Sony Kills Discs, Nintendo Revives Star Fox

Griffin needed to take this week off, but our guest was more than prepared to talk about the week’s huge gaming news. Stephen Totilo, the founder of Game File and former EIC of Kotaku, explains the cause and fallout of Sony’s decision to cease physical game production in 2028. In more joyful news, Nintendo remade Starfox for the second time! And Frushtick and Plante have impressions to share!

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Chris Plante?

  Y'all, I saw my life flash before my eyes this weekend. Wow. Literally saw my life flash before my eyes this weekend. Was it a happy thing or?

• 0:09Russ Frushtick?

  How much of that time was just you sitting in a chair staring at a screen?

• 0:13Chris Plante?

  That's the problem is it wasn't that, but it's you're not so far off. Oh, no. I I desperately needed to organize our garage because you know, like you gotta organize the garage if you want to organize everything else. That's going to be the place that you're moving all the storage, right? So I'm going through it and what do I find most of the garages? Old video game collections, a lot of it destroyed from when the car drove through the house, but I decided to keep it. I don't know. I'm sentimental. And I like I'm stacking it and I'm stacking it and it's getting higher and higher and heavier and heavier.

• 0:46Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, so this is now the intro to a six feet under episode is what you're looking at.

• 0:51Chris Plante?

  And I get to the point where I am now the fifth box up. And I'm like, I can do it. I am, people could probably guess, very short. I'm like, you know, like five foot six on a good day. I am lifting up this box full extension above my head. It weighs, I don't know, 50 pounds. Oh, my God. And as I'm doing it, I can feel every muscle in my body giving way. And and it's that point where it's I am not tall enough to get it all the way up. But I am not strong enough to now lower it and it starts to tilt. And I see inside the box, I see an Xbox One and a PlayStation Slim

• 1:36Chris Plante?

  about to be the end of my life. And my life is flashing before my eyes, literally in that like, oh, my God. This, this is what I've amounted to is these pieces of plastic.

• 1:50Russ Frushtick?

  I, look, the Blue Sky post would be so sad for like two hours. I promise you.

• 1:55Speaker 02

  I think the Slim, the Slim wouldn't kill you. The Slim wouldn't kill you.

• 1:59Chris Plante?

  The one might not. The Xbox One definitely would. And then people would be like, oh, I'm sorry. You don't like to keep physical copies of video games? And I'd be like, ah, damn, my funeral is canceled.

• 2:28Chris Plante?

  My name is Christopher Thomas Plant and I know the best game of the week.

• 2:33Russ Frushtick?

  My name is Ross Froschek. I know the best game of the week.

• 2:37Speaker 02

  I'm Steven Tattillo and I know the best game of the week.

• 2:41Russ Frushtick?

  Well, I'm gonna do this part. Fuck you, Plant. Welcome to the latest and greatest of home entertainment. It's The Besties. It's a video game club that goes all year round and just by listening, you're a member. Welcome. We have a very, very special guest today. Griffin was not able to make it today, but we have a special. In exchange for Griffin, we have none other than Mr. Steven Tattillo joining us.

• 3:05Russ Frushtick?

  Reporter extraordinaire. Welcome, Steven.

• 3:07Speaker 02

  Thank you. I'm an honorary McElroy today.

• 3:10Russ Frushtick?

  That's right.

• 3:12Chris Plante?

  People are always comparing and mixing y'all up. Very, very similar, is what I like to say.

• 3:17Russ Frushtick?

  Now, Steven has a long storied reporting history. But most recently, I guess not that recently, because you've been doing it for many years at this point. He has been running a fantastic newsletter on, it's gamefile.news, right, is the shorthand.

• 3:32Speaker 02

  Sure is.

• 3:32Russ Frushtick?

  URL. But fantastic daily newsletter that people should check out and subscribe to because it's excellent. And in fact, he had a late breaking story that is going to be the big focus of this episode. Which we will, I guess, tease after the break.

• 3:47Speaker 02

  You told me, you were like, hey, here are the topics, Steven, if you can be on the show. And I'm like, I have a feeling there's gonna be something else.

• 3:56Russ Frushtick?

  And indeed, there was. We were also gonna be talking about Star Fox. Chris Plant, what is Star Fox?

• 4:02Chris Plante?

  Star Fox. They did it again. They remade Star Fox one more time, just for kicks. And you know what? I'm not gonna lie. I was skeptical before I saw how the game looks. Then I saw those sexy animals. Everybody else, they suddenly are those skeptical ones. I'm the one who's like, yeah, I'm very into that. And I think we all kind of equalized in the end. So I'm excited to talk about this game.

• 4:26Russ Frushtick?

  Chris Plant is a big Andrew fan. That all sounds great. Thank you, everyone, for joining us. And we're gonna jump right in after this break.

• 4:35Chris Plante?

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• 5:20Chris Plante?

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• 6:00Chris Plante?

  for 70% off your two-year plan. That's protonvpn.com/besties.

• 6:10Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, Stephen, as you said, the timing couldn't have been better because we have one of the biggest gaming news stories, no exaggeration, of certainly the last year, if not several years. Drop the news. What has happened?

• 6:23Speaker 02

  Sony PlayStation may have just ended physical media for video games as we know it. They have announced today, July 1st, that in exactly one and a half years as of January 2028, they will no longer be producing discs, physical discs, for any new PlayStation games. It doesn't just mean their own games. It also means any third-party games. So we can imagine come 2028, whether you're playing on a PS5, if a PS6 is launching that year, which now seems... Fairly likely. You're not going to be buying those games digitally, downloading them. Disks will be no more. And really, unless Xbox sticks with discs for its consoles.

• 7:06Chris Plante?

  Seems unlikely.

• 7:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, then discs are done. I mean, I do wonder if there's a chance that there'll be third parties that'll be able to commission somehow the manufacturer an approval of discs for special collector's items and boutique options, but there's certainly been no indication that that'll be possible. We do see in other forms of entertainment, there's actually been a resurgence of interest in physical media. And so even though the entertainment conglomerates had gotten away from DVDs, Blu-rays and what have you, we now see that coming back in vogue and people finding ways to make those. Maybe we're going to get there eventually, but the big news is that something I think a lot of people thought was coming, many people feared was coming, is coming, which is at least on PlayStation, the biggest console that was

• 7:53Speaker 02

  using discs. There won't be new discs pretty soon.

