What’s up everybody and welcome back to another episode of the kind of funny xcast your home for all things Xbox here at kind of funny of course I’m one of your show hosts snowbike Mike and today you’ll noticed I’ve gone from the the the studio setup to a virtual setup
Because I’m hanging out with not my two gaming dads but my two gaming best buds the two coolest dudes on planet Earth that I love listening to each and every week it’s the Xbox 2 dudes it’s Randal Thor the man with a million of course jez Cordon managing editor of Windows
Central gaming he’s got such an awesome title Randon I love saying it every time jez I’ll start with you thanks for up late for me and hanging out how are you hey I’m good man thanks for having us um you know rocking and rolling it’s been a
Busy it’s been a busy couple of weeks you know on that Dragons Dogma 2 beat but uh the S is popping off yeah the sight all your team has done a phenomenal job I mean big shout out to Windows Central gaming if you haven’t gone over there you know I’m getting all
My Xbox news 90% of the time from jez and the team but they do a phenomenal job of covering the nudes a lot of cool guides up there I I know you put up the beginners like hey here’s the 18 things you need to know about jez and that
Helped me so shout out to you and the team man always thanks very much of course and you know it wouldn’t be the Xbox 2 podcast takeover without the man with a million Rand Al thor9 Rand how are you Mike it is so good to see you
Bro thank you man I mean seeing your journey at PA Haven you want like bro I love you you’re the best man and thank you so much for inviting not only me but jez here and you know what you are right saying managing editor Windows Central
It is it is awesome that’s why I get to say it every single week you know it’s it’s great you’re one lucky dude and of course the two of you have an incredible community that you guys have created with the Xbox 2 podcast and Beyond I
Mean jez doing awesome stuff on the site you making great Xbox informative videos always Rand have been some of my favorites no matter if you take a break no matter if you’re making them week daily you’ve always been incredible to me so thank you both for being here and
Of course shout out to the PS journey I am back from PAX East Boston and I want to give a big shout out to all the kind of funny best friend community that came by and saw of course the panel for kind of funny game Showdown that’s up now on
YouTube or if you came out to the grounded panel where me and the team over at obsidian got to celebrate All Things grounded and look forward to grounded 1.4 getting you fully yolked for the big game of course jez we’re going to talk about about it I mean it’s
Here it’s coming to other platforms it’s got a big update and the final updates so I’ll tease that out for everybody we’ll talk about that and of course shout out to blessing who did a fantastic job with CD project red talking all things cyberpunk that was really something special to see him up
On the main stage and I got to give a big shout out to the iron Lords you know we give thanks on Sundays to those guys over there but they were all there the iron Lords podcast came out they were doing interviews they were doing the
Xbox Frontline news Channel I got to do an interview with King David and Lord s so go please check that out it was a lot of fun to talk about my journey and the world of Xbox but guys enough about me I want to talk about both of you jez
You’re up late how have you been what have you been up to what games have you been playing my guy yeah man I mean I I mentioned like Dragon Dog 2 is like we were all over that game cuz you know we’re a small team so um trying to
Compete with the big players out you know put the whole team on the game uh Capcom very very supportive of us you know doing the GU doing a spread of guides for cuz it’s a can be quite complicated game with with a lot of sort of opak andess you know for those who
Don’t know it’s uh it’s like it’s an action RPG open open world it’s a sequel 12 years in the making something like that over 10 years um and uh you know it’s uh it’s it’s it’s different it’s a different kind of game it it doesn’t doesn’t it doesn’t really feed you the
The sort of um uh the quest objectives and the the sort of like uh you know what we’ve sort of become accustomed to with Western games a lot of the time um you know and and because of that I thought well this will be this would be
A good a good opportunity to write some guides you know so I’ve I’ve been like I’ve been murdering this game I think I’ve put 150 hours into it now across two different saves I haven’t had much time to play anything else really um yeah Dragon Dogma Dragon Dogma for two
Weeks and after I did the review I started the game over again cuz um uh I missed a lot out I missed I missed like an entire town uh going through the review period it was it was like s side quest you know I miss side quest out um
But uh but yeah so it’s it’s a really cool game you know this it’s got some controversy swirling around it you know uh with the whole mic yeah the mic action things and and uh and other stuff but uh I’ve really enjoyed it I really
Really like it it’s my kind of game so pretty pretty upward with it yeah I’ve uh I put 10 hours into it now um you know me and Andy and the crew we made Nick and Kevin from the team and I’ve been adventuring all around and I’m so
With you it doesn’t feel like it holds my hand when sometimes I probably need it to be held just a little bit but I do love that it is like hey here’s a grand Adventure go forth and get lost and I think it is wild I every time I’ve been
Streaming and I say man this game is so big isn’t it crazy that like I don’t have a mount you’re telling me there’s no horse there’s no riding on the back of a Griffin and it’s like no you’re going to walk or of course you’ll take
The ox ride but it is you and your crew adventuring and I think some of the things that have really stood out to me jez is it is non-stop combat and action right it feels like I go from one fight I take a breath I’m in another fight and
Then another one and then another another one and sometimes that’s good and bad for me I love the combat I like early on jazz jazz that it’s um hey you’re leveling up quickly because of that it feels rewarding after every single fight and it kind of really gets
Me to like hey stick around do those fights don’t run away because you’re going to get rewarded with a nice level but there’s also a moment where it’s like the world is beautiful jez there’s like there’s moments where it’s like I want to take a moment and just look at
This Vista and enjoy and next thing I know there’s a goblin chasing me or there’s a giant werewolf man and I’m like everybody just chill out for like 20 seconds please so I can enjoy this view yeah it’s uh it’s it is combat heavy I kind of I kind of almost feel
Like it’s it’s almost like playing like Diablo or something but from a third person perspective you know like in Diablo you’re going from like group of goblins to group of goblins to group of goblins like constantly and uh the story isn’t the emphasis kind of like Diablo
As well to some degree um so I’ve just been really enjoying on that basis I Chang vocation a lot to to mix it up I’m playing I’ve maxed out sorcerer Mystic spear hand now I’m doing Mystic Archer as well um I can’t decide which one I like the most um the the
Hardcore Dragons Dogma Community are upset about various things in the game like V missing vocations from the original you know the lack of like a true repeatable end game that dark darker Isen the expansion for the original game bought this sort of like repeatable end game sort of gameplay
Loop and people were hoping that this would have something similar but it it kind of doesn’t um this time around but I feel like there’s a lot um that the game could improve upon like there are floors of course there are and but I feel like there’s a lot they could do to
Expand this down the line with expansions of DLC and if like we’re looking at games like monst Hunter world as an example of a game that had absolutely incredible postlaunch support I’m pretty bullish on Dragon Dog future um you know I was a fan of the original
Even though I only played it fairly recently after seeing the trailers for this even though like I played it recently and it’s quite an old game I still I came to really love the combat because even like Dragon’s Dogma the original the combat felt so far ahead of
Its time and it did things that you know you can you can feel like oh this definitely influenced The Witcher 3 and you know other things like that so it’s a special game special franchise and um I’m excited to see where that takes it I think it’s got a lot of potential to
Grow even more yeah it’s got some juice Jaz I I am very excited for the future of this I’m excited to play through this right after my 10 hours I can’t stop thinking about this I got home last night uh after a soccer game and I said
You know what I’m going to just keep playing and I turned it on for an hour and kind of got lost running from town to town and I think that’s the fun part for me is that something that we missed out on on Starfield that we talked about
With those Bethesda RPGs is like here’s a giant map and you’re going to venture across and you’re going to make your own tales in that and we kind of lost that in Starfield of going from planet to planet and it didn’t quite feel like that normal Bethesda experience and
That’s what this one’s giving me is like oh you’re going to go over there and you’re going to walk and sometimes it’s frustrating to walk along ways but you’re going to make your own little mini stories I ran into a giant Stone Golem out of nowhere and it was wild to
Climb up on the back of it and I’m changing vocations all the time I really love that Jaz as someone who gets decision paralysis in these RPG games where I don’t want to spend that skill point there or oh I don’t know if this is going to be the meta build and now
I’m holding on to five skill points when I should be spending them I really do like the no just change the vocations when you want and you spend those points you get some new skills I I like that a lot JZ I think that’s a big win for that
In the original like when you leveled up with a certain vocation the stats will be based on what vocation you had so like switching back to if you were playing as a mage you get Mage stats and and if you switch back it was like well now you’ve got Mage stats while playing
As a warrior and it didn’t work that well but in this one it it it the stats change based on what you do so it’s a lot more forgiving in that context but like your Starfield comparison is interesting cuz Starfield has a lot of I
What I feel like he’s copy and paste and that becomes more apparent the more and more you play it like if you are trying to play it repeatably but Dragon’s Dogma has none of that like all the caves are handcrafted all the locations are crafted um like here’s here’s a great
