Sacred Symbols, Episode 111: Corporate Imperialism

Chris, now you're just spamming!

Colin Moriarty

Thank you.

Colin Moriarty

It's a very monotonous game. I like it, but... yeah. We'll talk it through on SS+. =)

Colin Moriarty

Hey Commander Colin & Conqueror Chris! Funnily enough I myself am the host of a Stadia podcast. The Sounds of Stadia Podcast in fact and after listening to the correction on last week's episode I had a laugh-out-loud moment from after Chris' amazing impression of myself I guess. Although I'd like to think I do a better job at bringing the energy to every episode however. But I had to write in as a long time listener since the Beyond days and say we're actually massively inspired by yourself, Chris and all the great work you've done on previous shows throughout your career. However I must confirm Stadia is not dead and we'd love it if you would give it another shot. It has a super friendly community, much like your own, with many experienced gamers whom no longer have the time for downloads, patches and updates nor the finances to drop $400+ dollars on new hardware. Gaming is for everyone and Stadia is just another outlet for that enjoyment.

Chris Porritt

Hope your thumb is ok Collin...sounds like you hyper-extended as opposed to breaking anything.

kentuckyfried

Hey CC...it’s interesting to note how long both of you are taking to complete Ghost of Tsushima. I’m finding that for me personally, it reminds me of Sucker Punch’s earlier outings in terms of design...like it’s really easy spend lots of time doing repetitive things like chasing after foxes, only this time around, maybe they do a better job of disguising that. The story missions are fine. I don’t think I’ve quite gotten used to the combat or maybe I am going about it the wrong way...like combat for me consists of taking out all the archers and then running around in circles trying to pummel people with the appropriate stance (no parrying). I like the game but I don’t find myself compulsively wanting to play perhaps bc the combat hasn’t hooked me (or that I’m being lazy about it and need to try better).

kentuckyfried

Ha. =)

Colin Moriarty

Thank you for the correction!

Colin Moriarty

<3

Colin Moriarty

We correct this in Episode 112. Thank you!

Colin Moriarty

Well, whatever it is.

Colin Moriarty

Very nice.

Colin Moriarty

It's very weird. Major studio mismanagement happening behind the scenes.

Colin Moriarty

What if it's $500?

Colin Moriarty

I'm still struggling with this. Overthinking it.

Colin Moriarty

It's really nonsensical, ultimately.

Colin Moriarty

Knowing Chris, I don't know that he actively favors much of any ecosystem, which is why I wanted him on the show.

Colin Moriarty

Thank you!

Colin Moriarty

That's really interesting. I wonder what happened there.

Colin Moriarty

As we noted, Saber was purchased as a subsidiary, not a studio. One of the purchases we discussed is under the Saber banner. So, apples and oranges.

Colin Moriarty

I was reading that in some corners, but there were a lot of people defending him and his legacy, too, so I felt it best to just deliver the news and kinda stay out of that.

Colin Moriarty

See, I hated it then, too. I gotta be honest.

Colin Moriarty

That could be the source.

Colin Moriarty

Our plan is to do a lot of retrospective stuff, but I want to get closer to PS5 (we don't even specifically know when it's coming out yet), as well as give more distance between us and PS4.

Colin Moriarty

LOL.

Colin Moriarty

<3

Colin Moriarty

Yeah, that's crazy.

Colin Moriarty

I honestly have no idea.

Colin Moriarty

Hey Darren, That's super interesting. I wish I saw this before we recorded Episode 112. I would argue that those numbers are respectable, but certainly not great by any means, especially considering Steam's userbase and the rather humongous deal it is that Sony released Horizon on PC at all!

Colin Moriarty

That's the word!

Colin Moriarty

I mean, that's perfectly fine by me. Edit: Not the suicide thing, the bathing thing.

Colin Moriarty

It looks really fun.

Colin Moriarty

Thanks for the correction!

Colin Moriarty

Thank you for letting us know. I don't understand why they haven't overhauled the app. It's kinda nuts.

