u/yohceezax

>This week, the Punching Up crew discuss the brand new mobile game from Nintendo, Pictonico, new games added to NSO and more Nintendo Direct rumors.

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>This week Hoeg and Simon Zijlemans join Brad to discuss some cool indies including Prime Monster, Quartet, Thick as Thieves, and Hoeg shares his not so positive thoughts on Mixtape.

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I've got some extra Reunion DLC codes, so figured I'd just share them here for people to grab.

To try and avoid bots grabbing them, spoiler tagged them, and also swapped some characters:
& = 7

* = J

$ = 9

+ = 2

Xbox: >!FT*WK-YMDTK-YGTDM-K&KHV-*RDKZ!<
PS5: >!RJR5-$H$X-CPHM!<
PS5: >!84P$-A4G+-6P+8!<

Enjoy!

>It's me, Colin. Please welcome journalist and writer Alyssa Mercante to Sacred Symbols+. Though I've heard of Alyssa and knew her name for some time, it wasn't until a few-ish years ago that she more properly popped onto my radar. It was then that the dreaded Sweet Baby Inc. Crisis (a moniker I just now made up) erupted, and Alyssa -- then at publication Kotaku -- was one of the most visible media-types covering the affair. Now, with the Slay the Spire II-slash-Anita Sarkeesian situation unfolding before us, it felt like a great time to sit down and talk things through. This whole scenario is, after all, a distinct echo from the past. To keep things simple, we started with a basic premise and then went off from there: Did Anita Sarkeesian ultimately lose the culture war? Why does her name still resonate more than a decade after so-called GamerGate kicked-off? Can the victors of these sorts of fights simply not accept that they now wield the power they once coveted? And perhaps most importantly of all: Why can't more people have conversations just like the one we've conducted? There's a lot to get to, so let's not delay further. Please enjoy.

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>It's mid-May, which can mean only one thing: We're at the point in the calendar when most companies release their financials for the previous fiscal year. Sony is one such organization, reporting a relatively flat year-on-year picture both generally, and with PlayStation in particular. With PS5 sales slowing down all the while the console is becoming more expensive, and with recent Housemarque exclusive Saros seemingly selling softly, does Sony have an uphill battle to keep PlayStation relevant? Or will the inevitable PlayStation 6 -- not to mention PS5's likely-strong swan song next year -- be enough to keep the ever-distracted masses engaged with the ecosystem? We discuss. Plus: Sony's second and third party lead gives a candid interview, 007: First Light goes gold, a new externally-manufactured DualSense controller has hit the market, PlayStation Plus Game Catalog receives a refresh, and more. Then: Listener inquiries! Why did so many people believe Game Informer was teasing a Grand Theft Auto VI cover? Do we think the rumors indicating that FromSoft is working on a pirate-themed game are true? Is Dragon Quest XII finally going to be properly revealed in a couple of weeks? Could Chris contest Brad's status as the guy who cares the most about Last Stand Media?

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>What's this?! The esteemed 'Belgium Beauty' as part of the Dukes in 2026?! Indeed, it's Lock and Matty here to sprinkle some extra fun in the world of Xbox where the news never stops moving! This week, we have two types of leaks: A fun release window... and an actual game ahead of its launch. Starting with the fun stuff, Gears Of War: E-Day is looking to take a slot in what will, no doubt, be an extremely busy September. How it leaked is the fun part! In the not so fun stuff, Xbox themselves leaked Forza Horizon 6 via Steam. Fortunately, it is very close to the game's launch, but there is more to this story. How did this go down and should there be any panic? Let's dive in!

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>This week the Punching Up crew discuss the upcoming Switch 2 price increase, Square teasing a new Dragon Quest game, Takashi Tezuka retiring, and more!

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>This week, Brad and Chris talk about Mixtape, Saros, Chris's PS1 pics, and more!

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>Please welcome Summon Sign host Brad Ellis and friend-of-the-show Moore's Law Is Dead back to Sacred+. Today, I (Colin) asked these fine gentlemen to join me for an in-depth conversation all about a piece of hardware that hasn't even been officially announced yet: PlayStation 6. Most (though certainly not all) signs point to a late 2027 launch for Sony's next-gen offering, but since all we know about it come from some precious leaks alongside tons of assumptions, I figured the three of us could breakdown the coming madness into six individual buckets. When and how should PlayStation 6 be revealed? When should it launch? How much should the console and handheld iterations of the hardware cost? What kind of first and second party support should be expected? What three features will help differentiate PS6 from PS5? And speaking of PlayStation 5, what should be done with the hardware once its successor is in the wild? As you can see, there's plenty to get into. There's no time to waste! Please enjoy.

