Sidequest: Xbox job layoffs

In this episode of Game Pass Grab Bag, the hosts discuss their current gaming experiences, including the recent layoffs at Xbox and the implications for the gaming industry. They explore the upcoming release of PlayStation games on Xbox, the sustainability of Game Pass, and the future of Xbox hardware. The conversation highlights the mixed feelings surrounding Game Pass and its impact on both indie and AAA developers, as well as the potential for Xbox to evolve into a more PC-like platform.

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Episode Transcript

(00:06):
Hello again everyone, welcome toanother episode of Game Pass
Grab Egg, your weekly podcast ring gives a Game Pass
collection, but not this week. We are doing a side quest
episode. We wanted to cover some news
games we're playing, of course, the big Microsoft Xbox layoffs
that have been hitting, and of course, some games that could
end up now be winding up on yourXbox console.

(00:26):
But before we get into this, I just want to quickly remind
everyone, please make sure you go to gamepassgrabbag.com, check
out our new website, just find all the games that we reviewed
over there. Join our Discord on our link
tree. We always love having people
joining us, but I'm joined here.I am Andrew, the hardcore gamer
host. With me is Aaron, our now new
gamer. Yeah, and, and proud of it.

(00:49):
I wear that that badge proudly. Thank you.
And then maybe Keith will join later.
We'll say we never know. What's Keith?
He might just pop in. He might be a special guest.
It's real, real exciting. You never know he's going to pop
in. You never know.
But before we started this, I, Ikind of wanted to ask, you know,
what have you been playing this week so far?

(01:09):
And, you know, upcoming we have a, we're obviously still
covering some games. There's been some awesome new
free to play games. But yeah, what have you been
checking out, Aaron? Well, I'm still playing Marvel
Rivals a lot. I think I pretty much let's just
assume anytime you ask me this question, Marvel Rivals will
will be in there. I've been playing some you've.

(01:31):
Given up on Overwatch, haven't you?
Kinda, I went back and checked it out a little bit last month.
There's a lot of people that swear that game has made a huge
turn around. But even going back and playing
it, I don't know why, it just felt slower to me because of of
what Rivals has felt like. So I really haven't gone back

(01:53):
and and really spent any meaningful time with it.
But outside of that, obviously we've got a review coming up and
I don't want to leave any hints,but I am playing a lot of Split
Gate two. I was a big fan of Split Gate 1,
so I've been playing a decent amount of that.
And then the new college football game comes out this
week and I'll let playing a ton of that.
I've had a very busy week, so I haven't been able to play a

(02:14):
whole lot. But what about you, Andrew?
Well, it took a very long time. It's been what, almost like 2
years now since the Activision acquisition, but finally
Warcraft 1-2 and three have hit Game Pass PC.
So I've been checking those out.I've been on a huge like old
style game kind of kick lately. I just played through Command

(02:35):
and Conquer, the first one firstI was like, oh, I forgot this is
on Game Pass. And it's like, man, this game's
old. I mean it got touched up where
it's like it's gotten a little better.
But I remember Warcraft one, theOG one that was on MS-DOS, you
literally can only like select one person at a time, select
multiple units. But this is, it's remastered.

(02:56):
So better graphics in some quality of life stuff.
But yeah, I got to say Warcraft 1 still pretty fun.
It's it's definitely old. The story of it is kind of all
over the place. The you know, the cinematics,
there's only like 3, but it's like, oh man, I remember this.

(03:16):
It, it's just a, it's a nice nostalgia kick.
I got to say though, I remember Warcraft 2.
Do you remember? Do you have memories of Warcraft
2? Of the game itself or of the
multiplayer? The game itself, because I'm
curious if you remember, I've like the same core memories of
Warcraft 2 that. I've no no, all I remember were

(03:38):
those custom game modes on on the multiplayer servers.
That's all I really remember of those games.
I don't remember the story whatsoever.
I remember when we were real little, our Uncle Eric, he was
playing it and we were watching him and we just got a kick out
of him killing the seals. Oh my gosh, yes.

(04:02):
All right. We just loved watching it.
We're like there's. Another seal?
Kill it. Kill it and it made a whimper
sound every time it died. I do remember that.
OK, Yeah, all right. There is there is a a hidden
memory I forgot I had. But man, I got to say Warcraft
two. It's not very good.
I do not like Warcraft 2. I, I actually played through all

(04:23):
of Warcraft 1 and I'm like, yeah, those they're like each
campaigns like 12 missions and it's like, all right, that was
that was a pretty fun time. Warcraft two, though, I don't
even remember. That's the one where they came
up with naval combat and they'revery proud of that naval combat
because like every map is islands and water and it's just
so the map designs are just not good of you just trying to get
the resources and you can only click like 6 units so it's hard

(04:48):
to manage micromanage everything.
Yeah, Warcraft 2, I quickly started using cheat codes.
I'm like, this is not a good time.
But Warcraft three, talk about nostalgia.
Me and you, we played a bunch ofthat.
And Keith, just the intro, the menu.
Do you remember the sound of thechains coming down?
Yeah, as. Soon as that sound hit I was
like man, this brings back memories.

(05:09):
I, I can't, I don't remember thestories much.
And if just if you're telling menow, what did you like more?
Did you like Warcraft or did youlike StarCraft?
I just remembered liking StarCraft way more.
Like, I had way more, yeah. But I mean, Warcraft was
obviously the a bigger core pillar to the Blizzard because
obviously World of Warcraft endsup becoming, you know, the

(05:31):
biggest MMO to ever exist. So like I remember those games
but for some reason StarCraft still sticks out to me the most
in my brain. I mean when you play StarCraft
like the the original, it's it holds up very well.
The story's good and the map designs are good.
Like Warcraft one. Playing it like the map design
you can tell is not good becauseusually it starts you with a

(05:53):
base. You don't even know where your
gold mine is. So almost every mission starts
off with you trying to just findthe resources.
The most basic resource. And then with Warcraft 2, the
the map designs once again are awful.
Usually we'll start a map when you're way in debt in food
population so you only get like 2 peons and you have to slowly

(06:14):
build resources just to start building farms just to start to
get peons. Like it takes like 20 minutes to
get things going. It's just really poorly
designed. But yeah.
Overall though it's been great. I I really like it.
It's just a fun nostalgia trip. Warcraft three I've been playing
a lot now. Warcraft 3 is is a ton of fun
though. It's story is good and it's game

(06:36):
plays a lot of fun, but yeah, I've almost beat Metaphor.
Refantasio, you didn't do a review of that with us?
But no, no, no. I'm ready to be done with the
game though. Oh wow.
Long and so much grinding, but yeah, that's generally been the
big things that I've been playing.
And of course still I'm still playing Cookie Clicker.

