The Jeff Gerstmann Show 106: She Is The Table

Nintendo’s DIrect is over with, let’s pick up the pieces and discuss Metroid Prime 4, the new Legend Zelda Starring Zelda game, Capcom’s new Marvel collection, Starfield’s paid mods, the future of Fallout, and, via your emails, a long discussion of esports.
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[@AlexFurry]

_Time Stamps_ 🦄 0:33 *Starts* Nintendo Talk 6:56 Metroid PRIME 4 10:50 Mario & Luigi game 11:04 new Legend of Zelda 14:19 Dragon Quest 14:33 Marvel vs Capcom collection 17:41 Next Mario movie 18:39 They making a new Star Wars 21:40 LOL playerbase 32:06 Paradox Intereactive 38:33 Starfield 43:55 Ad Miracle Made 45:56 Fallout News 58:20 *Emails* 58:34 Tobias - Alundra 1:05:46 Berry - Free to play tone 1:19:50 Dan - Story Games 1:26:53 Ian - VR enhancement 1:34:41 Joe - Dragon Age 1:41:41 David - Black Ops 1:55:06 Jay Cupertino - Hardware Question 2:08:01 Ruben - E3 atmosphere 2:13:25 Jhon - Esports interest

[@TheCyborgBanana]

Thanks! 😊

[@ThePeppermintGeezer]

Thank you, Alex.

[@mattwu64]

Grazie!

[@Fuuntag]

I go to sleep listening to Jeff but when I wake up I have the urge to nearly always buy new sheets…

[@CanConForever]

Stoked for Ranking of Mario Parties

[@sc41295]

all tied for FUCKING LAST

[@TheK3vin]

The idea of him having to devote a reasonable amount of time to each iteration DELIGHTS me

[@toastrytoaster]

They must be ranked, using SCIENCE

[@Renoistic]

I'm sure you've heard this a hundred times already, but if you liked Rogue One I can recommend the "Andor" Star Wars show. In my mind it does what Rogue One attempted, but is actually good. It's the only SW related property that shows the Empire acting like actual fascists, and how terrifying and banal the faces of evil are. It has actual stakes.

[@QuarrelsomeLocalOaf]

Stellan Skarsgård is *_so_* good in it. Between Andor and Dune, he's been killing it lately.

[@benvids]

Meanwhile, the Empire is headed up by an evil wizard and his cyborg muscle. The tone and focus of Andor is so at odds with the franchise it’s part of. It’s as jarring as a LotR prequel making the orcs kind of okay guys. Very much recommend watching Revenge of the Sith for the shear boldness of it. Other than that the original three are great.

[@reke9592]

The esports section of this should be clipped. It’s a totally reasonable intuition from the email, and then a response from Jeff that comes from experience. Sports are not the same as esports. Mechanics of the human body are much more easily translated than video games mechanics.

[@ErichGeiger]

Lego are great because they are both puzzles and and creative. You can build exactly what they are designed for and then take it apart and make whatever you like. Way better than a jigsaw puzzle.

[@robdebone]

As a consumer of multi video gaming podcasts, I have zero interest in esports and would hate if you guys did updates on esports scores and shit

[@acertainshape]

Hi Jeff. I like the cut of your jib.

[@triforcelp131]

Your Noise Gate is so good, I sometimes accidentally pause the video and think "man he’s really taking a long time looking up that Mario 2 release date". I don’t mind though!

[@matthall7359]

Thank you Jeff for sharing my hype for the new Zelda. Seeing so many people complaining that’s it wasn’t another remake of wind waker is incredibly frustrating lol

[@pronstorestiffi]

I'm no Nintendo guy, but seems to me that people that takes leaks etc. very seriously are all psychopaths be it brand X, Y or Z. I personally don't find any of these groups to be better than the other.

[@mr.selfimprovement3241]

I blame the regular 'Videogame News Grifters' like *_RGT85, SPAWNWAVE, Jeff Grubb_* and *_Dreamcastguy_* for really amplifying this issue since the release of the Nintendo Switch! 🤔 I'm not sure about being 'psychopaths'.... but I know as a ex printed press videogame editor myself - what they do with their KZbin channels and social media feeds, is the most bottom-barrel, fastfood, paint-by-numbers, lazy content you can produce in this space. They cover these Nintendo Rumors year long because it's super easy to fill a 10 minute video (or a bunch of tweets) with little effort in time commitment. Instead of grasping for daily topics to cover - they can rehash the same ones with little editing and no research, need to write a script or fact checking required. And *The best part:* even with the little publicly available analytics we have thanks to sources like Socialblade... It is very loud and clear that (for some strange reason) the average gamer - especially those in the audience who trend younger - are highly likely to consume that kind of low-grade content in startling high numbers, and even engage with it. It is also one of the reasons why Beatemups and Arlo's channels suddenly did gang buster after the Switch Rumor machine started to gain traction here on KZbin.

