#202 | Xbox Is Done Hiding It - No More Exclusives?

COMPSE 2 THING getting started During Defining Duke Video Salutations everybody, it is Matti here today and welcome to episode two, oh two of Defining Duke, a Xbox podcast today. I am joined by Sir Health is wealth, Lord Cognito. How are you today, good sir? Better, better home, good rest finally for a day and then talk to you before. Actually, try to low strategy gym before Duke, okay? I know, I kind of liked it.

Yeah, whenever I got a good workout in before Duke, I felt great, entering the show because you got good blood flow. That's the thing, right? When you're sitting like this for three to have hours, you just start to phase out. So you're doing the right thing. I got to get back into that swing of things because it was a huge difference maker. You're feeling good? Yeah, I feel good. It's tougher for me because I am a night owl most of the time.

The way my sleep schedule worked this week, I had got a early. Oh, okay. I miss so much today. I lose out all day without doing do this. Like I got so much. That's how it's all the same thing, bro. When you're like day walking and you realize like this ain't too bad. It's a bad day. You get a day walker for a little bit. So yeah, I got stuff done and then all my, because that hit it came back and I'm getting ready to rock it. We got a ton of news this week. Obviously. Yes. Yeah, you've been man.

I've been thinking about you just like in general, how's it? How's the Maddie plays getting back into those swing of things? How is that? Well, we have a nice health as wealth segment for the opening of this show. We got some writings and we'll get into ourselves as we swing through this. So first ones from Black Magic Fuckery, the Bussie Butcher. I haven't heard from this gentleman. I haven't heard from this gentleman. What?

Last time they wrote in, they spoke about something they were struggling with. They're back with some good news. Hey, boys, a quick health as wealth update for y'all. And for my onset of autoimmune related arthritis earlier in the year, I am glad to say that I am back gaming and playing guitar without pain after some trial and error, cutting out sugar and taking turmeric, proved to be the difference maker despite the idea of dietary management receiving eye rolls from the doctors.

Thank you for the sympathy and the kick in the ass. I was slipping into that mustard heart energy and the dukes rightly called it out. Have a midnight suns has great gameplay, but on God, what is this dialogue and why is blade a sip now type beat? What you mean? You don't like talking to blade by the pool with your shirt off? Yeah, come on now big muscles and everything. It's such a cod game when you really think about it. It's a ridiculous over here though.

I'm glad the good word of turmeric is spreading, right? This is like, this is my thing, man. This is the Maddie sub. Everyone in my life knows I am a huge turmeric guy. He's like, he's on my wife is having issues. Anything I'm like, wants some turmeric? Like it's literally, it's almost annoying. Like it's my version of did you drink water today? Like did you have your turmeric today? So I'm glad to hear you're doing better, black magic, shout out to the power of turmeric.

And of course, cutting out sugar. Now sugar is huge and then I like that you have the conversation because obviously as a fellow autoimmune arthritis sufferer, I respect this because sugar, also low on sodium and then like it's taking that is really cool. And also, speak of the doctor to allow that grace period to see if you make the corrections and then go back see how you're blood work, how you feel it. That's cool because I've had that on both sides where it's wet well.

And I had a side on the blood pressure days like, yeah, it's still void like we need to work on. You take this and I'm all right. Cool. But that's good. Have a those conversations yet. Don't salute black magic. Absolutely. Good to hear. And we got one from Astro parrot King. Hi, Deux. Haven't had a health as well segment in a while. So I'll make an addition. I've lost 35 pounds since June of this year. How have you been doing in the health as well?

Front heavy Xbox is handheld is years away and that won't cut it type of day. Lou, the parrot, what are you? What do we say? I mean, he was great when we saw him at the live show. Right. He looked good. The loud show. I didn't even realize that because we did shout the parrot. We did the the mat game him and Mason. Mm hmm. Look fun there. Like so yeah, if he broke 35, wow. Yeah, this is really good stuff here. Super impressive. Feel lighter. Healthy. Hit that scale.

I mean, I'm going to be a little bit more aggressive or whatever you've been using to far the implement with a bit diet, whether they've been exercised, but that's good. Because at the end of the day, we got to be better. As far as my update, yeah, I've been doing better as far as my own nutrition. And then I got a shout out my man. Brand out though. Recommended the air fryer. You know what I'm saying? It just now getting into a better pocket with the food. You know, kind of things.

So that's been good. And then I've been making better choices. So I've been good. I've been good. What about you? I'm a big fan of the... So for me, it's been a lot of mental health as well. We don't need to revisit it for the millionth time. It's just a matter of just taking that time to to breathe. I can't lie that it's been up and down for me. There's been some days. It's been good. There's been some days my anxiety is just fucking crazy. Today is one of those days, unfortunately.

Just talking it out has been really helpful. I haven't had to deal with this in like seven years. So it's been tough for me. There's part of mental health in accepting like, okay, I can't control what happened to me a couple of weeks ago. It just happened. And I can only control my response to it. And I need to just take a breath and go through this rather than being upset that it's happening again. Right?

But you know, it's one of those things where health as well, there's a little tough to come by. I'm kind of feeling burnt out. And I need to get to that kind of December break point as soon as I can to just really detach and settle down and just, you know, recover. I've, I meet it in the first place, but I was in a good spot. I felt I was handling things, but obviously I got just severely emotionally disrupted.

And now I'm at a point where it's like, okay, I know come December, like I'm shooting for a month off because I'm usually not extreme like that. I normally, like, give me two weeks. I'm good. Take a couple of vacations of the year.

But I was like, I need an extensive sort of time away to just kind of get back into my groove, take some time to just focus on other things, focus on, you know, exercising again, like we've been one of our goals this year was to get a kind of home gym going and started in our garage. And you know, we were cleaning it out. It's in a good spot now where it's time to start building that out. And so that might be like a December goal.

So, you know, I've definitely been backseating the health as well as a little bit to be transparent just like, you know, it's the time of the year for those who don't know where like as I'm getting going, we're recording videos in advance to kind of stack up for December in January when I'm gone or we're doing the same for Duke while we're gone. That sort of thing. And that usually requires a little bit of extra man hours throughout the final months of the year. I tried to plan it out.

Like I had a reminder to start in like August and then I was a dumbass and fucking procrastinating and I traveled the time that I got married and just everything kept happening where I was like, oh, yeah, through next week. And then I got to a decent amount, but like not as much as I would have liked to. So that lesson learned, I needed to be way more proactive. I made the mistake I usually never make, which I don't procrastinate, but I fucked it eye with it with all these holiday videos.

And so now I'm paying the price. The point being is usually these holiday things require that extra bandwidth. Like, okay, instead of stopping the work at like five or six in the evening, I'm probably working till like eight or nine and I'm going to lose out on free time time I could spend with like my family or my wife, that sort of thing. So not a woe is me tail, but just yeah, it's one of those things where just trying to, I'm crawling to the end of the year, man.

Like I'm just keeping a little fit. Crawl into the end of the year, just trying to just leg it out, hustle hard and just, you know, make sure I do my part and do a good job. And then from there, once I disconnect, just really like sometimes I'm a little half hard about it. So keep like discord notifications on or check the email, check the YouTube number, see how things are going. Not, not of it. Not of it. Not of it. Yeah. Mentally mentally, it's important that you said that.

How do you feel about vacations? Vacations are really great. I actually embraced a few this year. I just think my second half of the year vacations are terrible. Like I just don't do them enough. So I do need to kind of indulge in that a little bit more because I used to try to set it up. One thing I learned that I did better this year was like organizing, brief for vacations.

Like Lailie and I went to North Carolina for like four of days, which is not like a full, like I'm out for two weeks, cyanore, like it's just like in and out, right? But I mean, that was key. Remember when I came back, like that's when all my swaying stopped. Like I really massively recovered in a big way. So to me, that was the moment I was like, okay, I need more of these. And like I took some more, like I take more days off.

I'd sometimes get it like a Friday off and just give myself a three day weekend because I just knew my body needed it. So there's a little bit of better listening, but there's things I'm still blatantly ignoring that lifestyle changes I need to make. And yeah, it's because I got a lot of my play right now. And I'm at the cusp of a lot of big life changes and choices I have to make as I enter 2025. And so, you know, with that in mind, it's like, yeah, I'm at the point of reassessment.

And there's no reason for me to stop now. It's like you got to like it out this last month and then and just get looking at things from moving forward. So that's where I'm at right now. But yeah, vacations are a huge part of it. And every year I say I'll take more. This year I did better in last year. Now next year I need to do better in this year. Not to the point where I'm like, dull, but enough where I keep myself sharp, keep myself healthy. Yeah, keep myself not as fatigued.

That's sort of this. That healthy mental health is well disconnected is vital. And I know what you mean. It's sometimes it's like, you know, you're in the eye of a storm and you just, there's nothing you could do to get out of it. You just know you got a power through. But I think keeping that light at the end of the tunnel, no, okay, when I get through this period, I have to do X, Y and C for my mental health because I know what you have. I know exactly. Yeah, it's real. Yeah, it's a lot.

But, you know, I feel, I feel, you know, it'll be okay. I don't feel like, oh, you know, this is, this is like when I first dealt with things, I had a really bad way. I mean, it was like scary. This is more like, okay, I've done this before. I've got this. I just need to give my body time. Like I know how to get through this. I need to just keep talking and really give myself that kind of breathing room.

Yeah. I mean, in a sense, I'm glad it happened at this point because if it was the middle of the year, I'm like, once a good time to step away. But here is like where I'm usually set up to walk away for a little bit. And yeah, I think the difference is this year. I don't want to do like the full-blown staycation. I want to do like a little going out more life. Yeah. A lot of work. A lot of work. Where's thing you do is sometimes just get stagnant, I think. Exactly.

A lot of it is get out the house. Yep. Just what just get out and be around friends and family or just what you love the one and do things that you've been putting off mentally for your health that make you too happy or make you happy. That's the best thing. 100% dude. So, thank you for asking Asher Parakin. Yeah, I've been slacking on physical. I can't lie. It was good. I actually just checked my way today. I was very happy. I was like, okay, cool.

The current diet is doing me well where I'm not gaining or losing. I'm just maintaining. I'm like, okay, good. I feel like I've been keeping that in check. So I'm feeling all right about that. I did go on a little jog the other day. So it's not like I'm doing jack shit. But I'm not, you know, what I've been reflecting on is like my early 20 years, early 20s I should say, where I was like, okay, you know, how much, like what was I, I felt really good at that point.

And part of it was like, I mean, I had a lot less on my plate. That was a big part of it. But the other thing was like hobbies that surrounded it. And like part of my restructure in my life is to give myself that opportunity. I used to do Taekwondo. I used to go to card shops and play games like every Wednesday for like three hours. And these were just two things that were so important to me, you know, in confidence building and staying in shape.

Because what you had thought of, bro, I had to have that honest look in the mirror moment. Let's go. I was thinking to myself, I do exercise a lot and I do push myself and I do get that sweat on and I do get tired. But when I was going to like Taekwondo, there would be days like I would go really fucking hard and I'd be shot at night and be like, man, I worked really hard. And so you earn that off day, right?

Yes. Because your body, like you feel the need to recover rather than the mental like checklist of this is recovery day. And I thought to myself, I was like, what was the last time you felt like that? What was the last time you pushed yourself so hard that you were like, man, by the way, not work wise, exercise wise, exercise wise that you were like, wow, my body is still recovering. It's like each day I could just keep going, right? And I think it's because we all have that switch in our head.

Like I'm good at pushing myself. But like when it comes to working out, I'm good at pushing myself because you set like a regimen. You know what exercises you're going to do. And like, okay, I'm nearing the end like time to push hard or this is like set three where I increase the weight, time to push hard.

But when you're like jogging or doing the peloton, you have almost too much control over your own destiny and going to things like the haikuwondo class, like you're at the, the grandmasters, Mercy, mercy, bro. If he sees you slacken, he's going to double down on you. So you try twice as hard if you're paying attention to that. You try twice as hard as you go through it. And it was a beautiful thing. It was great for confidence. It was great for just building skills.

Of course, it was great for exercise. And that's the thing I want to get back to is like, I've always said like once my game gets funding and I can kind of stabilize the life a little bit more, I want to take up cooking classes. Like I just really, like that's a hobby. I want to pick back up. But I want to get back into martial arts, man. Like that was the kind of passive thing. I was thinking that are dancing. I don't know why dancing was kind of speaking to me. I have no moves, no groove.

I'm way too tall for that shit. But I don't know why I actually I do know why I was talking to at the Dragon Age Ville Guard preview event. I was talking to Norsa who's another YouTuber and he does dancing. And I was like, oh, like that's it was interesting to hear about that. But also like he said, it's like great exercise. Oh, it's a tremendous car. Yeah. And that's a tremendous like that kind of I call it passive cardio.

You know, where you're working out, but you're kind of doing a fun hobby. Yeah, yeah. And that's like what Tycorno is. What was to me. That's what this could be. I'm like, okay, I'm trying to keep my options open on things I can do. Yeah. Because actually you're mentally focusing or something else in the course of cardio, you know, serial cardiovascular activity. So yeah, absolutely. You got to pick those days like that and get that's actually a great idea.

Yeah. So that's where we're at health as well. Sorry, I dominated that segment. I have a lot on my mind. I'm not sure if you're talking about your time. You're tired of talking. That's what's up. All right, Cog. Well, that's our health as well, segment. We got one more question from the audience and then we'll get going with the news here. Big news week. Let's talk with the great Santini before we jump in all of that. What's up? Cougar Cog and Game Dev Maddie. Maddie's currently in development.

Game has become somewhat of a meme in the realm of the dukes and I think it's hilarious. That said, a question has been lingering in my mind. Why the secrecy? The game's industry has seemingly become more and more secretive as it is matured, often keeping projects, details, under wraps until very late in the process. I believe this cageiness is kind of wack and necessary. So I'm wondering why you, Maddie, feel the need to keep things so secretive as well. Unless I'm forgetting.

I don't think we've got any ideas to what kind of game you are making. So what's the deal? Of course, I mean, no shade by this, but I'm just curious. Thanks for all you guys do. Thank you for writing it. Yeah, it is a bit of a meme with the dukes community because let's like walk it back a little bit, right? Because the reason it became a meme is I would cite my game development experience as like information, I guess, part of my reporting, people were like, what the fuck did you make dude?

What game is you making? I do talk and we're saying the word exactly. And I was like, this is very fair. So I should probably stop talking about this and referencing it so often. But at a certain point, it just became boot where I was like, well, it's baked in duke lore now. Like I can't just act like this isn't a thing. And as I do more game development stuff, I learn more. So I may as well just pass it on. Why the secrecy is a great question.

So I would probably be a lot more open about things right now. However, I mean, I could be more open about it because it's like literally just our company, our game. Like we can, we're not working with anyone right now where we can make that decision if we really wanted to. But the reason I'm not is as I've shown people in my close circle, the game more and more, there's been a degree of the reaction has been damn, this looks way better than I actually expected.

Kind of, and I know part of that comes from like the, okay, you know, your man's kind of making his own thing. You know, all right, he's trying. He's trying. And I get the energy, right? Like, okay, he's making a game. And he has this image of like some fucking phone game or some crap coming out. But as I show people, they're like, damn, damn, okay. And like the reactions have been really good. And I think about that. I'm like, yeah, I would love to just tell people like, here's the genre even.

But I think part of the fun, it's game one, right? Maybe with game two and so on, I'll be a little more open. But game one, I'm like, the element of surprise is so important for us in that. It's important for the announcement of the game, the reveal of the game. It's important for you all who have heard me talk about it for a while to kind of have the good look. I put the pressure on myself and in turn, I guess my team, like we kind of have to back up the talk and I'm not sitting here.

Tadam, like, it's a fucking incredible game. You all are going to love it. Like, I've watched developers eat crow. I will let you all decide that. I am proud of what we've got so far though. I am very proud of it. But that is kind of why my secrecy comes into play. I agree with you. The secrecy and the cage industry in the games industry is whack. You see how it kind of goes south, like Bethesda Game Studios tried to do that. They tried to be like, all right, we're doing the marvel.

Like, here's what we're making six, seven years from now. Elder Scrolls six. Look how upset people are. Yeah, it's a good point. So I think the caginous as much as I don't like it can be justified at times. What I don't like is the caginous with the process, which is what I try to be very open with. Like, here's how we make a thing. Here's how we did a thing. Music, art, programmatically, I am a little more lost on. So I would offer very little on that.

But here, you know, learning that side of the process, I think will enhance the games in the industry. And that's what I'm disappointed with some of the bigger developers, just not talking enough. And instead, it's a lot of, I told you so, energy like someone says something stupid. And then the whole tweet comes in like, I'm talking about what you gamers. And I'm like, what if we were just more educational up front, which is what I try to do.

But I get it's kind of half-hearted for people because it's like, dude, you could be making garbage for all I know. Maybe it is garbage to you. I don't know. I definitely don't, I hope it won't be. But that's why I try to keep it caging as I want even the genre to be a surprise. I think I was messing with, I might have actually been Astro Perry King of like, I think I asked him at the event because we were talking about the game.

I don't know why he's coming to my, but I do remember asking someone like, well, what do you think it is? And the message I just asked. Yeah. Yeah. What do you think it is? And I was like, okay, interesting. It's fun for me too. Like, it's fun to watch people kind of deduce guests because I frankly, I haven't earned any investment. Like, I haven't. I don't have anything to show. I don't have a pedigree.

You know, when that's there, maybe then guests around have fun speculate, but it's really kind of cool to see people excited about it. So I want to make sure it's good for you too. So that's kind of where my head is at. But that's the deal. Great, Santini. Hopefully that makes sense. The loop, loop, the Santini. Hey, I'm Nolan Sykes, a host of past gas, the number one automotive podcast in the world.

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All right, great writings this week. We appreciate all of you being here with us for this episode of Defining Duke. Let's get started with the news. Don Demagio and Carlos Faro are returning for Gears of War, E Day to Voice, Dom and Marcus. Cog, our thoughts on this massive news, I'll be it, expected. Yeah, man, expected, but you never know these days, right? You never know, you never know how relationships are, you never know what's going on, especially with Carlos Faro, right?

Obviously, the voice of Dom, and it was so cool to see that image, to see them both together, you know, Gears fans, we know what that means, and Demagio, he's a lot of good chops, obviously, as Marcus Phoenix and also Destiny fans, I believe he was a famous character, the spider in Destiny. This guy, that tone and that gruffness is so neat. I just, yeah. I love this picture, they posted, because they're like standing in front of I think like two trash cans.

I'm just like, it's like a brick building, two trash cans, two windows, like it's very rough and tough, which I guess fits gears. It fits it, man. And I guess they just see them together, working together again, because, yeah, for John Jim, he has got a chance to work with Carlos at some time. Marcus has got chance to talk to Dom. So I just can't wait for those videos. It's funny, the reason why it's so happy to me is because I'm a triathlon with G1 nerd, right?

And one thing is, for me, obviously, the voice of Optimus Prime is iconic Peter Cullen, Autobots, you know, and then for me, personally, I'm a Frank Welker, too. He's the voice of the original Becketron. You know what I'm saying?

And that voice, so just to see, I've been watching a lot of Transformers cars with voice avenue, this voice actor, vote lately, and to see them kind of play off each other, talk how the sessions were during G1, my beloved, you know, Transformers cartoon, these guys have that chemistry, that undeniable talent. And I would imagine these two, what is it, four gears games or whatever three gears games they've done together, has to been, you know, fantastic.

So I'm happy to see those guys get brought back. Absolutely. So good news there. Good news this week to open things up. This one was interesting. Did you see the Halo 2 E3 2003 demo is now available. It's Earth City, and it's been released as a mod on Steam for the game's 20 year anniversary. And I just thought this was spectacular to see.

The YouTuber Hidden Experia did a really cool kind of playthrough of it, but it was also to watch this playthrough because like I think how people look at me with Fallout and like my geeking out of like every little facet of it is how I think a lot of Halo fans look to him. And his authentic like child like excitement for this demo was amazing to see. So I recommend people check out the video. It was really good.

But this is like something baked into the deep Halo lore that I had completely missed on. I'm curious, did you see this demo? So what does this do for you is the old or Xbox fan of the two of us, you know, you may have seen this in your time. So what does this do for you? It feels, feels, it just goes to show you again, speaking to like, you know, Peter Boer and then speaking to people around that time and them having to put together something for the audience, right?

And people forget about the days of the vertical slice and what you had to do, either it was such a thing, you had to get something to show to people what you're working on. And a lot of times I tend to stuff with, up and up in the game or some of it would be infamous as overly hyped and overmarked parts that you literally like feel the E3 demo in certain parts of the game. I always think of thief, right? Thief was a colossal let down, but there was one level.

It was the E3 level and it was like open and exploreable. And it was like this vertical slice compared to the rest of the game that was just way fucking better. I always think that would the vertical slice like please get it. You sorry. No, that's pretty much it. It just again, it just takes me back to one, how important Halo is to be what Halo 2 did and I can only imagine what I've just think about the ray gun right now because you know how much he loves Halo and the feels and what it did.

It just looks so good to see his experience, you know, childlike reaction, you know, in real time while watching it. It was awesome. So yeah, Halo is iconic. This is iconic. I don't quote me. I think it's state to help work on this. So I feel like a state connection. I remember, you know, him or members of that team, if it wasn't him, really busted it to get this thing out and to make such an impression that blue people away.

These are the things you live for and the part of game development that doesn't get enough credit to help get to the finish line and get these products that we all love. Yeah. I love stuff like Halo 2 famously had a really short, awful development cycle and people wonder what it would have been like if it got an extra year to into 2005, 2006. You'll even see things in this demo. People should check it out. Like it's really cool. For example, dual wielding was like not a feature.

It was the way if you had SMGs, you would have two at once. Like that's how it went. There's so many artistic differences. Numa Bassa looks totally different. The shields on the jackals, I think, was the alien type. They look different. There was a lot of different looking things that they have that people forget about with Halo that are now here in this mod and it's playable. It's a quick 15-minute thing. Don't want to over sell it, but really cool piece of history there for Halo 2.

So go ahead and check that out if you missed it. Check it out. Bigger surprise, though, is here. Death Stranding is now available on Xbox and Kojima Productions has confirmed that they now fully own the rights to the Death Stranding IP. David Markerm writes in, how do you gen? We were surprised with a shadow drop release in Death Stranding. So we always see Death Stranding 2 come to the platform within a year since Kojima owns the IP now or even a same date release for both consoles.

All the best, I'd like to hear your thoughts on this. I think because it was in development for PlayStation for a while, I think it's going to be a little bit. I don't think it's going to be a long time, but I view it kind of like what happened with Xbox is really late with Genshin Impact. They're getting that, I think, in a week from now as we record this. But then something like Xenless Zone Zero, Xbox is getting apparently like December. So there was a smaller gap, right?

But they were still a little bit behind. I'm viewing that kind of here with Kojima Productions. Like, yes, we get Death Stranding 1, 4 or 5 years late, but Death Stranding 2 might be like half a year, maybe a year. I'm going to go with half a year, just based on how Xbox has kind of worked these things in the past. So I think you'll see it. It'll definitely just not be a launch, would be my guess. What would you say with this, though? Yeah, this one broke right in the day after.

This is like a curse of the duke's one, though. You just missed this one, right? I'm glad that we missed it, though, because I will spoil this for our audience who doesn't skip ahead with time stamps. I am playing Death Stranding. I finally have fired it up. Please, I want comment boys on their knees thanking me for my services, all right, because I have words for you all. So please, stay tuned. I can't wait. I can't wait. We get the last thing to be said. All right.

This was a complete surprise to me, you know, from everything we knew, PlayStation owned the IP, right? So we're like, okay, PlayStation's on the IP. How is this happening? And then if we sorted news release, he's popping off. Like, can't wait to Xbox fans. You've been asking, we can't wait to deliver this to you. And I just started thinking about, like, then the news broke. I think Jess had it also had an article on it. And we find out that he gets the rights to the IP, right?

The Death Stranding IP. But that's how I look at it. It is very coincidental, not coincidental to me. The day this announcement was made, what's five years to the date of when the IP was announced with for PlayStation as inclusive. So to me, it feels like contractually something's up. Then it's probably maybe a renegotiation period. And then he gets the right back. So two things I get from that. One, he is shedding, that's how I internal, like, you kind of shedding your mercenary tag a bit.