(07:01):
Yeah, I saw that. I saw you were playing Cookie
Clicker the other night and I'm like, what are you?
Doing. What are you?
Stop playing that game. There's no point in playing that
game. Achievements.
Achievements are OK. All right.
Whatever. Achievements.
Get out of here. It's because if I'm playing if
I'm playing Warcraft 3 on my computer, I could just keep
Cookie Clicker up. There.
Oh, OK, yeah, no, that makes sense.

(07:21):
That's that's good. Use your time.
But yeah, so as far as news, upcoming news that's happening,
since we're talking about games coming to Xbox, the thing I
really wanted, the news I wantedto first start off with is
PlayStation games are finally coming to Xbox.
And of course, the first one that was announced is Helldivers
2, which is coming out. What was it?

(07:43):
August 22nd? Yeah, it's coming out late
August. Yeah, so I think Sony has now
kind of seen the writing on the wall.
You know, Xbox has been doing a lot of their games onto the
PlayStation Store and then over the past handful of months, I
believe it was like 5 of their top 10 games that were selling
were Xbox games. So clearly Microsoft has been

(08:05):
making a good amount of money onthe PlayStation Store.
I think Sony's finally like, hey, this is really dumb to just
keep our games on our one console here.
Maybe you should start opening up the market.
I did see an interview question from the executive from Sony
basically saying that they are now open to release any of their
games except for Spider Man and God of War.

(08:27):
Those are the two games that arekind of keeping close to them,
like they're going to keep on Sony on the PlayStation, which
so what's kind of the other option is, of course, The Last
of Us. You know, they've remastered
that game like 40 times. So they're probably going to
come out with a Xbox Remastered Enhanced Edition to charge $100
for. But it's like, what else would

(08:49):
there kind of be? I mean, I got to say.
Uncharted. Sony's been kind of slacking.
Uncharted. Ghost's Sushima.
Yeah, because the Sushima would be a good one.
Yeah, they've Sony's had a very quiet generation.
I mean both consoles have kind of had a quiet generation here.
So, you know, I'm not really sure.

(09:10):
But what I would guess is that those protected franchises, that
could change probably depending on how things play out with with
hell divers. I think Hell divers could be be
a huge part of this. So there's a lot to actually
breakdown with this. Hell, Divers 2 coming to the

(09:33):
Xbox. It's one of the rare games.
It's one of the few games that Iwas really excited to play.
I like to play a lot of heavy multiplayer games, so this was
kind of right up my alley. This game always looks like a
lot of fun. I was very excited to try it
out. So I am excited to see that
coming its way. We could be seeing the start of
the end of of really console exclusives.

(09:53):
Obviously Xbox has already started to kind of make that
pitch as it's slowly been shifting that way where more and
more games come. PlayStation, I've always been in
the camp of I was completely fine with that.
As I've gotten older, I have APCI have a console.
I'm OK with being able if I can interchange these things and
kind of use them on both. I'm I'm very excited for that

(10:13):
future. So to be able to kind of see
that play out a little bit is ispretty interesting.
The other thing though that you need to consider, and I know
we'll kind of get to this a little bit in the the future
here, but it's all but pretty much certain at this point that
future Xboxes, including the upcoming handheld, will have

(10:36):
Steam on it, which has Spider Man and God of War.
So it's absolutely conceivable that your next Xbox could have
those anyway. So I'm not really sure what Sony
thinks. They're going to stop here
because it sounds like this is already happening.
Xbox users will have access to that.

(10:58):
They'll have to get it through Steam, but they'll still have
access to it on their device. Yeah, I mean, but you won't get
the achievements though. OK, I mean.
You get Steam achievements, but you don't get Xbox achievements.
I'd like the that's that's whereyou go.
OK, it matters and it matters tome, Aaron.
I'm going to be honest. Drivers too on Steam.
But to me I'm like, man, I'd love to get this on Xbox.

(11:20):
I'd love to get Xbox achievements.
I wonder what achievements even look like.
I I think there's a lot of things.
Copy paste what they already have on PlayStation, no?
No, no, no. I'm just saying in general
moving forward, I think the nextXbox console, I'd be kind of
interested to see what that looks like.
You, you saw a little bit of of Xbox's pitch back in June, which

(11:44):
was if you buy something throughMicrosoft, so you buy something
on Xbox, they will give you access to that.
Play anywhere you have a handheld, cool, you can play it
there. You have APC, you can play it
there as well. So I think their pitch is buy it
with us because it'll give you access to to whatever device

(12:06):
you're using and that'll be the difference between them and
Steam. I'm going to guess that seems to
because that was their big focus.
They kept saying that remember how they used to their old in
years past, they'd be the Dave one on game pass, Dave one on
game pass. They'd be like really emphasize
it this year was play anywhere, play anywhere, play anywhere.
And that was their their pitch this year.
So it, it makes me wonder if that's the case.

(12:30):
And now you're saying you can have Steam on your Xbox, you can
have. I wonder if I wonder if
achievements just start to kind of morph into something
completely different because it's going to be completely
ambiguous on on where you're playing it from.
See, I don't know because I mean, Steam is still its own
separate entity because even 2 actually, I don't actually know,

(12:53):
but there's the Epic Game Store,The Epic Game Store.
You can also kind of launch in your Xbox app.
Like do you have the Game Pass app on your PC?
I do. I pulled it up literally right
before we got on and I did not see that I had steam stuff on
there. Oh, OK.
Well, I'm part of like an insider program.
I can't. Remember.
Yeah, they said. Insiders.
Are my listed all Yeah yeah. So it's supposed to have Epic

(13:14):
Game Store and everything too? Yep.
So I, I, I mean, I don't know, Ican't see it like all becoming
one for the achievements, but I,I don't know, I don't know how
it is going to work with the achievements.
But yeah, so are, do you plan ongetting held divers too?
Oh heck. Yeah, Oh yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm, I
will, I will likely pre-order that game.

(13:35):
And generally speaking, I'm against pre-orders for the most
part just because you never know.
I I know you're making a face atme because I just pre-ordered
the new college football game. But but I will pre-order when
you know what it is, you know you it's a known quantity.
Hell, divers too has existed. Obviously you can go watch

(13:56):
1,000,000 videos on it right now, which I have and I know for
a fact I will want to play that game.
So I will go ahead and happily pre-order that and it's like 40
bucks. So I'm all for it.
And like I said, this is one of the rare games.
I understand there's a lot of people out there that want to
play. If you're an Xbox only console

(14:19):
user you maybe wanted to play Spider Man or God of War.
I don't really care that much for those games, it's just not
my cup of tea. But hell Divers 2 is so yes I
will 100% get it. What about?
You see, I I already own it on Steam, but I I think I might
actually get it as. Well, really.
It's just the way where it's landing in August.

