Switch Two Hardware and Kids

This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, likeike restoring a vintage motorcycle from a fifty page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online makes sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responssees setup required compatibility and availability varies eighteen plus Sve more on what you need to get the job done right, right now, at Lowe's. Get fifteen percent off, select custom entry and interior doors. Plus, save eighty dollars on the DeWalt twenty Volt Max two tool combo kit, now just one hundred sixty nine dollars. And at the Lowe's Pro desesk, bring us your materials list and get a quote in minutes. Handwritten, a photo, or even a sticky note is all you need Keep your jobs moving faster and on budget at lows. Valid through sevenenty eight while supplies last. Selection varies by location. Hey, what's going on? everyverybody, welcome to the program. Hi. It's the Jeff Gerersman show. It is Tuesday june thirtieth, twenty twenty six and here we are. ready to talk about everything that's happening in theh in the world of uh in the world of video games. and whatever's going on around them. it feels very precarious. I mean, I guess it has for a long time Today is the last day of the fiscal year And so that is the, you know, all of the kind of layoff stories have been around the idea of just like, okay, all the layoffs are going to happen after the end of fiscal And that's today. So yeah, we'll see where the world takes us from here, I suppose does feel a little bit like And there's like a staring into a void kind of Yeahah, I don't know. don't know. It's a it's a quest will feel spepeaking of staring into a void Koe Techmo released Dead or Alive six Last round, they're calling it And people are unhappy because it's a real they didn't do anything to. I don't I'm still trying to figure out. So they like deprecated the existing version of DOA six on steam in favor of this upcoming new release. Um, which which was released in a form of like, okay, there's a free to play version where you can play as like four characters and then there's a bundle of characters you can buy And then a lot of A lot of costumes. hundredundreds of dollars of DLC. The fun part is S someome of the DLC from the previous version transfers over And some of it does not U All of that is like various forms of like bikinian maid and nurse outfits and all that other shit, right? But like But also some of it doesn't transfer over and like you can buy it again U they they put in like, yeah, it's got like Koola from King of Fighters in it and that's, you know, that's neat or whatever. but like, know, it's it's deOA six It doesn't look like they improved the net code So it doesn't look like something where they went like, oh and now it's got rollback. It's like, no, it's It's just kind of the same thing again. likeike visually it looks like this weirdly blurry, almost low res kind of thing Um And like it's just a really strange release. I don't know. Like this looks like a strange release prior to it coming out U We're like, o, why are they shifting from it's still DA six. It doesn't seem like they're making any meaningful changes or Noothing they'renouncing makes it sound like that they're doing anything major to it. whyy are they doing this? It's not like they're adding rollback. It's not like they're adding crossplay. It's it's just a really I don did some license expire? Like someone's going to find some like middleware that changed or something go, Oh They didn't want to pay the wise people. They didn't want to pay their font bill They wantt to pay for what mono type or whatever the hell the font the font company that all the Japanese companies use, Or something like that, but yeah, I don't know It seems like they, yeah, I mean, they they refresh some of the licenses for really like the DLC characters are back like the, you know, Koola and that stuff I think got yanked out at some point or or whatever the deal is, but u But yeah, it's a very it's a very str font works, yes, not monotype. yes, font works. That's right is the is the Typeface company. Yes, so that it's a very strange release. I would be very open to a new deead or alive game. much like, you know, you know, just about any fighting game really, from from any of these kind of Major franchises like like Dead or Alive is a Relatively fun fighting game, but DA six is maybe not the best one I They introduced some of just weird mechanics, like some weird kind of mashy mechanics of like, Oh where you just, you know, mash out this button four times and it'll kind of chain into a super and like that stuff's not terrible It is terrible When you are facing off in the confines of their kind of shitty net code So You know, All of it taken together. is it is certainly not the best dead or alive has ever been. U And yeah, you know, I think they will at some point make another one, but it's just it's a very strange release People are not happy about it. The handful of people that probably bought some chunk of that DLC are like, what the fuck you like You want me to rebuy some of? It's a very It's a very strange situation Um Also kind of on the game front, Nintendo released Starfox for the Switch two Pardon me Um, And this has been an interesting week for me with the Star Fox stuff. It's been it's been interesting to kind of revisit the original Star Fox sixty four, which I did on Friday As part of the launch of ranking every Nintendo sixty four game And I had played some of the Starfox remake prior to Prior to revisiting Star Fox sixty four And I think, you know like I've come away from it. feeleing a lot better about that game in general. I still think that I don't like the length of that game. I don't like the gu guys it' less the length. I don't like the structure of Star Fox sixty four I don't think that's a game that really truly benefits from its multiple path Uh design. You know, people try to say like, oh, it's like out runun or after, you know,, you know, or after we're a climax or whatever, we can kind of take these kind of branching paths and like, yeah Yes, it does have that. The ways you take the paths are sometimes a little bit more esoteric than just going left or right, but I think that game is like criminally short and I don't think it's like enjoyable enough to go back into and like hunt for the side stuff. and these days all of that is kind of a known quantity. You just go look it up or whatever. But to keep it holistic here for a minute and talk about the stuff that's in the game itself I think that it would have been better off I think they would have been better off if they had just had one half. minimal branching and made a longer game with more variety. Like the thing that stuck out to me playing Star Fox sixty four again and almost finishing it in one sitting because, you know, It's not a long game Um is that there's nice variety from level to level. like the looks and feels of these different levels is actually really good. U And I think that they have if they had done kind of more of that out of the gate. I think I think Star Fox sixty four. I think I would have would have felt a bit better about it then. I mean, I just that when that game came out I remember playing it, finishing it obviously, because it's not like, you know, it's like forty five minutes or something. And then you get to an ending and you're like, okay And it's like, oh, do you want tona go back and do more? And like, No, I like this I know I did not enjoy this enough to want to go back and hunt for other stuff, like, And so I don't know I think there's something to be said for putting all of the good shit on the critical path in a game That's a weird balance, right? Beuse you want to put interestnteresting things there for people who are Engaging deeply and want to hunt You want to have a reward for them if you're doing that sort of thing, right? You want to make sure that like That's what they jumped. the hoops they jumped through are worth it in the end Um But u But also and I think this is something that maybe is more of a thing these days than maybe it was you know, thirty years ago. Um Plers are, you know, they're they' they just they don't necessarily want to replay a game over and over again. like, you know, I feel like, you know, it's hard to get players to finish a game in the first place Um, in a lot of cases. So There's something about the idea of putting your best foot forward and going, Okaykay well, you know, if you're only going to play this once, we're going to give you the experience We're gonna to give you like the full experience of playing this game I and you're going to get to see, you know, the majority of the stuff. Like the last thing you want to hear is like and this is something that I think I don't know. I'm have two minds of it because sometimes again, it's really cool to discover that like, oh, there's this hidden out of the way thing and it's amazing this side quest or this or that and this is something that I think, you know A lot of the conversation around You know, some of the Dark Brotherhood stuff and some of the Elder Scrolls stuff and you know, fall out having just some weird side quests out in the middle of nowhere. This is something people like to say about cyberpunk a lot. Um when they're trying to defend cyber punk as they say like oh this side quest is amazingly written. And if you go over here and talk to this dude and this is incredible and We're like, Yeahah, that's great, man. Like I already spent forty hours playing a bunch of very fucking mundane bullshit So like the last thing I want to do, last thing I want to hear is Oh man, if you had gone and done this fucking other thing, you would have this is mind blowing fucking crazy plot line, all thisuff like Man, that that's a cool story if the main plot is really, really good. But in something like cyberpunk where the like critical path and a lot of the side stuff you'll encounter just kind of normally along the way. Kind of fucking sucks who hear like, oh, look at this amazing thing. You're like wouldould have been nice to have, you know, been able to see any of that stuff, but I guess I just didn't walk around the right corner Um, So yeah, I don't know. Like I'm two minds on it again, like like those people that did find that thing had a much more a much richer experience And they feel ownership over it because they kind of found it. and it's like their little thing, right Um, And I think that that stuff is Yeah, again, I think it's a really hard balance and it's it's all kind of a little bit different, right? I mean, you know, the situation with Star Fox is not quite the same as side quests in a story driven role playing game, right? It's more just like The blue area is crazy and the waves are nuts. and look at this bonus level and the fire is wild Um. But But it's the same kind of spirit And I think different developers tackle it different ways And I guess like, ultimately, dont think there's any one right answer to this But I do think in the case of Star Fox sixty four I think that game would benefit from Even if and maybe the remake does this because I haven't spent a ton of hours with it, but somethingomething where you could just go like, okay, I saw this stuff and I don't want to do it again. Now show me the other stuff that I haven't seen yet. likeike let me kind of Just to see that shit, son Um, like that that feels like a good happy medium there or something, but U Yeah, I don't know, man. That's It's a little bit different now. you know, we're not paying cartridge prices for N sixty four games like we were then And so Starfox as a remake hits a little bit differently nowadays than it does then And I think the new one, you know, it's a really great looking game And it reminds you just like, I think the core of that game as a rail shooter Um is good, but they've they've hit a lot of technical problems along the way. right? I mean, you know, like these are problems that are easy to look at now, but then You know, when the original Star Fox came out, no one was really complaining that much about the frame rate because you were seeing something that you had never seen before Um on a on on a super Nintendo, certainly U and on a sixteen bit machine for sure And so the idea that Star Fox did not run smoothly was something that you could very easily look past because it was like, dude, this is It's crazy that this is able to happen at all And so as a combination of like tech demo and game The original Star Fox is amazing. Um If you start to get into the nitty gritty of it and start talking about like the individual levels and gameplay and stuff, I think Starfox the original game Um is fine. It's a little basic. it's at times a little underwhelming But that's a very easy thing to say all these years later, right U I remember being really wowed by Star Fox two when Nintendo showed it off pre release They had these little cockpits and you could sit down. they were meant to look like the tank if I remember right. And so it was like you get into the little little tank thing and you'd play And I was like, man, there Star Fox two is crazy. they got you, you know They got you driving fucking tanks now. That's nuts and then obviously that came got canceled And a lot of those ideas got rolled into Star Fox sixty four Um, including the branching the kind of more blatantly branching stuff that they that they did And I think Starfox sixty four, I think for me Try to remember my feelings on it at the time because it has been a long time. It's currently our number one ranked Nintendo sixty four game. for whatever that's worth of the four games that have been ranked Um Star Fox sixty four, I think was disappointing because of the draw distance And because of the, you know, like it's asking you to hit things that are far away because you've got your wingmen out there flying around going get them off me. get him off me and you can barely see what the fuck is you know, what they're what they're tryed to run from Um And there's a lot of stuff like that Is it like, you know, for a second game in the franchise or third, you know, whatever you want to call Starfox two I remember the interesting thing about Star Fox sixty four being the rumble pack. came with the Rumble pack and you're like, wow, this is Crazy I gotta put batteries in this thing. Wait, okay, you're going to have games that tell me, Okaykay. You need to use the controller pack to save if you put that in now and then hit start Okay. now if you want to use the rumble pack, take it out and now putting the rubble pack. And then it' start again. like What a fucking mess. But Star Fox sixty four, I don' think benefits from the tech demo, you know, kind of blow, you know, the mind blowing kind of technical aspects that the original game benefited from, right? You know, that's that's what the the Sest version reallyally benefited from that. Star Fox sixty four, especially when you take it split screen and the situation gets even worse Um It's a chore to look at, I think in a lot of ways So yeah, I don't know. I appreciate their cinematic approach to the story, at least in the upfront part of it And I think the remake is pretty well done and it's nice to be able to play some of that stuff online Um, And not have to, you know, not have to play Pls screen video game U and and and that makes me want to play it a little bit more because I think, you know, dog fighting We don't get as much of that anymore. It used to be like Ubisoft would put out a fucking veryer arcadady feeling World War two game a World War two playing game and you'd play and go like, ah, this kind of this is This is the most run of the mill average High six to low seven scoring game I've ever played And it's got an online mode. That's weird. I can get online and dog fight with sixteen people I'm not talking about crrimson skies because Crimson S skkies was actually awesome. I'm talking about that more kind of run of the mill, whatever ass shit that is sub crrimson skkies U, you know, but we don't get a lot of any of it anymore. You know there's not a lot of multiplayer dog fighting that is very accessible with a controller and regular people can play, you know, like the, you know, the The last like truly great dog fighting game I think I played Well, maybe it was Star Wars squadrons Um, that was pretty cool in its own way, but I was going to say um, the VR game Eve Eve Valkyrie Is it E Valkyrie is that? That's not the turret shoot, right? but the the VR the Eve the Eve onnline themed dog fighting VR game is still it was one of the first games I ever played in VR and is still one of the best unfortunately because you could look anywhere and it would your targeting would move with you likeike it was a fucking amazing experience It was one of the great, great uses of VR Um Piod and it was that game was was a lot of fun. Um, but we just yeah, I don't know, like you don't You don't really see kind of low end accessible flight game anymore. likeike not a lot of companies are making them And it's kind of one of the additional reasons why a new ace combat coming out is pretty exciting Um Be we just don't get a lot of fucking playing games anymore that like average normal people can play and not like people who go like, well, I went and bought the front part of a fucking plane a real plane and then I put that in my garage and then I installed some screens on it and then I built I got my hotosas over That's I mean, well, whatever. that's awesome, but like I'm not trying to build a fucking loocation based entertainment center in my fucking garage. Like for the love of God. What are we doing Um So yeah, I don't know. like I think on that