The Evolution and Future of Xbox

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Music.

(00:42):
Hello, everyone, and welcome to a special episode of Epic Loot Radio.
We got a roundtable of epic proportions to talk about the news.
And I'm very curious as to everybody's thoughts. I could guess a couple of thoughts,
but I'm curious to see if we got anything good out of this week.
But let's go ahead and go around the roundtable here and introduce everybody. We'll start with Lono.

(01:05):
Thank you so much for jumping over with us today. Who are you and where can people find you?
You well yeah i'm lono reforge gaming is the
best place to find me on twitter and on youtube and glad
to be here this is it's i haven't done something like this
in a while it's been really tough with the schedule to do some of the podcast all
right what about you j-dub what's going on everybody you guys know where to

(01:27):
find me i'm going on twitter at j-dub city 16 if you want to catch me on youtube
at j-dub for you all right kirk the at warmer gray is in my little name tag
there and check out my YouTube channel. What's new video games?
Got some reviews up on the channel that need some love. So go check those out.
They need some views real bad.

(01:48):
But yeah, I put a lot of effort in those and you might find a new game that
you might want to try out. And Mark.
Hey everyone, my name is Mark. You could find me at Mark Liberto on Twitter.
Nice long Italian name. And late to the game on YouTube.
I mean, I'm loud and I make games too.
So that's how I'll describe myself. yourself late to the game first

(02:09):
to the podcast yeah there you go it's all
right anyway today we're we're gathered around to talk
about what is perhaps the worst handled
marketing campaign that they produced of this podcast it was the literal worst
case scenario because they didn't tell us anything they confirmed basically
everything okay thank you i'm so glad that you actually think that oh yeah like

(02:32):
this was so worried to be very clear i fully support their their vision of games being everywhere.
Right. So that like, I'm like, I think they're making the right moves for the longterm.
But what we got today was dog crap. And I'm going to keep it family friendly.
Nothing, nothing burger. Well, not even a nothing burger. Oh, only four games.

(02:53):
Oh, but don't take this as a signal that it's going to happen.
You know, more games are going to come BS.
Everybody's going to take that as a signal that it's that more games are also
on the table and there's no, No.
Actual announcements for the game that it's going to be.
So it's still, and they were like, it's not Starfield and it's not Indiana Jones.
I could care less because there's a huge catalog and Xbox fans,

(03:18):
in my opinion, they didn't get the value trade-off, right? I get it as a player.
I like, I'm like, this is, this is great for gamers, but for the Xbox fan boy,
like the diehard Xbox fan boys out there, what do they get out of this?
And anybody, just jump in and cut me off. I'm Italian, so I'll talk over dead air.
Well, I'll tell you this. The biggest thing I take from it, and shout out to

(03:41):
Tom Warren, because he tweeted this out.
He was like, Xbox T, Phil Spencer doesn't rule out Starfield and Indiana Jones
coming to PS5. He doesn't rule it out.
Phil Spencer said, I don't think we should, as an industry, ever rule out a
game going to any other platform.
So that begs the question. For one, there's four games that are coming,
and those won't be the end all be all. We know there's going to be more.

(04:05):
They spent, what, 20 minutes just talking around in circles about nothing.
They let this stuff fester for about a month where they could easily just did
a blog post on xbox.com or, you know, have another interview with Paris Lilly
or some of the other guys, right?
And just kind of come out and just say exactly what it is.

(04:25):
Or, hey, these are just some more older games or smaller games we decided to share. No harm, no foul.
But that leads to something else. It's something that's bigger, right?
And my worst fear was that they were going to come out here and slowly pull
the Band-Aid off, but not totally rip it off.
And that's going to lead, guess what? There's going to be a huge cloud over Xbox this year.

(04:46):
Every single month, every game. Tell Blade 2, we know it's coming to what, in April, May?
There's going to be a cloud over that game. There's going to be a cloud on every
game that comes out going forward.
People are going to potentially say, hey, this, you know, know we may get this
game a few months or it may come to playstation next year they never
crossed any type of issue in any of
the questions that we had they didn't add they didn't answer any

(05:10):
of them i'm gonna push back on that jw because he did ask him point blank if
starfield or indiana jones was going to other consoles and he looked in the
camera and said no not no no congratulations it was about the four games though
that was what was slick with it it was it's not indiana jones and Starfield
is not one of the four games.
He's doing interviews with Tom Warren saying, I'm not going to say never because

(05:33):
they're open to Starfield coming.
They won't say they're not going to do it. He just said it was such a smart
PR move to be like, oh yeah, the first four games, it's not Starfield and Indy.
Well, nobody thought the first four games were going to be Starfield and Indy
because it was longer to port those. They're bigger.
Those weren't even part of the first four game rumors. The first four game,
the rumors were Sea of Thieves. Which is coming. Yeah.

(05:56):
That's got to be one of them. High-Fi Rush. High-Fi Rush was the big one.
That was the first one. Pentament, potentially.
And then either... I even saw Forza. I even saw Forza being tossed out there.
Could be Forza. Could be an unannounced multiplayer game.
I think the fourth game is Grounded. Grounded is definitely also a good choice.
But guess what? We're here talking about games that we don't know that they could have answered.

(06:17):
They wasted everybody's time. They could have answered that,
right? We would already know.
Yeah, that... We could all be wrong right now, right? We could all be wrong.
And guess what? it could be for it could be halo
multiplayer it could be years it could
be any we don't know and guess what we're gonna have to go for the
next two weeks three weeks in the next months talking about this
and that's not good for xbox that's not good for xbox i think we'll find out

(06:40):
something next week because there was supposed to be a nintendo direct this
week and i think jeff grubb was out saying that supposedly it's been moved to
next week because of the xbox announcements i wouldn't be surprised if you see
something on that direct next month or soon from nintendo Endo talking about
a high-fi Russian pentiment.
And I also think how they phrased that question, Lono, it was very slick how
he said those four games.

(07:00):
It was slick, but I also think it's indicative of the type of business model
behind the games they're considering.
The two small games, it's definitely...
Easily hi-fi russian pentament those are small games that can
live better on other platforms to get more players to experience them but
the larger games probably he referenced community focus you
know creator focus so i think to me i halo could

(07:22):
be it but i do think it's sea of thieves and grounded and that seems
to be what the reports are hinting at now and honestly i
think that makes sense for those games because once they get
another release on more platforms then the player is going to
increase again and gives them some more life and maybe they have some updates coming
down the road too right grounded still in early access no
it officially hit 1.0 didn't it yeah the only thing

(07:43):
i wanted to push back on what jdub said just a teeny bit when
you're like they didn't answer anything we got to give them some credit
they did firmly day and dates continuing
for first party that was a huge question mark for people and
they did say sarah bond said the next
gen console is going to be the biggest leap so they're confirming they're
making another console sold that will be high end and those

(08:04):
were two big questions so i was like okay they did answer
that but i'm with you jay they wasted a
ton of time saying nothing but pr corvo nothing it
was like it was the most non-phil spencer i've ever
seen phil spencer be it was i felt like he was nervous it felt awkward he looked
like he's been beaten up and maybe he was sick right like he's like you know

(08:25):
go ahead jay let me ask you this okay they say that now and see and this is
the this It's the credibility problem that Phil and those other executives have built up over time.
What they say today, right? Like, we're going to try and we've attempted to do this in the past.
We've attempted to hold them to their words for that day and that time that

(08:46):
going forward, this is how it's going to be.
Just six months down the line for them to tell us something different.
I'll reverse back a year from a year from now when Sarah Bunn came out and said,
these are the 12 games that you're going to be playing in the next 12 months.
Well, and we only got like three of those games, right?
The rest of them got canceled or delayed or for whatever reason.
And they came out and apologized. Okay, well, we won't tell you.

(09:09):
At this point in time, all of their goodwill as far as holding them down to
exactly to the T of what they said is kind of would be crazy to do that.
To your point, Brian, about him looking beat up, I think the last two weeks
or so have been hell for him.
Internally, there's probably been so many meetings because of this news leaking

(09:29):
out the way people didn't want it to and then employee population getting concerned.
He did say that they had this planned, and I think that's why he said it since December.
So, yeah, I imagine the fact that you have something planned and then it comes
out this way, you never want that.
So I wouldn't be surprised if he's just been torn apart from all kinds of angles internally.
He's got to be tired from that. But I honestly am not surprised by any of this. It is nothing to me.

(09:54):
Like, this is all this is this is what this is what they were going to like
when Phil Spencer came out last May and basically said we lost the worst generation
we could lose and we're investing in the Xbox ecosystem the way we did.
Of course this is going to happen of course they're going to bring games to
other people like i don't know i just part of
me just almost doesn't care like in a way like like

(10:14):
i want games to be in more places but i don't
know them bringing games to other places yeah it just doesn't surprise me at
all lona brought up a good point oh go ahead go ahead kirk no go no you're fine
okay that's fine well because like lona the point that lona brought up about
hardware i think is really where i want to get everybody's thoughts now because
i i argue that they aren't getting out out of hardware.

(10:34):
But here's the real thing. What does that even mean? The biggest technical leap, right?
Like one of the things that I've seen Lono rant about, rightfully so,
is the marketing behind the Series X and S.
And even, and I've even pushed back on some of those points saying like,
it's also, I feel like PlayStation 5, like when we saw three years into this
generation, that frames per second go from 60 to 30.