Example like I I like I said I’ve put about 150 hours into the game so far across two different playthroughs and um I didn’t know you could ride on just ride on a Griffin’s back you know the the Griffins fly around and if you if you’re on the Griffin’s back because
Because of the grab button which lets you grab onto basically anything the Griffin could just be like well I’m going to fly away now and if you’re on his back then you screwed and I was I was I was flying on this dude’s back for
Ages um uh it was just it was the second time i’ done it and I was just so I’m going to say how long I can stay here and this Griffin flew me all the way to the Griffin’s nest and inside the nest was a ton of Loot and a PK Crystal which
Which is the the Fast Travel points which is super rare in the game I had no idea this this even existed it was high up high up in the mountains in the middle of nowhere and it was just like there’s just these kind of like explorative moments are just so
Rewarding in this game because none of it’s copy pasted it’s all hand curated and it’s it’s just it’s one of the best open worlds I’ve ever experienced it’s so far ahead of a lot of them yeah dear Goblin stop hacking me in the back so I can enjoy the incredible handcrafted
World but I prob the Goblins are coping and pasted quite a lot there’s a lot of goblins in the game a lot of gobl the downsides was the I I think the enemy variety is probably one of the flaws I’d love a bit more enemy variety but but
Maybe that can improve that that’s a good call out and I want to get your co-host involved in just a moment of course Rand I know I believe is your Pawn in your game and I think they have a really cool system of this kind of
Like I’ll call it the pawn party right where I get to create of course my Pawn which Andy created Kevin for me and we’re on this Grand Adventure but I do love the use of the pawns and how you kind of cycle through them I think we
Get so easily bogged down or kind of in the normal of hey this is my crew right and we’re going to venture all the way way through this experience together for a hundred hours right it’s normally I pick up a companion here they’re part of
My team we ride together for a long time I do love that like the ponds will become underleveled and it’s time to say goodbye to them and I find a new Pond and I grab them and I go oh you’re at the my level or Beyond you got to come
Join my party and it feels fresh it feels unique of like every time I see a Pawn on the streets I go ooh should I talk to them should I be inviting them whether I go to the stone and I go what do I need in my party or should I mix
And match I really do find the pond system really cool and interesting of seeing other people’s pwns being created and I can bring them in if they’re on my friends list or just in general like oh I I’ve been with suszie q for like four
Hours now let me ditch her let me go grab Alex over here and get a new pawn in I think that’s really fun and exciting and I dig that jazz I think it’s cool yeah it’s awesome I mean I I made I made the Rand porn you know if you
Follow me on box a jez you can use the round porn looks just like him and uh R run runs a runs a nice healer with a with a cool hat oh good fashion He he’ll come and heal your party yes it’s really good I’m gonna grab the Rand pawn and uh
Run around with him of course I should get Rand involved because it’s not the Xbox one it’s the Xbox 2 podcast and Randal Thor the man with the million I know you’re always playing games and Rand what have you been playing lately I need to know what’s hot and what’s not
Well you know it sort of sometimes is the Xbox one mik because as you all know I’m just ran down nobody it’s it’s jez’s podcast right we seen they love but um no so you know I I’m not playing Dragon’s Dogma 2 because it wasn’t something that appealed to me but
Listening to you guys talk about it definitely makes it more interesting and I have a couple buddies playing it now that are in love with the game which makes me you know feel that little bit of fomo I ain’t gonna lie you know it’s like H should I be playing this um maybe
I’ll get to it at some point I I I didn’t play the first game so I wasn’t really like it wasn’t on my radar this the sequel but I did just come off a 50h hour playthrough of banisher ghost of new Eden from DD I think they released
It back in uh like mid-February I I I I’ve been playing it the last couple weeks and I gotta say Mike I really enjoyed it it like really exceed I didn’t know I didn’t really have any expectations for it but it definitely is an underrated uh release of this year for
Sure like when you talk about like great games of this year everybody’s going to point to like Final Fantasy 7 rebirth or Dragons Dogma 2 or po World pow world or like I love it right like they’re but I feel like this one is kind of nobody’s really talking about this it’s from
Dontnod their last game was Gant which I really enjoyed but this is a different this is um this is like an action RPG um I I kind of when I talk about when people ask what it is it it res very much resembled like um like a god
Of war 2018 Style game um there’s two main characters and the setup of the game is basically you’re going to the new world it’s 1690 how often you get games set in the 1600s not often right and you uh uh as a couple are bishers which you basically
Get rid of ghosts you get rid of people that are haunted by ghosts and you’re going to this town because your friend says there’s a curse in this in this you know this this Village and you’re going there to kind of get rid of it and I’m
Not going to spoil what happens but essentially the game ends up becoming like an an action RPG where a lot of people are being haunted by uh ghosts and a lot of it has to do with like investigations figuring out like why the ghost is haunting them what’s keeping
Them around and usually that ends up with some moral quandry because you can either blame the living person or you can banish the ghost or send The Ghost and it’s usually some really black and white moral quandry that really makes you think being like Oh man should I be
Doing this um uh all in Essen in in your adventure to get back to that town to kind of uh rid the curse uh but I don’t want to spoil it for anybody as playing it because I did find the narrative to be very compelling I did find the
Relationship between the two main characters because you switch between them in combat quite often and it’s really the the focus of the narrative is on their relationship because something happens between them and by the end I got to say like they they got me to towards like I was really invested in
This game uh a lot and I anybody who’s looking forward wants like an action RPG with a really great story um the combat is it’s not great but it’s it’s good right um but yeah I I definitely recommend I think I think it’s a really cool game that’s kind of being
Overlooked I I saw Andy Cortez here at the kind of funny team playing it and I I I want to know Rand from your experience the decision of banishing these ghosts right at the end of the day does it have a large impact on the game
Is it very much hey you are going to follow the line of you’re going to banish Mike no matter what and you’re going to leave jez or is it very much like you decide and you’re going to leave your imprint on this so the whole point of like banishing the ghost or
Blaming the living has to do with what happened with your uh loved one and it all affects the ending of the game right um like I said I don’t want to spoil it but your choices have the consequence of um how the ending uh takes up and how it shapes and how it
Actually plays out so if you could you could blame people all you want that will lead to something else but usually blaming the living mic that’s like the evil thing because you’re essentially killing them right but there’s a reason why in the story you would want to do it
And then the other side there’s banishing the ghost or ascending The Ghost and that’s usually the good thing U but sometimes they present this thing where the person living is completely Innocent but because of what you have to do if you’re going down this path you have to kill them and it
Kind of makes you feel a certain way and other times like uh you know the ghost may like there’s some crazy moral stuff that goes on between like the choices but it all shapes the ending that you get so A J selling this I I I like the
Sound of this Rand I guess my question is on these narrative games two two questions really quick how long right we talk about hellblade 2 coming up in the length of that you brought up God of War and the kind of vibe that it is on this
Game how long is it how long should I expect to be here and any rep replayability or is it a oneandone type Vibe you think um well so as for the length I put 50 hours in but I did everything everything on the map I did all the all
The uh haunting cases because you don’t have to do them all but I mean that’s kind of like the meat and potatoes of the game if you were just to do like the main story and nothing else it’d probably be a 20 to 25 hour experience
But if you did everything like I did um it’s it’s like 50 hours so okay you as no you know I thought about that that but then I just watched the other I I just watched on YouTube the other ending I didn’t get right because I wanted to
See I wanted to see what would happen if if I made other choices I I’m not necessarily the best person to ask about replayability mic because I play a game I finish a game and then I’m on to the next game I really don’t Replay Games so
Usually like sa scum to get the second no no no you see jez is all about oh I’m on my second playthrough of Dragon’s Dogma me I’d be like I beat I would beat Dragon’s Dogma and then like there’s another game waiting and then and then
Beat that and move on to the next one so I don’t normally Replay Games but I did look up the other ending that I didn’t get because and because I was really curious to see like the other side of it you know okay I like that I like you
Sold that better than the trailers and everything I’ve seen of it I think it looked good uh the combat looked like God of War right that third person over the shoulder sort of thing yeah nothing has drawn me to it on a narrative side until you spoke about it like that so
Good job on that Rand uh I have a bad one for both of you unfortunately I’ve been playing South Park snow day and kzin Rand unfortunately good about this this game is bad it is really unfortunate and you know what it is is they have something
Good here and that’s the sad part of it is the production value how they present the game from the 3D animation the full-on world of South Park come to life being able to create your own little you know elementary school kid in the South Park Universe like it all works so well