[@mr.selfimprovement3241]

@@xBINARYGODx These same people are part of the same network of creators too. They all know each other, and have their businesses invested in the same interest.

[@pronstorestiffi]

@@mr.selfimprovement3241 No, I know it's not very polite calling a group of people psychopaths that was merely for dramatic effect. But it certainly does take a specific mindset to be that crazy about it though.

[@mr.selfimprovement3241]

@@pronstorestiffi I gotcha - and totally agree with you. And to be fair: there probably are a fair few people amongst them who could be diagnosed with a narcissistic or borderline personality disorder.

[@michaelkitchin9665]

I watched Giant Bomb's coverage of the Direct and it was like being bludgeoned by screams. It's too much. Dial it back.

[@viviannavicious]

The issue with esports to me, is that you're relying on a product, unlike sports. Anyone can start a Football league, either flag football, 7 on 7, or a full fledged league. For an esport you have to rely on a developer, or a company starting its own league.

[@3Dant]

The only thing more disgusting than "gamer" is "fandom"

[@mr.selfimprovement3241]

I see Jeff has graced us with a DIFFERENT (arguably even better) *_Mr. Do!_*_ T-Shirt_ this week. Man clearly reads his comments, and giveth the people more of that hot Mr. Do! T-Shirt Action that they want and demand! 😁

[@ctomfaith]

I love his orange Masaya shirt.

[@incompletex2]

I too have always hated the "gamer" label but got dangnit I love neon sunsets

[@GreggyAck]

I’m drinking a sugar free Red Bull. Smooth, delicious sugar free Red Bull.

[@bobjohnson7148]

I heard they’re coming out with a sugar free watermelon Red Bull

[@viviannavicious]

@@bobjohnson7148 Can't argue with pure hard gamer science

[@chillhopdrumz1862]

I ought to get me one of those

[@slipstream7324]

sugar free rockstar for me *cheers

[@bdre5555]

Great to hear about some younger players getting into story-driven games. That's where PlayStation is king obviously. The two new God of War games in particular are incredible. Horizon forbidden west. Ghost of tsushima.

[@Kikkoman85]

Punisher is my second favorite Capcom beat 'em up behind Alien Vs Predator. The playable characters feel snappy and powerful, and there's tons of weapon pick-ups.

[@suplextrain]

The problem with games with "toxic" communities is that they're designed to nurture that behaviour. Team based competitive games where teamwork is very important where winning/losing has noticeable impact (ranking), with the reasons teams lose and mistakes made are often obtuse/unclear (so people focus on more obvious moment to moment mistakes others make), abusing reports isn't punished, etc. Passive toxicity is honestly worse than someone swearing over voice too, yet is generally not reported/punished. Or very thin skinned people (they rile up people easily or get upset over minor things, playing the victim, while 'technically' not doing anything reportable they incite 'toxicity'). The solution has never been and never will be to just excessively punish people. If anything it just makes things worse while not solving anything.

[@BatteryBee]

21:40 - On the topic of League, I think Riot completely misjudged Wild Rift (the mobile game). I went into Wild Rift as a total LoL newbie, hoping I'd get the desktop experience distilled into bite-sized 5-10 minute matches. Instead matches lasted closer to 20 minutes, and could even go as long as a 30-40. That was totally incompatible with the way I engage with mobile games, so I dropped WR very quickly. I wonder how many mobile players did the same, never engaging with anything League of Legends related again?

[@Jagerbomber]

Community Servers didn't need to die for Matchmaking

[@gulpirak]

When someone mentions Nintendo youtubers, I can only think of Harman Smith. Once of his video would leave Jeff's face stuck in permanent disgust.

