2024 Game Forecast: The Arena Gaming News Podcast Live Insights

Okay now. All right, happy new year 2024 to all of you. Welcome into the Arena Multi-platform Gaming News Podcast, episode 158. I'm your host, Expat, along with my co-hosts Burly of BurlymenGaming and Fubu87, and our other co-host, TurnBased Carl. He will be back with us in a couple of weeks. I want to first of all say sorry for the technical details and technical difficulties we had when we tried to start the show previously. Uh, so for some reason there was a duplicate stream key, uh, situatio

n on my side on the YouTube channel. Uh, but, uh, hopefully that's been taken care of. So all of you can watch this podcast episode now. So anyway, uh, thank you guys for, uh, you know, uh, your patience and all. So, uh, let's go ahead and, uh, you know, Burley and, uh, and Fubu, we talked about our, of course our holidays. And I talked about the situation in Japan and our hearts go out for to all of those who, of course, you know, when it came to the earthquake and the tsunami that are picking

up the pieces and starting their lives again. So our hearts go out to all of them out there. So, yeah. So Burley, Fubu, let's go ahead and jump into what we've been playing this past week. So can we go ahead and talk about that again? First, I'll go first. I've been playing Rise of the Tomb Raider. It's on Game Pass. So I've been playing it on the Series X and I had some clips. You probably see them on the YouTube channel as well. But yeah, having fun with that again, with Laura and running arou

nd in Siberia and in Syria, of course. And so yeah, having fun with that. Very uncharted-like. When it comes to climbing, you know, um, crafting and all having fun with that. So, uh, yeah. So Burley, go ahead. Uh, what, what have you been playing this past week? Uh, I played the final fantasy 16 DLC, which if you want my thoughts on it, you can check, we do have a little video here, uh, up here on YouTube. I've also, I tried out on a PC, uh, game that's in early access, uh, called lethal company

. We streamed a little bit of that. Really really fun. It's a it's I don't recommend playing buying you can play by yourself But it's nowhere near as fun as if you get a bunch of people to play with you Because you're all working together You're trying to fuck go to these different moons and find scrap and you've got three days and you got to get as much scrap It back as you can to meet the quota. Don't meet the quota you die If you meet the quota and get above the quota you get money so you can

buy by gear like flashlights walkie talkies Use like a proximity based chat so like if you're near someone you can hear them well if not If you're far away, you can barely hear them or not hear them at all It's really a lot of fun and the nice thing is like if you die on day one, but all your buddies Get a bunch of scrap on the ship and then Take off take off from the moon You get revived on day two so that way you're not dead and out There's just a small panel penalty which I think it balances

pretty well. Cool. Fubu, what have you been playing this past week? Yeah. Well, I've played a lot of EverCrusher because I was sick and bad. So I just wanted one of those games that I play retry. I don't have to do anything else. But before I got sick, I finally completed Final Fantasy XVI, the story mode, the DLC, and also I did Platinum the game. It's a very good game. And as I keep saying every week to burly it is a Final Fantasy Game 100% and already started the Spider-Man 2 and I'm adaptin

g to the new fighting mechanics because it's a bit weird they change a little bit from the original one And so I'm adapting to that but I'm enjoying the game. It's beautiful. It's fun cool, cool So I just want to say also for all of you that are in the chat and all of you that are watching on the YouTube If you want your questions to be answered during this episode, please be sure to utilize the Super Chat. And as well as if you'd like, of course, we also have Super Thanks that you can help us o

ut when it comes to our content creation here on the Arena Productions. We'd really appreciate any support that you'd like to give to us out here. So, yeah, with that said, let's go ahead and get into the first story. So, Baldur's Gate. 2023 game of the year. It's still in the news guys So we had the steam awards So we had the steam awards come out and I'll go ahead and throw you the link to the story here from games industry dot biz and It's not as big of an awards ceremony type of presentation

as like the game awards obviously, it's one of the kind of the lower tier ones that happens usually at the beginning of the next year. But Baldur's Gate, one game of the year there. And I'd like to know your guys' thoughts on this. I'll go ahead and run through the winners and of course the category. So game of the year went to Baldur's Gate three. VR game of the year went to Labyrinthine, Labyrinthine. So from Malco Game Studios. Labor of Love, it was a category, Labor of Love. Went to Red Dea

d Redemption 2, which is interesting. I guess, Labor of Love. I mean, it's like a game that you love so much that you want it to be game of the year, maybe. Best game on the Steam Deck, Hogwarts Legacy, Burley. So I thought that was pretty interesting. Hogwarts Legacy was the game of the year on Steam Deck. Better with Friends, Lethal Company was the winner. Outstanding visual style, Atomic Heart. That's that was interesting one most innovative gameplay innovative gameplay, I should say starfiel

d So starfield won their best game that you suck at Was given to sifu so Burly You you loved playing sifu. Yeah. Oh, that was such a fun game. Yeah Yeah, best soundtrack went to the last of us part one last of us part one And then outstanding story rich game to top it all off was Baldur's Gate 3. So those were the categories and the winners. So what are your guys' thoughts on this? For me, it was kind of like, eh, meh. Yeah. Baldur's Gate is going to win one game of the year. So obviously, you k

now, the Steam award is going to go to Baldur's Gate 3. Probably my biggest surprise though, was. probably Red Dead Redemption 2 getting Labor of Love. Yeah. I would have thought that it would have gone to Baldur's Gate 3 being that it was the game of the year, but I don't know. What are your guys thoughts? Fubu, I'll start with you. I think Labor of Love, I would have given to Cyberpunk because what the devs did to recover the game from the tragic start that the game had, what it did is a Labor

of Love. They... gave their heart and souls to save a game that was doomed from the start. So that's, I would give the cyberpunk and that dev team. But again, I don't understand what the reasoning for that award is. Maybe there's because the rock study rockstar hasn't done anything for, like the online of the, the red dead redemption, like even red dead two came after GTA and. Still, they prefer to pay attention to the online of GTA V and not the online of Red Dead Redemption. So I don't really

understand the price, the award. I would definitely give it to Cyberpunk for the reasons I'd state it. Yeah, yeah. Burly, your thoughts on these nominations and the winners? Well, just so people know, This people vote they allow people on Steam to vote right he's For these nominations like Baldur's Gate 3 yeah that was obvious on the two categories it did win Red Dead Redemption 2 like that's a 2019 game. It was released on Steam in 2019 Yeah, that one was that one's a little weird that's head-

scratching there. Yeah for sure Hogwarts legacy I'm not surprised because I heard a little after it had launched on Steam. They really worked with both Avalanche and Valve worked together to get this thing running great on the deck. So good on them. And it's nice to see Hogwarts get something because it got screwed at the game awards, got nominated for nothing. Yeah. Yeah, better, better. Hogwarts had a sense of shaking the game. I agree. Better with friends, Lethal Company. Yeah, I love the gam

e. Most of this I understand but like just a few of these games have been out for a few years like Sifu I think his it might have came to steam lot early last year because I know it was an epic exclusive I know it was PlayStation epic at first So I understand but I do think it does fit for best game You suck at if you sit and actually played at Sifu You'll know you know what I mean, but yeah most of these have made sense Yeah, definitely So yeah, and we'll probably be getting some other little l

ike minor awards, uh, as the, as we get it towards the spring, I think there's a few more game awards that come out. I think we get like the accessibility awards or exactly around March, right? Right. March or April somewhere around there from remember. Yeah, there's usually some awards, you know, ceremonies that trickle on down into the, into the spring. But, uh, yeah. So, but yeah, but Yeah, Baldur's Gate proving that it's still, you know, it's the game of the year. So, yeah. And on steam. Yes

. So, all right. So next up, let's go ahead and get into our next story. So Square Enix, they came out with their, their year, their new year's letter to, uh, of course the company. which out here in Japan that they do pretty much every year, most companies have like a general letter, like a yearly tradition, so that it's kind of a boost in morale to employees to start off the new year and all. And Square Enix plans to aggressively use AI in 2024. So I'm gonna read a little bit of this for you.