level Star Fox is great. You know, it's great to have anything like that. I mean, you know, it's not pure In space dog fighting, you know, like you don't really have full range of freedom. likeike there's a ground. There a ground. But yeah, I guess I came away from Starfox on the Switch two, enjoying it much more than I thought I would consonsidering how one and done, I felt Star Fox sixty four was originally And the legacy of Star Fox between here and there, I think has largely been underwhelming, right? I mean Like Star Fox assault was was like all right I'm trying to remember I feel like a lot of the Star Fox games in the middle there. we're kind of forgettable but U I don't know, is it the case that most most people probably just think of Star Fox as the fucking dude from Smash Brothers? And yeah, and then Dinosaur Planet or whatever came out, sure Yeah, Starbucks command was kind of neat I guess for what it was, but not I don't know, like not Starbucks is a tough one to do. I don't know. like I would like to see them I would like to see them break away from fucking Starbucks sixty four. I wouldd like to see them have a clean break from just about everything they've done up to this point and really reimagine what it would what a Star Fox game could be. And and maybe and by that, I think I mean like kind of get away from on rails levels U to some deent. I don't know, at some point you're just making fucking flight Sam. and like I said, we don't get a lot of those anymore and that's kind of exciting, but we don't get a lot of those for a reason, you know Um And so, you know, like, you know, at some point, you're just making like, here's like another, here's like a bad wing commander. with modern graphics or something and you know, like that's kind of That's maybe not the most exciting uh thing in the world But if they did something that was more open and more kind of dog fight, yeah, more ace combat like in some ways. I think that that that could be neat And you like to think like, you know, hey they do a remake so that they can Stoke interest in a brand new game, but who the hell knows, right? You know and some of that probably depends on how well this Starfox game does, right? So We'll see how well it does and if that leads to something else down the line or not, I guess Let's take a break. We'll come back. We'll talk about everything else that's going on rightight after this Confidence begins in weird places sometimes, like underwear There's a certain confidence that you get from knowing They're wearing the right pair of underwear that fit right that look good and more importantly are not like blown out Drooping dripping off your body. And and taking your pants with them half the time too Meandies makes fantastic underwear Summer's coming Your clothes are getting a little bit lighter And so what's underneath matters more than ever Mond's has breathable buttery soft fabric that actually fits. and this is what you want As we head into these hot months They've got to cut For everyone out there, they got ten different styles of underwear from boxer briefs to jock straps to their signature. Ball caddy pouch underwear designed to keep everything in place right where you want it course. M Uund' has this signature softer than soft, ultra modal fabric And that fabric is breathable, stretchy, cozy. It's perfect for all day wear You can wear this underwear all day long They use sustainably source materials, they work with partners that care for their workers. And if you're not happy with your first pair of underwear, it's on meundies. They've got over thirty million pairs sold and ninety thousand five star reviews. People around the world are making the switch to me Uies. I'm wearing a pair right now It's been fantastic. I've had There are some pairs of of me uies that I've had now for six months or more and they feel as fresh and as crisp as the day I took them out of the package. you know, they last And that's been great as well You know, they're a reliable pair of underwear. everyvery time every time you grab them out of the drawer,re like, o, good I got a lucky pick. I picked one I picked a good pair. Right now you can hear my voice You can get up to fifty percent off your first order plus free shipping at meondies d. com slash Jeff. the promo code is Jeff. That's up to fifty percent off plus free shipping. at me undies d. com slash Jeff. and the promo code is Jeff Save more on what you need to get the job done right. Right now, at Lowe's! Get fifteen percent off, select custom entry and interterior doors. Plus, save eighty dollars on the DWalt twenty Volt Max two tool combo kit, now just one hundred sixty nine dollars. And at the Lowe's Pro desesk, bring us your materials list and get a quote in minutes. Handwritten, a photo, or even a sticky note is all you need Keep your jobs moving faster and on budget at lows. Valid through sevenenty eight while supplies last. Selection er is by location The steam machine lottery happened last week. If you remember, they took sign upps for a few days. You could go check a box and say, this is the steam machine I would like to pay too much money for And they would say, great We'll get back to you. U that list of sign that sign upp list closed on Thursday and then Friday morning they started sending out emails to let people know if they made it or not. It seems like the two emails The two varieties of email are Hey, you didn't make it and you're on the waitlist. We'll let you know when you can buy one And then a not that different email that says, you're officially in the reservation queue for a steam machine Um that's the one that I got And u Well, I'll just'll read the I'll read the email to. You're officially in the reservation queue for Steam Machine two terabyte with controller which is the Most expensive version of that. When your Steam Machine two terabyte with contontroller becomes available, we will send you a separate email with the option to purchase You'll then have three days to complete the purchase before we cancel your reservation and move on to the next person in the queue. This is the only email you will receive about the results of the randomization If you ended up with a reservation queue spot for more than one model You were allocated a reservation for the highest end model and were removed from all the others Which is, you know, so you can you could have signed up for all four of them if you wanted to do but they weren't They were going to go, oh you hit it big and you get to buy for un And so but that's it. I don't know. It's been it's been a handful of days here And I have not received an email saying, you can come and buy a fucinking steam deck So I don't know, like I wish that there was some kind of P me. information about like, hey Here's when like here's when you might expect to see it within the next month or with the next week or I like I don't know if I'm supped to be chehecking my email, freaking out it every day and going like, oh because I only have three days to get this or you know, did it go in spam folder? Like what's going on Um, or if um or if u If it's going to be a while So I don't really know where that is. I have not heard reports of anyone in the United States getting an email saying, Hey, it's time for you to buy your steam deeck. maybe that's happened This has obviously been such a strange rollout. It's, you know, The Steam Dack is a device that would have been really great as an entry level PC for people who didn't already have one. Like it's it's it's it's best use case is like, hey, you wanted to have a you want a computer, but you don't want to have a computer Uh, so maybe you could get this and and, you know, And that would be a good thing for you to have Uh because you're used to using consoles and this is as close as we can get to a console within reason and so on and so forth Obviously, the pricing situation, the component shortage has now put this out of range, I think for a lot of that more casual audience So u You know That was Valve's goal. I think that is still Valve's goal, obviously, but but I but I do think that the The pricing situation is going to make this an item that only lunatics are going to sign up for Um and the lunatics that already, you know, and also they're only taking preordders on steam and all that other stuff. So Carly, it's not meant to be your first first computer You're meant to already have a A Steam account, you're already meant to be playing steam games in some capacity, I believe, you know? So You know, there's some weird stuff around that But I do think that that's the that's the best use case for this, right? is like, hey, you you you want to you want to be able to play PC games. You've heard about this personal computer. But you're not really, you don't want to set your IRQ settings. You don't want to get in there and like, okay, we got to set port two hundred twenty for this sound card. You don't want to monkey around with that stuff. So Here's a box. you can turn it on boots to a nice display and you can launch some games. And you're not going to be the sort of performance of Snob that is going to notice that it maybe doesn't run every single video game. at the highest end settings imaginable because device that was meant to be seven hundred bucks, eight hundred bucks Now here. several hundred dollars later It's a very different proposition. Um Whatever. Like I said last week, I do think the steam machine is No matter what happens with components and everything and obviously, you know, the next few years are going to sucks shit for a lot of that stuff, you know, like this is at least moving things forward in terms of gaming on Linux and giving people more options there and opening the doors for more console like PC experiences. And I think that Valve is doing a much better job of that Even in light of some games not working on Linux at all I think Valve is doing a much better job of that right now this minute than Microsoft is And Microsoft seems to have a similar goal With the Xbox mode, they've rolled out on Windows eleven and some of the other stuff that they seem to be wanting to do there in order to pave the way for the next Xbox Um And so yeah, I don't know like, it's frustrating because I think this could have been a bigger kind of more watershed moment for PC gaming as a whole or just gaming period, you know in terms of giving more options to people that might have been scared off by some of the PC based options that were available to them previously But that's just one more thing that has been taken from us by all of these AI data center scumfucks So Thank you, AI Datacenter sccumfucks For fucking us again, find finding new ways to fuck us Every few months And I'll stop there not say the thing I was going to say U, Hey, speaking of finding a new way to get fucked Microsoft is raising the price of the Xbox This is u this is this price rollout is going to happen on August first birthday Um This is like another they're going to tack another hundred to one hundred and fifty bucks O to the price of every single Xbox that they're going to continue to sell Also, they made a two terabyte series X And they're just discontinuing that one They're just straight up like, yes and as part of this We're going to sunset this particular model of Xbox. So if you want a two terabyte Xbox. I guess get out there and get one because they're not going to be in the channel forever Um Yeah, they put up a post on the twenty fifth just titled Updated Xbox Console Prices The price of Xbox consoles will increase by one hundred dollars for five hundred and twelve gigabyte models and one hundred and fifty dollars For one terabyte models we'll also be sunsetting our two terabyte models. And then they they remind it. Last October, we increased Xbox console price by twentyll to seventy dollars in the US. We hoped another price increase would not be necessary And we spent the last several months working with suppliers and options, Unfortunately, console storage and memory prices have increased by more than two point five X And we expect another doubling by the fall of twenty twenty seven What you want to hear Um they also this is crazy. I, you know, this is so, you know, Xbox is trying to like spinre not they're not even trying to spin this. They're this is like For a price increase, they're really just kind of taking it on the chin. Um and kind of laying it out here. Th might sound like excuses to you, but it is It is pretty much the reality that everyone is facing. The entire consumer electronics industry, they say is struggling with the current components crisis, but the effects are particularly hard on consoles Unlike phones, computers, speakers, and other consumer devices Consoles are typically not sold at a profit But instead for less than they cost to make Today, we are also sharing programs to make Xbox consoles more accessible And they've got four things like and so they spent time trying to cook up like here's some ways that maybe you could stillll afford an box. We've made it easier for players to use by now play later options on eligible Xbox hardware purchases through the Microsoft Stores. making it possible to break up your payment into predictable short term interest free installments Interest free financing. We are working with partners to let players purchase eligible Xbox hardware at zero percent APR financing for up to twelve months giving players more flexibility with lower monthly payments and more budgeting control. It's bad when selling a fucking console Sounds like fucking buying a fucking car That's like this is fucking dark. This is fucked. This is like unbelievable They' got a third one here. We're partnering with blood banks and maybe you can donate some plasma to get a disc No, I'm sorry, no Previously played consoles We are working with retail partners on new programs to provide previously played consoles at lower prices Plers who are ready to upgrade or no longer use their console We'll be able to trade it in with participating retail partners for cash restore credit Those consoles will be then made available at lower prices for players you know, that stuff happens all the time. like used consoles like come and go like The idea that Microsoft, the company that is trying to sell these things to begin with is like A Maybe buy a used one Maybe you could find one out there. I'd check the fucking newspaper Maybe's one out there. you know, maybe you know a guy. Is there a guy up the street? Is there a lady up the street? Her husband died and he had an Xbox because she might want to get rid of it, dude. Have you checked out Facebook Marketplace? Sometimes they spell Xbox wrong and then they don't get snapped up as quickly. So maybe you could find one that way Um, it's So I don't know what the what the what Microsoft's role in this is if they're going to be subsidizing prices to make them lower or like what the deal is, but But they do say we're working with retail partners to provide previously played consoles at lower prices I don't know. As a company like Gameestop or any of these other scumbag fucking companies out there are like there they see the price on the the new consoles go up. They go, oh shit, we should ratch up all the used console prices too because fuck them Um So I wonder if this is Microsoft stepping in to be like, hey Don't raise the pricee. what if we What if we are they paying some of these companies to not raise prices? Are they arere they trying to make up the I don't understand Like other than, you know, because this already happens, right? So I don't know. Maybe this gets reused consoles into more stores or something I don't know And then their fourth bullet point here is certified refurbished consoles Xbox certified refurbs are available at Microsoft stores for up to one hundred dollars off MSRP And then they point out Xbox series S remains the lowest cost way for console players to enjoy the biggest hits this year includcing Assassin's Creed Back flag res sinct, Call of duty modern warfare for Gears of W Eay Grand Theft Auto six Halo campaign evolved and Madden NFL twenty seven. Which is true, true, I suppose Um That said, that five hundred and twelve gig series S is now five hundred dollars The cheapest Xbox is now five hundred dollars If you want a one terabyte series S, that is six hundred dollars. If you want a one terabyte series X with no disc drive that is seven hundred and fifty dollars. If you want a one terabyte series X that does have a drive on it, that is eight hundred dollars. And if you want a series X with a two terabyte drive in it Double middle fingers for you, Pal, unless you can find one out there right now because they are discontinuing that model Um which is smart because I'm sure that they don't sell a ton of those anyway and also a ser with the way that they're increasing these prices A two terabyte series X would probably be more expensive than a PlayStation five Pro which is would be a bad comparison Um And so are again, those are price increases between one hundred those are price increases of basically one hundred and fifty dollars Unless you're looking at the series S five twelve gigabytes then it's only a hundred dollar increase But every other Xbox model is either getting discontinued or the price is going up one hundred and fifty fricaking dollars. For comparison's sake A professional PlayStation five Now this is not a favorable. I mean, I don't know none of these comparisons are favorable because all of these prices are bad A PlayStation five Pro remember currently costs nine hundred dollars Nine hundred fuckking dollars. So I feel like, you know, if you're in the market for a console and you don't need to buy the cheapest one