Xbox 2025 Report Card, A.I. Already Overtaking Gaming # 475

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hello, and welcome to another edition of Video Games to
the Max I. I'm your host Sean Gmer here with
me as usual, mister mac.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Morrison gott.

Speaker 1 (00:12):
And all right, well, we said we're going to talk
about it here and we are the Xbox report Cards,
so we can finish out the last of the report
cards for the console makers and you know, go ahead
and do what we're gonna do like next week and
finish out the year talking about our best games twenty

(00:33):
twenty five. But we'll get to that at the end
of the show as far as how that's gonna work
and all that stuff. But for this show, we alreays
to have our report cards. We're also going to talk
about Generative AI, and it's kind of appropriate we talk
about Xbox since you know, Marcrosoft is on that kick
for AI. We also have to talk about some really
sad news as today in a horrible car crash vincim Lla.

(01:02):
You know, well, yeah it was yesterday, Okay, they were
recording it today, so well we'll talk about that as well. Unfortunately,
I've been playing Unbeatable. I'm as playing more goos to
yod So we'll get into all that and more right

(01:23):
after this, Well, what's this allows me to actually do that?
I love when tech doesn't want to work. I feel
like I've been having tech problems all night, which is
why we're starting out late today. So okay, go and

(01:45):
let's go ahead. Get going right.

Speaker 3 (01:49):
Now, you are listening to video games to the max.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
All right, let's go ahead, and I'm gonna skip the
housekeeping for now. Just I feel like probably should just
go ahead. I hate starting off with bad news, but
considering we're talking about like one of the giant, a

(02:30):
giant of the industry, Vince Sampella, founder of Infinity Ward,
head of the Battlefield franchise, you know, head of you know,
basically Creative Respawn, very influenced on the Star Wars Jedi series.
Titan Fall passes away as on Sunday at twelve forty

(02:54):
five due to a vehicle accident I reported by a
California Higher Patrol. NBC Los Angeles was the one, you
know reporting it, and just you know, discussing the news today,
right just kind of like total absolute shock, you know,

(03:17):
talking about fifty five years old is still super young.
He leads behind three children. Just absolutely terrible. They did
put out a state EA did put out a statement
saying it's an unimaginable loss. Parts are with Vincent Samley's

(03:38):
loved ones and all this touched by his work. I've
Ben's influence on the video industry was profound and far reaching.
A friend, colleague, leader, visionary creator, and his work helped
shape modern interactive entertainment and inspired millions of players developers
around the world. His legacy with Tina shape how games
are made and how players connect with generations to come.
You kind of just like sent it to me. I

(04:00):
was there kind of like I don't know if I'm
believing what I'm reading, but uh, what do you think of.

Speaker 4 (04:08):
I mean, I believe that kind of because I think,
like enough people that I know or you know that
I follow, like posted it.

Speaker 2 (04:14):
There's a really.

Speaker 4 (04:16):
I would say sketchy looking the video on TMZ about it,
like showing the crash. But it's like with how AI
is nowadays, so you can't believe it at all, Like yeah, so,
and I wouldn't I watched it now, mean I still
do not believe this so right now, but yeah, like
he was, you have the most like public facing person

(04:38):
in the world or like you know, face of the
company or face of the franchise, even though he kind
of was like the head of it, Like it wasn't
like a Meamoto or a Kajima per se, but he
was way up there, and he was kind of uh
not like directly like like linked, but he was kind
of groomed as they're gonna be like the next e

(04:58):
a CEO or like, you know, he was like on
that trajectory type of thing.

Speaker 1 (05:03):
So yeah, surprising, Yeah, definitely, I feel like that's that
was you're talking about. He was definitely gonna get do
to be ad ea, right, he had. Let you know,
he's one of the major reasons why Battlefield six you know,
is well did well. It is kind of leading a

(05:25):
revolution there for them as far as like getting back
to being a great series. You know. Also, of course
Call of Duty influential there. Uh work with Infinity a
ward created Call of Duty. He left Infinity Awards twenty ten,

(05:47):
founded Respawn, and of course you know Titan Fall, Star Wars,
Jedipex Legends, I mean three well, titan Fall probably could
have been more, but you know, he a kind of
nipped in the bud there. Yeah, just absolutely terrible and

(06:07):
sad that, Uh. Vince Sambella is gone. Yeah, his impact
will probably be felt for so many more as years
go on, and it's just unimaginable loss for his family.
Condolence with all his family, Uh, it's all his friends
in the industry and everything.

Speaker 4 (06:27):
Just yeah, yeah, like almostly no one said a bad
word about him, even though people you know could have
probably but it didn't or you know, like it wasn't
like a bad guy or anything, or didn't you just
screwed people over, so you know, good on him.

Speaker 1 (06:43):
Yeah, it's it's absolutely like yeah, I mean, considering how
many people there's always something like it feels like we
hear more about the like bad apples, I guess, right,
But it feels like he is one of those like
when you talk about uh, major figureheads at all they
did was great things in the industry and were great

(07:06):
to the people they work with and everything. He is
one of those. And that's that's stands out to his
character and again why he's so beloved and how this
just hit the way it did right you know yesterday,
but again like it happened yesterday, but talk about like
nobody was talking about it yesterday. It felt like today

(07:28):
is when everybody was really saying anything. So yeah, I mean,
I don't know what else if there was anything else
you wanted to say about it or no.

Speaker 2 (07:42):
Yeah, I mean yeah, like.

Speaker 4 (07:45):
As part of the business, I'm sure ea'll have to
scramble a little now. But it's also Christmas, so they
built what s worry about that like next year basically,
I mean the fact that it happened like before Christmas is.

Speaker 1 (07:56):
Yeah, it's absolutely talk about yeah, talk about like just
for the family, you're thinking about celebrating Christmas another new year,
like all the whatever plans they had ahead for you know, respawn,
all that just seems kind of mini school considering, you know,

(08:19):
the life that's been lost. But you know, unfortunately we
do have to move on. I hate starting with venues,
but I always kind of feel bad also, just like
leaving it to the end and then feeling like you.

Speaker 2 (08:34):
Don't yeah, like breaking news.

Speaker 1 (08:39):
Yeah exactly, it's yeah. I mean if we would have
it would have been even more breaking. And we just
we started a bit like an hour so late. So yeah, yeah,
we will get into our two big topics, uh a
little bit later on, but I guess let's go ahead
and talk about some games we've been playing anything. You know,

(09:05):
you've been playing more goot Yota. How you U work?

Speaker 2 (09:09):
Yeah, it's still good. I beat one of the main
bad guys.

Speaker 4 (09:12):
I guess uh that game Yeah, well one of well
the big five, because you beat one of them like
right at the start of the game, like the Onie,
I guess ah. That game is weird, Like it has
a lot of like really dumb motion control bullshit and
uh like touch pad nonsense that fans they can turn

(09:34):
a live of it off and just kind of skip it.
But it's like, why is this, Like this isn't like
fun or this isn't like you don't get like a
booster doing this crap. You can I cook your food
and like there's no way to like say, like the
only way to really end it is like just to
say I'm done cooking. But it's not like, oh I
burned the food, so the bonus I get is lower.

(09:54):
It's just like, you know, you just burn the food
because you can't really end it without just ending the
whole mini game. Like it's it's just such a weird thing.

Speaker 2 (10:02):
Ah.

Speaker 4 (10:03):
But yeah, I got the good armor and it's kind
of plowing through it now.

Speaker 1 (10:10):
Yeah, how far do you think you are.

Speaker 2 (10:13):
In the uh maybe half halfway. I gotta do one other.

Speaker 4 (10:20):
Like bad guy the Fox, I think, and then I'll
move up the ladder to like the two sons and
then the main bad guy. But I mean, I have
most things unlocked except for the gun, so I just
got to get that unlocked. And I don't like I
also don't like Stealth in the game at all. Yeah,
in principle, it's fine, but like I really wish you
can mark enemies or you know, I saw this guy

(10:44):
like you have a spot glass, you know, a telescope basically,
and it's like, what can't I just mark people? Like
that'd be so much easier, Like you don't have to
do like the assassins for like vision, you know, Assassin
Vision or anything like that's that game. But like marking
people is pretty pretty uh universal, especially like the Stealth game,

(11:05):
So why can I do it here?

Speaker 2 (11:08):
But yeahn't that it's.

