761: Dolby Vision, Windows 11, Surface and more

Larry Hryb:
Hi, it's Larry Hryb, Xbox's Major Nelson. Welcome to the Official Xbox Podcast. I'm going to get ready to bring my lovely co-hosts in here. Now, this...

Jeff Rubenstein:
Lights out!

Larry Hryb:
Why did we lose the lights? What happened? I don't know. There they are.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Hooray.

Larry Hryb:
I don't care. Anyway. It's good to see you guys. As I was telling you before we got started, Jeff and I and Rebecca were talking off the air, we need to get some things out of the way right at the top of the podcast. This is the Official Xbox Podcast. This is the only place you get members of the Xbox team, me and Jeff and Rebecca, and liking and subscribing and all that stuff. Jeff, do you want to kind of do some of this? I'm doing it terribly.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Larry, this is where you say that we release every Friday at 10:00 AM Pacific Time, or you could say West Coast, Best Coast Time, but that would really be stealing from SnowBikeMike, that we're on YouTube.

Larry Hryb:
And I don't believe West Coast, Best Coast. East Coast is Beast Coast.

Jeff Rubenstein:
That does not... It's not mutually exclusive. Both those-

Rebecca Gordius:
Yeah, you can have that. Sure.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Thank you. It doesn't mean that East Coast is not the best.

Rebecca Gordius:
You could have the beast coast.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Sure. Rhyming aside, what I would say is yes, we're available on YouTube, we're available on podcast resources, systems, distribution channels from all over the globe, so please leave your comments. We love and really been enjoying engaging with you over these past couple of months in the YouTube comments. I swear this is the only YouTube channel where we do read the comments, and they're great. So thanks for your instructive criticism.

Larry Hryb:
And we reply. Rebecca, if you want to go in and reply. I know you may not want to. That's probably the last thing you want to do.

Rebecca Gordius:
No, it's okay. I don't mind replying to some of them, but you all, please stop addressing comments to my mom. But aside from that, I'm happy to.

Larry Hryb:
Oh, yes. Anyway. But thank you for that, Jeff. As Jeff said, we release each week, or as often as we like. Got a lot of stuff going on, and again, this is the only podcast where you can hear people directly on the Xbox team talk to you, and we bring in folks from the Xbox team. This week, we've got some great interviews about some new features that are now available on Xbox Series X, plus we're going to talk about Windows 11. That is coming out, depending upon when you listening to this, it's coming out either it's out now, or it's coming out in the next week. So we've got a lot going on in this show, but usually we talk about what we're playing. Rebecca, I'm going to start with you. What are you playing?

Rebecca Gordius:
Okay, cool. Well, so I've really wanted to create this Halo Infinite multiplayer type preview this last weekend, but I had a friend in town, and there were only some really specific windows that didn't really jive with my East Coast schedule unfortunately, but Big Team Battle is on this weekend, so I would highly recommend folks check it out. I'm going to check it out finally. But aside from that, I got a chance to play Sable, which released last week. You might remember I got a chance to speak with Greg from Shedworks about the game, and it is pretty cool. I think that a lot of the footage and the trailers that you saw were really indicative of the experience. It is very whimsical, the art style is amazing. It's also kind of refreshing to just walk at a wall and just start climbing it immediately. You can climb on everything in that game, which is kind of fun. But yeah, it's pretty cool. You can definitely also see the Star Wars influences in it too just with the kind of long, lonely desert.

Larry Hryb:
You brought that up in the interview you did a couple weeks ago, where you felt like there was a little bit of it, which is great. I mean, there's nothing wrong with it, but it was great to see that it carried through for you.

Rebecca Gordius:
Yeah, it was pretty cool. I would highly recommend folks give it a chance. It's on Game Pass.

Jeff Rubenstein:
What'd you think about the soundtrack? Because Japanese Breakfast had something to do with that, and they're having a hell of a year.

Rebecca Gordius:
Yeah, I thought it was pretty cool. I'm not going to lie, I usually... It depends on the game, but I kind of listen to music on the side while I'm playing games, so maybe I should listen to the soundtrack on this one, I'm sure it would add to it.

Larry Hryb:
I loved it. I started playing Sable as well. I'm only in the first area, on the first series of quests, but I'm having a good time with it, to your point. It's a lot of fun.

Rebecca Gordius:
Yeah, it's cool. And then aside from that, I've been spending some more time in Psychonauts. I'm determined to defeat it sometime soon. Not defeat, but yeah. I've heard such good things.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Let us know when you get to the psychedelic level and play through that.