So I'll go ahead and give the link here for you all. go ahead and get to that. So yeah, so New Year's letter by Square Enix CEO, Kiryu Takashi. Kiryu, I love it. The CEO of Square Enix is like, you know, he's Kiryu, Kiryu-san from of course. He's not the like a dragon Kiryu for sure probably. No, they're not. Street car. No, they're not burly. President of square Enix is a Yakuza member. I figured it out. No, that's not it. That's not it. Let's get this trending on Twitter. Everyone. So he, uh,

so the CEO, Kirito Kashi indicates that the company will be focusing on making use of AI technology and its development of games. The letter, the yearly tradition for the company talks about the company's plans for the future. Among other things, the use of AI seems to be a key part of the company's plan moving forward. Quote, artificial intelligence and its potential implications had for some time largely been subjects of academic debate, unquote, said Kiryu in the letter. Quote, however, the i

ntroduction of chat GPT, which allows anyone to easily produce writing or translations or to engage in text-based dialogue, sparked the rapid spread of generative AIs. So Kitu basically notes that the generative AI is applicable in a number of different fields and isn't necessarily limited to only generating text. And then he goes on, he says, quote, we also intend to be aggressive in applying AI and other cutting edge technologies to both our content development and our publishing functions, en

d quote. So he goes on and quote, in the short term, our goal will be to enhance our development productivity and achieve greater sophistication in our marketing efforts. In the longer term, we hope to leverage those technologies to create new forms of content for consumers as we believe that technological innovation represents business opportunities." So guys, I don't know if you saw this, but there's this and Burley, cause I know you're a big Twitch streamer. There's this big Twitch streamer.

I think what's her name? Amareth or something. Well, she, she has her own like fully blown AI. And it's like, and she made like $35,000 in like the first day or something like that with people like, you know, texting and doing a bunch of stuff with her AI. So simping with her AI instead of simping with her. Yeah, that's it. Sorry, I have to use the word simp because you say anything with Amaranth, you know what you're getting. Okay. But to this point about AI being used here aggressively in 2024

, I think this is going to be the death knell of unfortunately some projects and some development employment. Because you're going to start seeing these companies wanting to cut back on costs. Because as the next story we're going to be talking about with Sean Layden's comments about the budget skyrocketing in video games, you're going to see probably a lot of companies want to cut costs because they can use AI instead of having to pay like $120,000 a year salaries to some of these developers. S

o we might start to see more of that this year. Unfortunately, that's the negative. Uh, when it comes to text and when it comes to dialogues and it, when it comes to writing, it's going to be interesting to see how AI is going to affect all of this, but, uh, I want your guys' thoughts on this when it comes to how aggressively, not just Square Enix, but you know, Square Enix is making it plain and you know, plain as day here with this, uh, New Year's letter. But. What about the other big players

in the gaming industry? I mean, how much is this going to be implemented this year and how aggressively will these publishers push for more AI in say, AAA game development? And even not even AAA game development, but say like AA or indie game development. Burley, I'll start with you, go for it. Yeah. Like at least Square... You gotta give them credit there at least being upfront and honest with it because I guarantee you there are studios that are using it They're not saying they're just not gon

na say and it's under NDA's and all this and that and that We're only ever gonna find out if they get hacked or if they ever choose to tell us kind of thing So I'll give square thanks for saying it, but I think there will be some studios in 2024 They're gonna see with certain things of square where square if I actually announce, okay I don't know, let's just say Dragon Quest XII. We used AI for Dragon Quest XII. They're gonna see how that game comes out and does with it and be like, okay, they u

se the AI for, okay, the mundane text, the standard text you get from just talking to NPCs. Okay, that worked over well. People didn't seem to mind. Let's start, let's us start using that. Like, companies like EA, I wouldn't be surprised, Activision Blizzard. are if they haven't already done it, they're going to be doing. So we talked about it. I remember last year, the story of AI and games and all that. It's where they're going to be using it, these companies. There are parts I don't like them

using it and parts I do. We're just going to, unfortunately, see how it's being used, what it gets used for, hopefully really not cutting too many jobs or any at all, hopefully. Hopefully it's just like a tool used to help. Yeah. And we'll have to wait and see at this point. So Fubu, your thoughts on the AI conundrum when it comes to game development. If I'm not mistaken, this is not the first time we talk about AI on- And it won't be the last. And won't be the last, that's right. Yeah, I can g

uarantee that. And you know that's before we go on that's where burly we got to start doing you know Because this is the first episode of 2024. Thank you for coming in by the way all of you viewers and then all of you listeners later on Burly we got to make a Spiritual opium bet you know counter so yeah That's your job. So because I'm I'll put one case of spiritual opium right now that we you're going to be talking about AI through the year at some point. Anyway, go ahead, Fubu. Sorry. Yeah. And

I mentioned at the time, and I'm going to mention it again. I'm, I don't agree with the AI because it will take humanity of, uh, from the games. You know, it's going to take some humanity because there's, there's won't be that human touch behind it. The feeling, because maybe one day machines will have feelings, but at this moment. they don't have feelings. They can pretend they have feelings, but they don't have those feelings. And what happens when you implement technology into an industry? I

t's like you were saying, it's going to lead to people losing their jobs. And the only reason that Square Enix is doing this is because I am 200% sure they're trying to recover the money they lost on NFTs. Because last year, By this time, they were saying on the letter, we're going to bet on NFTs. And they got their ass kicked all year long because NFTs just went down like a rock and they're trying to do doing this, uh, to, um, to try to recoup money. They have an excuse to get rid of people. An

d when it comes to other, other companies, like you were asking, I think they're doing the same and they'll see what's where it is. does, if it is a success with Square Enix, what they're doing, the games become good and so on and so on, all the other companies are going to say, oh, we're going to start doing the same, despite the fact that like Burleigh said, they probably are already doing that. So they are watching. If everything goes well, oh, we're going to start doing the same. If it goes

wrong, oh, no, we're not going to touch that because again, it takes the humanity from games, something like that. I'm extremely against it. I do understand technology is here to help, but this is not helping. This is taking jobs away from humans. That's the only idea. To make the fat cats even fatter. That's the term that I want to use. The rich will get richer and the poorer will get... Yeah, I mean there are positives to using AI. I mean, the enhancements of graphical fidelity and all. I mean

