Epic Loot Radio: Xbox's Best Showcase Ever? A Deep Dive with Colt Eastwood

Welcome back to another episode of Epic Loot Radio! In this episode, host Ginger Prime is joined by Colt Eastwood, a renowned figure in the Xbox community, to discuss what might just be the greatest Xbox showcase in history. Rated a 9 out of 10 by Ginger Prime, with the music alone deserving an 11 out of 10, this episode is packed with insights, highlights, and expert opinions.

Colt Eastwood, who has been creating Xbox-focused content for over seven years, joins the conversation with excitement about Xbox's latest showcase. He reflects on the long wait for Xbox to truly shine and expresses his enthusiasm for the games revealed. The discussion kicks off with a look at Perfect Dark and Gears of War, two standout titles from the showcase. Colt and Ginger Prime delve into the gameplay, aesthetics, and future prospects of these games.

The conversation then shifts to South of Midnight, a game that took everyone by surprise with its unique style and Southern charm. Colt and Ginger Prime share their thoughts on the game's potential and its impact on the Xbox lineup. They also discuss the intriguing themes and settings that make South of Midnight a title to watch.

Next, the duo tackles the topic of Xbox's strategy, especially in light of Phil Spencer's recent statements about publishing more games on various platforms, including PlayStation and Switch. They explore the implications of this move for Xbox fans and the gaming industry as a whole. The discussion covers the evolving landscape of exclusivity and how Xbox's approach could reshape the future of gaming.

The episode wouldn't be complete without a deep dive into the potential of Xbox Game Pass. Colt and Ginger Prime analyze the showcase's emphasis on Game Pass, the addition of titles like Call of Duty, and the long-term strategy behind this service. They also touch upon the possibility of including World of Warcraft subscriptions in Game Pass and what that could mean for the MMORPG landscape.

Throughout the episode, Colt and Ginger Prime address various viewer comments and questions, providing a well-rounded and engaging discussion. They touch on topics like the future of consoles, the impact of cloud gaming, and the significance of Xbox's extensive game library. The episode wraps up with a look at what was missing from the showcase and the games that fans are eagerly anticipating.

Join Ginger Prime and Colt Eastwood for a comprehensive and entertaining exploration of Xbox's latest showcase. Whether you're a die-hard Xbox fan or just curious about the future of gaming, this episode has something for everyone.

Find Colt Eastwood on Twitter and YouTube, and don't miss his XC Podcast every Monday at 5 p.m. Pacific / 8 p.m. Eastern. For more content from Ginger Prime, check out the top link in the description.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Music.

(00:43):
Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of Epic Loot Radio.
Ginger Prime here sitting down with Colt Eastwood of Xbox fame or infamy,
one way or the other, but we are just coming off, I think, of one of the biggest,
if not the best, Xbox showcases they've had in their history.
I kind of felt like it fell into like a 9 out of 10 after watching the entire

(01:09):
event, But I do make a cut out the music throughout the entire event, 11 out of 10.
Like it was absolutely incredible to listen to.
But I'd like to let you introduce yourself for those of you who might not know
you, who don't follow you over on the Ginger Prime Network. Tell us about yourself.
Hi, it's really good to be here. I love watching your content.

(01:29):
You crack me up and just another smile on the internet when it's time to talk
about games instead of whining and complaining about them. So I appreciate everything
you do and it's good to be here.
I'm Cole Eastwood. I've been doing content mostly about Xbox for about seven years or so.
And yeah, I've been sitting around this past decade waiting for Xbox to get
off the bench and really flex their muscles.

(01:51):
And this weekend, they were finally ready. I can't believe how long it's taken.
Thankfully, they had a few games for us to play in the interim, but I'm really excited.
And the energy is something we've been waiting for a long time.
And I think as the fans, if you're a really great fan and you were saying, hey, you can do better.
You know, we want to see the best out of what you can do. We finally.

(02:12):
It's finally here there was no delaying it that's how i kind
of came into the showcase like what else are they going to do what
else they're going to do other than show us some great games because we've been
waiting for them to make their appearance and i think it's
it's the time is now thank goodness now while we didn't
get release dates on like everything but for me
the highlights perfect dark finally seeing some gameplay from

(02:33):
that game which was announced a long time ago and then
ending with not technically gear six i
think that was one of the questions that i had head watching is like is this six and
it's like no the team's kind of restructuring kind
of going into a different direction and going back to eday which like
i love the gears of war series like it's what one of
the things that in one of the things i appreciate having played

(02:54):
it before children and then having played it after
children is i can turn off the gore and the mature stuff and
the language and the language right and i
can still enjoy the game whereas in something like
for spoken last year didn't let me have
that that option and so it became you know things like in
life become restricted but for me those are the two biggest highlights what

(03:16):
were your two biggest game highlights do you do you have a kind of the king
i mean everybody would say gears e day was the big highlight but the two that
surprised me the most was of course perfect dark which i was expecting to see there,
but I was so glad I was, you know, yeah,
I was expecting a highly realistic.

(03:36):
Very, very, you know, I don't know.
I wasn't expecting a stylized game and I really like what I saw,
but I told people don't get excited about compulsion and South of midnight.
They still have a lot to prove. And Oh my gosh, did they prove it this weekend?
I am so excited for what they're doing.
And I'm so, I would say, I almost want to say I'm so proud of them,

(03:58):
but to see See them like make this game that has everything you want.
The third person camera, the traversal fantasy stuff.
Personality just pouring oozing out in that
in that game from the little bit we saw the three and a
half minute trailer yeah i was i thought south of
midnight really deserves all the accolades even
though the almost the entire show was phenomenal so yeah those standouts are

(04:22):
definitely perfect dark and south of midnight now i want to come back to perfect
dark here in a second but you since you brought up south of midnight yeah i
really enjoyed the aesthetic as somebody who's in Texas and has gone to Louisiana quite frequently.
I loved just kind of that Southern charm that was just like throughout the characters,

(04:43):
obviously with the giant catfish, made me kind of think back to like the movie,
like Big Fish and stuff like that.
So I was like, there was just a lot, I think that from a thematic perspective,
I'm looking forward to seeing how that game progresses because I don't believe
we got a release date for South of Midnight yet.
But I know- I don't even remember. i don't remember
there was so many games i was like oh wow yeah i think

(05:05):
i said 25 25 and we'll talk about that as we get in
the show about release dates but yeah yeah because i felt like
this show really set up basically kind of two years
like the next 24 months hopeful of
content so it's like that's where that's where
it's uh looking and feeling but back to perfect dark for a bit do you think
they're gonna have multiplayer in perfect dark or are they just gonna kind of

(05:27):
drop that and kind of stick with the narrative you know single player experience
yeah i think that's going to be just your single player golden eye plus day sex plus dying light.
Yeah. I think it's just going to be that it's just play the campaign and traverse
around a few futuristic Egypt and, and.

(05:47):
I wonder if they'll take you anywhere else. It seems to be, that'll be one of
the major location where everything happens, but I'm really excited about that.
And then the combat looks really great. And you're, you're looking at dynamics
and then Daryl Gallagher who did the Tomb Raider reboots and he's like,
oh, we're going to make a first person shooter.
And it looks like they know what they're doing. And that's because they bring
in tons of devs that have experience working across multiple genres and multiple games.

(06:11):
So I think what they're showing right now is, Hey, that's going to be a good game.
Yeah. I hope so. So I really do. Perfect Dark was one of those series that I
think really defined the N64 generation more so than GoldenEye.
I know people generally kind of shift their mind to GoldenEye,
but it was Perfect Dark that was doing just all these interesting things that
I was always hopeful that we would see that franchise make a return.

