#379 | Money, It's A Crime

Interactive Transcript

spk_0 Friends, hello, my name is Mike Rignetta, I'm the host of a podcast called Never Post,

spk_0 which is about the internet.

spk_0 Really, it's about the world, and why the world is the way that it is because of the internet.

spk_0 We ask big questions like, why do disgraced politicians join Camille?

spk_0 Why is it scary and satisfying to block someone?

spk_0 Would you ever create an AI voice clone of a deceased loved one?

spk_0 In a show that you don't need to be terminally online to enjoy?

spk_0 But it doesn't hurt.

spk_0 Never Post is at neverpo.st and wherever you find podcasts.

spk_0 Greetings and salutations.

spk_0 Welcome back to Sacred Symbols, a PlayStation podcast.

spk_0 This is episode number 379.

spk_0 My name is Colin Moriarty.

spk_0 I'm joined as always by my son, Chris Reagan.

spk_0 How are you today, my friend?

spk_0 You look great.

spk_0 Yeah, thank you, man.

spk_0 I'm doing all right.

spk_0 Not too bad.

spk_0 I think it's just getting started, basically.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 It can only go up from here, really.

spk_0 One of two ways.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 It could get worse.

spk_0 God willing, because at least it'll be interesting.

spk_0 Yeah, right.

spk_0 You know, at least it'll be an eventful day in that case.

spk_0 What's happening?

spk_0 Anything interesting?

spk_0 No, literally nothing.

spk_0 I think I came to consciousness like 15 minutes ago, you know?

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 Same.

spk_0 I haven't looked outside yet.

spk_0 It could be.

spk_0 God.

spk_0 It could be.

spk_0 Yeah, it could be.

spk_0 It could all be gone.

spk_0 You never know.

spk_0 But so far so good.

spk_0 Cool.

spk_0 Good to see you.

spk_0 Dustin Furman.

spk_0 Exactly.

spk_0 Executive producer.

spk_0 Part of me.

spk_0 How are you today, my friend?

spk_0 I'm doing just fine.

spk_0 It seems like the fall weather has hit overnight in Western Pennsylvania.

spk_0 So you know what that means?

spk_0 The flannel's back, boys.

spk_0 I feel most comfortable in either a flannel or a sweatshirt.

spk_0 Even flow.

spk_0 Is there a flannel association there?

spk_0 Oh, 100%.

spk_0 I mean, definitely.

spk_0 Oh, I don't know anything about a...

spk_0 Grunge?

spk_0 Well, wait.

spk_0 Pearl Jambs considered a grunge band?

spk_0 I would say so, yeah.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 I would say like a seminal grunge band.

spk_0 Like one of the most important grunge bands, probably like the most one of the three biggest

spk_0 grunge bands.

spk_0 That's horrible.

spk_0 I didn't know that.

spk_0 Like what?

spk_0 Nirvana Pearl Jambs.

spk_0 I think...

spk_0 Well, I think of...

spk_0 I mean, like grunge bands, I think of Nirvana.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 And they're like...

spk_0 Maybe it's a voice thing for me.

spk_0 I think it about Kurt Cobain's voice being grungy.

spk_0 But when I think of Pearl Jam, I can't stand Pearl Jam.

spk_0 I'm going to be honest.

spk_0 It's a bit...

spk_0 The best thing that Pearl Jambs did for us was Steven Flow.

spk_0 Steven Flow.

spk_0 You know.

spk_0 It's Steven Flow.

spk_0 So when I go to the grunge Wikipedia page, Nirvana or Kurt Cobain is the picture.

spk_0 Right.

spk_0 Let's see.

spk_0 See also a list of grunge bands.

spk_0 Pearl Jambs.

spk_0 I always registered them as grunge.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 I mean, they definitely are.

spk_0 A foundational band of the grunge movement.

spk_0 Okay.

spk_0 I mean...

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 I was going to say...

spk_0 I was going to say Sound Garden, Nirvana and Pearl Jam were probably like the big three grunge bands.

spk_0 Here it has them and Alice and Chains as the big ones.

spk_0 So they have food fighters.

spk_0 I think early food fighters is grungy.

spk_0 I mean, grungy obviously the tape-croll connection.

spk_0 Right.

spk_0 But it's candle box.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 They're grunge.

spk_0 The melvins.

spk_0 I always thought the melvins were more like sludgy.

spk_0 Like, slowed down the stored in metal, but maybe not.

spk_0 Screaming trees.

spk_0 Presidency of the United States of America.

spk_0 And they just come up recently.

spk_0 They did.

spk_0 We were saying their name.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 Sucks.

spk_0 Now...

spk_0 Sucks, yeah.

spk_0 Well, we're...

spk_0 How do we feel about the conspiracy around Kurt Cobain's death?

spk_0 About his wife or...

spk_0 You know, did Courtney love take him out?

spk_0 I've seen very compelling YouTube videos about this.

spk_0 Yeah, I don't know.

spk_0 On experts with that specific model trying to figure out

spk_0 whether it's possible or not.

spk_0 So...

spk_0 Yeah, I like the conspiracy shit.

spk_0 What can I say?

spk_0 I don't know.

spk_0 I don't know about that.

spk_0 I think that if it happened in 1994, but in like 2024,

spk_0 it would be really interesting just to see the conspiracies

spk_0 and there would probably be a subfootage or...

spk_0 But there's only nothing from the time.

spk_0 I actually remember when I was 10,

spk_0 I mean, it wasn't like I was that old,

spk_0 but I remember because people were really...

spk_0 I mean, I love Nirvana, but people were like,

spk_0 whoa, that fucking sucks.

spk_0

spk_0 Because they still had so much to give.

spk_0 It's kind of crazy when you...

spk_0 Yeah, they're pretty early.

spk_0 They only had three studio albums.

spk_0 It's actually the same as sublime.

spk_0 I mean, not as big of a deal for a lot of people,

spk_0 but when Bradley Noel died,

spk_0 it's like they really have three records.

spk_0 Sucks.

spk_0 Like there's almost nothing.

spk_0 You can know Nirvana's whole catalog so easily.

spk_0 You have bleach never mind in utero.

spk_0 So yeah, anyway.

spk_0 I remember when Chester Bennington died.

spk_0 There was a lot of compared,

spk_0 it was like this generation's Kurt Cobain death.

spk_0 Not that they're similar musically, but...

spk_0 It was a big deal.

spk_0 That was a big deal.

spk_0 I think I...

spk_0 I don't...

spk_0 It probably came up on the show.

spk_0 Like I was at Daygans when it happened,

spk_0 and I was going to see 311 in Philadelphia,

spk_0 and I saw them that night.

spk_0 And I was on like the train reading about it,

spk_0 going into the city, and then 311 played

spk_0 like a very rare song called Beyond the Grace guy

spk_0 that they never play.

spk_0 That's about suicide, actually.

spk_0 And they dedicated it to them.

spk_0 And actually, I don't know what you guys want to hear it,

spk_0 but Olympus gets new song, which is awesome.

spk_0 By the way, the first line is,

spk_0 damn, I miss you, Chester.

spk_0 Send in love for my bass compressor.

spk_0 That's nice.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 Thank you, right?

spk_0 Speaking of conspiracies,

spk_0 Colin, you've seen this.

spk_0 I don't know if it gets Chris' read on it.

spk_0 What do you think of this mug?

spk_0 Can you see it?

spk_0 I got this at a yard sale a few years back.

spk_0 It's not a, you know, it's not, I just want to be clear.

spk_0 It's not a political statement.

spk_0 I just look at him on there.

spk_0 He's awesome.

spk_0 Look at him.

spk_0 He's like, he wants to strap.

spk_0 He was, he was subtly funny.

spk_0 He was.

spk_0 He was definitely funny, a funny guy, but...

spk_0 It's George Bush for the audio listeners on a mug.

spk_0 But what wasn't so funny was the Iraq war.

spk_0 No.

spk_0 Thank you for making him.

spk_0 Yeah, there's a situation.

spk_0 Not in a situation.

spk_0 Maybe you should have thought that bit out a little bit further.

spk_0 Yeah, right.

spk_0 Before he tried it out.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 What else?

spk_0 You know, this list of,

spk_0 one thing I take umbridge with a little bit

spk_0 because one of my favorite top five bands of all time

spk_0 is Stone Table Pilots.

spk_0 I mean, I love the Stone Table Pilots.

spk_0 And they have them listed as like a grunge band.

spk_0 I'm like, I don't know about that.

spk_0 They come from that era,

spk_0 but I consider them all rock for sure.

spk_0 Dude, we talk about naming conventions for video games

spk_0 and like video game genres being completely tweaked.

spk_0 I think music is actually way worse.

spk_0 Music's crazy because like you'll have like a genre

spk_0 that's called like, I don't know,

spk_0 Twink Funko or something.

spk_0 And it just be like, what is that mean?

spk_0 And you hear it and it's just like,

spk_0 I don't know, it's just a techno or something.

spk_0 Right.

spk_0 Well, that's what that is.

spk_0 What are we doing?

spk_0 It's really weird.

spk_0 I've never been able to get like prog rock

spk_0 and I don't know what the fuck that means.

spk_0 Yeah, progressive rock is like,

spk_0 what's that mean?

spk_0 What's that mean?

spk_0 Yeah, progressive rock is like,

spk_0

spk_0 What's that mean?

spk_0 Like, what do you have a like,

spk_0 what is the name of that makes it like nothing about that

spk_0 indicates progressive or rock, you know what I mean?

spk_0 Yeah, I don't, I wonder if the progress,

spk_0 I don't, I never looked into it.

spk_0 I always read the progressive as,

spk_0 and I'm not saying anyone makes it like,

spk_0 political progressive, that's not what it means.

spk_0 I'm just saying, I think it always meant like,

spk_0 this song gets more complicated.

spk_0 The song goes on.

spk_0 There's like another movement.

spk_0 There's another bridge.

spk_0 There's like, I think that's what,

spk_0 I think that's what it means.

spk_0 Maybe, yeah, but there's a lot of songs that do that

spk_0 that are not pro, you know what I mean?

spk_0 Because like, Pink Floyd is like the ultimate prog rock.

spk_0 Right.

spk_0 Yeah, you're right.

spk_0 Math rock was always one that I liked.

spk_0 And math.

spk_0 Yeah, what is like off time signature stuff?

spk_0 I've run a slut rock before,

spk_0 which is like a real, real genre.

spk_0 When I started seeing things like post rock

spk_0 and post hardcore, I'm like, come on, man.

spk_0 Yeah, and gent, gent, gent,

spk_0 Jensen on a P.A., which I appreciate.

spk_0 No, I think that that's funny, but it's also like,

spk_0 I love the, I love the idea.

spk_0 Somebody be like, all right, what's, what genre is this?

spk_0 And it's like, I was just kind of like,

spk_0 Jensen, Jensen, let's call it that, I guess.

spk_0 That's like, all right.

spk_0 I guess it works, I guess.

spk_0 We've never used it out of people before,

spk_0 so we'll just use it now.

spk_0 And never again, by the way.

spk_0 Never again.

spk_0 Like, like, you know, screaming music,

spk_0 it would be like, what is that?

spk_0 It's like, ah!

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 Right.

spk_0 But even that's like, okay, now it's, that's screamo.

spk_0 It's like, screamo, right?

spk_0 Oh, screamo.

spk_0 That's very, very.

spk_0 That's like screamo.

spk_0 Yeah, it's, sometimes too, I think, genres.

spk_0 The music, like, if you think of music from 20 years ago,

spk_0 right, or not even 2010, I see a lot of people be like,

spk_0 oh, that's an emo band.

spk_0 I'm like, no one called that band an emo band then.

spk_0 But now we're just kind of blanking it.

spk_0 Like, all popular, hot topic music is now considered emo.

spk_0 I've heard people say, I'm just gonna say

spk_0 Lincoln Park is emo and I'm like, yeah.

spk_0 What?

spk_0 Yeah, I was just like, I don't know what you,

spk_0 I mean, I guess literally maybe.

spk_0 But like, no, not like, I can't accept that.

spk_0 I remember very specifically in that,

spk_0 it was like dashboard confessional.

spk_0 That's emo music.

spk_0 That's emo.

spk_0 That's like your uncut emo.

spk_0 Yeah, it's great.

spk_0 That's really love.

spk_0 I mean, actually, he's still has put out some records

spk_0 in the last five years that I really like.

spk_0 How do you feel about like, like, a lot dispute?

spk_0 Dude, that's the talking.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 Kind of like me without you, do you know that band?

spk_0 Kind of.

spk_0 They were more in like the Christian, like heavy circuit,

spk_0 but me with you and a lot of speed.

spk_0 I've seen them before, I think with Threis.

spk_0 A lot of speed, I don't know how I feel about it.

spk_0 Cause a lot of speed to me just feels like whining

spk_0 over somebody else's music.

spk_0 It's like, another band is playing guitar

spk_0 and then the lead singer's like, I'm so sad.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 And I'm like, I don't know, I don't know what to do.

spk_0 They don't tiny desk.

spk_0 Maybe, probably.

spk_0 I feel like they're the guys that people circulate

spk_0 to make fun of when they're like the worst

spk_0 tiny desk performance.

spk_0 Oh, I don't know about that.

spk_0 I think, although everybody's done a tie,

spk_0 the caratops probably done a tiny desk at this point.

spk_0 I don't even know what tiny desk even is at this point.

spk_0 I think it's gone now though, isn't it?

spk_0 No, they turned style it just did a tiny desk.

spk_0 Oh, that's right.

spk_0 You're saying the budget cuts.

spk_0 Yeah, I assume they'll keep that going.

spk_0 You know, they'll cut saw their shoes.

spk_0 That's so popular.

spk_0 They probably make it as money on them.

spk_0 Lincoln Park is a rap rock band.

spk_0 Right.

spk_0 Now, by the way, just, I know we've talked about

spk_0 Lincoln Park several times like after the New Lincoln Park

spk_0 and I don't want to be too repetitive,

spk_0 but I see like a clip of them coming up every once

spk_0 and a while, they're playing a show or whatever.

spk_0 I can't believe how bad it is.

spk_0 To the point where I'm like, is this a,

spk_0 that's so many people love it and are defending it.

spk_0 I'm like, is this a joke?

spk_0 I'm not saying the new stuff.

spk_0 I don't get a fuck about the new stuff that they recorded.

spk_0 I'm saying them playing old hybrid theory media or a minute

spk_0 to midnight.

spk_0 I'm like, this sucks.

spk_0 I can't believe that this is the choice you made.

spk_0 Lincoln Park is probably a top 25 band for me.

spk_0 I mean, just those two first two records are insanely good.

spk_0 I mean, I was in high school.

spk_0 You have to understand I was primed up for Lincoln Park.

spk_0 We loved it.

spk_0 Everyone had hybrid theory.

spk_0 It's a diamond certified record.

spk_0 But it bothers me so much because I'm like, dude,

spk_0 you could have made such a good choice

spk_0 and you made the worst choice.

spk_0 Like it's almost bizarre.

spk_0 And then I read the comments and I look at them

spk_0 and I'm like, damn, people like it.

spk_0 I just don't think it's that.

spk_0 I think you're exaggerating when you say it's the worst fight.

spk_0 Like they could have got like,

spk_0 I don't know, the ghost of Verne Troy or something.

spk_0 I mean, there's worse people to have front line.

spk_0 I do agree that she doesn't hit those old notes

spk_0 in the way that would be more preferable.

spk_0 And there's maybe people who could maybe do that better.

spk_0 But I don't know.

spk_0 I've heard their new stuff.

spk_0 It's like, it's not as good,

spk_0 but I don't think it's as bad.

spk_0 I think people are doing a little bit of rose tinted stuff

spk_0 with the original Lincoln Park.

spk_0 I love the original Lincoln Park, but it is, that sounds like,

spk_0 they did like a secondary like a dendom

spk_0 to their most recent thing.

spk_0 I don't even know what it's,

spk_0 what you would even call it.

spk_0 It's like a, like a bonus pack of like a couple songs

spk_0 and some of those sound like,

spk_0 this sounds like Lincoln Park to me.

spk_0 Like obviously the voices are different or whatever.

spk_0

spk_0 The lyrics are probably a little bit more.

spk_0 The songwriting core has never changed.

spk_0 So it's been channeled and Mr. Han.

spk_0 You know, and I think some of it works.

spk_0 I think some of it doesn't, but like, I don't know.

spk_0 I think people are, I don't have a strong feeling either way

spk_0 about the new Lincoln Park.

spk_0 I do think it's, the only thing that I think about that,

spk_0 that I feel strongly about, maybe is that like,

spk_0 you could have just gone forward

spk_0 and not called it Lincoln Park and people probably

spk_0 would have had that.

spk_0 That's exactly what they should have done.

spk_0 Also, Lincoln Park songs.

spk_0 Yeah, but even that to me is like,

spk_0 that feels inherently like a semantic kind of complaint,

spk_0 you know, because I think I could have

spk_0 one step closer or something and you know,

spk_0 the bridge, yeah.

spk_0 And it's like, shut up what I'm talking to you

spk_0 and I'm like, dude, this is embarrassing.

spk_0 Like I can't believe this.

spk_0 Yeah, not that that's part of the song was ever cool,

spk_0 but Chester, he sold it.

spk_0 He sold it.

spk_0 Yeah, he does.

spk_0 It doesn't matter.

spk_0 Here's the thing.

spk_0 It's like disturbed with that song where it's like,

spk_0 don't, what is it David Draven?

spk_0 Like, he's like complaining in the middle

spk_0 at the end of it or something.

spk_0 Oh, yeah.

spk_0 No, mommy.

spk_0 No.

spk_0 No, no.

spk_0 Yeah, yeah, I know.

spk_0 That's like that with the sickness.

spk_0 I like, yeah, it's like that's like that's the,

spk_0 that's the, that's the, that's a perfect comparison point

spk_0 where it's like, that's not really sold that well.

spk_0 Yeah, yeah, totally.

spk_0 Just totally.

spk_0 Chester sold it.

spk_0 Here's the thing that I think is important for,

spk_0 I'm able to say, real Lincoln Park fans

spk_0 that we're listening to them after Meteora.

spk_0 Yes, those are the real Lincoln Park fans.

spk_0 That we're listening to them throughout.

spk_0 Yeah, sure, sure.

spk_0 The new Lincoln Park sounds way more like Lincoln Park

spk_0 than their album, their last Chester album in 2017.

spk_0 I don't even know that record.

spk_0 Yeah, I don't even know that record.

spk_0 I mean, if you listen to it and imagine

spk_0 it's not a Lincoln Park album, it's still very good.

spk_0 But yeah, it's a return to form for them.

spk_0 Yeah, they kind of, I don't want to say they even lost me

spk_0 with the Meteora because I think Meteora

spk_0 and hindsight's a great record,

spk_0 but I remember being kind of disappointed by it

spk_0 when it came out.

spk_0 Like there was something, I was like, good songs on there.

spk_0 Don't stay is a great song.

spk_0 That's crazy, man.

spk_0 But like you're insane.

spk_0 Hybrid theory is like, is really like a perfect album.

spk_0 Paper, I mean, just paper cut alone.

spk_0 Yeah. Oh my God, or points of authority.

spk_0 Anyway, what are we doing?

spk_0 I don't know.

spk_0 I could keep talking, I mean, I remember

spk_0 when Minutes of Midnight came out, dude,

spk_0 that was the real tragedy.

spk_0 Well, that was like a huge moment for them

spk_0 because I think that that was when they really broke through

spk_0 truly, because I still, I mean, they were a mainstream band,

spk_0 but I think that like that was when they really

spk_0 broke through.

spk_0 You know what the problem was?

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 Rick Rubin, what is it about Rick Rubin?

spk_0 He will take your favorite band and ruin them,

spk_0 or he'll take someone like Johnny Cash

spk_0 and make the most incredible Johnny Cash,

spk_0 like late era, like insane.

spk_0 What is it about this man?

spk_0 He's either the magic touch or the death curse.

spk_0 Yeah, it was funny that you see the interview

spk_0 he did it with 60 minutes like a year or two ago

spk_0 where he was like, I love how self-deprecating is.

spk_0 He's like, I don't blame music.

spk_0 I don't go read music.

spk_0 I don't, you know, it's really interesting,

spk_0 but he was saying like my specialty is like,

spk_0 I know what is good.

spk_0 And I'm like, other or not that that is true or not.

spk_0 It's interesting that you've made a career.

spk_0 Sometimes does.

spk_0 Yeah, he definitely does.

spk_0 He's an incredible producer,

spk_0 like some of the things he's produces are insane.

spk_0 But yeah, I don't, I don't know.

spk_0 I don't hate Minutes of Midnight at all though.

spk_0 Like I don't like it.

spk_0 I don't like it.

spk_0 I always out by that point.

spk_0 You know, like I just like got to other things.

spk_0 There's some good stuff here,

spk_0 but it's like it is definitely fewer.

spk_0 You know, like half the album is kind of like a,

spk_0 I love bleeding out though.

spk_0 Bleeding out, it's like a certified car.

spk_0 That's a great song.

spk_0 Like I love, that's so fun.

spk_0 Oh my God.

spk_0 They have the best, I always, I love turntables in rock.

spk_0 Obviously that's a huge part of rap rock,

spk_0 but sometimes there are turntables without rap,

spk_0 which is good in rock.

spk_0 But they're one of the absolute best.

spk_0 It's like them.

spk_0 Limbiscuit is obviously awesome with turntables,

spk_0 DJ lethal.

spk_0 And then probably something random,

spk_0 like early incubus, which was awesome.

spk_0 What turntable?

spk_0 Actually, that's a great example of a band

spk_0 that has turntables in no rapping.

spk_0 Or they're not really rapping.

spk_0 Anyway, welcome to our music podcast.

spk_0 All about turn of the century rock in quotes, new metal.

spk_0 Remember when there were bands?

spk_0 First there are soups.

spk_0 I know.

spk_0 But I do look at that, like sometimes I look

spk_0 at the Billboard top 100, and there aren't that many.

spk_0 Like you can look at it from 1987,

spk_0 and you look at it from today, it's like 1987

spk_0 is like 90% fans.

spk_0 Now it's like, yeah.

spk_0 There are three bands.

spk_0 I do think that's a big part of that is like,

spk_0 there's not, nobody can be as famous,

spk_0 musician wise as they were in the 80s today.

spk_0 Like it's kind of, like it's, that's gone.

spk_0 Because it's not like this homogenous.

spk_0 Like there's bands that are killing it,

spk_0 that are like, but they're killing it

spk_0 in the way that we're killing it.

spk_0 You know what I mean?

spk_0 Whereas it's like, we have our own kind of subculture

spk_0 kind of propping us up, you know?

spk_0 And it's not like, it's not this world famous kind of thing,

spk_0 but they're good and they're soul and they're,

spk_0 you know, they're selling out arenas.

spk_0 I think I heard like recently,

spk_0 like what is it that guy that had like the biggest concert ever

spk_0 because they, he, it's like some country star,

spk_0 and he played in, he played in like a stadium

spk_0 that normally doesn't do concerts or something.

spk_0 It's like 113,000 seats or something.

spk_0 Oh wow, that's interesting.

spk_0 And he's the biggest, it's the biggest concert ever,

spk_0 like in attendance.

spk_0 And it's like just some country guy that I never heard of.

spk_0 It's like David Bryan or some, some,

spk_0 oh, standard ass name.

spk_0 And I was like, oh shit.

spk_0 Yeah, I've never heard of this guy in my life.

spk_0 And he is the biggest concert granted.

spk_0 Obviously, that's probably because of the venue.

spk_0 I'm sure Taylor Swift could do that in a second,

spk_0 but like, it's,

spk_0 it's like, Taylor Swift, that's Taylor Swift's the one

spk_0 that's like still really.

spk_0 Taylor Swift is, is, yeah, she's like the kind of exception

spk_0 where she somehow broke through it.

spk_0 And she somehow is where I think Michael Jackson

spk_0 around where Michael Jackson was.

spk_0 But that doesn't happen anymore, really.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 So that's Zach Bryan.

spk_0 Zach Bryan.

spk_0 Oh, right, right.

spk_0 That's right.

spk_0 I don't want to trust Google AI because it's often wrong.

spk_0 But I think it's also Wikipedia.

spk_0 That is, I saw that not on AI.

spk_0 Well, no, no, no, what I say is that's correct.

spk_0 The Zach Bryan thing is I'm seeing articles.

spk_0 I'm saying the largest ever

spk_0 on Stewart New Year's Eve concert in Rio.

spk_0 Uh, look, baby, 3.5 million attendees.

spk_0 That sounds like hell on earth.

spk_0 Rod Stewart, that's a,

spk_0 imagine yourself vacating in the crowd

spk_0 and Rod Stewart.

spk_0 And Rod Stewart is playing Maggie May.

spk_0 Playing young, these playing young Turks.

spk_0 Young hearts, be free tonight.

spk_0 You're just suffocating.

spk_0 I do think I will say,

spk_0 because I'm like some mixed, mixed album

spk_0 that like a friend of mine in college

spk_0 had and just just listened to it in the car.

spk_0 So it's the only reason why I even,

spk_0 not know it, but care about it is,

spk_0 some guys have all the luck as a fucking banger.

spk_0 But that's like late Rod Stewart.

spk_0 That's like when he started doing like 80s music.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 But that song is dope.

spk_0 I like it a little bit.

spk_0 I never saw Rod Stewart.

spk_0 It's weird because like you think he would have been

spk_0 at like a festival or something.

spk_0 Like I've seen so many random acts just that like,

spk_0 it's like, oh, there's fucking Steve Winwood.

spk_0 Yeah, or something like, okay.

spk_0 Lincoln Park is the one thing where I was just like,

spk_0 damn, I really should have saw them.

spk_0 Yeah, I never did see them.

spk_0 I never saw them.

spk_0 It's funny because I,

spk_0 even as a kid, I was aware that I should,

spk_0 it's why I finally saw Green Day

spk_0 during the American Idiot tour, which was like, you know,

spk_0 I like American Idiot.

spk_0 Actually, I think it's a really good album,

spk_0 but it's just different than a lot of the other stuff they did.

spk_0 But yeah, I never saw them during that seminal time.

spk_0 I loved them.

spk_0 And I'm like, I should see them at some point.

spk_0 And I went and saw them.

spk_0 And I, so I totally agree.

spk_0 Like I don't know why I never saw Lincoln Park.

spk_0 I think I'm just turned off to seeing bands and arenas.

spk_0 Like once they make it that big, I'm like, eh.

spk_0 It's, it's kind of like a shitty experience.

spk_0 Like it's cool.

spk_0 If I have to do it, if like,

spk_0 if it's a band like the police where they played giant stadium,

spk_0 it's like, okay, fine.

spk_0 I'll see you anywhere.

spk_0 But it's like, oh, I'll wait until Lincoln Park, like, you know,

spk_0 falls off and they play clubs again.

spk_0 And obviously never happened.

spk_0 Yeah. All the American rejects started doing that kind of like they did that.

spk_0 They were doing like backyard,

spk_0 backyard shows.

spk_0 I saw that, yeah, which is cool.

spk_0 And great for there.

spk_0 That's great marketing.

spk_0 No, it's awesome.

spk_0 They played it as sheets less than an hour from my house.

spk_0 Oh, that's awesome.

spk_0 I was like, that would have been kind of cool.

spk_0 My mom knew someone who was there and it was like, I could not see anything.

spk_0 Like it was just, it was not a disaster.

spk_0 I'm sure everything went fine, but not a good experience to see.

spk_0 Oh, band out of sheets.

spk_0 Really?

spk_0 It was crazy.

spk_0 Bucky's.

spk_0 Lie the Bucky's.

spk_0 Lincoln Park.

spk_0 I'm Lincoln Park.

spk_0 Lie for Bucky's.

spk_0 Lincoln Park album live from Texas.

spk_0 Oh, yeah.

spk_0 That's a good one.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 It's from 2005, I want to say.

spk_0 Maybe a little earlier than that.

spk_0 I don't know.

spk_0 I love good mixed live albums.

spk_0 Just that capture.

spk_0

spk_0 That capture the spirit of being there.

spk_0 It's really cleaning it up too much.

spk_0 All right.

spk_0 This is Sacred Symbols, a PlayStation podcast.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 We go live every single week and have since July 2018.

spk_0 Never missed a week.

spk_0 You can get a three days early and add free over on Patreon.

spk_0 Patreon.com slash last day media.

spk_0 We appreciate your support over there.

spk_0 You can support us at various tiers to get all sorts of freebies, including early add free access to this show,

spk_0 the ability to submit your inquiries to this show and every show.

spk_0 And obviously access to every show we do in our network as well.

spk_0 For the inquiries, you go to the newsfeed on Patreon and look for the various threads.

spk_0 Our threads are posted on Wednesdays and deleted Thursdays.

spk_0 So go post.

spk_0 That's how you're going to hear your inquiries throughout the show.

spk_0 Use Patreon to get your RSS feeds set up to get access to our discord.

spk_0 And so much more.

spk_0 Sacred Symbols Plus is also, like I said, the additional episode you get each and every week.

spk_0 The most recent one that would have gone live on Saturday, we've already put live because it is of great interest to people,

spk_0 which is about the electronic arts Saudi Arabia situation.

spk_0 We're going to talk about that later in the show as well as a big story here.

spk_0 But I sat down and spoke about it extensively with Rick Hogue, the lawyer.

spk_0 And Rick Hogue's an M&A lawyer.

spk_0 So this is right up his alley.

spk_0 And so go check that out.

spk_0 Please, that's available now.

spk_0 That will be that is Saturdays episode, publicly.

spk_0 We just did some spoiler cast slash review discussions for games like Chronos, The New Dawn, Metal Gear Solid Delta, Death Stranding 2, and so on and so forth.

spk_0 I think we're spilling up one for Ghost of Yote.

spk_0 I think we're spilling one up for Silent Hill.

spk_0 F. So more of those coming on Sacred Symbols Plus as well. Please look forward to it.

spk_0 Let's see here.

spk_0 Actually, we don't really need to do this one because I already talked about that.

spk_0 Not very strategic.

spk_0 Sacred streaming.

spk_0 Shaker.

spk_0

spk_0 Shaker.

spk_0

spk_0 Shaker.

spk_0 How are things going on Mondays?

spk_0 Having a great time over there?

spk_0 Join us on our YouTube channel.

spk_0 We go live at 1pm Eastern time and just doing random things.

spk_0 Play a game.

spk_0 Um.

spk_0 Play Sacred League, Peru is the PSN, take Inquiries, whatever.

spk_0 We also did a live state of play stream recently.

spk_0 That was off cycle,

spk_0 and therefore free for all in VOD on YouTube.

spk_0 So go check that out.

spk_0 outside of an ice sat down and taught about or I bet Dustin played and we've talked about, rather through baby steps.

spk_0 And we'll talk about that later because that's one of the games you're playing.

spk_0 Treffer, author, I don't know what some patreon said, greeting sacred serres.

spk_0 With all due respect, I feel like I'm watching For Helen Keller's trying to learn how to

spk_0 read out loud for the first time while you all scrambled to keep points during every bet

spk_0 show.

spk_0 What is going on over there?

spk_0 Is it really that hard to count the points and keep track?

spk_0 You guys even have a pencil and paper.

spk_0 Am I too harsh for thinking this?

spk_0 Is it unfair that I'm slightly infuriated every time?

spk_0 On the flip side, I notice more joy in camaraderie between the crew, which seems a

spk_0 attributed to the streams.

spk_0 I look forward to the streams more than any other content.

spk_0 There are some good vibes happening there, and I'm here for it.

spk_0 Thanks for all that you do.

spk_0 Thank you for writing in.

spk_0 It's Brad.

spk_0 It's Brad's fault.

spk_0 That's it.

spk_0 I mean, what else do you want me to say?

spk_0 Faller, that's all there is to say, really?

spk_0 You're, well, I was going to defend Brad, but you're kind of right in that Brad's like,

spk_0 well, make sure you keep track of the points yourself.

spk_0 It's like, yeah, it's like, I'm too much Brad.

spk_0 It's like, I need to be locked into the game.

spk_0 And you need to keep track of things.

spk_0 Aren't you the game master?

spk_0 Yeah, you're the game.

spk_0 You keep track of things.

spk_0 You have to do it.

spk_0 I didn't if Steve Harvey was on whatever that show is with the surveys.

spk_0 Family feud.

spk_0 And he was just like, do you guys know which one are you guys one?

spk_0 Right.

spk_0 It's kind of crazy.

spk_0 It's like, it's right.

spk_0 It's a bit absurd.

spk_0 You know, we need Brad to be more decisive in his scorekeeping.

spk_0 Yeah, even if it's wrong, you know, right?

spk_0 I would rather him just decide like, I would rather have just flagrantly lie.

spk_0 I'd just be like somebody who clearly lost one.

spk_0 And then that could be its own thing.

spk_0 And then it's like, oh, this is just final.

spk_0 It could be Brad's own North Korea.

spk_0 You know, you can do you make all the numbers.

spk_0 Very fun.

spk_0 Well, we'll clean that up.

spk_0 Sacred Leafs coming back soon.

spk_0 I kind of want to do it for the next stream.

spk_0 But we'll see if I can get that set up because I want to do the questions this time.

spk_0 But I need to like sit down and come up with questions, which is probably pretty difficult.

spk_0 Not difficult, but time consuming.

spk_0

spk_0 Yeah, it'll take some time.

spk_0 Sacred Symbols is sponsored by Cash App.

spk_0 Cash App makes it super convenient to send and receive cash.

spk_0 And it couldn't be more easy to sign up.

spk_0 I like going out, hanging out with friends.

spk_0 And what comes to the bill, I love how Cash App makes it easy for me to either pay someone back

spk_0 or have someone send me cash for when I pay.

spk_0 But outside of friends, like making a deal at a local video game show,

spk_0 it's also great because I can make purchases knowing my money is secure.

spk_0 Cash App is more than just a safe way to send and receive money.

spk_0 With Cash App card, you get tons of perks without hidden fees.

spk_0 Think early access to concert pre-sales like Kendrick Lamar and Sabrina Carbender.

spk_0 Plus discounts on everyday purchases at brands you're probably already spending money on.

spk_0 It also keeps your money safe by automatically flagging suspicious transactions

spk_0 and letting you lock your card instantly if it's ever lost or stolen.

