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Xbox Continues to Confuse | Firelink Podcast
2.2k Plays4 months ago
This week on Firelink, Marty, Nick, and KC discuss Xbox’s confusing changes to Game Pass.
Second Wind is fully independent, employee-owned and fan-funded. Consider supporting us on Patreon for as little as $1/month at patreon.com/SecondWindGroup
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Transcript
Introduction & Patreon Support
00:00:00
Speaker
This podcast is brought to you by us. Since Second Wind operates 100% independently, we rely on your support to help us continue delivering the great content you love. Consider checking out our Patreon if you want to access ad-free versions of every podcast, plus your name featured in our video credits, as well as other exclusive perks. So if you like what you see, hear, or smell, maybe, visit our Patreon page and become part of the community today. Now, back to the show.
Nintendo's M-rated Horror Game Teaser
00:00:33
Speaker
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Firelink Podcast, episode number 28 for Wednesday, July 10th, 2024. My name is Marty Saliva, as always, joined by Nick Colandra, Casey Woese, producer, Eric. We got no time for chitter chatters because it's a good show. We actually got newsies, newsies. Couple small newsies, including Nintendo stealth dropping a little teaser for what seems like a first party M-rated horror game. No one knows what this thing is. It's got a strange little bag man on it. So we're gonna try to unpack, we're gonna try to figure out what's going on. It could be very exciting, but it also could be very bad. So we're we're gonna let you know about those
Formation of New Palworld Entertainment
00:01:12
Speaker
things. And also in the realm of strange things, Palworld, remember Palworld?
00:01:18
Speaker
do Yeah, only 90s kids remember pal world because I feel like I forgot pal world existed but um ah The industry did not because there's a new pal world entertainment group that has formed with ah pocket pair Sony music entertainment and aniplex who you guys might know is a studio behind ah ah Demon Slayer and and another big anime like that. So what does that mean for the future of pal world? ah we'll We'll talk about that and then our our main story as you can see right here in the in the headline and whatnot ah Xbox just the the true Charlie Browns of the video game industry have a really strong, have they have a really strong conference. Well, first they have a really bad, ah we're laying a bunch of people off and shuttering a bunch of studios you love. Then they have a pretty good conference. And then they follow it up with, by the way, we are ah kind of ah destroying Game Pass in front of your eyes, but don't worry about it. We have plans. So breaking down the the big Xbox Game Pass shakeup,
00:02:12
Speaker
And what that means going forward for for Xbox and also for sort of subscription services like this.
4th of July Experiences
00:02:20
Speaker
ah And then of course, stuff we've been playing and watching. How are you guys? We did it. We got the Wednesday. Nice. Well done. The week is over. and ah like and turned my head mostly both the way congratulations look at that congratulations mobility is returning after your mid technically is that was a work a workplace industry tell tell uh tell kc how that meeting went because that was pretty funny
00:02:44
Speaker
I mean, we were, we brought up, we had one final thing to talk about and it was going to be the most contentious thing of the meeting. And the second Jack started talking about it, Nick goes, and I thought he faked an injury, which, to be which like, honestly, strong play. It was like faking an industry and injury in a meeting to sure have to get out of the meeting. yeah Or gain sympathy, like, well, I'm going to side with Nick on this one because he's hurt. But no, he's he's old and we're all getting older and these pains happen. Every time Nick makes a joke about us being old and him being young, remember the pain you felt. Remember, that's all that's that's all of your left going forward. There are a couple of ailments we can point out to prove that Nick is older than us in spirit and body.
00:03:27
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the entirerrhea
Xbox Game Pass Tiers & Pricing
00:03:29
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that that awesome how was half of this call talking about big old
00:03:36
Speaker
guess one was foreheadhand but spoilers wasn't being casey so ever throwing you the bus here throw a pizza is great um How are you doing Casey I'm doing great. I want to ask how you guys is 4th of July went because It kind of screwed up my week like Same. Yeah, like we didn't. It's kind of our link. It felt like the week should be over. Yeah, it's like Thursday's done. The week should be over. But then I guess we have to go back to work on Friday and still do some shit. Yeah, I don't know. like It feels like that's two weeks ago, but it was only last week. And so like I haven't talked like none of us, I think, have mentioned what our Fourth of July plans were since then. So I'm not a little curious if you guys went and did anything.
00:04:24
Speaker
Not this year. I hung out with some friends on Saturday, but it wasn't for 4th of July stuff, but there were fireworks going on everywhere. It was just every night for like seven days straight. There was just fireworks everywhere. I guess 30 days a year to 4th of July. Cause some people did it the week beforehand and some people did the week after and celebrated earlier and earlier. Sure. Yeah. Right. I don't. As an adult, I don't get the Fourth of July anymore. As a kid, I used to like fireworks and parades. And then in college, it would just be an excuse to get drunk outside.
00:04:58
Speaker
Like sure you you can day drink and no one can judge you except for all the people judging you. But now as like an adult, I'm like, what what are we doing here? It's just a free day, which is always something to celebrate. Right. That is true. Every month needs a few free days. Yeah. They're very helpful. And the fact that ah when they like just lean ever so close to the weekend, a lot of companies and people will just be like, all right, we'll just take the whole rest of the week off then. So we don't have to worry about this. So like that. I technically didn't do that. But since everybody else did, I didn't have to do anything ah throughout the week. And I still got, you know, my normal pay. So great. Awesome. You let your son shoot a fireworks yet. um We did that a couple of years ago, like like the like the ground ones, because fireworks, like even the ones that shoot in the air are legal in my state. And so people take full advantage of that nonsense. Oh, yeah. And it it's it's a little scary sometimes because you'd be like, is that a gunshot? No, fireworks.
00:05:54
Speaker
um The legal thing is so silly because in the Midwest, at least Wisconsin, Illinois, have pretty strict fireworks laws, but Indiana does not. And Indiana's like just across the border from Chicago. And so people and you could just drive for 20 minutes and be like, all right, I could buy enough to go to war. and again It's perfectly legal. if i If I recall, I think
Pasta Preferences & Humor
00:06:14
Speaker
at least in Nebraska and other states in the Midwest, and there's not even like laws around like what kind of fireworks. I just can't pass a certain TNT level or whatever.
00:06:28
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Like they, they, you know, level of fireworks should be zero. Cause that's dynamite's what Miners used to blow up mountains. literally There were literally people in my old neighborhood that were like throwing dynamite in the sewer and you would is here. Boom. What the fuck was that? It's like, I mean, that doesn't sound like anything to do with fourth July. That just sounds like terrorist activity. And Nick's neighbor was Timothy McVeigh, the unibomber. No, not the unibomber. Don't call him a city bobber. wrong bomb
00:06:58
Speaker
They're too many bombers, you know, who the worst one is Bob man One of the best ones He bombs for good Hatred we should celebrate him on the 4th of July Mouse catcher as where was this Nebraska? Yeah, it was in Nebraska Oh, I got some good Nebraska stories coming up. And let me tell you, spoilers. It was from the film Twister. It was from the film Twister. Yeah, driven through Nebraska on many occasions. Yeah. No, it's from the film ah Twister. And now that I think about it, it might have been Oklahoma, so I don't think I have any Nebraska stories. Before we get started, Frost is Twitch somewhere. I don't think. i Does anyone care if you could get their states mixed up? I don't care if you get my states mixed up. You call me Minnesota, Michigan, fucking Florida. I don't care.
00:07:47
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um me florida Yeah, don't understand geography but yeah's ah that's a rough one. And they're both peninsulas. They are both peninsulas. That's true. well Little penis dying on off there into the Caribbean. Peninsulas. Peninsulas? That was really good. I'm going to write it down in my diary. neck My neck hurts a little. In case you did a great goof and then Nick was in pain.
Game Pass Value Debate
00:08:07
Speaker
Before we get started with our main news stories We just want to let you guys know first off of course ah this show and the rest of everything you love at second wind is ah Funded so much by your generous patronage over on patreon your super chats your don't knows your your merch purchases with more more on March coming very soon and ah That helps fund new projects like the rewind which is our fourth
00:08:33
Speaker
podcast, which launched yesterday. So every other week at noon central on Tuesdays, some combination of myself, but Darren, Jack, and soon to be just a lot of other people, because I'm not going to be here for the second episode, are going to gather just to talk about movies and entertainment and anime. And i yesterday I kept wanting to talk about quibbies, but no one else wanted to talk about quibbies, which was kind of a bummer. It's dead. let Leave it alone. You know, we talked about like that George Washington. We talked about him. He passed away. do we I mean we can. When was the last time George Washington was brought up? Uh, Hamilton. Was he in Hamilton? Yeah, he's had to have been in Hamilton. I... Was he in Hamilton? My name is Washington. I drink the... I sauced him.
00:09:18
Speaker
ah tackleton ah So check out that first episode and we we appreciate you tuning in to all of our stuff, including PrettyDude with a $5 donor right off the bat. Thank you so much, PrettyDude. A company that trained its base to not buy games now expects them to buy games. It's a bold strategy. Cotton, let's see if it pays off. Spoilers, it won't. ah We're going to get there in a little bit and I feel similar.
Nintendo Teaser Speculations
00:09:43
Speaker
As a big fan of Game Pass and as as someone, ah Game Pass to me is like Movie Pass and we'll talk about why. We talked about Movie Pass yesterday earlier and let me tell you, I don't like that they're very similar. um But the first news story, there isn't a whole lot to chew on here, but this is the Nintendo thing I was talking about. I'm linking a VGC article.
00:10:00
Speaker
um So Nintendo just on their main channels this morning just released this little like 15 second teaser ah with the hashtag who is M E O E M I O. This thing doesn't have a name. We don't know what this is, but it features a scary kind of a spooky bag man. He reminded me of like a full size
Impact of Game Pass Tiers on Accessibility
00:10:17
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little nightmare. Uh, I don't think, I don't think this is like large, large nightmares, regular nightmare. Um, but it was on the Nintendo official channel. So everyone assumes like this is, and it was on no other channels. Everyone assumes this is a first or second party or Nintendo published, uh,
00:10:36
Speaker
Project and it has an M rating, but this is literally all we know about it And so people are like why didn't they talk about this like two weeks ago when they had their right? Yeah, they just had that yeah, um is this something for switch is this something for these? Next console is this a thing that's gonna be on other places and just happened to bid debut here um and two different avenues one for the well first off like Nintendo doesn't really have like a big M rated scary thing. Like they they dabbled a little bit in like the GameCube era with your with your eternal darknesses and your geists and whatnot. um But you know, since especially since the Wii, Wii U and now on the Switch, most of their first party stuff is is family friendly or sort of like
00:11:19
Speaker
young adult adventure themed, like, you know, Tears of the Kingdom isn't that mature of a story, like any anyone can play their games. ah So that feels a little bit different from from the rest of their oeuvre. But then also, there's there's two different paths here. One was that people dug into a little bit and a while ago, Bloober Team said that they are working on an exclusive Switch game. And so everyone was me like, a fucking hell, this is Bloober Team, you've done it to us again. How do you keep can't keep getting away with this Bloober Team? ah But then another insider said it's not the Bloober team game, but then...
00:11:52
Speaker
A lot of folks would shop.
00:11:57
Speaker
But this is why I'm convincing myself until I immediately get disappointed when they announce it's the Blooper Team game, ah is that a ton of Team Silent, like the Silent Hill team, including the director of Silent Hill 2, now works at Goodfeel, which is the Nintendo owned company that makes like Yoshi's Crafted World and most recently made ah Princess Peach Showtime star Star Spangled Adventure a few months ago. Like, the original Silent Hill DNA is at that studio, so I have convinced myself that not that we have two separate games in the works from OG Silent Hill people, and it's Slitterhead and it's Baghead, and I'm ready for both of them. I i like that conspiracy theory.
