Having miniature dioramas was actually my original hope and vision for the seasonal art of Chapter Select Season 5 - Resident Evil. I love the illusion of toys and small objects being life-sized. I suppose I did do that with Hot Wheels for Season 4 - The Fast and the Furious. In fact, I bought a little diorama canoe for the Fast X episode art.

Colossal has at least one other article filled with Lin's work. I enjoy this very much. And while not Lin, these food diorama images from Pierre Javelle and Akiko Ida are delectable.

"The content originally planned for September will now arrive as part of our Symbiosis update on December 8. Alongside the new Runner shell, permanent PvE experience, and refreshed Perimeter zone, the update will also include a social space/firing range, an experimental TDM mode, and improvements to new player onboarding.

Before then, we’ll release a smaller, focused update on October 6 that resets progression and the in-game economy, refreshes rewards, and improves the live game, while giving the team the time needed to deliver the larger experiences planned for December and March.

We’re also moving away from a strict seasonal schedule. Instead of tying major updates to fixed seasonal deadlines, we’re giving the team more flexibility to build, test, and improve features before they are released."

I haven't been able to play as much Marathon as I would like this season due to familial demands, but from what I have played, this is all music to my ears.

The sigh of relief I suspect most people I have played with for a team deathmatch mode was more of a rushing wind yesterday when the news broke.

Marathon is my favorite new game in quite some time. Shocker, I know. I am glad Sony is giving the team the latitude to adapt, even if a lot of the signs are worrying for Bungie and PlayStation at large.

I mean, with key art like this, there's no way this can be bad, right?

I'm a pretty avid follower of the tech space, especially the phone scene despite never diverting from the Apple ecosystem. The folding phone has always struck me as impressive in a futuristic manner—glass that bends!

But I have never been a big iPad user. I did make the poor decision out of high school to use all my money to buy an iPad mini and a MacBook Air instead of putting it all into a MacBook Pro. I had this vision of my textbooks on the iPad, but that never panned out. I got my dad's older iPad Pro when he upgraded, but never got into it. Earlier this year, we bought a plain ol' iPad and that has gotten quite a bit of use as a cooking companion and music player. That's the kind of iPad user I am: The kind that does two things at once.

Seeing a foldable with, you know, good software has shown me the way of the foldable and how it would fit in my life. It'd be propped up while cooking with Mela and the latest MKBHD video playing on the top half. I'd be folded in half while I eat lunch or rotated in portrait to let me read more of a webpage. It's let me not be locked into one app at a time on my phone. I can imagine reading a FAQ off GameFaqs while playing some classic game.¹

Sure, the hardware of foldables has always been impressive, but its nothing without the software. Not unlike a video game console—you gotta have the games to make the console worth it. And while some consoles share the same games, the best are usually exclusive and from the first-party teams that know the hardware inside and out.

Apple is clearly out classing the Android folding scene when it comes to the software experience.

I remember this video Becca Farsace made last summer about trying to replace her MacBook Pro with a Galaxy Z Fold 7. Here's what I had to say then:

"It seems like the issue comes down to software, which makes me wonder, how different this video will be when Apple debuts their folding phone next year.

Or how similar they will be.

Who knows with Apple? Given the changes on iPadOS with window management this year, and the fact iPad does have apps like Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, and other great third-party power apps (honestly, just a better overall app selection), I feel like this concept will be more feasible with a folding iPhone."

While the Duo is not running iPadOS or touting iPad-class apps like Final Cut Pro or a "docked" desktop-like mode, the software on display strikes as far more pleasant than what Samsung has been working on for the last seven years.² I am eager to get my hands on a Duo, whether in an Apple Store or one of my own. I am trying some financial jujitsu to make the latter happen.

But let's be real, most of that mushy gray matter has just been replaying the open and close animation over and over; followed by the status icons merging into that slick, singular circle.

John and whatever legal apparatus is behind him always seems chill enough with live concerts being recorded and shared online. I wonder how chill Sirius will be with this, but you owe it to yourself to give it a listen.

I cannot wait for his next album. Soon.

As a side note, Continuum turned 20 years old yesterday. Every year, Stop This Train hits me harder and harder.

"One generation's length away from fighting life out on my own."

A few stops down the track and I'll be able to introduce my own kid to his music, which had been beyond definitive in my own life and my relationship with my wife. I don't plan on waiting until 62 to renegotiate.

"My best response to the 'horde of agents colonizing our brains' is: Be as weird as possible.

One way to do this: take the Venn diagram of your lived experiences and what’s been talked about in the world. Now focus on the part of your life that doesn’t overlap. Out pops: pizza toast...

And an encouraging reminder that it is not a black and white struggle depicted in sci-fi and social media; which are arguably the same these days.

...And yet!!! Don’t dismiss technology. Don’t dismiss the LLMs; don’t shy away from the tools. This is what makes the writing and thinking of those folks linked above so compelling and rare: They contend with both sides. They love literature and words and the humanity of it all, and yet can engage with the technical side of AI at the highest levels. Art should reflect society, and society is being reconfigured by these tools. The best art of the next decade will contend with this.

Programming seems curiously aberrational. That is: Why don’t I care about the code despite having been a lifelong fair-weather coder? But then I remembered — The Demo Scene. Demos are the literature of code. In the demo scene the code is the point. The 1s and 0s, their order — 1011 vs. 1101 — makes all the difference. The output is secondary to the bytes. I haven’t been keeping track of what’s happened to the demo scene in the last two years, but I imagine it’s complicated. An eight-kilobyte demo optimized to within a microcycle of its life, but done by spending a thousand bucks on Claude tokens, doesn’t hit with the same punch as a little crew of teenage Scandinavians obsessing over byte optimization in their parents’ basements. (That’s my frozen image of the demo scene: ’90s, pale, blond teenagers in basements trying to crank out code before they were siphoned off to compulsory military service.) A great demo, an inspiring demo, is the kind of demo that makes you want to learn assembly. It makes you want to invest in a complex challenge. And in doing so, shows you what the human mind is capable of. Even yours.

As does a great book, a great movie, a great song. Push back in your own work. Don’t dismiss the new tools outright, but remember why we started doing what we do in the first place. The power of art is derived from the shared experience of being alive."

Stats

• Started Playing: 6/13/2026
• Beat: DNF
• Total Playtime: 10~ hours

Legacy

Overall

• While a unique idea, the moment to moment gameplay became too tedious and disruptive to flow. Fantastic art style and concept marred by too many puzzles and even more menu navigation.

Graphics/Performance

• 4K60 on Switch 2. Can’t get better than that.
• The NPCs have great, quick expressions.
• Definite step up from Link’s Awakening. More vibrant. Rich.