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spk_0 Visit cash.app slash legal slash podcasts for full disclosures.

spk_0 All right.

spk_0 Merch last.am media.store t-shirts sweatshirts stickers and so on.

spk_0 Dane wrote into us on Patreon said how's it going guys.

spk_0 I received my physical copy of her proxy in the mail a few days ago.

spk_0 My wife surprised me with it.

spk_0 I wanted to comment on the incredible artwork both the box artwork and the art within the book.

spk_0 I believe Colin has said in recent weeks that dig into the art.

spk_0 He did. He did an amazing job.

spk_0 Congratulations on another successful physical release.

spk_0 Thanks for all that you do on sacred symbols.

spk_0 I look forward to the show every week.

spk_0 Take care guys.

spk_0 Thank you, Dane, for writing in still copies of her proxy available for you as well.

spk_0 If you want to grab one for PS5.

spk_0 But Dustin, there's something else to talk about.

spk_0 Yes, we have a special Merch announcement.

spk_0 I'm going to put the image in the show for the video.

spk_0 I'll set it.

spk_0 We are doing the first ever holiday sweatshirt for sacred symbols.

spk_0 If you're seeing it on screen or for the audio listeners, it's a black sweatshirt.

spk_0 But it has like a knitted design to it that was done by our friend,

spk_0 Hodge, who did an excellent job.

spk_0 They finally paid him.

spk_0 Oh good.

spk_0 They decided to pay him.

spk_0 Good.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 He needs it.

spk_0 But it says greetings.

spk_0 Seasons greetings and salutations.

spk_0 It has the sacred symbols logo on it.

spk_0 I think this is absolute fire.

spk_0 I can't wait to get one for myself.

spk_0 But being that this is a niche item even for our niche podcast, it is going to be on preorder.

spk_0 Starting this coming Monday.

spk_0 If you're listening on free feeds, the preorder is started now.

spk_0 For two weeks, you can preorder the sacred Christmas sweater.

spk_0 They are going to be, most sizes are 50.

spk_0 And then I think that the largest sizes are a few dollars more.

spk_0 We will be shipping those kind of near the middle to end of November,

spk_0 depending on how long it takes to get the manufactured.

spk_0 But we are confident that they will arrive before the real kickoff of the Christmas season.

spk_0 If you're normal and you celebrate in December and not starting end of October.

spk_0 So yeah, check it out.

spk_0 The holiday sweatshirt.

spk_0 I think you're going to like it.

spk_0 It looks great.

spk_0 It does look great.

spk_0 This is by the way, entitled holiday sweater V2.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 It's interesting to see what the V1 was.

spk_0 I think the V2, I did a different background initially.

spk_0 And I thought it wasn't as readable that way.

spk_0 So then I changed it.

spk_0 So yeah, sometimes there's a variations.

spk_0 I did look into side note because it's like ink that's designed to look like a knitted sweater.

spk_0 We could have done the knitted sweaters.

spk_0 They would have been very, very expensive.

spk_0 So this is a way to make them a little more accessible.

spk_0 Yeah, I mean, if there's the man, maybe we can do a preorder for something like that in the

spk_0 future years. But I don't want to front all that money for something so dangerous.

spk_0 Although when we sold or we didn't sell it because your mom sold it, but the stained glass,

spk_0 I mean, not that there was that many available if people were

spk_0 are willing to buy that stuff at an expensive price.

spk_0 Maybe I should have charged her.

spk_0 Maybe she's already got, to my understanding, she already has a few more maids.

spk_0 So the second wave of the sacred stained glass is coming.

spk_0 Cool.

spk_0 Very good.

spk_0 All right.

spk_0 Let's get into topics of discussion.

spk_0 I have to be honest with you that the inquiries this week,

spk_0 there were not as many fun ones as usual, which is fine.

spk_0 So I only saw a couple that we would use to stretch our legs.

spk_0 And we went on so long about Lincoln Park for some reason at the beginning of the show,

spk_0 that we probably, it probably best that we just have these two inquiries and move on with our lives.

spk_0 But I liked this one. Simon Lyons wrote in.

spk_0 I think this little intriguing. He says greetings, Jens.

spk_0 I just wrapped up the soft opening of my new coffee shop here in Texas.

spk_0 And to my surprise, it was a rousing success.

spk_0 But now as we take a few weeks to tweak ratios and ingredients, I can't shake the feeling that the

spk_0 menu is missing something. Perhaps a double Americano or the shot of an existential dread named

spk_0 the Colin. An empty cup into what your barista has mildly whispered. That's wild for Chris.

spk_0 A lukewarm latte with the promise that it will really heat up after the 900th one-year order

spk_0 for Dustin. What's there you? What's sort of eldritch or esoteric creation should be canonized

spk_0 on behalf of Sacred Symbols? Or maybe just hit me with an idea about something you may actually

spk_0 enjoy. All the best may God have mercy on us all. Thank you. Well, congratulations. I didn't like

spk_0 the lack of confidence, Simon, that you had in the beginning. It much and much to my surprise,

spk_0 you say, and to my surprise, it was a rousing success. Why are you surprised?

spk_0 Have a little, put your shoulder into it. Have a little confidence. What's the point otherwise?

spk_0 You have to believe in yourself. It seems like it worked out. Believe in yourself.

spk_0 Impostor syndrome is nonsense. Just do it and make a lot of money. I wanted to bring this up because

spk_0 Dustin, for you, especially Chris, you like coffee. I keep forgetting. I don't drink it all the

spk_0 time. I don't drink coffee really. I get an espresso every so often after dinner and an

spk_0 night rush run, but I'm not really in the coffee. I'm not going to answer this. Dustin, I feel like

spk_0 this is your time to shine because at Hitler's bunker in Ohio, the deli, we have the sacred sandwich.

spk_0 I designed that. That's like my sandwich. Pepper Turkey, it's a board set. Pepper Turkey,

spk_0 a board set, honey ham and the toppings and all the rest. This is your time to do something.

spk_0 Name it. Put your stamp on it and we'll have another place for people to go and worship a shrine

spk_0 as a way. It's tough because with coffee, I'm a minimalist. I don't want to add

spk_0 flavorings or surups or whatever. I do like when I'm at a shop, when I'm at home, I'm drinking

spk_0 just brewed coffee at shops. I try to get something I can't make at home. I usually involve

spk_0 some kind of espresso. My go-to is not that creative. It's just a medium latte with an extra shot.

spk_0 It's kind of more the ratio of a cortado, but it's a latte, a little extra kick. Maybe that's

spk_0 the move. Latte, extra shot. What do we call it though? Stand-down shot? It's pretty obvious.

spk_0 The stand-down? The stand-down. Maybe two extra shots though. We don't want people going two nuts.

spk_0 I've done it. Years ago, my old job, me and Ben and Brandon and some other friends, we would

spk_0 sometimes meet for coffee. We were 80-year-old men before we went to work. I would drink a

spk_0 cortado, a regular hot coffee, and I would get a cold brew on the way out. I would drive to work.

spk_0 I'd have my hands on the wheel and I could see them. I was so stressed and I got to stop doing this.

spk_0 Yeah, that's crazy. You guys are such... Your friend group is like a sitcom friend group.

spk_0 Seinfeld's fun. We always talk about Seinfeld. It's one of my favorite things ever. It's like they

spk_0 see each other so much. I would never want to see anyone like that. You're one of those guys that's

spk_0 like, let's go get coffee before work with my friends. That's what you see on a 90s sitcom.

spk_0 It's very interesting. You have a very social and amiable life.

spk_0 Wow. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, the coffee before work, it was just a nice time to catch up.

spk_0 With the boys. We actually did it as as cringy as we called it, coffee boys. The coffee boys would

spk_0 meet on Thursday morning. It's just so interesting because you must have been really young at that point.

spk_0 Right? I mean, 22, something like that. When I was 22 at seven in the morning, I was like,

spk_0 passed out, hungover. You know, you were about getting coffee with your friends and enriching your

spk_0 social life. It's just interesting. I was maybe 25. The part of the reason was Holly worked at

spk_0 the coffee shop and I needed to take her there in that we had one car. So I had to take her to the

spk_0 coffee shop and drop her off. So eventually, just turned it into like, well, I'm already here.

spk_0 Maybe the boys are also going to work. So why don't we just meet up for a little bit.

spk_0 Hang out, have a drink, talk about life. You know, so it's nice. I think I've done it.

spk_0 I'm trying to make a joke, but I'm complimenting it as well. Yeah. It's very

spk_0 mindful. I still don't see the coffee before work sometimes. Not with this show because we started

spk_0 it like, we started recording at 10 a.m. my time, which is like, I usually get a bit like 830.

spk_0 Give myself some time, but on a start tank day, that's my schedule entirely. I'm going to walk

spk_0 to the diner. I'm going to get myself some coffee. Fantastic. Very nice stuff. Well, Simon,

spk_0 congratulations. It's tough owning a business like that. So we're wishing you the best

spk_0 is probably very competitive. That's basically it feels like there's always like every time a new

spk_0 place opens up around here, I feel like it's a coffee place. And I'm like, how much coffee can

spk_0 we possibly need? It's insane. I think there's like, I think there's like four coffee shops in like

spk_0 two blocks. And I'm like, look, I get it. There's different styles. People want different things. I'll

spk_0 give you two. I'll give you two. But what we really need is like a place where I can get like a

spk_0 bacon, I can cheese real right. That's what we need. That's what we need here. That's not served.

spk_0 We don't need another coffee shop. Yeah. I'm going to bless you. If I, it's so stupid to say,

spk_0 but it's like, if I knew that something because it's so risky opening up an eatery of some sort,

spk_0 whatever it is, but like a New York style deli, if I just knew that it would work here,

spk_0 because there are none like that. I would attract like a snow bird type people and transplants.

spk_0 And people that just want that kind of thing, it's like, oh, I would totally do it because it would be

spk_0 so awesome. I've genuinely thought about it. I've genuinely thought about it. I've looked at

spk_0 places like for Lisa and I've been like, maybe, I don't know, maybe. But I want it like, I feel like

spk_0 I don't want to do that really. But like, I would like to at least have one of those places.

spk_0 Like if anything, it's just just just so I could go there and get a sandwich.

spk_0 If you could purely selfish. Right. Of course. You know, of course.

spk_0 Have you guys seen the there's a King of the Hill episode where there's a New York style deli

spk_0 that opens in the mall and Bobby Hill eats so much of the, he eats all of this food and he gets

spk_0 gout. I'm like a chicken livers and stuff. That's awesome. Crazy. God, you guys are on it with that

spk_0 show lately. It's funny. It's got a resurgence now that it's got its new season. I'm in, dude.

spk_0 I'm all in. JP wrote in with the final inquiry before we get into the news. There's some big news,

spk_0 of course, to get through this week. He says, Hey, Saker, gentlemen, how much money would it take

spk_0 you to be a henchman? Let's say you live in Gotham City and the Penguin offers you a job. What would

spk_0 be your price to potentially have to deal with Batman dropping from a car, oil and cussing you to

spk_0 the point that you can no longer read. Thanks. I'll fall asleep in my chair, story like a cartoon

spk_0 bear and listen. This is a great question because the one thing that I've always appreciated about

spk_0 the henchman, if you play like an Arkham game, for instance, it reads like this to me. They're quite brave.

spk_0 They never back down. They know they're going to get their shit kicked in. And they're watching it happen.

spk_0 Especially when you're on the gargoyles and you're like, you're tying people up and like,

spk_0 the bat, you're looking for you, but they don't ever run away. That's the interesting part about it.

spk_0 They're quite brave. And I wonder what that's all about. So they must be being paid well or just

spk_0 the fiber of these people is quite elite. I always think they're brainwashed or something. Not fantasy

spk_0 style brainwashed. I mean brainwashing the way that we do it in the real world with repeat training

spk_0 and just kind of like a cult leader kind of thing. Because if you're following somebody like the

spk_0 Joker, that's more that's got to be more of a cult than anything. There's definitely not like a

spk_0 401k attached or something like that. So I just took it to to mean that they're also crazy.

spk_0 Or they also don't really understand fully what they're dealing with. Or maybe they somehow

spk_0 think that every single person that that Batman beats is like a fluke. I don't know. It's very

spk_0 weird. I always love that about video games like that where the henchmen are clearly up again,

spk_0 somebody that they have no fucking hope. It's the same thing in Spider-Man as well. It's like what do

spk_0 you think you're going to do to this man? And those those takedowns are brutal too. My favorite

spk_0 thing about the Batman and Spider-Man thing is like they don't kill. Right. They throw them off

spk_0 of building and then they'll get web to a service or whatever. How immersive my favorite thing about

spk_0 the most recent joke that I've seen is just people cracking skeletons in half and just completely

spk_0 twisting them and then it's just like now talk. You know. It's good stuff. I don't think they're

spk_0 going to pay it in this body. I don't think they're getting paid well at all. I think it's a

spk_0 cultish kind of voluntary service type thing. Interesting. Yeah, I guess I always envisioned it.

spk_0 I guess it would be different on a situation by situation basis. But I suppose I always envisioned it

spk_0 as there's some sort of pot of money or people are promised X amount of the winnings or the findings,

spk_0 the stealing of whatever they get. I don't know. I don't know. I never I'm always fascinated that

spk_0 these some of these guys have like families and kids when you listen to their yeah they're like

spk_0 chatter with each other. Which actually is kind of cool. But they must be bringing home the

spk_0 bacon somehow Dustin. What would it take for you to work for the penguin in Gotham City?

spk_0 Yeah, I was you know, Chris brings the call aspect. I wonder if these are you know poor people

spk_0 that have just been taken advantage of. It's like what are you going to do in Gotham? You either

spk_0 rob or you get robbed. So you might as well go for it. But it's made me think that has there ever been a

spk_0 multi-player game where you can like it's in what's the word I'm looking asymmetric multiplayer game

spk_0 with Batman and Enchman. That would be cool. That might be kind of it would be like the splinter cell

spk_0 mode that was like spies versus merks or whatever. Yeah, that might be kind of I might be kind of

spk_0 into that. That might be an enchanted. Yeah. They did kind of technically the most analogous thing to

spk_0 that was there was a level in the suicide squad game where you fight Batman and that's kind of

spk_0 that's kind of the thing of it where he's stalking you in the pipes. Right. It's kind of scary.

spk_0 That was the coolest thing about that game. It's almost like it should have been single-player.

spk_0 It's almost like that's what it should have been. But yeah, I think there's a movie in the works

spk_0 right now with DC like about at least called Enchman or something and the premise is that it follows

spk_0 a Enchman in Gotham. That's cool. That's a cool idea. Yeah, what that would be like. Yeah, I'm super

spk_0 stoked about the idea. It's a great. That's a great idea. I don't know how well it's going to be.

spk_0 I'm sure there's maybe comics based on that. I'm sure that's not like a purely original idea.

spk_0 But I've always been fascinated by Enchman and everything. Even as early as the Spider-Man

spk_0 never soft games where they're just like they're just on the rooftops. You know, nothing to do.

spk_0 Well, this is why I'm fascinated. We talked about it when we talked about my friend Jake who

spk_0 the Metal Gear art and that I approached him when he was already getting too big to really take it.

spk_0 The commission where I wanted him to do Cobra propaganda posters. I had this idea. That's what I

spk_0 mean, apart from everything that I love about it, one of the cool things about Cobra is that

spk_0 they're supposed to be like normal people. In the comic books which are quite serious, they show

spk_0 like the Crimson Guards as being like guys in suits and ties when they're at work and they're like

spk_0 everyday lives but then how it translates to Cobra. So like a guy like working on a car in a shop

spk_0 but then he's like a techno viper like the guys that work on the vehicles and you know all those

spk_0 kinds of things that I want to make propaganda posters have him make propaganda posters that are

spk_0 like that. That lean into like these are actually real people that are like doing this.

spk_0 And I think that's always interesting to humanize as many of the characters as you can in their

spk_0 kind of stories even if the stories are silly. All right, let's get into the news.

spk_0 The big piece of news this week is the pending purchase of electronic arts by a consortium of

spk_0 interests and there are two primary sources here to go through. So first of all, shout out to

spk_0 the Wall Street Journal because they broke this story actually before EA was ready to talk about it

spk_0 which sent the stock soaring late last week but on September 29th so a few days ago now from

spk_0 when we're recording EA announced and confirmed the news which is that a consortium of interests

spk_0 are going to buy the company for $55 billion and take it private and we'll get into all what that

spk_0 means but the press release that EA released says this in part. Electronic Arts, a global leader

spk_0 interactive entertainment today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to be

spk_0 acquired by an investor consortium comprised of PIF, Silver Lake and Affinity Partners and an

spk_0 all cash transaction that values EA at an enterprise value of approximately $55 billion.

spk_0 The transaction positions EA to accelerate innovation and growth to build the future of entertainment.

spk_0 Under the terms of the agreement, the consortium will acquire 100% of EA with PIF rolling over

spk_0 its existing 9.9% stake in the company. EA stockholders will receive $210 per share in cash.

spk_0 The per share price just purchased price represents a 25% premium to EA's unaffected share price

spk_0 of $168.32 at Market Clothes on September 25th, the last fully unaffected trading day

spk_0 and a premium to EA's unaffected all time high of $179.01 at Market Clothes on August 14th

spk_0 earlier this year. You can listen to the SIGR Simbles Plus episode I did with Hogue right now on

spk_0 patreon.com slash slash media we get really deep into the deal. Here we're going to get as deep

spk_0 as you guys want to get because I want to get your opinions as well but here are a few good

spk_0 interesting pieces of information that are relevant. As they say here in the press release

spk_0 PIF. PIF is the public investment fund. This is a Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund.

spk_0 It is the second biggest sovereign wealth fund in the world behind Norway's sovereign wealth fund

spk_0 and a sovereign wealth fund is a state controlled series of investments that use government money

spk_0 to invest in private corporations that then they can funnel the money back into their own

spk_0 countries ideally and the public investment fund I'm sorry from Saudi Arabia was founded in

spk_0 the early 70s because the Saudis have long known and this was something that we were getting

spk_0 into on the show on SIGR Plus that I find fascinating is if you read about you guys know what peak oil

spk_0 is the term peak oil not specifically now it's the idea that there will be a day where the most

spk_0 oil will be extracted from the planet and then it will all go down from there because there

spk_0 will be fewer and fewer reserves and in the 70s and even before that people thought we would reach

spk_0 peak oil in the 90s because they didn't realize how much oil was really under the ground and

spk_0 we can get it out of like you know oil sands and all the like do sophisticated things now

spk_0 but the Saudis in the 70s started to get nervous because they're like yeah we have a lot of oil

spk_0 but it's going to go away we need to diversify and so they've been chasing this for many decades

spk_0 this is not a new phenomenon by the way we still haven't reached peak oil which is incredible

spk_0 to think about there's just so much of it it's crazy it's actually fucking crazy I remember being

spk_0 a kid and people would be like no no later than 2000 will be peak oil and in the 60s I think

spk_0 they were saying 1980 and the 1990 so a really interesting shit so they're smart they want to take

spk_0 the money that they've gotten from fossil fuels and get it going while the going is good and they

spk_0 control a trillion dollars worth of corporate entities now which is amazing Norway's twice as big

spk_0 interestingly they're sovereign wealth fund but other than that that's their biggest that's the

spk_0 relevant right now because they're the big player in this but also they already own 10% of EA

spk_0 so theoretically to gain control of the company they would just need to get 40% plus one vote

spk_0 and then they would be in control of the company this is a bigger thing this is a full leveraged

spk_0 buyout now a leveraged this the big part of this is that this is the biggest leverage to buyout

spk_0 of all time and a leveraged buyout for people that don't know is basically the new is the new

spk_0 entity strapping itself with debt to finance the purchase and this is often this was a big deal in

spk_0 the 90s and into the 2000s and one of the things that kind of went away after the financial crash in

spk_0 2008 that's kind of coming back a little bit and so EA right now has 2.2 billion dollars worth of

spk_0 debt which is very manageable but after the deal they're going to have another 20 billion dollars

spk_0 of debt finance through them through JP Morgan to be able to afford this full deal EA initially went

spk_0 public in 1990 for 52 cents a share and pretty interesting where they so there are no doubt people

spk_0 that have been holding EA the entire time and are primed to make an enormous amount of money

spk_0 it's also important to note that the public investment fund in Saudi Arabia is doing this

spk_0 through the savvy games group which is their games arm and that Mohammed bin Salman the proud

spk_0 prince of Saudi Arabia is reportedly a massive gamer and that's been true for years in fact I was

spk_0 asking Hogue if you ever saw it I don't know if you guys ever saw the what people claim is his

spk_0 steam account which is they now like an anime girl yeah it's like he plays like he has like

spk_0 thousands of games yeah it's like a lot of it is like anime and really nerdy shit he's a real

spk_0 he's definitely the driving force behind them getting involved in the ship and it's really

spk_0 interesting savvy already owns a bunch of shit in the games industry they own 8% of embraceer

spk_0 they own all of scoply which is a huge deal scoply is the company that absorbed nianctic

spk_0 and they make so they're responsible for like Pokemon go but monopoly go or whatever that game is

spk_0 called which is huge is like their big thing right now they own 5% of capcom 5% of nexon 7 and a half

spk_0 percent of dintendo 6% of take 2 so there's them involved in this that's obviously the big

spk_0 controversy the other entities for people that are curious silver lake is a as a private fund

spk_0 that was founded in the late 90s and they were early investors and a lot of shit they may and

spk_0 they've made a lot of money and they control about a hundred billion dollars in assets right now

spk_0 they were early investors in like air bnb waymo twitter expedia oh my god

spk_0 and they were they were an early investor in skype skype obviously was sold for an enormous

spk_0 amount of money to microsoft they were an early investor in go daddy they were an early investor

spk_0 in alibaba which is a huge chinese website google like entity and then the other interesting

spk_0 wrinkle is so the third partner is affinity partners why it's interesting to know that they're

spk_0 involved is because they are so much smaller so the pif is worth a trillion dollars

spk_0 uh silver lake is worth a hundred billion dollars so so 10% of that and then affinity partners

spk_0 is worth one 20th of what silver lake is worth the reason that i believe they're involved is because

spk_0 jared kushner owns them they have really i would i would say if you know anything about the

spk_0 abraham accords and all the shit that happened with israel or whatever in their investments in israel

spk_0 and kind of normalizing stuff over there he has huge connections in saudi arabia so my assumption

spk_0 is is that affinity partners is like the lubricant the deal and then silver lake is like one of the

spk_0 money to interests and then the pif is the other money to interest and then jp morgan is putting

spk_0 the rest of the money up as alone jason shryer reports on blue sky that the loans are

spk_0 through their financial reporting of bloomberg so not even him but like the financial reporters

spk_0 are saying that the loans that will finance this debt are rated b which means that their junk loans

spk_0 which indicates that this could be more dangerous than it seems so there's a lot of interesting

spk_0 tendrils to pull out here lots to talk about we can go in any direction doesn't let's start with you

spk_0 ea will be sell sold we'll go private and be primarily they're not wholly owned by the saudi

spk_0 wealth fund what do you think yeah it sucks right off the bat it sucks and to be clear going into

spk_0 this and i think we i at least personally i've said this before i'm not a big finance guy there's

spk_0 a lot of stuff even though you just said calling that i somewhat understand but not really so a lot

spk_0 of the my feelings are just feel exactly that well what well that's what you want to spot but what

spk_0 don't you understand because maybe other people don't as well what can we clarify maybe i also don't

spk_0 I guess the i mean there's things that i there's things that i understand like i understand about

spk_0 the three different entities buying this the junk loans stuff like that the things that i guess

spk_0 i just don't understand is and i guess i do understand they're just thinking like why

spk_0 there's part of me that's like it's so complicated because there's a way that i'm like the

spk_0 government shouldn't be involved in a lot of big well you know obviously like monopolistic stuff

spk_0 like we want government involved but i'm like shouldn't it be isn't a little weird that a foreign

spk_0 nation is buying up some of our biggest entertainment entities like american companies in order to

spk_0 enrich themselves and send that money out of the country like maybe we shouldn't do that like

spk_0 maybe we shouldn't allow that um it just seems obvious to me but clearly saudi arabia across the

spk_0 board is just doing this all over the place and there has been significant pushback which i think

spk_0 is good calling you and i were talking about that uh that comedy festival that was in saudi arabia

spk_0 i mean yeah i just watched a video about that it's particularly interesting because like bill burr

spk_0 was part of it and he's like notoriously saying like very against wealth inequality which is good

spk_0 saying billionaires need to be put down little right you know very we'll just say a brace of language

spk_0 whether you like it or not uh but then takes like a cool million dollars and agreement to not say

spk_0 anything bad about an extremely oppressive regime you know not so not so good but yeah it sucks a lot

spk_0 of questions i i'm trying to remember if any of these writings are about this but like it's obvious

spk_0 to me at least that it's like no nothing's going to change in terms of what content is or isn't allowed

spk_0 from ea to put out it's not like they're going to impose cultural restrictions because as you were

spk_0 saying calling the whole reason for this is to make money for their wealth fund and so i think that

spk_0 they understand that it's like we can't if we were to impose that on this then it's going to hurt

spk_0 it and that's not why we're doing this so it's unfortunate i don't really know what else to say

spk_0 about it other than this keeps happening and more and more american companies seem to get swallowed up

spk_0 by foreign entities only to just funnel the money out um indeed i mean that's one incredibly valid

spk_0 point of view and one of many things that we can discuss about this say i want to

spk_0 you want a record Chris how are you feeling about this is this big news a lot of everyone has an

spk_0 opinion yeah i mean it's it's it's the almighty dollar man i've talked about this i don't even know

spk_0 how many times on the show but like when you're guiding principle is the dollar then nothing