Rebecca Gordius:
The psychedelic party, yeah, I know. Yeah, what have you guys been playing?

Larry Hryb:
Well, I'll jump in. I mean, I've been playing Golf Peaks. Have you played Golf Peaks yet? I don't know, I think it's... Actually, it's not Game Pass. This is a golfing game, it's been out on mobile for a few years, but it's a golfing game in name and look only. You're not swinging and hit the ball particularly. You've got cards, Jeff and Rebecca, and it's an isometric view. If you go look up it online, it's an isometric view of you're teeing off here and here's the hole, you've got a series of cards that you have to play in a certain area and in a certain direction to get the ball from point A into the hole. So it's like, "With this card, you're going to hit it twice," so it goes over two blocks and then this card is going to go up one block. It's a puzzle game and it's a lot of fun. I've been playing that.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Well, speaking of that, Larry, so there's like a lot of... It has the word golf in the name, but it's not actually golf. And there was another one that came out very recently, I've heard some really good buzz on called Golf Club Wasteland, and basically, it's like humanity has moved to the moon or Mars or something like that, but then they come back to Earth and they just treat the whole planet, which has been obviously crumbling, as a golf course, and just hit balls. I don't know if this is maybe from that scene in I Am Legend. Remember, he's hitting golf balls through Times Square. Maybe that was their inspiration.

Larry Hryb:
He's hitting the golf balls right near where you currently live, if I remember correctly, Rebecca?

Rebecca Gordius:
Yeah, off of that ship, right? Or wait.

Larry Hryb:
Off of the carrier, yeah. I believe it's off-

Rebecca Gordius:
Yeah, yeah.

Larry Hryb:
Yeah, he's it off of the wing of a plane on a carrier, if I remember correctly.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Anyway, as I recall-

Rebecca Gordius:
Is that what happens after the...

Jeff Rubenstein:
But they made a video game about it, it's called Golf Club Wasteland. It's 9.99, available on Xbox One and Series X and S, and I've heard just very good things about it. It's on my list to try out, so maybe on yours too.

Larry Hryb:
Another one I'm playing is... For some strange reason I'm playing this story game called Teacup. Have you seen this one?

Jeff Rubenstein:
Nope.

Larry Hryb:
It's a very childlike with children's artwork, and all I know is I opened a door and I got 100 Gamerscore, so I was happy. So I'm playing that. Sea of Thieves, I'm very excited to report that I have finished the Pirate's Life, all of the quests in the Pirate's Life, and I finished all of the commendations, which means I have unlocked the Yo Ho, A Pirate's Life For Me shanty. I know that doesn't mean a lot to you guys, but that's the only way you can get this shanty, and I unlocked it. So I was very happy about that.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Do you have the Black Pearl or something? Do you get that as well?

Larry Hryb:
You can buy a livery like that for your ship. But anyway, so that's one thing. So I finished that, and then of course, we talked about the Halo Infinite beta that Jeff and I... Rebecca, you said you weren't around to play it, but Jeff and I played quite a bit this weekend, and we had some good matches.

Jeff Rubenstein:
We had quite the run. I think when I came in with you, and you'd been playing for a little bit, we ran I want to say five matches. We won four of them, a couple of them just like. It's interesting, I think, because it's just getting started. Sometimes you run into a group and you're like, "Oh, these people know what they're doing." I think someone had a great tweet, and it was like, "If you run it into this group," and it was people with like a bunch of X's in their names, you're going to lose badly." But we were playing as a team, good communication. This is my pro tip, and you can do whatever you want, but as someone who plays a lot of Apex, I like to tag things using the right bumper and you can basically just reallocate or remap any of the controls, and so by default, it's up on the D-pad and right bumper is tools like grappling hook or things like that, and I swapped those two.

Jeff Rubenstein:
So more frequently I'm tagging, I think it's better for the team. I still have to figure out if there's a better place for me to put those tools. The Repulsor's really cool. I've seen some great videos on social people knocking people off of cliffs and stuff like that. So work in progress, but use your tagging. It helps everybody. Your player will shout out what they're seeing, and so if you need to remap it to make it more accommodating or so that you'll use it more, it makes you a good teammate.

Larry Hryb:
And I will say this, my tip is, and I don't know if... Jeff, did you and I play Sunday night when it was... I don't know if we did, but-

Jeff Rubenstein:
That was when we played.