Colin Moriarty

We've not forgotten. I promise, I will do one, with or without Chris.

Colin Moriarty

Thank you! This was corrected in the next episode. <3

Colin Moriarty

Someone who belongs in an asylum.

Colin Moriarty

Chris lied xD

Eugen R.

You are right! Nobody wants a pressed podcast about a game someone forced himself to play

Eugen R.

Hey Colin and Chris, First time writing in. Colin I've followed you since the Beyond days and I'll keep supporting you due to the incredible content you push out every week. This is for Chris. You drew the comparison for Disney+ and Stadia. I get it, Stadia isn't lighting the world on fire. Although I am enjoying it and it's valuable to me, I fully understand why one would not benefit from the service. With that being said, if I hear you have to pay a subscription to access games one more time, I might lose it. It's simply not true. The service has a free tier and you only pay if you want 4K and monthly games through Stadia Pro. If playing in 1080p 60fps is fine by you, then you do not need to pay to "access the games" as you said. Anyway, keep making great content!

Kelly McWilliams

Hey Colin, I think the screen becoming read as a warning was mentioned by an Uncharted developer. Just kidding. Pretty sure you'll never forget this tidbit ever again, after being corrected roughly 20 times 😋. Cheers, Pete

Pete

Hi Colin and Chris, one brief correction to a news item you mentioned. The new patch for Final Fantasy XIV raises the level cap and adds story and jobs to the free trial, not to the main game. Now you can play through the first expansion for free with no time limit. That expansion had some of the best story in the game, so you're getting about 100 hours of gameplay with a compelling JRPG narrative for free.

Peter Keros

The upside down pizza part had me laughing so hard my dog started barking at me, and I just so happened to be eating a pizza as I was listening

Tyson Williams

That't totally not how Stadia works. Pro gives PS+ type of perks like free games and deals, and is required to play in 4k, but games you buy are yours to play in HD regardless of a monthly subscription.

My Dude

I heard “Thief Simulator” as “Beef Simulator.” I was very confused by the description.

Jeremy Mitchell

I mostly listen to much older music but I got into Arctic Monkeys because the Crew had one of their songs on the car radio, one of my all time favorite bands

Tyson Williams

Completely agree with you Colin. MS not having a single 1st party AAA release for their new console is insane. I thought the Xbox One's release schedule had been so dire these past few years because they were saving everything for next gen.

Your Boi Nicky V

I think when Colin discusses the issues with the xbox series x release he is missing one major aspect of Microsoft's approach. If the xbox series s releases at a 300 dollar price point with access to game pass at 10 bucks a month it might turn out to be an unbelievable turn of luck when you consider the market that may exist by the end of this year. There still is a lot of unknowns for both consoles such as price but I feel that the series s configuration and price could be much more impactful then what people are thinking.

james o halloran

Living in Arizona, there's not a single goddamn person here who would ask for less air conditioning. So "turn down the AC" always means "make this place less hellish and bring on more cold air."

DanielTheAwesome

I can't imagine how it would be possible to eat a pizza upside down. How would the toppings stay on the pizza without falling all over the place? It just sounds like a mess. Having said that, the proper/ideal way to eat nigiri sushi is to hold it by hand and turn the sushi upside down so the tongue taste the fish first, not the rice. If the sushi chef is good, then the rice should not crumble when the sushi is turned upside down.

Brian Lau

From my time listening to this show, I have always thought Chris favoured Xbox and that it is pretty obvious. Doesn't take away from my experience but surely he must recognise this? I think he has hang ups on PlayStation for some reason and the gripe about the dualshock 4 compatability last week is a good example

The Lizard King

Yeah, me too. I bought Limited Editions to get the soundtracks to LiS and LiS: Before the Storm. Great music with those games.

Matthew Cooper

Good episode

c0bra_dog

There is a band called daughter who I only discovered because of life is strange. Lots of good songs on those games. Foals too ofcourse! 😊

Kelly Perkins

Stadia also runs a lot better than I ever expected it too. I see why Colin predicts imminent failure however I think both are selling the platform short.

