Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Septic sauce with my colleague.
Now are we colleagues? Now it's.
I'm your boss. We'll keep.
This Tom, we'll say colleagues, it's like, it's like a marriage.
Yeah, colleague. We'll go for colleagues.
It's like a. Marriage.
No, actually for, for now we'll go for acquaintances and then
we'll once, once we get you to pipe down a bit then we can be
colleagues. Good luck with that man, I'm out
of stress I have caused you this week.
Did you expect that kind of fallout with me joining Insider
Gaming? Did you expect it to be?
Honest, not that bad that that was that was like crisis level
1000. You know the meme of the the
cartoon when everything is on fire?
That was that was me. Man, that was horrible, but we
got through it. Yeah, you're like, I hate my
timeline gas. But it's it was one of those
weird things as well where I literally couldn't do any
serious reporting. I couldn't even tweet because I
knew people would just reply to it.
Like, Oh yeah, but you brought on gas.
I was like, shit. Oh man, it was hilarious.
But I, I did, I did feel for you.
I was like, oh, poor Tommy didn't know what he was getting
into. You did see the kind of people
that were responding. They were absolute mental
though, aren't they? Yeah, as soon as I mean, that's
what I did. I clicked on the profiles and
then as soon as I seen like, you know, these PlayStation centric
channels and stuff, I was, yeah, block, block.
Oh, man, Yeah. So, you know, it's a lot of
people. Well, the what would you say to
that? Obviously I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm a
character that doesn't really hold back what he says.
But but I'm colourful in a way. Misunderstood, I would say.
Tom, why did you get me on inside again?
Schizophrenic. I would say I was.
Extremely schizophrenic. Yeah.
They're like, you watched a serious video that I did for you
guys. You're like, what?
Is that the same gas? It's not the same.
Yeah, no, but but in, in all seriousness, I think that we are
going to do some incredible things together.
And it's all about the realisation right from from our
side of yeah, you've got this baggage attached.
But at the same time, you can you can do things more
seriously. And I think the the high guard
video that you did is a a testament to that.
Yeah, I, I think a lot of well, my legacy in there is is has
been quite yeah, yeah, I've been purposely antagonistic and quite
just being for me, this place is this place has always been an
outlet for that kind of creativity.
And with the source videos, I've always said it, people have
really understood or misconstrued it, the the, the
self deprecating nature of it, the satirical nature of it to
the point where I used to have the disclaimers at the start of
the video explaining it, but people still didn't get it.
So I just felt like it was an exercise in futility, obviously
lent into my own biases, which is why it's oh, pre-existing
biases, which is why I think it was, it was useful because it it
was a commentary on myself. You have to be have a, a degree
of, you know, self reflection to take the piss out of yourself
like that, to play the character like that.
You know, that people regularly play, Oh, hail Phil Spencer and
you've got the destroyer of worlds and you've got me singing
a song with him and more. It's so obvious what that what
that is. Yeah, that.
Yeah. I mean that's where I stand as
well. Like, I think it's so obvious
that you are. And it's entertainment at the
end of the day. And if we're in an industry
that's built on entertainment, and if you can't have fun doing
that, then, I mean, what does that tell you about about the
Internet, right? But yeah, people take things too
far. But at the end of the day, it is
what it is. And yeah, I think we'll we'll do
some good stuff together on Insider Gaming and you can carry
on doing whatever this is. I, I, I have to be a little bit
more measured though, because I, I have to represent an IG as
well. So I can't be as raw with some
of my jokes because, because there's a bit of a poorer
reflection on Insider gaming. So, you know, like the the
layoffs again, is I'm not necessarily making fun of people
laid off, but it's just quite of that kind of off key kind of
dark humour might spill out. So, and generally as you grow
up, you tend to take a a little bit of self reflection as an
order and you're like, all right, part of me maturing is,
you know, I made a video on the high guard video, that kind of
video, that kind of serious video I really want to do and I
felt like it wasn't septic. Source is great for that, but
great for lots of content is for to represent me, but it doesn't.
I don't think the audience understands that when I'm
serious and inside the gaming. I think we we were talking about
it without giving too much away, we have some really ambitious
things to do in the video space, like really ambitious kind of
stuff that really gets me excited to take it to a level.
No other publication is doing it.
I would expect to the big boys and IG is one of the big boys to
carry on pushing that that bar and I don't see that bar being
pushed and to be able to now join you guys and you are very
ambitious. The team is very just lovely.
Everyone's really nice, everyone's really well coming
and you've got the hunger and that hunger is where you know I
would. I didn't think I was going to
join a publication, but IG is different.
IG is just IG like you know, you make fun of me for being a
maverick inside a gaming has also had a Rep like a little odd
for darker Rep of like we breaking news.
No holds Barb. We say how it is.
That's that's what I say. I'm saying we now I'm
assimilating. Yay.
But I like that that's the the rawness and I think that's what
pissed a lot of the PlayStation guys off who use Insider Gaming
for their news because they can just because I'm I'm a Dick and
it takes the piss out Xbox and PlayStation.
But never mind. I think they just took it the
wrong way, but that we can't pander to them.
But in terms of the aspirations for IG, they're very high.
And I'm not just saying that chat like it is high.
The things that are planned are amazing.
The team is great and I just, I'm just grateful, one, for the
opportunity that you've given me and two, to be part of that
journey. So looking forward to it man,
Genuinely, there's going to be some exciting stuff ahead very
soon, very soon. Yeah, very soon, yeah.
I mean, and we've got GDC coming up, right.
We're not going to delve too much into what we're doing at
GDC, but you're coming out with us with the Inside the gaming
team to GDC. So absolutely, yeah, I mean, we
have got tremendously high ambitions.
Like like you said, I think nobody is has even tapped into
what we want to do that much. I mean, there is a few out
there, right, a few outliers, but we want to do it on a
consistent basis every every week, right.
You're seeing these new banger banger videos and exclusives and
scoops and all that kind of good stuff.
And I don't know man, like how do you feel about the the high
guard video as well? Because I do think that that
video definitely converted a few people that initially thought it
was a bad idea. Because when I read the comments
on that video, to be clear, we haven't deleted any comments,
right? I know that some people do that,
but we haven't deleted any. And a good 95%, you obviously
got a few Dick heads, but 95% are really positive.
And and that like, let's be clear as well.
Like you rushed that, right? Like it was a rushed job, but
the the the quality buyer is already already high and it's
only going to get higher the further we we continue working
together. Absolutely.
I mean, I, it was very rushed because just with work and my,
my secretary's been away on annual leave for three weeks.
She's in India, which isn't great.
And so I've been stressed, stressing, but I wanted to make
sure that the first video that we did that that I did for IG
was good. First I was going to pass it off
to your editors. Then I was like, you know, fuck
it, Tom, let me just do it because I want to make sure I
want to do it right, because I know that, you know, ultimately
don't worry about too much of that noise.
But joining if I I can't expect you guys for to to just take it
on the chin like that's what I was intent on proving it.
And I think the high guard video kind of begin begins to tap into
my more serious side, which people who have followed me for
a while we'll see on game on daily there.
My first ever video that blew up to over 300,000 views was a very
serious one, like that tone about Phil Spencer joining in.
I've done other ones about VR and the future of gaming and
those are my serious thoughts. That's where I write down the
script that I really think about what I'm saying.
It's a more measured video as opposed to playing a character
or just being entertaining and being, you know, just being an
awesome video. Sometimes you just want to have
an outlook for that, but inside the game that just is scratching
the surface surface. Tom, I've seen, I watch so many
videos from highly produced, you know, directors and some on
YouTube and other stuff and what we're aiming for, what we've
talked about. I, I, I can't wait.
That involves obviously learning more cinematography techniques,
more editing techniques, because I still think I'm very basic in
the space and just learning all those, you know, just really
investing time into learning, learning because I'm under no
illusions about, you know, where I'm at in terms of my, my talent
level. It's not I'm glad you guys think
it's OK for me, it's never enough.
And now with insider game, I just, I can't wait to keep
pushing the bar forward, man. I just want to when the video's
out, it's like, oh shit, OK. You know, even the haters will
be like, fuck it, you know, that's a good video, man.
I can't, I can't take the piss out of that.
And I, I get to the PlayStation guys.
I'm, I'm one of those people in this space in obviously in the
trenches of the console war stuff, but one of the few people
that actually reaches out to all sides of the extremes.
Like on PlayStation, I've had the hardcore of the hardcore
PlayStation guys, hardcore hardcore Xbox guys, all on game
on daily, even on here. And to the point where it's
very, I, I burn bridges with the, you know, both sides as
such. And, and Despite that, people
can't tear away the personality, which I can understand, But at
the same time, it's time to elevate the game and really do
what I've always wanted to do. And I'm going to do that with
insider gaming. So I'm very, very, very, very
eager to do that and very excited about it.
Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. I don't want to.
Yeah, I don't want to hinder that speech anymore.
But but yeah, yeah, seriously though, I am looking forward to
it. And there's I guess like there
isn't really that much else to say.
And now it's just a case of getting it done and, and and
proving to people right and, and showing what we can do and, and
moving forward as as as fast and as aggressive as possible.
Absolutely. We're gonna take it to the next
level, man. And just that, just keep that
hunger there and we're gonna make some memes, bro.
That's all I want. That's what I want.
And I love that. I love that you're you're on,
you're on my case on that video. I'm like, you know what?
I love that he's on it to feel like.
Oh dude, like when? When you said the the podcast
starts at 9 and it was like one minute past nine, I was like,
what the fuck is he like? And then and then and then yeah,
and then he joins the call and then he's like setting up his
lights and so on. What's going on?
Listen, forgive me, it's Ramadan, OK?
It's Ramadan. I I'm in comatose this month.
That's why it's it's going to be tough.
I have this coffee, which means I will not sleep tonight.
So it's it's a it's a go to give me a look.
Not it makes any difference. Bullshit.
Every every week it's like this. Every week it's like this.
What am I making excuse gaming with passion.
Thank you for a member for five months bro.
I love the skull that you're sporting Ramadan Mubarak to you
man hope you fast are going well.
Reforge head gaming is that the real reforge assign me to inside
the gaming Tom reforge. Thank you for that, Tom.
Gotta be careful now. You can't just open the
floodgates. The psychos like me, he got be
measured. Yeah, we'll take it, take it,
take it slow. Take it slow.
Now, I'm still recovering from the comments of the of the
announcement earlier this week. Oh, that was brilliant.
I loved it. I actually loved it, but I felt
bad for you guys at the same time.
Now these guys are like, Oh my God, what the hell is this?
Our reputation is gonna go down the toilet though.
But I, I felt bad for the guys inside the game and that didn't
know anything about the announcement.
They're all, they're all just on Twitter like what the fuck is
going on in our private, private discard?
And I'm like, don't worry guys. I did the video reassure them
we're like, hold on a key. No, Tom is actually all right.
Yeah, Yeah. I mean, we have, we have weekly
meetings with the senior guys and quarter of meetings, which I
guess you'll be a part of soon, like an all hands tone meeting
going for everything. And yeah, the no one's worried.
And I, I never was worried. It's just, it was just one of
those you know when you but you know when like you have to check
your phone every 5 minutes to see another, to see like more
shit that's been thrown at you. It was like one of them for a
good fucking 18 hours. It.
Was brilliant man. It was I I love you, man.
It was it was sorry at the same time, at the same time, I'm not
sorry, as you can tell from my face, but you know, it's it's a
sign. It's a sign a good side of
things to come. Shabs.
Shout out to you, man. Almost two years this man has
been a membership member. It's just shabs.
He's always been giving out codes.
One of the most generous people if they're the most generous
people on this channel and he's almost a member for two years,
which is getting me a little bit emotional.
He goes. I heard Sarah and Phil got the
golden parachute. Oh shit, we're going to talk
about that in a bit, man, because I thought look, I've
joined the team. I need to speak to Tom about
this stuff and you know, breakthrough some of this this
is mad. This is this week has been
insane. No one understood.
No one could see this coming for a while.
We've got other topics here, but I think we'll be remiss for us
not to talk about what's going on in the space.
But before we talk about the Xbox stuff, let's talk about
what is going on with blue point, because that is that I've
never seen the air PlayStation community this angered to this
degree, calling for heads of Herman Hell's head to to to be
shocked. Blue Blue Point Games, the
student that you know, they just acquired them what 4-5 years,
2001 I think just acquired them. Herman Holtz was saying that
extremely talented team created the Demon Souls remake and
responsible for loads of their remakes.
A studio that massively talented, 70 odd people, not
that many people and so much hope for that.
No one would. None of us, none of us would
ever have assumed Blue Point Games would get chopped.
There were so many other studios that haven that behind, you
know, Jade Raymond's. Yeah, fair games, fair.
Games I always forget that game fair games with the dollar sign
at the end game that would go or some medium molecule hasn't been
doing anything Sony bend what have they been doing then you
got a 92 delivering powerhouse that you were everyone's waiting
for them to build blood borne remake killed it's dead that's
it announced out of nowhere. I couldn't believe it.
They just what what's going on? What is going on?
Yeah, I confident I was just gonna say, yeah, I did see, I
did see a comment from somebody else in the community say, well,
the reality is they haven't done anything for six years, which
which in all fairness is correct, right?
Like the God of War multiplayer game got cancelled, I think it
was last year, early last year, which would then suggest, you
know, we've just how game development is these days.
It's going to be at least four to five years for another
remaster or five to seven years for for their own Triple O game.
But at the same time, I also think that's very unfair to say
that because it was Sauna who greenlit that project and it was
placed at Sauna who cancelled it, right?
So yeah, it's just it's just a very, very weird situation, I
think, but it's it's the case of of mismanagement, I guess to a
certain extent where close session have gone all in on
this. Well, they're not anymore, but
they went all in with this games as a service mantra, right?
Like they had, I think it was was it 1212 projects that they
announced that was in development, 12 live service
games or 18 or something like that.
And then 90% of them are cancelled apart from marathon
and fair games, I believe, yeah. And it's just it's just complete
mismanagement and and and very unfortunate because that team
did phenomenal work. They did support on Titanfall in
2014, they did support on God of War Ragnarok, of course.
And I think with the announcement of the trilogy
remaster of God of War as one fought well, there's got to be
blue point, right? Like they worked on Ragnarok.
It's got to be blue point who are doing it.
And, and obviously now we we know that not to be the case.
And obviously they did Shadow Shadows of the Colossus as well,
and the the Nathan Drake collection.
And yeah, it's just, it's just a bizarre move.