[@Crundmama]

Certified Gamerboy Certified Cinephile

[@cikame]

I don't see toxicity in online games as a problem mostly because toxicity exists in every competitive thing ever, EVER. If you invite yourself into a community of a million people fighting each other you're not going to have a universally lovely experience, any game, any real life sport, anything, someone's going to get angry and someone's going to be foul. I've seen toxicity from the school playground to professional chess to politics... devs can ban words and people, remove text chat etc, but i feel like there's a side effect of disabling or discouraging communication, just look at BF2042 vs Battlebit, 2042 if i remember correctly didn't have text or voice chat, or voice chat was limited i can't remember, it didn't even have a scoreboard at launch, they did everything to remove or hide competition and toxic behaviour and what results is a sterile game with little interaction, Battlebit did the opposite and allowed everything go watch any gameplay and you'll see people laughing, screaming, joking and roleplaying, without interaction you don't get the most out of playing with other people and i think those moments are worth it, if someone is being abusive they can be muted or flagged by players for kicking or banning.

[@kristopherpoulsen653]

Someone with a realistic perspectiv on mean words. How refreshing 👍

[@lucasswanger4560]

Thanks!

[@JeffGerstmannShow]

You bet!

[@nick-8013]

Time for another Mario Party Party!

[@drmariomariomd6733]

Couldn’t be happier that we finally play as Zelda and get a sequel to Solomon’s Key in the same game.

[@MAXPAYNE485]

Metroid prime 4: part one 🎉

[@SHADOSTRYKR]

Ask your doctor if Alundra may be right for you!

[@mikesmith1892]

Maycauseanalleakage, notsuitableforchildren, maycauseepilepsy

[@eternalreturnal]

Read the title and my first thought was if this was a joke on Metallica's Lulu

[@QuarrelsomeLocalOaf]

RIP Lou Reed

[@jonasking9587]

I want to listen but I also don't really want to hear Jeff shit on everything in the Direct. It's a thing.

[@cryssnail]

I looked it up and "recap" is short for "recapitulation"

[@origamipapercut4682]

Coked up e-sports disasters seem like a content mine.

[@banmondays230]

part of the issue in voice chat is AI banning and the annoying ones who havent been yet.

[@loltbxx]

Bold take on the lego enjoyment age threshold!

[@WasabiAisu]

PSO2 still has the best skins.

[@cosmosofinfinity]

And how about TF2?

[@RedRookShep]

Anyone saying Goku Flames shirts were never Hot Topic lives near a mall I would really like to visit, cause that's some bizzarro universe shit right there.

[@phonzeh]

Shadowman is my favourite Zelda game

[@thehalfnerd2221]

I hope Jeff wasn’t referring to Jeff Grubb towards the beginning of this podcast. I love em both, among other journalists!

[@eggzaki]

It seems like he’s referring to people who only do Nintendo news/leaks

[@loltbxx]

I, too, wondered that!

[@Lupinvej]

My nephew just asked me if Logan Paul made “that Prime” game.

[@Dogalogue6152]

yep.. and he owns Amazon too

[@Lupinvej]

@@Dogalogue6152 i am now Primed 4 Beyond

[@TheFizzjunior]

Paradox also really messed up with Harebrained Schemes and The Lamplighter's League and how busted that game was. Despite having some really cool ideas that they just shoved out the door completely broken. Harebrained schemes are now independent since Jan 1. Oh yeah, they also completely gutted that studio before that game went to market. Paradox be doing some really bad stuff.

[@SHITBULLET]

Is this on my end or is the audio exceptionally quiet on this edition of the "Jeff Gerstmann Show"?

[@mr.selfimprovement3241]

It IS quieter than normal. Had a harder time hear him speak.

[@ice_queen9]

that Life By You game looks like it had kind of a mediocre, boring art style, but it doesn't look THAT bad. and even if the game wasn't that great, The Sims 4 is such an easy target, with it costing 1000 USD or whatever for the full game :o . i think paradox might be overestimating how high quality this game needed to be to compete.

[@Barbabonbon]

I am shocked by the Life by you news. I was following them on youtube they were supposed to be the sims competition :( but I guess it just wasn't fun

[@Ted_Kurt]

The time is video games and the place is zero carb monster energy 16oz

[@bdre5555]

Your wife might like the Dragon's Dogma games, or The Witcher 3

[@__redacted__]

I'll admit at first taking a stance of defending corporations against the public seemed like it was destined to sound paid. But thinking more about it, there are artists working really hard on putting something joyful or meaningful in the world. When their half-baked thing sets expectations too early, then it puts tons more pressure on them, maybe in a way that disrupts their flow. Sometimes we might be better off if we're surprised with something good, instead of judging and distracting the people who are making a living, too. So credit to Jeff for the thought-provoking take.

