Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
What Was The Point Of The Xbox "Business" Podcast?
48 Plays8 months ago
Follow us everywhere here: https://linktr.ee/logongames
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction & Xbox Business Event Overview
00:00:13
Speaker
What's up everybody welcome to the log on games podcast for Friday February the 16th On this episode. We're gonna go over the Xbox business event, which was just a 20 minute podcast but uh
00:00:31
Speaker
That'll probably pretty much be all we covered today. Um, with me today, you can find him back at the brick wall at X user eight
Gaming Habits & Recent Game Updates
00:00:42
Speaker
X. We have Matthew is on podcast different brick wall. I have a little weird little trinkets around here. Drink it. Yeah. How's it feel? And then this thing does this.
00:01:00
Speaker
Nice. It's my gong. Is it real brick wall or is it fake brick wall? It's real. Previously it was a fireplace and then I guess that's where that comes in. Well, what's going on? Have you been playing anything?
00:01:20
Speaker
I actually had to do a lot of, uh, mentioned before on the podcast, a lot of like reading for school stuff, which I tend to just like audio, like have my phone read it to me. So I like playing games that don't require a ton of thinking. Uh, I've played a good.
00:01:38
Speaker
I played a good bit of power world. Still loving that. That's good. But I've played mostly this week. I've been in the F1 manager train because, uh, two weeks from today is first, uh, first weekend of the season. So kind of getting back into that a little bit, a little bit. I mean, that's what I played the most of, uh, yes, honestly.
00:02:03
Speaker
I've enjoyed it, but I keep, uh, like not playing it as much as I want to, because I know that I'm just progressing my solo stuff and I want to do, I don't want to have to redo everything again on our multiplayer world. So we need to jump in. Agreed. I jumped in for a little bit the other day. Um, but then we had a. Overwatch update. So I went on that yesterday and, um,
00:02:31
Speaker
I'm still slowly playing Final Fantasy 16 through every time I play it. I play it for like maybe like 30 or 40 minutes and then I have to do something else. And I really just want to like sit down and just play it for like a long time, but yeah. And we'll get there. Had lunch with a guy today who wants to play some rocket league together. So I might get you involved in some of that. He, uh, he hit grand champ last season. So nice. He's pretty good. He's, he's better than us.
00:03:00
Speaker
I got on Rocket League a couple nights ago just because by myself at like three o'clock in the morning, I was like, let's just get in here. Let's play a solo game just so I can play. I got in there and I played, well, I did a 1v1 and just murdered this dude to the point where he was like cussing me out in the chat, everything and ended up quitting. And I was like, and I just stopped after that. I was like, I already did it. That's funny.
Podcast Availability & Future Plans
00:03:28
Speaker
All right, we will welcome everybody to the Log on Games Podcast. This is a weekly show in which our hosts discuss a variety of gaming news topics from new games, big announcements, events, and more. New episodes upload every Friday on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever it is you want to listen to your podcast at. We are also in video on youtube.com backslash at log on games.
00:03:50
Speaker
And hopefully over the next, sometime over the next month, we're going to try and live stream some episodes and see how that goes with a new platform. Maybe it works. Maybe it doesn't. So if you're listening to this, we record normally Thursdays at around like five or five 30. So.
00:04:15
Speaker
That's when we will be doing them. So if you're listening and you are free normally, then we would love for you to hop in and give us some feedback. Cause we're going to kind of be looking at audio video.
00:04:27
Speaker
quality of everything, and if it's worth it to pay whatever the fee is going to be to do these things. We should be going live from Twitch, YouTube, and probably Instagram when we do them. So you can follow us at Logon Games everywhere. We're at Logon Games on Twitch. Like I said, we're youtube.com slash at Logon Games. If you're already subscribed to our YouTube channel,
00:04:55
Speaker
You can hit the notification bell and that'll notify you whenever we do go live. So you can just kind of follow us from there. But yep, yep. Let's get into it.
Xbox Event: Expectations vs Reality
00:05:08
Speaker
There was an Xbox.
00:05:10
Speaker
business event today, which was a 20 minute podcast where they said things. Um, so I'm just gonna go over what they said. Yeah. I want, what were your expectations for this? My expectation was a weird one, right? Yeah. What did you, what did you, not selfishly, what did you think they were going to say?
00:05:36
Speaker
Pretty much what they said, which was just like nothing. It was going to matter. Selfishly, I wanted them to come out and just be like, we're putting everything everywhere. We're not making consoles anymore. We're third party. That's what I wanted. Then I could sell my Xbox and just play everything on PlayStation. But that's not what we got. It's not what we got was what I expected, which.
00:06:00
Speaker
I have theories, but so I think everybody does. What about you? They tried to talk around a lot of things. My expectations, I actually talked about it to Ivy yesterday. Um, I kind of expected them to come out and say something to the effect of, we're not really going to focus on consoles anymore. Yeah. We're just pouring it all into game pass. And that like, I thought.
