Larry Hryb: Hi, it's Larry Hryb here, Xbox Live's Major Nelson, welcome to the show here with Jeffrey, hi Jeff.

Jeff Rubenstein: Hey, how you doing?

Larry Hryb: This is the pre-three show. Pre-E3 show.

Jeff Rubenstein: Pre-three.

Larry Hryb: Pre-three show.

Jeff Rubenstein: Stop trying to make pre-three happen.

Larry Hryb: That's what had happened ... I've been trying for years.

Jeff Rubenstein: No.

Larry Hryb: No. Anyway, we're in the studio. We wanted to bang out a quick show because next week, well we actually just got off a whole one of many, many, many, many, many conference calls about E3, didn't we?

Jeff Rubenstein: Pretty mucah, E3, the conference call. That's pre-three. Right there.

Larry Hryb: And I don't know about you Jeff, when we're listening on these conference calls where there's all these different elements that are being discussed. Certainly the briefing and all this operational stuff, who goes where, what door we're going in.

Jeff Rubenstein: It's amazing how complex it is.

Larry Hryb: This is incredible. But it's always fun when we're listening to the call and you and I will lock eyes and, wait a minute, if we're doing that. Wow. You know you get excited.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah.

Larry Hryb: So we get excited just like everybody else does.

Jeff Rubenstein: You know, as much work as it is, and this will be my 13th E3, I know you're at least 16?

Larry Hryb: 16 or 18.

Jeff Rubenstein: It's always fun.

Larry Hryb: Yeah.

Jeff Rubenstein: Like when we get to the point where the lights go down, we're just like you, we're sitting there and just soaking in-

Larry Hryb: Let's see how it goes. It's exciting. So looking forward to that. That's coming up. Just mark your calendars, that is coming up Sunday, June 9th at 1 o'clock Pacific, that's 4 o'clock Eastern, will be our briefing and it'll be streamed on wherever the heck-

Jeff Rubenstein: 9 pm British summer time.

Larry Hryb: That's right, 9 pm British summer time. DST. So we got that going on. It's going to be fun, it's going to be exciting, so we're looking forward to that. But we want to get in the studio, we want to bang out some news, talk about a few things that went out over the past couple weeks. You were-

Jeff Rubenstein: This is not a quiet zone.

Larry Hryb: You were on the road [crosstalk 00:02:15].

Jeff Rubenstein: As were you, right?

Larry Hryb: Where did I go?

Jeff Rubenstein: Weren't you at EDC? I thought I saw you, you had sort of the shinguard situation that everyone wears at EDC. That wasn't you?

Larry Hryb: That wasn't me.

Jeff Rubenstein: I thought it was you.

Larry Hryb: No.

Jeff Rubenstein: I was on the east coast for most of the last two weeks. It's weird working on the west coast, but being on the east you have nice quite mornings.

Larry Hryb: You weren't taking a vacation, you had some stuff-

Jeff Rubenstein: No. Taking care of some family stuff. Of course I travel ... Thank you very much, Larry, for lending me an Xbox OneX, an extra one. I didn't want to take apart my home theater and all that stuff. You know we run the TV through it. That does not go [crosstalk 00:02:54].

Larry Hryb: -you told me you didn't ... Look, I got an extra one for you.

Jeff Rubenstein: And a games case, and I sat down there and you know what?

Larry Hryb: A game screen.

Jeff Rubenstein: Game screen, yeah I guess it was the second gen one that they had. And you know what, it was perfect. [inaudible 00:03:07].

Larry Hryb: Not only that ... Wait a minute.

Jeff Rubenstein: What?

Larry Hryb: Is that when we got our Apex Legend?

Jeff Rubenstein: We did. I thought that-

Larry Hryb: You were down there?

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, I got two of them down there.

Larry Hryb: The one with your daughter though?

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah.

Larry Hryb: Okay. So we got it.

Jeff Rubenstein: We went to three different places.

Larry Hryb: Three different places and it actually works.

Jeff Rubenstein: And we had a heck of a game.

Larry Hryb: That was a heck of a game. You got the final kill.

Jeff Rubenstein: I did. [crosstalk 00:03:26]

Larry Hryb: Everyone was ... There were people like giving us some on Twitter because you weren't strafing or you didn't have proper form. Doesn't matter, got the job done.

Jeff Rubenstein: [inaudible 00:03:36]

Larry Hryb: It got the job done.

Jeff Rubenstein: And I did it with Gibraltar.

Larry Hryb: Yeah.

Jeff Rubenstein: He's a thick boy. There's a lot of surface area and I was an R99 at range.

Larry Hryb: Yes.

Jeff Rubenstein: And finished off just unloading a clip. I ... That's a proud moment.

Larry Hryb: It is.

Jeff Rubenstein: That's as good as it's gonna get for me.

Larry Hryb: It absolutely is. Anyway, we're cooking along here, we've got a lot to do. Figured we'd go over some of the news and we want to jump-

Jeff Rubenstein: We did that, we did that. What're you playing?

Larry Hryb: Well-

Jeff Rubenstein: I haven't seen you.

Larry Hryb: Talked about Apex. Rage 2, you and I are playing Rage 2.

Jeff Rubenstein: What do you think about that?

Larry Hryb: Well, it's fun. It's just a fun ... We have so many of these intense multiplayer games like, we've been playing Division and what have you, and this is nice to just have a single player experience where you just kinda go in and pick up, play for a half hour, put it down, come back 20 minutes later, whatever, just kind of dip in and out of it.

Jeff Rubenstein: I mean, we both love the Far Cry series.

Larry Hryb: Right!

Jeff Rubenstein: We love our open world, FPSs.

Larry Hryb: Yes.

Jeff Rubenstein: And this is just like that 60 frames per second, silky smooth-

Larry Hryb: Yeah.

Jeff Rubenstein: Sort of gun play is just phenomenal.

Larry Hryb: Yeah.

Jeff Rubenstein: It really just feels good. It's just fun at a core level at all times. And I don't recall getting into the original Rage all that much-

Larry Hryb: Nor do I.

Jeff Rubenstein: I got a couple questions just from some friends as I was sort of saying, "Oh, you know I'm really getting into this!" And they were like "Do I have to have played the first one?" I'm gonna tell you, no.

Larry Hryb: No.

Jeff Rubenstein: And I wouldn't say Rage 2 is a game you're necessarily playing for the story, cause a lot of time it just boils down to, and even your character admits this, "Lemme guess. I gotta go in there and blow a bunch of stuff up."

Larry Hryb: Right, right.

Jeff Rubenstein: And, yep. That's what you're gonna be doing. It has one of the best shotguns in gaming history.

Larry Hryb: Oh, it's [crosstalk 00:05:17] kind of OP.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah. It's phenomenal. When you aim down the sight-

Larry Hryb: And it blows them back.

Jeff Rubenstein: It has like a shock wave blast.

Larry Hryb: Yeah.

Jeff Rubenstein: Like a sort of a slug. When you shoot something down, you can ... It's got some range, especially when you boost it up. And one of the things I was wondering, cause I played, I don't know, 10 hours of the first Rage, and one of the things that I wanted to see in Rage 2 was if you had any sort of progression or ability unlocks and how.

Larry Hryb: Yeah, yeah, you do.

Jeff Rubenstein: There's so many. There's so many different facets of what you do well. It doesn't have XP, you're constantly earning different currencies, different minerals, different coins that allow you to do all these different things. And it encourages to just slide in there and do this little side mission that you happen to see as you're driving by. "Oh, I gotta blow up this gas station?"

Larry Hryb: Right.

Jeff Rubenstein: "Well, I've got a pocket full of grenades and a rocket launcher."

Larry Hryb: "We could take care of that, yeah."

Jeff Rubenstein: "I'd be more than happy to do this."

Larry Hryb: "Keep the engine running, I'll be right back."

Jeff Rubenstein: Exactly. And it just does a lot of things really right at that fundamental feel level. That I'm pretty close to beating it and I'll definitely finish it before E3, but yeah. Great job to Bethesda and, I think it's Avalanche.

Larry Hryb: Yeah.

Jeff Rubenstein: Put that together. These are the folks that, I believe they do Just Cause, right?

Larry Hryb: Yeah, they do.

Jeff Rubenstein: Which has some updates, which we'll get to actually in a minute, but that was exactly the game I needed, I think, while I was away from my family and just had these nights where I didn't really have a lot to do.

Larry Hryb: What do you mean? I kept your nights busy. We were playing-

Jeff Rubenstein: Well between Apex and ... Yeah, yeah. Until you got online.

Larry Hryb: Well, that's true cause you were ahead of me.

Jeff Rubenstein: You know, I was ahead of you, it was a lot of Rage.

Larry Hryb: So yeah, I've been playing that, Rage 2, Apex of course, Overwatch jumped back into with the new season.

Jeff Rubenstein: So did I, yeah.

Larry Hryb: I checked that out last night in fact. Sea of Thieves with their latest update, which is fun.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, I'm quite the fisherman, quite the fisherman.

Larry Hryb: You are.

Jeff Rubenstein: I like it. Once you figure out the knack on there, every time we're sailing anywhere, you just cast a line off-

Larry Hryb: Zzzzzz.

Jeff Rubenstein: And it's fun and then you cook them and then you sell them.

Larry Hryb: Borderlands. Playing that, also talking about the Game-

Jeff Rubenstein: Wait, which one?

Larry Hryb: The Game of the Year edition.

Jeff Rubenstein: The Game of the Year edition.

Larry Hryb: Yeah. [crosstalk 00:07:23]

Jeff Rubenstein: Yup.

Larry Hryb: So yeah, I've been busy, you've been busy, lot's been busy.

Jeff Rubenstein: Sure enough.

Larry Hryb: But it's gonna become ... We have to, unfortunately, taper off our gameplay because we're-

Jeff Rubenstein: We got work to do.

Larry Hryb: We're gonna be busy with games.

Jeff Rubenstein: I know.

Larry Hryb: With game news.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah. This is ... I feel like, this time of year, oftentimes it can get a little bit quiet. Can get quiet in terms of game releases-

Larry Hryb: Sure.

Jeff Rubenstein: It can get quiet in terms of news, that's not the case this year.

Larry Hryb: No.

Jeff Rubenstein: There's been so much coming out, so much to talk about, so much to play. It's just ... We're always on. And, I mean, I'm not complaining about it.

Larry Hryb: No, no. It's gonna be a fun time. We've got a busy summer ahead of us. Got a lot of stuff we're working on that we can't talk about yet.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, and some that we can talk about. Like Halo Outpost, that will be going to a couple different places.

Larry Hryb: Orlando.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah.

Larry Hryb: Jeffrey's former hometown.

Jeff Rubenstein: I feel like it's almost I pick where we're going.

Larry Hryb: Yeah, where we're going.

Jeff Rubenstein: Cause the city ... So Orlando, where I used to live in Orlando. And then I'm from Philly, we're going to Philly.

Larry Hryb: Yeah.

Jeff Rubenstein: So I've been telling all my relatives. I'm like, "Hey, why don't you come on out to Halo Outpost Discovery. You see me, you see-"

Larry Hryb: Master Chief, yeah.

Jeff Rubenstein: "Master Chief, presumably-"

Larry Hryb: And a lot of fans!

Jeff Rubenstein: "And Warthog and all these other things." So it's ... Pretty much looking forward to that. My sister now, she spends half her year in Chicago, we're going to Chicago.

Larry Hryb: Oh.

Jeff Rubenstein: So.

Larry Hryb: That's right. So the whole ... We can put a link, and we'll put a link to where you can [crosstalk 00:08:46]

Jeff Rubenstein: I will do that. Tickets are on sale now. I believe some of the VIP, three day stuff is starting to sell out, so probably want to get on it. And they also announced that if you do, and I want to get the story right, so I'm just bringing it up real quick. That you get, I believe it's six months of Xbox Game Pass, yeah. "All VIP tickets now include six months of Xbox Game Pass." So, I mean-

Larry Hryb: Why not?

Jeff Rubenstein: It's a good value there-

Larry Hryb: Yeah.

Jeff Rubenstein: Of $9.99 a month and times six.

Larry Hryb: Times six.

Jeff Rubenstein: And you get into Outpost Discovery, so.

Larry Hryb: And you may be able to get to meet some of Jeff's relatives.

Jeff Rubenstein: They're gonna be floating around there.

Larry Hryb: You've been warned.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yes.

Larry Hryb: Is your mom coming?

Jeff Rubenstein: I don't know what to say.

Larry Hryb: Is your mom coming out?

Jeff Rubenstein: She actually, she said "Hey, maybe I'll ..." The reason I was down there, my mom had major surgery-

Larry Hryb: Surgery, yeah.

Jeff Rubenstein: So I was down there literally in between conference calls, I'm like chopping garlic and then going on mute and cooking and keeping the house together, feeding the dog-

Larry Hryb: You were fixing things.

Jeff Rubenstein: Fixing. Fixing all the ... I feel like she saves all the.

Larry Hryb: Well, that's what they do.

Jeff Rubenstein: All of the "this door isn't closing right, and this drawer is falling apart."

Larry Hryb: "Could you take a look at this?"

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah. "Could you help me?" There was a lot of moving of heavy objects.

Larry Hryb: There's all these bars in my browser, Jeffrey, could you remove them?

Jeff Rubenstein: That's funny. I did have to update the ... She had like a Surface RT-

Larry Hryb: Oh wow, old school.

Jeff Rubenstein: From, that I'd given her back in 2013-

Larry Hryb: Right.

Jeff Rubenstein: And she was like, "Can you help me with?" And I was like "Yes, I can help you with this."

Larry Hryb: Good.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah. Still using it, still likes it.

Jeff Rubenstein: So, she was like "Maybe I'll come up to Orlando." And I was like "You know, you just had major surgery-"

Larry Hryb: Yeah.

Jeff Rubenstein: "There's gonna be a lot of walking, maybe-"

Larry Hryb: It's the middle of the summer.

Jeff Rubenstein: "Maybe I come to you."

Larry Hryb: Yeah. Can we?

Jeff Rubenstein: Oh, actually. She would love to meet you.

Larry Hryb: I've never met her.

Jeff Rubenstein: She's a huge fan of yours.

Larry Hryb: She and I chatted, but I've never met her.

Jeff Rubenstein: I know. So she no longer calls you Captain Morgan-

Larry Hryb: That's okay.

Jeff Rubenstein: Which I think I think is a big step forward.

Larry Hryb: We're getting forward.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yes.

Larry Hryb: Anyway, we got a big thing with Halo Outpost Discovery, it's gonna be great.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, so you're gonna come with me?

Larry Hryb: I would love to.

Jeff Rubenstein: All right.

Larry Hryb: I'd love that.

Jeff Rubenstein: We'll talk more about that, I think, after E3.

Larry Hryb: Yeah, when we get closer.

Jeff Rubenstein: That's right around July 4th.

Larry Hryb: Right now, [crosstalk 00:10:57] there's people listening right now saying "Don't talk about that, talk about E3!" Well, look, we're not gonna give you up any news. We don't know what the news is.

Jeff Rubenstein: Maybe, eh.

Larry Hryb: Just a couple of things. But you have [inaudible 00:11:05] for that?

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah. Look, it's gonna be fun to just sit down there, lights go down, enjoy it, watch it, stream it.

Larry Hryb: Where do you watch it from? I can't remember. Do you watch it down-

Jeff Rubenstein: Where do I watch E3?

Larry Hryb: Yeah.

Jeff Rubenstein: So it's ... Part of my job is getting creators, streamers, YouTubers, all that stuff into the building, that's the reason I'm there.

Larry Hryb: Which, by the way, sounds like "Why would he need help getting people?" You'd be surprised. With all the security and-

Jeff Rubenstein: We have like ten minutes-

Larry Hryb: Right.

Jeff Rubenstein: I mean, maybe slightly more but not by much-

Larry Hryb: There's a window.

Jeff Rubenstein: To get people through security-

Larry Hryb: Yup.

Jeff Rubenstein: In their seats-

Larry Hryb: In the right seats in the right section.

Jeff Rubenstein: And that thing needs to start ... In the right seats, exactly.

Larry Hryb: Right.

Jeff Rubenstein: And it needs to start on time.

Larry Hryb: Phil's not waiting.

Jeff Rubenstein: No. And so all of that. And usually, what ends up happening, is then I'm like, "It's dark," the lights go down, I get the last person in the door, and then where can I sit?

Larry Hryb: Yeah. You're seat filling at that point.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah. And last year, which was our first year in the Microsoft Theater, I had to go into the upper deck, so I actually missed the first-

Larry Hryb: That's right, I remember that, you were way up on top.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, so it was the first ... I missed the first minute of the Halo Infinite trailer.

Larry Hryb: Right.

Jeff Rubenstein: And I had never seen it.

Larry Hryb: Sure.

Jeff Rubenstein: So it was ... But I was sitting in my seat for the point where people realized what it was

Larry Hryb: Yeah, it was the helmet shot.

Jeff Rubenstein: And I still get chills thinking about it.

Larry Hryb: Yeah, yeah.

Jeff Rubenstein: That was amazing. So that's where I'll be. Where do you watch it from?

Larry Hryb: I'm usually in the ... If you're looking down to the stage, I'm watching it from the right hand side. There's a ... We have a workspace up there, you know where those boxes are?

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, yeah.

Larry Hryb: That aren't filled.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah.

Larry Hryb: So it's just kind of this empty space and I usually just find a stool and sit down.

Jeff Rubenstein: You know what?

Larry Hryb: And just watch.

Jeff Rubenstein: Save me a seat.

Larry Hryb: Let's do it.

Jeff Rubenstein: Let's do that.

Larry Hryb: So if you are able to attend or if you've got tickets to Fan Fest and you're joining us, look up to the right-

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, there's tons of fans-

Larry Hryb: Jeff and I will be sitting there-

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, I know.

Larry Hryb: Like the two old guys from the Muppet Show. Da, da, da. Cause that's exactly where we're gonna be, up in that area.

Jeff Rubenstein: Ripping off zingers and one liners.

Larry Hryb: So there you go.

Jeff Rubenstein: All right.

Larry Hryb: What else? You got some news!

Jeff Rubenstein: There is news.

Larry Hryb: Wanna go through some news?

Jeff Rubenstein: Yes. So, we introduced the new Xbox Game Bar this week.

Larry Hryb: Yes. On Windows 10.

Jeff Rubenstein: On Windows 10. So if you are gaming on Windows 10, as we are, whether it's Xbox Play Anywhere titles, of which there are many, or you're just doing other gaming, there are lot of features for gamers. If you previously hit Windows G before this week, you would have a little strip of things there where you could start to record or you could do whatever, but now-

Larry Hryb: It was a bar.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah. There was a tremendous, customizable experience, that includes the features from that, but really in depth audio sliders, Spotify if you wanna do that, Larry just brought it up.

Larry Hryb: Just brought it up, Windows G. Got your friends list.

Jeff Rubenstein: Friends list.

Larry Hryb: Chat.

Jeff Rubenstein: The chat window. If you're broadcasting on Mixer, you can see that. LFG, Looking for Group. You put up there what you want up there in terms of overlays and you hit Windows G, it pops up and you have access to all that. Previously, if you wanted to party up, you would launch the Xbox app and you would toggle back and forth from the game, and it worked. But this is a much more seamless-

Larry Hryb: Try it out.

Jeff Rubenstein: Expression of that.

Larry Hryb: There are some requirements though.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah.

Larry Hryb: You need to do certain things. Can we put a link in?

Jeff Rubenstein: I'm gonna do that, yeah, just so none of that stuff is lost. But the insiders, all you guys really helped us develop this and hone this and refine this, and so we thank you and-

Larry Hryb: That is fun.

Jeff Rubenstein: We think you'll enjoy this.

Larry Hryb: And just look at the animation the design team did.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, yeah. And there's a really cool animated GIF. Gif, jif, I'm doing this again. We were talking about this, that would make a really good shirt.

Larry Hryb: Yeah.

Jeff Rubenstein: And so we'll link out to that. And you should try it out. It's literally just a key stroke away.

Larry Hryb: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Links below.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, putting it in now.

Larry Hryb: Well, if you're listening on SoundCloud or wherever on YouTube, head over to my blog at majornelson.com, that's where the link is.

Jeff Rubenstein: You'll see it, you'll see it. Another update-

Larry Hryb: What you got?

Jeff Rubenstein: That ended up ... We actually just, slightly before recording, Kareem Choudhry, who is the Corporate Vice President of Gaming Cloud-

Larry Hryb: Love talking to him, I love talking to him.

Jeff Rubenstein: Hey, you've gotten to interview him on Inside Xbox in the past?

Larry Hryb: Yeah, I actually was just talking to him last week about some stuff. It's fun.

Jeff Rubenstein: So he is in charge of Project XCloud and now he's talking turkey. We've talked ... You've seen some demos-

Larry Hryb: Yup.

Jeff Rubenstein: We've had and we've talked sort of theoretically ... We're showing off actually what the servers look like and the fact that there's these, what do you call them, blades?

Larry Hryb: Yup.

Jeff Rubenstein: That serve up the games.

Larry Hryb: I've held one.

Jeff Rubenstein: Really?

Larry Hryb: Yeah, I've seen one. I was down there. I have pictures-

Jeff Rubenstein: Cradle it?

Larry Hryb: Yes.

Jeff Rubenstein: Cause you have to put on, well, the gloves I'm sure, cause you have to put on the full hazmat suit?

Larry Hryb: No, no, they had a sample one out, I was playing ... I can't really talk about it, but it was really cool. I'll tell you off, off.

Jeff Rubenstein: All right, all right.

Larry Hryb: I'll tell you off mic.

Jeff Rubenstein: Well, what you held is now across 13 Azure Regions in North America, Asia, and Europe. Capcom, we're working with Capcom, we're working with Paradox Interactive, those are a couple of our development teams that have been mentioned. I'll link out to this, but it's interesting, it's exciting to see, probably not a ton of game developers listening to the show, but then again-

Larry Hryb: You never know.

Jeff Rubenstein: You never know.

Larry Hryb: I bet you there are.

Jeff Rubenstein: But, we're basically talking about how game developers don't really have to make changes or modifications in order to empower their games for XCloud.

Larry Hryb: Yeah, optimizing.

Jeff Rubenstein: So what does that ultimately mean?

Larry Hryb: What does it mean?

Jeff Rubenstein: That means it's gonna be a lot of games.

Larry Hryb: Yeah.

Jeff Rubenstein: And so just reading here, it means Project XCloud has the technical capability to stream more than 3500 games without changes or modifications. Well, that sounds pretty good. And they also mention another 1900 games are in development for Xbox One, all of which could run on Project XCloud.

Larry Hryb: Woo!

Jeff Rubenstein: So, right now, we're testing internally. Yeah, you and I have the ability to fire it up if we need to.

Larry Hryb: Yeah, yeah. I've ... Yes. That's all I'll say.

Jeff Rubenstein: That's all we can say. But that's ... It's just really cool. So I'm gonna link out to that-

Larry Hryb: Please do.

Jeff Rubenstein: If you're interested in Project XCloud.

Larry Hryb: Everybody else is.

Jeff Rubenstein: It's not a long read. Yes, it's well worth your time to take a look at that.

Larry Hryb: Fun.

Jeff Rubenstein: And we'll link over to that on, of course, majornelson.com.

Larry Hryb: Yes.

Jeff Rubenstein: Let's talk about games, Larry.

Larry Hryb: Well, we just did. Oh, games coming up ... Games out?

Jeff Rubenstein: Games that have come out, that are coming out.

Larry Hryb: Yes. Yes.

Jeff Rubenstein: That are included-

Larry Hryb: Yes.

Jeff Rubenstein: With Xbox Game Pass.

Larry Hryb: Best deal in gaming.

Jeff Rubenstein: They're really outdoing themselves. So May and into June ... So we announced a few weeks ago a bunch of games coming in May.

Larry Hryb: Yes.

Jeff Rubenstein: Now it's like, "We weren't done. You didn't think we were done?"

Larry Hryb: What? No.

Jeff Rubenstein: So, just a couple days ago we talked about more games coming so I'll just rattle them off. Metal Gear Survive, Banner Saga and Banner Saga 2. These are-

Larry Hryb: I remember you playing those.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, I beat the first Banner Saga and I'm about halfway through Banner Saga 2. It's a strategy RPG where you make a lot of decisions.

Larry Hryb: Right.

Jeff Rubenstein: And let me just tell you, the decisions you make ... This isn't like they're fake decisions and it doesn't really matter. They make a huge difference-

Larry Hryb: Right.

Jeff Rubenstein: In how the game ends up and then it carries over. And at the end of Banner Saga 1, I made a decision that I still regret to this day because I ended up resulting in the death of a character-

Larry Hryb: Right.

Jeff Rubenstein: And as soon as you pick up in Banner Saga 2-

Larry Hryb: Right.

Jeff Rubenstein: You have the ability to ... You can either have the quote unquote canon ending or you can pull in all your decisions. And I had to live with what I had done in a previous game and it was just devastating-

Larry Hryb: Yeah.

Jeff Rubenstein: And I still feel that way. Has a cool animated look and this is some tough strategy stuff. So if you like a NSRPG, this is definitely one for you. And yet at the same time-

Larry Hryb: And who doesn't?

Jeff Rubenstein: They do make the achievements rain. So highly recommend, these are not 80 hour games, these are narrative driven and you can play through it, I'm not gonna throw a number out there, but-

Larry Hryb: They're manageable.

Jeff Rubenstein: They're manageable. This isn't something where you need to set aside-

Larry Hryb: It isn't a massive time ... Right.

Jeff Rubenstein: Three months. And really good writing, really good animation, really enjoyable. It's a game that I was fortunate enough to get to be the first to utter publicly, Void Bastards.

Larry Hryb: I remember that. You did [XO 00:19:20].

Jeff Rubenstein: That was at XO.

Larry Hryb: XO in Mexico City.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yes. And I got to play the game at GDC and the game is coming out next week.

Larry Hryb: Woo!

Jeff Rubenstein: And it's coming out directly into Xbox Game Pass. So this is a, again, really cool animated ... Reminded me a little bit of Futurama a bit, but it's a FPS Rogue Like and there's just a lot of interesting stuff happening here. And if you have Game Pass, and of course you do-

Larry Hryb: You do.

Jeff Rubenstein: You'll get to try it out on day one for free.

Jeff Rubenstein: Dead by Daylight, that is coming out. Super Hot. Remember Super Hot?

Larry Hryb: Yeah, I like that game.

Jeff Rubenstein: It's a really good game.

Larry Hryb: Where you have to make your shots-

Jeff Rubenstein: Nothing moves until you move.

Larry Hryb: Right, nothing moves until you move.

Jeff Rubenstein: So it's as much a puzzle-

Larry Hryb: It's a weird, 3D puzzle, FPS.

Jeff Rubenstein: Puzzle shooter. There's a multiplayer RPG for Metal Furies that's coming. And then, another game that's coming out, brand new, debuting directly into Xbox Game Pass, literally the day after Void Bastards-

Larry Hryb: Yes.

Jeff Rubenstein: May 30th, is Outer Wilds. And this game looks really cool. You're journeying through an entire solar system, but you're on land, you can go up into space, it's like a space exploration, story drive puzzle. You have a jet pack, you have to have jet packs.

Larry Hryb: Jet packs, yeah-

Jeff Rubenstein: You want a jet pack.

Larry Hryb: Jet packs make everything better.

Jeff Rubenstein: So this just looks really good, there's a great trailer. I'm gonna link to the trailer.

Larry Hryb: Please.

Jeff Rubenstein: Cause there was a really good one that they released earlier this week and I'm really excited to be playing this. And the fact that I already own it because-

Larry Hryb: What's wrong with that?

Jeff Rubenstein: Because I have Xbox Game Pass, it's coming to me. And so-

Larry Hryb: You already own it.

Jeff Rubenstein: You know, we don't have time!

Larry Hryb: Right.

Jeff Rubenstein: I'm gonna have to make the time. Because both Void Bastards and Outer Wilds are definitely worth your time, as well as Dead By Daylight, which a lot of people like. And I need to finish Banner Saga 2. There's just so much to play Larry.

Larry Hryb: There always is.

Jeff Rubenstein: So much to play.

Larry Hryb: There always is. Especially when you have Game Pass.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yes.

Larry Hryb: Endless plays.

Jeff Rubenstein: Endless amount of play. Another game, came out this week, it's free, by Epic Games-

Larry Hryb: Yes.

Jeff Rubenstein: You may have heard of them.

Larry Hryb: Our friends at Epic.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah. May have heard of the old Fortnite.

Larry Hryb: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Jeff Rubenstein: What they did with the Jordans, by the way, those Air Jordan 1s, did you see this? Did I talk to you about-?

Larry Hryb: Yes.

Jeff Rubenstein: But it ... Not just the Jordans in the game.

Larry Hryb: Yes.

Jeff Rubenstein: So there's a couple of Jordan 1s-

Larry Hryb: Yes.

Jeff Rubenstein: That are dropping-

Larry Hryb: Are these the 1997 ones?

Jeff Rubenstein: These are, no, go 1985-

Larry Hryb: You know those. You know those.

Jeff Rubenstein: These are the Jordan 1s-

Larry Hryb: I had a pair of those.

Jeff Rubenstein: You had the Jordan 97s?

Larry Hryb: Who wouldn't?

Jeff Rubenstein: Which ones were those? Well, anyway, we'll come back to it-

Larry Hryb: [crosstalk 00:21:50] I misread you. Apologies.

Jeff Rubenstein: Anyway. Air Max 97, those were pretty hot.

Larry Hryb: Those were the ones.

Jeff Rubenstein: That seems like more your style, low top. So they're in the game, but then in real life, there's some really cool ones coming out where they scuff ... They come out tomorrow, Saturday, as we're recording this-

Larry Hryb: The drop is-

Jeff Rubenstein: The drop, you got to cop the drop.

Larry Hryb: Yes.

Jeff Rubenstein: Or take an L. Anyway. If they scuff, they reveal another layer of color. So you actually, normally you want to keep your shoes pristine. You scuff them, you might as well throw them out.

Larry Hryb: Right.

Jeff Rubenstein: These, you actually want to wear them. And, anyway, you can buy the ... You are able to, if you had played the Air Jordan mode, the Jump Man mode in Fortnite, you would reveal a spray which then you can scan using your sneakers app and it would do an AR thing and that would unlock the shoe and you could get it ahead of time. Isn't that ... I mean, that just blows my mind.

Larry Hryb: It's advertising.

Jeff Rubenstein: It is. But it hits ... It doesn't feel like advertising when it's all a bunch of stuff I like.

Larry Hryb: Yup. Okay.

Jeff Rubenstein: So, anyway, really cool. Anyway, Epic Games. They have a game, an MMO, called Dauntless.

Larry Hryb: Uh-huh.

Jeff Rubenstein: That just came out on Xbox One, for free, this week. Hearing some good things. You slay these giant monsters so, obviously, it's Epic Games. This is gonna be a very well-developed-

Larry Hryb: Quality.

Jeff Rubenstein: Game. So I'm definitely ... Where I'm gonna find time to work another, an MMO into my life, I don't know, but this is one that I think is ... I at least wanna try. I hear it feels really good.

Larry Hryb: Right.

Jeff Rubenstein: Here's another one. Team Sonic Racing.

Larry Hryb: Oh, yeah.

Jeff Rubenstein: Sonic Team Racing. This is newer.

Larry Hryb: Yeah, we had it on this week on Xbox this week.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah. So that is coming out. Sonic is also trending worldwide for some reason right now. So, well, anyway. That is out now and that is-

Larry Hryb: Sonic? Just Sonic?

Jeff Rubenstein: Well, it's Team Sonic.

Larry Hryb: Cause it could be a hamburger.

Jeff Rubenstein: It could. Or they do really interesting soft drinks as well.

Larry Hryb: Yes, they do.

Jeff Rubenstein: It's a really [crosstalk 00:23:49] I have not had lunch-

Larry Hryb: It's a place here in the United States.

Jeff Rubenstein: Don't derail me.

Larry Hryb: Yeah, sorry.

Jeff Rubenstein: Don't derail me. So here's a game I think you were trying out. The Dragon's Lair trilogy.

Larry Hryb: That's right, that's right, that's right, yeah.

Jeff Rubenstein: Tell me.

Larry Hryb: I haven't tried it out yet.

Jeff Rubenstein: Okay.

Larry Hryb: I was like, "I have to try this out" to see how it's gonna compare, because we all remember the old Dragon's Lair, which is one of the original. It's a Don Bluth animation-

Jeff Rubenstein: Yup.

Larry Hryb: Don Bluth used to work at Disney, and remember that, and he did-

Jeff Rubenstein: He did Secret of Nimh-

Larry Hryb: And American Tale.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, yeah.

Larry Hryb: And it was one of the original disc-

Jeff Rubenstein: Laser discs.

Larry Hryb: Laser disc games, right, video disc games.

Jeff Rubenstein: It's from the 90s, right?

Larry Hryb: Oh God, late 80s, early 90s. It's definitely something I wanna check out.

Jeff Rubenstein: I just remember it was really expensive-

Larry Hryb: Yes.

Jeff Rubenstein: To play in the arcade.

Larry Hryb: Right.

Jeff Rubenstein: And now you can just own it, all three of them, for 20 bucks.

Larry Hryb: Right.

Jeff Rubenstein: I mean, I think we might've had it before, in previous generations. If there's a generation, there's a Dragon's Lair.

Larry Hryb: Right.

Jeff Rubenstein: So, and just another game I just want to point out real quickly. This is more of a indie game and priced according from Curve Digital, American Fugitive. It reminds me of ... You remember the ... When people think of Grand Theft Auto-

Larry Hryb: Yes.

Jeff Rubenstein: They think of ... They really mean Grand Theft Auto 3 and beyond.

Larry Hryb: And beyond, right.

Jeff Rubenstein: When it fully went 3D. But the first two Grand Theft Autos were top down affairs.

Larry Hryb: Right, right.

Jeff Rubenstein: But it was still open world. And I remember playing it and it was still revelatory at that time cause there wasn't a game like it.

Larry Hryb: Right.

Jeff Rubenstein: But then when GTA 3 came out, it ... I mean, we were not ready. Well, anyway, American Fugitive seems like if you were to remake one of GTA 1 and 2 in the modern era, what would that look like. So it's still mostly top down, isometric-

Larry Hryb: I'll tell you what it would look like!

Jeff Rubenstein: It would look a lot like American Fugitive.

Larry Hryb: Yeah.

Jeff Rubenstein: So, looks interesting, looks worth your ... worth a shot. I haven't played it yet, but it definitely caught my eye, so I wanted to pass that on to you.

Larry Hryb: Yes.

Jeff Rubenstein: Check it out, take a look. And a couple other games coming out next week. Layers of Fear 2, this looks really scary. You're playing as a Hollywood actor who heeds the call of an enigmatic director to take the lead of a film shoot aboard an ocean liner. They're alone.

Larry Hryb: My heart will go on. That's Titanic, it could be.

Jeff Rubenstein: It could be.

Larry Hryb: Okay.

Jeff Rubenstein: It could be. The goal is to find the heart of the ocean. Cricket 19, I know you're a big cricket fan.

Larry Hryb: I don't actually know that game. I want to, but I just don't understand it.

Jeff Rubenstein: It's like baseball, but-

Larry Hryb: But not.

Jeff Rubenstein: But an inning lasts forever.

Larry Hryb: But it takes two weeks to play.

Jeff Rubenstein: And ever and ever and they bounce the ball. Anyway. And you can hit it in any direction. That's out next week, it is Xbox One XEnhanced. Outer Wilds, like we had mentioned. War Hammer Chaos Bane, this one is Xbox One XEnhanced and you can play it solo or up to four people in local or online co-op. And Hick's Ark, another Xbox One XEnhanced game, which is ... There's a purple dragon, so I immediately think of Spyro. So except it's more pixel-y.

Larry Hryb: Right.

Jeff Rubenstein: And then another RPG. Actually, an RPG, action strategy, card battler, also Xbox One XEnhanced, thank you very much. Gollum Gates, and that will be out on May 31st. And then one game that became available for pre-order, this weekend, which I'm very much looking forward to-

Larry Hryb: Which one?

Jeff Rubenstein: Bloodstained Ritual of the Night.

Larry Hryb: Yes.

Jeff Rubenstein: So this Igarashi, Igarashi-san, who is the creator of Castlevania. And actually I think there was a Castlevania ... The original three games have been remastered recently and been re-released.

Larry Hryb: Right.

Jeff Rubenstein: I love me some Castlevania 2 and 3. So this is sort of the spiritual successor. These guys released an amazing trailer, cause we've been hearing about this game for a while. And it was first revealed, I don't remember exactly when, but people had a lot of feedback, let's say, on the game, and they took that feedback and they enhanced it and made it look ... They've owned up to not meeting the expectations of certain fans in a very hilarious way in the trailer, which I will link out to. And, anyway, now it's looking better than ever, and it's out on June 17th, so really, shortly after we get back from E3, this is what I'll be jumping into. And it's coming out and you can pre-order it now.

Larry Hryb: Yay!

Jeff Rubenstein: Last thing, we mentioned Avalanche-

Larry Hryb: We did mention it.

Jeff Rubenstein: We mentioned Just Cause. Just Cause 4 actually just released a big spring update that improved everything from the world's lighting, add more things to do, improve the combat AI, there's new mobile chaos objects, destructible metal train bridges, you're gonna be able to blow more stuff up than ever.

Larry Hryb: Right.

Jeff Rubenstein: And you like to do that.

Larry Hryb: Well, who doesn't? That's what Just Cause is all about.

Jeff Rubenstein: I mean, you've got tornadoes. Anyway, it's always good to see a developer continue to support their game and make it better-

Larry Hryb: Post launch.