(10:57):
Like it really kind of feels like what's going on here, Right.
We were like 60 frames is so good.
And some people will be like 30 frames is fine. It's like, no,
like this is what they were really pushing more at Microsoft than anybody else.
This generation, 60 frames, 120 frames. This is 4k, you know,
and I'm not sitting here going to sit here and expect that a console at $500

(11:19):
is going to do what my computer can do at 5,000.
You know, I don't have that disillusion that I see some people like make,
but when it comes down to marketing, that felt more marketing to me than anything
else because they weren't then ready to kind of tell us more. It's the biggest leap.
In technology, that to me, as somebody who thinks on the technology side,

(11:43):
I go, that to me sounds more like they're investing in their cloud infrastructure,
which is what Satya Nadella has continued to say, that this is where a cloud
company, Xbox, is going to be cloud. What do y'all think?
Oh, my gosh. If they played some kind of verbiage trick and it's not about the
hardware being really strong, because that's what got my attention.
I was like, oh, she said biggest leap. I'd have to go back and look at the exact

(12:06):
verbiage because yeah if it's the cloud hybrid and that's what they view as
the biggest leap because they're going to be able to give you like 4k cloud gaming I oh my exactly.
Think about it Lono this is
the last two generations right last generation this generation
they've had the world's most powerful console how has

(12:28):
that helped them at all in the game space when PlayStation
has the better looking games games the better running version of the
multiplayer it hasn't really returned a dividend and if
she's saying right like if what you
think she's saying they're gonna make another world's most
powerful console that's gonna fall on deaf ears
nobody's gonna pay attention because you've had the world's

(12:49):
most unless it's like 800 then I
might believe them like if it's egregiously priced then
I might actually believe them you know what but and guess what and
then they could drop another Xbox Series series s type
device alongside that which will leave them in
the same situation that they are now right and so
well jinger and i got into that debate i can't

(13:10):
remember if it was on if it was on an epic loot radio if we
were just in the comments on one of our our videos or whatever
but yeah i was saying that i think that they need to drop an 800 high-end
console that that vastly outperforms and
out costs it costs you
know 100 200 more than the playstation to sort of
provide that value proposition I don't think that they can compete in

(13:31):
the same lane as PlayStation they need to
make a device that is high-end that is closer to
a PC for the people that want that because otherwise in terms of native hardware
that runs native games like what are you offering me as a console maker that.
I can't get from the other guys and if you say game pass PlayStation Plus is.

(13:51):
Getting better every day it's getting better every single it's a little bit confusing so I'm
All right, go ahead, J-Dub. I was just going to say just these two points.
When you think of power, Xbox right now has 12 T-flops of power.
It's the world's most powerful console.
But then when you look at the games that really make you exaust rock,
you look at Horizon Burning Shores.
You look at, we just had Death Stranding 2 that everybody was gawking over,

(14:15):
right? That's running on a PS5, right? Which is a 9 to 10 T-flop system.
So people gawk over those games. They don't gawk over the 12 T-flop games,
right? because the games that
generally xbox shows us like hellblade it looks good it looks great but,
you know i mean it's 12 t fox and it doesn't really show off the power
of the 12 t fox and we know it's probably going to get hamstrung like

(14:38):
the rest of the games because of the series that would push back on that i think
hellblade looks about as good as any video game has ever looked
on the digital foundry it doesn't i i think it's good to take a step back though
and to say that this current generation ps5 and series x they're struggling
hand in hand too and there's something to say about that as well where the ps5
there was news from sony just the other day that they're They're already viewing

(14:59):
the PS5 near the end of its cycle, which I don't know what that means at all.
But there's something middle, I think.
That's not what they said. Okay. That was the middle. Because it's four years into this generation.
Generations last between six and seven. Wait, is it four years?
I thought it's only been three. It's been three.

(15:21):
That's three years, Lone. Well, going into.
If at the end of this year, it's four years, That means it's been three years.
We're at the beginning of a year. That's how years work.
I'm crapping on J-Dub, not you. It depends on the generation, right?
A typical generation would be anywhere between five to six years would be typical, right?

(15:44):
But if we go back in the 360 and the PS3 era, it lasts a little bit longer.
It depends on the success of the console, right? I mean, think about it.
We had COVID, and then we had COVID. it that yeah ultimately i
believe this generation should extend three years
because those first three years i mean there was there was lack of supply and
developers got hamstrung so i don't know i don't i don't you know we we know

(16:09):
you know now time team we got a ps5 pro coming we got a switch 2 coming this
generation we got an xbox series x all digital coming like,
i don't know what will these things extend the generation to
2028 2029 perhaps 2030 i don't know and and i i think that's important right
because again if the ps5 they they admitted sales are struggling they didn't

(16:32):
hit their mark they're kind of disappointed in it and i just think that says
something about the overall gamers appetite for what we're getting now from these two players.
There isn't a lot of innovation right and to your point kirk about having an
800 premium console I think that'd be a horrible idea for Xbox because those
people are going to go buy a PC instead.
Right. And it makes no sense because the console business is so small too, right?

(16:55):
They're much better on creating an ecosystem where they can sell their games
on PC and all kinds of other devices where that device, I mean,
it'd be cool as a tech guy myself, I'd love to have it.
I mean, yeah, there's too many people that went out and bought an ROG Ally for
me to think that, to agree with you.
I don't agree with you. I think if they make a high- console.

(17:16):
There's only about $3 million between the Rogue Ally, the Steam Deck,
and the Lenovo. Well, yeah, but then you don't need to make a bunch of them.
Yeah, but are you going to sink all the R&D, you know, a billion dollars worth
of R&D just to sell 2 million units?
To that point, would you rather do that or would you rather have other manufacturers

(17:37):
take that risk for you and you just put Game Pass on there? And again,
that's what they're doing.
That's what they're doing already. Yeah, exactly what they're doing.
But one thing I want to return to Mark, about the comparisons between the two
and this generation is struggling.
Yes, they are struggling as far as... It's so funny, 54 million is like,
oh man, they're struggling.
Like, man, I'd kill to sell 4 million of anything.

(17:59):
Yeah, so Sony, PlayStation by any stretch of the imagination is not struggling
at all, right? Like, they are.
Matter of fact, what happened is they projected, which was far exceedingly,
they were too, I guess, they were too...
I guess they got to a little bit too greedy and they set their projections extremely

(18:22):
high, which was 25 million units sold in 2023.
And they ended up selling, I think, 23 units.
So they're going to miss their projections by 2 million.
But the problem is, I mean, which is, I guess, a good problem to have is that
is still far exceedingly more than any PlayStation has ever in history.
That is a matter of fact, they sold more units last

(18:45):
year in 2023 than Xbox did the entire higher generation that
tells you how good they're doing but again you
know it's just like like square units right they're never
happy even though the game sells 15 million copies
because their projections are just too high and they just believe that their
product is just so good and and they need to do double that so that's an internal
thing playstation doesn't have an issue selling hardware whereas microsoft does

(19:08):
they were selling the xbox series s for 139 this holiday They were some of the
Series X for $349, right?
They basically cut the price in half, and they still weren't able to win NPD.
They still weren't able to sell out the consoles.
And so that's a big struggle. And the problem is, if you don't have great games,
high-quality games, and consistently, then people won't buy into your console.

(19:33):
But they need people to buy the hardware so they can get the revenue to keep
making the game. So it's the chicken versus the egg for Xbox.
And I don't know if they'll ever be able to. No, they sell the hardware at a loss.
So that's what they're talking about is they're saying we're going to expand
beyond the hardware and give people ways to interact with our ecosystem and
buy games and play games and invest in in-game stores and things like that.

(19:59):
They've been doing that for the last...
Two generations right they've been pushing the samsung tv
they've been pushing the cloud they've been pushing the cell phones and all this stuff
that we haven't we haven't had the tech for that i mean that's why google stadia
failed it's just like yeah but game pass has been a thing
since when 2018 17 they haven't had x cloud on phones since like it's only been

(20:19):
like two years i think the main point though is they need to have revenue to
invest in their platform and i i don't think they they look at hardware as the
source of that revenue i think they see the 40 billion dollar pc market.
Which is pretty sure bigger than the console market as a way to extend that.
And they also see the other half of the console market as a way to extend that
as well. And you are right.

(20:39):
If you don't have innovative games coming out on your hardware,
you're not going to incentivize people to play there.
And I think, again, when Phil had that interview in May, I feel like they admitted that.
They lost the worst console generation to lose in PC, PS4, Xbox One,
and they're pivoting while still maintaining some aspect of that Xbox brand.
It just seems like such a half measure, though, like with what we saw today.

(20:59):
A day so yes because you wanted them to double down on they
have a unique strength right because like on the last
podcast where we talked about it's like i don't think xbox is done
i think they actually like they're just going into the blue waters to fight
a whole different fight where this is how things were and today was not that
announcement in which essentially they just kicked the can down the curb and

(21:20):
that's why i'm frustrated with how they handled today but with The question that I cannot rectify,
and I get the pushback,
because what I'm going to say will generate questions from y'all most likely,
but what is the future when you have these devices coming out?
Like, yes, maybe the Rogue Alloy only sold 3 million, but that's actually a

(21:41):
really interesting offering coming in at a high price for a handheld.
Held but when you have these devices that do
play your pc games that can just hook up to
your tv steam is one of this for a long time what room what space what what
avenue does the console a essentially a single use to kind of device have in

(22:02):
our future when all of a sudden that becomes real competition just like we said
like pc games sony has already announced there more pc games Games are coming to the PC.
Helldivers 2 is an absolute, I think, must-buy, must-play kind of game.
So if you haven't had a chance to play that game, it is really good.
Sony, I think, did a really good job. They're working on some of the issues.

