Welcome to The Grouvee Show. Georgey, Roach, and BMO dive into last week's Nintendo Direct to discuss all things Switch 2 including hardware, pricing and tariffs, and the games they are most excited to play.
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A transcript of the episode is available on SimpleCast.
GeorgeyPoorgey (Georgey):
Hello and welcome to The Grouvee Show. This is Alex GeorgeyPoorgey George, and I'm here with my co-host. For the very first time, my co-host, Roach. Roach, how are you?
Roach:
It's me. I'm good.
Georgey:
Roach, you’re co-host.
Roach:
I know, that's weird.
Georgey:
It's not weird. It's deserved.
Roach:
It's too many syllables. It's one more than guest. I don't like it.
Georgey:
Well, honestly, I think the way we described you was like permanent guest. So that was a lot of syllables. And now you just have two in that sense.
Roach:
I think I was just in the closet about it. Now I'm out.
Georgey:
And we support you.
[Laughter]
Georgey:
I'm very happy to have you as my co-host. We do have one other person to introduce. BMO is here. Hello, BMO.
BMO:
Hello.
Georgey:
BMO, you may have heard the guest of the, not the guest, the listener may have heard that this is a show called the Grouvee Show. And it's a new podcast, a monthly podcast that we're going to be doing. And not only is Roach co-host on this, but you are also a part of this, BMO. How would you describe your role?
BMO:
I guess I'm the producer. That's a fun title.
Georgey:
Yeah!
BMO:
For the listeners out there, I will probably not be a big vocal presence on every episode. I'll let Georgey talk a little bit more about format if he wants, but I'm here to kind of facilitate, help these two usher this podcast into greatness. I don't know. That's stupid. That sounds really dumb.
Georgey:
No, you're good.
BMO:
So, no, I'm here to keep everybody on task. Keep us on time.
Roach: We like to get off track.
BMO:
And just be sort of an organizing force. I'm here kind of as a background person. I'll have a little bit more to say on some special episodes like this direct where I might be the only other person on, but we definitely will still have guests, and I'll probably fade a little bit into the background on those episodes.
Georgey:
As the producer of this show, do you liken yourself more to Kathleen Kennedy or Harvey Weinstein?
BMO:
Wow, that's a horrible question.
Roach:
Those are some choices.
Georgey:
Those are the two producers I could pull off the top of my head.
[Laughter]
Georgey:
I guess, yeah, you brought up that there's maybe some differences to this show. I think the big thing is this is monthly. We're not doing this every single week. We're going to do this every month. We're also going to keep this tight. Our old show, we talked at length about dog shit and if people would murder us. We're going to not do that anymore. Or maybe we will.
Roach: We’re gonna save that for the forum posts.
Georgey:
But at the very least, we'll keep it tight if we do. We're going to try and aim for an hour to hour and a half episodes. And, you know, look at the runtime right now. Did we do it? Were we successful? BMO will make sure that we were by cutting these episodes down, cutting down probably this monologue right now.
[Laughter]
Georgey:
But without further ado, we did have a big Nintendo Direct this last week on April 2nd, the week that we're recording this. And they showed off the Switch 2, finally.
Roach:
It's been such a roller coaster of like the last couple days since this direct happened.
Georgey:
Yes, and we do want to talk about all of that. And, you know, I think if you're listening to this, you're probably well aware of some of what's been going on. But we want to kind of dive into it ourselves. They did show off a lot of new, exciting things for the Switch 2. They chose not to talk about some of the concerning things about the Switch 2. And we got to see some cool games as well. So let's talk about what we did see that they wanted to show off to us, the new features on this Switch 2. On the Switch 2, probably front and foremost, they started talking about game chat. Game chat is the C button. We were questioning what's going on with the C button. Who is, you know, what's it there for? And it's a button that if you don't have Nintendo Switch Online, it serves no purpose for you [laughter]. It's a button that just is on your controller for no discernible reason. But if you do have Nintendo Switch Online, you can use it to chat with your friends. We could take out our Nintendo Switch 2 camera, and we could click the C button on each of our Joy-Cons, and we could get on the camera with one another talking about our time playing Mario Kart World and Balloon Fight and whatever else we saw them playing at the same time. As they said things like, “I'm on the clouds right now”. “Oop, I'm falling, I'm falling. Ah!” You know, the kind of conversation people have over game chat. I questioned if I would ever use this.
[Laughter]
Roach:
You don't think you would use it a single time?
Georgey:
I, you know, I think there's a, they did show off in the footage. They showed off some games that would take advantage of the camera and use game chat in an interesting fashion. Or maybe interesting, BMO shaking his head, maybe interesting is me editorializing, but they showed off other ways outside of just you can see your friend. The one example that they showed where I was like, oh, you know what, I would actually like that, was they showed, you know, putting the face of the person next to their character's face in Mario Party. And I was like, you know, there is something kind of tangible about like, if I steal your star and then I get to see the pain on your face, you know, that I think is beneficial. I don't know. Roach, BMO, what do we think of this? What do we think of game chat? What do we think of the camera?
Roach:
Well, we could continue recording the Grouvee game chat podcast on it.
Georgey:
Sure.
Roach:
How often I would actually use it, especially camera, I don't foresee me ever using the camera. I really don't foresee me ever using game chat because I would be on Discord instead, I feel like. And those, the streaming quality is really bad.
BMO:
I think that's true, but I would suggest that, probably if you're on your Switch 2 and you're playing, you might, like, I might not use the camera and I'm definitely not going to use the camera for displaying faces in Mario Party, but you might log into the chat and then if one of your other friends is in and you're playing a game, they're playing a game, you might treat it like Discord only in so far as you don't have to go to an extra step to connect your Switch and connect Discord separately. So it might be for people who like to do that and then like to play on Discord and then their friends join in and they can see what they're doing, it might be kind of neat. Also, if we get another pandemic, hey we're set.
[Laughter]
Georgey:
But yes, okay. So BMO and I were watching this live with one another and you did comment that Nintendo seems to be prepping for another pandemic.
BMO:
It did wonders for them the first time.
Georgey:
I rewatched it last night and I was like, this does seem like they are ready for COVID ‘25.
Roach:
It's a COVID coded console.
Georgey:
I would not be surprised if you saw like their internal design docs or like their like minutes from those meetings and COVID was mentioned. I would not be surprised if COVID showed up in those meetings.
Roach:
Especially with Animal Crossing, yeah. Yeah for sure.
Georgey:
Yes, yes. Whatever they're doing with Animal Crossing right now, they're like “we gotta be be ready for COVID 2.
[Laughter]
Georgey:
Which it feels weird to laugh about, but I also think, you know, the writing is maybe on the wall. Just like, we just kind of mean, you know, I was watching this, I watched this direct six times. I'm not kidding. I've seen this six times.
Roach: Six?
Georgey:
I counted it last night. I've seen it six times. I watched it once when it was live, once again at work later, just in the background while I was doing stuff. Then I watched it with my kids. And then I watched it one more time, I think just in the background, then I saw I watched a streamer go through it. But as I watched a streamer go through it twice, those are my six times. I was thinking as we were checking this out, like that I don't know where I was going with this. I just, I started saying I saw it six times. I lost everything in my brain. I don't remember what was going with this.
Roach:
Six times is just, it's so, it's so many, but I guess you weren't just sitting there watching it by yourself over and over. You had different situations for it.
Georgey:
So my daughter said to me, this is where I was going with this. I saw this and I was watching it with my daughter and she says, I don't know what, we talked a little bit about how it seemed COVID-y and she goes, “well, global warming is real and, you know, we may just be stuck inside doing this.” And I was like, yeah, you know, like there is a good chance that it's just too hot and you're just stuck inside. Like maybe there's not a disease outside, but you don't want to go out there because it's 120 degrees Fahrenheit. We do have an international audience.
