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Gaming has built with Intel Core I

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nine processor. What's.

0:46

Good everybody a welcome to the kind

0:48

of funny X cast your home for

0:50

all things X box here. Kind of

0:52

funny Of course I wanted to show

0:54

how snow bike might and today is

0:56

our final episode of Twenty Twenty Three

0:59

and I am joined. Studio.

1:08

I entered all my answer on. My

1:12

car. Yeah, You know what

1:14

is made ten times better when you're here? Of

1:16

course. I am very sad that Paris Lily cannot

1:18

join us today so I only have one of

1:20

my gaming dad's to wrap up the year. Mister

1:22

Gary, What A! But I'm feeling good looking good

1:24

ahead of the holiday season playing some games. Looking

1:26

back on the year that we just had and

1:28

you know what? I'm smiling because we had pretty

1:30

great year. On the X box side of things.

1:32

And can I just give you a

1:34

shout out for this adorable X box

1:36

Game Path holiday sweater that you are

1:39

wearing or have a camera body listening

1:41

on podcast that is is beautiful baby

1:43

blue it's got a snowman and instead

1:45

of a faith in the green x

1:47

box circle and with have been pad

1:49

the you got know like the little

1:51

snowflake life. It. Is the season Andrea

1:53

and you have a great holiday sweaters. Were. Me

1:55

our we crave. gary

1:58

weather down joining us on the day For

2:00

everyone listening out there for the past three

2:02

weeks has worn a holiday sweater Except for the final week

2:04

of the set well I don't want that one if they

2:06

just sent me one Mike maybe No

2:11

They gotta send you more stuff. I tell you the

2:13

disrespect It's

2:15

that's been the theme this year. I feel like Rodney Dangerfield

2:19

Me Xbox has not sent you enough stuff Don't

2:21

get me To

2:24

you don't yeah I've

2:28

got that in the chamber for later. Don't you? Well

2:32

of course we are very excited. It is the final

2:34

kind of funny X-Cats for 2023, and it's gonna be

2:36

a fun one We're gonna look back on the year

2:38

We're gonna give you the good the bad the ugly

2:40

of team green in our opinions and we're also gonna

2:42

catch up with one another Because it's the holiday season

2:45

and want to know what you've been playing What are

2:47

you gonna play over break and we'll start with you

2:49

Andrea because I haven't seen you in a while What

2:51

you've been playing well? I'm back

2:53

on my bullshit Mike I'm

2:55

back in the dreamlight Valley. I'm there. I'm

2:57

hard You know they they had the

3:00

rifts in time expansion that just dropped and this is

3:02

my obligatory Yes, my husband does work for Disney has

3:04

nothing to do with the fact that I love this

3:06

game I have over 300 hours into

3:08

this game, which is Weird it's

3:10

like where did those hours come from as Gary and

3:12

I were just lamenting that we don't have time to

3:14

play video games But somehow I played a lot of

3:16

Disney's dreamlight Valley So they

3:19

pulled this brand new expansion. I actually started playing

3:21

this game in game past But then I bought

3:23

it on steam so I could play it both

3:25

on my steam deck and on my Xbox Oh

3:27

good combo there, which is great. So

3:30

they put out a ton of new content.

3:32

They have some fun holiday stuff So I've

3:34

been decorating with all of my holiday

3:37

items and then unlocking some characters that I hadn't gotten

3:39

around to yet so I just got Belle

3:42

and Beast and Jack Skellington

3:44

and they've got Rapunzel from

3:46

Tangled and Gaston and a bunch

3:48

of new characters To play

3:50

over the last couple of updates though and

3:53

doing that that's pretty rad to hear all the Disney

3:55

You know ties to it. It's pretty special. You know,

3:57

I think Animal Crossing took over the world. I know

4:00

it did in 2021, right? 100%. We

4:02

all were at home, we were playing that. For people

4:04

who might have been out of the Animal Crossing game

4:06

now that's been a couple of years, is this something

4:08

that scratches that itch? 1000%. Yeah.

4:11

It's, it's very different, but also really great.

4:14

And it has its pros and cons compared

4:16

to Animal Crossing. I mean, in the life

4:18

life sin category, I think what really puts

4:20

this game apart is that it has a

4:22

really complex quest system that really gives players

4:25

a lot of reason to keep coming back

4:27

and playing and you do a lot of

4:29

mindless grinding in these games, right? I mean,

4:31

Gary, you played a bunch of Animal Crossing

4:33

as well. And so you have like your

4:35

daily chores and your tasks. So those don't

4:38

go away, but you get a lot

4:40

of reasons to want to go get those things

4:42

and kind of collect those items in your inventory

4:44

because of all the fun characters. And then for

4:46

any Disney fan, the crossover of all these characters

4:48

together is really cool. That's rad. Gary,

4:50

maybe a talk show inside of Disney Dreamlight Valley. It's funny,

4:52

every new big, every new game that comes out that I

4:54

say I like, if you're low, what are you going to

4:56

do a talk show? It's a talk show. It's a one

4:58

off. But it's funny that

5:01

you mentioned Animal Crossing because I think it's

5:03

obviously there have been games like the Disney

5:05

game and Leah spent a lot of time

5:07

this year playing Fe Farm, which we really love. Fe Farm,

5:09

Fe Farm. Yeah, Fe Farm. And there's all these other games

5:11

out there that are really interesting that are obviously, you know,

5:14

in the Animal Crossing mold. I

5:16

still am very sad about the fact

5:18

that Animal Crossing Animal Crossing has been

5:20

just kind of seemingly abandoned by Nintendo,

5:22

like the last, you know, the

5:25

happy home vacation

5:27

designer thing that they did that was like there

5:29

was this amazing content drop. One of the most

5:31

successful games they've ever had. I don't understand the

5:33

thinking behind not continuing. It's a game you could

5:35

just support with regular seasonal

5:38

DLC like forever. Like I

5:41

don't plan them. I used to love Animal Crossing. I was obsessed with

5:43

it, as you know. I don't play anymore because

5:45

it's just there's nothing left to do. If you

5:47

don't, it comes to a point that there's nothing

5:49

new. You've been like Torture Island and

5:51

Rebuild so many times, right? Yeah. And some people

5:53

can do that. Like my mother-in-law still

5:56

plays it all the time. And

5:58

I think some people just get... Enjoy just

6:00

to let the daily check-ins and stuff like that

6:02

and I did for a while as well But

6:04

eventually you've got to give me something Else

6:07

you've got to keep it fresh and it just it's it

6:09

if the game had been a flop I understand why you'd

6:11

want to move on but like when you've got that many

6:13

they said oh so weird right like they drive me crazy

6:16

massive hit game Hugely invested

6:18

player base and they're like and they're just like

6:20

yeah, we're done now. We're not gonna do any more

6:22

of that Yeah, it's interesting because they're and I know this

6:25

is an Xbox show on a Nintendo show But

6:27

it's interesting seeing how they clearly are dipping

6:29

their toes into the live service water Right

6:32

like looking at what they're doing with Mario

6:34

Kart and Splatoon I like it's not like

6:36

they don't do it But they just weren't

6:38

doing it for this game and

6:40

they had a good amount of years to

6:43

actually implement it I think even if they brought

6:45

it back now legacy players would all flock to

6:47

the game and buy new content Yeah,

6:49

it's interesting. I mean you bring up Xbox right?

6:51

We're gonna talk live service games on the Xbox

6:53

side and how you continue that how you keep

6:55

that in the news and It is odd that

6:58

yeah a lot of my friends just fell off

7:00

of Animal Crossing No one's talking about that anymore

7:02

in my circles for Disney Dreamlight Valley What are

7:04

some of the things that would keep you engaged

7:06

for the long term right? I mean Disney IP

7:08

is easy to jump into you bring up the

7:11

quest is it interior design? What more do they

7:13

need to add to keep you on this hook

7:15

for a lot longer? Well, they just

7:17

implemented multiplayer, which I haven't really gotten to

7:19

explore yet So that was a big one

7:21

that the community was waiting for they officially

7:24

Came out of early access and are no longer free

7:26

to play They announced that they're gonna be a retail

7:29

like premium paid experience Which I think

7:31

is smart and better for them, but

7:34

would like to see their prices of

7:36

their You know in-game currency

7:38

come down a bit because it still feels like it's priced

7:40

for free to play which kind of feels bad, man

7:42

We spend a lot of money in that game But

7:45

I think the way to keep people coming back is what they've been

7:47

doing and they've been doing a really good job of pacing The

7:50

content drops and then I think

7:52

outside of like the power players who are you

7:54

never going to be able to appease? I think

7:56

casual even like core players are

7:58

getting a lot of Content at

8:01

a reasonable pace so they're doing a good

8:03

job sweet Disney character that you want

8:05

to see added in in the future What's the dream

8:07

Disney character? How much time do you have Mike? I

8:09

mean there's so many as much time as you want

8:11

I'm like, I'm a I'm a deep-cut Sleeping Beauty

8:13

fan. I'd like to go Aurora or Briar Rose the

8:15

fairies I think the three fairies in the game would

8:18

be really fun. Sweet So

8:20

I would like to see those characters, but I

8:22

also like a lot of the the newer Disney

8:24

stuff I would like to see

8:26

more from Coco There's like some decor items,

8:28

but like some of the cast of characters

8:30

from that game Would be really

8:32

cool more characters from in console like come

8:34

on. Where's Louisa? Bring her to the game She's

8:37

a strong one. Yeah. Yeah, I like her. I like

8:39

that Gary Witte GTA

8:41

RP 4.0 the no pixel

8:44

4.0 server drops you get

8:46

into that well I know I'm sure we talked

8:48

about this back in the day. I'm no I

8:50

had a brief period of really really really liking

8:52

Yeah, yeah Invested

8:54

in it was making content had a couple of different

8:56

shows that came out of it And it was a

8:58

real real riot for a while But

9:01

then I just it was like I was

9:03

just over it like I still wanted I never wanted

9:05

to go back I did see the trailer for 4.0

9:08

and it looks amazing and it

9:10

makes me wonder why isn't that the why isn't

9:12

that what grand theft Auto online is I mean

9:14

and obviously rockstar can't make any more

9:16

money than they already are so they're

9:18

obviously doing something, right? But there was the

9:21

RP thing no pixel thing was very frustrating for me

9:23

because when it's good. It's amazing It's like man. This

9:26

is the future of gaming like this is an actual

9:28

living world everyone you meet the real person Everyone

9:30

commits to the RP. It's really fascinating But

9:34

there's also a lot of stress and anxiety that

9:36

goes along with it like act like social Stress,

9:39

it's just there's a whole I talked about it a

9:41

lot when I was playing it And it's what what

9:43

eventually drove me and I think the whole group of

9:45

us that were playing everybody But one person who still

9:47

plays have all left and they all started the same

9:49

reasons like it's at the end it becomes too stressful

9:53

And so we just we left assembly like with

9:55

some is with Warcraft. I said there's something about

9:57

Warcraft all the time I have very very fond

9:59

memories of playing it but I'm never going

10:01

back. Okay.

10:03

You've been playing any games lately? No,

10:06

it's been a shit show at my house the last couple

10:08

of months, Mike. Yeah, we were talking about that before the

10:10

show. Busy fans. But we both got toddlers who max out

10:12

your bandwidth on the best of days. I

10:18

had a flooding issue in my office. I had

10:20

to rip all the floors up in my office.

10:22

We've had construction outside, kitchen renovation, just

10:25

so much stuff catching up after the

10:27

strike. I've barely had time

10:29

to play anything. But I do have, I

10:31

think, a modest plan to get some gaming

10:34

in over the holidays. I know, like, I

10:36

think people get to personally look at the size of their

10:39

backlog and somebody said to make peace and go, I'm never

10:41

going to play a lot of these games. Never going to

10:43

play them. Yeah. And so just like try to carve out

10:45

like what you can do. So my

10:49

hope for the holiday period is finished by

10:51

the man to which I still haven't done.

10:53

That's a good choice. Play Alan, wait to which is one

10:55

for Leah and I to

10:57

play together. And you know,

10:59

I'm a big fan. I am of Lake.

11:01

I've got the Lake. He was reading DLC.

11:03

That's festive fun. I'm going to play some

11:06

of that, but I'm not going to start

11:08

like another big game because

11:10

we've got infinite wealth on the horizon. And

11:13

as soon as that comes out, all bets

11:15

are off. You know how I feel about

11:17

my man, itchy bank. I know you love

11:19

it. I know you love it. I'm sorry

11:21

for boring people. Like a dragon is seriously

11:24

one of my ultimate favorite games. And I'm

11:26

like the sequel is like just a notch

11:28

behind GTA six in terms of like how

11:30

much I want to play that guy. We

11:32

absolutely need to get you on. What's good to

11:35

talk with Brittany about? I know Brittany's seriously into it.

11:37

Yeah. You know, I often talk about it. Yeah. Yeah.

11:39

She get me on when infinite wealth comes out. I'll

11:41

come on. I would love that. Yeah. Let's do it.

11:43

Get the two of them together. Did you play like a dragon? No,

11:46

it was a series that I, um,

11:48

I demoed a couple of times over the course

11:51

of my career, but never got into playing. But

11:53

I've always like kind of seen it as a

11:55

game that I'd like to play. But again, just

11:57

like added to the, as the

11:59

list. It's one of those games that

12:01

after you've played it, you become like a bore about it. Like

12:03

you just bore everyone. Oh, you've got to play this, you've got

12:05

to play this. You become like an advocate

12:08

for it, you want to push it on other people. It's

12:10

so awesome. But the Dondoki Island stuff though

12:12

that they show. Oh hey. So there's going to

12:14

be like an Animal Crossing game. But now I'm like, oh. That's

12:17

the scary thing. So like the Yakuza games always

12:19

have this, right? And like a Dragon, there's like

12:21

a business simulation. It's like a whole other game

12:23

within a game. It's mini-game mania, yeah. Yeah, and

12:25

the fact that there's like an Animal Crossing type

12:27

game built within this one, I mean that's like...

