Microcast: The Pokémon vs Palworld legal battle we did (and didn't) expect

[Music] This is the GameShare.biz Microcast. I'm James Batchett, Editor-in-Chief of GameShare.biz. I'm joined by Head of GameShare.biz, Chris Dring, how are you, sir? I am great. I would just done a HR summit, best place to work with, which is a monster project and has given me sleepless nights and lots of stress and it's over. I mean, we've got to do it over reports now, but the bit was over. And it was really good and everyone came and it was lovely and lots of awards happened and it was a really cool venue and I'm really happy about it. So really good. How was it? I'm good. It was like, likewise, you know, HR summit was definitely a highlight of the week. Everyone seemed to enjoy it. I feel terrible because I've been getting tagged in like LinkedIn posts and getting emails, "Oh, thank you so much, James and Chris." I'm like, "I didn't do as much as Chris did. I don't think I should be getting it." But I turned up and helped you. I don't think I should be getting much panel. He did a good panel. That was a great panel. That was a really interesting panel. Difference between generations and so. Well, I found really fascinating about it. It was really. I had a sort of theme at the beginning, which is, I said it in my little intro, was like, we talk about how difficult the world is at the minute and the leadership and the challenges of trying to deal with all this things. These leaders and these HR people are having to deal with it themselves as well. And yet they're the ones who have to find the way forward, whether it's how to do remote working, how to deal with all these layoffs, how to do with whatever. These are the people that have to work at what to do. They look to the people looking to these people for answers. And they don't know themselves. They don't have a cheat sheet. They have to try and work it out. And I sort of wrote that intro, not realizing how many of the talks are going to talk about the burnout and the stress that the HR community really stress suffering for at the minute. Anyway, that's interesting. You should. Some of that stuff will be up on the GI website over the course the next few months, I suspect. But yeah, keep an eye on it. Indeed. And we are going to be talking about some of the biggest stories of the past week. We are not going to be talking for a full hour like we did last week with peers. We are going to try and keep this back to a microcast. A few stories that we don't have time to delve into deeply, but I did kind of want to bring up. First of all, Intel reportedly lost the contract with Sony to produce chips for PlayStation 6. That's now reportedly gone to AMD. We're already talking about PlayStation 6. We've only just announced the PS5 Pro. Yeah, it doesn't feel like we're ready. I honestly think this generation is going to last a lot longer than previous generations. There are so many developers that haven't even got started on the machine yet. So many of the games are playing up along the old hardware. So many of the audiences still on the old hardware to be talking about PS6 now. I'm sure I'm obviously going to do all this stuff in the planning and we're looking at it and planning for it. But I'm not expecting. I think we're looking at 8, 9 years. It's in my prediction. I'll throw this in my. Somebody clipped this out and throw it at me in like 2027 when I'm wrong. But I think we might be looking at an 8, 9 year generation this time. I think some analysts agree. When I was in the PS5 Pro piece the other week, a lot of analysts have said like. When I was asking for like sales projections, they were. We think by the end of the generation in 2028, 2029, it's like really like that. That is 8 years. Well, we're four years in now and I feel like we haven't started. It's nowhere to be reached. So, yeah, I think it might be a bit longer. Australia has introduced new rules for classifications for video games. Any games that have simulated gambling in them, so any kind of, you know, poker like casino, mini games, etc. are now legally restricted to adults and must be rated R18 at a minimum. Any. There's a separate new rule that any games with in-game purchases linked to elements of charlants, such as loot boxes, without gambling in imagery. So, like not. Yeah. They. I'm going to have to have a minimum rating of M, which is fifth players who are 15-year-old, 15-year-old and over. Cracking down harder on the gambling stuff. I mean, EA Sports FC will have to be a 15, essentially, in Australia. Yeah, that's interesting. Well, I don't think they say, you know, a lot of people are trying to link loot boxes to gambling because there's some similarity there. When I just. I think loot boxes are problematic, but I think the gambling conversation is a distraction. And I think it's something that we might. We need to deal with as an industry and a society, but I don't necessarily think we have to just bulk it in with gambling laws, necessarily. I wonder if it's its own issue. And while it seems like Australia, they're going, you know, it's not gambling. It is an issue. We're going to create a different. It's a different age-rated solution to it. Interesting. Flapy bird is back. After 10 years. Flapy bird, 10 years after its own developer delisted it, because he couldn't quite. He didn't like how successful it had become. I can't remember the full details of why he pulled it. It's also a bit rubbish. Yeah. Stole half the stuff from Mario, didn't it? Yeah, like the visual assets. The visual assets, yeah, like