, it'll be interesting to see how, you know, and when it comes to, you know, characterization in games and, you know, the realistic looks of characters. I mean, we shall see, but yeah. I mean, to take an aggressive stance, I mean, that's... You know, that's going to be interesting to see how that plays out. But anyway. All right, let's get to the next story here in the weekly newsbeat. So, yeah, 2024 is kind of obviously starting out a little slow. I mean, it's the first week of the year. But ye

ah, Sean Layden, he had some comments. Sean Layden, obviously the former CEO of, you know, PlayStation Boss. And he was tweeting about the fact that he feels that game We're going to be talking about it a lot in 2024. Uh, and one of the reasons why I have the spider-man, you know, image here is because yeah, over $300 million budget for the spider-man game. So we're starting to see bigger games. These AAA games have huge budgets now. I mean, we're, they're starting to rival movies now. when it c

omes to the actual budgets for these games. So are they spiraling out of control? I mean, that's the question here. So I'm gonna read a little bit of this for you. This is from gamesradar.com. So former PlayStation, Sean Layden, of course, the president, he of course posted a tweet reacting to information purportedly taken from... The Insomniac games leak, of course, as you all know about the Insomniac leak now. Uh, one thing that they did discuss was the 300 plus million dollar budget of Spider

-Man two. And obviously we heard more about Wolverine. Uh, but, uh, yeah, he's, he talks about like, uh, you know, we're going to be hearing a lot about this in 2024 and it's, uh, it's, it's difficult to gauge. If he's talking solely about game development budgets, uh, or the insomniac hack at large when it comes to the tweet But you know Yeah, so game development budgets Uh going into nine figures. I mean the question is are they spiraling out of control? uh, so You know He's like he also was l

iking some of the responses to his tweet Basically saying that games, they don't need to be like 20 to 50 hours long. Uh, it's not worth it in a sense. So, uh, I want to get your guys's take on this. I mean, with the games coming out this year, you know, hell blade two, you know, avowed, you know, uh, what, what PlayStation's working on. Um, I mean. We're going to get to a point where we're going to get like a half a billion dollars or, you know, and above when it comes to video game budgets. So

are they spiraling out of control? Fubu, go ahead. No. Like, I think this is trying to prepare people for a price hike in video games. It's like... when they start saying, oh, we're running out of fuel or petrol and all of a sudden the gas prices start to hike. I think this is a marketing strategy to rise the price of games. I do understand, yes, because I understand the budget gets higher because they're using better technology. I think the fact that 10 years ago, you would have a voice actor.

just to the voice and nothing else. Nowadays you have an actor, he does a full complete job with the motion capture. Like it's not just his voice, it's his expressions, his movements. So there's also a price hike there because instead of paying, let's say 1000, I don't know how much it is. I'm just saying a number, but paying 1000 per words, now they have to pay not only per word, but for scene and so on, I don't know how the contracts are. But yeah, I just want to say to Fubu, not to interrupt

, but I mean, you get you get actors like now Matthew McConaughey is working on a video game. So you get all these big Hollywood stars and like you get Keanu Reeves and cyberpunk and you know, so you're going to have to pay them a ton of money. Exactly. It they are not spiraling. The budgets are not spiraling out of control. They are putting a lot of quality in the games. And when you want something that's quality, you have to pay for the quality. Like getting Matthew McConaughey, oh, you're gon

na pay, just you're gonna pay you $100 for him just to say, all right, all right, all right, or whatever, like he does. I think you know, you're gonna have to pay. And yeah, again, technology is, they're using bigger, better technology, and that is expensive, I don't understand. They need to have bigger teams because what happens when you try to avoid the crunch culture, because I don't agree with the crunch culture. I think people have lives outside of their jobs. Like my situation, like I ment

ioned, I'm like I was really sick. I didn't go to work. I'm at home. My quality, my health is more important. I'm not going to go crunch at work because I'm more important. The fact that you can't do that crunch, because doing that crunch mentality on your team will allow you to have a shorter staff, but it will work longer, but it will be cheaper than having a big staff. The production times will be longer because you can't do the crunch. There is, I think this is the cost of doing things right

. Because when you try to do things fast and cheap, you want to have things fast and cheap, sorry, you want to do things fast and cheap, when you can't and it takes longer it's going to become more expensive and you can't do the crunch culture, the games will take longer to produce, longer times to produce means more wages to pay, more expenses with electricity for example, internet and so on, everything, those costs that are associated with game production. And again, the actors itself, getting

big actors. I don't think it's spiraling out of control. I think it's putting quality in the game that's allowing to have such big budgets. But like I mentioned, and this is my final thing repeating, when you have big budgets, you need to have quality. It's put quality in the game. So it's a cost of quality and not out of control. Sorry, it was a bit confusing. But. If it was in Portuguese, I would have explained exactly what I wanted to say. But you did just fine, Fubu, in English. So Burle yo

ur thoughts. My thoughts, I agree with some of what Fubu said, but to me, yeah, these budgets are spiraling out of control. As I've said, I said this a lot last year and I will keep hammering this thing. Is these companies are keep... They're all in competition with each other. They're all trying to get on the back of that goddamn box. We have 500 hours of game play. All that just to make you go buy, oh, I could buy this, this got 500. That's only got a hundred. I'm losing money if I spend money

there. And it cost you $120 in Canada. Yeah, with collector's editions and stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The next gen game prices are 101. That's it for a bit. So that so yeah games here in Canada costs cost some money Yeah, these the like I get it with some of the budgets like for spider-man I get it why it was high and as seeing everything they do and like the motion cap and all that I get that They're doing more with actors and all that I get that kind of stuff But some of these g

ames they just go to just bloat just to make too much And like some of the best games that I've played over the last while, it's nothing too bloated. It's something a much, it's a big enough game where if I can get, if I can get 10, like I've said, if I can get 10 to 15 hours of a good story where every time I'm putting down the controller being like, oh, I want to keep playing, but I need to go to bed so I can go to work and everything and keep keeping me driven every play session, want to keep

playing more. Have side content in the game that I actually want to do not just to and I'm doing this to get in a trophy or an achievement this and that like We've had all these games that just like Dead Island 2 Where it was we have 500 hours of gameplay or was it Dead Island 2 or dying like 2? Sorry, it was dying like 2 that their whole thing was we have 500 hours worth of game. Yeah, and it was like no, no like There are games I've put 500 hours in, but there are multiplayer games I'm playin

g with my Twitter. Burley, what games have you put five out 500 hours into? A little game called Mario Kart 8. OK. Oh, yeah. I was saying, man, I was saying other than Mario Kart, there's like no game in hell that you're going to put 500 plus hours into. Depending on some of the Pokemon games that I've replayed millions of times doing challenge runs. But yeah, no, for the most part, I don't put that kind of time into it. Right, right, right. One game. But like all these games, it's just like I'm

tired of seeing on the back of the box and all the advertising of how long this is. And then it's just giant long Avengers games. I like I want I will take with like a good double A or an indie where it's a shorter experience. But I'm like after I'm playing, I'm like, damn, I want more. I want more like that was the nice thing with Spider-Man 2. I know people were mad. that wasn't as long as they wanted or some of the bigger other games that they've had, but it was like, yeah, when I finished e

verything and I got the platinum in Spider-Man 2, I think 30 hours, I think was my time. I was like, yeah, I want more, but I'm kind of glad they didn't put so much crap in here because they could have easily put a lot of crap and took gave me another 20 to 30 hours. But I'm like, it's a slog. The first 20 were good. Now I hate myself for playing this. Yeah. You know, I want to go back to something that Fubu said about the costs of these games, but the cost to the consumers. Because even now, Ni

ntendo games are going $70. And Tears of the Kingdom was the start of that. Tears of the Kingdom was the start of that. So. Don't be surprised before the end of this generation, they go up to 80. You know, I mean, it's, they're going to justify hiking the prices again, because the budgets are going up. Yeah. Do you remember that was the, that Sony leak a few, a few weeks ago or two months ago or something, uh, that they are considering, uh, putting the prices of the PS games on 80, $80. So they,

they want to rise the price as well. Yeah, well, I mean, if you ask any, you know, development company and the heads of all of these development companies, do you think that, that you should be charging, say a hundred dollars for a game, but the majority of them are going to say, yes, they, they feel I want my bonus up by five. Yeah. If they could get away with it, they would sell those games for like a hundred plus bucks, you know, You know, I don't want to go away too far from this, but there

's also one thing that's very confusing to me, which is basically when the game comes out, like day one, the price on the store, on the physical store, and the price on the online store, it's exactly the same. It shouldn't be exactly the same. That's very confusing to me. Like on the store, on the online store, it should be like... Less 20 years because you don't have the disk you don't have the cover. You don't have the transport You don't have a bunch of things that you should put it together.