And then he goes, hey, I'm going to just work with this company and give them exclusive, work with this company, give them exclusive. Because to me, this sends that this needs to go more places, right? Xbox PC. And then it was so weird. Because remember, Death Stranding Microsoft did a loophole with 505 to get it on the original Death Stranding on PC, which to me showed me that PlayStation didn't necessarily do their homework contractually with locking down the place.

Now for moving on, you notice that PlayStation will put in their contract. Yeah, you know, where it is going to be. But I think that's how it was able to finagle it. And that's it. But what this tells me is he wants it everywhere. Yeah. To Death Stranding too is coming. What a great marketing tool, right? To get people in the base and learn about the IP, we know Switch too is coming. We know Switch too has the performance, at least, of a PlayStation 4 and Xbox. I think he would want it there.

And I think about the TransMedia push a lot of these companies are pushing. People around, he's coming out with like a show for Death Stranding. He's coming out. He's going into his movie. That makes sense. So you want this. Right. So I agree with you. I think, look, it's already a matter of time, Death Stranding too. I'm not going to sit there and say, oh, it's definitely multi-plata release. I'm not going to go there.

But because obviously PlayStation is promoting it, but I will agree with you, the window of exclusivity will be shorter. Yeah. And I do feel whether it be six months a year, it will come to Xbox platform. So this is a big deal. The last thing I'll just say is that I think we could safely say we see a trend in terms of the mercenary mentality with the money had in with companies, right?

Where it's like, look, before we would take that bag, you've got the install base, it makes sense you're the popular brand as PlayStation. Now we're starting to see the Square Enix is the Pearl Abyss Capcom. Capcom. There. Sega Atlas. Right. We've got enough examples now. It's not just a one off anymore. It's a very good point. The exclusive money back doesn't have the appeal when they're trying to get more users on this and they're doing well.

Sega's like, hey, we love it going there and we have a potential game pass bag with certain things. But even if there's no game pass involved, just getting it out on the PC market, the Xbox market and potentially Nintendo's new system is way more financially beneficial than just to lock it down. And I think we're seeing more companies adopt this strategy. So that's how I look at. I was very surprised by this because we know the relationship. We know the history.

And yeah, I just think that it makes sense for him to get that desk trending IP to more places. So you have very surprised the only negative to all of news is it is play anyway, which is great. That's dope. And it was only $20. That was dope. $20. You're selling this thing. That's good. I had death strand and when they had the loophole on PC only and I have mad progress. I'm like, yeah, it's going to be play anywhere.

I'm like, why am I starting from the beginning and then I realized this is the directest card. Yeah. So it's a different skew. I'm like, all right. Yeah. Oh, I got a start off. But at least it's on both Xbox air because the first one you get. Did you ever talk about? Yeah, I got I got what I was saying about. Hmm. About five, six hours in. I got it. All right. I just didn't want to do it off. I play like three hours in the first two or like all cut scenes.

So if you remembered all of that, you just skip all of that, bro. You'll be caught up to where you were at no time. True. No doubted. I can't wait to talk to you about that. But definitely. I'm excited to talk about it too. All right. Next up here, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle got a gameplay deep dive or least on the Xbox YouTube channel, but that is the YouTube channel. And dude, I want to talk to you about this one, man. It looks fucking awesome.

Like I will say this and I know some people aren't surprised by it. But I was starting to have a little bit of doubt because of how they were handling the marketing. Number one, I kind of felt the early PlayStation announcement smelled a little bit desperate. Like, pre-your numbers are down. We are getting ahead of this. Come get our game. Come talk about our game, right? But on the terms of like showing it, right?

I was already critical about, okay, after the developer direct, we're going to see this again sometime. I want to see how this is moment to moment. Okay, basically so they just haven't done that. Then they had that preview event. I was invited to this preview event, but I was unable to attend it because I was reviewing a bunch of other things and it was supposed to be in New York City. They canceled that one. So they're like, hey, come fly out to San Francisco.

I was like, I fucking hate going to California. I'm good. So I'm not going to do that after flying to Cali for like two different trips in the last month. Yeah, you made a lot of it. Yeah, so yeah, to be clear, it's not me just being privileged. Like I just, I traveled a lot. I was tired. I was like, I'm going to skip out on this one and just take the L. And so what I learned after people went, played the embargo lifted is that they were not allowed to capture their own gameplay.

They were provided B-roll and that is not, it's not the end of the world. You know, hands on is better and no hands on which Bethesda did before that, right? Before that cog you and I were part of the one where they're like, hands off digital presentation, watch this. Here's a Q&A and gold report on the little cool things you heard. And I just feel like you're playing into the marketing of the game at that point, but like the information's valuable.

So you may as well just at least tell your audience about it. But I was a little worried when they were kind of being engaged with the gameplay because I'm like, this looks really good. Like I have no reason quality wise to doubt this, but their actions are suggesting there's something too high.

But then they do this and they give us a little more of a deeper glimpse, the moment to moment, the exploration, the scope of the game, the journal updating, the adventure books and the skills that you're going to get, the immersive sim vibes as you interact with objects around you and beat people over the head with them and hide bodies. Oh, man, I am so fucking on board, bro. So on board, so excited.

I mean, I thought Indiana Jones looked really great, but I did not expect it to have immersive sim qualities quite like this. You'll put on it to skies, go in there and stealth around. I was like, dude, come on now. This is beautiful. I'm loving what I'm seeing. The music, wonderful. I mean, I'm in, dude. I was already in, but I am so in. It looks great. What did you think of what you saw? I got to stay consistent. Cock has never wavered on this. I betrayed all of Xbox's IP.

The minute I saw it in the, I said, that's their game. It adds to one. I told people, I was like, now I get the criticisms were fair. I think you and he boxes had the same mindset and like, I'll get a good, but we're so with the why they keep cutting, why they keep switching, why they, and that was scary. I was scared, bro. I know, yeah, I was, I was like, okay, they just tried to show different gameplay aspects, but I get it for the person that's like, maybe you're hiding.

I'm not showing me that moment to moment. Just play the game, right? Fair. Oh, yeah, I want to see the game. We see the game and say, okay, we're going to show you. And to me, I didn't need to be convinced, but it fed us to your group. Yes, y'all needed to know a seamless few minutes of not cutting and just playing. Yeah, it can snap. Like it did, yeah. Yeah. Just a little bit of like, show me walking into his own and what that's like. And then they did that.

They're like, here's you want to vote. And then he's like, going off the track and he's like, I'm going to go explore this little temple over here and do a puzzle. Mm-hmm. I was like, perfect. That's all I wanted to know. I just want to know what was me as the player. What am I going to experience? What the only convincing I needed was moment to moment whip combat. That was all about. So when he did the lashing and money, he said, how? Did you got to get busy with that?

See, I'm about busy with the hands. Yeah. Then you hit people upside their head, something crazy. You're this, you pounded people out. It's I go, I'm going to clip on it. Yeah, yeah. I was telling you that. It's going to pounding out. The pounding out. Yeah. In the end of Joe's, the gray circle is lit. So you got that aspect. And then I just felt like the many ways to approach something, right? It was very cool. I like the adventure points where they had that ability.

If you get slumped, you get knocked out in these hats, they got that thing. It almost bars me a second with goal of duty got approach. And then you're like, all right, let's go. Let's go. I just think it just feels like that kind of blockbuster game of the summer, kind of a deal. Even though it's coming out in December. Yeah. I just, my only, I told people all the time. I love what I've seen from this game so much. My only gripe was because of the release date. It won't make me.

Yeah, maybe because now it's going to play station, the PlayStation gets it spring. That that gives it the second boost it needs to be, you know, acknowledged in a game was kind of because it looks phenomenal, man. It really does. I liked everything. I'm most of the point. I've just feel I've already been convinced of me. I was in a point of like overexposure.

I feel like I'm short too much, but I understand the moment to mom, but everything I saw, I like, I know people have the controversy first, first, first, first, first. I like deep. Bro, they made no right call with first person. This game's play. I don't know how you look at that. If you don't like first person, respect that for sure. Yes. But if you look at that game playing goal, they made a bad call doing this based on the mechanics they add in the game.

Like the stuff you see in the environment, you pick up and you put down and throw and you whip and the cutscenes are in third person. I'm like, I don't know, man. I don't agree with people's takes. That was the bad choice. I'm like, it played to their sensibilities as a developer. What they look like is making the game unique. Like how many of their person over the shoulder, superhero style games, IP tie-in games, everything. It's like, thank you. It's cool.

I'm the hashtag just one over the shoulder dude as much as anyone else, but it's just like, this looks so unique and so cool. You can't say another game is doing it and they're still giving you enough visual cues of full indie doing things in the mix. Swinging from rope to rope over something. I like what you said about the espionage. He was like, they had the, the lack of Germans and they were like, go get me the bottle. And then you went to the back. Yeah. Got the thing. You can use the table.

He said, get me the bottle. I was like, in my mouth, in my head, I'm like, I know this game well enough just by how the mechanics work that I can hit this motherfucker over the head with the bottle and just knock everyone in this room out. And that's the beauty of it, bro. That's the beauty of it. Full. And I love the last thing I'll say, puzzle mechanics in this style of a game seem really cool, very interactive. Put your hand in it. But Scorpion's running up your neck.

You put the water in the thing. I just, I just think it's a different level of interactivity that I'm not used to seeing and it makes the puzzles more realistic in life like to me. And I like that they're leaning into that. You got your puzzle, you got yourself, you got your action, you got your adventure and you know, classic in these. So I'm ready. I was already convinced this even more put me over the top and it looks like machine games may have something and that was just the execution.

Yeah. It remind me of Shadow of the Tomb Raider. Yes. That game, I think it was I, I don't know, but it had a mixture of linearity and like exploration that would be like to decide and you'd have these very unique puzzles. I like the game a lot. I thought it was pretty solid. It got like middleing reviews from what I remember, but I enjoyed it. But it just remind me a lot of that game. And so I'm excited for sure. And you know, especially the way you have visible progression with the journal.

Oh, that's so cool. It looks really good. Yeah. Love what's going on. Well, we talked about Indiana Jones gameplay and before that we're previews and how those weren't that great. And so here we have South of Midnight previews which have gone out. They were hands off. It was just a theater presentation that I think specific people in the area just got to go and check out. I know kind of funny. Paris Lily got to see it. I saw IGN got to see it.

I didn't see like many others crop up, but I admittedly didn't search hard for it just based on my sub box. Who I am subscribed to. They also posted a 30 minute documentary. I admittedly have you to watch this part, but I did watch the previews. And so I'm curious if you've caught these previews, Collegate. Do you have any thoughts on what South of Midnight is showing to these people who got to see the game early? Yeah, I didn't see you saw probably the previews and I didn't see it.

I saw the documentary which you guys told us about each other. So the documentary was kind of going through the creative director and the process, right, of them deciding on South of Midnight and then showing the background and again, going deep into Southern lore and what I was supposed to Southern fiction and basically having the creative liberties to expound upon that. And I thought that was cool and just about learning and bringing people together.

The character of Hazel and just seeing the actual model actress, I guess, and the voice actress was just really cool to see the game. It looks so much more better than it was before. I did find out that there's also, they did take some feedback for the guys like me who my only issue was with it was like, it has a very stop motion kind of thing. A lot of people loved that at first, I remember being in the theater was like, what's going on with your phrase was I didn't know what was happening.

So I thought it was a technical issue at first. So I have come to find out that you can actually eliminate that feature. You know how you can turn that off. So I thought that was cool. But as far as like them researching and them getting the information, I thought was really cool. This is a story that stories that you really don't get a lot. You don't really get what I consider like that southern by you. Yeah. You know culture. Like I've been in New Orleans. How do you feel?

If this is too personal question, obviously, it's like how do you feel they're doing with the culture and like representation? Like how do you feel about what they're doing on that front? So far very good. Obviously, I've played it. So I got to see what's going on. What are they talking about? I guess is the question. People get their mouth sniff out the bullshit, right? The way they're talking right now, I'm feeling it. I'm feeling the way she's talking the way he's talking.

I'm feeling a very, this goes on really best. But a very south New Orleans kind of. Oh boy, I'm feeling I'm feeling all this what I and it's a culture in the way people talk. And it's a culture in what's the word like mysticism and fiction. That's a very big. What's the word? It's all the time. You know what people like hexes and it's a kind of yeah, it's kind of a thing. Like it's a southern thing. And I am getting that energy. So in that sense, it feels so far authentic.

But in fairness, I need, you know, to play and see how I execute, right? You know what I'm saying there before I give it to your fish who stand, but the feeling so far is good. And I'm really excited. You know, the Hazel character seems cool so far, right? And I like it's about learning everything in these creatures in that environment and then kind of like trying to apply that into whatever the storyline. I want to sit with it, where they go with it.

But early impressions are good and ultimately all I care about right now. Does the game play look good? Does it look like something I'm being interested in? And that part looks good and seems like they're on the right track. What do you see? But I'm curious, how did the previews work? What are people saying? Yeah. What's the energy like for the people who play? I mean, well, they play, but they saw it. I guess whatever.

Yeah, it looked like right now, the thing that's speaking to everyone the most is the storytelling presentation through stop motion, of course. The music, which you can hear in any of the documentary or the previews and stuff is amazing, like really, really good stuff. But it really is that charm and animation and music to kind of aid the storytelling and the character work that's there that they got to briefly see on the gameplay front from what I watched.

It seems like people are kind of thinking it's more by the numbers 3D action game. You can dodge. You can double jump. You can air dash to platforms. It gets 3D platform in a lot of ways. But I'm very excited about that. I watch Travis Northup's preview and I love Tyga Travis. Yeah, we love Tyga Travis. Yeah, you got the influence. I should have had a call with that. I didn't even realize that. I should have had a call with him. He was married.

I'm pretty sure he was always being in the first person perspective. So I think it was him. That was definitely true. But yeah, I just thought that the way they were handling the art seemed to speak to a lot of people. And I think that's the way they were doing the game play and what they were saying for that excited me because to me, OG Xbox, right? Like I'm talking first generation of Xbox.

There were some really underrated goofy 3D platformers like Fudu Vince blinks the time sweeper I famously talking about all the time. Like there were really weird ones that Xbox did to try to get out there and compete with what PlayStation and of course what Nintendo was doing. And especially Fudu Vince is like funny enough kind of reminiscent like it was deep south vibe like the music was kind of inspired by it was the word. Yes, that was that was the word. It was a little bit of a voodoo.

Thank you. That's so cool. Yeah, but until when there was like, yeah, it's kind of a simple 3D platform. I'm like, awesome. That's to me, that's such a big part of why I fell in love with Xbox. That's why I love psycho knots too. Psycho knots too is also a, if you will, buy the numbers 3D platformer in its game play. But it's so effective because of the world around you and how the art conveys its themes. So I'm excited by just it being this, I don't know, I think Simples doing it to service.

If it's mechanically sound, which they in play, it's we don't know if it's mechanically sound, it feels good and it works. Awesome. And I definitely, from the previous I saw with the boss fight and the music and the presentation. Look, I've been a defender of compulsions games before, but this looks like leagues above what they've tried to do before. Like, there's a, you can see the budget comparatively speaking, which is good. So yeah, I was impressed, man.

It sounds, it's hands off, so I'm not going to get carried away, but it sounds like what I was hoping for and it does feel, even if it's unintentional, it feels like a call back to OG Xbox in some ways. And that has been really excited. Yeah, and I'm just excited. I believe that Adrian Ray is the voice of MoCab actress. I'm just excited, you know, to see where they go with it. And it just seems unique. And again, the initial impressions of good now, we just got to get our hands on it.

Make sure it feels good, you know, with the execution, but so far, so good. And I like that they're outside ready to show. I thought that was a little confident right there because they, you know, this next year. So pretty cool. Right now, MoCab, there's more in the world of Xbox. Like I said, really just jam packed week. Lots of shotgun blasts. I'll take it. I'll take it. It's a fun show here. Stalker 2 is gone gold and it's up for preloading now.

It'll require 147.6 gigabytes of space to install. So get that cod campaign out of there and get some stalker too in your hard drive. Aramal loner writes in Hey, dukes. Stalker 2 is just around the corner now with the developer GSC game world announcing the game has reached gold last Friday. Preloads on Xbox on Monday and extended system requirements on PC today, Tuesday. These come a month after the extremely positive previews, pardon me.

But now I ask, what are your current expectations with this game? Are there any different, are they any different? Sorry. From before we got any of these news and any of you try any of the previous trilogy games before this in just a week before it comes out. Thanks for reading. Have a good day, you two. Thank you, Rainbow, for writing in. Pog. Are we feeling stalker 2? Finally happening, right? This has been understandably a long time coming. But it's finally happening.

Got checked before release. We plan it day one. Yeah. It's very strong. It's a lot about play, but who game wise are we going to talk about? Yeah. Yeah, saying. But I got it because this one keeps, I already was interested in it, but this one keeps rising through the race. And apologies, Remy deduce because I've been seeing some riders like, yo, what y'all going to talk about? Yeah, it's fair. It's fair. It's fair for me too. I can't lie. It's been so much.

But it fed us to, you know, Xbox, they've got a lot going on now. It's like, this is that, again, it's not even for, it's been, it's been, it's been just causing the shotgun blast series, but this is one of the most amazing shotgun blasts because it's just been so many quality, great games to talk about all coming out through this one period, right? But yeah, stalker two, look, I ain't going to lie. My first hurdle was the technical thing to be, have clear that then I've been watching previews.

And I picked shot out to you. One that really put it over me was like Destiny Ligeris. I believe he had from home. Oh my God, like the way he was approaching different scenarios in stalker. Yeah, I remember watching that. Yeah. Oh, it was really impressive to me and just the possibilities. And I got a lot like, I think I don't know who said it.

It was him or someone else was like, they were hoping they were getting this from Shatter's base that that as far as from game playing and mechanics and, and just the possibilities, they were hoping that they were going to get that there. And they ended up being more than impressed with stalker, you know, is there, there a variation of it? So look, this seems hardcore. I'm curious with you because you're the fallout guy. And I'm just sensing like hardcore elements here. And I'm really impressed.

So yeah, stalker two is definitely going to get placed, definitely going to have my intention. It will be not be a miss. I'm trying to get through a couple of games before that. And I'll tell you my, my disappointment with one that I thought I would be through it. But yeah, but I'm not. So it's keeping me longer, which is preventing me from doing something else that I need to do, which then leads me into stalker. So those are the things that I'll tell you what it gets to what games I'm playing.

But yeah, definitely stalker to a man. Very exciting, super pumped. This looks like two people even said it. I think we'll talk about Phil and some other, a lot of people are talking, I think jazz, jazz was another one talking some goady energy as well too. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'm very excited. I mean, obviously is a huge fallout fan. And I've had this series recommended to me for a long while. And I never really gave it a shot because I didn't have the hunger to check it out.

And I know very little about it. But once stalker to his announced that's where I was, I was game pass. I was like, okay, I'll get to it. It got delayed so many times. Then they do the, the trilogy and they bring those to modern platforms. And I'm like, okay. Now do I play all of these before? I just knew it wasn't realistic for me to like, it's optimistic thinking for me to think I can bang out a whole trilogy of games.

And when I'm already like trying to beat other games review and beat other games that are just coming out this year. So I was like, okay, I'm doing a little optimistic thinking I'm going to choose to work it backwards. Like let's start with stalker to see what this game offers me. And if I love it, I got plenty more to dive into. But as a fallout fan, like, especially in the lead up to fallout for so many fans of that franchise were like, please try it. Please try. You will love this.

Like if you love fallout, you will love this. And they're like insisting like, hey, it's very different from fallout, but the vibe, the exploration, the kind of flow that this game series provides is very, but there's the game studios reminiscent and you personally would adore it. So I feel like this could be one that really sneaks up on me because it, I mean, look, do we run an Xbox show and it kind of slipped my radar that way. And at this point, I've just seen whatever they've shown publicly.

I've watched one preview of the Destin when you talked about. Yes. But otherwise, I've just kind of been like, because it's been delayed so many times and understandably. I feel like in my head, I'm pressuring them if I'm just like, you know, okay, like, where is it? This looks so good. It's like, yeah, there's a war going on. They're trying to make a game at the same time. Like I, I would just play it when it's, when it's out. And now it's coming out next week.

So I'm excited to check it out, see what's going on there. But yeah, having extremely positive previews and stuff, I have to say this. Just for the sake of conversation is, it's, it's a developer in a tough spot. And there are, there is typically curving when that happens. I mean, I, that's fair. Let's be fair. I think the same thing got Apple Dragon Age. And that's not because I gave it a skating review, but I think those scores were a little high.

If the, if the studio was not in a existential position, I think those scores may have been a little bit more team. And I think some of the verbiage surrounding them may have been teaming out of people can't like it. But I don't think bio wears back 10 out of 10 is exactly indicative of what they deliver there, personally speaking. Yeah. You know, but so I will just say that they extremely positive previews are like, I'll, it's on game pass. I'll play and decide for myself.

I encourage the audience to do the same thing. Playing to, I mean, right? So with the file size. Maybe not. Maybe not. Maybe not. Yeah. Maybe not, but if you don't have good internet, but point being is, I, when I saw those, I was like, look, cool. I'm glad people are liking it. But I also understand that this is a studio in a tough position. This game is like extremely important to them. So it's going to hit hard. It's going to be heavy hitting, man.

It's, it's not, it's going to be one of those things where kind of like with Dragon Age, it's going to be a test for a lot of reviewers. Like, can you be fair and assess things? You're muted right now. Now, you're still muted. Sorry. No, I'm sorry to interrupt you. I know what you meant. Like, I didn't interrupt because I was muted. But I'm sorry to interrupt you. It says that I know what you mean. Can you be objective with the state of the studio if there are flaws with the game, right?

And regardless, even though we understand, but we understand fairness. I know where you're going. Yeah. So I feel like it's going to be great. It looks great. There's no real reason for me to doubt it. They've had a ton of time with it. Xbox has been really patient with them and support them in any way. They can, which I think is great to have in a partner. So yeah, there's a lot here where I'm not discouraged.

But it's just, you know, for me, the previous didn't do that level of like, oh my God, let's go. It's, you know, I think for me, the reason why I'm a little optimistic because you made a fantastic point. And that is, most people are scared to say what you just said. That's why I love you with you. The good thing is where I got optimistic was digital foundry because I'm a man.

I'm a deeper ray with you because when I preview this game, I was like, man, they got to get the technical part together on one thing because I was like, this but the game got a lot of potential. But I was like, man, he got some nonsense and things. I'm like, woo in the frame. I'm like, woo, right. And that was PC. So I'm like, all right, we'll see.

And again, I'm the type, I'll tell you what you want to hear what you need to hear because when the preview is over, I'm going to pull you to the side as a dev. I'm going to be like, all right, here's the things I wrote down. I did this, what replace it. I did this for Stalker. I said, hey, guys, this is what you got to, you know what I'm saying? And they were like, nope, we glad you said that. One developer kept the real was like, hey, we were not ready to show just yet.

But as you said that, we've taken that to the team. This developer is like, no, fair enough. We are aware of that. Cool. And my thing is, Dan, but you're coming out in Stalker's case. You're coming out this year. How much time is it really? So I was a little concerned. I'm beyond it. But I want to keep that rapture too. It was time for release to see what happened where they started to win me over was Gamescom.

When Digital Foundry got a hold of it and was screaming, the technical was, they were raving. So I was like, oh, they've made a level up between that time and they came through. So that part, and I still doesn't excuse if the game is good or not. We still have to play the game and see if that's good. But the technical part, which I was really worried about, they have exceeded the bar of where I was worried. I was like, okay. And then I heard 60.

I'm like, you know, here are 60 on top of these days. You can tell it's a thing as we've learned. Yes. Yes. So you know, we're going to keep it real with that. So that's why I'm a little hopeful because if they're able to do that much of a technical jump in that short of a time, now let's see if they can execute on a game that's so far the previews are very promising. So a good point on the call out on a curve based on our empathy for what a studio is in a real life situation.

