RUMOR: PlayStation 6 and New Xbox Launching Holiday 2027

0:00When Kohler, global design leader in luxurious kitchen and bath products, asked me to be their ambassador for timeless, elegant, durable cast iron, I said, I'm in. Soon after I was in their Kohler Wisconsin foundry, watching molten iron poured, a mammal applied by hand, and the beautiful finished pieces ready to ship. Since 1883 Kohler cast iron has been crafted by incredible artisans, and seeing at first hand, gave me a whole new appreciation for their craftsmanship. Now, I'm proud to lend my staff of approval to my favorite Kohler cast iron products for their durability, beauty, and enduring style. Shot my curated picks at Kohler.com. As the Kohler cast iron ambassador, I say, long live cast iron. Next season has arrived, and doing taxes without the right help can feel overwhelming. Into it, TurboTax is here now to guide you through it with confidence. Match with a TurboTax

1:01full service expert who handles everything for you, from start to finish. Your dedicated expert checks every single deduction and credit to help you get the best possible outcome so you can feel confident you're getting every dollar you deserve. And the best part, you'll see real-time updates on your expert's progress right on your phone while you live your life. Plus, you get unlimited expert help at no extra cost, even on nights and weekends during tax season. Visit TurboTax.com. Only available with TurboTax full service experts, real-time updates only on iOS mobile app. Nintendo on his back. And we may be getting multiple new PlayStation soon. Okay, one of them's a toy. It's going to be a good one because we have Janet Chelva on the show. Jan, how are you doing? I'm doing great. I'm going to say that I have the unique claim to fame that I have not only been

2:03on this program twice this week, but both iterations of your regular, decular game mess mornings and the special bonus bonus edition of Game Mikey mornings. Yeah, I appreciate you holding down the fort. Thank you to Mikey for running the show while I was gone. I want to come out and get on the record, Jan. I got to talk about something. All right, I listen, I might have said that I do not like launch look. That does not mean I don't think it shouldn't be called launch look. Mikey likes it. He's the one doing the work. He's an owner of the website. And it doesn't matter. As long as it doesn't go on YouTube. All right, that's all that's it. That matters. That matters. That's what he said. And he already he already agreed to that. So my point is like, why are we getting all hung up on it? I'm I'm back in my boy Mikey on it. We can put it on as that is the name on the website. Let's do it. Launch look everybody. It's here.

3:04I'm stuck. Yeah, we did it. But yeah, look, Jan, I miss you guys. I'm glad that I can be back doing stuff. You guys seem to be holding things down. A day and got to not punch alligators. What happened there? So I think everyone was telling Dan that in the RE7 DLC, the end of Zoe that a major component is punching alligators. It turns out you can't do that at all. The alligators. Punch the alligators. You very specifically will fail. Yes. So now I'm starting to question Ben Hansen's sense of reality. Yeah. But we we did get a power up at the near the very tail end of the DLC that would turn the game into God hand. So, you know, I'm curious to see what Capcom has planned for RE9 DLC if if and when we get there. Always a good reminder that the Capcom knows exactly what Resident Evil is when they're like, let's just make it God hand. All right. We

4:06should get into things and explain ourselves. Hey, we're giant bomb. We're internet video game doofuses, but we're independent games media out here on our own. We could use your help if you go to giantbomb.com slash join become a premium member. That helps ensure that we can continue doing what we're doing over here. Keep making the stuff that you like that we like, but we need that help. If you can't do so, tell a friend that is also super helpful if they can find out about what we're doing over here. And then yeah, we really appreciate everyone who has shown up so far. It's noticed. It means the world. Thank you. As far as this show goes, most weekdays, I, Jeff Grubb will help piece your gaming life back together. That includes breaking news and maybe even some of our own original reporting for all these topics. I'll get the input of a bonafide expert who will make me look smart. If you are watching live on Twitch, welcome. You can always listen to the show later on podcast feeds by searching for game this morning's or find the RSS feed on giantbomb.com. You can also catch the show later with chapters and timestamps on YouTube. Hello, Lutube. All right, everybody, let's do this. We got the news. Let's start with Pokemon

5:10Pecopia, surpassing 2.2 million units sold in the first four days. That's quite a bit. Sophie McAvoy over a jet up jet up is basically wraps that up and says that shortly after launched Nintendo's share price has also jumped by 10.5%. It's actually up even more than that now. Yeah, it seems like this might be doing work as the kids say. This Pecopia is catching on. I think something happened in the weeks leading up to it from the previous one. I think this might be big. Even when I was saying that, I didn't think it was going to be this big jam. This feels like it could easily turn into the next animal crossing, selling 20, 25 million copies over the next little while. Yeah, a lot of my friends are not super into games and more of your casual gamer have been asking me, yo, is it worth it to get a whole switch to and this game? I've only ever really played animal crossing stuff like overcooked and other similar games. Generally, I'll tell them like,

6:12hey, if you can swing it, I would say yes. If you're looking to have the same sort of experience and feelings that you get from animal crossing, yeah, this is delivering on those in a way that it's not just the game, right? It is everyone else playing it and sharing stuff and having a huge group of people to go share the stuff with, whether it's like in your DMs, in your discord, or just on social media, like that's, you can't buy that. Actually, it's really hard to get. So pairing that up with what is a really solid one of these kinds of social simulators, they really got something, right? Yeah, and on top of that, the other thing, I make sure to let everyone else know is that, like, hey, you're not as limited by the clock as you are in animal crossing. Like, you don't reach the end of a day and really can't do anything else. But if you, but if you like that stuff, it's also still in there. It's like, you can build a building where it's like, oh, this is going to be ready tomorrow. Cool. Because that, that has happened. That's something to look forward to. But it's not like, okay, and now I can't do anything else. It's really smart about that. Yeah, they have, it's not just one carrot on a stick. It's several carrots on a stick