00:12:39
Speaker
Because it would mean that ah that studio where they were saddled with the stuff like the Yoshi game and the princess Peach game But we're like maybe working on this on the side and I got to a point where they were like hey Nintendo bosses look at this. Can we do anything with this? It was like shit. That's actually pretty good. Yeah, well fine fine it final point so he actually finished it Because it does not take very long to make this Peach game We actually, we crank that out like half a year and we spent the rest of the time working on scary back there. Like they're desperately trying to find their way out of having to make more peach games. I feel like, I feel like Nintendo never puts out cryptic teasers like this. So it's gotta be something kind of big for them.
00:13:16
Speaker
agreed yeah the one the one cryptic nature of nitendo is they never say who's working on a game like literally all of these like leading up to the brothership mario and luigi game we're all going to be like wonder who's developing this like we'll find out when the credits were all um and so people are like they're doing that because of bluber routine and I'm No, they've been doing that for fucking ever. Like, it's not just because Bloober Team. Also, Nintendo doesn't even know. Nintendo doesn't know what people on the Internet get mad at. Like, Nintendo doesn't know that people don't like Bloober Team. They probably think that Bloober Team is, like, in reference to Bloober, the squid from Mario, and they're like, thank you for honoring our Bloober, who might be named Bloober. I'm not sure what his name is. I didn't i didn't know he had a name, I'll be honest. but You know the squid man. I do not know that squid. waters I do not know his name, though.
00:14:03
Speaker
Yeah, I know. I know. I know like Bloober team has become kind of a meme, but I feel like none of the people have even played their games to be that mad at them. Yeah, I would. I would say the majority probably don't know who blueber is I many people. I know not that many people play layers of fear. Observer was pretty well liked. Observer is pretty good and the medium. medium I mean, they advertise it as a Silent Hill like and it was nothing like it. So, no, it felt like a like, oh, yeah, no, this is a Silent Hill like from someone who didn't really understand Silent Hill, which is like, that's fine. And then when they're like, we're doing Silent Hill, too. And now they're doing Silent Hill. So, yeah, no, yeah your it's not. It's liberty because it's a meme and not because they actually
Xbox's Game Pass Strategy & Challenges
00:14:45
Speaker
don't understand it this time. we were tooske Yeah. Yeah. you know Well, that's the that's the worst part is like, if the game isn't good, oh, man, we we made the meme true shit. You know what?
00:14:54
Speaker
They are a Polish developer, and as I always say, Poland, number one food in the world. You could quote me on that. That's a lie. You're on video refuting that exact statement. You could. You know what? Depending on the day you catch me, I still say I'm like the the spoilers. I'm like the guy in the prestige and I'm twins. You don't know which one of me is on stream any day. don I don't know who who said it the last week when we were talking about like ah how I got back into games and media with Daniel Dwyer being out in Poland, somebody in the in the discord was like, oh, that's the reason the second one exists. Take that, Marty.
00:15:27
Speaker
It was probably Tommy Salty, Urbanum. Of course, thanks to the Garden, because those are the three people I funded with my comments, and I apologize to all of them. I'm going to admit, Polish Seppuku, which is stabbing myself in the belly with a big old sausage link. Ren Momo with a $15 dono, thank you so much. I paint miniatures, and now I feel a lot more kinship with the core gaming audience than I have before, as every year the cost of minis go up. 10 space brains for $60. 10 dudes or Elden Ring. Hobbies are expensive. Hobbies are expensive. ah These are really- Constantly ten dudes. It's kinda cheap.
00:16:01
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, what we do is it's like, what kinds of just like regular as action figures have gone up? Like I used to, as a kid, I had like a bunch of X-Men toys, the Star Wars toys and stuff, and they weren't like crazy expensive. It was like a couple of dollars a toy. I could get one, you know, a couple for my birthday or something.
Consumer Habits & Game Pass Appeal
00:16:15
Speaker
And I would just walk through Target the other day and it's like, just a regular action figure is like $20. What are we doing? How are you going to build a roster of dudes to fight each other on the floor? That's real and that's the real inflation everybody's mad about. Not food, the action figures. I mean, games are also... Action figure markets and shambles. Like i yeah I see old ads from like Toys R Us and KB Toys that it's like Ultimate World Combat Free 3 for the Super Nintendo 8599. Like that's some that's some crazy shit going on. They were kind of wilding back then. That's what's going on. They probably they probably cost so much less because they probably use lead paint on all of them. Well, it was one of our game culture. Nintendo games were expensive because there was the cartridges, right? Like they probably let those here. They had to do it out all the time.
00:16:58
Speaker
You were just blown the you just you were just absorbing light air every time you got a love off in the lead but that hu ah Exactly speaking of huffing the lead ah the other news story ah The pal verse we're entering the pal verse now and there's nothing we can do about it. um So in a tweet lace last night ah the pocket pair the developer of pal world released a statement saying The Pocket Pair is excited to announce a joint venture with Sony Music Entertainment Japan and Aniplex to establish Palworld Entertainment with the purpose of accelerating the multi-faceted global development of Palworld and its further expansions. um The first response I saw, which was pretty funny, was that, so the partnering with Sony, but this game's not out on PlayStation yet. ah Sony Music Entertainment in Japan is like a big company that isn't just music, like they literally own Aniplex, I believe, so. um
00:17:51
Speaker
My two thoughts is maybe this is an inroad for that game to come out on PlayStation, because it's still, I mean, I'm imagining Xbox just signed to whatever exclusivity agreement probably. Yeah, it's probably coming as soon as it can. Yeah, yeah. um But then ah my other immediate thought is like, oh, with Aniplex, like, they're going to try to turn this into an anime, which at that point, I'm like, man, what is it like? This is just all about, are you going to make like a Power World card game as well? What do we what are we doing here? yeah like This wouldn't be the first time that a Pokémon copycat worked. They're not treading like unfamiliar, like terrible territory. like There's a good chance that if they make something that's even a little bit interesting in this vein, that they can strike a little bit of gold. like Maybe not Pokémon levels, but like you can make a lot of money copying this formula.
00:18:41
Speaker
ah world is the only one of these as of today, that's that has this kind of buzz, even though the game itself has kind of faltered a bit, like there's still like a bunch of people playing it. um And it does have name recognition based on all the other people who tried it. And they, you know, have let it go by the wayside. If you see like in a 2026, 2027 anime real stuff coming, dropping the spring, the power world anime with all the same silly shenanigans of like Pokemon looking things, but like crazy anime sword fights and gun fights and shit. yeah I'm going to watch that. like I'm not going to ignore it completely. So i I think this is actually a good idea. It's a good pivot because if it's just stayed a game, I think a lot of the wind has gone out of those sails. So like you might as well try and ship the ship this in like other directions.
00:19:27
Speaker
Yeah, and I feel like they could have, they could have easily just announced a quick cash grab anime with someone who's like, we could turn this around by the fall. Like this was a hit January and we can turn around a season of this on Crunchyroll by the fall. But the fact that they're partnering with someone, this is probably going to take a while again. this is not something we're going to see this year. We're not going to see the fruits of this this year. So I think it does show some foresight that they think they're in it for the long haul. And like you said, Casey, like, you know, Pokemon helped ah you know
Regional Tangents & Aging Analogies
00:19:59
Speaker
breed a generation of similar multimedia ah properties, you know, whether it was like Digimon making the move from ah the little pocket games or whatever to to full on multimedia thing, ah you know, leading into Yu-Gi-Oh and the name of stuff like Yo-Kai Watch ah further on down the road. So um
00:20:16
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know it's it's I just don't it just For as big it always amazes me for as big as something like How world was how it just feels like it hasn't left any? Lingering cultural footprint and maybe that's just because we have to cover the next big thing every fucking day but um it just doesn't feel like it really ever escaped the bubble of that moment in the way that we still kind of talk about like hell divers and stuff and you still hear people talk about Bellatro a little bit like as like the early hits of this year and I just don't hear anyone mention pal world like is this still being updated like is there
00:20:53
Speaker
Yeah, they just did a whole new map. I think they're adding new pals in it, too. Either it's coming soon or it came recently. yeah Well, they've they've continually added new pals to it. But yeah, I think it's more. This game is just outside of our audience for the most part, which is. and Honestly, if I go to the Steam Top 10 list, it's most games outside of my is and most of those games are outside of my. Yeah, so I think it's probably had more of an impact than we realize. We just don't focus. Yeah, no, I think that's a good point. um Yeah, it was hard. to It was impossible to ignore when it first landed because it was everywhere. And then once it just settled down to its normal player base, which is massive, like most games would kill to have that normal player base. It just became a thing that you don't really think about. The engine keeps moving.
00:21:42
Speaker
yeah um A lot of these survival crafting games, sleep they start huge and then they whittle down to their core, very hardcore audience that spend years playing these games. That's why they love them. I literally cannot fathom playing a game for years. I'm back on scene. I'm not playing it continually. It's so, it's so different. It's so rude of you to even bring that up. It's just an entire like she just add the show now and see yeah you black mother you just caught him with his sp completely so rude go back. Talk about 4th of July.
00:22:30
Speaker
I didn't even get to say what I went and did. We just skipped it. Oh, we did kind of just get it. He hurt yourself. No, I didn't say it on the podcast. I didn't even go on to life after that. No, I went to a rooftop and swam in a pool, drink beer with the pool. Yeah. Nice. Barbecue food. And then watch the barbecues. No, but somebody jumped an egg
Game Pass Transformation & Consumer Reluctance
00:22:53
Speaker
roll at the pool. Uh, is a little ah maybe, I don't know. if thought was but And then i we watched the fireworks from like a 360 degree view up on top of the skyscrapers. That was cool. Because the Midwest is flat. You can see everything. This is where your super chat money's going to everyone. Go to Midwest fireworks. I didn't buy the fireworks. Uh, you not to. You should've just brought a handgun.
00:23:21
Speaker
Like I got my real fireworks right here. I mean, I'm sure there. Yeah. Every fourth of July, there are lots of people in Missouri that just like to shoot their guns in the air, which is not good. But, you know, where the bullets go, they go to space or they come down. Well, they come down. All right. I'm just wondering. I'm just I'm just out here asking questions.
00:23:40
Speaker
The only one brave enough just to ask the questions. Uh, a couple of super chats before we move on to, um, Oh, also, yeah. And then people were asking, you hurt yourself on a golf course. No, you think you, you might've originally tweaked. astro range right Yeah. Let me explain this one because this is going to make people. You look at me differently. So I was I was we were at like a ah top golf equivalent, which you haven't been there. It's a driving range, but like there's rings out in the field to like basically score the balls, ah depending on where you hit them, which also that technology is kind of crazy that it can track.
00:24:14
Speaker
a ball
Xbox Market Positioning
00:24:15
Speaker
from wherever you're hitting it from and just know where it goes. Mostly knows where it goes. It definitely like stole a lot of points from me when I was doing OK. But anyways, it definitely was your fault. was shooting Yeah. Yeah. so So like I'm a hockey player. I shoot lefty. But golf, I do right. And I don't it doesn't make sense to me. I don't know why. ah So anyways, I was just not having a good wifepe with. Both. What? I just wanted to see your reaction. No, isn't that like your dominant hand you wipe with? Yeah, right. There you go. TMI. I could have been vulgar and talked about cranking, but I didn't. I talked about wiping. Thank you, everyone. I don't have any of these questions to be fair.