Yeah. It's like, I mean, we're very lucky to do what we do for living, but it's been the toughest part of the job for me this year. It's like knowing companies are in shit spots, like BioWare. And how much I love BioWare knowing like, I know this video is going to do well. Am I writing a fucking death sentence right now? It's like, I got to be real. I can't live myself if I got a lie. It's just how I've been raised. And so I get it though. It's not fun at all. So I'm, I'm pulvered up.

I think it looks great. I think it's, I think it's going to be great. I'll be shocked if it comes out to like, middling reviews, but time will tell. We'll find out next week because we'll be sitting here talking about after playing things. Exactly. All right. Well, let's talk about my franchise. Fallout, Phil Spencer had some words on the future of fallout games. He was reported by inverse.

This comes from IGN, Microsoft Gaming, she, Phil Spencer touched on this issue while speaking at New York's annual Palais International Summit. Phil Spencer's just everywhere, bro. Like he's just everywhere, man. This guy's got to have a teleporter. Phil is outside.

Then again, like there was some people, I don't mean to talk about someone's physical appearance, but I was a little worried at the image that Bloomberg used for filling a lot of people were looking at kind of where Phil, like what do you look like physically? Physically. He's lost weight. He looks great in that regard. He's tired and like the job is aged in. I feel bad, man. It sucks. I will say this. I do agree that he looked like a little sleep. I think it was a bad image though. Right.

The image was a little wild, but I will say to your point, when I saw the image of him was about a year ago, being that we want our health as wealth, I was like the face was full and I'm like, oh, he's not taking care of himself a little bit. Maybe he could do a bad eating or a diet because I could see the difference. But now at least I'm more happy with this because it seems like he's done a better job on weight and whatever he got to do because that's more important.

Now we're just going to start. But I'm Phil. He's probably listening, health as well. Health as well Phil. Let's see. I'm proud of him. Well, Spencer acknowledged the lack of a new Fallout game. He didn't insist everyone involved in a benefiting firmate. Quote, we didn't have a new game lined up for launch.

Spencer said, I actually think that gave us some creative liberty that we wouldn't have had if we tried to coordinate production of two very different creative processes to land at the same time and quote. I mentioned a creative liberty as a reference to the Fallout TV shows Canon status and the fact that it takes place after all of the existing Fallout games. Well, this is meant that Fallout lore fans have analyzed the show to within an inch of its life. It's really good way of boarding it.

It's crazy. It's really able to move on from what's gone on before and tell a brand new story. It's a new post Fallout 4 video game had come out at the same time. But that's then TV showrunners would have faced a tricky job ensuring that their Fallout timeline ducks were in a row. Of course, a brand new Fallout game is coming out. Todd Howard obviously confirmed that. But for Microsoft's part, it's comfortable missing out on the TV show fueled sales of a new Fallout game quote.

The play is much more long term than trying to buy, than trying to drive some gift buying and quote Spencer said quote for other Fallout games in the future. You know, obviously I can't talk about those now, but I would say sort of rushing through them or we kind of need to get stuff out that is different than the work we're doing in 76. We don't feel we need to rush any of that, he said. The Fallout TV show feels a certain niche in the terms of the franchise and storytelling and quote.

I hate it because he's kind of right. Like I'm in acceptance phase now, everyone. That's where Maddie's at. Let's talk to him. I hate it because he's right. You know, the reality is with this is I mean, Fallout's bigger than ever and there is in a game out. Let's be real like show came out. It put the brand completely on the map on a level. We thought Fallout 4 was the peak. Like if you ESPN was covering it because they had the Fenway Park in there is Diamond City.

Like people were like, oh my god, this is it. Like Fallout's a big break up. Nope, this was actually at this year and there was no game involved. The game's around it benefited, but there was no game involved. So there's a truth to it that I have to accept and that yeah, man, like Fallout is a needs a new game. No doubt. But you look at this show and it's successful. You go, you can come whenever. Like I'm in their position, they're comfortable. It's like, oh, our game sold more.

Everything around it did better. We didn't have to coordinate anything and we can take our time and make it good. All right. And especially they're already filming season two. I'm sure by next year we'll see season two of Fallout. Yeah. You know, so they already said like we're they were writing season two already like as season one was launching. So they've been working out for a while and now they're filming it and the sets are good to go and they have a lot of the props good to go.

Like I think they'll bang out season two really quick. I could see it top of 2026. I could imagine it, man. They wouldn't be surprising at all. So I don't think we'll have to wait too long to see more Fallout in any sense soon. There is definitely still Fallout projects in development. This statement confirms that again. So there is still that which Todd already said as much, but there's nothing they can say now. So Fallout fans just join me. Take a breath. We're going to be getting fed soon.

Like that's what's happening. They're because what the thing that's bringing me solace is they're going to be all y'all really like that. Don't you? Oh, I'll be you like to be you know is that much wants get to work now you hear this multiple Fallout games in production. I'm like, Fallout fans, there might come a time five years from now, you'll sit here and go so much fall out, bro. I miss when it was a unique niche kind of thing and y'all be barking up a different trail. I'll be I'll be there.

They're all don't don't get it twisted, but you're backstroke it. I will be. See, that's that's my word on it. What is yours? Well, I do feel about what Phil is saying on the future of Fallout before I do that. I am surprised why you would just say I was expecting a different response. I did. I did. I wanted to get upset. But the more I looked at it, I was like, what am I going to do? Bitch and moan again. Like, this is what it is. And what does this mean?

It means that the franchise is doing well. And that's that makes me happy. I'm a total fucking sin for Fallout. So makes me happy to see. I respect that. Um, yeah, like this, this one, when I obviously I read it and, um, you know, he's talking about the success of not trying to like almost, what is the verb is almost like not shoehorn in or that kind of energy, you know, you know, creative liberty, you know, I get it. And ultimately they were right, right?

And from a corporate standpoint, we get it. It's bigger as it's ever been. And this is what I still going to fall on this sort of. It's a part of me that feels that they didn't know how this would lead. And it's fair to them. No one knew it was going to be this, right? So now that we know it is this, it is the literal zeitgeist fallout is as big as it's ever been. Okay, cool. Now you get your creative teams together. Now you're working on, okay, cool.

All I'm saying is we know there is season two. Right. We know that now. Because this thing is hot and it fresh grease. Right? I think it would be who of you at minimum. Let's have a fallout remaster with one of the old joints. How about we put the promotion for the new, the remaster of the old joint, baked into the show after the credits. So you know the goal. Hey, like what you said, guess what's out right now? You could go get, come on bro.

I feel like a new Vegas remaster with where the show season one is trending is like, I would argue and I love fallout three more than the Vegas, but that is like, dude, you guys are dumb as fuck if you don't do anything. Anything. I get full out five. I get that productions. You there's no way to line it up. Fair. You right now know you got the hottest thing. Yeah. It would be who of you in my opinion have it lined up because one thing to say about PlayStation.

Well, last of us show us out that rebaster, rebaster was ready to go. It's about, remember, we're in the age of trans media, movie, you know, cartoon, game in the same hemisphere and pocket. Let's just get full out this get a 76 or one of the old. What was the one on the on the leaks? What was it? Full out free remaster? Come on, bro, it's time. That's all I'm trying to say you know now. Fair enough before you know now. So this is why I'm going to push back when you feel get the remaster going.

Get that. Yeah. Now you know, right? There's no question marks. Like you said, you know, I mean, I feel like you kind of had to know before. Not that like people would love it this much, but you had to know like fallout is fallout. Like, yeah, this is the main thing that I think you bought that Nell's or scrolls you bought with us to for like that was the their version of Call of Duty. Like that was the highest grossing shit you bought in that acquisition. That's why you paid 7.5 billion.

So yes, you know, part of the delay, I think is inexcusable, but to not line up with the show, I get it because if we're on the other end of a really bad season one, we're like, and it was terrible. It is laughable. Yeah, what's going on? That's fair. I'll give him that. But yeah, for now that we know, yeah, let's go. Yeah. I still think it can happen the opposite way. Like they can drop season two. It could be awful. I think a demand for the game would have existed either way.

Like it would have been like see fallout should have never been a show. It should always be a game. Give us a game. Yeah, sorry, 2020 type of energy. Yeah, but this definitely propels them in the right direction where when they drop a game, oh man, oh man, those sales are going to be nuts. Let's go. All right, next up here, cod call of duty data miners. Von D is Pog and cod warfare form have claimed that black ops six will feature collaborations with Halo, Gears of War and Doom soon.

Sir, how are we feeling about this? This is kind of the stuff we were talking about. Get the Xbox brand integrated a little bit more thoughts on this. That's what I'm talking about. Let's go. Let's go. This is what you got to do. Associated with your brand and you got the hottest IP. We saw all the early projections as far as a Sercona map. It's got to put it out there. The thing is still ongoing right now.

So an update from him that was still talking about the highest percentage of active users on each platform, primarily predominantly playing quality over any of the, oh, and since our last Duke took the number one spot for fortnight. Wow. Yes. Again, hotter than fish grease right now. So they've got it now. You integrate your other IPs into that. Oh, yeah, you want that call or do you want that Halo? You want that Gears of War skin? This is what we were saying though.

When they acquired them, they're like, you got to do this. And so it's, I feel seen with this one. Am I good? Because like, you know, we were saying we can't be crushed. You know, you're going to see like fucking Santa was dropping like little candy pieces from the top or some crap, but like, you know, like that. This is the goal though. Grow the brand awareness, right? Like throw your shit in there. Like Doom's coming out soon, right? Doom said, we forget. Doom's a 2025 game. The dark ages.

I completely forgot until this moment. Yeah. So yeah, bro, you got, you got to drop that in there. You know, Doom's coming up. Halo's coming up, right? 25th anniversary soon. Gears of War is coming up. Good time to remind people. I don't want to oversell it. But like these clubs are big. There's no reason this shouldn't be the case when you have like attack on Titan, like a call duty game. You know, it's a good call around. Absolutely. All right. Next up here, just a little bit of news.

Spiral reignite trilogy is now available in Xbox Game Pass. You have any experience with this one? I have no Spiral experience. I've never played a Spiral game. It's going to be a short segment. Same. Wow. We also we brand new. Okay. Yeah. I didn't know. Let's look at that, man. I'm curious. They got let go, but then they got a deal and then they got to deal with. Oh, it was about. Twice for Bob, right? That's that's them, right?

Yep. Yeah. Interesting as all I will say, you know, you're going on. Yeah, you're in a. All right. Next up here, Warner Bros is following through the floor, bro. I don't know how the fuck they're still in business. Warner Bros Discovery CFO Gunner Windive Fells on Multiverse in an earning calls shared this quote. We took another 100 million plus in pair made due to the underperforming releases primarily multiverse is this quarter.

I only left because like he just directly shots it out like this is why, you know, same thing they did with suicide. Like this is why. Anyway, bringing down the total right down year to date to over 300 million in our games business, a key factor in this year's studio profit decline and quote, IGN also reports that earnings during the earnings call Harry Potter, Quidditch champions did not do much either. So it was up a reported $200 million loss from WB at the top of 2024.

Thanks to suicide squad killed the Justice League and the company's revenue is down 31% year over year with last year's highlight being, of course, Mortal Kombat one and then hard worst legacy. So they made some good money with that sort of stuff, but Cog, man. This is number one when multiverse is the most unsurprising shit ever. And they pulled that from the market and planned to re-launch just, I don't know what these companies tell themselves when they're doing this.

Like we're totally going to like the internet on fire a second time by re-releasing this game. Like that's the vibe I got. Like this will totally catch on again. It's like no, smash needed a competitor, even though you had stuff to work on. You were out there with like the roster and the excitement and the online multiplayer and the 2v2 like you had your own identity. You had the memes, you had the shaggy who was like doing suit ultra instinct. Like you had it all.

Why did you pull this from the market? Pretend it was a beta by lying and then do another full release. It was just like the player base barely fell off by comparison to where it's at now. It would be doing way better if they just kept it out. And I remember when we covered this when they pulled out, I was like, what are they doing? They're like, there was a beta. There was an open beta the whole time. Yeah, remember that. I was like, what the fuck did you even say that? You just released it.

And what the player numbers fell off. So you were like, let's go back to the drawing board. I think it was gone for too long and this goes to what I said, dude. Right? I'm sorry. I don't mean to eat up all the talking points. Top it. It's really just a live service talking point about this is such a tough genre to crack. And you know that better than anyone. But like it doesn't, it used to be like, oh, you're a looter shooter. That's tough to get into.

But like, dude, you're just the flavor of the week nowadays. I don't know why anyone's pursuing it quite frankly because I think even when you catch the zikas, I always go to the finals. The finals is doing okay, but like compared to when it launched versus where it's at now, it's like people are just looking for the next little thing. It's marathon. Okay, we're going to drop into marathons if it's free to play that is. We're going to see what's going on there. Okay, that was fun. What's next?

And some people stick around and they kind of live off that, famy. So I don't know, dude, I just look at this and I'm like, what do these companies tell themselves with WB especially? Their live service push has been historically bad, historically bad between suicide squad and now multiverses in the management of that. They are completely saved by high words like a seam. They're probably sitting there going hog leg to cannot come any sooner.

So unsurprising news in one manner speaking, but just it's staggering how bad they're doing. So what are your thoughts on WB's performance thus far? Yeah, and this is, man, they're really creating a bit here. You know, the multiverses which is such a gut punch and, you know, and again, the decision, like you said, to bring it back and the same as banning and, you know, to go through this. And they see the earnings go literally point the figure. That is wild.

I mean, whatever like it is that is that that's the reason. Oh, because I'm sure investors are looking like, dude, what is happening? Like you guys are losing so much money. Like they're on a similar decline in my opinion to like what you yourself is doing, but they're just done after done and it's going to eat them up for years. Yeah. And obviously, suicide squad helped no one do much favors there. You know, to me, you got to, you got to get back to basics.

And the first order of business is you are literally sitting on the goal mind that is Harry Potter, right? So it's time to dig back into create. If it was me, I would also, but who of you to understand that your base really loves the Arkham series? And like let's get back on focus to what you do. It's almost like, I don't want to say to that level, but it's your way to assassins creed the situation with a base that is rabid for classic Batman games in that form, right?

Yeah. So let's, let's play with that. You got too cute. And you tried to chase the trends. You try to do what was the other one? The Gotham Knights and you tried to work. How I can write it? You know, say remember that. It just did so. So now he is, you said it perfectly. He says that life service is so difficult because it's not only do you have to catch the wave in the beginning, you got to sustain it. That is the harder and that's why all my destiny haters, you got to give people this.

It is probably one of the most sustainable. It's like longevity and durable and goes through these ups down, but it's still managing. People would love to have even right now in a down destiny time to love to have that base because they've been through the fire and keep doing things that keep you engaged. And that's the thing. You have to flavor them up. These kids are like squirrel, new thing. Literally. Yeah. You're out. You know, rivals might go through the same thing soon.

Like I, it's tough. It's tough. It's tough. It's amazing. You're not immune to failure. It doesn't matter what your IP is. Like they probably won't be suicidal because they're like, it's, it's, of course, it's a big superhero game. How could this fail? It's like people will start so give them good shit and they'll stick. Look at the player numbers for space marine too. Like it's just, it's so telling. It's just like give them good shit. They'll stick.

Yep. And even that is tough because of the competition. There's always a new flavor to love. You always fight quality. Do it outside now. Like it's tough. So yeah, I'm pulling for Warner Bros. Cover the IPs that they have, but yeah, they've got it up. Hill battle. This is not going to be easy for them. So I bless on this one. I'm sure priority one is getting something Batman related going. That's like main line. I mean, they have questions. They have to answer.

Like suicide squad, they make a choice with a cannon Batman that they're, that they was the Arkham Batman and they're like, you've kind of got some explaining to do first before you get to whatever is. I feel like they'll go the remake route. Like I think I really think they're going to go back to the like nostalgia well. Like what is safe? Yeah. What is safe? That's big budget that will, you know, be marketable and we can produce the line.

I think they'll go back and just remake old Arkham games, like especially just dude, rock steady lost all the talent that made those Arkham games. So you know, there's a whole different team there. So it's a good point. It's similar to Bioware, right? Like yes, yes.

You know, we see what happens when the staff that made origins in two is not the ones working on Inquisition and Inquisition there was a lot of carry over, but Velgard such a totally different feel, totally different creative approach. And I can see a similar thing happening here if they went back and did Batman Arkham whatever to their credit though to WB's credit. No one's really talking about Arkham shadow on VR, which is apparently phenomenal.

And it brings back Roger Craig Smith and it's like almost a sequel to Origins, which is another game that for some reason, WB does not acknowledge, but there is good things happening in the Batman verse, but now they need it on a, you know, console. Yes, absolutely. And you're literally sitting on the biggest single player goal mind in Harry Potter. And we know that they work it all. So yeah, you got to get back to that. It was you would be in college with a single player.

Yeah, get back to that. Yeah. 100%. All right. Next one here is great news. GOG announces a game preservation program as described on their website. They say the GOG game preservation program ensures classic games remain playable on modern systems, even after the developers have stopped supporting them by maintaining these iconic titles. GOG helps protect and relive memories that shaped you DRM free and with dedicated tech support.

And they may be like a whole trailer about this saying like, you know, we're investing our own resources to ensure that these games are are playable on modern platforms. And I'll read an example in a little bit, but I mean, there's ones even in here like Fallout, New Vegas, System Shock 2, like the jick classics vampire, their mass grade bloodlines. I encourage people to go check out their game preservation programs, 100 games here.

For example, they broke down, they have like a drop down bar on their website, like see what we had improved for which game was it here? I think it was a Resident Evil bundle. This is the change log that they did. And this is across all three of the original Resident Evil games, right? So let's say you're not interested in remakes or remasters, anything like that. These are the originals.

What they did is said all four localizations for Resident Evil 1, all four localizations of the game included in English, German, French, Japanese, improved DirectX game renderer, new rendering options, so window mode, vertical sync, V sync mode, control, gamma correction, integer scaling, anti aliasing and more, improved timing of cutscenes, improved game video player, improved game registry settings, issue free game exit and task switching.

So that's a big problem with old games is like once you tab out your fuck full support for modern controllers, validity, velvillified stability, verified compatibility with Windows 10 and 11 added cloud save support.

And it's the same thing Resident Evil 2 improved cutscenes and subtitles, improved save game manager, improved audio and volume and panning, new rendering options again, issue list game exit, Resident Evil 3, same thing here, improved graphics engine, initialization and restart, improved video stub titles, issue list tasks switching again, stability for Windows 10 and 11, cloud save support. And the list goes on.

So I have what you're two in here, what you're ones in here, fall out one is here, fall out and the biggest I mentioned is here, dragon age origins is here. And this is important because this is a digital platform doing this. This is a digital platform where games are going and GOG has earned my full fucking respect and support for this. Like to the point where I'm kind of looking at valve going, hello, can you, can you match that? I might go spend my money elsewhere, at least on these games.

I don't need them on steam. If they are, if they are safe here, GOG has always done the DRM free approach, but this is phenomenal to see from a digital distributor. Like we're investing our resources to keep these alive. That gets me over there, looking at their storefront, want to buy in mass their games because I know they'll be safe there. So huge, huge announcement in my opinion. What are your thoughts on this game preservation program? Thank you for bringing this to my attention.

I had no idea about this. Obviously, I've always heard great things about GOG and international regions and stuff. And this is phenomenal. This is wow. Like, we always talk about great preservation on Duke. And I think that kind of the thing we kind of alluded to was like a museum and things of that nature, but to your point, games are going digital, right? This is where things are shifting. We're seeing the splits. We're seeing, even with Xbox, we talked about the, what is it?

49% on series S, a digital only console. We talk about PC all the time. How, like, let's be honest, they were pioneering the digital thing before everyone else. And to see a digital only platform produced this initiative, have those stamps, offer that level of functionality, I'm sure, functionality. And preservation is huge. That's where game needs to go because we can't have these moments lost to time. Yeah. You just can't. This is what I expect this to be an industry-wide initiative.

And to see them getting in front of it, I ain't going front. Like, making me look at GOG, like, I'm not to get some stuff on this platform because I don't want certain things to go away. There's certain experiences that are just timeless that you can't access anymore. That's why I never got mad at the modding community and all that other stuff because at least they were trying to preserve things that, you know, people were taking it apart. And I know we talked about like, Marvel arrows.

Remember, like, we were going off last week and found out there's a community trying to bring that and save that game, you know, that again, for whatever reason. And that story was tragic, you know, saying apparently like one person did something at the company, it created a fiasco and the big, the higher ups didn't want to have anything to do it and pull the game. Just like that. A game can go. So, yeah, this is, this is important. Shout out to GOG. This is, wow. Yeah. I love it. I love it.

Great news. Great news. So I will be taking my business there for at least these retro classics. And to their, to their credit, they have done bug fixes in the past. So I pulled out three on Steam before Bethesda came in and dropped a patch three years ago. I think it was, was terrible. If you wanted to play Fallout 3 on PC, you had to go play on GOG because they went in and they bug fixed gave its stability. It supported like modern operating systems.

Wow. And it was a huge difference maker because otherwise, that's why a lot of people went and played New Vegas because it would run fine on modern platforms. So again, shout out to them. They've been doing this for a while, but they've really made it a full initiative now. And really put a stamp on it and it's called a good old game. Like when you see the good old game stamp, they've done that kind of game preservation initiative on it, which is awesome to see. No, shout out to them.

Take notice. Yeah. For real. If Xbox had it for, I've always, we'll talk about the handheld in a little bit. You get GOG on there as one of the many launchers I hope you support. That'd be great. Well, love to access my classic games that I know are mine. Right. And have that piece of mine. Yep. This a going. I can get behind a little digital future if I know that this type of shit's going down. You know, it's not perfect, but it's it's a step in the right direction. Yeah, absolutely. All right.

Well, on the other end of this, I sometimes lay out the news more deliberately, but this script and what I've laid out has actually been perfect in the way just these topics are bouncing off each other. But this one I didn't plan on until now, I'm reading it. Sega is delisting a ton of retro classics. And we got them right here.

They put this on their support page in a Q&A saying that these will remain in your library available to download and play after they've removed from the storefront, but they're not going to be available to purchase. Those games are you'll notice the titles here. I got one get your thoughts as a Sega kid first altered beast crazy taxi Sega Genesis classics specifically says in parentheses mega drive classics. Golden X monster world nights into dreams. Sega bass fishing.

What a classic that is, man. Shinobi sonic the fighters, Streets of Rage, SVC, Toja and Earl and Virtua fighter to now all of this comes hot on the heels of Sega announcing very good half year results where they've seen a 22% rise in revenue. So cog, what are our thoughts on what's going on here with Sega and their delisting of retro classics? You're muted again, bro. Sorry, I'm unprofessional. Painful. Pain, I'm so hurt. I have muted. Bro, painful, painful arm.

This is literally the soundtrack to my childhood, like all of these games. And then, you know, for me, the Sega classics collection was always like that. Okay, they're all housed here. You know, I remember booting it up and it had like a old Genesis retro feel. It puts the cartridge in the slot like you're in your old, you know, bedroom back in the day.

The hope is, obviously we know Super gaming on some, but the hope is that you have some form of collection or something coming up because this is literally the DNA of who you are. We are delisting for what? You know, so, and then the other thing is, you know, there's many collections that are like, you know, Saturn and Dreamcast and, you know, I'm hoping again, I'm trying not to get to create.

I am hoping that there's something on the horizon that is going to consolidate this because this makes no sense. This is literally be the equivalent of a ten, you're like, all right, guys, Mario Zelda, everything you love from us. So long available for what is going on here. Do you think this has to do with the Super game? Maybe not the Super game, but these five remakes reboots that they're doing. Like golden or golden axe is one of them.

So do you think maybe this is part of, because some of them are weird like nights into dreams or Sega bass fishing. I'm like, you're not doing anything with those. So why are you removing them? Oh, really? Fantasy star series like this generation, y'all know about the fantasy story, that ain't fantasy story. The greatest JRPG's of all time, fantasy star two, fantasy star four. Like you can't get these anywhere, you know, and I am worried.

