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With Sony abandoning its chase of easy PC dollars, the megalithic Japanese company instead seems intent on maximizing its dollars at home, and reasonably so. While reporting indicates PlayStation's PC sales were stymied by staggered and unpredictable releases, that was already obvious. What's less clear is how Sony's pursuit of profit might affect the status quo, with a lawsuit in the UK over PSN monopolization and blatant A/B testing for dynamic digital pricing happening right before our eyes. What does the future hold as we begin to move towards next-gen? Plus: EA lays off members of the Battlefield team that created America's best-selling game in 2025, Nagoshi Studio and its Yakuza-like title Gang of Dragon are in big trouble, a LEGO PlayStation (1) console is seemingly en route for the holiday season, adventure classics Myst and Riven are PS5-bound, Crimson Desert finally emerges on PS5 Pro, and more. Then: Listener inquiries! With id finding so much success with the revived Doom trilogy, could Quake be next? What was the deal with that cryptic Bluepoint Tweet from 2019, anyway? Are physical-only players being hurt by the underproduction of copies of big games? Is Dustin intentionally making mistakes in his edits to sabotage our entire operation?Timestamps:0:00:00 - Intro0:28:57 - Ragebaiting Dustin0:38:33 - Geno Smith0:38:56 - Neighborhood drama0:45:22 - Sony's issues with PC releases0:54:22 - UK case vs Sony digital storefront begins1:13:40 - Sony testing dynamic pricing1:33:32 - EA layoffs1:45:23 - Nagoshi Studio is in trouble1:56:33 - A PS1 Lego set is coming2:05:55 - Crimson Desert console specs2:13:43 - Pragmata moves up release date2:15:36 - Myst and Riven remake coming to PS52:19:38 - Falcom revives Dragon Slayer2:27:09 - New PS+ game catalog titles2:31:27 - What We’re Playing (Resident Evil Requiem, Minishoot Adventures, Marathon, Pokemon Pokopia)3:38:42 - Preordering physical games3:48:05 - New Quake?3:56:13 - Can Sony pull people away from established games?3:59:50 - Do Sony studios have too much power?4:02:27 - What was the point of Bluepoint's old tweet?4:05:03 - Starfield interference

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Comments

Devon!

Have a great weekend, bummed about the shirt cancellation but I get what's goin' down and look forward to getting one whenever.

Agony

Psychosis thumbnail

Izzy Smalls

Funny Colin, of all people, calling Jaffe divisive.

Cotillion

Frustrating how much you misunderstood the UK lawsuit. It's about Sony disabling the option to be able to buy PSN keys on like Amazon and stuff. Like Xbox allows afaik and definitely Steam allows (Green Man Gaming, Humble Store etc).

Cloud

God dammit Colin is blue balling me with his Allegheny Hogs

Forrest Hunter

Audio was certainly off last week, but I only noticed it a handful of times when Colin reacted to Chris before he even spoke.

StewDog

The hogs will return.

NorthOfAmerica

Being from Saskatchewan, I was a lil bothered that Colin thinks Regina is the capital city of Manitoba. Experience Regina upset some people with their marketing slogans. Show us your Regina, The city that rhymes with fun, and Let's make Regina sexy were some of them

A Hind D

Chris feelings on marathon are exactly how me and my wife feel (and my friend group) - online discourse feels so wildly forced. Enjoying it

king_ryan_james

Upon looking at my PSN transactions, I’ve only bought Call of Duty or Call Of Duty Points for over two years on PSN… Wouldn’t have guessed that… (Other than PS Plus Sub). That mostly tells me that they haven’t had great exclusives this generation.

Zach

It would be cool to build the PS1 Lego on the Monday stream

ChaosZwei+5

Capitalism always will lead to this it requires so much regulation to not completely break and enshittify that I'd argue it couldn't really be called capitalism if the proper barriers were put into place. Corporations are significantly worse than government on principle and on paper and the biggest problem now is the government has become a type of corporation.

Walk Forward Cutscene

It’s crazy that Colin completely misrepresented FF16 in this episode. They were happy with the launch weeks sales, it was the legs that they were disappointed by. Ever wonder why there’s been no update telling us that FF16 has crossed 5 million copies yet? The game collapsed like Daniel Jones at the 10 yard line.

Roberto Ramirez

Colin, you're completely off on the topic of Playstation's monopoly on digital games. Currently, you can purchase digital game codes for Steam, Xbox, and Switch from other retailers. Playstation is the only holdout. At Gamestop you can buy cards with a code for individual games for Xbox and Switch, or from their platform specific online digital store. I would like to see Playstation sell digital codes through other vendors. It provides more opportunity for consumers to get games at the price they're seeking and in some cases a delisted game can still be acquired because the licenses are still purchasable through these new markets selling digital codes.