It should make the game cheaper And they will they would still make a bunch of money, but that's something that maybe it's a different topic another day, but Yeah, that's something that confuses me a lot Yeah Alrighty, okay, so Let's go ahead and move to the topic of the show, guys, because, you know, our topic is about 2024 and what we think about 2024, uh, when it comes to video games and the game industry. So price hikes, price hikes. Yeah, right. Yeah, probably. We talk to Nintendo, we can

talk PlayStation, we talk to Xbox. This is a multi-platform gaming news podcast. So, I mean, just throw out your ideas of what you feel about. this year when it comes to games and the gaming industry. So, so our kind of like our forecast and in the chat, those of you that are watching, let us know in the chat, what you think is going to be maybe some of the big news stories of 2024. If there's any games that you're thinking about, what do you think could be delayed? What kind of surprises do you

think we're going to have this year? Um, I'll go ahead and start first. Um, remember last year guys, I talked a lot about, you know, tears of the kingdom. And I was like saying that it's, it's the site guy said tears of the kingdom. It's going to win. There's no way in hell that any other game is going to beat it. It's because it's such a beloved game and you know, nobody's going to choose anything else. Well, I am not going to do that this year because right now the zeitgeist and everything, e

specially here in Japan, it's all about final fantasy seven rebirth. Final fantasy seven rebirth is going to be game of the year. Final fantasy seven rebirth. There's nothing that's going to challenge it. But then last year there was a game called Baldur's gate three that came out and just surprised the hell out of everybody. And I think that is going to happen again this year. I think there is going to be a game that we're not talking about right now that nobody knows about and it's going to be

the big zeitgeist type of game that's going to take all the momentum away and sweep it away at the end of the year when it comes to the game awards. So I am not making any predictions this year. I am not going to say anything about final fantasy seven rebirth. I honestly, I don't care so much about final fantasy seven. And that's just me, but I mean, out here in Japan, everybody lives and breathes Final Fantasy. But yeah, there's going to be another game that's going to come out of nowhere. Pro

bably. That's one prediction. Prediction number two. PlayStation is... They're going to probably... Unless the Switch 2 comes out earlier in the year, PlayStation is going to win the hardware war again this year. Because obviously you've got the slim models out now, you know, so those are going to sell like gangbusters throughout the year. PlayStation Portal early. There you go. You're holding it right there. Who knows what kind of sales numbers we're going to get on that. If the switch two come

s out, like in the summer, forget it. The switch to whatever switch pro or whatever the hell they're going to call it. It's going to, it's going to win the hardware war. of when it comes to video games, I Think Xbox is gonna have a huge year and there was the rumor on Twitter and X that They're talking about there could be a game developers You know direct in a couple of weeks So we might get some really interesting information there. Game Pass is going to be big this year because now with the A

ctivision Blizzard deal done, you're gonna start seeing a lot of those games start pumping into the service. That's what's interesting. And of course, you know, we're gonna be talking about Game Pass later in the show. We still haven't gotten any Activision Blizzard games yet, but probably from next month, they're gonna start coming. So Game Pass is going to be big out in the West. And I'm predicting right now still in Japan, Phil and Sarah, when it comes to Xbox, they're going to be working the

ir asses off and trying to, you know, boots on the ground, trying to get things going out here, moving around, but. hardware sales and sales, just they're not gonna, they're not gonna be that good. They're gonna probably be the same as they were in 2023. And I'll say it again, I said it, you know, before last year, you go into a brick and mortar shop. Imagine my hand are the people walking by the Xbox aisle. Yeah, they're just like this. They, they just, they're oblivious to the Xbox brand becau

se everything is about PlayStation and Nintendo and it's going to continue that way unless Xbox is able to get their stuff front and center, you know, in the front aisles and that's probably not going to happen, unfortunately. Uh, so in Japan. PlayStation and Nintendo will continue to dominate. Nintendo probably more than PlayStation because of the Switch 2 coming out. And then you've got the other, you got the Paper Mario RPG coming out later. You got the Peach game coming out. You got a lot of

momentum with that. PlayStation, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. Other than that, I mean, what other big exclusives are gonna be coming out? I'm really excited for, what is it? In February burly. It's that was outriders to I think that's the name of it Dogma you mean Dragons dogma to know the dragons dogma to is coming but there's that one game as a hell divers. I'm sorry hell divers I was like I'm still thinking about the the YouTube problem we had earlier. So it's kind of getting, it's all good. S

o no hell divers too is coming in February and I'm really excited for that. But yeah, those are, that's my forecast. Uh, I mean the, the game awards, everything that's going to be the same again, and probably there's going to be more ads and You know, more marketing and more Hollywood stars coming on stage at the end of the year. And then summer game fest, we don't have an E3 anymore. So summer game fest is going to be, you know, kind of like E3 was for a day or two, unless we have a bunch of di

rects bunched up together. You know, the packs events will be the pretty much, you know, the same. Uh, so TGS. I mean, Xbox will have another big presence probably this year. But, uh, yeah, those are my predictions. That's, that's my forecast for the year. Burley you're next. What's, what's your forecast for 2024? No. Okay. Yeah. So my forecast for 2024, I'm going to go by company by company. I feel just a little easier. Love Nintendo. I'm going to start with Nintendo. I think we're in the. But

I'm believing in the rumors that we're going to get that directed march for the switch to super switch Whatever it's gonna be called super and we're gonna Get you pro Yep, we're gonna we're gonna get we're gonna get that release date Okay, I wouldn't be surprised if we get it to release with that peach game Because we don't have the release date on that. I think yet No, not one peach game because I gotta have stuff for it like they They did a lot last year with the original Switch. We know we ha

ve two remakes, a remake and a port. So you got the HD remake of Paper Mario, A Thousand Year Door, beloved classic, and Luigi's Mansion, two HD remake coming in the summer. So I wouldn't be surprised around there. We're gonna get the Switch 2, launch with that kind of stuff. But I think Nintendo... They've been doing because we got the Super Mario RPG remake. They've been testing the water Expect a few more remakes. I wouldn't be surprised because we did have the links awakening to remake on th

e switch I'm hopeful we'll get some more 2d Legend of Zelda remakes whether or not we get or them just porting like and Doing like an HD of five version of link to the past and maybe link between worlds on the 3ds giving that out. But I think Nintendo, if we do get the hardware there, it will sell well. It's gonna just be interesting to see if it can, because PS5 has been dominating hardware sales, can it take it? It all depends with what we get, but the Switch 2, it could launch with nothing an