So what I would implore everyone to do is get the classics down because you don't know what they're going to do, right? The hope is that they are going to bring some type of compilation and all this is going to be accessible. Again. literally the DNA of Sega and this is concerning. I am sorry. Like why now and without any explanation of what you plan to do with them. So gun star heroes, bro. Like Lance Dalker was there Zelda competitor,

like space at streets of what are we doing? So again, I'm trying not to be hyperbolic. I don't like it. But what I would say is if you have not owned or purchased, just stored the safe side, get in there in case any gaps happen. My prediction is that they are doing some form of compilation. I'm hoping. But hey, you never know. You never know. Yeah, they do have

Sega Genesis classics that kind of re-release collection. It's described as including over 50 titles across all genres from all-time classes like Sonic and Streets of Rage 2 to Deep RPGs, like Fantasy Star, Classic Arcade Shooters, beat em up puzzles, old favorites. I remember this was on the 360. They've reported this and this was released in 2018 on the PS4. So it's available on in turn like the PS5, Xbox Series X. So does that ease any of your concerns knowing that collection

exists? I mean, what ease my concern is like one of the bigger ones was the Sega Genesis classics bundle. You know, that had pretty much 70% of this stuff already. So like I would highly advise people to get that just in case. Come on. Go get it. Physical roles. Do what you got to do to get the Genesis. I would say the Genesis because that house is about 75% of this. But yeah, man, this is this is very strange news. And as a kid, I just hope that they have a solution for this

because this makes no sense to deal with it. Yeah, we'll see what happens. I think their future remakes and reboots have a lot to do with this sort of decision making. So we'll see. Last thing I'll say. We did with like Sonic, like they do a generations even, like they're trying to replace their old work pretty much. And I get try to promote the new new, but what if we don't like the new new? What if what if what if you go to me now? Yeah, what if you go too far

and we like, nah, this doesn't catch the spirit. These streets and raised games and the Shinovy games, these are the ones. And now we can't go back to them. Say, no, that's not what we grew up with. Don't get too fully yourself now that you get in the bag. That's my only concern, bro. Like, don't do that because if you don't like this new joint, I'm going back to the old drink. Tell you how we used to do it. And this is the real over here. Shout out to God. I love it. Yeah.

All right. Well, next up, cog 2k is opened up on their future games lineup. Civ 7 is arriving February 11, 2025 with WWE 2k 25 arriving before April of 2025 in the the window of fiscal year 25 GTA 6 is still in fall of 2025 and during that same earning call, they actually spoke about the series as performance for GTA 6 saying that they're not concerned at all about it. Meanwhile, fiscal year 2026 holds borderlands for and mafia, the old country, but

the standout to me was Judas, which is still TBA. Doesn't even have a year. I don't know what the fuck's going on with that game, man. Like, it looks really great. Fresh beer net win again. That's the Ken Levine game. Oh, the Vee joy story games. Yeah. And they did previews recently. I know skill up, Jacob, I know they went and checked it out a few other. I think what to go check it out. They were like, yeah, it's like really great. And like, you can feel the bio shock five and all

that stuff. But why do you preview for something that's still like TBA? I don't know. It's just so weird. Like that did not even say like 2026. I don't know. Yeah. A little, unless they just were specifically told by Ken, like, please don't put any sort of window on it. We're about to announce it like the game awards. You know, let's let's have that moment. I hope so. But that was the one that stood out to me like a sore thumb. I was like, how do all the how do we have a date for like

mafia, the old country? But we don't have one for Judas, which has been development for a stupid long time. Like, it's got to deliver man at this point. Like, Ken's got to deliver a masterpiece. Which I think you will have no doubt in my man. But what do you think of of this release line up? Any thoughts? Yeah. Um, thank you for the catch on Judas. I get listen, everything every bit of research I've done with Levine and 2K. The vibe I get is he has a lot of power in that building

and a lot of investment potential. So they the vibe I'm getting is leave him alone until it's ready. Which is insane amount of car launch and trust that they have in him. You know, obviously, after getting him. So that's what I'm getting. But I'm with you. TPA is very interesting. Like, we are not even willing to pull the date on it. So, you know, I got to deliver. So I think I internalize that as they're giving him the time he needs. And when he's ready, they'll give him

his moment. As far as the rest of this news and the earnings call I did, I do have to talk about the the series. That's thing I thought was very interesting because Charles Seldick was like, look, we don't have any, we don't anticipate any trouble bring this on the series. And again, not to pop off, but I've always said it's always a problem. I've asked developers behind the scene. Forget Xbox. I'm asking developer. Bro, let's up with the series. If it's having the problem,

let me know the real and it's cool. I have I listen, I have no problem accepting if the receipt is a paid it. What's the issue? And it's always the same answer. Developer time, resources and talent. And depending on those three factors, it can be done. Right. So what that told me when he's shouting from the rooftops, that rocks. So yeah, we got no problem with that. We that's going it. That's no issue. We go with the with the bases are and that to me, Toby, everything I needed to

hear. You know what I remind me of? Nintendo switch. Remember how, what should we get all these magical ports? All these, we like, how are they able to do this sorcery to get it onto the the, oh, when you got a base, oh, you're going to find a way. And you got a reason. And the safety with the series is now that we filed out 49% is oh, they're going to find a way. Now, I ain't going to say no 60 frames per second way with the way with with GTA six and the resource

of the CPU intensive energy of that. But they're going to find so I thought that was interesting that because I feel like they try to hit him with a gotcha question. But he jumped all over that. And that to me show me it. They've got the resource. Yeah. Which is I mean, rock star of anyone should have those resources. But I am keen to see how that performs on on series. Absolutely. Now we might have be out of seven 20 or something, but we might get this. Yeah. What I'm saying,

like he's not saying how they're going to get it. He's saying that. But it's going to be it. I'm going to tell if it is at 70 to 720 for whatever reason that PS5 pro comparison might be pretty brutal for Xbox. True, true. Especially if the key for PS5 pro, if they, if they can hit 60, see this, that's why my trepidation with them everything with the older stuff really has it, you know, I'm not impressed by that. You impress me. You do GTA at 60.

Dylan's going to be a conversation. That's a system that's totally going to be defined by it's back in pat showing. I think it's been really underwhelming. Like I was watching every video. I was like, no, this doesn't like I was keeping it open. I was like, no, but looking ahead, I'm like, if you can make other games built within this in mind, much better than you might have

my attention now $800 have my attention. No, but you know, if you do a little price cut and maybe a version with the disk drive built in that I want to pay like $80 for with the stand packaged in I want to be 24. We released that we released that 30-fail additional gray. Yeah, you know, make it a big second run. Second run of the collectible would be nice. I would be not attention. Yeah,

undercut the scalpers all that fun stuff. I'm really interested. Next up, colleagues, sticking with 2K GTA Trilogy Definitive Edition got a surprise update two years after it's launched, including

features placed in a mobile version that came out December of 2023. These features are a classic lighting mode that restores the look in the field of the sky in the original games as well as bug fixes and changes the shadows, reflections, draw distances and interestingly, the original developer for the Trilogy remastering Grove Street games has been removed from any mentioning in the game whatsoever. So it's much better looking. People are very happy with it. I know it's been

years in the making. This was famously a disastrous launch. Perockstar, however, they have recovered through a mobile game developer teams and managed to figure it all out and Grove Street games is erased from the history books with it. So any thoughts on this? I haven't tried out the Definitive Edition at all. I'm such a GTA new in the scheme of experience. I have a little bit of foreign in my belt, a lot of five and a lot of Santa Dres. I played Santa Dres when I was like

fucking nine. I probably should not have been playing Santa Dres. Yeah, look, man. I'm glad they fixed it. Made the wrong right. They went back in there because this got dragged. I remember the media coverage of this. I was shocked that they what should it? You know, I'm like, this is something that I was like, man, this is a beloved franchise. Like, how do you? How do you mess that up? So yeah, good to see. Good to see it. It

made right. So that's really pretty much all I got on that one. Yeah. But I will say it's funny that they erase grocery gains from the pyramid. What that's yeah. Wow. Yeah. I like fucking it. Next up here, we got news from Tom Henderson over at insider gaming on Ubisoft's project, you. Well, I had no idea what the hell this was until I read it. But I thought it was interesting

because just again, Ubisoft's collapse has been very fascinating to read. So he writes, Ubisoft's project, you returned to the drawing board this year following five years of development. Project, you was officially announced in September 2022 as a revolutionary new kind of session-based cooperative shooter. But after over two years since its announcement, nothing publicly about the game

has yet been announced. That's because Project, you internally codenamed Pathfinder quietly returned the drawing board in spring 2024, following issues surrounding the game's replayability. For those unfamiliar with Project, you its premise is that Earth has been invaded by machines that wanted to mechanize all life. The game would see 10 teams of four, battle that in PvE combat against progressively more difficult enemies as they progress through the map's zones,

which could have the thousand of enemy AI robots on the map at any given time. Eventually, players would enter the final zone in the middle of the map where they'd need to defeat the boss. Despite initially receiving generally positive feedback from players, one fundamental flaw, played the game from its start, its replayability. Sources say it was a constant issue for the

developers and would see the project's budget balloon due to continuous reworks. Such reworks included adding more variations to the map with biomes and adding new bosses to change its repetitive nature. However, play tests in February 2024 revealed that the game lacked the replayability needed. In March 2024, Ubisoft's Amnesty announced that Project U codename Pathfinder development would cease immediately and that outsourcing studios would move on to different projects.

Two of the game's directors, Natu Granjohn, I apologize for pronouncing that, and Damian Keakin, left the project among many other developers with Granjohn moving onto Assassin's Creed and Keakin eventually making his way to dice this month. Instead of being cancelled, Ubisoft internally noted that the PvE games can still be successful citing the viral launch

of Hell Divers 2, which sold an estimated million units in its first five weeks. As such, it said that Ubisoft still believes this project and has moved Project U back into incubation with a new producer and a small team to explore new ideas. However, after over five years of development, current and past project developers tell me it's difficult to see how this game would succeed. I just look at this, bro, and I think this is Ubisoft doing the most Ubisoft shit of all time.

Look at that success. Can we emulate it? We're going to go ahead and try our best to do so with some kind of copycat Hell Divers 2 thing years after it was relevant and miss the window completely in flop and then wonder why it failed. What do you think of what Project U is doing here? Yeah, PvE. So, I will say in positive news, I do like the idea of like in a world where AI people are very concerned about AI and stuff like that machines, I do like the idea of a machine

to take over. We're going to play this game. You're going to do human first machines kind of thing. Almost like you be versus SkyNet. I would be interested in the premise, but when you hear about the development problems, you hear about the replayability, you hear about like they put the fun find things to stick and then the directors then move on, it gives you chasing a wave energy on some level with obviously looking at what the problem, look, all games do this.

We did here at one point, Halo was potentially could have been like some tactical thing. Remember we heard about the development, remember because it was coming out in the A, being developed in the A, when Rainbow Six Siege was popping. So there is, on corporate level in AAA games based, there is a level of wave chasing and trend catching and looking what's popping and see what's going on. And what we're learning though, I think we're

in the era right now, of course, correction. What we're learning is that a lot of these games are flopping hard. We just got to be real. I really hate to keep bringing up, but Concord is an example, right? It's like this year has been like splashing type of fops. It's been bad, it's been bad, bro. And the games industry is getting a harsh lesson in that. And I think one is too many games, right? So there's too much competition, which Coll is always saying, I 100%

agree with him on that. Wait too many games, everyone wants your attention. And you got to get back to what you do, you got to get back to that. So I don't know, you know, again, I don't want no studio or fail, no studio to go either, but this felt like a trend catching kind of initiative. And you know, if they put it out, I hope you've done enough research and focus group testing that it sticks because when you hear the initial stuff, it didn't sound. Yeah, when you don't have

replayability in that type of style, it's not going to work. It's dead on arrival. Yeah. So we'll see what happens in like four or five years, but until then, stay tuned. They do. See if stars got a massive free update called Dawn of Equinox. It gets a local co-op, which can be online through SharePlay. Combat 2.0 is now in the game. So they introduced sticky combo points where they now remain after the battle, giving more use to them overall instead of building them

building them up during combat. Mystery locks are here. So damage types for each enemy are now hidden and required a player to try different attacks to see what will break the lock. If I were to draw a very obvious comparison, because this is over explained, it is Octopath Traveler. Like just hit the weakness. Oh, that's what you're waiting to got it. They revamped the prologue. They added bonus cinematic scenes, a speedrunners mode relic. Difficulty presets are here. They improve the

parrot relic. They added localization improvements, which I think is huge because some of the writing. I'm usually not a big stickler on my grammar with certain games writing, like, you know, but especially in an indie project, but this I was like, it was especially terrible. And quality life improvements are on the way. This is all on the heels of the throws of the watchmaker DLC, which is still in development and on track for spring 2025. So, probably any thoughts on this

Sea of Stars free update? Game is still available on Game Pass. So people can download it, check out this update with everything they've added in. Will this call your name at all? Actually, yes. This is what I'm mad at because I'm like, it just came out at a time again. I'm playing a ton of stuff. And I'm like, man, I really wanted to get down because I heard so many good things about it. And I think shout out to Adam. He really goes off. He really liked it. He enjoyed it.

I felt like this was a baddie game. I felt like this was a baddie game. What was your vibe? I like it a lot, but I was extremely crammy to try and everyone knows me. It was extremely critical of the writing because the character work and the grammar and just the spelling. It was not good. It was grammar spelling. Yeah, grammar spelling. It was not good. It was very, it seems to have been localization. I forgot where this you started to use base, but it was like on a level of like,

what the fuck is happening here, bro? Like it just it's like again, if it pops up once like you miss a period or a comma or something, I don't, I'm not like that, dude. Like I'll live. But like when it was in your face multiple times throughout the first like three hours, like what the fuck? Combat was really good. They had a really great revive system where like when you got knocked out, like you could wait a certain amount of turns and kind of keep fighting and like get your teammates

up and not spend items. I thought that was really good. The sticky combat point thing is a great choice because pretty much every fight you'd started zero. So basic encounters would go on too long because like you'd have to build up to those main attacks that you had instead of like, think of it like a manifold, right? But imagine if your manifold started zero in every fight, you had to build it up to spend it. And that's how it originally worked. Now it's like, okay,

I built up to 20 mana. And now in the next fight starts, I will start with 20 mana. So I can like immediately fire off an ability and get through that fight quicker. So it just improves the flow better. It seems like we combat 2.0. But yeah, I like it. I mean, the art style is beautiful, but the characters didn't really grab me. The world was really good. Combat was pretty solid.

Like it's a great game. I think people should check it out. But to me, like I just think the most encouraging sign was just seeing, hey man, like a indie pixel art game is fucking killing it on the market. And by the way, they sold all those copies while taking a game pass back, while taking a PlayStation Plus bag. They did the double feature and still managed to find tremendous financial success. So they did something magnificent here. And I'm soaked for them on that front.

But yeah, it's a great game. I think people should check it out. If you like classic turn-based ARPGs, it's very inspired by Chrono Trigger. And if you like that, you know, like this, I just don't know if the story will do as much for you. But the art's beautiful. The world's music's beautiful. It's definitely a very inviting game. You know, I'm gonna throw this up on the blog. I gotta, I just, it's coming back to me now. Remember now. This is sabotage. He's about people. Yeah.

This is sabotage. These are all my people. I don't remember. I believe sabotage, correct me if I'm wrong. I might be wrong. I think they are Canada. They may, I feel like Canada. Crack check, check real quick. Professional part. But I know who's doing it. It's my man, Theary. Theary Bolger who did the messenger who I interviewed this developer. Passionate guy. Quebec City. Quebec City. I was right. Yeah. Because I remember I went a little hard on the

grammar because I was like, how? Yeah. It's a little awful little alright. So they got the, so they get knowing that co-ops got me. No, I got it. I got to get in this because I remember, remember we raved about the messenger. You know, let's say we raved about the people. We were like, people I know who's actually played that game. Oh, I love that game. Oh my god. Such a throwback to the Ninja Gaiden style. And it's so funny that it had like the 80s, 90s

retro switch mode and all that. So yes. Oh, sabotage. Theary. Okay. So what it is is he took the feedback. Cut the combat 2.0. Now we got a local co-op. So when it was out, I'm not going to have to get down. What was this? Yeah. Oh, now. Alright. Yeah. I get into download. We're going to see what's going on because I ain't even got a chance to try it. But I'll tell you right now, this is one of the most passionate independent developers I've ever interviewed.

This guy gets it and he has a feel of what gamers want. And he does take feedbacks. I remember, I came back with less than a few things and then they dropped the DLC. It was called Summer Time One. Summer Time One. I got to get it, bro. It's one of the funnest interviews I've ever had. We had he had his booth hat like this whole like Hawaiian theme. And we had the what you call it the Aloha Joyce. But I was challenging it. He was coming back and he was giving me great

responses. I was like, I remember your feedback from last time. I was like, Oh, okay. We've added this. We did that. I said, okay. So he's a guy that pays attention. And I got to pull for people like that. Yeah. Most developers sometimes get a little cocky with it. Like, no, this was okay. Yeah. We know where we know better. Yeah. For shout out to the area. I got you. See it, thought, I keep forgetting that. Him. I got to I got to download it. Give this.

I was like, I will say the writing in the terms of like the humor that you'd find in the game. It's not often. Yeah. Like a message. Wonderful. Right. That's why it's strange. What message was hilarious. Wonderful. Written. But this game is just like, I think a lot of ways pull our opposite. Like, not downright awful. Just like, you don't get that same charm and humor. That's all. The message is like one of the funniest games I play. Like that was.

Yes. Well, it was hilarious. I remember being being in the item shop. Maybe like, yeah, going over this. I've touched an nickname. But I told you. Yeah. Not to do that. It was so. Oh, I think you put a smile on my face way more than most. It was great. If anyone's listened to this and you enjoyed sabotage this past work, like go check out the messenger. Absolutely. It is amazing. If you haven't checked it out, you really should.

Like, especially really thoughtful idea on how time travel works because they change the art style for it. Like, there's the old age, 18 bit. And when you go into the future, it's 16 bit. They change the music and everything. It's such a good idea. It sets my brain on fire. It's so good. So good. I will definitely check that. I will give feedback. All right. Well, on to some questionable news.

Earlier this year, we're now in Capcom director Hideyaki It's Suno, responsible for Devil May Cry and Dragon's Dogma, left the company after 30 years for a new venture. This week, he announced his new studio called Light Speed Japan Studio, with teams in both Tokyo and Osaka. The plan is for him to develop original AAA action games, just like he was doing at Capcom. Here's the kicker. It's a 10 set game subsidiary and was

originally the co-developer of Krafton's PUBG mobile version. So, bag must have been crazy, of course. We know 10 cents got the bag. They got Hideyaki It's Suno. They got Sean Ladin as a strategic advisor. I learned this week, and I was fascinated to learn this. They have 30% ownership of Larian, the Baldur's Gate developer, which I was like, what? It got so caught up. It was very news, but I was looking at it. People thought that they were

going to buy the D&D license. Larian had to shut it down. So, when Vinky had to shut it down, they obviously we talked just last week, Remedy. They have a lot of money wrapped up in them. They have money in Epic. The tendrils are spreading. People need to pay attention. It's one thing of developers are getting bags and doing their own creative vision. I don't blame them at all that. Truly, I don't. But the thing we just have to be aware of is Tencent has meddled in the past.

And they have meddled enough where they got a bad enough reputation that they made the level infinite brand to hide the Tencent brand. This light speed Japan studio to hide the brand. Because they know Tencent's got stink on it, dude. It's very clear, but Hidiyaki left after 30 years at Capcom for this venture. So, he's getting his bag and wishing him all the best. Same thing as we would with Sean Lainin, but what are thoughts on his new venture here with this

new team? Yeah, conflicting. Look, I'm all about what I call the circle of life, where you've established something. You've made this great company and this is a legend in the space. And now he's going to do his own AAA light speed. And I respect that. I do understand a video game publishing and development is extremely expensive. And it's hard for people to, you know, since that Tencent comes knocking at Shindor and this could help get you through,

I understand. Yeah. Or we said I'll be consistent. I'm not going to judge you for taking it. I'm going to judge you for what the potential outcome is if you don't meet your targets and they start to gain more of a percentage of your brand. And then when that happens, you have to be prepared based on censorship. We've done numerous podcasts with Colin and stuff like that about Tencent. When that happens based on what their ideologies are, right? That can now affect video game

development. One thing I personally don't like in video game development is any form of censorship that say it do X, Y and Z in our games. Right. I just personally, I am not for that. If that was the case, games like my favorite games of all time, Mass Effect wouldn't exist with the choices, with the style, you know, and oh, you can't depict this in our game, this war in our game because of, you see what I'm saying? Hey, oh, yeah. That's that slippery slope. I cogged on like. So,

again, I understand I don't judge you for saying for taking it back. I just worry about they've have a percentage in everything. And if you happen to trip in the fall, they'll be on you. That's kind of how people view Microsoft, right? When a company gets weak, arm goes around the shoulder like, oh, Activision, sexual assault allegations, lawsuits, Bobby coated. You need some help. Come here. We'll bring you in. We'll clean you up. We'll

make you look nice, right? Like you, you right there can see it. And that's how people go like, oh, there's Microsoft doing what Microsoft does best, right? And it makes sense. But Tencent does the same shit again. I will always go and point at remedy. If remedy does not perform, they will be the first example of like what Tencent does to swarm or what we see with Ubisoft as a very current example. They had a 10% increase. And then the second Ubisoft started to slide a bit,

right? They increased their investment. Right? Don't worry. We got you. Here's some money. We got you. Then Ubisoft slips some more. And what happened? First report. Tencent's looking to buy about. They're like, look, we've been great partners. You got all this IP. Think of all the

mobile games that we can make with this. Like it's so obvious. It's almost painful that no one just talks about it the same way you would talk about Microsoft or any big corporation that is loaded with cash that is able to go and spend capital and just be able to spend it on whoever they want. It's a 10% number one. And it is number one. Yeah. No one talks about this. It's so strange to me because it's like, yeah, because it's all every game's video and money. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, dude. It's a shame. It's a shame because it's not even like a vilification of them. It's like, look, if we haven't heard any recent stories in the meddling. So it's like, if that's their new prerogative and they're like, yeah, do your thing. We just want to have a, we see a lot of financial opportunity in gaming. Then you're no different from a Microsoft, the Sony, and Nintendo. Go ahead. But if they continue to meddle, that is my concern. And they definitely have the

loose script that gets tighter. Right. And that's the thing people need to worry about. So good point. We'll see what happens. But let's move on to our next subject. We're almost out of this. Netties and multiple executives arrested for an alleged money laundering scheme. This comes from games that just drop biz. We'll read the article and then we'll check.

It's a very brief one. Nine netties employees have reportedly been detained on a money laundering scheme and bribery charges amounting to an estimated 139.3 million dollars as reported by Bloomberg law. Two senior executives were among those allegedly arrested general manager, Jim Uchen, and esports division head, Zhang Liang. The alleged corruption reportedly occurred within its esports and distribution and marketing sectors, according to Chinese news sites,

Dikai Global. An unknown number of external individuals linked to the anti-corruption charges are also being investigated with net ease, adding that 27 external companies have been blacklisted due to connections with the conduct of those arrested. According to an internal memo, the nine employees involved have since been fired from net ease and are no longer listed on the firm systems. A net ease spokesperson told Eurogamer that police were investigating corruption charges

but would not disclose more details at this time. As noted by Eurogamer, this is reportedly the second internal anti-corruption investigation launched by net ease since September 2023. An araka blade point might have marvel rivals money. Irresistible man. What are our thoughts on what net ease has been up to? Like twice in a year span. Pretty bad. Heads are rolling. What are our thoughts? Damn, net ease. Cool. Man, I'll be liking y'all. Why y'all gotta do this? I think y'all have

all of them with the destiny joint too. I think they do in the mobile joint with destiny. Yes. Yes. Oh my god. They just got this. Man, I was trying to, I was trying to big y'all love y'all doing this to me. Yeah. Yeah. It's not a good look. Oh, bro, the e-sports corruption. And what makes it bad? This is the second form of corruption. That's inexcusable. I mean, it's one of those things where it's like, what's the expression? It's ancient first time.