the bird and the beer. But Flapy bird is back, the Flapy bird foundation group, who is an organisation of passionate fans. I do that in air quotes on an audio podcast. They announced that they've acquired the Flapy bird trademark from Gaines' Heck Holdings, which itself acquired the trademark from Don Nogayan. Don Nogayan, the original developer, has come out on social media and said, "I have nothing to do with this game. I did not sell anything. I didn't sell my trademark. I don't support crypto." There is a lot of confusion as to whether or not the trademark is simply expired. Steven Tutilo has apparently done a lot deeper reporting on his game file newsletters. So that might be worth a read. But yeah, Flapy bird is back. And apparently that's a big deal. I'm not going to pretend I'm interested in Flapy bird. No, fair enough. I bet you are more interested in EA had its investor date earlier this week. Yeah. Love it when EA say stuff. Absolutely. Some of the things they said, they want to outpace market growth and drive margin expansion through fiscal year 2027. That's very kind of investor day-ish. But some of the highlights are like, obviously consumer sites were nuts because the teaser for the new modern day Battlefield came out. EA announced they're launching an EA Sports app, which is going to offer a combination of sports content, live sports data, social messaging, interactivity and gaming centered on global football. They talked about AI driving efficiency. And then there was a ton of Sims news. They basically said they're not essentially said they're not making the Sims 5, which everyone assumed Project Rene was. Project Rene isn't that. It is not cancelled. Whatever it is is going to a multiplayer beat test soon. But they said like they're not going to continue developing and expanding Sims 4. They're going to, I'm going to quote here, disrupt the sequel model and invest in a massive Sims platform. My only query, a lot of people have been, surely the entire games as a service, live service thing has been disrupting the sequel model for a good few years. We would be on like Fortnite 36 by now, surely. Yeah, well, I mean, I love the fact that EA, a lot of people picked up on that EA quote about AI doing this, that and the other. But it's like, EA says things investors will like is what they do, right? Yeah, and they invest in it a little bit and then we knew no success is going to be depending on EA Sports FC and it's going to depend on, you know, stuff like that. It's interesting. The Sims is, Sims is, you know, if you follow EA's individual games, which I've done a few things on, look at games like Skate and Dead Space, which are not their biggest franchises and at all they're quite small. They've done this thing where they actually announced that game, announced those games and got their players playing it, you know, really, really, really early. Like this is not unusual. There were other companies that have done this, but they took it. They actually showed people the game when it's barely, barely started development and they've got the fans in really early. And then there's this other thing which they do with sports games now where they keep talking about these sports games being platforms, which are like what we're going to do is we're going to put loads of other new things in there or reach out to the world and we're involved. There's a real world sport and all this kind of stuff, which is I guess what that app might be part of. The Sims seems to be doing both of those things. They've got this taken this right. We're going to be having the fans in, you know, the Sims 4. The big thing about the Sims 4 is the Sims generally. Do you see these packs where they would go, here's a pack that, and it touches on something pop culturey and cool at the time. But pop culture moves so fast today. Everything happens so quickly. And also it's so splintered like what's pop culture to us is different to an entirely different audience and different people. What's big on TikTok is what's big on Twitter and all this sort of stuff. EA can't keep up. You know, the Sims company can't keep up. So they're basically going, hey guys, do you want to make it for us fans? And that's what they do. And they've always had the ability for fans to make this stuff, but they're really going, that's where they're pushing things now. They can't keep up with packs and doing it themselves. They get in the fans to do it for them. They're going to talk about rewarding those fans in some ways as well. So it's quite interesting what they're doing there. They also have these Sims labs thing where they're going to put out early concept ideas and things for Sims players to play and decide what actually gets made or whether or not things need to get changed and stuff like that. So that's their big thing. Yeah, their big thing is giving the tools for the fans and the fans decide the direction of the Sims rather than going. This is how we see the future of the Sims. Here's the Sims 5. You take it into that sort of interaction. I know this because I spoke to the Sims people. I should fit interview maybe on the site by the time you listen to this, it might not be. But it's a, it is a, that's their whole strategy around the Sims. It's all about, but when everyone here that we're looking to build a platform, I'm like, what does that mean? I just picked up something from the stand on like a yellow pages to sort of with a microphone yelling. But yeah, it's, it's, it's, that's the OEA thing, isn't it? It's building things that can