[@steveb9713]

Jeff watch episode 3, it’s worth a watch even though I know you won’t like. Then watch andor. Never watch the sequels

[@ice_queen9]

looking at what it does to nintendo leakers and just a lot of people in general's minds, i'm glad i don't read "normal people twitter". never have. it's never been a good social media platform for normal people, not even back in 2010 or whatever. it's only ever been good for companies and super-celebrities (like will smith and taylor swift tier) to share busiiness-related news, which is what it was originally meant for.

[@YerNewUncle]

I think the future of consoles is, in short, Switch. They stumbled into the most appealing console “gimmick” almost accidentally in 2017, putting them so far ahead in a changing console market, and also seem to have sustainable game budgets figured out. If they can future proof the concept of the Switch starting with Switch 2 (in some way that none of us can fathom), then PlayStation and Xbox can just hang it up. Tiny portable PC is covered by Steam Deck, brain dead simple console is covered by Switch, and then PC covers everyone else. I don’t see room in the market for much else.

[@RiskyFriskyHandle]

Good take 👍

[@MachaGraves]

As someone whose only real adjacency to anything resembling esports is fighting games, and has seen years of discussions regarding the genre's inferiority complex and why it can never seem to attract the same attention as FPS or MOBAS; i think people who play fighting games massively overestimate their intuitiveness. So much is dependent on the minutia of invisible hitbox interactions across sprawling movelists, or the negative space of options characters possess: if a character has a great fireball but the other character has a great anti-fireball super, you might not see either of those things in play. It's much easier for a viewer to internalise the half-dozen things a MOBA character might be able to do, or have any personal FPS experience just aiming a cursor create a transferable appreciation of skill watching a shooter they may never have played. I do think the perspectives of shooters do make having any awareness of team strategy or overall match dynamics into a viewership nightmare that has never really been solved though.

[@hiredn00bs]

Nintendo fandom is generally more insufferable in my experience

[@twistedoperator4422]

Absolutely

[@JohnBasedowYoda]

Nice

[@OmeteotI]

Whenever I think of esports as like a big televised thing, I always think of like the XFL and USFL and AAFL and all those other fledgling leagues that a lot of people put time and money into to try to make work, but never felt like they were "real" in any true way.

[@Samfoote]

Should tidy up a bit man

[@langa77777]

too deep

[@ChrisBrandrick]

Starts 0:33

[@spoogtastic]

The idea of "no Americans doing well, so we won't watch" while is entirely racist, is absolutely the deal. Look at soccer for the biggest example. Biggest sport in the world, Americans Only care when we do well. It SUCKS but it's entirely true.

[@sleepwalkusa135]

WOO CELTICS!!☘☘

[@ryanmorley2504]

Nintendo direct seems like it is tailored for the 10 and under crowd. I don't get the excitement for these things? It seems like infantilization of video games.

[@mr.selfimprovement3241]

