Coalstakes | The Big Deal

[00:00:04] Stepping to Video Game Land. Welcome to Fine Time.

[00:00:28] Hello, party people. It's your boy Dre, and it is my boy Steve. I can't believe I'm this sweaty. I can't believe he's not butter, Kevin. I can't believe Steve is that sweaty either. I can believe it. It's hot. It'd be humid. He yelled at us about it before the show started.

[00:00:50] I didn't yell at you. I yelled near you. Well, near the mic, and you happen to be nearby where the mic transmits to. I understand. I know it's only an audio show, but we can see each other, and I think your head has a very nice sheen in this weather. Me too. Oh, that's great. If only that meant something to somebody. It means something to us. He doesn't even care, Kevin.

[00:01:19] Someday you're going to just bump into the street on a beautiful lady, and she's going to see that head, and she's going to be like, God fucking damn, hello. Dude, she's, yeah, just right there on the street. But then once the humidity drops, she'll be like, eh, I don't know. It was just a summer fling. One time, eh, no, that's not for this show. Oh, come on! Tell us, I'll cut it out. Tell us.

[00:01:51] All right, we're back. Steve told us the scintillating story. It wasn't as sexy as we hoped, but it was something. You didn't miss much, folks, I promise. So, Kevin, we want you to go first this week on Now Playing before we get to all the Menagerie stuff. We have your mailbag questions. Thank you for so many subscriptions for fucking Patreon or something. All the submissions. You guys, you guys always come out this.

[00:02:20] Even when the show wasn't jack shit, for some reason, we always got mailbag questions, and we've always appreciated it. So, thank you. We'll answer pretty much all of them at the end of the show. Quote, unquote, end of the show. But first, Kevin, please tell us what you've been playing this week. I got something juicy. Ooh. Last show has been one of the many times that new Super Mario Bros. 2 has come up on the show.

[00:02:50] Periodically throughout the last few years, it comes up. I bought and played this at launch, and I've never thought that much about it. Outside, I thought it felt unnecessary. And definitely when we talk about the new Super Mario Bros. franchise getting oversaturated, that was the biggest contributor. And I didn't find anything interesting about the coins everything as a hook. But I didn't really find that game offensive.

[00:03:15] But every time it comes up, Andre has a very strong, like, fuck that game up, it's stupid ass. It should have never even thought of existing. I hate it. It's dead to me. And so we kind of got into this last show a little bit where I said, you know, was it really that bad? And he was like, yeah, it was that fucking bad. And I just really genuinely couldn't remember.

[00:03:37] So I wanted to go back to this with looking at it through the lens of, like, how does this hold up as a platformer and not just thinking about, like, it has coins everywhere. That's the hook. And I don't like to admit Andre is right very often. But I would say his opinion was more on the money than mine was. The game definitely adds nothing to the franchise at all.

[00:04:05] And I'm not going to be as hard on it as he is. Because I wasn't, I didn't spend the whole time playing it just being like, fuck, this is horrible. I'm miserable. I can't wait for this to be done. But it really doesn't feel like it respects your time playing it because there really is just no reason for it to exist. It's worse than I remember. I already don't feel like I have enough time to play video games. So I really don't want to play something that doesn't have a reason to be played.

[00:04:33] It's interesting looking at it and contrasting it to other Nintendo 2D platformers. I talked about Tropical Freeze a few years ago. And I like gushed how almost every level there's an interesting and unique mechanic that you haven't seen before. And almost all the time when that level's over, you probably won't see that mechanic again. And that's fine because on the next level, there's something else fucking interesting about that level. This game is the literal opposite of that.

[00:05:02] There are no interesting, unique, anythings to be found at all. Even compared to the original New Super Mario Brothers game. That introduced the giant mushroom and the mini mushroom. And that stupid fucking blue shell suit, which was the worst part of that game. I hated that fucking suit. It was horrible. Me too. So I'm glad that didn't make a return.

[00:05:26] But like, and this game, like this game does have a very few like giant and mini mushrooms. There's nothing new. There's no interesting enemies. There's no interesting mechanics. There's nothing. Every halfway tower, but in halfway through the world has a variation of the Reznor fight when they're on the fucking spinning platforms and you have to jump at them.

[00:05:51] Like, man, that that's at that point, it almost feels like they went out of their way to say we want this. The fucking coins everywhere thing is so good. We can't add anything else to this game to outshine that. So make it as basic as possible. I think they realize that their game wasn't that interesting. And then they just added all the coins on top of it. It's like, this just feels like a crappy new Super Mario Brothers game. What else can we do?

[00:06:19] And then that's that's how you get the coins. I feel like, man, I like it. I yeah, I don't know, because like the game is not built around the coins like it's definitely everywhere. You can turn the enemies into, you know, gold where you jump on them, you get extra coins like there's there's nothing there's nothing unique about the coin, even even the aesthetic of coins everywhere. We've seen that to a degree since like Super Mario Brothers three, right? Like, you know, where they fucking paint everything with coins.

[00:06:48] So even that is not even aesthetically interesting. But the thing with Mario three is that like. If you think about like the regular levels, yeah, you have those bonus levels like the coin ship or whatever, right? Or you have your moments where you go into a big room with coins. The reason why that's fun is because Mario three actually doesn't have that many coins when you're just like playing the levels. There's not a whole fuck ton of coins to collect.

[00:07:12] Like, like I feel like there's more coins in the original Super Mario Brothers or even like Mario World probably has more coins. Super Mario three is like has less coins than those. So that's why those things feel really great. At some point, the dopamine wears off of like, oh, boy, and collecting all these coins. Wait, that's the whole game. Yeah. You know, I mean, even aesthetically, I think it looks cool in Mario three, especially on in World seven. There's that level where you can you can hit the switch and then because it's just like fucking covered in blocks and they all turn into coins.

[00:07:42] And you can rack up like 10 lives, you know, per per run through that level if you want. And that looks cool. You remember the ghost house where you hit the you hit the piece, which you go back into the original room and the whole four coins. Yeah. Like shit like that. So you have your moments which feel cool. Yeah. Even so, even like outside of the coins, just with aesthetics. So the worlds into there is the snow world. There's the desert world. There's the water world.

[00:08:11] There are there are. So so the same as the original Super Mario Brothers, if you played it, it's got like on the bottom screen. It's got like the way it goes through the worlds. And so most of them, like some of the worlds have a secret exit. So there's hidden worlds. There are three hidden worlds on here. I opened two of them. One of them is mushroom themed and one of them is flower themed. Uh, the mushroom themed one is just like sparkly on the map, has some like mushrooms kind of overlaid on it.

[00:08:40] There's nothing interesting about the way the like overworld looks at all. And it's filled with more generic levels. Same thing with the fucking flower world. Like they didn't even take this, the like secret worlds. You have to find the hidden exits to and do something unique with them. It's just as generic as possible. There's also a star world, but you need 90 of the special coins to unlock it. And there was no way that I was giving this game any more of my time. Um, you know, it's theming.

[00:09:08] Theming is obviously paramount to Mario games, right? You get, you got to have good theming. It's one of the reasons why, among other reasons why I don't think sunshine is that good, because I think it's theming is not that good. Yeah. You have the beach and you have sunshine, but what else? Right. It's very kind of one note to me for the most part. So like this, this is even worse because it feels like nothing. Think about what you just said. Mushroom world should be a slam dunk again.

[00:09:37] I'm sorry to keep going back to the best time, the best game of all time, Mario three. But it's like, think about like piranha plant world, like world seven. Like that is so their theming is so on point. It's crazy. Like they go full on, but the piranha plants and the pipes and the everything this just doesn't, it can't even be bothered. Okay. Mushroom world. What are you going to do? Nothing. Nothing. Just make it, make it a fucking grassy world with like mushrooms growing out of the ground.

[00:10:05] And that would have been a hundred times better than what was there. Like it was, it was as generic as possible, just with like the mushroom logo kind of in sparkles over, over like vague nothing. Especially since mushrooms are obviously iconic to Mario. Like that's not, you're not picking a random object. You're picking mushrooms. Like, come on guys. Anyways, so yeah, I'm glad you understand why I hate this game. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:10:32] No, again, I don't, I won't go to the point where I'm like, I fucking, I will never play this game again. It doesn't have a reason to exist. I want to, I want to end by saying something positive about this game. I have spoke before about how I like the 3d on 3ds. I know lots of people say, oh, I use it for five minutes. I turned it on, turned it off. I never use it again. I feel like people should live a little. It's, it's kind of cool. It's novel. Um, it's not always super well implemented, but I like to have fun.

[00:11:02] So I leave the 3d on and this game's redeeming quality is it utilizes the 3d. It doesn't like go above and beyond doing anything special with the 3d, but it is a game that appears on the 3ds that makes use of the 3d. So congratulations. Um, that is what I liked the most about this game. Steve, tell us how much you love new super Mario brothers too. Look, I played it when it was relevant.

[00:11:30] And the thing is when it was relevant, it was kind of this community effort to be like, Hey guys, let's all play this game together and see how many bazillions of coins we can all collect. This was back in 2012, 2013. It is now 2025. We are far removed from all of that. And yeah, I guess when you get rid of that veneer, it's, it's kind of shitty.

[00:11:57] And that's why we can't really build games around, uh, online communities that way and, uh, have them stay. Even so, man, you need good levels to, to pull this off. Like, I mean, yeah. Collecting coin. I mean, like God, we're, we're 3ds owners really starved back then. I know the answer is yes. I know this is a rhetorical question, but it's just like, I can never excuse these levels just because everyone else is playing it. And you know what? In retrospect, this game is what really hurt new super Mario brothers.

[00:12:27] You, isn't it? Because this came out because this came out like, I don't know, four to six months before it. And yes, again, I'll say it again. It should have never been a launch game. That's an embarrassing thing to launch your system with a new super Mario brothers game at the same time. It probably wouldn't have felt so bad if new super Mario brothers two didn't just come out just before it and fuck up the whole, it's like, okay, enough. And then you launch the Wii U. Then it's like, okay, already enough, enough, please.

[00:12:57] You know, having two of them in the, in the same year and one of them sucking ass just really hurt new. In my opinion. I think even if it was amazing, it wouldn't have been good for either game. Probably not, but it sure didn't help that it sucked. Because even I was rolling my eyes at, oh God, we got two of these back to back. Yeah. I only have so much money. Yeah, I know. Right.

[00:13:25] Because like, think about like what new super Mario brothers. We was 2009. So like, it would have been a few years again, not a good idea for a launch game, but at least it would have felt more like, okay, fine. They're doing this thing again. It was very successful. Okay. Whatever. Doesn't, doesn't feel like anyway, Kevin, I'm glad. I'm glad you understand. Yeah. We can, we can close the case on this. Every time this game comes up in the future and you say, fuck this game up. It's stupid ass. I can say, yep. Agree.

[00:13:55] Thank you. I got one other thing that I want to talk about real quick. When we were doing our switch to roundup, I mentioned I had just started cyberpunk 2077. So I want to talk about that a little bit more. I bought cyberpunk on launch day on PlayStation four. I obviously did not finish it. If you've ever been on the internet in your life, you probably know why. I probably played it longer than it deserved at that time.

[00:14:21] And when I look back, like that actually was somewhat enjoyable, but just from the aspect of, I got to like experience firsthand what playing that fucking game was like on console at launch. And it, because it was, it's so famous how you go look up footage. If you're not, if you're somehow not aware of this, of what cyberpunk was like on console at launch. And I did try it a few years later after they had patched it, it was in a considerably better state on PS five. And I spent a couple hours with it.

[00:14:50] It was really hard to get excited about playing it again. And I didn't stick with it because I was, I think I was just soured on that PS four experience and I didn't really feel like I could respect that game. There was nothing like really motivating after going through that. Cause I was excited for that before it came out. And then the switch to launched and I was on the fence about this. I debated four days before I pulled the trigger on this because it was 100 Canadian Rupels.

[00:15:17] Um, but I really wanted to try something that like legitimately pushed the new hardware and looked really pretty. And I bought it and I knew there was a good chance. I was going to play this again for three hours and be like, yeah, it looks pretty. And it was going to essentially be a big waste of money. Um, I'm happy to report I'm over 20 hours in. Um, and so it is well-documented. It's this game was a success story in the sense that they really turned things around.