Gameplay

• “I wonder how I go over the guards...wait...I block the guards. Oh my goodness it’s a puzzle game.”
• I love the diegetic design of Tri’s little triangles telling you how many echoes you have out and can make.
• Combat is slower and strategic. I can’t dive straight in and slash away. It’s the most I have thought intentionally about combat in a 2D Zelda game since I was a kid figuring it out.
• The menus, prompts, mission structure, design, etc. is all BotW era, but adapted to 2D Zelda. This is how you do it, not like Sons of Sparta from Ragnarök, for example.
• I love the silly and useful echoes. Every enemy. Random objects. It’s an adaptable puzzle game and the world is full of resources.
• Water blocks and beds are goated.
• Why can I not change the locked on target for the tether ability or attacks? For a series that practically invented lock-on, this feels like a major oversight.
• Some actions just take longer, like combat scenarios. It’s good and bad. I could breeze through these as Link, but the problem solving approach is original. I wonder if it is just novelty and will wear off.
• Too many “2D” sections?
• Feels choppy and chunky. Very segmented and interrupts flow quite a bit

Music/Sound Design

• Bright, airy, Zelda
• I love the Gerudo Sanctum theme.

World

• It feels all new to me. I am not sure if this is the same map as LttP and ALBW, but it feels nice to explore
• Both Zora races are here and I love it.

Story

• Rifts are cropping up all over Hyrule. Link is a swordsman from a small town. Zelda does not know him. Link defeats Ganon, but both of them end up in a rift.
• Zelda goes back to the castle where a rift spawns, absorbs the king and his aides, and frames Zelda.
• We set out to fix rifts and save people with a little spirit named Tri.
• Tri, unfortunately, lacks a signature partner personality. Kinda bums me out.

Stats

• Started Playing: 9/7/26
• Beat: 9/10/26
• Total Playtime: 3~ hours

Legacy

• It’s the donut game?

Overall

• A fun little game whose premise is more shallow than I anticipated based off the reception. It felt like a joke that went on too long and whose punchline was cringe.

Graphics/Performance

• A cute pastel, polygonal style. Like a bunch of porygons from Pokémon had a game jam about animals.
• Final boss softlocked and I had to restart the whole thing. Not fun.
• It’s buggy and a bit jank, but I think the right kind of jank.

Gameplay

• You control a hole that grows when an object falls inside. Make hole big, suck up entire county.
• It’s a clever idea that I thought would have more Rube Goldberg like puzzles and interactions. It’s very simple and never goes beyond the joke of being a hole.
• Clearly designed for mobile first. The little touch cursor that appears straight away was annoying to me.

Music/Sound Design

• Techno blippy bloopy boppy

World

• LA but donuts.

Story

• Raccoons move to Donut County and use holes to suck up all the garbage...and people.
• It’s goofy with an almost too dumb sort of internet humor.

The reaction to the art direction and seeming lack of divergence beyond those aesthetics is much more down than I expected. Lots of complaints about the art direction, the 1:1 remake commitment, and the return of the Tears of the Kingdom and Echoes of Wisdom horizontal item selection system.¹

There is also quite a bit we don't know about though. The presentation stuck to the basics and generalizations about the remake. We have no clue if, say, the Master Quest is there. What kind of expansions have they done similar to the new bit of Castle Town they showed? We won't know until Nintendo says more or until the game is out in two months.

Jason Schreier made a video explaining the basics of why developers love remakes. I'm always surprised at Schreier's simple and clean approach to explanation, as if his audience doesn't understand how and why games are made—but then I realize that they probably don't understand. As I've spent time over the last couple days thinking about this remake, I think it goes much deeper than fans wanting something "new," not Breath of the Wild-new, but rather "new-new."

As we all ought to know, time is a flat circle, and the Zelda series proves that in more ways than one.

Let's go back to 1998 when Ocarina of Time came out for the Nintendo 64. It was recognized and hailed as an industry defining experience. The series was transformed in its new 3D livery, while its fundamental formula was the same as A Link to the Past. After the success, Nintendo immediately began working on a sequel by combining established assets, developer tools, and a RAM expansion pak. But Nintendo accidentally added an extra ingredient—a dark, oppressive story and time mechanic. Thus, Majora's Mask was born! From there, after a little Space World MacGuffin, Nintendo introduced the world to Wind Waker, which sparked endless debates about "Cel-da." While Wind Waker is a part of the series' upper echelon, Nintendo responded to the outcry in 2004 when it revealed Twilight Princess at E3 and made at least one grown man cry.

Now let's go back to 2017 when Breath of the Wild came out for the Nintendo Wii U.² It was recognized and hailed as an industry defining experience. The series was transformed in its new open-world design, while its fundamental formula was the same as The Legend of Zelda. After the success, Nintendo immediately began working on a sequel by combining established assets, developer tools, and a more powerful console than the Wii U.³ But Nintendo accidentally added an extra ingredient—a freeform construction mechanic from Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts! Thus, Tears of the Kingdom was born! From there, after a cutesy remake of Link's Awakening, Nintendo introduced the world to Echoes of Wisdom, which sparked endless debates about UI design. While Echoes of Wisdom was a fusion of classic dungeons and freeform puzzle solving, Nintendo is now responding to outcries over the last decade with the reveal of the Ocarina of Time remake and probably made at least one grown man cry.

Jokes aside, the flat circle of time wraps around again. Ocarina of Time has been released on the N64, GameCube, Wii and Wii U Virtual Console, 3DS, Nintendo Switch Online, and, now, Switch 2. There has not been a console without it, besides the Nintendo DS. There are even shades of the 3DS' launch year with remakes/remasters of both Star Fox 64 and Ocarina of Time for the handheld.⁴

The timing of this particular remake is laser-targeted on as well. Say you were seven years old when Ocarina came out in 1998. You are now 35 years old, maybe with your own seven-year-old to boot.

Say you were seven years old when Ocarina came out in 2011. You are now 22 years old.

Say you were seven years old when Breath of the Wild came out in 2017. You are now 16 years old.

Besides turning to dust with every sentence there, all of those ages are primed for a bold reimagining of one of the greatest games of all time in our nostalgia-charged consumerist world. There is also the entirely new generation of seven-year-old kids that are going to see The Legend of Zelda movie next spring and have Ocarina of Time be their first Zelda game. Brian Altano wrote about this very factor in June. I know I linked to it then, but it remains relevant.

"Imagine being a 10 year old who walks out of the Zelda movie, heads home, grabs their Nintendo Switch 2, and plays Ocarina of Time for the first time in their lives. It’s hard not to be envious of experiencing a moment like that. Also, consider this: it’s been almost three decades since the original game launched, and it seems pretty likely that a sizable number of people who played it back then now have children of their own. Hmm, if only there was a Zelda game about experiencing how the world changes from the perspective of a child and the perspective of an adult…"

Another complaint that rustled Cucco feathers was the structure of the gameplay demo. It focuses entirely on the opening areas of Kokiri Forest, the Great Deku Tree, Hyrule Field, and Castle Town. It's so simple, especially to anyone who knows those locations like the back of their hand.

