0:05

You hear that? That's

0:13

the awkward silence of a family dinner after

0:15

you just got caught vaping. Most

0:18

vapes contain high levels of nicotine and

0:22

disappointment. Brought

0:25

to you by The Real Cost and the FDA.

0:52

What's up everybody and welcome back to another

0:54

episode of the kind of funny X-Cast, your home

0:57

for all things Xbox. Of course,

1:00

I'm one of your hosts, SnowBikeMike, and today I'm

1:02

joined by both of my gaming dads

1:04

and a very special guest. We've been

1:06

having so much fun in the studio. It's

1:08

Jules Hardy joining me today. Jules,

1:10

how are you?

1:11

I'm really good. I'm having the

1:13

best day. This is like the coolest day out. I'm having

1:15

so much fun. Also, these things. The smoke

1:17

machines. Yeah. Yeah. We

1:20

are very strange in real life. We got smoke machines for a podcast.

1:22

It's a really cool combo. You know, it's a very

1:24

audio heavy podcast, but you know what? Really

1:26

important to have visual things during an

1:28

audio podcast. Super important.

1:31

Now Jules, of course, we're going to get to know you and

1:34

have all that fun. Before we started

1:36

the podcast, you and Gary were talking

1:38

about playing games on cassette tapes. Yeah.

1:41

Can you take me back? What's up with that?

1:43

So, do you mean what's up with the history of video games? Okay.

1:46

Yeah. So, well, you never heard of the Spectrum? Never.

1:49

It was like a massively popular console. Okay. Was

1:52

it only in the UK then? Why doesn't anyone

1:53

know it? The Spectrum wasn't very popular. Commodore 64

1:55

more so. You have to remember, this is why

1:57

I find these...

1:59

people so frustrating. Yeah, I'm

2:02

so glad you're here. To have another

2:04

Brit that can understand me when

2:06

I'm talking about shit that is like

2:08

a little bit, you know, before

2:11

Mike's time. And also, British,

2:13

we have a very different path. And Jules

2:15

will back me up here. In the UK, we have a different path,

2:18

but we had a different path in the 80s and 90s into

2:20

video games. It was less about the Nintendo

2:23

and Sega and more about the spectrum, the Commodore 64,

2:26

or if you were unlucky, the Amstrad. Shade.

2:30

And oh, yeah, the poor kid at school

2:32

had the Amstrad. He was in for a hard time. But

2:35

before the ages of you used to, you know, the same

2:37

kind of audio cassettes you would make your mix tapes on back

2:39

in the day. That's what games came on. And

2:41

you plugged in. When you gave a demo of what it would sound

2:44

like. Well, you heard

2:47

what a modem sounds like, right? Like that. Uh-huh.

2:50

So the same cassette tape that you would listen

2:52

to your music on, you put the tape in, plug

2:54

that into your spectrum or

2:56

your Commodore 64 or whatever is your preference,

2:58

and press play. And

3:01

it would load the game into

3:03

your computer, but it would take fucking ages. Basically,

3:06

all you would do is eat sandwiches if you had

3:08

a question. Because it would take quite a number

3:10

of times. You'd be like, well, I'm going to go off in the other room, have

3:12

a sandwich, come back. And you play a game for two minutes,

3:14

you're like, I don't like this game.

3:15

No, it's crap. Go back and look at all the

3:17

sandwiches. But you'd kind of want to stick with it, because it's like

3:19

you can't be asked to load another one, because it takes

3:22

so long. What is it, just like swapping out cartridges or whatever?

3:24

As they jump in a quick resume, jump around different

3:27

games. It got to a point,

3:29

you may remember this, when games, it took so

3:31

long to load games, that they would preload

3:33

very quickly a little game that you could play

3:36

while you were waiting for the actual game to be put.

3:38

Preload never comes right. Yeah.

3:40

Yeah. That's brilliant. Preload. There it is. Yeah, it doesn't

3:42

sound right. Because it sounds so much like pre-come. OK,

3:45

well, you know, podcasts, I love

3:47

that. I love that game. You know, now you can

3:49

play. Because load also means come. That's why,

3:51

yeah. I didn't know that one.

3:53

Are you educating him on all

3:55

things?

3:56

Oh, it's been an education for Mike

3:58

on this podcast. This is what my game. Dads

4:00

are here for of course I want to bring in my virtual

4:02

gaming dad to check in with Paris who

4:04

is most professional Paris

4:08

is the same about him with the patience of a saint It's

4:11

not his camera office

4:14

So you may not be able to

4:16

tell but I'm blushing right now I

4:20

Do have a question for you though Mike yes, if

4:23

Gary and I are your gaming dad Yeah,

4:26

does

4:26

that make Jules like you're gaming ant

4:29

or something? Yeah, my fun ant is right for ya I

4:31

know because I said before the show I like Julie

4:33

Jules. I'm sorry Jules And I've known each other via

4:35

social media for a long time This

4:39

is this is oh well there was a bit of a grudge because like it's I'm

4:41

very Jules didn't follow me on social media for

4:43

a While what's that what's that about? And

4:46

because I told you I'm extraordinarily petty

4:48

and I don't follow people who don't follow me once

4:51

you followed me I followed you it was all we

4:53

go to your page, and you're not following

4:56

him He's not gonna hit the follow button But it was rude

4:58

wouldn't follow me But she would often like reply to my

5:00

shit, and I'm like she's not following me like how does she even

5:02

know I'm tweeting

5:03

But it comes into my feet anyway.

5:04

Yeah, cuz it's so popular the algorithm loves me you

5:06

are so popular anyway That's all

5:08

sorted out the point is this is the first time we've ever

5:11

met like we've hit it off right away I

5:13

said before sure I feel like Jules is the

5:15

sister. I've never had but always wanted oh

5:17

We've been hanging out for the whole ten

5:19

minutes

5:20

And we're already like

5:22

pick a thief.

5:23

It's gonna be this gonna be good show Mike gonna be a great show Paris

5:26

How you feeling? No feel like you ready for a good

5:28

show. I'm good man. It's it's

5:30

been quite the week of news So I think we got a lot

5:32

to talk about in the world of Xbox We have

5:34

a big week of news to talk about of course

5:36

last week We talked about the potential abk

5:39

Activision Blizzard King deal closing on Friday

5:41

the 13th It

5:43

did finally close after 24 months

5:45

Jules We had to wait and

5:48

talk about it and speculate and hope

5:50

and now it's finally done

5:51

I think you are probably as happy

5:53

as Phil Spencer is Talk

5:57

about it anymore,

5:57

and then we're just glad that it's over. Yeah

5:59

It was dragging on wasn't it a really

6:01

long time and like you know I think for like

6:04

Could you think about like in the run-up to that obviously like

6:06

all of these great acquisitions? And then it was

6:08

just like this like almost like dead stop And you could see

6:11

it like with like Phil I'm sure he just wanted to get on with

6:13

things and not kind of be spending all that time Having

6:15

to come he's having to like fly up to the UK like all the

6:17

time for all these Spending

6:19

time you will come to the UK angry for

6:21

not for fun That's no

6:22

of course it was the Brits that was dragging

6:24

it out everyone else was fine. Yeah, it's like in World

6:27

War two Oh, wow, we were the only one saying

6:29

enough Hitler's rolling up the fucking

6:31

Poland France Holland, uh-huh,

6:34

they're all rolling over America sitting over there

6:36

not bothered. We're the only ones going enough. I

6:38

know we're not having it

6:39

I'm

6:41

not

6:41

trying to compare Okay

6:46

Anything he's the opposite of Hitler. He's not Hitler.

6:49

Well. We have a big week Joe

6:51

Joe Winston Churchill of gaming we

6:53

also have Jules in the building

6:55

It's gonna be very often to talk with her because

6:58

she's a big-time professional presenter and host

7:00

has done Maybe

7:03

Many of shows all around the globe

7:06

and I'm very excited to talk with you about that because I've

7:08

watched many of them I've admired your work And

7:10

I get to see Paris my gaming dad do

7:12

awesome incredible hosting gigs around the globe just

7:14

like you so be cool to chat that About

7:17

yeah, but of course we'll chat all things

7:19

Xbox because this is the kind of funny X cast

7:21

we post each and every weekday

7:23

No each and every Thursday

7:30

The double brick the double brick

7:32

whammy on youtube.com slash kind of funny games

7:35

roots of teeth calm and of course on podcast services

7:37

Around the globe don't forget we are now

7:39

epic games partners Which means you can support the team

7:41

in a brand new way if you're buying games off

7:44

the epic game store Upgrading your look in fall

7:46

guys fortnight or rocket league make sure

7:48

to use our epic creator code kind of funny at checkout

7:50

and talking About support we always like to thank those who

7:53

support us over on patreon.com

7:54

slash kind of funny You can get

7:57

all of our shows ad free you can watch them live

7:59

right now Or you can even become

8:01

a patreon producer just like our patreon producers

8:03

for the month of October

8:05

Jedi Master Deadpool and Delaney

8:07

twining. Thank you both for your support this

8:09

week The kind of funny x-cast is sponsored by

8:12

better help and immersion Frequencies, but

8:14

we'll tell you all about that in just a little bit Jules.

8:16

Sorry. I'm just this is wild to see happen live

8:19

We

8:23

know is that every fucking way kind of one good

8:25

as you might call him I

8:27

have a lot of heroes in the gaming industry

8:30

a lot of them are live hosts Naomi Kyle Andrew

8:32

Renee Greg Miller these people that I looked up

8:34

to I'm very lucky and fortunate to

8:36

work with of course Paris Lily I got to meet

8:39

you. Thanks to Greg Miller on the show here kind of

8:41

funny So a lot of people who do the live

8:43

hosting gigs I'm having dinner with Naomi Kyle

8:45

on Friday night in Las Vegas. Naomi

8:46

is one of the true gems of gaming

8:48

without us Oh,

8:57

this is terrible. Oh my god. This is

8:59

like payback

9:00

It's like everyone else is

9:02

coming and have a great time for you guys.

9:04

We're going to get a Wanna

9:07

go to a proper steak? Yeah. No, we are We're

9:10

going to want to we're going to know like outback

9:12

shit. He went to we're going to one of the best It was an out

9:14

houses in the country. It was a five-star

9:18

Michelin star restaurant we went to was a

9:20

big deal. I thought you went to it You went to

9:22

a Michelin star restaurant certified.

9:25

So did you say five star?

9:33

This

9:38

is this rain yourself in Mike Let's talk

9:40

about jewels for a little bit before we get into the

9:42

big news voice it on your own petard If

9:45

people don't know who you are, what do you do

9:47

around the video game industry? Where can people find

9:49

you? What kind of fun stuff have you been up to?

9:51

Okay, so like yeah, like I'm

9:53

a free up basically

9:54

Work wherever really

9:55

so currently at the moment. I

9:57

do the Gran Turismo Championships, which is

10:00

Typical fun. We like to travel around places

10:02

and do these amazing, epic live

10:04

shows. And I love simracing. Just finished the Ferrari

10:06

e-sport series, which is a new one that's just come out. I

10:09

would say probably my funnest thing that I do at the

10:11

moment is I do a kids children's

10:14

BBC TV show called

10:16

Game on Grandparents,

10:17

which is I grew up on children's BBC. Let me

10:19

tell you that. Yeah, that's the good. Yeah.