(14:39):
I don't know if I'll get it right away because what
September is September right is when Borderlands 2 comes out
right? Yeah, late, late.
I think it lands on my birthday.I think September 23rd is
actually the launch of of Borderlands.
Keith, welcome. Well, it's hard to be a.
Time when you don't get the notification that we're

(15:02):
starting, but I'm here. Yeah, congratulations.
You made it, Keith. Are you getting hell divers too?
I would like to what is it thereis an announce date I'm sure
that I missed. Oh.
It wasn't paying attention. Hold I was too August we think
August 22nd yeah we. Think yeah.

(15:24):
We know it's late August. Hey, journalistic integrity
here. We do not, we're not going to
put in the research, but it was,it was definitely late August
because late August also again, I, I get it, I'm, I'm just, I,
I'm not. The worst?
Close. So close.

(15:45):
When does Delta force hit Xbox because I've been waiting for
that game since. Actually very soon from what I I
saw it on. I think it was late August as
well, another game I'm very excited for.
August 19th. Yeah.
So which one? There you go, end of August and.
That's free to play, isn't it? Yeah, it is free to play.

(16:06):
It's that's the good. Trend of any game now but like
what? So what's Delta Force?
Is it like a? It's Team fight.
It's Battlefield 2042, but made by the Chinese of course.
So right up my alley again, a game I'm.
Very excited for for no reason, but yeah, so so none of the

(16:30):
other Sony games you're you're are at all interested in the
game you. Don't care about.
Last of Us you don't care about goes to Shashima.
You really generally don't do any single player games.
No, I that's the thing though, is randomly I will like randomly
I'll get really into one, but it's, it's very it's very rare

(16:53):
and it's not that I hate them. They just don't necessarily they
don't I don't want to sink a stupid amount of time into them.
It's usually, you know, something that's very grindy.
You know, we've obviously talkedabout this before, but like ARP,
GS and Marvel Rivals are are my types of games.
No, that makes sense. It what's funny though, is I'm

(17:15):
I'm not like against single player games, but I'm also very
much there and like I'm not really the interest, not
interest like disinterested or bothered by.
But yeah, there's not a lot coming from PlayStation that
excites me other than it was always hell divers.
It just looks like a lot of fun.Everything about the way that it
plays as a game just seemed really fun to me.

(17:37):
And so I wanted that to come to Xbox, but that was it.
It used to be the Spider Man games, but our oldest got a
PlayStation a couple years back and I watched him play the
Spider Man games. They are cool.
But just watching it was like, yeah, there's plenty of other
experiences I could play that I feel like would give me a close
enough itch to that that I don'tneed a a whole PlayStation or I

(18:00):
don't need to get it if it comeson Xbox.
I can play a Spider Man and Marvel Rivals and that's just as
cool. It's actually probably cooler
honestly, but it. Definitely is.
There's also, you know, I guess game of the year Astrobot, if I
just want, you know, a family friendly 3D platformer.

(18:21):
It's true. I I'm curious if that would hit
Xbox. No that I.
I doubt that. 'D be one.
Well, no, because that'll be pretty like their like, new
mascot. Yeah, that's not a better Find a
cooler mascot. Just a a little robot like
Sonic. Iconic Mario shots fired.
But at one game of the year, don't Master Chief.

(18:41):
Iconic. Don't you want to try the game
of the year? Yeah, they want you to buy the.
Console at the very least, though, if you're going to tell
me that that's your new mascot, it needs to be something less
generic. It it can, it can absolutely be
game of the year. I'm not trying to argue this
isn't a game of the year argument.
This is a that's a stupid mascotbecause it's just it's just a

(19:03):
very generic little robot. There's nothing, nothing Sony.
Think of Sony or PlayStation when I look at your goofy little
robot, your mascot Blues. It's not wrong though, Keith.
It used to be Crash Bandicoot, and Crash Bandicoot was cool.
That was. Again, that was a recognize, it
was unique characters. Bring back Gex.

(19:24):
Gex actually did, They just released a trilogy of Gex I
think about like 2 weeks ago. I'm sorry you remembered Gex,
Aaron. Nostalgia is coming back, baby.
It really is. You know, new people are sick of
new game and they like the old game and.
I mean, they were on all the oldmovies to come back.

(19:45):
All the old games. Just just give us what we've
already had. Yeah, I.
Know, but yeah, another game yeah Dmitry to chat posted yeah
ready or not that's another one.It's not coming to Game Pass,
but that one's released on Xbox soon.
That's another one I've been seeing a lot of and I've really
wanted to try out. Yeah.
So I don't know. I think that's like a $60.00
game. I don't know.
I'm going to try a full price onthat.

(20:05):
That was a That's like a Rainbow6 style game, right?
It's a. Tactical Simulator.
I think it's a little bit probably more realistic than
Rainbow 6 is now. Today.
I was reading some controversy on that one.
I didn't realize it's getting, quote UN quote, censored for
consoles. Really.

(20:27):
Yeah. Apparently there's like a lot of
content in there that they did not want on consoles, including
nudity. So that was being removed and so
apparently people are flipping out over it and it's just like,
OK, I if you want to go play that version, you just you can
go play it on APC. It's not like it doesn't exist.
It's just. Wait, there's nudity on the PC
version? It sounds I guess this is just

(20:50):
what I've I've I've read buy. It now.
Yeah, that's, that's how little I know about it.
But I, I check it out, I remember when Ready or Not was
kind of first announced and shown off and it looked really
cool. And the idea was it was supposed
to be kind of hyper tactical. But yeah, I, I don't, I don't

(21:10):
know much more beyond that. And I don't know if I've
actually seen any real gameplay of it.
See, I've always seen like random clips or tik toks of it
and it always looks super cool. So I'm curious like how well
it's going to actually translateto console because it it looks
like it's meant to be, you know,like Rainbow 6 where it's just
very heavy realism. You'll find out soon.

