Major Xbox Layoffs, Perfect Dark & Everwild Canceled # 451

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
You are listening to Video Games to the Max. Hello,
and welcome to another edition of Video Games to the Max.
I am your host Sean Garmer here with me as usual,
mister mc morrison out, and this is the episode and
fifty one of the podcasts. And you know it's the
elephant in the room, folks. We talked about it last

(00:36):
week that it was probably happening, and it has officially happened.
The Microsoft layoffs nine one hundred people as of this recording,
many of those on the various departments and Xbox. We'll
talk about that. Mark has more to talk about with

(00:58):
dest Rating two. I've gotten the actually Have Clear Obscure
Expedition thirty three. Finally, Hell Divers Too is also coming
to Xbox, which they did it like the next day,
so it's like they're trying to do the Hey, don't
even think about what just happened. Let's look at the
nice things. Look, it's a smokescreen, folks, you know it

(01:22):
is what it is. We'll talk about that and some
other things to discuss, all right, So let's go ahead
and get the housekeeping out of the way here very quickly.
You know, you can watch us live around nine o'clock
on Mondays nine o'clock Eastern, that is six o'clock Pacific

(01:43):
on the YouTube channel that to a network, or you
can watch it later on demand if you want the
studios that we finished recording it, it's there for you
to watch. You can also just check it out on
podcasts as well to search video against them, find it,
listen to it, give us a review, subscribe, like follow

(02:04):
all that stuff. If you subscribe to the YouTube channel,
you get the other stuff that's part of their two
network as well, which is great because it's not just
what we do here vide against them. Actually of other
things that you know get reviewed as well. So if
you like movies, TV shows, the relics you're broadcasting, folks
do a great job doing that every week pretty much,

(02:25):
any like big movie that comes out, they have a review.
They also do it on Mondays, so you can pretty much,
you know, listen watch Tuesday morning, you get up, you
get our episode, and you also get you know, like
today they're doing the Jurassic World rebirth review. And then

(02:46):
also if you like anime, that summer anime season which
is absolutely packed with stuff between returning shows I donned
on and new stuff Taco Cafe has you covered there.
They got a big road ahead of them to cover
all that stuff, so make sure. That's another big reason
to check us out as well if you like that

(03:07):
the anime side of things. So yeah, check us out
with this podcast videos on YouTube later you can watch
some of the folks live on Twitch as well. W
Tennant work there, so yeah, whatever. You can even check
out shorts, whether it's me or mister Radlet's talk about

(03:27):
things we do those as well on the YouTube channel.
So but all right, going ahead and getting into let's
let's talk about something on the side here. Did you
do anything for your Fourth of July?

Speaker 2 (03:44):
No. I had a friend over and my neighbor. It's
sounded like Beirut for a while.

Speaker 1 (03:50):
I had to work on fourth of July since it
was on a Friday, so I was, uh, and you
can't do fireworks because I live in a enclosed community.
But you know, it was also a raining here, so
it was like you can hear them at the race
track that's pretty close to me. They usually had. They

(04:11):
have a thing every year there that you can go
for free at the Homestead Motor Speedway there. But you know,
it is what it is then kind of just had
to chill Sunday after having three days straight of working.
So you know, it is what it is. I can't

(04:33):
always celebrate all the holidays unfortunately, but yeah, you know,
hopefully y'all did have a good Fourth of July, whether
you celebrated, whether you just hung out and chilled at
your house, hopefully that was a good one for you.
I also just want to give a because I know

(04:54):
people that live in the area just thankfully it wasn't
you know, it didn't affect my family, but I know
people that live in the Central Texas area. Hart goes
out to all the people that were affected by the
floods that happened there. Just absolutely terrible. Especially what happened
was like the that girls camp, the camp Missick thing
that was just absolutely heart wrenching to hear. Just like

(05:18):
my dad randomly mess with me. He's like, I'm okay,
it's like it didn't affect us here in Dallas, but
you know, he's like, you know, we got family down
in the San Antonio, Central Texas area that you know,
they said they're kind of going through it. So hopefully
you know you and your family are safe if you're
there and you know, but all right, let's get into

(05:43):
actually talking about the games we're playing here before we
get into the terrible news of the week. How far
are you in this surrinding too? And are are you
still enjoying it?

Speaker 2 (05:57):
Yeah, i'mn't. Chapter nine. I assume Randy's way further than
I am. But he also cares about the story he's
advancing that I don't, so you know, I'm just kind
of driving along. It's real. Like the two things I'll

(06:17):
mention is it's real funny how easy the game is.
Like one one mission was like, oh, you gotta take
over or you gotta drive through this enemy camp. And
I say, oh, I have a I can use an
assault rifle, and my truck has an assault rifle that
auto targets, so that makes it real easy, you know.
And I can run people over and they don't they

(06:38):
don't die, but they go down and then my machine
gun or you know that the truck the truck gun,
you can take care of them pretty easily. And there
is a fight in chapter or I think it's chapter seven.
I think that might be the most overblown self indulgent

(06:59):
things ever seen in a in a video game. Why
do you say that, like it would it would have
been cheaper and easier if kajem it was just like
beating off in a video for ten minutes. It's like
so so indulgent. It's like, oh my god, get over yourself. Oh.

Speaker 1 (07:19):
I mean that's he is an tour That's that's he
is over indulgent. I mean has it didn't what not
an issue with Middle Girl Solid five as well? Like
that that's standing one also had very.

Speaker 2 (07:33):
I remember well five had a stupid like fire horse.
I remember four had kind of that problem with Johnny
and I think the girl's name Meryll and like the
super like violent uh you know death. Well they didn't
even die. They just got shot like nine hundred times
and then they survived. And it's like what, uh this

(07:54):
tops it and like you know, self indulgence and it's like,
oh my god, like this is this is more evidence
that he should never become a movie director. Uh but yeah,
gameplay is still good. I've gotten into like the snowy areas.
That's a little more uh harder because they you know,

(08:18):
you slide down quite easily with the truck. So yeah,
I'll keep playing at it. I probably won't beat up
by like next week, but I'll keep plugging away at it.
And you know, I think that's like seventeen chapters. So
I'm like halfway or over halfway, which I guess is
all right, but I still like it.

Speaker 1 (08:38):
That's important. Bart anything like new that you've discovered.

Speaker 2 (08:46):
Really no, Yeah, I mean one mission was like, oh,
take out these air enemies. I forget that what they're called,
not dbs because that's as good baby, uh like the
you know, the zombie things, but the hot beats. Yeah,
they're like in the air and they like the kind

(09:06):
of floating jellyfishes. And it's like, yo, I have a
truck that can auto fire, Like how is this a mission?
Like you know, kind of the funny part. So yeah,
I just rode over and my truck took care of
them all and I rode back and it's like, oh,
you're got an S rank if you if you get
no damage, And I'm like, yeah, how could you? How

(09:28):
could you get damaged? Did you think you did this
like on your own? You might but still like they
don't move fast, like it is basically hovering in the
air and the only thing they do is land but
they still don't like move toward you or attack you.
So uh and yeah, it's repeated boss fights, which is
a little unfortunate, I would say, I guess. I mean

(09:48):
the boss is kind of cool. It takes like this
like robot and mech octopus thing, but like it's kind
of cheap or you know, like cauldn't do something else.
But yeah, I still like a.

Speaker 1 (10:02):
Well, I mean, so was the first one not as
easy as this or.

Speaker 2 (10:06):
No, not at all? Uh, Like you don't get stuff.
I mean you eventually do get a lot of this
state the same stuff, but like it's like, oh, you
finally get a gun like ten missions in, or you
kind of get the truck like forty missions, you know,
thirty missions in or something, and this when it's like yo,
you get you start with a gun and you get
the you get the motorcycle like three missions in, you

(10:28):
get the truck about nine and then you just use
that all the way through. Yeah. Uh yeah, it's still good,
but I mean I like it more than the second
and then the first one rather sorry because I'm actually
able to stay with this.

Speaker 1 (10:43):
One, right Yeah, I mean, hey, that makes the difference
too that he definitely improved things from the first game
that people didn't like that.

Speaker 2 (10:53):
You know. The only thing I wish it did so
like there's this big monoail system around Australia that you
can like restore, right, which is helpful because you can
use it to get around Basis pretty quickly, and you
have to like repair part of the track system. And
I wish there was like a sonar pulse or like
some sensor pulse that you could just like, Okay, it's

(11:15):
like I know that this thing is in this area somewhere.
I if you could just like fire off a pulse,
it could tell me where it is. More importantly, tell
you when I need to fix it, so I don't
need like find it. See it needs a four hundred
resident and three hundred special alloys, then go back to
like whatever Basis closest stock up and then go back
out there again. It's like there's a fair amount of

(11:38):
busy work like intentionally in this game.

Speaker 1 (11:43):
Well, I mean some people would say that, you know,
at least it helps, uh kind of divvy up the
game play a little bit. Really, But Randy didn't tell
me which chapter he's in, but he says that he
is going through the story and then he'll still has
times where he's playing, where he's just delivering packages and connecting.

Speaker 2 (12:06):
Yeah, nothing like that. Yeah, yeah right, so yeah, I
mean so it holds up pretty well.

Speaker 1 (12:13):
Hey, that's the important part. I'm glad you're enjoying it
at least. So yep, all right, I've anything else you
want to Nah, not really.

Speaker 2 (12:23):
Let me ask you, uh, have you seen a switch
to him out in the wild at all?

Speaker 1 (12:31):
Honestly, I haven't been to the only store I've ever
I've been to is the grocery store Walmart. Okay, so
I wouldn't be able to tell you, you know, if
there is one at the Walmart close to me or not.

Speaker 2 (12:46):
Got I keep looking. I'm always just curious because they
keep saying like, oh, stock is better or you know,
it's much better than the switch one I.

Speaker 1 (12:53):
Just saw today. Warrior Switch be four was putting up
that on Walmart's website. They had the bundle right available, so.

Speaker 2 (13:03):
I think online it might be true, but like not
in store, you know, right reminding you like the PS
five when that launched, like it is barely in stores
pretty much?

Speaker 1 (13:13):
Yeah, uh, I think that that was more like it is.
It does seem to be like depending on which location, right,
you know, especially, But that's the thing. It wasn't even
available like online, remember, like for the most part, unless
you were moditoring Sony's store, which is how I got mine,

(13:34):
Like two weeks after it launched, right, you, there was
no stock at all in stores, right, and if there was,
it was a mad house to go to whatever Walmart
had it because there was already gonna be a line
before you even thought about going there. Yeah, whereas a
switch to, there's a lot of people that say they

(13:55):
can just I mean, yes, I do see a lot
of signs that people go to this eletnic section and
they're buying something else with the switch to where they're
buying something else and they have the son that says
no switch tos what everybody? I do see where there's
people that they walk in and there's two or three
switch shoes. So it's just really the area, and it
does seem to be way more available online. I constantly

(14:16):
see it feels like daily there's a post about hey,
the switch to bundle went up or the switch shoes
up and right, so it feels like it is way
more available than the PS five and even the series X. Right,
So you know that's positive. That's good for Nintendo as

(14:38):
the inedible. You know, Summer Nintendo Direct is probably gonna
happen here, whether it's before Donkey Kong or after Donkey
Kong releases, you know, we'll see which that is coming
up in about ten days now, the first big single
player game for the Switch to the you know, Donkey

(15:00):
Kong Bonanza. So you know, I'm excited for that, kind
of counting down the dates to have that to play,
which is you know why I kind of taken the
opportunity instead of like what I would normally do is
just like, oh there is stuff on game Pass to play,
you know that I could play or whatever. I was

(15:23):
just like, let me go back and see if I
can finish Claire Obscure before we get to Donkey Kong,
and then I don't play it, probably right, So you know,
I wanted to get to that and just be done
with it. And so I was able to get through

(15:43):
the end of Act two, fight the Paintress and all that.
That was such a cool like story moment when you
finally get to that. And now I'm in Act three
just kind of doing the same thing I did with Rebirth,
where I'm gonna probably do as much size stuff as

(16:05):
I possibly can, because I know I'm not going to
come back to it to do it later before I
fight whatever the final bosses. Just avoid spoilers for people that, like,
you know, like Randy, who might be checking in and
hasn't many more provacies playing Deusk training too. But yeah,
I really love the fact of like how much I'm not.

