The Asus ROG Xbox Ally X (Really?!) + Switch 2 | OTC Ep 34

Welcome back to off the console the hottest new podcast that's all about gaming tech news and anything nerdy this week.

We're covering the biggest news which includes Xbox coming out with their own handheld kind of switch to released with horrible results wait No, we'll find out I think it did

pretty well and then also we have a lot of other good news from the multiple events that are going on

this month

there's a lot going on right now.

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Okay, with me today is Hi Tech.

Yes, hello.

So, Hi Tech, what have you been doing this week?

What have you been playing?

So, I've been playing a bunch of Next Fest demos.

There are quite a few, and I think it's best if we save that topic for later.

Aside from that though, I've been playing Mario Kart 8, I mean not 8, Mario Kart World.

I mean, it's a pretty good game, but I don't know if I'd say it's a $80 pretty good game.

It's $79.99, so it's $80.

I'm sorry.

Like, here's the thing.

Mario games are like Nintendo games are fun.

Like first party like Mario and all that.

Like the only game I'd probably be willing to pay that much money for is Luigi's Mansion 4.

If it's truly good enough.

Like Luigi's Mansion 3 was awesome.

But

Mansion 4.

Honestly, man, I've only ever played the first one.

Three is really fun and it's something I'd really have a lot of fun with.

my my wife, Suzy loves it.

My kids like it like it's a fun game.

I really like the spookiness to it, but I'm not here for the seventy nine dollar price for those types of games like for Nintendo games.

So.

just Nintendo games, all AAA games in the future.

Have you seen the price for The Outer Worlds 2?

No I didn't so is it that?

Is it?

bucks.

I mean, I'd probably buy it.

It's the same thing.

Like if I was a big Grand Theft Auto fan and it was $100, I'd pay $100 for it.

I've just had this stage in my life where I'll buy the games I really want and I'll just buy less of the other games I'm just not sure about.

It kind of sucks for, think, I don't know.

Inflation's a thing, we've talked about that.

$80 makes sense with inflation, but it is starting to edge into that.

There's other games.

that like Cyberpunk 2077, that's gonna be what $60 I think on, that's $60 on Switch 2, but it's also a four year old game.

But is a true.

Oh!

Let's say it, Cyberpunk Switch.

80, at least when I went to GameStop.

I know it's not 80, but I thought it was like 70 on Switch.

it's 70.

It's $10, $20 less, which, okay, it is a, you know, it's a three, four, five, whatever year old game, but it has so much content in it.

it's $70 on Switch, but it also comes with, you know, the DLC, so...

I mean, could kind of excuse it almost.

$10 being $10 more.

Yeah, I mean, there's a license fee that they also have to pay if they didn't have that then and then maybe they would have dropped it, but to down to 60.

But I don't know.

I go back and forth on this whole like, oh, games costing so much.

So.

You got to give me the value.

think that's what it comes down to.

You got to give me the value and I'll pay for it.

So.

Yeah, I'm not looking forward to the $80 gaming reality.

So, yeah.

So ga-

leaning it more, I think, into like, trying to review games so I can get them for free.

Yeah, so here's a real question though.

So I think I think GTA 6 is guaranteed to be $80 But do think they're gonna try to bump the price up to $100?

No, what I think they'll do is they'll do like the bare bones $80 and then they'll do some special edition or like the edition that probably everyone's going to want at 100.

Mmm, and then like a collector's edition at like 300 Like I don't

they could probably do a gold plated like desert eagle like a real one for thousand and people would buy that.

That does sound pretty cool.

ah

I guess.

Desert Eagles have a big impact though, meaning like they're, they're.

one, because I'm pretty sure desert eagles are more expensive than that.

Like, an actual functional one.

But it's but they made so much money off this.

It doesn't matter, does it?

They could they could make like a hundred of those special editions and just like charge a thousand.

a hundred of those and like scalpers get 99 of them and content creators get like get like one as well all the content all the big gta content creators whoever they are

I don't know, handing out real weapons like that doesn't sound like good idea.

They're not gonna hand- Come on, dude.

They're not gonna hand out real-

going to, but you never know.

They like their spicy marketing, so...

Yeah, they'll probably hand out a realistic one that's made out of metal and shit but it's non-functional and it has that orange prerequisite tip where the barrel would go.

Like you kinda have to have on like airsoft and stuff.

Yeah, but what the way America is going like we're loosening up a lot of gun laws, so we'll see.

We'll see.

Speaking of loosening up, OK, I didn't.

There's no segue.

But what I've been doing this week is been playing Half Life Alex and Expedition 33.

I'm slowly getting through all of it while I'm working on my projects and Half Life Alex is so good.

There's so many people that just did not.

get to play that because it's VR.

Yeah, like me.

Yeah, I know is so good.

It visually.

It's just that the Valve knows what they're doing when they make a video game like that and they need to make more of them.

That.

Valve is very much an innovate, that they want to be an innovator in the games industry.

Otherwise we get shit like, remember Artifact?

Yeah, they are an innovator.

Like almost every game they come out with with a couple of duds is an innovative game in what and Half-Life Alex is one of those and I think the next Half-Life game will be too.

is that Valve is trying to figure out what that innovation is.

They're scared of success.

think Half-Life Alex helped with the success, meaning they didn't do a Gordon Freeman.

They did the Alex and I think it helped them like, okay, we can we can do this.

Gave them some confidence back because I read reports years ago that they've tried multiple times to do Half-Life 3 and people just got scared of the project and kind of

just and how Valve works is you kind of almost work on the project you want to work on and just not enough people want to work on that.

Yeah, if this were like a standard...

Yeah, if it were just like a standard gaming company where you had deadlines and shit, we'd probably be like to Half-Life 20 or some bullshit like that, right?

Half-Life 1 re- Half-Life 1 remake.

We do have a Half-Life 1 remake.

Half-Life 2 Remake.

I bet we'll have a Half-Life 2 remake by the next few years.

I'm kind of hoping the studio that did um Black Mesa, because they were acquired by Valve actually.

um I'm pretty sure they're, towards the end of their development, I think Valve just ended up either they're paying them like just full time as like a third party or I'm pretty sure

they acquired them, but they tend to do that right.

Yeah, but the problem is that lot of the guys they acquire just end up working on Dota.

Or CS.

think in this case, I think these are huge Half-Life fanboys and I bet you some of them are working.

Like, if they didn't acquire them, they'd probably grab some of them to work on Half-Life.

We know that there's a Half-Life X, so.

Dude, Half-Life X is such a cool name.

Do you think they're gonna actually call it that or is that just like an internal thing?

It could be internal because they just...

the number three has a lot of weight behind it.

If you see anything three, Valve mentioned anything.

Like, we're going to release this on the third week.

People will just freak out like, well, that's Half-Life 3 confirmed.

So they...

X would be a pretty sick name.

Add an X to anything like Mega Man X or like Malcolm X, it's just better.

Okay, Xbox Series X it is then.

I agree with you.

Alright, nevermind.

Nevermind.

You got me there.

I'm not no I'm not against it like Half-Life X sounds cool, but it should be something different than like you're playing as like a Vortigaunt or something, but okay Yeah, I've

been playing Half-Life Alex Expedition 33 still is amazing game, and I've just got done with the act one so act two is whole there's a lot that happens between those two and I'm

just taking my time on that game.

It's probably gonna take me

I'm probably going I don't know if I'm going to 100 % it but I'm probably going to spend like the you know, I don't know.

I think it what is it like a normally like a 20 30 hour game and probably end up 50 60.

So what I

some very interesting discussions about the parrying and dodging system, and then some people on Twitter were like, some big accounts on Twitter that typically don't talk about

JRPGs, they typically talk about shit like Rockstar games, like, this should be the standard moving forward for JRPGs, do you think that should be the case?

Do you think Persona 6 should have a dodging and parrying mechanic similar to E33?

I don't think there should be a standard in that way.

think that's stupid to have a standard.

The pairing system is, there needs to be some type of interactivity or some extra like, days of playing turn-based where it's very simple, where you strategize and just like,

okay, I know in a couple of turns I need to make sure I heal.

Strategizing like that is still here, but there needs to be some.

extra ways to either strategize or add game fun gameplay.

And I think expedition do a good job.

I don't think it should be the standard because it does.

I'll be honest, it gets a little annoying sometimes because with these types of games I like to especially if I'm just grinding, I'll watch something while I grind.

And if I have to parry, then that kind of kills that for me.

And it makes the gameplay after a while a little still if you keep on going after the same enemy.

So.

Makes sense, sense.

Yeah, so what's our first topic of the day, James?

Our first topic is something that I was right about kind of.

Xbox handheld, aka the ASUS ROG Xbox Ally and Ally X is coming out.

let me just say that is a horrible name for a product.

What the fuck?

The if it's a fake if you read the whole thing out for the ally X it's Asus ROG Xbox Ally X What the fuck?

it's okay.

I think it's fine, because you can just call it the Xbox Ally or the Xbox Ally X.

You don't need even say ROG anymore.

But it is frustrating.

So like with the Xbox Series X, that's worse, I think.

But I guess it tracks Xbox Ally X, okay.

It tracks with the naming convention that the Xbox does.

But yeah, so Microsoft and Asus have teamed up to attempt to take on the SteamOS hegemony.

with both a new, more powerful handheld and updates to Windows that promises to be better for gaming handhelds, the Fox, Retro Games Corps and then Linus Tech Tips and others have

had true hands-on experience with the device, but not us naturally because we are less than.

Wow.

believe you wrote that out that were less than, but yeah, I watched Linus play with it and it looks honestly, it looks interesting.

Yeah, I've seen the Fox's video as well as Retro Game Corps' video and it's a super interesting prospect seeing what appears to be a more optimized version of Windows because

as we all know Windows' greatest flaw is just how shit the interface is for controller use.

Yeah

It is, I don't know, I know that you and, like we saw leaks of this a few weeks ago, right?

And you and Gardner did not like the design at all.

I didn't mind it and I'm still here for it because it's I don't think it's gonna feel much different than a regular like even Steam Deck, but my biggest disappointment is that it's

a seven inch screen and not like an eight inch.

it looked like it should be a bigger screen.

Okay, like...

My issue with the design is that it's just ugly.

Like, I get it.

It probably looks more comfortable.

It probably is more comfortable.

I just don't like the handlebars on the side, okay?

I- that's all- It's also- it's also just like the, uh...

PlayStation Portal.

I don't like the design of that either, even though the handlebars are literally just like...

a dual-sense controller.

It just looks weird.

for a handheld.

weird.

I think it's partially because we're conditioned with different ideas of what a handheld looks like.

I think this is gonna be more comfortable than the ROG Alley, just the regular one.

It looks like it's gonna be like holding the Xbox.

I think you and Gardner, I don't know about Gardner, but I think you might get used to the way this looks in the future and it might not be as bad.

I think it's because it's just a weird new design.

but it looks more comfortable, I will say, than the ROG Alley.

The ROG Alley's comfortable.

It's not that, like this looks like you're just holding a controller.

And that's the plus of the PlayStation and this is that it's great to feel like you're at home with a, like if you're used to playing those devices, it's good to make sure that the

people that are gonna buy it are gonna feel at home with that Xbox controller style.