7:16to keep going. And you can keep being busy. Or, and if you get tired of one biome, if you've progressed far enough in the game, you can head over to another one, perhaps another one. And then just start doing what your heart wants to do in the game. Perhaps you want to terraform the island. Perhaps this time, you want to like, actually make homes for people. And it's great. There's always something to do in the game. Yeah, it's almost intimidating. Once I realized how much stuff there was to do, I'm like, do I want to like stay on this treadmill? So I'm confident enough to use all these systems. And I'm like, you know what? I'm just going to pick and choose what I want to engage with. And then even as I'm doing that, some of the stuff that was formerly like intimidating, it's like, oh, no, I am kind of curious. I should start working on that as well. And the game on boards, you onto that stuff eventually. And it's, it's just really well done. I, I did was like, bummed out. I was like, as soon as I was about to leave, I'm like, we should have done a video where it's like, what would I leave out? Like, not cigarettes anymore, Jan, you're getting, you're getting healthy. But I was

8:19going to make my little copia attraction thing for Janicella. I was going to put out Hennessy and stuff like that and Alyssa Liu poster. Just, just things like, I'm like, oh, look, look, everyone look. The grass is shaking. And then Jan pops out. Of course, I have that idea as soon as I'm leaving. And I was like, trying to think what mine would be. And it's like just a bunch of dad games, I think. Oh, okay. That's actually a good idea. We should, we, okay, someone write this down. We should all list what our habitat would be. All right. Hang on. Remind me tomorrow before, you know, run me on before the bomb cast on Tuesday morning to do this thing with our Pokemon habitats. All right. Cool. That'll remind me. Hey, I was kind of glad that we got to hang up for a little bit. But it's like, next time when I'm an SF, I'm going to make it a Janicella trip. I want to just like go there and have you show me all the real stuff. Too busy at GDC this year. Yes. GDC, Grubb. I have always been around the periphery of it, never actually gone to it.

9:20And I have probably 10 years for me. Yeah. And from my understanding, Grubb, also, the Moscone Center must have changed significantly since the last time you went. Yeah. But I don't know if a lot of people are just more excited or just general attendees. GDC proper in terms of the exhibition floor hadn't even opened until yesterday. But when you gave your talk on Monday, it was still super packed. It was nice to see. Yeah, I guess we could like talk about a little bit because it's like, yeah, I really did. It took up all my time. I went to a bunch of panels. And like one thing I noticed is like, oh, yeah, there's still people who are super passionate about this. And even though a lot of the talks are still kind of focused on, hey, how can we build these machines so they can extract more value or so that you can find the money? Of course, it's a business. So that's what is going to be the focus. But it's like, no, there's just a lot of people here who want to make cool video games. And it was packed. You're right. It was cool to see, despite the fact that not a lot of people from overseas, but still a few people from overseas. And for as dangerous as it must be to travel here, I'm very thankful that

10:24they showed up because the show was better for them. As, of course, it was. It always is. So, yeah, it was great to see those people. All right. Let's keep going here. Xbox unveils first tech details of its next generation console, codenamed Project Helix. This is from Vicki Blake at GI.biz. Xbox has revealed limited technical details about its next console, codenamed Project Helix, addressing attendees at GDC VP next of next generation. Jason Ronald confirmed Helix will deliver high performance and provide the ultimate player first experience, blah, blah, blah. What are the specifics here? They have a couple of things. They are working on a system of on a chip and an SOC with AMD, just like their previous consoles or their most recent consoles. They are also really focused on neural rendering. I can never say neural. It's kind of like basically just upscaling and all these techniques of machine learning to make sure that they can run games at them on modest settings and get really good visuals. They have a whole stack of stuff they're talking about making that the focus of for this console because they also want to have super,

11:28duper-improved ray tracing. That's one of the buzzwords we're still getting here. Then beyond that, they're saying, hey, everything that is an Xbox game should run on this device and you should expect Alpha Hardware to go out in 2027. That's early developer Alpha Hardware so they could start making games for this device. It still sounds like, okay, they're very dedicated to this thing. I get the sense they're trying to treat it like an old Xbox would have been treated at this point in its lifetime of like, let's go to developers and try to get them excited to support this platform. Part of me though is like, oh, they are, it still sounds like they're trying to set this up as the equivalent of like one of their surface tablets where it's, hey, let's make a reference version of what PC and Xbox hardware can be and we'll stand back, sell maybe 10, 15 million of those and then our third party partners can maybe do something similar. And does that strategy sound like something that that is exciting for you as someone who might want to get hardware

12:30and something that could get, you know, support from developers? I don't know. Grab, I can't say that I have any excitement for whatever project Helix is supposed to be or the PlayStation 6 mostly because, grab like, I'm just thinking about how insanely expensive both of these consoles are going to be. We've already seen the steam machine which is something I was, I was vaguely curious about checking out in terms of thinking about acquiring for the home um, get soft delayed into vaguely 2026. I just don't know what these consoles would be able to do that I can't do already or what they could provide to me outside of like exclusive games. But, but also grab like, it takes a while for developers to get a custom to a new toolset for a console. So even then at launch, whenever this would theoretically be, they're not,

13:36not everything is going to have the juice. Yeah, and it's the kind of thing where it's like, okay, they are they talking about having like when a person makes a game for this device, are they making a PC game or an Xbox game? Like, what does that look like? It probably is a PC game because this thing is a PC underneath and Xbox games will happen to work on it. It's kind of how I would think about it. So then the question is stuff like Xbox Live Gold, which is it's not called Gold Gold anymore, but you do need a subscription to play games online. If there are premium price game like a call of duty on your Xbox, is that that's going away, right? Because this is a PC. So it's just this thing, okay, there's a lot of questions here. And while they're, they might be, you know, presenting it as something that was as big of a deal to them as an Xbox one or Xbox or an Xbox Series X and S, I don't think that is actually the long-term goal. And when I have more questions than answers right now, which is, you know, normal for this point