d just say, hey, we play your Switch games a little bit better. And it will sell gangbusters out in Japan out anywhere in the world pretty much It's it's gonna be a device as long as they don't do Stupid things and stupid marketing with it like they did with the Wii U They will be fine in it will print the money I have a question for you about Xbox and this is something I didn't mention Of course that we had those leaks about the Brooklyn The the Sybil the you know the controller that's wearing

pants But yeah, I mean that's something I think out in the West will probably sell well because you it'll be an alternative To you know the current you know series X console but yeah, I think that would could do them well because if you can Because the Brooklyn, if I'm not mistaken, that was the Series X that had the no distract. And that's the thing, the Series S has been selling well because it is a cheap, small unit. That's the thing. If you can make a smaller Series X, make it a little bit c

heaper and be like, we can play, we have graphically powerful, more powerful than PS5 or on par and all that stuff, but we're cheaper. It's easier and then you can try and you know, you give a one month game pass trial in there for new adopters You'll you'll get people and you'll get people in the door Microsoft does have like they've got a lot of stuff we've seen for game pass So I think it's gonna be another strong year for game pass and help itself But something I think they'll do this year i

s because they've been testing in other markets get that family plan out Yeah, getting that out like getting that out and putting it in the West Yeah, maybe they'll put it out in Japan as well, but they will get that family if they are smart get that family plan Yeah, and I think they're gonna revisit keystone yeah, for those that don't know keystone was like basically like a chromecast you plug in your TV and Get a Xbox series controller and be like here you go Here's game pass and you can play

like I know Samsung TVs they launched the game pass app on them so if you have a Samsung smart TV you can just play but I I think they'll revisit Keystone and try whether or not it'll come out in 2024 or we get the, hey, it's coming in 2025. We're not abandoning this because this is another source of revenue for us. Right. So Microsoft does have a strong year. Hardware sales. Yeah, Japan, it's not going to move the needle. I hate to say it, but all data shows, I know they're trying and they are

trying and trying to win. Back to the Japanese market, but that is an uphill battle. Very, very big. It's like Mount Everest type of uphill battle. It's an ant trying to climb Mount Everest. It's it's not to say it can't do it. It's very small compared to Everest, Fubu. Yeah, yeah, yeah. As you as you know, I'm sure. But yeah, it's just. Yeah, it's like I said, I mean, I go to Yodobashi almost, you know, every weekend. And I see families, especially now, you know, just after the holiday season,

but during the holidays, you'd have a bunch of families and their kids in the electronic section and they would walk just right past the, just right past the Xbox aisle in the back. Like it doesn't even exist. I mean, think of it as, think of it as a person that you hate and you're walking past them and you don't want to say anything, you don't even want to look at him. That's that's how I feel when I see these people just walk right past the Xbox brand in the back of the store You know, it's l

ike the it Where's the Nintendo stuff? Where where's the where's you know, where's the PlayStation stuff? You know, it's just it's bewildering man But yeah, that's just the way it is. That's that's the way it is, you know how people are so you know just into the PlayStation brand or into the Nintendo brand. You know, yeah. And my kind of last thing for Xbox is they are going to push the hell out of design labs and keep doing more and more variations. Cause that is something I got to give Microso

ft a lot of credit being like, here you go. You can order your controller from us, specially customize the colors and all that stuff. They really do that. Cause that like if you got a PS five early adapter like me, Doctor you only had white for so long it took a long time like a year and a half in To get other colors like I bought a second controller because I want a second controller Two weeks later, then they announced the colors were coming. Yeah for PlayStation This is gonna be a very intere

sting year for PlayStation because we don't really have any first parties They have their deals like rebirth is gonna be huge for them Yeah, I like that that's a no-brainer. So we're they're gonna milk that for the whole year I'm gonna milk that. Yeah, Helldivers 2 and Was it rise of Ronan in March? Those are their big stuff because they have those Those collaborations and I'm sure all I'm sure they will do well Yeah, I'm really up for Helldivers. I mean come on brother. Let's play that. I mean,

I really want to play held on I do I know I played I played the hell out of hell divers the first one and I played it on the Vita as well So I mean, yeah, I'm really excited and it's gonna be a third person So yeah, I'm really excited for it. Go ahead. I'm sorry. That's all it's all good How how divers I've never played so I'll be interested with this second one to see and how well it comes out But Sony, I think what we're gonna get from them is because we do have a lot of their studios have be

en working on stuff for a while. We've heard nothing like Blue Point when they bought Blue Point after Demon's Souls remake came out. Blue Point, we had the story of them working on an original title or something. So I think we're gonna hear something about Blue Point and hear something. Some of their other studios, whether we get every studio announcement, I don't think, but we'll get a few of them. Well, like some of them we have the pretty much we know what they're working on like sucker punc

h It's pretty much just stated go Shima to is coming out is being worked on So we're gonna get those announcements now the thing that I think the portal will do Well the portal they every time I see the stories of the portals now in stock and then I see Tweet five minutes later. They're all sold out. So portal is doing well, even though there are the things you do have people that complaining. You have to make sure your internet is good. And as I said, in my video, make sure your PS five is wire

d. Do not go by wifi on your PS five. It's just going to cause more problems than you need. Yeah. So I think the portal will be strong. VR two though. That is not looking well. No. We never hear anything about sales numbers on it. So, you know, that's not good. I hear no one talking about the library of games on it. than I other than like I've heard call the mountains good and then some of the other VR to gain are on other stuff. So I don't think VR 2 is going to is I don't know how much longer

PlayStation will be supporting this. Yeah, you know in out here in Japan, it's like when you go into yodobashi you would think you would think that they would have like a display and they would have like one out that people could actually try. which they do for the meta. Yeah. They do for the meta quest, right? Meta quest, I think it's the three, meta quest three, right? Three, the first one. Yeah, that's the one they have out where people can actually put it on and actually, you know, demo stuf

f. You would think that they would have a demo headset out there for PlayStation VR too, nothing. It's the same out here in Canada. They have, I don't know. The last time when I was in, I was in on a Best Buy a few weeks ago. PSVR2, they have the box showing you the box and that you can buy, and the two different SKUs, the normal and the call the mountain bundle. But they have demos for the... I can't remember if it was Quest 2 or Quest 3 at that, if they switched out. But you could demo the Que

st. I think Sony knows this device is a loss. Yeah. So, and I can't see them discounting it much because we know they wanna make profit on every device. But at this point, either they heavily, heavily discount this or they have to go back to their PSVR1 titles and make them that you can play it with PSVR2 because that's the only way. this point, those are the only ways you can save PS VR 2. And I, honestly, I don't think it's worth, it's worth spent. I don't think it's worth putting the money in

to. I think Sony should, it's not nice to say, but quit the VR market, wait 10 to 15 years before trying going into this. Let your competition. This was something Microsoft learned early on. It was like VR markets not worth it. It's too much of a headache. Yeah. It was either VR. supported on everything else. Well, it was either VR or augmented reality. And they just they were going with augmented reality. But then that just they stopped on that as well. But, yeah. OK, Fubu, you've been patientl

y waiting. It's your turn. Go for it. I just love the passion, man. I just love the passion. I felt like I was if this was a political speech, I would vote for the president. That was so good. What? I'm BurleyBandGaming and I approve this message. Shut up, Burley. This is the Arena Productions, X-Pat is the host and the big F founder of this. You could be my VP. I think Merle is going to lose his voice. Something's going to happen to Merle. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a new co-host starting ne