spk_0 matters but that and then yeah you're going to like you're going to sell your shit to the highest

spk_0 better whether whether it's detrimental to you your your culture your society your country whatever

spk_0 it's like it did does it's not going to matter to you because that's that's that's the religion

spk_0 that you have is the dollar and this is ultimately and i know people are tired of hearing this but it's

spk_0 like dude this is this is the ultimate end of this kind of system that we have this is like where it

spk_0 always goes you can't have capitalism is like a garden man like you got to like maintain it you

spk_0 have to prune the weeds you know you have to make sure things aren't like you know wrapping their

spk_0 tendrils around other things you got to make sure you manage it and you can't just leave it just

spk_0 unmanaged because then it just it gets to this that this is always what happens if we haven't prune

spk_0 in a fucking long time and looks like we're not going to prune a long time because Jared

spk_0 Kushner isn't he like don't Trump's like son-in-law that's he's married to a vodka from that's a real

spk_0 sick i wanted to bring that you're awesome but what about you know both i mean our current president

spk_0 and this and the former president they all got deals going on in other countries seems real

spk_0 seems legit it's it's it's just it bothers the shit out of me too just because i would invest here

spk_0 but the it's so frustrating man whether it's whether it's like clandestine and secretive

spk_0 or like out in the open like that's one thing i see like now it's like well at least they're

spk_0 doing it out in the open it's like that's not better that it's just like if they're if

spk_0 if Bill Cosby was like outdoing tours and i'm like yeah i've been raping it's like that doesn't

spk_0 you that doesn't that doesn't change you know you know like some raping oh yeah that's right

spk_0 that's right yeah i forgot that's uh that's uh that's uh they great uh nor McDonald bit where he's

spk_0 talking about like i think the way i think the worst bit about Cosby was the hypocrisy and he's

spk_0 like yeah i think that's the worst part but no i think i don't know man this is it's this is

spk_0 this is where this leads man and it's um it's unfortunate because i don't see it really stopping

spk_0 i think we're in we're in a very um we're generally in a very get the bag kind of environment

spk_0 now like i don't think people think about the morality of these things as much as they used to

spk_0 because we're just kind of surrounded by people telling us to just like you know grind get the

spk_0 bag you do whatever you can and it's you when you're in that environment you don't really think

spk_0 about the effects and like this is a real bummer man i don't know when this is going to go through

spk_0 but like presumably that'll be like a that's that's a lot of big games i know people i saw people

spk_0 being like oh it's a good thing that they got EA because EA doesn't make good games and it's like

spk_0 only if you don't play games can you can you think that yeah i mean like what are you talking about

spk_0 they they they they made it takes two which was like the most one of the most impressive games i

spk_0 played in the year that it came out split fiction apparently is very good as well i haven't had

spk_0 the time to check that out yet either but like that was a unique game battlefield is having its

spk_0 resurgence now at like the worst possible time i guess um because now i'm like i well i guess i

spk_0 i don't know i i don't i guess i'm not playing battlefield because this is that's that's insane

spk_0 battlefield being on my Saudi Arabia is hysterically weird yeah it's awesome like that's a

spk_0 very weird it's it's happening all over the with the vryad comedy festival too like there's so many

spk_0 people who are just so unabashedly selling out like tim dillent to me was the most egregious

spk_0 because like you sold out and you got fired so you got you got double you're like a double loser

spk_0 after you had like a lot dinner with like the president like all the stuff is like you can't like

spk_0 i don't know man i don't it's so shameless the degree by which like there's so much intermingling

spk_0 and just like yeah sell your assets to this sell your assets to that whatever get your bag i'm

spk_0 just like brother this is so sad but whatever it's just gonna keep going this way until everything's

spk_0 owned by like two companies and then we're gonna be like why does everything suck now or why does

spk_0 everything continue to suck and it's like gee i wonder gonna be because like there's nobody competing

spk_0 with each other anymore because everybody's agreeing to stay out of each other's turf like it's

spk_0 cable companies and shit yeah the whole other thing we're it's our cartels it's just yeah that's

spk_0 that's where we're heading really and there's no there doesn't seem to be an any earnest

spk_0 um a real attempt to get in the way or to to combat it in some way it just seems to be just like

spk_0 this is where it's where it's where it's just how it's it's how the game is played and it's like all right

spk_0 race to the bottom i guess um we go so Andrew Wilson is gonna remain CEO of the company which is

spk_0 interesting um in fact i feel like it's up to the board to figure this out in the board to prove

spk_0 this so um but it almost feels like a conflict of interest because usually like in math massive

spk_0 sales like this there's often the turning over of the of the c sweet and so he's running the

spk_0 company and driving forward this purchase that will just further enrich him specifically but

spk_0 um and he already makes i mean again i again i've said this a million times i don't think being

spk_0 the CEO of ea is easy i think it's incredibly fucking difficult uh but here it makes like

spk_0 $50 million a year something like that so after all his options and and all these things so

spk_0 but i thought that his letter was interesting hogan and i were making fun of part of it because it's

spk_0 just so it's just such PR people that you could just put this through a through a fucking AI bot now

spk_0 and and have them write something like this so it says team moment to go we announced that the

spk_0 board approved an agreement for ea to be acquired by pif silver lake and affinity partners you can

spk_0 read the press release boba under the terms of the transaction uh that we already know this this

spk_0 moment is a recognition of your creativity your innovation and your passion you have built some of

spk_0 the world's most iconic ip created stories that have inspired global communities and helped shape

spk_0 culture through interact through interactive experiences everything we have achieved and everything

spk_0 that lies ahead is because of you we are entering a new era of opportunity this is one of the largest

spk_0 and most significant investments ever made in the entertainment industry our new partners bring

spk_0 deep experience across sports gaming and entertainment they are committed with conviction to ea

spk_0 they believe in our people our leadership in the long term vision we are now building together

spk_0 um i thought this was funny though there's a state if you guys um read his letter and there's

spk_0 a thing at the bottom we went into this so i don't mean to be redundant because we talked about this

spk_0 extensively on uh sacred plus what i just think this is so funny and i think you guys will find

spk_0 it funny there's a thing here it says cautionary statement regarding forward looking statements

spk_0 so this is underneath his letter some statements set forth in this communication

spk_0 contain forward looking statements that are subject to change statements including words such as

spk_0 anticipate believe expect intend estimate plan predict seek goal will may likely

spk_0 should could and future and similar expressions that predict or indicate future events or trends

spk_0 or that are not statements of historical matters may identify forward looking statements

spk_0 these forward looking statements include but are not limited to statements regarding the benefits of

spk_0 and timeline for closing the transaction this is interesting it's like the craziest lawyer should

spk_0 have ever seen i was dying where i'm like they're going through the words then it's like will

spk_0 may should the whole vote every single just the entire dictionary oh it's so fucking good dude i

spk_0 was like dying when i was reading that i was like i can't even believe that that's real um

spk_0 all right so here's what i have to say about it and again sorry for the redundancy if you're

spk_0 already listened to the show but a lot most of you have not and uh we got into it so much deeper

spk_0 because there's so much to say about it but i have four bullet points that i want to bring up

spk_0 here on the show the first is the major concern that i've seen from people which is oh now they're

spk_0 going to like you know pray the gay away and like all these things are going to you know they're

spk_0 it's like and i think dust and touched on this it's like um no they're not now there might be

spk_0 casualties that get rid of studios like bioware and i wouldn't be surprised if that happens to be

spk_0 perfectly honest and and hold and i talked about this where i'm like they're going to lay people off

spk_0 like understand that they're definitely coming in and and public companies have so much more leeway

spk_0 to waste money and resources and space than private companies and so there's definitely going to be

spk_0 a calling there and i don't i don't wish that on anyone but that's going to happen but i don't

spk_0 i want people to kind of understand that these people are not stupid and they're not going to

spk_0 inject their mores onto the games i don't think that that's a relevant concern in fact they're

spk_0 complete hypocrites and we already know this because savvy games group has western style developers run

spk_0 by women and populated by gay people and stuff working out of ryan so they're willing to totally

spk_0 just pretend that none of their rules and regulations exist for these particular companies because

spk_0 they want to extract what they do best out of them they don't care i think people think that because

spk_0 of the the ryan comedy festival and the stuff that came out about that about like how there's like a

spk_0 specific sheet that was like leaked by one of the comedians that ended up not going that was like

spk_0 you can't joke about you can't joke about this this this and that right and so people are like kind of

spk_0 but those are those are two very different things i think what people have to understand it

spk_0 yet right and i think what i think you have to understand is if so if a gay a game comes out of one

spk_0 of these studios that does something that would be unsavory or untoward in Saudi Arabia it won't

spk_0 be released in that state in Saudi Arabia but that's not what they're going after right i want the

spk_0 global market so they're their hypocrites totally trying to does the same shit so it's it's no different

spk_0 like they're they want to work they want this is the kind of deal that gives them their let's

spk_0 them have their cake and eat it too but i think people are worried about the wrong thing right um

spk_0 and that's that's the big thing i wanted to say here was if you're worried about them saying like oh

spk_0 no more gay gay fucking romance lines and mass spec them like no dude that's not what it's all about

spk_0 they just want money um if only they were that dedicated to the cause you might even have a little

spk_0 respect for them not because of the anti gay or anti thing but because they were consistent but it's

spk_0 not that at all it's the same as them selling all their oil to us we're like okay we don't even like

spk_0 each other the nine eleven hijackers were Saudi you know like everyone just pretends all these things

spk_0 don't exist so i wanted to i i understand that concern like you said the comedy bit but that's

spk_0 because it was in ryan in other words if so any Arabia a Saudi Arabian company was doing in a mayor

spk_0 like a comedy you know circuit in america that list wouldn't exist they just want money exactly

spk_0 so you have to give them that kind of credit and they and they have proven it out over decades because

spk_0 the like i said the sovereign wealth fund is a trillion dollars it's a lot of money for a private

spk_0 entity that's that doesn't isn't what any specific company trillion dollar market cap is nuts

spk_0 so i get it i understand that i think you're concerned about the wrong thing here is where i

spk_0 think you should put your concern is in the sports washing or games washing angle of it

spk_0 Saudi Arabia is populated no doubt by many millions of very good decent people but the reality of

spk_0 the situation on the ground though it has been liberalizing a little bit and it's all relative

spk_0 of course like women can drive now for instance right wow is they have a series of bronze age

spk_0 level laws and regulations and mores that i'm personally not interested in changing because it's not my

spk_0 business but that we nonetheless choose to interact with and endorse by having deals like this

spk_0 and it's the same thing about it's the same China got out of it's like especially in the 90s as

spk_0 trade or normalized in the 80s and 90s it's like they kind of got out of the straight jacket

spk_0 because they're like yeah we can just be a communist dictatorship in quotes but have a capitalist

spk_0 market and everyone just buys our shit and we just interact on the on the market like everyone else

spk_0 so we just have our kick you need to and it doesn't matter while you can actually hold economic

spk_0 leverage against these countries and say like while we can't do anything to change your situation

spk_0 on the ground we don't have to endorse it right and there's some pretty dark shit going on in Saudi

spk_0 Arabia make no mistake about it the reason Tim Dylan was was kicked off as i understand was

spk_0 kicked off of that and that ryan thing was because he was making fun of the fact that they basically

spk_0 have slaves right and it's not like they're literally slaves like chattel slavery or something

spk_0 like that it's that they import foreign workers pay them almost nothing and treat them like

spk_0 absolute shit as an almost underclass that does all of the hard tedious work that their moneyed

spk_0 society doesn't want to do that's the least of it frankly they'll cut your fucking head off in

spk_0 public in a public execution you know for being gay for not worshipping their particular religion

spk_0 for apostasy the thing that bothers me just the most is the way they treat women

spk_0 out of all the other shit that's fucked up this idea that we have to pretend that the women in

spk_0 the desert kingdom on all the sand near the equator want to dress like that and walk around like

spk_0 that is preposterous sorry and i just think it's an awful situation it's not an implication of

spk_0 the individuals that live there it's not an implication of their right to have their own society

spk_0 but i think we have to call out a reasonable stance of like why would we want to deal with a

spk_0 a country like this and it's just it's like what Chris was saying it's like because the money money

spk_0 oil china cheap goods yeah we'll make we'll have our our factories with suicide nets around them

spk_0 make your chachis for you sure you buy them from us you undercut your own working class

spk_0 and we win and it's the same thing with the Saudis so i really think like when people are focused on

spk_0 the end product i'm like no you're not focused on the right thing nothing's gonna change about FIFA

spk_0 or football club nothing's gonna change about battlefield um what's gonna change is that you're

spk_0 just giving them more and more and more money to normalize themselves and i think that should be

spk_0 called out no matter how much things are kind of softening with Saudi Arabia it is still so out of

spk_0 bounds with the way that it's human rights record that i'm not willing to fight a war over it

spk_0 that's not what i'm you know what i mean i'm just saying like can't we can't we agree to just

spk_0 have enough to stay in for it to not economically interact it's like very serious it's like a

spk_0 North Korea situation to me where i'm just like what are we doing you know like what would we really

spk_0 would it would be like if we sold you be soft to like North Korea and you're like why are we doing that

spk_0 you just get money elsewhere you couldn't like you couldn't find anybody else right that's

spk_0 the whole thing for me to Chris's and i don't i think this it would be too easy to manipulate it

spk_0 bad actors could totally dry prices up and everything but when something like this happens it

spk_0 would almost be interesting if there was some sort of government mechanism where they they don't

spk_0 force anyone to do anything but they basically say like would anyone match this would any American

spk_0 company match this price right not drive it up not have it bidding war just say like okay this is

spk_0 what they're willing to pay is anyone willing to pay this to keep it domestic you know i don't know

spk_0 how again that could be so easily manipulated you don't want the government too overly involved

spk_0 but as i said on and a lot of people are like oh um actually i think we might have inquiries

spk_0 actually probably getting it some of them um well yeah i'm sorry go ahead well kind of well the

spk_0 two is like this is going to continue to happen right like there's there's going there's probably

spk_0 going to be more well-funds and all these things and like there's probably going to be other

spk_0 governments that are going to be that are going to be on the hunt for things to invest in like

spk_0 going forward and so like my my thing is like well do we do we just leave it like how

spk_0 oh and i'm not even saying that i'm necessarily in support of this either but like i almost wonder

spk_0 it's like would it wouldn't it be better to have our government do this then another government

spk_0 yes yes like i wouldn't i wouldn't want that necessarily like in a perfect scenario but like if

spk_0 this is the name of the game now where governments are going to be investing in x y and z and

spk_0 you know there's going to be American properties that are going to be essentially working at the

spk_0 haste of you know completely foreign governments like at a certain point it does kind of

spk_0 but who of us to just be like all right well this is this is the these are the rules of the game now

spk_0 um i guess you know what i mean like i guess i guess we stepped in there as well

spk_0 because i don't know what you do if if if you're the only person

spk_0 if you're the only person not cheating you're just dumb yeah i agree with you it's kind of how it

spk_0 feels like to me yeah i agree especially because we're letting you know electronic arts is a great

spk_0 american company i know a lot of people have problems with them sure but like they're a great they have

spk_0 they they're an old silicon valley generation one company and came from nothing you know trip

spk_0 lockins and all those guys and like i said when public in 1990 at 50 cents by volume is share

spk_0 this is a really impressive organization and we shouldn't want it to be and again it's it's true

spk_0 there are you know affinity and silver like are american that's true jp morgan is american that's

spk_0 financing it but it's just um i agree with you and this is so this is what uh deuces bro wrote in

spk_0 he said in the latest sacred symbols plus colon express profound enthusiasm and support for a

spk_0 us public investment fund this is literally a definition of socialism public ownership of private

spk_0 assets as in an arco capitalist i hear by revoked colon's capitalist card chris please welcome

spk_0 column to the communist party thank you for your attention to this matter i was so ho ho ho punch

spk_0 the holes in it which i think is totally reasonable because i didn't i haven't thought it through too

spk_0 much but and i tweeted this and a lot of people are saying similar things to deuces bro that

spk_0 while i go this is like you know socialism and stuff and i'm like we should have a sovereign wealth

spk_0 fund why wouldn't we like to your point if other company or other countries are investing like this

spk_0 and it's often but not always totalitarian countries that do or totalitarian santa santa countries

spk_0 that do have sovereign wealth funds like china has like a bunch of sovereign wealth funds um

spk_0 you know hankong as a private sovereign wealth fund singapore as a sovereign wealth fund

spk_0 Kuwait has a sovereign wealth fund ua e there are as uh hogan i were talking about there are

spk_0 sovereign wealth funds at the state level in the united states de Alaska permanent fund which is

spk_0 the oil fund that pays everyone there every year is a sovereign wealth right everyone gets eighteen

spk_0 hundred dollars a year every year if you didn't know that if you just live in alaska from this

spk_0 thing that was basically an agreement to say like if you're allowed to pipeline and drill and

spk_0 fuck things up here you're at least going to pay us and that's righteous as fuck and by the way

spk_0 alaska is one of the most red deep ruby red states like no contest so they're into it and

spk_0 one is is the texas pension for the government so anyway go ahead no i was like i was going to say

spk_0 that's that's what's so funny about a lot of that stuff because that's that's essentially a ubi

spk_0 right eighteen hundred and it's just like and it's and it's in a in the context of a red stain it's

spk_0 just like these are not i don't know it's getting political but like i wish people would really

spk_0 understand that like a lot of these things aren't really as black and white as they think they are

spk_0 where a lot of there's a lot of crossover and there's a lot of things that you could you could

spk_0 argue a lot of things from any perspective i would argue but i don't know i i think if we're going to

spk_0 if we're going to be in this battlefield now where there's just governments investing this way

spk_0 in that way like it it does kind of a hooves to not complacently like sit by and just just because

spk_0 like we have like a a cultural like history of just like oh no keep the government out of everything it's

spk_0 like yeah i mean generally but like i mean if it helps us why why not yeah i i'm i feel the same way

spk_0 where i'm like first of all you said it's getting pulled like you're what you're saying is getting

spk_0 political it's like hey guys wake up the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia buying

spk_0 electronic arts is deeply political right right you don't understand that i mean off topic political no

spk_0 i understand what you're saying but i'm just saying for people out there they're like politics politics

spk_0 i'm like guys this is a great example of what i'm saying about the in in in an in an inescapable

spk_0 crossover between the political world and the game world it's just it's all the time you just have

spk_0 to keep your eyes open and understand that that's what's happening um

spk_0

spk_0 i believe uh so this is what i was saying to hog was

spk_0 we should have a sovereign wealth fund and it should be populated and and this is this was kind

spk_0 of the idea and obviously we'd have to be massaged but basically companies can just give 10%

spk_0 of themselves in non voting shares to the government to a sovereign wealth fund in exchange for

spk_0 zeroing out their tax bill forever and the government just gets so the government would just own

spk_0 10% of apple have no voting shares cannot have any say over what happens but they just own and control

spk_0 a tenth of the company and they get all the revenue from dividends and all the things like that

spk_0 but and so in exchange for that holding they just don't get tax revenue and that would in a lot of

spk_0 cases like what's worth more like apples tax revenue or 10% of apple right and yeah and

spk_0 you there nothing overly political but the reason that i really believe we should be aggressive in

spk_0 these kinds of things and i don't care if you call socialism or whatever it doesn't matter to me

spk_0 i'm not a partisan in that way it's like a good idea is a good idea it's like our debt and our

spk_0 spending is so out of control that we almost have to be aggressive and and and actually as a government

spk_0 extracting value which is not really a government's job but when when the u.s. government just

spk_0 randomly acquired 10% of intel a few once ago i was like that's fucking awesome like to me i'm like

spk_0 that's that's like a blue chip style thing you would want in a sovereign wealth fund and we

spk_0 should embrace that sort of mentality i think in the united states but apart from that i agree

spk_0 completely chris it's like i'm a capitalist but i am not a free market capitalist and i am not

spk_0 an un abridged like capitalism is always good and the outcomes are always good it's like it's

spk_0 there is an amount of wealth accumulation in these different companies in these different

spk_0 situations that is wild i mean Elon Musk is the first person to have a five hundred billion

spk_0 dollar network it's it's almost impossible to explain how much five hundred billion dollars is

spk_0 that's that's more than the the working capital of like many countries combined

spk_0 and it shouldn't be concentrated in a single person's hands or a single entity's hands i believe

spk_0 that and so i'm concerned by the accumulation of wealth i'm concerned about the sports washing i'm

spk_0 concerned about the cultural mores and concerned about all these things but there is another angle

spk_0 that i want to say would put out there to be fair and this is for the investors and for ea itself

spk_0 the board has approved this deal but as hogan and i were talking about there are ways that it can be

spk_0 disrupted the investors could rebel and ultimately refuse to sell and there could be lawsuits

spk_0 from the government stuff which i don't think would happen because there's really no antitrust law

spk_0 antitrust infringement here or whatever but my big question for this is why sell now

spk_0 i feel like they're undervalued considering what they might be on the cusp of doing and why i think

spk_0 that this buyout is is aimed right now in this moment battle field can end up being very big

spk_0 and it's weird to me that you would want to bail out before you know the outcome now it's risky

spk_0 because battlefield can go fucking south and ruin the deal and no doubt it's attractive because

spk_0 there is a viable although probably part time call of duty competitor here because the only way

spk_0 you can really compete with call of duty is to go yearly but at least for this year there's

spk_0 going to be a call of duty competitor and that's something that hogan and i were going into as well

spk_0 which is just like i if i were an investor i'd be like i don't know man like

spk_0 25% premium awesome i might have bought my shares at 70 dollars i'm going to cash out at 210

spk_0 i might own 10,000 shares i mean it's an enormous amount of money to say no to

spk_0 and you you got to think twice about that but it's like but if i hold it

spk_0 EA just experienced in august it's all time high

spk_0 it said it in the letter itself so i wonder where whatever one's appetite is

spk_0 hog was saying and i think reasonably so 25% is a nice markup and and people are going to

spk_0 they're probably going to be very little problem selling but i i would be i'd be interested to know

spk_0 if there especially any large holders like that own a fraction of a percent or a percent or

spk_0 whatever in these different funds because you hear about from these people every once in a while

spk_0 like will they come out and say something about this or are they just kind of all down because

spk_0 it's a lot of liquid capital right now that they can in you know putting something else but i

spk_0 just feel like it's a weird time to sell yeah that's anything i thought that's like a tertiary

spk_0 concern but that's that's my yeah if any it's a weird one to specifically just because like of the

spk_0 ones of the entities that you would imagine are in dire straits enough to want to sell like EA's

spk_0 probably like not re EA's not even really at the top of that like i would have imagined like you

spk_0 be soft is in dire need of like you know someone to come in well they got it they got it already

spk_0 right i guess i guess so doesn't feel that way i feel like you yourself still kind of feels kind

spk_0 of off but yeah i'm EA's kind of i mean EA still has that bad reputation from like the late

spk_0 2000s like kind of following them around in certain circles there are certain definitely people

spk_0 who are playing games who just weren't even around for that period of time and don't even really

spk_0 know anything about it don't really carry that but i would say like in the last like seven years

spk_0 they've kind of not to say that they're like an amazing company but like they've definitely

spk_0 done a lot of work to shed that in some way like obviously by where's fallen pretty hard but

spk_0 i mean you know even just take what is it um i just said it it takes too alone was kind of like a

spk_0 weird like that's an interesting thing to put out as a studio like that and that entire studio

spk_0 with Joseph Harris and battlefield kind of coming back i don't know it just seems they don't feel

spk_0 like they need this yeah i agree i mean again it's a way to keep for people to cash out bring the

spk_0 company private they're gonna streamline it people are gonna get laid off that's the thing with

spk_0 bio-aware people like oh they're not gonna want like the gaze of bio-aware anymore like no they're

spk_0 just probably gonna shut bio-aware down though because it's yeah they haven't the last relevant

spk_0 bio-aware game was 13 years ago it's it's over yeah um well they're well yeah i get there's been

spk_0 many relevant a lot of their games have been irrelevant not in the way that they would

spk_0 necessarily want well there's there's a well dragon age inquisition so let's say dragon age

spk_0 inquisition was the well because anthem was not anthem died and dragon age died yeah i mean anthem

spk_0 died and but anthem was if there's anything you could say about anthem is that it was very relevant

spk_0 oh yeah yeah sure when when anthem came out that was one of the more relevant things that

spk_0 you could probably talk about but they've they've struck out i would say like three times in a row at

spk_0 this point on track for another i don't know you know fourth they're in a fourth times to charm

spk_0 kind of situation now or it's just like ad they might look at it and be like let's cut our losses

spk_0 with this um which i would not be surprised at but yeah i think it's i think it's a weird move

spk_0 just from i agree it's like you just released the second edition of college football which is arguably

spk_0 the biggest game in the united states you which is dominating absolutely dominating you have madden

spk_0 which is a dominant force and then you have the two together with that you sell in a bundle which is

spk_0 a dominant force it's often when those games are all available it's usually one two and three in the

spk_0 sales charts like the bundle and then the two games allocation it's crazy you have battlefield

spk_0 coming up um i just yeah i just i would just hold my cards and just be like well well well let's talk

spk_0 next year and see where the stock of ea is then that's what i would do i mean i would believe that like

spk_0 but who might say it's like you who might uh to to poo poo that much money it's it's it's obviously

spk_0 life all-thring money from many of the people that are going to cash out including a lot of people at

spk_0 ea that probably have options so yeah i don't know how deep that goes there but there are probably a lot

spk_0 of people excited about ea i am at ea for this deal but i am also interested in their own mentality

spk_0 about you are working for an oppressive regime money regime regime basically it is a little bit

spk_0 of a weird thing but if you can just listen dude there are many companies like look at riot riot is

spk_0 100 percent Chinese owned and no one gives a fuck that works there there are thousands of people

spk_0 in the United States that work there and they don't give a fuck so and by the way it's up to you to

spk_0 care not but sure yeah but i think that that might cause a little bit of a complication i know there

spk_0 have been some stories about it but there is that wrinkle it's going to be very hard to explain

spk_0 the stuff away this is why i just think being consistent in your principles is is easy because

spk_0 then you don't have to kind of squirrel out of these sorts of things just don't interact

spk_0 economically with these systems and you don't have to worry about it and if you do then you do

spk_0 now so i don't really buy ea games but occasionally i do and that's not going to stop me from buying

spk_0 an ea game so am i part of the problem sure if that's what makes you feel good i think the last

spk_0 ea game i played was a mortals of avium and i think the next one i might be missing one in there

spk_0 somewhere but and the next one will be plants versus zombies so which comes out in a couple weeks

spk_0 is there anything else left to be said about this we have another letter but we already went

spk_0 through so much of this i'm going to delete this too sorry guys um doesn't do anything you want to add

spk_0 i have a question for you guys because chris brought this up earlier um but what do we do

spk_0 chris it sounded like earlier that you're you're hard out on ea now and i find that that interesting

spk_0 because often when we talked about tough decisions we make with purchasing um everyone has to find

spk_0 their line right and sometimes like for battlefield it's like i don't i don't like that this is where

spk_0 my money is going to go now i have to make the decision do i still buy it do i not buy it

spk_0 i don't know the answer um but you indicated earlier that you're you might be out well i mean i

spk_0 said this about metal slug when um snk was uh purchased by i think uh the fuck was it i know

spk_0 was not even like what the what was there was i think it's the same i think it's savvy game happy

spk_0 yeah it was the same same thing i'll just play more whatever the cup the the i think that's what it

spk_0 was right yeah and so like i was like well i guess i can i i i can't interact with that the thing for

spk_0 me is it's like it's one thing if you're interacting with a government that is um you know every

spk_0 government they you can make very good arguments to suggest that the american government isn't all

spk_0 that much better than a certain places elsewhere like the should that we engage in overseas

spk_0 particularly is pretty is pretty fucked but like i think there's a distinct difference between like

spk_0 you know dealing with a company that happens to exist on like in a country that is

spk_0 lowered it over by a government that also does bad shit i think there's like a difference

spk_0 between that and like this where like the investment is is so direct where like it's it's it's like

spk_0 this guy this guy specifically has like a like an actual interest in gaming is the reason like

spk_0 Colin said that this is likely going through is undoubtedly directly like seeing like money to

spk_0 benefit from these interactions like i don't know it's hard because you know this dude kills

spk_0 journalists like you got the that kashogi situation it's so it's there's not enough degrees of

spk_0 separation for me personally to feel like oh i guess i'll just buy it and not think about it's like

spk_0 no i'm going to be thinking about it i'm going to be thinking about the fact that like i'm buying this

spk_0 from from a guy chopped up a journalist essentially put him in a fucking bag i'm just like i don't

spk_0 i don't um i don't know again it's one thing when a government exists over it and it's just kind of like

spk_0 it's like you can you can imagine that like a lot of companies in china like the guy the people in

spk_0 charge of like the government over there aren't like sitting there being like they aren't

spk_0 glued into everything at quite as they're just kind of collecting everything you know what i mean

spk_0 they're just like oh that's that's coming in from that area that's coming in from this area

spk_0 this feels so direct that i just can't i don't know it feels uncomfortable for me if someone's

spk_0 if i happen across a cow a copy of a battlefield uh that i didn't pay for or whatever i guess i'll

spk_0 play it i don't have any objection to that because ultimately it's still a game that's built

spk_0 you know it's not like it was built under the under the regime or anything um but i just

spk_0 i feel weird about buying these things now and that's just that's just my line

spk_0 everybody's gonna have a different line um and people could people could even make it the case

spk_0 that like oh well there really is no difference between this and china is like you probably

spk_0 you probably could be right but i also don't really engage with much ten-cent stuff either you know

spk_0 so it's it's unfortunate because i was really looking forward to it but there's other stuff to play

spk_0 there's like it there's a ton actually so it is what it is if anything it kind of just

spk_0 helps be focused yeah i'm i'm not so strict as to be able to say that i'll never buy a game from

spk_0 a certain publisher developer it's like we were saying with limited run games it's like i i just

spk_0 want to i'm actively limiting my participation in their in their particular markets and i keep