Speaker 1 (11:10):
Like it, Yeah, it's I mean, I'm glad you're enjoying
it outside of the some of the issues you're having there.
Anything else you can check out that analog three D.

Speaker 4 (11:23):
Yeah, Yeah, I played some game I got hooked up
a few nights ago. Like like two days after I
got it. Basically, Uh yeah, I played like most of
the star Fox sixty four that holds up pretty well.

Speaker 2 (11:36):
Yeah, especially since it's only a good Star Fox game.

Speaker 4 (11:40):
Uh Ever, right, I had someone like trying to argue
on I think I'm uh like due Sky like Starck.
The original star Fox was like a revolutionary game when
it came out, and I was like, yeah, kind of
like it looked cool, but like it played bad, Like
it ran terribly, like like fifteen frames a second or something.

(12:02):
It's like I don't care how how good a game
looks like graphically or like it's like all this it's amazing, Yeah,
but it runs like you feel like you're like playing
it like molasses. Right, So that's not fun to me.
So I played that. I played a little Maria sixty four,
just like a level or two or you know, got
like ran around for like a minute. Uh.

Speaker 2 (12:24):
Played a little mark Kart.

Speaker 4 (12:25):
I have the Japanese version of mark Kart sixty four,
not the English one, So it's real weird because it
has some like different voices in it, like instead of
like Mario is saying Mario Kart sixty four, it's like
just like children's choir or like these like young kids
saying it, and like Toad is named something else a

(12:47):
kid's like Jack his Japanese name like Pierro Piro or
mister Piro or something weird like that, and he has
it like really high pitched voice that's like way higher
pitch than even like Toad regular is. But yeah, that
holds up. The only game I tried. I tried to
play this because I also have it. I don't like
I bought it for like a dollar or something that

(13:07):
it's some game store and the Japanese launch game. Let
me see if I can find a name. It's called
Psycho Haboo Shogi. It's a shog game. H And it
has this awesome picture of the guy because it's like

(13:28):
the John Madden of Shog that's Psycho Haboo apparently, so
it's like the picture of the.

Speaker 2 (13:33):
Guy on the on the game cover.

Speaker 1 (13:35):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (13:36):
And it ran, but like I got like a main
menu and I pressed like the top option, which I
assume would have been like play or play now or something,
and a long long page of Japanese text popped up.
And that's as far as I got. I couldn't figure
out how to get past that, like I pressed every

(13:56):
button and nothing happened, and like I I should have
maybe Google like busted out my phone for a Google
Translate to see, like, hey, what does this actually say?

Speaker 2 (14:05):
But like nothing happened.

Speaker 4 (14:07):
So I was like, all right, I guess I can't
play SOG even though I don't even know how to
do that in the first place. And it's also funny
because Yen's got his like three D or fires the
three D as well, and ADAS helped and set it up.

Speaker 2 (14:24):
A few nights ago.

Speaker 4 (14:25):
He had a little more problem with problems with his
than mine, kids, like didn't boot correctly and then he
had like delete the farmwore on his SD car and
then like reinstall it and then it was fine, but
he was like non stop bitching about it for like
the first night. He was like, oh, because he was
trying to play it in his office and his office

(14:46):
doesn't have the TV, just has a a good like
PC monitor in it or I think it's a MAC monitor,
and he was like, I can't.

Speaker 2 (14:54):
Why why doesn't this thing have sp diff out.

Speaker 4 (15:00):
I was like, because none of their console to that
that no one cares only him use it from for
my deck, and I was like, again, that's only you,
like you're the only person who gives a shit about
this nonsense. Yeah, So he begrudgingly had to go downstairs
to his like living room and hook it up to

(15:21):
his TV, like I'm plugging the switch the horror.

Speaker 2 (15:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (15:25):
I was like, oh my god, what a problem.

Speaker 1 (15:28):
Talk Yeah, let me talk for the nomenclature of first
world problems. That's the definition of that.

Speaker 2 (15:35):
And then he order.

Speaker 4 (15:38):
He had ordered a sixty four extension cable for like
the controller because it didn't like reach far enough. Yeah,
and this is somewhat legitimate. He did have to order
like a new game pad right at some third party
one because like, I guess you had an answer to
four control pad, but it was like drifting, which a
valid like that's like the one thing that like, okay, yeah,

(15:59):
that's go for that. But like him going like, oh god,
I got gotta go down stairs look it up.

Speaker 2 (16:05):
To my TV.

Speaker 4 (16:06):
And I'm like, oh my god, should I break out
the violin now or something like come on? But yeah,
he's playing Star Wars Shadows of the Empire. Okay, that's
that's up your alley for sure.

Speaker 1 (16:22):
Definitely on that.

Speaker 2 (16:25):
Yeah, and that analyog it is cool. You know, I'll
keep plugging away at it.

Speaker 1 (16:30):
Yeah, at least you were able to do that. Yeah,
but all right, anything else.

Speaker 4 (16:39):
Playing also playing a little more doubt before they were
listening to the season and I bought I guess I
bought it and that I was been't playing that off
and on.

Speaker 1 (16:47):
Oh okay, yeah that's cool. Yep, all right, Well I
did get to play finally, mean last week I had
the game, but I didn't get get to play much,
say I want to really talk about it, but I
did get to get at least to chapter two and Unbeatable.

(17:08):
That's any game that came out like around December ninth
or tenth. It's kind of a different than I spent that.
They do have like an arcade mode where you just
play the songs. You can play like a music game, right,
and they have different difficulty modes. But the main crux

(17:32):
of it is the story mode, right, because it has
the anime aesthetic and a cool like also like fully
cooly kind of look to it as well in the
anime style. You can really tell it in like the
beginning scene where they have the whole cutting where you
know Beat which is the main character Seeds is kind

(17:55):
of like in the like a flowery area with her
friend Quaver, and then you kind of get to meet
Quaver and they start talking. There's a lot of talking
in this game. I didn't expect there to be so
much talking. It almost feels like it's on visual novel level,
you know they are. They do have voice acting, so

(18:19):
it's not like it's all just reading much text and
they do like move you know, you do have full
control a beat during the whole sequence. There's a lot
it's a lot of exploration as well. I thought it
was really just okay, you kind of go. I thought
it was more like narrative based. Okay, you kind of go,
you tell your story, you go to your thing, and
then it's like it's a lot more of a music game, right,

(18:41):
It's not. It's much more of a like almost like
an adventure game that just happens to have sort of
like guitar hero and music type stuff like combat in it.
I've only done like about three of those so far. Yeah,
one that feels like you're supposed to to lose, like

(19:01):
in the beginning of the chapter two that I'm in,
and then one that you know you you can win,
but it kind of doesn't. Well, the story has to
go where it's going right to get to that point.

Speaker 4 (19:14):
There as in Joe that are kind of like that,
like one against it the main bad guy, And I
was like, am I supposed to lose this?

Speaker 2 (19:22):
Because it's and apparently I'm not like with it.

Speaker 1 (19:25):
So well, what's funny is it tells you game over
and then it like keeps going and I'm just kind
of like, Okay, well, I guess it's just giving me
the illusion that I lost, but not really. I mean,
this has been a development for a while. They also
have like a little side story or I don't know
if you call it prequel white label that's also available

(19:53):
on PC. This is on PC and PlayStation and Switch.
It's not on Xbox. I don't know if it will
eventually come to Xbox or not. But yeah, like the
draw is really because they're younger characters, they kind of
have like it feels like sometimes I'm like sometimes watching

(20:17):
my daughter on screen, the way they talk, it makes
me laugh. Sometimes I find them interesting. It's just like
I said, it's a lot, and my major issue with
it is it's not look I can I just have
to sometimes understand that not every game is made for

(20:37):
you to play piecemeal the way that I have to
play games, but it's one thing for them to do it.
Like I complained about Black Ops seven, where it's like, look,
we've never had a campaign like that that's always online.
Most people aren't going to play the campaign. They want
to play the campaign at their own pace. They don't
want it like dictated for them where they have to

(20:58):
like get to a certain spot or else you can't
you know, progress, or you have to start all over
or whatever. And unfortunately, in the case of Unbeatable, it
is kind of that way as well, Like there is

(21:21):
a lot of talking, like I said, and a lot
of like exploring around and you don't really get like
if there is one, I haven't seen it, like the
notification that if it's auto saving, so I really have
Like I had to stop in the middle of like
the last part of chapter two that I was in

(21:45):
to start like that next part where I'm moving the
character around again and I have no idea if it
saved or not, and how far I'm gonna have to
go into wherever I was to like get to where
I was before I quit out of the game.