[00:15:46] So I don't have much to like say beyond that, but it's very impressive. It, and it doesn't just look impressive, which it does. It looks very, obviously it doesn't look like it does on PS five, but playing this on what is basically a tablet is in person just feels impressive. Um, but the systems and, and like the way they've overhauled everything, it feels like there is so much depth there. And, and there is, there's, there's a number of gameplay systems that I've like kind of

[00:16:15] scratched the surface on, but I haven't, I just like that I, that I will still get into, but I just haven't like got there yet 20 hours in. And that feels good. Um, and for a game that is like five years old at this point, I am still frequently having that. Like, I cannot believe video games can do this in modern day, which is impressive, especially with the world design. And that world is incredible. Um, the city is fucking huge.

[00:16:42] And what's so cool is that like, it's complex and every corner and back alley that you find yourself in everything feels bespoke and like architecturally thought out. It wasn't just, you know, we need to fill this space. Let's just like fill these blocks with these copy and paste buildings. It doesn't feel like that at all. It's genuinely really interesting to go around and just kind of like in an area that doesn't

[00:17:08] really seem like it was meant for you to have to be there and, and just look around and think about the thought that went into it, like architecturally well thought out. Um, I need to, I wish I had the hardware. Cause you know, me, my kind of, my problem with this game is really like, I'm actually not a fan of the way it looks. I'm not really a fan of like the city just doesn't look how I, I don't know, maybe I've wanted something more blade runnery to me.

[00:17:36] Sometimes it just kind of looks like LA with some more neon lights, which is not bad, but maybe just not what I, maybe I just wanted something more like over the top, but I feel, which is why I say, I wish I had the hardware to do like the super ultra ray tracing mode or whatever on PC. Cause I feel like that would give me what I want. And I think playing it, you would still have an appreciation for like, you go into some of the like market areas and stuff.

[00:18:06] And there, there's so many like levels and like stairs that get around to these like weird pathways and stuff. And just like the complexity of the way it was designed is really impressive. Like you, you can like look around and see something not that far from you in the city. And, and, you know, you have to think about like, okay, how do I get up there? And it seems a little bit confusing and sometimes it is, but then when, when you like get up there, it's, it's not like, it's just a bunch of like, I think about some of the towns in like

[00:18:35] fallout three, trying to navigate some of those towns was a fucking pain in the ass because there's like weird pathways and like walkways in the air and shit like that. And it just seems like it, like it was kind of nonsensical, but that, that this, this doesn't feel like it was just like hacked together like that. And I get why fallout does that, but this seems like there was like genuine thought and intent beyond around that architecture and how those areas were built. And that in itself is, is really interesting and impressive. I get it.

[00:19:05] Cause fallout is supposed to be kind of makeshift as post-apocalyptic, but like still at the same time, you know what, you know what I think about, I think about fallout four, where they have that town and the remnants of Fenway park, you know, like the baseball stadium. So like it, it, it, that to me more than anything in fallout three, it just felt like, Oh my God, where, where am I going in this? You know, like I get it. It's supposed to kind of feel that way. And like, if it were like a realistic situation, it might actually be built that way.

[00:19:32] Cause you're just building on top of whatever at the same time as a player experience, it feels very, you know, disjointed sometimes. So yeah, I understand what you mean. Yeah. I think, I think either of you guys would, you know, you would find it impressive just from like a game design standpoint to spend half an hour, like wandering around the city and just seeing how it's done. It's, it's very cool. How does it run? Is it certainly it's not 60, right? Uh, no, no. So I did, I had said before I was playing it in quality and I said, I had tried that performance

[00:20:02] mode, but I was in this like an in-game cut scene in a car and it was raining. Um, I tried performance there. It, it really didn't look good. I've tried it since and I definitely have switched to performance. So to use performance, if you're on handheld, you can, it plays in 40. If you are on, if you're docked, you actually, unless you have 120 Hertz TV, you can't turn it to performance to get to that, to get to that 40 because it's not divisible by, you know, by 60 or whatever. Yep.

[00:20:31] Um, which, which is fine, but definitely, and mostly I've been playing this in handheld, um, in performance mode. It definitely, there are, it does not run at 40 all the time. There are spots where you can see a dips, um, especially that they added the, um, the, I'm trying to, I don't remember the name of the like big DLC and I've gone into that area and there is a notable decrease in performance in that area because you can, that was the same area that you, to this day, you can't play it on, on PS4.

[00:20:59] It didn't, you just couldn't buy it on that version because it wouldn't run on there and you can, you can tell why. Um, but yeah, I, I, I felt like I needed to note that I'm, I'm walking back my quality mode. The quality, the shitty thing is going into the performance mode is worth it, but more so than in most games, you can see that drop in resolution. It's, it's, it's, um, a bit of a hard trade off to make.

[00:21:24] Um, I'm, I'm looking at Steve right now cause I'm thinking of any given Xenoblade game on switch, which is like the most dynamic of dynamic resolutions you could ever see. Yeah. Yeah. It's dynamic. And I think, which is why, Hey, it's not too early to piss off Andre on this show. I think between last time and this time, Kevin has sold me on cyberpunk on switch too, when it's on sale. Good. I I'm glad. I think, I think you would like it.

[00:21:54] I mean, I might've even gotten it now, but no man, there's a bonanza coming soon. And a shadow labyrinth to explore. Sure. Oh, you're doing that on switch too. Yeah. Steve, you know what? I think you would really like out of this game. The, a lot of the little stories are very well done. And I think you probably me more than anybody. I have the hardest time, like getting invested in any of the story stuff in games. A lot of time. I think it irritates Andre when we play something and I'm like, yeah, the story was there.

[00:22:24] I wasn't paying that much fucking attention, but here it's yeah. I don't know. It's easy to get invested in these characters and get, get, um, you know, where you want to like really understand the nuance of the story. Cause it's very well told. Um, a lot of the characters are pretty interesting and, you know, quite off the wall, but in a, in a not, not too off the wall where it just seems stupid. Okay. I have to ask you something before we started talking, before we stop talking about cyberpunk rather.

[00:22:54] So when we played the demo, remember they released a demo on PS five where you could play for five hours or something like that. And like, we all, we all did it, I think. And we all talked about the way we made our characters dicks. I need to know how you did this in cyberpunk on switch too. I need to know about the penis of your character this time. Mm-hmm. It was, it was novel in the first place to even see a penis on a Nintendo console.

[00:23:21] That was the first time I've seen bare naked penis on a Nintendo hardware. Um, of course, maximum size. Okay. Maximum size. I don't even remember what I did with pews, but it was the largest size. Cut or uncut? Uncircumcised. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So you didn't, you didn't, so you, did you have no pubes or like? I don't remember. I don't remember what I decided on with the pubes. Unfortunately, since the character creation screen, I haven't seen the penis at all. I don't know how it's doing. Okay.

[00:23:50] Maybe, uh, maybe since of all the, all of the story beats, maybe the penis has like shriveled up and fallen off. I don't know. Maybe that maybe there is a way to check on. I need to find a urinal somewhere in this game to see what, uh, what goes on there. Well, okay. So maximum size uncircumcised. Well, I remember, do you guys remember the thing on PS five when I was doing my character creation? I found out by switching through the dicks that like the not circumcised one had no physics. It was like a mannequin.

[00:24:19] It was like statuesque, but then you switch to the circumcised one and it's like flopping all over the place. And what the character of like idle animation, it's like moving and schmoving. It's like flip, flip, flip, you know, but then you switch it to the uncircumcised one still statue. Nothing. Was this on our previous creative endeavor when I was not around there? Because I don't, I never did this with you guys. I don't think we had this really know. Cause I remember you telling us about the green pubes you did on, on PS five or really. Yeah.

[00:24:49] Because we had to have all played this at the same time. Huh? This is, I'm drawing a blank. Anyway, if I could post that to that, uh, physics, I still have the video. If I could post that to blue sky without getting in trouble, I'll, I'll do it. Well, I'm sure they've, they've patched those penis physics out where they're very, very nice and consistent among all penis types. Okay. And all penis sizes as well. All right. That's about it.

[00:25:17] We got a lot to talk about regarding Microsoft. So we're going to kind of break early here. Um, you want to get in the shower now or after Microsoft? What do you think now or later? I think we're going to, we're going to get sweaty during the Microsoft conversation. So I vote later. Okay. Let's, let's go in later, Steve. Yeah. Later. Okay. See you in a sec.

[00:25:38] All right.

[00:26:27] We're back. And we have to talk about Microsoft. We must do the thing. Oh boy. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to lay all of this out in totality as much as we know right now, by the way, I'm glad we did not have a big deal last week because this would have just dropped on our heads and we would have had a whole lot of information. We would have been flying by the seat of our pants. So a week has gone by. We have settled into this somewhat.

[00:26:55] We are still finding out stuff, but here's what we know right now. 9,000 people were laid off at Microsoft about this time last week with big, big cuts in the Xbox division. So here's what we know. The perfect dark remake has been canceled and the studio that was working on it has also been shuttered. The initiative that were, they were called. There are also no more.

[00:27:21] The rare game Everwild, which you've been hearing about at least since 2019. I feel like at an E3, that's also been canceled. ZeniMax Online Studios, the guys who make Elder Scrolls Online for Bethesda and whatever, they have been working on a new MMO since 2018. That MMO has been canceled. Forza developer Turn 10 Studios had half their staff laid off, 50%.

[00:27:49] One of the laid off developers, I forget where they said this, LinkedIn or whatever, they said, quote, Forza Motorsport is no more, end quote. He later clarified to mean that the side of the company that was working on like the 2023 reboot known as Forza Motorsport, they have been laid off. It seems that the Forza Horizon side is still there.

[00:28:13] Romero Games, John Romero Studio that was making a game for Microsoft that has, I don't think it had a title yet. They got their funding pulled for their game, so it has subsequently been canceled. Microsoft execs met with them the day before this all went down to see how the project was going. They didn't say a word to them that this was going to happen. They knew at that point, you don't make these decisions overnight.

[00:28:44] So this is how fucked all of this is, you know, and I'm not even saying they did that on purpose. Who knows? But it's just like, wow. Right. The mismanagement. Romero Games put out. Yeah. Romero Games put out a statement about it saying, yes, we were making a game. Yes, our funding got pulled. Yes, we got canceled. We can't say who the publisher was, but you can infer it from recent reports. So they're not legally allowed to say it was Microsoft, but it was Microsoft.

[00:29:14] If you remember, guys, because I forgot about this, actually. Hideo Kojima also has an Xbox game in the works called OD. You guys remember that? I didn't remember this at all until all this happened because there hadn't been word about it since. This project appears safe for now. Nothing has been said about it. And in this climate, no news is good news.

[00:29:39] All of this is to say nothing of like the tone deaf memos that were sent out. I'm sure Kevin's going to read a piece of that in a second. There was a LinkedIn post from an Xbox Game Studios executive that suggested affected employees go out and turn to like AI models to deal with it. But so tone deaf, which is I mean, we know the reason why Microsoft is doing that. They're going all in on co-pilot.

[00:30:06] This is the reason why these layoffs are happening in the first place, because fuck humans. I don't know how much we're going to get into that stuff today. We're mostly here to talk about the games, but I didn't want that to go by without acknowledging how fucked up this is for all the people involved. I mean, we have to start there, but this is a video game podcast. We're going to talk about this from a video game perspective.

[00:30:30] Guys, any surface thoughts right now, Kevin, besides, hey, this is fucked up, but hey, you could just say that too. I'm going to save my piece for a little bit here. I really want to get into the internal memo stuff. Okay. Yeah. I can't wait to get there. Steve. My short response is fuck. My, my, my longer response is not in my wildest thought of thoughts, what I've ever thought

[00:30:59] they would just let so much of this happen all at once. I mean, 9,000 people in one of the most lucrative industries there is right now, just, just out of work, maybe more while we're sitting here. What, what, what kind of look is that where we're jettisoning that much staff and making the customer pay for it? Because, you know, there was that short while ago was like, oh, price is going up. Pay us $80 for outer worlds too. It's gross.

[00:31:29] And this is to say, I mean, you guys remember the layoffs in January as well. And there's just like a good six, 7,000 billion. They probably laid off 15,000 people this year so far. Microsoft. Well, okay. Again, I, I don't even know what to say. I mean, we've said all we can say capitalism. Yeah. I mean, that's the thing, right? Microsoft's making money. They're not losing money here. They have all, they have never not made a profit during this entire thing. And they're still making a profit. Now, all of this is to make more profit.

