Sacred Symbols, Episode 353 | Like A Worn-Out Recording of A Favorite Song

We don't make the news; we merely report and dissect it. So it's not our fault that this week's episode focuses quite a bit on some older topics come alight, starting with a new Helldivers 2 postmortem. Developer Arrowhead's CEO recently gave an interview, displaying a surprising level of accountability and levelheadedness about the ups and downs of their mega-popular game. Then, we talk a whole lot about Nintendo, because literally half of our listener inquiries this week were on the topic of Switch 2. Switch's successor is a mere months away, and while there's no doubt a lot of excitement, there also seems to exist an unusual amount of skepticism, and even anger and animosity. Will Nintendo be able to capture its first generation-to-generation success story since NES and SNES? Or are we looking at more of the same-old same-old? After, we get into rumors of yet another The Last of Us-related re-release, a mysterious physical edition at a premium price, but with contents unknown. Have we had enough, already? Other news includes data on Xbox's publishing performance on PS5, fresh sales and player numbers for the likes of Death Stranding and Atomfall, and more. Then: Listener inquiries! With the reveal of The Duskbloods on Switch 2 and because there's no Bloodborne news seemingly ever, is it clear that FromSoft has beef with Sony? Should we be worried about the survival of Ubisoft's studio Massive, and thus the future of The Division? Are physical game gimmicks getting awfully close to jumping the shark? How did we accidentally appear in a popular YouTube series about bad drivers?

Timestamps:

0:00:00 - Intro

0:12:35 - Congrats Crystal!

0:23:48 - Sacred x Idiots in Cars

0:31:41 - sugrör

0:33:15 - Colin's garden

0:34:46 - Indulgences

0:41:29 - Is Colin pissed?

0:44:17 - Listener write in exposed

0:48:46 - Shout out Barry

0:49:51 - Colin on interstitial games

0:51:26 - Nintendo Switch 2

1:39:03 - Performance of Xbox game on PlayStation

1:48:03 - TLOU special edition

1:53:25 - WB cancels HogLeg expansion

1:58:46 - Game sales

2:06:49 - Onimusha details

2:08:53 - Final Fantasy IX 25th anniversary

2:11:21 - MindsEye new trailer

2:16:25 - What Are We Playing?

2:36:51 - Helldivers 2 interview

2:48:46 - Sacred and Sony PR

2:56:38 - PlayStation and Bloodborne

3:04:55 - Is Massive Entertainment safe?

3:08:24 - What's the point of physical games?

3:20:28 - Studio system

3:22:45 - platform specific podcasts