Steam Deck.

is pretty close to having it be like an Xbox controller, it has their own, like it feels great nonetheless, but like these look more ergonomic than Steam Deck even.

Yeah, the RG Ally X2...

I'm just gonna call it the Ally 2.

It's just something that way.

Yeah.

Yes, you probably should.

But do you have a screen of the specs?

Because I do want to talk about the specs of the two devices...

the two variants.

Yes.

are awesome.

see here.

I'm just going to make sure I get this.

have the ROG Xbox Allie X and ROG Xbox Allie.

A lot of the major spec differences come down to the processor, the memory, the included storage, which isn't super relevant, and uh some I.O.

ports, as well as the battery capacity.

they're calling it the Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme?

Come on.

Come on!

You had such a good thing!

really got to simplify all this shit because it like for us we can track it a little bit better and even I get a little mix like what's the Z2A what is this

So if you recall the leaks, they mentioned that the white one would have something similar to the Aerith, the Steam Deck APU.

So the speculation is that that one's going to be kind of similar to the Steam Deck, like maybe a little more performant probably, but similar to the Steam Deck in terms of like

performance or like layout, because it's RDNA2 based.

Yeah, don't get going.

I know what this one's going to be though.

We all know that the and it's the white one, which, know, if you like white, you're going to get a downgraded version.

ah This is going to be a streaming device.

The ROG Xbox Ally, just the regular one.

It's going to be.

A streaming in the...

Yeah.

If you have a Steam deck, you definitely wouldn't want to get this one, in my opinion, unless you really want to stream Xbox.

Because if you have an Xbox game pass, you can stream their uh their game pass um titles that they have.

Yeah, and so this is I think that what it's geared towards is, but the ally X.

has that Z2 Extreme, so it's gonna be as powerful as the Legion Go 2 and any device that's gonna have that Z2 Extreme.

um Do you think adding that AI to this Z2 is they're adding more AI cores to it or something?

I'm really confused by that.

It might just be a branding thing, because as we know, yeah.

I mean, don't think they're going to add AI.

I mean, realistically, what AI thing are going to do besides?

So adding AI cores to any device is pretty common nowadays, partially because there's gonna be more more use for it, you'll see.

But, yeah.

game that makes use of the NPUs I've seen in current processors.

uh

well, the future is that you could potentially do dialogue generation and some other stuff like it.

They're very good at doing uh tasks that would require something like, let's say you wanted to do, uh because we've seen it, like chat GPT do people like integrate that into

ground to thought, and you can talk to NPCs in a very

more like you can ask them different things and they'll answer in a more realistic way as much as AI can, they could integrate something like that um internally.

Don't know if that's actually what they're going for, but they could.

I I understand that.

I'm just saying that from what I understand right now, a lot of modern games, a lot of current games that would do that, they just rely on the CPU, like the standard CPU cores

as it is, instead of specific MPUs.

But of course, I'm sure things can change, but still.

also, it's baked in, that's how they're doing it.

um It's probably cheaper to just go this route because they're just gonna, their MPUs are the standard for any APU nowadays.

And it has been, honestly, I think it's been a shadow standard for a few years now.

if you bought, I wouldn't be surprised if the Z1 had some MPUs on it.

um It's the standard nowadays.

yeah, I mean, I think the Z1 Extreme was based on an AMD APU that has NPUs, but I think the NPUs were stripped out of the Z1 Extreme.

uh

going straight into the, because the MPUs are becoming more, like, operating systems are starting to actually utilize MPUs, so I could see it being useful in games eventually.

What I'm saying is, I would rather see them there than not, as long as it doesn't hinder anything else, so.

Yeah, so also you can see here there's more memory in the Blackheap model and it's faster memory as well.

Yeah, the faster, like that makes sense though.

You don't need to pair really fast memory with the Z2A processor.

I just don't think it's going to benefit.

You're gonna be bottlenecked in other places, but this is the new standard for at least bare minimum, I think for any flagship devices from here on out is gonna be 24 to 32 gigs.

Which I like to see.

Honestly, that's a really good, yeah, it's a really good sign.

to give you eight gigs of VRAM and then allocate 16 gigs to just regular system memory as well.

Which begs the question, why do we still keep getting low-end eight gigabyte graphics cards when these APUs, these devices are coming with enough RAM to give us eight gigs of

VRAM?

the beautiful thing about unified memory is that it allows you to have more memory depending on what game.

Some games are more uh system memory oriented and some games are more uh like texture based or game or like, you know, VRAM hungry.

Right.

And so with the textures.

So it just really depends on.

And I think unified does help with this.

So some games could benefit more from 12 gigs.

And that is, think what I like about unified has its own problems, but I think they're slowly being erased.

um One of the problems being you can't replace, you know, if you have an APU, you can't replace the graphics card at that point.

But you have the benefit of not having to worry about if you have enough memory, because I just don't think

Nvidia is releasing the cards with enough memory.

I think they're really trying to shoot for that DLSS and save money.

man screw those guys anyways

I think DLSS is okay, like I'm honestly not against it.

think the Switch 2 heavily uses it.

uh

not saying I dislike DLSS, I'm saying screw those guys who run cheap on memory.

I think 16 gigs should be the standard moving forward for VRAM and RAM.

even Apple has moved to 16 gigs minimum now for like a lot of their newer devices that aren't iPhones.

No, I mean they have they need to move to 32.

They're a little behind but I mean

if Apple's doing it then why the fuck is Nvidia doing it?

I know I have I have 96 gigs of unified memory on my Mac studio.

I love it.

Just need games to run it.

uh

with one terabyte default compared to 512 gigs.

I mean, you can just replace it yourself.

It's an easier upgrade.

So the, so the screen for both models, it's the exact same and it's the same screen we have on our existing RG allies.

That's, I mean, that's, it reads the same because it's the same resolution, same like,

Rated nits, same aspect ratio, same refresh rate.

It's got v-sync as well.

uh I can't think of anything new that they've added to the screen.

The screen's not bad, honestly.

um The screen's great.

Maybe they this route to try to make the device cheaper, because they already have it in production, so they don't have to do anything else to ramp up costs.

I can see them doing that.

Still would have liked an eight inch, but you know.

Warn OLED.

Yeah.

OLED man, I don't know, I was wrong about the Steam Deck.

I think the Steam Deck OLED really does help visually, I still like, there's some games have been playing, I'm just like, I just wish I, like Expedition, I've been playing that

on the um Ally and it's just, I don't like it as much as on the big screen because there's certain things I just can't see as well detail wise.

And I think having that extra one inch alone would really help with it.

You know what device is gonna have very refresh rate OLED and a bigger screen.

The, RG Alley?

not the R.

The...

Legion Go?

Damn.

I'm going crazy.

mean, reading the specs on that, it makes it seem like that's gonna be like THE device to get.

And it's, yeah, that's a Legion Go.

And it looks more, anyways, back...

like the software of the Legion Go 1.

I hear that they're making it better, but with Xbox mode coming out, as long as it comes to the Legion Go, I think that's my go-to device in the future.

that's...

yeah, I mean, I probably wouldn't use Legion software either, except for like the side panels.

I mean, that works out pretty well, in my opinion, but everything else is just not great.

I didn't when I had it I everything about it was so clunky I was shocked but it sounds like every they watched my review on it and they must have fixed it because of me I doubt

they saw anything on that

It's probably a common complaint though, to be honest.

Alright.

messing, I'm not that important.

uh It's making me happy.

But, uh Wi-Fi 6E is interesting.

When the Wi-Fi 7's out, they must be using the same chip as the uh current

Yeah, I mean, I don't think a lot of people have Wi-Fi 7.

I certainly don't have Wi-Fi 7.

No, but it's always nice to be a little bit ahead of the curve if you want these devices to last long.

because, especially the Ally will benefit greatly from Wi-Fi 7.

The bandwidth on it is much more consistent.

And that's really important when streaming games is that consistency.

So.

go back to the IO because there's a difference in the IO.

So...

Yeah, yeah.

back, that took me.

There is a big difference, actually.

Yeah, so both have two USB type C ports, but the Allie X, one of them is a USB 4 port, which means you can plug in like an external GPU.

It's Thunderbolt 4 as well, actually.

Yeah, is, that was what was shocking is that it's Thunderbolt 4 compatible, which means, you know, eGPU, right?

um And that is also a bare minimum for me.

So this or the Legion Go 2 are kind of like in my realm of what I'll probably buy, because I'm gonna be replacing my whole setup with um this device and an eGPU, so I can play it

throughout the house much easier.

um

This is how I want to do it now.

Like it just seems so much fun to have like a gaming device.

And then I have my Mac for, you know, work.

So and that Thunderbolt 4 does is in my opinion, think Thunderbolt is better than USB 4, just like on its own.

You get a little bit better consistency, but it is interesting that they're paying that tax to Intel because it does cost money.

It's trademarked and it's a it's a technology that Intel owns.

Yes.

they didn't go with Thunderbolt 5 though, but that must be like a AMD limitation.

It makes sense.

Also, the micro SD card slots, UHS-II, which it's like, okay, so you have an RLG Ally, right?

Have you ever used a UHS-II micro SD card?

No.

Does it have UHS-II on the current, just ally?

Yeah, the current ally has...

The current ally, Adlegion, goes.

They both have UHS-II microSD cards.

But we've never...

But I've never used one either.

em And Nintendo just, you know...

Nintendo decided to make everything microSD express, and so I think that might have benefited them here as well.

I mean...

I think they really should have gone with microSD express.

Yeah, would like these companies, man.

I'd really like to see things standardized more.

that's the beautiful thing about USB type C, even though you have USB 3, 4, and Thunderbolt kind of variants, it's still nice to, like, it's getting closer to being

unified, but the micro SD card stuff, like I've had to do multiple videos because it really matters.

If you're gonna be playing a game off of it, it really matters if you don't cheap out.

UHS, the UHS too, like those are like all those are really expensive, aren't they?

Yeah, I think they're more expensive than Micro SD Expresses, and not to mention Micro SD Express is faster than UHS-II and UHS-I for that matter.

Yeah, so...

expensive.

They're typically, think, for video recording and stuff.

yeah, it's good, though.

At least we're moving on to something better, I guess.

Yeah, hopefully the Steam Deck 2 when that comes out uses MicroSD Express.

Yeah, Juz is one of them, and then it's backwards compatible, of course.

Mm-hmm.

Let's see, the battery.

Let's see, so the dimensions, it weighs a little more, the Alley X, and that's presumably because of the battery.

Look at that battery difference.

20 watt-hour difference between the two models.

I mean, that's good.

You're like that ally if it does have all the specs that we're thinking will last a very long time with 60 watts.

The ally X 80 watts will probably get like with the way how power hungry it is and everything.

It will probably be similar to like what the steam deck gets.

The Allie X has pretty good battery life, but I don't know how much more power hungry the Z2 Extreme is compared to the Z1 Extreme.

It's got like it's got I would still say the Ali X has OK battery life.

The ally has a horrible, but.

It is what it is.

I'm not usually doesn't bother me that much because I'm usually near a battery bank or outlet, so.

Yeah.

yeah, I mean the specs are cool, but I think the most interesting prospect of course is the change to Windows because you know, everyone's been complaining that Windows and it

looks like Microsoft's finally realized that Windows sucks for handhelds.