Jeff Rubenstein: And, yes, that's what the developers of Just Cause 4 have done for you, the gamer.

Larry Hryb: All right, you ready?

Jeff Rubenstein: For?

Larry Hryb: The big ... Well, it's on now, it ends Tuesday. The big [Back Compat 00:28:57] sale.

Jeff Rubenstein: Oh, yes.

Larry Hryb: All the games.

Jeff Rubenstein: The biggest ever.

Larry Hryb: Like ... It's just ... Go look at this, it's ... Go to my blog, majornelson.com, and pinned at the top is the blog post that has all of the details on it, all the sales, but just go check it out for yourself. But if you wanna go revisit some classics, and own them digitally, now is the time, my friend, now is the time.

Jeff Rubenstein: And there's stuff in there that's been enhanced for Xbox One X.

Larry Hryb: Yeah.

Jeff Rubenstein: They're better than ever.

Larry Hryb: Yup.

Jeff Rubenstein: You're gonna want to get on that.

Larry Hryb: Yeah.

Jeff Rubenstein: There's now, I think I was reading, something near to 560-

Larry Hryb: There is, there is.

Jeff Rubenstein: 360 games, more than 360 games-

Larry Hryb: Way more.

Jeff Rubenstein: That's just amazing.

Larry Hryb: It's extraordinary.

Jeff Rubenstein: The team has done-

Larry Hryb: They're still churning them out. I mean, I love those guys and girls, they are some smart cookies down there.

Jeff Rubenstein: Well, thank you.

Larry Hryb: Thank you. Oh- [crosstalk 00:29:46]

Jeff Rubenstein: Yes. Yes, that's all the news I've got. Isn't that enough for you?

Larry Hryb: Well, it is. I mean, we're headed into E3, we talked about-

Jeff Rubenstein: Which is two weeks away.

Larry Hryb: Two weeks away. We got a lot going on. You can join us virtually or in person, for those of you that are going to Fan Festival, we'll look forward to seeing you.

Jeff Rubenstein: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Larry Hryb: We have a lot in store. So we're not gonna do a show next week. We're able to do one this week, Jeff was traveling, so we couldn't get in. But he and I-

Jeff Rubenstein: Just put it on me.

Larry Hryb: He and-

Jeff Rubenstein: What we wanted to get in the studio-

Larry Hryb: I know.

Jeff Rubenstein: And at least talk a little bit because we hadn't been in so long.

Larry Hryb: So there you go.

Jeff Rubenstein: Here we are.

Larry Hryb: All right.

Jeff Rubenstein: Anything else? Look, it was mostly me talking-

Larry Hryb: No, but you-

Jeff Rubenstein: And this is Major Nelson radio.

Larry Hryb: No, it is, but it's more of a ... It's a royal Major Nelson ... It's we, it's we. Now if you have any questions, feel free to hit us up on Twitter, at majornelson, you have any complaints you hit it up, at jeffrubenstein.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, always.

Larry Hryb: Always.

Jeff Rubenstein: I love your complaints.

Larry Hryb: You know what I'm working on?

Jeff Rubenstein: No.

Larry Hryb: I got this ... This is in the quasi-gadgets section, I have a new washlet for my house.

Jeff Rubenstein: Go on.

Larry Hryb: For those of you who don't know, Jeff and I-

Jeff Rubenstein: We love our fancy toilets.

Larry Hryb: Independently, we have fallen in love with the plumbing in Japan.

Jeff Rubenstein: It's a wonderful country and that's the piece you can bring home with you.

Larry Hryb: Yeah, it sure is. So I have [Kohler 00:31:03], which is an American company, I believe they're an American company, they have sent me one of their washlets and I have been testing that. I'll post some photos.

Jeff Rubenstein: Okay.

Larry Hryb: It's quite, quite fancy as you would imagine.

Jeff Rubenstein: Can I come over and try it?

Larry Hryb: Yeah, absolutely!

Jeff Rubenstein: I would love to do that.

Larry Hryb: You can go bounce between the three different toilets.

Jeff Rubenstein: Look, I just wanna see it.

Larry Hryb: Yeah.

Jeff Rubenstein: It's one of those things where I invite people over and I'm like "Please, here's a magazine-"

Larry Hryb: "Here's the instructions."

Jeff Rubenstein: "Here's some nice music-"

Larry Hryb: "Here's the instructions."

Jeff Rubenstein: "I'm gonna leave you alone. See you later, have fun."

Larry Hryb: Yeah. Highly recommend it, it's-

Jeff Rubenstein: It should be part of the Kohler-Toto influencer program.

Larry Hryb: We absolutely are, for Pete's sakes!

Jeff Rubenstein: That's our ... This is an unpaid endorsement.

Larry Hryb: We have to ... You have to understand how important this is.

Jeff Rubenstein: I feel like your life improves.

Larry Hryb: Significantly.

Jeff Rubenstein: And I want you-

Larry Hryb: I'll tell you what I'm looking forward to, and this is a little bit inside baseball, can I tell you?

Jeff Rubenstein: How very inside?

Larry Hryb: Can I tell you?

Jeff Rubenstein: Go.

Larry Hryb: Cause you went through this, you have walked this path. I'm looking forward to teaching my daughter how to use it.

Jeff Rubenstein: Oh, absolutely, absolutely.

Larry Hryb: So, she's not quite there yet, but she will be.

Jeff Rubenstein: No, it's our duty as fathers-

Larry Hryb: Yes.

Jeff Rubenstein: To make sure our daughters have a better life-

Larry Hryb: Right, right.

Jeff Rubenstein: Than we had growing up.

Larry Hryb: And they can carry on this mantle that we have decided to take up. All right, I think let's end it on that note.

Jeff Rubenstein: A note we ... I guess if you've been listening to the show this long, you expect it.

Larry Hryb: Now, just a quick programming note. We talked about it, we talked about the briefing, which is Sunday.

Jeff Rubenstein: Sunday, June 9th.

Larry Hryb: Sunday, June 9th. We will be doing Inside Xbox. Should we tell folks when we're doing that?

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah. We're doing it on Monday.

Larry Hryb: Monday. I don't know what the time is.

Jeff Rubenstein: I don't know either.

Larry Hryb: I should be ... Let me just double check. Do you have it in front of you?

Jeff Rubenstein: Looks like other people have been searching for it because it auto-filled on the search engine. I don't think we have issued the time.

Larry Hryb: All I know is it's Monday.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yup.

Larry Hryb: So it's Monday, the day after our briefing. We'll have an Inside Xbox, which is I'll be on the show, Jeff will be on the show, the rest of the cast of characters will be on the show. We'll talk about-

Jeff Rubenstein: I can't wait to get out there.

Larry Hryb: Yeah.

Jeff Rubenstein: I haven't been on in a while, so it'll be fun.

Larry Hryb: And, and, I think later, Wednesday, two days later? We're doing our show, this show, Major Nelson Radio on Mixer.

Jeff Rubenstein: So they know what we get to do?

Larry Hryb: What?

Jeff Rubenstein: Is we gotta play a bunch of games so we can talk about it.

Larry Hryb: Well I'm gonna see who we can get on for guests. I think I got one of those guests we talked about earlier, I think I'll try to get that person.

Jeff Rubenstein: Oh.

Larry Hryb: Right?

Jeff Rubenstein: Yes, that would be great.

Larry Hryb: I'll try to get that person.

Jeff Rubenstein: That would be great.

Larry Hryb: So, we'll see.

Jeff Rubenstein: I can't wait. I'm so excited.

Larry Hryb: We're excited, you know what, we are just-

Jeff Rubenstein: Next two weeks are just gonna fly by.

Larry Hryb: Yup. So, we're gonna wrap it up cause we gotta get ready. Thank you for listening, downloading the show and listening to it. Again, hit me on Twitter at majornelson. You can hit the blog at majornelson.com to find out more details, a lot of what Jeff talked about. And then Jeff they can find you on social where?

Jeff Rubenstein: At jeffrubenstein.

Larry Hryb: Now what about your ... Do you have an Instagram for your shoe collection?

Jeff Rubenstein: It's the same thing.

Larry Hryb: Oh, it is.

Jeff Rubenstein: At ... [inaudible 00:33:58]

Larry Hryb: If you really like Asian food and shoes-

Jeff Rubenstein: Coffee, coffee, coffee.

Larry Hryb: Jeff's the man. Coffee?

Jeff Rubenstein: Please say coffee.

Larry Hryb: And coffee.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, so there you go. I love me some coffee.

Larry Hryb: All right gang, we'll see you in a few weeks at E3. Thank you and get ready. Bye-bye everybody!

Jeff Rubenstein: Bye!

Larry Hryb: Hi, it's Larry Hryb, Xbox Live's Major Nelson. Welcome to the show 637. Sitting here at the end of April 2019. Hi, Jeffrey.

Jeff Rubenstein: It's been a little while.

Larry Hryb: You know, I was looking through our notes. Last time we were on the air was at Pax East.

Jeff Rubenstein: It's a lot quieter now.

Larry Hryb: It is. We're back in our studio. We're hanging out. It's lovely.

Jeff Rubenstein: But it's not as quiet as it normally is when we do one of these.

Larry Hryb: Right.

Jeff Rubenstein: There's other people in there! Do we know who they are?

Larry Hryb: We do. Don't worry. Don't look at Jeff in the face! We've got special guest, Mr. Scott Weber is joining us. Hi Scott.

Scott Weber: Hello. How are you?

Larry Hryb: You are... you work on the third party accessories team for Xbox.

Scott Weber: Correct. I do.

Larry Hryb: So, you are responsible for a lot of things. In fact, I was tweeting out earlier this week, and we had you on this week on Xbox to talk about the new headset.

Scott Weber: Indeed, yeah. A new steel series coming out. Arctis 9X.

Larry Hryb: We're going to talk about that later on the show, Jeff.

Jeff Rubenstein: I just want to... What is 3rd party accessories? What does that mean? For those listening. Want to start [crosstalk 00:01:30]?

Scott Weber: Okay.

Larry Hryb: Let's get in the nitty gritty of it.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, [crosstalk 00:01:32].

Scott Weber: 3rd party accessories is anything you walk into the store, and has that green Xbox bar across the top of it, designed for Xbox badge. That means it came through our program. So, they're the license partners. We have 30 plus license partners, and we make accessories for Xbox. We work with them in all sorts of categories. So, audio is probably our biggest category. But then-

Larry Hryb: Headsets and stuff.

Scott Weber: Yeah, headsets, Chad Headsets, big like, and super expensive. Cool. High-end headsets like Astro.

Jeff Rubenstein: I love all of them.

Scott Weber: All the super premium stuff. And then steering wheels is a big thing for us. Storage, working with CGate. And then, yeah, all sorts of other fringe stuff that's on the periphery.

Larry Hryb: So he brought a bag of stuff later. Some cool accessories.

Scott Weber: I got goodies.

Larry Hryb: Stuff that has been announced and stuff that we... I've never seen before.

Jeff Rubenstein: Well if you haven't seen it, does it really exist?

Larry Hryb: Well, I'm telling you. So we're going to talk about that later, but I wanted to just bring Scott in since he and I chatted on This Week on Xbox, and like "I got to get you on the show."

Scott Weber: Alright.

Larry Hryb: Got to get him on the show.

Jeff Rubenstein: You know there's a lot of other stuff you have to talk about to?

Larry Hryb: We talk about what we're playing. I already prepped him.

Scott Weber: I'm ready for it.

Larry Hryb: I prepped him. So do you want to start with what we're playing? Do you want to go into the headlines, Jeff? What do you want to do?

Jeff Rubenstein: Let's stick with the plan.

Larry Hryb: I mean, what are we going to sample?

Jeff Rubenstein: Let's ease into it. Like an old man into a warm bath.

Larry Hryb: [laughter] Okay, that's something I didn't need [crosstalk 00:02:45].

Jeff Rubenstein: That was a Seinfeld line or something.

Larry Hryb: Well, I'm playing Human Fall Flat.

Jeff Rubenstein: Really?

Larry Hryb: Yeah. Have you played that Scott?

Scott Weber: I have not.

Larry Hryb: It's a puzzle game. You can use... There are multiple... You should try it, we should try co-op sometime.

Jeff Rubenstein: Okay. Wait, okay.

Larry Hryb: It's co-op. Basically you're this...

Jeff Rubenstein: Like a rag doll, right?

Larry Hryb: Yeah. You're like this blobby, oozy old man sliding into a bath tub.

Jeff Rubenstein: See, I knew where we were going with this.

Larry Hryb: And it's, it's you have to solve puzzles. And it's a lot of fun.

Jeff Rubenstein: I believe it's like one of the more popular games on Xbox Game Pass.

Larry Hryb: I think it is too.

Jeff Rubenstein: I just feel like a lot of people were introduced to that game via the power of it being included within the 100 days.

Larry Hryb: Right. Because the barrier to entry, as they say, is like "I'll download this," and download it and hey, it's actually kind of fun.

Jeff Rubenstein: I've downloaded it, I've just never gone to it. Because I've watched people play on streaming services, and it just really fun. It just looks ridiculous.

Larry Hryb: It is. It is. So that's why I know there's a multi-player component to it.

Jeff Rubenstein: Alright.

Larry Hryb: Or co... I should say co-op, it's not multi-player. It's not PvP.

Jeff Rubenstein: Got it.

Larry Hryb: PvP.

Jeff Rubenstein: Can I smack you, though? Because I feel like I would probably do that.

Larry Hryb: Probably.

Jeff Rubenstein: Let's do that.

Larry Hryb: So I'm playing that. Of course I've been racking up the wins in Apex in the latest season of Apex.

Jeff Rubenstein: You're pretty... So, okay. So last week was Inside Xbox.

Larry Hryb: Yes.[crosstalk 00:04:02].

Jeff Rubenstein: And I was watching, and I love watching the chat as it's streaming by at near the speed of light.

Larry Hryb: It's faster than light.

Jeff Rubenstein: There was an Apex reference that you had in there.

Larry Hryb: Yeah.

Jeff Rubenstein: And someone was like-

Larry Hryb: Mozambique.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah. Well, someone was like "Oh, he doesn't play Apex." And I was like "Excuse me."

Larry Hryb: [laughter]

Jeff Rubenstein: The comment was gone before I could possibly reply.

Larry Hryb: Well, I sent you my Battle Pass number. My Battle Pass level.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yes. You're like in the 40s.

Larry Hryb: 43 and seven eighths. It's like a hat size. [laughter]

Jeff Rubenstein: Really big hat. Considering I'm at like 15.

Larry Hryb: Right.

Jeff Rubenstein: I mean, because, you know, it is a grind to unlock all that stuff.

Larry Hryb: It is.

Jeff Rubenstein: That's pretty far ahead.

Larry Hryb: I'm grinding away. Do you play any Apex, Scott?

Scott Weber: I'm not an Apex play, no.

Larry Hryb: Okay. What are you playing, by the way?

Scott Weber: I'm on FIFA 19 all day, every day.

Jeff Rubenstein: I was playing a lot of that this week too.

Scott Weber: Yeah. So I'm deep into the Ultimate team levels there.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah. Fut, you're Futmen.

Scott Weber: I'm a Futmen. Yeah. So we got team of the season coming out here in a couple of weeks, hopefully.

Jeff Rubenstein: Tots.

Scott Weber: Tots.

Larry Hryb: Tots, that's right.

Scott Weber: Tots, yeah. Very, very excited for that. Hoarding those coins, waiting for those new packs to drop.

Larry Hryb: Cha-ching, cha-ching. That's... Yeah, we've played FIFA a couple times.

Jeff Rubenstein: We have, you know, occasionally. I'm a big FIFA fan.

Larry Hryb: Yep.

Jeff Rubenstein: And you're a Madden fan.

Larry Hryb: In fact he's such a big football fan, sometimes Jeff will actually tune out of meetings to watch games live stream.

Jeff Rubenstein: Here's what I found out.

Scott Weber: Well, the champion's league is in the middle of the day. How are you not going to put it on?

Jeff Rubenstein: A lot, I'm mean... There's a lot of games during the middle of the day right now.

Scott Weber: It's very true.

Larry Hryb: I have to show you this. So if you follow me on Instagram, I put up an Instagram story. You can find me[crosstalk 00:05:40].

Jeff Rubenstein: Instagram.com, slash Major Nelson.

Larry Hryb: But I put up an Instagram story yesterday of you playing.

Jeff Rubenstein: I know. Like I can't do anything-

Larry Hryb: So I have that up there.

Jeff Rubenstein: -if I am not eyes focused on the monitor and typing out an important memo. Larry seems to be able to capture it, whether I'm playing Apex or watching Arsenal play during a meeting.

Larry Hryb: Let me show you this. Someone across from you in the meeting that we both know. And look at the bottom. He sent me a DM. Who's a big friend.

Jeff Rubenstein: [laughter]

Larry Hryb: This is one of the Game Pass guys, who was in that meeting. He's like "I knew it, I knew it!"

Jeff Rubenstein: That's not great. Yeah.

Scott Weber: Matt, where you going to call him out? I know him too. [laughter]

Larry Hryb: I have no shame.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, no, that's... At least wait like a week, so they go "Wait, was that in my meeting?" You know, "Could I have been more interesting?"

Larry Hryb: Well, it turns out, so Graeme Boyde, AceyBongos, you're familiar with him, he saw that and he ran into me in the hallway. He's like “Yeah, I kind of do that to.” Apparently when it's on he'll sit in the back of the meeting, quietly in a corner.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah. That's when I put the laptop, I take it off the table and I put it in my lap. And I have it a little folded down. Look, it's the time zones. We have to deal with what we have to do. I'm finding my own work life balance at work.

Larry Hryb: We're going to talk about, so we talked about FIFA, we talked about that. So here's something you don't know. This is actually-

Jeff Rubenstein: It's going to be a very long list. How much time do we have?

Larry Hryb: It's a... So Scott here, on the third party accessories team, he actually hosts his own podcast on Mariners baseball.

Jeff Rubenstein: Really?

Scott Weber: I do.

Jeff Rubenstein: They're doing pretty well this year, aren't they?

Scott Weber: Yeah, they are. We'll see if it lasts.

Jeff Rubenstein: I know. The Phillies started five and one, and I was pretty happy too.

Larry Hryb: We're make sure we put a link in the show notes. We'll talk about it towards the end of the show as well.

Scott Weber: Sure.

Larry Hryb: But I just want to say he's also a fellow podcaster.

Jeff Rubenstein: That's good.

Scott Weber: Set up not as nice as this. We were talking about it before we came on.

Jeff Rubenstein: This is quite the setup.

Scott Weber: It's pretty nice.

Jeff Rubenstein: Up in here in Major towers.

Larry Hryb: This is a nice studio. We're fortunate because we've been doing this. I don't know if you know this, but... So I've been doing the podcast, my podcast, this podcast for how long, Jeff?

Jeff Rubenstein: 16 years?

Larry Hryb: 16 years. So we've done over 500 episodes.

Scott Weber: I heard the number at the beginning. It's impressive

Larry Hryb: It's ridiculous, it's ridiculous.

Jeff Rubenstein: Let's not get into the specifics of the number.

Larry Hryb: Yeah the number... It may be a hundred less. I don't know.

Scott Weber: It's hotly contested.

Larry Hryb: But I will say we have hundreds and hundreds of shows.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yes.

Larry Hryb: Can you agree with me on that, Jeff?

Jeff Rubenstein: I know. This is still one of my favorite times of the week. We actually talk about the things we do. I mean, we just play so much Apex, Larry.

Larry Hryb: You have to remember. So Jeff and I, obviously we're very good friends. I see him during the week. We're playing Apex at night. On the weekend sometimes I'll stop by your house, or we'll meet up somewhere.

Jeff Rubenstein: You're always in my neighborhood. I must have good stores near where I live.

Larry Hryb: Oh, it's the Asian food.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, it's pretty good. We have some... There are five Thai places I can walk to.

Larry Hryb: That's true.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah.

Larry Hryb: Alright, alright.

Scott Weber: You live on the Ave.?

Jeff Rubenstein: Ah, no, no, but not far.

Scott Weber: Got it.

Jeff Rubenstein: And you know what else came out this week?

Larry Hryb: Oh, bring it back [crosstalk 00:08:38].

Jeff Rubenstein: I hate to keep us on track.

Larry Hryb: We hate to talk about games, but go ahead.

Jeff Rubenstein: Mortal Kombat.

Larry Hryb: That's right.

Jeff Rubenstein: It's so good. Mortal Kombat 11. Have you played any of the recent Mortal Kombat? Nine or ten?

Scott Weber: I played, the one, I think it was ten.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah.

Scott Weber: Came out in like 2015.

Jeff Rubenstein: You can call it X.

Scott Weber: X.

Larry Hryb: Right, it's always that "Do I call it X or do I call it ten."

Scott Weber: Mortal Kombat X. Going to give it to you.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yes.

Scott Weber: Pretty fun. Pretty fun. And I'm not like a fighting game guy, but I mean I grew up playing Mortal Kombat. Right? That's a-

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, who didn't? I used to go to a bowling alley.

Scott Weber: Yeah.

Larry Hryb: Well, just so you know, Scott. Sitting in that very third spot one year was Ed Boone, the creator of Mortal Kombat.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, that's right.

Larry Hryb: Remember, we had him on the show.

Jeff Rubenstein: E3. Actually when Mortal Kombat X was first playable.

Larry Hryb: Yeah.

Jeff Rubenstein: And we had him on, and he told us how he designs all of the fatalities as stick figure drawings. And what's amazing is now playing Mortal Kombat 11 where there's the most just insane fatalities. You would think after now 11 games plus a number of like sort of side spin off games, there's no further ways to do a fatality. You're wrong.

Scott Weber: [laughter]

Jeff Rubenstein: You're wrong. The level... He's the nicest guy, and the weirdest stuff comes out of his brain.

Larry Hryb: Yeah, he's great.

Jeff Rubenstein: And they've gone over into like parody. I remember, if you go back to 1993-

Larry Hryb: Have they jumped the shark?

Jeff Rubenstein: No.

Larry Hryb: [laughter]

Jeff Rubenstein: You go back to 1993, and it was like "Oh, this is gruesome and uh." But now they're like, they're kind of funny.

Larry Hryb: [crosstalk 00:10:07].

Jeff Rubenstein: They're so over the top, especially Johnny Cage's stuff, it's legitimately laugh out loud funny. And Cassie Cage. A lot of these fatalities-

Scott Weber: I saw one of the Cassie Cage ones, yeah.

Jeff Rubenstein: -you're like, did that really happen. Yeah, where she does the heart, the thing. Anyway. It's just, you have to play it. There's even a fatality trainer.

Larry Hryb: Yeah.

Jeff Rubenstein: So you can just practice those.

Scott Weber: That's great, that's great. Would have been great in 93.

Jeff Rubenstein: Oh my. Back then, like back in the day. Because I didn't have internet. I'd never even bought a computer om 1993. I was a kid. You had to like go, and you had to watch people's hands, like at the arcade.

Larry Hryb: Right, at the arcade.

Jeff Rubenstein: Because people would not want to share it. Like maybe if I lost to someone like six times in a row, they'd be like "Here's how you do that kick."

Larry Hryb: Yeah.

Jeff Rubenstein: You know, or whatever. But like you had to write it down, and you had to like memorize it. It took a lot. And then what you would do is you would hoard that knowledge. So I remember one time for Mortal Kombat 2 when it first came out, this must have been, I don't know, 94, 95. My neighborhood had one, and I had been, again, jealousy watching people, and I had picked up quite a bit.

Larry Hryb: Is this when you're Philadelphia?

Jeff Rubenstein: No, this is in south Florida. This is Miami.

Larry Hryb: Okay, south Florida.

Jeff Rubenstein: And then one of my best friends at the time, his parents where split up, and he was like "Hey, come on up. We're going to my mom's house. She lives in Boca." [crosstalk 00:11:21]. We went up to Boca. Boca Vista, phase two.

Scott Weber: There we go. It was number two.

Larry Hryb: [laughter]

Jeff Rubenstein: And Will Chamberlain, like basketball player, hall of famer Will Chamberlain had a restaurant called... And it was sort of like an arcade. Sort of like an early bar-cade. Like a restaurant as well. And we get there, and they'd just gotten their Mortal Kombat 2 machine.

Larry Hryb: Right.

Jeff Rubenstein: And people were flocking to it, but they had never played Mortal Kombat 2. They didn't know anything, and I knew all the moves.

Larry Hryb: Uh oh, so you were-

Jeff Rubenstein: So we get there, and there was like an hour wait to sit. And I put my quarter up, and I start playing. I'm starting winning. And then it's like "Okay, the table's ready." "I'll be right there as soon as I lose." "Okay, we're putting in our order." "I'll be there as soon as I lose." "The foods here." "I'll be ready as soon as I lose." "We're paying the bill."

Larry Hryb: You ran the table? [laughter]

Jeff Rubenstein: 24 straight matches that I won. I lost on the 25th. It was not fair, because I knew all the moves for like five different characters, and one person came up like five or six... I took him for like three bucks, which this was the 90s, that's worth like 80 dollars in today's dollars. And anyway, now you can just look it up. And now actually you just pause it and all the moves are there. Which is great for being able to level the playing field, and you find out whose actually good. I needed that level of like government secrecy to hold that over people in order to rack up that win streak. Didn't eat dinner that day, though.

Larry Hryb: There's a lot more things we needed to remember back in the day, you know. Like we've got... We needed to remember directions, now you've got it in your phone. You've got GPS in your phone.

Jeff Rubenstein: Life is so much better now.

Scott Weber: It is. You know, back then you could hoard that knowledge, or you could have someone call like the... If you had like Super Nintendo or something, they could call 900 number.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yes, yes.

Scott Weber: The Nintendo Power 900 number. And that was like three dollars a minute or something.

Larry Hryb: We actually-

Scott Weber: I mean it was absurdly expensive.

Larry Hryb: We actually work with somebody on our team who used to work on that line.

Scott Weber: That's amazing.

Larry Hryb: Because Nintendo is right around the corner from us. So he would tell us stories about that. How back in-

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, and advanced really high into the industry with that as their first job. Like sitting there with this giant book of tips.

Larry Hryb: Oh yeah. And he was describing the book to us on the Zeldas. It was... Anyway. So yeah, so Mortal Kombat. In fact, we like to surprise and delight on this show.

Jeff Rubenstein: Oh, go on.

Larry Hryb: You ready?

Jeff Rubenstein: Yes.

Larry Hryb: Alright.

Jeff Rubenstein: I'm surprised.

Larry Hryb: Get your NATO alphabet ready. Whiskey Three Seven Foxtrot Yankee Juliet Hotel Delta Queen Three. Foxtrot Nine Four Whiskey. Victor Foxtrot Delta Four Delta Kilo Hotel Whiskey X-raY Three. And then there's one more. If you can figure out what the one more is, you can get a copy of Mortal Kombat.

Jeff Rubenstein: Did you just activate a sleeper cell from like a Tom Clancy book?

Larry Hryb: I'm just, that was a code for Mortal Kombat 11.

Jeff Rubenstein: Oh, hey.

Larry Hryb: But you need to figure out what the last one is. And I'll give you a clue. If you watch, if you play FIFA or if you're from not the United States, it's how you refer to...

Jeff Rubenstein: That sport?

Larry Hryb: No. How do I say this? It is a... It is what... It's the last... I don't want to say anymore.

Jeff Rubenstein: People are like hitting fast forward right now to get this explanation.

Scott Weber: I mean, what do we got. We got 36 possible combinations of what I'm told.

Larry Hryb: It's the first letter of another name for zombies.

Jeff Rubenstein: Okay.

Scott Weber: Okay.

Jeff Rubenstein: Where did FIFA come from there?

Larry Hryb: I don't know, I went off the rails.

Scott Weber: There's a connection point later.

Larry Hryb: No, there may not be a connection. Anyway, good luck to anybody who got that. I'm sure it's already gone. So don't email me if you say it didn't work.

Jeff Rubenstein: No, you'll tweet at me, I'm sure.

Larry Hryb: Wow, that was a waste of time. Let's move on, Jeffery. Shall we? [laughter]

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah. So Apex, we've been playing a ton of. And then Operencia. I know I've talked about his once or twice. This will be the last time. This is an Xbox Game Pass RPG.

Larry Hryb: Yes.

Jeff Rubenstein: Old school sort of in its make up, but very new in the way it looks. Just highly recommend it. It's just really fun. Based off of Hungarian mythology, which if you're like me, you know nothing about it.

Larry Hryb: What, that was your minor in college, wasn't it?

Jeff Rubenstein: Ah, no. That was Bulgarian. One country down.

Larry Hryb: Okay, sorry.

Jeff Rubenstein: Or two. Now I got to look at a map. Anyway, Operencia: The Stolen Sun. It's on Xbox Game Pass. Definitely worth getting after.

Larry Hryb: Yes. Get after it.

Jeff Rubenstein: You can. Oh, one more thing. Guacamelee 2. I think I've talked about before. So good.

Larry Hryb: Yeah, you have talked about before.

Jeff Rubenstein: It's so good.

Larry Hryb: Have you played that one, Scott?

Scott Weber: I have not.

Jeff Rubenstein: The original Guacamelee I believe is still on Xbox Game Pass. One of the best Metroidvanias. You're playing a luchador, an undead luchador. It's really good. It has the right level of challenge, fun, great music. Guacamelee 2 is more Guacamelee, which is-

Larry Hryb: Guacamelee-er.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yes.

Scott Weber: I've got a lot to play.

Larry Hryb: Yeah.

Jeff Rubenstein: You do.

Scott Weber: I've got a lot to play.

Larry Hryb: We all do.

Scott Weber: This is what happens with FIFA and Ultimate team. You'll like "I should play something else." And then they go "New content." More, new content.

Jeff Rubenstein: That's me with Apex. It's like "Alright, I'm going to play a game I haven't beaten yet." And then I'm like "Oh, all these people are on? Where are we dropping, boys?"

Larry Hryb: And then the new content for Assassin's Creed Odyssey.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yes. I downloaded[crosstalk 00:16:22].

Larry Hryb: Right.

Scott Weber: Oh my gosh.

Jeff Rubenstein: It looks so good.

Larry Hryb: Have you played that?

Scott Weber: I... Have I played it. I decided like a fool to 100% the game.

Larry Hryb: What?

Scott Weber: I did.

Larry Hryb: Now, Jeff, you did that, right?

Jeff Rubenstein: No.

Scott Weber: Every single location completed.

Larry Hryb: Assassin's Creed Odyssey, the latest one. How did you... How long did that take you?

Scott Weber: 110 hours.

Larry Hryb: Holy cow.

Jeff Rubenstein: And you know what, worth it.

Scott Weber: Ah, there's a sense of self accomplishment to it.

Jeff Rubenstein: Sure.

Larry Hryb: [crosstalk 00:16:44].

Scott Weber: You know, and I like that. They changed the achievement, which is really annoying. In Origins, when you got every single question, completed them all, there was a rare achievement that you got.

Larry Hryb: Right.

Scott Weber: And then they changed it. They made it easier in Odyssey, that you just had to travel to every location and not complete them. Even travel to like every island.

Larry Hryb: Right.

Scott Weber: So I didn't get that big, like, ding when I got every single one, but in my heart I felt it. I knew it. For me I felt it.

Jeff Rubenstein: Cassandra or Alexios?

Scott Weber: Cassandra.

Jeff Rubenstein: You are allowed to stay for the remainder of the show.

Larry Hryb: You passed.

Scott Weber: Cassandra.

Jeff Rubenstein: So this Fate of Atlantis DLC looks so good.

Scott Weber: It looks really cool.

Jeff Rubenstein: Because is spent, I think I only spent a mere 80 hours in Odyssey, and I can't wait to go back. So that's something I'll do this week. If stop being online for Apex, Larry, then I will be doing this. It came out this week. I'm going to link to a trailer, because I looked at this. This is not the first piece of DLC for the game.

Scott Weber: Correct.

Jeff Rubenstein: But this one was just like, this is the one you've been waiting for. And it's going to be a three parter, as well.

Larry Hryb: As any good story is.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yes. And epic in three parts.

Larry Hryb: An epic in three parts.

Jeff Rubenstein: I will link out to the trailer.

Larry Hryb: An epic Greek tragedy in three parts. Or is it? I don't know.

Scott Weber: Indeed.

Jeff Rubenstein: I don't know.

Larry Hryb: Alright. What else do we have for news there, Jeffery?

Jeff Rubenstein: Alright, so Mortal Kombat like we talked about. Now available on Xbox One. There are a couple different varieties. If you didn't pre-order to get Shao Khan, well you can still pick him up. He is an addable purchasable character, as well as Frost.

Jeff Rubenstein: Kingdom Hearts 3.

Larry Hryb: Yeah.

Jeff Rubenstein: I think I saw something that said this is the best selling game of the year so far. So congrats to Square Enix. They definitely... You know, good things come to those who wait. And if you've beaten Kingdom Hearts 3 and said "This is too easy." Well, there is a critical mode update to challenge you.

Larry Hryb: Is anybody saying that?

Jeff Rubenstein: I don't know.

Scott Weber: If they are, we've got them covered.

Jeff Rubenstein: I mean, it's not... I didn't beat it. So I would say it can... The battle was a lot of fun, I don't know if it was super hard. But anyway, this critical mode cuts Sora's hit points and magic points in half and decreases the frequency of situation commands and magic. Like when you summon like the electric light train or something like that that definitely helps sway the balance in these big battles. Anyway, it's now available as an update in Kingdom Hearts 3. You will see it if you try to start a new game. Don't forget, that game is enhanced for Xbox One X.

Larry Hryb: Yes. And it looks so good.

Scott Weber: Beautiful.

Jeff Rubenstein: So new trailer came out just the other day for Shores of Gold.

Larry Hryb: Oh.

Jeff Rubenstein: Shores of Gold is part of Sea of Thieves Tall Tales.

Larry Hryb: Yes.

Jeff Rubenstein: Which is a more story driven element coming to Sea of Thieves. Their anniversary update, April 30th. Which is really soon.

Larry Hryb: And also past their anniversary, but... [laughter]

Jeff Rubenstein: This is their anniversary year.

Larry Hryb: It's the same area, yeah.

Jeff Rubenstein: Anyway, coming for Xbox. If you have Xbox Game Pass or on Xbox One you have the game. Windows 10 PC coming out. There's a ton coming. There's the arena. But Shores of Gold, this tall... There's nine distinct Tall Tales. Each of which-

Larry Hryb: Is each one taller?

Jeff Rubenstein: -you can tackle as a solo player.

Larry Hryb: Is each one taller?

Jeff Rubenstein: We don't want to give away spoilers on this. That's no spoilers on Tall Tails.

Scott Weber: It's [crosstalk 00:19:59]progressive.

Larry Hryb: [laughter]

Jeff Rubenstein: No spoilers on Game of Thrones, and no spoilers on Avengers. Which I don't know if you've seen yet either. It's going to be a crazy weekend.

Larry Hryb: Yes it is.

Jeff Rubenstein: Like the next four or five days, it's going to be nuts. Anyway, so there is a trailer, if you want to get an idea of what's coming. But so many things are coming to the game. Besides Tall Tales, things like fishing, which people have been asking for.

Larry Hryb: I'll tell you what I'm really excited for.

Jeff Rubenstein: What?

Larry Hryb: Go ahead.

Jeff Rubenstein: Is it the harpoon?

Larry Hryb: Yes.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yes.

Larry Hryb: Yes.

Jeff Rubenstein: [laughter]

Larry Hryb: That harpoon. I can't wait to thump, stick in the side of a ship.

Jeff Rubenstein: Put in the side of a ship, put it in the side of a shark.

Larry Hryb: Right. Oh, there sharks.

Jeff Rubenstein: There's so many things you'll be able to do with it.

Larry Hryb: We can finally get, we can finally play again with Sketch from 343.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yes.

Larry Hryb: Whose afraid of sharks. [laughter]

Jeff Rubenstein: He's not going to be any less afraid. And now that the megaladon can appear at any place and any time.

Larry Hryb: Right.

Jeff Rubenstein: And then also ships are going to be damageable, that's a word, in more places than one. So you can like take out the mast, and you can take out like the...

Larry Hryb: Have you played Sea of Thieves?

Scott Weber: I have, yeah.

Larry Hryb: It's a lot of fun, isn't it?

Scott Weber: It's really fun.

Jeff Rubenstein: This is going to be a good time to go back, and I have a feeling a lot of people are going to be playing that. Jumping back in next week.

Larry Hryb: Yeah. I'm trying to get Craig from Rare on the show, or at least Joe. But they're getting busy to ship. And we had a little bit from Joe on Inside Xbox last week. Go back and watch that show. You'll get some more details of what Jeff talked about.

Jeff Rubenstein: Alright. Minecraft. Another game millions of people playing. Big update, if you have the Bedrock version of the game.

Larry Hryb: Yes.

Jeff Rubenstein: Which is basically if you were to download it now, that's what it would be on Xbox One, Windows 10, IOS, Android, and Nintendo Switch.

Larry Hryb: Wait whose missing? Oh, never mind. Go on.

Jeff Rubenstein: The Village and Pillage Update is out today.

Larry Hryb: Yes.

Jeff Rubenstein: And it really changes the different sort of villagers that you would encounter. First of all there's going to be a lot more of them. More things you can trade for. There's going to be a wandering-

Larry Hryb: Are they angry?

Jeff Rubenstein: Well, some of them are. The pillagers, these are like the newest mob that will appear. They can attack with a crossbow. Fortunately you can also now craft and attack a crossbow. So they've just added so much more to the game in the last couple... Like, if you haven't played Minecraft since like, let's say a year after it came out on Xbox one, there are so many more things, so many more animals, so many more things to do, so many more things to kill you. So many more materials to build with. Highly recommend you jump back in.

