[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] a oh [Music] [Music] oh [Applause] [Music] [Applause] a [Applause] [Music] [Music] oh [Music] a [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] oh [Music] oh he [Music] [Music] okay [Music] all right welcome we are here the Xbox 2 is live this is episode I believe 38 hope everybody's having a wonderful start to their weekend and either playing I don't know the new games that are coming out Dragon Dogma rise of the Ronin uh lot lot of stuff to play a lot of stuff to talk about uh I'm one of your your host obviously Rand thor9 the man with the million and with me my co-host my right-hand man my BFF we have jez Cordon managing editor Windows Central Dragon's Dogma 2 reviewer extraordinaire how's it going buddy that's me yes it's going pretty well dude I just literally woke up to a mountain of drama on Twitter which is hilarious ious um but I'm doing pretty good I've worked harder this week maybe than ever oh I've written about 40,000 words of Dragon Dogma 2 guides to try and help people along their Journey okay in the in the spooky lands of Dragons Dogma 2 I've done a ton and ton of stuff because it's you know coming up to the end of the year I am absolutely completely and utterly exhausted and I'm ready for a weekend of doing absolutely nothing so you need you need the people in the chat to send you send you the energy for today's show send you that en I need the energy yes I need energy give me give me your energy like Goku Spirit Bomb kind of thing yes although at least at least I've just slept so we won't be tired in that context just overall just want a break I just want to break Rand I I get it I get it I get it and you know it's funny cuz I've been talking to you about your Dragon's Dogma 2 experience since you've been playing it you spoiled it for me uh cuz cuz you're cuz you're like you told me to I did I did because I not really interested in it uh you know who knows if I'll play it eventually but what you did tell me I was like whoa okay okay you know um but I I'm glad that you really lik the game I believe you gave it a 9 out of 10 right or what would be 9 out of 10 on the windows Windows uh Central scale right yeah it's uh 4.5 out of 10 yeah um so you know whe whether that's 9 out of 10 or not I don't know but yeah it's uh it's a fantastic game it's absolutely you know I've been playing it nonstop I deleted my save from the review and started over which is the gameplay footage you seeing now decided to try something new decided to try vocation Archer vocation instead you can also see Rand if you watch the the gameplay footage one my main porn is is called ran apparently you made me so yeah so so people people can drop in and use the Rift system and they can players they can put you in their party how cool is that it was pretty cool that is pretty cool if you want to uh but also there's been a lot of controversy surrounding this game today which will we uh be getting into everything surrounding that as well as uh talking about a variety of different topics that are going on in the uh games industry uh PS5 Pro what should Xbox do uh I mean the excitement people have for Xbox I know that was a big thing that was kind of going on social media recently and stuff and whatever else we really feel like talking about so um yeah with that said make sure you guys hit the like button subscribe if you're new and yeah jez so outside of Dragons Dogma 2 how's your week been it's been it's been it's been a week episode 307 to 308 you know what what what have you been doing cuz my week was half good and half [ __ ] and I'll tell you about mine because you already know about mine but well well tell tell the peeps tell the peeps well some of the people know because we did Xbox 2 ultimate on Tuesday which is the show for the community which is patreon exclusive you can get access to that at patreon.com xp2 if you want to listen to that but okay so the setup for this is I've never had any problems with my eyes ever right I don't know if I have 2020 Vision but I don't need glasses I've never had anything wrong with them right shout out to Mr Boomstick in the chat I see you hope you're doing well buddy and uh Jesse from Xbox era he's always doing his reviews and dropping one for Dragon's Dogma but back to the story I've never had any problems with my eyes right I got other problems but my eyes ain't one of them and you know it's good because I like to read and you need you need well you don't necessarily need eyes to read but it makes it easier I suppose right uh what day was it after the podcast on Friday I started to get like a really weird sensation in my right eye and I woke up the next day and it was so irritated so scratchy so dry watery it felt like I had something in my eye I woke up and I'm like what is going on like I couldn't stop rubbing my eye and I looked in the mirror and my entire like right eye was completely just red just like the reddest the red you could possibly imagine so you know started taking ordered some Visine started taking some of that stuff and I'm looking online at like symptoms I'm like what is going on like it was some of the most agonizing irritating frustr like I'm sitting on I could barely squint open my my eyes cuz it was like so inflamed and I'm like what is going on right and I'm like oh these symptoms sound like I got pink ey um so apparently I had pink eye I mean it's gone now and only was I only had it for like two or three days but in those two or three days it was like awful it was like worse than awful I as someone who's never had problems with my eyes who doesn't wear contacts or any of that stuff or deal with like you know I've never put eye drops in my eyes that was an experience I hate it you know what I mean like it I'm glad it's over although I'm it's weird because I I might have to go see an eye doctor because I'm starting to my vision tends like the later it gets now longer I'm up my vision tends to get like Blurry now a little bit so I might have to go see a doctor and I don't know if that's what happened to it but yeah so that was like three days of hell did um did someone give you an eyeball Curry no nobody gave me an eyeball Curry no so oh man but no it was it was I I wouldn't witch that on anybody like it was just you know I've always had friends who had like glasses and like contacts you know we go out and stuff and they put eye drops in their eyes and whatever but as someone who's never had to do any of that I'm like trying to put eye drops in my eyes and I'm just my eye would always like close before I put it in there and it's I sitting there like downstairs and I'm like trying to look at stuff but I can't because my eye just wants to close and I can't keep it open oh bro it was so bad it was it was awful so that was some of my week was dealing with that and it was not fun but then eventually when that cleared away I was able to finally finish banisher ghost of new Eden so and you liked it right I really liked it I really did I think it's an underrated game even though I think the reviews are pretty good for it I think it's like in the 82 83 Metacritic range but nobody really is talking about this game nobody really talked about it when it came out nobody's talking about it now but honestly like I I really liked it I mean I played it for 50 hours I did everything you can do in the game like all the side hauntings the all the different investigations and stuff and yeah I mean I recommend it I know it's like 60 bucks right now I believe you obviously wait for a sale but it was very enjoyable the story was engaging I really connected with the two main characters you know you have the red as the one who's still alive and then his his his girlfriend wife is the one that's dead and you can switch between them in combat but I really thought their story was quite um I wouldn't say in crawling but you know it tugs at the heartstrings a little bit like I really enjoyed that game so um but that has come to an end you know my my banisher ghost of new Eden Adventure is over and now I need to decide uh what to do next and I'm not sure what it is I want to play next because I'm kind of like full 50 hours it's a lot of time it's kind of like a semiopen world and I was like yeah do I really want to play that uh like something like that and I I don't know what I'm going to play next I mean I have cyber Punk on my list I was thinking of playing Final Fantasy 7 remake maybe there's some other stuff but uh yeah banisher really cool game uh recommend it for anybody who's looking for a third person um action RPG I guess would be the right way to describe it with uh yeah I re really enjoyable game but that was been what should I play next though jez what do you think I should play next should I really get into go and play remake get into the rebirth play cyber Punk Liza p is Owl Theory says in chat I mean I think like if you play like a big open world kind of game then maybe something more linear would be a pilot cleanser I mean people are saying c punk in the chat but it's like C Punk's are a commitment man you kind of have to play it like like a Skyrim kind of deal where you know you're traveling from point to point doing side quest and stuff like that I would probably put if you want to play something more linear final F 7 remake is a fantastic game it's it's it is linear you know but there's a lot of like stuff to do off the main path there are like you know extra bosses to fight and stuff like that but it does kind of just kind of you through the experience so yeah I play 7 remake you know get ready for rebirth and then maybe you want to play so Punk after that you know uh a lot of people in chat saying Li of p i mean Li of p is very good but it you know it's tough It's a pretty demanding game what about what about this Dragon Dogma 2 here though look at this footage you know yeah Dragon's Dogma is uh absolutely stunning game it's probably the best looking game I've ever played look at me Ming it up right there in the in the footage Randall Mage yeah you're you're you're my you're my main healer and buffer kind of guy you buff you buff the py I'm about to find Monitor here yeah the game is the game is fantastic you know um everyone's mad about the micr trans transactions right now but like I said on Twitter I don't think the microtransactions are a big deal it just kind of leaves a sour taste when they were bragging in interviews about how oh yeah we restricted fast travel cuz our game is so fun we don't need fast travel you know and I agree with that you know I I never felt while playing it man this is tedious to get from point A to point B because the combat is so fun for me at least that it didn't bother me that um that sometimes you do have to walk and there are Fast Travel Systems in the game you know you can take an ox car and then you can doze off in the car and it sort of teleports you to the other end of the trip sometimes the ox car can get attacked while it's traveling though which again that's kind of fun right so and at the at the point where it does start to get a little tedious and you've outleveled all the monsters there so it's like you're not even getting good rewards it moves you to a new area kind of in the story so it's kind of like oh well you know it it it is well-designed to not have Fast Travel Systems but at the same time now they're selling you fast travel back as a DLC a maret transaction yeah we'll have to it just left a sour taste man um yeah know and Jesse and ch you can buy one single port Crystal um Port crystal is kind of like you put you put them down in the world and um and then you can teleport to it right uh using a fery crystal so like all the all the features in the games all the features in the game are like actual gameplay mechanics in the law it's not like a menu system where you you just click on the menu and you fast travel you know I really hate that stuff because it it I kind of find it emerg and busting if you can just you know there's there's no there's no actual mechanic for fast travel you just click on an icon and then you just teleport there yeah but um but uh but yeah I um the game is fantastic and I like I said on Twitter I don't think that the maret transactions are a big deal it just left a sour taste you know when they were bragging about it in they were bragging about it in um uh interviews like our game is so fun it doesn't need travel and then they sell it back to people you know it's a slippery slope ran it's a slippery slope to John rello whever his name is the the guy from the guy used to work for EA where he was saying like I want to sell people their bullets in Battlefield and stuff like that you know yeah I know I kind remind that I remember that quote and um it's not like Capcom hasn't done this before they've sold convenience items in Resident Evil monsant as well but man because of it's just because of those comments about fast travel being so not being needed it's not needed then why are you selling it to people let's uh let's thank the patreons and then we'll get into the Dragon Dogma 2 outrage microtransaction stuff right so um by the way if you guys are still wanting manscaped you can always use code xp2 at checkout but we don't have an ad read for them this week but the code still works regardless uh but we also want to thank all the wonderful people of patreon who support us we recently just did our Xbox 2 ultimate show on Tuesday uh that's exclusive for patreon members uh so go out and check that out I'll be trying to hopefully get a guest for this upcoming week for Xbox 2 plus one um so we'll keep you updated on that the question thread is available right now over on the website patreon.com xp2 so if you got any questions you want to ask make sure to go over there and put them in there we'll get them towards the end of the show but we do have some shout outs uh to get to for those in that tier we got just James 93 Jay Peltier thus book and beard holy dark dots Steve Stompy James wiso trickstar for trade the GRS to bit battered hadock Army dude 52c Ryan kipple foreign object Mythic Marty moronic donkey 99 Rand Thor 19 silus Eric Gregory Elijah Vasquez James Moore Fant testicles Halo is the goat krio bright Tundra one I like turtles Justin Duell Frank Marano PB broking AC and Madison Governor Graham DZ huffin wagerman achievement the Scarecrow 121 Darren tropy Prof JJJ Ghost Face Killa and Wolf Gang kpz thank you guys so much for all your continued support it helps especially in times where you know ad agencies are dropping people uh ad revenue is down across the board everywhere and all that good stuff but so like back to the Dragons Dogma 2 stuff right I know you talked a little bit about the game last week you were able to write like a preview you played it 4 hours or maybe it wasn't necessarily last week but it was definitely uh previous and obviously everybody can read your review and how much you love this game you gave it a nine out of 10 and stuff but something that's really come to dominate the discussion of this game now instead of like the great reviews which is sitting at an 87 on Metacritic Contender right now for game of the year you could probably make that argument is suddenly the game has a mostly negative rating on Steam I believe it's like really low now I don't I know if that has to do mostly with um the optimization of the PC version because I know steam users really care about you know how well their games perform on PC or is it about the microtransactions because um people get really weird I guess maybe is the right word to describe how a lot of people feel about microtransactions in single player games right I guess people understand them in games like fortnite and Call of Duty if free to playay games they need to make a revenue somehow so they sell you skins everybody's cool buying the Goku skin and all the skin like our buddy at at Xbox air special Nick literally the only thing he buys is skins for fortnite right he doesn't he doesn't buy anything else he doesn't play any other games he plays fortnite and buys and spends all his money on skins right so but here you have Dragons Dogma a single player only game and one of the things that they kind of really talked about was like you know if you have fast travel on your game maybe just like you know running around the world isn't really that exciting and they talk down on that and there's now uh microtransactions to let people fast travel I believe there's even like a microtransaction to allow you to start a new character cuz I guess that's something like if you start a new game you're not able to like start another new game or another new character um now I haven't played the game yet I haven't played Dragon's Dogma 1 which apparently also features all the same DLCs right uh apparently all the same things uh for microt transactions were part of the current uh microtransactions that are part of this game but it sort of seems to me this is Capcom Capcom is weird when it comes to this stuff because it's almost all I remember the outrage when people got upset with d Devil May Cry 5 Devil May Cry 5 would sell you individual like blue gems and red gems right and people were mad about that uh and like Resident Evil they always sell you kind of like weapon upgrades uh Resident Evil 4 sold you weapon upgrade tickets where you could upgrade your weapon to the max that didn't debut with the game it came out a couple weeks later so they always tend to do it with these games there's no reason to you don't need them but I guess they're trying to prey on people's uh the ones who have a lack of time I guess maybe cuz I played Resident Evil 4 and you definitely don't need to buy any weapon upgrade tickets maybe you would only want to if you have limited time and you want to feel powerful right away and at this you know and you can make the argument who's It's really hurting because it's a single player game it's not multiplayer right but as you said it's kind of a slippery slope and it turns the discussion about what should be about the game's you know pros and cons and the merits of Dragons Dogma 2 and surrounds it into uh a discussion about microtransactions and then you have people vly against it right really upset that this is going on and then contrast that with the people who are like weird it out that people are this upset and I I was looking at Twitter and there'd be like someone who's really mad and then someone who's like it's not a big deal and they're just going back and forth at each other on this and you know you could chalk it down to whatever you want publisher greed obviously they're in it to make money um you know was I guess ask you as a reviewer um was this a situation like say Gran Turismo 7 where the microtransactions didn't show up until after the review period um I know I think you mentioned that they were detailed in the review guide but they actually weren't available uh to use until all the reviews came out which seems to be like great timing because it does seem like sometimes when those microtransactions come out some people will rate Games Lower because of it what what do you think as a review you or as someone who's played this game uh what do you think about the whole microtransaction stuff in it does it ruin a great experience is it a game that you can play without ever using them at all is it just Capcom praying on people who have a lack of time but a lot of money like what's going on here and jez is not speaking so I don't know if he's here where is jez let me see oh it's muted I was trying to speak I was trying to speak so jez muted okay jezel muted sorry about that um I I said on Twitter I don't think it's a big deal right and I would I would actually argue that paying for the microtransactions makes the game worse um but I also think it's it's also I think people get so mad about this stuff because it is potentially a slippery slope right you know if there's no resistance and no push back on things like oh well they're selling you they're selling you one fast travel ticket or one fast travel anchor location uh today tomorrow it'll be there selling you every fast travel location you know and also it's like um the rift crystals right you can buy Rift crystals which is currency you use to buy porns right okay so right now if you're if you say level one say you're level one right and you want to buy my Rand porn you would have to spend like a few thousand Rift crystals or whatever a few hundred I I don't know the exact number off the top of my head but if there's if it's a porn that's much higher level than you you have to spend a certain amount of crystals to get that porn right um and if you did do that you would make the game a lot easier for yourself so in a way it's kind of like selling the easy mode back to people for one thing right okay and there are ways around that like you could add me as a friend on Xbox Live and your friend's porns you can use them for free okay so um you could add jez on Xbox Live and then get the Rand porn for free right so there are ways around it but it again it's I don't think any of these microtransactions in Dragon's Dogma 2 are a big deal they don't affect my review score and they don't affect my feelings about the game I still love the game it just leaves a sour taste when they're bragging in interviews like I said about the Fast Travel being so unnecessary because the game's so fun and it's like well if it's so fun then why are you selling it why are you selling it as a microtransaction right and yeah there's only one anchor but honestly one anchor can make a big difference so how do you fast travel in this game I I don't understand what is an anchor and what is that even someone who's never played the game explain this to me oh it you know in like a far cry or something when you can just click on a settlement and inst teleport to it and and banish and ghost of newed and you f can fast travel to uh um fires that you have uh they're kind of like camps that you discover throughout the world and you can fast travel in between those but all but you but you have to be at a fire to be able to fast travel to other fires essentially but that's that's how fast travel Works in that game but yeah other games like you can like like uh Starfield you can fast travel whenever whenever right wherever you are doesn't doesn't matter yeah yeah exactly yeah so um but in this like when when you want to create a place to fast travel to um you have to put down a port Crystal which is the microtransaction right now you do get some Port crystals in game as part of the story some of the town have permanent Port crystals that you can teleport to whenever and then you also need to use a Fairy Stone to in order to access that fast travel point which are which a you can't buy and also B are quite Limited in the early stages of the game uh well kind of like on my second playthrough right now I'm level 30ish um the footage you seeing of me playing I think I'm level 20ish in this footage you watch me get my ass kicked by a dragon in a bit cuz I'm a little bit too low level for it and also I don't think AR I don't think my party composition was very good for fighting a dragon I didn't have a single character with ice spells um but uh at my point in the game which is level 30 on my second save I'm about 12 hours in 12 to 15 hours in there's only one extra PK Crystal you find and you don't really need it at the start of the game it be it starts to get annoying when you get to the next area because it asks you to sometimes it asks you to travel between two cities one out in the desert and then one back in the starting area and that's when it starts getting annoying because it's like ah I've got to I've got to either get two Ox carts worth of traveling in or I can use a port Crystal to go back to vermund or whatever um no ver Worth City and that's when it starts getting a little bit annoyance so that's when the point where I think some people might be like if they haven't got a PK Crystal already they might just be like oh well I'll just buy the pork Crystal you know and then set it down in batal so I can easily get backwards and forwards you know you do get another Port crystals part of the story and I think the idea is that you use that Port Crystal to put it down in batal and then by the end of the game you don't really need them at all right but it again it it all just leaves a sour taste especially the Riff crystals Stu because like I say you can just microtransaction to thousands of Rift crystals and then buy really high level porns which basically makes the game a ton easier so it's kind of like you are buying the easy mode then but I think for most people just buying a high level porn will make the game trivially easy to the point of being boring especially in the in the early stag of the game and even then if you're playing on easy mode and you don't really like learn the game properly um