00:25:02
Speaker
But I was, someone who's too afraid to admit what a hand they wipe with I was, was swing and swinging, swinging golf the correct way with two hands and I wouldn't hit shit. I was just spiking and all this crap. So I was like, whatever. I looked at, I looked back at my roommate and I'm like, I'm just going to try this. And I, I started one handing it and I fucking was. hitting that ball 140 yards, just one hand swinging, which made no sense to anybody around. I was literally yeah like Donkey Kong. So, you know, the fact that this shoulder is fucked up, my neck is fucked up, probably had something to do with me one handing golf balls.
00:25:41
Speaker
ah You know what? It's a good, it's a good theory. i am yeah i use sell this suspicious myself this me Yeah, I use my journalism detective skills to figure that one out. You should have used that beforehand and realized it was a bad idea not to do it. It's just a bad idea to go golfing in general. You know what? That's true. Top golf is fun though. Top golf, Montreal sticks. Think about that. A place is an activity is only as good as its appetizers. And that's true. That's the place that I go to has very good mozzarella sticks. See, what's that place? It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true.
00:26:22
Speaker
if i way way to donates two dollars as nick andert himself one- handing his ball no it just we jumped super chat you know it feels bad right now It's true. I apologize to so orange kitty zoe and ju We're sorry. I'm sorry. Nick's also sorry. He just laughed like fucking beat us. I'm sorry. You were out with that two euro don't know. Thank you so much. This podcast is my comfort food. Here is some money. And I think it was like a turnip and ah in a little fart.
00:26:58
Speaker
that's ah That's a peach emoji, which solidifies that. That is indeed a fart. That is indeed a fart. I thought it was a turnip. I don't know my produce. um And Zoe, thank you so much for a $5 donut. I've been a hot minute since I caught one of these live. Have some change for the Prime Trilogy Fund. Thanks for the entertainment. Thank you so much. Thank you. As you see, our current funding goal is, listen, I just said, as we see, I'm assuming it's in the corner. Eric knows he's calling on. It's probably in the corner. Yeah. Our next funding goal is Casey and I jamming through the Metroid Prime games after we finished Devil May Cry, which I believe tomorrow we're doing the DMC DLC. Yes. What a great line. That's good. That's a sequence of letters. Using it in the headline.
00:27:40
Speaker
Uh, and then afterwards that might cry five. And then after that we'll be going on to Metroid. So thank you so much for those, uh, donos as well as orange kitty. Been a member for two for six months, the $2 dono. What's your guys' favorite pasta slash sauce? Pasta slash sauce. Huh? Like I guess what's your favorite type noodle? What did you say? Regular? and No, no, no. No, it was like good. You answered it. I was wondering if they were asking about specific like noodle types. I'm assuming a noodle and a sauce. It's not combined. You make it a lasagna, is that what you said? No, no. and Well, no. I just, damn it. Uh, like linguine the best with a vodka sauce.
00:28:26
Speaker
Remind me what linguine is. it's It's like a kind of spaghetti, right? It's like a thicker spaghetti, but not too thin spaghetti. It's like the perfect- Like flat spaghetti? a little yeah A little flatter and a little wider than spaghetti. Chode spaghetti. Chode. No, no, no. There's more chode. There's more chode like noodles. There's definitely more chode like noodles. yeah In case you can't tell my favorite noodle is it spaghetti. spaghetti yeah zaagheti There's a reason real so here a tomato sauce, best sauce.
00:29:00
Speaker
People yesterday were talking about putting ketchup on their spaghetti. Why? Why would you do that? ah and understand know Are they here? don't you A couple of people are in chat and I don't want to call them out by name, but fungus finder was one of them. Fucking freak, but freak a deek. I don't know what's going on over there. That's keep going on over just go wild. That's wild. That's your ad on Twitter. Fungus finder. Let me get after you. Yeah, that's real, just real crazy. Um, There you go. Angel hair is really good too, Shawna Harriman. I like my noodles real thin. I like a noodle so thin, you can't even see it.
00:29:34
Speaker
You just have to like assume it exists. You just inhale it like, like with a gas mask. like like go phone inside it Was it not you? Sorry, man. I really threw you out of the bus there and it wasn't you. You in that conversations but you take you took some shrapnel there. My my apologies. ah and my My new thing was with the spaghetti is from MasterChef and mixing with creme fraiche zucchini and Italian chicken. You got chickens in Italy? They do import them from where to the auditorium from ah Kentucky. I don't know. Did want to fry them? They've reverse engineered those Kentucky chickens. Shout out to KFC. Do you see how everyone knows their spices now? They don't have any secrets anymore.
00:30:24
Speaker
See if there's anything to me. See if there's anything to me. See if there's anything to me. See if there's anything to me. See if there's anything to me. See if there's anything to me. See if there's anything to me. See if there's anything to me. See if there's anything to me. See if there's anything to me. See if there's anything to me. See if there's anything to me. See if there's anything to me. See if there's anything to me. See if there's
Game Pass vs. Streaming Services
00:30:31
Speaker
anything to me. See if there's anything to me. See if there's anything to me. See if there's anything to me. See if there's anything to me. See if there's anything to me. See if there's anything to me. See if there's anything to me. See if there's anything to me. See if there's anything to me. See if there's anything to me. See if there's anything to me. See if there's anything to me. See if there's anything The rest of it, we'll see. I don't know. I trust Steve Iserman to do the right thing. to me. None of you know the names I'm talking about. I know Steve Iserman. Iserman used to be the player, right? Vladimir, yeah, he's that president. Yeah, Russia. He's a shirtless dude with a bunch of muscles. As a horse, if I ever got hired as a journalist, me bringing up hockey is like when you bring up your rap beefs.
00:31:13
Speaker
I mean, I guess, but only the thing I was talking about was like one of the biggest things in entertainment media at the time, but, you know, go off. these well Yeah. You know, you got me there. I said, hockey, hockey, got a huge draft in the orb. Hendrick didn't go to the orb yet. Yet. Yet. Not yet. He'll make it. Who's more likely. Hendrick or hedrickk or ah Drake? I feel like Drake is more likely to, or by yeah, judgment i'll be ready first it was two weeks ago. They did the draft there. He's he's yeah he's retired. He's the coach or he's the, he's the general manager of the revolution at the draft then he's part of an institution that has orb access. So he's good. Yeah. Yeah. He's orb adjacent.
00:32:00
Speaker
Uh, hold on. Eric's asking the real questions. Why is the red wings, a logo with tire with the wings? Because Detroit is motor city. The motor city. Yeah. I don't know where the wings came from. I'm assuming they're in the name. Like that's
00:32:22
Speaker
I don't know what it represents. Red Wings. Is it a bird? Is it a red wing? A bird? Oh, I don't know, actually. I'm curious why there are two MLB teams that are named after socks. Red socks and white socks. Yeah. What's that about? someone who's taken one The white socks were caught cheating. It was called the black sock scandal. that's but Is that clever? I don't think that's clever. It was clever in like the early 1900s. It was clever at a real low bar. Shakespeare, there was a little blip when Shakespeare was alive in cleverness and then it was like a real, they had a real low point for clever. And so Black Sox probably blew everyone's mind as they were getting shipped off to World War I.
00:33:05
Speaker
ah We got to talk about Game Pass now. No one can bring up anything else. We have to talk about Game Pass. So our main topic is, like we mentioned, a big ah big shake up at Xbox ah when it comes to ah Game Pass. So they are there's there's like a lot of different things. So now there are Four different, and this is coming on the heels, obviously, of the ah Activision acquisition, which yeah they've said Call of Duty is coming to Game Pass, and that is huge. like That is arguably the most selling biggest selling game of the year, probably, is going to launch on Game Pass, and so everyone assumed, ooh, you're definitely gonna be raising in the price of this thing.
00:33:43
Speaker
And ah not only are they doing that, but they're also creating ah different tiers of it. I'm going to share a ah tweet with y'all. So I have that Verge article that breaks it down and then a globe reel. Man, his name is hard to say, you're right. I had a nice little breakdown of the various tiers. So there are now four tiers of Game Pass. There's a Game Pass Core, Game Pass Standard, Game Pass Ultimate, and then over here is PC Game Pass, um which is, it's weird, a little different thing. And they are now splitting up like Core is ostensibly Xbox Live Gold. Right. First off, core standard core having things called Core and Standard, those are synonyms.
00:34:26
Speaker
That is some Starbucks naming shit like core and standard are Senate. Those are both, those both represent the same thing. Yeah, they do. Yeah. They back themselves into a corner yet here. Yes. Yeah. A corner. And so if you have Xbox game pass core, which is $10 going to be $10 a month, you are going to be able to play online. Uh, you will be able to, there's, there's a small catalog of like, that games that you can play like 25 games ah just in terms of like free games and then some discounts but then for standard which is $15 a month you get all those things ah plus the game pass catalog but that is not going to include the day one first party games anymore in order to get a one for party games you are going to need to be a subscriber to either game pass ultimate which is $20 a month or the PC Game Pass, which is $12 a month. And those will still get you your day one first party Xbox game. So that's where you're going to get Call of Duty and Indiana Jones, and you're going to get your gears and yourself at midnight and all those games we saw. However, if you are already grandfathered in to the regular game pass, I believe you are fine. And you you like, you do not for like the length of your service. I think it's like, is it forever?
00:35:43
Speaker
i don't know It is very confusing and I think that is a feature not a bug because in my mind this feels like Xbox quietly admitting that Game Pass did not go the way they hoped. They they they kind of reached out for short term success and in doing so harmed themselves long term. And I think they've kind of devalued the idea of what of what ownership of an Xbox game means. I was going to say, I have not bought a first party Xbox game since Game Pass, since they started doing this. But you've been an ultimate subscriber since then. Yeah. Okay. I want to do a quick comparison here. So what was but was Xbox core? All right. Xbox core. How much is that per month? 10.
00:36:36
Speaker
OK, and Xbox standard 15 and the ultimate 20. OK, so PS is plus essential 10 PS plus extra 15 PS plus premium $18 a month. You don't get first party day one games with any of those. Well, Sony doesn't make first party games anymore. Yes. All right. So I think I think, yeah, knowing knowing that putting those side by side, I feel like the reaction might be a little overreactive ah to the pricing changes of this because like you're paying two dollars more for Xbox and you do get their first party exclusives but
00:37:17
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. i You know, I can see ah people are always upset when this price increases. Obviously, we're in a different ah different space or, you know, we have access to these things and all that. We need it for our jobs. So different. But I don't know. I I'm surprised they didn't do this sooner. And I think people were saying kind of at the even at the very beginning of Game Pass, like putting day one exclusives was probably a bad idea. You know, it's really good for the consumer. It was a short-term win for a long-term loss in my opinion. It felt like down on the rewind this week, we talked about MoviePass, which was a thing ah seven or eight years ago or so where you would pay a very small amount a month. And I think at first signing up, it was $10 a month and you got this credit card and the credit card, you could just keep swiping turn at movie theaters. You could just keep going to movies.
00:38:09
Speaker
And I was living in San Francisco at the time and movies like an IMAX at night on the weekends would be like $24. And for that $10 a month, this thing just had no bottom. It was insane. And it was one of those things where I kept telling people to sign up for it. And they're like, is it a scam? And I'm like, at this moment, it is not a scam, but it is built on a house of cards that is going to tumble quickly. So get in now and get out when I tell you. And it was great. It was like the closest I felt to committing like a Rico crime. It was it was. one of the most exciting things, but I saw the writing on the wall. I was like, this is never going to last. Is it sustainable, right? No. And i I
Activision Integration & Consumer Retention
00:38:45
Speaker
feel the same way with Game Pass of this is almost too good to be true in terms of the value for the consumer, but it is also sort of in the same way that I think a lot of streaming services, Netflix and and HBO Max and Hulu and everything, it's kind of devaluing
00:39:02
Speaker
The cost is devaluing art. Like the the Xbox mentality is now I'll get it when it comes to game pass, I feel like. Whereas like the the Sony or the Nintendo mindset is like, oh, the new game is here. This is exciting. We're all going to get around and play that. I just. it's kind of funny when you just because you bring that up it's kind of funny thinking back to the use game conversation and how everybody's worried about losing money yeah yeah and then we're like let's just give them to free given the free their strip subscription service but just thought about guys when would kind circle I feel a little differently. Like guess this has gotten very muddy.