I understand the point of, yeah, they haven't released anything
in a long time. But also the point that it was,
it was Playstation's decision to to green light a project and
then shut it down. So it's just it's a bizarre 1.
Yeah, absolutely. So that point that you made
about the green, green light and gas games, a lot of people were
saying, well, Blueprint haven't done anything for ages.
And then you give them a got a will get a life service game.
But you have to understand, I see a lot of excuses say, well,
they haven't done anything for ages, but this was Playstation's
mandate. Playstation's mandate was doing
gas games. They were presented if you
wanted to be a studio or to have your project approved at Sony at
PlayStation, you'd have to work on a on a gas game.
So that's why people say, oh, well, they did.
They presented it to Sony. Well, of course, because Sony
said that we want to, we're giving priority to live service
games and everything else fell by the wayside, which is so
funny because I don't know if you recall, this is old, old
chat, last generation. There's a very controversial
statement from Phil Spencer where he said, you know, where a
lot of PlayStation fans really took it to heart.
And that's funny how things have changed and I have ended up now
where he said that, you know, basically I'm summarising his
statement and the old guard might remember in the chat.
Remember his what his comment about gas games versus single
player games. He goes very rarely will single
player games sell that much and capture the zeitgeist.
You'll get your last of uses here and there, but ultimately
it's gas, the life services where a lot of people are
focusing on rightly so because of the recurring income that
generation. That quote from Phil Spencer, he
got maligned for ages, ages that that was an infamous quote
constantly reminded of what what you talking about because gas
was obviously being ridiculed. And it's so ironic that
PlayStation of all companies took contrary to what their
fanbase was saying went so hard, leaned so hard into life service
so hard to the detriment of the single player.
You know, not sad dad, but you know, third, third person single
player cinematic game that PlayStation guys love at at the
at the detriment of that. They went pursue that so
aggressively that they ended up this generation with so much egg
on their faces, with more cancelled games than announced
games and this. Blue Point Studio is was the the
straw to break the camel's back before the PlayStation
community, and rightfully so. I mean, forget PlayStation
community or what not, these were extremely talented people
and they produced results and you just killed them.
And I was scathing when it came to The Initiative being shut
down because I loved Perfect Dark's legacy.
I wanted to to be made treated with respect.
You built a whole new studio, but the Initiative have never
made a game in their life. They were a brand new studio and
it was an incubation studio working in tandem with Crystal
Dynamics to work on this game, which had a very troubled
development history and boom, dead.
And I was unrelenting. But I guess the closest example
to Blue Point would probably be Tango Gameworks.
But Tango Gameworks once shut down, they were sold and they
retained their IP. So the spirit of that studio
isn't dead, but still I was scathing.
But how dare you they give you, you know that Bloomberg article
with Sarah Bondle or I will always be reminded of that Lady
Dana. I forgot her name.
She follows me on Twitter. She's really lovely.
Actually. She's a really good journalist.
And she asked a very it's just really well, well spoken.
She asked that question. Well, how can you?
How how isn't it not an well, I'm paraphrasing again, it's not
an indictment. Isn't it odd that a student that
gives gives you awards, award-winning game, you know,
you know, really critically lauded, artistically just
vibrant, very different from Xbox's stable.
And then you reward it with that.
You reward it with just killing them off.
And so that completely untangled Sarah Bond's brain.
She couldn't answer that question.
It was just complete mockedifshejust.exe on stage
completely just melted away and I was scathing and it's my video
go watch it and I can call it Xbox guy.
No one on the Internet, I guarantee you put my video off.
Hardly anyone watched it 1500 people because the next day Halo
divers 2 came out on Xbox or to be announced at Xbox.
But I was I was one of the most scathing commentaries of mine on
the Xbox leadership and said what the hell are you doing?
But blue point is way, way worse than either one of them.
And I don't know, I don't understand the mindset like you
could have given one OK, Bloodborne, maybe the guy, the
guy is really holding onto the IP is not he's just very
protective of it. But you can do more.
It's your job to preserve talent.
It is your job to preserve creativity.
You keep giving us these bullshit freaking, you know,
statements and it comes from everyone.
We'll talk about PR statements in a bit.
We'll talk about Xbox, but what are you doing?
You can't, you can't afford to let go of these people like
that. And for people making excuses or
they haven't done anything for five years, cull the talent who
is vicariously liable? The leaders, if they're not sat
there, sat there for twiddling their tongues for a year or
they're struggling, go and send someone out there because we
always load or used to load a PlayStation for their quality
control that they were always hands on in the right amount of
time. We had David Jaffe talk about
how they would send teams out there to make an assessments on
it and that's why they would have their finger on the pulse
constantly. At PlayStation, that's not the
case anymore. That's not the case anymore
because we're blueprint dead. That just shows you you you have
you're a complete absentee landlord now or you have
completely mis misaligned priorities because who who's
that guarantee you haven. There's no way there's no unless
fair games is going to be such a banger that's going to shock the
shit out of us. That game, that haven is going.
It's 100% what is media molecules holding on to?
What is Ben Studios? What what?
I don't get it. I don't get it.
Yeah, I was just going to say quickly as well.
Like if Asha wants to get a brainy point at Xbox, she should
try and get everyone from Blue Point.
But that would be a fucking Stella move man.
Like if you want to get the community on your side, scoop
them up. Asha Sharma, if you are
listening to this, go and make sure you take, just buy out the
blue point team, call it the green point team.
Boom, boom. You would be the winner straight
away. Sony would take notice ever.
You'd get goodwill straight away.
Do it. Do it.
Yeah, that's a crazy one, man. That is, it's mad, though.
It's mad like you're all joking aside, it's it's it's worrying
for a PlayStation fans who are calling for the Herman holster.
Step down. What do you think about that?
Tom Anderson, should he step down?
I don't really like saying like people should step down or not
right, But I don't know, like again, like you, you, you
brought up a good point with with heaven and and fair games
like what is going on there. And I think that is almost like
a high guard situation to a certain extent where everyone's
looked at it and have written it off completely already.
And unless it's going to have this marathon kind of turn
around, which, you know, props to to Bungie for doing that.
Seems like they've they've definitely turned turned that
around pretty nicely. But it it just seems like to me
that there is a serious lack of mismanagement over there.
And you mean a? Lot of mismanagement, sorry.
Yeah, yeah, a lot of mismanagement and, and who
knows? It's just one of those difficult
ones. Like, I don't know, I just don't
know whether the the minds are at the moment, maybe their
priorities are now to shift back to single player games or
something. I'm not, not inside the show.
But then again, you've got, you did have Blue Point, which has
proven to be really good at their their skill set with
remasters. They've got such a massive back
catalogue of of IPS that they could tap into.
And it's like, well, what are we doing guys?
Like it's just mind boggling to me.
That's the thing though, they're the remake studio, so a lot of
people would say, oh, Gaz, you hate remakes.
I'm like, yeah, you if you are diverting studio resources to
like from your big studios to bake remakes you're taking
that's an Li said the same thing with Halo, like 3 Halo C.
The new Halo remake is like, oh, this, and I said this is for the
PlayStation guys. We don't Halo C didn't get a
remake already. The anniversary.
Just you want to do another remake, whatever, And then we're
finding out they're going to do 2 and three joke like I want 343
to work on new things. The same thing applies with God
of War. I'm like, what?
Seriously, seriously going to make God of War remake 1-2?
Give it to blue .0. No, wait a minute, you've killed
them. So it makes no sense.
So I I don't know where Sony strategies are.
And it's a good point you've you've made.
Are they going to now go back and say, Oh, you know what our
live service endeavours, I have not been that fruitful.
And we've had them say the same thing last last year they and
they were throwing bungee on the bus saying they haven't been as
good to them as they were anticipating.
So what's happening now? Sony just messes up an entire
generation just doing this life service thing and failing.
Well, I, yeah, I think to be honest, a lot is riding on on
Bungie and Marathon. Like if that game flops, I
reckon they think they're gonna redo the entire strategy.
Bungie will probably get mass layoffs and potentially shut
down. It feels like that's probably
the last chance for that studio because of course, you know,
they can tip tap into Destiny free.
But again, that's sort of a four, 5-6 years until we even
get that right. But yeah, I don't like we've
obviously got Wolverine later on this year and and that's
probably going to do big numbers, but then.
Big numbers because New Black says this is going to be a
banger. But do you think he's going to
sell? I mean, it's probably going to
be decent, right? But the, it seems like at the
moment they've, they've not got all of those like the big IPS
that they know will do well. Obviously we've got, we've got a
new God of War, God of War Ragnarok and you've got a war
game in development which rumours say that is coming in
2027 I believe. And then we've got.
Some other things, yeah. Yeah, yeah, someone said that.
Yeah. And then and then a big one
would obviously be another Last of Us.
But Naughty Dog are tied up with intergalactic.
So I don't know. I don't know where they're going
to go in, in the the the next 12 months.
It just feels like a hell of a lot is riding a marathon at the
moment and to be honest, I am glad that they they've turned it
around right like because it seemed like that game was going
to be dead, dead on arrival like it seemed like that was not
Concorde 2.9. Everyone always likes to say
Concorde 2.0 but it seemed like that game was going to flop
hard. But now it seems like they
they've managed to turn it around.
But I don't know, I'm just looking at the list of IP's that
that blue point could have done. It's like come on, like bring
back kill zone. Like give us a new kill.
Zone don't even talk to me about kill zone.
I have been saying kill zone 4 ages now and this is this is
what I say the PlayStation guys hyped up those IPS at the time
and that they have put they put no respect to the to the to the
name of those IPS there. Let me go show that you guys
were gassing it up so much. It kills on 2 so good this and
that and then you don't respect her.
I respect her. I respect gorilla games pedigree
and I think I'm so, so horizoned out like there's just focusing
on horizon, this Co-op game and they just seem so droll.
There's no no vision at PlayStation.
So if you're going to do remakes or you want to try, look,
there's so much you could do. There's so much you could do
Soros. I don't know if it's going to
sell that much. Now the problem is because
return will never sold that much and you know, Soros is, you
know, rogue like shooter. I feel like it will definitely
definitely sell more than return, although, but it just I
feel like this is one of those titles and places guys going to
get mad at this statement, but I think this is a title that
should really have a day and date play a PC launch to really
kind of hope either get the numbers going because it's it's
I I I just feel like it's still going to be perceived as a niche
title. It's one of my most anticipated
titles of this year. Look at it looks beautiful
sunscreen right now and I can't wait for this.
But at the same time, it's just like right, OK, then you've got
Wolverine, which you're right, and The Wolverine is going to be
a massive seller. It's going to sell loads and I'm
looking forward to that. But then after after Wolverine
and after this Saros, they're blowing their load this year.
Then we get we have to have a God of War next year and then we
have to have intergalactic 20272028 really to keep them
going to then reasonably, you know, kind of coast and I say
coast through. I think they are coasting.
I think you can't have more cancelled games and announced
games and then perceive it as a win this generation.
You can't have Naughty Dogs sit down the entire generation as
the market leader, your PlayStation market leader.
And I just feel like when I say that people are like, oh, this
is fanboy fuel, but you should demand more from the market
leader. And when, yeah, when other
studios cancel, get cancelled. Tom, are we going to you know,
I'm not inviting it, but if Blue Point can go, everyone can
anyone can go. That's it's almost like the Xbox
thing that the uncertainty is now here.
There's no confidence in PlayStation keeping these
studios afloat. We had London studio die and now
you have blue point who delivered, But clearly their
single player games didn't sell that well.
PlayStation guys. So band studio haven, you know,
fair games. I don't know what's going on,
but they, I feel like it's gone far enough in development where
they're like, all right, well, we have to push it out and see
how it goes. Yeah, so there is a I was just
going to say there is a thing with that where they if they
cancel a game, they can't write it off on their books.
I don't know if you're like know anything about accountancy and
stuff, but some studios will actually just release the game
because then they can knock it off as as as a debt.
And to me that that feels like maybe that's why fair games is
continuing development. But I guess like, I guess this
is just an issue with the entire industry as a whole, right?
I mean, the the past couple of years, we've seen 15 + 1000
layoffs each year. This year, I think we're already
approaching 2000 and we're on the well just over halfway
through February. And this is just an issue with
the industry as a whole, the, the, the cost of development
now. And, and I guess this is, this
could be a reason why perhaps PlayStation looked at Playboy
and, and even denied A remaster, right?
Because then you're still talking probably 100 million
plus just for a simple remaster. And is, is a kill zone remaster
going to do 3,000,000 copies? Well, it's a, it's a big risk,
right? So yeah, I, I don't know.
It's it's probably more of a more of an industry kind of like
reset. I would say a lot of people are
saying that the bubble is bursting.
It's almost like a deflation. I think where we are seeing this
reset, we're definitely not even at the pinnacle of it yet.
I think we're still, we're not even halfway there in my
opinion. And we've got a lot more harder
times to come. And like you said, even at both
PlayStation and Xbox, and even when you're taking other
publishers like Ubisoft, for example, no one is surf no
matter what, no one is surf and you're at the whim of, of the
top right, which is, you know, I don't think into politics, but
you know, it's the case for, for everything.
And we've just got to ride the storm.
But then how do people in a space of creativity be creative
when they've got this big dark cloud looming over them that
they're potentially going to be laid off?
Yeah, no, absolutely. The, the, you know, I talked
about this last year and it's saying the changing of the tide,
this bubble bursting was a necessity.
It was, it was always going to happen because we've been
talking about, you know, burgeoning budgets, absolutely
haemorrhaging studios for years and years and years and years
back when Cliff Burzynski was making video games.
And, you know, we've come to the point where it's all bursting.
So like now, now we're now we're starting to see it happen,
especially in the AAA space. You're going to see a lot more
ruthless cuts. And this is just the beginning.
I think if a lot of it is measured, they're taking as far
as they can, they want. There's a lot more that they're
ready to. I think the fate of many studios
has already been decided. They are going to get killed and
shut down. But it's very important how you
deal with that because if you start mass culling, it's going
to just completely cause your talent to just either move away
and have no confidence in you as a, you know, publisher or a
platform holder. And just, and that happened with
Microsoft, with Microsoft's mass culling, the, the absolute
atmosphere was so deadening. I have, I have contacts within
Microsoft studios, developers in there just telling my contact
it's, it's a shit show, no one knows what's going on.
It is really bad. That and that kind of thing can
really impact that. You know, if you have a domino
effect of that stuff, it will just cause you to bleed talent.
So a lot of these decisions I believe have have already been
made to kill them. It's just the manner of how you
reveal when and when and how the timing of your announcements,
which isn't. Proof.