you know there there comes a point where there'll come a point where you sort of hit a a cap on how high level you can get how much of a boost you can get from the porns you'll have to actually learn to play the game at that point right so like it only makes it easy for you to begin with so my argument would be the the market transactions make the game worse to play right um but again it's kind of like it's it's the slippery slope thing man it's the slippery slope thing like not being when you've played games like you know Boulders gay or cyber Punk for example which let you change your character appearanc in game like without any kind of restriction whatsoever you know um and certainly not a microtransaction and then you look at this and it's like well they want you to pay money to be able to do this and it was the same thing in monst Hunter you know it's the same thing in monst Hunter where um the the the Respec tickets were uh part of the um you know microtransaction layer so it's not like Capcom hasn't done this before but I think because of those interviews it just left a sour taste and I suppose because people are comparing it to Elden ring and The Witcher and stuff like that which doesn't have those kind of restri restrictions but also I think it's like you said there is a dovetail into the performance stuff because they have artistically chosen to have these insane draw distances they've artistically chosen to have hundreds of dynamic NPCs and that tanks the frame rate you know even on higher how is the performance on the series X I see people asking about that and I know you played it on played it on this series X yeah I mean you can see from the footage it's smooth you know it it doesn't I mean some people wouldn't describe 30 frames as smooth but yeah okay well I mean it doesn't stutter it doesn't you know screen tear it doesn't get stuck you know like sometimes when I was playing monst Hunter World on my Xbox One X um or my Xbox One S even um you get into situations where there was like loads of stuff popping off and then the frame rate would get stuck you know and but this is like Smooth so even though it's 30 frames per second it still it doesn't stutter it doesn't get stuck it doesn't crash it doesn't lag you know um or anything like that so it Paces well I would say but you know whether or not you care about that stuff is really you know about your personal preferences I don't give a [ __ ] about 30 frames a second I really don't you know I would ra I mean the draw the draw distances the draw distances on um on this game are so impressive that it doesn't bother me and also furthermore the draw distances are kind of that kind of a gameplay mechanic you know like if a dragon flies off from you you can watch it fly off for like hundreds of miles and then you can sort of Chase it in that direction if you if you so choose you know without spoiling it without dropping spoilers there are things they do with the draw distance in this game that I've never seen any any other game do it's it's absolutely fantastic you know and the game takes place in this sort of curved Bay and you can what you can look at like the other side of the Bay from like one side to the other side it's absolutely it's Immaculate and stunning and impressive so FR Ray doesn't bother me at all you know I've always said that it's my personal preference I don't give a [ __ ] if it's 30 frames unlocked as long as it doesn't crash or stutter or do anything like you know sometimes you get games that aren't optimized very well and they will like they will stutter all the way down to 10 FPS or lower in certain situations but this isn't like that you know it's smooth throughout um and it payes well and yeah that's my thoughts on performance and like my I had like people in the team playing all kinds of different Hardware we had someone on 480 someone on 380 360 even and I think everyone just kind of took it for what it was and then they were having so they were having so much fun that the the performance issues didn't really right didn't really come to fruition I think as a talking point when we were reviewing the game and writing the gues and stuff I think I think the thing with the microtransactions is I think some people I think some people are Fe fearful that if more people buy this stuff then it might become more prevalent in in future Capcom games or just in I wouldn't say just in more games in general even though there's microtransactions and a lot of stuff you know people always say vote with your wallet and people do but then you might have other people voting with their wallet and buying these things like for instance I have a buddy who plays G and impact who's spent like $5,000 on gch and impact right so even though you may not like spend anything and you could play Dragon's Dogma 2 completely uh with what the game gives you I I I sort of wonder how many people actually engage in buying the microtransactions for those games because Capcom does them for all their games normally they wait I think Dragons Dogma 2 might be the first one they did right away although I think maybe they did for Devil May Cry I think you could buy the red the red stones and the blue stones right away um and I think maybe people are just of that mindset where they're like oh if people buy more of these then in future Capcom games or future games in generals they'll be structured and built gameplay-wise uh to offer set thing like oh can't fast travel here's the solution and they sell it back to you as a microtransaction as an example right I think some people get really worried about that showing up in their single player experiences that they don't want cuz you know like someone buying a microtransaction in this game doesn't affect your experience if you're not going to use it right it's a single player only game so like you can you can see both sides of the argument people though they really really really want to be angry about stuff on social media all the time right yeah I mean like for me like the the microtransactions just like well this a sour taste but it's not going to stop me playing the game I still enjoy it and at the end of the day you would recomend you'd recommend it to anybody who's look looking forward to this type of game I would totally recommend it sure I would but like I wouldn't recommend buying the microtransactions not just because I think it will contribute to a slippery slope I actually think it makes the game less fun to play you know if you are cheating with you know cheating by buying like a Max Level porn for example then you're going to have a harder time in the late game because okay I'll play Devil's Advocate what does it matter to you if I go out and buy a Max Level pawn and I play the game how I want to play I spent my money what does it matter to you it doesn't it doesn't matter to me but the thing is there will be there's a level cap so like you will eventually hit a difficulty wall well there's not there's not a level cap but there'll be a cap on the the kind of porns you can get like eventually they'll be like okay so there aren't really any players left at this level whatever um I mean maybe it won't affect this game there's probably people already in New Game Plus and they'll probably be porns high level you can buy forever but it's like you'll never really get to grips with the game and the porns that you do spend the money on they will become Obsolete and you'll just have to buy new ones at the end of the day it's a single player game it's not competitive people want to do that then it doesn't bother me but the thing is again it comes back to that slippery slope maybe there will eventually be there'll be a world where it's like well I actually it's a it's a $70 game and additionally all the Fast Travel points uh are paid DLC or all the in-game currency can be acquired with money or you know and all that kind of stuff you know so it's it's like where where does the book stop and I think like the backlash largely revolves around not just backlashing against this game specifically but the generalized practice of maybe going down towards this sort of like slippery slope I guess you know and everyone in chat you love slippery soap and that's sour word today word of the day slippery soap s it's word of the day slippery slap what what I don't know what else you could call it yeah like a g a greased mudslide a greas mud I don't know um it's really funny because it but again like right now as of Dragon's Dogma 2 it doesn't affect the game at all you can just ignore them and I I honestly think you should ignore them okay you know um because it doesn't it makes the game Less Fun you know but it's whever you know yeah okay I mean that's that's a pretty much good overview of everything that's going on I don't want to talk about it for too long and beat a dead horse here so Dragon Dogma 2 is out now what is it $70 uh everywhere maybe cheaper on PC I'm sure you could probably get it from CD keys for probably like 45 bucks um I don't know how it performs on PC I do see it's mostly negative right now on Steam so I guess you know see it's it's capcom's highest concurrent player B so even though it's like really even though there is a pretty good it's pretty good for for a launch game I think it's got 200,000 players it's like even though there is a backlash there's still plenty of people who are just ignoring the drama and just playing it and and having fun and whatever um loads of people are mad at me for not but for owning up to the fact I didn't read the review guide but nobody's mad at any of the other journalists who did read the review guide and still didn't talk about it um you know it's just hilarious man people just want to be angry at something or anything you know um I'm just I'm just so exhausted man I am so so exhausted you know i' I've 40,000 words on guides this week and I wrote I wrote this beginner's guide you guys should read cuz it's really easy to make mistakes in this game that are permanent and you can't undo them really easy so like heavily recommend that you check out my beginner guide there's no spoilers in it but it gives you some like really helpful tips on how to avoid the mistakes that I made in my first playthrough which I'm not making in my second playthrough which you can see here um but uh yeah live and learn eh a lot of guides coming from Windows Central a lot of guides from elsewhere I mean I don't know if you saw but apparently um the word on high is that kataku is becoming a game guide website now and the current e editorinchief resigned over it I don't know if you saw that G geom media are absolute morons like it's not it's not even like a smart move to completely get rid of news because that's how you build Authority with Google is to have news you know and if Google if you are if you do just become like a guides website a guides trap especially if you CH if you're changing it' be like on YouTube if you were like if you were a news oriented YouTube channel and then one day you just switch to guides that would confuse the hell out of the algorithm and you're basically building up again from scratch you know um so the people people who run kataku like the geom media they're absolute morons and yeah I saw some Tes that were like this is actually just an excuse to kill the website and light people up or something and you know either that or it's just completely blatant stupidity that company is so weird they treat their writers like garbage and all their writers across all of their brands I just really confused why are they even in publishing I don't I don't get it you know this geom Media company so I don't know yeah it's a shame CU like even though even though like of kaka writers have clowned on me and they hate me and stuff you know they love a dog pile but oh of them do yeah they do they really love dog I bet I bet some of them are dog piling on me right now but fact is that Kaku has been like kaku's been there for so long and they've done some amazing reporting over the years you know um re and really important reporting and you know and I know that they they have some takes that rep piss people off and stuff but there have been people who people who've come and gone through katako that have really done some amazing reporting over the is and it kind of it's kind of a shame that this is the the situation that yeah journalism Hardbody journalism is is going to be shedding a tear for Kotaku so I don't know it has its fans man it's still one of the bigger websites I might have sure it is overtaken them now but I'm just saying like there's people out there that would welcome the demise of Kotaku and yeah sure I mean so for sure man I mean they they um I mean yeah you know I'm sure people feel the same way about window Central as well nah no of course not uh we do have a few super chats we have uh Andy aeran with a$ five he says uh this show is horrible that's why I'm here to help make it better yeah any any help we uh can get to make the show better we're all for it uh BT Maverick with the two he uh drops a code for one month Game Pass ultimate so if anybody is looking to get into Game Pass you got a code here uh make sure if whoever did get it make sure to thank BT Maverick thank you uh JJ saian with the 499 he says um I Randon Jazz just want to say that your podcast is amazing also thanks so much did you see that Saudi Arabia is getting a Dragon Ball theme park I did not see that really I mean he says it in the Super Chat here is that actually why don't you search search Google real quick just see if that's true I'm going to do it Saudi Saudi Arabia Dragon Ball Dragon Ball theme park it's true it's true okay official Dragon Ball official.com uh um constructions commence for the world's only Dragon Ball theme park Saudi Arabia based uh Kia Investment Company I probably pronounced that wrong has announced that I will be constructing the world's only Dragon Ball theme park Rand I'm planning a trip to Saudi Arabia baby are you okay let's go all right Xbox 2 live in Saudi Arabia yeah I've I've been uh I've been on a dragon ball kick lately man because of Aira torama and I've never actually watched The Original Dragon Ball series I just caught like glimpses of it I was I was a Dragon Ball Z kid obviously a dragon ball go you know from the 80s so I kind of missed that so I've been going back I've been doing my history lessons watching The Original Dragon Ball season so uh dragon Ball's awesome man Dragon Ball I mean I I seen some episodes it was mostly Dragon Ball Z that I'd seen with my brother but yeah um it's awesome to see people from around the world check out Xbox 2 especially in areas that probably you really don't get Xbox it's always it's always cool to see uh where people are from so chat let us know where you're from we can see you know the worldwide reach that Xbox 2 has thanks to jez Gordon and not Randall thor9 uh syus member for five months says on the packs East show floor the buzz I'm hearing is about Indie devs hitting up Publishers for funding and one Xbox 2 podcast is going on camera people always ask eventually don't worry uh but as far as any devs hitting up Publishers for funding I mean it's not too surprising it seems like a lot of money is dried up in some ways a lot of venture capitalists a lot of that free money that was flowing during the pandemic towards games have kind of the the valve have been kind of turned off a little bit so it's a little bit harder to get um gets I I did see Windows Central had an article from the developers of like deliver deliver us Deliver Us the moon and Deliver Us Mars where they went to they went to like H they went to so many Publishers to like pitch so like all these different games and nobody wants to like publish their game and it's like really tough nowadays to get funding for projects you know everybody's kind of tightening their belt right yeah uh the it's because of interest rates I think we talked about it before but there was like there was like Decades of these like minimal interest rates which basically made it less risky to be a venture capital firm but you know there was recash for everyone you know to though not really but you know to to so to more so a degree than previously but now like the interest rates are higher especially outside of the United States that's sort of like really had an impact on the risks that investors want to take when it comes to new games new companies and new anything really it's all super risky now indeed we have Billy big Willy Wonka remember for one month says jez gave Randon eyeball [Music] Curry no he did not he explained what that was on Xbox 2 ultimate apparently that's when people go up to you and lick your eye which is you run you run up someone and run up someone and lick their eyeball that's their eyeball that is disgusting I I don't recommend it though it's not it's not the most hygienic thing you can do no no definitely not uh Alvin with the five in the Super Chat says I have no issue with the folks arguing against microtransactions but just curious if people realize Capcom has been doing this with single player games for 15 years I'm sure some of them know and I'm I'm sure some of them don't um like as far as I'm was aware all the microtransactions in Dragons Dogma 2 were in Dragons Dogma one but I it's been such a long time since that game I don't know if there was this level of outrage I guess but they do this with all their games and I know that's not an excuse of like well they do with all their games so it's okay it's like nobody's saying that but it is something that Capcom regularly does and by the way I don't know if you know this Jaz but I believe Capcom was just named 20 23's publisher of the Year by Metacritic oh really yeah I'm pretty I think I saw that today so yeah I know people get the microtransactions debate gets people on both sides always being like it's not that big of a deal or this could ruin gaming how dare they are they greedy it's like well they are they're not a charity you know like of course they want to make money I'm the one thing I would love to know is are they actually selling lots of these things are they selling lots of Port crystals are they selling is this some is this really a truly a money maker right because you know like it's not it's probably not I mean but you never know it could be I mean you know you just don't know how people play their games and spend their money right yeah I mean it's not like they it's not like it's Ubisoft where you open a menu and it's there's ads for it like you soft in the past the the I mean I suppose this one of the reasons the reviewers a lot of reviewers missed it was because they're hard to find you know they weren't active I did wonder though when I opened the menu and there was a link out to the Microsoft store there is a link to the Microsoft store from the menu and I was kind of thinking well maybe that's for DLC down the line or whatever and I did know that there was pre-order bonuses but pre-order bonuses like it's whatever you know mhm um they were they were pretty public everybody knew about that you know um but but yeah I think it's just the slippery slope kind of thing coupled with the perform the performance artistic choices or whatever and people just wanting to be mad about things like I said on Twitter I don't think the market transactions are a big deal I don't care what people do you know you know with their own money or single player game I think it's just again it's that greased slide where it's it you know GRE mod trailer I think it's also I think the Publishers know it's a it's a topic of contention because they sometimes when they do this they wait until the reviews are out before implementing the DLC right so reviewers will be like sometimes taken unawares be like we had no idea because the Publishers know that review scores would be affected right that is a little bit like shady in my in my eyes of of like okay the reviews are out and we got our meta Metacritic score and we can run our trailers that have like Metacritic must playay and like different numbers from all these websites and be like here's the praise from Dragon's Dogma but you weren't too um you know like you you just you were concerned that like oh well if this was live during the review period it would drive down review scores like I I don't like that practice you know yeah I mean the the market transactions the market transactions weren't live to purchase yeah but they were they were detailed in I like I don't like that cuz it sort of seems like even though people knew about it if they were implemented that some reviews would be scored lower and I think Capcom would know that Capcom releast was thinking that cuz why else wouldn't they be live you know it's right I don't know it's just kind of this weird thing uh that Publishers do sometimes and I don't really particularly like that um metal makas with the 199 he says where is dealer we get this question a lot especially my buddy cold Eastwood and Fonzerelli uh dealer hasn't done X RDX in four months now and whatever but um uh as far as I am aware dealer is doing good he's just uh got some you know got some real life stuff to to to take care of and hopefully he'll be back back eventually right so yeah y uh Andy acrian the 199 says jez had me buying his Rand P Rand Pawn with the heart emoji okay this is the thing this is like I'm I'm thinking like is the algorithm here and to say porn all the time and thinking we're talking about pornography cuz we're talking about Chess porns p a WN algorithm we're talking about p a WN not the other one but uh yeah I I don't know it's it's funny to say that repeatedly and not mean the other thing right yeah there is there is a bit of the other thing in this game though there's some there's some enemies that are like uh yeah uh Timothy strouble with the five says I know this is a bit off topic but did you see that Alpha Protocol is back thanks to G I did not see it it is back like was the was the game delisted or something um I don't think it was delisted was it but um they've cut a deal with EA I guess cuz was it EA published I want to say Alpha Protocol was published by Sega was it not oh yeah Sega sorry no yeah Sega yeah you're right um so I guess they cut a deal with Sega to oh oh sorry they cut a deal with Sega to um bring it back to to what was it night armp I I I think it was probably on Steam but now it's like drm3 or whatever and wasn't it like maybe it was a games for Windows Live I I feel like me I guess it's possible it would have been that time frame I'm just I mean maybe some maybe some people in the chat but it's cool to see sort of like it was cool to see Alpha Pro call press release come across my inbox and it's just like oh this game still exist who made Al obsidian yeah it was obsidian right I want and Sega does Sega own that IP or does or does Microsoft now own that IP I think I'm pretty sure Sega owns it okay um Alpha Protocol was delist Jesse nor says Alpha Protocol was delisted and they had to go to Sega to get the music license and stuff F oh was music licenses thank Jesse thank you yeah oh it was delisted from Steam because of the licenses yeah it makes sense um but yeah it's cool to see Gog do stuff like that I wish I wish Gog was more popular cuz I really like the the ethos but um you just can't you just can't challenge steam man you just can't CH mean epic is trying to we'll talk a little about what epic's doing but I don't think it's really going to work um no I don't think so either we got just James member five months hi guys I'm still playing ory but I'm on the second one it's so hard I'm playing on hard mode I keep humming the theme even the girlfriend does yeah I think that game is a little bit more difficult on the harder difficulty even though it's a I think it's a much better game and I think the combat and the fighting is vastly Superior in Ori 2 in comparison to or1 the way I usually play those games is I play it my first time on normal then I would play the second time on easy to go through the like hey beat the game in less than five hours and whatever sort of um other things they have and then the final playthrough would be beat it on hard because by that point I've already played through it two times I know the best paths to go uh I know the ends and outc of the game and I could really do a fast hard playthrough uh but I didn't do that because there was a lot of problems with the achievements on aie like they didn't work properly I remember some of that stuff like that game came in hot I don't know if you remember Jaz or in the world of whz they lucky that game came out the way it did because there was some behind the scenes stuff going on with that game and they're lucky and I I that game did have like frame rate problems especially a really bad frame rate stutter stop when it came out which I mean the game got a 90 and I think it deserves a little