Speaker 4 (22:06):
That's one thing Yo Tie does really well surprisingly, is
like if I quit out or start playing a different
game whatever, gonna go back to Yo Tie. It just
looks like right back in like my game session, like
no main menu or no title screen or anything. It's just
like and it takes like two seconds.

Speaker 1 (22:24):
Yeah, that's cool, I mean it it. Yeah. It's also
has like a bit of slowdown with and that might
be my my PC. I'm also playing on an old
laptop and so that might be a problem there. But
it does kind of like hitch a little bit when

(22:44):
it's going to do the cutscene to go to from
a big cut scene to like one that's like an engine.
But I've had no problems when I actually have to
do the gameplay part, like that's pretty smooth, and the
walking around parts pretty well done as well. It's also

(23:04):
has an issue, which is my kind of bigger issue
with it, is that it's it's kind of like I
guess you could say asymmetric or it's it has like
where it changes like different viewpoints depending on where you're going. Right, So,
like I said, there's a lot of you can literally

(23:25):
it's it's side scrolly, so you're going you're going through,
like it almost feels like it should be like a
beat him up, but it you know, you're not beating
anybody up on the screen until you get to the
actual combat of the music combat. So it's it's made
that way where you're going past the screen and the
screen just kind of keeps zooming out as you go

(23:48):
further out, and then when you get to like the
when if you can go to the next screen, it'll
tell you, Okay, here's your go to next screen or whatever.
There are times where you get to an angle and
you cannot see the character at all, so I'm just
kind of like, well, now I got to move around
and see if I can finally get them to I
can see them, and then oh, okay, now I have

(24:10):
to I have to go backwards to whatever. And it
does have a limitation where you can go all the
way to the right if you want to and kind
of explore and look at stuff or whatever, but then
if you're not going the right way, it would just
stop you and you have to like turn all the
way around and go back the other way. And then my,
uh that that was kind of like my main and

(24:33):
I did have a part a moment in the in
the first chapter where like you're trying to find this
entry door and I would have never if I didn't
happen to fall off a certain way figure out that
that's a door over here, like it's just kind of
like on the side, because it doesn't look like a
door at all it's supposed to be. It looks it's

(24:54):
I guess it was an entry point. And then it's like, oh,
open door. It has like it almost like a uh
port and click style like like nameplate of like, oh door,
and then you press the button and it opens, and
it's like, really that was the door. I spent like
thirty minutes going around and around this whole stadium looking

(25:15):
thing and and like, uh, it's it's whatever.

Speaker 4 (25:19):
There was a problem with that and speaking in five
where like you're taking aready to go to this one door,
but like I couldn't. I didn't realize how to go to,
like because it was like where the camera was. So
I was like, there's a door here, like and after
like an hour of search and I kind of stumbled
on at and I'm like, what, like you could have
told me, like this would have been.

Speaker 1 (25:36):
Helpful exactly right, No, But I did. I do appreciate that.
Like again, like I said, not the kind of game
I thought it was going to be. It is definitely
has a lot more packed in it than I thought
it would for being uh you know, any title. So
hats off to d Cell Games and those guys for

(25:58):
for beginning to get that all in the game. I
think it works overall well, but I don't feel like
I can give like a you know, I'm gonna review
it at some point this week. I thought I was
gonna have it more done by today, but work was horrible,
so I might have to take some more time with it,

(26:18):
but and see how much further I get. But I'm
going to join it. So far, maybe the later I get,
the more I'll definitely be appreciated. But so far, it's
a good game, and hopefully some people get to check
it out. But it is like on the Steam it
is on that like thirty dollars side, so be aware

(26:41):
of that. Yeah, but all right, that's like the only
game I'll even playing, So I guess we will get
into the news tier and I'll try it. I'm gonna
keep most of the like if it's Xbox sort of related, uh,
in with in with the Xbox like aport card thing.

(27:04):
Also to mention it's interesting because again it sucks. We
talked about the beginning of the show with Vincent Poula.
EA did approve the PIF sale the shareholders of the
for the fifty five billion, where we know that the
public investment or the private investment fund of thought everyone

(27:26):
will own around almost ninety four percent of the company
if this does go through. Now it is officially out,
you know, available for the regulatory bodies to start doing
whatever they're going to do. I'm sure at the beginning
of next year, you know, make the decisions they're going
to make on if they're going to side with it

(27:48):
or not. Going to be interesting to see if this
face is any kind of backlash of all, I know,
the Democrats we're trying to start stuff considering obviously again
it's you know, foreign investment whatever. But we'll see, we'll
see what ends up happening if it gets any kind
of pushback at all. Yeah. But yeah. Two, in another

(28:14):
kind of like bigger story that was this week, Larryan
got into a bit of trouble with Spen Vinky talking
about how you know, he'd started talking about they're working
on the next project. We know it's Divinity now. After

(28:36):
the Game Awards and he started talking, he had an
interview with Draysen Schreier Bloomberg and in it he talked
about use of generator ye and how they are using it.
You know, he talked about white boxing early stuff with
the game, and he also thought about they were using
it for concept art and then they have like a

(28:58):
big team of artists as someone that we're doing the
concept art, and then the other ones are kind of
taking that and deciding if that's going to be art
or not. And then of course this led to a
huge backlash against Spend and Larryan because obviously he has
come out and kind of he's been one that's talked

(29:20):
about the industry. You know, he had that big speech
when Larry in One Game of the Year for for
bulbs Kate three and you know, you know, we need
to be championing this kind of game. And then you're
kind of like leading into the whole like bad side

(29:40):
of white people and we're kind of benign in the
great side of things where it's like a type of
mention of AI is just going to get the everybody
on social media to get upset, the hardcore folks to
get upset about it. It did kind of to turn
nasty at some points of people attacking him because he's

(30:04):
he's trying to defend what they're doing. Obviously, I don't
know what is your take on on this, because I
can see some sides of it. I do think it's
people are still doing the whole all of AI is bad.
He's trying to, you know, do the whole thing of Look,
this is also a tool, and but there's also parts

(30:26):
of whereas I kind of feel like, do you have
to do that?

Speaker 4 (30:29):
Though, uh, it can't be a partial tool maybe, but
for like, well to me, it just reinforced like how
he could how someone can trash their uh reputation. Like
what's like a matter of like a week last year.

(30:51):
I mean last week we were just talking about the
game of the Game of Words. It didn't frown aftivinity,
and then all this stuff happened.

Speaker 2 (30:58):
It's like, yeah, it's.

Speaker 1 (31:03):
Like you had all this great momentum for the game
and then now you've got and it does kind of,
you know, bring up that whole thing of like because
we saw the same thing that happened with Claire Obscurist
Vision thirty three, where even though they had admitted early
on that this was a mistake because people found you know,

(31:24):
AI in the game, and they said that they had
left it in the mistake and they passed it out.
You know, it wasn't intended to be in the final product.
That's not what they used, but it was used against
them for the Indie Game Awards, where they won Best
Debut Indie and also the Game of the Year.

Speaker 2 (31:46):
And I would say, like.

Speaker 4 (31:48):
I guess for me, like the the line would be
like it might be okay, I might be okay, and
like the planning stages or like the very temporary situation
like stages. But when you're putting out in an actual
game or like releasing a product, time to get real

(32:10):
or try to get that shit out of there. Like
the fact that like our Graader still has like AI
voices in it, and it's like that's a successful game.

Speaker 2 (32:17):
Now hire some voice actors.

Speaker 1 (32:20):
Well, the finals also had the AI voice.

Speaker 4 (32:23):
Yeah, yeah, it's like I mean, even if you don't
want to get like the top tier talent like Nolan
nor I or Tory Baker or whoever, Like, there are
plenty of hungry voice actors out there who would work
if not for scale, probably like not much higher above it, but.

Speaker 2 (32:45):
You know, come on or no.

Speaker 1 (32:49):
Yeah, I mean that thing is is kind of weird
in a way because it's like, you know, it's understandable
the beginning if you wanted to do it. But I
mean that doesn't excuse is that either, right, that's just
kind of their way of Well.

Speaker 4 (33:04):
Another good example would be like the GTA Definitive Edition,
like that collection. Yeah, like they used AI to do
like a quick pass through for like updating, updating resolution
and stuff like that, but it destroyed all the text
and as someone should have stepped in at that point
and said, hey, we're gonna fix this, not release the game,

(33:25):
have it get shipped out of everyone because there's bad AI,
and then.