00:06:25
Speaker
that it was even possible that maybe they didn't announce this today, but that they go the route of not really making any more exclusive consoles, but more so making like their next console being basically a PC that they just brand an Xbox. It's like the Xbox PC or whatever. It's a thing you can buy and play Game Pass on, right? And just kind of stop trying to make
00:06:52
Speaker
unique consoles to Xbox, but just make a PC every year that has an Xbox branding or size or whatever that still comes with the controller. But that's also not what they said today.
Xbox's Future Plans: Hardware & Game Pass
00:07:02
Speaker
So, um, so they also did a big long tweet thread afterwards. Um, obviously all the hype speculation rumors reports leading up to this that were, some were crazy, some were right, et cetera. Um, but they tweeted out this big long story that kind of summed up the podcast today. Okay.
00:07:20
Speaker
And so I wrote, in my own words, kind of what it was. There's like five points. First point, there's four games that they have, that have been out for at least a year that are coming to other platforms. Number two, Activision Blizzard games are coming to Game Pass and then they announced Diablo coming, or Diablo 4 coming March 28th. But we all, anyways, yeah. Number three, Xbox hardware will continue as normal.
00:07:47
Speaker
Um, and that's, I mean, there's, like I said, this is my own word. So if you haven't listened to podcasts, you can go listen to it, but essentially they were like, yeah, we're going to make an action console. Like, yeah. Okay. So normal. Uh, number four, Xbox will continue to have cross play cross progression, cross save, et cetera, whatever backwards compatibility for things. And then number five, uh, their games will be coming day one. Their, their releases will be coming day one to game pass. So all that to say.
00:08:17
Speaker
We knew all of this already. Basically. Yeah.
Game Announcements & Platform Speculations
00:08:22
Speaker
When I was watching this, I was like, I mean, they announced four games that have been out for at least a year that were an exclusive to Xbox that are coming. But they already have games on other platforms like Minecraft is already on another platform. They now own Call of Duty, which is on other platforms. Yeah. So they already.
00:08:42
Speaker
do this but so the surprising thing would have been if one of the four games was like something big you know but right essentially they said that i i think one of the four games will be something very big it's well so i have written down what i think it's going to be okay we know for a fact hi-fi rush is one of them because it's already leaked out
00:09:05
Speaker
Didn't know it was leaked, but that was definitely a guess of mine for one of the, they had like, they said basically two major games and two smaller ones basically. Yeah. They had a bunch of the ad mats have already leaked out. Like there's a PlayStation one that has the character looking like cloud. There's a Nintendo one that has the character looking like Mario or whatever. Um, so high five rush is one of them for sure. We don't, I think, know for sure any of the other ones, but.
00:09:30
Speaker
It's correct. I have five games, so it's definitely four of these five. Hi-Fi Rush, Sea of Thieves, Grounded, Flight Simulator, and Pentiment, which are like kind of the lower tier. But they said, like, you know, they specifically in the podcast, they said these are games that
00:09:49
Speaker
we want more people to play business-wise, so more people will play it. We can get more money from it so that we can do sequels to these games or expansions to these games or whatever. So, Hi-Fi Rush is definitely one of them we already know, which makes sense on what they're saying. It's a smaller game that did really high reviews, probably Xbox's best game in years, review-wise.
00:10:15
Speaker
So they want PlayStation and Nintendo people to play it, sell it there, make more money so they can make a sequel. Sea of Thieves, I feel like, is human as well because it's kind of hit its... Maybe. Whatever its max is as far as players go for Xbox and PC. So let's go out there.
00:10:36
Speaker
Grounded is another one, I think it could be for similar reasons. It's like, it's kind of like, it's a game CS service-y thing. So you kind of want as many people playing it as possible. And if Grounded is going to get any.
00:10:53
Speaker
more content in the future, it definitely needs more people in there. So, and then Pentiment was like a small indie-ish game that was, and then the other only one that I could think of that kind of makes sense is Flight Simulator, as far as a game that makes sense on other platforms, like it just being on,
00:11:09
Speaker
It's so hard to perform. It's so difficult to control is the biggest thing. You need so many. It's so many buttons and just a lot of that. So I don't know. Maybe I can tell you that I think there's because I basically said like you mentioned two smaller studio type games that want to get their game out to more people. And it's two games that they feel like
00:11:34
Speaker
Uh, basically would make more money if they went on other platforms because they're not making any more money. Yeah. And I can tell you, I think one of them is massive. And I think one of them is going to be a large deal. I think Halo's coming. Well, that's what I put below on my list that put, cause they specifically didn't say, she asked them is starfield or Indiana Jones, one of the games. And he said, no, they didn't say Halo or gears.
00:12:03
Speaker
It's a halo argues. So, and I think halo is the one and I don't, I think the only way this halo ends up being a good halo is if it has a major influx of player base from somewhere that, that makes the game
Xbox Ecosystem Strategy & Financial Goals
00:12:19
Speaker
more fun. You know what I mean? Like it's a, it's a solidly made game in terms of how it runs and performs and feels when you play and those kinds of things.