xt week. Co-host, Ben O'Donnell. Merle and Merleman Gaming has been replaced. Go for it, Fibio. No, so it's okay. When it comes to productions, I think... Like we mentioned on one of the last shows from last year, I think this year is going to be Xbox's year. And my prediction will be the key element for this year for Xbox to succeed will be the Game Pass. And my prediction is, let's say the first four or five months of the year, Game Pass, it's going to be really good. And then PlayStation. wil

l have to open their eyes and then they'll have to start doing something with the games from... I'm not going to even say the essential, but the premium and the extra, the higher tiers, they will start putting better games there because I haven't used a PlayStation Plus game from either tier and the last... I think the last one that I played was Sea of Stars, and they gave it in August, and it was the game, I was like, I have to play this. I was too busy at the time, I couldn't, but other games,

no, they are lagging, they're going behind, and I think with the game pass being so strong, I think they will open their eyes, they're going to start putting better games. We'll talk about this, I won't talk about games, but for example... this year, this January, this was a big upgrade. We'll talk about that later. But it was a big upgrade. So that's my prediction when it comes to these online services. When it comes to hardware, yeah, PlayStation is going to dominate because they are focusing

, for me, I think they're focusing too much on hardware because they just released the Slim. They released the Portal. And that's the thing. in less than one year, they're going to release the Pro because there's already specs out. They're going to release the Pro. Xbox, I think Xbox is doing the right thing. I think they're focusing more on games and on the software aspect than on the hardware aspect because what you make money, I know you make money on the hardware, but you make more money on

the software along the years. So when it comes to these two companies, I'm going to go with these are my predictions. When it comes to Nintendo, I already said this before. I really hope Nintendo has a great hit with when they announced the Switch, there was Super Switch or whatever. I personally think that historically, like we mentioned before, my prediction is they won't be as successful as they hope with the Switch 2. I'm not going to say it's going to be a flop. but they won't be as success

ful. And for us, at least for me, if I can consider, oh, it wasn't as successful as they expected, but for the people that, for the president, and especially the Japanese girl, they're very, very strict. If they don't reach that number, they won't say, oh, it was less of a success. No, it's gonna be considered a flop because it didn't hit their objective. That's... how I perceive at least about your inner culture. You can say if I'm right or wrong about that, but that's how I perceive. If it doe

sn't hit the numbers they want, it will be considered a flop. And we already had this conversation a few weeks ago when I talked about the GameCube. The GameCube was a fantastic console, but it was a flop. It was better than the PlayStation 2 at the time, but it didn't do exactly. what they expected and it was considered a flop on the market. I don't, I don't remember why. I know we didn't sell it off there. Yeah. What you're saying what your proprietary small little discs that that's what reall

y hurt the GameCube. Well, what you're saying Fubu is that you don't think that the switch two will flop like the Wii U did. as opposed to with the massive success of the Wii. But what you're saying is that you think the Switch 2 probably will not sell as the original Switch did. Yeah. Yeah, basically. Yes. Yes, exactly. Yeah. It's not going to sell as much as the original. And in that regards, it can be a great console. That's why I was using the GameCube reference. a great, uh, initially initi

ally. Yes. Give it, give it time though. I mean, yeah, we'll have it. Yeah. The switch to a probably be out for like at least six or seven years with about four or five different iterations to it. So it's probably going to sell a hell of a lot, but that's the problem. And, and the, and then you got this example on the, um, with Sony, she's also Japanese because the Vita didn't sell as well as they expected. So it was a flop. You have the PS, the VR 2, it didn't sell as they expected. It's a hybr

id though, man. It's a hybrid. It's a game console and a handheld. And here in Japan, it is the first gaming system that a child starts to play video games with. I mean, of course, they'll work their way up to PlayStation and then to PC games and stuff. console, the very first game system they have is a Switch. Yeah. So yeah. So but yeah, that's what my prediction is. I don't think that if they announce and Switch 2 comes out on sale, my prediction is it won't sell as much. And I'm hoping this i

s a prediction that they have as well. I think that. because Xbox is starting to have more GRPG content on their game pass with Final Fantasy and so on. I'm not saying they're going to conquer. That's why I was saying Mount Fuji a little while ago. They have uphills to go, but if they start putting more GRPG content, I think that it won't be success, but they will give the steps forward and not backwards. when it comes to entering to have a bigger position in the market in Japan. I think they, t

hey will improve their presence in the markets. That's my, my prediction. Cause like I mentioned before, I think this year Xbox is going to have a very, very big year. So that's, that's going to be it. That's my predictions. And I have to be controversial. I want to go against you guys a little bit. Sometimes I can't agree. Okay. I'll throw this one out there too. Fubu it will. Is your prediction that Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is going to win Game of the Year? We have... Come on, just say it. I

mean, you're gonna say yes. Yes. And I say no. Yeah, I understand. Yes. It shouldn't even be nominated in the first place because it's not a new game. It's a remake of a game that came out in like 1995. No, it's actually... It's new. Remake changed a lot. It changed the story a lot and rebirth what they're showing They're implying and showing that one character that was dead in seven is alive and they're changing stuff I get where you're coming from like the this was my argument with re4 remake

being nominated for game Yeah, it was a great game both versions of re4 the original and the remake are both great Yeah, it was only on there because of the high Metacritic score. That was the only reason why it got nominated I feel it shouldn't have been nominated because it's like, well, if my, it's none of the game, but not enough to make it like it's completely different. If my heart were to do the talking, I would be completely on the side of hell blade to winning game of the year this year

. I mean, but like I said at the beginning of this, uh, in this soliloquy that I, that I came out with, it's going to be a game that we're not even talking about, right? That's just going to sweep, sweep all the people off of their feet. And yeah, it's going to be game. I'm telling you, it could be dragon's dogma to burly. Who knows? It's like, it's, it's the Baldur's gate three of 2024, you know? But yeah, like I said, I mean, it's, it's something that we're not even talking about right now, be

cause who was talking about Baldur's gate three in January of 2023? No. That's true because that game was still... I'm right. Oh, yeah. Oh, it's been... It's technically... Baldur's Gate 3 has been out for like three years. It was out in 2020 in early access out on Stadia. Early access. But yes, early access. That game was out for years, Baldur's Gate 3, but the problem was when it was in early access, a lot of times what the thing is when they would change the build, you'd have to redo your who

le save for the first while. I don't know when, if that was a year, like in 2021 or 2022, that changed. Someone wants to let us know in the comments. I think I greatly appreciate it. Yeah. But yeah, it's, I'm telling you, man, and I will bet a case of spiritual opium in this right now. And all of you out there that don't know what we're talking about when it comes to spiritual opium, I'll just throw it out there. Uh, there was a story in the Chinese media that came out a couple of years ago. A l

ot of kids were getting addicted to gaming and the Chinese government wanted to squash that. And so there was a media organization that came out with an article saying that, you know, children being hooked on video games is like being hooked on spiritual opium. And so we've made this a running joke on this podcast for a few years now about spiritual opium and how all of us hardcore gamers need it. And we, of course, myself, Burley and Carl and now Fubu, we sometimes will bet on fictional cases o

f spiritual opium. So yeah, because that's the way it should be for all gamers. Yeah, be hooked on spiritual opium. Love your video games. Play them to death. All right, are we done with the topic of the show, guys? Is that all? Is there any other pieces that you left out or things that you wanna mention? So before we move on. Yeah. Just a game industry forecast, okay? For I'm pretty sure that 2024, the arena productions is gonna grow a lot because we're doing a great job. Okay. The food all of