spk_0 it in mind and um by the way it's hysterical that we're wearing these hats what we're talking about

spk_0 it is yeah i think it works yeah it's fine so anyway that's happened it is what it is go

spk_0 listen to the sacred symbols plus episode with hope to get more of a legal and financial

spk_0 deep analysis on all the rest as well as our thoughts there you'll get a lot more information but

spk_0 certainly the big news of the week in our industry a lot of people upset about it it is what it

spk_0 is no one cares no one cares it's money that's all they want okay but this next one was

spk_0 interesting i just wanted to bring this up pushwear wrote wrote the story it says sony is a terrible

spk_0 company that's blowing it in the games business as michael packter and they're right quote business

spk_0 analyst michael packter seemingly really has it in for sony as he's now said it's a terrible

spk_0 company that is currently blowing it in the games business this is followed on from suggestions

spk_0 he made last month of clueless management that doesn't know what it's doing the latest comments

spk_0 were made during an interview with yahu finance as part of a discussion around the news of an EA

spk_0 acquisition from three partners packter believes connected tv is the future and when talking of any

spk_0 further acquisitions the analyst responded the following to the idea of buying sony uh quote no

spk_0 sony for sure not sony is a terrible company they actually are blowing it in the games business

spk_0 games are moving to connect to tv so think about all the participants that are going to deliver the

spk_0 way we get movies via netflix forget the subscription model just think about ios becoming

spk_0 becoming on your tv so free to play games on your tv who is going to deliver that cloud providers

spk_0 ai and quote um dustin what are your thoughts on michael packter over the years

spk_0 because you know famous business and most obviously a well-known name in the game space for

spk_0 25 years at least um i have to give some level of deep respect to michael packter because growing up

spk_0 probably when i was even in junior high i would watch on game trailers dot com packter factor

spk_0 and i attribute watching those videos as one of the reasons i became interested in video games

spk_0 outside of just playing games getting interested in the the business and so he has like almost

spk_0 like an nostalgia for me um in in learning about the business and at a very pretty young age right

spk_0 with that being said um i think they're still doing packter factor or it's called something different

spk_0 yeah it's unsifted yeah yeah it's unsifted um and yeah i don't i don't want this to come off as any

spk_0 kind of like super disrespect towards them but i recently watched one of these videos

spk_0 and it was so blatantly wrong and not from an opinion i'm not saying his opinion was wrong

spk_0 he was factually incorrect because they were talking about switch game key cards and games that are

spk_0 that the game isn't on the disc right he's his argument was that publishers wanted didn't want to

spk_0 put the game on the disc because it would get rid of the resale value and that's not true the game

spk_0 doesn't redeem on a disc like that like call of duty as an example where some they've done it where

spk_0 it's not on the disc um those games install but it's not like that locks permanently to your account

spk_0 we all know this that you can then take that disc you can trade it in you can let a friend borrow it

spk_0 or whatever and i was like why did no one tell him before they published this video or just

spk_0 i don't get it and over the years we've seen these types of statements where

spk_0 it's like what what wasn't he big on um the like he in what what year was this like a while ago

spk_0 where there's like oh consoles are gonna die yeah that was in the pf3 era i believe he was kind

spk_0 of a champion to that but i don't want to know he said he said the pf3 would be the final

spk_0 PlayStation console at one point right so yeah y'all who finance um and i mean clearly he still has

spk_0 is is doing um what he does is as an analyst but it's like yeah he i don't get it he's sorry he's

spk_0 he's an analyst for uh an organization called wed bush securities and he must be decent at his job

spk_0 it's not because he doesn't only focus on games um he focuses on just like tech and entertainment

spk_0 generally and he's like so it's a wealth management firm and they obviously have a bunch of experts

spk_0 that look to invest in all these different spaces and then they kind of speak and pontificate

spk_0 about those areas of expertise and people buy into their funds so they have to make money so

spk_0 to be fair to michael pacter like he would simply not be in his position if he was bad at what he

spk_0 did it's just that he does say he doesn't seem to have a great and he says a lot so he it's

spk_0 what i say all the time like i get things wrong all the time i'm like always talking you're gonna

spk_0 get a lot of things wrong but he's gotten some really big things wrong and i think it's just

spk_0 directionally incorrect on a lot of things that he says i find so sony being a target

spk_0 weird right now to be kind of weird just from the perspective of sony is murdering by their own

spk_0 you know it's all relative obviously for instance michael something much bigger company than sony

spk_0 but they're doing a great job playstation five is killing they're making more revenue and more

spk_0 profit than ever right now just kind of a weird you think you would have a little more humility

spk_0 in some sense of maybe i don't quite understand what's going on here um but i just i just found

spk_0 an interesting comment and i wanted i wanted to bring it up because uh yeah good let's take this

spk_0 a step further calling because it's true yet sony's killing in right now in terms of across the

spk_0 board playstation five console business but let's even take it from the angle that he's talking

spk_0 about which is this idea he says games are moving to connect a tv so the idea of a streaming a game

spk_0 to your tv or whatever it's true that playstation doesn't have like a tv app that you get on your smart

spk_0 tv like xbox does but in terms of streaming they're not behind um in fact if you have the higher

spk_0 tier of playstation plus there's all there's like all not always but consistently when i'm going

spk_0 games it's like you can stream this game you can stream it on your playstation you can stream it

spk_0 on your portal so yeah they don't they don't necessarily want that to be the white the primary way

spk_0 people interface with playstation but to say they're not prepared to pivot in the in the situation

spk_0 where it's like okay people don't want consoles anymore it's like they have the streaming infrastructure

spk_0 they're ready to go in fact i would argue in my experience in butler pennsylvania playstation

spk_0 game streaming is way better than xboxes now is that a server related issue more than likely

spk_0 but i found that it's way less it has way less latent um it's more responsive better visuals whatever

spk_0 so to say they're like super behind in that just does doesn't connect to me yeah i um

spk_0 i generally agree because that's what i've heard it's not the way i would play games but i've

spk_0 heard that as well that but technology basing the technology or the the fidelity of the

spk_0 technologies it seems like sony is actually doing decently well and it has been invested in that

spk_0 for a long time i mean going all the way back to guy kai and yeah trying to um they understand where

spk_0 things are i think going but i think things are going so much slower that they're kind of well

spk_0 positioned to be a player in both worlds and are a player in both worlds chris is it strike you as

spk_0 preposterous to say that sony is a terrible company blowing it in the games business doesn't seem

spk_0 like they're blowing it too much with their 80 million unit sold and uh they're all time high revenue

spk_0 yeah i it seems that seems like a weird take i think um it almost comes across like he's just kind

spk_0 of eager for us to get out of the cycle so that he could finally be right about like consoles dying i

spk_0 think consoles will die like i think that that is that is true eventually um i even i thought it would

spk_0 happen earlier than this um although i didn't think it was going to happen with ps4 or anything um but

spk_0 yeah i don't know i i think i think it's a weird way to talk about this i i do think if you're looking

spk_0 at streaming there's an argument to be made about because like i have the kind of opposite experience

spk_0 with dust and we're like ps now or whatever you want to call it the PlayStation streaming has been

spk_0 kind of rough for me but like whenever i tried to do like the the Xbox streaming it works um

spk_0 granted it's it's always like it's it's choppy for both of them but like it's it's more i found

spk_0 it more consistently playable on the Xbox app back when i was using it granted it's been a while

spk_0 since i've even bothered with it but i don't know i i feel like sony's pretty well positioned to

spk_0 to it's almost like they're in a good position to react in in an agile way wherever like to whatever

spk_0 sea changes happen i feel like they they've got a really strong console business they've got a

spk_0 really strong traditional business and they've really got a strong case there but they're also

spk_0 they've got enough of a foot in the this kind of digital world where like if they needed to pivot i

spk_0 think they could uh i think they could do it meaningfully and in a way that doesn't really leave

spk_0 um leave the other angle of their business out out to dry i feel like Xbox is probably technically

spk_0 better positioned in some way but like they're also they're also really putting a lot of

spk_0 they're more unbalanced like they're they're more deep into that you know oh the app on the tv

spk_0 um you know game streaming all that stuff they're they're more in that pocket

spk_0 and so i think they're like leaning into something that may or may not be the case

spk_0 they might be too early for a lot of the things that they're trying to do uh which is kind of a danger

spk_0 it's a part for the course for Microsoft to be too early to something but because they're leaning

spk_0 so heavily in that direction now it really is it really is a toss up as to how the industry goes

spk_0 like if the industry does tilt in that favor then Microsoft is going to be in a pretty good position

spk_0 but there's a chance that they're they've just they've leaned in far too early and it actually

spk_0 takes longer in which case if it does take a longer Sony's actually in a more beneficial position

spk_0 because they're they still have the strong you know traditional model and they're able to kind of pivot

spk_0 if they need to so like that's that's how i would look at it but i don't know much about

spk_0 Michael Pacto i think i've heard his name every now and again i'm sure we brought him up on the show

spk_0 um yeah he has he has like a very mixed reputation you don't hear about him too much anymore

spk_0 10 15 years ago more than that you hear about him all the time yeah i never

spk_0 um and i don't know and when bush security still goes you can go to wed bush.com and

spk_0 look at their portfolio if you want but um he's had a lot of bad predictions i mean it's but it's

spk_0 like he said that i think he said xbox one without sell ps4 that was obviously preposterous that was

spk_0 that was in the second xbox one was even revealed that was impossible so yeah was that was that

spk_0 prediction made after the reveal yeah it was that's crazy because i could have seen that happening

spk_0 like before you know before we knew anything about it because they were they were running off

spk_0 a pretty good inertia from the 360 even if ps3 did out i'll take it in the end it was kind of like

spk_0 people still had like a lot of loyalty but like but that um i mean i did like for certain i was like

spk_0 and i remember i remember the reveal being like why would you why would you do this i think about

spk_0 that all the time and that that reveal for the xbox one is so legendary and how that's the biggest

spk_0 a little domino in the world yeah it's yeah it's not reveal it was like they because they could have

spk_0 i really earn a so i don't know how you feel about it come but like i earnestly feel like the

spk_0 order in which they did it fuck them because i actually i actually think like because they did

spk_0 their like console reveal and how like oh it's fucking football in a cable box and then three weeks

spk_0 later it was e3 where they just they focused their entire showcase on exclusively games right where

spk_0 it's like i almost wonder it's like damn if you would just reorganize this yeah yeah we're like you

spk_0 had e3 first and then it would still would have had a lot of problems because it would have been like

spk_0 you know that the connect would have been an egregious inclusion but it wouldn't have at least had

spk_0 the first impression of being a cable box right and instead it would have had like the secondary

spk_0 like oh look at all this secondary stuff you can do instead of it being like the the first way to

spk_0 you know i mean first impressions are everything and i they fucked themselves over so hard

spk_0 it's so crazy there's also all this stuff about the the DRM yeah the DRM yeah i'm not saying yeah

spk_0 i'm not saying it would have been like fixed but i agree with the order i agree with you just

spk_0 because it would have shown what was most important and that would have and it just seemed like

spk_0 what was most important was the secondary and tertiary functionality of the machine which was

spk_0 connecting it to espn and using connects and so i actually agree with you i mean i think i think

spk_0 it could have set things up but they would have still never executed on the plan so it would have

spk_0 been better in the beginning i think he was saying after a year ps4 op-op soul backspot one which

spk_0 is nowhere near being right and but i think his biggest prediction recently that was like

spk_0 nonsensical was when he was saying that i think it was a few years ago that game pass would reach

spk_0 200 million subscribers it's like you're delusional i remember even at the time being like just

spk_0 absolutely delusional that's like a hot that's that's twice as much as microsoft's roziest expectation

spk_0 it's really yeah it's a ridiculous thing to say so but i've been wrong too i'm not beating him

spk_0 up for any of those things i would i'm beating him up for is saying that so many is a terrible company

spk_0 blowing it in the games business when so many is basically the the gold standard of how it's done

spk_0 in the core games business like not for nothing i know we're a PlayStation podcast and all the rest but

spk_0 give me a break well you can maybe make the argument that Nintendo is technically yeah but i

spk_0 well not on a money basis i mean i i guess that's what i'm saying oh yeah i guess like he's talking

spk_0 about revin i mean sony's PlayStation makes so much more money than the tendo does

spk_0 now that's true but nintendo doesn't spend as much and they have a smaller footprint and they get

spk_0 a lot more out of a lot less i mean when you think about they have the best selling hardware

spk_0 you so but it's just because they don't you don't make money on hardware and yeah i think i'm

spk_0 software to hardware kind of thing but what he doesn't like yeah i guess if i guess if that's not

spk_0 what he's talking about then like yeah it's it's weird it's weird for him to just single out sony is like

spk_0 as the one that doesn't get it well the thing about nintendo is that they can't scale to what

spk_0 PlayStation is doing because they are just not the default third party platform and they don't have

spk_0 the technological heft to be that and they don't really want to be that they're a viable and vibrant

spk_0 indie community with a lot of amazing first party games that sell preposterous amounts of units

spk_0 and but without that fortnight money and all the 30 percent rips it's not it's not to say people

spk_0 don't play that stuff on switch it's just that that's not the primary platform for any of those

spk_0 games and PlayStation is NPC and so just that money going through the system it's in other words

spk_0 nintendo probably makes it a substantial amount more money on their own games than sony does

spk_0 but it's it's it's outbalanced by just the fact that most people aren't playing their games

spk_0 so um i don't know it's it's neither here nor there i just wanted to bring that up because i thought it

spk_0 was an interesting talking point and um thank you michael backer for sounding off all right i was

spk_0 curious what you guys thought of this this comes from video games chronicle they write sony is

spk_0 reportedly set to release an updated ps5 dual sense controller with a removable a removable

spk_0 battery and it will replace the existing models they write quote polish site ppe.pl says sony is

spk_0 working on a revised version of the PlayStation 5 pro along with a revised dual sense controller

spk_0 this site this the site cites its source as raspberry who it says correctly revealed that

spk_0 Microsoft flight simulator was coming to ps5 and leaked the box version of the else scrolls

spk_0 for oblivion remastered according to the source the new dual sense controller known internally as

spk_0 the dual sense v3 will launch november and will feature a removable battery although this has

spk_0 been clarified in more detail the wording appears to suggest that this doesn't mean the ability to

spk_0 use double a batteries but rather a rechargeable battery similar to that already in the current

spk_0 dual sense controllers with the ability to replace it with a new one or potentially one with a

spk_0 higher capacity if needed the report says the revised dual sense will be released in november and

spk_0 will replace the dual sense controllers currently on sale at retailers as for the revised PlayStation 5 pro

spk_0 the report suggests will be a minor revision which will use 3% less power than the current model

spk_0 and will include one of the revised dual sense controllers Dustin what's this all about

spk_0 yeah if uh this is true which it sounds like this is fantastic news in the well it feels

spk_0 weird to say retro world but with PlayStation 3 controllers if you're in the market for one some

spk_0 the problem is often that the uh the battery in them is shot or just not very good and so

spk_0 you can't go and replace it which is very annoying this is one thing about Xbox controllers as loud as

spk_0 they may fuck oh my god they're so fucking loud clicking stop with the clicking yeah uh they're just

spk_0 you know you can replace the battery in them which is great so being able to do that with a dual

spk_0 sense is awesome especially I would hope they would do it with the the edge as well because it's

spk_0 like man you spend $200 on this controller someday the battery is going to die in this thing or not

spk_0 be as good just because that's just there's no battery the last forever they get old they need to be

spk_0 replaced everyone knows this with their phones right you check the battery health on your phone

spk_0 same with the controller so this uh is good from a consumer perspective that it's replaceable

spk_0 obviously the dual sense still has problems particularly with its sticks that I would have

spk_0 I mean I would have rather seen that fixed first and foremost but we'll take what we can get I'm

spk_0 sure Sony is happy to sell you in official battery for your dual sense but there will probably be

spk_0 third third party ones as well but I think it's good I'm curious to see how it's implemented whether

spk_0 it's going to be like a typical like a latch or a shell or whatever or if this is going to be

spk_0 something where not that you need like to be able to like fully tear it apart because you technically

spk_0 could replace the battery in a regular dual sense but it's going to be annoying as fuck so I wonder

spk_0 if it's going to be like that if it's going to be like a think of like an Nintendo DS where you

spk_0 have to kill a little screwdriver and take it out so curious about the mechanics but overall

spk_0 it's a win what do you think I'm sorry Chris a new dual sense controller with a removable battery

spk_0 I must say from a perspective of changing the batteries out on the fly it's cool but I would never

spk_0 need that because I don't use the controller that much where it would die in one use but the idea

spk_0 you guys have keeping your controller alive and vibrant for a longer period of time is certainly

spk_0 tantalizing yeah I mean this is I've always I've always gotten flat for this whenever I would stream

spk_0 because I would always say like no I prefer having a battery that I can take out because again like I've

spk_0 had I remember I remember a really early experience I had with PS3 where like I don't know if like

spk_0 the battery shorted out or something but like I couldn't like it just wouldn't hold a charge and it

spk_0 was like a relatively new controller and I couldn't really do anything about it and I remember just

spk_0 being like well this is this is really lame because I know exactly how I would ameliorate this

spk_0 if I could and it always stuck around with me like even with ps4 like I never had the issue with ps4

spk_0 ps5 or anything but like I remember thinking about it's just like man that is a really annoying

spk_0 situation and it's not really it it I don't know like I just remember feeling like it's not a

spk_0 worst controller for having that modularity you know like they're not worse for having that

spk_0 flexibility so I think it's cool I'm I'm into it I can see for dual sense in particular why

spk_0 this would be useful because like I I have two controllers specifically that I just kind of like

spk_0 charge alternate alternatively I'll just oh this ran out of battery I'll switch to the other one

spk_0 but that's how I have to do it because I don't have the availability of extra batteries

spk_0 so wouldn't really make much of a difference to me but it's it's valuable just for the prospect of

spk_0 longevity and you know modularity I think it's cool it's better it's better than having something just

spk_0 it reminds me of like when the phones became that way do you remember when like it got to the point

spk_0 where like I remember the transition point where like oh you can't take the battery at the phone

spk_0 and I remember just being like this is this is worse like it's sleek in whatever but like this is

spk_0 worse and that's how I always felt about the PlayStation controller's post PS3 and yeah going

spk_0 backwards is kind of nice I don't mind it all I'm looking up the I never looked at really look at

spk_0 my battery health what is it how do you I see it yeah I'm under I'm yeah I'm in the battery

spk_0 battery health and charging service maximum capacity 80% mine is I think close to that that's fine

spk_0 my maximum capacity is 86 yeah so you're beating me mine's 83 yeah that's that's that's okay

spk_0 I'll deal with that I guess I will say I mean it's cool I will say two things because I like to buy

spk_0 a new tool sense every year or so I've never experienced like a battery getting worse on a

spk_0 controller noticeably because I just like to replace it with them you know get that nice tight

spk_0 new controller clean controller but I'm a little surprised by how friendly this is it seems like

spk_0 Sony just makes more money if they just don't do this and it's it's actually kind of straights like

spk_0 fuck you buy a new controller you know instead they're making it easy to buy you know either I

spk_0 guess their own batteries or some alternate battery and they'll make some money there too but I'm

spk_0 surprised I actually am just surprised by it it's nice yeah it is it is friendly but it is

spk_0 I in my estimation it is more likely that your sticks are gonna go bad on your dual sense than

spk_0 the battery at least in the current time frame so it's nice but the the major problem is still there

spk_0 yeah another piece of hardware news this is not anything we can linger on need to linger on but

spk_0 it also comes from video games chronicle and I just thought it was interesting is that so they've

spk_0 kind of brought in this new revised down from a gigabyte or I'm sorry a terabyte to 825 gigabytes

spk_0 the ps5 digital addition slim model but they actually have a visual difference between them we don't

spk_0 have to put it in the show but for you guys to see they have a picture here of them standing together

spk_0 and they got rid of the glossiness on the console it's now all matte and I gotta say big improvement

spk_0 huge improvement visually it's way better yeah so I wanted to just bring it in there because I think

spk_0 the white plate at the top is now matte and then yeah that black middle part is now matte and I'm

spk_0 like oh that's so much sexier and cleaner no fingerprints no scratches scratches I don't know why

spk_0 you would have either fingerprints or scratches on it but you could but dude it just happens yeah it

spk_0 does if you have to move your or take your ps5 anywhere one time it's gonna get scratched

spk_0 so I just wanted to point that out I thought that was interesting because they didn't you know this

spk_0 thing kind of just got pooped out by Sony they never really acknowledged it and it could be another

spk_0 cost-cutting thing I don't know maybe it's cheaper to make these matte pieces of plastic and when

spk_0 you're making millions of these consoles I'm sure that begins to add up yeah it's crazy that glossy

spk_0 is more expensive despite the fact that it clearly sucks it does suck and I don't know if it really

spk_0 is more expensive but I think it is okay let's get into the you know Chris this is your

spk_0 news here so it seems like according to the games leech and root and rumors reddit subreddit that's

spk_0 protomat type is being remastered and the evidence is I think fairly definitive

spk_0 this guy this user here and they have images of it it says that the credits have been updated

spk_0 for the game that iron galaxy studios is now included they're one of the spiral remaster and they

spk_0 they've done a bunch of shit but it says that here it's there now in the credits and there are

spk_0 lots of other new names in the credits from Activision Studios and I put in here a different link

spk_0 too because it was noted that last year prototype 1 and 2 did find themselves on the Australian

spk_0 classification ratings board as if they were coming out again so it could be that both prototype

spk_0 1 and prototype 2 were being remastered maybe together prototype 1 of course came out in 2009

spk_0 and the sequel prototype 2 came out in 2012 these are kind of open world-esque super villains

spk_0 sort of games where you're mutating and morphing and killing and doing a lot of you know people

spk_0 really liked them and they were made by radical which no longer exists in fact I think prototype 2

spk_0 was their last game they worked on destiny 1 I think as well as much studio but they're done so

spk_0 I'm not a huge fan of prototype I wrote the strategy guys actually for prototype 1 and I got

spk_0 the platinum in prototype 2 so I did play it extensively but these were Activision published

spk_0 games so these are under the umbrella at Microsoft now and I wouldn't be surprised that they were

spk_0 just spilling something off these games can probably do pretty appreciably there seems to be a lot

spk_0 of revision around these games because people always liked them obviously there was a sequel but

spk_0 I think people always found them as being a little bit imperfect and now I think over time

spk_0 history has been somewhat kind of them Chris it seems like you've

spk_0 willed another thing into existence we have no information on this but this is pretty definitive

spk_0 I don't know why you would update you or you know so iron galaxy and be not specifically are in the

spk_0 in the credits now for the games what are your thoughts right I'm very weird because I feel like they

spk_0 maybe it's been a while and in retrospect it must have been a while but then they they came to

spk_0 ps4 natively I think in what 2017 maybe 18 something like that like I feel like they came natively

spk_0 yeah it's here 2015 oh so even earlier yeah so I mean I'm curious what this could be I've always been

spk_0 prototype has like a pandemic games kind of feel to it like there's a lot of a lot of people

spk_0 talk about like oh what great games like what perfect games from like earlier generations would

spk_0 you want remade and early people even talk about that with movies and and the more interesting

spk_0 conversation to me is like what games that were pretty good but not perfect should be brought

spk_0 forward and given that extra you know what I mean like given given the extra time to maybe realize

spk_0 what they could have been not to say that this is what it's going to be it's obviously this is

spk_0 going to be just a pretty standard remaster of that type that we're kind of used to now but I've

spk_0 always been of the mind that like there's something special with prototype that was not fully

spk_0 realized necessarily with what the games are and I always appreciated like the potential of it like

spk_0 there's something about it like it feels like a carnage simulator like a spider man villain simulator

spk_0 and that was always very cool to me and I always felt like there was more to it than that or that

spk_0 could be extracted for more than than what it's then what it was extracted for same I feel the same

spk_0 way with the shraw humans as well like I just think it's like it's a great premise there and I feel

spk_0 like with the right time and attention like there could be something really really really special

spk_0 beyond it but I mean cool I'm down to check it out I have a fondness for prototype I don't think

spk_0 it's even remotely perfect as a video game I think it's got a lot of weird jank I just there's

spk_0 something endearing now especially in 2025 of just um we're in like kind of like a post meta

spk_0 ironic state now and I just feel like there's there's a level of earnestness in how cool prototype

spk_0 thinks it is and I think that that kind of loops around from being like cringe inducing to just

spk_0 kind of being cool again it's kind of like how I felt about the first watchdogs as well like that

spk_0 get that first watchdogs took itself like very seriously and you know and a lot of people were like

spk_0 oh this is too serious or whatever and then the second game tried to go like the it tried to ride

spk_0 like I know this Rick and Morty ass like you know like oh it's not that serious it was still

spk_0 grounded somewhat but it was more wacky and I feel like it actually lost something in doing that

spk_0 um and so I don't know I'm down to have like a hooded edgy protagonist kind of running around

spk_0 you know changing his arm into blades and shit it's cool I don't know I'm looking forward to it

spk_0 whatever the fuck this is it's weird to me that they updated the old credits um because that

spk_0 seems to indicate that it is just kind of like an oblivion style thing maybe and most um I don't

spk_0 know if you're gonna get that much of an improved experience compared to like the base piece or like

spk_0 the broad forward ps4 version maybe better performance um I wonder if they're going to maybe throw it

spk_0 into unreal five or something maybe give it that extra pop I think that would be probably wise maybe

spk_0 but although maybe not because the engine's so shit apparently um I don't know we'll see how this

spk_0 what this ends up being but I have a fondness for prototype and I never actually played prototype

spk_0 too at all um for some reason I don't know yeah I don't know why I did play it so I did um

spk_0 curious I don't really remember prototype two comparable to prototype one but yeah radical is such

spk_0 an interesting was such an interesting studio because they were basically just making a lot of

spk_0 random sports games like they made Brett holhockey in the 90s which I liked and stuff but it wasn't

spk_0 until they got their hands on the Simpsons that they became a more notable you know they made road rage

spk_0 in 2001 and then of course hit and run which people love in that's I would love to see I would love

spk_0 to see that in 2003 brought brought forward and then they did a bunch of like the late crash games

spk_0 to and that was like right before they did went in the prototype and then they were going to do

spk_0 prototype three or at least that was the plan and they got shut down so they did um if I remember

spk_0 correctly I could be wrong but they did uh that Hulk game as well right like Hulk's yeah

spk_0 hole 2003 Hulk um the movie game I think or yeah I think it's Hulk's ultimate destruction

spk_0 I swear to God if if if they didn't make that I did they did yeah they made two Hulk games they made

spk_0 Hulk in 2003 and Hulk ultimate destruction in 2005 dude Hulk ultimate destruction was awesome

spk_0 but that game was also basically just prototype with the Hulk and that's good reviews uh

spk_0 it I'm gonna credit 84 it's fucking cool man like you get like break you could turn cars into gloves

spk_0 so that you could punch things even harder it's ridiculous it's absolute nonsense but it was

spk_0 fucking cool and it feels very much like prototype like I remember playing prototype and I was like

spk_0 is this Hulk's ultimate destruction you obviously you look back at it and it's like oh they

spk_0 there's like a through line there um

spk_0 john bane ramsey's brother wrote in think his name was Burke hey crew I read we may be getting a

spk_0 prototype remaster in the near future I understand the financial incentives behind similar remakes

spk_0 and remasters but are there other incentives for these developers and publishers keeping the source

spk_0 code current returning the well like mechanics maybe even reintroducing a concept that was ignored

spk_0 in a different console generation do devs and publishers even think of these as reasons to remaster

spk_0 remaking game they probably do but I really do think that a a lot of the reason I mean the out there's

spk_0 an obvious reason you do this which is to make a little bit of money you're not gonna make it a

spk_0 norm of some amount of money but it could be like a test bed to see if things come back or if you

spk_0 could revive something as well so I think there's very little to lose to go back and kind of reorganize

spk_0 a game modernize it a little bit get it out there maybe do some museum content and all the rest to

spk_0 give it a little bit of pop and then see it's it's like the best kind of data you'll get and these

spk_0 games are but then again as Chris already said like prototype prototype one or prototype one

spk_0 and prototype two rather are already playable on on ps4 so ps5 you could just play them now Dustin

spk_0 where are your thoughts here are you a prototype fan I don't recall I don't know I don't think I've

spk_0 ever played prototype I may have played a demo for one at some point so I don't really have any

spk_0 experience the the most interesting thing about this story to me is just that it was discovered

spk_0 for my understanding I'm looking at a video game chronicle article that it was discovered because

spk_0 there was an update on steam that broke a mod that the mod was designed to quit from the VGC article

spk_0 fix some of the issues encountered while running the game on modern PCs so very weird um it sounds

spk_0 like because they're updating the old game that this isn't going to be anything crazy just because

spk_0 I would imagine if it was going to be an oblivion level remaster that it would be an entirely new

spk_0 thing like why would you even be fucking with the old steam version right so maybe it will be some

spk_0 kind of larger update that makes the game run on modern PCs much better and an update for PlayStation 5

spk_0 I'm not sure this is a very weird situation mechanically of this leak

spk_0 yeah I want to be clear when I when I was talking about like the oblivion thing I was like

spk_0 that's the most it could be right like it's not we're not looking at like a final fantasy seven remake you

spk_0 know what I mean tater like recreation a prototype and I think ultimately it is going to be just like

spk_0 that would be so ridiculous if it is I would be that would be insane I think yeah I think ultimately

spk_0 it's just going to be like maybe like an apprez maybe a performance boost um maybe some changes to

spk_0 light maybe they'll fuck with Unreal Engine in some way like I don't really know but um it is weird

spk_0 that they would go back and fuck with the credits of an existing game like I feel like I don't

spk_0 I can't remember if that's happened before I'm sure it has but like the frequency by which it

spk_0 does happen I would imagine is pretty sparse um but yeah I don't we'll see um all right prototype