00:12:27
Speaker
It's the other stuff that they're really missing out on. And if you really want to make, uh, um, you know, a game pass or, or not a game pass, but a season pass and those kinds of things. Halo is the game for it. They already have some of that, but I just don't know. And honestly, I don't think it matters which one. I don't know if it, if they would put out Halo infinite or they just put out the master chief collection, be honest with you. And honestly, for PlayStation, I don't think it'd be infinite.
00:12:55
Speaker
No, it should be but they're stupid and they made a sister master chief collection over there And then more people would immediately be like any of these games doesn't matter if it's halo gear Yes, or any of the other five that we listed are immediately gonna have more players on play playing on PlayStation the next box
00:13:11
Speaker
Does I don't see, I don't think so. I don't think it would have as big of a thing as they want, because if they put infinite on PlayStation, they would get some more players. I get it. But how do they put it on PlayStation? Is it $70 on PlayStation? Because if it is. The campaign is probably still priced. I don't know. But the I mean, the multiplayer is free on everywhere at the moment. PC, Xbox, Steam, wherever.
00:13:35
Speaker
Well, they would have to do that because if they charge PlayStation, I don't think they're getting an influx of anybody because if you were going to pay for that game, then you're going to have one of those other systems to go play Halo anyways. Um, that's, you weren't going to have a PlayStation just sit over here, man, I wish I could play Halo. Like it's just not, you would have, you would have done something to get an Xbox or a PC or whatever for the most. I mean, I'm generalizing, obviously they'd still, we'd have some players play. I don't know. It'd be interesting to see. So.
00:14:06
Speaker
Here is my, the main question. When the podcast ended, first question that popped into my brain was why did they even do this? What was the point? They basically told, this is what they told us. We have four games coming out. Okay. Activision Blizzard games are coming. Yeah. We figured, you know, you bought Bethesda, Bethesda. So we figured Activision Blizzard games were coming at some point. We're going to continue. We're going to make another Xbox console. Well, okay. Freaking duh.
00:14:35
Speaker
We're gonna continue to have cross play and cross progression. We're showing Xbox and PC. Okay, is that news? And then hey, all of our games are coming day one, the game passed. Yes, you tell us this every time you do anything. So why did you do this to begin with? I have a article from the Verge and this article was a couple, like a week ago or something.
00:15:03
Speaker
Let me copy something. I don't have my windows set up like I normally do. This is from theverge.com. It's a whole article about Microsoft's gaming revenue in general. The title is Microsoft's gaming revenue overtake windows thanks to Activision Blizzard and then it's a whole article it talks about.
00:15:25
Speaker
Their whole financial report, but I want to go down here to the Xbox stuff where it talks about, you know, it's been Xbox game passes up by 61%. It's largely because of Activision Blizzard revenues.
00:15:42
Speaker
or Xbox content and services revenue, which includes Game Pass is up 61%. Microsoft says the net impact of the Activision Blizzard acquisition is just over $2 billion in revenue with the cost of integration transaction costs and other revenue total of $930 million. Xbox hardware up 3%.
00:16:03
Speaker
All right, here it is down here. So it's an important quarter for gaming at Microsoft as it's now the company's third largest business. Gaming contributed to 7.11 billion in revenue for the quarter, more than the 5.26 billion from Windows, but behind the 13.47 billion from Office and Cloud Service Giant.
00:16:29
Speaker
And again, this is mainly because of the Activision Blizzard deal that they have surpassed Windows. So my theory is of why they even did this podcast to begin with is because Microsoft now is like, before this big deal, Xbox was like, who cares? Like the money that they were giving Xbox to do Xbox things was such a small portion that it didn't even matter.
00:16:59
Speaker
And then there was that whole interview last year with Microsoft's president where he was just like, you could tell that like, they just don't care about Xbox. Like, yeah, y'all can just do whatever you want because the amount of money we're spending is so minute compared to anything that matters. But now they have this, they bought Activision Blizzard. Now they're bringing in more money than Windows, which is a big deal. And now I think that Microsoft higher ups are like looking
00:17:27
Speaker
at their numbers and their sales numbers, whether it's hardware, games, et cetera, and being like, we just spent $70 billion. And someone else did the math. There's two podcasts. There's the sacred symbols podcast. And there was another one. They talked about how long it would take if Activision Blizzard made the same amount of money like this last year that it would take for them to recoup their money. And it was like 25 years or something like that.
00:17:57
Speaker
So I'm thinking Microsoft looks at this and like, okay, we need to get our money back. And we want it to not take two decades to do so. So I think part of that is these four games that are coming to other platforms. And we talked on the phone earlier day before this of like, I definitely still think two, three, five years from now.
00:18:23
Speaker
Like this will be the first time, like if CSEs drops, hi-fi rush, whatever, especially a halo, but CSEs, hi-fi rush, they drop on PlayStation. A quarter goes by, a year goes by or whatever. And then these Microsoft higher ups that are now paying attention to what Xbox is doing. It looks at the numbers and it's like, our numbers like tripled when we put this stuff on Switch and PlayStation. Why are we not putting everything everywhere right now?