(16:28):
There's a lot of games to do this, obviously, but
it didn't feel necessarily that way that much in Rebirth
because of how much some of the game, some of
the battle system is dependent on how good you are
as a person, right and the whole like action combat stuff,
And this one obviously does have that as well, with

(16:50):
the you know, dodging and pairing, but really, the dodging
window is so open that I just got to the
point where I got kind of tired of trying to
do the pair because I was like, you know what,
I just want to get through this, and so I
just started dodging. But my characters do so much damage
because I had him like Little fifty five, that it

(17:11):
really felt like, Okay, all that time that was worth it,
Like going back and forth killing just random enemies and
stuff like that and doing the many optional bosses I
could When I'm like kind of roaming the map kind
of it's worth it and I appreciate that about the game.

Speaker 2 (17:29):
So I can also like fly.

Speaker 1 (17:32):
Yeah, well i haven't gotten to the flying part with Skas,
so I'm still swimming around. Uh that I think, like
it act three, you finally get the.

Speaker 2 (17:41):
Yeah, that's the first thing you do with Act three
is you get him, you know.

Speaker 1 (17:45):
Yeah, So now I'm gonna do a bunch of the
ones that I've been like, Okay, well how do I
get there? How do I get there? And then I
got to like look up like oh, you have to
be able to fly to that, Like okay, so I
can just go and do Act two now because I
can't really do anything else. Yeah, So you know, I'm
excited to get to that finish it. And I've just

(18:05):
been again the keys proving why it is my game
of the year right now, and just more and more
the more time I get to sit with it. That
soundtrack is absolutely just bonkers awesome.

Speaker 2 (18:18):
Yeah. Once once you had Act three, like it kind
of given free reign and it's like, well you can
you can do a bunch of hide stuff or can
you go to the end. I would recommend that part
because like that last bus is a little tough.

Speaker 1 (18:30):
But yeah, I've you know, I've heard that you can
kind of beat him at that level that I'm at.
But I was just like, let me just go ahead
and get more stuff done. See if I can find
anything else. Story wise. It's interesting too.

Speaker 2 (18:46):
I mean there's that's there's at least two like side
bosses that are like really critically like story critically important,
but they're yeah, option, So like I know, ends didn't
even try.

Speaker 1 (19:00):
I don't know, maybe if Randy finishes it, you know,
before we get to the end of the year, when
we can do the spoiler cast or something and talk
about the story. Yeah, I'll talk to him and see
how he feels about doing that. I won't make it.
The big huge thing that it was that Rebirth was that,

(19:21):
you know, we don't even have seven people on. That
was after I tried to go back and watch and
I was like, I love all these people. I thought
we had a good conversation, but it did feel very
long after a while because you're having to cycle through
seven people. But all right, that's the only game that
I've really been kind of playing, So I guess we

(19:42):
should no longer delay the inevitable.

Speaker 2 (19:46):
Here.

Speaker 1 (19:48):
The Microsoft layoffs, which they were majorly affected Xbox, not
as much as I thought they were going to. The
rumors going into after we did the podcast, we're like,
this is gonna be catastrophic, Like this is gonna be

(20:08):
every single studio is gonna be affected, and we're really
going to see the you know, things not panning out,
how it's gonna affect and really a lot of what
happened is seems to be it's affecting majorly things that
haven't come out yet that they don't have a they
don't have a planned date, and then you know some

(20:31):
other ones that kind of make sense in a way.
Still terrible, regardless of people losing jobs. I don't want
to make light of that at all. Yeah, I hate
that people are having to lose jobs. That's always terrible
in this industry. I know, it seems it's happened so
much that people kind of gloss over it at this point,

(20:53):
And I don't blame people if they do, just because
it feels like every freaking week we're talking about somebody
laying off somebody. But I mean, after we had the
ones with THEA and then we had the ones with
Warner Brothers. And Microsoft's already done some other ones this year.
I mean this, they have like fifteen thousand employees or
something that they've laid off this year, which is a

(21:14):
ridiculous number. But a lot of tech companies are going
through layoffs as well. It's not just you know, gaming,
as everybody goes to that race to AI kind of
thing where it's like, well, if we're investigating AI, why
do we need to have so many people. We'll see
if that winds up backfiring on them or not. I
already it's funny. I went to a Wendy's on Saturday

(21:39):
when my girlfriend picked me up and we had to
talk into an AI. Normally I use the app to order,
some don't even have to talk to them, but they
had the AI thing where you talk to the AI
to order, and it's just like, it's just really jarring.
It did the order really well. I'm just saying it's

(22:01):
just so really jarring to talk to a computer.

Speaker 2 (22:05):
I mean I went to a Sonic over the last
week and I sucked ass, So he got one up
on me, like taking like forty minutes. You got my order.

Speaker 1 (22:15):
Yeah, the checkers also like the checkers near me also
does but they've been doing it for a while. They
have the AI ordering thing too, so but we'll get
into the AI because this is very multifaceted, this this
whole thing with the layoffs. But let me just kind
of get through I guess the notes and bolts, even

(22:35):
though this is really almost like five days old for
most people. So if you're kind of in the know,
you already know about this. But I'm going to kind
of go over the nuts and boats of it, just
because that we can get it out there and then
we can kind of talk about wherever you want to
go from there. So okay. According to the Seattle Times,
about four percent, or roughly nine people of the company's

(22:58):
total employees across all departments, including gaming, have been affected.
Bill Spencer had one of the most tone deaf UH
write ups that he did to kind of tell employees
that you know, it's not your fault, nothing to do
with you, guys. We just had to do this. We

(23:20):
had to make cuts. But hey, all of our stuff
is doing great. You know, there's people. No, people haven't
stopped playing games. There more hours haven't been played uh,
you know, our portfolio looks awesome. We have so many
projects and development. It's like, yo, these people just got fired,
like they don't they don't want to hear that shit.

(23:40):
Like you know, like did you forget that you're sending
a letter out to the employees and you kind of
put out something for the investors to you while you're
in there, Like I don't I don't know why you
couldn't have made two uh, one for the employees and
one for the investors. Like that just seems kind of
rather like very just I don't know. It's like Bill
comes off as it's got that really cares, uh, and

(24:02):
then like you write stuff like that and it's just like, man,
did somebody just hand you that and tell you, okay,
you need to sign this and put this out like
it's it's just it's weird.

Speaker 2 (24:11):
Phil. Phil never seemed like a guy who cares. He
always seems kind of like a robot in this kind
you know, well.

Speaker 1 (24:16):
That too, but I'm just saying like he does. You know,
really he's very personable. He speaks about the different games
and studios, and he is a gamer.

Speaker 2 (24:26):
You know.

Speaker 1 (24:26):
It's not like other corporate folks like Andrew Wilson and
Kotik that like, they don't play games. You know, they
are just the corporation person.

Speaker 2 (24:37):
You know, honestly, I'd rather have that. I'd rather have
someone who's just not interested as opposed to some guy
you know who fake or not. You know, he's still
laying off thousands of people.

Speaker 1 (24:49):
Well it's not his call at the end of the day,
but you know, still he has to do what you know, Satia,
Amy Hood and all the people I love him tell
him to do. As crappy as that is, we don't
know how much bartering goes on behind the scenes of

(25:12):
what he fought for, if he fought for any anybody
not to get gut part of the layoffs, did Saty
just straight up just go, like, go find the things
that you feel are going to save us money in
this section. Whatever you feel like needs to be cut,
you do that, and then we'll go over. I don't
know how that went. Obviously I don't work there, so.

Speaker 2 (25:35):
But a lot lets people work there now, so.

Speaker 1 (25:38):
Yes, that too. Unfortunately, according to Bloomberg, King which obviously
makes candy Crush, has cut ten percent of its staff,
so about two hundred people Zenomax has been going through
job cuts. They had an MMO that was in development,
which we kind of knew about because there was it's

(26:00):
this thing of the Elder Scrolls. Online devs have been
talking about they have something else happening that they're really
excited about, but nobody ever said. It didn't have a name.
I just had a project, Project Blackbird. Supposedly Phil Spencer
loved the crap out of that game and would not
stop playing it, and somehow that was made as one

(26:24):
of the cuts. I guess because they had no idea
of when it was going to come out, so they
probably felt it was a better thing to cut that
or instead of cutting something that they do have an
idea of when it's going to come out. There are
also an unnumbered amount of people at Undead Labs stated

(26:44):
a K three people that have been laid off. There's
a percentage of Raven Studios and Sledgehammer with a working
on Black Ops seven right now. Raven is at least
with Trey arc So that's weird that you're cutting people
from a game that you're actually working on for as

(27:06):
a motorsport. The Turnten Studio is the one that got
affected the most aside from the ones that were heavily
hit that they cut half of their stats, so like
fifty percent of the employees are gone. They basically retained
enough people to continue to work on Fords the Motorsports,
since that's pretty much just a live service thing at
this point. We could talk about that in a little

(27:29):
bit because there's probably other things to go along with that,
and then the big ones are rare had ever Well
be canceled completely. And this is after Phil Spencer shortly
before I think like a month before, he was on
the Xbox Era podcast and he said that ever While

(27:49):
is doing well and that they're happy they can give
these games the time to be in development or whatever.
But that game has been development for years at this
point and it's gone through like two different we don't
know what it is. They like recently announced that they

(28:10):
found the game loop not too long ago. And this
is after they showed that trailer that was like, look
like it could be like a cozy adventure game with animals.
I don't know, we have no idea. They just never
told us, Oh this is what the game is, So okay,
that kind of makes sense. This game is going nowhere,

(28:30):
so whatever cut it. But then as a part of that,
Greg Mayl Melee's or Males, who's been with the company
for like almost twenty years, is gone. He's one of
the lead art designers.

Speaker 2 (28:45):
And then.

Speaker 1 (28:47):
You know someone else is also gone as part of
that as well, which is crazy that you're losing people
that have been there very long time because like, at
this point, I don't blame them, whether it's they decided
to leave or they were cut. Uh, you know, what
other game are they gonna work on besides CEA Thieves
at this point? So now they're stuck doing Sea Thieves
and who knows that they're gonna get it developed something else.

(29:10):
Same thing with you know, the XENOMXI line, but now
they're stuck doing other scrolls until other scrolls online until whenever,
which you know, I wonder how much how well those
are doing, Like obviously those are live service things that
you can count on.

Speaker 2 (29:26):
But.

Speaker 1 (29:28):
You know, there you'd have to imagine along with like
Fallout seventy six, like those are modest numbers, like those
are not.

Speaker 2 (29:36):
Crazy. Yeah, at least seventy six can get some bomb
by like the TV show.

Speaker 1 (29:42):
Well, and then see A Thieves did get a big
bump when it went to PS five, right, so you
know there's that as well on that end.

Speaker 2 (29:51):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (29:51):
The bigger one and probably the most I would say
damning one, is the initiative being closed completely along with
Perfect Dark being canceled. This is a studio that they
started on their own in twenty eighteen, so we're talking

(30:11):
about the studio has been around for almost seven years
at this point. It started with Dill Gallagher, the former
Crystal Damage boss. Then it was a revolving door of
people because it was supposed to be a quadruple a
studio at one point. It was a revolving door of

(30:32):
people for a while, and then finally they you know,
said they were working on Perfect Dark. Things had kind
of kind of quieted down, and then last year they
showed off that tech demo. For the lack of a
better word, because depending on who you talk to, that

(30:54):
was either all fake, all pre rendered, some gameplay, some
pre rendered whatever. It basically seems like it was a
shot at, hey, we're doing something, so please don't cancel it,
like we're just letting you know that we're cooking here, please,

(31:14):
And it did get a lot of buzz, like people
were excited about it. I was excited about it.

Speaker 2 (31:19):
Yeah, you know it.

Speaker 1 (31:21):
They turned over Dark into an immersive sim you know
where you kind of looked.

Speaker 2 (31:27):
I mean it did look kind of fake, but it's not.
I didn't they didn't say this is gameplay, or you know,
they didn't say like, oh, here's mission four out of
this thing like right, more like a vibe trailer or
it's like this is what we're kind of hoping to
get to, or you.

Speaker 1 (31:43):
Know, yeah, this is this is what we want the
game to eventually look like.