(06:34):
Now let's talk about kind of obviously the big, you know, gotcha moment in the
room was with the interview with Phil Spencer.
For me, I think Xbox has been very clear in signaling where they're going,
But for, you know, the diehard Xbox faithful,
the move to publishing more games in more places, every screen is an Xbox really

(06:55):
has had a lot of people just kind of wondering what their future with the brand is.
What did you think about what Phil had to say about, yes, that more games will
be coming to more platforms, specifically PS5, but also this would include Switch and Switch 2?
Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's been something that I've been revving up for and

(07:15):
being prepared like mentally for, for how that will be as an Xbox fan and talking to Xbox fan base.
It was, I think it was very early on in the year when this was being talked to.
I talked to people that start to hear this stuff as it's rumbling.
So I remember when we first heard about it, I was like, well,

(07:39):
I guess that doesn't shock me that they might put a lot or many games or most
games. That's kind of how I approach it.
I said, I told my friends, like I talked to Randall Thor 19 a lot about this
stuff and we, we analyze stuff over the phone and, and I said,
Rand, I could actually sell you on the idea to put every game on PlayStation and.

(08:00):
Just as long as game pass could grow. But Phil's answer was very contradictory
to what he was saying two years ago with Bethesda.
And we, we weaponized his very short statement where he said,
if you're an Xbox customer, I want you to know that this is all about bringing
you great games where game pass exists.
And we thought they're never going to put something on PlayStation other than Minecraft, right?

(08:25):
Unless game passes on a PlayStation. station but
fast forward to a year or two later when
a lot of us were very very wrong that the abk merger meant
the death of xbox having unique exclusives and
a full sprint to try and grow their console fan base and their xbox game pass

(08:46):
fan base first so it's really been all about as a fan saying what does this
mean for me what do i lose as an xbox fan the list war the the The console plastic war is what you lose.
And you can't really find any other reason that you could lose something with this.
What it means is Xbox used to make four games in a four-year time.

(09:10):
You know, you get a Gears, a Halo, a Fortnite. If you're lucky,
you got some Fable games. That was basically what you got from first party.
Correct. And now you're going to get, in a generation, you're going to get 20
to 30 games from their own studios.
So it's really been about acceptance as being someone like me who comes off
very strongly as a console fanboy.

(09:31):
I play half my time on PC and Xbox, and then I play the Stellar exclusives one
or two times a year on PlayStation. And that's really what I do.
And I don't mean to dance around your question. You're asking about Phil Spencer's statement.
Yeah, it was some word salad, and he was...

(09:51):
He could have been more direct about it, but I think the idea of exclusivity
is deteriorating out from underneath our feet as we go on in the years and PlayStation
and Nintendo, of course, will be the last ones to have to make major compromises
to what they do with exclusives.
But right now, if PlayStation puts out 10 games from their first party studios,
I say eight of those are coming to PC day and date, or I would say eight or

(10:15):
nine of those are coming to PC very soon, if not at launch.
And PlayStation would never have done that two years ago. No, never two years ago.
But as time progresses, that's where like with the PlayStation ecosystem and
their mindset, like we saw with their last, you know, kind of direct that they
literally brought like 13 of the 14 games they showed are also coming to PC.

(10:38):
And I think that while they're, you know, tentpoles,
like they're being true to the word, they're tentpoles, like the next God of War,
you know, whatever the franchise that you personally hold
dear will launch exclusively on the playstation i don't
know if in 10 years that will remain to be true but i
think easily over the next five you know plus years that's gonna that's gonna

(10:59):
be kind of be the their the course you know their their course of action i say
well how should i refer to you on the show call me ginger brian monty it's all
like I will respond to all of it.
Dude. We'll just call you dude. Ginger.
I think in 10 years time, this is my opinion. I think it'll be very hard to

(11:23):
say that consoles are even better.
As popular how do i say it
they're very very niche right now i know everybody talks about
consoles and 250 million people are on
console right now i think you have my favorite one right behind
your shoulder that's the logitech g cloud oh yeah
yeah and i get like a thing it is incredibly cool because it works with my xbox

(11:45):
my playstation my steam my geforce net like to the point where when we bring
back up to and i won't let you finish your thought in a second but to the point
where when we talk about PC day and date, right?
For PlayStation, when, when PlayStation officially launches their cloud app
on PC, which allows you to connect into their cloud services,

(12:07):
which I'm being told is on the way.
Well, that's, that's day and day, like regardless of whether you're running it locally or not.
Like if all of a sudden I don't need to own your hardware to play your games,
even if it's like, yes, I'm subscribed to your PlayStation plus service.
Like I'm all about that. I think that ends up being something that,
as somebody who has become only increasingly more busy with life and responsibility.

(12:32):
The ability to pick up that little handheld kickback and play,
and then all of a sudden, kids go to bed, and I'm like, you know what?
I'm going to have a higher fidelity experience.
Now, let me just move over. All my saves are all in the cloud.
I don't have to think about it. I don't have to worry about it.
It truly is an incredible experience.
But that's just the thought that I keep seeing and having. As technology advances,

(12:54):
we're seeing accessibility advance just as well.
And it's going to feel weird if you have a system that just only does one thing.
My son came to me and was like, hey, dad, can we play Smash on your computer?
No, son, I'm sorry, we can't. We have to have this for that.
And for him, obviously, he's young.

(13:15):
It was foreign to him because every other device in this house does everything that he wants it to do.
Yeah. Yeah. It's the future is probably not console in the next start of the next decade.
And it's hard for people to understand that because they think of, oh, the internet,
the infrastructure around the world doesn't make that possible,

(13:38):
but a digital untethered way to play games or on demand is really where the future is going to be.
And people always think of now like, Oh, it'll never work.
But if I go back 10 years, a lot of stuff that we enjoy would have never worked.
And I loved cracking open a CD case and taking a CD out and opening the book.

(13:59):
And I loved all that. I loved, I collected DVDs for a short time.
Yeah. I threw those in the garage one day and i was like i do not miss you and
on demand is really how we yeah it's it's how we.
Consume almost there you go like i uh
which one is that hold that up against the final fantasy too yeah yeah
and so it's like i actually this is i have two copies because the second one

(14:21):
is right there and then a couple of old nes games
that that i have but everything is 100
digital in this house i don't play off of
any physical media anymore i haven't in the last 10
years like as soon as the xbox one and ps4 generation
i just was like i'm just downloading these games i'm
not i'm not going to bother going to the store right and i would ask your audience

(14:43):
or other people just to think in a decade from now you know you and i'll be
like 70 or 80 years old in a decade from now right think about your smart tv
has enough compute in it to play games and.
Maybe the only problem is storing them. I want to get into all that,
but just think about your smart TV has to compute to play games.
Your smart TV already has most, a lot of people have that were able to cloud

(15:07):
stream with an ethernet cable plugged in.
And then they're like, this is like, this is like the real thing.
Or imagine a handheld that is, has a bigger screen.
Doesn't have to be so weighty or so in the future, you know,
tech will always shrink.
Stuff will get better. Like these things will change the way we play games.
And I think in the next decade, consoles will become like I treat my CD player

(15:29):
and my Blu-ray player, which I don't really use.
And that future actually could be really cool.
And we'll say, oh, yeah, I love back in the day when you bring home your game
or you download it and install it onto your SSD.
We'll always look back and say those things are great, but I think the future
will change. and PlayStation knows as much as Xbox.
They're just not in as much of a tight situation where they'll need to make

(15:53):
their IPs more ubiquitous to everybody in their own way.
Because like when you said God of War, you're talking about their big single-player,
first-party tentpole franchises.
They want those to keep pushing the PlayStation sales up because they're not slowing down.
And if I was working there, I wouldn't do that either. either right somebody somebody

(16:15):
might change though you have to yeah right yeah
somebody somebody at playstation looked at numbers and said look
if we hold those games for a year on console we'll make
enough money on the on the playstation sales that will offset what we could
get on pc well on xbox the opposite is true where they're like we we don't really
make a lot of money on the console and game pass comparatively to put those

(16:38):
games on pc day and date and put a few of them on PlayStation.
Now, before we get into that, I, I am at the point right now where I think.
Most Bethesda games and all of ABK games, I'm just gonna say most of ABK and
Bethesda games will launch day and date on all platforms that are available
because they have all these franchises.