branch out beyond the world of games and into general culture. Beyond that, the only other story I wanted to touch on before we dive into the main topic was Reforge. This was a new game announced early this week. This is quite interesting. I'm going to let you enter it this because you did the interview. Yeah, so Reforge, well, what I found interesting about it is so reforges by 4J Studios. I know 4J Studios because they did the re, they did the HD remasters of Perfect Dark and Banger Kazooie. Most people know 4J because they are the responsible for the Minecraft console ports, which are actually quite, they're really well done. They used to be anyway. I'm not sure about the more modern ones. But 4J have, they don't do those anymore. And they've been, they released a game last year, a small game. They're now trying to make their first original game, which isn't Minecraft 2. But it looks an awful lot like Minecraft 2. And, and it's, and so they're making the, what they've done is they've built their own engine. It's called the Elements Engine. And it's, it's an X Gen Engine or a current Gen Engine. Basically Xbox Series S onwards. It's the game they're making for it, Reforge will not be on PS4. It will not be on older mobile phones. I mean, theoretically, it could be on future mobile phones. It won't be on Switch. It is a, it's an engine that's going looking forward. It's, they're building it. They're making a game. They obviously know their Minecraft stuff. But what they've also done is they've brought in a guy called Joseph Garrett, who the world will know as Stampy, Stampy Long-nosed Stampy Long-head. Stampy, Stampy, Stamp, Stamp, Stamp. I'm not a, I'm not a, a Stampy No, no, no, but he's a very, very, very smart YouTuber. They haven't brought him in as like some weird, not even weird, some sort of endorsement or anything like that where he sends a bit of feedback in once a month. He actually works for them. He's there three days a week in their studio, in their game design team. He's been, he's been, he's, he's got team tasks to complete. He's not, this is his job now. His job is, he's a game developer and he's making a game that isn't Minecraft, but is sort of Minecraft. And, and it's, and it is and it's been made by the studio and it's been made on this new Ford Facing Engine. So it's an interesting concept. Ford's a great little studio. They're quite well regarded in Scotland and in the UK. And it's a bit of a big test for them. You know, they are, they're a small team. They're trying to take on the world. I think what they, what, what's reassuring is they don't want, they're not looking for like 100,000 players in like a month or whatever. Their plan is like, let's get a small community of diehard fans, which they already have through Minecraft into the game, get them to help them develop the game with them. And the same way the Sims are talking about, get them in at the very earliest opportunity and develop this project along with, not alongside them. And then, and then when it gets to a certain point, certain scale, they may need some help. They do have some partner studios they can work with to a point that after that, you may, maybe a 10 cent deals down the line or whatever. And then, you know, they're like, yeah, I don't know if they're going to be a deal or something, which allows them to be able to do something a bit bigger. It, it sounds good. It sounds reassuring. It sounds great. I'm not, you know, and, and it was a good chatting to them and hearing about it. And they, they seem confident, which should be fun. But yeah, I don't, obviously, and like a live service sandbox survival game, maybe I'm indeed normally, you know, yeah. If anyone can do it, is the people that know Minecraft better than anyone, know that audience better than anyone and, and, and have realistic expectations. So good luck to them. Yeah, in truth, see how that one turns out. We're going to dive into our main topic, which is as almost certainly everyone has guessed, Pokemon versus Power World. So, I got the lawsuit that everyone was expecting, but not the lawsuit that everyone was expecting. Nintendo and the Pokemon company has filed a lawsuit against Pocket pair, which is the developer of Power World, but it's not the IP infringement copyright infringement that everyone expected because the, you know, the monsters look quite like a Pokemon. It's a lawsuit for infringing multiple patent rights. Now they haven't specified which patents they are infringing. Pocket pair in its own statement claims that it hasn't even been notified of which patents it's allegedly infringing. I imagine that will go through all the courts and so forth. It's all been filed with the Tokyo District Court. So legal proceedings will continue. And it's just, yeah, it's really interesting this guy. When Power World came out in February, when, when Power World's first announced a couple of years ago, everyone liked this is Pokemon with guns. And it has been unofficially just referred to as Pokemon with guns from the beginning. Because more than, you know, quite a few of the monsters passed more than a passing resemblance to, you know, familiar Pokemon. And when it came out, that whole debate came up again. I actually spoke to some legal experts on GI. So there's a whole feature you can read there. And it's linked in the lawsuit story. And it's not, it's been interesting because it shows like it's not as clear cut a case as that looks like that. Therefore it's infringing like, you know, the honest of proof on Nintendo and the Pokemon companies