And it feels like it is a TV episode it does have some humor even though there’s a lot of repeated on liners and it’s not like the not pushing the craziest boundary but like the production and the presentation there is so good it’s the gamep playay it is just so repetitive
The vision of whatever they wanted to do where they they’re calling it an action adventure game but it’s very much like hey what if we took the Rogue light idea where you do these over over again on these smaller missions and you try to enhance that with cards and like you
Redo it all just misses the mark it is frustrating it’s not fun and engaging on a gameplay level when you’re just hacking and slashing Non-Stop and doing the same amount of minimal damage to these guys they have fun bosses they have cool beautiful worlds but it’s just
A big miss you guys and I I am sad and frustrated with that because yeah you have the license of South Park and what they did in this 3D World reminds me of the N64 South Park game where a lot of us for the first time got to run around
South Park and experience it and I question man I wish they just kind of went a little bit bigger and made it like a hacken slash collectathon 3D platformer like we all know and love because I think they would have nailed it if it was that but making it these
Smaller linear missions from point A to point B and hacking up a bunch of like no-name elementary school kids really misses the mark guys and it was frustratingly bad it was too bad which is because the last two South Park games were actually really really good fantastic right yeah they they were
Great and I know people were looking forward to this one based on the pedigree of the last couple but yeah I did I I saw that the game uh didn’t really was not receiving R reviews so yeah uh I am right there in line with
All the reviews there is some fun to be seen but not to be had I think is the best way of putting it when you play it you will not have fun but seeing it you will go oh that’s really cool what they did with South Park Treatment so I’m a
I’m pretty down on that one as the multiplayer guy uh I wish I could give that a little bit more love but I just can’t look at any of you and say that was a good game that’s just a bad one so that’s how we’re kicking off the xcast
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By over 300,000 people again that is shadyrays.com and use code kf20 for $20 off polarized sunglasses Rand Jazz we got a lot of fun Xbox news news we got some cool stuff it has been a a tough start to the year we’ve had some positives we’ve had some negatives but
It seems that Phil Spencer has done an interview over at GDC and we got some cool stuff to talk about from him even jez over on the Xbox 2 podcast and of course over on Windows Central gaming has some fun stuff to talk about that we
Get to share and we have a Marvel game that I think’s up your alley Jazz cordon and I want to start off with that one because I know you’re the OverWatch guy I always listen to the Xbox 2 podcast and maybe jez is playing some games in the background and enjoying himself
Because he play overwat during the podcast I’m not I’m not and I’ll tell you why I’m not right it’s CU I’m on webcam right now my TV is really mounted high up so like if I was playing I’d be looking like this the whole time on camera people want the Xbox 2 to
Be on camera and I told jez that if we do no more playing OverWatch during the podcast and he was like oh I don’t know well you know like maybe I can just like play on my PC which you keep it right in front of you you he’ll never know is
Right we’ll never know cuz we enjoy the two of you in the podcast but guys let’s talk about Marvel Rivals a brand new Marvel game is coming our way developed by net East games the read up goes like this Marvel Rivals is a superhero team-based PVP shooter assemble an
All-Star Marvel Squad uh devis countless strategies by combining Powers two uh comp Powers two from unique team up skills and fight indestructible everchanging battlefields across the continually evolving Marvel Universe some more details for you it’s going to be a free-to-play game headed to PC with a closed Alpha test in May that people
Can sign up for right now it does have an initial roster compromised of black panther Doctor Strange Groot Hulk Iron Man Loki uh Luna snow magic uh Magneto mantis neore uh Penny Parker Rocket Raccoon Scarlet Witch Spider-Man storm Star-Lord and The Punisher that’s a lot of jabronies in that game and of course
Uh it came out with the trailer today it was officially announced and revealed to the world uh here’s some of my initial first thoughts and I want to kick it to jez first because he is my OverWatch guy but it definitely looks like OverWatch meets Marvel it has destructible
Environments like it says uh it looked to have a capture the point situation and also maybe a payload type game mode that I think we saw in the trailer that I could see but you’re my OverWatch guy jez what what do you think about this
Idea well I gotta tell you I don’t care about Marvel you know okay if if anyone anyone listens to Xbox 2 they’ll know I’m not a superhero guy and least of all Marvel so that in of itself PS me off but what I will hope for this game is
That it brings some competition for OverWatch and sort of you know cuz OverWatch has has had a tough uh death cycle a tough life service over the last few years I think anyone anyone who’s been watching OverWatch probably knows about that uh PVE mode was cancelled completely now per rumors um and then
Obviously the the story mode which was the supposedly the whole point of OverWatch 2 has also you know Shel um so since then I think OverWatch has been trying to find its identity and where do they really go from here and and uh what did they do
Next and stuff and also there’s been controversy about the Battle pass and how you get new Heroes and one of the things they did in OverWatch recently was announced that um all new Heroes will be free and they won’t be part of the battle pass anymore which is great
News um you know it’s it’s a big step in the right direction but you know as for like uh for this game in particular you know I’m I I I just say like I’m personally not interested just because of the Marvel angle and the reason I play OverWatch is because it’s OverWatch
You know it’s it’s it’s sort of like the it’s almost nostalgic now I’ve been playing it for that long you know it’s when did it come out 2016 yeah 2015 I thought 2016 sounds about right okay so we’re almost 10 years 10 years yeah if that’s crazy it doesn’t feel like it’s
Been 10 years almost but um but yeah it’s kind of one of them you know where you just you you just pick a game and it’s like it’s your game you know like people who play Call of Duty every year or people who play fortnite every year
Constantly forever or you know in rand’s case how many hours you going pubg Rand like 00 like 800 900 yeah it’s just that it’s like OverWatch is just my game so this game could be the best hero shooter in the world and i’ probably still not play it so I
Mean but for people who like hero Shooters and like Marvel this sounds like it could be their dream game you know um ntis of course they make Nara blade Point as well I think oh Yesa blade Point uh-huh uh-huh if I yeah if I probably pronounce that wrong um but
That um again is very popular and he has a good live Service attached to it so netes you know they make live service games that’s what they do um they also make Diablo mortal so there’s that that blizzard cross over there a little bit good call
Out so uh you know uh hopefully it ends up being a good game and you know if it is a good game hopefully it will bring some more competition to OverWatch and you know Inspire some good ideas and we’ll see what happens but yeah it’s
Probably not for me I don’t know if I don’t know if Rand feels any differently Rand you you you’re into this Marvel I I thought it looked kind of cool to be honest with you like I am into like the Marvel DC stuff although I’m not into
OverWatch and I know my friend group that has we know we all put 800 hours into pubg and a whole bunch in The War Zone on we all we on the lookout for the next great multiplayer game that we all want to play together and I was watching the trailer and I
Thought to myself man this really seems like a no-brainer like a a Marvel teamup 6v6 uh OverWatch Style game it’s like it’s sort of almost to the point where I was thinking man how’s it taken this long for them to make something like this now I don’t know if it’ll be successful
Because the that sort of Market is a little bit saturated it’s tough for a lot of newer games to break in and you know especially when you have the fortnite Juggernaut or the Call of Duty stuff um you know we’ve seen the single player St like the Spider-Man games
Right or you know now there’s a couple black panther games in development and all like single player focus and I was wondering when we would get like a true Marvel multiplayer game um I don’t know when this is released they did say it’s coming what um next month I believe in
Like Alpha on PC only correct they haven’t announced if it’s coming to console yet I’m assuming it will whenever it eventually does release but um yeah it seems like I don’t know I was watching it and I was sort of expecting to not like it but I
Was like oh no I mean they retained an individuality of each of the characters like that’s Spider-Man and Spider-Man jumps and acts like he’s supposed to and oh that’s Doctor Strange and that’s really unique or here’s the Hulk and and and here’s iron so it’s like okay it has the characteristics of the
IP uh but I think the success of the game will be based on whether or not it’s it’s actually a a good multiplayer game because we’ve seen just having a big IP behind you like Marvel Avengers or Guardians of the Galaxy isn’t enough uh these days so it success will be
Based off of like hey how great is this how many people play it but no I mean I think I think could be I just judging it from off the trailer nothing else like it seems cool right yeah it’s so interesting because it looks cool but it
Also looks just like OverWatch I think that was my initial thoughts of like this is OverWatch and I know jez I’m G to I’m going to have you School me because there’s a couple moments here where I’m like are we sure we’re not just ripping off OverWatch characters
Cuz there’s one lady who’s roller skating around looking just like that guy there’s Spider-Man who comes out of that portal and he does the multiweb that looks just like the guy with the Dual pistols Jazz and he does that move right so there’s like moments where I’m
Like oh I don’t know but I think there’s something to be said two things one that jez said right like I as the multiplayer guy here kind of funny who plays a lot of these shooters I know for a fact that audiences get comfortable with what they
Like right jez likes OverWatch I love Call of Duty Battle Royale we talk about Ram with so many hours in pubg the kids playing fortnite in Roblox it is very difficult to have an attachment raid onto these newer shooters that are just kind of middle of the road to even good