bit higher than that but I mean hey when you when you got a game and you put that out and people are playing it and that you it's got bad performance issues where the like game completely freezes yeah it's going to get docked for performance problems so but yeah best Xbox game last gen easily one of the best games of last gen period um make sure if you haven't played it to check out those games uh we got we have um Kendrick star the $2 Super Chat is the Xbox portable portable coming out this year okay so this is a good transition to a topic I have uh in the title Xbox handheld um a lot of talk about it recently I saw our buddy Paris kind of come out social media and says he really wants one doing doing all these spaces about it um you know we see the success of the steam deck success of the switch right seems people are back in love with uh mobile gaming not like Mobile on the phone but like mobile as in like I have a actual gaming device that I take it everywhere and um you know you've been hinting that maybe Microsoft might be might be doing one that they green lit a bunch of Hardware they've talked about that in their their podcast from last month and recently I wanted to ask you about this cuz I don't I don't think I even know what you're what you're going to say here cuz I we even talked about it but a new devkit was registered in South Korea uh CU like All Electronics have to get registered there so there's like a new Xbox dev kit in South Korea and people are sort of speculating what it could be and you know like the commment response is like well don't they have an A dis list Xbox series X coming soon um I don't know if you would need a new devkit for that a lot of people are hoping that this is like this is the handheld right like oh maybe this is the handheld dev kit or what have you or or something of along those lines so I guess I'll ask you do you know what the South Korea dev kit is that was just registered and you know do you fully I know you've said this on Twitter but like how sure are you that Xbox is going down the handheld route in the future well I'll say this right and I haven't put our report on it yet because I'm still digging I know that they've got they've got handheld prototypes right now okay but they've had handeld prototypes before though that didn't make it these are these are new ones okay these are new handheld prototypes these are new these are they've got new handheld prototypes but prototypes doesn't necessarily mean they could they they may not mean I know I know they've had them in the past that didn't make it to market right yeah like the like the xcloud thing um the the streaming box like proud types don't necessarily mean they'll Goen market right um but I think you have to really look at the landscape and Microsoft strategy and the thought process and the new chips that are that have started to enable these kind of devices I think Microsoft will be absolutely insane to not pursue this okay you know the steam deck's blowing up and as I talked about on I went on sacred symbols recently yes and I talked about how valve is basically building a console platform using exclusives from both PlayStation and Xbox you know so it kind of it it's kind of insane for Sony and Microsoft to not be in that market offering their own experiences and letting valve get them all you know and people say oh well steam deck or PC I mean no one's booting into Linux on that thing I mean I'm sure I'm sure a couple people are no no I'm sure I'm sure there's maybe like four or five people that are booting in four or five people out of like 5 million maybe you know but like not a lot of people are booting into Linux on that thing or doing PC things with it and yeah it's like it's cool that you can install battl net on it and you know you can do things like you can install Microsoft Edge and then pin pin Microsoft um you can pin xcloud as an app and you have to jump through all these hoops to get the PC stuff to work properly on the steam deck and like yeah you can install Windows on it but then you're relying on third party tools which uh when I was doing my windows on Steam deck like they broke and then I had to install them all again it was like a pain so the best way to use a steam deck is to use it as a console right okay um and uh I think it'd be it's ridiculous for Microsoft and Sony to not want to be in that space so I think they are you know purely purely on the basis of um you know hard analysis I think like they are absolutely pursuing a handheld and but is this I suppose to backround I mean CH just to answer ch's question not a cloud handheld right no not a cloud handheld a fully native Xbox that's what people want cuz for a while there we thought if they were ever going to do one it'd be like the PlayStation portal where it's just like you it's cloud gaming or you stream it even though it seems like the Portal's doing pretty well or well enough uh for what Sony's expectations were um people really want the ability to like but I mean we don't know how many son's making like I don't we don't know what their expectations were for it like maybe it took them by the surprise but but people want what their handheld is the ability to download the game uh or get cartridges I I would imagine it would be a completely digital device I know you know Nintendo switch has cartridges I'm assuming this I would assume the steam deck is also is like completely digital just like all the other like no like I mean I mean yeah it is I mean I was going to say it's well it's got an SD card slot but yeah I mean that's still digital right right right I mean valve PC gaming is All Digital now I mean when's the last time you bought a physical copy of a PC game man I don't what one I don't know you tell me yeah I don't know everybody gets everybody gets up in arms about physical dying and the console space but they don't mention about how physical is dead in the PC space and has been forever I mean yeah the yeah physical PC games hasn't existed for so long um but I I just really believe that they're making one you know and I am like the the fact that no one said do you do you remember I was saying before how a lot of my reporting this recently goes revolves around debunking things debunking things yep yep yep like hellblade 2 or Starfield going to PlayStation 5 stuff yep yep it's you said it's easier for you to debunk stuff right yeah no one's deboned to handheld to me oh so interesting the fact the fact that like no no one's come out and said yeah we're not making a handheld it's it just suggests to me that they are exploring it I don't want to overhype it because you know like there's always that story about the Surface Mini the Surface Mini that was literally shipping out to retailers and then Microsoft decided to cancel it at the last minute don't know why they decided to cancel it maybe there was some kind of you know red ring of death situation that discovered at the last minute or whatever but they killed the Surface Mini like after you know having all the stock and then there was just tons of surface minis sitting in a warehouse you know same with the surface Neo like they they debuted the surface Neo which was like a folding laptop thing it looked really cool they canceled that [ __ ] so you know it's uh it might not come to fruition but I personally believe they have to do it you know I wrote an article saying like Xbox has to do a handheld and I think when you look at steam deck you look at what the switch 2 is going to do you look at how powerful these mobile chips are getting like the zed1 extreme and I think they absolutely have to do it man they absolutely have to do it so Chaser said I bought a Surface Mini prototype from Reddit yeah we've got one as well Windows Central the those Surface Mini prototypes started going missing from Microsoft and then people they started appearing on eBay and stuff you know it's funny but yeah it's uh you know prototypes don't mean products but you know we'll see we'll see what happens um but then you know I guess you shouldn't be going around to paris's tweets and saying you'll be getting one because you know you never know what's going Happ I believe it bro I believe it you believe it I'm confident I'm confident man I'm confident to say that okay so what is the you still hav't answer my question I guess what is the uh death kit that is in South Korea what what is that is that just a mistake is is it something else is it something insignificant what is it I'll be I'll be completely honest I haven't really investigated that right now because of Dragon's Dogma and all the all the crazy work I've had to do and and all that kind of stuff but I uh I'll dig into that but I honestly have no idea maybe it's a new maybe it's just a new dev kit a new dev kit in general a new devk in general to replace the previous one one thing Microsoft has started doing is um they've started doing I Dev kits for for the window stuff so maybe it's a dev kit that has AI stuff in it for future Xboxes to help devs get to groups with it they did talk a bit about Ai and what they're going to do in that space soon you know um so maybe it's something like that but I'll dig more into that in the future I suppose and try and figure out something more in depth cuz I don't know I mean if you had anything I I don't know I mean I was on black vikings podcast last night long housee podcast and it was a a topic of discussion and because the question was what's the lead time between devs getting a dev kit and a new product coming out right and you know Tom Henderson's reporting about the PS5 Pro where basically that like third parties started getting it what a month ago two months ago and and first parties had the dev kit it's like late last year obviously the pros supposed to be coming out this holiday so the lead time there seems to be at least on the third party side maybe around a year or less than a year and I'm trying to recall when uh Dev kits went out on for the Xbox series X and S as well as the PS5 like how far in advance uh were they given these things cuz I know like the big Partners like the first parties give get them earlier than everybody else they you know give feedback on stuff and then you send them to the big third parties right you send them to like your big Partners active well at the time like Activision Blizzard uh EA right take two right the big ones and then maybe they they more filter out and and and then leaks start to happen because the more people that have is something the bigger chance there is is is leaking uh information so I was just trying to figure out like let if you look at a hypothetical situation like if this is a new dev kit how long would the lead time be to a new product because people are like oh maybe the handheld's coming this year or maybe the handhelds coming next year right and I I I think that's like unrealistic to think uh that something like that would happen like but we are at least judging for Microsoft leaks expecting potentially a discus series X and another version of like as it was called project Brooklyn and another Series S that was to replace the other ones but we don't know if those has been cancelled and I don't know if you would need a new dev kit for just a new series X version right uh or like a refresh I don't know if you would need one I don't even know if like this is an actual dev kit I know like people have dm'd me and I'm sure people have dm' you uh about it and I figured I'd ask but we don't we don't have any like behind the scenes information I guess about what the dev kit is just that like apparently there is one but no idea what it is right at least Nota but you wouldn't expect you would not expect an Xbox handheld to be coming this year or next year right uh I wouldn't expect it no I mean that would be that' be crazy but like I say I I can't I can't I can't get firm confirmation either way right now right right um but you know as we get close to Launch more teams will have to be involved and retailers and that's when things start getting easier get information with the PS5 Pro stuff leaked because Sony updated their Dev portals and stuff and more people could see it and then it was like uhoh let me go tell mors Law's dead let go tell Tom Henderson and uh oh now there's stories and uh oh Sony's opening up an investigation they're like who could have possibly have done this right like we're trying to find the person who did this was you it was you all along H okay anyways so handheld jez believes it's happening but uh maybe not uh this year next year uh Adam with the $5 in the Super Chat says when are we getting a crossover with Last Stand media great interview with colinz I hope you guys are doing well I'm doing well now that my eyes better uh but we tend to do um guest appearances on defining Duke uh quite a bit I I think I've been on that I've been on defining Duke with Cognito and Maddie like three or four times I know you've been on there a couple times as well yeah uh we've had Colin on our Xbox 2 plus one show uh last year and yeah you recently were on his sacred symbols plus talking about stuff did you guys talk about Xbox at all I'm sure you guys did yeah we did I was on sacred singles symbols plus with Colin and we had like a really long discussion about things like the profitability and the viability of Xbox game pass and whether it's you know influencing consumer habits in a negative way you know and all that kind of stuff um we got into quite a lot of stuff in space of two hours and the the two hours just flew by CU you know we were just going over everything you know um I really like Colin he been really really good to me and um even though I I disagree with him on a lot of stuff with regards to the industry and and stuff like that but it's kind of nice where you can have you can actually have it's all it's refreshing where you can have like a discussion with someone that you know you don't know that well and not have it devolve into sort of a slanging match like like on um like on Twitter like you have a disagreement in TW on Twitter it's like oh my God we we we we have to hate each other now and it's like it's like oh man there are people still out there that you can disagree with but still the thing is that is is it's much different when you're face to face with somebody or speaking to somebody rather than like text cuz text you you could read text wrong you you lose a lot of the minutia of uh people's feelings and how they tweet something like you could text me something and then I could take it a completely different way than how you intended it right and I think some of that's has to do with how people are perpetually angry on social media is it's just just all anonymous texting and people can read things differently than how it's intended when you're face to face with somebody usually people are respectful right they may not agree with your opinions about you know certain things but they're not going to go nuts over it so um but yeah I know what you mean I know what you mean we got Dono taku in the super chat with the $5 uh dragon of do 2's microtransaction debacle is fine because the game didn't change after reviews unlike gt7 which made the game grinder at launch once reviews dropped yep that's a fair point indeed uh Christopher Jeter with the $10 Super Chat says did you see that the devs of anoria a doublea Souls game delayed their game to one day after Wong comes out rather than the same day as ER tree seems like a bad choice either way well obviously yeah it doesn't seem like the best choice of like all right well we're we were coming out the same day as ER tree which and there are souls likee so it's like yeah we don't want that to happen but then it seems like you picked why would you want to come out the day after uh of another bigger Souls game is like seems like um a wrong choice there but this is a game that has kind of caused a lot of uproar in the Xbox Community um jezz I don't know if you've heard about this game in particular but so I think it was during the future game show now this game has been promoted by it at Xbox it's on their their Channel um it's a game I've never heard of until yesterday and I would I would Hazard to Guess that it's a game most people talking about have never heard of either but they're talking about it because it's skipping Xbox and the reason it's skipping Xbox is this so they say the Xbox version of antoria Last Song has been suspended quote regarding the release on Xbox we have decided in the interest of ensuring a superior experience for PC and PlayStation 5 players to reassess the possibility of an Xbox release post launch right um this did not go over well with people on the Xbox Community as it really shouldn't um because okay there because there's a lot there's a lot here that you can talk about in regards to the platform and how it's perceived and how devs view it and how the fans view it right it's never a good thing when a game skips your platform period you can all look at like hey the monster hunter games we've talked about before uh Capcom decided like we're not going to bring those to the platform even though they bring it to every other platform we'll bring it to switch we'll bring it to PC we'll bring it to PlayStation we're not going to bring it to Xbox right it's a bad look it's a bad look for Xbox because it's like when everybody else is included but you that says something about you right um a lot of Japanese games tend to skip Xbox and the common sense the common reason why is you would at least think it's because you know Xbox users really don't buy uh that style of game so developers just don't bother putting their games on on the platform now they've made strides in recent years to rectify this by getting the bigger Japanese games on Xbox to try to build an audience for those games here so those developers don't immediately skip it and I and I would imagine there is some sense of like hey I'm going to try to get that game pass bag and you could say like as part of you know I know you said you had the conversation with khum but like one of the negatives towards it is like some developers might look at it as hey if I don't get a Game Pass bag for Microsoft I just won't put my game on Xbox right so this game decides we're skipping and the reason they give seems to me like it's more it's a small Studio as far as I'm aware like 55 people it to me it's like we're having problems building all three versions and we want to be able to focus on the two that's probably going to make us the most money and that's the PC and PS5 version so we're going to pull people off the Xbox version and we're going to have them focus on this one and then we'll reassess after it right now a lot of people will look at this and they'll see it as a direct response to what happened in February I I see a lot of a lot of Xbox fans being like Oh well this is you know if Xbox is putting their games elsewhere then and and and making their platform less desirable uh in their to them you know by putting their games in other places then why should developers uh do that you know also value Xbox if Xbox is isn't valuing Xbox essentially right um so there's that whole aspect and like when you look at the tweets from the people everybody's like Phil you rued Xbox or S Bond you need to fix this etc etc etc actually a game that's already been signed up to ID at Xbox and been promoted by ID at Xbox to then be like oh you get down here and it's like no uh we're not actually coming on Xbox and in fact we're not coming on Xbox because we want to ensure a superior performance on the platforms that felt like that felt like an unnecessary dig well I don't I guess you could say maybe they maybe they didn't get the help from ID at Xbox that maybe they thought they were going to get but the thing is a lot with this and I understand x Xbox fans frustrations because this only really happens one way you only ever like games skip Xbox but they don't skip PlayStation uh it's like oh no we're going to bring it to PC and Playstation uh we want to make sure that this game's good for them but you never see PlayStation on the other side of it like oh we're going to bring it to PC and Xbox right and that's part of partially because of the user base and the console install base so a lot of people's fears are this is kind of the beginning of okay there are people who are abandoning the platform and not now buying less games so now developers see that and they're not going to want to put their game on Xbox anymore because of it and this is a glimpse of the future and we don't want that to happen um you know I don't know what the case is here but I've always said from the you know from the very beginning that a games skipping Xbox is not a good thing regardless if it's something you've heard of or not because it makes Xbox seem lesser than like oh this game is good enough for PC and PS5 but it's not good enough for box or this game is and I know people bring up the switch what do that word of the day what slippery slope slippery slope and you know people will bring up switch like it's not on switch and granted but sometimes games aren't on switch because it can't run the game right at all period so it's it's not a big deal right until it's a game you won right there's that and we can we can all sit here and be like oh yeah no one cares about anoria no one even heard of it right I didn't he so I didn't hear of it I didn't hear I didn't know about this game until this until I I I'd I'd forgotten about it I I had heard about it but I'd forgotten about it until this but again I was sitting there thinking like I don't when I first read that I was like well I don't care about that the game's probably not going to be that great anyway but but when it's a game you actually won like monster to stories then then you get pissed about it right yeah and or the Final Fantasy games all the Final Fantasy games or whatever so it's like as um I don't know as more games skip the platform arbitrarily and it is arbitrary a lot of the time because you know these x86 systems that you know there is work involved but it's not like it was back in the day trying to Port fall out to the cell processor or whatever um and all that kind of stuff it's still it's still spooky that games would do this and I suppose if you are a smaller Dev especially one that's in Europe and you're kind of like you're seeing what Microsoft's sales look like in Europe right now yeah which are awful and you have to which are awful and you have to kind of like you have to sort of you have to make a choice about how much um you have to make a choice about whether or not you um you have to make a choice about whether or not you uh invest money in a platform especially if you're a smaller Dev The Game Pass bag has I'm sure led to games coming to Xbox that might have skipped because 100% yeah because they they get the cash flow they need to hire the devs they need to make all that stuff kind of viable or what which is great for small devs like be able to okay this game is profitable we can make our next one that's really a big plus for Game Pass right yeah um it's uh it's a whole it's a it undermines the narrative that game pass is um you know overall a good thing and I think honestly it is overall a good thing and even with this happening it's still overall a good thing but you have to wonder like when you see some of the bigger devs who support Game Pass very aggressively it kind of makes you feel like is this a sort of crutch now like with Capcom you know they they're bringing their games to the platform like their smaller games and um stuff in their more experimental games like path of the goddess or EXO Prim um they're launching day one into Xbox game pass so like that for them it's very beneficial to have that money but at the same time it's like when they don't get the game pass money like monst onto stories it feels like they've skipped the platform entirely you know um but it's all it's all just speculation like there's a lot of Revenue going through game pass a lot of Revenue they they're getting a lot of money in and they're sending a lot of money out to devs so in that context it's absolutely successful but I suppose like the Nintendo switch there's tradeoffs if you make a system like Nintendo switch where it's heavily portable you are going to exclude yourself from the latest Call of Duty or the latest FIFA or or when you do get triaa games like Mortal Kombat or whatever they're a total mess and they don't work properly or the games have to be heavily compromised and redacted and stuff like that so Game Pass May may or may not represent some kind of tradeoff there um it just depends on whether or not you think the tradeoffs worth it you know down the line we are going to get things like Diablo 5 day one in Game Pass we are going to get Call of Duty get day one in Game Pass and all these hellblade day one in Game