10:21

Yeah, that's that's the top quality kids.

10:23

I'm Gordon the Gopher. That's what I remember.

10:25

Yeah, that's very true. It's basically

10:27

it's an e-sport show where the

10:30

grandparents have to get trained by the grandchildren in

10:32

a particular game and then they have to compete on an e-sport

10:34

stage. So it's kind of like sort

10:37

of like wholesome, like the grandparents really want to like

10:39

spend time with their grandkids. But then the grandkids

10:42

are a bit like, you know, like, don't worry, granddad,

10:44

like, I love you even if you don't lose, but don't,

10:46

you know, this kind of thing. It's got everything. And

10:49

I can actually announce now, which

10:51

is not information that's been out before. We've

10:53

just been recommissioned for series two and three, which if you've

10:56

ever tried to get anything gaming off the

10:58

ground in the UK, you'll know it's literally a

11:00

unicorn to happen. So two and

11:02

three. Yeah.

11:03

Yeah. Games Master back

11:05

in the day. There's footage out there on YouTube.

11:07

Yeah. It's not that one.

11:09

Babyface Gary on Games Master

11:11

back in the 90s. I'm sure production will find

11:13

a clip of that so we can look at Babyface

11:15

Gary. I want to be Babyface Gary. Oh, yeah. Parris,

11:18

you had a question for Jules? Yes,

11:20

I do. Because and actually I should have asked

11:22

Gary this a long time ago. The few

11:25

times I've been to the UK and I've asked this question,

11:27

I'm told a certain thing. So I'm going to ask

11:29

you to is Doctor Who considered

11:32

children's programming?

11:35

You would watch it, but all the children

11:37

are terrified.

11:38

Yeah, you can hide behind the sofa. Hide

11:40

behind the sofa. I'm very excited to

11:42

see Shooty Gatswah. Like, I'm not a big Doctor Who

11:44

fan, but Shooty Gatswah, I absolutely love from

11:46

sex education and I'm all

11:49

for the new doctor now. Definitely actually,

11:50

I think it was always meant to be kinder for everyone.

11:53

Like, it was always pretty good science fiction. But it

11:55

was terrifying. It was terrifying. Things

11:57

happened in that. Because back when you were a kid, you didn't

11:59

wobble. sets and all that didn't bother you but like

12:02

were you scared of the Daleks?

12:03

Not really so much the Daleks it was the other weird

12:06

things wasn't the one that looked like a Bassett's Licorice All-Sorts

12:08

or something? I

12:09

can't remember that one. I remember

12:11

the Cybermen they were scary. The

12:13

Daleks were meant to be the most scary but all you got to do

12:16

is run up the stairs. They fixed that

12:18

later on they made it so that Daleks could

12:20

levitate up the stairs but that used to be the joke.

12:22

I never liked Davros was scary.

12:24

Davros was very scary he's like the leader

12:25

of the Daleks.

12:26

But the Daleks basically had like

12:29

a toilet plunger on the front it was very hard to

12:31

be scared. I think it was literally a toilet plunger.

12:33

I think it was the other one like a whisk or something I don't

12:35

know it feels like it

12:35

was. I went back and watched as I grew up with Tom

12:37

Baker the best doctor but I went back and

12:40

watched some of them recently and they don't age

12:42

well frankly they don't. Yeah

12:45

I started and I'm starting to derail this into

12:47

Doctor Who Talked I had to ask because

12:50

I started watching during the

12:52

tenant era and that's

12:54

when I got hooked on it and then I had gone

12:56

to the UK and I'm talking to people there and they're

12:58

like oh that's for kids and I'm like wait it is really

13:01

so I figured I'd ask. I wonder because

13:03

I imagine there's been a lot of kids if it has been interesting

13:05

as a Brit to see Doctor Who blow up in

13:08

the last 10 to 12 years however long it's been

13:10

since they rebooted it or continued it

13:12

because it was never super popular over

13:14

here it was like people knew it like super nerds knew it but

13:17

Doctor Who most Americans didn't know what it was now everybody

13:19

knows.

13:19

I wonder what the experience was like for Americans and parents

13:22

maybe you've done if you did this or not like after getting

13:24

into David Tennant

13:26

and Matt Smith and all and Christopher Applestone and all the modern

13:28

people if they went back to watch like

13:30

Tom Baker and

13:31

Patrick Trait and like oh shit this is

13:34

rough. Was that a rough experience for

13:36

you? Yeah the Baker's yes like you said very

13:38

rough because got that one late 60s 70s right? Yeah

13:41

70s. Yeah it was not good. Yeah

13:44

Tom Baker was not in the 60s Tom Baker was in

13:46

the 70s Tom Baker was still the best doctor.

13:49

I'm not going to have an argument about that. Okay. Okay.

13:52

We'll see you in the next day. Gary what was the name of

13:54

the show again? Are you

13:55

trying to wind me up Kevin? Yeah.

13:58

No no the show of the you were a gay. Oh, Game

14:00

Master. Oh, Game Master. Game

14:02

Master, all one word. Yeah, they'll definitely

14:05

be. If you do a Google for Games Master, like Gary

14:07

Witter or something, it'll come up. Okay, we're gonna find

14:09

that. Production's on it right now. That was a good-looking... Congratulations

14:12

on the show. That is awesome to hear. A

14:14

lot of fun over there. What other things have you been

14:16

up to? I know you did a Cyberpunk

14:17

party recently. Yeah, I got to do

14:20

the Cyberpunk UK launch, which

14:22

was brilliant. So it was like a lot of people, everyone

14:24

was dressed up like full cosplay

14:26

gear. So it was kind of like, you know when there's a secret

14:28

cinema and you're a bit like, I actually don't want to watch the film

14:30

because like I know the film, that's why I paid like

14:33

a hundred dollars for a ticket. I don't need to watch

14:35

it. Like I just kind of want to be in the universe. It

14:37

was kind of like being in the Cyberpunk universe because

14:39

everyone was dressed up, they had all this like cool

14:41

music, like music from the game. And then obviously

14:44

I knew, and a few people knew that Idris Elba

14:47

was gonna be turning

14:47

up. I was jealous.

14:49

That was wild. That was really the reaction.

14:51

Everyone was like, wait, sorry,

14:54

what? Like, couldn't quite believe it. But

14:56

it was really nice. And I think, you know, for those guys that worked

14:58

really, really hard on like, you know, fixing it and getting it

15:01

to a level they're really happy with. So for them,

15:03

there were loads of the team there. Everyone was having drinks,

15:05

having a nice time. Yeah, it was really good fun. Yeah,

15:08

super cute.

15:09

You look great. The outfit was dope. Oh yeah,

15:11

that was fun too. Paris had a great Cyberpunk

15:13

outfit recently as well. I commented on his. Was

15:15

it sexy? Oh yeah, of course. Really?

15:18

Very cool. I mean, anything Paris does is sexy. It is,

15:20

he's

15:21

got, do the voice. Go on, do the sexy voice.

15:23

He's doing it now. It's what he does. I'm doing the

15:25

sexy voice. There it is. See, it's different.

15:28

It's an extra level of sexy. Yeah, yeah. He turns

15:30

it on. He turns it on. Let's

15:32

talk, let's bring in Xbox now. Right. Tell

15:35

me the last event you've hosted with Xbox. What kind of fun

15:37

stuff have you done with Xbox before? So I

15:39

used to do a lot of the Xbox live, like so like

15:41

Gamescom and like the E3 live shows did them

15:43

for kind of years. That was always, that

15:45

was wild to like come from the UK and then see how

15:47

Xbox does it, which is like, oh my God, there's like

15:50

trucks of hundreds, well

15:52

not hundreds, but like a lot of people. And

15:55

yeah, that was always really fun. We had like Major

15:57

Nelson there. It's the first time I met Phil Spencer with

15:59

kind of that. That was kind of nice

16:01

and I was always kind of amazed that they hired me really because

16:03

I wasn't really like a salaried like member of

16:06

staff or anything but it was so fun

16:08

to do them. I did them for quite a number

16:10

of years up until we were supposed to work together Paris but

16:12

it didn't happen because of stupid visa issues that games

16:14

go

16:14

on. I know. So can I tell you

16:16

a secret about that? What

16:17

you got me fired? Of course.

16:19

No, no, no, no. Because

16:22

like you said we were supposed to do it right and I knew

16:25

it you know leading up to it. I was very

16:27

intimidated. I was like oh my god she's like a professional.

16:29

I'm going to look like an ass on stage

16:32

with her. Kind of a very professional. No,

16:35

you absolutely

16:35

smashed that. I don't know what you're talking about.

16:37

It's totally fine.

16:38

And I'm just like who has the visa issues?

16:40

Basically they didn't approve it

16:42

until like quite close to the wire and

16:44

then I needed a temp visa and because it was just

16:47

after like a lot of the lockdown stuff like the US

16:50

Embassy had just kind of opened up so basically everybody

16:52

like wanted a visa. So we basically put in

16:55

for the visa and they were like yeah it's going to take this long and it was like

16:57

well that's like past the day. We would

16:59

have met. Still haven't met. We would have met

17:01

like this week but you know someone has children.

17:03

Rude. Rude.

17:07

No but we will after this though. Looking forward

17:09

to it. Yeah.

17:10

You've done some incredible hosting gigs. I also want

17:13

to talk about fitness with you because I know gaming

17:15

and fitness you have blended very very

17:17

well in a cool way and I know that's something

17:20

you're passionate about. Can you tell the audience

17:22

what that's all about and what do you

17:24

want to create out of that? Because

17:26

I thought when you told it to me I thought it was really

17:28

cool. So it's an idea that I had for

17:30

a really really long time about. Well first of all I think fitness

17:32

should be really fun and it's not a lot

17:34

of the time and I wanted to find a way of like blending

17:37

like video game characters and fitness together. So

17:40

I came up with this thing called Game to Train which

17:42

kind of like in its original version

17:44

was like taking like adventurer assassin,

17:46

knight, super soldier and then making workouts

17:49

because it's all different disciplines. So like if you were going to be

17:51

those characters you'd learn like these different

17:53

things you know. Knight is more about kind

17:55

of like endurance you know assassin you've got to be like stealthy

17:57

and like quick and far. Anyway so I made all these.