14:36of the announcement cycle for sure, but this time around when I have more questions than answers, that's not exciting to me. That's I continue to be worried. Yeah, that's if anything that's more concerning, Greb, if we also continue to be to have more questions pop up. And I just don't know who needs this right now. Yeah. And I think, you know, especially when we start talking about price and all this stuff, people are going to keep asking that question. And it's going to be difficult to answer that. Like, like, Greb, I have friends that will are all about getting the newest iPhone of that year. Like they'll upgrade every single year. They don't care what the new specs are. They just want what is new. And that attitude has kind of changed within like the last two, like last year to the last two years, mostly because of like everything else in the proximity of electronics is just getting progressively more expensive. Yeah. You know, at the very least, it does seem like they are trying to take a step in a direction. It is not like Xbox is getting

15:44shoved completely to the side. They are, you know, they had something to say about, you know, the last group of leaders and their strategy of everything is an Xbox. And they came in and like, hey, that we completely disagree with that. And we're going to go in a different direction. It's like, okay, well, what does that look like? And it's like, oh, they don't know right away. This new leadership is like very, very new. Like they are, they just went in a few weeks ago. So it's like, I'm not surprised again that they don't have a bunch of answers. So as they start talking about it in this way. And it's like, okay, they at least seem like they are trying to form answers. Okay, I just don't know how much patience I have for that brand anymore because it's, you know, I care about playing games. And I'm going to be able to play any game they make on any bunch of other devices. So this is for me personally, something where I'm like, I'm not sure if I need to be paying attention quite yet. Yeah. For the position that Xbox has put themselves in grub, I don't think of them in my head at least anymore as like a console platform. I just think of them as a gigantic publisher now, where despite, you know, the gamers

16:52cornering Asha Sharma into saying that console exclusives are coming back, I don't believe that's actually the case because Xbox would do so much based off of everything they've already acquired. If they're going to limit the release of all of their games to whatever the next console is, it just wouldn't work. Yep, I agree. There is more out of this though, Windows 11's Steam Deckish streamlined Xbox gaming UI comes to all PCs in April. This is from Andrew Cunningham at ours, Technica. When Asus and Microsoft launched the ROG Xbox ally X last summer, it came with a bespoke controller driven full screen interface running on top of Windows 11. The handheld was still running Windows under the hood, and you could still bring up the typical Windows desktop at any time, but it defaulted to the full screen gaming UI. Then called either the Xbox Experience or handheld or Xbox FSE, depending on who you asked, and when Microsoft said it would be

17:53available on all Windows PCs at some point in 2026, it meant April. So, okay, this is another one of those things where it's like, is this just a one off? They put out the ROG Xbox ally. Is this going to improve? And it sounds like, no, this is part of taking steps towards building whatever this new Xbox is, and this FSE Xbox Experience is going to end up on all of these devices here in a little bit. Okay, yeah, this is another one where I'm like, I definitely want this to be improved on any sort of Windows device, because I do want to use a Windows handheld, Jan. Like, what just came out, marathon, from Bungie. Marathon, pretty famous for saying that they weren't going to make their anti-cheat for Destiny work on the Steam Deck because it's Linux, and they didn't want to worry about all the headaches that that would entail. So they're like, look, just go play on a Windows device. Marathon is here. It makes it pretty clear it's not going to work on a Steam Deck, and it probably wouldn't work visually, but just, you know, if there was an improved Steam Deck, they wouldn't have the support for that. I want a reason to keep going, but hey, these developers

18:57don't want to have to do the extra work. I want to pick up my Windows device, just sort of boot up one of these games. Every time I do that, though, if I haven't used it in a month, it makes me tear my hair out, because I have to update five different things, and I always forget where they are, because it's in dumb little apps to the side, and it's in the Windows settings, and it's in the AMD launcher or whatever. So fix that, make it better, and I hope that they are motivated enough, at least by the Xbox to get that done. Yeah, that is my hope, is that if they are, well, that's also my confusion, grub, is that they have definitely pulled away from the ethos that everything is an Xbox, yet they still want to create this streamlined experience for Windows, when it comes to playing games, yet this isn't an Xbox, this is Windows. Okay, can I play games on this? Sometimes, and again, like you said, depending if you can manage to trigger the right sequence

20:00of events at the right timing to make sure a game runs, I, for the folks that want this out there, I really hope that Microsoft is able to get this to work, otherwise I will continue dreaming and thinking about Linux. Yeah, and an improved version of Windows that has this real gaming mode that is separate and has better performance, that would be really nice, because it would make things a lot less of headache on a desktop, where I'm probably going to keep Windows for the most part, although I also keep side-eye in Linux. All right, we're not quite done with Xbox talk, but let's bring in the PlayStation as well. Both PlayStation 6 and Xbox Helix are apparently launching holiday 2027, according to at least one rumor. This is from Jonas Mackie at Game Reactor. It's starting to feel like we have a pretty good picture of Xbox Helix, what kind of console it is, and what kind of performance we can expect. Development kits will start shipping out next year, which means game development isn't likely, or is likely in full swing. But what about the PlayStation

21:046? We've heard rumors about that too, but not nearly to the same extent as with Helix. There's no doubt, that no doubt that it's on its way, though. Does this mean that Microsoft will get a big head start on Sony, just like it did with the Xbox 360? No, not if we believe one of the internet's most prominent hardware insiders. We're talking about Kepler 2, who writes on NeoGaff that Xbox and PS6 are still on track for holiday 2027. He clarifies that the same applies to the rumored portable PlayStation device. Jan, that's really soon. 2026 is already flying by. We're well into March now. We're going to be at the end of this year in no time. Does that mean we should be expecting kind of nonstop new hardware rumors if it's launching within the next nine to 24 months, or yeah, yeah, in that time frame, or 18 to 24 months, or whatever it is, yeah. That seems pretty soon, especially for the PlayStation 6. I'd like to pose a question to the audience here,

