[0:02] Hello there and a warm welcome of a sort
[0:04] to this the 268th
[0:07] edition of DF Direct Weekly. Kind of
[0:08] feels like we've done 268 in the last
[0:11] two weeks based on the amount of events
[0:13] we've had to cover, but here we are uh
[0:15] back to the regularly numbered direct
[0:17] but we are going to kick off by looking
[0:18] at Nintendo Direct. Um and joining me on
[0:22] the panel as usual now since Alex is
[0:25] still out still recovering John Linman.
[0:27] Hello.
[0:29] >> Hey Rich. Yeah, I I miss Alex a lot. I
[0:31] don't know if he'll hear this, but uh
[0:33] >> he's a great dude and uh it's been empty
[0:36] without him, but I'm glad to have you
[0:38] guys here with me today because there is
[0:39] a lot to talk about.
[0:40] >> Absolutely. And uh hello Oliver
[0:42] McKenzie.
[0:43] >> Yes. I also miss Alex and I also miss
[0:46] the days when we weren't doing five or
[0:48] six a week, but I think that's going to
[0:50] be over rather soon. I I expect.
[0:54] >> Yeah. Uh uh but before we kick off,
[0:55] first of all, I want to give a shout out
[0:56] to the amazing work that Will Jud is
[0:58] doing over at digitalfoundry.net, our
[1:00] website. If you're part of the supporter
[1:02] program, you'll get that completely
[1:04] adree just like our video downloads. Um
[1:07] lots of interesting stories happening
[1:08] there. ARM showing off its neural
[1:10] rendering suite on mobile, which is
[1:12] really really interesting stuff. Uh
[1:14] we'll actually check spoke to uh the
[1:17] developers about that. Do uh check that
[1:19] out on the site. NextG GPU rumor
[1:21] roundup. What's coming from uh Nvidia,
[1:24] AMD, and Intel, or what we think is
[1:26] happening based on rumors, and there's
[1:28] been a lot of them happening in the in
[1:30] the uh a follow-up to Computex there. Uh
[1:33] Will reviewed a $90 8K Pro controller.
[1:36] That's kind of like 8K refresh rate
[1:38] polling rate. I suspect it's for a
[1:41] display resolution. $90. but he reckons
[1:44] it's worth twi uh it's as good as
[1:47] alternatives that are twice the cost.
[1:50] And apparently we did indeed have our
[1:52] first showing or or um reveal of Intel's
[1:55] Z990 motherboard at Copyex. Now there's
[1:58] a lot of great stuff hopefully happening
[2:00] with Intel with its next generation CPU.
[2:03] So that's worth checking out as well. Um
[2:06] but that's all from us on that
[2:09] particular front. There's plenty of
[2:10] other stuff to check out there as well.
[2:12] Uh, I guess we should just crack on with
[2:14] our first news story. But first, this DF
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[3:37] Okay, so let's do it. Let's talk about
[3:38] Nintendo Direct, the last big event of
[3:40] the summer showcase season. Um, I think
[3:43] there was a general level of
[3:44] disappointment um based on what was
[3:46] actually shown there. And uh there was
[3:49] one big game that we were really looking
[3:50] forward to seeing but barely saw
[3:52] anything of. Um Oliver, you decided to
[3:55] take it upon yourself to choose the
[3:57] highlights of the show. And I guess we
[4:00] should start with Ocarina of Time,
[4:02] right?
[4:02] >> Yeah. Ocarina of Time. Interesting
[4:04] showing. I think the disappointment here
[4:06] that John or rather that Rich was
[4:08] mentioning is lies in the fact that this
[4:11] game is a title that was kind of heavily
[4:12] rumored. It's not really a big surprise
[4:14] and a leaker Nate the Hate was talking
[4:16] about this some months ago and it's been
[4:18] basically accepted wisdom that this game
[4:19] would come out at some point in the near
[4:21] future. And despite all that, Nintendo
[4:24] was revealing it with kind of all the
[4:25] panache of a developer, a publisher that
[4:29] was revealing a game for the first time
[4:30] when we already knew about this title.
[4:31] So, they really didn't show us too much
[4:33] here, unfortunately. Um, really just a
[4:35] couple seconds if I count it out now. We
[4:38] have like 15 seconds of what appears to
[4:41] be in-game real-time rendered footage
[4:43] and then a brief interstitial showing
[4:46] like a tapestry before then. So, nothing
[4:48] too exciting here. Um, but what they did
[4:50] show looks good. You know, I I saw a lot
[4:52] of people remark that Nintendo hired
[4:54] this man. And perhaps that's not quite
[4:56] fair. I think this does look quite
[4:57] attractive. Um, in this limited chunk of
[5:00] footage, we see Link sleeping, kind of
[5:02] like the beginning of the game, although
[5:04] there are some indications that maybe
[5:05] they've mixed things up a little bit
[5:06] just with uh respect to symbolism here,
[5:09] but he's sleeping. Uh, he's not
[5:12] cell-shaded, but he's obviously quite
[5:13] stylized. No TAA, no DLSS, which makes
[5:16] me think this might be an internal
[5:18] internally developed title because
[5:20] that's kind of like the visual signature
[5:21] of Nintendo so far this generation. It's
[5:23] running at 60 fps. appears to be 1440p
[5:26] in this footage based on some pixel
[5:27] counts or maybe about 1440p, maybe
[5:29] slightly higher than 1440p. Um quite an
[5:32] easy count actually uh with no AA or
[5:35] very limited post AA or something like
[5:37] that. Um quite pleasing, but I really
[5:39] want to see more. Like that's the big
[5:41] takeaway here. I really don't know where
[5:43] they would go with the remake. Would
[5:44] they make it open world, god forbid?
[5:47] Would they remix things? would they
[5:48] basically just deliver a visual remake
[5:50] of the title in line with some other
[5:51] efforts that we've seen from other
[5:52] developers where they really don't touch
[5:54] the original gameplay kind of like The
[5:55] Last of Us Part One,
[5:56] >> right?
[5:56] >> Um it's not quite clear. If it's
[5:58] Nintendo internal, I kind of suspect
[6:00] maybe they'd make more changes. If it's
[6:02] external, I would expect them to make
[6:03] fewer changes. But um yeah, very curious
[6:06] to see where this one goes, but I really
[6:08] want to see more footage. And it feels
[6:09] really weird cuz they're announcing the
[6:11] title for 2026. There's only 6 months
[6:13] left in 2026, but they're not announcing
[6:15] a date or showing any gameplay or
[6:17] anything like that. like it just seems
[6:18] like a weird way to announce the title.
[6:21] >> Interesting. We've actually got this
[6:22] supporter question which raises many
[6:24] similar questions. Um, Spotlude uh asks,
[6:28] "Hello, DF Crew. I'm intrigued to hear
[6:29] your predictions for OOT. Do you think
[6:31] it will be a pretty standard remake like
[6:33] Grezo did on the 3DS or more of a
[6:35] reimagining? Nintendo tend to not change
[6:38] the Formula X. The return of Woohoo
[6:40] Island and the countless remakes of Star
[6:42] Fox prove this, don't they? Do they,
[6:45] John?
[6:47] So, that is an interesting point because
[6:51] by and large when Nintendo does remake
[6:54] games, they tend to stay pretty true to
[6:56] the original formula.
[6:59] But I feel like in the case of Ocarina
[7:01] of Time, they if if they were to just
[7:05] stick with the original game design as
[7:07] it is or as we saw in the 3DS version,
[7:10] we would end up with a situation
[7:13] similar to and possibly even more
[7:15] egregious than uh Metal Gear Solid 3
[7:18] Delta, which I don't dislike Delta, but
[7:21] there's this weird disconnect with it
[7:23] where like all the underlying animation,
[7:25] gameplay, map design, everything about
[7:28] it is is the PS2 game, but then they've
[7:31] stuck this like super high-end visual
[7:33] presentation on top of it. And it's not
[7:36] bad, but it makes it feel weird to me. I
[7:39] never quite like that. And, you know,
[7:42] keeping an older engine running beneath
[7:44] the surface is not necessarily something
[7:46] that's an issue. Like Shadow of the
[7:48] Colossus and Demon Souls from Bluepoint,
[7:50] those games had enough like pizzazz in
[7:53] the general movement and design that it
[7:55] actually worked. But I don't think it
[7:57] would work here. And since they've
[7:59] already done the 3DS version of Ocarina
[8:02] of Time, I feel like it needs to be
[8:04] something a little bit more robust. And
[8:09] I don't think we really have a good
[8:10] blueprint for what that looks like under
[8:12] Nintendo, right? Can you guys think of
[8:14] anything that they've done where they've
[8:16] remade a game and it's significantly
[8:20] different from an original? I mean, the
[8:22] closest thing that I can think of off
[8:24] the top of my head that they published
[8:25] but didn't develop was Silicon Knights
[8:28] uh Metal Gear Solid the Twin Snakes,
[8:31] which was indeed quite different from
[8:33] the original in many many ways. Um, but
[8:36] that's not really a Nintendo game in in
[8:38] the truest sense. So, I'm not really
[8:40] sure
[8:42] if there is an example of this.
[8:44] >> Um, nothing springs to mind. I don't
[8:45] know what you think, Oliver.
[8:47] >> No, nothing really springs to mind at
[8:49] the moment. I mean, there are some
[8:51] titles that have been upgraded
[8:52] enormously visually, like Link's
[8:54] Awakening would be one, right, that we
[8:56] saw in 2019. Um, but I'm not really
[8:59] sure. I mean, and Nintendo tends to add
[9:01] when they do go back to older titles,
[9:03] they tend to add more convenience
[9:05] features, right? It's like when we saw
[9:08] the um Ocarine of Time 3D remake back in
[9:11] 2011, they added like some hint system
[9:14] to the game to smooth your experience of
[9:17] the title if you wanted to go back to
[9:19] the the home and see some hints for how
[9:21] you might progress. But in general, they
[9:23] don't really mess too much with things.
[9:25] The only thing that I would think is
[9:26] maybe pushing me in that direction is I
[9:29] think some people who are more in tune
[9:31] with the series than I am have pointed
[9:32] out some um possible inongruities with
[9:35] this sequence and a similar sequence the
[9:37] Nintendo 64 game in the Awaren Time
[9:39] remake as well. Um that suggest maybe
[9:41] they're messing up the timeline a little
[9:43] bit with this title. Um, but also if it
[9:45] is a Nintendo first-p partyy title,
[9:47] which we have a scan evidence to
[9:49] suggest, but perhaps it is, then maybe
[9:51] they would feel a little bit more
[9:52] freedom to go back and actually change
[9:54] things. Um, I'm not quite sure.