imaginable, like you're really You're looking at it and going like, well Do I get a one terabyte series X, which if we want to go like for like We would look at the seven hundred and fifty dollars model of the series X because the PlayStation five Pro also does not come with a disk drive And so, you know, but at that point we're looking for like, oh, well, if you can squeeze together another hundred and fifty bucks, you get a PS five proro which is a more powerful device Um you know, you could you could make the argument that like, well, the PS five pro does not have game pass and and so, you know, you're you would have acccess to more video games with a game bass subscription or blah, you know, I, you know There's ways you can get there to make the Xbox seem like a favorable comparison, but These prices are now so close together. Basically for the cost of two games, you could just get a more powerful machine and, uh Yeah, I don't know. that doesn't. none of that feels good. As someone who was there flipping through old, you know, something not old then, but flipping through issues of EGM. And seeing the the ads that would run in the back of the magazine from the like weird little Mom and pop mail ordered retailers And they would all say like No Geo Gold system, eight hundred dollars If you want a copy of not in nineteen seventy five, the priceices call us It feel it feels like that, man. Obviously the economics are totally different then and now, you know, the inflation, money, money is different now, but, you know, I don't mean to say it's the exact same situation, but damn that's too much fucking money to buy a fucking video. If I was a parent, if I was a parent and I did not care about any of the shit Let's say Like most parents, if if I was Most parents that I've met if I was a parent and did not care about video games And I had the equivalent of me When I was eight or nine years old you know, trying to get my hands on every fucking video game console or you know, trying to fucking like, hey, I want to play the I want to play the damn video games And I was like, eleven year old me. the year the NES came out, I would have been eleven. I would have just turned eleven Um, If an eleven year old kid, if my eleven year old kid came to me and said, I need you to spend nine hundred mother fucking dollars on a PayStation and then sign up for a subscription so I can play online And also the games are seventy or eighty bucks I wouldd be like, kid, go get a fucking job. you better are fucking you better mow every fucking lawn in this goddamn neighborhood for the rest of your fucking life. L canan kids still get paper routes? No? All right, canan kids make money anywhere? any no? All right, great well Allry, kid I tell you how to start flipping bricks We're going to make it snow in the neighborhood and then we'll all have Playsttation five pros Um Yes. my eleven year old child would be over the stove. Yeah, that's yeah, that'd be bad. That'd be bad. I don't know. Like I don't know that and and you start to realize like especially again, if you're a parent who is not in the no on any of this sort of shit You'd be like, what I have an old tablet here. takeake that Play fucking whatever free games are on there. Why the fuck would I Why would I ever Why would I ever spend that kind of money? That's crazy Um, Whatever. it's a bad situation. I don't know. L I don't the and maybe the Maybe the scariest part of this is that Microsoft is saying outright, we expect another doubling of these prices by the fall of twenty twenty seven So the idea that they will then then double on top of that in a year's time is How are you supposed to launch a new console into this environment You know And, you know, Microsoft, you can you can always have a little bit of extra fucking, you know, Scheiden Freud Sorden Freud Fers of Fra Frauenhausen because they are so heavily invested into AI they are literally doing it to themselves Um but also It's not that they're doing it to themselves. doing it to you So Thanks to everyone involved in fucking all this up God you know, there there's been some a little bit more Xbox news. Obviously the big kind of pending Xbox story Is these layoffs that we have heard they are coming and you got you got people out there. like George Prassard said it's going to be the biggest single layoff in history of layoffs. you know, maybe Gege Brard would know, maybe he wouldn't. I don't really. Um Games Beat has a story up. Dean Takahashi is reporting about the union, the communications workers of America kind of speaking out against these upcoming layoffs and, you know, they have some quotes in there to say, hey These workers will not beed traded as disposable. treated, I think is what that should actually say, but I believe that's a type in the article And also in that reporting, he does put forth another studio that is potentially on the chopping block. We have heard of Double fine comppulsion games and ninja theory U But but Dean is also reporting that Undead Labs, the developer of the state of decay games is also is also potentially up for sale or whatever the situation is here. the exact Um The exact wording on his article is It's possible some of the studio jobs will be saved if a buyer is found for any one of the four studios Double find Productions on Dead labs, comppulsion and ninja theory Um And then he's got some numbers. if if they are shutdown outright double fine appears to be about one hundred people undead labs be about one hundred and ten. Cpulsions about ninety and ninja theory about one hundred and thirty five. And that he does say, you know other divisions are also expected to be hit with percentage layoffs Yeah, some people have put arcane forth as part of this as well that maybe Arcane would be a studio that could potentially be lost as a part of this As a part of this situation you know, they didnidn't have anything to show with Blade back at the showcase, but at the time, they were like, oh, no, no, Blade's still in development Um, And and we'll see. We'll see, I guess is the the best you can say there. Again, with today being the last day of the fiscal year, this is stuff that could happen as soon as tomorrow. I don't really know. It sounds like that there are some additional kind of cuts U Not happening within Microsoft proper, but u companies that they have contracted with. I saw some reporting that Assembly, which is the part of a PR agency called Edelman And they spun out assembly specifically to be an Xbox focused arm of Edelman. It's the external PR company that Microsoft has been working with for years and years It sounds like that maybe that contract is up. and they are either reducing or not renewing it or whatever, but basically There have already been some layoffs at Assembly. based around, you know Microsoft's changing needs for external PR We had heard that they were looking to maybe make some cuts in kind of marketing and PR around the around the edges of u of some of that. Is this a Colonel Sanders in the chat here says, o, so they just pulled funding on IO Interactive's next project And so there are layoffs there now that h So yeah, So gosh U Okay, so this is Jason Freyer reporting this a game called proroject Fantasy, or game referred to as project Fantasy. Um that Xbox has pulled out of that deal. U and that Iowo Interactive will continue to develop the game But they will have to find other funding. The quote from Xbox is Xbox is, quote, taking a fresh look at where we invest. So we're focusing on our highest priorities We're not reducing our overall investment in games We expect to invest about the same in content as we did last year What's changing is where we're investing and the kinds of projects we're backing U Iowteractive put out a statement publicly U that says yeah, they just say and a relationship with an external partner on our own IP has come to an end and this means we have to adapt to the new reality and its short term consequences including staffing decisions, which which is what is happening as we write this update I um, heard about this game Let me see if I can find something real quick here So it's like a u co op multiplayer thing Um trying to find the right way to reword what I'm reading right now so it isn't an extraction fantasy game, no guns, procedural procedurally generated rooms Um And and that it is it is fairly early in development. Um I believe I believe that is the same game. either either that or or Microsoft had multiple projects goinging with IO, which I doubt. So that is probably what project fantasy is Um And I heard it was neat for whatever that for whatever that's wor U Well yes, now it would appear to be what they maybe I'm connecting the Dots incorrectly there, but but that is That is probably what that is Let's see here Uh So yes, so Microsoft is going to continue to make these cuts with these external partners that they can walk away from right now. the layoffs will be right around the corner. And one of the other things that they appear to have put on hold are making deals with third party companies, third party publishers for Game passass. Obviously subsidizing development or in some cases coming in late after the fact and swooping up picking up a game And getting it for game passass has been kind of the way of things Microsoft for years now. that has been how they have been building the library of content on Game Pass U Euroamer has a report on this. This is this originally comes from a podcast called The Business of Vide games from someone named Fernando Rizzo who is a partner at a game commercial advisory company called Kaboodle So just just so you know, but and this is coming from outside the US from the looks of things, but Um anyyway, u I guess Fernando also was it formerly of Raw Fury But anyway, I Basically what came out of this podcast to look at Euro gamers's kind of summary of it is that he was at a trade show in Italy and that word on the street is the quote. Word on the street was that loads of people who were in the frame for game pass deals Like nothing was signed yet, but they were in advance discussions. Everybody got the rug pulled out from under them his kind of further quote is, I don't think Game passass is over. given that the new incoming leadership have talked a lot about game passass I think they're on pause. I think they're figuring it out. That's my read anyway For the time being, it seems like game passass deals. We just did one at Kaboodle earlier in the year and I get the feeling that we might have been the one of the last ones they did U And so you know, a new leadership comes in and you're unsure about everything in the business. I think it makes sense to put a pause on spending money on these deals when you're trying to figure out what the fuck you're doing. But you would have to have confidence that those people will eventually figure out what the fuck they're doing and move forward, right? I just It's early days and I don't want to, you know, I don't want to be fucking nasty about it, but the one thing I have not heard out of Xbox leadership at all On the record, off the record, you know, like word trickling out, anything like that. I have not heard anything that resembles a true vision for that business Instead, it's a lot of like Oh yeah, that's fixable And yeah, the next hundred days are going to be crazy. andh, we've got to reset the business But like There's not a lot of Um, you don't hear a lot of like And here's after the reset, here's what we think we're going to do Here's going to be the way forward for Xbox Um Robert Purchase who Purchase Perchase, who wrote the article over at Euro Gamer actually did contact Rizo get some additional details here. and the follow up quote here is I definitely don't want to oversell what I know. I'm not privy to any internal Microsoft conversations But I had spoken to a number of developers that had game passass deals in various stages of negotiation We were told the deals were on hold. I don't personally think this is the death of Game Pass or anything. probablyrobably just a new CEO wanting to get her feet under her desk and everyone align on strategy before the game pass team starts cutting checks again which I think makes sense unless you're shutting down game passass, unless your strategy is cutting so deep that you're just like, well We think that maybe actually we should be sunsetting game passass and going back in favor of just selling everything for full price, know, which I wouldn't think they would do But at this point it's hard to get a read on It's hard to get a reason on what they're really doing over there Uh, And maybe the dust will settle on this and they'll be like, okay, here's now now that we have destroyed this city, here's how we intend to rebuild it Um Look man. I just I don't think you I don't think you Dominate in video games unless you've got content The old dumb thing, you know, it's cliche upon cliche to utter the words content is king in this day and age But if you don't have video games it ats your video game company, what the fuck are you selling? because in eight consoles. You know, you can't just sit there and make third party deals. like the whole point of a first party company is that you have the portfolio that drags people people to your side of the fence So the idea of them making these games exclusive again, you're like, okay, I guess I see I see the path there But when you then say, hey, gears is not going to come to PlayStation five Also, we're shutting down like four fucking studios Maybe more. I don't know. Like it's And maybe the argument there is we need to have games. These are not the right games which I could say I could I could maybe walk down that road, right? I can maybe be l down that road with a with a provocative pitch If you told me, hey, man, yeah, state of decay three, not coming together, been in development forever. What they got ain't going to do it. So we should just cut and run at this point. likeike we could sit here and pump money into this thing and get it out the door But it's never going to do the numbers that we need it to do Um And so we should just bail on this If you wanted to tell me from the coldest corporate perspective imaginable Yeah, I don' know, man. Double Fine just ships two things. They're not going to have another thing for like two more years And uh and double findind is maybe not, you know they're not going to have bangers. They're not going to have like the biggest games on the world and so maybe we need to part ways Like I think that's a dumb fucking idea. Um But I could understand how someone could jump to that conclusion especially If they don't have a history in games and don't really understand the value of fucking content U I think double fine. And the studios that generally, I think the four studios that they have on the block here. U Five, if we consider our cane to be part of that list I think those are all studios that are great at making games that make you feel good about being a game passast subscriber. Like look at this neat little thing. It's more toy like than game in some ways, but like Keper is fucking really neat Keers are really like you would feel good playing keeper, especially if you didn't have to go out and buy a copy of it and try to do some value comparison. Like, oh, I signed up for game passass because I want to play with this other stuff. and then, you know, I got to play Keper, I got to play you know, I got to play south at midnight. like, you know, a rich a rich variety of games in your portfolio Matters for everybody in a first party position But it matters even more If you have game passass And you need to keep feeding game passass You could argue that none of that worked out. and maybe that's the reality of it, right? Is you're like, okay, yeah, ye like that's that was the same You might say that is the exact same logic that got us into this mess Okay Maybe You know, without without sales numbers or without engagement metrics, really Did it move the needle for game passass? U But I'd think that There is value in keeping those studios on. There's also value in the knowledge that those Teams possess, right You've got this wealth of knowledge. I think the biggest problem this industry is going to run into if it hasn't already And I'm sure it is running into it in various forms already brain drain The the number the years and years of experience that are just being thrown away We will get to the other side of this, right? The component thing will maybe not go back down to where we have a story on that later compomponents are gonna to be fucked forever. Let's assume But they'll be potentially less fucked someday they will find a way to get you to own a console or like video games are not going to go away They will find a way forward for all of this stuff. It may be a little less palatable in some ways When you get to the other side of all these cuts And you have to look around you All the fucking smoking craters that you've created where there used to be studios You're eventually going to have to fucking make video games again. And who is going to do that Are they going to be seasoned enough to do it efficiently in this day and age Are they going to be people who have been through the fire multiple times and when there's a problem, they know how to solve it without blowing another five million dollars solving it You know Um Potentially, some of these people think that AI is going to do all the heavy lifting for them anyway. and, you know, you like to think that like Not every single person is as far gone on that AI shit as as it seems especially as we see more and more companies ing AI or reducing their AI spend because they walked down that