But this line of criticism got me thinking about previous Zelda gameplay demos and reveals. I don't remember them being anything more than gameplay basics and early environments. Of course, memory is fickle, so I went back and watched the reveal demos for Twilight Princess at E3 2006 and Skyward Sword at E3 2010. I encourage you all to go watch those segments.

I hate to break it to you, but the demos are ostensive. You've got your basic controls, tiny new mechanics, and core principles explained. Both show off aiming a bow and arrow on the Wii for Reggie's sake! There is one element that is leagues different from the gameplay demonstration for the new remake.⁵

The entire industry has lost surprise, delight, and showmanship ever since Nintendo trailblazed the "direct" approach with manicured presentations. There's a loss of energy, the kind that crackles over the waves as we surf the web—imagine the loss of the energy of being in the room.

Both the E3 demos had failures, hitches, and bugs. Their charm prevailed under pressure and communicated that it was indeed a live demo. In 2026, there is zero chance the remake demo fails. It is framed exactly how Nintendo wants to present its game.

We do get glimpses of that live Nintendo charm. Eiji Aonuma playing a real ocarina to playing an ocarina in the game is the stand out example.

In all this waxing poetic about live presentations, I had an idea. I wanted to see if I could elicit the feeling of an E3 reveal. Could I take you back to a world where the game's leak didn't rob us of some joy and Nintendo revealed it with pizazz? I thought I just might be able to by taking the legendary Twilight Princess reveal and mashing parts of the Ocarina of Time remake trailer in its place.

I may be biased, but I think it hits.

There was a similar time in my life with another video game remake. Last time I wrote about Ocarina of Time, I closed the article out with my memory of witnessing the reveal of the Final Fantasy VII remake:

"Speaking of Final Fantasy VII remake, I remember sitting in a movie theater in that summer of 2015. I had never played Final Fantasy VII. I had no clue what was happening. But I remember the eruption at the reveal and the news that it was a remake. I don't recall leaks or rumors, but perhaps there were. All we got was a CG cutscene in a very Tetsuya Nomura way. There was no gameplay. No date. It didn't come out for another five years. The other parts are still coming out to this day."

Then I get to thinking about other remakes of timeless classics and the reaction to their existence. I don't remember backlash for Shadow of the Colossus or Demon's Souls or Metroid Prime Remastered. I do remember backlash for The Last of Us Part I, but that's the curse of greatness, right? It was before my time, but there doesn't seem to have been backlash to Resident Evil's remake (my beloved ReRe) as a GameCube exclusive! I certainly don't recall negative reactions to Resident Evil 2 or whatever release of Skyrim we are on now.

Friend of the blog, Tomas Franzese, wrote about how there is "no right way to make a remake" in his newsletter Remastered.

"There’s no one “correct” way to handle a remake, because each remake exists somewhere different on a spectrum with a slightly different interpretation of what being a remake means...

...Not every remake is going to be for you as a player, but it is going to be for someone. What matters most to me is that the developers have a clear vision of their wants for a remake, and execute upon that. I might not agree with every choice they make, but the game industry is better off when developers are bold enough to execute a remake exactly how they see fit."

Not everything is for you or me—that includes every entry in one of the most beloved gaming series ever conceived. They can be! Or they can be for the kid who first played the remake on 3DS. Or the kid going to the movie theater with his parents, who played the game series when they were a kids. Or the kid that opens a new Nintendo console on Christmas morning.

We are becoming old enough to realize that the hobby and industry we love is not chock-full of innovation at every release; where every game we touched offered something not just new, but unknown to us. Revolutions are few and far between. We are older and wiser, perhaps jaded—but wisdom is a gift that we can no longer trade for youth. Much like Link himself at the end of Ocarina of Time—there is no going back, not really. We may only march forward, but we have a choice in our posture. I miss the reveals, the pomp and circumstance of it all. I miss being surprised and delighted. I don't miss Ocarina of Time—I miss the way it made me feel. I think this remake is going to stir up those feelings and more this fall. For that, I am all aboard.

Bring on murderous, hangry Samus Aran baby. I love the timeline we are in to get a new 2D Metroid game in four months. Here's the pitch from the official site:

It’s eat or be eaten!

Take control of Samus Aran, a renowned bounty hunter ambushed by unknown attackers and marooned on an unfamiliar moon.

Gather your arsenal, navigate a maze of corridors, hunt down powerful bosses, and use your newly awakened Metroid instincts to devour your foes.

You’ll need to strike quickly and aggressively with beams, missiles, and more—lest you become the enemy’s next meal.

And are you kidding me with this Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon-esque key art?!? Come on!

And the key art isn't the only sick art. These are just a handful of screenshots I decided to download. I love the western/samurai flare these enemies that are hunting Samus have going on.

Ravenous is vibrant, techno, and slick as all get out. I am here for all of it—talking Samus included. Hey, I liked Metroid: Other M.

"The other big problem: Those sites rate a game once, at launch, and then never really touch it again. But that's not how games work anymore. A game can launch rough and get patched shortly after, but on Metacritic and OpenCritic it carries that scarlet letter forever."

This makes a lot of sense from the guy who said his studio was in danger when their early access title was "review bombed."

There is quite the page explaining how the aggregation works, but the gist seems to press the scales in favor of current Steam reviews, while critics, creators, and other aggregators take a smaller slice of the the total. Outlets are also rated and weighed by their alignment to those Steam reviews.

I think this approach makes a ton of sense given the current score-focused market and the malleable nature of games post-launch. Games like No Man's Sky or the PC port of The Last of Us Part I are much improved or, in the case of No Man's Sky, are wildly different than their launch vision. Therefore the scores today are wildly different than they would have been at launch. But, who is reading a ten-year-old review of No Man's Sky before purchasing it today? I'd argue no one is.

Video Games Critic is a site really trying to "math" the current apparatus of criticism and opinion. When the system is built upon and thrives off scores, then a website amalgamation like this is the natural byproduct. This is the shining example of why I don't score reviews and haven't since my days at DualShockers. The score is just a glanceable race to the bottom of criticism. Why is someone with a user name like "BingoBongoBosh" and "Fruitpunch22" have more weight than a John Linneman or a Ralph Panebianco (Skill Up)? They don't.

It'd be like going to the Amazon reviews section for the new iPhone and using them instead of reading John Gruber's review or watching Austin Mann's iPhone camera review. You'd be putting a whole lot of faith in that public review system. They can offer a pulse, but I'd argue they lack thought out criticism.

Scores are the problem and Video Games Critic exemplifies that. One of the explainers for score calculation captures it perfectly.

"Reviewers have never used the full 0 to 100 range: a "7/10" is press-speak for mediocre, and even weak games get a 6."