[9:57] >> Interesting. Um, well, famously, I've
[9:59] never played this game. Uh, it launched
[10:01] in a period where I just wasn't a part
[10:03] of Nintendo whatsoever, and I never kind
[10:04] of circled back to it. I was just
[10:06] looking at some footage now and
[10:08] obviously it's a game of its era and I
[10:10] suspect that just producing the kind of
[10:11] visuals that were hinted at in this uh
[10:14] I'm not even going to call it a trailer
[10:15] because it wasn't really was it? Um I
[10:18] think it's just going to be a full
[10:19] visual revamp and what more do you kind
[10:21] of want from that? I mean wasn't the
[10:23] original like 20 frames per second as
[10:25] well with very very basic um judged by
[10:27] today's standards graphics. So I think
[10:30] that would kind kind of be enough. I
[10:31] mean, um, what I don't know about it is
[10:34] certainly made up for by the fact that
[10:35] people absolutely love it, the people
[10:38] that have played it. So, I'm not really
[10:40] sure there's much to be gained from
[10:41] going beyond that. Maybe some sort of
[10:43] flourishes and and stuff like that. I
[10:45] don't know. I mean, this is the the big
[10:47] tease, right? Obviously, if it is indeed
[10:50] going to be coming 2026, we're going to
[10:52] be finding out more about it quite soon.
[10:54] Um, should we move on? Should we talk
[10:56] about Xenolade because we saw um new
[10:59] releases there, Oliver?
[11:02] >> Yeah. Yes. There are a variety of titles
[11:04] in the mix here. Probably the first and
[11:06] most exciting of these. Jeez, I guess
[11:08] it's four games that we're talking about
[11:10] in Xenolade Saga is Xenolade Genesis,
[11:14] which I think looks very good. I love
[11:16] the character models. It's very clean
[11:18] and pleasing with good cell shading on
[11:20] the character models, and the
[11:21] environments as well look quite good. I
[11:23] think they have very striking lighting
[11:24] like in that kind of interior sequence
[11:26] that we see here in the school or
[11:28] cathedral or whatever it is. Um
[11:30] definitely looks a cut above the other
[11:31] Xenolade titles and doesn't exhibit some
[11:33] of the u more worrying kind of like
[11:35] texture tiling and things like that
[11:37] we've seen in the other Xenolade titles
[11:38] necessarily. Looks quite clean. Looks
[11:40] quite good. Very pleasing open world
[11:42] title. Um some aliasing here there. It
[11:45] kind of looks a little bit like the Elus
[11:46] light almost to me because the way that
[11:48] it has very clean edges in stationary
[11:51] shots, but in motion it's a bit more
[11:52] compromised. I did count out one shot
[11:54] and it's 1440p roughly speaking. Um
[11:58] counted a couple edges on one shot. So
[12:00] appears to be a 1440p 30 title which is
[12:02] no great surprise. In terms of the
[12:04] Xenolade Chronicles Switch 2 editions,
[12:06] those are the other titles we're talking
[12:07] about. So basically they're going back
[12:09] and issuing Switch 2 editions for
[12:10] Xenolade Chronicles 1, 2, and three. all
[12:13] those titles that originally appeared on
[12:15] Switch. Xenolade Chronicles one was a
[12:17] Wii title, a 3DS title, and then a
[12:19] Switch title with a number of graphical
[12:21] enhancements. And um that's actually a
[12:24] title that I took a look at because they
[12:25] released that game. That's the first the
[12:27] three titles they were they're releasing
[12:28] here. And it actually looks quite good.
[12:30] It's very clean, crisp, pleasing, nice
[12:33] to look at. Not at all like a Xenolade
[12:35] Chronicles X, which as I'm sure John can
[12:37] remark, looked very ugly and upscaled
[12:40] and super messy. Um, I actually counted
[12:43] it out at 720p internally for Xenolade
[12:45] Chronicles one. So, it is being
[12:47] upsampled presumably with something like
[12:49] DLSS, which there is some evidence of on
[12:51] the edge artifacts that we see here. Um,
[12:54] so I'm quite pleased by this game and
[12:56] yeah, it's definitely nice to see a good
[12:59] 60fps update of a Xenolade Chronicles
[13:01] title that isn't compromised massively
[13:03] in terms of image quality. So yeah,
[13:06] across the board, I think Monolith Soft
[13:07] delivers some of the best uh Switch
[13:10] experiences in terms of their technical
[13:11] output. And these titles look to be
[13:13] reclaiming that crown after kind of
[13:16] slipping a bit with Xenolade Chronicles
[13:18] X, which was kind of a messy title on
[13:20] Switch 2, I would say.
[13:22] >> Uh yeah, I mean reclaiming their
[13:25] reputation a bit. I mean, it's it's a
[13:27] world of difference to my eyes based on
[13:29] what we saw from the prior game. John,
[13:31] thoughts? Yeah. Now, this is um one of
[13:35] the few games here at the Direct that
[13:38] actually was exciting. I do like
[13:40] Xenolade Chronicles,
[13:42] and I do think this new one, Genesis,
[13:44] looks quite excellent. I like the visual
[13:46] design. I'm a big fan of that sort of
[13:48] curved world design, right? It's
[13:50] similar, I guess, in concept to Halo or
[13:53] like the this the the world from Zone of
[13:56] the Enders where, you know, it's just
[13:58] like you traverse it, but you're like
[14:00] moving along it in a way as if it if it
[14:02] as it rises up against the horizon.
[14:05] >> And I hope that there's a way to
[14:06] actually seamlessly traverse the world
[14:08] in that sense, right? Rather than
[14:10] dividing it up into like different
[14:12] loading districts, which we don't yet
[14:14] know how it's going to play out. But I
[14:17] also like character designs. The
[14:19] animation with the terrain is better. I
[14:21] think Xenolade 1 and two always I never
[14:23] liked the way the games looked in motion
[14:25] because I especially with Shaw, he's
[14:27] basically got Kingdom Hearts shoes on.
[14:29] It's the way I always looked at it. Like
[14:31] big floppy feet and it just looks dumb
[14:33] running around the world. It never felt
[14:34] good to me.
[14:35] >> And I actually think getting that run
[14:37] cycle down is something that helps make
[14:39] a game feel good just to pick up and
[14:41] play. And it they've definitely
[14:43] improved. Xenolade Chronicles 3 was
[14:45] already a step up in that direction. So,
[14:48] uh, the upgrades I haven't really looked
[14:50] closely. Somebody did mention to me
[14:52] though that Xenolade 1 has some weird
[14:54] performance hiccups.
[14:56] >> Uh, did you see anything, Oliver? Uh, I
[14:59] saw it drop frames a few times. I was
[15:01] really just in the initial area,
[15:02] honestly. I tested it out for like 15
[15:04] minutes just to see how it was. So, in
[15:06] terms of image quality, I think it looks
[15:07] quite attractive. In terms of
[15:09] performance, that's harder to judge
[15:10] without like later game content, I would
[15:12] expect.
[15:14] Okay. Well, so yeah, I mean that's
[15:15] that's good stuff. I'm excited for those
[15:18] games for sure.
[15:19] >> Okay, Oliver. So, um Star Fox was part
[15:21] of the presentation there. There is
[15:23] actually a playable demo out now. Um
[15:25] you've taken a quick look at it, right?
[15:27] >> Yeah, just a quick look. Obviously, we
[15:29] have uh this game is coming in pretty
[15:31] soon. I think it's a June 25th release
[15:34] date if I'm not mistaken. If my memory
[15:36] isn't failing me too badly here, but
[15:38] yeah, it's very pleasing. And it's a lot
[15:39] of the same content we've seen in prior
[15:41] Nintendo showings of this title in the
[15:43] direct, but I think it looks awesome.
[15:46] The cut scenes look terrific. The
[15:47] gameplay looks great. Um, I was able to
[15:50] do a little bit more pixel counting with
[15:52] this title just to get some preliminary
[15:54] counts in the mix here. And in cut
[15:56] scenes, it is counting at 1080p. Um,
[15:58] which is kind of to be expected. That's
[16:01] kind of where I think we had counted the
[16:02] game earlier in gameplay. And the
[16:04] gameplay also counts at 1080p in my
[16:06] accounts. But interestingly, there is
[16:07] this divide between the cut scenes,
[16:09] which seem to be using some temporal
[16:10] image treatment, possibly DLSS or
[16:12] something, look very clean, very crisp,
[16:14] but 30 fps, and then the gameplay, which
[16:17] is 60 fps, but seems to be going along
[16:19] with more of that kind of Nintendo
[16:21] styling of not actually using uh much
[16:24] image treatment, if if any at all. It
[16:27] seems to maybe using I think it's using
[16:28] a post AA is my guess, based off of the
[16:31] image quality characteristics that we do
[16:32] see in these sequences. Beyond that, um,
[16:35] looks quite pleasing. I wish we saw a
[16:37] more, uh, lengthy demo perhaps because
[16:40] this is a very brief snippet of
[16:42] gameplay, unfortunately, without too
[16:45] much, um, too much in the way of like I
[16:48] would have loved to see some segments on
[16:50] Corneria, right? Some of the uh, early
[16:52] missions there. We just get like the
[16:54] sequence in the meteoride field, which
[16:56] is not that great. And then also, I
[16:57] think perhaps more interesting to us
[16:59] than any of those like preliminary
[17:01] technical details is the fact that this
[17:03] title has been confirmed to be using an
[17:05] external developer, Villain Studios.
[17:07] They also developed uh Knockout City,
[17:10] which was that kind of like I think it's
[17:11] now discontinued, but that kind of um
[17:13] MMO style title. U Mario Kart Live Home
[17:17] Circuit as well, another Nintendo title.
[17:19] Um Hot Wheels Rift Rally, a number of
[17:21] other games. And they're using their own
[17:23] internal game engine which is called
[17:25] Viper. Um, which is pretty cool. So,
[17:28] this is I guess we're kind of right in
[17:30] part in the sense that it is using
[17:32] proprietary technology, but wrong in the
[17:34] sense that it's not a Nintendo developed
[17:36] title, which I think we're kind of
[17:37] looking forward to because this game
[17:39] does exhibit some characteristics that
[17:41] would make it pretty tantalizing
[17:43] technologically for other Nintendo
[17:44] developed titles down the road, right?
[17:46] But it turns out this is internal
[17:48] technology at Villain. It's not a uh
[17:52] internal Nintendo title or Nintendo
[17:54] internal uh first-party engine.
[17:57] >> Okay. So, um John, you're very keen to
[17:59] review this. What do you want from this
[18:01] game?
[18:02] >> Well, we know that it is a
[18:03] straightforward remake, but I guess the
[18:05] most interesting thing to me is just the
[18:07] way they expand the story stuff outward
[18:10] cuz I, you know, getting a little bit
[18:11] more of that in there. The original game
[18:13] did not have like proper cutscenes in
[18:15] the same sense outside of a couple
[18:17] little segments. So, I like that
[18:19] addition. Um, and this it's just one of
[18:22] those classic games. It's fun to revisit
[18:25] many times over. So, and it is designed
[18:27] to be replayed multiple times cuz a
[18:29] single playthrough is pretty short, I
[18:31] would say, which is fine. Um, it's like
[18:34] a Panzer Dragoon game in that regard,
[18:36] >> right?
[18:37] >> Uh, but but there's many different paths
[18:39] and secrets and all kinds of stuff to
[18:41] find. And so, I'm really I'm just in it
[18:43] for the additional story stuff and the
[18:45] presentation, the visuals. And it's cool
[18:47] to learn that it is like their own
[18:49] internal engine because of everything
[18:51] that Nintendo first party has released
[18:54] on the console. It's one of the best
[18:55] looking things we've seen yet by far.
[18:57] >> Mhm.
[18:58] >> I would say.
[18:58] >> Mhm.
[18:59] >> It feels technically impressive to me.