Pass all these other games which you don't have to pay for they're going to be day one in Game Pass as part of the subscription but it's I think it's like you said on Xbox 2 ultimate saving money isn't exciting saving money isn't sexy you know so it's it's easy to take that for granted um it's easy to take that for granted until it's gone you know yeah because it's not it's not exciting to save money yeah and I don't think this is I don't think this game like not coming to Xbox until after the PS5 PC release is because that Microsoft decided to release those four games on their platforms right because games were skipping Xbox before uh they did Xbox did that and I'm sure games will skip there'll be games that will skip Xbox after I think like this Dev is probably looking at all right uh what's our timeline can we hit our deadlines um we're going to have trouble hitting our deadlines okay can we should we pull support for the Xbox version and focus on the two that are probably going to give us the most revenue and I think that's probably more the case it's like well we want to make sure that the where we are going to make the most money are the ones that are uh you know the the a good a great experience for our fans now I mean reading I mean just reading their their statement it's like in the interest of ensuring a superior experience for PC and PlayStation 5 players to reassess the POS I mean to me that reads like we need to stop work on the Xbox version because we need to make the PC and PS5 versions better and we're not able to do that right now right so we're going to stop doing this but it says a lot about the Xbox platform to a certain extent that Dev is comfortable saying this and is like yeah we can drop this version version and we'll we'll determine later if we're going to add it because I don't think it would be the other way around like you wouldn't drop the PlayStation version to focus on the Xbox version so it says a lot about like how some devs view the platform and uh you know it's never a good thing when when games Skip and I I'll keep on saying that even if I'm not interested in it right I don't care about Monster Hunter stories I honestly don't care about most of the Japanese games that don't come to Xbox this game I had no idea even existed but I have always said that this isn't this isn't a good thing you want everything to come to your system you don't want to give developers reasons to not support your platform and I think people trying to tie it into like oh this is because of their recent uh exclusives going multiplat like I don't think there's any bearing on this I think they're just I think they were just like we need to make sure these versions are the best and we're not going to be able to hit our time frames so we're going to drop this version so I we'll probably still we'll probably see more of this right like it's not like this is a new thing it hasn't been um but all you can really do is yeah keep on tagging Phil and keep on tagging Sarah in social media posts and being like hey what the hell's going on right why why is this happening and you know it leads to not sure tan Sarah is going to do anything well I mean I don't know who else are people going to tag like that's probably this is probably above Phil's pay grade anyways I mean I'm sure the realistic people to tag are the people who work at ID at Xbox essentially right and not NE it' be stuff like Chris charler and and Matt booty probably probably people to tag but people know people know Phil and Sarah right so you go like to the top I mean I guess you could tag SAA but like like he would care um but yeah it's it's goe yeah goe people always like it's difficult right because Xbox has become so large so big as an organization that like you can't expect Phil to have a hand in an indie game from Italy skipping the platform you know there has to be like a point where they have to sort of pass responsibility on someone else like single person can't do all that stuff like one of the things I'm struggling with right now in my job is that I've become a managing editor but I'm still trying to I'm still trying to be a riot and I'm finding it hard to juggle just those responsibilities I can't imagine what how much of an effort it is for for someone like Phil or Sarah who has to run an or with thousands of people in it you know I'm struggling with a team of like six people you know and I'm trying to compete with IGN and these big companies and stuff like that with the limited resources that I have and trying to grow and compete in this industry and it is killing me man not does sound dramatic but it's like I am like I've never this past year I've never worked as hard as I've I've ever worked in my life and I'm sitting there thinking like how do people operate at this level like what kind of inhuman levels of of dedication do you have to have to all this kind of stuff so like I really appreciate this this idea that um you know making your voices heard and stuff like that and I think that's important and everyone should try and make their voices heard and I think it's really important that Phil I think it's important that we make our voices heard so that Phil has the context that he might not otherwise be getting because he is so busy you know um being out of touch with your audience uh can be a really bad thing no matter no matter who you are whether you're a small content creator or whether you're operating a huge gigantic company but you have to do it in a way that's sort of respectful and you have to do it in a sort of way that isn't toxic or whatever because it kind of undermines your arguments if you are someone who just sort of getting off on the H road because there are plenty of people who just they just want to height something they they just want to be angry they want to be in this outrage thing you got this whole thing with Kate Middleton right now where like for like weeks and weeks and weeks people were making all these conspiracy theories that she was dead or that she had body doubles or that she was an alien or something and and like now she's had to come back and just be like no actually it's that I've had treatment for cancer you know and I was trying to keep a lid on it so that I could explain it to my kids in a way that wouldn't freak him out cuz she's got like a bunch of little kids and it's it's just like but people were hating for like weeks and weeks and weeks and completely losing the humanity over it really and it goes back to what you were saying about when people are face to face it's different but we're getting used to this point where everyone's just a faceless entity you know and Phil and Sarah are not and and the rest of them they're not faceless entities they're they're people with responsibilities and daily workflow so um when you are doing your feedback you have to try and be as respectful as possible you know right um but it's it is a reality that you know if you are an Italian Dev and you see what the install base is like of Xbox in your country where you're probably going to you that's the audience you're most in touch with probably is your home country right and like that the audience there is probably like well we don't own Xboxes anyway it's probably a no-brainer for them to save a lot of money by at least postponing the Xbox Port until maybe they could get some support from Microsoft and stuff because more so than ever all platforms are paying paying money to devs and Publishers to acquire content whether it's through marketing deals whether it's through pre-order bonuses there's like money that changes hands to fund that sort of perpetuation it's like you know the whole Call of Duty Mark can deal with PlayStation you know that's Sony giving money to Activision to ensure that their customers have a premier experience over Xbox you know um so the money flowing from game platform holders to Publishers has never been higher than ever um has never been higher and these are all overheads that you know mobile phones don't have to deal with or mobile games don't have to deal with and there it's risk that mobile games don't to deal with so you have to it's no wonder that there's so much so much emphasis being put on mobile you know where you know Apple's not going to spend any money to acquire content on their earphones they don't give a [ __ ] because they've got a monopoly the the the Department of Justice is suing Apple for this it just became like a big ramble about this game which no one here was probably um no one's probably that bothered about you know um I don't know I saw a lot of people bother about it last night yeah not about the game it's not about the game it's it's I think it's not about the game but it's well no I mean I wouldn't say it's not about the game I'm sure there are some people that are looking forward to it considering it was a game that Xbox promoted on their ID at Xbox Channel but more about a microcosm of like what they think could be the future of the Xbox platform right was first it's this g game that skips and then down the road it's EA doesn't support the platform for whatever reason because nobody buys future XBox Hardware right yeah it's like I say it's not a problem until it's a game you want yeah you know essentially but yeah uh so that was going on uh with that but uh thank you for the super chat about that we got um grandman in the Super Chat $2 says PS5 Pro two years before nextg Xbox thoughts yeah I guess this is another thing um to talk about as well jazz is this idea of Next Generation uh PS5 Pro and essentially what Xbox should do that seems to be a common thing of like should Xbox respond how should they respond um because as it leaked last week live when we were on the show um the the specs for the PS5 Pro came out I even saw we got clipped and we were talking about it and it was funny because the person that clipped us talking about it titled his little tweet uh Xbox Xbox mad about PS5 Pro or some stupid [ __ ] right like listen to them cope and see about the power of the pro or whatever it was uh it's like okay dude yeah okay sure um like oh they really really want it um but either way the PS5 Pro came out specs leaked um and they look pretty good and then like the next day CPU apparently isn't much of an upgrade at all uh people are talking about it and obviously there's the you know this being an Xbox podcast about like what Xbox should do should they do a mid gen upgrade and start next Generation in 2028 I guess like the idea of like what would you rather want an Xbox midg upgrade this year next year year and then uh fully nextg console in 2028 or what the current rumors are where Xbox is just maybe putting out a refresh but we'll essentially not be doing a mid gen upgrade because they're going to be breaking the cycle and doing a uh NextGen in 2026 now um for me jez um if I was somebody who played on the PlayStation 5 every day like I do my Xbox I absolutely would love a PS5 Pro regardless of whatever it's going to do or not because a lot of discussion is around GTA 6 and I think you know why right because there's this whole debate talking point about hey is the PS5 Pro going to run GTA 6 at 60 frames because the common line of thinking is that the base models won't be able to run it at 60 and then you could have the pro come out uh with that game and then Sony could advertise it and being like the best place to play GTA 6 PlayStation right but then you know digital Foundry is talking about that they don't expect it to whatever but GTA is a common sort of catalyst of these discussions because they I think people know that this the game is sort of going to be held back by the current hardware and then and then like people don't people don't want 30 frames anymore uh they're not like you right they they don't embrace the filmic as of you have done right so they're like no we want 60 frames we want Grand Theft Auto but Grand Theft Auto is so big enough that people even PC guys will play it on console for 30 frames because Rockstar is just on that another level that no other Dev is and Grand Theft Auto is a franchise unlike any other franchise right um but if I was a PlayStation user and I used it as much as I used my Xbox and I knew that Sony was planning on nextg in 2028 absolutely I would want a PS5 Pro absolutely if it's something I'm going to play every single day and it's where I play all my games first party third party your damn right I want one whether it's $600 or $700 doesn't matter I want the better system whether that would give me way better uh performance slightly better performance I just want the better machine because it's going to be a long time between now and 2028 so when I think about it from the Xbox side of things and if I knew that Microsoft was like G to come out with the next gen in 2028 I honestly would want them to respond because I'm kind of selfish in that way be like are you re am I really going to go another another five years with an Xbox series X that seems to some devs at least like are maxing it out or like drag Dogma 30 frames like I want a I want a new system right not everybody would agree with me there are definitely people like we don't need midgen refreshes and we still don't know how the PS5 Pro is going to perform I put a poll up on my Twitter about do you want a Xbox series X pro and most people said no right but I'm I'm just saying for myself and maybe I'm out out on a limb on this but I would want one if I knew Microsoft wasn't giving me a new console until 2028 but but if that's not the plan and the plan is okay we're going to do something new in 2026 then it'll be a different story um and it's tough to really say like what should Xbox do uh because we don't know the plans I mean we we sort of knew what the plans were in 2022 but it sounds like those have been changed and instead of doing next gen in 2028 they're going to do it in 2026 I don't know jez what do you want all this I mean I don't think the PS5 Pro interests you because you you you famously have said like you don't got enough room in your flat for a PS5 you know that big machine right and I'm not interested in the PS5 Pro simply because I don't use my PS5 enough right I only turn it on and play it when there's exclusive games for the system that I want to play so I mean that's that's the other thing it's like it's I mean I could reorganize my my Des to accommodate a PlayStation 5 mhm but it's but it's like you say I don't have time to play other the games I got now I've got an RTX 4080 and you know Horizon uh the New Horizon game just dropped on my PC sure did and ghost of shima's coming soon and you know I still haven't finished um a bunch of I still haven't finished days gone or the original horizon yet I've never played Spider-Man all those games are available me to me me on my PC so it's kind of like well it's the argument that PlayStation fans often use against Xbox which is like why would I buy this when it's all on PC well I have the same question in the inverse why would I buy a PlayStation 5 when I know all that stuff's coming to PC and soon it's going to becoming a PC day and dat I've got a PC powerful enough to do it so why wouldn't I do it you know um at the same time I do prefer playing on Console um but not to the point where where I'd have a console just for exclusives I play like all I'm I'm the opposite way I've used my PC for exclusives like World of Warcraft or Heroes of the Storm which aren't on console and I use my console for everything else cuz I just it's HED up to my TV and I prefer it you know so but so I can't comment on the PS5 Pro you know it sounds cool and it sounds like son's getting their foot in the door on upscaling technology and all that kind of stuff right the pssr tech that they have in it yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah the AI C I would assume Xbox would have some similar Tech to that whenever they do drop their new consoles right yeah I mean Microsoft's going to be working on that kind of stuff you know so and and even though it's like the same CPU and it's probably not going to be it's probably not going to offer the the kind of performance enhancements that people would would dream of and imagine that it could probably have it's going to be like an Xbox One X kind of deal probably to some degree at least I'm still I would still get one I would still get an Xbox series X pro because I just want to be I just want to have the best option that's available because I do play so many games and it's my main Hobby in life so why wouldn't I you know it's a hobby for me to buy these consoles you know um and also it's part of my job you know so but I would have done it even if I wasn't working in this industry I'd still buy it because I'd still want to get all the best providing that I could afford it you know at the time but if I had like if I still had a job like I had before I started writing which I was a minimum wage it guy I might hold off on a mid gen upgrade because at then I didn't just spend money willy-nilly I was like a little bit more conservative about spending money like I would have walked instead of getting a taxi or a boss for example I wouldn't have taken vacations because cost money too much money I wouldn't have got takeout food because it cost money all that kind of stuff so when you think back to the way things were like and you know how when you're a console fan and maybe you got a family and they take priority and all that kind of stuff it's it's important that you prioritize so yeah I can see why some people would bulk at this idea of a an incremental upgrade when it's not necessarily it's probably going to be obsolete again very soon if not pretty much launching obsolete because of the CPU stuff a lot of people kind of want um a lot of people kind of want to live in a scenario where um you can get PC like performance with a console like price point I don't think I don't think that that's going to be a thing you know ever you know especially not now when chips are in such high silicon is in such high demand for AI cloud and all this kind of stuff that chip prices are going to stay high and I think consoles are always going to be a step or two or three behind what you can get on PC when you spend thousands and thousands of dollars and that's okay you know but for me I would just like I would just like the option I think the options are good I think like if as long as the previous generation of consoles are supported appropriately and that you don't need to get an upgrade or a mid gen refresh to enjoy gaming then I don't mind the option it's kind of like how Samsung or Apple have like any up to like five handsets in their lineup at any one time the options for every price point right why can't we have options for every price point in console gaming like we like we do in um PC gaming you know that's just my take you know everyone it's everyone their own you know I can see all sides of the argument or whatever but as long as it wasn't like something you had to buy I don't mind the option I mean I can buy like a mid gen I can buy a mid-range Samsung phone and yeah maybe my photos aren't going to be as crisp but I'm still going to be able to like get all the apps play most the popular games and it's not going to be an issue while saving myself a few hundred pounds in the process you know yeah options are fine what should Microsoft do jez I guess it's may be difficult to say what they should do when we think we know what they're doing but do you think if the 2026 rumors are correct that that is the that is the right way to go about it like not do a mid gen refresh because it's probably going to be too expensive and the upgrade isn't going to be what you think it's going to be and just go straight to Next Gen early decouple yourself from always of the forever PlayStation and Xbox are launching NE side by side and it's a comparison between them both and kind of have Xbox break out of that internal Loop and being like all right we're two years ahead we're going to do we're going to Forge our own path here um is that the correct way to to go to to go about it in the future it's kind of tough because you kind of want Microsoft to have an answer to every piece of Hardware that Sony's going to release and that's just like by Instinct you know if Sony has is announcing a new console that has better whatever and then Microsoft doesn't have an answer for that then I can see people being salty about it you know even though like wasn't there a wasn't there a gap between the launch of the Xbox One X and the PS4 Pro PS4 Pro came out in 2016 and then the the 1X came out in 2017 so the 1X was Microsoft made well yeah it was a year later but Microsoft announced it before Sony before Sony even unveiled the PS4 Pro they announced project Scorpio at E3 2016 so people knew it was coming and it was but it was coming next year cuz the PS4 Pro was coming that holiday I suppose like that could be enough like if Microsoft just if Sony announces this and then Microsoft gives like an outline of what their Hardware plans are and what people can expect cuz like they should pretty much know what the next PlayStation looks like at this point I think as long as Xbox fans know what to expect I think that's fine so for me I think as long as they people are informed about what the hardware plan is and what the deliverable is then I think it's fine to decouple micos for for the consoles to decouple each other from trying to meet each other head on um cuz you know Samsung and Apple don't meet each other head on you know like why do they like people are kind of locked into those ecosystems to some degree you know if you're a Samsung guy you prefer having your Samsung phones if you're an iPhone person you prefer having your iPhone or whatever and it's difficult to switch when you've kind of you know you bought all your apps and whatever on one platform it becomes difficult to switch but not so much like cuz you might you might have like a $100 maximum of apps on on your iPhone but you you might have thousands of dollars worth of games on your console so I'd say it's even harder to switch console than it is to switch your mobile phone primary platform I would say um so I don't think it's a big deal if they decouple but I don't know if you feel differently r i mean what are you what are your thoughts on it I guess it the really depends you often seem to you seem to know like how people are going to react a little bit better well I mean there are definitely people who don't like the fact that Microsoft is not immediately responding to the PS5 Pro because moving forward all digital Foundry faceoffs will just be like PS5 Pro is the best place to play these games right like currently with the PS5 and Xbox sometimes Xbox is doing better like I think Xbox is performing better uh with Dragon's Dogma and frame rate on than the PS5 but I think the PS5 version is higher resolution so some games the Xbox version is the winner and some games the PlayStation version is the winner right but you're not you're going to lose that right because the PS5 Pro will most likely be if you have a console that is going to be the best version of the game especially in a time where Grand Theft Auto 6 is about to come out next year because we don't think Xbox is going to have a response for that and more than likely Sony's going to have the marketing rights for it and it's probably the next it's probably like the next it is the biggest event for next for next gen or current gen it's literally going to be Grand Theft Auto 6 who's going to be able to pull people in uh do you still have people playing on Xbox One and the 360 this this is the game that's going to get them to upgrade uh you know this could be the game to get people to upgrade from their PS5 to PS5 Pro if it's if it's better right um so I think some people look at that some fans that are also very much engrained in like my console's better than yours you lose that right because everybody was always going back and forth between the 1X or the the PS4 and the Xbox one oh you got 720p versus 900p or 1080p versus versus like the Xbox One was a uh less powerful system and it showed it but then the 1X and the pro came out and 1X really had some good examples of deaths put in the work like I remember Red Dead Redemption was like native 4K where the the PlayStation 4 Pro wasn't and some games really looked better and ran better on the pro and some games didn't um but I don't know how many people actually ended up buying those midgen refreshes uh they never really talked too much about that and I know the leadup of this generation was very much about the power right 4K 60 all that sort of stuff and I guess you could make the argument the consoles haven't lived up to that promise of like everything being like 4K 60 uh but I think they've lived up to the least the promise of most games 60 being standard there's like five games you can count