Larry Hryb: There's more, more, more.

Jeff Rubenstein: There's just a lot. And I love the building, but I really love, like the survival elements of the game, and so a new mob is good. And we will link out to our Minecraft dot net, where you can find more about that.

Larry Hryb: Yes.

Jeff Rubenstein: If you this weekend aren't busy with the third episode of Game of Thrones or Avengers-

Larry Hryb: Oh. are you watching Game of Thrones, Scott?

Scott Weber: Oh yeah.

Larry Hryb: Yeah, we are too.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, we're have to have a spoiler cast this summer. Not this one. If you're looking for something else to do between those episodes and that movie, Gears of War 4 and the Crew 2 have free play days this weekend.

Larry Hryb: Two different types of games.

Jeff Rubenstein: So if you have Xbox Live Gold, and if you're listening to this I'm assuming you do, by the time you're hearing this, you can find and install Gears of War 4 and the Crew 2 standard edition. We will link out to where you can find those links. Make it a little bit easier. You can play them free through midnight on Sunday, and they're also on sale... Well, the Crew 2 is on sale up to 70% off.

Larry Hryb: Fun.

Jeff Rubenstein: And Gears of War 4 is of course available as part of Xbox Game Pass, but if you don't have Game Pass, you want to try out Gears of War 4, why there's never been a better time to do it.

Larry Hryb: What are you waiting for?

Larry Hryb: Bless you, you alright?

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, that's it.

Larry Hryb: Okay. Little [inaudible 00:23:36] there, little sniff going on.

Jeff Rubenstein: A little. We're good, we're good. And that's the news.

Larry Hryb: That's just a little bit of the news. You want to catch up all of it, make sure you tune in to This Week on Xbox every Thursday on your console YouTube mixer.

Jeff Rubenstein: Facebook.

Larry Hryb: And this week you're have Scott on the show if you want to put a voice to a name and actual voice and a face to all that.

Scott Weber: See this mug.

Larry Hryb: By the way, you see what's going on across the table from you, Scott?

Scott Weber: Yeah.

Larry Hryb: Jeff's... What are you drinking there, Jeff?

Jeff Rubenstein: That's a taste of Japan right there.

Larry Hryb: Is that saki?

Jeff Rubenstein: No, no. That will be after noon.

Scott Weber: What time is it right now? [laughter]

Jeff Rubenstein: So I'm a big fan of Japan, of visiting Japan.

Larry Hryb: As am I. Have you been, Scott?

Scott Weber: I have been to Japan. My parents are actually in Japan right now, believe it or not.

Larry Hryb: So you've been?

Scott Weber: I have. I've been to Tokyo.

Larry Hryb: Okay, because we love... We talked a little bit earlier about you're a Mariners, you run a Mariners podcast. What's it called by the way?

Scott Weber: It's called Dome and Bedlam.

Larry Hryb: Dome and Bedlam.

Jeff Rubenstein: Okay.

Larry Hryb: Okay. But yeah, when we go over there, we usually go to the Tokyo Game Show, which is right next to where the Mariners Farm team plays.

Scott Weber: Ah.

Jeff Rubenstein: Chiba Marines.

Larry Hryb: Chiba. Yeah, the Chiba Marines.

Jeff Rubenstein: Well not only that, but I believe the Mariners were the first Japanese owned baseball team.

Scott Weber: Correct, yeah.

Jeff Rubenstein: That the owner of Nintendo or the president of Nintendo owned them for a long time.

Scott Weber: Indeed. No longer.

Larry Hryb: Okay. Who owns them now?

Scott Weber: It's basically all the minority owners that were a part of the team before all stepped up and they are the primary.

Larry Hryb: So they've gone from minority to majority.

Scott Weber: It's a collective group.

Larry Hryb: Got it.

Jeff Rubenstein: So it's safe to say that everyone here at this table is a friend and a fan of Japan and Japanese culture. And one of my favorite things-

Larry Hryb: Wait a minute, I have to ask one question.

Jeff Rubenstein: Please do.

Larry Hryb: So you're a fan of Japanese culture.

Scott Weber: Sure.

Larry Hryb: Jeff and I, independently, have Japanese toilets.

Scott Weber: [laughter]

Jeff Rubenstein: Toto washlet.

Scott Weber: They're serious about their toilets.

Larry Hryb: Do you have one?

Scott Weber: I don't.

Larry Hryb: Okay. We're not going to hold it against you.

Scott Weber: But I would absolutely, if given the choice.

Larry Hryb: Okay. It is the... I'll tell you this-

Scott Weber: This is more a lack of handyman.

Larry Hryb: [crosstalk 00:25:30]

Scott Weber: The thought of slapping on a toilet is like terrifying.

Larry Hryb: If Jeff can do it, you can do it.

Jeff Rubenstein: No, if I could. Believe me, it's not difficult.

Scott Weber: Okay. Alright.

Larry Hryb: But yeah, that is the ultimate accessory to your bathroom.

Scott Weber: Oh, it is.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yes. Japan is living in the future, and I realized it when I sat down.

Jeff Rubenstein: So one of the things that I love about Japan is that there are in all parts really of Japan that I've been to, vending machines everywhere.

Larry Hryb: Yeah.

Jeff Rubenstein: And they have for a very low price, sometimes as low as a 100 yen or less, which is like, I don't know, 90 cents or something, all kinds of delicious treats. And among them, their canned coffee is just phenomenal.

Larry Hryb: The leader.

Jeff Rubenstein: And out of all of them in my mind the leader is Boss Coffee, which is part of Suntory-

Larry Hryb: Appropriately named.

Jeff Rubenstein: And Suntory makes tons of stuff like whiskey and many other things that I don't have until after news.

Larry Hryb: Suntory time.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yes, exactly. Until after noon.

Scott Weber: Okay, got it. So saki, okay during this part of the podcast. But the whiskey comes later, right?

Larry Hryb: [laughter]

Jeff Rubenstein: Yes, exactly. So last week Suntory USA or whatever twitter tweeted out “We are making Boss Coffee available in the US for the first time.”

Larry Hryb: Yeah.

Scott Weber: Wow.

Jeff Rubenstein: And this is like the real Japanese Boss Coffee.

Larry Hryb: It even has Japanese characters written on top.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, there's kanji on the top there. And I just cracked it, this is the first can I've had.

Larry Hryb: Oh, it is?

Jeff Rubenstein: Yes.

Larry Hryb: Oh my gosh.

Jeff Rubenstein: And I wanted to have it here on the show.

Larry Hryb: Well thank you Ann.

Jeff Rubenstein: So this is Boss Coffee flash brew cold café au lait, and my god.

Larry Hryb: It's good. Yeah, the good the stuff. Jeff got a couple of those.

Jeff Rubenstein: That is a little sip of heaven.

Scott Weber: I have not had mine yet.

Jeff Rubenstein: Right there.

Scott Weber: Want to get that.

Jeff Rubenstein: I brought a couple for you.

Larry Hryb: Yes you did.

Jeff Rubenstein: And I hope you enjoy them.

Larry Hryb: I will.

Jeff Rubenstein: And they're now selling them here in the US.

Scott Weber: On Amazon, right?

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah. And you owe it to yourself.

Larry Hryb: Can you put a link in that. Let's put a link in the show notes.

Jeff Rubenstein: Oh yes. I'll be more than happy to do that. I'll bring that up. The world just got a little bit smaller, is how I would put it. Something I could never have except when I'm there, I can now have here. Obviously there's like 50 varieties when you're over in Japan. I like the one with the embossed can. This is good enough.

Larry Hryb: Okay. [crosstalk 00:27:28] the black one, right.

Jeff Rubenstein: There's a lot. Well, there's so many.

Larry Hryb: Yeah, right.

Jeff Rubenstein: But the one with the embossed can has like Boss anniversary or something like that.

Larry Hryb: Yeah.

Jeff Rubenstein: It's amazing.

Larry Hryb: Yeah, look it up online.

Scott Weber: Nice.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yes.

Larry Hryb: So, anyway.

Jeff Rubenstein: I will link out to Suntory USA.

Larry Hryb: Let's get back to games, shall we?

Jeff Rubenstein: This is my gamer fuel.

Larry Hryb: This is... Okay. Gamer fuel, the Japanese edition.

Scott Weber: Japanese coffee, Mountain Dew code red. Like whatever you want.

Larry Hryb: Alright, Scott, I want to talk to you about accessories. We talked at the top of the show about what you do. So you work on the team here that works, that kind of works with our partners to bring some cool stuff to the market. So tell me about some of the projects from the past you've worked on, and then we'll talk about some of the newer ones.

Scott Weber: Yeah. I've been on team for four years.

Larry Hryb: Right.

Scott Weber: So we've done a lot of cool stuff. A lot of cool co-branded stuff.

Larry Hryb: What were you doing before this? People always ask that. How'd you get [inaudible 00:28:18].

Scott Weber: Yeah, I have kind of a strange path. Business in college and then I was in music industry for a while. And then I did market research kind of on my own. Actually did market research for Microsoft for a little bit as an independent contractor. I kind of freelanced. And then I had kind of a side gig in journalism, writing about baseball for a while.

Larry Hryb: Right.

Scott Weber: And I ended up here.

Larry Hryb: Here we go.

Scott Weber: And then I didn't write about baseball anymore, because that's too much to do at one time.

Larry Hryb: But you're doing your podcast.

Scott Weber: Exactly.

Larry Hryb: And we'll link to that in the show notes as well. So you worked on a lot of different things. Some of the examples people are using right now are...

Scott Weber: Yeah. If you use any sort of audio headsets, like from Razor, from Turtle Beach, anything like that, we've had our hands on that.

Larry Hryb: Lucid.

Scott Weber: Lucid Sound, indeed. I mean, I've done a lot of cool co-branded stuff. That's some of the stuff I really like to do. Like for Gears 4, we did a headset with HyperX.

Larry Hryb: Yep.

Scott Weber: It's really, really cool. Going up to the Coalition and meeting with Rod and the whole guys up there to get the leather just right on the headband.

Larry Hryb: They're great like that, aren't they?

Scott Weber: Yeah.

Larry Hryb: It's the details.

Scott Weber: All the stuff with ID and getting that just totally cool is rad and being able to include awesome stuff in the box and all that.

Jeff Rubenstein: That's my daily driver, by the way, is that Gears HyperX headset.

Scott Weber: Oh, I love it.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yep.

Larry Hryb: Yeah.

Scott Weber: The audio quality in that thing is amazing.

Jeff Rubenstein: It's very good.

Scott Weber: Just so cool, yeah. So love that, and then... Yeah, anything from Seagate that you've seen come out in the store space?

Larry Hryb: The hard drives for storage.

Scott Weber: Yeah, so you know storage is storage, but we do extra work to make sure it's a great out of box experience.

Larry Hryb: Sure.

Scott Weber: Console. And then we also include stuff like trials of Xbox Game Pass or like for Sea of Thieves, there's an exclusive weapon that you can only get when you buy the Sea of Thieves hard drive. Midnight Blunderbuss, or something or to do-

Jeff Rubenstein: That's a beautiful hard drive, by the way.

Scott Weber: It's great, yeah. And so it's really fun, you know, working with the controller team and everyone on ID to make sure that we're like matching hardware so we can just like cool, kind of like for the ultimate collector. Like if you're a huge fan of a franchise, you want to own everything that there is to do about it.

Jeff Rubenstein: Sure.

Scott Weber: Just make this amazing portfolio of stuff that you can all put on your coffee table living room setup, whatever you want.

Larry Hryb: And this week we had you on This Week on Xbox because we announced a new headset. Now you have it with you, right?

Scott Weber: I do. It's in my bag of goodies.

Larry Hryb: So this headset is one that's Steel series, which everyone knows, is familiar with. But this is a special Xbox one, right?

Scott Weber: Yeah. So-

Larry Hryb: Jeff, take a look at that. I'm using that at home now.

Scott Weber: Like I said...

Jeff Rubenstein: Oh, that feels nice.

Scott Weber: It's really nice. I mean the Arctis line, they've had it on PC for a super long time. It's like, they say it's the most awarded headset. That's their whole thing, and when you put it on you kind of understand why.

Larry Hryb: Put it on, Jeffery.

Jeff Rubenstein: I will do that. The thing I like about, and I'm taking this one off, about Steel series is they've always had this like secondary band underneath there, because one at my work desk. I use a Steel series wired, and it always made it really comfortable.

Scott Weber: Yeah, it's like from ski goggle technology. That's what they did there.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah.

Scott Weber: And it has velcro on the sides, so you can like adjust it. I mean it's like two points of tension release that you can have at the top. So you can move it up and down if you want.

Jeff Rubenstein: And the microphone is very unobtrusive.

Larry Hryb: Until you pull it into action.

Scott Weber: Yeah, it's a pull out, pull in. And so...

Jeff Rubenstein: I still like it.

Scott Weber: The thing I like about that though, is that I love to have a headset that like, take it on the bus. Play it anywhere you want.

Jeff Rubenstein: Because this has Bluetooth in it.

Scott Weber: It has Bluetooth. So if you're looking to like really splash on a headset that has this incredible sound quality, you can use it for music, you can use it for your apps, you can use when you play on a console, because it Xbox wireless so it connects directly to the console, just like your controller.

Larry Hryb: That's one of my favorite features. Check this out. When you mute it-

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah.

Larry Hryb: -it's red.

Jeff Rubenstein: Oh. So you know. You can see it out of the corner of your eye. That's really smart, and I think you touched on something here. I have my gaming headsets, and they have... And I love them, but they've got like a big, rigid microphone there, and even if I can remove it, it's my gaming headset, and that's that.

Scott Weber: Right. They look very gamer-ry.

Jeff Rubenstein: Right. And then I have a separate pair of like Bose headsets or something. That's what I would wear on a plane or something like that.

Scott Weber: Yep. Me too.

Larry Hryb: But these are, so these are exclusive for Xbox, because they do have our wireless chip in it, which is-

Scott Weber: That's correct.

Larry Hryb: Which is, it has Bluetooth in it so you can connect to a mobile device. You can actually probably connect that to a PlayStation 4.

Scott Weber: Yeah.

Larry Hryb: Right. If you wanted to. But we have a different technology, which is our Xbox wireless technology, which there's a reason we have it. Why don't you talk a little bit about that.

Scott Weber: Yeah. I mean if you've ever played Bluetooth before, or anything with Bluetooth before, you know that there's degraded quality in your audio, and there's latency too. Like I mean-

Larry Hryb: It's also not reliable.

Scott Weber: No. It's really not. And if you have multiple devices connected via Bluetooth, I mean... We all use it, right? We know how noise and unreliable the tech can be. So for audio, like especially with wireless, I mean you know when you're playing [inaudible 00:32:58], it like drops and you get anything like that. It ruins it.

Larry Hryb: Yeah.

Scott Weber: So we want to have the most reliable connection possible. And so that's why we have Xbox wireless, where we just... I mean, we took the chip out of our, like, our controller and it's a little... Industry talk, but we externalize it and you just get like really, really great, reliable... And it's easy. The experience is so easy. Because everyone knows how to... You know, everyone using Xbox knows how to pair their controller.

Larry Hryb: Right.

Scott Weber: You just do the exact same thing on your headset.

Larry Hryb: Now on this headset-

Scott Weber: It will turn your console on.

Larry Hryb: I noticed that. Because I've had one for a few weeks. I was like, this is actually kind of cool. You press the power button on the headset and the console powers up.

Scott Weber: I've been playing with this a little bit, too. One of my peers on the team, and every time I power it on, it will like turn on his Xbox, and then switch his monitor.

Larry Hryb: Oh, that's troll, troll.

Scott Weber: And he's like “Stop doing that.”

Larry Hryb: Now, I've had some questions, because, you know I've had this for a few weeks. You guys got me one, so I've been playing around with it before it was announced. There's a lot of things, like it supports virtual surround. I mean, all the stuff you'd expect in a quality headset, right?

Scott Weber: Yeah, definitely. It supports Window Sonic and Dolby Atmos and all that kind of stuff. The quality, I'm sure you know, but the sound quality is top-notch[crosstalk 00:34:06].

Larry Hryb: And you can go in there, and I noticed there's a Windows app you can download, plug it in USB, and you can actually customize it.

Scott Weber: Yeah, you can.

Larry Hryb: Because a lot of folks have asked... I was answering some questions on Reddit about it. You should probably drop by there. But there's a slider for how much side tone, which is how much... They call it, what do they call it? Voice monitoring.

Scott Weber: Yeah. Mike monitoring.

Larry Hryb: So how your voice... Mike monitoring. So it's...

Scott Weber: Yeah, that's a very subjective thing.

Larry Hryb: Sure.

Jeff Rubenstein: I can't live without it.

Scott Weber: Some people despise it. I like a little bit.

Larry Hryb: Just a little bit.

Scott Weber: Just to know the mike is hot.

Larry Hryb: And so what we're talking about is when you're talking in a headset, is you hear just a little... It's kind of like you're on the phone, you hear a little bit of your voice back in your ear, so you know hey, this thing is working.

Scott Weber: Right, right.

Larry Hryb: There's a whole fascinating story about side tone and the Bell engineers back in the 60s that they discovered. We won't go into that.

Scott Weber: I was ready for it.

Jeff Rubenstein: On this we'll... On telecommunications today, our other podcast, we're cover that.

Larry Hryb: [laughter] But you can actually control side tone, you can decide when you turn it on if Bluetooth is on or off. The app has a whole ton of things you... You can certainly do the EQing and so forth, so it's a lot of fun.

Scott Weber: Yeah, I love this headset. And Steel series has been around for so long, and they're a great partner of ours.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, they make a lot of other really cool stuff. I think I have a Steel series keyboard.

Larry Hryb: Yeah.

Scott Weber: I mean, I've been using Steel series stuff forever. I mean, when I was in college playing Counter-Strike 1.6, I used Steel series headsets and microphones and all that.

Larry Hryb: So good stuff.

Scott Weber: Yeah. Great stuff.

Larry Hryb: So those are available, those are start-

Scott Weber: Today.

Larry Hryb: You can pre-order today, and they are available today.

Scott Weber: Yeah, you can buy them today. Microsoft stores and GameStop.

Larry Hryb: Right on. Alright. So what else did you bring? Because you got a couple things. Lets go to the other headset that you brought by. Because this one is one that I have a little bit of an emotional connection to, because when he pulled it out of his bag-

Jeff Rubenstein: Is it made out of wood?

Larry Hryb: No, you remember this one.

Jeff Rubenstein: Oh my god. I do remember that, yeah.

Scott Weber: Look at that.

Larry Hryb: So this one was in... This is the... What's the name of this product?

Scott Weber: This is the Hyperkin, oh the number is slipping my mind. Hyperkin chat headset.

Larry Hryb: So this is the one that a lot of people have been asking for.

Scott Weber: They're been asking for it forever. You've heard it, I'm sure.

Larry Hryb: Yeah, yeah.

Scott Weber: I mean, I see it, because I go to the Xbox One Reddit too, you know, and I see what people are asking for and what the latest features. And everyone's like, bring back that mono-chat headset.

Larry Hryb: So this is one that was like based on the same design as we had in the 360.

Scott Weber: Right.

Larry Hryb: It's a single ear-

Scott Weber: Modernized.

Larry Hryb: It's a single ear headset. It of course has a microphone on it. There's your batteries. And this one is... I think they announced this last year, right?

Scott Weber: They did announce it last year. Yeah they announced it I think at FanFest last year.

Larry Hryb: Right. So it's coming out, though, finally.

Scott Weber: It is. It is coming out. It's coming out in July.

Larry Hryb: Okay.

Scott Weber: That's when we're slated for now. Yeah, so this is wireless too.

Larry Hryb: Sure.

Scott Weber: This doesn't use the Xbox wireless technology. It just has a little USB dongle that plugs into. The same kind of wireless experience.

Larry Hryb: Into the console?

Scott Weber: Into the console, yeah.

Larry Hryb: Now, how much is that one?

Scott Weber: This is going to be 35.

Larry Hryb: 35 bucks for that guy.

Scott Weber: Yep.

Larry Hryb: And that's pretty straight forward.

Scott Weber: Yeah, it's really cool. I mean, we're always trying to listen to the fans and like execute on... Our job is to like fil the gaps in the whole ecosystem, right? So if there's something you want on the console, if it's possible for us to do it, we're going to do it. And sometimes there's challenges in getting it to market and just like executional stuff that... You know, and things happen. There's politics and stuff. But like we're doing everything we can. So please if you have feedback, continue to voice it, because we watch all that kind of stuff and drive to get solutions.

Larry Hryb: Now you had something else in there that you wanted to show us as well.

Scott Weber: Yeah, something else from Hyperkin here.

Larry Hryb: This is really cool, Jeff. I don't know if you've seen this one. Look at that.

Jeff Rubenstein: That, oh wow. Yeah.

Scott Weber: Alright. This is the Hyperkin...

Jeff Rubenstein: Hand it over.

Scott Weber: I mean, on radio here. Check the link the description below.

Larry Hryb: Yeah, this is the...

Scott Weber: Yeah, Hyperkin S wheel. So it is effectively called a speed wheel.

Larry Hryb: So it's a fully wireless wheel.

Scott Weber: It is a fully wireless wheel. You can see its fairly small form factor. You can actually, I see what you're pointing to on the back. You can mount it if you want.

Jeff Rubenstein: That's so cool. This reminds a little bit of a much, much, much better version, if you recall, way back in the day of Mario Kart on Wii.

Scott Weber: Yes.

Jeff Rubenstein: You could stick the Wiimote into essentially just a plastic ring.

Scott Weber: Just a shell.

Jeff Rubenstein: So it felt like it. But this is like fully realized.

Larry Hryb: Well, we had one of those on 360. Right.

Scott Weber: Yeah, yeah.

Larry Hryb: Yeah, so it was-

Scott Weber: It's... Yeah. I mean, Hyperkin, they also did the duke. So like they love the retro kind of stuff and modernizing it. So this is also Xbox wireless. It is, I mean, it's so cool. It is, yeah. You just hold it in your hands and you turn it from left to right. It's got paddles on it, your shifter paddles.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, exactly. And they have like a really good mechanical feel to it. Listen to this.

Scott Weber: It's got a pop. It's very clicky.

Larry Hryb: Now those are the paddles underneath now. Before you came here, off the air before we start, Scott, you were saying this is a controller?

Scott Weber: It is a controller.

Larry Hryb: So you know what that means, Jeff.

Jeff Rubenstein: We have to play FIFA with it.

Larry Hryb: Or Dark Souls.

Jeff Rubenstein: [laughter] Can you beat Dark Souls with the wheel. I love it.

Scott Weber: Yeah, it's a functional controller. And actually has like the right thumb stick. No left thumb stick.

Jeff Rubenstein: Left thumb stick, yeah.

Scott Weber: Left thumb stick is turning the wheel, with the accelerometer, right?

Jeff Rubenstein: Right.

Scott Weber: And then the right thumb stick is up there, it's actually on the upper left.

Larry Hryb: So you're right thumb stick is in the upper left to really screw with your head.

Scott Weber: Right. Exactly. But yeah, all the other buttons are on there.

Jeff Rubenstein: Hold it upside down. You'll be fine.

Scott Weber: Yeah, it's pretty cool.

Larry Hryb: And this wireless and it's also rechargeable?

Scott Weber: Yeah. Wireless. It comes with a charging dock. 120 bucks. And that is available actually on the 30th.

Jeff Rubenstein: You really, you need to feel that. You obviously feel, but I mean like the listener. I've never felt a controller quite like, and it's really high quality.

Scott Weber: Yeah, it's really nice. It's got kind of like a soft touch [crosstalk 00:39:30].

Larry Hryb: Got a nice weight to it.

Scott Weber: Good balance and weight. We've been using this around the office a lot. It's just... I mean, right now with Horizon 4 and everything that's like more... You know, it's a hardcore game, but it's more like casual than-

Larry Hryb: Sure. [crosstalk 00:39:43] Forza.

Scott Weber: It's more like you can lean back on your couch and play it and it's not as competitive. This is just perfect for that.

Jeff Rubenstein: Alright, I found it on the Microsoft store and I'm going to be linking out to the Hyperkin S Wheel wireless racing controller.

Scott Weber: There you go. That's it.

Larry Hryb: Now there's a whole bunch of stuff coming out, but one of the things that you brought by here, and I have not seen this before. Jeff, take a look at this. This is a prototype for what we're showing, but this product is... So explain what the product is and what it's going to do.

Scott Weber: So this PvP Mars, and this the light gun technology coming back. It's very, very cool. They've been working on this for a number of years. I believe I first saw this three years ago.

Larry Hryb: Okay.

Scott Weber: Behind closed doors at E3. The way that it works is it has actually a camera that plugs into the console via USB and it just-

Larry Hryb: So there's this little webcam-y kind of thing, separate device.

Scott Weber: Yeah, it's a little webcam. Just sits on your coffee table, sits on your couch, wherever you want. Just points at the screen, captures all four... It doesn't matter if it's projector, it can project on a wall. It doesn't matter. It just has to see-

Larry Hryb: The display.

Scott Weber: The display of it. It will calibrate. And then it's a low power laser that communicates back and forth. And what you get is you get this-

Larry Hryb: You turned it on.

Scott Weber: You get better latency, like really low lag-

Larry Hryb: Right.

Scott Weber: And the best accuracy you've ever seen. I mean, we all play Duck Hunt, you know.

Larry Hryb: Right, of course.

Scott Weber: This is a-

Jeff Rubenstein: Just shoot the dog and the duck will die.

Scott Weber: Yeah, just shoot the dog. I want to get a port of that game where the dog is shootable, because in my mind for years I[crosstalk 00:41:08].

Larry Hryb: You're going to call it Dog Hunt?

Scott Weber: Yeah. [laughter]

Larry Hryb: PETA will have a word with you.

Jeff Rubenstein: I was about to say.

Scott Weber: I was like, well, you know it sounded better in my head.

Jeff Rubenstein: We're fine with the ducks. Yeah, yeah, maybe dial that one back.

Scott Weber: Maybe just scare him off. We're just scare him off, yeah, yeah. Whatever, he can just stop mocking you, essentially.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yes, yes.

Scott Weber: Yeah. So this is, I mean it's really, really cool. It is coming in July.

Larry Hryb: But what's great about this is there's... It's a nifty gun, so it's... You can actually click it back, Jeff, you'll get a reload mechanic if you wanted.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah. Like a pump action.

Larry Hryb: On the barrel. But what's also interesting on this one is you don't see the laser. You only see on the screen the reticul.

Scott Weber: Yeah, you just see it on the screen. Yep. That's it.

Jeff Rubenstein: What game would you use this for?

Scott Weber: So, there are two titles that PvP the company is actually bringing to market with this. They'll be bundled. One of them is called Cubit's Quest, and it's a platformer kind of. So there is a dog, you don't shoot the dog.

Larry Hryb: Okay.

Scott Weber: You shoot other things that... [laughter]

Jeff Rubenstein: They did focus testing.

Scott Weber: Yeah. It didn't test great. So you shoot like a crane and it will drop a power up, or... You're doing things to get through a level, essentially.

Larry Hryb: Sure, sure.

Scott Weber: Really, really fun. And there's a bunch of mini-games that come with it, and it's a blast. I've played it. And this supports up to four of these at once, too.

Larry Hryb: Wow. So is this one camera that supports four?

Scott Weber: One camera, and then you get up to-

Larry Hryb: This is actually more of a sensor, right?

Scott Weber: Yeah, I mean it is a camera that points at it, but that's just what the communication is.

Larry Hryb: What is going on there? I noticed that when you tilt it.

Scott Weber: Yeah, interesting. I've never done that before. [laughter]

Jeff Rubenstein: What are you?

Larry Hryb: Look in the lens.

Jeff Rubenstein: Oh, it doesn't... It's got like a gyroscope or something.

Larry Hryb: Yeah. It's got a little something in there, I don't know what that does.

Jeff Rubenstein: It's like a magic eight ball.

Scott Weber: They're really making sure. Answer unclear. That's my answer to this.

Jeff Rubenstein: [laughter] Well done.

Scott Weber: So it supports up to four of these, and so you can it all at once. And then the other one is more mature. Rated M for mature. Where it's called Voyage of the Dead, and you're on a cruse ship and zombies have taken over.

Jeff Rubenstein: I'm already sold.

Scott Weber: And it's very like kind of campy and funny humor and...

Larry Hryb: The cruise, is it the cruise part or the zombies?

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, I mean, “You thought the norovirus was dangerous, this cruise really has news for you.” I love like [inaudible 00:43:18]games. Like Time Crisis is one of my favorite games ever.

Scott Weber: Yeah.

Larry Hryb: Really?

Scott Weber: So you'll love Voyage. It's like a super similar experience, right? You're shooting weapon power ups and things like that and it's tracking all your stats at the top. So you're against your friends and all that. It's just so fun. And it's kind of that like on-the-rails as you're going through type experience.

Larry Hryb: Now has this been announced?

Scott Weber: It has been announced. Yeah. So it's coming in July. Early July.

Jeff Rubenstein: We need to get this. So in my neighborhood there's a fully functioning, there's a bar with a fully functioning Time Crisis 3 machine, which I've beaten so many times.

Larry Hryb: I know, because whenever I call you, you're down there.

Jeff Rubenstein: Usually. And like having this back in my home again would be amazing. It's been a long time since there was a home version.

Scott Weber: It has, yeah. I mean, that's one the... Hey, fill the gaps. That's what we try to do, right? When a partner has a... I mean, it's not like we told them. This is their idea. It's really, but you know. You know we played around with it and it's just such cool tech, it's really awesome. So we're very, very excited about this.

Larry Hryb: So that comes out in July?

Scott Weber: Comes out in July?

Larry Hryb: And how much will that be?

Scott Weber: Yeah. I believe... I don't want to speak on the price, because I'm not final on it, but it's super affordable.

Larry Hryb: Okay.

Scott Weber: And then we'll be, yeah, we'll have a bunch of announcement beats and futures on this coming up, so stay tuned for more on this.

Larry Hryb: So that's just a look. These are just a few of... How many accessories do we have in the portfolio now?

Scott Weber: Oh, so many. Hundreds.

Larry Hryb: Yeah.

Scott Weber: Yeah. Easily hundreds. I know we did over a hundred last year.

Larry Hryb: Wow.

Scott Weber: Yeah.

Larry Hryb: Lot's of stuff going on. Now this one, we'll need to find a link to link out to the light gun, because it's a pretty amazing... It's a fascinating update of the technology.

Scott Weber: It is.

Larry Hryb: This kind of old creaky technology from back in the day that's been really modernized and from the sound of it made really usable and quick.

Scott Weber: Yeah, definitely.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, I feel like the original light gun games came out probably in like the 60s or 70s or something like that.

Larry Hryb: I think Ralph showed us some when we were up here with Ralph Baer.

Jeff Rubenstein: And there is something about... It's just fun. Like you don't have to explain it to anyone.

Scott Weber: It's just so casual, yeah. Point and shoot. That's it.

Jeff Rubenstein: There you go.

Larry Hryb: It's kind of like a camera.

Scott Weber: Uh-huh [affirmative]

Larry Hryb: There you go.

Jeff Rubenstein: I like it. Bring it by.

Larry Hryb: Alright. Well, we're going to... Those are just some of the accessories we have, and like you said, we'll have links to those and all of the in the show notes here. And then maybe we'll have you on again in a few months to talk the refresh and whatever you guys got coming.

Scott Weber: Yeah. There's always a ton coming for a holiday, and you know, we're in so many different categories. I mean, we did keyboard mouse, and all sorts of stuff.

Larry Hryb: That's right. With Razer.

Scott Weber: Yeah. Razer Turret Keyboard and Mouse is out there, and... You know, there's just, there's so many different... We did a TV tuner once when we were backing that. So there's always a lot of fun stuff going on. And this holiday will have some.

Larry Hryb: What's you're favorite third party accessory? Do you have one?

Scott Weber: Oh gosh, I mean probably-

Jeff Rubenstein: Choose your favorite child.

Larry Hryb: Now, now.

Scott Weber: Probably for me it's my Seagate two terabyte SSD.

Larry Hryb: There you go.

Scott Weber: [laughter]

Larry Hryb: There you go.

Scott Weber: Just because every single day I use it, and it just improves the loading time so much, it's just really incredible. I'm fortunate enough to have worked on that and bring it to market.

Jeff Rubenstein: I have a friend who has one of those, and he said his load time in... He plays a lot of The Division 2.

Scott Weber: Yeah.

Jeff Rubenstein: And it speeds up loading by like 75% or something crazy.

Scott Weber: I mean, it obviously varies per title.

Jeff Rubenstein: Sure.

Scott Weber: But on some of the titles, you know you forget, and sometimes you're like “Oh, I'm playing this off the internal,” when it starts to take more than ten seconds to fast travel somewhere.

Larry Hryb: Right, right.

Scott Weber: Or when the-

Larry Hryb: Yeah, I have my SSD and I had it loaded with games like Overwatch.

Scott Weber: Yeah.

Larry Hryb: And I always get to choose first.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yep.

Scott Weber: Yeah.

Larry Hryb: Because I load in. Oh, okay, I'll choose first.

Scott Weber: That's a nice little. See, it can be a competitive advantage.

Larry Hryb: Well, in that mode, and I don't know if elsewhere.

Scott Weber: [laughter]

Larry Hryb: Yeah, there's just a lot of great of stuff, so we'll put a link off to all those things and we'll have you on again in the future.

Scott Weber: Sounds good.

Larry Hryb: And then, also, how do they find your podcast?

Scott Weber: Podcast, we're on Twitter at Dome and Bedlam.

Larry Hryb: Okay.

Scott Weber: And then we have a SoundCloud link to our podcast there. You can also find us on Apple podcasts or Castbox, whatever you use. Dome and Bedlam.

Larry Hryb: Whatever your thing is to listen to shows.

Scott Weber: Yep.

Jeff Rubenstein: Linking out to that.

Larry Hryb: Thank you Jeffery. Alright, we're going to wrap it up here, because we've got lunch to get to. We've got the rest of our day, and Jeff has...

Jeff Rubenstein: I've got to move on to a Suntory high ball. Because I finished my flash brewed cold café au lait.

Larry Hryb: Because it's that time. Alright, any thing else you guys want to leave before we go? I mean, we've got a crazy few weeks coming up. Jeff and I and are going to try to do another show on Mixer before E3.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, we should do that.

Larry Hryb: We'll want to do that. We've got of course E3 coming up with Inside Xbox. We're going to be doing that. It's a-

Jeff Rubenstein: I can't wait.

Larry Hryb: Really?

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, I'm really excited.

Larry Hryb: E3. Now how many E3s have you been to, Scott?

Scott Weber: This will be my third E3.

Larry Hryb: Okay. So it's, yeah, it's going to be fun this year in the Microsoft Theater.

Scott Weber: It's going to be really, really fun. Yeah. Jeff's trying to think how many he's been to.

Jeff Rubenstein: 13, I think.

Scott Weber: 13.

Larry Hryb: I think that's how many I've been to as well.

Scott Weber: Actually, this might be my fourth.

Larry Hryb: Okay. Yeah, you lose track after a while.

Scott Weber: If I'm already losing track, I'm not going to be able to know 13 when I get to it. [laughter]

Larry Hryb: Now one thing I did forget is the guys over at the gear store, Gear dot Xbox dot com, sent me an email today. When we post this show, which is April 26, I wore a green sphere on Inside Xbox. Those pins are now available.

Jeff Rubenstein: Oh, very cool.

Larry Hryb: You can download those.

Jeff Rubenstein: I've also seen a look at the things that they'll be making.

Larry Hryb: Hey, hey, hey.

Jeff Rubenstein: Coming up.

Larry Hryb: Spoiler. Don't.

Jeff Rubenstein: I'm just saying it's good.

Larry Hryb: Be cool. I know, I know.

Jeff Rubenstein: Can't wait till you get to see them.

Larry Hryb: Different bunch of stuff there, but I'm looking forward to it. Alright gang, we will... Scott, thanks so much for coming by.

Scott Weber: Thanks for having me.

Larry Hryb: And good luck to your Mariners this year.

Scott Weber: They're going to need it.

Larry Hryb: Okay. And Jeff and I will see you sometime in the future. We don't know when or where. You can follow Jeff on Twitter at-

Jeff Rubenstein: Jeff Rubenstein.

Larry Hryb: That's where you hit the complaints as well. You can follow me at Major Nelson, and we will talk to you guys later. By-bye everybody.

Larry Hryb: Hi it's Larry Hryb, Xbox Live's Major Nelson, welcome to the show. Jeff and I are together in the studio for show number, it looks like around 600-

Jeff Rubenstein: This is roundup, show number 2000.

Larry Hryb: What are you? You can't just start making numbers.

Jeff Rubenstein: The numbers, they don't mean ... Larry you make up the numbers.

Larry Hryb: Show 4,100, so thank you.

Jeff Rubenstein: A celebration.

Larry Hryb: But wait, you can argue with the numbers all you want, but what you can't argue with is the fact the show has been on the air for 15 years.

Jeff Rubenstein: That's true, right? I've been here for almost a third-

Larry Hryb: The longest running podcast-

Jeff Rubenstein: Featuring Larry Hryb.

Larry Hryb: I think at Microsoft ever.

Jeff Rubenstein: I believe that.

Larry Hryb: Yeah, because I started doing it when everyone was ...

Jeff Rubenstein: Does Bill have one? Does he have a show?

Larry Hryb: I've had him on this show.

Jeff Rubenstein: Really?

Larry Hryb: Yes, I had him on this show I believe-

Jeff Rubenstein: In this very chair?

Larry Hryb: Not in that chair, we interviewed it was at E3.

Jeff Rubenstein: Just tell me.