Speaker 2 (33:28):
Like fix it later.

Speaker 4 (33:30):
It's like, no, you fix it before it comes out.

Speaker 1 (33:35):
Yeah, And I mean that's the thing too, is like
they also it wound up being so bad that the
like the Netflix version wound up being the best version
of those games, which is not great. Right, most people
don't envision playing those on I mean, yes, you could
obviously play them my mobile, but you know that it's

(33:58):
I understand Netflix paid some money for that, but it's
like it also just kind of shows like there should
have been somebody watching that and there kind of just wasn't.
And yeah right, so yeah men. This also it kind

(34:18):
of I mean, it led to blue Prints taking both
of those awards for one, so tendably they're the Indie
Game Awards, you know, game of the Year award winner.
But also that kind of led people starting to go
after Blueprints for did they use AI, And of course

(34:40):
they came out and said no. But and it kind
of it led to the creator and Rock Fury having
to come out and say, look, there's no AI in
the game is built and craft to a full human instinct.
Then you had to start seeing indie game devs come
out and have to all say that they're not building
the game with a I.

Speaker 2 (35:01):
Well yeah, it brings further.

Speaker 4 (35:05):
Tim Sweeney's comments a week or two ago or whatever
saying like why why should you like steamless AI usage
on the store pages, Like that's a bad thing.

Speaker 2 (35:13):
It's like, no, no, you idiot. People don't like.

Speaker 4 (35:17):
AI at all, or you know, have a very guarded
stance against it, you know, Yeah, he's such an idiot.

Speaker 1 (35:28):
Yeah, I think it's again, it's one of those where
it's like I understand everybody's kind of push of we
don't want this at all. Anaya, who is also she
does her own R. You know, my daughter does R.
She draws and stuff, and she's always constantly telling me,
you know, I kind of tell her, like, it may
not be a bad idea for you to learn how

(35:49):
to use some of those AI tools because it will
kind of be important maybe later on as that becomes
more and she's you know, she says, I don't want
to use AI. Can't stand there, and I was like, okay,
I'm down with that idea of it. Like I try
not to use it either when I'm making the thumbnails
or whatever, but sometimes it's like, you know, I need

(36:10):
to get this, I need to take this background out
and I don't have thirty minutes to go painsake only
through and try to take it out. And I do
you sometimes use that AI automass thing to take it out?
You know? And when to me, when it's like something
that's actually productive, right. I think he talked about, you know,

(36:33):
when you're having it do jobs that people don't want
to do. I think that is advantageous, right, if that
saves you time, if that saves you money spending that
you're not doing, and it's not costing somebody a job,
then you know, I'm kind of okay with it, but

(36:54):
I kind of get the idea that people are are
just like, look once you kind of Unfortunately, look, it
doesn't matter how much we yell and scream about it.
Almost all the Triple A devs are using it in
some way or or some form, and it will become

(37:14):
to the point. I'm not saying you shouldn't keep fighting
for all you want those of you who are against it. Unfortunately,
the fact is most of the people that don't sit
there and pay attention to gaming news every day don't
know about it and don't care, and they will keep
buying these games and it will and unfortunately it will

(37:39):
push these debs to do that unfortunately. Also, it's like
that double ed sword of Look, we complain all the
time about how it takes so long to make games
now right, yeah, it takes too long, Like look how
long we've had to wait for some of our favorite

(38:00):
series to have games. Yep, Like, you know, if that
does help them make games faster, sure, I don't like
the idea. I see that as my problem is. I
think that what's going to have happened is people are like, oh,
we can make more games faster. It's like, no, we

(38:21):
don't need to make more games. We already have enough games.
We just need those games to like come out in
a decent time frame, so you're not sitting there waiting
five years every time, six years every time for a
game to come out. Like let's say that Part three

(38:42):
of seven remake does come out Winter twenty twenty seven.
That's still incredible considering, you know, the way that game
making has been going lately, where it's like, look at
the time between Ghost of Sushima and now obviously there's
COVID involved in there too, but the time between Ghost

(39:04):
Susherman and Ghost to Yote five years, right, look at
you know Last of Us Part two to whenever that
if we ever get a lot or Intergalactic for that matter, right,
they just did. We talk about it about the whole
this week. Yeah, the mandatory overtime that they that Neil

(39:31):
Druckman and co. Enforced in order for Sony to for
them to make a demo for Sony so that they
could get the game back on track. To hopefully release
the middle of twenty twenty seven. You know, big hoopla
about that as well. Right, it's like, well, do you
want the game? I mean understanding, Right, These long depth

(39:52):
cycles were made because of that. Also, it's to avoid crunch,
But this, to me, I feel like it is mandatory overtime,
the same as crunch. When you know it's it's being done,
you're getting paid the overtime, and are are you working
like super extra hours like where everybody's sleeping at the

(40:14):
office and all that. I don't know that it's that
extreme also, right, Yeah, I mean yeah, we don't know.
But obviously they're kind of farther away. But you also
kind of have to understand Sony in a in a
bit as well. It's like, we don't really know if

(40:34):
this stuff that's going on with RAM is gonna make
Sony think twice and Microsoft think twice about do we
release these consoles in twenty twenty seven is playing or
do we push them back. That's gonna be an interesting

(40:55):
thought process of does that make them push it back?
Right or I I saw some discussion today I think
you know last and was talking about it with Colin
Moriarty over on his podcast of could PC prices increase
so much that actually, if let's say PlayStation PlayStation majorly

(41:18):
and Xbox as well come out in twenty twenty seven,
right during this crisis that we have of let's say
this keeps going with the AI stuff, right, could it
make people actually go go back to console gaming because
PC gaming prices are too high?

Speaker 2 (41:36):
Right?

Speaker 4 (41:37):
Yeah, that'd be funny because I don't know, if you
listen to Jeff Currismon's podcast so much, he'd become like
a big PC gamer over the past, like yeah, for
three years or maybe even like five, and it has
him going back to like the like the PS five,
the garbage PSCI that he could probably now say would
be hilarious. Yeah, he as like a leper console basically.

(42:03):
It's like not everyone cares about frame rate or you
know a lot of other like eye end bullshit. Like
I mean, were just talking earlier to reinstall your song
driver because your MIC got messed up, and it's like, yeah,
you know, you know how that where that doesn't happen consoles,
I plug it's.

Speaker 2 (42:23):
Fine, you know.

Speaker 4 (42:25):
Or I put in the game and I might have
to patch the game, but that's an automatic process.

Speaker 2 (42:30):
I cannot.

Speaker 4 (42:30):
I don't have to like reinstall the video driver to
my PS five or you know, any any nonsense like
that's for a game to work.

Speaker 1 (42:39):
Yeah, I don't have to do anything special because you know, oh,
by my PC's doing something weird or whatever, or the
game I didn't install this thing that now the game
needs or whatever, which seems does a great job of
doing that when like you're missing one of those distributable

(42:59):
files or whatever or able and stall it for you
so you can play the game. But then it's like
still if it doesn't work with your Like with Unbeatable
as an example, I talked about how sometimes it would
chug when I'm having to walk through that and it's
in sort of like the three D the two D
five is environment. That's when I realized, oh, I'm not using.

Speaker 2 (43:22):
The in video right, the video video card.

Speaker 1 (43:26):
I'm using the integrated one. So let me go make
sure it starts up using the in video one. And
it's like, yeah, that's the kind of thing you got
to figure out with PC that you don't have to
do with because it'll start up just whatever on your
console right.

Speaker 2 (43:43):
Give it time, like you know whatever.

Speaker 4 (43:46):
Xbox hair brained Xbox thing comes out in a few years,
it'll probably be like, oh, here's the base model, and
here's like the turbo model, you know, like he just
has more ram or this has a better video card
in or something nonsense like that, and it'll be terrible.

Speaker 1 (43:59):
Yeah, I wonder how deep they're going to go into that,
Like do they do They start with one skew and
then they start incrementally introducing other SKUs. Would be like, well,
if you want to upgrade, you can, uh, you can
figure out how to install this into the current one
you have, or you can just buy it.

Speaker 4 (44:21):
I actually think like I was never fan of that
to be in with, but I think like the PS
four to PS four Pro that kind of work, but
the PS five to PS five Pro that didn't work
because no one seemed to care about the pro.