12:29

Tom, get ready. Double dipping

12:31

for you and maybe possibly. Yeah, that's going to

12:34

be really dangerous. The holidays are right upon us.

12:36

And I want you guys, you know, you might

12:38

have family and friends over. What's some good holiday

12:40

games? Maybe put on the TV, let the little

12:42

ones play, let the family jump into. Do you

12:44

have any good holiday game recommendations for the TV?

12:47

Of course. What do you got?

12:49

Number one every holiday. Jackbox Party Back. Oh,

12:51

oh, that's a great point. And they celebrated 10

12:54

years this year. We had

12:56

the pleasure of interviewing some of the devs

12:58

on the Jackbox Games team on our final

13:00

send off episode before we went on hiatus

13:02

for what's good. And you could

13:04

pick any of the Party Packs and have a

13:06

good time. What I love about this as a

13:09

family party game is that it works with

13:11

people who don't play games regularly. It works

13:13

with a lot of people of all ages.

13:15

And in this new game in Party Pack

13:17

10, they've added a lot more family friendly

13:19

toggle safety features. Oh, that's good. For

13:22

language and content and other things like that.

13:25

Because I think people were like, hey, I want

13:27

to be able to maybe tweak and tailor things

13:29

not only for family, but streamers as well asking

13:31

for more like settings

13:33

and customization. What's the what's the because

13:35

usually when the Jackbox is there's usually like one game that

13:38

like stands out. What's the one in the new one? Is

13:40

there like a favorite game? It's tough because everyone's

13:42

different. But my favorite is TKO too. So

13:45

it's where you do you

13:47

basically create t-shirt designs. Okay.

13:49

Oh, yeah. Oh, no. Yeah,

13:52

yeah. I remember that. Yeah. have

13:56

to write in prompts for other people to come

13:58

up with phrases and then. the

14:00

everybody puts the then one player

14:03

puts of image with a prompt

14:05

and then everybody votes on which

14:07

ones they want and then you can actually get them

14:09

printed like cool yeah paired with an apparel I think

14:11

we'll bug we have it we have but we'll probably pack ten

14:13

well yeah we might bust out over the weekend my kids daughter

14:16

loves them that's a great pull andra yeah that

14:18

one everyone can play especially also on the cell

14:20

phone as well great pull right there

14:22

I was gonna go with some of my favorites

14:25

of course overcooked one and two which

14:27

I know you love and I love it so

14:29

so very good of course if you don't want

14:31

maybe yelling in the kitchen and getting a little

14:33

frustrated at each other check out moving out and

14:35

moving out too I think those are terrific you're

14:37

still gonna shout at each other though yeah but

14:39

it's like on a game co-op you know what

14:42

I mean we work together collaborative instead of competitive

14:44

and then of course party animals on game pass

14:46

oh party animals is right up the alley for

14:48

my favorite games of the year though is

14:50

in my top five games of the year gotta be Gary love it

14:53

what would you put on the TV if you had everybody over Gary

14:55

what's the game for everybody you say I wish

14:59

there was a way to like do like

15:01

greatest hits like cuz like sometimes your favorite games aren't

15:03

all on the same party pack right so if you

15:05

can curate your own would be really cool without having

15:07

to like you know load different games

15:10

each time but I don't

15:12

come really good idea yeah just do like some

15:14

some way low Master Chief collection I did

15:16

ask them they were gonna do a collection yeah we

15:19

have nothing to report at this time because I

15:21

don't think there's ever been a jack box where there's like

15:23

every game on it as a banger I said there's usually

15:25

one that you and a couple of okay one that's like

15:28

really good and that's the one that you go to my

15:30

favorite one and maybe it was either the most recent one

15:32

or the one before is the one where it's like robot

15:35

rap battles you have to write lyrics for the road

15:37

rapper lyrics yeah that was a good

15:40

one I like that one as well and I

15:42

like anything with trivia okay party trivia

15:46

is probably my favorite yeah that's yeah that one was good yeah

15:49

honestly I still like this

15:51

is old school but like you don't know Jack

15:54

is still good right where it all began still

15:56

fun we used to have some but back in

15:58

the PC game of days in the 90s have

16:00

so much fun playing when it was

16:02

when it was still like Berkeley and Jellyvision and

16:04

like before it became the big thing it is

16:06

now you don't know Jack was like I had

16:08

so much fun with it. Yeah it's

16:10

a good one. I've been playing some good ones

16:12

lately I've been playing the finals which is now out with

16:14

the version 1.0. Yeah I enjoy

16:16

the finals a lot it is a nice

16:19

breath of fresh air in the first person

16:21

first person shooter genre because I go to

16:23

warzone a lot gosh I love warzone but

16:25

it is frustrating just only to start up

16:28

and then man do I get killed all

16:30

the time and it is a frustratingly fun

16:32

game but the finals has something special going

16:34

on here and I really like what this

16:37

team has done it has the levolution the

16:39

destructible environments you would see in of course

16:41

battlefield it has tight fun gameplay

16:43

the movement is very fast and I

16:46

enjoy that right I think all the

16:48

new young kids in this genre love

16:50

fast movement twitch first-person shooting but

16:52

the catch is is they have a fun game

16:54

mode which I really enjoy the only downfall is

16:56

it's only one game mode that's my one catch

16:58

to this is like it is one true game

17:01

mode here and they don't have anything else so

17:03

I feel like after a couple of times yes

17:05

it's right I they will put out more but

17:07

as of right now to start this off and

17:09

then in the out this is kind of up

17:11

my alley is it is it taking office or shroud

17:13

playing it the other day I think there's a big

17:15

popular reception to this I think a lot of people

17:17

are checking it out and playing it it is 3v3v3

17:19

so all you need is

17:22

three people to jump in it is cool but

17:24

you can't play solo you or

17:26

is there matchmaking is there solo queue I think you

17:28

can solo queue but I'm sure it's not

17:30

gonna go well like the pickup matchmaking is

17:32

usually chaos yeah this is not that

17:35

is right but it is a fun team arena

17:37

based gameplay it is very much

17:39

capture the point you go to a point you

17:41

hit the ATM you wait for the money to

17:43

come out you grab that money you go back

17:45

to the next point and deposit those funds until

17:48

you get a certain number to win the game

17:50

I like the whole Vegas like game show vibe

17:52

you know it's something different they have some beautiful

17:54

maps day and night in there it is

17:57

cool it's fun I've also been playing

17:59

inscriptions I don't know if you know about yeah, you guys

18:01

know you came to that light Yeah, yeah I

18:03

came to that very late started it up this week

18:06

for the first time ever and as a kid who

18:08

loves Magic the Gathering and Of

18:10

course Hearthstone. This is right up my alley

18:12

It's a little spooky little freaky But it's

18:14

got the card game mechanics that I know

18:16

and love and I am all about this

18:18

game Hey, so this is a game that

18:21

came out last year, right? I believe so Nominated for a

18:23

bunch of awards last year. Yes, Andy Cortez talked a

18:25

lot about it here at kind of funny One

18:27

of the kind of funny best friends gifted this

18:29

to me on Steam I turned it

18:31

on finally and I'll tell you what I

18:33

can't get enough of this. I'm thinking about

18:35

this I want to play more of this.

18:37

It is very cool. It's definitely interesting to

18:40

learn and understand, but it is easy I

18:42

think they kind of put on the training

18:44

wheels at the beginning It's like a

18:46

rogue light rogue like where you're gonna die you have

18:48

to restart you have to beat it all in one

18:50

run But I'm gonna have a good time with this

18:53

Yeah, I see it's fun I enjoyed my time

18:55

in the description and then of course my final

18:57

one that I have to bring up with both

18:59

of you I have moved which means I have

19:01

created a brand new video game space. I've created

19:03

my new spare bedroom and man

19:06

Nothing gets me more excited than getting a

19:08

new spots or redecorating and recreating and I

19:11

love interior design I love putting on the

19:13

Sims, you know animal crossing all that So

19:15

I have a brand new streaming room in

19:17

my spare bedroom bear will bring up that

19:19

photo But I'm very pleased with how it

19:21

turned out. Nice It is

19:24

in a nice little nook on the far side

19:26

of the house so nobody can hear me screaming

19:28

and shouting I've put up all the special lights

19:30

I got my shelves with all my little knickknacks

19:32

and so I'm very excited to show off. Oh,

19:34

look at this streaming Oh, you got some

19:36

recess Yeah,

19:39

good this is attached to the garage

19:41

so you will see me playing VR

19:43

in the garage which I'm very excited

19:45

about So that's kind of cool. But

19:48

if you look through it, I mean I got the party animals Over

19:51

on the side. I have frame a game

19:53

up on the wall, which I love those

19:55

are my five favorite games I have the

19:57

Sims Warcraft 3 Halo collection. I have Diablo

20:00

2 as well up there

20:02

your Titanfall 1 statues in the middle

20:04

What an iconic toy that you

20:06

don't need but I needed it so bad But the

20:08

game that started it all for Respawn, right?

20:11

Man, that's a special one and you know what?

20:13

It was a big hit for the Xbox one

20:15

generation that needed big hits, right? Like that was

20:18

Xbox exclusive at the time multiplayer only It was

20:20

the coolest game around and I'll tell you what

20:22

as an Xbox kid. I freaking loved that It

20:24

was so much fun. And so yeah new streaming

20:26

space for Mike I know Gary just updated his

20:28

office and are you have an incredible spot to

20:31

do all of your shows with what's good and

20:33

beyond? So I finally get a new space. It's

20:35

nice to have a For

20:37

you your own that you make it. Yeah curate

20:39

it I love I could stare at shelves or

20:42

a room all day blank space and be like

20:44

let's put this here Oh, let me pick it

20:46

up move it. I love that. I go crazy

20:48

for that stuff. I had no idea Yeah, I

20:50

feel like we should like talk

20:52

decorating mark. I would love to I'd love

20:54

to let me talk Xbox though

20:56

because we're gonna look back on the year

20:59

of 2023. Did we have a good was

21:01

it bad? Was it ugly? Let's talk about that

21:03

and a little bit of gaming news. Of course, this is

21:05

the kind of funny X cast We post each and every

21:07

Thursday at 6 a.m West Coast

21:10

best goes time on youtube.com/kind of funny

21:12

games roosterteeth calm and of course on

21:14

podcast services around The

21:16

globe but don't forget this is our final

21:18

episode of 2023 So we

21:20

want to thank each and every one of you for

21:22

your support whether you're listening or watching on YouTube Thank

21:25

you so much over there. Make sure to leave a

21:27

comment Let us know what you think of the year

21:29

and if you're watching or listening over on a podcast

21:31

service leave a review We'd love to read those we

21:33

love to get better for you into 2024

21:36

of course don't forget kind of funny games is

21:38

now epic games partners Which means if you're upgrading

21:40

your look in fall guys rocket league or fortnight

21:42

or you're buying games off the in-game store over

21:44

at? Epic game store, please use

21:46

our epic creator code kind of funny at

21:48

checkout I've been playing a lot of fortnight

21:51

with the new update. Uh-huh use that epic

21:53

creator code kind of funny helps for Team

21:55

there's nothing's cooler than bringing in a

21:57

new character into the fortnight festival and jamming out

21:59

with different friends have you played this yet? So

22:01

I haven't but I'm very excited

22:04

to check it out because I'm

22:06

a big like longtime harmonic fan.

22:09

Frequency is one of my top ten favorite games

22:11

of all time and have a long history with

22:13

music and rhythm games and when I

22:15

heard that they were building something custom inside of Fortnite I

22:18

was like that sounds real

22:20

cool. It is real cool. Jump on

22:22

that with your friends. Nice music playlist. I think they're

22:24

doing a really good job of keeping it limited of

22:26

like you can buy the songs and build it out

22:28

but right now if you want the free songs I

22:30

think they do a good job of like hey here's

22:33

like ten five to ten you play whatever you want

22:35

get back into the game right and so you jump

22:37

into Lego Fortnite which Gary have you tried that out

22:39

yet with the family? You're never gonna get me into

22:41

Fortnite. I said the same thing Gary

22:44

and then I got into

22:46

Fortnite. No build mode was it for

22:48

me. Yeah no build because I never understood the

22:51

building and I would watch

22:53

like videos of people playing and I'm like I

22:55

just can't even follow what's going on with all

22:57

the building and it's just crazy. So when they

22:59

took the building I said maybe but not quite

23:01

and then I look at rocket rate rocket racing

23:03

looks cool. Yeah maybe but like I know I

23:05

don't need any more time sinks. I don't want

23:07

to get so I don't want to be a Fortnite

23:09

person. Yeah fine without it. But we could do Fortnite

23:11

Lego which is Minecraft. But

23:13

what's great about Fortnite is that you can do

23:15

really short sessions you don't have to do all

23:17

of that extra stuff you can just like drop

23:20

in drop out play a couple games and then

23:22

it's cool. Yeah I have

23:24

Fall Guys for that though. I still play Fall Guys. I love Fall Guys.

23:27

I'm gonna play that with my mom over the holidays. Fall Guys and Party

23:29

Anim was on my games when I just want to have like I've got

23:31

like 30 30 minutes to burn

23:33

and I jump in. Yeah crown. Yeah well the

23:35

funny thing is I actually haven't played Fall Guys

23:37

recently because I did that a couple of months

23:39

ago. I haven't played Fall Guys in a while. I've got 30 minutes. I just really

23:43

want to play Fall Guys. Hadn't played in ages.