[00:32:01] I just, I get, I don't know. This is like the first thing that came to mind, I guess, when this whole thing went down. Remember all the reports I want to say a couple of years ago, how in trouble the perfect dark thing was, how in troubled it was at the initiative and crystal dynamics coming in to step in to help out. And we even, I don't even know if we made a place your bets about it. It's like, guys, is this thing going to even come out? You know, but that's, that was our speculation.

[00:32:28] But then last year at summer games fest or whatever, they showed it in their Xbox showcase. It's like, Oh, it's a real game. Okay. But now it's canceled. I find it so weirdly mismanaged to even show the thing that they know is in so much trouble that they're just going to fucking cancel anyway. That just seems insane to me, Kevin. Yeah. Especially after that long for, for sure. Right.

[00:32:54] With, you know, yeah, just crazy. So I mean, we can, we can get into this and I want to, we can, we can talk about whatever we want here, but I'm going to call this section. How does Phil Spencer still have a job? Cause I don't know how, I don't know how this is still possible. Steve. I really don't. I don't know either. Andre. I would love to know what the hell's in his contract.

[00:33:24] Is it just, I can't be fired no matter what? Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah. I don't know. It might be a thing, Kevin, where he's just, obviously he's been set up to be the fall guy for years, right? After Don Mattrick. But at some point, Kevin, this has to stop. At some point you have to like point the finger at him and say, Hey, it's been long enough. You, we understand you came in to be the, the cleanup guy and take the brunt of it for a while. But at some point you have to look at him and say, bro.

[00:33:56] Yeah. I've got, I've got a little bit of a different take than that, but I want to, I want to get into this memo first. Please. So, so there was this internal memo that was leaked and I want to just read one specific portion of it. This was from Phil himself. And he said, I recognize that these changes come at a time when we have more players, games and gaming hours than ever before. Our platform hardware and game road roadmap have never looked stronger.

[00:34:23] The success we're seeing currently is based on tough decisions we've made previously. All right. There is a fucking lot to get into in those two sentences. To put a little context around this, I Googled Xbox revenue over the past few years. 2022 was at 16.2 billion. 2023 was at 15.5 billion and 2024 went up to 21. 5.5 billion.

[00:34:49] To me, I think that I think game pass is making a lot more money than we are assuming to. When we look at this as video game fans or humans seeing, you know, thousands of people getting displaced from their jobs. You know, I think it's, it's like, well, why isn't, why isn't Phil been on the chopping block for a while? I think when it comes to investors and that, and that's, you know, when we're talking about the placement of a CEO, this is a good news story in the sense that, you know, as far

[00:35:19] as like, why does Phil still have a job? You know, obviously there has been issues with the number of these studios. And to me, almost like Forza, because Forza is like one of the marquee things to say, we're shutting down like the Forza motorsport team and leaving horizon. But I think the, you know, for investors, it's like, okay, they're willing to like cut their losses, get rid of these people and just like pursue whatever is most profitable. That's a good news story from that perspective for those people. Right.

[00:35:48] Again, this is very much like removing the human aspect out of it, removing like how good this is for video games. But I think that, you know, the perspective of the people who are like, you know, like to the point, like if people are like voting on board members, you know, I think that they're, they're looking at this from a completely different lens than we are. So I think, and again, this is very debatable based on like how successful is Xbox actually?

[00:36:16] How well has Xbox been doing over the past few years? So I think we'll, we'll get there. But when, you know, being, laying people off and, and displacing thousands of people in some eyes is a good thing when they're looking at it from that perspective. Not, not, not great, but that's, I think that's what, why Phil is still employed. Yeah, I think you're right.

[00:36:42] I, I just think that like, at some point, I should clarify, I think you're right in the sense of like, yes, that is why he is still employed. I think you have nailed that. However, I don't think that logic of theirs is sound because I'm sorry, guys, I have to use a sports analogy. It's been a while. I'm going to have to use one.

[00:37:05] When you're in such a lead position, sometimes you get fired as a coach or a manager because you are the face of losing, no matter if it's your fault or not. I get it. It's like I said, Phil Spencer inherited a terrible deal when he became the head of Xbox. We understand that was a long time ago now. And at some point you have to just look at them and say, this is never going to be trusted.

[00:37:33] The Colorado Rockies this season might end up as the worst team in major league history ever. They might have the worst record of all time when it's all said and done. And they fired their manager a couple months ago. Did that change a single fucking thing? No, it didn't. Those players are those players. They're still dog shit. That is still a dog shit team. No matter how you slice it, you can find the best baseball manager in the world and they're never going to be good.

[00:38:00] But I just think that like at some point people are going to look at this and say, I am never going to buy Xbox again unless something changes. You can't just keep looking at all this stuff happening. All these games getting canceled. All these people being laid off. Looking at Phil Spencer's face and Sarah Bond and Matt fucking booty and like being like, I'm why should I trust these people? Why should I trust a single thing that comes out of their mouth?

[00:38:30] That's why I think Phil Spencer should be fired. Because that's again, at some point it just consumer confidence of this. And I get it. Not everyone knows the executives of Xbox or whatever, but a lot of people do. And I, again, I, that's how I feel. I feel like I would never, ever, ever invest in the Xbox unless those guys are gone. See, I think, I think we, I think maybe you are overestimating how many people do have their ear to the ground on this.

[00:38:59] If I had to guess how many people, even people that own a series S or X are aware of these layoffs, maybe other than like seeing it as a headline, reading it, thinking about it for three seconds and scrolling on the people who, because I think a lot of the people who buy an Xbox or just the people that have game pass on their PC are, you know, there's going to be that section that are hardcore fans, but there's going to be a lot of people that are not paying attention to this, to the, to a degree.

[00:39:29] I'm sure at a, at a certain point, it's going to have some impact on consumer confidence and, and willing to buy, but I don't, I don't think that is as big of a deal as, as it should be. If we go back to the start of this generation, they could have, they had an opportunity to, but the games were just never there. Like 100% through this whole generation, there has not been like this glowing reason why you

[00:39:55] need to have an Xbox and you need multiple glowing reasons in a row. Glowing reasons. You need a glowing reputation too. And before you said, Kevin was talking about before, I don't think too many people were listening to it. That's what you said. My litmus test for that is, does my mom know about this? And for both this big Xbox layoff and the Colorado Rockies thing, I'll tell you that that's been

[00:40:24] on basic bitch news. And I'll tell you, my mother knows about both of those things. So I'm going to say, since my mom knows about those things and she's not actively looking for Xbox news, I'm going to say a whole lot of people are looking at 9,000 people being, you know, launched into space from Xbox and saying, what the fuck are they doing over there? Even Johnny Call of Duty Mountain Dew Doritos.

[00:40:52] And am I even going to have a thing to play Call of Duty on if I get a new Xbox? Because I don't know if I'm at the store. That's what I meant, Kevin, about consumer confidence. Like, maybe they don't know Phil Spencer by name, but it's like, this isn't going to, that's not small news laying off 9,000 people. At some point you have to be like, oh no, Nintendo didn't lay off 9,000 people during Wii U, you know? Like that would have been, like, that was already a disaster, right? But no.

[00:41:22] And I don't, I'm not saying, I think that I'm not saying, I think this is the way to handle it. I do think that there, there is a reason that like car manufacturers are trying to set up subscription services to like use your heated seats. Like that, that is a thing, right? And I think subscription services, because they just know that it, that, that like mentally it's easier for somebody to have 10 or $13 come off your credit card every month and not really think about it than it is to go out and make an $80, $100 purchase or whatever. You know what I mean?

[00:41:52] So I think that's where a lot of this game pass money is coming from. And I think that's the reason why they want to keep pushing this. I'm not at all arguing the fact that yeah, consumer confidence is very low and there's not really, if, if, if I would, going back to when I bought the series X, if I would have known what this generation was going to be, I wouldn't have bought it. I would have fucking done just what you guys did. And I would have played about on my computer. Yeah. Because what's, what's the point you have to sell again. It all comes from the console.

[00:42:21] You have to sell that thing. You can't sell the nebulous idea of Xbox. I just don't think, man, I just don't think that's a winning strategy. We'll fucking see. I'm sure they'll still be profitable. And they, again, they were profitable before they laid off 15,000 people. They've never lost money. So all this is obviously bullshit, but you know, what, what can I say?

[00:42:55] Guys is fable shipping. Is, is it, is that game coming out? Cause fable seems to be in the same development hell as perfect dark was. And I do not see it making it like, and I want to use fable before I hand it off to you guys as an example of what I think Microsoft's MO is the last 10 years. When things get tough, they bail, they bail hard.

[00:43:25] They either don't have the interest in working it out or they don't have the ability to work it out or both. Like we've seen it time. Like think about at the beginning of the, we can go back to Xbox one. Remember at E3 2014, when they announced, Oh, phantom dust, we're remaking phantom dust. Remember that? And it's like, Oh, JK that's canceled. We're just going to like port the original Xbox version and upscale it. Well, that's not remaking phantom dust. What, what, what happened? Right.

[00:43:54] And then when scale bound got canceled, we were like, okay, sometimes things don't work out. You know, maybe it was, maybe it was Kamiya. Maybe it was Microsoft. Maybe they just weren't on the same page. Okay. It didn't work out. Looking back on that. Now it's feels very, very damning on Xbox. Doesn't it? That they fumble. It feels like they're the ones who fumbled the bag. Now that we know all this stuff, it's just very clear now that whenever anything gets in

[00:44:22] trouble, they don't know how to get it back on track. So they cancel it. That is the exact opposite of software management. That is the exact opposite of your job. So I, I don't know what's going on there. And again, I'm not putting all that on Phil Spencer or any one person, but they just, Kevin, it just seems like they don't have the ability to get anything going at all when things hit the skids. Yeah.

[00:44:50] I think fable will come out, but I don't think it's going to be, I think maybe it'll be somewhat similar to halo infinite. Like halo infinite was fucking delayed. And when it came out, it's still like, it didn't set the world on fire. Right. It's not going to be this like raging success that everybody is writing home about. I don't think I, it definitely has development problems at this point, but it has to come out. Like they, what a, what a fucking bad look that would be if in six months they're like, Oh, fable is shut down.

[00:45:21] Steve. Steve, I, I feel like at this rate, perfect dark is more of a name than fable and they killed that and killing another rare game on top of it. It's just bad news. I mean, do you see fable making it to market? I legitimately do not. I don't see fable coming to market and I'm sorry. I have to, it's short story time because this fave, this particular fable game is reminding

[00:45:47] me of another game that never was called earthbound 64. And yes, I can already hear everyone's eyes rolling all the way back to the, to the, you know, back of your skulls there. But you know, bear with me because when this was first shown off in like 1996, 1997 and space world and the other, you know, game shows back when we had those, and then we had to wait months and months and months for them to appear in magazines, a whole lot of fucking

[00:46:15] promises of what it could do, what this game was going to be were being made and what was going to do. And sure it was in real fucking early development, but guys look at all these arts and textures everyone came up with already. And you know, it's going to do all this stuff. You're going to ride around on a little flying saucer in the desert. It's going to be fucking awesome. No, you can't, you can't play it yet, but it's going to do all this stuff under the hood because of the disc drive guys.

[00:46:44] Just, just, you know, don't, don't look at it too closely. And then they started showing off less and less. And then they had to, you know, quietly scale back because they, they couldn't have the DD anymore. Then it was just gone years of work. We're just gone. And obviously there was a happy ending where they got to put mother three on GBA in Japan with more realistic goals in mind.

[00:47:14] But I just feel like this is what Microsoft is all the fucking time. Now we're, we're, we're, we're promising everybody earthbound 64 with all this stuff. Oh, oh man. Look at ever wild. You guys, we got all these screenshots. No, no, it's gone. Yeah. Yeah. And I, I just getting through those tough things is the reason why I'm not saying Nintendo has never canceled games, but like they made an entire video about Metroid prime four or

[00:47:43] five years ago saying, Hey, here's what's happening. We're sorry. It's going to take a really long time now, but here's what's happening. Microsoft only did that about a couple of years ago after the Redfall disaster where they were almost forced to be like, okay, we need to have a meet. We need to talk to the people. Right. And that's what they're not doing. I feel like even in the Wii U era, Nintendo, like they had people like Reggie to put a good face on it.