is going to be difficult to kind of show you copied our monsters. And it's interesting. It's kind of showing like how far developers can go in taking inspiration from something without copy and yellow infringing on their rights. I think this comes down to a little bit in whether or not you piss Nintendo off. Nintendo have an awful lot of patents, right? They have a lot of things that, you know, some people they have a pattern, I've read somewhere, they have a pattern where you know when a character goes behind a tree in a 2D game and you see their shadow outline in that. Yeah, yeah, Nintendo have a pattern on that. And it's not that they, you know, I, there is a, I've got my best mate lives in Lester in the UK. There was a fish and chip shop on the corner of his house called Marios with a crudey drawn picture of Mario on the front. Right. And they've been there for 20 years. So there is this, there is this, I think the thing, yeah, Nintendo probably could sue a lot of people. And in fact, a lot of the times they seem to be promoting games that seem a bit similar to their games. My fear with this one is, okay, maybe this game has been too successful. I think the other thing is worth remembering that Nintendo, reason one Nintendo are so litigious reason why they're so defensive of their IP is because it is what they are. Right. So whether their consoles go through good points or bad points, what's always been stable is the popularity of their brands. You know, they are Mario, they are, you know, Pokemon's current, they are Matt Zelda. That is what that is their strength. Their strength is in their IP. So they're always quite defensive of it. They don't want people ripping them off. But I don't think this is a power plays nothing like Pokemon really. It looks like Pokemon. It looks like Pokemon and it's Pokemon guns. That for me is going, if I was Nintendo, I'd be pissed off with that. They don't want an association with Pokemon and guns. That's not what they will be angry about it. And I suspect they're angry about it. So they draw up their paintings. Right. What can we do? How can we go after this? And I'm sure the fact that it looks a little bit like Pikachu or whatever. It wasn't enough. And they've had to dig a bit deeper in order to fight them. The truth is, though, they have done this before. They have tapped other games before and what they actually win quite a lot Nintendo this. But a lot of the times those games don't disappear. They don't get taken off the market. They just have to start paying a fee. And maybe there's a fine up front. So I don't think this is the end of Power World. I think you need to remember the power was had a not only was powered a massive hit when it came out. There's now, there's now a talk about Sony's, which is Nintendo's rival is turning it into a mass media franchise. They're talking about releasing the game on PlayStation 5 now. It's becoming a bigger thing potentially. I don't think the game's good enough, to be honest. I skeptical about how much Legs Power World has beyond its initial buzz. But that is probably what Nintendo wants to. Because ultimately, you know, there is a truth to the fact that there's be honest, they could have they didn't have to make it look like Pokemon. They did it for a reason. And the reason is pissed off Nintendo. Yeah. And it's going to be interesting. Like the so PC gamers Lincoln carpenter actually did a little digging into what pattern like we still don't have confirmation of which patent. It is, but I PC game is link carpenter carpenter has come up with a fairly fairly decent guess Nintendo apparently patented the. I won't say like legal speak, but essentially the ability to catch a creature in the you know, in running around the game world in a capsule. So like you you know, they're on you can't protect the you know, you can't protect the ability to like in a game you come across a creature and you fight it and you beat it and it joins a party can't protect that. But it's specifically the mechanic of it. You know, it powered uses pal spheres not pokeballs and but they still do like the little wobble, you know, the little jiggle to see what did you catch it, etc. And there was apparently a part of patent that Nintendo filed in the US and Japan during the development of Pokemon Legends Archaeus, which obviously has you going around open areas throwing pokeballs and catching Pokemon in that way. And it's not where is all like the the traditional Pokemon games is all done separately from the game world in a battle. This is like in the game world. And that's the best guess as to what they've been able to go for. I mean, treat to see how well this all how well this will go like Nintendo even Nintendo think he had enough grounds to do a copyright infringement, like you know, the one of the most iconic pow well monsters, which I don't know the name of is the big the big yellow and black one that carries a gatling gun. And essentially an elect a buzz but slightly different like the design differences between the two monsters and the most the other monsters are different enough that Nintendo must know that they can't do they can't win on those grounds despite the fact that you're like a low five kind of Pokemon fans are like how is this allowed? When the game first came out like the reaction was, oh, this is just an easy win for Nintendo. It's not it's not an easy win. You you have to be really specific or you have to prove that your your assets, your creations have been stolen or directly copied. You have to prove that they have