Game Merchandise

[Moonface]

Was browsing the top posts in the NieR subreddit and came across this awesome piece that's a crossover of NieR and Bloodborne:



This same artist also did this really cool crossover piece of Pokémon Let's Go and Super Mario Bros. which I love too, and has a few little extra things on their Twitter for it:

The reason I put this all here instead of the Game Pictures and Videos thread is because these and their other crossover posters are available to buy from their Etsy page: https://www.etsy.com/shop/gdacted
Really tempting to grab these two from there at some point.

[Eric]

Famous 10 year-old pokemon trainer, Mario Ketchum in full-mustachioed glory!

[Mr EliteL]

Yeah they're both really good. Just the Mario/Pokémon crossover like that makes me laugh, Wario and Waluigi just perfect as Team Rocket, especially Wario with Koffing as well as what Bowser is meant to be, also just a trainer or he's Pokémon that IS a trainer?!

[Moonface]

...what Bowser is meant to be, also just a trainer or he's Pokémon that IS a trainer?!

I'm guessing he's a gym leader because he's holding a PokéBall. I don't know what the symbol on his wrist represents to tell if that has any extra info for what his role is but maybe someone more familiar with Pokémon will know.

[Mr EliteL]

Yeah he might be a gym leader, he also actually looks very similar to Turtonator, which is why I wondered if he's a Pokémon, a hybrid perhaps.

[ShiraNoMai]

That Nier x Bloodborne art is so fucking sick, I love it.

There is also SO much fine detail and thought put into that Pokémon x Mario one. EL pointed out that Bowser is indeed a Turtonator but notably he is also Gigantamaxed as noted by the pink swirls and the arm band on his wrist. I actually wanna make it a contest to see who can guess the correct amount of Pokémon (with names as a bonus) on this poster. It's wild how many there are on just a 1:2 picture size ratio.

[Mr EliteL]

Fine, I'll try. I count 48, including Bowser as Turtonator, there's two I can't name (above Lunatone, under the P), but also think there's some more I've missed/don't recognise as a Pokémon like the one on the Pokémon castle.

46

Bowser (Turtonator)
Amoongus
Barbacle
Binacle
Breloom
Carnivine
Coalossal
Corsola
Crustle
Dragonite
Drifloom
Dugtrio
Duraludon (Gigatanmax)
Eiscue
Exeggutor (Alola)
Floette
Florges
Foongus
Gastly
Gimighoul
Gloom
Jirachi
Jumpluff
Lapras
Litwick
Lombre
Ludicolo
Lunatone
Maractus
Morelull
Palossand
Parasect
Pikachu
Sharpedo
Shiinotic
Shuckle
Spiritomb
Solosis
Solrock
Stakataka
Staryu
Stonjourner
Sudowudo
Sunflora
Tangrowth
Tropius

[Moonface]

Without looking at EL's list, I'm going to see if I can even spot as many as he saw or even just any that he missed, because why not?

Spoiler

1. Pikachu
   
2. Dragonite
   
3. Jirachi
   
4. Lunatone
   
5. Cosmog
   
6. Staryu
   
7. Turtonator
   
8. Drifloon
   
9. Solrock
   
10. Minior (x1 Meteor Form, x2 Core Form)
    
11. Coalossal
    
12. Sharpedo
    
13. Celesteela
    
14. Gastly
    
15. Duskull
    
16. Stakataka
    
17. Rotom
    
18. Spiritomb
    
19. Solosis
    
20. Palossand
    
21. Exeggutor (Alolan Form)
    
22. Maractus
    
23. ??? (Maractus is playing with something that looks like Onix or something but I have no clue)
    
24. Dugtrio
    
25. Carkol
    
26. Shuckle
    
27. Carnivine
    
28. Corsola
    
29. Ludicolo
    
30. Lotad (x3)
    
31. Eiscue
    
32. Lapras
    
33. Binacle
    
34. Barbaracle
    
35. Bergmite (the one above Lapras, I might have the wrong identity on this)
    
36. Litwick (x2)
    
37. Claydol (I think this is being used for part of the roof on the left building; can be seen at the canvas edge above the spiked roof edge)
    