Larry Hryb:
Yeah, one of the tips that one of the guys from actual from 343 told me was you can go into the settings, Rebecca, and you can... Basically I think it's under visuals, but scroll down and it's basically when you see enemies, are they outlined in red and your team default, your friendlies are outlined in blue. I find if you go in and I believe the color they use in the user interface is mint, you change your team to mint, and you can see your team they just pop. It just pops more, at least for my eyes.

Rebecca Gordius:
Interesting. Okay, that's cool.

Larry Hryb:
Yeah, so that's what it is. But yeah, you said you're going to be around this weekend and actually everybody, if you go check out Xbox Insiders, they posted that the Halo Infinite beta for Big Team Battle will be open to everybody, but you got to kind of go through and sign up, so go check those guys out and go check that Twitter handle up. Jeff, what are you playing? You've been... I see something actually that you need to reconnect your controller over your right shoulder. It's flashing at me.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Well, first, you were talking about Windows 11 earlier and I was getting my Windows 11 rig a workout by playing Deathloop, which I finished this weekend and it is an incredible game.

Larry Hryb:
You didn't tell me that. I know you were into it, I didn't realize that you finished it.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Oh, I got very into it. I didn't want to play anything else, so I just really mained that for the better part of a week. I should look and see how many hours I put into it, but I just got just completely into it. I think we talked a little bit about this last week, you really should watch some videos if you're think, "Oh, I don't like rogue-likes, or I don't like, I don't know, time games or things like that." It's really not like that, and you spend the majority of the game... They make it pretty clear in all the trailers, the way you break the loop of death is to you got to kill all the bosses in one day, and it sort of gave me thoughts of going back to the original Dead Rising or something like that, where it could be really stressful, and it doesn't work out like that.

Jeff Rubenstein:
The time sort of freezes when you're in a level and you can sort of take all your time, and you're spending most of the game essentially trying to figure out how to do it, and then you do it, and that's where it's really cool, and I didn't get nervous in the game until that point. I was like, "I've come too far," and I ended up on that final step. I was using my teleport, my blink shift, I think it's called, ability and I mistimed it. These are not spoilers, these are all stuff in trailers and things like that. Anyway, I mistimed a jump and I landed in a... I'm playing very stealthy, and I landed right in a crowd of a bunch of people and it turned into a huge gunfight, which I swiftly lost.

Larry Hryb:
Did it turn into a grapple, did it, Jeffrey?

Jeff Rubenstein:
It was not good, and I ended up having to redo the day, and then I beat the game, but yeah, it's just an excellent game, incredibly intelligent, phenomenal voice acting and so highly recommend you give that a shot. Played that on your Windows 11, on my widescreen PC, and super fun. It's going to be on a lot of end of year lists for sure. And besides that Lost Judgment, which I just realized, it has this thing where if you move the stick, it changes the camera for some reason on the title screen, and I can just do that all day. Anyway, we've talked about Lost Judgment. You've given me some stick for talking too much about games by the opposite team, but I will just say I got something in the mail this weekend and it was this thing.

Larry Hryb:
I got one of those too.

Rebecca Gordius:
What is it? Go full screen.

Larry Hryb:
Sure. Absolutely.

Jeff Rubenstein:
It's a skateboard. So Yagami has a skateboard that he uses to go around Yokohama because it's big and it's faster to skateboard, and they sent me this. So thanks to them. Hashtag not really an ad, they just did give it to me. Not sponsored, but I love the games. And yeah, it's really fun. So I'm pretty early into that and that's available now. And Larry is not available now, he's gone. What?

Rebecca Gordius:
He's getting his skateboard too.

Jeff Rubenstein:
What's he got here? He's got cables, he's all over the place. This is an unscripted field trip. There he is.

Larry Hryb:
Well, my favorite part, Jeff, is actually... Did you get a chance... We haven't even talked about this. Have you gotten a chance to play with this thing?

Jeff Rubenstein:
No, they sent the drone. I haven't tried it yet because it's been rainy, but how was it?

Larry Hryb:
For the record, they sent this drone over and I actually start... I have no idea if this is going to work.

Rebecca Gordius:
Oh, no.

Jeff Rubenstein:
This is not going to be good. At least you had fun.

Rebecca Gordius:
Is this a good idea?

Jeff Rubenstein:
Do it.

Larry Hryb:
Guess it's not going to work.

Rebecca Gordius:
No, don't. I would like to request for next week's episode, you put these things to use and go skateboarding together in the neighborhood.