(21:32):
But later I forgot about this until I saw you know some post
and I read it. But abiotic factor is coming to
game pass, which is like a for alike a four to no solo to five
players underground research facility where you're surviving
by crafting and fighting waves of enemies.
The trail of this actually lookssweet.
I I think what you've just described was the original

(21:54):
Fortnite game. Basically, yeah.
Kind of, yeah. That was.
Remember the original. Fortnite sounded fun to me, like
I'm not a survival fan. So this one, someone posted it
and I read it too, where they were saying Andrew needs, well,
I guess all of us need to. And it just reading that my
initial thought was like, this is an Andrew game, just survival

(22:15):
crafting. That's everything Andrew wants.
But I don't know. It was some like dinosaurs and
military shoots and like, all right, that's kind of wonky.
I'm I'm at least interested to see where this guy ties in.
It is like all over the place, but it does actually look like
my jam. I still just like that.
Reminds me of the one that the trailer came out for or the guy

(22:36):
who goes back in time and you'relike driving a pickup truck with
a machine gun through like medieval Knights and stuff.
Whatever that can't. Remember Kingmaker?
Yeah, Kingmaker. Yeah, King comes out.
I want that game. I know, though, I think, I think
that's only Steam, as far as I could tell.
Yeah. But yeah, I wanted to get into
kind of the heavier news though.And that, of course, is the

(22:59):
Xbox. You know, Xbox Studios had
massive layoffs recently, which has been, you know, stated, you
know, due to lack of profits from the Blizzard Activision
acquisition. But the profits weren't enough,
so they ended up laying off over9000 jobs.
A lot of games got affected. The biggest one for me, which I

(23:21):
think hurt the most is Perfect Dark.
That game had a in game trailer.It looked like it was quite far
along. They completely shut down that
studio, The Initiative. It was a brand new studio that
they made. It had a lot of issues.
You know, they had a lot of staff kind of turnover.
It had a huge development cycle that kind of had issues.
Doesn't fully surprise me, but it looked like things were on

(23:42):
track, especially after that trailer.
But apparently completely gone ever wild, which was another
game that we always talked about.
I remember we we had like I think 2 trailers of it, you
know, the other game from Rare. But Rare ended up losing a lot
of jobs because of it and I think even some of the CSCS team
got knocked off as well. Zenimax was in the middle of
working on a new MMORPG that gotcompletely shut down.

(24:07):
Another one that's crazy to me. Turn 10, the developers of Forza
Motorsport I think lost about 50% of their staff.
How do you cut Forza Motorsport like that?
They have just won numerous accolades like that.
Those games are amazing. It outdid Gran Turismo, and now
you're just going to completely gut that CD of like insane.

(24:28):
Halo Studios got hit pretty hard, which is crazy because
they already got hit pretty hard.
They just had a rebranding coming with a whole bunch of new
Halo stuff they announced and now they got hit with some
layoffs and it's I. So I got to ask what what do you
guys think of this going on at Xbox here?
Well, I, I mean, obviously everything is under the weight

(24:50):
of that ABK deal. So the Activision Blizzard King
deal was everything and they've got a lot of money to make up
now if you actually take a step back and I understand the big
highlight here is 9000 employeesat Microsoft.
You know a decent amount of those coming from from Microsoft
Gaming. When you look at Perfect Dark.

(25:15):
I get that we got a trailer, butthat game has been 7 plus years
in the making. Truthfully, it probably should
have been canceled a long time ago.
It clearly wasn't working. They brought in Crystal Dynamics
to try and fix this thing and from all reports years ago, that
was not going great. That probably should have been
gone ever wild. Another great example of a game

(25:37):
that we saw but knew nothing about.
Clearly something wasn't workingthere many many many years in
the making. Probably should have been cut
earlier. So you kind of take those?
OK, that probably makes sense. One that I was shocked we did
not see cut because when you compare those two was was Undead

(25:58):
Labs. So the guy's making state of the
K3. So the only thing that that
probably gives you hope on is state of the K3 is probably
closer than you think because they didn't cut them, but it
looks like clearly what they were doing.
We're cutting things that just are not working.
The initiative, that studio was never working.
It was a problem from day one. There's been reports on that

(26:20):
pretty much out of the gate. Microsoft.
When Microsoft announced the initiative, they were like, this
is a quadruple a studio. Supposedly they said that was a
typo. Supposedly they said that was a
typo. They they meant it was their, it
was their first AAA studio. Supposedly what they're supposed
to say. So the other thing.
So take Turn 10. I think the Turn 10 one is a
little bit interesting. The people that got cut were

(26:42):
just on the motorsport. They were all moved over to
Horizon. I think that kind of makes
sense. Motorsport is a niche audience.
It's niche, but Horizon is very wide.
Well, Horizon. 'S a different studio.
It's turn 10, turn 10, yeah, butturn 10 works.

(27:02):
But they, I'm, I'm sorry, they're moving over to play.
They're working with Playground.No, those are connected.
I mean loosely, I mean, they obviously share some stuff, but
I mean, they're, they're different styles and they're
different companies. Playground does Horizon turn 10
does the. Motor.
But either way, if you're Microsoft and you're looking at
these two racing divisions here,it makes sense to say, all

(27:24):
right, the motorsport thing is very niche.
We probably don't need to spend a whole lot of resources on
that. I don't think that means you
won't ever see a motorsport game.
I think they're clearly just looking at which horses in the
lead here and by a long ways it's horizons.
So if you could actually step back and look at the grand
picture, is it great? Of course not.

(27:44):
But at the same time you're like, all right, none of these
things seem like why would you do that?
That doesn't make any sense right now.
It does kind of when you look back at how long some of these
games have been development and just from all reports have been
in bad shape for a long time. They should have cut them years.
Ago, I mean perfect dark. I would I would agree if they

(28:05):
cut it years ago, but to me it looked like it was done in in
about a year or two. But I think that's, I don't know
this like I'm, I'm kind of siding with Aaron and this and
it's, and this is probably, you know, I guess the the wrong side
of the Internet, so to speak, because everyone's outrage is to
be angry that these people lost their jobs.

(28:26):
And I, and I totally get it. I've been on the end of a
layoff. It it sucks.
It's so I'm like, I feel bad forthe people who have lost their
jobs. I do.
But there is a certain point where I was I was actually
watching a video earlier this week.
It's named Dustin Legarry. The he used to be on IG and I
was watching like he had like anhour long video and I like he

(28:47):
was kind of saying what Aaron was saying.
Like years ago. Microsoft knew that perfect dark
was a problem. So they either need to do one of
two things a year ago. They need to come in and stop
with this like, oh, we just wantto have like a hands off
approach and just let our developers kind of vibe and like
enjoy the process. And that's cool because clearly
that can work for some games. But if you see that it's not

(29:07):
working, you come in and you say, hey, we need to make
changes. We like maybe not Phil himself,
but you know, by proxy. Where was Phil coming in to to
put his foot down and make thesethings go and give them
deadlines? I mean, I don't know how it was
obviously going there, but I, itfeels like everyone wants to get

(29:29):
mad at the big corporation and they just did this big business
deal and there's a lot of there,there is some faults on them for
sure. I would not count them out of
this, But it's, it kind of feelslike it needed to happen.
And then and like one of the other biggest points is
everyone's so quick to jump on Xbox because of this Activision
deal. Look at the industry as a whole.