38. Roggenrola (part of the left building maybe, under the foot of Wario)
    
39. Mewtwo (I feel like the top of the left building next to Waluigi's fist is meant to be using part of a Pokémon head, and it gives me Mewtwo vibes but maybe it's something else or just not actually a Pokémon and just part of one)
    
40. Slugma
    
41. Crustle
    
42. Tropius
    
43. Shiinotic
    
44. Morelull
    
45. Sunflora
    
46. Gloom
    
47. Foongus (x3)
    
48. Breloom
    
49. Parasect
    
50. Florges
    
51. Floette
    
52. Shroomish
    
53. Tangrowth
    
54. Gimmighoul (Roaming Form)
    
55. Jumpluff
    
56. Sudowoodo
    
57. Torterra
    
58. Amoonguss
    
59. Shellder
    
60. Stonjourner
    
61. Runerigus
    
62. Torkoal
    

Dang, so I got 62 in total. I'll compare my list another time with EL's because this took me like...an hour? XD

[ShiraNoMai]

I commend you both on your efforts, it was really impressive

[Mr EliteL]

Frick, I forgot to list Carkol and Slugma in mine, I knew they were Pokémon, then forgot to mention I knew what was around Jirachi were Pokémon but didn't know what (Minior) then immediately noticed I missed Celesteela when opening the image to see what else I missed in Moony's list for him to get up to 62. Then going through his list I genuinely didn't notice, if it is, Onix by Maractus. Not familiar with Runerigus but wondered what it was in the sand with the markings. Ah-ha, so above Lunatone is Cosmog. I agree with the other ones I missed. The only one I think was wrong in Moony's was Mewtwo but just swap that for Duraludon (Gigatanmax) and his list is either correct or very close to it than I was.
One more I noticed which Moony didn't list either is Weezing (Gigatanmax), also on the left building.

[Moonface]

I spent a lot of time on Bulbapedia going up and down a list of images of every Pokémon by generation to see who matched something in the image. Very painful and time consuming when I don't know a large number of Pokémon in the image to even get part of a name or even their gen number narrowed down so there was a lot of going up and down the list multiple times just to locate a single Pokémon. XD

On another note, Youtooz recently announced this Rayman figurine a few days ago: https://youtooz.com/products/rayman
Not sure if I care to get it or not given these things are $30 a pop and really no bigger than a Funko (which are like half the price), but it was still nice to see Rayman getting some merch in 2023. I'm currently huffing a little bit of copium wondering if we might be getting an actual Rayman game what with this and the Mario Rabbids DLC happening.

[Moonface]

Interesting development here, as Gaming Heads claims that Sony have told them to destroy all their PlayStation merch, including any that was already paid for and is ready to be shipped.

Yes, SONY PlayStation has already received royalty payments from you on your orders that SONY PlayStation now wants us to destroy and not ship to you.

Looks pretty cut and dry that Sony are in the wrong with this but a deeper look into it implies that Gaming Heads aren't the most reliable company when it comes to merch. Apparently there are people who ordered a Tomb Raider statue from them for the 20th anniversary and have yet to receive it, when we're now at her 30th anniversary. A Sly Cooper statue was meant to release in 2018, which was then delayed due to factory issues, then COVID-19, and just as they were apparently ready to ship now this move from Sony happens, which is making people think the statues aren't done at all and Gaming Heads are using this as an excuse to just cancel the orders of everything.

My view right now is it's either them bailing out, or are so unreliable Sony pulled the contract and Gaming Heads are claiming products that have been delayed for half a decade are now done to try and make themselves look good. I definitely don't think it's as simple as Sony just cancelling everything and causing this situation for the hell of it because that would be incredibly bad PR, so there's definitely something more to this story than what Gaming Heads are putting out I think.

