Astro Bot

Yeah, I got the wiki now.

It's got Astro Bot.

No.

No, that's not it.

I, I have thought for a long time that people were being a bit apocalyptic about PlayStation and like the, the kind of the s- the state of things, but the state of play, if you will.

But it's hard to look at stuff like that and not think like, what, what does PlayStation look like in five years? Do they just completely move away from the expensive first party stuff that made them what they are? Like, you, you, you bless yourself that something like Astro Bot probably didn't cost, like, comparatively that much money to make so that those guys are safe.

But yeah, it's been a, it's been a weird one because you look, if you looked from a high level perspective, they're gonna sell more PS5s than they did PS4s, and PS4s held up as this like perfect generation for them.

So from their perspective, they're probably like-

Um, so if you're PlayStation, why do you...

Like, say you launch a new, uh, uh, you know, PS6 next year, the year after.

Why do you need, um, Spider-Man and, you know, Astro Bot and GT when you could just launch with, "Oh, here's the new GTA, the, the next gen GTA."

Yeah.

It's a bummer.

Like the highs of a few years ago of a game like Astro Bot, which is a game about celebrating Sony history and and, you know, that being game of the year and selling really well is just crazy.

Then when you compare it to something like Concord and, you know, the shuddering Bluepoint and.

high profile failures at that like it wasn't just a oh well let's sweep this under the rug and move on with our lives it's like no people continue to reference the failures that they've had forget

It's fine.

Astro Bot or Spyro the Dragon?

I feel like it's got to go Spyro.

Okay.

That Astro Bot game from, like, was it a year or two ago? Mm-hmm.

Was it last year or the year before? The year before.

Yeah.

Okay.

But at the same time, I'm really glad that Xbox has picked this up and it's going to exist because I think it's important for games that Hideo Kojima is able to make these big blockbusters that actually try and do and say something that is a bit different to just looking at what's popular right now.

yeah um i think that the the point about how many copies of kojima games sold is relevant because death stranding 2 obviously didn't do gangbusters but it was our game of the year like it was plenty of places game of the year like it is an amazing game that you're you're afforded to do because you have the gta marketing rights like you make more money in like three hours on gta than you would need to to cover death stranding 2 so i think moves like this are just um I have thought for a long time that people were being a bit apocalyptic about PlayStation and like the kind of the state of things but the state of play if you will but it's hard to look at stuff like that and not think like what does PlayStation look like in five years? Did they just completely move away from the expensive first party stuff that made them what they are? Like you bless yourself that something like Astro Bot probably didn't cost like comparatively that much money to make so that those guys are safe.

But yeah, it's been a...

It's been a weird one because if you looked from a high-level perspective, they're going to sell more PS5s than they did PS4s, and PS4s held up as this perfect generation for them.

got room for a Hideo Kojima game and Japan Studio and Media Molecule seemingly stopped making games and you're not going to do core stuff.

What is the point? At this point, why does PlayStation have first party games? They've become the de facto only game in town.

you know essentially you know play xbox has gone a completely different model um it's it's open source it is a third party is a publisher basically right i mean okay make question marks around that whether they're they're kind of teasing us are they gonna fully u-turn or not but their next console is going to be a pc um so if you're playstation why do you like say you launch a new uh you know ps6 next year the year after Why do you need Spider-Man and Astro Bot and GT when you could just launch with, oh, here's the new GTA, the next gen GTA.

Here's whatever third party, here's Dawn Walker 2, here's Mass Effect 5. why why do they you do spider-man

And what you're left with is this kind of third path, which is largely unexplored, unless you look in the past of PlayStation as a company.

And you get things like Astro Bot, which feel fresh and new and exciting.

And of course, the irony of Astro Bot is that that game is filled with little tiny Astro Bots, which are all trophies and memorabilia referencing eras where Sony took more risks with their properties and with their video games and with what they let studios do.

They let creatives be creative.

Now, none of this is going to preclude me from playing Wolverine for myself.

And like we spoke very briefly about PS5's first party, or not even first party, just its exclusive output within the last six years.

And just to rattle them off, it's Astro's Playroom, Astro Bot.

Demon's Souls, Spider-Man 2, Wolverine, Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart, Destruction All-Stars, Returnal, Last of Us Part 1, Horizon Call of the Mountain, Helldivers 2, Ghost of Yotei, Death Stranding 2, Soros, Marvel Token, Intergalactic, and Until Dawn 2, which great games.

In six years time, not that many games.

So the more stuff that comes to Switch 2, the better.

I don't miss it.

My daughter played Astro Bot on PS5 recently, and that was really cute.

But that was a game that we already have.

haven't got one of those.

But the way things are going, even though I was a bit like, oh, I want a Sony one, because Astro Bot and all that, it's like one of a game.

Just in case I want to get GTA.

But now I'm like, I think I'll just go down the Xbox.