00:18:51
Speaker
And I think we're just going to see more and more games, even if it's a year later, that's probably how it'll start. But if you told me right now, five years from now, six months after a new fable or Halo or whatever comes out that comes to everything, I'd be like, yeah, that makes sense.
00:19:06
Speaker
Yeah. No, I, I agree with you. I just was doing a little research. Don't have the exact numbers currently, but numbers from April of last year, basically. Right. And numbers, like it says currently there's 34 million game pass subscribers. Okay. Uh, as of April, so almost a year ago, 15 million of those were on PC. So essentially a half.
00:19:34
Speaker
Essentially half. We just got numbers recently. It looks like about 27 million Xboxes have been sold.
00:19:50
Speaker
Um, so yeah, essentially about two thirds of those between a half and two thirds of those have game pass. And so my point is they've already, they're already proving that game pass is valuable to them outside of the X box. Um, and especially if they're not selling very well, which they're not.
00:20:14
Speaker
they may at least be better off going that route. And like I said, that would make sense then if they just wanted to come out with consoles that were really just PCs that look like an Xbox, right? Then it's not, they're not having to do all extra special, you know, development for that. I don't know, it's an interesting thing. It seemed to me like the overall goal of this,
00:20:39
Speaker
After listening to this press conference or whatever you want to call it, I'm not even sure what it was called. It seems like the overall goal was to double down on their ecosystem and to try to create more buzz and people that want to join their ecosystem. Not by their consoles, but join their ecosystem. As a matter of fact, I think they almost went out of their way to say,
00:21:03
Speaker
Fine if you don't want to buy our consoles, but you're going to want to be in our ecosystem. Like that's kind of like what it felt like to me. But that's also been what they've said. I agree. Anywhere. I agree. But this was a double down. I think this was more of a, okay, we just spent a bunch of money. The way we get our money back is all this stuff's coming to Game Pass. So it only works if more people sign up for Game Pass. And so they're trying to double down on that.
00:21:31
Speaker
It was just so strange. And you may be, if you're listening being like, well, the reason they did it is because all the crap that happened this last week, which is why they did it today. But this was supposedly already planned for later in the month. They just pushed it up because of all these leaks and stuff that happened. So this was already a plan thing that was going to happen either at the end of this month, or I think, I honestly think it was supposed to be the end of this month because supposedly.
00:21:59
Speaker
Take us with a grain of salt. Andrew. Supposedly there was a Nintendo Direct that was supposed to drop today, but they pushed it because of the sex bike stuff, which would also make sense, especially if we get the Nintendo Direct like next week and high five rushes on there. That make them all kind of know for sure. Then they're like, yeah.
00:22:23
Speaker
Cause they were like, we're not going to tell you which four games they're going to tell you which four. And I think that's because either one or two are going to be announced at this Nintendo direct, which would be like, like high-five and, and Pentamint seem like they're very Nintendo directy.
00:22:38
Speaker
games definitely like a third party whatever thing i could see it i could see it and so there my guess is that the reason they didn't say it's because it was already playing that high fire rush and pentiment or at least high fire rush was going to be announced the nintendo direct which was supposed to be first but they wanted to get this out now because of all the craziness happening that leaked out so there's that but it's still like
00:23:02
Speaker
I just can't, it's just funny to me that they did this whole podcast. And even if nothing leaked out, they still would have done this in two weeks, whatever. They were gonna do this business event podcast thing to just tell us stuff that we already know. That makes no sense to me. Other than they're now bigger players than Microsoft and Microsoft's like, all right, let's start coming out with games on other platforms. And if these perform well, I can almost guarantee you,
00:23:29
Speaker
money bags, Johnson, Mr. President of Microsoft, whatever is going to be like, all right, let's start pumping out other games to other platforms. I think it's not that they're not going to have exclusives, but yeah, I thought it was hilarious to that Microsoft has.
00:23:43
Speaker
a bit pretty heavy on this, like we're not competing with PlayStation. We're a different thing. You know, and he said a pretty savage line part of the way through the Phil Spencer said pretty savage line. It basically was like, now that we own Activision and Blizzard, we're actually like the largest developer on PlayStation.
00:24:03
Speaker
And it's like, I was like, Oh snap, which is just a pretty, it was a pretty savage line. And so it's like, we're not competing, but also ha ha take that. It's funny. Um, but I also thought it was interesting too, that the consoles, like you said, they did double down. They're going to keep making consoles. And they even said there's going to be something console and controller options or something added, uh, in holidays this year.
00:24:26
Speaker
Yeah, it's the thing. I think it's a thing that leaked out with the FTC stuff. Remember, we saw that controller that looked like it was wearing pants. And then we saw the that like circular Xbox that had no disk drive or whatever, which basically is a digital series. It's kind of what it looked like. Maybe. Yeah, I'm assuming that's probably what's going to be this year. And but I would guess more. It'd be a bit of be a pro, basically, same as I think PlayStation and Xbox. I want to say the version.
00:24:55
Speaker
And again, they lie, but I want to say that someone said that they weren't doing a Pro version this generation. I'm sure they did, but I think now that it's basically confirmed PlayStation is, then it probably changes their thought process on it. Yeah, I would somewhat agree.