23:46

Jumped in. Boom crown right on the first game.

23:48

Put the controller down and just stands it out

23:50

of the room. I haven't played it since. Retiring

23:52

undefeated. That's good. That's good. Yeah of course we

23:55

always like to thank those who support us over

23:57

on Patreon. Don't forget you can sign up over

23:59

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24:15

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24:17

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24:21

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24:23

you so much for your support this week

24:25

The kind of funny X cast is sponsored

24:27

by better help, but I'll tell you all

24:29

about that in just a little bit guys Let's

24:32

get into some small news stories before we break

24:34

down the year. I got a good one. Bobby

24:36

Kodak is stepping down December

24:39

29th. This is something we already knew

24:41

he was going to leave the company

24:43

after this acquisition merger But we now

24:45

have a firm date. This is coming

24:47

from Tom Warren Tom Warren and

24:49

Ash Paris at the verge Activision

24:52

Blizzard CEO Bobby Kodak is stepping down

24:54

officially December 29th Microsoft

24:56

has not appointed a direct

24:59

replacement and instead has rolled

25:01

out a suite of Activision

25:03

Blizzard executives including Blizzard president

25:05

Mike Ybarra Activision publishing president

25:08

Rob Kostik and Activision

25:10

Blizzard vice chair Thomas tipple

25:12

under Microsoft game content and

25:15

studios president Matt booty Kodak's

25:17

departure comes just two months

25:19

after some big Xbox leadership

25:21

changes that saw Sarah Bond

25:23

promoted to Xbox president Leading

25:25

all Xbox platform and hardware

25:27

work and Matt booty promoted

25:30

to president of game content

25:32

and studios Including overseeing Bethesda

25:34

and ZeniMax Studios now booty

25:36

is getting even more responsibilities

25:38

with Bethesda Activision Blizzard and

25:40

Xbox game studios all under his

25:42

watch Andrew Renee,

25:44

I'll start off with you since you're our guest

25:47

now. We have a firm date We knew this

25:49

was going to happen But of course good news

25:51

for people out there and of course a new

25:53

restructure a new game plan for this team Adding

25:55

another very large team under this umbrella Yeah,

25:58

this has been the Legal battle of

26:01

the year, right? I mean, I mean arguably

26:03

of the decade there This is a huge

26:05

deal the historic making deal in video games

26:08

Having the Xbox deal closed with Activision Blizzard and

26:10

I think we know it was a little

26:12

hairy there we thought I might not actually

26:14

get done but you know, they got across

26:16

the finish line and Activision

26:19

clearly had a lot of baggage coming

26:21

into the deal and Xbox

26:23

has done a really good job of

26:25

trying to put forth a really positive

26:27

culture in the world of

26:29

video games They've made a lot of really

26:31

important statements and really stood behind some

26:34

of their key pillars like accessibility and

26:36

inclusion and I think that they've done

26:38

a really good job of trying to

26:40

be Better by leading which is

26:42

something that Phil Spencer has talked about quite a few times

26:45

And so with the Activision issues

26:47

with the conduct allegations with Bobby Kotick

26:50

and other senior leadership at Activision I

26:52

mean they had their were cut off

26:54

for them about what are we going

26:56

to do about this issue once that?

26:59

deal finally closes, but I mean

27:01

I don't need to regurgitate all the things that we've

27:03

already talked about all of us on our Respected

27:06

shows over the course of the year. Listen,

27:08

he's getting his beautiful golden parachute. He's gonna

27:10

ride off to the sunset He's

27:12

probably not out of games because you know a

27:14

lot of those High

27:16

performing creative types. Yeah, typically we'll step back

27:19

for a little bit And then they'll come

27:21

back in and do something else. But I

27:23

mean, he's not part of this leadership structure anymore

27:26

Yeah, it was fun when we were in the

27:28

middle of the when is this deal gonna go

27:30

through? Of course, we saw Xbox really stand up

27:32

and say hey, we were changing the culture We

27:34

want to interval implement this culture and then everybody

27:36

would scream well fire Bobby Kotick and it was

27:38

like well They don't own them yet. It's not

27:40

that kind of time now We are at that

27:42

moment and it is that time Gary

27:45

we talked about bringing in another team under

27:47

the umbrella Of course, Matt booty Sarah bond

27:49

getting new roles Matt booty taking on a

27:51

whole lot from that team What

27:54

do you anticipate here coming from this merger

27:56

as what we saw with the venom acts

27:58

bet Bethesda deal? I think

28:00

the only way is up really for Activision

28:02

and Blizzard. Kotick

28:05

leaving for better or worse, probably for the

28:07

better. I'm sure there's plenty of people at Activision and Blizzard

28:09

would be glad to see the back of him. He

28:13

has been synonymous with Activision for as long as many

28:15

people can remember, right? But

28:18

I don't think he particularly distinguished himself

28:20

or made Activision a better company. The

28:22

strong argument, he made it a lot

28:24

worse. If you take Call of Duty out of the equation,

28:27

what have they done in the last 10, 20 years? Right?

28:30

It's like all they've done is drive franchises into

28:32

the ground by iterating, iterating, iterating. Let's do another

28:34

one. Let's do another one. Oh,

28:36

it's dead. We probably shouldn't have beat the dead horse that

28:38

much. I mean, seriously, other than Call

28:41

of Duty, what has Activision really got? Right?

28:45

No more crash because, you know, we've put everything

28:47

in the Call of Duty. We

28:49

brought back Diablo, thankfully. World

28:51

of Warcraft continues to hang out by a stream. Well, I mean,

28:53

those are the Blizzard titles that they acquired. And look at where

28:55

Blizzard was when Activision bought them. Look

28:58

where they are now. They're not on better or worse. Worse.

29:01

Yeah, a lot worse. So it can

29:03

only get better. But in your town.

29:05

Worse games. The

29:07

games are worse. You think Blizzard's portfolio

29:09

of games is worse now? I think

29:11

the quality of the games is worse. Okay.

29:15

I think there's a lot. I

29:17

think that that's a giant umbrella to put

29:20

over, like, a lot of different teams and

29:22

games. I don't think that categorically everything under

29:24

Blizzard is worse than it used to be.

29:26

I didn't say everything. I'm sure there are some things that

29:28

are better. But the games, which

29:30

is the main thing, are worse.

29:32

And I think statistically that's inarguable.

29:35

Look at the review scores. Diablo IV set

29:37

records and became the fastest-selling

29:39

game in their history. Yeah. And

29:42

now everybody hates it because they failed to sustain

29:44

it. Diablo IV is a great game. I

29:47

love this. My most played game of this

29:49

year. But when it came out, everyone was so relieved.

29:51

Oh, finally Blizzard gets something right because it had been

29:53

like Overwatch II. I challenge

29:56

anyone to defend that. Warcraft III

29:58

reforged a disgrace. Right. What

30:00

I'm what I'm what else have they done Literally

30:03

nothing. So I feel like Blizzard has

30:05

been coasting on fumes for a while What a world

30:07

of Warcraft has been on fumes for

30:09

a while I think there's some argument the dragonfly and

30:11

now that Christmas is back that might be back on

30:14

an upswing But I just kind of feel like it

30:16

just seems to me that both Activision and Blizzard

30:19

Did very little to innovate or do

30:22

anything interesting or new? During

30:24

Kotick's reign because Kotick's number one thing

30:26

is Increase value for shareholders, right?

30:28

That's his job as a CEO and he's done that

30:30

very well Like by that metric you can't fault the

30:32

guy as as the boss of

30:34

a video game company like has he?

30:37

Made get has he made video games better.

30:39

Did he make those companies better at making

30:42

video games? No, they again I think like

30:44

almost in arguably got worse across the

30:46

board and you could like you could do a

30:48

chart of Review scores or play a sentiment or

30:50

whatever but like they have it's just that Activision

30:52

used to be a great great company Now

30:55

it's just the Call of Duty company and Blizzard

30:57

used to Edit to PC Gamer in the 90s when Blizzard

30:59

was like a blue chip It was like every game that

31:01

came out was an absolute banger now it look

31:03

at where Blizzard's reputation is now Like it

31:06

went off a cliff and I hope they get it

31:08

back. I love Blizzard. Oh the Diablo 4 was great

31:10

I hope that is the beginning of them turning a

31:12

corner and I think having better leadership non-kotic leadership at

31:15

the top now with Max Booty and Phil Spencer and

31:17

all the rest and who I write all of those

31:19

guys Yeah, those guys were worth a million Bobby Codex

31:21

to me. I think it will get better I think

31:23

there will be more of a focus on quality and

31:25

originality and innovation feels already said We're not just gonna

31:27

keep churning out Call of Duty's every year. It's looking

31:29

more than one with one more for three people hated

31:31

It doesn't work right there. There's so out of ideas

31:33

in that franchise and we see it now increasingly Vanguard

31:36

people hated it right because they ask about to

31:38

World War two. Do you not have any other

31:41

ideas? It's so boring and I just I just

31:43

kind of feel like Activision is again

31:45

I play Activision games like in the in

31:48

the 80s and 90s when Activision like was a

31:50

great company Like one of the like

31:52

Atari used to mean something now it doesn't mean so much

31:54

anymore And I think a lot

31:56

of that is down to the way that Kotick

31:58

chose to prioritize What that

32:00

company was about which was just you know just keep

32:02

hitting the money button people like quality keep shooting up

32:05

call of duty all day but again when i say

32:07

to people other than call of duty what have they

32:09

really done. You really have

32:11

to rack your brains to think of something is

32:13

the activation does other than just make call of

32:15

duty games that's all they do now you three

32:17

of you three a company that make like a

32:20

wide range of really interesting and actually innovated them

32:22

done that in a long time i'm hopeful your

32:24

question that the new leadership

32:27

the new microsoft leadership that will

32:29

be replacing cotec will get that

32:31

company back on a creative track

32:33

because it hasn't been for a very long time. Andrea

32:36

we talked about the zenimax do when that

32:39

went through when how you balance bring them

32:41

in but also letting them stand alone and

32:43

work on their own how do you envision

32:45

this with a number of kind of senior

32:48

leadership at Activision leaving during this deal and

32:50

just shortly and then adding in new leadership

32:52

rising up from the bottom coming up with

32:54

new people do you think it will go

32:57

well. Time

32:59

will tell it's a really complicated question because

33:01

whenever you have an acquisition and merger of

33:04

this size there's always going to be redundancies

33:06

right and you can't have. All

33:09

of the people who were leading before all

33:11

have their same level of autonomy that they had

33:14

when they were in their respective divisions right so

33:16

you have to have some kind of synergy in

33:18

your org chart right not to get like to

33:20

like jargony but. It's

33:23

a really delicate thing to try to figure out

33:25

which of those leaders you want to keep on

33:27

in what positions and who to bring up and

33:30

who to maybe you know put on specific projects because

33:32

those people a lot of them have already been working

33:34

at the company for a long time as well maybe

33:36

their. Goals

33:38

as professionals have changed maybe their leadership

33:40

style has changed maybe what they want

33:42

to do with the rest of their

33:44

careers has changed like managing that that

33:46

is not an easy task I think

33:48

that it's exciting looking at

33:50

some fresh talent getting the opportunity to shine

33:52

and even if you look at Bill Spencer

33:54

as the example I mean he's been at

33:56

Microsoft for such a long time. And

34:00

he himself like put the time in and

34:02

rose the rings and now is obviously leading

34:04

this team And I think he's trying to

34:06

do his best to inspire the people underneath

34:08

him to do That to the

34:10

people underneath them and have this like trickle-down effect

34:12

of like let's all work together to make this

34:14

company Great and to do right by

34:16

our players But I mean it

34:19

takes everybody working together at that vision You can't

34:21

just have somebody even a leader

34:23

at the top that has great vision You

34:25

have to have the people underneath executing it

34:27

right and we're only gonna start seeing

34:29

how that's gonna come together Next

34:31

year and beyond yeah, of course It's gonna

34:34

be quite some time to see what really

34:36

happens in this big picture of things

34:38

But we now affirm date Bobby Kotick is

34:40

leaving the team December 29th So

34:43

we'll get some the other thing by the way over

34:45

on this the other I hopeful changes don't forget It's

34:47

easy for easy to forget but wasn't that long ago

34:49

That like the biggest headline in news was the toxic

34:51

culture that Activision and Blizzard right and coach it was

34:53

deeply That was all on his shoulders Like we saw

34:55

evidence that he swept that under the rug that he

34:58

enabled it that all of that stuff was terrible That

35:00

was like a big big story for a long time

35:02

And you know again, we have short attention spans

35:04

we moved on but I doubt that's all been fixed

35:06

again again I think there was a better chance

35:08

of that will get addressed Now

35:11

that's under new leadership. I honestly wouldn't be at all

35:13

surprised We'll never know this but I wouldn't be at

35:15

all surprised if we found out the Kotick going was

35:17

a condition of the Sales that it feels I'm not

35:19

I don't want him here I'm not I'm not gonna

35:21

deal with him and just get him out of the

35:23

way and Bobby I'm sure would have been happy to

35:25

take a multi-million dollar golden handshake fuck off and go

35:27

sit on a beach. That's the dream Oh, there's

35:29

not enough time for me to respond to everything Gary said

35:31

in the last five minutes alone I mean, I

35:34

wanted to bring up that Activision had this

35:36

little game called destiny that they launched destiny

35:38

Okay, you might have heard about that was

35:40

pretty great. Yeah Destiny

35:42

to also pretty great guess that doesn't

35:44

matter doesn't mean anything to Gary It

35:48

there's just too much to unpack I'm into

35:50

Gary's wild wild take not wrong not all

35:52

wrong anyway But like there's a lot there.

