Welcome to Off The Console, the hottest new podcast that's all about gaming,
tech news, and all things nerdy.
And this week we're going to cover the biggest news, Xbox Direct, and a
new PlayStation 6 chip, and also, is the Switch 2 killing the Steam Deck?
And I'm joined here by James The Brink, and also Gardner Bryant.
How are you guys doing?
Doing good, man.
It's good to be here.
Spicy week, enjoying life, let's say that.
Yes,
and as always, you can always check out this podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts
and all places where podcasts can be found, including, of course, YouTube.
So, what have you guys been up to this week?
What have we been doing?
That's a good question.
I, well, I'm about to platinum, uh, Astrobot.
Be my, probably my first PlayStation game to platinum.
It is, it is so much fun.
And I fought with my stream on this so much.
Like I think it deserved to be a game of the year and the feedback.
You guys got to try it sometime.
It's just, it's just fun.
It's, it's, it's that controller thing we talk about gardener.
Like it is the PS five controller is just so much more advanced
than the X Box controller.
It's not even funny.
And it's just a fun, it's a fun game, uh, working on personal
projects and stuff like that.
Uh, but I want to get back into playing your game, Gardner, like, I, I played
it, uh, once through, like, uh, once or twice, like, games, but I want to get
back into it, because, which was fun.
Chessmas?
Yeah.
Chessmas.
Yeah.
It's, it's, I like the, I like Chessmas quite a bit.
I haven't had a chance to work on it very much recently.
I've been doing a lot of client stuff.
Have you considered playing, have you considered making Chinese Chessmas?
No, I haven't.
Oh.
Alright, so Chinese chess is a crazy game.
I don't know too much about it, to be honest.
That's more, like, that's more my dad's game.
Yeah.
So, there's a lot of, like, I know there's a lot of, like, different roles.
Like, there's advisors and shit.
Cause, like, that's what they had in, like, ancient China.
I don't fucking know.
Um, what have you been playing, Gardner?
Well, uh, I haven't been playing much this week.
I've been very busy.
Um, but I did, uh, this guy named AU 1452 on the, uh, heavy element games, discord
server, ported my game, ported, doodling to, uh, Amber, Nick, and Arm handhelds,
which is shit, pretty cool shit.
He did it, he just did it for free, uh, like in his spare time I guess.
Um, and that's pretty cool.
. Oh, that's pretty cool.
Really cool.
Maybe you should show it off in the video.
Give him a shout out.
Yeah, I'm gonna try and get it on my, uh, this guy.
My GPi, my GPi case 2 or whatever it is.
This is pretty, this is a pretty cool little thing.
Shout out to, uh, what was his name again?
Moocow 1452.
Alright.
And as for me, my main ultrawide monitor has died.
Like, died, died.
And I know I've talked about it a few times on both my personal
channels, also this podcast, but it's dead, dead this time.
I could not, I could not resurrect it.
And, I mean, it's like a couple years old at this point, like
seven years old, I think.
It was like one of the first ultrawides, like, come out.
So now, I'm in the market for something else.
Like, an ultra wide OLED monitor.
Hopefully, if I can find one of those for cheap.
Do they make ultra wide OLED much?
Or like, I don't expect them to be expensive.
Alienware makes one.
And also, uh, Samsung also makes like, their Odyssey series.
But like, they make a 49 inch super ultra wide.
So like, instead of 21 by 9, it's like 30 32 or something like that?
32 by 9 or something like that?
I don't know.
It's super wide though.
It's like the length of, it's like the length of my ultrawide plus the
monitor that I had beside it that I'm using now as my main monitor.
Okay, I gotta ask this.
Do you have an ultrawide for games or for productivity?
Um, both.
Because I feel like if it's for protect productivity, you
usually want to like two monitors.
If it's for games, the one's very seamless, but streaming, it sucks balls.
Well, so I'm just,
yeah, so I have two monitors and ultra wide and the, and the
other one that was my setup.
And uh, now we just have this old life here that doesn't work for some reason.
I should probably just, maybe I could sell it for like a hundred dollars for scrap.
Yeah.
Let someone else fix it.
Maybe.
Yeah.
I've got three 4k monitors here.
And, uh, that's nice.
That's really
nice.
Amen.
Have another, have another row of the 4k monitors and you'll be a stockbroker.
Yeah.
I don't have, I don't have another like 1, 200 to drop.
I don't know if any, can any GPU handle six 4k monitors?
I don't think there's any GPUs with six inputs.
Yeah.
Um, There's probably GPUs with close to six, maybe five.
I wonder
if, if I could do what I was showing you guys before we get on.
I have, I run two different GPUs and plug in six monitors.
Do it that way,
do it that way.
That'd be
fun.
I bet you Linux could support that.
Probably.
Linux
can do
anything.
As long as someone makes it happen.
As long as you spend a couple of months, uh, making sure it
works or spend a couple of years of begging like adobe or some shit.
I'm not going to buy it or anything, but like,
yeah, I, I have one monitor right now.
I used to have two or three and I always get like three.
I feel like I get too distracted trying to organize my, my windows.
But I do miss having a second one.
I know a lot of people, like, swear by virtual desktops, but I
have never been able to get into, like, the virtual desktop vibe.
It's why I have three monitors, because it's like, it's so much easier for me to,
like, orient my brain to, like, physical workspaces rather than virtual ones.
Yeah, like, they're cool for, like, a laptop.
I never find myself using them.
I do kind of just like leave everything on like one screen or two of multiple.
I go back and forth.
Depends.
But laptops for sure.
Like Mac book, just cause you can swipe between them.
It's perfect desktop.
Yeah, it's, it's, uh, I prefer having physical monitors.
Maybe that's the difference.
Maybe that's just, we just need to use MacBooks and said Gardner.
Yeah, I'll be, I'll be honest, MacBooks are nice.
I have yet to meet a laptop that does better than a MacBook these days.
Yeah, I have, I have my framework with Fedora on it.
And that thing is my favorite laptop I've ever owned.
It's so nice.
Yeah, I think, well, I wouldn't mind getting one sent to me.
I'll, I'll, I'll change my mind framework.
So speaking of which I am, I am stuck on windows on my laptop, which is technically
a legion go because I don't have a laptop.
Well, I have a work laptop that's running windows, but like that's work.
So like my personal laptops, a legion go.
It's pretty funny.
And coincidentally, yeah, It's also an Xbox.
Speaking of which, Xbox Development Direct 2025.
They showcased a bunch of trailers for a bunch of new games.
Like, I guess Doom The Dark Ages isn't a new announcement, but we
got some new information about it.
And it looks pretty sick.
I want to play it.
And I think some peop I don't know if people had ish I don't It's an interesting
direction because, like, Doom Eternal was very jumpy and twitchy, right?
You jumped around, you dashed around a lot, and Doom the
Dark Ages is more grounded.
You're more like a, like, tank, so to speak.
I don't know, the trailers I saw, it looked pretty Doom ish.
I mean, it looks very Doom ish, but not like, aerial Doom ish,
like Doom Eternal ish, right?
Mm, it'll be, well, I don't think we saw enough.
Honestly, I don't think we saw enough.
I don't think the early days, or like, the first trailers of Doom Eternal would
have convinced me that it would have been so Fast paced, but Doom Eternal was is
you get trained while you're doing it.
So as you progress, they do really good job with progression.
And so you get used to use the mechanics and everything.
And I feel like by the end, you're just an aerial master.
And that I'm I wouldn't be shocked, though, if the Dark Ages is.
What you're saying high tech a little bit more ground a little
maybe a little heavier because you know that medieval feel to it
I'll say well what I will say is like the trailer didn't give me the
like an impression that they were Departing from that kind of gameplay.
We I just didn't see that specifically, you know, the the aerial combat stuff But
yeah, I mean either way it looks like a cool game my concern I have two concerns
about this game though The first one is what are they gonna do about the music
because Mick Gordon is not participating as far as I understand it Right.
Oh,
she's not
forgot about
that
yeah,
and and like Mick Gordon was like the heart and soul of doom as far as
I was concerned like I unironically listened to Those two, like Doom
2016 and Doom Eternal soundtracks.
Like, I love that music.
Um, and then I said I had two things, I can't remember the other one.
Yeah, I mean, everyone recognizes that one Doom Eternal, you know, the Da
da da da, da da da, yeah, that one.
Dude, I love that.
Dude, it's, it's going to be an interesting, uh I have, I trust in tech,
so, I mean, I have no reason to believe that the music's gonna be any worse.
It's just a matter of if the composer really has it in him.
I think he might have it in him.
I, I have Rip and Tear as, in my current playlist I listen to.
Yeah.
Everyone knows that song.
It's like that one, it's like that other song, uh, I don't know, every song, every
game, every like really good game has that one song that everyone just knows.
Even if they haven't played the game
is that the only thing they fear is you yeah?
I did the only thing they fear is you is like literally one of the best
Songs ever written in my opinion.
It's so good
Yes, and doom the dark ages was one of the highlights then
there's also a couple of games.
There's a south of midnight It looks pretty cool.
I mean,
it's I love the art style.
I like this is I think it's gonna be a really fun game I'm a little worried
that it's gonna be like Um, kind of boxed in with the way that they're doing some
of the Bayou stuff, but it looks fun.
I really like the idea of this.
If the combat's fun, then it'll probably be a fun game to play.
Yeah, it's, it'll be interesting to see how it goes.
Like, it looks good on paper, like on trailer, but I wanna, I want more.
Cause what I saw was good, but I need more diversity.
Um, and that's one of the problems with some games is they just feel
The same throughout the whole game and I need it to be a little, a
little bit unique in different areas.
I'm sure we'll see more of that when the game actually comes out.
Because, like, I'm sure they don't want to reveal all of their secrets.
Like, you know, dude, like, you know how, you know, we were talking about
how Doom the Dark Ages looks kind of grounded and they're probably
just not revealing all their
secrets.
Oh, agreed, agreed.
I'm not saying, I'm just, I know what Doom games are like and they're
going to make it pretty diverse.
Like, they'll probably have hell and all that.
Uh, that's kind of what I'm talking about.
With South of Midnight, they don't need to rebuild everything.
I'm just saying, like, I'll need to see more to get more excited,
because I've got my hopes up too much about games like, that are similar.
Like, Redfall felt, like, it only showed one portion of the whole game, and we
didn't even get that much gameplay.
This is obviously showing gameplay for most of it.
Redfall really kind of, it ended up being a big flop, and uh, being a
little bit more of a, careful on that.
Expedition 33 though, you know?, is it clear, obscure, like it looks really
good and it also looks like it could end up being like if the environments
are too same Z, like it could also have that type of problem to where it gets
very mundane halfway through cause not enough stuff's changing or unique or
captivating, um, and for an RPG, I think that's important to like get a good
flow going, but it looks interesting.
Um, yeah, I mean, I think, I mean, it's all, it's JBR, it's JRPG inspired.
I hope they also take inspiration from like the JRPG environment.
It's like the variety of.
I mean, it's not a variety of gameplay, it's a variety of, like, environments,
and like, like, JRPGs are infamously bad at doing environments in the past.
They're much better now.
They're much better now, but like, yeah, they were real, I mean, it really depends.
I mean, I
mean, the
real good, the really good JRPGs are pretty good at, like, variety, but
like, I agree.
I agree with that.
Yeah.
And then it's French.
Like, it's, it's an interesting one.
If you saw the trailer, the beginning part is like France kind of like destroyed,
and like the world anew kind of thing.
It will be interesting to see what the French come up with with a G
uh, a French GRP yeah, a French
GRPG.
But the but the two games I'm, like, most excited about are Ninja
Gaiden 2 Black and Ninja Gaiden 4.
So, Ninja Gaiden 2 Black dropped the day of, it was a shadow drop.
And, it's a UE5 remake of Ninja Gaiden 2.
More akin to the Xbox version than the uh, Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2.
Um, and, I've seen some videos of it running on Steam.
It runs at like 30 FPS, which I guess some may say is playable.
I'm not of the opinion that that's really playable on Steam.
And that's not really playable since it's like a heavily action oriented game.
I think it should be at minimum 60 FPS.
I think some people have tried to get it running at 60 on the Steam Deck,
and, with some success, it's not quite 60, but I think I see it, like,
hitting, hovering around the 50s.
I think for me, 40, or like, 45 is like, the minimum, for, for framerate.
Um, for any game, or for this
game?
Well, for, for any game on the Steam Deck, I think 40 is like, kind of the minimum.
Because the difference between, like, 30 to 40 versus 40 to 60 is
like orders of magnitude, right?
So like if you like there's a huge difference, there's a huge jump in
perceived like latency When you go up to 40, it's like so much better, but I was
playing what was I playing the other day?
Cyberpunk 2077 I tried that on my Steam Deck recently and like With the,
with the preset and it like sucks.
It's so bad like the performance on, on the deck.
I, yeah, I've always struggled to have, like I've never recommended Cyberpunk
on the deck even though some people have played it and like are fine with it.
Yeah, it's just for me.
It's got to be consistent.
If it's 30, that's great.
But it cannot dip in below 30 for like 95 percent of the time.
It's 95% At the time or up needs to be 30 frames, um, even jumping between like
30 and 40 or anytime you have big jumps in your performance can cause a lot of.
Pain and suffering.
I, I, I,
yeah.