Larry Hryb: Where was it? It was at E3, I want to say 2007 or eight, and I had him on, we interviewed him up in ... What was that hotel? Was it the Roosevelt? I think it was at the Roosevelt, down in Hollywood.

Jeff Rubenstein: Sure, oh yeah.

Larry Hryb: When we had our briefing across the street at the-

Jeff Rubenstein: The Kodak.

Larry Hryb: The Chinese theater. No, it's Chinese-

Jeff Rubenstein: Oh, Mann's?

Larry Hryb: Yeah, at Mann's Chinese theater.

Jeff Rubenstein: Oh wow.

Larry Hryb: So, we did that-

Jeff Rubenstein: Never been in there.

Larry Hryb: It's I think ...

Jeff Rubenstein: So, that hotel, I did stay in that hotel one time, I did an event there. And what's really interesting, it's right across the street from that theater and they do a lot of movie premiers there. And, while we were getting set up for an event that we were doing in that hotel on the Roosevelt, there was a TV and one of the channels was a feed of a camera pointed directly at where all the limos drop off. And, it took us a little bit to figure out, why is this here? It's so that whoever's staying there before a premiere, typically one would expect the stars of the show or whatever, they can watch everyone come in and they can time out when they would do their entrance.

Larry Hryb: Well, isn't that how everyone does it?

Jeff Rubenstein: Maybe that's how you do it. I just show up late like I did today.

Larry Hryb: You weren't late, you were right on time.

Jeff Rubenstein: Thank you.

Larry Hryb: The listeners don't know. They started the show right on time according to them.

Jeff Rubenstein: I thought you were going to put in five minutes of silence just to represent-

Larry Hryb: No, you know me, really early is on time, on time is late.

Jeff Rubenstein: I'm usually late.

Larry Hryb: We're in the studio as you can tell. We're back from ... You were away, you took a few days off.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, I took a few days off, went up to FAIR Canada to Whistler-

Larry Hryb: As opposed to unfair Canada.

Jeff Rubenstein: Well, there were some parts of fair than others, I'm sure most people would agree that Whistler is as fair as it gets. And, just doing some snowboarding and the like, and then we were there for four days and we had an Airbnb, and so of course I brought my Xbox. So, it was shred all day.

Larry Hryb: What did you play.

Jeff Rubenstein: Apex and Anthem all night.

Larry Hryb: Yeah, well I'm playing Apex, I've a few wins, you have one.

Jeff Rubenstein: I have one win. I think I have somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 second place finishes.

Larry Hryb: Good.

Jeff Rubenstein: It hurts. It hurts. It happens a lot. I feel like I finish second place more than I finish anything else.

Larry Hryb: [crosstalk 00:03:15].

Jeff Rubenstein: It is, I'm the first loser. And, I got to get more wins. I feel like from a strategic perspective, doing everything right, and then when it comes down to [crosstalk 00:03:27].

Larry Hryb: When we played that one match, we thought we hit a really ... We have a high ground all of a sudden.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, we were so smart.

Larry Hryb: These guys Spidermaned in on us, they just dropped it, we're like, what?

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, it happened to me, and then it happened to me again the next day. And, it's a heck of a game that Apex.

Larry Hryb: It sure is.

Jeff Rubenstein: They've done a great job, new weapon.

Larry Hryb: You're playing Anthem as well?

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah. I'm really enjoying Anthem, I've been using EA Access.

Larry Hryb: Yeah, which is out this Friday. If you're EA access member, you get 10 hours early.

Jeff Rubenstein: Exactly. So, chances are by the time you're hearing this, it is already out. Most games on EA Access, it comes out between three and seven days before street date and you typically get about 10 hours to some variants there from title to title. I don't usually come anywhere near using up the full 10 hours.

Larry Hryb: Really?

Jeff Rubenstein: I usually, I'll dabble, I'll play FIFA little early every year or whatever it might be. I'm using up, I think I've got about an hour to go. It's Thursday as we're recording this, I will use that last hour up tonight, and then I will wait for my retail version-

Larry Hryb: Quietly when it unlocks later this year.

Jeff Rubenstein: I'm having a really good time with it.

Larry Hryb: Yeah, I played it last night or a couple of nights ago and I can see myself ... Right now, I mean we've always talking about this, it's like, oh, there's too many games. There's this, there's Apex, there's a new map for Overwatch, I mean the list goes on.

Jeff Rubenstein: That's right. We haven't had the Paris map.

Larry Hryb: We got Crackdown three, which I finished last week, we've got Witches in Game Pass.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yes. This is a very busy town. Metro is out.

Larry Hryb: Yeah, oh Metro, I totally forgot about Metro.

Jeff Rubenstein: Jump Force is out, Far Cry New Dawn is out.

Larry Hryb: Whoa, stop it.

Jeff Rubenstein: Have you played that yet?

Larry Hryb: Yeah, I played a little bit of it.

Jeff Rubenstein: And then, we have a lot of stuff coming up around the bend getting ready for Division two.

Larry Hryb: Division two, yeah.

Jeff Rubenstein: This is one of the busier springs in memory. Oh, and Devil May Cry.

Larry Hryb: Devil May Cry.

Jeff Rubenstein: Devil May Cry's only a couple of weeks away.

Larry Hryb: So, we've got that. We've got a bunch of stuff coming out and I can confirm today as of right now, Jeff and I will be attending PAX East.

Jeff Rubenstein: PAX East. I booked my flight last night. I'm very excited.

Larry Hryb: I know you did, I saw that. I need to book mine. Right now, the podcast right now currently is scheduled as they say for Friday.

Jeff Rubenstein: In Boston, they say that in Boston?

Larry Hryb: Friday. It's fricking awesome Friday.

Jeff Rubenstein: There we go.

Larry Hryb: So, we'll be on Friday. We're usually on Saturday, but we're going to change things up. We wanted to just blow things around a little bit.

Jeff Rubenstein: All of PAX has moved up. PAX starts a day earlier this year instead of it being Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday. It's Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday.

Larry Hryb: Wait a minute, before it used to be just three days, now it's a whole other day [inaudible 00:05:50].

Jeff Rubenstein: Soon, it will always be PAX.

Larry Hryb: Right.

Jeff Rubenstein: It will just be, oh, what's the ... It's PAX day.

Larry Hryb: Pax day.

Jeff Rubenstein: Just PAX day, happy PAX day.

Larry Hryb: So, we'll have more details as we get closer to that. We're going to have some special guests and we'd love to see you there if you're there on that Friday.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yes. It's a good change of pace. I think you should grow out your beard for that.

Larry Hryb: You have been after me to grow up this beard. I grew it out when you were gone, because last week we had by the Seattle area quite a bit of snow. More so snow than Seattle normally guests.

Jeff Rubenstein: Well, it's funny, yeah, which is none, basically.

Larry Hryb: Which is none, right.

Jeff Rubenstein: Or, a dusting and we both grew up in the northeast, and you would always hope it will be enough snow to not go to school growing up. And, in Philly, the further south you go, the lesser amount of snow it takes to do that. You get an inch in Atlanta, the city shuts down. In Philly, it was about four inches. We've got about four inches.

Larry Hryb: Connecticut, it was about five to eight.

Jeff Rubenstein: That makes sense, and then the city can't function. So, Seattle is definitely in that, if it's more than a half an inch, the city shuts down. And, we got about a foot.

Larry Hryb: Yeah. To be fair, we did get about a foot, and you and I were tech because ... I'll never forget that, I was driving home, I remember I was driving home and I was at a stoplight, so I texted you, I'm like, what's going on with you? You said, all the snow just stared. I'm like, oh, it's all dry here. By the time I got to the next stoplight, it was a whiteout, it was just completely blinding.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah. We had given up and just knowing it was going to go bad, we went to lunch and we came out and it was winter wonderland. I mean, look the rest of the country gets it, we don't get that very often, it was nice until you lost power.

Larry Hryb: For three days.

Jeff Rubenstein: For three days. Really, was it that long?

Larry Hryb: Yeah.

Jeff Rubenstein: That was three good days of Apex second place finishes that I got.

Larry Hryb: Yeah. And I actually, I sent you a picture. I didn't post this, but I should post this. I didn't post the photo of my solar panel.

Jeff Rubenstein: Right. What happened?

Larry Hryb: I showed you the solar panel, right?

Jeff Rubenstein: Oh, was that what it was?

Larry Hryb: Yeah. What do you mean that's what it was? So, I have a solar panel that ... Where's that picture? I think it's back here somewhere. But because we were out of power, I'm like, what am I going to do? What am I going to do? So, I had hooked up a solar panel to my switch.

Jeff Rubenstein: Oh, that, yes. Yes.

Larry Hryb: And, I was charging my Nintendo switch with solar power because we had no power.

Jeff Rubenstein: You're part of the green new deal, Larry.

Larry Hryb: Okay. Well, I've been driving electric for how many years?

Jeff Rubenstein: If you tweet that out, I'm sure AOC will follow back.

Larry Hryb: I think she follows me all ready.

Jeff Rubenstein: Sorry, of course she does.

Larry Hryb: I think she was talking about Apex a couple of days ago or something like that.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, she's a gammer. I think she plays World of Warcraft and maybe StarCraft as well.

Larry Hryb: That's hard core.

Jeff Rubenstein: We're getting into an era now where, of course all the politicians play the games because they're like us.

Larry Hryb: Right, they're like us.

Jeff Rubenstein: Well, the good ones are.

Larry Hryb: Well, okay, that's it. That's the line in the sand. We don't go any further with politics.

Jeff Rubenstein: And, now we stop. Hey, let's talk about Crackdown.

Larry Hryb: Can we?

Jeff Rubenstein: Can we?

Larry Hryb: Yeah, it's out now, it's available on Game Pass. Check it out, it is a fun romp.

Jeff Rubenstein: That's a good way of putting it.

Larry Hryb: Wasn't that your back of the box quote? I fun romp in the city, except if we're busy.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yes. Did you bring a quoted on a video game box?

Larry Hryb: Yes, yeah.

Jeff Rubenstein: What was it?

Larry Hryb: I don't remember.

Jeff Rubenstein: Fun romp.

Larry Hryb: I don't remember what it was.

Jeff Rubenstein: Was it one of the games you were in like Kinect Sports Rival or something wearing a wetsuit?

Larry Hryb: I was so angry they put in that one.

Jeff Rubenstein: In a wetsuit?

Larry Hryb: In a wetsuit, that was sponsored and they never gave me any ... I didn't get a dime off of that.

Jeff Rubenstein: No, but the AI always finished in last.

Larry Hryb: And, I always last.

Jeff Rubenstein: Last place Larry. But, do you remember what game you recorded for?

Larry Hryb: I don't remember what it was, It was a long time ago.

Jeff Rubenstein: So, I got quoted once for Dragon Age II from BioWare and I just remember EA calling and saying, "Hey, can we use your quote for the ..." And, I forget what I had said, probably something like an action packed extravaganza or at nonstop thrill coaster ride. I don't know. I don't know what I said, but that was a little fun.

Larry Hryb: You pay for the whole seat, but you only need the edge.

Jeff Rubenstein: Oh, that's a good one.

Larry Hryb: That was one of [inaudible 00:09:42], he used to say that all the time. He was a great [inaudible 00:09:44].

Jeff Rubenstein: That was a good one. Well yeah, I'll save that for next time. But yeah, so that was the one time, but I thought it was really funny.

Larry Hryb: All right.

Jeff Rubenstein: Crackdown.

Larry Hryb: Crackdown.

Jeff Rubenstein: Crackdown also you only need the edge of your seat if at all, if you can even sit.

Larry Hryb: Yeah, blast of a fun. It's just ...

Jeff Rubenstein: No, I just had a ton of a fun. It was one of these games where as many games as there are to play.

Larry Hryb: And, there are a lot.

Jeff Rubenstein: And, they're mostly really good games by the way, I just couldn't put it down. I just kept wandering, it's a very easy game to just jump into play for even if you're willing to play for 20 minutes clear out a couple of vehicle depots or monorail station, and collect 20 orbs. Once you start dancing along the rooftops and picking up an orb or two, you just see, oh there's another one, oh I can't stop until I pick that one.

Larry Hryb: Right.

Jeff Rubenstein: Now, I see another one, I want to play, and I don't know, it just very much grabbed me, and I really enjoyed it. And actually, I'm up to the very final boss, but I want to complete everything else.

Larry Hryb: I see.

Jeff Rubenstein: I literally am on the elevator, or the base station because you can just teleport in right below the final boss, or what I imagine will be the final countdown, do, do, do, do, and yeah. And, I went back, I'm maxing out my skills. Great job, great job with that.

Larry Hryb: Fun, check it out at Game Pass.

Jeff Rubenstein: Game Pass. But Apex.

Larry Hryb: Yeah.

Jeff Rubenstein: So, we haven't gotten to play in the last few days, have we?

Larry Hryb: No we haven't. I don't know about you the listeners, I know you Jeff and I are the same thing, you get on, you get your group of three people, you plus two others, and you start playing and then another friend jumps on and they can't play because you're already got a full team. So, they go off and play with their three and then one of your guys drops out or goes outside, so it's just like you're always in this off cycle, right?

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah. It just seems like at my place at least there's always a few people playing and either I get in, I always I'm like, please just be a party of two, be a party of two.

Larry Hryb: Be a party of two, oh.

Jeff Rubenstein: And, so just I not sink into this.

Larry Hryb: Right.

Jeff Rubenstein: But, yeah, very much I just really loved how they have the players, the different characters going. As much as I like Lifeline that my only wind though is with Gibraltar, I'm sorry, with Bangalore and it's just weird I wan that Lifeline win.

Larry Hryb: Okay, that's-

Jeff Rubenstein: I do.

Larry Hryb: I understand that, yeah.

Jeff Rubenstein: I wish there was a thing that said you unlock trackables so you can share which information you want. You don't have to share what level you're in, you don't have to ... Anything like that. You can be a complete unknown. But, I want something that's just how many second place finishes I got. I wonder if they're tracking that.

Larry Hryb: It's in a database row somewhere.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah. Probably about as many as I have kills.

Larry Hryb: Right.

Jeff Rubenstein: And then, Anthem ...

Larry Hryb: As discussed.

Jeff Rubenstein: Just as discussed, just the feeling of flying in that game, they've really nailed that. And, I've just had a lot of fun exploring. It's another one where I would say most of my friends list is either playing Anthem, or playing Apex, and they do a good job of matchmaking. I would say both of them do a good job of matchmaking. So, even if you're going solo, you can communicate pretty well with other players and there's enough guidance to make everyone cooperate. But yeah, man, I don't know when I'm going to be able to catch up with everything else. I haven't even started Resident Evil two yet.

Larry Hryb: Oh, you haven't?

Jeff Rubenstein: I haven't.

Larry Hryb: I thought you started that before you left.

Jeff Rubenstein: No, I want to be able to have time to just spend all of the ... I haven't finished Kingdom Hearts III.

Larry Hryb: There is a Dead or Alive six demo now available.

Jeff Rubenstein: There is?

Larry Hryb: Yeah.

Jeff Rubenstein: There's a couple of free things to play.

Larry Hryb: Do you got some news you want to go through?

Jeff Rubenstein: Sure.

Larry Hryb: And then, I have a great interview I've got lined up with a really special guest, it's ...

Jeff Rubenstein: Talk to me about this.

Larry Hryb: It's Kate Remington, she hosts a music podcast called Music Respawn. She's a classical music, she studied classical music, but she hosts a classical music show on WSHU in Connecticut, which is a-

Jeff Rubenstein: Shu. You're listening to the Shu.

Larry Hryb: Which is a national public radio station. And, she focuses on video game music, and she very interesting. So, we'll have her come along later on in the show. I've got the interview.

Jeff Rubenstein: All right, sounds [crosstalk 00:13:59].

Larry Hryb: Before we do that, let's bang out some of the news. Big News Week.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yes. Well of course, we had some Xbox game pass announces.

Larry Hryb: Let's talk about that.

Jeff Rubenstein: So, coming soon, Batman: Return to Arkham, this is something that we had talked about on the most recent insight Xbox.

Larry Hryb: I'm Batman. You are Batman.

Jeff Rubenstein: You and Vicary both got into it.

Larry Hryb: Yeah, we did.

Jeff Rubenstein: You did the mask, the face mask.

Larry Hryb: I'm Batman.

Jeff Rubenstein: It was more of a face hugger situation when you placed your ... Anyway, Return to Arkham has both Batman Arkham asylum and the very, very excellent Batman Arkham city. That was a game ... And, I'm not spoiling anything by saying that, but when the credits rolled, it was a perfect ending to a perfect game.

Larry Hryb: Yup.

Jeff Rubenstein: I just thought that ... And, Arkham Knight, the third one was a great game too, but Arkham city just really ... Man, they did just a wonderful job of you explored every part of that city by the time it was over. It had so much depth, they had so many ...

Larry Hryb: Fun.

Jeff Rubenstein: It was fun, but it was also just really clever, really intelligent. And so, I haven't played it since last gen, so looking forward. These of course are the definitive edition, definitive edition of each game has all the post launch content and of course it is appraised and enhanced for Xbox one. Couple of other games, Headlander, Alien Isolation, you played this one.

Larry Hryb: Yeah. Oh, I finished it.

Jeff Rubenstein: You love the alien games. You'd be pissed, you beat aliens Colonial Marines.

Larry Hryb: Well, I love the alien series, that was one of my first adult movies I remember going to see as a kid.

Jeff Rubenstein: That explains a lot actually about you. That was funny, Disney's Epic movie two, I'm sorry, Epic Mickey two, this just came up in conversation yesterday when we were talking about did you know a bit of unusual Arcana. So, Epic Mickey two, so it's a cooperative venture between Mickey Mouse and Oswald, and Oswald's not as well known but Oswald was a Walt Disney designed Oswald back in the-

Larry Hryb: For the rabbit.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah. Back in the '30s or something.

Larry Hryb: He predates Mickey mouse.

Jeff Rubenstein: I guess Disney had no longer had control of the character Oswald. I believe ...

Larry Hryb: Now, we're in uncharted territory because we don't have all the facts.

Jeff Rubenstein: All right, well then anyway, there is a thing, and I have a link to it where Oswald was traded for Al Michaels, the sports.

Larry Hryb: What, how could that be?

Jeff Rubenstein: Do not ... All right. We can come back to this.

Larry Hryb: Put it in the notes.

Jeff Rubenstein: But, there's actually a thing like the rights to him, this was a story. Here's the headline, ESPN trades Al Michaels for Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. That was a thing that happened, and it was a whole-

Larry Hryb: ESPN, is owned by Disney?

Jeff Rubenstein: Yes, exactly-

Larry Hryb: So, it's corporate synergy.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yes, exactly. Of course the story then I'm looking at was on ESPN, but it's a really interesting story, it goes back to 2005. And, I guess in a world where ESPN and Disney are the same company and there's video games, and anyway that's why Al Michaels is the Sunday night, the NBC sports guy now and not Monday night football.

Larry Hryb: Die.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah. I thought it was interesting. Apparently, you don't like football Larry.

Larry Hryb: That's not true.

Jeff Rubenstein: It's fine.

Larry Hryb: Not true at all.

Jeff Rubenstein: It's fine, it's fine, congratulations.

Larry Hryb: I'm struggling to see where you're going here, so.

Jeff Rubenstein: Well, that game Epic Mickey two-

Larry Hryb: Yes, oh Epic Mickey, that's where it was.

Jeff Rubenstein: Is part of Xbox Game Pass joining February 21st, which by the time you hear.

Larry Hryb: Sorry, you took so long to get to that.

Jeff Rubenstein: Look, Larry, if you want someone that's going to get straight to the point, and this is going to assume the podcast.

Larry Hryb: That's not your job.

Jeff Rubenstein: Next week, the Walking Dead season two is coming to Xbox Game Pass along with Alien: Isolation. And of course there is a deal, there's always a deal running. So, if you don't have Xbox Game Pass, shame on you. I'm just going to call it like I see it, but you have no excuse because you can join today. Get your first two months for ... How much would you pay for two months?

Larry Hryb: How much would I pay for two months with access to over 100 games?

Jeff Rubenstein: Over 100 games including Crackdown.

Larry Hryb: I don't know. I don't know what that would be. Would that be $10 a month. $20? I don't know.

Jeff Rubenstein: One would say that those would still be good deals, however you can get your first few months for just $2.

Larry Hryb: Wow.

Jeff Rubenstein: Is that a sour buck? Two bucks?

Larry Hryb: I don't know.

Jeff Rubenstein: I don't know, I'll have to look that up. Anyway, what can you buy for $2 these days? You can maybe get a topping on a pizza without the actual pizza. You could just eat a couple of slices of pepperoni, instead you can get two months of Game Pass. Anyway, I think you should do it. That's just me. What are you waiting for? I've already done it, you know that.

Larry Hryb: I know that.

Jeff Rubenstein: All right, few other games coming out.

Larry Hryb: Yes.

Jeff Rubenstein: So, I don't know if you were playing Jump Force, that was a game that people were very excited about that has just come out in the last week on Xbox one, but if you are looking for more anime, well, One Piece: World Seeker coming out on Xbox one on March 15th. So, there's never been a better time to like these characters.

Larry Hryb: Yes.

Jeff Rubenstein: Some free play days. So, Halo Wars Definitive Edition and Halo Wars two are this weekend going to be free between February 21st, again, by the time you're hearing this, and February 24th, my mom's birthday.

Larry Hryb: Is it?

Jeff Rubenstein: It is. I should really buy her something. I think she wants an air fryer. Do you know what an air fryer is?

Larry Hryb: Yeah, we have one.

Jeff Rubenstein: How does it work, because how do you fry something with air?

Larry Hryb: You just put stuff in there and at fries it with air.

Jeff Rubenstein: Nope, just doesn't make any sense.

Larry Hryb: That's it.

Jeff Rubenstein: How does it ... Anyway mom, you're getting an air fryer and you can play. Hey, I hope she hasn't listened. Halo Wars two and Halo Wars Definitive Edition for free over the course of that weekend.

Larry Hryb: Are you really going to get her an air fryer? What is she going to ... I mean, I know you'd love one.

Jeff Rubenstein: Well, I don't have one, I have an instant pot.

Larry Hryb: Not the same thing.

Jeff Rubenstein: But again, fine. The whole point of frying, if someone says something is fried, you're dropping it in oil. So, if it's an air Fryer, how does that work? That's like saying like an underwater airplane. No.

Larry Hryb: It's called a submarine.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yes. It has a different word and it's a different thing and it's not an airplane.

Larry Hryb: Air fryer.

Jeff Rubenstein: So, I have a lot to look into. I bought my mom something and I don't even know what it is and well, I'll hear about it one way or the other that's for sure. When she says I'm trying not to eat fried food and I have to explain to her that I don't know how it works, but apparently air is involved.

Larry Hryb: And, it's better for you.

Jeff Rubenstein: So, Treasure Stack, Treasure Stack is coming out on Xbox one on March 1st, and this one is going to be cross playable. That's something people like to talk about.

Larry Hryb: Yup.

Jeff Rubenstein: So, it is like a puzzle game and has a treasure version of a Tetris like dropping game, by the way Tetris 99.

Larry Hryb: I know you were talking about that. I saw that.

Jeff Rubenstein: Do you play that at all?

Larry Hryb: I have not.

Jeff Rubenstein: Very interesting, I think there's a lot to learn in that. I've been playing it like just a regular old Tetris game.

Larry Hryb: I don't know if I want to a Tetris battle right now.

Jeff Rubenstein: I think it's very clever. It did get me to sign up for Nintendo's online network, so mission accomplished you guys. And, I'm pretty good at Tetris, I have not yet finished in ... I think the highest I've finished is eighth or ninth place. But, there's a method to that madness playing Tetris with 99 other people at the same time, it's a little bit complicated.

Larry Hryb: Yup.

Jeff Rubenstein: You mentioned the Dead or Alive six demo that's now available for Xbox one, the Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing, there's a complete trilogy out, the NeoGeo King of Fighters 2003. Where were you in 2003?

Larry Hryb: Poking at the ...

Jeff Rubenstein: Where was I?

Larry Hryb: I don't know.

Jeff Rubenstein: I think I was a sports producer.

Larry Hryb: You were probably doing the weather on this video that is ...

Jeff Rubenstein: I know in the video that no one's going to find.

Larry Hryb: That is lost forever.

Jeff Rubenstein: No one's finding that.

Larry Hryb: The internet can do so many things in it. It is foiled by your video.

Jeff Rubenstein: I know, and don't think I don't love it. Well anyway, NeoGeo King of Fighters, you might've been playing it at that time and you can play it again now for the first time on Xbox one.

Larry Hryb: Yes.

Jeff Rubenstein: And yeah, the last game that came out this week, Daggerhood now available for Xbox one. Quite a few Indie games, which also gets me thinking we're getting close to GDC, the Game Developers Conference. It's a time where we tend to show off a lot of Indie games, and so I think I'll have to report back on what I get to play that's coming up in March, which is wow just a couple of weeks away. So, we should do one of these afterwards, I'll take some notes on some of the best Indie games that I play. So, we'll have some insight on what's coming out in 2019.

Larry Hryb: Busy, busy month. Big News this week.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah.

Larry Hryb: Reggie.

Jeff Rubenstein: Oh my God I just found out before recording.

Larry Hryb: Reggie earlier this week-

Jeff Rubenstein: Reggie Fils-Aimie.

Larry Hryb: Announced that he's retiring from Nintendo, I've known Reggie for a long time. I've seen him at events, he's great guy. I've run into him at the health club.

Jeff Rubenstein: Oh really? I mean, yeah, I mean Nintendo is right across the street.

Larry Hryb: Yeah, it's about a thousand feet from where we're sitting right now.

Jeff Rubenstein: And, I've been at an elevator with him once and I think I've done a head nod. I'm going to acknowledge who you are, but you don't know who I am, and that's fine. That's fine, he doesn't listen to the show. Now, he'll have time. He's retiring, so congratulations to him.

Larry Hryb: And, congratulations to Doug Bowser, who is his ... I know you can't write this Jeff.

Jeff Rubenstein: So, Bowser has now trended worldwide twice in the last couple of years. Four years ago when he was hired, everyone's like, I can't believe Nintendo's hiring Bowser, well now they've put Bowser in charge, and the headline ...

Larry Hryb: Your timeline is about to get-

Jeff Rubenstein: They're writing themselves.

Larry Hryb: This is a weird-

Jeff Rubenstein: But you know Doug.

Larry Hryb: I know Doug. I've met him quite a few times, same thing, he's unbelievable. He's a great guy.

Jeff Rubenstein: That's great.

Larry Hryb: So, this is phenomenal, so. A lot of changes there. What else do we got this week in news.

Jeff Rubenstein: Really from a news perspective, that's pretty much it. The big release is Anthem. And, we're just coming off of four other games, and then couple more coming out in the next few weeks like we had mentioned Division two and Devil May Cry five. And so, it's just banana cakes as you might say.

Larry Hryb: Banana cake is crazy. All right, well we're going to take a break here. Then, I want to roll this interview I have done with Kate Remington for music respond from WSHU shoe. Joining me on the line right now is the classical music program hosts for WSHU in Connecticut, my home state is ladies and gentlemen, Miss Kate Remington. Kate, thank you for joining me.

Kate Remington: Oh, hey Larry, it is just so much fun to be on the podcast. I'm a big fan and it's great to have a chance to chat.

Larry Hryb: Well, I got to tell you, I heard you ... Well, you and I have been going back and forth on email for a few months. I heard an interview you did on NPR, National Public Radio, which is the national public radio here in the United States, and you were fascinating because you focus on video game music, which is why you're here.

Kate Remington: Yeah. It's such an under appreciated segment of game design and that's why I started the podcast because I love listening to the music even away from playing the games. And, it occurred to me that you hardly ever hear interviews or read interviews with game composers, and I was like, well, why is that? And, why don't I just do that? So-

Larry Hryb: So, you and I are kindred spirits because I started my podcast in 2003 and one of the areas I always focused on was audio design. Of course, music is part of that, but you are much more learned in this area than I am because you actually went to school for music, correct?

Kate Remington: Yeah. I was a piano major in college and I got into music school because I really wanted to be a conductor. And then, my second semester I realized this is really, really hard.

Larry Hryb: Oh come on. I mean I don't want to be belittled being a conductor. Why is it so hard? Because in fact, because I've always wanted to be one as well. Why is it so hard?

Kate Remington: Well, it was hard for me because I didn't have the chutzpah I guess, or the presence and authority to make these people play the music that I wanted it the way I wanted it to be played. And so, I went to a panel discussion about other things you could do with your music degree besides teach or perform. And, one of the people who was there worked for Wisconsin Public Radio and he made being on the air with a music show sound like so much fun. I was like, I'm doing that. So, I did, and that's how I got into radio.

Larry Hryb: Now, tell me because you and I talked about it off the air. I've been in radio as well, but tell me about the path that ... Obviously radio have something for each of us, but how did it lead you into video games? You have a musical background, but tell me about the path that led you here.

Kate Remington: Well, I don't know, not a direct path at all, but I played Pong when it was new and then skipped a whole bunch of years, but when we got Bondi iMac in the late 1990s, it came bundled with this game called Nanosaur and it would just totally suck me in. And then, I started playing Myst and Riven, and discovering other games, and it just snowballed. And, I play with my son who's super, super into games, he's a level designer now. And so, we go through console after console and all these different games, and the music was always something that we talked about, and it was just so cool to finally get the chance to really just pull up the wheels and go at with the support of WSHU.

Larry Hryb: Yeah. Which is great because you work at a radio station, they're like, yeah, go ahead and do this, I mean, which is amazing. First of all, you talked about your podcast, how do people find your podcast to listen to you and your guests?

Kate Remington: Oh, there's lots of ways. It's called Music Respawn and it's in Apple podcast, it's on Spotify now. It's on the WSHU Public Radio site, I have my own site respawnshow.com. So, there's lots and lots of ways to listen. Oh, it's on SoundCloud too, so there's lots of ways to track it down.

Larry Hryb: And, I'll make sure I put a link in my show notes to make sure they can find you. Now Kate, one of the reasons I wanted to have you on is because you and I are kindred spirits in the audio field and whatnot, now you are like I say, you're much more educated in the music space, because I famously, I can't play music but I have such an appreciation for it. When I went to Syracuse University I took a lot of classes in classical music because I just enjoyed it so much, but I have zero musical aptitude. And, one of the things I noticed when I started working in the video game industry many, many years ago is that classical music is a staple of video game music. Would you agree with that?

Kate Remington: Oh absolutely. And, so many of the composers that I talk with will reference the composers that have inspired them to get the right sound for a game like Will Roget who's written music for the recent Call of Duty game and additional music for Destiny. He loves WC, and so anytime he can use the sound of WC in his own music, he loves that, and sometimes they get really far afield. Jason Graves was listening to Penderecki's Theronody for the victims of Hiroshima to get an idea for the sound for Dead Space. And so, it comes from all over, but it's really fun to have that Venn diagram of the intersection of game music and classical.

Larry Hryb: When you're looking at some of the classical music of previous games and games that are coming out, we talked, for instance, Anthem is out now and so forth. And, there's a lot of games coming out, Apex Legends, I don't know if you had a chance to play Apex Legends, which I'm addicted to right now.

Kate Remington: Not yet, but it's on my list.

Larry Hryb: But, there's so much music that adds to the soul of the game, and I always challenge people who say, what do you mean? Turn down the sound, go into your settings and turn just ... Don't do it forever, but for a few minutes, turn down the audio and usually in the options you can separate out the soundtrack and you'll notice how, for lack of a better term, dry the environment is, right?

Kate Remington: Oh absolutely. I get this really cool presentation with Tom Salta who also lives here in Connecticut about that very thing, and he had a video of a game that he had scored, it was one of the Halo games. And, he first he played it dry, but the cool thing is you can't just plop any old music in there. And so, he played that same segment with two different music tracks, and it was a completely different feeling for each one of them. So, that's the thing that really impresses me because these composers just work so hard to get the music to be just absolutely a perfect fit for the games.

Larry Hryb: Yeah. And, the other challenge they have is ... In my years of talking to composers and audio developers is because we, and when I say we, I include you and all my listeners, we enjoy this nonlinear format it's even more challenging. And let me explain to some of the listeners, so I know Kate I think you know what I mean is that when you sit and watch a movie or a TV show, you know it's going to be two minutes and 20 seconds at an hour and 10 minutes, the protagonist is going to do this, this is dramatic moment. With games, you don't know how fast or slow the player's going to proceed through a level, so you really don't know how to score it in a map to one to one to their actions. You can do the best you can and technically they know when you hit a trigger point that they're going to hit this cue. But, It's very different isn't it?

Kate Remington: Oh, it's fascinating. And, they all come up with different ways of dealing with that problem. It didn't used to be a problem because the old days of eight bit music, the games were simpler and you just played one track for many man, just one track because he basically was doing the same thing anyway, just running and jumping. But now, a player could be doing anything, and like Bungie actually rebuilt their music engine so that it would be really adaptive to whatever the player would be doing. And then, the challenge for the composers is to write music that can be broken down into these tiny little stems and layered, and then built up during a boss battle, and then finish in a way that's super satisfying. So yeah, I nailed that guy and I feel really good about it.

Larry Hryb: Yeah. You had this visceral. In addition to the audio design of the environment, again, you have to layer in this music. Now, when you look back in the history of video game music, what are some of your favorite pieces and why?

Kate Remington: Oh man, well I'd have to say Tempest actually was one of my favorites and we all have these really powerful memories of experiencing a game. And for me, I sucked at it. I was really bad at it, but my brother was really, really good, so I'd watch him play to try to pick up a few tricks, and so by default listened to a lot of the music.

Larry Hryb: And, for those folks that don't know this was in '80s early '90s Cabinet game from Atari that had vector graphics and it had a dial and it was high resolution for its day, and it was intense and you're right, the music was really something, wasn't it?

Kate Remington: Oh it was incredible. In fact, I was just listening to the soundtrack again, somebody's put it up on YouTube, and it was like, yeah, these memories just come flooding back, which is just so cool. And, I guess, I missed a lot of the early console's, the Segas and even Nes, I missed out on Nes because I was just doing other things. But, there are some incredible soundtracks from the late '80s, early '90s, mid '90s. You know what Trent Reznor did with Quake is just like, oh my God, that still just gives me almost a panic attack because it's just so intense.

Larry Hryb: Yeah. I mean for your point, it's such a rich history and we've got a lot of people who have gotten into in the past, like you talked about Trent Reznor and Quake. Who are some of your favorite art contemporary artists nowadays?

Kate Remington: Oh man, I like a lot of Indie bands honestly, so like really quirky offbeat stuff. There this Scottish band called the Fratellis that are really, really cool, and so I guess that Indie sound is really interesting for me. The Shins are cool, but I'm open to anything. I listen to lots and lots of stuff.

Larry Hryb: What are you playing right now, by the way? Let me ask that.

Kate Remington: Oh, let's see. Oh well most recently I booted up the Formula One 2015 season because it was on Game Pass, and it's just as hard as I remembered.

Larry Hryb: That's right, it is.

Kate Remington: Got behind the wheel of Kimi Raikkonen's Ferrari and I crashed it right away. I also have been playing Forza Horizon four, and again, I did things to that McLaren Senna that no one should do. And, destiny keeps pulling me back in because it's just such a cool experience, and it's just, it's the kind of game you can spend five hours playing or you can play for 20 minutes and do a quick little mission. And, either way it's super satisfying.

Larry Hryb: Yeah. I mean, you've talked about Forza Horizon four, I mean the music now that's different because instead of the score being customized for the game, that team went out and sought soundtracks, which are about the lifestyle of racing, right?

Kate Remington: Yeah, yeah, for sure. And, that adds a lot too. I mean, and again, it's just a great example of how the team that makes these games really have to think about what's going to give the player the best experience. And, in that case it wouldn't be a classical inspired track because as much as you might love Beethoven, it's not really going to get your heart pumping the way the music that they put in the game does.

Larry Hryb: Yeah. I mean you're absolutely right. What would you give some advice to some folks who are budding musicians who are video game fanatics who really want to get involved with it? Can you give them some guidance?

Kate Remington: Oh yeah, sure because I asked this question of a lot of, especially the young composers that I'm talking with who are just getting started, and one of the things a few of them have done, which I think is really cool, is to take a trailer that they really love and wipe out the music and write their own music to the trailer because then they've got a really polished two or three minute thing that they can show somebody. The other cool piece of advice that I got, I think that his name's Calum Bowen and he did the music for Pikuniku. He kept an iTunes playlist, a bunch of playlists with pieces, songs and classical pieces with different moods. And so, when he was stuck or he needed to write a piece to go to match a games feeling, he would listen to that playlist and then that would give him ideas for the kind of directions that he could take his music. So, I thought those are two really interesting ideas.

Larry Hryb: Now, I want to talk to you about some of what you've done in terms of working at WSHU, if I remember correctly you teach as well, correct?

Kate Remington: No, no, I'm just on the year. Yeah, I know. I've got a classical show that is on from nine to one, and then I oversee all the classical music programming.

Larry Hryb: Now, that's a lot of responsibility. Are you surprised? And I don't know, because this is my perception. It feels like there's almost a resurgence of classical music or did that just never go away, and I'm just more aware of it because it's now more mainstream with video games?

Kate Remington: I think video games have a huge part to play in that because people are much more conditioned to just hearing orchestral music or even chamber music from playing games. So yeah, we have found too that the ratings for our classical music shows are going up, which is great because, 15 to 20 years ago people were writing off classical music as a thing that only old people listen to, and that's just not the case.