Right we’ve seen so many games come and go as a live service from knockout City to rumble verse where it’s like oh you had a fun idea and it was good but like not strong enough to pull enough people out of their comfort zones and get them
To sit on this game right and for me like you bring up Rand I think the positive here that I can give to this game is it has the license right like that’s going to get you a little bit farther than coming out with a new IP we
Saw it with Pokemon unite right Pokemon unite is a great game I will give it that it’s a good MOBA game but I think that got a lot more juice thanks to that Pokemon treatment that it had than just being Mike’s mooba and I just made up
Characters right and so for me if you can nail the gameplay like you see said Rand where it is OverWatch and it’s fun I think you’re going to get a leg up but I worry that it is is so samey to OverWatch why would I not just stick
With the tried and true goat that is OverWatch right but as jez says OverWatch is in a weird place maybe this is the shot in the arm they either need or the moment to get people like jez away from OverWatch and onto something that is so similar that they probably
Feel at home with is what I I wonder and worry about here I was just looking I was just um I was just looking up if Pokemon unite was n EAS as well cuz I know it wasn’t developed by Nintendo but it developed by tenson so okay almost
Another another Chinese mobile giant but um but yeah I I I I tend to agree you know um maybe there have been other sort of overwatching kind of games you know paladins comes to mind and yes and uh they they have their audiences but you know people just kind of stick to what
They’re used to these days but maybe maybe you’re right Marvel can put through that sort of apathy in where like maybe nraa BL Point couldn’t with original characters or whatever um you know even Ran’s interested which I was yeah because I was not expecting that at all well I’m interested because
Of the IP and I think that’s what kind of what Mike spoke about it’s the IP is going to get people into the door right hey I’m a huge Iron Man Fan or I’m a big Marvel dude it’s GNA get people in the door now whether or not they
Stay that’s going to be up to the game right we’ve seen Games come out strong and then have lackluster uh you know live service support you know Halo infinite comes to mind when it launched in 2021 where people loved it and then they’re like okay where’s the extra content and it
Wasn’t available I mean even some of the stuff with Diablo 4 some of the early Seasons you know jez can attest to weren’t necessarily the greatest or whatever so like the IP is going to get people to check it out but is that going to be enough right is that going to be
Enough to be like all right no this is my new number one game or is it just going to be a fad for a couple weeks and people get their uh get their you know uh kicks out of it they they level up their characters and like all right I’m
Done guess what I’m G to go back to fortnite I’m going to go back to OverWatch and I I I do I do Wonder like how do people at blizzard looking at this when they see this trailer and they’re like they just really just copy pasted our game like you know like
Because it really is oh very much reminiscent of OverWatch and I I sort of wonder if there’s they look at that and they’re like come on now right where if it’s like too syy to OverWatch if people just being like if they start playing like I don’t know like it’s done better
Over here right it’s it’s definitely going to be a case of like can this IP overcome uh all these other great uh games in the market that what are they call them black hole games because all this time is sunk into all these games and it’s like is this one is is the
Marvel IP going to be enough for it to stand out in people’s minds and have it become a success where we’re talking about this five years from now right you mentioned a bunch of games like knockout City Rumble verse which was great and a whole bunch of others that all came in
And all had these great ideas but there just wasn’t a player based Fort and they unfortunately had to had to end so I’m curious is this going to be one of those we in a year from now where salute be like oh man you tried Kudos but you know
It wasn’t in the cards or is it going to be a staple are you going to see it in the top 10 Playstation Xbox player charts or is it just going to be in a flash in the pan you know like what is the Marvel IP worth in a multiplayer
Arena because we’ve never really had that uh before it’d be interesting to see how this all plays out yeah I mean they’re coming out with a a strong roster right we went down that is a number of names to have you got to think like jez can attest to and you and I
Have like there’s going to be microtransactions tied to this free-to-play game of different outfits and there’s a number of characters if you’re a Marvel fan to go man I would love to play as one of these characters and I would love to see what’s the cool
Outfit for The Punisher what do they do with storm how do they make them look cool to justify me giving them $20 but it’s all going to come down to like you said gameplay right like the game’s got to be fun it’s got to be enjoyable and
If I can just go get that over at OverWatch what am I jumping ship for and so uh let’s keep an eye on the this one I’m interested I’m excited because I love Marvel I like a lot of those characters and I do love a good you know
Hero based Arena shooter but if it’s not good enough we’ll probably move on guys we got some fun Xbox news to talk about I was I was goingon to say Mike I don’t know I don’t know what’s next on your topic list but I wonder if this would be
A game people would enjoy playing on the go oh thanks for teeing me up ran you’re the absolute best is that a good segue I don’t know what was next but uh you know that is what’s next because we have some fun Xbox news because Phil Spencer has
Spoken with of course polygon thanks to of course a GDC interview everybody was down here in San Francisco for GDC which saw numbers up which was really really cool and some great developers came and got to share some fun but it looks like Phil did have a nice little talk with
The team over at polygon and he spoke about a number of things that I definitely want to pick you guys’ brains about like an Open Marketplace over on Xbox which I found very interesting an Xbox handheld and so much more so let’s talk about playing on the go jez I think
You’re going to be our guy we’re going to talk about here in just a second come from the Xbox 2 podcast but it is something we’ve all spoken about on all the Xbox communities the podcast we talk about this on the-go form factor for Xbox when will Xbox make its own
Handheld especially as of late where everybody it seems is making a handheld when will Xbox finally jump in and it looks like Phil did speak on that it is interesting we always talk about Phil Spencer and how much of a gamer he is and clearly it’s not like they’re blind
They see what’s going on they read the tea leaves but I found it interesting of like Phil is actively playing these handheld devices and going o what do I like what do I not like how do we make it Xbox and more of course and so the
Big quote I pulled out of this one is what should we build that will find new players that will allow people to play all at times when they couldn’t go play and I think that’s the big one for me jazz is like yeah of course we know Xbox
Has probably looked into a handheld we know that they’re looking at other handhelds but finding that new players has been the big discussion of console sales are getting kind of flat and they need something new to get more people in and it does seem like the Xbox handheld
Is the move uh jez you’re a handheld guy what do you think about Xbox and a handheld market look got a handheld right here Lenovo Legion go from Lenovo it’s very very good piece of Kit um but feels right there’s a lot of pain points with these handhelds you know like if
You got steam deck you don’t get PC game Pass unless you install Windows on it which is a nightmare because the third party software for the steam deck uh doesn’t work that good and often breaks so then you get like the the true Windows handhelds which have the drivers
Like this Lenovo one or the Asus rag Ally for example um but then the problem is Windows which is not designed for this form factor it’s terrible with touch and uh and and the UI doesn’t scale very well and smaller screens and also the overheads on windows are quite
High which means you know diminish battery life you know uh could there be a thin operating system a lighter version of Windows which runs the games which doesn’t chew up the battery life with millions of background processes because it doesn’t expect to be squashed down into a tablet so there’s a lot of
There’s a lot of barriers to this um you know and obviously a big barrier for Xbox is that all the thousands and thousands of games that exist in the Xbox ecosystem they only have licenses to be running on Xbox operating system Hardware so there’s a you know if they did make a windows-based
Handheld there’s a licensing hurdle to overcome that um and if they make an Xbox based handheld then there’s a there’s a lot of technical hurdles to aracon there so there’s no perfect solution um or no easy path forward for Microsoft to make this happen I think but I think they
Have to make it happen because like Phil said um console sales are flat um more and more people are mobile and you know people people our age a lot of people our age are having kids which means TV time is you know split uh between spouses or children who want to watch
YouTube kids and skibbidy toilet on repeat or whatever whatever kids do these days um or maybe kids want to play Roblox on the TV or whatever so you know and a lot of a lot of kids have grown up with handhelds as their you know primary
Mode of gaming and I’m not even talking about Nintendo switch I’m talking about stuff like the iPad which you know um again kids growing up with touch as their you know modus of you know gaming input um they’re used to this kind of form factor so I think when Microsoft is
Thinking about new to Xbox which is like it’s a stat they track you know um they call it ntx internally I think which literally means new to Xbox um and it’s it’s a really important metric for them because obviously you know uh generationally if you are if
Your plan is to keep Xbox going for not just years but decades into the future you have to be thinking about gen Z and then gen Alpha as well and whatever they call the the Gen after that you know I like the fact they they got to gen Z and
They’ve just gone all the way back to I again we restart we restart so J after that be gen beta or something I I don’t know I don’t know the Greek letters but or whatever that is is it is it math numbers I don’t know I just I just my