on your hand that are 30 um but as like this generation has moved on uh you know like people will look back at Phil's cloat and being like Hey we're not going to be out of position on price or power right and they'll be like you said this but now you're out of position on power because the pro is that much more better and how does that if the pro comes out at the end of 2024 this year can Xbox really survive the beatings it would take in the online community from essentially having the worst version of all the games even though not many people are going to own a PS5 Pro but simply because digital Foundry is going to say that this is the best version and we've seen from the court documents and what Sony was always arguing like them losing uh like a face off on Call of Duty in digital Foundry would would have been like disastrous for them right yeah but then again if you're also then launching a brand new console a couple years later and starting the next gen early and maybe you offer people a handheld and you have a great lineup of games because I think games are still like the most important thing right like that's what's going to sell uh this sort of stuff then maybe you flip the script maybe I mean I couldn't tell you for sure but I mean two years is a long time right from PS5 Pro in 2024 to an an an Xbox in 2026 to then PS5 ps6 in 2028 you know uh and then whatever Xbox does after that um it it'll be very interesting to see how people react because I know there' be people that won't like it that you'd have to wait for this and that they like oh man I wish Xbox do something better and then the flip side maybe PlayStation fans wouldn't like it when when its Xbox is turn and you're just going to constantly have this Leap Frog thing where for a couple years your console's the best and then a couple years after that like the other console's the best or maybe even like the the improvements won't even be that noticeable maybe they'll be in different areas like we assume you know the PS the next Xbox might have ai cores how's that going to uh change things right um I will say I will be disappointed if they aren't doing it in 2026 and it is a if next gen is 2028 and they didn't offer M genen upgrade and I would have to wait all the way until 2028 I would be disappointed in that because I would want one I would pay for one I would I would get it because I would play for it every single day uh I you know play my Xbox pretty much all the time so but if you're if you're being like this is the best path for us and what we want to do then okay yeah 2026 isn't that too isn't that far away so I guess we'll have to wait and see on that front um we don't know CH see what people in chat think um let me bring up can I make a poll here can I make polls mean you should be able to I can't make a poll you'll have to do it bro I don't know what people in chat think drop it in chat and I'll put it in Sp Spotify question as well do you want this Xbox series X pro okay before next gen do you want an Xbox series X Pro before next Generation okay before next gen uh yes and no okay let me get the yes and no all right pulls up maybe it's not the best poll because I guess the better question might be like would you rather have Microsoft go to next gen in 2026 or 2028 but and now my YouTube thing is not loading are we still live J yeah we're still live okay my YouTube chat is not my YouTube chat is YouTube chat not still going refresh okay here we go I said to refresh okay YouTube's a bit buggy like that anyways I'm sure there'll be a lot of talk over the months about all this sort of stuff as the PS5 Pro becomes how does Sony position it what is the how how better does how how does it make games run is it a significant upgrade what's the price point right I seen digital Founders saying the floor is going to be $5.99 which is expensive but hey I mean Sony's all about margins these days and PS5 Pro is essentially an Enthusiast product right when you look at the PS5 Pro it's not going to bring in any new users it's just going to be a product that current existing users buy so you're not really going to be gaining any monthly active users you're not going to be gaining anybody new you're just getting your current users to to upgrade so Sony's probably not going to want to take a loss on it especially with their margins as thin as they are so you know I know a lot of people are speculating on price 599 seems to be the the the bottom it could start at uh you know and I could essentially see going for $599 and $699 there's a part of me that thinks hey maybe they do PS5 Pro digital $599 PS5 Pro disc base $6.99 maybe they get people in that mindset of expecting like more expensive consoles in the future because I'm not sure you know like the can you always ensure that a console is going to be that price like we saw the PS4 pro at 400 but the PS5 was 500 and they've sold roughly about the same same manyy so like are is Tech just getting expensive and not dropping down in pric fast enough where like the ps6 might launch at 599 and then you look at like what Xbox would do what prices they would essentially be launching at like how much is a handheld going to cost right how much is a steam deck right now how many different vers like right they have three versions but if you like you don't want I don't know if you want the cheap one but you want the the one with the most memory but isn't that like 600 bucks or something I mean even Nintendo's going up rumored to be going up 100 bucks from the switch one to switch two right so is true there's a lot of things here like I I wouldn't be surprised if we see the PS5 Pro come in at 600 and maybe 700 if they do dual models and then not be surprised if nextg the Baseline price is 5.99 people are saying the poll is broke yeah I don't know when I when I yeah I yeah poll doesn't work poll doesn't work I guess that was what the problem was people voted in it but yeah it wasn't sh yeah it was broke on display so seven I ended the poll and it said uh 74% said no they don't want a series X pro anyways um enough about enough about that let's uh get to more of these uh super chats I see people have dropped in here we have uh dve Ramos with the five could the new GDK be related to a gen 9 handheld based on zen3 and RD A4 but equivalent to a series s not necessarily A New Gen per se talking about like the South Korea Dev thing um I don't think is anything to do with the handheld at all but I could be wrong right yeah I I have no idea I'll try and dig into that I'll dig into it uh T Master jiujitsu says no point in Xbox handheld if there's zero exclusives this is going to be a common thing that we see consistently moving forward especially when they would be exclusives though well yeah but people are people will be like look hellblade 2 is coming out in two months and I'm sure when it does come out and hopefully it gets great reviews I'm sure there'll be plenty of people saying I'll wait for it to come to PlayStation but hey that's the can of worms Xbox opened up on their own doesn't matter if it doesn't matter if Phil's telling the truth that it's just these four games and and it doesn't mean all of them it doesn't matter because you open that door and now the expectation is it might be more so yeah I'm not surprised that people are going to be like well they're going to have no exclusives so you did this to yourself essentially um and I'm and and they knew this people would say that right but that's just something you're just going to have to like when you go to the Showcase and you have all these announced games these brand new things or what was like oh I'll get it when I come to my Playstation sure some of them will do it the troll but some of them like legitimately might think oh it'll come it'll it'll come to PlayStation like oh if High fire Rush came of course Indiana Jones will right so uh Champagne Supernova says uh that interia game this is what happens when you don't stay competitive simple as that also shout out to highi scoring higher on PlayStation for some reason I did see that highi has a better higher Metacritic rating on PlayStation uh I believe it's like in the 90s although to be fair it is a smaller pool of reviews so each review has a higher chance higher probability of not probability but a higher chance of moving the needle U but yes it is higher higher rated I believe penton's even higher rated than the switch in the Xbox version so I don't really see a lot of people talking about Hi-Fi Rush right now cuz rise of ronin just came out and so did Dragon's Dogma and I think it was a bad time to release that game if if you're looking for extra sales uh RDX Sun Fett says with the $699 Canadian Microsoft don't care about the box or Halo they've made promises they don't keep them the community is tired being lied to and betrayed some people definitely do feel like that right words that the executive said in the past uh the feeling that they don't care about the console I mean you know with Xbox sales in Europe being down 47 % there's no way to spin that that's an awful number Europe doesn't really care for Xbox and why should they especially when you have the the PlayStation and switch and Xbox does piss poor localization in a lot of those countries and most people's friends have the other consoles it's was like yeah but this is kind of also you reap what you s to a certain extent like Xbox has kind of been out there Shou from the rooftops you don't need an Xbox console to enjoy Xbox games and then be surprised when people don't buy your console because they don't need it because you've been out there saying you don't have to have it right so y uh Supernova with the $ five dollar why did Shinay leave Tango if Microsoft guarantees creative freedom is it because of bonuses if a game success and Game Pass um we'll never know the full details of why singi Mami left Microsoft I just saw that he founded a new company to be expected yeah he had a noncomplete non-compete clause and his contract he had to work work out um I suppose that's so like in case he went to an EA or something like that to build a horror game um but yeah it's kind of it kind of sucks because I was hope my dream was like oh man Microsoft wants The Evil Within to be like their horror pillar or whatever but was not meant to be there was I remember seeing this reporting by Imran Khan when he left Tango he was saying that singjay actually wanted to leave Tango before uh and then they got Acquired and essentially he he wanted to leave before but he was worried that if he did leave Tango Bethesda would just shut down uh Tango Gameworks so once Tango once once Bethesda was acquired by Microsoft that he felt Tango's future was secured that he felt he could leave and not worry about the studio and closing down and everybody losing their jobs essentially yeah that's fair enough so but yeah I mean me high-fi rush like I don't know how much of of a commercial success or not high-fi rush had been but um it was a fantastic game and there's clearly a huge amount of potential in studio just needs to be realized I guess yeah I mean I I look forward to whatever Kamya does next I mean he's one of the alltime greats so uh sh Shinji Shinji Shinji yeah get these names Kamia now he's the he's the scalebound guy right yeah SC SCB for Mami yeah so uh grman with the two L says jez told me you've been secretly playing Pokemon well jez has been lying to you grman I have not uh D3 KU with the $5 says didn't they say in the podcast would fill that the next Xbox console will see the biggest jump in performance jez are you looking into Halo news yet they actually didn't say that they said it would be the L biggest technical like leap they've ever seen but they also didn't mention anything about power so they didn't mention anything about performance just that it would be the largest technical leap but what what does that really mean does that just mean AI right so I don't know there's a part of me like Sarah did say that they were going to announce new hardware this year and if the PS4 Pro does come out PS5 Pro does come out this holiday I wonder if I wonder if Microsoft would announce the next generation at some point this year similar to what they did with Scorpio and Xbox One X where they knew the pro was coming out that holiday and they were like by the way we have something better coming next year but then again if their their next gen is two years away you're already people aren't really buying your Hardware as is and if you come out there and announce like hey we got new hardware coming in two years are people going to stop buying your current Hardware that you're making or you know was she talking about just like hey we got a refresh of the series X or whatever I don't know but are you looking into any Halo news yet jez Halo just finished up with season 2 they just put update with the networking wework um yeah I I have I have not man I've been 100% swamped with content plan for Dragon Dogma 2 um but I'll try and find out some Halo information down the line it's really difficult you know like and we were talking earlier about kataku kaku's company prioritizing guides and stuff um and search traffic cuz that's what you gu that's what guides are for really they're for search traffic you know when people search is an answer to a problem whether it's in AI or whether it's on YouTube or whether it's in Google it's like a guide will get clicks forever like people still look up my Resident Evil 7 guides for God sake some of my Resident Evil 7 guides are like some of the highest traffic articles I've ever written or my my Fallout 4 perks list guide from back in the day um and and stuff like that you know so and it makes it when you are working on these articles which are potentially more lucrative it makes it hard to justify the work involved in doing original reporting you know like when I like since I became manag and editor I've got like a view an overview of the targets and the budgets and the money and all that kind of stuff and it makes it harder to justify doing that original reporting stuff cuz your your original report will live and die within a day you know know um it's uh it's hard man so like I try I try and do it on side because I want to bring the community that insight and that that that information but this is why this is why journalism suffered over the years and I see it more and more and more now I've got a bit better view of the money there's no money in it no one wants to pay for journalism and know everyone uses ad blockers and all that kind of stuff so so then you get companies doing more even more aggressive ads to offset the fact everyone uses ad blockers and that makes people want to use ad blockers even more you know it's it's really hard to balance all that stuff but I try I try and do everything I try to do everything and um I'm going to keep trying to do everything so I will look into Halo and I will I do potentially have a report coming out about blizzard maybe next week so I still do do this stuff it's just really hard to try and juggle everything that I've got to do I'm trying to compete with IGN with a team of like six seven people yeah when they've got like hundreds and hundreds of employees it's not easy man it's really not easy and it's it's it's you guys and the commun the support of the community that really really helps keep me going you know it's it's crazy how how much window Central punches above its weight you know it really is we're up there with like sites like um you know some of these like really really big sites that have loads of employees and we've just got like a couple dozen employees across window Central and we compete with these really really big sites I don't know how we do it frankly but that's like the the Legacy when the centrals build up over the years you know right um Christopher jesser with the two in the Super Chat says VGC just put out a leak that says GTA 6 could slip to 2020 six and Elijah just sent me an article from kataku uh essentially saying the same thing uh breaking uh kataku sources reportedly believe Grand Theft Auto 6 may not launch until 2026 but is still aiming for spring of 2025 and I guess they sort of say that's quite a huge gap I know right like like spring hey we're still aiming for spring but we might not actually launch until next until the following year like to a year later it's that is a huge that's a huge landing strip for a report I would say that is I mean but I guess it might launch in 2025 but it might not that's a big Landing St I I I I did I think the article does sort of state that one of the reasons why like uh Take 2 demanded that like the devs come back to office which they didn't like was because the game was falling behind um schedule right it's like oh we need to bring everybody back so I guess I mean Grand Theft Auto games always end up getting delayed at least once right that's kind of always the thing with Rockstar Games they get delayed so all they've said in that trailer is 2025 now I've always been in the opinion that's going to be like September of 2025 I know some people think it might be earlier but I always thought oh if it's if they say it's going to be spring it's only one quick step to that being delayed at the end of the year now it's like oh man this might not come to 2026 maybe it's a maybe it's an Xbox nextg launch title Jaz I mean yeah maybe but like on that point about games getting delayed or not getting delayed on a long Landing Strip I actually heard that Diablo 4 they were considering a six-month delay for that game really to yeah to back to backlog some of the live service elements because that's one been one of the issues with Diablo I has been the live service element to the game right um and they just did a campfire where they detailed a whole bunch of changes to the point where PC Gamer wrote some clickbait article about how it's a different game now or whatever yeah oh man see this is another thing I hated that title a PC gam but my god did it work that did way better than our article on the same thing you know because the the the title was really really good title and that's that's you know that's the job that's the job to get those dude it's it's March 22nd I'm looking out my window right now and it's snowing snowing it's snowing right now well it says rain but I'm looking at it and I'm like that ain't rain yeah snow is expected to stop in 40 minutes yeah might be it might be nucle 36 36 degrees out right now and it's literally snowing and it's March 22nd m okay Chicago with the weird weather as usual not surprised games and delays you know I really do want Grand Theft I mean I'm looking forward to Grand Theft Auto so much but that that is like a huge like oh it could come out in Spring but then again maybe next year it could be could be the following year like okay uh Dave Ramos with the $2 Super Chat for GTA 6 bu marketing rights and exclusive Game Pass perks I mean I would agree with you it'd be it'd be a good way to get that stuff but I have a feeling those marketing rights have already been settled cuz you know you're talking about the biggest game of the generation like uh somebody's paying for that uh Jon Jones GTA will be a big event lots of people will upgrade their console for it oh it would be the biggest a lot of people are still on Xbox one man A lot of people are still on Xbox One one and they're happy to be there because you know Matt piscatella from Saka put out some figures recently where it was like was it Matt piscatella or someone else no it was Arthur Arthur J I think his name is I saw him post some photos from GDC where I can't remember the exact figures off the top of my head but it was something like 80% of playtime hours are represented by just a couple of dozen games and those are like your Ser your your service games right black ho games they call the fortnite yeah the black hole games so so like if 80% of your DeVos are going to games that are still playable and monetizable on PS4 and Xbox One Like You know it's it's hard to just toy upgrading you know um and I suppose that's the downside of backwards compatibility you know like on the one hand backwards compatibility is awesome because we get all the backwards compatibility stuff but on the flip side it me means less people have grade but does it matter if people have grade not really as long as they're still buying games and buying microtransactions the margins on a console s a console sold the margins on a console sold is 0% but I suppose like as we get further into the Gen it's like the devs are going to start wanting to have the Xbox series s and X as having a bigger install base so I guess it's um pros and cons again it's all it's all those pros and cons baby M uh we got we got Jon Jones or Jones Jones with the $ Five Doll Rand will Halo return to its Glory again I mean I I would love to believe that I know Halo season 2 just ended people seem to be really happy with that although I do see some people being upset with it lore stuff I think jez is there a chance for a fable 2 remaster PS George or Martin will finish Grand will finish Game of Thrones before Rand will buy a camera no he won't he's never he's never he might finish Rand I've actually got a camera for you and going to post it to you I've got I've got I've got a spare got on face cam I'm going to post it to you no I'll buy my own yeah I'll buy my own he he what's the what's the next book he's working on I forget I forget what the next game or what the next book title is was it is it oh is it the dream of I forget what the next one is but he he that definitely won't happen but Fable 2 remaster JZ do you see that happening maybe I mean remasters are um remasters Ru the rage right yeah depending on it I mean I think those games are old enough for like maybe you should remake them and not a remaster because we are talking about mid 360 games not mid is in like the games mid but it was like midg three it was like mid time frame when Fable 2 came out no when did Fable 2 come out yeah I think there was around 20 2007 2008 maybe but I mean you're getting a brand new Fable game they only did Fable Anniversary for the first one where they sort of remastered it they should do it for all three just like they're doing the gears collection rumored so but I would like to believe Halo is returning to Glory we'll have to see whatever the next game is Andy arriman with 199 Xbox Pro is less than the Xbox handheld and I'm sure there are plenty of people that would agree with that statement uh Izzy does it with the 10 a commercial for game pass I've imagine would be comparing two Shoppers and a checkout line Shopper a is one game Shopper B is a card full of games for only the price of Game Pass that's a good image um but I think the problem some when I mean like selling trying to market value is a very difficult thing right um because it's not like sexy you know what's sexy the new Zelda or the new God of War or the new Spider-Man not like you could save money with your car you know like you could save with Geico and the car insurance like that's that's not what people I don't know that doesn't really sell well in an ad for video games people want the new hotness you know you're trying to come up with an an ad to try to be like you should get Xbox because you could have all this a lot of also people aren't looking to play a lot of games anyways so uh we have let's see uh what we have here we have um JJ S with the 199 have you played Final Fantasy 14 on Xbox looks interesting I haven't have you yet jez have you uh checked out Final Fantasy 14 on the Xbox no but like I have seen a lot of um a lot of sort of issues about the way the game structured like you can't just buy a subscription for it you have to buy Final Fantasy coins I did see that and then use the coins to get the subscription it's really really strange and convoluted and also there's like some issue if you had a final fantasy beta account there's there's even some issues there where you've got to like jump through some hoops to get it working we've actually got a guide up on Windows Central about how to get Phantasy 4 in running on um uh on Xbox um but yeah it's uh man it's they could have handled that [ __ ] a lot better I think uh Christopher says with the two I guess is kataku that leaks the GTA might slip to 2026 indeed uh Anthony Ortega with the five nextg early is a bad idea it would get no support from third party at launch with how big the install base is versus other the other consoles I mean I could see that but also when they launch again I guess you'd say well if it's launching against the PlayStation and they're coming at the same time you would make games for both but I mean I guess I could see this where maybe they wouldn't take full advantage of whatever the new Xbox is doing because it's coming out earlier than the others and you still have to support the series X and S and potentially