[19:01] >> Mhm. Good stuff. Well, can I have a
[19:03] review on that soon hopefully? Oliver,
[19:06] let's let's return to your selected
[19:09] highlights. Kingdom Hearts. Lots of
[19:11] Kingdom Hearts.
[19:13] >> Kingdom Hearts. Kingdom Hearts. So
[19:15] perhaps the standout here is our first
[19:17] gameplay of Kingdom Hearts 4, which was
[19:19] announced a number of years ago.
[19:21] Obviously, the Kingdom Hearts franchise
[19:22] longunning. Kingdom Hearts 3, I think,
[19:24] came out in 2019, if I'm not mistaken,
[19:26] maybe 2018. This title has been long in
[19:29] incubation since then, but I think it
[19:31] looks pretty good here. They appear to
[19:33] be targeting a 60fps target on Switch 2,
[19:37] um, which is quite good. There's some I
[19:39] didn't get a pixel count on this, but it
[19:41] seems quite clearly low resolution.
[19:43] Maybe some reconstruction artifacts in
[19:44] the mix, some messy looking SSR, things
[19:46] like that. But 60 fps on Switch 2 for a
[19:48] current generation title. Pretty cool.
[19:51] Um, some of the city environments do
[19:52] look a little bit bare. I wonder if that
[19:54] might be touched up a little bit on some
[19:55] of the bigger consoles in terms of their
[19:57] lighting presentation or asset detail or
[19:59] anything like that, but the cut scenes
[20:01] look quite terrific here. So, some good
[20:03] signs there for Kingdom Hearts 4. They
[20:05] are also releasing Kingdom Hearts 1 to 3
[20:08] on Switch 2, which I'm glad those are
[20:11] getting a Switch 2 port. And the first
[20:12] two titles are coming to Switch One as
[20:15] well. Um, if you might recall, there was
[20:18] a Kingdom Hearts 1 to3 cloud edition for
[20:21] Switch One, which released some years
[20:23] ago, but that did not include any
[20:25] obviously native rendering on device
[20:26] itself. It was all in the cloud. And I
[20:29] don't know, it's kind of bittersweet cuz
[20:30] I'm glad that they're coming back and
[20:32] reintroducing those title those titles
[20:34] running natively on Switch One and
[20:36] Switch 2. That's terrific. But they're
[20:38] discontinuing the uh Switch One edition,
[20:41] the Switch One clouded edition, which
[20:43] is, you know, maybe fine, but they're
[20:45] also pulling the server support for
[20:47] those titles in 2027. So, it really does
[20:49] indicate when you buy these cloud
[20:51] editions on Switch or Switch 2 or
[20:53] whatever, you really don't know what
[20:54] you're getting into, right? And in some
[20:56] cases, they can pull support for those
[20:58] games sooner than expected. I think
[21:00] having support for those titles for only
[21:02] one year past the d-listing date I think
[21:04] is probably not a reasonable way to go
[21:06] here.
[21:07] >> No, that's kind of crazy. On the one
[21:09] hand, I'm kind of glad it's going
[21:11] because whenever we've tested it, it's
[21:13] just been awful. I can't believe that it
[21:15] was sustainable. On the other hand, if
[21:17] people have bought it, they deserve
[21:19] something for their time, for their
[21:20] money, basically. Um, John Kingdom
[21:22] Hearts. So, actually, weirdly, one of
[21:25] the one of the things about this that
[21:26] caught my attention is like the
[21:28] technical presentation of the Direct.
[21:31] Uh, if you actually watch the Direct as
[21:32] they showed it, uh, it was broadcast at
[21:35] 60 frames per second and there was 60
[21:37] fps content in there. And in fact, the
[21:39] logo for Kingdom Hearts 4, which is part
[21:41] of the video, is 60 frames per second.
[21:44] But guess what? The gameplay and
[21:46] everything shown in that version of the
[21:48] trailer is all 30. Yet, you guys were
[21:51] saying like, "Oh, no. It looks like 60,
[21:53] but that's only in the dedicated Kingdom
[21:56] Hearts 4 trailer. So, I was like, wait,
[21:59] did they mess it up? Like, clearly they
[22:02] delivered a 60 fps asset because the
[22:04] logo for the game is 60, right? So, it's
[22:07] not like they uploaded a 30 fps trailer,
[22:10] but why the difference? Is it other
[22:13] console footage? Like, what's going on?
[22:15] Like I really don't know cuz on
[22:16] Nintendo's official website or YouTube
[22:19] channel, they have the 60fps version of
[22:21] the of the game trailer. So
[22:24] >> really baffling to me. And it's funny
[22:27] that they would show it at 60 because
[22:29] from what I've seen, Kingdom Hearts 3 on
[22:31] Switch absolutely does not run at 60.
[22:35] It's quite bad. Uh, so, um, I would
[22:39] genuinely be shocked if they were able
[22:41] to get Kingdom Hearts 4 running at a
[22:43] stable 60 on Switch 2 when when Kingdom
[22:45] Hearts 3 can't even do that. You know
[22:47] what I mean?
[22:48] >> Yeah. I mean, it's interesting because
[22:50] now I'm going I'm pressing the uh the
[22:53] frame by frame buttons on the YouTube
[22:55] trailer and it looks like the the the
[22:57] standalone trailer, the initial
[22:58] cinematic is 30
[23:00] >> and then and then it swaps to 60.
[23:03] >> Um, that's that's kind of weird, isn't
[23:04] it?
[23:06] It's extremely weird. I I don't know. I
[23:09] don't know what's up with it, but
[23:10] >> it definitely does look like plausibly
[23:12] rough and aliased and it has issues, but
[23:16] I would concur with John that I would be
[23:17] a little surprised to see a title like
[23:19] this hit 60 fps on Switch 2, unless it's
[23:22] been architected from the ground up to
[23:24] be a 60 fp Unreal Engine 5 and it's
[23:26] using
[23:27] >> those types of features. And I just
[23:29] don't believe that they're going to so
[23:31] easily
[23:31] >> Well, we don't we don't know what
[23:32] features they're using yet, right? But I
[23:35] I otherwise. Yeah,
[23:37] >> we need we would need to look. I do see
[23:40] SSR it looks like. So, it could just be
[23:42] that. And who knows about the lighting.
[23:44] >> So, we'll see. Like maybe they'll
[23:46] surprise us. And that actually brings us
[23:48] to this uh the third party aspect of
[23:51] this show actually. And that as somebody
[23:54] that owns all platforms, uh it was a bit
[23:58] unexiting for me, but I I can see why
[24:00] some folks would be excited. Like they
[24:02] basically showed eight games that
[24:05] already exist on other platforms and are
[24:07] getting ports and then six six games
[24:09] that are upcoming that are going to be
[24:10] on other platforms as well. But hey, it
[24:13] does show third party support. But the
[24:15] one that stood out actually was Dragon's
[24:17] Dogma 2 Dark Arisen.
[24:19] >> Not only because it's like the Dark
[24:21] Arisen version, but when we first
[24:22] started talking about Switch 2, we
[24:24] admittedly underestimated that it could
[24:27] actually handle this game. And I
[24:29] maintain that the original Dragon's
[24:31] Dogma 2 that was released probably would
[24:33] not run well on Switch 2, but Capcom has
[24:36] continued to update and improve the
[24:38] game. And I can see that they've
[24:41] obviously made changes then that allow
[24:43] them to now target Switch 2 as well. And
[24:46] that's cool to see. Um, the thing is is
[24:50] like the original Dogma 2 was really not
[24:53] wellreceived, especially in Japan.
[24:56] People were really bummed out by it. So,
[24:58] and it was the same actually with
[24:59] Monster Hunter Wild. So, like Capcom's
[25:01] mostly had hits this gen, but these two
[25:02] games fell short, but this is their
[25:05] chance to sort of redeem themselves. And
[25:07] I think that may indeed be possible. I
[25:10] hope so. I'd like to see it cuz
[25:11] conceptually there's a lot still a lot
[25:13] of good stuff going on. And, you know,
[25:16] the the update of the original Dragons
[25:19] Dogma also arguably got better. So,
[25:21] we've been here before,
[25:22] >> but yeah, I'm happy to see that. in
[25:24] other re engine games. Of course, Oni
[25:26] Musha was announced for the Switch 2.
[25:29] And now I'm skeptical because that was
[25:31] also shown running at 30 FPS in the
[25:34] Direct trailer, but could it actually be
[25:37] 60?
[25:38] >> Like I don't know. Like now I don't know
[25:40] if I trust what the Direct is showing
[25:42] us. You know what I mean?
[25:44] >> Oh no.
[25:45] >> Um I would like to direct your attention
[25:47] to the 24 mark in the dark in the
[25:49] Dragons Dogma 2 Dark Arisen uh trailer,
[25:52] the standalone trailer. Okay.
[25:54] >> And uh again, move frame by frame. And
[25:57] it's it's 60 frames pers, but it really
[26:00] does look like fame gen. Sorry.
[26:04] >> I I suspect this title is unlocked,
[26:06] right? Cuz it is it is 60 fps in some
[26:09] portions and like 40 to
[26:10] >> Oh, you're right. No, I Okay, so look at
[26:12] this. You're right. The discoveries
[26:14] continue, Rich. I brought up the
[26:16] official one on the Nintendo UK channel
[26:18] and sure enough, it is like an uncapped
[26:20] frame rate. I can just see by eye
[26:22] whereas the direct itself. So, let me
[26:24] let me go to Oni Musha uh for Switch 2
[26:29] trailer. We're doing this live, folks,
[26:30] because this is this is a discovery. All
[26:32] right, so here it is. Nintendo of
[26:33] America Way of the Sword, just the
[26:35] Onimusha trailer. What do we got?
[26:38] Okay, that trailer is still presenting
[26:41] at 30. It's a 4K 60 upload, but that's
[26:44] 30. So that actually might just be 30
[26:46] fps which would be interesting cuz they
[26:49] don't usually cap their games,
[26:50] >> right?
[26:51] >> But now like we've opened up this can of
[26:54] worms guys where like you look at this
[26:56] direct and it's like you know they
[26:57] showed Stellar Blade for instance that's
[26:59] coming to Switch. I love Stellar Blade
[27:01] but that was shown at 30 fps. So now
[27:03] it's like wait I need to go check out
[27:05] the trailer. Well actually no that looks
[27:07] uncapped on the direct. My bad. Is it
[27:10] was uncapped when I looked at it. Yeah.
[27:11] Yeah.
[27:12] >> So So that one's actually that one's
[27:13] actually correct. It's just uncapped and
[27:15] >> I think it's just Kingdom Hearts. That's
[27:16] a possibly a problem there. But I
[27:19] >> Kingdom Hearts and Dark Risen because
[27:21] Dragon's Dawn also doesn't
[27:23] >> Was it 30 FPS in the direct only?
[27:25] >> Yes.
[27:26] >> Oh, okay. Yeah,
[27:27] >> it looks choppier to me.
[27:29] >> Um, yeah, I would I would also I' I'd
[27:32] certainly echo John's thoughts there,
[27:34] but but I'd have a concern overall here
[27:36] with like I am happy they're bringing
[27:38] Dragon Sign to Switch. I'm less happy
[27:40] that it seems to have a very
[27:41] inconsistent performance level that's
[27:43] like all over the place in line with
[27:44] other Capcom pedals. But yeah, what do
[27:46] you expect? Well, in this case, it seems
[27:48] to have some sequences that are like sub
[27:50] 30 fps and some that are hitting 60 fps.