road and realized This ain't it for us. This is not going to fucking save us As a company, it's not going to save us amount of money It's not going to fucking help to the degree that we were sold on And so like it's pointless You see some stories out there if you're like, oh, look at that Um They're hiring they', you know, like like Ford was rehiring a bunch of engineers, I think the story I saw Um because they tried without them and went like, o, fuck This doesn't work This doesn't fucking work at all. the AI the AI is a fucking scam. A, okay So What do you do on the other end of this? And I think Microsoft is the company that is in it the deepest, right? Because they're the one with the most fix and they're also the company that has the biggest fucking AI boner of any fucking video game manufacturer. And so they are in the fucking worst case on both ends of it, right U And so on the other end of this when you have to go and make video games again, who's going to be left to do it? You're going to re enlist like Matt Booty You enjoy the executive position, but you got to we're going to put you in charge of You got to go run a team, man We need people that have made video games before to go make video games again Um But Yeahah, I don't know. likeike I, you know, Maybe it maybe it is misguided in some way, but you know, hey boooty went through the worst of it at midway And if there's one thing I've learned from interacting with a lot of people who were there inatter the Latter dayay era of midway Those motherfuckers can get anything done Those they' been fucking they can do shit They were there when the chips were down They know how to make games in bad fucking times So yeah, I don't know. It's u It's it's it's who would who the fuck knows, man Um So yeah, I don't know, you know, we'll see what happens with that. againgain, that's something that might happen tomorrow If they're rushing through this and they, you know, they may very well just announce this on the other side of their fiscal year and And and do all this stuff. yeah, it's hard to really say. Um In somewhat lighter news They have added Nicholas Cage to callall of duty Black op seven. That's right. You too can play as actor and real life individual Nick not stand good speed. It's a caster Troy Nick, mother fucking cage is in call of duty. They have two skins for him. It's like they they they do this thing where they do like a separate kind of little battle pass for they did it for Roboc Cop and they did it for the fallout stuff and They've done it a few different times. U where it's like, okay, if you buy the premium track on this battle passass, you immediately get the kind of normal looking Nick cage skin And then if you complete the battle pass which you can pay money to complete it if you don't want to play the game But if you don't want to play the game, don'ty Nick cage to begin with Um You get like long hair, ridiculous jacket nick cage It is one of the better Skins they have done in terms of it has a good variety of voice acting. That was the big problem with your Snoop dogs and your Dave Chappellees And your cheches and chongs is that they and your Ra Ripleys and what have you is that they never did enough VO It's a first person shooter. If your character isn't fucking speaking Th then all, you know, all you're seeing is an arm holding a gun and you just nod and go That's Nicolas Cage's arm And you see him when you die and you're like, that's dead Nicholas Cage. Look at that Um the tenor like the concept for the voice acting though, they've done this as part of a package that they're calling The summer of action And also it's coming out so late in the callall of Duty cycle. like we're really in this lame duck time for callall of Duty. This kind of happens every year around this time in the summer They've started talking about the new game But they still have like two seasons of battle past to try to sell you on in the current game And you know none of that shit's going to carry over unless unless you play War zone. And then they will, you know, then that stuff will probably carry over just fine But in the main game, No. And so the idea of spending money on Nicholas Cage here in late June when the next year's game is right around the corner and also that this year's game is Not great. Um is maybe not the best value. For what is worth It's a lot of lines of dialogue about movie stuff. It's a lot and it's not him saying lines from his movies, which actually is kind of what I what I actually want out of this skin And I have not heard it yet. It's possible that it's in there, but I don't think it is U what I would actually want out of this is I want to play as Nicholas Cage I want to shoot someone in the face And then I want him to say I you like how that shit works And that's that's kind of it, man. Anything past that is gravy. Like that's just like, yeah, good. Um Instead, it's a lot of like, u Again, it it's like he's preparing for a movie role or he's like, you know, it's like, I've trained for this Or, you know, you shoot somebody and he says cinema, absolute cinema you're like, okay, that's not even, I mean you', I guess you're related to that guy, but that's not your're It's not your meme Nicholas cage Um And so it's a lot of like, and action, like that type of shit And uh I don't know Okay It's okay. again, by the low standards of call of duty DLC like real life characters coming into the game It is one of the best ones they've done It is Oh, you're right Yes, he's I'm thinking of is Sorsesei, but he's he's a he's a he's a Coppola. Close enough Close enough. All I gott to say here is they've committed to next year's U They've committed to next year's Call of Duty as being something that is a little bit more serious. on the skins and character front. They're like, oh, we hear you. No clownish know, whatever. I don't want to live in a world where they can't say, dude, we put Nicholas Cage in the game I think that's overall a good addition likeike that's that's like a That's Fun When they do it right, when they do guest characters correctly and actually do good VO and And all of that, I think that stuff can fit just fucking fine, dude you know, mayaybe you don't do like a bevis and butthead. Maybe that's over the line Generally I think the guest characters they've done for callall of duty have at least made some amount of sense So like when they when they don knowt And this is the first year that they've really said, hey, no, no clownish skins in a very long time. Like people like to say they like, oh, they said it about this year's game. They did not The answers they gave on that question were deliberately vague Um It was Battlefield that came out and said, Oh, we're not going to do any dumb fucking skins And then people said like, oh, what's callall of Duty going to do Oh, they're going to have to do it. I bet they'll do it And they never They did not go on the record and say we're not doing that shit. because they knew They had the content lined up already. They knew that they were going to do that shit So, u So yeah, you know, like I kind of kind of whatever. U And it ends up being frustrating from just a year to year thing that they're not carrying skins forward That's a double edgeedort. we've talk about it before, but like I don't know. Like I feel like a callall of duty. Maybe it's because Call of Duty is dumb anyway. L It's just team death match, you're running around playing fucking laser tag bing bang, boom like you fuckking Oh, that guy fucking arm blew off Look at that shit. A that gun is shooting fucking red tracers that look like fucking weed. And then I shot this guy and he turned like some of that stuff goes too far. I think you could rein it in and have it be like less I don't know I guess my point is it should be cool And sometimes in their pursuit of doing the fucking M outlandish thing possible. they do something that is incredibly fucking dumb U or incredibly trashy. mayaybe trashy is the word. I don't know, but Um, I don't think I don't think Like when we think about issues that call of duty has had, Over these last few years here, year to year Guest characters are like pretty fucking low on the list, man. Oh So anyway, that's now available for I believe it's a limited time sort of deal because you got to like buy the battle pass, the little miniature battle passass in order to get access to to Nicholas Cage at all. And it's funny, man. So I was checking that out. I was like, I'm going to go play as Nicholas Cage. And when you call in an airstrike, he goes Authorization cage You're like, yeah Okay That's like a cooler thing to say than when Snoopog said Throwing my grenade And nothing else, you know U rememind the player Oh, by the way, you're playing is Nicholas Cage. It's smart. Smart They added some maps for this season as well or with with this content drop, they put some maps in the game too And Pretty good maps I don't know, man There's like a weird obstacle course one that's like It's fun It's too little too late for Black opop seven Don't get me wrong, but u But hey Um As a part of the changing leadership over at PlayStation, you know, everyone saw the replacement of Jim Ryan. with Hideyaki Nosido as well as, you know, Herman Holz kind of taking on an increasing role over there kind of saw that as like, oh, it looks like that their goal of making twelve live service games turn out to be bullshit and obviously they're moving away from some of this stuff, but That does not appear to be the case. Vide Games Chronicle has sourced this from a Fitsu interview with Nosino. whereere Nosino has has basically said that Sony will continue to back live service games The quote here is that's right with live service games. I mean, you know, it makes it sound like that it's a it's a problem, right? Like it's not easy It's not easy, but it's not something that they are backing away from completely U says that's right. with live service games, it's important to keep providing something on an ongoing basis The genre itself is relatively new And I imagine many people are trying out various approaches So we intend to continue taking on new challenges within that context We view live service games as content that attracts users on a global scale. So we intend to continue revitalizing the market. through both first party and third party content We are looking beyond simply promoting new titles and are considering and are considering what can be done with older titles over the medium to long term These quotes in the context of what are we going to do with older titles as you are laying off the entirety or the damn near entirety of the Destiny two team is what we might refer to as a little rich Um you know, look no one' no one's going to say Bungie was the perfectly run company and all what a What a model of optimized pipelines for live service content and they you know, like let's not let's not put them on a on too much of a pedestal here Destiny two had its challenges, the fault of that is, you know There are a lot of people who are coming out of Bungie or have been out of Bungie for a while that will But have a lot to say about the way that Bungie was run Um, And so, you know, having heard that enough different times, At some point you look at it and go like, yeah, it seems like the managemented bungeie didn't know what the fuck they were doing And a very, very, very talented team has paid the price for that,? So U againgain, talking about brain drain, talking about like one of the reasons that Sony wanted to acquire Bungie in the first place was to have some expertise in the live service space. And I need to to be clear here Expertise is not always directly equitable with success I would call Destiny to a success You know, for the for the length of time that it Got updates and all of that. I think you have to look at that whole project and go, yeah, they Yes, they very much did a thing It was very, very popular for a good long time P Especially those people T again Bin through the fucking fire Those are the people You would want Boots on the ground. for a live service game would be the people who could go dude, don't. Not like that No, do not trust me We did it like this and it didn't work like this. It would work like this or this or this There's to be almost immeasurable. amounts of experience in that space that just got cut from Bungie And so the idea that Nosino was out here saying We're considering what can be done with older titles over the medium to long term with regards to live service games I think is fucking crazy That said, you know, the context of that is is up for debate a little bit. like You the quote here is we are looking beyond simply promoting new titles and are considering what can be done with older titles over the medium to long term I would assume that older titles does not necessarily mean Destiny too older titles means Oh, could we do a kill zone live service game is Parppa back and now you can buy skins? like you know, like what are Like, you know, are we are we looking at the older Mag two is going to fucking blow your mind. U Yes, fat princess is back Um And so potentially, you know, who knows, mayaybe they end up doing some sort of live service stuff that is rooted in an existing IP that has not traditionally been live service. And so maybe we do end up seeing a, you know Warhawk was one of my go to games here as well But I think in theory you would want to go with a game that is a little bit more known by modern players Unfortunately, I don't think that Sony has a ton of those I mean, what would you Like, yes, sure. so calm. Yeah. I mean, but, you know, like what what's a what's a current PlayStation IP. The only one I can think of is what if they took Ghost of Yote or ghost of Tsushima. What if they took that multiplayer name? and life serviced it up. and did a separate thing Obviously they're doing something with Horizon right now doing that multiplayer game Um But like what are the known Playsttation properties that are still in some form of that wouldn't go like oh, yeah, they're never gonna do that, you know Like a wararhog, like a warar hog they' never gonna do that. But like what would they What would they even do Like uncharted doesn't make sense Last of us, they were good, they were going to do it Maybe they take that work and build a team around it and and pick it back up You go, okay, yeah. We're not going to steal the time and life livelihoods. of the entire last of us team by making them work on a live service game for the next ten years What if instead we put the right people in place to do that And yeah, maybe. Maybe that would be the thing Um I don't know if that would be a great thing, but you know,m sure there's not I don't know. like there's not that much u No, if VGC notes that you know, that Sony has been canceling lifeve service games as of late Blue pointoint. you know, had some ideas around that. Sony Bend had some ideas around that All around doing kind of live service stuff In theory, fair Games is still in some form of development U I think I'm on the side now that, you know, if were if I were a Betten man and I'm very much not, and the question was, do you think that are you are you do you think that fair games will ever come out? I think I'm leaning towards no on that, but you know, that's not that's not based on any inssider knowledge or anything, that's really just like, hey, clearly that thing has had a rough time develop in development we haven't heard about it officially in a pretty long time. and so who the fuck knows Maybe they go through and cancel that too I would also not be shocked to see a pretty sizable wave of layoffs through the PlayStation studios um, in the wake of kind of Again, end of fiscal year or whatever, but also in conjunction with how things are going and how expensive the console is I'm not going to get into the specifics of it. You can go look them up yourself, but you know, we're coming off of Um Coming off of May, the month of May being a mind blowingly bad month for hardware sales Obviously the price increases and a lot of the other stuff are starting to be factored into those numbers And so like In a lot of ways, a new trench has been dug. We've found a way to go deeper. Weve found a way for this thing to get lower than it has been, right Because now consoles are even more expensive And so it's not just How do we get people to hear about our game? How do we work game discovery is such a broken process? How do we figure that part out And it's not as simple as Oh man, Grand Theft Auto is coming out It' such a big game. How do we get out of the way of that to make sure our game can find some success Yeah Boy, people sure do keep playing Fortnite and Minecraft and Roblox. What the fuck are we gonna to do about it How do we get people to notice our game exists in this increasingly challenging market Now on top of all of those things, you've got Wow, these consoles sure are getting further and further out of reach. for the average consumer Boy, Microsoft is out there saying it's only going to get worse and they're trying to find ways to subsidize Ued consoles Like it's, you know It's not like you couldn see this stuff coming. I mean, this has been this is just an ongoing portion of the discussion we've been having for over a year now price of games and all of this stuff. and I think that it is I think it's sad that, you know, that video games have to kind of suffer through this shit for something as dumb and as damaging. as Data center development and AI I think it's it's it's like it's it's for like the tariffs and all the other stuff also very stupid You know, the things that were the lead up to the AI problem or' just as stupid. But it