• 7:56Chris Plante?

  I want to get really deep into the video game of it all really quick, but I do want to give us some like context for what's happening and especially like the film physical media thing, because it is relevant here. Sony, part of the lead of the consortium responsible for the Blu-ray. I think there are people already concerned about what this means for those discs in general. And Steven's right that like physical media is coming back in a big way as those large companies are breaking away from it. So companies like Sony and Disney are saying, we actually don't intend to make our movies into physical media. And they are allowing these boutique labels to do it. There's a new Criterion Collection

• 8:38Chris Plante?

  that's coming out that is all of the Kubrick films. And that would have been unimaginable 10 years ago, because you would have had to get all these people to agree to collaborate to make this. Now the studios are like, I don't really give a shit. I'm not in the physical media business. So I do wonder about like what Steven says of is there room for boutique labels? But if you're also the company that's making the players and there's literally no thing to play the disc on.

• 9:08Chris Plante?

  Where do the boutiques fit in?

• 9:10Russ Frushtick?

  Right, because realistically, if indeed the PlayStation 6 comes out, what are we saying? We think it's going to be 2028 that year, you think, Steven?

• 9:18Speaker 02

  Well, Sony can't be announcing this for 2028. Or it seems unlikely they'd be announcing this for 2028 if they plan to launch the PS6 in 2027. This feels like the kind of announcement that you make ahead of whatever your strategy is for your next console. So we're thinking 2028 at the soonest. I talked to Pierce Harding-Rolls about this, he's analyst at Ampere. And he said, this makes it, you know, obvious that PS6 is 2028. He expects late 2028 at the soonest. And he also believes this pretty much indicates no disk drive. I've seen some people speculate that Sony's strategy for PS6 may involve a handheld version

• 10:00Speaker 02

  and that you would get rid of discs if you were going to handheld. I mean, obviously Nintendo with the Switch has used cartridges. So there would be another physical media option. So I don't think that fully explains it. But it does, it does track that you would potentially not want to have discs if you were, if you were doing that. So, yeah, we're, what would Sony do? They weren't talking, I mean, I, they, I was pre-briefed on the, the announcement, which is why I was able to have a big story on Game File this morning, looking at it from as many angles as possible. And some of the stuff I'd asked Sony about, they just, you know, they didn't have answers for it. They may actually not even fully know. I imagine they do know whether or not they're going to offer a disk drive with the PS6. But they weren't saying anything about that.

• 10:42Speaker 02

  They certainly weren't saying whether there would be, as it has been in the case of PS5, a console, a version of the PS6 that has a disk drive in it that you, you know, pay, you know, a premium for.

• 10:52Russ Frushtick?

  Sure.

• 10:53Speaker 02

  Or if the disk drive would be a standalone thing, which I feel like, was it the Xbox 360? That was sold?

• 11:00Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 11:01Speaker 02

  With the standalone disk drive? Yeah, so we've seen like little, we've seen that kind of phenomenon in sort of half-baked ways in the past. But would there be a standalone drive? In the story I wrote in Game File today, I cited an interview I did with Phil Spencer, remember him? The former- Head of Xbox in 2024, and this was right around the time that there had been a bunch of leaks about potential Xbox plans that had come out of the FTC hearings over Microsoft. You know, wanting to buy Activision Blizzard. And one of the leaks showed this cylindrical Xbox Series X that had no disk drive that was planned. And Spencer had gone public, saying, these don't represent all of our necessarily all of our plans. And that that device never came out.

• 11:43Speaker 02

  But this had prompted me to talk to him about, hey, you know, how much are disk drives even in your plans for future consoles? Given the fact that you clearly at least one point had the plan for this. And he makes a point, and this is what I was, what wound up being worth resurfacing in the coverage today. He said, game makers and game console makers are some of the last makers of home electronics that even use disk drives. And he said, because of that, the cost to manufacture disk drives was increasing. And that put, you know, financial pressure on the companies. So I've got to think that a Sony and certainly a Microsoft would be delighted to spare themselves the cost of making a disk drive if they could.

• 12:27Speaker 02

  And then maybe they are starting from that point for the next generation and then thinking, okay, well, then what's the minimum, minimum we need to do? In order to satisfy any hopes anybody has of even playing like backwards compatible games.

• 12:40Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, well, I mean, at that point, obviously, they free themselves from having to worry about manufacturing, shipping, working with a brick and mortar retailer, over ordering physical media.

• 12:50Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 12:51Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, obviously, from a consumer standpoint, I don't think it's a good thing, but from a there and business standpoint, like they are making the whole kit and caboodle. They don't have to worry about cutting that in any way. Um, yeah.

• 13:02Chris Plante?

  So I mean, I, I think the challenge that they have is, um, they're atrocious at messaging, um, this timing wise. And this is not me defending the, uh, the decision in general, but I do think there is a reality that I think it's like eight or nine out of 10 purchases are digital at this point.

• 13:21Speaker 02

  Eighty percent.

• 13:21Chris Plante?

  It is where a lot of, yeah, it's where a lot of people, you know, trend towards that seems to be number that is going. But at the same time, to do this the same week that they announced that they are removing hundreds of films from their server, I'm not even sure you'll be able to download them anymore, even if you had acquired them.

• 13:42Speaker 02

  Right.

• 13:42Chris Plante?

  Announcing it the same day that they say they're closing the PlayStation 3 and the PlayStation Vita download services.

• 13:51Speaker 02

  Right, in the next year.

• 13:52Chris Plante?

  I don't know why you would announce that, why you would say, "We're moving to digital only." And look how precarious that is. It's a strange, strange choice.

• 14:03Russ Frushtick?

  Well, my guess, no, go ahead.