22:06Grubb, is, or have you folks at home that maybe only play games on modern consoles? So the PS5, PS5 Pro, the current Xbox, do you all think you have gone like full use of it? Have you like used that thing and gone the max experience and max enjoyment out of it? However many years into this generation we are. And I think I'm seeing a lot of nose, some more spirited nose as well. So Grubb, like I can't. And for you and I and other people in games media, I think I feel the same where I still haven't got full use out of a PS5 yet. I still haven't felt the need to even upgrade to a PS5 Pro. Yep, same. And it's like I am the sucker that is the person that they aim these things at where it's like let's get him excited to spend money early in the generation or on an upgraded PS5 Pro. And the narrative that they've been able to weave around these devices or at

23:10least the PS5 Pro and probably what will happen with the PS6 is just not that compelling, especially at the price that we're talking about. And especially after you're right, I think it's a two two step story of is that worth it? And do I do I feel like I got my money's worth out of the last thing? Yeah. And when both of those are iffy, it's going to be a tough hill to climb. And 2027 just feels like too soon to start like getting past that narrative again or lack there of. You know, this is this is one rumor. I bet there was at least one time where these systems definitely both were aiming for at some point in 2027. Yeah. You know, with ramp prices now, that's got to be the straw that breaks the camel's back because it's a straw that weighs 7 million Yeah, grub. And also like I don't think PlayStation would lose out on much if Xbox, you know, hypothetically released their next generation console sooner than they were ready for. Yeah. Because of anything, I think that gives PlayStation more leeway to kind of

24:16handle the situation depending on how Xbox's new console would launch, right? Of like, hey, maybe don't need that. We still got all this shit over here. You could still play Fortnite over here. That's fine. You know, and they're getting some of the machine learning improvements to visuals and stuff like that. Like, you know, Xbox is promising better textures because they're going to be able to shrink the textures and use machine learning to improve those as well. A lot of that stuff is showing up in PS5 Pro right now. So it's like they kind of are bolstered against a lot of the improvements that will be promised by promised by next generation because the the pisser improvements are still yet to come to PS5 Pro. And that should make an actual noticeable difference. You know, we're talking relatively here. Again, is it enough of a difference to get you to spend the $750 or whatever it is to upgrade from PS5? I think most people are probably still know, but it like then you start comparing it to a $1,000 new Xbox hardware that is also PC.

25:18And then it's like, okay, the PS5 Pro's looking pretty good for that, especially if I want more performance out of like a Grand Theft Auto 6. The other aspect, Grubb, is that I this has to come into play that they are concerned about potential price, right? Like, yeah, if we were to be like top tier concern, like if we're even looking at this year alone and the concerns about everything happening now, God knows what's going to happen in 2027, especially when we get to the holiday season of 2027. Like, there are people losing their minds about gas prices now, food prices. How are we even supposed to entertain the idea of any form of entertainment moving forward into next year? Yeah, I was, I couldn't sleep last night. I was, you know, on West Coast time and it was, I think I'm also coming down with something from GDC. I got a little bit of a cold I'm fighting off. I feel fine, everybody, but just I'm fighting it off. And it was, keep me awake. It was definitely causing me to have like, oh, weird little nightmares. But I was like, part of it was like,

26:19I started waking up and I was like, what was that nightmare? And it's like, I know, I think I'm just remembering the news. I think I'm just remembering like, like paying attention for a few minutes too long and realizing, oh, I live in children of men, my literal nightmare. Look around. It's just like that. So yeah, it's, it's bad out there. If people are having to deal with that, as much as we value video games as as escapism and we do, it's like, it's really nice to have a copier right now. It's, it's very eerily similar in some ways to having an animal crossing when the pandemic was happening. Sure. And in a lot of ways, like a lot more sad because it's like, God, the things that we have to ignore now are actually even worse. But it's like, if people are trying to just get by day to day and then you show up, we're like, hey, your escapism now is extremely more expensive than what you paid for last time. And last time you don't feel like you've got a good deal. People are going to start feeling burned. They are going, going to look for alternatives. And I do think that's where, you know, a steam machine is going to look a lot less impressive,

27:23visually performance-wise compared to these bespoke consoles going forward. But it still might be this alternative of like, get me out of these crazy, you know, you know, loony bins where I have to spend all this money on, you know, $80 games, $90 games. What are these steam sales are looking really impressive? At the very least, people might just start looking for alternatives. So I think Sony, even, like, even has to be pretty careful. And obviously, Microsoft has to figure a lot out. And that's if they are launching in 2027. Oh, that's going to be rough, right? It's going to be incredibly rough, grub. And I think you like hit the nail on the head with Pecopia, where this is not a great game that is like graphically impressive, right? Right. It leans on its style very heavily. And it's not pushing the boundaries of anything on the Switch 2, really. But there's just enough charm and enough of a game there to keep you playing. And obviously, you know, the story from earlier today, selling 2.2 million units within the first four days. And that number is just going

28:25to keep climbing as the game starts picking up more and more steam. So I just don't understand why PlayStation and Xbox don't see make good game game sell. We're good. Yep. One aspect of this we didn't talk about. We'll just do it briefly. This handheld also would launch in 2027 according to this rumor. And that's the PlayStation handheld. That is one of their ways that they can really shake things up and sort of approach a generation from a different way than they've done so before. You know, they've been extremely consistent, put out a much more powerful PlayStation than last time. And the PlayStation 3 was like weird with some very bespoke hardware. They learned their learn their lesson from that. And since then, it's like off the shelf stuff work with partners that are very well known and deliver that. And it's like, that has always worked for them. Them sort of anticipating that that might not work as well for them. It's going to be difficult. They've never had to sort of try to pivot before. I think the handheld would give them a lot of opportunity to sort