(22:24):
I think overall, like, holy crap, more of that, please, Sony.
You know, I think that would be great. But then all of a sudden,
imagine somebody comes out. I am another manufacturer.
Like, if they license the operating system from Microsoft and you could boot
up your rogue ally, you have your Xbox dashboard.
Oh, and then it turns out you can run Steam. Okay, cool.
I think that's the wild card. That's the unique advantage that Windows has because

(22:46):
they have Windows running on the Xbox, but it's a restricted OS.
PlayStation tried to categorize the PS3 as a PC, but yeah.
The Xbox has tried, I mean, well, Microsoft has tried that before with the multiple operating systems.
They tried it with their Surface tablets, with the version of RT and ARM chips
and stuff like that. Yeah.

(23:06):
The stuff just didn't work. So I just don't know if they'll ever get it to work
like that. It seemed like it would be the perfect thing.
Just put the Xbox OS on every device and just let that be that.
And guess what? you still get your little cut of the fee of the operating system
that's sold for every device and you get the
game pass that comes along with that device and things like that

(23:27):
i'm gonna be honest i just for the for the life of me i just don't understand
how the world's richest company when it comes to gaming hasn't figured this
stuff out yet who were like i said going on four years into this particular
generation and they're still trying to find their identity they're still trying find themselves in.
Us as console gamers invest $500, $600 into these consoles.

(23:50):
Even more with accessories and games and stuff. We invest all this money into these.
And that's supposed to be for the long haul. Well, the system launched in 2020.
This will see me through 2026, 2027 or whatever.
So we invested into that. And a couple of years in, there's all these major changes.
And here we are now with some more changes.
But they're constantly constantly they're constantly

(24:13):
trying to find out where they want to be and what does that what
does their goal what does that mean to the average gamer someone
like me right you're making all these changes and
stuff but how does that stuff benefit me i don't get in the client it doesn't
it doesn't j-dub and if i can jump in like all these conversations and all this
planning and scheming and strategizing and whatever that is you know internally

(24:36):
that's what's come out you that's why all these news articles have happened
over the past couple weeks.
All of that is sort of angling at taking advantage of this broader new frontier
and capitalizing on it and somehow that making Xbox relevant and prominent again.
When the reality is, is that PlayStation goes out and makes a box that's appealing,

(24:59):
that's a brand that people trust, that people that resonates with people that
they want. It's desirable.
It's sexy in a way. The console, It looks sexy.
It's not just a rectangle black block, you know, and, and the games on it are, uh.
They're exclusive. They are special. They are premium in terms of the quality,
in terms of the availability, the accessibility on other platforms.

(25:23):
You can't play it on PC until six months to a year later, if at all.
You know, that may change, but right now that's the case.
And like, they have stuck to that and just hammered it, hammered it so hard for like five,
six, seven, eight years on, just we do this
beating xbox into submission and
xbox is trying desperately to get

(25:47):
out from under that palm they can't do
it like they they think that they can expand into
these new horizons and that's why they have nothing to say
like they had absolutely nothing to say today like
it basically amounted to we're still in third place we still don't have
value prop and we're evaluating assessing that
and we're always looking for new ways to to make

(26:08):
things more appealing for xbox gamers and put
your games everybody nobody cares about that nobody cares about
that the way they didn't care about it in 2013 when they got out there and said
oh you can do this instead of direct tv on your on your xbox nobody cared about
that then it's like they're still repeating the same habits the same patterns
gamers want games living room console gamers want games on their box.

(26:32):
They want the best games and they want all the games on the box.
And Xbox can't deliver on that. So they're trying to find another way to get
into people's living rooms and to get into people's mindshare.
And I mean, as we saw with Stadia, like people don't want to make that jump,
not the majority of people. It's just not appealing.

(26:52):
People want what they want. And like PlayStation has established that they can
deliver on what people want.
And it's a system and it's a methodology that works for them.
It's a brand and strategy that works for them.
And Jim Ryan got a bad rep, but boy did he deliver on that strategy and boy
did he deliver for PlayStation gamers.
And Xbox just, they're trying everything that they can to sort of take advantage

(27:18):
of markets that do not have a proof of concept. They don't have a proof of concept yet.
And they think that they're gonna go out and prove that because they went and
bought King and they've got all these resources and all this money.
I don't know that there's this swath of people that want to take advantage of all that.
Like, I think that people want what is already available on another platform

(27:40):
brought to you by another company that Xbox can't do it as well.
And that's just the way that it is.
Well, and the thing that I said, as soon as it was over, I was like,
if I was a hardcore Xbox fan,
I would have not left that podcast feeling very satisfied
because all they did primarily was just repeat
the talking points they've said for years you know play

(28:01):
anywhere cross play cross save game pass
day and date and it's like okay great like you
kind of convinced me these are value points three four and five years ago if
you're trying to affirm and really assert what is xbox right now when sarah
bond said we want people playing on xbox to feel like Like they're going to

(28:23):
get the world's best games.
And there's and then she just started randomly like bullet point listing stuff
like Game Pass and cross progression. And they were like repeating themselves.
There was something awkward about it. It was like they didn't have that much
to say because I really do feel they are very much so trotting out the marching orders of Microsoft.

(28:46):
And they're trying to push that through that
funnel and lens and you know pr xbox talk
speak they're trying to say well microsoft wants us to do this how in the world
do we position this and still sound like xbox like i said it was the most non-phil
spencer i always praise him i'm like he's a wordsmith he's great in interviews

(29:08):
he's got great presence he's always been so good And this,
I was like, this doesn't feel like Xbox.
And it also doesn't, I'm sorry, it doesn't feel like Phil Spencer.
And it also just didn't feel like they were fermenting this idea or cementing
this idea of like, you want to stay with us.
It was like, we're going to take four games and put them out elsewhere.

(29:29):
And then Diablo is coming to Game Pass. And then chat told me she said the greatest
technical leap on the next console.
Well, that could be anything. That's not a performance leap that I mean.
So now I'm thinking, well, golly, like I could see them making a killer handheld. handheld.
I think that there's a, there's a handheld market potential growth,

(29:51):
like Kirk saying it's an, you know, it, maybe it's not proof of concept,
but I think there's potentially huge growth for handhelds in the coming future.
And I think Microsoft could be a killer competitor in there.
Cause if they get that surface team cranking out an amazing handheld, I would buy it.
People also buy multiple handhelds. Like that's one of the things that when
I see people praise Nintendo numbers, like I go, yeah, Nintendo,

(30:11):
yeah, they're selling great.
I'm not dogging on the the numbers, but it's also, it's a, there's a hidden
factor of, in terms of like how many gamers are actually that I own multiple Nintendo switches.
Now I would have only owned one Nintendo switch if it hooked up to the television,
but because it's a handheld, just like with the DS and the game boy and a before
I buy multiple of their handhelds. And so them in Xbox go in that direction.

(30:34):
But then the question is, is what does that then do differently that I can't
get from the rogue ally or the steam deck, which actually then plays games that
aren't available to me. Like, why step into that market and then become in with
both hands tied behind your back?
Yeah. I do want to, before I lose my train of thought, I do want to try and
spend some analysis out of this absolute Dust Bowl tumbleweed of a 22-minute

(30:59):
nothing podcast and pull something out of my ass.
Okay. Which is that, again, to harken back to, I want to draw a parallel with
the 2013 announcement announcement and how damaging that was to the Xbox brand,
the idea that they were going to become about more than the traditional sort

(31:22):
of narrow scoped idea of gaming, that they were going to branch beyond that.
And then that was going to be appealing.
That was going to be something that was going to be in demand that people wanted for whatever reason.
And it wasn't like the entire gaming populace, at least console gamers, pushed back on that.
And they said, we're not interested in that and the Xbox brand suffered irreparably.

(31:44):
And so what changed, I went on a whole monologue about this last week,
which is the only reason why anybody might actually know who I am,
is that what changed was in 2020 or 2019, I can't remember, when the consoles were about to come out.
They started changing their messaging and Phil started talking directly to gamers

(32:06):
and talking directly to the maligned, aggrieved Xbox base and saying,
hey, we're going to go out.
We're going to buy a Bethesda. We're going to compete.
We're going to make some great games. We're going to make Fable.
We're going to make Hellblade 2. We're going to make Halo really good.
We're going to put Starfield exclusive to our platform.
We're going to make sure that that's the game of the generation.

(32:27):
You know, we're going to do all these things. We're going to get back in this race.
We're going to like be, you know, be like every year, every year in football
or whatever your favorite sport is, people who are watching,
it's like, this is our year, Dallas Cowboys fan.
This is our year. We're going to the Superbowl, right? Like, let's go.
And you need that. Like, if you just, if you just lose constantly, the morale just sinks.

(32:49):
And so their messaging changed. And it was about, we're, we're,
we're going to get back to basics. We're going to make good games that are going
to come on our platform, and it's going to make our platform desirable.
It's going to make our platform a good experience, a good product to have.
That's what we're going to deliver on. You can expect it. You know, like post-market.

(33:11):
We're, you know, come buy our console, and we're going to deliver on that.
And now, three years later, they failed.
Okay, they failed. Let's not get it twisted. They failed.
Redfall, one of the worst games to come out.
Like from a from first party xbox ever especially
if we're talking like triple a clarified first party

(33:31):
because then i was like there's been a lot of other dog games this
isn't kong skull island brian this isn't
god this isn't lord of the rings golem but it's it's
it's in the conversation with those games which is
ridiculous the way that that game was being propped up
the way that they were showing trailers of that game like it
was going to be you know the second coming of i don't know borderlands meets

(33:52):
stranger things or whatever and then starfield comes
out and it's fine like it's middling it's.
Fine it's an eight you know a lot of people gave it
a seven i think it's an eight but you know it's not pushing the
boundaries that they claimed it was going to and then after those
two like that's it that's all they had like that
like it's like they went they went eight and eight and they're

(34:13):
like ah we should just trade all our players and
go you know one in 16 next
year i mean it doesn't make any they're just so they're
just pivoting right back to the 2013 messaging of
we'll try other stuff we're gonna let playstation do
that and then we're gonna go nobody wants that nobody
wants that like people want xbox to

(34:36):
be good and to be comparable to playstation nobody
ever asked them except for brian here to
like go do something else and offer some sort of
other alternative value proposition that nobody
wants if those people want that they're on pc already like
the the the brand of xbox the xbox was created in the vacuum that exists because

(34:59):
sega could not stay in that space it's crazy because microsoft was afraid of
sony being under the television and dominating the living room that was what's
happening right now what What is happening right now?
And what can Xbox do? They are helpless.
They are powerless with all their money and all their resources and all their good premium games.

