MinnMax's Ben Hanson finally speaks with game industry legend Shuhei Yoshida about his 31-year career at PlayStation, where he worked his way up to president of Sony Interactive Worldwide Studios from 2008-2019 before becoming the head of PlayStation indies. He left Sony at the end of 2024 and he's finally able to discuss his thoughts on Nintendo, interacting with Shigeru Miyamoto, and playing a gam...
2025-02-03 17:15:00 +0000 UTC
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On this big episode of The MinnMax Show, Ben Hanson and guest cohort Alanah Pearce rotate through a full crew of Kyle Hilliard, Jacob Geller, Leo Vader, Jeff Marchiafava, and Janet Garcia to talk about some of the great new games released so far in 2025 like Dynasty Warriors Origins, Lonely Mountains: Snow Riders, and Eternal Strands. We also talk about playing 3 hours of Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed Shadows! Then we answer wonderful questions submitted on Patreon.
Check out all of Alanah...
2025-01-30 03:50:32 +0000 UTC
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Hey everybody! We've been delighted to have Alanah Pearce join us this month as the first ever guest cohort here at MinnMax. As her final piece of content, she's heading over to Janet Garcia's place in LA to stream a game. What game, you ask? Hey, you tell us! You have until Thursday at midnight to choose what they're playing. Here are the options...
Escape Academy - Janet...
2025-01-30 02:55:58 +0000 UTC
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Hey everybody, we appreciate your patience with the delay on The Deepest Dive of Onimusha: Warlords. Several of us got sick so we pushed the first episode back to now recording on Twitch on Monday, February 3rd and it'll be up on YouTube and in the bonus podcast feed on Tuesday the 4th.
This week for community questions on the podcast, we'll have Ben Hanson, Jeff Marchiafava, Leo Vader, Janet Garcia, and Alanah Pearce for the final time so get any Alanah-focused questions in. It's your...
2025-01-28 16:26:48 +0000 UTC
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This week on Bonus Pod, host Haley MacLean is joined by Charles Harte to relive the highs and lows of the Wii U's life, going through favorite games, weirdest features, and most confusing commercials.
Here’s a link to the video version of this episode!
Thanks so much for supporting and unlocking Bonus Pod. You can call into future episodes of Bonus Pod via Discord by joining the MinnMax Council tier, episodes r...
2025-01-27 23:32:18 +0000 UTC
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Every week New Show Plus lets supporters at the Backstage Pass tier on Patreon vote to choose a new show for us to create, or to continue an older show from a previous week. If you missed the reveal, you can learn more about the format in this quick video.
This week we decided you've had it too good for too long, so good luck deciding between these long-running New Show Pluses that have all been begging for a revi...
2025-01-27 19:01:52 +0000 UTC
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MinnMax's Ben Hanson hosts a discussion between Mouthwashing's narrative designer/art lead Johanna Kasurinen and executive producer Kai Moore and 1000xResist's creative director Remy Siu and narrative designer Pinki Li. As two of the strongest narrative games from 2024, the developers talk about creating effective non-linear stories, their inspirations, and how they made the best out of their limite...
2025-01-27 17:15:01 +0000 UTC
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Hello brave warriors, it's time to submit your thoughts on the first half of Capcom's Onimusha: Warlords for The Deepest Dive! As always, please be specific with your comment. The more specific you are, the higher the chances are that we'll read your comment. The stopping point for our first discussion is when you see a green force field about halfway through the game. It looks like...
2025-01-24 16:00:11 +0000 UTC
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MinnMax's Ben Hanson, Jacob Geller, Sarah Podzorski, and special guest cohort for the month Alanah Pearce break down the highlights from Microsoft's big Xbox Developer Direct with the big reveal of Ninja Gaiden 4 and a ton of information on Doom: The Dark Ages from id, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, and South of Midnight. Then Jacob shares his thoughts on the excellent sci-narrative/tabletop-inspired Citizen Sleeper 2 before we dive into questions submitted by the community!
Help support ...
2025-01-23 22:11:23 +0000 UTC
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For New Show Plus this week, MinnMax's Ben Hanson, Jacob Geller, Janet Garcia, and guest cohort Alanah Pearce take submissions from the MinnMax community and accurately place them on an ever-expanding list of the greatest games of all time. Normally we're much more thorough and have concrete parameters for our lists, but one is designed to be sloppy and fun... so have mercy on us, please. Join the B...