00:25:19
Speaker
But I want to say that someone said that they're not going to do a pro. They also said in this podcast that their next Xbox would be the biggest leap in technology in between consoles ever, which would only make sense if you didn't do a pro.
00:25:36
Speaker
because then you can make that statement true of like, we went from specs of the Series X to the specs of the new generation Xbox, where you can't really say that about the PS4 Pro to the PS5 because there was a Pro in there. Or like a PS5 Pro to a PS6.
00:25:57
Speaker
Yeah. I know we, we mentioned it on the podcast before too. Like the, all the talk about layoffs and stuff gets a little tired just because it seems like every other day it's just okay. We get it.
00:26:08
Speaker
The economy is what it is. People are getting laid off. It sucks, but I also don't need nine notifications on my phone every day about it. Right. Um, but obviously they are one of the major, uh, companies overall as a whole has laid off a bunch of people, especially with this merger with activation Blizzard. And he's talked about that a little bit too, in terms of just like the, um, the industry of video gaming.
00:26:36
Speaker
has not really grown over the last couple of years.
00:26:39
Speaker
which is not surprising to me personally, because it grew so quickly. Like I feel like it's just market saturation, where it's like, if everybody plays games and you can't grow, right? Everybody plays games, you're not gonna get more people to play games, cause they're all playing games. And I think there's just a lot of that. And so he just kind of said, basically he was saying, we have hired and planned for growth and the industry's basically stayed the same. So therefore we've had to lay some people off, right? And I thought that was at least, I appreciated him.
00:27:08
Speaker
coming out and laying out the wise and some of the stuff like this is what's happened. And this is what happened. I mean, we were hoping to make more money and we didn't. And so, uh, that's part of the reason why you said, you know, they want these smaller games to go on other platforms so they can make more money and they can support these smaller teams. Yeah. And I also think June, go ahead. Oh boy. We're stuck. We got, we got a delay.
00:27:34
Speaker
That's OK. We'll make it work.
Pro Consoles: Worth the Wait?
00:27:37
Speaker
I'm reading from gaming Bible dot com. This was June. So this was like when they did their Xbox showcase last year.
00:27:49
Speaker
During a recent episode of Digital Foundry's Direct Weekly show, John Lyman, who is, I thought it said somewhere exactly what he is on Xbox, but John Lyman explained that he was reportedly informed by Microsoft that the Xbox Series X is its mid-gen refresh. Basically, the Xbox Series X is the pro console.
00:28:10
Speaker
Lyman said that Microsoft considers the Series S, the standard gen console, but bumped up the Q and release of the Series X early instead of waiting two or three years. While we should not take this information, it's 100% fact that guys at Digital Vanderbilt know their stuff very well informed. Sure. So again, you have plans change, especially that everyone knows that there is a PS5 Pro coming this holiday. So Xbox might just do it just to... Yep.
00:28:40
Speaker
Just as possible. I've, I've been on record saying I, I kind of think the idea of pro consoles is I don't love, I don't, I don't get, I don't really think it's a great idea. I would rather you not come out with a pro console and then just come out with a new console three years later. It just makes more sense to me. I just don't think that the performance difference between a regular and a pro is necessary for the games to be good.
00:29:05
Speaker
You know what I mean? Like consoles are powerful enough now that they're good. I get it. You get some maybe extra performance mode or this, that like I get, there's some bonuses to it, but it's for the, it's for a very specific person. Sure. I agree. And, and that even that tells me that it's probably not worth it then. Like there's only so many people going to buy it. Similar to the series S like a series S is for a very specific type of person where it's like,
00:29:35
Speaker
I'm like, it's a person that's happy just playing their games in 10 ADP. They don't need the best resolution or the best frame rate. They just want to play the game. They don't really care. Sure. But current consoles, if a game is made well and optimized well, you can play 60 at 4k and we, we have plenty of games that do it. And so I think like the PS4 pro, which I bought.
00:30:00
Speaker
I was playing, at that point, at that time, it was like, okay, well, Overwatch and Apex, and then even, like, Last of Us Part II and stuff like that came out. I was like, okay, I can play at 60 frames now.
00:30:10
Speaker
I don't think it was part two, it was 60 frames, but it was, I think it was 4K 30 instead of 14, 40, 30 or whatever it was. And so at that point I was like, yes, I was playing Destiny 2 at 30 frames a lot. And I was just like, I can't play 30 frames anymore. And so then I would go, I was like, I get to play Overwatch and that's how it is now on PS5 I get to play.
00:30:32
Speaker
I get to play Overwatch at 120 frames, but it's also at 1080p. And then Rocket League, I think, is 4K or an upscaled 4K 120. But I think what the PS5 Pro is going to do is games like... Like God of War, like the new Spider-Man that just came out and stuff like that, where it's like, you can play 4K 60 or even an upscaled 4K or something 120, but you're not gonna have ray tracing.