BMO:
So you watched it six times. Were there any hardware highlights that stuck out for you? Anything about the new hardware other than the C button?
Georgey:
So the big thing that stood out to me and I've been thinking a lot about is the double mouse. I just kept thinking about Drag x Drive. We're not really going to talk about it later when we talk about games because it didn't show a lot of it. You know, I don't know if there's a ton to talk about with it, but the big thing to talk about is each Joy-Con 2, the new Joy-Con controllers, are mice. You can use each one like you would use a computer mouse. And you can roll it around and you use the ZR button or the ZL button kind of as your clicks on the mouse. And I kept thinking like rolling two mice at the same time, like what are the gameplay opportunities. They showed off in Metroid Prime 4 that you use the one mouse, if you wanted to use the mouse function, you can use the one mouse to turn the Samus's blaster while the other mouse controls Samus. Samus. What's the pronunciation on Samus? Let me think of the Smash Bros announcer. Samus! Okay, there you go. But I kept thinking, number one, is this going to be something that the regular game enjoyer is going to do, because every time they showed it off, they showed someone with a flat surface in front of them playing their Switch. Now, I did see an IGN headline which said, oh yeah, you can play it on top of your jeans.
BMO:
They said that in the treehouse the next day,they talked about how you can run it on your jeans in the treehouse demo.
Georgey:
I don't know if I believe that.
BMO: They didn't do it though. They said you could do it, but they didn't show it.
Roach:
You need the proof.
Georgey:
Well, I'll say this. When they showed off the Ring Fit Adventure forever ago, and they showed off the big ring, and I kept seeing it, I was like, how sturdy is this thing? And what I wish they would have shown, is some buff celebrity pushing it as hard as they possibly can and not breaking it. Because then I would have been like, oh, The Rock can't break it. I'm not going to fuckin’ break it.
Roach:
You're just some guy.
Georgey:
I'm just some guy.
[Laughter]
Georgey:
But like, show me, I don't know, some streamer doing this on his pants and being like, I'm rolling around. I'm taking the shot. I'm crushing murder ball. You know, like, if they had shown me that, I would think this would…my concerns about this would dissipate. But as it stands, I think it's very interesting to have the mouse functionality. I would like to use the mouse functionality. I'm a little concerned about how this is going to play out, especially since every single time we saw them use it, they had a flat surface in front of them.
I guess the other big ones that we saw as far as game features or features for the Switch 2, they showed us game share.
Roach:
I had a question because I saw the game screen with the cell, the screen itself was bigger, but then I also saw that they went with an LCD screen over an OLED screen. Is there a reason why they would choose to do that?
BMO:
Oh yeah. So they went with a 1080p instead of 720p panel. It's larger and it supports HDR, and is 120 frame per second panel, which the original Switch maxed out at 60 frame per second. So an HDR 120hz 1080p screen of that size is probably quite costly and probably offsets their ability to put in an OLED. Also with HDR, and new LCD technologies that are really improving, It's probably not going to be the big stark contrast of the original Switch LCD compared to the Switch OLED. It's probably going to look a little bit closer to the OLED. And with HDR, it's going to look really good. So, I don't think it's going to be as big a trade-off as people think based on the original Switches.
Roach:
Yeah, I think, I mean, for me personally, I don't have an OLED Switch. I have an original, I have the Let's Go edition. So, I think for me, I would see an improvement. But I have a friend who has the OLED one and they're like, is this even worth upgrading at this point if I'm not really interested in any of the games they announced yet?
BMO:
Proof's in the pudding, I guess. like if they see it and they think it looks good. Otherwise, if they don't think it looks good, then they wait on it. I mean, probably an OLED is inevitable. Steam Deck did it too.
Georgey:
Yes. When you look at the new screen, kind of like the original Switch screen, there's a lot of black bars on the side of it. And the OLED isn't a bigger device. It's just the screen takes up more of that real estate. Those black bars on the outside don't really exist on the OLED.
BMO:
Do they not?
Georgey:
They’re tiny.
BMO:
Did they make it bigger? I don't know. I only have an OLED now, so I can't compare.
Georgey:
Yes, the OLED screen is bigger than the screen. I mean, like the, when I say screen, I don't mean the physical screen. I mean the amount of space that the image takes up on that screen. And in the same way, it seems like the Switch 2 is set up for the same thing, where there's those black bars above and on the sides. And I kind of expect for, you know, us to get an OLED. at a cost, which will make us...
Roach:
Cry?
Georgey:
Yeah.
[Laughter]
Georgey:
But, you know, I do think, like you were saying, Roach, if you are not excited about these games, take a look and maybe you'll see it and say, hey, you know what, this looks pretty nice, even compared to my OLED because of the other things that come along with it. But if you're not interested in these games, that's a price point that I don't know if you want to justify.
Roach:
Yeah, especially if you're playing handheld.
BMO:
It has a nice fit and finish. If you compare the original Switch to the OLED, they did some really nice little, I don't know, the way they finished the hardware was a lot nicer and it looks like this continues that trend, in that it's going to be a nice console. It’s going to feel nice. It's going to be appealing to look at as a piece of hardware. It sounds kind of stupid, but it does look like they didn't go backwards, they went forwards.
Roach:
I just look forward to being able to hold it and the Joy-Cons not really wiggle. Because I've had two switches and my first one, they didn't really wiggle, but my Let's Go Switch, the controllers do kind of, you can shift them a little bit and I'm like, ooh, this doesn't feel good.
Georgey:
Yeah.
BMO:
So they're not as tight on the rail anymore.
Roach:
Yeah. I mean, they were like that out-of-the-box. So I just, it just was what it was.
Georgey:
Oh, yeah. I mean, some of these new or the Switch models that are available. I don't know if I've talked about this on the website, but I purchased some controllers from Target. I think they had been sitting on the shelf for quite some time. Out-of-the-box, they were broken. The control stick on the left Joy-Con, you could not click in, and the control stick on the right Joy-Con, you would wiggle it and it would only go in the left direction. It just wouldn't go to the right side at all. I was able to play a couple rounds of Star of Providence and not notice, but then as soon as I needed to actually use those control sticks, I had to return them. But I do think, yeah, those Switch Joy-Cons can get shoddy. Hopefully we're going to see that. Funny enough, they have mentioned since then, they've been asked about the Joy-Con Drift and have given kind of some shaky answers. I think it has less to do with, hey, I don't think they're saying we haven't solved this problem. I think they just do not want to acknowledge that the problem even exists with Joy Con.
BMO:
There’s a patent for Hall effect. So, the understanding is that they're going to be Hall effect. They haven't announced that they are because they didn't seem to want to go into like actual tech specs. But I think the general feeling based on the patent that was filed, that they're going to be Hall effect. And if they're Hall effect, they're probably not going to really have Joy-Con drift
Georgey:
Yes, that's definitely the hope. I guess the thing is there's two perspectives. If you're the person who's like, hey, there was a problem, we solved the problem. But Nintendo does not like to admit that there was a problem with JoyCon drift, so they are not saying very much about it right now.
BMO:
True.
Roach:
Even just possibly bringing up what they're doing now, people will be like, oh, okay, so this is going to be different than it was, but it just, it opens that can of worms and they don't, I don't think they want to do that at all.
Georgey:
Let's real quickly go over these last three features that we were talking about. Game share. Game share is: you can own a copy of a game and you can share it with your friends in person or online, and they can play along with you just like they have a copy of the game. They showed up a couple games that were like this, Super Mario 3D World. The big one that they said was going to get, I think they said launch day even, an update is Clubhouse Games, which is a perfect game to play with friends. So that will be fantastic to share with people. I honestly think with the virtual game cards, which they announced in the Nintendo Direct the week before, that might be a little busted. Like I can lend my game to you and then you can share it with three strangers.
BMO:
I bet anything that's not going to work. I bet you can only lend a game if you...