The proof? Is in the pudding with Phil
Spencer doing what he did not even 24 hours after what
happened that we were talking about.
And I guess we're going to that now with the absolute madness,
the end of a legend's tenure. Phil Spencer, who saved Xbox
when at a time where Satya Nadella was thinking winding it
down when he said to him, we don't necessarily need to be in
the gaming space. This man saved Xbox.
However, however, despite him saving it and I say despite him
saving it, that's a big accolade He struggled with for multitude
of reasons that he would cite and he didn't that infamous kind
of funny interview, but there was a multitude of reasons.
But my Xbox has struggled the the, the loss in the Xbox One
generation was too, too RAW to withstand that, According to
him. I believe that's compounded with
the failures of the Xbox Series consoles to make the splash that
people required it to at the start of this Gen because they
had a lot of goodwill, a lot of goodwill.
Xbox had a lot of goodwill right before launch, like just based
on the the reveal, the announcement that people are
going to give it a second chance.
This was it Xbox rally together and it just failed for a
multitude of reasons. However, Phil Spencer at the
helm of it, you know, he at it's current state, he's before his
announcement, he'd, he'd already basically receded away from the
public light, not being receptive, not being that that
commutative on social media because people were just picking
his statements apart. The exclusivity thing I think
was the was the raw 1 and I think that will mar mar his
legacy where Xbox capitulated by way of becoming a third party
publisher and getting their games on PlayStation.
It's not an ideal thing. You know, it's four games thing.
Well, it will age badly. But you know, we have to take
stock off what this man actually did.
And, you know, he weathered the storm, took over the rains.
And not not only his, but notwithstanding his failings, he
he was the face of Xbox and a reason why a lot of people had a
lot of confidence. When you stepped down, you saw
all sorts of people come out and just speak, you know, really
nicely of him, highly of him. Yeah.
Peter Moore come out really very, very nice.
It wasn't just like, oh, just to be nice for the sake of it.
There's some of the, you know, the platitudes were kind of
flying here and there. But Peter Moore had a really
detailed comment. I'll try and bring it up
actually. But I thought that that's a very
nice, a very nice and honest kind of assessment on Phil
Spencer's tenure at Xbox. He would, he'd, he had to deal.
He aged considerably man, over the years because the man had to
fight for a $80 billion acquisition that will age
anyone. He was at the forefront of that
biggest acquisition at Microsoft, the largest or if the
largest company in the world had to as ever spent as a company.
He was at the forefront of the stress of that the CMA stuff.
And you've got a very, very strongly opinionated fan base.
You know, I, I made a video of Weiss how I literally as to how
Phil Spencer saved Xbox and come pass forward a few years down
the line. And I'm, I'm scathing in my
critique of the things that he said and that didn't pan out all
his failings. But generally my assessment was
this man was very good for Xbox and bad in some instances, but I
would say he was very good for Xbox.
This was a true gamer that came into the space.
He really cared games a lot. He cared a lot.
He genuinely cared a lot. And that that that came through.
Like, I've got Peter Moore's statement here.
I'm going to just put it up on screen and also everyone could
see it as well. And it says so.
This is Peter Moore, the ex Xbox alumni, because news that Xbox
Phil Spencer has stepped away marks the end of a significant
chapter for Microsoft gaming and in particular Xbox.
It's easy, especially in today's climate, to critique decisions,
debate strategy and judge outcomes with the benefit of
hindsight. What is harder to sustain is
what is harder is to sustain leadership over decades in an
industry that reinvents itself every few years.
And Mr And he's right, you know, Phil Spencer has.
You know, has seen so many dynamic shifts in the industry
form physical to digital and you know, the way from gas, you
know, single player to gas we talked about earlier.
And you know, the more platform agnostic future that we're
looking at now from the early days of Xbox through through
console transition, studio acquisitions, platform wars.
I love that you mentioned that. And the rise of subscription and
cloud here was a steady presence in what has often been a
turbulent environment. And it goes on to say leadership
in this industry means making imperfect decisions with
incomplete information under extraordinary pressure.
And you know, Phil Spencer fits the bill there.
Like a lot of leader every all, all leaders are even Absoni now
and Nintendo. He made imperfect decisions and
the pressure was enormous. With the ABK thing, it's it's
massive. I'm not excusing him for it, but
I have to, you have to, you know, resign to reality of these
things. This man who cared so much about
gaming had to balance the books please the the higher ups the
Satya Nadella's and managed to get them to commit POC get
Microsoft the trillion dollar gaming trillion dollar company
to POC committed into gaming because a lot of people say oh
ABK was a big mistake. That's the reason why everything
went multiplier. And I'm such a short sighted
mindset because if you've seen Microsoft's very reactionary
buyouts that now they've just magpied into AI and they don't
give a shit about anything else now, but they're put committed
as a result of ABK. They spent $80 billion.
There's no going back. Gaming is now the third biggest
revenue generator. You think they're going to walk
it back? Impossible.
They can't. It's not a side piece for Xbox
anymore. This is a significant,
significant branch of their business now.
It's their main. If not only inroad into the
entertainment space they gave up on Zune and music they gave up
on I don't know what other entry they have.
This is their living room entry. It's gaming.
It's the most lucrative medium in compared to, you know, TV and
books and all sorts. So he did that.
Phil Spencer didn't do that. So I'm reminded of how I sat
next to Phil Spencer. Phil Spencer knows me of me.
He used to watch a game one day and he's told other people that.
And I'm sure that he probably has a distaste towards the
manner which I, you know, antagonistic way I deal with
things and the raw way I say stuff.
Although Aaron Greenback said to me, because guys never change,
keep doing what you're doing. Say I wish you could, I could
say the same things you were saying.
He said that to me. So obviously that kind of
hopefully Phil Spencer is so nice.
Well, I feel like if I sat in front of it, what I feel, man,
what? Tell me what happened.
Hopefully now we can find out. Tom.
Now he has no reason not to. Well, I mean like I assume he's
under some of the heftiest NDANDAS ever, right?
Like that. I don't think that's happening,
but I think you said it perfectly.
Is that the the community? I mean, maybe not the community,
but Xbox in particular because maybe maybe it will stick around
in in some fashion, right? But they've lost a gamer.
And I think that is what Xbox needed.
And no, no, of course there's a few things coming about coming
out about Usher and her kind of gamer gamer tag and all that
kind of stuff and what games she's playing.
We'll get into that in a minute. But yeah, I think, I think he
he, he did what he had to do. And, and, and like Peter Moore
said, nobody is perfect in these kind of roles, right?
And I've had the pleasure of meeting Phil a couple of Times
Now. I first met him at Summer Games
Fest last year and I was sat I was sat playing with.
Hopefully he doesn't mind me saying this, but I was sat
playing and console was with with Mike inside the game in and
John from from Xbox era. And Phil actually like saw John
because you know, they they've been he's been on the podcast a
few times and John's quite distinct with his Mohawk.
And I think at the time he had quite a large one and, and, and
Phil like nodded to him and he made his way over to the from,
you know, across the lobby. And it took him 45 minutes to
get there because every, every like 10 seconds, you obviously
had fans coming over to him and stopping him and saying XY and Z
and, and Phil had the time with every single person there to
speak with them and, and to give them the attention that, that,
you know, they, they, they wanted.
And to me that just proved like he, he was, he was that guy.
Do you know what I mean? Like he was the guy to that Xbox
needed. And I mean, if Asha will do
that, who knows? I don't want to want to put
harsh judgement on anyone, right?
But he, he was, he was a very, a very kind soul.
And, and yeah, I, I met him and all that was cool.
And then, and then I saw him at dice, which was only a couple of
weeks ago. So literally what, a week or
two, when was the, the 8th to the 12th?
I was there. So literally 10 days ago I saw
him. He did the, the speech at the,
the Vincent Pella tribute and but I don't, I never want to
talk about anyones looks or anything like that.
Right. But, but you could tell that he
was exhausted. You could tell that like you
said, he's aged very poorly. But but but then like even from
seeing him at some against fest to, to, to dice, which was only
eight or nine months, he just looked done.
Like, I don't know if he already knew when the debt was coming or
what. I assume he did.
But yeah, he said just about last.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. He just looked done in my
opinion. And we met him again outside the
the hotel just just by enough chance he was getting into a
taxi. But again, he had the time to,
to, to speak with people and, and to, to give people that
time. And the, the, the taxi driver
was waiting like, come on, you're on the metre kind of
thing. And yeah, like he, he just
looked, he, he looked really exhausted in my opinion.
And I, I hope that, you know, after the, the past couple of
very rough years that I imagine that he had over Xbox, that he
now gets that time to rest and heal and, and hopefully do
something, something else in the gaming community that, that, you
know, he, he can, he can use his experience on because I think
he'll be a great advisor and, and, and all that kind of good
stuff. And yeah, I mean, best of luck
to him. Honestly, yeah.
You know, look, of all my incendiary comments, oh, I say
incendiary. It's very critical.
But you know, I just, you know, Phil Spencer, he's always a
class act, really nice guy and business is brutal And he you
know, at the end of the day, he saved Xbox When you say that
you've done enough, but he wanted to do more.
He really wanted to do more and he's, I feel like he was
fighting an uphill battle because the power, the power had
shifted away out of his hands. Because you're now you're with
ABK, it's a trillion dollar, you know, this is a, you know, I
mean billion dollar, $80 billion deal.
It, it gets snatched away from you.
And it was just a few weeks ago we had, I had just cordoned on
and I just, I said, hey, Jess, what's happening with, you know,
Phil? Is he, is he, he's an absentee
landlord. He's not exactly, you know,
running the ship and he's like, no, no, he still has that that
impact, but he's worried after the fact and look what happened
after the fact. Before we go on to talk about
Charlie, we have to just kind of shout out to 228 thirty of you
on the chat, smash the like button.
I'm really grateful that you guys are here.
Just talk about look, Phil's look on the on the point of Phil
and the legacy of Phil Spencer, I think ultimately I find it, I
would be remiss not to mention, you know, in a positive light
what he has done because he cared.
And this is the problem with execs all across the board at
Sony, at PlayStation and at Xbox.
Which executive do you see in this chat?
You tell me if you have an idea, which executive do you see that
was a proper gamer that works their way up the the ranks?
He was an intern at Microsoft, remember that, and earned his
stripes and then cared about gaming so much and then, you
know, made decisions for that imperfect decisions, but there's
none. And now we have Asha Sharma.
Asha Sharma is someone that has come out of nowhere.
She was an AI. She's an AI bod who's moved over
from some other companies. Again, no gaming pedigree
whatsoever whatsoever. So instantly, instantly, on the
face of it, how can you not be pessimistic about it?
I don't understand because if you're giving credit to Phil
Spencer for his gaming pedigree and heritage, so he understands
the medium better, that, you know, the dynamics better, the
finer details about, you know, how Japan is.
One of the questions was a media off the bat what was going to
happen with Xbox and his endeavours in Japan because Phil
Spencer understood it fostered relationships with Square Enix
really, you know, kind of did all that.
And the, the guy that had Square Enix said, oh, I was really sad
because I'm hoping to, you know, enhance this relationship even
more. But I, you know, I wish him
well. That's how important Phil
Spencer was instrumental Phil Spencer was in making sure Xbox
has a foothold in Japan. And but we've now got Asha
Sharma, who's come out of nowhere, who's right now on
social media just making memes, someone's handling her account
or. Yeah, you can tell, man.
Well, actually, I'm, I'm not entirely sure because she is.
She's only 36, I believe. All right.
OK. And, and if you're if you're if
you think about it, if you're someone in her position and
you've just been announced as the CEO, you're probably having
a few bevvies this weekend and making memes.
She's making a lot of memes rough.
Yeah, but I guess like the shocking thing about everything
and we we haven't touched on this, I don't know if you want
to, is the fact that obviously Sarah Bond hasn't hasn't gone
into the the CEO role, which which from from all accounts and
rumours and stuff was I think it was like some of the last year
is when the rumours started swirling like a bit more
seriously that that Phil was going to step down.
We all assumed that it was going to be when the next generation
of console hit. Then he was essentially training
Sarah upright to to, to replace him in that role.
And and that's just such a, a bizarre decision as well.
Like to to be honest, I even said this at dice to someone.
I'm not going to mention them there, but I, I did always
actually hear that Sarah was never actually going to be in
that role and it was more likely to be Matt booter for whatever
reason. Obviously that hasn't happened
as well. It's just, I don't know, like I
don't know where, where Asher has come from.
Basically it is is kind of where my heads are.
I know that she's scaled up Meta's slash, Facebook's
messaging service to like a billion users or whatever, but
it's like. You know, I bet she's Nutella's
daughter or cousin. But I mean, one of the things is
like obviously with with Nadella as well, is this this AI drive
that he's got and maybe he's looked at her with with her AI
experience and thought, well, here we go and and let's lock
her in kind of thing. But I think I think that is the
biggest change that is coming from this is the facts that Phil
was a gamer. I know that they're trying to
push Asha as a gamer, which which she very well could be,
right? But it's like can but can with
all the stories that we heard from Philly fighted so much for
a lot of a lot of games over there.
It's like even with, you know, going back to to Zenimax's
project Blackbird, which we mentioned in the last podcast
that I was on, like the story was, is that they had to RIP the
controller from his hands because he was enjoying the game
that much. And I just can't see, never mind
Asha, I just can't see anyone being like that right in such a
such a role. So I don't like, I don't want to
speak I'll of anyone, but I think this is I think what we're
going to see in the next 12 months is it is basically what
Phil did actually protect Xbox and the teams and the games.
And we're going to see the fallout of that because Asha's
job is now to scale game pass and play anywhere.
And I think we're at the point where where they probably think
you don't necessarily need all of these games to do that.
And that's that's her fault. This is support Xbox in as many
hands as possible. So it's funny you say that she's
been doing the rounds of someone her internal whoever is handling
her social media is been interacting with the Xbox
community, including myself by Phil Spencer song.
That's embarrassing. She's like she, she, she took
the chin, but some of the things that she has interacted with
again, it's her or someone her handler or someone who's dealing
with it. Interestingly, one of the
comments were was a tweet from someone saying hey Asha,
exclusivity is so important. We need Xboxes.
The the value proposition of the Xbox depends on it and you Xbox
will only thrive if we have exclusives.
Now that ship has sailed. I don't expect Xbox to ever do
AU turn on this I it's not a situation that's tenable at all.
It doesn't make any sense. The strategy for the future
hardware is designed on a niche bit of console and they can
focus on that niche hardcore PC hybrid because PlayStation is
there and PlayStation is essentially their primary
audience. But well, the she came back to
that person who said it's her. I I I hear you.