Larry Hryb: But, I also want to point out, as we talked about Forza Horizon, it's not just classical music that we see in the video games, there's some pop music. And, I also want to point out, there's this other side of it, there's the pop music of current stuff, but one of the games I will never forget, I believe it was 2006 and I was at an event and we were showing ... I was working at Xbox obviously, and we were showing a trailer. It was at a rehearsal. So, no one had seen the trailer yet, I hadn't even seen it yet. And, I stopped dead in my tracks because the visuals grabbed me, but the music grabbed me and that game was the original BioShock.

Kate Remington: Oh yeah.

Larry Hryb: Because Ken Levine and his team put so much thought into capturing that art deco '40s era that I fell in love with it. And, I'm sure you've played that and you've seen the soundtrack.

Kate Remington: Oh my God, that was one of those epiphanal moments. I was watching it with my son, and our jaws were on the floor, because it was just so incredible and the way that they incorporated that music, those sounds from the '40s and '50s, and that's another really cool thing. Video games have this thing that doesn't get talked about a lot called tangential learning where you get so wrapped up in a game and then you want to know more about it. And, I know from my own experience, and it was really cool I totally forgot about Django Reinhardt, and all of a sudden I was like-

Larry Hryb: How could you forget about Django?

Kate Remington: It was just off my radar for a while. And so, all of a sudden I was listening to as much Django Reinhardt as I couldn't find. And so, that's such a cool thing that games give us that I think people don't really appreciate as much or really talk about as much.

Larry Hryb: Well, it's interesting you say that because I've told this story privately, and I think I may have told it on the air once or twice. My sister is a high school librarian in Rhode Island next to Connecticut, and she'll always talk to me about what games are coming out. And, I'll say, well, this, this, and this and this will be hot, the so and so forth. And, she'll do for instance, one of the great ones she did a few months ago was she did a presentation around Assassin's Creed Odyssey because she did something in her library, a little display about it because she knew the kids were going to start coming through and asking about Egyptian history. And sure enough, they started coming in and ask about Egyptian history, and to a certain point the music a little bit. And, that's another one that I think you've chatted about in the past is the wonderful ancient Grecian music and Assassin's Creed Odyssey.

Kate Remington: Oh yeah, those guys from the flight had such a great time because they had a shopping list that they took with them to Greece and they wanted to get really authentic instruments and it turns out, in music history we're always taught, oh there's no way to hear what ancient Greek music would have sounded like, but in fact it's not true because if you go to Greece, the instruments that they played are still around or at least really close proximity to what those instruments would have sounded like. And so, they had all these great instruments that they could use to give just a really authentic quality to that soundtrack. And so, yeah, that was a fun conversation.

Larry Hryb: Yeah. That music alone and that's something that you notice that unfortunately a lot of composers don't get the credit because it's not the shiny screenshot that you see online and whatnot. But sometimes they just don't get that credit because it's audio, and you have to listen and focus sometimes to listen to it specifically because otherwise it's what I call sometimes it's audio wallpaper. It's in the area you're playing, but you really don't pay attention to it because even though it's subtly, very subtly and sometimes very pointedly enhancing the experience.

Kate Remington: Oh yeah. And, that's what makes it so cool is that it's not necessarily this endless loop of music, it's really subtle. And, I remember talking with Jason Graves about Far Cry Primal, which is just an amazing score because he made it with rocks and dirt and-

Larry Hryb: And, it fits perfectly with Primal doesn't it?

Kate Remington: Yeah, it absolutely does. And, it's so cool because as you're wandering around in the world, you can hear the sounds, and you're not really sure if it's the music or not, but things escalate because you got to take down the woolly mammoth or whatever, and then it's suddenly his soundtrack bursts right out. So, it's subtle in ways until it's not, and then it really helps you get the right feeling.

Larry Hryb: Yeah. The other thing I remember, the funny thing about I was having conversations with folks about music is a lot of people think game music, and apologies, they think Rock Band or Guitar Hero, which again are great games, but they're not quite the same thing, right?

Kate Remington: Right. Yeah, or Dance, Dance Revolution even, I mean, they're super fun.

Larry Hryb: Yeah, exactly. I mean, like Dance Central you're certainly not going to become a great dancer, trust me, I can vouch for that, and you're not going to be a great band member in Rock Band. In fact, I remember I was doing an event with Guitar Hero and a very famous guitar player was so upset with this game, and this guy is world famous because he felt that it minimized his talent.

Kate Remington: Oh.

Larry Hryb: Which was interesting I hadn't thought about that because I don't have any talent when it comes to music, but I was like, yeah, he said it trivialized his talent in that people think it's easy to play a guitar because they're holding a plastic guitar in their living room standing there in their boxer shorts and it's not the same as being a true musician.

Kate Remington: Yeah. Well, that's a totally valid idea, and it is true. I mean, but I wouldn't attempt to hop in an F1 Car either.

Larry Hryb: Right. That's the beauty of video games, it takes you places you could never go.

Kate Remington: Yeah, exactly.

Larry Hryb: So anyway, well listen Kate, I got to wrap it up here. I really want to thank you for taking your time to chat with me. I know that people can find you on WSHU, which is a Connecticut radio station, but I'm sure you stream online, correct?

Kate Remington: Yeah, we do. It's wshu.org. And again, the podcast is everywhere, so.

Larry Hryb: Yeah. And, I'll make sure I put a link to that. I would love to have you on the show again in the future if you would be so kind.

Kate Remington: Oh I'd love to come back Larry, this was really, really fun. Thank you so much.

Jeff Rubenstein: All right. Thank you so much Kate. Learning a ton about music, you really know a lot of the gaming music people over rock star.

Larry Hryb: Right.

Jeff Rubenstein: Kate here.

Larry Hryb: Yeah. I mean, I know Marty, well I've always gravitated towards the audio guys because of my background in radio, and radio and audio and music, I mean, it's all in the same vein and I've always tried to ... And, I even mentioned this during ... You probably heard me talk about that in the middle of the interview. So, I've always had this kind admiration for the audio guys, but also understood their challenges because you can't show great audio in a screenshot on a website, right? You just can't. You have to experience it by playing the game.

Jeff Rubenstein: And now, you have a face for radio.

Larry Hryb: Now, we have a little bit of a programming note here.

Jeff Rubenstein: Programming note? You mean an apology to me Larry?

Larry Hryb: Jeff, I apologize to you.

Jeff Rubenstein: Why is that?

Larry Hryb: During the interview, Jeff took a moment and he went and looked up this Al Michaels Oswald the Rabbit thing, and I completely forgot about it.

Jeff Rubenstein: You thought I was making it.

Larry Hryb: I thought it was some kind of bananas stunt and it wasn't. It's a real thing. So, why don't you go ahead and explain what this is. Oswald the rabbit, we need to link to his Wikipedia, of course, most people know who Al Michaels is in the US, he's an announcer. Jeff, take it here.

Jeff Rubenstein: Anyway, the story, and I'm reading from ESPN here, there's a whole book practically written about this, but ESPN first acquired the rights to Monday Night Football in 2005. Before that, Monday Night Football was always on ABC, it was the longest primetime series. And, I think this is before ESPN and ABC were completely together. I don't remember.

Larry Hryb: Were bought by Disney.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, exactly. The problem was, is they had two different production teams and only one game to do a week, so there was a hole ... They had a glut of cast on the ABC, ESPN.

Larry Hryb: An embarrassment of riches.

Jeff Rubenstein: An embarrassment of riches. Okay. So anyway, Disney CEO Bob Iger, ended up calling up NBC and said, look, we would be willing to let Al Michaels go if you can get us the rights to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit.

Larry Hryb: Which is one of the very first IPs intellectual properties that Disney created back ... What's his name?

Jeff Rubenstein: The beginning of Disney's career. Now, how on earth, NBC ended up with the copyrights-

Larry Hryb: It ended up with the copyrights, we don't know.

Jeff Rubenstein: Who knows. The point is, I think when that call was made, they had no idea like who or what Oswald the Lucky Rabbit was, but it turned out, yeah, he was the precursor to Mickey Mouse. Actually, he was designed personally by Walt Disney back in the '20s.

Larry Hryb: Right, with Ub Iwerks.

Jeff Rubenstein: And, Bob Iger knew it was important to the Disney family and within a week, him and Dicky Ebersol who's a legendary-

Larry Hryb: Sports guy.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah.

Larry Hryb: Dick Ebersol.

Jeff Rubenstein: They had done everything they needed to do with NBC universal received approval and Al Michaels was traded for a fictional [crosstalk 00:47:12].

Larry Hryb: I'm sorry, I don't mean to laugh it's-

Jeff Rubenstein: 80 years after he was designed. I'll link out to that. I just thought that was [crosstalk 00:47:18].

Larry Hryb: Where's Al now? What's he doing now?

Jeff Rubenstein: He's still doing Sunday Night Football with Joe Theismann, right?

Larry Hryb: Yeah. Right.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah. So, not Joe Theismann. Oh anyway another quarter back.

Larry Hryb: You don't like football, do you?

Jeff Rubenstein: I like the ego. Look, it's February.

Larry Hryb: Right.

Jeff Rubenstein: I don't have to think about football for six more months. It's all soccer and baseball and basketball. Did you watch the All-Star basketball this weekend?

Larry Hryb: Yeah, wow.

Jeff Rubenstein: I know you're a big fan.

Larry Hryb: Wow. Yes, I did. I did. I was actually thinking about that. What happened to that poor guy and the shoe.

Jeff Rubenstein: Oh my God, Yes. Zion.

Larry Hryb: He's just doing his job and his shoe unravels, that's terrible. That screenshot just makes me hurt.

Jeff Rubenstein: Man, I think he's going to be okay.

Larry Hryb: Still, but it's one of those things you don't expect just trying to do your job.

Jeff Rubenstein: Well, 36 seconds into his first game.

Larry Hryb: Right, right, that's so sad, right on top.

Jeff Rubenstein: Anyways.

Larry Hryb: Oh, boy. All right, did you see the Samsung phone?

Jeff Rubenstein: The Foldable, the Samsung Fold?

Larry Hryb: Yeah, what did you think of that?

Jeff Rubenstein: I think it looks awesome.

Larry Hryb: Yeah.

Jeff Rubenstein: Expensive. But, there's a lot of ... And, everything I'm saying, I read on the Verge, but there's a number of different companies that are ... We've seen LG, they have a flexible OLED, we saw during CES, like a roll up TV that looked really cool. So, there are either have been announced or strongly hinted that this is going to be a new thing. It's foldable phones.

Larry Hryb: That's the next thing.

Jeff Rubenstein: But when I looked at it, and then we were watching the video or a cut down of the ... And, I can link out to it to the Samsung briefing that they had this week, you can very quickly see where, oh, I could totally have use for this and to be able to unfold your phone into a seven inch laptop and play games, look at maps to watch videos, watch Netflix, like when you're on a plane, obviously you can't really one hand at that point. First of all, I think the tech is really cool, and like you, I like really cool tech. But, this is the type of thing that makes me think maybe I should give Android a go. I've never had an android phone.

Larry Hryb: Well, I'm fascinated by the tech as well. I just want to be able to something I could roll out and play my games or whatever so.

Jeff Rubenstein: Very literally.

Larry Hryb: It's cool stuff.

Jeff Rubenstein: Well, I have a link out to the story from the Verge mostly because they did a really good job of cutting down the video, and giving you the salient points, and also because I'm sure Tom Warren listens to the show.

Larry Hryb: Does he?

Jeff Rubenstein: He knows you're always dropping spoilers and mega tons and the like.

Larry Hryb: It's what I do. It's what we do.

Jeff Rubenstein: It is what you like to do.

Larry Hryb: I'm going to suck you back.

Jeff Rubenstein: I've long been drawn into your orbit, Larry. And, whenever happens to you, I've hitched my dreams to your story.

Larry Hryb: Oh boy I'll be careful there.

Jeff Rubenstein: I know, it's too late now. I've mouths to feed, Larry.

Larry Hryb: Anyway, we've got a lot coming up. I don't know how many days away from E3, 120.

Jeff Rubenstein: Four months, a little less than four months.

Larry Hryb: Yeah, a little less than four months, a lot going on.

Jeff Rubenstein: We haven't really talked much about it.

Larry Hryb: No.

Jeff Rubenstein: And, you're not going to change that today.

Larry Hryb: No.

Jeff Rubenstein: I'm telling you I'm not asking you.

Larry Hryb: Just need to point out that it's coming up. We've got a bunch of episodes of this week or excuse me, Inside Xbox coming up. We'll talk more about those when we can.

Jeff Rubenstein: When we can.

Larry Hryb: I'll be taking some time off.

Jeff Rubenstein: Really?

Larry Hryb: Yeah, I'll be taking some time off in April.

Jeff Rubenstein: So, little after PAX?

Larry Hryb: Yeah.

Jeff Rubenstein: You're just going maybe stick around in Boston?

Larry Hryb: No, no, no. We're going to head out to one of the islands in Hawaii, like we did last year, so we're going-

Jeff Rubenstein: Our 50th and most beautiful state.

Larry Hryb: It is, it is just ... Really, you grew up in Florida.

Jeff Rubenstein: Larry, this is ...

Larry Hryb: I've never heard of Hawaiian man. It's like Hawaiian man accidentally, almost like Armageddon.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, that happens a little bit less often.

Larry Hryb: But yeah, it's a beautiful place.

Jeff Rubenstein: You have to bring me back some Spam Musubi.

Larry Hryb: Well, you can just buy it down the street from you.

Jeff Rubenstein: Actually, there is a place that has it. Actually, what I do need you to do is get me some of those Hawaiian cookie company Kona Cookies. They're good.

Larry Hryb: Yeah. By the way, for those of you who listen internationally, I want to thank you.

Jeff Rubenstein: I'm sorry. First of all I'm apologizing.

Larry Hryb: Well, I'm just going to tell you, I have to apologize as well for Jeff, but if you listen internationally specifically in the mid region of Germany, I am in need of help.

Jeff Rubenstein: What's this? Oh.

Larry Hryb: I am out of gummy bears. Our annual gummy-

Jeff Rubenstein: We got one bag left.

Larry Hryb: Our annual gummy bear trip from the Baren company, and these are not Haribo, this is a completely different company that only sells locally and they only have German on their website, and there you go.

Jeff Rubenstein: Well, we're only in Germany typically once a year in an island and coral region.

Larry Hryb: Yeah, I love it, I love it.

Jeff Rubenstein: We have a great time out there. And, invariably we end up spending somewhere in the neighborhood 50 Euro on gummy bears at-

Larry Hryb: Easily.

Jeff Rubenstein: Company. And, we have to plan ahead for what's my gummy bear consumption going to be?

Larry Hryb: Yeah, right for a whole year.

Jeff Rubenstein: For whole year. And, you have an addition to your family, you have a child now, and so maybe that messed up your calculations. He's just probably throwing down those gummy bears every time you turn your head.

Larry Hryb: No. Anyway, I need to get more of those, but that's not a problem anybody here can solve. And, if you can then let me know major@xbox.com.

Jeff Rubenstein: Folks, you don't have to do that. Actually, I have some sour mangoes if want some, I'll bring them into work for you.

Larry Hryb: No, no, no.

Jeff Rubenstein: It's the least I could.

Larry Hryb: Just a few. Just a few.

Jeff Rubenstein: Literally the least I could do.

Larry Hryb: Anyway, all right, well we're coming towards the end of the show here because we've run out of time things to say and-

Jeff Rubenstein: We don't want to waste your time.

Larry Hryb: We don't want to ...

Jeff Rubenstein: Anymore than we already have.

Larry Hryb: No. We want to thank everybody for swinging by. If you want to learn more about that news, head over to a news.xbox.com or my blog majornelson.com.

Jeff Rubenstein: It's a good one.

Larry Hryb: You can follow me @MajorNelson, you can follow Jeff ...

Jeff Rubenstein: @Jeff Rubenstein.

Larry Hryb: You can't miss it. He's one of the-

Jeff Rubenstein: It's the complaint desk.

Larry Hryb: You're one of the six people that I follow in that order now. Five.

Jeff Rubenstein: Five? I feel like you unfollowed somebody recently.

Larry Hryb: I keep it lean.

Jeff Rubenstein: Really?

Larry Hryb: I keep it very lean.

Jeff Rubenstein: Well, you're not one of these people that follows 100,000 people. Usually you get a follow from something like, oh, so and so. And it's like, oh.

Larry Hryb: I got this weird follow from ... Who was it from? I was looking at this and got that's really.

Jeff Rubenstein: You unfollowed E?

Larry Hryb: I did. I did. E doesn't work here anymore.

Jeff Rubenstein: Well, neither does Laura or Lith and you're still following them.

Larry Hryb: Yeah, that's true. I figured that one out, he hasn't said anything yet.

Jeff Rubenstein: Oh, he knows.

Larry Hryb: Oh does he?

Jeff Rubenstein: He has to know.

Larry Hryb: I got to go have lunch with him.

Jeff Rubenstein: I'm going to text him.

Larry Hryb: Thank you. Then, I'll unfollow you.

Jeff Rubenstein: Nevermind.

Larry Hryb: Anyway. All right, we're going to wrap things up guys and girls. Thanks for listening. Thanks for downloading the show. What do you?

Jeff Rubenstein: You updated here.

Larry Hryb: You haven't seen it?

Jeff Rubenstein: No, I don't necessarily need to click through to the account, but I know you're a big fan of the Mozambique in Apex and now that's forever enshrined, the worst gun in any battle Royale.

Larry Hryb: Jeffery has pointed out that in my Twitter bio I say, and then I'll just on all the other stuff it's Mozambique here. I always do that all the time in the ...

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, that's controlling-

Larry Hryb: I think I was doing it when we were playing.

Jeff Rubenstein: This guy is tagging me Mozambique.

Larry Hryb: It's quite Mozambique here. Anyway, we are the Mozambique of podcasts here, so thank you for that.

Jeff Rubenstein: At best.

Larry Hryb: Yeah, at best to say the least with no hop up.

Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah.

Larry Hryb: So, we'll talk to you next time. Bye, bye everybody. Thank you.

Jeff Rubenstein: Bye.

Larry Hyrb: Hi, it's Larry Hryb, Xbox Live's Major Nelson. Welcome to the show number 633. Jeff couldn't be here. He's over in France. I don't know what he's doing over there, but he said he can't be there, so I said, “Who can I get? Who can I get to sit in for Jeff?” and I got Phil Spencer. Hi Phil.

Phil Spencer: I'm subbing in for Jeff today, I love that.

Larry Hyrb: You're subbing in for Jeff.

Phil Spencer: Jeff's much better at this than I am.

Larry Hyrb: I think he's over in ... I think he's overseas, he's working on upcoming because Crackdown comes out in a few weeks.

Phil Spencer: It does, I'm looking forward to that.

Larry Hyrb: You've been playing it. I know you've played it quite a bit. I haven't had a chance to play one of the latest builds, but it's feeling good. Right?

Phil Spencer: It feels like Crackdown.

Larry Hyrb: It feels like Crackdown.

Phil Spencer: Yeah, and I think which is what I wanted us to get to. For Crackdown for people who haven't played, it's been a while since I kind of ignored version two. I'll say version one launched and...

Larry Hyrb: Now you worked on that a little bit?

Phil Spencer: I did, yeah. Car wars. Code name with Dave Jones was the name of it. It was a fun, fun title to work on. You know we obviously launched it with the Halo beta on it and I think that kinda gave some a skeptical view on how this was going to turn out.

Larry Hyrb: But I remember that, because everyone's like "Ah, this is not going to be really good 'cause it's in the-"

Phil Spencer: That's right.

Larry Hyrb: "You're putting in on the beta." And then everybody got it and like, "Holy cow! Wait a minute!"

Phil Spencer: I loved it. I played a ton of it. I thought just the feeling, the physics, the movement of the agent, the leveling I thought was awesome. So, when I was playing this one, it was probably a year ago where I was spending a little more time with it and the agent to me just didn't feel right. But I say it feels like Crackdown not to downplay it. Crackdown is what it is, right? It's not meant to be... It's not a novel.

Larry Hyrb: Right

Phil Spencer: It's not hyper realistic graphics. I hear people say "Hey, why does it look like that?" Because that's how Crackdown looks. And if we were gonna make it look different, it wouldn't be Crackdown.

Larry Hyrb: It wouldn't be Crackdown.

Phil Spencer: Doesn't take itself too seriously. Terry Crews in the game was an awesome choice. And it kinda fits with the overall motif of the game. And I love it because it feels kinda like old-school Mayhem game. You're gonna play with your friend, you're gonna have a good time.

Larry Hyrb: Blow stuff up.

Phil Spencer: That's right

Larry Hyrb: A lot of stuff.

Phil Spencer: a lot of leveling, a lot of collecting. And I just ... I like that motion to gain something. I have fun with, not that we build games for me.

Larry Hyrb: Right.

Phil Spencer: But I just want-

Larry Hyrb: We kinda do, we kinda do!

Phil Spencer: That's not true, that's not true. But the ... I just want people to go into it ... It's Crackdown, so if you don't like Crackdown you're probably not gonna like this game. If you love Crackdown I think you will like this game.

Larry Hyrb: I know I was talking with the team that was working on it. They've got some cool stuff, over the next few weeks you'll start hearing more and more as we build ... get up to launch.

Phil Spencer: Yeah.

Larry Hyrb: But they were showing me the tech behind the cloud-based stuff, and it's kinda cool.

Phil Spencer: Yeah, you know that I thought we overplayed at the launch of the game. For some not necessarily the right reasons. Cloud, cloud was the game. And it's gotta be game game first before it's the how we build it. People don't care as much about how we build something.

Larry Hyrb: Sure.

Phil Spencer: They care about what we build. So tone that language down. I think in the end we're really happy in the tech that we invested in oh so many years ago with Cloudgine and Dave and stuff to make this work. So I feel really good about the use of the cloud and the use of the technology and [inaudible 00:03:34] and stuff to make this game the way play the way it plays. And I think the people who are interested in that will find some of the backstory stuff that we do on that after the game is out to be really great. I'll say another thing I really love is just seeing Joe Staten stepping in-

Larry Hyrb: Oh, Joe, yeah.

Phil Spencer: Obviously you've known Joe since back when he was at Bungie. And he's become such a spokesperson for this game. I think it's just awesome getting into a more public role in one of our games and I think it's great.

Larry Hyrb: Yeah I'm going to have him on the show when we get closer to launch.

Phil Spencer: He's really great at talking about the game. He has such a sensibility for how games are built and the hooks and it's really ... I just have a good time. Sometimes when you're in the publishing organization, you work on a lot of different things. It's not always easy to find something that's yours and that you can be the kind of out front person, but I think he's turned out to be the person who's out in front of that game in a very public way and I think that's great.

Larry Hyrb: Yeah, it's funny how Jeff isn't here as we were talking. But he just texted me, I'm gonna tell this story and he's gonna kill me. He says "Don't judge me, I'm at Starbucks." So he's in France at a Starbucks.

Phil Spencer: We should all judge him. Even in Seattle.

Larry Hyrb: @JeffRubinstein on Twitter, you can hit him up on Twitter. They can find you on Twitter, too.

Phil Spencer: They can at @XBoxP3. I've been a little less active on Twitter lately, I don't really like that that I'm less active. I gotta figure out how to engage more. The stream goes ... I mean, how do you do it?

Larry Hyrb: It's hard because it's ... I wake up in the morning, you're an early riser, right?

Phil Spencer: Yeah, yeah.

Larry Hyrb: You're an early riser. I'm an early riser. I check it out, see what's going on and reply to a few things because there's a lot of chatter that happens when you're offline. I mean, that's just the way it is. Stuff to keep up with. And it is, it's one of those things. You'll notice like on the weekends I'm more quiet, because it's just like "Oh man, I just want to spend some time-"

Phil Spencer: Yeah, you should with your family.

Larry Hyrb: With my ladies. But yeah, it's hard to do, but it's also exciting and fun because you know this, you and I have been doing this for a long time. It's the excitement you get out of people that just love the product.

Phil Spencer: Yeah, yeah.

Larry Hyrb: Love our games! And love gaming! It's really, really gets me going. So that's what it does.

Phil Spencer: I used to just love when it was a smaller community. Not that that's what my goal is anymore, but I almost used it as kind of an AMA type thing.

Larry Hyrb: Right

Phil Spencer: And I always get a lot of knowledge out of what people are asking. like I get a lot of where are people's questions, what are they worried about.

Larry Hyrb: What's going on here?

Phil Spencer: Yeah, that's right. And it's more difficult to do. That's on me, like the community's not doing anything wrong. I gotta ... It's been I say a month or two since I was in that mode on Twitter and I want to do that. Because that feedback from the community is great. I'm doing a little more of that on Xbox Live now. Because it's just sometimes a little bit easier when I'm online and somebody wants to play something, or just somebody wants to-

Larry Hyrb: What did we play last? You and I did Forza... Oh, we played some Forza a few ... when that came out.

Phil Spencer: Horizon, yeah.

Larry Hyrb: Horizon, that was a lot of fun.

Phil Spencer: Those guys. I mean, they are... Playground is ... They is magic. That game ... The hook for me in that game is just so good. And yeah, I've been playing that. You know... we obviously have our Game Pass commercial that we roll out every so often. Comes out of our mouths, but I have my story. Vermintide 2 I found in Game Pass. Which funny enough for me, I get a code to every game on Xbox. So I had it-

Larry Hyrb: But you never had a chance to look at it.

Phil Spencer: I hadn't really. And then it was-

Larry Hyrb: What drew you to it?

Phil Spencer: It was in one of the Game Pass quests. And if people have been watching, we've been trying to play with these ideas of GamePass quests where we'll build little challenges in games and you can earn Microsoft rewards for doing these things. And it's really a discovery mechanism. So I'm like ... We're early on a quest, and if you're going through the flow right now you can see that we're early on-

Larry Hyrb: We're trying to figure it out.

Phil Spencer: The user interphase though is not so great and also this rewards app pops in your face and it's all blue, and it's like ... But anyway, we're working through it, and so I sit down and I use our stuff. And send my feedback.

Larry Hyrb: As you do.

Phil Spencer: Yes, as I do. And the Vermintide was one of them. I think it was like get two achievements, or whatever it was, in Vermintide 2. So I said, "Oh, okay I'll launch this thing." Obviously you've heard me before tease we've got a lot of Warhammer and Vermintide games. Those guys are really prolific. A lot of games on the platform.

Larry Hyrb: Which is one way to say it.

Phil Spencer: But man, I've been playing this and I really like it. I mean, I'm kind of a ... I'm probably more just from my growing up more of a fantasy than sci-fi just in terms of my core.

Larry Hyrb: I'm the absolute opposite.

Phil Spencer: Yeah, and it's like ... And I respect that.

Larry Hyrb: Likewise.

Phil Spencer: But the, so I'm like "Oh, this is like 30-40 minute co-op strikes." Like this game makes a ton of ... I think they do a great job putting just hordes of enemies. And I think I've saved the planet from the hordes of rat men so many times. But I have a good time. Because I can play with new people, so I've been doing that. I'm trying to work through MCC legendary with some friends of mine, which is fun.

Larry Hyrb: The latest update is really nice.

Phil Spencer: It is. They've done a really good job and-

Larry Hyrb: You see that article on Kotaku last week?

Phil Spencer: Yeah. And I like the one about the kudos to 343-

Larry Hyrb: Yeah, because it came out and they kept working on it over the years, frankly. For the better.

Phil Spencer: Yeah, and I think it's awesome when we stay on things. I will say the quality of the launch wasn't where it should be.

Larry Hyrb: Right.

Phil Spencer: So, it's a little bit of two sides of the coin. I mean, you can't rewind time. So once you're in a situation, I love the fact that 343 didn't lean back, they leaned in. They rolled up their sleeves and learned from what happened. And then they stayed committed to the franchise and the fans, which I think is awesome. Obviously we need to learn on how we actually ... Not getting ourselves into that situation again, which I think would be fundamental.

Larry Hyrb: Right, it's come ... I'm looking at the studios here. Last year was huge. 2018 was huge. You stood on stage at E3, you announced all the studios. I mean, I'm looking at this, it's quite the portfolio you've collected. I mean most people collect like shoes and I don't know. They collect coins. Sometimes they get video games up on a cabinet. You're collecting studios from around the world! For us, though, for the gamers. For everybody.

Phil Spencer: The 2018 was a fun year. But you and I we've been on this journey now for a while.

Larry Hyrb: Yeah.

Phil Spencer: You know, what'd I say is ... This is only my fifth year in this role.

Larry Hyrb: Is it already?

Phil Spencer: I think coming up on my fifth.

Larry Hyrb: Yeah, you're right.

Phil Spencer: If I'm counting correctly.

Larry Hyrb: Happy anniversary.

Phil Spencer: I've run out of fingers at some point. I think at the beginning we tried to figure out what we were about, why we were here. Trying to get back to the soul of what it means to be an Xbox team. And then we put on our hats and said, "Okay, let's figure out a strategy for why we're going to be in this space. We don't want to just duplicate what somebody else is doing. If somebody else is doing a great job being what they are we, should have a unique reason to be in this industry."

Larry Hyrb: And what's ... And have a value of something that is valuable to customers that they can't get anywhere else

Phil Spencer: That's right. That's right. Whether that's hardware differentiation, whether it's ... And at the same time we were doing all that work, we were working on things. Like well, we've got to get our hardware in a better position. I love the S and the X and where they sit today, and I think we learned a lot about that. But I would look and I would say at the end of 2017, beginning of 2018 we really solidified the strategies ... our longer term strategies. Say decade-long strategies of what we're trying to do. And it's really about putting the gamer at the center of everything. Play the games that you wanna play on the devices you wanna play them on with your friends, wherever they are. And you should be able to cross-play with anybody. You should be able to, as much as we can, we're going to bring our content to you wherever you are. And that means we need to have a critically successful console ecosystem. We've gotta be great on PC and eventually we wanna be great anywhere that somebody wants to play one of our games. Or one of our partner's games.

Phil Spencer: When I looked at 2018, because I'm just ... Obviously early in 2019 I was trying to get my head around well what's this year?

Larry Hyrb: What's next, yeah.

Phil Spencer: And what I loved about 2018 and you know this, and it's not something we've talked about in the press a ton. But this time last year we did a really big reorg.

Larry Hyrb: Right.

Phil Spencer: Where we brought in a couple new leaders, 'cause we had a real good vision on where we wanted to go. At least we had solidified that.

Larry Hyrb: Came up with the idea and now you have to put everybody in place to execute that plan.

Phil Spencer: That's exactly right. And I would say what I love the most about 2018 is I feel like we have ... We got the right teams together. And I mean that, teams in kind of a plural. Some of those were added, as you said. Six new studios, adding the seventh at The Initiative and they're doing a great job hiring. And I think now we're execution mode. Like I look at 2019 and where we're going with future consoles, all this xCloud coming to PC in a much bigger way this year. Doing some things we had been talking about for a while for real on PC this year. And this is a year where it's not strategery, it's we're gonna roll up our sleeves and show. And I love that. I love the studio acquisitions as a part of that. I love the team as it's set up right now, and our leadership team. And how they're showing up the different leaders, some new, some that have been around for a long time. I think everybody sees it now that this is the year, okay, it's going to be ... This is ... Now it's go time.

Larry Hyrb: But I also want to point out, is that when you talked about the studio specifically. Some of them are going to have some stuff this year, and some of them like The Initiative won't have it for a little while.

Phil Spencer: That's right, that's right.

Larry Hyrb: So it's not like we're going to have all 12 studios, "Here's all the new stuff you're going to see." It's rolling, that's just the way it works.

Phil Spencer: Yeah, the real goal with the studios for me is to get a large enough studio base where we can delight and surprise ourselves and our fans with games. And it's on a regular cadence. So we're not always pinched to say, "Okay, well what can we announce?" Now we can say "What do we have to announce, and which of these things do we actually want to announce? And what do we want to let sit and percolate a little longer?" You know this, it's been a while since we were in that position with our internal studios. And I feel really good about that. As Matt Booty and I were sitting down and looking at all the different things the teams are working on, it's just ... The kind of capability that we have now as a first party organization, I do think it will continue to get bigger. But the ... What we have right now is just so different than the position we've been in the last five years.

Larry Hyrb: Without a doubt, I mean just even the games alone. Obviously people think about games with Compulsion and Ninja Theory. It's quite amazing, and I know you've looked at the pipeline and you're excited about the pipeline.

Phil Spencer: I am. I mean one of the cool things was Obsidian and seeing their announce at the game awards. It was ... I've seen what Ninja Theory's working on next and what their pipeline looks like.

Larry Hyrb: I'm dying to go out there to that studio. I know you went out a little while ago to visit them.

Phil Spencer: Yeah, we were there in November.

Larry Hyrb: I'm dying to go out to Ninja Theory, 'cause I mean that game. 'Cause as an audio nerd, that game blew my mind.

Phil Spencer: Oh, it's ... I'm actually going back, and truth be told I haven't finished it I was kinda at the second to last chapter. And I got stuck in some other things. So literally yesterday, I think I'll probably finish it today. I'm on the last chapter and I've got ... Yeah, you put the headphones on-

Larry Hyrb: We're talking about Hellblade if you haven't played it...

Phil Spencer: It's on Game Pass.

Larry Hyrb: It's on Game Pass.

Phil Spencer: It is. And yeah, the collection of things that the teams ... That the studios that have come together. I was out at Rare at the same time, we went to Rare, Playground. Saw what Playground's working on next. I saw what Rare is working on next and their continued growth and success with Sea of Thieves.

Larry Hyrb: Everyone's streaming that now, you see that?

Phil Spencer: It is ... I mean, it's such a fun game. A community, you and I have played it. [crosstalk 00:15:11]

Larry Hyrb: Yeah we've played it, yeah we've played it. I remember me running away from those guys and you're like, "Drop the sail! Go around the other side of the island!"

Phil Spencer: I always laugh when people come to me about Sea of Thieves and they're like, "Oh, it's the most tranquil, calming game." And I'm like, "You have not played the same Sea of Thieves that I have."

Larry Hyrb: No.

Phil Spencer: "'Cause when I'm playing, I'm always looking at the horizon. Is that a sail? Is that a sail?" It can be one of the most kind of on edge games. But Rare has done a really nice job in learning from the community. It get the feedback from some [inaudible 00:15:38] this game when they launched. I don't think people understand the role that the community has played in what Sea of Thieves has become.

Larry Hyrb: Right

Phil Spencer: And that feedback loop ... I mean I guess we could've sat back in beta for nine months or whatever, I'm not sure what that would've meant. But we said even before we launched that the gamer's voice is going to play a big role in how we grow this game. And that's not done. And we look at where this is going. Some of the stuff announced, some of the stuff unannounced. I think it's something that's long for us. We're big believers in the Sea of Thieves and where it's gonna go, and it's great to see Joe and the team continue to innovate there.

Larry Hyrb: Yeah, I had them on when we were down at the event in the Mexico City. I had those guys on, and I'm gonna have Joe on, Joe Neate, the executive ... I think I'll have him on the show in a couple of weeks.

Phil Spencer: Yeah.

Larry Hyrb: To talk about what they're working on. Yeah it's ... They have such a great job over there. So yeah you've been playing a lot of games that have been announced and haven't been announced.

Phil Spencer: Yeah that's always ... When I go dark on Live it's usually I'm-

Larry Hyrb: That's why he's not tweeting folks, because he's too busy playing those unannounced games.

Phil Spencer: I'm on a dev kit. And well, because it's showing up in the last two to three months when something's going to ship and giving some feedback is not always the most productive thing for a team. So-

Larry Hyrb: It can derail them, actually.

Phil Spencer: It can. So-

Larry Hyrb: "Phil says he wants this! Stop the presses!"

Phil Spencer: That's not what they say. It's like, "Just tell him we'll do it later." But so getting her in early, getting your hands on things if they're things, I don't know how to put this without ... Like if there are games that I have some history with-

Larry Hyrb: Sure.

Phil Spencer: Then I might have something to say about some of the kind of core values.

Larry Hyrb: And when you say history, as a player or as somebody who was in production.

Phil Spencer: That's right.

Larry Hyrb: Right? I mean, because you've played so many games both as a regular person playing them and as well as someone who's-

Phil Spencer: Then I put my other non-regular player hat on.

Larry Hyrb: Exactly.

Phil Spencer: What have you been playing?

Larry Hyrb: One of my ... let's see, Assassin's Creed: Odyssey.

Phil Spencer: I watched you! I saw ... Well I don't watch you, I see on Live that you're playing.

Larry Hyrb: That game is just, I got ... So I started playing in October when it launched. And then I said, "Okay I gotta put this-"

Phil Spencer: Yeah, you went away from it for a while.

Larry Hyrb: Right, because I went into Red Dead. And I finished Red Dead, went through Red Dead, and then I went back to it, and it just, it just ... The game just got bigger and bigger and bigger. I don't understand that game and how they shipped it, it's so huge!

Phil Spencer: And you played ... I remember you played a lot of Odyssey, too, didn't you?

Larry Hyrb: I did, yeah.

Phil Spencer: That's the thing. I'm letting our Origins, [crosstalk 00:18:00] You played a lot of origins. I'm letting Odyssey ... I've played, I don't know, ten hours of it.

Larry Hyrb: The combat's amazing.

Phil Spencer: The team does a fantastic job. That was another thing. I got to go out with Ubisoft and sit with some of the creators. I played that a year ago and played some of the other games. And just talked to the teams about whether it's a game that we're marketing or somebody else is marketing. I don't really care bout that.

Larry Hyrb: It's a game.

Phil Spencer: It's a game. So this one, since I played so much Origins I'm kinda ... I don't want to burn out on it. So I'm letting it sit for a little bit.

Larry Hyrb: It's so good.

Phil Spencer: I go back to it every once in a while. What else?

Larry Hyrb: I'm playing that. I was in North Carolina last month for The Division 2.