(29:49):
They're not the only ones who'vedone this.
Sony just did this last year andand Sony.
'S been doing a lot of. It and nobody's screaming about
them buying a Bungie and gettingdestiny.
Like where's that outrage? But we want to get mad at Xbox.
Like I, I feel like I should be getting paid by Xbox right now
for my soapbox about it, but it's just it's they they did
screw up and I'm not going to keep them at fault for this.

(30:12):
But there's also a certain line where business is business and I
just it just sucks. They waited too long.
That's really why it sucks. Yeah, yeah.
Go ahead, enter. All right, well, I was gonna say
where do you guys take the slides?
Do you think this is management cuz of Xbox or management within
the studios? Cuz clearly there's for me, I
think it's like different on different ones like the

(30:33):
initiative. I think that's clearly
management inside that studio really dropped the ball.
They had a lot of senior people leaving.
Clearly, those senior people hadissues with what was going on,
and they were like, Nah, this isn't worth my time.
And they left. So there was already a bunch of
turnover. But it's like, yeah, I know Xbox
is saying she usually is, oh, we're going to let the studios
kind of do their own thing. You know, we're not going to

(30:53):
have crunch in overtime. But it seems like you kind of
need some of this. You kind of need to put, you
know, some of these people's feet under the fire to get them
going because of these development cycles are taking
too long. But it's also Xbox fault because
I think they're over bloating these people having way too much
expected budget. And then if you don't hit the
target budget, you're out of here.

(31:15):
Like the one that always irritated me was Tango
Gameworks. They constantly talked about how
high Fire Rush was, you know, profitable and it was a success.
It won a bunch of awards that's still got shut down.
And it's so it's like, I don't know, I feel like it's all over
the place. Oh, I mean, the, there was like
quotes from the people getting laid off that the days prior
they were getting emails like praising how well, how much

(31:36):
money they had made. Like it's the same exact
situation. And it's, and you know, I'm sure
anybody who's been through a layoff, it honestly, it's
always, that's always how it goes.
Oh, we're doing so good. And then a week later, like HR
needs to speak with you and you're like, what?
But I didn't, I didn't see that.They just it, it is what it is.
And I think because of where they are, they have like the

(31:56):
worn notices and stuff. I don't fully understand that.
That's not, not to give into allthat crap, I guess, but it's
like, I don't know, it's just one of those weird things.
And I in the video I was watching with, with Dustin, he,
he was reading the e-mail from Phil because I guess that had
been like leaked or whatever. And it's interesting because

(32:17):
he's like, oh, you know, make sure to look at open
opportunities and all these things.
And I want to believe a little bit that, yeah, they'll hire out
these developers. But it's also weird, like, OK,
if you know, you have these talented developers, why not
just reallocate them immediately?
Like, hey, we want to find otherprojects or say, Hey, here's a
list of 10 open projects, which one feels close to you?
And we'll see if we can get you in there.

(32:38):
Like if you really want to, it feels like they could just move
them, not lay them off. That's the weirdest part to me.
Yeah, there's three issues over at Xbox.
I think it's some of the studios.
I think some of the studios are in rough shape and we've heard,
we've heard Phil mentioned in the past that they've

(33:00):
restructured to allow these studios to kind of operate on
their own. They they're not going to be a
corporate overlord to them. They can kind of go do their
things then. Then the other issue is
obviously Xbox leadership. They're sending out mixed
messages and it doesn't look good.
It just doesn't look good to go out there and say these things
in public and then do something different on the other side of

(33:22):
it. But the third part in all of
this is Microsoft as a whole, obviously, and they've got
shareholders to worry about, andthey've got to make sure that
this thing is growing and that this thing is developing and
that they're not just throwing money at bad projects.
But All in all, what it now doesis it creates a layer of

(33:44):
distrust. You know, it is hard to know
what the IT is, why everyone is saying what is the future of all
of this? What is it?
Because you're being told one thing, but then you keep seeing
something else happening. And I think why this one sticks
out is, yes, when you step back,you can make justifications for
everything. But it's the third round of

(34:06):
layoffs. And these ones might make sense,
but there were others that didn't leading up to this.
So you've now created a pattern of saying things, but then doing
something different. And I, I think now again,
there's like a level of distrustthat's starting to show up here
where it's like, OK, do these guys actually care about any of

(34:29):
this stuff or are are we just going to go through the, the
motions of just kind of putting stuff out there?
Keep in mind also this was another thing that was kind of
pointed out too. And this is where you kind of
have to look at Xbox leadership.They have had issues with
launching games, big games in horrible states.

(34:50):
But yeah, Red Fall's a great example.
But Halo, your most beloved franchise, you launched it in a
horrible state like so even then, yeah, that's probably some
studio issues, but that's Xbox leadership is screwing that up
too. That's a big problem for them.
So. There's just there's a lot of
bad elements here and I think that's where people are kind of

(35:11):
freaking out. Yes, this, this is this is just
added on a pile of a bunch of other things.
You know it's. Interesting though, and and we
are by no means a finance podcast, but you're talking
about the shareholders. Like shouldn't that create some
level of distrust amongst the shareholders?
And shouldn't that be, but like,it's the whole concept.

(35:31):
Of cuts are always cuts are always a positive.
No, and I get that, but it's theit's the say one thing, do
another. And I guess that's where if I'm,
I mean, trust me, I'm not also looking at Microsoft and
thinking they're like in troublefinancially as a whole.
But if you are looking at some of the finer details and you're
like, well, wait, what's the messaging versus this?
And I guess it all boils down tothe numbers.

(35:53):
Again, they just had some. Of the big, they've had some of
their biggest earnings ever overthe last few years and including
most recently it's it's some of the Microsoft is bigger and
better than they've ever been before.
And that's where some people look at this and say it just
doesn't make sense why you cut. So is it 9000 total jobs?

(36:15):
Is it then because we're just looking at another microscope of
video games? Because that's all what we care
about. But Microsoft as a whole is
fine, and so the. Investors.
Oh yeah, the investors. Are like, yeah, cool you you
laid off 9000 people. We don't care.
But we care because we no because dark so XX.
When you look at when you look at their earnings, their
hardware sales have been and andthe absolute toilet.

(36:38):
They're not selling Xboxes. Xboxes just have not sold.
They in fact, they stopped basically reporting on it on
total numbers sold. They kind of basically give you
a percentage on it being up or down.
But Game Pass has been great forhim.
That and software sales have been really good for for Xbox,
especially now sending stuff over to PlayStation, that stuff

(37:00):
has been very successful for them.
So that's where everyone's like,oh, they're turning into a
publisher more than they're going to be, you know, focused
on hardware. Obviously we'll get to that in a
little bit here. They are still focused on
hardware. But so yes, there is obviously
Microsoft is a much bigger unit.Xbox in the Microsoft grand
scheme is not that big for them.It's obviously big in gaming,

(37:24):
but for everything Microsoft does, which is a lot of, you
know, cloud infrastructure stuffand obviously Windows, you know,
this one's, this is all pretty small to them.
But of course, these cuts are being made to save money.
And they're like for games that they've probably spent way too
much time and way too much moneyon already.