(35:20):
The flaw in your logic is that you assume that Sony is then doing the thing
when I would say Samsung and smart TVs literally just, they aped what the consoles
and what Sony and Xbox were going to do.
Not that they're like, I'm dogging on any other sales.
I'm just saying that the technology and the generations. It's all the future.
No, it's not the future. It's literally right now. In the future, Xbox will matter again.

(35:44):
Why did the PlayStation 2, and why is the PlayStation 2 still the biggest selling console?
It hasn't been the future for a decade. I'm not saying it's the future.
You're fighting a ghost here. You're shadowboxing, and let's put you back to school.
Samsung and smart TVs. No, you're sitting here making an argument that I'm definitely not making it.

(36:04):
The YouTube, the Netflix, all
of your apps and television and all that stuff is just an app on your TV.
Now, it literally apes what the Xbox originally and what Sony used to do.
Like Netflix was the biggest, like installed through the old consoles,
especially on the 360 and the PlayStation three era.
That's when that whole took off. But then TVs, which they tried to push TVs

(36:27):
into this 3d TV and everybody's like, that's stupid.
And then essentially they went with, Oh, smart TVs.
That's what people want. They want, you know, really nice pictures and really
nice screens. Turns out it does all these things.
That then takes away one of the big selling points. Like, why is the PS2 one
of the highest selling consoles of all time to this day?
Not the, it is the highest, but it's the DVD player.

(36:47):
But the only reason, the only reason it happened, though, the only reason that,
and people keep bringing this up, that's why I say, yes, it is the number one
most selling. The red herring.
But the only reason, because that generation, that console itself sold for 13 years.
Literally sold for 13 years. They produced that console for 13 years.
No other generation has lasted that long and no other device has lasted that long, right?

(37:09):
So, of course, you won't get to that point. Maybe Nintendo Switch, right?
If they keep it around another year or two, it may reach that and surpass it.
But your console has to do that.
But make no mistake about it, the PS5 has surpassed the PS2 and the PS3 and
the PS4 at this particular time.
Time. So if we keep on with this trajectory and this console lasts for 10 years,

(37:31):
they'll probably reach $155, right? And if it goes longer, but...
Price is going to be a real point, though.
The only way that PlayStation can then double and then double again is in terms
of hitting some kind of massive mass market price, of which...
Their goal was they make money on the sales of the consoles
which is like honestly but that's what i said i just

(37:52):
said they did it for sure but i'm saying that like in order for
like playstation to really try to continue to to keep
this level of acceleration like that's where usually that's you see another
models come out which reduces their over cost sees the price comes down and
right now like especially with inflation and things like that that's another
thing that's pushing and keeping the price from truly falling because as everything

(38:14):
is going up in price Technically,
these systems are actually getting cheaper, but people are feeling pinched and
people are feeling absolutely like game.
Now, one of the things about technology, going back to Kirk's points,
because there is some future technology that when they talk about the next biggest
leap in technology, the only two things that come to my mind are AI and with cloud.

(38:35):
And so if we're talking about them putting in AI generation ships that are going
to help do whatever, NVIDIA showing this stuff off. Don't want.
Cloud and AI. I think that's a generational thing, Kirk, because when you start
looking at what Apple's doing with their handheld and the fact that like,
I was talking with 30 last night on his podcast, shout out to 30 and Still Gaming.
He plays his X Cloud, his Xbox games on his Meta Quest 2, which it's like,

(39:01):
yeah, it's all being processed and rendered.
And he's like, it's great. I have this ultra massive screen.
I'm playing these games, having a great time.
And so it's that, I think where, when, you know,
we talk about the future tech like there i think
will be a generational divide where people just like they're saying
i'm not i'm never going to go digital i'm going to have physical media
and then at some point like there there's going to be a hard drawn line in the

(39:24):
sand i think essentially at some point like yeah one of these consoles will
or both maybe even the ps6 will be an always online console because they're
going to tap into cloud compute to keep costs down so they don't have to sit here and say,
oh, we don't have to put like all of the stuff physically in there,
but we're going to make sure we have cloud compute so we can compete in price.

(39:45):
That's a great point because I want to go back to what Kirk said when Kirk said, no one wants that.
Microsoft wants that. And I want to revisit a few great points.
Supply and demand. Supply and demand. There's no demand.
Kirk, listen here. Okay. So Jay, you brought up a great point,
which is that Microsoft's one of the most profitable companies in the world, right?
And the gaming aspect of that profit is minuscule. So you have to say,

(40:06):
well, what's the core competency of a company like Microsoft?
It is cloud infrastructure, it is networking, it is that type of technology.
Any business segment internally is going to try to follow that model,
subscription service and all of that so i that's why i think brian you're spot
on and it's easy to read the tea leaves is because to them they want that business
model to be similar in terms of what gaming is to the rest of the market and

(40:27):
they have so much infrastructure and footprint,
they can make that technological leap into the gaming space it's already everywhere
else i'm a cloud architect that's that's what i do they could do it but we'll
get here's the thing they could do it right but our game was partaking now like
microsoft hasn't even mastered the art of of just creating great games, right?

(40:48):
That's true. No, no, no, listen, listen. I'm going to be honest.
Think about it, right? As a long-time Xbox guy.
Mastered. They should try and do it once. For the last two generations,
they have not been consistent in good quality software.
I would agree. The good trustees, right?
The Halo, Giz and the Forza have been the only consistent, high-quality type things.

(41:12):
And even this generation is going down here, right? This Forza is like the lowest.
Horizon 5 is incredible. Like they do have vanguards.
The Horizon series, I can actually see them killing off the Motorsports series, right?
They just, for whatever reason, they haven't mastered that.
And Microsoft is all over the place and all these different buckets and these

(41:32):
guys come out on the stage.
Yeah, we want to go for the game over here and the game over there and the game
it is. And then we want to do all this stuff and cater the PlayStation, cater to Nintendo.
You can't even cater to your base, right? You can't even fulfill them and what they wanted.
What they really wanted was just like Kurt said, they wanted a competitive to
the PlayStation where PlayStation has its single player games that are goldies

(41:55):
and that are consistent high quality.
And they're just the throne of what PlayStation is.
Xbox doesn't have that anymore they used to have it with the
halo gives and affords and maybe if they get their their head right
their mind right their strategy right they'll deliver on marvel's
blade keep that exclusive if disney will let them
they'll it'll be a smashed hit if they're like if they get out of the weeds

(42:17):
of all this other stuff that they would just make good games and and sell your
platform based on the fact that there's good games on it it's like no phil said
it phil said it we're gonna see fewer and fewer exclusives like i don't think
we're gonna see fewer and fewer xboxes in people's living rooms.
Well, they don't care about that. I think the point is, is that the console market is not growing.

(42:37):
We've hit our plateau as a market. So Xbox is saying, we need to go where there
are people currently not playing games, whether it's through cloud,
whether it's through TVs, mobile, et cetera.
Now, I do think there's a danger there because I don't know if that market,
if people are currently not a gamer, I don't know if you're going to convince
them to be a gamer with cloud gaming through their television or gaming on mobile.

(43:00):
Now, they're going to make money off mobile because we know King Mobile prints
money, and that's going to be a great revenue stream for them.
But I don't know if they're going to grow their actual MAU market share in those pockets.
It's like I don't know if you're going to suddenly have a ton of new active
users in the Xbox user base because you threw Halo on a TV or a cloud.
I just – that – those people aren't gaming now.

(43:22):
So I don't know if – They're chasing invisible. Well, what's interesting about
those people – They're chasing invisible people.
Well, they're not – The cat is to get those people to game. And they are real.
I don't think I want to go. I want to go to Mark because you're going to make a point.
But then I want to come back to this because those people are real.
I know a lot of them. You guys know a lot of them.
And when they go and have that experience, they're they're just former gamers.

(43:45):
They're just gamers who used to be us. And then essentially we're like life
got in the way and they got busy.
And so they don't game. And then all of a sudden, yeah, like doctors and lawyers,
like a lot of people are like playing stadia.
In the hospitals because it became available. And they're like,
this is great. This is what I want.
I don't have the time to go and invest money into an ecosystem.
I just want to be able to jump onto the latest game because I missed that.

(44:08):
And that's what they want. Mark, I want to go to you.
Yeah. So I don't think cloud gaming is they're expecting it to be the biggest
portion of revenue in the future. I think first and foremost,
they just care things are profitable. Right.
So I think all the points being brought up are accurate. Right.
Like, yeah, they know for a while that they don't make the best games compared
to the caliber of games that come from Sony or or Nintendo.
That's why they spend billions of dollars buying IPs, right?

(44:30):
And I think that's for two reasons. One, to help incentivize people who might
be on the fringes that want to play on their phones or want to play on cloud gaming.
But also, it helps stabilize revenue when they want to bring those games to other platforms.
So Lono, I think you and I are aligned. We're like, I don't know.
I don't think they truly care in the long run if the Xbox console is around as the premier console.

