Giant Bombcast 731: The Gouda Project

Hey, sorry if you're already aware, but I think the rss is broken. Looks like it's only the Bombcast, but it's both the premium and free versions of the feed.

just stretch Lindsay Lohan's face over that car jan I believe in you

@hammondoftexas: Same thing happened to me. I checked all episodes and it looks like a ton of episodes claim to have been uploaded on March 27th? Very strange, but I hope whatever’s going on gets sorted.

I feel like things are escalating on the unofficial Talk About Our Crimes segment. At this rate we're three or four episodes away, if that, from someone admitting to a murder.

RSS issues seem to persist; my podcast app can’t find the premium Bombcast. Please don’t make me drive to work in stone-faced silence.

The reason Microsoft can make all their first party games free w/GamePass is twofold.

1. At 2.3 Trillion, Microsoft has more capital than 14 Sonys and the games business is a very small part of that 2 Trillion. The games business is the largest slice of Sony’s 150 Billion.

2. Microsoft doesn’t really care about making a profit on GamePass. GamePass a way to acquire users and user data, which will feed into their other businesses. Games are the thing that makes Sony money. They can’t use them as a loss leader.

I don't think you have to watch OG Gundam to get Gundam. There is so much out there and they are there own stories. To me some Gundam is visually very hard to watch. My recommendation would be both seasons of Mobile Suit Gundam 00 that ran from 2007-09.

You're all American honeys

Alright fess up who broke the RSS feed

Yup, Premium RSS appears busted at least on Pocketcasts.

RSS feed for premium has gone tits up

Bandai Namco DID announce blockchain/NFT stuff yesterday. They partnered with a Japanese company that is doing.. 'Fan Platform as A Service'. Basically, ways to engage your fans via stuff like NFTs and community events and social spaces. Actually, I don't get it really, so I can't say basically. Anyway, this Gundam stuff seems to fit with that too lol.

As for 'power of the cloud', skepticism noted. Best example rn is Microsoft Flight Sim. Bigger is indeed better, global sync to everyone is critical, and full quality of visuals and world simulation is impossible locally without it.

The AI stuff is cool to think about too. That use case already kinda exists outside of games. If they can make it like "baby's first neural net AI", then this could democratize some cool stuff in indie games. I mean.. We'll see, right? Haha

Rorie acknowledged the RSS issue on the discord last night and said it should be fixed in the morning.

Shoplifting is not a victimless crime and some of the stories here made me genuinely pissed. Margins are often laughable and I've seen several shops close or move due to rampant shoplifting, especially grocery stores. I worked retail for years and was routinely chewed out and at one time even accused of theft because of missing inventory. We had to stop stocking specific brands since we lost more than we sold. I was pressured into running after druggies/shoplifters and every day was marred by paranoia about what stuff would disappear during our shift. It was goddamn miserable.

Those Gundam news had Rockwell Retro Encabulator energy, the "I know some of those words" feeling.

love jason's vortex hat

So my phone filled up with years-old Bombcasts this morning.

My premium feed still not updated.

Edit: tried pasting in the RSS feed again into overcast and it is definitely busted.

SIDE G

Holy shit, am I into Gundams now?

Did Bakalar play a different game? The last 2K golf game is great

After that Gundam press release, we're all newtypes now.

I kind of want the crew to do a Tunic spoilercast once everyone is through it. There is so much to talk about with that game that you just can't without risking spoiling it for people who aren't there yet.

As a diehard Gundam fan; that news story was a MASSIVE word salad, in that exact way that Japanese companies spew bullshit when they don't have anything real to say but still need to fill out a business pitch lol. The "say random words until it feels like you said something meaningful" approach, if you will. We'll see if anything comes of it!

Also for those interested, there's a channel called GundamInfo on Youtube that sometimes posts full Gundam series shows for a limited time, along with a whole bunch of other side content. The best way to watch the original "Gundam" would probably be the 3-part movie version, so you don't have to sit through all the filler episodes.