Georgey:
You can only share a game if you own it. You're not being lent it. Maybe, maybe. I do think the whole game lending, I mean, we're talking about the direct from this week, not the direct from last week, but the whole game lending situation does seem, in my opinion, to cut out the opportunities for piracy. You know, I have a couple of Nintendo accounts on my Switch. And do I download those games and play the games that I did not buy? I don't think I'll say that on the podcast, but I could.
[Laughter]
BMO:
You physically have to have the two consoles near each other to share and then the second person who you've lent it to can only keep it for two weeks.
Georgey:
Right.
BMO:
It's pretty limited. It is Nintendo's tight, tight control over this.
Roach:
Yeah.
Georgey:
Yes. And clearly they want the two consoles that you can have it set up between. They want one to be the family account and one to be like your personal Switch because they've been pretty open about, we want people to have multiple Switches in their household, which they've succeeded. You know, I know several people and I have two switches. I have a family Switch for my four children and I have a switch as well. And will I do the same with the Switch 2? Not based on these prices, but we'll get into that in a moment. They did talk about Switch 2 Editions. Several Switch games are going to get Switch 2 upgrades. That includes Metroid Prime 4, Kirby and the Forgotten Lands, Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Kingdom. And then one of the big ones that they talked about was Mario Party Jamboree, which gets a bunch of functionality added for the game chat. Does it make it more valuable or not? I don't think so.
Roach:
That's up to you to decide.
Georgey:
It's for you to decide. Let's just make our decision as a show. Roach, do you think it makes it more valuable?
Roach:
For that specific game?
Georgey:
For Jamboree, sure.
Roach:
For Jamboree? Well, I haven't played it, so I don't know. But I would say no. Like I'm not going to put my ugly mug on the screen. Like usually I'm in like full slug mode wearing my indoor clothes that no one else is allowed to see me in. I haven't even brushed my hair. Nah, man. I don't want to be. Nah, I'm good.
Georgey:
Roach, you're a star. You belong on the screen. What about you, BMO?
BMO:
I've played every Mario Party, so I can kind of extrapolate what Jamboree is like. I want it. I was going to buy it for Switch. Maybe I'll hold on and buy it for Switch 2, but I don't know that anything they showed as the special Switch 2 Edition features were that exciting to me. They weren't as exciting as base Mario Party aspects. Some of the mini games seem even gimmickier because they're based around the new Switch 2 features. And it remains to be seen that if those things are fun. If they're fun, then yeah, I'm down. If they're kind of tedious and they feel awkwardly hammered in there, then I don't know. I'm not sold that it's a definitive edition I need to have over the regular one, but If I were to buy only one and I had a Switch 2, I guess I'd buy that one.
Georgey:
I was thinking about if the next Mario Party will even continue to have these camera features, or the mice features that they have. And a big part of me thinks no. I think this is just, hey, we're going out the gate. We want you to use these features. And then once you use them, bye-bye, we don't care anymore. You’ve bought the camera. You've paid for Nintendo Switch Online.
Roach:
I do foresee the camera stuff being in games like WarioWare, or maybe they'll port that weird pilot 3DS game that existed. I don't remember what that was called.
Georgey:
Pilot Wings?
Roach:
Yeah, that one. Maybe the Mii games, like the Tomadachi game or whatever, I've seen them do weird stuff. All the weird, goofy games.
Georgey:
You know what they did do on the 3DS that they could bring back? They would let you take a picture of your own face and then they'd make your Mii out of it. But it's kind of not that fun. You kind of want to make your own stupid looking Mii rather than have a computer to do it for you.
I know we want to get into price. Roach, did you want to talk about these empty key cards like we have on Bravely Default at all?
[Laughter]
Roach:
There isn't a whole lot to say. You get a blank, you get a blank cartridge. Some of the physical games, you get a blank cartridge. You put it into your Switch, and then you have to download the entire game, not just a patch, not just an update. The game isn't on the cartridge. The game is just, hey, you're allowed to download this off the internet. The cartridge is just: you're allowed to download the game.
BMO
We're back to the original plan for the Xbox One.
Roach:
Yeah, so it's just, I like physical games…
Georgey:
Me too.
Roach:
But if I get, if nothing changes, like this is how it's going to be, nothing changes, this is probably going to be my first digital-only console. And it would be fine if I felt I had an option to make that decision, but I feel like I'm being forced, basically.
Georgey:
Well, speaking of kind of getting forced into digital over physical, let's talk about the price differences that we see there as well, because not only is Nintendo kind of pushing you in that direction with these empty key cards, but they're also pushing you in that direction with the prices of these games that are sometimes more expensive when you buy them physical than digital.
I think the big cost, let's kind of go through each of them. The big cost that was announced. Now, this is a rapidly changing topic by the time this episode comes out. This may be, there may be more information already at that point. But the announced price, which did not show up in the Nintendo Direct, maybe because there's so many markets, maybe because of the economic instability caused by the President of the United States…
Awkward laughter
Georgey:
The price they told us was $450 for the Switch 2. If you want to get the Switch 2 with I, you can pay $500. But if you get Mario Kart World separately, it is an $80 game. And it seems like the norm for most other games that we saw, Donkey Kong Bananza, a couple other ones that they showed, even some of the Switch 2 Editions, like for Breath of the Wild and for Kirby and the Forgotten Land, $70. So, the cost of the console, you know, you look back at, you know, the Switch, which was a $300 console versus the Switch 2, which is going to be launching at $450, and that is even questionable. BMO, do you want to talk about the tariffs a little bit? I feel like you're the most educated on this.
Roach:
As the Canadian.
Georgey:
As the Canadian on the show.
[Laughter]
BMO:
The discourse around it is that it's very likely that price came in because Nintendo was already hedging bets on what they'd be hit with in terms of tariffs. Nintendo previously moved 50% of their manufacturing to Vietnam, hoping…during the last Trump administration, and that was to avoid tariffs then. Or at least they ramped that up so that they could. But what was unexpected the day of the direct was that Trump was going to slap, what, 46% on Vietnam the next day. So, it's really up in the air. There's a pretty good The Verge article if anyone wants to look at it that talks about the impact of Trump's tariffs and what it could be. It's hard to land on an actual number because it's not really based on a percentage on top of the retail price. It's calculated on its value, which will always be lower than the MSRP. So, The Verge is saying if it's
40% or almost 50% on top of the price that they're saying, then we're talking a $600 or $700 console. It might not be that high. Trump might drop the tariffs completely because, I mean, look at what happened with Canada, back and forth, back and forth. It’s so unpredictable, it's impossible to know what's going to happen next. But Nintendo is probably going to have to settle on a price, and that price is probably going to have to take tariffs into consideration, even if Trump later drops the tariffs. It’s hard to say what it's going to be, but it's probably not going to be comfortable for a lot of people.
Georgey:
Yeah. You know, they did not say the price in this, in the direct. They announced it in a press release afterwards. And even those prices that were online, if you go check for them now, they're no longer there.
And I had the thought during the show, as I was watching and I saw the press release, I said, $500. You know what? That's a pricey Nintendo console. I think the priciest they've ever been.
BMO:
I don't think, you know, Super Nintendo was higher.
Georgey:
Super Nintendo was higher.
BMO:
If adjusted for inflation Super Nintendo is still the highest launch, highest priced console at launch in history. Well, maybe that's…at least in Nintendo history. I'm not going to go into other consoles.
Georgey:
Maybe that's a good omen. The Super Nintendo is a great console. But yeah, a very expensive Nintendo console, especially for the company that is often the budget option for people, that not only, I think the console, you know, me, I guess, Roach, BMO, do you think 450, if let's say we get this price, you know, do you think that is a reasonable price for the Switch 2?
Roach:
I wasn't upset by that price.
Georgey:
I wasn't either. 450 I was not upset about.
748
00:29:48,499 --> 00:29:51,219
630. I might be upset.
Roach:
Yeah, we're talking like at that point, just build your own computer.