spk_0 our IP and piece for now we might see your survival soon enough

spk_0 couple of more pieces of news we can move through pretty quickly

spk_0 forza horizon six was announced at Tokyo Game Show we we talked a little bit about that but

spk_0 they've confirmed that the game will not be coming to PlayStation 5 day in date if you go to the

spk_0 Xbox wire to read about it you'll see that at the bottom they don't talk about PlayStation at all

spk_0 and then at the very very bottom in italics it says forza horizon six will launch first on Xbox

spk_0 consoles and PC in 2026 with the excitement for this franchise on other platforms playground games

spk_0 and turn 10 studios are also working together to bring forza horizon six to PlayStation 5 post launch

spk_0 and they'll have more details to share about the game generally early in 2026 teres jerry wrote

spk_0 in and said hey cdc am I the only one confused by xbox's decision to make forza horizon six

spk_0 a timed exclusive horizon five sold over three million units on ps5 almost four years after

spk_0 its initial release why wouldn't xbox want to capitalize on the massive forza PlayStation

spk_0 fan base on day one I understand that the game will likely sell millions of units on ps5 anyway

spk_0 but I just feel like the collective consciousness moves on so quickly it might be best to capitalize

spk_0 on the hype immediately instead of months down the road to me timed exclusivity seems to contradict

spk_0 their supposed focus on becoming a dominant third party publisher and by looking at things too simply

spk_0 doesn't what do you think of this why why not bring it they and date what do you think that do you

spk_0 think it's a motivated by the game simply won't be ready and they don't have the resources together

spk_0 ready for ps5 where is there something deeper there may be some element that they're just focusing

spk_0 all their efforts on the xbox version and then the pc version first honestly I don't

spk_0 I don't really know now I know that I don't want to get into the next question too much because

spk_0 Sony or Sony microsoft has had a bit of a on off strategy with different ways of how they're

spk_0 releasing their games to playstation five there's clearly some level of protection where they

spk_0 understand that exclusives are important to their platform but the way that they're treating

spk_0 their platform for reasons we're going to get into later in the questions comments and concerns

spk_0 thoughts and ideas it's kind of like I don't even know what they're doing at this point if they're

spk_0 really after being the largest third party publisher and they know how much there is to make on

spk_0 PlayStation then just do it I don't not sure I mean maybe forza maybe the idea is that they released

spk_0 forza horizon five on PlayStation PlayStation fans a lot of them maybe never had a taste to that

spk_0 franchise and now they're all in and they're hoping that some of these people that this game will

spk_0 be enough to get them over to an xbox but for what 800 dollars I'm not sure yeah sure I think the

spk_0 barriers too too big at this point I think my personal opinion on this is I think it's it's

spk_0 maybe deeper on the deeper on the marketing level is that because forza horizon five did so well

spk_0 it will be one of the top 20 selling games I think in the states for the year which is crazy the game

spk_0 count 20 21 and that's going to be based only on the sales on one console I think they might have

spk_0 looked at and said like we can just get the marketing pop again like like why like there's one

spk_0 built in advantage which like our people like we it's actually a win win situation for us from

spk_0 their perspective where they're like we get our game from our first party studio that's a really

spk_0 popular on our platform it looks like it's a timed exclusive it is a timed exclusive that kind of

spk_0 shuts our people up and then and we can focus on making those the best versions they can possibly be

spk_0 and then in six months or a year we'll just really sit again and have the best of both worlds spread

spk_0 it through different quarters it makes a little bit of sense to me I don't but I think that you could

spk_0 it's it's the crisis what we always say it's like a should fair games come to xbox immediately it's

spk_0 like well yeah the tradeoff is simple you either get a bigger pop immediately or you get a second

spk_0 pop later you have to decide like what you want what are your thoughts here on forza horizon six

spk_0 potential well not potentially it will not be on ps5 day and date well I I had the same exact kind

spk_0 of thought processes you where I was just like I assume that this is going to be like they're going

spk_0 to get they're going to extract as much value out of the people that they have and actually a lot

spk_0 of people are probably like the price X I mean there's no there's no good way to spend the price X

spk_0 but there's there's also like the idea of just like oh shit if you but if you bought a series X

spk_0 at launch like suddenly you're technically a pretty good investment you know so you're probably

spk_0 looking at is like I want to I write this expensive machine now I want to use this thing

spk_0 you have a lot of people who are already there who you're going to deliver this big ip2

spk_0 and yeah you get the second pop it forza horizon will deliver you know like I mean I mean these

spk_0 games rarely if ever miss so there's not really much worry about like it coming out in like a

spk_0 fucked state really in comparison to other games so like yeah I guess my feeling is that they're just

spk_0 they're they know they're going to get that second pop so they might as well just get it

spk_0 it's kind of how I read it um there's one other inquiry you have here about this s l wrote in

spk_0 said hello staker crew pardon the second question but I just got through this week's episode I didn't

spk_0 know if you submitted a first question I don't really look at the names until I read the questions so

spk_0 you got one by the goalie I'm not sure I understand Colin Colin Jesus Christ I'm not sure I that's

spk_0 my own name I'm not sure I understand Collins confusion regarding Xbox's multi platform release

spk_0 strategy thus far it's been a consistent Xbox and PC now PS5 later strategy to date Microsoft has

spk_0 released zero new games day and day on both Xbox and PS5 God of War reloaded or sorry Gears of War

spk_0 Reloaded was a 4k update to a game that has been available on Xbox and Game Pass since 2015 even

spk_0 Indiana Jones a Disney licensed product was released on ps5 six months after it was available

spk_0 on Xbox and Game Pass this doesn't seem like a difficult pattern to figure out and not particularly

spk_0 scrambled either I imagine when Halo arrives on ps5 it will be either it will be Master Chief Collection

spk_0 or Halo Infinite after which a new Halo game will arrive on Xbox with a six months to one year lead time

spk_0 on ps5 where is this confusion coming from Colin thanks there are no games that are coming day and

spk_0 day from Xbox what are you talking about the outer wilds too is about to be a day and day game

spk_0 doom the dark ages was a day and day game oblivion remastered was a day and day game

spk_0 so I'm a little confused about where your confusion on my confusion actually is indeed I think

spk_0 that they're being quite strange with it they announced Indiana Jones to come out you know six

spk_0 months afterwards with the Indiana Jones DLC comes out at the same time for to horizon five is a

spk_0 smash hit they announced for to horizon six at in Japan but then the both the game taking place in

spk_0 Japan and they announced the game in Japan to an audience that does not and will not play Xbox and

spk_0 then you bring it out later I actually think it's quite I don't know what they're doing yeah so no

spk_0 I disagree I think that first of all there are there are examples of them bringing day and day games

spk_0 they're more to come and I don't know I don't really give a shit about forks it so it doesn't

spk_0 really bother me at all but there certainly is an inconsistency and I think that they're trying

spk_0 to probably figure out internally I think that they're trying to bend things towards them when they

spk_0 can and I think games some games are going to make more sense you see like so halos a great example

spk_0 they're we'll talk about halo more deeply later but if a new halo comes out and it's announced

spk_0 for PlayStation 5 this gets into the exact question I just post the Chris which is like do you get the

spk_0 bigger pop first or the big or a second pop later you just have to ask yourself what you want

spk_0 yeah the PlayStation halo thing would probably be a good second pop to be perfectly honest with you

spk_0 but because it's it's not going to need players right it's not going to right hell divers team coming

spk_0 to Xbox they needed the player base maybe you want to let it drop and then and then inject it and

spk_0 it's going to be such such a fucking big deal that you might want to you might not want to even you

spk_0 might want to say like it's actually good marketing for us to do it later because it is such a big deal

spk_0 that we can focus entirely on that yeah yeah I don't know this guy says MCC are handling if

spk_0 I'm not really sure about either of those I don't think so I don't think either I think they've

spk_0 already winded down development on halo infinite already they're not going to then build a separate

spk_0 skew and then put it on another platform and then and then be beholden to keeping it updated

spk_0 into deep into the generation like they're just I just don't see that happening and MCC is not

spk_0 laden with micro transactions so there's no way to make money on it outside of the first initial

spk_0 sale and if they were going to put MCC on PlayStation why wouldn't they have done that for the gears

spk_0 collection it's just it doesn't but none of that logic tracks I think those games are not coming to

spk_0 PlayStation maybe I think I would probably bet that that's probably the case or at least not any time

spk_0 not even remotely anytime soon like I would give it like maybe five years before either those games

spk_0 even see and more more likely the collection but I don't know what Xbox is doing really

spk_0 none of it makes sense to me final piece of news this week before we get into what we're playing

spk_0 is just a quick thing to add to the record this comes from Eurogamer and I actually didn't see

spk_0 many people reporting on this which I thought was I thought it was an interesting piece of news

spk_0 they right here the title Ubisoft Intense Inform new subsidiary Vantage Studios to lead development

spk_0 for the Assassin's Creed Far Cry Rainbow Six franchises quote and they write quote the breakout game

spk_0 development business co owned by Tencent and Ubisoft finally has a name Vantage Studios Eurogamer

spk_0 understands from a source that it's starting operations today and will be responsible for new games

spk_0 across many of Ubisoft's biggest IP such as Far Cry Rainbow Six Siege and Assassin's Creed

spk_0 Vantage Studios is composed of 2,300 employees across multiple Ubisoft game development teams including

spk_0 those from Montreal Sherbrook Saginae Sophia and Barcelona the studio will be run by the duo of Christopher

spk_0 Durinay and Charlie Gilmo who is Eve's Gilmonde's brother Vantage Studios operate under a less centralized

spk_0 model compared to Ubisoft proper with each development team having more ownership over its own

spk_0 respective project this in theory would allow developers to be more fluid and pivot according to

spk_0 industry changes and player expectations per Eurogamer sources the formation of Vantage Studios comes

spk_0 at a climax of a tumultuous period for Ubisoft which reportedly was considering this new venture with

spk_0 Tencent in January of this year following years of lacking performance this new venture which would

spk_0 bring many of Ubisoft's biggest IP under under under a new roof was officially announced in March

spk_0 with Tencent taking a 1.16 billion euro stake in the new business entity as for Tencent's involvement

spk_0 the Chinese company will have a 25% stake in Vantage Studios and will act in an advisory role

spk_0 to the subsidiaries leadership team however Gilmonde and Derinay will remain will retain control over

spk_0 both creative and business decisions Ubisoft hopes that this allows the teams to have a better

spk_0 degree of creative freedom per a source familiar with the subject now this is the big one for me

spk_0 how other studios most notably massive entertainment will operate going forward

spk_0 currently remains unclear Eurogamer understands the publisher wants its devs to operate in a more

spk_0 decentralized way with developers taking more ownership over the titles they're working on

spk_0 the company employs approximately 20,000 staff and how the other 17,000 will fit into this new vision

spk_0 remains to be seen of course we reported on it earlier I guess it was in the spring and into the

spk_0 summer that Tencent is increasing its drastically increasing its its investment if Ubisoft they've

spk_0 spun out their biggest IP into this new subsidiary that is co-owned I guess 75% Ubisoft 25% Tencent

spk_0 with some of their most valuable properties there's not much to say about this other than adding

spk_0 it to the record like I said other than that that last paragraph is the big question for me too

spk_0 where is the value in Ubisoft once you have Assassin's Creed Far Cry and Rainbow Six

spk_0 and the Clancy stuff out of the wheelhouse now you're left with so little and it is a good question

spk_0 to ask about some of the really respected studios on like massive is the biggest part of the pun

spk_0 about where they might fit so I don't know if there's anything else to say about this I just wanted

spk_0 to add throw that out there that this has a name now but it has not been officially announced yet

spk_0 which is probably why most people are not reporting on it but this comes from your gamer sources they

spk_0 are of course trustworthy and being in Europe they would have much decent are much more decent and

spk_0 closely connected sources in safe France so okay all right let's get into what we're playing here

spk_0 um I'll go first and just get out of the way quick um I'm playing Ghosts is Shima director Scott

spk_0 I'm like 25 hours in it's funny how little I remember the game I remember playing it and all

spk_0 you know like what what what it is to play at the world whatever but the story yeah well coming

spk_0 back to me as I go some of the different characters and whatever I will say man um the game is

spk_0 visually incredibly fucking dark I don't know what that's all about like it's it on ps5 with

spk_0 HDR and everything it's just like impossible to fucking see the game and you can't at least for me it

spk_0 is and you can't really mess with the bright and you can mess with the brightness but then it just

spk_0 saturates so like when you're outside in night at the night it's just looks so bright so you can't

spk_0 really find the right balance and it's annoying me um so that's like a frustration but the game's

spk_0 really fun to play great combat really forgot how fun it was to play I will say that a lot of this

spk_0 and Mike and I have been talking about it as I've been playing I'm like man a lot of the PlayStation

spk_0 stuff really is kind of the same when you when you look at it from a structural point of view

spk_0 it's like God of War horizon days gone spider man it's like it's they're all kind of the same

spk_0 game and I think when I first played this I played it back when it came out in 2020 so it's been five

spk_0 years I don't think I thought that quite as acutely as I do now now where I'm and it makes games not

spk_0 the play to too much more but it's like it makes games like uncharted and the last of us just stand

spk_0 out so much because they really are different they play differently they are different they're in

spk_0 different worlds different stakes they're asking you to do different things but in this game it's

spk_0 like clear the enemy encampment like find the collective one I'm like dude I live for this shit

spk_0 I'm not making fun of it I love Far Cry right I go with my check check mark check box games but as I'm

spk_0 playing it I'm like wow this this is aging differently and I'll be I've seen a lot of people

spk_0 complain about death of death of death of I was gonna say death strain of ghost of Yote saying

spk_0 that it's a kind of more of the same I'm like well yeah it's it's kind of always been more of the

spk_0 same though hasn't it so you're into it or not but that's kind of what's standing out to me the

spk_0 most is I'm enjoying it I think the the the game is fun to play I think the character the

spk_0 characterization the writing the voice acting is excellent they're just beautiful moments everywhere

spk_0 in the game just the visuals the leaves falling off the trees the rain the moonlight there's so much

spk_0 so much to really marvel at but structurally I'm like yeah this is interesting like sneak through the

spk_0 actually I've been saying I've been calling it when I've been playing I'm like go into the Sony

spk_0 grass the Sony grass yeah now want to be fair even death stranding the last of us on Uncharted

spk_0 have Sony grass so it's like really like yeah you remove like Spider-Man from the list and then

spk_0 you put in those games it's just funny I don't know so I feel like I'm always being so harsh and

spk_0 I don't mean to be that way because I haven't joined it and it is a great you know objectively a great

spk_0 game it's it's a it's a it's a same sort of thing it's a Ubisoft game it is I remember and I say

spk_0 that in a complimentary way like I remember when I played it was like this is what I this is

spk_0 what I want assassins creed to be like it's not that I want none of what Ubisoft does to you know

spk_0 being that game or whatever like it's just that they do it in a way that's annoying and I feel like

spk_0 go see you take does like or when I go see you take goes to Sushima I'm played you say you take it

spk_0 obviously but I feel like it does a good balance of the Ubisoft stuff and it does it well

spk_0 and it plays really well which is what you know more can you ask for really but it is that kind of game

spk_0 so I purchased Ghost of Yotei it's on my cross media bar I'll get to it when I'm done with this

spk_0 one thing I noticed is because I never played the Eki Island DLC and it's cool the this isn't a

spk_0 spoiler I don't think is that the Eki Island DLC kind of becomes available halfway through the game

spk_0 maybe even a little less but the thing that bothers me about it is it's a different location you kind

spk_0 of go to it but it's like why make it available so early if the game gives you a stark warning it's

spk_0 like this is very hard you don't want to do this kind of where it's like but why are you making it

spk_0 available right now why this is why I don't like DLC man yeah I don't I do appreciate because

spk_0 it reminds me a little bit of you know you know what game did DLC really well was fall out three

spk_0 where yeah they would put the things in the map like that it would all just be available there

spk_0 and there would be little triggers that would activate them but it's like just go they just

spk_0 add themselves to the map I like that and that's what they tried to do here but because it's kind of

spk_0 gated yeah it's it's it's it's uh it's jointed but there's the games in general do DLC pretty well

spk_0 from from from my remembrance of them I haven't engaged too deeply with a lot of them

spk_0 I can't I can't wait for fall out three remastered just because or remake or whatever just

spk_0 because I'm gonna go on that mother ship Zeta DLC so quick oh yeah fucking

spk_0 aliens yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah

spk_0 love it and their gun is so strong that gun is so fucking strong that they have that little alien

spk_0 blaster it like trivializes the game almost yeah I was remembering I'm sorry no no you go ahead I was

spk_0 gonna say before mother ship Zeta came out there was just a crash spaceship that you can find in

spk_0 the in the wasteland and one of the alien bodies had that gun on it and once you found that gun it

spk_0 was like it was awesome it's very cool um all right so yeah that's it for ghost ishima director

spk_0 Scott Chris and I did a spoiler cast many years ago on it you can go listen to that I people have

spk_0 asked are you gonna do another one because we we have gone back and revisit a game so I'm like I don't

spk_0 think anyone else is really playing it so it's not really worth doing and I don't know that I have

spk_0 very much to say about it I think it's really cool um I'm very interested to see how ghosts of

spk_0 different and this is why I like playing the games back to back I think I'm getting a lot out of

spk_0 doing this it's so again I started doing it really with spider man where I was like spider man one

spk_0 and miles miles right and spider man two and it's just I understand the games better and I'm and

spk_0 that's stranding 200 hours of that's straining between the two games back to back great so I'm

spk_0 enjoying them it's not for everyone but I'm enjoying the process and the thing is that I don't think

spk_0 I'll get to go to go see your tape probably until next week and then I have to go to long Island for

spk_0 a few days so I'm not sure if I will get to it until the middle of the month maybe well we'll see but

spk_0 I have bought it I also bought Final Fantasy Tactics so that's sitting there but I don't know when

spk_0 I'm gonna get to that either and then the other game I'm playing there's not much to say about

spk_0 as I'm still playing Quatt puzzle quest immortal edition on ps5 via the portal playing it a little

spk_0 bit each night in bed playing it during some sports been watching a little baseball a little this and that

spk_0 it's just the same thing over and over again but there's something very fun about it you're just

spk_0 build making your character stronger but you're still doing all these match three puzzles feel like

spk_0 again the AI is a little annoying it just seems to know things that shouldn't know if others the

spk_0 fuck out of me but I like my repetitive wrote sort of things I think it's I think it's really great for

spk_0 football because it's just turn based and it just sits there so like I look up at the screen to see

spk_0 the play and then I look down and I play a little bit and then I look up and it just kind of freezes

spk_0 and stays where it is so it's it's quite nice I think plans versus zombies though is an it's an

spk_0 active game it's gonna be a little more difficult that's gonna be another great portal game very very

spk_0 excited for that all right Chris let's go to you and then we'll finish with us in since you're

spk_0 playing bio shock to very interesting yeah yeah I kind of I was looking for something to play I kind

spk_0 of wasn't feeling anything I was having one of those days where like I would start something and

spk_0 then I just wouldn't I just I don't know wouldn't stick with me I think I jumped into like maybe

spk_0 like a couple seconds apparently there's like a new trials game which is funny I haven't thought

spk_0 about it in a while and I still had game class for game pass for a couple hours before I canceled it

spk_0 after that egregious price hike and so I was like I doubled around with in that a little bit it's

spk_0 like it's more trials it's fine and then I saw bio shock to just sitting there and I was just

spk_0 remember like I still haven't I love bio shock I have a bio shock tattoo I love bio shock and one

spk_0 and bio shock infinite I remember I played like the first maybe hour of bio shock to when it was like

spk_0 more when it was newer and I felt like something was off I didn't really like it and then I learned

spk_0 later that like oh can Levine wasn't a part of it and and it kind of retroactively like because of

spk_0 that I was like oh that's why and like oh I didn't like it for a good reason and so I just I

spk_0 never got around to it but it's been sitting on my cross media bar forever and I'm just like I should

spk_0 just I really should just at the very least know what this is and give it another shot and so I'm

spk_0 I would say I'm still pretty early into it I gotta say like I think maybe like maybe three hours

spk_0 I think I just had to fight with the the big sister boss um and it's it's interesting it's

spk_0 better than I remember it being and to be to be clear I am playing like the remastered version

spk_0 I don't know what that does from when I remember of the bio shock remasters they weren't they weren't

spk_0 too crazy it was just kind of like light performance stuff light graphical stuff I don't think they

spk_0 how do they how do they think they went in and did any like oblivion level stuff so no they did

spk_0 it's still pretty much the original game and I like it more now like I'm more okay with the

spk_0 conceit or like with the core premise of the game where you okay you play as like the you play

spk_0 as like the big daddy and that's kind of the the entire twist of it that's the entire framing of it

spk_0 I think when I was a kid I just wasn't into it and I feel like it lost some of the horror and I

spk_0 think it actually and I think it still does I think I still think bio shock two is way less of a hard

spk_0 hard game than the first one is and the first game isn't too hard it it opens is like a real

spk_0 hard game and then it kind of gradually becomes less so this game I feel like kind of starts off

spk_0 and it's immediately not hard it's not comedy or action either it's just kind of like in this

spk_0 weird kind of middle ground and so I think it's a little off in that way but I am enjoying it

spk_0 more than I thought I would I didn't get deep enough to really see a lot of the mechanics I didn't

spk_0 know that you had to track down like corpses with Adam in them by like teaming up with like a

spk_0 little sister and you'd have to you have there'd be like these wave encounters whenever you had to

spk_0 harvest them I think it's I think it's cool and interesting there's the trap rivet gun which I

spk_0 don't I don't normally deal with like guns that set traps in games I usually just go for like

spk_0 you know assault weapons and whatever but like I've been fucking around with that quite a bit

spk_0 I like the drill is weirdly fun to use and so strong that it feels it feels like feels like

spk_0 really mean to use the drill like even more so than any other weapon there are things that I

spk_0 miss about the original bio shock for sure like I miss the I miss being a person I miss the wrench

spk_0 there's something about the wrench that I think is like a real a real staple but I'm I'm more open

spk_0 to it now I think the writing is actually still very strong um the atmosphere is pretty good

spk_0 I I don't know it's I'm I'm I'm mixed on it but I'm more positive than I was when I first try it

spk_0 I'm gonna I think I'm gonna stick with it I don't imagine that it's very long it's from this

spk_0 era of of games were like they actually developers actually wanted you to finish the fucking game

spk_0 that they put in front of you so I'll probably get through it but uh I'm liking it so far I'm

spk_0 I'm enjoying what this is as like kind of an alternative and as like just spending more time in

spk_0 rapture is nice I think it's that's also the case too is like I I do miss rapture and I think by the

spk_0 time bio shock two came out in comparison to bioshock one I didn't really get a chance to miss it

spk_0 you know I didn't really I didn't long for more rapture I'd gotten such a great full experience out

spk_0 of it just a year or two prior and I was looking for something else and now it's been you know

spk_0 very very long it's been an ages since even just the burial let's see DLC for a bioshock

spk_0 given it which I also loved um so yeah bioshock two is pretty good so far I I still feel

spk_0 ultimately that it will be my least favorite of them yeah it's one there's no doubt about that

spk_0 that yeah but but not in the way that I thought it would be like I really thought it would be just

spk_0 like this is like slop and it's just kind of like they're just reusing you know the the work that

spk_0 was done in the first game just kind of sprinkling a poorly thought out story on top of it and

spk_0 there are definitely some story conventions that I feel don't really fit in with bioshock there's

spk_0 some weird I don't want to get to into it because I do think it's I think I do think these games are

spk_0 generally worth experiencing still to this day um but I think it's it's good it's it's way better

spk_0 written than I thought it would be like character wise like there's some lines of dialogue in in

spk_0 bioshock two that really like that's a that's a dope line like and I know that like when the when

spk_0 the person when the writer wrote it I you could tell it's just like oh that felt great I bet to

spk_0 here in the booth uh for the first time as like a script supervisor or whatever but it's it's quite

spk_0 good but that's really the only thing I'm fucking around with now I have baby steps on my computer

spk_0 right now but I haven't really jumped into it again I played the trial on PlayStation but I think I

spk_0 want to stream it um so I got on PC I'll I'll have to go through the first hour again so I don't

spk_0 really have anything new that I would really say about it but that's really all I'm engaging with

spk_0 and then and then probably go see you okay now that I'm not really going to be pulled away from

spk_0 battlefield I guess so that's that's the plan going forward I think cool appreciate your commitment

spk_0 then doesn't it leaves us to you in lame dumb and gay wrote in instead greeting Sloppy and joyers

spk_0 there was some turmoil amongst the community that you spent a sacred streaming episode on baby steps

spk_0 and I got to give you the smoke I got to give you guys the smoke for years now the SS crew mostly

spk_0 Colin and B. Fair has been complaining about the creation on the PlayStation store with too much

spk_0 low quality stuff getting past the goalie but now you play fucking baby steps one of the most

spk_0 sloppy one of the most sloppiest games who have ever slapped it up come on man do what you want to

spk_0 do with the streams but if you're gonna give oxygen and money to the Slop you best not complain

spk_0 about it anymore thanks I'll hang up and listen essentially we talk about baby steps I feel like

spk_0 this is a gross misunderstanding yeah I don't understand first one that was anyone disappointed

spk_0 that we did baby steps second of all Sony literally is it's a timed exclusive it's like I

spk_0 that has been in like multiple states of play it's not a random

spk_0 right I have played some of the Slop games on PlayStation Network when I was streaming years ago

spk_0 just to see what there is and this is I guess some background too I was looking at this so one of

spk_0 the designers of baby steps has been it FODY and we talked about him on the stream um he was

spk_0 one of the designers of the game we talked about this recently B.B.B.B.B.B.B.B.B and of course he did

spk_0 the QWOP game QWOP it's kind of was like his main thing but he also worked on eight out

spk_0 and of course the most famous getting over it with Bennett FODY which is a PC game but this is by

spk_0 no means a Slop game could you argue that it's a streamer bait game maybe and I think that's what

spk_0 some people were saying in the chat like oh why are they playing the streamer bait game and it's

spk_0 like okay well that's too enough about streaming to even know that that was a thing but yeah I

spk_0 get it now I understand because it's funny right yeah to see whoever's playing suffer or whatever

spk_0 um I guess the difference is to me at least is a streamer bait game might not be that fun to play

spk_0 on your own but after our stream that very night I went back to baby steps and I have played it

spk_0 consistently every night and I fucking love this game I think this game absolutely rules I am

spk_0 consistently surprised by it I'm consistently laughing out loud at it uh just and it's it's funny too

spk_0 because and you can go check out our stream there's like characters and dialogue and those are like

spk_0 cute and kind of funny the funniest moments of baby steps are through the environment where the game

spk_0 just is basically just saying a fuck you uh we're gonna we're gonna put a challenge here that is so

spk_0 stupid and doesn't make sense and I would say one of them I don't want to give it away though in case

spk_0 you want to play it not everyone's gonna like this game for those who didn't see our stream or maybe

spk_0 don't know anything about this game uh this game is a literal walking simulator you play as a guy

spk_0 in a onesie is a big dork uh and you control each foot when you play with a controller the left

spk_0 trigger raises his left foot the right trigger raises the right and you lean him forward with the stick

spk_0 and you can see if you go back and watch our uh stream archive if you're on patreon you can see how

spk_0 initially like I couldn't even walk in this game and it was funny Colin because we were taught I was

spk_0 you know jokingly of course being like man I'm pretty fucking good at this game look at me go

spk_0 you're right you were impressed you win for everyone with lots of keyword were

spk_0 mmm because that night short I think the first hour I mean it makes sense in a game design

spk_0 perspective the first hour is easing you into it and there are challenges there for sure

spk_0 but after that dude this game gets so insanely hard game rage dusting came back a few times

spk_0 playing this game where it's it's designed much like um getting over it and there's like yeah

spk_0 that a PC game chain together where it's like if you fall you are going back a comical degree

spk_0 like you may I've just wasted the last 30 minutes that's brutal if you fuck up sounds fun

spk_0 and I as as frustrating as it is at certain points where you're like oh I was literally

spk_0 at the very top and made one misstep and then I fell down this giant hole and I have to go all

spk_0 the way back up so I'm about this game that's a little bit zen to me at certain points where it's

spk_0 like I get in the flow state I'm locked in I think this game is awesome now Chris mentioned this

spk_0 and we talked about on the stream there is a trial for whatever tier of PlayStation Plus

spk_0 you have that I recommend trying the game first because definitely not everyone's gonna like it

spk_0 it is insanely difficult it will it will this game will straight up taunt you to your face on numerous

spk_0 occasions and so yeah it's not you might not necessarily like that aspect Holly was watching me play

spk_0 it and she's like why do you do this to yourself like what are you doing I was like that's a great

spk_0 question I asked that all the time but particularly right now when I'm playing this game I don't know

spk_0 there are moments in this game I was like fuck this game I hate this game and then you take a

spk_0 break you know pause for a second you take a breath and like I'm gonna keep going now I'm gonna

spk_0 keep there's something about it that can compels me to keep going I am my PlayStation thing says

spk_0 that I'm 70 or 80% of the way through the game maybe off off camera whatever I'll tell you

spk_0 about the particular challenge I'm on right now I'm so stupid but it's great it's by no means a

spk_0 slap game I understand the connection though but it's a misunderstanding so who was it uh yeah the

spk_0 lame dumb and gay stand down stand down respectfully stand up the slap that we talk about is like sushi flip

spk_0 you know like on the PlayStation store where there's like there's there's no discernible reason why

spk_0 this should be there at all like baby steps is clearly a real game it's a it's a comedy game

spk_0 which is not too frequent we we I talk about um you know eat lead and death spank and things

spk_0 like that you know there it's not a common genre but like I mean but if I was a real guy you

spk_0 know said I make a compelling it like I love I getting over it I love it it's a it's well I hate

spk_0 it but like it's very good you know like I have 38 hours in getting over it with Ben and Fati which

spk_0 is a comical a comical fucking amount I've never beaten it also I cannot I cannot for the life of me