18:00

of like workouts and then when lockdown I

18:06

was like hey guys I'm gonna do like five streams whatever

18:09

that's fine and then it just got longer and I

18:11

think I went a bit mad like doing them like every day

18:14

so I paused it for a bit but then I let

18:16

it sit for a while but wanted to come back to

18:18

it because I was still like really passionate about it I still think it's

18:20

like a really good idea so I've just

18:23

literally relaunched game to

18:25

train which is a YouTube channel so I've

18:27

got a 21 day onboarding program to

18:29

like get people into fitness like

18:31

if they want to do the workouts so

18:34

I shot 21 bespoke videos which in hindsight

18:36

was a lot and then

18:38

now I'm just kind of like every week releasing like new videos

18:40

so I've got like starfield workouts about three

18:42

different stuff it workouts I've got two Dave the Diver

18:44

ones I've got an animal crossing one I've

18:47

got like the main character ones as well so I'm just

18:49

gonna be kind of like ceding these out so it's not

18:51

just about the games but I'll

18:53

create moves so it's about kind

18:55

of like reframing what those moves might be so if you do

18:57

it so okay we were having this conversation before about burpees

18:59

right no one wants to do burpees they're all awful

19:02

like why would you do it what is the practical application

19:04

of this so I have this one move which is a bit of

19:06

an archer reference that's called suppressing fire so

19:09

it's basically running on the spot and then I'll shout suppressing

19:11

fire and you have to get flat down to the floor roll

19:13

onto your back and then get back up again and run right so

19:16

like it's half a burpee what you're doing is half a burpee

19:18

but actually you can see like the practical application

19:20

of doing it or even just little things

19:22

like squat jumps like I was saying like he wants to do squat

19:25

jumps if you were like in a tomb and you've

19:27

got to get over to that ledge or you're in the last of us

19:29

and everything's all higgledy-piggledy and you need to get up there

19:31

you need to jump and grab you're grabbing a ledge

19:33

right so it's about so when you do it mentally

19:36

you're thinking like oh this I'm actually getting better

19:38

at jumping high to grab something you can kind of see

19:40

why you're like doing it if that makes sense

19:43

and it is about that mental thing of switching

19:45

it in your mind like this is actually gonna make me better

19:47

at doing these things you

19:49

know a little bit obsessed

19:51

with it I basically play video games with a notepad and I'm

19:53

like oh this could be a move or if I put

19:55

these two things together this is a bit like Nathan Drake

19:58

and then this is what I do and then I film them And then I'm like, I

20:00

just wanted to be fun. So people do it, you know,

20:02

it sounds super fun. That's why I really gravitate

20:04

to it because I love Ring Fit Adventure.

20:07

I love what they did. Yeah, I loved my Xbox

20:09

one with the Kinect because I did the good. It was such

20:11

a good idea. I did the Nike training and

20:13

I will never forget that. Yeah,

20:16

I did the Nike training and Russell Wilson came

20:18

on the screen. He's like, lift those knees up,

20:20

go fast. Yeah, you're doing it. And I was

20:23

doing it and I was laughing and having fun. I

20:25

always loved the idea of movement

20:28

and gaming at the same time and how you

20:30

should be game applied. I think

20:32

like Kinect was very much ahead of its time in that in that

20:34

sense. Like that sort of gamification is brilliant.

20:36

You need to know that you need to be inspired to keep

20:38

going and to push harder. And really,

20:40

honestly, we were talking about this on the twisting. It

20:43

doesn't really matter what you do when it comes to fitness.

20:45

You just need to find something that you don't hate

20:47

and you kind of enjoy and do that like

20:49

it doesn't matter if you do game to train. It doesn't matter like what

20:51

you choose is your thing. You've just got to like

20:54

doing it and not hate it and just consistently

20:56

do it, you know, and that people try to make things really

20:58

complicated. And it's really not complicated. Just

21:01

send you something you hate

21:02

the end. Oh, my God. They found it. Oh,

21:04

my God.

21:04

First of all, that's not

21:07

me. OK,

21:10

you're a very I found the whole

21:13

YouTube video. For we can show you found the

21:15

whole episode for all the audio listeners

21:17

out there. We're currently watching on the other 1991.

21:21

This would have been

21:22

like, God, you have a baby face.

21:23

Well, because I was a baby. I was 19 years old. We

21:26

don't know one. The one I

21:28

was the one, the one is the one.

21:31

Oh, wow. There you go. So you can go find

21:33

that on YouTube. Watch an old school game. We

21:35

were you even born. I was born in 1990.

21:38

So I was OK. You were a baby. Yeah, exactly.

21:40

You were a baby in arms when I was doing that. How old

21:42

were you there? Nineteen. Nineteen.

21:44

Yeah. How did you get on that? And then the nineteen.

21:47

What had you get on that show? How did

21:49

you find your way out of that? Well, I was I

21:51

mean, I started very young in the games industry. Fifteen

21:53

years old. I got my first job on Commodore User magazine.

21:56

I was doing my I was doing my GCSEs

21:58

in the morning. And then when I

22:00

reviewed video games in the afternoon. And

22:03

straight out of school, my first job as a staff writer on

22:05

Commodore User,

22:06

and then the one for 16-bit games. And

22:08

when they started Games Master, they wanted games journalists

22:10

to come in and be on camera and review the games.

22:13

I had the baby face, so you know.

22:15

You were in? Get him in. Obviously, it was

22:17

the start of a glittering TV career.

22:20

Never since. Let's

22:22

jump into the news right after Jules

22:24

answered this final question. I go, go. What's your

22:26

favorite Xbox game? Since we're talking Xbox, Xbox

22:29

games makes you smile. Doesn't have to be

22:31

your favorite.

22:32

Can't say Halo.

22:34

We

22:34

played Halo today.

22:36

Had a good time. Why don't you say Halo? What if it

22:38

is my favorite Xbox? I don't know. But does it have

22:40

to be any exclusive? What are the rules today? Whatever

22:43

that you've played on your Xbox console that made you smile,

22:45

I wanna know about it.

22:46

Oh, like, well, let's say most recently,

22:48

obviously I'm still playing Starfield, but Cacoon.

22:51

Oh, I hear good things about that. I'm

22:53

in love with that. It's wild.

22:55

Like, within, yeah, within 20 minutes, I

22:57

was like, it's so interesting how I'm using

22:59

this mechanic. It's so interesting how I'm doing this

23:01

thing. 100% has to be up for about that.

23:03

I need to put it on my list. Yeah. It's really good. Okay.

23:05

And it's on Game Pass too. And it's on Game Pass.

23:08

That's value in gaming. Paris, do you echo

23:10

those thoughts on Cacoon as well? Absolutely.

23:13

Cacoon has quickly become one of my favorite

23:15

games this year. And we know how insane

23:17

this year has been, but it's easily

23:20

the best puzzle where you'll play. And it's

23:22

beautiful. This is just a beautiful game. Yeah, I

23:24

gotta get that. But there is that puzzle

23:26

challenge to it that I love it. It's

23:29

great.

23:29

It's just a really weird blend of like mechanical, but

23:31

like insect, like, which

23:33

just seems like a really odd thing to kind of

23:36

put together. Not like Transformers Beatles

23:38

or anything. I just mean like, I don't know, it's weird. It's hard to

23:40

explain, like the kind of,

23:41

yeah. Yeah, I gotta check it out. I keep hearing good things. Okay.

23:43

Put it on your list, everybody. Let's jump into

23:45

the news because of course, the Activision

23:47

Blizzard King deal is finally done as

23:50

of October 13th. The deal has gone through 20

23:52

long months since

23:54

the announcement to close, which is very

23:56

exciting. And of course, we've all aged.

24:00

I blame. We've talked about it a lot. We

24:02

have finally made it here. And my favorite

24:04

part about this reading that press release on Friday

24:07

morning was now we get to the exciting

24:09

part. Yeah. Now we get to see what can

24:11

this team do with these super talented

24:13

developers and studios and all

24:15

these IPs

24:16

now in their hands. Let's see what they can cook up.

24:19

Well, I mean, I think, you know, like, obviously you guys

24:21

have discussed a lot on here about like what that

24:23

means and like when it's going to happen. But I think, you know, if

24:25

you think about like the momentum

24:28

that they had before that and how this was kind of like a dead stop,

24:31

I think by the point like he got towards the end,

24:33

I think Phil's probably like, had enough and it's just

24:35

like, I would just whatever you need me to do to get

24:37

this over the line. I fucking had it

24:39

with

24:40

not quoting him directly,

24:41

obviously. Had it with you guys. It's like, I just

24:43

want to get behind

24:44

the scenes a bit. You were. I said behind

24:46

the scenes. Probably. Yeah, of course.

24:48

Certainly aggressively worded emails flying around.

24:51

I think by that point. So yeah, I think there

24:53

would have been some kind of caveats that they've had

24:55

to like sign up in terms of like what they can

24:57

actually have. And obviously the thing with Ubisoft

24:59

as well was obviously part of that. But I think by

25:01

that point, you know, it's like by it's like buying a house or something.

25:03

It's so awful by the end and you've sorry all your

25:05

money. You're like, you know what? Just take all my

25:08

money. I just need this to be over.

25:10

Yeah, it is finally over after 20

25:12

long months. And of course, we did have big

25:15

Phil appear on the official Xbox podcast

25:17

to say some words and talk with them. Really

25:19

great episode. Please go check out Jeff

25:22

and the team over there. Really well done. But we

25:24

had some question marks, of course, on Friday, the deal

25:26

was signed. Will we see something similar

25:28

to Bethesda where we celebrate some of the older

25:31

back catalog and put games on day one

25:33

on game path? And it was some question marks there.

25:36

Turns out that's not going to happen. And so

25:38

Phil definitely came out and cleared that up. He

25:40

of course acknowledges Bethesda and was very

25:42

happy to celebrate that. But due

25:45

to the uncertainty and how long this regulatory

25:47

process went on, they were not able

25:49

to work with Activision Blizzard to get

25:51

these titles ready to go day one. So we will not

25:54

see them for quite some time. Of course,

25:56

last week we did talk about the Activision tweet

25:58

that said, Hey, be prepared.

25:59

for Call of Duty and Diablo

26:02

not till 2024 and Phil kind of echoed

26:04

that so it is interesting that I think we

26:07

won't see these titles till 2024. What do you

26:10

think about that? I don't know, it must be so frustrating because

26:12

I think you know when you're making that kind of deal you're like brilliant we're

26:14

gonna do another Bethesda right and then we get everything

26:16

to be really cool and then we're gonna always gaze everything we're

26:18

like you're amazing everyone and then there's

26:20

this like 20 months of just oh my god

26:23

I just can't imagine how annoying that must be and then

26:25

having to make those kind of concessions as well just

26:27

to get it over the line which is yeah

26:30

and I think you know that's obviously what's gonna have

26:32

to happen they're gonna have to like wait I mean it's gonna

26:34

come and it will happen it's just

26:36

you know you want to kind of hey here's your comedy

26:39

check give me all the games burn

26:41

game parts I mean that's what you would have loved like ideal

26:43

situation that would be the dream because it's what they did

26:45

before but yeah it's just I don't

26:47

know the UK all of their laws

26:49

I know we're always sticking to mud

26:51

spalling around it's fun we talked we talked

26:54

didn't we last week about how we thought that they would

26:56

announce it would there be a big content drop would they

26:58

do a splashy video would it just

27:00

be a press release and I think

27:02

in the end it was somewhere kind of in between right

27:04

yeah of course yeah you know so Phil did a nice little

27:06

video there was a trailer that he clearly had cut and ready

27:09

to go a pre-cut trailer that showcased

27:11

all of the things that they now own

27:13

um Phil did a little a little

27:15

fireside chat kind of thing talking about

27:17

it um but no you know it's just

27:19

right it is like buying a house like you think there's

27:21

always one more piece of paper to sign you think you're

27:24

done but you're not um and so they've

27:26

still got to you know cross those

27:28

teas and dot those eyes but like look 24 20

27:31

24 is just around the corner at this point and it's not like there

27:33

ain't a lot of games to play on the moon side

27:35

you're gonna say the same thing why do you want any more games

27:37

how

27:37

have you the last thing we need right now just trust

27:39

me I'm good I'm good

27:40

games yeah I'm done I'm full

27:41

no more games right now please yeah

27:43

Paris

27:45

yeah I think what everyone said so far

27:47

was pretty spot on but the thing that

27:49

I took the most out of what Phil said

27:51

on the on the official Xbox podcast

27:53

is the fact that I guess even as we're recording

27:55

this right now they're over in Europe visiting

27:58

um what was it king And

28:01

he's going to come to Son of California and visit

28:03

with

28:03

Activision as well. But

28:05

talking to the teams at Activision

28:08

and finding out what they're passionate about

28:10

doing, and basically any Xbox-owned

28:13

IP is up for grabs as far as that

28:15

goes, is exciting.