Georgey:
Right.
BMO:
Well…
Georgey:
Wait, wait, wait. Okay, BMO, I have a question. I have a question, BMO. Because you have a Steam Deck, correct, BMO?
BMO:
Yup.
Georgey:
How much are those running?
BMO:
Well, the LCD, they still sell the 256 LCD and I think that's like $399. Hmm, I’m going to have to check…
Georgey:
So you could get a Steam deck. You can get a Steam deck for less money than a Nintendo Switch 2 and you have all the options of what's available.
BMO:
I might be quoting you a Canadian price, sorry.
Georgey:
I don't want your fuckin’ play money.
BMO:
It’s probably $299 then.
Georgey:
Even less! ([Laughter])
BMO:
I'm all over the place over there. I'll tell you in a second. Oh, okay, sorry. No, it is $399. It's $499 CAD. So it's 399 for a 256 LCD model.
Georgey:
Okay. So for $400, essentially, you can get a Steam Deck, which has this built-in, all of these, all the software that's already available on it. Obviously, the Switch 2 has the built-in software from the Switch 1, but if they have so many people already own a Switch 1, that's not going to encourage people to buy a Switch 2. But maybe if you have a Switch 1 and you are considering a Switch 2 that may be $630, maybe just pick up a Steam Deck instead.
Roach:
I mean, that's what I would say, especially with the Steam family sharing stuff, because you can just…You just have a whole library of games. You don't even have to spend any money if you just join someone else's Steam family.
BMO:
Because this is not a big Steam Deck discussion, I'm not going to really get into why I think the Steam Deck is not at all in competition with the Switch or the Switch 2, it's a very different market.
Roach:
I do agree with you. I do think there are going to be some individuals being like, okay, here are like the two main handhelds. slash hybrid, because technically you could connect your Steam Deck to a TV with a dock or whatever. I think they're like, okay, what option am I going with? They're definitely two different things, but on surface level, that's the decision someone's probably going to have to make.
BMO:
True. And I'm a huge Steam Deck fan and proponent of Steam Deck, but I will say for the average person, it's still going to be a lot harder to deal with than a Switch.
Roach:
Yeah, I can see that.
BMO:
So, Switch 2 does have that advantage that you give it to a kid…
Georgey:
They know what to do.
BMO:
Yeah, you give Steam Deck to a kid…they're probably going to figure it out, but they might run into a lot more problems you have to troubleshoot along the way.
Roach:
For sure. Yeah.
Georgey:
I do think that, and we can kind of dive into this in a minute, I do think that Nintendo is a little bit trying to change their market with the Switch 2, including two…Look, we saw two presentations from FromSoft during this Direct. That is not normally the market that they're going for. I don't know. Is that going to be completely different in the future? Maybe this is a one-off. Maybe they are going to just start pivoting more towards the Nintendo adults, you know? They definitely want the same sort of thing that you get with Disney, where you have the Disney adults, the people who have never let go of that thing that they had as a child, with Nintendo today. Like they want you as an adult to check every single day what's going on with the Nintendo. They want you figuring out, you know, Donkey Kong Bananza, keeping up with it. They want you excited about the new Hidetaka Miyazaki game that's coming out for Switch exclusively.
BMO: I have many feelings about this. One being that Nintendo historically has…I mean, take a look at the Wii, the Wii was for everyone. I don't think Nintendo's ever been a like, oh, we're really only targeting kids. And the Switch had The Witcher 3, it had Control, It did have games on it that...
Roach:
M rated games.
BMO:
Yeah, so I don't think it was ever that Nintendo doesn't want those things. It's just whether or not the hardware can support what third-party companies are able to put on it. Because Nintendo had a ton of indies. And if you want to talk about serious gaming, there were a lot of really great indies on the Switch. The Switch was a fantastic indie machine. But yeah, now we've got a new system on a chip that's got a lot more power in it. So sure, it's going to run these games. I don't necessarily mean and think it means it's changed Nintendo's goals.
Roach:
Philosophy?
BMO:
Yeah.
Roach:
Yeah. Yeah I immediately think of the Wii and
No More Heroes, which launched on the Wii and then it went to other stuff. And we've had even on the 64, there's been a few like M-rated games and stuff on there. But yeah, I do think generally speaking, at least in my mind, when someone's like Do a little flow chart. When you think of Nintendo, what picture, what images, what vibes do you get? I usually don't think I'm rated stuff. I usually think vibrancy or adventure, whatever.
BMO:
Everybody. E For Everybody.
Roach:
Crying and Mario Party.
Georgey:
Yeah, kids.
BMO:
I will say before we, because we're kind of segueing into games now, I want to…Yeah, and I think this is a price consideration, although it might not seem like it on face value, but there is the news that the Switch doesn't natively support, sorry, the Switch 2 does not natively support Switch 1 games. That means that it's running an emulation layer on top of both software and hardware emulation in order to do that, and that means they have to check each game. Now, technically, this is the same as the PlayStation 5 in the sense that they did have to run a lot of them through you know, software checks to make sure there wasn't a problem, but mostly the architecture was the same. It's going to be interesting to see how well Nintendo handles this checking 10,000 games individually and what impact that'll have on people's choice to spend $500 or upwards of $500 with accessories on a system if they find out, oh wait, my favorite, like Animal Crossing, game doesn't run that well on Switch 2 or all these indies I love on my Switch, I can't sell my Switch and buy a Switch. Because for a lot of people, their consideration for prices is well, okay, I can trade my Switch in and then that'll cut a little bit of price off the Switch 2. But if they suddenly can't access all of their games or if they're not playing as well as they want them to or hope they will, what impact will that have on people purchasing it and what impact will that have on the perspective on price?
Roach:
Yeah. That's a huge reason. Like you don't want to be locked out of all your purchases, especially if you spent hundreds of dollars on games and all of a sudden, you're locked out of them because you can't access them anywhere else. They're locked to that console.
Georgey:
Right. Yeah, I think when they initially announced the Switch 2 in January, they did say, hey, it's going to be backwards compatible with, you know, with compatible games. And I think we all kind of assumed at that point, oh, it's going to be the games that use the IR camera, the features that are no longer going to be on the Switch 2 that are going to get knocked out, things like Labo. But I mean, you know, pulling up their list that they have available where they're saying, no, this doesn't work presently on startup. You know, you can't play Dadish 2 on the Switch 2 right now. You know, if I can't play Dadish 2 on the Switch Switch 2, I'm not getting it. You know, I don't know. if it feels all that great when they say it's backwards compatible and it's not, you know, it kind of is, but you can't count on it. I would not be selling my Switch One if many of my games are getting left behind.
BMO:
I won't, but I like to hang on to my consoles, but not everyone is like that. Not everyone has that privilege. Like not everyone can be like, yeah, yeah, sure, I'm going to keep every console I've ever owned. Some people need to sell them to buy a new console.
Georgey:
Yeah, yeah. Let me ask you guys this before we move on. You know, if you're getting a new Switch 2, let's just use the prices that have been put in front of us. I mean, these prices very well may change. But if you're getting a new Switch 2, you can get the console with Mario Kart World for 500 bucks, and there's a camera for 50, there is the Game Cube controller. Something we didn't talk about as far as features. I don't know if we're talking about this in games, but they did announce GameCube virtual, not virtual console, Nintendo Switch Online, where you can play from a bevy of featured games. I think at this point they announced Wind Waker, F-Zero GX, Super Mario Strikers, and maybe one that's exiting.
Roach:
Soul Calibur 2.
Georgey:
Soul Calibur 2!
BMO:
That one's good.
Georgey:
That one is good.
BMO:
It’s a good one.
Roach:
It's so good.
Georgey:
But you can get the GameCube controller for that. I believe that was $80.
Roach:
I haven't seen a price announced anywhere for the controller. Have you guys?
Georgey:
I thought I did. I thought I did. Maybe.