35:54

I Mean, yes,

35:57

they okay. They'd one other they did have one

35:59

other other hit game under Bobby Kotick's

36:01

watch. Again, I would still make the argument

36:03

that's not good enough. Like a really good

36:06

game publisher has a diverse portfolio of interesting

36:08

games. They have a correct...they don't have

36:10

one game. But all the big publishers have

36:12

stars in their portfolio. They have like a

36:14

crown jewel. And by the way, Destiny 2 now

36:16

is in serious trouble. They just had a layover shitload

36:18

of people because no one's playing Destiny 2 anymore. So

36:20

it's not like that franchise has been brilliantly managed. So

36:23

that's a whole separate issue, right? But

36:25

like, I mean, Destiny came

36:27

into being underneath activisions like

36:29

leadership and guidance and money. Yeah.

36:32

And I would say that's more to the

36:34

credit, more to Bungie's credit than Activision. Of

36:37

course. But like they were

36:39

underneath that umbrella. I mean, I feel like

36:41

you can't make these

36:43

sweeping broad brushstroke statements

36:47

and then start nitpicking only the

36:49

parts that suit your argument. No,

36:53

I can do that. And I'm going to continue to

36:55

do it right now. Okay, Gary. I'll

37:00

ask you again, other than shooting out a Call of Duty

37:02

game every year and having one big hit with Destiny, which

37:04

is now floundering, what has Activision done in the last 20

37:06

years? A

37:08

ton of games. They have lots of licensed

37:11

IPs. They have a whole line of Transformers

37:13

games that did very well. They had the

37:15

Spider-Man IP for a while. They had several

37:17

Spider-Man games that did well to name two

37:19

of the IPs that they worked on. I

37:21

mean, obviously we talked about Crash

37:24

Bandicoot games of all

37:26

of the varieties. The Legacy Crash, the

37:28

remasters, and now the Crash Rumble also

37:30

doing very well. That's just a handful.

37:32

I mean, 20 years of Activision has

37:34

a lot of history to go through.

37:36

And I don't need to go through all

37:38

of that because, Gary, you know, you're just you're angry

37:41

right now and it's okay to have those feelings. I'm

37:43

not angry. You asked me a

37:45

question about the leadership of Activision and my argument

37:48

is that it's been very poor. Okay. I guess

37:50

we're just gonna... We're hoping that it gets better.

37:52

We're gonna take a moment to hear a word

37:54

from our sponsors and we're coming back with more

37:56

Xbox Talk right after this. This

37:58

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That. Are help.com/kind of funny. Welcome.

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Back Ladies and Gentlemen. I'm.

38:59

Not a fun way for you to gauge.

39:01

would experts content Speaking of course the goal

39:03

always would ex Boss is the hit. The

39:05

players were further up and you can place

39:07

exports games on your metics. was dead set

39:09

and I've done it. It's pretty while joined

39:11

it is. It's very good side everybody so

39:14

let's talk about the details that you need

39:16

to know. Of course you can download the

39:18

X Box cloud gaming app it's play of

39:20

on the Met a quest to three Am

39:22

Pro headsets you controller blue tooth into the

39:24

had set which is pretty rad. no wires

39:26

acquired which was that's the best part about

39:28

that. had said as there's. No rise why

39:30

is required which the big ones to mates

39:32

but it's playable so it's very cool. You

39:34

jump into the app of course you go

39:36

on to the cloud servers. You gotta wait

39:38

sometimes has it's busy but they give you

39:40

two options cause have you been to the

39:42

medic was universe? You know that you kind

39:44

of are welcomed into whatever seemed a home

39:46

you want to be and you can be

39:48

in the cool like North Pole you be

39:50

a ski resort be in the deserts whatever

39:52

they were original reality yeah going to be

39:54

earn a living room figure two options. you

39:56

can be in your own X box themed

39:58

room which their. Reminisce. of an Xbox

40:00

E3 with Sarah Bond and Phil Spencer. It's like

40:03

a lot of silver, white, black, and green. Very

40:05

cool. Or you could actually play it in AR

40:07

with the mixed reality, like you brought up, Gary,

40:09

where you can size up the screen however you

40:11

want it, and you can still see the background

40:14

of your room. You can walk around and see

40:16

all that. Pretty rad. We'll say

40:18

this, cloud gaming is great.

40:20

It's running well, but when you play

40:22

games like first-person shooters, like Halo in

40:24

particular, that latency, the controller

40:26

inputs are just not there yet. And

40:29

I think also the headset, we talked

40:31

about it right with cloud gaming. Being

40:33

direct connected is one thing. We really

40:35

have that strong internet connection. When you

40:37

are on a headset that has no

40:39

wires and no direct connection, man,

40:42

oh man, did I feel that when I was

40:44

playing Halo. It would just stop and I would

40:46

be five steps that way, and it

40:48

would have to recalibrate and come back and bring me

40:50

back into the game. Only downfall

40:52

of that, pretty cool. Novel,

40:54

fun, not the best way to play, but

40:56

a way to play, and I like that. Are there

40:58

games that they have designed

41:01

for the MetaQuest experience that you guys have

41:03

tried? No, I think it's just whatever is available over the

41:05

cloud. You can now, it's just another way you can get

41:08

it. It's like a virtual movie screen. Yeah, but it's not

41:10

like great on the Quest-like curated list. I mean, that would

41:12

probably be a good idea, but I tried it, I downloaded

41:14

it, it's fun. The mixed reality

41:16

thing is really, just in general, it's so helpful to

41:18

have that, because you don't feel as isolated from the

41:20

water around you whenever the headset's on. You have to

41:22

worry about bumping into things and

41:25

the MetaQuest 3 gives you a much better view of that. So

41:27

like my preferred, it is fun to play in the ski lodge

41:29

and stuff like that, but my preferred way to do these things

41:32

now is in mixed reality, where you can actually, if someone walks

41:34

in the room, I can see that, but I'm still

41:36

looking at a massive screen. To the best of both

41:38

worlds. I tried it, I logged in, did

41:40

the whole thing, booted up the literally

41:42

the first tile, fourth horizon five, okay, let's see it.

41:44

Oh, sorry, there's a 10 minute waiting list for this

41:47

game. It's not good enough. And

41:50

like you said, in a world where milliseconds matter, and

41:53

any latency's not good enough as well. So I believe

41:55

it's just about infrastructure and architecture and the

41:57

technology catching up with the ideal. It

42:00

will get there. It's still not quite yet there.

42:03

Not quite there yet. But it's fun and it's cool. It's

42:05

the whole cloud gaming library. Just like

42:07

you'd bring up on your phone or your browser,

42:09

which they've really promoted and pushed. It

42:11

is cool to be able to play games on the cloud. It's

42:13

novel having the headset on. I think we all

42:15

can agree having a headset on for two to

42:17

three hours or beyond, you are sweating. It is

42:19

not the most comfortable as opposed to just looking

42:21

at a normal television screen. But if we were

42:24

all on the couch and I didn't have the

42:26

TV at the time and I had my headset

42:28

there readily available to play, it is cool that

42:30

I can play my Xbox games. It's

42:33

interesting, but not you would say a reason

42:35

to buy a meta quest. No. Like

42:37

if you own a meta quest, it's a cool like a secret

42:39

to try. If you were to tell me, hey, I own

42:41

a meta quest or I'm buying one for the family and

42:43

friends, I'd be like, hey, if you got game pass, you

42:45

can play those games on there. It is cool. It's

42:48

fun. It's different, right? But if

42:50

you're going out, I would tell you to buy

42:52

the meta quest because it is the coolest virtual

42:54

reality headset on the market without the wires. It's

42:56

all the best ones. Like games, right? And I

42:58

really like the mixed reality, like Gary said, like

43:00

that headset is leaps and bounds better than even

43:03

the two right now. And it's cool. I

43:05

don't know if this is do or believe it. I imagine it is from a

43:07

tech point of view, but whether or not it's like legally contractual or

43:09

something that something that they would do. But like,

43:11

for example, Steam Link works brilliantly now over

43:13

the quest three. So if I want to play

43:16

Half-Life, Alex, which isn't on the quest three, but

43:18

is on PC and Steam Link, it's my headset

43:20

and it's a flawless experience. We've got good Wi-Fi.

43:22

It's brilliant, right? Really, really, really good.

43:24

If there was some way to have a similar

43:27

experience where there's like an app that is just

43:29

basically turns like a PlayStation portal, right? But it's

43:31

your headset. So the game's running locally and have

43:33

to wear latency or waiting list. But

43:35

the only latency is between the local hardware and

43:37

the headset. And that's generally much better. So I

43:39

would like to see a way to kind of

43:41

have your headset just be an additional device

43:45

for the games that you're playing locally. Steam Link does it

43:47

really, really well. Interesting. Like

43:49

with like an Xbox Series X or with a PC or

43:52

either. I mean,

43:54

with a PC, you can basically already

43:57

do it. For

43:59

an Xbox, presumably you would need some kind of dedicated

44:03

app on one end or both for them to talk

44:05

to each other. I'm

44:07

sure some people have already figured out ways to

44:09

like kind of hack it, but I would like

44:11

to be a really cool like official solution

44:13

for it because it is cool like the effect of

44:15

seeing like the way that VR

44:17

fills your whole vision, you can spend

44:20

a lot of money on 120 inch TV or

44:22

you can basically create the illusion of one in

44:24

a tiny little headset and it really does work.

44:27

I know that the cloud app that we're

44:29

talking about has four different sizes of screen

44:31

all the way up to Excel. It's massive. Yeah, and

44:33

it looks really really good. And again, the bottleneck

44:36

is not the VR hardware.

44:38

It's just it's the cloud gaming

44:40

bottleneck that's connected across all

44:43

platforms. Yeah, of course. So I would like to

44:45

see some kind of local solution to stream Xbox

44:47

games into my headset. You've been playing any

44:49

VR in your at all, Andrea Renee?

44:51

You know, I have struggled a lot. I

44:53

mean, we have the Quest 2 at home

44:56

so I've done a little bit in there,

44:58

but I've struggled lately with VR and nausea.

45:01

Oh, yeah. So my wife had, Leah

45:03

had that with the Quest 2. She said with the

45:05

Quest 3 it went away entirely because I've done something

45:08

either to the frame rate or the field of view

45:10

or something else to mitigate that. And

45:13

she said a lot of the issues that she had with feeling

45:15

nauseated after a short period of playing Quest

45:18

3 seems to have fixed that. Yeah,

45:20

they've made a lot of strides in frame rates, a

45:22

big one for VR

45:24

and motion sickness. Your

45:27

pupil distance matters, where it fits on

45:29

your head in relation to your ears

45:31

matters. And a lot of the early

45:33

VR headsets were designed for bigger male

45:35

heads. They're like target demo. And so

45:37

as a female with a relatively small

45:40

head, I really struggled with

45:42

a lot of the VR headsets. That's

45:44

the other nice thing about the 3 is it's just hardware adjustable

45:46

a lot more. There's lots of different ways you can kind of

45:48

ratchet it in and out and up and down and angle it

45:50

and get it like whatever your sweet

45:52

spot is, you've got a better chance of finding it than

45:54

with the other one. Yeah, I'm always searching for that sweet

45:56

spot. I'm trying to push it harder on the right hand.

45:58

Please get... Number one fit.

46:00

Yeah, I always have. Number one fit. Get the Elite

46:02

strap, which is the separate strap you can buy that

46:04

has a little ratchet, a little dial in the back.

46:07

Oh, okay. And you'll get like... The

46:09

PSVR2 and the PSVR has a little ratchet. Yeah, I think

46:11

so. It's just like a little dial in the back and it like clicks

46:13

and you ratchet it up and you can get it exactly where you want

46:15

it. It will stay there like it won't come loose. Oh, okay. I

46:18

looked that up, Gary. I didn't like that. Guys, I

46:20

want to talk about Xbox's 2023 because it's the

46:22

last episode of the year. We've had a good

46:24

year at Xbox. You know, I tried to say

46:26

great Gary checked and he said it was good.

46:28

Mike, let's... Cool it a little bit,

46:30

you know, I think they're on the right path, but

46:32

let's talk about 2023 since

46:34

it is the final episode. I want to have

46:37

the fun, good, bad and ugly part

46:39

of the episode. I've given you guys a list of

46:41

some good, some bad, some uglies that we can go

46:43

through and we'll start off with the good because I

46:46

love to keep it positive here on the XCats. And

46:48

I want to talk about some fun moments, some good

46:50

moments that you liked in the Xbox world or even

46:52

in the gaming world here for 2023 because there's been

46:54

a lot. And so as you guys take a look

46:57

and you start to prepare, I know I was the

46:59

one who prepared it all. So

47:01

I'll start off first. I want to highlight a fun one. That's

47:03

Age of Empires 2 and 4 coming to

47:06

console. I know a lot of people probably

47:08

didn't jump into this one. Maybe you're not

47:10

a big RTS fan like I am, but

47:12

I do have to give a major

47:15

props to this team. As

47:17

someone who loved Halo Wars 1 and 2

47:20

on console with controller, it is tough to

47:22

bring the RTS onto a proper console with

47:24

the gamepad. But this team has done

47:26

a really good job and I wanted to give them

47:28

their flowers. I wanted to highlight it one more time

47:30

this year because what I thought what

47:32

they did with controller support, fantastic. The tutorials

47:35

were great, right? Like jumping into

47:37

a meaty game like Age of

47:39

Empires 2 and 4, a

47:41

big lineage, a big franchise. It is kind

47:43

of intimidating, but I think what they did

47:45

with the tutorials to bring you on to

47:47

onboard you into the world and the game

47:49

and the controls, fantastic and a really good

47:51

job. And most importantly, the new

47:53

Villager Resource System. I don't know if you guys

47:56

played it a lot, but they took what essentially

47:58

is the core of the RTS experience. of

48:00

making sure you're managing all of the resources and

48:02

understanding what each role needs to do and how

48:04

you play it out. I think they did a

48:07

great job at saying, hey, we can dial that

48:09

back. We can make it easier for people to

48:11

be onboarded and kind of hone in that system

48:13

to make it, oh, I want more wood. Oh,

48:15

I want gold. I want food. How do I

48:17

make it fast and simple? Fantastic

48:20

job. So I got to give kudos, big kudos to Age

48:22

of Empires 2 and 4 on console.