copied in order to win on that ground. So the fact they're down going down the pattern route. I don't know really if this is the correct pattern like a really specific mechanic. Like you're right that even if that's not going to be enough to take the game down like the absolute worst comes to worse. Imagine Nintendo would be paid damages and you know pocket pay would have to like patch something in and change the way that the catching mechanic works but the rest of the game would survive. Yeah, absolutely fine. It's just it's it's fascinating. It's fascinating to see as you say like I think an element of it is because powered has been so successful. So this will not only be to you know argue that powered success has come come from it's association with Pokemon and you know Nintendo the Pokemon companies owned owned patterns. So that's whatever it will also be to dissuade other people because as when anything is a hit. You know we will we will get power world copies in three four years time because someone will have looked at the car. I can do that and make their own versions and so this is kind of to dissuade this lawsuit is also partly to dissuade those people from going too close to the mark when it comes to infringing on Nintendo. the kind of Pokemon's rights. Yeah, not at the time and intend to do this. You know, when you're gonna go after a fan making, a remake of something and they're going, well, is he really doing any harm? No, it's not. It's less about the harm, that it's less about that. It's more about the pat, the, the, the, the. What's the word, I'm talking about the legal term, the, you know, the, the, the, the, I can't find the word. What's the word, could James? The word for like the expectation, what people, you know, what it, the example itself. That's the one. The precedent, that's the word I'm looking for. precedent. Yeah, it's that kind of thing that it's, um, yeah. The other thing is like to Nintendo, as you have already proven what they'll do to protect Pokemon and the Pokemon company, if you've proven what they'll do to protect Pokemon, like really recently, like I think I was barely a couple of days before the, uh, lost news of the laws you came out. The Pokemon company won a $15 million copy right and into an intellectual property theft lawsuit against several Chinese companies that were involved in the game called Pocket Monster Reissue. And that game had literally lifted the characters, Ash Ketchum from the animated series and Pikachu, like those characters were in the game, like not even copies or slight, we were inspired by, like it was those characters. Similarly, when, um, Power First came out, some user modded, um, Power World to introduce, recognizable Pokemon characters, including Ash Ketchum, and Nintendo had those taken down. It could take the mods down because those directly infringed on the right, it couldn't take down Pokemon. And so it just takes out Pokemon, taking down Power World. Um, and just, yeah, I did, I find all this stuff really fascinating, so it does do, where's the line? Where's the line to what people can, because this, this goes into, sorry, we're going to like a much, much broader topic here, but this goes into what you can and can't protect with, um, video game development and game design. And the effect that has on the industry, so you were talking earlier about the fact that Nintendo was, you know, patented the fact that you can see, you know, the shadow behind a tree. Like, that, to me, as someone who doesn't have things to protect, doesn't feel like something that needs protected, I don't see the issue of another developer using that. And the thing that this whole conversation is bringing to mind, weirdly, is Warner Brothers trying to patent the Nemesis system. Like the Nemesis system in Shadow of Mordor, where, you know, enemies can react and remember and have, you know, kind of bespoke counters with, uh, players, was protected at the point where no one else has tried to do something similar. I think there's something vaguely simmering the, the Assassin's Creed games, but for fear of litigation. But you look at that systems like, if that were used in other games, like, think how that could be, I'm not saying like, I'm not saying like shadow illustrations could massively improve other games. But like, if we protect ideas too closely, we limit the innovation that we can have. Yeah. It's that way of thing. You want to take, I understand the, you can understand the, you know, people create a good idea, and they want to take an own issue of this as our idea. I don't want to, you know, I want to own it. But at the same time, you know, we should be able to iterate and build on those things to improve them and further the, further the industry and the, and that innovation onwards. And you're sort of reliant on the companies that have patented it, not being our souls. I'm just going, oh, okay. You know, you know, we're not harming us. It's a very different thing and a different setting and a different, you know, is that, you know, and, and, yeah, you, which you should never, you should never expect a morality from a corporate beast. But, so yeah, there's certainly, it's interesting. Like, a lot of people were talking about how power should be sued, Nintendo should go after them. And now Nintendo have gone after them. There's a bunch of people going, this is outrageous. And I don't know. I always, I play, I sort of seen Power World. I know it does look like Pokemon. It doesn't play like Pokemon. It doesn't play even very good. I'm not going