[27:52] That's not too
[27:53] >> Actually, you're right. This this might
[27:55] be okay in the direct. It might just be
[27:57] Kingdom Hearts 4. I'm looking at it
[27:58] again. It's just it's just the
[28:00] performance is so unstable.
[28:02] >> Yeah. Yeah. It's
[28:04] >> there's also like um like other titles
[28:06] here that I saw that were a little bit
[28:08] unconvincing. Final Fantasy 14 appeared
[28:11] to exhibit some performance issues at
[28:12] times in the footage they did show off
[28:14] which was not too promising.
[28:16] >> Mark Triforce Detlesson who covered FF14
[28:18] also noted that it looked and ran very
[28:20] bad in that video. So that's not
[28:22] promising. And he is our resident uh
[28:24] Final Fantasy 14 expert.
[28:26] >> Right. And then also Metaphor Refantasia
[28:28] was shown in this foot in this uh set of
[28:30] trailers here. and it appears to be an
[28:32] unlocked frame rate kind of like PS5 is
[28:35] but at 1080p resolution it appears to be
[28:38] um and it looks very very rough. So in
[28:41] general like I'm I'm very happy that
[28:42] Switch 2 is seeing a lot of third party
[28:44] support but in terms of the actual games
[28:47] that are being brought over I'm seeing a
[28:48] lot of really inconsistent unpleasant
[28:51] performance trends possibly with this
[28:52] these titles. Again this is purely
[28:54] software so you don't want to judge too
[28:55] much but like you look at a title like
[28:57] Space Marine 2 and it's like did we
[28:59] really need that on Switch 2? I'm not so
[29:01] sure, especially when performance is
[29:02] going to be maybe not the best in these
[29:05] games. And with Capcom, they have a
[29:07] unique issue, which is this unlocking of
[29:08] frame rates, which I'd love to see
[29:10] addressed in some form. It's not great
[29:12] in a title like Pragmata, which is like
[29:14] 60 fps sometimes, but mostly 40 to 50
[29:16] FPS, but with a title like Dragon
[29:18] Stockman 2, which is much more CPU
[29:20] starved, I suspect it's going to be a
[29:22] much bleaker output there without a 30
[29:25] fps lock. So yeah, I just want to
[29:27] clarify there is a weird shot in that
[29:29] Dragon's Dogmouth trailer where
[29:31] something is happening there that
[29:32] doesn't look right, but the rest of it
[29:33] does look just standard unlock frame
[29:35] rate. Um, John,
[29:38] >> I was going to say uh I do think Oliver
[29:42] stuff like Space Marine 2 is like just
[29:45] interesting from a technical standpoint.
[29:47] >> Sure.
[29:47] >> And that's I I thought about this a
[29:49] little bit. So, like what makes a port
[29:50] like that interesting or not to me and
[29:53] maybe our audience kind of comes down to
[29:56] the technology behind it. If it's just
[29:58] another Unreal game, for instance, you
[30:00] can kind of presume it's just going to
[30:01] be lowering the usual settings in the
[30:05] specific way that they do and will have
[30:07] performance that's likely not going to
[30:08] be great. And that's, I think, kind of
[30:10] boring. But Space Marine 2, I believe
[30:13] that's their own in-house technology
[30:15] still. It is not Unreal. and that game
[30:18] is doing some pretty cool and different
[30:19] stuff. So, in that case, personally, I
[30:22] would find that very interesting because
[30:23] then we get to see how they adapt that
[30:25] engine to something like the Switch 2.
[30:28] And so, that's kind of where my line is
[30:30] is like, are they doing something
[30:31] interesting with a port? Yes or no. Is
[30:34] it a different engine than something
[30:35] like Unreal? Yes or no? That's kind of
[30:37] what determines. But, I will say, you
[30:39] know, it's good for Switch 2, especially
[30:41] at this point with the cost of all the
[30:43] hardware being what it is. Uh, if you
[30:45] only have a Switch 2 for instance, then
[30:47] yeah, it's great to have these
[30:48] thirdparty games on it.
[30:50] >> Interesting. Space Marine 2. I didn't
[30:52] know about that one, but man, that is
[30:54] super CPU heavy. So, I'm going to be
[30:56] very to see what they're doing on that
[30:58] one.
[31:00] >> Of course, the biggest announcement,
[31:02] Rich, was mina
[31:05] Minecraft.
[31:06] >> Okay.
[31:06] >> It showed they had a segment on freaking
[31:08] Minecraft for some reason, and it wasn't
[31:10] even running smoothly. So, I'm
[31:11] completely baffled by that.
[31:14] Okay.
[31:15] >> I mean, like, why? It's like whatever.
[31:20] >> But there was other good stuff in there.
[31:22] I mean, they showed a little more of the
[31:24] Dusk Bloods, which is that From Software
[31:26] game that's sort of Bloodborne adjacent
[31:29] uh aesthetically.
[31:31] >> So, that's that's looking good, I would
[31:33] say. Uh we've got Thumb Wrestling in
[31:36] Nintendo Switch Sports Resort, and we
[31:38] were given a nice two or three minute
[31:40] demonstration of that. So, if you really
[31:42] like thumb wrestling, Rich, and
[31:44] skateboarding on grass, that game's got
[31:46] you covered. Um, Mura Masa is coming
[31:48] back, which is cool. But that's also
[31:51] coming to PC, but that's um that was
[31:54] originally a Switch game or sorry, a Wii
[31:56] game
[31:57] >> that then was ported to the VA and now
[32:00] we're getting a new version on multiple
[32:03] platforms, including the Switch 2.
[32:05] >> So, and then Hello Kitty Party Land.
[32:07] >> Okay. I think Tom was particularly
[32:09] excited by that one for some reason.
[32:11] >> Yeah, he he that was the thing he posted
[32:13] the most about in the Slack channel, so
[32:15] expect coverage from Tom.
[32:18] >> Um, sorry. Go ahead.
[32:20] >> The last thing I I I noticed, um, they
[32:22] actually are bringing Devil May Cry 5 to
[32:26] the Switch, too.
[32:27] >> Yeah, that's cool.
[32:29] >> I love Devil May Cry 5. So, that's
[32:31] that's interesting that they've It's
[32:33] Capcom mining the back catalog again,
[32:35] right? And hey, why not? Yeah. Yeah. I'm
[32:38] still waiting for the control port for
[32:40] Switch to I mean, it's got to happen.
[32:41] >> You think it'll happen, right?
[32:42] >> Well, you can play it on an iPhone with
[32:44] with raid tracing.
[32:46] >> Oh, that's a good point. Yeah,
[32:47] >> shortly. I I'm surprised we haven't seen
[32:49] it yet. Um, so Oliver, um, we had Rise
[32:53] of the Tomb Raider Shadow Dropping after
[32:56] the event. It's playable. You can buy it
[32:58] now. Should we?
[33:01] >> Uh, well, that's that's the question of
[33:03] the hour. Um, I did to test it, I guess.
[33:07] So, that's uh not but it's I don't it's
[33:09] not a vote of confidence on my part
[33:11] because I I was concerned about this
[33:13] port because Aspire is the studio
[33:14] handling this one. They also did the
[33:16] Tomb Raider 2013 port to switch to a few
[33:20] months ago which was very compromised.
[33:22] Had some concessions even relative to
[33:25] the PS3 and 360 versions. Not a very
[33:28] good title. And uh here I would say this
[33:30] is better, but it still has compromises
[33:33] that are like totally bizarre. So you're
[33:35] missing some visual features relative to
[33:37] PS4. So there's no motion blur for
[33:40] instance, right? No motion blur
[33:41] whatsoever in the game. Um there's no
[33:44] shadowing in some instances, like for
[33:46] instance in this cut scene, like all the
[33:48] small details in the wall behind Delara
[33:50] are unshadowed, like the pins. And in
[33:52] this shot, all the distant shadows for
[33:54] foliage are missing. So, it looks very
[33:57] flat and ugly and not very pleasing.
[34:00] Lacks depth, I would say. And then in
[34:02] that cut scene earlier, there also some
[34:04] miss missing objects like part of the
[34:05] building in this shot, which is just
[34:06] totally gone, and then the beams in this
[34:08] shot. So, it seems like they're missing
[34:11] like they're just porting these games
[34:13] over and missing a lot of the uh visual
[34:16] minutia of what make them look so good
[34:18] on current generation platforms. At
[34:20] least like the the hair is similar. Um,
[34:23] the lighting overall is similar, but
[34:25] there are these weird cuts here and
[34:27] there that don't feel totally
[34:28] intentional. I'm not totally sure what
[34:30] their porting process was, but it does
[34:32] not seem like it was uh rigorous enough
[34:34] perhaps. Um, frame rates are okay. It
[34:36] seems to be doing a good enough job at
[34:38] 30 fps. There's no DLSS here. Seems to
[34:40] be a pretty similar image treatment to
[34:42] the PS4 version of the game, but yeah,
[34:44] it's inferior to PS4 in a few key ways.
[34:47] And the overall vis visual presentation
[34:49] looks fine, but it's really unfortunate
[34:52] to look at these ports and say, "Well,
[34:54] it's actually missing some key visual
[34:56] stuff relative to that PS4 version." Not
[34:59] really where you want to be with a
[35:00] Switch 2 version of a game.
[35:01] >> John, Rise of the Tomb Raider was a a
[35:03] benchmark game for Digital Foundry back
[35:05] in the day. I mean, God knows how many
[35:07] times you covered it. Here it is again.
[35:09] >> I Exactly. I mean, I I don't have too
[35:12] much to say, but this is possibly one of
[35:14] the games I've covered the most on
[35:16] Digital Foundry. And it always felt like
[35:18] just when we thought we were done, a new
[35:20] version would come out. Yeah.
[35:21] >> And after the last version, I thought
[35:23] for sure that it was over. We were not
[35:26] going to be revisiting this game again.
[35:27] But here we are. It's 2026 and there's a
[35:30] new version of Rise of the Tomb Raider.
[35:32] I do want to check it out just out of
[35:34] morbid curiosity at this point. But the
[35:36] thing that really gets me and what I I
[35:38] cannot stop laughing over is it's called
[35:40] Rise of the Tomb Raider 20ear
[35:42] celebration,
[35:43] >> right?
[35:44] >> Like do I I know now where that comes
[35:47] from. But do you know why? Like when you
[35:49] when you look at the title, you're
[35:50] thinking like, okay, what like what what
[35:52] are they celebrating?
[35:53] >> Well,
[35:54] >> what would you think? What would you
[35:55] guess Rich?
[35:56] >> What happened in 2006 then? Tell me.