you viewers out there food who is on a ton of spiritual opium at the moment He's not wrong He ain't wrong. That's for sure. I hope so. Yeah, the only the only thing I can have a prediction For is for something we didn't talk about but it's coming in like 10 days is Hot will last of us to with this whole new update and coming to PS5. Yeah. Is this going to be starting, continuing the trend where these studios, for PlayStation studios mostly, are game developers are going to go port their games ag

ain, add a little bit of extra content, make the PS5 edition. How many? I think it will happen, but it's going to be one of those things of diminishing returns. Last of Us 2 will make bank. Because even though it's like the $10 US upgrade, you can't even pre-order the upgrade. You have to wait till that day and get that downloaded that day. You can pre-order or buy the physical edition for a reduced price. But I think after Last of Us 2, I think it's gonna go down, going down as the studios will

try it. Yeah. Well, I know this much is true for 2024. Uh, we won't have Bobby Kodick, uh, wreaking havoc around it, uh, Activision, uh, from now on. So he's gone now. So, uh, so hopefully, you know, when it comes to the gaming industry and the, you know, the development studios, uh, there'll be some, you know, uh, you know, more. piece within the working environment and there will be more harmony and that, you know, all of those developers can work together and not worry about some, you know,

just pariah, you know, hanging out and wreaking havoc within the company and, you know, division, creating divisions within the studios. All right. I guess that's our topic of the show. So anyway, let us know in the comments in this video after we're finished. What do you think is going to happen? What is your forecast for 2024 when it comes to video games and the video game industry? So we're looking forward to hearing from you. And if you like this podcast here on the YouTube side of things, p

lease be sure to hit that like subscribe and notification bell. for when we drop another episode of the Arena Gaming News Podcast, as well as all of our other entertainment and pop culture related content here on the Arena Productions. So we really like to hear from you and we really like to get that like and subscribe and you get notifications. All right. So let's go ahead and move on guys. So let me go ahead and get this caption out of the way here. And let's go ahead and get to our new game r

eleases. So each and every episode we give our, of course, a new game release picks of the week. And so for our first picks of 2024 for the week of January 8th through the 14th. Burley, you are up first. So what is your pick from releases.com? And so for you video viewers, you can see the link there, www.releases.com. You can see all of the games coming out for the rest of this month and beyond. So Burley, what do you have for us? Uh, my, my pick of the week is Archuland. Ex, explore a vast open

world and crawl through dungeons in first person. Then fight tactical turn-based battles from top-down perspective. Guide your adventuring party through Archuland and mankind's last frontier. And uncover its many secrets. It's coming Monday January 8th just to PC on Steam. So who doesn't love a bit? Yeah, you got turn based, you got dungeon crawling, and you're fighting some good old giant crabs. That's not the love. So a plague tale, innocence in turn based style. Yeah. Oh, I haven't seen anyo

ne use a sling yet. I haven't seen a little boy guiding a million fucking rats. Well, no, not in that way. I'm talking about like the time period style of. Okay like maybe 14th 15th century type of But I say Yeah, interesting Hey, there's Burley. Yeah. I make you know you're in the game early. No, I'm just kidding. Shh. We haven't finished the marketing deal yet, so I can't say anything more. All right. Arkeland. Well, it's good stuff. Early access 2022, but it's out this week. Yeah. Yep. All ri

ght. So I'm up next. So my pick of the week is called radiance. So welcome to the top simulator of an insane nuclear power plant in which you have to decide how to prevent a meltdown. Do you deal with the leak or handle an unruly school trip? catch radioactive rats, there you go Burley, or isolate radioactive objects. The world has gone crazy and it's time to do something about it. Gosh darn it, do something about it guys. It comes out in four days on January 11th for PC. I mean who doesn't like

a good? Well you simulator games are quite fun And I hate to say this because here in Japan, you know, the Fukushima power plants and stuff like that You know, it's a tragedy that happened with that. But but yeah, what the hell? I mean radiance looks like an interesting game. So it's my pick of the week. I Just wonder where you if we can make Godzilla at the end in it Yeah, that would be awesome. Yeah to have gold Even if it's dlc i'll pay for that. All right fubu you're up next. What do you go

t for us? reigns free kingdoms swipe through military negotiations Marry the strength alliances and recruit soldiers to fight in turn-based card battles in this historical epic It comes out on january 11 on pc and switch Why did I choose this game? Uh I'm a sucker when it comes for the Romans of the Three Kingdoms. I like everything, all the characters. And when I saw this, I have to see this type of gameplay because it is different from everything that I've played because Dynasty Warriors is my

reference, but then there's also an RPG from the Super Nintendo time. And this is completely different. You have the negotiations. The type of combat is completely casual. The graphics, you can see it's very, very indie. And I've mentioned so many times that indie games have a special feel, has a special in-heart size. So it can be something unique that you can try and you can learn a little bit about the Romans of the Three Kingdoms. So it's a culture. You'll get culture playing this game. Nic

e. Good stuff. So those are our picks of the week. So you can go over to releases.com www.releases.com and check out all the games coming out this week through the rest of January and beyond. So yeah, usually the beginning the first couple of weeks of January are pretty slow. And then obviously we've got you know, like you were saying, Burley last of us remastered, you know, last of us to remastered coming out. That's the big one. And then February is going to be big. You know, you got, uh, you

know, a lot of good games. Yeah. A lot of stuff coming out. You got rebirth coming. You got a hell divers. Kind of persona three reload. Yep. So that's going to be big, big stuff. So it gets bigger and bigger as the year goes on. Yes. As usual. All right. So next up. Okay, let's go ahead and get that out of the way. So next up is Game Pass. So Burley, you're gonna be doing a Game Pass. Carl is not with us this week. He'll be back with us, I think on the 20th. He'll be coming back. So what do we

have for Game Pass this week for the first wave of January? Okay, so for the first wave of January, we have already that's out close to sun. That's out on cloud console and PC. As well as hell let loose that came out on January 4th to cloud PC and console The series console I should say not the not the Xbox one Valhalla coming out on Tuesday the 9th at Jada the night. That's got cloud console PC. Yeah, that one surprised me a little bit Bigment coming us on cloud console and PC January 9th. We a

lso have Super Mega Baseball 4 coming to Cloud Console PC through EA Play January 11th, We Happy Few coming Cloud Console PC in January 11th, and another big one that was a little surprise, Resident Evil 2 Remake coming Cloud Console PC January 16th, and as well as those who remain, Cloud Console and PC January 16th. Yeah. I played a little bit of Close to the Sun. It's basically a walking sim. Uh, you're, you're on this big ship that's like the size of the Titanic and, uh, you find all of these

like newspaper clippings and everything. Uh, I, I played about two hours of it and it's generally a walking Sam and it's horror themed. So, uh, I'm, I'm looking forward to playing some more of it to see how it turns out. Yeah, Valhalla. I played the hell out of that game already. I put over 200 hours into Valhalla You know Resident Evil 2 Yeah, I played that just a year or two ago on the PlayStation side, you know when the remaster came out. So Yeah, but we happy few actually is coming back, yo