48:25

Thanks. Andrea Renee, give me a good. Give me a good.

48:27

A good. Yeah, you have a lot of

48:29

good ones listed

48:31

here. But I feel

48:33

like the one that I'm going to pick, and I

48:36

was looking up one of the announcements that

48:38

they also made that I was trying to get the exact

48:40

name of this program that they announced. Let's

48:45

see here. Oh

48:49

my gosh, I don't know. High five rush, I guess. High

48:52

five rush. Yeah. What was really cool

48:54

about this announcement for this game is

48:56

that people really knew Tango as,

48:58

obviously, a developer

49:01

underneath Bethesda, underneath Microsoft

49:03

Game Studios, as the people who

49:05

were doing the evil within. Right? And they obviously

49:07

came from a different kind of legacy. And then

49:09

out of the blue, just like, Beyonce

49:12

dropped this game. And

49:14

it was incredible. And something so different than

49:16

the last title that they had put out

49:18

and different than Ghostwire Tokyo, the other game that

49:20

they were working on and had released. And

49:23

I was just so charmed

49:25

by this game. Obviously, I already said on

49:27

this show, I'm a fan of rhythm and

49:29

music games. They

49:32

incorporated music and

49:34

rhythm into this game, making the

49:36

world come alive with the beat

49:38

and having everything synchronized with the same

49:40

beat, everything in the world kind of moving together. Really

49:43

interesting combat design incorporating the

49:46

beat as well, things that

49:48

we've seen be done in different ways,

49:50

but nothing quite like this. And then

49:53

this really cool art style, kind of

49:55

like a master of a comic book

49:57

and cel-shaded art style. Just a really

49:59

fun game. that I highly recommend people

50:01

check out if you missed it when it came out

50:03

earlier. I wish more games were this colorful. Yeah.

50:06

You know, games are often so drab, you know? And

50:08

I like, one of the things I liked about that

50:10

marathon trailer that Bungie put out this year was like,

50:12

look, colorful and bright. And the same with the finals,

50:15

right? Bright colors. I know that's not as fashionable

50:17

as it used to be, but like, I like really

50:19

bright and colorful games. Yeah,

50:22

this one got people, got that, evoked

50:24

that emotion of Sunset Overdrive back in

50:26

the Xbox One era, feeling that color

50:29

that pop the combat. And like you

50:31

said, the radio, you know, wait constantly

50:33

keeping the beat for you. If you

50:35

can't catch it like I can't, the

50:37

combat was fun. It was frustrating at

50:39

times, but the accessibility and what they

50:41

did with difficulty scaling and how they

50:43

evolved that over time. I mean, nominated

50:46

for numerous awards at the TGA's.

50:48

This is probably, I might

50:50

say the biggest highlight of Xbox is 2023. Yeah.

50:55

Probably. I think that says as much about the rest of the rest

50:57

of 2023 as it does. High five rush.

50:59

But like, as I'm looking at it now and remembering

51:01

how much fun I had playing this, I

51:04

kind of feel like in a more just world, this

51:06

would have been a bigger hit, a bigger deal. We'd

51:08

be talking about it more than you think. Yeah, I

51:10

think it lets us kind of ponder the

51:13

pros and cons of kind of surprise

51:15

dropping a game. Yeah. Right.

51:18

It's like, do you benefit from having a full

51:20

game available and taking advantage of a one big

51:22

pop PR and marketing moment? Or is

51:25

it better to have a

51:27

sustained longer marketing campaign? Yeah. I

51:30

think there's pros and cons of both. It's going to really

51:32

depend on what the project is and the scope of the

51:34

project. But it's like, would this game have

51:37

done better if they had had a preview where we

51:39

could get the information out and people could see it

51:41

and maybe put it on their wish list or whatever

51:43

and then have people see it multiple times and then

51:46

when it finally launched, be like, oh, I remember hearing

51:48

about that game versus, oh, I don't

51:50

know anything about this game. I maybe miss

51:52

the one episode that. Yeah,

51:54

it was fun when it kind of came out of

51:57

nowhere, but I don't know necessarily what like the marketing

51:59

wisdom behind that is. Like maybe you do miss something

52:01

by not hyping it up more prior to release. Yeah,

52:03

and of course this did come out at the end

52:05

Of January. So at the beginning of the year, it

52:07

has been a packed Stacked year right

52:09

now. That's the other things game punters and

52:11

people have kept it in the limelight have

52:13

talked about it a lot But in a

52:16

year that is so jam-packed It is easy

52:18

to forget what you were playing in January

52:20

February March at the beginning of the year

52:22

compared to right now right? September October November

52:24

probably hotter on the tongue when you think

52:26

about the games you've been playing Gary. Give

52:28

me a good I'm

52:31

gonna go with okay So one

52:33

of the two hardware boxes that I wanted checked

52:35

from Microsoft this year got done Which is they

52:37

finally put a decent amount of storage in the

52:39

series s and they finally made the series as

52:41

like a properly viable I've said

52:43

it before I've got to get off social media man for one thing

52:45

like I'm

52:48

no longer on the Hitler fansight as you know But I still get

52:50

into trouble on threads and some of the other places Somebody

52:52

was popping and going off on the series s the other day saying

52:54

it's not a good console Who are these

52:56

people where are they in their opinion bad take? I

52:59

said it before it's the best console

53:01

for most people and we

53:05

I think it's easier for us to easy for

53:07

us often to remember that we live in a

53:09

bubble We're all hardcore enthusiasts, right? These like 4k

53:11

and frame rate and mean something to us and

53:13

the people around us because we're like really really

53:15

into games most people Don't get

53:17

the average gamer does not care about a lot of

53:19

that stuff. They just want us to switch is so

53:22

successful Like the

53:24

poor the poor performance of that machine relative

53:26

to other consoles not held it back at

53:28

all because most people don't care They just

53:30

want a machine That's reasonably priced

53:32

and has lots of good games on it and

53:34

in front of play and switch does that Xbox

53:36

3s does that? But

53:39

I don't know if you've noticed something mad deals Holiday

53:41

deals going on right now the serious and go to

53:43

Costco and get like a series s with a bundle

53:45

of stuff like 150 bucks Mad

53:48

now jump on that jump on that if you see

53:50

that deal But that storage space

53:52

was just terrible and there wasn't obviously

53:55

is it the way they've chosen to do it There's no way to upgrade

53:57

it. That's by the time you add the extra memory you

53:59

may as well just get a Series X at that point, because

54:01

it's so expensive to add storage to it. But

54:04

the one terabyte, the Black Series S, I

54:06

think, was one really important step. Then

54:08

the one that I want next, and I've said it before,

54:10

is I want the digital Series X. I

54:13

have no need for a disk drive. I

54:15

don't know how many, I think there are

54:17

still plenty of people that do care about games on disk.

54:19

I personally don't, and I want to have that option. Sony

54:22

gives it to us, that PS5 is

54:24

available in digital and with a disk, for the

54:26

people that, I paid $100 extra for a disk drive that

54:29

I'm never gonna use. Well, now that they

54:31

make you install the game, I,

54:34

when that, I had that experience, I

54:37

was like, okay, I was a hardcore, like,

54:39

physical media person for a long time, but

54:42

I got the Mortal Kombat 1

54:44

disk for Xbox, and

54:47

I had to wait to play

54:49

my disk game until it installed,

54:51

and I was like, why? Yeah,

54:54

what are we doing here? This defeats the whole

54:56

purpose of the disk. Is it even

54:58

still hitting the disk when you're playing the game, or does it

55:00

just dump everything from the disk onto the hard drive? Well,

55:03

it dumps it onto the hard drive as

55:05

long as I'm logged in, or logged in.

55:07

I actually haven't tried playing it without the

55:10

disk in, because it turns out like I

55:12

don't have any other disks right now, so

55:15

that disk just sits in there forever.

55:17

That's how I was with my PlayStation 4, I

55:19

think. I think, like, Uncharted, one of

55:21

the Uncharted games, whatever the most recent one, was just in

55:23

there the whole time, and I never put anything else in.

55:25

Everything else was digital. Talking about

55:28

hardware and elevating that, you talk about the

55:30

Xbox Series S1 terabyte, we also finally got

55:32

a new expansion card set from a different

55:34

company, right? And that was the big one

55:36

of, hey, the Seagate partnership is awesome and

55:38

rad, and the expansion cards are cool, but

55:40

man, they're way too expensive. Yeah, of course,

55:43

Team Xbox said, hey, we're gonna open that

55:45

up, we're gonna allow others, and I believe

55:47

it was WD Western Digital that did come

55:49

in with the newest one. Still

55:51

a little bit on the pricey side, so we are

55:53

hoping for some more competition there in price tag. Well, as

55:55

a detect, it's still, I mean,

55:57

it's still really fancy, cool wizard pack,

55:59

right? It's so cool. So like it's

56:01

expensive. Of course. Yeah. It'll

56:04

be interesting to see in a year, two years from now, are there

56:06

more companies that do this? Do they all

56:08

jump on? When will it start to go down

56:10

significantly where you really feel like one

56:12

terabyte, two terabytes, five terabytes is a good purchase

56:14

that isn't something where it's really going to bust

56:16

the bank because right now it's busting the bank.

56:18

I used to feel like we're always going to

56:20

be like feeling like we're maxed out on this

56:23

stuff because even as memory prices

56:25

come down and storage prices come down and we think

56:27

the next maybe the PS6 and whatever the next Xbox

56:29

is has four terabytes of but the games are going

56:31

to get bigger as well as the space gets bigger.

56:33

The games are going to take up more space as

56:35

well as look at the install size of like a

56:38

Call of Duty game these days. What is it like?

56:40

Like you can base it on a series S and virtually nothing else

56:43

at this point. And

56:46

so I think we're always going to be in this arms race between

56:48

the amount of storage space we have and how much space the games

56:51

of course take up. One

56:53

good for both of you that I'm going to highlight is

56:55

Xbox's live service games. I think are really

56:57

coming into their own. This is a hot

56:59

button topic that we talk about live service

57:02

games as a service. Right. Like there are

57:04

some signing stars. There are some flops. Right.

57:06

But Xbox has stayed committed to a number

57:08

of their games. I think they've really found

57:10

their footing. Right. We talked about Sea of

57:12

Thieves. Now Sea of Thieves has Monkey Island

57:15

content, which was a ton of fun. We

57:17

got to highlight that over there. They now

57:19

have safer seas that they just dropped this

57:21

month where if you and your friends don't

57:23

want to have the PvP element to it

57:26

all, you can now jump into a safe

57:28

realm, your own world and play that. I

57:30

think that is rad. And that game continues

57:32

to shine with their content grounded, continues to

57:35

find its footing, a small passion project now

57:37

with something bigger than itself. It now has

57:39

also very similar to Halo adding Forge as

57:41

well. Now communities can build stuff in the

57:44

make it and break it update. I think

57:46

that's super cool. Like their live service

57:49

games are doing very well

57:51

to much better. Right. Halo is now finally

57:53

making a turn with season five and beyond.

57:55

I love what that's at right now. You

57:57

can look at, of course, Elder Scrolls Online

57:59

continues. to get a bunch of updates,

58:01

Fallout 76 still is somehow alive. Five

58:04

years later after that awful

58:06

launch, they just announced that they hit 17 million

58:08

players. They've added more DLC, more content, more

58:10

areas to see like, hey, they're doing it

58:13

right. And that is a tough space to

58:15

like do it in. And it is interesting

58:17

if like we talk about the ecosystem in

58:19

the landscape of gaming, PlayStation fans now are

58:21

kind of hot and cold on the idea

58:23

of like, hey, what if we got more

58:26

into live service games? And you look at

58:28

Xbox here with team green, they've done that

58:30

in the past and we've gone through the trials

58:32

and tribulation of that sucks. This is good. Hey,

58:34

it's a long time to get to where we're

58:36

at. See if these is probably five plus years

58:38

old as well right now. Like takes time to

58:40

get these games really go and get the motor

58:42

fired up. But now it's

58:45

those games. I think they're doing well. Yeah,

58:47

I think the key to the success in

58:49

these live service games is crafting the game

58:51

to be a live service game from the

58:54

beginning. Yes. I think we've seen some missteps

58:56

in other major publishers who are taking established

58:58

IPs in established genres

59:00

and trying to modify them

59:03

or shoehorn them into a live service

59:05

model that doesn't fit the player base,

59:07

that doesn't fit the style of the

59:10

IP. It doesn't fit the

59:12

desires of the longtime supporters of those

59:14

franchises. And you know, that's why you

59:16

kind of have some big flop, right?

59:19

But a game like ground, it was built

59:21

to be a live service game. Same as

59:23

the fees was built to be that way.