CORRECTION: Chris, You don't have to buy Stadia pro to also buy games. You can buy games without pro, though you will only be able to play them in 1080p, not 4k. Though, You get like 23 great games with stadia pro one free month (then 10$), so why not try it out?

Aleck

Colin, I think your mom knows how to use Twitter. lol. She’s always liking everybody’s posts about you. 😄 On Rocksteady and WB Montreal: Supposedly, they were originally doing each other’s game, Rocksteady was working on a new Batman and WB Montreal was working on Suicide Squad. Sometime during the dev process they switched on the properties. My source on this is Matt Keil from SIFTD, who’s been talking about this for literally years.

NeO JD

I’m mainly getting the PS5 at launch just to play my PS4 backlog with hopefully better load times and stuff. The same reason I see most people picking up the Series X at launch, besides the specs.

NeO JD

Embracer Group bought Saber Interactive for over $500 million in February which is a bit more than Insomniac was purchased for :P I believe you guys talked about it on the show lol

Josh Lucas

Just a quick comment on Yoshinori Ono's departure from Capcom. Going past the revival of 2008 one can say Capcom was on downward spiral when it comes to fighting games with duds like Marvel vs Capcom Infinite and Street Fighter x Tekken. SFV being a dull DLC platform didn't help as well. I like Ono but I really think we need someone to make fighting games relevant again without going into oversimplification and 'creating a platform' approach. All the best

tejotl

The N64 controller is only bad in retrospect. At the time it was great. Controllers just keep getting better so its easy to look bad and say it was shit.

Luke Silletta

Also, I’m a normal player but inverted makes sense. It’s push/pull vs up/down. I’ve been playing Ocarina Of Time and inverted controls are forced and it’s awful. N64 and PS1 never had a choice and I remember games being inverted.

Oliver Johnson

It would be cool to do SS+ episodes on your 5 or 10 favorite games of each PlayStation generation leading up to the end of PS4

Oliver Johnson

37:37 Chris “you need your whole mouth to taste” Ray Gun

Martha Silla

“This is a dungeon-crawling game where you collect women.” Thanks for the hearty laugh, Chris 🤣🤣🤣

Will Hernandez

Even worse than the name Hyper Scape is the fact that it doesn't have a platinum! It's a pretty good and challenging list so I dont understand what is so complicated about adding that in.

Sumojoe118

For Overwatch 2 it was my understanding that this next one would be using a heavily modified and updated version of their engine to allow for single player content to be added that isn't just a story mode campaign, but also one that can allow a lot of new missions with lite RPG mechanics so that it has high replayability in single player, and all the graphics will be updated as well. I guess the amount of time and effort they were putting into this thing made them realize that they'd have to put another price tag on top of it to justify its development. Additionally, they're not going to "segment" their player base as Chris claimed because they're going to be making sure that the Overwatch 1 and 2 multiplayer can function "cross game." Additionally all multiplayer updates that Ow2 gets Ow1 will get, too. In other words, they wanted to make it clear that if you didn't want any of the single player content, you didn't have to buy it. As far as marketing goes I would disagree with Chris on that end, too. Saying "hey everybody this is a sequel!" can sound more marketable than saying "Hey it's the same 5 year old game but it's got a story mode now." And finally, we don't even have any more information than what they discussed last year when they announced it at Blizzcon, which didn't include a release date. I think we have a lot of waiting left to do for this game and therefore a lot more things can change by the time it releases to further justify the "2"