I'm like, yeah, sure. Hold on a minute.
You, you can't hear that. You're not.
Too many drinks, man. Too many drinks.
Yeah, but not like I, I am. Admittedly, I am a firm believer
that that exclusives do matter for consoles.
But like you said, that ship has sailed for Xbox.
That strategy has gone out of the window.
And I think that at the moment she's horror, horror, her intern
in this case or whatever is at the stage, you know, where
they're just saying everything right together to, to, to get
everyone believe in her and, and, and being bullish on, on
the move. And she, I think she said all,
she so far, she said all of the right things, which which is
absolutely fine. But even without this massive
restructuring, to be honest, I don't think that Xbox was in the
good graces of the community enough anywhere where people
would have believed what Xbox was saying.
And no, it's definitely the case where actions speak louder than
words, right? And, and, and no, there is just
that little bit more doubt just simply because of her background
in in AI and all that kind of nonsense.
And and the lack of her being a gamer or whatever just just
doesn't really make anything too believable for me to be honest.
I'm I'm there with you. I think all this is this PR
fluff. We've fallen for it.
Phil Spencer made these like beautiful romanticised
statements that the opposite ended up happening and Sharma or
whoever's done dealing with it just at the moment.
It's just like, you know, people are fickle at the moment.
Just capitalise on that. Just make her likeable.
She's been busy on this weekend or the first day.
Although to be honest, I do like the clap back on Grums.
Grums came back to Grums being the grifter that he is because
new Xbox CEO refuses to say what her three favourite games are.
And she, I saw the interaction before he deleted it.
She was not true. And she'd written it, you know,
she'd posted it 36 minutes ago and she's already Grums has
already cake. Well, he's always have crow in
his face. But yeah, she's she's she's
loving that kind of lime. Like she's been a bit fiery as
well. Someone called her AI bot and
she goes beep, bop, beep. She just replied in a jokey way
in that thing. And and the the comment was
like, she's a Dei hire. She's Indian.
And you see a lot of that I've seen.
A. Lot of 7-11 pictures there.
People like just like. So stupid people said you're a
DEI hire for gaming. I don't know if you saw the
comments on that. What the hell?
I was sharing that increasing. I'm like, yes, I'm denied now.
But what, what, what I will say on those comments is like I, I
couldn't even believe them. Like I had to like refresh and
see who was tagging, you know, like see if the the right handle
was being tagged and stuff because like I couldn't believe
that she was doing those comments.
Same same, but she replied to my comment.
I'm like Oh my God, don't tell me she's actually looked at
this. Oh fuck's sake.
Yeah, that's, I don't know. It's like, I don't know, like is
it an intern? Is she and then is she replying
to people like rums like because she doesn't have an
understanding of the community yet and do you know what I mean?
Like PR of haven't like notified her on who to and who not to
interact with. For example, is it an intern?
Has she had too many too many glasses of champagne and wine?
Like what's going on? Maybe you know, I just don't I
find it difficult to believe that, you know, if it if it was
an intern, you'd expect a lot more measured policies in place.
Phil Spencer, Phil Spencer, Sarah Bond, all of these guys
have receded away from Twitter. They're all on be sky.
Be aware of it's called the the the nice friendly one that no
one uses. So so she you know, they would
have vetted her like the moment she responded to my Phil Spencer
song, I'm pretty sure Phil Spencer would have like text
her. Like, don't worry about that
guy. That guy's mental.
Please don't respond to him. And then she's out out and
forth. She's doing it to everyone and
she's a troll. DI hire Tom needs to meet the
quotas. Sharps, you hit the quota,
that's it. Now because of me, you won't be
able to board the flight to GDC. Oh man.
You're going to get the cavity search with me, bro.
We ride together, we die together.
I should say that before a flight.
He's actually genuinely worried that that is what's the fuck
you'll be? I'm just Googling quick, like
how much does it hurt to have a finger rub your bum?
It's not so bad to get used to it after the second and third
time. Oh man.
But so I, you know, we see all or a lot of that.
I don't know. I'd like to think she's her.
I like, I think it gives her a personality right off the bat.
She's already, she's put grums in her place.
She's taking the piss. She's interacting with me for
God's sake, which is insane. So it's like, you know, there's
a human element to it because. It's needed to a certain degree
because everyone's seeing her as a corporal.
I don't trust it. I'm not stupid.
But what it also means is that she's amenable to having
interactions and conversations because when she did interact,
it would be a lot of people replied underneath that response
saying it's really nice that you're interacting with the
community, which is quite funny because Xbox and Phil Spencer
were really good at doing that. And then they stopped doing it.
And then there's another commentary to be made that, you
know, Xbox guys love these parasocial relationships.
They love to get in bed with these executives.
They think they're the best friends.
That's why Phil Spencer. Oh man, like the Summer Games
Festival's literally like a crowd of them fucking waiting
for Phil Spencer and and Sarah Bond to come in.
Oh man it's so cringe. So cringe, right?
To John. John I, I rinse John all the
time. He's like, you know, you waited
for about two hours in a line to meet Phil Spencer to sign your
Xbox book. I am.
I'm not waiting for another man like that.
I'm not doing it. I'm not.
What man would I wait for like the standard for two hours just
to get a signature? I'm not doing that.
It's weird. Is it gaming?
I'm the I'm the same. Yeah, I'm the same.
Like, I don't really, I mean, even even I guess like the, the
job right, of being a, a so-called journalist is, is you
shouldn't be taking pictures of like taking pictures with, with
people and stuff. Like it's not you, you know,
they're not your friend or whatever.
But yeah, going back to Asha, I, I, I'm just worried that this
could potentially bite her in the ass very quickly.
And like you like, like you said, like yes, she's no, she's
no interacting with the community, but I think she's
going to find out real quick that Twitter is not the place
today because I, I think she'll have got 31 posts on Twitter or
something, like she hasn't been around for long.
When I saw her she had she had 1000 followers and I just saw
her keep refreshing just kept going up because they're just
like she didn't even have 1000 followers on on on Twitter when
she was now no one knew who she was bro.
She had no following and then all of a sudden boom, it just
went up and like, Oh well, I don't know where she's at now.
She might not be that high. Let.
Me 36,000. 36,000 yeah, I thought we still have still,
that's quite a lot. So she only created an account
this month, so it's like she's going to find out real quick and
maybe that's going to be the last stash she does.
To be honest, she's greatest games ever.
She she has a lot of power she doesn't realise and the gaming
space what she says can really have a massive impact on the
perception of Xbox. She's talking about top 3
greatest games ever today I bring my so this is I'll quickly
talk a touch upon her her statement and I just some of it
is just it was just a bit weird and I need to understand what is
it's already just sounds like PR speakers like Mike.
A lot of people say it sounds like Microsoft Copilot wrote it.
And I'm like, I need to look. If she's receptive and she is
who she is on social media, that means then that there's a
opportunity for conversation, which means GDC, she's there.
We want to have an idea of, OK, how genuine are you?
You may not be a seasoned gamer like Phil Spencer, but how
seriously are you taking it? Because you've made some very,
very specific and strong promises, which I'm just about
to read. So she goes, I feel two things
at once, humility and urgency. Humility because this team has
built something extraordinary over the decades, blah, blah,
blah, blah, blah. She said.
All this stuff I will. OK, my first, my first job is
simple. Understand what makes this work
and protect it. That this starts with three
commitments. So this is where it's really
important. These are the three things.
First, great games and that's really important that she said
that that you know great games is exactly what Xbox needs.
This is the the core of the business.
Fine, everything begins here. She says we must have great
games beloved by players before we do anything.
Unforgettable characters, stories that make us feel
innovative, make us feel innovative gameplay and creative
excellence. We will empower our studios,
invest in iconic franchises and back bold new ideas.
We will take risks. So what does that mean?
What do you mean by risks? Like what's your risk appetite?
Because what we're concerned with and I'm concerned with is a
Microsoft that's bloated and not ready to take risks.
We see with ABK. I'm worried about, you know, the
annualization of Call of Duty was something that happened
decade or God knows how long ago, but what risks are you
taking now? We're starting to see the
Blizzard now we're starting to see StarCraft now we're starting
to see Overwatch getting fixed. But what's your risk appetite?
We need to see that. You said that.
I want to hold you to to account on that.
We will. Sorry.
Yeah, we will enter new categories in markets where we
can add real value, grounded in what players care about the
most. There she goes.
I promoted Matt Booty in honour of this commitment.
I, Tom. Did she?
Did she promote Matt Booty or was that already a pre-existing
thing? I don't think she.
I don't like I got yeah, like going back to what I said
earlier about Sarah Bond and and stuff, like I always had heard
that there was rumblings that Matt Booty was going to be next
in line instead of Sarah, like how true that is.
But I mean, where the smart there's fire, right?
Yeah, but maybe maybe she did. And I'm now I'm thinking like,
is Matt now going to be the face of Xbox and, and Ash is going to
be in the background doing a lot more of of the the the
businesses stuff. And you know, you have Matt
Bootsy doing all of the conferences and all of the the
travelling and all of the Xbox directs and stuff like that.
We've seen him do it a little bit last year.
So so that makes a lot of sense. And, and Ash is just just in the
background a little bit more. I'm not entirely sure, but in a
way like I do think that that Matt was was slated for a, a
bigger position regardless, right?
A lot of people say that Matt Booty is failing upwards.
A lot of people say, yeah, I did see that, yeah.
Yeah, so a lot of people don't have much faith in him dealing
with the content side of things. So he's now going to be
challenging her that he's that he's that he's he's got one of
for Xbox fans, you need to keep an eye on Matt Booty and how he
handles the, the the you know, the the T management of these
first party studios and what happened.
So there's there's that that's important.
The second bit that she says is very interesting.
This would have to have but this isn't just a a tweet that some
intern said this was checked, double checked, approved and
then posted, because this forms part of all the statements in
one blog. Second, she goes the return of
Xbox, the return of Xbox, that wording may seem quite callous
to to a certain degree, because what that suggests is Xbox
returning means it's lost its way.
So is that, is that a, an acknowledgement, an admission of
Xbox losing its way and how do you do that?
She says. We will recommit to our core
Xbox fans and players. The biggest problem with Xbox
right now is its brand has taken a fat hit because Xbox console
fans do not feel valued because they are third class citizens.
They really are. Xbox titles are coming to
PlayStation. Xbox titles seem to get massive
significant upgrades including sixty frame up PS performance
upgrade when it coincide with the PlayStation release.
Xbox gamers do not feel valued because they are not valued at
the moment. They're not the primary and
Xbox's messaging is all over the place.
Everything's an Xbox, your toilet's an Xbox, your mum's an
Xbox, the PC is an Xbox. Phil Spencer comes out and say
PC is the main growth priority. Game Pass, you know, stagnated
on consoles. We they're saying it too.
They're spelling it out to you. The PC is where it's at.
So how on earth will you commit to your core Xbox fans who have
invested with in you within the past 25 years if you don't treat
them as first class citizens? And if you don't, and I'll, I'll
be honest with you, this goes down to this question.
Maintain exclusivity like there's no value proposition in
that box. Really.
It's going to be very hard unless you you can still do
timed exclusives. Xbox is not, you know, out.
You can say that that ship has sailed, but can still do some
sort of timed stuff, but don't see it happening.
So when you say that the return of Xbox, what on earth does that
mean? That's a question I cannot
answer. No, it's it's a big question,
right? Like what, what in, in what,
where can they can they do that? Like I'm just trying to think of
ideas. Like, I mean, reality is they
could do time timed exclusives, right?
I think, but I think they've probably already seen the data
and all that kind of stuff to suggest that that probably isn't
a good idea, right? Or maybe they have seen the data
and seen the likes of some stuff that that went to PlayStation
after a few months and, and maybe maybe that's a good
suggestion or whatever, but I just can't see it happening.
What do they do? They decrease Game Pass
subscription price. What do they do?
Like, I don't know how they could how they could do it
unless they're talking more about like community events and
Xbox Century. But like, do do people really
care about that apart from the the someone's with hardcore
people on Twitter who were in hotel lobbies?
I don't think they matter as much.
And that second point doesn't reflect, you know, refer to
them, Paris says. Thank God my episode was last
week. Paris, you dodged a bull.
Is that because of the news or because I'm on it?
Paris. And I'm pretty sure it's because
of the news Black cover. Thank you so much for the five.
Because if the new CEO embassy crap gamer likes Phil, did I
take back everything I said about her?
What if the new CEO embassy crap gamer like Phil, did I take back
everything I said about her? I don't know what that means by
cover. Dear spelt weird.
Unless I'm sorry, that's probably me.
This is both Paris Charlotte I lose grim and thank you for
being a member for 14 months bro I love it.
Congrats on the insider gaming. Give them hell.
I already did from the moment I joined by mistake.
Yeah, like we don't need anymore help, Yeah.
We're a little bit calm. It'll be a calm, calm, measured
gas on Insider gaming. A shout out to 255 of you.
The chat smashed the like, but smashed it because we're talking
about the future of Xbox and Asha Sharma's potentially hollow
statements. So that's the the big one.
She's going to return Xbox. That means, and I was talking
about this a few weeks ago where I was saying, you know, from
people in the know and Xbox first party studios, they felt
the the hurt, the damaged loss of goodwill in the Xbox camp
last year, majorly, maybe to the point where it was going to
inform what they were going to show on the this summer
showcase. They really want to make a
splash. They really need to make a
splash. It's a 25th anniversary anyway,
but they do feel it. So her saying that is really
important. If this is not a Co pilot
generated statement and it's bullshit.
So and you know, at this point the pessimism levels are a
maximum since it feels it feels good guy Phil.
You couldn't believe words from good guy Phil because for a
multitude of reasons. Then how on earth are we going
to listen to AI Asha Sharma? So it's like you have to
scepticism is the default. It should be the default.
Don't just ride, don't ride. Don't make the same mistakes
before. Don't evangelise the brand or
get into parasocial relationships with her because
she's nice and pretty. Don't do that stuff like you did
before. Don't do it.
Don't be scathing. Be critical.
I know you guys hated me for going after Phil Spencer, but
ultimately turned out to be true.
No, not the hate of Phil Spencer, but be critical and
demand more. At this point, you have to have
to have a critical lens. You can't just be loving her up
straight away and declaring her because she's got some wins on
social media against grums and there's that.
Great. You, you cannot, cannot.
Especially with this woman who's AI background and Satya
Nadella's running it. You have to be pessimistic.
I'm not saying it's going to be bad.