28:18

You know, I jokingly – I'm always going to put, like,

28:20

a Banjo Kazooie tweet out when I hear stuff

28:22

like that, so I jokingly put one out today. It's

28:25

that possibility now that – because

28:28

one of his

28:28

Xbox Game Studios has 30-plus studios

28:30

at this point, right? You have all these studios

28:32

out there. You have all these talented teams. And

28:35

if Phil is really giving them

28:38

the opportunity

28:38

to go chase a passion project,

28:40

obviously within reason, but chasing

28:42

a passion project, that's actually pretty exciting.

28:45

And

28:45

I think he said it best on the podcast,

28:47

that you don't want a mandated team

28:49

to do something that they don't want to do. You'll

28:52

get the best out of a team if they're doing something

28:54

they're passionate about doing. So as

28:57

we go into 2024, that'll be interesting

28:59

to see if we get any kind of major

29:01

announcements or anything about some new

29:03

IPs or some new projects from some of these studios,

29:06

because I would imagine either

29:09

they're probably going to wait all the way

29:11

until L.A. in June, whatever

29:13

we're calling that now, or maybe

29:16

they do do another Developer Direct and start

29:18

spotlighting some of these Activision Studios

29:20

and things that they're working on. I think that

29:22

would be a great opportunity. But

29:25

as crazy as 2023 has been, I think 2024

29:28

now is a huge opportunity for Xbox

29:31

with all these IPs that they have, the

29:34

ones that will be coming in the game pass, and then

29:36

obviously any new announcements that potentially

29:39

could

29:39

come out of this acquisition as well. Plus, let's

29:41

not forget,

29:42

no more Bobby Kotick. Oh,

29:44

yeah.

29:44

That's a big one. That is. That

29:47

is. Not a shock. A dream.

29:49

Yeah. Basically, yeah. Yeah.

29:53

I mean, because also as well, I think Phil, I've

29:55

met a lot of different people in games, but he is, you know,

29:57

everything he said he's going to do, he always kind

29:59

of does. Have you ever seen him work a room? Have

30:02

you ever seen him walk around a room and talk to people?

30:04

Who was it? Oh, my

30:06

friend Adam

30:07

was at GDC last year. He

30:10

was in the room with Phil and he said there

30:12

were a bunch of students, like the next class,

30:15

they did that thing where they mentioned them and stuff. He said Phil

30:17

made the time to go and talk to every single one of them

30:19

and he made them all feel like royalty.

30:21

Yeah, he talks to everyone. Game Awards, not

30:23

the last one, that was the one before. You

30:26

can just watch him going round, talking to everyone. Oh, actually,

30:28

I've got a funny story. When we did XO19, we did it in London

30:30

right at the Copper Box Arena and

30:33

my parents have never been able to see me do my job because I'm usually

30:36

away. They very graciously let

30:38

my parents come along to watch the show. I said to

30:40

my dad, I was like, do you know what this show is about? He's

30:43

like, trying to sell some games. And I was like, yeah,

30:45

actually, that's accurate. But basically, so

30:48

Phil came over and was like, this is your dad. And

30:50

came and talked to my dad for like 20 minutes before my

30:52

dad can be really, really boring,

30:54

like really boring. And then after

30:56

the show, we spoke to him for like another 25 minutes. But

30:59

I don't know. I'm sure my dad, by this point, had

31:01

told the same story about eight times. We spoke

31:03

to him for ages. And so I

31:05

saw my dad, I said, oh, did you enjoy speaking to Phil Spencer,

31:08

head of Xbox? He was like, was he the Scottish

31:10

guy? He was like, he

31:12

thought he was a great boy. But

31:14

like, see, fair Phil, like that's sweet.

31:16

He doesn't have to do that. And I think,

31:18

you know, after everything that happened before with like Dawn

31:20

Mattrick and all that kind of stuff, I

31:23

mean, he had a lot to fix, a

31:25

lot to fix. And I think Xbox

31:27

now is acutely aware of how actually

31:30

all the years of good things

31:32

can switch on a dime. I mean, that one

31:34

interview, one interview and a lot of

31:36

faith went right out the window. And I think

31:39

since that point, they have always been aware

31:41

of that and always been respectful towards the games and

31:43

trying to give them like the best deal because they

31:45

know that that's what they're there for. They're providing that

31:47

service. And

31:49

I think, Ron, I will. No, totally. It's

31:51

very exciting of, you know,

31:53

the uncertainty that Activision Blizzard King

31:55

employees had over these past 20 months of where is

31:58

this going to go? When will this land? is

32:00

able to come in and I love like Paris brought

32:02

up right the mantra of we're going to empower

32:04

them to create the games they want to create. I want

32:06

a team that's passionate creating the game that they

32:08

love and I'm not going to tell them go make

32:10

another Halo or anything like that

32:12

so it'll be very interesting to see. Did you ever read

32:15

Jay McConnell's book Reality is Broken? Do you have

32:17

read that? Okay so like it's basically

32:19

did you read it? No no okay so it's basically about how

32:22

like real life is rubbish video games are great maybe

32:24

we should take things from video games and put them into real life

32:26

to make it better and it was talking about this school

32:28

in New York that used like game structure to

32:30

like do its classes and stuff and obviously

32:32

like the the primary thing of it there

32:34

is a reason why I'm saying this the primary reason of this

32:36

is that you know kids can kind of opt into

32:39

what things they want to do to learn and

32:41

it's that thing of like okay so say you played starfield

32:43

imagine if you had to do all the missions to complete

32:45

the game it would be a horrific torturous

32:48

game that everyone hated right because there's something

32:50

about choice there's something about choosing to do

32:52

something that you approach it in a different way uh

32:55

you either learn better or you do the job better

32:57

because you're like I want to do this so actually

32:59

having that strategy makes the most sense it actually

33:02

means that people are going to work harder because they're

33:04

passionate about like the thing that they're doing also

33:06

I do recommend that book it's really good.

33:08

Right that Dan

33:09

he also spoke about Call of Duty of course Call of Duty

33:12

being one of the biggest titles in this deal

33:14

right there he wanted to stress to PlayStation

33:17

players and future Nintendo players

33:19

once that does happen that you will get a hundred

33:21

percent of the you know parody

33:24

you're a part of the community you know I think Xbox

33:27

fans definitely understand the hey

33:29

we're the last beta weekend to happen oh

33:31

I don't have spec ops oh I don't have certain

33:34

guts.

33:34

PlayStation spent a long time being really like

33:36

yum yum yum yum yum

33:37

yum. PlayStation have enjoyed that.

33:39

They have really enjoyed that they ate on

33:41

well the shoe's on the other foot now isn't

33:42

it yeah I know all the things that everyone's

33:44

complaining about Xbox it's like you guys moaned

33:46

about all of these things are like oh Xbox doesn't

33:48

have any games and they go out and buy loads of stuff and they're like

33:50

no you've got too many games it's like you

33:52

what you

33:54

made this

33:55

happen you do you realise you made

33:57

this happen with all of your talking

33:58

this is why we stay above all tribalism here

34:00

on the X-cast. Oh yeah. That's what we

34:02

do. That's what we do. We do our best.

34:05

We take the Phil Spencer kumbaya approach. We love games. We

34:07

love all gamers. We love the games. Apart

34:09

from Kingdom Hearts fans. They can go fuck themselves. Oh!

34:12

Woah! Gary! I

34:14

mean that's not a hill that I would dial. What do you got Paris? Oh.

34:17

I'm gonna regret that one. Yeah you are. You're

34:19

really gonna regret it. Remember when we said

34:21

Paris and no one gives a shit about Killer Instinct? I

34:23

learned a lesson. Oh wow. Oh my god.

34:26

We're still

34:28

paying that one off. I was about to say it comes

34:30

up no matter where I go now. Someone brings that

34:32

up every time. Yeah. And I always blame

34:34

you. I go it wasn't me. Gary is the one that says

34:36

that. I just agreed. Blame me. Well

34:39

you're complicit Paris. You're complicit. So

34:41

there you go. I know. I

34:43

know. But what I was gonna

34:45

say about Call of Duty was so the

34:48

other interesting thing that I took out of him saying

34:50

that. First of all great. Just parodying

34:52

across the board no matter the platform. That's

34:54

good for gamers. No one. Just

34:57

go play where you want. Don't have to worry about exclusivity

34:59

deals, time deals. Any of that stuff.

35:02

But the thing I took out of that. That also

35:04

seems to me that whatever

35:07

agreement they already had with Playstation.

35:09

That Activision had with Playstation. Maybe that's out the

35:11

window now. So because before

35:14

there was rumors that potentially it might

35:16

be 2025 or later that you're still gonna

35:19

see some of this stuff. But maybe

35:21

not now. Which again is good.

35:25

As much as everyone plays Call of Duty, likes playing

35:27

Call of Duty. It's the number one game every year. Just

35:30

make it fair across the board. Whether you're

35:32

on Playstation. It's gonna

35:34

come to Switch. Xbox, PC, etc. You

35:37

know the freaking VETT tracks. Wherever else Phil

35:40

decides to put it. But just make it

35:42

parody across the board. So I was very happy

35:44

to hear that.

35:45

I mean I don't know a lot about contracts and stuff like

35:47

that. Because if there was a contract could you effectively

35:49

just buy your way out of the

35:51

end of a contract? Yeah maybe. I

35:54

mean I think you will see more parity.