[00:48:12] It's like, Hey, you know, software's coming. We got this coming out. They don't have Phil Spencer doesn't feel like that guy. And I'm not even, I'm trying, I'm trying my best not to shit on them. I, I really don't hate him or anything. It's just that like, they don't have the personnel in place to not feel Sarah bond is robot corporate lady. You know what I mean? Like she, she is Microsoft personified. Like she is a, that's why she's up there. Right. And she's doing a great job at that. But what kind of job is that?

[00:48:42] She's just, she's Xbox robot lady. And okay, sure. But that doesn't, again, that doesn't instill confidence in me at all. So there's just no, there just doesn't feel, there's no feeling in this. There's no apologize or apologizing to their investors. That's for fucking sure. But what do I know, man? I just, Oh, by the way, let me tell you something. Let me tell you guys something ancient.

[00:49:08] I used to, in the year of our Lord, 1997, used to use my web TV. Remember web TV? Mm-hmm. Oh, my. I used to, I used to go to Nintendo.com and look at those pictures of Earthbound 64 on Nintendo.com on the world wide web. I remember the cowboy one, right? He's wearing the cowboy hat and it's like a. That's Flint. Yeah. So like, I, I remember all that shit.

[00:49:34] So I was very anticipating this game because at this point I had freshly just played through Earthbound. I've told you guys the story a million times. I found that in a bargain bin at Kmart for 15 bucks and I never bought anything faster in my life. But yeah, so I was hot on that game and then it just disappeared one day. Okay, sure. Sure. But that's every Microsoft game nowadays. What's on the horizon for them? What do they have? What's on the release schedule?

[00:50:00] We can list the games if we want, but like there's Clockwork Revolution, right? I'm sure that's coming out. Obviously, Outer Worlds 2 is coming out and unless a catastrophe happens. Those are too far along. We haven't seen Gears, Kevin, but we can assume that's coming out, I guess. But do we really expect to see like State of Decay 3 or like anything else that they've announced? Like, I feel like, Steve, everything is on the chopping block.

[00:50:29] I'm going to be super mean right now. If it's not coming out this year, I'm going to assume it's canceled until it's on until it's available to play. And I don't care how much of an asshole this makes me sound because I've just been seen read reading all these news stories this week. I know we've made much about the Metroid Prime news cycle just now even, but that's a video game coming out this fall or winter or whenever they're finally going to give us a date for it.

[00:50:59] They're like, and we just went over this before, Microsoft's showing us concepts of a video game. Like, look at this. Yeah, okay. That's great. Everwild was a concept of a video game. All right. Every year we go on, it's like, yeah, Microsoft put on a good show. Yeah, it was a good show. But how many of those games actually came out? That's it, Kevin, right? We're always impressed by their shows every year. They actually really do do good shows. But what do we have to show for it?

[00:51:29] Yeah, well, I'm sure they're going to have more Call of Duty coming out. So that's I'm sure that's still making them some money. Oh, that doesn't count. I think they're kind of there. Yeah. But I think they're kind of relying on just like, you know, just that stuff that's on on Game Pass sitting, bringing in that people are still going back to. What's what's going on with Overwatch lately? Are people still playing that? Does that still make them money? Or did Marvel kind of eat its lunch? I mean, Overwatch is it seems to be doing fine. It still has its fan base.

[00:51:58] Obviously, we're well past the days of it being like a mainstream hit kind of thing. We're way past that. However, I'm sure it's doing fine. It just got it just got a bunch of Street Fighter six costumes, which is really desperate and weird. They've been doing a lot of crossover shit, which seems very, you know how I feel about I've talked enough about on the show about that shit. So if I was if I was still playing Overwatch, do I be pissed? But it's like, no, I don't want Soldier 76 to look like Guile or something. I mean, I don't know.

[00:52:28] I mean, come on. Get some fucking Sonic Crosswords characters in Overwatch. Jesus Christ. I mean, you just disgusting. He can't say stuff like that. OK, on the air. It is gross. Yeah, man. I don't know, man. I don't really I can't trust anything now. I really don't know. I who knows.

[00:52:54] So here's something I want to talk about, because we talked about this a lot since she said it. So ever since Xbox Microsoft corporate robot lady, Sarah Bond, she had that comment during that Redfall meltdown podcast or whatever that was, she said the next Xbox would be the biggest leap ever in a generation. Those were her words. And we've been scrutinizing those words ever since she said them.

[00:53:24] But now we're not sure if another Xbox will release at all. At this point, they did announce an AMD partnership for new hardware. What? Like a few weeks ago. And so did Sony for that matter. So AMD is really getting in the hardware game. It's weird that Nintendo went NVIDIA and the others AMD. But that's another that's another podcast. So, you know, they did announce that partnership. But in light of last week's events, Kevin, how do we feel now?

[00:53:54] I said a while ago, and I still I do not think we are seeing this super powerful, all knowing Xbox. I think I'm not and I'm not digging in on that. But I think that it is very likely that that just doesn't happen. I guarantee and I'm not saying this is a thing that's going to happen either. It's very likely a thing that would not happen. But there I guarantee there has been discussions to some degree between Microsoft and Sony about like, OK, if Game Pass was on PlayStation, what does that revenue split look like? Right.

[00:54:23] That that has to have happened. Of course, I would not be surprised, you know, at some point that we just see a fucking streaming box for Game Pass, right? All online. Like a Roku, but it's like Game Pass or whatever. Like, OK, the same. It's same as like the what was the fucking Google, you know, or. Or Luna or something. I think all bets are off at this point saying, oh, we're definitely getting this powerful hardware. It's not a not a guarantee.

[00:54:54] Kevin, you don't even need to do that. If you if you don't have one of those LG TVs, you could just buy yourself a Amazon Fire Stick 4K and Bing, Bang, Boom. You got yourself an Xbox. I don't want that. Yeah, I don't want that either. Oh, you want you need your green X on there. Yeah, it needs it needs that it needs to have the Microsoft logo. And then I know it's I know it's fucking quality and I've got years of solid games ahead of me when that sits under my TV.

[00:55:22] That's why you're getting the wrong ally Xbox, right? Yeah. Big time. See, what do you think? Is this are we seeing another Xbox? I just don't think I don't see it because I don't feel like we fired 9000 people and we've got an Xbox coming is a news is a series of news stories that makes sense to me. I mean, there was a whiff in the air that, you know, I kept blowing around where they

[00:55:51] could be taken seriously as a third major third party publisher. But I feel like even that's out largely out the window at this point. I don't know. I just don't see it. And you were talking before. Or let's say they made a big, huge launch with the super duper Xbox here. They had they have the best first year of their lives. Can can they keep that up for subsequent years?

[00:56:19] I feel like no. I mean, they they would at least get people in the door to like buy the fucking system because I still do believe again, you have the games. People will buy the system. I still believe that in my heart of hearts. It's how this business works is how this business has always worked. And that's why I believe we will see this new console from Xbox. You know why? Because they have to.

[00:56:49] They absolutely have to. It's all they got. This isn't Sega. They can't go third party because what the fuck do they have to offer anybody? Like, like years long dev cycles that produce nothing. That's all they got. Look, OK, let's say they ditch this new console and they put Forza Horizon 6 on PS5 and Switch 3 or whatever. Like, is that really going to keep them in the game? I don't think so. That's like 3DO thinking, oh, we got army men.

[00:57:19] I think we're fine. No, you're not. I mean, you only have army men. Then what? They have to have a console or none of what they're doing makes any sense. They have to. And quite frankly, Steve, like you, like you, the scenario you just provided, I want to see them try again. I want to see if they can have that comeback story. I think that would be fucking crazy. But what does it take? What do they need to come out of the gate with that makes you guys say, OK, I'm going to go buy this.

[00:57:49] I'm going to go buy this Xbox at launch. Like, what games do you need to see? Like, what would anything do it? That's a really good question. I mean, it's weird. I mean, look, for me, it's not going to be Halo Gears Forza. That's not things that I have ever cared about. So you're not going to get me to buy an Xbox with that. But to answer your question, I guess the I mean, the only Xbox I've ever owned was a 360.

[00:58:15] And the reason why I bought that was because of its third party support in a way that was like, you know, Sega is having Virtua Fighter 5 and Virtua Tennis and shit. And yeah, those things were on PS3 as well. But like Xbox was clearly the thing being worked on. They had the hardware where people wanted to like do that stuff. I mean, yeah, PS3 was more powerful in some other ways, but they also they just I mean, look, I don't have to tell you the whole generation. You know how it went down. Right.

[00:58:42] So, yeah, maybe I wasn't there for like Gears of War and like Halo 3 or whatever. But like at the same time, like they had they had those things at that time. They need to find the things that that will be they need something new. Right. They need something fresh and fucking new, but I don't know if they're capable. Andrew, let me. I got a question now.

[00:59:04] Let's say they do find the things that are fresh and new and let's say they're even smart about it and say not necessarily day one on day pass on day pass day one on game pass. Same thing. Game pass a few like six months and then it'll be on game pass. There's no fucking way. They're not going to release that shit on PC day one. There's no fucking way. Yes. Yes. And I think that's like I mean, that's a whole other podcast, which I don't want to get.

[00:59:33] So I don't want to get started on that conversation. That needs to end, too. If they want to sell Xboxes again, they can't just keep putting everything on PC day one as well. That's like a terrible idea. Yeah. Sony put stuff on PC as well. Like, right. But like not right away. There is some stuff like Helldivers 2 or whatever. Right. And I think Marvel ToeCon Fighting Souls is going to be day and date with PC, but not very much. Like you can't keep pretending like that's not a competitive.

[00:59:59] You're not eating your own profits with that because you are talking about you talk about the 360 and the third party support. There is too much stank on the Xbox brand for a new Xbox to be the like go to third party bluff. You don't think they could throw all their money. So they have like Hideo Kojima's OD, right? They had John Romero until they fumbled the bag. They like you don't think they can go out and like get those things. I'm not saying they need to acquire all these companies again, but you don't think they can go out and sort of commission.

[01:00:29] Kind of like what Nintendo is doing with the Duskbloods. They said from software, hey, make this for us. Disregarding Game Pass. How many times when we watched, you know, five, six years ago, the Xbox showcase or E3, did you see like Xbox exclusive, Xbox exclusive, right? Like they made it seem like we've got all this third party shit. The only place you can get it is Xbox. And like we said, they always had these good presentations.

[01:00:58] Like I don't think they can deliver on it. I think they've like put so much resources into acquisition, acquisition, acquisition. You don't think they would pay Squaresoft for a Final Fantasy 17 like Sony did for 16. You don't think they're they would do that? I mean, it seems like like Square is a good example. There's a lot of hesitancy to say that we're going to be platform exclusive now, too. Right.

[01:01:28] Right. But that's again, we know the reasons. But yeah, Steve, you don't see that's a good use of Microsoft billions of dollars. See, I squares recent problems aside. Just in general, it's just comes back to, you know, what Microsoft is. They're the tech conglomerate first. And Xbox is like the game company is like, you know, maybe 10th or so in their list of priorities.

[01:01:58] They don't really take this seriously enough. And this is just, you know, the latest story. And oh, man, what's Xbox doing today? I mean, I know we all keep getting side eyed. I'm sure I'm when I was like, oh, the fine time guys are beating up on Xbox again. But, you know, it's like, come on. Yeah. It's like, what can we what can we say? You guys got anything else for wrap this up? I mean, like it just makes me I'm kind of scared for rare.

[01:02:28] Like, what is rare nowadays? What even is that? I don't know. Are they just to see if these I mean, what are the big hits they had in the last one of your sea of thieves and Viva Pinata? That was a big hit. What are we doing? Viva Pinata, a big hit. Yeah. I mean, it was a hit. It was at least like popular. I mean, people love Rare Replay because. I mean, like, that's kind of it.

[01:02:54] I feel like the two of us love whatever we see should appear on Nintendo Switch online. Yeah. I love that. Solar Jetman. Solar Jetman was fucking awesome. I got it. Yeah. These are the same. These are the same as Mario, the super new Super Mario Bros to redeeming quality being having 3D. That is the same as saying that Rare Replay was the fucking winning factor for Rare. It just takes so long, you know, it just takes so long to build up. I mean, like when did they get rid of Jim Ryan? Like a year ago.