I don't think you can math your way out of this one.

It is funny how opinionated the design is for a site set out to minimize written opinion. You need opinionated design for something like this and I applaud the design. It's clean and ad-free and the explanations are transparent in their technicality.

If scores are your thing and you aren't just jumping straight to those Steam reviews, I think this is the site you want to use.

I've dabbled with vibe coding for some projects on this here blog. The other week I tried to make a little Mac app for work to help with converting files into markdown. It too did not go well...

...The LLM's are so confident in their accuracy, yet so wrong that it creates this maddening loop of sharing errors that make no sense to the vibe coder and an over confident stack of GPUs somewhere proclaiming their accuracy. It is a vicious cycle that isn't what the AI elite would have you believe.

What a difference a year makes; in both the functionality and my opinion.

I see more and more people building tiny apps tailored for their needs and workflows. Websites, dashboards, menu bar apps, etc. etc. are all within reach to make a person's life better in some way.

That conversion process is a breeze now for work. I've made DDDS, a 3DS capture tool designed for the Mac, which never was going to exist without access to tools like this. It's what is allowing me to make an OBS replacement for myself. AI and vibe coding has turned into an empowering toolset.

I so often see strong opinions about the use of AI as the times dictate. Just today Time Extension ran a story about Star Fox modders parting ways over a conflicting stance of using AI to write the code versus assisting. When I pop on Bluesky I see such dissent for AI in any aspect of the video game industry. It matches what John Gruber wrote last month in Bluesky is Full of Anti-AI Zealots:

The reaction on Bluesky to my recent work is like nothing else. It’s largely in the vein that watermarking can’t possibly make AI-generated text worse because it’s already random gibberish, and that the only explanation for my being opposed to this is that I must be using AI to produce my own writing and I’m upset that my scheme will soon be detectable. Read the replies to this one; they speak for themselves.

But then I talk to my developer friends, tech podcasters, and the like and AI is now instrumental in their bug chasing and development. The reactions and audiences are so split and divisive that I often feel quite torn.

One comment on DDDS had a user suggesting I take the time to learn and rewrite the app with non AI generated code. There is just not a world where I can do that. The most coding experience I took in school was HTML and CSS. I don't have the time or expertise to learn math and computer science with my life. But AI has given me the capability of directing development. It has brought to life a tool that has made my life and others better in a small way.

It is an emotional conversation that is wrought with tension. I find myself wrestling with it quite bit having one foot in the gaming community and another in the tech space at large. When I saw this article pop-up in the Previously On section, I didn't anticipate a reflective piece beyond the whole "look how far vibe coding has come" angle. Today, I am (obviously) on board. I suppose we shall see how far it all changes in a year.

Join us next week for two Nintendo Direct presentations!

• The Legend of Zelda 40th Anniversary Direct on Sept 8 at 7am PT (Approx 30 mins)
• Nintendo Direct on Sept 9 at 7am PT (Approx 45 mins)

Sony gives us two mediocre State of Plays yesterday.

Nintendo said hold my Lon Lon Milk.

Trading Pokémon between an original GBA and a Switch 2 😎😲

My GBA-to-Switch trade adapter is working!

Still plenty of work ahead, but seeing a real GBA communicate and trade with the Switch is pretty incredible.

Drewworks on Twitter shared a video of little board connecting a Game Boy Advance to a Switch 2 to trade Pokémon between the FireRed and LeafGreen games. There is hope for the OG trainers out there that still play on GBA for after Pokémon Bank shuts down next year.

I wish The Pokémon Company would make an adapter like this, but the cost and potential sales are likely far, far too low for that level of effort from the company. It's far cheaper and far more lucrative for them to port the GBA games to Switch. It makes perfect sense and is what I'd do. It is nice to see that the community will come up with solutions for the few of us stuck in the old ways. If only the DS and 3DS games were on Switch and this kind of toll could be made.

Apple News+ Link

Gene Park at The Washington Post had a column where he interviewed different developers and writers about good video game writing. Neil Druckmann was one of the interviewees and some good tidbits came up about The Last of Us.

"Druckmann said in 'The Last of Us Part II,' the game initially had an open-ended structure similar to 'Yotei,' giving players choices on how to deal with people throughout postapocalyptic Seattle. The initial game design included letting players choose whether to raid supplies from strangers.

'And maybe later you find out you killed some innocent people,' Druckmann said. 'As we were thinking about the story we wanted to tell, this mechanic which was really cool, we thought Ellie wouldn’t do that. The choices we’re giving you as a player don’t match the character we want you to play as. ... Something has to give, and in that case, the gameplay gave.'"

If you think about the Ellie's bare bone goal in Part II, you can envision this scenario of "choose your own W.L.F." in that open Seattle environment. It certainly would track for the broader industry trends at the time, but it would have given the players the wrong kind of agency for Naughty Dog's "on the stick approach" that I have written about for years. Their goal was always to put you in the shoes of the character you were controlling, not to make the character fit inside your kicks.

It makes me wonder what the approach for Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet will be. Based off the only trailer we have, Jordan A. Mun is hunting down is hunting down a very specific group of bounties on a mysterious planet. Is there agency to pick the bounty that gels with the gameplay? What came first in this new IP—the gameplay or the narrative?

Back to Part II though and this almost mechanic of raiding supplies, Druckmann said "And maybe later you find out you killed some innocent people," which I find funny considering they still explored this with the overall narrative and the chronology's structure. In the Remastered-exclusive "Chronological Mode," this is all but removed.

Park then asked about writing for TV compared to video games, which Druckmann did for HBO's iteration of The Last of Us. Unsurprising, this chunk is the most quoted from the piece.

"'I wasn’t involved in shaping this season’s creative direction, and Naughty Dog did not have a creative role in the direction of this season. So I can’t personally speak to how production is progressing,' Druckmann said. 'It’s important for us to note that as the creator of the games, Naughty Dog is still the steward of this IP and even though this might be the end of this adaptation, we’re not done with ‘The Last of Us.’ There’s a couple projects in the works that, when the time is right, I’m very excited to talk about.'"

The obvious project in the works is The Last of Us Part III, but who knows how far away that will be if Intergalactic comes out next year. A lot of folks seem to have taken this quote to be referring to the third game, but I'd like to remind people that Naughty Dog stewards a lot of TLOU-related projects. While I do believe the third game is in some form of pre-production, I also know these projects in the works could be board games, puzzles, or a cookbook. I am not holding my breath, but Druckmann views marketing as a part of the game and I'd classify this tease of a tease as marketing.

The last tidbit was a fun encounter at the Primetime Emmys:

"The comparison to 'Succession' may be apt here. Druckmann recalled the Primetime Emmys night, where his show lost against HBO stablemate 'Succession' in several categories. At the HBO after-party, Druckmann introduced himself to 'Succession' star Kieran Culkin. Culkin put his hand on Druckmann’s shoulder and said, 'Let me ask you this, did you actually play the game before you worked on it?'

