KYLE: Kingdom Hearts IV put out this promotional collage this week.
And I'm lookin' at this. I see
Mickey Mouse jumpin' some chandeliers in a library and I think,
"That's all I really need. I don't need the rest."
To me, sometimes, the Kingdom Hearts franchise is like
living in this world where if you wanna buy a laser pointer,
they only come packaged in, like, a Hanes 8-pack of socks.
And so, like, [laughs] you just--
You just buy the socks to get the laser p-- [coughs]
Full disclosure here, I got a bit of a frog in my throat this week.
So tonight's plan is just to keep talking about video games
for as long as my voice allows.
So let's start with a major scoop from Bloomberg
about how CEO and founder Jade Raymond has left Haven Studios.
"What's Haven Studios?" you ask?
They're making Fairgames, the one with the monkey masks.
Also, in the corresponding Resetera thread, Jason Schreier himself
confirmed that are removing the dollar sign S from the Fairgames.
I think that's the right call but also it's not like it's gonna change anything.
It's like ordering a pizza topped with:
and then saying, "Wait, hold on. That's crazy.
Hold the jelly."
Anyway, the report itself is a bummer. It says:
So for the founder and CEO of the studio
to leave at this point in Fairgames' development, not a great sign.
I went back and read some articles from the launch press event Haven held
back when it was first acquired.
Canada's CTV was there, even. It was a big deal.
It's PlayStation's first Canadian studio.
CTV ANCHOR: And its founder has become
one of the most influential women in the industry.
KYLE: So yeah, it's a feel-bad story that this game might not be turning out so well.
However,
there are elements of it that are maybe not feel-bad.
While Fairgames is, yes, the monkey mask game,
it's also the 3D AI-generated mask game.
And as part of that studio launch event,
when they were explaining what makes it unique,
a bit thing that was emphasized
is how streamlined this studio's development pipeline was gonna be.
Look at this:
Cool.
Uh-oh.
Yeah, so because they didn't have much to talk about,
when they were bringing these people in:
it's mostly just to talk about
how hypothetically impressive their technology's going to be.
This is the funniest part to me, from the GamesIndustry.biz report of the event:
[raspberry]
[while coughing] Why are you showing the people?
3 years later, it sounds like they're really struggling to get this video game together,
despite all of their AI technology.
And I realize it's not rare for a video game to spend 5 months in development
but do remember, back when Hermen Hulst was excited to announce that Haven would be
joining the PlayStation family, he had this to say:
At a certain point, I'm not saying it's this point right now,
but I do fear, maybe in the near future,
we're gonna have to start questioning Hermen Hulst's taste in video games.
Not his taste in jackets, obviously.
But you have to wonder what he saw in Fairgames
that isn't present today, 3 years later.
And then just last week, a brand new studio
received Hermen Hulst's potential kiss of death.
Joining the PlayStation Studios's family:
Now, before you get excited, LFG in this instance stands for Looking for Group.
So do you remember last year when Bungie announced
they were eliminating 17% of their studio's workforce?
A little part of that announcement is that there would be an incubation team
that would become a brand new PlayStation Studios studio:
Personally, I only remember it because, at the time, it was codenamed Gummybears.
Well, you're looking at Gummybears right here.
And what I find unique about this particular studio announcement
is how specific and slightly charming it is. They say:
It's almost like they're blissfully unaware of how high the stakes are here,
that everything within 3 short years could just come crashing down.
And it-- It's also interesting how they describe their game.
Typically, you wouldn't say too much.
Back in that old press release for Haven, they described what would become Fairgames as:
And that's normal. However, here's how LFG describes their game:
It says, "Frog-type games." [laughs]
Well, you can call me stupid because I'm actually forward to this game now.
And then also in Bungie news (that I frankly don't have the vocal stamina for),
and artist named Antireal pointed out that Marathon copied a lot of their art.
Like COPIED it, took the words right off of their art.
And in the case of this stuff right here,
it's, like, an essential part of the whole visual identity of their promos.
And by the way, this is the third time in 2 years Bungie got caught doing this.
And so, I think with Marathon coming out so soon,
there's no way to remove the art.
They're really just going to have to pay this artist, like they did with that Nerf gun.
Bungie, tsk tsk. You got off easy this week.
Anyway, that's Delayed Input. I'll be back next week, much healthier.
Thanks for watching.
I wonder if you're thinking, at this point,
"Oh boy, he should've just not recorded a video this week."
But how could I when it's time for your regular installment of:
The topic of controversy this week is, of course,
the changes made to Donkey Kong's best buddy, Diddy Kong.
Diddy Kong, this week, received a brand-new render
that is strangely similar to his old render with a few small differences.
Like, his tail's shorter. He's got a little extra belly.
You should also know he's got a little DK pin on his hat
instead of the Nintendo logo, which you know I personally appreciate.
The Nintendo logo never should've been there.
Yes, he has teeth now, which is not a big deal.
Monkeys have teeth. Diddy Kong always should've had teeth.
But perhaps most strangely, as somebody was reviewing Diddy Kong's design,
they said, "No more Sonic the Hedgehog eyes for Diddy Kong.
I'm gonna need you to put one centimeter of monkey skin
straight between his eyeballs, thereby separating them."
And the weird thing is, like, I don't mind it.
I think that these are all nice improvements.
[monkey sound]
[different monkey sound]
[HONK]
The most recent Switch 1 update changed a lot of the player icons.
Someone on Reddit named thetripp pointed this out neatly.
As you can see, mostly lighting changes, the obvious DK changes.
But also little weird ones
like bunching the plates on the back of Yoshi's head all together,
even though that's not how Yoshi works.
Anyway, I 'm just saying it's neat.
I think it's neat that because the Switch 2 is coming out,
somebody looked at all the old art and said,
"We could really improve this here and this here and this here.
Diddy's gonna need a shorter tail.
Dat's da good stuff."