Speaker 2 (44:34):
It's at free end.

Speaker 1 (44:37):
It's just it feels like it's not outside of like
File Fantasy seven, Rebirth Right that really had a problem.

Speaker 4 (44:46):
They're they're like a handful of games that like it
did kind of fix some problems, but there are other
games where I actually increase problems or made made problems and.

Speaker 1 (44:55):
Yeah, like you know, Silent Hell up they're saying ab you.

Speaker 2 (45:00):
Know Solid Delta that had a problem.

Speaker 4 (45:02):
With Yeah, so yeah, it.

Speaker 1 (45:10):
Is kind of one of those things like the more
the more you go into that room, the more issues
they had. I mean, it's the same thing with like
the x bashawak ally thing of of when it launched
and I saw these people be like, man, I've got
to do all this, I've gotta mess with this, and
that's just to play one game. And I'm just like,

(45:31):
it makes it really appreciate console you know.

Speaker 4 (45:37):
But yeah, I mean console games they have an option
for like performance or quality, right, has that actually or
it's just like I don't care, you know, I wish
I would say that was an option, just like lean alone.

Speaker 1 (45:49):
Well, I mean that was something that the pro was
supposed to resolve, but apparently it still didn't do that right, right,
So you know, it's one of those interesting things where
it's like, Okay, well we'll see if if that winds
up being anything or or whatnot. Yeah. Interesting things also

(46:16):
from that front of companies cutting some hardware and videos
reportedly cutting rt X fifty series production next year because
they're not as popular as they thought they were gonna be.
Also because they make the laptops and PCs more expensive, right,

(46:40):
people don't want that right now when they can barely
afford normal things.

Speaker 5 (46:45):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (46:46):
You know, I'm sitting there thinking about because of all
this stuff with the RAM and the memory shortage and
all that. I'm saying, it's the holidays and I'm sitting
there thinking about. I talked to some of our my
friends at the Outer Haven and you as well, and
I was like, Okay, try to find me a laptop

(47:07):
that's within you know, a certain range where I can
kind of make it a footable with you know, with
the buy now, pay later, And you know, we're still
looking at it something for like two thousand dollars, you know,
and I'm just like, God, I remember buying this PC

(47:27):
for like, are this laptop what eight years ago? For
a thousand you know? And that was a lot for
me back then, right, And Yeah.

Speaker 4 (47:41):
The two things I would say is like they're not
stopping in GTX AH production completely just.

Speaker 1 (47:47):
Like right, they're just lowering it. It's because they want
to focus more on on the AI.

Speaker 4 (47:55):
Yeah, and also do the like the RAM sworders as well.
Like but also like laptop like gaming laptops have kind
of done the same price, like my mind was like
eight hundred dollars like two years ago. And yeah, it's
pretty compartible now. And like even the ones that got
like you know, ten years ago, I think it was
like fourteen hundred. So it's gone up. But it's not like, oh,

(48:18):
the laptop I would have brought two years ago would
not be like four thousand dollars, if you know, it's
depreciated because of it only has a forty series that's
to start in it, not a fifty or you know
whatever else.

Speaker 1 (48:29):
So yeah, but it feels like anything. I mean, I
was surprised that they were able to throw like some
of the fifty series ones at me for like you know,
sixteen hundred or something like that. But then it's like again,
once you start putting in the RAM and you start
putting in the adding memory to it and stuff like that,
it starts going up.

Speaker 4 (48:48):
And it's I mean, yeah, you know I had to
get a fifty series, Oh could always get a forty series,
I mean a lot cheap.

Speaker 1 (48:52):
Yeah, but you know, I agree with you. I'm just
I'm just kind of showing seeing what you know that
it is. Speaking of that also, the steam deck, uh,
the the original, the the less the I guess.

Speaker 5 (49:09):
The original version of Yeah, the the cheapest version of
the steam deck has been essentially discontinued, Yeah, the l
c D one.

Speaker 1 (49:20):
So I guess if there are any still available or
you want to get it, you know, secondhand, even though
it's getting to the point really where like the steam
Deck is very long in the tooth at this point,
you know, so it's like you really, I mean, they're
valves smart, like they know that, especially with the you know,

(49:43):
this is also affecting affecting the steam Machine as well, right,
but they have to kind of they're trying to wait
it out and see if anything happens here where prices
go down stuff like that, so they don't have to
release the steam Machine at a crazy price. And then

(50:05):
also what does that mean for the steam deck too,
And do they start out at you know, the same way.
Do they do they find a screen that's cheaper to
kind of try to make it cheaper at first, or
do they just go all out with the O lead
and just be like, Okay, we're gonna give you the

(50:26):
best one. It might be a little bit more expensive,
but you know, you don't have to sit there and go,
oh man, I'm gonna go in and buy the old
one later. Right, what do you think do you think
they're gonna do the Nintendo route of coming up with
a cheaper screen first, or do you think they just

(50:48):
go out and be like, oh, here's the ole head.
That's it now.

Speaker 4 (50:51):
I think they'll be the cheaper one first. It won't
be as cheap as it was initially like the first model,
but it'll still be yeah, like a little more consumer
focused or consumer you know, price focused. And then if
you want to higher one, you know, here you go.
But you know who knows.

Speaker 1 (51:12):
Yeah, I'm not not hold than that breath. I mean
I hope that.

Speaker 2 (51:18):
Yeah. The difference is like.

Speaker 4 (51:22):
The the Scheme one or not Steam one, sorry, the
Switch one. Like they put out new models, but it
was very tiny upgrades like oh it's on the screen
or like the CPU is like ten percent faster or whatever,
but like you don't really see that in most games.
But like when this Steam when they put out the

(51:42):
Steam Deck like that, the LCD one, it had like
a bigger hard drive, like that's a major upgrade, or
I think it had faster RAM, or it had like
some other like actual like upgrade as well, So it's like, yeah,
this is a lot more tangible than it's a bit
better scream. But if I don't really use it that
much anyhow, go out go out with it or anything

(52:04):
that who cares?

Speaker 1 (52:05):
Yeah, exactly, that's true. Yeah, one final thing here, unless
you have something else to talk before we get to
the Xbox orport card deal. We did have some go ahead.

Speaker 4 (52:20):
Sorry, you can bring a third topic and elements and
the other things.

Speaker 1 (52:24):
Uh, yeah, we did have some news on the like
November hardware sales and software sales. Considering the November is,
you know, Black Friday, It's usually supposed to be a
huge month for gaming as a whole. It's supposed to
be like November and December the ones that are to

(52:45):
take everything over the top, right historically, But not this
year because the biggest sale that there was was the
PlayStation five going back to its original sale price for
the holiday season, which is crazy to think about that,

(53:06):
Like still, oh, the PlayStation five Digital is back at
four hundred dollars and the PlayStation five disc version is
at five point fifty, and it's like wow, I I
that's that's incredible. I still save money buying it at lunch, right, right.

(53:28):
But that's that's what the sad thing is is that
they were the only ones that did a sale because
you know, switch To just came out, so they can't
really do a something.

Speaker 4 (53:37):
They did switch To a sale, like Nintendo. I don't
know if it's Nintendo itself, but like that's by Amazon
did a sale.

Speaker 1 (53:44):
Okay, they did, but like Nintendo wasn't going around going
oh yeah, here you can get for three fifty or
even four hundred, right, they were just okay, go out
and buy Donkey Kong and Martyr part whatever. They did
announce that apparently after you know this period, I guess
sometime in January, they're gonna stop making the Mario Kart

(54:06):
bundle switch to you, so you will have to buy
Mario Kart World separately outside of the bundle. I wonder
if they're going to bundle another game with it. They're
just gonna, okay, you just buy the switch to.

Speaker 4 (54:20):
Well, I mean they're to do that ga Pokemon one,
I imagine Ponky Kong.

Speaker 1 (54:25):
Yeah maybe. But according to Sirkana, this is the United States, obviously,
but hardware spending has fallen twenty seven percent year over year,
with only six hundred and ninety five million. This makes
November twenty twenty five the worst month for hardware since

(54:45):
November two thousand and five, which is crazy twenty years ago. Look,
the PlayStation was number one because again they were the
only one that had a sale. Switch two was still
number two, But that's also kind of surprising as well,
because Switch Too is the newer console, right, But I

(55:07):
do wonder if that that has something to do with
the fact of like two of the biggest games are
available for Pokemon is available for Switch one, so there's
no need to push you into buying a Switch to
quite yet.