I wonder if there are any I wonder if there are any performance
optimization mods for Cyberpunk.
I know, uh, uh, Cyber I know, like, Skyrim has like a million of those.
Because, because Skyrim's like a Really unoptimized game.
Yeah, I bet you there are.
And I mean, like, I just used the preset and I didn't go in and, like, tweak it.
And the preset says Steam Deck on it.
And I was like, oh, that's pretty cool.
And then the performance was just bad.
So I'm hoping that, like, I can turn the resolution down or, or screw with it.
I think the Steam Deck
preset was a lot better before Phantom Liberty came out.
Okay, because I think it was optimized before.
Yeah, yeah, because I think
like raise the requirement, like the game requirements to that specific update.
It wasn't like amazing even before, so I'll give it to that.
It was not amazing before, but the new update and some of the other things
really did affect the performance.
And I think I've seen mods.
I don't know if they're steam deck specific.
I've seen some steam deck specific ones.
Like, people that wanted to do it were like, in the middle of it, I
don't know if they completed it, but
With that game, it's so densely populated, it's really, like
Skyrim's an easy one to optimize.
It's easy to optimize something that's really unoptimized.
When a game's already, like, Cyberpunk, I think it's already, like, optimized,
but it's so Dense and if you don't have certain techniques, like, uh, really
good, um, texture streaming, which I they're using their own, um, engine
for that one, which might not support a really good version of texture streaming,
which I'm assuming they do use will like I'm not to get too much nerdy,
but that can cause a lot of issues with performance and optimization.
Yeah, and performance is really important for like, games like
Ninja Gaiden 4, which, also by the way, being co developed by Platinum
Games, so, like, that's huge news.
Even though Platinum Games have had some, like, stinkers, like, recently,
like, you guys heard of Babylon's Fall?
That did so bad.
Yeah, it's, so, it was a live service game, but it also didn't have good combat.
Which is unheard
of for a Platinum game.
I think they also had like, other monetization things when it came out.
It was, let's just say it was a clusterfuck, like, straight up.
It was one of the first, I think, live actions to really just do
really poorly from a, a big studio.
So, um, at least in the past, like, five years from my understanding.
Was the Avengers
five years?
Was what?
The Avengers game, you know, the one that Square Enix and,
uh, Crystal Dynamics made?
Yeah, but did it do that bad?
I feel like it did well enough,
it just didn't, like, Make, I don't know, I don't know, but
yeah, Ninja Gaiden, Ninja Gaiden.
Yeah, that, this was like an exciting one that I saw.
Um, I do like the series.
I just, it's been so long since I played it that I'm not, like, personally.
Not as excited, but I like right now, but I have a feeling when this drops, I
will be wanting to pick this up day one.
So Gardner, I haven't played.
Oh, sorry.
Go ahead.
Sorry.
I was going to
say, I was going to say, I haven't played like a Ninja Gaiden game since
the
original X Box.
Yeah.
I mean, Ninja Gaiden 2 on the Xbox 360 was also pretty good too.
I think Ninja Gaiden Black was better, but Ninja Gaiden 2 was quite, was really good.
Ninja Gaiden 3, the original release was terrible.
It, like, it was, I felt it was really easy, and like, I also, and, the weapon,
there was no weapon variety, you only, you only, I think you only had the,
uh, the dragon sword, and so there was no, there was no variety, and they also
removed all the dismemberment, which, I mean, it's not a huge difference,
since there's still blood everywhere, but like, it just doesn't feel
as visceral, and the gameplay just didn't feel right.
It just departed too much from the others that made them successful.
I don't know why they went that route.
If I'm not mistaken,
they tried to like make Ryu Hayabusa, like Feel remorse for killing all those
people, but like, you still, you still do that throughout the entire game.
Yeah,
ludonarrative dissonance.
It's just like The Last of Us Part II.
Revenge bad, but killing all those other people feels really
good in that game, I should say.
Anyways, Ninja Gaiden.
That's all.
Yeah.
If, if revenge bad, why killing feel good in game?
Right.
Here's a question for you guys.
What xbox exclusive are you actually excited for?
Like, besides the stuff on this list, are there any games
that they've like talked about?
You want to see well
do more Dark Ages is not it's exclusive on the consoles,
but it's coming for PC, right?
Yeah, I should have I should have said
console exclusive anymore.
I think it's come to all
I should have said Xbox like first party Xbox game.
Oh
Okay No, you're you're good.
You're good.
I'm just a little concerned.
I'm like, I got to play this on PC.
Perfect dark.
I think.
Yes.
Yeah, that's the one I wanted to see when you guys were talking about this
in the in the chat talking about this.
I was like, oh, man, I hope they're talking about perfect dark.
But unfortunately,
they didn't talk about perfect dark.
I don't know.
We have, we still know nothing else about it besides, I guess, the fact
that it's still being developed.
Yeah, I still have a sour taste from the last perfect dark.
I just did not have fun in the last one perfect Yeah
Do doom the Dark Ages hard like a hundred percent I had Some of the most fun I've
ever had in the game with doom eternal like it hands down ten out of ten game
It's an amazing game from a technical side and also from just a you know a player
side It was amazing and like I had dreams that I was doom guy, destroying demons
like you, that's how good that game was.
So I'm super excited.
Uh, up and coming though.
South of midnight, I think is my second personally.
I'm really interested in it.
I hadn't heard about it, but, uh, but I just, I've watched the trailer just
now and it looks really interesting.
Like, I like the art style.
I like the art style and the venue, like the, uh, like where
it takes place is very unique.
And I liked that concept.
It
almost gives off a sort of like spider rush, like, Spider verse kind of
vibe where the game looks like it's running at 60fps, but the characters
animate as if they were like,
24fps.
The animation is on twos or something.
Yeah.
Yeah, like 24fps.
Cinematic fps.
I could say.
Yeah,
I really like that style.
Like, like Spiderverse, the was one of my favorite movies ever.
Uh, even though I don't like, um, superheroes that much, I was
like, this is, this is unique and interesting and artistic.
I think they did that.
I think they did that for a costume in the Spider Man game.
So the PlayStation ones where there's a spider versus inspired skin and like
he animates at like half the frame rate of the actual game itself, I think,
or something like that.
That's cool.
That is cool.
Yeah, I'm.
Yeah.
Superheroes are, Batman is awesome, but beyond that, I'm not as, like, yeah.
Not even Spider Man?
Do they have, what, Spider Man?
I, I just don't know.
I, I kinda had fun with old Spider Mans, uh, swinging through the cities, but.
I haven't been able to get into the newer ones.
I've just had so many other games I've been wanting to play over it.
True that.
I respect that they're good games.
Like, I understand that they're amazing games.
But I want to get back into the Batman suit, play some more Batman.
So, speaking of, like, Arkham kind of stuff.
Oh yeah, and also, unrelated note, Microsoft said that they're going
to be supporting the Switch 2.
And there were, there was a leak earlier stating that these Microsoft
games would be coming to the Switch 2.
Such as Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024.
No way that's gonna run on switch to uh,
if you shrink that, uh, those texture packs enough.
Yeah.
Lets see.
There's also Halo, the Master Chief collection.
I can see that definitely Diablo four.
I could also see that.
Definitely I think Diablo fours on everything else, isn't it?
For the most part.
So that's not a shocking one.
Call it.
Yeah.
Fallout four Star.
Starfield Starfield.
Mm.
That's an interesting one.
'cause there we knew that Starfield was gonna be coming out.
Um, I think on multiple platforms, right?
Like it's on PlayStation right now, isn't it?
Or is it going to be coming to PlayStation?
I believe it is.
I don't know.
I can't remember.
I know it's hard to keep track of all the exclusivities and
I have a PC and a PlayStation.
So I'm pretty much covered for everything.
When it comes to exclusivity, but that's an intro.
I honestly kind of like the idea of playing Starfield
on my, on a switch to, I,
I, I mean, I would be surprised if they optimize Starfield because like, remember
how dog shit it ran on the steam deck.
Yeah, yeah, but once you get into optimizations for switch and have the
tooling that they have like it's a different game Um, I think they'll be able
to it's just what are they gonna have to cut or what are they gonna have to do to?
Make it so it runs good or is it going to same with fallout 4 they're
similar engines, but they're different Um, generations of the same engine
from my understanding, fallout 4 and starfield and so I just don't even
fallout 4 is not like the most optimized game and it's pretty old, but it's
going to run well and switch to like, that's, that's my ultimate question on
that
and
also a call of duty game and the link didn't specify which one if it was
going to be black ops 6 or like a new one or like maybe a switch specific
version or warzone or whatever.
I don't know.
But
They're gonna milk it.
It's gonna be probably the newest one right now and then the next one.
Like, honestly, what this tells me is that Xbox has their new handheld
that's coming out this year.
It's the Xbox Switch 2.
Damn, I can't believe the Switch 2 was also an Xbox this whole time.
Dude, that'd be funny if they released, like, exclusives for the Switch 2 also.
Dude, I would be down for that weird timeline, I'm not gonna lie.
It'd be hilarious.
Yeah, Microsoft stealth drops their acquisition of Nintendo.
And you turn on the Switch 2 and it goes With an Xbox logo
Hey, you know what I'm down for it.
You know how many people would be pit like Nintendo fanboys They do Nintendo
fanboys could be pretty toxic, dude.
Well, you know what would happen if
Microsoft bought Nintendo, right?
You know what would happen?
What would happen?
Uh, they would uh, they'd somehow manage to completely fuck up Mario, Zelda, uh,
and every other exclusive Nintendo game.
Like, they would just completely fuck them up.
They'd re release Mario Odyssey 8 times over the next 10 years.
Or, I'm here for it.
And then they'd release a, they'd release a Mario DLC, uh, or some Zelda DLC where,
clad in like green armor, cause all their major franchises have green armor guys.
Or, or hear me out, what if Nintendo's, like, good luck
juice rubbed off on Microsoft.
And, like, they started making, like, super compelling exclusives again.
I, I'm, I'm here for it.
I think a golden age would occur.
Like, we'd, we'd be getting Doom guy meets Mario, uh,
crossovers, and I'm here for it.
Meets Master Chief, too.
Mmm, I'm more for Doom guy and Mario.
Well, dude, like, think about, think about it.
Like, then, then, uh, all three of, like, the major Like green, green
characters would be owned by Microsoft.
You have doom guy, you have master chief and link and Luigi
and
Luigi.
Right.
That's yeah.
Hey, I'd be down for a green version game where you get to
have all four, four player co op.
Dude.
I'm down for that.
We're going to call it.
You're just making me want this.
They're going to
call it green day.
Green day.
Oh God.
I have exclusive music from green day.
Family friendly green day music.
Doesn't sound doesn't sound.
Right.
I don't know what it is, man.
Radio, like, radio edits?
It, to be fair, yeah, I'm not down for that.
It sounds more fun on paper.
Well, I'm curious though, like, for the Switch 2, Microsoft's gonna be
really like we have a like a taste of what they're gonna release for switch
do but I have a feeling they're gonna release as much as they can because
they their acquisition party that they had a few years ago really put them
into like a red on some other game in their gaming section of the company and
so they're trying to make it back up because I think their subscriptions just
aren't picking up as much as they want to and that's just the natural trend
of subscription based stuff like it.
Not even including what's on here.
What Xbox or, um, controlled franchise would you want to see on the Switch
2, is my, is, or what's the most exciting thing that you could think of?
Or out of this list, which one?
I'm kind of curious what you guys would pick.
Well, I think that, dude, I would be, I would be here for, like, Gears of War.
Any, like, new, new Gears of War, or remastered Gears of War.
I love that franchise.
That'd be a good one to switch.
Yeah, they could, they might bring, they could bring the new
one that they're developing.
I think it's a E Day, I think it was.
Also, on, on another, on another Gears of War, I hated when they
renamed Gears of War to just Gears.
It was the worst decision ever.
Microsoft has a real problem with naming things.
They should have just left it as Gears of War 4 and Gears
of War 5, not fucking Gears 5.
Right.
The fact that the fact that their upcoming handheld is called the Nintendo
switch to it doesn't make any sense Like they're really bad at naming stuff
I love that.
I love that Yeah, I should be the title the Xbox Nintendo
switch to that's a good title
Hey, man.
We're also getting an Xbox PlayStation 6 as well
Yeah
So I think hey So I think this was submitted by you, dude.
Uh,
PS6 chip design.
Um, yes, it was.
I am super excited, um, for any, like, new tech coming out,
obviously, like, new chipsets.
This is stuff I usually follow more than anything.
Um, but, like, the PS6, I think on roadmap stuff that I've followed in
the past should be coming up in, like, I think it's, like, three or four
years away, so it's still a ways away.
Um, and the Zen, what are we on right now?
Zen four or five.
What is coming out this year?
I can't remember.
In terms of like,
in terms of like mobile or desktop, I think Zen 5, I think desktop
is on Zen 5, if I'm not mistaken.
Is desktop on Zen 5?
It doesn't matter so much if desktop or mobile as much as what architecture
that they're Okay, not to get into it, so So they're changing their
architecture from RDNA to UDNA.
I'm curious how that will change support like SteamOS.
So let's say if a new mobile chip comes out with a UDNA architecture, would
SteamOS work out of the box with it?
Kind of curious on that, but this is very interesting premise that
Sony's already making a play to do a PS6 soon and it could be.