Brain started like going back to is this is this is this like trigonometry tree or something I just my brain’s just casting back to high school math or something but um but yeah I think they they do have to make a handheld they need to try new things Innovative things um Windows
Needs to be fixed for the oems um steam deck is a disruptor you know the steam valves building a console platform and it is a console I mean people say no it’s a PC but is it though nobody boo boots that thing into Linux nobody nobody boots that thing into
Linux you can Tinker with it but you can also put an Xbox in Dev mode and do do similar things with Xbox does that make Xbox and PC not really you know um so like valves building a console platform that has both PlayStation and Xbox exclusives they’ve kind of slipped in
The back door and sort of taken both Sony and Microsoft by surprise so I do think Microsoft needs to be in this space and you know Nintendo kudos to Nintendo they they they thoroughly cornered that market and made it their own and um and everyone’s kind of
Playing catch up now I saw like the switch 2 is going to be really exciting device as well to watching this space I’m really excited about handhelds really really bullish on it Rand are you feeling the same way on handhelds I would like to say that I am
But I’m not Mike okay I have a lot of friends that are very much into the handheld life um but maybe it’s because I I don’t have any kids I’m not fighting for any time on whatever I I’m not like I I’ve never really been a mobile gamer
If I want to play something I’ll plot my my my butt in front of my you know my Ola television and play that way I do understand why people want them though right I’m not saying Xbox shouldn’t make them I think they should because I think there’s a segment of the audience that
Definitely is clamoring for on the go gaming especially with the Resurgence that it seems like the switch and the steam deck has brought to uh handheld devices now I was a little bit worried with Microsoft being you know the cloud gaming like oh you can play your games
On the phone but the phone’s not really a great place to play especially with touch controls and they have like the back you know some of those like backbones and some of those things you can put onto your phone but never really felt like the phone was a great place to
Play a lot of those titles but now you’re in this yeah but now you a dedicated gaming device people love the switch people love the steam people love the steam deck right and it’s more it’s an extension of the ecosystem so yeah if they make one a a lot of Xbox fans will
Be happy they’ll be able to take their library on the go access Game Pass and who knows what else I mean uh it’s just you know I just sort of Wonder like how big is a mark is the market for a Xbox handheld device you know Phil talked
About new users if you put out an Xbox hand handheld is that going to appeal to people that normally wouldn’t look at Xbox in any way that’s not interested in an Xbox console would they suddenly be interested in an Xbox handheld and that’s a question that you
Know they would have to ask themselves and maybe we’ll eventually find out because I think jez reported that uh you know on on the Xbox 2 on this past week uh they are prototyping what was your report jez so I don’t say wrong because I know like
Tom Henderson kind of yeah I I didn’t put it in an article CU you know I I kind of feel like they of course they are they’re always prototyping stuff um and prototypes don’t necessarily mean uh products you know but yeah they are they do have a new wave of handheld
Prototypes um I’ve been told a very very good source um indeed very good source that they do have a new way of hand out Pro ypes theyve they had handh old prototypes going all the way back to the Xbox one gen though um the surface team
Put one together and the surface team is working very closely with Xbox these days um I saw some reports that surface team had totally taken over Xbox Hardware development that’s not true uh Jason Ronald is still you know leading the charge there and um and uh but they
They do work in tandem because obviously surface has a lot of of experience cramming uh PC Hardware into form factors that frankly yeah there you go just surface laptop Studio I love I love that damn thing it’s a lovely drawing thank you it’s me who is that it’s me you just been drawing
Yourself yeah I I really want I really wanted a laptop Studio man um but I kind of feel like these devices need like an air conditioned environment cuz they do get quite hot right um but but yeah they they really know their stuff and you
Know um but this this is the thing with PC PC gaming like this this is a PC right this is you see it here and I I use this mostly for travel um because I do a lot of travel in my job like I’m going to Poland soon for a studio visit
And obviously I’ll take my Legion go with me but every time I turn it on there’s like a million updates I have to do um which you know on on my lovely Xbox which is constantly in standby mode it’s constantly updating it’s constantly ready to go so there’s like I mean
That’s just like one simple pain point of this but there’s like all sorts of other tweaks I’ve had to do like I’ve had to tweak the the Wi-Fi driver to make sure it defaults to 5 GHz I’ve had to you know install Play night which gives you a better bigger interface for
Accessing your games with the controller there’s all sorts of things and then like like you have to like manually manage the wattage on the CPU like if you’re playing like a 2d game it’s like I can I can tweak the TDP here to get more battery life out of it um
You know and you have to know and be familiar with PC gaming in general to get the most out of these devices and I think what what like you don’t have to do that to the same degree with a Nintendo switch it’s it just works you know and I think that’s what Microsoft
Really needs here they need a handheld Xbox not a window device leave that to Asus leave that to Lenovo support them and make it better for them and you know those can be the high-end PC handheld devices but what I really want to see I
Want to see a handheld that runs my Xbox Library which means the Xbox operating system and also it’s simple and easy to use and it just works when I turn it on I don’t have to tweak drivers I don’t have to dig into control panel and try
And Fiddle around with its tiny little interface which was the last time it was updated was 1998 or something like that you know I don’t I don’t want to have to deal with any of that stuff um I will do it because I like the device but I feel
Like most people won’t want to do that so um we’ll see where where they go with it you know who really wants one of these Mike who wants one Paris yeah I know I know I was talking to other dad he wants it he he he is going he’s
Making the push on social media for them to make and I get it like it would be a great device for people that are in the Xbox ecosystem that have tons of games on there you take it on the go you’re going to packs you’re going to
GDC right it’s just like hey uh my wife’s watching the TV I’m going to take it to go to bed or whatever um yeah so very much like the banjo Bros you know with the new banjo game even though I’m not interested in it I do want my banjo
Bros to get their Ango game so I do want my Xbox handheld Bros to be able to experience and have a dedicated Xbox handheld device I do think it would be cool I just there’s a part of me that wonders um how big is that addressable
Market like is it going to make people who wouldn’t give Xbox a second chance to suddenly be like you know what the handheld is what does it for me now I’m going to buy one now I’m going to invest into it because Nintendo is they they run that market
They run that the you know the handheld Market is it so you know and it’s steam what we’re doing with the the steam deck people seem to love that but I’m not sure like it’s not like the steam deck is blowing everything out of the water
When it comes to uh you know sales of that so I’m just there’s just that’s what I think of is like are PE is this is this the what’s going to get outside of great games because I think that’s what it is is like great you know experiences is the handheld going to
Deliver more new customers into the Xbox ecosystem maybe it will maybe it won’t but I I still I still want my friends to get to get their Hands-On one because I think I I do think it would be a cool device and that’s a point that I hang on
Right there I think you hit it so well and you and jez brought up so many things that were that I feel and I want to talk about but there is that feeling of like well if the quote is we want to find new players making a dedicated Xbox
Only handheld doesn’t feel like you’re finding new players it feels like you’re like adding on to something and giving me a new opportunity to go out I’m sure that might attract new players but is that going to really push the needle Rand and that’s the one part that I’m
Interested in because later on in this super long interview we talk about fill in the idea of like the open market and tearing down these walls and allowing possibly epic game store and other game fronts being sold on your console Marketplace and I think that’s where
It’s got to be Rand like as much as I want a dedicated Xbox handheld and I will be there day one and as jez said I love the entitlements now feeling like oh whenever I buy an Xbox game now it’s on you know my PC Xbox it’s on my Xbox
Console and on this mobile device that’s a big win for me I think that’s where I struggled with the steam deck of oh now I’m playing this weird I’m buying games on Steam but also I buy a lot of games on Xbox but like now I got to pick and
Choose and I’m choosing where I play and when I play and how much money I’m putting in but from a consumer standpoint I kind of want a mobile device to be able to play anything and buy anything off of anywhere and I I worry that I don’t know
If it would attract a larger market saying well it’s Xbox only right like for me as an Xbox player yeah but if I have if I want to buy games on Steam or the epic game store does that really attract more people you know what I mean
Jez I think I think Xbox game pass does a lot of heavy lifting there um and obviously like the rag Ally and Lenovo Legion go they both have these Game Pass marketing deals like Microsoft’s Windows Monopoly gives them a lot of Leverage in that space I think like whenever you see
An Isis rug Ally ad or Novo Legion go ad and I’ve seen them on rdit and on on the web that they always have a Game Pass logo on them every single time and I think both these devices come with three-month Game Pass trials when you
Buy them new um so I do think Game Pass does some heavy lifing there for for the um for these devices and you know Microsoft can bundle them with Game Pass and and you know for people who are like a dedicated um you know a dedicated uh PC