Speaker 2 (55:24):
Right.

Speaker 1 (55:25):
The only reason you'd really need to buy a Switch
Too is if you really want Mario Kart World, which
technically you could just play Mario Kart eight Deluxe. Donkey
Kong Bonanza is a great game, but I don't know
what that is a system seller by itself, and even
then it's still the fastest selling console ever or whatever.
It's just I think a lot of people that bought

(55:47):
one had already bought one during the initial period, and
they weren't just scrambling to try to get one for
the Black Friday holiday period, Like maybe you would have
with with the Wii or something like that, or even
you know PS five and an Xbox when when those

(56:08):
came out, So that's also interesting. And then also the
the just the actual amount of unit sales, it's the
worst since nineteen ninety five. Right, so we're talking about
one point six million video game hardware units were sold,
and that was only one point four at that time.

(56:32):
The next playground outsold the Xbox. But again, Marsoft doesn't
care if you buy the Xbox series at this point.
They did not do any kind of sale for that,
and that tells you everything you need to know right there,
Like Ninteto has an excused, they just came out with

(56:54):
that console. Microsoft, the Xbox consoles are just as old
as the PlayStation fives, and Microsoft made no intention to
try to get any kind of juice doing like even
if it's the last one ever doing this for them.
They just said, screw it. Whoever feels like paying whatever

(57:16):
they're gonna pay for this, have at it. We're not
gonna acquiesce ye to this at all.

Speaker 2 (57:25):
Good point.

Speaker 1 (57:28):
Looking at the year to date, we still have one
month left, but so far Battlefield six is your number
one game of the year as far as sales go
in the United States, then NBA two K twenty six,
Monster one hundred Wild still holding steady up there at three,
and Borderland's four is number four, even though STRAWSONI says

(57:51):
it's a disappointment for them, that's inting callity do. Black
Ops seven debuted at numbers seven, just ahead of Black
Ops six. I think that kind of tells you everything
you need to know. We'll we'll talk more about that
and a little bit here with Xbox.

Speaker 4 (58:10):
Black Ops seven has been thirty five, like it's been
on self for thirty five bucks.

Speaker 1 (58:14):
Yeah no, but this is this is before that.

Speaker 4 (58:17):
Yeah, but you know, I'm saying like that, that's another
good indicator, like, hey, this wouldn't been you too.

Speaker 1 (58:23):
Well, Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 5 (58:27):
You know.

Speaker 1 (58:28):
Also of note in there, Kidomcome Delivery still in there
for a rising five, still holding strong, and the top
twenty Hell Divers two also Split Fiction WW two K
twenty five, so hey, all those are still on there.
Oblivion Remaster is also there at nine still, so that

(58:49):
that's in the overall of the year. Call of Duty
was Black Ops seven was still the number one best
selling game of November. But you have to imagine by
how much. It's probably definitely not the length or the
gulf in sales that probably has had in the past.

(59:10):
Battlefield six is still there at number two for the year.
Then you get a bunch of the sports games, Pokemon
Legend Caa there at number six, and that's without the
digital sales, so who knows how much that is not
taken into account. Along with Kirby Air Riders on Horold
Wards at ten and eleven out of World's two there
at twelve, which that's a good sign. Don cole Binanz

(59:32):
is still holding in there, and Digitmond story Time Stranger,
of my favorite games of the year is still there
at number twenty. That's cool, and that's just for the
month of November. So that kind of paints the picture
of like the the up and down and mostly down
year that Xbox has had. It's it's a weird year

(59:59):
because they had perhaps their like strongest year of releases
that they've had in a long time of consistent releases,
like just being able to put out games at a
trot that they've perhaps never been able to do, yeah,

(01:00:22):
or that they always promised they would and then they
just never could for one reason or another, right and
then this year it's like Bam, here we go. You know,
you got a vowed, you got South and Midnight, you

(01:00:44):
got Outer Worlds two later and did you got him four?
South and Midnight you know won the awards that it won.
We had called the Black Ops seven even though that
was a you know, this appointment by all accounts really,

(01:01:06):
and you got doing the Dark Ages as well. They
released Sports five on PS five. They released Indiana Jones
in the Great Circle on PS five. Gears of War
Reloaded wasn't a huge hit for them, but that's still
a release from this year of the company. Got Oblivion
Remastered that sold ridiculous numbers, Like as far as like

(01:01:33):
a gains perspective, this has to be a fantastic year
for them for the most part.

Speaker 4 (01:01:39):
Right, Ah, not to me, but to you maybe, like
because you always bring up, you know about on Top
of Midnight, But it's like that.

Speaker 1 (01:01:50):
Was it came out as well? Sorry keeper as well.

Speaker 4 (01:01:56):
Yeah, it's like yeah that these games came out, but
like the problem is Microift just made games so disposable
that within a week people can forget about them. So
it's like, okay, a voud came out, but and it
came out like March. I think, yeah, so I mean

(01:02:17):
earlier in the year. Let's just say in February, okay,
I was closed. I mean, but it's like no one
was talking about it or you know, people barely in
April were talking about it.

Speaker 1 (01:02:28):
To be there. Once U especially thirty three came out,
nobody was talking about anything. So you know, but yeah,
I know, a vout came it was there for a
little bit, and then Nick went away as you had
other games come out that people.

Speaker 4 (01:02:45):
I know, this is a topic of the episodes. I
had to like google like what Microsoft games came out,
and the only page at the time is an Xbox
page like kind of like listening all the games because
like no other site had it or you know, had
like stuff, and they didn't even have they don't even
have like you know, fours so five or Horison five
on PS five or Flights in the Latter five on

(01:03:05):
PS five. Like it's just like all of their all
of their like specific games like hair ticking Hecks, and
it's like great, yeah, but like like we got examples
like Tony Hawks pro Skade three and four, like yeah, exactly,
like it's a game that came out is pretty widely

(01:03:26):
positively received, Like it wasn't a game of the Year.

Speaker 2 (01:03:28):
I people seem to like it, and within a week
everyone forgot about it. Like the only game.

Speaker 4 (01:03:35):
The only two games that can think of that people
are still talking about kind of are like Out of
World two and you know, Black Ops seven, but not
for the right reason, and maybe, uh.

Speaker 2 (01:03:48):
Maybe like Ninja guid In four.

Speaker 1 (01:03:52):
Yeah, I mean I think, look, uh to me, I think,
what what it shows is you finally delivered on the
promise that you told everybody that this is what game
pass is going to be. What it's gonna be great
about game Pass is that you're going to deliver a

(01:04:14):
game a quarter or a game every you know, every
two months or whatever. That is first party and they
did that this year. And for the most part, most
of the games were good. There are some that are great,
like Dooing the Dark Ages, and you know some that

(01:04:38):
are just yeah, that are just fine, like to Have
the Midnight about Outer Worlds two seems to be like
one of the more well received ones.

Speaker 4 (01:04:48):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:04:48):
People really loved the other scrolls Oblivion remaster.

Speaker 2 (01:04:53):
People did not like that Fallout four thing.

Speaker 1 (01:04:55):
Though, Yeah fall off or no, But when you're talking about, like,
you released fifteen games this year and like Tony Hawk's
pro Skrader three and four. You said, yeah, it feels
like Okay, they released it, but you know it wasn't
talked about for too long, right, but still that came
out as part of the portfolio. If you're going to

(01:05:18):
grade them on the games they released, most of them
were in the positive realm. And then you also got
to double bit of the Apple releasing many of them
on PlayStation five that weren't on there before, like LB
two and like and fours, the Horizon five and all that.

Speaker 4 (01:05:37):
So right, I still think, I mean, Sonny has this
problem also kind of but not as bad. But like, okay,
Xbox released fifteen like games this year, right, Like none
of them were from their I mean, aside from Call
of Duty, which is debatable. Let's say none of them

(01:05:57):
were like from their like, uh, Triple A franchises. I mean,
I guess you could take Gears kind of.

Speaker 1 (01:06:07):
I would say Doom is the Triple A franchise, you know,
I would say Older Scrolls is a Triple A franchise.

Speaker 2 (01:06:15):
We mean, but that's not a new game, I mean,
I know.

Speaker 1 (01:06:18):
But it's it was remastered, and I mean it counts.
It's a game, right, I'm talking like it's not great,
but yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:06:27):
I'm talking like Halo New Fours a game period, not
Horizon five and PSI just New Fours uh New Gears.
Uh yeah, Fable, you know, like argue about Fable like
o't to come out next year.

