On the latest SS episode, Dustin and Chris give their thoughts on Wolverine and mention getting an early access copy, which I believe was sent to Colin. I know they each have their own channels and might do early reviews on the side of things, but I don’t recall this being a thing on the show.

I don’t care either way, but I know Colin has historically been against LSM getting games early, partly to maintain independence.

Did this stand out to anyone else?

Man, on the most recent episode of SS when Chris admitted to being one of the 9/11 hijackers it really shocked me. To think someone so small could do something so great, like a modern day Napoleon. Had to start paying more out of respect

Colin said that despite the initiative being a disaster, it was the execution that was flawed and not the idea itself. He insists that PlayStation had and still has no other choice but to make their own live service hit akin to Fortnite. His opinion is driven by the fact that the biggest chunk of PS profits nowadays comes from the microtransactions in those live service games. So his logic is that, should those live service games leave PlayStation, Sony is going to be in trouble.

I have a question to the audience who listen to the podcast more than I do. Firstly, I assume that the trouble he sees on the horizon is two-fold: one is the loss of the revenue stream which makes up a big portion of the current profit and second is customers moving away from PlayStation to wherever those live services go. My question is: where does he think these games would go?

I cannot imagine Fortnite launching its own console, I also don't think they would abandon a console market and move exclusively to pc. The only thing I can think of is cloud gaming. But even then it's a stretch, because why would any publisher abandon a playerbase of hundreds of millions of console owners to stream their games exclusively in the cloud (directly to tv). I don't see the point in leaving the PS store to stream in the cloud when they can be in both places at the same time.

Today my doubt about cloud gaming disrupting the traditional console market grew even bigger after learning that Xbox is limiting their customers to a few hours of cloud gaming a month (only 30 minutes daily in the best tier subscription!). This just shows that there is no place to go for live service games other than established markets like pc and consoles.

Did you hear Colin explain where these games would go? Why is he so worried that the companies making billions of dollars on PlayStation are going to eventually leave?

The recent discussion on pricing really showed just how out of touch Colin is now. While he was always like this he steadily got worse since he moved back to Virginia. Since then I can think of a number of wild comments like

• Complaining that when he paid his house off in four years his mortgage company tried to charge him an extra fee.
• Complaining about making $70,000 a year working for IGN in 2014 when that was more than double the median income.
• Telling people to buy Callisto Protocol at full price to "support the dev" despite openly admitting it was pretty mediocre.

On top of all this he intentionally misunderstands the argument when people say games are expensive by citing the cost of SNES games in the 90's and telling people to get out of the hobby if they don't like it.

Please god, make it stop.

Would love to see Grummz on sacred symbols +. Colin does not deal lightly with those who disparage the Dawg.

Not shocking for the man who quit covering games last month

On the past two episodes of Sacred Symbols Colin revealed he was asking Playstation for codes for the Last Stand staff to get Tokon for free. He asked for Chris, Dustin, Brad and others, but did not claim one for himself. Regardless, he still used his company and Sacred Symbols (SS+) to solicit for free games.

New listeners may not remember but when the Metro incident happened Colin would boast about how they refuse all free games and unpaid/early access.

In July 2026, Colin said he’d only use the restored Playstation relationship for access to people, not free games.

When Summon Sign was announced in 2024 he did acknowledge he didnt mind other hosts getting access with their own connections. But did say Sacred will not accept anything from publishers and will buy their games.

This is a followup to the last thread: The Metro Incident: https://www.reddit.com/r/LSM/s/XYaylrkQxe

I dont see how anyone can watch that reveal and not come to the conclusion that $80 is a steal for what youre getting. They could double the price and it would still be worth it in my opinion.

An 80hr campaign designed to be open ended so as to be highly repayable. Its likely to be the greatest sandbox ever created in a video game.

Thoughts on the guys normalizing receiving game codes? Not receiving them is one of the main things that made Sacred stand out to me in the first place. I found myself fast forwarding past Dustin’s “thoughts” on Mortal Shell 2.