Sooner than we expected, especially PS.
Like they claim that the PS, uh, five pro did well, I don't believe them when
they say that I think it did better than maybe they originally thought.
Maybe I don't, I don't know.
I don't feel like the PS five pro did very well.
It's old stuff.
I think the portal did better than the PS five.
And I don't think people expected the portal to do well.
Um, I'm not shocked that the portals, uh, did well because it's PlayStation,
you have a lot of fanboys still.
So I'm really sorry.
Yeah,
go ahead and it's interesting that you mentioned the PlayStation 5 Pro
because I totally forgot that that came out like a few months ago.
And we're already getting, I mean, I guess this isn't like an official
news, this isn't Sony going out and saying, Oh, we're making a PS6 right
now, or anything, but like, it's interesting how, uh, how time flies.
Also, with UDNA, I'm sure if Valve, like, Valve works with AMD, I'm sure
they could get AMD to like, work with them on making SteamOS work with
UDNA by the time it releases, so I have no qualms with that happening.
It's just a, it's, it's just an assumption.
They sometimes work slow depending on architectures and stuff like that.
So if the architecture is not that much different from RDNA, but, um,
UDNA, but I think it is supposed to be kind of a generational change on
how they are designing their, uh, GPU architecture, especially for APUs.
So it will be.
Interesting, nonetheless, but I think this was a good step up and could be
what the Steam Deck 2 maybe is going to be built on anyways, UDNA, I wouldn't
be shocked because from what I've seen, and this is all rumored leak stuff, but
I think these are pretty, like, when the rumor makes sense as a, as a, like, like
this does where, oh yeah, PS6 getting an AMD design chip makes sense, right?
Like that, that, For backwards compatibility alone, that makes sense,
but Zen 6 is also on the roadmap.
It's going to be coming out, um, in the next few years.
I, this, I think this is pretty much like going to happen, but what is it?
I'm curious what it's going to like mean for Steam Deck.
Is this going to be the Steam Deck 2 architecture?
Maybe I can see it.
Yeah, this says, according to this article, it's coming
out in quarter two of 2026.
Yeah, the, uh, the, the new, uh, Zen 6 or whatever.
Then what is it 7 6, but they have lens
6.
Yeah,
they have Zen 7 on their road map to at this point.
So like there, this is, you know, I think that if, if they have like an actual
generational upgrade in the terms of the architecture of the GPU, then that's kind
of what valves been waiting for to have something that's really transformative
for, for their next gen hardware.
Steam
Deck 2.
And I know the
rumors.
Oh, sorry.
Well, I think the summer of 2026.
Yeah, I, I, the rumors have been pretty strong that this is around the
generation that valve has been working with AMD for the next APU because they're
going to be doing another custom APU.
Um, it would make sense.
Um, I think, and it would be generational enough.
It'd be what?
5 years by the time it potentially releases since the steam deck.
Um, I think we could be getting, um, an announcement towards
the end of this year, but.
I'm betting on the end of this year or sometime in the next year that we'll
get an announcement on what's going to happen with Steam Deck 2, even if it's
just a, an accidental leak from, you know, one of the top dogs working on it.
Yeah, another Dota leak.
And when it
comes to like, right, when it comes to, the, the impact that RDNA 6 would
have on the, uh, Steam Deck, I mean, AMD's GPU drivers are open source,
and AMD works with Valve to actually produce, Drivers for the steam deck.
So I think like, if that's the target for valve is, uh, then they're going to make
sure that the driver support is there.
Um, and again, you know, that that's one of the reasons that I
like AMD cards better than Nvidia cards for Linux is because you just
get better out of the box support.
Uh, they still have like their proprietary drivers that you can install with like
advanced features or whatever, but you know, I'm all about the open source stuff.
What's I'm about options.
Yeah.
What sorts of events featured would be missing if you want open source?
I don't know exactly.
Uh, I, I, I believe there's like better, uh, open CL support for the
proprietary drivers, but I don't know.
It really depends on optimizations and certain things.
You could get better performance with one or the other.
I used to use open source a lot back in the day drivers, but it really
just goes back and forth on certain aspects and certain games like FSR
is, I believe, open sourced already.
So like, it's.
Should be, it's with the open source drivers, right?
I haven't used the AMD open source drivers in a while, but FSR works on it, right?
I mean, isn't the, isn't the Steam Deck entirely run by,
like, the open source drivers?
I think the Mesa drivers?
Yeah.
Is it?
Okay, then it's, then yeah.
I haven't looked into it deep, and so, in a while.
But, I, I'm not saying that UDNA is not gonna work with this, by the way.
Um, I'm just saying it might not work out the box, meaning when when Zen 6
drops next year and we have our beta of the SteamOS, uh, coming out this year, I
don't know if it's gonna work just like if, let's say, Ally 4 comes out next year
and they have the new Zen 6 architecture on it, like, would it work or not?
I'm not sure, like, without additional Updates, like maybe Bazai would work fine.
It, it, that, that's my, that's my, kind of my point.
This will be interesting to see that.
Yeah.
It'll be supported eventually.
Oh, a hundred percent, I don't doubt that.
So, which madman's gonna try running SteamOS on the Switch 2?
And, is the Switch 2 gonna be the Steam Deck killer?
So, this article that Steam Deck HQ put out I just noticed one thing in
particular, that the week of the Switch 2's announcement, the Steam Deck's,
like, sales dropped down from, like, being top 3 to being 47th place.
It's a massive jump, and I understand, and they do notice, they do mention
that it probably wasn't just the Steam Deck 2 being announced, it was
probably the fact that, you know, it's January, holidays, we just spent
like thousands of dollars on gifts or whatever for our relatives, family,
and friends, all that stuff, right?
Uh, except that it was a glitch with their reporting system and just
so happened to coincide with the announcement of the switch to wait.
Really was so is it back up
if you go check it out right now?
I think it's at number four.
I would definitely expect a drop, but I would not expect a 47th place drop.
No, if you gave me on Linux like reported on this too, and they they had a update
to the story because they emailed valve about it and then valve fixed it.
Oh shit, well, someone should contact Noah from SteamDickHQ to tell, uh, Oh actually,
no, he didn't even write this one.
It was, uh, Solomon Thompson.
We should tell him to update the article.
In fact, uh, hopefully Noah watches our podcast, because
he was a part of it earlier.
I actually covered this story in my video that went up on Friday.
And As I was, like, getting ready to post the video, I went and
checked the story again, and I was like, oh, yeah, there's an update.
Oh, because I also covered it on Friday, and I didn't see the update.
Yeah.
But hey, it makes for a nice, it makes for a nice narrative.
The Switch 2 was killing the Steam Deck, so now Valve has to get off
their ass and make a Steam Deck 2.
So
the Steam Deck's, uh, never gonna outsell the Switch.
Of course not.
Switch 2, uh, it could happen later down the road, but like, in the
next few years, don't plan on the Steam Deck, outsell them the Switch.
No.
Um, but, that's, I think that's the wrong way to look at it.
I think what numbers are already pushing is, is Already an amazing thing
and generations down, like let's say in 10 years, it could, we don't know
what's going to happen later down the
road.
Well, like, like I said, in my video, like if those numbers were true, like
if it went from Number 3 to 47th, then think about the impact that, that this,
that the Steam Deck would have had to have in order for that to be true when
the Switch 2 was announced, right?
Like, if, if there are so many people buying the Switch 2 Or so many
people who would buy the Switch 2 were buying the Steam Deck instead.
And then the Switch 2 gets announced, and like, then the sales drop dramatically.
That would have been like, extreme mainstream penetration for the Steam Deck.
But uh, these numbers aren't true, so.
I was actually, when I saw this news story, I literally was
like, wow, that's really cool!
Because, I thought like Man, like the Steam Deck must be so popular with normal
people who aren't Linux gamers, who aren't enthusiasts about this, you know?
But then it turns
out to be false.
Well, the Steam Deck is actually pretty popular.
It is, yeah.
Everyone I have talked to, and this is anecdotal, and a lot of people that are
not gamers at all know about the Steam Deck, and they ask about the Steam Deck.
And they're like, I'm thinking about getting it for my sister, or this or
that, and a lot of content creators, even rich ones, Play a ton on the Steam
Deck and so instead of opting for like more expensive options or more expensive
computers or laptops on the go, a lot of them will play Steam Decks on the go.
So, Steam Deck is already, I think, um, a very, I want to say like a pop It's a
household name at this point, and it's going to continue to grow, and I do think
it's got Xbox and PlayStation a little worried, just a little, just because, and
if they honestly, if Valve really put a little bit of money into marketing, like
SteamOS and Steam, they could say it's generational, you don't have to worry
about games being, like, you buy a game on Steam Deck, it will most likely play
on Steam Deck too, unless they change it to ARM architecture, but, I don't know.
We'll Astro set the bottom I guess
well, I mean Hi tech when you went to transition to this story.
You said who's gonna be the madman who runs Steam OS on the switch to but
like when that I think that it's an inevitability that the switch that the
steam deck is going to have An arm version or, or something that, because we know
Deckard is running on a, on a arm CPU.
Yeah.
And so Steam Os is gonna be on Deckard that therefore there will be an arm
build to Steam os at some point.
So it's not that far out of the realm of possibility to see it come to
this, uh, to a hack to switch too.
I would be, I would be down to try that.
. Yeah.
I mean we are in two, yeah.
In two years I think it will happen.
Like, I think in within two years you're gonna have Steam Os or a Steam Os.
Um.
Iterated, like, um, for like version on the switch to, I think that the
biggest kicker is that it's, um, NVIDIA.
So the arm part, of course, needs to come into play.
And then, uh, how good will the drivers or how custom do the drivers have to
be to support their APU architecture?
I don't know if it's,
yeah, is it still based on, is it like a evolution of like the Tegra GPS?
It's a, it's a Tegra.
Yeah, that's what the leak.
So.
That's what the leaks suggest.
I mean, there are Tegra GPU drivers, so how much do those
have to evolve for the Switch 2?
That's a good question, because I bet you DLSS is going to be
baked hard into this new one.
Oh,
yeah, absolutely.
I don't know if we've gone over 2 before, but like If the specs are to
be believed that are rumored, which I think are pretty strong rumors, like
they're gonna need some assistance.
'cause they're, it's a pretty weak device actually,
as far as I'm, I'm shocked as far as I'm aware, it's about
on par with the steam deck.
In terms of teraflops, but you can't, I don't, teraflops
between different architectures aren't exactly the same, right?
It's an okay way of, of trying to compare it, but it's like,
it's what we have, like, until they have a better way to do it.
The thing is with switch and with consoles is that they have optimization techniques
that they can do and optimizations.
Yeah, that's the kicker.
And like floating point operations are so well optimized now that they're not
that, I mean, did you, did you know that on, on most x86 CPUs, uh, it's faster to,
it's like an order of magnitude faster to perform a division on a floating
point number than it is on an integer.
That makes sense.
It takes like four cycles to divide a floating point number, but it takes
like 12 or 14 seconds or cycles.
I mean, to, to divide an integer now because floating points
have been so well optimized.
So it's like, I don't, I don't really buy the whole Tara flop thing.
Like you were saying, high tech, it's like, eh, whatever.
They're, they're kind of meaningless numbers now.
They will, especially because what is it?
Um, the Z one extreme has what?
10, 12, something like that.
T flops and so I would not say the Xbox has what 3.
4 something along those lines between three and four is the numbers and the
steam deck does not have or the, the, let's say the allied does not have
two or three times the performance.
It only has like 1.
5 to maybe two, depending on the game and how much TDP you're using.
I still am a little.
I don't know.
I, it seems really weak to me.
I think they're gonna lean heavily into DLSS and, uh, certain, uh, both
frame generation and also upscaling technologies, which is, I think, okay.
We'll see how well it works out, though.
The other thing to consider with Nintendo is that it is
dedicated hardware for gaming.
So when, when companies, like, push their games to the, to the Switch
2, they're gonna be very heavily optimized for that architecture.
So whether they need.
Uh, um, DLSS or whatever.
I mean, it's not, I, I think there's actually less need for
DLSS on hardware like that.
Um, it'll, it'll definitely exist, but like, I feel like PC games
are less optimized because there's such a variety of hardware that it
just, it's way harder to optimize
fully.
Do you want me to give you some comparisons on some of those from the
original to switch to just to help?
Oh my original switch has four gigabytes of LPDDR4 RAM and 32 gigabit
And the switch 2 has is rumored to have 12 of LPDDR5, which is a huge
jump I think for textures alone.
Yeah, that will be really like the switch was already struggling really
hard with this one Um, so that 12 gigabytes is going to put them on par.
Is that like a Xbox one and PS4?
Um, so I'm kind of seeing this as like.
You're going to have a PS4 in your hands kind of thing is what I'm going
to equate this to, which is honestly the biggest generation, like generation
from PS4 to 5 is not the biggest when it comes to graphical increase.
Um,
uh, PS4 actually only has 8 gigabytes of
RAM.
Oh, okay.
And there you go.
Damn, so then 12 gigabytes is gonna be like games are pretty thirsty
for RAM these days But I think with the LSS techniques and with the 12
gigabytes, it's you're okay Maybe I the T flops do get me a little bit on
this but like texture wise it's gonna look pretty good Like I think some of
our stuff's gonna look pretty fancy.