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>If the release calendar holds as currently constructed, Grand Theft Auto VI will launch into the waiting arms of millions upon millions of day-one players. And since it's likely to be the highest-grossing entertainment event in the history of mankind, it's fair to assume that the marketing push will be substantial. As we get ever-closer to the fall, Take Two's CEO has been giving revealing interviews about the insane money, expectations, and consequences behind Rockstar's much-anticipated project (and word on these digital streets is that Sony has secured the marketing rights to the game, which is absolutely massive for PlayStation 5). Are you ready to withstand a hype machine the likes of which you've never seen before? Plus: Strauss Zelnick expresses disappointment over Civilization VII and laments the lack of a new BioShock, a majority of consumers polled report never buying games at full price, Call of Duty is finally skipping PlayStation 4 moving forward, Yacht Club's Mina the Hollower gets a release date, and more. Then: Listener inquiries! Should Sony reform its existing refund system on PSN? Is there an alternate reality where Sony kept the 007 film license in the '90s, thus opening up PlayStation to a series of James Bond games? Should PlayStation explore surprise reveals a la the new Star Fox? Does Colin have a potential business opportunity in the works naming other people's children?

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>Pray for us.

>It appears that Xbox got sick of the whole weekly negative news cycle schtick and has decided to go in the other direction. Is this week's news truly all that positive? I sincerely depends on how you look at it and nobody will actually know until much later. Asha Sharma has made new additions to her leadership team. Sarah Bond's former team has been replaced by alumni of Meta, Instacart, and CoreAI which all happen to be people that worked with Asha at the same time she led those respective companies. Is this the invasion of AI into Xbox as we intially feared? We get into that, but there's almost zero doubt that Xbox anticipated this because they pulled out quite the plot twist. Copilot for console and mobile is stopped, effective immediately. So, while there is more AI focused leadership than ever in Xbox, they also just axed one of the worst things the brand started rolling out last year. How do the Dukes feel about all of this? Well, that's why you're here, no? Pull up a chair, relax, and let's talk about Xbox some more before Brad returns and ruins it all.

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>Note: We've updated the episode with a pickup! Please redownload this new version to hear it.

>Welp, we were just talking about Star Fox being a no-show, and Nintendo decides to randomly drop a new Direct showing a brand-new Star Fox game!

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Note: Episode was updated. New thread here.

>This week the Punching Up crew discuss a variety of topics including a new Switch 2 bundle, GameStop trying to acquire eBay, Star Fox puppets, and more!

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>This week Colin joins Brad to discuss a variety of games and topics, including Saros, Vampire Crawlers, Starfield, and Brad makes Colin rank Super Nintendo games.

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>Please welcome long-time LSM collaborator, lawyer, and friend Rick Hoeg back to Sacred+. I (Colin) invited Hoeg back to the show yet again to get into some of the deeper business-and-legal-related issues percolating around our industry. We begin by talking about the biggest news of the last few weeks, at least in PlayStation world: The faux hulabaloo surrounding seemingly-new DRM requirements on PlayStation. When it comes to digital offerings, what is and isn't Sony allowed to do? What's the EULA say? And why do so many people believe corporations want to needle you, when really all they want is your money? We then get into the year-long saga surrounding South Korean publisher Krafton, their subsidiary developer Unknown Worlds, and hundreds of millions of dollars caught-up in the anticipated release of Subnautica 2. Krafton vastly overpaid for Unknown Worlds, realized that, and tried to stymie the two sides' agreement, only to get egg in their face. Now that we're on the verge of the game's release, what does the near-and-far future look like for both sides? Can Unknown Worlds' leadership merely quit post-game, create a new studio, and give Krafton the finger? Finally, we touch on Call of Duty's removal from GamePass, a decision Microsoft made when it realized their subscription is ultimately a dead end that's not going to grow much beyond its current bounds. Does the game's removal infringe upon any deal made with the FTC and other publishers? Could this be a loose thread to try once more to undo the deal... or are Microsoft's competitors more than happy, at this juncture, to let them stew in a clearly questionable acquisition?

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>Sometimes, PlayStation's userbase gets upset over nothing, and this past week was a great example of that. Rumors and uninformed conjecture rapidly circulated about Sony unleashing a stringent DRM regimen on PlayStation that would force players to check-in with the PSN every 30 days, or lose their digital licenses. That (of course) was complete nonsense, obviously so -- Sony is instead attempting to throttle dishonest people from taking advantage of a quirk in their refund system -- but it didn't stop many talking points from taking hold. And really, isn't it Sony's fault, ultimately? All they had to do was communicate, good or bad. But they didn't, and so the ne'er-do-wells filled the vacuum. Then again, maybe players should be a little more mad at the actual villains: The losers and degenerates who take advantage of loopholes, steal games, and pirate anything they can get their hands on. We discuss at length. Plus: MLB: The Show Mobile slowly expands around the world, Rebel Wolves' extremely promising vampire title The Dawn of Bloodwalker gets a release date, classic NickToon Rugrats gets a games compilation, Star Wars comes to PowerWash Simulator 2, and more. Then: Listener inquiries! With Xbox's incessant will they/won't they going on, should we expect Microsoft-published games to continue to come to PS5? Is ARC Raiders and The Finals developer Embark guilty of overtuning their titles? What are the origins of "friendslop"-style games? Is Colin's wife quietly attempting to protect him from complete embarrassment by refusing to allow him to participate in the 100 Chicken Nugget Challenge?

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