[35:59] Well, so at first I was like, wait, 2006
[36:03] is the first Crystal Dynamics Tomb
[36:04] Raider, so maybe that's what they're
[36:06] celebrating. But it turns out 20 years
[36:09] Celebration was the subtitle for the PS4
[36:11] version released in 2016, I think, which
[36:14] was celebrating the 20 20 years of Tomb
[36:17] Raider. And I think because it's a port
[36:20] of that version, they just left 20 years
[36:22] celebration on the title despite the
[36:25] fact that it's no longer relevant to
[36:27] what it was originally celebrating. So I
[36:30] guess theoretically they could be
[36:31] celebrating Crystal Dynamics releasing a
[36:33] Tomb Raider game, but I really don't
[36:35] think that's what they're doing. I I
[36:37] think this is just they just left the
[36:38] title alone rather than change it to
[36:41] like 30-year celebration. Yeah, they're
[36:43] they're well they're trying to indicate
[36:45] parody feature parody with the 20-year
[36:48] celebration version which has like some
[36:50] new features, co-op things like that. So
[36:52] I think it's just to indicate that's the
[36:54] version of the game you're getting.
[36:55] >> It's pretty dumb though.
[36:56] >> It should be 30ear celebration. I agree.
[36:59] But
[37:01] >> wow.
[37:01] >> Oh man, I love it.
[37:03] >> Okay. Uh well that was the last event of
[37:06] the summer showcases in 2026. Although
[37:09] we said that after Xbox and then more
[37:11] came along so who knows at this point
[37:13] but let's move on. Um so after the Xbox
[37:16] showcase uh we saw earlier. Um we
[37:19] actually now have 30 minutes of gameplay
[37:22] from Fable and uh certainly interesting
[37:24] stuff and certainly very different to
[37:26] the presentation we we saw at the
[37:27] showcase which looked like some sort of
[37:29] amazing sort of action adventure. This
[37:31] is kind of like classic Fable, right
[37:33] John?
[37:34] >> It is and it isn't. So, what I like here
[37:36] is that it does seem to be more than I
[37:39] expected building on the promises of the
[37:42] original Fable uh on technology that can
[37:45] now support that vision. So, if you go
[37:48] back to the original game, uh Peter
[37:50] Molly knew as usual was promising the
[37:52] world and that was one of his most
[37:53] egregious examples. Um and it made it
[37:57] sound like a game where you could do
[37:58] anything and it was just like this wide
[38:00] open thing of freedom. For me, this
[38:02] Fable released not that long after I
[38:05] first experienced the glory of uh The
[38:07] Elder Scrolls Marowind.
[38:09] And I had this vision of like, wow,
[38:11] Fable's going to be like Marowind but
[38:13] with like all this extra stuff you can
[38:15] do. And then it turned out it was just a
[38:18] bunch of loading screens and like every
[38:20] area in Fable was broken up into tiny
[38:22] little segments.
[38:23] >> Yeah.
[38:24] >> Which was crushingly disappointing at
[38:27] the time and I didn't love the game. The
[38:30] sequels improved upon that, but they
[38:32] never fulfilled that. This actually does
[38:35] seem to, and this is an example where I
[38:37] do think an open world actually makes
[38:38] sense, but this seems to offer a lot of
[38:41] the granular interactions and like life
[38:44] management features that Fable kind of
[38:47] attempted and was originally promising
[38:49] to deliver, but it's actually doing it
[38:52] at scale and with technology that can
[38:57] support all of that. And so I was really
[38:59] surprised and impressed with just how
[39:01] much stuff is going on beneath the
[39:03] surface here. And I'm very curious to
[39:06] see how it all plays out because yeah,
[39:09] all the trailers for this just painted
[39:11] it as more of an action adventury thing
[39:13] and it was unclear if they were going to
[39:15] sort of retain that original vision, but
[39:17] they've definitely embraced it. And so
[39:19] it seems like it could be a game that
[39:21] combines that sort of like those
[39:23] impressive moments, but with this more
[39:26] life management side of things as well.
[39:30] And boy, you can become if you want to
[39:32] like like just kick the whole town's ass
[39:34] and become like a total criminal and a
[39:36] dirt bag, they have shown in this demo
[39:39] that you can still do that, which is
[39:41] great. So
[39:42] >> I did enjoy that. 25 minutes of
[39:45] basically trying to uh uh manage the the
[39:47] the town nicely and be a per a great
[39:50] person to everyone and uh romance the
[39:53] local shopkeeper and then at the end
[39:55] they just start randomly killing people
[39:58] uh after uh saving a centurion pig
[40:02] pig. the pig.
[40:04] >> The thing is, you know, that was the
[40:06] thing, right? Because um uh those some
[40:09] of those alternative choices for Colin's
[40:12] fate look pretty grim,
[40:15] right? Yeah. The pig dies
[40:21] and I like that they're not they're not
[40:22] really shying away from that stuff. It
[40:24] seems like they're really embracing
[40:25] this. You can go totally good or totally
[40:27] evil or somewhere in between. And it is
[40:30] fun to mess with that stuff and see what
[40:33] happens as a result. And it really seems
[40:34] feels like they are going to try to pull
[40:36] it off. So that's great. And in
[40:38] addition, of course, visually speaking,
[40:41] I think the game looks really nice. Y
[40:43] >> um it's it's a little bit more back down
[40:46] to earth now that we've seen more of the
[40:48] gameplay, right? But it's still like I
[40:51] really love the subtle lighting in this
[40:54] game and the detail levels and the
[40:56] characters. Uh, I mean, I know it's a
[40:58] different team with a different goal,
[40:59] but I was a little worried about that
[41:00] because let's be honest, Forts of
[41:02] Horizon may have amazing looking cars,
[41:04] but its characters are pretty awful.
[41:07] >> So, Playground Grims has never
[41:08] demonstrated that they're good with
[41:10] character design and like rendering
[41:12] characters in a game world, but this
[41:14] obviously puts that to bed and they look
[41:16] excellent. I think, you know, the
[41:18] highlight for me was basically your your
[41:20] avatar turns up in this town to
[41:22] investigate weird things going on and uh
[41:24] he asks the talking pig about the weird
[41:26] things and the talking pig says, "Yeah,
[41:28] nothing crazy going on here."
[41:32] >> Oliver, what were your thoughts?
[41:34] >> It's nice to have this kind of slice of
[41:35] exploration and talking to villagers and
[41:37] stuff like that because it does indicate
[41:39] what you'll be able to do in this game
[41:40] during your downtime. My kind of concern
[41:43] with these systems is like how deep do
[41:45] they go? Is this just a game where you
[41:47] can check a lot of boxes and you can
[41:49] have like this little fun social
[41:50] simulation for 30 minutes or an hour and
[41:52] then it becomes kind of tiresome or how
[41:54] like how deep or involved do these
[41:56] gameplay systems go beyond just like the
[41:58] reputation system changing a few in-game
[42:01] events things like that. Um I'd be
[42:03] curious to see how deep it goes because
[42:06] to me at least in these kinds of titles
[42:07] I tend to treat them as like a kind of
[42:09] completionist exercise of like I want to
[42:11] do all the quests, I want to do all the
[42:13] main story content. I want to complete
[42:16] all the kind of uh carefully handcrafted
[42:18] and iterated on uh content in the game.
[42:21] I'm not really so interested in these
[42:22] kinds of social dynamics in titles like
[42:25] this, but this seems really cool.
[42:27] Technically, this is a 30 fps showing. I
[42:29] don't know whether that's representative
[42:30] of console footage or exactly what it's
[42:33] meaning to represent here. I'd presume
[42:34] this game would have a 60 fps mode as
[42:37] well. I would definitely agree with John
[42:38] in that sense. I think the lighting is
[42:40] quite attractive in this title and uh
[42:42] I'm definitely curious to see how this
[42:44] pans out when it does get released. I
[42:45] think they delayed it uh apparently to
[42:48] get away from Grand Theft Auto 6. I'm
[42:50] not quite sure the extent to which they
[42:52] need a little bit more time with this
[42:53] title. I certainly wouldn't blame them
[42:55] for that, but it'll be interesting to
[42:57] see this game when it releases I think
[42:58] in early 2027.
[43:01] >> Yeah, I think it's a a wise move. If
[43:03] they needed more time to do to to polish
[43:05] it, absolutely fine. But I also think
[43:07] that, you know, let's say they released
[43:09] before or indeed after Grand Theft Auto
[43:11] 6, um, and Grand Theft Auto 6 comes out,
[43:14] then suddenly you've you've invested
[43:15] like what, six, however many years of
[43:18] development into this, and the audience
[43:20] are going to be very easily tempted away
[43:22] to play GTA 6 instead. And um, that
[43:25] would that would be pretty bad. Yeah.
[43:28] Um, I I thought this looked pretty good.
[43:30] I thought uh actually seeing the game in
[43:32] motion um uh and actually a sort of deep
[43:35] dive into how it all plays out on the
[43:38] sort of micromanagement scale kind of
[43:40] demonstrated to me that it's you know I
[43:42] just don't have time for that kind of
[43:44] level of immersion. So I'm going to be
[43:45] really interested to see um just going
[43:48] through the quest line how that all
[43:49] plays out. But you know if people want
[43:51] to sit in this world and inhabit it and
[43:52] do all the things you saw in that
[43:54] trailer uh that's pretty good. But that
[43:56] last five minutes, I just thought,
[43:58] "Yeah, that's probably going to be me."
[44:00] Just causing some carage.
[44:04] >> The game's very, very British, too,
[44:06] which is something they've maintained
[44:08] from the original. I do wish Patrick
[44:10] Marber would make an appearance, who
[44:12] famously was uh Peter O'Hanrahan in the
[44:14] day-to-day. I I feel like he would have
[44:17] been perfect in this game.
[44:20] >> Okay. Um let's move on. Okay. Next news
[44:23] story of the week. Well, this one
[44:24] actually sort of broke a little while
[44:26] earlier. There's been reports that
[44:28] Nintendo is producing a new model of the
[44:31] Switch 2. Now, obviously, we'd love to
[44:32] see new OLED screens and stuff like
[44:34] that, but this one is actually a bit
[44:36] more um legally based in nature. The EU
[44:39] is introducing um legislation that
[44:41] basically means that um mobile devices
[44:44] should have easily replaceable
[44:45] batteries. And um they are going to be
[44:48] producing a new version of the Switch 2
[44:50] which is apparently um going to have an
[44:53] easily replaceable battery. And I think
[44:55] this is pretty good news um not least
[44:58] for the environment but also for the
[44:59] fact that it man you know um I've
[45:01] watched tearown videos of the Switch 2
[45:04] and to actually get to the battery is a
[45:06] super super involved process. So, the
[45:08] idea that you'll be able to buy a Switch
[45:10] 2 and then, you know, basically if the
[45:13] battery starts to fade, replace it
[45:15] easily, I think that's absolutely
[45:16] fantastic. And there's um I think the
[45:18] legislation should indeed cover the um
[45:21] Joy-Cons
[45:23] >> as well. Um and possibly the Pro
[45:25] Controller. Um, based on what Nintendo
[45:27] is saying, anything with a be product
[45:30] code, a B product code, um, will have a
[45:33] version for the, um, for the for the EU
[45:36] which has replaceable batteries and that
[45:38] would cover the JoyCons and the Pro
[45:40] Controller. So, hopes are high there.
[45:42] Um, this is a really good initiative,
[45:44] right John?