Druckmann smiled and said he made it. Culkin pulled his wife, Jazz Charton, over and said, 'This guy he says he made ‘The Last of Us.’' Charton recognized Druckmann immediately: The couple had just finished playing the second game, and Culkin raved about the 'emotional roller coaster' of a story that made him so upset, he had to go for a walk.

'It’s pretty incredible there’s another artist somewhere out there appreciating the thing we’re making,' Druckmann said."

Pretty incredible flex to be able to say "I made it" to Kieran Culkin.

And while not a quote from Druckmann, I liked this one from Evan Narcisse:

"(Evan Narcisse) quotes a phrase he’s heard from game designers: 'Words are the cheapest things to put in a video game.'"

"Mr T explains why he’s late, but he wants to make one thing clear – this is not an apology. 'You caught me in my devotion, and nothing comes before God. So I won’t say I apologise for the delay. I just want you to know that God comes first in all my life. For allowing my success, I give God the glory.'

He is here to discuss a new Netflix documentary, Untold Mr T: I Pity the Fool. At 74, he rarely gives interviews. But when Mr T decides to talk, he really does talk. What Mr T thinks, Mr T says. And I’ve never heard anyone trash the very thing they’re here to promote quite like Mr T does today.

I learned a whole lot about Mr T in this here read. He's got the character of a man I wouldn't have assumed. That's on me and the Hollywood machine that Mr T has extracted himself from, which is so deftly presented in this feature. But man oh man, if I was the author Simon Hattenstone, I would have been so giddy when this little message popped up.

"A message is flashing on my screen from the Netflix rep, who is listening in on the interview, pleading with me to change the subject. But Mr T isn’t quite done."

I pity the fool at Netflix indeed.

"'See, if I’ve got God I’ve got all I need anyway. All I wanted to do is done – buy my mother a house and pretty dresses. I am complete. I. Am. Complete. All right brother, God bless you.'"

I have been using CleanShot for six years now. It's so vital to my Mac workflows that when I use a Mac without it, the computer feels broken.

This new Studio Mode for recording screen captures and the like is exactly what I need and will instantly replace Screen Studio, which never felt great as an editor and had ridiculous export times. We shall see if CleanShot's native claims and export times stand.

Audacity is a staple of the audio editing space. It is hard to beat powerful and free. Audacity was (and likely still is) the entry point for editing a podcast. I used it up until starting The Max Frequency Podcast, I believe. That was some thirteen or so years of working with Audacity.

The new version looks great. Immediately, I saw you could drag clips over and past one another, to which I let out a "finallllllyyyyy". The shifting delete to keep tracks in sync when you remove a clip is a slick move. If Logic Pro went away tomorrow, I think I'd happily return to Audacity with this new version.

Friend of the blog, Razbuten, has put out a new video that resonated with me. I also miss the late night LANs and gaming sessions with friends. The contentedness of sitting and watching a friend play. I struggle with the pressure of always recording; of always thinking of how this game can turn into something else.

It's a good video and one you should take a gander at.

Last time was an unexpected pivot. In the days since, I am glad I made the move. Funny enough I have touched the app since. It has been a particularly busy season in my family's life and I have been focused elsewhere.

I thought today I could share why I am making myself a "replacement for OBS" and a snapshot of where the app is at in its development.

A few weeks ago I was working on my piece about How I Record My Gameplay from 24 Consoles. I got to the "Software" section and originally wrote this:

"...what do I use to record it?

OBS unfortunately.

OBS is great, powerful free software. It's remarkable. But, man, I loathe using it. Such an awful interface and experience...

...Maybe one day there will be a robust Mac-focused application for capturing gameplay."

Typing out that last sentence bummed me way out. It felt like waving a white flag of surrender. I was admitting in writing that there was nothing better than the default and the default was bad. And by bad I don't mean incapable or non-functioning, but rather it's ugly and unnecessarily complex. Software should be complex and allow for complex workflows without being convoluted and messy. Every time I'd come back to OBS after a period, I'd end up going to YouTube and typing "best OBS settings Mac recording 20XX" and following the recommended settings blindly. That should not be the default.

Around the same time, I was working on and released DDDS, which is a capture app for modded 3DS consoles. It's my replacement for cc3dsfs, of which I had similar complaints to OBS. After raising the white flag, the idea grabbed hold that perhaps I could do the same thing to OBS in my workflow.

I wrote that draft on August 7 and three days later I had a something working.

Three weeks later and we are in a much better place.

There's a lot I have put in the app that I am eager to share. Right now though I wanted to share where the process is at generally and the other reason why I am making this.

I thought I could ship this around right now actually, but I have decided to take it much slower and live with the app. One of my personal tests/goals is to record an entire game with it. That feels like a real life kind of test. So I am in bug squashing mode and am writing documentation. Now that discipline is in my wheel house. It's fun writing documentation for an application I care about on a personal level.

The other reason why I am taking my time is that I plan on selling this app. And I want it to be the kind of app I would pay for—and I am a picky app purchaser. If there has been one lesson I have learned throughout 2026 it is that I need to provide more for my family. With that, creators don't just sit around making one thing in hopes that the one thing becomes a hit. They make, explore, and publish all sorts of things. I have to branch out, take risks, and help my family more—especially as we continue to try and grow. I believe this app (which really needs a name) can be one avenue for that.

I know it sounds preposterous. I have these internal conflicts all the time about how I am using AI to create the app and then charging for that. I'm no stranger to using AI as an intentional tool. What I lack in straight up coding knowledge, I think I make up for in design direction, functionality that actually helps, etc. I am directing. I know this app has the features and tools I would have loved over the last thirteen years.

So that's where the app started and where it is currently at. Next time should be less philosophical and more practical. Promise.

Until next time...

• Download (45MB) — Episode Transcript

Show Notes

Four Years is a Long Time

• Naughty Dog Cancels The Last of Us Online
• PlayStation's Live-Service Initiative Could Not Have Gone Worse - Jason Schreier

PSN Hack 2.0 and the All-Digital Future

• Mr. Meaty
• Sacred Symbols #412 The Disguise It, Hypnotize It
• Joshua Khane's Microsoft account deletion
• PS5 consoles show adult games as recently played, raising PSN security issue - Notebookcheck
• #130 The Snapchat Thief - Reply All
• Sony Announces the End of Physical Games
• Hackers Are Likely Responsible For The Last Of Us Part II Leak - Kotaku
• Jurassic Park Classic Games Collection Delisted
• Syrup Engine Looking into PS3 Games
• We've Played The First PS3-Emulated Game For PS5 - Digital Foundry
• PS3 Emulation On PS5 Tested: Killzone, MotorStorm, GTA4 and Many, Many More - Digital Foundry
• Details of MLB's proposed salary cap and floor system
• EU Welcomes Apple's App Store Changes, Epic Slams 'Junk Fees' - MacRumors
• Xbox Announces Disc-to-Digital Plan
• Where Did the Price Drops Go
• PlayStation 3, Now $299
• It is Time for Hermen Hulst to Go
• 2026 is Gonna Pop Off, Right?
• Wasting a Generation – Sony's Live Service Graveyard

Colin Moriarty

• Last Stand Media Patreon
• Last Stand Media YouTube
• Twitter/X @longislandviper

Max Frequency - Max's home online

Chapter Select - A seasonal, retrospective podcast where we bounce back and forth between a series exploring its evolution, design, and legacy.