29:26to say we'll experiment on that side of things. And I bet there's people in that audience, people who would pick up handhelds that would be a lot more willing to say, hey, what does PlayStation on this device look like? Because I know if I really want the old experience, I'll just go get a real PlayStation that has a disk drive, maybe even still, which would be like, I think a big win for Sony if they showed up with that still with the PS6. Yeah. The like part of it, Grubb is like with this new generation of consoles also possibly looming over the horizon, I desperately wish that they just if I just want them to look cool if anything, because like, yeah, I like the design of the PS4 Slim, like the little baby one we eventually got, but in however many years removed now, I think the PS5 is so fucking ugly. The 30th anniversary edition of the PlayStation consoles that they launched like last year, two years ago, I think are absolutely gorgeous and improve the look of it. But the look of the PS5

30:33has a whole absolute garbo. Yeah, and I'm definitely, I like how ugly it is, but I think I still agree with you that all right, let's go back to something traditional and Sony cool or 90s weird, this is not 90s weird, the PS5, it's, excuse me, you know, like the liquid metal look of like some of the Sony MP3 players or something like that, that stuff I would I would like to have back. I don't think they'll go that way. So give us the traditional Sony like, oh, that's just a sleek piece of kit. All right, let's let's take that break. We got plenty more to talk about after these ad messages. If you want to skip out on these messages, you can do that. Go to giantbomb.com slash join become a premium member. There you can find ad free versions of all our shows, including this one for both audio and video. In the meantime, we will be right back. Doing taxes the old way meant handing everything off and just hoping things were moving. But now you can feel confident your taxes are being handled right with into it TurboTax.

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33:40for tax season and beyond. Visit LifeLock.com slash iHeart and save up to 40% your first year. That's 40% off at LifeLock.com slash iHeart. Terms apply. It's game mess mornings. Jeff Grub, Jan, Achoa, back at it. Let's get into these headlines once more. Another new PlayStation. Jan, this one, a Lego PlayStation, is in reportedly apparently coming this year. This is from Chris Compendio at GameSpot, who I trust. Lego enthusiasts can soon build and own the original PlayStation in brick form according to a prolific leaker reporting that a Lego set based on Sony's first console is releasing at the end of 2026. An Instagram user with the name Lego Minecraft Goat, who has a history of leaking Lego sets, claimed in a post that a 1,911 piece PlayStation set, including at least the controller and the console, will be out this December and cost

34:41$160. I believe this because I want it to be true, Jan, because I'm a big fan of the look of that original PlayStation, especially these days. These consoles have been pretty fun to build. I think that this would encourage more of these like give us a dreamcast, right? Keep doing this. Work with all these companies, and I hope that sort of puts us on the path to the point where we do get those. What do you think? Yeah, Grab. This is like the type of, let's say, console, preservation, historic preservation that I really enjoy. Like, I'm not the type. I'm not one of you sickos yet. Who knows? That wants to like go grab every old console just for the sake of having it. What if it's in Lego form, though, Grab? That's cool, though. Exactly. It really is. It's cool. The Game Boy is fantastic. Yeah, I hope they just keep doing this. I hope that Sony's

35:44like on board. Let's just do all of our consoles. Give us the PSP. What the hell? You know, when they do this for Nintendo, often there are things like for the Game Boy, the images you can slide into the Game Boy screen, so it looks like you're playing a Link's Awakening or whatever. What could they do with the PlayStation to accomplish something like that? They probably wouldn't have the CRT like they did with the NES. They would probably make it something else like something on the memory card. I don't know. I'm like looking at the Game Boy set that I have now, and I think what would get me going, Grubb, is just like a working door, like the disc door and the buttons. Yeah, that's you're right. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Actually, pressing those buttons always felt good. If they could just sort of replicate that even a little bit, but especially the door opening, there's something there, and then there can even be something inside. That would be cool. Yeah. Lego's gone really good at like parts that can come on and off and they're designed to come on and off and like add a little

36:46bit of motion. It's not super complicated in the Game Boy one, of course, but if this PlayStation one, and it's also supposed to cost like what Grubb, $160? Yeah, that's right. I would hope for something to spin. Yeah. At that price with this many pieces, they have done equivalently difficult things in their builds before for Nintendo devices. Yeah. So it's like, yeah, I would kind of hope. So like, you know, that CRT right has like the spinning Mario scene for the NES kit. So yeah, I would expect something like that. And they're really good at that and that they know that's a gimmick that works. So yeah, I hope so as well. Either way, PlayStation, this is very cool. I hope we get a lot more of it. Yeah. Silent Hill 2 remake has surpassed 5 million players. This has been Lions at Game Reactor. Konami has revealed that Silent Hill 2 remake a project developed by Bloomberg team has now hit a very impressive player milestone.

37:49Ever since it debuted in October 2024, the game has managed to continue to entice players so much so that now as many as 5 million players have been registered for the game. Not bad. I think that, you know, in fact, very, very good, right? This, I mean, the Silent Hill series is ascending. And that is, that's best case scenario for Konami, right? I think very, very good for Konami, good for Bloomberg as well, right? Yeah. Bloomberg kind of like turning the rep around and also Konami turning their reputation around. And like the Metal Gear collection definitely helped with that. But this especially, I feel like is a good, hopefully a good sign for things to come out of Konami. Yeah, I mean, at the very least, you can tell the motivation is there from a lot of these companies that have been inspired by Capcom to like, hey, if we make good games, I mean, you were saying it make put out good game, you know, you sort of, you're going to succeed. And I think, you know, especially like Monster Hunter stories three, I was like, hey, Mike, look at these