is so dumb that we found ourselves in this position. where you've got sentiment on AI when you when people run the numbers on this and popularity of the technology as a whole is not fucking great. And also no one wants more fucinking data centers, especially in their fucking backyard where they are fucking polluters and all, you know, like heavy strain on the power grid This nation's infrastructure is already kind of fucking going shit because none of the fucking power companies ever put enough into fucking updating and renovating that infrastructure I live in an area everyvery single day I have lived here, I think seven years. No Let's call it six Maybe coming up on seven, six or seven years U You you go to like, u your your next door And like what are people in the city talking about? What are people in the neighborhood talking about everyvery single fucking day Is someone going Hey is your power out too every fucking day The power goes out somewhere in this fucking town The fucking fuck is that about You've got portions of this country where you simply cannot get clean drinking water the infrastructure in this country going to shit And you want to build a bunch of fucking data centers and just fucking hook them up to the grid and go, yeah and you got fucking people out there saying Like It it was like a Jeff Bezos quote or somethings Well, it's more valuable to the AI will solve these problems. like we should we should put this I know it actually that wasn't a Bezos quote because that was that turned out to be fake. The thing about the water The Bezos quote about the water was not actually real But that concept of Oh, well by the time we by the time the check comes due for all the damage we're doing to the environment and whatever. By the time that all come the AI will solve it for us. Don't worry about it Building the solutions here. Don't worry. this is this is this is going to save you Dude That is some fucking first ones up against the wall type talk, right fucking there, man. Are you fucking kidding me Are you fucking kidding me? That's u Unfuckkingbelievable on fucking believe it. Now of course, as easy as it is to put one hundred percent of the blame for all this shit onto all of the data center talk and all of the AI horse shit Um never, you know, never never put it past onent manufacturers themselves to see a situation and go like, oh shit There's a good opportunity for us to even more money on the the the on the back of this Euroamer has a report here That Samsung, SK H Inks and Micron who are the three largest manufacturers of RAM and solid saace storage in the entire world are being sued with there's a class action lawsuit headed their way alleging, you know cartel like activities of intentionally limiting the supply of RAM And um shifting away from that consumer ram and kind of deliberately helping to fuck the prices over Micron was just out there bragging about their margins on RAam and basically saying they were locking in like five year contracts for RAM prices U and you know, more or less the report being like Oh, yeah U don't don't think these rM prices are going to come down any soon because Micron is locking people in for five years or more This is something that the RAM industry specifically has been caught doing previously spepecifically price fixing, the Department of Justice here in the States findind SK H Ins one hundred eighty five million dollars and Samsung three hundred million dollars Euroamer notes that at the time, Samsung's Fine was the second largest Criminal antitrust fine in United States history Micron apparently if Micron on top of fucking everything else that makes Micron seem scummy Micron apparently evaded charges by snitching on the other companies I The exact language here reportedly helping prosecutors bring the case forward. So we'll see where that class action lawsuit goes. That's something again Videoames Chronicle. com noted that this was filed in federal court last week here in in California Um And it is alleging that consumers have you know have been kind of hung out to dry on this and that they're the ones feeling the squeeze the most and that this is anti competitive behavior We will see where that goes It's very easy to believe considering that two of these three companies have been Um I, I'm really kind of smacked on the wrist for this before U So Yeah And lastly, in the news, Grand Theft Auto six is going be eighty dollars They announced that with the opening of preordders And now every time you look at any kind of console storefront, it's just GTA six all up in your face for the next several months. I assume There is also going to be a premium edition version of the game that will be one hundred dollars U and it will come with a batch of content like some of it cosmetic, some of it u Some of it a little bit of gameplay It's, you know, it it's like, hey, here's, um some additional customization options for cars and clothes and a, you know, you get a new garage that has a weapons locker in it and, you know, so there's there's some kind of seemingly minor gameplay stuff that will be attached to the premium edition of the game. But I will say that, you know, after reading it all over, the extra stuff in the preremium edition does not seem Like a u It does not seem like anything getting to get all worked up over. guess If you want that stuff, twenty dollars seemems like about the right price for that sort of shit. because it does not seem like a major component to the game itself Um Since Rockstar's announcement of the price, there's been like little bits and pieces of leaks from like What was it like Amazon, Brazil, you know, some out of some out of the U.S Railer postes a product page Um that that said like it's got a big map or you know, like like just, you know, the type of fucking mindless shit that A product page says that, you know, everyone has to go write articles about because It's GTA and that stuff does traffic for them. So so why not Um, eighty dollars is is not a, you know, it is not the first time we've seen that price, but it did not become a regular price after the launch of Mario Kart World which everyone thought was going to open the door to eighty dollars pricing. I do think that this is the era we're entering into now and I think part of this is Be hardware prices and everything else is so fucked. I do think that where we're getting to now is A greater variety in pricing across games I think you will see some companies try to go eighty dollars for their game and have it go poorly for them because I think that only the top tippy top, top tip tippy top top tier games we willll be able to get away with it If Ubisoft turned around tomorrow and said, Hey You want Asassin's Creed in the next one It's eighty dollars They're exactly the sort of company I would expect to try it I do not think the market, I do not to think the consumers would just go, o yeah So u Um And so we're starting to see wider ranges of prices. I think part of that is because, you know, like we've moved away from the fixed cost of goods on burning a disk And so there was a certain element of like Hey, if you're going to burn a disc and you're going to be on store shelves next to these other full priced games. you should all be full price games and it should all be here at this price level. and I think everyone just kind of agreed to that for, you know, one reason or another And I think it largely has worked out But things weren't always like that. You know, this is something that Again, returning to the Nintendo sixty four this week and thinking a lot about that system But also thinking about the late era of sixteen bit games and the pricing that we saw there We had cartridges coming in at like one hundred dollars. I want to say Fantasy Star four for the Genesis was like a fucking hundred bucks And Nintendo sixty four games, the pricing was a little bit all over the place, especially early on. Third party games were more expensive than first party games in some cases. because it was cheaper for Nintendo to just use its own stuff than it was for the third parties to buy cartridges from Nintendo And obviously different cartridge sizes result in different costs of goods. and so Um You know, this is stuff that we've seen a little bit with the game key card conversation around the switch too. Um But really this is not new And so I don't think that everyone's going to move to eighty dollars for their big budget games because I don't think they can all get away with it. and every game is different, right? Every game's going to monetize a little bit differently GTA. They can get away with it. It's GTA But I think if you were to go to callall of Duty and say callall of Duty base model eighty dollars I don't think that would go down nearly as well Part of that is because part of the all of duty experience. is a storefront full of fucking skins and battle passes and all of these other things that they do to monetize GTA will In theory eventually get there with online, whatever they it's kind of the weird part about this announcement of GTA is that there's zero mention of any kind of GTA online, anything. U And the the press release or whatever like that they put out says that at launch it will have a single player experience that you can play You know Um Obviously with GTA online, you know, there's cosmetic sales for days there, right U But I think that I don't think that especially with the kind of iffy quality that Call of Duty has had lately, I think that that would be and theyre already taking pre orders They're not going to do it this year Obviously that ship is sailed, but But like you could see a handful of games trying it. Mason in the chat asks, what about NBA two K I think take two loves to sell games for too much money. I think they were the ones that were like When this generation started and gamees started to be seventy dollars They were the ones going, o, fuck yeah Everything's seventy bucks now and they've backed down from that You know, not every game they sell is at that seventy dollars price point anymore Um But NBA twoK is definitely a game that if they wanted to hold people over a barrel and go here you go and shake the like a fucking turn out these pockets, man I could see take two trying to sell two K for eighty dollars while also selling you all your fucking currency and all the other horssehit that NBA does every year. Sorry, I'm on the I'm on the back end of a I don't know, my son had an earach because he had got an ear infection and I caught that, but I did not catch an ear infection. I instead got a lung infection And so I am u in the middle of a Z pack. Regiment to get on the other side of that. And that's been U But I'm a lot better now than I was over the course of the last week. But anyway, I think pricing will continue to be flexible. I think they will maybe companies will charge what they think they can get away with And in a lot of cases, you'll see games that come out at like forty dollars or fifty dollars. Like we're not heading for a world where like invincible verses comes out And they go. It's eighty bucks, brother. Like it's just not It's never going to happen Because no one's ever going to pay that amount of money for that game In fact, I wondered how many people spent fifty dollars on invincible verses is which was what its launch price is currently on sale. That's not me saying, hey, you should go buy invincible verses, but u But it's a game I think of. you know,kay, here's a fighting game and it's not to say that there's not a lot of content there. But also it's kind of a different value proposition from other games in different genres. And so I think we'll see different games try to do what they can And so you'll see new IPs or new new to gaming IPs L an invvisible versus fighting game. And they'll go like, okay, yeah, this is, you know, this will have some appeal But it's not something we can get away with charging kind of money for I mean, even Street Fighter sixix launched at forty, right? They had They did have a higher end version of that game at launch that you could buy that came with you know, whatever the year one DLC and, you know, some extra costume stuff, I think. and they they do continue to sell years of content, but like I mean, right now The steam sales happening right now, but right now Street fighter six is fucking twenty dollars Yo, Street Fighter six is twenty fucking dollars You should get that Um And so yeah, we'll continue to see that variety, I think, across the board Um four games based on their scope and what we think their audience is going to end up and you know, like like all of that sort of stuff, right? And so as as more games do try to break this eighty dollars barrier or break the seventy dollarars barrier, I guess to go to eighty Um Try to keep that in mind. I do not think that I do not think that we're going to head to a world where any game of any sort of note is going to automatically be eighty bucks. Imagine a world where Microsoft stuck to their guns on trying to price oututer worlds too. A eighty dollars They initially they initially announced that game or when they announced pricing for that game They thought they could get eighty dollars for it. And that's not, I don't want to say, you know, like oututer Worlds two is cool. Like, you know, it had some issues for me at launch that they have since fixed And I spent some more time with it, but I think, you know like I had my window when I was ready to play it and it was at launch and it didn't work and then I just haven't been able to Get back to it Um Outer worldorlds too is not a fucking eighty dollar game And when they did back away from that, it was like, okay, yeah. like they they thought that like, oh, Nintendo kicked down this door for us. They took the bullet on moving to eighty. and now here we are Um And even I think the justification for Mario Kart World at eighty dollars is super fucking flimsy as well. Because really the only reason they made Mario Kart World eighty dollars was to help justify the cost of their bundle The only reason that standalone game was eighty dollars was so that you would buy a bundle It was not because they were like This is a great eighty dollars video game. Like that is they had no intention of setting their pricing up at that level for everything across the board. They never did They merely wanted you to see the value in the fucking bundle, which I think is a very backwards and slightly scandalous way to go about it, to be honest Um, But that was the brick wall that fucking Microsoft walked into on that one As they saw Mario Kart and went, Oh fucking sick, dude. Yes Yes, we could do this We would love to do this. This is great And then they tried to follow They're like, we can go, we can go get a boom door shut right in their fucking face. Everyone said, getet fuck. Are you fucking kidding me get out of here? I think that put a stink on that game that it didn't really shed You know, like the pricing thing, they they obviously they backed down from that price point and did not launch it in fucking eighty bucks But But I do think that it it led to, you know, I don't know how I feel like that game. I feel like outer worldors two just kind of really came and went You know whichich is a shame because yeah, as as Fred Chuck Dave says, it's virtual virtually the same quality as avowed. Yeah peoplee seem to like out Oer World too. L like I said, it was crashing on me at launch a lot, but you know But that got fixed And avowed was the heck of a time too, But it sounds like neither of those games really like punched through in a major way, which is a damn shame Really especially in the current environment that every Microsoft owned studio finds itself in A Anyway, and one hundred dollars for the premium GTA six, like whatever, man. Like anyone complaining about that? I don't really, I don't really get it Premium editions of games are often at least that much, if not more expensive for sometimes less content Um And it's hard to kind of fully make that consideration considering we haven't played GTA six But at the end of the day, When you look at the other games, especially in the T two portfolio, WWE was a game I was talking about last week and the price points for the all the other fucking fucked up versions of the WWE game this year like they put the fucking they put the situation to shame So again, these games are currently on sale in the steam sale. So you know, if you wanted to pay slightly less too much money for WWE You're allowed, but like the expensive version of this game is was one hundred and thirty dollars, man I'm sorry, that's not even the most expensive. L the Yeah, one hundred and thirty bucks for the attitude era edition. There arere like four different versions of the game And they're all like thirty four percent off right now. So, you know I think that game is too expensive at any price, but what are you going to do The price you pay for buying a WWE game is more spiritual. in nature than actual money changing hands There's sort of a H God How did I end up with this filth? canan't even make fucking lawlers say, Oh Illusion over and over again. What's the fucking point But you know, they they sold super expensive versions of WWE And if, you know, if you want to break that out into the individual characters you get or whatever, maybe you find that value. Maybe you feel like that's a fair price for the year of content you get for it. I don't know The Point being, I don't think that the twenty dollars upgrade fee for that stuff is. that far out of whack for a bunch of cosmetics and and some kind of additional kind of dude ads and little gameplay features and stuff. Like it doesn't seem like they are