even on the Xbox one right uh if you're still supporting like the big live service games yeah I mean I guess that's a lot to to do but I mean we'll I we don't know if they're doing it and uh if they do we'll find out if that's what happens uh RDX on a Fett with the 279 Halo TV last two episodes are great the rest is crap and Fantastical M 41 months John Johannes the Creator 5i Rush also was the director for Evil Within DLCs and evil within two evil within three is still possible jez let's hope yeah I'm keeping the faith man I'm keeping the faith I want to believe believe yeah maybe I'll do like because I've got a bunch of headsets that I want to give away on um my YouTube channel so maybe I'll play through the EV within games and give some headsets away and the webcam that you don't want no I'm GNA buy buy my own Jaz um we have a rumor from uh friend of the show that we just did with the Xbox 2 plus one Nate the hate Jazz I don't know if you saw this if it came across your desk or not nope but Persona 6 might be coming to Xbox day one which I don't really think that's that big of a um uh claim to make considering with how tight Atlas and Sega has been with the Xbox and The Game Pass bags dropped on Persona 3 Reloaded and the Yakuza games and all that sort of stuff isn't that other game or the other game they're working on confirmed for Xbox day one one um metap metaphor yes met Xbox has the marketing for that yes yeah so yeah I'm I'm not surprised about that at all but it's cool cool to see cuz you know historically Persona had skipped Xbox for years and years and use and use so yeah well Nate said quote from the information I've heard it does seem that Persona 6 will be coming to Xbox I'm not 100% sure if it will be day and date with the PlayStation version but considering the way Persona games have been day and date with the multiplatform least at this point it might be a safe assumption to make um and then a super reliable Atlas Insider you know basically claimed that that's true and it's also coming to the Nintendo switch 2 and it's all sort of like day one on Xbox and place and switch so seems like uh Persona is embracing full multiplatform uh Ness so that's cool to see that is that is super cool uh there's uh more problems at Bungie je jez did we yeah the that just happened because they just they just replaced the game director of marathon yeah that's wild man with um I I think it was like the former valerant game director but I mean hey you know that's that's pretty yeah a valerant game director that's pretty it's pretty high uh that game's very successful but then there's also like on ious emails going around I don't know how true any of this is so keep obviously grain of salt stuff but like that Sony views Bungie as a failed acquisition they're like missing all their targets and stuff and I don't know what yeah I mean you got you got to type that with a boatload assault yeah I mean what do you think about all this it really does seem like they since they joined PlayStation it's kind of hasn't really been anything good with with Bungie right it seems like Destiny 2 has suffered marathon is going through some changes apparently the other game they're working on is like an a holding pattern so I mean I will say like I want to preface this by saying I've never been preface I want to preface this by saying I've never been a big Bungie fan General no I think I think I think when we talked about them cancelling factions and other stuff you laughed and said you're going to regret that imagine taking advice from Bungie what you weren't a fan of that idea right essentially no I was just like what why are you going to take advice from Bungie on how to do a live service you know because I don't think I don't think Destiny's life service has been very good you know um and with regards to Destiny 2 and stuff maybe Activision and Bobby cotic had a hand in that you know I I because you know of squizing everything having retail presence like he built the company on that and for making money really does make sense or at least it did back in the day but all this stuff like you know content you paid for being vaed and all this kind of stuff I'm not that familiar with what Destiny's like these days but when I played it like when I played at launch it was super disappointing I thought and then I've tried playing some of the expansions and patches and it just it just it just never gried me for some reason and and I feel like it should have been I feel like I should have been the target audience for that game but anyway that's irrelevant to the rest of it right Destiny has made a lot of money over the years or generated a lot of Revenue but the thing is like costs always go up so like when when you're um you know if your costs are going up your server costs are going up because remember bungees Destin is all dedicated servers and stuff like that you've got to generate ongoing Revenue um and not only generate ongoing Revenue but more ongoing Revenue because your costs are going UPR right so when Bungie sort of I don't know if they getting royalty payments from the the classic Halo games uh I would probably expect them probably not um so like what so what do they fall back on it's pretty much 100% it's like 100% Destiny right um and if Destiny is not doing very well in a sort of microcosm and that could probably wreak havic on the whole company like it's not a great it's not a great Foundation to build an entire company on just to a single game when given how much it costs and given how big Bungie is that's a lot of overheads there you know so but again these anonymous emails that might not even be real um I think there's still quite a lot of potential in the IP and there are huge fans of it there's a ton of established law a ton of established Legacy and people have had their their characters for years and years and years and years I think probably just needs a bit of I don't know fresh pair of eyes on it maybe does PlayStation really think of it as a failure you know I that seems extreme to me I don't know but I mean we'll see I mean are there any Destiny fans in the chat who can offer their perspective if you're a destiny fan or a or a big Bungie fan drop in the chat and let let us know what you think I'll read out your comments but you know it's there's also stuff like son you're probably looking at how much Bungie costs and how much Destiny costs and then they're looking at that and then they're looking over the over the road and seeing what hell divers is doing with a much smaller team the much more virality the return on investment on that game must be something bro because obviously I don't think Sony expected much from that I'm not sure anybody did maybe outside of Arrowhead I was number one selling game for February of MPD uh I think it was like 6040 piece to PlayStation so 60% of the copies were bought on Steam there's some analysts that say it's like almost at higher than 8 million sales which would be insane if it like there's a chance that that game sold in one month what like Spider-Man 2 took five months to sell granted it's $30 cheaper right but Spider-Man 2 is based on one of the most recognizable IPS in the world a sequel to one of the bestselling Sony uh PS4 games of last gen right was launched during a holiday time frame and here's a game that comes out in the beginning of February and just blows the doors off of everything you're going to tell what what's the what do you think the return on investment is for that one versus Spider-Man considering they got to pay Marvel royalties on on that right in Disney you know and they're probably like who if we didn't launch day one on PC what would that look like it still be probably success regardless list but now it's like a major success I wonder if that kind of hastens their strategy of going like full day one on PC for for stuff down the road where they're like eh you know like cuz that is that is a that's a monster number you know and have PC account for like over 60% of it or like 60% here in the states and then potentially even more like overseas or whatever that's that's a big number uh because Jay Rembert in the super chat with $5 says I'm concerned about the Xbox brand but people need to stop acting like Sony isn't struggling despite them being in first place yeah people you know see platforms have their own issues right Sony's canceling games shutting down Studios uh you know their their line their first party lineup seems to be nobody really knows what's going on after Stellar blade really I mean yeah people know Wolverine and uh death stranding and Concord are coming but not sure when and Connie Booth left PlayStation she just joined EA and she I don't know if you saw that but she's going to help try to help Revitalize bowar Jazz that should at least excite you somewhat or maybe not I don't know I mean I I want I want to be I want to be excited Mass Effect and Dragon Age are like two of my favorite franchises of all time mhm but it's also EA it is true it also EA but I mean she's done a lot of great work at PlayStation that's true and yeah there's a lot of things going on you know at PlayStation that kind of but to be I've got no faith right because this has happened before EA has hired bigname people like Jade Raymond to make single player games and then just snuffed it you know so or screwed it up so I'm I'm holding off you know right EA needs to do a lot of work to get my interest back personally I I I don't care like if if you guys if anyone else I'm only speaking of myself here like this the way the battlefields been handled because I I'm I'm a big fan of a lot of EA owned franchises like the way Battlefield has been handled over the years the way bioware's been handled over the years and the the constant feed drip feed of disappointment that I feel like EA has delivered to me over the years just means I'm just going to take a blank it wait Andy approach to All Things EA man it's fair enough fair enough um Anthony Ortega with the 20 says during the FTC and Microsoft Core case we learned that even Activision was ready to stop bringing Cod to Xbox unless they were given an 8020 split for sales so I don't blame smaller devs for not supporting well I think the situation with Activision in that sense is different than the smaller devs uh it well I mean unless you're referring to entor cuz I think that's strictly just like more of like we couldn't get the game ready in time so we're going to drop one platform to make sure we can launch those other games at the best but yeah that was a power play that was a money play where activ is like give us the split or we walk you know and I think it worked CU I think they gave Activision what they wanted so because it'd be awful you lost Call of Duty I guess there's also a little bit of chicken being played there of being like if you don't do this you're going to lose it but then it's like but you're going to lose 45 % of your sales is that something you want to do but yeah we'll see but now Xbox owns it anyways so and I guess Sony gets a better deal because I I I guess they could reverted to what 7030 maybe there's some kind of talk about that so like Sony gets more money out of it than than what they had previous I don't know um yeah some of the uh epic store stuff cuz GDC is going on right now there was a trailer that was shown for Marvel 1943 rise of Hydra Jazz did you see this at all this really incredible looking yeah the I uh I couldn't believe it I thought it was a trailer for a movie or something look facial animations and everything it really it really does cross that like if you've ever watched um if you ever go watch Like The Matrix mhm revolutions or the Matrix um not resurrections what was the second one called reloaded magic reloaded there's a bunch of there's a bunch of scenes in that where they use full CGI without motion capture to animate uh Neo fighting agent Smith during the the Big Bly brawl thing that scene I absolutely love that scene as a kid it was like it was like man this is like liveaction Dragon Ball Z you know it's kind of like how I took it as a as a kid or a teenager or whatever but like you go back and watch that which was cut in Edge CGI at the time and watch this trailer today it's like my God we've come a long way because it looks really really weird when you watch The Matrix it looks like it looks like subpar compared to what video games you get so the technology is really really exciting but U I'm not a huge Marvel fan everyone this everyone whove been listening to this for a while so there's a there's a hard cap on how excited I can get for any superhero game I'm not I'm just generally not a superhero dude but the the it's a it's a it's a super it's an exciting vision of what games will look like and I don't know if I've reported this here Rand I don't know if I don't know if this is out there or not I don't know if I've talked about it before in the show but um someone of the Coalition got a promotion recently okay um I what is her name off top of my head I can't remember her name off the top of my head oh yeah so Kate Rainer so Kate rer was in charge of Technology at the Coalition and in charge of the Unreal Engine stuff and you know really turning the Coalition into sort of like this this studio this Authority on using the Unreal Engine right and they actually did funnny enough The Matrix demo right which was sort of like an a vision of what potentially could be possible with this Tech with onreal engine five I think or was it six I can't remember what numbers were on Now I think it's it was on R 5 right top my head yes um yeah on real5 I can't remember I can't remember what what day of the week it is let alone this stuff but K RoR has been promoted out of the coalition to head up a new division or a new team at Microsoft whose job it is is to get every other Microsoft Studio that uses onreal engine up to the coalition's level m her job now so like down the like we've we've been hearing for years how like the Coalition has been helping other Studios to to sort of improve their usage of Unreal Engine and Microsoft's been developing internal tools that extend on real engine like that are like exclusive to Microsoft and stuff so there's a whole team dedicated to that now Microsoft led by Kate Raina and I think it's that is so exciting to me that like all of Microsoft's games that use Onre engine could eventually get to that level right that's so cool to me so but yeah this I believe this was an Unreal Engine thing wasn't it the the Marvel game I think so I mean it's you know the Met epic thing yeah but it looked so good I was like okay I got my interest Amy Henning's working on this game uh hopefully it finally comes out cuz it's been a long time since we've seen a game from her she she was uh the one in charge of Uncharted one 2 and three uh but yeah it looks like to the point where it's like is that going to be real like what's the gameplay going to be like you're at that point was like wow this stuff is really getting great like truly amazing like you're watching that and you're like is that CGI or is that is that ing game like what exactly is it I know they said there's no smoking mirrors and they flew the camera around and stuff so I guess it's not CGI maybe it's like in-game stuff but woo it does get you excited for that sort of thing but the other thing uh epic talked about was they're if you're if you're on the Epic store and you're a give them a six-month exclusive they'll give you 100% of the revenue that the game makes on the Epic store obviously it's a way to try to convince more developers to use the Epic store and then you know know give them exclusive so you can get 100% cuz I think valve has it 7030 although isn't it like the more money you make the less valve gets I think they made those changes right or something like that uh recently or maybe not recently but when I saw this you know the first thing that came to mind was 100% of nothing is still nothing right yeah because PC Gamers don't want to use the Epic store and when you have a game that's exclusive to the epex store uh PC Gamers basically pretend the game doesn't exist until it comes to steam because you know it will come to steam at some point I mean not Allen wake 2 because that was published by epic but any any of these developers or Publishers that take the extra money to be exclusive to Epic always eventually end up on Steam at some point and the plate and the PC Community especially on Steam only want to use steam they don't want to use other launchers they don't want to download the Epic store and use all that stuff I mean hey great on on Epic to try to get to use their platform to try to get more people over and to give devs like hey you want 100% of the money you're gonna like we won't even take a cut but then it's like ah yeah but guess what like you don't have any users on your platform for that to matter right I don't know do do you think this that this would change anything offering 100% store cut for months exclusive will we see more PC games go epic exclusive to take advantage of that or are you really like running the risk of angering uh PC Gamers on Steam by by by doing that because it seems like they won't buy the game on Steam or buy the game on Epic what do you think you have to think of it this way do you really think um a Dev is going to do you think it's viable for a Dev to lose six months of steam Revenue in exchange for epic gam store exclusivity no I got to tell you right now the answer is no it's not worth it you know and yeah it makes it makes epic look good or whatever or like they're trying to do cool stuff with the industry but it's not worth it you know steam is just the the default now um you know and I think I really think like if epic really wants to take on Steam they probably need to start looking at building more exclusive games their own exclusive games you know and I know Alan Wake 2 isn't on Steam for example um and that could be an example of a second party epic game epic exclusive but I think like they're trying to they're trying to have their cake and eated right now and they're trying to be like well fortnite's are exclusive and it's like well I think you kind of if you want to compete with steam you kind of need more than that you know because it's like why wouldn't I just use steam if I had the option to do so all my games were already there and it comes back to like you know the the console the console war it's like why would I switch platform when all my games were already on Xbox or Playstation or whatever all my games were already on Steam all my friends lists already on Steam I think I think epic games is burning a hell of a lot of cash the fortnite cash a hell of a lot of fortnite cash and Unreal Engine cash Chas in something that just isn't going to happen it's just never going to happen they're never ever gonna take away steam's Crown you know and it's kind of annoying in a way because I do want steam to have competition because I think competition is really important and healthy you know but people have spoken people people see competition as inconvenient like like I saw like um the Department of Justice they're suing Apple and saying that apple is perpetuating an illegal smartphone Monopoly the amount of people defending Apple in those replies oh yeah it was just like unhinged the Apple versus Android uh battle yeah yeah and it's like guys do you not want competition do you want Apple to be able to dictate how much how expensive everything is they're they're Apple simps bro no apple can do no wrong of course but it touches on like a wider a wider issue which I think is like I don't want to discuss it here because it gets into like socioeconomics and stuff but I think a lot of people just feel like capitalism has failed them and that competition hasn't led to lower prices and that competition hasn't given us the or the benefits just aren't really obvious right now so people just often view competition as an inconvenience and like you have to look at like Netflix for example it was great for a while when when Netflix was growing and there was no other streaming services like Netflix had everything and it was cheap but now like there's lots of competing services and it's expensive the there's less C there's not only is there less content but the prices have only gone up it's like the servic has become worse and more expensive over time so how how like in that in that context of like capitalism supposed to be driving down growth uh driving down prices and stuff where people try and compete for our money um it doesn't seem to be working so and and a lot of people are just saying like well I just go back to piracy because that g that gives me the best service overall right maybe maybe it just doesn't work for internet Based Services you know because uh at the end of the day the co the costs involved in streaming of Just For example like using Netflix an example the cost for the cost for streaming video is going to be flat because it's not like Netflix or Disney own their own servers they rent them from Amazon or Google or whoever pretty sure it's Amazon for both Services there Amazon has this like like when you look into it it's it could be Amazon it's the Monopoly Here really rather than Netflix or Disney plus it's like Amazon Amazon has like this exclusive codec technology which is why all the streaming services want to use it it's like the cheapest way to stream video is via Amazon's Cloud right so maybe that's that's the reason and maybe Amazon gradually increases their costs and their in and which Netflix and Disney plus pass on to Consumers which is why that gets more expensive so maybe the issue really is like the fact that it's Amazon that has the Monopoly that the reason the costs go up but consumers don't see that and I suppose that's what happens when you've got unhealthy levels of competition so going back to a point I think epic games is fighting the losing battle M I respect the battle I really do um but does anyone care I don't think so and I don't think this six month exclusivity thing is going to be is going to help them at all losing six months of Revenue on Steam just for that ain't worth it yeah no I uh I absolutely agree with you on that one right yeah let's see here wait a second uh it's not looping that anyways we got Don and taku with the 10 in the Super Chat don't trust anything until I see gameplay Emmy Henning hasn't produced a game with good gameplay since Soul reev Reaver and that's the last thing I want for a superhero game even her interviews were red flag yeah some people were saying that maybe that game is just like a movie game or like an interactive kind of game not necessarily like something like uh you know really a gameplay game but more of like uh yeah you know more linear experience with is like choices or something we'll have to wait and see um see anything else that I've written down here um oh um OverWatch 2 changes I know you're big in the OverWatch 2 but all the all the characters are going free seems to be a big change that's a good move but Jason sh put a report that I did see that I was going to say no royalty payments woo yeah and also not only that but all the PVE stuff's been cancelled now they had like they had a bunch of PVE maps in the game I did one of them once but it's not why I play OverWatch man I play OverWatch for PVP so while while it's sucks to see that not work because I do want to see what OverWatch I don't want to know more about of watch's Law and stuff like that but I'm part of the problem because I didn't play that stuff and didn't really enjoy it you know right so I don't know indeed all right well let's um transition to some uh patreon questions patreon.com xb2 if you want to drop some questions or join the patreon we'd uh greatly appreciate it it supports the show uh we have the exclusive Xbox 2 ultimate which we just had on Tuesday as well as Xbox 2 plus one Early Access and questions and shout outs and all that stuff so you can find a tier that you like um and a directly supports what me and JZ do here so we thank everybody who's already joined and been here for a long time and we're going to get some of these questions starting with Omen by the way if you guys are enjoying the show hit the like button and subscribe he says happy Friday blizzard announced a new Battle Royale mode this week that kind of looks interesting what's most interesting to me though is that the number of spells available is reduced to six and seven in that mode which happens to be around the same number of buttons on the controller do you think blizzard could be using this mode to also experiment a console launch so he's talking about the World of Warcraft battle royale that jez knew about blunder storm yeah think it kind of goes back to one of the issues I was talking about before with World of Warcraft that like it's too complicated for a controller