BMO:
It probably was and then slipped…
Georgey:
It might have gone away.
[Laughter]
Roach:
I have been looking for it, actively, and I cannot find it.
Georgey:
Okay, BMO, as our Canadian tariff expert, I wanted to ask you this. Do you know if this tariff would impact the digital games as well as the physical games? They’re not importing anything to buy a digital game, will the tariffs impact physical or digital games as well as physical games?
BMO:
That's my understanding that they will, because I think…apparently the Trump administration has not put tariffs on services, which is ridiculous because that's mostly what the Americans, you can make up most of the trade deficit that he's apparently trying to deal with, with services. But anyway, yes, I believe digital retail is hit by the tariffs. I don't have a definitive answer on that, but I've seen that thrown around on a number of sites where the tariffs are being discussed. The tariffs could increase the price of both physical and digital.
Georgey:
I guess…
Roach:
Well, there goes our loophole.
Georgey:
I know. I was thinking maybe I could try and get past that. It sounds like Nintendo needs to come up with their own game pass. And say, oh no, this is a service for all these games. You can pay us for that instead. Maybe try and keep things somewhat affordable while also never having to sell us anything at all, never giving us anything to own. I guess my thought is at what point would you feel uncomfortable getting this console? Because for me, I think if this does cross the $600 mark, I don't know if I'm going to be picking one of these up. At least not at launch.
Roach:
I mean, the fact that they already like, here's the price, and then they're like, wait a second.
Georgey:
Never mind.
Roach:
My expectation is already $450-500. So if it's over that, then I'm probably waiting it out.
Georgey:
You know, this is a new show, but we did do a podcast before, and on the podcast before, we would frequently talk about how shitty these companies are. But this is like the one time where I'm like, you know, this isn't Nintendo's fault [laughter]. This
1042
00:41:11,186 --> 00:41:12,266
is Donald Trump's fault [laughter] that this is going to jump so high in cost. Is $450 too much for this console? I kind of don't think so, but is $630 too much for this console? Yeah, and it's Trump, you know? I don't know. BMO, what do you think?
BMO:
Well, it's $629 and $699 in Canada. Now, if you adjust for exchange, it actually costs less in Canada than it does in the States. Yet, it's still pricey, and that's not including if you want to buy a pro controller and all your sales taxes and all of that. I'm waiting to see if Nintendo equalizes the price in Canada to prevent Americans from cross-border shopping, because one of the considerations is if they increase the prices on the units in the States and you have to pay a whole lot more, and I don't, then a lot of Americans, at least those with the ability to, will come up to Canada and buy theirs and I don't know, wait however many days so they can avoid duties and tariffs. They're going to want to avoid that. So, if they hit us with similar costs, then I don't know. If it goes above $699, if it's $750, $799, I don't think I need one that soon.
Georgey:
Yeah. I, it's a shame to say it. I think a lot of these games that we're about to talk about, I think are genuinely exciting. But, you know, there's only so much you can spend on something before you start to say, no, I need that to fix a pipe in my house. You know, I got to solve the leaking problem in my bathroom first before I get this console.
BMO:
And I'm not hurting for games, so... I mean, I want to play Breath of the Wild at 60 frames per second, but I could play Breath of the Wild at 60 frames per second (clears throat).
Georgey:
In a different way.
BMO:
It’s appealing, but it's not necessary…ah, but I don't want to get into the discussion of whether or not consoles are necessary.
Roach:
So if we don't pay for the Switch, what games are we missing out on?
Georgey:
If we don't pay for the Switch, we'll be missing out on Mario Kart World, which is a game from my dreams. Mario Kart World is an open world Mario Kart game where you can drive virtually anywhere. I watched the Treehouse presentation of this. I watched all the trailers. I could not be more excited for this game. This is like what I was dreaming up when I was 8 years old. And here I am at age (clears throat) and, you know it looks amazing. It looks exactly basically what I would want a Mario Kart game to look like. They have a knockout tour, which they've added as well, which you basically have 24 racers in a race. And every single time you finish a race, basically they cut off, you know, you need to be in the top 20. Then in the next race, you need to be in the top 16, the top 12, the top eight, the top four. And You know, it's kind of Fortnighting Mario Kart, but I mean, Fortnite's popular for a reason. You know, it's fun to see yourself progressively beat those people, progressively move forward. I couldn't be more excited for this game. You can play as Moo Moo, Moo Moo the Cow. You can play as a dolphin. You can play as a penguin. You can play as Charging Chuck. You can play as the coin guy, the guy that's a sack of coins.
BMO:
Can you?
Georgey:
Yes.
Roach: What’s with all these barn animals?
BMO:
I don't think I clicked on that one.
Georgey:
I could not be more excited for this. You know, they said that this is an $80 game. And I thought to myself, you know, that's a lot, but also, I kind of understand. I kind of get this game being a ton of money because it looks like a ton of game. Roach, BMO, what do you think?
Roach:
Isn't there a direct coming up specifically for this? Do you know when that is?
Georgey:
I think April 17th, I don't know if I'm going to watch it. A part of me was like, I think maybe I've ingested all of it.
Roach:
You’ve seen enough?
Georgey:
Yeah!
BMO:
I'm going to watch. You're going to watch it.
[Laughter]
Roach:
I feel like I need to see a little bit more because I didn't really see much. I saw a lot of desert. I'm not really interested in desert biomes very much. What are the other places? What are the other vistas I'm going to see here, please?
Georgey:
They got a big mountain that you can, that's like kind of icy. They have a Donkey Kong, like original Donkey Kong kind of construction site, but future racetrack. There's cities. I look, I'm not trying to sell this game to you. All I'm saying is if you like Mario Kart, this is like, at least in my opinion, the dream for a Mario Kart game. BMO, I know you were saying this is like Mario Kart Forza, which I agree with. I think it seems exciting in that way.
BMO:
I made that joke when we were watching the direct, but I've seen that joke repeated like a million times on sites. I've seen, I think it was Polygon, one of their writers said it's like Forza Horizon. So clearly a lot of people think that driving around everywhere is taking after something like Forza Horizon. Which is fun. I mean, driving around anywhere you want in between races is a lot of fun in that game.
Georgey:
Yes, which they did also say is going to be part of the Grand Prix, is that you'll race from space to space.
BMO:
That I’m sceptical about. I'm curious to see how that plays out, because that's when you put your controller down and you watch the little replay of how somebody smacked you with a with a turtle shell and you laugh about it and you get a break, but now there's no break. Now there's just drive. And is your pole position going to be based on how well you do between, or is it only going to be based on how well you did in the race? Because if it's…Too many questions, I know.
Georgey:
No, no, no. So I watched I watched the treehouse. I watched the treehouse. Basically, you drive to the next race and then you do one lap on the next race is how I believe it's it's set up. So it's all one race, but…
BMO:
Like there’s a pace car?
Georgey:
A little bit. I mean…
BMO:
Weird.
Georgey:
It is..
BMO:
Like the Gumball?
Georgey:
I am fairly excited about this, but that was the one thing where I was like, you know, I want to do 3 laps around this track. I don't want to do one lap after I race to the track. I want to do 3 laps around that new track. But, you know, I'm sure there's going to be options to play those racetracks individually. There's going to be lots of, you know, different ways to experience those races.
We both did say while we were watching it that they called it Mario Kart World because they put World at the end of a game to let you know it's going to be a good one. But I am genuinely probably as hyped for this as I could possibly be. Will I buy it? Depends on the tariffs.
What else did we see? Roach, what else did we see?
Roach:
We saw GameCube games. We brought that up earlier.
Georgey:
Let's talk more about it because Soul Calibur 2 was exciting.
Roach:
Yeah, that is the only Soul Calibur game I've ever played.
BMO:
It's the best one.
Georgey:
It is the best one.
BMO:
It is really good!
Roach:
You could start and end there and be happy.
BMO:
It's very good.