2025-01-22 17:15:00 +0000 UTC
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FYI: Due to the Xbox Developer Direct happening on Thursday at 12pm Central (we'll be streaming our reactions on YouTube), we're holding the podcast back for the second week in a row and will be doing it live on YouTube on Thursday at 1pm Central. It'll be up in the podcast feeds as soon as possible after that.
This week for community questions on the podcast, we'll have Ben Hanson, Kelsey Lewin, Jacob Geller, and Alanah Pearce (feel free to submit a question just for her!). It's your t...
2025-01-21 21:30:42 +0000 UTC
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Every week New Show Plus lets supporters at the Backstage Pass tier on Patreon vote to choose a new show for us to create, or to continue an older show from a previous week. If you missed the reveal, you can learn more about the format in this quick video.
So check out your options below, and vote to choose the next episode we create for New Show Plus airing Tuesday on Twitch!
2025-01-20 18:46:52 +0000 UTC
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Would you like to compete in game trivia to win game codes and more? Then please jump in MinnMax's Discord on Tuesday, January 21st at 8pm! If you're even a $2 supporter on Patreon you get access to the Discord. Host Michael Huber will be joined by special guest cohost Victor Lucas from Electric Playground!
You'll be watching the YouTube stream with the link provided and entering your guesse...
2025-01-18 19:09:04 +0000 UTC
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MinnMax's Ben Hanson, Kyle Hilliard, Janet Garcia, and Haley MacLean are joined by the new Guest Cohort (surprise!) for a month Alanah Pearce! Her journey through IGN, Funhaus, Sony Santa Monica, and the narrative on her new game Layers Deep has made her incredibly insightful on the game industry and we're honored to have her join us on content for the next month. On this big episode, we break down the reveal for the Nintendo Switch 2 and unpack the current state of Ubisoft and how Tencent mi...
2025-01-17 01:43:51 +0000 UTC
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Hot off the announcement that Capcom is reviving the series, for the next Deepest Dive we're going back to 2001 and playing the first Onimusha game! The samurai-focused action/adventure game takes a lot of inspiration from the Resident Evil Series, so dive in and let's unpack this thing together. This will be a two-part game club and we need your comments on Patreon here to help fuel the discussions. The game is available on all systems thanks to the 2019 remaster, but you're welcome to play ...
2025-01-15 19:15:01 +0000 UTC
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We're recording a live episode of the podcast this week on YouTube this Thursday at 3:15pm Central. We don't have any inside information, but with so many rumors that the next Nintendo console is being revealed this Thursday we want to be able to cover that on this episode. So fingers crossed. There won't be early access to the podcast for $5 supporters like usual, since it'll all be recorded live. But we'll put up all versions of the podcast in all of the feeds as soon as we can on Thursday....
2025-01-14 23:53:13 +0000 UTC
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This week on Bonus Pod, host Haley MacLean is joined by Ben Hanson and here’s a rundown of everything they talk about…
The overall state of MinnMax as a company
Analytics for the best and worst-performing content in 2024
MinnMax Content Survey Results
Ben's weekly emails
John Wilkes Booth
Tootsie Rolls
The goals of MinnMax as an outlet
Here’s a link to the video ve...
2025-01-14 03:26:16 +0000 UTC
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Every week New Show Plus lets supporters at the Backstage Pass tier on Patreon vote to choose a new show for us to create, or to continue an older show from a previous week. You can learn more about the format in this quick video. This week we're challenging the incumbent Old Awards Shows by giving a few cohorts a chance to flex their skills in a game they're great at.
So check out your options below, and vote to ...
2025-01-13 18:49:34 +0000 UTC
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MinnMax's Ben Hanson, Haley MacLean, Jacob Geller, and Leo Vader get together to talk about what they played over the holiday break, give Indiana Jones and the Great Circle the follow-up conversation it deserves, and run down the MinnMax community's hive-mind picks for the greatest games of 2024. Then we answer some wonderful questions submitted on Patreon!
See of all our personal top 10 favorite games of 2024 here - 2025-01-09 05:04:25 +0000 UTC
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Happy 2025, everybody! Thanks so much for supporting MinnMax, we're excited to tackle a ton this year. We hope you enjoyed the new episode of Bonus Pod with Haley, Sarah, and Kelsey talking about what they played over the holiday break. Funky note for this upcoming episode of The MinnMax Show: we're streaming it live for folks at the Backstage Pass tier on Wednesday at 3pm Central but it won't be in the bonus podcast feed until Thursday. We have an announcement to make on the...