Dante B

He is divisive though. Colin is also the first to acknowledge that he himself is a very divisive figure, as he’s said countless times. Often pointing out that even people within LSM make a professional sacrifice just by working with him.

Joe Cross

Dustin killing me with the "Trails of the Buttfucker 9000"

Addison117

Colin just install zorin os it looks like windows and runs just as good.

Sucking Duck for Quack

I don’t understand how this studio reimagining structure Colin keeps proposing would work. Yes, this is how tv shows and movies are made, but most movies are filmed in a very short time. Massive blockbusters take 3-4 months (on average) and smaller indie films can be filmed in a few weeks or even days. Making a video game, especially in the AAA space, is the equivalent of filming the entirety of Breaking Bad (all 5 seasons) in one go. That takes years. Are the developers just supposed to move their whole family from place to place, city to city every few years to accommodate this structure? Besides, can’t this already be the case as is? If I was working at Naughty Dog on Intergalactic and after it shipped I wanted to work on Red Dead 3 (for example), I would just leave ND and go to Rockstar. People have that choice now, and many devs leave studios after the game they’re working on ships. Am I confused??

Haru Discourse

The whole dynamic pricing thing is making me glad I buy 95% of my shit on PlayStation physically. If they go all digital in the future, I’m out.

Russell Cottrell-Garrett

As someone who works with Linux a lot, and builds Linux powered web apps for both fun and profit, it’s absolutely not ready for most people. SteamOS works amazing on the Steam Deck, and I’m sure big picture mode on the Steam machine will also be superb. On the desktop though, it still needs work. You can do almost anything if you know Linux or are willing to take the time to learn. But a casual, “plug and play” consumer? Absolutely not. So many simple things like headsets and RGB hardware still don’t always work perfectly. If you want truly no nonsense software, macOS is still king, but even the latest v26 is pretty janky now. Not nearly as fucked as Windows 11 , but not as good as it was 5 years ago.

Addison117

The psn lawsuit isn't about other storefronts on ps5, it's about buying psn games on other storefronts like g2a or best buy.

BigDumbStupidIdiot

I think it's a good idea but the cat is already out of the bag. In construction, we have a central group of floormen and a bunch of different crews doing different jobs. Roofers roof, tile guys tile, drywall does drywall, etc. They're all separate companies doing a specific tasks on different sites. The video game industry does all their shit in house. You can't keep people on payroll if they're waiting for work. It's bad management but it's the culture of the industry

Brent Mahaffey

The audio tracks are for sure a little off. I’ve been noticing it a lot recently but I figured no one else cared.

dynedire

You know it didn't sell well long term because SE never bothered making a ps5 pro patch. A baffling decision for such a showpiece game developed primarily for the ps5

caswellow

Bummed about the shirts. Had a pre-order day one. Thats too bad.

Lunar Tear

Capitalism dissonance episode.

caswellow

Regina is the Capitol of Saskatchewan not Manitoba.

caswellow

Me too! Nice to see some other Sask LSM fans!

KYisLife

Deku Deals is such a great tool regarding sales

Big Devin Energy

Magic cards are cool Colin. You’d love the new TMNT set they just released the nostalgia is wild.

Big Devin Energy

Faxanadu was one of my favourite NES games for real. Made sense since I also Love Zelda II

DeadMail

Colin pro tip for the leaves: instead of raking them up, mulch them with the mower. Free fertilizer plus it’s way better than raking and filling up the trash cans.

Wayde

I highly disagree with colin on the digital storefront. The only reason why the game prices remain competitive is because of physical. The minute that disappears, and you're locked into one ecosystem with no way to purchase a game outside of the digital storefront you are at sonys mercy. This new dynamic pricing model is a prime example of this. If I could buy physical, then I don't have to participate in an egregious model that exploits me. With pc gaming, there are multiple storefronts that sell the same type of games or the same game and therefore the prices remain competitive. His reference to walmart is irrelevant since their are other stores that you can purchase products from.

Screwed Mcfucked

Not only did Trent make quakes soundtrack, he voices the quake ranger. Any time you take damage, that grunt is Trent. And the NIN logo is on the... Nail gun ammo boxes

Vanzant

I’m surprised Chris didn’t have the same reaction to Arc Raiders in regards to sneaking around and soaking in the atmosphere. - If it wasn’t for RE9 and Crimson Desert I would be rolling the dice on Marathon.