massive mission chains you're getting access to, that's hard to say because the game's not out yet, but Loo at their descriptions of it That stuff sounds relatively minor. And so people buying the baseline version of the game, I don't think they're going to be like left out Unless the game pulls some roboblox shit and every time you walk up to the store that is closed because you don't have the premium edition fucking pops a store screen or something. I mean, that'd be That'd be some nice filthy business right there. That's it for the news be nice and nasty Um, Let's get to some emails Podcast at guard. bike is the email address And you can send me an email And I will I will take it Max in New Hampshire writes in and says, I recently bought the first three Professor Leightton games as a set for forty dollars I popped the first cart into the DS and poked around the save file and saw that Lizzy played the game for over thirty hours All of the free puzzles distributed by the Nintendo WiFi cononnection are downloaded This is such a nice surprise. And I think it's neat this exists considering the service is long shut down. And I miss Nintendo making a big deal about this kind of thing and other services like Street Pass you have a fondness for this sort of thing and hope Nintendo brings back the goofy stuff Um, I mean, you're just talking about DLC, really? Like yeah, it's free puzzle add ons and I think that's cool. I think the the Nintendo Wi Fi connection thing. was a very Nintendo like solution to the idea of what if these games could get patches or updates or whatever. Um It's great that you have them because obviously you can't connect and get them anymore. I imagine that there are back dooor ways those puzzles onto a cartridge in this day and age. if you want to. If not, then you should take that cartridge and send it to someone so they can dump that shit out of it Um But u I love street pass I love Street Pass. Stre Pass was so fucking cool It provided a someone who did not really play games on the go and was not really Like most of my time playing portable systems was sat at a desk in front of a television Um because I did not have a public a public transit kind of commute or any sort of situation where I could truly take advantage of that stuff other than when I was on a plane from time to time But being able to go to packs or just like walking around and street passing with strangers, I thought that stuff was really fucking neat I think it's a shame. U that they don't have anything like this anymore. I mean, the swwitch is still a portable system It would have been nice for them to have some sort of equivalent here. Um that' stuff' fun You know? But as far as the free puzzle distribution, like, that's, you know Puzzle distribution for the Lighton games and most of the stuff that they did content wise over Nintendo's Online connectivity in that era always reminds me of kind of like the last bastions of the Dreamcast's web browser like Oh, connect to the web with your dream cast and then go to the Sambaday Amigo website And then you can download, quote unquote, ten new songs And the songs are already on the disc. You're just downloading unlock keys for them. But it was a reason for you to get your dreamcast online which was annoying and frustrating because then it took up space on your fucking VMU and you know, like, you know, all that stuff N not the worst idea, and it was always cool to get new songs Even if the process of downloading those things to your VMU was extremely fucking clunky G right Load up the Dreamcast web browser. I'm already like, oh no, I don't I don't know. I don't want to do But it was cool that you could do that. I mean, you know, they had you downloading entire quests for Fantasy Star online back then. and And yeah, so like that style of solution for add on content was always really neat. But we live in an era where every system being sold has like a goodly amount of internal storage for now. And so like that's not as and all of them also have like well defined online connectivity, right? And so so those sorts of ideas don't necessarily need to exist anymore because they can just come with a regular patch. Okay next time you connect online it iss going to pass the game. We added ten more puzzles. So there you go Uh let's see. Let's see emails Tyson asks, how often do you find yourself thinking about sppace Harrier? It's at least once a week If not uh if not more often than that, but u but it's at least at least once a wee Alex from Lowell writes in wrestling town With the recent rumors of Microsoft shutting down a few studios this week, which has likely already happened by the time you see this email, No I've been worried about double fine in particular and what this could mean for their potential future They've been one of my favorite studios in the gaming space since the PS two days, particularly because of Tim Schafer's witty writing Anyway, I was wondering how you felt about this potential news and also wondering if you'll share some stories in regards to their legacy. knowing that your career saw double fines beginning and likely end Um, I, you know Soulefine was always a fun crew, you know, We had some fun interactions with them in the past and did some fun stuff over the years U, you know, before they were acquired by Microsoft, right? And you know, people moved on and, you know, like you A lot of that, lot of that in this business U I think Double Fine is an important studio I think Tim Schafer is is a haall of Famer. video game like a first ballot haall of fame video game developer. likeike he's he's he's his name has been on Um incredible video games throughout a lot of his career and even in cases where the game quality might not qualify as Incredible they have done their own thing And they have like carved out U some really interesting niches around their sort of stuff. I mean, they made one of the few cool connect games You know Kiln is a game that I don't know that anyone is going to play. Um But it's a really fucking cool idea of like sentient, like little pottery with eyes rolling around in some kind of moba. L it's a really fucking neat thing. It's crazy Kilnm is crazy. You should look at Kiln. If you have not played Kiln. it's a cute multiplayer game that you just look at and go like, I don't know what the audience for this is, but man What a fucking cool thing Um, But I think you know, you go back to I don't know costume questest I'm a big fucking trenched fan, man. I'm I'm a big iron brigade a type of guy to me it was the sweet spot for a lot of A lot of double fine stuff stacking Like that whole era Oh was a head lander? that know there's just a lot of fucking crazy shit that they put out. And I think that that's like the industry is better for that. like video games are better for that But how do you quantify that on a fucking balance sheet, right? Like that's sort of the That's the rub, right? is we live in an era where no one fucking no one can afford to care about the art anymore or no one just No one cares to care. about the art of this anymore at the highest levels of Microsoft, at least. At least that's what it feels like with the way things are going right now Um And I think that's frustrating I think that that'ss it's a very frustrating thinging Um It's a very frustrating situation for this is the situation for any of this, right? So you know, when I think about double fine When do you think about Tim Schafer In particular I think that I would I have to believe that there is always going to be someone out there. that is willing to take a fucking shot and fund Tim Schaefer's next thing Um whether that's a new studio or whether that's hey, Double Fine is spinning out and becoming an independent company. Like you would like to believe that like, hey, there's there's fucking there is some magic there Um too this day. You know, and and what does that mean? So I look at that as like out of any of these studios that are on the chopping block, that would be the one that I say the most and go like, dude, there's there's no world in which This studio can't find some fucking way to keep going whether it's under this roof as an independent company or whether they like, hey, we're shutting it down and we're we're trying to spin up something as quickly as we can Like you would like to think that there is some fucking pub But like the number of publishers The number of funding sources that remain that could fund a studio of a hundred people likeike that is a shrinking list, right? I mean The industry isn't what it used to be in terms of, you know, just like resilient publishers that would go like, oh, yeah, of course we're going to sign Yes, what is Tim Shafer's next game? We're signing that. whatever that is.'re going we're going to sign it because we know we can find a way. As long as the budgets are in line and all this stuff makes sense We know we can figure out a way to make the business end of this work Um And so, you know, I think that stuff is frustrating. And obviously, you go through the documentary, you learn a lot about that studio and and why they may have sold, you know. Like I remember hearing at the time, you know, when when Double Fine was You know, like would H We heard about the Microsoft stuff a little before before it happened just, you know, because you know people and you have conversations. But that a lot of it was like, hey, man like running the financials of this fucking sucks. It takes away from the time we should be spending making games U because we have to fucking sweat the small stuff on every single business deal and all this other stuff. and And that being independent you like this is draining their ability. So, you know, at the time It made a lot of sense for them to sell the company to Microsoft, I think because it was like, man, like Gott to get psychoaths over the line Colonel Sanders says they were dealing with Starbrees implooding around Psychonaut two You know, there there was a lot of stuff like that and um, And I think it made a lot of sense in an ideal situation boox would be the, you know, they would be the bean counters that are keeping the fucking heat off of double fes so that they can do what they do best That's the ideal situation for a smaller creative team inside of a large organization, you know But it's a lot easier for those smaller teams inside that large organization to get lost and you find yourself you know, like it's not a one to one It's not a one to one comparison, but as someone who has sold a small, more independent thing to a large company It is incredibly easy to get lost in the shuffle and sometimes that's a good thing and sometimes that's a bad thing When you get lost in the shuffle, no one's paying attention to what you do, you can do whatever the fuck you want. as long as you're not losing a ton of money. No one's going to come fuckking tap you on the shoulder. You're just gonna to be able to fuckking sit there and do your fucking shit problem with large companies is that there's always turnover at the top. And the more turnover at the top you see, the more turnover above you and your small little business inside of this thing The more those people above you get replaced They are all getting replaced by people with people donon't know who you are or why you're there You know? And when I look at the studios on the Microsoft list right now that, you know, are kind of going around, That's how I feel. You look at the people that are running Xbox right now and you go like, are these the people that I trust care about One of the deepest Portfolios of intellectual property in the history of video games Like all the stuff that company owns now. We said it back when they were picking a back division, man. Microsoft owns Pitfall now. they own river raids. They own doom They owned fucking Wolfenstein. likeike they, you know, there's They own fucking war video game that Bethesda made, you know, like the A used to be the go to poll for when you wanted to complain about dormant IP Um But I think with this new leadership in place, I don't think this is a leadership that is ever going to truly value any of that property. Say what you will about Phil Spencer, and there's a lot to say sayay what you will about the previous regime that was in place Um, But they understood the value of what they had Atistically That doesn't always translate into a business case, and so that doesn't mean every game gets green lit or whatever But you at least had the feeling of like, dude This is a serious fucking responsibility You know U But now the regime that made that purchase is gone And you've got new people in there who are like, we've got to reset this business And you don't get a you don't feel like there's no feeling coming out of that of like, And we know what we want to be on the other side and we value this, this and this. and there's no real sense of what their values are going forward other than stopping the bleeding. likeike Hey, this business is not healthy We need to fucking continue to carve off parts of it until it is And we're going to keep drawing redlines around these businesses and shutting this stuff down until it's small enough to where we go. Yeah Then what? My congratulations Doubt decades and you k out hundreds, if not thousands of years of experience in making video games. What now And maybe they will tell you the answer. may maybe that answer will be, well, we still want to We still want to be in the business of publishing a lot of video games. We just don't want to own all these studios will'll happily partner with independent studios on the right game on the right, you know for the right number, for the right funding But then you hear stories like today where they're also backing out of this Io interactive thing and they back out of the contraband deal. And then, you know, like the number of different U deals with third parties that they have walked away from now over the last little bit here U the last year or so, I guess It's not great And so I think it's a very muddy situation and you know, I can't I can't help but wish them luck on it because The industry will be in a worse place if they don't solve this problem They can't figure this out and get to a point where they are healthy and making games again That is even worse. likeike there these layoffs that were, you know, kind of right around the corner from are going to be fucking bad It's not just going to be Xbox either. Like this is stuff, you know This is across the board industry wide stuff that has been going on for years and years But the fear here that I have around all this is that we're l again, we're going to lose all the people that know how to fucking ship a game that know that one weird trick to be like, oh, you're okay, it's not compiling here. justust do this This will be fine. Okaykay, this will fix this. like You know, someone who's got just that fucking insane arcane knowledge because they've been doing this for a long time and they know how to get shit done Chhipping video games is a fucking intense situation under the best of times. You know? And so you have a lot of people that have learned a fucking lot in terrible fucking times and to cast a lot of those people aside just because the The name on the door at the studio they work with is not making something profitable I think it's crazy Um, I feel like at worst you should be like, okay, Maybe this is not the studio configuration that we want anymore But we need to find something for these people to do. because our success probably already lies within these walls. We're just not We're just not deploying those resources the right way But that's not the thing they're doing They're going to make deep, deep, deep cuts And some of those people maybe aren't amazing employees, right? I mean, that's shit, you know, shit happens, right Um but you're going to lose a lot of incredibly talented people. who know how to get this shit done And that's the problem. And so that's when I look at the situation, you just think like, well, it must truly be dire over there. because you simply would not do this. You simply would not throw all of this shit away. It' the bunge situation, same deal Like W, man, PlayStation must be fucking up against it at least a little bit If they're not going to give this team a little more time to figure out what's next specially in a situation where you've got Nashino out there saying, Yeah, you know Back service games we care about this stuff. Yeah know, we want to stay in this business and and figure out what to do with it with maybe some older IP or maybe this or that. again. Mistakes were made on Destiny two There are people to blame for that. But that but cutting the entire studio because they didn't immediately pitch a project that got green lit and not giving them a little bit more time to figure it out. especially with how relatively rapidly a lot of that stuff ended up coming together Um And so if they're not giving those teams the time to figure that out, that says to me that they don't have the funding, they don't have the money to just let a team sit there and spin their wheels trying to figure out what's next. And I think that gets us back to, you know, my feeling on the Microsoft portfolio is it really feels like that they're not going to leave a lot of room for nuance. they're not going to leave a lot of room for art, if you will. U this is going to become of an incredibly driven business. It already is, but you know I think Microsoft in particular will be in pursuit of only the biggest hits I don't think that this is I don't think that they have the IP for that right now I don't think that they have the properties. I don't think I don't think the