[45:45] >> Oh, it's fantastic. It's actually an
[45:48] example of legislation that's genuinely
[45:50] beneficial beyond just, you know, any
[45:53] environmental impact. This is more about
[45:55] the right to repair and allowing users
[45:58] to like really own and manage their own
[46:00] equipment, right? Uh these built-in
[46:02] batteries, especially the ones that are
[46:04] difficult to get to, it's a serious
[46:05] problem because batteries do not last
[46:07] forever. And when they do go, not only
[46:10] is there a potential safety hazard in
[46:12] some cases as far as like expanding and
[46:15] exploding, right? But it also means, you
[46:18] know, your product is dead until you can
[46:20] find a way to replace it. And at least
[46:22] in the case of Switch One, when there's
[46:24] no battery or no charge to it, the
[46:26] console cannot operate, right? So, you
[46:29] need a working battery in there, which
[46:31] is something I worried about for the
[46:33] longevity of this these systems. And
[46:35] it's specifically this that has kept
[46:37] things like the PSP and the the DS and
[46:40] even 3DS like alive long term is that
[46:44] the battery is easily swappable. So you
[46:47] even when that original battery has
[46:49] failed and many of them have at this
[46:50] point uh it's easy to replace and you're
[46:54] going again and yeah some of them have
[46:56] had issues with swelling especially the
[46:57] PSP
[46:58] >> and that may or may not happen now but
[47:00] again it's replaceable so not a big deal
[47:04] >> but these these modern devices man
[47:06] you're absolutely right taking them
[47:07] apart getting to the battery it's
[47:09] extremely fiddly work uh like tiny tiny
[47:13] little parts like small screws and very
[47:16] careful carefully placed ribbon cables
[47:18] and all kinds of stuff like that which
[47:20] are not necessarily fun to put together.
[47:23] I will say
[47:24] >> uh I've done some and even just Joy-Con
[47:26] replacements. They're not nearly as bad
[47:28] as the system, but it's not that fun to
[47:30] work on them and it can be a bit of a
[47:32] pain. So, being able to replace
[47:34] batteries like this makes these models
[47:36] awesome. And I would hope that they
[47:38] would just embrace this for uh the
[47:41] global hardware chain, right? I don't
[47:44] know if they will, but like I feel like
[47:45] all new consoles sold, you should just
[47:48] do this replaceable battery thing
[47:50] because it does make the hardware like
[47:52] better in terms of uh you know
[47:56] longevity.
[47:57] >> Yep. There's also there's also the
[47:59] potential to have um more energy dense
[48:01] cells in there. So you could have longer
[48:03] battery life for example. Although what
[48:05] I will say is that you know the story of
[48:07] um third party batteries that have
[48:09] actually failed a lot lot quicker than
[48:11] official batteries. I mean, I've got a
[48:12] lot of uh uh sad stories to tell on that
[48:15] front, particularly when it comes to my
[48:17] Dyson vacuum cleaner, but um yeah,
[48:20] interesting question from teasing
[48:22] hilarity. How Howdy Foundryman
[48:23] exclamation point. Given Nintendo have
[48:25] to produce the EU replaceable battery
[48:27] model of the Switch do, what do you
[48:28] think the chances they phase out the OG
[48:30] model and just go with the EU version
[48:32] everywhere going forward? While they may
[48:34] lose some sales from people replacing
[48:36] their worn bat VOG units, they hedge
[48:38] against other jurisdictions introducing
[48:41] similar requirements, keep product lines
[48:43] and associated tooling, etc. to a
[48:45] minimum and importantly offer all
[48:47] consumers the opportunity to keep their
[48:49] devices going when the battery wears
[48:51] out. Well, you know, that's going to be
[48:52] a decision for Nintendo to take, but
[48:54] they're quite specific at the moment
[48:55] that it seems to be a particular
[48:58] variant, I believe, as opposed to like a
[49:01] sort of global uh roll out. this EU
[49:03] legislation. There's a lot of stuff in
[49:05] there that's pretty good. For example,
[49:07] um the glue that's used to like, you
[49:10] know, basically keep batteries in place.
[49:12] A nightmare when it comes to actually
[49:14] fixing these things, that's not allowed.
[49:16] And similarly, they need to reply uh
[49:18] supply replacement parts for 5 years
[49:22] after the final device comes off the
[49:24] production line, which again I think is
[49:26] is is pretty cool. Um Oliver, what do
[49:29] you make of all of this?
[49:30] >> Yeah, I think this is pretty good. But I
[49:31] think the primary change here will be
[49:33] getting away from the glued batteries,
[49:35] which is very common in consumer
[49:37] electronics nowadays to ship devices
[49:39] with glued batteries as opposed to
[49:41] screwed in batteries or batteries
[49:43] secured through other means. Um, which
[49:45] is great because right now if you have a
[49:47] Switch 2 unit, you want to replace the
[49:48] battery. I think you basically have to
[49:50] soak soak it in isopropyl alcohol to get
[49:53] the adhesive to be removed and then you
[49:56] can remove the adhesive and then you can
[49:58] stick another battery in there. But it's
[50:00] kind of a process. This should ease up
[50:02] that whole process considerably. If they
[50:05] do move towards screws and pull tabs and
[50:07] easier methods of removing a battery,
[50:09] that would be great. Um, I would say
[50:11] that most Switch 2 users won't need to
[50:13] replace the battery hopefully. But
[50:15] definitely if you do use your Switch for
[50:17] extended periods or for a very long
[50:19] time, right, over the course of a decade
[50:22] plus, you need to replace that battery,
[50:24] this is going to be a really good
[50:26] solution for those users and it's going
[50:28] to enhance the durability lifespan of
[50:31] switch to units in the weld, which is
[50:33] great. I'm not sure they're going to do
[50:35] this for the whole world because I think
[50:36] it is just cheaper, simpler um to use to
[50:40] use glue and possibly you can also fit
[50:42] in a slightly higher capacity cell as
[50:44] well just because you don't need to have
[50:46] the kind of associated like tooling and
[50:48] marks and areas needed to screw down a
[50:51] battery. You can actually have those be
[50:52] filled with battery because glue does
[50:54] not really require nearly as much space
[50:56] and things like that. So, yeah, I would
[50:59] assume this will be EU only, but I
[51:01] wouldn't mind having a screwed in
[51:02] switch, too, even if it had like
[51:05] marginally lower battery life. I think
[51:07] that's a trade you'd be perfectly
[51:08] willing to take for much easier
[51:10] serviceability down the line if you do
[51:13] want a new battery in your Switch, too.
[51:15] >> Mhm. Yeah, I'm going to be interested to
[51:16] see who else follows suit on this, but
[51:18] certainly the concept of replaceable
[51:20] batteries is a is a good thing. Um,
[51:22] speaking of devices where the battery
[51:24] hasn't gone great, for me personally,
[51:26] the original Steam Deck, um, I didn't
[51:29] use it for some time and I actually
[51:30] found that, um, while the battery life
[51:33] seemed, uh, on the face of it to be
[51:36] okay, the device would occasionally just
[51:38] shut down during play randomly. And I
[51:40] think it just wasn't delivering the
[51:42] requisite power anymore.
[51:44] >> Um, which which wasn't great, right? But
[51:47] you know those devices, the PC side of
[51:49] things, um certainly it's uh quite easy
[51:52] to remove the back at least. Yeah. And
[51:55] to get at things. Yeah. Right.
[51:57] >> Yeah. But um the switch was definitely a
[51:59] lot lot more difficult. Um I kind of
[52:02] want to take a look at this new version.
[52:04] Um the legislation comes into force
[52:06] February next year, I believe. So I'm
[52:08] curious as to whether we're going to see
[52:09] it sooner rather than later.
[52:12] >> Um anyway, um let's move on. Okay. So,
[52:15] somehow the RTX 3060 has returned. This
[52:18] has been rumored for some time. Uh the
[52:20] concept that Nvidia is going to bring
[52:22] back a 5-year-old graphics card to
[52:24] address uh issues in the supply chain.
[52:27] We actually now have evidence that it
[52:29] has actually happened. I mean, Oliver,
[52:31] you talked to Nvidia in CES, I believe,
[52:34] to talk to say these rumors true, and
[52:36] they basically said it never left
[52:39] production. Uh which I I couldn't back
[52:42] that up at all. I couldn't find 3060 for
[52:45] sale uh in the UK. 3050 on the other
[52:48] hand I think is fair that it did seem to
[52:51] still be there.
[52:52] >> But uh a company called Manly M L I not
[52:58] not the traditional you uh English
[53:00] spelling or meaning they have actually
[53:02] released um a new 3060 apparently. Um it
[53:06] seems to be the good news is it's the 12
[53:08] GB model uh 3584 CUDA cores looks like
[53:12] uh standard specification 3060. Um and
[53:16] they've released unfortunately a 6 GB
[53:20] 3050. Um the original was 8 GB. So
[53:23] obviously they've cut down the the
[53:25] memory interface there, reduced
[53:26] bandwidth. I'm going to be interested to
[53:28] see whether Eddie War people actually
[53:30] bring out a new a quote unquote new 3060
[53:34] and the extent to which um it will
[53:36] actually proliferate in the market. I
[53:38] think at this point I'm kind of doubtful
[53:41] as it if it's going to sort of get a
[53:43] sort of widescale re-release unless it
[53:45] is super cheap to make because um um you
[53:49] know in the UK you can pick up a a 5060
[53:52] 8 gig model for I don't know about £260
[53:56] which I think is pretty good value
[53:59] certainly in the current climate. Um but
[54:02] Oliver I'm just kind of curious what you
[54:03] make of this uh um whole situation. It's
[54:07] kind of bizarre to resurrect a 5year-old
[54:10] graphics card, isn't it?
[54:11] >> Yeah. The comment the specific comment
[54:13] that you received from Nvidia CES was
[54:16] that like you said, these cards had
[54:18] never left production, which uh I'm I'm
[54:22] not sure how to square that with the
[54:23] fact that I don't really see any 3060s
[54:25] for sale at the moment, but apparently
[54:27] there are new cards coming from Manly.
[54:29] There's also a report that some limited
[54:30] supplies will be coming from apparently
[54:33] colorful ASUS, MSI, and Galax according
[54:36] to a rumor. So, that's an interesting
[54:38] Yeah, that's an interesting outcome that
[54:40] apparently was that was reported by
[54:41] Video Cards a little bit ago um uh about
[54:44] a month ago. So, I I will be curious to
[54:47] see what happens. I actually think these
[54:49] cards are a good match for the needs of
[54:52] modern games actually because they
[54:54] combine decent performance with 12 GB of
[54:58] frame buffer, you know, and good rate
[55:00] tracing performance and things like
[55:01] that. So, they're not quite at the level
[55:03] of like a current generation console
[55:05] necessarily in terms of rasterization
[55:07] performance, but they are just about
[55:09] there in terms of the performance that
[55:10] you need for modern games with enough
[55:12] frame buffer to back it up, right? and
[55:14] run your high settings, high hair, high
[55:17] textures, whatever. Run Indiana Jones
[55:18] with no great worries or corals should
[55:22] be fine. So, that's very positive in my
[55:25] view. But, yeah, I am curious to see
[55:27] where this goes. I'm not entirely sure
[55:30] where this supply is coming from. Maybe
[55:32] Nvidia had some spare parts. You never
[55:34] really know with supply because Nvidia
[55:36] could be producing cards and they could
[55:38] be holding on to them. They could have a
[55:40] backstock of cards. We don't really know
[55:42] what the production status is on these 8
[55:44] nmter cards from Samsung, right? Who
[55:46] knows what what's being produced at what
[55:48] times, but I actually think this would
[55:50] this is not the worst line to come back
[55:53] with the needs of modern games. I
[55:54] actually think this 3060 12 GB model has
[55:57] aged quite well. Now, uh 306 GB modu
[56:01] model I don't think has aged nearly as
[56:03] well unless you need like a u device
[56:05] that does not use external PC power,
[56:08] right? But it's still quite good for uh
[56:10] a device that does not use PCIe power,
[56:13] but 6 GB is not really good for anything
[56:16] but esports these days. 8 GB is really
[56:18] the minimum you would want to be at for
[56:20] current gen AAA software. And then 12 GB
[56:23] is much much more comfortable obviously
[56:24] for modern games.