Speaker 2 (01:06:43):
I'm like, yeah, I keep hoping that.

Speaker 4 (01:06:45):
Like so, I mean, like a lot of these games,
I mean, I don't give a toss about About or
Half of Midnight, but a lot of these games are
like of the more beatier variety, striving for but not
hitting that mark.

Speaker 1 (01:07:01):
Right. But I mean, but they also count, like you
can't always release you know, I goes to Yotas in
the year, you know, like.

Speaker 4 (01:07:10):
They should they should take over the Days Gone Biker
franchise from Sony.

Speaker 1 (01:07:16):
Yeah, I but outside of them, seemingly, I don't know
what they had with why they had to release certain games,
like they had to have months packed together for some reason.
They couldn't like spread it out. But you know, outside
of missing some months there because they they either had
to push the game to April or they pushed the game.

(01:07:39):
It had three games come out in October or something
like that. Like they did kind of meet that quote
of having a game from one of their studios come out,
you know, and then you know, Ninja gut Enforced published.
It's not theirs, but right, yeah, it's like still I mean,
and yeah, they're all over the place. It's all mixed bag.

(01:07:59):
It's not all like eightier games. Right, we're talking about
like eighties and you know, some some higher eighties, but
most of them are we're talking about like okay, yeah,
like you said, you can give them a B.

Speaker 2 (01:08:13):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:08:15):
The problem is that, unfortunately for Microsoft, most of the
conversation wasn't about their games this year. It was about
all the other stuff that isn't great, about them laying
off fifty one thousand, five hundred people and even more,
closing studios, closing the initiative, Close canceling, Perfect Dark, canceling,

(01:08:42):
Everwild canceling, the was it contraband they had to basically
shut They didn't show to the studio, but they they
killed the funding on the the John Romero game that
instead of gaming I think, had an exclusive about you
know what the game is about, which is sort of

(01:09:04):
like inspired by hotl on Miami.

Speaker 4 (01:09:05):
Apparently they basically killing, not as a like explicitly, but
for the motorsport.

Speaker 1 (01:09:15):
Well, yeah, for the motorsports studio was basically halved and
and they just announced I did the story for it,
that they are not doing any more new content for
for the motorsport after what comes out in January February March,
and they are moving into the direction of they are
fully a support studio for the Horizon six, which you

(01:09:36):
know they they need to come out next year. So
that is what that is. But like you're you're talking
about you know, a Satine Adella and Amy Hood that
are all about AI and they want to be the
top company for AI. And then every every time you
turn around, all anybody wants to do is figure out

(01:09:56):
how to uninstall Microsoft Copilot from something. You know, right,
Nobody nobody wants that thing. I'm sorry to tell you,
but nobody wants that. Whenever it is that I get
a laptop that has Windows eleven, I'm never touching it,
you know. So it's like.

Speaker 2 (01:10:12):
If your lap laptop has like the co pilot button,
just like pop it off.

Speaker 1 (01:10:17):
Yeah. Like it's like, look, and I'm saying it's not
just me talking crap. That's that's just a lot of
nobody wants to have anything to do with it, whether
it's because they use chat DPT already, or or they
use some other program, or it's because just like it's
not something that anybody ever asked for. And it's understandable again,

(01:10:38):
the Microsoft wants to be number one in something that
is obviously a huge deal right now. You know, there's
a huge bubble around it. It's it's only going to
continue to grow right now. They're they're building all these
data centers that who knows how long those things are
gonna last right there, that's going to eventually be like landfill.
I'm sure you know, Like that's that's the issue, is

(01:11:03):
a lot of negativity. The price increases for your consoles,
right you didn't just increase the price one time, you
increase the price two times to the point where who
the hell wants to go out and buy a Series X,
Like you're insane if you're buying a Series X at
that price, You're in you're almost insane buying a Series

(01:11:24):
S at the price that it is, because you know,
it's essentially like you know, might as well just go
buy a switch to and and play thirty part third
party games there. You know, it's no longer the affordable
entry into the ecosystem that it was. You know, you
might as well spend some more money and get the
Xbox uh rog ally or the Xbox rog ally X.

Speaker 4 (01:11:48):
Honestly, you know, if you're going to go that route,
spend spending extra money to PS four or five digit,
well that that too.

Speaker 1 (01:11:55):
But I'm just saying you're you're right about that, right
because almost all the game, you know, pretty much all
the game to go to, there's some that are missing.
Who knows that they We already know Southing Midnight is
going to go over there. I don't know if about
or whenever avowed Starfield and all that are going to go,
but they probably will eventually.

Speaker 4 (01:12:11):
I don't know about Starfield, like that was I saw
the funny thing that like this is supposed to be
the year.

Speaker 1 (01:12:16):
This has been the entire year, and now they're saying
it's next year because now they have this huge update
that they're going to do for it, and yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:12:23):
I think that thing is just done, and it's like,
what why why I throw away good money after that?
At this point, like even if it comes out in
PS five, I don't think people are like that it's
going to.

Speaker 1 (01:12:35):
Be in inter it, right, and then like you know
the right you know.

Speaker 2 (01:12:40):
That you do is the just released it in a
double pack with Red with Red Fall.

Speaker 1 (01:12:45):
Let's not talk about that game. Another another thing that
was important was, you know, game pass best deal in gaming?
Right more, I think it's still technically the best deal
in gaming because you know you're still getting so I mean, look,
you got Marvel Cosmic Invasion this month. I mean that's

(01:13:07):
already what twenty five dollars?

Speaker 5 (01:13:10):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (01:13:10):
There? If you played that game, you almost paid for
your description a game pass, and then I can't really think.
I mean you still you did still get regardless of
whether you liked Call of Duty or not. It came
in the freaking year, right, it came in in the
in the window. So listen, they did add more games,

(01:13:31):
but obviously because they added the ub Soft Plus and
and all that stuff, and they still had a lot
of high quality games this year. I mean, like, look,
claib Sciris, but it is thirty three was a game
pass game, right, Blueprints was a game pass game. Yes,
that was USO on Psplus, but it was it was
on game Pass as well, right, we're talking about two
game of the year quality games on game pass, right,

(01:13:56):
and I don't have the list in front of me
right now, but I mean they're if you look at
the Vitality Dema, some people are putting, you know, Doom
the Dark Ages in their top tens. There're several Pudding Uh,
you know, there's most of a lot of the other
games are not not in there, right, But I still think,

(01:14:20):
you know, baal x Pit is a game pass game,
you know, so, and that was that was sort of
like your Vampire Survivors esque quality of game in there.
You know, it's the XBOS game pass as a whole.
I feel like had a tremendous year. I think if

(01:14:42):
you look at the totality of it, but then when
you raise it up to two thirty dollars, you know,
that's what makes it very difficult for people. And it's
just kind of like, all right, and you still had again,

(01:15:03):
like I said, quality stuff almost every month in there.
You know, they did you know, Shuttle Droppings You've gotten
too black and there. You know, Sniper Elite Resistance was
a game pass game as well. Adam Follow was a
game pass game, So again, positive stuff for that but
then again you get the it's like it's the same

(01:15:24):
thing we've always talked about with with Xbox of like
they are inconsistently. They are consistently inconsistent. Yep, they have
great news and then they have to follow it up
with terrible news right after it because it's like they
can't help themselves, you.

Speaker 2 (01:15:41):
Know, so.

Speaker 1 (01:15:44):
Well that's for continueing Toy twenty six always so the
thing that helps them for I guess what would you
say overall? Would you get them as far as like
when you look at it into totality the grade Microsoft
this this year or Xbox?

Speaker 4 (01:16:06):
Sorry, yeah, maybe C minus.

Speaker 1 (01:16:15):
I forgot what I gave. I think I said what
B minus place I think for Nintendo said probably minus
and then PlayStation got like a C. Sure it's hard, man,
because the negative like out weighs the positive. It's like

(01:16:36):
very hard.

Speaker 2 (01:16:36):
To Yeah, I mean, I probably closer to saved like
a D plus, but.