Casey Cieslikowski

Is he? So why can’t I force Target to sell my product just because?

Sucking Duck for Quack

Right and this is what outsourcing is for in game development. No game ever is 100%developed in house. Some small things are done out of the studio like making assets, programming, coding, etc. The vast majority of people working at a studio aren’t waiting for work. They’re constantly doing something. If they finish their task, they move to the next task. They’re never “done” in the creative field. The project has to be “done” at some point but the devs are never satisfied. They never stop working all the way until release.

JustInsane

The first Lego factory in North America was not in Virginia. They had a factory in Enfield, CT from 1975-2006.

Ryan

Chris running full cover on marathon is to be expected and I think it looks great but any other game with its entire story laid out in codex entries would be grilled and it’s certainly not a ‘intentionally paying homage to the original marathon’ lol

Wayde

It isn't about forcing someone else to sell your product it about giving them the opportunity to sell your product. Sony refuses to give outside markets the ability to sell sony games digitally.

Black Detective in Dexter

Live service games are soulless cash grab garbage. And Chris is wrong. Old multiplayer games were not live service games just because they had map packs. By that logic, every game that has any dlc is a live service game.

Risen

Quake is faster paced and bouncier than Doom, it’s a very different flavor of gameplay rather than a sci-fi reskin

we are all dogs locked in god's hot car

This is the way. Rotten Apple by Alice in Chains has been my alarm sound for years and makes getting up at 5am slightly less intolerable

Greg Horsman

The city that rhymes with fun.

Austin Evans

I found it funny how pro Sony digital storefront Colin was for them to go straight into dynamic pricing. I think it’s good to be looking into digital storefront at this time when physical seems to be slowly phased out. Right now, they are just testing to see what they can get away with when it comes to dynamic pricing. When the PS six comes out and is sold without a dis drive, it is only gonna get worse from this point.

Andy

Solidest Snake

What! Colin got a platinum in a resident evil game before I did? Damn, congrats man

Publix Chicken tender sub

It makes me so happy to listen to people so passionate about Marathon. I am not a multiplayer guy, but I am enjoying the streams and videos 🔥also watching lore videos very interesting world.

Christopher Gourley

Fun Fact for Dustin: One of the founders of Rock It Games was the COO of Limited Run Games. Shocking I know.

Drew B

Currently filing trademark for regineese

Wayde

That pokemon dystopian game sounds like viva pinata with pokemon

Ryan Taylor

I think marathon will have an easier time attracting new players than Destiny 2 because of the seasonal wipe mechanic. New players in destiny have missed years and years of top tier loot and suffer major FOMO. If they can figure out a way to encourage new players to get involved they’ll love it.

Trent Piccicacco

Colin’s Trails historic uncovering was great

Lockmort’s real name is Lachlan

Brand new PlayStation games in Australia retail for $120AUD on the PSN, they retails for between $89-99 physical in store across various retailers. This is day one release.

Dion De Lesia

Anyone else’s patreon app not working?

Brian Borlaug

This segment and then talking about it incorrectly made me want to eat a gun barrel. All other platforms allow this and I had at one time got a Capcom Humble bundle of PS4 games and it was awesome. Now they don't allow it, they definitely misunderstood this whole lawsuit

Chetsnooze

I didn't like the pig image because I told ChatGPT to make an Allegheny hogs jersey, and they gave me a super similar pig that vicious mean, pig seeking for blood. So I told her to generate a nice happy goofy pig then I remember that a hog is not a pig.

NeO JD

Not dead yet. Just on the bench for now.

NeO JD

That’s what I’ve heard it described as mostly

The Incredible Shulk

Mine logged me out for the first time ever this morning. Other than that, no isses

Who2342

There was no rage baiting on the audio. Multiple times Colin reacted to Chris before Chris said something. It was very noticeable. I even brought it up out loud while I was listening to it. It was more funny than anything though

Chris

Myst & Rivin are classic games, and I will be getting these remakes. These remakes have been out for years on PC and Xbox.

BigFella

I do this too, it works!

E_DOUBLE

Not being able to buy a digital PS5 game from Amazon when we all get gift cards one way or another or GameStop with trade credit is extremely annoying. That is my biggest issue with the digital policy. And you can't use gift card credit on Amazon to buy a PSN card, so literally my only choice is to buy it on PSN. Neither Xbox or Nintendo operates this way.

Tom Hannay

Colin saying we need to support Bungie because Sony has bought them so "they're one of us now" is unhinged. I had no issue with Bungie before, it's specifically because they're now inside Sony that I want them to fail. Until Dustin brought it up it sounded like you'd all forgotten Sony specifically bought Bungie to direct their live service push. Bungie is only in Sony to take Sony away from single player games.