35:59

Like

36:00

playstations always had a little bit at the edge with the exclusive

36:02

content and DLC and like timed windows on

36:05

spec ops mode and stuff I think I think you're

36:07

just gonna see that flip over to the Xbox side. Yeah, yeah,

36:09

I like that fair enough You know, yeah, we really

36:11

excited but he said but he said they weren't

36:13

doing that that that's that's what he was saying

36:15

in that interview Well, I

36:18

mean remains to be seen I

36:19

mean not right this minute

36:20

I think I think they probably said a lot of stuff

36:23

to get that deal through the closed

36:25

that they might not necessarily necessarily be a

36:27

hundred percent

36:29

beholden to

36:30

After the fact. Yeah,

36:32

well, he sounds like I want to make it a hundred percent

36:34

even across the board

36:36

Anyways,

36:40

does it really matter

36:41

just go play where you want who cares?

36:44

I don't think the fact that they own the

36:46

entire IP at this point They're

36:48

getting the benefit of the sales no matter where

36:50

anyone plays be in PlayStation Xbox or

36:52

wherever So I don't think you really

36:55

need to do it.

36:55

Oh my god, imagine if they change like the stats

36:58

ever so slightly for Every

37:01

guns a bit less I

37:02

guess I guess the the obvious one

37:05

would be there are a non-trivial

37:07

number of hardcore Call of Duty players out there who

37:09

want to have the best experience right now many of them are probably

37:11

On PlayStation if it turns out that

37:14

now the best experience is gonna be on Xbox because you get time

37:16

to exist Exclusively on certain modes or whatever.

37:18

Maybe some of those people go buy Xboxes. I

37:21

would guess Gary and I

37:23

guess we disagree on this one because I

37:25

don't think they should do that. Whereas Game

37:28

pass that would be the differentiator right there.

37:31

That would be the incentive You don't have to go spend 70

37:32

bucks to play it every year. Just subscribe

37:35

on game pass, right?

37:36

Yeah, I mean there may be any number

37:38

of reasons why it becomes the preferred platform.

37:41

Well, we'll have to wait and say yeah Phil

37:43

of course talked about spending time with the teams

37:46

going across the pond to go see the king team

37:48

mobile will be a big thing I

37:53

would like to see Phil sent no I just all

37:55

I still want to get Phil Spencer and Phil

37:57

Spencer in a room I tried to do that for x09 who's

37:59

the other? Phil Spencer doing a location

38:01

location location the time. Oh, that guy. Okay,

38:04

that was our Phil Spencer I'm when they

38:06

did xo 19. I was like, please can we bring him out

38:08

when we say this is Phil Spencer? And

38:09

there was a period when I was trying to get the

38:11

two Will Smiths together as well And that never worked out.

38:14

I came pretty close at one point

38:16

See you guys see yeah together

38:18

right there Of course spoke about

38:20

spending time with the team's very excited to

38:22

go see them now that the deal is done Talked

38:24

about small die piece and going

38:26

back to the treasure trove they called it

38:29

He said the team has done an okay job

38:31

at

38:31

Xbox but on a plus job

38:34

looking for franchises or looking at their franchises

38:36

and revisiting them

38:37

He hopes with game paths They might have

38:40

the ability to pick a couple franchises every

38:42

year and almost do a quote revisited

38:46

See what that what he can do

38:48

he gave a massive shout out to the team, of

38:50

course with quake 2 remastered There

38:52

is a large lineage of old

38:55

Xbox IPs that are still saying dormant and

38:57

now Activision Blizzard King games Guitar

39:00

hero jewels are you into that? What would you

39:02

like to tell me what though? You're gonna go to like good

39:04

the good will storm by the guitar that you gave

39:06

him Like

39:10

that heyday of guitar here That was one

39:12

of like the best times in gaming like

39:15

everyone used to come back to the flat You'd stay

39:17

up late and I feel like that's still kind of I

39:19

think we would still maybe quite like that I think I could

39:22

go back to that point now and like like

39:24

get a bunch of friends around and do that It was it

39:26

was just the funnest I mean apart from when it went kind

39:28

of like rock band where you're actually drumming which took all the

39:30

fun out of it But yeah, that

39:32

was there was

39:33

some good time so many of those stupid plastic

39:35

instruments

39:35

so many. Yeah

39:37

Yeah, special time back then and then the time

39:39

the time came when they all had to go. Yeah,

39:42

it was over But they weren't special times.

39:44

I don't like karaoke revolution cuz I used to like

39:47

singing. Oh, man. Remember DJ hero I

39:51

never got the decks was that any good?

39:54

Good let every single person I ever got

39:56

to play this game. He weren't like massive gamers afterwards

39:58

was like,

39:59

you know what?

40:00

I could become a DJ like

40:01

Soundtrack

40:04

on my phone cuz I like to all the mash-ups. Yeah Yeah,

40:07

I never felt I never I never really wanted to play the

40:09

game.

40:09

It was very fun Yeah, quite simple that

40:11

it's very fun Give

40:12

a quick shout out to a game that made me want to be

40:14

a DJ for a little bit fuser I

40:17

love fuser a fuser was very cool. That

40:19

was a recent one. Yeah, let you mash up

40:21

all that You could do some really cool stuff. Yeah

40:25

Here's something crazy with DJ hero,

40:27

so this had to been E3

40:30

maybe it was 2009 might have been a way

40:33

but maybe 2009 but whenever DJ

40:35

hero was out Activision was throwing

40:37

around so much money back then with with their

40:39

all their guitar hero stuff that they

40:41

had a concert Where it was Jay

40:44

Z M&M. Oh my

40:46

god, who else but Jay Z and Eminem were the headliners

40:49

and like all the LA Celebrities were there

40:51

Kim Kardashian was there before she was Kim Kardashian

40:53

just randomly walking around but Yeah,

40:57

yeah, yeah Paris Hilton was

40:59

was the big deal back then but yeah, that was insane

41:02

and Danny and I didn't get invited and

41:04

we snuck in because that's what we did back then was awesome.

41:06

Loved it

41:07

He's got some great stories with Danny. I'm sure

41:09

of them all over the place

41:11

Yeah, they just some wild parties back

41:13

in the day. I hope that comes back That's great.

41:15

A lot of special IPs. Is there any near and dear

41:17

to your guys? It's hard to say you want to see back I know

41:20

Phil talks about hex in we've talked

41:22

about fusion frenzy many of times banjo

41:24

from Paris I mean people want to see

41:26

prototype

41:27

you look over the opposite side. You see a big

41:30

superhero craze in spider-man

41:32

you have prototype It's not a marvel,

41:34

you know or DC property But you kind of

41:36

get that superhero fantasy Phil right

41:39

there could be special one thing if you want to

41:41

go really really old-school one Thing that often

41:43

gets forgotten about is Activision itself owns

41:45

lots of different sub brands and acquisitions over

41:47

the years And now they all fall under the Xbox

41:49

Microsoft umbrella

41:51

Activision owns the entire infocom catalog

41:53

now that's truly old-school I don't

41:55

know how they would even like bring those back because they're basically

41:57

text adventures, but like like a keyboard

42:00

into your Xbox and play like some of the greatest

42:02

works of interactive fiction ever written. Okay.

42:06

Oh my God, so many great games. You think you could

42:08

reboot that now, Gary? I mean, I don't know how, again,

42:10

they were text adventures, so what can you really do? But it might

42:12

be nice, they've done this in the past, Lost Treasures

42:14

of Infocomm and so forth.

42:16

Put them all in a

42:18

package, like 40 games or whatever.

42:21

Put that on Game Pass, plug a USB keyboard

42:24

or a wireless keyboard into your Xbox,

42:27

sample it, or gaming history. That could be

42:28

fun. Yeah, gaming history, who doesn't love that?

42:31

Yeah. I don't know. See,

42:33

now I can't remember anything that's ever happened ever. I told you this

42:35

is going to happen in writing this down. Oh, of course, that's why we brought this up. I was

42:37

like, I didn't go on my list. No, tell me some things. I

42:39

mean, again, you can go all

42:40

the way back to like early,

42:43

early Activision, like River Raid and Pipfall,

42:46

Activision owns all of that stuff.

42:48

Oh, yay. Microsoft owns it now. Wow.

42:51

I want to see Crash Bandicoot. I definitely want to see

42:53

Warcraft, but Starcraft first.

42:56

I want to see a lot of Starcraft love. I would

42:58

love to see the team somehow get behind here

43:00

as of the storm. I think that was a very well done

43:02

MOBA. It was a more welcoming MOBA than

43:05

League and Dota at the time. Did Blizzard basically

43:07

write that one off? They did. They

43:10

did, unfortunately. I think it's still live, but it is

43:12

not the same as it once was, not receiving the content.

43:14

So I think Blizzard has a lot of cool stuff that

43:17

I know and love. I think Diablo is at the

43:19

height right now. And there's no question that we will

43:21

get much

43:22

more Diablo down the way. But that's

43:24

pretty rad as well. Yeah. Can I

43:26

go on the record and say Singularity?

43:29

It was a first person shooter. I want to say it was

43:31

around 2010 or so. And

43:34

it was like time

43:34

displacement. You would go from

43:36

one period of time to the other. So

43:39

there's some puzzle elements in there as well. It's

43:41

really good. Obviously, it wasn't that successful. There

43:43

wasn't a sequel to it. But those

43:46

are the kind of IPs I would love to see them revisit,

43:49

so to speak.

43:52

Let's

43:53

talk about MOBA

43:54

with Jules. Right after a word from our

43:57

sponsors.

43:58

This episode's brought to you by Better.

43:59

help. Do you ever feel like your brain

44:02

is getting in its own way? I can't even count

44:04

the amount of nights I lose sleep just because

44:06

I can't stop thinking and my brain just won't stop talking.

44:09

It turns out one great way to make those racing thoughts

44:11

go away is to talk through them. Therapy gives

44:13

you a great place to do that so you can get out of your

44:15

negative thought cycles and find some mental

44:17

and emotional peace and it can give you the

44:19

tools to find more balance in your life so you

44:21

can keep supporting others without leaving yourself

44:24

behind. Some of my best friends use BetterHelp

44:26

and love how helpful it can be for learning positive

44:29

coping skills and how to set boundaries. It

44:31

empowers you to be the best version of yourself and

44:33

it isn't just for those who've experienced major trauma.

44:36

If you're thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp

44:38

a try. It's entirely online, designed to be

44:40

convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule.

44:42

Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with

44:45

a licensed therapist and switch therapists

44:47

anytime for no additional charge. You can

44:49

make your brain your friend with BetterHelp.

44:51

Visit BetterHelp.com slash Kinda Funny

44:53

today to get 10% off your first month. That's

44:55

BetterHelp, A-G-L-P dot com

44:58

slash Kinda Funny.

44:59

BetterHelp.com slash Kinda

45:02

Funny. All

45:02

right, everyone. Welcome back. Of course, there's a big

45:04

mobile focus as a part of this deal. Many

45:07

say King was the jewel of

45:09

this ABK deal. Not me. Not

45:11

me, of course. But many people say that, of course,

45:14

King and the mobile focus was the big one. As

45:16

Phil Spencer has spoken many times about mobile and

45:19

reaching a larger player base, he

45:21

shared just kind of the excitement of working

45:23

with the people over at King and learning from that was

45:25

the big takeaway for me was he's eager to

45:28

go over there and learn from them about

45:30

how they became successful. The masters. Exactly.