Just judging by your channel and avatar, you seem fairly young (I don't mean that in a bad way) - so you might not understand that the people who are right now between 36-46 WERE the target demographic for gaming companies for about 25 years there. 🙂 It was Nintendo who specifically aimed it in that direction too - as PRIOR to the North American Video-Game Crash, the majority of the video-game companies and pinball makers targeted a much older audience (especially Arcade makers). Even Atari and ColecoVision knew they had to sell their products to the parents, rather than the kids. But once Nintendo and Sega became the arbiters of the biggest video-game market in the world (North America)... they chose the audience of 5-15 year old kids of the late 80s and early 90s to grow their new ecosystems here - and it was actually THAT generation or two of kids, who were the key target demographic that the industry focused all it's energies into developing titles for and marketing to... well into the *Seventh Generation* of consoles! If you had been alive and gaming throughout the 1990s, you probably would have thought that ALL of video-game marketing and the games themselves, were "infantile". The prevalence of Gross-out humor, juvenile language (very "hey! fellow kids!"), Mascot games, platformers, silly marketing with young bowl cut 90s kids in all the adverts, and 'tude' filled gimmicks... it was ubiquitous with video-games. Even well into the end of the fifth generation, the more adult consoles like the PlayStation, Saturn and N64 were still very juvenile because much of their audience were at this point had grown into edgy tweens and teenagers. By the start of the *Sixth Generation,* the target audience for the DC/PS2/GC and XBOX were the same kids and teens from the previous generation - who were now a bit older between the ages of 14-24. You can see at that point the advertising becomes more sophisticated, the games even more mature, and we see less and less platformers. But even still: much of the language around gaming is still ensconced in that very Elder-Millennial/Young Gen X, new millennium, childishly-naive youth vibe. Sexy women, matrix-esque techno babble, subversive iconography.... it was all there. But gaming itself was still very much about giving the High School and College crowd guns, cartoon characters, and girls. While the start of the Seventh generation was no different... if anything it was even edgier and more pandering to a corporate idea of what a 'youth must like' - by the middle of the generation, we saw gaming finally follow it's now 22-32 year old audience into their early career years and disposable incomes. By the end of that generation, ALL the people who had been "Nintendo kids" where now pushing their 20s or 30s. So by the start of the *Eight Generation,* the marketing around the current consoles like the Wii U, PS4 and XBO was very much matured, and companies had a grasp on how to make products and market them to a wider audience. Electing to begin the process of moving away from the now 'aging up' audience that they had spent almost 30 years constantly raising the target marketing audience bar with... the game industry set its sights on the up coming youth, who they would be ready for when they became the 18-34 crowd. And really since then, we've seen the video-game industry really prioritize whatever group is in that specific age range. Because of that, we do not see as many platformers, mascot games, kids games, or family friendily marketing as we once did. Most popular AAA games these days are rated M - where as it was 'E' that dominate rating initially, and then T in the early 2000s. Because of this, you have alot of younger gamers (especially those under 20), who see this more family friendly Nintendo marketing to a younger demographic, and feel insulted or agitated by it because they have grown up in a world where media in general has ignored children in favor of the older audiences. Which I believe came out of the _"kids today don't play with toys or game consoles, they watch youtube and play ipad"_ mentality that has proliferated marketing companies for almost 15 years now. So in the modern world, that sort of simplistic and childish marketing is alien to alot of your generation who have not been exposed too it that much - certainly you might not understand that what Nintendo is doing is ACTUALLY going back to the way games where initially marketed for several decades. You might even notice that alot of the people who seem to like these types of games, and the way Nintendo conducts it Directs are generally the middle-aged parents who grew up with that as the norm. Many of them have nostalgia and attachment to those types of games (as they cut their teeth on them) and have young kids of their own - who see Nintendo as appropriate content for their family, due in part because of the tone of they way the company presents itself. Alot of us here are that original audience who grew up gaming directly: before, during or after the North American Video-game Crash. For the bulk of us, Nintendo's marketing and games are nothing unusual or special to be offended by, as they have ALWAYS been like this for the most part. Short a small period in the early 2000s, when they were trying desperately to push GameCube as the 'cool' Nintendo console. Alot of those people not think it is 'infantile' because we understand that gaming is for a larger audience, and Nintendo is trying to appeal to our generation.... but not as gamers ourselves, but rather our children. And while I myself am not a fan of the Nintendo Direct tone myself (oddly enough, I agree with you that they can be too much at times) - I know that most my peers who grew up playing Nintendo, who have their own kids, see this as 'old fashion' and familiar, and that resonates in a way with them that you just don't get from other companies presentations. Nintendo knows this, and it's intentional.

[@steve43ful]

Stop infantilizing my children’s toys.

[@shadowskill111]

The look of sheer boredom on the youtube thumbnail of Jeff lets you know how this Nintendo Direct went with its potato hardware still trying to be relevant.

[@eatabatterydotcom4590]

Consoles will never be annualized like smart phones. Video Games aren't a necessity or status symbol like smart phones, and frankly if video games have any impact on someone's perception of you it's generally negative. So I don't think the number console players who would be willing to upgrade their ps6 more than once would be big enough to justify the R+D costs, unless they actually made a profit on each console sold. Do more than 5 million console players want to spend $800 on the slightly better ps6 every year or two?

[@Fredchuckdave]

Toxicity is from Brood War/Quake 3/UT days more or less, there was a period in-between where most popular games were less competitive so maybe somewhat less toxic but it came back after SC2 launch.