(44:50):
They care about the Xbox business being profitable, And they're going to do
that through a variety of ways, whether it's bringing games and publishing them on other consoles,
whether it's attracting people with those big IPs to other ways to play,
which I personally, I don't have an incentive to want to play cloud gaming,
but I can see how other people are.
My nephew's 17, my other nephew's like 10.
They do that stuff, right? And that's where gaming grows.

(45:13):
That's where it grows all the time. And if you want to grow into a market,
you have to focus on that. So, again, I don't think I'm disagreeing here with
anyone, but again, I just, I think they have to get IPs. That's why they bought them.
I don't think they've really figured out how to perfect that development cycle yet.
I think COVID, JW, as you said, has hurt everyone for a while, too.
Like, even Sony said they're not coming out with any new first-party games until

(45:34):
2025, maybe, which is a little bit of a gap for them, too, that they're concerned
about. But yeah, in the future, they care about profitability to the Xbox business.
And that's beyond consoles. That is revenue from games on other consoles.
That's revenue from games everywhere
else, whether it's subscriptions or just sales from other units.
Did you guys catch that Sarah Bond said 34 million for Game Pass subscribers?

(45:54):
Now, I'm assuming she was including the new in like there was a new injection
from Xbox Core Game Pass Core because they converted all the people that have live.
They're counting the people that have live. Well, now, hang on.
She said 34 million after she was talking about Diablo coming to Game Pass.
So I'm wondering if it's not just going to hit Game Pass. Are they also going

(46:16):
to add it to the Xbox Game Pass Core catalog so that they can say,
say, hey, yeah, 34 million people can now play Diablo 4.
Because when she threw out the 34 million, I thought, I know they had a big
influx from Starfield, so we know it jumped there.
We don't know if it jumped and stayed, but they also got an influx from Xbox Live.
Yes, I don't know if there was 9 million people. They might add it to Core,
because we haven't had any additions to Core, right?

(46:38):
For sure, and it makes good sense to, yeah, it's a good game to add to Core.
It's an ABK game, it's a live service game.
I think that announcement was them,
they're like, like we got to give these people something because we're
telling them right we're taking property and putting it elsewhere like
what are we going to give to our people i think they had to do
that yeah which which it's a it's a good announcement like

(46:59):
that's literally the best game that they published last year a better announcement
would have been call of duty like let's not let's not be around the bush like
if they they if they came and they said yes it's coming in terms of like mass
appeal but in terms of what is actually the better majority of people play the
ozone anyway They don't play.
But imagine that there's an integration there. Then all of a sudden,

(47:20):
if you're a part of game pass and then you get special whatever's within the
words, like it just, those kinds of integrations, I think are a very strong power play.
And we see that same kind of play that Amazon prime uses.
We're giving out like, Hey, if you've got this, then we're just going to give
you all this other stuff.
And it's, it's nothing burgers. It's like, it's just like, yeah,
but it's still kind of like, oh, all right. That's nice. I get a little treat today.

(47:41):
Diablo four could have been huge for them. Yeah.
For announcing for xbox gamers but like leno said they
snuck it in there as a we got to give these guys
something there should have been a huge announcement around that
not just oh it just kind of came came out it's always
reactive yeah yes and it's like
that would have been huge saying hey for the month of

(48:01):
march diablo 4 is now
in game pass and it's huge that could have been their big okay
wow type moment right a positive but now
it's like oh you only told us that because playstation getting
four games and we don't even know what four games are those now now granted
it could be the smaller games that nobody want to play anyway but
it also could be one or two dick games that they wanted to hide and they wouldn't

(48:25):
dare be in front of cameras fan those games because they don't want even more
backlash that they're already going to get so i don't know i don't know the
month of march is the month of march is for playing suicide squad right mark
oh that better than And Skull & Bones.
I'll tell you that much. Oh, good. Y'all don't like it either.
Thank goodness. I haven't played it yet.

(48:46):
One more comment. We'll talk about that Monday. One more comment,
again, going about just profitability of the Xbox business.
Because, again, they now own Call of Duty, which is the third highest grossing
video game franchise ever.
And they now own World of Warcraft, which is the 10th. Now, World of Warcraft
in the future, I don't know.
But, again, I don't think the Xbox business is going to struggle.
But I will admit, I don't think consoles are going to compete compete against

(49:08):
PlayStation one for one at any point and I don't think internally they expect
that either now the messaging hasn't been great but I still think the tea leaves
are pretty clear just when you when you patch everything together with where things are going.
Speaking of bringing games that xbox
owns to subscription platforms i gotta
set my boy jay fake news dub city here

(49:31):
straight for posting all over
on twitter with his boy jay barry stripe xbox brought
outer worlds to ps plus xbox
is bringing all their all their first party
ip to ps plus now that absolute
bullcrap fake news and you

(49:52):
know it that private division which is
a take two company owns the rights to the
outer worlds because they have the publishing rights to that game because it
was before the acquisition that xbox made of obsidian so yes xbox owns obsidian
as a studio but they have no say over where private division puts that game

(50:13):
and if private Private Division puts that game in PlayStation Plus,
which they probably didn't want to.
And there's a whole controversy about that game and the Spacer's Choice Edition,
which is like the complete edition, but apparently it's worse than the actual original game.
But Private Division put that out as like a money grab because they control the publishing rights.
That's how publishing rights work. So all you guys posted all over Twitter.

(50:36):
Every Xbox game is coming to PS Plus now because Xbox put Outer Worlds on PS Plus.
Xbox probably hated that that game went to PS Plus, but they didn't have any part in that decision.
If Xbox can go out there and tell it's their exclusive and their company owns
it and it's theirs, and now it's on my platform, I'm going to run with it.

(50:56):
But Xbox had nothing to do with that decision.
They have no... The reciprocity is MLB The Show.
They put MLB The Show on Game Pass. I just know it's on my PS5.
J fake news city that's what I would call you if we're going to call people
out speaking of PS5 let's go back to when Kirk referred to his PlayStation as sexy,

(51:19):
anyone else can't buy that I mean it's sleek and all that stuff better than
a cinder block I mean you gotta admit you gotta admit it's better than a cinder
block dude I like rectangles God boy,
Let me turn that button on. I want to see what's beyond your horizon.
Yeah, there you go. The aesthetic, man. There's not a single curve on the thing.

(51:42):
Come on, at least PlayStation is something.
Girl, you guys need to buy body pillows. This is getting weird.
Girl, you want to see the rise of my Ronin?
That's enough. That's enough.
Aesthetically, I agree the PlayStation has something to it. Functionally, though,
the form factor of the Xbox is better because I'm always where my playstation

(52:04):
is going to break break like it just doesn't seem as convenient
sometimes when i move it to my computer or or my
it looks like a wi-fi router it's ugly like come
on i'm with you lono i'm with you mark
i wish i could play my video games on a chromecast i at
least i actually think the series next looks nice like you
can put it on an entertainment stand it kind of blends in it's matte black

(52:26):
it's great form factor like the playstation like
what's that decor match it look like you said it looks like a
wi-fi router from like the like the early 2000s it's
going back to cloud though like like amazon
luna they can't get it to work or be appealing google
stadia couldn't get it to work or be appealing like just
because xbox has money just because xbox has money and they suck at doing everything

(52:50):
else as good as playstation can they're somehow gonna make this work like that
i don't know xbox x cloud is one of the weakest offerings right now in my opinion
because it is only Game Pass games that are being offered.
PlayStation as a cloud now has the ability that it's your games.
Now it's not all of them because there is technical work that's going on behind
the scenes to make this happen.

(53:10):
But the counter argument to that is GeForce Now.
Lagless, lossless, 120 frames a second, 4K, ultra wide. That's how I game.
That's how I game and stream.
And this in and of itself is like incredible. It's incredible.
And then all I have, and then I, well, I don't think they can,

(53:32):
Who knows? Oh, then they're screwed. No, it's not that. It's that they actually,
Xbox allows GeForce Now to run on your Xbox.
Like PlayStation gets all of Xbox games if they enable that feature too.
If PlayStation 5 just says, hey, there's a GeForce Now app on your little dashboard here.
And then you just fire it up. You're now playing Halo Infinite,

(53:53):
which announced today. You're now playing Diablo 4.
Well, you already have that already on your platform. Whatever,
Horizon, like all of that is there and there's no extra porting or necessarily need it.
But the pitch is, is that you're also having a high-end gaming PC experience
without all the gaming PC challenges that a lot of console gamers don't want.

(54:13):
They don't want to manage their drivers.
They don't want to have to worry about if a game is playable or not.
They don't want to have to worry about all these massive updates and hard drive space.
Well, consoles have that problem right now. And that's going to be something
interesting to see how they solve that in the next generation.
But there's a big value there. And I can tell you, like when I look at the next
generation that's coming down the pipe, most of them are all actually gaming in the cloud.

(54:36):
My kids spend 95% of their time on xCloud because it plays all of these different games.
And that's the value add to me as a parent. Is it going to be mass market?
I don't know. I don't think it's going to replace the console or the need for hardware.
I think it's just going to become
something that people have the option to use when they want to use it.

(54:56):
But But the real thing I think is going to be the case is the always online cloud compute.
Because when I look at the cost of hardware and the cost of these development
things, I go, how do you have that price point where we know we've seen this
when PlayStation launched at $600?
Yes, $600 then is a lot less than it is today.
But if they still come out of it, that's why you see consoles have this price

(55:20):
point. Because at some point, if you push too high.
Yeah, people just like my nephew. Well, that's exactly what my nephew said.
He was like, all right, I've saved up $500.
And it's like, oh, but if I save up $300 more, I'll just get a PC.
But you know what keeps people going from a PC? And this is,
I guess, almost a knock on Xbox is that at this point, Xbox didn't have any exclusives.