I don't think they realize I think they're ignoring it because they're doing such a big AI play on it ah

scroll down, scroll down real quick.

Look, it's Silksong.

Dude, the trailer...

That is insane.

Like, we got brand new Silksong footage for the Ally trailer.

What the fuck?

I think that's so funny.

They paired it.

And the thing is, this game will look better on the Steam Deck OLED.

It's not gonna run any better on this.

And there are even, this right here is stream with Xbox Cloud Gaming.

Why would you stream this game?

This game is not gonna be that demanding to you where you need to stream it.

So marketing wise, like if you're technical, doesn't make sense.

If you're the average person, I don't think it matters that much.

But.

What a weird way to pair that all up.

Bet you're getting Silksong.

There you go, man.

the SoSong community is gonna be like they're gonna cancel the RRG Ally X in September and then we'll never get SoSong

I don't I don't I don't think they're gonna be tied together like that.

They just

yeah, they say it's not tied together, but they're coping.

Especially at that Deadpool...

the Deadpool stunt.

It sent R slash Silksong into a frenzy.

It's insane.

Why?

Because some people were genuinely pissed off that Deadpool skipped the Silksong trailer or some bullshit like that.

And a lot of people took it as it was, a joke.

But some crazies on the internet...

Those are always crazies on the internet, but like...

Every fanbase.

Fanbases can be very toxic.

Yep, there are death threats to Team Cherry, and also Ryan Reynolds.

It was insane.

I'm sorry, but if you have to death threat, man, you need to go out and touch grass.

Like there should be almost nothing you should be death threatting about.

Yeah, I mean really there's nothing I can think of but hey silk song I'll probably play on my ally act.

I mean my my steam deck and maybe I'll play it on my ROG Xbox ally X

just handheld Xbox for me.

And the only one that really matters is the black one because it's the ally X.

I don't care about, it's like the same thing with the ally.

I don't think the original ally with the trimmed down version, I don't think it did as well.

I always saw it on sell and they were trying to get rid of it because the Z1, the Xenon Xtreme is the one to get.

Because with the Z1, not just get a Steam Deck?

at that point.

It's not like it's going to be play any of the games that you want to play on Windows that are DRM or that not not DRM, but you know, like Call of Duty and stuff like that.

Yes, so I do find the addition of the Xbox button.

I am a little concerned though because like, what if I accidentally press that while I'm moving my stick to the top right?

Like...

I don't think you're going to, but you might you might play fighting games a little different because I don't know.

I'm not too worried about it,

the analog stick with fighting games.

I use the D-pad.

That's right.

I'm sure they test this.

I'm sure it's gonna be fine.

That'd be funny blunder if it was very easily pressed while playing games with the left joystick.

Yeah, that would be bullshit if that happened.

That's, yeah.

But let's talk about the Xbox button because technically speaking, no current handheld has an Xbox button that functions like an Xbox button.

Like the IA Neo has a button like that, but it's actually just the Windows G shortcut, which is not the same by the way.

Right.

You could map it though.

yeah, you can map it, but it's not the same as having a true hardware Xbox button, which no handheld has for some reason.

Um, it's probably branding like they couldn't just put an xbox on their uh thing unless

couldn't put the Xbox symbol on there, but I'm sure they could have put an actual Xbox button instead of just making a Windows G, you know what saying?

Yeah, I have no clue what the limit like Windows is bizarre with the way that they integrate gaming into it.

But it sounds like we're going to be getting a lot of like good integrations into it.

So I think this is a good start.

Maybe we'll see more handhelds have the Xbox or a similar uh button mapped to it.

Or you can I'm hoping with Legion go to that I'll be able to map um

this type of the functionality of this Xbox button to one of their built-in buttons that they have.

I guess we'll find out soon enough.

I think, Yeah, so...

In addition to this, though, I mean...

I think another major handheld released very recently.

Can any guess as to what it is?

It's the PlayStation handheld.

Wrong answer!

It's the switch...

no switch to...

Yes, yes, yes.

So I actually got one of these.

A viewer sent it over.

sent one over with the Mario Kart bundle and uh...

it's a lot of fun!

The Switch 1 was a lot of fun for a while but then the Steam Deck came out and I never touched one again.

I, there's even some games that play on my Switch, or on my Steam Deck that are Switch related, right?

uh Over, you know, certain means, but I own the games, but the one that I wanted to play on the Steam Deck the most doesn't play well, and that's Luigi's Mansion 3.

It does not play well on the Steam Deck.

Hey, if you get a Switch 2 it'll probably play well.

So, I...

well on my switch right now.

So I am super curious, so I am super interested in, so funny story, I published a post on my YouTube channel showing off the new Switch 2 inbox.

I lost like five subscribers.

yeah, I bet you if I posted on YouTube, I'd lose a couple too, but like there's some spicy people that do not like the Switch that are in the Steam Deck community.

Yeah, well, first and foremost, fuck fanboys among both sides.

On all sides, actually.

gatekeeping fanboyism is just like, you can have the Switch.

The Steam Deck fanboys and Switch fanboys are just the same people.

They're just rooting for a different side.

It's bullshit.

I've dealt with Switch fanboys more than I have uh Steam Deck, but yeah.

Yeah, definitely, because there's way more Switch fanboys.

Yeah.

But, uh, anyways, regardless, I also made a Switch 2 accessory video, and I also lost five subs because of that, too!

It's because they think you're becoming a switch content creator.

I can't believe you're portraying as high-tech

I can believe it.

I don't have loyalty to any of these companies.

I don't love Nintendo.

I don't even love Valve.

I this is gonna sound like blasphemy.

It's not gonna like blasphemy to you.

like, are no...

But like, loyalty to a brand is just a big mistake.

Loyalty to a brand is a mistake.

They will almost always disappoint even valve is disappointed a little bit, but I have a lot of copium with it So it's fine if they disappoint me a little bit.

It's not like I get disappointed by everyone else including myself in my life, so

man, as long as you get Half-Life 3, it's okay, right?

Yeah, maybe.

I'm not going to jinx it right now.

But yes, I've jinxed it enough in the past.

So, the only Switch 2 specific game I own, I didn't buy any the upgrade packs for the Zelda games yet, because my brother has all of those Switch games, because I don't really

touch my Switch anymore, but the only Switch 2 game I have is Mario Kart World, and it's a fun game.

It's a fun Mario Kart, and it might actually be the best Mario Kart.

But I don't know if it's $80 fun.

I don't really like the open world-likeness of it, because, like, the open world-ness of the, like, free roam area, but that's because I'm not really, because, like, racing is

about racing other people, not just driving around the places, in my opinion.

uh I'm actually like that.

I like the need for speeds when they do open world you have to drive to an area to then race I like the need for speed opener uh openness and also burnout was open open world,

but yeah, which I love but I Don't yeah, I'm curious to see if they can make it interesting in Mario Kart

have your standard Grand Prix.

What I do like is that...

Alright so the first course is just your regular course, right?

But then the second course starts off with like you transitioning from the first course to the second course and then you're coursing and it's all considered one race.

Oh, interesting.

And then after you finish that second course, you go on to the third course and then it transitions and then, yeah, so on and so forth.

I can see that being really fun, but also it's kind of nice to sometimes take a break between the courses.

Well, it's not a break, it's all part of the race.

So if you're falling behind on the way to the second course, you're just falling behind in the race period.

That's what I'm kind of saying.

Like I want to take a break.

the, yeah.

Okay.

Interesting.

also a knockout pre, which I haven't tried out yet.

But it sounds like it's lot of fun.

I don't have Nintendo Switch online.

Let's see.

You're not going to pay for the online to play with people that I don't know.

I.

I have never paid for an Nintendo Switch online.

I've paid for it.

Maybe once because I wanted to try it.

I don't know.

Maybe it was like a free promo or something.

I paid for it once and it just didn't benefit enough at all.

If I had to pay for a Nintendo Switch online, I would probably split it with my brother and our cousin and my other brother who has kids with a Nintendo Switch and then it would

be lot cheaper that way.

But I don't feel like doing it.

that expensive.

You're paying like a dollar a year at that point.

um I actually don't.

use the Switch enough to...

I didn't use the original Switch enough to really justify that.

Not to mention, I didn't really play lot of, like, online multiplayer games.

I don't like Mario Kart is a couch co-op for me.

I am playing with my kids, friends or something like that in person, not online.

uh

don't want to play against the Sweatlords from Japan.

No.

No, I don't.

I don't want to play it online.

just don't have any.

I just don't have any.

don't know.

Mario Kart alone, I've already gotten tired of a little bit.

So this one does look interesting and I do want to play it one day, but I'm already burnt out on the franchise.

But I am curious because they had to do something to help make it fresh because if they kept on releasing.

you

Mario Kart, so it just looks similar every year, it just wouldn't do very well.

So I am curious about the changes.

I mean, it is a pretty different feeling Mario Kart, because you can also like ride on walls.

You see in.

I think you can do that in the last one.

Alright, no, the last one that was like anti-gra- it was like a specific part of the course was anti-gravity.

No, this one you have the ability to like freely jump onto walls and also grind on rails.

And it changes the game like substantially.

are like clips of people doing- It's crazy shit, man.

I don't know if it's actually- I still don't know if it's worth $80.

But I can see this being a solid $70 game.

if it were $70 it is.

Or, you know, $50!

they've got you now wanting $70 games that worked.

I've had no issues with $70 video games as long as it was substantially worth it.

The problem is that a lot of the $70 video games that were made available, they weren't that much more substantially better.

Not to mention microtransactions and shit.

They were all still there too.

At least with my...

Yeah, sorry, go ahead.

Oh no, sorry.

If you're going to release a 70, $80 game, it's gotta be AAA.

It's gotta be like, it's because you spent so much budget on this thing that that's why you have to release it for that much.

I get it.

But there's a lot of games and companies that really try to just release garbage games for the same amount.

It's crazy.

like let's like here, here's my thing.

Like Mario Kart World, it's $80, yes.

It'll probably have a DLC later down the line because that's just kind of how it is.

But like, like look at GTA VI, that's gonna release.

It's definitely gonna be $80.

There's no way it's not gonna be $80 at least.

And they're still gonna sell a shitload of, you know, shark cards.

There's gonna be a bunch of shark cards being sold.

It's bullshit.

it is bullshit, but...

that GTA is probably gonna be like the most expensive game ever made.

But it's bullshit.

Yeah.

is the most expensive game.

Yeah, I agree.

I really don't like the like if you're going to charge a lot like.

If they said it's going to be $100, no microtransactions and all DLC in the future is free.

Awesome.

But because they have ground the thought online, that makes them so much money.

I just don't think they're going to do that.

I think they they are a little they lean too much into that whole like gambling and

money, needing to get money mentality.

Yeah

They're a little bit like their Grand Theft Auto game.

They want to rob us.

don't know.

Heisting, there you go.

That's it.

The biggest heist ever, Grand Theft Auto Online.

Grand Theft Auto Online 2.

Yeah.

So, uh, grab that little six is going to be coming out for switches, isn't it?

Not that I've heard.

Hmm.

I thought it was, but maybe I'm wrong.

I don't, I can't imagine it coming out to Switch anytime soon.

Well, yeah, it's not going come out for PC anyways, day one.

It's going to be uh Xbox and PlayStation, right?