[56:27] >> Mhm. Yeah. John, what do you make of
[56:28] this? I mean, here's the thing, right? I
[56:30] mean, it is 5 years old. Uh we should be
[56:32] considering it obsolete and yet
[56:35] 12 GB of RAM, that's a very very good
[56:37] thing. uh you've got DLSS obviously
[56:40] which is you know fantastic technology
[56:43] it works
[56:45] um and it may not be as powerful as a
[56:47] PlayStation 5 GPU but you've got better
[56:49] upscaling and you know obviously
[56:51] developers are trying to address like uh
[56:53] 1440p to 4K resolutions with PlayStation
[56:58] 5 via upscaling and the 3060 might be
[57:00] weaker but you know chances are it's
[57:02] going to be addressing 1080p and 1440p
[57:06] screens so I'd say But if the price is
[57:08] right, there's actually good reasons to
[57:12] to bring back the 3060. I mean, you
[57:14] know, it it still performs reasonably
[57:17] well. You know, it's not as if the
[57:19] feature set has disappeared. It is still
[57:21] supported via driver updates. It is like
[57:24] number one or number two in the Steam
[57:26] hardware survey. So, a lot of people are
[57:29] using these cards. I mean, if you're
[57:32] going to bring back some older GPUs,
[57:34] there are worse contenders.
[57:37] Indeed. Uh I just think it's funny that
[57:39] we can now pair a 3060 with a a newly
[57:43] re-released 5800 X3D and you build you
[57:48] you build a it's like building a retro
[57:50] PC in the modern and era. But
[57:54] >> uh I mean it does it does kind of feel
[57:56] like the requirements on games have kind
[58:00] of settled into largely like a I don't
[58:04] want to say a rut, but we've reached a
[58:05] point where even those older GPUs are
[58:07] still viable, which it's interesting to
[58:11] reflect on. It's probably good in terms
[58:13] of like value for customers. uh like in
[58:17] the early days of 3D cards or the 2000s,
[58:19] like you could never imagine like a
[58:21] 5-year-old graphics card still being
[58:23] viable in the face of new releases,
[58:25] right? Like just no way. Uh but
[58:28] obviously times have changed and uh
[58:30] given the cost of components. I mean,
[58:33] this is it's it's one way to go about
[58:35] it, I guess.
[58:36] >> Mhm. Yeah, I was just checking your
[58:38] dates there, and you're quite right.
[58:39] There's an uh 13month difference, I
[58:42] think. Uh maybe 14 month difference in
[58:44] the release date between the 3060 and
[58:46] the 5800 X3.
[58:47] >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They they're they're I
[58:50] remember them being a bit contemporary
[58:52] though. Usually if you get a 5800 X3D,
[58:54] you would have a higherend GPU, but
[58:55] still
[58:57] they're both aged hardware.
[59:00] >> Yeah, absolutely. I guess we just need
[59:02] to wait and see what the proliferation
[59:04] of these cars is going to be. But, you
[59:05] know, there are worse options. Um but
[59:08] similarly, we've had rumors this week
[59:10] and actually Will talked about it on the
[59:11] website about um the fact that the 50
[59:14] series super um Blackwell super cards
[59:18] with more memory may actually be
[59:19] launched next year um being announced at
[59:22] CES 2027 I guess. And um that would kind
[59:27] of like be a good thing. Um there have
[59:31] been rumors for some time that um there
[59:33] was going to be a 9 gigabyte version of
[59:35] the 50/50 and then there were rumors
[59:37] there's going to be a 9 gigabyte version
[59:38] of the 5060 and the way that that
[59:41] actually becomes a thing is that um
[59:43] instead of having four memory IC's on
[59:45] the board you have three and those three
[59:47] have higher capacities. Uh the problem
[59:50] being that obviously you're losing
[59:52] memory bandwidth because the the bus is
[59:54] uh cailed. Now, it kind of made sense
[59:56] for the 50/50 because they were going to
[59:58] swap out um GDDR6 memory for GDDR7,
[60:01] which is basically twice as fast. So,
[60:04] even though you've lost bandwidth on the
[60:05] bus, you're gaining it from the speed of
[60:07] the of the memory IS. Uh that product
[60:10] never seemed to come out and I kind of
[60:11] think that's a bit of a shame. And um
[60:14] yeah, similarly then the rumors of the 9
[60:16] GB 5060, you would have lost performance
[60:18] on that uh because it's already got G7,
[60:21] but um you would have had an extra
[60:23] gigabyte of memory. And what we've been
[60:25] seeing recently in terms of optimized
[60:28] settings for um 8 GB cards is that 8
[60:32] gigs is is kind of not good enough.
[60:36] >> But it often seems like 9 GB might be
[60:39] good enough. So, I was really hope I was
[60:42] really hoping to see that 5050 9 GB come
[60:45] out because it would it effectively
[60:46] offers 4060 performance, which is okay,
[60:50] but then you've got just a little bit of
[60:52] extra memory that would potentially
[60:54] allow for those higher quality textures
[60:56] to to come into play. But obviously, if
[61:00] there is going to be a 5060 Super that's
[61:02] 12 GB, well, happy days. Um it is kind
[61:05] of odd though Oliver that you know extra
[61:07] memory being offered
[61:10] extra memory being offered um in in uh
[61:14] when there's a memory crisis
[61:16] but I guess obviously it's down to the
[61:18] supply of these um 3 GB memory modules
[61:22] and maybe that has improved.
[61:24] >> Yeah. And maybe I mean with some of
[61:26] these products you don't you don't
[61:28] really know what the me the specifics of
[61:29] the memory market look like. like maybe
[61:31] there's a bit more supply for G6 modules
[61:34] for this RTX 3060 device. Like maybe
[61:37] that's actually viable to ship something
[61:39] with 12 GB or maybe they just have the
[61:41] allocation already bought and need to
[61:42] fill it somewhere, you know? Who knows
[61:45] exactly? Um but yeah, I would I would
[61:48] really hope to see the super series and
[61:50] if not the super series, then just
[61:52] something using these 3 GB modules
[61:54] because that seems like a really good
[61:55] way to allay some of these memory
[61:57] pressures that are facing modern games.
[61:59] 8 GB is not so comfortable in a lot of
[62:01] modern games. Um, you really have to go
[62:04] down in terms of the settings. You don't
[62:06] really want to be in a scenario where
[62:07] you're at a where you're at a worse
[62:09] memory capacity relative to consoles. I
[62:11] think historically speaking, that's
[62:12] actually not been a good way to go. And
[62:14] I think we're seeing that this
[62:15] generation, but like you said, kind of
[62:17] the pressures in terms of supply and
[62:19] pricing pushing you completely in the
[62:21] other direction are really not too
[62:24] attractive at the moment. So, I do hope
[62:26] we see that super series though, and I
[62:27] do hope we see these 3 GB module GPUs
[62:30] hit the market soon because they seem
[62:31] like a good mix for the current range of
[62:34] rendering challenges where maybe we're
[62:36] not so pushed on bandwidth, maybe we're
[62:38] not so pushed on compute or rate tracing
[62:40] capability, but we just need more frame
[62:42] buffer with these lowerend GPUs to be
[62:44] really comfortable.
[62:47] >> That's a point you've come up with quite
[62:48] a lot, John, which is basically, hey,
[62:50] today's hardware, it's actually pretty
[62:51] good. you know, when do we actually need
[62:55] new technology at this point?
[62:57] >> I, you know, I think about that a lot,
[62:59] especially on the high end, right? Like
[63:01] it feels like Nvidia put all their
[63:04] effort into hitting the 5090 and they're
[63:06] like, "Okay, that was too far. You got
[63:08] to back off,
[63:10] you know, and it just we've kind of been
[63:13] everybody's been settling for a lot
[63:14] less." Like it it's it's weird how how
[63:17] the market has changed and I guess the
[63:19] part shortage has a lot to do with it.
[63:20] So, in the spirit of that, Rich, when
[63:23] you go to a computer shop or even like
[63:25] Amazon or something, I still see a lot
[63:26] of cards like the RTX 3050, right?
[63:30] >> I even see the the GTX 1660 around,
[63:33] >> man.
[63:33] >> Do you want do you want to know what
[63:35] card kind of slots around that that that
[63:38] era? You know, that we maybe it's time
[63:39] to bring it back. Say it with me now.
[63:42] AMD Radeon Ride Fury X. It's time for
[63:48] the revival, baby. the 11-year
[63:50] anniversary.
[63:53] >> Oh dear. You've got an interesting uh
[63:56] obsession with the Fury X, haven't you,
[63:58] John?
[63:59] >> I do. I love the Fury X.
[64:01] >> The, you know, I'm sort of just sort of
[64:03] still harboring. I mean, the my sort of
[64:06] uh review of the Fury X, it was one of
[64:08] those situations where um the card comes
[64:11] in for review and um you have to keep
[64:14] benchmarking it because the results
[64:15] aren't as good as you think they're
[64:17] going to be or have been promised. And
[64:19] um you know I distinctly recall AMD
[64:22] saying it was going to be an
[64:22] overclocker's dream and it was unstable
[64:24] when I added 50 megahertz to the to the
[64:28] core. It was kind of like you know it
[64:31] happens a lot. It happened with the 1970
[64:33] GRE recently where my review was a day
[64:36] late because you know um it just didn't
[64:38] make sense. None of the results I got in
[64:41] made sense. It just looked like poor
[64:42] value. Why would you release a poor
[64:45] value when the press deck is coming up
[64:47] with, you know, value scenarios which
[64:49] make it look great? You know, you start
[64:51] to doubt your own sanity. Um, but what I
[64:54] will say is that pretty much in each and
[64:56] every time that this has happened, the
[64:58] the numbers are the numbers and it's
[65:00] just not a particularly great product.
[65:02] I got to say there, Rich, looking at the
[65:04] relative performance according to this
[65:06] chart, the G RTX5090 is 785%
[65:11] faster than the R9 Fury X,
[65:14] man. Cazy stuff.