spk_0 gets at the top of that garbage heap but yeah I mean I'm looking forward to playing it I think uh

spk_0 that trial the trial period definitely take advantage of that trial yeah because it is it's

spk_0 definitely not going to be for everybody but I totally like after an hour I was like yeah I do

spk_0 I want more of this and the tone of it is so weird like I don't even know I don't know if I've

spk_0 ever played a game with this tone of comedy in it like even getting over it with Ben and Fati is like more

spk_0 it's more traditional like it's like it's more you know what the game is and you know what the

spk_0 what the general sense of humor of the game is it's like the idea of just like being philosophically

spk_0 lectured after every failure and like that's supposed to be like irritating but like this game is like

spk_0 their characters they come up to you and you're just like what the fuck did you what was that

spk_0 interaction even like I feel like I have to watch I feel like I have to watch the cutscenes over

spk_0 and over again to even understand what the fuck it's very fun it's it is I'm looking forward to

spk_0 playing more of it when you stream it maybe you interact it got to this point I don't know what

spk_0 twitches rules are or YouTube's when it comes to video game nudity but you can censor it do we

spk_0 had it censored on our stream I turned off the censoring I played it this game's got dick like

spk_0 lots of dick in it um it's crazy but two two other quick points about it is just first of all one

spk_0 thing that I really appreciate from a game to design perspective is that there are certain points

spk_0 in the game where I would get really high up and then fall and you fall like unimaginable heights

spk_0 into a stream that takes you down a river and you're like well I'm never getting back there

spk_0 and I like that the way the games design is that like a fall is an opportunity where you may find

spk_0 it in entirely different route there is not from what I can tell most points in the game there's

spk_0 not just one way to go and that's what it's cool is like there's clearly a lot of replay ability

spk_0 to this game where you can go I was looking back I was really high up and I was looking down and I was

spk_0 like holy shit there's like key markers of stuff that I didn't do that probably is hilarious and

spk_0 awesome so that surprised me too like when I first played I was like it was way more open than I

spk_0 thought it would be like yeah because I thought it would be maybe linear is not the right word but like

spk_0 I guess more I don't know more focused I guess in like a particular direction like there was a

spk_0 right way to go and your goal was just not to fall down and like if you did you'd have to get back

spk_0 to the golden path but I got to a point where I was playing in the trial where I was like oh I could

spk_0 go I feel like either direction here is going to take me in like an interesting way right and it

spk_0 releases a matter of like making a choice so I do think it's yeah it's it's deceptively deep I think

spk_0 like it's not like you know a full blown RPG or nothing but like it's it's way more than I think it

spk_0 looks like it is yeah and I'm I'm excited to dig dig deeper into it the other point just as from

spk_0 interesting industry side is that I was looking at the steam charts games all-time player

spk_0 peak on steam is 1,032 so I wonder I mean that doesn't this is a devolver digital publish game I

spk_0 would expect more than that I wonder with Sony's marketing maybe it was hopefully selling a lot

spk_0 better on console but not so good unfortunately yeah baby steps check it out it's a pretty cool

spk_0 the other two games of Silent Hill F I completed over the weekend I did a video about it if you

spk_0 want to see like very extensive thoughts really good I really really enjoyed Silent Hill F a lot

spk_0 more than I thought that I would I think when I I think I had started it and played it last week

spk_0 and I believe I talked about it last week the combat is probably going to be a sticking point for

spk_0 some people it's a very deliberate where you kind of have to commit to attacks the dodge feels kind

spk_0 of weird I'd say all the combat is very serviceable it gets annoying and repetitive by the end

spk_0 my number one recommendation to anyone playing picking up this game this is so stupid the way they

spk_0 design this when at the beginning when it comes to difficulty you are presented with story mode

spk_0 and you are presented with hard mode and that's it and for my game remind I see story mode and I'm

spk_0 like oh that's baby mode I don't want to play baby mode but I also don't necessarily want to play

spk_0 hard mode I started the game on hard I probably got through 40% of it maybe a little more I'm not sure

spk_0 but many hours in hard mode and it was really fucking hard I believe that the intent should be that

spk_0 you the first time you play this game is that you play on story and you get a bunch of upgrades

spk_0 level up your character and then on your new game plus try hard so don't waste your time with hard

spk_0 the first time it sucks though because story mode is really trivially easy it would be nice to have

spk_0 a third option in the middle my last complaint and this was kind of the core focus of my video is that

spk_0 this is not a spoiler there's no story spoilers so if you're if your spider senses are tingling

spk_0 with one about say take it easy the game is very clearly designed for multiple playthroughs

spk_0 in a way that I find annoying where the game ends and there are more endings and the game is very

spk_0 is slightly changed throughout which is cool but with the combat and I mentioned how it becomes

spk_0 very repetitive when I beat this game I'm like I want more of the story but I don't want to play

spk_0 the game again even if it is shortened and there is like new elements thrown into it I'm good

spk_0 so it felt kind of disrespectful for the game to say hey thanks for beating the game but uh

spk_0 we need you to play this game at least at the very least once preferably and we were talking about

spk_0 this in the staff discord uh three times according to Jean and Jean and I were we're going back and

spk_0 forth a little bit about this that he totally disagrees with me and love he really enjoyed the

spk_0 multiple playthroughs I started my second one and I was like I want I want the story I just don't

spk_0 I don't want to do this right now so very annoying and I know that's like kind of standard for the

spk_0 writer of this game reukishio seven he's done like a bunch of visual novels that require multiple

spk_0 playthroughs but he does what is overall it's super cool I recommend it it's very silent hill perfect

spk_0 for the spooky season we are now in the last thing quick shout out is to a game that is blowing

spk_0 up on steam right now called mega bonk calling we discussed this lightly on sacred streaming Chris

spk_0 I'm sure you've seen this floating around I've seen it floating yeah I don't know what it is

spk_0 really but like I've seen it it's very easy mega mega bonk is 3d vampire survivors and that is

spk_0 now that's I mean that makes it sound like there's nothing new here but the game being in 3d

spk_0 is actually really cool your character can jump and your character can slide and so it's all of the

spk_0 like the auto attacking the level ups of vampires survivor the hordes of enemies but there is a

spk_0 verticality element to it and so there's certain powerups you can get where it's like you do

spk_0 30% more damage when you're in the air so you're like constantly hopping around uh I think it's

spk_0 early access right now I think it's only like 10 bucks but for for my perspective of playing

spk_0 and platinuming vampire survivors I still love that game but I feel like I've gotten all I need

spk_0 out of it for now it's been fun to go to a game that scratches that same itch but adds new elements

spk_0 to it not out on console right now but based on the success I would imagine at some point but if

spk_0 you're on PC maybe you got a steam deck I think it runs I would imagine it runs all right on that so

spk_0 check out mega bonk mega bonk mega bonk mega looks it looks cool I've never seen extended gameplay of it

spk_0 I've only like I've only seen like screenshots or like maybe like like really quick like three seconds

spk_0 snippets and I never I didn't know was a vampire survivors like it all yeah um this is cool

spk_0 so that's it for all we're playing quite a few games that's it all right very well okay let's

spk_0 get an eliciron queries then six questions concerns thoughts and ideas from the audience

spk_0 over on patreon.com slash last and media couldn't do without you look for the thread in the news

spk_0 feed each and every week for this show and all the other shows cement your inquiries you've heard

spk_0 them throughout the show and this is six more of a random variety and the first one comes from john

spk_0 me and who wrote in as many many people did and although it has nothing to do with PlayStation

spk_0 we will talk about it nonetheless why ignore the people he writes hey guys I am writing in as a

spk_0 long term Xbox fan that was in denial this brand and larger corporation I thought cared about

spk_0 value for the consumer every move they have made recently I would justify price hike for game

spk_0 pass wasn't that bad games on PlayStation will keep the game pass affordable now I feel like they're

spk_0 trying to squeeze dry the few loyal fans they have left with a handheld costing over a thousand

spk_0 dollars the console being almost twice the price it was a launch in out thirty dollars for ultimate

spk_0 this is the straw that breaks the camels back for me and I'm sure other fans like me time to

spk_0 Le Verne and Shirley myself off a cliff in my ward hog yelling this is an Xbox it's not Le Verne

spk_0 and Shirley it's Delma and Louise you have the long Le Verne and Shirley are they like a comedy

spk_0 doing yeah they were that was a show they were they were like roommates that worked at like a beer factory

spk_0 in Wisconsin that's an amazing recast love that time to Le Verne and Shirley myself off a cliff

spk_0 in my ward hog yelling this is the next box I love that one of the one of the one of the

spk_0 seminal series finalies in sitcom history so in Le Verne and Shirley they Korean themselves

spk_0 off of a fucking shlamil shlamazle that's what they that's what the song was in the beginning of

spk_0 Le Verne and Shirley that's what they're like shlamil shlamazle you know it's funny my only

spk_0 reference to that is Wayne's world do they have a sense of Wayne's world I don't even remember

spk_0 is that I'm I'm pretty sure that's the thing where they do like the bit of the intro and they

spk_0 the songs playing oh maybe I haven't seen Wayne's world in fucking forever do my parents

spk_0 yeah we were just talking about my parents saw Alice Cooper last night oh we were discussing the

spk_0 we're not worthy I was I was friends with a a kid when I was younger that I actually wrote with

spk_0 a game fax great guy he was he loved Alice Cooper like absolutely loved him would go see him all

spk_0 the time he has a really interesting stage show apparently so I've never seen yeah Dustin what was

spk_0 Le Verne and Shirley I spent off I'm not idea happy days come on oh come on you know my connection

spk_0 happy days is oh boy the weezer video oh buddy Ali yeah I used to watch it on the windows 98

spk_0 in my grandma's oh yeah yeah yeah yeah that's a great video great video great album great oh my god

spk_0 fucking awesome incredible all right so the big news here as John had written is this and what

spk_0 we'll talk about specifically we talk about whatever we want but a lot of people wrote in about

spk_0 it so again I wanted to not ignore it game pass prices have been raised dramatically and now the

spk_0 ultimate addition or the ultimate tier which is the top tier where you get day and day games is $30

spk_0 a month which is crazy that's 360 a year right yeah $360 a year yeah so more than the Xbox Series S

spk_0 in a year very interesting topic there's so much to say about it I'm very curious to see what you

spk_0 guys think Chris let's go to you first how do you feel about this raising so and and taking

spk_0 all together of course I mean say whatever you want but there's just a lot going on at Xbox land

spk_0 right now worth discussing yeah no doubt no doubt about that I think yeah man I mean I think look I

spk_0 get it I understand they've got to make money it's I find it to be a little bit too egregious I

spk_0 still think look I still think $30 for what you get with game pass is a good value but now it's

spk_0 no longer good value to have a consistent subscription on you know I feel like I feel like Xbox

spk_0 game passes now and arguably always has been but like now especially is one of those things where

spk_0 it's like all right I'll pop in for one month pop in cancel you know and then just get them

spk_0 ride the month out if it's a busy month or if there's a lot of shit that's available that you

spk_0 want to check out at that point maybe it's worth it right but back to back months 30 bucks a month

spk_0 to engage with games that you're probably not really like I mean a lot of people don't really

spk_0 have as much time to play like we're you know a very special case you know it's our job to kind of

spk_0 keep involved in these things and so like your average person is gonna look at that I would imagine

spk_0 be like I'm not getting nearly enough value out of this to spend this much money even if it is

spk_0 technically worth that money it's not there's not enough time to extract that value and so I

spk_0 look at it is like well I'm not you know I don't need this I've been a pretty passive subscriber

spk_0 to game pass for a while even at its like highest price which is like you know I think it was like

spk_0 21 or something I would see it I'd be like yeah I mean that's a lot but like I play I play enough

spk_0 on Xbox and I dabble in game pass quite regularly especially like when when they had that

spk_0 that big push of like oblivion and cleric skewer a cleric skewer is like I felt like I got my

spk_0 money's worth out of that for sure um but now it's like no I'm good I think I this put 360

spk_0 360 bucks a year for subscription services just outrageous um in my opinion the here the prices by

spk_0 the way over time in case you curious game pass launched in 2017 so this is the ultimate subscription

spk_0 launched at $10 and then in 2019 was raised to $15 and then in 23 was raised to $17

spk_0 and then the 24 raised to $20 and now raised to $30 so that's the trajectory over time not

spk_0 unlike other subscriptions raising a price it's just that they're getting to a much higher cost now

spk_0 that's not the biggest what your high level thoughts are on this whole situation

spk_0 it's not surprising that the price of game pass is going up I think we've been saying for a while

spk_0 the price would go up I didn't expect it to be this much at once and to be fair they are

spk_0 adding things to it like I think you get the Fortnite crew subscription which I think gets you

spk_0 like the battle pass in some v bucks and so that could be and you be soft and you be soft right

spk_0 so there are adding stuff to it but I think most people I don't want to say they don't care

spk_0 about that but that's not really why they're there they're therefore the main catalog and particularly

spk_0 the day one games so there are there is a particular type of Xbox user that $30 a month if that is

spk_0 the way that I want to say exclusively but the you mostly interface with games and you play all

spk_0 the day one stuff and you want to check out the different things they add to the service and maybe

spk_0 you play Fortnite or whatever then that would still be a good value arguably for sure but I don't

spk_0 think that that's most of its users that do that I think they have game pass and then they also

spk_0 purchase games elsewhere and things like that so it's uh yeah it's it's shocking I really at this

spk_0 point have no idea what they're doing particularly between this and the price increase of the console it's

spk_0 it almost feels like a white flag and I think that the the right in from John here I totally would

spk_0 understand that if you're like man I've I've been here with Xbox this whole time and now I feel

spk_0 like I'm here and I'm being taken advantage of to some degree uh yeah I I totally get that that

spk_0 totally sucks so it's uh it's it's it comes back also to me calling something that you've said for

spk_0 a long time and that's just the idea of a subscription model where if you think about the common

spk_0 subscription model most people are associated or know about interact with is a movie tv subscription

spk_0 model something like Netflix right and you think about how much it costs to feed that subscription

spk_0 model and Netflix is still really high if you want the 4k I think it's $25 a month but which is

spk_0 a lot it is yeah it's definitely or you get more you get so much more in my opinion as well I mean

spk_0 that's but it go ahead but yeah but you think about how much it costs to make these tv shows and

spk_0 movies and yeah it's expensive and the licensing rights is expensive but compared to the price of

spk_0 what it costs to feed a gain you know the games on game pass and obviously that's not the only way

spk_0 they're making money they're making hand over fist money by releasing these games on PlayStation as

spk_0 well for full price but it's just a completely different economic scale that they were working on

spk_0 and it's why it's obvious that they were probably bleeding money initially with game pass I did find

spk_0 it interesting Maddie on Twitter posted an article where apparently Sarah Bond at Tokyo Game Show

spk_0 she was being asked about the profitability bond responded uh that in the last fiscal year Xbox

spk_0 game pass took in five billion in revenue saying that quote it's a profitable business and as

spk_0 more creators join Xbox game pass payments to creators increase so we think it's a good business

spk_0 decision for creators I believe that was from game watch uh that did the translation of that just

spk_0 for proper citation but yeah it's not a good look to one minute be talking about how all we're

spk_0 taking in all this money five billion dollars and it's great for everybody and then immediately

spk_0 raise the price that's the other thing too about the sole situation I'll end with this is just that

spk_0 the Xbox cannot help not only doing the wrong thing but doing it in the worst way possible

spk_0 that video they put out where it was framed like look how much more you're getting with game pass

spk_0 look at all these things we're doing uh you should I mean it kind of had this feeling of well actually

spk_0 should really be thanking us for all this about yeah yeah we are subscriptions gonna go but look at

spk_0 all this extra stuff don't worry about it and the tagline you gotta got it I'm kind of got a uh

spk_0 a shch chan voice going on there

spk_0 we're working on we're giving you the best deal um download all those games off the internet now

spk_0 unsubscribe to these subscriptions so the tagline for all of this change I think is like this is how

spk_0 we game now was that is this is how we play now I think this is how we play now which is just very

spk_0 much alike if you don't like it sorry this is how we I know that's not exactly what they mean but

spk_0 that's how it reads to people so yeah just Xbox consistently putting their footing in their mouth

spk_0 and as I was saying doing the doing a thing that doesn't make any sense and then doing it in the

spk_0 worst way possible maybe not the worst way possible but a really off putting distasteful way for

spk_0 their consumers yeah that tagline is is is very fun it just like every time I saw like when I saw it

spk_0 in the video I immediately thought of and it's probably not the best it's probably not the best

spk_0 invocation but like I immediately thought of the what is it captain Phillips I think like the guy

spk_0 on the on the ship where he's like this I am decaptid no yeah it's just like all right all right

spk_0 I think there's a lot to say about this um yeah first of all the positive I actually generally

spk_0 agree that there is value even at $30 however I think there could even be value at a higher price

spk_0 it is really all about the nexus of your engagement level and the games that are available

spk_0 if you're willing to play a lot which many of us are and you're pigeonholed into this kind of

spk_0 very specific set of games which are very high quality games it's not like there's nothing there

spk_0 is a lot of good things there then have at it I mean it's a great rental service it's a much

spk_0 cheaper on PC it's worth the noting so there is that that's why I feel like it's kind of alienating

spk_0 to your core consumers like they're really if I think that we're learning one thing from the pricing

spk_0 of the console to the pricing of game pass to the um incompatible pricing between PC game pass

spk_0 and console game pass with the price of the raw ally they're moving people over to PC that's like what

spk_0 they want it's so fucking obvious that that's what they want that it's for post-risk to act like

spk_0 that's not what's happening and I get it I think they kind of they want to do hardware but they kind

spk_0 of want to out of it they're always kind of wish you watch it with hardware your in your out

spk_0 and I'm not talking about just game consoles I'm talking about you know with a lot of their other

spk_0 initiatives and they're fundamentally not a hardware company in Microsoft they don't want to be in

spk_0 the hardware business and so I think that with rare exception they want to be in a software business

spk_0 but I generally agree with you if you're a high you high engagement Xbox player that loves

spk_0 Call of Duty and Bethesda and

spk_0 Exhibition 33 and fucking Hollow Knight and whatever it's like cool that's awesome

spk_0 But I think that that is a permutation of gamer that is not necessarily very common when you put all

spk_0 of the things together and at $30 you're starting to get to the point where it's like

spk_0 Based on the normal use case of the average gamer you really should just buy your games

spk_0 At that at that price

spk_0 Yeah, you're getting a femoral access at $30 a month to something that for just twice as much as your monthly stipend

spk_0 You could just get that one game that you're playing right now and just have it

spk_0 And over the year you get six of them

spk_0 For the same price now that doesn't seem like a great value comparable to what you can get for the femoral rental access

spk_0 But think about your own interaction with the games. I think that that now that's why it's so important for us

spk_0 I mean not to compare us to fucking game pass but

spk_0 The $5 price point is so vital because you don't think about it

spk_0 It's just an affordable like okay

spk_0 Yeah kind of price even a $10 it's like okay

spk_0 I get all these podcasts $10 a month. It's not really that much. I can go buy a fucking subway sandwich and a bag of chips maybe for that maybe

spk_0 But you're getting in the $30

spk_0 $30 and now it's like hmm

spk_0 This is a notable amount of money. This is much much much. I was saying before

spk_0 I think the average American makes what $24 an hour or something like that between

spk_0 When you divide hours work that salary jobs plus hour you know

spk_0 Yeah, people that work hourly natively

spk_0 It's like that's a lot of money

spk_0 And you really have to do the value proposition math in a lot more serious of a way

spk_0 I did say this on discord to you know, I was talking we were talking together. I was talking to the dukes

spk_0 And I was like my my feeling is is that they did some sort of

spk_0 Risk analysis where they're like we're gonna lose a lot of people when we do this

spk_0 But the people that will stay since we're literally doubling the price

spk_0 The people that will stay will overwhelm the amount of money that we would have otherwise lost

spk_0 So we're gonna lose probably millions of subscribers

spk_0 But as long as we don't reach the halfway point of what we were at we're actually just gonna make more money

spk_0 And I and I said on discord. I'm like they're right

spk_0 I don't think they're gonna get anywhere close to that break point

spk_0 There are some theories like will they reverse course and like put the price back down or make up make them more

spk_0 Reasonable price of perhaps 2499 that was the biggest thing to me was I was like yeah you get to $30 you might even get above $30 at some point

spk_0 But you go in increments. I know you kind of want to eat it now

spk_0 And then you have to do it half as much in other words you just take the marketing hit and then you just don't worry about the price for a few years

spk_0 but

spk_0 That might be an error

spk_0 But there are bigger things to say too

spk_0 The average player will not get

spk_0 Value out of game pass at $30 an hour and the reason we know this is because ampere analysis tells us that Xbox gamers are already

spk_0 The least engaged and most flaky of all of the gamers in all the different ecosystems

spk_0 Their data for august shows that PlayStation players played for an average of 12 hours for the month

spk_0 Well, Xbox users played for about seven hours and while PlayStation users engage with three games over 12 hours

spk_0 Xbox users engage with up to five games over seven hours

spk_0 What this tells me is that you're gonna have access to choice and that's what they're taking advantage of which is why they're playing more games

spk_0 But at some point the rubber hits the road and you're gonna be after like well, what am I really doing?

spk_0 Right what's what's this is where I think demos

spk_0 Come in why steam has such a huge advantage in this respect

spk_0 It's just almost more worth it for you to be like all right. I have like you know, I'm gonna have 15 hours this month to play a game

spk_0 I'm gonna go try a few games out and just see what's out there. It's just

spk_0 It gets back to my whole theory that Microsoft was right to try game pass

spk_0 I

spk_0 Believe that I would have green lit it too at the time that they they came up with the idea

spk_0 Ben the arc back towards you try something new in novel. We just didn't know about people's behavior and perhaps

spk_0 Didn't think it all the way through about the ability people engage with games that access to tons of games is actually not that alluring

spk_0 because it's not the way

spk_0 We really interact with video games. They're not movies

spk_0 I

spk_0 I for instance I am Mike and I rented it was finally on VOD so we rented the the down-abby movie

spk_0 It was 20 bucks and it was over in two hours. That's it. Yeah, it's done

spk_0 There's like no

spk_0 Going back to it so it being in in some sort of subscription service would have been incredibly valuable to me as opposed to

spk_0 Ghost of Sushima being in a in this subscription model where it might take me two months. I mean not me but a normal person months

spk_0 To get through the game you should just buy it and that wasn't so tempting a ten or fifteen dollars where like the math still kind of lined up

spk_0 But now the math doesn't make any sense and

spk_0 Yeah, so again you have to be mega engaged and so I think that doesn't's right fundamentally there is value for people like us

spk_0 but

spk_0 For normal people that are gonna drive game pass. It's there's no value there anymore and I think I think the bigger thing is this

spk_0 And this was what I was tweeting out that people were getting a little upset about was like

spk_0 This thing isn't profitable

spk_0 There's I know that that's what they're saying

spk_0 And I want to be very clear about what I've said in the past that I do not think they're using a whole they're looking at a holistic picture of all the

spk_0 Fundrable aspects of the business that are affected by game pass. This is the very thing

spk_0 That we saw in the internal emails from the FTC that leaked where their own people were saying this very thing about how does this affect everything

spk_0 You can't put a number on it particularly, but you can financially model around it

spk_0 And the one thing that Xbox has that PlayStation as an antenna has is incredible amount of data

spk_0 There is no

spk_0 When you bought an intendo entertainment system in 1989

spk_0 The intendo really had no fucking idea what you were doing with it

spk_0 The only thing that they could do is say like okay

spk_0 This guy bought a console

spk_0 This many games sold we have this many consoles. This is the attach rate

spk_0 We assume people interacted with it like this. It got this reviews and magazines

spk_0 And no fucking idea what anyone was doing. That's why they used to include the little cards in your games and have you fill shit out

spk_0 Do you guys remember that? Like what's your name and what what magazines do you subscribe to?

spk_0 I like that like I never feel that a single one of those and it's like it's so funny to me. It's like now they know everything

spk_0 about you and

spk_0 I just feel like

spk_0 There's something deeply missing about the way that they're measuring the value of game pass comparable to what it does done to its business

spk_0 And it's disingenuous to present it like that

spk_0 So again money in money out on the ledger is no doubt profitable, but that is not the equation

spk_0 And there is so there's two things to look at it from this perspective

spk_0 If they're really being honest and I think they're being honest in terms of the ledger numbers

spk_0 But if they're like really being genuine, let's say that game pass is profitable and it's working for us

spk_0 Understand that they just doubled the price on you

spk_0 On something that they just said was working just fine

spk_0 Doesn't even make any sense now or what's more likely is is that they're looking at it and saying like we are eroding

spk_0 Other parts of the business to such a huge degree that we simply must make more money on game pass

spk_0 Like period and actually the virtue of spending more money on game pass

spk_0 This is this is kind of the catch 22

spk_0 I've talked about in the past is like there's probably an idea internally with some of their financial modeling that it's like

spk_0 It's actually behooves us to get people off of game pass

spk_0 And maybe the best way we do that keep the keep the whales on it that are just gonna spend

spk_0 But everyone else just bounced them back to ala card sales

spk_0 That's where we need them to be

spk_0 Because we're not selling games anymore and you see that you see the percentage breakdowns over and over again

spk_0 The newest one that came out was silent hill f

spk_0 Which I think they were saying was something like less than 10% of the copy sold to that game were on Xbox

spk_0 That's really bad

spk_0 And lines up with the numbers from off you four

spk_0 So I don't want to get too deep into the weeds other than to say

spk_0 If they were being honest and totally genuine about their up their their internal

spk_0 Measurements of game pass a success then they literally just doubled the price on you for no reason

spk_0 Other than of course to extract more value and you don't care about that right because I guess you will have corporations

spk_0 But the other way is probably the more accurate way to look at it, which is that like this thing is hurting

spk_0 right and

spk_0 People people are like they make five billion dollars a year

spk_0 I want to just I want everyone to keep this in mind

spk_0 Microsoft owns the following teams

spk_0 Okay

spk_0 The coalition compulsion double fine halo studios and exile mo yang ninja theory obsidian playground rare turn 10 undead labs worlds edge

spk_0 But that's the game studio zenamax online id arcane machine games

spk_0 Binox demonware high moon infinity ward raven sledgehammer treyarch

spk_0 Do you have any idea how much money they're spending on this shit?

spk_0 On just making games

spk_0 They have three call of duty games in development at one time each of them at the cost of what six seven eight hundred million according to numbers from 2021-20-20-22

spk_0 They are spending an enormous amount of money on making games

spk_0 And they're making good money back. That's why they're selling their games ala cart

spk_0 But the pretend like there is no consideration to be made about how that is effect you in other words

spk_0 You can't have the ledger of game pass being like this is what we spend in licensing

spk_0 The third party games. This is what we get back profit. It's like no

spk_0 You have to look at and this is where the financial modeling comes in how much how many copies of doom didn't you sell?

spk_0 How many copies of call of duty didn't you sell

spk_0 And then that needs to be included

spk_0 In the cause because that cost is therefore subsumed by the people using game pass period

spk_0 And it's either a thing you get or you don't I don't know how it's to possibly explain that

spk_0 But that's where I think the problem probably lies for them

spk_0 And in that they feel like it's actually just a win win for us squeeze the whales and get everyone else off of game pass

spk_0 Yeah, yeah, basically

spk_0 I think um okay, no, no, no, you go ahead. I was just gonna say the problem with that is just like if you the squeeze the whales

spk_0 Get them off game pass

spk_0 But those people that you're getting off game pass are people like are right in here that are pissed off now

spk_0 And maybe they'll just go buy their games on playstation is gonna be interesting. He's gonna go over it in surely himself

spk_0 Right. Yeah, he's gonna get a job at a bottling factory

spk_0 But then they'll buy the uh then they'll buy the game alacard somewhere else and then they'll get like that's the thing

spk_0 It's like they are kind of in like a weird

spk_0 I've said this for years where it's like they're kind of in like a weird position where it almost behooves them to have fewer people on Xbox

spk_0 But like a lot more of like it's almost like you want like

spk_0 It behooves them to sell their games everywhere have

spk_0 Games available on game pass on their platform make their platform kind of like a niche exclusive kind of club

spk_0 where only

spk_0 like a large subset of people are on but like not the not the not the overall audiences on there

spk_0 So that way they can keep reaping like a subscription service cost from all the people who stay there and sell most of their copies

spk_0 Alacard elsewhere where they'll rake in more money. It's like it's it's a weird

spk_0 They've got a weird situation setup

spk_0 but like the um

spk_0 Yeah, the fact that they raised the price on you should should kind of tell you everything you need to know really

spk_0 It reminds you of like back in um

spk_0 2017 there were all these companies talking about

spk_0 It was like a big thing it was around the Super Bowl

spk_0 where there was like a big push to talk about like uh

spk_0 The what is it the pay gap at companies and a lot of companies put out put out ads about how like we

spk_0 Outwee should get rid of the pay gap but like

spk_0 If you're a company making that case

spk_0 are you

spk_0 Are you kind of admitting

spk_0 That you don't that you don't pay

spk_0 Men and women equally or are you or are you not the type of company that does that in which case what are you even talking about indeed

spk_0 You know, it's kind of one of those things where it's like they

spk_0 Every option confirms the other thing if they're charging more for you

spk_0 And they're profitable then they're just greedy

spk_0 If they're charging more for you because they need it then it's not profitable

spk_0 If it's not profitable then they have to charge you more money

spk_0 It's like a it's it's it's a complete cycle there

spk_0 Where like there's no real way to spin it without

spk_0 Without it coming across as like Microsoft is not in a good position

spk_0 This is the thing when I realized this what I'm about to tell you guys which is

spk_0 Is understandable, but I think a lot of people haven't thought about this. It's like oh wow

spk_0 All right, so game pass is now $30 for day and day to access right so the outer world's too

spk_0 70 bucks

spk_0 Alacard right and available on PC available on PlayStation available on Xbox

spk_0 You get game pass on Xbox for $30 to play it the outer world's too for a month

spk_0 You cancel your subscription because as we were noting yet to be more conscious now the subscription running it for two or three months

spk_0 It's gonna cost you $69 it's a lot of money, right? So you're gonna come in and out or

spk_0 So what what benefits Microsoft more?