You keep your head caught in a cookie jar. Now we gotta look at you look different, bro. Like what's going on over there? So I'm not gonna go to the level of 10 cent and stuff like that. Yeah, but they are, they've been picking up steam. Man, ever since we ever told you that the Rockers and all that stuff. And then obviously Bob Rivals, like you say, that's the, they've been attaching themselves to really big things. And you know, when you hit this level

of corruption and money laundering and like what's going on in the building? Y'all what's going on? So careful. Be careful. I'll deal with you. You're saying that these deals with, you know, companies and stuff like that. Yeah, this is very unfortunate because I'm full disclosure. I like that. That these games. I'm not gonna say it. Say I don't. Yeah, but I'm just very sorry. I remember Rivals, too. Yeah, I mean, it's not gonna stop me for playing the game.

I'll be the first to admit, but I, it just bothers me when I hear these level of reports. And yeah, they could say, oh, those guys, they're going it, but now this is the second time, right? This is not the first time. So it makes me now. I gotta eyebrow you and I like damn, you know, what's going on with y'all as a company with ethics like that concerns me. 100%. I'm cognizant. This last bit of news, man, saved the best for last in my opinion.

A Mass Effect TV series is in development Amazon and wait till I just pay close attention to be listening, right? Pay close attention to the names. I'm about to shout out as part of Mass Effect television. While the plot details are unknown at this time, variety reports that fast and furious nine writer, fast and furious nine writer, fast and furious nine writers, gang of Casey will be handling the script. Erie Erid. Erie Erid. And he is Michael Gamble will be heading

up executive production. Zorek Karim Zrake will also be serving as producer via cedar tree productions. If that was not enough, I forgot to include this in the script. John Cena has teased that he is involved in the Mass Effect television show because as this news broke, he posted a picture on his Instagram from Mass Effect 2. And so people think he is commandershapard. I, I, this, this sounds like a fucking disaster. I'm sorry, I'm not trying to call my shot too early,

but this sounds like a fucking disaster. Let's go down the list. All right. Daniel Casey. Hey man, there's fast and furious guilty pleasure, right? Right? Then not, not making fun of anyone for enjoying it. But when I think of guilty pleasure popcorn movie and best sci-fi gaming trilogy, these two do not mesh well. You don't see the married. I don't see. Oh, wait, fast and furious nine went to space, though. You don't want to see mad make old flying out the edge.

Drop it down. Yeah. Like you went to space, though, man. No, come on, man. Erie Erid. Now, this is not Avi Erid, who is the famous Marvel producer that is responsible for like creative decisions that meddled with something like Spider-Man 3, enforced venom into the movie. But this is Erie Erid, producer of Borderlands. His highest rated movie, this man has been a part of was the Ghost in the Shell remake, which is at a 41%. Wait, but he was the one that did this recent

Borderlands movie. The one that super flopped the one that is producer. Yep. Yep. So you got him there. Karim's rake is the only one with a good track record because this individual worked on the Netflix era of Marvel. So okay. Erie Erid, okay. Punisher. There's still Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist. So you got good shape. I don't get no problem. Yeah. Yeah. Point B is like publisher, Daredevil, right? Like that's the. That's fine. That's pretty cool. Yeah. So there's some good stuff there

that this individual had worked on. All right. What the trend is like Erie Erid, deep ties in Marvel. Karim's rake, deep ties in Marvel. I'm just like, what is it? And then you play Dragon Age Vailguard. You're like, oh, this like feels very much like we watched them. I think Marvel movie writing, by the way, is like a million times better than anything in Vailguard. To be clear, I am not what those people was like, oh, the nauseating. He's right behind me is any type of right.

I'm like, look, Marvel's got something going and I'm all for like I think they're doing good work for the most part. Not there's some. There's been so fucking terrible things. Don't get wrong. But I still enjoy a good Marvel movie here and there. But when you're hiring Marvel talent and the fast and furious nine writer to make a Mass Effect show with potentially John Cena in the lead role, well, I know it was great. And like I think peacemaker. I like John Cena a lot.

So I'm not going to judge you are, but it's a comical fucking mix up here of just staff and talent already. The only reassuring name I see amidst everything here is Mike Gamble or hero, right? The guy who is like, you know, I know he's been part of like in her Amada and Anthem and stuff. But like this dude gets Mass Effect and I will defend his name and his honor. I will defend it. Like this dude gets it. He cares. His hand in the project is encouraging. I just

hope he has a strong hand in the project. It's a one John Cena is like, what if I go like this in the middle of my introduction? It's like he goes, no, no, we don't we don't do that in the world of Mass Effect. You can't say you can't see me, John. You can't do that. So I'm just hoping that they have a strong focus here on what the story is. Cog, I've talked to Nostalgia. I get your thoughts. And I want to know if you have an idea of a story, are they going to retell,

are they going to retell the original trilogy? Where do they go with this Mass Effect story? All right, let me get the emotion to part out the way first, which is I don't like privacy. I love you, my homie. You're a fast and furious Stan. I get it. I don't want anything fast and furious to do with my Mass Effect. It's just too over the top. It's too hokey. I don't like that part, right? I'm nervous about that part. Please keep

fast and furious energy away from Mass Effect. That's me. What's given me a thread of hope is gamble because if you have gambling, the mistake that Halo made is nobody from the games. Yeah. Doing anything. Yeah. Right? So we don't we didn't watch it. We don't care. We're going to do our own. So gamble gives me hope. Yeah. Right? Then your man, Karim, okay, cool. That flicks dead devil. One of the most classic. I still think about that hallway scene. Oh, yeah.

Bro classic. You know, obviously, I ever thought Jessica Jones was on the release the first season. I agree. I agree. I like it. You know what I'm saying? Defenders are trying to have like a marvel stuff was was kind of good. Like I don't do it. Don't hear roles. Punisher. Amazing. rooftop scene. Dead devil punisher. Amazing. You had a new set. I put them down. I was seeing this list of names. I was thinking of the Punisher scene where it's like, no, no, no.

Wait, wait, wait, wait. Like that. Exactly. Shout out to that. So look, my hope is gamble has way more influence on this process. Yeah. In a sense, like of a Todd Howard being there for fallout, knowing what fallout is gamble knows what mass effect is. So I'm going to keep the hope alive. What I want them to do is mass effect one fans rejoice. I'm going to give you your flowers. Oh, I want the citadel first human specter story. One thing about mass effect one, I will give them.

If the people defender is saying, look, it's it's humanity's presence onto the scene, the galactic scene for the first time. That's what made mass effect great. You know, you are rising up. So if you want to if you want to retell a little bit of the siren story and put your own spin on it, you know, and start the threat of the reapers, I'm for it. I don't have any problem with that. Jess do not do what I consider the halo TV. So like don't start deviating crazy and start

putting on these different way different spins. You've literally got the classic story right there. Or the other right. I want the first story told in a way. But if you don't, it's going to be weird without shepherding away. You know what I'm saying? Because shepherds do most iconic thing. If you go with another specter and stuff like that, that's just me. You know, um, shepherds and iconic, like we just got to be we just can't get away from that. If you want it to pop off now,

seeing how I got to be fair a little bit. Look, I like y'all see that he has showed acting chops. I don't know how I feel about him and shepherd. But um, I'll be willing to entertain it. Again, if they're going to stick to their video game roots and gamble has a heavy. So I'm trying to be optimistic here. But I admit I was very disgusted to hear anything fast. If you're just about, I don't like that. I don't like fast. If you're just movies, I let look. If y'all

like them, I get it. It's the popcorn movie. Ha ha. I get it. It's not stories at times for some. Yeah. I felt for some. I get why I know the appeal. None of that is mass effect to me. Unless you are talking about budget. If you don't have a budget. It reminds me of when the nature turtle movies were announced, right? And like their early 2010s and they're like Michael Bay will be a producer for this. I'm like, why the fuck is this guy a part of the Ninja Turtles? And you

could feel his influence on the movie. And like, I was like a very critical of the 2014 movie. But 2016 movie was a little better. I couldn't tell you shit about it. I just remember walking out of the air going, at least I didn't hate that. That's how down bad I was as a turtle. It was just that weird mixture of like these two don't go together. Like there's just Michael Bay does his thing. The natureals do their thing. That's how it is. The way you get into this thing.

Mass effects do with its thing. Like, bro, it's the way you feel about terms you encapsulated how I felt about Michael Bay. Anywhere near my Transformers or the first one. It's like, bro, you have you know better than anyone. Transformers is not just blow up things and big robots like you, you lost the essence of what Transformers is. And then I really had a problem with him when he disrespected the legendary Frank Walker as a mega try you. You feel he's not. You felt his voice

wasn't big enough for me. How dare you like, he's so angry. And because they brought that the put the doodale is popping at the time was the matrix. Um, do Mr. Smith. Oh, and they brought him as meck. I'm like, and you I could tell you they respect the law. I was like, you hear for the cash grab and the blow things up and you thought that was transforming. No, bro. Son your face is so funny. I was tired. The way you feel about turtles is how I feel about

G word trends. Don't you come in here with that. So they finally got a little back to the essence with Bumblebee because they moved him off the makel Bay off the real, the big, the big director role. And they got this other dude who was a Transformers. And I was like, see Bumblebee was actually more Transformers than any of the Bay films in my opinion. So yeah, they nailed it with that. So that's where I'm at with this whole situation. You know, keep your man Casey as far away.

You know, keep him just have him do the background stuff, build the normity and make the normity look cool and make space look hot. Do that. Stay away from the main story, please. That's where I'm at. Right on. All right, guys, it's time to talk about what games we are playing. I want to hear from you because you seem to have been humbled a bit by a game you thought you'd be done with this week. Walk me through it. Prepare me a little bit for what awaits me at the end of metaphor,

Reef and Tazio. Okay, so let me get it out. This is a very frustrating last three days for me. Oh, my mind. Last time we spoke, I'm like, all right, I'm close to the end. Had a sting done. Wednesday, I was fully prepared to come in here, you know, just give my overall thoughts on how it landed as a game and talk about the end then because God was close, that's what I was told. So all I would say is as you get close to the end, the game says, you know, you got a certain amount

of time to prepare you for said end. And then that like quest stop popping up. Hey, if you do this, even though this is not required, these are some things that can help you towards the end. I optional. Okay. And I was calculating. I was like, all these other things do, but I want to get to that optional stuff because that sounds good. And I want to be and I'm in completionist mode. Like, yeah, I am doing everything. So a random NPC else from the forest. All right, I'm on the way.

I'm going to help you. I got I'm that guy in metaphor, right? So I'm like, all right, I said, I'm going to do everything and I timed it. I had like five days left. And I'm like, okay, it was three things on the dock. It gave me a couple of window to play around, but I'm going to kick these three. Maddie. This game decides that these optional things are some of the wildest difficulty spikes I have ever encountered in a game. So I sat there. I said, okay, first one,

and I'm not going to name what they are. I'm just going to speak in the most generic terms. I don't want to spoil that for you. Um, the first one, first of all, then it doesn't tell you any sequence to do any of them. And this is what I knew it was real. Prior to this point, metaphor has no problem. Tell you, oh, when you go on today, Mary, oh, make sure you bring ice, make sure you bring a gunner, a, a mage or my dad's the insider details. They got the

stitches all over. Pay the snitch. Just visit you like, yo, I heard that dungeon over there. You don't want to bring no ice. You know how to go in metaphor. You go in front of the dun. That'd be a duel. Like, yo, bro, I was just in there. Yo, there's a certain dude. Don't do this. He don't like that. So typical this people, we, we had nothing and people dying and then we don't know what's going on. Good luck. I said, okay, but still, I wanna be like that. I said, you know what?

Matter for you, I ain't holding my head. I cool. And here's the thing that got me a little frustrated, man. The reason why my frustration was high is because I normally when you end the dungeon, beauty of metaphor is this. When you're in the dungeon and you're overpowered or you've grinded, in open world, you could slap fire at a dude and kill them with the one-hit quitter to let you know. And then when you hold down left trigger, what's our name? Galica will survey the world for you.

Let you know she'd be like, hey, you know what I'm messing with that? Oh, hey, where's Jess? Is even. Oh, hey, oh, there's nothing. Galica let you know with left trigger, right? So I'm in there running rough shot on people. I'm like, because I know I grind it. I know I put it in the world. It wasn't like I was belining main story quest. So this is why I'm mad metaphor. This is why I'm mad, but I'm happy. Let me get, let me correct myself. I mad at you, but I'm happy.

You have now turned into dark souls. Oh wow. You have now people, the shin begin, the ten-say-kru is coming at me laughing. Oh, you learned it. This, the difficulty spikes. Wild crazy. Yeah, so I did this thing and I'm not gonna say who it is, what it is, what I got to this thing. And again, so are you ready? This is gradually, are you ready? Are you sure? I cool, yes. The humbly, bro. What in the hell am I supposed to do?

Now, one of the entities, it was just like, you better not even attempt to do these abilities or else. And I attempted one hit acquitted. Oh my man, is that what? Oh, that's the most memorializing feeling when they just slap you. And it's just like, okay, well, I'm down a party member already. I'm down already, off the jump. So I'm like, all right. Struggling bro, struggling. And I'm like, I don't think I can beat this thing. This, and then it's doing its charge ups and it's thing.

And I'm like, all right, I'm starting, and it's slowly, I started to get a pattern, but I just don't have enough DPS. I'm like, just not hitting it hard enough. I'm just, I'm extending this battle, but it's this war of attrition that eventually I'm going to lose. Oh, that's the worst. So I'm like, all right, I'ma come back to you. For whatever reason I am ready, I'm going to invest, get my archetypes together, certain other archetypes ability presents itself without spoiling.

And I'm like, okay, I'm going to invest in this other thing. And then maybe, and then what made it worse is this particular one that I chose first is like, you could only use an endgame power to even hurt it. I'm like, I only got like one person that got, I'm like, what a muscle. All right, I'll be back. Leave you alone. A day went past in the cycle. I'm going to go fight the other thing. There was three, right? And they say, if you do these three things, secret treasures and powers are eight.

I did the first down in the game. Luckily, I went and I did, I said, oh, this first one is normal. It's powerful, but at least it's normal. It ain't got too much crazy things. I got to deal with it. Beat it, I said, yes, now I'm going back to the other one that was stumps up. All right, fam, you got to be in the new place. And it says, that's all you got. Let's go now. Let's go now. And I'm leveling up. I got some other powers with other people and some better synergies. Let's go now.

Fightin' my life. But I did it. Oh, okay, nice. Okay. Mind you, this tested every bit of my JRPG powers, my skill set, this is Lord's Thermal Challenge for the crowd, basically. This game has challenged me in ways. I've even felt like this is Sega's fantasy star two. For my fantasy star two, references, the best comparison I can tell you is the boss of fantasy star two is a boss called Mother Brain. Difficult boss.

But everyone who knows knows, Mother Brain ain't nothing until you fought an optional boss called Dark Force. Dark Force is the hardest boss I've fought in in our JRPG in my life. When I beat that thing, T.A. and I was like, oh my god, I did it. That even the hardest boss I have ever faced in my life. It took every amount of knowledge on JRPG strategy. That's the, this game said, you thought Dark Force was something? Let me show you what we're doing over here.

So what I beat the first, the two was almost the second thing was almost Dark Force love us like, yo, I beat it. I'm like, okay, cool. So I'm about to face the third thing. The third thing just said, okay. You in the mix for a little bit, but when I feel I'm ready to eliminate you, you're out of here. And I was like, okay, but I started a game. You see the difference with these fight. It gave, this one gave me a little hit. I'm like, just give me a little, just give me a nugget.

And I'm like, okay, I think I know what the nugget is. I'm gonna go in the cut. I looked at all my armors, I look at all, we gonna put this on, we gonna put that on. I think I know. They get it out. Survive this thing that they tries to do to get you out of here. I, fan, we shout out to Hulkenberg. Hulkenberg is my MVP. She was like, don't worry, Cog, I'm a defender crew. She jumped in front of my mid Hulkenberg MVP for that fight. Because she was, she was getting all the aggro to her.

And I was doing, I was in the mid. Tough fight, war of attrition. Barely did it, but I did it. And it took multiple tries, but I did it. Oh, didn't the game go. There's a lot more. Yeah, so you did that, right? Great. Now you unlock the real threat. What do you mean? Bro, you just said this was the real threat. So I'm like, I'm buying you an none of this is the main quest, Maddie. None of this is the final, the God of the game. This is optional.

Yeah, you say, yeah, because of your great work, now you get to know what really is behind this. What metaphor, come on, bro. So I said, I, this is the most disrespectful boss I've ever faced. The fight set, the fight start, the entity, we like, are you done? One adequate of your whole squad. Oh, no. Round, you don't last a minute. I'm like, bro, what the f is this? Yeah. What what I'm, there's no indicator on what I'm doing wrong. I'm talking about the history of the story about difficulty.

Bro, someone said ramp it up for no reason, it is just so cheap. I was just like, all right, I understand that you don't feel I'm ready. Can you just give me an indicator on anything? There's no law. There's no, there's not the fight starts. He says your turn's done. Goodbye. Be gold. You have no business even challenging me type energy. Wow. What are you supposed to do with that? I sat there and got what hit quit for an hour. I was like, what is this? Better for I don't know.

I'm looking at clues. I'm going through the dungeon. I'm looking for lore. Did I miss something? I'm going through the the the quest dialogue, the memorandum, nothing. That nothing is saying anything I've done wrong, minus don't show up or you'll die. I'm like, all right, so I did the unthinkable. I never do this. Car goes online. Who for this? Who beat this? How do I stay in this? When I found out what it was to just even be in the fight, I got to get artists by only a metaphor. I love you.

It's my only criticism to watch. Now one time all you had to give was like, hey, maybe you don't want to have this on. I've never seen a game do this. Your game made you fight some all these things, give you amazing things as a result of beating those first things. What's the common sense when you beat a game beat bosses and it give you amazing things? What is the natural inclination to do? What's you get those things? Put it on. Yeah. This is pro tip I'm going to give you.

Do not put those things on. You put those things on. That's such a tease, bro. That like after all of your hard work, you got to not put on the thing. It worked so hard for. I'm like, really, really metaphor, really that was the answer. Now I guess it didn't any of the item descriptions. Did you end up finding that out? But he tells you in the descriptions what the properties of some of those things are. This boss doesn't like certain properties. I guess so.

No indication, no hit, no law, no nothing. That's my only nitpick. Don't do that, man. Like, no one's going to figure that out, bro. Like it had nothing to do with my strategy, my team. He don't like the sneakers I had on. What? He don't like the arm. What? Come on, bro. And you're going to one hit quit me without no indication? Like come on, metaphor, no, no metaphor. That's not it. Sneakers. You ain't like, oh, you come here with these. One hit. So that's my only nitpick.

But I'm close to beating identity. And when I do, then I will be able to challenge the gods. Now mind you, this is optional stuff and it can be missed. But my ego, because I've been such a completionist, I can't let these entities run around. You got to go. So I will say, or in fairness to metaphor, though, even though I'm giving you spoke, I'm loving the fact that I haven't been challenged and pushed in a JRPG game.

Like this since Seagans fantasy star two, since the goats of the JRPG, like, let's be honest, mostly JRPG's, if you're a seasoned veteran, you're going to beat these things. This thing is pick and be restrict strategies, using abilities that really are really powerful and like, I do, I understand souls, guys, why you love this is this is literally the equivalent of souls for JRPG's right now. And there's a lot of like SMT. What you're just. Yes. It sounds a lot like SMT.

I heard SMT is even crazier than this. SMT hits you like a plus and it's just like unfair in a common fight, let a lot of buzz fight. Exactly. So I heard so SMT, I have any of you guys, I have the utmost respect. I am now feeling that. So that's where I met. I'm going to try to get this thing done tonight as far as just that entity. I was told you thought that was something. So I'm bracing for it, but I will say this. Now, can you transition to the right in?

Yeah. Because you made a good comment. I want to comment. Yeah. Sam writes in, hello candidates for the throne. I have to issue a correction in PSA for metaphor, refund, hasio to save contender, some heartache. In last episode, COG stated that changing archetypes after you master them as a smart move to expend your team's repertoire of skills. This is intuitive advice. However, it's actually extremely inefficient.

When you master an archetype, you'll see an XP bar under the archetype, which is repeatable, requiring 1000 XP to fill the bar. Each time you finish that bar, you'll get an item, a hero's leaf of light that will allow you to give any character 1000 archetype XP to any archetype of your choice.

Strategically picking who gets this XP will be important for unlocking the final bond level 8 archetype for each character, since those unlock requirements can be stringent for the characters that join your party later. This will also allow you to keep a character like Hulkenberg on tank the entire game for a hard mode run while unlocking the major requirements for more advanced night archetypes.

PS, don't forget about the merchant archetype on a bad weather day when you can smash all the enemies in action combat to secure funds to gear up for the end game secret boss or challenging the final boss at full power. Have a one day closer to the day of the hero kind of day. Yeah, merchant archetype is fire, by the way. Oh yeah. At first I laughed on, I got the merchant, I was like, who are you spending my money to hit someone?

I'm throwing all my money, I fought a boss in the second town we'll say. And this is my motherfucker got beat down by the merchant. I was just like, everyone else was having trouble and I was just coming in 500 gold. 500 gold. Just smack it with the hand. Smack it over the head. I was like, yeah, this is great. Yeah, yeah. Shout out to that. What kind of thoughts on this right in here? I want to shout out like, look Sam, I understand your point. And overall your theory is correct.

You are correct. I just didn't explain myself correctly last time. That's why I wanted to comment on this. You are correct that you do what you master, you do and you keep getting XP, you get the hero lights. Hero lights are very important for leveling up, archetypes faster that you don't want to go through the traditional grind. The only pushback I will give you, Sam, is that I didn't say like, just keep changing willy nilly after you've mastered something.

What I would do is, let's say let's use the character Hulkerberg for example. When I look at Hulkerberg, I'm looking at the tree of night and I'm looking, okay, what's the next step? Next step is this magic night. Next step is this paladin. Okay, but then what metaphor does, as metaphor then says, there are double requirements and prerequisites before you can even get that. So in case of Hulkerberg, they'd be like, yo, you got to make her a mage and get that to level 10 and get night at 20.

So what I'm trying to say is when I got her to 20 as a basic night, I'm then moving her to mage so I can start working on the next prerequisite for what, because a lot of the next level of requirements require two or three different archetype masteries for that character. So that's all I'm saying. Your overall theory is sound. We're getting XP and keep getting heroes of light. That's cool. But all I'm trying to say, I'm already thinking advanced. Like press me.

I'm grinding and I'm grinding efficiently and I'm doing things smartly. So that's the only thing. I just wasn't like when I had Hulkerberg mastered, okay, let's just make her a seeker. No, I'm doing things in the progression of her tree that I know I'm going to be asked of in advance. It's already ready to go when I'm ready to level. So that's my only pushback. So I actually made Hulkerberg a mage for a little bit of time because I wanted that magic magic night. Rarketite. Let me explain to you.

Pro tip. Dark Knight is so key. Don't sleep on the passives because there is no that's like persona 101 when you start inheriting from your other personas and you start fusing them. The passes are everything. Well, I'm going to tell you one of the dark night passives that saved the day for me. Is she's got us. She recovers from a status ailment in one turn. So when a boss want to be cute and want to throw a hex and a charm and a fist and a that, she will all right. Next turn, we'll set we back.

So I don't have to worry about her for extended periods of the then you know, I love what she jumps in front of of. Oh yeah. I have such a affinity for that character and I can't wait till you get to do it. But I was about you because I then talked about some advanced level stuff, but I want to know where you at. When was going on. How you feeling with the story was going on. All right, man. So we're 30 hours deep now.

I had a bunch of monster sessions over the weekend where dude, you were not exaggerating. When this game gets to toks and you like, I had like two six or seven hour sessions in a weekend. I played through the, I'm just going to for the sake of spoilers, just use numbers down to town to a way to town three where shit goes down and we got party member four and love party member four love party member four. I right away when I saw what was on his back, I was like, yeah, I knew I knew this is cogs.

This is cogs guy all the way. But his performance in the end of town two just, oh man, so good. So good. So yeah, I'm a it's doing what Atlas does best, right? The the game playing the entertainment really gets you up front as they build their world. They have such a large canvas to kind of pick from for all the storytelling elements. And I'm getting into that vibe. I'm getting into the groove now really falling in love with the story and the characters.