00:39:41
Speaker
But um even with the price increase, and again, we all expected this after the acquisition because they were going to be putting a lot more stuff into that catalog. We expected the price increase. I think it is still of great value to the consumer. And I'm i'm more surprised that based on all of this sort of ah panicking, it seems like, from it from them internally, that they're sticking with it. They're not saying, all right, it was a failure. We're gonna go back to a different model. They're like, no, this is still Game Pass. We're just gonna shake up this, that, and the The worst of this, honestly, is the fact that standard, which is if you were just a console player and you wanted Game Pass for your console,
00:40:18
Speaker
They see that seems to force you into ultimate to get the day one thing which it feels like you should have access to that if you just own a console and don't want. you know the pc stuff or the ah you know, the extracurriculars like the cloud gaming and the the EA access. Yeah, like that seems weird. But otherwise, all of these other splinter things were to serve a purpose like PC players felt left out. So like, all right, here's one for you. And then people who were like, Hey, I actually don't want this catalog. I just want to be able to play online. All right, here's one for you. So like, these were reactions to people that
00:40:51
Speaker
This is what the people wanted, right? let's that Those particular things weren't Xbox's idea. Xbox's original idea, which I still think is probably the best one, was to have literally everything in that catalog and everyone who was playing video games is signed up. Like if you are if you own an Xbox or if you want to play any of these games, you pay a monthly subscription and you just get all of them. If ah if that had worked, I don't think we'd have this issue where we're wondering how much money they're they're losing. But like Marty was saying, with the movie pass thing, it sounds like a scam. And there are a lot of people who are just fully anti Xbox just based on principle. And so they don't want to interact with this.
00:41:29
Speaker
They're like, I'm just going to keep doing things the old way rather than jump into this new thing, which would have given Microsoft, I think the numbers to make it make sense for them because they just yeah really just needed a huge subscriber base, which is what Netflix had until everyone else decided to try and jump in their pool and muddy their waters. So the this this sort of thing works. The problem is when everyone else gets involved or when not enough problems when all the other companies get involved and not when enough consumers get involved, because when you have the best deal, everyone should benefit from that. The fact that people are sitting on the sidelines and I know I'm going to keep paying the premium because of whatever, then it makes that great deal kind of worthless. Yeah, i I'm I'm
00:42:13
Speaker
I don't have two minds of it because like I'm still thinking back to my unpacked video I did a few weeks ago where like how many people that play a Call of Duty are actually going to sign up for Game Pass? Because I feel like Xbox is banking hard on that, that a lot of people are going to sign up to Game Pass for Call of Duty.
New Game Pass Additions
00:42:28
Speaker
But as I said in that video, like people that play Call of Duty play Call of Duty and the sports games. And that's really about it for the entire year. Like why sign up for one hundred and sixty dollar or three? What is it for a year? 20 times 12 to 40, 40. Yeah. Brain farting, uh, to 40 a year for a subscription service where you play three games a year. I don't know. I don't already own that counts. If I own a PlayStation and it's like, Hey, you could buy Call of Duty for $70 or you could buy a $400 Xbox and then pay $20 a month to get Call of Duty for free. You'd be like, well, I'm just going to pay $70 for Call of Duty and then not worry about any of that. Or if you're a PC, you know, yeah. my
00:43:10
Speaker
What I think they're hoping on is get people in with Call of Duty and then introduce them to all these other games through the subscription service. Like it's Call of Duty is going to be the first real big, I mean, aside from Minecraft is going to be the first like really big mainstream game on the service. That's not, you know, a niche, more niche exclusive or whatever like that. I mean, the the wild thing is, well, first off, I UPU with a $2 demo. Thank you so much. It's still a good deal, but I bounce on and off Game Pass, which is also another thing that I know a lot of people with streaming services do. I know like Frost was even talking about Apple. He's like waiting for that Apple time where he's like, okay, I'm going to take a week off and then I'm just going to subscribe to Apple TV plus. And I have like my list of like seasons of stuff and then I'm going to go hog wild. So that is definitely like one of the
00:43:55
Speaker
One of the ways to get around the idea of like a you know, it's not like a phone contract where you have to sign up for a few years Like you're you're good. You're solid Microsoft's like they have the games now which is funny and we saw at their conference like not and it's not just like their future lineup looks great which you know a lot of cool stuff at their conference, but like currently so NPD came out which is the the monthly chart for um the best-selling games of ah of each month. And this was last month's. This is an interesting chart. If you go to it, I put the link in ah the the YouTube chat because the number one, the best selling game of last month was Ghost of Tsushima on PC, which is just what, what, what's happening there, obviously. So showing the power of Sony bringing there, there's a huge audience who want their games, who don't own PlayStations and will just wait. ah The ah sixth best selling game, Sea of Thieves.
00:44:50
Speaker
And so this is not counting Game Pass stuff. So Sea of Thieves on PlayStation is helping it become, and last month it was fourth. So two months in a row, it's been in the top six of the best selling games in MPD. So like they're, they have these games and then especially like you said with Minecraft, now that they have Call of Duty, you're to see that with stuff like, you know, I guess we don't, they they've been pretty cagey on what they're Multi platform plan is for stuff like indiana jones or you know the the next elder scrolls or even if starfield level go ever go there but
00:45:22
Speaker
I don't know, I feel like they are currently looking at what game passes up to the power their game had their games have on other consoles and then ah their future lineup and just like, I feel like they don't know what they're doing from here. I feel like there's like four alternate paths they could take and they don't know which one to take at this moment. Yeah, I mean, mike my my gut tells me they just want to be a mega publisher, you know, ah they're going to I mean, they already are, but like a super mega publisher. I mean, they're the most mega publisher because like, you know, as I've continually said, I think Xbox is the ecosystem. Basically, Xbox is just an access point now, just like your computer is just like your mobile phone is like your tablet. Now you can get Xbox game pass on the fire stick. They just want you to access their game catalog wherever it is.
00:46:11
Speaker
Uh, and so, yeah, I look, I kind of tend gentle, like see if these come into the PlayStation. I fully think like state of decay will come to PlayStation. I think like any of their like
PlayStation Plus vs. Xbox Game Pass
00:46:22
Speaker
mass appeal type games are going to definitely. Yeah. Or multiplayer games. Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, those are the games that so I mean, see, it's the state of decay is so I think between 10 and 20 million copies as well. So it's done. It's done really good. ah is So with yeah, with Game Pass, I think it's just yeah a matter of just getting your people in as many different places as you can at this point. Yeah, it's strange because also like Game Pass, like Casey said, Game Pass is still a really good deal and they always have a good like, again, we're seeing that they're they're first they're finally getting their ass in gear with first party games, but there's just a constant drip of
00:47:07
Speaker
really cool indies, a lot of them at launch, or really rad games from like a year ago that get added. Like if I look at the most recently added games, stuff like the puzzle game humanity that Casey and I love from last year, still waits to be launched on it. Yeah, that's a good ass game. Yeah, absolutely. And obviously still waits to be held blade. They just put Octopath Traveler 2 on there, Immortals of Avium, Chance of Zen Art. Like there is, if I like, If someone just like woke up from a coma and it's like, they're like, I want to get back in the video games. What should I do? I would either give them a switch or I would be like, here's game pass. Here's fucking a hundred cool games from the last decade that you can, that you can play like legitimately some of the best games of the past decade are here. um
00:47:53
Speaker
So it's still, I don't know, it's still still a great service for me, the person who wants to play cool games and they also still have money to not go bankrupt. um But in terms of like financial stability, I just don't know how this could last personally. Seems like it's been a been a losing effort since the beginning. But wasn't that Yeah, like since the beginning. And like the reason they were even able to try this experiment is because they're they are such a big-ass company. right like they're They're Microsoft. Yeah. yeah like They're subsidizing it with other... like Microsoft has never not made money. And it's gonna's hard to imagine that Microsoft, the company, will at some point just stop making money. So like really, like there it's just it's that that curse of business that hampers this sort of thing that makes them say, all right, well, if we're going to be doing this,
00:48:46
Speaker
this needs to be generating additional funds as opposed to, well, we've done so much like we make so much. Let's give one back. Let's but let's just make our consumers happy. but So I think like the product we make, you know, like, zoom that's yeah but I think a thing like Game Pass is able to skirt under the radar for a while until you... like but but but That can feel like money lost in a couch cushion. $75 billion dollars on Activision is not a doubt. or what company are kitchen but
00:49:20
Speaker
Well, that is money where they're like, Ooh, okay. You can have this money to buy your publisher. Now we're going to actually start paying attention to what you are doing. Like, like we are going to start checking these numbers. Um, yeah, I definitely think part of it has to, has to be like with, yeah, it's like, Oh, you need to start showing results. Um, it was a gift and a curse, I guess. I guess it's an even better deal, but now that deal has Johnny business looking at it. Oh, no. You know, if they're bringing activisions, you know, entire library to it, I think that's going to help. Like Call of Duty players do like to go back and play the older campaigns. I mean, when they go on sale on Steam, they're in the top sellers all the time. So.
00:50:06
Speaker
You know, aside from just paying for the new Call of Duty, just having access to all those older Call of Duties, I think is going to incentivize quite a few people. and I know I'd be incentivized by that. You know, we have them on Steam, but like that's one of the things I like about PlayStation Plus. I think, yeah, a PlayStation Plus premium is like all their whole library is on there like and they don't those games don't really go away very often. I don't feel like ah and I'm actually so every time i I log in there, I'm actually surprised by like the depth of games I can go back and play. There's all kinds of PS3 games, PS2, PS1. So I'd like to see them.
00:50:43
Speaker
If they're going to keep expanding the price of Xbox Game Pass, like do more of that, because right now they only have, you know, their first party games. But like, man, get some of the older Xbox 360 classics on there, you know, that you can't. know I completely like Sony's been pretty good at every month. They'll throw a couple old games around like. really think it'll be here's Star Wars demolition I'm like okay weird but sure like this month they just announced summoner is being put on there which was an old volition fantasy RPG that was like a launch game for the ps2 that has been completely memory old but I was like how
00:51:19
Speaker
decade, like the source code for that still exists. And they're just you they're putting it on. they're They're putting on PlayStation Plus. I'm like, OK, that's cool. Like, that's the kind of I
Game Pass's Wide Appeal
00:51:27
Speaker
want that weird. Of course, I want the good new games and cool indies, but I also want them to like make me remember games I have forgotten because they were yeah not good enough to be remembered. Like I get excited when those games come. Get that get that emulator going, Sony, so I can read download my PS3 games. I don't want to stream them. Yeah, it seems all the scuttle butts saying that Mark Cerny is getting involved. when And when Mark Cerny gets involved, you know what happens? so as bunch as That PlayStation sing. that question nerd shit I don't understand, but then cool stuff happens afterwards. So thank you, Mark Cerny, for your service, for your Cerny. I don't get that for your cervix, but I did not. I want everyone to know I did not say thank you for your cervix.