45:32

How do you turn something and make it so special?

45:35

I think that's going to be pretty cool in the future. I mean,

45:37

yeah,

45:37

first of all, obviously, like brilliant. And obviously, it makes

45:40

sense to kind of have that that

45:42

knowledge and that understanding because, you know, obviously, mobile

45:44

is like huge. But then if you think about like

45:46

what was the thing this week about like Netflix

45:49

wanting to do kind of like more games and stuff like

45:51

that and what that could mean for like transferring things over.

45:53

So maybe you're going to be keeping one eye on what happens

45:55

with like Netflix taking those kind of properties

45:58

and making them because like the games on Netflix are going to be

46:00

like, you know, they're not going to be like crazy,

46:03

big, you know, AAA titles or anything like that. But

46:06

then, yeah, what's to say in the future after you don't

46:08

assimilate that isn't more like better,

46:10

you know, transfers of like games that we already

46:12

have on to mobile as a way of like pulling

46:14

new

46:15

people in or doing kind of offshoot stuff like

46:17

that.

46:17

But I think we're seeing that right now. Like you said, you

46:19

brought up Netflix, who is looking to try

46:21

to license Grand Theft Auto from Rockstar.

46:24

Put a big title on there. Yeah, they have Big Joe

46:26

State and we talked about from, of course, 343

46:28

and, you know, Halo and Master Chief. I mean,

46:31

yeah, there's really no reason why Netflix can't do

46:33

the big AAA games. I mean, there's no reason why Netflix

46:36

can't function in the same way that Stadia or Luna.

46:40

They've got the architecture, you know, that whatever.

46:42

It's often kind of hardware dependent,

46:44

depends what streaming box you're using. Some are more powerful

46:47

than others. But yeah, I didn't

46:49

know I can foresee a future quite easily when Netflix

46:52

has like a massive game selection

46:54

of like big AAA titles that you

46:56

get. I think we're at the moment. Yeah, it's

46:58

going to happen. They have night school studio as well.

47:01

Like they are bringing in teams to make games for

47:03

them. And of course, Xbox is very aware

47:05

of that. I'm sure Microsoft knows we talked about Google.

47:08

We've talked about Amazon that, hey,

47:10

it's not just Sony and Nintendo. There's much more.

47:12

There's

47:12

bigger players in this and Xbox

47:14

Microsoft need to get a foothold in this before others

47:17

jump in and maybe take the speed. This reminds

47:19

me something. I always like parents are almost texted you

47:21

this week. I thought I'll just tell them about it on the show. I'm going to do

47:23

it now. I got a new Samsung TV

47:26

for the bedroom on a Prime Day deal. Oh, I

47:28

didn't know he knows where I'm going. It's like, oh, shit.

47:30

This thing's got the Xbox app on it. You can do

47:32

the cloud game. Oh, amazing.

47:36

Super cool. Paired my controller with it. It's

47:38

all good.

47:41

I

47:41

played starfield on it. Matter of fact, I was doing

47:43

cocoon on it as well. Yeah, I worked. So it's

47:45

interesting because we have a series S in the bedroom,

47:47

right? Like a local box that's plugged into the TV.

47:50

Yeah. But if you're and we've

47:52

got a wired connected the TV's hooked up

47:54

to ethernet. So like, yeah, data. Yeah. Like

47:56

I might, I might actually be better off streaming the game.

48:00

streaming the Series X version and playing it on the local

48:02

Series S hardware.

48:03

I'm excited about having less cabling

48:05

in my house. That's the main drive for

48:07

me. No matter how tidy I make it,

48:10

it is just a hot mess. Oh, I did a lot.

48:12

Especially because I've eaten everything.

48:13

I did a lot of cable management the last couple of weeks. Gary knows that

48:15

well right now. Yeah, I can give you some good tips. I've got

48:17

a brand new PC. A brand new PC, but it was a lot

48:19

of wires and I sorted it all out. Oh, it looks beautiful

48:21

now.

48:22

I think you do it like, but I just, I, round the back of the TV, it's like impossible

48:24

to get it neat. Yeah. Like,

48:26

I've got one of those things that's supposed to hold stuff and it's just chaos. I was

48:28

literally under my desk with one of those.

48:30

I want the headband. Yeah. The

48:32

little, the little, the little headband with the flashlight on it.

48:35

Yeah. Brilliant. I'm happy

48:37

with my

48:38

life choices right now. I got through it by pretending I was

48:40

in Mission Impossible. There you go, Gary.

48:43

I've got, I've got a managing table. 30 seconds

48:45

on some cruise is going to die. Of

48:48

course, mobile is the big focus here with

48:50

Xbox and team Microsoft. It's also interesting.

48:52

Apple. We just saw the new announcement of the

48:54

phones now being able to play console like

48:57

video games on your Apple phone. I mean, I

48:59

mean, yeah, that's been true for a while. The

49:03

iPhones have been legit. Every

49:06

time you go

49:06

with a cube, do you see anyone playing any

49:08

good games? No, it's not the same rubbish.

49:11

They always, but the thing is they always

49:13

show, Oh, here's like some forts

49:15

are like racing. I never see people playing those.

49:17

They're always playing

49:18

like a candy. Yeah. Yeah. It's

49:20

always stuff like that. But every time I go on to like the

49:22

Apple store, it's always the same like reskin

49:25

kind of reverse. I'm never on there thinking, Oh, well, that's new.

49:27

Yeah. It's literally the same thing all the time. Do you

49:29

ever like the room, like the room unlocked or

49:31

the room, whatever came out and then suddenly you're like, Oh my God,

49:34

actually, this is quite interesting a game. Like

49:36

yeah, it doesn't happen that often. There's

49:37

some good guy. Apple Arcade is where you go to find

49:39

the good stuff because they curate it really well. Yeah.

49:42

Well, of course, Microsoft wants to make a big play into

49:44

mobile. Let's talk about

49:46

a team within Microsoft 343 making

49:48

some big noise this week because we have a brand

49:51

new update for Halo Infinite season

49:53

five. I know nothing about it. We played

49:55

a little bit of it. I know what it is. What's I

49:57

like

49:57

before I go into the details. It's Halo.

49:59

back Paris?

50:01

I think it's back. I really do.

50:03

I think it's back. I think what

50:05

they've done with season five, especially

50:08

on the forage side and adding

50:10

in that campaign AI and just

50:12

letting creators go nuts

50:14

with infinite possibilities. Yeah,

50:18

it's

50:18

great. I've been playing those two new maps

50:21

and bro,

50:23

I'm just having a blast. It feels very,

50:26

it's tuned correctly. Weapons feel

50:28

good. I'm

50:30

not the greatest PvP player

50:32

in the world, but I'm having fun. That's

50:34

all that matters. So yeah, if

50:37

there weren't so many other games right now, I would

50:39

get back into it. Remember when Halo infant first came out,

50:41

I was all the way. I know you loved it. Now's

50:45

the time to come back. I think it's time to jump back in.

50:47

I think it's time to jump

50:49

back in. I think this is where Halo wanted

50:51

to be. This is where Halo came out. This is Halo's

50:55

first step of where we wanted to be. Right? Of course,

50:57

the season details for you. If you don't

50:59

know quite yet, of course, title of a reckoning,

51:02

you have a 50 tier premium battle

51:04

pass instead of 100. We talked about this

51:06

a little bit last week since they have now

51:08

merged all of the items

51:11

and cosmetics into all the cores.

51:13

Now we can kind of streamline the battle pass of

51:15

the streamlined battle pass will just be 50 premium

51:18

tears. You'll have featured armor spotlighting

51:21

the flood for an awesome theme. So if you want cool

51:23

weapon skins with the flood, if you want a

51:25

character that has flood armor, you can check

51:27

that out. You have the big Forge update

51:30

adding PVE with AI, UNSC,

51:33

banished and forerunner people

51:35

in there, which is pretty dope. Two brand new arena

51:38

maps, forbidden and prism, which

51:40

we got to play today. And I'll tell you what, I

51:42

really like prison. That's got all the pink crystals

51:44

in the. That was so

51:46

fun. Although

51:47

I did walk off one of the bridges

51:49

and it's a very, very star and fall into a chasm

51:51

and die, but yeah, like,

51:52

you know, that one on the

51:55

left hand side, I just,

51:56

oh, yes. That was really, really

51:58

fun. I do think that AI thing is like. super wild

52:00

how you can like kind of totally like cater

52:02

it to like what you want whether they're for or against and then

52:04

match it depending on like what's going on in your

52:07

lobby and stuff like that. Oh you knew nothing about it.

52:09

I don't know anything about it.

52:11

Sounds like you know a lot about it to me. It

52:14

is going to be very cool because of course as

52:16

many of you know there's now the custom game browser

52:19

Forge is out and it has been

52:22

taken a lot by the community and

52:24

the community's built a lot. Now adding in

52:26

AI to this to make maybe single

52:28

player vibes or maybe firefight type

52:30

vibes will be really really special to have the community

52:33

at the focus of it helping 343 along the way to add more

52:36

content for all of you but I will say having

52:38

the custom game browser is a giant

52:41

win right being able to see everybody else's creations

52:43

play theirs host your own custom games with

52:46

their map creations or game modes it's

52:48

a big deal it's really special. So they've successfully

52:51

righted the ship have they? They

52:53

this is the best that Halo's been since

52:56

launched. This is the moment right now. Players

52:58

they seem to be growing a little bit which is a positive.

53:01

We talked about that right first impressions matter

53:03

that first impression was stellar then after

53:05

that it fell off they haven't been able to get back on

53:08

but you can see there is a slight increase right

53:10

now and I think if more people talk about it more people spend

53:12

a Friday night playing it with their friends it'll

53:14

be a big deal here soon enough.

53:17

So can I make a public

53:19

request ask right now? Yeah.

53:22

Because you mentioned firefight so there's

53:24

nine maps that will be coming for

53:27

firefight mode in here and I think two

53:29

of them were actually made in Forge but

53:31

yeah I think when that gets ready to roll

53:34

out it'd be awesome to get 343 on the

53:36

show and kind of talk about that because

53:38

then they'll have some time in season

53:40

five they'll be able to kind of reflect on

53:42

what the community's been talking about and obviously

53:45

hype up this firefight mode that's coming

53:47

because I just think it's awesome with the combat

53:49

AI now that you know you

53:51

could theoretically make full-on

53:53

campaign missions in the game now

53:56

the community can along with other firefight

53:58

maps and things like that so it's pretty

53:59

excited man I really think as we get

54:02

into 2024 and people the community

54:04

gets more time you know with Forge

54:06

and with this this campaign AI

54:09

we're gonna see some really cool stuff come out of this

54:11

very excited for I'm glad they've got

54:13

it to a good place again because it was rough there for a while

54:16

yeah

54:17

yeah and also just let people be weird

54:19

people come up with the best ideas weirdest

54:21

stuff like we're playing

54:23

the Minecraft duck level which

54:25

was

54:25

super weird the Walmart one

54:27

that was also really weird in

54:29

a giant Walmart

54:30

store. The Walmart was cool yeah I saw that. Have

54:33

you played the water park?