spk_0 This is where things I think get interesting

spk_0 You subscribing to Game Pass for a month is less valuable to them than you buying it

spk_0 on PlayStation

spk_0 Right

spk_0 the amount they will make

spk_0 $49 when you buy it on PlayStation

spk_0 They will make $30 from you for a month of a game pass which also has to act as the subsidy for all the other games on game pass it makes

spk_0 no sense

spk_0 Zero zero sense the only way that this gets fixed and this is the whole move

spk_0 I mean, this is the whole play

spk_0 This is why I think

spk_0 Microsoft understood this and why they were so ambitious with their growth growth numbers is

spk_0 The cost is never gonna get decreased. It's only gonna go up like as far and I'm not saying the cost of the consumers

spk_0 I'm saying the cost to make games

spk_0 But they're like we got a grow once you hit a certain threshold. This is what happened in Netflix once you hit a certain threshold

spk_0 And you get over that it's like everything's profit

spk_0 Because now you're finally paying for the the the the product and now you have to once you so you get 10 million subscribers above that break even point

spk_0 That's the profit, but they're nowhere near that

spk_0 Remember I think it was by 2027 right 100 million subscribers is what they thought they would need to have they're

spk_0 More than two thirds of the off of that number

spk_0 And they're gonna be way lower now

spk_0 So

spk_0 That's the stuff where I'm like this is

spk_0 There are competing interests that I think that smart people at Microsoft saw ahead of time as seen in emails where they were wondering about the

spk_0 Waldgarden and the tension that were created in their business and that tension has come to fruition

spk_0 And the reason it's come to fruition is because that game passes adoption has not been good

spk_0 That's why I feel like there would be some level of urgency for them to get game pass on PlayStation

spk_0 And I've said that for years and again, I mean up a spoke version of it

spk_0 Just first and say you could

spk_0 Mine the fuck out of PlayStation people for $30 a month and say like here's all of our games Xbox is first and second party games

spk_0 Like the legacy all of it yeah

spk_0 Um

spk_0 And maybe you spread the field that way

spk_0 But don't sit here and tell me and I'm not saying you guys are saying this but a lot of people are being like

spk_0 It's profitable and I'm like okay cool. So they just spiked the ball on your fucking face and by the way

spk_0 um

spk_0 So it should Sony because people like Sony is gonna raise the price of PlayStation Plus alike they probably will the differences is that PlayStation Plus is wildly profitable

spk_0 Because they don't spend anything

spk_0 Because they don't put their own games or virtually anyone else is into it until they're in the back catalog and then they adopt them later

spk_0 You have to understand the cost of doing business in that in that way are totally different

spk_0 They're not losing anything and and remember also we've said this a million times when they put for bin west in the game pet and do

spk_0 The game catalog as an experiment. They predict they lost a hundred million dollars

spk_0 This is why they know

spk_0 And they were so confident to say on the stand or you know Jim Ryan said like we're they're lose

spk_0 They're not making money on game pass like he was pretty confident in that

spk_0 He's like it just doesn't make any sense and remember Bobby Cotec himself

spk_0 The CEO of Activision before this the merger when he was on the stand was saying like we would never put a game in game pass

spk_0 I thought that was like the funniest part of the whole trial

spk_0 Where it's like this whole deal is happening and he's championing this thing and he's like oh we would never do that

spk_0 Um

spk_0 And then of course Strauss L Nick and others have and and who liked and and responded to my tweet about it, but Sean laden

spk_0 When I was like there's no money way they're making money on this basically and he was just kind of like a nodding

spk_0 meme i'll go with those guys

spk_0 Personally over like over like what their instinct is and of course they're all talking to each other

spk_0 I'm not saying Sonia migrisol I'm saying people that interact with migrisol through interact with Sonia speak to the other

spk_0 The other people it's how they get a lot of information on each other. It's the way it goes right

spk_0 so

spk_0 It's a very interesting situation, but I feel like

spk_0 The one thing I'll say is this and I say this with all all earnest and earnestly and I it's not meant to be like an insult or like to put anyone off or whatever

spk_0 Because I was talking about this with my kid my own wife is an Xbox gamer

spk_0 Where I'm like if you're not if you're on game pass and you're happy with game pass and all that

spk_0 You have years of happiness ahead of you right not only on the Xbox platform and maybe what comes next

spk_0 But on PC and so on if you're an ala cart purchaser of video games

spk_0 I would think very carefully about what you're doing now because

spk_0 I just feel like

spk_0 You're relying on some sort of accessibility to these games in the future that might not really exist or might only exist

spk_0 Through game pass or it might only exist throughout some other subscription of PC access and access across these different platforms and your saves and whatever I feel like

spk_0 You and I'm not saying get a PlayStation wherever in fact

spk_0 I think the if you're an Xbox person you ain't want to really start looking at PC

spk_0 I mean that's my kind of layman outside perspective on it now is like I don't know man

spk_0 If you're buying things just to play them and have them and you don't really worry about it in the future

spk_0 Then just do what you want to do but if you're looking forward to having this huge back catalog of games that are readily available for you

spk_0 I don't know

spk_0 Yeah, I haven't I feel like I've I've bought in like such a hand for such a

spk_0 Sparse amount of games on on Xbox specifically because I'm like, I don't know I know what the future of this platform really is

spk_0 Um, I know it sounds like it sounds like concern trolling. It's not that. It's literally like no

spk_0 It is literally like I I specifically have not I've specifically thought like do I buy this on Xbox and I thought like no

spk_0 Why would I do that?

spk_0 Like why why would I do that?

spk_0 Given what's happening right now and and given like the weird state of everything

spk_0 They don't seem to it seems like they're not really committing to any specific straight. It feels really all over the place

spk_0 And I'm just like I don't want to I don't want to put 70 bucks a pop

spk_0 On this on this thing. It's by virtue of the machine by the way like I have a fan of Xbox generally

spk_0 But like the machine is cool the machine is very nice

spk_0 I just don't know what you can I just don't know how you can really spin this as as anything other than just like

spk_0 Yeah, they're clearly like in a weird spot and

spk_0 It's it doesn't feel the most stable from a consumer perspective

spk_0 Yeah, it's that's a great way of putting it. It's readily unstable and I just I'm just telling you like

spk_0 It doesn't seem like it's going to get any better. I don't see how it ever gets better from here

spk_0 Yeah, maybe it stays the same maybe they find some successes

spk_0 But it just feels like it is what it is and I'm very curious to see

spk_0 Their strategy to me is very clearly now about kind of SegWang to PC and SegWang in the windows

spk_0 And so I'm really curious to see this new machine

spk_0 like what is it really

spk_0 and

spk_0 I'm curious to see it it seemed like

spk_0 This is just anecdotal but just on social media and the comments and stories on forums and whatever people posting on YouTube and whatever

spk_0 Seems like this is really as was noted like the straw that broke the camels back for a lot of people were and but to me

spk_0 I'm like I don't know what you kind of expected

spk_0 You would have got I just didn't expect you would get to this point so quickly

spk_0 But you were going to get to a $30 subscription and you're going to go higher than that

spk_0 Even the call of duty middle tier $15 subscription where you get the games like after a year

spk_0 It explicitly excludes any call of duty game

spk_0 This was another tell to me that one of the downstream effects of having game passes eliminating the step the small

spk_0 But steady stream of back sales back catalog sales

spk_0 It's just had a real

spk_0 Effect

spk_0 And there's no doubt that they're making an enormous amount of money on their games

spk_0 But they remember they bought into this shit

spk_0 They bought activation they bought Blizzard they bought but that's like they asked for this anchor around their neck

spk_0 And now they're going to pay for it and the biggest thing that I see of all is

spk_0 It's so scatter shot and weird now that it's so obvious that the people in charge or not of Xbox are not in charge of Xbox anymore

spk_0 That they're basically following through with orders from the board and from the CEOs and the C suite and they're in basically

spk_0 Stewards and it really makes me wonder why you didn't just fire everyone

spk_0 And put new people in place that never said the old shit that never felt the old way and believe in the new message because it's obvious that they don't really believe in it

spk_0 I don't know how you can say one thing and then execute on the other other than that you have a

spk_0 Did you share your obligation in a contract probably just

spk_0 To stay in that position, but I find it just weird that they haven't gotten rid of these guys

spk_0 And again, I don't want to play flippantly with people's jobs

spk_0 But again, we're talking about people that have made many many many many tens of millions of dollars

spk_0 Doing what they do so I don't feel that bad. Is there anything else we want to say about this?

spk_0 Before we move on very interesting thing

spk_0 PlayStation plus is so

spk_0 You got to give it to Sony for PlayStation Plus because

spk_0 Though they've invested a lot more into it over the years and they used to

spk_0 It really is a fact similarly of the old Xbox live gold

spk_0 Kind of thing of just having online play and some features and just feeling kind of boutique

spk_0 And if they were smart

spk_0 And I don't know how smart they are obviously Michael Pacto doesn't think they're very smart

spk_0 But if if they're smart they won't touch those prices

spk_0 Just

spk_0 Just make the value proposition so much more stark don't use it as an excuse to raise your own prices when I know for a fact

spk_0 You don't need to raise those prices because you are making as you say over and over again

spk_0 Enormous amounts of money on your subscription because you don't spend any money on it. That's the difference

spk_0 They don't have they're not saying like go say yo te on PlayStation plus they would never do that

spk_0 Because it costs them probably $200 million and you can't make it back

spk_0 So that's the difference

spk_0 But we'll see Sony has made foolish

spk_0 There's also no real the funny thing about subscription services is that they're not

spk_0 They have nothing to do with

spk_0 If you want to even blade trade policy or tariffs. It's like no

spk_0 That's not the thing

spk_0 Like you're you're really just trying to extract more value out of it

spk_0 And so either way you go you're kind of fucked in terms of your explanation for the situation but

spk_0 Buy your games

spk_0 Even if you have to wait to play them

spk_0 There's something comforting about having a back catalog of games even though I don't really ever go into it

spk_0 It's there

spk_0 And my suspicion is it's going to be there for decades on PlayStation

spk_0 But maybe I'm wrong

spk_0 Let's do what happens Mike is still buys all of her games physical

spk_0 So she got the physical switch one version of Final Fantasy Tactics

spk_0 There's no switch to version. Yeah, that's what she was saying. Yeah

spk_0 Kind of weird free of things weird. It's an old game though. It should be fine

spk_0 You would think you would just sell both skews just because you could

spk_0 Yeah, yeah, I don't really understand but it's nice that it's free at least that's the number one best selling game on switch right now apparently

spk_0 Yeah on the east or which is holly's playing it maybe even literally right now awesome on switch time all time major on

spk_0 Hmm she was having difficulty with the last night. It's a hard game. It's hard again

spk_0 It's a fun game to spoof like it really you you can fuck with it so deeply that if you just take the time

spk_0 You can make super characters in it. It's awesome. It's so fun. Yeah

spk_0 All right, I promise we would get to this topic earlier and here we are Cody Young wrote in

spk_0 And said hey sacred's sodality. What does that mean?

spk_0 No idea. Halo studios announced that they would share more about their next project later this month

spk_0 I would be curious to hear your opinions on what that might be and what it can mean for PlayStation

spk_0 Am I the only one wary of yet another Halo reboot as seems to be the rumor?

spk_0 Halo's four or five and infinite were all resets to one degree or another

spk_0 Would it be so horrible for Halo studios to simply continue one game story into a sequel?

spk_0 I have no learned information on this Chris. We'll of course go to you for this. Well, what are your thoughts?

spk_0 So to be clear they've noted that in October they're going to show the next game

spk_0 Yeah, yeah, that's uh, they say they're going to be showing something which a lot of people are taking to mean they're going to be showing the next game

spk_0 Uh, I think I'm gonna go to this thing. Oh, I think I I said it all right

spk_0 No, it's in Seattle. Oh like some friends some friends of mine have reached out to me saying like hey, I got

spk_0 Um, there's room for you if you want to go and I'm thinking about it maybe I the issue is like I have a wedding that week in New York

spk_0 So I'd have to go to New York and then fly from

spk_0 From New York to Seattle and then from Seattle homes. It's kind of it's a lot of traveling

spk_0 I don't know if I necessarily want to do that but it could be interesting. I don't know I um

spk_0 My assumption is that this is going to be combat evolved remake

spk_0 um

spk_0 There's a lot of leaks around this from people that I kind of trust

spk_0 That suggests that's going to be

spk_0 um

spk_0 A big a big rework

spk_0 Uh, big level design changes happening presumably

spk_0 unreal engine operating over

spk_0 The original kind of or whatever they have working as the original halo engine. So basically

spk_0 The halo at the bones of the halo engine originally. I think it was called plan

spk_0 To uh handle the uh the way it feels and then unreal handling

spk_0 Everything the way it looks is similar to I guess you know um a lot of recent unreal engine remakes

spk_0 I think I think middle gear is the same although maybe not but I know for sure oblivion is where they have um

spk_0 creation engine handling all the you know the

spk_0 underlying things and unreal over it

spk_0 I don't know man. I

spk_0 I want to be clear because I get this I get this a lot where a lot of people

spk_0 think I'm too hard on

spk_0 Modern halo games or like the more recent halo games because uh they don't

spk_0 um

spk_0 I don't know like I think a lot of studios would

spk_0 If they if a lot of studios put out the games that three four three put out they would be in a pretty good spot

spk_0 You know, and I mean like they they make good video games halo five is a good video game

spk_0 Halo four is a is a pretty good video game halo infinite. It's a great video game

spk_0 But I think following you know what that original trilogy was and what it meant

spk_0 I think in comparison it's far worse or or far more compromised or far shakier than it should be given

spk_0 the

spk_0 Layup that a lot of people felt was just in front of them by just continuing

spk_0 And so I want to clarify that like they're good games. It's just like they missed the mark a lot

spk_0 They've missed that quite often to the point where like I don't know

spk_0 I don't know if I care what they do with halo now. It's like I'm good like I had I had a great run with it

spk_0 The it's never going to be what it was

spk_0 Like you can't recapture that that entire generation like 2000 to

spk_0 2010 like there's a lot of things about that generation that will never be the same way they they were again

spk_0 BioShock this new bio shock. I'm sure whatever it is. It's going to be good. It has no shot

spk_0 of being as transcendent

spk_0 Of a game as the original bio shock was I mean you can even see that with bio shock to and and infinite like I like infinite in some ways more

spk_0 Then the original bio shock but like the original bio shock

spk_0 Has an impact that like dwarfs infinite, I think

spk_0 And a lot of other things like it was a special time a special point in you know the development of

spk_0 The the internet the development of social media

spk_0 It was like it was a very particular time that led these games to being as seminal as they are and I don't expect them to be

spk_0 I don't necessarily need them to be but because of that

spk_0 I'm just kind of like I'm over it like I don't know like they could do something really cool

spk_0 And maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised maybe I'll check it out. I'm sure I'll be curious

spk_0 But there's not a lot writing on this for me

spk_0 So

spk_0 I'm I'm only kind of at an arms length away from being interested in a lot of this stuff

spk_0 And I'm gonna probably keep my distance. I don't know if I trust the studio to handle things well

spk_0 I don't know if I even want a reboot to this degree

spk_0 like comment evolved

spk_0 I guess needs it the most because it is the most dated

spk_0 And it is the one that like even the developers are like why did we make this level this way?

spk_0 This is so repetitive like you there's a there's a famous commentary track that you can listen to of the developers playing through the

spk_0 The original comment evolved and I'm just making fun of each other because they're like why did we make this so repetitive like why did we make this level so

spk_0 tall and why why is this account like why is this encounter happening over and over again?

spk_0 There's a famous clip from like you can look it up on the Halo CEO director's commentary the library

spk_0 If you want to look it up. It's just it's just the developers themselves being like this sucks

spk_0 And so you could make an argument that maybe this next

spk_0 This this will be cool and maybe they can realize a lot of the stuff that was cut from the original game like

spk_0 having wildlife and and maybe expanding on some of the level design a little bit more they could be cool, but

spk_0 I don't know I'm just uh

spk_0 I'm curious but not enthralled at the idea of the next proper Halo game being

spk_0 Combat evolved again even if it is a major rework and

spk_0 And really

spk_0 From the ground up. I just this rumors that they're putting sprint in there, which is like already like a whole like all right

spk_0 I don't know. I do miss so confident

spk_0 That they don't need it, but like

spk_0 Whatever that's a whole that I could I could spend hours talking about that, but I'll leave it there. Do you want to add anything?

spk_0 There was an insider gaming article that was just posted. I think while we were recording

spk_0 Uh, it says Halo C remake is in co-development by Virtuos studio

spk_0 Hmm, so that would make sense if they are doing something of the old game engine being layered on

spk_0 Mm-hmm. Hopefully it doesn't run like shit like the last two Virtuos games that were released this year

spk_0 Yeah, and I just do the thing about the sprint that's the thing where

spk_0 If you try to remake Halo

spk_0 with

spk_0 modern graphics

spk_0 Cool

spk_0 But if you're using the underlying code and then adding sprint

spk_0 That's what's confusing to me. I don't know what they're because from what I've heard about it

spk_0 It's like it's a major rework

spk_0 They're still so they're building the game from the ground up still but they're using

spk_0 The original engine base or the original engine base for Halo to make it feel right

spk_0 But they're not but they're not using

spk_0 The combat evolved then so it's not like it's from what I've heard it's it's not um

spk_0 Like combat evolved anniversary which was literally

spk_0 You know the original game with like a new coat of paint running over it

spk_0 This is apparently like I would imagine like a a complete rework of the original game

spk_0 From stem to stern using the most modern version of whatever the Halo engine is at this point and then on top of that

spk_0 You know using unreal to handle fidelity. That's that's my understanding

spk_0 Which is weird

spk_0 That's that's not something that's too common like

spk_0 oblivion and middle gear

spk_0 I believe are

spk_0 Just the original middle gear. I'm less less sure of I don't really know what

spk_0 Do you know anything about that column like whether or not that that's either the original base and they just kind of layered

spk_0 Visuals over it or did they actually like

spk_0 I know it plays so

spk_0 It is so unchanged from the original that my assumption is that they put everything over it

spk_0 But I don't I never heard I never really read much or listen to much about the making of that yeah

spk_0 If somebody in the comments can let us know but like I know I know a rework to the degree that they're

spk_0 Talking about or that I'm hearing about for this game is not

spk_0 Is not a common practice

spk_0 Um, although I would imagine it will soon be a little bit more common like this this unrelentient over another engine thing is happening a lot more often now for whatever reason like this used to be fairly unheard of

spk_0 um

spk_0 So we'll we'll see I don't know

spk_0 The sprint thing is a whole game design philosophy conversation too like that's that's a whole another thing but

spk_0 I don't know

spk_0 I'm not excited about this. I'm curious about it. I'm really

spk_0 Eager to see like how they're going to justify this because from the perspective of a Halo fan like

spk_0 We've had so many versions of combat evolved already at this point like we've had the original one we had the the HD release on next box live arcade

spk_0 We had the

spk_0 anniversary version

spk_0 In 2011 which was three four threes. I believe their first proper project before they actually like went up and put out their original game with the fourth one

spk_0 And then we had the you know, comment of all the anniversary as a part of

spk_0 The collection so this feels like Skyrim except I just like oh we're putting out Skyrim again except Halo comment evolved to me is like the least

spk_0 It's kind of the worst one and I say that with

spk_0 affection

spk_0 You know, it's like of the bungee games. It's easily the worst one like from from a playstyle from level design. It's

spk_0 Not to say it's a shit game, but it's it's very clearly dated and maybe it could benefit the most from like this kind of overhaul. I just

spk_0 I don't know what to make of this and the biggest question that I have about it is like whether or not

spk_0 This is going to be the big splash for coming on the PlayStation like and in what way because I don't I really don't believe

spk_0 They're going to put the MCC on PlayStation like I just I don't believe it

spk_0 I think if they were going to do that

spk_0 I think we would have seen them do something similar with the gears collection and because they're not doing the gears collection

spk_0 That leads me to believe that they look at the master's collection as too much value

spk_0 to give away

spk_0 At once. Mm-hmm. That's what that says to me. It's like

spk_0 We learned from the master's collection that a lot of people will pay for this

spk_0 But we could make way more money selling these alie carte and the way you can do that technically with the MCC

spk_0 But it's not as elegant

spk_0 I think they want to just if they were ever going to do that they would just do

spk_0 You know

spk_0 Them alie carte and maybe this is the first step of them doing that

spk_0 Maybe they'll do comment of all that this remake or whatever and that'll be the first game and then they'll start

spk_0 Hey, there's going to be a two halo two now although god help you with that one

spk_0 God help you

spk_0 Reworking halo two and halo three in a way that people will be happy about those damn near perfect games

spk_0 I don't know how you I don't know how you would even touch it's like metal your solid three

spk_0 Where it's like you want to touch that as little as possible

spk_0 um

spk_0 So I don't know they've got they've got a task ahead of them and I don't I really don't know how they're going to pull it off

spk_0 I

spk_0 I'm as big of a halo guys you could possibly get probably

spk_0 And I feel very little to nothing about

spk_0 Seeing this outside of morbid curiosity and seeing like whether or not it'll look fucked

spk_0 Or whether or not it'll look okay. I don't know. I think it's weird. I think the thing with MCC that's so interesting

spk_0 It's just old like I think at this point

spk_0 It's coming gone like you can almost just make make an excuse of being like we can just do more to these games now again and

spk_0 Maybe and but I agree with you that just the alacart kind of functioning of these sales

spk_0 I think would just make more sense especially extracting value out of off platform people

spk_0 I would want to nickel and dime playstation people as much as humanly possible. I just I I agree with you

spk_0 I'll be curious to see what they do with halo as far as if it will be day and day and again

spk_0 We talked about it earlier when I was foreshadowing this topic on

spk_0 Do you get the pop earlier do you get the pop secondarily depending on the choices you make um

spk_0 But this gets in the but my big thing and that's why I was disappointed with them like when they renamed it

spk_0 You know three four three or they had three four three and then they renamed it halo and kind of seeming with the coalition where

spk_0 It's like you're just pigeonholing these studios and the big thing that I would love to see is like what if you um

spk_0 moved on

spk_0 You made something else

spk_0 Make up a new series

spk_0 Like make this new like we're gonna spend hundreds of millions dollars on something

spk_0 crazy triple A whatever

spk_0 And I understand that yeah, I just want to reiterate that outside of grand tourism. Oh, I believe

spk_0 That sony's major advantage one of their major advantages has been their willingness to move on or at least to let things breathe and

spk_0 Without that you'll never know what could rely beyond

spk_0 The series because you've never given him a chance to even do anything and that's kind of a shame

spk_0 I think halo is really cool. I love the halo trilogy. I think halo is dope, but

spk_0 You can feel them trying like you can feel like in in the games that they've made like

spk_0 It like halo five in particular feels so little like a halo game, but it's really cool like from like the way it plays is like it's really neat

spk_0 It's

spk_0 But it's something else and you can feel them trying to do something else

spk_0 within the framework of that

spk_0 Of that IP which is I don't know. I feel two ways about it

spk_0 I think it's not that bad of an idea to have like because I do think halo is is like a Mario type thing

spk_0 Where like I do think they do it so differently or even halo infinite

spk_0 I I still to this day that's like it's a really good game and it plays very very particularly like there's not another

spk_0 First person shooter that plays quite like that game like there's not a lot of games that have vehicle combat and an emphasis on physics engines and like and like it's very unique and I think

spk_0 I

spk_0 think you do it would be wise to kind of create a studio that like this is our specialty and

spk_0 a lot of people are

spk_0 Going to get into game development

spk_0 Potentially because they like this series and they want to make their mark on it and maybe it would be cool to have like just a place where like listen

spk_0 If you want to work on halo like we've got a studio for that

spk_0 It's almost like how like you know, you have studios like gorilla right where they they worked on killzone for a while and then

spk_0 Like imagine killzone three comes out and then you're like damn. I love this studio

spk_0 I want to make first person shooters and then you join gorilla and then they make horizon, you know what I mean like that's probably got to be some kind of

spk_0 Disappointment or that that's got like to some people and there's definitely going to be turnover for when that happens

spk_0 So maybe it is wise to have like a thing that's like dedicated to a particular thing to draw people in draw talent and to know like

spk_0 This is what we're making. We're not going to do some crazy switch up

spk_0 And to do to the degree that we will do crazy switch up

spk_0 They'll be within the realm of like this thing that is very clearly what you want to work on the issue is that that's not really how the industry works

spk_0 Specifically with Microsoft to realize heavily on contract

spk_0 heavily heavily heavily on contract work. It's insane

spk_0 Like I was getting leaks of like the Halo Infinite campaign years before the game came out because like I just knew people who were

spk_0 Contracted to work on it and they got and they got booted and then they were like well fuck this

spk_0 There's no there's no loyalty. Yeah, they would basically turn people over like when they had to hire them

spk_0 They would just release them right like there was a certain time they can use them as contractors

spk_0 I knew a lot of animators who would just send me like hey this

spk_0 This vehicle is going to be in the game just so you know

spk_0 They just let me go so like fuck it and there's like there's no love there

spk_0 And so you can't really you can't build a studio built around like I really want to work on this thing

spk_0 When all the people who want to work on this thing who are excited about working on this thing

spk_0 You you just kick them to the curb because you rely so heavily on contract work. So I mean, that's a deeper industry problem, but

spk_0 Yeah, I

spk_0 Don't know man. It's it's a weird. It's a weird thing. I love Halo. I think the core

spk_0 I think as a multiplayer game. It should probably continue. I think um

spk_0 There's a lot there that I think could be done well into the future that could be really cool

spk_0 But I don't know narratively like I don't know what the fuck they're doing. I don't I don't know if I really care that much and

spk_0 Will

spk_0 We'll see I saw rumors

spk_0 I should address this too because I saw some speculation that some people might care

spk_0 I think there was some tweet about like they tweet out a picture of a comment

spk_0 Or as like a teaser and a lot of people were saying like oh that looks like the first shot of Halo 3

spk_0 I think so there's like oh Halo 3 anniversary which

spk_0 I could be cool, but I think it's more likely like I looked into it. It's like that that comment

spk_0 That comment was I think the last spotted in

spk_0 In November of 2001

spk_0 Which would be interesting which would be which would be comment evolved which see it everything seems to be looking looking like that

spk_0 Yeah, why would you skip ahead? I would I would just go back to the original one just just take your time, you know take your time

spk_0 Lord I don't know man

spk_0 I feel like they've got they've got a hell of a if they thought it was hard

spk_0 Making their own games from scratch like good luck to you

spk_0 Making Halo 2 better than it was or making Halo 3 better than was I I don't I wouldn't wish that on fucking anybody

spk_0 We'll see what happens Cody yep appreciate your inquiry

spk_0 This goes into what I move these around in our document because this kind of speaks into what I was talking about Steve wrote in said hey

spk_0 CDC when it comes to future games from your favorite studios

spk_0 Do you prefer direct sequels such as the last of us one and two to spiritual spiritual successors?

spk_0 I'll out return to saras are completely new types of games such as intergalactic from an audit dog

spk_0 Appreciate all you do and hope you continue to rhythm with autism. I will thank you

spk_0 Um, this is really all highly dependent on

spk_0 The game the nature of the game in the studio

spk_0 I feel like some games beg for a sequel before you even play them you know that's gonna be a trilogy or some sort of series

spk_0 I think some games

spk_0 Can stand alone. I actually think ghost is ishimah is one of those games where it's like they're

spk_0 We're getting a new ghost game. It's awesome. It's out

spk_0 But this is and they're not connected to each other

spk_0 But it's like this could have actually been a one-off game then you see games like days gone

spk_0 I think where it's like you could have given it got a sequel off the ground

spk_0 You made bad decisions the windows shut you move on to something else

spk_0 I think the beauty of where we're at now though and why I'm so

spk_0 Optimistic about the future of uncharted ultimately the last of us got a war

spk_0 Is that there's just so much time between games now where nothing really feels like it's it's wrong out to dry like

spk_0 In the time and

spk_0 In the time it will take you know a new uncharted game to be made no i dog made the uncharted trilogy

spk_0 So we're talking about just different

spk_0 Timing and these things came out so quickly it almost felt like

spk_0 An anthology that you were waiting for like the star wars movies coming to theaters and you knew and you anticipated

spk_0 But now I feel like a series like god of war halo or whatever could

spk_0 Conceivably actually live forever simply based on the fact that they can't get many of them out

spk_0 Um, yeah, so we're really all the pens

spk_0 For me

spk_0 Uh, I don't really have a I want I want studios to be able to explore sequels for sure

spk_0 Because I think it's so advantageous to them to be able to do that they have all these ideas

spk_0 It's what you were saying about the walkthrough of halo with the creators where it's like yeah

spk_0 You know what you did you made so many mistakes you understand what your series is

spk_0 And then you can iterate on it. It's why everyone lives uncharted too

spk_0 It's yeah because uncharted two could I mean obviously literally

spk_0 Uncharted two can never exist without uncharted one but literally you know also figuratively

spk_0 It's like so many questions are answered now. You could just make a fucking awesome game

spk_0 Yeah, you know your tool sets better. You know like um, you know what works and what doesn't work better

spk_0 The sequels are just normally just like where you hit your stride I think and so I think there's there's value there

spk_0 Um

spk_0 The argument you could make though is that like games take so long that the game games take so long to build now

spk_0 That ultimately by the time that a sequel would have come out would be the time where you're ironing out the first game already

spk_0 You know because the development cycles are so crazy

spk_0 Um

spk_0 So you maybe do get the same amount of learning. It's just like you don't see it

spk_0 Like maybe you don't see version one of god of war where like they did make all the mistakes and they put it out

spk_0 Maybe now that that that version just kind of dies

spk_0 Internally and then you just maybe so maybe it still happens. I don't know

spk_0 Um

spk_0 I like a spiritual successor though. I like me. I like me some uh

spk_0 I like the spiritual

spk_0 sequel

spk_0 That's why it's what got me into bungee so so like I think bungee did it so well where they were just like okay like marathon

spk_0 Marathon is very clear like the original marathon is very clearly like

spk_0 Oh, that leads into halo and and then halo leads into destiny and then you know you're seeing marathon again

spk_0 um and it's all built on kind of the same it rhymes since it's like poetry rhymes

spk_0 The marathon is the key to all this literally

spk_0 but uh

spk_0 Yeah, I don't know I I think it it's case by case there's some games that I wish got sequels

spk_0 um that never got them and then there are games that got sequels

spk_0 That really I think like mirage is a great example where like I thought I loved to mirage

spk_0 Like when I first played mirage that I was like I can't believe how cool this is and like how fluid it is and how

spk_0 How great that game will look at the time?