38:49review scores and I'm glad he picked that up because it's like, man, 85 on open credit for that game. Yeah, that's kind of like, okay, things continue to improve. And it's like, it was already a space where like a Monster Hunter two, I think people are like, hey, this is really good. And it averaged out. And again, it's, it's just review scores, but it helps us kind of put these things in perspective averaged out to about an 81. And it's like, hey, that's, that's pretty good. Well, done. If you just keep doing that forever with these, I bet if they're going to find their audience. And I'm like, no, if we keep making it better, more people will show up. And it's like, yeah, I've seen more people excited about Monster Hunter stories three. Yeah, Konami's got to see that that has continued to work for Capcom. They know they have the like historical vintage juice there as well. Vintage juice doesn't sound good. They can know that they got that old school juice there as well that they can sort of play on. And if as long as they keep putting out good games, they should be able to accomplish similar results, I would expect. Yeah, and not everything is going to be a home run grub and silent. Yeah. Two is, is totally one of the more popular ones in the franchise. But I think this is restored enough interest in not only Silent Hill, but Konami,

39:54where people will be inclined to come back. And maybe hopefully Konami can be, can experiment a little bit more with their existing IP as well. We see that Monster Hunter stories. They've gone to three titles at this point, grub, right? Despite me never checking out any of them, despite them being fairly reviewed well, there's an audience for them. So grub, I'm calling it here now, Konami, just make a JRPG, but in the Silent Hill universe. Oh, yeah, they could, yes, that would work. And I think it would do very well. And it's just a party of mentally ill absentee fathers. Oh, okay. All right. The most powerful party you can imagine. I would do all of them in green jackets, untucked shirts, boot cut G. We have tock. Yeah. Yes. You're describing something that would you, it's like, it sounds like a weird, bizarro world of

40:54Final Fantasy 15. Yes. Like just these dads on a road trip. All right. Let's keep going here. Overwatch director reveals his next game. And it looks like Red Dead Redemption 2 meets Russ. This is from Ethan Goch at Kotaku. Jeff Kaplan has a new studio and a new game. It might not be what you expect from the Blizzard veteran who led design for years on World of Warcraft and directed Overwatch. It's called the Legend of California. And it looks like Red Dead Redemption 2, if you turned it into a survival crafting sim. It's the debut game from, game from Kaplan's new studio, Ken Sugiyama. That's good enough, Jan. I think that's probably good enough. I did my best there, everybody. And it's being published by Dream Haven. The company formed by ex-Blazer president Michael Morheim revealed out of the blue late yesterday. It's a multiplayer action survival FPS set on the island of California during the gold rush era according to a new steam page listing. So I normally typically don't include new game announcements that are at

41:56this point, Jan. It's like, yeah, the game's getting out all the time. But this is Jeff Kaplan. This is like a superstar developer. And okay, but then it's a survival game. And those are, you know, Dima doesn't, I don't think it's mean necessarily dismissing their popularity because those come out. They find huge audiences. It's just like, if you know if you're into them already. But again, Jeff Kaplan. And I think he's going to be able to command some attention here. Do you think you'll be able to parlay that into success with this game? And will that success become from the traditional survival game or audience or the people who follow Jeff Kaplan's blog posts? I think it could be a little bit of both grub, right? Like Jeff Kaplan definitely carries some favor. A lot of favor if we're being honest with audiences. And also a survival game. It is, it is just one of those genres of grub that always has an audience, despite there being a million of them out there. And I think something that I know on this website, we've done a little bit of re-evaluating Red Dead Redemption 2. Still not for me. But I

43:03like cowboys. This could be something that captures that audience because I also didn't realize grub that there is a subset of gamers out there that despite Red Dead Redemption 2, being, I know there's an online mode, but despite being a single player game, is some people's forever game, right? I mean, you start putting mods on that thing and it's a whole, it becomes completely different very fast. Yeah. So if they can capture some of the appeal and like the random things that can happen in Red Dead Redemption 2, but also tie in a survival aspect, you're going to get a lot of freaks out there. Yeah, at the very least, it's like, okay, you know, a rust, but set in this very different kind of, like it's not that different from a rust, but it's different from a lot of the other survival games. And honestly, sounds a lot like a rust, you know, old school, gold rush, California. But I still like that idea. It feels different spiritually from a lot of those games. I was wondering like what happened to Jeff Kaplan

44:10just the other day. It's like, you know, I don't remember him talking about a studio. A lot of these developers from that era of Blizzard did kind of spin out. And a lot of them, we haven't heard from a lot of them, but a lot, a lot of these studios did put out like those real-time strategy games. Yeah. It doesn't feel like any of them sort of did what the expectation was, which is like, hey, once we make a real starcraft successor, that audience will show up. And that didn't seem to be the case. Do you think at the very least, him trying something different here was probably maybe a better strategy than trying to make he couldn't have made an overwatch clone, right? That would have been crazy. No, that would have been incredibly misguided. And I don't think Jeff Kaplan would have done that because I think obviously, you know, he still, of course, holds overwatch with high reverence in his own heart. So I appreciate this divergence in the next game he wants to make. I also like, whenever a popular director of a game grub will come back out of like pseudo retirement, or not a full retirement, be like, well, trying to flex everything

45:15like, check this out. I got this idea. Sometimes it doesn't pan out well, right? In the case of the legend of California, I hope it does. Yeah, that's a hell of a name. What do you, like, what landmarks do you want to see in this game? So you know, you're in California, Jan? I want to see, I want to see trains, grub. I want to see a railroad. Okay. I'm going to see Jonathan Blow doing Tai Chi outside of GDC. That's, that's what I want to see. Anything possible. Now I know where I'm at. Valve claps back against New York Attorney General lawsuit in rare public response. This is from Alex Hopley at Game Reactor. In a case that's probably about five or even 10 years too late to jump on the hatred people had for loot boxes, the Attorney General of New York decided to bring a lawsuit to steam platform owner valve, citing its use of loot boxes in Counter Strike 2, team fortress 2, and Dota 2 as unlawful and harmful to children. Last night, Valve issued a response in somewhat of a rare occurrence. The steam owner decided to create a public statement

