Mario games. I prefer the central characters to appear unique or to behave in unexpected ways. I prefer even side characters, example Toads to appear unique or behave in unexpected ways. For me, I obviously prefer the last one where all the characters are unique. But hey, that hasn't always been the case in the games. And the last thing they asked was the Paper Mario, Mario Luigi and Super Mario RPG have offered a wide range of different battle systems and mechanics. Which of these aspects do you like most? And then it goes over literally all of the different battle mechanics and stuff as you're seeing on screen. Now, naturally this has spewed a lot of fire around the mere idea that the Mario and Luigi series could return specifically as a remake or remaster and then naturally a new game after that. Again, we haven't seen the series since the Nintendo 3DS. And that's because Alpha Dream no longer exists, the main developer of it. But there's a lot of emphasis here on specifically the Mario and Luigi series, but obviously lumping in Nintendo's other Mario RPG related series. So I do forgive you guys for being excited about this. I don't know if this is gonna mean anything, but it is just notable, at least in this context, that Mario and Luigi appears to at least be being considered by Nintendo if they're not already having a remake or remaster in the works. Now, speaking of remakes or remasters, we gotta get through our next story because it deals with Paper Mario and the Thousand-Year Door because Nintendo gave us roughly 30-ish seconds, yes, I said-ish, of new footage for Paper Mario the Thousand-Year Door that mostly doesn't show off anything really like super new and exciting. It's just, again, a look at the game and how it visually compares. In fact, we're gonna go ahead and use Gamesplain's comparison video right now just so you guys can see a side-by-side. So credit to them over at Gamesplain for putting a side-by-side together so quickly. And look, while there isn't a ton of new, this has, again, spurred on some of the debates going around. The idea of this being a remake or remaster and that has been raging on for weeks and it's gotten pretty heated. But let me just tell you how much it truly matters if the Thousand-Year Door is a remake or remaster. It doesn't. No, really. You may care and you can argue your reasons one way or another, but come on! You already know that you're going to buy this game, right? The quality of the title won't really be determined by arbitrary labels that often don't even make sense in an industry and get interchanged really as much as the terms leak and rumor does here on YouTube and other social media channels. Despite there being a pretty clear distinction between the two. Yes, that's a pot shot at myself. We're fully self-aware of how this platform works and what needs to be done to be successful on it. It's really a shame that such tactics are actually needed, but Paper Mario the Thousand-Year Door doesn't need to pretend to be one thing or another. It just needs to be itself because it was once a truly great game and it's back to reclaim the crown as the best Mario RPG title ever. Now this next story would deal with the boss of Tekken, the guy who runs the Tekken franchise, essentially saying that, hey, kids today prefer to play multiplayer games because when they lose, they get to blame everybody but themselves. Yes, this is actually something he went on to say we have a lot of quotes here. So let's get into what Katsuhiro Harada said the boss of the Tekken franchise when talking about how 1v1 fighting games can evolve. It seems to me the way fighting games are played has evolved over time with the generations. In Japan and probably most of the world, my generation is a big one. It makes up a good chunk of the population that made our society a competitive one. If you applied to a school or for a job, there was always a lot of competition. Because of this, people in my generation prefer definitive outcomes, a clear winner and loser. This applies to folks in and around their 50s but most young people nowadays are the opposite. They're rarely eager to engage in one-on-one showdowns plus because fighting games pit you by yourself against a single opponent. You have to accept all the responsibility if you lose. You can't blame anyone else. In team-based shooters, when players win, they consider they won because of their own contributions but when they lose, it's because they got matched by a lousy team. Some games even give out individual awards to each and every player. Now Harada does go on to say that he's been thinking about how to incorporate this cultural shift into the fighting genre to help make it appear to the younger generation of players and he did so by stating the following. I'm not saying we should suddenly turn a fighting game into a puzzle game or a real-time strategy game. I still think there's a demand for games like this, this sort of hand-to-hand fighting. Now what I find fascinating obviously about this is I feel like it's sort of a blanket statement that all kids prefer to play on teams and all of that. What I find fascinating about that sort of claim is I have children myself and they play games like Fortnite and other multiplayer