00:31:02
Speaker
It's kind of how it is. Like there's always like a ray tracing mode. This is 4K 60 with ray tracing, but it's now it's downscaled 4K or whatever. So I think the PS5 Pro is just going to be like, all right, whatever the best version that there is, you don't have to compromise anymore. Like you can play, if the game can go 4K 120 with ray tracing, you're going to be able to do that now or 4K 60 with ray tracing, right? You're going to be able to do that now.
00:31:27
Speaker
Instead of having to choose don't want 4K or do I want ray tracing or do I want neither and I want frame rate kind of ordeal. And so for people like me, I want that. But we saw it with the sales of the PS4 Pro. It was just like.
00:31:46
Speaker
It's only for certain people, like not everybody cares or it's going to buy this and the sales prove that, but I guess it sold well enough for them to want to do another one. So the best part about the PS4 pro is that it knocked the price of the other stuff down a little bit. And yeah, that was, by the way.
00:32:01
Speaker
I'm changing the subject, so you go ahead. I was going to say, also, I think a big reason for the PS5 Pro being later this year is just the fact that GTA 6 comes out the next year. And they want to be like, and if Xbox doesn't do one, then PlayStation can say
00:32:17
Speaker
Do you want to play in 4K 60 with ray tracing? Well, the only place you can do that is PS5 Pro. And the bundle it. So you should be able to play any new game of 4K 60, to my opinion anyways. I agree, but that's just not the world we live in.
00:32:32
Speaker
Um, also I wanted to say for those of you that are PC gamers and since, since this is a video game podcast at times, but also just a destiny podcast at times, um, on humble bundle, currently you can buy for $40, uh, destiny two and all the DLC that has ever come out with an annual pass or for $20.
00:33:02
Speaker
the same thing minus the annual pass.
Deals & Rumors: Destiny 2 & PlayStation's 2023 Lineup
00:33:05
Speaker
So 20 bucks for everything that ever come out in Destiny 2. It's a pretty good deal. It's a good deal. And if you've never played Destiny, then I feel like that's the only reason you would need to buy all that. Because if you have, we've been stuck on this expansion in the season. Sure, but even if you're missing like an expansion, the last expansion or something,
00:33:26
Speaker
It's cheaper just to buy that whole bundle than it is to buy just expansion in ways. Yeah. It was kind of a status quo thing. And then we also had the other news from PlayStation this week that was more rumor than news, but supposedly there is no major
00:33:47
Speaker
Titles coming out this year first party what it said. It said no major Current titles said nothing about new IPs It was basically like you're not gonna get a god of war or spider-man or last of us are not charted or anything like this here It's what they said but it also makes it said behind closed doors in a way that was not meant to be It wasn't a PlayStation blog. You know what I mean? And so that
00:34:16
Speaker
We just need more context. Like how, how true is that? Was that just somebody saying, I don't think we're going to get any of our major titles out this year or you know what I'm saying? I just have to have the questions. Um, so that's the other side of that. That's just like first party PlayStation, which I mean, it's disappointing. But at the same time, like, like final fantasy seven rebirth that's coming out is exclusive, but that was not a first party thing. So we could definitely get more stuff like that or probably what I just assumed like, uh,
00:34:47
Speaker
A couple of their live service games will probably come out this year, which will be new IPs. So Avengers don't get that toward that. And then they also basically said somebody at PlayStation said.
00:35:01
Speaker
Similar thing to kind of what happened to Xbox is this week where it's just like yeah some of our games are gonna come to multiple platforms Which I assume they're talking about these live service games. It's like if you want a live service especially like a multiplayer live service game to like Be able to sustain for a long time. It kind of just needs to be free and it kind of just needs to be sure sure so Concord and then
00:35:26
Speaker
Fair games. Was that the other one that we saw? I'm assuming that those are the games they're talking about. Like they're going to come everywhere. So foam stars.
00:35:38
Speaker
of home stars. There was only one other bit of news to happen today that we can touch on if you want to. OK. And that was that EA Sports or EA College Football got a trailer and an announcement. So it's finally real. It's coming. May, I think. I think May is when they're doing their now announcement official thing.
00:36:07
Speaker
I think this has already been leaked by somebody that said that not only that this trailer was coming, but that may, they were going to do like their big blowout and that the game would come out in July. Thanks. Which I think lines up what it was before the game would usually come out in July because Madden would come out at the end of August. Right. And you can get it and it kind of, you know, you get a little, uh,
00:36:31
Speaker
You get a month or two of that like height. People just really are waiting for college football, especially in the South where we're from. So they'll go buy the game. Yeah. Um, I like it. I think it's good. Uh, saw a couple of tweets and, and curious when this happens and I hope it does. Um, you know, does that mean an NCAA basketball game is coming back in the future and instead of like baseball game that we haven't had in forever. I would love for that to come back in the future. And I think probably all those things will happen at some point. Um, should be fun times.
00:37:01
Speaker
Here's what I say, and I know this is into the college basketball world.