00:52:07
Speaker
before write that down It'd be pretty funny. ah Yeah. So if you if we weren't in our positions doing
Personal Gaming Habits
00:52:15
Speaker
this job with like, would you subscribe to Game Pass? Like, which which tier would you subscribe to? Ultimate. Yeah. Yeah. I think I have a lot of games on Xbox. Xbox is my primary platform for not Nintendo games. And i I play a lot of a lot of cool games. Get out of there. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think I think like people stop. Question the value so much of Xbox really does hit that target of one first big first party game a quarter to keep game pass, like keep a keep a marquee title on game pass every quarter. Then you have your, you know, your niche in these kind of stuff in between filling in those gaps in those between those months. ah But yeah, I think I can't believe I want to talk about this one game a quarter thing. Yeah, it's a long time. Shocks me every time.
00:53:04
Speaker
I mean, I think it still makes sense even for the the less, you know, the more casual video game enjoy, like a couple of people in chat were saying like, they don't know how much the value adds like stacks up for someone who's going to play like at most three games a year. Or like if they only play like Call of Duty and Madden or something. But like, even if those are the only games they play, right, like Game Pass for the for the year, I'm really bad at math. So 240 for the ultimate version is 240 240. Right. So otherwise you'd be paying 70 plus the tax list. Let's was round it up to like 75 for like those super big quadruple a games that come out every year or whatever. Right. You're going to play those. But what if you wanted to try something else? You just have the option.
00:53:51
Speaker
like you open up yourself to just more. You could play other shooters, you could play other sports games, you could play whatever big new license thing like Indiana Jones, like Star Wars, whatever that shows up there, you just have access to it. Like even if you're not gonna use it, just like a gym membership, you keep it around. That is true, it's like a lapsed gym membership, yeah. Yeah, like it's just, like it's fine for that just hanging it back. I think, I think a lot of people were just on guard about it. um and And I don't know. like Every time this comes up, I do feel a little bit like a shill, but like it's because there has never been a deal this good for someone who wants to play a lot of video games. like it has not It just hasn't existed this level of access to games before. yeah
00:54:40
Speaker
And like, it's something that if you love video games, you should a hundred percent be taken advantage of. And I think it's dumb when folks are like, no, don't do that. But why? One difference is are the people who are like, I want to live in a physical world. Like I want to own. I want to literally own the games I'm playing. I think that's the one. okay I'm not that person anymore. I was that person, not that person anymore. But for the people who are still that person, I get it. um I buy physical copies of all your racing games and he gave me his license stuff and it buy a physical copy. I'll play racing. He's turning his turn them off from the crew. I think I think I can still play my copy of drive club. Hashtag drive. Get it right. Or was it drive? No, that was watch underscore dogs. Hashtag drive club and watch underscore dogs.
00:55:32
Speaker
I got an email saying, asking for a correction to an article because I didn't put the hashtag before drive club. like I was like, no, thank you. I'm not doing that respectfully. That is stupid. And you were going to change that very soon. it did There you go. Yes. Um, will cooling with a two pound don't know. Thank you so much. Well, what's weird is that PC game pass still gets day one exclusives. there Yeah, I don't I don't know what to do. And I think they feel bad for people who play on their computers. And so yeah, it was it was like that was answering a specific cry from players. You're like, hey, we're not getting anything over here. It's all right. We'll loop you into the catalog thing. But then the council people was like, why I got to pay this if I don't have a PC is like, shit, let's separate it. So like this is just for PC.
00:56:19
Speaker
They got to, I think they have to incentivize the PC players more because Steam has such deep discount all the time. Because if you're playing, because you own the, but if you have the PC to run Game Pass on PC, you also have a PC to have Steam and can buy the crazy deals, you know, the Steam's got to give them a better deal to get them in there. Yeah. That's true. Yeah. Also taxes. so any Any final words before we move on to stuff we've been planning to watch? Nick, are you... I know Casey and I said a we're going to stick to it. like Are you going to stick with the with Game Pass Ultimate and stuff? Are you going down with the ship?
00:57:01
Speaker
um and' I'm not sure actually, to be honest. I've been buying a lot more physical copies of my games and like, ah just because it has nothing to do with Game Pass, it's me Game Pass, not you. oh I we play so much stuff on my Lenovo Legion Go through Steam that I just, you know, if I want to play an indie game, I played on that and not Xbox Game Pass at this point. Yeah, they put games on Steam Deck. It works on Legion Go. It'll be over. I don't want a Legion Go. I'm one of those people. Why don't you run Linux? No, no you're no you're a PC gamer. No way you Steam. Steam Deck Gamer. Where's that dongle?
00:57:41
Speaker
that that virus a game pass dongle could be fire fire. Amazon has a has an app now. Yeah, you can. Yeah. out live as we announced it yeah Oh, that changed everything. This game changer for you. You see, the only the only thing with that is I don't know how because I've messed with that before with like. There you could like side load the game pass app on your TV if you know how to do that and. dude I'm not sure how well the Xbox controller like connects to the fire stick or the TV directly. Did not work well on the TV when I did that. I don't know how does it goes on the fire stick. Yeah, this dedicated dongle. Yeah, i I buy that in a heartbeat.
00:58:27
Speaker
Also, really quick speakeasy, so it doesn't steam, doesn't steam, deck analytics i'm pretty and but i'm not and I'm not a nerd. I just opened steam deck and I put the game. I want to play except when I had to install all those emulators. And then I was in no man's lane. I didn't know where I was. I don't know where I was. I was just like, how do I get my PS2 games on here? Eric, play the Patrick star running away with his pants down, because that's
The First Descendant Game Review
00:58:50
Speaker
March. He doesn't do anything to me. I don't know what those are, Nick. I'm not fucking 20. Casey and I will pay rent and stippy gift and I'll understand it. There it is. It's great. Great. I don't like when Nick asked for Eric to play specific things. It's an abuse of power.
00:59:09
Speaker
You don't let that boy cook. Uh, let's talk about what we've been playing. Nick, you don't get to talk about anything cause you didn't put anything in the document. So we have a new rule. Uh, if it's not in the document by the time we start, you don't get to say anything. So I'm racing your game here. Okay. So what have you been playing? Oh boy. Yeah. I tried to start it up. like two days ago and I'm, and it was just down. Like the servers were like just borked to hell. So, and that, that lasts for hours. So, um,
00:59:42
Speaker
Yeah. So that was my earliest experience with the first ascended. I finally managed because I really wanted to have something to talk about today. So I was like, all right, let's give one more shot. um I managed to boot it up. um That game is, ah if you're not aware, it's a third person looter shooter. um It's got like, you know, cool. I think it's a Nexon joint. I think it's a Korean developer. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, they got, um, you know, it's like, you know, what do you call it? Like K-pop looking character models, uh, the, the cinematography and stuff, like the, the graphics are all like very high quality. Uh, but it's, it's very shamelessly kind of a ripoff of all the other looter shooter formulas, like your.
01:00:32
Speaker
Like the basically like you're on a console but you're controlling a cursor, right? Like you're selecting your missions. um The loot has rarities and stuff. Like it's everything ah is just very borrowed from other stuff. I don't think it does anything at all new. Like it's it's a ah mix of like Warframe and ah Destiny a little bit. um I don't understand the story. like None of that was like hitting me very hard. ah But i do I do like the way it feels. so like The characters are like quick on their feet. um The guns feel good. ah It's got a grappling hook, which i it doesn't... I mean, I guess it needs it, because there's a good amount of verticality in the maps and stuff. um And it's pretty generous. like you You got like two charges, you can like swing around, ah and it like it reaches a fairly far distance.
01:01:24
Speaker
So to move around, to shoot stuff, that basic loop is fun. The enemies that I've come across so far are very basic though. Like they don't really pose much resistance. Even like the big boss, like I i murdered in a like a flash. and And I don't know if it's because i you know I'm still very early in the game and that stuff will like maybe get more complicated or harder. But like first impression is like, this is very like turn off your brain ah kind of stuff, which is not the worst thing in the world. ah But I heard from some other friends who have spent a little more time with it, that it is kind of egregious in terms of what it asks in terms of grind time. So if you do want to start you know leveling your characters up and like progressing and stuff, they'll have you like invest in upgrades that have timers.
01:02:08
Speaker
So like you don't get the thing you work for immediately. You have to basically start it and then come back like two, three hours later or something. And like, and that's always just a pain in the ass. It feels like it has like a mobile mentality behind it. Yeah, exactly. That's the sort of thing I don't nickel and dime you to hell over in a nutshell, right? Right. Yeah. So probably not something I'm going to stick with, but I want to just give it a try because like, I don't know, I've been hearing about this game for so long and it only finally just released. So yeah, I just wanted to give it a shot. yeah For us when I played the beta, like whenever that was, a year or two ago. Yeah, that was a while ago, yeah. it was just It was so generic then. I was like, there's nothing I want to play here. yeahs Yeah, it feels like a little little like Anthem in that way. Yeah, it's interesting to look at the yeah the stuff that the Nexon's released in the last couple of years because it feels like
01:03:02
Speaker
The only thing they've released that has really like made its way into my area of interest was David the Diver. Which I'm hoping they do more like that and like use their use their powers for good to make things that David Iver obviously that was that game we all talked about how this is not an indie game because a Giant billion dollar corporation has an internal studio. That's making indie adjacent games But I think it's cool that they use the money they make from these kinds of games. I don't care about to fun make like
01:03:33
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. not i I wasn't even throwing First Ascendant in that mix. I was throwing a lot of their Heart Rider drift or EA Sports FC mobile stuff like that. um Stuff that probably makes a shit ton of money, but I'm like, well, okay. good Invest some of that, launder some of that money into like a charity. let Yeah, launder it into a charity. So that's, that's always nice. It is going to be tough. I feel like Warframe is one of the, that's definitely one of those games where I like know nothing about it other than it is extremely popular, has gotten very good and has a very loyal fan base. So like that's going to be a hard, a hard like audience to, to rip away from there for your other game. If it's just kind of Warframe, but not quite as good.
01:04:13
Speaker
but like it's gotta it' gotten a good start. Like for us to send it, I believe I heard it had like 40 million players like at launch. So you it ah definitely turned a few ways. I even decided to give it a try to myself, right? Yeah, dads them a lot of marketing. So I'm curious how long they'll hold on to numbers like that. But like um there there are a lot of people who are enjoying it. like I've seen those comments and stuff. So, um, I dunno, like maybe, maybe don't have legs and like, there's always potential for it to get better. Like if, if the Nick Lindami is egregious, if that's something that players complain about enough, it might change. Like that has happened in other, you know, kind of greedy ass games. Um, cause I'm not fully against the monetization stuff. If you're going to offer a game for free, but like, like, don't, don't shoot yourself in the foot for over this kind of shit. Like, sure. Yeah.
01:05:02
Speaker
Uh, you also played a little zenless on zero. Was that right? This big free to play, uh, gotcha field, blah, blah, blah. Uh, but it is from a Hoya verse. The people have done Genshin impact and, uh, Honkai honky, honky star rail. um And honestly, I i love their model. They have like one of the least intrusive, um though very addicting like monetization styles um out there. And I've been able to enjoy tons of hours of their stuff without having to touch any of it.