style games but they're almost always playing by themselves and they're not even going on random teams. Like my daughter will just literally do solos on Fortnite. It's not that big of a deal and she totally blames herself for sucking at the game when she loses. So I don't know that this is a really blanket, true statement and I can understand my household maybe in a video game YouTuber running a channel like the Nintendo Prime and VG News might not be a typical home for a lot of children but I do think that this is sort of a too big of a blanket assumption. Like he literally said, people in their 50s, well I'm not in my 50s and I love one-on-one stuff whether it's basketball, whether it's tennis, that's sports related, whether it's video games. I love doing one-on-one stuff. I'm very competitive. I don't think that's just something for people in their 50s. And I'm actually seeing some of this actually starting to resurge with the youth. How many times are we seeing a lot of sports and people challenging people to one-on-one in their early 20s? So I honestly don't think that this is actually a blanket, true statement. I think if the idea that the problem with one-on-one fighting games and not being more popular than they are, if he thinks it's just because it's not a group fighting game like a Smash Bros. I would say that there's a little truth that those type of games are just more popular because people like to play with their friends. But I will also note that there's probably ways you can make the one-to-one fighter more popular and more appealing without considering, hey, some people prefer playing with friends. So I just want to throw it out there that he does know that there's a place for the games. I don't agree with his entire assessment. And I think it's kind of weird anytime someone assesses an entire group of, well, millions, billions of people, because it will just be honest, there's billions of children in the world and saying that they're all this way and all this stuff when there's clearly a huge chunk that aren't. So I don't know. I'm just, I kind of disagree with this statement, but I know that he's just talking about how to make tech in more popular. Now, next up we're gonna be talking about Nintendo Live because we got some news related to the event that was supposed to happen earlier this year out in Japan. But before we dive into that news, I wanna give you a little history on Nintendo Live. So Nintendo Live's been around for a while. And I just want to be honest, it really felt like we needed some sort of live Nintendo event, an in-person event for fans and media to go to, to play and experience Nintendo because E3 was on the way out. And E3 is gone today. And I would say that Nintendo Live exists because E3's gone. If it wasn't for the fact that Nintendo Live's been around since 2018 when E3 still existed. Now it was only in Japan. They had multiple Japan events in 2018 and then they did it again in 2019. And these events included mostly just video game tournaments and all of that stuff. There were some game demos, but they were mostly for games that were already out. And then the event went away in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic. You couldn't really do public meetups pretty much in any country. It was a worldwide crisis. So what I find fascinating about this is when they brought Nintendo Live back in 2022 they again only went to Japan. Now I'm all cool with that and them just doing something at their home base. But last year's when things got fascinating they brought Nintendo Live for the first time to Seattle and they did it during September and they paired it up with Pax West. And from all accounts it seems to be a very successful thing. I talked to several people who went they had a very good time the feedback from Nintendo employees seemed to be that it was a very worthwhile event. And it's notable because the Seattle one was one of the rare times at Nintendo Live included the ability to play a yet to be released game in Super Mario Bros. Wonder. Now turning the event not just from tournaments and cool fan things and concerts but also turning it into a way for Nintendo to let fans go hands-on with yet to be released games in the same way E3 did. So that is really cool and really fascinating to see if that's gonna happen again at a Nintendo Live in Washington or Seattle this year. Now what I do wanna note however is that there was supposed to be a Nintendo Live this year and that Nintendo Live ended up well let's just say not happening due to threats to people's lives. I can't say the actual word here on YouTube on what happened but it's one of those things where very, very disheartening to see a major Nintendo event broken up taken away, concerts split away. Can't do this in-person thing because one person wanted to cause a ruckus. Well the story today is that according to the newspaper Kyoto Shimbum via 4Gamer the suspect is a man in his 20s that they have now apprehended and a local government official in the Ibaraki Prefecture. He's suspected of interfering with Nintendo's business by sending multiple death threats via the Inca reform on the company's official website last year. The motive behind the crime is currently unknown. It's