46:19on the matter posted via the steam website. We rarely talk about litigation, but we felt we should explain the situation to you. Valve started to explain in its opening paragraph. We shared with the New York Attorney General that these types of boxes in our games are widely used, not just in video games, but in the tangible world as well, where generations have grown up opening baseball cards, baseball packs and blind boxes and bags and then trading and selling the items they receive. On the physical side, popular products used in this way include baseball cards, Pokemon Magic, Labouboo, and the game space digital packs similar to our boxes date back to 2004 and are in widespread use. Players don't have to open mystery boxes to play valve games. In fact, most of you don't open any boxes at all and just play the games because the items in the boxes are purely cosmetic. There is no disadvantage to a player not spending money. Valve goes on in this way for a little bit, but those are the big popular talking points that a company like them would lay out. I generally agree for the most part where it's like, yeah, this is pretty

47:24similar to Pokemon Cardbacks. Here's where it's like, I agree, but I don't care. I love the idea of a big company that makes a lot of money getting some scrutiny. Let's just take a look. You say it's like Pokemon cards. Just show us the math that we were sure that you've kept track of. Show us that it's just like Pokemon cards and that you're not putting a little juice on top and that you're not putting just a little bit of extra sugar where you kind of manipulate the algorithm in your favor. Something that may be at the very least extremely difficult to do with physical cardbacks or maybe even impossible. So just prove it. We're going to have some scrutiny come in. Take a look and you tell us what's really going on. If it satisfies us, I bet this does go away. If it doesn't, well, let's talk about why not, right? A hundred percent grub. Also, you know, I'm looking at all the different things that Valve listed out. Baseball cards, Pokemon cards, LaBoubou's. As someone that has existed in the periphery of all of those things, those aren't good comparisons for me because like, yeah, that's how they are. That doesn't mean it's good how

48:29they are. It's been bad. And just because people will rip open packs as a hobby doesn't mean it's a good hobby because it is still incredibly predatory to do. Like near me, there was a stabbing over Pokemon cards. So that's not something that's not a fun comparison I want to have either. But I'm with you, grub of like, okay, well, if you are pointing these fingers across everyone else, then just show me the dirt then, Valve. Yeah, I just went some friction out there, right? There was this idea of we should let grown adults who have matured and can make their own decisions decide what they want to do with their money. If they want to gamble on sports, we should let them. And it's like, you know what? It's hard to argue against. You know, your body or choice, like literally people would say that sort of thing. It's okay. Well, that's going a bit far, buddy, but I get what you're trying to get at. We shouldn't be going into people and

49:29like treating them like their nannies. Okay. And then as soon as you get them an inch, they take 40 fucking miles. And now the world's been controlled by gambling sites in one way or the other in every industry you can possibly imagine. Imagine and it's obviously clearly like transparently awful. Like it is, it is a talk about machines to extract, extract value out of people. That is the nuclear weapon designed to extract money out of people. And it does so in a way that is pernicious and obviously wrong. And something should be done about it because we took all the friction out of the way. We can't even like send regulators after them. And it's like, man, this should definitely be regulated. And if the, if it's still like a corner of it, still made legal and we just tax the hell out of it, tax every bet. Like that's the way they should do it. Like every bet you make should be taxed. And it's like just a little bit of money on top. And it's like, I bet that would discourage a lot of people over, over time. And at the very least, use that money to improve schools or whatever. But we don't have any of that regulation because

50:29we gave them an inch and that gave them the biggest loophole they needed. And now they're on the other side and they control everything. So let's go ahead and think like where we can throw up barriers on anything that is even somewhat similar to this idea. Let's do it, right? A hundred percent, grub. I don't think there's anything wrong with companies being more transparent. If they're making such a big stink about even being looked at or scrutinized, then put your money where your mouth is and show us how much fucking money you were making from these, show us from these people. You're not a publicly traded company, but you are still like you have to answer to the public when we ask you to just show us. Let's talk about it. And if you can satisfy us, I bet people will actually be satisfied because there's a lot of faith involved and people want to feel good about that company. And I think that company for the most part privately owned wants to maintain that that it's important to them. Well, then earn it. And we're asking you to do that this way. And I think that's a completely fair and reasonable ask. All right, last story here.

51:33eShop reveals Super Meat Boy 3D is coming to Nintendo Switch 2 at the end of the month. The long awaited Super Meat Boy 3D was announced a few weeks back for the Nintendo Switch 2. And today, the Nintendo eShop page has gone live. The eShop listing states that the game will arrive on Nintendo's latest system on the 31st of March for $25. And we'll be roughly 3.1 gigabytes in size, blah, blah, blah. It's yeah, people are like, I want to be excited about this, but that Meat Boy forever game was was somewhat disappointing. I think that was the auto runner or something like that. And it's like, yeah, okay, I hope that this is where the energies were going, though, because I would love Meat Boy to be back. You know, I eugenics, I didn't love the aesthetic, and this, of course, is very similar. But I always did have a soft spot for Meat Boy's gameplay. And if you could translate that even a little bit to 3D, I want to see what that game looks like and what it plays like. And it looks kind of promising. So cool to see it kind of came out of

52:34nowhere for me. Oh, that's already coming out. And of course, it's been forever. But you know, I just wasn't thinking that it was around the corner. And here it is. Grub, what I will say, though, and I'm not going to reveal the people I've talked to. I will say, at a folks that have played several platformers coming out of GDC this week. So far, Grub seems like the heat on the street may not be around Super Meat Boy 3D. But it's around Bubsy. Look, look, all right. Yeah, I think I think Bubsy 4D is going to be awesome, especially because that's for that's for brass. They just did it's demon tides. I think it's the new one. Yeah, that in that game is very good. I started playing it myself, finally. And I did play a little bit of Bubsy 4D, that demo, that preview. Yeah, I was impressed. So let's see, at the very least, I'll have a new Bubsy game. And everybody knows that's for me, the Bubsy guy, Jeff Grub, everybody. See you, the Bubsy guy. Speaking about Nintendo, I did check out a couple