00:37:09
Speaker
As they used to be but who would even be on the cover of? The game if there was a college basketball game you pick somebody they always pick somebody that Isn't the NBA now that just well they used to because you couldn't pay players I think you still do it. You can do a college player now You can't like who would you pick because most of the top picks weren't college players this last year. I
00:37:32
Speaker
Like Victor came, when Benyama came from France, the Thompson twins came from Ignite League. So. I don't know. I don't know. I don't remember. You picked somebody that just had a big year last year. You know what I mean? I don't know. That's my question. It's like, if it was going to come out this year, who would you even put on the front? Cause I don't even, I don't know of a, of a player with that. When I think college basketball, even if it's a player that was just drafted, I don't know who you would even be able to try and sell your game with.
00:38:00
Speaker
Unless you do a legacy thing, it's like an old agency. Well, you don't. I don't think your game sells based on who's on the cover. I just don't know. But if it's a no name, dude, it's on the cover and someone sees it at a store, they're going to be like, I don't know what the heck that is. Could be could be who's going to be on the front of the college football game. Find out in May. I would assume you want to predict somebody. Um.
00:38:34
Speaker
I picked Corum, the running back for Michigan, that just won the national title. That would be my guess. I think it's going to be someone that's still going to be playing in college this year. I don't. He could be though. It could be. I'd say him or it could be Daniels. He won the Heisman. So quarterback from LSU. Regardless,
00:38:57
Speaker
I hope a college basketball game at some point in the future because i'm i'm a i'm a college football fan more than any other sport And i enjoy that's going to be doing it though I understand that i'm a but i'm a my point is though Even you like you're more of a pro sports fan than uh college, even though you still do love college sports too, especially football
00:39:18
Speaker
But there is no better, like to me, the premier sports event in the calendar is that March madness tournament, man. There's just nothing like it. It is, it stands on its own. And so I think you can, uh, I think that just would sell. I just, it would keep them with the sports thing. What do you think about the rumor that FIFA is giving the FIFA name to 2k?
Future of FIFA Games: 2K's Potential Involvement
00:39:45
Speaker
Are they? Didn't know it. That's what the rumor is. So this was, let's see, game rent.com three days ago. Okay. And newly surfaced rumors suggest that 2k will be the developer of the next official FIFA game. The Nevada, California based publisher was previously said to have been eyeing the FIFA license for years. 2023 marked the first year without FIFA, blah, blah, blah. Um,
00:40:10
Speaker
There's a tweet from a Twitter leaker guy that said, um, my favorite FIFA game heart, and then said, two K two oops, 2002 FIFA World Cup. Um, but yeah, what do you think that's a, that's a thing that's two K I'm looking at soccer game. You said there was a two, a two K two soccer game back in the day.
00:40:33
Speaker
No, it's just the leaker that was like making a little meme out of it. Gotcha. And my point was, that's what I was looking at right now was going back and you know, we've played two K games. We're, uh, we're, we're Sega kids, man. We had dreamcast and everything. We were playing two K when it was literally just two K. Um, there was no numbers after the K. Um, and, uh, I don't think they've ever made any sort of soccer game. So I don't know.
00:40:59
Speaker
Um, it'd be interesting. EA just has such a massive player base, right? So you'd have to get them over. Um, I mean, if it's called FIFA 2k 26 or whatever, people are like, oh, FIFA. It's possible. It's possible. I mean, EAFC is fine. People seem to not really care too much about the name, um, which I didn't think they would. Um, but.
00:41:29
Speaker
I don't know. I'm more, that excites me just because I think 2k could make a good game and they have made very good games in the past. Um, their NBA games are all very, very good when it comes to gameplay. It's just the other stuff. Like I really.
00:41:44
Speaker
It depends. Like, am I going to have to pay $8 to change my guys here? Like, I don't want to do this. Yes, you will. You know, you will be able to get your person to 83 overall pretty easily. But if you want to go any further, it'll either take you three years at real time.
00:42:04
Speaker
Or you can just buy $200 worth of VC. Yeah. Well, it's really the, whatever, I think they call it my team on NBA. So it's whatever their FIFA, my team would be instead of ultimate team. And like, how does that work in terms of, uh, pricing it? Cause that's really, that's where the EA.
00:42:26
Speaker
Brand makes their money on that game or they get their player base is the ultimate team. Right. So we'll see what they do with that. I don't know. It's interesting. I wonder how long that would mean. It would take him to get a game out. Quite some time, I would assume, unless they've been working on some, like I was sure something behind the scenes, but, um, all right. Well, any final thoughts on the Xbox stuff before
Final Thoughts: Game Pass Focus & Cross-Platform Integration
00:42:49
Speaker
we miss out? It's like, I know. It's more doubling down on game pass.
00:42:56
Speaker
Yeah, it was. That's what this podcast was for me. It's just like doubling down on stuff that we already knew. Like, did we need for Sarah Bond to come out and say, we're still committed to cross progression and cross gameplay? Like, okay. Were you gonna stop at some point? Like, that would have been the announcement. Like, games are coming to the game past day one. Like, yes. Does that mean at some point?