It's just What's it gonna get hung up on?
Curious.
Do you see frame generation come to the switch too?
Because remember, Nvidia puts so much emphasis on like
multi frame generation at CES
Yes, at at bare minimum it's gonna be there.
They might not use it day one, but it's gonna be there.
And then maybe they'll unlock it when they want more performance,
but it's gonna be there.
Do you see games trying to use it to go from 30 FPS to 60 FPS
switch is a different, like Nintendo's a different.
Beast, I don't know if they're gonna, um, do that type of thing.
Their games just work.
Why don't they work?
How they're supposed to work smooth and they don't really tout frames.
I don't think I've ever heard of doesn't
but third party developers because, you know, developers going to move heaven and
earth to port things over to the switch to
I agree, but I maybe not in like ads or anything, maybe at conferences.
They might tell how much more frames are going to get but I don't
think it's going to be like a.
A seller deal for the switch to is the frames.
Yeah.
I mean, I don't think they're going to like advertise it, but, but like, I
think, but like developers, do you think developers might like enable it sneakily?
Like it's on with no way to turn
a hundred percent.
They already, they already do stuff like that.
So yeah, no, I think that's going to happen.
I think, especially for multiplayer games, it will happen.
Um, it will be a way for them to sneakily get better frames,
but it'll be interesting.
Gardner, you know what to do.
You know, to do for doodlings on switch to.
Multi frame generation.
That's Oh, dude.
I would just be a jerk about it and I'd like fake frame generation frames
and like make them look uglier.
Oh,
dude.
What if you did that as like an experiment?
Just to see how multi frame generation looks on like a pixel art game.
That would be interesting.
I would be interested to see that.
I'd be shocked if you saw any difference.
It's the complexity of images that they're duplicating that causes
some of the art effecting and how much, how different it is.
I mean, I've seen some interpolated, like, 2D games.
Like, I saw a fighting game animation that was, like, Interpolate it to like
60 FPS and it just looks really weird.
Then is it like the new tech that's coming out?
Well, that's my point.
Like this old interpolation.
Yeah, it's old.
The new stuff is all predictive and it uses previous generation, uh, frames.
Then they can expect like it's not going to change much when
you're turning your screen.
It's not going to change too much.
You're just going to be moving in and adding a little bit more.
That's kind of from my understanding.
Is how it works.
So it's seems like it's a lot of trickery, but it's just reusing what we already
have to better, um, render stuff.
We'll see, though, how it works in the end of the day.
I'm really curious, but I want to see it in my hands.
Yeah.
And speaking of PC, more and more developers are developing a PC thanks
in no small part to the steam deck.
So if you guys weren't aware, GDC happened and survey says More developers see
PC as a priority thanks to the Steam Deck, and yes, some developers have
gone through the effort of trying to optimize their games for the Steam Deck.
Like, for example, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, which I've heard actually
runs okay on the Steam Deck at like 30
FPS.
Yeah, I'm gonna make a small correction.
GDC has not happened yet.
GDC happens, I believe, in March.
Wait, what?
And then, yeah, the Game Developer Conference happens
around March every year.
In springtime or closer to spring and then they also have a GDC like
Developer thing sometimes in the fall, but they do their survey.
I think at different times So just the I don't want people to be confused on
that Okay, but well, I did I I think this is exciting and I think this is the
way to go and I think they're the more that people Use this like this team deck
as a standard of like What it should be targeting and then assume everything
else should play a much better is like, so their games should, they should be
treating their games like if they were developing, developing it for the steam
deck, kind of like a game being developed for the switch so that we have really good
optimizations for the steam deck and then it will trickle up to, um, other hardware.
I think, um, I'd love, honestly, I'd love to work with some people
on this to, to make a standard.
That is tested by the community to stamp, like, an approval, like, this is
approved by a committee or something.
That'd be fun.
Like, uh, we, like, the Switch has Panic Button Studio for, like, Switch ports.
What if we had, like, a Steam Deck version of Panic Button Studio?
Like, they make the game for PC, they make it as unoptimized as
they want, and then the studio swoops in, makes some Switch like
optimizations, but for the Steam Deck.
And I mean, Valve, Valve supports, like, has the ability to, like, distribute,
if I'm not mistaken, they have, like, a depot feature for the Steam Deck, where
you can mark specific update depots as for Steam Deck, so, like, if your
device registers in the Steam Deck, either, like, actually as a Steam Deck,
or, like, faking it via some means, you can download specific They, well,
the example they gave was like lower resolution assets for the Steam Deck.
Well, a hundred percent, and they can generate those on their build,
depending on how they have their build set up, and so when they're
making builds, they can generate, um, smaller, uh, textures, packs, and stuff.
I'm curious, here's another thing, we talked about AI before getting into
this whole thing, AI would be amazing at recognizing Certain aspects that be
the best to optimize by just analyzing a code base for this type of stuff if you
trained it well Enough, which I don't think it'd be that hard that could be
another way to go to is and it'd be nice because then I Think everyone would win
don't replace people's jobs, but use it to indicate Hey, you need to fix these
areas or and to make it optimized for the Steam Deck Be another fun project.
So one, so we know that AI is good for upscaling, but could it also
be used to downscale effectively?
I mean, I mean, you can do it by hand already, but
so,
yeah, it's so it's so misleading.
Call any of this stuff AI.
Um, it's really machine learning mixed in with a couple other techniques.
Um, but yeah, yeah, of course, you could, you could downscale
easy, like downscaling.
I don't even think it requires AI, um, to do it, like maybe to, to get it so
that it's a little bit better looking.
Yeah.
But you can downscale images.
It really take a fork.
Let's say it's a texture is like developed for 4k, um, to downscale
that it doesn't take much.
What could come of that, um, could be, I'm not going to get into the
technology stuff on this, but it can artifact small lines and stuff like
that, but it's definitely doable.
I'm just, I want, I want to use it, I'd want to use it for like, knowing
what they could optimize, not to necessarily optimize the build.
Okay.
Right now.
Oh, Gardner hasn't, Gardner, what are your thoughts on this?
I know you've been a little quiet.
Yeah, I mean, I think that it makes sense, like, having, uh,
developers, like, port their games and optimize them for the Steam Deck.
The fact that I don't know.
They've like, we've seen it, right?
We've seen like developers doing that.
So it's pretty cool that, yeah, I don't know.
I'm, I'm word salading right now.
I don't have a lot to say.
I mean, it makes a lot of sense to me and I think that we'll see
more of it going forward, right?
With, with, uh, Steam Deck and other like SteamOS powered devices
hitting the market pretty soon.
That's fair.
Yeah.
And so the, uh, the survey also revealed a couple of other
things too, first and foremost.
That some developers see the Steam Deck as its own platform, so to speak.
What I mean by that is that they check the other option and they write down
Steam Deck instead of selecting PC.
Which, I mean, it is a PC, but I can kind of see why they consider it a
separate, like, a separate thing.
Let's see what else.
Game
Pass gets more I mean, I think Sorry, go ahead.
I think that it is a separate platform, like, like, honestly.
Um, because, Valve will, like, up and down swear that it's, it's a PC.
And it is, right?
But the fact is, there has never been a PC Like a single piece of PC hardware
that has been this popular and this ubiquitous since the frickin Tandy Right,
like I can't think of another another PC.
That's been like this and It's also running a non Windows operating system
Which those two things combined makes it somewhat of a different beast.
Like it's compatible with Windows software, but it's
not perfectly compatible.
And it, you know, and game developers can go in and support it like it's a console.
And it actually, if they, if they, uh, make their game clients If they target
their game clients to proton and improve their, basically their Windows clients,
then it helps the entire pc, pc, uh Yeah.
All their entire player base.
Right, right.
Which I think that's really cool.
Um, so yeah, it's, it's neat that they're considering it
somewhat of a different platform
just targeting the APIs properly.
For the drivers and everything.
And if they're using, um, game engines, they should already be doing that.
It's the custom game engines that might be like screwing up some of the, uh, ways
that they implement APIs to be, uh, uh, to render on the GPUs and stuff like that.
So.
At the end of the day, you're right.
Like it's, it's going to help if they make it better for windows,
it'll make it better for steam deck.
If they're using the APIs properly and optimizing properly.
Um, I want to point out one thing with this survey.
It's hilarious.
And it's from GDC, the image.
If you go to their, uh, Linus is apparently a platform, like
they're developing for Linus.
Is it like Linus Tech Tips coming out with something?
It's what I know it's supposed to say.
I know it's supposed to say Linux, but it's a it's a typo.
It's got to be, uh, yeah, they're developing for Linus.
12 percent like are going to be developing games for Linus.
That's funny.
So also, let's see what else, what else did this article say?
It also says that Xbox Game Pass gets more focus on PlayStation Plus.
Honestly, I forgot that PlayStation Plus.
Like, has, like, higher tier versions that are basically just Game Pass as well.
I forgot that was a thing.
It's, it's so silly that they have three different passes.
They should just have like two and simplify it.
Yeah,
they should just have One for playing multipl Multi Playing multiplayer
games, and the other one for getting, uh, free shit and playing
online and doing all that stuff.
Which, by the way, the, uh, Steam Deck has free online play, so you don't even
pay for anything monthly, which is great.
Yeah, that's their big matchmaking servers and some other stuff, but
it like the actual servers are still supported by the game developers, right?
I I don't think PlayStation or Xbox runs their own servers for
the games themselves It's just for trophies and some other aspects,
which is honestly a little bit of a
it's a little bit of a scam I think on on the consoles to have to play multiplayer,
but I mean, steam's doing great.
They're making billions of dollars.
So, and I think it further proves that they didn't know what they're doing.
Yeah.
And we have free online play too.
That's, I mean, shit, man.
It's part of the reason why I don't really play a lot of consoles anymore.
'cause I like a lot.
I like my multiplayer games.
Mm.
But I also like not paying monthly for multiplayer.
So, yeah.
I mean, it sounds like I'm just being a cheapskate.
Which I am but that's okay.
Yeah,
it's okay.
Like for me, I'll forget.
I'll pay for those services.
I'll forget and then I'm like, cool.
I paid for all those stuff.
I don't use.
I just, I hate it.
If PlayStation didn't have, like, such good first party titles every once in
a while, which they're really feeling on the PS5 and like their controllers,
my favorite controller right now.
Don't call it being a, call it being fiscally responsible.
See, it sounds a lot better when you put it that way.
Let's see what else, let's see what else they said.
Developers are more wary about generative AI this year, especially younger ones.
According to the GDC survey, 30 percent of responding developers believe that
AI is having a neg Generative AI is having a negative impact on the games
industry, 12 percent higher than what was reported last year, 52 percent
of respondents say that they work for companies that use gen AI, but only 36
state that they personally utilize it.
So, AI is, uh, it should be right now framed for probably the next
20 years, uh, And this is for C level execs that watch us.
Um, It should be framed as a helper tool.
You should not be getting rid of developers or anyone.
You should be allowing them to have tools to help support them, not replace them,
or even making sure they don't use the tool to replace, let's say, dialogue.
You're not going to get good dialogue.
You want it to be a support and, like, maybe a, uh, like, especially for
content stuff, like, for my game, I use it to spitball stuff with someone,
because it's only me and another guy.
And so I spit ball with it ideas and stuff, or if I'm stuck on
something, it will help me it.
But if I ever tried to like, cause I've tried it before, if I ever have
it, try to develop something in the sense of like, okay, I want you to
generate like an image or do some weird, uh, or even like content,
like, um, dialogue, it's not great.
So you gotta be careful with it.
And I think the rightfully like, I think they're scared that
they're gonna get replaced.
And I think C level execs need to understand, like, if you replace anyone
right now, you are going to doom.
Like, let's say Ubisoft does this doomed.
It's done.
Ubisoft's already almost done.
Um, it's just, this is a grave warning.
If you start to replace too much with AI, right?
Especially right now, you're going to do in your products.
Well, I think, uh, the fact that 30 percent now.
Yeah.
Of the developers are wary of AI, which is up 12 percent over last year when
1 in 10 game developers that were, uh, asked about this were laid off.
Right?
So yes, that number of industry
is.
Yeah, I don't think that there's,
I don't think that that's a coincidentally similar number, you know?
Layoffs happen all the time, but Yeah,
I mean, Mr.
David Zaslav needs his, like, 1 percent more profits and tax breaks.
I mean, that's part of it, but layoffs They do layoffs every
year for underperformers or for they'd like to, there's a lot
of techniques and management.
It doesn't, I don't like them, but it's not a new thing.
It's just, this is a lot and it could correlate partially with AI, but it's all,
I don't think the AI is picking it up.
If you, I think what's happening is developers are just picking
up more slack for the games.
They're doing more.
It's the same thing happening in the tech field.
I see it.
I'm in the, in the, uh, like software engineering world.
It's not that AI is picking up really that much of the slack.
It's, um, performer, like higher performers or the people that are still
there do more, um, and you're going to get, honestly, you're going to get them.
And in the game industry alone, they have such high, like, um,
fatigue and over, um, overworking.
Already that this is gonna hurt our games.
I think even more.
I agree.
See, there's also more information about the survey respondents within finance
and business for the highest use of a I 51 percent claiming that they did use
a I to 41 percent of team leadership and product production report using it.