59:26

And it's really great to see that Xbox

59:28

as a studio said, Hey, we want to keep

59:31

supporting these because we know that live service has

59:33

ebbs and flows, right? Like you'll have like really

59:35

big pop moments where a bunch of people come

59:37

back and play and then you'll have quiet

59:40

moments. And just because it's quiet now doesn't

59:42

mean that those players are gone forever. We

59:44

want to keep financially supporting these teams through

59:46

their creative vision to bring a more robust

59:48

player back player based back time

59:50

and time again. Yeah, I'm very pleased

59:52

then you said so well there, Andrew, you have to

59:54

take the good with the bad and it's a long

59:56

road here. And I think we've learned it with Halo

59:58

in particular of like. Gotta have a game

1:00:01

plan, right? Like this isn't just a all of a sudden

1:00:03

we're doing this You got to have content you got to

1:00:05

have a roadmap and you got to kind of stick to

1:00:07

it But things are looking good

1:00:09

for live service games on Xbox It wasn't like it

1:00:11

wasn't like that long ago Mike that some Game

1:00:14

like live service game or games as a service like

1:00:16

that was a dirty word, right? people didn't want to

1:00:18

hear it because like anthem remember there's a big disaster

1:00:20

and there's been a bunch of really high profile

1:00:22

failures and There was I think a sense and

1:00:25

a kind of a lot

1:00:27

of players were allergic to the idea that that's what this

1:00:29

is where games We're going that games weren't just games anymore.

1:00:31

Now these they would they were these big like online service

1:00:33

things All the you know microtransactions and complications

1:00:35

that you know need to be online and all

1:00:37

that stuff I never thought there's anything wrong with

1:00:39

the idea in principle. I think it's really cool.

1:00:42

You know, I love what a Warcraft

1:00:45

The division division two are probably among my favorite top

1:00:47

ten favorite games the last several years their life service

1:00:49

games But they got it the key is they got

1:00:51

it right for anything. You don't get it, right? It's

1:00:53

not going to be good And I

1:00:55

think it's and with the additional problem that

1:00:57

if you don't get it right the game

1:00:59

goes away, right? It's not like people get

1:01:01

to keep you still having the experience Well,

1:01:03

you know they screwed it up, but I'll always

1:01:05

have this game You won't like it will be taken

1:01:08

away They'll they'll shut the service down or become so

1:01:10

barren that there's really nothing there anymore We sort of

1:01:12

answer and we've seen it with with many others And

1:01:16

so when they get it, right I think there's

1:01:18

a there's a huge amounts of potential for

1:01:20

games as a service and I think as

1:01:22

we yeah We hopefully continue to learn from

1:01:24

not just the successes in the genre But the failures

1:01:26

and each new iteration gets better. I think we will

1:01:28

get to a point where The

1:01:31

idea of a game is that the games that as a

1:01:33

service or a live service game won't have

1:01:35

that stigma anymore Cuz we've gone good enough at it

1:01:37

that there'll be a higher success rate in

1:01:39

that genre Andrea give me

1:01:41

another good. I found the

1:01:43

program the ID at Xbox developer acceleration

1:01:45

program They announced that GDP the game

1:01:48

developers conference earlier this year. I Loved

1:01:51

that they made this announcement I

1:01:54

think it's such an important thing that

1:01:56

they are putting their their money and

1:01:58

their resources into to for

1:02:01

people who missed that announcement, just like

1:02:03

I pulled the blurb from the Xbox

1:02:05

wire press release that says, the program

1:02:07

aims to empower underrepresented creators with the

1:02:09

resources and information needed to bring their

1:02:11

creativity, innovation, and originality to Xbox. And

1:02:13

my friend Annette Porter was on stage

1:02:15

doing that announcement when Xbox unveiled it.

1:02:17

And I got to talk to her

1:02:19

afterwards because I had the pleasure of

1:02:21

working with Xbox.GDC this year

1:02:23

for one of their panels. And

1:02:25

she said that they were just like

1:02:27

flooded with interest from developers from around the

1:02:29

world who wanted to be part of this

1:02:32

accelerator program. And I thought that that was

1:02:34

such a cool highlight for them. Oh,

1:02:36

yeah. I did Xbox continuing to kill it and

1:02:38

empower voices that might not be heard. Don't have

1:02:40

the funding. Don't have those privileges to maybe the

1:02:43

tech to be able to say, hey, we're here

1:02:45

to help you because we want more games on

1:02:47

our platform. We want to highlight those awesome indie

1:02:49

games. We saw that back in the day of

1:02:52

Xbox Live Arcade and what that did for indie

1:02:54

games and putting them on the map in front

1:02:56

of me, the gamer, who doesn't know everything going.

1:02:58

They used to have the weekend draft in the summer.

1:03:01

Oh, that's old school. I did Xbox

1:03:03

continues to do that. So good highlight right

1:03:05

there. I think Chris Charler and the whole

1:03:08

team over there continue to kind of just

1:03:10

quietly do some of the most valuable work

1:03:12

in the games industry in supporting, like you

1:03:14

said, underrepresented developers, help fostering innovation, helping surface

1:03:18

really interesting indie games. And

1:03:22

I, as other companies, might be too afraid of to take

1:03:24

a risk on. I think it's still

1:03:26

one of the areas where Xbox

1:03:29

is better than PlayStation. Xbox, I

1:03:31

think, historically, always had and can need

1:03:33

to have better indies. PlayStation indies have

1:03:35

gotten a lot better. But if you

1:03:37

said to me, should I

1:03:39

get an Xbox or a PlayStation? I never give a straight answer. I

1:03:41

said, well, OK, well, what do you want to do with it, because

1:03:43

it's not as simple as that. And you said to me, oh, but

1:03:45

I love indie games. I said, get an Xbox. Because

1:03:49

they continue to be better at it, I think. Give

1:03:51

me a good, Gary. A good? Give me

1:03:53

another good. We're having some fun with the goods.

1:03:55

I like parking the bus on the goods, man.

1:03:58

I like parking the bus on the goods is a good. place

1:04:00

to end the year. I love parking the bus

1:04:02

on the good. Keep it positive and let's keep

1:04:04

the negative to a minimum. The negative is under

1:04:06

the bridge already. We might just let them wash

1:04:08

away as right, Andrew. I might not look back.

1:04:11

Diablo 4, another game that I would actually

1:04:13

put, overall I would put that in the good

1:04:16

category. I'll do Diablo 4 but I'll add a

1:04:18

caveat as well as just kind of a bookend

1:04:20

for a previous conversation. That was my

1:04:22

most played game this year. I think if you look

1:04:24

at my, I didn't go

1:04:27

look at the hours, but I'm quite certain if you look

1:04:29

at like my hours put in various games this year, Diablo

1:04:31

4 would play far and a while. I

1:04:33

played a ton of the Season 1

1:04:35

content as well. That's a

1:04:37

good example of it. Again, that's a life service game. I

1:04:39

had a ton of fun playing it. It was the first

1:04:42

Diablo game I ever really got into. I was like really,

1:04:44

as long as those games were I'd wake up in the

1:04:46

morning, get up early in the morning before the kids are

1:04:48

up to get an hour in so I could play. That's

1:04:50

commitment. Yeah, it's one of those games that when you're not

1:04:52

playing it, you're thinking about playing it. Those are always the

1:04:54

best kind of games. Diablo 4 was that for me during

1:04:57

that whole launch window. But again, this is the challenge.

1:04:59

I'm not sure. The challenge of life service games, you

1:05:01

never really get to stop making them, right? You have

1:05:03

to not just hit a quality level on release, but

1:05:05

you've got to keep players engaged. And so you're talking

1:05:07

about Dreamlight Valley. There's like, you know, you've got the

1:05:10

min maxes at one end and the more casuals at

1:05:12

the other. And how can you possibly give

1:05:14

players one experience that

1:05:16

can satisfy such a wide spectrum of

1:05:19

different things out of the game? And

1:05:21

Diablo 4 is a really,

1:05:23

really interesting game to postmortem in terms of a brilliant

1:05:25

launch. They absolutely cracked it a launch. It was like,

1:05:27

oh my god, Blizzard's back. It's the best game ever.

1:05:29

It's the best Diablo game in ages. And it is

1:05:31

a really, really great game. And it's so polished. All

1:05:33

the things that historically we expect from

1:05:35

Blizzard, right? They get all the details right. Really

1:05:37

high polish. Just looks and sounds beautiful. High production

1:05:39

values. Really fun to play. It did all of

1:05:41

those things. It really did feel like old Blizzard.

1:05:44

But then as they got into Season 1 and

1:05:46

they started patching it, they started to really

1:05:48

piss off players with some of the decisions they made.

1:05:50

And suddenly the Diablo, like the honeymoon period was over.

1:05:52

And then the vibes were so off and

1:05:54

continue to be off, Frank. I haven't gone back to Diablo

1:05:57

4 because they pissed off so many people. I

1:05:59

think there's DLC coming. and they'll find a way to

1:06:01

get it back onto an even kill. But that's the fascinating thing

1:06:03

about live service games, right? They have... it's always like, you know,

1:06:05

peaks and valleys. Like, oh, the vibes are on, then they're off,

1:06:07

then they're back again with a new update. We

1:06:09

see it all the time and it's just... it's interesting to... to

1:06:12

monitor, like, the life cycle of a game, like,

1:06:14

like, you always are constantly trying to stay ahead

1:06:16

of your... I... I would not want

1:06:18

to work on a live service game, but work on,

1:06:21

like, an expansion pack or whatever for, like, nine

1:06:23

months. Put it out and the min-maxes are back

1:06:25

to you the next day. Crack that. What else you got? It's

1:06:27

a juice. How do you stay ahead of these people? That's what's

1:06:29

so tough about the Balancing Act, and I

1:06:31

think clearly Blizzard, you know, is

1:06:33

in that challenge right now because

1:06:36

they tried to bring down some of

1:06:38

the people who were, like, power-playing the

1:06:40

game to say, hey, like, the game

1:06:42

wasn't designed for you to, like, grind

1:06:44

through it this quickly, this fast. So

1:06:46

we have to, like, you know, nerf a bunch of things. And

1:06:49

the people who are, like, the mid-to-casual players

1:06:52

were like, hey, now you've made the game

1:06:54

really unfun to play. And that is a

1:06:56

consistent challenge for live service games. And I have

1:06:58

sympathy for them because it is hard to get

1:07:00

right. And there's no one right answer, right? Why

1:07:02

would the... if the porridge is just right for

1:07:04

someone else, for someone it's going to be too

1:07:07

hot for someone else and too cold for another

1:07:09

person. Because, again, there's such a wide range of

1:07:11

people. I will say that the one thing that

1:07:13

you will guarantee to piss off players is when

1:07:15

you nerf them. And that was when it started

1:07:17

to go wrong for Diablo 4, as they did

1:07:19

a big patch right before Season 1 where they

1:07:22

did some hard... they really nerfed certain

1:07:24

classes, especially sources, which I play. Man,

1:07:27

people were so pissed off about that. I

1:07:31

don't know a lot about game design, but I would say one thing is, like, if

1:07:34

you can avoid it, do anything except

1:07:36

nerf your players because they fucking hate it. Yeah.

1:07:39

Well, Gregi is back at his desk playing a lot

1:07:41

of Diablo. I saw that you were playing it. He

1:07:44

is not on Diablo again. Maybe this holiday break. Yeah,

1:07:46

you turn it on, see if he's vibing. I'm definitely

1:07:48

coming back to the... The seasonal content has not been

1:07:50

working for me. I haven't tried this new season yet.

1:07:52

But I will come back for the big DLC expansion

1:07:54

that's coming later next year. I'll definitely play that. I

1:07:57

am having so much fun highlighting the goods.

1:08:00

I have a lot more good. So let's keep the

1:08:02

good going. Cause I got fun to talk about. I

1:08:04

want to highlight Xbox and their

1:08:06

third-party partnerships because they continue to be great.

1:08:08

They continue to sing. We saw the addition

1:08:10

of Ubisoft Plus now on the platform.

1:08:12

If you want to get into that subscription

1:08:15

service, I have continued to scream from

1:08:17

the rooftop that I love Xbox game pass

1:08:19

and EA play, giving you 10 free

1:08:21

hours of EA games. If you want to

1:08:23

give them a try before you buy.

1:08:25

And of course they've been added on to

1:08:28

the service couple months after launch. So

1:08:30

you get your maddens, you get your FIFA's in the

1:08:32

game pass subscription. I love that. And

1:08:34

I cannot get enough of it when they

1:08:36

teamed up with riots to give me of

1:08:39

course, all of the league of legends characters,

1:08:41

give me all of the agents in Valorant.

1:08:43

It's like, these are special things that helped

1:08:45

saving me money. Cause we do

1:08:47

know that we've seen a price increase, right?

1:08:49

We've started to see game pass now trending

1:08:51

up, console sales are trending up and we'll

1:08:53

see where we land after the Xbox Activision

1:08:56

Blizzard deal of like, Hey, what does game

1:08:58

pass finally land on here in the next

1:09:00

one year, two years, five years? Cause it

1:09:02

does seem like it will be tracking

1:09:04

upward if I had to make a pretty

1:09:06

educated guess here, I'm sure. But everything is

1:09:09

my other one I want to give a

1:09:11

shout out to is their partnership with the

1:09:13

MLB and MLB the show over on the

1:09:16

Sony side, MLB the show, they very special

1:09:18

sports game. It is an incredible baseball sim.

1:09:20

It is awesome to get a true baseball

1:09:22

sim finally on the Xbox side after years

1:09:25

of not having one. This is something really

1:09:27

cool. And what the team did

1:09:29

over at Sony with, or Sony San Diego with

1:09:31

MLB the show 2023, really awesome. I

1:09:35

remember when that happened, it was so weird.