Larry Hryb:
This is not a good sign when they're blinking like that. But yeah, so we got this drone here. What I did find out, Jeff, is... Let me shut this off so it's not blinding folks. Is the camera's mounted upside-down so when you hook it to your phone, the image is upside-down, so I haven't had a chance to play with this outside. I was flying it around the house because my family wasn't around so I was able to fly around.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Well, in the game, Yagami is a detective.

Rebecca Gordius:
Does that mean the controls are inverted?

Larry Hryb:
Well, I didn't even get that far. The only thing I was able to do with it because I was so afraid of taking out the chandelier was I did up and down. I have no idea, that was kind of it. And when I say up, I turned it on, and when I went down, I turned it off, so I really wasn't controlling it properly.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Interesting. Well, in the game, he's a detective and I haven't gotten that far into this one, but I'm sure the drone is in it, and you use it to sort of stake places out from a safe distance. He'll be on a rooftop across the street or something like that, uses the camera drone, oh, the bad guy in this room, let's head him off here, and so there you go. Now you too can be a private detective, Larry, if things don't work out here in the podcasting world.

Larry Hryb:
Yeah, I can be a private detective/drone pilot. So anyway. It's amazing how these things just kind they can fit in your pocket. Oh, the technology.

Jeff Rubenstein:
If you're wearing cargo pants. I told you not to wear those, it's not the best look.

Larry Hryb:
No, I don't want to wear cargo pants. Anyway. All right, moving right along. What else you got, Jeff? I mean, you've been busy this week playing those games and-

Jeff Rubenstein:
Yeah. No, that's it. Plenty more to play, so just got to keep going.

Larry Hryb:
Looking forward to next week and beyond when Far Cry is out. I know Jeff and I are going to be doing that. We have done... I think this'll be our third one that we do together with-

Jeff Rubenstein:
Four, five and six, yeah.

Larry Hryb:
Yeah, so that'll be a lot of fun. Oh, boy. You talked about Windows 11, Jeff. We've talked about a lot going on. We've got a bunch of interviews this week, one of which is with Panos Panay, who's the head of the Windows team and Surface. You've probably seen him, he's amazing individual. So I had a chance to chat with him, and then did you see the news about Dolby Vision this week, gang?

Jeff Rubenstein:
Yeah?

Rebecca Gordius:
Yeah. We can talk about it now? But yeah, so Dolby Vision Gaming is available now an Xbox Series X and S, which includes more than 100 next gen HDR titles, either optimized for Xbox Series X and S now or coming soon. I think the Xbox Series X and S are also the first console to support gaming and Dolby Vision and Atmos, if I'm not mistaken.

Larry Hryb:
Yes, we are. I was able to catch up with somebody on our team, Katie Slattery from our team, we'll talk to her first and then Ashley Arnold from the Dolby team. So what do you say we roll those interviews now, we'll come back on the other side, and we'll get all the news lined up for you this week, so stay tuned.

Larry Hryb:
This week, I'm really excited because Xbox has shipped the most amazing thing and this is Dolby Vision on the console for Xbox Series X and S, and joining me today is Katie Slattery. Katie, welcome to the show.

Katie Slattery:
Thank you. Very, very excited to be here today.

Larry Hryb:
I got to tell you, I'm really excited. You and I've been talking about this feature for quite some time. We shipped it earlier this week for Xbox Series X and S. This is Dolby Vision. Before we talk about the feature on the console, I want to talk about your journey and what you do at Xbox because it's interesting how this feature made it to the console vis-à-vis you. So tell us a little bit about your journey.

Katie Slattery:
Yeah, absolutely. So back in 2018, we launched Dolby Vision for media streaming, and at the time, we had partnered with Netflix and a couple of other premium media service subscriptions, and immediately we heard feedback that says, "This is awesome. We're really excited. When is this coming to gameplay?" So we got together as a team internally and started thinking about how can we bring this to our gamers, how can we help enhance our gameplay and bring this cutting edge technology never before seen for games to Xbox consoles?

Larry Hryb:
And we're going to have somebody... I'm going to have someone on later in the show from Dolby specific, but can you just give us kind of a top line? Explain what Dolby Vision is for people that may have heard of it or don't know.

Katie Slattery:
Yeah, absolutely. So Dolby Vision is an advanced high dynamic range technology, which enhances the visuals by bringing brighter brights and darker darks and more vivid colors to a given scene, or in this case, gameplay.