(55:46):
So people can go any and everywhere, right? But if you want to play the new,
God of War, or if you want to play the new Spider-Man, or the Wolverine,
or any of those games that they have. You want to play Stellar Blade? You're going to have to.
PlayStation. Yeah, you've got to buy a PlayStation. End of story.
You want to play Stellar Blade in April? Go buy a PlayStation.
Like, what are you going and buying a PC and an Xbox for? Guess what?

(56:09):
Rise of the Ronin PlayStation. What do you want those other things for?
Microsoft has zero exclusives, and they've had zero exclusives for a very long time.
That's why... That led them to the problem that they're having right now.
I get that if the goal is to sell consoles, it's a problem, but I agree with Lono.
I don't think they give a crap if they're going to sell a console or not.

(56:31):
They may not care.
But as a gamer and a console guy who spent $500 or $200 or $300 or however much
to buy into the Xbox ecosystem, and their promises that this would be the best place to play
I don't want to hear that. Yeah, I don't think they've lived up to that promise.
Literally the third best place to play. When you see, like, I would just say

(56:55):
Granblue Fantasy Relink is a really good option, right?
Like, it doesn't come out and announce that it's, like, exclusive,
but it's, like, PlayStation and PC.
Great game. I'm so glad that it's doing as well as it did, but why isn't it on Xbox?
And so PlayStation, time and time again, this generation and into last generation,
there's a lot of games that come out that...
They aren't announcing like it's exclusive to PlayStation. It just doesn't come to the Xbox at all.

(57:20):
And so you take that and you extrapolate over time. You're like,
why? Why would I be in the system?
And they're going to double down on that and give PlayStation their games. Yeah, exactly.
Well, here's the thing to consider, too. And I talked about this the other day
when everybody got really upset at these rumors and they they canceled Game
Pass, turn their Xboxes in.
I said, well, you don't really have any buying power and you also aren't building

(57:41):
a digital library. And this is something that I think Xbox has to consider about their future.
When Phil Spencer says we lost the worst generation to lose because everybody
was building their digital libraries.
The real kicker right now is nobody's building a digital library on Xbox if they're on Game Pass.
And that's what Game Pass does is it creates this. You're not building a library.

(58:02):
It's really easy to leave because all you're leaving behind is a subservice.
And if they continue to put their first party titles day and date on Game Pass
like they said they are, I just think they're making their platform very easy
to walk away from because you do not have this library.
You're not building a library right now.
And then what purpose does an exclusive serve?

(58:22):
Like what? What's the point of the exclusive if it's literally just so somebody
can rent it on Game Pass? Like you're not building a library which creates loyalty.
So that's why I think it's inevitable that these first four games go.
They look at the ROI and then they start moving other titles because it's like
the old playbook of using exclusives to drive people to your box and to get people to stay.

(58:46):
Game pass has absolutely poured acid
on that strategy because you are not building a
library which means it's really easy to say i'll
go somewhere else and once they go somewhere else and start building up
that digital library whether it's pc with steam or playstation
you've lost that customer they're not coming back yeah
i don't know if that's true though because if playstation did it people

(59:08):
would stay in the ecosystem because it's like literally like
literally we get rise of the ronin in march and then we get stellar blade
in april like there's a cadence and we sorry we get final fantasy 7 this month
so final fantasy 7 in february rise of the ronin in march stellar blade in april
like xbox has never even yeah xbox has never even remotely approached that cadence ever.

(59:32):
Like, so yeah, of course, if there's three games that I play on Game Pass that
are, that are exclusives because they're part of the Xbox game studios,
you know, ecosystem or whatever.
Yeah. I play those three games and then I walk away. But if you just keep hitting
me with value and value and value and good games, premium experiences,

(59:53):
quality, quality, eights and nines and eights and nines, like Phil is wrong.
Wrong like if they made nines and tens people would
be involved with xbox no but they don't
make nines and tens they make sevens and eights nobody gonna
move or do anything for a seven and eight and yeah
they go play the seven or the eight and then they cancel their game pass
because they can go back to their playstation and play good games

(01:00:15):
better you can play spider-man on playstation they play god of war ragnarok
balhalla for free if you already have a game you play death stranding two
best looking game you've ever seen in your life on a console
like that like of course they're gonna stay like xbox
is a detour like xbox is like you know
what honey let's not go out for that restaurant that we really like and we always

(01:00:35):
go to on date night let's go for for chinese or for italian or whatever let's
go to some other place that we're gonna go to i'm not not gonna italian food
i love me some italian food now just but like let's go somewhere else let's take a.
Let's take a detour you know let's go to that that asian fusion place or like
whatever and And then they go there and you eat it and they're like,

(01:00:56):
that was good. That was good.
That was good. And then you don't go back there for like three months.
Like that's what Xbox is. It's just a sideshow. That's what Nintendo is too.
Like you just check in with Nintendo every six months. What?
What are you yeah oh you're playing
you're playing all your third part you're playing stellar game uh stellar blade on
on uh switch i don't need to i want you what do you mean that princess

(01:01:17):
princess showdown baby let's go let's
go princess showdown it is so again that's an interesting point lono about game
pass the ease of leaving but i still think that again even with that factor
whatever that breakdown is the if you buy diablo 4 on your playstation microsoft's

(01:01:37):
making money, right? If you buy Call of Duty on your PlayStation or your PC.
So again, their business is what they care about.
And whether Game Pass is 30% of that revenue and cloud streaming is 10%,
cloud streaming could survive being 5% or less probably because they have so
much ways to subsidize it since that architecture is already being used for
so many other aspects of their core offerings and services and subscriptions.

(01:02:01):
I just don't think they see themselves as a
PlayStation does and no one kind of sees
themselves ourselves as a Nintendo and Nintendo does their own thing with technology Nintendo
themselves has said we don't see ourselves as a tech company we see ourselves
as a toy company and that's why they'll take what they call gun gun pay Yoko
I coined this when they made the Game Boy but they say lateral thinking with
technology weather technology meaning technology that's been around it's been

(01:02:24):
proven and it's affordable but let's use it in a new innovative way that's why Nintendo.
Continues to have a lot of success consistently let's not talk about the Wii
U but I think it's It's still sold more than the Asus ROG Ally.
But it does that because it sells it at an affordable price point.
It sells something that everyone could experience. The Switch didn't need to have 4K.
Less than like 40% of people had a 4K at that point in time.

(01:02:47):
And I think just over 50% have it now. Like Nintendo does its own thing.
And they don't really have to worry, I think, too much about anyone else.
And I think Xbox is trying to pivot themselves as their own thing too.
And that very well may be 30 years from now, they're not making consoles. I don't know.
But they're not going away as a as a gaming business at this point.

(01:03:09):
But they just in here like so is Xbox or is Microsoft in gaming?
Are they just here just to exist?
I mean, they're making lots of money from gaming.
Well, Phil Spencer sees their relevancy as a company tied to gaming.
And I kind of think he's right. Like I think as great gaming continues to grow
and become more endemic to daily life, like it's just a part of what we do.

(01:03:32):
It's on cell phones. I think, again, they want to see that the TV in road and,
you know, the PC potential growth for that market.
We see other companies, PlayStations like, hey, we're going to look more into PC.
Now people are twisting it and saying, oh, they're going to go day and date.
Maybe by the time Spider-Man 3 comes out, they'll do day and date,
because at that point in time, they've established that digital library loyalty with all the PS5 owners.

(01:03:56):
And there's no risk in somebody being like, well, I'm going to switch to PC
for Spider-Man 3. I don't think that would happen.
And they're seeing that revenue and saying, we need to go over there because
that's a big market. That's a big place to go make money.
So I think Microsoft sees that relevancy in gaming being intertwined with cloud.
And with that, we're going to be everywhere. Satya said, like,

(01:04:19):
we are everywhere. That's the goal of Microsoft.
Gaming is an arm of that. And that's how they maintain their relevancy in the market.
That's why it was kind of easy to believe they were going to change it to Microsoft
gaming. I don't think they will, but I'm like, that's so Microsoft to be like,
you're not Xbox anymore.
You're Microsoft gaming, like the ego of their corporate thinking.

(01:04:39):
And I think that's how they look at gaming. That's why they've not been good
at creative because they're good at software. Software is not creative. It's utilitarian.
And I think that's why a lot of their policies with contracts and the fact that
a lot of their great games, they bought them, right? They don't foster creative
with, look at what they allowed happen to 343 and Halo.

(01:05:01):
I said yesterday, they should have treated Halo like a Fabergé egg.
They should have held it with reverence and protected it and funneled money and studios at it.
And instead, they let the multiplayer launch in a beta.
And it's like, what? That's not like a year, a beta for a year. Right.
Imagine if Nintendo did that with one of their big properties or imagine if

(01:05:23):
God of War Horizon came out and was just a buggy disaster mess.
And we learned that half the studio was on contract and leaving.
We'd be angry. We'd be like, why would you treat your big, big,
valuable property that way? That's what factions was going to be.
That's why they cut it. Because it's damage control. It's brand protection.
The last of us poured to PC. I took him to task for that. I'm like,

(01:05:44):
this is not how you treat your property, PlayStation. This is embarrassing.
Where's the ownership? They were trying to capitalize on the popularity of the
TV show. That was a giant mistake.
And I can't see PlayStation making that mistake again. That's why they canceled
factions. But Xbox is just happy to launch Forza Motorsport before it's ready.
And the user scores are abysmal because of it. And that's just like, that's my concern.