Gabriel Garcia

Greetings Colin & Chris! Regarding the talk about Horizon Zero Dawn on PC, I wanted to shed more light on playercounts and what they might mean for PC games. Steams concurrent playercounts are visible at any time for any game and they are tracked by 3rd Party Website SteamCharts. SteamCharts puts Horizon Zero Dawn at 49,582 peak players on launch, with the average daily being about 28,000 one week out. Death Stranding's peak players was 32,072 with about 7,000 one month out. A reminder that this is concurrent players, not total accounts. Another website, SteamSpy, a once very accurate and reliable source for gauging how many purchases a game had unfortunately no longer reads accurately after a privacy update to Steam 2 years ago, but the general observation back when it was accurate, was that the purchases were usually about 5 times the concurrent peak players on Day 1. This means we can estimate that Horizon Zero Dawn sold 250,000 copies on it's first day, and Death Stranding about 150,000. With Horizon's tech issues the game has a mixed review result (61%) on Steam and no doubt with the severity of issues (users reporting less than 15fps, stuttering and the inability to move after entering into areas like vaults/tombs) it seems many will have also taken advantage of Steams 2hr refund policy. I'm interested to hear what you think of these numbers (worth noting the games are also on the Epic Games Store) and do you think that this reinforces the need for Sony to acquire a good port studio, as it seems their first party may not be equipped to test the breadth of hardware and compatibility on PC? After all, they're used to working traditionally with a closed system. Thanks, Darren.

WhatDarrenPlays

Colin trust me Fall Guys is fantastic. You should definitely stream it on Twitch too is a great kind of game for that.

Real Radec

Ive maintained all along I see no compelling reason to buy the PS5 at launch, godfall looks completely mediocre and Miles Morales simply isn't a game worth the 500 entry fee IMO. Also im curious as to why we've seen more of pretty much every PS5 launch game and games in 2021 like R&C than MM, is there a chance this also cops a delay ? Wouldn't suprise me to see a gaggle of launch window games moved out due to the impact of covid and even the consoles themselves.

Craig Mcguire

On the bath issue, you can have a bath to relax then have a quick shower to wash your hair after it, and you are clean. Easy. I literally did that half an hour ago. Also, how many people have died by suicide during one of these shows? That's the important thing left out of the who has died listening to the podcast question.

Peter Campbell

Fall guys is awesome. It's basically like Wipeout or MXC challenge from spike back in the day. I'm loving it, though there is one trophy that is God awful where you have to win the whole battle royale 5 times in a row. I've gotten lucky and have gotten 3, but that's it

Jordan Knepp

Pointing this out for anyone who cares that write-up for Final Fantasy XIV patch 5.3 is wrong. The Patch is bringing new Main Story Quests a new 24-man Raid two new Trials and a bunch of other stuff but there are no new classes or races. I think someone may have gotten mixed up with the patch note for Heavensward expansion though idk how they did that seeing as Heavensward came out years ago.

Empty Symbol

Colin maybe at this point just move on from Ghost of Tsushima. I get it's a PS exclusive and all but you really seem like you aren't into it. You said before don't care about Assassins creed games and that's basically what this game is. I get we would want your thoughts on it, but not if it feels half hearted. It's no big deal to not dig a game.

Piston Pants

Sometimes when I am listening to the podcast and I am navigating my social media app like Twitter, Instagram. The audio glitches out and it stops and plays constantly. We all know that the Patreon app is glitchy but just letting you this issue that happens.

Edwin Garcia

Please don't forget about the FF7 Remake Spoilercast :( hopefully it'll still come sometime after Ghost of Tsushima!

Dylan Neves

Great show this week C & C. Quick note : The perception you two have of Stadia isn't accurate - you don't have to pay a subscription fee just to access the server & buy Stadia games. That was the original model when it shipped but it's since changed and now people can buy games a la cart and play without paying any monthly fee. The monthly "Stadia Pro" gives you discounts and access to 15 or games. I have a MacBook and it's been perfect for playing games on my Mac with my PS4 controller.

What kind of sick son of a bitch eats pizza upside-down?

Miles Williams

CoD has been changing the scene for me a bit.

Colin Moriarty

It's psycho shit.

Colin Moriarty

Well at least I could conceivably get another Trophy or two if I play through for a third time in the future.

Colin Moriarty

Oh no.

Colin Moriarty

So TLOU2 had me in a depressed kind of funk too. I couldn't really dive into Tsushima just because of how dire it all was. Fall Guys was what helped get me out of that funk. It's like a candy coated, rainbow sherbet looking fever dream. It might help you with that too, Colin. Check it out.