Larry Hryb:
So for those of you that you may have heard, that may sound familiar because we've been talking at Xbox about HDR, high dynamic range for some time, and this is really Dolby building on that technology. Would that be right, Katie?

Katie Slattery:
Yeah, that's totally correct.

Larry Hryb:
And so the feature shipped earlier this week, and for those of you that don't know kind of how to get it, it's pretty straightforward, but there's a couple things you need to have to ensure that you can get this experience. Katie, could you walk us through what we need to make sure that I'm ready to go, and more importantly, because this is what Xbox gamers... If you don't know, this is what Xbox gamers look for. They look for all the green check boxes, and you can see mine there. So can you explain to us what we need to kind of have that that Dolby Vision gaming experience?

Katie Slattery:
Absolutely. So we just launched this feature on our Series X and S consoles for Dolby Vision-supported TVs. There is a list available that Dolby hosts of the supported TVs, so a user can go check it, but also feel free to go to the TV 4k details page, find under settings, make sure to update your TV firmware to make sure that you're running the latest and greatest. Additionally-

Larry Hryb:
I'm sorry. I just wanted to show them. This is what you're going to see. See that little box in the lower right-hand corner? You got to check that and I'm sure assuming your TV, as Katie said, as your firmware updated, it may flicker a little bit and then everything should be okay.

Katie Slattery:
Absolutely.

Larry Hryb:
One of the other things that I actually got tripped up on when I was putting my Series X in here is, and this is absolutely critical, let me go back to this because it actually shows it in one of our screens, and that is you need to make sure that kind of that third line down there, you want to make sure you're using the HDMI cable that came with the console because that is a different type of... I mean, certainly you're maybe you're buying HDMI cables on Monoprice, or off Amazon, and I'm sure they're fine, but to ensure that you're going to have this great experience, use the one we included in there, right, Katie?

Katie Slattery:
Absolutely.

Larry Hryb:
It's really interesting technology, and not only that, but we've got a lot of games that are using it right away kind of as we shifted. Tell us a little bit about that.

Katie Slattery:
Sure. So when we first launched this feature for our general audience, we had 18 titles within the given curated list of both Dolby Vision and Atmos-supported feature sets. Since then, over the last couple of days, we've been adding to the collection and now have a robust titles for all users to enjoy with that Dolby Vision-supported TV. For more information, please check out this store for the latest collection available.

Larry Hryb:
Yeah, we also have... I've got a little bit of it right here, and obviously we're pre-recording this before it airs, but you can kind of see they're updating the store page here on Xbox.com, with some of the titles. So you'll be able to see some of those things, or you can check it out on your console, the Store app on your console, and there's a collection is exactly that. It's a collection of the games that you can kind of enjoy with Dolby Vision, assuming that you have things... There's a couple things you got to make sure. Your TV has to have the updated firmware, right Katie?

Katie Slattery:
Absolutely.

Larry Hryb:
Updated firmware. You have to have the right cable that came with your Xbox Series X or S. Of course, you need an Xbox Series X or S and then a TV that supports it. It's not that complicated, you just kind of got to go through and check a few boxes to make sure that you have all the right things in your technology chain. So that's the greatest thing. I want to talk also about with the kind of the better experience, my understanding is that we need to have the ALLM. Can you talk a little bit about that and make sure what that is, and how we have to have that enabled?

Katie Slattery:
Yeah, so ALLM is our Automatic Low Latency Mode that some TV manufacturers help support. Dolby Vision helps combine with other cutting edge technology features in addition to features such as ALLM to bring the best gaming experience. So you get great visuals with Dolby Vision gaming and then you get that low latency modes with LLMs supported, and you get great gameplay experience.

Larry Hryb:
And Katie, you are one of the many people on your team. I know you speak for a lot of folks on the team and the engineering side that your goal is to make it as easy as possible so that, again, you can go check with all those check marks to make sure that you've got everything all set up properly, you've got the right cable, the right TV, the right form, and all that other stuff, so you should never really question, "Is this working or not?" And then the other fun part is that some TVs, I know on my LG, it even pops up and says, "Dolby Vision," so when I go into a game, it's kind of like, "Yes, I know that it works, but is it really working? And the TV says it's working, so I guess it's working and it looks great." So that's that's kind of another bonus there, right?