you need to have a mouse so you can click on people's portraits and do stuff but plunder storm what they've done is they've they've pulled back on a lot of the abilities so I think like each each playable class only has like six six abilities or something you know so it's like it's like a strip it's like a strip down version of wow and it's like it's interesting that they're experimenting the community is really divided on it though some of them hate it but it does seem like a lot of people are playing it like my guild are all playing it but they're only going they're only doing it for the Cosmetics you can get in the base game as well so if you do if you do if you do grind it a little bit you can get like a really cool looking pirate outfit for the main game um I think it's cool that they're experimenting with it I heard that it was cut content from Battle Fraz Roth like there was originally going to be some kind of pirate red or something for battle Fraz Roth which got cut and turn into this I don't know if that's true or not but um it's cool to see them experiment with this stuff and it just kind of makes me wonder like if they did bring wow to console would it be a separate thing where they strip down the abilities make it more simple and but keep it separate from the main game I think they could probably do that I think they would have to do that and I'm not against that idea of it being separate right that was something you talked about on your other podcast Unshackled Fury right yeah where I I kind of I kind of teased that the Battle Royale was coming I said like think about what fortnite's been doing and stuff like that so silus he says happy Friday to my favorite feelings based podcasters with Rand apparently retiring from the YouTube grind feels like an athlete just walking away without officially retiring and jez's about to plunge into marital bliss it seems as though it's a touch Point time in your lives looking back at your lives to date what moments in your lives are you guys most proud of I'm not retired from YouTube and making videos I'm just trying to find the passion again essentially I've had this discussion with jez a a lot about it so uh I am not in my mind retired so that's just that's not true Silas and I don't think people want me to be but I just sometimes you lose sometimes you just lose the passion you know um but yeah I mean jez is about to get married as we know right yeah yeah man yeah yeah yeah what are some of the parts of your lives that you're greatly most proud of um what about you jez what are you most proud of um I'm proud that I've built Windows Central up to a point where I've been able to um support my family and some of my friends that's that's big I'm proud of I built this YouTube channel 100,000 Subs I'm proud of Xbox 2 seven years doing this with jez um lot of people watching it people from all over the the globe um you know because it's something that we built I mean granted we didn't it's not something we ever thought would get to this point but we we did it and we were consistent I mean probably the YouTube 100,000 Subs on YouTube was something that was so untouchable get the pla have the check mark next to the name um and it wasn't wasn't something I went for until it sort of seemed like reachable but everybody that in my family that you know sees that is like always super happy super proud of all that sort of stuff just like jez building window Central and doing all that stuff so yeah I mean I know this is kind of geeky but I was really proud when I hit a million gamer score on stage with Xbox like geeky bro that was super cool um Nate Miller says probably going to pass and Dragons dog Dogma 2 for now much to the anger of my friends that are all playing it was there ever a time in your life where you passed on a really big game all your friends were playing yeah I do feel like people get like this sometimes you know and considering that you call me grandall trending gamer but I ain't playing Rise of ronin or Dragon Dogman 2o I I'm telling you man I'm shedding this trending gamer tag that you've given me well we changed it to Randall hipster gamer you you play like the cool alternative games like you're playing banishes yeah but bishers are really good game yeah but you're like Dragon's Dogma too mainstream for me bro I'm going to play the more artistic Niche game uh banishes ghost of new Eden yeah so you Randal hips the game now bro I don't know if there's any time where where my friends were upset that I didn't play anything would have to be something multiplayer I'm upset that you completely skipped cyber Punk and now you've probably like you've gotten to a point where it's overhyped so much in your mind that it could never meet your expectation yeah yeah I mean I guess Colts Colts mad at me I haven't played cyberp Punk yet either but hey you I'm mad at Colt he didn't finish Elden ring you know and yeah I guess I'll go with that yeah the Cyber Punk thing is probably it's it's more now because dude I wouldn't worry about like oh it's been built up in your mind don't worry about that I'll judge the game based on on the game's merits but no I don't think there's ever been a moment in my life where people are pissed that I passed on something I know there there were times where like I wasn't feeling Destiny and people were were sort of mythed that I stopped playing Destiny 1 cuz we had a crew that were playing the raids and stuff and they had to replace me but I don't think it was that ever big of a thing Mikey River says hey boys I've been a peace snob for 10 years and once I experienced 60 FPS I couldn't look back playing console sucked ass I was very happy Microsoft started bringing their games to PC I got agree with jez after playing Final Fantasy 7 rebirth on Graphics mode for like 20 M minutes it really isn't that bad that's the 30 frames mode so he's he's a fan of a filmi film yeah I it doesn't it does not bother me man it doesn't bother me at all um 30 frames as long as it's not stuttery or you know bouncy or whatever as long as it runs at a even Cadence then it doesn't bother me at all I play I've been playing C Punk with r tracing on at 30 doesn't bother me at all you know and I don't know if that's because I used to be an animator back in the day I used to animate at 16 frames per second because it was like I wouldn't have to do as many frames you know so I'm kind of and I remember when some people were like oh you should animate at 24 frames a second and I was like oh man but you have to do you have to do so many extra frames if you're doing that so I was like I just want to animate like with 600x 400 resolution at 16 15 14 frames a second sometimes you know when I doing stuff for for new grounds and stuff back in the day um and then people were doing and then I remember there was some animators who came out and they were doing 60 frames per second animation I was like my God these guys are crazy how they do that it's so much [ __ ] work um but this is back in the day when you're animating everything frame by frame right you got to draw every single arm over and over again at least the way I did it I'm sure there was easier ways even back then but um but yeah it doesn't bother me frame stuff just never bothers me and um I'm totally part of that filmic train man at least for single player games like I wouldn't want to play OverWatch at 30 frames because you're not looking at you're never looking at the environment you're always just looking at what you're shooting and I play OverWatch 120 HZ on my TV um I think it's 1080p 120 HZ on my TV that's fine for me you know right right the the the point is there should be options there should be options you know if people if people want to play at 60 add a setting to add a setting to um uh Dragon's Dogma which you know kills a resolution lows the draw distance or whatever it's often not that simple cuz a lot of the the the porns and stuff walking around uh CPU intensive because they've all got very unique designs and stuff but um I respect what the developer vision is as long as as long as it's playable you know right uh Mythic Marty says season two of Halo just ended Ry have you started your binge yet in my opinion it was a huge improvement over the first Super hype for a third season which I didn't say when the first season ended yes it's still doing its own thing with the story and it's very much an alternate universe but it does mean you don't know which way the story is going they wasn't very happy about it they've just done a better job of that in season 2 for me looking forward to hearing your impression not you Jazz you're the Halo hater joking I've not started yet I do want to watch I do want to watch you eventually I started last night I've been waiting for the show to hit Netflix for a while because I'm a big fan of the books and it's a science fiction Masterpiece some of the things that happen in the books like where it ends up going literally insane and that is three body problem three body problem finally debuted on Netflix last night it's the first show from the Game of Thrones Duo you know they left uh Game of Thrones and this is they haven't done anything since but this is their new show I've been looking forward to it because I was just like man some of this stuff like the science the philosophy how's this going to translate to the screen I watched five five episodes in a row last night so you can tell like I'm enjoying it just to see there's a lot of Liberties also taken with the adaptation mainly because like the characters in the books essentially are all just cardboard cutouts and I knew that would be changed if you needed to be entertaining so they've just changed things around but like the big plot points are all still pretty much the same and in my opinion the first book is the weakest of the three CU s stuff does Get Ridiculous um so I'm watching that I'm watching three body problem and the elevator pitch for the this show is I'll just say um it's about an alien invasion and I'll leave it at that um but the reviews were good not great and it's like a 75 on Rotten Tomatoes so I want to watch this I got three episodes left to finally finish it tonight I also want to watch um what's the show on FX that's going on right now Shogun everybody raving about that I want to watch Shogun and I don't know what I'm gonna good things about that yeah we're after that but yes you gotta watch Halo man yeah but the thing is I'd have to watch season one as well and I guess I could do that I guess I could watch to watch it and then do a video about your take on it oh no I don't not video about a Halo TV show get out of here damn no anybody in chat watching three body problem or planning on uh I really interested in and people that don't know the source material like if they find it interesting you know if they are are hooked uh I'm I'm very interested in seeing people's reactions to to the uh to the show even if there's someone who hasn't read the book or someone who has right so that's what I've been I've been watching uh Billy the Brewer with the Dragon's Dogma 2 optimization issues should we wait for a few patches to iron things out or Yeet $70 at Capcom Jazz what do you think I mean it depends if you've got other things to be playing right now I personally am completely happy with the experience of $70 um I mean obviously I got a code but I'm probably going to buy family members copies I often do I think it's totally worth $70 and if I'd have spent $70 on this outright I would have been more than happy with it fair enough do you think performance will improve eventually or is it one of those things were probably holding out too much hope for that happening I don't think performance will improve that much I think there's probably things they can do in the main cities to improve performance like uh maybe get spread the NPCs out a little bit more cuz sometimes they Bunch up and I don't think necessary to have them all in one place like specifically the in um where lots of lots of NPCs go for a drink that can be really laggy you know or around the the pub area that can be really laggy there but that's the only place where it gets really bad um so yeah I don't think performance will improve that much at least not on Console the issue the biggest issue I've got with it honestly is the fact that you've only got one sa file and it's it's really difficult to delete the save file because I console share right which all my all my saves I can't turn my I can't disconnect my Xbox from the internet because I console share right so when I load up Dragon's Dogma 2 it automatically downloads my cloud save but I wanted to delete my review build save and start over again because uh I missed a bunch of stuff from my first playthrough and I didn't want to do New Game Plus because I wanted the experience of being level one again um so I went I went to delete my save and I found out oh there's actually no way to delete your save file so you have to like delete the save file and then very quickly cancel the sync and you have to do it very quickly because it's like it it's only like 8 megabytes it downloads really really quickly and then you cancel the sync make a new save and then save it and then boot the game up and then when it says oh we've got a save sync conflict which one do you want to save you save the other one I think the reason for that is like a lot of the online systems are sort of tied to Capcom servers and my review build porn still exists in the game World um you can actually use her even though like she doesn't have any abilities anymore I made my girlfriend for my first play through right okay she's level she's level 54 she was like at the top of the leaderboards for a while um so like I had the highest level porn in the world on Xbox for for a few weeks I played this game more than anyone else getting 0% rare achievements and stuff like that and um but I I was wondering what would happen if I made a new save file it didn't delete her so she's like still tied to my gamer tag and for a while I thought it had made Rand bugged because nobody seemed to be able to see Rand but col just posted a video on Twitter of um uh Cole just posted on Twitter about having Rand in his game so I guess it did work right so maybe maybe wait for a couple of patches to see if they've iron out some of these features and stuff if you really want to and Capcom games are kind of notorious for getting going on sale very quickly so if you've got other stuff to play and you don't want to spend $70 I think it's safe to wait a bit for this one CU I do think it'll come down in price pretty quickly like Capcom games often do and also there might be some extra benefits they bake into the game with patches down the line but hey yeah I'm completely happy with it it's $70 new article from Insider gaming just dropped Tom Henderson oh Xbox is prototyping a native Xbox handheld is claimed jez Cordon of the Xbox 2 podcast is claimed that Xbox is working on new native Xbox handheld Tom's listening to the podcast getting the Xbox news it's funny I saw that pop up in my feet and I'm like oh interesting I'm like who said this and I click on it's like oh je said this yeah I'm nervous about putting that into writing on Windows Central because like I say prototypes don't mean much in Microsoft World they were Pro they've been prototyping handheld since the Xbox one generation mhm you know these are new sure but it doesn't necessarily mean that anything's going to happen with it like surface the surface team prototyped a handheld Surface tablet with clip on controllers that looked a a little bit like a switch back in the day they obviously never launched but um yeah I'm I'm pretty I'm like my confidence about the handheld is like a the prototypes and then B the analysis revolving around it that they have to do it I believe they have to do it but I'm not at a point where I put a report I don't even have a code name for it and all that kind of stuff I think they'll do though I do it's just funny I saw that pop up on Twitter I'm like oh interesting okay yeah I believe I believe there's a lot of it on faith right now we have uh last Horizon says Rand after hearing you talk about the Hail Mary project for a few episodes uh project tail Mary I decided to give it a shot thought it was a fantastic and fun read what book would you recommend next for someone just getting back into reading and jez not sure if anyone has mentioned this to you before but when you are playing Persona 5 roale make sure that you get Dr maro's social link to level 9 and a key to level eight before 1117 if you don't you won't get the third semester and will miss a huge part of the huge will miss a large part of the game I made this mistake during my first playthrough and had to replay the game from the beginning to get there yeah I've been told about that um I am I am playing it with that in mind um I've got uh I've got a guide pinned on my Microsoft Edge specifically for a avoiding missing that you know I don't want to spoil it but Dragon's Dogma has something similar where you can kind of miss something if you don't do a certain something and I'm going to write a guide about that it's really spoiler heavy it's I would say it's a bit more obvious than persona but I think a lot of people will still miss it without a guide right so yeah be wary of that too now for book recommendation oh no problem come to me for book recommendations I love it I've actually had a couple other people DM me saying that they read project Hal Mary and they loved it as well everybody I recommend it to loves it it's a great book hopefully that movie uh they they do the movie sooner than later but so if you're just getting back into reading and he did project Hail Mary so I'm assuming you like science fiction obviously there's a lot of lot of Science Fiction and Fantasy series to read a lot of them are long I'm not going to rec anyone of any one of those not yet but if you want to Standalone and you want something that you can kind of sink sink your teeth into be a really quick fun read uh there's an author Blake Crouch Keys actually has a TV show coming out soon called Dark Matter um the book it's based on I really enjoyed so if you want to check that out it's called Dark Matter by Blake Crouch it's a really fast read maybe 250 300 Pages plus it has a TV show coming out in May you can either read that from him or something uh the other book that I really enjoyed from is called recursion another Standalone 300 Pages um science fiction and yeah that'd be for somebody like you just coming back and reading because I wouldn't want to recommend any series yet so I'd recommend these Standalone really quick bites uh really it's like really fast not a lot of fluff um check check check out Blake Crouch's books namely uh recursion and dark matter Hugh he says Hey guys following on from Xbox 2 ultimate where you discuss what Xbox needs to do to turn things around in Europe I took a look at the top 20 sold games for the past four years in the European game sales data report eafc FIFA Cod and GTA consistently top the charts however the rest of the charts seem to mostly be dominated by Nintendo Ubisoft and a few Sony titles Nintendo dominated the European charts almost every year where Pokemon also being very prominent taking this into account and also it's popular in Asia do you think Xbox might ever try to acquire creatures and Game Freak for their shares control in the Pokemon company and strike an Xbox Nintendo deal Pokemon continues to be a Mony money printer I highly highly doubt that yeah I don't either I mean it's it's yeah like what my yeah I think I think what I think if I was Microsoft I'd want to build I want to do cut some kind of deal with power world and try and build power world up to be that but the devs of power world have said they want to stay a small studio and stuff so I don't know if po world would even want that I think po world's the only game since Pokémon launched that really B any sort of vague sense of credibil to being a potential Pokemon allegory even though it's very different to Pokemon like it's it's very different to Pokemon it's uh people play it because it's Pokemon in a different genre basically um but yeah I don't know I do think Microsoft needs to do I think Microsoft could do with a franchise like that and I did wonder if they they would revive SK Skylanders which was developed by Toys for Bob cuz Skylanders kind of Rift into that direction but toys for Bob's gone now and yeah I mean you could still work with toys for Bob even though you know they're independent now but yeah I get what you're saying and that was part of a larger discussion see sclanders back no I don't I don't think so either but that was part of larger discussion about what Xbox can do in Europe because those latest sales report were pretty awful um not only for Xbox but like suicide squad was down a third from Gotham Knights which is not good uh even like Skull and Bones was down like a quarter from SE thieves like comparing it to se of Thieves from 2018 but Xbox has uh the work cut off for him in Europe absolutely PlayStation and Nintendo are so dominant and that's partially Xbox's thing of like hey you don't need our console you know you could play it on PC and they don't they they have poor localization in a lot of places and Sony consistently has the marketing right for the biggest games there like the fifas or FC's and stuff like that and they haven't really had a game that would really like appeal to the European tastes uh we had somebody from Xbox to the community join in and give his uh take maybe they should buy Sega and you know his his thing was like buy Sega and use like proevolution soccer as like an you know a way to get people into Game Pass uh in Europe essentially which is interesting you know like oh you want to use football to get people into it but yeah Xbox has uh they got a long road to climb because you to to come back in Europe well I mean you need marketing which something they won't really do uh I also think you can't be the same price as PlayStation over there so you need to be cheaper but just as good so you need to have a a product that is basically as good performance-wise as the PlayStation but probably $150 cheaper cuz when you're stacked next to each other people are just going to get a PlayStation even if you know what I mean like people don't view in Europe the Xbox and Playstation in the same light like they'll value we've seen it here where they in the US where like people seem to Value Xbox when it's $100 at least $100 or $150 cheaper than the PlayStation that's just what the market is so it's like to come back from that well got to have games that appeal to them you got to localize it you got to Market it and you got to be cheap but also offer the same type of performance product that's a tough thing to do and who knows who knows what their plans are for over there right yep uh achievement says do you think Xbox should focus on Advertising the Call of Duty beut OverWatch Halo possible quick games is best to play on Xbox by maybe introducing a super low latency invest in technology that says to the hardcore shooters that Xbox is the best place to play for kills I think they could even migrate to PC players to Xbox if they can get the best Advantage I think marof has work to do with showcasing their technology and I kind of feel like they've hurt The credibility a bit cuz when the Xbox series s and X launched they were talking about direct storage this direct storage that and you know and on the velocity architecture but we haven't really seen them we haven't really seen like like the effects of some of this stuff has been subtle at best you know um but there are there are cool things that Xbox does like quick resume for example I really love quick resume when it works you know it's a bit iffy at times but when it works it's really good um and stuff like that and also the backwards compatibility emulator I don't think Microsoft gets enough credibility for that but yeah I can see I can see a world where they could potentially bake in more technology for that kind of thing and then sell it as a game play Advantage feature we'll see what happens with the next gen cuz AI processing and all that kind of stuff is going to be doing a lot of heavy lifting on the on the the excitement side for the next Xbox um but Microsoft still has a lot of work to do with some of this stuff like the the bit rate on xcloud is so bad compared to Nvidia GeForce now and it's like Microsoft's supposed to be the cloud company and the fact they've got you know a barely usable stable with q's cloud service is not a good look you know so I guess uh we'll see what they do with the tech um I'd like to see more of that stuff sick and tire says hey man so I was wondering something and I thought I would get your input the Xbox one sold over under 60 million console