Plus Gearbox CEO compares studio failures to the Beatles and Acer reveals the Nitro Blaze 7
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SIFTER is produced by Kyle Pauletto, Fiona Bartholomaeus, Courtney Smith, Adam Christou and Chris Button. Mitch Loh is Senior Producer and Gianni Di Giovanni is our Executive Producer. Thanks to Audio Technica Australia for their support of SIFTER.
FIONA: Hi I’m Fiona Bartholomaeus
KYLE: and I’m Kyle Pauletto
FIONA: Welcome to Walkthrough, SIFTER’s weekly recap on the biggest news in video games.
KYLE: This week as quick as it was here Concord is gone, Acer joins the portable gaming handheld race, and Randy Pitchford makes an absurd comparison to defend recent disappointments.
Here is the news for Sunday 8th of September. Let’s go!
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KYLE: In a genuinely shocking move this week, Sony has taken Concord offline and offered refunds just two weeks after it launched.
While the full blown dummy spit was unexpected, the reasoning is far from surprising.
As we mentioned in last week's episode, the game had an appalling launch, with a peak PC player base of just 697 players on day one, and that number just continued to drop.
In fact, the last check in we did showed just 14 people were playing on Steam.
In a statement on the PlayStation blog, Sony thanked the players for their support, and acknowledged that Concord didn’t land in the way they intended.
FIONA: You’ll be automatically refunded if you bought a digital version for PS5 or PC, and if you bought a physical version you can take it back to the store you bought for a full refund.
Which is pretty wild.
It’s one thing to acknowledge your game is a flop, it’s a whole different level of acknowledgment to delete the game from existence and issue refunds.
Although Sony was vague about what they intend to do with the series, it’s safe to assume we’ve probably seen the last of Concord for now.
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KYLE: This week Acer joined the growing list of companies throwing their hats in the handheld gaming ring with its Acer Nitro Blaze 7.
That name again. Nitro Blaze.
It sounds like a rejected gatorade flavour. Or the name you gave yourself online in year seven. It’s got big nitroblaze420@hotmail.com energy.
FIONA: It’ll have a 50 watt-hour battery, state of the art processor, 2TB SSD storage and seven-inch 1080p screen, similar to the ROG Ally.
The Nitro Blaze won’t have any touchpads and unlike most handheld consoles, this one won’t have any back buttons on the back of the screen.
They’ve yet to announce prices or release dates but if you want to check out the full specs, we’ll add the link in the show notes.
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FIONA: In a strange defence for recent studio disappointments, such as the Borderlands movie, Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford has compared the company to The Beatles.
He commented on X, after someone pointed out the recent failures of the company, that the Beatles had a 25% hit rate and while they most likely made every song with love and care, not everything hits well.
KYLE: The Beatles famously did not have a 25% hit rate. They hold the record for the band with the most number one albums and singles according to Billboard despite being only active for six years between 1964 and 1970.
So yeah… not sure we’d be putting Gearbox in exactly the same category… when you think of another analogy, come back to us Randy.
I’m sure you did put love and care into each of your games though, I’ll give you that.
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KYLE: Doom mod creator Jim Purvis revealed last week that the popular Thatcher’s Techbase mod was being removed due a complaint about it being political.
The mod itself has been around for years and features a hellish alt-universe lair of former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
It’s essentially a Doom campaign but features locations like the House of Parliament and weapons like the Trident Launcher, the UK's nuclear deterrent.
When Bethesda re-released its Doom 1 and 2 bundle, it included tools that allowed modders to easily share their work in-game, which is cool but might now be an issue for older mods that have resurfaced.
FIONA: When the bundle rereleased Purvis said he was excited that the mod would be available for the first time outside of PC but it has now unfortunately been removed.
It’s not the end of the mod as it is still accessible through the mod’s own website and a user has already re-uploaded a version to the official Doom mod catalogue, but I guess it’s off the official list.
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FIONA: The Minecraft movie trailer is out!
KYLE: It sure is.
[CREEPER EXPLOSION SOUND]
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FIONA: That’s it for the big headlines, here are the games coming out this week
KYLE: Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine II is out on Monday. This third person shooter has earned itself some serious hype with an overwhelmingly positive response from early reviewers. Pick it up on PS 5, Xbox Series S and X, and PC on the 9th.
FIONA: Here to take on the Nitro Blaze for the dumbest name award is Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown, a new racing sim for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series S and X. In its defence it does look incredibly slick. That’s out on the 12th.
KYLE: Also out on the 12th is Wild Bastards, a first person strategy shooter cross with a roguelike, cross with a mod manager and some tactical campaign elements thrown in too. It sounds like a mess but it looks great and made right here in Australia, from our friends in Canberra Blu Manchu. It’s out on Switch, PC, PS5, and Xbox Series S and X on Thursday. Keep an eye out on the Lightmap feed for an upcoming interview!
FIONA: And lastly we have Funko Fusion, an action adventure featuring all the IP that 10:10 games could afford including Jurassic Park, Back to the Future, The Walking Dead and a whole heap more. Out on all platforms this coming Friday.
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FIONA: This has been Walkthrough by SIFTER, my name is Fiona Bartholomaeus.
KYLE: And my name is Kyle Pauletto, thank you so much for listening.
FIONA: Guess what? If you want to show your support for Walkthrough you can give us a rating right in the Pocket Casts app! Jump into the show in your library and hit that satisfying five star rating. It’s like collecting all the stars in Mario, and then assigning five of them to us. YAHOOO Head to Pocket Casts now to show the love and give Walkthrough a five star review.
KYLE: SIFTER is produced by myself, Fiona Bartholomaeus, Adam Christou, Courtney Smith and Chris Button. The episode is edited by both Senior Producer Mitch Loh and Executive Producer Gianni Di Giovanni, who is also Walkthrough’s script editor.
FIONA: Thanks to Brian Fairbanks from Salty Dog Sounds for composing the Walkthrough theme tune, and Audio Technica Australia and Apple for their support of SIFTER’s podcasts.
KYLE: We’ll be back with more news next Sunday. See you then.