(17:00):
But if Activision is working on a brand new franchise for Xbox,
maybe they're already planning that to be multi-plat, but Xbox wants to be one
of the biggest publishers and they want to give you.
It's weird, right? Because they, they're like, we have like four different console
models and we have different price tiers.
We want you to play on the, on the, uh, where is it? Yeah. We want you to play

(17:22):
on the G cloud. We want you to play on the PC or a handheld.
We're going to make a handheld.
That was a pretty cool conversation too. So the landscape's changing and Xbox
certainly can't do what PlayStation or Nintendo are doing.
They'll never make it right. They already have that market. It feels like this
is their sailing into the blue
waters moment that Nintendo did from the GameCube to the Wii generation.

(17:43):
Where they were looking at it and they're like, there's no way,
like both Microsoft and Sony can outspend us in hardware technology.
We're getting beat up in that department despite having their great IPs.
Nintendo's numbers were going down, down, down, and their handheld was doing just fine.
We then see them shift into the blue water strategy where we're like,

(18:05):
you know what? Y'all fight it out.
We're going to go be different and we're going to make money on the sale of
the console. What a dumb thing to do, too, is to come up with this Wii concept
and hope it would work. That had to be scary.
But then they follow it up with the Wii U, and then it's like the least of the
Wii U, we get to the Switch.
And so, like, I don't necessarily, I like Nintendo, and as I'm a professed Nintendo

(18:26):
fanboy, I like Nintendo in so much that there's things that they anger me about,
but yet I still hand them money.
So I'm a part of the problem when it comes to why Nintendo is one of the ways they are.
But beyond beyond nintendo like when we look at playstation
and xbox in this fight this feels like it's xbox is
going into that blue water strategy where they're going

(18:48):
to just say play wherever the heck you want which they've been doing
i think the thing that has held them back which we're
seeing things like steam deck and the acer and other things
come out those are cutting into that market share as
well and so i could see them bringing steam and
those those storefronts into the xbox ecosystem
so that if you're a gamer and you don't want

(19:08):
all the frustration that can be married with pc gaming oh no i got a driver
updater oh no like the new graphics this doesn't run on my graphics card and
now i gotta don't do that don't do that yeah pcs are a pain in the butt for
sure but that's yeah sometimes but you know if you want that streamlined console based experience.
Why yeah if windows is

(19:30):
xbox xbox is windows their original intent
was they wanted to have a windows device in
the living room because they were worried about sony capturing that and so with
them publishing their games everywhere shooting to be the biggest publisher
but also not abandoning hardware i think that's where part of the confusion

(19:50):
comes in because then people are trying to answer the question why even buy
an xbox what's your answer to the question
why even buy an xbox if that is a good question because if you buy an xbox for
exclusives i think people buy a console for more than just the exclusives i think.
I think one of the, one of the top reasons might be where their friends are playing,

(20:12):
but now so many of their favorite games are cross play that it's hard to get
out of that mindset that, Oh, I used to play call of duty with my friends on,
on PlayStation, but that's all different.
Or I play Fortnite with what, with my friends on, on the Xbox.
So those things are different. The controller makes it different.

(20:33):
The, the value system on the Xbox platform would get people over there.
Maybe someone says oh call of duty is on game pass
i'll go get an xbox but i'm like but you
don't need to you can you can play on pc if you
want to but the market says people are playing in a lot of places the market
also shows that xbox isn't doing as horrible as we thought they were in north

(20:56):
america they're doing pretty well but they're doing terrible on the other side
of the planet nobody really knows about them so the reasons to buy an xbox is
supposed to be choice and value,
but Phil literally sat there with Ryan McCaffrey at the IGN interview and said
exactly what you said, your words, play wherever you want.
He's going to like, he's like, we're making call the duty, go play it wherever

(21:17):
you want and we'll see you online.
He also knows that money's coming right back to us and we're going to funnel
back into the call duty machine and whatever ABK is doing.
So yeah, when you, if you're asking me that direct question, why buy an Xbox?
There's not really an easy answer for that.
Maybe it just, I haven't, I haven't used the box. I don't know. I have an easy answer.

(21:38):
You want to know if you want it, like why buy an Xbox if you want to,
like, that's such a, I think a pro consumer millions are buying them, right?
I mean, it's not like everyone always comes up with the no one's buying Xbox.
No, one's going to play that game. No one likes this that's trash.
But the reality is millions of people are buying an Xbox when Microsoft directly tells you,

(22:03):
you do not need to buy our Xbox series S or X and PlayStation's enjoying huge
success on people still on the PS4.
So play wherever you want. The landscape's changing and exclusivity as we know
it is changing in a lot of ways.
Now I got some comments starred that I'd like to kind of jump into,

(22:25):
but before I do, based off what we just talked about, do you think we're We're
going to see Halo and Gears, the tentpoles that people currently associate with
Xbox over on the PlayStation 5.
Gears E-Day, probably not, but there was this rumored Gears collection that
I thought, and I'd been told by some people,

(22:46):
you know, like, you know, the people who are like, Hey, I know stuff that Gears
collection was going to be announced at this showcase and would come to PlayStation.
It's an, it's an 18 year old game at this point. It's 50, I think it's 13 to
18 years from, from to the trilogy.
That's how old the game is. It's like, throw it on PlayStation. station
like i i don't know what to tell you

(23:08):
like if you're a playstation fan and you've waited
this long go play gears if you
don't want to buy an xbox yeah go play gears go
put that money and it's coming back into the coalition for whatever they're
making next is the xbox tax real though because they've been putting those games
on and it feels like the games are like incredibly well received and it's like

(23:29):
oh wow this is great yeah it is a fun game see you thieves way to go oh i Oh, yeah, it's perfect.
It's like and so that all of a sudden it calls into where you're like,
oh, I think sometimes we're just not honest with ourselves that we all have
these pre just, you know, pre biases when it comes down to it.
And when I read certain reviewers, it's like, I think it's just more important

(23:51):
to be open and honest about your bias.
Like, I'm a gamer on all platforms. I have every system, and my wife is hugely
supportive of me being a gaming nerd, and we spend money on gaming stuff.
But my preference would be... We have consoles in our house.
Oh, man. Dude, I have consoles that aren't even hooked up, and I'm just like,
I should hook this up to something maybe.

(24:13):
So I look at it though, I would say I'm definitely lean Xbox,
but I'm PC, you know, in that regards with cloud heavily in the cloud.
If anybody who's, you know, anybody who's been subscribing for any period of
time knows that I'm like, yeah, GeForce now, man, why would I need anything else?
Nobody has made that proposition outside of the fact that some games just aren't
on that service yet, but when it's all said and done, yeah, it's the only downside.

(24:36):
And it's just like the, the nerd in me is just like, why?
Like, there's a reason, and I don't know if it's a financial reason or what the logic is behind it.
Square Enix, for example, they put Octopath Traveler 1 and 2.
Maybe I think there's another game out there from them over on GeForce Now.
None of their Final Fantasy games, none of the online stuff.