It has yet to again enter knock me on my ass territory like persona four or five royal, but I'm on the journey now. And I'm like, these are the steps that I'm going to recall so strongly as I do with every Atlas game because they just have this quality to them. But you know, it's it's getting to that point where it's like now we unlock this on the gauntlet runner. You know, now you can plant seeds. Now you can read this book. Now you can hang out with this person. Now you can teleport.

So now you can go to all these different towns in for the so cool. Yeah, I was in the day to same day. Yeah. Now you can find relics and you can turn turn those in to do social links with certain people. And it's really opened up. Like I still have, I think I'm missing like one or two people I can bond with. Okay. What's the flow? You're going to give me give me some archetypes you've fallen when you said merchant. Yeah. Yeah. What's your guy? What's your rock and what?

Yeah. Right now I am rocking merchant because it just dude because you have the almighty attack there. And the boss just gets bogged to death by me over time. And the boss gives me so much money and plus there's a passive bonus that gives me more money upon winning the fight. And I'm like, yeah, I'm going to spend this shit and just hit you over the head with it any time to fight. I don't care.

Um, but yeah, I also do because the merchant's so good because you get the almighty attack and men have a Roman the dungeon. I did skill inheritance. I'm like, let me take every element into my kit. And so I'll be right around like I can hit anyone at any point and target their weakness. So I am never a wasted turn ever. So that's brilliant. Um, I have part of my before on the thief now assassin. I have a lot of magic. Yeah. I have the mage knight going. Okay. Oral. Oral. Oral. Oral.

Oral. Oral. Oral. Oral. Oral. Oral. Oral. Oral. Oral. Oral. Oral. Oral. So I was like, I feel this guy could be a lot of different options. And so I made I tried them as the the brawler, because it was where he started really late on. And then I've put everything over what hit hard, but the energy loss. You see huge Yeah. Each peaked to deal massive damage. That wouldneup, especially skull crusher hit for crit constantly.

So in boss fights he's that clutch plays, But yeah, it was always the risk of like he's be healed like every fight. And then obviously when you're in Dungeons, like the MP management is so important that, you know, I got to make sure like when he's using his health, I got a heal match like every fight. So it does dwindle that a little bit, but I have yet to go into a dungeon and have to leave. I've managed to one tap every dungeon, which is good. Nice. Same.

Yeah. And so he's now the Gunner, which is really good for him. I feel like he's been in his flow, especially because like sleep shot is so good. Like I don't want to deal with you next, sir. And that's it. Um, trying to think, uh, I haven't tried Faker yet. I haven't tried that. Uh, I'm going to give you a pro tip. Mm hmm. I thought that class was trash. Yeah. So I was like, these abilities, I got into it. Yeah. We're all let me tell you in game certified.

I have completely changed my outlook on that class after dealing with a lot of actually before those things that I was using it early. Oh, no, when it came out, I was like, I'm not touching you in my doing it. Right. I remember when it came out, I was like, we're doing other stuff. And then I remember getting to a certain boss before which I felt was a really strong check. Mm hmm. And I said, you know what? I'm going to try because what

else is not working, other stuff's not working. Oh boy. There were about three abilities that changed that is boss fight character. When some's given you trouble, just think about Faker sometimes. Mm hmm. That's what I was saying. Very underrated. I slept on. I have a whole news. That class has saved me many times. That the merchant opened my eyes when I look at that. I was like, yeah. But like, then I started using it. I was like, okay, so I got

a not judge book by its cover here. Cover these class. Uh, but I love the archetype system because it's just a job system at the end of the day. But like, that's what Octopath Traveler did. And that's why I love Dr. Pat Traveler. Anyone could have any job and it was really fun and the skills were interchangeable. Like it was exactly that system. And it's brilliant here in metaphor. And there's so many classes. Um, it's so it works really well

for me. Uh, yeah, man, I'm just loving every step of it. Um, the music's great. Stories great now. Um, I'm so surprised that this game is T for teen. I really am so like it doesn't feel like it's pulling any punches narratively visually, but it's T for teen. And I say that because I'm sorry, I feel like I'm don't count thinking a lot, but try to use your Ville

Garts rated M. And I also don't get that. I'm like, how did this get M? But then metaphor which has like people dying constantly blood everywhere, brutal deaths like foul language. It has all this shit in there like T for teen. I'm like, how did this get T for teen? I don't want to I almost feel like the ESRB made a mistake because I got to another moment where like something big having them like, uh, this is T for teen. I don't know. It's crazy,

man. So, um, yeah, I mean, the story is not holding them back at all, which was I think a lot of people's concerns going in like, Oh, it's not an infirmature like persona. The themes are going to be toned down, but no, man, like they are going for it. And what I love is I still feel like the hands behind the back fried list. Like I'm in on, I'll say narrative

one, but Atlas always has narratives to just talk behind, right? And I'm like, what's going on with more like I've been doing his social link and try to learn like what's it? And I'm getting his backstory now. And I'm like, I have a theory. I won't say what it is, but I have a theory of what's going on in this world and why things are the way they are. And if I am right, I'm like, this is a really interesting way to approach creating

a video game story. So, uh, I'm very excited to get deeper into it. I think I'm going to play a lot tonight because I'm going to have some open hours. But, um, yeah, man, 30 hours in, adoring it. And I will say this for those of you out there who have a steam deck, this is a certified steam deck banger, uh, highly recommend playing on this, or I did steam link. I did stream it a little bit into my den. Um, it was playing it on my logitech handheld

while I was hanging out with Laley. And that was really great too. So I just want to say, if y'all are looking for gaming on the go with a recent release that seemed to be verified and gives you a good battery life with like, absolutely. I mean, this is perfect for that. It'll lag a little bit funny enough during the loading screens, like when the main character is like walking and, you know, you have like the art behind him. That's when it'll lag.

Otherwise, it's perfectly smooth. So, um, oh, the slowest part is what it's doing that, um, what, what, I forgot what exactly that sign is called. But when you go into the, academia, and you see that like, you see the side, yeah, yeah, that whole process is very laggy on steam deck. Not the end of the world. I don't care. It's like an extra two seconds. But, uh, those are the parts that jump around on the steam deck. Otherwise, it runs smooth

as butter. It's perfect. Nice. Nice. Yeah. And I would just say, um, I tested, um, I tested this game on rock ally. I tested it on Windows PC. Windows play anywhere is amazing on this game. Save data. Everything. Right. Don't miss it. I was seamlessly going between all three platforms with no problems. I'm so glad a non-game pass game having those features. Uh-huh. It's the future of gaming. Yeah. Absolutely. I can't wait. I can't wait to you.

Towns three and four. Um-hmm. Narratively when you start dealing more with certain person. Oh, dude, we are, uh, we are performing an op. We are performing an op. And we're kind of like, we're in enemy territories, what I'll say. And I love what they're doing. The best thing you can do in a game, and I don't know why more writers don't do it is put your villain face-to-face with your main character as often as you can. Stand them toe-to-toe. It's so, so important, man.

That person is such a cunning words, meth. Yes. You're gonna, you're gonna see some things, man. But I was expecting unexpected, but just stay tuned. You're all for a ride. You're a- I can't wait to- that Towns three specifically, but Town four is, I would say, peak. Oh, he's using peak. Yeah. Town four is peak. Like, because Town four, like I told you, like they did something. I was like, what just happened? Because Town three made me uneasy. Like,

I was getting uncomfortable. Yeah, yeah. Sam, you keep putting me in uncomfortable situations. And, and I told you there's a character that I was hating on. And it was a funny situation. Yeah, well, this game is doing a really good job of it. And we granted, beyond my preview of like the prologue, I have not done any sort of, you know, cover like studying of like the trailers or anything. I don't know how many party members of this game. And I love it because this game

uses so many portraits. So when people show up, I'm like, who is the next party member? Like, I got four. I'm like, who's party member? I have no clue. And I've never been in this spot. Because in Atlas games, when someone shows up with a portrait, it's like, all right, you're either a party member, which is usually really obvious because you actually look somewhat cool. Or you're a social link. And it's one or the other. But because now everyone in the main story of some sort of

importance has portraits. I'm like, who could it be? And I have picks in my head. There's one that I learned was not a party member. And I was, Katarina, I was so sad to hear about. I know, I know. She is, it makes sense. Her store, her social link is one of my favorites right now. But she is so cool. And obviously a call back to Catherine, right? Like the other Atlas series. Obviously, and I think it would have been a brilliant move to bring her into the team.

But I learned while I was playing that she is not like, oh, man. Like she is such an awesome character. So I was bummed out about that one. That would have been my pick. But I'm still on the prowl. There's some interesting candidates. I'll just leave it that. Okay. Yeah, there's some candidates. I'm cool. And there's one that I was bummed out in town too. I really like, I really like, oh, that I know that one. There's another one down to. There's another one in town too

that you're going to learn about as you complete the story of town to. And I was like, man, I like this character. Very cool. And I'll say, but you know, again, what you call it is it's character versus support. What was it? What's it? What's it? What was it? Like supporting character or something? Yeah, socially. Yeah. And I'm like, all right. Because it also tells a very dope story. You go, that character that you talk about. What a what a ride that was. Yeah.

They they went crazy dark with that. Now, okay. I know. Just by the students hold the meter his eyes, his outfit. I'm like, this motherfucker looks cool. I'm like, I am so interested in whatever he's got cooking. Very interesting ride for sure. Yeah. So I'm loving metaphor. It's been great. I'm very excited to get some more veins. What does she play? Playing a little desk trending, everybody. Let's go. How are we feeling? What's going on?

Will we ever write in here? Don schnutz writes in. What's up? Freshly plop dukes with desk straining two around the corner and desk straining making his way to Xbox. I think it's time you both jump in. I know Cog did and fell off. But I think if either of you gave it a good chance and stuck with it, you'd finally get it. It does start as a walking sim. I get it. But it does progress past that. It's not for everyone for sure. But in my experience, the people that stick

with it at least come away with a decent appreciation for the unique experience it is. There's many vehicles, crazy over in depth combat. Good story, great music, and even good humor. There's a lot to appreciate. Peace out and have a Lale Lale Lale Lolo day. All right, Cog. Moment of truth here, right? Let's get it. Now, let's I'm working on a video for it. I think it'll be out by the time this shows out. But if it's not, there was a process in getting here and did drop in a perfect

time. I have reached in past with some triple A games. You know, I might, two of my favorite developers delivered two of my least favorite experiences of the year. That's like the fact. And it's and and I and then I was going through my review playlist and I was looking at just some of the fucking garbage I've had to play over the years. And I'm not trying to exaggerate. But I'm talking like Gotham Knights. I'm talking Babylon's fall. I'm talking Gollum. Like I've just played

shit, dude. And the triple A market has kind of been a death of a thousand cuts for me. And I think I've had a lot more patience than others where this year, like I snapped on Ubisoft in a game that probably people wouldn't have expected me to install as outlaws. And I snapped on BioWare with Dragon Age and I snapped on Bethesda with something that felt tailor made for me

with shattered space. And what I always heard is the sales pitch for death training was it is special because there is not a triple A game that is like this and that is why people love it. And I guess because I was satisfied with the shit being served to me otherwise, I didn't really care about that. But as I reached this breaking point, when it got ported, there was an authentic sense of like, I think I'm ready. Like I don't know how to put it. There was

a literal mental buy-in of like, I need this experience. And if this does not deliver, this is actually going to hurt because I need something different from triple A right now. Don't get me wrong, it's not like it's been tremendous let down after tremendous let down like we've had Elden Ring, for example. Well, there's Gate Threat. Like we have had amazing experiences. So I'm not downplaying

those who have delivered. But it has been tough for me this year for sure. Like not always me tough, but just I'm accepting some differences in quality and realizing that for my own enthusiasm of the hobby, I need to start broadening my horizons even more. I need to explore it anymore. And I need to give Kojima his shot again, right? Because I love Metal Gear Solid 2. I think it's some of the most thought-provoking writing in a game, but also bold. Like I love writing some main characters.

Huge deal. Metal Gear Solid 3 is fantastic. Metal Gear Solid 4 never finished, but thought it was great for what I did play. And I do want to finish it one day. MGS 5, I liked the least out of his work. It was really fun to play. But the story I just I couldn't fucking tell you anything, bro. I put like 40 hours into it and like just kept repeating the same map. And I was like, I think I'm done. And I moved on. So, you know, I have a decent amount of Kojima experience and I just finished

this book, The Creative Gene, which not in his favor. One of the worst things I think I've read because okay, so I described it like this. I said, imagine if I wrote a book in chapter one was like, nicely over public. I remember picking this up at Circuit City and man was it great? Here's why. Now it's chapter one. I didn't talk about like the inspiration it provided for me as a creator. Just like you should check this out. Chapter two, death note. I watched this thing at the top of

2023. I did not realize that this 2006 anime I was sleeping on would change my life and just how I appreciate storytelling. You should check it out. Yes. And it's unbelievable because I'm like Kojima such a fascinating mind. And all I got from this is this guy loves a lot of things. And he's a little fucking weird because like there was one chapter where he talked about how he his first love was a movie character. So when he saw on his TV screen, he was like, I fell in love with

there like my heart race when I was four when I saw. I'm like, okay, that's what I really we all have that. Okay. Then he's like, yeah, then I met her when I was older and like I couldn't bear to look at her because I'd seen her nude and other movies. I'm like, bro, take that out of the fucking book. What are you doing? So I'm like, all right. I got to know this guy way too well now. I'm stepping into this game. I'm like, I still think this dude might just have a little too

hype behind, too much hype behind him. And I don't get it because this book was like my attempt to like get in his brain. Like connect what because what I wanted from the book to be clear was like, okay, you like these things like everyone knows your movie buff. One movies said to you like and then I went and did this with Metal Gear or then I thought of this. Yes. For Metal Gear. This is what you shoot. Yeah, exactly like I want to get into that part of the process. And you don't

get that. It's just like old blog posts that he made on his website from like 2007. No exaggeration. Like there's July 2007. Just blog posts from his site. He's just putting the book on like this had to be the most free fucking cash ever. Nonetheless, I play this game and I'm three hours in and I am both bewildered and very in love. Let's go. I couldn't really fully describe what I

experienced. It was very Kingdom Hearts ask which I know will make people vomit in their mouth. But Kingdom Hearts is a series I described as when you're in the thick of it and you're playing and you're going through the story. Oh, you know what's going on. You can tell everyone. But once you leave that bucket, right? And you step outside, you come up a fresh air for like an hour and someone goes, what just happened? I'd be like, oh, the darkness and the heartless and like,

that's it. Like I would just start to lose it. I feel a little bit of that with that string. Though it's sticking with me like the names are hilarious. Like die hard man. Die hard man. Dead man. These names are wild. Followed up by someone like Emily. I'm like, okay, so the name and good mention here is just wild. But I this first three hours was a lot of cutscenes. But

the amount of like really, I don't know how he directed some of these cutscenes. I'm you know, like, okay, there are these invisible creatures called BTs and they're kind of stomping around and there's timefall, which is rain and when it lands on you, it ages you. And I'm like, how did that happen? And then there's BB28, which is this fucking baby that you connect to. And when you connect to him, you see Mads, Mikkelson. And I'm like, bro, what the fuck is going on?

But all I know is that America has been destroyed by some like there was been multiple craters. And America's been destroyed by something and you kind of get to experience that in that first hour. Like you get to see and you don't realize the game never conveys anything directly to you. It relies on you to like pay close attention and understand its little details. But something destroyed America. And now it's time to reconnect. And I love Sam as Norman Reedus. And his kind of

performance of like, it's a game about connecting with each other. And this dude is very much like, damn, don't touch me. People go up and try to shake his hand. He just looks at their hand and looks at him like, what do you think's gonna happen, bro? Like I'm not shaking your hand. Like, mom comes in for a hug. And it's interesting to see him in this main role because

especially nowadays, I mean, this is kind of what I think is defined Kojima for me. It's like, oh, man, I played MGS 2 and I got this thought for booking commentary on a game made in like 2001 about social media and the internet. That feels more relevant than ever. And playing this game in a post-election world where everyone's at each other's throats and you kind of just want people to get back to like, we can see eye to eye, we can

be different and appreciate one another. This game's messaging has already started to hit me in a way. I didn't quite expect I was like, wow, I'm so glad. I know I dogged on the game, but I'm so glad I waited because it now is, it's like, I just set it up like the ball's up in the air and it can just spike me down into the ground. And that's what I'm hoping for. I feel like this game has a lot of potential to kind of make me think about things differently. And at the very least, like,

dog schnutz wrote in, walk away with an appreciation for what he did here. I got a little bit into the the package sim delivery gameplay. And you know, first package sim delivery was great. I was like, okay, this is a new thing, new toy. You know, it was funny just seeing the mechanics like, I went too fast down the hill and I'm like, oh, fuck, and I had to like hold onto my backpack and make sure I was good. I'm walking through the river. You know, I'm like, okay, my endurance is going

low. Then you have to deliver a body. Yeah. And I'm like, damn. Okay, like this is kind of emotional in the music that plays. I'm like, all right, coach, and I was like, god damn, this is kind of a vibe, man. I can't. I kind of hate that. I love this. It's like you want to know what's going to happen. You want to keep going to know what's happening. I'm like, y'all, literally just walking forward. I'm so in right now. Then you deliver the body, right? I'm like, man, that was

good shit, but it's not over yet. Now I got to get back and there are these BTs. And you open up the map and they're like, this is the direct path, but it's through the BTs. This is the, this is the safer area, but you got to go down a waterfall. And I'm like, I don't trust my abilities quite yet. I don't have the tools to do that. So I'm like, let me take the direct path. So I'm like, just crouch walking around. And also in these BTs surround me and I got hold my breath.

And like, dude, Sam's endurance is fucking nuts, bro. I hold this dude's breath all the way to like, I can't hold any more. Let go. Full refill. Hold again. And it's a very unique stealth experience because I'm like, kind of crawling through, right? And I'm hiding from what seems like nothing. I'm literally just like, if anyone was looking at me, they're like binoculars from like a mile out. They just see me like, crouch walking nowhere. I was like, yo, is this guy on drugs?

But you know, you managed to get through it. And that moment of relief, when you get out, I'm like, wow, that way, that was kind of tense. I'm like, dude, I didn't even have a package on me at that time. What if I had to like hold the, the package is wall walking through my breath? Immediately, the ideas came to mind. And I haven't even touched any of the new elements. They added with directors cut that apparently had like weapons and more of the MGS style gameplay that

people thought was lacking. So now I'm just like, dude, I'm kind of liking. Core Death Stranding. Before I've even touched any of the new stuff, it's a very weird game and that like, I went and took a shower and I saw a promotion for like a Norman Reedus show or something. It was called ride. I was like, I've never heard of this thing, but now I guess I have. So there's like that built in marketing that I'm like, this is where I say the Kojima curve exists. I'm like, this would be torn

a fucking sunders if it was anyone was, oh, dude, he got money for that. Like, or he got a better deal of Norman Reedus, which is money for that. Like, can we please call it what it is? It's okay if the game's great, which I think it is so far. But yeah, spend some time in that room. Norman's like just super interactive with the camera. All of a sudden the game just starts breaking the fourth wall there. He's like, looking over the shoulder, he's like, like this,

like, check that out over there, right? When I'm like in the mirror, like, making funny faces and taking pictures, I'm like, what is this? I said that I'm so glad I recorded my opening hours with the game to make a video of it. The amount of times I said, what the fuck is going on? It's probably, I'm actually my new editor sent me a draft of it. And I'm just like really keen to watch it back and see how maybe annoying it is to watch that I just constantly am like,

what the hell, bro? What the hell, bro? Because I just, I see the trailers, I have no context, right? And I play the game and I'm like, I'm going to get some sort of understanding here. And just the order in which everything's presented is crazy. But I as a movie watcher now, I really appreciate how he shoots his cutscenes. Like you see his movie, his movie sensibilities kicking there. And then he still makes a game around it is very different. So it's really not

the smart choice, but I got to stick with it, dude. Like, this is not a game I feel like I can just drop now because I'm like so interested and invested and curious. And again, I feel like I haven't really scratched the surface. And I don't know, dude, like I'm just very, yeah, I'm in, like I'm super in. So yeah, man, I'm sorry, Kojima. I did not understand your game. There's not familiar with your game. I did not understand it. Fuck, man.

I was saying you get to some close quarters combat and you see some stealth stuff kicking it. I was like, okay, I do like that. And more slowly, more mechanics keep getting introduced. And for me, the core gameplay was not the hook for me. To me, what was the hook like, okay, the storyline, it's clearly progressing to something. And I am interested enough to know where it is going. But only thing that hurt me was again, that this is now the directest cut.

And I had made, you know, I was a couple hours in. I was like, damn, what a carry on. So, but then again, in your defense, they've added so much more with this directest cut. So maybe it's like, all right, I'll give it a go. But the fact that it's Windows Play anyway is going to make me give it a shot. Because this is a game I could see playing on my rug and continuing going stuff as opposed to playing at home. I think that's what I'm going to play this primarily.

So I will give it a shot on that. But it's interesting to hear your experience because it was kind of similar. Remember delivering the first body. I was like, that was kind of wild. I was kind of great. Like, what is going on here? It was very tense. Very, you know, it was going on and stuff like that. So yeah, let's see, let's see. But I'm with you. There are some things this man gets away with in this game that I'm like, bro, anybody else would attempted this. They would have got

dragged for doing this. And it's just like, I, so it is, I still feel there is a Kachima curve reserved aspect. A thousand percent. Bro, like, you know, anybody else could not get away with some of these things. But in his defense, it is a beautiful game. It is well directed. It's well cut. And there is this connective thread that I feel is building. And I want to know where it goes. So I will give that. So I'll return judgment. I have yet to experience any of like the

strange shit that like makes this game special. Though that's the other thing is like, you know, I'm not liking it because it's just different for the sake of being different. Like, that doesn't work on me. But I love the, how the themes are really connecting with me with where we are at as a society, which I think is where Kojima's best writing was done and his best direction was done with Metal Gear Solid 2 and Metal Gear Solid 3. Like just real commentary on people

and society and where they're going. And again, to think about I'm playing this game that was in 2019 and just I remember the following year people were like, oh, look Kojima was right pandemic. Like, you know, I remember that was like the kind of victory lap for him. Like, look how right he was immediately like Kojima game watch out for them. And then we get to this moment in history and

Death Stranding just feels not real. But it feels like the words they are trying to speak through their characters and their actions is a very thoughtful commentary on our desperate need to come closer together as a people. And so yeah, I'm just I'm very stoked to lean into it more, learn more. Like, I'll see you at the beach. I'm like, what's the fucking beach, dude? What's the beach? Like, I have ideas. I have theories based on what they have shown me. But I saw a certain

someone else at the beach. I'm like, why was I there naked and why were you there fully clothed and why were you walking in the water? I don't know, bro. I don't know. I hope I come away with a full understanding of it. But it's a very interesting game, very different. So that's what I've been playing this week. All right, Koj. Time for the big news. Phil Spencer tells all in an interview with Bloomberg. There are so many places to pick at this one. So I will read the entire Bloomberg article

and then kick it to you, Kojima. And just get some thoughts on whatever talking point you want to tackle first. After a tough year, Microsoft Core's video gaming chief is still looking at acquisitions and charting how to compete and partner in markets for handheld gaming devices and mobile stores deals that ad geographic diversity, including Asia might be worthwhile.

Phil Spencer said in an interview Tuesday at Bloomberg's offices in New York, buying another mobile company would add to titles Microsoft picked up in the $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard last year. He said, we definitely want to be in the market. And when we can find teams and technology and capability that add to what we're trying to do in gaming at

Microsoft, absolutely, we will keep our heads up. Spencer said, still, there's nothing imminent and very large deals are probably off the table at present as the company is spending a lot of time absorbing Activision Blizzard employees. He said, Microsoft wants to diversify the teams working on games by looking more to China. He said the company developed a new mobile version of Age of Empires, a world building franchise that first appeared in the 1990s by partnering with Tencent.