(37:45):
The the average investor isn't looking at ever wild and be like
no. No, you're soft sell.
Sell my Microsoft shares. Yeah, not, not in the least They
they'll see 9000 cut in it that to them is just more profit that
is now share. Prices.
Because they stated that they that it was profitable but just
wasn't profitable enough, especially if they're spending

(38:07):
69 billion on Activision which and I do you think the
acquisition was good then? I still think it was it.
It will be in the long run. Everybody kind of knew this.
Everyone said this after the Activision deal happened.
Everyone said, oh, something's, something's going to have to
happen over at Xbox because you don't take on a bill that large

(38:32):
and you just say, Nah, we're going to continue as normal.
Something has to give. And so it does make sense that
you look at some of these biggergames that have now probably
absorbed a lot of your money andyou say, all right, we got to we
got to cut ties with these things.
That does make sense. So no, I think in the long run
the the Activision deal, becauseright now I think their biggest

(38:55):
earner on the software side, we're all Activision games.
It's probably all Call of Duty, truthfully.
Let's be honest, Call of Duty. All those ridiculous skins.
Yeah, it's all it's, you know, they can go toss that on the
Game Pass because who cares? You know, people are going to go
buy the battle pass, They're going to go buy their, you know,
$40 Nicki Minaj skins. And that's that's where they're
going to make all their money. Sell that.

(39:15):
Booty. Did did you see what they're
selling on there now for? What Call of Duty I imagine.
Yeah. Yes, I, I.
Really isn't butthead I? Was thinking about doing a game.
I was thinking about doing a game of.
I'm going to list an IP. You tell me, is it Fortnite or
Call of Duty or? Ball.
Oh my goodness, that's actually a good game.

(39:36):
Because I said they're thinking about this.
I'm like, because I I saw Beavisabutted and I'm like, wait,
what's that? Fortnite or Call of Duty?
Yeah, it was. Really.
That I was like, oh. Two, then I wonder.
There's got to be some crossovers.
Well, because King of the Hill is that Call of Duty or
Fortnite? That's Fortnite.
Fortnite has Bob's Burgers, Kingof the Hill, Family Guy.

(39:56):
What about American dad? I would save Fortnite because I
feel like. No, that's on Call of Duty now.
Call of Duty, yeah. See, that throws me off because
again. All the fucks.
Very stupid. It's very stupid.
I don't. Know, I think I got to look this
up. I think that'll be kind of a fun
game to do. Video games are over.
Video games are dead. See, and that's that's what I'm

(40:18):
looking with the silver lining of this, of this 9000 being cut
is, you know, it sucks, but honestly, gaming is not what it
used to be like. Anytime a lot of these studios,
you know, if I heard Blizzard, I'm like this, whatever game
they're making, I don't care. It's going to be great.
I'm so excited for it. You know, same with Activision,
Activision back in the day, EA, Ubisoft, anytime you heard these

(40:40):
studios, you just knew I was going to get a great game.
I can't wait to play it, but that's not what the case is
anymore. So that's why when a lot of
these shoes are getting closed, I'm like, you know, oh, Blizzard
guy got it a little bit, but it's like Blizzard's not what it
used to be. I don't, I guess I don't care
that much. So for me, I'm seeing the silver
lining of I would love to see these people leave these big

(41:00):
corporations and do their own thing.
I would love to get more clear, obscure Expedition 33.
That's exactly what happened. The guy got sick of working at
Ubisoft, said I'm going to create my own game.
And that's what happens to a lotof these indie studios that make
these wonderful games. They get sick of what they're
doing and they want to do their own project.
They start their own little studio and create phenomenal
games because you don't need these excessive bloated budgets.

(41:23):
Because that's what's annoying is like, yeah, these games are
profitable. They're not profitable enough.
It's like, well, maybe it shouldn't had.
It's such a large budget and it would have been better.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, like you said, you're
spot on. We've seen time and time again
these smaller studios come up from basically some larger
project falling apart. So I would not be surprised if

(41:47):
you just start to see some greatgames pop up.
And we will look back a few years from now and say, oh,
these guys were on the Everwild team and you know, they, they
had this idea that they've been trying to, to fight for and now
they can make that game. So I would not be surprised
because we just see that time and time again.
Yeah, I mean, so I'm, I'm curious, so do you think, do you

(42:11):
think the issue too is Game Pass?
No, because of course that's what any time these layoffs
happens, you always get these people.
Just recently the former head offounder of Arcane Studios, which
they got shut down with the lastkind of layoffs.
He even went on to say that GamePass is unsustainable and
damaging because, you know, of course Sony always mentions to

(42:33):
saying Game Pass is not worth it.
You know, it's, it's awful value, you know, people that
just ruin studios. But time and time again, India
suit developers always talk about how great Game Pass is.
You know, I would have not been able to make a sequel this if it
wasn't for Game Pass. I mean.
Is it just game pass is better for indie people and not the
main? I feel like I feel like this is
maybe this is going to date all of us here.

(42:55):
Not that anybody we've ever tried to act like we were
younger than we are, but it's kind of like if.
You talked about I'm still here if you were to.
Ask Linkin Park how they felt about Napster versus how
Metallica felt about Napster, because I think all three of us
can attest that the only reason we knew about Linkin Park was
because of Napster. And for anyone who doesn't know
what Napster is, it was illegal music down.

(43:18):
There Wikipedia that, yeah. Google I don't.
I'm not. I'm not I.
Still have a vendetta against Metallica because of Napster.
Trust me, we're not going to go down that route.
But my point being is it's like there there is some value to
just making content accessible and not just accessible because
yeah, I don't want to say anyonecould develop it, but someone

(43:39):
who's capable of developing it could do it and publish it
independently or all these different methods, but you're
not going to find it. Like there is gems that we made,
you know, people may never find on Steam and things like that
because they're able to just kind of put your game there
versus Game Pass, giving it thathighlight that it needs and it's
just that little bit of a boost.So I think that, yeah, a lot of

(44:01):
indie developers are going to love it.
Maybe the AAA's don't love it, but I don't know.
I like it, and because I like the Indies and I won't, I want
accessibility to them. For Xbox, it makes sense.
So for the Xbox Studios, to me, it makes sense.
Great selling point. And ultimately, what does
Microsoft want you to be? A reoccurring subscriber?