(24:57):
Like, it just seems a little bit strange to me at this point.
And that's just the thing that I'm like, I really would love to know.
So if anybody out there who's listening to this actually knows why
i would i would love that level of education let's jump into some comments real
quick max says xbox has been a huge failure with many of the ps5 exclusives
not living up to the hype and still microsoft lays an egg i don't know how they

(25:20):
fix gears and they seem incompetent and out of touch what are your thoughts
did he did he put that comment up before the showcase.
This is yeah he put this for the showcase case he follows
it up with another comment though he says as an xbox 360
stand which i think is a real key indicator like i find the most anti-xbox people

(25:43):
are off of that 360 generation well there's a revelation in that but go ahead
yes and stan but said that these games where are they where is the new fable
skyrim looking rpg so that's their i guess complete thought what do you think,
well that's weird like that sounds like a a very very old comment I see Max
in the chat and shout out to you buddy appreciate you,

(26:05):
The first one was, could you pop it up again? Yeah. With your master controls. There you go.
Xbox has been a huge failure. Yeah. Over the past decade, like we said at the
beginning of the show, they've made so many missteps and they've just sat there and laid an egg.
Many of the PS5 exclusives not living up to the hype.
They've been doing pretty well, I think. The only problem with the PS5 exclusives

(26:29):
is they're really what I call PS4.5 games.
I just played them. It was really hard for me to enjoy Ragnarok like I did God
of War 2018 because I was like, I just did this.
And it felt like I just did this a year ago, right? And then still Microsoft lays an egg.
Microsoft just laid a golden egg this weekend. And I don't know how they fix gears, says Max.

(26:53):
Well, I'll tell you how they fix gears. They put a hold on finishing the story with Kate and Del.
They go back to young Marcus and Dom and they do a prequel origin story of the
big war, the gears and cog,
the genesis of that.

(27:16):
And we get to see how Marcus is not the same person as he was before.
They said that you're going to learn that Marcus is not this gruff,
tough guy until we play that game. And he grows into that person.
So, yeah, that's how you fix gears is you give the fans what they dreamed of.
And that was a prequel origin story.
So here's in a really good spot. Go to the next one, please.

(27:38):
Absolutely. So then you're doing a really good job running your show,
by the way. I got to say, I appreciate it.
I'm a professional who gave us a mic and a camera. I have no idea.
And hit, you know, here, I'll, I'll do some, some housework for you because.
I'm a big fan. If you're enjoying the show, give him a thumbs up, give him the subscribe.

(27:59):
I don't know why you're not subscribed, but share this out. If you're enjoying
the show and you think, Hey, this is a pretty good discussion.
Just send out a tweet or a, I don't know, something on Tik TOK, but we appreciate you.
All right. Max says as an Xbox 360 stand, we all are right.
It's sad that all that it's sad, but all these games, where are they?
Here's the revelation. the xbox 360 era

(28:22):
microsoft did nothing but money
had games the games that they own from their
studios were so few and far between when i
look back at all those games i love they didn't own epic they
didn't own playground games they didn't own
where they own bungie didn't they the whole
time yes bungie separated after odst

(28:43):
but then there was a transitional period with halo
4 as well so basically they had fable and
and halo were theirs but there was a lot
most of their big heavy hitters that you talk about that were
exclusive for a time or were their games
most of them were money-hatted games yeah and walker
with studios yeah with lost odyssey and miss walker and blue dragon dragon like

(29:06):
absolutely and it's like what else was there everyone talks about bioshock but
that was only exclusive because the ps3 wasn't out yet mass effect they made
mass effect they They didn't own Bioware and the sequel came directly Multiplat.
Their big heavy hitters in 360 era were
front loaded in the first half of
the generation with games they studios they didn't own and

(29:29):
then they finished off the last two years with
this connect garbage so i love
the 360 era but i remember bill gates talking about
it and i was like oh gosh like that was the downside of
the wii in my mind because it's like nintendo will
go off and do whatever the heck it wants and it found a lot of success and
then it's like micros everybody's tried to pivot yeah the microsoft you have

(29:51):
the play there's some good things that came out of that tech uh when
you start to think about how vr uh has exploded and
my say exploded i mean within the vr community the fact
that these these devices do exist and people are investing
you know copious amounts of money into it but beyond that yeah the connect era
and that's that bled into that mindset bled into the xbox one and that i think

(30:14):
from their marketing and tv tv tv like that That was just something where they clearly,
you know, where they did exactly what Sony did from the PS2 to the PS3, where they hubris.
Like, you know, PS3 coming out saying, you'll get two jobs to be able to afford a PS3.
And the answer was, no, we'll just go play a 360. Yeah, they're going to break.

(30:37):
But, you know, I don't need two jobs, though, you know, I can get that repaired.
But yeah, it was such a wild time. Like when they announced Play Anywhere,
like a lot of people, when I saw the reaction from, a lot of the like Xbox diehards
on Twitter with the, with the news that at Microsoft is bringing more games
to PlayStation. And yes, even more games are coming to PlayStation.
I think Starfield, the expansion launches on PlayStation and that's going to

(31:01):
be great. I think a lot. I don't think they're going to launch.
No, it won't. I thought it was, and there was talk, but no, I don't think Starfield
even dips over to PlayStation, not for another year, maybe not at all, but I mean.
I could be wrong, but if Starfield does come to PlayStation,
what a phenomenal package they'll get because it's seen such great changes.

(31:26):
I was always on that train. I guess the question would come down to mods because
PlayStation is no on mods and Xbox is yes and they just launched the creator control studio.
Well, it's the same thing where Xbox does the early access and PlayStation doesn't.
So Xbox by default got PAL World this year
and that's been the number one game my family i didn't want
to get into it of course i i there's many

(31:49):
many many reasons why i choose to play most
everything on xbox and there are all these little
things that add up to like there's no way i'm going to play everything on
xbox you know the game dvr is higher quality the
i like the controller better i really like fuel sense 5
there's just all these things you know with quick resume
it's such everyone all you know everyone will always make

(32:09):
fun of quick resume but when you use it all the time you're
like how could you not yeah there's just all these little things
that make the whole experience better and the
value and the flexibility and the moving moving my save over
on pc and pc's like hold on let me get your save from
xbox okay you're good here's all your characters yeah and
fallout handles it it's wonderful it handles it's all automatic right

(32:31):
and like i did this video
about fallout 4 mods when the next gen update released
least the video did really well a lot of people loved it
but the most frequent comment was why aren't
any of these mods on playstation and it was because playstation only
allows like 10 of the mod storage space on their
console on their platform than xbox does so xbox has this plethora of mods that

(32:55):
are available pc has like five times more and playstation has just this paltry
small amount of mods on their console so there's just things that there's all.
These reasons why people choose use consoles over others.
But yeah, it makes sense to me. Like, I don't I don't see the console going away.
I think that's one of the things back to kind of the the evolution of the industry

(33:15):
that you and I are both, I think, on the same page about where the industry
is going in terms of like hardware and how that's going to be coupled.
I think that those things are going to remain. I think when people hear these
conversations being had, they're saying like all of a sudden the only way you
can play games is by cloud streaming.
And it's like, no, I think that's just going to become an option in the tool
belt for whatever you want to be as a consumer.