Katie Slattery:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). We also brought this enhancement of Dolby Vision on our platform to a wide variety of titles even beyond the collection, so the collection highlights particular titles in partnership with Dolby and Dolby Vision, but we also brought and wanted to make sure we expanded this to a large, robust library of titles that also supported HDR and Auto HDR. So with the launch of this feature, we're going to have thousands of titles. You'll see that Dolby Vision toast pop up if your TV supports it, not just on the store collection, but also for some of your old favorites as well.

Larry Hryb:
Kate, very excited to check out Dolby Vision. I know a lot of folks are getting ready to update their firmware and go through all the things we talked about. Do you have any final words before I let you go?

Katie Slattery:
Yeah. This has been such a fantastic journey to be able to launch this feature. Honestly, one of my favorite parts about working at Xbox and being able to work on this feature, is it's something that's never been done before. We had to work in partnership with Dolby, we worked in partnership with a lot of TV manufacturers and even studios to deliver on the cutting edge of technology for something that has never been seen on the game console before. It really excites me to be able to work on and create new tech and new experiences and new features that our gamers and our customers will enjoy. So I have personally really, really enjoyed working on this and happy to ship it.

Larry Hryb:
Well, well said, Katie. On behalf of the Xbox universe out there and all the gamers, thank you very much for enhancing our experience and keep up the great work. Thank you. Well, we heard about Dolby Vision on Xbox, but I wanted to get an expert in here and talk about Dolby Vision with Dolby, so joining me today is Ashley from Dolby Labs. Ashley, it is great to see you.

Ashley Arnold:
Thank you. It's great to be here. Thank you for having me.

Larry Hryb:
I mean, you and I've talked on and off over the years when we're working on Dolby Atmos on the console, and now we're working on Dolby Vision. I'm a big fan of Dolby and what you all do in terms of bringing this really rich experience to movies for many, many, many years through all your audio programs and in movies, but now you've brought your expertise into gaming. That's got to be real exciting for you guys.

Ashley Arnold:
Yeah. I mean, at Dolby, we're all about storytelling and bringing consumers as close to their entertainment experiences as is possible, and as games have basically come up to the quality standard of Hollywood blockbusters, it made natural sense for us to take the Dolby Vision technology from movies and TVs and bring them into the gaming space. And to your point, we started doing that many, many years ago with movies and TVs, and so we're really excited about what's coming.

Larry Hryb:
And this is really great because we've had Dolby Atmos, your audio technology, on Xbox Series X and S for quite some time and I've enjoyed it a lot with my soundbar, and now you've got Dolby Vision. Tell us a little bit. I heard Katie talk about it earlier, but how do you guys think about Dolby Vision, and why did you say, "Hey, we should come up with this thing called Dolby Vision," and what does it mean? Tell me a little bit about that. Give me some of the background.

Ashley Arnold:
Yeah, so our teams were doing research, oh gosh, a decade ago maybe about how could we take what we see in real life as people and bring it to screens? How do we translate that? And the standards that were being used to create TVs and movies were really outdated to the capabilities of old televisions, frankly, and so we said, "Okay, what could we do to improve this, and how could we make each of these pixels better and take full advantage of the screens?" And that's how we came up with the idea of high dynamic range, which is Dolby Vision and we started rolling that out to market.

Larry Hryb:
Now, Katie earlier talked about how it's on the console, you can go see a collection of games in the stores, and we've gone through some of the older games, kind of automatically done some fun work with him from the engineering side in terms of making them look better, but we also talked about the fact that there's a lot involved in Dolby Vision in terms of making sure you've got the right cable, the right TV, you need an Xbox Series X or S, and they got a game to play. So there's a lot going on there, but when you guys think about the technology, tell us what are some of your guiding principles when you're thinking about this audio or visual video technology?

Ashley Arnold:
Yeah, so at Dolby, we really want to create ecosystems. So we work really hard to work with the content creators, with the distributors and with the device manufacturers to ensure that we can enable an end-to-end experience for consumers, and at the end of the day, that's what we really want to do, we want to deliver the best audio and the best video for whatever device you're watching or playing on.

Larry Hryb:
When we released the feature to Xbox Series X and S earlier this week, people have to go in, they got to put the check on it, but we actually released a little bit of a video that I have here and this is tough to show because, I mean, I've got the audio down so you and I can talk over, but you tend to do your best here to show standard HDR on the right and Dolby Vision on the left, and there's some really stark differences when you start looking at it, aren't there?