[01:03:24] And we're still feeling the effects of that. Sony's kind of in the still trying to pull themselves out of the live service hole. Jim Ryan is probably the reason why they bought Bungie. Right. Right. So, like, I mean, Sony even in so much word said, like, hey, we're going to probably lay low for a couple of years. We're not going to have a whole ton of stuff. And they haven't. Right. There's been Astro Bot. Right. But they're letting the third parties carry right now because they're trying to course correct. It's funny you bring up Sony.

[01:03:54] You want a closing thought. That's the biggest shame in all of this. I don't I don't like Xbox going so far down this path because I feel like Sony needs that competition and to keep them on their toes. I think that's what's the best for everybody. You don't think Nintendo is that competition? I mean, to a degree. But it is. It's it's it's a lot further than removed removed than Xbox. I agree.

[01:04:22] I mean, you know, I guess maybe the only thing I have left to say is that, like, remember the very if you've been with us a long time and thank you if you have the second episode. The second ever episode of fine time is when the Activision Blizzard King news broke. They were acquiring them. And the Bethesda thing happened, I think, like a year before. Right. So we were talking about, like, is Call of Duty going to be an Xbox exclusive? Is Fallout going to be an Xbox exclusive?

[01:04:49] And the answer is no, because they think it can make more money this way. And whether they're right or not, that doesn't build your fucking brand. You buy a company to have those kinds of games on your system. So, like, I don't know going forward. Would it behoove them to like if they really want Xbox to be a thing? That's how you that's how you sell a new Xbox. Right. Right. Fallout five Xbox only PC, maybe in 2030. That's how you sell. I mean, come on. People are going to buy it.

[01:05:17] I don't see why that's not an attractive proposition. That's all they have to do. I feel like that stuff coming to other platforms had as much to do with all of the heat they took from that acquisition as it does them thinking it's going to make more money that way. It would make a brand, though. Isn't that the whole point? So people buy into Xbox? I mean, did they have to commit, though? Because they were saying publicly at that time.

[01:05:44] And was that like a conditional, you know, approval of that sale to not be blocked to say, yes, Call of Duty is still going to come to fucking PlayStation? Yeah. If they would have said that. Right. But they can bethest their ass off. Fallout five and Elder Scrolls six exclusive on Xbox forever. Yes. You're selling you're selling you're selling consoles if you do that. So I don't know, man. I feel like that's a really easy thing to do. You'll starve.

[01:06:14] I mean, my God. I still I should play that game sometime next time I game pass something. I should actually I do want to try it. I do like Bethesda bullshit, but it just seems so fucking boring. I don't know. I don't know if I can. I still got game pass because because cheap gift cards from BJ's anyway. Yeah. And I'm too scared to turn on Starfield.

[01:06:44] OK, I think that's it. You guys Steve got anything or we done? We're going to move on. We're done. OK, we. All right. That was a lot. You're right, Kevin. You're right to wait to shower now. Let's go take a shower. Let's get in the shower and then we will get to the summer mailbag questions. You're right back. It's time to hit the showers. We'll be right back.

[01:07:57] That was good. Washed all that green off us. Feeling good. Towels a little green, but what can you do? You can't get all the residue off in the shower. I think everything's an Xbox. Including our shower. They actually used to have Xbox body wash, Xbox branded body. We should have got some of that for tonight. Yeah. Oh, my God. I'm sure it's like Xbox green, right? It's like neon green. Surely. I think so.

[01:08:25] I regrettably never bought it, but in hindsight, I fucking should have. The bottom was, I think. Let's get to your questions again. Thank you for so many questions, guys. Some of you sent in multiple, which is great. We're going to get through pretty much all of them. Fairly rapid fire style, but not super fast, but quickly enough so we can get to everybody. So, let's start with Thrak, who is on the 3DO Experiment. Experiment? 3DO Experience.

[01:08:54] But, hey, guys, think about changing the name with 3DO Experiment. I think that's better. Also has been on Find Time a few times and will be in the future. He asks us via Discord, what is the one game series you like that no one else would expect from you, Steve? Look, I don't know. I know we're supposed to be a show of the people, but I don't know. I feel like in our short lifespan that I'm pretty open about what I like. And that's a lot of stuff. If something surprises you, let me know. Kevin, okay, fine. Kevin, what do you got?

[01:09:23] What's your deep, dark secret? I'm going to share something personal with you guys. I like Cooking Mama, especially the Wii one, quite a bit. That still gets put on. I've played Cooking Mama within the last four months on Wii. It's fun. I have never played a Cooking Mama, actually. I feel like I should try it. They're fun. Yeah, I feel like I would do that. I don't know. I think maybe people know this about me because I've talked about it on the show.

[01:09:50] I think everyone knows I don't play strategy RPGs or whatever, but Shining Force? Yeah, buddy. I played Shining Force. I played Shining Force 2. I played Shining Force CD on Sega Genesis Mini 2. Love that shit. I don't know why that's the one I could play. All of the listeners already know that because you guilt me every maybe five to six months that, Kevin, you could play Shining Force and then I'm scared to. Yeah, I'm a big old dummy and I could play it. You can play it too. I promise you can do it.

[01:10:20] Thrak also asks, what is your favorite movie? I assume favorite movie of all time. I'm a Verhoeven slut between Total Recall and Robocop. I mean, it's one of those. I'm going to pick Total Recall, Steve. Blade Runner. All the cuts. Sometimes a great movie is a great movie, no matter what the hell you do to it. I'm cheating. I'm picking three movies. It's the Lord of the Rings trilogy. But Dune Part 1 and 2 has made me question that recently.

[01:10:49] Yeah, I didn't know those were up there for you. I knew they were up there, but not like that up there. That's pretty wild. So he also asked one more question. What has been the best and worst parts of making the podcast? And this is going to sound mad corny, but I don't think there's any worse part. This has legitimately been like a total blast doing this. I guess if I had to pick something bad, it would be like the amount of time it takes to edit. Right? Because it's time consuming. Not editing itself.

[01:11:18] I'm one of those sickos who actually loves editing audio. So like, I love editing the show, but it's just time consuming. It takes a long time. So I, yeah, I guess that's about it. It takes a long time to edit, Steve. Yeah. The worst part is cheesy as it sounds for me is knowing or at least believing very strongly that I could do anything I'm doing on here at least better than I'm doing presently.

[01:11:43] At least I'm hoping that people that have been listening this whole time think there's been some improvement along the way. The best part is making you guys laugh along the way with you two in particular. I mean, if I made anyone at home laugh, well, that's just icing on the cake for me. Well, that's great. God damn it. Shit. Now I'm blushing. There's definitely a worse thing. It's a very easy answer.

[01:12:10] It's getting trapped and panicking in the how many things can you list in 45 seconds game. And then like five months later, laying in bed in the middle of the night, feeling embarrassed about your poor performance on listing Nintendo published GameCube games. That was horrible. That'll be your shit forever. Yeah. It ruined my fucking life. Okay. The best part, you know what?

[01:12:38] I, as much as I don't always like them when we record, I really like Steve and Andre. We have our, we have our group chat. It's nice to like when, when something video game related happens, I have somebody to talk to you about it. We play Wordle together. I like that. So thank you. I like it too. God damn it. Yeah. We all have, we all have good answers. Shit. Good night, everybody. I don't want to do any more questions. All right. We'll get around to Mr. Quest 64 right now.

[01:13:08] He asked us on discord, a deal with a Nintend devil. What beloved and or critically successful Nintendo franchise, Mario Kart, Animal Crossing, Donkey Kong, et cetera. Would you sacrifice to bring back a personally beloved Nintendo IP of your choice? Kid Icarus, punch out F zero, you know, such. Um, I would sacrifice. Man, I don't know what I would sacrifice. Well, I'll tell you what I want to bring back.

[01:13:37] I would love to have a gyro might. I think that would be fun. I think you could do some weird stuff with the joy cons to make that like worth it. And like a fun little, like not even a party game, but just like a fun little mechanical, like, you know, kind of thing. Like the original pick up and put down stuff. I'm surprised. I never did a labo rob the robot. I'm legit shocked. They never did that. Oh, that would have been cool. Yeah, I would have really liked that.

[01:14:03] Um, but other than that, see, before I would have said Donkey Kong country, but we're not having that anymore. We have moved on to the Bonanza age. So I don't know if I can still say Donkey Kong country, but I would definitely wipe off every single one of those off the map for gyro might. Well, that's kind of cheating, but anyway, is okay. I mean, how was that cheating? I feel like that's just wiping off Donkey Kong or, oh, I guess I'm kind of cheating too.

[01:14:32] I'm getting rid of Mario sports for Chibi Robo. Earthbound's a done series. I don't want any more of those. I feel like Kid Icarus's chances of coming to switch to are still non-zero. And personally, we've seen the best to punch out on. We I'm sorry, but we have Chibi Robo needs a deserves a chance at 4k. I 100% agree with you. That would be great to have these days, Kevin. All right. If you guys are cheating, I'm cheating too.

[01:14:58] Um, I'm getting rid of the Wii sports and successors series as obviously sold nothing. Well, no, that's not the cheating part, but okay. Um, we don't, we don't need the sports games anymore. Um, I'm bringing back golden son. Nintendo is that owns the IP. It counts. I'm not going to stop asking for that. I want more golden son. Buddy, who's going to make it? Because Camelot in their current position are not equipped. And the last time they tried, it was bad. So I don't think, I mean, I don't know.

[01:15:28] That's not a bad idea, Steve. It's not a bad idea. Okay. He also asks us rank these three pizzas places on any metric of your choosing. Chuck E. Cheese, Sbarro and Rocky. What is this? Rocky mountain something. Yeah, we don't have those. And we're all too far away from the Midwest for that one. I had to look this up. One up. Rocky Rococo. We don't have that here. I can't rank him. Chuck E. Cheese.

[01:15:56] I haven't been there in forever since my youngest sister aged out of it. You know how old she is now? She's getting married in September. That's how old she is now. It was okay for the time. That leaves Sbarro. It's better than Domino's, but I'm not going to the mall for it. You would say Sbarro's better than, I don't know. I think I'd rather have Domino's than Sbarro. Personally. I don't hate Sbarro though. It's fine. Like you said, it's mall pizza. It's totally okay for a slice. And that's it. I've never been to Chuck E. Cheese.

[01:16:25] So I've never had the pizza. Yeah, I've never been. So. Yeah. Whenever we did like birthday party stuff, we went like other places in town. More like not like big chains like that. I mean, not that we had anything against it. We just happened to never go. Mr. Quest 64 also asks Stanley Kubrick's 2001, a space odyssey changed the way we looked at science fiction and film for the last 40 plus years.

[01:16:51] Do you guys feel like we're on the precipice of another landmark film that changes a genre in the same way? I, you know, it's really hard to say, huh? Like that's, that's really, we never know until it jumps up and smacks us in the face. Right? Right.

[01:17:36] So I don't know. Like you could see traces from animal house all the way through like the hangover. You know what I mean? So like, I feel like we're due for a comedy revolution, Kevin. That's kind of what I said too, but specifically like the buddy comedy that, that was especially in like the mid to late two thousands. That was a really thing. And I think there were some legitimately great buddy comedies around then. I think that's due for a comeback. I, I agree. Steve.

[01:18:03] I feel like we're overdue for literally anything to be, you know, groundbreaking. And like Andre just said, I think that's what it is when we're at least suspecting it. Right? Like you just don't say, look, guys, we're making a groundbreaking picture because Lord knows what I think about movies. So Steve hates everything. Right. So you don't even like anything. That's why we do. That's why we do all the movies together. So you can say stuff and I can say, Hey, this part's good. And you'd be like, well, it still sucks.

[01:18:32] And like, bro, we're saying something good right now. All right. That's how it goes. Good cop, bad cop. Well, what, what genre do you feel is most ready for change also? Yes. And I feel like, look, I love the superhero shit. You guys know that I don't necessarily want it to change. I want it to get more bold. I want it to get more like rated R, I guess. I want it to get more like, not even necessarily like more gore and more sex in that.