• 14:05Speaker 02

  They're giving an 18-month notice period. This is exactly 18 months. It's a year and a half. They're giving exactly one-year notice for most countries for the shutdowns of the PS3 and Vita stores. They're doing an 18-month notice for the transition out of new games coming out there. I mean, I don't know that there's a good time to announce news that's going to really upset a sizable portion of gamers. If 80% of purchases on PlayStation 4 and 5 in the past fiscal, Sony fiscal year, that's what the percentage is, were digital and not on disc, that means that 20%, that means that one out of every five games purchased on PS4 and PS5 in the last year were purchased on disc. And I've gotten some feedback that those, that proportion of disc purchasers is higher

• 14:50Speaker 02

  in, you know, I guess, developing markets where there's going to be less downloading and sort of bandwidth options and what have you. So, okay, maybe that means that Americans and, you know, people in Japan or wherever are more likely to have already been comfortable with downloading, but there's still a sizable number of people that buying the disc meant something to them. And Sony doesn't have an answer ready for them right now about what options they'll have. Certainly, a lot of people have gotten used to not owning physical copies of movies and music, but for some people, they cherish that. And there's a lot of reason when you see how games disappear. Or when you see how, of course, only the top games are remastered, and you may have some niche favorite that you're worried may go extinct.

• 15:34Speaker 02

  That to not know that there can be a disc version of that in the future is understandably alarming to a lot of people. And I don't really know how Sony could promise their way out of that regardless.

• 15:45Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, what ends up happening is the fanbase ends up filling those blanks in as these games become literally unpurchisable anywhere.

• 15:53Chris Plante?

  Right.

• 15:53Russ Frushtick?

  Privacy basically shows up and says, hey, you can still play this game that you loved from 30 years ago, even though it's not available for free.

• 16:00Chris Plante?

  Yeah, the other part of this that, just terrible timing, is hard drives are only getting more expensive. Storage is getting more expensive. So I personally have been thinking of like, I tend to buy digital, but I should be buying more stuff on disk. Even if you're having to load it from the disk onto the hard drive, yes, not having to worry about the bandwidth, having it there, having it stored in a place on your shelf versus, oh, if I play, let's say, the new Call of Duty and two other big AAA games, most of my storage space is taken up. It's just all bad timing all around.

• 16:44Speaker 02

  Some of the feedback I heard today from readers, especially in reaction to that rising percentage, that where in 2016, it was little more than 26 or 27% of people buying the download version versus disk, and then in 2025, going up to 80%. And some of the feedback I heard from gamers was saying, basically, there's a thumb on the scale for Sony, when it's reporting those numbers, that it has become more inconvenient to buy games physically, that there are smaller print runs of physical games, that it's more of a hassle. Now, I think that in some regards, some of that may fall on Sony, some of it may fall on, you know, the unpleasantness, relative unpleasantness of buying games physically in certain places that you could go to buy games physically.

• 17:28Russ Frushtick?

  They do not clean those GameStop carpets, I'm just saying.

• 17:31Speaker 02

  That's sort of what I was getting at, and that there are reasons. But also, the value of the disk and what it actually is has been diminished over the years. So there's a great site, community service called Does It Play?

• 17:47Speaker 02

  And they have an index of over 3,000 games. You can search online for, does it play? And you can check their database and you could punch in a game that has ostensibly a disc version. And then you can find out what's actually on the disc. And so in the case of, say, 007 First Light, you know, wonderfully critically acclaimed game from I O Interactive earlier this year, a James Bond game. And only the game's first level is on the disc.

• 18:09Chris Plante?

  Huh.

• 18:09Speaker 02

  So, you know, Chris, what you're saying about, oh, you know, oh, I'm going to buy physical media. I'm going to sort of shore myself up and be able to have these things that protect me from some of the vicissitudes of people removing games that I thought I purchased access to. Well, buy the disc version of 007 First Light and use on PlayStation. All you got is the first level to play. So I hope you really like that level.

• 18:30Chris Plante?

  It is a good level, but not that good.

• 18:33Russ Frushtick?

  That is fucking grim. Yeah. And obviously this, the digital downloads percentage is only going to skyrocket come this fall with GTA coming out and not having physical media associated with it.

• 18:44Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, take two, basically, if you look at the sequencing of this, you, I don't know who's aware of, who's aware of what, but you have take two and Rockstar basically putting this news out there about having a no-disc launch of GTA 6 in a way that really like, yes, it kicked up some backlash, but people are so excited for that game and so interested in putting money down for that game. And they do that one week prior. And then Sony is able to say, hey, look, by the way, um, no new, no new discs for any of the, any games. Now, one of the things that'll be interesting to see is also this transition, right? So you can imagine there'll be big PlayStation games coming out from first and third parties in November of 2027, for example. And I'll be curious what the print run is on those discs and how well supplied they

• 19:29Speaker 02

  are going into 2028. One of the big unknowns we have is what this is even going to physically look like at retail locations. Once Sony makes this transition, they had nothing to share with me about, are they committing to still selling game boxes? We know GTA 6 is going to be in a box, just with a code inside. Will they still sell game boxes? Will they switch to just cards that you buy that have a scratch off code? And so then try to envision, what does it look like at Best Buy, Target, GameStop, wherever else? When you go to the PlayStation section, how do games get noticed?

• 20:06Speaker 02

  There's decades of history of box art designs and the shapes and the sizes of box art of viewing in boxes that were all about trying to grab people's attention. And so that'll change in terms of even, you know, they switch to cards. You know, we've all been to stores where you see like the kiosk that has like all of the gift cards and everything, you know, that you can spin around. Is that, is that the PlayStation section of the future? You just spin it around and hopefully the, the game that some company wants to sell has a catchy enough little like, you know, credit card size.

• 20:40Russ Frushtick?

  Or they just stop caring and they just use their own, uh, marketing means.

• 20:45Chris Plante?

  I mean, speaking of, speaking of retail, we gotta talk about the person I'm sure everyone's concerned about, which is the GameStop CEO. How, how is GameStop responding to this? Are they just eBay now? Is, is that the plan? They just need to get the hell out of this business?

• 21:01Speaker 02

  They should buy a console for every copy of a game they're gonna sell. And so when you buy the game, you're actually buying it installed onto the console. And so physical media switches from the, the, the disc to those things that were falling on Plant's head in his garage. It's like, oh, that's great. I just got bonked with like the eight pound copy of GTA 7.

• 21:25Chris Plante?

  Oh, I think it would probably be a copy of Bonk, you know? I live for the irony.

• 21:30Russ Frushtick?