1:09:37

I think everyone was like, what's happening

1:09:40

here? Isn't MLB the show

1:09:42

of exclusive PlayStation produced first

1:09:44

party game? And MLB

1:09:46

is like, no, we negotiated the deal. And everyone's

1:09:48

like, I would love to have been a

1:09:51

fly on the wall. Well, you know, and

1:09:53

MLB was so right for that, right? This

1:09:55

is a, this is America's past time, but

1:09:57

it also is the most unfun to watch

1:09:59

probably. the most quickly dying sport out of

1:10:01

all the sports that your kids could get involved

1:10:04

in and like us being excited to watch. And

1:10:06

MLB needs to find a way to adapt and

1:10:08

be a part of the youth and get them

1:10:10

excited. And the only way to do that is

1:10:12

to put it in video games and get more

1:10:15

people playing. And I think it is right to

1:10:17

have a sport like that, a major sport, be

1:10:19

on every platform, right? And I mean, Xbox players

1:10:21

win in this situation of fun game pass. That's

1:10:23

crazy that I don't have to spend 60 to

1:10:26

70 dollars on this game. And

1:10:28

it is a high quality video game.

1:10:30

Yeah, unbelievable. So hey, keep working those

1:10:32

deals. Y'all killing it. You really think

1:10:34

baseball is dying? I do think so.

1:10:37

I think in terms of the numbers, it is. Yeah, I think popularity.

1:10:39

Yes, the Shohei Oh,

1:10:41

Tani deal. I think the pay is amazing.

1:10:43

I think the sport is fun. But I

1:10:46

think when we talk about watching the sport,

1:10:48

especially here in the Bay, right, you're looking

1:10:50

at the Oakland A's barely pulling in thousands

1:10:52

of people to watch them. Right. And that's

1:10:55

also on the owner and the team, which

1:10:57

is kind of bad. But like, I think

1:10:59

kids right now, you see LeBron James and

1:11:01

Steph Curry in a flashy, quick moving sport

1:11:04

of basketball. Right. You look at soccer, which

1:11:06

is a world global phenomenon with people like

1:11:08

Messi on your television screen. You see that

1:11:10

and you go, I want to play that

1:11:12

mom and dad as opposed to baseball, where

1:11:14

it is tough right there. They shorten the

1:11:16

pitch count to keep people awake and engaged

1:11:18

with the product. I do think that baseball

1:11:20

needs a shot in the arm. It's tough,

1:11:22

right? It is America's pastime and it has

1:11:24

a long lineage, but it is tough to

1:11:26

look at kids and be like, yo, baseball.

1:11:30

I mean, listen, I call the boring in the hopeless. Exactly.

1:11:32

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just wanted to get your take. No,

1:11:35

I hesitate to wander into territory

1:11:37

that I know less about sports is certainly one of them.

1:11:39

I do remember reading something about how like attendance is down

1:11:41

and TV numbers are down. And it wouldn't surprise me if

1:11:43

it is because it's a Mike's point. Baseball

1:11:45

is a very slow and boring game. Like if

1:11:48

you really love baseball, then it

1:11:50

can get exciting. It's not universally

1:11:52

boring, but there are long stretches

1:11:54

in an era now in which

1:11:56

we've seen like, you know, attention

1:11:58

spans like. Kids got

1:12:00

kids won't watch anything more than 10 like 10 minutes.

1:12:02

What are you kidding me? See that's the time for

1:12:05

that we've failed our future generations already I mean

1:12:07

you're not wrong about that the attention span thing we

1:12:09

got a reverse to the point

1:12:11

where like we've added a timer to Countdown

1:12:14

when the pitcher has to like do

1:12:16

his next pitch Which is ruins the

1:12:18

mental chess game that the pitcher in

1:12:20

the batter game doing right now? It's

1:12:23

ruined the sport because we need the kids

1:12:25

constantly fucking moving And as you

1:12:27

go and it's someone who's already a baseball enthusiast

1:12:30

I get that but like if you're looking to

1:12:32

attract new fans and young fans The game is

1:12:34

just deathly slow to watch compared to what you

1:12:36

the point you just made Mike about basketball and

1:12:38

soccer With a

1:12:41

ball with the ball is constantly in motion

1:12:43

right and there's always something happening that to

1:12:45

me is like better attuned to Where

1:12:47

young audiences are what they just want to see

1:12:49

they want to see movement and like fast action

1:12:51

and baseball just a lot Literally standing around scratching

1:12:53

your ass right that's not that exciting I'm gonna

1:12:56

bring up the suggestion as a as a joke

1:12:58

so don't come after me do we bring steroids

1:13:00

back Mikey? Juice

1:13:03

them up there But

1:13:05

yeah MLB the show in Sony San Diego

1:13:07

what they did with that especially also highlighting

1:13:09

history and baseball right they added the Negro

1:13:12

League and the stories for you know that

1:13:14

was cool who satchel Paige is right Jackie

1:13:16

Robinson like these are beautiful Stories that

1:13:18

they added into the game to try to

1:13:20

get you to understand right and we've seen that

1:13:23

as well with NBA 2k with MJ and

1:13:25

Kobe moments football is done it like

1:13:27

their special moments so that team great job Andrew

1:13:29

Give me another good cuz we're having fun. Oh

1:13:32

another good. Give me another good That

1:13:37

kind of took some of my good ones I mean,

1:13:40

I'm gonna say I'll just

1:13:42

point to the to the Xbox Showcase

1:13:45

this summer okay. I feel like

1:13:48

Xbox is showcased made it feel

1:13:50

like e3 again Nice and now that

1:13:52

you three is permanently gone I Really

1:13:56

love that they did this big

1:13:59

in-person event I had the

1:14:01

pleasure of being inside the theater

1:14:03

at the Novo when they, you

1:14:05

know, put on their big broadcast and there was like

1:14:08

a thousand people in that room. It reminded me of

1:14:10

all of the many years of press conferences and

1:14:12

just being in a room with so many people who

1:14:14

were just excited to see

1:14:16

whatever they were showing and then

1:14:18

starting with that awesome stable trailer.

1:14:21

It just reminded me that these

1:14:23

showcases, these big tentpole events are

1:14:26

so much work from so many

1:14:28

people across so many teams and I

1:14:31

am always in awe of the

1:14:33

amount of coordination and like clearly

1:14:35

everyone's gonna like armchair quarterback how

1:14:38

they did. Was it good? Were you given their scores and

1:14:41

their grades? Was it shit announcements

1:14:43

or was it, you know, like banger announcements,

1:14:45

you know, the Tim Gady's Gatorade moments, right?

1:14:49

And I think that that showcase this

1:14:51

summer back in June really just

1:14:53

like brought in that inspiration for me to

1:14:55

be like, oh yeah, this feels like the

1:14:57

kind of thing that I know and love.

1:14:59

Yeah. We

1:15:10

didn't catch that. What was that? He

1:15:12

loves Gary. That's what he said. Okay.

1:15:14

I totally agree, Andrew. And I think

1:15:17

that was really highlighted as well with

1:15:19

that star field direct afterwards, right? Having

1:15:21

the two mega showcases

1:15:23

together was special and we are in this weird

1:15:26

age now of like everybody's doing their own and

1:15:28

we're not E3 anymore, but we're Jeff Keeley summer

1:15:30

game fest so you got to tune in for

1:15:32

the week, but the week is also a month.

1:15:35

No, it's three months. No, you know what? He

1:15:37

says it's the whole year. It doesn't matter, right?

1:15:39

It's a weird thing, but Xbox did do a

1:15:41

good job this summer and I wanted to highlight

1:15:44

that as well as like the Xbox communications team

1:15:46

has done very well. They have kind of figured

1:15:48

out who are we nowadays, right? How do we

1:15:50

get the message out properly because we also saw

1:15:53

the Xbox underscore or developer underscore direct

1:15:55

at the beginning of the year which I

1:15:57

thought was very cool. I wish we did

1:15:59

another one. surprised that we didn't have more

1:16:01

of those, right, of, hey, let's go to the

1:16:03

studios. Let's have them tell you about their games.

1:16:05

Let's make a 20 minute video and put it

1:16:08

out there. It is interesting. We only

1:16:10

did one by my count, right? But I think

1:16:12

they're trending in the right direction of 2023 and

1:16:14

beyond. Hey,

1:16:16

this is where we hit the messaging, right?

1:16:18

Summer Games Festival be there with something big.

1:16:20

Hey, we, we really kicked butt at the

1:16:22

game awards. What if we did two to

1:16:24

three of these developer underscore directs in the

1:16:26

middle? There's also the ID at X-Box in

1:16:28

the showcase. They do those when they team

1:16:30

up with other ones. So that team is getting

1:16:32

much better. And I think Tina and the crew

1:16:35

have a fun job ahead of them. I've

1:16:38

got a good for you. It's not on the list, but I think

1:16:40

we should take a moment to give Phil his flowers. Oh,

1:16:43

okay. Okay. I

1:16:46

think Phil, and you know, and you can

1:16:48

call me an ass kiss or whatever. I think Phil is, is

1:16:52

terrific and a very rare breed in this day

1:16:54

and age. And it's, I think

1:16:57

Phil is someone who, I didn't really think about

1:16:59

this. I'm going to go all over the place. But like Phil strikes

1:17:01

me as someone who actually cares about

1:17:03

making good games and delighting players with

1:17:05

the things that they make in a

1:17:08

way that you don't typically see

1:17:10

from like the Bobby Kotick's and the Strauss

1:17:12

Zellniks and the Jim Ryan's of the world.

1:17:14

They don't, they are very

1:17:16

competent savvy businessmen who know how to make their

1:17:19

companies make money. If they can do

1:17:21

that by making games that delight players, they will,

1:17:23

but if they can do it another, they've knew

1:17:25

more efficiently. Another way they'll do that instead. I

1:17:28

just always get the impression that Phil actually fucking

1:17:30

plays the games, understands them is one of us

1:17:32

in a way that many, many, most people I

1:17:34

would say at his level in the game industry

1:17:37

are not. Did he see his Xbox recap?

1:17:39

He had played over 900 hours in

1:17:42

his recap. He plays a lot of shit. Yeah. When

1:17:44

did he get all these hours? God knows. God knows. But

1:17:47

like, and also just, I mean, just this year, I mean, like he

1:17:49

came, the thing is it's not, I

1:17:51

think in the most part, my, one of the reasons

1:17:53

why I'm optimistic about the future of Xbox is the

1:17:56

people running it. And I think they have a very

1:17:58

clear vision that they are dedicated to. executing

1:18:00

and they think Xbox's best days are

1:18:03

ahead of them. I'm very optimistic about the future of

1:18:05

Xbox. On the other side though, again, this is the...

1:18:07

I always have a lot of respect for people that

1:18:09

deal well with failure. As you know, I've talked about

1:18:11

failure a lot over the years because I've experienced a

1:18:13

lot of it. I think nothing builds and reveals character

1:18:15

more than failure. And there was a

1:18:17

big failure this year. Redfall landed on its ass

1:18:19

and it was an embarrassment for Xbox. Phil

1:18:22

came on here and talked very

1:18:24

candidly and took the L, right? He took it

1:18:26

head on. And in a way that a lot of

1:18:28

people would have found a way to dodge that or

1:18:30

let the PR people handle it. I have a lot

1:18:33

of respect for Phil the way he handles his business

1:18:35

in good times and bad. That's it. I

1:18:38

like that. I like what Phil is doing.

1:18:40

I like how he's implementing a new leadership

1:18:42

team and really bringing in an inclusive feel

1:18:44

of like, hey, here's some faces here and

1:18:46

we're gonna do something different. I'm all about

1:18:48

that. And I look forward to seeing is

1:18:51

his time up? When will he be out? When

1:18:53

will the next generation come? It's so

1:18:55

fun when we talk about these, right? We talk about

1:18:57

the now, but also the future, but the future is

1:18:59

five years, 10 years down the road. I don't know

1:19:01

where I'll be. I don't know where they'll be. Who

1:19:03

knows where we stand, right? Will Xbox even still be

1:19:05

around? You never know, right? But we only hope it

1:19:08

continues to get better. I have another fun one. I got

1:19:10

a couple fun. I got a fun one. I got a

1:19:12

fun one, Andrew. You want to get weird with me? Let's

1:19:14

get weird right now. Because I think the audience is going

1:19:17

to get uptight. I

1:19:19

got a good. It's not going to be those fucking starfield

1:19:21

bedsheets, is it? Halo season

1:19:23

two is trending in

1:19:25

a better to good direction. Of

1:19:28

course, we saw the first look

1:19:30

trailer over at the Brazilian Comic

1:19:32

Con just recently. We got our

1:19:34

first reveal poster. And

1:19:36

of course Master Chief doesn't have his helmet on.

1:19:39

We're past that now. We're putting that aside. But

1:19:41

it looks like they're going to do the fall

1:19:44

of reach, which I think a lot of people

1:19:46

wanted to see out of that first season. That

1:19:48

is the iconic storyline. Right. And like, that's what

1:19:50

we wanted. And if you watch the trailer, if

1:19:52

you see it, it looks like we're going to

1:19:54

do the fall of reach and then we'll start

1:19:56

moving towards what Halo players know and love about

1:19:58

the world. And I think. that is something that

1:20:00

is a good for me, right? Someone that I

1:20:03

liked that first episode of Halo. I didn't

1:20:05

love the whole season. I didn't like what

1:20:07

they did with Master Chief, but I think

1:20:09

that team well deservedly so got a season

1:20:11

two. Think they heard the fans and I

1:20:13

think they will be better this season. I

1:20:15

think when you have a storyline like the

1:20:17

fall of reach, I think you're playing to

1:20:19

the home court advantage. It's probably gonna be

1:20:21

a little bit easier. What

1:20:24

will Master Chief, you know, be having

1:20:26

sex? I don't know, but at least

1:20:28

we'll have fun. I think what

1:20:30

Master Chief has shown, don't abandon your

1:20:32

source material and your fans

1:20:34

will eat it with a spoon. Okay?