Phil Spencer: Yeah

Larry Hyrb: So playing the new Dark Zones that we've talked about over the past couple weeks. So playing a little bit of The Division 2 before it launches, of course. That's one of the ... I can do that too, Phil.

Phil Spencer: Yeah, yeah.

Larry Hyrb: So I'm playing that. We're still getting into Overwatch. PUBG just shipped Vikendi, which is the new snow-covered map.

Phil Spencer: Snow map, yeah.

Larry Hyrb: Yeah, the snow map. They shipped that this week, so we played that a little bit. Sea of Thieves, of course, trying to get the gang back in. And that's one thing I was telling Joe. I was like, "Look I love Sea of Thieves, but when I go in the world I kinda have to block out my calendar for an hour or an hour and a half." So that's why I know they're working on the arena stuff for a little bit-

Phil Spencer: A tighter loop.

Larry Hyrb: A little bit tighter loop, yeah. So yeah, those ... That's kinda what I'm focused on right now. I haven't had a chance I'll talk about ... Here's the headline that everybody is going to pick up on. I haven't had a chance to check out the new Mario on the Switch.

Phil Spencer: The... Not Smash Brothers.?

Larry Hyrb: No, the U.

Phil Spencer: Oh, the okay.

Larry Hyrb: the U. So I've gotta check that out. But yeah, man, just a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Yeah it's been and then one thing I'm really excited about is the Anthem VIP demo coming out this week. Have you had ... Did you play the demo?

Phil Spencer: Yeah.

Larry Hyrb: When we had internal access to it? A lot of fun

Phil Spencer: It is fun.

Larry Hyrb: I'm sure you gave your feedback to Casey.

Phil Spencer: Yeah, yeah. I like Casey a lot. And even Patrick back when a year, year and a half ago when we were looking at some stuff on that game. And it's great to have Casey there. He's such a strong, creative leader. It's fantastic to see him back at BioWare and doing cool things. Yeah, I mean, you play a lot. I see you online. I love the fact that I see your go-to's and then, which is awesome. And I think it's nice to be for both of us, I think, to be able to work in a space where kinda our hobby is our job.

Larry Hyrb: Yeah, well that's why you and I have talked about this off the air as well as on the air, it's we just love what we do. And I've been here I think ... You had a nice comment to me on Twitter that moment you were on Twitter a few weeks ago, where I'd just just past 18 years here.

Phil Spencer: Congrats on that.

Larry Hyrb: Thank you. Of which 15, 15 and a half were here at Xbox. Because it's fun! And we work with amazing, smart people. And you and I are blessed because we get to work with these people and you moreso than me, but represent the brand to a lot of people.

Phil Spencer: Yeah I mean going back to 2018, 2019 where we are. And I've done this kind of story too many times, but what I will say today is when I sit down with the teams ... And I did a couple of product reviews yesterday. Almost 100% of the time, the team sits down having made so much more progress on what they're working on so much more than I expected.

Larry Hyrb: Right.

Phil Spencer: And it's just awesome when you get to work with teams that are just accelerating on their own. Like they have their own belief, they have their own capability, they feel empowered. They know who their customer is, they know what they're trying to do.

Larry Hyrb: There's focus.

Phil Spencer: That's right, and you don't ... I sit down, I try not to say something stupid to slow them down, because they're just doing it.

Larry Hyrb: Right.

Phil Spencer: And -

Larry Hyrb: You get out of the way.

Phil Spencer: Try to get out of the way. And you know, I'd say a few years ago it was more about alignment, more about belief, what can I do to help, how do we untangle some things that maybe are tangled. But it's just so cool. I mean you think, I've been with the company for a long time and I say, "Okay, at some point somebody else is going to sit in this chair." And like that's just fair. But right now it's so much fun.

Larry Hyrb: Yeah. You know what I was thinking, I was looking at ... We're going to play a little Jeopardy.

Phil Spencer: Uh oh.

Larry Hyrb: What is 137 days and 15 hours?

Phil Spencer: I'm going to guess it's E3.

Larry Hyrb: There you go. E3. E3 Getting ready for that!

Phil Spencer: Yeah.

Larry Hyrb: I know I've been in some meetings and I know you've been in a lot of meetings as well.

Phil Spencer: Yeah, you know this is going to be a fun E3 for us. We ... Obviously there was some news about E3 in the fall and we had a discussion internally of, "Should we go big? Should we save some money?" You know, what does that mean? We decided, no, we're going to do our thing. And we're gonna go and be as big at E3 as we've ever been and I love that opportunity. I love the opportunity to be with our fans in the industry. And the industry conversations it's like a revolving door in Sarah Bond's team who runs business development for us.

Larry Hyrb: Right.

Phil Spencer: Right now and the third party's coming through, and what we wanna do at E3. A lot of interest. It is going to be fun. This team ... We gotta... Last year we changed venue which I think-

Larry Hyrb: Oh boy, did we. We upgraded.

Phil Spencer: We did, we did.

Larry Hyrb: The Galen was great, but wow.

Phil Spencer: Yeah, it wasn't ... Not that it it's the Microsoft Theater, but the Microsoft Theater is a special place. I love the location how it's right in the center of everything.

Larry Hyrb: Yeah.

Phil Spencer: And this year we're changing up a couple, as you know, things about how we're showing up at E3 I think again in a positive way. Though you know we've done it now for a while. This team. Like the team in ... I love how we throw a new wrinkle in, because I think it gets a lot of us a little bit on edge and try to be the where it is-

Larry Hyrb: That's the way it was last year.

Phil Spencer: That's right.

Larry Hyrb: Everyone was like, "The people that have been doing ... A lot of the folks on our events team, in all of their different parts, have been here for a long time."

Phil Spencer: They have

Larry Hyrb: So they were like, "Oh, I don't know." And it was great to see people roll their sleeves up and solve problems and get excited about the new location.

Phil Spencer: They did, they did. And I think it was world class.

Larry Hyrb: Yeah.

Phil Spencer: And I'm looking forward to this year. I'm thinking ... Interesting on how and who we get on stage and how we kinda do that this year. And then I think it's gonna be great. There's ... I think we're still going through some of the internal discussions about how much long term versus how much near term do we talk about. You know me, I'm always more of a proponent for just being as transparent as we can be. That said, you know, if things could change or something you don't want to head-fake people and say we're doing X and we're doing Y, but I feel really good about our plans and we'll kind of work through those things. With the larger organization.

Phil Spencer: But I think it's going to be ... I think the content that we'll have will be great. I think we'll talk about our future. I think we'll talk more about what the Xbox brand means to us. I think rightfully, most people when they think about an Xbox they think about a gaming console. We do as well. And I love the fact that the gaming console has played such an important role in our strategy, but at the same time we have millions of Xbox customers who we never see on console today.

Larry Hyrb: Yeah.

Phil Spencer: We see them on a phone, or we see them on a different device or on PC. And to really continue to push this idea that you can be a member of the Xbox community even if you're not playing your games on a console.

Larry Hyrb: Wherever you are.

Phil Spencer: Wherever you are. And we want to continue to make that possible. You can stay connected to your friends, you can stay connected to your content. One thing I'm doing, which I had a good time with when I was away over the holidays. I was playing games on xCloud.

Larry Hyrb: Really?

Phil Spencer: Yeah, yeah.

Larry Hyrb: You announced, we announced this last year. And I know that internally ... I haven't had a chance to do that yet. I've had my devices ready to go but I-

Phil Spencer: Yeah, so-

Larry Hyrb: Tell me about that.

Phil Spencer: It was fun. [crosstalk 00:25:44]

Larry Hyrb: Be careful!

Phil Spencer: No, I was just playing. I think that like anything, we want to make sure we get it as right as we can. And the best way for us to do that is to test it, test it for us.

Larry Hyrb: Play it.

Phil Spencer: I was, I don't mind saying, I was in Hawaii for a little while and I had my device and I'm playing and it's cool because when I'm doing it, I'm just on Xbox Live. Like I'm getting the same toast pop-ups, people inviting me to parties and stuff. Like to anybody else in the service, I'm just playing.

Larry Hyrb: You're just playing.

Phil Spencer: And I'm playing this game-

Larry Hyrb: That's the way it should be.

Phil Spencer: That's the way it should be. That's right kinda a ... So I am as much a part of the Xbox community in that context as I am when I'm sitting down in front of my X-

Larry Hyrb: Regardless of what device you're on or where you are

Phil Spencer: That's right. And there's I'm learning a lot as I'm playing games this way. It's helping me kinda think about the experience before we get it in the hands of customers. But I think it's just, when I think ... It'll be ... Let's be clear. It's gonna be years, I think, before this is the primary way millions of people are playing. But as ... Sitting at a company like Microsoft with the assets we have, I think we should focus on the now and let's go be great with the consoles we have in market now. And the games that we can go build. Let's think about our future and our kind of the existing spaces of console and PC, and let's go be real meaningful in those places. We've got significant work we've got to do on PC but I love the plan. But I think we should also have these kind of five, ten year views on where we think things can go. And I love the fact that we can play in all three of those horizons at the same time.

Larry Hyrb: Now I have to ask you this because your boss, the CEO of the company, of the ... The CEO of one of the most valuable companies in the world, Satya. What's that like, his engagement with gaming? I mean clearly you report to him, so he knows it's valuable to the company and it's a big deal.

Phil Spencer: Yeah. I'd say for Satya Nadella, our CEO, and Amy Hood our CFO, which are probably my two primary contacts. Incredibly supportive. And obviously when you're going and adding the studios that we did, in the last what now 8 months. Amy's got to approve all that as the CFO.

Larry Hyrb: The Chief Financial Officer.

Phil Spencer: Chief Financial ... And I've said this before. Satya looked at me on the last one we finally because we closed them all now, we've closed them all. And he was like, "Man, we're really in on content, aren't we?" I'm like, "Yes we are." But he loves the strategy. And I think he more than anything he trusts the team.

Larry Hyrb: Now Amy doesn't play a lot of games, does she? Was it you that were telling me the story about The Division?

Phil Spencer: No, I don't think so.

Larry Hyrb: Somebody was telling me this story about it, and I don't know Amy that well. But somebody was telling me this story, because she's our Chief Financial Officer. And apparently we were talking about The Division and she said, "Oh I love division!" No, not that type of division. Not long division, because she's a numbers person.

Phil Spencer: That's right. Yeah, Amy pays a lot of attention. She watches streamers, she stays-

Larry Hyrb: Oh really?

Phil Spencer: Oh yeah, yeah. She stays very connected. She's got younger kids. She doesn't have a ton of time so she doesn't play a lot, but I think as her kids are getting into the ages where they'll be playing she'll have that connection which is great. Satya just, I think for both of them, trusts in the team, belief in the strategy. Our critical components, big supporters. You know, there's certain things where I have to work like ... Take Game Pass. Satya will ... It's easy. He calls Game Pass the Netflix of Games.

Larry Hyrb: Right. A lot of people do.

Phil Spencer: A lot of people do. And it's not.

Larry Hyrb: Right.

Phil Spencer: Right? And that's not disrespect to Netflix. I'm a Netflix subscriber, I love it. But it is fundamentally different. The content that we have works differently than a video-

Larry Hyrb: Sure. A movie or TV show.

Phil Spencer: Where I watch it. Right, where there's a beginning, a middle, and an end, and then it stops. Not all games are like that. Games last longer. Some games have business models inside of themselves. People ... Some of the aspects that are similar, it's been really cool just to see the uplift in gameplay. People when they find ... I saw some interesting stat, I'm sure we'll kind of publicize them at some point. Human Fall Flat is a game that's done incredibly well in Game Pass. And when we watch those players we say, "Okay. Oh, here's a puzzle game that we don't know how it would've done on Xbox without the exposure of Game Pass." You can never kind of do the before and after of that. But now you see, "Hey, we got a lot of other puzzle games that all of a sudden are becoming more popular. And where are those players coming from?"

Larry Hyrb: All boats rise.

Phil Spencer: Yeah, it's actually. Literally, it's coming from people who their first real puzzle genre game that they play was a game like Human Fall Flat. I think how awesome is that that we have this kind of this system where people can try new content? Low friction, low barrier. Get exposed to something that is fun, creatively put together, a game I love. And then when they find, "Hey, I do like this. Thomas was alone, I'm going to go try that game. I'm gonna go find other puzzle games because I found that I like it."

Phil Spencer: And I don't know that that happens so much on a video service. I think it maybe happens some, but I don't know if it like ... I don't know if all of a sudden House of Cards is popular and people go looking for other political dramas or something. But in games, I think because of the community nature of it, because the business model of a lot of the games and stuff. It is, it works different than video. It works very, very healthy ways. Which has been awesome. So I love the discovery that happens in the in Game Pass and stuff. Satya is a big believer. And I mean, when you think about the consumer-facing businesses inside of Microsoft, the consumer products. And we do the brand analysis of what Xbox means. I mean, Xbox is a global consumer brand in so many markets. And they love that.

Larry Hyrb: It is, it's kind of amazing. We've talked about it. You've been here at the company a long time as well as I. To remember, I always tell people the story of when we were at Millennium, which is an old office park we used to be in-

Phil Spencer: The gravel pit.

Larry Hyrb: Next to a gravel pit. And I used to remind people that we would ... It was the team ... When I joined the team it was like 300 people. And now I don't even know how many people are in the Xbox work around the world.

Phil Spencer: It's thousands.

Larry Hyrb: It's thousands. And they're around the world, which is ... It's growing and growing and growing. And as you just alluded to earlier, there's tremendous aspirations to go beyond the console.

Phil Spencer: There is. And the growth is part of it. I think on a percentage basis we're one of the fastest growing groups around. Obviously the acquisitions have a large part of that. And going around the world, a love the fact that we no longer try to push everybody to live in the upper northwest corner of the United States.

Larry Hyrb: Thank god, yeah.

Phil Spencer: You can go do an acquisition or hire people once you've got a footprint in different places. Even remote employees. I had a good lunch with one of our strong Xbox Live devs who lives in southern California and works from his home. And he has for years. And I think you want to find the best talent. You want them to be able to be comfortable with where they live. You know, I think. I was down at Brian Fargo in inXile there in Malibu. Which is ... or Newport. Newport. And then they've got another part of their studio that's over in Louisiana. The Silicon Bayou. And I think it's great that we can actually put ... have footprints, have offices in different places. It lets us hire more different kinds of people.

Larry Hyrb: The talent pool is much bigger.

Phil Spencer: That's right, we're not always competing with ourselves. It is ... It means a little more travel. But I just think is the community and culture we have inside of our team, it is such a great addition.

Larry Hyrb: That's why I've been fighting for years, I want to get a studio out in New England where I'm from. There used to be a couple in Boston area-

Phil Spencer: There were, yep.

Larry Hyrb: But there's a lot of tech, a lot of students out there. I'll be going out there for PAX East in a couple months. And it is amazing how ... When I was growing up, and you grew up in the northwest.

Phil Spencer: I grew up in southern California and then I came up here to go to this college.

Larry Hyrb: Well when I grew up in New England, you know, there wasn't... Video games weren't a big deal. And then of course I moved out to Microsoft in 2000-ish. And I go back there now, and now it's like it's everywhere. And it's just [inaudible 00:33:36] same thing. Our business went from to the point from the 300 people on Xbox to the thousands around the world. Everybody games now.

Phil Spencer: Yeah. And that's ... You look at the stats, you look at the size of the business, the growth in the business. It is-

Larry Hyrb: Bigger than Hollywood.

Phil Spencer: And I'd just say it's mainstream. It's the number of people who play, or watch, or have interest in it. I think for us, as an industry, we have to recognize that the kind of responsibility with the reach that we have now. And I think we're doing more of that. You know, I love ... I'm on the ESA Board, which is the Entertainment Software Association, and Reggie's there. And Shawn's there. EA's there and Activision. It's like all of the main game publishers and first parties. I know Shawn's doing the D.I.C.E. keynote, Shawn Layden from Sony this year. I got the privilege of doing that last year. He and I had a short email exchange on those platforms as an industry with the amount of ... You think about how many kids on the planet their first use of any technology is through something like Minecraft. And I'm not saying that because we own Minecraft, could be Minecraft on the Switch or an iPhone.

Larry Hyrb: Right, whatever.

Phil Spencer: And then well what does that mean? I'm literally sitting in Jeff's seat today because I started playing video games with my dad who was an engineer, and a few years into it I wanted to figure out how these things were built. So I learned to program. Then I went to college and got an engineering degree because I wanted to figure out how things like that were built. And that whole STEM path, the social impact that gaming can have, it's such a great way to bring people together in a world where a lot of things are dividing us. Whether you're a that and I'm a this. And there's no overlap in that.

Phil Spencer: We have an art form in a society in gaming. A social that can really be an impact. Have a good impact on the planet. I love that. And I love seeing the industry start to grow into that. Realize that opportunity. And so many great people in the industry see that and grasp that and the work that happens. And we do it in a collaborative way. That's ... We're not competing on who's adaptable, who's more accessible. Let's actually be an industry that does the right thing for as many people as we can.

Larry Hyrb: Well before you ... I know you've got to wrap it up in a few minutes, because you need to go. But one thing I wanted to talk about last year was a big year was the adaptive controller. You kinda alluded to that a little bit. That was still huge, and we saw it in the commercial.

Phil Spencer: Owen, yeah.

Larry Hyrb: With Owen. Over the holiday. That's ... What a great product that is. And I know that you get comments all the time on social and I do all the time on social and in person. The difference that product made.

Phil Spencer: Yeah, the videos that we see, it's so ... I had a little bit of this when we launched Kinect. Kinect was more something I don't think we foresaw, but autistic children who couldn't play games and we're getting videos from parents who could play for the first time with their kids. And that was, I'd say an emergent capability. This with the adaptive controller was so like a team. I think we've said this before, it started as a hack-a-thon project at Microsoft. And so it's not like some executive upon high said, "Hey, we're gonna go do this."

Phil Spencer: This was community driven inside of the organization. And not just people on the games team. That came together to go build this thing. And now I see the impact that that has, and in kind of writing an awareness in the industry and growing an awareness in the industry that we want everybody to play. And when everybody plays we all win. I kinda love that, that tagline. And I like that tagline not as a Microsoft thing but as an industry thing. The Owen commercial, the first time I saw that, it's an emotional thing. I think on YouTube, they also have the backstory of all that. That is his best friend. In the-

Larry Hyrb: He's a real kid, a real story.

Phil Spencer: That's right. He loves playing video games, this whole thing. Like, "What do I love about video games."

Larry Hyrb: He and I were trying to play over the holidays and we never connected.

Phil Spencer: Oh, that's okay.

Larry Hyrb: I'll trying to play a game with him.

Phil Spencer: I just love the impact. And that's such a ... I think the adaptive controller was just a great manifestation of an industry that's starting to realize its place and its capability. A team-

Larry Hyrb: And responsibility.

Phil Spencer: And responsibility. Perfect, perfect word for it. And then the first thing we did when we had some early working models is we sent them to a lot of different companies in the industry and we said, "Hey, whether you want to do this, or you want to do something in your own skin or whatever. We think there's a real capability." And the response from the industry has been great. It's not a Microsoft thing. It's an industry thing and it all kind of builds on itself.

Larry Hyrb: I know that you've, you're famous. You've gone one record as famously saying, "If anybody else wants to use this technology then have at it."

Phil Spencer: That's right. And I think there's the adaptive controller, there's the text-to-speech, speech-to-text work that we've been doing in games. There's just toxicity online, obviously we talked about that. It all ... Again, you have to come back to are we building things that people love? Like responsibility without kind of engagement from people who love what you're giving them is the most important thing. And I think 2018 was a fantastic year as an industry for just the innovation for the art form. When you think about all of the great games that were put out. Red Dead was awesome. Nintendo just had an awesome, an incredible December. Sony first party has been doing a really good job. You see third parties, first parties doing incredible work.

Phil Spencer: We talked obviously a lot about where Sea of Thieves is and how that's grown in 2018. I think it's a real nice year for the industry to continue to push in so many fronts and I don't see that momentum stopping. Just as I go around and talk to different publishers, different studios. It's so ... People are really energized right now. There'll be natural cycles in terms of business growing, whatever. But I think that responsibility matched with the opportunity to reach so many people just has the creative community, as far as I can see it, more pumped about what they can do than ever before. Which, as a gamer, I'm incredibly excited.

Larry Hyrb: Back in 2018 and kind of a preview of 2019 by Phil Spencer. Thanks, man. I know you gotta go, you got a busy day today. More game ... You reviewing more titles?

Phil Spencer: I am. Yeah. And like I said, maybe I'm gonna sneak and finish Hellblade's last chapter.

Larry Hyrb: Let me know if you need any help. No, you have to do it. You must finish.

Phil Spencer: I'm right there. But yeah it's today ... Everyday is kinda stacked with stuff. But it's good. We're in here early in the morning, and I appreciate you coming over.

Larry Hyrb: Oh, my pleasure.

Phil Spencer: You beat me in today. So I came in-

Larry Hyrb: I feel good about that. I feel good about that.

Phil Spencer: And Jeff being at Starbucks gave me the opportunity-

Larry Hyrb: In France, in Paris, by the way.

Phil Spencer: Yeah, Starbucks in Paris. Come on, Jeff. But no, you guys are doing a great job just staying connected with the community that we have and giving people the information that they want. And I just appreciate the opportunity to come on.

Larry Hyrb: My pleasure, man. We'll have you on ... We've also got a new episode of Inside Xbox coming up in a couple of weeks. So we'll have some more-

Phil Spencer: I love Inside Xbox.

Larry Hyrb: Yeah.

Phil Spencer: I watch it-

Larry Hyrb: Every month.

Phil Spencer: Yeah.

Larry Hyrb: We'll have you on again. We had you on in Mexico City.

Phil Spencer: Yeah, that's right. That's right.

Larry Hyrb: I don't think you're on this next show, but 'cause when Phil comes on, he brings the heat.

Phil Spencer: No, I see these opportunities to talk with the community and there's things I want to talk about. So I'm probably a little less glitzy than some of your other guests. Hosts. Guests. But I'm ... Yeah, I appreciate it. So any time.

Larry Hyrb: That sounds fun. All right, we'll let you go and people can find you on social, on Twitter.

Phil Spencer: XboxP3, or P3 on Xbox Live.

Larry Hyrb: You're one of the four people I follow, so just follow me @Major Nelson and when he's tweeting. All right, man, we will talk to you later. Thanks, Phil.

Phil Spencer: Thank you.

Larry: Welcome to 2019, it's showtime Jeffrey. We're back podcast in the studio.

Jeffrey: Here's it's new years day, we're ... no.

Larry: No it's not, it's a week plus later.

Jeffrey: Took a week to sleep that off.

Larry: We have not been in the audio studio in how long.

Jeffrey: November.

Larry: I'm going to look at, mid November is the last time we were in the audio studio.

Jeffrey: Well that's dereliction of duty sir.

Larry: Well, no it isn't because we had, I don't know if we're going to talk anything about your holiday?

Jeffrey: Only if you ask, it's the Major Nelson Show not Jeff [crosstalk 00:00:52].

Larry: Well it is, and you are a guest/co-host/important cog-

Jeffrey: /last man standing.

Larry: You know I was thinking about this podcast, quite an illustrious career for the past, how many years Jeffrey?

Jeffrey: 13.

Larry: 14.

Jeffrey: Yeah, we were talking about the same today.

Larry: But Ian here who I've got to get back on Steptoe may he rest in peace. By the way, I was thinking about him. I don't know if you didn't work a lot with Steptoe, but he'd love politics.

Jeffrey: I followed him on twitter. We would chat here and there and I'm like, "You say all the things that I want to say."

Larry: He would love what was going on in the United States political scene.

Jeffrey: Loves it an interesting term.

Larry: Yeah. So he would be fascinated by the courts.

Jeffrey: Fascinated yes.

Larry: Laura, of course who is now-

Jeffrey: You still sees Lara.

Larry: Yeah, I was just texting her this morning. She's been traveling and she's been busy. She told me she misses the show.

Jeffrey: Well, the show misses her.

Larry: Yeah. So, but if you and I are back here. We did a video show, we did an audio show, we're back in the studio. And how was your holiday though?

Jeffrey: It was fantastic.

Larry: Do you want to talk about your travel?

Jeffrey: I mean, if you want to hear about it.

Larry: I want to hear about the first part. I really don't care about the second part.

Jeffrey: Really?

Larry: Yeah.

Jeffrey: So, we decided to take a big trip. We don't often get to do that.

Larry: I'm sure you do once a year.

Jeffrey: We do it once a year. But a lot of times, I don't get to travel too much. I travel so much during work.

Larry: Sure, we all do.

Jeffrey: During the year and I don't really know where I'm going to be. And so I really don't take vacation during the year at all. And so I kind of even all up for the end of the year.

Larry: And you do.

Jeffrey: And we went to New Zealand about halfway between the West Coast in New Zealand is French Polynesia. So we stopped there for a couple of days.

Larry: Tahiti, When you say that it sounds really exotic but is it all right.

Jeffrey: It does. Yeah, I mean it's a couple hours south of Hawaii and Hawaii is great, but if you live on the West Coast Hawaii, you can go all the time they have a Costco.

Larry: The way I described this was, you and I grew up in the East Coast of the United States. It's like in New England much like Philly I guess. When you need some sun you take the two hour flight, you go Florida. And on the West Coast a lot of people go to places either Arizona Nevada or Hawaii.

Larry: And I will tell you this Hawaii beats Florida hands down.

Jeffrey: No argument there sir.

Larry: Let me be clear, Florida is very nice and it's lovely-

Jeffrey: It has it parks, my family lives there.

Larry: Your family lives there and I have a lot of friends and folks that I know down there.

Jeffrey: They have lived there for a long time.

Larry: But there's something about those tropical Pacific breezes.

Jeffrey: So here's the thing about French Polynesia, Tahiti Maria, maybe Bora bora which I didn't go to. That is Hawaii's Hawaii.

Larry: Hawaii. Okay, that's where Hawaiian's go.

Jeffrey: So, you would think if you live in Hawaii-

Larry: You're in paradise.

Jeffrey: Why would I ever need to leave and my daughter ended up making friends with a girl and I was like, "Oh where are you from?" They're like, "Maui." And I'm like, "Wait and you're here." And they're like, "Oh yeah this is where we go for vacation."

Larry: Island to island. Interesting. Okay.

Jeffrey: Anyway and then we continued onto Polynesia. I like going to cities beaches are great. French Polynesia, the nicest people. I got to practice my French a little bit.

Larry: I didn't even know you knew French.

Jeffrey: [French language 00:04:03]. Yeah really. But there was-

Larry: [French language 00:04:10]

Jeffrey: And it was good to go to cities and drive around New Zealand, got to go to the Shire at some place.

Larry: Let's back up about your French.

Jeffrey: We?

Larry: Yeah. Back up about your French. Okay, how do you say. I would like a espresso in coffee?

Jeffrey: [French language 00:04:27] or espresso presumably.

Larry: Espresso.

Jeffrey: I never ordered espresso. They did have Coco lite there. Every single time I probably texted three or four times. Great expense actually.

Larry: This is fascinating to me because I, and we'll get back to you in a sec. But I spent the holiday with my family up in New England. And here you are. I actually had to, I don't know if I still have it on my phone. I shall show you this because I was very conscious of texting you. I didn't have it on my phone. But I added Tahiti-

Jeffrey: That's very nice.

Larry: To my clock so I wasn't texting you at 3:00 in the morning and all of that stuff.

Jeffrey: What's funny is when you think of Tahiti just like imagine it in your mind and you think of something that is just so far away, it's like on the other end of Australia or something. And it is, there's nothing around there. It's only two hours behind us right now, two hours. It's in our dateline and all that. It's not that far but people are like, "Oh my God what time is it?" And I'm like, "3:00 p.m."

Larry: My favorite data point is there's a point in the Pacific and it is not Tahiti it's not Bora bora it's way south of there. But there is one spot in the country, excuse me in the world and it's in the middle of the ocean somewhere, where the closest human beings to where you are standing are on the space station.

Jeffrey: That's great.

Larry: That's how far you are from land.

Jeffrey: Really interesting.

Larry: I don't know where it is, It's way in the southern hemisphere somewhere. It's in the middle of the Pacific. But I was like when you think about that data point your like, "Whoa." Right?

Jeffrey: Yeah. And it feels just very interesting being that that far out there. Anyway so-

Larry: My point was as you and I were texting like you were next door.

Jeffrey: Yeah.

Larry: It was like nobody's business.

Jeffrey: It was like, "Oh yeah, the free Wifi." And what did I end up doing I spent most of my time playing games. I actually got very into Civ6 on the iPhone right.

Larry: Which is a good version.

Jeffrey: Which shocked the heck out of me. When it first came out I was like, "I'm not buying this." There's no way you can shrink that game. I had it on P.C. No way this game could be good on an iPhone.

Larry: Guess what?

Jeffrey: And then they marked it down 75% off and they put a demo up. A 60 term demo and if you play Civ 60 turns, that is like a tenth of the game, maybe. And I started playing I'm like, "Oh wait this is really good all right." And I was like, "Guess what, you get my 15 bucks or whatever it is." And I've not stopped playing it since.

Larry: You know what I'm playing this chess game on my phone. Laura and I are playing chess.

Jeffrey: How's that going for you?

Larry: It's not going well, as you would expect she's obliterating me but it's one of those you know turn bass thing where I move and then a day later she'll move we go back and forth. So here's the board right there.

Jeffrey: Why it is a very simple looking, it's chess.

Larry: She isn't able to taunt me which I like.

Jeffrey: She can still text you.

Larry: Right. So we're playing chess but so welcome back.

Jeffrey: Thank you. This is going to sound terrible please. About five days and I was like, "I miss my Xbox."

Larry: Yeah I know.

Jeffrey: I'm falling behind further-

Larry: But you were in the middle of Red Dead when you left, you haven't finished it.

Jeffrey: Right in the middle. I still haven't finished it but it is immediately the first thing I did as soon as I got back that. That and Doughnut County which we can talk about. You're looking at me like, "What, Doughnut County?" Isn't it that weird that you would be someplace that people want to go and then you're like, "I wish I was playing my Xbox."

Larry: You were in paradise. So let's be clear, you were in a place that I have always wanted to go since I was a little boy because I love water, I love scuba diving. And you went snorkeling which you know squaw man scuba diving.

Jeffrey: I am porous.

Larry: I'm just saying it's the simpler version.

Jeffrey: I'm like an indoor cat. I'd rather look at the stuff and then be playing games. But if I'm playing games but I have the window open that counts as being outside.

Larry: No.

Jeffrey: That's most of my outdoor activity.

Larry: This is one of my top places I want to go scuba diving.

Jeffrey: Well then you should go. You will get more out of it than I will.

Larry: I mean I want to just ... anyway.

Jeffrey: Well it's good to be back. I'm gonna put it that way. It was nice and restful, I slept like 10 hours a day.

Larry: I don't know if I could sleep with the sunrises and sunsets and the coffee-

Jeffrey: The sunset's super, it's in a weird time zone. Even though it was the longest day of the year, the sun set at 6:30 p.m.

Jeffrey: In March, it will set at 6:30 p.m. here. And then at that point it's super dark-

Larry: It's not about the time, it's about the beauty.

Jeffrey: It's dark Larry, there are no lights. And I was like, "All right I'll read and then you read me you fall asleep."

Larry: Did you have Wilson with you?

Jeffrey: Well I'm a little paranoid about flying especially over the South Pacific. So I was just-

Larry: As well you should.

Jeffrey: Just trying to put it out of my head. Just one more safe turn, I could live for one more safe turn.

Larry: I spent the holiday in New England as we talked about. There's not much to say about that, I was with my family and it was cold, it was warm, it was snowy, it was rainy, it was everything. It was sunny, it was fun.

Jeffrey: Did you catch up on anything? Did you work on your backlog?

Larry: Unfortunately, I did not spend in my backlog, I was spending with my family because they're so far away and I don't spend a lot of time with them. So it was, that's kind of what I was focused on.

Larry: We played 'You don't know Jack' because that's always what we do with the holiday but otherwise you know the single player experiences is what kind of waiting for me.

Jeffrey: Did you bring you suite with you?

Larry: I did. I didn't pick it up that much. It's not that it's not good I just didn't have time.

Jeffrey: So I did pick mine up to mostly, played a little bit of Pokémon, 'let's go Pick at you.' I don't need no Let's go E.T. Into the breach, this is a game that it's been out on P.C. for some time on Windows P.C. but the portable version is also on sale.

Larry: Let's put a link to the PC version if you don't mind.

Jeffrey: I will. Into The Breach, if you like strategy, not really RPG's but like Advance Wars or something like that. It looks so simple and it's so good and it showed up on a lot of end of year best end of year lists and I can see why. So I'll put a link up to that.

Larry: Please do.

Jeffrey: Into the breach.

Larry: We should talk about some of the news and what's going on-

Jeffrey: There's a lot.

Larry: I I don't want to do, "Oh let's do a year review."Because we're already two weeks in January.

Jeffrey: No. We are not looking back.

Larry: We missed that boat.

Jeffrey: Well there was actually it was interesting. We did put out a blog post just a couple of days ago on X Box wire that did. It was sort of a look back, look forward. You look at game pass how many games were added, how many publishers and different genres and things like that. 116 titles were added over a year, 17 of those day and date. Just an interesting look back. So we won't dwell on it but why don't I go ahead and you know I can link out to that.

Larry: Please do, indeed. All right let's go through some of the news headlines of the week. We have a lot of shows coming up by the way in the future, we got a video show we're gonna be working, we got a hop back on mixer, I've got a couple of cool guests I'm working on for future shows, some really cool guys.

Jeffrey: All right, I don't know. So I'm very-

Larry: I know I haven't told you-

Jeffrey: You should.

Larry: I have deliberately kept them from you. But let's go. Sounds about right. Let's jump into those headlines and check out some of the new releases.

Jeffrey: So what's big this week? CES.

Larry: Yes. The Consumer Electronics Show, which you have been to a few times-

Jeffrey: I've gone five times.

Larry: I've been probably about I think eight or ten.

Jeffrey: It's not a one upping game Larry.

Larry: I didn't even know. No I just said-

Jeffrey: If I said that I had been at eight you would have been like, "Yeah, I've been to 10"

Larry: No I actually don't know-

Jeffrey: I've been to 10, I've been to 12.

Larry: Have you?

Jeffrey: No. It's one of those things where it's like you just get back from Christmas and New Year's and then to be able to turn around. God bless those people who work all through the holiday-

Larry: Cause we've done it, I've done it.

Jeffrey: To get those ready.

Larry: Eight times.

Jeffrey: Eight times fine, it just five for me. There's some cool stuff. Now it's not a big gaming show and I don't know that I've seen any gaming news.

Larry: Well there is a little bit.

Jeffrey: VR stuff?

Larry: Well there's some hardware, that new game where there is no car.

Jeffrey: Well yeah know there's been some great, there haven't been any game titles.

Larry: No. It's hardware, it's not really software.

Jeffrey: Right. And actually one of the things I want to bring up was it basically, the thing you play the game on. In terms of both TV's and laptops mean some really cool stuff. Did you see this roll up.

Larry: Yes I did.

Jeffrey: LG 4K TV. It looks amazing. If you haven't seen it I'll link out to just like a gif or something of a gif.

Larry: We are not going to do that again.

Jeffrey: Can't start not this year, 2019 it doesn't matter. But some really cool laptops. Gaming laptops have just gotten smaller, thinner, lighter and with the to 220 series, 2080's and stuff like that.

Larry: You know what I love about this. I love the fact they get smaller and thinner but what they never show you, is the power supply because you can't change Physics.

Jeffrey: It's true-

Larry: There are always huge.

Jeffrey: That being said some of them, different companies have worked on it. So some are bigger than others.

Larry: And there is believe it or not, there is some technology now in chargers, that allows them to be more efficient. So chargers are actually getting smaller but anyway.

Jeffrey: And that's one of the things that I love more talking about. So like is Asus, Dell, HP, MSCI, Acer. Basically Corsair, all of the big Lenovo, everybody Razer of course announced new stuff. The big sort of buzzword now is Ray tracing but it's stuff that's like now because of like the g-force Artie XGP using. And I think like the other side of it there's more power. But then I think people have realized like you can only make a gaming laptop so big, that they're really starting to put it into like reducing the power drain and being able to make the thing a little bit-

Larry: Gallium nitride, that's it.

Jeffrey: You like a gallium?

Larry: Gallium nitride is what they're putting into a lot of the newer phone chargers and electric chargers to make them smaller, apparently that's the stuff.

Jeffrey: It sounds like it's really far down the periodic table.

Larry: Sounds like something I have to go collect it in a game right. Go get your gallium nitride.

Jeffrey: You need ten units of gallium nitride, for crafting.

Larry: Yeah, I mean look at this. This is from CES, this is the same power. You can see it's almost half the size.

Jeffrey: See, you can change physics so you just need new atoms-

Larry: New gallium nitride.

Jeffrey: That's physics today are chemically, no our canceled podcast. So there's some really good stuff I'll link out to it. But if you're thinking-

Larry: Because it's fail.

Jeffrey: It's not like every year, it's not like a straight line of gaming PC's where they get better in a straight line. I feel like there tends to be like jumps.

Larry: Yeah it's like stair stepping.

Jeffrey: Exactly and like certain years it's like, Whoa things have gotten much better this year and I feel like this is probably one of those years where if you've been looking at stuff where they've gotten a lot smaller. They haven't all announced prices and of course that's always something to look at. I'm someone who's played, I've played Forza Horizon, I've played State of Decay 2. I play all those on P.C. because it was just very convenient for me to be able to play on a laptop and obviously you can do crazy stuff with frame rate if you've got a powerful enough computer. So something to look at. So now start thinking ahead to your potential wishlist for the year.