[01:19:02] I want it to become more. I don't want to say adult because you guys know that sounds. I want a real superhero movie, not something for babies. That's not what I'm saying at all. I love Captain America. I love all that PG 13 crap. Okay. I love that shit, but I want some more textures. I want some more. Remember, we used to have stuff like the Watchmen or, you know, like some more, some different type of shit. I guess that's all we watch a lot of like Disney Pixar animated movies around here.

[01:19:31] And that stuff is starting to feel pretty samey for me. So I'd like to see, you know what I want? I want that stuff to get grittier and more adult. I want some fucking rated R Disney Pixar animated Pixar rated R animated movie. So fucking cool. Dude, that would be amazing. Steve. Man, we can't even get them to make good G or PG rated movies right now. Forget about rated R.

[01:20:00] Elio kind of hit the skids a couple of weeks ago at the box office. Yeah. So. Or maybe that's exactly what they need. Like guys, they just throw everything to the side. We're making R rated Buzz Lightyear. Oh, I would, I would pre-order tickets if they did that. If there, if there is a Shrek movie where Shrek fucking snaps and becomes like a horrible, deadly murder. I would watch it.

[01:20:29] It's so fucking over, you guys. I still want it to be bright and cheery looking, but he's like, you know, ripping out throats with his teeth. Yeah, I, I would, I've never seen a Shrek. I would watch that Shrek for sure. Aaron from Super Pod Saga. Hey, Aaron. He asks us a couple questions here. What's one game that, you know, like the back of your hand? Yes. And mine is definitely the NES version of Rygar. I have committed that game to memory.

[01:20:57] That's how I used to play action adventure games back then, whether it's Metroid or Rygar or whatever else. I just remember. I played enough until I memorized it. So that's why I know that game that way, Steve. Well, there's plenty because I'm a sick fuck, but let's keep it relevant to the Super Podters. I sure love Mega Man X and Mega Man X2. And after finishing Vanquish first on Discord's book club back in May, I even put X2 on the poll where it won handily. And you know what?

[01:21:23] Sometimes in my old age, I sometimes need reminding that not everyone experiences everything the same way as I do. And, uh, Jared was a fun month, right? Everybody. Right. I can't believe you put that on there. I, I'm sorry. At least you can cheat on the legacy collections. Kevin. I know StarTropics pretty damn well. I will definitely still die in the later levels because that game does get hard, but I, there's a lot of like bullshit fake out rooms.

[01:21:53] I know where all of the like rooms with the hidden medicine are and the, uh, the hidden ghosts you can't see. Um, you get to the whale. I can, I can fucking go through that whale with my eyes closed. So I'm not necessarily, I mean, yeah, I'm going to die, but I know where the shit is. He knows the shit in StarTropics. Unfortunately, Aaron also asks, what's the last message you typed using T9? T9. Wow. I have no idea what that would be because that was a very long time ago.

[01:22:22] I've had an iPhone since 2009 or eight, maybe even. So don't know. However, I do miss T9 typos. I still remember some of them, some of which I can't say on the air because they would get, we would get canceled. But like, I love that. One of my favorites still is when you type cocksucker, it come out as coal stakes. That was funny.

[01:22:46] I don't know why I made coal stakes, but like S-T-A-K-E, like stake through the vampire's heart stakes. You're like, yeah. Okay. I run a drug cartel with a disposable phone. So I still get those T9 mistakes. Oh, nice. Okay. Thank you. I'll send some to your way. I didn't have a smartphone for as long as Andre has. But as, as soon as Verizon was given either the chocolate or the Cosmos away with plan renewals, I forget which one at this point.

[01:23:15] I was all about that sliding QWERTY keyboard life. So I don't remember my T9 messages either. I still miss that a little bit, by the way, because I make too many damn typos and touchscreen T- T-board. Touchscreen keyboard land for my liking. No, I think you just invented something. The T-board. If you miss T9, you can get like, remember you used to sell number pads that you'd plug in via USB? Remember that shit? It could be a T-board.

[01:23:44] Or you just type like, yes, absolutely. No, that's a bad idea. Okay, fine. Great idea, Andre. Great million dollar idea. Let's put that on the maybe pile. Okay. I'm not going to start that Kickstarter just yet.

[01:24:02] But Aaron also asked, when Fine Time finally starts a Patreon and makes a million dollars in their first week and buys her own island, what forgotten cartoon character will be on each Fine Timers loincloth? I think I'm definitely going classic like Fred Flintstone. When I think loincloth and then like prehistoric, Fred Flintstone for me, for sure. Is Fred Flintstone a forgotten cartoon character, though? He might as well be. He might as well. I mean, dude, it's been like 60 years. I feel like Fred Flintstone hasn't been in anything in like forever.

[01:24:30] I think anything Hanna-Barbera is fair game at this point. Fred Flintstone is more known for selling vitamins and cereal more than a cartoon character now. Kevin, what was that fucking? Remember that mobile game I kept getting ads for? It looked like you, but Fred Flintstone. Oh, yeah. Remember that shit? The big, hairy, ugly guy with the hot wife. And I was like, fuck yeah. It was the hair. He had your hair. Yeah, he did have my hair. That was a good guy. I should have played that game.

[01:24:59] I'm sure it's still going somewhere. Anyway, who would you have in your loincloth? I'd have my pet monster on my loincloth for obvious reasons. All right, Steve. Similar brainwaves to Andre. I'd have a cave guy from Freakazoid. Forgotten villain from a forgotten show. Yeah, nobody thinks about that shit anymore. What will be the name of your island? I assume he's asking us all collectively because I feel like we have to come up with something. Video game land, right? Oh, video game.

[01:25:29] Yes, of course. Video game island? Sure. Okay. Video game island. He also asked, can I come over your island and hang out? Aaron, of course. You have an open invitation. What kind of question is that, Aaron? Jesus Christ. Of course you can. God. I have an Aaron guest house. Scrapdog asked via the Superpod Discord. What's the last video game you played that emotionally moved you? Made you feel things?

[01:25:57] You know, this is tough for me. I don't cry at video games. There's nothing wrong with that. Of course. It's just not something that happens. I know we didn't necessarily say cry, but the thing that hit me in the chest the most, the theater scene. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. Oh, baby. I. Loveless. The loveless scene, basically, for anyone who's played the game. Goddamn, man. I. I was on a roller coaster. Holy shit, baby.

[01:26:27] Everything in the golden saucer really did it for me, but especially that. Jesus Christ, guys. What's yours, Kevin? Yeah, I don't get real emotionally invested in video games either. Shadow of the Colossus was a good exception. That was very emotionally invested in that. Because it did such a good job with telling the story without, you know, you just had to feel the story and interpret it. And that was a great one. For sure. Fine.

[01:26:55] I won't be as macho as these guys. And I'll admit if you got an emotional thing to say, I'll feel it. And when Tears of the Kingdom started having more interpretations for you must find me, especially that one. You know the one. Holy shit. I'm not going to say I wept, but I'm like, holy shit. Meanwhile, these guys over here, Rosalina's mom's asleep under the tree on the hill. And these guys don't feel shit. Oh, come on. But that's not the last time. That was so long.

[01:27:25] This is almost 20 years ago. No, I know. But I'm just imagining them sitting there like, man, I'm going to go stab that tree. I don't care. Oh, please. I've talked about Super Mario Galaxy on two different podcasts at this point. And I talked extensively about that shit. And yeah. Oof, baby. Will asks us via the Superpod Discord. In the same vein as your SNES episode, give us some of your favorite lesser known games from the consoles you've owned.

[01:27:54] Jesus Christ. It's hard for me to come up with since I did the episode. Why don't you guys say yours, Kevin? I made you guys played Minute a few years ago. And you didn't really care for it as much as me. But I still I really felt like that game. We liked it. But let's see. I think it should have like blown up. I don't think anybody really knows what Minute is. And I don't think that game got the recognition it deserved. And of course, I'm always going to take these opportunities to name drop my boy Wiz.

[01:28:25] Wiz. You and that fucking Wiz. If you won your place, your bets shit, I would have had to have played. I would have played Wiz in solidarity with you if that actually came up on Nintendo Classic, Steve. Yes. Guess what, guys? I'm not going to talk about the Super Nintendo for a second. Going to pause for a second to let you gasp. And then I'm going to talk about Last Story and Pandora's Tower for the fucking Wii. Yeah, that's right. Yes. The Wii of all things.

[01:28:52] Phenomenal swan songs for that system that didn't get their due here because Nintendo of America had their head up their ass. But, you know, XSeed stepped up here, you know, by make North American versions of European games. But one day we may well be in for Wii Nintendo Classics on Switch 2. And they better be fucking on there because. Why wouldn't they be? Phenomenal games. I would love to play those games. I was just kind of out on Wii at that time, and I just didn't want to go back.

[01:29:22] Pandora's Tower came out in 2013 here. I mean, I barely got a copy. I was not going to do that. If they ever do remasters or whatever, I'm on those in a second. Andrew Elmore. Never heard of this guy. Who the hell is that? He asks us, hi there. First time, long time with more of a comment than a question. But I don't think I've ever been to an Arby's, he says. That's kind of weird. I mean, I feel like Arby's is pretty good. I like the chicken cordon bleu thing. The ham and Swiss on the chicken patty. That's good.

[01:29:52] Excellent mozzarella sticks. Probably the best mozzarella sticks in fast food right now, I would say. Steve. Yeah, I would agree. Arby's has a very strong side game, but the sandwiches are trash unless the BLT is back. Like sometimes like once a year or once every other year, they got a BLT on a Hawaiian roll with a lot of fucking mayo on there. And that's good. But those other sandwiches, you're taking your life in your hands. I don't think they're that bad. I don't think they're great.

[01:30:21] I've just never cared for like the roast beef and the cheddar, which is like their calling card, which is just not what I like. It's kind of like Sonic where it's like I like everything at Sonic. I just don't really like the burgers, but everything else I like. So Kevin, is Arby's even a thing there? It is. I have been to Arby's two times in my life. The first time I was in high school, I remember thinking it was very soggy and I didn't like it. And then about 12 years ago, I was at an Alice in Chains concert and I broke my phone.

[01:30:49] And so the next day I had to go get my phone fixed and it was going to be like an hour. And the only there was an Arby's like right beside the phone fixing place. And it was lunchtime. So I was like, OK, fuck, I'll go eat at Arby's. And I chanced it and I got sick later in the day. I'm still convinced it was food poisoning from fucking Arby's. I was like puking sick. The matzo sticks is funny you bring that up because for years my wife has been like, we should get the matzo sticks at Arby's. They're so good. Let's get and I'm like, no, I'm not going to fucking Arby's again. Arby's made me super sick.

[01:31:19] OK, well, I'm telling you, she's right, though. They're good. They are good. Is it worth going just for matzo sticks? Yes. If you're driving by and you just want like a munchie real quick. Yeah, absolutely. They're really good. If they still got them potato square things. Potato cakes. I had them like last week. Yeah, they're good. And they're still there. Oh, they have like good turnovers, too. If you want like a cherry turnover or like a apple turnover, I think. Or maybe they're only cherry now.

[01:31:49] But but yeah, those are good, too. What Andrew also asked, what are Steve and Kevin's favorite REM albums? I want to twist this. Can you guys even name an REM album? Steve, can you name one? Jeez, Andre, I would. But it would seem that I'm out of time for this question. Excellent. Kevin, can you name one of the songs out of time? I don't know any REM albums. I'm sorry. Jesus. I know I'm disappointing you.

[01:32:18] Pixels and Polygons, a.k.a. Darren Hubkey asks us on Blue Sky. What's your least favorite game in one of your favorite franchises? Mine's very easy. It's Castlevania Harmony of Dissonance. That game is so bad. I cannot believe it came out in such a excellent time for Castlevania. We got those three GBA games, those three DS games, and Harmony of Dissonance sticks out like the sorest thumb of all time. It is literally a six digit that we should just cut off and remember the other five.

[01:32:47] But yeah, Harmony of Dissonance is so fucking poor, especially coming off of Circle of the Moon, which was excellent. Bookended by Aria of Sorrow, which is excellent. I can't not believe Harmony sometimes, guys. But yeah, what's yours? Favorite, Steve, bad game in a great franchise? I love the Mario RPGs, guys. I even did a whole episode about the remake with Kevin. But holy hell, where Paper Mario Sticker Star and Mario and Luigi Dream Team fucking embarrassing.