Speaker 2 (31:47):
Believe me, there are much faker trailers out there, you know.

Speaker 1 (31:50):
Sure, you know, it's just Matt Boody had a had
his own statement that pretty much reads like every other
thing that they ever say. When you know you do
these things, it's like, oh, we've got to make these
changes too, you know, adjust us, be more nimble, all
that kind of craft.

Speaker 2 (32:11):
Yeah, like be more agile. It's like you're you're not
You'll never be agile because the bigger a company gets,
the last agile it can never be.

Speaker 1 (32:21):
Yeah, regardless of how many people you let go, you
still have all.

Speaker 2 (32:24):
These studios, you know, it's like, yeah, tell that, like,
let's see how agile, like you know, a speedboat is
compared to the Titanic.

Speaker 1 (32:33):
You know, yeah, at least he didn't you know, talk
about numbers like fielded. But still it's just it kind
of rings hollow at that point.

Speaker 2 (32:42):
You know.

Speaker 1 (32:43):
The bigger thing that like stands out to me is
just like, did y'all not see this earlier? Like I
understand that you're letting these people you know, cook or whatever,
but it just feels like, I think even Philips said
it too, It's like this is too big of a
task for Matt Booty, like for one person to oversee

(33:04):
all of these studios, and then we don't know how much,
you know, we know phil goes to studios himself as well,
and then you know he goes and does you know
he did the deal with koy Tecmo and Team Ninja
for Ninja Guiden for like, and that's all cool and everything,
but it's just like, you know, could you have made

(33:25):
this less of a pain if you had been able
to see this earlier and then gone and just kind
of counted your losses previously, you know, Uh, so you're
not having to let go of any people, You're not
having to close the entire studio down because this is

(33:50):
your own studio that you formed, and then you just
close it down because well, we're not gonna have them
spin up something else. It's gonna take seven years to make.
So that's another problem. It's just how many of these
things have been sitting there, Like you know, Compulsion supposedly
started South of mid nine in twenty eighteen. Like luckily

(34:11):
in Exile, olbody had a trailer come out for something
that looks pretty well, you know, further in development because
they had like that five minute trailer that they showed
and that looked great and everything. But it's just like, man,
why does everything have to take so long? And then

(34:32):
you know, you end up killing it, and it's just
that's that doesn't look good, especially when you know you
can't get the big franchises to really do much either,
you know. So it's like there's there's a bit of
mismanagement there that whether it's Mad Booty, whether it's Phil Spencer.
There was some rumors going around for a while until
Matt until Xbox actually put a thing on the Xbox

(34:54):
wire that Phil Spencer was going to retire, and then
they refuse and said that anybody's saying that has just
absolutely made that up, which you know, he's fifty seven,
so like that's not out of the realm to say

(35:14):
that at some point, this dude's gonna retire, right, you know,
Like I'm sure he's hoping to get to kind of
like Reggie did. Where Reggie got to where the switch
came out and then he was like, Okay, I'm gonna
call it a day. And you know, maybe Phil Spencer's
kind of has that as a goal to I'll be
sixty when the Xbox whatever the heck's going to be

(35:36):
called comes out, and now I can fully kind of
just let this be Sarah's Bond's thing and and move on,
you know, right, Yeah, it's just interesting, like I understand
that Phil's you know, helped make them money with the
cost them and helped them make them money with the

(35:57):
Activision and Blizzard thing, and obviously game passes we'll talk about.

Speaker 2 (36:02):
You know, the.

Speaker 1 (36:05):
The you know, the devs that have you know, brought
up why is nobody talking about game pass thing? But
you know, game pass went up with with the addition
to Call of Duty, it went up like eight percent,
and you know it has added more subscriptions or whatever.
It's still around that thirty five million dollar number, but

(36:26):
that's still like recurring revenue that you're getting in constantly,
so you know, and with less and less of that, Oh,
I'm only paying a dollar or it's free or whatever,
because they they they stopped you from being able to
stack it like that and they don't offer that that
much anymore unless you buy something like the Xbox med

(36:48):
Quest thing or whatever where they have that three months free.
But you know, the the other thing too is also
that's been kind of going. That's happened like a little
bit after the layoffs were announced as also they were
funding Romero games. Yeah, and even though they came out

(37:09):
today and said that they are not officially shut down,
they are like pretty much kind of trying to figure
it out right now about what's gonna happen so that
people are not completely losing their jobs, but they are
having to lay off people. And they did get their
funding cut for the game that they were making, so

(37:32):
essentially that game is canceled unless somebody comes in and
like does an angel investing thing.

Speaker 2 (37:37):
Oh, it's in the back burner. Yeah, like, yeah, other
companies have gone through this before, right, My my specific
problem at least with the Romero stuff. Is this is
gonna sound cold, but who cares? And I don't like
the team is one thing I can. I can dissociate them.

(38:00):
But like John Romerow and Brenda o'mero haven't made games
like a game in twenty years or twenty five you know, yeah,
who I think it's I think it's bonkers, even from
Mike's such a funded I think in the first place,
because it's like, what the hell like the last game
John Romarra made when you look it up.

Speaker 1 (38:22):
Was it's probably like they felt like they owed it
to them because of the whole they own the Doom
Studio now.

Speaker 2 (38:28):
And I mean John Romarra made like basically two map
packs for Doom Schedule and Sigel two, and like the
last game they worked on together, like the last game
that they put out with Empire of Sin, yeah, which
is a really bad game. Like so, I mean it's

(38:51):
I think it's just crazy they got funded in the
first place, and it's like yo, like you guys don't
make anything like I I'd be happier if they funded
sort of funding some John Carmack problem or you know
Carmack thing and said, hey, you do something because you
at least made a game in the past millennium that

(39:11):
has like done well.

Speaker 1 (39:13):
Not right, but it's more of like that, Okay, this
is a known name, like Okay, let's give them some funding,
and right, I don't know how much funding it was particularly,
and then like, hey, if they make something great, then yeah,
we we were the ones that funded it, you know,

(39:36):
So I can kind of understand it from that point.
But yes, I from like based off of some of
the other things, like especially like okay, as far as
the people go, it sucks for the initiative, right, like
you were brought in, you're doing this, You're you're making this.

Speaker 2 (39:54):
I have a Facebook friend who was like the creative
director in that Perfect Dark game.

Speaker 1 (39:57):
Yeah, like that, that absolutely sucks. But I think for me,
the bigger one is Rare because it kind of goes
back to the whole mismanagement of rare.

Speaker 2 (40:09):
Yeah in general, Yeah, to acquire them.

Speaker 1 (40:13):
Aside from like them lucking into See a Thieves becoming
a huge thing, which it was not a hit from
the get go. That took them a while to get
that to be where it is now. Where now they
can essentially just kind of find the next pirate thing
to put in there and it will keep revolving it stuff,

(40:36):
and they still have I still say, like the moment
that they ever get a one piece collaboration, you're going
to bring in like, I don't know how many people
into that game. I might even give it a whirl
if you do a one piece thing, but like you know,
and it's something you can also play by yourself. You
don't have to play with other people, you know. So

(40:58):
like that that's something that has worked for them, But
it sucks for the people there because I imagine that
not everybody wants to work on CEA Thieves forever, right.
They wanted to have another game that they're working on,
and it sucks that, Like ever Wild just kind of
meandered so long that it became something very easy for
you to put down on the shopping block, you know.

(41:22):
And then you know, you have the reports from the
Seattle Times that said that a lot of essentially just
saying that these cuts were made because Microsoft is investing
heavily into AI, especially now that the Open Ai partnership
is over, and that they're basically they're on the hook
for making sure that chat DPT continues to do their thing,
and you know that they're they're ahead of the game

(41:45):
and AI, especially when you got you know, China, it's
kind of cutting you off at the knees of that
they're beating you at your own game kind of thing,
and obviously helps them not have to employ so many
people when you can get machine learning to do a
lot of a lot of these jobs as well. How
much do you put on how much do you do

(42:09):
you think that that is? Is that an issue of
they are kind of doing this in favor of AI.

Speaker 2 (42:16):
It's a huge issue, but also of the issue that
Microsoft wants to be. They don't want to be a
product company. They want to be a services company. The
problem is their services are all bad, except for I mean,
game Pass kind of the partial exception. But who the fuck?
I mean, would you would you rather pay one hundred

(42:39):
dollars for Office or two hundred dollars for Office you
know for a lifetime, or twenty bucks a month for
the rest of your life?

Speaker 1 (42:46):
Oh no for Office? Hell no? Bro?

Speaker 2 (42:49):
And Windows, Windows, Windows. We come from a.

Speaker 1 (42:52):
Time where you could just go to the store, buy
the disc that had all Office on it, you know,
and then that's it. You paid one hundred fifty dollars
or whatever it was. And that's it.

Speaker 2 (43:02):
Now.

Speaker 1 (43:02):
I get it that they're doing it because oh yeah,
I can get you twenty bucks and you're going to
continue to subscribe. But honestly, bro, uh, Google has Google
Docs and Google seats, Like I don't need off or
or even.

Speaker 2 (43:17):
Open off it. I mean, I like, I like Office
or Microsoft worries just because I'm that's.

Speaker 1 (43:21):
What I bost know, but exactly, yeah, I agree.

Speaker 2 (43:24):
Uh, And also like all the AI craft, like how
is this gonna how is this going to make you
money in the long run?

Speaker 1 (43:32):
Yeah, Like now they're making it to where everybody has
to use copilot, you know, forcing that on people, and it's.

Speaker 2 (43:39):
Just like yeah, like they keep threatening to uh, I'm
not comping to keep threatening to up update to Windows eleven.

Speaker 1 (43:48):
Yeah, mine does that too, and when it when it.

Speaker 2 (43:51):
Eventually does, when I'm forced to, what I'm going to
do is there are custom you can basically create your
own custom Windows eleven install that like you can kind
of pick and choose more granarly like what you want
to install. So it's like, yeah, I'm deleting co Pilot
and Cortana and all of a suddther crap from firm
Windows because I don't want it and I will never

(44:13):
want it, you know, So.

Speaker 1 (44:15):
Yeah, yeah, don't blame you. I really don't want it either.
I've I've tried to avoid it for the life of
ever since that the first time it ever came on there, Right,
And just like I was, like, for one, I don't
even know if my computer can can run the thing,
can really run deal with the thing. So like that's

(44:37):
why I've also kind of been trying to push for well,
I kind of as well get another laptop, a new laptop,
because I don't even know if my laptop that I
have right now can deal with Windows eleven.

Speaker 2 (44:46):
You're probably can, because I think it was like a
year older than mine. The issue is well, like my
current one, like it came preloid with Windows eleven and
it's horrible. And after like two weeks, I went to
Windows ten and I have been with it since I
got this thing like a year and a half ago,
a two years ago. It's like, yeah, when the older
version works better than the new one, like, yeah, that's

(45:10):
an issue.

Speaker 1 (45:11):
You know, And it says a lot because like that's
that's partially the problem, right, now with uh, Windows eleven,
is that like that's what's in all these Windows handheld, right,
And everybody that I see that has one, all they
can say is how much they can't stand right, yeah,

(45:36):
eleven because it is so bloated. And I mean that
is partially why Xbox is doing the whole you know,
Xbox os thing on there how to kind of save
Windows eleven from being a total scrappy, especially now that
like this is going to be that the facto operating
system that some people are going to have to use
because Windows ten is going to stop being supported, so

(45:57):
you know, you might as well do something before you
get the bulk of your people on there. And then
they realized that it really sucks, you know too, so
you know, look, yeah, go ahead, as.

Speaker 2 (46:13):
I say, you you claim that or your most depressed
or this this point about Rare, I'm more down on, well, uh,
the initiative, I mean, at least for project looked interesting.
Most of their crap kind of doesn't. And then also
Turn ten like yeah, they're basically ditching the whole motorsport

(46:37):
franchise or like subfranchise because.

Speaker 1 (46:41):
Essentially Turn ten is going to be like continue to
update the assets and things like that, they will make
content for Motorsport, which it didn't have the number because
they essentially just wanted to make it a reboot, you know,
like this is going to be for the Motorsport.

Speaker 2 (46:55):
Now that was the problem is that game didn't hit
or that game wasn't good.