(44:23):
That's what they want. If you are an indie developer, I
think it makes a lot of sense. You're introducing yourself to a
lot of people that likely wouldn't go out there and try
your game and you're now creating a new audience there.
And we've seen time and time again, those guys do usually
come out in defensive Game Pass.They usually say it, it was
worth it. It actually helped us make this
game even possible because of those deals.

(44:44):
If you or anybody else, so you are a larger studio and you have
a game coming out, I don't know why you would toss it on their
day one. I don't.
To me, you should have a six month window just similar to
what happens in the movie theaters.
Get your paying customers that are willing to go to the movies.
Once that's done, you can send it to streaming and you can make
that deal. So whatever that deal is, you

(45:08):
make it after the fact. That's how I think this all
works. I don't know why anybody would
come out, but again, looking at Expedition 33, they came out and
said we love Game Pass. They they had no problem tossing
on Game Pass. They said they had no regrets on
it. They loved that an entire
audience got to see that game that they're really proud to to

(45:28):
make. So you're going to get these
mixed signals. But to me, those would be the
categories. If I was anybody else, yeah, I
would probably wait six months to a year before I put it on
Game Pass Do. You think they'll ever change
that mantra because they always try to say day and date.
Xbox Studios day one will come on Game Pass.
I I no, because I still think that's a massive selling point

(45:50):
for Game Pass and for them, theywant you to be a reoccurring
customer. They they've now run into a
problem. Let's say they reverse that.
Let's say they go sit, we're going to put a six month window.
Do you think anybody on Xbox will buy it now?
No, I know it's coming out in six months.
I'll just wait the six months, like, all right.

(46:12):
Yeah, that's kind of. You've paid extra money for
college football and that. Depends.
That depends. And you see that?
You see that, but how many timeshave we sat here and you have
griped about the Steam charts because people are looking at
the Steam charts when people could play for free and you're
recognizing that it is a actually currently available and

(46:32):
people aren't doing it. So you think they're going to
wait six months for it to be free when it's currently
available and they're not doing like?
No, I mean some people. Some people you were.
Probably a potentially reasonable person was, but
people are not reasonable. OK, this is a basic reasonable.
I, I can expand on that and actually back this up.

(46:55):
So part of the issue that Xbox is having right now is that Xbox
customers are not buying games at all.
In fact, they are so pampered byhaving Game Pass, they're really
not going out and purchasing games on the platform to the
point where developers have saidit's almost pointless to make
games for the Xbox platform because if it's not on Game

(47:16):
Pass, they're not buying it. Playstation's buying, Steam's
buying, Xbox is not. So now that Xbox has established
this, if they reverse that, I don't think that people are
going to start buying it there because they're not right now
for games that aren't on Game Pass.
So, so I actually think that that would hurt them.

(47:37):
I don't think they can reverse it.
Now there's a good point of say Call of Duty and maybe even
after, because I think there wassome date they put on it like
they could go and it's kind of what they're doing now, I guess
is like a hey, it's day one on game cap on Game Pass, but you
can buy it everywhere else, right?
Like yeah, so it's like you put it or even like AI don't know,

(48:02):
like yeah, like or like you haveto have Xbox and they could
cause do you think there's ever like, I don't know, maybe this
is a jump ahead question, but like, is there ever a point
where Game Pass is offered to every console?
Is that the end game that like aPlayStation five could just
straight up boot up cloud? No, it's.
Never going to happen. I mean, Sony would never allow
that. That's fair, I guess.

(48:23):
There there. Was always rumor that Nintendo
possibly could, that, you know, Xbox and Nintendo were kind of
trying to figure out and strike a deal.
The the the the problem is is ifyou're Sony, oh cool, Microsoft
just put their subscription service on our console.
We don't get anything from that.So now Microsoft gets, could
take our customers and now get amonthly subscription off of

(48:44):
them. They just never, they're not
going to allow that. That's never going to happen.
But I, I just think the future Xbox will be a PC.
It sounds like that's going to be the case.
It's going to be a PC and they're hoping most people will
have game Pass for it, obviously.
And then if you want and the game's not available on on Game

(49:08):
Pass, you can still use Steam oryou can use Epic Game Store.
It makes sense to have it just be APC because this whole tier
system of the game pass is is all over the place of ultimate
core PC. Like it's it's these multiple
different like just tiers. But if you get rid of just
ultimate and it's just, you know, Game Pass core and PC

(49:30):
because the console is APC, I feel like you could just kind of
consolidate it all. But I.
I called this, by the way, I called this when the Series X
came out. I remember booting it up once
and I remember just saying this console is made by Microsoft.
Why doesn't it have windows Likebecause it was during the
controversy of having a mouse and keyboard and was like right

(49:52):
where the Xbox allowed you to kind of have a mouse and
keyboard. And I remember just thinking
like, why can't I just boot up Windows on this?
Wouldn't that be cool if the console had like an Xbox
dashboard? But then you could technically
right switch it over to Windows.You can put it into like dev
mode I think, and it's not even like hacking the Xbox, it's just
you can literally put it into dev mode and I'm pretty sure
from that point you can put on some form of Windows or I think

(50:14):
even like Linux. But.
Yeah, either. That's also an issue.
Isn't that usually why people hate on Steam Deck and honestly
a lot of just the handhelds now people hate the windows
component of it. Like that's why the ROG Ally
people are very excited for it because they're like it's clean,
it boots up and it looks like the Xbox dashboard and loads
it's. It's safe to say whatever

(50:35):
they're building for the ROG right now is likely what your
console's going to look like. Like it seems like what you'll
have is because it doesn't boot up Windows.
It boots up an Xbox dashboard onthe ROG Ally X.
That's why everyone is like, OK,cool, you get rid of everything
crappy about Windows, so it'll put it off to the side, it'll
boot up that. But it sounds like it will have

(50:56):
to have some Windows components.If you're going to be able to
access Steam or Epic Game Store,you're going to have to have
some of that stuff. So we don't actually know what
that's all going to look like. We don't know how that's all
going to play. How are updates going to work
and all that. Like how do different launchers
work? Because all these games launch
on their own launchers. So what is that going to look
like? We don't we don't know yet, but

(51:19):
that's clearly what they're they're thinking for the future
is just complete and utter freedom.
You buy this console, you can play it however you want.
You want to play it on Game Pass, knock yourself out.
You want to buy it through Windows so that you can play it
on your handheld and on your actual PC.
Go ahead and do that. It's completely up to you.
I don't know. It sounds exciting like to me,

(51:40):
this feels like, oh, OK, this, this feels like a, a really good
evolution of where things are going right now.
So like, I guess, do you think, and I don't know, again, maybe
I've missed news somewhere, but like, do you think that this
gives way to some form of like alike a chromium type laptop, but

(52:01):
Microsoft based? Like if this, if the ROG works
out in this whole interface they're creating almost like
creating a completely web-based laptop that they sell for sort
of cheap that's kind of walks that line of console and laptop
for for that, you know, you knowwhat I'm saying.