39 percent of PR marketing community report using a I And you'll note that
creative and visual arts roles aren't mentioned in these survey results at all.
And it says here that older developers are more likely to use
generative AI than younger ones.
Uh, older ones tend to use
it
more?
Yes, older ones tend to use it more.
There, there isn't any, there isn't any correlation as to why that
would be the case, but that just, that's just what was reported.
I
can, I can give you some decent insight, cause I use AI for my, um, coding.
I use it, uh, cause I already know what to look for.
Okay.
I'm not, like, AI does mess up with my code, but I have it, like, I'm working on
my Games Revealed website, reworking it, and I use AI to, um, fill out stuff that I
just, like, yeah, I already know what this is, I, I just don't want to deal with it.
And then it will fill out 95 percent and I have to go fix a
couple of parts or verify it.
Um, it is a nice little tool to, um, not have to be
repetitive and do certain things.
So older, older, like engineers, older developers know what to watch out for.
Younger ones are probably a little cautious and maybe a little
skeptical too, because they don't know as much to watch out for.
So they're doing it themselves.
So I have a feeling that's kind of what it is.
Yeah,
I use AI sometimes for for little things, right?
Like for for my videos, I'll give it my script and then I'll be
like, give me, uh, give me like 500 characters worth of YouTube tags.
You know, something like that.
But and that's just a little little optimization of my own time.
But like, and sometimes like with, um, with chess mess, I've used it to
like to generate some placeholder art.
Um, but that's like, but I plan on replacing that art before it goes out.
Right?
Um, but like, I won't do anything with AI for programming because I I've done
it before and it introduces subtle bugs that that you just maybe you don't
it'll generate code that you're not.
Um, what's the word I'm looking for?
Like you have a, you have your own style of coding and then it generates something
that is like completely foreign to you.
And you just kind of like, okay, well, I guess I'm reading this and it looks
like it's right, but then it like returns a value that, uh, is slightly wrong.
And I dunno, I just, I end up like.
Not enjoying having to debug AI code.
Yeah.
And you're perfection.
Like you're a perfectionist for sure.
A gardener, which I think lends to like better quality stuff for sure.
And so I could totally like for me, it's so hard because I try to be so it
bothers me, but then I just let it go.
Do you know, I just remembered one of the bugs that AI created for me.
So I asked it to generate some PHP code.
Right.
That would do, I can't remember exactly what it was, but I had to do something,
uh, on the backend of my, of my server and it, it like used, like it imported a
package from composer that didn't exist.
And I was like, and I'm trying to debug it and I go into composer and I'm like,
all right, install this or use this.
And then it composers like that package isn't real.
And I was like, well, what the hell?
It took me literally three days to figure out what the problem was.
Interesting.
Yeah, that's bad.
So I use, I use cursor.
For my editor, it's a, it's a based on visual studio and then they have their
own trained, um, LM's like, um, models, but like in the, like the, over the
past year, like a year ago, it was okay.
I used it, but I stopped.
And then like 6 months ago, I started using a full time
and I've really liked it.
And to this day, like, it's gotten now we can search code base.
It can, you can have it.
If you, you can even train your own version of it to match your
coding style, which is nice.
But it will not be perfect, and it will introduce those things
if you're not paying attention.
So once again, like, I kind of have it write things, and I do an overview.
Um, but then I don't have to, like, write it out.
And it's, for me, doubles my, um, efficiency.
It'd be a fun little experiment to see if you could, I don't know,
document on, document this on YouTube, but, like, try to code a
specific type of game from scratch.
Almost entirely in AI except for like maybe a few tweaks here and there to make
it actually function like as expected
Could be that they do that already doom has multiple new levels now because
they have uh They have like a AI engine or something like that that will that
can create Doom like games the new doom port the rich the original doom.
Oh shit And I think it I I can't remember if it's like New levels or
like it is an iteration like try to recreate doom completely And from
understanding, it's kind of cool.
It's definitely got its bugs, and I would not say it's going to be viable any like
decades, in my opinion, but we'll see.
We'll see.
Like, uh, so I would definitely be a little afraid because the, uh, some of
the new policies going in this week.
One of them is a big AI play from the government.
So wait, it'll be interesting to see how that plays with this
way.
So it's an AI like level generator.
How is it different from like existing generic, like level generation?
I think it, it, the whole executable and all the code is, is custom.
I don't think it's just like a level and that's it.
I think it recreated doom in its own.
Way, I think it was trained on maybe images or it was trained on something
I don't think it was trained on necessarily the code and it reproduced it.
Oh Damn, I see this is
like a year or two ago.
So it's
there's also some there's also some more stuff about here We're gonna gloss
over we can't go over this one intended game devs have been laid off last year.
It's had an effect Let's see, and here, it says here that, uh, the roles that I was
most affected were narrative roles at 19%.
Let's see, both production and team management as well as
visual arts, each reported 16%.
Program engineering was 12 percent layoffs.
Game design was 9 percent layoffs.
Then business and finance, surprise, surprise, had the
lowest levels of layoffs at 6%.
It's the one that should have been the highest, honestly, because they're the
ones that are fucking up the whole cell.
Like, they're the ones that are selling.
They're the ones that are dictating a lot of stuff, especially sea
levels stuff came down to, oh, hey, we want live service games.
You know what?
And I'm going to piggyback.
Sorry.
I'm, I know I'm really strong arming into this, but this is a very like,
I was going to put this, um, into our talking points, but live services are
being counseled all over the place.
Sony's counseled.
I, they've got to have canceled at least 50 percent of their live services.
Um, they're going to, like, life service, um, trend, I think, is dead.
So, I think a lot of people won that battle.
We'll still have them, and they'll make sense for certain games, but, Um,
Horizon Zero Dawn had two different, Um, MMOs or life service games that,
and I think they were both cancelled.
One of them was, it's, it's like, why?
That game is a very narrative driven game.
Yes, it's open world, but it's narrative driven.
Um, and so, I, It's weird that a lot of the art space stuff and a lot of
those guys were laid off last year.
I have a feeling they're going to be brought back this year.
That tends to be a trend.
Anyways, once they're done with the game, they tend to lay off the
people that are easiest to hire back, which is the like, Oh, I think.
I think another reason why we have some of our, like, Bioware and some
other, uh, studios are getting worse over time is that they're just not
retaining their employees well.
Maybe they're not doing layoffs, but they're not doing a good job of retention.
It's funny that you mentioned live service games because that's
actually the next anecdotal.
In this survey, a whopping third of all developers are
working on live service games.
13 percent of respondents said that they would like to work on a live
service game, while 42 percent said they're not interested, 29 percent
that they didn't know one way or the other, and it turns out 33 percent are
already working on live service games.
So yes.
Guys, we should
make our own live service game.
It's gotta be a gotcha game.
I'm not against it.
It's gotta be a gotcha game.
Here's the thing.
Dude, no, here's what we do.
We make a live service game that costs a thousand dollars up front.
And then everything's free after that.
Isn't that just what, uh, Frickin Grand Theft Auto 6 No, I feel like
that's what that Star One's doing.
Oh, Star Citizen.
Star
Citizen.
Is that what they do, really?
Well, no, but Oh.
Well, okay.
They've got They've Alright, alright.
So, so, so, so.
The game, I believe, is 60.
Let me look it up.
Actually.
Star Citizen.
If I wanted to buy Star Citizen today I believe it's, like, the
price of a triple A game, let's see.
Yeah.
But, you can buy real ships, you can buy in game ships, for hundreds
of thousands of dollars sometimes.
What?
It's insane.
It's a
little different, but it's ridiculous.
It's the opposite side of yours, Gardner, like they might as well be free with some
of the stuff how much it costs it should yeah, it's the concepts kind of cool.
That's why it gets them hooked.
But they're just, yeah, I don't know, man.
I'm not against live service games per se, if it makes sense, but doing
a directive to say, we're only going to be doing live service for our top,
let's say studios or like, that's going to be our main priority is bad.
Let it be a case by case.
Let let let the game developers create a concept.
And sell it to you, and if it makes sense, do it.
Don't inject it into the game.
I mean, Star Citizen is, like, directed by the guy behind Wing Commander,
uh, Chris Roberts, I believe.
And he's proven himself to be a complete madman.
Cause I've seen, like, the gameplay of it.
It looks super deeper, like It's super like immersive.
It's like if Yvonne line were like a, for like an FPS sort of like game, like you've
heard of the stories of Yvonne, right?
Yeah.
Like imagine that.
No, that's what they were trying to go for.
I think there's two different versions of the game, isn't there?
Like one's more state space battles and then the other
one's a first person version.
I mean, they got Mark Hamill, I believe, and some other people to
do trailers and stuff for that game.
It's.
Yeah, so,
well, I mean, both of those parts, both parts of those games, I believe, are
like,, the same game, like, you can, like, go in first person and then, you know,
hold the, or whatever, to pilot a vehicle.
I think
originally they were going to sell those two different ones, kind of, I
don't know, like, it was a weird thing.
Well,
I think what you're thinking of is Squadron 42, which is like
the single player campaign.
Maybe that's what I'm thinking of, okay.
Set in the universe.
That we still have no information on because Fucking Star Citizen.
If you want to talk about games that like take forever to make, let's talk about it.
I mean you can play it today though to be fair.
We have a time of turbulence and change Steam Deck, Steam Deck
good, AI bad, you get the picture.
My thing is like when it comes to live services Like I just
don't find live services fun.
Like if I'm gonna play a game, I don't want it to be like balanced I
want it to be fun, you know, like I don't know It feels weird to me to say
that but like I want to play like old games that have online components That
aren't that aren't balanced in any way like Halo, you know, yeah original.
Halo.
It's not balanced, but it's incredibly fun to play with your friends or
like Command and Conquer, like, not balanced at all, but very, very fun.
You know, I think EVE Online would be the game for you, because outside
of, like, straight up hacking the game, there's basically no rules.
Like, I read about this, like, year long conspiracy to fix the, like, in
game stock market, and the developers just let the guy get away with it.
Yeah.
And there's also, there's also, like, in game corporate subterfuge.
Where you can like, where you can like, yeah, and I think the in universe
government is run by players as well.
So I guess there's not no rules, but like, it's player governed
as opposed to developer governed.
It's a, it's a,
they call it, it's a game that's for financial nerds, it's what it is,
it's a, it's a spreadsheet simulator, they say, pretty much, yeah,
it seems cool, there's a lot of lore behind it, there's so much
stuff, there's even like, it's cool, I just could never get into it,
yeah, and every now and then you'll see journalists writing about like how there's
like hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of like in game damages, like
hundreds of thousands of real dollars.
It's
insane.
It's, it's, the game's crazy.
But like, like, Life Service makes sense.
Like League of Legends, Overwatch, Starcraft 2, where they do have
balancing, they do have stuff that, you know, it makes sense.
It's just, you know, if you're going to be dedicating a lot of time and you're
going to be playing that for years, you can only have so many live services games.
Yeah.
So like these publishers need to understand, have one or two like flagships
and then go spend a bunch of your time on the other people that don't want to
play those or they go back and forth.
You cannot have every game be a live service.
They're going to fail.
Like that's how that works.
That's how time works.
People don't.
Have unlimited amount of time to play every single one of
these live service games.
You're going to lose this battle every time.
I don't get that.
It's it's there.
It's so stupid.
Yes.
Live service games are a zero sum game.
And for those who don't know, zero sum game is a game where someone
has to lose in order to win.
Yeah.
Or just really wedge your bets to like on one or two and understand
the other publishers are gonna be doing the same and that's fine.
You're gonna win out better that way than to just go.
Hog wild release one every few, like every year or two, like, don't sorry, I, it's
just, they ruin games doing it this way.
Well, that's okay.
Is it a coincidence that they're called live services and like Xbox live?
Like, is that a coincidence?
I think that is just a coincidence to be honest.
Cause like, I don't know, man.
I think it, I mean, Life Service came out long after, like,
the term Xbox Live came out.
So, I think
The term came out long after Life Service games were already,
like, they were already a thing.
Yeah, like, MMOs.
That's what confused me about Life
Service.
I mean, I think MMOs, like, MMOs used to be I
mean
I
mean, TF2 and, like, CSGO were both live services before that was a thing.
Yeah, and they're still some of the most played games to this day.
Basically, if you didn't release a live service, like,
really early on, you're fucked.
And you have no chance of competing.
Unless you're, like, a really popular game, unless you, like,
are like, I don't agree with that.
Well, most, I would say most games have no chance.
Unless you're, like, Marvel rivals.
It's because they're, they're saturating the market and, and with that saturation,
they're not releasing proper games that are taking games and say they
need to be live, uh, live services when they would not benefit from that.
So that's the problem.
Like, uh, Marvel rivals is a great, like they're, that's a
live service and it's doing great.
It does have a huge brand behind it and live service can still be released
and do fine, but you've got to really understand the market and really
like the competition is just so high.
Yes, that's kind of my point.
And speaking of which, there are a couple of games that would not benefit
for being a live service like Silk Song.
So as you know, silk Song is a game that's definitely real and it's
definitely coming out this year.
And I'm not just coping and neither is the rest of our slash Silk song.
So, so they, so we have a tweet from someone at Team Cherry who insists
that yes, the game is real and yes, it's progressing and will release.
When will it release?
I don't fucking know.
I don't think they know either.
And here's the interesting part though.