Speaker 1 (46:59):
Yeah, and it was kind of mediocre. And then also
it's it's a problem because that's not a game like
Horizon that separates itself enough to where you can put
it on PlayStation. There's no point of putting Motorsport on
playstape because you have grants Arismo there.

Speaker 2 (47:15):
Well you say that, I don't quite agree. I mean,
Sonny might not allow them to, that's one thing, but
it's sunny did they just will do it because hey,
Grand Turismo seven is old.

Speaker 1 (47:28):
And yeah, but they're still upenating Grand Trisma.

Speaker 2 (47:30):
Though, you know, and it's not like, oh, now that
Grand Trees I was on this console. There's no other
simulation racing games here. It's like, no, they're just competing. Like,
but the bigger problem is is Motorsport. The last Motorsport
game wasn't good. Yeah, so if they put like Motorsport
four or five on there, even though they're old, Like sure,

(47:54):
why not.

Speaker 1 (47:54):
I don't think they would just because it didn't. They
have licensing problems where they can't you know, if they're
taking on the old horizons then.

Speaker 2 (48:03):
Right, yeah imagine. But yeah, like you know, I always
thought motor Sport was a better game than Grant just
from place it was.

Speaker 1 (48:13):
Certainly there were certain years where it definitely was. I
think Grand with seven is is much more well liked
by that community, uh than this version of what for
the Motorsport is, And that that's an issue, right unless
you're going to bring it out and put it at
like forty bucks or something.

Speaker 2 (48:34):
I mean, hell, why not?

Speaker 1 (48:35):
You know, then I don't know, like you said, it
could be a thing where Sony just says, nah, right,
we don't want that.

Speaker 2 (48:43):
You know. But I think the act Well, there's two
other things. One is there are games. I mean you talk.
I think I mentioned this on Facebook three days ago,
like from twenty twenty, Like their whole big press conference
thing is a disaster, like they like of the nine

(49:03):
games that they kind of lauded back then, only like
four have come out and only two have like done well, right,
And there are games even now, like I'm honestly shocked
that Fable didn't get canceled.

Speaker 1 (49:20):
I don't think. I think they can't. It's it's too
too much money's been spent, and it's one of the big,
big temples like it has.

Speaker 2 (49:27):
To so it's Perfect Dark.

Speaker 1 (49:30):
Perfect Dark is not a big temple that was a
it's a we don't know how far much. Okay, But
here's the thing, Like Fable, they've shown us stuff even
though it's an alpha test, like that game was supposed
to come out this year, Like Perfect Dark has never
had a a release state, you know.

Speaker 2 (49:53):
Right, But Fable has also been in development for way longer. Yes, so,
so it's cost them more mone and the thing still
doesn't even have like a firm release date or even
like I mean a technical alpha at this point in
the game where I think it came out like the
what it came out a few months ago. It's like Lappable,

(50:14):
It's like this has been out, this has been in
relevant for nine years.

Speaker 1 (50:17):
I think it's more of they trust Playground more than
they trust the initiative, Like Playground has the rope because
of how great for the Horizon five is. Yeah, so
they can allow them to keep chugging away because I'm

(50:37):
sure somebody is there making the case that when this
game comes out, it's going to be a game that
he were going to be playing for a while. Whereas, again,
Perfect Dark, we don't know when that game is going
to come out. It looks awesome, are you ever going
to be able to get it to look like that?

(50:58):
I mean you could say the same thing for Fable,
but it's like Fable has a truck. Fable is a franchise,
whereas like, okay, when's the last time we had that
Perfect Dark? Uh, it wasn't well received the Xbox One, right,
it's not the same.

Speaker 2 (51:15):
I mean, yeah, it did okay, but I mean, yes,
Perfect Dark was much more like in Hibernation. But there's
a lot more excitement about Perfect Dark than the Stable thing.
I'm going like, hey, we have Richard Ayodi from the
It crowds like a giant. It said, Okay, but where's
the actual gameplay here? And that's still something they haven't shown,

(51:40):
like realistically, and it's the thing is supposed to be
out Dune now next year, Like why is there no
gameplay trailer? Yeah? More more. I mean that's just one problem,
or one is one game, but like, uh, where is
uh Oh State of the K three.

Speaker 1 (52:02):
Yeah, I mean that's why there's rumored to be layoffs
from Undead Left, probably because that's probably going to be
longer in the tooth as well. But again, there's a
track there's a track record from that studio of State
of the K two and so on, where it's like, Okay,
we can give you guys, that's supposed to be coming
next year as well most likely, Whereas like, okay, they

(52:27):
probably looked at it and somebody gave him a realistic
point of view of saying, look, perfect Dark may not
be till twenty twenty seven or longer ever wild who
the hell knows. So they said, okay, let's just let's
just kill it here. You know, we're not going to
do anything else with the initiative. This was supposed to
be their game that kind of launched them into being

(52:49):
a proper Xbox studio. Since we didn't get to do that,
we closed. It's it's again mismanagement on the part of
Matt Boody, Phil Spencer, whoever it is the management at
that studio. That's that was also the big part of
this as well. They're going to cut a lot of
the middle management, so that you're not having so many

(53:11):
people that you have to like go through to figure
out what's going on with the game or whatever. I
don't I don't know what the actual.

Speaker 2 (53:18):
That's kind of good and bad. I mean, on that service,
I might be good, but if if the problem is
in management, you know, yeah, not being if there's no
managers there or that's the issue that already they already
happen to begin with, is they don't have enough managers,
Like if it's all having to rest on that booty shoulders,
it's a come on.

Speaker 1 (53:38):
I also want to know, like how long did they
think it was going to take for that Zenomax Online
game to happen? Because if Phil Spencer loves the crap
out of that game and that wasn't enough to save
the game from continuing to exist at least for a
little while longer, like damn that must you must have

(54:01):
felt that that was either going to cost a lot
of money to get to where it would be in
a state where you could put it out, or it
was going to take too long.

Speaker 2 (54:11):
And which, yeah, I think both are kind of crazy,
or you know, both are like like how an alpha
was this thinging to begin with, or you know, had
to be at least some playable state.

Speaker 1 (54:24):
Like right, It's just uh, it's crazy that that they
lost and that that's just what we know, right, we
don't know if they there's other games that we've just
never seen the light of day or heard of at all,
that maybe this week they they announced that that's been
kind of canceled the way that you know, we've seen

(54:48):
other studios just say oh, we canceled some projects.

Speaker 2 (54:51):
And right, and that's it. I mean, like I've seen
people comparing this to like when Sony laced people last
and I think, yeah, Sony maybe shut down a studio
or two, but they don't lose nine thousand people like.

Speaker 1 (55:03):
Well, I mean, it's not all Xbox right. This is
this is various departments of the Microsoft and many of
them have nothing to do with Xbox right at all.
It's just again that's part of the whole. Once you
bought Activision, Blizzard King, you now became under the purview
of Microsoft. They are now paying attention to you. You
are now you now have as as soon as Phil

(55:24):
Spencer uttered the words we now have to be a
good business for Microsoft. That's where you knew, Oh this
is this is a whole new ballgame. Now.

Speaker 2 (55:33):
This is Uh.

Speaker 1 (55:35):
If Phil is going out there talking corporate speak in
the actual interviews with gaming outlets like that is bad,
Like that's that's not good. That means everybody has to
be on their p's and q's making sure stuff delivers.
And and to be fair, uh, you know, to bring

(55:56):
in the parlance of out game pass, which we had
a former Arcade the one of the Arcane founders, and
to be fair, he's not been with the studio since
twenty seventeen, so he's not even been there when they
bought the small studios like Compulsion and right, oh my god,

(56:19):
the Double Finds and all that. You know, he hasn't
even been there around then, let alone the Bethesda and
the ficial Blizzard stuff. But he did, you know, bring
up the whole Why is nobody talking about the big
elephant in the room, which is you know, XBOS game
Pass and how much that has ruined gaming. It's an

(56:42):
unsustainable model. It's been increasingly damaging the industry for a decade,
subsidized by MSA's infinite money. But at some point reality
has to hit. I don't think GB can go into
this with other models though, either kill everyone else or
give up. Of course, he's now at WOL five Studios,
which you know had Weird West come out on game Pass.

(57:02):
That game was fine by all measures. It was not amazing.
Maybe other people thought it was, but I mean to me,
it was fine for being on game Pass.

Speaker 2 (57:14):
You know, it has been an average of like seventy
five or eighty on ret like Metacritic.

Speaker 1 (57:19):
Okay, but like that's also what you could say for
Adam Fall and Snapper Elite Resistance, and those are both
on game Pass, and Regellion was happy about it. So
this just continues the narrative that it's like, depending on
who you talk to, you love game Pass or you
hate game Pass.

Speaker 2 (57:41):
You know, we I know, yeah he's talking about it.
He's not about game Pass more. I mean, it's partially
a developer talking about it, but in a more global position.
And I okay, if game Pass is so great or
so profitable, why did these lasts all happen?

Speaker 1 (57:58):
It doesn't really have to do not much for game
Pass though, Yeah, but like.

Speaker 2 (58:03):
If game Pass, you know, game Pass had a billion
subscribers or you know, is pulling in you know, a
billion dollars a month or whatever, Like, I don't think
the last what happened. But at a certain point they
have to reach a plateau of both profit and you know, consumers,
and I didn't they already kind of reached that probably

(58:23):
like a long time ago.

Speaker 1 (58:25):
Well, yeah, the plateau thing, it's definitely happened. That's why
they're trying to put game Pass on everything to try
to see things to pull anyone. And then you know,
they did get a bump with black Ops, but I'm
sure And then partially also is that they never got
to until this year. They never got to nail the
strategy that they wanted to hit, which was we're gonna

(58:47):
have something to give you every single month that you're
gonna not want to unsubscribe, and.

Speaker 2 (58:53):
Yeah, you're that philosophy is also bad because what if
the games are put on game Pass and appeal to you?

Speaker 1 (59:04):
I mean, but that's part of it though, is like
they're getting a lot of the first party games coming
out at a more regular cadence. Right if they don't
appeal to you, then I mean, what are you doing?

Speaker 2 (59:14):
This is you know what.

Speaker 1 (59:16):
Xbox's studios are, Most of them are Western developers, that
are doing you know, Western RPGs or action titles like
Doom or you know, it's like you kind of know
what the portfolio is. And if you're a casual game
and you don't know, and you bought it for one
month and you can't find anything even in the back
catalog to play, then I don't.

Speaker 2 (59:37):
Know, man, Like, I mean, no, but they'll play for
a month, you know, they'll play whatever game and then
some subscribe. All right, none with that. And when Microsoft
puts on you know, you know Final Fantasy fifteen or sixteen, rather,
it's like who cares? You know, it's already an old game.

Speaker 1 (01:00:02):
Yeah, I mean, but that's not their fault.

Speaker 2 (01:00:04):
That's where you know, I thought it was funny. I
did you see the thing about like Phil? I think
Phil said like we've got forty projects in development, and yes,
everything from the showcase is safe, right and it's your dog,
you half those games aren't yours, so you it's like,
who the who the fuck are you going to say

(01:00:25):
a super me poor three D is safe. It's like,
don't your game?

Speaker 1 (01:00:28):
Like well no, but talking about his games, he's not
talking about the games that he has nothing to do with. Obviously,
you know, he's.

Speaker 2 (01:00:38):
He's I don't know some of the stuff. I'd still
i'd still question if it's gonna happen.

Speaker 1 (01:00:44):
Like I could. I mean so looking at it realistically,
it's not like to me, if this was about game Pass,
then Compulsion would have lost Pepel because not the Midnight
did bring enough enough people to to game pass, but
they didn't, right, uh Ninja theory, which to be fair,
they are porting. They are helping port the game over

(01:01:06):
to PS five right now, but they didn't lose anybody either,
although they have a secondary function that apparently they help
other studios with things right and whatnot. So, uh, they
don't just sit there and make their games. They help
other studios as well. You know, Obsidian is right now
making two other games, and that's part of it. That's

(01:01:28):
part of the issue as well, is that Microsoft seems
to not be able to understand which studios need a
firm hand and which studios can be like Obsidian where
you can leave them alone and they're just doing their
thing right. They can put out three games of a year.