(01:06:04):
It's like, they own a lot of property and they don't handle it very well.
And if they want to start doing this, like taking property over to PlayStation,
they better wait a year because they're going to have to get the games in better
state if they want to do it.
I could easily see Xbox ruining all this IP. Like, let me, let me, I don't want that.
And I don't think that's what's going to happen. But to your point,

(01:06:24):
Lono, that is a good point.
Like culture wise, they've not yet figured out how to maintain that creative
ideal that you need in software development, separate from game development.
And, and Sony does that great. Sony has that culture.
Nintendo has that culture. Nintendo passes on a culture. They got tons of tradition there too.
Microsoft needs to figure that out. but the weird

(01:06:46):
thing is is they're such a behemoth even if they don't if
call of duty puts out the same quality for the next 20 years
that's probably going to make money right and it
is one of those things where people like they they
it's a double-edged sword their position they don't necessarily have to prioritize
quality or innovation as much as they have to just let's let's use our existing
infrastructure and get our stuff everywhere that is cloud and all that stuff

(01:07:10):
which is innovative but nothing what you're probably going to see from a nintendo
or sony from games or hardware moving forward specifically.
It's not foolproof because, you know, whether you like Bobby Kotick or not,
right, with what was going on over there, they were cranking these games out
and these games were good games, you know, and they kept the revenue coming

(01:07:30):
in and they switched it up.
And now we've had pretty much the heads of all of those studios left with a
lot of those developers and stuff like that.
So it's going to be interesting to see see how call of duty maintains
over the next iteration or
two but hopefully they're all leaving with big old fat
paychecks because they will pay well

(01:07:50):
not just parachutes but also like the develop like stock options and
all of a sudden you just you just got a big old check especially if
you've been taking a part of that and then you as a developer who says now
i got the money that i want to go make the game that i want i've always wanted
to make but it couldn't like that that's where i think we see in mortals of
avium scorn bounds i don't I don't know why if anybody was thinking that those

(01:08:12):
games are going to be good because it's just like okay I'll just I'm going to
be over here playing fun games,
I'll be honest it's.
Sometimes I ask myself that about developers, too. It's like,
are you paying attention to the market, to what gamers are actually wanting
to play and stuff like that?
Or are you just making a game that you think you'll be making?
It depends on publishers.

(01:08:34):
Go ahead, Luna. We forget how long it takes to make games.
Yeah, I was just going to say that. I think people look at Kill the Justice
League and they forget that game was in development for a really long time.
And if it would have dropped at 2019 at the height of Fortnite,
people would have been like, this is awesome. I also think if it would have
been built by Gearbox, people would be worshipping it instead of shredding it
because they're like, this isn't what we wanted from Rocksteady.

(01:08:54):
Like if that was a Gearbox game, it would be reviewed completely differently.
But that's a whole side. Gearbox would have made that game better,
too, because they're really good at looter shooters.
Well, people would have expected the loot table to grind and the simplicity of it.
They wouldn't have expected like, you know, the Rocksteady, you know,
impact system and combat system.
Same thing with Bioware and Anthem. I get where you're going with the point
being that the trends change so fast.

(01:09:15):
I said it last night everybody's trying to jump on
extraction pvpve everybody's adding that
to their game and like that's the next trend and guess what you're going to
oversaturate the market there'll be two or three gold star games that rise and
everybody else will die and that's the problem with trend chasing like when
you look and you're like well this is what the market's doing let's do that
i think that's what the last of us online did i think they said we can do that

(01:09:40):
our Our mode is so good and successful.
We can go out in the market and do what Fortnite's doing.
And as time went on, it was like Bungie took one look at it and said,
you don't know what it takes to maintain an ongoing live service game.
And that's why the Helldivers devs are right now scrambling to hire more people
because they went way past expectations.

(01:10:01):
Sony buys them before the summer. Write it down. I guarantee they're going to
scoop them up and give them the funding they need because that game can go places.
I think it's got massive potential.
Oh, I agree. And there's no PvP.
And they don't want to add PvP. I think people are already exhausted with PvP,
with PvE elements, extraction shooters.
Like, I don't think people want a lot more games. I'm going to push back on

(01:10:24):
that. There's no PvP. This is one of my pet peeves within gaming.
PvP doesn't necessarily mean me shooting at you. It's some form of competition.
And they give you stats at the end of it, like Smash Brothers.
Right. So it's like, who got the most kills?
That's not PvP. That's called coopetition. you
could still compete against that's what the devs call

(01:10:44):
it the suicide squad has the same thing pvp means competitive
i know what it means but i'm saying that you
don't need that when you also have the any kind of competitive element brought
in and so i always kind of say yeah i would i would define that still in a way
of pvp who could perform the best who can do this and that and more and because
the game tracks your stats for me as somebody who's a baseball nerd like i'm

(01:11:07):
like i'm I'm all about it.
It doesn't have to be like, you know, like, oh, a real like real, you know, fist grinder.
It usually is more like funny and fun. Like, oh, man, did you see I got the most team kills?
Not sorry. You know, it's like it's an interesting point to talk about the innovation
in gaming and where it's going to come from.
And I think I think that's why Arrowhead has 100 employees, a company that size.

(01:11:29):
That's where you're going to see an innovative game that impresses and doesn't
chase the trends because all these larger companies like the Activision's a
Warner Brothers owned developer.
Developer there's so many internal incentives to push after these
trends they have giant staffs they have giant
teams and they have to go all out on these things
and it does take a longer time and reggie fees of me i think
said this a few months ago too is that you're going to see the innovation from

(01:11:51):
the teams all these these fat checks for that all that stuff they're going to
leave they're going to leave and then they're going to probably start their
own dev firms too that are smaller and they're going to be able to work on that
passion project and create something new and innovative as well so there is
a benefit to that but yeah i mean.
I don't understand how the heck you call Skull and Bones a quad A game.
This seems like, like what? I don't, at first I was like, oh,

(01:12:15):
they're doing something really unique. Guys, we have a podcast Monday. Stop.
You should never get drunk and do an interview because that's the only way I said that.
Like, why would you say that sentence?
You know, that's just a joke. Like a quad A game. It's the same thing.
It's a joke. Did you watch their Summer Games Fest?

(01:12:35):
I love, I love, I love them. i'm part of
i'm part of the program they're coming part of
the program i love ubisoft i am i'm a
memeable ubisoft fan i'm i'm like
i'm not a pony or an xbox general but yeah exactly well
this whole podcast proves that right i think but i think
he'll be having a comeback man prince of persia that's yes yes i'm

(01:12:56):
just saying their messaging oh yeah don't
let him it's rough dude like
in the best way like i loved that conference
that conference reeked of like mr caffeine era
e3 of them just being like you you
want to drive and look in the lamborghini with motor

(01:13:17):
fest and just like the way they showed off star
wars and dude i love ubisoft and it's for
all the wrong reasons i want they're coming back i want
i want to give everybody an opportunity if there's anything that they want to
kind of talk about because we are over kind of usually shoot for these to be
an hour and we're a little bit over that so i do apologize to everybody here
on the panel in case they have to get out of here but as a just kind of a final

(01:13:38):
way to put a hat on today i'd like everybody to have the the opportunity to
save anything that's come to mind or maybe something they want to uh you know
add on to so let's start with kirk.
I know i hadn't called on you first at all in this entire show and i was like
well but i've been interjecting and obnoxious so i don't really know that i
need anything to say anything else i mean i i've i've made it clear where i

(01:14:01):
stand i i don't think that,
Like Mark talked about it earlier, like Nintendo takes proven industry areas,
innovates, thinks laterally, expands on what they know will already work,
what already has a proof of concept, and then they do like a little twist on
it or something that makes it unique, makes it enticing and appealing to the

(01:14:23):
market. And like that's where they find their success.
And then PlayStation, they have a strategy, they have a methodology,
they have a product and a brand that they continue to deliver upon year after year.
That's the stalwart of gaming right now is the
PlayStation brand and the PlayStation console and the games
that are on that platform so those two are occupying those
two different spaces and they're both crushing it in

(01:14:44):
both those two spaces and Xbox is scrambling to
try and figure out where where they can find ground what's the
space that they can occupy and they haven't found it
yet they haven't found it since the launch of the Xbox One
and so they're continuing to say oh it's going to be this it's
going to be we're going to buy the biggest maker of
most successful maker of games on mobile king we're gonna
buy them and we're gonna improve improve our cloud and

(01:15:07):
we're gonna you know put our our our platform on
television so what i mean like great okay maybe one of those works maybe they
get lucky i'm not gonna sit here and say they're they're destined to fail and
there's no way that they couldn't blow up like that's that's tech right like
that's silicon valley eventually somebody makes the app eventually somebody
has the idea that blows up and, you know, TikTok,

(01:15:30):
for example, you know, we had Vine as a precursor to that.
TikTok is now, you know, Instagram and YouTube are scrambling to try and keep
up with TikTok and innovate to copy TikTok.
You know, TikTok was a new idea and a new app and a new platform.
So like if Xbox gets lightning in a bottle with one of these ideas, great. But,

(01:15:50):
They have a track record of trying stuff and it not working.
And I'm not going to bet on or place any stock in anything that they're going
to try in the next five or more years until I see actual results,
because there have been no actual results.
It's good that they try, though, because that's one of the things that when
it comes down to it, like Nintendo,

(01:16:11):
you tried, at least you try, as opposed to like when people,
when I hear a lot of gamers complain about the state of game,
like, oh, it's just like the The big companies, the AAAs, are just doing the safest possible route.
It's like Nintendo's out there like, we're just going to turn motion controls
on and see what happens. And then everybody tries to copy it.
And then it's like, okay. But J-Dub, what do you think?
I will say this. There is a large number of people out there that Microsoft caters to.