Ashley Arnold:
Yeah. So I mean, some of the key benefits of bringing Dolby Vision to games are the brighter highlights, you're going to see a crisp sun in the sky without losing details in the clouds, you're also going to see a lot of details in the darks and in the shadows, and if that's an enemy lurking, and all of this is to bring you know a more immersive gaming experience. Personally, one thing I'm excited about, I'm playing a game right now where there's a lot of clues and sometimes there could be one right in front of me that I can't necessarily see, and with the added contrast of Dolby Vision, it should really help with that

Larry Hryb:
I don't know, I'm just going to do what gamers would do is look back on your console there, over your right shoulder and see what you're playing.

Ashley Arnold:
I got a little Ori on the go, that's probably my favorite right now.

Larry Hryb:
We talked also with Katie about, this is... Xbox Series X and S are the first consoles to have this technology, so that's got to be pretty exciting for you guys to bring this technology, which before was in motion pictures, some of it was on television, but now, it's the next frontier for you all, it's for games.

Ashley Arnold:
It's super exciting. We are thrilled. This has been a two-plus year journey working with the team at Xbox who've been amazing partners, and we're just really excited to bring this technology to games. We've had Dolby Atmos for audio and we really feel like this is the great complement to gaming and Dolby.

Larry Hryb:
What's the best way for people to kind of... Whether they're just beginning their upgrade journey of like they have their Series X and S, and now they're like, "Maybe I need a new TV." Where should they go for more information on Dolby Atmos?

Ashley Arnold:
So luckily, there's a wide range of televisions that support both Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos and we've worked really hard to make sure they're accessible at a wide range of prices. So different TV manufacturers will offer them at different price points, and they're all going to deliver an amazing visual and audio experience, and you can always learn more at Dolby.com.

Larry Hryb:
I mean, that's the best thing. I mean, it's always great to talk to you guys. I love having you or someone from from Dolby Labs on the show to talk, whether it's audio, because I'm an audio nerd, or video because I'm a video nerd, but it's just so exciting not only to have this technology available in my games today and there's going to be a lot of future games that are going to be using it, but the fact that it also works with existing and older games as well. So if I go into my library, I'm like, "Oh, this is now..." On my TV, the little thing pops up and it says it's Dolby Vision, I actually get excited because I'm like, "Oh, let me see what it looks like." So that's fun.

Ashley Arnold:
Yeah. I mean, we want to deliver the best experience to the most games for the most people, so we worked with Microsoft to develop tools for developers to bring Dolby Vision to their games depending on what makes the most sense for their title. So we've got 100 titles available that are coming soon in Dolby Vision, and then as you mentioned, we've got a pipeline of titles, like Halo infinite, and we're also using some advanced visual enhancements for legacy titles, making sure that we're making everything look good across the board.

Larry Hryb:
There you go. Now, like I said earlier, and Katie said it in the previous interview, if you want to go check out the store, we've got a special collection of all the games lined up there so you can kind of go through them. You know what? I bet you, whether it's in Game Pass or whether you own the game, I bet you there's at least one game in there that you have Dolby Vision ready to go on. So it's just a great conversation to have with you, Ashley, and it's always good to see you. And any final words before I let you go?

Ashley Arnold:
It's been a wonderful partnership with Xbox and just a huge thank you to everyone at Microsoft for all of the work, and we're really excited, so thank you.

Larry Hryb:
All right. Ashley Arnold from Dolby Labs, great to see you. Say hello to everybody out there at Dolby, and we'll get you on again in the future.

Larry Hryb:
As promised, here he is. Sitting with me, I'm in his private studio, Mr. Panos Panay, the legendary Panos. Good to see you, man.

Panos Panay:
You too. It's amazing to see you. So should I call you Larry or Major Nelson? As we hang out, it's Larry, but as we're here, what do you want?

Larry Hryb:
Gamers call me Larry, they call me Major Nelson. I'll answer to anything. That's the way it works with my family as well.

Panos Panay:
Well, to my son, you're Major Nelson, I want to be super clear.

Larry Hryb:
First of all, I got to tell you, I'm so... Thank you. I'm so excited to talk to... You and I have worked kind of around each other for many years. You've been working on Surface, you're now in charge of Windows. That is-

Panos Panay:
I don't know if I'm in charge. I'm definitely part of it, that's for sure.

Larry Hryb:
That's really amazing to see kind of your, what we call in corporate speak, span of control, right? Remember that term?

Panos Panay:
Sure. I do, I do.