very unfortunate that this is something that happened and obviously the good news is everyone is safe but obviously even better news that they at least have a suspect that they believe was responsible for the threats and I hope that this hasn't scared Nintendo away from doing future Nintendo Lives and obviously in Japan they're not quite as used to the death threats as we are here in the US we're used to the death threats and the BOMB threats so we have a lot of protocols in place to protect and deal with that where we don't have to cancel every event over it. Japan though doesn't deal with a lot of that kind of stuff. So this is kind of like a culture shock when you're getting literal death threats coming in through submission forms on your website which to me would not really be that big of a red flag but for a company in Japan and government officials that aren't used to it I can understand why, hey you don't want to take any risk you don't want Miyamoto and others and fans in attendance being in danger. So hopefully this helps them put protocols in place to not have to shut things down like this in the future and obviously figure out who the individuals are who are responsible, faster. Now one of our final stories and we have one more after this could be a bonus story added on while I was recording previews have dropped for Hellblade II. Now Hellblade II was originally revealed all the way back in 2019 at the game awards when the Xbox Series X was available it was the game to show off the hardware and it made people really, really excited. Now this is Ninja Theory's latest offering and there's one little thing that's cropped up from interviews and the previews that has created a little bit of controversy although how big of a deal it is we'll have to wait and see but the general takeaway from all the previews is that this is an amazing game it's near perfection from a gameplay stance if you enjoy the original Hellblade you have no reason you won't love this one and there's one consistent theme from every preview this is apparently the most visually stunning game any of these journalists have ever played now that is a very, very bold statement to make but then we are talking about Ninja Theory who put together a visual stunner as an indie studio on a shoestring budget so now you take them, throw them with Microsoft and give them a AAA budget and you're gonna go damn what could Ninja Theory really do and it appears a pretty damn visual impressive feast so that's one thing also you always have to give Ninja Theory credit because this game, the titular character Senua she is actually someone with extreme mental illness that is negatively affecting her that she somehow uses as a strength to persevere and be stronger and deal with actual things happening in the world so I find it just to be a really fascinating franchise overall and this is one of those rare cases where a big company like Microsoft acquiring a studio may have turned out to be a blessing because Ninja Theory just didn't have the money to keep taking Hellblade to the next level then they were given that budget hopefully it gets the appropriate sales success as well to go along with it which might be difficult when the Xbox hasn't sold as much the game's also launching on PC now that's notable because the game is actually locked at 30 FPS on Xbox Series S and Series X there's no graphics modes, there's no performance modes it's just the game just runs it's an old school way of doing gaming well I'm okay with that what I find interesting is that a lot of journalists are excusing it saying well hey this is a slower pace game slower combat so the 30 FPS isn't as big of a deal as you might think and I'm sure the game is perfectly playable as at 30 FPS look I'm a Nintendo Switch guy we're a Nintendo YouTube channel I clearly play a ton of games at 30 FPS on Switch every day so I get that but this isn't the Nintendo Switch this is a current generation platform and PC now notably it will be at 60 FPS or above on PC depending on your given hardware but what I find fascinating is that the developers in an interview gave an excuse their excuse for 30 FPS on the Xbox Series S and X is it's more cinematic that's not what the term cinematic means it has to do with the visual and aesthetic quality of a viewing medium whether it's video games, movies, etc it does not have to do with frame rate so already not really the proper use although this isn't the first time we've seen game developers try to justify 30 FPS as being close to 24 FPS and thus more cinematic in fact if you think 24 FPS is cinematic why not just make it a lot 24 FPS why are we going to 30? just saying if it's more cinematic at 24 then why are we giving those extra 6 frames that doesn't make any sense you know what also doesn't make sense that even movies and TV shows aren't always you know let's just say 24 FPS you know a movie that I guess isn't cinematic or maybe it's twice as cinematic Avatar the Way of Water did you guys know that film was shot at 48 FPS and that's what it was displayed at in movie theaters and at home on streaming services and all the DVDs and Blu-rays and stuff I guess Avatar the Way of Water is either twice as cinematic as a normal video being twice