Thank you Jeff G for calling out Devastator! I've been following the developer Radiangames since he was making Indie Games on Xbox 360. This game first came out seven(!) years ago on iOS. Luke (who is Radiangames) has since moved away from his sweet 2D-style arcade homages to make Instruments of Destruction (the 3D destructible environment vehicle creator game that Jeff played on a UPF a few weeks ago). Anyways, Radiangames games rarely get callouts from vg outlets, so was happy when Jeff mentioned Devastator here.

I still play Golf with your Friends almost every week with my buddies. What a great game (albeit infuriatingly buggy at times...but in a good way...)

@theonewhoplays:

I agree 100%. Even if somebody steals from a huge corporation like Kroger, there are still employees who face sanctions from managers who are under pressure to keep shrinkage as low as possible. It's worse when they steal from any kind of local store, where pressures are still there and the business can face real pressures from theft.

People think every single item is on like, a 50% profit margin. Talk to a manager at a local store and see how many items are actually in single digit profit margins and then decide if it's okay to steal a bunch of stuff. I used to race RC cars at a track that also had a shop. On a $300 kit he was making about $15-$30 profit. If he sold for more, people would just buy them online, and selling at that price at least got people in the doors to pay for race fees and maybe buy a handful of repair or upgrade parts. Somebody stealing a $20 part was probably putting him out anywhere from $12-$15.

Normally the Bombcast folks are more plugged in, but... C'mon! No one on GB even acknowledged the rather obvious and immense disparity in wealth and spending power between Microsoft and Sony.

Do you / did you honestly expect Sony to be able to offer a service on par with Game Pass, when Microsoft / Xbox is literally giving away Game Pass to drive adoption?

As one of the wealthiest corporations on Earth, Microsoft's greatest advantage is near infinite money; unless you happen to be Google, Amazon, or Apple (which Sony aren't), Microsoft can simply and easily outspend the competition.

Hell, Microsoft could run all of the Xbox division at a loss (not just Game Pass), if they wanted to.

https://gamingbolt.com/new-game-pass-subscriber-number-report-raises-questions-about-services-long-term-viability

Bitconneeeeeeeeeeeeeect!

hearing jeff b talk about american drug stores is crazy. they sell cigarettes and lottery tickets? what the fuck? you're supposed to trust these people with your health?

shoplifters didn't do that to you your bosses did

Tiny Tina's Wonderlands kind of seems similar to Saint's Row 4 in that they took an idea that works ok for a DLC but then stretched it out to cover a full game, and it doesn't really work anymore. (Granted, the DLC that became SR4 never actually came out, but similar enough.) The whole premise of haha we took this gun-heavy game and are trying to pretend it's like D&D, which works ok for a piece of side content that lasts a few hours, is not nearly interesting enough to carry an entire game. At least, I don't think so personally. Especially considering... I don't know, the whole idea of playing an entire game that is "fake" even within the context of the game's universe is just really fucking weird. Again, works for like a piece of side content or like one portion of a game (like a particular quest chain or whatever), but not for an entire game.

I'll echo what I commented last week and say I know I'm a square, but highlighting and even praising crimes seems like a... bad look. They aren't malicious crimes, but still, don't think they should be given air at all.

Fighting every cell in my body to not write a thesis about Gundam as a long time super fan lol

This announcement is hella weird and idk how to feel about it. Char might have an asteroid to say about it. But DUDE I hope Jeff gets into Gundam, would love to hear that podcast.

Definitely watch the original, especially if you're not squeamish about older animation styles. The animation improves dramatically in Zeta forward. By the time you get to Char's Counterattack and 0080 War in the Pocket, the animation is beautiful. Would recommend the Japanese audio, as the state of English VO for anime in the 80s was abysmal and takes the wind out of the drama.

DON'T watch the movie edits that are on Netflix right now. They're damn near impossible to follow and make all the characters seem unhinged since you're missing huge chunks of development.