We all want change. She might do a great job just by
being just really bullish on stuff and having an attitude
where it's like, OK, you know, I have pride in the Xbox brand and
I'll have Satya's ear a little bit more, but for whatever
reason, I don't know. And at Third Point, she goes
future of play. And that's the Third Point.
We are witnessing the reinvention of play.
I don't know what the fuck that means.
To meet the moment. We'll reinvent new business
models and new ways to play by leaning into what we already
have, iconic teams, characters, worlds.
But we will not treat those worlds as static IP to milk and
monetise. This is the kind of statement
that Victor said. I want to get some brownie
points by saying this. And she talks about as
monetization AI evolves, we will not flood our ecosystem with
soulless AI slop. And that I don't believe it that
much because. She's just saying, yeah, she's
just saying all of the right things.
And and that's what you would expect right from from such an
announcement. I think the, the player, the,
the change of play or whatever she said was it's just referring
to Xbox play anywhere and everything being an Xbox.
And again, her her job at Meta was to scale.
I think it was the messenger up, you know, Facebook Messenger was
to scale that. And she scaled it to a billion,
a billion people. And, and, and I think that's why
she got the job basically is because Xbox now now does need
scale. But yeah, I think again, actions
speak louder than words. And I don't know how many times
I can say that, but but no, no, Xbox really need to be very,
very more, be a lot more careful as well with even the simpler
things like their announcements, right?
I think Xbox the past couple of years had a really big tendency
to announce something really, really good and then literally 2
days later, announce layoffs or announce price increases or
announce something that just completely shits on the, the
good stuff that happened 24 hours earlier.
And they, they need to be a lot more strategic in that.
And hopefully she can bring that, that strategy.
Because let's be honest, I mean, even like Phil, there's going to
be some bad, bad, bad decisions there.
There's going to be some, some decisions that people don't
like. But I think with a lot of this
stuff, I mean, again, referring back to Bleedpoint and that
announcement and then Xbox doing this 24 hours later, it's all
about timing with these things. Of course, I'm not saying that
that plus there she knew that this Xbox news was coming 24
hours later, but that that kind of did help them out, right?
They did. Xbox I think purposely picked
this time they. They needed to do that.
Yeah, yeah, potentially. Come on man, it's a massive
coincidence. You do it next day on a I'm
pretty sure, man, they always do that.
I don't know. I don't know, man.
I think that that that's the time to kind of drop it because
Herman Holst is still is still getting murked.
If you go on Twitter and one of the few people who is looking
forward to marathon the Xbox guy.
I can't comment on marathon without being called a shill.
I wish shell for PlayStation Now or a bungee shell or bungee
apparently paid me to buy get this or I'm not paid by bungee.
You know me. The same thing happened with
Halo and then I got blocked by 343.
You actually I've told you that you know they it was I was very
critical. They gave me a review code.
I was really happy. I was quite good fair in my
opinion, but some bits I was like scathing in my remarks and
you know the thing that that got me banned was when I think it's
John Junisic. He's very soft in this.
If you want real critique, I I literally said they I won't put
the they had no region philtres. I've been saying this from
before the game launch launch with region philtres because we
have the stupid American host advantage all the time.
The game is not different, the made pop out two seconds later,
it's not the same. And so the Australians at the
time, because there was no region philtre and had no
Australians always get merked when it comes to this shit.
So the Australians ended up resorting to Geo filtering.
So they basically used their routers to force the game to
find players in Australia. It's not hacking, it's no
nothing. But it started banning players.
And so as John Judaism said, but Oh yeah, we're going to look
forward towards doing this now. I'm like, yeah, like what?
Like banning players for geofiltering?
What are you guys doing? Put region Philtres in there.
Blocked the 343. The Halo Twitter account has
blocked me for. As soon as I made that comment,
I was quite scathing. I was like, yeah, yeah, because
you guys care about geofiltering, right?
What are you doing? Blocked.
And that was the thing like, you know, we're we're up and coming.
Game on Daily was coming. I haven't had an Xbox slot, so
they didn't expect me to be quite critical in my reviews,
which is, I'll give you, I guess if we start doing reviews, some
reassurance. When I do review games, I am
very critical, even on myself. Make an observation of on what
way have I looked at that game? Am I informed by biases here or
am I actually looking at this title in earnest?
That kind of critical analysis, it informs a lot of what I do.
When I became a solicitor, I had to do that.
When you're making an assessment on a case, I'm doing a lot more
litigation now. I have to make those very hard
critical analysis, but before I go to court in front of a judge
so I can make an assessment of a case that doesn't hurt me
because I've got roast tinted glasses on to present my
client's case, that kind of shit.
So why are we talking about that?
I have no idea. But basically, yeah, got to be
critical. By the way, Black Cobra, because
I meant embarrass. So that makes sense.
He goes, if the new CEO embarrasses crap gamer like Phil
Spencer did, I'll take back everything I said about her.
He did. He embarrassed Grums rawly
straight off the back. So thank you Black Oprah for
that Gamer Live studio, I think with a 5, because one thing's
for sure, the Xbox showcase is going to be very interesting
because it will determine exactly where Xbox and Microsoft
are heading next. That's a very good point.
But I don't know if they will do
a hardware reveal at the summer, although it would be nice.
It would be nice. I'm expecting at the Game Awards
only because of Legacy. That's where the Series X was
revealed and it's more holiday season and this console is
coming out next year. But you know, Game of Live
studio, I think you're right. And hopefully me and you're
going to be at Summer Games Fest this year.
Yeah. I mean, I am, yeah.
Well, yeah. Yeah.
Well, with you. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
This is. We have that conversation after
the show. We'll not be making any promises
publicly, but. He he promised it a chat, but
really really really you've got a point there games.
This is the gear this this show has to be a banger and it can be
quite easily just by gears in the hardware reveal and really
re because everything is in limbo.
This lady, what, what, what are you thinking?
I've seen her speak and she seems quite well spoken in terms
of in other fields, but nothing to do with gaming.
So I have no real reference point to what she's actually
saying 'cause it goes over my head or what other stuff she's
talking about. But in gaming, she got to come
on stage. She's going to talk about it.
How hands on is she going to be on social media?
She's already given the impression that she's she's,
she's going to be very commutative and troll people and
have jabs. Phil Spencer's very Mr Nice Guy.
She is not misses, Misses Nice woman.
She's yeah. I was just going to say maybe
she maybe maybe that's her role, right, is playing the the body
in all of this to some extent, and that is kind of the good
guy. But whether or not that'll go
with the community is a another story.
But I think like what they need to do now is is if she I mean,
again, I don't want to judge her if she is or isn't a gamer, but
if she isn't a gamer gamer, get her really well trained or
whatever. And then in the next few weeks,
just start getting her into podcasts and start like letting
people ask the the hard questions and not necessarily
grilling her. And again, like, if, if that is
her on Twitter, then I think she's, she's proven that she is
willing to get, get her hands dirty or whatever, right?
And if she's willing to do that, I think that will instil a
little bit more trust. But again, like we, we've got
quite a long road ahead to be able to, to see, to see what
this change is going to bring. And I don't know when, when
we're going to start seeing that, that kind of fallout or
that reprisal of, of Xbox now coming back up on top.
Is it going to be Summer Games first with a new showcase?
I don't know. We'll just have to wait and see.
I think she's got a lay because she got a layup, though only
because I don't think Xbox, like with Phil Spencer going with all
the cancellations, everything has happened now the bad news
has settled. People have come to terms with
the fact that Xbox is third party.
So you know, it can I feel like notwithstanding Xbox's tendency
to shoot itself in the foot, I cannot underestimate its ability
to do that. I just see like it's going to be
very hard now to to go lower, but Xbox will will fool me.
But I imagine imagine massive disclaimer that Xbox has has the
layup now for Asha Sharma to kind of reap the benefits of a
lot of the groundwork that Phil Spencer had put in place.
So you can have Gears of War, a big reveal, a lot more, you
know, software reveals on these. You'll have The Elder Scrolls
and we'll talk about that in a bit close, you know, being
shown, you know, that's a new IPS as well, big sequels and the
hardware review, all of that stuff and some kind of
commitment to the Xbox guy. I don't know what it is.
I don't know what that is at the moment.
I don't really care because I'm on PC and I like the yeah, I've
come to terms with the reality of Xbox, but it would be good to
see competition galvanised again.
And that's what disappeared when exclusivity to spit platform
level competition. So, you know, I'm not writing it
off, but at the same time I'm pessimistic as hell and and I
think that's the right attitude to have.
And the ball is in her court. The burden is for Asha Sharma to
discharge and if she doesn't do what she is is saying that she
is going to do, it's going to be full on Sharmageddon.
Yeah, yeah. It is.
It's going to be Sharmageddon. I I coined that term my missus
dude. But she goes, why do you call it
Sharmageddon as your title? I'm like, that's a genius.
But it's a bit too soon. Sharmon needs to get to get a
dig. Will we get like will we be
getting sequels like Sharmageddon 2 when she
announces layoffs and Sharmageddon 3 when 12 games get
cancelled? You know for a fact the title's
going to be Sharmageddon as soon as another studio gets cancelled
or something. It's it'll be will remains to be
seen. You know, I'm not writing her
off, but at the same time I am. You come to the like.
We're not exactly riding high on Xbox faith right now and I saw
Paris Lily and I saw Paris's Co host of I'm sorry, Paris.
I forgot his name. He's really nice guy, but he was
saying he lost a lot of confidence.
He doesn't know where it's at. It's the lowest.
That is now because people loved Phil Spencer, people trusted
Phil Spencer. Even if there's Satya Nadella
shining his bald head in the background.
You thought, you know what, Phil Spencer's there at least going
to put up a bit of a fight there and try and safeguard Xbox's,
you know, best interest into a certain degree and he's not
there anymore. Sarah Bond leaving.
I don't understand that though. I will have to talk about like,
Sarah Bond's exit is really strange to me and I feel like a
resignation. There's more to it.
I feel like she wanted to take over the role of what Asha
Sharma got or Matt and she got turfed.
She worked really hard to understand gaming.
She may not have been a hardcore gamer either, but she you could
tell she really worked hard to to really build confidence in it
feels like a shame that she, you know, was on stage build these
relationships, kind of poised to be the Phil Spencer replacement.
And people liked her people. She had a really nice
personality. People I know who had met her
said she was really lovely in person, really down to earth.
She'd shared some of our stuff as well.
She's been really like some montages I used to do a game on
daily. She said this is amazing.
And you just she she believed it.
She went out of way to retweet and stuff that she was like she
had the Phil Spencer kind of like that genuine flavour and
not saying that that would make her a good leader, though.
I have no idea. I felt like that misstep with
the interview at Bloomberg, kind of it was a surprising one.
We were like, oh, right. You can easily get, you know,
tangled up over a very simple question that should have been
you should have been prepped for.
What on earth happened to tango game works?
I don't know how you come come unprepared to that kind of
interview, but I realised Sarah Bond and I feel like she got
hard done by it and to her resign at the exact same time as
Phil Spencer retires, There's got to be more to that story.
There's got to be more to that story.
It's. Not everyone.
Yeah, Sachin didn't even mention that, by the way.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think, I think it was only
Phil who mentioned her in all of the memos, I believe.
But I believe Sarah has come out and said that she will be still
supporting Asha throughout the role over the next few months.
But yeah, I'm in. I'm in agreement as well that
there's definitely something more there.
And unfortunately, it's probably one of those stories due to the
Ndas that those guys are under that, that we're, we're never
going to going to be able to get that story.
But hopefully one day, maybe, maybe more will come to light.
Maybe you might though, because when Shuyushida stepped down,
immediately off the bat, he was doing the press junket and he he
laid it out like pretty rawly. If you remember, he talked about
how, you know, how he didn't like how Sean Laden was treated
and got basically got fired and, you know, talked about how PSV,
PlayStation VR shit and basically didn't sell that much
and the gas stuff. He was against life service and
didn't understand all of that initiative.
And he, he there was a lot of disclosure.
I think Phil Spencer, because of his long tenure, they feel, feel
a lot of legions there. And as a result of that, he will
find it maybe not, you know, find it distasteful to to kind
of spill the beans on there, especially when he will view it
as my colleagues still work here, my friends still work here
and. I don't think, I don't, sorry.
I just don't think Sarah Bond has that mentality though.
I think she will actually just fucking go out there.
Phil, doesn't Sarah Bond. Well, yeah, yeah.
Yes, Sarah Bond, absolutely right.
Spot on. 1st Sarah Bond is a newer thing there.
She's quite feisty and she's there were some rumblings in the
background that there were some like favouritism against Sarah
Bond that I've heard from Tim Don.
Yeah, that's, that's, I mean, that's what I've heard
separately from people as well as that she was very hot headed.
And that's why that's why again, going back to what I said before
is that some people believed that she wasn't in the running
for that, that CEO role. It's because there's a lot of
distrust there with her and and Matt Booty instead was was kind
of like slated to be in line again.
Whether or not that is that is true, who knows, right?
I would have reported on that if it was more of a, a corroborated
story, but I don't know, man. Like, it's I I agree.
Like Phil, Phil's definitely just going to to to step back
now and let let Asha do her thing.
Sarah, on the other hand, could potentially go fucking scorched
earth on this thing. Yeah.
I mean, it'll be interesting, that's for sure.
We'll get a few good articles out of it.
And it'll give us a proper insight into the reality of
Xbox. But we'll see, We'll see.
We've got Game of life. Thank you so much for the $10
super chat. He goes.
Todd confirmed that Elder Scrolls 6 and let me put that
down. Elder Scrolls 6 is now a
playable state using Creation Engine 3 and Xbox is ready to
celebrate its 25th anniversary. I believe Elder Scrolls 6 will
end up as a timed exclusive for the next Gen Xbox.
You know, if there's one thing now a lot of people say that
Xbox don't give a shit about, you know, exclusivity.
They want to make more software sales.
However, I think there's you have to carve out an exception
and gamer lives comment is actually it makes sense to me,
and I said this before, even if it's you know, it may not make
people might just bulk at this comment.
I tend to like when you release a new bit of hardware you want
to sell that and I don't think timed exclusivity was going to
harm you because PlayStation guys will end up buying Elder
Scrolls. Either they get a new Xbox for
it and all you know, they all wait for Elder Scrolls because
it's a powerhouse. But people will say Elder
Scrolls is bigger than Halo or it is probably now definitely
now because where the Halo has been handled.
But Elder Scrolls 6 and that was one of our topics.
But game alike, I do agree with him.
I think that I don't think time exclusivity has completely
disappeared in only because only because that tiny window for the
next they'll they might want to have a a little bit of a carve
out for the next Xbox just to see, you know, just to take.