Nate McKinney

Ok the pizza question is the most horrendous thing I've heard suggested since communism. What the actual psychotic fuck?

Nate McKinney

Think about what you've done.

Colin Moriarty

Yes, you are the third person to say this in this thread. =)

Colin Moriarty

Okay, three comments in a row is a little excessive.

Colin Moriarty

I mean, that's A way.

Colin Moriarty

Yes.

Colin Moriarty

That's awesome. See, that's what I'm talking about.

Colin Moriarty

Yeah, someone clarified that above.

Colin Moriarty

Oh no.

Colin Moriarty

You're pedantic.

Colin Moriarty

We will see! I don't think you can have a gaming culture on your own hardware without first party games. I think they're nailing the services angle, but everything else leaves something to be desired.

Colin Moriarty

No problem. Thanks for listening.

Colin Moriarty

Thank you! Glad to hear you find it useful.

Colin Moriarty

Because it's never been done like this before, outside of Saturn's early launch. It suggests that not everything is nailed down, there's a lack of confidence in pricing or positioning, and/or it's not coming this year. But it's definitely not the normal way it's done.

Colin Moriarty

Yes.

Colin Moriarty

Yeah, this must be where I got that idea from.

Colin Moriarty

This is why PC gaming sucks.

Colin Moriarty

Yeah, I heard about it. Not really much to say about it.

Colin Moriarty

That might actually be where I got it from.

Colin Moriarty

Good, you deserve it for even trying.

Colin Moriarty

Yes, keep yourself in check.

Colin Moriarty

Yes.

Colin Moriarty

That's a shame, because I'm deleting this episode, and it's gone forever.

Colin Moriarty

You posted this a minute after it went live!

Colin Moriarty

So cool that Last of Us Part II is getting Grounded (and it's free, it was paid DLC for Part I on PS3). Grounded mode really made Part 1 fun and challenging to play. Because I enjoyed Part 1 so much, I was willing to put in the time and get good at Grounded. I didn't like Part II as much, so I don't know if I'll be willing to do that again, but I think I'll give it a go on Grounded at least.

Matthew Cooper

Can’t believe you play your AC inverted, turn it down to make the temp go up.

Ryan Taylor

Hell yeah!

Matthew Cooper

Thanks for reading my inquiry this week. I'm a little disappointed by the temporary excommunication but the "you're better than this" message was heard loud and clear. Rest assured, I will be working hard to pay penance and be accepted once again into the Sacred Symbols flock. :-D

Ryan T. Mandle

Inverted Y for life!

Omar Rosa

Colin, the screen getting red representing you're about to get shot is exactly the mechanic in Uncharted. It represents Nathan Drake's luck running out. He's only shot when he actually dies. I guess the fact you didn't know this makes you a fake ass gamer. Just kidding :)

Ben Williams

And lastly you dust with a feather duster so that the debris falls to the floor and then you vacuum or sweep.

Travis B

A sink full of water is meant to soften food that is stuck. You then wash it with clean water...

Travis B

Who ever mentioned eating a pizza upside down is a psychopath.

Travis B

I bought my Jaguar on clearance back in the day. Held onto it because I rarely get rid of consoles. I just sold it a few weeks ago for a cool $1,000. :)

Sam Dunham

Colin, you're probably thinking about COD that way after the news story about Nathan Drake dying when he runs out of luck and gets shot.

Jake Z

Sounds terrible and quite abusive. Heard that Turn 10 used similar methods to get the car models done for their Forza series.....

Bryan King

You don't go through "progressively more elaborate obstacle courses" in Fall Guys. You go through a random assortment of mini games. And weird how circuitous that explanation was when describing it as a battle royale would've sufficed.