[01:33:16] Dream Team, huh? I mean, it was fine at first, but then it clearly just falls apart at the end. Like, it was very much, oh shit, we got to get this thing out the door. Just make up an ending. Like, oh, we'll make everyone go to the menu to get a star piece here. Okay. Okay, now the game's over. Yay. Roll credits. Sounds great. Sounds great to me, Kevin. I'd play that.

[01:33:43] You know what I'll never, ever fucking play again is Skyward Sword. I love Zelda games ever since I was a little boy in grade two. And they're always good. But Skyward Sword is not just not good in the context of the series. I think it is a bad game in the context of video games as a whole. Terrible. I agree. What is, oh, say, okay, so you've been in the Zelda. What was your first Zelda? Was it like Link to the Past? Link to the Past. Okay.

[01:34:13] Because Cthusius Jeff asks us in Discord, will we see a new Star Fox game ever? Guys, I think the answer's no. But Steve, maybe you have a better answer than me. See, I've initially believed that Star Fox died so Switch can live. I've got a more embellished story I've told a few times already. But then the gang showed up at Starlink. Remember that Ubisoft thing where they tried toys for a time? Yep. Like a month before.

[01:34:40] Anyway, so I'm going to give the answer that pisses off, Andre, and say, yes, one day when we least suspect it, we will have new Star Fox. Why would that piss me off? What are you talking about, Kevin? I think we are going to see a new Star Fox on Switch, too. It seems like it's time. I wouldn't be surprised to see something like a Star Fox Adventures type game. You know, especially like, you know, now they can't do Wii U ports anymore.

[01:35:10] They've done so many like extremely solid entries in so many of their franchises on Switch. It's, you know, even right like they're like, OK, let's give Donkey Kong his time to shine now. And it seems like this generation would be the time to do something like interesting and polished with Star Fox. I hope they can figure it out. You guys know what I want. It's my number one wanted remake. It's a remake of the original Star Fox 4K 120 frames a second with those original graphics. You know what I mean?

[01:35:37] I want to see that done absolutely to the nines. I would love to see that. But Jeff also asked, what is your favorite side dish? Guys, I'm a basic bitch. I love French fries. You will. I will never get tired of French fries. I can eat them every single day of my life. And that will always be my favorite side to anything. So, yeah, French fries, any anything potatoes, mashed potatoes. O'Brien's. I'm here for it, Steve. Yeah, I'm similarly trashy to Andre.

[01:36:07] Onion rings all the way with onions in there. Of course, none of that onion meal crap. I mean, I'll put up with it. But who does that except Burger King anyway? I've been to a few other trashy places where they'll just stare right at you and say, here's your onion rings. Those are good, though. I mean, I'll eat them. Although if we're talking cold sides, I love coleslaw. We've been over this, though. Yeah, you do like coleslaw. You guys are trashy.

[01:36:34] I, my favorite is my wife's stuffed mushrooms. They're super fucking cheesy. They've got like a cream cheese thing in the middle. We have a thing here where when we do sloppy joes, I'm always like, we got to make the stuffed mushrooms because they pair so well with the sloppy joes and the sloppy joes are super good, too. That's one of my favorite meals. I love sloppy joes. I see. Here's the thing. I can't. I don't really know how to make sloppy joes.

[01:36:58] I need to figure it out because I love having them, but I don't really have much of a sloppy joe recipe. I got to I got to figure that out to Canada. You guys can have excellent sloppy joes and excellent stuffed mushrooms. OK, good. I love sloppy joes. Tommy asks us via discord. What are your top 15 IPs currently not represented in Sonic Racing cross worlds that you hope get added to the game? I would tell me I literally I legit laughed out loud when you posted that.

[01:37:27] I thought it's so funny. I mean, what do you want to see, Kevin? What else can they add to cross words? I don't have I don't have 15. I only came up with three. I would really like to see characters from Geist, BMX, triple X and Tyler Perry movies. Look, if Medea were in the game at this point, would you even bet an eyelash? Would you even like at this point? Yeah.

[01:37:57] Look, I was so caught off guard by this. I only have one answer. And it's the sole suspect from sole suspect. Right. That who else can we need? Of course. Can we get some armored core mechs up in this bitch? Can we like drive around as those are pretty agile and armored core six? I think we could race as a armored core and armored core. Mask Heaton asks us on discord. Have you ever felt like you're being watched? Was it accurate?

[01:38:23] And I think this is also related is the ability to sense someone's watching you a supernatural ability so common that nobody thinks it's supernatural. I think that's very interesting because sometimes I do know when I'm being watched. I'm not right about it all the time, but I definitely when I have that feeling, oh, someone's watching me. I'm right sometimes, but not all the time.

[01:38:48] What I'm right more about, though, and tell me if you guys have done this, you know when someone's home and it's not because you hear them or they're making noise or anything or they're snoring or whatever. You feel their presence. I almost never have walked into somewhere and thought I was alone when I wasn't. I'm almost always right about that. When someone's there, I feel that. Is that weird? I don't know. I don't have any of these senses. I don't know what I'm being watched.

[01:39:17] I'm very oblivious to what's going on around me. Okay. I don't think that's weird. I think it's interesting. I mean, I'm more cynical. I just feel like we all have smartphones. We're all being watched all the fucking time. You like what you see, you perverts? I always feel like somebody's watching me pee. Remember I let off one of our episodes of our previous creative endeavor that way and our host did not appreciate it. I thought it was funny. Yeah.

[01:39:48] I think it's funny. I mean, he could have edited it out, but. Well, he didn't. There was just no editing on anything. Nope. Lucentai, who the hell is that? I have no idea. Does he play Pokemans? Does he draw every piece of art for fine time? Who's to say? He asked us, what would you guys put on a dessert pizza?

[01:40:08] And see, I don't have like a creative answer for this, but I do have an answer because I don't know if this was like a out west thing, but there was a chain of pizza called Godfather's pizza. Do you guys know what this is or? No. No. Okay. It was probably out just here in the West and they had a dessert pizza where it was like, like brown sugar and like icing swirls and stuff. And it was like, it was good. You kind of had to eat it right away.

[01:40:36] The problem is once you're done eating the pizza, the dessert pizza kind of cools off. So it gets like a little stiff. But if you get that shit fresh, that shit was so good. So whatever that was at Godfather's, anyone, any other West coaster knows what I'm talking about. I loved this question. When I read this, I like really buckled down and started getting very hungry thinking about what I wanted on my dessert pizza. Okay.

[01:41:03] So we're going to start with the base and I don't know what it's called. Um, like it's like kind of like mushed up sugar cookies. That's kind of crumbly, but like push down. Do you know what I'm talking about? Like maybe like, it's kind of like shortbread, shortbread, but it's like, are you talking about like a crust? Are you talking about like what you might have for like a graham cracker crust or like a cheesecake or something? No, it's not. It's not graham cracker. It's, it's more, it's more akin to like shortbread, but it's, it's like, you can like see lines in it. Cause it's kind of crumbly.

[01:41:31] It's, it's a little bit sweet, almost like a biscoff or like a. I don't know what biscoff is. I'm trying to think of it like a, like a ginger snap almost like a. No, no, it's more, it tastes like shortbread. I would say it's probably just like flour and sugar and butter or something. I don't know. I don't know how to make it. But to a crumbly. Yeah. Okay. It's like a light beige. So that's going to be the base.

[01:41:54] Um, and then a layer of like cream cheese and icing sugar mixed together for like the sauce of the pizza. And then some pistachio pudding, like the green pistachio pudding with the chunks of, of pistachio in it. Okay. And some like fresh raspberries sprinkled on top and some chopped almonds and shaved dark chocolate.

[01:42:24] I like, I, I fucking, I went through so many options and I, I feel like I really, I nailed this question. That legit sounds like something you could get at like cheesecake factory or something like that. Right. It sounds like a restaurant, like dessert pizza. Like you could be, yeah. If you were a menu menu artist at one of those places, I feel like you'd have a winning, uh, winning, uh, thing. You know, how does that work?

[01:42:49] Like, you know, they have people back in the, you know, cheesecake factory lab or whatever restaurant or Olive Garden coming up with shit. What if you come up with something that's really popular? Do you get like a bonus or it's like, here's your fucking 1075 an hour or whatever. Still like, do you get anything? Do you think those guys are all fat guys? Oh, I'm not trusting any skinny people to make this shit up, Steve. Yeah. Oh no, they gotta be fat guys. I wouldn't. Got it either. Fat guys and gals. I want them to make my dessert pizza. What's what's on your dessert pizza?

[01:43:19] Steve. Yeah. Let's bring this back to the trashy side of things, because as much as I pick on pizza hut back in the day, one of the best things about it was, was when you went to the buffet and you time things just right, you'd get that dessert pizza. And all that was, was just apple or blueberry or peach from the can slathered on a pad crust with cinnamon and frosting on top of it. And the sin of that was, you know, there was not having it on the regular menu, but I digress that that shit was amazing.

[01:43:49] I'd love to just make something a bit more complex than that. And my pizza oven, I don't know, maybe use real fruit or real make my own frosting. What kind of frosting was on it? Yeah. What kind of frosting? Like, uh, almost like, uh, what'd you, what'd you get out of, uh, like a, like more like an icing, like a cinnamon bun icing situation.

[01:44:13] Oh, like a Cinnabon kind of like front, like white, like, like a white icing thing. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, that sounds so good. I, I never had a pizza hut with a buffet. I've had like sit down pizza huts. Ours, ours in town is still like, so it's a restaurant part, but, um, none of us, none of them ever had the buffet. So I never experienced that. And like you said, it's not on the menu. So, um, but yeah, I feel like dessert pizzas need to be kind of trashy. I don't think you can class it up.

[01:44:41] I think as far as you can go is Kevin was what he said. I don't think you can go like, I don't want like gourmet dessert pizza. I think that would be really bad. Out here. We actually, there's, there's a bakery that makes pizza crumb cakes and it's called that because it's like a super flat crumb cake. It's like piled with, uh, it's at the super flaky dough and it's piled on top of the crumb cake and they put all kinds of things on top. It could just be just covered with powdered sugar and that's really good.

[01:45:09] But you can get with, uh, you know, fruit preserves or chocolate or they gotten kind of weird with it the past year. They got, they have like a green tea one I saw on there. So I went next, next time I get one, I'll take a picture, but getting one is always a treat. It comes in a pizza box. It's always a good time. I think they could foo-foo it up a little bit, like with figs or like, you know, there probably is. They're always fancy. It's always, it's a bit far away from us.

[01:45:38] It was like, man, we'll just get a regular one and one with raspberry. Cause that's always good. Um, Wyatt Sinclair. Oh yeah. Wyatt's wicked goods on blue sky. Rest in peace. Wyatt wicked goods. He's still alive, but the white's wicked goods. It's not. What are the three best items at the cookout? Um, Kevin, what, what, what's your, what's your three phases? Steak always is a staple for a reason.

[01:46:04] Um, brisket I've like last few years, I'm heavily into brisket and, and a nice sweet corn bread with melted butter. Oh yeah. I love a sweet corn bread. I love a, you know, people love to argue about corn bread. I love every single style of corn bread. Every corn bread is good. It's always good. Yep. What do you want, Steve? Man, I kind of want what Kevin wants, but brisket's too damn expensive. And once you have too many people over steak gets ruined too. So if I got a lot of people over, I want burgers.

[01:46:34] I'm a grilling fiend. I will make anything on the grill, but dang, I want some fucking burgers. If I'm cooking for a lot of people, Italian sausage, we have a good supply here. It's not like everywhere else where it's like, ew, Hillshire farms, Italian sausage. That's not very good. No, we have like nice Italian sausage. Okay. Listen to this guy. Always got to be an elitist at some point. I'm going to be an elitist because, you know, it's my season right now. Good God.

[01:47:03] And then we have nice things like that. And the last thing, coleslaw, still the superior side. So you can all yell at me about that later. I will. We already have. Chicken thighs. My absolute favorite. I love to grill chicken thighs. My favorite. Yeah. You got to have it. I really don't want anything else. Any other chicken part grilled, honestly, outside of that. Um, carne asada. I'm going with the steak thing, of course, but particularly Mexican style. Carne asada. Just excellent on the grill.