Speaker 2 (01:01:44):
Yeah, I think we talked about this a few weeks ago,
but that the Citian is like, honestly, they're most lucrative
or most like production acquisition. You know, damp sure, isn't
you double fine?

Speaker 1 (01:01:57):
Or well to be fair, double fine? Mate, tak on
us another make another game that is coming out this year.
I mean, like, what else do you want them to do?
Like and it's he doesn't work like that? It was safe,
I don't, I guess, not not with Microsoft's money. I
guess whatever, you.

Speaker 2 (01:02:16):
Know, But I mean that's the thing is like, you know,
Obsidian is good, but so many of the other and
and call.

Speaker 1 (01:02:24):
Of Duty obviously because they got Thundy people working on
that thing that they they know what they're doing at
this point, and whoever did whoever is doing the Tony
Hoggins that are about to come out in a couple
of days.

Speaker 2 (01:02:37):
Galaxy. I mean, they just developed it, but I mean
they're still Activision, you know, they're publishing it, right but
like you.

Speaker 1 (01:02:45):
Know that the couple of things that Activision is doing,
they're doing that. You know, Blizzard's just continuing on with
the same stuff that they're doing, you know, which which
they just they just put Diabolo four in places plus
try to get that more players.

Speaker 2 (01:03:02):
That's so funny because uh, you know, I guess it's fine,
it's on there. But like I think for a lot
of like Yen's doesn't YenS really didn't like Diablo four, right,
I think a lot of the a lot of the
older Guard didn't like Diyablo four.

Speaker 1 (01:03:16):
I think it's just a lot of but four they
didn't like it. They don't like the fact that you
have to like redo a character every time you do
one of the seasonal.

Speaker 2 (01:03:24):
I don't like that. I think that's dumb because it's like, yeah,
you want you want to focus on your character, and
you should be able to like copy your character into
the new season actually see the new content. But for
a game that is like so loaded with micro transactions
or like that's kind of the end goal, ninety five
percent of their micro transactions are bad or like ugly. Yeah,

(01:03:49):
it's just like like Embarra, it's just like so low effort.
Like they introduced uh Berserk, you know, the old anime right,
like DLC into it like last season and it was
like it's basically like one armor set maybe yeah, a
horse trophy and like the like the spirit or the

(01:04:13):
graveyard icon and that was it. Right, It's like, how
how bored are you guys of this ship, you know,
and it was also like insanely hard to even like
get like you need to play that game for like
hundreds of hours to takeet a enough currency to you know,
to get all that crap right, or he need buy it,

(01:04:34):
but it's like no one, no no one cares, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:04:39):
Yeah, I mean to go back to the the original point. Ye,
he has a point in that, which is the same
thing we always say, there's no incentive for the big
third pity publishers to put their game on game Pass
at all unless it's a multiplayer game that like needs people.

(01:05:04):
You know. It's why EA waits till the last possible
minute to put any of those sports games on EA Play.
Why because they know the moment that you put it
on game Pass, people are done buying that thing, right,
So uh, you know they wait till the Super Bowl
to put Maden on there. You know, they wait till
the you're into the NBA finals two K does to

(01:05:27):
put NBA two K on PS plus or or game Pass,
So like when they've gotten all the money they can
out of it, that's when they put it on there.
Same thing with like we've seen Screenix do it, you know,
outside of divisions that you know, they didn't with Vini Amana,
they didn't do it, but they they did with the

(01:05:48):
with the other Man game or whatnot. But we've seen
other kind of companies do it like way after the
fact of Okay, it's done making money, we'll just put
it in here to see if it can get some more.
And it is what it is. It's great for indies
for the most part, not the ones that that they

(01:06:08):
just wanted to get their game made and get people
playing the game. It's done great for Claire Obscure as
tradition thirty three, and people went and bought it on
other systems. I mean, obviously, I'm sure there's people that
bought on xox, but it's way less than number. You
know that is that is one of those like rare
times where Xbox has been able to hit on something

(01:06:29):
that became part of the zeitgeist, that became part of
like one of those things you talk about in gaming
for the year of Oh this game was on game
Pass and it did amazing and it's an awesome game.
It's the Game of the Year candidate. Same thing with
blue Prints, you know, but that was also on PS
Plus but still like that was on game Pack, Like
they've been able to get a lot of hits this year,
where whereas other years they've literally had almost nothing, you know.

(01:06:54):
And that was the problem was until this year and
the tail end of last year, the value proposition of
game Pass wasn't really there. So I think a lot
of people were kind of like, well, Okay, everybody keeps
talking about this thing, but it's like, I don't give
a shit about any of this stuff that's on here
or all this stuff's old, Like I don't want to

(01:07:15):
play that, you know, And then the new stuff is
Microsoft's coming out with. It's like, really until Indiana Jones
last year, I think, and then going into this year
when we've really gotten to see the fruits of all that.

Speaker 2 (01:07:29):
I think it's forgetting about a little game called Redfall.

Speaker 1 (01:07:32):
Yeah, and that's what you bring up red Fall, But
like that, that's where I feel like, you know, Phil
made that big deal about going on the kind of
fundy podcast and talking about how they've learned from Red Fall,
and it's like, did y'all really learn from Redfall? Because
I feel like this is something I should have learned
from Redfall, is these mistakes here again like, I'm sure

(01:07:54):
that Phil just wanted to continue the status quo, and
maybe Satia and Nadella and Amy Hood came in and
so like, yo, y'all aren't making there's there's supposed you know, reports,
you know from Jazz Cordon at Windows Central and other end.
He says that Amy Hood is putting way too much

(01:08:15):
on Xbox. Tom Warren's come out and said, like, it's
not as crazy as you think it is, but everybody's
kind of m o. At the end of this was
this is supposed to be worse, a lot worse than
it actually wound up being so not sure where it happened,
like who who stopped the blood letting? Who talked them

(01:08:37):
out of it? Does people overhype what was going to happen? Whatever, whatever.
At the end of the day, it could have been
much worse, and it could have affected studios that are
actually making games that have like it feels like they
have actual deadlines of when they're going to come out right,

(01:08:57):
Not sure how much longer or at least gonna give
them to do that, but I mean, if they can
keep I mean about was was one of those things
where like some people really liked it, some people didn't.
Some people thought it was just okay, uh, you know,
you've got things still coming this year. But you know,

(01:09:21):
South of Midnight was well liked for the most part.
I'm sure it will get some nominations for you know,
some awards or whatever, very much like help A two did,
which is what that studio was supposed to be around
to do. So you know, it did accomplish its task there.
We got you know, branded you coming from the city,
and we got out Wild Out of Worlds two come

(01:09:43):
in from the city, and you got they partnered with
the Dudeja guid In four, and then they got Keeper coming.
That's all in like three weeks in October. I don't
know why they couldn't like separate that out a little
bit more, but whatever, they got the Indiana Jones DLC,
so they definitely have things like every month coming. But

(01:10:09):
it's like, this should have been something that Shoa had
down the line the last couple of years. Unfortunately it
didn't work out that way. But I feel like that
has made people kind of weary about Game Pass two,
and then by the time you're getting people to kind
of try it again, now it's like, oh, too little,

(01:10:30):
too late. For me, you know, I'm going to take
by twenty bucks elsewhere or whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:10:35):
You know, I just saved the twenty bucks three for
three months and then buy the one game I care about.

Speaker 1 (01:10:41):
Yeah that too, right, Like, you know, there's definitely were
a lot of people that went in. It helps call
of duty for the casual player, right, for the person
that isn't the hardcore call of duty guy that buys
it every year. But if you got your friends that
want to play with you for a couple weeks so
whatever while it's just came out, it's great for that

(01:11:04):
and then they just you know, unsubscribe after that month
that they play or whatever. But you know, it's another
issue of like what's going on with what's gonna wind
up happening with Gears eed A, what's gonna want to
happen with Fable, what's gonna happen with Halo? Supposedly there
were some folks laid off from Halo Studios. Well not

(01:11:25):
a huge number but kind of a small number. But
still they keep talking about their making that game, They
keep hyping it up that supposedly during the Halo World
Championship this year, they're gonna show off something we'll see
on that'll.

Speaker 2 (01:11:40):
It'll be another stupid trailer or you know, just.

Speaker 1 (01:11:45):
Oh yeah, one of those like concept trailers.

Speaker 2 (01:11:47):
Yeah, or just feel like the master Chief like his
home in his hand or something. You only see him
from the back.

Speaker 1 (01:11:54):
Yeah, And it's just like outside of Playground with four
as the horizon, it feels like everything else that's like
kind of that old Triple A Microsoft it's kind of
gone down.

Speaker 2 (01:12:09):
Yeah, and that's what that's what you called the Phil
Spencer magic.

Speaker 1 (01:12:13):
Yeah. No, I mean he's that's the thing. It's weird.
It's like he all these like small studio games haven't
come on, done pretty well or you know whatever, and
then it's like the bigger ones. It's like the ones
you're counting on to sell game Pass.

Speaker 2 (01:12:30):
You know. Well there's yeah, the small stuff like you
care about and like a small number of people care about,
but they don't move the needle right.

Speaker 1 (01:12:40):
Exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:12:41):
So that's an issue, Like I think the guys should retire.

Speaker 1 (01:12:47):
Yeah, well, I mean I feel like Matt Booty is
also a fault.

Speaker 2 (01:12:50):
I mean, yeah, well Sara Bond out, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:12:54):
I don't know if Sarah Bond's more of like the
hardware team I don't think she really has to do
with the like day to day.

Speaker 2 (01:13:04):
I don't care, like their whole stupid ACES saying is
like that it's gonna be great when like that one
requires also returns because of micro SD card slot fails.

Speaker 1 (01:13:18):
Yeah, that's gonna be interesting if they.

Speaker 2 (01:13:20):
Have the faires. I agree with that woman last week
who said, like, you know Xbox, you know she was
one who like work on Xbox back in the day.
When she's like, right, yeah, the fire yeah, so distorted.
It's like, yeah, I mean, and you can you'll not
agree with this or like her sentiment because you love

(01:13:41):
game Pass, but yeah, like that when like the most
popular Xbox console was the three sixty by a decent margin,
and all of their news, all of their stuff they've
been trying to do for the past five years, even
ten years, no one no one cares about, or like

(01:14:05):
very few people care about. They should have been going
back to basics, not trying all this like weird shit.

Speaker 1 (01:14:14):
But they tried. Okay, Xbox one killed them. Okay, they
lost a huge.

Speaker 2 (01:14:21):
They lost that generation for sure.

Speaker 1 (01:14:24):
Okay, but that's the part. That's the thing that Phil
said that once you build that digital library you have
no reason to then get away from the PlayStation five
to come to the Xbox, so they had to do
something completely different, which game pass as a concept is
not bad because at the time that they were having

(01:14:45):
it come out, we were all the rage with streaming services.
The problem is that people have streaming service fatigue right now,
and then at the time that you're being able to
gloat about it being the best value in gaming, it
took forever to get to that point, and now people
can just go play Fortnite for free or whatever, and

(01:15:08):
you don't really need something like like game passes value
to a lot of the people that would. You know,
there's that report that was done on IGN about how
they're the younger generation is not spending that much money
on video games, right, which is a generation that's gonna
come after us that they are going to be the
main target at some point. They're also the ones that

(01:15:30):
don't care about where you play the game. They just
want to play the damn game. But like they're spending
less on that because there's obviously other financial pressures that
that are obviously more important. But it's like that's when
you also make silly mistakes like making your consoles six
hundred dollars and making your games eighty dollars. And it's like, okay,

(01:15:56):
I get it that you're trying to make game Pass
look like this advertising one of a lowsome thing of
like oh man for twenty bucks, Like I have all
these games, and it's like but a lot of people
don't want that. They don't want to play that whole thing,
you know, they don't They don't see the value in
it because they don't have time to play all those games, right.

Speaker 2 (01:16:15):
Thing, Yeah, you want to respond to Adam's email real
quick and oh he's a game, he has a game
they want you'll want to review. Okay, but like, yeah,
they but they didn't or they should have just been
they should have been like I mean, Sony's current plan

(01:16:39):
isn't working either, but at least with Sony, like they
still have the more tried and true games they can
kind of fall back on. Like the three pillars at
Microsoft would have been you know, Gears, Halo, and Forza,
and only one of those at the moment is healthy
or at least hopefully healthy. So yeah, I don't know.