01:05:39
Speaker
zone zero feels a lot like that in that um none of the monetization stuff is in your face at all. Like I actually struggled to find where that list was. And once I was in that list, um, nothing popped up that said for me to pay money. Like I still haven't, like nothing popped up at any point that was asking for like, Hey, if you, if you want, put your own money into this. Like that just has not happened in the the amount of time I spent when I think I'll play like maybe an hour and a half. ah to two hours so far. So like, yeah, and like, honestly, it's it's sort of sort of a lighter game than I think both Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail. um It's, it's action based, and it's sort of rogue, like E, rogue light E, in the sense that um
01:06:28
Speaker
you you play like a handler for you know any number of characters that are gonna be on your roster. I don't have to starting three so far. And like you navigate them ah through like these ah sort of these zones that have like the the hollows they call them. They have like these kind of corrupted enemies in there and they're going in there to complete missions and you're their handler who like leads them through it and can get them in and out because like it's a sort of you know, dimensional thing that they can be trapped in and become monsters themselves if they don't have someone looking out for them, right? um It's kind of a cool little very anime-laden sci-fi story that um very quickly kind of pulled me in. Like, it's not doing anything spectacular, but like, I do like the characters and their dynamics and ah the intrigue that has popped up in the story so far, like, does have me ah wanting to see kind of how things progress. um And the combat is fun. Like, it's simplistic, but it's super flashy. You you go in with a team of three people,
01:07:23
Speaker
and like you can do basic attacks, you can do a special attack which changes based on um like you can you can charge up a stronger version of that special attack if you do enough basic damage and you can do a dash which doubles as a dodge And if you dodge at the perfect time, you get like that Bayonetta slow-mo stuff that allows you to like ah you know do flashier like counters and like ah do more damage over time.
Character Swapping Mechanics
01:07:50
Speaker
um And since you you know you're on a roster with your characters, you can swap anytime you want. If you swap during the windows where you you can dodge attacks, that character comes in with a special move as like kind of like ah ah like a tag battle jump in.
01:08:06
Speaker
And so you can, you can basically do like super flashy, very cool looking combos that incorporate your whole team. And like, when you reach another bar in terms of like studying the enemy, then you can do like an even more hype special. All right, I'm going to tag my partner in and they're going to come in with a super hype extra move. And then that might charge up their special move and they do a special move where they get like a whole cut scene that shows them doing something crazy. And then they tag the other person in, like it gets real
Free-to-Play Gacha Game Critique
01:08:30
Speaker
chaotic, um but nothing felt like, you know, overly difficult, but like it always felt fun. So like i was I was having a really good time with that, and I was really eager to kind of see more characters, because I only have the three just now, and just see how you know how different some of these other characters can play. And they let you test out the ones that are available in like a little ah little training section. thought was Yeah, i know you mentioned at the top, but like I know there's some people who are like,
01:08:59
Speaker
Deathly against gacha games and stuff like this that are like I cannot cross this threshold or I will start on fire like a demon walking to a church but if you are just like oh I'm I don't have a death ah deathly allergy to this, but I don't like the taste of cilantro These games are the free-to-play gacha games that you can get so much enjoyment of without spending money. Yeah without is doing financial Yeah, it is. um And like, I get it. If you are like vehemently against them,
Game Success Trends
01:09:30
Speaker
these games at their principles, then
01:09:34
Speaker
just stay away from them. yeah If you are like, I wanna have a good time and I understand that I can control myself and not spend money, then you're gonna get a out of you're going a lot of good games that are that are inspired by a lot of good games and and with high production values and like shit that looks cool. So um yeah, im um despite not really playing these games, I always kind of have a respect for them because I understand. I'm like, if you're gonna do the free to play gotcha stuff, do it more like them. And I guess it's like saying, oh, my drug dealer is nice. but bre's over what He over. brings over pastries. when it comes like word like Why would you want to deal with a drug dealer who might rob you? like Exactly. Exactly. So there you go. um Yeah. ah Dick, are you even playing anything?
01:10:22
Speaker
Yeah. And watching. But yeah, it was actually I was looking it away because I was looking at Steam charts trying to see like what next song games are actually
Maple Story's Enduring Appeal
01:10:30
Speaker
doing really well. And they have a lot and also they've they've canceled a lot. Like there was one they did that like medieval warfare one, which I actually thought was really fun. And then they canceled it. So like one of the big games that I've seen listed along a lot is like Cartwright or Drift has 41 players on Steam right now. Guarantee that's going to get canceled within the next. is it yeah you playeded up for game i did you
01:10:55
Speaker
yeah and i thought it was pretty bad yeah i be thecapist ah rid drift oh yeah Remember we were like having the hardest time to figure out how to just make it work. Yeah, I do. Yeah. That wasn't it. And then maple story,
Nexon's Strategy Shift
01:11:10
Speaker
which is like, uh, I think it's kind of like a stardew valueish MMORPG. And that's been around forever that like 2000s. Yeah. Yeah. and About 7,000 people. But yeah, I mean, they don't have, Yeah, and I don't it it's gonna be interesting to see if the first ascended has a long legs because most of their games kind of do I mean a lot of free-to-play games that are flashy do well right right at launch, but Then yeah, like they crash and burn real quick. So I guess we'll see I mean the finals is under next next on two and I don't think is Doing super hot these days. so That's just Yeah, now as I think that player base tank, too
01:11:48
Speaker
ah It's actually doing pretty good. Oh wait, that's a playtest 10,000 players. Yeah, it's not good for Their veil veiled experts most of their stuff is
Crimson Desert & Korean Gaming Market
01:12:00
Speaker
beta. So yeah, I don't I'm curious to see like what? Nexons next few years look like because I feel like they're they tried to cash in on the life service and I don't think it's worked out for them super hard and uh, super well, I guess. And then what you might call it, Dave, the divers sold extremely well. So I don't know. Maybe they start taking all this money and start pivoting. They keep getting their connections. Take the diver plus fucking dredge, date, the diver plus, uh, Godzilla. Who's going next? Deadpool. Deadpool is entering everything. Maybe he's going to get in there.
01:12:33
Speaker
speak to you as a car. Cartwright has been around since as long as maple store is not getting canceled. Cartwright was in like beta alpha for a long time. I think the official release only happened a year or two ago. Nintendo, I might be wrong on that. should do them whether it There might be a different car rider. Yeah, is there a different one because yeah that newer one? Definitely could not have been off around as long as I don't know. oh but Yeah, I feel like a lot of those Korean publishers that are in this space are kind of starting to shift gears a little bit because what the ah ah the publisher of like Liza P was in the space and has continued to kind of shift towards more premium.
01:13:13
Speaker
Games, ah the developers of Crimson. Desert. Yeah, are doing this um me yeah first times the. Abyss, but they're doing the other game first. Crimson, whatever it's called. No, that was just a playable teaser for no. Like, if if you go to games, com you can play a demo there. I'm not a dog in Germany. You would go to Germany. Crimson desert. Crimson desert. or it's It's black desert. That's the game before crimson desert. That's the free to play. Right. Yeah. anyway Yeah. Yeah. So I'm just, it's that market's really interesting to watch. Cause I feel like the Korean market specifically has gone super hard into live service and they just haven't really correct a ton of it long-term, I think.
01:14:04
Speaker
could of But ah yeah, as far as games I've been playing, I've gotten back into Rainbow Six Siege. Yeah. away I was away from my baby for too long. So I've been getting back into that, keep myself busy in the evenings. so Nobody wants to hear about that game though, but I've gone back.
Return to Rainbow Six Siege
01:14:20
Speaker
I did play. I want to hear about it. Casey wants to hear about it. ah That's true. yeah I mean, I don't work anymore, but I still have memories of what I do. Did you do any breaching? What hand do you breach with? I'm a little restable. None right now. I just can't move. Uh, yeah, a little rusty, a little rusty. I wasn't ready for ranked. I tried to jump right back in the ranked and I got spanked around. So you know what? I'm going to take my time, get back into it correctly. I don't know what the fuck Eric showing on the screen. yeah What game is that? Is that a siege mode? That's true. You don't even know. what case even i I don't know what that is. I'm just assuming he's just leaking new game.
01:14:59
Speaker
Oh, OK. It's the new mute protocol. OK. Yeah, that's OK. OK. I'm like, well, yeah. What? Yeah, I don't work on these anymore, guys. After the last week, I kind of said I have a hard time getting into 2D side scrolling games. I was like, all right, let me prove myself wrong and see if I can find what I like. And then I loaded up Moon Scars, which I think Casey you reviewed.
Moon Scars Game Review
01:15:20
Speaker
I did not review that game. I did test it for one of those Steam Next Fest demo streams we did a little while ago. Yeah, I ended up I ended up really liking it. It reminded me a lot of like the Last Faith, if anybody's played that um both to the fucking trouble. I thought those were the same game. Nope. You're telling me the same game, Eric. Which one moon scars moon? This is why we write down games on the dock. Nicholas. Yeah. but I was booking flights. You never write. What's your excuse every other week? I was willing to book flights those other weeks.
01:15:57
Speaker
But yeah, it's a it's a 2D side scrolling Metroidvania. And kind of what I brought up last week was, you know, when it comes to Metroidvanias, I don't really like maps that have you do a lot of backtracking and all that and we're like, get really confusing. not a metro on the oh Right. I guess I'm not even trying to be an asshole. Like at that point, if you're not backtracking, it's not a Metroidvania. It's kind of something else. I would say like there's a level of backtracking I can deal with. Like if the map is simple enough and I can remember where things are, I can do it doing it. But like Hollow Knight, we're going to count the shit out of me. um So this this one is like kind of baby's first two days in Metroidvania Souls like. So if you ah kind of like like Salt and Sanctuary, it's a much more simple game than that. A lot of easier. And the bosses are.
01:16:45
Speaker
Kind of a joke, but they're still fun to fight. and i I would actually recommend it and like the yeah, the art style moon scars is like just really muted color palette and just really works. So I had a pretty good time with it. There's some secrets I didn't finish out and discover in it, but ah it's not only took me eight hours to beat, so it's not a not too much of a commitment either. It's a good soundtrack. Interesting story. Fun fun platforming was tough. Nothing was enough things. Nah, like on a on a toughness scale, it was like Xbox. Standard level.
01:17:25
Speaker
I was really confused at first. I was like, Xbox. Well, I'm like, OK, I got you there. It's like a $15 a month toughness have day one, but you can get some cloud gaming on it. Yeah. Everyone looks so angry. I'm done with games with the art, everyone looks so angry. If you can't smile for the art, for the one art photo, what are we doing? You're not having a good time, Moonscar? I think that would look worse if that man was just smiling. I'm also one of the games I'm going to talk about features the least smiling man of all time.
01:17:57
Speaker
like a notorious, a notorious non-smiler. Then the Ben Bezos moon scars combat got very frustrating towards the end, though. Yeah. So like i posted a tweet yesterday was like, you know, there's there's in every like souls like game. There's always that like one random enemy. That's not a boss. It's not a mini boss. It's not even like close to a boss. It's just some random
Still Wakes the Deep Review
01:18:20
Speaker
fodder guy. And it's the most piece of shit annoying enemy that always kills you. like dog like any from software. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And in this one, there's like this this like stupid charging guy that's extremely easy to parry. But if you parry if you parry him and then you're too close to him, he'll immediately charge by and the other way and hit you. And that stupid thing was killing me by the end. So much I was getting so angry. I just like I want this game to die. I want this game to be done.
01:18:46
Speaker
I was saying, there's a couple of guys in Metroid Dread where I was like, I'm just done. I'm done with you. throw any boss i need But this man, I cannot get yeah i cannot get through this man. Yeah. so So like I start trying to rush through to get to the final boss and then they just every time I get stuck somewhere, they're like killing me. And I'm just like, I got you got to be methodical. You can't let your rage get to you. Oh, that's how you get the moon scars.
01:19:10
Speaker
ah remember from sky Guys. Yeah. See? There you go. Yeah. Don't drive many vans. There you go. it's what The yeah two things I've been playing this week were I played through the entirety of Still Wakes the Deep, which Yahtzee did is ah Fully Remedicon. I actually haven't watched Fully Remedicon, so I'm assuming he was negative, but I was And that negative on the porn positive, ah the game, I think some of the. ah So this is the ah latest sort of ah narrative heavy horror game from the Chinese room who did the rest there and the machine for pigs. ah And so this is kind of their um is their their wheelhouse. Everybody's gone to the rapture. ah This one, ah you're on an oil rig.