Yep, it's Xbox and PlayStation.

exclusive, which is, they're always kind of weird with that, but.

Well, because they know people will just double dip.

yeah, nobody I know it is such a like for them.

the another PC that's I got

CD Projekt Red, they screwed up, but they still do right by their customers, by the gamers.

I feel like Rockstar is just not quite like

Well, mean, Rockstar knows what's up with GTA.

They know that PC gamers will buy it because of FOMO, and then they'll buy it again because it's on PC.

And, yeah, they would rather play GTA VI at like 4K 60fps instead of playing it on a PS5 where it's 1080p upscaled at 30fps.

I don't think that's why they're getting it for PC.

They're getting it for the mods.

and the monster.

That's also another big selling point too.

The mods they they got to have their not safe for work mods.

They got to have their boobies

Yeah, we'll talk about a very moddable game later on in video, but uh...

Yes.

Wait, is it very much okay, we're gonna talk about that.

I have questions for that one.

Because that one's also very much like it's very successful, partially because of boobies.

Yeah, yeah, let's, let's move on to the summer games fest.

Let's talk about that.

um Let me just switch this on over.

ah We have more like we streamed it last week.

It was great.

uh Honestly.

I think it well it was great for I like there was a couple of games that came out of it I liked it was a little mid with some of the game releases but you know what if you can come

away walk away with a couple of games that you plan on buying in the future I think that's a win so um what about you I decked with the summer game fest

Well, there were a of games that looked super duper interesting.

m But let's start with you first, since I'm sure you have some thoughts on some games on here.

Oh, Outer Worlds 2.

I have not watched the trailer for it yet.

I've read some stuff on it, but I am super excited for Outer Worlds 2, but it's going to be an 80 dollar game, isn't it?

And so

Yep, it's an $80 video game.

It's Xbox's, to my knowledge, Xbox's first $80 video game.

It will honestly will probably be one of the first games I buy that's $80.

I don't I just don't see myself buying anything else until that comes out.

That's for 80.

let's go over like highlights from each show in particular.

I know we probably didn't watch most of the shows, let's go back up.

are there highlights somewhere in here somewhere?

Well, no, highlights, but I just want a list of like the shows there were.

Oh, up here.

also the recap website that I also linked as well.

That shows you every game that was announced and all the, like, things.

So I guess we'll work in reverse order.

So...

There's Tsukunami, they had Silent Hill stuff, they had Tsukuden, had Metal Gear Solid Delta.

And then...

a Silent Hill remake, aren't they?

Like the original?

Wasn't that the big announcement?

Well, the big announcement was a brand new Silent Hill game, Silent Hill F.

And so there were a of things.

There were also other shows I didn't watch.

uh

A lot of these other shows were just talking about games that were already announced or released.

think South of Midnight's already released, right?

Yeah, that's an interesting one that they show.

Maybe it's just not selling.

I don't think it's selling very well, but it is an interesting game.

It's just it's on Game Pass.

I'm I plan on playing it on there.

It's just yeah.

Yeah, well, you know, art house games don't tend to sell that well, and also it's on Game Pass too, that's another major thing too.

uh

very much hurts and we're going to talk about that I guess later too.

It hurts the developer.

the first major show, uh well we're working in reverse order, was the PC gaming show.

We got to see a bunch of new stuff like Mugenics, I think that's Edmund McCullen, whatever his name is.

The guy uh that made the Super Meat Boy and also The Binding of Isaac, that's his new game.

Ultra Kill got a new trailer for layer eight.

And Ultra Kill, have you played Ultra Kill?

I feel like I have, but I haven't played it enough.

I've seen a lot of people play it, shouldn't say a lot, but I've seen gameplay and lot of stuff on it.

It really is that good, It's awesome, man.

It's like my favorite boomer shooter right now probably because it's...

because there's so much skill expression involved as well.

And it's...

I wouldn't say it's super duper hard, but it's super hard to master and really get those P-Ranks.

Let's see...

I played Batsu, the demo for Batsu during the next Fest.

It was pretty fun.

It's kind of like...

gang beasts or party animals in a way but with robots instead.

um But aside from that though, there was some interesting stuff but I think those were the most interesting stuff for me during that show.

Did you watch the PC gaming show?

Honestly, I forgot about it.

I did not.

Yeah, I didn't really watch it either, to be honest.

I actually, in the past, it's one I'm usually watching.

Usually it's hosted by Day 9, meaning PC Gamer, but then I think Day 9's the one that doesn't.

I've watched him for years, but I don't know if he did it this year or not.

Alright, yeah.

So, the next up is the Xbox showcase, and uh there were a bunch of big announcements.

There were a bunch of big announcements.

Naturally, of course, they announced the RG Ally device here as well.

Where's the Xbox stuff?

is there a page two?

There's multiple pages.

Scroll down all the way.

Look at the bottom of the page.

I'm at the bottom of the Oh, maybe my...

Hold up.

You don't see page 2?

You don't see the little bar that says page 1 through 2?

it now.

I really hate that.

um My Mac bar, like my back studio bar was over it.

Yeah.

Wow, there's so many games.

uh

Naturally.

Someone described it as a near-like, but I think it looks more like Sekiro, almost.

Mixed with, like...

Princess Mononoke vibes, you know what saying?

Have you seen the trailer for Beast of Reincarnation?

It actually looks pretty cool.

And you wouldn't...

It's a Game Freak game, too, so it's being...

People were surprised that Game Freak were making games that weren't Pokemon.

Yeah, that is so bizarre.

um

What, that?

Wait, what?

It's bizarre that they're making a game like this.

Yeah, it's like

They gotta get away from Pokemon.

Yeah, it's crazy too.

It's crazy that they showcased this at Xbox too.

That's probably another wild thing as well.

Yeah.

wow.

drops, yes.

That's Game Freak.

But it also doesn't look like an N64 game, to be honest.

Well, I mean, game the frame rate dropping is a good sign that it's a real demo.

It looks fun.

Yeah, that was pretty fun.

I wanna get it.

Let's see...

There's also Grounded 2, Ophelia...

They also announced Persona 4 Revival.

They're remaking Persona 4.

And I think we talked about the voice acting drama.

But it's a really shitty...

It's a terrible trailer, though.

It's like five seconds of uh the main character walking and that's it.

Uhhh...

Yeah, why?

When they have-

and also they also announced final fantasy come to xbox can you imagine yeah the final fantasy seven remake games as well as final fantasy sixteen come next box they're also

making them they make an invincible tag team fighter as well and they also had a one more they all they also made a one more announcement style announcement guess what game was

what game?

I-I- What?

Call of Duty Black Ops 7 I saw the trailer, didn't look like Call of Duty, it looked like fucking Control or like not Control, sorry, looked like fucking Quantum Break, it looked

like not a Call of Duty game but it was but no no, it was Call of Duty is what I'm saying yeah it's on there, it's at the top go back up, this is in reverse order by the way

Yeah.

So Call of Duty, it's right next to Trash Goblin.

It's on the second, it's the second, it's the second row, fourth column.

look like it.

Okay, that threw me off a little bit.

The trailer doesn't look like a Call of Duty game, but maybe I'm just...

maybe I'm just stupid.

I mean, it's futuristic.

love futuristic stuff.

Yeah, I mean, don't get me wrong, I like it too.

But like, the second half of the trailer had some really trippy shit too, which made me think that it wasn't Call of Duty, but it was Call of Duty.

Yeah, I like Quantum Break.

Have you played Quantum Break?

I played a little bit of it.

It didn't get the best ratings, but it was, it was pretty fun.

It was pretty fun.

Alright, but enough about...

Yeah, enough about...

Wow, at least they're putting some of that money into the visuals.

Yeah, they- I mean...

There's one thing I can't fault.

It's-

that is really trippy.

Yeah, look, this doesn't look like a Call of Duty game, does it?

At least this wouldn't indicate that it's a Call Duty game, right?

He's just on LSD, that's it.

Like this is like a horror game, almost.

Like the vibes here, at least.

Well, eh it better not be $80, because this might actually be the first quality I buy in a while.

Come on, dude, it's guaranteed to be $80, man.

gonna be on Game Pass, so nevermind.

I'm pretty, you know, tuned in on Game Pass these days.

Yeah, alright, so...

Honestly, I'm here for that.

That's actually great that they're deviating a little bit from the typical.

I mean, are they though?

Or is it just a bunch of cool visuals?

Maybe that's all I want in a game like Call of Duty is cool visuals and an interesting setting.

I don't play the multiplayer.

And then, We can skip a lot of these other shows, to be honest.

And we also did watch the uh main games fest live.

Yeah, so we don't have to worry about that either.

The PlayStation Showcase had some pretty cool games, uh Probably the coolest one.

Wait, are they not showing the PlayStation Showcase here?

That's weird.

one right here.

there it is.

It's on page 7.

geez.

So, I mean, there were a bunch of cool games that they showcased.

For example, um...

Ninja Gaiden Final Fantasy Tactics.

They're re-releasing Final Fantasy Tactics.

It's a good game.

You should play it.

Ninja Ga...

Ninja Gaiden Ragebound.

Pretty cool as well.

There's a demo on there for the next Fest, which we will be talking about next.

Um...

I mean, there's a lot of cool shit.

That's lot of cool stuff.

Silent Hill F.

Oh yeah, Marvel Toukan.

dude, Marvel Toukan.

I'm gonna play that.

And the James Bond game looks pretty cool, but at the same time though, given a recent disaster that just happened, I'm not super excited about it anymore.

We'll talk about that disaster later on though.

there's a bunch of other showcases that happened that we didn't know about, like this mixed summer showcase.

What the hell is this all about?

Oh man, there are so many games.

I wish Gardner were here.

He could tell us what's up.

I hope you didn't forget about us.

know if anyone can...

Tell us what's up about all these games, there's just so many.

Yeah, no, I don't think no one person could keep up with all of these games.

the nice thing about us, like the three of us, is that we all have different genres we care about, and so we can all at least talk on them.

Like fighting, Garner loves his arcade-y like RTS.

I like RTSs too, but like I'm a StarCraft kind of RTS person.

Like, come in and conquer is great.

If they come out with a new one, I'll buy it.

But like StarCraft's my jam.

But first person shooters and horror and all that, like that's my jam.

Yeah, you always seem like more of a 4X kinda guy, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Do we want to be done with this and move on to like the spicy stuff that's going on with the game pass?

Because I think we could spend all the this this podcast episode on this because there's so many different games.

but real quick though, I want to give a shout out to The Next Fest.

If you like demos, try out The Next Fest before it's too late.

uh Given our typical release schedule, you'll probably only have a day to try out demos.

I have a video on The Next Fest demos I liked.

uh James, have you played any Next Fest demos?

No, but I have one that I potentially want to try out and that's the regex game.

No, it's so stupid.

This is coming into the whole Nex Fest is becoming a little bit of a slop show.

um Once again, like don't get me wrong, like this is fun and all in the sense of if you did this, this is a web browser game.

This is probably web browser.

They probably built this all on the web, which is fine.

I'm not saying that's a bad thing, you can't release a game like this, but it feels so like you're just learning how to do regex, which if you don't know what regex is, it's

just a fancy way of doing text parsing.

like, hey, I want all the letter D removed from this big line of text.

It's just a fancy way doing that in programming.