(01:17:06):
I think it's bad, but I think it's a mess
of their own making and like they could have. I
don't think they could have. They should have done better,
but they didn't.

Speaker 1 (01:17:21):
Yeah, I mean there's different strategies that they possibly could
have done.

Speaker 2 (01:17:25):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:17:26):
Also, like that they they want they had to do
whatever they could to make game Pass as a feeling
as possible, so they had through the day one launch
thing and then it's like then you can't take that
back because you've already done it. So it's like you
take that away, you're gonna get everybody unsubscribing, because that

(01:17:48):
is the concept of game Pass. That's like Okay, I
know I'm getting that day one Like okay, I'm gonna
stay subscribed because I know this game is coming out
tomorrow is going to be on there, right, And it's
like that's a problem in itself because then you cannibalize
your own sales, right, and it's it's profitable, you know people,

(01:18:11):
And bringing this up lately, I just wanted to make
this point that, Okay, game Fest is profitable because your
first party sales are not in your first party stuff
is not included in that that is a different branch
of your expenses. So the only thing that counts is
the checks that they cut to the indie games and
the old games that they put on there from the
third parties, and you know, that's it. So it's profitable

(01:18:36):
on that extent because they have stopped going after the
huge third party games that they needed to do because
they didn't have their own first party to back them up.
So they've spent less now on bringing games to game Pass,
which that's good, but then you know, you're having other
issues that also are hurtful for game Pass because you know,

(01:19:02):
people start having this feeling of anything that's kind of
like mid tier right, double A and like clear obscure
and below. People assume that it's all it's gonna be
on game paths at some point, so why buy it, right,
Maybe they don't take that chance anymore on a game
because they'll eventually be like, oh, i'll play it in

(01:19:24):
six months whatever. And to be fair that it's nice
that that option is there, but it hurts the developer
on that end too, which I can see. But you
could also say the same for PS plus. That's PS
plus that's the same thing, and they go after a
lot more bigger games than Xbox does. Xbox focuses a
lot more on the indies and and whatever. You see

(01:19:47):
a lot of like just random third party things that
from like a couple of years ago, they which wind
up being on the PS plus thing that gets that
comes out in the middle of the month every time.
So you know, it's both of them. Obviously Microsoft started that,
but still, you know, I think in that instance blame

(01:20:13):
both the services right for that. But also as you
keep going more and more digital and you guys have
more control over the sales, and the sales aren't as
crazy as they used to be, Like the Steam sales
are nowhere near as crazy as they used to be.
You know, you don't have these those flash sales anymore,
where you have a game that costs like fifty bucks

(01:20:36):
that recently came out as all of a sudden like
fifteen dollars, Like that's not happening anymore. So that's and
that's also because people started calling that out, like they
started being like, well, this is not really helping me.
It's great for the consumer, but it's costing me. So
that stopped as well.

Speaker 2 (01:20:54):
You know, it's not it's not Steam, but it's there
are like alternatives farfronts. Yeah, so I bought that RoboCop game.
I'm on Steam or I think that fanatical or something.

Speaker 1 (01:21:06):
Well, now it's well this week it's on. It's there
like during the little bit of the Steam sell stuff.
I think it is there now now for like ten bucks.
But obviously it's like a year or two older from
when you bought it, I think.

Speaker 2 (01:21:17):
So No, no, I bought it. Well, I bought it
like two weeks ago.

Speaker 1 (01:21:22):
Oh you did.

Speaker 2 (01:21:22):
Okay, it was like it was like three bucks. Oh nice,
And and now I mean I'm steam right now it's
five bucks.

Speaker 1 (01:21:30):
Okay, that's what I meant. Yeah, And no, I just
saw it like yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:21:34):
I meanwhile, I you know PSN and Xbox it is
till sixty. It's like, huh, which this is which one
am I gonna buy here?

Speaker 1 (01:21:42):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:21:42):
Right? And having five version don't play that one?

Speaker 1 (01:21:47):
So yeah, oh.

Speaker 2 (01:21:56):
But yeah, okay for the Romero one. But I'm still
salty that he made me his bitch in two thousand
and two thousand, so.

Speaker 1 (01:22:10):
Okay, that was all right.

Speaker 2 (01:22:12):
You remember the old Diacatan. I had no that that
was a big thing when Dakatana came on two thousand,
Like the print print was like John Ramer is about
to make you his bitch, and it's like, yep, this
is a good way to sell this game, all right.

Speaker 1 (01:22:32):
Sorry, I was responding to Adam. Somebody came in right
after me, and I think I'm just let him. I'm
gonna let him have it because you know you want
I took it. I took it because I figured nobody
else would want.

Speaker 2 (01:22:46):
It, right, It's gonna be me.

Speaker 1 (01:22:49):
So yeah, well it was Xbox, so you can't. You
can't review it anyway.

Speaker 2 (01:22:56):
I'll play it on PC, no problem.

Speaker 1 (01:23:00):
I don't know if that's ever gonna come to PC.
I wonder why they. I guess that probably has to
do with the whole They don't want the license issue
to become an issue with PC, I'm sure. So anyway,
there is another Xbox kind of headline here, which is

(01:23:21):
interesting because it's something that I don't think a lot
of anybody thought would happen, just because like this is
the main breadwinner when it comes to live service games
for Sony, and this Sony is also publishing Hell Divers
to on Xbox. They're not doing an intermediary like they

(01:23:41):
did with de Stranding two, or like mb is doing
the show or whatever. This is Sony putting their name
on an Xbox console, so it's either I've seen some
theories float around, obviously, the main one is that it's
a live service game. In these more players, why not

(01:24:03):
you know, what, does it hurt? As long as it's
not a first party as long as it's not a
single player PlayStation game. I don't think it's going to
hurt too much. I have seen the stupid you know,
Console Warrior people already getting mad, and some folks are
you know, trading in their PlayStation because they feel like
this is going to be the you know, microsoftce like, oh,

(01:24:25):
it's only the four games thing of eventually more will come.
And then also there's the the other idea of it
that I've heard is well, they don't consider XBOS competition anymore.

Speaker 2 (01:24:40):
So this is just another that actually be like the
most insulting one quietly, and they don't.

Speaker 1 (01:24:46):
Yeah, they don't consider XBOS competition anymore, so why not
give it to them to get more players and that
eventually they'll put it on switch to as well, and
you know everybody will be playing that thing.

Speaker 2 (01:25:00):
The intermediary thing, meaning like they don't want to share
the revenue with some other company. I mean, even if
it's very small, So why.

Speaker 1 (01:25:08):
Not m Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:25:12):
Also they should release like some Xbox branded like schemes
for the like the bad the bad robots in the game,
like they're all green now.

Speaker 1 (01:25:27):
But yeah, so I just figured I would respond to
Adam they really click so he can go ahead and
just give it to the guy and can move on.
But uh, anyway, so, I you know, I think this
is cool as far as just like I don't know

(01:25:49):
where to stand on it, Like I think people that
are over doing it on the whole. Oh my god,
this is it. It's over. There's no more exclusivity, like
y'all like let this, let this be. It makes sense.
Arrowhead already said they don't want to work on PlayStation
exclusively on the next game they're doing. This may be

(01:26:13):
some kind of contractual agreement in that if Arrowhead is
going to keep working on the game for a certain
period of time, they need more players to be able
to make more content. There was rumors for a while
when Microsoft was really starting to do that push of
putting the games on PlayStation, there was rumors coming around

(01:26:34):
that Hell Divers two would show up on Xbox and
nobody was really giving it any play because you know,
ho conso War bullshit or whatever. Now it's come to fruition,
but it does make sense with somebody's strategy. They did
say that multi platform will be a thing for live service.

Speaker 2 (01:26:54):
Yeah, so.

Speaker 1 (01:26:57):
You know, like, does it matter if it's on the
Xbox if you're not getting the look. I understand this
is a Sony franchise or whatever, it's a Sony on IP,
Sony's publishing it, whatever, But to me, I equate it
to the same thing as Marathon showing up on there,
like until Sony, until Microsoft gets or Xbox gets a

(01:27:18):
Last of Us or Horizon or one of the bigger
actually you know, viable Sony first party things. That's where
you can scream and holler and whatever. Even though now
there's friendly rumors that Returnal may come to Xbox.

Speaker 2 (01:27:36):
I don't know, but I mean I could always see
they're smaller games hitting Xbox, but I don't think. I don't.
I was like, where do you stand with that?

Speaker 1 (01:27:44):
Because I think at some point this is about making money,
Like Sony goes where the money is and Sony needs
to recoup some of this. I've said this to people
that you know, I don't really like to get into
the forms that much or whatever, But there is you know,
in the video game I thought there's one that I

(01:28:05):
go in. Sometimes there's people that are just hardcore on
both sides of the aisle, and I'm just like, guys,
this is about making money. We are done with the
whole console war bullshit that happened long ago. Tony Obody
won number one. Nintendo technically beat everybody, Okay, and Nintendo's

(01:28:26):
gonna keep being Nintendo until the day that nobody ever
buys whatever Nintendo console comes out. Okay, Right, Sony has
to make back some of this money that they spent
on the live service craft that did not come out
work out for them. And we don't know if Marathon's

(01:28:47):
gonna work out. We don't know if fair Games is
gonna work out. Even if they put fair Games on Xbox,
there's no guarantee that it's gonna work out. It could
just be a bad game.

Speaker 2 (01:28:59):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:29:00):
Why not give Xbox the one game that you know
is good, that people liked, even though yes, the site
guys for that thing is gone. No one gives a shit,
and not not not no one gives a shit. But
it's like, literally, it's it's very low on the spectrum
right now. Like maybe the Xbox crowd will revive it.
But then also you're giving it to a crowd that's

(01:29:22):
we just talked about. They don't go around buying a
bunch of games, so maybe they will for something like this.
This very much feels like back in the day Halo
or whatever. You know, maybe it will appeal to that
crowd and and it will jump started. And if enough
sales happen to me, if you're gonna go and with

(01:29:43):
Sorrows is about to come out? Right, Paystation gets the
new game and Xbox gets the old ass game from
what like four years ago? At this point, who cares? Like,
oh my toy went over to the other side, Like, yo,
what you should care about is that Sony is making
money so they can keep funding the next game, right Like,

(01:30:11):
if I get Returnal four years later, I'm only on Xbox, uh,
and you're now getting the new game from what's the
studio house Mark?

Speaker 2 (01:30:24):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:30:25):
Who cares?

Speaker 2 (01:30:26):
Like?

Speaker 1 (01:30:28):
You know, like the people that are not on Twitter
every day don't give a flying fuck about that ship,
Like they just want to play games, you know. So
I just I don't think it's hurting your brand at all.
If you're doing you're giving away a game. You're not
giving it away, You're you're making them pay for it
five years later to say that Microsoft is do me right.

(01:30:51):
You want to play Fords the Horizon five, three years later,
four years later, whatever, however many years it is. You're
paying seventy bucks for that, So why why can't Sony
do that? Also? They're doing it with PC, like I
think honestly, part of it is, like you've been saying,

(01:31:13):
if Xbox really does go PC next generation, then they're
a PC. Right. Sony's games will be playable on that
thing anyway, So why not go ahead and start conditioning
that crowd to want to play your games so it's
extra revenue for you. I don't know, I just don't.

(01:31:37):
To me, As long as they don't go day and date,
I don't really see the big deal, right, But that's
just meat.

Speaker 2 (01:31:44):
You know both. I mean, I don't think the big
Sony franchises will overhead like officially, but the small stuff
and the old stuff like who cares?