sales and was considered a failure as it stands the series consoles are performing worse than the Xbox One and the same life cycle I have no doubt and we are already starting to see that the decision by Microsoft to put games on PlayStation will further Road in the the future of sales of console what do we think it would take the Xbox consoles to fall to sales-wise for Microsoft to make the decision that's no longer worthwhile to make a console what if the series fell to 40 or even 30 million in its generation and jez do you go ahead go well he says and JZ do you hang out with the digital found you guys who live in Germany as well and have you any thought about doing some Xbox 2 plus one episodes with some game tabs to talk about some of the technical things that go into developing a game because that could be interesting we have talked about getting devs on but a lot of devs just they often don't want to do that kind of stuff but maybe we could explore in the future maybe um with regards to D Foundry um I don't really know those guys that well we did we did do Xbox 2 plus one with with John a while ago but I think they live far away from in Germany Germany's like a huge country I I live in the middle of nowhere in South Germany at the moment um but it' be cool to hang out someday now with regards to console sales honestly really is the wrong problem to ask because the industry the industry is not selling consoles the industry is selling software and micro transactions and like I said at the start of the show there are still millions of Xbox One players you know and Microsoft said in their most recent quarterly earnings and they reiterated it um at GDC that January was the highest amount of play hours on Xbox in history um and that includes the Xbox 360 gen generation which you know supposedly was more successful Xbox has more Revenue than it had during the 360 generation has more profits than the 360 generation and it has more players than the 360 generation and all this is like verifiable SEC reports that Microsoft legally cannot lie about you know you know though the the way you measure failure in this industry is like is there is there growth or is there no growth and when there is no growth we've seen Microsoft kill things like mixer for example you know um and uh when you costs cuz like you're you're in a constant race against costs so costs will be like sneaking up behind you and your Revenue has to grow faster than your costs grow because costs always go up you know they got always always go up and um so like the the fact of the matter is that Microsoft is doing better now than it ever has done because of the way the industry is now where really the Xbox one generation the PS4 generation really never ended you know it honestly never ended because all these black whole games like we talked about earlier 80% of the gameplay hours go towards just a few dozen games like your fortnite your Minecraft your Roblox and as long as Microsoft is still selling all that stuff you know it doesn't matter and the Beer Baron says they're counting all the Minecraft players that's why and no they're not they are talking 100% about console players on Xbox they're not counting mobile players they're not counting PC players they are talking 100% about console players is and yeah the sales the year-over-year sales in Europe have dropped but they haven't stopped you know so um you can believe whatever you want you know but if if you do genuinely believe that Microsoft is lying to the SEC file a lawu you know because that's illegal buddy if Microsoft's lying to investors then that's a great way to tank your share price you know um and uh no and K the Barbarian says again players these are not on the console they are on the console I asked PR when they said more players than ever on con uh they said yeah we're talking about more players than ever on Console cloud and PC separately they are talking about more players than ever on Console specifically you know so you you have to decide for yourself are they lying or not you know but your perception of like the 360 a was so much better I would really like you to actually assess where whether you've actually got that data there or if you're just thinking with your emotions like oh well people people lined up to buy Halo outside games you say better I mean I could say the 360 was better cuz we got more games and more more entries and franchises that we loved instead of one now I think there's what you meant to say was would disagree with you was more of a success I mean I'm speaking for myself yeah I mean you're talking about like what's better and which more which was more of a sucess talking about whether it's a viable business or whether they'll stop selling consoles completely true that was the question but I'm just saying like you said never mind go ahead yeah I wasn't talking about like if it's better like I wasn't talking about if it's better for you if you don't like their output now and the industry's output then that's completely separate point I'm just talking about the the viability of the business and the viability of the business right right now is better than it's ever been you know there's no there's nobody at Xbox or Microsoft talking about cutting gaming like they were back in the day there's no discussions like there was with with Steve bmer about whether or not they should even you know bother fixing the red ring of death or whether they should get out of it or not you know there was none of those discussions now like they are in it forever they are they are a a cloud and gaming company right that's it now I will say Obviously Microsoft has a lot of work to do you know and I will say that Microsoft's not very happy about the situation in Europe of course they're not there's no way like Rand said there's no way of putting a positive spin on that but we're nowhere near a situation where Microsoft is considering cutting out consoles the only way they would start considering if they've completely completely lost and they no longer have a hand in the game is if monthly active users and um uh started trending downward and like you know started collapsing we're not in that scenario yet monthly active users are still going up on consolle specifically not talking about PC not talking about anything else on Console specifically monthly active users are still going up so even though Styles have dropped 47 % you've still got that other percent of console sales that are still selling you know so you've got to think about the business in a more software oriented mindset you know if if someone only plays fortnite and FIFA and they upgrade to a PlayStation 5 or an Xbox series X to play fortnite and FIFA they might as well have not bothered because there's zero profit to be made on a console and in some cases it might even be less profitable than if they just stayed where they are you know um the industry is not the same way it used to be and people still have this Xbox 360 mindset about things and it's just that's just not the industry anymore you know um so Microsoft's still committing to console I believe they're making a handheld personally and they are making an Xbox series X and they are still selling consoles you know globally you know they've got some struggles in Europe which you know remains to be seen if they can fix that or if they even want to fix that but they're still entrenched heavily in America and let's be honest America is by far in a way the most important market so true uh yeah there you go uh Paul he says love the podcast I've listened for years now my question is simple what Publishers should copy Capcom strategy well none of them should copy their strategy of selling game Play features as a microtransaction oh you you rascal you rascal I mean but I the the thing about Capcom right now is they've got like this amazing internal engine the AI engine so they've got like less overheads than a lot of other Studios out there who are giving a big cut to onreal engine um and K the Barbarian no then see K the Barbarian is really trying to find a gotcha here when Microsoft says on console also including PlayStation no they are talking specifically Xbox console I asked PR and saa's comments to investors last month were specifically about Xbox console not console in general they're talking about Xbox console believe whatever you want you know but whether or not you're interested in facts or just feelings is completely up to you mate but anyway um uh where was I we were talking about C who's going to C cap should copy Capcom strategy not every not every company can make a game engine like AI engine it's proprietary and it's so versatile the fact that they can use AI engine to make like linear horror games or like a big open world game or you know multiplayer games or you know service games re engine is like probably one of the best things that they've been able to achieve in recent memory the the the graphics power on it amazing too and all that kind of stuff and really is it's been such they've had such a great run I think partially because of this engine right um so it's not easy to copy that you know and I think Capcom strategy of like trying to revisit old franchises is clearly playing off with Dragon Dogma 2 like I think a lot of people thought we would probably never get another Dragon Dogma as long as we lived um and uh but I don't know like how it's working out from a revenue perspective you know it's really weird the industry is in a weird place right now where I keep thinking like oh well it's really really great it's really it's really really great that this single player game has sold tons and tons of copies and then I keep thinking like well what about the overheads and the risk involved what if this game been a flop you know it would have been a huge it would have been a huge disaster and a catastrophe if if like one of these big expensive single player games flopped cuz even like even like Skull and Bones will find its audience and Skull and Bones is like this awful terrible game but it's found its audience like like for Honor as well for honor is a great game but it's very very Niche and very complicated and they've kept that game going for years even though it's got a very small player base because it is funded by microtransactions and stuff like that you know I don't know if the same will happen for EXO Primal um but there's a lot to be said about just delighting your fans and you know really investing to make high quality games and revisiting those Legacy franchises for a new era um seems to have helped Capcom really well I'd love to see EA go down this route but like EA tried to do it with their frostbite engine and we all know that was a disaster you you know to the point where I think EA is even pivoted to Unreal Engine now for some of their games um you know they tried to make frostbite engine their sort of everything engine and it just didn't work you know um so but yeah I'd love to see more games give their classic franchises AAA treatment like Dragon's Dogma or like remaster remake old classics with with AAA treatment you know what would I know this people are going to say this is sacr relgious and I know we got I know we got like a Halo remaster but what would like a complete Halo one remake look like I don't know what would it with modern Graphics I almost sort of I almost of story I want to see that honestly you know like I almost really kind of there's a part of me that actually hopes they do that and then just say you know what we're starting over and just remake Halo 1 Modern Day stuff instead of continuing the storyline like screw it so chaos let's go I'd be down for that like can you imagine not only the reactions like you imagine like you're at the Xbox showcase and you're watching it and it's like a trailer and it's like oh wait that's Halo 1 and it's like it's like Halo and it's like they're they're redoing Halo 1 starting over like dude the reactions would be insane you know there's a part of me that wants that chaos mhm I was thinking I don't know the the I I was thinking Square Enix comes to mind because I want them like I don't know like capcom's just putting out Banger after Banger and square but maybe Square couldn't be able to do that I honestly don't know may Capcom is their own sort of thing and they're doing great um yeah Dave Ramos roses are red violets are blue random Jazz are a dynamic duo who bring joy to to the community through and through stay awesome jents well thank you Lee Sanders says evening lad So currently halfway through control and loving it so much so that I'm going to Play It Again via the ultimate version straight away which is now on Game Pass I haven't done something like that since T Raider reboot when I played that on the 360 and then the Xbox One version have you guys ever played a game and enjoyed it so much that you played it again jez have you played any you played anything again that you you enjoyed it so much you played it immediately Cy right now and dragon's dogar as well actually yeah I mean I've played games immediately again um like I played Resident Evil 4 three times in a row and part of that was like I was chasing achievements like oh beat it on Hardcore beat it on professional but I'm only doing that because I like the game you know if it was I didn't like it I wouldn't do it but there are plenty of games I did in the past you know like hey I beat BioShock but then they want you to beat it again hard so I do it again uh a lot of games like that uh I mean yeah Tomb Raider reboot I played it on the Xbox I played it on the 360 and I played it again on the Xbox one I've done that with lots of games because I I know they're enjoyable and it's something I like there was quite a few of those like 360 games to Xbox one that I that played again but yeah uh for sure I think we' both done that Tommy yeah he says with last week's confirmation of the PS5 Pro drop any ideas what Xbox could do to get headline any headlines this holiday doesn't have to be Hardware any surprise game that could make news and possibly not leave Xbox fans sitting quietly watching so Sony dominate again also talk about sports games on Xbox 2 ultimate was off by some Xbox can't do an NFL game due to licensing agreements cuz Madden gotten exclusive rights due to 2K5 being the way better product and that $20 so they brought the right to get rid of competition yeah but that also but EA's whole thing was stop making sport games and will support the platform that was before the exclusive rights stuff it was it's kind of two separate conversations um yeah what could what could Xbox do this holiday to get headlines or I think like what we talked about earlier like if if the PlayStation 5 proos is forly revealed whatever um they should announce they should talk about their Hardware plan for the future and give an overview of what it looks like talk about the handheld and and all this kind of stuff you know as long as the plans are set in stone you know I don't want them to like be like yeah we're working on a handheld but it might not you don't want Phil to say Stone situation Xbox Scorpio is going to support VR and then never mention VR ever again yeah yeah pretty much um although to be fair they they totally dodged the bullet with that VR stuff my op VR2 apparently uh Sony's not sitting on it because it's like trying to clear ventory I mean yeah that thing's dead we all knew that thing was dead as the door now as soon as it launched at the price it did but whatever vr's vr's just not going to be a thing I don't think um not not enough not enough playtime hours you know um but yeah just announcing a hardware plan I think would generate some excitement I think Microsoft's kind of waiting for the June showcase you know to really start building up momentum again I've heard they've got a lot of good stuff in the pipeline a lot of unexpected games might be detailed in June or games that maybe we thought were further out I've heard some rumors again I don't want to put anything too concrete out there because you know you never know fans can do end up in a Tom Henderson article on Insider gaming but I had I had heard that there was some games be being you know slighted for June that I was like Oh I thought that was further away kind of thing right um so but maybe yeah I don't know we'll see they do they do they do need to generate some more excitement about the brand again I do think um I do think that Microsoft has spread themselves very thin at the moment and they're they're trying to do a lot with regards to like the rorg they've done integrating Activision Blizzard and all this kind of stuff and uh you know and you've got people like Sarah Bond settling into a new role and she's only been in the job very recently recently and there's initiatives been put in place that maybe won't see fruition for like a year and stuff there's been a lot of disruption to Xbox over the last couple of years part of the partially because of the ABK stuff but they're kind of like it's almost like they're building a new company now they've gone from being like a well-funded startup to being like legit Mega publisher overnight pretty much and fleshing out what that looks like is going to take time I think but I feel like we've been waiting so long for all this [ __ ] to pan out well yeah and that has to do with like the reward is consistency kind of like the excitement right now around Xbox a lot of people like clob mention that they're not really seeing anything I know the you know February podcast kind of deflated a lot of a lot of the excitement around Xbox for some people and uh I think right now you're in that situation where you have the the podcast and some people you know there a lot of people that didn't like that or like oh bringing games on our platforms but then Xbox really didn't have anything else right after and you see kind of like that that SpongeBob Meme Squidward's up in the tower right and he sees like uh SpongeBob and and Patrick playing and you see hell divers 2 you see Final Fantasy 7 rebirth you see Rise of the Ronin right you see a stellar blade and it's like yeah you sure Xbox fans there's plenty of third party games to play and stuff but like nothing specifically from Microsoft themselves until May with hellblade 2 so I could definitely yeah like the excitement for the Xbox like right now probably low because there's nothing really going on you know how Blade 2 comes out I'm sure you'll see people get really excited leading up to it or you know the summer showcase where they drop some games and stuff but like yeah right now it really does seem like the excitement is at least lessened and it's partially due because of what's Happening Now and also because of like other I don't know it's kind of like people are get jealous of like other people's toys essentially right um I mean I love my 50 hours with bishers you know I'm still excited about I'm just excited about games in general so I'm look you know I'm super pumped for hellblade but yeah it's two months away it's still kind of far and everybody's going to everybody's excitement level is not going to be the same so and and Xbox has sort of taken a back seat Jaz I don't know if you would agree with that ever since the podcast normally they're out there there's some things going on but they've really kind of taken a back seat and haven't been out there as much and maybe that's part partially by Design uh but you know maybe that'll change in a little bit right um anyway let's see here we have uh Kraken saying hey guys the Showcase is only a couple months away do you think this will be the one that will show off in depth gameplay of a lot of their bigger games development timelines for some of these Acquisitions have gone on for a while do you think we'll get something from these big games and new announcements well I think jez kind of T touched on that I think it really depends on like if they show Fable again will they show gameplay and when is it launching because it seems like uh developers are more keen to hold like full gameplay premieres until you're really close to uh the thing actually launching um but yeah I mean you're getting to that point now where people are going to be expecting stuff it's been a long time since a lot of those 2020 games people want to see stated K3 again people want to see what perfect AR is you know I want to see more gameplay of avow you know is gear six some is gear six real all these sort of questions like what's ID working on um but the gamep play stuff I think it's just a matter of how close are you to being finished like what's your timeline you know like south of midnight showed off a trailer great if we see south of midnight again this year I would hope we would see some gameplay you know same thing to like with Contraband next time we see Contraband I hope it's gameplay and it's not another uh you know CGI trailer you know first time sure okay you want to show off an announcement trailer great I'm all for it but the second time you show it um better be more of like okay this is what the game's going to be at least for me personally and JZ I don't know if you're muted or not but if you're saying anything I can't okay uh good old conin says Happy Spring Randon jez the BBC website recently published an article about Chicago's favorite sandwich bars you've spoken about great pizza places do you have any good sandwich bars you patronize I do not sandwich bars I never even really heard of that s sandwich bars no I haven't I don't really have a good sandwich bar I'm sorry I I wish I could help you on that one but there are some great pizza places but I I've never been to I've never even really heard that sandwich bars that's have you ever heard of that jazz like a sandwich bar not really um I mean I suppose a famous one is Gregs in the UK okay I mean I mean I don't know if it's Sandwich Bar it's more like a bakery they sell sandwiches I guess like you get independent sandwich bars and stuff um ranza guy doesn't go out he gets everything from Jenny Craig or whatever it's called no not everything use hellofresh here and there Factor 75 sometimes Jenny Craig sometimes whatever you know like order off of uh like Uber Eats or uh the shopping apps or whatever get stuff delivered but yeah uh baly mcnosehair with the $2 Super Chat what's your favorite spinter cell game I would say spinter cell cast the but then I also really enjoyed Splinter Cell Blacklist so uh Rodrigo balum says uh with the $2 Super Chat guys what happened to gear 6 does it exist for real Jaz what do you think gear six where is it at why hasn't it been Reve real it's just you know taking a lot of time let let him cook man let him cook taking a lot of time hey they said the same thing about rock steady and look what they cooked you know yep let them cook man let them cook okay I'm I just hope we don't have to wait until 2026 and then be like man you took seven years to make this you know what I mean hopefully uh hopefully we see gear six soon and the long housee gaming podcast shout out to Mr Black Viking says Randon Jazz two of my favorite podcasters in the business hit that like button thank you yeah make sure you hit the like button and subscribe we appreciate everyone being here so that's um that's pretty much everything jez I mean I'm I'm looking at some of the other things I had written down here but we actually covered everything I had us su's Apple but we we kind of mentioned it here and there I guess the other thing is Xbox changes is changing Rewards program have you seen some of this stuff is that I don't know much about it I think they got rid of the some of the streaks yeah they're like they're getting like it's all kind of condensed into like one app now instead of like all over the place so they are doing some changes to that but other than that that's pretty much everything and uh so I figured we'd come to an end of the show here what are your what's your plan for the weekend jez you going to be playing more Dragon Dogma 2 um no I think I might just have a real break okay take a break okay yeah that sounds fair you got the weekend take a break go out with the girlfriend yeah I might just lie down in a dark room cry maybe okay but then I'm just going to try and chill yeah well I'm my plan is to finish off three body problem and then decide on what game I want to tackle next and I don't know what it's going to be just yet so we'll see uh but with that said thank you guys so much for tuning in to today's Xbox 2 this has been episode 38 we'll be back Friday next week March 29th with a another long episode hopefully we can get somebody for Xbox 2 plus one uh this upcoming week we'll let the patreons know you can always join that patreon.com xb2 if you're so inclined to support the channel support me and jez um and with that I hope you guys have a wonderful weekend we love you all keep it gaming later everyone [Music] later for