Larry: All right, so why does they say down under?

Jeffrey: Dude. I was in Australia.

Larry: I know you were.

Jeffrey: It's a different accent and it's almost impossible to copy. The only thing that I can say that's with, the way things it's summer down there but it's summer over Christmas.

Larry: It must get weird if you know anything about Geography.

Jeffrey: It's unusual for us as a northern hemisphere and really-

Larry: Centric person.

Jeffrey: Well, I don't know a lot of our culture. It's really based around it's Christmas, so it's snowing and all the Christmas carols all the popular songs are about it being cold as snow.

Larry: Maybe it's cold outside.

Jeffrey: That's one of them that I wasn't going to mention. And you go there and it's the middle of summer and kids are off school for like the entire December and January. People are going on road trips and are playing summer jams on the radio. Anyway there was one radio station, the only thing I could learn the subtleness of the New Zealand accent, it was it's the edge or whatever that. It's 'ege'.

Larry: Well I think that it's over the edge.

Jeffrey: And it's just like such a subtle accent, I won't even try, other than 'ege'.

Larry: You won't try it on the air, you've done it off the air.

Jeffrey: I did it non-stop. Every time you would hear something interesting you like repeating it and I'm like, "Is that rude, that's probably rude."

Larry: So like a three year old. Repeating it and repeating and repeating it.

Jeffrey: I've never really grown out of that phase. News, we should talk about Game pass by the away. So we might have taken some time off. Xbox Game pass did not take any time off.

Larry: No they don't.

Jeffrey: They really don't.

Larry: They don't.

Jeffrey: They're good folks.

Larry: There's 150 in total games already in Game pass.

Jeffrey: So like literally starting on New Year's. We had a bunch of new games come, Arch Survival Evolved-

Larry: You and I have play it.

Jeffrey: We play it a lot.

Larry: And it's come a long way.

Jeffrey: It indeed has evolved, significantly. I remember when we first started playing-

Larry: We didn't have pants.

Jeffrey: We had no pants, we're running around hitting fish with rocks. I mean we didn't get much beyond that.

Larry: Still we're not much beyond that.

Jeffrey: And a year later I was watching someone play the depth team I feel like they live around here somewhere.

Larry: They do, I think they're on Bellevue few miles away.

Jeffrey: And they were here on campus for something, they were playing again and someone was like riding on the back of a pterodactyl with like a submachine gun. And I'm like, "That's a long way from hitting a fish with a rock." So that's out.

Jeffrey: Farming simulator 17 which I'm hearing is like Low key, one of the the best additions to game pass and life is strange too, go for it.

Larry: I've done that. Did you play it?

Jeffrey: I did not.

Larry: I did that first chapter, it's as disturbing as you would imagine.

Jeffrey: There's a lot of these emotions. It can't all be action. So, a couple, but they didn't stop there. Absolver, which is a day and date release has come out and it's sort of a multiplayer game, is out. Then little bit before we started recording here, Just Cause 3, Aftercharge which is a new game.

Larry: I love Just Cause 3.

Jeffrey: Ultimate Marvel versus cap com 3 which is a relatively new fighting game is also out. So the game pass team, they're not taking any time off now. In about a week or so they had three different drops. They just keep coming.

Larry: And the plus way the game pass sale where you get like your first month for a dollar and it was crazy.

Jeffrey: Yeah I think that there's something like that's still going on.

Larry: Yeah, if you're new subscriber there's always a deal for you. Want to get you in want to check it out.

Jeffrey: You're not going to want to leave.

Larry: No.

Jeffrey: So that's Game pass. I'll link up to a couple of new releases actually I want to talk about one of them Tales of Vesperia.

Larry: Boy, I know you're huge on this.

Jeffrey: We were talking about this before we recorded. There was like a period of time early in-

Larry: About ten years ago.

Jeffrey: 360 lifecycle, where there were some cool arpeggios and I'd like Lost Odyssey was one of them and that's a available via back compatibility. People really like that. Tales of Vesperia. And this game has been remastered for now and it's a 4999, just came out. Looked really good. I was always very in it. The tail series is probably not a game we've spent a lot of time in Larry. But there's there's some overarching stuff between all the different tales, games but they always look really cool and they have like a great anime style to them.

Jeffrey: So anyway the definitive edition running at a high frame rate looks good right. And it's available now. Then Hitman HD, a lot of people talking about Hitman and Hitman 2 especially this year. Now there's an HD enhanced collection which puts together a number of different games together in high def. It's Hitman Blood Money and Hitman Absolution HD. I think we're from the 360 Gen and now are looking it together into one game and so that is available today as well.

Larry: Busy week.

Jeffrey: It is a busy week.

Larry: Let's be clear, we're also, I don't know about you folks at home but I know that Jeff and I are still struggling with the releases from last year.

Jeffrey: It's kind of Freaky Friday. We've switched places. If we go back a month ago. I'm spending all of my waking hours playing Assassin's Creed Odyssey.

Larry: And I'm in Read Dead.

Jeffrey: And you're in red Dead. And now we've completely 180'd. So how is it like on the other side?

Larry: You tell me.

Jeffrey: I mean I love it, Red is a very long game. I think I just passed 50 percent of the story up I'm 30 hours into the game. I was doing every single side mission early on. Now I'm kind of I'm keeping my horse on the straight narrow downs towards all the yellow spots because I'd like to finish the game before reasoning-

Larry: Something you don't really want to do when you're skiing is aim for the yellow spots.

Jeffrey: No. Thank you Larry. I think it's a bit of a tip for those of you in the snow.

Larry: Yeah exactly.

Jeffrey: You don't need it either, is what I'm told.

Larry: I don't know what happened.

Jeffrey: So I'm loving that. But Assassins, tell me did you get into it as much as I have.

Larry: Yeah, I mean it's a much more different game and than Red Dead clearly. You helped me respect my character which you can do at will.

Jeffrey: Which is great.

Larry: Which is great for some drama.

Jeffrey: I think that they found the balance with these assassins of, what are the parts that can be gamey and what parts need to be more realistic and when it comes to how great everything looks and the map and all that. It's pretty darn realistic. I mean you look at a map. It's the whole it's all Greece basically. But then at some point you can activate a thing where you get to a certain level where I can just jump off any cliff and I'm going to do a flip on the land on my feet and you know what.

Larry: Zero damage.

Jeffrey: Not realistic. I don't care, it's great. It makes it more of a joy to play the game.

Larry: I love it. I think I hit level 40 last night or 41.

Jeffrey: Anything over 40 you can take-

Larry: Maybe this is a little bit of a spoiler but I worked on the shard issue and I got my sword upgraded.

Jeffrey: Good. So you are skilled. So now you can hit level three on all of the special skills, the unstoppable thing.

Larry: If you look at my feed you'll see that I got the achievement for opening up the skill.

Jeffrey: I saw that.

Larry: See.

Jeffrey: I did see that. [inaudible 00:22:33] Level 3 non passive. Which is good. Because now you just got to focus on the story because you're way over leveled.

Larry: I've got this I got this flaming sword which it's just zero cool down.

Jeffrey: I mean those are good, fire. Fire is the underrated modifier in that game. And the reason I'm sure you're aiming to finish by the end of the month. I'm aiming to finish red dead by the end of the month because Resident Evil 2 is coming out. Yeah. The remaster, the remake really if the remaster doesn't really give it enough credit. They've built this game up from the beginning again. And it looks so good, using that resident evil engine the one you saw on resident evil seven, the one that is also powering Devil May Cry 5 which should be coming out in I want to say March.

Jeffrey: RE2 looks good and there's a demo out now. So that's something you should look at.[crosstalk 00:23:27]

Larry: Let's put a link to that.

Jeffrey: I will put a link out to the Resident Evil 2 demo. It is something that you're definitely going to want to play, with the lights on or off time trying to figure that out.

Larry: All right.

Jeffrey: Did you ever play the original? That was my probably my favorite one out of all.

Larry: Scary.

Jeffrey: I mean as scary as 1998 would allow right now. If I was watching a bunch of videos, in fact I put together a piece on that looking forward and they've released a lot of videos, it looks way more frightening now.

Larry: Of course it is.

Jeffrey: Way more.

Larry: I know you love your jump scares.

Jeffrey: The game is so good that I will fight through the scary parts, it's okay.

Larry: Other news we have this week. This is interesting news, that we chatted about yesterday briefly on Messenger, was about the latest changes our friends over at Bellevue.

Jeffrey: Bungie. So it seems they're going to be self publishing destiny. So I don't necessarily know what that's going to mean.

Larry: Nobody does, I'm sure they do but we don't.

Jeffrey: What I will say is I've been seeing the last few months. Destiny 2 has really done some great things.

Larry: I haven't seen you play that.

Jeffrey: Well I haven't gotten back into it as much as I've kept an eye on Will who is on my team who is playing it at work all the time.

Larry: All the time?

Jeffrey: All the time.

Larry: He sits right near me and I'm like, "What are you doing." "Don't touch my character." That's all I get when I walk over to his desk.

Jeffrey: If he's going to leave it on, if he's going to leave stuff idled. I have to sell some exotics or something like that.

Larry: I'll let you do that.

Jeffrey: That would be really mean but it would also be great to teach-

Larry: Don't leave your console logged in.

Jeffrey: No, he'll just get me back.

Larry: Yeah that's like the old story of, when I first started at the company you still do you have to lock your computer when you leave your desk. The reason that you do that is because it originally started is when Bill Gates, people that worked with Bill if he walked around and found your computer unlocked he would send an email. You know obviously as if it was you.

Jeffrey: Mischievous, that's a side of him you don't know. You know about the windows, you know about the mosquito netting and all the good things he's doing, saving a lot of lives.

Larry: And it's got a little bit of trolling in my guess.

Jeffrey: I respect it.

Larry: So that's why everyone always, my former managers used to walk in like, "Lock your computer." So I learned that I made that mistake once never again. All right where we were, what are we doing?

Jeffrey: We're talking about games coming out. So we're actually, this is not a slow period of time, this is-

Larry: No, what do we have now?

Jeffrey: I'm going to talk about something from next week actually. So if we look forward, Guacamelee 2 is coming out.

Larry: Wow.

Jeffrey: So I don't know if you played the first, first Guacamelee and I think it's part of Xbox Game pass, we're going to have to double check that.

Jeffrey: One of the best Metroidvanias ever. It's sort of a Luchador theme that's great music, the animation is phenomenal, there's like a silky smooth 60 frames a second with just like the tightest controls. And it had really really good. So it is coming out on Xbox One and I believe Windows 10 as well. January 18th. So next to prior week from when you're hearing this. So that is out and there quite a few games hitting next week. Ace Combat 7, it's coming out.

Jeffrey: There's a old school looking RPG called out varsity chronicles that looks literally like Final Fantasy 2 and 3 Onimusha Warlords. So quite a bit Walking Dead, final season episode three. So quite a lot to play on a time of year that typically doesn't have that much and then right after that is when we get into the crazy period where we're going to have Resident Evil, we're going to have Metro Exodus, we're going to have Crack Down.

Larry: Got Crack Down coming out.

Jeffrey: Yeah. February 15th.

Larry: Crowd power.

Jeffrey: It is, we're gonna be talking about that. There's just a ton of stuff I know I didn't Sekiro Shadows Die Twice, it's coming out. Let me see what else we got, Devil May Cry 5. The Division 2, you've played a little bit of that.

Larry: I've played a little bit of that.

Jeffrey: The dark side, right.

Larry: We'll be talking about that in the coming days on inside X earth this week on Xbox.

Jeffrey: So that will be really cool.We played a lot of division when it first came out and I'm very interested in playing Division 2.

Larry: I can't tell you. I can't say anything now because there's an embargo but I can tell you stuff off the air.

Jeffrey: Okay. All right.

Larry: And when it'S no embargo left you'll see videos.

Jeffrey: All right. Well looking forward to that. But the thing I loved about the First Division is we go to New York pretty frequently.

Larry: We do.

Jeffrey: And so there was stuff I'm like, "Oh we've been there. We've had an event in there." And I've stayed here and there's a restaurant here, they know that. And I was in DC not even a year ago for some meetings.

Larry: You were? Did you go to Smithsonian, when it was open?

Jeffrey: No.

Larry: Really.

Jeffrey: I've been in the past.

Larry: I love the Smithsonian. I don't want to give it too much highlighting right now because it's currently closed.

Jeffrey: you don't wanna build up too much pent up demand right now. But I'm just very much looking forward, because he has a very interesting. It's very walkable city. You know the capital area and even the areas around it so I'm very interested to see how they open that up. Especially since it doesn't have that same claustrophobic feeling as a lot of streets in New York do where you have any given street, the smallest buildings are 10 stories.

Larry: Well you know why right?

Jeffrey: No.

Larry: Really. There's a law that any building in Washington D.C. can't be higher than the capital. So there's a lot of height restrictions.

Jeffrey: I wasn't aware of that.

Larry: Really?

Jeffrey: I thought you were telling me, do you know why all of the buildings in York are tall and I'm like?

Larry: Well that's nice I don't know the answer to that. I'm sure there's a very sophisticated answer to that. Mine is simpler.

Jeffrey: Anyway, so it will open the game up a little bit is what I'm thinking.

Larry: Sure.

Jeffrey: Anyway you've played it, I haven't.

Larry: Yes.

Jeffrey: I'm speculating, I'm trying to get you to say things you're not allowed to say.

Larry: No.

Jeffrey: Not working, your pro.

Larry: Nope.

Jeffrey: Division 2 coming out. Anyway, so a very very packed sort of six week period two months.

Larry: Why does The Anthem come out?

Jeffrey: Anthem is in the, that's the the other one that's right there in that period. I want to say it's last week in February.

Larry: From EA, you are good friends with [inaudible 00:29:50].

Jeffrey: Yeah and Bioware.

Larry: Bioware.

Jeffrey: February 22nd.

Larry: Wow.

Jeffrey: So very excited about that. I know that they've got sort of there's a demo or a there's a couple of different ways that you're going to be able to play that game before it comes out and give it a try. I got into the alpha which was fun and I was playing by myself. I'm very much looking forward to being able to go out with other folks and play. And you're sending me a picture of gummy bears.

Larry: No, I sent you this last-

Jeffrey: You did, it was good.

Larry: Because we were playing Overwatch again.

Jeffrey: We're very very much back in Overwatch.

Larry: And your daughter who's quite good, you had stepped away from the mic and I was talking to her and I'm like, "What are you eating?" and she was eating gummy bears. That I think these are the ones that we got while we were in Germany last year.

Jeffrey: Yeah, you can almost measure the calendar. I tried to get, when we go to Gamescom-

Larry: Right in August.

Jeffrey: I'm going to make a non controversial statement which is Germany makes the best gummy bears, crickets for their arguments.There's no descent.

Larry: Can we talk that down to say the Bearing company-

Jeffrey: The Bearing company-

Larry: Makes the best-

Jeffrey: I think we can do that.

Larry: which is a local company in one state of Germany.

Jeffrey: In the Rhineland. And we buy, every year we go to Gamescom, we buy enough to last essentially to the next one. We're down to our last bag, which is a sour mango, that is so good.

Larry: See, there's my mouth was puckering.

Jeffrey: So good, they are so sour.

Larry: All of them are good.

Jeffrey: Yeah. And I don't know how we're going to make [crosstalk 00:31:18].

Larry: You have of the close ones left?

Jeffrey: No, I didn't get the close ones this year. They're not bad. They're not bad. I try to not get the same stuff every year except for the cherry, the cherry ones are just so good. Anyway-

Larry: My wife loves the grapefruit ones.

Jeffrey: Really, that's got to be incredibly sour.

Larry: Yup.

Jeffrey: Anyway, need to take a trip to Cologne.

Larry: We've raved about buyer before. Go look at their website. They don't even put it in English. They don't care.

Jeffrey: No, you're going to come to them.

Larry: You're going to come to them.

Jeffrey: You know what? We do.

Larry: We do, every year in the train station here.

Jeffrey: Here's the thing, it's what? Seven months out from plus for our Gamescom? How do I make that? That would be the true Hanukkah miracle if I can make that one bag of gummy bears lasts for seven months.I don't know that I'm going to be able to do that. Anyway with my kid eating them while I'm stepping away from the mic.

Larry: We're back in overwatch.

Jeffrey: Really good. They've made some substantive changes to a certain characters that are working for me, at least.

Larry: Some are, some aren't for me. I'm not a big fan of Mercy's alt right now. So I played a lot of Mercy and I'm just like, "Fly around okay." Everyone's got their opinion.

Jeffrey: I mean that old spin has been their for a long time but as someone who uses a roadhog from time to time as a tank, he's better. He's better now and I've been having some good games with him and kind of excited the Overwatch league is going to be starting back up. They added like eight new teams. Yup. Not one in Seattle. If you guys can fix that, that would be great. Vancouver's close.

Larry: I'll still be a Philly fan.

Jeffrey: But when I'm watching them play, there's like a nice, and I think this is like with a lot of these sports when you're watching people play your sort of like, "I want to go back in there and do that. I want to try that move out."

Larry: I forgot about that.

Jeffrey: That's an interesting that I've never tried. And so as that ramps back up, I know that we're going to end up playing at a heck of a lot more again.

Larry: Yeah, we also got a couple of new people who were Onray onboarding.

Jeffrey: This is true, good people. We had a pretty good run that night.

Larry: We did.

Jeffrey: And Ash is a pretty good player.

Larry: Yeah, I'm playing a little bit of Ash.

Jeffrey: Ash is, she's fun to use. I don't remember they use Dps, but anyway, overwatch, it's still good. The folks at Blizzard know how to make a game be good.

Larry: Jeff Kaplan and Co.

Jeffrey: Papa Jeff.

Larry: Papa Jeff, they are good people, very good people. So what else we got for News Jeffrey? Cause otherwise we're going to wrap things up because it's, we're busy. Can we say this? I guess we will say this.

Jeffrey: You're going to do it.

Larry: We have to wrap up the show because you and I have ...

Jeffrey: I know what you're going to say.

Larry: I think is it the first or the second meeting of E3 this year of 2019.

Jeffrey: The first one I'm in.

Larry: Yeah, we're prepping for it already.

Jeffrey: Well, there's two halves of the year-

Larry: And a lot of work's already done. It's amazing how much work is already done.

Jeffrey: Well, I'm looking forward to it.

Larry: Yeah. So that's all we can say about that.

Jeffrey: I think you like to be quoted.

Larry: No, I don't.

Jeffrey: You do.

Larry: I know I just throw out the ... the little stuff every now and then, people want to know what's going on.

Jeffrey: They do. And you know what, no one gives a better window into it than you. One last thing I wanted to mention, actually, we announced this week, there's a Metro Exodus Saga Bundle from Xbox one x. So if you're interested in the Metro series, if you like what you've seen from Exodus, this console, it's an Xbox more on x of course, which we know it will be the best place to play.

Jeffrey: All of the Metro Games, there's been the redux, is that how you say it?

Larry: Yes.

Jeffrey: Of Metro 2033 and Metro Last Light and it will come with, so you'll be able to play through all of them on Xbox one x and it's got a one terabyte hard drive as well, trials to gain pass, Xbox live gold. All that stuff it will be available February 15th, which is the day that Metro Exodus comes out for $499. So it's there. You should do it.

Larry: What are you waiting for?

Jeffrey: For February 15th? Presumably? I guess you can pre order it.

Larry: I was just looking at my Instagram, you know I'm on Instagram, right.

Jeffrey: I remember when you first got onto it. It was like comicon.

Larry: That's right.

Jeffrey: We had an intern here that was like, "Larry, you're not on Instagram."

Larry: Only way too figure it out.

Jeffrey: And you didn't want to do it.

Larry: But did you see my title by the way under my name?

Jeffrey: Professional Gamer. How did that happen? Did they give that to you?

Larry: Or maybe I self identified.

Jeffrey: Interesting.

Larry: Now I'll show you how to do it later. You follow me on Instagram and you'll see some stories from me every now and then like Jeff and I go into the studio et Cetera. If you follow Jeff, you'll see nothing but coffee and emojis-

Jeffrey: I'm pretty clear about that.

Larry: And hotpots.

Jeffrey: I do no instant pots Larry.

Larry: Instant pots, right.

Jeffrey: Hotpot's good too. Right? It's a good time of the year for hotpot. We should go for hotpot.

Larry: Why don't we wrap up here so we can get-

Jeffrey: So we can get that hotpot.

Larry: So we can get that hotpot after the E3 meeting. All right, gang, follow us on twitter. You can follow me at major Nelson. Follow Jeff-

Jeffrey: At Jeff Rubenstein.

Larry: Same thing on the-

Jeffrey: Complaint Desk.

Larry: On the Instagram complaint desk, that's right? We've got a lot of stuff coming up. Got Big interviews coming up. We've got some, I mean, I don't want to say Jeff Keeley Style exclusive.

Jeffrey: You're not telling me.

Larry: So maybe they are, maybe they are. I don't know, we'll see. We'll see you maybe next week, maybe the week after. We'll let you know. Got a video thing planned. We've got a whole bunch of stuff planned. It's gonna be great 2019. Want to thank you for letting us into your life this year and last year and all the other stuff. So anything you want to say, Jeff?

Jeffrey: No, I'm just happy to be here. Looking forward to 2019.

Larry: All right, we'll see you guys next time. Bye bye everybody.

Jeffrey: Bye.

Larry H: Hi, it's Larry Hryb, Xbox Live's Major Nelson. Podcast number 630.

Jeff R: Hola.

Larry H: Hello Jeffery. Hola Jeffery. Coma esta usted?

Jeff R: Uh, bien?

Larry H: Yeah, thank you dude. We're just fresh back from our journey down to Mexico City, which was ... We'll tell you about that story in a little bit.

Jeff R: Oh, there's many stories.

Larry H: There are.

Jeff R: So many stories.

Larry H: There are. Great episode of Inside Xbox. We got to see Jeff talk Kingdom Hearts.

Jeff R: You know me. I love the Japanese games. I love the Square Enix. I love getting to meet Hashimoto-san.

Larry H: Yeah, that was fun.

Jeff R: Getting in a selfie with him.

Larry H: Yeah, that was ... I was at the other end of this ... I was getting ready for my cut-in, and I looked over and like, "What is going on over there?" And you were getting everybody revved up and doing selfies with him. I was like-

Jeff R: I got back ... you know, backstage, and I grabbed my phone, and there was like double-digit amounts of text messages going. You know?

Larry H: Right.

Jeff R: How did ... What?

Larry H: Right.

Jeff R: What was that?

Larry H: Right.

Jeff R: Yeah, it was pretty cool.

Larry H: Anyways, so welcome back. We're just sitting here. We're recording this. We're just a little bit ... just about a week shy of the United States holiday which is called Thanksgiving.

Jeff R: Oh, tell me more about this.

Larry H: Well, we sit around and eat more food.

Jeff R: So much food.

Larry H: So much food. It's Thanksgiving. It's turkey. It's-

Jeff R: I got to pre-order my turkey. You don't just pre-order video games anymore. You gotta pre-order the turkey [inaudible 00:01:53]

Larry H: Jeffrey. We talked about this last week. A week ago we talked about this.

Jeff R: I haven't done it yet.

Larry H: I even went to the website for the local supermarket.

Jeff R: You did.

Larry H: I'm like which one, how much is it and here you go.

Jeff R: I only locked my guest list yesterday.

Larry H: How many?

Jeff R: An even dozen.

Larry H: Okay so 12.

Jeff R: 12. So, what is it? How many? Do you get a pound of turkey per person?

Larry H: Sure.

Jeff R: Okay. 12 a 12 pound turkey. Is that a lot? Doesn't feel like a lot.

Larry H: Let's go two pounds per person.

Jeff R: There we go.

Larry H: Let's go to an even 30.

Jeff R: 'Cause the turkeys I'm killing in Red Dead, they look like they're a little on the small side.

Larry H: Well they are. I'm playing that entire game under weight I noticed.

Jeff R: I am too.

Larry H: I don't know what to do.

Jeff R: I'm not eating enough, I've never been more fit. One oat cake per day, is that an unhealthy diet?

Larry H: No, wait a minute, you are supposed to be feeding the oat cakes to your horse. Which your horses name ... is it Trigger?

Jeff R: It was Glue Stick.

Larry H: Glue Stick.

Jeff R: I had an issue with Glue Stick last night.

Larry H: What happened?

Jeff R: So, we were going through the bayou, and I saw on the map there was a place I could buy some bait. [crosstalk 00:02:51] and I'm starting to get into the fishing ... A bait shop! So, I went through the area ... When you get to the bayou, like early on in the game you can just cut through. You don't need to stay on the roads. Once you get into the bayou, there be gators.

Larry H: Yes. There be large gators.

Jeff R: Large gators.

Larry H: And you are no stranger to the bayou- ... Well not ... Sorry, swamp land and gators.

Jeff R: I've been within five feet of a gator many times. You just stay away from the mouth.

Larry H: You getting a side eye from a gator?

Jeff R: You do that's all they have is side eye. That's all they have.

Larry H: That's true.

Jeff R: Anyways, I go around, and I go to the bait shop, and as I'm going back to my camp I was ambushed by some bounty hunters. I was like, well, I could surrender.

Larry H: Watch the spoilers.

Jeff R: But, well look at times you're gonna be apprehended by Johnny Law.

Larry H: Yeah.

Jeff R: I fought the law ...

Larry H: And the law won.

Jeff R: And the law won.

Larry H: Oh no.

Jeff R: And right before they killed me, they had taken down my horse, and I saw the prompt come up, do I want to use a horse reviver. I always carry horse ...

Larry H: Yes. Yes.

Jeff R: But I was in the middle of a gun fight.

Larry H: And you couldn't.

Jeff R: You know this happens in Destiny.

Larry H: Glue Stick was down.

Jeff R: Glue Stick was down, and within three seconds I was dead too, and when I got resurrected, $150 lighter by the way, I was like that's not my horse.

Larry H: Right.

Jeff R: That was just some [inaudible 00:04:09] horse.

Larry H: It was a rental.

Jeff R: Yeah. That was like the Nissan Altima of horses. You know like a rental car, had like 10,000 miles on it. That's just not my horse. I was a little distraught, and then immediately the next mission I did I had to like keep up the pace. I did not have a bond with this horse.

Larry H: So did you go back to the stable? So we're talking about Red Dead. Red Dead Redemption on Red Dead Redemption II on Xbox One X.

Jeff R: We're all playing it.

Larry H: Phenomenal.

Jeff R: Ah it's so good.

Larry H: Did you go back to the stable later to see if the horse would reappear?

Jeff R: Oh is that something that can happen?

Larry H: Yeah. So I had a problem where I lost ... my horse's name is Apple Pi.

Jeff R: Oh. Wait like a Pi? Like the, what's that little chip you have? Oh it's Raspberry Pi. Where you can do the programming.

Larry H: Right. But no, it's Apple Pi, and then I got the Arabian horse finally, and I named it Whip Cream, because it's white.

Jeff R: I see. You're sort of going on the Android OS method.

Larry H: I'm actually culinary, full on culinary.

Jeff R: Okay.

Larry H: Anyway, I had lost Apple Pi, and I was really bummed.

Jeff R: I'd be bummed as well.

Larry H: I was really bummed, so I went back to the stable and switched to one horse, and then came back and Apple Pi was there. He had returned.

Jeff R: He has risen.

Larry H: So you might want to try that.

Jeff R: I'm going to have to look. If not I will have to figure out a way to get Glue Stick Two, electric [inaudible 00:05:32].

Larry H: Glue Stick Two, even more glue.

Jeff R: I felt a keen sense of loss.

Larry H: Yeah.

Jeff R: You know what I did? I saved after I finished that mission.

Larry H: Did you go to bed and you're like I can't-

Jeff R: And I played a different game.

Larry H: Yeah, you were distraught.

Jeff R: I needed to come back, yeah. And then you know what? So I was playing Assassins, I hadn't played Assassins in a few weeks.

Larry H: Oh.

Jeff R: Just like comparing the horse mechanic ... Its just a completely different game.

Larry H: Yeah, I know. I think you push down to whistle on that one.

Jeff R: You do! And I kept hitting up.

Larry H: Right, right.

Jeff R: And then I was like going off to [inaudible 00:05:58], my hawk.

Larry H: Right, going "no."

Jeff R: I'm one of these people who, and I think it's probably not just me, but jumping back and forth from game to game. It's a good reason to finish a game before starting another one.

Larry H: Right, right.

Jeff R: But I don't have that level of ...

Larry H: You know you can use your elite controller and remap that.

Jeff R: I could.

Larry H: So that your up and down-

Jeff R: Like up is ... But once you start making up is down-

Larry H: I know, I know.

Jeff R: Wait, I'm in inverse. This was ... You were really picking on me here. Took me a second.

Larry H: Red Dead.

Jeff R: Happy birthday Larry.

Larry H: Well not happy birthday to me, happy birthday to Xbox.

Jeff R: Xbox, the OG Xbox.

Larry H: This past week we celebrated 17 years.

Jeff R: Can you believe it? Were you here when the original Xbox launched?

Larry H: I was not on the Xbox team. I was working on Microsoft. I had started working at Microsoft right before that, and I was working on a product ... The next hallway over from where Xbox was, and I remember we'd always have these meetings, and the Xbox guys and girls were going into a meeting, we were coming out of a meeting. I'm like, "What are you guys working on?" I struck up some friendship with some folks over there, and that's how I ended up working over on Xbox, is I was like "Oh, you're working on NFL Fever, tell me about that. I'd like to play that." Anyways, I did not, but I was pretty darn ... I was definitely within the orbit in the atmosphere.

Jeff R: I feel like a little bit of Major Nelson rubbed off. You weren't even referred to as Major Nelson back then.

Larry H: That's right.

Jeff R: You were just Larry in accounting.

Larry H: This is before Major Nelson, before Crazy Larry, before all that.

Jeff R: Man, the Xbox was here before all of us.

Larry H: I know you're going to find this hard ... It was before YouTube, before Twitch, before Mixer, before Facebook, before Twitter, before MySpace.

Jeff R: Was it before MySpace? Ah, 2001.

Larry H: Right.

Jeff R: Yeah, social networking didn't really exist.

Larry H: Nope. It was right after Windows XP launched.

Jeff R: Yeah.

Larry H: So.

Jeff R: I remember the last OS I bought in a box.

Larry H: That's right.

Jeff R: Windows XP.

Larry H: That's right.

Jeff R: Amazing.

Larry H: Anyways.

Jeff R: 17 years.

Larry H: 17 years, and its been an incredible. Jeff and I have the wonderful opportunity of looking up the pipeline, and seeing the future. There's some good stuff coming, aren't there?

Jeff R: You're going to put me up to that? You have better pipe sight lines than I do.

Larry H: Well, I've always looking into that sensational headline on some-

Jeff R: That's what it is. You haven't been quoted in awhile.

Larry H: I haven't been quoted in awhile, I'm craving a quote. Anyways, so yeah, happy birthday, happy birthday.

Jeff R: I've got eyes everywhere, little birds as they say.

Larry H: Yeah.

Jeff R: The little birds told me you had a special guest up here this week.

Larry H: Do I have a special guest?

Jeff R: You do have a ... From Burbank, a good friend.

Larry H: Oh, I did. That is absolutely right. A very good friend of mine, somebody who I just adore is Mr. Ted Price.

Jeff R: One of the nicest guys in history.

Larry H: CEO of Insomniac Games.

Jeff R: And you brought him up here to talk about Spyro right?

Larry H: Yeah, well no.

Jeff R: Well that was his game.

Larry H: That was his game.

Jeff R: Well, it was second game ever.

Larry H: But we were talking about Sunset Overdrive, now available on Windows 10, and the Windows 10 store, and Steam.

Jeff R: Have you tried it yet on PC?

Larry H: I have not. I have absolutely not.

Jeff R: I did. I actually went back through-

Larry H: You did?

Jeff R: And one of the benefits of working here, I got to test it out just to make sure [crosstalk 00:09:02]

Larry H: That's the only benefit, right? Nothing else?

Jeff R: Well.

Larry H: Its not the free beverages.

Jeff R: I am starring down the barrel of some seltzer water right now.

Larry H: The complimentary well lit parking.

Jeff R: Hey, when you've worked in like a wet dark parking lot-

Larry H: It makes a difference.

Jeff R: It helps, it helps. But yeah, one of the cool things. So I got to try it out, and I had forgotten just how much I love that character creator.

Larry H: Right.

Jeff R: You can make a character that you just really fall in love with.

Larry H: Right.

Jeff R: And I did, I think I ended up making probably the exact same character, but it's cool playing through it again. I can bring it with me in my laptop, and you know, when I'm going on vacation this winter, probably a good chance I could be playing through Sunset again.

Larry H: You're going to be on holiday ... Have we talked about your holiday, do you want to talk about that at all?

Jeff R: Um, well-

Larry H: You're doing another international jaunt.

Jeff R: Yeah. I mean, we've talked about it before, that we travel so much for work.

Larry H: Yeah, we do.

Jeff R: And once things start ramping up, and we start getting ready for E3, that's pretty much it. You're working straight through the rest of the year until Thanksgiving, and you know maybe you get the weekends off.

Larry H: We don't.

Jeff R: Not this last weekend. We were in Mexico, not that we're complaining, because it's amazing. I tend to take a big trip around Christmas. The whole family gets together, and we go somewhere, and we are going to be going down to New Zealand. Its just some place we wanted to go. I have never been so gonna do it.

Larry H: Good for you.

Jeff R: And I'm going to definitely be gaming. I'm already getting ... I'm gonna have my laptop, I'm gonna have my Switch, Let's Go, Pikachu or Evee, I gotta make that decision.

Larry H: And then what?

Jeff R: And then what, and Diablo.

Larry H: And Diablo, exactly.

Jeff R: Yeah, so it's going to be good. What about you, are you going anywhere?

Larry H: Ah, let's see. Thanksgiving, I'll be around here. For Christmas I'm going to go back to New England, I'm going to see my family back there, so I'll be bouncing around. I think I may have an adventure to plan like I often do over the holidays.

Jeff R: Yeah, you love to visit, about what, four stores within driving distance there?

Larry H: One, two, yeah. For the most part, yeah.

Jeff R: Yeah.

Larry H: We'll find something to do.

Jeff R: You might have a white Christmas.

Larry H: I think it's happening now.

Jeff R: Oh yeah. This is ... I saw it, hashtag first snow, and then there was a lot of ... In Philly, Philly, it doesn't snow that often, and especially not in November. So that's pretty cool.

Larry H: Yeah, there's a lot going on. Yeah, so those are my travel plans. Let's talk about ... We're talking about we're playing, Red Dead, and that's really consuming a lot of my time. Fallout 4, excuse me, Fallout 76.

Jeff R: 76.

Larry H: Starting that to do. I've got some Battlefield in queue.

Jeff R: We've gotta play some Battlefield.

Larry H: Yeah, okay.

Jeff R: I'm hearing it looks really good. I downloaded it via EA Access, which gets you access to the first 10 hours, or I think the first chapter, and then maybe you can fill the rest of that in multiplayer.

Larry H: It looks great.

Jeff R: Yeah, that's what I've heard. I got a couple notes back saying this looks really good.

Larry H: We had a chance to go down to Mexico, Jeff and I.

Jeff R: It was amazing.

Larry H: We were down there for Fan Fest. On behalf of everybody here at Xbox, I want to thank everybody in Mexico who came out and joined us.

Jeff R: Thousands and thousands of amigos.

Larry H: If you could not join us then we're sorry, but it was a wonderful time. We did Inside Xbox, which everyone, I was looking online, I'm sure you saw the same thing Jeff, I'm like why are these people clapping so much. The Mexican audience, the folks down there in Mexico City are just lovely, and they're just really excited.

Jeff R: They are some of the, and I don't want to pit one country against another, but if there is a more enthusiastic bunch of Xbox fans, I don't know that I've met them.

Larry H: Yeah.

Jeff R: We felt like we were getting an honored welcome.

Larry H: Yeah.

Jeff R: Everyone's just so nice, giving us recommendations. I love Mexico.

Larry H: Yeah.

Jeff R: I've never been outside of Mexico City in Mexico.

Larry H: Nor have I.

Jeff R: But it is a really cool place, and I do recommend you visit.

Larry H: We had a great show. It was a long show, it was a couple hours, but we had, um-

Jeff R: We had a ton to announce.

Larry H: I don't know if you want to go through those announcements.

Jeff R: We can do it. I have it ready to go.

Larry H: Quick little recap.

Jeff R: If you somehow missed it.

Larry H: Feel free to sprinkle in some of the stories, 'cause there were stories.

Jeff R: There's always stories Larry.

Larry H: Go ahead.

Jeff R: I want to say ... What was the first thing that we talked about? Well, why don't we just start from the top news, which actually came last ... You got to do an announcement with head of Microsoft Studio's Matt Booty.

Larry H: That was the end of the show.

Jeff R: That was the end.

Larry H: We're gonna work backwards? Like from the bottom of the show back?

Jeff R: Well, there was a lot. I think that's one big place to start.

Larry H: Yeah. Matt Booty and I were on stage at the end, kind of bringing up the rear. Talking about expanding the Microsoft family of studios to 13.

Jeff R: 13, and the new additions were Obsidian Entertainment.

Larry H: Yes.

Jeff R: Now you might know these folks from Fallout New Vegas.

Larry H: Yep.

Jeff R: You might know them from Alpha Protocol, you might know them from [inaudible 00:13:38].

Larry H: Yep.

Jeff R: Ton of great games. Western RPG creators, and so very cool that we're going to get to work along side them. The other one, again, RPG creators, Inxile Entertainment has joined Microsoft Studios. You might know them most recently from the Wasteland series. Wasteland 2, which I have actually on Windows 10, and I need to dive into that. Never a better chance. Bards Tale's 4, I think was one of their most recent titles.