So there you go, there's a demo for that.

You got lucky club scratches.

So if you like scratching, if you like doing scratchers, they're not really winning anything that you can do that.

Is this based on your preferences in games?

I don't know because I would not play well, I would play Jaws of Hell but

Are you signed on to Steam right now?

No, I don't think I am.

is just no, I'm not.

Sign on to Steam.

Open your Steam.

Sign on to Steam right now.

I want to see what games they would recommend to you, because mine doesn't look like that at all.

Mine looks very different.

I'm gonna to do a bunch of junk to get signed

Give me a second.

No one else scanned this.

mean, it's just not gonna...

No one else can it dude that means you have access to their account I would hope no one scans this Of course you can always just blur it out and post right

it doesn't matter, it's a timed.

By the time any of this will go out, that's why I was just messing.

ah

Let's see what yours looks like James.

I'll show you mine if you show me yours.

Dead as Disco.

That looks interesting, or sounds interesting.

that.

Wait.

Unbeatable's up there.

Unbeatable's pretty sick.

It's a rhythm game.

There's a-

rhythm games.

wait, what's that middle one down there?

I heard about that middle one here.

It's a weird one where you have to crush notes with your thighs.

It's insane.

Okay, we gotta scroll down though.

Let's see what...

Let's see, Jump Ship.

I've played that.

Looks pretty cool.

You played it?

Did you like it?

Yeah, it's a lot of fun, but you need to have multiple players to really enjoy it.

Hmm, it's up to four.

Okay.

I.

like FTL mixed with an FPS as well.

GTFO maybe.

uh Yeah, yeah, I'll, I mean, sort of, kind of.

I've never played it.

Gardner messaged us.

It seems like he might not be joining us.

uh Maybe.

We'll see.

Okay, so.

uh

Furiosis?

Furiosis?

Interesting.

Um, well, let's see if you want...

While you're doing that, I'm going be looking at some of this stuff.

You guys want a dinosaur game?

Actually, it looks like Turok a little bit.

Furiosus.

I mean, is definitely like, it looks like an indie game, but I think I'd play this.

Yeah, here, so I guess now's a good time to show you my NextFest uh query.

It looks very different.

Oh, God.

All right, so what's gonna happen if we share multiple screens?

I'm gonna take over, let's see.

do it.

This is what mine looks like.

I need to.

Look, have you played Patapon?

You should try Ratatan, it's awesome.

It's another like rhythm game.

It's like Pikmin, but you have to control them by issuing commands to them via rhythm.

Like, buttons, it's crazy.

Ninja Gaiden Ragebound is pretty cool.

I tried Hotel Barcelona.

I didn't really jive with it be honest.

Look, game recommendations are totally different.

It knows what I like.

It knows you like the slop.

It knows I like the slap.

This one's really good though, Absalom.

But that's if you're into beat ups.

The trolley solution.

What the hell is that?

how many people can you kill?

See, a trolley is approaching five people, what do you do?

Do I kill one person?

Do I act- Huh.

The fuck is this?

What the?

I don't think so.

Well, he hit someone on purpose,

Dude, that...

What is this?

Or maybe it's like, it's so complicated you have to find the way just to only kill the one person and not everyone else.

They killed the least amount of people.

Yeah, it looks interesting.

does look interesting, yes.

Let's see.

There a lot of Probably too many demos.

There's too much, like, I don't know, it's really hard, because I want more and game devs to come out, but at the same time, I'm overwhelmed.

think Valve should ju- I mean, I don't know, man.

my gosh, the date everyone game is coming out still.

I forgot about that.

It came.

It comes out in three days.

It's the day everything did you see?

I swear we watched something on it a couple of months ago on live stream and it's where you can.

I think you can date a refrigerator.

I think on this.

It's a dating sim though.

Speaking of dating sims...

Wait, why is this down here again?

What the fuck?

wait, no.

No, wait, no, we were looking at your screen.

We're looking at mine.

Oh gosh, who's at the door is terrifying.

Who's at the door?

Sorry, it's not on yours.

I'm looking online still.

Yeah, let's see.

I'll show you.

see, let's see what the top chart- oh yeah yeah, you share yours.

I wanna look at the top charts.

go ahead, look at the top charts and then I'll show you what I'm looking at.

So the most popular, the top demos is Wildgate.

the is this?

Oh.

think Wallegate's been in the works for a while.

See Vindictus Defying Fate.

I played the original MMO like 10 years ago.

I don't know what this is about though.

Jump Ship, Dead As Disco, Mimesys, Solo Leveling.

Gosh, have you seen Solo Leveling?

It's such a good anime.

Here's the thing, even if you don't like anime, I have friends that don't really care for animes, they love that show.

It's so good.

Dude, it's so funny, people are saying he's aura farming.

He has to look cool all the time, it's crazy.

Yeah, let's see...

Escape from Duckov?

What?

It's supposed to be a take on escape from dark turk of what is so it's like a fun play on it.

That's that's funny.

X-Pit, I haven't played that.

Pioneer, it's an MMO FPS.

I don't know how much fun that would be, but...

See, No I'm Not a Human.

Oh, this is one of those weird, like, horror games.

I gotta try it out before the next Fest ends.

See, UFL.

Hey look, that our good friend, Ronaldo?

That neither...

that...

He's not who we thought he was.

Yeah, he's not who you thought he was.

See, there's a Starlight Revolver, Clover Pit, Ratatan.

I don't know.

It's not a bad idea to go through the main top charts to see what's going on.

I think that's like, especially if you're overwhelmed, it's a good way to do it.

But I feel like you'd miss some good gems doing that still.

Yeah, you would, but honestly, finding good gems requires you to understand the filter system.

And really knowing what you like.

Like, let's...

uh

I'm gonna show you a gem.

I'm taking over now.

This is the gem.

Who's at the door?

What the fuck is that?

That's...

Whore.

Holy shit.

What the fuck?

I don't know if it's like they purposely made it this bad or they're just really not good at modeling, but like that is horrifying.

That's what I wanted to show you.

Should we move on to the next topic?

Okay, let's do that.

Honestly, this was a topic we kind of added in.

Last minute anyways.

oh so, uh a developer who launched a game into Game Pass warns against it.

So, I mean, this is no shock, right?

Like, Revenge of the Savage Planet launched on Game Pass, but studio head Alex Hutchinson claims it devalues games.

His thoughts was that being on Game Pass would encourage the sell of DLC or potentially word of mouth sells.

But that turned out to not be the case.

He hopes that the industry as a whole

should only embrace subscription services much like the current film industry does exclusively in theaters first and DVD, Blu-ray, later on.

That's never, like, they'll never be able to do it.

Like, that's a really weird way to take it, is to do like the film industry because you just can't, I don't think you can do a game like that.

Well, I don't mean like lit- well, I don't think he meant like literally.

I think he meant like it should be like where you release your game first.

You know, release it for $60 or whatever and then later on like a few years later.

the comparison doesn't just fall apart.

Sorry, I'm getting caught up on it.

ah Yeah, I agree with that.

Release it first and then have it go to the Game Pass like a year later or something like that.

But a lot of people are just gonna wait.

I don't know if it will change enough.

For me, if I'm gonna play a game on Game Pass, it's because I don't wanna buy it anytime soon.

So I'm waiting no matter what.

I don't know.

I get it though.

I wonder how much money they're making.

I think some people also overvalue what their game is worth.

I think they'd make a lot more money if they would have sold it, but because of like, I never heard of Savage Planet.

I don't know, maybe they didn't make a whole lot, but usually with those types of deals, you get like an upfront amount and then you get revenue.

But if your game's unknown and you don't have a good marketing plan,

8 might not make anything.

So you gotta be careful, it's a double edged

I honestly man, I'm starting to believe that maybe...

Alright, so if you're not like a Microsoft game, if you're releasing on Game Pass like simultaneously, it feels like it's almost like a epic game store style black hole of

marketing.

There's a lot of people that are on Xbox Game Pass, a lot of people.

I would not come, I wouldn't fully put it into like the into Epic, but I do think it's a problem still.

And I definitely want game developers to make money.

But if you haven't noticed, look at how many games we just saw in Next Fest.

I think the market's getting fractured and I just don't know.

if there's It's not even enough money if there's enough time for people to be aware of everything.

And play games that the let alone find the game to play to have the time to play all these different games.

Yeah, yeah, I mean...

too, because like, if I was a game developer, I don't think I'd release on Game Pass, but at the same time, I would be working with a marketing firm.

Like when I release my game and whenever, I will probably work with a marketing firm or do a big marketing plan myself.

If you don't have, like a lot of game developers don't understand the business side of things, and if you don't, and you don't have a good marketing plan,

your game's most likely going to fail.

So it's better to at least risk it on Xbox.

Game Pass, I'd say.

It's just...

the business side of things is really hard when it to video games.

couldn't begin...

like, we all act...

like, a lot of content creators, sometimes us, we all act like we're experts in this field, but realistically, we can't even predict...

we can't even predict successes, to be honest.

No, no one in the books.

Here's the thing.

I've been in the.

uh So as a software developer and I've worked with a lot of startups, I've had to wear a lot of hats.

I've had to do marketing content.

I've had to do a lot of business stuff.

And so um you can't like even like really good business people have a hard time predicting things.

I mean, Apple is how many trillion dollar company and they the Apple Vision Pro just is Apple Vision Pro or Apple Vision, whatever it is.

Did okay.

Like they might not have done the marketing right on that or had a good market feel for, or maybe they expected it to release not very well in the beginning and eventually adapt.

It takes a lot of work and not even big companies get it right, but indie developers especially who are not versed in any type of business, acronym, uh are not gonna, they

have to figure it out.

They either have to partner with someone or they have to.

ah

find a way to get it viral and virality is hard.

I don't know man, it's, I mean, game developers, should do whatever you feel is best for your game, honestly, but, I mean, take it from him.

your game, but if you want to make money, that's...

Do you want it to release and not worry about...

You want it to be out to as many people as possible?

Like, release it on Steam and don't worry about Game Pass, I guess.

But if you want to make some money, they'll hopefully make another game.

It does matter.

Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off.

it's all good, man.

I'm not super worried about this topic, I just thought it was interesting to talk about since, you know, I think developers are starting to be more wary about Game Pass as a

whole.

And I think rightfully so, definitely think if you, like you can neuter your game if you're not careful.

But I think some people see some success on here and then regret not doing it another way and that's fine.

But don't think that the other way was gonna be successful too.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Be careful what you wish for.

um I definitely think Game Pass is great deal for gamers.

Tends to be not as good of a deal for a lot of developers, so.

And, honesty man, developers talk.

So if one had a bad experience with Game Pass, there's a good chance that others made it just avoid it just from hearing about stuff like this.

Yeah, but what's gonna happen if their game's just not successful because they just don't have the market or the platform.

So it's gonna be interesting to see how this all goes and see what ends up being like the successful route.

um I'd love to start, I would like to start like highlighting on my channel more Indies, especially games that I think are worthwhile, but yeah.

tell.

Okay, it's not an indie, but speaking of time will only tell.

This looked interesting six months ago when I saw it during the Game Awards.

I think they did a video on this.

Mind's Eye, is it gonna be the worst game of 2025, high tech?

Well, chances are likely yes, it looks like it's going to be the worst released game of 2025.