[Dragon Lord]

Considering their piss-poor reviews, shady history and apparent love of pulling off scumbag moves and scamming people, I'm going to go ahead and say that we're missing a lot of information to this story and that there's a 99.99% Gaming Heads are purely at fault here and are hoping they can distract the mob and throw them on Sony before anyone realizes that they're running away with the money.

The fact that they are telling people to go to Sony and ask for refunds tells you all you need to know. They are the merchant, it is THEIR responsibility to refund customers for these statues, but instead they're just like, "Uhhh... ignore the bags of your money I'm holding and please go ask Sony for refunds, thanks." The fact that these people have been waiting 7+ years for a product they paid several hundreds of dollars for and are still believing the bullshit that Gaming Heads is shoveling here is wild.

Scammers gonna scam. The fact that they literally say "SONY PlayStation" every single sentence is another huge red flag. Really trying their damnedest to get that into people's brains.

[Moonface]

Yeah, even the replies from Gaming Heads on that Tweet are constantly reiterating SONY PlayStation over and over:

We want to apologize for any stress, confusion and inconvenience that SONY PlayStation's decision may have caused you.
Thank you again for your order and support and rest assured that we will do all we can for you (including processing your refund).

I've seen this reply a lot from them on that Tweet, and I find it contradictory that the statement says to contact Judy Ward at Sony for a refund to be processed but their responses say they will process the refund. So who's doing it? I know logically it should absolutely be Gaming Heads, but if you don't read any of their replies their primary statement directs those requests towards Sony all because Sony took royalties already. Just because Sony took that doesn't mean Sony now owe refunds, because they are not the seller. Gaming Heads are. Also, royalties doesn't equate to 100% of the price of the product, so Gaming Heads are telling people to not only get a refund from another party but would also in theory keep whatever money wasn't part of the royalties too. Gaming Heads are the ones who should be chasing Sony to get back the royalties, not the consumers.

[Moonface]

Man, so I was curious what the current state of the Gaming Heads story is at and it seems to have just gotten more bizarre over the last few days.

• They've been telling customers on their Facebook page that refunds fall entirely on "SONY PlayStation" even when being told that they are responsible for refunds due to being the seller: Image
  
  
• Additional responses on that Twitter post since I originally posted it have progressed from the quote in my above post to now being all over the place. Just some of the things I've seen them reply with that are different to that response:
  • As we've been telling the Community, we will "do all we can for them (including processing their refunds)".
    We are waiting to hear from SONY PlayStation about the royalty payments they have already received for products they decided to cancel. As such, we need a few days.
    
  • yes,  we think we've used the comment "we will do all we can for them (including processing their refunds)" about 100 times. We ask for some time to see what (if anything) PS will do.
    (This was a response to whether Gaming Heads will issue full refunds or not, because of their wording "all we can do" coming across as containing doubt)
    
  • Trust is super important
    As we've been telling the Community, we will do all we can for them (including processing their refunds). 
    It didn't need to be this way where the Community is deprived of what they want and we pointed the Community to those who can do something about it
    (In response to someone saying they do not trust GH for sending people to Sony for refunds when they are the ones who took the payments)
    
  • We think our canned response is that we've been telling the Community that we will do all we can for them (including processing their refunds).
    But SONY PlayStation has the power to make it right and allow Community members to receive their orders that are ready to ship to them.
    
  • SONY has a good chunk of the $$$ as they received royalty payments on items that they decided to cancel and not allow to ship to the Community
    
  • We beg to differ - they receive phat checks.
    
    
• This post was made today that now Gaming Heads have bought back merchandise from wholesale and distribution partners and will use those to ship products to people: https://i.imgur.com/wLP5gHE.png
  The trouble with this is how are wholesale and distribution partners already in possession of products that customers have not received? If enough were made to send out to third parties how were there not enough for customers, and why aren't customer orders put before third party sellers?
  

Never mind that whoever is making all these statements for Gaming Heads is very obviously not a PR representative as absolutely none of it sounds professional or company official. If Sony were to make a statement that doesn't utterly expose Gaming Heads as being full of shit I'd be impressed.