Microsoft and Tencent released the game globally in October. It's been a good area for us to learn from creative teams that have really unique capability, Spencer said. The real opportunity is to partner with creative teams in China for global. The executive who has repeatedly professed his admiration for handheld game devices said the expectation is that we would do something in

that category. Although the company is working on prototypes and considering what it might do, Spencer also asked his group to look at the market and develop its vision based on what it learns. Such a device is a few years out, he said. Few probably being like three. Keep that in mind,

we'll talk later. In the coming months, designers and engineers will focus on making the Xbox app work better on existing portable devices and partnering with hardware makers to make sure their products sync with Xbox games and experiences, he said, the Xbox app right now is good rather than great on some of these gadgets he said. Long term, I love us building devices, Spencer said. I think our team could do some really innovative work, but we want to be informed by learning

and what's happening now. The company's planned online store for mobile games has been delayed, as the group does additional research on the market Spencer said. Xbox president Sarah Bond has announced the store in May with a planned release of July, but staffers are still talking to mobile developers, including those responsible for Microsoft's own Candy Crush and Call Duty mobile,

to figure out the plan. As regulatory cases involving Apple and Android mobile stores work their way through courts in various countries, Microsoft still doesn't have an efficient way to get its own store on mobile phones. So a web store would mean somebody doesn't have to go into the app store to try to install something, but you have to have a way to find the store, Spencer said. If we're just hoping like we build it and they will come, I'm going to bet that doesn't work. That means Xbox

has to make its store unique for players and figure out what will draw content creators. At the same time, it's preparing for a world where Apple and Google mobile devices are more open to Xbox. I think the balls moving the right direction Spencer said. I think the idea of open platforms where users have more choice creators have more choice. You see them when I'm right. After first releasing the batch of Xbox games for PlayStation and Switch, Spencer is pleased with the results. Microsoft will

do more of that, he said, and won't rule out any game and Microsoft's stable. I do not see any sort of red lines in our portfolio that say, thou must not, he said, it's too early to make any sort of decision on the next version of Halo, he said. Following the Activision acquisition, Xbox cut more than 2500 jobs and closed three game design studios. With the company exiting what management calls a difficult year amid a challenging mobile game market, Spencer feels good about 2025.

The Xbox business has never been more healthy. He said citing growth in cloud and PC gaming as well as console usage. The business is performing right now and I think that means a more healthy future for hardware in the games we build. Spencer said he also feels optimistic about the growth of mobile games. I feel pretty good about where the industry is going. He said, to reach new players, we need to be creative and adaptive of new business models, new devices, new ways of access. We're

not going to grow the market with $1,000 consoles. We'll shot there at the end. Where ever you want to pick up any spot, pick a spot. A lot of two parts. He's outside. He's talking. Yeah, let's start with our acquisition talk. Not surprised. I do think that as the Expresser go the block is still hot as far as any type thing big. I still think there are on a time out with that, especially with absorbing ABK. Everything involves with that.

As far as the China part, I thought that was interesting. I told people age of empires is huge. I know us gamers are core don't necessarily care for that, but it is a huge Chinese franchise. Also, I'm about to a lot of people starcraft don't sleep on the starcraft acquisition, getting that into game pass, making it appealing again, PC market centric. They want to grow there.

That's the thing that's kind of interesting. I don't know how I feel about that. I understand that it's kind of like you working with the necessary evil because they probably control a lot of that market. I get that. I'm just curious to the extent of set partnerships and relationship, but that's just me being with a little side just to be fair. But what else? The mobile. The mobile is actually surprising to me because it's like, I get it. This is a tough

market to navigate and you have to integrate correctly. I do agree with the part where it's like, okay, you just can't throw it up and say, go ahead, it's finished. Go get it. It has to be done in an intelligent way where there is a store for it and people are going to access it. The question is how. I think the problem they seem to be having is they don't want to do web per say. They want

to have and they do realize that Google and Apple kind of have a lock on that market. So the vibe, I'm getting is the hope of the walls coming down with the court process and to see what happens there and then to see if they can integrate that way and knock two birds out with one stone being able to just be there. That's going to be something developed because it was something that they did

promise in May and it never happened. For our understanding, this is a huge reason why they did the deal because they want to really penetrate that mobile market and get the revenue off a candy crush call a three mobile. So I thought that was interesting that they seem to be taking a more measured approach with that when I know that there's a lot of potential for huge financial growth but it seems they want to do it right which I kind of understand. I do kind of understand it

but I'm just always surprised that it's not here. Like it's still not finalized. Yeah. So that's that. Now let's get to the heavyweight stuff. Hand out. This is how I internalize it. All right, first, yes, we are very happy that you are building that we are very happy that you are thinking about this market. I love the fact that the Xbox centric UI thing is a big deal. The few years out part is going to where everybody's focused on. I'm not getting it. Look, if it's two, three years

from now, yeah, I'm a little disappointed. It's going to wait so long and my main concern is what we do towards our body. Mike, look, I want the best possible product but I also understand that you have a competitor that you cannot allow to be for for you. You just can't. You can't allow a PlayStation into that space. We know Nintendo has come in. That's inevitable. They have their market. Yeah. But if you want to talk about that high-performance, you know, non, I don't want to

categorize every Nintendo switch person as a kid but they're let's get it. It's fair to say they're more youthful market. You know what I'm saying? As opposed to what we consider, I guess, the teens to the older. Yeah, they have LPC market. Little bit old. Right. So the key for me though, the positive is waiting is y'all. Advancement to chipset. Advancement to memory. It's going to be

lit. So you outperform your competitors. My only caution is like, man, you can't wait too long because if PlayStation wakes up tomorrow and says, yeah, we're announcing the PS blah, blah, blah. Oh boy. Yeah. You can't have them first. So I'm going to go on limb and I'm going to make a guess that even though it says the few years, this is corporate speak for a few being on the less of the fewer giving themselves a window. I'm still going to probably stick to my prediction that

you will get an announcement in a year. But maybe it is 20, 26, 20, 27. I would be shocked if I'm wrong that day like, hey, 20, 28 or something. I would be shocked if that's the case because I think that is way too long. And to me, he's been speaking about it so much to me, this is corporate speak for try to give yourself a little leeway if there's a snack here, but you and you don't want to give your competitor a hand. That's just me. You know what I'm saying? It's all that.

And then the last part was it was one other part. We talked before. We talked to Google. We talked to Redline with exclusives. Oh, yes. Thank you. Thank you. No surprise here. If you've been listening to the Duke's, you know, damn well, everything is on the table. We ate food, right? I did feel out of interest that he mentioned the red line because remember, there was a report of people coming out before saying, oh, yeah, Microsoft has internally said,

you know, they talked it over there, not going to do core fragile. He's like, whatever you thought you heard, everything's on the table. But so this is how I get it. And I'm still stick with this for me. Everything is on the table. My thought process though is they still don't know what they're doing. Not that they don't know what they're doing. They don't have a concrete plan on what it is. To me, this is still fluid because yes, you want to you want to tell everybody, hey, we like what we

did. We put things everywhere else. And you are seeing active user engagement through the roof. I get that overall as a company. Xbox business is doing well. That's a fact as far as the strategy. And they may be clairvoyant with this whole strategy as we talked about. I'm always going to push back at him in terms of core identity. I don't care what he said. Like when it comes to core

identity, you better be careful. That's all I'm saying. Because at some point, what's the value of your ecosystem if what made you who you are is everywhere else that I will always that about COG is selfish and COG doesn't want gaming to make money. No, no, I'm not saying that. Look, ABK, but that's the I get that. You know, saying every, you know, I'm just talking about the core stuff that the halos that gears the forza. That's what made you you. So I will always push back

on that to the extent and I feel that those do need to be protected. But I'm not mad at in the end of Jones. I'm not bad. If call it, he go, I'm not mad at that. That's that. So that's where I will just push a little bit. And the final thing is, yeah, I like the fact. I will say this. It's huge that he said we're not going to grow a market with $1,000 consoles. Because to me, I have to look at what's going on right now. PS5 Pro, you know, the state of console and people

are fearful they were getting out of the hallway. But it's so what that shows me, they're still willing to subsidize and take a loss. And that is important in this climate, especially that to get to political with rumors of tariffs of coming, right? And we shot out the Colin shot the whole got watched their fantastic episode of Sacred Plus about obviously the current

presidency. What could happen in a current climate and stuff like that, right? And I think this is all information that the gamers need to know because if the if the philosophy of the current presidency is to say, Hey, we don't want to be important. And then we want to be a mirror of his strong and we want to do tariffs. Then this is something who's going to who's going to incur that cost? Who? Because certainly exactly. Certain people ain't going one and they're going to be like,

Oh, guess what consumer that's you? So what I hear feel say that now in this current date, when we have the presidency decided now, right? That's a big statement right there to say, Hey, we don't we're not going to grow the market with $1,000 console. So that I have to infer that Microsoft understands that we have to take that hit on that to get it into a price. And this includes, I'm assuming mobile handhelds, you know what I'm saying? And I mean, and also consoles. I like

that part. So we'll see, you know, maybe wishful thinking on my part, but I think it's very interesting that he said that. So yeah, that's where I'm out a lot to parse there. I'm curious what you think on all the different categories he went. First thought on my head, I just want to get out of order. But I think with the timeline and everything of the handheld, it makes sense that this is probably going to be if they started their generation early, this will probably be the

kind of series S component of that generation, which would line up. I mean, we've heard rumors of 2026, right? So I don't know, man, I mean, if you see a van alongside a new console, definitely changes the outlook of like why it's a few years. So I feel like we need to look at it in that bubble. Otherwise, though, I mean, you definitely said everything I felt when it comes to the handheld.

I think they are on a timer. And this market is settling a bit now. Like there's enough options out there from cloud tech with Logitech to strong OLED screens with PC capability and ASUS to in the middle with steam deck that's like really optimizing. You have your whole library there. PS portals there if you really want to go all Apple and just be like, Hey, I have my PS5 and I have my streaming device for my PS5 and I'm good with all of that. That's still well. Yeah, it's doing well, right? And

the switch is coming up soon with the new entry. So there's a lot of like, I've got my handheld. And I don't think Xbox can afford. I'm gonna be honest, do I thought this was coming next year maybe? You know, and I don't think, and I don't blame Xbox for that. This is my own prediction. Taking that out of the equation, I don't think they can afford to weigh much longer because especially if PlayStation goes, most people have a home. And I think we have had very good competition

in this handheld market. Everyone's taking their own approach, right? Like when ASUS showed up, was like, Oh, this is a legit handheld PC. Just got windows on it. Like this is a different beast from Steam Deck, which is like, here's Linux and like, here's a Steam OS and like, this is how we're doing things over here. But you got your library games there. And it's all kind of seamlessly integrated. We're going to verify these games and you can still mod these games. So each one

brought its own flavor to the table. PlayStation, obviously, lean the idea of like, stream your PlayStation games to this OLED screen with a dual sense capability in the palm of your hands. Kind of cool. Latches, eCloud kind of broke the ground first and got torched for it. But I think they stole one of the best cloud streaming devices out there. The battery life on these things are ridiculous. You'll never run out of battery in a single session.

I great. It's a cloud device. But I mean, even if it's like the screen's great, the form factor is great, I think it's a super underrated device. If you can, especially get on a deal. So I just look around. I'm like, these options are there. And Xbox coming in last, the worst thing they can do is come in last, not because, oh, the market settled, but because they look like the flowers.

Which is why we said that you can't go behind PlayStation. Or I'm sorry, after PlayStation, because if PlayStation goes, then even if Xbox has been cooking and they show up with a great feature set, I mean, look at the series X objectively. People are not going to like to take look at the series X objectively. Game pass, smart delivery, good exclusives. It's got enough boxes checked, comparatively speaking, the Xbox one. They've stepped on a lot of rakes this,

Jen. But objectively speaking, pulling out of all the zeitgeist, the business updates, all this crap leading into 2024. I think Xbox checked enough boxes to be like, this is a good console to own, right? And they still struggle to sell units. We see that. That's in the data. So what's going to change if they're the last to enter the handheld market? Nothing, nothing will change. It will continue the status quo. They need to be ahead. If they want to have

a moment to have impact, they can still do it. I encourage them to do it. I want next box handheld, but outside of being a novelty purchase for people like, whoo, the newest handheld and, oh, it's Xbox. They either need to blow the feature set out of the water, which I think they can do, by the way. My prediction has always been it's not just going to be your Xbox handheld. They're going to bring steam in, they're going to bring Epic in, they're going to promise other platform

holders coming in. Like, I think they're going to go for it. I do think they're going to embrace that. That's going to be their moment because if it's alongside the next gen system, again, I think that is going to be not just like your home console for Xbox teams. It's your home gaming console. As in go get your other game libraries on this. I think that is their long-term vision. That is something that will excite people if it's announced in tandem with all of that.

But if it's just like, here's your Xbox handheld, have fun. Play stations are already gone ahead of you. I expect this thing to not do super well because again, it's not like we're starving for good options. There are already great price-friendly options out there. Those are my bars on the handheld. I think it's especially frustrating reading like, well, we want to optimize the Xbox app first because, Cog, what has been complaint number one from our Duke Revereign and Sisters with the

writings since the show started? Is man that this app has been terrible? It's terrible. I'm not going to say, yeah, sorry. I got a picture of it. But, Barra, it was just that case in point. One of the main reasons why I won't finish still wakes the deep. I want to play that on the Xbox app and the whole way. There's a bug right now, right? That in first-person mode, the sensitive, while I'm walking down the hallway trying to run from scary things, the camera will just switch.

My analog got touched or something. I'm like, yo, I brought the sensitivity down. I've done all this thing. Meanwhile, the Steam one gets updated. I go to the Forbes. It is a known bug. They were like, well, it's on the Xbox app. Good luck with whatever they go and get update. To me, it's just so happy to just put the game on and then run away like they did their job. No, fam. They're still issues here. I'm the person, like I told you, doing my Xbox insider app program. I'm the person's

giving feedback. That app, the work, even the compact mode, it's still not enough. One of my biggest pet peeves, I just want to log on and show me a list of all the games that I actually own on the damn thing. Why do I got to go through sub-mainz and check a box and do all this just to show it, it doesn't display as beautifully and as intuitively as a Steam Deck UI. There are still light years

away from this. I just, I got to give them smoke for that app. It's been a while. I get it. You've acquired all these companies and you're, if your goal is mobile and handheld and all this active user to fix that experience because that's where you want these new players to be. So that's just me continue. I had to get my balls off with my, my, my, my heat rolling on the Xbox. It's just frustrating to read this thing that's been a known problem for a while. Might be the

very reason things are actually held up. Like that is just not acceptable. I'm sorry. It's just not that they're addressing and saying the we're addressing that you've worked with two partners now. You worked with Logitech and made sure Xbox was the focus on that handle and you were big time tied to Asus. One more did you need to know that this app was not acceptable. What more did you need to research? It just feels like corporate speak for like we, we kick the can down the road,

hope people would accept it and they have it. So we have to change it now. It's been in desperate need of a rework and I think it's because it's so closely synchronized with their mobile plans that we will not see this app until this mobile store thing is reality. That's my prediction on that. The mobile store getting delayed is significant because that's a big part of their future revenue

plans. They bought activation for two things. I think it was called duty and candy crush. And candy crush is 100% going to lead that charge on that Microsoft mobile store because their their goal is much more broad than say like a square annex where they're making like Octopath champions of the continent. It's like they're trying to make not just a mobile game but a store front

and pretty much do what they did on PC like we're here. You can buy your games here. We're going to take a piece of that pie and now they want that on mobile and that's a very ambitious goal to have. So back being delayed is significant because I feel like that could have some level of long-term financial repercussions if it's not ironed out sooner but they seem like they're researching that too.

Which I get that's like okay take a measured approach for launching the whole store front like take your time right there's I don't know if anyone in core gaming or even mobile gaming is really clamoring for right now especially since where is your store front find a place with current like restrictions for both iOS and Android. So I don't really look too crazy at that as well as the acquisition thing we already had our talks with Hogue Xbox is in Bolden they beat the FTC

get in the big fish. They'll go out and get someone big at some point I think you know give them time to integrate Activision Blizzard. I don't know when it happens obviously these things move quick we saw how fast based on the timeline I think Phil reached out in like September close to October about Activision they announced the acquisition like a couple months later so yeah

or the attend to acquires should say so they these things move fast so it could drop at any moment but I expected like you did Kog after Activision was fully integrated that there be a breathing period right like well I can still hide as a good way of putting it but I do think they want to go now

if their intent to is to grow and like they mentioned the article you know it's going to be whoever has mobile game capability because that's like their next that's their unaddressed piece of the pie like what fortifies as there so I feel like they're next acquisition unless it's like a square

annex where it's like we have these triple A games but also they have this mobile gaming department I feel like it might not be exciting for people truly I feel like they might be in their PlayStation arena of like let's buy these no name companies like a nixis for PC ports and like that is

significant over time but at first people are like yeah this is not like where's the big one like a bungee right like I think Xbox is days of buying triple A single player developers are over like I don't I don't think they have any reason to do that anymore you have especially now with Activision

of the fold that you have so many like you're so covered but with so many genres and so much talent like you realistically outside especially you're not even including third party partners you shouldn't need a single other developer right now in the terms of single player triple A output

so I think they're just going to go address deficiencies maybe they I would say maybe they go for a Japanese team but we see what happened with with tango right they that language barrier was too much for them to overcome so they're exploring it differently in China which is actually a perfect

way to connect the dot between what I was saying with the handheld China was a region that Xbox was famously laid on with what game Genshin Impact guess who got it first PlayStation guess what games insanely viral Genshin and now the Hoyoverse Xbox recognize that late and then now we have

Zenla zone zero coming to Xbox a lot sooner it's still delayed but Xbox realize that and that's what I worry is there always a little half step behind because they're kind of gingerly stepping around like I don't know and you missed the boat on Genshin you miss the boat on black myth mucong

at least as it stands with this episode because it seems like something's incoming for an Xbox port so yes so I just feel like them missing the boat is a trend so them going to China's good news because they're done missing the boat we'll see what comes of that because you can't ignore that

globally speaking PlayStation made probably one of their most monster deals of the year by getting a black myth who con because it wasn't about the US performance which sold okay it was and people I think misconstrued those numbers constantly I don't really see much buzz in the US it was

I mean people in the US were talking about it but yeah it was about the people who were buying it or in China so Xbox saw that was like that's global growth that we're missing so that's huge but of course we'll get to the hot topic right no red lines we got to write in

not John Cedar right in my Duke brethren in a recent interview with Bloomberg Phil not only confirmed the handheld but also that there are no red lines pertaining to exclusive titles going to PlayStation how are we feeling about this personally the only reason I continue to buy select games on Xbox

as opposed to PlayStation is due to the handheld and being able to take my games on the go game pass is not important enough for me to make it my primary platform to play on but the handheld would change that I think Xbox is playing a very dangerous game because if PlayStation beats them to

the punch with the handheld it's over in my eyes sorry to doom and gloom bros but this is honestly a shame as Xbox will no longer have that identity that we've loved since the X OG Xbox have a we finally got good games after staying down only to give them way kind of day meanwhile X flea right

in hey dukes with that stranding shadow dropping on Xbox they have a somewhat broader question as I'm sure cog will know where I'm going Sega is having great success and one of the key reasons they've mentioned is simultaneous multi platform approach square annex namely pot Yoshi P mentions

that they'll have more multi platform games specifically naming Xbox in that strategy Sony is releasing like a horizon day and date on the switch and PC while also their PC releases are getting shorter and shorter to inevitably day and date with Spider-Man 2 roughly 15 months after

the console release I say all this to ask would it be suit too soon to say Phil Spencer was potentially right apologize apologies for this being a bit long but thanks and have a great day no worries at all X flea thank you for writing in thank you john Cena for writing in so yeah like I'm kind of

got the opening line perfectly right if you listen to this show we've never budget on this topic once like so I like I know we don't typically flip flop on our opinions like we're pretty hard and fast about that but with this one I know for a fact we were like day one this is not just

these four games right so the no red lines the only I mean really if you track Xbox right in June Phil literally tried to it was actually kind of funny when you watch the clip like Ryan McCaffrey was interviewing him he's like what's going on with these Xbox exclusives and feels like in the middle

of oh by the way we're gonna do more of that like we're gonna bring more of these over like we're excited about that and Ryan's reaction was like oh right like you see like damn okay like you just threw it out there like it was a feeler games calm comes around with obviously our hot topic that week

what was it we were sat there in and Microsoft lounge no less to talk about we got one more thing for you come in 2025 Indiana Jones PlayStation 5 aren't you excited Xbox fans so I feel the writing has been so plainly on the wall that anyone who sees as and goes what was either denying reality

itself or just ignoring the facts which are one in the same I think but so many people tried to paint the dukes and many other legitimate Xbox voices as just negative for saying this was the case but now Phil has tripled down on it quadripled down on it really if you include the business update

has this has the strategy accelerated from what he said in April where he was like just these four games we're gonna see what's going on absolutely it's flipped on its fucking head but everyone knew in that moment you cannot bring one single game over to PlayStation and act like it doesn't do two

things one brings every future exclusive into question it was already happening with blade just by marketing right blade they were like no real exclusivity no Xbox logo there was like what the fuck's going on here right that was really a start of it like why now we look at a blade try to be

like of course of course there's no Xbox logo right so that's number one number two is Xbox had to know this instantaneously especially make a podcast about it by the way instantaneously D values our consoles appeal a tremendous amount in the short term we'll see the long term out plays

out but in the short term we are putting a bullet in our heads they knew these two things as they went out and announced these four games to act like there was no chance in hell that they weren't looking at all their other successful games and thinking can we bring these over is ludicrous to

me so looking at this I am not surprised at all now what's Phil Spencer right I will admit there are there's been a dramatic shift in third party support over this year and I will give my co-host as roses who said I don't know might be the future for me I still feel like

you need that console brand identity but the fact that he could not even confirm which I know people are like what's the years away the fact that he could not sit there and confirm to all of us halo the Xbox franchise the definition of Xbox it's too early to tell if this is going to play

station we fucking know it's going to play station we know he just knows that the plan needs to be it needs some legs you need to keep going a little bit further have a couple more wow holy shit they did it again moments where you have your Indiana Jones maybe two more times then it's the norm

then it's like because dude the reality is this news seven months ago sets the internet on fire this news today I saw it on Twitter people like so I keep my PlayStation got it and that's the difference and I think that's almost worse for Xbox because the passion the fire

is gone it's gone it's all indifference now or my area of Xbox to fuck it like I'll play whatever excuses are there in game that's I guess like indifference is I always say indifference is worse than rage you want rage because at least people give a fuck the fact that people were not like flipping

tables over this speaks to where Xbox is a brand is at that's not doing that's just fucking reality man I think then walking away from the exclusive strategy is very bold and I think there are third party developers supporting the idea of hey by going everywhere we're gonna make more money but I do

think part of it is a lot of third parties underestimating PCs importance less than the Xbox console PC you have to be there there's like 40 plus million people there that you can serve on steam alone like you just can't miss that that's way too many consumers to miss 35 is kind nice to yeah

yeah 40 yeah was it 35 I don't know I forgot what the Xbox console numbers are I'm just making it yeah oh I thought you meant for steam I was gonna say I'm not a rival either no steam you maybe right there I'm just saying I'm just saying that whatever the steam number in addition to the Xbox

yes yeah dude I mean that's a nice two piece two fills defense right if you're third party partner and you're looking at PC you're you're making a PlayStation exclusive deal you know that's like an install base of 40 million and then you look at PC and Xbox combined and we'll say that's like 60

million you're like look how much if we sold to a million of these people for $60 a piece how much we are leaving on the table we cannot do that anymore however I think there's a different obligation from platform holders that I'm still wrestling with and that's that your identity is

your exclusives right like even valve to a degree like half life Alex VR has not left the building yet you know I look at that I granted half life one two portal left for dead of come to Xbox like they've made their rounds don't get me wrong eventually but these are still like valve-defined

games like there's still a brand identity there where it's like yeah you can go play in on Xbox really you get on the mods on valve you're Xbox is missing I think that element of like identity and that's where they feel the most lost like it definitely lies in a halo it definitely lies in a

gears right now at least because that's just what people remember and I think it's difficult to run away from that since they're not so aggressively going to like elder scroll six is ours right you kind of have to lean on people's nostalgia memories to I

it's reestablish your brand identity right so again I'm kind of in the middle on like I'd never to to actually point I do think Phil had a good point and I'll I'll concede that but I do think for platform holders I have my concerns about them trying to knock down every barrier and all