[01:47:33] I don't know what carne asada is. Can you, can you look it up later? Look it up later. If the, if the show hadn't gone on long enough, I take a carne asada sidebar with you and teach you. Okay. And, and hot dogs. I love hot dogs. Gotta have my dogs. I love grilled hot dog. Not like burnt to shit or anything, but just a good, nice hot dog on the grill. Can't beat it. Um, Edward Varnell from boss rush network, uh, who God damn, I need to, we need to collab with those guys more. I love those guys.

[01:48:01] Edward asks us with all the acquisitions between Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo. Do you think Nintendo made the best decision? Do you think Sony and Microsoft didn't think through some of their acquisitions? Um, you know, we kind of talked about earlier a little bit about Jim Ryan with the live service stuff, but like, yeah, I think he was the one who like decided, oh, we must buy Bungie. We must buy the destiny people who do like the live service shit.

[01:48:28] And it's just like, I don't think that's going the way they think it's going to go. I think like whoever's in charge now wouldn't have ever done that. But it's interesting though, Steve, because Nintendo does make acquisitions, but like small ones, they always buy up some little upstart little studio. Who's like making a game for them, which, you know, is good. I think it's not even necessarily that they're, they're buying what they need. And they, which is to say they have an immediate use for the model of soft. Okay.

[01:48:58] Go makes us the Xeno blades next level. Okay. Keep making us the Mario sports things. Dino pictures is already Nintendo movies or whatever. They rebranded themselves too earlier in the year. Or I mean, I'm sure Shiver Entertainment is going to be porting over things to switch making miracle ports for switch to soon enough. I mean, I know it's a dumb thing to sound, dumb thing to sound, dumb thing to say, but I mean, we keep, we talked before about what the big two are doing and what the hell were

[01:49:27] they doing with all their big purchases? Yeah. Yeah. Maybe this is a little of a superficial take, but I do think it's kind of an Apple storages thing because for years, Microsoft and Sony need acquisitions to some degree. Nintendo can almost rely entirely just on being the best video game developer themselves. And I, yeah, there's more nuance to it, but you buy a Nintendo system. You're there for the Nintendo exclusives 95% of the fucking time.

[01:49:54] That's why maybe if you buy an Xbox, you should be there for the Xbox exclusives. We talked about for an hour. So, Hey, you know, it seems like it works. Um, um, Aaron asks us from not on not super pod, uh, Aaron, another Aaron. I dare not try to pronounce his last name. Steve, if you want to take a shot, he is a faithful listener to the show.

[01:50:16] I feel like I want to take a shot, but man, I kind of wanted to, should I have, oh, should I have Siri say it? Should I have Siri say it? Maybe I want to try. I would say sip new ski. Okay. I'm going to see if Siri is going to say it. Spinooski. I'm going to say spinooski. All right. Siri. Signewski. Signewski. That's sort of what I said. Signewski.

[01:50:46] Okay. I'll, I'll accept that. He asks us, why do y'all hate the messenger? Steve. Uh, okay. I'll go first. I'll go first. Here's my summary of why we both hate this game. Well, you can speak for yourself, but here's for me. It's your classic indie game that understands the audio visual identity of an old era, but not the gameplay or level design at all. They know what it looks like. They know what it sounds like.

[01:51:15] They do not know what it plays like. And the fact that Ninja Gaiden was only 45 minutes back in the day to like 45 to 60 minutes. That was not a hardware limitation. It was that way because anything longer than that would have been super excessive. So for the messenger to have these levels that go on and on and on. So fucking long with no end in sight. It's like, is this going to be over already? How long is this going to be?

[01:51:42] And, and then you throw in the stupid ass dialogue in which did not improve in sea of stars, by the way. And the entire genre change halfway through. Oh, now we're going to be like this. I was like, I'm done. I'm not putting up with this anymore. You already wasted so much of my time. You're not respecting my time. Goodbye. So that's why I don't like the messenger. I actually liked the way the game felt at first. I'm like, you know, this is pretty Ninja Gaiden-esque here.

[01:52:10] Even if the, the, the, the levels were kind of big, but, uh, you either needed to be the Ninja Gaiden-like or the search action game it eventually turns into, and it turns into both. And I would have been fine with the game's dumb dialogue and I would have moved on with my life if it dealt with one vision and stuck with it.

[01:52:34] But no, you play a whole ass game and then we have to do bullshit search action across a shitty map stitched together from the phone Ninja Gaiden. So no, fuck the messenger. I feel like I was actually slightly nicer than you. It just drags on. And even I refused after a while. I was like, no, you gotta like swim through the water and listen for a chime. No, we're not doing that anymore.

[01:53:03] I'm done. Yeah. I was, I was already over it before we even got there. And then I was like, oh, hell no. I feel bad saying that because over at Sabotage, I feel like they almost know what they're doing over there. Almost. They're very close. They're very, very close. Sea of Stars is a lot better. Obviously. It is a lot better. They have the gameplay down on that for sure. They just need to hire some good writers, Kevin. I'm staying out of it.

[01:53:33] He's over it. He's over it. I'm staying out of it. Okay. Sumo Kirby asks us on Blue Sky. Preferred shower implement? Loofah? Washcloth? Sponge? Or God forbid, hands only? Sorry, Sumo Kirby. I'm hands only. I'm a caveman. I use bar soap in my hands. That's how I roll. I use my hands too, man. I feel like I'm getting plenty clean. And I shower. I'm a twice a day showerer, so I'm plenty clean. Bunch of savages over here.

[01:54:01] I mean, I make my loofah jokes, but I'm bald as fuck. Washcloth. A good old fashioned washcloth. Okay. That's fine. I used to use washcloth until, I don't know, sometime in my early 20s. I'm like, fuck this shit. I'm just gonna. It's caveman time. He also asks us, Sumo Kirby, besides Souls-like, which genre descriptors are a no-go for you? I already made an entire episode about the genre descriptor I hate, so I'm going to pick something else.

[01:54:28] I think the term walking simulator is wildly dismissive and honestly super insulting to adventure games or anything else where you're just having a nice slow build experience where you just kind of amble around and do this and that. Walking simulator is so shitty. I hate when people say that. Like, personally. I just think it's insulting. You know, I'll bring up your favorite term again, Metroidvania.

[01:54:57] And, you know, just as recently as the last question, I said search action. And I'll keep saying search action because you already mentioned it's a disservice to everybody involved. And it's not even always accurate. Everyone was calling Animal Well a search action last year. No, not really. It's not. It's not. And in the end, okay. If someone else says it in a skeethe or a podcast or whatever else, okay, fine. Whatever. Life goes on. That's just people talking and having a conversation, right?

[01:55:26] But if I see it in your ad copy or shop description or the back of the box, no. Fuck you. I'm not bothering. I got too many other fucking games to play. You do not get to call yourself a Metroidvania. Fuck you. Okay. All right. Already. God. Fuck me. With the crab that like would put like cans on it. Was that didn't they like we call that a Metroidvania. Do you remember that? Another crab's treasure. Was it? Yeah. Yeah.

[01:55:55] That's a Souls-like. Oh, okay. Okay. I'm just kidding. That's a Souls game. Yeah. That's like Souls with a crab apparently. Yeah. Okay. Jesus Christ. Steve. Tone it down. God. Yeah. Children are listening. Trey asks us, friend of the show, has been on the show a few times. Have you ever had a fuck I was wrong moment turn around to fuck I was right? And I think the closest I came to this was Octopath Traveler 2.

[01:56:24] Like I think like, you know, we did two whole episodes on this. Go back and listen. Maybe don't listen too closely because I had my mic on 100% gain by accident. I tried my best to clean it up, but it was too late. Anyway, on that episode, I was like, I remember Steve, we were talking about it. I was like, some of the chapter twos and threes kind of made me feel it was very formulaic and kind of dragging. And I was like, I felt like, fuck, I was wrong because the whole time I was saying,

[01:56:51] just make another Octopath and just make them a little more unified and just kind of do the same thing. But then I felt wrong about that because I'm like, they are doing the same thing. And this doesn't feel fresh. I'm kind of bored sometimes when they're speaking a lot of the times. But then from there, it all pays off. Everything comes together. The chapter threes and fours get insane. I think still some of the weirdest shit I've seen in the genre to this date. And so I was feeling wrong, but it came back to fuck. I was right.

[01:57:21] Man, I don't have a real answer for this. I'm sorry, Trey. I'm like, usually when I'm wrong and right again, I'm just, I don't know. Kevin, what do you got? I'm sure I'm going to take some heat for this one. I'm sure. I don't, I'm not saying I'm necessarily backtracking, but at one point we did fuck. I was wrong. And I admitted I was wrong about current gen being a real good step up because of the SSD. And I maintain that. But I really think the SSD is the reason why.

[01:57:48] And especially after, you know, we've just got the Switch 2 and seeing the jump from Switch to Switch 2 really makes me miss the days of seeing upgrades like that. We did not get that from PS4 to PS5. I am sorry. No, we did not. But there's a lot of reasons why, because I feel like we're just not, we're not, we're not interested in doing it. You know, that's that. But again, that's another podcast. I kind of agree with you, though.

[01:58:15] So one last question, again, from Tommy on Blue Sky. I have to clear my throat for this one. If you had a coin collection and your girlfriend came and took some of your painted state quarters and used them for laundry without telling you, would you be upset? She said it wasn't a big deal because she would replace them. And I was like, but these ones were painted and I work at a bank. You could have just asked me for quarters. And she said, but I didn't want to have to wait. Tommy, this is a Wendy's, sir.

[01:58:45] I think you're asking the wrong show. Andre. Andre. We are a show of the people. We answer the questions we are asked. Oh, wow. You just told me to go fuck myself like two questions ago. And now you're demanding? Yes, you can be upset, Tommy. Yes, go ahead. Go ahead. Thank you, drive through. Thank you for coming to Wendy's.

[01:59:09] Now, I'm no numismatist myself, but clearly these coins hold some value to you. I don't understand it myself, but only you can really articulate why to her. And you just got to do that as calmly as you can, really. Yeah, that's all. What the fuck is a state quarter? Oh, we have. Okay. When did it start, Steve? 99? 2000? Yeah, late 90s through 2010 or so.

[01:59:39] So like they introduced like five states a year on the quarter. So they would cycle through them. Okay. In January, we're putting Wyoming in February. I think in the order that they became states, right? Is what they did? Something like that. Yeah. I remember because Nevada didn't get their state quarter to like 2006 or seven or something like that. So it was like several years into this program of doing all the states. But then after they got through the 50 states, it did like landmarks. I think they did like Mount Rushmore and stuff.

[02:00:08] So yeah, since the late 90s, Kevin, we've had like states and other stuff on the back of the quarter. Do you paint the painted state quarters yourselves or do special ones come painted? I have never painted a quarter in my life. I've seen painted quarters before, but I don't fuck with coins enough to know why people do that. Okay. I don't fuck with coins enough either, but this, I do sort of know you, there's a weird, weird sect of people that sell these already prepainted.

[02:00:37] Like you see those weird ass coins on TV with the Trump coin, like where it's a real coin and not, you know, Trump coin, the Bitcoin. Yeah. Anyway, that's where you would get your painted coins from. They're real quarters where if you stuck that in the vending machine, you would get a candy bar on the other side, but they're all like painted to actually look like the, what they're supposed to look like on the back and not just the, you know, regular court. I don't know.

[02:01:07] Takes a real special person to want that shit. God, why did I have to be born Canadian and miss out on this? Son of a bitch. Well, like you guys can't, I mean, if you had like province quarters, you would run out in like a year, right? Cause there's only, I do think they did. They did it like in the early two thousands. There might've been one year where there was like special quarters and they might've been based on province, but it wasn't like every year. And it wasn't a fucking thing. And it was just like, Oh, you can fucking get these quarters if you want from the post. Yeah.

[02:01:37] So five, five States, five States a year, over 10 years, it did the quarter. So that ran out in 2009 or 10 or whatever. And then they started doing like other stuff. Yeah. Damn. You guys know how to live. Yeah. We all sorts of quarters. Now I'll have to just show you some next time I'm at work. Cause plenty of quarters. Okay. We answered all the questions that we, we think we answered everybody anyway. Thanks for all the questions. Wow. This has been a long show. We talked about a lot of stuff, but Hey, you know, why not? It's summer. Nice, lazy chatted out show. Huh? Thanks for joining us.

[02:02:07] Check the description of this podcast to find our names on social media and we'll see you next time. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.