properties that you would think of as hits over there right now Most of them have been Downward trend for a while now. Palo you know, gears not necessarily on a downward trend qualitatively, but not in the conversation the way it used to be. Um Fable seems interesting. It's hard to imagine a world where Fable is like a game changer in terms of sales. Um And so for them to seemingly shut down or spin off All the smaller teams And just and keep and probably also make layoffs on the larger teams. I mean,, you know, it's not like they're going to be untouched But I think to go through this process and then on the other end to go like, all right, now let's only make the biggest games in the world With who Who's gonna fucking' make him? Who's going to cook up all that new IP because you've tarnished all the old ones already fucking gonna do? You can't just crank out another fucking forza horizon. these sell great Um You know, we'll see what happens with Call of Duty this year. I think that that's another kind of big you know, kind of swing point for that business If they can write the ship on that game sales wise by taking it off a game pass and You know, in Infinity Wwards talking a big game about what they've got this year and We'll see if they pull it off Um And what's up with Bethesda How much money does Fallout seventy six actually make? How much money does Elder Srolls Online actually make Is it enough to keep those games going with new updates and everything else Or do they look at those and go like, hey, like these games, it's not that these games don't make money, it's that they don't make enough. And if we lay off that entire team and sunset those games and blah, blah, blah, then, you know, that's that's good in their world, right U Yeahah, I don't know. I would think that they consolidate a lot of the marketing and PR resources That stuff that is still separate across multiple companies where you've got um separate activision teams that handle activision games. You've got separate teams that handle Bethesda games And then the Microsoft stuff is handled like by, you know, the teams that they use there I'm surprised that that hasn't happened already But I would think that just from a workflow standpoint that they would that they would do that now. And not that's not a pure elimination of jobs because I think you've got a lot of again, institutional knowledge When it comes to how to market a callall of duty game U I think you probably keep most of those people and bring them into the fold go, Okaykay, yeah, cool You work on callall of duty and also can you figure out how to market Halo? Be fuck 'ause we just cut our contract with assembly and that you know, whatever don't know A Sorry, I' just like, you know, it' it's just it's such a Unbelievably fucked situation And u It feels like it didn't need to be this way. Eespecially when you look at overall, know, Microsoft's Overall revenue as as a full company and everything else Like not that they should be expected to run Xbox as a charity for the rest of time, right? I mean, they've got to They've got to get that division in line one way or the other. That's just how fucking companies work at some point Um But what they're doing right now, again, really just feels like Either they don't know what they're doing, and that's why they're making all these cuts or They know what they're doing and shit is so fucking bad that they've got to make those cuts The difference is minimal, right? You would like to think that they at least feel bad about putting these studios on the chopping block J from Coopertina writes in says Bluetooth sucks for peripherals, so why isn't there something better Th my keyboard, mouse headset and controllers that I use on a regular basis I have four different proprietary wireless dongles plugged into my PC They all support Bluetooth. But I find the input and audio latency to be distracting. Why isn't there a common standard for low latency wireless peripherals you think we will ever get one But you're right, Bluetooth fucking suck for latency on controllers and all of that sort of stuff It's why all of these controllers come with their own fucking dongle Because they all use like what two point four gigahertz wireless instead And that is something of a standard Um But it's not a unified enough standard that like you what you need for a standard is it needs to be built into motherboards Like and you can't even reliably expect Bluetooth to be on every motherboard these days because it's it's not. Um The dongles are annoying because you know, they all are like, oh, these all use two point four gigahertz and all this other stuff, but none of them are compatible with each other You can't just plug in one dongle and be like, okay, now I have a two point four gigahertz gateway and I can connect my wireless controllers and keyboards or whatever else way Um And and that's frustrating becausecause yeah, the dongles fucking suck man It's dumb It seems like it should be a solved problem. And in a world where innovation was focusing in that direction It's something I would tell you like, oh, this seems like we'll get there eventually. Obviously, the consoles use their own stuff. like like Microsoft builds Xbox controllers that support Bluetooth, but they also support the proprietary standard that Xbox is use for wireless controllers. Um PlayStation controllers, I believe are the same way Be obviously you can connect the PS five controller to whatever you want over Bluetooth, but I want to say that they work differently when connected to an actual playaysttation But I can't remember off the top of my head because the dual sense is also extra weird because it has to, you know, like it has multiple connections because It's got the microphone, it's got the speaker in the controller It has the hactic feedback, which technically is kind of treated as another speaker in the background Um And so it has a lot of needs. is why which is why that stuff does not work when you connect it over Bluetooth U to a computer. You have to use Weird arcane configurations to get it to work Um But yeah, I don't know, man And when you get into Bluetooth, there are obviously dramatically different versions of Bluetooth and different codes for audio and what have you. And so It's that's kind of not a great situation either. I occasionally look into buying wireless headphones, which I'm never I shouldn't I don't I have two pairs of wireless headphones, but neither of them support High end wireless like I can't do lossless audio over Bluetooth with either of them. and so that's dumb So I think so occasionally think like, well, what if I What if I bought a more expensive pair of headphones and then I could do loss I like, no, fucking who cares. And I can't even use it for anything other than music because the latency is so bad that You know, like there's enough fucking snink discrepancy when watching videos on the PC. You can't use that shit for playing games because that sucks From a latency perspective So fuck it man, wire it all up Wireless technology sucks shit, as it turns out Give up Um Michael writes in from Kansas City Missouri and says, I've been in the Xbox ecosystem ever since I bought the translucent green Halo Edition Xbox I bought three hundred sixty and Xbox one And a series X all on their day one launches Watched all my friends go to PlayStation and PC I mainly stayed due to my large rock band DLC collection But now that Xbox seems to be offloading everything in what looks like a fire sale, I don't know where to go I hate the PlayStation UI and storefront setup And migrating to PC or Windows doesn't seem doesn't seem to stick it to Microsoft in any meaningful way. Plus, the current economics around tech makes switching to another platform expensive as fuck I don't know what to do. Am I just stuck with Xbox at this point Is there any way for me to make a meaningful statement with my wallet while still being able to enjoy games and support developers I don't have a real question just hating how bad things are right now. Yeah. I look I mean, if you, you know, it depends on what your goals are. if you're really just trying to make a statement with that money and get away from that ecosystem, Keep your keepe whatever console runs all your rock band DLC K keep whatever the current machine you have is a keep your series X. And next generation go a different direction. I mean, or just or just fucking don't, dont I don't know Um You say that migrating to PC and Windows doesn't seem to stick into Microsoft in any meaningful way. I mean Buying games from Steam. You know, like the whatever whatever amount of money Microsoft makes on a sale of Windows eleven on a PC is not going to be enough to cover the amount of money you were giving them by buying all your games on an Xbox for whatever that's worth. Also, you know, like the stand you're taking is very philosophical and is not going to have is not going to have a massive effect one way or the other Yeah, I don't know, man. If you don't like PlayStation and you don't like PC, You can always get a switch T Let comes with its own set of issues, right? performance wise and whatever The Switch two is in a much better place than the Switch one ever was But you know, it's not as powerful as current consoles let alone future ones. U You'd always get a steam machine I mean, not right now, obviously, but Um, you want to you want to run Linux. you want to play PC games in the fucking most non Microsoft way possible then uh Linux. Linnox is the ultimate path there Um Or hey, maybe you could just devote a few years of your life to playing every N sixty four game That seems like maybe a nice way to go about it Just ride this out Ride this out for a while Um, I would wait and see what everyone offers. You know, obbviously, you don't have to make any decisions right now Because no one is selling a PlayStation six. No one is selling the next Xbox yet Um, wait and see what happens And, uh You know, figure out where you want to go from there. you know, I don't I wonder, you know, because you know, backwards compatibility seems to be the thing that's locking you into this ecosystem And we don't really know what the backwards compatibility situation is going to be for Xbox next time out because they're going to be making some changes to what they make and how they sell it and all that other stuff. So It may be that that thing gets announced and you don't want one anyway because you're like, oh, well, I guess my rock band DLC is no longer going to work on this or or whatever So yeah, I would wait and see The thing I'll say about the PlayStation UI and storefront setup is you're right. I don't think either of those things are great either but that's relatively minor in the grand scheme of things The console runs games just fine. I don't especially like the PayStation UI or the PlayStation storefront But I think I would still take them over the Xbox equivalents Um. And what I would say also is never use the store that's built into the console Just go to their fucking website and buy it there You can type in what you're looking for and just it's easier to search stuff and buy stuff and just, you know You can even start the downloads directly from the web browser most of the time if your console' in kind of sleep mode or whatever. And so I just I wouldn't even don't I never touch PlayStation store on the console anymore and certainly not the Xbox one either. So yeah, I just Shrve that shit aside Chris wrote in to make the case for controller back buttons in their current form. Last week I was talking about how I wish that they were unique buttons. You could map how you want to into unique features, which on PC you can sometimes do depending on the controller. or if you're using Steam input or whatever, but But byy and large, they are just duplicate buttons for the other buttons on the controller. Chris wrote in to say fuck that, basically. said, I would really hate if they turn them into just more buttons I really love having them as just remappable buttons because I find controller bumpers to be very hard to use and very uncomfortable to hit, so I really enjoy being able to move those buttons to back buttons. It makes the Xbox controller usable at all for me as the bumpers on that one make my hand cramp He also says he doesn't think the controllers should have more buttons in general They already have too many buttons as is. with stuff like hold this button while tapping this other button Every game seems like it needs me to memorize a huge number of buttons and button combos just to play a game I would really not enjoy having them use even more buttons to memorize. Well, the thing I would say to that, Chris, is that If you had more buttons on the controller, you wouldn't need to do the hold this button while tapping another button because that's those type of corded inputs and macros and whatever are things that they do because They don't have enough buttons on the controller So yeah, I don't know Also, the thing I say is because I'm not used to those back buttons, I hit them accidentally all the time In an intense moment in a game, I might squeeze the controller and that pushes the back button and then suddenly he's reloading and I'm like, o, well now I'm dead because Now I'm not shooting. now I'm reloading and that's that's the shits Yeah, I don't know. I see where you're coming from, but I think that optionally you should be able to map that stuff differently especially on PC where everything gets mapped to a different key on the keyboard anyway. And so I think that stuff would be kind of cool. Let's see if we can find maybe one more here Doran from New Zealand writes in says I was recently watching Gears of warar race to E three and about eighty percent of it is epic wanting to include the chainsaw Wh Microsoft was worried it would be too gruesome twentywenty years on, is the chainsaw still the most important thing about gears of war PS, the video also includes a quote from Bill Gates I love that chainsaw Is the chainsaw? Is the lancer, if you will, a gun with a chainsaw mounted on it? Is that the most important thing about gears of war Um, they would tell you that it is Brotherhood between Marcus and Dom. their shared story, their relationship love they make I think the chainsaw gun is the most iconic thing about gears of war If you think about it from an influence perspective, I think the way that gears of war S see it active reload As a mechanic, We saw a lot of games used. games still use that to this day U And I think the the popularity of that. I think you could say that the wave based co op survival shooter thing that they did with horde mode has been a very influential thing that they have done that a lot of a lot of companies have used in their own games in the years afterwards. And so I think that's been a big deal Cver mechanics, obviously were a big deal for a long time and now they've kind of fallen out of favor And they they rarely evolved. you know, cover became sort of a more automatic thing in some cases or contextual as opposed to hitting a button to do it Um That's not something that they came up with. I mean, you know, you could look at Kill swwitch or, you know, some other stuff that kind of uses that style of cover system But gears certainly popularized it in a way that made it very influential for a time Um But if you're asking is the chainsaw gun the most important thing about gears of war? I suppose with zero qualifications on that, I would say yes U with if you wanted me to get into it a little bit deeper, I would say that The way that they handled campaign co op was a very big deal for its time. the way that they tried to not break for cutscenes and instead did the walk and talks I think that stuff as far as like approaching this from an immersion perspective I think that stuff was pretty good Um until it fell out of favor and now it's very easy to talk shit about the walk and talk u fake cutscene thing these days, but But when we think about You know, a lot of times cuts sccenes had to load And you would to load from the cutscene back into gameplay. and you know that procedure was kind of a hassle. And so the way that Gears did it, I think was pretty fucking solid A. But yeah, I think if you're trying to sell gears of war to a new audience and trying to focus on like what's the coolest thing we can show somebody Even after all these years It is still get a load of this fucking gun, dude. Cutting a dude into bits with the chainsaw that's on it. I think that's That's probably still your biggest calling card for that for that franchise which maybe is not a good situation to be in that that is the the thing one of the few things you can hang your hat on there But u But yes, I would say that's probably the most important thing about that franchise It lets you know what you're in for pretty directly. likeike you see that chainsaw cutting through a monster Big football pad wearing dudes And you go like, okay. All right. Yeah. Brin says the lancer is less cool than a chainsword like in the Warhammer forty K games. I don't know The Chain swword is just a sword that moves a little bit You know It's still like the The objective is the same. it just cuts dudes The lancer can also shoot. If he was a gunblade, then maybe we'd have something. Brincess Swords are cool. Swords are cool Thus, swords don't need to have chainsaws on them Sword combat is already cool. Oh Kevin Liverpool writes in and says, att Forbidden Door, which was the AEW payerview that happened over the weekend Kyle O'Reilly used an NES as a weapon. Personally, I think he should have used a gamecube as he could have really swung the handle And the game cube has a