01:20:00
Speaker
coast of Scotland in the sixties or seventies and it's all of a sudden spookies ensue and you got to try to get off the oil. You can figure out what's going on with spookies. so Um, it's, it's a nice, nice shorty single sitter, like four or five hours. Um, the, I guess this is always like the the worst thing you say about a game. The gameplay parts of it are the weakest. It's either, um, very simple or when they do try to have you do something that's slightly beyond simple it gets it's frustrating so there's like some swimming puzzles that are uh extremely annoying there's some like the actual getting away from the monster stuff is is kind of kind of wonky uh but the uh the visuals and the atmosphere like the the sense of place that this oil rig has and then the phenomenal performances like legitimately some of the best acting and like
01:20:50
Speaker
not so much storytelling, but just moment to moment writing is like ah stupendous. Like this acting like impressed me more than something like Hellblade did, uh, you know, a few weeks ago playing the second Hellblade, which is like a game that's like built on its honest performances and everything. And still wakes the deep performances. We're like genuinely incredible to the point where I like, I recommend people go through it just for Um, just for those. And again, like we were talking about earlier it is on game paths. It is pretty short. Um, so yeah, if you're too nice, nice get spooky, is it, is it a game I should hold up for Halloween streams? No, it's not that spooky, especially once you like kind of know what the monster is. And the monster is very much like, Oh, you're in a monster zone. Now. Um, it's not like this sense of dread that wherever you are, there might be a spooky, like you enter spooky rooms and you have to deal with the spooky. It's like, it's much less spooky than, um,
Strangers of Paradise Reflection
01:21:41
Speaker
then like an amnesia of the bunker. amnesia okay yeah Yeah, it's more like interesting. It's kind of like, yeah I would say it's sci-fi horror and instead of horror sci-fi. And then the other thing I just wrapped up ah yesterday on my personal channel was I finally got around to playing Strangers of Paradise Final Fantasy Origin, which is the Team Ninja ah kind of like taking the the frame of Neo and building it around Final Fantasy One. And this game, as its title suggests, acts as kind of a prequel to Final Fantasy One, but features the main character, Jack, who was notorious for being just the angriest man in video game history, who's obsessed with killing chaos and who listens to Limp Bizkit and Frank Sinatra on his MP3 player. That's canonical. It is canonical.
01:22:30
Speaker
and I would like to say that there is a lives that exists in a Final Fantasy universe. They explain it all. They explain it all. I will say it's one of those things where the road to get to the ending is pretty silly. The actual ending itself, especially if you're a fan of Final Fantasy 1 and Final Fantasy in general, the end is really fucking cool and how it ties the story together and contextualizes all the shit you've done. It doesn't completely contextualize the Limp Biscuit.
01:23:15
Speaker
Like it makes sense by the end. And I'm told it has really good punishing combat that is again, like Neo, like it's it's very much like you need to learn these enemies. You need to learn these bosses. You really need to engage with all the different jobs and the skill trees and everything and and the loot. I say I'm told because I played the game on just the dumbest difficulty possible. And you didn't even try the main one. No. no i want to explain not even for curiosity yeah
01:23:47
Speaker
i want Someone who loves Lin Bizkit that much should be here to just beat the shit out of everything and read and have nothing stand in his way. And the only thing I said to my way was an occasional ton berry that would kill me instantly. And that was a humbling moment to die on and not only story mode, but there's a lower than story is casual. So I did casual story and and still die. getther's calm down um parents don't care which' you
01:24:14
Speaker
I'm like the story difficulty and all that. Is it just more of like a straight up flashy action game at that point? it's it I played it like a moose. Honestly, I just ran. I just got spamming attacks and it was fun and it totally worked. It totally got me through the game. So um yeah, I will not speak of the gameplay, but as as a big Final Fantasy fan and someone who played Final Fantasy one ah ah last year, um it is like a really interesting companion piece to it. So overall, a thumb up for the dumbest game alive. So you's got very dumb every bla you never played that one i when it originally came out. You skipped it.
01:24:52
Speaker
I played the demo of it, um but no, I never like sat down and like played played it. I think it was back when I was still freelancing ah for the escapist, and so I was like, unless I'm getting paid, I'm not playing you. ah so long ago That my my my was my mindset. We were babies back then.
Physical 100 Reality Show
01:25:10
Speaker
um Have you guys been watching anything? Anything stand out? Yeah, we we were on this Korea Korea tip. I realize I continue to do that with the stuff I was watching because I started checking out that ah reality show Physical 100. Oh, yeah. It's on Netflix. It's just got the most jacked human beings you've ever seen in your life, like a whole hundred of them competing in like these sorts of there's going to be a string of physical challenges. I've only watched the first three episodes, so they only got
01:25:41
Speaker
to finish um the initial challenge, which was they had two sets of 50 of the group like hang just for as long as they possibly could from like these sorts of like parallel bars, rafter things. And so they they gather just people who focus on their bodies from just all walks of life. They're soldiers. There are emergency like mountain climber people. There are ah Instagram like Instagram like YouTube um fitness gurus or whatever. ah They're like, there's a cheerleader out there. There's an actual world champion boxer who was just a contestant as well as like a well-known MMA fighter out there who's just full on competing in this. Korean baseball player was out there as well. So like they really just grabbed, like it's not a reality show that just gets nobodies. Like this was like an event over there.
01:26:37
Speaker
And like, it's so, it's so interesting. Like the the whole idea was like, I gotta, I gotta to get wedding ready. So like, I gotta go to the gym. I gotta eat better. This is supposed to be like encouragement. inspiration yeah Right. Yeah. And it's like, it is wild to see how dedicated these people are to fitness. And then to see them still have those same issues like shit, I didn't do enough because this guy over there is kicking my ass in all these ways that I didn't think about. Like there are a lot of bodybuilders who are like, yeah, I'm going to get like these, this perfect physique and realize that they don't have any strength. Like they don't, they can't do anything with their muscle glamour muscles. Yeah. Because like the people who like, um, the dude who, um, won like that first challenge beat an Olympic gold medal gymnast.
01:27:25
Speaker
because he he just climbs mountains for work. Like, he he rescues people off the side of mountains. Like, that's his job. yeah ah Like, it's it's wild. it's just it's it It's a really crazy concept and, like, a very interesting competition piece. um And I've been going to the gym. It's on Netflix, yes. I have been going to the gym in part thanks to this show. Like, it has inspired me to, like, get back to my shit. Like, me and my kid. Like, I'm watching it with my son. No, i will I don't think I'll get there. They're going to make an American version of it, right? They will. Absolutely. I hear this is like super popular. Yeah. Yeah. And like, yeah, America will copy everything, absolutely everything. So I don't, I don't. I'm excited to see what kind of weird PC celebrities they get on it that we recognize.
Environmental Issues on Everest
01:28:12
Speaker
i did like to match To match what ah this show is doing, they need to get folks like um Arnold Schwarzenegger.
01:28:18
Speaker
Oh wow. I'm looking at certain people who are like rappers though. There's rappers, there's MMA fighters. So I want like, I want old wrestlers. Sure. Yeah. A lot of those. Yeah. Just, just people who you would recognize as being like, okay, this is, this is an um embodiment of physicality of like strength and muscle, whatever, like men and women as well. Like there's a lot, there are a lot of women, ah lots of women representation out there as well. Like they were like professional wrestlers. Oh my God. It was there. It's it's a crazy ass concept that I'm I'm I'm totally tuned into right now Since you would be the biggest kid for the show in America Obama Obama's not Jack though. You don't know that you never single a bomb without a shirt. I think we've seen nobody I guess I guess I haven't seen along without shirt. I think it's like he's in good shape for people his age they need to things to get um post Batman Christian Bale
01:29:10
Speaker
oop So he travels through time. Just see what those muscles do. It's a different man now. um Obama's probably the most fit president we've ever had. Yeah. What if there was like one dude who was just like, oh, yeah, I used to like fucking lift bails of hay every day. Lincoln with a six pack. He was was a vampire slayer. See, there you go. Honestly, look at him. There he is. Hashtag my president, look at that body. ah Nick, sorry, what were you talking about? Since Casey brought up mountains, I just wanted to share a very, very random fact. um fire How much trash
Inside Out 2 Movie Review
01:29:50
Speaker
do you think is on Mount Everest?
01:29:56
Speaker
How much there's trash on Mount Everest? I would I would have said none is what I would have said yesterday. No, there's a I think when you get up to the Like I think I've seen pictures up at the top that it's like fucking filthy near the top, right? Because people, whatever they bring up there, they're like, well, I'm not carrying this down. They just leave it. Yeah. they they So I guess they remove 24 tons of trash and there's still 40 to 50 tons of more to remove. 40 to 50 more tons to remove. Like humans are putting all this trash on. Why do all these people go to Everest?
01:30:32
Speaker
I met, but once you go to worst, there's like a, there's like a camping, climbing Everest. Uh, yeah. No, you just, you just walk up and it's no big deal. just that ah
01:30:46
Speaker
I think you get a Sherpa and they do a lot of the work for you. It's not like you you are ah exonerated from any of the work, but yeah, but yeah, there's coding there are a lot of bodies as well. Yeah, there's lots of frozen bodies out there from like decades ago. Are they counting that as trash? Is that some of the weight? I mean, I guess it depends what kind of person you were, but yeah, yeah, they left all that trash up there. Yeah, that kind of. person
01:31:12
Speaker
We're all going out for laughing at that. time I'm not trying to climb a mountain. hey I ain't know you're trying to climb a mountain. It's not on me. ah You watching anything else? Oh, yeah, I ah I watched the Inside Out 2 over the holiday weekend. I liked it a lot. um Yeah, I also liked it a lot. Like the the first movie I thought was OK, like stronger premise than it was a story. But I feel like the story in this one carried a lot more of the plot than just the premise. like it's ah It's a fun premise, but now they had a story that kind of like really sucked me into it on both ends, on the the the teenager Riley's situation, and then also like the inner conflict of all the emotions. Yeah, all the emotions. Because I think in the first movie, you were stuck with joy alone. most yeah For most of it. Yeah. So like you really didn't get to see that that ensemble. like
01:32:09
Speaker
play off each other a ton, and they fixed that fully with this, and then they doubled it actually. You got to see two sets of an ensemble cast play off each other. It was a really fun time. I really liked it. I'm weirdly torn on Pixar sequels because I am always in the camp of like I want to see original things, but at the same time, we've seen with their sequels that they can sort of, if the first movie gets the world-building thing and rules down um and throw clearing and everything, then a sequel is able to come along and just hit the ground running.
Twister & Glenn Powell's Career
01:32:40
Speaker
And um I feel like we saw that with ah ah with Toy Story 2 and even Credibles 2. And so, like yeah, it just felt like phenomenal. Yeah. And it's not like that example of them being able to not have to explain how all this stuff is working and they can just
01:32:58
Speaker
kind of just go with it. Um, and so yeah, I was really, really impressed by it and and also made a shit ton of money. So, um, ah yes like their highest it's like their highest grossing thing now. Like it just beats something else. Yeah. Uh, Incredibles two, it just beat Incredibles two for highest grossing Pixar movie, I think. Oh yeah. That's right. Yeah. Which is, uh, which is wild. Yeah. Past the billion. So yeah. good for Um, I I imagine they're going to go back to the. Sorry, you were saying. I feel bad that like because I don't have like any younger siblings, a growing child, like i there was a time in my life where I just stopped watching any of these movies. and I don't like I've never even seen Frozen.