(52:24):
Do you have a laptop right now I.
Don't, but I would like that's something.
But that's what I'm saying is like.
Do you have a? Do you have a computer?
I have a desktop, yes. And then that's an Xbox.
And I get what you're saying to that point, but what I'm saying
is with this interface, like theROG interface, so that it's
actually like that's kind of what boots up on your cloud
laptop. You know what I mean?

(52:46):
Like the Chrome, like the Chromebased laptops, like I have a
Chrome based laptop. So it would be a cloud based
Microsoft laptop, right, insteadof Chrome.
And they basically build it on that Steam Deck interface that
they're. Like I kind of understand what
you're saying. So when they announced the ROG,
the Asus ROG Ally X, Xbox or whatever it's called, it's a

(53:09):
stupid long name. So when they announced it in the
fine print, they basically indicated that this will be on
multiple devices that what they're building here.
This is just the first version of it, but there will be others.
So it's it's probably safe to say we will see multiple devices
that use this type of and actually.
Asus probably to that point likean Asus laptop.

(53:30):
That's that OS essentially. Yes, so you can download the
Xbox app on anything, anything Windows right now and you can
stream any game that's streamable on the cloud on that.
So my guess is that it'll be probably still very similar to

(53:52):
that. It sounds like though, like when
you boot up an Asus ROG LAX, it automatically boots into the
Xbox dashboard right out of the gate and it kind of closes
everything windows in the background to where it's not
using any resources and that's your interface.
So my guess is yes, we will see that version just kind of put

(54:13):
out into different PCs and different one that their next
Xbox. Yeah, because truthfully well
like with. Our colors, the handheld is
nice. I think I would prefer a nice
little like 15 inch laptop that was basically that same
interface. I I mean I could see them doing
this with. They have the surface already.

(54:35):
Microsoft already makes the Surface.
Chrome laptop and just run cloudat that point, but I like the.
Here's the problem though. That's what I'm saying.
Do you want to play? Do you want to play the game
locally or do you want to play it through the cloud?
I'm fine with cloud. Yeah.
I think that's kind of the big difference because yeah, you
can, you can basically play it on cloud on any device.
It's just you just have to play it on the cloud.

(54:56):
It's. Up to you.
So that's what I was irritating me now is that I don't
understand why they don't have more integration of the PC on
the current Xbox since it supports controller or keyboard
and mouse. Like why can't you just put some
PC games on there? I've been saying this for years,
Andrew. I say it too.
But if it sounds like we're we're there, Sarah Bond did

(55:17):
announce they it was very weirdly timed.
They didn't do this during June.They just randomly put up this
video a couple weeks ago where Sarah Bond acknowledges that AMD
will be building the architecture for the next Xbox.
Surprise, surprise, they've beenwith AMD for generations and so
is PlayStation. And she did confirm that it will
have multiple storefronts. So however you choose to play,

(55:39):
it'll be on there. So that's all we've really
gotten. But it sounded like what they
were doing was maybe trying to squash some of the rumors of is
Xbox out of the hardware game where she just comes out and
straight up says it's it's already being worked on, it's
happening. So I think that's maybe why they
did it. It was just oddly timed.

(56:00):
It just didn't make sense to do it there.
But so we at least know that about the device and it'll be
the fastest Xbox ever I always hate.
Any of those keynotes, any time Apple comes out, this is your
fastish iPhone. Yeah, it's like, of course
you're going to. Go up every.
Year This iphone's slightly slower than the last.

(56:21):
One, we've taken it back to 2014, it's going to take 10
minutes to load a video. That's always the dumbest thing.
It always makes me laugh when people say that.
But yeah. Is there anything else you
wanted to talk about? No, I think you had all the good
stuff. What about you, Keith?
No. Keith, you weren't here at the

(56:41):
beginning. Real quick, what have you been
playing? Cuz I know you.
You took a key from a game. I did well, I was gonna say I
was like, I don't know if this is where I should talk about it.
I, I think, I think there's likea disclaimer.
You do a separate episode. Yeah, no, I did.
But I did actually, though it was it was God of Weapons.
It's it's so it it honestly, it's I like it.

(57:04):
And surprise surprise, it's a rogue like top down bullet hell
auto shooter. So it's.
OK. It's basically a Vampire
Survivors but it plays like Rotato.
What right? I love Rotato.
You guys are so shocked right now.
Like there's a lot of elements as far as like the stats and
everything they did. But what the coolest aspect of

(57:26):
it is the the way the weapons actually work.
So rather than rotated like you just have like your six slots or
whatever. It's like old school Diablo
inventory management. So every weapon has a set amount
of slots that it takes up and you start with like, I don't
think it's like a 4 by 10 type of grid.

(57:46):
And each time you level up, instead of getting more skills,
you just get more bag space. And it's all about like
inventory management. And you're doing that kind of
like Tetris thing thing with allyour weapons and items that you
pick up. So it's like at one point I
think I had like, I don't know, like 10 or 12 different weapons.
Like so you, that's where I think the God of weapons comes
in. You really don't have any limit

(58:07):
on how many weapons you have, but it's it's actually a lot of
fun. I'd I'd have to look up how much
it costs on the the actual game pass or on the actual Xbox
store, but it's. On Steam it is $7.00.
OK, I feel like that's a good price for it.
Yeah, I, I played like two runs of it, won my first one.
So that was a good feeling too. You know, when you won right out

(58:28):
of the gate. But otherwise, honestly I've
been really bad about playing a lot of games lately.
Typical keys. I know, I know.
No cookie clicker for you? Yeah.
Did you give up on Cookie Clicker Keith?
No, I'm playing this stupid idolgame called Revolution Idol.
Well, we'll wrap it up here. Thank you all so much for

(58:50):
joining us this Side Quest episode.
Hope you enjoyed it. Please tell us what you think
the future of the Xbox looks like.
Leave a comment in this episode.We just love to hear from you
people. As I said, go to
gamepassgrabmy.com, check out our website.
You know, you can see all the games that we've covered before.
I've been your hardware gamer host.
You can find me on Xbox Live at Firebird 0952.
But yeah, I've been I've. Been Keith.

(59:13):
I showed up late, don't want andI don't want to say bye.
I'm out and Aaron doesn't want to say bye so.
That's the end. I don't want to say goodbye.
Why? Don't you want to say goodbye to
people? I don't feel like any toddler.
I don't believe in goodbyes. It's see you later.
How about till next time? Hi everyone, we love you all.
We'll see you again next time.