1:20:37

That's all we want. How about, you

1:20:39

know, I don't wanna be like, just

1:20:41

do the thing you know, because I

1:20:43

think the creative deserve the ability to

1:20:45

grow and explore other storylines that we

1:20:47

maybe haven't seen in the games that

1:20:49

have been waiting in the wings to

1:20:51

like come to light. But at the

1:20:53

same time, like completely

1:20:55

jumping the shark in the first season

1:20:58

was a strong choice. Yes. I

1:21:00

think Last of Us is a tremendous show and I'm

1:21:02

so glad, as someone who works in this business, I

1:21:05

can tell you that it has almost single-handedly changed the

1:21:07

game in terms of the way that Hollywood views video

1:21:09

game adaptations. The idea that you can actually get prestige

1:21:12

film and television out of these games where

1:21:14

it used to be like, oh, video game

1:21:16

movies, yeah. Like that's completely changed. And

1:21:18

so we should all be grateful to the show

1:21:21

for that. I do think that the luxury

1:21:23

of inheriting much, the TV show had the

1:21:25

luxury of inheriting far better narrative material than

1:21:27

the Halo people did. There's no question that

1:21:29

the storytelling was better than the Halo storytelling

1:21:31

that they could build something out of. Just

1:21:34

in the fact that there was one clear, obvious story they were gonna

1:21:36

adapt as opposed to a whole universe of stories and

1:21:39

you have to try and like figure out what you're

1:21:41

gonna do within this big sandbox of stuff. What

1:21:44

was it about the season two trailer that makes you

1:21:47

think they're doing Reach? Was there something like very cool?

1:21:49

Oh yeah, you'll see it. It's clear as day they're

1:21:51

doing Reach, right? They're gonna start glassing the planet. Right.

1:21:54

It's definitely like, this is Reach. The

1:21:56

arbiters come in, so it's gonna be a good time. It's gonna be

1:21:58

a real cool episode. We'll see. You know, we just

1:22:00

gotta, if you're a Halo fan like me, you

1:22:03

know, he's gonna take the helmet off. You just gotta get

1:22:05

away from that, Mike, and you gotta stop worrying about the

1:22:07

helmet. I remember when he was surprised. That was always going

1:22:09

to happen. Well, it's Pablo, he's a good-looking dude, you gotta

1:22:11

do it, but like, Chief doesn't take

1:22:13

off the helmet. Chief is the helmet. Until

1:22:15

he has to appear on television. Until, yeah, until he's gotta

1:22:17

be on television. And you get a note from the network.

1:22:19

It's hard to do a TV series if you

1:22:21

can't connect with a face, you know what I

1:22:23

mean? The net that's true, Sanchez, right? We learned

1:22:26

that one the hard way, and I've grown. And

1:22:28

so I'm gonna give a good to Halo season

1:22:30

two. We'll learn about that very soon, because surprisingly,

1:22:32

that like drops like next month or that month

1:22:35

after. So we will be watching that very, very

1:22:37

soon. As we start to ramp down

1:22:39

the show, let's go around one more good. We've

1:22:42

avoided the bad and the ugly. Guess what? It was a good year.

1:22:44

It was a fun year. Are we just not gonna do bad and

1:22:46

ugly? No. I mean, I'm fine

1:22:48

with just highlighting the politics of the year. Yeah,

1:22:50

let's only do it good. Let's celebrate. Let's celebrate.

1:22:52

Yeah. There's an unfortunate you can do, but no

1:22:54

bads. Unfortunately, it's fine. Oh,

1:22:56

yeah. Give me one more good. I have to. I was gonna look

1:22:59

at what you wrote down. What do you got? We have a couple of

1:23:01

good ones. I mean, that

1:23:03

was never gonna happen. There's too many. So

1:23:09

let's see another good. A surprise for

1:23:11

me, a game that I probably would

1:23:13

have overlooked and not played, were it

1:23:16

not in Game Pass. Cocoon. Boom.

1:23:19

Great one. That's a good call right there. That game

1:23:21

was, I kept hearing from people. They're like,

1:23:23

it's so good. You've got to play. But

1:23:25

you hear about these Darling Indie games, you

1:23:27

know, pretty often because there's a lot of

1:23:29

really cool stuff being made by a lot

1:23:32

of cool teams. And I was

1:23:34

like, okay, well, I'm just gonna like check it

1:23:36

out and see what it looks like. And I,

1:23:38

I mean, I couldn't get enough. It was just like such

1:23:41

great, great, succinct gameplay. The

1:23:43

art style was super cool. Like, it

1:23:46

just felt so accessible with only like

1:23:48

a single button press. Like, the

1:23:50

gameplay design is something that

1:23:53

you don't see very often. It just felt

1:23:55

really clever and well done, but also simple.

1:23:57

Yeah. And I think that simplicity makes it.

1:24:00

Nine. Yeah. That's a great one right

1:24:02

there and I was going to highlight those.

1:24:04

was the game pass offerings right? I think

1:24:06

at Spots has found a terrific cadence of

1:24:08

hey every single month at the beginning and

1:24:10

middle we're going to announce was common to

1:24:13

the service will make sure you know what's

1:24:15

leaving the service and that team has done

1:24:17

a fantastic job working with that. Only the

1:24:19

first party studios which we know was a

1:24:21

very pleasant surprise. I'm getting first party games

1:24:23

under this subscription service, but driving a with

1:24:25

a lease and third party games right? Like

1:24:27

there's a lot of third party deals that

1:24:30

go down that. Really elevate the service and

1:24:32

it a year were first party has been

1:24:34

lacking right? Third party has picked it up

1:24:36

and game past feals have picked it up.

1:24:39

I mean you're getting Remnant one and two

1:24:41

right after it's release of Remnant to be

1:24:43

a party animals day. Once paid a three

1:24:45

day. Once you get Gotham Nice over on

1:24:48

Pc were was actually running sixty frames per

1:24:50

second. You get lies of p like you've

1:24:52

got on the whole year. It is amazing

1:24:54

that every single month there is something that

1:24:57

is powerful in some you probably would have

1:24:59

spent sixty dollars on and. Then there's other

1:25:01

highlights are like oh I never would have played

1:25:03

that game but now going a check out c

1:25:05

of starts because of that like guess the that

1:25:07

he was high that for Gotham nice is that

1:25:09

it does help people not actually have to pay

1:25:11

for that. Era

1:25:15

and I mean states like Texas Chainsaw

1:25:17

Massacre and as So Primal. These are

1:25:19

games that maybe might not come off

1:25:21

as super popular or is a sixty

1:25:23

dollar price tag were requires four to

1:25:25

three people. As tough for me to

1:25:27

be like Yo Andrea. You know what

1:25:29

games are played more? Texas. Chainsaw Massacre the

1:25:31

like mice I don't like that are know what

1:25:33

that is? Funny to spend sixty dollars does your

1:25:36

my friend? We outplayed the other. games

1:25:38

like that benefit so much from game pass

1:25:40

right goods then we drop the hey you

1:25:42

gotta pay six hours it's less is jump

1:25:44

in and tried and place and maybe of

1:25:46

finds legs maybe the micro transactions help aires

1:25:48

that like miss of we didn't spend sixty

1:25:50

dollars on it's of course game past microsoft

1:25:52

they're giving you money as well to the

1:25:54

developer so of the third party deals are

1:25:57

such a big win and it is awesome

1:25:59

the see that Service bolstered by the

1:26:01

deals that is also added on because if it

1:26:03

was just first party We'd have a big

1:26:05

problem. It wouldn't be worth the subscription fee.

1:26:07

I was gonna bring up I chose

1:26:09

not to bring up game pass as a

1:26:11

good this on this show because You

1:26:14

know, it's almost like a meme at this point with us I

1:26:16

will go on about it so much a great value in

1:26:18

gaming But what do you but what are you

1:26:20

supposed to do when it actually is that good?

1:26:22

like genuinely is really good and Good

1:26:25

one thing that I I think

1:26:28

I may mention this in the past I really like about game

1:26:30

pass is not yes value and all that kind of

1:26:32

stuff It's just is I've talked about before is like

1:26:35

a discoverability engine And I think that

1:26:37

there is so I've certainly had this experience of different kinds of

1:26:39

games I'm not sure many others have as well a game

1:26:42

that might not be your cup of tea or the kind of

1:26:44

game that you Don't want to play or you

1:26:46

don't think you're gonna like it someone else recommends it to you But

1:26:48

I'm not gonna pay even if it's ten bucks what I'm not I'm

1:26:50

probably not gonna like it. But if it's free No,

1:26:53

you know no risk give it a try download it and

1:26:55

like did I just I feel like with a system like

1:26:57

that Again, the economics level are very opaque to

1:26:59

me I don't quite understand like how game pass makes money or

1:27:01

if it makes a load of money or if it's losing me

1:27:03

I don't know don't care I just know from my point of

1:27:06

view as a as a gamer and Who's

1:27:08

someone who's like interested in discovering new types of

1:27:10

games and broadening my horizons? Game

1:27:12

pass is great for that because it makes it

1:27:14

so easy for me to try things. I otherwise

1:27:16

would never try Yeah I'm

1:27:18

bringing up our final one and you did a

1:27:20

really good job highlighting Accessibility and how that team

1:27:23

is really pushed forward on that and of course

1:27:25

shout out to Forza who got game of the

1:27:27

year award For pushing accessibility forward. I want to

1:27:29

push the commitment to green and our planet earth

1:27:34

It's very important to me and it's

1:27:36

easy to get bogged down by giant

1:27:38

corporations or Taylor Swift on her private

1:27:40

jet and Me to be looking at

1:27:42

you going I'm doing my best right

1:27:45

as a small spec on planet Earth

1:27:47

I am recycling. I'm trying to cut

1:27:49

down on my water usage. I'm using

1:27:51

less electricity, right? I love seeing a

1:27:53

corporation try their best and be

1:27:55

better at a commitment to green because I want

1:27:58

planet Earth to stay longer Right. We saw them

1:28:00

with the energy saving abilities now on

1:28:02

your Xbox and encouraging you to look

1:28:04

at that understand that and maybe click

1:28:06

on the energy saving booster over there

1:28:08

so you do that. Also the Xbox

1:28:10

remix controller right using recycled parts for

1:28:12

not only the box but also the

1:28:14

controller itself and those controllers absolutely

1:28:17

shining because that green controller is freaking beautiful

1:28:19

and I love that each one is unique

1:28:21

because of the recycled plastics that they use

1:28:23

they all look a little bit different I

1:28:26

think it's rad and it is something that

1:28:28

is important to me as someone who you

1:28:30

know loves and lives up in the mountains

1:28:32

up in Tahoe I want winter to last

1:28:34

forever I want the planet to last forever

1:28:36

I want future generations to enjoy the world

1:28:38

that I have. It'd be great if the planet

1:28:41

didn't go away. Exactly so maybe I

1:28:43

would like my billion dollar corporations to take

1:28:45

a stand and really try their best and

1:28:47

it looks like team green is trying that

1:28:49

and has a commitment to the earth so

1:28:51

I appreciate that. Well it was interesting

1:28:53

learning that part of their

1:28:55

big sustainability program is not just you

1:28:57

know sustainable material for hardware and packaging

1:29:00

and things but telling

1:29:02

developers who work with the hardware giving

1:29:04

them the data about how certain features

1:29:06

that they put into their games and

1:29:09

how it uses power within the architecture

1:29:11

of the console and letting

1:29:13

them use that knowledge and that

1:29:15

data to adapt their game so

1:29:17

that they can make it more

1:29:20

power-friendly I think is something that

1:29:22

is really interesting and fascinating and

1:29:24

absolutely earned them you know numerous

1:29:27

actually sustainability awards this year

1:29:30

and like learning about that I mean you don't

1:29:32

really hear about that side of the sustainability conversation

1:29:34

when it comes to video games specifically and there's

1:29:36

been a lot of strides in that and

1:29:38

I think that it's really great that you know

1:29:41

they're making a lot of moves in that area

1:29:43

and I do want to just I

1:29:45

know this is the X-Box show but PlayStation has been

1:29:47

very good about sustainability too. I think we need to

1:29:49

call it everybody who's being good about sustainability because it's

1:29:52

important for everybody. Please everybody do it. Give

1:29:55

everybody the pat on the back where they do something

1:29:57

good for sustainability okay because we need them to do

1:29:59

more. Gary, Andrea, and the audience

1:30:01

out there. This will wrap up and

1:30:03

conclude our kind of funny X-cast for

1:30:05

the final episode of 2023. It

1:30:08

was a special one. Of course, big love to

1:30:10

Paris Lilly, who is enjoying his Christmas vacation with

1:30:12

his family now and missed the show. But of

1:30:14

course, very special to have you on. In person,

1:30:17

Andrea Renee. I freaking love it. Thank you for

1:30:19

that one. Gary Witte, you're the best big dog.

1:30:21

You get a little break. I'll see you in

1:30:23

2024. We'll have some

1:30:25

more energy, some more Xbox fun. And of course,

1:30:28

we're not going anywhere. But with that, thank

1:30:30

you all so much for tuning in. Make sure

1:30:32

to follow Andrea everywhere. Go check out what's good

1:30:34

games. And of course, have a wonderful holiday season.

1:30:37

On behalf of myself and the team here, kind

1:30:39

of funny, thank you so much for watching and

1:30:41

listening. We do appreciate you. Happy holidays. Goodbye.