(33:36):
If you want to have the highest fidelity running the game right in your living room, you can do that.
We're not going to stop you. And with Microsoft supporting that mindset,
I think that's where we've seen the blossoming of things like the Steam Deck
and the Rogue and the handheld market, because all of a sudden you can actually...
Exists as a handheld where before nintendo had that locked

(33:57):
down anybody would try to step into that arena would get
beat because they don't have the exclusives and that's
been what the model was and that with that shift now we're seeing
all kinds of new options opening up and hopefully those
find success you know with with customers because
otherwise then they'll just go away yeah i talked to
the the former head of hardware services

(34:18):
a while ago and now he works at amazon on and
he used to he kind of would lecture me and say colt
don't get in the way of technology like i would say that's never
going to work why would they do that and he's like don't get in the way let
technology advance because when you're talking about cloud maybe the future
is cloud does half of the workload and then and the hardware does the other

(34:40):
half and since speeds of technology and the shrinking of tech will come in all
into concert in the next decade maybe with
this mix of cloud and hardware and 10 years from now,
it just, it just works as Todd Howard was saying, maybe that's, there's like a hype.
Well, I mean, Xbox is talking about a hybrid system.
So yeah, I think we, we need to like sit back and say, I hope they're not too

(35:05):
far ahead because when you talked about connect and all the things that Xbox
did ahead of time with the TV, TV and the, and the speaking your device.
They get too far ahead of this stuff.
And people repulse, they repulse it
like when they see that that fake robot that's supposed to look
like a human and they're like i don't like it it's scary and also
where it's like i don't want a microphone listening to me all the time and fast

(35:28):
forward five years later and everything that we have is listening to us all
the time it's like oh my gosh yeah hey hockey puck what's the weather like outside
yeah i have sent your social security number out to all your enemies so they
all thank you I appreciate that. I appreciate that.
I want to jump into another comment here from chemistry over on Twitch says
I was highly surprised by their showcase.

(35:49):
I've never been a fan of Xbox personally. Their first party games usually weren't my thing.
I want to see a reason for me to buy an Xbox, but with less and less exclusivity,
I can't find a reason to get an Xbox versus getting a game on PC or PS5 with that kind of comment.
That's usually where when people ask me, we were talking about like why buy
an Xbox is like, well, if you if you want to, I like that option, but you don't need to.

(36:12):
Because every screen you have can be your Xbox and you can kind of play the way you want.
But if you do want exclusives right now, that is the PS5 and whatever the switch,
you know, switch obviously is like, I mean, nobody wants a console because no
one else can get the games.
But I would say if you're trying to decide if you should even pick up an Xbox, I would say no.

(36:34):
If you can afford to have both, you'll never miss anything, you know,
for, for the majority of the world, having two consoles is kind of a,
it's kind of obnoxious, right?
But if you're hardcore and you're in a chat for, for video game podcasts and
you're in your online and everything, like you're probably hardcore enough to
say, should I just go buy a used Xbox and throw it in there?

(36:56):
Because I would say, if you don't want to wait, if you see something that looks cool,
like let's say fable is like your jam you love
fantasy rpgs and you're like that's probably coming
to playstation but i have to wait a year for that
to come out i don't want to wait till it eventually comes to playstation i
would say get an xbox in any way that
or or pc or whatever but you know a lot

(37:19):
of people say i'll pick a console because it's more affordable
and and there's less to deal with it's
way more affordable but yeah i'll buy the next
xbox if it does support things like steam and
and and just opens up the operating system
so that it has that xbox boot up
that quick resume even though like blammo says they've had

(37:40):
some issues i've actually also had a few issues with quick resume
and that's usually the and i always kind
of chalk that up to the way that we use it switching profiles between for me
and the kids and it's like oh we have your resume here and it's like that ends
up not necessarily being oh picture perfect but it's still when it's It's just
me and I just want to boot up a game and return to the game that I was last

(38:02):
in and the kids have been away at the grandparents works flawlessly.
Yeah, my biggest problem with Quick Resume is a couple of games have not unlocked
some achievements while playing a session out of Quick Resume.
Like I lost, I don't know, five or six achievements in Psychonauts 2 and another game.
It's not very often, but it's something that developers are like,

(38:23):
oh, we're supporting Quick Resume and they don't fully flesh it out and Xbox
needs to iron out wrinkles, but for the most part, it works pretty great, but.
Excellent. Excellent. Yeah, I'm going to buy the next Xbox most likely because
like I fully believe I've been saying that they were going to go this direction
for a long time based off everything that I hear from the team.

(38:44):
It just makes sense, especially when you start to think about how the Steam
box tried to launch and it just couldn't find, you know, it's ground.
This is that that hybrid, whether it's, you know, cloud computer or hybrid.
I think it could be now though.
I've talked about that a lot on my show. Like the, the steam box,
if you know what he's talking about was a console like PC that,

(39:06):
you know, closed box that look cool and could sit in your entertainment center.
I think it launched at like $800.
And that was 10 years ago. The market was like, I don't know.
Maybe that works. Now there's rumors that Xbox is going to allow other manufacturers
to make their own PC like console boxes.
Right. But the problem is like, how do you, If you're Lenovo and you want to

(39:28):
make this small box form factor set PC that has the Xbox dashboard and then
has Steam and Epic and everything else, how do you make money off of that?
Xbox subsidizes that by making games. Lenovo is not making games.
So it's kind of a dicey business proposition. The other thing I wanted to say
is I'm very confident that Steam is coming to the next Xbox and this handheld.

(39:50):
And people are like, well, what does that even mean? I've asked the same question,
but I own a hundred plus games on Steam.
Like big games and i have some that i don't own on console or aren't back compat like the saboteur.
Saboteur is such a great game and i i can't play that on console because it
didn't get back compat studio closed so i could play that at 6 4k 60 on series

(40:15):
x right now if it had steam right so these are cool things the other thing i
want to say this got me in a lot of trouble yesterday on twitter i
said yay that's the somebody was like are you staying out
of trouble on twitter i go that doesn't sound like any fun like no
no one is safe not even jeff keely
i put out a tweet about the xbox handheld what's

(40:35):
that i always mispronounce his name because of my dyslexia i go geoff
wait no jeff oh geoff and it's like
just because like my my brain is is broken in some respects
that's a very very unique way to
spell jeff and it reminds me of garbage pill kids but
i'm old there's a a character named deaf jeff and he's
had a ghetto blaster and it was blowing his brains out it's awesome

(40:55):
anyway deaf jeff what was
it what did you do i don't remember what i was saying oh the handheld i said
the xbox handheld i'll have something that no other handheld hold on yeah go
ahead while he waits i'm getting a uh oh okay for those of you listening to
the audio version of this podcast colt has stepped away briefly from the mic
he has now returned he was going to get some visual aids.

(41:18):
We will try to big smile, my face to the auto description.
I have the ROG ally. Nice. Oh, it's got fingerprints all over it. Right.
Expensive device. Really cool. But Xbox is handheld. Have something that the
ROG or the steam deck will never have or doesn't have.
And that's all of those games that you would expect from the ROG ally.

(41:38):
Plus every game you own on Xbox, which includes back to pad that covers three
year, four generations or three generations. Right.
And I put that tweet on people didn't understand when I said,
because xbox right now has over 4 000
games that are playable on xbox series s and x consoles
because of the library that exists and the

(41:59):
other generations of back and pat xbox one 360
and xbox original so i said that
the proposition if you're gonna buy if you're
looking one day in a year or so you're looking you're like should i
get the the brand new rog ally or should
i get that xbox handheld if you're working on
stories you say i'd buy the xbox one because it

(42:20):
has access to games that pc doesn't have or better yet it has access to your
games you own already and it's going to have your saves that'll come over from
the cloud automatically and people didn't understand that when i said in the
tweet because i can load this up and play pc game pass but i can't play.
I don't know like Assassin's Creed Odyssey with my

(42:42):
play my my my 150 hour
save or I can't play a an Xbox
360 back and pack game that's not supported on
Windows or you can't buy it anymore which is most
of the 360 PS3 era games that are multi-platinum there
are so many of them that you can't even buy them they used
to come out on a CD this is a whole thing right these come

(43:03):
out on a cd or the stores that you like bro
i know you're gonna love this all right war for cybertron or fall of cybertron
are phenomenal games right remember them transformers yeah you can't buy them
right if you try to buy it on g2a or whatever it's like 150 bucks or 70 plus
dollars for one guy with one digital key that he's been holding in his pocket

(43:25):
protector waiting for someone to buy it.
Yeah. PC doesn't have everything. And I think that Xbox is going to have all
these steam games, the Epic store, and it's going to have everything that the Xbox already has.
And then here's the kicker because of
steam, it's going to have all of the PlayStation games that go to steam.
So have you heard of the, yeah.