  Man, crazy story. So glad to have Stephen here giving us some proper context to it. I think we should take a break and after the break, we will dive into a little bit of Star Fox, but before that, we are going to share some big, big news that is coming in the world of besties. So stay tuned. This episode of the besties is sponsored by Alienware. Start your Alienware journey with the streamlined Alienware 15. They designed this machine to refine the essentials, creating a more focused gaming laptop for players who demand quality without the clutter. They engineered a brilliant 15.3 inch, 165 hertz display seamlessly into a portable 15 inch body. You get a larger immersive window into your game that still travels easily wherever your mission takes you. Step into the future.

• 22:15Russ Frushtick?

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• 22:42Russ Frushtick?

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• 23:27Russ Frushtick?

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• 24:04Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, welcome back. We are going to talk about Star Fox in a second, but before we do that, I wanted to share some news.

• 24:10Chris Plante?

  Wait, what news?

• 24:11Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, it's it's actual news.

• 24:13Chris Plante?

  What?

• 24:14Russ Frushtick?

  So I mentioned this several weeks ago, actually was on Justin's last formerly last episode where he was appearing on the show on a weekly basis. We have been working on trying to put together a live show for the besties. Featuring Christopher Thomas Plant, Ross Fraschek, Griffin McElroy, and executive producer Justin McElroy. And in fact, it is happening. We have a date for it. It's happening on October 9th at the Town Hall in New York City. It is actually the same exact weekend as New York Comic Con. So if you want to make it a whole nerd weekend, you can do that. That is an option. We're going to be doing an artist pre-sale, which means like only our fans will be able to like buy tickets first. That starts on Tuesday, July 7th.

• 24:59Russ Frushtick?

  And as a way to head off the ticket buying bots, we're going to put the link up on our Patreon. You don't have to be a paying, you don't have to be a paying member, but you do have to be a member. So you can be a free member or a paying member. We like paying members too. Doesn't matter. Either way, you're going to get the link and to buy tickets on July 7th. It'll be around noon on July 7th. So please keep an eye out for that. If you haven't become a member of the Patreon yet, good excuse to become a Patreon member. At patreon.com/thebesties, you can be a free member and still get access to tickets. Paying members, of course, also get access. That's the news. Very exciting.

• 25:38Chris Plante?

  Cool news.

• 25:39Russ Frushtick?

  We'll have more coming in terms of details as we get a little bit closer. But wanted to share that. Obviously Griffin wanted to be here to share that news as well. But he was dealing with some stuff, but wanted to tell you all as soon as we could. Again, that pre-sale is going to go up July 7th, which is this coming Tuesday.

• 25:55Chris Plante?

  We haven't booked him officially yet, but we did think maybe like a tight five from Steven. You know, just a real good intro comedy set, a warm-up routine.

• 26:05Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, you can do it.

• 26:06Speaker 02

  I'm known for my jokes.

• 26:07Chris Plante?

  Feeling it.

• 26:08Russ Frushtick?

  You can start working.

• 26:09Chris Plante?

  It's you and Schreier just doing a good cop, bad cop routine. It's gonna be great. I don't know who's who.

• 26:15Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, with that news out of the way, we are going to talk about the Star Fox remake, which I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, is a third time they've made Star Fox 64.

• 26:25Speaker 02

  Fuzzy math. Everybody's like, oh, they remade the game. So, I mean, Plant, come on. They haven't really made it as many times as people said, have they?

• 26:32Chris Plante?

  They did it the first time. Super Nintendo to Nintendo 64 to Nintendo DS.

• 26:37Russ Frushtick?

  Well, we're not counting Super Nintendo.

• 26:38Speaker 02

  See, this is it.

• 26:39Russ Frushtick?

  That was the original game.

• 26:40Speaker 02

  This propaganda. People want to say it's been remade. It hasn't been remade that many times.

• 26:45Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, so they made the original game, which was Star Fox. Well, and SNES. I'm not counting that because this game theoretically is not based on that original game. It's based on Star Fox 64, which came out on the Nintendo 64. Then they made a, which was the first, the 3DS version or the Wii U version? Do you remember?

• 27:05Chris Plante?

  Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. I got it. I got it. Star Fox 64. You're right. You're right. You're right.

• 27:11Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 27:12Chris Plante?

  It's the Super Nintendo version is separate from this 64 version. So Star Fox 64 to Star Fox 64 3D for the Nintendo 3DS to Star Fox Zero a decade ago.

• 27:26Speaker 02

  Different game.

• 27:26Chris Plante?

  For the Wii U? Maybe?

• 27:28Speaker 02

  Different game.

• 27:29Russ Frushtick?

  Dramatically different.

• 27:30Speaker 02

  What do you mean?

• 27:31Chris Plante?

  Is it?

• 27:32Russ Frushtick?

  It's got, you know, they redid, but like the structure and the story of the game is the same, right?

• 27:38Speaker 02

  Story. I don't think so, but.

• 27:40Chris Plante?

  All right.

• 27:41Speaker 02

  That's, that's the Wii U one where you like, you're using the gamepad to look around and everything.

• 27:45Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. The good news is no one played it because it was on the Wii U. So basically they've only had, what, two versions of this game? And this would be the third. Um, so welcome to the new era of Star Fox. Also a new era for Nintendo selling $50 remakes of classic games. Kind of an interesting approach. Um, a quick recap of what this game is.

• 28:10Chris Plante?

  $50 is good or bad? I don't know where we're at.

• 28:12Russ Frushtick?

  I haven't, we haven't gotten there yet.

• 28:14Chris Plante?

  Okay, okay, okay.

• 28:15Russ Frushtick?

  For people that aren't aware what Star Fox is, seems unlikely, but I'm going to say it anyway. It's a third person flying uh, on rails shooter where you're controlling this spaceship and you shoot guys. And occasionally you go in a tank or a submarine and et cetera. Uh, you play as a fox.

• 28:33Russ Frushtick?

  Okay.

• 28:34Chris Plante?

  Hey, can I just add one, one quick correction really quick?

• 28:36Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, sure.

• 28:37Chris Plante?

  Myself. Star Fox Zero was a reboot. So I believe it was the same story generally, but it was like new levels. It was basically a new game.

• 28:48Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 28:49Chris Plante?

  So Steven's right. All of you Star Fox nerds can just chill the fuck out.

• 28:54Russ Frushtick?

  This is the third time they've remade Star Fox 64.

• 28:57Speaker 02

  No, it's the second time they've remade it. They made it.