Jake Z

I feel like Colin’s take on Xbox is still based on old thinking of Xbox first party was. Microsoft is massively changing their gaming culture much like Sony did during the PS3 gen. Microsoft didn’t have anywhere near the talent in terms of devs like Sony has built and now I think they do. Especially compared to 2013 Xbox. I don’t think delaying the console helps anyone as it’s litterally still going to play your current games with better frame rates, graphics, and loading times and these will attract people. Plus even some of their smaller exclusives like the medium and scorn still could attract a few million people to try and play it. The battleship takes a lot of time to turn and games like avowed, fable, and hellbalde 2 seem to be getting the highest amount of budget and attention and halo being delayed makes me have more confidence in Xbox. Games like state of decay 2 and sea of thieves got lambasted for being rushed out and they also considered doing that as well with halo infinite. To me the culture of old Xbox seems to finally be changing to be something that will make gaming overall better.

Adamthm

Thanks for answering my question about campiness. I know we can Google this but it's always great hearing your knowledge. I have a follow up question though, Colin, you were in the middle of saying to watch GI Joe for an hour, it is on... But you couldn't finish your thought. What were you going to recommend and where is it?

Saúl Nolasco

I second listener Timothy's comment Colin read right before the news. The brief history lesson and added context relating to each story definitely makes Sacred Symbols stand out from other gaming podcasts. Gotta respect the work that goes into these things each and every week.

James Pies

I know the cell phone vs console argument has been used before, but I cannot wrap my head around why the guys (mostly Chris) have expressed a lack of confidence in Sony/Microsoft for not announcing console details yet, and potentially waiting until September??? Just like Apple, we have a roundabout idea what the product looks like, a ballpark of how much it’ll cost and a likely media event/press release will ensue. When speaking about Apple specifically, they announce a product on Tuesday, preorders go live Friday, and the devices are delivered a week later...and they retail for north of $1000. So why do consoles need to be rolled out with such advance notice. If I was Sony, I wouldn’t say shit until Microsoft made the first move and then match their price.

Joseph Tartaglia

John THQ, pronounced John “Thick”

Chris

My cousin was a contract worker for 343i as an artist during the development of Halo 4 and I can confirm what Chris is saying. His art was featured prominently in the interiors of spaceships in the campaign (and his art was the official poster for Halofest in 2011), but once his work was completed, they sent him home and never contracted him again. There is very little continuity for the average employee there.

Drew Sleezer

I just verified it and can't delete the older comment. According to Naughty Dog animator Johnathan Cooper, Nathan Drake doesn't have a health Meter, he has a Luck meter. Bullets don't actually hit him except for the last one. Source: Game Informer.

Katyusha Mauro

To the people I’ve talked to Horizon Zero Dawn runs much better on AMD GPUs on PCs as it’s more similar to the GPU what’s in the PS4. While Nvidia is dominating the pc market so it’s understandable that a lot of people having those kind of optimisation issues. I bet the issues will be smoothened out within upcoming weeks/months tho, or at least hope so.

Philip Andersen

I don’t know why I haven’t heard anything about it via podcasts , but have you heard about a gameplay leak of the multiplayer mode of The Last if Us 2? From what I saw it was about 10 seconds or less, but man am I stoked for this mode.

Ryan Harvey

Colin, regarding the blood on the screen type of health, I've heard people mention that Naught Dog stated that on Uncharted, the reddish screen means the Nathan's Drake luck is running out. I think that's a pretty cool concept but no one either mentions or uses it.

Katyusha Mauro

Tried the upside down pizza today for lunch, scorched my tongue. Would not recommend.

Joey Rawlings

Really trying to keep myself in check with Ghost of Tsushima being kept on the back burner...

Joseph Tartaglia

Don’t even bother asking for this

Joseph Tartaglia

Oh my bad. I listened to sacred symbols today and it was colin doing a q and a. That was a ss plus wasn't it.

Liam Fagan

I’ve got this four hour training at work so I can’t start to listen until at least another 3 hours and it’s killing me!!

Timothy Bryant

I highly recommend you and Chris check out Fall Guys!

Anthony J Sanchez

This the best damn episode yet!!

There’s No I in LLC