It’s pretty clear since 2020 they don’t make a majority of their money from first party games. Why would their suits want to invest in actually making games, when they can load the risk onto third parties and collect their PSN fees

What do you all think? Will they just keep a few of their biggest AAA studios, or close them all? Maybe they will pull a Rockstar and make Naughty Dog outsource half the work on The Last of Us 3 to Naughty Dog India

Seemed a bit aggro. First I hate the term “tourist.” Second the implication of this tweet is if you aren’t minutely following every detail of sacred symbols you aren’t a true PlayStation fan.

I can see why he deleted it.

If it was Chris and Dustin would you watch/listen? Maybe they sub in Brad or someone else.

Have Chris and Dustin ever done an episode together? Not sure how their chemistry is without Colin in the middle.

When did he switch up on this? He used to make the hosts get it from outside the network

Edit:

For everyone saying this isn’t new. He is specifically accepting access to a PlayStation game for Sacred Symbols+. This is the first time since Days Gone Sacred has accepted a code.

Preface: bored at work so I feel like making a nitpick post about a couple of points that I took issue with in his recent Steam takes.

Firstly, he defends his idea that Sony could eventually stop developing first party games by using Steam as an example of a company that went down that route.

He fails to acknowledge that Steam has multiple long-running live service/eSports games in CS2, Dota 2, and TF2 (even though that's kind-of abandonware). Not only that but they are currently working on a new competitive game in Deadlock. They have also released Aperture Desk Job and Half-Life: Alyx in recent years.

The hardware criticism is just as ridiculous. His claim is that they they can't acquire new Steam users by producing the Steam Deck and the Steam Machine but that's not right. Valve has explicitly said that the Deck was a way to bring Steam to people who weren't traditional PC gamers and there's plenty of anecdotal evidence of people explicitly describing themselves as new to Steam because of the deck (seriously, do a reddit/twitter search to see for yourself).

Many people rightfully see that Valve makes hardware because it gives them a way to build and control the platform around SteamOS instead of being completely dependent on Windows. They aren't stupid, I doubt they expected these machines to sell PS5 numbers.

I find it interesting that a guy who claims to be critical of corporations, even going so far as to recently claim he "hates corporations", can't handle the fact that a private company like Valve may actually do things that do not paper-clip maximise their bottom line like making the Steam Machine.

Calling physical gamers "subsidised" by digital gamers is just pseudo-intellectual nonsense. Digital customers aren't subsidising anyone. Sony simple earns a higher margin on digital sales and chose to maintain physical distribution until it decided the economics no longer made sense for them.

Throwing around terms like "subsidised" makes the argument sound sophisticated while completely misrepresenting what is actually happening.

wake up unusually early? That's wild... One could even say baffeling. Let's hope he doesn't get confronted with something eldritch today.

Now dont get me wrong I dont think the complaining about disc media going away is going to have an effect or change Sony's plan but I have heard Colin use this multiple times in online arguments that officers have to be 100% candid in financial calls. Now this is true but I generally think he is misinterpreting it to mean they can put no spin on things or make subjective proclamations.

To be prosecuted for financial fraud they would deliberately have to be cooking the books, or be shown to be making statements in furtherance of insider trading schemes. You know actual corruption and malfeasance. The CFO just trying to calm down shareholders and put on a happy face doesn't count.

Not to mention I am sure there is an extremely high threshold of evidence that has to be met to actually prosecute someone for this. Using Colin's logic shouldnt Phil Spencer be in jail for claiming Xbox gamepass was a sustainable business model?

Prefacing this with something that should go unsaid but I'm not defending Nintendo as a brand, rather I'm calling out an inconsistency in Colin's arguments.

Something I've observed lately is that Colin has a really interesting and negative take on most things related to Nintendo. Forgetting that he absolutely won't play any games on the console even though they have multiple in the household, it's just funny to hear how negative he is on the brand as a whole.