And it's broken in ways that only Cyberpunk 1.0 were broken.

And Sony actually started issuing refunds to people who bought this game.

Much like Cyberpunk 1.0.

Much like Cyberpunk 1.0!

Yeah, but cyberpunk became successful.

It became successful.

But people are saying that the underlying bones of this game itself isn't that great to begin with anyways.

Like not great or that are really bad.

Like, it's broken, very broken.

I think that's what most of the issue is.

I didn't expect the game to be absolutely dreadful to play.

Here's what happened in two hours.

Shader compilation took 10 minutes.

Okay, I don't know why he added that.

That's stupid.

Unskippable 10 minutes cut scene.

Okay, once again, game ran at 10 frames per second, so I messed around in menus.

Okay, that's bad.

Opened builder mode out of curiosity.

When exiting built, this is the stupidest.

Okay, I'm sorry.

Like guys, write better reviews.

Just because a game took 10 minutes for a shader compilation like that's not that long.

Character has PTSD about being caught Black Ops 7 alien Illuminati with Elon Brainship every 30 minutes.

Every 30 seconds.

I can see that being annoying.

If it's every 30 seconds.

I honestly think this person is just crazy that wrote it.

think they're crazier than the people that built the game.

uh

hours.

Alright, scroll down.

Let's see the next review.

Yeah, it has great cut scenes.

They spent all the budget on the cut scenes.

No money left to hire play testers.

I actually when I was watching the trailers, I'm like, yeah, they probably went way too high into the into the cut scene budget.

So I agree with this.

If there's uh if the gameplay and everything else is not that great.

See, mind's eye, our expectations were low for me, but holy shit.

C.

A.

Overanalyze by video essays B.

Sot by trophy hunters in the $5 bargain bin C.

If the D-list becomes the next ride to hell

here's where this game will stand in five years.

That's funny.

I mean, this is a this is a better review than the first one.

I don't mean to like review shame, but that was that was just like normal Internet people just not understanding like whatever.

um

Let's look at some critical reviews from like IGN and whatnot.

I didn't link any of this, so you'll have to like...

It's a 4 out of 10.

IGN doesn't typically give anything below like a 6 at least.

They do this, but yeah, it's not very often, right?

That's bad.

So if it's like a four, think of it more like a two.

IGN is very generous with their scores.

m

Let's see reviews.

Wait, what are these different?

Are these just not our user reviews?

that's interesting.

They opened up for user.

Where's their review?

Read review.

at my Metacritic, like after this.

I just want to see...

Ah, that's right.

When its performance is stable and you're explosively blasting your way through robots, Mind's Eye can masquerade as a serviceable action shooter for a few minutes at a time.

Its near-future setting and driving feel also impress.

However, its flashy graphics and cinematics can otherwise hide its distinct lack of substance.

High on ambition, but low on original ideas, Mind's Eye's rigid mission design renders its open world largely pointless and is consistently undermined by a vanilla combat janky.

AI enemies and it's sloppy framerate and bugs throw in its Insultingly unfinished free roaming components and it's clear it was simply not released to be ready to be released if

you had your sights set on mines I think again, I did have my my My I did I did I actually was kind of excited for it and now I'm not

You have to be terrible to get an IGN 4, because Cyberpunk 1.0 got a 9 on IGN when it was first released.

the thing, if you played Cyberpunk 1 on a good PC, it was great.

To hell anyone else says I played it day one, well, okay, I didn't play it day one.

I played it like a week or two later because I just, I didn't buy it right off the bat, but like I played it with a timeframe that everyone didn't like it and it was, I thought

it was an amazing game then.

It's a game for me though, so I think it's fair to give it, I would have given it a nine actually.

even though I would have put the emphasis on if I did a review or if I did a video on it, I would have been like, I give it a nine, but if you have a crappy, I shouldn't say

crappy, if you just don't have a good computer or if you're on the PlayStation 4, do not buy, it's a no buy.

would have.

how computers have progressed.

The Steam Deck can run Cyberpunk at like 30 FPS.

The Switch 2 can run at like 40 FPS.

the Steam Deck can run Cyberpunk at what?

Man, you load it up somewhere else though, towards the end, it doesn't play very well.

I'm not overly happy about that, okay.

uh

like, you have to be really bad.

Like, mine's just, I guess, didn't have anything going for it.

You have to be really bad if you get an IGN 4.

I mean, that's what looks like everyone's kind of giving it is around a four.

The highest rating being a 50 maybe.

don't know.

Let's There's no positive reviews, critic reviews.

Wait, go to the mixed reviews though.

Go to the mixed reviews.

What do they say?

There's only two.

third person shooter with neat looking story sequences, but not much more.

Mind's Eye is an excellent example of style over substance, game that falls apart the moment you start playing.

Why did they release it?

I think anyone could have told you, go and reconstruct it and add more to it.

Another year in the oven on this probably could have saved it from a four and could have been maybe a seven and they could have made some money off of it.

Now they'll probably make no money and it'll be a huge, who made this?

Well, you know, Sony refunded everyone that bought the game, right?

No, no, Sony didn't make it.

yeah but Sony uh yeah

They didn't publish it either.

IOI published it.

The guys that made Hitman.

And the guys that are making the new 007 game.

It's not being developed by them though, it's being developed by a couple of ex-Rockstar devs.

Interesting.

I don't know man, it's a weird game now because it sucks.

I have a feeling that there's going to be worse game that comes out this year, but we'll see.

Like for a AAA title though, it might end up taking the

Okay, like, okay, like, we're not counting shovelware.

Like, literal shovelware.

I'm thinking like triple or double A and triple A.

Like there's still some good like.

Yeah, like silk song.

What if it comes out and it's horrible?

Dude, what if Silk Sun comes out and horrible?

What if Half-Life 3 comes out and it's horrible?

What if it's worse than Mind's Eye?

I'd still play it.

I'd cry through the whole thing, but I'd play it and give it a 10 out of 10.

Okay.

Unbiased gaming journalism at its finest.

Well, here's the thing, no one's unbiased, especially in this type of entertainment industry.

ah If you say you're unbiased, you're an idiot.

Yeah, no one can be unbiased, it's just human nature.

news, news can be a little bit less, but still it's gonna have some bias to, uh you're still gonna be biased a little bit.

Okay.

So with all that being said, does this bode well for the future of games?

What do

not for the future of whoever developed it developed mind's eye that's for sure

Well GameStop thinks that the company's future isn't in games.

not video games.

They've been shifting towards trading cards, things like Pokemon cards which they've made a shitload of money from.

Really, I didn't realize they made so much money from it.

I went to GameStop the other day.

I'd only so it's been a month or two since I've been to GameStop because my son you know, my son's getting to the age where he wants to go look and I'm like, dude, awesome.

This is great.

Let's go look at some games in person.

And um just in like a couple of months, it changed greatly.

There's a whole section where you can go look through um match the gathering cards, you can you know, Pokemon cards and stuff like that, which I'm actually

I'm kind of here for GameStop being like an all around game store.

So I'm hoping they don't get away from video games and used stuff.

But I'm here for like all the different varieties that GameStop has.

I mean, I wouldn't imagine them going completely away from video games, but it's always a worry.

I think if they go, I think diversifying is good, especially for GameStop.

I think if they go all in on just card games, I think they'll end up failing just to get on it in a different way.

they definitely, I think it's smart to diversify.

also been getting into gaming paraphernalia, like gaming related merch as well, like not accessories for consoles and stuff, but like gaming t-shirts and like Funko Pops.

By the way, Funko Pops are ugly as sin.

Don't buy Funko Pops.

Don't tell me, me and Kerrigan about that, my Starcraft Funko Pop.

Oh no, you have a fart!

I have a couple.

I don't get them very often, but if it's something very specific, I'll get it.

I have a couple.

I'm not saying that they're the best.

I definitely wouldn't have like hundreds of them, but to each their own for collecting.

oh

But like having a bunch of them, like no, why, dude?

You could buy nendoroids, which are way better quality, but they don't make like every brand.

Like I don't think they have a Starcraft nendoroid, but who knows?

I gotta get my, uh I gotta get the merch and the, and something to decorate my backdrop with.

Funko pops it is.

It's interesting though.

GameStop is an interesting company.

And I know a lot of gamers have hated the way that they do trade-ins and stuff like that.

But at the end of the day, like there's not a whole lot left.

If you don't want any in-person stores to go, cause I think Walmart's getting rid of their game section.

target I don't think is going to, but they're slimming it down a little like we're on the verge of not being able to go into a store and look at anything video games, so.

That's true, especially if companies go all digital.

mean, they're gonna cut GameStop off completely, honestly, they may not even, you know, they may not even have a choice in regards to staying in the video games industry, except

for like maybe selling consoles and accessories and old games.

Well, and they're starting um to become like those uh independent game stores where they have collectibles and stuff like that.

They are selling collectible game stuff now.

If it's an old enough game, they have it behind glass.

I saw Mario 64 in there.

I'm here for that.

If I need to go get my classics, sure.

um But I'm curious how long that would last though.

Dude.

So like, here's my thing too.

GameStop is also known for screwing people, especially with poorly trained employees.

Like, did you hear about the recent thing with the Switch 2?

No.

So there was a game stop in New York, or I think, somewhere up in the Northeast area.

They were stapling the receipts to the Switch boxes, and that in turn was damaging the Switch 2 screens.

Okay, I'm gonna put a little blame on both sides.

If a staple that's like half an inch can damage, that's how close your screen is to the box, like outside the box.

Okay.

Like they should have put a little bit more padding in there.

But yeah, that's why staples the receipt to the.

don't understand.

Like, why staple at all?

Also, another thing too, I have personal story.

One of my old college friends, he pre-ordered a Monster Hunter Nintendo Switch, I mean not Nintendo Switch, a Monster Hunter Nintendo 3DS back in the day, with Monster Hunter 4, and

they screwed him out of the pre-order for the...

He gave them money too!

They screwed him out of the Pro Hero for the, like, special edition Nintendo 3DS, and so he had to get a red one.

And he was super duper pissed about that.

I saw, like, red in his eyes.

issues with pre-orders in the past.

Not having enough, not conveying.

I would say that's more leadership issues than like when you're talking about just a regular employee, like that doesn't get paid anything.

I don't know.

Yeah, clerical issues is bullshit too,

Yeah, I don't know.

I just don't know where else you go for some of this besides Target.

Best Buy.

just, that's my worry is that we're like, I like to go and browse in person every once in a while, especially if it's console based stuff.

I games I don't care about, but I would love to try games.

So I'd like game companies and hardware companies to team up more with Best Buy and GameStop so I go try stuff out in person.

I mean, honestly man, they've been downsizing the physical games like sections of like the big stores outside of Best Buy.

Like Walmart, they've been like downsizing the games like section.

I, yeah, they're basically, yeah.

they're getting rid of the game section.

I don't know if they're gonna get rid of like consoles or like PCs, but like hardware wise, they might still keep it, but games they're getting rid of.

Best Buy, from my understanding, they're downsizing that too actually.

So they could get rid of it too.

Yeah, like, I remember there used to be huge kiosks where you could demo the latest games on Xbox, like, on a controller.

Yeah.

you can still kind of, like my Best Buy has like, I don't think it had the Steam Deck, obviously, but it had the Ally, and it's had a couple other handhelds and consoles, but

yeah, sometimes they have newer games on it, but yeah.