I thought it was really cool because it has Link in it too. I mean, obviously it's a GameCube edition, but I wasn't really sure if they would just have it without him or something. So, it seems like the whole game is there. And they have Wind Waker as well. But they showed like, they showed the little reel of all the like games that are coming.
Georgey:
That's the most exciting thing in my opinion.
Roach:
And I saw Fire Emblem in there.
Georgey:
That Fire Emblem game...
Roach:
I saw Luigi’s Mansion in there.
BMO:
Yeah, that I'm excited for. I am worried though: does that mean they won't remaster Luigi's Mansion? And I'm also worried, does it mean they're not going to bring Wind Waker HD to Switch 2? Like, come on. I like the GameCube version, but the HD version's really nice.
Georgey:
The HD version is really nice. No, they're not going to bring it. You're going to play that…
BMO:
I don’t want to have to break out my Wii U.
Roach:
What are they going to, how are they going to do the Tingle Tuner thing?
Georgey:
You know what they did do that might set a precedent for this? They did do Link's Awakening on the Nintendo Switch Online and they have the remaster for it. But you know what, as I'm saying this, they did that, or not remaster, the remake, but they did that in the opposite order. They came out with the remake and then a little bit later they did Nintendo Switch Online. You could play the old version. I kind of the same way they did Star Fox 2. You know, Star Fox 2 came out on the Super Nintendo Classic or Mini, Mini, that was what that thing was called. And then I like two years later, it came out on Nintendo Switch Online for you to play. Yes, Roach.
Roach:
Wait, didn't Twilight Princess launch on GameCube?
Georgey:
It came out on GameCube and Wii, yeah, same day.
Roach:
So maybe we'll get Twilight Princess as well.
BMO:
But that also has an HD remake, and wouldn't it be nice if they just ported that because it's stuck on Wii U?
Roach:
It would be nice.
Georgey:
I mean, in a certain sense, I'm sure Nintendo wants to collect more money, you know? In that sense, I could see them doing it, but at the same time…
Roach:
We can’t be completely happy.
[Laughter]
Georgey:
The one other I did want to talk about, they did have the Pokémon XD, like Dark…
Roach:
Gale of Darkness.
Georgey:
Gale of Darkness. Dale of Garkness! Yeah, I like those ones I…They're hard to find. They are almost never brought up because they kind of are in their own weird continuity. It's exciting to see these games available again. I'm guessing we'll probably get Kirby Air Ride shortly before the Sakurai sequel comes out.
Roach:
I hope so.
Georgey:
Just kind of hype people up. But getting those GameCube games, a console
which did not sell amazing on the Switch 2, which I don't know how widespread popular it's going to be. The Switch 1 obviously was a mega hit, but Switch 2, we got to see what happens with this whole price and the release. But having those games have maybe a second life is, I don't know, genuinely joyful.
Roach:
I think so. It also adds value to the subscription thing because it's not the most expensive subscription. I always pay for it annually because I hate monthly subs and then I like split it amongst everybody in my family.
Georgey:
I want to ask something.
Roach:
But what…what is it?
Georgey:
Is this, is the Nintendo Switch Online going to jump up in price? I kind of think yes. I kind of think we're going to get like a year into the Switch.
BMO:
I don’t know.
Georgey:
Because look, it is a good value, especially when you're splitting it with family members. You know, this is like…It's 20 bucks for an individual membership. That's what Game Pass costs on its lowest tier for a month, you know? And that's what you can spend annually on Nintendo Switch Online. It is a good value from that standpoint. If they raise the price, I would understand, but it's just hard when everything else, the console, the games, everything else is jumping up in price.
BMO:
So, let's hope that they hold off on that one.
Georgey:
We hope so.
Roach:
Yeah, especially if we're getting those Switch 2 Zelda upgrades as part of it too. Like I think right now with where it's priced right now, I think it's not an unreasonable price, but if it goes up, I don't know.
BMO:
Although those upgrades are apparently only like 10,000 yen, so they're under $10 US.
Roach:
Tariffs, but the tariffs, BMO, the tariffs.
Georgey:
They're going to get people using game chat, and then they're going to raise the price of this thing, and people are going to be like: I can't let go of game chat. What am I going to use that button for?
BMO, what else did we see? What else are you excited about? Oh, yeah, I shouldn't even say excited about. What else did we see, BMO?
BMO:
Okay, well, we got to do this one and slip it in there. Silksong, 2025.
Georgey:
Yes!
BMO:
Microsoft also published A blog that said it was coming out in 2025. Their PR Leth has said: hey, it's on track. So, I don't see why it's not going to happen. I know that they're very close to done. He…they talk about it periodically. Team Cherry doesn't, but their PR does. Right. So it's not as if it's not happening. It looks like it's probably going to happen in 2025 and it may be that they were waiting for the Switch 2.
But other than that, I think it's pretty wild that Nintendo Switch 2 is getting an exclusive from soft game.
Georgey:
Yes!
BMO:
DuskBloods is, I know that people are going to like, they're going to wrap their heads around like: oh no, it's PvP versus environment and all that means it's crap. And I've seen lots of alarm mistakes which are all FromSoft is making two different multiplayer games, they're, you know, they're giving into multiplayer crap. I don't know, Miyazaki is pretty careful about what he does and he's pretty intentional about his design, so I'm kind of excited and I think we have to wait and see, but it is wild that if this is what essentially Bloodborne 2 became, and it really does look like it, Sony really screwed the pooch on this one by not, for a second time, not optioning a sequel to a game they made with FromSoft. The first being Dark Souls. Dark Souls, they passed on Dark Souls and it was huge. So now did they pass on Bloodborne 2 and we've got DuskBloods? I don't know.
Georgey:
I wanted to ask, you were saying that they were working on 2 multiplayer games, the other one being NightReign?
BMO:
Yeah. Elden Ring.
Georgey:
Okay, okay. I just wanted to make sure there wasn't. You know, sometimes you see a Platinum sometimes is like this, where you're like kind of shocked how many games they can be working on at a single time for being kind of a tight team. But yeah, I don't even think NightReign being a, because is it going to be a separate game? I thought it was just DLC ultimately. Or is it going to be a separate game?
Roach:
I thought it was separate.
BMO:
It is separate. I don't think you require Elden Ring. It's set in the same…
Georgey:
World.
BMO:
…universe, but it's a distinct game.
Georgey:
Okay, okay. I do think it looks a little bit like the Switch version of a FromSoft game, but it is kind of genuinely an interesting trailer, genuinely an interesting world that they have there. You see the man in the kind of steampunk suit fly away. You see the train, like it just seems like a completely different world. Seems like vampires is kind of what's going on there, right? Right?
BMO:
Yup.
Roach:
Yeah.
BMO:
Well, I mean, a lot of that is there in Bloodborne. Bloodborne has heavy
inferences to vampires. Even though it's not, you're not a “vampire”.
Roach:
They're the blood sworn in this one.
BMO:
Yeah. So, I mean, and also from a graphical standpoint, not to hurt any FromSoft fan feelings, but it's not like From is really big on huge graphical…
Georgey:
Beutiful…sure!
BMO:
Pushing graphical boundaries. They like things that tend to be a little bit easier on the processor because they're doing so much else. I still think their games look good, but I mean, they never look like they're cutting edge.
Georgey:
That trailer came on when I was showing it to my kids, and I'm like, you guys are going to hate this trailer. And they're like, why? And I was like, because there's like 30 seconds of just some hands getting held. That's it.
[Laughter]
Georgey:
I was like, this is a trailer for adults. Kids do not enjoy a woman reaching up and grabbing a hand for 30 seconds.
[Laughter]
Roach:
She gave him the quickest tattoo.
[Laughter]
Georgey:
I give you my blood. My kids are just like: where's Kirby?
[Laughter]
Roach:
There is no Kirby here.
Georgey:
That one's getting, did it say 2025 or 2026 on that one? I think it's, that's 2026.