to. It's, it's a different type of game. And the only thing I would say is anything that's making me go, sort of against pocket pairs. In fact, they didn't, they obviously used, they're using the fact that people compared it to Pokemon as one of the reasons why it got so much attention in the first place. And it, it, it, it lent on the Pokemon comparisons in order to help it sell the amount of copies it's doing. And you can understand why Nintendo might resent that. But, you know, how many press releases do we get where says this game is Metroid or this, this is Luigi's Mansion with Sex toys. Like it's the, it's a, which is, I've had one last couple of weeks. This is Pokemon Me's Vampire Survivors. Yeah, like it's, you know, yeah. Everyone uses something as a point of reference and they lean into it for a marketing point of view. So yeah, I'll see, I mean, Nintendo don't tend to lose these things, but I think, you know, I think pocket pair and we'll live on and have a very successful Power World. And if anything, I hadn't thought about Power for a long time. No. So Nintendo's given it a bit of a boost. I wouldn't be surprised if you see their numbers jump up over the weekend. Last thought is that this will be a really interesting one to follow because, because Power World is so prominent, because Power World has been such a hit. I mean, you may have forgotten about it, but like, you know, a lot of people are still playing it. It's one of the biggest hits this year. You know, you compare that to, you know, pocket monster reissue, the, you know, the one that Pokemon Company wanted. An IP theft like no one had heard of that until it got sued. Like so. Yeah, yeah, but there's a lot of, there's a lot of copycats. Yeah, oh yeah. And, and, you know, there was another game. I can't remember. There was an article I read about another game, Nintendo came when after for similar things, which is a mobile game in Japan. It's actually really big in Japan. And Nintendo won that, but that game still exists and it's still going on. And it's just they have to give a little bit of their success and Nintendo. I think we all probably end up there. I think we all, I think to be fair, I think if we all be honest with ourselves, we all owe a little bit of our success and Nintendo. But yeah, it'll be interesting to follow. I think it'll open our eyes a little, the industry's, the people's eyes a little bit too. All of that for good or for ill. Follow it we shall. However, we are going to follow this now with our final second for this week. It's the time of the week where I get to ask you, Chris, what do the numbers mean? I don't know anymore, James. I've made, I've made, I've had to make two predictions on this podcast so far. For let's just do one. We talk about how well a game's going to do. And one of the styles out those, I've got that one wrong. And the other one was Astrobot. An Astrobot, I don't think we got wrong. But it's, we called it a breakout, which is quite a me going, it could be successful. I want to give you some stats. Now we have the European data in now for the first week of Astrobot. We have a lot of it in for the second week of Astrobot as well. But I thought it focused on the first week. Astrobot was actually the best selling game that week in Europe that came out. It sales a 2% up over Ratchet and Clank, which came out in 2021. It's 52% bigger than Crash Bandicoot 4. It's 100% bigger than the launch of Sonic Frontiers. It was 48% smaller than Spyro Reignited Trilogy's launch, and 59% smaller than Crash Bandicoot N. Same Trilogy's launch. So the question is, has it done well? The answer is yes. And, and the reason why there's an awful lot of people on my social media that are trying to system this game as flopped. And it absolutely has not flopped. I think there's a few, you need to contact platform games. People who, there are fans of platform games. Like James, you're a planner for platformers. I absolutely, yes. I'm somebody there day one on a platformer. But most times, these games are targeting an audience that's often younger, broader, more familiar, or in-tate. These people are not going, "I need to be there at day one. I either have my pre-order in. I need to get the special edition." They're not, that's not what the audience for these games are. So therefore you see, if you look at the Mario Wonder, right, compare it to Zelda, it is the Kingdom. Zelda, it is the Kingdoms, so 10 million copies in a weekend. And Mario Wonder got to 5 million. Mario's a big brand, right? It does have hardcore fans, but he didn't do anywhere near that number in the weekend. Yet over the course of its life, it's got a lot closer to Zelda, because it keeps selling. And that's what platform games do. Ratchet and Clank, for instance, only 2% are hot. Ratchet and Clank. The Ratchet and Clank isn't really a platform game. Yes, it's colourful, and it's got cute animals in it. But it's a shooter, it's an action adventure game. It does have a hardcore audience. So that audience is more likely to come out day one, and indeed it did come out day one. Ratchet and Clank's most of its sales were early on in its life. Crash Bandicoot 4 and Sonic Frontiers, the numbers I just gave you there, may you may think their launches were failures, but Crash Bandicoot 4 has gone on to sell 5 million copies. Sonic Frontiers is the most successful 3D Sonic game ever made, right? So you've got that, to the early launch, that doesn't really indicate how all those games did at all. And obviously Crash Bandicoot, the collections, the Spirer