Yeah man, I mean, it's just sad seeing what's happening to the state of brick and mortar games.

Cause I don't think I have any decent mom and pop shops near me that sell video games.

So, I know some people like to support those, you probably should if you have one nearby that you can support.

I don't.

I don't.

a few and I should support it more.

It's just, uh I don't know what it is.

I worked at GameStop, so it's like my go-to.

ah Not that I should have, you know, fealty to it.

ah But I should.

Sometimes, I don't know, sometimes the vibe in some of those game stores can be a little off, but whatever.

Um, yeah, it will be interesting to see how GameStop goes and if they'll have another ah GameStop like trading event because what saved them was the whole I think a big part of it

saved GameStop was the whole um

What is that called again?

The with the stock market, right?

The

about, uh, Wall Street Bets?

Yes.

I think that's one of things that kind of said was that again, overvalid like people pumped a ton of money into it.

Just to screw everyone over.

And I think they least walked away with some ah that some things that helped them.

Because they've been on the verge of bankruptcy for years now.

yeah i don't know GameStop is just i don't know what to say anymore about them they'll hopefully they'll figure things out if not then i don't what we're gonna do

Then I guess we'll just have mom and pop shops and hopefully they stick around.

mean, they don't usually do that well.

So.

It was just as gamers, we like a good deal and we also like to do things online more and more.

So we don't like to leave our house.

That is true.

And we're not gonna be leaving our house a lot more because this game just came out.

If you're a PC gamer, you're gonna be wanting some alone time with Stellar Blade, I guess.

Stellar Blade, man, as per Steam's own concurrent player accounts, Stellar Blade has peaked at over 180,000 concurrent players, with the previous record being Ghost of

Tsushima at 77,000, which is crazy.

amount of difference there, uh concurrent players.

Any guesses as to why this could be the case, high tech?

Well, my guess is of course that, A, it's Stellar Blade.

It's a game that like, I don't know, people want on PC for a very, dare I say, specific reason.

Yes.

Like, Ghost of Tsushima is a good game, but there's no real incentive to mod it, whereas Stellar Blade apparently does.

So, Stellar Blade is one of those ones where, from my understanding, it looks fun.

I think I'm gonna buy it uh one day.

uh We'll see, I have a bunch of other games, it's a type of style of game that I'd play anyways.

um

It apparently runs well on Steam Deck too, 60 FPS.

I tried the demo on Steam Deck.

Yeah!

there's no other reason to support it I do like it when games run well in the Steam Deck.

Because I think we could all get a game like I think every developer could get their game to run well if they just optimize.

But it's, it's a little controversial because a lot of people gamers think especially American or Western game developers don't make pretty characters in games anymore, which

is not necessarily true.

And so it was also a controversial thing where I think a lot of people bought this just out of spite of like, well, it's a pretty character, so I'm gonna buy it because of that.

And so it's interesting that, it, like, how well did it do on PS5?

I thought it did decent, but I don't know.

sounds like it might be doing better on PC.

It's hard to know for certain, to be honest, but what matters is there were a ton of people.

Pull up the Steam charts.

Maybe it's gone up again.

Nah, it's almost 190,000.

Shit.

Yeah, all time peak.

We'll see if it ends up getting to like after the first week or two, it usually won't.

But interesting.

Yeah man, basically, so I mean, Stellar Blade is fun.

There was also a demo as part of the next fest, but it doesn't show up as part of the next fest anymore because the game's out, which I didn't know that was a thing.

But yeah, Stellar Blade's been doing quite well, and coinciding with Stellar Blade doing quite well is the fact that Sony lifted their stupid region lock.

So for those who don't know, Sony has been banning their games and has been...

not selling their games in regions where you can't get PSN on PC.

But now you can buy games in regions that PlayStation doesn't operate in again on Steam.

Yeah, that's, I mean, that's good that they're lifting that.

hold on, hold I have an idea.

You should go on Nexus mods and see what stellar blade mods there are.

That's dangerous.

Come on, dude.

Nexus mods can't super explicit game like mods.

I don't think.

I you to be signed in.

Actually, I can't remember if they do host them or not.

um

So they have...

hold on, sort by top, like, most downloaded, like, sort by most downloaded or update or whatever.

popular.

popular.

Stellarblade facial beautification mod?

Did Stellarblade really need a quote beautification mod?

That seems a little...

That's so bizarre.

What a bizarre thing.

like yeah, I don't think I don't think she looks better with blue eyes.

That's kind of weird

don't say like, yeah, that's the thing.

Like, don't say it just be like, if you want to modify it, modify it, but like, she's already extremely attractive.

So okay.

you do you.

Let's see.

there's a couple of different outfits.

you're gonna get a lot of outfits in this.

There's gonna be a lot, Yep, yep.

We're getting into a lot of things.

Like it is thirsty, they're thirsty for this.

Like you know there's gonna be, probably some of the thirstiest mods ever created are gonna be created for this game, so.

what the gamers want, man.

This is what they want.

And they put their money where their mouth were.

were or what.

So here's the thing.

You're good.

I think gamers want a lot of different things.

I like it can be very immersion breaking when you put a character like this in let's say Fallout where you're like, how are they gonna look like that?

But for stellar blade, it works.

Okay, like I'm fine with them doing that.

But certain games, I don't need my character to be super attractive.

If they're attractive, that's fine.

I just don't need to be super attractive.

What matters is that they look super duper badass.

Which I think is our next topic.

yeah, let's see here.

Is it this one?

Wait, which.

Yeah, it's Halo.

I think you skipped the other one.

That's super controversial.

But it might be worth it might be best to skip that.

Okay, I just don't know if I headed my line up.

thought I did.

See, so Halo is getting a bunch of features back like Griffball and a bunch of other stuff that's listed in here as well, but they're bringing back the old Hayabusa armor set.

You've played Halo 3, right?

Yes.

You remember the, like, the one that looks like Ryu Hayabusa's helmet in, like, armor, right?

Scroll back up, I think.

You'll see it.

You'll know when you see it.

yeah.

That's...

Dude, they're bringing it back.

It's awesome.

And it's free too!

free.

They're not charging us.

Like, you can earn it for free.

That's cool.

I like earnables like that.

Okay.

Let's see, and there's Griffball, there's a bunch of other cool stuff.

I just wanted to talk about it because it's awesome.

It's crazy that they had to wait for Ninja Gaiden 4 to release to get a new Hayabusa armor set, but yeah.

Yeah

It is what it is.

It's good that they're given a lot, like it just doesn't feel like Halo though sometimes.

Like some of this doesn't feel like Halo to me, I don't know why.

Yeah, some of the armor, but then again, know, unlockables and stuff, I get it.

Yeah, it is what it is, man.

Everything's got to be kind of Fortnite now.

It's kind of what they get.

It's like you said, it's what the gamers want.

They want unlockables.

They want to be able to customize.

They want to be able to be badass in their own ways.

And so it's good that Halo is returning to some of their roots, I guess.

But um I don't know.

Halo is one of those franchises where I think it's just going to eventually die off.

I think obviously they're still building stuff for us.

It's still making them enough money.

But I think they're going to have to plan.

They're probably going to have to what they're going to have to do is just like

let this kind of die off, then they're going to have to reboot the whole series in like five years, completely reboot it if they want to keep the IP going because uh right now

they're just killing it.

Yeah, there's not a whole lot of faith right now with the 343.

I think, I mean, they're...

even if the og devs themselves were here, there are like, anything that touches halo, I feel like all the studios are just not doing well.

Yeah, I mean, the guys behind Halo, they all left...

They all left Bungie, so even modern Bungie.

Yeah, I don't know where they are now, though, to be honest.

Um, but it-

retired on the beach.

Everyone's dream.

Game developers are special.

They want to make video games.

So usually they'll retire until later.

Yeah.

so I mean Halo is out.

Halo's fun.

But you know what the gamers really want?

Final Fantasy Tactics.

Fake Final Fantasy Tactics quotes.

Final Fantasy Tactics has a lot of interesting dialogue in regards to inequality between classes and whatnot, because it's very much based on The War of the Roses.

which has a lot of that too, if you're not familiar with it.

It sorts of bot, it's under your current tab.

I just didn't understand.

Okay.

Cool.

So, there is one quote that sounds like it came from Final Fantasy Tactics, but it's actually not a real quote from the game.

uh

Interesting.

So.

There are a lot of lines that like read kind of like that.

Like that's actually in the game, that one, that picture.

Yeah, what purpose do laws serve when even those who would enforce them choose not to pay them?

Heed.

It's also written in almost like...

olde English, almost like...

dialogue is like reach...

Yeah, that was the purpose of it.

Yeah, scroll that...

But yeah, I mean, I thought it was really funny, and they're bringing a lot of attention to this because...

Oh, that's one of the original writers of the game.

Oh, weird.

If the penalty for a crime is uh fine, then the law only exists for the lower class.

mean, does that so that doesn't exist or it does exist?

It does not exist.

It's not an actual line in the game.

But it's...

I mean it's true, if it's a fine then it's only for the lower class.

would have written in the game.

It sounds like something he would have written in the game because the game has a lot of, like, social commentary in regards to classism.

I just thought it was a really funny uh thing to talk about since Tactics is uh re-releasing pretty soon and I'm gonna get it on my Steam Deck.

Or Switch 2.

I don't...

You better get it for the Steam Deck.

Or else you're gonna lose more followers or subscribers.

I might lose all 16,000 of my subscribers because of this.

All because you chose the Nintendo Switch 2.

No, you'll be good.

It's a shame that Lion's not in there.

I feel like there's a lot of Lions I've quoted that aren't in movies and stuff I've watched.

Like you know, like in Star Wars people say the line is, Luke, I am your father.

But that's not actually what he says.

That's not actually what he says.

I know.

sounds too good.

I'm going to say it.

Also, my son's name is Luke, so I say to him all the time.

uh Luke I am your father dude that's let's see we're just spitballing here man we're not really talking about the topic

No, we're not.

You can talk about some more.

It's a topic that I don't know a lot because I haven't played Final Fantasy Tactics.

Well, I mean, there isn't a whole lot to say, Besides, was really funny.

ah There is, I think there is one other topic right after that is more near and dear to our hearts, because we're all YouTubers.

And honestly, it sucks.

So, how do you feel about YouTube introducing more unskippable ads?

I feel good about it.

I like ads.

How else do I know what to buy?

By watching your favorite content creators, of course.

Like us.

Like and subscribe.

Listen, man.

Ads are ridiculous.

I do not like ads.

It's no secret.

Ads are horrible.

Ads suck.

I bet you could save a lot of time if you just had less ads, in general.

So yeah, but that's how we pay for our, like YouTube is a free service.

They pay for it somehow.

so, content creators get paid through ads and premium services, uh premium, it's not YouTube, YouTube premium, whatever it is, but there's a balancing act.

And YouTube is gonna be learning this soon is you've got to balance what the.

uh user of your website, this very one on one business and like developer kind of stuff.

You got to balance what the user is willing to put up with.

And when you start doing more and more unskippable ads, you're just going to lose them.