Roach:
Oh gosh.
Georgey:
Because Elden Ring is just 2025. Elden Ring is coming to Switch as well. Switch to as well.
Roach:
2026.
Georgey:
But yeah, I do think that is 1 to kind of keep on our radar. Roach, do you have another one you want to talk about?
Roach:
Yeah, Bravely Default.
Georgey:
Okay!
Roach:
Personally speaking, I was most excited for this because I don't want to dig my 3DS out.
Georgey:
Sure!
Roach:
And this game was so good and it deserves to live. And that's the only place that you could play the first Bravely Default game. I feel like you can play all the other ones. I'm probably wrong because there's like Bravely 2nd and Bravely Default 2. But this was the first one. And it's a fantastic RPG. I thought it looked good.
GP
Did you watch the treehouse where they played it and they did like Ring a Bell's adventure on the flying boat.
Roach:
No, no. I never watched those things, they’re super long.
Georgey:
It's just a little mini game you can play with the mouse. It's somehow interconnected.
Roach:
Yeah, I saw they were adding mini games to this.
Georgey:
They added some gimmicky mini games.
Roach:
What did you think of the mini game?
Georgey:
Honestly, I kind of thought the mini game looked fun. I kind of thought…
Roach:
What was the point of the mini games?
Georgey:
You have to fly through hoops and defeat enemies as you're flying around your little flying craft.
Roach:
Okay, I'm reading about that. It says playing these mini games awards various bonuses, including newly added notes in Dee's journal that are like lore notes.
Georgey:
You love newly added notes.
Roach
I do. I read all of the things, the little item descriptions. I read those. I read every single one of those.
Georgey:
Sure!
Roach:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that was really exciting. That's cool. That was one of the ones where I was like, oh, I want to get like a physical copy for this. And the physical copy of it is a game key card. And I was like, oh, never mind.
BMO:
That really sucks.
Roach
Yeah.
BMO:
That super sucks.
Roach:
Bums me out.
BMO:
Yeah. I want to know is Zelda, Breath of the Wild, is the new Switch 2 edition that's going to be on a on a cart. Is it on there? And is it on
There, and does it have the upgrade on there, or do I have to download the upgrade? Because if I have to download the upgrade, then it's basically just a Switch copy that only works in a Switch 2, and there's no point.
Roach:
Also, let's say, let's say we... We live in an alternate universe where these game key cards didn't exist and you can get these physical games and they weren't priced higher than the digital ones, okay? The boxes are so fuckin’ ugly.
BMO:
Oh yeah!
Roach:
They're horrendous. They are awful. They have a huge fine print paragraph on the bottom.
Georgey:
That's true. That's true. That sucks.
Roach:
And they have a huge just red bar at the top and that red bar is a red flag for how disgusting this box art is. It's so rude.
BMO:
It's very bad. It's very poorly balanced. It's not well aligned. It's, I don't know who designed those. I don't know did that person study anything about graphic design. It's pretty bad.
Roach:
Maybe this was their protest against…Nintendo? I don't know, but it's
horrible. That's like the number one…that is, I'm not joking. That is like the number one reason why I'm going digital because I cannot bear having those on my shelf and looking at them.
Georgey:
I bet Nintendo's on the phone with Trump right now being like, remove the tariffs, we put the MAGA red on the top. There's so much.
Roach:
Stop this. That’s fucked up, stop. No.
Georgey:
Yeah, the Switch 2 Edition. boxes look miserable. They're so busy. But, you know, ultimately we care about the games that are inside. It's not what's on the outside that matters. It's what's on the inside. And on the inside of the Bravely Default, there is an empty key card.
BMO: But then you just buy the digital edition because that's the “inside”.
Georgey:
Right, right, right.
Roach:
Just empty pieces of plastic.
Georgey:
Yeah, that's the future we live in, Roach. That's the reality we're in is the empty pieces of plastic reality.
Roach:
Welcome to 2025. There's no hoverboards, but we've got empty Switch cartridges that have no games on them.
Georgey:
I want to talk real quick about Masahiro Sakurai's Kirby Air Riders. I honestly, I don't have much experience with the original Kirby Air Ride.
BMO:
I've never played it.
Georgey:
I played it at a Target. I played it at a Target once.
BMO:
I know nothing about it.
Georgey:
I played it…
Roach:
You have the most experience because I haven’t played it either [laughter].
Georgey:
Okay, so my one Target experience is the only experience between the three of us that we have. And I'll say this, my Target experience, fine. It was not memorable, but I do remember playing it. Like I don't even remember enjoying it. I just remember it happening. That being said, Masahiro Sakurai is one of those directors, you know, they did mention Hidetaka Miyazaki in the direct. Outside of him, Masahiro Sakurai was the only other director that got a shout out because he is one of those people who has put out kind of works that have garnered a fan base unto themselves. Obviously, Smash Bros. has such an appealing, you know, premise that I think people would flock to it if it was being directed by, you know, a no-name person. People would be excited about, oh, I can make, you know, Samus fight the Dragon Quest guy. But I think that Masahiro Sakurai has done so much with that franchise. It's been one of the only things he's worked on for the last 20 years with the one exception. And that one exception is, I guess as a director, he's been on like Meteos and a couple other things as a non-director. But as a director, the only other things he's directed in the last 20 years is Kid Icarus Uprising, which have you played BMO?
BMO:
No.
Georgey:
Have you played Roach?
Roach:
No.
Georgey:
Oh my gosh.
Roach:
I know.
Georgey:
Honestly? Okay, so one unfinished business…
BMO:
It's a 3DS game, right?
Roach:
Yes.
Georgey:
It’s a 3DS game. One unfinished business from the old podcast is I want to bet against Roach about when this console's coming out. June 5th. I
bet June 7th. I was only two days off. Roach, you do need to play Hollow Knight. That is what I'm putting on your to-do list. That being said, I would almost switch it out for Kid Icarus Uprising because…
Roach:
Can I even get a copy of it at this point, though. That's the thing. Kid
Georgey:
Kid Icarus Uprising? They need to bring that over to the Switch 2. But that game, it's interesting to see this person who has this maximalist game design, working on a game where you kind of have to hyper-focus on this actual franchise rather than everything, which he gets to do with Smash Bros., and he does it. There's so much packed into Kid Icarus Uprising. At one point, I guess spoilers for a game I love. At one point, the credits start rolling and you think you've finished the game and the credits get interrupted and they're like, no, no, there's a whole second campaign that you have to do right now. And it's so exciting. It's like a genuinely energetic and like booming game, which I can't emphasize how excited I am to play a Sakurai game that isn't Smash Bros. in 2025. That's A 2025 game, they said…
Roach:
Yeah.
Georgey:
…which is exciting. They only showed a CG of it, and the only CG trailer we got basically the whole time. But that being said, I am genuinely excited to play what this man is putting together next.
Roach:
Yeah.
Georgey:
We have one final game I know we want to talk about. Is there anything else we want to talk about before we get to that final game?
BMO:
I'm just going to give a shout out to that imprisonment war, the new Musu.
Georgey:
Oh yeah, Age of Imprisonment.
BMO:
I don't want to spend a lot of time talking about it, but I like the last one. I mean, at a certain point, I would say I hit a certain point where I was over it and I was like, okay, this game, I've done everything that feels fun. I'm over it. It's over.
Georgey:
Right
BMO:
But I would play this. It looks like if I really is set in the past of Tears of the Kingdom, then there's no Link, which is interesting. But I'm down for another one of those.
Georgey:
Well, as a person who played the last Hyrule Warriors, they do do some funny time traveling in that to put the other characters in it. So, my guess is they're going to do some funny time traveling in this one to put Link in it.
Roach, any games you want to highlight before we get to our last game?