01:33:45
Speaker
That's the thing that you don't have to have a younger anyone. I don't know. There was just a point in my life that I stopped watching them. Like all the stuff is on Disney plus. You can just start like I'm waiting for. Yeah, I'm waiting for shark five twenty twenty six. And then I'll buy it. Why did they announce that movie so early? It's a big deal. But I feel like you got, you got Cameron Diaz to come out of retirement. It would still be a big deal an hour, like a year from now, wouldn't it? I don't even think I watched Shrek forever after. Three and four. Yeah, I think most people did. Yeah. So why is it a big deal? Because the last two were bad.
01:34:33
Speaker
But I mean, one and two are like beloved. And so people think, all right, they took a little time off. The Puss in Boots movie was really good. The last one. So it was amazing. So you know what? Fuck it. Yes. yeah I haven't watched that yet either. It's on Netflix. All five movies I haven't watched. But I didn't watch Extraction 2. The most important movie most bor movie there is. ah Last night I watched, I rewatched Twister in anticipation of Twisters, which is coming out soon. And let me tell you guys, Twister holds up. that movie is extremely dumb but it is just like 10 minutes of hanging out with every character actor you can possibly imagine and then a sick ass set piece where a tornado tears some shit up and then the characters make terrible decisions and then they go to the next set piece and a tornado tears some more terrible shit up Like it is, it is just like a perfect summer blockbuster. And I, I was like putting myself back in the mindset of like, you're in the theater in the mid to late nineties and you see this shit is the most amazing looking thing. Like they put a tornado in a movie. These people are going to die. You're going to kill hell and hunt America's sweetheart. Um, whereas now you just like roll your eyes because every movie just has like $300 million dollars worth of CG apocalypse. So it's like.
01:35:39
Speaker
You know, so you're going to feel when you watch Twisters, too. I'm excited about Twisters. Twisters is getting good reviews. Is it really? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, yes, it's it's got like an absolute pedigree of both like rising, huge, rising actor and the the director of a movie that came out a few years ago called Minari, which was like an Academy Award winning or Academy Award nominated like indie drama. And I was like, why is this dude doing Twisters next? No, he did it. He did a good tornado movie. So, yeah. He must've just had a strong-ass idea. I'm on Team Tornado. Let me see. Glenn Powell's in it too, right? You don't want to be on Team Tornado. I'm on Team Tornado.
01:36:19
Speaker
Clint Powell's Hollywood's new sweetheart. He is. I mean, he's been pretty much going powerless. I don't know where he was until. I mean, I knew he
Spy Kids Franchise Nostalgia
01:36:30
Speaker
existed. and It is like any Sweeney movie from late last year. That guy. OK. That guy, man. I know what Oh, what was he in before anyone but you? Uh, he's been, you know, he was in top, he's like played the kind of foil and Top Gun Maverick. Okay. Okay. That's where not the quote unquote bad guy. bad watched up come maverick yeah i just' knew he was he and He's also in, uh, he was in, I believe he was in one of the, uh, spy kids films as well as a child. Shout out to the spy, shout out to the spy kids. I hope, I hope they're all doing well. Did reboot that on Netflix? Isn't it a TV show show now? Yeah, it was, there was some sort of like continuation of like connected, uh,
01:37:11
Speaker
It wasn't like a reboot. It was a sequel thing that was like in the same universe. It was bad by kids Armageddon. Oh, God. Even the art looks that says September 22nd. This year, last year, last year of last ah last year. Yeah. Yeah, I didn't see that. I got a nice four point three on IMDB. I mean, those movies were always bad, right? They are. They were always kind of. Yeah. Is it OK for us to say that now? Yeah, because I don't. I don't know if I was looking at. Frost is on the edge. Like, I feel like Frost and Wills is their favorite shit ever. Like they live. That's just that Tony. And I get it. Because like me is that dude living down with a spy kid code. I the only time I remember watching spy kids is when I had to go in from like my my heart checkup. They always had it on for some reason.
01:38:03
Speaker
I was like, I really don't want to watch this. Can you put like anything else? Medically proven to be a baseline heartbeat film. If you watch that, you will never be excited,
Concluding Movie Discussions
01:38:10
Speaker
but you will never be so bored that it goes off. Your heart's beating too fast in this movie. It's not for that surgery, bud. If Spy Kids is getting you excited, then God knows what's going on. Awesome. You guys want to wrap it up there? You still want to start with the acolyte? Sure. I haven't either. No. Yeah. We talked about the acolyte last week. Oh, you really want, right? Yeah. we Last week on the show we talked about the acc oh shit literally talked about the acolyte last week on this show. Yeah. I just couldn't get it. And you haven't started it yet. Cause you haven't watched that or the boys yet. I've watched all of the acolyte. I have not started the boys. Okay. I had them flip flop. What'd you think about the last little latest episode?
01:38:55
Speaker
but I think every episode of the show is just like an 80 mile an hour ball down the middle. It is totally fine. Like it is not surprising me whatsoever. ah But I think it is occasionally pretty. I think the fight choreography can at times be quite good. I think it makes ah two really cool decisions an episode and then makes five really boring decisions an episode. um I think it's just totally it is the spy it is the spy kids of the Star Wars universe. It is keeping my heart right at that middle level, which is right. Yeah. OK. We can end the discussion there. You're welcome. Yeah. oh Had to do it for George Lucas. George Lucas has watched it. I don't know if he's been here. I don't think oh no yeah he's up there. I see him. He's too afraid. He's too afraid to watch the echolite. And before we wrap things up, Alaric with the $2.00 don't know. Thank you so much, Alaric. How long until Game Pass introduces ads mid game?
01:39:48
Speaker
ah
Ads in Video Games Debate
01:39:50
Speaker
If you play a. ah mean No, I don't know. No, I mean, I'm like, I got you the right ad i bet you the next GTA is going to have ads in game to help pay for that game. Like there's going to be no more. I don't think Rockstar would. Rockstar wouldn't do. Yeah, it would. I mean, there's I'm surprised there's no more billboards and the GTA online will have. EA has already done this and it was good. in Fight Night round three, there were actual ads. That's what I'm saying. Like you can do this in games and it can make sense and it can be fine and it can subsidize the cost and everybody's happy. Like, you know, like this doesn't need to be a bad thing. It can be a thing that works. It's just people always take shit to the freaking extreme and screws it up. Like if you, if you put an ad in the middle of gameplay, that is just uncategorically bad. But if you do what EA did with Fight Night round three,
01:40:43
Speaker
The freaking Burger King, the literal Burger King mascot comes out as your your ring man, and that's fucking hilarious. And the ring has a Burger King logo in the middle of it, and then they tell you in on the little bumpers and on the arena thing or on the outside, in the in the real world arena that you're in, that a movie's coming out this Thursday. They just show you the fucking trailer. And it's like, shit, that's cool as hell. It's just like when I'm watching boxing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It can it can work. It can work station home, like show some, show some movie trailers in there. I think, yeah, I think it did a theater with people.
01:41:24
Speaker
That wasn't even really a video. I don't know what place your home was supposed to be. I'm sad. It was just sad. i That was a sad place. very It was very, very sad place, especially with how many E3 press conferences where they'd be like, all right, for the next 20 minutes, we're going into the home to talk about things. don't Yeah, I
Microsoft Kinect Evolution & Announcements
01:41:40
Speaker
forgot. You just rewatch all those. That had to be fucking they okay painful. That and the Connect presentations had to be the most painful things to rewatch. Connect was cool. it just It just didn't, it they just lied though. like It just wasn't what they showed us. It was not even close to what they showed us. It wasn't real, but it was sick as hell. That's funny as hell. Awesome. What about things like that? Was Connect Siri before Siri was Siri? a little A little bit. More like ah more like Alexa before Alexa was Alexa. No, sorry. It was, no, there were no voice commands with PlayStation Eye.
01:42:18
Speaker
But there was a couple of years ago. Well, damn it. All right. And the podcast. I'm just saying it was named one thing for a reason. What was the camera before Xbox Connect? The big, long, long one that that was connect. It's called it was. Yeah. Yeah. And then I had the Xbox one was the bigger. It's like square. Yeah. Square. Yeah. Yeah. ah That does it for us, your Connect Historians. Your absolute Connect Historians. Yeah, thank you all so much for tuning in to this episode of Firelink. um We have a lot of great stuff coming up for you this week. ah Tomorrow, we should have a pair of streams. Jack and I, I believe at noon, are going to be playing more Elden Ring and then Casey and I at 7 p.m. Central. We'll be jumping back into DMC's DLC.
01:43:12
Speaker
Yeah. Uh, Friday, Nick, it sounds like you're going to be doing, uh, call duty again yeah for us. we'll see Call of duty to you finally. Excellent. After like a month and a half. yeah And then, yeah, like I mentioned, definitely check out check out the Rewind. Our first episode was live yesterday morning at noon. We're going to be every other week, every other Tuesday at that noon slot. I had a really fun conversation about saw the media we've been consuming in 2024, all the movies and TV and stuff. And darn just hearing darren and ah Darren and Jack is just an absolute delight. So tune that out. Casey, what do you got going on?
01:43:51
Speaker
Uh, you know, the use should have a review dropping probably sometime next week. Um, like you mentioned, uh, I'll be on the DMC stream. Um, and the wedding streams are back on my personal channel. So you can join me, my son and my fiance playing through probably the end of little kitty big city. It's been a delight so far. We're doing all the voices for all the fun animal characters in that game. So i last, um, Yeah. And outside of that, you know, just follow the Twitter for any updates on other stuff. Oh yeah. So it's my son. I keep forgetting to plug super smash Sunday. It's on Sunday. Show up. Have fun. Did you see that supposedly a riot cancel? They smash like game in the league universe. Like they were internally working on a fighting game. That was, you know, cause they have that one fight. kind of Yeah. Platform fighter that compar project l was the one they were doing. Right.
01:44:42
Speaker
Yeah. Uh, and apparently they had like 70 people working on it and they shelved it for one reason or another. Cute. I must not have been good. Well, you know what? That's not necessarily the case. it could be hundred bad Yeah. Uh, what do you got going on? Uh, yeah, no impact for me tomorrow. Cause that was literally, I literally did not leave my bed yesterday. My neck hurts so bad. I could not sit up without being in pain. that' So, no impact this week, but yep, I'll be back to play Call of Duty 2 tomorrow, or I mean Friday. um I may do a solo stream tomorrow night after they're done with DMC to play some more Siege or something, but if not, I'll start mine. The Mute Protocol event. no
01:45:32
Speaker
Yeah, I'll figure out my personal streams whenever they might be. And then, of course, I think we're doing a game like this weekend, if I'm not mistaken. so Oh, yeah. If we are, please tell me what time that is. yeah i know I'm a day behind on everything, so we'll get there soon. And Sean Harriman says, Docopont streams when? We are going to schedule them. It has been tough because Frost and Jesse were out last week. I'm going to be out two weeks from now. We're going to try to get them in by the end of July. We'll either have done it or we'll tell you when we're going to do it. Yeah, because I feel like that that's an achievable goal.
01:46:08
Speaker
quarter of the team is going to the hard packs West in August. We'll be doing our first community and meet up to. Yeah, that'll be the ah at the end of August, beginning of September. So we'll have more. We'll have more info on that closer to then. Excellent. Thank you all so much for watching. Thank you, Nick. Thank you, Casey. Thank you, Eric. Behind the scenes, of course, this was Firelink episode number 28. I hope you all have a great rest of the night and we'll see you all tomorrow. Everyone. Thanks. Bye.
01:46:47
Speaker
you