[65:17] Okay, let's move on to our final news
[65:20] topic. Well, it's not a news topic as
[65:22] such. Um, obviously we now have via Will
[65:25] Jud a website that tells us what we were
[65:27] up to one year ago, 5 years ago, 10
[65:29] years ago. There's a lot of E3 stuff in
[65:31] there this week, perhaps not
[65:33] surprisingly, but John, um, you
[65:36] highlighted that
[65:38] it is five years ago that AMD released
[65:41] FSR1, uh, which is one of those periods
[65:44] of time, one of those pieces of content
[65:46] where, you know, you say things that
[65:48] actually are true, but people just don't
[65:50] want to accept it and, uh, you you end
[65:53] up getting hammered on social media and
[65:55] stuff like that. Poor old Alex had a bad
[65:57] time of it back in the day with FSR1
[65:59] because he told it, you know, he told it
[66:01] how it was or or how he saw it and um
[66:05] yeah um it turns out that it is a pretty
[66:08] basic upscaler and not particularly
[66:10] great and better things were to come
[66:12] from AMD. Um I mean five year five years
[66:15] on we're on FSR4. The gap has been
[66:17] closed with Nvidia effectively, but uh
[66:20] it certainly wasn't 5 years ago.
[66:23] Oh yeah, that that was an interesting
[66:25] time because people were and rightfully
[66:28] so looking for an answer to DLSS2
[66:31] because let's remember DLSS1 from 2018
[66:35] not good but DLSS2 by that point was
[66:39] excellent especially for the era and FSR
[66:42] was sort of rumored to be AMD's like
[66:45] sort of tackling of this uh whole like
[66:48] upsampling thing right but as we would
[66:51] later learn it really was never intended
[66:53] to be that. It was not a product that
[66:56] could compete with what DLSS had become
[66:58] and it wasn't built to do that either.
[67:01] Uh and I remember when Alex was first
[67:04] looking at it, he was just like
[67:06] >> like what is going on? This is really
[67:07] bad.
[67:08] >> Like he was he was not impressed. And it
[67:12] also forced him to play a lot of
[67:13] Godfall, which is a game nobody talks
[67:15] about anymore. If you remember, it was
[67:16] the era of Godfall.
[67:18] Uh but and that was I guess one of the
[67:21] first games to support it.
[67:23] >> But it turned out to just be a spatial
[67:25] upscaler with sharpening
[67:27] >> essentially. It wouldn't be until
[67:30] >> FSR2 is when they when they actually
[67:32] made the leap, right?
[67:33] >> Mhm. Yeah, there was a leap there, but
[67:35] even then, you know, FSR 2 was being
[67:37] called a DLSS killer and what it was a
[67:39] gigantic improvement, let's be clear
[67:41] here, but it wasn't a DLSS killer.
[67:43] >> No. Um, and in fact, you know, FSR4 has
[67:46] come along and it's quite interesting
[67:48] that while the quality is there, I don't
[67:50] think anybody's calling it a DLSS killer
[67:52] anymore, even when it's got the the
[67:54] greatest claim to actually being, you
[67:56] know, comparable technology. Really,
[67:59] really bizarre stuff.
[68:00] >> It's good. Yeah.
[68:01] >> Yeah. I mean, Oliver, um, you'd think 5
[68:05] years on FSR1 should be far away in the
[68:08] rear view mirror, but it's it's not, is
[68:10] it?
[68:11] >> No. No, it's not. And indeed with some
[68:13] of these Nintendo titles we uh tend to
[68:16] load up when we look at the IP notices
[68:18] in those titles is we often notice SMAA
[68:21] very common uh anti-aliasing technique
[68:23] that Nintendo likes but also FSR1 is
[68:26] very commonly named in those titles.
[68:29] Nintendo in particular loves to use FSR1
[68:31] to upscale their games. Capcom also
[68:34] still likes to use FSR1 quite a bit with
[68:36] their R engine titles. I think it was
[68:38] used in Pragmata as well as Resident
[68:40] Evil Reququum 2 very recent re engine
[68:42] titles. Um, which I think is interesting
[68:44] because perhaps the biggest problem with
[68:47] FSR1 doesn't really have to do with its
[68:49] actual quality. I think it just has to
[68:51] do with kind of convincing developers in
[68:54] some cases, hey, here's an alternative
[68:56] way of upscaling your game where you
[68:59] don't necessarily need temporal
[69:01] upscaling because I think temporal
[69:02] upscaling almost universally produces a
[69:04] better result. And some game engines
[69:06] like the RE engine are very capable of
[69:08] supporting it, right? But for some
[69:10] reason on PC and on consoles, um, Capcom
[69:13] and other developers seem to prefer
[69:15] FSR1. Maybe it's a little bit easier to
[69:17] work with, but for whatever reason, they
[69:19] stick with FSR1 and produce results that
[69:21] just aren't good enough in those titles.
[69:22] Um, but I do think it's an acceptable
[69:24] upscaler uh for spatial upscaling as
[69:27] long as you don't view it as Diosysis
[69:29] alternative, which is unfortunate
[69:30] because that's the way that Andy was
[69:32] marketing it at the time. they were
[69:33] marketing it as here's our alternative
[69:35] to DLSS. It wasn't remotely close to the
[69:38] quality of DLSS at that time and
[69:40] obviously it isn't now. Um it does also
[69:42] tend to produce kind of a certain
[69:44] stereotyped look to imagery that I don't
[69:47] really like necessarily when you look at
[69:48] it closely. It tends to smooth out
[69:51] edges. It tends to round out edges and
[69:53] produce almost kind of a slightly
[69:54] painterly look on the final image. can
[69:57] depend on the resolution of the source
[69:58] content and what you're upscaling to.
[70:00] But often times it produces a little bit
[70:02] of an ugly looking image I would suggest
[70:04] and in those cases I'd prefer a bilinear
[70:07] upscale. Honestly, I don't really need
[70:08] this kind of very artificial looking
[70:10] final resolve in my uh computer
[70:12] software. So I think it's been not so
[70:15] successful but you know looking on the
[70:16] bright side I think FSR2 is a big
[70:18] improvement. FSR3 still a further
[70:21] improvement on the analytical side of
[70:22] things. And then FSR4, FSR 4.1, and the
[70:26] enhanced version of PSSR. Those are all
[70:29] greatly improved versions of this kind
[70:32] of upscaling family that do produce a
[70:34] meaningfully improved image with the
[70:36] full detail you'd expect from a high
[70:38] resolution image. So there's been a lot
[70:41] of improvements in the space, but it's
[70:42] unfortunate in 2026 to still have to
[70:45] talk about. FSR1 is a contemporary piece
[70:47] of rendering technology because so many
[70:49] developers continue to use it and don't
[70:51] I don't think it's the right solution
[70:52] for most titles.
[70:54] >> Yeah, it was um a particular pain point
[70:57] in Pragmata and um Resident Evil Recreum
[71:01] to the point where you kind of wonder
[71:02] why Capcom did it.
[71:05] It's kind of a bit weird there. Yeah, I
[71:08] mean there were some good things about
[71:09] it, right? you know, open source. Um,
[71:11] you know, that was something that AMD
[71:13] was very very heavily invested, still
[71:15] heavily invested in, but obviously, um,
[71:18] FSR4, I'm not sure of the extent to
[71:20] which ML stuff there can actually
[71:22] transfer to other GPUs, but you know,
[71:25] FSR2 obviously gained a lot of, um, uh,
[71:28] traction across many many systems. Um,
[71:30] so, you know, that that was a sort of
[71:32] useful legacy, so to speak. But, you
[71:34] know, all paths seem to be converging
[71:36] now on machine learning. Although, you
[71:38] know, there are still um some some
[71:40] pretty impressive uh uh temporal
[71:42] solutions out there. Um yeah,
[71:46] that's all we really got to say about
[71:48] that one. Um any final words on that
[71:50] one John?
[71:52] >> Uh just it's I'm it's become a bit of a
[71:55] scourge and I wish that uh Japan had
[71:57] never been made aware of the existence
[71:59] of one. A lot of those developers are
[72:01] the only ones that seem to hang on to it
[72:03] when there's just better, less ugly
[72:06] upscaling solutions that are just as
[72:09] cheap or cheaper
[72:11] >> out there. Well, it is very, very cheap.
[72:13] That's the thing. I think that's the
[72:14] reason Capcom are using it. It was in
[72:17] Hogwarts as well.
[72:18] >> Hogwarts Legacy used FSR1. Yeah. Quite a
[72:20] bit. Um, now on the PS5 Pro version, it
[72:23] uses PSSR one, which then you can
[72:25] upgrade to PSSR 2 using the override.
[72:28] But yeah, it uses FSR1. and all the
[72:30] console versions which does lend it
[72:32] again a bit of that kind of painterly
[72:33] look. You can kind of spot it from a
[72:35] mile away once you're trained on it. You
[72:37] can really spot that heavily upscale.
[72:39] >> Yeah.
[72:40] >> Yeah. I think you know back in the day
[72:42] some of the push back against Alex's um
[72:44] analysis was it, you know, he did an
[72:46] image quality analysis and he wasn't
[72:48] particularly concerned about the frame
[72:49] rate boosts that you get. And you did
[72:51] get big frame rate boosts from FSR1
[72:53] because it doesn't do much and it's
[72:55] effectively running the game at a lower
[72:56] resolution. Right. Yes. And Alex wasn't
[72:59] particularly concerned about that
[73:00] because that wasn't his particular
[73:02] focus. Alex is like, well, it's so super
[73:05] PCentric, but I can tell everyone here
[73:07] that he just doesn't care about
[73:08] benchmarks that much. You know, it's
[73:11] he's interested in the in the
[73:13] experience. I remember there was um I
[73:16] think it was uh when we did XESS,
[73:19] um we had the first look at XESS
[73:21] upscaling. gave it a pretty good review,
[73:23] but Intel were asking me, you know, um,
[73:26] you know, how do how can we make sure
[73:27] Alex is isn't going to benchmark the
[73:29] card cuz it's not out yet. And I'm sort
[73:31] of saying to them, look, Alex has no
[73:33] interest in knowing what this precise
[73:36] benchmarks of your new GPU are
[73:38] whatsoever. He's really is focused on
[73:39] the experience here and what XSS is
[73:42] delivering. But yeah, I mean, um,
[73:45] interesting to see what the DF Time
[73:46] Machine is bringing up here. Um, it's a
[73:48] website that will put together and uh,
[73:51] yeah, just it's wall to-wall E3 stuff.
[73:53] Otherwise, going back 10 years, Zelda
[73:55] Breath of the Wild, Wii U E3 frame rate
[73:59] test, and those favorites work great
[74:01] from what I remember. And, uh, yeah, we
[74:03] were looking at Days Gone on PS4. E3
[74:06] demo performance wasn't great. It got a
[74:09] lot better. Yeah, crazy stuff. Um, we
[74:12] shall continue with our retrospectives
[74:13] though cuz as well we really enjoyed
[74:15] going back and uh re revisiting some of
[74:18] those older stories and sharing some of
[74:19] the anecdotes from back in the day. But
[74:22] that is the end of this particular
[74:23] episode of DF Direct. Hope you enjoyed
[74:25] it. Uh, like, subscribe, share if you
[74:26] did, ring bells for whatnot. Uh, DF
[74:28] supporter program
[74:29] patreon.com/digitalfoundry.
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[74:39] free video downloads, high quality video
[74:40] downloads, lots of great stuff there.
[74:42] But that's all from us on this one.
[74:44] Thanks for watching and supporting
[74:46] Digital Foundry. And we guess we'll see
[74:48] you next week. Cheers.