Larry H: Yep, it sure was.

Jeff R: So again, super excited to work alongside them, and to see what comes next.

Larry H: 13 studios.

Jeff R: It's pretty hefty.

Larry H: Yeah. It's been ... With E3 earlier this, and these two, so we've gotta ... Those are investments that are going to pay off in the short term, in the near time, the medium and long terms, so it's a long game.

Jeff R: Yeah.

Larry H: But I don't have to tell you that Jeffery.

Jeff R: I'm right here with you Larry.

Larry H: I know.

Jeff R: But just in this initial period it's just great seeing the Twitter accounts of the different companies, and folks like Brian Fargo, and [inaudible 00:14:36] tweeting back and forth. There's a nice warm glow, it just feels great.

Larry H: Right.

Jeff R: Another thing we launched, actually this is I think the first thing that we launched was ... There was a new trailer for Crackdown 3 that was really cool. Commander Jackson going back and forth.

Larry H: It's Terry versus Terry.

Jeff R: Terry versus commander ... Yeah, like real life Terry versus fictional Terry, and I laughed. I saw it three or four times, I laughed.

Larry H: You did laugh.

Jeff R: And of course that's coming in February 15th, and directly into Game Pass. There was a ton of Game Pass here. In fact, we had so many game pass games, I think 16 games announced coming into Game Pass that we had to break it up into four sections.

Larry H: Including Ori and the Blind Forest.

Jeff R: And Ori in the Will of the Wisps.

Larry H: When it releases next year.

Jeff R: Yeah. The one that jumped out at me, and there's actually a couple. Well one, I've talked on the show about Mutant Year Zero.

Larry H: You have been.

Jeff R: And I'm just going to keep talking about it. It comes out in December, so we'll be talking about it again before the end of the year. I cannot wait to try this as a strategy fan, as an XCOM fan. But Void Bastards, I had the honor of announcing that one early on in the show. This is coming from some of the creators of BioShock.

Larry H: Yes.

Jeff R: It looks like a show on Cartoon Network or something that happens to be an FPS, but there's more to it than that. It looks like there's some strategy. It looks like there's a lot going on. I'm going to link out to the Void Bastards trailer, because you do need to see it.

Larry H: Right.

Jeff R: This is something I'm looking forward to. Of course it's going to debut directly into Game Pass, so if you've got Game Pass now you're going to have Void Bastards when it launches, and if you don't have it you can sign up for a buck.

Larry H: Right.

Jeff R: Or a Euro, or I think it's Ten Pesos. Something like that.

Larry H: Right. Do you want to keep going?

Jeff R: I'm taking a note to put the trailer in.

Larry H: Oh okay. Okay.

Jeff R: Let's see. Oh, we announced our Black Friday deals. You have these on majornelson.com.

Larry H: I had so many I had to paginate the post.

Jeff R: 18 times!

Larry H: 18 pages.

Jeff R: There are 18 pages of deals.

Larry H: Were you surprised by that?

Jeff R: I knew there'd be a lot, but the fact that page one barely gets us into B, it gets us into Batman Return To Arkham, it's crazy. I don't think I'm exaggerating by much to say everything's on sale. Even stuff that has just come out, like Assassin's Creed: Odyssey, up to 33% off.

Larry H: Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, you're getting dangerously close to Crazy Larry territory.

Jeff R: It's hard to not be crazy. Even Red Dead.

Larry H: Right.

Jeff R: Red Dead is 10% off if you're a Gold Member, and Red Dead just came out.

Larry H: Right, and it is a must play game. Conversation over.

Jeff R: Absolutely, and I've put in so much time. But everything from Abzu to Zoo Tycoon.

Larry H: [inaudible 00:17:16] baby.

Jeff R: You see what I did there?

Larry H: Yeah.

Jeff R: Then also a ton ... I think seven pages of Xbox 360 games. The majority of which I believe are backward compatible, not quite all of them, but-

Larry H: Quite a few.

Jeff R: Most of them. Yeah, so I'll link out to it. It's quite an impressive list of Black Friday games, so if there's anything you haven't gotten to, it's ... By the way, we say Black Friday, it's also Black Thursday, and Tuesday, and Wednesday, and it's going to go on until ... Let's see, so early access goes through November 18th, so probably while you're listening to it, and there's a number of other deals that are going to be expanding out, but definitely-

Larry H: Check it out.

Jeff R: By the end of this weekend you're going to want to check this out, because man, you get incredible deals.

Larry H: I also want to point out that you can go over to the Microsoft Store, the digital store, it has a gifting option. So if you're looking for something for that special someone in your life, and you want to start gifting like a maniac, we got you covered.

Jeff R: We sure do. Speaking of maniacs ...

Larry H: Yes.

Jeff R: No.

Larry H: By the way, I was just thinking of something. We talked earlier about turkeys.

Jeff R: Yeah.

Larry H: Apparently the new thing is to get mini turkeys, because people realize that 30 pound turkey's aren't normal, so you may want to look at getting a mini turkey.

Jeff R: But we have 12 people. If I have one mini turkey people are going to think-

Larry H: Well, you're going to have to get a flock.

Jeff R: Does everyone get their own turkey.

Larry H: Apparently.

Jeff R: Well now I gotta look into this.

Larry H: Okay, I'll send you a link.

Jeff R: I do make a pretty good turkey, but then again, it's all about the gravy. You have two things to do, one don't dry it out. Everyone wants to overcook it, and then it just tastes like garbage, but even if you do overcook it a little bit gravy will bail you out every time.

Larry H: Okay. It's basically a big cover.

Jeff R: I go out ... I buy about a gallon, literally a gallon of gravy, and I just drench it. Put it on the potaters, put it on everything else.

Larry H: Yeah, everything. I've actually seen you take it and just put a straw into it.

Jeff R: Into the gravy? I mean what's wrong with that?

Larry H: Yeah, you don't?

Jeff R: Also, just drink half and half, what's wrong with it? We talked about Fortune Island going to Forza Horizon 4.

Larry H: We did.

Jeff R: As if there wasn't enough content already.

Larry H: You know what it sounds like to me?

Jeff R: Yeah?

Larry H: It sounds like a gambling destination.

Jeff R: Fortune Islands like [inaudible 00:19:26] or something?

Larry H: Yeah, or something in Peter Pan.

Jeff R: Yeah. I mean, there was a great image, and I saw someone who worked on the game tweeted out, they're like, "I designed that road," so there's like some crazy super switchback mountains that are paved. There's a lot of those would be sort of dirt roads.

Larry H: Right, right.

Jeff R: In the original. Forza Horizon 4, so look ... The advances, like what we saw in terms of Storm Island, and Blizzard Mountain in previous Forza Horizon's, and of course the Hot Wheels pack. We know that the additions tend to add a ton, but then also change the gameplay enough to make you want to come back.

Larry H: Right.

Jeff R: So that comes out on December 13th on Xbox One and Windows 10.

Larry H: As if you didn't have enough to play.

Jeff R: Exactly. Let's see. We saw the arena for Sea of Thieves!

Larry H: Woohoo! Oh, you didn't watch my panel because you weren't there.

Jeff R: I wasn't there, I was sleeping.

Larry H: That's fine.

Jeff R: It was a long night. Why don't you tell us all about it then.

Larry H: No, it's great. It's a brand new section of the map that you'll use, apparently at the top of the menu, kind of like Red Dead or Grand Theft Auto has, where you can go single-player, multiplayer. It'll have two different options. You can go right into the regular version, or you can go into the arena, and it's going to be a quicker PvP kind of experience. Because the problem with ... Not the problem, but one of things with Sea of Thieves is when you sit down all of a sudden three hours later, right? Maybe you kind of want a 15 or 20 minute experience, and that's what they're going to focus on.

Jeff R: That's good, some of us are busy. Don't always have the time. So we talked about the Zed Hunter pack coming to State Of Decay.

Larry H: Yep.

Jeff R: You got Game Pass, or if you got State Of Decay 2 the Zed Hunter pack will be free. I'm all about this crossbow.

Larry H: Yeah.

Jeff R: You know, it's strong and silent.

Larry H: Yeah.

Jeff R: Let's see. We looked at the void mode for Devil May Cry 5.

Larry H: Right.

Jeff R: We looked at Jump Force, which showed a pretty crazy trailer. You talked to the lead of Just Cause 4.

Larry H: Oh, it was great.

Jeff R: I'm looking forward to that, I mean there's still games coming!

Larry H: You never played that game did you?

Jeff R: Just Cause 4?

Larry H: Yeah, you never got into Just Cause. I got into all of them, I love them.

Jeff R: I played a little bit of 2 I feel like.

Larry H: It just ridiculous fun, there's nothing wrong with it.

Jeff R: Kingdom Hearts 3 we talked about. That was the one feedback I got from my wife, because she watched that segment. She's like, that game looks so cute.

Larry H: Well I did know. I talked with her, we were texting. Apparently her nickname for you is Pooh?

Jeff R: Wait what?

Larry H: That's what her nickname is for you is? Is that true?

Jeff R: You're texting my wife.

Larry H: Maybe.

Jeff R: When did this happen, when did this start? I mean I have your wife's number. Not in a bad way, it's more like, hey. Maybe we hang out too much Larry, I'm not sure.

Larry H: Yeah.

Jeff R: We saw the forge in Shadow Of The Tomb Raider, I got to play that.

Larry H: Yeah.

Jeff R: I mean I loved Shadow Of The Tomb Raider, so some more dungeons and some more tunes, all about that. Oh yeah, Xbox One backward compatibility we talked about. Hashimoto-san revealed that. Final Fantasy XIII, XIII two, and Lighting Returns are all coming to backwards compat, and they're enhanced for Xbox One X. I've seen on Reddit a great comparison of Lighting, like a screenshot. It's just amazing the detail that was there all along, but now that it's on Xbox One X you can see the bottom of her boot had treads on it, and the hair has a lot more, you know, whatever.

Larry H: Hair.

Jeff R: I guess so. There's just more fidelity is the word I was looking for.

Larry H: Yes.

Jeff R: But it's just really cool to see games again for the first time, and have it look the way you remember, but like it's really better than you remember. Oh mouse and keyboard to port was another thing we talked about.

Larry H: Yes. You and I did that.

Jeff R: We did do that, it's coming to a lot of games.

Larry H: So PS, go back and watch that if you get a chance. We're actually standing outside in Phil Spencer's private ... Like he had a deck, because he was doing-

Jeff R: He was doing interviews.

Larry H: He was doing interviews with all the local press down there, and he had this little Pied-à-terre.

Jeff R: Pied-à-terre, that's very good. Speaking ... We've heard your French now.

Larry H: Yes, yes.

Jeff R: But you know what I heard a lot of your Spanish.

Larry H: Oh, we're not gonna bring that up. Are we gonna bring that up?

Jeff R: No, we are gonna bring this up because I've given you a hard time before that every time I go to Gamescom you improbably strike up an Italian accent.

Larry H: I can't ... Well, when you order an espresso, I can't help but say espresso.

Jeff R: So we go to breakfast.

Larry H: We go to breakfast like we do.

Jeff R: And no surprise, they ask what we want to drink. I'm like I'll have a coffee, and you're an espresso.

Larry H: I did.

Jeff R: Good tongue rolling.

Larry H: Yep.

Jeff R: Of course the waiter just says, "Oh, espresso. Okay."

Larry H: Yeah, yeah. And I don't know where this came from.

Jeff R: All right.

Larry H: Should I do it?

Jeff R: Why don't you tell us what your entrée was?

Larry H: All I said was ... Jeff, you ordered the-

Jeff R: I ordered the jueves ala cabana.

Larry H: Which looked great.

Jeff R: It was really good.

Larry H: And I don't know why, but he asked me what I wanted and I was in the mood for waffles.

Jeff R: Waffles. Now ...

Larry H: I've never pronounced waffles with a waffles. I don't know where it came from.

Jeff R: I could almost give a pass on espresso, but waffles. There's no h in waffle.

Larry H: There's nothing like that.

Jeff R: I believe they're from Belgium.

Larry H: Uh huh.

Jeff R: Where that would not be the pronunciation either way, and I just put my menu down, like I just didn't even know what to say.

Larry H: Right.

Jeff R: And you knew it as soon as you said it.

Larry H: Right.

Jeff R: So Larry, international man of mystery.

Larry H: Waffles.

Jeff R: Waffles.

Larry H: And they were good.

Jeff R: No, they were good. Later that day they're warming up the crowd, we're getting ready, we have a lot of folks there.

Larry H: It was right before the show.

Jeff R: Right before the show, and we had someone there named Juan Carlos who was speaking Spanish, letting them know what was going to be happening as we were recording on stage, and he made eye contact with you, and you were like yeah, I'll go up there.

Larry H: Oh Juan Carlos was fantastic.

Jeff R: He's a leader among them.

Larry H: Yes.

Jeff R: I'm like Larry doesn't know Spanish, what is he going to say?

Larry H: Right.

Jeff R: And he picks up the phone, I start recording.

Larry H: Picks up the microphone.

Jeff R: You just said, "Hola, Mexico."

Larry H: That's all I need to stay.

Jeff R: And you put the mic away, and we were just dying. I thought you were going to launch into something else.

Larry H: Sometimes less is more Jeffy.

Jeff R: Less was more. You know what, everyone was welcoming. Everything was great.

Larry H: Yeah.

Jeff R: I think we'll just round it up by saying the Xbox fans in Mexico are just amazing. They made us feel really welcomed.

Larry H: World class. Thank you for everything.

Jeff R: You know I have a good feeling. Even a week later, still feeling great about it.

Larry H: That's true.

Jeff R: I'm just wrapping it up.

Larry H: Yeah, that's true. We had a nice walk through Mexico City as well.

Jeff R: Yeah.

Larry H: With Julia.

Jeff R: We did, Julia Hardy. BBC One's [crosstalk 00:26:03].

Larry H: I got spotted by the way. I went back to that shopping center to pick up some gifts for my family, and when I was going down the escalator, "Major Nelson."

Jeff R: Nice.

Larry H: It was lovely.

Jeff R: People know the Major.

Larry H: Nah, I don't know about that one. They know Xbox.

Jeff R: When we were checking into the hotel they were like ... There's a reason I was on floor six and you were on floor 29 or something.

Larry H: You didn't have four bedrooms? That's fine.

Jeff R: You didn't have a swimming pool in your room?

Larry H: Wow, okay.

Jeff R: The jacuzzi. Its been a very eventful week. There's actually a lot to talk about here. Something that took place this week, the November 2018 update has rolled out, so the mouse and keyboard support, we talked about it, and a couple days it's real.

Larry H: There it is.

Jeff R: There it is.

Larry H: Tada!

Jeff R: You can of course plug in USB mice or keyboards, of course whether or not the game will support it.

Larry H: It's up to ...

Jeff R: It's dependent on the developer.

Larry H: Let's be very clear, it's not like you plug it in and all of a sudden you're playing Halo with a mouse and keyboard.

Jeff R: It's something that takes thought, because you need to balance certain games, especially competitive shooters. You want to make sure mouse and keyboard people are playing against mouse and keyboard people, and that's what they're doing.

Larry H: Yep.

Jeff R: So you don't have to worry. We don't want to hear that if someone owns you with a headshot from across the map, don't say that was a mouse and keyboard person. No.

Larry H: No.

Jeff R: They're just really good on the stakes.

Larry H: It doesn't work like that.

Jeff R: Yeah. And I am look forward to seeing what Razer's going to come up with. They're going to be talking more-

Larry H: Ming lee, we had Ming Lee on the show.

Jeff R: We did, so there's going to be some design for Xbox mice and keyboards.

Larry H: Fun.

Jeff R: I think they said they were going to talk more ... Was it at CES?

Larry H: I believe so, yes. CES 2019.

Jeff R: So that's always early January, and those are things I'm going to want to-

Larry H: I have not been in years.

Jeff R: I have not been ... Yeah, its been about five years.

Larry H: Yeah, I think that's about right. Oh, by the way, I'm sorry. Could we just pause for a moment?

Jeff R: For station identification on Major Nelson Radio Network?

Larry H: No, we need to wish you a happy hardy congratulations on five years at Microsoft.

Jeff R: Five years. Can you believe it?

Larry H: I can believe it. It seems just like yesterday you just started.

Jeff R: It really does.

Larry H: Even though we've known each for ... How long is it? What, 11 years?

Jeff R: More than ... Yeah. 2006.

Larry H: Yeah, 12 years.

Jeff R: 12 years. No, yeah. '07.

Larry H: Something like that.

Jeff R: We met at, yeah, World Cyber Games 2017.

Larry H: Down in Orlando. Lovely, lovely.

Jeff R: Lovely Orlando, Florida.

Larry H: At Universal Studios.

Jeff R: Yes.

Larry H: Its my last time on the Universal Studio lot before I got walked off many years ago.

Jeff R: Yes. Universal Studios Resort. Wait, what?

Larry H: No, it's a long story.

Jeff R: Where you escorted away from Universal Studios.

Larry H: Oh, I was. Oh, I was.

Jeff R: Is this a story you can tell?

Larry H: No, not right now. That's not what we're talking about.

Jeff R: All right. Was there a don't you know who I am, was that there?

Larry H: No, this was before I worked at Microsoft, and before I worked at Xbox.

Jeff R: Oh okay.

Larry H: This was way back.

Jeff R: Got it.

Larry H: This was a long time ago.

Jeff R: Nothing to leverage.

Larry H: No.

Jeff R: So one of the cool things in this update is the expansion of the Xbox skill for Cortana and Alexa.

Larry H: Yeah, yeah.

Jeff R: I actually went ahead and I finally paired this, and did this. I was at home yesterday morning. I was like, you know what I'm going to add this, and it's pretty cool to say, "Hey, Alexa. Tell Xbox to turn on," and then it works.

Larry H: Yeah.

Jeff R: There's a ton of different skills. Where's the best place to find all of those different commands?

Larry H: I think you just say, "What can I say?"

Jeff R: What can I say.

Larry H: Yeah.

Jeff R: But it's really easy to set up. You can basically go into devices, and you'll see one that says voice assistance, and you just have to check the box basically.

Larry H: Check the box.

Jeff R: Then after that you go into the Alexa app that you may have on your phone that connects with your existing dot or spot, or whatever it is that you got, and I was up and running in a minute, 90 seconds? Then you signed in, and that was that.

Larry H: Yeah.

Jeff R: That was pretty cool. The Amazon Music app is coming to Xbox One, more search, there's a bunch more stuff I will link out to the Xbox Insider blog that has all of the latest releases.

Larry H: You know what I'm currently fascinated with right now?

Jeff R: Hm?

Larry H: Completely random.

Jeff R: Waffles.

Larry H: The Mandarin duck.

Jeff R: The one that was in Central Park?

Larry H: Central Park, yeah.

Jeff R: Did they find it again?

Larry H: Oh yeah, he's there. I'm just looking, and he's playing in the snow right now.

Jeff R: What do you have, like a live view of the Mandarin duck?

Larry H: I don't know. There's so many people in New York that every time he shows up people just take pictures of this beautiful duck.

Jeff R: Where did the duck come from?

Larry H: That's the big question!

Jeff R: I mean it's from Mandarin? From China?

Larry H: It's from [crosstalk 00:30:10]

Jeff R: Chin-ia? I don't know how to say that.

Larry H: Somewhere in Asia.

Jeff R: Okay, it's a beautiful duck.

Larry H: He got off in JFK, and just took the train right into the city. I don't know what else to tell you.

Jeff R: It's the crosswords of the world Larry.

Larry H: As you and I know.

Jeff R: Yes.

Larry H: Continuing on with the news, and the randomness.

Jeff R: Yeah. A couple free ... You know me, I like the free.

Larry H: Who doesn't?

Jeff R: Who doesn't. So a couple free weekends are coming up if you have Xbox Live Gold, so one of them is the NBA 2k19 is going to be free this weekend. This very weekend, its already started, and it'll be going through, I believe, Sunday night.

Larry H: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Jeff R: You know it's a good chance though, to play Jimmy Buckets, now on the 6'ers.

Larry H: Yep.

Jeff R: I love NBA 2K. It's a great game, and it's free. If you haven't tried it out. It's a great couch coop, or couch competitive. I mean you could do it either way.

Larry H: Yeah.

Jeff R: I still like talking smack. Online, getting beat by people I never met, that's fine.

Larry H: You've done that, you know what it feels like.

Jeff R: But beating my brother to a pulp, there's just something that's just amazing about that.

Larry H: You know we never did our-

Jeff R: Did we not do our annual Madden game?

Larry H: We did not do our annual game. I don't know what happened.

Jeff R: Are you sure?

Larry H: I'm positive, I'm one thousand percent.

Jeff R: Why don't we do it over Thanksgiving. It's a Thanksgiving day game.

Larry H: Could we?

Jeff R: We could do it.

Larry H: We could.

Jeff R: Because these mini turkeys you're setting me up with, they only take an hour to cook. Just throw them in the microwave.

Larry H: But you're going to have to cook a dozen.

Jeff R: That's true dude. I'm gonna have to buy a heat lamp, but no. We should definitely do that.

Larry H: I don't want to have any turkey waste from you. It's a big deal.

Jeff R: We compost in Seattle, so there's really no waste. It all just goes back into the environment.

Larry H: Oh, there's the duck again. I'm sorry. I'm watching this feed and there's the duck still.

Jeff R: Why don't we link out to the [inaudible 00:31:53].

Larry H: No, no, no, no.

Jeff R: Just so you see what we're talking about.

Larry H: If you've never seen them this is a stunning, stunning ... [crosstalk 00:32:00].

Jeff R: Well, it disappeared last week. That's how I first became aware of it.

Larry H: What do you mean he disappeared last week? Oh, you weren't aware of him before?

Jeff R: I didn't [crosstalk 00:32:08].

Larry H: Oh yeah, I have some friends in New York that were tweeting this, and it was like all the rage down there.

Jeff R: I guess it had disappeared for a little bit.

Larry H: I wonder where it went.

Jeff R: Then it came back, and here's a story on CBS News, "Rare Mandarin duck reappears." It is ... I'm a little worried about it at Thanksgiving, because it is a lovely fowl.

Larry H: It is a stunning, stunning, stunning, stunning bird.

Jeff R: And duck's delicious.

Larry H: Hey, hey!

Jeff R: Leave that one alone.

Larry H: Wow. Wait a minute, so basically if we're talking about small turkeys they're going to basically if we're talking about small turkeys they're basically going to be the size of ducks.

Jeff R: I mean have you ever had a turducken?

Larry H: No.

Jeff R: You've never had a turducken?

Larry H: That was always E's thing. I never got into that.

Jeff R: Well, I mean, I always thought that was like a John Madden thing because I had never heard of it until whenever he started talking about it. It's pretty good.

Larry H: Okay.

Jeff R: For those who don't know, and I'd imagine everyone knows, it's a turkey stuffed with, no not stuffing, a duck, which is then stuffed with a chicken. So you have three layers of meaty goodness, and each bite you slice through it you get a little bit of everything.

Larry H: If you're listening to us outside the United States, now you know what's going on over here.

Jeff R: Hey, look. They have these birds in other ... Turkey I feel like is pretty rare outside of the US.

Larry H: Yeah.

Jeff R: And probably Canada.

Larry H: Certainly chicken and-

Jeff R: But duck is pretty popular.

Larry H: Yeah.

Jeff R: Chicken, everyone loves a chicken.

Larry H: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Jeff R: So, the other free game, free trial, that's going to be starting November 20th, so sort of middle of next week, Overwatch. We haven't played in awhile, but Ashe is now part of the game. That patch has gone live.

Larry H: Yeah.

Jeff R: There was big release I think about a week and a half ago when she was announced, and now she's out with Bob, who I hear is like a real game changer. We need to get back into that.

Larry H: Yeah, you've been playing Fortnite.

Jeff R: I have been playing a lot of Fortnite.

Larry H: I've noticed.

Jeff R: I feel like after season six maybe I'll take a break.

Larry H: Okay.

Jeff R: But we've been all about it.

Larry H: I understand.

Jeff R: I mean, it's a popular game. I don't know if you know but a few people are playing it.

Larry H: Everyone's playing it. There's quite a few playing.

Jeff R: They keep it fresh, they do. Right now there's sort of like a tomato versus hamburger thing happening ... Pizza versus hamburgers!

Larry H: Okay.

Jeff R: It's a new mode. Like every week I tune in there's a new mode, so kudos to them.

Larry H: Right. Yep, keep going.

Jeff R: Anyways, so yeah. Free Overwatch starting November 20th, if you've got Xbox Live Gold, go for it. Also this weekend, and obviously this won't cost you anything, you can watch the Halo Championship Series final at Dreamhack Atlanta. That will be on ... You can just tune in. It's not going to be hard to find that across anything, but if you want to follow @HCS for Halo Championship Series Twitter, of course you can just follow @Halo. You probably already are following them, and you'll be able to see everything that's going on there. But it'll be on Mixer, it'll be on Twitch, it'll be on YouTube.

Larry H: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Jeff R: They show videos online, you're going to be able to watch it, and it'll be cool to watch it.

Larry H: Yeah.

Jeff R: Halo 5, watching people on the competitive play Halo 5 is pretty awesome, and there's going to be some Halo 3 2v2 stuff, which is cool.

Larry H: Yeah.

Jeff R: Then this was big, sort of a big release week.

Larry H: Yeah, wow, was it ever.

Jeff R: It sure was. Two major games, Battlefield V.

Larry H: Right.

Jeff R: Now Available on Xbox One, and of course if you had EA Access you might have been playing for a week already.

Larry H: Yep.

Jeff R: And Fallout 76, which you went all the way to West Virginia for.

Larry H: I did.

Jeff R: Fallout 76 is now available, including the tricentennial edition. I gotta find time for these games.

Larry H: Why aren't you playing?

Jeff R: Because I'm playing everything.

Larry H: Without spoilers how far are you at Red Dead?

Jeff R: I'm 37%.

Larry H: Okay.

Jeff R: It does give you percentage every time you save it. I don't know how I could tell you without spoilers, so I'm not going to. I'll tell you off camera, but you're definitely still further ahead than I am.

Larry H: Right.

Jeff R: Right?

Larry H: Yeah.

Jeff R: I think you are.

Larry H: I'm 44, 45%.

Jeff R: Okay, and honestly I'm doing every side mission.

Larry H: Yeah. I'm now going back now that I ... What I tend to do is I tend to power through a game like this, which is so complicated, well not complicated, but there's just so much [crosstalk 00:36:02].

Jeff R: So much to do.

Larry H: Then I'm like okay, now I get how this works, and I go back and start doing some of the earlier things now that I kind of Understand what's going on and how to do them.

Jeff R: One of the cool things about this game is that it doesn't ... It's not like you go to the map and there's 7,000 icons there and you're like oh my god, I'm paralyzed by choice. It's more like there's one maybe two missions on the map, but then as you're going there something else will pop.

Larry H: There's the random encounter.

Jeff R: Exactly. What appears to be a random encounter, and that might lead to a whole thread of other things to do.

Larry H: Right.

Jeff R: So if you keep your mind open you end up with a lot of things. There's a lot of things to keep in mind. For instance one of the character's his child, and at one point he mentions he left his book behind, and then I was just in a random house and I ended up finding [crosstalk 00:36:44]

Larry H: You found the book, that's what I'm looking for.

Jeff R: Okay, I'll have to show you. I find it in an abandoned house in [inaudible 00:36:49].

Larry H: Okay.

Jeff R: Right before I got killed, but fortunately I kept the book, and I brought it back and it just felt real good to give him that book.

Larry H: To make him happy.

Jeff R: Yeah, and then gave me something, little something.

Larry H: That's funny because I did one. I got something for somebody, and they said now there's a present for you in your room, and my room was such a mess I couldn't find it.

Jeff R: Someone left me pomade so I don't know.

Larry H: That was me.

Jeff R: You know what Mexican water made my hair look great. I got two or three compliments.

Larry H: You know what, I'm going to say this, dare I say, Brian [inaudible 00:37:26] great.

Jeff R: Well, let's not go that far. The man has tresses.

Larry H: Sure does.

Jeff R: I'm just happy to have mostly full coverage. Another game came out this weekend, I'm hearing really good stuff about.

Larry H: Yes.

Jeff R: Hitman 2.

Larry H: Yeah. That's another one of my two.

Jeff R: I've seen a number of reviews that said this was maybe the best Hitman. Hitman 2 is now available on Xbox One. Here's one we talked about on the show debuting in the Game Pass, Thief of Thieves.

Larry H: Yeah, we talked about that.

Jeff R: Thing that's Interesting about this, not that it sounds like Sea Of Thieves if you talk too quickly, so it's a comic book sort of designed, but it's by Robert Kirkman.

Larry H: Yep.

Jeff R: Who, of course you're going to know from The Walking Dead.

Larry H: Walking Dead, yeah.

Jeff R: That enough is enough to make me want to try it, and of course if it's part of Game Pass well, I mean I already have it, right?

Larry H: Right. What, you don't have it? Then you should get it.

Jeff R: You should get it, just put down a buck.

Larry H: One buck.

Jeff R: For the first month.

Larry H: One dollar.

Jeff R: He acted that out.

Larry H: I did.

Jeff R: That was good. Then we mentioned Ted Price was up here, and one of his first games was Spyro.

Larry H: Yeah.

Jeff R: Back in the day, the early days of Insomniac in like the 90's, right?

Larry H: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Jeff R: Is it the late 90's?

Larry H: Yeah, he's been around.

Jeff R: I think their first game was disruptor, which was like a PS1 shooter. That's a bit of arcane trivia for you. Anyways, Spyro Reignited Trilogy, which is like a remastered Spyro, Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage, and Year of the Dragon, all remastered for about $40, available on Xbox One. One last thing I wanted to mention, actually well maybe two.

Larry H: You've got a few more things.

Jeff R: A couple. I saw the Just Dance 2019 Demo is available for free.

Larry H: I'll tell Laura that.

Jeff R: Well, yes, for her. After you had your mini turkey, and you're feeling all carbed out.

Larry H: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Jeff R: You got the itis, and you're dozing on the couch, you know maybe get up and you play a little bit of Just Dance.

Larry H: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Jeff R: Then you work off some of that, or you do the turkey trot. You ever do the turkey trot? It was a huge mistake I made last year.

Larry H: I heard about it.

Jeff R: A lot of places there's this called a turkey trot, and it's not super competitive, it's Like a 5k. The one in Seattle's almost all downhill, thank God, and we did it but in typical Seattle November fashion. It was Raining, and it was cold, and why did I do that.

Larry H: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Jeff R: So probably not doing the turkey trot this year.

Larry H: Did it end at top pot.

Jeff R: Top pot would've been closed, but that would've been good though.

Larry H: Right.

Jeff R: Anyways, so maybe this year I do some stretch, do some Just Dance.

Larry H: I don't think you'll have to do any of it because you'll be having a micro turkey.

Jeff R: Yeah, [inaudible 00:40:04] micro turkey.

Larry H: You'll have a Mc'turkey.

Jeff R: You laughed, but I bet there's probably some place Mcdonalds always alters to the local market.

Larry H: Yes.

Jeff R: I've had some chicken in Japan there.

Larry H: I have a friend of mine who did PR for Mcdonalds for a long time.

Jeff R: Really?

Larry H: He's told me some wild stories about the local market stuff and what they do, and so forth.

Jeff R: I remember one year I was in Japan, they had a squid ink black bun burger.

Larry H: Right, yeah, crazy.

Jeff R: Everyone was going crazy for it.

Larry H: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Jeff R: Do you like the squid ink Larry, I feel like it's not your speed.

Larry H: It write very well, very smooth.

Jeff R: That's good. [inaudible 00:40:40] squid ink.

Larry H: When I'm writing checks with a feathered pen.

Jeff R: You write so rarely. We were going into Mexico. You know you have to fill out-

Larry H: You didn't have a pen. You had to borrow mine.

Jeff R: I had to borrow a pen, and even then I'm like no one's going to be able to read this. I was like this is the first time I've written anything in weeks.

Larry H: Right, right. Since we checked that guilty box for that speeding ticket.

Jeff R: I did that digital.

Larry H: How did you know that?

Jeff R: Did my wife tell you that in your weekly gab sesh? The last thing ... I don't know where this is going. That I thought was really interesting is I saw on your blog, themajornelson.com, Onimusha Warlords is now available for digital pre-order and pre-download. Onimusha was the, I think, the original [inaudible 00:41:31] Onimusha, which was sort of a variety Of this game, was on the OG Xbox, which again, 17 years. It all comes full circle. So this one is an enhanced version of that best selling adventure classic. I love the Onimusha series, this time it looked amazing.

Larry H: That's what the copy says right here.

Jeff R: That's exactly what I'm reading. It comes out early January. It's only 20 bucks so I'll probably be checking it out assuming I've finished Just Cause, Assassin's Creed, Red Dead, what else, Fallout 76.

Larry H: Wow.

Jeff R: And Battlefield V.

Larry H: The list goes on.

Jeff R: That's it. I don't have a lot to play. I have so much to play. One last thing I want to bring up, just as a congratulations to folks that ... Heck, and this building and building right next to us. TIME Magazine-

Larry H: That's the one with the red border.

Jeff R: That one with the red border. It's made out of paper, there's a number of pages in it, it's new. Best inventions 2018, and who's on there, what's on there, the Xbox Adaptive Controller.

Larry H: Yay.

Jeff R: So congratulations to all the folks who put that together. It's just amazing how its been able to ... Just the thought of bringing gaming to people that maybe have not been able to experience it, or have not been able to experience it in a way that was as effective, or as easy I guess as they would've liked, that this has been able to empower that. I think that's really awesome. I've gotten to work with a number of creators who we got the controller to, and I've gotten a lot of great feedback, so congrats to the team making that.

Larry H: Yeah.

Jeff R: That's all I got to say about that.

Larry H: It makes a big difference to somebody who needs it.

Jeff R: Yeah.

Larry H: And there's a lot of people out there that need this thing, and it helps them. More people gaming. It was great to spend time down in Mexico, Phil. Phil and I had a great conversation about the adaptive controller and the mouse and keyboard support and all that. So we got some good stuff coming, don't we Jeffrey?

Jeff R: You really want to get a headline here Larry.

Larry H: No, no. I also want to point out, you talked about the Black Friday deals. There's also a series of Black Friday deals for hardware, so if you're interested in upgrading your Xbox One to the Xbox One X, the most powerful console, and playing a little bit of Red Dead, well.

Jeff R: Never been cheaper.

Larry H: Now is the time. I just want to make sure I point that out.

Jeff R: This is probably worth mentioning is, a lot of the TV's ... We partner a lot with Samsung, I happen to have, well I got a second Samsung. One for the living room, I have one for the gaming room.

Larry H: That's in addition to the one you have in the bathroom.

Jeff R: No, that's my sacred space, Larry.

Larry H: Right.

Jeff R: I feel like they're a good pairing.

Larry H: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Jeff R: So I got one of the QLED's, and I love it.

Larry H: QLED, yeah.

Jeff R: QLED. Of course I'm one of these people that said NES, you know NES.

Larry H: Really?

Jeff R: I think you can say QLED, right?

Larry H: GIF or JIF.

Jeff R: They got my ... JIF, I'm a JIF man.

Larry H: Okay.

Jeff R: I know, that's probably wrong. Anyway, point is, those TV's are ... They've literally never been lower priced, these 4K, proper HDR10 compatibility, with like 120HZ refresh rate and up, so it pairs very well obviously with the X.

Larry H: Yeah.

Jeff R: It's just amazing, since the X came out a year ago how the fidelity of my gaming has improved.

Larry H: Has increased dramatically.

Jeff R: It really has.

Larry H: It has. Yeah, so I just want to give you guys an update. We wanted to jump into the studio because we haven't done a show in awhile so we're going to wrap this.

Jeff R: I just want to do the waffle.

Larry H: Waffle, the waffle story. Thank you for that.

Jeff R: Coke light.

Larry H: Now we're going to do a ... We're not here next week because we have a holiday. The US day holiday we talked about, Thanksgiving, but the following week we're going to go back into the TV studio and do a Mixer podcast.

Jeff R: Mixer, studio one.

Larry H: You know we did the game show last time, remember?

Jeff R: We did, can we do that again?

Larry H: We may do that again.

Jeff R: I thought that was really fun.

Larry H: Yeah, it was a beta test, and we got a bunch of feedback, and the engineers enjoyed it and they're making some changes. So we got a bunch of stuff, so that'll probably, I don't know if it's the exact day, it'll probably be the 28th, or 29th of November.

Jeff R: A couple of weeks.

Larry H: I'll let you guys know when it's going to happen. We're going to go back to the studio, you and me. We'll have a special guest, or two. We'll have some stuff to show off, or two.

Jeff R: Really?

Larry H: Yeah, we'll give some stuff away.

Jeff R: Oh I have something I want to show. Okay, we'll save it, we'll save it.

Larry H: Are you sure? Okay, all right. You sure?

Jeff R: Well this is an audio podcast. I can't show it now.

Larry H: That's right, sorry. Well, we're going to wrap things up so you guys can get back to your Red Dead, or Battlefield, or-

Jeff R: Fallout.

Larry H: Or Fallout, or whatever you're playing, because there's so much right now.

Jeff R: So much.

Larry H: If you want to hit Jeff up on social media follow him at ...

Jeff R: @jeffrubenstein.

Larry H: Follow me @majornelson, and of course majornelson.com for all your sales and informational needs.

Jeff R: And Mandarin duck.

Larry H: And Mandarin duck updates. All right, we'll talk to you guys in a couple weeks, right Jeff?

Jeff R: Happy Thanksgiving.

Larry H: Ta-ta.