• 29:00Russ Frushtick?

  Well, okay, second time they've remade it. You're right. Third time they've made it.

• 29:03Chris Plante?

  Now we can talk about the game, which is.

• 29:06Russ Frushtick?

  Steven, what did you think about, uh, Star Fox, this re-release of Star Fox on Switch 2?

• 29:13Speaker 02

  It's one of those where I played the original so obsessively that I didn't feel the need to, like, I wasn't that eager to be like, oh, I gotta play this. I mean, I like to play a lot of games and I like to try different things all the time. And this was one where if the main draw is that it looks better, I'm like, okay, but I played it a bit at a Nintendo preview event in New York City. They'll invite media to go to rent a hotel space or something and they'll have a game there. And so I played it and like, the muscle memory kicked in right away. Like, the enemy patterns are the same, or at least they're, the ones in the first level, the two levels I played were the same. You know, I knew exactly when to, you know, bank left or do the barrel roll and when to shoot the three enemies that were gonna come in

• 29:56Speaker 02

  from the top right of the screen. And so I thought, oh, this is so similar that I, life's short, I got other stuff to play. So I appreciate that it exists, that people can play it if they want, but I got other stuff going on.

• 30:09Russ Frushtick?

  It definitely seems like they are splitting the studios in a way where they're gonna do a relatively unambitious remake or something like that to balance the, like, Donkey Kong bonanzas of the world. This feels like we're gonna cash a check a little bit and then we're gonna get more risky with more ambitious titles.

• 30:31Chris Plante?

  It's tough because they're clearly doing an ongoing trend of have a studio remake a game, prove that, one, there's interest, and, two, they know how to make it, and, three, they know how to make it in a way that looks modern. And then you let them make an actual sequel, right? Because if you put out a new Starbucks.

• 30:54Speaker 02

  Have you seen them do that? Talk that out a bit.

• 30:56Chris Plante?

  I would say, like, this is the Halo, I think, was like the original thing.

• 31:01Russ Frushtick?

  I'll give you a Nintendo example, actually.

• 31:03Chris Plante?

  Yes.

• 31:04Russ Frushtick?

  Mercury's theme is probably the closest to a Nintendo example, where Mercury's theme came in, remade Metroid 2 into Samus Returns, made drastic changes to the structure of that game. But then they gave them, like, a full-on Metroid Dread release.

• 31:17Speaker 02

  Right. And I believe another example would be Grezzo. I think I'm saying, if I'm saying the name right, they remade, they did some of the 3DS remakes of Ocarina and Majora's Mask, the Zelda games.

• 31:29Speaker 02

  And then they, I believe they also then did the Link's Awakening Switch remake. And all that finally allowed them to work on an original Zelda game, which was Echoes of Wisdom, which was the one where you actually play Zelda. So I think, Chris, you're right on the money with that being a strategy. So this game is developed by Vellon Studios. Vellon Studios is staffed by a lot of people that used to be what's known as a precarious visions. They have an extremely long history with Nintendo and making games for Nintendo platforms. They were one of the big GBA prestige, GBA developers, not that there were many prestige GBA developers. In the West, they were making really good Tony Hawk games and what have you on the Game Boy Advance back in the day.

• 32:07Chris Plante?

  They were like quite literally making magic. They were translating things, reporting things to the GBA that didn't make sense. I mean, they made a rock band or Guitar Hero game for.

• 32:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, with the thing you plugged into the DS. It was like.

• 32:20Chris Plante?

  Yes, yeah. They were, they also ended up being very involved in the Skylanders franchise toys with Bob or for Bob or whatever.

• 32:29Speaker 02

  So as Vellon Studios, they got, they've done, they've had one previous, I think, you know, unarguably less well received project, which is they made Mario Kart. I always forget the suffix on this one. Is it Drive Tour? Something like that. The Mario Kart that involved the actual radio controlled Mario Kart that you could buy.

• 32:48Chris Plante?

  Oh, yeah.

• 32:49Speaker 02

  And then you drove it around your living room and.

• 32:51Chris Plante?

  Yeah, with a webcam.

• 32:53Speaker 02

  Aspect to it, yes. And so that was sort of in, in, in keeping with them making that studio and the heads of studio making prior experimental gadget driven things like that Guitar Hero they made for the, for the DS or the thing with the DS. And so they, they made that game and this is, this seems to be quite creatively a, a pretty successful, so far as what I've seen from the reviews and very faithful execution of this. And does this then? Lead to them being able to make a bona fide original Star Fox game? We'll see. I mean, the other thing, the other unusual aspect of this particular game is that it is the closest we've seen from Nintendo in terms of movie synergy.

• 33:37Speaker 02

  They have a Mario movie that comes out, Mario Galaxy movie comes out earlier in the spring. And surprise, surprise, it features Star Fox, although not really a surprise because they included in the marketing, even though it was a surprise. So they clearly wanted to put the inclusion of Star Fox out there. I don't think we've ever seen, I mean, you guys, correct me if I'm wrong. I don't think we've ever seen an explanation as to how or why they even decided to include Star Fox, who's never previously been in a Mario centric work before.

• 34:04Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, yeah, I hate to say, but money seems like a good, good reason. They're clearly building the equivalent of an MCU with these Nintendo movies.

• 34:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:13Russ Frushtick?

  So like that.

• 34:14Speaker 02

  But like, what's your, what? Like, did they know they had a Star Fox remake coming? So they were like, let's make a Star Fox scene in this movie. Or did they have creative ideas around other Nintendo characters to put in the movie? And know far enough in advance that they could then commission a remake that maybe is faster to create? I don't know. I don't know what comes first, but we're, we're seeing this. And so I assume we're going to see in future, you know, what will be the surprise cameo in the live action Zelda movie next year? That also signals that we're getting a remake of whatever that is. So if like Link gets on a jet ski, at least we know like Wave Race 64 remake.

• 34:47Russ Frushtick?

  That's right.

• 34:47Speaker 02

  Is on its way out.

• 34:49Chris Plante?

  Finally, I will say for the game itself, the game's good. And, and it did do its job of proving out, like, is there room for modern Star Fox? A lot of things I don't like about the original game on the Nintendo 64, or even the 3DS, is the open combat fights where you're out in the big 3D world and you're spiraling around. It feels like it takes away from the more curated experience. I didn't enjoy the ground battles or the underwater battles. There were like two or three, you know, levels in the game that really blew me away when I was a kid. And everything else I could, you know, live without. The total opposite this time around.