nice heft to it But I need a scientific opinion, whichich console would you take into a gimmick match You know, as far as I can tell when you go back and look at what Kyle O'Reilly did He had that little moment there where he blew into the cartridge and then put it into the NES and then hit hit a dude in the face with it. Um whichich I don't know I don't know what the cartridge we were look at freeze frames of it and I couldn't get a good look at what the cartridge was Regardless, I'm pretty sure having seen that sequence a few times now And maybe I'll to go back and watch it a few more times. I don't think he pushed the cartridge down. I think he just stuck it in there. Which, you know, at that point, what's the fucking point Why even do it Oh, it was confirmed that the cartridge was pro wrestling. Good. Okaykay. yeah I don't like it I don't like to see video game consoles of a certain vintage be abused like that And though that said that it still works. I bet that NES did not break as a part of that process. Uh To answer your question, yeah, what console would you would you want to hit somebody in the face with to do the most damage? I mean, it's the original Xbox things like the steel chair of fucking Like they should be putting Xboxes on people's chests and then doing double stomps to them. likeike they were fucking cinder blocks. Oh But yeah, any any cinder bllock spot should instead be an original Xbox U And yeah, GameCube has a handle so you can whip it around pretty fast and knock somebody with it But I think the weight of the Xbox with with the Xbox, what you're doing is like you're doing some fucking Rob van damn shit. likeike you're taking an Xbox And you are fucking throwing it directly into someone's fucking face. And and telling them like, hey, fucking get a hand up, brother. Like, you know, you are you are fucking throwing that into someone's fucking face Uh with that and, uh And I think that would be probably the best way to deploy an Xbox inside of a match there. But yes, that that is the most solid brick of a console that I think you know And I think you would you would want Bonus question, which controller? Yeah so they did a spot. They had NES controllers wrapped around fucking dudees neck and they were doing they were fucking doing Lariats with controller cables and It was a very brief moment in a very ridiculous match which was fun It was a very fun match for a match that I had almost zero interest in going in story perspective wise, it ended up being quite good. L was like, yeah, no, this is this this this actually was super fucking fun Um But a controller. Yeah, Kev says it has to be the Duke, right? I mean Yeah, I guess like yeah, the again, the original Xbox controller probably is probably the best bet there. That is probably one of your heaviest controllers Um I would say a jaguar controller, but I don't think that's actually as heavy So yeah, I would probably I would probably go that way with it. Real silly. I mean, in the pantheon in the pantheon of video game controllers and things like that being used in wrestling spots That is'm almost certainly one of the most high profile uses of ones ever. I mean, there was that fighter fest where they dumped a fucking A bunch of sandwa buttons on the mat, right U and that was real Dumb U And then yeah, the controller ended up wrapped around Kyle Fletcher's arm at one point. And that had a real like barred wire wrap kind of looking thing there for a minute. was like this could get extra dumb, but they did not go that way. thankfully Um But yeah, no, it was a it was a fun spot though again There's a part of me that was very much like, I don't I don't like the idea of this of this video game system being abused like this. Like that was my that was my gut reaction to. It was Oh, you don't need to do this. This is This is not good. Don't don't There are not there are plenty of those left, but also they won't be that way forever. Let's let's not hopefully that console was already broken. U But we'll we'll see. Yeah H Let's see here Let's make this the last one. Seaan writes in from Santa Clara. What are your thoughts on the Switch two a year into its life cycle? Have the design and build quality of the hardware held up, especially with kids My take is in handheld mode, it's okay for kids around the house, but I don't it being portable the way the switch and prior handhelds were Because of the size What do you think about the software library in terms of Nintendo's output as well as the state of third party support Um The swwitch two is holding up okay as with with the kids. So they they have a switch to they use and I have another one now. I got so frustrated watching them use the switch to I u that I have a second one that I don't let them touch ever a lot of the and this is this is before they ever got their hands on it So I think there must be something with the dock. A lot of the paint on the kickstand is shaving off and revealing the chrome like the raw metal underneath And that was happening before they got their hands on it So it wasn't like abuse of it. It was just going in and out of the dock I've heard that that is an issue with some but not all switch tos So I guess I'm just lucky U For me, the big problem with the Switch two is that the Joy consons are loose And they don't they don't fit tightly into the system and they flex a little bit. That was a problem again on day one. That switch did that. And I was like, man, this sort of sucks That has gotten noticeably worse after the kids have used it for the past four to five months Um And that has been Dpressing the rubber on the JoyCon analog sticks. is now rough to the touch and wearing away I have no idea how that's happening what the fuck they are doing to cause that But It just it feels Weird Now it's rough to the touch and also one of them feels like it's about to peel off any fucking day now that one of those rubber covers is going to come off Um Which happened with the switch light. They were using the switch light before I started letting them use the switch too And I found it one day with like one of the Joy Con or I guess they're not Joy Cons on the Switch Lite. But like one of the rubber covers was just completely off it. and I'm like, what the fuck I fit it back on there, it wasn't a big deal Um that's frustrating and also a small choking hazard that can come off of the The console, which is annoying Um And so like from a hardware perspective, the thing still works just fine. The screen is dirty, but you know, I clean it from time to time I have been working on instituting much better hygiene and much better care around food because I have run into situations where I have picked up a controller and it has been disgusting. Um And so okay, I know sometimes mom will give you some Cheetos. You cannot fucking play video games and eat Cheetos at the same time I will never let you touch any of this again Um, I've let them I' this is I've also I've started letting them play on the PC becausecause I have this it's why I put windows back on this machine because it was just Games were taking forever to launch and all of that weird shader stuff on Bazite was just Breaking forever and all of that And so I put Windows back on this machine and now it launches into teeam bigig picture mode and whatever And that has been an interesting experience. and it's been how I've been thinking about the steam machine now as like it's most of the way there, but not quite H I cleaned some gunk out of this steam controller Let me tell you It's gotten some crumbs on it that I've been very frustrated about. It's my own fault, really I'm going to get a bunk controller, a totally functional, whatever controller that I just don't care about and I'm going to let them use that instead of the actual steam controller because It is just it is starting to bum me out Um, But they will be playing it and then there as their fingers get crazy, they will they will knock the charging puck off of it. They will slide the charging puck off And it will drop to the ground here in the garage on my cement floor, which I don't feel good about controller has been dropped two or three times The left Joy C on my switch to has a weird dig in it like on the notch that at some point it fell and got fucked up Um, And u That's not great Uh It has been interesting watching kids use all this stuff because it's not great It's not fucking great Um So from that angle I think the swwitch two is held up just fine, but again, The stuff that seemed to be build quality issues on day one been mildly exacerbated by after after a year of the kids Not a year, aboutbout six months of the kids using it because I hid the switch two from them for a good chunk of time But then eventually enough Sitch two games came out that I was like, okay, all right, you guys want to play Donkey Konga. Okay, here we go Um U Donkey fucking talking about banza I'm talking. If they wanted to play Donkey Kongo, that'd be a different suation, man U So yeah, I don't know. that stuff's been it makes me glad that they don't have to worry about discs They don't have to worry about putting discs into a system because that shit would have all been broken and destroyed by now. U So at least there's that. but yeah, it's it's not a great It's not a great situation and also The Steam bigig picture mode is not quite kid friendly in the way you would want to because it's a little too easy to get into some weird esoteric store page you can't quite find a way out of Some games don't launch right And also PC games don't have good universal ways for you to quit out of them And SEam does not enforce a situation where you can only have one game running at a time like a console would And so you have situations where I will come and they're trying to play Blueuby's quest for the gold pen or whatever. and it's just running like garbage. and I'm like, what the hell iss going on? And I grab the controller for them. I lean over to the keyboard and Alt tab. and realize they've got three other games open. They've got like the Spyro trilogy, the Cash tririlogy and Street fighter six all running in the background. becausecause to quit Street fighter six Stree fighter six is especially bad quit out of the PC version of Street Fighter sixix You have to back all the way out of whatever mode you're in back to something close to the main menu but not all the way out to the main menu. Because that just the only prompt there is hit any button to get into you have to hit the button to get back to the main menu thenen you hit start And it's your full option screen full of fucking all the different things you can go to. and then you have to go down and hit quit Um That's a fucking bad situation for a kid. Now me, I can do that Or me, I can go fucking hit Alt F four But the idea here is I'm not going to let them use a mouse and a keyboard on this machine. It's hooked up to a television And so I pull the keyboard out and I will alt F four the other three games that are open. because steam doesn't, you know, the steam day picture mode, like you, you know, you you You can force quit games from there also, but you have to go into their pages to do it. And so like even doing it from there is not a great situation. Um, once you've got multiple games open, that's that's a that's an even worse navigation problem then u Th then the Street fighter six example in a lot of cases So yeah, it's u It's not ready for young young kids. the steam big picture stuff like Steam OS, like like all of that. I think, you know, there's still some functionality that they should probably build into I mean, for for, you know, to kid proof it to dummy proof it, like whatever Be every PC game is going to be different about quitting it from inside the game And you can always just pull up the steam UI and go to quit game But if you've already fucked up and launched multiple games That's not going to do what you wanted to do. The other thing is sometimes games just launch bad. This Crash Man to Cute trilogy. It's not a new release by any means And it's not something that you run into all the time. But to every time I launch Crash Band to Cot here on the PC It launches full screen tabs away from it somehow. Um And so you can't hit A to start it. It just you're stuck at the title screen Unless you grab the mouse and click the and click it because it's already full screen or alt tab over to it And then it will accept input. But for whatever reason, when it launches Steam then suddenly takes like the primary window Trash is still showing full screen And so it's a that's a bad situation. But whatever, there's always going to be edge cases. U with all of this shit, it's just been interesting to see a lot of them As u you know, as I have unleashed multiple children on this interface and be like, oh, dude Like if you thought this was going to be something you could just give to somebody and go and it's just like a console like dude, it's It's not there yet It's really close But it's still just enough to we like you should probably know a little bit about what you're doing ese are not problems they run into on a Playsttation, for example because they can they can navigate the PlayStation UI just fine They know how to get to the catalogue of games and see what else we own and download games from there. Same with the swwitch They don't, they don't run into problems on the switch to until they are trying to download games. And the storage is full then have to bring it to me And then I have to like deal with them crying As they as I say, I have to delete these games. They go No Like, don't worry, we can download them again if you want to play them again. They don't fit. Not all of this fits. We have to make some decisions here. It'll be it'll be fine Um And uh and yeah It's it's been very interesting. I've learned a lot fromr letting the kids loose on some of these platforms and seeing where the where the friction lies U becausecause like I thought that the Street fighter six UI thing was like Minorly annoying We' just like, oh, this is this is a weird way that they made to quit this game, but I don't know Sometimes PC games are fucking terrible about quitting Destiny two is really bad about quitting to desktop from inside the game and whatever else Um But letting kids loose on it. I'm like, o, dude, yeah, this is There's like a whole cluster of new problems that crop up as soon as you do. and that's been very interesting. Um And that's going to do it You know what? lastast question One more. And I'm just going to take his PS. Scott wrote in from Ohio and said in thirty years will we be looking for copies of concquered and Redfall in a landfill No, they didn't make enough of them for that And those will just end up on some secondary marketplace somewhere. L I bet already I bet there is not a huge Warehouse full of copies of Concord by now. Redfall, you know, like and also, you know The vast overwhelming percentage of game purchases these days are done digitally anyway. And so physical print runs are not what they used to be and whatever I've got my copy of Conquered I'm ready for the end times. That's going to do it. Thanks everybody for writing in with with your questions and such. againgain, that email address Podcast at guard. bike. Um And yeah. Send me some emails I keep getting Lukees in the mail. The u the the we we're up to u Team Lues And I just got another email from the store from the place from from the PO box that there are at least three packages there And my guess. My guess is that all three of those packages are going to be full of Lukes So Thanks to everybody for keep keeping them coming home for wayward Lukees keeps growing. We're out of space on this NFL Blitz machine I don't know where I'm going to put more looues. if there if there are indeed more looks in the mail And don't pay full price for your Lues.ought I bought a Luke at full price. That's, you know, we talk about a year since the Sitch two launch Yeah, I bought a Luke for forty dollars. And now these looks are five dollars So You know? pay full price for Amiibo Eespecially Amiba And I'll be back theoretically be back tomorrow I feel a lot better, but this is also the most talking I've done in about three or four days. And so I lost my voice over the weekend And it's mostly back now Yeah. And uh, This is This many hours of speaking turns out is lightly unpleasant. but I'll probably be better tomorrow or continue. I'm on the mend either way So I'll probably be back tomorrow. We'll talk some more and I will, uh See you then. Head over to Jeff dot zone. you can get an ad free version of this podcast bonus content and more Have a good one Save more on what you need to get the job done right. Right now, add Lowe's! Get fifteen percent off, select custom entry and interior doors. Plus, save eighty dollars on the D Wal twenty Volt Max two tool combo kit, now just one hundred sixty nine dollars. And at the Lowe's Pro desk, bring us your materials list and get a quote in minutes. Handwritten, a photo, or even a sticky note is all you need Keep your jobs moving faster and on budget at lows. Valid through sevenenty eight while supplies last. Selection d is by location Save more on what you need to get the job done right. Right now, at Lowe's. Get fifteen percent off, select custom entry and interterior doors. Plus, save eighty dollars on the DeWalt twenty Volt Max two tool combo kit, now just one hundred sixty nine dollars. And at the Lowe's Pro desesk, bring us your materials list and get a quote in minutes. Handwritten, a photo, or even a sticky note is all you need. Keep your jobs moving faster and on budget At lows. Valid through seven eight while supplies l. Selection verers by location