Roach:
No, not really. I just had two comments. For the Hyrule Warriors game, it's just really funny when they show, I assume the roster and it's just like all these masked people look exactly the same and then lady. Lady, that's it. That's it. And then for Kirby Air Riders, since I haven't played the first one, I don't really…I'm not super interested, but I feel like Sakurai is like Nintendo's Kojima. Like anything his name is attached to, even if you haven't played the IP, I just feel like people automatically get interested.
Georgey:
Sakurai'sgot better stories.
[Laughter]
Georgey:
Subspace Emissary has better twists than Metal Gear Solid 5. Yeah, he is a genuinely exciting director. I'm very hopeful for that. I was trying to think if I could name any of the characters outside of Zelda. Rauru is the name of the one guy, because he has the same name as Rauru from Ocarina of Time. And then I think his sister, which we see in there, his name is like Mina, maybe? I don't remember. It's exited my brain. Maybe never to return. We'll see.
The last game that they showed off and the last game we're going to talk about today, well deserved. He got his spot. He earned it. Donkey Kong Bananza, a platformer.
Roach:
Did you go “Bananza” when they announced it?
Georgey:
Oh, I did go “Bananza” when they…I was on the train on my way to work and I'm just smiling. I'm texting BMO, fuck you because BMO said this would not happen.
BMO:
That's because I said it's not a system seller.
Georgey:
You said it's not a system seller.
BMO:
That was just to bug you.
GP
And I wrote you fuck you just to bug you. But it appears to be from the Odyssey team.
Roach:
That makes sense.
Georgey:
And boy, does it show it. It looks like. You're getting that same sort of open 3D exploration, except now Donkey Kong can climb anything, which is, you know, kind of a holdover from the Breath of the Wild kind of what they've done as far as exploration. But he can also destroy basically everything. He digs tunnels in the ground. He takes big chunks of rock and breaks open walls. I think there's something really tactile and immersive when playing a video game and you get to destroy something. Like I am playing, I started replaying Hollow Knight knowing that it was kind of coming with this direct, this sequel. And it's just fun to destroy everything in the background. There's no reward for destroying the stuff in the background in Hollow Knight, but I do it everywhere I go.
Roach:
It’s so satisfying.
Georgey:
And for this Donkey Kong game to kind of be built around like, yeah, if you destroy stuff, there's like hidden stuff all in the walls. You can get big bananas down there, you know? And I love…I'm just going to go on the record. I've said this before, but I just want to continue reiterating this. I love Donkey Kong's new look. As soon as they showed off Donkey Kong's new look, I was like in the Mario Kart that we saw in January, I was like, we're getting a new Donkey Kong game. They did not redo him for no reason.
Roach:
Just for Mario Kart?
Georgey:
For Mario Kart, no. No.
BMO:
Yeah, that's a good point.
Georgey:
His face is so expressive. You know, he gets his tongue sticks out when he sees a banana. He's got a big goofy smile on his face. When he picks up a rock, he's got this big like grunting frown because it's so heavy above his head. Like there's like a joy when he punches. Like I it is what I'm looking for in a game. I was so excited about this as I saw it. It is…You know, when I'm trying to justify to myself the $500, $600 price of this console, which is ridiculous if it ends up being $630…fuck Donald Trump. But if it does, if it gets to that cost, like this would be the thing in my brain of like, are you really not going to play the new Donkey Kong game? I can't see myself not playing this because this is another dream game for me.
Roach:
Everyone has the one kryptonite to their wallet game, and this is the one for you.
GP
Yeah, yeah.
[Laughter]
Georgey:
It is very exciting, genuinely exciting to see Donkey Kong back in a 3D platformer. It hasn't been that way in 20 plus years that we've had a 3D exploration kind of game, you know, Donkey Kong 64 being the last one. Sure, we got Jungle Beat and the 2D side-scrolling games, which are great, but they're not this. And I couldn't be more excited for this. They did show off in the treehouse. Cranky Kong is there. Will Diddy Kong be there? Will Dixie Kong be there? We want to see them all, right? We want to see all of them. We'll see. Only time will tell. I will find out one way or another, legal or illegal, I will figure it out. BMO, if I have to come up there to get a Switch in Canada, I will.
Roach:
BMO's our Switch dealer.
[Laughter]
BMO:
Prohibition.
[Laughter]
Georgey:
Let's real quick, you know, obviously the price is the big red flag here. We didn't mention a lot of the stuff in this that was genuinely less
exciting, like the Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour, a game that is their version of Astrobot that you have to pay for and looks nowhere near as fun as Astrobot. We didn't talk about some of that stuff. If you were to give this a score, you know, let's say we were to give this a direct, a typical Grouvee score, scale of zero to five stars. What would you, I guess you can't give anything zero stars on Grouvee. Peter, let us give things zero stars on Grouvee.
BMO:
Just don't rate it.
Georgey:
No, I want to, I want to express my discontent.
BMO:
One is, one star is you really disliked it or whatever.
Roach:
It can't get any worse than one.
Georgey:
I want to give Custer's last stand a zero.
[Laughter]
Georgey:
Look, what would we give this direct? If you were to give this direct a score on one to five stars, what would you give this? I think for myself, this is a four-star direct. This is, there's a lot of solid shit in here. A lot of stuff I'm very excited about. Honestly, I think just the fact that there's like two dream games for me in this, Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bananza, I can't give it less than a four, but there's so much concerning stuff surrounding it, I cannot give it a five. But that's where I'm sitting here. Roach, what about you?
Roach:
I think that I agree. I kind of want to lean to a three.
Georgey:
You can give it a three?
Roach:
I think at this point I will give it a three because you know how much research I had to do to figure out how much stuff cost because they didn't have it and…
Georgey:
All research for nothing. All those prices are changing.
Roach:
I had like 6 tabs open looking for this shit. I was like, OK, where's the Mario? OK, there's the Mario Kart price. And then I had to like go to these journalistic articles because it's not listed…
Georgey:
Journalistic articles you had to look for?
Roach:
It's such a pain in the ass. And then and then they delayed the US. There's just…
Georgey:
Yes. BMO, what would you give this?
BMO:
I don't know. I was pretty excited, so I'm probably sitting at a four out of five. There are a number of uncertainties. I am worried about backwards compatibility. I think I want to see more, so maybe I'm at a three out of five, because there's just a lot left hanging in there that I'm unsure about.
Georgey:
I don't mind being the sole person at a four, but you know, somewhat good showing, Nintendo. You know, don't make us pay for Welcome Tour. That's stupid. I'm A loyalist, and I don't think I'll be getting that if you make me pay for it.
Roach:
No.
Georgey:
That is our show for this month. We do one of these a month. We'll be back in May. But much like previous iterations of this show, we do have a question to leave you off with. What Switch 2 games are you excited for? And are you going to be picking one of these up? You know, if you're in the US, are you going to be paying these extra tariff costs? If you're outside the US, are you happy with the price? Obviously, everyone in the US is not. There are protest signs.
Roach:
That's why three million people protested yesterday. That is why they were mad about the Switch. That's the only reason they protested yesterday.
[Laughter]
Georgey:
I saw a child have a protest sign that said, keep your hands off my Switch 2 Trump.
[Laughter]
Roach:
That's so good. I'm so proud of them.
Georgey:
I am proud of that child as well. But please, we'll post this. I don't know how our new infrastructure for this is going to work. Maybe we'll have a post on the website. Maybe we'll put this on the forums. But interact with us any way that you can, and we will respond on this show. BMO, Roach, anything you guys want to say in closing?
Roach:
Nope. Just we'll see you guys on Grouvee, I guess.
BMO
Thanks for joining us, everyone. And I look forward to doing this more often.
Georgey:
And we'll talk next month when Xbox announces the whatever.
[Laughter]
Roach:
Whatever they're doing.
Georgey:
Whatever the fuck they got. I don't know what they're doing.
Thank you so much for listening. God bless. Good night.
Roach:
Bye!
BMO:
Take care, everyone.