• 35:33Chris Plante?

  The that stuff really does it for me, which is weird because the gameplay itself is effectively the same. But the visual fidelity adds a lot because who even knows what the hell you are looking at in a big, open 3D world on the Nintendo 64. It's just random shapes. And actually having an idea.

• 35:58Russ Frushtick?

  For a second, like it was not running great.

• 36:00Chris Plante?

  Yes, the the world that you are moving around, having a purpose and a function, you know what you're shooting at. It adds a lot. The the um, there's a ground level where you're chasing a train and you're basically trying to like, keep up with it and destroy parts of it while there's also like an air attack coming at you while you're on the ground. And that having some visual fidelity to it feels really spectacular. It feels like a cool action set piece. Is it still Star Fox? Is it does it still have the problem of this game is three hours long and it is ultimately built for people who like to score chase and who want to get higher and higher rankings,

• 36:43Chris Plante?

  which was not me then and is not me now. Yeah, like it it it's still that game and that game is that style of game is not maybe as popular as it was even back then. So I think the game will evolve from here, but I I found myself bought in like I I like you, Stephen, I I went into this pretty skeptical of the game itself, really curious about the art direction. That was what pulled me in and it ended up being actually what kind of sealed the deal for me.

• 37:16Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I I personally thought it was fun. I love the original. I have very fond memories and like very impactful memories because the original was the first time we used a rumble pack, if I recall. So it was like a huge moment from a video game historical standpoint. I it's to me, the gameplay feels like pretty dated and aged to the point where I needed, I felt like I needed more modernization beyond just the visuals to make me feel like this was a really new experience. And I think I would again, point to that Mercury's theme, Metroid 2 remake where they like really, they hit the major beats of like, you're going around hunting Metroids, but really took the reins a little bit and redesigned it in, I think,

• 38:00Russ Frushtick?

  a more modern way, which I thought helped a lot. So I could have used more, I like, after you finish like a run, you unlock this challenge mode, you can replay individual levels and like go after specific little mini challenges. So that gave a little more hook to it, but like the stuff you were unlocking was essentially pointless and, and things like that. They all spent, they also spent like some time on multiplayer modes, which are like pretty creatively designed. They almost have like a battlefield element to them. But I'm not realistically going to play a lot of multiplayer Star Fox. So, you know, the, the length and breadth of the value of that seems kind of limited to me. I just wanted them to be a little more ambitious is really the, my takeaway.

• 38:40Speaker 02

  You know, when we were talking earlier about PlayStation, moving away from discs and some of the questions people have about preservation. One of the things when I went to them about that, and I said, well, what do you have to say to people who are worried that they're going to lose access to games they care about? And they came back to me with a statement where they said, and didn't really address the, does your, the copy of the game you get stop working? But they said, we love games here at PlayStation and one of the ways we will, we, we've continued to keep games available is by, through emulation and through remasters. And so arguably a release like Star Fox is a method for Nintendo to make the classic design of Star Fox 64 available. Certainly Nintendo can still and still does make the emulated N64 original available, but.

• 39:26Speaker 02

  Looking at something like this, do you guys actually feel like this is this is a valuable extra kind of offshoot of game preservation that you would like to see kind of the classics kind of modernized just to keep around?

• 39:39Russ Frushtick?

  I wouldn't even look at it like a value just for game preservation. Like, I think there's a value in reevaluating games that were old and dated in different ways. I think Capcom's done this amazingly well with the Resident Evil remakes.

• 39:52Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 39:53Russ Frushtick?

  They are modernizing those games in a way that makes them more playable, but the core of them remains sound. And I think so. I think there's value in that. The big question it brings up is with the re-release or remake, I should say, of Ocarina of Time, like, is that all we're getting? Is like basically the Star Fox treatment, which is the original game, just with prettier graphics and not a whole lot else. And that, to me, feels like a big missed opportunity and a letdown. But they're also facing the tides of like, people love this game. They're obsessed with this game. It needs to be exactly the same.

• 40:25Speaker 02

  We'll talk about games that they've already remade. They already made a pretty faithful remake, not easily accessible anymore because it's on the 3DS of Ocarina of Time. And the history of the Zelda remakes, be it Wind Waker HD, Majora's Mask on 3DS, Link's Awakening on the Switch, have at best been graphical upgrades. You know, Link's Awakening is, I guess, on par or equivalent to what's just been done with Star Fox and Star Fox 64. But in none of those cases, was there anything beyond player convenience additions in terms of additional content and design, right? So you can more easily toggle the water boots on and off in the 3DS version of Ocarina of Time, for example. So yeah, it'll be interesting

• 41:06Speaker 02

  to see if this Switch remake of Ocarina is more like one of these Resident Evil rethinks of it. There's also a thing that they've dabbled with in, I can't remember if it was Pikmin 3 or 4, I think it was 3, that they reissued on the Switch. And they, it was faithful in terms of the what had been released originally on Wii U? I think Wii U.

• 41:28Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, it was a Wii U.

• 41:29Speaker 02

  But they added prequel missions and then epilogue missions to it. So the conceit was we're expanding the story, how Olamar or whoever got here. And then we're going to show you a little bit of kind of the aftermath of what occurred. And that allowed, I remember really enjoying those missions when I played that. And I felt like this was also a way for a development team that had put their hands around the original and faithfully recreated that to then demonstrate their ability to do something more in these margins of the game that then wound up being almost like the bonus content of it. And so with Star Fox 64, for example, being remade in Star Fox. Yeah, that would have been cool if they added like a few other planets that you like an alternate branch, right?

• 42:12Speaker 02

  The game is designed where you always start on the first planet, Cornelia, right? And then you branch out in three possible directions. And so what if there was a fourth branch? And that would have been fun to have seen them allow Vellin to design that.

• 42:28Speaker 02

  And so, yeah, it would be, I would, I would enjoy that. I feel like you, since you can already play Star Fox 64 on the, on the retro console, Nintendo Switch Online, and you can play Ocarina of Time on that. I'd be up for something that's more creatively ambitious in terms of reinterpreting.