and Crash collections, I have a nostalgic play element to it, where you can, again, appeal to slightly more hardcore gamers that may be brought up on those games. They're more likely to have strong weak ones. This is not me defending Astrobot. Astrobot's numbers are really strong. They're really strong for a platform game on a play, on picking on a console that is not known for, they are known for platform games, but it's not Nintendo. So it's actually been a decent hit. Yeah, what I would say is I was wrong to suggest it was going to be a breakout, like a mega boom seller, right? It's not been that, it's been a decent seller, very good seller. When you think about the size of that team, we talked about it last week, and so I think, you know, we've got the first number thing, this game is great. The key success of Astrobot will not be decided in these two weeks, in this month, in October. It'll be decided over a long, long period of time, and as peers were saying to us last week, it'll be evergreen. I'll be honest with you, James, spend a lot of time talking about Astrobot there. I'm not here to talk about Astrobot, I'm talking about something that's actually been a proper mega hit. Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine 2. Now, when we talked about it last week, I talked about it being the fastest selling Warhammer game. One fact I failed to mention last week, is the game wasn't even out yet. So the game that we were talking about data that was from their gold edition, or basically their early access special edition they had for the game. The game only actually launched properly this last week. In cross Europe, sales are up 140% week on week, because it's now actually out. And I said, "What I want to say to the stat one, I'll give you after two weeks on sale." So it's on sale for two weeks, and one of those weeks it wasn't fully out. Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine 2 is the already the second biggest new game released this year. Wow. So it is behind Hell's divers too, that's the biggest selling new game released this year. But after just two weeks, it's bigger than the last of us part two remastered, which is number three. I'm surprised for me that. I just need. That is bigger than Dragon's Dogma 2. It's just number four. Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, number five, bigger than that. It's bigger than Tekken 8, number six, bigger than F124, number seven. This is new, by the way, European data. Number eight, it's bigger than WWE 2K24. Bigger than Star Wars Outlaws, which is number nine. Star Wars Outlaws numbers actually, when I looked at it, not that bad, that bad at all. It's not one of that flop. It's not great, it's not that bad. And bigger than Prince of Persia Lost Crown. This, by the way, this top 10 is somewhat shocking. When you sit there, when you go, the third best selling new game released this year is the remastered of the last of us part two. And Prince of Persia Lost Crown, which I know, I'm delighted it's in there. It's number 10. I mean, don't be wrong, we haven't got to Christmas yet. Dragon Age will be in the end of the year, called a duty Assassin's Creed. But yeah, Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine 2 after two weeks is the. And this is GSD data. Where's Power World, Chris? Power World's not in the GSD data. There's a few things missing there. But what a phenomenal success there for Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine 2. That's brilliant. And a phenomenal success for Saber, obviously. I think it's the first big release in Saber split from Embracer Group. So that's really got to kind of shore them up for going forward as an independent company. Yeah, and it's published by Focus as well, isn't it? Yeah. And that's obviously. It's good for them as well. I think they needed it. And so, yeah. So we've had it. That's been a real real hit. So obviously, the media loves to chat about this sort of Xbox PlayStation and those sort of first party games get a lot of chat, a lot of drama. But actually, what's come along and just made everyone go, "Yo, yeah, don't be Space Marine 2." And it's to the point where we weren't talking about Space Marine 2 until it's come out and done these numbers. We knew it was there. I don't think we were necessarily anticipating it. It's quite. It's quite well done to the success of that game. Of course, the biggest game of the year is out next week. And which. James, there's a Zelda game out next week. Do you know about this? I keep reminding myself, the Zelda game out next week. And I miss it. So I was trying to. I'm going to try and stick another prediction in. I've got to get one of them right. Right, anyway. And I thought, "Suele, Zelda's an easy one. 'Cause it's Nintendo. It's an established audience." But actually, this is hard. There hasn't actually been a really big first party Nintendo release now since Mario Wonder at the end of last year. We've had a load of great remasters and remakes and some weird interesting things, like Princess Preach Showtime, which I know that you're playing James at the minute. That's Nez, Remix, completely sort of a retro-y thing. There's been a lot of that. And these things have sort of done. You know, they've done what they've done. I was a bit disappointed. Luigi mentioned two HD's numbers. 