Max Roberts' Video Essays - A YouTube channel dedicated to Max's video essays on games.

It has been a minute, hasn't it? My next essay was not "a combination of another striking moment in Journey and save files on my copy of A Link to the Past named 'GRAMPS' and 'FARTR.'"¹ Instead, I workshopped my previously canned essay about how I Played God of War: Ragnarök Wrong (and you probably did too). After that, I started reworking my mythical Memento and TLOUPII script, but along the way I got distracted.

Before I published my Ragnarök essay, I built an app—perhaps "directed" is a more apt term. I directed the creation of DDDS, a macOS app for capturing your modded 3DS. It's what I always wanted in an app like this that no developer was ever going to make for the Mac. If you are inside the niche of Mac users with a modded 3DS console, this is for you.

Since the end of July, I have been distracted from essay work. I was making a different Thing™ and the guilt of not addressing this very, very small audience here in Memory Card land was weighing on me. I have considered shuttering the whole newsletter—again—and chalking it up to another failed creative experiment. I almost did it. Then I got to thinking about the "slogan" or "manifesto" of Memory Card.

"Memory Card is a real-ish time, raw, drip feed newsletter of my creative process for telling stories. It’s how The Thing™ gets made.

I am a huge lover and believer in sharing the creative process. After each major project and at the end of the year, I write big behind-the-scenes and retrospective posts. Memory Card is a regular, raw drip feed of my creative process and where I am currently at. It's how The Thing™ gets made. The big breakdowns will still happen, Memory Card is a more personal real-ish time version of those."

The creative process is messy. It has highs and lows. It changes and is modified and alters direction. It's not a rigid thing, but malleable. And right now, where my attention is being spent, is a new and different creative endeavor. It's video essay adjacent, but not the focus at this particular juncture in my creative journey.

If that's outside the purview of why you signed up, I understand. You can unsubscribe at the bottom of this here letter and no hard feelings will be felt.

Right now, my attention is all on making another app. One that meets the needs I had a decade ago when I was making video game guides. An app with the features I wish I had when recording gameplay for essays. Software that helps and delights by capturing those special gaming moments.

I'm building myself a replacement for OBS.

And I think it can be that replacement for other Mac users too.

So I think I am going to start sharing about that app and its creation process here. I hope you'll join me as I figure out this new Thing™.

A screenshot you can hear...

Seriously happy I caught this moment the other day while testing.

Until next time...

Previous attempts involved aiming a point and shoot camera at a tube TV. This capture card paved the way for my to make better videos, get a gig writing guides for IGN, and to become obsessed with video quality, resolution, and more.

Nowadays, I am capturing video from tons of game consoles all the way up to 4K120. It's amazing to look back the last decade and see how the capabilities have expanded. It's a ton of footage, which is why I created The Max Frequency Library, a YouTube channel dedicated to high-quality, no commentary gameplay for anyone to use.

In light of all that, I thought it would be both cool and helpful to share just how I capture all this footage. I've come a long way from recording to a USB stick on my 11'' MacBook Air. I'll share the entire process from start to finish, going over all my gear, tools, and tips. I hope it helps you figure out how to record your own gameplay and gives you ideas for your setup. So without further ado, let's dig in.

Why Are You Capturing Gameplay?

Okay. Maybe a little more ado. Before we go down the rabbit holes of gear, cables, and bitrates, we need to answer the questions of why and what: "Why am I capturing this gameplay?" and "What do I have now?"

Are you trying your hand at Digital Foundry-style analysis? Is this for your budding video essay project? Perhaps you want to study and present various game design principles? Do you want to livestream?

Depending on what you are doing will determine the kind of set-up you need. Streaming doesn't need all the resolution, but that technical analysis might.

The question of what gear you have on hand right now is vital.

Never let gear be the deterrent from creating.

You have what you need, likely in your pocket. Our modern cellphones have marvelous camera—much better than the Canon Powershot A710 IS I used to record my Mario Kart Wii Review way back in 2008. When I didn't have the means to record DS games, I mounted my iPhone and shot top down footage.

Look at what you have and how you can leverage it to make your project come to life. As your gear gets better, your options get more diverse, but it won't make the creation itself better. That responsibility rests with you.

With that out of the way, up first is all the gearrrrrr.

The Gear

I know I just said gear should not be the deterrent and don't let it get in the way blah blah blah. Sound advice. But I love gear. I figure you do too. I'll work my way through it all by going from consoles to capture. You can't record gameplay without some games to play.

Currently, I have 24 consoles hooked up and ready to record. All the way from the Nintendo Entertainment System to a PlayStation 5 Pro.¹ The entire goal of this is to make recording gameplay as easy as turning on the console and pressing record. I have optimized to reduce friction as much as possible. There is a metric ton of cables that go into hooking them all up to my main TV (a 55'' LG C1 OLED), but it's probably best to categorize them as "Analog Consoles" and "HDMI Consoles." This segmentation provides a fairly clear line of what daisy chain of cables, splitters, switches, and scalers I'll need to get the console video signal into the capture card for recording. Here's a diagram I made in April 2026 after I rearranged everything.

Cables! All of my analog video systems are using component cables, either from the original console manufacturer or HD Retrovision. The lone exception is my N64, which is using an Insurrection Industries S-Video cable. These red, green, and blue cables provide the cleanest signal for my set-up without going down the SCART rabbit hole. All of these component cables don't feed directly into the TV mind you, instead they go into my Extron Crosspoint Switcher. This bad boy has eight inputs and four outputs, allowing me to feed in my analog consoles and simultaneously display them on four screens.

Over in HDMI Land, those consoles have cables that match their relative spec. This matters the most with the Xbox Series X, PS5 Pro, and Switch 2, needing the highest speed HDMI 2.1 cables for the full suite of 4K 120Hz VRR HDR shenanigans that modern gaming is capable of producing. Just like my analog consoles, these feed into a couple of HDMI switches that turn a bevy of HDMI cords into one single output, perfect for feeding directly into my scaler or splitter.