• 42:43Russ Frushtick?

  Crossbow training in the Ocarina remake? That'd be fun.

• 42:47Chris Plante?

  I want to go back real quick before we wrap to that question that you had of, how does this work as game preservation, if at all? And I think it's, it's important to say, I don't think it has anything to do with preservation. And I, I think the reason it doesn't is because these companies are deciding game by game what it looks like. The fact that we just had this entire conversation, right? Of like, what type of thing is it? Is it one for one? Is it totally different? Are they adding? Are they subtracting? All of this. And I worry when I hear Sony saying like, this is one way we're thinking about it. The, the trouble is that the choice, in my opinion, shouldn't belong to them. The game is just should be available, right? Like that's, that's what preservation is.

• 43:32Chris Plante?

  Preservation is the things that the studio likes and the things that they don't like. I will say also to go back to the Zelda point. The challenge with Nintendo is we usually don't know who's making their games until they are literally out. And knowing who is making that game would tell us a lot. If it was another partner studio like this, I would bet that it's probably pretty similar. If it is the Zelda team, I would think that this is them getting their hands back into the dungeon model of Zelda. If you wanted to go back after Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom and go back to a different

• 44:11Chris Plante?

  type of Zelda game, going back and remaking Ocarina of Time and changing it in interesting ways, that would be, once again, a great way to like, learn safely and a way that you can still make some money, and then you can go and make a new game after that. So I'm, yeah, I'm very curious. There is roughly a million question marks around a game that we've seen effectively a single image from.

• 44:35Speaker 02

  Guys, I have an idea.

• 44:38Chris Plante?

  Yeah?

• 44:38Speaker 02

  A million dollar idea. Might be a $10 million idea.

• 44:41Russ Frushtick?

  Whoa.

• 44:41Speaker 02

  You ready?

• 44:42Russ Frushtick?

  Are you sure you want to share it?

• 44:43Chris Plante?

  Remove the duh.

• 44:45Speaker 02

  Oh, no. I'm not going to add a word to the beginning. I'm going to add something to the end. The Legend of Zelda, the Oak Arena of Timeline. Timeline. Link no longer just moves between age 7 and 14. He moves through the Zelda Timeline, the unified Zelda Timeline, well established, that all Zelda games are connected. This is not controversial at all. He moves to Zelda 1, he goes to Link to the Past, he is going, he's playing that Oak Arena, and he's in games of every generation.

• 45:20Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, it sounds like you're pitching an Illumination movie.

• 45:23Chris Plante?

  Yeah, that does sound like a pretty good Illumination movie. I'll be honest, I'd go see that. That sounds great. I'll see that right after Secret Life of Pets 3. Hey, how about we wrap up this section and then we can hop into our honorable mentions before we head out?

• 45:39Russ Frushtick?

  That sounds great. Actually, we have some reader mail. Before we do that, I want to read some reader mail. This one comes from Corey. We were talking about Friends slop games. Steven, are you familiar with the genre Friends slop?

• 45:50Chris Plante?

  Oh, very familiar, yeah.

• 45:51Russ Frushtick?

  Okay. Corey writes, hey, I think that everyone likes games known as Friends slop. Most of these games are made with love for people to share, and that's not slop. I would humbly suggest a different name for the genre. Co-UPpies? Like co-op with uppies, please? I don't know about that. But they're generally about traversal and helping your friends. I don't know. How do you feel? Because there is.

• 46:18Chris Plante?

  Co-op is sounds like a drug.

• 46:19Russ Frushtick?

  It does.

• 46:20Chris Plante?

  I feel like I'm like, I'm on co-oppies.

• 46:22Russ Frushtick?

  Friend slop does sound like a pejorative, though. And I do think it's different from like, me personally, I define friend slop as it needs to be a little bit shitty. Right? It can't just be like a co-op game. Right?

• 46:34Chris Plante?

  Yeah, I've come to, I've come around to liking friend slop. I totally get why people, some people do not like it. But I think the slop represents the not wasting gajillions of dollars on your project. Like, I think there's something to the idea of making something that is rough around the edges. That said, it's tough because slop is used in so many negative ways, like AI slop. So I get it, but I do, I have developed a kind of a warmth for the phrase.

• 47:04Russ Frushtick?

  In December, I interviewed Nick Kamen. He's one of the lead developers of Peak, one of the most successful friend slop games. And I asked him about the term. And he said he liked it. He was fine with it, but he recognized it can be used in a derogatory fashion, but he was pretty comfortable with it. So, I mean, if people making it don't fully mind, then, I mean, who else should we worry about?

• 47:28Chris Plante?

  It kind of reminds you of walking simulators. I remember people didn't like that term, but like, I like walking simulator. I find that is a really enjoyable term. I love having a nice walk.

• 47:38Russ Frushtick?

  Anybody have any honorable mentions to talk about? Anything they're playing, anything they're watching, reading, you name it. Steven, you can go first.

• 47:46Speaker 02

  I've got two nine-year-old twins and always, I'm always looking for things that will excite them to read. My daughter is really into reading lots of graphic novels, Babysitter's Club and other kind of graphic novels targeted to her. As my son, it can be a little bit trickier, but. We just rediscovered, I rediscovered, I guess, the All-Star Superman 12-issue series written by Grant Morrison, drawn by Frank Quietly, released over a decade ago, maybe even two decades ago. And a little bit, a little bit complex for him. A lot of stuff is happening kind of between the panels and with implications in innuendo or inference. And yet, he was fascinated by it. Barely ever read any comics before.

• 48:30Speaker 02

  And it was just a kind of a really fun parent and kid opportunity to sit down and sort of follow this story of a Superman who is told in the first issue that he is going to die soon. And it is kind of, from there on, kind of an exploration of how good this guy is and how amazing he is and how none of that amazement really has to do with his powers. More about how he treats people. And yeah, my son and I had a great time. All-Star Superman by Morrison and Quietly.

• 49:01Chris Plante?

  That sounds so nice. Mine is kind of for you, Frush, though I really for both of you, because you both like puzzle games. I lost track of a video game a decade ago, maybe more. Couldn't find it, forgot its name, gone forever. And then, while surfing through Steam this week, I finally found it. And that game is called Star Seed Pilgrim. It is a very retro-looking, almost Atari-like, but with brighter colors, puzzle platformer. And it is a game where you truly have no idea how to play it. It gives you nothing.