spk_0 Yes, it's like it's sterility. I always said it looked like the perfect fascist

spk_0 Representation like it was so clean

spk_0 Yeah, and it's like colored and so it was beautiful beautiful game

spk_0 I wanted to I loved it. I just wanted to spend so much time in that space and um and then when catalyst came out

spk_0 I think they just kind of like

spk_0 They just missed the mark in like pretty much every way

spk_0 And it's just like that's a bomber dude like that's always the saddest thing

spk_0 It's like when it when you could see how something can be improved and then it just gets worse

spk_0 Granted, it's it had been a while like I think that that game came out like what like eight years after or something

spk_0 I can't remember if it was like a beleaguered sequel that was being worked on for a long time or so

spk_0 I think it was like something they greenlit later and then

spk_0 Yeah, no one really cared and then you see people kind of bringing it up and being like dude. There was a sequel

spk_0 You know like yeah, there was a sequel. It's just um

spk_0 I know I played Mirzaich I wasn't super into it

spk_0 I'm not huge in the 3d platforming

spk_0 But the one thing I always remember about playing it for you know five hours remember I played was it was

spk_0 I could feel the oppression of the society that they were in just by looking at the game. It was a very

spk_0 It felt like a police state

spk_0 Like just looking at it was really cool

spk_0 Um, and it was so

spk_0 Simplistic and it's delivery, but it would I might have just been a different time for me in my life

spk_0 I don't want to play this and I go back to it now and I probably love it, but at the time which is like it's cool

spk_0 It's got a portal quality to it

spk_0 Not exactly in like the way it plays or anything. It's just like there's it's like a very quick experience

spk_0 It's very like singularly focused on like a particular type of game design

spk_0 And it's just very strong and it's got that clean look about it

spk_0 Actually port portals are pretty good and now analogous kind of thing to point to as far as like clean sterility um

spk_0 Yeah, that's and there's other games too like prototype was another example where like I feel like they could have done more with with a sequel to prototype

spk_0 I feel like they could have done more with like just roll. There's a lot of games that I feel like

spk_0 A lot of games get their first go and they're good and the second go makes it great and

spk_0 You know halos a great example not uh uncharted is a great example

spk_0 um

spk_0 But I'm always sad about the what the missed opportunities the what the ones that could have been it's like oh damn

spk_0 Just more money and more time into this could have been so sick

spk_0 Or just like a better vision or like a different direction

spk_0 Squandered potential makes me sad. Mm. I'm so excited for

spk_0 The return of uncharted one day. We'll see one day

spk_0 I'm listening just made that shit up in that in that commercial

spk_0 Yeah, it's so weird like I don't know why more people are not into like what that was all about

spk_0 Anyway

spk_0 um

spk_0 Richard wrote in

spk_0 Said hey cdc

spk_0 Just wondering if you saw the Sony magic the gathering secret layer crossover dropping October 27th

spk_0 I know you guys don't play but any interesting getting the cards is collectibles the art and unique abilities that pay homage to the games

spk_0 Have me super excited to put to add some of these to my collection and build commander decks based around them

spk_0 Nathan Drake and aoy in particular. I look forward to your reaction. I'll do something to crave and listen

spk_0 So here's a link I put in the chat. I was gonna put this in the news

spk_0 But it just didn't feel like that newsworthy

spk_0 But then someone wrote in about and I'm like okay, well we should definitely talk about it because I think the art is kind of cool

spk_0 Magic the gathering obviously the

spk_0 long running decades long

spk_0 Card-based game that I actually played in the mid 90s late 90s a little bit. So it's a game. I'm somewhat familiar with

spk_0 Announce that they are gonna that they have a PlayStation collaboration coming up

spk_0 And you can get the cards October 27th at 9 a.m. Pacific time

spk_0 So that's new in eastern time at magic secret layer.com. This is of course officially from wizards of the coast

spk_0 It seems like boys. There's gonna be five last of us part one cards five last of us part two cards five god of war Greek cards

spk_0 four god of war nurse cards

spk_0 five uncharted cards five horizon cards and

spk_0 Five Ghosts Shima cards and they've only shown fewer than half of them. So like only two of the five last of us

spk_0 For each of the games is available. So there's gonna be a much more

spk_0 But these are pretty cool and I like how they split them up from the Greek and Norse mythologies as well for god of war

spk_0 It's a great licensing opportunity

spk_0 Sony's always been pretty open to doing cool licenses and this seems like an especially cool license. I am curious

spk_0 There are two things about magic that I think are fascinating and just card games based basically generally right now

spk_0 There's something about it where people just buy them because they're valuable

spk_0 And that's cool and I get it, but I assume people are still playing the game as well

spk_0 And they make the high-res versions of the cards these aren't the high-reservations, but they make them so available readily available

spk_0 And if you just care about playing you might these must get pirated like no

spk_0 Like nobody's business like if in other words if you don't give a shit about having the real card

spk_0 But you can just get some bootleg card with the infer the pertinent information about how to play the card in the game

spk_0 I imagine that's fairly that's a thing that must happen

spk_0 Out there in the world of magic, but I don't know the cards are cool like the art

spk_0 Joel resolute survivor

spk_0 Whenever a creature token dies

spk_0 Put a plus one counter on Joel and draw a card the stability triggers only once each turn

spk_0 I don't know man. Ellie vengeful hunter

spk_0 Pay two life sacrifice another character Ellie deals two damage to target player and gains indestructible until end of turn

spk_0 Nerd shit

spk_0 Dustin what are your thoughts here

spk_0 If I'm gonna waste money it's gonna be on one piece cards these look cool though

spk_0 They do they do cool listen my one piece cards are investment. I'm looking at there's an act app called collector

spk_0 It refers to it as your portfolio

spk_0 This nami card here

spk_0 That I pulled 186 bucks wow

spk_0 Uh, am I still deeply in the red on one piece cards? Yes, absolutely

spk_0 But that's not why you bought them right or did you buy them for some sort of investment?

spk_0 No, that's what I feel like it's said that people don't buy them just have fun with them

spk_0 Yeah, I like to know like if I pull a card that looks cool. I'm like I wonder is this worth something and so I'm just curious

spk_0 Because it kind of feels good if you pull a card and you're like oh this card is definitely worth 20 cents more than the value of the pack

spk_0 I'm up big boys, you know, uh, but I'm not I've never sold a one piece card or anything like that

spk_0 Magic the gathering they've kind of become the fortnight of

spk_0 trading cards where there is like every

spk_0 I think there's like sponge Bob magic the gathering cards

spk_0 No, sponge Bob spider-man do they all play together?

spk_0 Do all the cards play together in the same rules I assume so you can have like a I think so I think so yeah

spk_0 So man these are not cheap. I mean, they're not horrible price like if you get the

spk_0 Last of us part one if you get the set of five the non foil 40 bucks for postures rainbow foil 50 dollars

spk_0 It's totally for postures. I have to give them credit though. This is such a high margin business that it's almost comical

spk_0 Oh, yeah, you're obviously paying for a high quality art the license fees. Obviously going to be pretty significant

spk_0 But even think about their own cards like they don't have to pay licensing on anything. It's like this is a joke

spk_0 It's really interesting to think about that

spk_0 There's no good. There's no

spk_0 Did you see by the way the warhammer apparently all of the warhammer schematics leaked for a few hours

spk_0 So like people got the ability to like 3d print basically anything they want like the actual

spk_0 Models not like the bootleg ones so fucking crazy

spk_0 Here's the thing I'm a true card degenerate which I'm kind of backing out of because I've just started to lose the the thrill of the hunt

spk_0 But it's like oh actually you would be better off buying individual cards. This is good and just buy these cards now

spk_0 You got a rip you got a rip packs. That seems to be the fun

spk_0 That is the fun part of gambling it is just gambling yeah, sure

spk_0 When I really I collected hockey cards when I was in elementary school middle school for probably five years or so and that was fun

spk_0 You go in and you don't know what you're gonna get

spk_0 Yeah, you know you just cat like I'll walk into target. I've been good recently

spk_0 I'll buy one pack maybe two

spk_0 But still that's like eight or nine dollars and then I get home. I open them

spk_0 It's all shit and I'm like well. I am retarded and I will do it again

spk_0 You know what I mean where it's like I could have bought like a quality

spk_0 Indie game for $10 good about a meal for $10 right but instead

spk_0 I have you know this collection of paper

spk_0 That I don't care about good job Dustin appreciate it

spk_0 But that's the thrill of the rip dude. Yeah, I totally get it

spk_0 Because I played magic when I was younger and I also played the star wars customizable card game when I was younger in the 90s

spk_0 And it was it was exciting was expensive

spk_0 But I played the game so it was cool

spk_0 I mean it wasn't cool. It was definitely not cool playing magic at like 1996. I'll tell you that

spk_0 We've talked about it in the past have you guys ever seen the video from the magic that get the first magic tournament ever

spk_0 In 1994 dude. It's I got to send it to you. It's so good

spk_0 It's like proto nerd shit like no one really knew what like what magic really was yet at this point. It's so good

spk_0 It was a New York City. I think and someone just took a camcorder around for like a long time

spk_0 And it's such a blast and I love that kind of shit blast from the past money. It's nostalgic

spk_0 I never I don't know I never got into it

spk_0 I never got into any of this stuff. I have like a deep

spk_0 I think I have some resentment also with how big card games have gotten over there because I now it like it used to exist on like the fringes

spk_0 Of like nerddom like you'd see it every now and again, but like people with like now it's like I go to a party

spk_0 like a proper L.A. party with like

spk_0 And there's people playing magic and I'm like what the what is what is happening here? Why aren't you doing coke like I do coke?

spk_0 They get used to the card to get the coke together and then

spk_0 I think honestly I just I think

spk_0 It's it might be like an ADHD thing, but like I cannot focus on the rules that I have to know to play card games

spk_0 Like I can't do it like I just it like it breaks

spk_0 I would rather if I'm good to spend time also the also the thing is to like if I'm gonna spend time hanging out with people and in like

spk_0 In like a group setting. I would rather just kind of like

spk_0 Shoot the shit and like just

spk_0 Crack like Joker like I don't know like I'm not really like in it like let's play a board game and like

spk_0 Okay, there's nothing worse

spk_0 You're like two or three beers in and that one guy at the party's like oh, I got this board game

spk_0 Yeah, like I don't like Martian's humanity. Oh my god. I hate cards. I know this one's enough already

spk_0 Carza gets humanity was exactly fun for like a year like I remember seeing I I get it. Ha ha

spk_0 You know, oh rush limbaugh shitty body

spk_0 Yes

spk_0 Funny I like that it's written on a card that they printed out very cool significantly less funny seven years later

spk_0 In card again, right and it's like the idea of a comedy but the idea of a comedy based game where like all of the suggestions are prewritten

spk_0 Is so insane to me because that can't work

spk_0 It's a jacks for jack boxes way better like although even that like you know

spk_0 People always default to come you know or like you know, naturally

spk_0 Naturally everything comes back everything's comes back to come I guess

spk_0 Um

spk_0 Yeah, all right, we'll leave the magic discussion there, but those are available

spk_0 October 27th if you want to waste an enormous amount of money on them and by the way

spk_0 I love seeing the uh the videos of people fighting and arguing over Pokemon cards, especially

spk_0 That's one of my favorite things that grown grown adults

spk_0 Really sad shit

spk_0 I collected Pokemon cards for the first 150 I have somewhere in a binder

spk_0 We're just frustrating because I just I don't even know where I'm collecting them

spk_0 You weren't a 45 year old man scalping them

spk_0 No, I don't enjoy a children who want to go there with their parents to get like a pack of cards

spk_0 So fucking pathetic

spk_0 I want to say that I got that I would get my I would get my cards at the sports authority

spk_0 Or um or sports it was like something like that it was in yonkers

spk_0 It was like a sports store, but they probably was I mean they probably did have shit like that just to make a little extra cash

spk_0 My dad would take me to go buy like a new glove and then I'd be like can I get a Pokemon card?

spk_0 Maybe like sure nerd

spk_0 But I collected them and I never played like the card game though like I was playing the video games because there was like wait

spk_0 That was way cooler to me um

spk_0 But I never people would be like you want to play with the cards. I'm like

spk_0 No

spk_0 Why would I ever and I that was before I even had any inkling of like that they could be worth anything

spk_0 Like I was not thinking about the events like that breaks my heart kind of because you know that they're like in nine-year-old kids

spk_0 We're thinking about like what's the best investment?

spk_0 Yeah, like you know for sure. Yeah, this on slab

spk_0 What's the what's the ret what's the PSA rating

spk_0 Want to see my portfolio?

spk_0 I can't even imagine using the word point using the word portfolio in in in relation to investments

spk_0 As a nine-year-old that is like completely alien to me

spk_0 I

spk_0 The one one wrote in

spk_0 Said hello cdc question to all especially to Chris is destiny too dead

spk_0 If you haven't been keeping up with the news of destiny, it's not looking good mixed to low ratings for the newest expansion

spk_0 Lowest player count of all time their portal system which makes 90% of the game useless content creators leaving the game for good

spk_0 Feels like destiny two days are numbered the only thing that can save the franchise might have been destiny three

spk_0 But we all know that is not going to happen anytime soon if ever

spk_0 I shut up and listen while I jump off a tower and not be revived

spk_0 Interesting yeah

spk_0 So this isn't an interesting conversation particularly now because as I understand it

spk_0 There's a new destiny game out called destiny rising that's a bowl which is up

spk_0 It's a mobile one, but you can play it on PC. I think I don't know if it I don't know if it's like a

spk_0 You can find ways to play it on PC as far as I know

spk_0 I don't know if it's like a legal thing fully, but

spk_0 I don't think you're I think you're gonna get in trouble for doing it. You know, it's kind of one of those soft things like

spk_0 It's like j walking where like

spk_0 They're not gonna bother you

spk_0 but

spk_0 As far as I understand it people are really liking it like apparently it's very good

spk_0 There's a lot of destiny streamers who who have gotten really into it and they're surprised that how good it is

spk_0 There's features in that game that are sorely missing from core destiny two

spk_0 That people have been championing I remember I saw one

spk_0 clip of um

spk_0 A player who was like dual wielding something and I remember being like dude

spk_0 They got dual wielding in a fucking mobile destiny game before they got it in like the official that's crazy

spk_0 So I don't know what to make of destiny right now. It seems like they're kind of

spk_0 They're in it seems like they're in the worst place they could possibly be while also simultaneously having this like weird

spk_0 Resurgence in a way that I didn't think was really possible for them because destiny rising is like huge like people are really like like it's a I see it all the time

spk_0 um

spk_0 And it's uh people are talking about it. I I don't know. I'm personally of the opinion that like

spk_0 Destiny two has been around for

spk_0 What 2017 now?

spk_0 So it's been around for quite a while

spk_0 There's only so much time you can sink into a game like that before you're just kind of like all right

spk_0 I've done this

spk_0 You know like I get it and it plays really well like I still think destiny two plays like I'm maculately well like it's every time

spk_0 I jump onto it and play it. I'm never like oh this sucks

spk_0 I'm always like oh, I remember why I like this

spk_0 But at the same time there's a lot of other things to play now

spk_0 There's a lot of your attention is being diverted elsewhere

spk_0 Even within the realm of destiny content if you want new destiny content

spk_0 There's a fucking completely new mobile game with completely new mechanics a bunch of features that have that you've been asking for that are now in this version of the game

spk_0 I would imagine that destiny two might definitely be be waning and it might definitely be on on the path to like yeah

spk_0 We're this is this kind of over

spk_0 Um, but I actually don't think destiny is an IP is in like a bad spot. I think I think it's shifting over

spk_0 Right now to this new thing that everybody's kind of excited about or that everybody's kind of surprised by

spk_0 Um, that is very accessible because it's a mobile game

spk_0 Um, and I think that might be the future of it until like you know, maybe maybe marathon comes out and it flops and then maybe

spk_0 I wonder what you do at that point

spk_0 Because you do own an IP here

spk_0 That is valuable in some way and you do have a studio that knows how to make it

spk_0 Do you like what do you do? Do you shut bunch you down entirely? Do you then like okay?

spk_0 This isn't working, but we have this IP. We know you know how to steward it

spk_0 We know that you're being held back by the fact that this game is also on ps4

spk_0 Maybe completely re restart this thing make a destiny three build it off a destiny rising have it so it's like more

spk_0 Maybe not future proof, but like you know more modern as far as like it's running off of off SSD

spk_0 It's not it's not held back in any way and maybe you get something out of that maybe

spk_0 Maybe you give some time for people to miss destiny on console before you come back with it

spk_0 In a way that people can be like really excited about in a way that actually feels like a genuine jump in technology in capability

spk_0 Get all these missing features that are in rising into this new

spk_0 Uh new game like maybe that's something you do. I don't really know

spk_0 Yeah, but I'm kind of over the opinion that like I haven't I haven't played destiny in in quite a while

spk_0 um

spk_0 I dabble with it every now and again

spk_0 I think the last time I tried it was like maybe like a month and a half ago and it's good

spk_0 It's it's just like you know, I'm good. I

spk_0 I've done all I really care to do

spk_0 In this world at this point and if you're not going to give me like a new sequel with like a fully new jumping off point some fully new systems

spk_0 You know, I uh there's other stuff to play that's completely new

spk_0 And I think I just rather go over there, but destiny rising is something I've I want to check it out because I'm just curious as to what people are talking

spk_0 I can't fathom a

spk_0 A mobile game feeling good at all

spk_0 I see especially in the type of game the destiny is you know, I mean I can't imagine a first person action

spk_0 Magic shooter

spk_0 It's a third person

spk_0 Is it third person the entire time

spk_0 Uh to my understanding when I played it for a little bit it was all third person. Oh, interesting. Oh you played it

spk_0 That's fascinating

spk_0 Hmm

spk_0 Okay, yeah, I got I got to check it out because I even that to me is kind of like I'm I'm still like I think about mobile games

spk_0 I understand that Fortnite and Call of Duty have been unmoble and I get that intrinsically

spk_0 But like when I think of a mobile game. I think of like snake. I'm like a Samsung

spk_0 You know flip phone. You know what I mean like that's that's my barometer of like the difference between a console and like a phone

spk_0 It's just like it's I'm not gonna play on that

spk_0 but um

spk_0 I might check out destiny rising because I've seen a lot of people making a big stink about it

spk_0 And it's apparently pretty interesting, but I don't know I also don't want to get sucked into this shit again

spk_0 That's another thing for me personally like it's from a selfish perspective like I don't want to I don't want to spend 10 more years attached to something

spk_0 That's what's so refreshing to me about marathon where it's just like okay cool like this is a pvv multiplayer game

spk_0 I can play like whatever matches I want and then like it doesn't feel like a second job

spk_0 We're gonna be doing like you know quest lines and you know, I don't need that again

spk_0 so

spk_0 Yeah, but destiny too is definitely on the way out I think

spk_0 Anything you want to add us and I should we move on to the final inquiry

spk_0 Nope, okay, I've played destiny in very long time. So you you played rising though like when you play rising

spk_0 I played for maybe 30 minutes like two weeks ago and I want to get back to it

spk_0 And I'm gonna play it on my iPad with a controller, but I just uh

spk_0 There's just too many this on some route. I'm like there's too many real video games

spk_0 Well, I'm sure it's not too bad. It it sounds like the most real video game

spk_0 On mobile and I'm sure it's awesome

spk_0 But with multiple games coming out every week. It's like I just I can't

spk_0 Yeah, no, I don't think anybody would begrudge that

spk_0 All right final inquiry comes from Michael Blackwell

spk_0 Who wrote in and said good evening and good morning chaps after enjoying mafia the old country short and well-packaged story

spk_0 I was wondering if there were any other existing IP that could benefit from being spun off in such a manner

spk_0 To target the $50 price point on such a semi-regular basis

spk_0 Something more along the lines of a smaller uncharted game perhaps with a different studio

spk_0 Enjoy the content you guys create and keep it up. Dustin any thoughts yet we haven't heard from you in a while

spk_0 So actually, I feel like uncharted's kind of not a good option for a cheap they've got all are cheaper

spk_0 They did it, you know, and people liked it, but it oh, it did feel like a it felt like a lesser uncharted game to me

spk_0 Yeah, I think people at this point associate uncharted with groundbreaking

spk_0 Visuals and cinematic moments that just necessarily won't work for

spk_0 This is I mean, it kind of I don't want to say it's cop out

spk_0 But something we talked about before that this is the type of stuff that I would love to see Sony license out their old

spk_0 IP get a good team to do

spk_0 Slide Cooper

spk_0 And make it at a $50 price point and it's nothing crazy

spk_0 So yeah, I guess I'm trying to think of what other twisted metal

spk_0 But I guess they were almost gonna do that just not everything Sony has such a problem where

spk_0 They're so focused on like these top tier high quality games

spk_0 That I could understand not wanting to mix the messaging too much with like here's some $50 games of our old IP

spk_0 But I guess that's mainly what us

spk_0 Hardcore fans would really want but it's just not

spk_0 Gonna do yeah, I still think that

spk_0 Game should explore these various price points

spk_0 Expition 33 being a $50 game. It's obviously a new IP

spk_0 Create price point very attractive to a lot of people

spk_0 Um

spk_0 But the reality is I think mafia is probably a pretty unique situation

spk_0 Where the the series was somehow able to evolve I don't know that

spk_0 I think that what they did with it was pretty impressive, but I'm not so sure that many IP would get away with being so different

spk_0 Um

spk_0 So you might want to just do new and different things at different price points and then stay consistent within those new and different things

spk_0 So if you do another expedition 33 or whatever clear obscure game. It should probably be $50

spk_0 Yeah, so on and so forth, but maybe maybe they raised it to 60 but I want new things

spk_0 So but it sounds like as we report last week. It sounds like there's gonna be a mafia five and I assume it will be the same

spk_0 Sort of situation where they do something short and sweet in the other mafia the old countries fucking dope one of the great games

spk_0 I think they learned proper of the I think they learned kind of the right lessons from definitive edition

spk_0 Where it's just like people respond well to these like kind of like shorter kind of like more truncated

spk_0 Um, we're not truncated. It's not the right word, but like um we're focused experiences. I should say

spk_0 because mafia three I would love to get into mafia three, but I'm like so turned off by like

spk_0 The way that everybody says you have to play it

spk_0 um

spk_0 Where I'm just like I don't know if I have that in me really

spk_0 I'm sure there's like maybe a mod that kind of down PC that probably does away with that stuff

spk_0 That lets you like play it and like a like a more traditional like mafia one kind of way

spk_0 It just like kind of gets you to the places that you want to get to the big story beats without grinding too much

spk_0 But like I also don't like modding my games really

spk_0 People people say I'm weird about that, but like I just I don't know I feel like you know the games less

spk_0 Because I know I know a lot of people who mod the share of the games and I talked to them about it and they like they're talking about

spk_0 It's just not in the base game

spk_0 Because they just modded it into it and they didn't realize that it wasn't there. It's like ah you don't really

spk_0 You don't really know the holistic version of the game that you're talking about and that kind of bothers me

spk_0 Well, we'll see what happens with these different price points people are very sensitive to this

spk_0 I mean this goes back into the

spk_0 Conversation about Xbox and Game Pass where

spk_0 There's gonna be a high sensitivity to even the slightest changes and people's consumer behavior because the economy is weak and

spk_0 Obviously inflation is just so permanently eroded the value of money that it's it's tough out there

spk_0 Um, but I guess it's on that note time to go

spk_0 All right, let's go around the horn and say goodbye to everyone

spk_0 Chris goodbye to you be well have a good rest of your day any plans

spk_0 um

spk_0 now I'm just probably

spk_0 More bio-shock gonna cook some cook something I haven't decided yet

spk_0 I might have to go do a grocery run meeting with a friend of mine for dinner to talk some business stuff

spk_0 So that's something

spk_0 but uh yeah until then pretty chill

spk_0 You know

spk_0 Dustin goodbye to you be well any plans goodbye my plans for tonight my copies of ghost of yote and mario galaxy one and two have arrived from amazon

spk_0 It's gonna be doing a little bit of gaming tonight and this weekend

spk_0 So Pittsburgh retro gaming convention. So if you're there you see me say hello. Don't be weird

spk_0 Just say hi. He's don't be weird

spk_0 um

spk_0 But yeah, I'm looking forward to that is what uh pretty a lot. I don't know what I'm shopping for though

spk_0 At this point I need to branch out my collection because I've kind of tapped out on ps1. It's plenty to collect

spk_0 Uh, but I'm at the point where the stuff I want is at at least one hundred dollars if not more

spk_0 And it's kind of less fun like you get one of those every once in a while

spk_0 but

spk_0 So I gotta figure out some new stuff to collect for but looking forward to that very well

spk_0 Enough enjoy be safe be well

spk_0 Um anything this weekend. Well football tonight. I'm gonna go for a walk after this. I think it's kind of nice out

spk_0 Like walking weather

spk_0 And then this weekend. I don't know probably just hang out a lot of work to do and um

spk_0 And so on and so forth and then next week uh late next week after the show actually the day after the next show

spk_0 I'll be off the long island for a few days. So that's on the mount on top of mind right now as well

spk_0 What in the meantime appreciate you guys. Thank you for your time today

spk_0 And thank you all there for your love kindness and support for all things last day media

spk_0 Sacred symbols etc could not do without you

spk_0 Uh patreon.com slash last day media for early ad free access and a bunch of other great perks and last day media dot store for merch

spk_0 We'll see you next time. Until then goodbye

spk_0 See ya take care guys sacred symbols a PlayStation podcast is a product and trademark of last stand media and Collins last stand

spk_0 LLC and is proudly recorded in the USA

spk_0 The show was conceived by is written by and is directed by me colon Moriarty

spk_0 My co-hosts are Chris Reagan, Maldonado and Dustin Furman the show is produced by executive producer Dustin Furman

spk_0 All of last stand theme music is by my best friend Ramon Narvias

spk_0 As you know all of last stand shows including sacred symbols are fan funded on patreon at patreon.com slash last

spk_0 day media the following names are at the producer level on patreon are highest tier and we're grateful for your

spk_0 thoughtful and kind contributions to our independent endeavor. Thank you Aaron Betke Aaron Temple Adam Bader Adam

spk_0 Nick's Adam refrended a piece in quiet Albert pool halls albion Alex Cabrera Alex Gates Alex LaPierre Alex Monez

spk_0 Allantinic Alan Trembley Alan Einer Anthony Vasquez Anton Kay Antonio C

spk_0 Asak Parades Austin Riley Azan Betty Ann Moriarty Bjorn Campbell Blackjack Boots Brad Cooley

spk_0 Brad Lomon Brian Williamson Cannonball Jones Captain Verde Carlos Algoritht Chad Lewis Chris Galvin

spk_0 Chris Morton Christopher DeVio Christopher Moore Christopher Morgan Colin Love Cory Becom Cory Dustin Dan

spk_0 Root Daniel Dia Moore Darrell E. Naman Dave Alvarez David Kastenaz Dennis Usel Dio or Die Don Lee

spk_0 Donald John Vaders WTF Dustin Klingman Eddie Medina Eddie Smith Electric Soup Ellis Enrique Perez

spk_0 Fasi Bear Gary Cavallo Gavin Geekle Loud Geocorce Grayson Maxwell Gregory Slovinsky Gus Hugo

spk_0 Deleguea Chad Rita Jake C Jason Arzan Jay Getter John Francois Forsey Jeff Mercado Jaria Jerome

spk_0 Ferreira Jimmy Rodriguez Joe McPartlin Joey Gondoliger John Schultz John Zile Johnny Waffles John

spk_0 Cordero Jonathan Coates Jonathan Cortez Juge Jorge Padilla Jorge Pal Joseph Baker Josh Godfrey Josh

spk_0 Gravelick Josh McKinney Josh Schullinger Joshua Smallwood JP Lynch Justin Payne Justin Wagamin Kendrick

spk_0 Kias Kyle Hagle Kyle J Kyle Martin Logan Little George Mad Mach Media Miranda grubba Mark Lepurdo Martin Beck Mason

spk_0 Bashard Matt Flowers Matt MGS24 Michael Buffle Michael Gates Michael Mache Potato Michael Vecchio Mr. Tom

spk_0 Morgan Ashley Mr. Malf My name is Mayo Nate Isod Nathan R Neil Oman Norse Nuts

spk_0 Olly Fritz Organic Produce Patrick Leslie Paul Joyce Peyton Stone Phil Crone

spk_0 Porkin Beans Randall Halsey Rallo Relentless Rex Remington James Rodo 24 Ross Moranca Ryan T. Mandel

spk_0 Sakee Balam Saul Balkazar Sean Mason Shane Brecky Shane Miller Shane Reum Saul and Z Stewie 108

spk_0 Stove Saltab Sweaty Magic Sweet Jones Terry Tip The Shady Mailman Throw 7 Toby Ryleann Tom

spk_0 Quinn Traylon Tray Woodward Uncharted Shinobi Vance Cody W.P. Monty Wesley Mullins

spk_0 Who is Steven Day Will Williams William Holbert Whiskeyson Zach Cohen Zachary Wood Zenred

spk_0 And Zynall Uichi

#379 | Money, It's A Crime

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