A lot of people say that we're not entitled to games, which
I mean, to be fair, we're not.
But at the same time though, Silksong used to be a DLC, a stretch goal for
the original Hollow Knight, back when it was being financed via Kickstarter.
Oh, so this was
supposed to come to a hollow night and it didn't and the redoing it as a full game.
Yeah, I think I think the justification was that it like the scope grew far
beyond what it was originally planned.
So they just made it a new game and
I don't know, man.
I think I feel like they could have communicated a little better.
I'm not a developer.
I'm not a professional game developer or professional social media guy that
does anything for game developers.
I'm just But I feel like Team Cherry should have said something.
How big is their team though, because this could be indicative
of like how good they are.
They have no communication skills, so that's like really saying that
this game is going to be amazing.
That's what they put all their attributes into, is development.
Zero communication.
Um, so from what I understand, it's a three man team.
So, okay.
Well, yeah, that makes sense.
It gets, it gets really hard to juggle these things, but I agree.
Like, you're just, they're going to do better marketing wise
that they're doing more updates.
It's just really hard to juggle those things if you're not used to it.
I mean, I understand that.
Um, but I feel like just even like a small little blog.
Hey, we're still alive.
We're still developing.
They don't even have to show anything new.
They just have to be like game still in development because I mean, yeah.
Let's let's, because let's see, there was also conspiracy surrounding like a
quote unquote silk song ARG involving one of the members of Team Cherry,
but it turned out to not be anything.
And I mean, isn't this text upset
or this, isn't this tweet like a confirmation that it's coming out?
I mean, it's a confirmation that it's still in development,
but other than that, it's kind
of confirming what you were saying, like just to do a blog post or something.
Yeah, thankfully they did do that, though.
I feel like more frequent, like.
Communication.
I have a, I have a feeling they might be like a little
bit on the perfectionist side.
So they're waiting until like, they feel like it's a comfortable
place to promote it is what I think what's going on with this.
Um, but we'll see.
That's the thing.
Like, I'm, I'm a little bit more like laxed with especially Indies.
At least we know it's coming.
Yeah, though I do, though I will say, there are, some sentiment
has, the sentiment, general sentiment hasn't been great.
There's a lot of people saying that, uh, they're not gonna worry
about it anymore, and if it comes out, it comes out, but they're not
gonna, like, focus so hard on it.
And there are plenty of people that are really pissed off about it, that
there just hasn't been any news.
And, and some of those people were the backers that, you know,
backed the original Hollow Knight.
Which, I guess, I mean, I shouldn't, I don't think they
should be too hung up on it.
Actually, I don't know.
I can't tell people how, how to feel.
It's, it's Copium.
They'll come back.
If they, if they like the game enough, they'll come back.
It's a Half Life 3 thing, too.
Like, the Half Life community, which, like, or like the Half Life, yeah, the
Half Life community, which I'm a part of, and I, that read it, and I follow
this stuff a ton, we go up and down.
Well, I mean, the difference is, oh, well I just, we will never get to play it.
I mean, the differe is, they'll come back.
We never got a Halflife three trailer showing gameplay.
Oh yeah.
With Silk Song.
There was, there was.
And also scope Creep, which is a bastard when it comes to
like, uh, game development.
And if you've ever developed anything, like even videos high tech, I don't
know if you've had videos that you've made where you're like, okay, this.
The scope creep on this just went out of control and now
it's like fricking an hour long.
I've, I've had it with every project I've ever done.
I feel like and and without a good project manager to scope it down,
you could keep on doing this.
And so, um, If they create a new, like, I think what they should do is
soon release a, a trailer and then also say anyone that backed and uh,
us previously will get a discount.
Hmm.
It'll be interesting to see if Silk Song comes up.
There's a lot of Metro Van, um, uh, under Magnolia.
Uh, just hit 1.0 recently and I'm gonna be playing that real soon because
it, you guys ever play Enter Lilies?
It's a Metro V It's, I it is really good.
It's like one of the first games.
I a hundred percent on my steam deck.
And it's nice.
It's real.
It's real nice.
You should, y'all should play it if you're in the metro Vania.
I need, still need to play the last Metro game that came out.
and Sylvania.
Yeah.
Speaking
of which, speaking of extremely Okay games.
Are you familiar with that studio they made?
Select?
Oh, they did.
Oh.
Oh, I like Celeste.
That's a good game.
Yeah.
Celeste is a good game
and, uh.
I'm not sure if you remember this, but in 2023, the Game Awards 2023, they
announced a new game called Earthblade.
Or maybe, I don't know if it was the Game Awards or, like, Summer Games Fest or
something like that, I don't remember, but they announced a new game, Earthblade.
It looked like it was gonna be a Metroidvania, but they cancelled
that game, unfortunately.
And Did they
give any reason for why?
Um Well, according to the blog post, they weren't that far enough into the
game when this happened, but essentially, there was a fracture forming in the
group between Noel and, uh, Maddy, and Pedro, a founding member of EXOK.
And he was the art director of Earthblade, and also the pixel UI
artist of Celeste and Tower Falls.
So like, the main artist guy left early on, so you can
imagine how devastating that was.
And honestly, this might, I'm not, I don't want to spell doom and gloom,
but like, having the main artist guy, the guy that did all the art and
everything, leave, is pretty detrimental to game development, I would say.
It can really, like, founding member, like, so founding members of any, like,
We could, I could pick out multiple dev studios where if this happens, it can
end the studio, whether from a creative aspect or from a game, a game designer
aspect, and it can be so devastating.
So it'll be interesting to see how, uh, do they have any other projects coming out?
Um, let me read this a little further.
So
what's next?
I mean, we don't need to go too deep into it.
I'm just kind of curious if this is going to, like, spell the end of their studio.
Well, they're prototyping stuff.
They're trying to rediscover game development in a manner similar to
how they did with Celestin Towerfall.
I'm just a little curious as to how they're gonna go about it, since their
game's probably gonna look drastically different given the, like, main art guy
that was behind Celestin Towerfall left.
Pedro, I believe his name was.
I don't know, it's gonna be a crazy time, to be honest, for them.
And it's gonna be, and I think it's gonna be a maker break for them.
That's the thing with smaller studios, even if they have a really big success,
uh, depending on how many people they have to support could be a big blow.
And if,
yeah, it'll be interesting to see how they recover from that.
Um, especially since I think a lot of there's gonna be an uptick in indie games
coming out or indie developers in the next year or two because of all the layoffs.
If they can't, people can't get a job.
Yeah.
Um, do you think I'm gonna I'm gonna segue this into E.
A.
Tie, uh, underperforming if that's okay, because first, I'm curious if this is
going to also affect them to their, um, uh, I'm assuming they've been a big part
of the layoffs to and will that affect them in continuing to underperform?
Well, E.
A.
Stock prices dropped drastically.
And also, like, let's see, Dragon Age of Valeguard was projected to have
3 million sales, but only had about half of, well, they didn't even say 1.
5 million sales, they said 1.
5 million players.
Cause they also have, like, their online they also have, like, their,
like, subscription service, I believe.
And, I don't know and I don't know if this 1.
5 million players value counts pirated copies or not, since the game was
DRM free, but they were expecting 3 million sales, they didn't even get 1.
5 million they only got 1.
5 million players.
And Apex Legends lost about 70 percent of its player base in 2024 as well.
One of their, like, big major live service hits.
Man, everything goes back to live services.
Oh, and, uh, EA Sports Football Club 25 did not sell as well.
Likely because it doesn't have the FIFA name attached to it anymore.
Interesting.
I wonder what would happen if Peter Moore went back to Xbox rather than
EA Sports or whatever he's doing.
Maybe, maybe things would go back to being good in the gaming industry.
Oh no.
Maybe, maybe.
All I know is Apex Legends, they stopped supporting Steam Deck last year, right?
Yeah.
That's right.
Coincidence?
I think not.
I don't know.
I think not.
Drop Steam Deck, Steam Deck
drops you.
I mean, Apex Legends, like, explicitly supported the Steam Deck.
It's not like it just worked and then people were playing it.
Like, they went out of their way to add anti cheat support.
Yes.
And then, like, a couple years later, they changed their mind.
Yes.
I'm sure did help actually hurt.
It probably hurt them because, uh, there's only a few games like apex legends
that people can play on the steam deck.
And that's one of them.
So,
yeah, yeah, it was consistently in the top, like 20 or 30
games on the steam deck.
Well, I guess they all moved to marvel
rivals because that works on the steam deck.
Yeah, that
or just even with live action games, they'll eventually, you
know, they'll die off eventually.
Most of them,
unless they're legal,
unless you, Yeah, but they did they they had adaptations.
They're reinvesting into the different aspects that they are
doing with their money I think the right thing but yeah, I yeah,
I think they're an exception Yeah, I think Cygames is also doing the same
thing too because you know Cygames They made Grand Blue Fantasy and by
extension, grand Blue Fantasy versus, and Grand Blue Fantasy Relinks.
I'm sure you've heard of those games they used to make explicitly just mobile games.
But then they started reinvesting.
They started reinvesting their money into like making anime
adaptations of their franchises and then making like game games.
Real games.
Yeah.
And not even live service, like real games.
Single player experiences, or, like, just on, you know, single player
experiences with online multiplayer.
Would you consider that live service?
Probably not, right?
Like an online co op game?
Uh, nah, depends.
It depends if they're continually updating it.
It's kind of my I see
I haven't, I haven't, but yeah, they, they have been reinvesting their money
in the single play league of legends.
They've been doing that.
Yeah.
Like you said, they've been doing that too.
I think they started coming back though, because I think they started coming
back on like some of the like tie in league of legends, single player game.
So I don't know.
It's crazy life services.
They're not the golden goose that they once were because
all the developers started like cutting open their golden uses.
Yeah, they're slaughtering those golden geese and they're not Golden geese.
Yeah, the golden geese.
So with Dragon Age, the Vegar, I can definitely say one thing, like with the
Dragon Age series, I love the first two.
They just kept on changing it too much.
And so like the third one, just, I was bored halfway through.
This one actually looked more interesting than the, than
the LA than the previous one.
It's just, once again, I just.
Didn't care.
They kind of lost me on the serious.
Emily has been playing it like, but she, she told me she was playing it
for like a couple of weeks and then she went back to playing builders.
So
yeah.
Oh, when you.
When you have the two options, Baldur's Gate 3 is going to win
every time, even though I don't like the gameplay as much in it, the
game itself is just a drastically better game, from my understanding.
Yeah, she plays it on, she plays both of them on her Steam Deck too, so.
Nice.
So, I will say, Dragon Age, the Veilguard, there's been a lot of
reasons as to why it's been failing.
Some of them a little less relevant, I think, than others.
I think the most relevant reasons why this game failed was because there
was a dimin There's like a diminishing confidence in, uh, anything EA and,
well, Bioware specifically these days.
Like, they made Anthem.
Remember that live service game?
Yeah, I didn't think so.
Yeah.
I thought it was pretty They made
Mass Effect Andromeda too, right?
They also did that too.
That game was good.
I am going to defend that game to this day.
I have beaten that game almost twice now.
I'm sorry.
I like that game.
My face is tired
from everything.
And then, I think, I think, uh, yeah, like you said earlier,
Inquisition, Dragon Age Inquisition.
was more polarizing than the previous two games.
I don't think it, like, I don't think it was a critically reset.
I don't think it, like, I think it was a critical, uh, it was a
critical, it was a commercial success and a critical success, wasn't it?
A critically acclaimed game, yeah, yeah, I think people liked it.
It's just for me, like, Dragon Age 1 and Dragon Age 2 had a
Big difference in gameplay.
Like it, they made it easier to play in Dragon age two, which,
which, which is good, I think, but the community hated that.
So like every time a dragon age comes out, they lose more of their base
community and gain just a little bit of, uh, a different, like a, a more,
uh, generic community, I would say.
And then I think they're just atrophying at this point.
Like Vegar just was so different.
Plus.
It kind of indicates with this game that the old Bioware is kind of gone
in a lot of ways, like a lot of the new writers are different, a lot of the new
directors are different, and I think they need to rethink some of their directors.
I don't think this is a, because people will claim, and I guarantee
people are going to claim, go woke, go broke with this game.
Guaranteed.
And looking at it, I don't think it's really that.
I think it's, you don't retain your um, Your employees, you don't retain
your developers, you're going to.
It's gonna atrophy, and this is just, we're seeing the atrophy of Bioware.
Honestly, if they were gonna make an action game, they should have
just gone all Ninja Gaiden on it.
I think Dragon Age has a lot of potential still, it's just,
do Dead Space.
At least, and do Dead Space with a specific budget, and
they'll make tons of money.
So, I understand if you're gonna, I understand if they would make,
you know, so, I'm sure most people want to see a Dead Space 2 remake,
but do you want to see a Dead Space
3 remake?
Yes.
And the remake is going to go in and gut half the stuff that was forced upon them
like the co op and the microtransactions.
I don't think the co op is bad.
The microtransactions, a couple of portions of how heavy the combat can
kind of be instead of it being scary.
It felt very, um, Gears esque and they lost some of their soul.
They need to go back to Dead Space 2.
And I think the co op is fine.
I keep the co op in personally.
You don't have to play co op.
That's the thing that's kind of funny with that game is that people don't
have to play it.
So almost like Resident Evil 6.