the cinematic frame rate or it's cinematic just aren't based on frame rate at all that's really the bigger oh maybe the argument is that the Way of Water avatar is not cinematic at all because it's too many frames I mean that seems to be what they're insinuating if the game can run at more than 30 FPS on the Xbox Series X at least very dumb argument we have movies out there at 60 FPS right now which yeah do feel a little strange to get used to when you're so used to watching lower frame rate movies but honestly you watch enough of the 60 FPS movies you can get kind of used to it Gemini Man is one that infamously has a I don't say infamously but famously has a 4K ultra Blu-rayed version that's at 60 FPS and to me I think it looks just fine but I'm busy watching 60 FPS videos on YouTube and making them all the time so I'm kind of getting used to the whole 60 FPS thing but I just find this all funny that this is even a thing and being justified I think the game's gonna be incredible on the Xbox and even better on PC based on what they're saying here I just don't make an argument that the 30 FPS choice has to do with making something more cinematic and I gotta be honest I think it had to do with just making version parity between the SNX version why you couldn't offer like an increase in frame rates on the Xbox Series X is beyond me it is a more powerful by a decent margin than the original Xbox Series S but that's not the humor there we just have to let that go because if we didn't we could be here all day complaining about a game that I actually think is gonna be pretty good now our last story we're gonna bust out the phone because this is coming from our dear friend Paul Gale who is a maestro of news and he really keeps up on sales data and he sent me the latest Famitsu sales data which I find to be really interesting I'll show it here because Princess Peach Showtime is still number one two weeks in a row and has now sold over 100,000 units in Japan that's really cool Rise of Ronin's sitting there at number two then we see winning post 10, 2024 the Nintendo Switch version at three Mario Kart 8 Deluxe at four because that game just will not stop selling Dragon's Dogma 2 at number five Super Mario Bros Wonder at number six winning post 10 for PS5 at number seven Minecraft at number eight Animal Crossing New Horizons at nine and Splatoon 3 at 10 and then the hardware sales here are fascinating of course Nintendo Switch is the number one overall selling platform again at 57,533 PS5 at 20,864 and Xbox Series S at 1,376 now one reason why I wanted to go with Paul Gale networks break down on this isn't because we can't get this data other websites that even show combined total sales of games that he didn't fit in his tweet here what I find interesting though is what he does to compare the sales of the platforms compared to last year so last year up till now the Nintendo Switch was at 936,351 units this year in 2024 it's at 721,741 showing a clear year over year decline in sales which look it's expected we're almost to year eight of Nintendo Switch so yeah it's gonna be expected to be declining in sales this is the interesting one last year up till now the PlayStation 5 was at 858,644 units running really damn close with the Nintendo Switch but in 2024 it's dropped to 494,706 units Sony you might want to release some games people actually want to play a bit more often than once a year I'm just throwing that out there okay they released a bit more but they had a couple of duds last year so did Xbox by the way so did Nintendo so I guess everyone's just dropping duds it happens but last year up till now the Xbox Series S was at our Xbox Series System it should say it was at 36,401 and they have the smallest decline although percentage wise it's probably similar to Nintendo dropping down to 29,031 this year although we'll see if Hellblade boosts anything cause Hellblade sending with sacrifice I forgot to mention comes out May 21st so I find this to be fascinating and yes I know there was actually really good games released by these systems last year as well right we had Tears of the Kingdom and Mario Wonder, Pikmin 4 Spider-Man 2, Hello Final Fantasy 16 that people really enjoyed so yes there's been some good games out there but there's been duds let's not pretend that that didn't happen that being said I'm just really excited about where this industry is going I also find it fascinating that PlayStation has already seen declines in sales which is quite interesting to me at least I mean I guess it's normal it's like year 4 or 5 of the platform like we should be probably expecting declines in sales which is crazy cause it feels like the generation's only just getting going then again that's probably why the PlayStation 5 Pro was supposedly coming later this year so it could boost sales and for Switch well look they're supposed to be a new platform eventually I don't know when do you know when? look we thought it was gonna be 2024 now it's sounding like 2025 but maybe it's still 2024 look we don't really know Nintendo can you just tell us already seriously I mean it would certainly make these VG news episodes more exciting anyway guys thank you so much for tuning in we'll catch you tomorrow have a good day