of them just looking the same eventually and like what's the identity where do I set you know outside of like eventually nostalgia like oh I grew up with a PlayStation I guess I'll buy this one it does the same thing as my Xbox that's where I struggle a little bit and I think exclusives

define that in a way that makes these businesses worth existing right so yeah the red line comment was interesting because they're not hiding it they're admitting it they're making it or so there's no the thing is is here's the best thing about this interview we are not guessing

we are not guessing good communication Phil we are not guessing you were matter of fact about every fucking being here that is what fans have wanted for you guys for ages you aren't going to do exclusives got it I've all I wanted to know was that got it you know there's no red line or I

shouldn't say you're not going to do exclusives there's no red line is it anything can come over got it as a PlayStation owner cool I know now I can size up exclusives if I really wanted to be like start looking kind of nice on Xbox but I could wait for the platinum trophy that's probably something calling would say but I'm saying like just as an idea you know like this is stuff that people just want to know oh you're doing a handout cool keep an open mind thank you for not being so

cagey about it there is such a thing is too much talking but I think giving some needed answers on these subjects was desperately required and so I'm happy with that yeah I mean yeah if you finish um yeah I thought like I said we needed the clarity on that I've always been on them like

what after the four what does that mean you know for for people who are invested in the ecosystem they do they do need to hear that so when I hear I do not see sort of red lines on our portfolio that vow must not right that means and you know he said it's too early to make any type of decision

on the next version of halo everything's on the tape right everything's on the tape now I do feel there's a bit of coin is there but I do feel at least there's transparency that at any point something can happen um to the overall thing we have to be they are healthy right now you know saying from

a revenue standpoint and if we want to look at it from the standpoint of is Xbox as a brand doing better than it was during the Xbox one ever yes the answer is yes you know is it far as revenue stuff like that now the question becomes the hardware and I get that you know when you see

the hardware losses that you know that they are recurring it's pretty scary for a person who loves the platform old who is just a console owner that is scary proposition right then I looked at I believe was it placations financials recently I saw their hardware now I was like I was a little

surprised about it I was like okay this is what I'm going to try to have an open mind about even though myself officially I am the console user that is my primary entry point yes I play on PC sometimes yes I play on mobile sometimes but consoles my primary entry point you know the only

thing I have to say is this and this is something that it hurts me to say it but I remember where I was when Xbox through the Xbox one era said yo from now on all I gave day and day PC the internet blew up what the hell are you doing this is no longer exclusive why are they getting what we're

getting they don't pay for internet man it was it was a thing right and at the time everybody was hey what's going on now we look at what's happening now we look at the revenue now we look at what your competitors are doing doing the same maybe the and the window is shorting shorting

so again is it a situation that because of how emotionally tied we are to consoles that this ends up being the right decision I think there are some early little tea leaves that maybe maybe this actually is right and I think they are to your point I think they're skirted

because they know that's what they're going to do and it's a matter of easing it in until it's the norm and then when it's the norm then they can say you see this is what happens and it look it's the way you do things you know saying kind of things and again the jury is out on the console

portion and the exclusive portion of your core franchises and how that works I do as much as I don't like that stuff and I'm always going to be not about against you surviving I'm not against you making the most revenue you ever made you know all I care about is a brand that I love

having an identity and making it viable to be a choice to someone on the fence between another ecosystem right that's where I'm at so we'll see you know I will say though when I am the thing that I have to give Phil credit is this when I see more developers come out and say we are not

taking a PlayStation exclusive bag and we need to be everywhere that defends his strategy yeah it does so thoroughly we'll see how it continues and the key also will be look I'm going to look at Sony second party I notice is an Xbox but I want to look at Sony second party specifically like

if you help fund the game and all that you know I'm saying okay fine but I have to admit bro the Kojima thing was surprising to me yeah it really blew me away I thought that was a logical marriage they have history they grew together right you know saying like and the Kojima to be like

I need to get a movie coming out and I got to and the days of me locking myself to you you know the reminds me of the of like grant that photo and Strauss Selnik telling Xbox like yeah I don't see game fast working for us yeah we make too much we need to be everywhere we need to max the number

you giving me cannot equal what I could potentially make that's what this reminds me and if more companies like a Kojima and like Square Enix and like Pearl Abyss and if we start seeing more of that with Sony second party and stuff like that and these deals becoming less and less of the norm

then he's right and I will have to bend in the end but even I was against it yeah let like where is going so we'll see the jury's out it's early but interesting comments yeah I will say this compared to where I was like seven months ago part of its acceptance but part of it's also like

I'm seeing the viability is more do it it's like okay this is not just you guys the other developers are seeing this is a necessity with again with exclusives I feel like you're knocking down all the walls for growth is there calling it it's like where does the growth end like how many

screens is enough how many consumers is enough that sort of thing so I will say this is like an indie developer like what Xbox is doing where they're like hey like we can fund you basically but you can go multiply it is like an indie devs whipped cream so it's like you know like oh I get to

work with you get the big bag of Microsoft cash and we don't have to be exclusive and we can go everywhere got it you know like that is huge and that is understated a little bit as part of their multi-platform is it's not just the big dogs it's the little ones too man and like I have to

pay attention to stuff myself because we're seeking funding very fucking soon and we're like where are we gonna go and I mean I'll be real Xbox is on that fucking list of people we want to pitch to of course they are it's like they they got a good thing going financially and business-wise and

their their indie program as well regarded it's like of course and so I think people look at it myself included by the way very guilty of this big picture big triple A but how this effects like iB and xbox is not talked about enough and it's really important to consider because these are where

like do it's what a creativity is where the creativity goes but this is also where big developers are going now right like yeah I was uh I've been working on a video for this uh company for but about this company architect archetype entertainment and they're a internal wizards of the co studio

right this is where James Olan lead designer of co-tour and drew Carpenter in the lead writer of co-tour you know empire mass effect went to go work and lead this team and they're building a very massive effect coding game with Matthew McConaughey in it about time dilation it's like interstellar

the RPG it's really fascinating stuff and this is great this is not double A or indie or anything like that but these are big developers leaving the corporate world and going to a place where they I watched all their q&a's one thing they mentioned in every single one of them creative freedom

creative freedom creative freedom it's so important to recognize how constricting the environment's got and that while xboxes plan as you just heard me bitch and monell a little bit ago is easy to fight against it's also really important to recognize what it's doing for the lifeblood of the industry

and keeping creativity hopefully alive we'll see in the years to calm how it plays out but getting multi-plat getting these these bigger developers into independent firms like it's not just a one-off story with archetype I mean there's dozens we've covered over the years so many like that is the

new wave not everyone does what he deocky it's you know does which jumps from one massive triple A conglomerate to another right it's like exceedingly rare so a lot of going independent and I will say as an independent about myself I do look at what xbox does and I'm like well on the

business side like there is a clear benefit to this that I might be on the receiving not working with xbox which is I may be on the receiving end up for multi-plat focus that I don't have to make that choice which I don't want to because that's where it becomes real sorry last thing I'll say

that's where it becomes real as I think about my game like if someone if someone asked me like do you want your game to be exclusive it's like no I want as many people as they can to play and I'm like fuck like we spend so much time on I'm like I get it it's like so appealing as a consumer when

you're making a thing you're like I want everyone to have the chance to see this we've spent so long on it so that's open my eyes a little bit but sorry I've been going on no you that that's what I was going to lean in to add on to your point I just look at my beloved game this year you know

Kinnitigami path of the goddess me hold and and Colin just did a certain service plus on it and even Colin had admit like it I was gonna say before he already had because Colin's on there prepared he had the information before I can even spend it was like xbox helped they got a game pass bag it

was different from anything else it was to help the development of the funding of the game yeah and allow them the game pepper and allow it to be multi-plat yeah that game would not have come out think about how unique and how much I rave and rent about that game in this climate that game

would not allow to become out you make it so what they call it a co-girl style game and the jober doesn't get exist you know and they just made it so again these are the creative ways to kind of implement that and to help game development when you talk about obviously the circle of life

and people want creative freedom and creating the students and stuff like that it is interesting man so those are things that I agree like I probably they don't get enough credit for and I personally like that aspect because I agree with you to me what you guys are doing with your game so I love

to me the most creativity comes from the independent games that's why I love it the most and to me no disrespect there's a lot of trend catching wave chasing people making safe decisions because in defensive triple ace base it's so damn expensive you don't want to take a risk on a flop you

make the wrong decision how many studios we like oh we're sad to report that you know blah blah blah studio has a lot of things and you get the fuck with the twitter thing with in that image you know how it go you know our affective immediately our doors will be

we want to thank all the millions of players that gave us a chance server and packages and foreign by local laws bro how many times have we reported on this so yeah it is interesting so obviously I'm willing to be open-minded I'm with you though I'm always gonna fight

for identity though I'm always I'm never gonna get out there go and get on your nerves I'm sorry I spoke you know your nerves with that I'm always gonna say fight for your spirit fight for your essence yeah and you know we'll see what happens with the rest of the industry and where it goes

any extra thoughts on this big interview here with Phil Spencer anything on the mind I guess I just want to give kudos to the thousand dollar console line you know especially in this climate where we were uncertain about video game hardware pricing

you know and I like that I like that they they understand the importance of being in in the correct model you know because if anything that gave me a little bit more confidence that they are not willing to throw away hardware just yet for much of a week we need to really go this that gives me a little hope right on well good talk there very excited to see what people think about the news in the comments so be sure to leave us your feedback as we move on to our last bit of news for the show

and then our game pass pick of the week this comes from inverse and it is about Bethesda going on strike the biggest video game union by the way hundreds of Bethesda video game workers who work on titles like 76 and Elder Scrolls are going on strike across the country workers in Maryland and Texas are walking off the job claiming the company is failed to address their remote work concerns at the bargaining table and has begun outsourcing quality assurance or QA work without the union's agreement

Bethesda's Xenomax which Microsoft bought in 2021 for 7.5 billion has been homes in the nation's largest video game union starting in January 2023 and attracting more than 300 quality assurance workers while the union has been reluctant to share bargaining updates and said that Microsoft

has made progress with it on bargaining it also said the one day strike was a necessary step forward as its requests had gone unanswered the union filed a unfair labor complaint against Xenomax in October quote we respect our employees rights to express their viewpoint as they have done

today on quote Microsoft spokesperson Becca Dirty said in the email statement quote we will continue to listen to address their concerns at the bargaining table and quote a day before the strike reanna eckner quality assurance test lead who helps supervise employees who test Bethesda

games for bugs among other tests told inverse she was excited and looking forward to the quote fun event and quote I know that sounds weird but we're all really looking forward to coming together and spending time together eckner said everybody needs to understand that this needs to happen this

is what needs to be done to move on we all are just kind of ready for it and quote the union is looking to limit the quality percentage of quality assurance testers the company outsources in comparison to the number of full-time workers present in a bargaining unit it would not share

details on whether Microsoft has chosen outsource it's labored or where Microsoft has chosen outsources labored to the union is also seeking a more flexible remote work policy Xenomax workers are currently required to go to office twice a week and many of the union says are being denied their

remote work requests eckner also said that the company is repeatedly ignored the unions remote work proposal they have continually given us their first were first proposal again and again and it's become obvious that our different mobilization tactics have not worked eckner said

juniper dial a senior quality assurance tester at rockville merlin said the set that several testers would be forced to move or find a new job if they had to come into the office all five days a week because they were hired during remote work years under different circumstances striking

isn't fun or ideal but there's satisfaction in having a concrete physical action we can do to fight for better work conditions dial set hopefully we can convince them to stop dragging their feet and meet us at the table and quote cag you said this my way so what are your thoughts on this strike

from america's biggest video games union in but that's uh yeah um this hits home for me um they're shouting but that's the game work is this hits home many levels one you know as a former meta employee I was 100% remote you know I was hired in that capacity now in defense of

meta I remember when some of the the edict went out that some people that were remote work or hybrid workers would be forced to come into the office and you know that was not met with a pleasant result you know a lot of people sometimes were hired on the full remote conditions and they literally

would not legit be able to come into the office every day you know thankfully in my situation I was not forced to come in I remained my remote status I was actually one of the sticking points uh before I got hired I actually wouldn't even consider a relocation because I didn't want to work in

mental park California I just I just didn't want to do it right how many schools guy it I didn't feel that job warranted me to make that type of life change that wasn't a job that was going to do it that that I'm opposed to it just that wasn't so I got back to the table I applied during when the

remote option was there and I did the other reason why this hits home for me is part of my job as a platform lead and a metaverse integrity operations guy was dealing with QA and it QA is one of the most thankless jobs in the sense of hours upon hours of bug texting fixing making sure things work

and you know I haven't appreciated for because I actually started to do some of it one of the reasons why I got promoted like I would help the engineers I would help the QA because I have a technical background and I'm like hey the tooling you have is terrible let me see what I could do to help

because there's nothing there's nothing more frustrating as a person who's technical that I have hired people to work for me and they can't do their job because the tooling or whatever is getting in the way of the of the operation so one of my projects was to do that and QA love

because they see and I had the appreciation from them I understood with that so to see QA be outsourced to see um workers you know not feeling appreciated and then being forced to potentially lose a job if they're forced to come in that's tough man so one yes I appreciate that there is a union

you know in this case because I do think that video game developers need that type of protection it especially in a thankless business where there's not too many places you can go you lose a job it's only a couple of big cities a lot of people are offering remote work that's just the honest

God truth about the video games industry so I love that they did that and I hope Microsoft will respond because um this is important man we can't keep losing video game talent and without any other options for them to go because it is that's the kind of strong on think about it you want to stay

in gaming where are you going to go you don't have many options and that's why being in the game industry is such a it's a dream of mine but it was always something I'm like eh the volatility yeah how long you know I'm saying it's not many places you can go so I'm pulling for them I'm hoping

that this gets resolved I want to shout myself out at least having a union allowing them to unionize right but now we got to get to the the unwritten rules in the industry which is all this contract work all this outsourcing you know what I mean and to eliminate people who are going to have you

know benefits and full-time job that's another reason why you got people what to keep these jobs is the benefits bro like benefits are so important right like you have no idea having that medical peace of mind and all that stuff so I'm pulling for I'm going to be monitoring this situation

very closely and again shout out to you know everyone that there's a who took a stand and was like yo we need to be valued we're taking this strike day what's up and hopefully this gets people to come to the table and make conditions a bit more fair so that's where I'm at again just one

that hit me or do to me because I'm like oh man I've done every aspect of these jobs so I got to know what people are going through and I understand the whole remote work thing so yeah well said yeah I'm more in the being educated seat so I don't really have many thoughts on this that would add

anything in the conversation but it's good to see and yeah I agree the QA is definitely thankless work like thankless bro oh my god the I was upon I was yeah just makes the games tick like you know it's it's not like building the actual story or anything but it's making it all work so that it

doesn't break while you're playing it it's pretty important all things considered because they always say making a game is easy but finishing a game is the tough part so QA is a big part of that all right well we're done with the news cog last stretch here is the game pass pick of the week first

we have Sean Santa Rude who writes and saying hey Duke surely it's an easy game pass pick of the week this week it has to be spiral re-ignited trilogy such great memories playing these games when I was young what are the Duke's history with this series and as we already answered not much at all

that much it could be allowed Sean to have his pick maybe you all agree with it but then I stepped in I made the pick on the opposite end of the spectrum let's go I've been playing some dragon age origins cog you always do this I love this I love when you get you have you get frustrated where

something's going and you go back to the acid it's a check yourself thing remember personal reflections like that was my constellation subject right yes and after that I had to check myself like is Maddie jaded is Maddie going wrong is he losing his hyperbolic yeah right and I had to go

back and check the essence of dragon age right with origins and you know we're not even talking about Bill Cart just a fucking beautiful game and like if anyone knows what I'm talking about when they start up the game this is like the best title menu theme ever you know that that main theme for

origins is so it might actually be what I really think about it like my favorite in gaming because I just so powerful and captivating and you really know the vibe of the game the atmosphere of the game it's so epic and unique I just I don't know man it just gives me goosebumps every time I hear it's

the top top five title screen got to be bro it's like that it's like that kingdom hearts affect where I sit at the title screen I just listen for a little bit like I'm almost reluctant to start the game you know I know what's on the other side of loading screen it's like amazing shit

I just want to listen to that title theme every time I fire the game up so yeah like if if you all need to be sold the game install just sit at the start menu tell me how you tell me how you fair tell me that you don't want to play that it's really that good and it because again it matches

the game beautifully um yeah I've been I went back to it because I had a save file running from may of this year I picked it back up I've been chipping through again because I couldn't help myself I was like I need this in my system like okay so not to get overly personal but games are

a big part of my healing process and there are certain games that just through the power of nostalgia and through the power of good memories like I need to reconnect with that times if I'm going through something and I just want to restore some happiness some excitement that sort of thing

games have just always been that for me and in particular old biore games so I really felt I needed this personally to just fire this up and sink my teeth into this world and the the dialogue is so good like you can be a psychopath in this game a legit maniac I was doing the evil

playthrough and like the amount of people I'm just like just popping the collar kill yourself like I just the shit you can do in this game like whatever man I just love how evil you can get in this world and like you can there's like this one part with Liliana where like you're here with

these ash the earn the earn a sacred ashes and you know she's just like oh this is like very sacred stuff and you could just like break that shit dumping on the floor and she's like how could you and she goes to kill you and I'm like this is a main fucking party member not for just this

game but like all the way into game three right granted they don't acknowledge the game three if you kill her it doesn't they just they don't ever have the continuity for the first time to do it it's a little it's a big it's a big fuck up in inquisition that they just like clearly we're like

oops didn't think um what it is again just a brilliant level of choice and consequence like you can kill your own party members I mean that's what bioer in that era did so well that I love this like I always think of juhani and nights of the over public like you meet juhani the grove

and as a kid I remember killing her and I get to the end of the game and you see all the still lets for the party member that I was missing two I was missing hk who you can buy I didn't know that the time of my first playthrough I was missing juhani because I thought she was just a quest

but it turns out I was like oh I can bring her to the light side and then she joins your party and she's not missable and it was just like oh shit you know that was so cool so the ability to kill your party members is like I get it's like going to probably the hardest things to do

yeah as a writer because you're like a whole story changes this individual is not here this whole story changes interactions change optional moments change like everything changes especially because juhani is like an early game character uh really on when you can kill her pretty early game

all things considered so I just love how psychopathic you can be in this game it's great it's great to have it's it's so tantalizingly powerful in the game that you kind of get uh you get paralyzed because you're like so many options at my fingertips what do I want to do and I just like I don't

know man like I just I who's in a gush over these these dialogue options uh comments hard as fuck though I for I get my ass whiffed in this game sometimes like I there is that early game curve where like especially when you're in a luthering like some of those early fights like are they

sent a lot of dark swan at you a lot of the wolves at you it's tough but uh once you get out of that you start building your character some more like it really isn't a evolved version of co-tours combat and it's yeah man like this this game so many memories baked into it and like

one of these years I just want to go through Maddie's memory tour and just like really in full all these extremely impactful games that I loved growing up right and just basking them again in my adulthood because like playing this I'm like I know I won't finish this

because there is so much like I'm thinking about that's training and I'm thinking about metaphor of course and I'm thinking about Arkham shadow which I want to try like there's so much new stuff I like one of these years I just got turn the lights off just go for it uh but yeah I just want

to shout out Dragony Georgians you know I I've seen a lot of people when I reviewed Val guard the people saying like oh I'm gonna go try origins and whether it's in response that or not doesn't matter if you've not played this this is one of gaming's greatest RPGs culture war

controversy with aside like it none of that shit matters right now Dragony Georgians is a must play RPG and if if you really love choice and consequence at the center of your experience please go and play this game it is brilliant on that level the music's wonderful it has some of gaming's

most iconic characters Alistair Morgan Liliana just that is a trio among trio's man and this is like your opening roster and there's other great ones in there that'll lead for you to discover but they have also underrated DLC where you like Liliana song where you get to actually like see her

backstory which is the only character that gets that Morgan though the way even she's the best moments of Val guard in my opinion Morgan's continuation character is phenomenal there's just a lot there man in origins it is a top RPG ever ridiculously good so please check it out play its DLC if

you missed it I haven't played Awakening yet but it play its DLC it's really fantastic stuff so that is my game pass pick of the week I like their good timing and then also looking at the technical aspect XPS FPS boost it seems right oh yeah yeah I forgot about that yeah FPS boost so yeah

if you're on Xbox load screens are way better I didn't experience that much with origins because I didn't play it on my 360 or I'm sorry my why didn't play my 360 at the time I play on my PS3 but I am playing on my Xbox series X I did play with Dragon Age 2 though when I did my replay of

that three years ago and yeah it's a huge difference in frame rate it's a huge difference in load time so a lot of these by or games have bad load times with series X back compared and FPS boost it's like gone in a snap and it's probably the best place to play because PC version does crash at

decent amount so great that I was playing on the EA launcher side of things I should go over to good old games now and buy copy there you know G baby no G preserve forever so just out to the FPS that frame boost I definitely love seeing it yep it's on the list

okay that it right now and um or it's yep 60 and it was yeah all I'm 60 60 60 yeah every dragon is huge though yeah it is a good place to start and you can I do think origins one of the best things about it is I remember when I finished it when I was much younger I didn't

really feel like it mean in another entry like I thought that was just it I love to I really do and inquisition I love elements of it is a series you can get into for the long haul if you want to although you know do we know how it ends but uh I will say that origins if you just wanted to do like

I want to experience this and just this it ends in a very that's great finality you can play and drop it I think if you really want to save yourself from long-term investment and that's really shit and this is when by where it's making like 30 hour RPGs that you could play and replay and

so it's not gonna take up too much of your game clock so check it out if you have yet to it's really a special video game as are many pre 2014 by our games all right kawaii well that's it for us it's time to wrap it up in almost four hour show no this is yeah so much news is crazy after

the last couple of weeks we yeah we really didn't spare any detail on and he have these subjects are really sometimes are like all right we'll wrap it up a little bit quicker but this one I mean just had a lot to say so sir what is the hashtag this week what do we think it we had a lot going on here

with the world of Xbox and exclusivity I feel like feel like you guys don't want the red line right you all think it's a lot of line I was like if he doesn't say I'm like I'll take a dd red line dd what are the two yep all right red line dd is going to be the hashtag this week ladies and

gentlemen if you got this far in the episode first off thank you for listening we know this is one of our longer ones to wrap you're probably up until the game or it'll be our longest episode for a while so we hope you enjoyed thank you for tuning in again hashtag red line dd I'm at you

to seven status on Twitter cog is at Lord cog nito catech is there let us know your thoughts otherwise if you don't want to use social media that's cool use the comment section now below again hashtag red line dd leave your comment leave your thoughts just awesome to hear from

all of you so please fire away and cog any closing words before we wrap this up yeah a lot a lot of news man a lot of like breaking stuff we we got I thought we got lucky this time right though yes one with the strand and then don't speak too soon now I think about it yeah

so you actually do something tomorrow yeah so again so far so good just a jam pack week great discuss great topics very stuff and yeah like this one it was just it was just so much to go on to this week was a lot going on 100% so awesome job do you sir awesome job to Xbox provides us all

this news awesome jobs the audience getting through this and we'll catch you all next week with episode two oh three of defining Duke a Xbox podcast until then take great care of yourselves and peace out defining Duke and Xbox podcast is a product and trademark of last stand media and

Collins last stand LLC and is recorded from the United States of America the show is conceived by Matthew Mr. Maddie plays Schroeder and me Colin Moriarty and is written and produced by Matthew Schroeder Maddie's co-host is Barry Lord cog nito everzley defining Duke's executive producer is

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Payne Justin Wagamin Austin Riley Paul Joyce Chad Lewis and Rika Perez Joshua Smallwood Shane Rayum Don Lee John Cordero Greg Brad Cooley Ashley Carlson Kyle Martin Madmock Media Jonathan Rice and Geo Corsey How do you feel when you switch to Geico and save on your car insurance?

It's like going to work on one Thursday morning and thinking to yourself just one more day until Friday but then somebody in the elevator says happy Friday then you check your phone quickly and discover today is actually Friday so yes happy Friday random stranger in the elevator happy Friday indeed yep switching and saving with Geico feels just like that get more with Geico