2025-01-07 20:15:40 +0000 UTC
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This week on the first Bonus Pod of the new year, host Haley MacLean is joined by Sarah Podzorski (and eventually Kelsey Lewin) to get caught up on which games got us through our winter break and why they were Infinity Nikki. They also talk getting into Pokémon cards in 2025, Sarah's forgotten greatest works of art of last year, and tease something new from MinnMax coming soon.
Here's a link to the video version of the ep...
2025-01-07 00:26:23 +0000 UTC
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Every week New Show Plus lets supporters at the Backstage Pass tier on Patreon vote to choose a new show for us to create, or to continue an older show from a previous week. You can learn more about the format in this quick video.
So check out your options below, and vote to choose the next episode we create for New Show Plus airing Tuesday on Twitch!
2025-01-06 20:05:37 +0000 UTC
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Happy New Year, everybody! As we head into 2025, we'd love for you to fill out this quick survey about MinnMax's content and help us chart our course ahead. Click here and fill out as much as you want - https://forms.gle/uQN53mVJwrHTpwP87<...
2025-01-01 21:59:58 +0000 UTC
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Here we go, everybody. This is the final debate from MinnMax about Game of the Year for 2024. On this episode, Ben Hanson, Haley MacLean, Janet Garcia, Kelsey Lewin, Jacob Geller, Kyle Hilliard, Leo Vader, Jeff Marchiafava, and Sarah Podzorski debate the correct order for the top 20 games of 2024... or The Two tens, as we call it. What will win MinnMax's Game of the Year? We hope you enjoy the grand debate and thanks so much for supporting MinnMax and making all of this possible!
Help s...
2025-01-01 17:15:04 +0000 UTC
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MinnMax's full crew of Ben Hanson, Haley MacLean, Janet Garcia, Kelsey Lewin, Jacob Geller, Kyle Hilliard, Leo Vader, Jeff Marchiafava, and Sarah Podzorski kick off our Game of the Year debate that we call The Two Tens... in honor of the two Ns in MinnMax and Minnesota. We build up a list of our favorite games this year and then boil it down to the Top 20 entries. Sorry, that was a typo. We mean to call it The Two Tens. What will make the cut? Dragon's Dogma 2? Pacific Drive? Balatro? Kunitsi...
2024-12-25 17:15:01 +0000 UTC
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Hey everybody! As we're rolling out MinnMax's collective Game of the Year debates in the main podcast feed (reminder that you can unlock all of them now at the $10 tier), we wanted to share everybody's Top 10 games of 2024. The nine of us try our best to represent the year, but we can barely scratch the surface fo...
2024-12-20 22:12:04 +0000 UTC
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Hello everybody and thanks for supporting MinnMax at the Backstage Pass tier. Your support has been huge for us this year, a special thanks to new folks who just jumped up to this tier. As always, feel free to drop back down whenever you want to. Find something sustainable, that's how we stay sustainable as an outlet. We're assuming part of the reason you're at the Backstage Pass tier and above is to...
2024-12-19 22:47:57 +0000 UTC
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MinnMax's full crew of Ben Hanson, Haley MacLean, Janet Garcia, Kelsey Lewin, Jacob Geller, Kyle Hilliard, Leo Vader, Jeff Marchiafava, and Sarah Podzorski celebrate gaming in 2024 by nominating and debating winners in prestigious categories. The categories of course are: Best Thing, Dumbest Thing, Biggest News, Best Game We Didn't Play, Best Moment, and the Greatest Work Of Art Of All Time For 2024. This is a big one, so thanks so much for listening and sharing. We'll be back the following t...
2024-12-18 17:15:00 +0000 UTC
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MinnMax's Haley MacLean, Jacob Geller, and Kelsey Lewin share their full, spoiler-filled thoughts on all of Metaphor: Refantazio from Atlus and the creators of Persona 5. They talk about the game's ending, final dungeons, and favorite characters along the way.
Watch and share the video version here - https://youtu.be/uz4w_fpveII<...
2024-12-16 17:15:01 +0000 UTC
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MinnMax's Ben Hanson, Jacob Geller, Kyle Hilliard, and Jeff Marchiafava unpack Indiana Jones and the Great Circle from Machine Games before Kelsey Lewin and Sarah Podzorski freshen up the place by raving about Infinity Nikki. Then we get to some great questions from the community!
Help support MinnMax's supporters!
https://www.iam8bit.com - 10% off with Promo Code: THENAMEAGAINISMRPLOW
2024-12-11 23:30:58 +0000 UTC
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