Heezy85

I’m 40 years old and still don’t know what the fuck to do in Myst.

C

Well done Dustin for pushing back on Colin's take about PSN prices, etc. Crimson Dawn is 59.99 in my local store here in Ireland, on PSN, it's 69.99, Pragmata is 49.99, PSN is 59.99 Why would I want to pay digital price for it?

Derriere's Gentlemen's Club circa 2006

Yup live service is a bastardization of the old mp model. Drip fed map/mode content, rampant cosmetic microtransactions at launch, throttled in-game currencies, etc. One only needs to compare battlefield 4 to battlefield 6 to see how much things have shifted. And that's for "premium" live service. F2p is even worse

MeatSpin11

Colin, I don’t say this lightly. I am retarded. With that being said I switched from Windows to Linux Mint and it was so easy for a computer with no bullshit on it.

FlynnTaggartGuy

Bounciest game ever. Just reading this makes me wanna replay.

They Now Call Me UNC.

Seems like most gamers don't have souls since those are the most played and highest in revenue. I get it, I don't play these games ( I'm just now playing Ragnarok ) but I agree with Colin, exces follow the money. If gamers keep paying, they're going to keep pumping them out.

Black Detective in Dexter

The higher-ups that mandate these live service games have no souls. I imagine the vast majority of live service players are children that are young and naive. They don't know any better. They don't know what real video games are or are even supposed to be. So they just consume the soulless corporate slop that these companies feed them. Also, Fortnite and GTA Online prop up the live service industry. Most live service games are nowhere near as successful. Those 2 games have the lion's share of live service players. So the entire genre is artificially inflated and seen as popular/successful because of a few outliers. And every other company is just chasing that success, but it's like playing the lottery. Most live service games fail. It's all corporate greed. I will never play a live service game. In my opinion, if your game is a live service, it will never truly be a good video game. I don't even see them as real video games. They're digital store fronts/slot machines masquerading as video games.

Glen Yelenovic

I immediately thought of the Razorbacks logo when I first saw the Allegheny Hogs logo.

Jason Rose

If you’re going to play Starfield you mine as well just go back to No Man’s Sky. It does everything better at this point

FlynnTaggartGuy

Quake 1 and 2 are awesome and could and should totally live again. The recent expansions by MachineGames did a great job bridging the different settings together, and I would pop off for a new game. Dark Ages had a lot of Quake in it.

Gooch Gobbler

Bruh pro patches would have little to no effect on sales, almost no one has a pro and if they do and like FF, they probably bought it at launch. You're talking about a very small fraction of PS5s

Bailey Callis

I hope Colin realizes how incredibly privileged he is not needing to use an alarm

Michael Mashpotato

We’re selling our house and business has been overwhelming lately so I’ve missed a few episodes. I had no idea about the shirt pre orders. Im selfishly excited for the delay because I want to buy one. Actually two because I’m getting one for my wife 😝

Bailey Callis

What's with the crazy defence of Bungie all of a sudden? Look, Marathon is not an utter failure clearly, but it's not too far off. This is supposed to sustain Bungie for another 2 - 3 years before there next game? It's insane to me that Marathon is getting lapped like 7 times over by Slay the spire 2 in early access, and Arc raiders which was made by a small studio without the backing of freaking Sony. IMO it could have been worse, but Marathon needed much more than this

Bailey Callis

Well obviously one of the biggest conveniences of the pandemic was the erosion of trust in corporations

Bailey Callis

The same guy who constantly says "Vote with your wallet" by the way. I don't like modern Bungie, I will signal that

Robbie (DatLie)

At 34, I can see where the gaming industry is going. Most of it isn’t for me, but I know there’s still wonderful indies and aaa games that I must give my dollar to on day 1. Wonderful thing is, I don’t have to rely on new releases. There is so much to play in the catalog to keep me well fed the rest of my life. I game 40-50 hours a week and can’t get to everything. So I’m fine with Sony trying to capture a piece of the live service market as long as they continue to sprinkle in the things I want like Wolverine.

Anthony Palerino

I also noticed Colin reacting to things a bit early in last week’s episode but I didn’t write in about it because I’m not that type of dork.

Drew's Dew

Sacred symbols needs a retro section

NeonAstra

Fuck, I was really enjoying marathon but other games having a higher player count really ruined it, you're right. Charts are more important than the quality of the game.

Bailey Callis

I didn't say a single thing about the quality, it looks really high. Are we not allowed to analyze financials? Why would you listen to this podcast if you're against that??