And I don't think that's a controversial thing to for them
to do or for for me to say because the strategy would make
sense. It wouldn't harm them.
Ultimately, PlayStation guys will end up playing anyway.
Why not bolster the value proposition of your new console?
I I I Another thing as well. It was another point of
conversation is you've got to remember that Xbox are probably
in a very good position that for the next Gen console because of
the fact of all of these rumours that the PS6 could be delayed
until I think I believe it was Bloomberg that said 29.
I myself reported on it. I think it was like November of
of last year that I that I started to hear rumblings that
because of the RAM increases because of AI, I'm putting my
fist in the escrow use Asia. But because of the price
increases, it means that a lot of hardware manufacturers and I
thinking of delaying their consoles, right?
And I think with the next Xbox, that does put them in a good
position if they can still get it out in 2027.
And if they go down the route of like, yeah, Elder Scrolls 6 as
a, a launch title and, and perhaps like the next Halo game
or a few like bangers, right, that they can proper, proper
release and get almost, almost back to like the, the 360 when
you add that release with hell or, or whatever and, and, and
box out on the covers and all that.
And that's the way that they get back into the community.
I think something like that would be really cool.
And, and again, they'll have like a good 18 months of, of
being able to also market the next Xbox as the most powerful
console ever or whatever, right? Like however they want to do it
and yeah, they'll be in power. You think?
It's going to be more powerful, you're right, but it'll also be
a hybrid. There's a lot of marketing
opportunities to really leverage the messaging here.
I think you're right. I think they, they, they can't
do that. Yeah, but I was going to say,
well, do you think they would limit limit it solid to Xbox,
but obviously they'll release on PC as well anyway, right.
But yeah, they've got, they've got a, a great opportunity to
kind of like shun out for a good, a good year or two if, if
those rumours are to be believed.
It's, it's not so much as a result of trying to push out, I
mean, because they're not really competing one-on-one.
It's more it's not about pushing out PlayStation.
It's all it's, well, I guess that's a byproduct of it.
It's more about putting, making sure you enhance your hardware
and propel your hardware's value proposition as best as you can.
And you've got these first party titles that you work that you've
got. And you know, if you did, if you
did, you've got this opportunity.
And shout out to us Insider Gaming for breaking this.
And then Bloomberg actually covered it after the fact.
So you know, that you, you know, I remember you sharing this
before I even joined the Insider Gaming saying that, you know,
the X, the PlayStation might be pushed back to as far back as
someone saying 2029. Some, you know, there's some
fans are OK with it because they feel like the PlayStation Jen
has barely started, whereas others, you know, whatever Xbox
has an opportunity to kind of at least you know, even if they're
not competing, Xbox still want to have a best.
Oh, yeah, They're not. They're not going to complain if
they sell another 5 million consoles, right, Because they've
changed the strategy a little bit.
Like they're not going to shy away at that or 10 million or
whatever. It's going to be it, it's all
just going to depend on the price of that console.
And I with it being a hybrid as well like are we are we looking
at 999? Is that are we looking at more
people are. Saying it's only going to be
over a grand, and even at over a grand, that's going to be tall
order in the console space. A massive tall order in the
console space for a hybrid, though if it's specced
accordingly and to the point where it's enticing to PC guys
as well, it could make a big splash.
That's again on paper, but on reality, you know Xbox always
fumbles when it comes to these things.
So I don't know but with The Elder Scrolls 6 that's a good
point we found out that's on creation engine 3, which I don't
know what the three is going to do.
I feel like that engine is a bit ancient now it.
Should have been on a. It should have been on a
different engine, but I can't get into that.
Oh, really? Oh, wow.
Interesting. Five, he said.
I don't know, but so there's that.
Todd Howard this week also poured cold water on Starfield 2
Point O, or the moniker Starfield 2 Point O, He said.
It's not 2 Point O, but it'll be a significant change and
basically in my video, all the things that I said that software
two point O needs to do is what they're doing.
So they're saying that, oh, that's that's what they're
saying. They're going to make sure that
they enhance space combat, which is the biggest weakness, not
space combat space. I need to pull that up actually
save that. Where the hell is it going?
I'll bring it up, but so they're going to enhance that.
It's obviously going to get PSPS 5 release and yeah, I'm going to
bring it up. I think inside a gaming's one.
Where is it? I'm trying to be inside a game
just to be, you know, part of the.
On brand, Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, and.
I mean, it was good of, it was good of or smart.
Should I serve Todd to say that it's not going to be Starfield
2.0 because no expectations have been been dropped a little bit
and if they over exceed, then fantastic, right?
But I think that was just that was just a phrase coined by the
community because obviously Cyberpunk and how they managed
to do what they did. So I think it was it was smart
for them to do that. And by all accounts we we're
going to be getting that announcement very soon and the
release very soon as well. So PR 101.
Yeah, no, I think, I think it's important because there's a lot
of high for Starfield. He says it's not Starfield 2.0.
I've seen some of that Starfield 2.0, which is where I used that
even in my video. I said whatever it's called, but
Starfield 2.0 for it to be 2.0 in H2 was Simon Punk did and
that was a thorough rewrite of its if it's of his game and in
in some of his systems. So so he goes so for expectation
saying it's the kind of thing where if you love Starfield, we
think you're going to love this. It's it's updates and things
that changed the game, not in an isolated way, but in a meta way
using our outer space and things that we haven't.
So, you know, this is what I covered in my video.
The biggest weakness is the outer space.
But look, if Starfield is something that didn't connect
with you right away or bounced off or you bounced off or found
it boring in places, I don't think this is going to
fundamentally change that. Yeah, well, to fundamentally
change that means you'd have to, I mean, thoroughly rewrite the
game, like to fundamentally change space exploration in the
procedural generation of its levels and and, you know, some
of the side quests. Well, that's something no one is
expecting it to change, but it does needs to enhance it.
So expectations being met, You're you're right, managing
those expectations is what Todd Howard is doing.
But at the same time just says they did say it's one of their
biggest updates. So, you know, I'm, I'm excited
to see what they do, what they do, especially on the space side
of things. They really need to start
releasing DLC for the damn thing to be honest because they say at
one point they was going to do like one major expansion every
year. Yeah.
And the last update wasn't all that.
So just like, yeah. What was it, a car or something?
A Rover? Something like that.
They've added the vehicles in there, but I forgot the name of
the expansion where it's just all very like spooky Ethereal.
I played a bit of it and I was just like, all right.
The shattered space. Shattered space, yeah, shattered
space it looked like visually, but I wanted a little bit more
stuff is such a big IP. And I mentioned this in my video
that I find I find it so weird that they didn't actually tackle
the big space intrigue point, which is alien life, intelligent
alien life. A lot of it was obviously time
bending is very interstellar in the sense that, you know, we you
know, the different universes multiverse theory.
But we need to start dealing with real first contact
scenarios in Star field. And when they do that, there's a
big opportunity for a big marketing push for this first
contact thing. But it needs it needs a very,
very serious intent here. And I feel like they're a little
bit distracted with Fallout Elder.
Scrolls Oh yeah, yeah, they said there was multiple Fallout
projects in the works as well. And then yeah, you do have Elder
Scrolls. It's like, but to be super
realistic as well, like how big is Starfield and what is that?
What are the resources pumped into it going to equate to?
Probably not much. That's a good point.
That's a. Very good point.
You're right, I don't think of it that way compared to Elder
Scrolls. And Fallout is probably way down
the pecking order in terms of audience size.
The hype as well, it's coming to PlayStation, which is a big
marketing push for them, an opportunity for them to rekindle
some of that hype. But it's it ain't no Elder
Scrolls. And I'm expecting something this
this summer on The Elder Scrolls and as soon as that's revealed.
Starfield's going to have a very muted response, you know, kind
of reception, because Elder Scrolls is going to be the thing
everyone's going to be talking about.
Yeah, I mean, while Starfield's long tail even on PlayStation, I
mean, it might do, I don't know how successful it was for Xbox
on on Xbox and PC, but let's say theoretically there's 1.5 to 2
million copies on PlayStation. The, the long tail of that, even
if they start doing DLC's on a regular basis, I mean, you've
got to, you've got to be realistic.
Like we've got GTS 6 coming out this year and nobody's playing,
you know, like never mind Starfield, nobody's playing
anything when that game releases.
And then if they do have Elder Scrolls slated for 27, which I'm
not sure if they do or not, or if they've said that they have,
but then it's like, well, do they really want to sink in
another 25 million or whatever it's going to be for a new star
field DLC to, to essentially 0 reception?
But it's all about the numbers at the end of the day.
Maybe it'll do absolute banger numbers on, on PlayStation.
And we've seen for, for quite a lot of games that it usually
causes, you know, PC players to spike because, well, we only
have that, that metric right from, from PC and console.
And, and maybe it'll, it'll spike on Xbox as well.
And, and maybe they'll, they'll re look at it, but I just don't
think it's, it's, it's a priority for them.
And I don't think it has been for a while, to be honest.
Yeah, no, I, I, I get that. I think that when you look at
the reception of Fallout and how big it is in the TV series, and
you know, even Todd Howard said quite surprisingly, what was his
most favourite game or biggest impact game, he said Fallout 76.
Yes, M6, Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because.
Of the long tail of it, yeah. Yeah, it was just interesting
because they obviously failed at the start and then they brought
it back and had a big community and it's one of those live
service games that, you know, they did it.
A lot of people called and managed to do and bring.
Very few managed to bring it back, unlike Hot and Bless.
Bless them. Like I covered in my video for
Insider Gaming High God, they're trying, man.
They've got a skeleton crew working hard at it.
They managed to get their website up the yesterday or
something, so that's good because they couldn't even do
dedicate resources to that. They were trying to sort out the
game, but they're really working hard and they believe in it.
I just don't on that point. I just feel bad for the
developers in that I just don't know.
I don't know there's enough in High God to to to justify really
breaking your back over to sorry, devs, but you've come
into a very saturated competitive space where you've
got a lot of entrance long before you have, you know, put
up their mast there. This is not the time where Apex
could shadow drop and just complete Apex legends just even
mechanically was just astounding.
The characters level, the abilities.
High God doesn't come close to that.
And I thought they could replicate that, and that's a
shame. Yeah, yeah, I was.
Highgard's an interesting one for for lots of different
reasons, right? But what I will say is that that
no developer wants to release a bad game.
And I guess that's the whole point of, of like why I do what
I do, you know, especially more recently, I've been able to
report more in depth on behind the scenes, like what's going on
at Ubisoft, for example, because we never really know the full
story and, and the game industry can do a hell of a lot of a
better job to, to show in more transparency in that regard.
And, and with high Guard, we don't necessarily know what
happened. It was interesting because I was
actually doing an interview for something at Dice and Highgard
came up into the discussion and was talking about about Tencent
being the main backer and, and this, well, I think they said
giant Chinese company and then later revealed it as Tencent
later on in the the conversation.
And I thought that was already known.
And I think it was to a certain extent.
And then, yeah, like literally 3 hours later, they announced
those layoffs and, and the person literally just texted me
saying looks like China's backed out.
And it's, it's one of those situations where we just don't
know what happened with, with that game in particular, right?
Like obviously we know that they wanted to shadow drop it.
Then Jeff Keeler came in and really liked the game and then
did what he did. And, and you, you covered it
perfectly in the video over inside the game and wink wink,
go, go check it out. But I, I think Highgard's main
failure was the fact that it just isn't 2019 anymore.
The, the strategy of shadow dropping again where you can
literally just jump in and play. That doesn't work for Highgard.
The reason why creators and medium enjoyed it when they went
out and played it in LA is because they had four hours of
developers showing them a presentation of what to do in
the game and how to play the game and to walk them through
it. And then when you just put that
in people's hands without any context, like, oh, this first
round, I need to go and gather resources, then I need to build
my base, then I need to do this, this and this.
It just doesn't work. It doesn't work with that
strategy. And, and maybe that was just
naivety from, from the, the leadership over there, just
believing that that is what the, the community wanted.
But I mean, it clearly wasn't. And again, like going back to
Marathon and Bungie, like I'm glad that they've been able to,
to seemingly turn things around because because yeah, I, I, to
be honest, I'm, I'm quite sick of reporting on and seeing the
stories of developers being laid off and, and projects being
cancelled. No, I, I I agree with you.
It's just it's, it's it's so droll, like Ubisoft council.
They had layoffs as well. You know, we've got marathon
coming out next week, which I'm very excited about.
And I think, you know, I I really pray the game goes well,
but people's it's one of those polarised games where people are
just treating it like like like with highgod shitting on it
before it comes out. It's dead arrival.
Concorde 3 Concorde for this and you know, like it has its work
cut out, but I feel like this game is slightly different.
First of all, visually is massively distinctive.
High God is it and I'll be honest, the art style is a
major, major pull for me in this game.
It's hugely enticing. It's one of the primary things
that I look at it's really just inviting to look at, but it's
obviously a bungee game and the gameplay is the most important
thing. So, you know, I, I feel like
these guys can smash it out. There's going to be a very big
risk in that there's a full on public.
It's not even a beta. It's basically the game because
it's just just a few days later the actual game comes out.
So it's basically a a demo that's coming out and I really
want that game to do well. I feel like, you know, we're,
we're writing it off for a multitude of different reasons.
It's just, it's not, it's not fair, but it might.
I can't I can't vouch for it with any degree of confidence
only because it could go wrong. It could not gel that well with
everyone. The level designed, the
gameplay. I haven't felt the game yet.
I don't know I keep saying that the Bungie can do good gunplay
but if they don't smash out the park this could end up failing
as well. I hope it doesn't.
I feel I think this will find a decent or a hope decent amount
of a you know how high God said we, we don't need a massive play
base, but we need a small enough one.
I think this will have a healthy enough one hopefully that people
are invested in. I think, you know, Arc Raiders
actually gave some people an appetite for a more mainstream,
what's it called, extraction shooter.
Yeah, I think it I, I, I'm in agreement and I actually think
it will do quite well, almost similar to I guess in backs of a
game the finals, but that game still does.
I've not checked it in a while. If anyone wants to look it up
and chat, I'll have a look. But I think I think it still
does like 20 to 30,000 concurrence per day.
OK, not bad. And well, I'm saying like, I
don't know if that's true anymore, but I mean, if it does,
like that's that's still a well played game.
You're going to shoot me down now and say like 250?
Oh well, I see. It's not even working for me at
the moment. The finals.
Let me see finals. It's got different versions.
Where's the freaking player thing go down?
I can't see it. Charts.
I've got the charts. Oh, it's got 16,837 players
right now. 24 hour peak was 18,000.