Player or a dedicated um uh Playstation player especially I think this could be a good you know Gateway device into PC game uh into Game Pass if it’s dockable to the TV as well they could be like well I got my PlayStation for my my Banger exclusives and my you know my
PlayStation um ecosystem but then I’ve got my Nifty little handheld for for you know the the game pass stuff but it has to be appropriately priced for that Universe I think so like and because and again like if this does run full windows and if it can run third party
Storefronts I kind of feel like um it’s the hardware is less subsidized in that scenario like if it is just Xbox only then it’s a it’s the it’s subsidized by the ecosystem because like all the games and microtransactions being sold are giving Microsoft a cut whereas if like
You buy the handheld and um uh you go off and install Steam um there’s zero profit for Microsoft in that scenario um on the hardware front you know uh assuming they sell it at Cost which means they wouldn’t if it did run four windows in order to run these
Storefronts then they would have to price it higher in order to make a profit on the hardware there has to be some profit somewhere you know but at the same time in those polygon interviews from GDC Phil was talking about being in a world where you could
Run epic games store on Xbox or Steam on Xbox and I’ve been told in the past that um you know even though like uh you know steam does take uh I can’t remember exactly what the cut is um is it 20% now or something like that 30% something
Like that in Epic Games takes 12% or something slide it slides Up and Down based on how big your company is I think but um whatever the cut is like um I was told and this is something not a lot of people think about but I was told like
Even though like people always talk about how like when Xbox is running its own store um they they don’t have to pay don’t have to pay a steam or an apple or a Google or an epic a cut right but they kind of have to pay themselves a cut or
They lose a cut to themselves because there’s overheads in running your own platform you have to pay bandwidth costs you have to pay server costs support team costs Engineers all that kind of stuff so like when you’re factoring the overheads of running your own platform you end up in a situation where actually
It’s almost it’s almost equal to just letting steam deal with all that [ __ ] you know or it’s almost equal not not quite but it’s it’s like it’s getting there right so you know these days it’s kind of like um we’re just moving into a different kind of ERA with
With regards to you know having new content on every on every platform possible to make the most money possible and that kind of feeds into the the whole multiplatform discussion and that kind of stuff um but I think that’s really what Phil Phil was talking about is like if people already have their
Digital libraries on Steam digital libr on the epic game store really what you’re doing is you’re providing Hardware to be a gateway to your content no matter where you are and Microsoft has to try and figure out how to live in that world and I mean frankly they
Already do because they own Windows which is the W the window to that world you know that’s where I get you know my mind goes to like a Microsoft gaming tablet or whatever you want to call it right like you drop the Xbox term and it is the Microsoft handheld I guess goes
To my mind cuz yeah like we talked about it it is interesting of what you would allow on that is it Xbox only you brought up some great points of like I need this to be able to be docked I I know Phil talked about the things he
Liked right like I wanted to boot up with a controller I want it to feel controller first almost almost but also be handheld I want it to be docked I need it to be able to download X amount of games and run them because I’m not
Always in Wi-Fi I don’t feel like I can always utilize the cloud at all times and so there’s like a number of lists that it’s got to have and then at the same time I think the business side that we all talked about is how do you
Attract new players and does this excite someone that’s not in the Xbox ecosystem to go I’m GNA buy this and now I’m going to be semi- ingrained in your ecosystem buying games it will be very fun I guess my question for the both of you as we
Kind of move past this one is do you expect this this holiday do you expect this next Generation we always now we have seen Xbox come out with two SKS to start off a generation with the Xbox series s and X do we expect this to be a
Midgen refresh next to something or do you think next Generation it might be hey here’s the biggest and the baddest and here’s a mobile game device instead of the Xbox series s Randal Thor I mean well now we need to determine like when’s next gen starting right because
It’s like is it 2028 as as per the leaks that we had seen that Microsoft mistakenly uploaded last year where it pointed to okay nextg starting in 2028 or the current rumors of nextg starting in 2026 right um I’m of the belief although I don’t know um my like perfect
Scenario when I look at it is like okay we’re going to start in 2026 we have two offerings we have our console which is going to do X Y and Z it’s the successor to the Xbox series X and essentially the successor to the series us s is is this
Handheld so you’re rocking in the Next Generation with you know a new console and a new handheld and you got the games to support it and all that stuff and you kind of just see what happens um I don’t know if jez feels the same uh I think
He’s coming around in my way way of thinking because I think before he was very much it’s going to be two consoles in a handheld but I think he might have revised that line of thinking what do you think jez yeah I I I kind of thought like what
You what I kind of imagined that the the handheld would probably be more expensive than a series s so like if you if you got a 399 Series S or 299 sorry and then a 499 Xbox series X you kind of need an upgrade path for both of those
Systems right um and I was thinking like the handheld would probably be probably be 3.99 maybe something like that so like that could sit in the middle um because like if we you know comparing it to what the steamex price is roughly um but like I’ve kind of been hinted
That that that probably would be the case like what Rand was saying is that it’ be the Xbox series s the upgrade path for the Xbox series s would be uh the handheld with the dock maybe and all that kind of stuff and then um ideally
There would be a higher end system that would just sit underneath your TV or upright next to your TV as the case may be that would be the the you know the highend option um I do think that I do think they’ll do two SKS again um I
Think that works pretty well for them um having having having a system that you know and I know the the series s gets a lot of criticism you know but I think having a system that is super accessible has helped Xbox reach new new audiences and this is probably why they’re they’re
Even thinking about doing a Handel in the first place you know but I think like the fact that um you know if ideally and this is kind of what um the YouTuber Forks was talking about you Forks is like a really great uh gaming handheld oriented
YouTuber and he does a lot of he does a lot of analysis on the technology with regards to this stuff and he makes a great point that like even though the series X Series S sorry is criticized heavily today of being a pain point for devs if they did make a handheld skew
That was that directly mirrored the series s then they’d have thousands of games already optimized for that system I don’t know if that’s possible I don’t know if that’s feasible I don’t know if that’s doable with the current technology we have I don’t know if like
Um it’ll have to be a completely new chip chip set I imagine it probably would be which might exclude the series s uh end point and require entire new you know development to make those games run and a handheld but I would hope that wouldn’t be the case um because that
Would you know that would really justify it would be the perfect justification for the series s to have ever existed in the first place is that okay like and all these devs will just be suddenly like oh great we we don’t have to do any extra work to get these games running on
This sort of lower end system because you know handhelds would have to make kind of compromises that A PS5 Pro or Xbox series X2 or or p PlayStation 6 wouldn’t have to make so yeah I I really do like that idea of the handheld Series
S it kind of is the dream you know that’s what Phil Spencer said you know it’s the dream right I can’t believe how well Dragons Dogma 2 runs on the sus oh really good good shout out right there runs well that’s great heck yeah yeah it runs really I mean you know it
It doesn’t look pretty you know but it it’s sort of like because it’s such a demanding game you would you would expect that it would struggle on the series s but like the series s still has you know the better CPU so it’s still it still performs you know albe it a bit
Blurry you know but it wouldn’t the blur wouldn’t matter so much if it was on a handheld because the screen would be squashed anyway and it end up looking sharper but there’s all kinds of AI things they can do now as well like upscaling machine learning uh frame
Generation even a lot of people use like this um lossless scaling app to uh generate frames on these handheld devices now and God knows what else there’s all sorts of Technology coming down the pipeline that could improve the experience here but yeah super excited man I’m super excited about this this
Whole rumor which is so as of so far completely unsubstantiated that’s the exciting one for me I’m right there with you guys as I think next Generation as we talked about with the Xbox series s it’s been the Trojan Horse into many people’s lives and you know living rooms of hey
Here’s a cheaper option hey this is that secondary console maybe it’s your fir your kid’s first console buy this at a cheaper rate Try It Out game pass but I think if you could do a handheld with a docked situation that would be a major win to be the second option there that’s
Possibly a little bit cheaper than the big box you have that hey you all loved the Nintendo switch and that’s not going anywhere what if we made something similar with the same options I I think that’s a major win for Xbox and I hope
We see that cuz it does sound fun to me but guys I only have a few for a little more time so I want to hit a couple of quick topics with you guys all right one Toys for Bob has gone independent my good friend jez Cordon has a nice little
Exclusive that Toys for Bob has teamed up with Microsoft and Xbox they are now you know being helped to make another game I think that’s pretty awesome jezz and Rand is there a dream game from Toys for Bob that is an independent game but now partnership with Xbox that you would