With this range of video game consoles comes a gamut of resolutions. To make all of these work seamlessly with capture cards and my TV, I need a scaler to bring the non-4K consoles up to the modern times. My scaler of choice is the RetroTINK-4K Pro, but you cannot go wrong with any of the RetroTINK products—that new RT6X CE looks great and at an even better price point!

One of my Extron Crosspoint outputs goes straight into the TINK over a HD-15 cable; this feeds in all my analog consoles. On the sub-4K HDMI side, everything feeds into the TINK over an HDMI cable from two HDMI switches daisy chained together. Those two cables into the TINK and one cable out gives 17 of my 24 consoles razor sharp 4K output. chef's kiss

The single output cable goes into specific HDMI splitter to take full advantage of the video features like VRR and 120Hz. This Monoprice Blackbird 8K Dual Function Splitter/Switch lets me take a single HDMI 2.1 input and send it to two outputs: one to my television and one to my capture card. This keeps the modern 4K120 consoles connected and have a final split for everything else. I have to hot swap in the higher end consoles (I don't have a switch with enough inputs, but I have had my eye on this UGREEN one). The splitter also means that I can play on my television regardless if I am capturing or not. The friction is nonexistent for play or capture.

The Capture Card

This is the piece of gear vital to the whole thing, right? These days I used an AVerMedia GC553262 Live Gamer Ultra 2.1, which is capable of 4K120 in the realm of macOS and a little more if you can stomach Windows 11. It's not my favorite card and the software support from AVer on macOS is abysmal. Their app still runs through Rosetta 2. I also seem to be having an issue getting video out the the output HDMI port, but I need to test further.

For twelve years I used Elgato capture cards, until a slew of technical issues and their continued focus on forcing functionality behind software.² Their capture cards are good, but I am not a fan of the overall software direction the company is going. I may have to return to Elgato if this Live Gamer Ultra is already flaking out.

A slightly cheaper option I do have lying around is the GENKI ShadowCast 3 Pro, which can record 4K60, but at launch had some colorspace issues. They are still present. It seems to be a totaly mismatch of the color range by my estimate. GENKI has provided no updates for the card. One reddit user suggested suggested recording at a lower resolution as a possible fix.

The Computer

These days I am fortunate enough to have two very capable Mac computers. I have a M2 Pro MacBook Pro and a M3 Ultra Mac Studio, so I am not sweating framerates and resolutions when it comes to capture.

This has only been a recent change in the last year. Until these monstrous machines entered my life, I was rocking lower end Mac computers. I started out with an 11'' MacBook Air. I'd elevate the laptop on DS game cases to improve air flow. This is the machine I used to write the bulk of my guides for at IGN. Just look at that first photo—I had a fan pointing at the laptop too! I pushed that little machine so hard because I believed any Mac could do anything.

In 2017, I was given a 15'' MacBook Pro as a graduation present before I bought a M1 iMac in 2021 that served me well until it was passed along this year.

Again, you do not need the rip roaringest computer to record your gameplay. Don't let big prices stop you from creating. To be clear, I am not saying go into debt, but to use what you have! If I can create guides and videos for the world's largest gaming site on that tiny MacBook Air, you can too.

Software

So I have gameplay footage from the console to the capture card, but what do I use to record it?

OBS unfortunately.

OBS is great, powerful free software. It's remarkable. But, man, I loathe using it. A crammed, complicated, and wrought experience that comes at the cost of being multiplatform.

On the other hand, it is much better than official company software like Elgato's or (I assume) AVer Media's application. I can't test that one on macOS.

I've tried Meld, but didn't care for it.

So I decided to take the lessons I learned in the creation of DDDS and I am building my own macOS-focused capture app. I don't have a name yet, but I think it is shaping up quite nicely. You can capture in 4K60, take notes, snap screenshots, record "hidden" commentary tracks, and have a rolling buffer of footage. It's the app I wished I had when I wrote guides. It's the app I want when I record for a video essay. I'll make sure to come back here and update the article when the app is live.

My PS3 bit the dust, so I have been redownloading a lot to a new slim I just bought.

Edge Cases

There are a couple of platforms that exist outside of the capture card route because of their lack of HDMI out—the portable consoles. I have native solutions for the Game Boy line of consoles thanks to the Game Boy Player hardware. My PSP and Vita are served by the Vita TV. That only leaves the Nintendo DS, 3DS, and the Meta Quest 3S.

I could (and have!) streamed my Meta Quest to an old Chromecast and captured that, but for high-res, native capture there's a developer account and app song and dance you have to partake in. It's available if I want, but I rarely do it.

As for my DS and 3DS, earlier this year I finally sent my 3DS to be modded for USB-C capture. Up until last month, the only way to record that footage was OBS and recording the screen with what cc3dsfs output. That was too much friction for me, so I built DDDS as a native Mac app for playing and recording your modded 3DS. I get pin sharp DS and 3DS footage, right from the app, no need for capture cards or screen recordings. I am quite proud of this app.

Wrap-Up

That's the whole flow. More than the gear though, I hope the philosophy and practice behind how I capture helps and inspires you. I know how easy it is to get stuck in the trap of looking at other creators and thinking "Well, if I had their gear I'd make the best stuff out there!" I have coveted the best and it never works out for me. That kind of mindset is detrimental to creating.

My hope with this article is that it has inspired you and given you new ideas. I also hope it answers some technical questions. It's hard to figure all this stuff out when you are just starting. May my years of experience help you get a jumpstart.

Resources

My Life in Gaming

My pals Coury Carlson and Marc "Try4ce" Duddleson have been making videos on My Life in Gaming for ages. I always go to them first for advice and research on the options available for the sharpest picture out of a console. Their RGB Masterclass series is instrumental.

Mach Nacho Productions

My favorite modder on YouTube. Wonderful guides and explorations of that side of retro gaming.

Retro RGB

The source for retro gaming news and guides.

RetroTINK

One stop shop for all your upscaling needs.

I have never seen real-time rendering like this in a game. This is what 13 years, "unlimited" money, and Rockstar's developers can do.¹ Goodness gracious.

I love the clear Die Hard and Heat vibes. The minutia and groundedness reminds me a lot of Red Dead Redemption II, a game that I adore.

The leaks of the past couple of weeks compared to this official look is a great reminder that the real deal is always worth the wait.

I vividly remember the midnight launch of GTA V. The parking lots were filled with college students being I went to a Best Buy near UCF. I remember the news that the game broke $1 billion in three days. I suspect this will do it in one.

Players have spent decades building their XBOX libraries. Some games were purchased on disc. Some were purchased digitally. Many span multiple generations of hardware.

Our goal is to make it easier for those libraries to move forward with players.

If only another company felt this way...

"Most XBOX One and XBOX Series X disc-based games support this new feature. Players can claim a digital entitlement by inserting a supported disc into an XBOX One or XBOX Series X console and launching the game. Once the entitlement is claimed, you can experience the benefits of digital, including XBOX Play Anywhere and XBOX Cloud Gaming where supported, while your physical disc continues to work exactly as it always has."