I don't think that's bad. I mean, you got to remember as
well. I mean it, it's been out for
over 2 years now. So it's, it's Men 10 and even
with even with the same developer releasing and of a
game, it's still men 10 and a quite a healthier player.
Bears and and yeah, like with Marathon, I will say that I'm
intrigued by it. Whereas high guard, I couldn't
care less. I didn't play it.
It just didn't look like a game that I would enjoy.
Obviously you should you know, you're encouraged to to jump in
and at least try it right? But as soon as I found out there
was a 30 minute tutorial or whatever to before you can get
it, yeah, I'm good. Like no thanks.
I. Didn't think the game would be
for me, but when I did try I thought, oh it's actually solid.
It's solid. Game yeah, yeah, but but again,
like, I feel like that's where Highgard went wrong.
I don't think it was any of this bullshit about Jeff Keeley or
anything like that. I think that it just needed, it
needed like a solid 6 month marketing plan.
It needed a beta and service slam or whatever they call it
these days and whatever they rename it to and just like get
the community on board and educate the community about the
game. And it probably would have done
it probably would have done all right, to be honest, But it's
hard to see how they're going to be able to to turn that game
around now, because even like with the for example, with the
5V5 stuff that they added like 24 hours later, it's like, well,
you probably have the dare to to suggest that that was going to
be a requested thing. And and again, like, I'm not a
full on game developer or whatever, So I don't know how
long it will take to add, you know, two more players into a
lobby or whatever. But it it probably wasn't a
super quick change that, you know, because you have to go
through certification and all that nonsense.
So it's like, well, if you had it already, if you had that
data, then perhaps it showed that release in the game at that
level, in that state or whatever probably wasn't the the right
decision. That's the problem with the with
the shadow drops, you don't get the benefit of the that player
data like you would if you did a lot more.
You know, there's alphas and stuff like that.
You want to build up hype, you want to make a splash.
And that's why Apex Legends, oh, immediately there's a war.
What's this? When it came out, it's like it
kind of got leaked a couple of days before that this is coming
out. So we knew that the title 4 guys
are Vincent Pella's releasing a battle Royale game.
But then when Apex just came out I remember the the hype like it.
It dethroned Fortnite in terms of numbers for a while and every
thought Fortnite is dead. That's how good Apex Legends was
and the last time I've seen anything like that is freaking
Arc Raiders. Yeah, I mean, yeah, Apex did
like, I think it was like 25,000,000 players in the first
week and then they just kept releasing the the little like
Frankie messages and it was going up like 10 million every
every couple of days. But I don't know like as well
with Highgard. What I find strange is the fact
that it didn't leak, which tells me was there pre release QA and
stuff like that, like really well done because, you know,
kind of shooting myself in the foot a little bit, but or or
should I say the leaking community, but sometimes leads
on on games in development and stuff come from player testers,
right? And if you're keeping that pool
limited, it tells me that there probably wasn't a lot of player
tests going on for this game. That might be the that that
that's why it's probably a well kept secret.
You're probably right. And that's that that data didn't
fit a feed through to them because they wanted to be in
secret thinking that they could have a Apex Legends types
splashed with a kind of kind of pulled a wall of their eyes.
The success of that really kind of misguided them.
So that's why how it got happened.
Well, we'll see. We'll see when marathon next
week. These guys have had a play test.
They're going to have a play test for the entire public on
Thursday. And you know, this is a yeah,
I'm looking forward to it. I really, really am.
I might actually just take just take the day off and actually
play, play this. And I want it to be good.
And I feel like there's a lot of hard work that's gone into it.
I think visually it's really distinctive and I want to see it
thrive. And this could potentially get
the console audio and be very strong with the console gamer as
well, because it's quite, you know, extraction shoot is said
to be the the the the remit of PC gamers, PC gamers.
Our creators dominates on on PC charts compared to console.
So but this game could be the one that actually makes them
bigger splash on consoles as well.
So let's see let's see. I don't think a lot of people
are asking does it change the fate of Bungie, but Bungie's
already a shellfish form of self.
Their independence is gone. Don't think they can retain the
independence. The the personalities that even
cared about the notion of independence.
The leadership, I mean, will have most likely have I I left.
So they're they've been assimilated into the sie
already. We've already heard that they've
already confirmed that. But what this does do is allow
Bungie a little bit of humility and another IP to to keep their
pressure off them a little bit as they work on what should all
of it. I think the no brainer Destiny 3
we'll see we'll see. I think I've covered quite a lot
of it. What we're talking about we I
think we have we've covered a lot of things A few things that
we're going to talk about. I was trying to weave into the
other conversations, but just go ahead of me like Matt Piscatella
says that the Xbox next Xbox is best positioned to actually
swallow the ram prices out of all the all the other entrants.
So, you know, they don't expect a delay of the next Xbox
console, which would be interesting.
I think they they kind of have to swallow the hit.
I don't know what the basis was for why Xbox would be in the
best position, but let's see. Battlefield 16 sorting out.
Yes, there we go. Yeah, I was just going to say
there's always the rumours from these tech channels that like
Xbox or PlayStation have like, you know, snapped up orders for
X amount of millions of RAM and all that kind of stuff.
Maybe that's the situation with with Xbox, but to be honest I'm
not entirely sure because I I'm not super familiar with that
report. Yeah, and I mean.
Again, again, they're in a good position if they, if they can
release in 2027 and if the 2029 released it for the PS6 is, is
is true or it comes to fruition, then they're in a very strong
position at least for the next couple of years.
Well, give them two years to kind of, even if they're not
directly competing, give build up an audience.
If if this bit of hardware that's a hybrid is good, Xbox
could make a decent number. I'm not expecting, I'm expecting
less than the series XLS, but that kind of momentum just to
change the habits, you know, is basically coaching your
audience, the the masses to the PC side as well, which that kind
of pulls them away for. Xbox is more positioned with
Play anywhere as well and having the seamless gameplay
everywhere. Playstation's going to position
that way as well with their handheld.
At the moment, the play anywhere doesn't exist with PlayStation,
which is a massive issue for me where Lena got a war Ragnarok.
I would have completed it by now if I'd had cross save, but it
doesn't have it on PlayStation as a joke, so I don't even try
it now. So I any you know, that stops me
from buying third party games there.
Xbox third party get titles are supporting cross play as well.
So I I'm entirely PC now anyway, but that you know, that's kind
of stuff Xbox gets a headway headway and they can coach the
mass market a little bit more. Because if they if this hybrid
console, even irrespective of the price or its niche audience
communicates an entry level PC with a decent specs that also
works well as a console big ask for my Xbox.
Let's see. But if they do it, it could be
disruptive. That's the thing with Xbox
there, because of the might of ex Microsoft in the background,
the financial might of it, they always have the opportunity to
disrupt. They never really do like they
did in the 360 Gen. But I would love to see it
happen. It's more I guess a case of
wanting it. Narico mentioned that
Battlefield 16 sorting out and Battlefield did get an upgrade,
a new season and I know I love Battlefield.
I couldn't tear myself away from it when it came out until Arc
Raiders came out. But I don't think that the the
the support is there man. Like for Battlefield 6.
Yeah, I mean, I was just going to say like, the Battlefield has
always had the tendency to do this.
They've done it for every single Battlefield game since
Battlefield 3 probably. It's like their post launch
support is abysmal. And what usually happens is come
season, I mean, let's say season 3 in this case, which will
probably be like April mare time.
That's when they start to kind of get their their stuff in
order. I think that this time around,
perhaps it's made or like perceived as being super bad
because of the facts that I mean, we've got to remember that
they, they lost Vincent Pella, right, just in December.
And I would imagine that that's hard quite a significant knock
on effects to to everything that they're doing because Vince was
like truly beloved by absolutely everyone.
The the tribute at Dice was like one of the most heartwarming
tributes that I've seen, right? You had Phil there.
You had Todd Hayward was there. I can't remember a name, but
yeah, but you you had like such harm heartwarming things that
was said about Vince. And I think what was apparent
for me is that Vince was this kind of no bullshit kind of
person were like he would tell you how he fought and he would
he would tell you which direction to go essentially.
And when you lose someone like that that is loved by by
everyone that works with him, it's going to have a knock on
effect. And and there's no way that.
So you can get around it right, like Byron bead has some quite
big, big boots to fill in being able to try and to, to navigate
around that loss and and hopefully they can, they can do
it right. But but Battlefield has a
tendency to do this until like summer of of the the following
year where they start to actually get their their shit in
order and and release good content.
They they do. I do think you're not wrong in
mentioning Zampella. The big reason why my confidence
is shaking in dice doing things is because Zampella.
Zampella wasn't just an A bod. It wasn't just he was very
intelligent. He was a legend for a reason.
This guy created one of the. He made multiple games.
He never missed. He never missed.
Never.
But he was the father behind Call of Duty Modern Warfare that
just completely just changed the the landscape.
Modern Warfare wanted to just changed it.
I absorbed my life in the 360 era.
Then they took on Titanfall and they just I haven't seen that
kind of innovation in a first person shoot in a while.
Then they did then they did Titanfall 2 and brought did the
single player with it, which I didn't believe they needed to do
or they and they blew me away with a story campaign mode and I
love the multiplayer sunken countless days into that to get
Max prestige on that and Titanfall one beautiful game
focused on movement really hardcore.
It's just it's like amazing. Then he tries his hand on Star
Wars and he does really good job where with the the Star Wars
Jedi fallen order and then he goes back to deal with
Battlefield 6, which is ironic because he's Call of Duty in
Call of Duty in battlefield. Or was that loggerheads?
And then he, well, he, yeah, I mean, he literally made did was
it Medal of Honour that he made because of it was either he made
Call of Duty because of Medal of Honour, I made Medal of Honour
because of Call of Duty. And that kind of, I can't
remember which way around it was.
Someone in the comments will will clarify, but yeah, yeah.
Then then obviously he's gone to to Battlefield 6.
Now, after the abysmal launch of Battlefield 24 to 2, he's
managed to turn that franchise around.
And now it's like, yeah, like I, I don't know, like I'm, I'm very
critical of like people slating Battlefield over the past couple
of months because they've lost that, that foundation,
foundational person that was responsible for getting
Battlefield 6 to, to where it is.
And it's going to leave a big hole for a long time.
And, and hopefully they managed to to get past it ideally as
quickly as possible, right? But but yeah, it was a big hole
left. And I think Battlefield needs
something like a bold, bold, really strong bit of support,
like old maps from Battlefield 2 and three, a Bad Company as
well. Just really just do something
different. Bring all the C maps as well.
We haven't got any of that, you know, the big frigates that used
to come out of none of that and you know some of that kind of
more curated revolution which your engine permits you to do do
that as well. You really need to the engine is
quite capable. And you know Vincent Pella,
right, that he's he, he knew it so well because condenser get
rid of the 128 whatever player limit break to 64 players and
keep the pace going because that's what Battlefield never
did until he got involved. Battlefield 6 changes the
formula quite a bit for people who do, who played Battlefield
properly a lot like I did. There were lots of moments of
quiet solitude that nothing actually happened.
You'd run out in the field and just get cluttered in the back
and just like, oh, safe. But it was Battlefield 6.
That was not an issue. It was constant issues.
It's constant. Something's happening.
There's so much action if you're sniping, if you're engineer
support, all of it. If you're on jets, you're on.
It was always action and I think they did a really good job
there. But I feel like some of the
hardcore battlefield guys also felt like they became a little
bit Call of Duty. So there's a little bit of
rejigging that needs to happen to get the a faithful going.
But I will say 76,000 players as of right now, that's not bad
number at all either. So you know, I obviously
compared to the top, like if I'm looking at the most player
players right now, counter strikers 1.1 millions players,
Dota has 607,000 players, Arc Raiders has 240,000 players.
So you know, these are major numbers.
When you put it compared to that, it's like bongo cat.
I don't even know what the fuck that is.
That's 100 and 1000 players. Bongo Cat.
You have to remember though, like a game, like a game like
Battlefield and, and probably even like Call of Duty now,
right? And never going to get to those
numbers like just because of the IP in general, like the next
battlefield game, even if it was Battlefield 3 remastered or if
they did, you know, Call of Duty World at War remastered, for
example, it's it's never get into a million plus players
anymore. Like it just isn't maybe.
Across different platforms could together maybe, you know,
release, yeah. Yeah, but I mean, we always use
Steam, right? As as as a split gate developers
would say it's not a metric of success. 4 split gate guys, man,
I don't know what's happened with that.
That game's just another example of, but that's an arena shooter.
So I kind of wanted to do well, but well, I do want to do well.
But here's what it is. The multiplayer space is highly
saturated. You have to really running out
of people to carve out a space for because they have to pull
them away from the game that they already devote ours to our
creators is that problem for me? But yeah, ask Tom about his
Shrek impression, says John from Xbox.
Era that's a that's a in person only impression.
You'll see that GDC no more good.
Like that's what you're getting out of me.
Like I'll let I'll let John big it up and then and then I'll do
it. Oh.
Bad about the producers, too many rats and arc Raiders.
You can never have too many rats.
I'll I'll I'm looking forward to that.
The Shrek impression, hearing it in person.
It is really good. Is it really OK you hyped up?
I'll see. I'll see.
So that was Battlefield. I think we've covered
everything. Blue point was killed, Xbox,
Ubisoft layoffs. Oh yeah the two there.
So I think you broke the news on this as well didn't you?
The a while ago you reported on 2 Assassin Creed games and a Far
Cry game coming in. Yes, yes.
So yeah, Eves. Eves did an interview.
Gillimott. Yes, I say why that's Gillimott
just to just to wind them up because I know I watch his watch
the podcast. But yeah, like he did an
interview with Variety earlier this week just kind of talking
about the changes that they did last month about like the
creative houses and all of that kind of stuff.
And he announced that two Far Cry games are in development and
multiple Assassin's Creed titles.
And if you're familiar with the reporting that I do about
Ubisoft, I do quite a bit because I know quite a lot of
people over there. Oh.
You do do you? They do.
Interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But yeah, they, they, he announced 2 Far Cry titles.
They are currently the mainline game, which is under the code
name Blackbird, which is Far Cry 7.
And then you have that project Maverick, which is their kind of
extraction shoot again. Now Eve said that both of those
titles were very promising. And when I read that, I was a
bit like very promising. That's interesting because
Maverick got completely re scoped literally a few months
ago and Blackbird has a tonne of problems.