Love to see from them well um oh do you want to go around well I was just gonna say I know I know what Paris is gonna say you know what if he were here he’d be like put him on Banjo right right away right away I Um I you know what I’ll I’ll say if if we’re working in the confines of existing IPS that either Activision or Xbox or Bethesda has and I’m assuming it’ll be to Toys for Bob strength which is Platformers essentially in in that vein why not go with the new Spyro right
They did they did the Remake a few years back we haven’t seen like Spyro whatever the next one be like four right cuz they they did the banjo or they did the crash remakes and then they did crash 4 and then they were kind of like okay
We’re in the Call of Duty uh Machinery now right so I was like all right yeah you know it’s Spyro why don’t like a like a brand new Spyro built from the ground up I could go for that I used to really like Spyro so that would be my
Pick would be would be uh along that line not that’s something like I know people like new IP and that’s all fine and good but um I think Spyro deserves his you know his day in the sun again Jaz do you have a different uh opinion you want to see something else
Well I want to give a shout out to uh what’s his name is it Canadian I I can never remember people’s names Canadian guy on on YouTube who actually put a report up today saying that um yeah Canadian guy a yeah that’s a good name
That’s a good name that’s uh uh uh he’s put up a report on YouTube and he’s a he’s a big crash Spyro banjo YouTuber U and this is a very passionate fan base these these like I feel like I was slightly too old to to get into these
Games but there this seems like the there there’s been like there’s a specific age group with that this game these games like banjo Spyro crash really captured and there’s still his passionate fan base for these like these toys for these IPS that now Toys for Bob Stewarts obviously you know crash was
Originally um naughty dog and was Spyro originally insomniac I think or something like that um it’s it’s kind of funny I like these games have all ended up under Microsoft you know CU obviously they didn’t own banjo Spyro or crash originally um but but uh yeah he’s put
Up a report Canadian G on YouTube that Spyro 4 is the game that Toys for Bob is working on and um you know when Toys for Bob announced that they were spinning off and were becoming independent they did uh note in the um in their update at the end they said
Keep your horns on which kind of felt like a little bit of a tease for Spyro you know there’s been rumors of a new Spyro game for a really long time um and but obviously like Toys for Bob were they were in the Call of Duty Co mines
Which is you know what people call them um you know forced to make assets for Call of Duty especially during covid when all the offices closed up and it was sort of like all hands on deck we’ve got to save Call of Duty you know so like every single Studio ended up being
Put on Call of Duty and um now toys forab like I was told that toys forab never really fit into that role and it’s it’s not what they they wanted for their studio for their teams and you know you got to imagine it was it was like a sort
Of not fun you know and then like um they made the crash the crash um multiplayer game which was sort of you know underbaked and it was it was doomed to never Lo to never you know do anything but that really needed was to be making games that they’re good at
Making like like you new crash a new Spyro that kind of thing but I don’t think they would ever have been able to do that as part of the Activision sphere and it looks like Microsoft gave them o opportunity to take the same route that Twisted Twisted pixel did in yester year
And and go independent so um for me I’m not really into these kind of games and like I say I was maybe slightly too old to be captured by that z ghost or or something but um like ran says I’m all you know all for the banjo Bros and I
Love to see toys for Bob find success with Game Pass and for these games to find success with Game Pass and maybe maybe Spyro is their next game but maybe banjo is the one after that and maybe crash is the one after that and you know
We can you know these games can find their audiences again I I know a lot of people were hoping that they might bring Skylanders back too you know and I did Phil called out Skylanders in some of the interviews running up to ABK which you know had some people excited but
We’ll see what happens hopefully it’s the start of a really beautiful long running partnership similarly to what Microsoft has with some of the second parties like1 in the UK work on a ton of Microsoft games and Microsoft franchises um without being part of Microsoft and also you know certain Affinity working
On Halo even though they’re independent and stuff like that so hopefully this can be like the start of something really great and we’ll see a lot of cool stuff oh man I mean first off it’s awesome to hear that Toys R Bob is getting the partnership and like staying
Alive right like you said they became a cog in the wheel on supporting Call of Duty and it was like man that’s a talented team that was making games that I loved and is sad to see that we’re not getting that so I love you know I don’t
Want them to go independent because I wish they were part of Microsoft but it is nice that they have the partnership we’re probably going to see the benefits of that and hopefully it is enough to keep them going and making another game after whatever this game is is really
What matters to me that’s awesome and you bring up Skylanders a man all the Xbox characters as Skylander toys would be so awesome holy cow that would be actually kind of cool so we’ll see about that but if it is Spyro for I think some people are going to be pretty jazzed up
Guys I got two more for you before we go this one came out from Pure xbox.com one of the best friends linked this one to me and said Mike did you see this uh this comes from Ben KY over at pure Xbox that writes major game maker reportedly questioning Xbox support amidst failing
Or falling sales the article quickly reads some gaming companies are starting to question whether it’s worth for them to continue supporting Xbox consoles a new comment from Game industry. biz’s Chris drings con uh concludes appearing on another episode of the outlets microcast dring spoke about GDC 2024 and
Some of the discussions about Xbox that had cropped up at the conference dring says that multiple game makers included quote one major company end quote are being beginning to question why the team bothers porting to Xbox here’s the phrase coming from part of the interview of course they’re snipping out part of
Whatever this is so maybe it’s out of context but I’ll read it to you and ask these two dudes what they think quote the phrase one major company who released a big game last year said I don’t know why we bothered supporting it meaning Xbox end quote jez what’s up
With that is that really what people think about bringing their games to Xbox you think well you know I I’ve had some conversations about these quotes and it’s like you know it’s it’s interesting the way these things get framed it’s like if one person one publisher said oh
We don’t know why we did this you know and it’s it’s it’s kind of like well you know who is there an agenda here and all this kind of stuff because the there’s a few things that I know to be true and one of them is January was the highest
Playtime hours in Xbox history and P world had some you know in that of course it did but it’s like people always say like Xbox was doing better during the 360 G it’s just it’s just not true it’s better Xbox is bigger now than it’s ever been it’s got more users than
It’s ever had and this is console and people always say well you’re talking about PC and and Cloud it’s like no it’s it’s console Xbox has more users on Console today than it’s ever ever had and these are the these are comments that Sati and Adelis shares with SH
Shareholders during investor calls and stuff like that where you know it’s it’s illegal to lie you know so you know uh the the idea that Publishers are sort of you know talking about this kind of stuff I don’t think it’s necessarily reflective of Xbox I think it’s just
It’s part of it’s probably reflective of the whole industry and you know these these so-called black hole games where people get sucked into a single game and that’s all they ever play we were talking earlier about how like OverWatch is pretty much the only multiplayer shooter I still play like I won’t even
Bother you know trying out Call of Duty anymore cuz I I don’t know what it is about that kind of stuff it’s it’s almost like it takes extra effort to learn a new game when I’m just like I’m just so tired you know um and when at
The end of the day this is like I’ll just play what I’m familiar with right if I’m you know obviously it’s different when it comes to single player games for me cuz um you know you don’t have to you don’t have to reload learn everything and if you’re playing
Competitively um you know it can be it can be kind of frustrating to be like Oh I’m really great at OverWatch and then you go and play Call of Duty and it’s like oh well I’m terrible at Call of Duty I’ll just go back and play OverWatch where I can actually win you
Know and I’m sure it’s like other games like fortnite are taking up so much time and and um and so many players away from people that it’s it’s hard for maybe some smaller games especially like cookie C games to sort of cut through that um I can imagine like uh a Ubisoft
For example I can imagine them saying like you know maybe it was pointless for us to P um you know one of their one of their games to Xbox like which are pretty much um like Avatar or whatever it was called and some of these other games which sort of probably had big
Budgets and big teams but it probably didn’t sell you know we heard rumors that the Prince of Persia game didn’t sell in general you know um and I don’t I don’t know why that is it’s is it an issue with marketing is it an issue with um you the way ubisoft’s viewed these
Days and you know I’m just using Ubisoft an example of course I don’t know which publisher supposedly made these comments but you have to look at the the developers that are actively supporting Xbox and that is the vast majority of them you know there are there are certain games which skip the platform
I’m I’m kind of salty about monst stories right now skipping Xbox you know um but it’s like it’s like less than 1% of the the big games are skipping Xbox really it’s just we we hear about them every now and then but it’s the vast majority of big AAA games are still
Releasing on Xbox and it’s like well why are they it’s not it’s not because that it’s unprofitable to do so clearly it is profitable to do so or they wouldn’t be doing it um I also you know uh this same interview um they also said that Xbox is