Like, you guys remember Resident Evil 6?
That's a bad comparison, but yes.
I mean Because that did not do well.
I mean, no, neither game did well.
But like, what I'm saying is that like, both Dead Space 3 and
Resident Evil 6 were far more action
oriented.
Resident Evil 5 and 6, yes, were both very action oriented.
While still, both games I still enjoyed.
I, they just need to, they need to understand, let the developers
do what they need to do.
Go back to basics.
They have a goldmine with, I think with dead space, if they do it right.
Goldmine in like a, you're not going to be getting a billion dollars from this,
but if you keep on working with it, with a, with a team, that's really excited,
you'll still make some decent money.
And at least you'll have something, um, Keeping you afloat while you make
all these other stupid decisions.
Man, if only there were, if only there were a horror game that could
challenge Capcom's, like, hegemony.
Their Resident Evil empire.
Dead
Space.
Yeah!
Fuckin Dead Space.
I think Dead Spa I think Dead Space can, if they Resident Evil's had bad
games, but they keep doing it, and they've improved, and they're good again.
Like, they've had Maybe that's the difference between like Japanese
developers and like American, uh, own developers that Japanese ones will maybe
like, even if they have a bad game, they'll still try to make a good game.
They don't cancel it all together.
Yeah, like, does, does Half Life count as a horror game?
It has
some horror elements.
It's definitely, I wouldn't want to live in that world, let's just say that.
Yeah.
You could consider, I mean, depends, do you consider Bloodborne a horror game?
Yeah.
I've never played it.
I'd consider it a horror, I'd consider it horror lite.
I'd consider most of the likes, like, horror lite.
Where it's, it's, it's, it can be creepy, a little scary, but
Yeah, it's not fully horror.
Yeah, like it's not, it wasn't made to be a horror game, it plays like
dark, it's basically Dark Souls.
Yeah.
But like, man, that shit is so scary, it's insane, and like unsettling too,
it, it, it's really fucked up, you, you, you, you gotta play the game, Garnt.
So
it starts off as like a
Those kinds of, those kind of games just aren't my jam.
Like Soulslikes or horror games?
Soulslikes, or, well, or, yeah, Soulslikes, really, I, I
just I don't like hard games.
I play every game on easy, and sometimes I bust out a trainer.
Like, I'm, I really don't like playing hard games.
Well, okay, here's the thing, though.
Bloodborne was only, and I think this is where Hitech's going,
Bloodborne was only PlayStation.
Until recently.
Yes.
Well, technically it's still only PlayStation, but Well, yeah.
PS4 emulation, baby!
It looks like it's pretty fucking good now.
Oh, oh!
Horizon MMO cancelled.
We talked about that earlier.
Yeah.
I forgot that you did.
I, I forgot I mentioned that.
Yeah, horizon Ncsoft was making one.
It it was another, another part of Sony's stupid fucking life service plan.
I don't even know why they're promoting Horizon that much as if
it was like God of war, some shit.
They should lean into God of war more.
Horizon's a fun franchise, but definitely, and, and.
I think it deserves love, but I don't think it's doing as
well as, like, God of War.
It's really weird how much they leaned into that Horizon.
They
should
have made fucking Lego God of War instead.
That would have been awesome.
I think Horizon lends a little bit more to, uh, a child based, like,
a child like based game than God of War, but still, I don't know.
Come on, man.
You wouldn't, come on.
You wouldn't want to watch, you wouldn't want to play Lego God of War.
That would be, that would be so awesome.
With my son, he'd be like, Boy.
They could make it play like the old God of War games, boy, like the,
like th like the third person, like not quite like zoomed in, like in,
they should remake the, the old God of war games in Legos.
I'm really curious to see how that nudity is gonna work out some of those scenes.
Man,
I thought at first you were talking about making God of war, like, uh,
like a live service and, uh Oh my gosh.
And I was like, oh my gosh.
You could have those like, uh, PVP orgies.
Oh god.
There you go.
They already do that on MMOs, on the roleplaying MMOs.
Final
Fantasy 14.
But yes, Bloodborne on PC via PS4 emulation.
I swear, the only reason PlayStation 4 emulation got as much traction as it did
was because Sony refused to, like, I don't know if it was Sony or FromSoftware, but
someone isn't putting Bloodborne on PC.
And this is what
happens.
It's PlayStation.
I guarantee that they have that contract on that and they
don't want to let that go.
They might, who knows, they could put it on PC eventually, but it is, uh, Yeah,
I don't, I think they kind of like that.
They have an exclusivity on that.
Like, let's look at Xbox
emulation.
Xbox emulation is far behind the, its own, like, their own peers
because quite frankly, a lot of the good Xbox games are available on PC.
Oh, wait, what?
Hold up.
You can fight piracy by actually releasing it on stuff that
people want to play it on?
Wait, hold up.
I, I think, I think we're getting something wrong here.
Um, sorry.
Well,
I saw, I saw somebody, I saw, I think it was on Reddit or something the other day.
I saw somebody say, If you don't release your game day one on PC, then you're
telling PC gamers to wait, and if you, if you make them wait more than a year,
they're gonna wait for a Steam sale.
Which, I think, is hilarious.
And then if you make them, if it never comes to PC, then, then
they're gonna find a way to play it on PC through an emulator.
That's, that is, yeah.
It's true.
Like It's just bad.
That's why I don't, I don't, I don't like exclusivities anymore.
Like, I just release it on a system that I can play it on and I will always buy it.
That's the thing.
I'm at that age where I don't like screwing around to play my games
on certain things that could end up like, let's even emulation.
You play it through a game like.
To a certain point, if it's not a, well, the older stuff works
fine, but like the newer stuff could end up crashing at one point.
I don't want to deal with that.
I'd rather just pay for the game and expect it to work.
Um, right.
And let's look at
Nintendo switch inflation.
It was insane how fast that developed.
It was developing while the switch was still being sold then.
Like, what the fuck?
Yeah,
that shit would never happen.
It's exclusive.
Yeah.
Nintendo has a lot of games worth playing that are on PC there,
and also it just so happened that NVIDIA accidentally left a hardware
vulnerability in the first models.
I know this because I have one of those models.
Me too.
As soon as I heard about that, uh, vulnerability, I went out
and bought one immediately.
I had one.
I had a check.
I'm like, Oh, cool.
That's cool.
I have one.
Yeah.
And I'm, and I think I'm going to buy an early model switch too.
Because of that possibility,
there is a possibility.
I don't think, I think it's going to be, uh, I think they will, um, crack it.
I just think it will be probably a different, like,
yeah, like a software exploit.
Yeah.
Oh yeah.
There's always going to be a way to do it.
Well, and if there's enough similarity between the switch and
the switch to people are gonna have the insight they need to be able
to find those Issues, all right,
and people are think that we talked it.
Yes.
I got it.
Oh, no, sorry It's I think that's one of the reasons why they went so hard and
I think we talked about this last week But like went so hard into taking down
switch emulators because they probably worked pretty good with the switch to
yeah I can see
already
man, but all I'm saying is I mean, Nintendo's never going to put their
stuff on PC because, like, that's like the least Nintendo thing they could do.
Yeah, but once Xbox acquires them, then they will.
Oh, shit, that's right.
Once Microsoft acquires Nintendo, dude, Microsoft
is in the process of being the new Sega at this point.
And, I mean, Sega's doing pretty well, I would say.
I mean, Sega doesn't have the cash cow that is Windows or Microsoft Office.
Microsoft has a diversity of products, and so, and now they have
a huge first party lineup of games, like massive first party lineup.
They don't really need Xbox hardware.
It's just a nice selling point and good branding if they keep up with it.
Man, speaking of, speaking of Xboxes, they should update the Xbox
controller for the next generation.
They need to.
We need gyro and Xbox controllers and they didn't make that like.
A default part of exit, but while we're at it,
I honestly, I want a PS5 controller on everything.
Now, like the, the feedback on the controls, the, the triggers are so fun.
Um, in my opinion, I think some people are just not going to care about that.
Um, kind of feedback like that.
Adaptive
triggers.
Yeah.
Oh, dude.
I, I, I.
They're fun.
I really like that.
Like, if the developers do it right, like, I think in some Call of Duty
games, I don't know if it's in the newest one, but I know a lot of some of the
older Call of Duty games are on PS5.
Like, if you have different guns, they have different trigger resistances.
Ooh.
And I think that shit, and I think that shit is really cool.
Resident Evil 8 does it.
The astrobot really plays off of this like a ton and the gyro
gyro stuff that they do with it.
It's just fun.
It's all round.
I don't know.
Astrobot sold me.
I'm like in it.
I'm a different person now, I think than a couple weeks ago,
and I'd love to see steam.
I'd love to see the new steam controller to try to pack in as many
cool features like this is possible.
I don't know what patents they'd have to go around on that, but that's my
dream.
So what I want I want the new whatever this steam controller 2 to
be to be the de facto pc controller,
so There is one feature i'm missing from the original steam controller the
dual stage triggers if you remember.
Oh, I loved the
Those,
they were great for, for GameCube emulation.
Those need to come back, I feel.
They need to come back for the, uh, the, uh, Steam Deck Controller.
Or the Steam Controller, or whatever, I don't know.
And I Do you think they'll add, would you want them to
add that to the Steam Deck too?
Because I know I would.
I know it's a bit of a weird one because people prefer having like, analog
inputs, but like, they could do both.
They could have like, the first like, part of it be like, analog, right?
And then like, You can press it down extra to like, actuate a switch at the bottom.
They can
do that too.
Yeah.
I mean, that's totally possible.
Uh, they, they can, you can simulate that though with, with the haptics.
Um, and that's what they were talking about when they removed that, like,
um, that feature from the Steam Deck, where they said that it's,
uh, what the heck is it called?
If you go in, you can actually emulate it in the Steam input settings.
But it's not, it's not quite the same, um, but if they did what James
is talking about with the resistive triggers or whatever, they would, they
could be, they could simulate that with resistive triggers, which would be cool.
Yeah, I think, I mean, valve, I think steam does support
the dual, the, uh, dual sense.
And I think it's an option you can do with steam input.
There's
no resistive.
I don't think so.
Yeah, I don't think they support.
I don't think they support that feature, but they do support the dual sense.
They do support the DualSense to a point, I wouldn't say it's like any,
really any better than the Xbox, except for, does it support the gyro in it?
Yeah,
I think
it works gyro and that's awesome.
I think it does but in a very weird way
It's well, they split it in half.
I think yeah, like by default and you can change it to one big track
Yeah, and I think it all depends on how the developers
support it, too Yeah, I think
if if the game supports no, sorry, I think you're gonna say
yeah so I think if yeah, so if a game supports like Legitimate DualSense
support, then it has access to every feature, like the resistive
triggers, the uh, gyro, like for native aiming, stuff like that.
But not on the PC, right?
On PC, yeah.
Oh, really?
I believe so.
Okay, so they, so if I hooked up, uh, I don't know if it would
matter between SteamOS or Windows on this, because I think it's the
same drivers, or the same mapping.
If I hooked this up and played Resident Evil 8 with the controller, would it have?
The resistive triggers because it does on the PlayStation.
I think it's only for like first party Sony games that
it supports all the features.
But I think any game on PC, I
think any game could in theory, but I think the most prominent
ones are the Sony games.
They really need to work on that, especially, I don't know, there needs
to be a champion that really just says, Hey, developers, let's let's
sink these things because you've already they've like Resident Evil
7 or 8 already has support for this.
For PlayStation.
So just port it on over to the PC.
It shouldn't be that hard, right?
I don't know.
Maybe it isn't.
There's a list of games on PC Gaming Wiki that natively, PC games
that natively support DualSense.
Do you have that?
Dude, can you share that?
That'd be awesome in the chat.
Because I'd love to go down that route.
Um, I don't play with controllers very often, but platformers, I have to.
And some other games, I kind of just have to use a controller.
That's fair.
It's just so much better.
Yeah, um, I can't empathize with people that use keyboards on platformers unless
like they just don't have a controller But like if they have the ability, I have
I mean like, if they have the ability to buy a controller, I feel like they should.
Yeah, no, I agree.
I agree Yeah, it's just the only way to do it.
I Hmm like so with A lot of steam and valve coming out with
a bunch of different products potentially in the next three years.
I think, you know, we'll have like, excuse me, we'll have, um, a
console like experience on the TV.
I think they're going to potentially release Fremont.
That will be, uh, console based, um, whatever you call that.
Then, you know, the headset, uh, the VR headset, it would be interesting for
them to really push controller support.
Yeah.
Even more so, so that we have, like, the best experience
when we sit down at the TV.
I'd love to see that.
So, also, speaking of, uh, PC Gaming Wiki, apparently they have a section of that
list where ga with games that support adaptive triggers and haptic feedback.
You do have to disable Steam input emulation for these particular games.
I think you can do it on a per game basis.
But it is something that is available, like, on Helldivers, too.
Adaptive triggers over Bluetooth is supported.
Oh, wow.
Horizon zero dawn remastered supports, supports, uh, adaptive triggers over
Bluetooth or through, uh, the steam API.
Cool.
I
didn't know that.
That is cool.
Okay.
So hell divers, I play hell divers.
I mean, my friends have been playing it on the PC with a controller.
I'm now I'm kind of curious.
Maybe I'll try that.
Yeah.