u know, so That's interesting. Yeah Fugue any comments on this list? Yeah, Valhalla is going to be for the full month. Like if you want to complete the game 100% there is so much to explore. The world is beautiful, it is beautiful. I remember I got Valhalla when the PlayStation 5 came out and I remember just watching the fjords in Norway. Yeah, it's in Norway. I remember watching the beautiful, like going through the mountains, you see the sea at the bottom. Then England is really well done. The

people, like you live there, one thing that Ubisoft does well is these historical games. They are, I don't think it's 100% because some things are not correct, but they're like 98% accurate on what they're portrayed. And it's really, really nice. It's a very good game. The historical tours that they give you in these games are amazing. I mean, when Origins came out, you could walk through ancient Egypt, of course, when Odyssey came out. You remember when Origins came out? They did something wit

h the pyramid and they predicted there should be an entrance there. And when the archaeologists studied that, they went to the pyramid and they found... that entrance there. Like that was so accurate that the game predicted the entrance and the entrance was there. So it was really interesting. Resident Evil 2 is a beautiful game. It is a horror survival horror game. Very well done. It's really fun. Nemesis is, sorry, Mr. X is terrifying. It's terrifying to face. All the others. I was always inte

rested in trying We Happy Few. I always liked the story, like how they present the story. I really liked it at the time. I never tried the game. The others, I don't have any opinion except hell let loose because Burley was saying good stuff about the game. So cool. All right. So that is Game Pass, Wave 1. It'll be interesting when Wave 2 comes out. Will we start to get some Activision Blizzard titles? Or are they going to wait until February? We shall see. Or maybe if that developer direct happe

ns, maybe we'll get some more information there. All right. So next up is PlayStation Plus Essential. So Fubu, what do we have for PlayStation Plus Essential for January? I'm just going to say, praise the Lord, because finally we have a good month. I don't remember the last time we had three good games in one month, honestly. But yeah, you have a Plague Tale Rekim, which is the continuation of Plague Tale Innocence. I know you guys played both games. I heard you guys saying great stuff about the

games. So I will let you talk about that when I'm done. I want to try them. And since... Playtale Innocent is also on PlayStation Plus. It came out a few months or maybe a year ago. It came out so you can do both games back to back, which is really good. Evil West, simultaneously. Evil West, I haven't tried the game, but I saw some gameplay. And I like how fluid the gameplay is. It's in the Wild, Wild West, so there's going to be a lot of shooting. It's an alternate universe where well it's mor

e mystical than our actual universe so you'll face demons but you'll use weapons to defeat these demons and then you have nobody saves the world which is an action role-playing dungeon crawler video game so that it seems like good fun if you have time to play well in january vacations are done so but these are good games to play they're long games they They're not 100-hour games, but it's games that if you take it slowly, it's going to take you for the full month. And yeah, I think finally it's

a very good start for PlayStation and the PlayStation Plus games. And let's see how it is the rest of the year. If they continue like this, they're going to give a good fight to Xbox. Not going to win, but they're going to give a good fight. Well, out in the West, Fubu. Because out here in Japan... Exactly, they changed that. Yes, if you haven't watched my video here on YouTube, please check it out. So Evil West is not coming to PlayStation Plus in Japan. It is being replaced by Lost Epic. So th

is is just another example of games that they feel will cater better to their... You know the particular regional audiences uh, and Another reason is because evil west is very dark and it's very bloody and this I mean, this is an example of like, uh, we talked about this before burley, uh, The callisto protocol it's not even available here in japan because of the violent nature in it uh, there are so many games that are either not available or they're censored heavily because of the graphic natu

re of them or the you know, the sexual content or whatnot so PlayStation decided out here in Japan region to not have Evil West and to have lost epic instead in its place so Yeah, so go and check out my video there if you haven't watched it yet. So You know, but yeah You know out in the West You guys are going to be treated to Evil West. So it's good stuff. All right, next up is let's go ahead and. Talk a little bit actually burly do you have any comments you want to make on the p? PlayStation p

lus lineup for now. I agree with fubo. It's nice to see three Like we're actually not feeling cheated at a month where you're like at best you're like are two good games And then why the hell is this given here? No, it's nice to see that. It's a good month I'm hoping PlayStation keeps up with this because this is the problem they will get one or two good months and then just go, tank. Yeah, we shall see. So, uh, but anyway, all right, it's time for programming notes. So, uh, recent and upcoming

programming on the arena productions on here on YouTube, as well as on our Patreon, where you can get exclusive ad free content. So we got a ton of stuff coming out this year. 2024 is going to be a big year for us. Uh, this week, uh, echo on the Marvel side of things. starts and we're going to be doing a seasonal review of echo So that's going to be coming down the pipeline for the marvelous marvel discussion arena. So Uh wait check that out. So some of the Stuff that we've come out with Uh rece

ntly my video on star wars outlaws so new details About the game that's in development right now. It should be coming out later this year So, uh, please go and check out my uh, my video on star wars outlaws So that's, you know, an interesting take on from the actual developers and the head of the studio actually has some things to say about it. And then, of course, my video on the PlayStation plus side of things here in Japan, which I already mentioned. And then Burley, he did a video for extra

take on the DLC for Final Fantasy 16 Echoes of the Fallen. So please go and check that out as well. So yeah, so burly did that and on the marvel side of things once again We did a roundtable discussion our final thoughts on marvel's what if season two So please check that out So of course the new the new character gahori You know, uh, and as well as all the other characters we talk about and we talk about the episodes and also Yeah, that is up on the channel as well So yeah, really good stuff. A

nd we wanna wish all of you, of course, here at the Arena Productions and here on the podcast, a very happy new year, the 2024. I was saying at the beginning, before we had to cut off because of the technical difficulties, I wish all of those here in Japan, especially Western Japan that were affected by the earthquake and the tsunamis, all the best. And hopefully they'll be able to pick up everything and get their lives back together as soon as possible. So, uh, you know, my heart goes out to th

em as well as all of us here. So, uh, yeah, but, uh, to all of you out in the West or wherever you are watching our content here on the arena productions, uh, a very happy new year for 2024. We wish you all the best. Yeah. Whether it's in gaming or in life or, uh, watching entertainment, pop culture related content. So a happy new year to all of you So yes, good stuff All right, so let's go ahead and talk about the games that we're going to be playing this week I'll probably continue with rise o

f the tomb raider and play a little bit more of that But uh, yeah close to the sun. I want to continue a little bit more with that Um, I still i'm still playing a little bit of uh of tactica persona 5 tactica So I might play a little bit more of that as well. So that's me. So Fubu, how about you? What are you gonna be playing? Spider-Man, because Spider-Man 2, like I already, I do this, I'm gonna plot in the game. So I'm gonna enjoy the story for now. I'm gonna enjoy the story. I'm gonna adapt t

o the fighting mechanics, because like I said, it's weird for me at this moment. And yeah, I'm gonna put that game. It's going to be Spiderman all week because I'm home sick. Well, that's a good excuse, right? Yeah. Burley, how about you, man? Well, I'll be playing some more lethal company and Mario Kart for obvious reasons. And I'm going to actually try out a RoboCop. I picked that up over the holidays on sale. It's going to be streaming that. So yeah, good old Robo Burley. Yeah. Just need my g

ood old machine gun pistol. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can't wait to see that, man. Can't wait to see that. All righty. OK. So for those of you that stuck with us, once again, apologies for the technical difficulties we had. We had to cut it off early and start over again. But anyway, hopefully, from next week, we'll have a full show without any difficulties. So anyway, apologies for that. So. All right, so it's time to end our show with our indie recording artist spotlight.