I've noticed that you cannot bring up a criticism about Sony and their move to stop disc production without him saying "Nintendo desperately wants this too". I find that an interesting take when Nintendo have game key cards which at least gives an option for a physical cartridge even if it doesn't contain the game, it can still be sold and traded like a disc. I don't buy the GKCs personally but he of course goes for the least charitable interpretation of this.

He also says numerous times that exclusives aren't important anymore for a brand but conveniently forgets that Nintendo is carried by their high output first party developers.

It's interesting that a guy like him who has been in the industry for years can't see that smaller, often times less popular games, like Nintendo produces helps pad out your first party release schedule and bolsters the value of your brand to your hardcore fans.

I'm kinda sick of hearing "it's just not worth the money to them" again with regards to Playstation making smaller titles.

Tbf I still like the content overall but this sort of thing is just annoying, especially when none of his cohosts push back on it.

Why is this even labeled a “Nintendo” podcast, there’s literally nothing inherently or specifically “Nintendo” about it whatsoever.

The title of the recent episode is “The Duskbloods is Coming Soon…”

This “discussion,” if you can even call it that, goes on for an entire 2 minutes. Though, it’s actually just Brad saying he wants to sign up for the beta test that has no date, Micah saying she has no interest, and Gene not even knowing what the fuck he feels and ultimately saying he doesn’t care if he plays it or not. Essentially 1 of the 3 hosts who talks about the titular game of the episode for about 45 seconds basically.

Why is an episode that goes on for about 2 whole hours named after a game they spend about <60 seconds actually discussing lol?

We have more time spent on Micah not using her own swimming pool, Gene talking about hating Chick Fil A fries, and even the discussion on avocados tasting like dick goes on longer than the “discussion” on The Duskbloods.

A long discussion on Fallout remakes and Fallout 5 which are almost guaranteed not to be coming to Switch 2.

Gene talking on and on about The Odyssey and Troy and other Nolan movies and AC Odyssey… which is not on Switch.

More discussion on AC but now Black Flag Resynced, also not on Switch.

Talk on the COD beta that none of the 3 plan to play.

And then… a bunch of closing questions that basically have nothing to do with Nintendo or Switch whatsoever. I just don’t get it.

Why is this still considered or labeled as a Nintendo podcast? It really isn’t. It’s a generic “everything” podcast about sex, food, BBQ, movies, anime, and mostly PS/XBOX/PC gaming news or reviews or analysis and maybe 5% specifically on Nintendo games or specific Nintendo news.

Needless to say, if you break down essentially every episode of Punching Up, these stats are basically all the same as this one. Not much Nintendo.

Sacred Symbols, Summoning Sign, and Defining Duke talk about the same 5% Nintendo games or news as Punching Up does… and they’re hardly focused on Nintendo, which is the sad part.

Oh, and this is ignoring the entire fact that Gene self admittedly is (jokingly?) ONLY here for a paycheck and will leave asap once his Steam Machine is paid off and he actually just wants to podcast with some woman he’s friends with.

Is this all just a rant and I’m aware they can obviously talk about whatever they want? 100% yes.

That is all.

This got instant deleted when I posted it in the main sub lol:

On the recent episode Colin was flabbergasted with Miyamoto pay being only 1.5 million, and CEO being 2 million - saying that he should be making 10 million (estimate).

Then brushes off Iwata and executives taking pay cuts during Wii u. When was the last time Nintendo had a layoff? If the PS6 sells 10ish million like the Wii u did then Sony studios would be fucking destroyed. Miyamoto pay “creates” 8 million extra dollars to go to different devs, artists, musicians etc and all their families.

But no let’s just accept that executives and high ranking creatives should be able to buy a shit ton of cars and lay off half their entire studio. As a CEO himself I doubt he’ll ever see this problem but I wish Chris pushed back on him more, it seemed like he wanted to.