There's a hack you can get for Half Life Alyx that adds adaptive trigger support.
That would be cool, except for, I think it would ruin it for me.
Yeah, well, I
think, I think that's probably for, like, the The non VR.
Like, the flat screen, the non VR mod.
Ohhh.
That
seems kind of silly, though.
I don't know if I would I know.
Alan Wake 2, uh Alan
Wake 2 supported?
I totally would play that with a controller or a keyboard.
I was, I was wrong.
I mean, even the Witcher 3 supports, uh, you have to have the next gen update,
but that even Witcher 3, that's cool.
Ghost of
Tsushima also supports, uh, adaptive triggers over Bluetooth
natively or Steam input API.
That's pretty cool.
Man.
Dude, that is all, dude, you guys made my day.
I did not realize how many games are supporting this feature.
I play with, I play with this with like platformers and sometimes other
things on the PC, but apparently I'm not choosing the right games,
which there's plenty of them.
And then just wait till the animal
well, what animal wells, animal well supports the, the haptic feedback,
like the native haptic feedback, as well as speaker and touch pad support.
That is.
Awesome.
Cause that's another cool thing.
This has a speaker in it.
So you have like different, like it is just different because like with
Astro Bot, you'll be playing through things and then you'll hear like
an echo down on the controller and the feedback is just kind of cool.
Dude.
I haven't played animal well yet.
I bought it.
Yeah,
I definitely know how I'm playing this now.
I'm playing it.
I'm gonna hook it up to my Steam Deck, to the TV, and hopefully it
plays that way, if not, Windows.
The, the fact that, I, I didn't realize it was so many games, or that it was
third party games that supported it.
Because the last time I knew, there was no, like, good driver, but
that was when it first came out.
Like, I haven't followed it.
But, the fact that so many games now have Adaptive Trigger Support on PC, Tells me
that valve really needs to do this with their next gen, uh, controllers, like
even, even like the Ibex or whatever they're calling it, is that, is that what
they're calling the steam controller too?
That's, uh, that's what they should do.
I want to see that.
I agree with that.
Let's get a standard on PC.
Add as much of this stuff as you can into it.
PS five controller is the, um, kind of golden controller for me personally.
Um, bar if you need to use touchpads and stuff like that, but it's
so hard to, like, incorporate touchpads and analog sticks.
So it'll be interesting to see what they do.
Dude,
No Man's Sky
supports adaptive triggers.
Mmm.
That's awesome.
Okay, I'm gonna try this.
Yeah, that's pretty cool.
I, I think I need it.
I think I need a new DualSense because the one I had, so I bought a PS5 used
with the hope of, like, maybe hacking it.
And it came with a DualSense.
And, like, It's okay, I guess, the DualSense, but I think I need a new one.
Yeah, it's definitely, this is my go to controller.
Especially since you're a controller guy, Hitech.
I don't know, for fighter games, how good it is, but
I know for the DualSense, I think among, like, the standard controllers,
it's among one of the better ones, especially the D pad, I feel.
Especially for, like, doing rolling inputs, because you have
to do a quarter circle to throw a Hadouken, and a Tatsumaki.
I love the d pad for Tony Hawk, because that's how I played it.
I played it with PlayStation.
Yeah, I'm so glad that we're in a group where no one pronounces
it fucking Ninja Gaiden.
Don't.
Oh my god.
You know that I've said it before.
I've called myself out.
I call it both, actually.
I never know what to call it.
Yeah, but then
also, uh
Every time someone says it like that, it just kind of takes me back to like,
when no one knew how to pronou no one knew how to say a fuckin reused name.
They used to call it Rye U.
Like fuckin rye bread.
I used to call it Rye U too, cause I didn't know any better.
Don't come to me for pronouncing things.
I infamously really bad at it.
Yeah, me too.
Ah, man.
Um, any other news that we have for this week?
Like, this is honestly, I think we don't even have it on here.
And the thing I'm most excited for is this controller stuff you guys brought me.
So, uh, you made my weekend.
I think I'm gonna go try a couple of games now with this.
Hook it up to my TV.
I don't really know, man.
I don't really know what more we can say besides.
Play Ninja Gaiden.
If you have it on Game Pass.
Yeah.
Yeah, I play it like I think that series needs more love and hopefully
they You know, the new one's gonna take all the folly and fix it
that the third one had it's also
a like revolutionary series Like the original NES like games.
They were like the first games with cutscenes period like, you know, like
They didn't exist before them, apparently.
Yeah, I don't know about that.
That's an interesting little factoid on that.
Like, that's, that's interesting.
I did not know that.
I just know that, like, they're really old, and they are very, like, it's
a very, very difficult, but it's also a big part of gaming history.
So Yeah, it was like almost a lot of games.
There's like 20 minutes of cut
scenes in like the first game, which is crazy to think about.
Might as well be a movie, man.
Dude, the first movie on a game console.
Then you got.
Oh, my gosh, I'm not going to that'd be a fun topic someday to cover
like games that are just movies.
Um, Metal Gear Solid 4.
We we need to do a special episode or two soon.
Um, Yeah, anything else high tech?
Um, I can't think of anything right now.
Let's see if there's any last minute topics that someone just
posted just now on r slash games.
Oh God
We're at we're at a nice round
two hours
See Gran Turismo 7 series highest selling title in the US Xbox series
SX trailing behind Xbox one sales in the US Well, PS5 outpaces PS4.
Let's see what else.
Uh, Digital Foundry, DLSS4, let's see.
The rate of decline in US physical video game software
spending accelerated in 2024.
Spending on physical games has been cut, but, has been cut,
more has been cut in half.
Well, more than in half since 2021, and it is now more than
85 percent below its 2008 peak.
Man, 2008 was a crazy year.
I think that was when, like, Halo 3 and the Orange Box came out.
2007.
It was Halo 3.
Oh, well, my bad.
Orange Box came out in 2008, right?
2007 was one of the greatest years in video game history, in my opinion.
Which year?
2007.
That was, like, when Halo 3 came out.
I remember.
Halo 3, Mass Effect, Bioshock, Rock Band.
There was so many good games that
was there a dead space.
I don't know if you can count that personal dead space.
I don't Starcraft 2.
I think
dead space was later, like 2009.
Yeah, but even like
Mirror's Edge was like, coming out, come out that year.
That
Mirror's Edge was a, that was it.
Yeah.
Dead Space 1 was in 2008.
That's it.
So the next year was the best one.
No, no, honestly.
Bio, uh, uh, Mass Effect is an amazing game.
Was it the first one that came?
Yeah.
Yeah, that game is amazing.
That was, that year I spent, I think that's the most I've ever spent,
like, on video games was that year.
Like, I think I bought my Xbox 360 in 2006, and then I had, like, every
game that came out the next year.
I remember picking up Mass Effect right when my finals started.
At the end of the year, it was kind of a mistake.
I, oh my God, the week of finals, I beat Mass Effect and like almost
100 percent of it kind of thing.
And also my God did my finals.
You didn't fail.
Did you?
No, I didn't.
I did fine.
Like, honestly, I, I, I did pretty good.
I didn't get that much sleep though.
Oh.
Well, hey, man.
It was the way I managed stress, I guess, I would go back and forth
between studying and playing the game.
Well, hey, man, you beat Mass Effect 1, that's all that matters.
You get a hero's rest now.
The worst
of the Mass Effects.
It's really good.
It's a good game, but Mass Effect 2 is so much better.
But you also have to play that one to really get into the,
like, other three in the trilogy.
Oh, I
highly recommend it still.
It's just, yeah.
It's really hard to believe that Halo 3 is almost 20 years old.
It's like 18 years old.
Oh my god.
I
don't like that.
I don't like that.
Crazy.
I just looked up like all the games that I mentioned and they all came
out in August, September or November.
Like of that year?
There were so of that of 2007.
Yeah.
What a fucking time to be alive.
When did Orange Box come out?
I think that was 2007.
Was it?
Oh.
It was 2007!
Holy shit, that was a crazy year.
October, October 2007, it was There you go.
Literally, that was one of the greatest years ever.
And then, and then, like, I think 2008?
Was like the indie revolution, right?
Like it was, there was braid and, uh, and a bunch of other
games on Xbox live arcade.
And I was like, Whoa, these games are awesome.
Castle crashers came out that year too, I think.
Right?
Yeah.
Oh, that's it.
That's a full castle.
Crashers was so good.
And then, um, When did Bastion come out?
Uh, let's find out.
Video game, right here, we came out in 2011.
So that was a little later.
But, dude, still.
You guys are funny.
Anyway, I just, I have such fond memories of the original, of the 360.
I have to say, like.
Whatever, dude, this is a great.
It's great system.
Amazing system.
In my opinion, beyond the name of it.
It was great.
Great system.
Kids will never experience a moment like the Xbox 360 ever again.
No, no.
Fucking Midnight releases are dead
too.
Remember, remember Midnight releases?
Dude, I went to the Midnight release of Halo Reach with my brother
Evan, and I got a photo of him.
Oh my god.
Dude, this is the most ridiculous photo.
The GameStop employee.
Is like, like, just, dead eyed, it's midnight, and he's
like, I don't wanna be here.
And my brother, Evan, has like, this goofy grin on his face.
He's shaking the hand of the GameStop employee as he's getting
the Dude, we you should send us
the if you can find that, we should like, put this on that vid on this video.
That's funny.
I
have no idea where that photo is.
I see it so clearly in my head, I gotta find it.
But it's just ridiculous.
It's such a stupid image.
Oh my god.
Dude, I bet she I don't blame that GameStop employee.
I'd rather be at home playing Halo Reach as well instead of selling it to people.
Um, when I worked at GameStop, I actually enjoyed doing midnight releases even
because then we would sometimes get like a TV or we would be able to play
it there also, but it's also just fun.
It was fun to be up until midnight and just nerding out about stuff.
I liked it.
It was crazy, man.
My, my brother.
Yeah, they had to ID my brother, uh, who I think, well, that, well, no,
I don't think they ID does actually, but I definitely wasn't old enough to
buy a mature, like an M rated game.
Yeah.
At the time of Halo 3 and I think, Halo Reach as well actually, well actually no,
I don't, when did Halo Reach come out?
2010, I think.
Oh yeah, I, I still wasn't old enough to buy an enumerated game legally.
Yeah,
2010.
Yeah.
But, I was 22, 23, something like that.
But yeah man, it's, I'm not thinking about it, I refuse to think about that.
Dude, where did the time go, and where did the games go?
I think that's a myth.
I think there's still amazing games that come out.
It might not still be the same, but, you know, I still think
we get a lot of good games.
Yeah, but I feel like what we really need is a really epic midnight release.
Cause like, Halo 3 used to be on the news, and Halo Reshoot, like
for their crazy midnight releases.
When's the last time you've seen a video game on the news for something like that?
I think the news is just pretty much political nowadays.
Nothing, so.
It makes a lot of money.
I'm sorry.
I don't mean to.
It makes a lot of money.
Games do too.
And there's a huge, and the thing is, I think there's also a really
big, uh, game news industry too.
So most gamers will watch YouTube and sometimes there's stuff like that.
Maybe they should do start doing some release midnight releases
and stuff like that on YouTube.
But I mean, it's evolved.
It's evolved.
You know what those YouTube, you know what those gamers should do?
They should watch our video on YouTube.
They should watch our channel and our podcast.
Yeah.
And they should tell us some of their old midnight release experiences.
I agree with that.
Yeah.
Tell us how you just, you got your system, your, you know, cause
there's console releases too.
Or your game and you went home and you did, you, you know, you called in
sick and you just played all night.
I mean, a lot of people did that.
Yeah.
Maybe I did.
I did that for, uh, actually I didn't, I didn't intentionally do it for Skyrim.
It just happened, it just so happened that guy actually got really
sick during the Skyrim's release.
But, hey, still going with the story.
Hey, you know what?
Good job.
I'm glad you're still sticking with that story just a few years later.
High tech,
it's one thing to call out of work, it's another thing
to call out of middle school.
Oh my gosh.
Oh my
gosh.
Nah, man, I was Damn!
That's brutal.
Sorry.
I gotta stop making jokes about how old you are.
I'm
sorry.
That's brutal.
I was in high school by then, thankfully.
Oh, okay.
Sorry.
I'm
such a jerk.
It's okay, Gardner.
I forgive you.
It's alright.
I'm almost, I'm almost, I almost need a walker, dude, I'm so, I'm getting so old.
It's okay.
I, the magnanimous, high tech, low life, shall forgive thee.
Yadda yadda yadda.
Thou shalt Taking the
higher ground.
Thou shalt not I appreciate that.
Roast thy friend.
Ah, roasting's the best way to show that you care about someone.
True that.
But, you know what's even better way?
Oh, yeah.
Supporting us by liking subscribing, following us.
If you're on a different platform, just like what high tech said and
sticking around and commenting to like commenting, you know, we'll read it.
We'll get to the comments eventually.
And most importantly, sharing this with all of your friends.
Yes, sharing is caring.
So don't don't be a cheap or just, uh, what is it?
Just selfish, selfish asshole share.
Yeah, shit.
Hey man, if you found something this good, you should share it with your friends.
That's my honest opinion.
Agreed.
Well, should we wrap this episode up?
I believe so.
Have a good day, y'all.
Okay, later guys.
Peace out.
Alright, see ya.