So to me, like obviously I understand the public kind of
well, the PR of it, right? Like it is the promising titles,
but behind the scenes both titles are very much kind of not
in danger of cancellation. But they are they are not going
so well. I think Project Blackbird has
had six or seven sets of different directors since it was
greenlit and Maverick has been re scoped multiple times.
And yeah, so both of those projects are a bit a bit all
over the place at the moment. And then he also announced
multiple Assassin's Creed titles are in development.
Now in terms of what we publicly know, we only know about
Assassin's Creed Hexa, which is going to be kind of their their
witch trials Assassin's Creed game.
From what I've heard of it, it is going to be, I don't want to
say incredible, but but it's one of those projects that everyone
at Ubisoft wants to get on for for safety.
And because of the idea of it, they've they've completely
changed the combat. So like because it is going to
be a female protagonist, so she's going to be a lot more
flexible and that kind of stuff. And yeah, that game, the game
sounds sounds really intriguing. It's changed from from a few
weeks that we've had in the past and all that kind of stuff.
But I do believe that Ezio is also going to be returning to to
that title as well. Some points throughout the game,
yeah. And then the other two games is
obviously that we that they've not actually announced publicly,
but that it's kind of the worst kept secret is the Assassin's
Creed Black Flag remake, which is under the code name Obsidian.
That is going to be from what I know is going to be announced in
April. Very conscious of reporting on
timelines from Ubisoft because I announced the Ubisoft
announcement of, of Prince of Persia and that got cancelled.
So hopefully they don't hopefully they don't cancel
Black Flag. I don't see that coming, but
that that from what I've heard is going to be announced in in
April. And then they have Assassin's
Creed Invictus, which is like some very weird, I want to say
weird, but it's like almost like fall guys inspired where it's
like arenas where you've got to assassinate people and that
there's different, there's different games, but it's like
all arenas based on previous Assassin's Creed games, right?
So you could be fighting in, you know, like the courtyard of
Assassin's Creed Mirage where there's like flame pits and
spikes coming out of the ground where you can push people into
pits or, or trigger traps to, to, to stab them and, and all
this kind of stuff. And you've got perks and blah,
blah, blah. And yeah, both of those titles
are going to release later this year.
And Hex, they're looking, looking further out than that.
But overall, yeah, that's Ubisoft.
They did lay off, they did lay off 40 people from from Ubisoft
Toronto. Yeah, earlier this week some of
them were working on the Splinter Cell remake, which
they've said it's not going to impact development.
From what I know that the the remake is still a whiles away
despite yeah, yeah, it's still happening.
And I know that you also pulled up beyond Good and Evil 2.
Then I don't know, man, like beyond good and Evil 2 could
could be a good game. From what I've seen.
I'm not going to say it's going to be I'm not going to say it's
going to be fantastic, but from what I've seen it, it does look
pretty cool. It's like it is like Starfield
slash No Man's Sky esque in its scale, in its scale and all that
kind of stuff. Oh shit.
You've seen this. Yeah, I've seen, yeah, I've seen
all. I've seen all the games at
Ubisoft. Oh my God, Oh my God, I need to
pick your brains when you see, bro, I've been this is 2017 E 3
demo. It's nearly 10 years since we
saw this. But if this and I think that the
the beyond good and evil two team, the officers that were
subject to a bomb scare attack or something this week
yesterday. So I don't know if you've seen
that. So they had to evacuate the
building. But look at the scale of this
engine already. It's like Star Citizen level of
just look at that. You're telling me that if it
does it work like that, you're still seeing that kind of shit
like no man's? Kind yes, yes, from from what
I've seen it does look really impressive and it's still fully
in production. They're not like doing hiring
freezes or anything like that. They've put a lot of resources
into. I think one of the only
criticisms that I do have of it is the facts that they should
perhaps abandoned the name. But it's so much into, it's so
much into like the law of gaming now.
And maybe they shouldn't, I don't know.
I just don't think it's it's deserving of that name like, but
but but that's yeah, I don't know.
It looks cool. That's amazing.
Yeah. I'm very cold on Ubisoft.
I mean, I like the Far Cry games, actually.
So the two Far Cry games in in development is interesting to
me. But beyond good and evil, this
game, yeah. I mean, I mean, I've got on
screen right now, like, look, this is Star Citizen levels of
just greatness. I I need to play Star Citizen.
But this kind of, you know, you know, permeating universe, this
kind of continuity and the land, even it looks so good.
And and this was 10, nearly 10 years ago.
So Can you imagine what they're doing now?
They must be able to achieve more fidelity of much.
I don't know. I I would love to, that would
get me so hyped along with Splinter Cell, but Splinter
Cell's a remake and I just, I can't get excited about remakes
unless they're like, I don't know.
I've seen that as well, That that looks really good, yeah.
Really looks good. Oh my God, Tom has seen
everything. That's that's wicked.
All right, so I just I wish it wasn't a remake, but you know I
anything, I'm so desperate for something spin.
So now, but now you're saying it's good.
Oh, wonder what they can do to make it really.
It's not just a visual upgrade, is it?
Like, is it? I'm not.
I will not delve, yeah, I will not delve any deeper into that.
Yeah, OK, well, I'm looking to forward to pick your brains
later, but that that's that looks really good chat.
You're probably wondering what the hell is that?
That's beyond good and evil 2 man.
We saw it 10 years ago and nothing really happened since
then, but hopefully we'll see some see some changes.
You've actually got to be excited for Ubisoft now beyond
good and evil 2 spin. So remake to a lesser degree,
but at least a Splinter Cell and Far Cry I generally like, but
they've got 2 products there. Both.
It's more, it's more that Assassin's Creed that kind of a
multiplayer thing. And I I noticed them dabbling
with live service and they can't let go off Assassin's Creed
because that's how creatively freaking amazing they are.
That's sarcasm. But you know, multiplayer
element of that could actually be decent, but it depends.
I don't know. Yeah, I don't like to.
Yeah, to be like, to be clear, I don't think in Invictus the the
multiplayer game is going to do is going to do massive numbers
for them, right. But I don't know, like you've
always had this issue for the past six or seven years of of
just pumping money into stuff that makes no sense.
Ubisoft is one of those publishers that probably won in
five games that I released. Like the other four got
cancelled. Like they, they're just
literally like throwing money down down the drain.
But I don't know, like I did tweet it out.
I said it, I said it a few months ago that I am excited
about the games that they're working on.
And then literally a few months later they they cancelled like 6
and and delayed 7 like fucking because of Tom Henderson.
What idiot? Yeah, but yeah, the games
they're working on, like the ones that I've seen again, like
I do know a lot of people over there, so I do get to see quite
a lot. It's really cool, man.
Like the next Ghost Recon looks pretty cool.
Far Cry 7 looks cool, especially now it seems like they're trying
to go down the Far Cry free route of like supernatural and
stuff, which is cool. And Assassin's Creed Hexa like,
looks really cool as well. So yeah, I'm looking forward to
what they're working on. Same and I'm I'm very colder
either beyond good and evil too. The fact that you've seen that
it's just completely kind of if. I can get if I can download some
gameplay, I'll put it on a pen drive and then on the way to GDC
on the plane I can show it to you.
I can't wait. We need to get some hands on
with that because that'll be amazing.
I want I want to see that. I really want that to do well.
That would put you put up my good books if they smash it, if
it's as ambitious as you're saying, because that'll be cool.
I, I, that's the only thing I have a lot of respect for,
right? You kept Beyond Good and Evil 2
alive after all these years. That's a real passion project.
Yeah, I mean, to be clear, like it's not viewed as them being
passionate, right? Like like a lot of developers at
Ubisoft are very critical of the facts that they have sunk so
much money into it, especially the ones that don't know.
I haven't seen it because a lot of a lot of good games have been
cancelled right during that development.
You got to remember, like Beyond Good and Evil 2 inferior has
been in development for 22 years.
It I think it was 2019 that it, it actually started development
in the, the version that it is now.
So the 2017 version you pulled up wasn't, isn't the game
anymore, so to speak. But it is still like that scale
and and all that kind of stuff. But I mean, they probably wasted
half a billion on Beyond Good and Evil too.
Yeah, way. Are you serious?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Really.
Half a billion? Yeah.
I'm beyond good and evil too. Yeah, I've already reported on
it. So that's not an exclusive, but
do you you'll be, you'll be surprised at how much games
cost. Like some of the games in a
little plug for the cancelled the book on cancelled video
games that I'm doing like, Oh yeah, some of the projects
matter like 34500 million that that have just been wasted.
It's it's insane how much how much games cost these days.
That is insane. That is insane holy.
Shit, even for a vertical slice these days you're talking 2030
million. What for a AAA?
For a AAA again, yeah. Jesus, that's why when you guys
come in, when I say AA is the future, that's why.
Holy shit that's crazy. You need to get your book out
man. I'm trying but I'm too busy
doing podcasts for people like you.
We appreciate it. We appreciate honestly, thank
you so much. This has been a long show.
I'm pretty our man. It's just been good chatting to
you. It's good that we can get on
with each other since we work together now, but it's it's been
a it's been a great show, honestly.
And yeah, man, GDC in a few weeks couple of.
Weeks, hopefully. Hopefully if we get past border
control. Welcome bro, I see it hopefully.
Hey listen, I got through very quickly last time so that was
last year. So hopefully we'll get through
this year. It's.
Have you got have you got the Ester?
The Ester updated and yeah I. Haven't updated it though
because you have to change it to mention.
Yeah, you have to change the address.
Yeah, yeah. So we'll do.
Yeah, we'll do that. I.
Will do that chat. I hope you enjoyed that show
smash the like button. Thank you so much for 170 store
here catching up. I will upload.
I will upload the solo stream of yesterday up on Spotify now and
I'll do the times it takes a while to process.
By the way, if you're wondering why it takes me like a day,
sometimes takes a day because I think it's 1440P stream YouTube
takes ages to process it. So let's see.
I know marathon is very I can see in the chat.
It makes you you don't like the aesthetics.
I can see it's Marmite, but I'm really, really excited for it.
Smash the like button we're going to have.
We have great things, good videos for both insider gaming
and on septic source. Tom, is there anything you want
to say to the people? When do we get to see your face?
No comment. I will say go and check out the
High Guard video on Inside a Game and from from yourself just
to see the different version of you, the serious version.
You know what, Chad, if you can stay here for a little while, I
can redirect us to Insider Gaming.
There's 170 of you. If you haven't seen it, it would
be really nice. I am figuring out how to do it
while we do it, as Tom tells you about an inciting gaming
exclusive that no one's ever heard of.
Here you go, Tom. Go for it.
Oh shit, shit, let me go through my nose.
I'm literally going through my God.
You got this. Where is it?
Yeah, you. You keep.
You keep going. Where is it?
How do you a better way of moving this to another another
general upload default no. All the all this is really in
depth stuff that I can't report on just yet.
Shit. Any questions in the chat
quickly? Yeah, go on, go on, go on to
chat, chat, ask questions while I figure out how to raid on
YouTube live. What is it?
What do you have a question for? Do you have a question for Tom?
Hey, guys, What's up? Oh.
Shit no no, go on ask. Sorry.
I've pulled a guide up on how to redirect to YouTube live.
It's so long. YouTube suck.
How do you do it? Oh, a customer you.
Just pasted it in the chat and just tell people to go to it.
There's a better way, apparently it's called customization than
you do it, but I don't have to do it Chat.
I'm trying to figure it out. We can, we'll figure out
1SEC1SEC1SEC1SEC1SEC1SEC1SEC1 SEC.
Almost deleted the video. That's great.
What can we do? What can we do?
Chat Any questions? Questions.
Why is the sky blue that says God?
There's actually a good point to that.
The sky is blue because of the wavelengths of colour.
It is. It's true, Yeah, it's true.
Yeah. It's I think, I think, I think
blue is the shortest colour wavelength.
So it's the last to hit your eye.
So that's what that's the colour that you see.
I believe that's. All right, really.
Yeah, it's either the shortest or the longest.
I either got it. But yeah, that's why.
It's why. It's why the stars are red from
when you look through the the microscope, because it's like
the different. Yeah, some something like that
anyway. Oh, really?
I I I did not. We are professionals at this,
aren't we? Yeah, we're really good.
There's one guy just keeps spamming.
Xbox is dead, bro. I keep saying it.
It is a rise or fall in price of games.
A fall in price of games. What on earth do you?
Why do you think that? I guess like maybe he's
referring to Jason Shreya's article about about games should
be cheaper, like not $70, which is a fair assessment I do think.
I do think that that $40 is probably the new target price
tag for a lot of AA AA studios moving forward.
But I mean, like the big publishers, they're not going to
get away from 70, so yeah. I don't think they will.
I think don't you think GTA will will take it to another level
like? I think, I think the industry's
banking on GTA being $80.00 at least because, because then they
have, I mean, we've already seen Xbox try $80.00 and it didn't
work out. But I don't know, I don't know
what the the future could be for for price tags.
I I. Imagine if GTS 6 is 100.
Can you imagine? Who are you going to?
Is that going to stop you from buying it?
No chance. No, it's going to.
It's going to stop nobody from buying it, and anyone who says
that it will, He's lying. Exactly.
Everyone's buying that. Everyone's buying that 100%.
They're buying it. Right guys, just paste it in the
chat man, you're. Shit at this.
I've done it, I've done it. I figured it out.
Wait, wait. The thing is, it's like you have
to choose our spirit from a video from other channels.
It's so shit. The system is so good.
Why high guard? I have to type in the whole
title. I have a question is why do
people spend this as a retirement when they both, when
they got rid of both Spencer and Bond at the same time?
Well, it's because it's because they if, for example, if Sarah
Bond got fired, they can't publicly say that she got fired
because I mean, guys, you can probably, you probably know more
about the legalities of that than me, but that's basically
the reason. What do you mean sorry?
Say I'll repeat that again. What was it?
Like if if Sarah Bond, for example, got fired, why did why
did they announce Sarah like he Pope retired?
I don't think they announced that she was retired.
They announced that she was leaving.
But if she was fired, they wouldn't announce that she was
fired, right? No, the legalities behind it.
Well, it's more more PR than anything if she if she got fired
for like dismissed. They don't necessarily have to
disclose that either or parties didn't agree to that.
So but the US I give up chat. YouTube doesn't even let me do
it. Doesn't work.
So I've just posted chat after all that.
It doesn't. Work.
It doesn't work so shit is this you have to pick a specific
video and you have to search it and put inside a gaming and put
high guard or or put this type paste the URL.
It doesn't work. It's really bad.
It's just very booked. It's just yeah, it doesn't make
any sense, but I post it in the chat.
Thank you everyone. Smash the like button and we'll
see you very, very soon. Peace.