(43:45):
Have you already heard of the counter argument for that, that Sony would just
block those games from running?
I want to hear your opinion on that. Cause I don't, I'm not,
I have no idea how they could do that legally.
I mean, I mean, maybe there's some maneuvers that they could do,
but you're running, at this point, it's Windows, right? And Xbox already runs Windows.
They just say, this is the only way you can buy games. And within all the different

(44:08):
legal things we're already seeing, those are getting broken up as monopolies.
So they're, in a way, ahead of the ball. So I don't I don't know what legal
recourse Sony would be able to manufacture to say, yes, these Steam games run
everywhere except for on this piece of hardware.
That just seems like, wait a minute, like, well, what's going on?

(44:30):
Because when I purchased that Steam game, it didn't say that I couldn't do this.
It would be kind of like their thing, what they did with Held Iris 2 and with
PlayStation Network, which actually I fully support them making that like an optional integration.
I was like yeah let's give me my give me
my saves and give me my trophies and 100 i'll link i'll link these things together

(44:51):
not a problem let's get into how ridiculous that sony blocking those games on
xbox handheld sounds all right i mean it it would show how threatened they are
by that xbox logo right right this this one.
It's not blue, man. It's not blue right now. Yeah. Oh, here,

(45:11):
here's, here's a green one. So yeah, they have.
They have all of PlayStation's games that are on Steam are playable on a Windows
PC that is owned by Microsoft that also runs Xbox.
They're definitely not afraid of that. But are you telling me that if one day
of Xbox says, we're going to make an Xbox PC and instead of,
well, there's no Windows logo on a PC.

(45:31):
It's the most ridiculous premise to think that PlayStation would go out of the
way to block their games being played on an Xbox or a Windows handheld.
And i would say that maybe they'd have
to lock it on all windows they'd have to
they'd have to do it they'd have to do it across the board where
it's like all of a sudden all handhelds and you know

(45:53):
and still i think there would be class action lawsuits that would
be that would hit them and get that reversed i
don't know how that works but i i would i would
think how in the world are they going to even attempt that and i
would say hey maybe they might try or maybe they they'll look
into it but i don't think that works we talked
about this a little bit earlier eric eric writes don't they already block

(46:14):
geforce now or something and yeah none of the sony games are
on geforce now that are on steam but that isn't a sony thing we said we saw
the same thing with granix now microsoft fully supports geforce now and so pc
game pass is on geforce now it's like it is all set up and and rocking and rolling
even battle.net games are there now so microsoft is is just going.

(46:37):
All in on, on GeForce now, which is, which is excellent.
But I do wonder if we'll see Sony decide to support that service or if they'll
just push people into the PlayStation, you know, streaming service that they,
that they have right now, but they'll continue to open that up over the, over the long run.
That's interesting. When you look at the monopoly arguments that went on last
summer and in strong force, where everybody became a lawyer.

(47:03):
Yeah. Even me. Yeah. Yeah.
Where, where Xbox is like, okay, we'll put our games on G force.
And maybe some of that was from push from the FTC, but PlayStation is not getting
the same push, but they also aren't making big acquisitions like Xbox was.
So I don't think the FTC is going to be proactively looking for PlayStation
to be included on G force now, or, you know, so whatever.

(47:27):
Yeah. I don't think it's a block situation, but we're not lawyers. We're not lawyers.
That's why I was like, it would be a very interesting legal argument to be made.
Because I've seen people make that and they're making it out of this place of
fear because they're like, I don't want PlayStation to change.
So if all of a sudden, I don't need to own a PlayStation to play my PlayStation
games, that's where that usually is, I think is coming from a couple of people.

(47:51):
And that's where they were like, but Sony will just block it.
I'm like, I don't think so.
I don't think they can. Now they could stop publishing to Steam.
They could stop publishing to PC, but I don't think they're saying that either.
Either like you said and i've said like their last showcase 13 out
of 14 of those games are on pc they and
if they try to make their own store live service like concord on

(48:13):
pc it's interesting that concord's getting so much hate
because i was like that actually seemed it looked somewhat interesting
did you let's talk about i think it looks cool a little bit yeah yeah
the concord looks cool but it's up
against four of the biggest most popular
free to play in that genre so
it was they showed it in the same showcase as the

(48:35):
marvel overwatch so people immediately like
i was like how well will that do do you think that that marvel rivals if
the gameplay is good if they if they nail the gameplay they already got the
nostalgia factor so if the gameplay isn't garbage you're gonna like my kids
and i will want to sit down and play that you know like that looks really interesting
yeah but it's going to be 100 whether that has good gameplay or They're not,

(48:58):
they've already got everything else.
So if they nail that, that I think that's going to be a game that has a huge
potential to really kind of, you know, shut down, you know, some of those other
things like, oh, I'd rather play as a Spider-Man anyway.
I've always wanted to, you know, or something like that. Well,
there's some cool looking characters there, but I, I would predict that.
And I could be wrong. I've been wrong half the time.

(49:21):
That Concord gets announced for PS plus last minute, like maybe a month before launch.
I think that would be the right move to do. You know, foam stars went up against
a pretty strong current and didn't make it out the other side.
The same thing with destruction, all stars.
And it's easy to say these things would be very similar, but the gun play looks
very destiny like, which means it's going to be really solid.

(49:44):
You know, you're not just hip firing like most characters in overwatch.
So it looks like it's going to be really enjoyable. And the visuals are pretty awesome.
Them hopefully the characters are amazing we can connect to them
but we'll see what happens yeah it's gonna be interesting how
the rest of this year shakes out i would like to talk a
little bit about game pass now because that was one of the key moments that
everything that we saw in the xbox showcase it was like coming to game pass

(50:07):
day and date and for me when we were looking at the first half of this year
with all the you know the drama that unfolds on twitter about the state of Xbox,
the rumors that they were not going to publish games into Game Pass,
but this ultimately goes and confirms that they're still continually to be completely
invested in Game Pass as a service.

(50:28):
The big takeaway, I think, was obviously Call of Duty coming into Game Pass this year.
What do you think about their Game Pass offering and that as a service,
especially as we look at the next 24 months?
Well, finally, finally is what I think because the last year,
past two years have been very very light for game pass
and they're like oh game pass isn't growing as much i'm like

(50:50):
where you don't have enough games right like there's i
don't know why people don't understand that if you want to sell consoles or
you want to sell your service or you want your brand to be big you have to have
big games and you have to have them often you can't have red fall uh the one
of your worst games in the spring and then wait all the way to the end of year
and give them starfield and then make them wait almost another nine months for

(51:12):
hellblade which is out which is done in a week.
Like you have to have a consistent bang of games every three months. We're finally here.
So game pass is actually going to see a pretty big growth over the next year
because you're going to have a vowed and Indy and Lintlock and,
I can't don't, don't make, don't put me on the spot right now.
It's crazy. Call of duty.

(51:34):
And then next year you'll probably have doom. I say dooms out by like may of 2025.
Hopefully they have something in the, in the early part of 2025.
Those that's the only thing that could grow game pass. And we already know that
they're making three to $4 billion.
I'll say three, I'll go on the lower number because that was something they
reported. They're making 3 billion in revenue just off of game pass.