54:33

Oh the water park was weird but I couldn't find anyone

54:36

in the water park I was just wandering around thinking it was like

54:38

some backroom stuff I don't know.

54:39

What did you say Paris? No I'm saying did

54:41

you see the there's the Forge map where someone recreated

54:44

an entire Waffle House. Oh yes

54:46

I saw that too we tried to load that didn't

54:48

load properly but yeah I did try to get us in

54:50

perfect map for Halo though because you know it's always kicking

54:52

off at the Waffle House.

54:53

Yeah for now Master Chief where's

54:55

my

54:56

syrup? Of course later

54:58

in season 5 there will be Firefight King of the

55:00

Hill coming your way so make sure to keep an eye out for that

55:03

one right now you have a new mode extraction

55:05

that is from Halo 4 if you're a big Halo 4 fan

55:08

they've updated the bandit rifle with

55:10

the bandit rifle Evo so keep an eye out

55:12

for that one. I'm gonna have to try I'm gonna have to reinstall it.

55:15

You know what we'll be playing tonight. Come

55:17

join in have some fun and of course to

55:19

celebrate all things Halo and the Halo

55:22

birthday you will have Master Chief's Mark 5

55:25

armor from the classic of course Halo

55:27

combat Evolve and it looks old-school

55:30

and it's beautiful so I'm very

55:32

excited about that but Paris people

55:34

are a little torn on this one. Yeah that's what I

55:36

was gonna bring up because you have to buy it you

55:38

can't just earn it by playing the game.

55:40

Yes. Which I'm twofold

55:43

on that one I kind of get it because it's gonna be highly

55:45

coveted so people are definitely

55:47

gonna be more inclined and want to go spend the

55:49

money to

55:50

go get it but at the same time it's a

55:52

classic suit. You almost would think

55:54

hey let

55:55

me earn that in the game. So you have to

55:57

buy it? How much is it? It's Benny.

55:58

How much is it?

56:00

I don't know because I'm a cheap kid and I'm not gonna buy

56:02

it. Yeah, it'll be anywhere from 10 to 20. Really?

56:05

I always think this is kind of... So that's very high. I'll

56:08

never pay for this stuff and I'll tell you why. Not because

56:11

I have a moral objection to it,

56:13

although I do. It's also just that

56:15

if I have to earn that through grinding and being

56:17

good at the game, when I

56:19

step out into the arena wearing it, people are

56:21

like, oh, this guy must be like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

56:25

Who did the shit? It's not impressive

56:27

to buy it. Anything, you're just gonna be shot at more people

56:29

like you. Yeah.

56:30

Why did you spend 10 dollars on this? Yeah,

56:33

kill the whale. Yeah. Well, Gary, if

56:35

you're interested in earning things and then

56:37

possibly buying things, the

56:38

Halo Gear Rewards is for you because

56:40

Halo Gear Rewards returns season five with

56:43

a very special UNSC backpack.

56:46

So you have to get to level 50 on your battle path.

56:48

You'll then receive a special code that you can use in

56:51

the Halo shop by the special level 50 only

56:53

backpack. Oh, that's cool. I like that.

56:55

I think it's kind of rad. Well, let me just give you the backpack. Why

56:58

don't I go use the code? Because I want you to use

57:00

stuff to pay

57:00

for it. You have to buy it still. You and I have to buy it still.

57:02

But we get the code because we've earned the right to

57:04

buy the backpack. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

57:08

Kind of similar to like Destiny if you complete

57:10

those. The combination of grinding and paying money.

57:12

I pay for this. I also had to earn the right to

57:14

buy it. Oh my God. This is it. It

57:17

means that, you know, oh, wait, no, it's an actual real. Yeah.

57:20

Yeah. I thought it was like some in game show. All

57:22

right. Well, that's

57:23

cool. It actually means like if you see someone out in public,

57:25

you're like, that's my guy. How much is

57:27

that?

57:28

No price point in front of me right here.

57:31

But what are we going to get? What do you think? All

57:33

right. Price is right. Closest

57:35

without. Oh, let's go. Yeah.

57:38

How much pairs 80 80 100. You

57:41

guys are way too low from someone who buys way too much. That's

57:43

a hundred. Yeah.

57:44

Somebody waste a whole bunch of money on a

57:46

whole bunch of crap. You

57:49

would know how expensive.

57:51

Mike the expert. I'm going

57:53

to go. I'm

57:56

going to go 150. I agree with

57:58

Mike. I think more the hot. What is

58:00

it? Are we gonna get an answer? Put it in your

58:02

cart! We will find

58:05

it. We will find the price tag for you here. But

58:08

yeah, keep an eye out for that one. Season 5,

58:10

this is where Halo should be. This

58:12

is the right spot. If you're looking

58:14

to jump in for some friends, now's the time. Halo

58:17

is, I'm having fun with it, which is a big positive

58:19

to say. I am a little disappointed. We're

58:22

talking about Halo Infinite as a platform. We're talking

58:24

about seeing the future. And

58:26

I'm glad that 343 is now right in the ship. We're kind

58:28

of where we should be. But I am a little

58:31

disappointed. No campaign story DLC. Like

58:34

I know we really got backed up with the whole op- They said

58:36

already they're not gonna continue with that, right? But

58:38

like, come on.

58:38

I really enjoyed the campaign. I

58:42

really enjoyed

58:43

the campaign. I really enjoyed

58:44

the campaign. I am surprised that we didn't

58:47

continue that or try. We're using China Sea.

58:50

If you've got a certain number of developers and it costs a certain amount

58:52

of money to have them working for a certain amount of time to build

58:54

content. Do

58:56

you want to spend that time building something that people are gonna play

58:59

for 10 hours and never play again? Because it's a campaign.

59:02

Or can endlessly replay because it's multiplayer. You're

59:04

gonna sort the multiplayer out, obviously. Of

59:06

course. As we start

59:08

to ramp down the show, let's give some flowers

59:10

to where they're due because Starfield,

59:12

surprisingly, has sold really, really well. Of

59:15

course, being on Game Pass is one thing

59:17

allowing players. But of course, it was also sold and

59:19

it turns out it was the best-selling game of

59:22

the month of September. How exciting

59:24

comes from that? Including Game Pass. This

59:27

is buying the games as the top 20 games

59:29

physical and full game digital

59:32

from Nintendo, eShop, PlayStation

59:34

Steam and Xbox platforms for

59:36

publishers and digital. Is there any breakdown

59:38

on PC versus Xbox on that? No, there's

59:40

not a digital breakdown on that one. I have to assume

59:42

a large amount of this is coming from PC

59:45

as it was on. You would think, honestly, it's

59:47

surprising to me that anyone would buy Starfield.

59:50

Not because it's an excellent... That's

59:52

gonna get taken out of context. Who would buy Starfield? It's

59:54

like, why not just spend the same amount of money or

59:56

a little bit more on a year of Game

59:59

Pass?

59:59

You get all the other shit as well. Like

1:00:01

playing

1:00:03

games on a card that are on Game Pass seems weird. But then

1:00:05

I suppose if you've got a PC you're like, I want the best possible

1:00:07

version. Yeah, but if you've got Game Pass Ultimate,

1:00:10

you're still gonna get it. That's true, yeah.

1:00:11

Starfield was the best. Yeah, that's how I played it. Played

1:00:13

it through the Xbox app on PC, yeah. Starfield

1:00:16

was the best selling game of September, instantly

1:00:18

becoming the seventh best selling game

1:00:21

of 2023, year to date. Starfield

1:00:23

ranked as the best selling title of the

1:00:25

month across both Xbox and

1:00:28

PC, with PC being its lead

1:00:30

sales platform.

1:00:32

So shout out to Matt Piscatello, of course. Your

1:00:34

September top five will

1:00:37

go through. At number five, Payday, shout

1:00:39

out to Payday for selling well. Number four,

1:00:41

Madden 24. Number three, EA Sports

1:00:44

FC with a brand new name. Of course, that's FIFA

1:00:46

for all of you. Number two, Mortal Kombat 1. And

1:00:50

number one, Starfield. So congratulations.

1:00:52

Well played, Steve at Starfield.

1:00:53

Yeah, someone abbreviated

1:00:55

FIFA's new name to me. And I was

1:00:58

like, what game is that? What is that?

1:01:00

And then I was like, oh, right, right, yeah. Of

1:01:02

course. It's really hard to unthink

1:01:04

that. And that's why I gotta say FIFA to everybody, just in case.

1:01:06

You all know what it still is. Let's give

1:01:08

some flowers to a guy who's done some incredible

1:01:11

stuff in this industry. After 24 years,

1:01:14

Pete Hines from Bethesda is retiring.

1:01:17

Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, here's the special

1:01:19

post for you. Of course, over on Twitter, he

1:01:21

announced this with a nice little post. After 24

1:01:23

years, I've decided my time at Bethesda Softworks

1:01:26

has come to an end. I'm retiring and

1:01:28

I will begin an exciting new chapter

1:01:31

of life exploring interests and passions, donating

1:01:33

my time

1:01:34

where I can and taking

1:01:36

more time to enjoy life.

1:01:37

This was not a decision I came to

1:01:40

easily or quickly, but after an amazing

1:01:42

career culminating in the incredible launch

1:01:44

of Starfield, it feels like the time

1:01:46

is right. There was a bunch more to that. Of

1:01:49

course, we wanna say congratulations to

1:01:51

Pete on an incredible career. We were

1:01:53

lucky enough to have Pete and Aaron on

1:01:55

the show once before, and it was really cool to

1:01:57

catch their vibe and hang out with them. Pete Hines has

1:01:59

been... nothing but incredible, the kind of funny

1:02:02

and of course the gaming community as a whole. He

1:02:04

always seems like a cool dude and I love the

1:02:06

things he stands for. They also sold

1:02:09

really dope special animal themed

1:02:12

merch when they were benefiting like different

1:02:14

shelters all around the nation and I bought some because

1:02:16

of Pete. So that's how you Pete.

1:02:18

Also FYI Beth says that I have some of the best merch

1:02:20

out there. Like I got Doomdormat.

1:02:22

I have the Doom. People away.

1:02:25

Come on. Yes it does. So let's go around

1:02:27

the room of course. Paris I know you know Pete

1:02:29

Hines. Do you have anything special to tell him or anything

1:02:32

to look back and smile on and tell us a story about?

1:02:34

I mean absolute legend. He's absolute legend

1:02:37

in this industry and just from a personal

1:02:39

standpoint he's always been very

1:02:42

kind and welcoming to me

1:02:44

and has taken time to actually talk

1:02:46

to me about games even just this recent

1:02:49

you know LA showcase

1:02:51

whatever we're calling it. You know him

1:02:53

and I had a nice private conversation

1:02:55

and then leading up to the launch of Starfield

1:02:58

I got to talk to him super briefly but he's

1:03:00

always been a great guy. Probably

1:03:03

my best Pete Hines memory

1:03:04

to actually have to both of them are

1:03:06

Fallout. When Fallout 3 was coming

1:03:09

out he was the guy that was doing

1:03:11

the private demos at E3 and that

1:03:13

was like the first time I got to meet him. Again

1:03:16

very just very nice nice person and then

1:03:18

I got to interview him when

1:03:20

Fallout New Vegas was coming

1:03:22

out and he sat down with me probably got probably

1:03:24

like an hour talking about the game.