Deemphasizing Xbox game pass but I know that I know for a fact that isn’t true either um I’ve been told that this year Microsoft will spend more than ever on third-party content deals for Xbox game pass that certainly doesn’t sound like the emphasis to me also they just
Announced most of keyboard support for Xbox cloud gaming which of course you need Xbox game pass 4 again that does not sound like the emphasis to me so um because like I said most Publishers are there every day and until we start seeing like big AAA games start skipping
The platform you know like a Ubisoft game or like an EA game or something like that then I think then I think that’s it’s a story but these sort of rumors and these comments and they sort of like I heard this and I heard that you know it’s just it’s just more fodder
For the discussions and the the forums and the comments and all that kind of stuff I don’t really take any of it seriously personally I don’t know if Rand feels any differently well I mean it hearing a comment like that is a bit concerning as someone who primarily
Plays on Xbox and has seen Game skip the platform granted the game skip the platform that have skipped the platform aren’t games that I’m particularly interested in but as I’ve always said you don’t want games skipping your platform because it’s a bad look right games might skip the switch because the
Switch may not be able to run it it’s a technical reason why they’re not there or but you never hear really about like games uh skipping PlayStation or PC just doesn’t happen so to hear this comment on top of like the recent talk mik of Xbox exploring bringing more of their
Games to other platforms you know a third party could be like H why are we even supporting this Microsoft’s not even supporting it like and I think this is also off the back of the dire report of Xbox’s console sales being down 47% in Europe for the month of February uh which is
Not good so there could be you know uh Publishers or developers who whose primary uh Market is the European market where Xbox definitely seems to be uh you know lagging it behind where if you are someone who’s like hey you know we’re thinking about supporting you but you don’t got a lot
Of consoles in there and people aren’t you know yeah we’re not going to really support it so it is it is concerning when I hear stuff like that um I mean I I you know I had this conversation with jez offline about about these particular con it’s just one of those things that
Makes me raise my eyebrow and I’m just like hopefully Xbox heard this and they can get to the bottom of it because what we don’t want Mike is a situation where a big publisher like Ubisoft or take 2 or Capcom uh Square even you know even though the Final Fantasy remakes rebirth
Aren’t on Xbox yet uh it seems like that’s changing at least with like moving forward with 14 and maybe even 16 being rumored you don’t want to be in a situation where like suddenly a publisher deems your platform not like worthy of supporting because that would that would be awful uh so
But yeah you never can discount agendas um like whoever told uh Christopher during that maybe that person has an agenda and he’s essentially spoiling the you know uh the water and essentially telling him something that you know he wants to that’s in the book being like Oh my game
Didn’t sell it’s Xbox’s fault you know I I don’t know I it’s just I I do kind of there’s a part of me that that does worry uh about this stuff um but we’ll just have to wait and see you know I don’t I don’t know how do you
Feel Mike I no well said from both of you and I I I like what jez brought up and I actually really like what you brought up there Rand is you if we bring in the realities of it all right we’re talking about the third place console
Maker out of the three of them right and so yeah I guess you could look at it with some trepidation of like well you’re in third place how much are we really going to sell out of that and also my mind kind of goes to the game
Passad I think jez brought up a good one of like middling games that like we see just kind of come and go so fast on Xbox and like if you aren’t on Game Pass you usually just kind of get left behind because it’s tough to look at jez and
Random be like hey here’s this like middle of the road game and we should buy it for $40 each and we’re going to play it one day right like it is very tough for those games probably to breathe and maybe even show that they’re better than being in the middle right
There a lot of success stories come from Game Pass nowaday days but it does it to me it doesn’t seem right cuz if we were running a business I would say we got to put our game everywhere I want the most console or most game sales possible so
We’re going everywhere but I also don’t know the cost of porting it and creating it and making sure it comes to this and I’m sure there is a conversation in everyone’s world of like hey like do we need to be at this place if the console
Sales aren’t making the mark and we know we’re only going to make X because we’re competing with Game Pass and they only have so many when we could just go over here and focus all of our time and maybe limited budget like I do think that is a
Reality I’m sure people have but for me personally Rand I I think when I think business Mike it’s no we put the game everywhere and we hope that we can get as many sales as possible I I’m sure I’m probably in the wrong on that but that
That’s where my mind goes je and rant yeah no that’s that’s a good way to look at it be like yeah you would figure you’d want your game everywhere and you know we’ve seen games skip mostly Japanese content tends to skip Xbox presumably and I don’t know the reasons
Why but I would guess because the user base on XBox doesn’t really purchase that type of content so for those developers and Publishers it’s not worth the investment but then that’s kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy of like well how do you build up an audience on Xbox
To enjoy that content if that content never comes to Xbox so you can build the audience there but then some people would say that’s on Xbox that’s on Phil that’s on met booty that’s on Sarah Bond that’s on them to solve not on the Square enix’s or the Capcom of the world
They’re just going to do what’s best for them it’s on Xbox as a platform to uh you know to to basically build that audience and they’ve trying to right like we got the Yakuza games on Xbox which I never thought would happen the Persona games on Xbox they’re trying to
Build that audience it’s going to take time uh but at the end of the day some of the developers might look at that and be like it’s still not worth it we’ll we we’ll we’ll you know like imagine in in 10 years and maybe it’s a downside of Game Pass Mike
Because Game Pass is great it allows people to you know play a lot of games you know for not a lot of money but also it has that that has that I uh kind of what you mentioned where like maybe a developer or a publisher is looking at like you
Know what we’ll bring it to Xbox if they drop the bag for Game Pass but if they don’t we’re not bringing it and maybe that’s I look at moners I look at mon of stories and I think exactly that yeah because Capcom Capcom brought EXO Primal via Game Pass they’re bringing path of
The Goddess VI ex by via Game Pass and I kind of feel like they’ve they’ve they’ve decided monsant to stories isn’t worth bringing unless they get it in there via Game Pass I mean I’ve heard that I one thing I have heard is that some Publishers are a little nervous
About the the volume of first party content that they will have to compete with to get their games seen on Xbox you know and you know there are like these these games which do hit Game Pass like power world which absolutely blow up and they Pro like any game that was trying to
Launch against power world in January probably got completely buried you know but this is this is the nature of competition in the C in a creative industry you know like it’s similarly on Playstation like you wouldn’t want to launch your your um your your uh your
Action game um against the God of War sequel you know for example you know um so it’s just I don’t know who do you blame if a game doesn’t work out and stuff it will be very interesting to see the future there is so much going into all the games industry and especially
Here with Microsoft and Xbox of it is kind of a wait and see where will we go where will we be it is exciting to be in third place with the team and like now they’re making moves to hopefully put them higher up but where do those moves
Take us I cannot wait but we do have to wait and see boys which is too bad because I wish I could wait and see with you guys all day long but I got to get Jazz to bed I got to tell Rand goodbye and so guys let’s end the episode let’s
Say goodbye to you to but of course the Xbox 2 podcast is very meaningful and special to me you guys are my weekly routine you guys helped me grow to who I am and and I I owe a lot to you guys so I’m always blessed to be able to spend
Time with you let’s talk with the audience out there where can they find you and most importantly Rand how can they support the Xbox 2 podcast because I think you got some cool stuff yeah so I mean if you haven’t uh checked out you know uh our podcast Xbox 2 that is held
Every Friday on my YouTube channel youtube.com/ Randle thor9 uh usually Fridays at around 2 p.m. Central Time noon Pacific uh like what is it 8 8:00 UK we also put it up on Spotify iTunes all the all the places you can listen um you know uh if you want to go the extra
Link to support us there’s always patreon.com xb2 where we offer like uh people can ask you know ask questions we answer at the end of the show and get exclusive access to uh you know some of the other podcasts that we do me and Jaz
Do Xbox 2 ultimate which is just me and him and then we we do another show called Xbox 2 plus one which I gotta get you on at some point Mike where it just me and Jazz and a guest talking about you know the industry uh but yeah you know it was
Um that’s that’s kind of where you can support us and check us out but Mike thank you so much for having us on um I can’t believe an hour and a half has already flown by kind of crazy by you guys are my dudes Randal thor9 you know
That jez where can everybody find you how can they support the team over at Windows Central gaming yeah uh you can find me on Twitter jjz CDN and also on Xbox 2 podcast xb2 on Spotify on patreon XB in the number two and all that stuff and also on Windows central.com gaming and
Uh yeah this has been an awesome show man these two I know the kind of funny best friend audience and all of the Xbox Community has rallied behind you too and listen to the podcast so thank you both for filling in for my two gaming dads we
Will be back next week we’ll have Paris and Jeff grub on the show so until then we’ll see you later goodbye gamers
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