53:37games, Grub, from GDC this week. Specifically, the one I do want to talk about real, real quick, mean of the hollower. Holy shit. Really? Oh, man, that's so awesome. I hope so. You know, a thing to consider, these are all very shorter demos because they have to churn through so many people in a very time window. But with the brief time I had with it, Grub, Mina has got the juice. I dig it a bunch. All right. It really delivers on the promise of what a legend of Zelda, but cool mouse with quip and she can dig. Yep, dig and kind of jump out of the ground. It all just felt so good when I played it forever ago. But it was one of those ones where it's like, they're aiming at me. You know, links Awakening, this game looks a lot like that. That's one of my favorite games. It's going to be hard for me to judge. Like, is this just getting me with the nostalgia of the aesthetics and the really snappy gameplay? So, Jan, you going in there and enjoying it? It's like, okay, there might be something more

54:38to it than just me liking this kind of stuff. And it feels like there's a couple other miscellaneous different little bits and bobs that will appeal to different sorts of play types as well. So, if it initially may not be for you, it does seem like there will be different things to pick up throughout the game to fine tune it to how you want to play that style again. All right. Let's get over to the poll question, which I believe Mike did. Let me go ahead and open this over here. I will refresh. I was listening while I was doing some other stuff. And yeah, there we go. Have you bought a video game thing Lego set? Yes, or no, I'm going to say that I have, because I have, so did 34%, 66% said no, they haven't. One third of our audience showing up for those. Jan, that's that's quite a few people, right? I'm like, oh, if you get one third of the kinds of people who listen to podcasts like this, buying that thing, yeah, that's that's quite a bit of

55:40money kind of makes sense why they keep why they keep returning to it. There's a likely very large overlap in the Venn diagram of people who build Lego and people who would enjoy these old video game consoles, right? 100%. Also, I am curious if people, if they didn't buy the video game Lego sets, if anything, the other video game IP, they they thought to vote yes in this. Like, there was that horizon kit, the Deku tree from Legend of Zelda, a bunch of Lego freaks out there. I, here's the thing, Rob, I don't know what people's interest is in watching someone build Lego. I did it a couple of times during the pandemic, but a lot of people were very into Abbey and Jurf building a keyboard yesterday. So sometimes the one that Johnson De Jeff were finally relenting and doing that that stream with her. Yeah, finally. But I'm curious if you know, people out there are interested in watching like a Lego building stream here, here on GP,

56:41because it could be fun times. Also, the unfortunate part gang, everyone out there, if you're significant other, your parents, your siblings, your friends, if they know that you're very into games, you're going to get these as Christmas gifts for the foreseeable future. This is just what they're good. These are the target at ads, y'all. Yep. And hey, they're right. That's a, that's a pretty good gift for anyone who's kind of in this space. You're probably gonna have a winner there. Even among like the 66% were like, no, I've never had that. If you get like one of the easier ones, get the Game Boy, that's a fun afternoon right there. Oh, Gundam stream. Yeah, I mean, people do that. And I'm into that ever once in a while, even though I've never built gumplum. I say, is that what people say? Yeah, yeah, I've never done that. I would like to, but very least watching that is a lot of fun. Okay, let's see here. We have a new poll question, which let's get to now. Are you getting a switch to for Pecopia? Yes, no, I already had a switch to, those are your options. We'll get the results of that tomorrow here on Game of Smartings on Giant Bomb.

57:47Speaking of Giant Bomb, GM, what's happening? I just got back. I don't know what you guys do anymore. I've always smelled dump truck popping off later today. The third episode of Miriamy Tomadachi going live later today tomorrow, another episode of Game of Smartings. We'll have UPF. I think we're still fine tuning the bells and whistles as to what to do tomorrow for that. But gang, we've had another hot week of content for y'all that's speaking about content grab. You know what else they can do? Is if you at home are interested in going to PAX East 2026, we will be there. We're going to have three panels. Details are still a little bit up in the air. We're fine tuning and locking down the schedule. You can expect at least three panels. Vinny Caravella will be joining us for one of them. But if you still have not bought a PAX East Pass and you're a giant bomb comm slip premium member, you head to the behind the scenes channel. You'll get a discount code for 15% off your ticket. You can also enter a raffle, though, grub, for two free tickets to PAX East.

58:50That's fantastic. I didn't know about all that. That's really cool. Everyone get on that, please. Hey, I saw some people say, hey, there's no bomb 12 link update. I'll do that right now. I'm looking at the new link. I'll put it up on the site. No, I'll skeet about it. So everyone can just get it there. We can get it updated because tomorrow we're going to have a new bomb 12. So we're going to get some new games, new answers there. That'll be there to wrap up the end of the week. My kids don't have school tomorrow. So it felt like Friday today, even though I haven't worked this week, other than being at GDC and stuff. I'm like, oh, no, no. We have worked the tomorrow as well. But I'm excited because I'm looking forward to Tomodachi later today. Looking forward to wrapping up the week with some fun stuff. It's going to be good. All right, Jan, anything else that we have to do. I think I just got to say thank you for hanging out with me and talking about video games, man. I really appreciate it. I'll see you only with a start Thursday, Greg. Thank you all for watching and listening. You are the best audience in gaming. Until next time, have a good one. Take care of yourself. And goodbye.

59:57Hey, there. It's Ryan Seacrest for Safeway. It is stock up savings time. Now through April 2nd, spring in for store wide deals and earn four times of points. Look for in store tags to earn on eligible items from smart water, healthy choice, cotton now, hole in the spring, red bull, St. James, telemook, and special K. Then clip the offer in the app for automatic event-long savings. Stack up those rewards to save even more. Enjoy savings on top of savings when you shop in store or online for easy drive up and go pick up or delivery. Restrictions apply, see website for full-terms and conditions. My heart. Terms apply.