00:43:24
Speaker
or there's talks about that not happening. Hmm. I always feel like it was weird. It was just weird on the why. Like who made them do it? It was a, it was a double down on please invest in our ecosystem. We don't care if you buy an X box or not, but if that, even if that's the case, the only like,
00:43:48
Speaker
June, their big June conference, everyone watches. Casual people are going to find out and watch. Game awards, like everybody's going to watch that, even casual people. People that are watching an Xbox business event, 20 minute podcast, are just kind of like the hardcore Xbox gamers or the people that have seen all the news this week. They're like, oh, I want to watch this because I want to see if games are coming to PlayStation. It's not like the masses. This video is not going to have five million views tomorrow.
00:44:15
Speaker
So it's like, why are we, why, what was the point? It's the first big sit down, I think a conversation really since they acquired Blizzard Activision, right? So this was, I think just kind of in wake of us spending all that money, I just want you to let you know, our goals have not changed. Our plans have not changed.
00:44:33
Speaker
This is what we're going to keep doing. Right. So I don't know. I think Microsoft is in it now. I think they weren't in it. And now I think they are in it. So I think things could change drastically every year. Could be, could be, could be. You're here first. I have to go back to 508 Thursday, February 15th, if it happens. I called it.
00:44:55
Speaker
I like it. And I'm, I'm still crossing my fingers that Halo is one of these four games that comes over. I think it's going to be, I really do. That would break, that would break the internet as a whole. Oh, there he goes again. Andrew's just, I think, I think you thought you were doing that one. I don't know what I thought I was doing, but, um,
00:45:18
Speaker
I told somebody this the other day. I was like, if Halo Infinite came to PlayStation, I would play it a lot because...
00:45:28
Speaker
The gameplay itself is good. And now that they have the Halo 3 team essentially, the Master Chief collection team essentially that's working on Halo Infinite and most of the people that were in charge of making the decisions beginning of Halo Infinite are now gone because there are terrible decisions. The game is getting back to like a good place.
00:45:50
Speaker
Sure. As far as content and stuff goes, but it's too, too late for that. Now, like the players, not that they don't have players, but they don't like, no one's playing the game. Essentially, just people are, but there's people that are playing now have been playing since launch and never really quit. There's not a lot of new people coming in. Yeah. I'll say something. You'll disagree with me on though. I want it to come to PlayStation so I can play it with the superior controller. I mean, I'm down.
00:46:20
Speaker
I think it's a better controller. I think that this. I think that this.
00:46:29
Speaker
Was a better controller, but now my since I've had the PlayStation Pro controller and haven't really been playing anything on Xbox like at all besides power If I like I went back to play Halo with Angel Monroe like maybe two months ago Mm-hmm, and I was just like just within all my shots cuz I just hadn't played anything competitive with this controller and I was like I just needed PlayStation controller give me them haptic triggers, baby so man, I would love for a little infinite come because I
00:46:58
Speaker
All of us would be at least download it and play it again. So like part of the reason I just haven't played is because we don't have a group of people to play it with. Sure. And that would definitely change. And it would be really, really funny for hail infinite to blow up because it came to PlayStation. And then again, if that were to happen, I think Microsoft would be like, all right, let's put some more games over there.
00:47:18
Speaker
Well, currently Halo is one of the biggest first party withs from a Microsoft perspective in terms of expectation versus reality. And that would be one way to make it not a with at least.
00:47:29
Speaker
I just, I mean, as much as I want it to happen, I just can't, I can't see going on PlayStation, going to the PlayStation store and seeing Master Chief. And he's on the back of the box of the Series X. I don't know if he still is or not, but he was at launch. And then four years later for him to be on PlayStation. Oh, we don't talk about that. Okay. But fingers crossed. But even CSE, it's like,
00:47:55
Speaker
I'd be a good one. Like she said, a million times cross progression. So like all of our stuff, she just carries over to PlayStation. I have, I, we have a friend that the only thing that, only reason he has his X-Box is for Sea of Thieves. Yep. It's like it, it's all he plays. We, I, um, I played, um, Ubisoft's Skull and Bones played that last week, this past weekend for about an hour. And that was enough. Came of the year.
00:48:23
Speaker
It's not Sea of Thieves. It is not trying to be Sea of Thieves either, though. Like it's not. It's different. Way more actiony, way more like a lot of more fighting at sea and shooting cannons. Each other are like pretty consistently. Now Sea of Thieves has a a mode where there's no other PV like playerships. I mean, you get like half the loot or something like that, but you can at least now play without having to worry that a pro gamer is going to come and just like ruin your life. Mm hmm.
00:48:54
Speaker
Especially if you're playing solo. Yeah. All right. Well, we want to thank everybody for listening this week's podcast again. We may be trying to do some stream stuff, um, coming up. It'll happen. We record Thursdays around like five o'clock. So just stay tuned to our podcast and our socials. And if that happens, um, we will make a post and let everybody know. Um,
00:49:18
Speaker
So you can come in and help us get everything figured out. If there's a Nintendo Direct next week, we'll be doing a reaction. So I may just try and test that out next week for the reaction video. But that's going to do it for us here. We will be with you all again next Friday.