(01:16:39):
A lot of those people, they will take away different things from this podcast that they had today.
There's a lot of people out there that want to be lied to. They want to be led astray.
They want to be validated to make, you know, they want to be validated with
their years of waiting for greatness and waiting for good things.
They want to be comforted in that. Now, today, I think, Phil,

(01:17:02):
with all the spinning that they did, there are some people going to say,
yeah, this is what we wanted. And thank you, Phil.
And they're going to take away a totally different set of circumstances that
we talked about today. And guess what?
To those people, kudos to them. Let them, God bless their souls,
let them do that. But to everybody else, we've been lied to enough.
You know, like they say, the first time, you know, shame on you.

(01:17:24):
The next time, shame on me. And then on and on and on.
And I think we just, we've seen this rabbit hole go down so many times.
We're able to, we don't have the filters on. We get to see the BS.
We get to actually read the fine line and see exactly what was said.
And we talked about that today. Anyway, you guys can touch me on Twitter at jdubcity16.
And I'll try to keep you guys laughing, you know what I'm saying,

(01:17:45):
with some of my banter. Jdub Fake News City.
I just come at this with the ongoing trajectory as a guy that entered this gen excited as an Xbox fan.
I bought the Series X first, and if I watch that show back and think about it

(01:18:06):
back as an Xbox fan, they gave me zero confidence in the brand going forward,
delivering anything I was hoping for.
They've admitted that yet we're going to put put four
titles somewhere else with the possibility of more
and then they just basically just puked
out a bunch of the same talking points that they've said for
years and then dangled the oh there's going to be this this big huge technical

(01:18:31):
leap in the next gen hardware which just continues the meme of wait until you
know yeah wait until you know wait until things get better as a series x owner
as somebody that thought that
you know they're really going to come out here and speak with clarity.
I think it lacked clarity. I think like Jay said, I think a lot of the main,
the big time, fully committed Xbox guys, this is just enough to put them back

(01:18:55):
in the saddle and to say, yep, we're, we're on team Xbox.
You guys aren't getting star field. Like they said, just enough.
And that's why I always say it's not what Phil says. It's what he doesn't say.
If you really listen carefully, uh,
And then he goes and does these interviews with, you know, Verge and everywhere
else. And it's just like, it's very, very clear. Microsoft is the captain now.

(01:19:15):
And Phil and Sarah and booty, they seem like great people.
They're, they're real sharp. And I think Phil kept them in the fight.
I got respect for that guy for keeping Xbox in the fight all these years.
But I think Microsoft walked in the room and said, we're the captain now. And this is phase one.
And I believe there will be a phase two. And I believe a lot of the big titles will move.

(01:19:36):
I i definitely think blade is already probably
slated to be multi-plat i don't think that they refused they
refused to even acknowledge yeah they won't address
it it's like they won't address the conversation on so many of those titles
and it's my biggest hope is that they do decide to do something with handheld
because i do think that's a compelling offer from microsoft that would make

(01:19:59):
me be like oh i want to get xbox hardware again because right now after what
What happened with Series X?
And again, she said technical leap. And I'm like, I don't know what that could mean.
I hope it's a powerhouse. I hope they leave behind the two-tiered system with the S.
I just thought that's just been so not helpful.
And I think devs are going to continue to look at that. A point I wanted to

(01:20:21):
make when I was talking about nobody's building a digital library on Xbox.
Third-party developers are going to think about that.
You have a culture that doesn't build a library. They use a service.
And it's like, do you really want to build games for over there?
I think third party devs are going to look at this messaging and look at this
pattern and say, what are we investing in over there if we build a game for

(01:20:43):
over there? What's the point?
It doesn't seem like this concrete value offer of power and next gen.
It's this weird nebulous thing.
I think the PS5 Pro is going to be very winsome to devs, and it's going to really
turn the tide in the third party war.
And that's where you're going to see, like you said, games like Granblue and
stuff, just inadvertent exclusives will continue, I think, going forward.

(01:21:08):
Mark, that's why this guy's a professional, you know, every,
every bit of that. Yeah. That's why this guy gets paid the big bucks.
There you go. I second all of that for sure. Yeah. Well, for me to be clear,
I am not team Xbox or PlayStation.
I sold my Xbox because I just wasn't using it, but I did like it.
I was impressed by the backwards compatibility.

(01:21:29):
I'm team princess peach for sure. But no, I mean, super Mario wonders,
super Mario RPG. Come on guys.
There is a cadence on Nintendo. Absolutely. Yeah.
So to Lono's point about Microsoft being captain, I feel like that was always
the case, right? And Phil Spencer did put up a good fight.
He did put up a good fight to try to make gaming more than what it was at Microsoft.

(01:21:50):
I just don't see in the long run that truly changing anything.
Handheld would be really cool, but I think there's two ways they could go about
it. They could go about it the way they are, where they're just letting other OEMs make devices.
And REG, I tested that ally. It was cool, but Windows sucks on a handheld device right now.
So if they don't, if they don't improve that with some type of better mobile

(01:22:11):
Windows experience, that's going to fail.
Maybe they enter it themselves with some other device.
That could happen. I'd be surprised, but I would definitely try it out for sure.
So, I mean, long run is I don't think Xbox consoles are going to blow out anyone
in the future, but I would still probably buy Microsoft stock too,
knowing that a lot of that is going to come from other aspects,

(01:22:32):
but their business is going to be around for a long time.
And to the comment about blade i mean honestly i'd
say i hope blade is multi-platform for the sake of that game because
one i love blade i hope it's a good game and i'm a
game developer myself i want game developers to succeed and
the reality is is locking yourself into a platform not a lot of people are playing
as always is poor as well so i mean those are my two cents nothing surprised

(01:22:55):
me out of this at all and i do think it was a complete waste of time not this
podcast but that interview i uh i echo that i felt like there was a 22 minute
nothing burger that i was the worst case scenario for them Again,
four vague games that now we can speculate on what they might be.
And then, of course, people are going to say, well, if they brought these four,

(01:23:16):
what's going to happen next? What's going to happen next?
What I was wanting from this, because I am actually, I believe in their vision
about games everywhere.
I think they're thinking of it and the future in the right way with the right
tech and just basically saying like, hey, every screen is an Xbox.
Okay, cool. Why not? That's the same thing. If PlayStation Portal said,
hey, we're going to let you have your GeForce Now on this, it becomes an instant buy device for me.

(01:23:41):
But I'm not in the market for single-use products anymore because I don't have that need.
I already have something that does those things. I think the PlayStation Portal
would be a better device.
To do the things that I wanted to do, but it still was limited.
But all that being said, I think it's going to be interesting to see what happens
with Xbox from here on out, because I don't think Xbox fans got anything that they really wanted.

(01:24:05):
And if they did, I would really lean into the Copium kind of aspect.
From a technological perspective, I think, yes, they weren't going to leave
the console market, but what is a console for them them in this next technical leap.
I think we got a lot of PR and a big nothing burger. And I honestly,
yeah, I felt like I wasted my time.

(01:24:27):
And at the same time, then going back to Colt Eastwood's, you know,
like shocking face and all that, like all these little things of hopium that
have been, you know, on the internet.
I was like, yeah, that was like, I said, what's the worst case scenario?
And then while watching it, I go, oh, this is the, yeah, this is that worst
case scenario that I I thought that they would do. They'd get up here.
They wouldn't really be clear.
It's could, you know, they have confusing messaging and they look defeated.

(01:24:50):
And I think that's just going to accelerate this into whatever summer games fest tends to be.
And I think that's going to be the next kind of check-in point.
Truly like, yes, maybe the Nintendo directs next week and they get,
you know, hi-fi rush or whatever, which would be great. Bring it.
Like I want, that's what I want.
However, I think essentially today was a big waste of time. Not this podcast.

(01:25:12):
They didn't solidify any confidence in the brand.
They didn't shoot back across the bow.
Like Phil's statement about, no, it's not Indiana Jones or Starfield.
Like that was it. Out of that entire 22-minute podcast.
Like there was nothing else that was noteworthy or really worth talking about.
I commend all four of you gentlemen for us being able to actually make some

(01:25:34):
content out of that. that because there was just absolutely nothing there.
So yeah, like I just, there's, I think that you're right, Brian,
this is the worst case scenario.
Like even if they just said something bold and crazy and they said,
yep, a third party, everything, you know, like that would have been almost better
if you had something to say, like you were bringing something to table with a bold new vision.

(01:25:55):
Instead, they were just like, yeah, we have nothing, nothing to say,
nothing to offer. We're not restoring any confidence.
We're not restoring, you know, what our brand messaging and vision is beyond
lip service and vagaries and PR speak.
Yes, you guys, whenever we talk next and nothing about the community losing
their minds has been resolved by this 20 minute or so conversation about random vague stuff.

(01:26:20):
And oh, yeah, you guys are going to get Diablo. So forget about all this, please.
Go play Diablo. Don't look at the man behind the curtain. Don't look at the
man behind the curtain. I will agree with Prute that I am on Team Lasagna as
opposed to Team Xbox or Team PlayStation.
I think Lasagna is always a good choice. And I like that they put that in chat.
So thank you guys so much for being here. Thanks to the panel for coming in

(01:26:41):
together and giving me some of their time today.
I really appreciate it. Thanks to chat spending their time with us today.
We're going to wrap up and I'm going to dismiss these guys. And we thank you
guys so much for tuning in, listening, hitting that like button.
And hopefully you'll leave a comment or two on the VOD. But outside of that, see you next time.
Music.

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