Speaker 1 (01:16:41):
I know I'm gonna put I'm gonna give it like
a C like you I know d's passing technically, I'm
gonna give it like a Look, you nailed it on
the games this year, and that is what as a
gamer I care about. Rights as the John Key gamer
that doesn't care about this podcast or any other gaming

(01:17:03):
podcast talks about this stuff. If they subscribed to game
Pass the entire year, or they played a lot of
the Xbox, you know, first party stuff that came out
this year. I think most of the time, most of
that you're you're satisfied when you put in all the
other need And this is why I can't. They really
should be getting a B or they should be getting

(01:17:23):
an A. But because they can't help themselves, they're gonna lower.
They're gonna land right here around the C or probably
D for a lot of people because you had so
much negative news around this company this year. And it's
unfortunate because when you look at the company next year,
even though again the consoles are in the toilet, you know,

(01:17:45):
people are not buying your consoles. Uh, you're pushing the cloud,
even though again you did a good positive thing with
the cloud. You up the streaming capacity, the streaming quality,
you added the stream your own games thing, even though
PlayStation just blew you out of the water with the
thing that they added to the portable. You introduced the

(01:18:06):
rog Alix and the rog Ally even though they were
kind of not that great at launch. They're gonna have
to keep updating that full screen experience. You added the
full screen experience to Windows eleven devices, but and you
added a store. Finally, it took you how long, like

(01:18:28):
six years to add a store to mobile for god's sakes,
the PlayStation app has had since day one because y'all
were trying to figure out how you could skirt the
Google and Apple. Look, I get it, okay, you want
to make the most money possible whatever. Still don't know
if I don't know if they ended up winning that

(01:18:49):
appeal or not, or when it happened with that, but
either way, it's there. You could buy games on the
Xbox app. Now, finally it's almost six years later, but
it's like it's taken them this long, right, And so
again it's like for every positive you can say for
this company this year, it's negative. And then it's what
sucks is again like you're going into next year where

(01:19:12):
they have already said this is gonna be the biggest
developer direct ever because they're most likely promising that we're
gonna see they've already said Playground Games is there, right,
So that means Fords the Motorsports or Fords, the Horizon
six and Fable are gonna be at their thing.

Speaker 2 (01:19:31):
Here's Tailor Fable.

Speaker 1 (01:19:34):
They better not just have c G I or that's
that's really bad. You know, they're gonna have some kind
of mystery surprise game they always do, uh, some kind
of shadow drop.

Speaker 4 (01:19:45):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:19:46):
Here's Nuts and Bolts too, that'd.

Speaker 1 (01:19:50):
Be amazing if they did anything with that'd be cool.
Gears E Day will probably be there, will Halo Remask
and then you know Halo Remaster. It's a remake of
of Halo One. So why wouldn't it be able to
be there? So you got your four core franchises in
one developer direct, I mean, the amount of delivering that

(01:20:14):
that thing could possibly do would be an incredible way
to kick off. January twenty twenty six.

Speaker 2 (01:20:23):
For you.

Speaker 4 (01:20:26):
Announced like fifteen new games for the Direct and only
like four come out to come out.

Speaker 1 (01:20:32):
Right, Yeah, Like that's the thing is like will these
games come out next year?

Speaker 5 (01:20:40):
You know?

Speaker 1 (01:20:42):
Because like I feel like I feel like we can
kind of count on Gears E Day, right, the one
that I felt like Halo remake or whatever. I think
that one's the campaign evolved because it's not including the
multi players, so it's less for them to work on, right,

(01:21:03):
I think we can kind of count on that.

Speaker 2 (01:21:05):
Yeah, last infinitely, Right.

Speaker 1 (01:21:10):
I wouldn't be surprised if replaced this the other game,
because that has been a game that that has been
shown at these Xbox showcases for a long time. It's
a highly anticipated indie. I wouldn't say we're gonna get that,
that'll be the shadow Drop or whatever. But you know,
that would be interesting if they had more to show

(01:21:32):
for that game. But like we know, Clockware Revolution is
supposed to come out. That's another highly anticipated game, right
for twenty six. But after that, it's kind of like, okay,
we're stated at K three. We haven't seen that, right,
where's all these other games that you know, you guys

(01:21:53):
are supposedly working on. You know, let's let's let's see
what happens. So yeah, we'll see. But it looks like
twenty twenty six it's supposed to be promising for the

(01:22:14):
first party Xbox again. But now that a lot of
these studios have already released games, we'll we'll see what happens.
Is they kind of get going on the next one
or whatnot?

Speaker 4 (01:22:28):
Yeah, oh, the one that hasn't mentioned earlier that.

Speaker 2 (01:22:33):
You know our kide went up is basically going under.

Speaker 1 (01:22:36):
Oh I did not know that.

Speaker 2 (01:22:37):
Oh wow, it was like a week and a half ago.

Speaker 4 (01:22:40):
They sent a letter out to like staff going like hey,
we're we're in trouble. And then like I think, like
a week ago, Basic Fund like another company like assuming
you control of the brand and all the assets and crap,
and to me just reminding me a funko like.

Speaker 2 (01:23:01):
Less of a problem.

Speaker 4 (01:23:02):
But Arcade went like flooded the markets and made increasingly
bad products and destroyed the brand.

Speaker 1 (01:23:12):
Yeah, because I mean they they they had it for
a while where they were like releasing like, oh man,
look at all this all these great Arcade games and everything,
and then it's like, oh, well I don't know what
they're doing now, you know.

Speaker 4 (01:23:29):
Yeah, And I mean I don't like the size of them,
or I always had they were too small, like for
me at least, but like, yeah, they just kept it
was like a NonStop release, you know. And it's like
the stuff that people like you were like re releasing
games at a certain point or you know, they had
at last like two or three turtle like kemmuns, Ninja
Turtle stuff and yeah, some other stuff, and it's like Yo,

(01:23:54):
released like one or two of these a year, not
nine or ten. You know, they're just like flooding the market.
And I think, like I used to see him in Walmart,
and I think they stopped having him in Walmart just
because they weren't selling. It's taking up you know, too
much shelf space.

Speaker 2 (01:24:08):
Right, yeah, I don't.

Speaker 4 (01:24:09):
I don't blame Walmart, you know. So like, yeah, they
said that like the servers are still going to be
up and they're going to continue something or other. Who
knows if it'll it could go on or not, but right, yeah,
it's interesting.

Speaker 1 (01:24:24):
Yeah, it definitely is. We'll see if that. Hopefully it
doesn't for the people working there and everything. That's that's
always bad news. Also with the bad news, I'm sure
that Xbox will unfortunately lay off four people or Mark will.

Speaker 2 (01:24:40):
That'll be that'll be the January surprise.

Speaker 1 (01:24:43):
Yeah's yeah, that'll be the way that they step on
the rake again. Is they'll have this incredible developed direct
and then like two days heads of that ago, oh yeah,
we laid off like another two thousand people. Yeah, and
it's like ridiculous, this is this is what they do. Yeah,

(01:25:08):
I hope everybody. I mean, there's not really anything like
the game. Like I said, the last week of game
releases was last week. Like this is right, this is
where we're at. The like people we have we have
stopped the still I'm sure com of games coming out,
but there's not it's not really anything like already look
forward to to next year when it comes to that,

(01:25:30):
but I mean not that you know. Look, the holiday
sales have already started. Go try to find your your
games you haven't played yet. Yeah, the Steam winner Celle
is on the the PlayStation holiday Cell is on as well.
I'm thinking about if I'm going to get that Shows
in the Sky remaster or remake sorry or not.

Speaker 2 (01:25:53):
Of course you are.

Speaker 1 (01:25:56):
I've been waiting for it to go. They finally announced
the sale for it. So yeah, next week we won't
have a regular episode. We're gonna have our top ten
games of twenty twenty five and then also are you know,
we will combine our lists and do our top twenty
five games the video against the Max Top twenty five games.

(01:26:19):
The Randy will be on for that, and then the
week after that, first week in January twenty six will
do our most anticipated Top ten will anticipated games of
next year. We'll talk about some games that we're excited
to be releasing, maybe some that we hope release and
some that maybe they don't end up pracing. Could GTA

(01:26:40):
six get delayed again, who knows what? Well well we
end up thinking with that, but yeah, so make sure
it'll still be on a Monday that we do it
so if you and we'll still do it live and stuff.
So if you watch us live on on Mondays, we

(01:27:02):
will will be doing the episodes live if you want
to listen to our thoughts on the games with eighty five.
If not, you can always listen later on demand on
podcasts or on YouTube. And well until next week, everybody,
Happy holidays, very Christmas, all that and we'll see you
next week.

Speaker 2 (01:27:20):
Bye bye

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