'Cause I was wondering how well you mentioned three did. But overall, you know, I don't think anyone's expecting huge things for them. This is the first and might even be the only triple-aid Nintendo. At least a big brand in Nintendo title coming out this year. It's obviously a Zelda game. The last Zelda game sold 10 million in a weekend, as I said last time. We're never gonna really know unless Nintendo release the numbers, how well this game has done, until their next financial report, because Nintendo don't share digital data with the charts. So we know how well it will do physically, but we won't necessarily know how well it will do digitally. We can do some estimates based on how well we know other digital games do on Switch. But it's gonna be hard for us to even know if I'm right or wrong about this one. The easiest game to compare this to is Link's Awakening, the 2019 remake, which is done in the same style, made by the same developer. That game didn't actually have a massive, massive launch. It is the best-selling 2D Zelda game of all time. Link's Awakening, the 2019 remake. But obviously, the numbers are nowhere near the 3D Zelda's. There's obviously gonna be some former demand for it, but I don't know James, the reason why I asked that question at the beginning at it, do you realise Zelda game either? There doesn't be much buzz about it. There doesn't seem much chat around this game at the minute. It's not unusual for Nintendo to sort of hype to come quite late. It happened with tears to kingdom, actually. And it happened with, you know, we mentioned Pokemon Legends Archaeus, like that, caught a caught people off guard, because people, the buzz sort of came in right at the last minute. But for me, so it's difficult underpredict. It's the only, I think, switch all your users might be desperate for something, might be eager for something. The Zelda fans obviously come out day one. I think we're probably gonna see a bigger launch than Link's Awakening, which was game wasn't huge. But I'm not convinced we're going to see like a sort of, oh my god, Nintendo's had a mega moment with this one. There's an element of like, if you listen to some of the chat from the Nintendo forms, the sort of mechanic around this game seems to be, doesn't seem to have one over. Nintendo is more core audience. I think the idea of just using beds to climb up stuff, and you know, you sort of summon items and things like that, which is in very keeping with the Zelda character, isn't necessarily who you play as this time. So there's a little bit of, I think, people maybe wait for the reviews. This is what happens when the reviews drop with a Nintendo game. If the reviews are very, very strong, do seem to see, you know, Nintendo's a bit old-school, really. You know, we saw Space Moon 2 come out of nowhere. We didn't expect that to be a hit. We, Astray Bot, we were talking about quite a lot, because the media are involved in that journey, we're involved in that story. Zelda, and I find that actually the real success is particularly on console and PC. You have to delve into those wish lists and those forums and where those things are being shared in those communities. Whereas with Nintendo, you probably can look at the mainstream media and have a good gauge of what's going to land and what isn't. So yeah, it's going to be an interesting one Zelda. Again, I can't really predict it. The numbers aren't going to be released anyway. But I, I, I hope you'll be number one. I'm pretty sure next week. As a physical release anyway. And I think it's not remotely controversial to say, not even a real prediction to say it's going to be the biggest Nintendo launch this year. But, but right now I'm yet to see the sort of buzz and excitement you would expect on the eve of a new Nintendo, Zelda game. And it is a New Zelda game, remember? This isn't Link's Awakening, which was a remaster. This is a New Zelda, it's a new story, it's a new game. So, um, and Nintendo has been pushing it hard. I'm just, I'm just not seeing that manifest itself in much chatter. They've been pushing it hard, but like they've been pushing it over a short period of time. So the Link's Awakening remake was announced in a February Nintendo Direct and then came out September that year. And there was a lot of marketing around it because I think I believe it came out alongside the Switch Lite. So it was kind of like seen as the Switch Lite launch title, as it were. So it had a good six months of kind of buildup. Plus obviously, you know, years and years of fandom four, Link's Awakening as a game and like, you know, the pent up nostalgia there. This one was announced in June. Yeah, it's also unusual for a Zelda game. It's not unusual for Zelda. It's not unusual for a Zelda remaster to be announced quite short. But like, you know, it was just the tears of the Kingdoms bit, was announced like years and years before this release. Like we're used to, we're used to, we're used to seeing a delay, not being told in June something exists and it'll be out in two months. It was a, it's certainly a different one. And look, as I say, hype for Nintendo games can quite come quite late. And although we're only a week from launch, I wouldn't be surprised if that's what happens this time as well. That is all we've got time for this week. Thank you so much for joining us. You can find all episodes of this show on the podcasting platform of your choice. Just search for the Games and should not be as podcast. YouTube versions are available as well. Minus our faces now. On the GI YouTube channel. We have faces for radio. We do very much have faces for radio. And now thankfully microphones to fit. You can get more news inside and analysis into the world behind video games at GameStopBiz. We will be back next week.