The Rikidozan Island episode is like a weird fever dream of awful filler story and animation. It was removed for good reason, it's not even bad in a fun way. Maybe an interesting oddity but absolutely irrelevant to the series as a whole. The idea that they're making a movie of it is WILD.

If anyone wants a foot into some primo Gundam (from a narrative standpoint, rather than a Wow Cool Robots standpoint), War in the Pocket is a self contained 6 episode masterpiece.

Because I can't help myself, if anyone is curious what "Side G" means... "Sides" in Gundam, IRL, are Lagrange Points; areas of space with sustained gravitational equilibrium between celestial bodies (ie: Earth and the moon). Basically chunks of space you could build a bunch of colonies in and have them maintain a stable position relative to the earth and moon.

That is not how businesses with multiple divisions work. MS's gaming division cannot submit a budget with a loss and pass it off because their Productivity division (Office) will "make up for it". Each division is still expected to be profitable, unless their are some extenuating circumstances.

Like Sony, MS relies on games and services to make money for its gaming division. It is well known that neither Sony or MS make much, if any, money on the consoles. In a review with IGN last summer, Phil Spencer said the Xbox division was profitable. Meaning that profit is primarily coming from games and services, the same as Sony. It would be fair to say that Game Pass was probably not very profitable in the beginning (as is common), but I do not think Xbox can afford for it to be a loss leader in the long run.

Sony needs to make the service attractive to people so that they buy it and it ultimately makes them money. Not including first party games really limits the appeal of Sony's offering.

@whiteshadow151:

As a fellow big Gundam fan I agree with 90% of this but do want to correct one thing:

None of the Gundam dubs were done in the 80s. The original series was dubbed in the early 2000s (after Gundam Wing) and they are generally, really good (Micheal Kopsa is an incredible Char!). The main reason I would say to go with JP VA is just for consistency within the main UC story. For example:

Original Series & Char's Counterattack: One Cast

Zeta: Different Cast

Double Zeta: No Dub

Unicorn & The Origin: THIRD Cast

90s OVAs: FOURTH cast

That said, I've watched all the dubbed Gundam I can and enjoyed the series just fine. War in the Pocket (which IS incredible and plenty easy to watch without any other Gundam experience) is a really good dub featuring a rare non-Metal Gear performance from David Hayter as the lead! It's great!

@epidehl:

I didn't know that about the English VO! Unless I'm mixing it up with something else, I do know that they were using some loop holes towards the beginning that allowed them to hire cheaper, non-union (and usually part-time, amateur) voice actors.

My bigger problem then is with the translations. I actually just rewatched War in the Pocket a week ago and had started with the English VO, but there was something about the rhythm and specific translation of the script that felt... Off. But maybe I'm just biased to the subs as my first exposure.

Didn't know Bernie was played by David Hayter though... I might rewatch it again just for that now lol

@whiteshadow151: Oh yeah, the union/non-union stuff is a whole... thing. The real weird one of all of it is Zeta because unlike the others it was dubbed at the same as the original and CCA but had a different (but still Canadian, and I think technically the same company) cast.

I'll admit, I tend to not notice a lot of what it seems people consider bad acting/writing for some reason. I've always felt people get overly picky with dubs and put the JP voices on a lot of stuff on a pedestal when realistically they're not that different when you don't understand the language. And yeah, whatever you watch first will probably always feel more "right". There are VERY few anime I've watched and enjoyed both ways, starting from either language (basically Kill la Kill and JoJo?)

ANYWAY, I will say the modern NYAV Post dubs (which I believe are union) for stuff like Unicorn, NT, and The Origin are heads and shoulders above everything else and are some of my favorite dubs period.

It might be one of those things where in practice it's really not that complicated, but I legit could not understand a word of that Gundam press release. Like, I couldn't even be in on the joke and laugh at the ridiculous thing they were talking about because I literally don't know what the "thing" is based on what was said.