NeonAstra

Because if we are using your logic, everything but Roblox is a failure as it laps the competition in terms of player count. CS2 laps any extraction shooter on the market. Extraction shooters already have a barrier to entry. Marathon is not as casual as its closest competitor, hence creating another barrier of entry. It’s a niche of a genre. Ultimately, it's more useful to look at the quality of game than staring at charts. There used to be many games that flopped financially that people look back at fondly as underappreciated.

Bailey Callis

That's an insane strawman, and incredibly bad faith, boring way to engage in an argument. With your logic, I have to ask why Bungie would ever tackle a niche genre whilst they have a multi billion dollar company to uphold, the answer is that they thought they could break through and be the first huge hit in an emerging genre, they have been notorious for having a ton of layoffs due to reckless decision making. I'm glad people are enjoying it, and I'm not saying it's a bad game, but I assure you Bungie and PlayStation had way higher hopes for this

NeonAstra

You compared it to Slay the spire, brought up a company owned by Nexon, with hundreds of employees as “a small studio” and said Marathon is not far from an utter failure based off steam charts and you are calling me bad faith? Come on man. I was simply stating where your logic takes us to. They obviously want it to do well but they had to have known that even the biggest extraction games have a ceiling. It's clearly a side project from the PvP Bungie guys. If they wanted the most money, they would have made D3 and cancelled everything else. I for one find the charts watching more boring than anything else. Would rather play the game and judge it based on quality. But that's just me.

Bailey Callis

I do think it's valid to compare a giant company whose owned my another even bigger companies project, to an indie game that came out at the same time. And I just believe Bungie had hoped for more than this, even if not giant. And I do find financials AND the substance of the games very interesting, I understand you don't and that's cool. Answer this, didn't Bungie in theory have more going for it with Marathon than Embark did with Arc Raiders? They're a giant company with a huge history, best gunplay in the business, and an unlimited marketing budget. All I'm saying is there were a ton of miss steps, and Bungie only has themselves to blame for their reputation falling off so hard the last few years

NeonAstra

You are goal posting and your argument is nonsensical. I never said it isn't interesting but It's comparing apples to oranges and the focus on it from people who aren't playing it is the strange part. You went from it being “one step away from a total failure” to “I think they can do better in some regards”. I'll repeat again, the focus on charts is just the most boring thing to be talking about over and over. Frankly it comes from mostly people who don't play many games. That is why you saw the SS crew clearly be bored with this conversation and why so many others are. 99.9% of games won't reach Silksong’s peak. By that logic most games are lacking behind a small indie team, which is clearly a dumb metric of success. So no, it's not a defense of Bungie, it's simply boredom having to talk about charts again and again as opposed to anything of substance.

Bailey Callis

I said it was close to failure, and they can do better, that's hardly moving the goal post. And Colin spends half of every pod looking at the charts, they just get caught up in lecturing the audience every episode because "everyone hates everything now waah" This is boring now, you've made up your mind and won't be swayed, and clearly seem to be biasedly invested in this games perceived success

NeonAstra

You're delusional If you think this is close to a failure. Crying over a game you didn't play. Have a good night looking at steam charts.

Evan Westendorf

That sounds like a very petty reason to cheer for a studio to fail tbh. Sony made the choice to buy Bungie and put them in such high regard inside of their operations. Sony is the one that is making this live service push. And literally every large publisher is making a "live service push", in some regard, because it makes business sense to do so. Yeah, we might be getting fewer single player games, but its not like Sony has abandoned them, and they simply cannot keep making only $300 million single player games, that dont make them that much money in the grand scheme of things.

Taylor kazemba

Dragonslayer 4 was on the nes. It was legacy of the wizard.

Smegaladon

Hello Sacred Gents, In regards to the Sony storefront lawsuit story, In Australia at the least, Sony is absolutely price gouging. A new AAA game on the PS store costs $125 dollarydoos but I can buy the same game physical at a major retailer for $89-99. How can this be?

Kojima Made Me Gay

I sure hope capitalism is in its final stage. Time for a good ole dictatorship ran by the workers baby.

Walk Forward Cutscene

When Marathon was first announced, Chris told us on this very podcast that Bungie would break through and bring extraction shooters to the masses. Now you Bungie fanboys want to move the goalposts and act like this was always going to be a niche game.

Beef Burka

Are you talking about episode 401? I thought I might be hearing things when Colin reacted to something Chris said before Chris even said it

Andrew Ketzenberg

Im literally building a Lego Tantive IV set while they started talking about Lego lol