You're going to also need to uh change the way you do ads, you probably are going to have to require like smaller ads like 520 second, but we cannot have these

hour long ads sometimes which I don't I think there was a little bug with that where I think some people got unskippable like hour long stuff but

I would just stop using YouTube if that happened to me multiple times.

Like legitimately.

You couldn't watch anything!

You couldn't watch the thing you wanted.

You can watch it.

It'll just take you an hour to get there.

No.

No.

here's how those hour long ones, people can promote their own videos and that's where those long, they're not technically ads, they're just videos people are promoting and you

get it.

I could, like as long as you make a big enough stink about this, I do think, like don't say I don't want no ads and stop using ad blockers, because this is just gonna, like they

have to make the money up somehow.

It's gonna make them continue to do even more stuff.

But we can complain about.

you know, one uh ad out of like three, damn it, do one ad or make it so I can have a preference.

I can have multiple ads throughout my video.

I can have like three ads at the beginning to pay for it.

That's fine.

But like, let's figure this out in a reasonable way that works for both sides, because you're not going to get away from ads unless you pay for it.

Unless you pay for light.

And it sounds like ads are coming to light.

Man, YouTube...

Okay, listen, man.

I get the purpose of Netflix Lite, because you can't access Netflix for free anyways, but like, I don't understand the purpose of YouTube Premium Lite when YouTube is a free

service in and of itself, because they say you're getting less ads, but what does that really...

Can they really quantify that?

it's not a free service.

You are the product.

It's free in that I don't have to pay money.

But yeah, you are the product.

It costs a bunch of...

it costs something, whether it's your time or your data.

But it's not reasonable to say people should just stop using Adblock because, I mean, the internet is nigh unusable without Adblock.

The FBI recommends you have Adblock.

That's how bad it is.

sure but here's the problem is that any if you're consuming content that has ad block and you like it it's gonna go away and is that in my in my opinion it's theft that being said

if it's so bad that you have to use ad block I kind of get it but we should be doing a more ethical way of doing that and just

either not consuming that or trying to find a way to consume the content we like without having to go the ad block route.

I get some websites though.

I'm using it right now because we're streaming.

I do have ad block because I just don't wanna have advertisements on our stream, but that's on this.

On my other account, I have ads enabled typically for most things unless the website's unusable, then I enable it.

So you could disable it for YouTube, but I don't know.

Here's my thing though.

Like...

we don't really get a choice in whether or we monetize.

Like some people will say, it's our fault for over-monetizing content, but like YouTube's pushing out a new policy where even content that's being published by non-partners, that's

being, that's getting advertisements.

Even like really short, like 30 second funny clips are getting a bunch of advertisements too.

Like not like shorts, but like their YouTube videos in and of itself.

Those are still getting ads too.

Here's the problem though, hosting and all that still cost money.

Now, YouTube is probably gonna make a lot more money off that than, you know, than what's being spent on infrastructure.

So they definitely gotta fine tune that or else it looks bad.

And that's the stuff that's, I'm fine with this like raging against certain things like that.

But we've got to have this balance of understanding like, you've got to pay for the service that you're using.

in some form or fashion because it costs money to run.

Okay.

But also, YouTube has the means, like Google has the means to research how to bypass ad blocks.

And they certainly have done so in the past as well.

And people won't, and so Google can certainly do so.

And not to mention they run, not to mention they control like browsing as a whole.

Like they have like 90 % share, like whether it's you Google.

sold off, but yeah.

But yeah, mean, Manifest V3, if you recall, that basically makes uBlock Origin not work as well as it should.

And as a result, mean, uh they can feasibly prevent adblock from working.

And they...

don't, I don't know where you find a happy medium because ah it's not, it's like if they had full reign of ad block on YouTube and everyone ran ad block on YouTube, who's paying

for YouTube?

YouTube will just collapse.

The ideal solution would be to subscribe to your favorite content creators through Patreon.

Support them more directly.

People won't do that, I understand.

for the platform?

YouTube, we host our podcast and even with our numbers, it eats up tons of resources.

YouTube is a billion dollars to run YouTube, multi-billion dollars.

So.

uh

But they also still get our data too, and data is where it's at.

Data is where, I would argue that's probably where most of the money is at to be honest.

Like Microsoft sees it that way, they don't care if you pirate Windows.

As long as you're using Windows and you get all their sweet sweet data, I don't think they really care.

a lot of other services that go along with it.

They had Windows Free forever.

They just, yeah, they don't care because they make their money off a lot of other things.

YouTube though, I agree, data is king, but it's not as king anymore in the business world.

Data is just so, it's so saturated now.

ah I still don't know.

think there's a, this is a balancing act.

think if we,

are gonna be up in arms too much about the ads, then um you'll kill off YouTube if you don't.

But then again, you need to be just angry about certain ones.

Sorry, I'm going on this whole tangent.

think uh there needs to be, know, there ads, premium, premium light, of course, should not include the uh music and everything.

But even the premium has been going up every year by like five dollars.

That's where I'm kind of complaining too.

It's like every year I feel like premium goes up by like five to $10.

And so, ugh.

ah

an ethical way to show ads, but I think unskippable ads is not the way to do it.

Cause let's think about it.

Let's think about it.

If you like long unskippable ads, should say, if it's like five seconds, I don't really care.

But like if it's a long, like 30 second unskippable ad, then no, that's not the way to do it.

They should always be skippable because you know, like we said, like data may not still, may not be.

as big of a deal, but it's still a big deal.

they can record you pressing that skip ad button, and that means you're engaging with the ad, even if it's not in the way that they want you to engage with it, which is like, click

on the link, right?

So that still shows that you're actively paying attention to the ad to skip it.

So like, yeah.

I think unskippable ads does no one any favors.

Ads work, mean, when I get an ad and it's with it, like as long as you can convey in five, 10 seconds kind of what it is, and I look at it and I can skip it, I have bought stuff

because of ads, but we gotta get back into, like you said, like we just, five seconds, mean, 30 seconds isn't too bad depending on how long the video is.

As long as there's only one ad in the whole video and it's 30 seconds, I can deal with that at the beginning.

um Kind of like this.

video has been paid for by this ad in 30 seconds.

The problem is, that I feel like there's always tons of ads.

I don't know.

Like it's just, it's interesting.

mean, I've put sponsorships in my videos though, but they're skippable.

I mean, sponsorships are also a different thing entirely as they're not like, because some creators like do a pretty good job of integrating the sponsorships.

Like they make it part of the content and you know, and depending on how the sponsorship deal works, I mean, sometimes the entire video is one big sponsorship because they use

that product in the entire video, right?

Like that's a totally, yeah, mean, people don't like it too, but sometimes it can be.

it's interesting.

Sorry.

at Linus Tech Tips AMD Extreme Tech upgrades.

Like, the entire video is sponsored by AMD.

And they give $5,000 to whatever Linus Tech Tips employee is featured that week, and they get to use it to buy shit.

And the entire thing, basically, think the stipulation is it has to be an AMD system if they're upgrading their PC.

But, like, people don't hate that.

I think it's just a lack of creativity when it comes to like...

Or maybe just being blatant shills.

I mean, it's hard to review a product that you get for free and people not call you a shill because people just think you're biased because, well here's the thing though.

They didn't give me money for it.

They gave me a product to evaluate and tell the truth, right?

I mean, that's the best we can do.

Like, if they sponsor a video...

If a video is sponsored, then...

the most good content creators like fan the deck and like you know the rest of us I would imagine they would explicitly mention that it's a sponsored video and that this is not a

review like they wouldn't frame it as a review

Yeah, I hear you on that.

If I like it enough, I don't know, I do try to preface that, but if I like it enough, I definitely like to promote stuff, whether it's sponsored or not.

I prefer to not have to pay for things to make it so that it's easier on me, especially like micro content creators like ourselves where we're smaller tend to need that one up at

times uh in order to actually make it.

Okay, it's such a dilemma because honestly, like,

I love YouTube, I don't mind ads, but I also pay for premiums, so I don't use, I don't like the ads, obviously.

As long as there's a way for everyone to kinda get what they need and want.

But YouTube's a business, they're gonna always be trying to push for it, making more money every year.

ah It's a little unethical too, on that side.

like, people that uh have ad blockers and kinda steal the content, I think it's unethical, but I also think YouTube and

corporations are a little unethical to so it's kind of the person that kind of gets screwed is the content creator.

I real issue though is that there isn't really a decent alternative except for fucking TikTok I guess for video content creation but like who the fuck is gonna watch a podcast

on TikTok?

Well, I mean there's a lot of podcasting stuff.

do think...

could upload clips, but, I mean, we barely made clips to begin with.

And we definitely couldn't fit a full episode of Off the Console on TikTok.

I think there's a, like, 10-minute limit.

I do I do think YouTube is playing a dangerous game and we could because it's getting easier and easier to publish to multiple platforms and if I can publish like go to a

service like I'm going to try to implement myself to release a video on two or three platforms then cool like I'll as the consumer as long as the content creators are on the

platform I want I'll go there.

but we'll see.

I think it's something that we're gonna, see how it really affects.

I know that people have talked about YouTube killers in the past, like services.

just, there's, there's always the chance that YouTube could be killed off, but we'll see.

I also don't believe it fully, but there's a chance.

the last thing though, I didn't think it was ever going to happen.

But we're getting a space balls to and kind of just ending the podcast on a fun notes fun uh Mel Brooks is 98 years old.

That's crazy.

He's 98 years old and I'm sure he's one of if I remember correctly, he's one of the Make-A-Spaceball 2s for a while.

And so it is, as long as he can make it to 2027, he'll be like 100, 101 when it releases.

That is crazy.

What a legacy.

I just want like, I don't know about you, Hi-Tech, I liked Spaceballs growing up quite a bit.

Super cheesy, whatever.

I'm hoping for another cheesy, fun run in Spaceballs too.

But just seeing Mel Brooks at the end of the trailer talking about it, I was like, wow, he's a pretty spry 98 year old.

And it's just shocking.

that 40 years old years later which was already old in spaceballs one I mean 60 I guess not that kind of old but still crazy

Have you seen Spaceballs?

I did when I was a little kid so I don't remember too much.

I do know it's a Star Wars parody.

It's a Star Wars parody.

Yeah.

And it's super cheesy, but it's fun.

It's really fun.

And they throw a lot of shade in that trailer.

Cause it's like finally after all these things and after the rebukes, these reboots and the throw a little shade at Star Wars.

It's just like.

wonder how they're going to parody eh the prequel trilogy and the sequel trilogy since I know Spaceballs predates either of those.

they're going to parody it.

That's what I think will happen is that we're going to see some type of probably melding of both into it.

So I'm I'm I can't promise it's going to be a good movie, but it looks like it will be a fun movie.

I mean, I'm done for fun.

matters is that it's authentic

I gotta get going though.

Okay, awesome.

Thanks guys for watching.

Make sure to subscribe to us on YouTube.

Make sure to uh also uh go to uh some links in there for podcasts.

uh If you want to subscribe to us on other podcasting platforms and listen to us somewhere else like Apple podcasts or Spotify, please do so.

Thank you guys for watching, listening and being who you guys are.

Amazing, amazing listeners and watchers.

So thanks again.

Hi tech, anything else you want to end with?

Nothing in particular, but just have a good day.

Okay.

Yes, I agree with that.

Have a good day guys.

Peace out later.

later alright bye bye