This reminds me of buying a physical movie anytime in the last 15 years. Most Blu-Ray/4K movies bundle a digital code for the movie and even the lesser format.¹ Letting us play a digital version of the physical game makes sense and is very in line with the "play anywhere" approach Xbox has devised over the last two generations.

This system Xbox has cooked up seems to depend on some sort of unique identifier tied to each individual disc. From the leak last month, Tom Warren at The Verge said:

"This digital entitlement is tied to the specific disc, and it will move from account to account if you swap the physical game with a friend or log in to a different Xbox profile and try to play a disc-based game."

This is presumably to prevent me from borrowing a buddy's game, getting the digital license, and then giving the game back, but keeping the digital copy. Same with grabbing a used game and returning it to the store. Somehow, the license is tied to the disc, essentially tying that disc to your Xbox account.

But don't be fooled, Microsoft can revoke said license at anytime. Here's the tiny fine print only found in the header image of the article:

Requires supported console with disc drive, and eligible XBOX One or Series X game disc. One revokable digital license per game disc. License eligibility varies and is subject to change. Disc remains playable. Terms and usage rules apply. Gears 5 sold separately (in-game purchases).

I am quite pleased with this news. It's an easy win for Xbox in light of all the physical games news from PlayStation. I wish they'd do something similar. It feels like a smack in the face to all the folks that bought a PS5 with a disc drive and bought physical games with the notion that those will not be playable on future hardware. They are breaking backward compatibility with some of their most dedicated players.

We'll see how it all shakes out for Xbox. I may try to figure out how to get in that there Insider program. I think this might be the way for me to finally get access to GoldenEye 007 with my physical copy of Rare Replay. Still absolutely ridiculous that physical owners don't get that add-on.

"Following poor feedback in private testing earlier this year, the plan now is to strip out the live-service component and turn it into more of a traditional cooperative multiplayer game with a story mode and a far smaller scope."

I should have seen the writing on the wall sooner when there was zero Hunters Gathering news around E3 summer game time. I didn't realize it was so dire for the entire Horizon franchise though. Back to Jason:

"But the majority of Guerrilla staff then moved to Horizon Hunters Gathering, a drastic departure from their previous titles both in gameplay and art style. A tiny team has been plotting out the next single-player Horizon game but it remains years away from completion, according to the people familiar with the studio’s plans."

I wanted to write about this news (obviously), but realized I already did last time in Wasting a Generation: Sony's Live Service Graveyard.

On the horizon, these feel like more "slam dunks" solely in regards to release. Fairgame$ is the only one I could see getting a preemptive axe, but I sort of feel like that would have already happened? Hermen Hulst will make any new Horizon game come out. Ghost of Tsushima Legends was a surprise hit and I assume Yōtei will also receive a multiplayer mode.

When you look back over the last five years of the PS5, it's like that meme of Death walking down the hall and behind each door is a live service ambition. In the wake of all this "death," what I think about is the squandered potential. How many single player games are years behind because of this pursuit? How many jobs were created and lost? What does it mean for the upcoming generation? How does the reaction now shift plans made months and years ago?

We will feel the ripple of this live service tangent for years to come.

It's hard to look at the proverbial corpses and the hundreds of millions wasted and think the live service initiative has been anything but a joke. There have been successes though in the tried-and-true games of MLB The Show and Gran Turismo 7, along with the surprise that is Helldivers 2. Not to mention the money Sony rakes in from transactions for games like Fortnite. Money talks and it has been saying these types of games are what make Sony money.

What has been a joke is Hermen Hulst's time as the Head of PlayStation Studios.

The decision to try and make prolific single-player studios into online multiplayer ones has resulted in titles not shipping, studios being shuttered, and wasted acquisitions. PlayStation Studios is not shipping and it all feels like Hermen's fault.

Perhaps the core first-party output matters less and less. A few months ago I wrote Retreating Behind the Exclusivity Wall and said this:

"This is good news. The bit that Xbox, PlayStation, and 20-year-old Max had wrong was that making everything available everywhere makes your platform less unique and desirable. Having your online multiplayer live service title be cross-platform makes total sense—those titles live and die by their community—but those single player titles are the lifeblood of the console."

But when you look at the data, it looks like not shipping exclusives isn't really hurting the PS5 or Sony's bottom line.

Sony said as much this summer in their Game & Network Services (G&NS) Segment Small Meeting Q&A Summary:

"Even though first-party software is a minority of the overall sales of SIE, it serves as a core reason why people enter the PlayStation experience. Our valuable IP franchises are important in increasing brand loyalty."

"Lifeblood of the console" my beloved first-party exclusives are not.

Here's the real beating heart of the console's existence.

Winning the PS4 generation was fortuitous as it established the PlayStation ecosystem as the place where customers' digital libraries exist. It's where the casual consumer buys and plays EA Sports, Roblox, Fortnite, Call of Duty, and Grand Theft Auto Online—it's where consumers are spending money on FIFA packs and MLB packs and Madden packs and V-Bucks and GTA dollars, etc. etc.

Being the default has won Sony money, position, and time. Seeing the cash flow from these, Sony is right to keep chasing the live service trend. Right now Sony reaps an automatic 30% on all of those microtransactions and digital game purchases. You know they salivate at the possibility of their own creation existing on that menu where all the revenue would land on their plate.

Their goal is to captivate your play time and money for games for a lifetime.

"The PlayStation Console is a Gateway to a Lifetime of Player Engagement and Value."

And Sony will keep moving toward this goal by removing the ability to own games and pursuing an all-digital future.

"At the same time, most of the value of our ecosystem is driven by third-party publishers, who benefit from our large install base, strong community engagement, and monetization tools. This supports a shift toward a true digital platform business."

Back to Hermen though and his role in managing the PlayStation Studios, which includes the live service efforts. In their G&NS presentation in 2024 there was this slide dividing up the studios owned at the time into their respective roles.

But this slide was not entirely truthful. A more accurate slide would have looked like this:¹

Firesprite was working on a Twisted Metal live service game. Bluepoint was making a God of War live service game. Guerrilla was working on Horizon Hunters Gathering. Bend was making a live service game codenamed "Mirror Pond." Naughty Dog was making The Last of Us Online, while a small team was working on Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet. When we look at this slide today, this is the result of Hermen's management.²

I added teamLFG since their inception happened after this slide, born from a split of Bungie team members. Sony also formed and shut down Dark Outlaw Games during this window of time, presumably another live service effort given the developers' Call of Duty pedigree. Do we need to relive Concord?³

This is a picture of mismanagement that goes all the way to Hermen. He has squandered money, position, and time the company built during the last two generations. I hope those higher up than Hermen have given him a similar window as to Guerrilla to prove his studio management chops. It is time for him to go.