Speaker 1 (01:31:56):
Yeah, So you know, it's just one of those things
where it's like, to me, I think people are making
a big deal about it because of the whole Console
Warrior thing. And look, you guys gotta understand that those
walls are gonna start coming down, whether you like it
or not. Because maybe, if, maybe, if somebody doesn't fail

(01:32:18):
with the live service, then they can keep doing their
thing and they don't ever put hell Divers too on Xbox. Yeah,
but unfortunately, and it's like they're putting in game Pass
for free, they're making you pay the forty dollars, and
it might just be a test bed, right, it might
just be like, well, if nobody buys it, then okay,
we were right, nobody buys games on Xbox, and we

(01:32:42):
don't need to we don't need to entertain this again, right,
but if they do buy it, then you know, just
see it as the revenue source the way that Xbox
sees you, and and that's it. Y'all can just be
reciprocal with each other. Also interesting that like they did
it the same day as the Gears Reloaded is coming out. Yeah,

(01:33:04):
are we still or are we trying to see if
they'll buy both? Are we trying to see if they
just have to pick one or what the what the
thing is? That's interesting on that front, but but yeah, uh,
there's some other uh news that is also negative. Unfortunately,

(01:33:27):
uh Subnatica too has lost its entire leadership team as
a CEO Ted Gill, co Finder Credit director Charlie Cleveland,
and co find the technical director Max Maguire have all
left the studio. According to Crafton, the Unknown World's team
is now going to be headed up by Steve Popostis.

(01:33:51):
He was previously the CEO Striking Distance and part of
GM's like Ea Visceral, Are you wor about Snodica too?

Speaker 2 (01:34:02):
No, I didn't have any real interest in it in
the first place.

Speaker 1 (01:34:07):
I thought you liked the first one.

Speaker 2 (01:34:08):
Kind of I like the idea of that, but I don't.
I don't like it that it's a good survival game
or you know that's okay, fair enough, you know, go mine,
you know, the coral to craft a better knife, to
mind more coral, or you know, worrying about yeah, and
that type of craft like I actually the only one
of those I kind of like it is the Want

(01:34:28):
the Long Dark because they actually have a story in it,
so that was nice.

Speaker 1 (01:34:37):
Yeah, I remember you like in the Lawn Dark a lot.
I wonder if this is more about okay, the games
like nearing completion maybe right, and that they feel like
there it's okay for them to leave, that they don't
plan on after this or something.

Speaker 2 (01:34:59):
One guy seem a little salty about it, like he's like,
the game's already done, it's already done for early access.
They just don't want to put it out, Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:35:09):
Oh yeah, Like essentially they did their job. We don't
owe you anything. We're going to move on.

Speaker 2 (01:35:14):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:35:16):
Interesting that, Yeah, I wonder how proud they are the
game then if you're just kind of like, we want
to stay until it's officially out. But maybe maybe it
is like you said, they're just kind of like they
told them like, why don't you just go ahead and
put it out, and they're saying, well, no, we kind
of want to hold it for a while, and they're
kind of like, okay, well, you know, we're done with it.

Speaker 2 (01:35:38):
So yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:35:40):
Yeah. Also, no surprise that Mind's Eye lead Leslie Benzi's
continues to kind of live in I don't know where,
but he's not living in reality. Denial, Yeah, denial of
blaming internal and external saboteurs for the failure of the game,

(01:36:01):
not the technical problems or anything.

Speaker 2 (01:36:03):
You know, No, no saboturs cause the technical problems.

Speaker 1 (01:36:07):
Yeah, exactly, they just randomly went into the game and
messed it up. It's like, it's that's not the reason
why it has that thirty eight and twenty eight Metacritic
and Open Critic and and PlayStation is refunding the game
for people and stuff like that. Yeah, and you're he.

Speaker 2 (01:36:23):
Played Watchdogs and talking and that's how people were hacking
into his servers and fucking up the game.

Speaker 1 (01:36:28):
Yeah, like you know, you're you're having to tell three
hundred staff that they're reportedly possibly at risk losing their jobs. Like, yeah,
that's all about the saboteurs and the I'm not I'm
not saying that review bombing doesn't affect things, but this
is not review bombing. This is people that have a

(01:36:48):
legit qualm on the game.

Speaker 2 (01:36:52):
It's bombing by actual reviewers. It's not just yeah, you know,
gamers or whatever.

Speaker 1 (01:36:58):
Exactly. It's not games that are doing it because they
don't like that this thing is woke or whatever. This
is actual like reviewers that do this thing don't like it.
The players also agree, and unfortunately that sucked. When both
the players and the critics agree that the game sucks,
it sucks, guys. Yeah, it's unfortunate with cyberpunk.

Speaker 2 (01:37:18):
But know it weirdly makes me think that like some
of the We're like more wild stories used to hear
about rock Star, like about how paranoid they were or
because of this guy.

Speaker 1 (01:37:32):
Like I mean, yeah, they are pretty still paranoid, right yeah,
after that first trailer got leaked or whatever, right.

Speaker 2 (01:37:40):
Well they got hacked also, but yeah, I you know,
as Guts six somehow came out and it was like
a bad game. I don't know. They say it's due
to hackers or it's due to the Illuminati, like this
guy's trying to claim.

Speaker 1 (01:37:54):
Yeah, like what what are you smoking, dude, Like, you know,
I don't get that, but sure whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:38:01):
The Lizard people formed an alliance with the mom Man
and they're the ones who ruined our name exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:38:07):
It's like, no, I had nothing to do with us,
you know whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:38:11):
Honestly, yeah, you know, if he just came out and
said i'd I'd respect him. He just said, hey, we
made a bad game, or that's the thing he did.

Speaker 1 (01:38:20):
At first. He said he was heartbroken that they know
what the problems are. If you guys will be patient,
we'll fa.

Speaker 2 (01:38:28):
The CTO is one who's going like, oh, uh, didn't
he didn't say sabatories, but he said something else that
was like really dumb, Like.

Speaker 1 (01:38:37):
Yeah, like people are trying to At first, it was
when the game was like not even in review period. Okay,
they were talking crap about the game doesn't look good
and all that stuff, and then they started talking about
all people were just trying to be haters. And then
it's like, you guys didn't give any early review copies
to anyone, Like what does that say? You know that

(01:38:59):
there's a problem with the game, right, And then like okay,
then the reviewers come out and give it what they
think they should, and then the players get it and
they feel the same, and it's like, what do you
want he to do? Just you They were cutting people
off mid stream from partners streams. That's how bad it was.

(01:39:21):
They were so scared that they would ruin anybody else's
thoughts of the game. They wanted to essentially get suckers
to buy it and get money before so nobody could
figure out it was bad. You know, it's just like
that's that's actually dishonest. You know, it's not great, so

(01:39:46):
you know you kind of deserve I hate that the
people are having to get laid off for this, but
you kind of deserved the craft you're getting because of
the way that you released this game, and you didn't
let people be honest to just say from the beginning,
hey don't buy it. Uh, then you're having to go
through the the more embarrassing thing of having to deal

(01:40:06):
with the PlayStation starts giving out refunds like it's that's
not good man. But uh, speaking of interesting kind of
thought process here for Neil Druckman, who's leaving the production
of the Last of US TV show at four season
three to he says he now has to get back

(01:40:27):
to his job as you know, the lead over there
for Intergalactic that he's even get in a good spot
because they haven't really started the production of the third
and what seems to be the final season. There's a
lot of I haven't watched the part two yet. I've

(01:40:49):
heard a lot of people say that the one episode
that he directed is perhaps the best one of the
entire season. Yeah, and that he started he didn't. It
wasn't until like the last couple of episodes that he
actually started co writing. So like maybe he feels like, well,
I don't need to be around if you're not really

(01:41:10):
gonna have me involved, then I don't really need to
be around, because you know, he already did most of
the episodes without me, so.

Speaker 2 (01:41:21):
I could see him. I mean, he said he's leaving,
but I'm sure they'll still pass along certain yeah ideas,
or he'll have some other say regardless.

Speaker 1 (01:41:31):
I do know.

Speaker 2 (01:41:32):
I think I think if the second season did better,
like critically and from the audience, he's still around.

Speaker 1 (01:41:40):
I agree, Yeah, that's part of it too. He doesn't
want to be involved with what if the third season
just completely crashes out? Yeah I should if he's having
to go off stuff that's maybe not in the game.

Speaker 2 (01:41:53):
Right that always works well, And then he's.

Speaker 1 (01:41:58):
Getting blamed for, oh are you trying to put in
things that are gonna be a last of US three? Uh?
If there is one, because he's definitively said that there
is the last of US three. He's kind of always
left it up in the air of like, well, if
I do a last of US three, you know whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:42:20):
It's gonna have the same thing that yeah game with
throwing season eight had.

Speaker 1 (01:42:25):
I hope not. I hate to see it end like
that or like you know, the.

Speaker 2 (01:42:29):
TV guy just picked up his own ending, and it's
because the lazy jackass won't write the TV won't write
the books anymore, so the TV people have to make
the ending. He's like, yeah, we can't keep we can't
exactly keep Sophie. Uh, or we can't exactly keep what's
your name? So that's Sophie Monk Sophie Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:42:51):
Yeah, I know, I know what you mean.

Speaker 2 (01:42:52):
Sophie Turner on know on contact for ten years while
as well, this guy tries to finish off the book
series until it doesn't do it right.

Speaker 1 (01:43:03):
Yeah, I mean, speaking of series that we didn't know
what was gonna come back because they kind of definitively
said it was only going to be that one season,
sirefug Guts Runners, Season two is officially happening. It's gonna
be a completely different story, still set in the same world,
still done by Studio Trigger and everything else. So that's
gonna be great. I love the animation in that series.

(01:43:23):
I love that first series, So I'm down for the
second one, sure for sure. Glad to hear it's coming back.

Speaker 2 (01:43:33):
They if I find a way to make it cheaper
or you know, to reuse some assets or you know.

Speaker 1 (01:43:38):
So yeah, what do you think about Capcom saying they
still vue Mega Man.

Speaker 2 (01:43:45):
That's a lot.

Speaker 1 (01:43:45):
There's not been a new game.

Speaker 2 (01:43:47):
Right, Yeah, when when was the last tradition? I mean,
when is the last Mega Demand game that wasn't a collection?
And that was probably twenty eleven with Mega Man eleven, I.

Speaker 1 (01:43:57):
Think on the eighteen Mega Man eleven.

Speaker 2 (01:44:02):
Wow, that cannot that late. I mean a Mega Man
ten that was.

Speaker 1 (01:44:05):
Yeah, Mega Man ten was the early twenty ten, right, I.

Speaker 2 (01:44:10):
Mean Mega Man eleven wasn't. I didn't really like it.

Speaker 1 (01:44:14):
Yeah, that's that was the kind of the main uh.

Speaker 2 (01:44:20):
I mean, here's the thing. At this point, I think
it'd be hard to go back to like that type
of that old formula. What they should be doing is
a metrodanea.

Speaker 1 (01:44:34):
You think so? I mean yeah, because metro valles are
kind of more of the rage right now than.

Speaker 2 (01:44:40):
Right Like, you know, you beat a boss, you beat
cut man, and you get his weapon and now you
can cut wires in you know, doctor Wiley's base, or
you know, you beat guts man and now you can
pick up like stronger shit like. But now they just
don't want to like they are beholding the tradition. But
it's like that tradition like doesn't play anymore, you know,

(01:45:03):
but please.

Speaker 1 (01:45:04):
Don't make it a ruguelike either, Like we don't need
to go that far down the road.

Speaker 2 (01:45:08):
I wouldn't mind that either, you know, screw it, Like yeah,
like Mega Manas is going to like different VR simulations
or something. They'd be kind of funny. Yeah, Like I
just don't think, like, I mean, I know you, I
know you like them a little more than I do.
But that's why I don't think like beat them up's

(01:45:29):
work anymore like in today's audio with today's audience. It's
because like there's it's too arkaa.

Speaker 1 (01:45:37):
Yeah, because it's a lot of the same even if
you have like power like that's the one that I
don't know. Streets of Rage four worked well for me,
but I agree that.

Speaker 2 (01:45:47):
For the most a bunch since then that like it's
like all right, here's another one, I guess, and it's like, oh,
here's you know, we resurrected the Power Rangers want or
you know, brand or Resid directed the Turtle's name.

Speaker 1 (01:45:59):
And I will say that's probably why the that absolute
game or that one has a like roguelike stuff in it.
So they did make that one a little bit different, uh,
I kind of you know.

Speaker 2 (01:46:14):
I mean Mega Man is as important to capcom as
like Arthur is to Capcom or you know, like Strider,
like a new Strider game.

Speaker 1 (01:46:25):
Yeah, I agree with that, but I mean they, like
you said, they are at least making the collections, so
they do have it like in their minds.