1:03:27

So yeah just great memories

1:03:29

with him. He's been an absolute legend in this industry.

1:03:33

You know I think back to all the Bethesda

1:03:34

showcases he's always been great

1:03:37

at those as well so he's going

1:03:39

to be sorely missed. He really is not

1:03:41

just for Xbox and Bethesda but I just think the

1:03:43

industry as a whole.

1:03:45

Gary Whittler you and Pete Hines have you guys run

1:03:47

together before? You know 24 years is

1:03:49

no joke but I was just doing the math in my head if you

1:03:51

think about it sorry math. I was just doing the math

1:03:53

in my head. They've got me so

1:03:55

conditioned now it was terrible. You say

1:03:58

Legos though that's the only thing. say

1:04:00

that. I still say laboratory. It's a word that you don't use all the time.

1:04:02

It doesn't

1:04:07

switch

1:04:11

over. I've gone full American on most things.

1:04:13

Pete would have started in

1:04:15

like 99. That

1:04:17

was my last year on PC Gamer. I don't know if we

1:04:19

ever really overlapped. If we did, it would be a short time.

1:04:21

No, I've always liked Pete. Nice guy. Never

1:04:23

bothered to follow me on social media, but that's all right.

1:04:26

As you know, I don't take these things personally. If

1:04:29

you listen to this, of course, congratulations. The one thing

1:04:31

you know about me, I just brushed that right off.

1:04:34

Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 24

1:04:37

years. So you've got to think that there are people who have

1:04:39

been born who are now going out buying video

1:04:41

games with their own money from the jobs

1:04:44

that they've probably had for a while. And

1:04:46

also like you think about how we look at the

1:04:48

games industry now, but like to be in it for kind

1:04:50

of like that long, like it really was, you

1:04:52

really were trail, anyone who was been in it for

1:04:54

that long, you really were like

1:04:57

supreme trailblazers, like right,

1:04:59

like right from the very, very start. Cause I was like, it's

1:05:01

all cool. It's all pretty cushy now, but

1:05:03

like back in the day, it was very, very different

1:05:05

kind of catalafish. So yeah, 24

1:05:07

years is an incredible amount of time. And

1:05:10

honestly, you know, especially to be at the same company,

1:05:12

like for that long, like that's crazy.

1:05:15

So yeah,

1:05:16

I'm going on 36 years now.

1:05:18

Yeah. You're the guy. Remember that. You, you,

1:05:20

the, yeah, do we need to pass the,

1:05:22

no retiring for you because you're my worry

1:05:25

is that we get to see some of my idols retire,

1:05:27

which is heartbreaking, right? Yeah. Major Nelson

1:05:29

has left and major Nelson was my dude,

1:05:31

my hero, like Jim Ryan's

1:05:33

going, but also when Phil goes, I think

1:05:35

that's going to be deeply upsetting for a lot of people.

1:05:37

Yeah. Yeah. That's going to be weird.

1:05:40

Yeah. You know, they say golf is the only game we get to

1:05:42

play with the heroes, but it's also true of, you know,

1:05:44

hosting video games, me and Gary. So

1:05:48

let's jump in and finish out the show with some fun community

1:05:50

questions that I've gathered for the team. Let's

1:05:52

jump in from a question from parks who writes

1:05:55

the

1:05:55

best cinematics team in the business

1:05:57

responsible for all the dope.

1:05:59

Diablo and World of Warcraft

1:06:02

cinematics are now an Xbox

1:06:04

team.

1:06:05

If they were to make a trailer for another Xbox

1:06:07

franchise, who

1:06:08

would you want it to be for first up?

1:06:11

Sit on that thing about that Gary. Blizzard's

1:06:14

team. We're talking about the Blizzard cinematics team.

1:06:16

Who do you want them to whip up a cool Xbox

1:06:19

trailer video for? Halo.

1:06:21

That's a crap. Obviously Halo. Halo.

1:06:23

It's funny because I

1:06:25

haven't thought about like when's the last time you saw

1:06:27

like a Blizzard

1:06:29

cinematic that really knocks your socks off and I

1:06:31

just realized it was in Diablo 4. Yes exactly.

1:06:33

The second

1:06:35

one. No no no the second one. The big

1:06:38

battle in hell.

1:06:40

That is sick. That cinema.

1:06:42

I remember we were all

1:06:45

watching it because we were helping Felicia play

1:06:47

through Diablo 4. We got to that cinematic and we all just

1:06:50

sat and watched it and were like damn this

1:06:52

is good. Yeah. This is like vintage

1:06:54

classic Blizzard cinematic shit. So

1:06:57

good. Do

1:06:57

you have another Xbox franchise you would

1:06:59

team that team up with? To help out?

1:07:02

To put the cinematics on? Yeah.

1:07:05

Let me think about it. I hate when I get on the spot. You're

1:07:08

going to say Bandrake to do it. No I'm not going to say

1:07:10

Bandrake to do it. Let's

1:07:15

start a cameo. No I'm kidding.

1:07:18

Perfect Dark.

1:07:19

It's a game that we're probably going to see next year

1:07:21

right? Yeah. Love to see them do a

1:07:23

cinematic for Perfect Dark. Kind of a

1:07:25

grand re-entry you know

1:07:28

for that game. We'd love it.

1:07:30

The voice actress was literally at Master last

1:07:32

week.

1:07:33

Amazing.

1:07:33

Sorry her name totally escapes

1:07:36

me. I was like three

1:07:36

beers in. Joanna? No. You

1:07:39

brought up Tomb Raider. Perfect Dark

1:07:41

very similar like that.

1:07:42

Yeah like Tomb Raider like more gritty

1:07:45

and more like

1:07:46

yeah. Are you going to the Golden Joysticks? No.

1:07:50

No? Why not?

1:07:50

I don't know they don't invite me anymore.

1:07:53

No that feels scary.

1:07:54

We'll handle that. You send a curly worded

1:07:56

email. Yeah of course. We

1:08:00

bring up Halo. Halo would be very fun and be

1:08:02

incredible to see. Gears of War would be another

1:08:04

awesome game. You'd get real bloody with

1:08:06

that, really show off. Gears of War already has good

1:08:08

cinematics. They have great cinematics, but I mean we're talking

1:08:10

about the best in the business.

1:08:11

Can I just have like a really small left field moment,

1:08:13

which is not really specifically anything, but

1:08:16

like a game that I would love to see? Bulletstorm.

1:08:20

I loved Bulletstorm.

1:08:22

I thought it was great. In

1:08:24

my theory, you know how like you had all like the skill shots

1:08:27

and stuff, right? You got like points, but then you end up just kicking

1:08:29

people into spikes because it was easier. Imagine

1:08:31

if you had like all the kind of like the caustic

1:08:34

and like the fire damage ideas from like

1:08:36

Borderlands, and then you blended

1:08:38

that into the skill shot. So it was like, you know, like fire

1:08:41

acid something or other. That, I want that. I

1:08:43

want that game.

1:08:44

All right. I want that game. Off you go. Once that game pairs, write

1:08:46

it down.

1:08:47

I have to break the fourth wall. F

1:08:50

you, Greg Miller, and you know why. Wait,

1:08:53

what? Greg, what have you done? Greg? What's

1:08:56

he done? He's done!

1:08:57

What? He's done! Wow,

1:09:00

he's got a machete

1:09:01

drawn at me. We're not ready, but we're going to end

1:09:03

the show right now. Greg

1:09:05

Miller, say goodbye to everyone. Are we going

1:09:07

to get to do an X-Cast where you don't fucking

1:09:09

crash? Oh, you must really hate all the views I bring

1:09:12

in, huh? It must really drive you crazy

1:09:14

to see the views spike when this fakes

1:09:16

you. They're dropping off as we

1:09:18

speak. Hey everybody, thanks for watching the Kind of Funny X-Cast. If you haven't seen

1:09:20

it, go to twitter.com slash gameovergreggy, where

1:09:22

I just put up an excellent screen cap of Paris.

1:09:25

It was Patreon. Patreon did you

1:09:27

dirty. They're the one who took that as a screen cap. Can

1:09:29

someone catch me up? What happened? Kevin, can you bring up

1:09:31

my, uh, you can either... Yep, give

1:09:33

me one second. No problem. You can see it on Twitter there. I put it

1:09:35

up with no context because there's a need context, but

1:09:38

Paris Lillie's a man you can't take a bad photo

1:09:40

of. And so when I

1:09:42

saw this, just probably the best screen grab ever

1:09:44

made of him, when I went to patreon.com slash kind

1:09:46

of funny, I said, I have to share this with the

1:09:48

world. And so I tweeted it and I immediately

1:09:51

put it into Slack and I said, please make this into an

1:09:53

emote, Andy. Wow. Oh,

1:09:55

we didn't catch anyone in a bad moment freeze

1:09:57

frame like that. That's not fair.

1:09:59

great to us not cricket

1:10:02

well of course this is how we will end today's kind of funny

1:10:04

X cast we have gaming dad's parents on your

1:10:07

side that's a low that's a

1:10:12

low blow just what a way to end this

1:10:14

incredible episode that's exactly what I'd expect

1:10:17

from Greg yeah I mean

1:10:18

that was not a bucket of bastards

1:10:20

but let's talk about Jules Jules

1:10:22

one more time where can everybody find you what cool stuff are

1:10:24

you doing thank you for joining us here in the

1:10:26

spare bedroom it was really special

1:10:27

no it's been so fun this has just been the

1:10:30

the funnest like best day to hang around playing

1:10:32

video games talking nonsense like literally

1:10:34

the dream so of course what

1:10:36

am I doing I don't

1:10:38

know like more more shows game on grandparents are becoming

1:10:41

so that that'll be coming out soon if you

1:10:43

can find somewhere that shows the current

1:10:45

because it's we're talking about this before

1:10:47

because it's BBC if you have a way of facilitating

1:10:49

BBC programs you can probably find it and

1:10:52

then yes just more kind of like life-hosing till the end of the

1:10:54

year but I'm gonna be in the States a lot more now got my

1:10:56

freshly minted oh one visa yeah

1:10:58

congratulations as somebody went through

1:11:00

that immigration gauntlet I always glad

1:11:02

to see it when people get that stuff sorted out I'm glad

1:11:04

it's over well congratulations

1:11:07

and welcome you are more than welcome here to join

1:11:09

us on the X cast any time I like I wanted

1:11:11

to hear and of course we'll talk more things

1:11:13

Xbox with you next week of course

1:11:15

congratulations to team Xbox and Microsoft

1:11:18

for closing the deal and gamers here comes

1:11:20

some games we'll see you all next week goodbye