(51:55):
And they're not making money on the console, but if you, if they kind of look at all their
things they're doing we're selling on steam we're doing our pc
game pass xbox game pass we're selling
consoles and everything it's making its own amount of money some
stuff's down some stuff's up but when i watch phil spencer talk to ryan mccavery
sounds like they're pretty happy with the way things are going and they finally

(52:17):
have the skull and the crusher you know filling up the magazine with with bones
ready to fire out we've been waiting way too long for this and And that's been my major complaint.
I have a co-host on my podcast, a middle-aged game guy.
He's very half PlayStation, half Xbox.
And he always slams the table and says, you need games all the time to grow.

(52:40):
And we've been asking for Xbox to do it. And the showcase showed us that they finally have games.
So yeah, Game Pass is finally in a good spot because it was not good for a couple
of years. That was a long rant.
I'll take a break. I love it. I love it. So as a thought experiment then,
because i i 100 agree with you
about games games are going to be what define and

(53:00):
and it's why we're all here we're here to actually play games i
see the future shifting from hardware into ip meaning
like these are franchises new franchises coming
up established franchises are are seeing you know
resurgence personally speaking i think it would have been
a 10 out of 10 if they showed off a banjo-kazooie game but we're
still waiting and hoping for something in

(53:21):
that that's especially after astro from and i'm
excited about the astro game on playstation that looks great i
was like i love mario odyssey we haven't seen
people step into that arena with nintendo bro astrobots
gonna be so good that there's no way it's not
going to be amazing and it might even get a game of the year nod because that
that game's amazing i'm gonna be picking that up day one a hundred percent because

(53:43):
it's like i want to play that with and with the kids i think it's i think i
was like this looks great but beyond astro and you know again like i said if
they showed up with banjo I would have given him a 10 out of 10 for the for the show,
but without that they showed off another game World of Warcraft That's now a
part of the Xbox ecosystem.
That's now also on GeForce now That is now and they only showed it obviously on PC.

(54:06):
So it does the slowly start to support controller It's a legacy MMO,
but it's still the biggest MMORPG out there to date Do you think we won't stop playing that?
Do you think as a thought experiment okay what
would be the impact of them adding in the

(54:26):
subscription to wow into game pass
something maybe at the ultimate tier or adding it as just kind of an add-on
get wow for an additional five dollars a month or something like that how much
is wow a month is it 10 or 14 it is 15 yeah same thing for final fantasy 14
which i don't know if you saw all the people trying to like dog on like we're

(54:47):
selling game on xbox i'm I'm like,
we've been actively telling people don't purchase it because Dawn Trail is literally
right around the corner,
so that way you don't have to buy it and then buy it again.
Just play on the free trial and enjoy. Final Fantasy XIV came to Xbox,
but you still have to subscribe to it, right? It's not on Game Pass.

(55:10):
Now, if you have Game Pass, and I don't know if this is still going on,
you get the base game for free. You can redeem the base game as a Game Pass perk.
It isn't necessarily you know oh okay okay
well that's actually pretty good yeah bad deal i took that
i took that advantage and then i'm gonna buy dawn trail
on xbox and that will unlock all the you know

(55:30):
all the previous i'm afraid to load up those games because i might like never
get anything accomplished but i i think
i gained a lot of weight and i quit and so i've lost
70 pounds so i'm like there is definitely something thank
you i still got about uh 40 more to go but we're all
we did at the Xbox showcase with our friends
in person was just eat and then

(55:51):
you know talk games and then yeah when I on the
flight home I was like yeah that was a good time what was the thought experiment
with wow sounds like a $15 a month wow being added to ultimate without a price
hike sounds not like a plausible thing they could do there's very strong rumors that,

(56:12):
I thought we would hear about it. And maybe it's something that they do later
on in the year is that they're going to increase game pass another couple of
bucks, the ultimate tier,
and that they were going to move all of their first party content to only ultimate
subscribers, which means you get every first party game, you get access to multiplayer
and you get access to PC game pass as well.

(56:34):
Hmm. I, I don't know. You, you have to pay for the subscription to elder scrolls online.
Line so i wouldn't think in the thought experiment that they would bundle any
other it's in eso it's an optional subscription it is not required to actively
log in and play the game yeah exactly yeah all their content yeah i did a whole
thing on that their whole all their content is available.

(56:58):
Not all the expansions right i can't remember i i don't know my thought experiments
i don't think they would bundle those into game pass if that's what you're asking
the odds are incredibly low, but it's the, what's the, the impact is the,
is the real thought experiment question.
If they did do something like that, not how they would do it. Urge in game pass.

(57:19):
Even if, like you said, if the, if they said, let's say game pass ultimate is,
I think with tax, it's like $18 us a month, 18, 17.
Okay. Good. Yeah.
If they're like for $22.50 a month, you get all of this. Plus you get the subscription to wow.
And then they have to throw something else in there. Yeah.

(57:39):
They have a team or something. Oh, dude. I say bundle 14. Be like,
baby, you thought, you thought I yelled when Phil Spencer walked out on stage
for that freaking event.
Oh, buddy. I'd be like, you gotta be good.
Let's go. It would be insane. And I told people it was going to be insane when
they announced it and they didn't believe me. And it's still,
I find it incredibly, very flattering when people are like this, you bro.

(58:02):
And they're like, send me like an image or, or a video of me reacting to that, that moment.
They're like, you love Phil Spencer. I'm like, yeah, man, whatever.
I watched that whole thing go down over and over. I'm like, you guys are pitiful.
Oh, it's I love it. I love it, man. I'm like, I don't know why I just,
I'm, I I'm never offended by anything.
I'm just like, oh, cool. People are talking about me. This is cool.

(58:25):
I love it yeah but i
was like it was a moment but good yeah
i love that how many subscribers are on let's just
say final final final final fantasy 14 how many subscribers do they have so
they announced at this kind of this year going into don trail that from a active
account or an account they have 30 million plus accounts now that does not mean

(58:49):
active subscribers you would estimate based off of, you know,
like we do our internal numbers,
roughly probably somewhere in a million active subscribers to the game.
Now that's going to go up and that goes up and down.
It's about to fully go up with the Lisa Dawn trail and then it will dip back down after the fact.
But that's why like when we just think about just the impact,

(59:12):
right now there are two mainstay MMORPGs on the market that have a massive player
base and that's WoW and that's Final Fantasy XIV. both require a subscription.
If they brought wow gate to game pass, it would be really weird not to also
try and bring final fantasy to game pass at the same time, both from the value

(59:34):
proposition, but it would also be like, listen, you.
Why not right like you know you're going to make more money by
all of a sudden opening up your game to more people and
then you have you know wow is more notorious for the cash up and their token
how expensive is that for xbox to make that worth their while and what portion
of people would say all right i'm canceling my sub i'm going to do this all

(59:55):
i don't know i think you would see some people actually keep both because there
are some people who are just like oh this is just an
additional way that I can thank the devs for playing this game.
You know, like that's some, you know, that's a portion of the population too.
Yes, there would be some movement, but assuming that WoW has,
you know, several million, which is basically kind of the assumption that we

(01:00:18):
see, like then they added that, you would just add that number to the Game Pass totals.
And then it's like, yep, Game Pass is now at 40 million. And then who knows what else?
I think for me, that would actually have me play WoW. i i'm
not connected into that franchise i've touched it
from time to time i think the you know i have i had a
max character for one expansion but it wasn't it's

(01:00:39):
not my game right final fantasy has always been the game
that i've most gravitated towards as i showed off my final
fantasy 2 super nintendo i actually have two of
them like i said but just in case just in
case that's the one behind you yeah i see yeah that's the one and then yeah anyway
we yeah that's my
backup the uh for my snes the uh

(01:00:59):
but yeah so it's like that would be such i think a tectonic shift
in just the mmorpg landscape but also in the service-based landscape because
i've you know i wish that square enix would add final fantasy 11 and 14 into
the same subscription but they keep those completely separate and it's just
like well i guess i'm not gonna you know not going to participate in that endeavor.