Speaker 2 (01:46:34):
It's just, you know, now they're done at those nothing
else to.

Speaker 1 (01:46:38):
Do, right, yeahs, and do the Ekonomi thing and just
maybe give it out to a different studio.

Speaker 2 (01:46:45):
Make it, make a make a finally poured over Rockman
and chase to the to the English con English it,
I'll finally compute with Mario Kart.

Speaker 1 (01:46:56):
Right, So one last thing here, unless you have something
else you want to talk about here. Video Games Europe
did respond to the petition that Stop Killing Games initiative
got one point two million signatures, and they said that

(01:47:18):
they appreciate the passion from the community. They cannot force
game makers to make their game that's online only playable
offline forever that it would be too costly. Private servers
are also costly and potentially secure a security issue, so

(01:47:41):
you can't have that either. Does that make it to
where basically, nobody's going to ever be able to do anything.
If a game company, you think there will ever be
somebody that they may try to introduce a law or
something like that that you got to make a playable
some form or is it always going to be just

(01:48:02):
they can't do it and if the company says they
don't want to support anymore, that's it.

Speaker 2 (01:48:08):
I think it's that that one. Well, this is related
to the crew going offline a few years ago, right exactly,
But like the bigger one is Anthem. They just announced
and people.

Speaker 1 (01:48:27):
People are still playing that.

Speaker 2 (01:48:28):
Really well, that's that was my like my gut reaction
was Anthem is still online? Like, and I'm trying to
argue with some people online They're like, you know, it's
it's it's the principle of the matter, And I'm like,
when did the last time you played Anthem? Yeah, you know,
it's the principle. It's not.

Speaker 1 (01:48:46):
It's the whole you know, what's your mccallad. I can't
think of it right now. The for the being able
to archive it, to to be able to preservation exactly, Yeah,
you can't think of the name.

Speaker 2 (01:49:02):
But like, first of all, for an online game, that's
that's never really gonna work. It's not like how are
you going to preserve like World of Warcraft. I mean
you could set up a private server, but it's still
not I mean it's a social game, so I.

Speaker 1 (01:49:17):
Mean didn't they technically do that with That's how Vanilla
Wow started was people started doing it on their own,
and then Blizzard kind of took that and said, Okay,
well no you could do it, but we're gonna kind
of own that.

Speaker 2 (01:49:31):
Well no they didn't. They did it themselves.

Speaker 1 (01:49:34):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:49:35):
It's trod of like a one to one recreation of
how Wow used to be back in like two thousand
and four. Yeah, and also like Wow is an ever
evolving gained like what are you gonna do like preserve
each patch? You know, oh patch one point one one
is my patch, you know, or something like something stupid
like that, like of course not yeah for Anthem like

(01:49:59):
it if the game was still if the game, well,
if the game was ever popular, I should say this
would be doing it. Hey, and that game is online
for six years. It's had a good run for you know,
especially for an EA game like Get Over Yourself. Yeah,

(01:50:19):
like even like even like cartridge and disk based games
they will eventually fail. It's not like a CD is
forever or you know, even like so someone's trying to argue, like,
you know Nintendo, Nintendo can never say, oh, you can't
play Yoshi's Island anymore on a Superintendo. It's like Nintendo

(01:50:40):
might not say that, but Entropy can because I think
has a battery in it, Like that'll fail. And hey,
the SNETS doesn't exactly like the most robust hardware like but.

Speaker 1 (01:50:51):
I mean that's why you have the wrongs right, right,
so you can play them.

Speaker 2 (01:50:57):
I mean yeah, but also with like PC games and
even at console games, there are dozens, maybe even hundreds
of games that yo, you can't play anymore, right, And
I mean, is there a huge outcry for every one
of those games? No, I mean I'm amazed they got
Marvel Heroes backworking. I mean ain't perfect, but they're the

(01:51:20):
private server of that. Or you can just make your
own emulator and emulate, well, make your own like server
and connect to that like no problem. I think the
idea is in principle good, but it's not realistic, and
especially for most of these games that are crapped to
beginning with.

Speaker 1 (01:51:43):
But I mean like isn't that if I if I
were you know somebody that like, this is why I
can't stand the Live Service stuff, because whenever you guys
decide to take it down, that's it. You can't play
the game anymore.

Speaker 2 (01:51:57):
Yeah right, Like I would say, then, don't ever play
a last Service game? Yeah done. I mean I only say,
like in sanity, Nikki kind of And even I dropped
off that hard over the past few months.

Speaker 1 (01:52:13):
I can't know people's point because like, if you really
spent a lot of time in that game and you
want to be able to, you know, come back to
it and say a few years or whatever, like you
could with your games, you know, back in the day.
Like I kind of get that point of Man, I
paid for the now the ones that are free to
play whatever. You know, it's free to play. You didn't

(01:52:35):
pay any money. You bought miket transactions, nobody forced you
to buy them, uh, you know, but I understand the
ones that you you paid the money and now all
of a sudden, I have no access to it. I
kind of understand that in a way, and especially in
an ever increasingly digital world where I mean, you know,
you're supposed to make your digital pursoses go.

Speaker 2 (01:52:56):
On with you, so, but digital purchases don't go on you.
I mean, Apple has revoked e books, The Kindle has
revoked e books, Apple has revoked movies or in the
music that they've lost, like the rights do no?

Speaker 1 (01:53:10):
I agree that they have.

Speaker 2 (01:53:12):
Yeah, and you know, just because you bought I mean,
just because you bought Anthem or Babylon's Fall or battle Born,
how long are you supposed to be able to play
those games forever just by yourself?

Speaker 1 (01:53:25):
I mean, I mean that's yeah, Like that's that's the
thing too, is like, okay, if nobody else is playing it,
how way, who are you supposed to play against?

Speaker 2 (01:53:31):
Yeah, that's anyone. Anthem? I was like, yeah, I wonder
if like the actual population count for that game is
like like a week ago but before the story broke, Like,
how many people are playing Anthem two weeks ago? Probably
like a dozen if you know? If that right?

Speaker 1 (01:53:49):
I mean, I guess it's like, you know, hey, people
all of a sudden started playing Battlefront two again, right,
And that game was like nowhere to be talked about
for how many years? And then all of a sudden,
now it's like, hey, wet, somebody make about.

Speaker 2 (01:54:03):
A front three like yeah, I mean, like a meme
can always happen or you know, I just quick popular interest,
but it's not sustainable. I joked with the ends that
we should we we should we should Platinum Anthem, Now.

Speaker 1 (01:54:19):
Yeah why not?

Speaker 2 (01:54:22):
I mean, look at like Concord at least they gave
refunds for that, but yeah, you know, two weeks out
maybe three to forget it. And I think if a game, actually,
if there is enough support for a game, people will
find a way to like make it work. Yeah, I

(01:54:43):
mean they have like you know, they have Halo two
original Xbox Live working you know for multiplayer, so or
you know, like I said, Marble Heroes like that went off,
like that went off like a decade ago or damn
dam clo to it maybe like twenty seventeen or something.
I was shocked they got like like people are able

(01:55:05):
to play that game. Now, good on them to that.
Like I find it more distressing when it's an actual
good game being taken offline. Yeah, but Anthem, I'm shedding
no tears.

Speaker 1 (01:55:21):
Well, we'll have to see what happens.

Speaker 2 (01:55:23):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:55:24):
It seems like that's going to be everybody's answer every
time somebody tries to complain about the live service games
going down. You know, maybe they'll, well, you'll be able
to do something where a company can give you like
the equivalent of whatever it costs you to buy the game,
so you can spend it on something else that you

(01:55:46):
know they also own or whatever. But I don't they
I kind of get it. They can't force the company
to continually update this game forever. Maybe if you live
in a world where AI could do it, but not
how to use human power now.

Speaker 2 (01:56:03):
I had someone on Twitter this is the two weeks ago,
but she was talking. She was trying to find a uh,
trying to find an iOS app from on twenty eleven,
and I was like, that's gone because twenty seventeen, Apple
switched to six to four bit architecture, so everything before

(01:56:25):
that is just gone. You know, they could patch it
and I'll have some apps did that, but you know,
try to try to find tried going back to that
now it's like good luck.

Speaker 1 (01:56:36):
Yeah it doesn't work. Yeah, but all right, I think
that that is it for the episode here, unless you
have anything else you wanted to bring up.

Speaker 2 (01:56:51):
I about the follow Out TV show and on four
K I saw that. Yeah, nice school. I'm getting Sinners tomorrow. Also,
I watched.

Speaker 1 (01:57:02):
Half of it yesterday. It's pretty good.

Speaker 2 (01:57:05):
I gotta watch the other half before I got the
boring half.

Speaker 1 (01:57:09):
I got to the part right where they're like they're
talk They're like, have already shunned away the trio of
white people.

Speaker 2 (01:57:20):
Right Yep. Yeah, gets a little more interesting after that.

Speaker 1 (01:57:24):
Yeah, so I'll probably watch that tomorrow.

Speaker 2 (01:57:29):
I didn't watch. Yeah, I did watch the Sandman chat
since I came back. Finally, Yeah, I saw that.

Speaker 1 (01:57:36):
I've started watching Don to Don came back, so I've
been watching anime again. Uh so yes, let's go ahead
and end the show the way we normally do here.
With the games that are coming out this week. Uh,
some pretty good ones that are coming here. College football

(01:57:57):
twenty six, which that was the game that I I
could have chosen to review that Mark was talking about,
but I already reviewed the twenty five. It looks cool whatever,
they're well seth they're ending in twenty six or whatever.
But it's just like, I don't really have time right now.
That's a big game you gotta constantly be playing and stuff.

(01:58:22):
We got the Missle Command Delta, which is a new
version of Missile Command that's coming to Switch PS five
and PC that's coming on the eighth. I should mention
the Culture twenty six comes out on the tenth for everybody.
It's out on early access right now if you get
the early access thing. Everdeep Aurora, which is a cool

(01:58:44):
indie metro vanea he play as a Cat, comes out
on the tenth as well for PC and SWITCH. Michael
Punk got shown a few times that those indie showcases.
It's like a roguelike multiplayer game that looks kind of interesting,

(01:59:08):
is made by a Latino team which is Frenny neat
Patapon When to replay comes to PSI switch like this
is okay, So see, this is the kind of thing
that like I wonder if this kind of stuff will
eventually come to Xbox if say Hell Divers two does well,

(01:59:32):
I understand not making it the first thing, Like the
same thing with like Freedom War was remastered, Like you
went to the point of you didn't publish that yourself.
You have ben I Namco do it, Like you could
have put that on Xbox that you're gonna put Hell
Divers to which you're publishing on Xbox. I think that's

(01:59:53):
part of like people's I guess qualms about that or whatever,
but just thought that it's interesting because Patapon is technically
a you know, Sony IP Sony Japan I.

Speaker 2 (02:00:05):
P right.

Speaker 1 (02:00:08):
That comes out on the eleventh, also on the eleventh
out on everything including game Pass because it's an Activision game,
Tony Hawk's proscraded three and four remaster remake whatever, uh
it's out. Looks like the reviews are pretty good for it.

Speaker 2 (02:00:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:00:24):
So and also there's this cool uh uh indie game
called Kais in a Factory story which you're where you're
literally it's like kind of Japanese made and you're like
literally in like a Japanese toy factory and like the
eighties building.

Speaker 2 (02:00:42):
Old having fam coms together.

Speaker 1 (02:00:46):
Yeah, so that's coming out on the fourteenth as well.
So some pretty uh neat stuff coming in this week, obviously,
I'm sure everybody is excited for Tony Hawk. Go check
that out. Give pat Upon one two a world as
well if you're a big fan of those, and all right,
I guess thank you for watching listening. However it is

(02:01:10):
that you check this out, we appreciate you give us
a review, like, leave a comment, what do you think
about all the Xbox layoffs and hell divers to come
into Xbox all that. Let us know when the comments
there on YouTube, and we'll see you next week. Everybody later,

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark

The Joe Rogan Experience

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Major Xbox Layoffs, Perfect Dark & Everwild Canceled # 451

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Stuff You Should Know

My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark

The Joe Rogan Experience

All Episodes

Major Xbox Layoffs, Perfect Dark & Everwild Canceled # 451

Stuff You Should Know