• 49:41Chris Plante?

  You just need to start moving items around in this 2D space to create the world around you. When you plant like seeds, it will grow blocks. Maybe it grows eight yellow blocks, straight up. Maybe it grows kind of like a weird tetronimo piece, like a zigzag, out of green blocks. Maybe it has different effects when you line those seeds up next to each other. It is, now, I think, might seem kind of quaint. And it is really not interested in...

• 50:16Chris Plante?

  Uh, you? Um, it, it, it is a world that is, is waiting for you to discover it. And if you want to walk away, it is okay with that. But, uh, fresh, I know you love a game where it is just a mystery of how does this work? Don't spoil it for me, yada, yada, yada. And this is one that I remember playing. I could have sworn I, I played it in college. It says it came out on Steam in 2013, but I remember playing this a long time ago and, and really, really appreciating it.

• 50:49Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I remember it coming out, but I don't think I ever played it. Uh, and it's pretty, actually kind of good timing. I guess it's like a year old at this point, but the developer, Droken, I believe is how you pronounce that, uh, released the game in 2025 called The End of Gameplay, which I think also uses this spirit of like very, uh, you know, confusing or at least opaque systems in what appears to be a platforming game that is, you know, currently very well reviewed by the 36 people that reviewed it on Steam. Uh, so if you're looking for more games from the Star Seed Pilgrim developer, uh, The End of Gameplay is another one.

• 51:29Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, I want to talk about my, uh, game, which is Blueprints, which I continue to play. I know I've given, uh, everyone updates basically for the last two months. Uh, we're on day like 51, I want to say somewhere around there. Uh, we have, are still missing the last Sanctum Key. I will remain, uh, I will keep this from being spoilery again, because I know, uh, if some people haven't played it yet, it's worth playing, but we are closing in on it. I'm getting a little bit antsy because we're at a point where there aren't a lot of leads to chase. And so the few leads that we have do require the stars, no pun intended, aligning, um, to sort of progress, but I'm sure there's stuff that we're just missing and haven't

• 52:14Russ Frushtick?

  seen. Jason is very bad at not giving me hints. Uh, he, uh, he likes hearing the updates. I talked to Jason Schreier and, and about the updates that I'm having within the game. And I ask him not to give me hints and he is very bad at doing that. Uh, so I have to be mindful of just not sharing any information with Jason. Uh, but otherwise it's been going great. It's a great game.

• 52:38Speaker 02

  Definitely a, a, a Blueprints highlight for me was when, uh, cause he and I both had. coded for the game well before it came out. And he was just like, he'd rocketed ahead of me. He had his own blueprints, friend group, finding everything. And he's like, oh, you gotta catch up to where I am, whatever. And then I sent him the screenshot. I'm like, hey, Jason, what's this thing I found? He's like, congratulations, you found the one secret that we haven't found. I was like, ah.

• 53:06Russ Frushtick?

  Ripping his heart out. I love it. That's, that's great. So good.

• 53:09Speaker 02

  Little me stumbling across this little thing in the corner.

• 53:13Russ Frushtick?

  Well done. But that sounds, that sounds terrific. There's still like one, I think, significant thing in the game that I've never done that the aforementioned Jason Schreier swears to me is well worth doing. And I was like, I just don't want to finish the game. I want to savor, you know, I want to have that for the future. But now I'm like, I have no memory of how to play this game at all. Did you keep a good notebook? Do you have a notebook lying around?

• 53:36Speaker 02

  I kept a notebook, but it was a bunch of chicken scratch and like, you know, complicated diagrams that I'm sure would make it even less sense to me than the game. If I, if I open them back up. So I have no idea. I even had the thought pop into my head. Should I just start over? But that also seems ludicrous. So I don't know. I don't know. Maybe it'll forever be unfinished, my, my play session with that game. But I, it's what a great game.

• 53:58Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, my God. It's spectacular. And is, once again, eligible for the 2026 Besties Game of the Year because we decided to nudge it into this year because I couldn't play it last year because of the color blindness. So something to keep in mind.

• 54:11Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, I think we did it. Stephen, thank you again for joining us. Where can people join the fun at Game File?

• 54:19Speaker 02

  You can check out Game File at gamefile.news. It is a newsletter. It's a website. It's something you can sort of check out at your leisure because every edition is either free, or at least the top of it is free, and then you gotta pay to read the rest. So there's a whole lot in there. I don't really believe in FOMO. I hate that I have to charge for anything. So I try to give people as much as they can without having to pay. And I'm hopefully going to give you news that you haven't seen anywhere else. A lot of people are reporting about news in gaming. And my goal, based on all the years I've been reporting, is to just to find, find things that nobody else is talking about or looking into in quite the way that I am. So check it out. Let me know what you think. Gamefile.

• 54:58Russ Frushtick?

  I don't know if anyone's given you the ace title, but I will grant it to you. You're indeed an ace reporter.

• 55:03Speaker 02

  Hey, thanks.

• 55:05Russ Frushtick?

  There it is. Uh, okay, we did it. Thank you, everyone. Uh, next week, we're gonna be doing Rhythm Heaven Groove. Oh, Chris Plante, can you recap, uh, the games we talked about?

• 55:14Chris Plante?

  Oh, my gosh, we talked about all the games. We talked about Star Fox. Uh, oh, and then we also talked about Blueprints, Star City Pilgrim, and we talked about All-Star Superman by Grant Morrison.

• 55:27Russ Frushtick?

  Hmm. Uh, that's gonna do it for us here at the Besties. Uh, thank you so much for listening to the Besties.

• 55:34Chris Plante?

  What are we talking about next week?

• 55:35Russ Frushtick?

  I said Rhythm Heaven Groove is next week.

• 55:38Chris Plante?

  Sorry, sorry, I missed that part. My brain's foggy, man. That thing almost fell on me and I just, I'm like in a, I'm time loop, you know?

• 55:44Russ Frushtick?

  Maybe you are literally in a time loop. You don't know.

• 55:47Chris Plante?

  Oh, no. Oh, no.

• 55:48Russ Frushtick?

  That's gonna do it. Uh, listen again for the Besties next week, cuz shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best games?