(01:01:22):
And so that's where I was like, I'm always interested because people were like,
oh, you think it's going to happen?
I was like, I think the odds are incredibly, incredibly low for them to do that.
That would be something that would be so worth shattering though,
that I think is worthwhile at least a discussion.
It's probably way too risky to disrupt your, your market anyway.

(01:01:43):
You know, when you talk about final fantasy combining their,
their things into one subscription, they're like, but everything's going so well right now.
And I think that's why PlayStation is still holding out on keeping some games
exclusive to the console.
Because if you look at the graph, you're like, it's still going up.

(01:02:03):
Like we're outselling the PS4 slightly.
Like why let's just, let's just hold on.
There's no rush yet chrono says
he thinks that you'd get an initial search for wow players for
sure but they would think that the console release for a while makes more sense
at that point mouse and keyboard is already supported for those games
and that's another option something i don't ever really consider is like oh
yeah i guess you could play on console wow and the controller mod is like really

(01:02:27):
really popular too and xbox supports mods and xbox supports mods so like i do
wonder if we'll end up seeing that because they announced it at their showcase
obviously with the expansion and the date.
And I think it'd be interesting because we know there'll be another showcase
next year. We'll be another showcase the year after that.
What did they not show as kind of our final thought before we wrap up today's show?

(01:02:48):
They didn't show banjo. I don't
think banjo exists. There was rumors that platonic was working on it.
And from someone that I heard it from, I was just kind of, I didn't really believe
it, but I wanted to get excited about it.
If it was real, they didn't show contraband. And I think maybe they need another

(01:03:09):
year and I would rather see it when it's ready than not. What else are they missing?
There was one more big game they didn't show. I can't remember any updates on Halo.
That's a tumultuous thing going on with Halo. There's been a lot of rumors about
a shelved project or a spinoff.
We didn't get anything about the supposed Fallout 3 remaster and the Oblivion

(01:03:34):
remaster, which is like almost a four-year-old leak at this point.
Because they kept dropping Bethesda, and it's like, oh, is this going to be
Elder Scrolls 6 or Oblivion? And I'm, I would love to see them remake oblivion.
Cause I know there's so much Skyrim love out there, but oblivion,
I thought was for me, was more the elder scrolls that I really,
really enjoyed playing and would love to see that.

(01:03:54):
But do you believe that they would remask that they would remake fallout three and oblivion?
Because right now you already get them at, at a up res plus,
you know, 60 frames on Xbox console via backup at and their system.
I don't think there's a need. it just ends up being something
like okay we're going to do this because we

(01:04:15):
want to but yeah like you make an echo point three like
re just overhauled what
do you want to see fallout three or fallout six or so or five
or something like that i mean i would i want to see fallout five but
until they can get ready to launch
elder scroll six in 2027 or
2028 fallout three is not not gonna be in full

(01:04:36):
production until after that fallout 5 fallout 5
sorry fallout 5 is not coming out till 2032 or
2035 when when consoles are
gone uh no i'm just kidding yeah i want i wanted to see something and like phil
said that they the need for something fallout besides uh 76 they have to do

(01:04:57):
something so they're quietly talking about something behind the scenes and it's
i don't think it's the obvious answer.
I'll just give it up to city and they did new Vegas.
No, they're too busy. They've got major projects underway.
So something will surprise us that is fallout related, but that's a whole other discussion in itself.
It is. I think so much. Well, what? Yeah, go ahead.

(01:05:20):
I was going to say for me, uh, the act, no real discussion of X cloud,
you know, and improvements to that ecosystem where, for example,
I can't play the games that I own on X cloud.
I can only play the game if it's in game pass.
And like yeah that like i think that would be something that
personally speaking i would really like to see open them

(01:05:41):
open up that platform and i don't think then at the
showcase makes a lot of sense to get into the technical details but
then in the interview with you know ryan with ign i was
like oh this might be a good opportunity for that and you didn't ask and
we didn't ask anything about it and i was like yeah i know that cloud is probably more
niche but x cloud when i look at it as in
geforce now playstation and x cloud

(01:06:03):
it's like it's in last place for me from you
know a feature feature list where playstation is is accelerating accelerating
and like i said rumors are that they're going to have a being able to launch
a ps you know five game from a in a cloud from your pc uh every single xbox
series s and x game the 4000 plus games we talked.

(01:06:24):
About those are all playable on the cloud but they're
just not allowed yet right so exactly so
that's the thing that was missing for me that was the one i
was like oh man we didn't get anything that like that this week
and we didn't get any activision and blizzard game pass
or back and pat drops and that was talked about for
a while that they were going to throughout the

(01:06:45):
year they're going to sprinkle in a handful of games for every game
pass drop instead of just dropping and a bunch of them and that
the back of pat team is going to go back and look at games that
could be brought into the xbox library now
that they own them and they didn't have
to do it there but i'm hoping we hear about it soon yeah i do think that we
have to that we we will hopefully hear about that soon because there is so much

(01:07:09):
to digest because that was a meaty you know showcase one that really kind of
harkens back to what e3 used to feel like where everybody would get
together and all this craziness would ensue.
But I think hopefully we see over the course of the next several weeks and months
that those do get rolled out.
And it doesn't need to come as an announcement because then every time that

(01:07:30):
they go and announce it, then the conversation is like, oh, what do you think
they're going to announce next?
So it ends up adding in much more earned media when they're able to kind of
trickle that out rather than saying, by the way, the thing that we're doing,
which everybody believes they're to be doing, we're doing it.
Oh, great. Are there any games today? No.
Well, tell me when I can play the game and I will go play that game.

(01:07:54):
Colt, where can people find you, sir?
They can find me on Twitter at cold Eastwood or YouTube at cold Eastwood.
And when I have some time, I will be covering some of the games that we saw
that showcase and diving into what Xbox has coming.
And it should be a really exciting time, but best of all, I'll be on Xbox playing

(01:08:15):
a crap ton of games, like looking forward to big multiplats as well.
Like Sasquatch shadows is a, is a big winner too.
And, uh, and Star Wars outlaws. So there's a ton and I'll be playing games and check,
me out if you want to hear more i have the xc podcast which is
every monday at 5 p.m pacific 8 p.m eastern
time and we'll talk about games there as well and maybe

(01:08:35):
get some people on to talk about that with us and it's good
to be on here i appreciate it dude thank you so much for making the time man
i was just like this is so fun to watch the showcase i was like let's talk xbox
all right let me see if colt is free and you were so i appreciate you making
time for the show today thank you to chat and everybody who's been here and
thank you guys for the 42 likes here on the stream.

(01:08:56):
I kept ads off of the YouTube because YouTube lets me do that.
So I don't know how long they'll let me do that, but for the short term,
we're going to try to keep ads from interrupting the content here while we're alive.
But if you watch this as a VOD or you're listening to this as an MP3 audio,
thank you so much for doing so.
If you want to be able to subscribe to these podcasts and more,
the top link in the description will get you to everything that you could possibly

(01:09:18):
want that I make on the internet, which is probably over too much.
Like, I think that's, that's, that's a review.
That's yeah. That's my self review that I think is shared by many people of
like, he makes a lot of stuff. I'm like, thank you.
All right, guys, I'm going to run the outro and we will see you when we see
you. But until then, peace.

(01:09:41):
Music.