Sacred Symbols, Episode 261 | Imagine Accepting the Truth (Patreon)

Whether Microsoft completes its acquisition of Activision or not, the FTC's legal assault on the company has nonetheless exposed Sony's archrival's strategy for all to see. Xbox's argument is a simple one: Thoroughly outclassed by their competitors with access to orders of magnitude fewer resources over a continuous period of more than two decades, their only way to compete is through brute force. Microsoft isn't wrong for acting like a corporation seeking profit. The bigger question is why anyone would root for them when they've shown little true feel for the business, as evidenced by their lack of success relative to their competition. We spend more than two hours going through all of the interesting tidbits from the FTC vs. Microsoft, not through the lens of whether the deal will go through, but via all the interesting information we've garnered through discovery, deposition, and testimony. We also spend more than an hour talking about our time (so far) with Final Fantasy XVI, which very easily slides into the Game of the Year category with its exceptional gameplay and riveting story. We bounce around to other news items, too, before leaving you -- as always -- with listener inquiries. How can PlayStation salvage the early-damaged reputations of Concord and Fairgames? Will there ever be a single-player FPS renaissance? Should increased dev time equal the end of gaming trilogies? Could Colin and Chris write a successful remake of Billy Joel's classic We Didn't Start the Fire?

Timestamps:

0:00:00 - Intro

0:11:45 - Corrections

0:14:42 - High level thoughts about the FTC case

0:24:53 - Why do people root for corporations?

0:55:06 - PlayStation doesn’t want competitors to have access to their console

1:00:34 - PlayStation was never worried about losing Call of Duty

1:06:58 - Jim Ryan says Game Pass is losing money and a bad idea

1:35:42 - Bobby Kotick doesn’t like Game Pass

1:40:15 - Does Microsoft want to outspend Sony?

1:53:59 - Could Sony buy Square Enix?

2:16:09 - CD Projekt plays revisionist history

2:24:47 - Scorn is coming to PS5

2:26:11 - Pixeljunk Scrappers Deluxe comes to PlayStation

2:28:10 - Baldur’s Gate III has been slightly delayed for PS5

2:30:26 - Inti Creates has revealed Yohane the Parhelion: Blaze in the Deepblue

2:31:04 - Gravity Circuit looks great

2:32:05 - What have we been playing?

3:35:13 - Red Dead Redemption has been rated in South Korea

3:42:14 - PlayStation Plus games have been revealed

3:45:39 - Game sales data has been released for the month

3:47:07 - How can excitement be generated for Concord and Farigame$?

3:56:35 - Can you experience Final Fantasy 7 in 3x speed?

4:01:42 - Is the single player FPS dead?

4:12:52 - Do trilogies make sense anymore?

4:22:05 - Is there a time period we would like to see explored in a video game?

4:28:31 - Do we like demos?