Larry Hryb:
But it's interesting to see the things you do, but I want to talk a little bit about... We've got some new products talk about, Windows is coming out next week, depending upon when you're listening to this. Can you tell me a little bit about your journey?

Panos Panay:
So here's what interesting, when I came to the company, you might find some of this interesting, maybe not. When I came to the company, I came to work on hardware, and hardware at that time, we were just starting Xbox and that sophistication around what it means from an end-to-end device standpoint, but we shipped millions of mice and keyboards a year.

Larry Hryb:
People forget that, the IntelliMouse and the IntelliKeyboard, all that, people love these devices.

Panos Panay:
And that was kind of exciting, but I remember telling my dad... I remember when I was going to join Microsoft and there was a whole series of events that got me here, which it's a whole thing. Anyway, that can get me in trouble. But there was this opportunity back then, you can see it. While Microsoft was a software company, for sure, back then, 20 years ago or so, they were doing hardware and bits and bobs, and ultimately, it was the beginning of completing the experience, and then Xbox showed up and Mouse was basically making word and better, and then the World Wide Web, if you will, the Internet Explorer, and input devices mattered, and I had this opportunity to come and be part of that team. Here's what's interesting for you, you might find this interesting. One of my favorite brands before I got here was a brand called SideWinder. It was the gaming brand from Microsoft at the time, and they did mice and keyboards and headsets, and they did-

Larry Hryb:
Flight sticks.

Panos Panay:
Yeah, the flight sticks were rad. Some super cool stuff. And so one of the things I got to do while I was here, after the first or second year doing mice and keyboards, we brought gaming back for peripherals. Because when I got here, SideWinder wasn't shipping, and then we brought it back and we partnered with a friend of mine, Min, over at Razer, and we had built a mouse together called Habu, and we had this... I mean, part of my love for what gaming meant to me back then especially was these peripherals, and so there's a little history. It ties off to you in some weird indirect way.

Larry Hryb:
Yeah, because you've always been in the Xbox. People may not... They certainly know you now because you've done some amazing work on Surface and with Windows 11, which we'll talk about in a minute, but you've kind of been on the periphery of gaming for quite some time in terms of your impact has been felt on us in terms of, especially with Xbox Series X and S. I know that your hardware team worked with us on that, so that's been amazing. Obviously, the controller is... You talked about the SideWinder, and this is a direct descendant of all that work.

Panos Panay:
It kind of is, and we have some amazing leaders across organizations, of course, in hardware, in software, in Xbox, and we have labs for human factors, where this controller and I've watched evolve over the years, and I certainly won't claim I did anything for it or to it. I've either been part of or have led amazing teams that have built these products over the years, and I can't tell you. You would be... You've seen it all, but you go into the human factors lab, you could just look at the ergonomics of everything, what it means to game for everyone, what it means to build products so everyone can game, if you will. There's so many stories of inspiration in there that start from a hardware standpoint. But in my career, I started with mouse and keyboards and at some point there was a moment where we needed to complete the experience for Windows, and that's where Surface was kind of born, or maybe I shouldn't say, that's where Surface was created I think. It wasn't called Surface when we started. There's good story there, but basically-

Larry Hryb:
Because I remember the Surface devices. They were much larger.

Panos Panay:
Yeah, I actually ran that to group too, I was like, "Surface. Table." Awesome. It was basically the first touch device out there with this interaction model and you can sit around the table, and some magical experiences for sure. And then as it evolved, we had this need for basically for tablets, PCs, what did it mean to complete the whole Windows experience, and that kind of just snowballed into a pretty incredible set of products.

Larry Hryb:
We'll talk about those a little bit later. I want to talk about Windows though. Windows 11. It's going to start shipping next week to a lot of folks. I know-

Panos Panay:
We're pretty pumped about it. Pretty pumped about it.

Larry Hryb:
It's kind of a staggered drop, but I mean, we've got it here on one of the new devices. I've been using it for quite a few months. It's interesting because it's different, but familiar. Tell me about your involvement in that design and how you... Something radical like moving the Start menu, the button to the center of the screen. I mean, these are all things that I can just in my head-

Panos Panay:
Still getting feedback, by the way.

Larry Hryb:
I'm thinking of the hours of meetings you had over that.

Panos Panay:
Yeah, I think a ton. But at the end of the day, you're right. You use the right set of words and familiar. One of the principles behind the product and design was you need it to be modern, feel modern. It was meant to be calm, it was meant to draw you in, and it's meant to essentially get out of your way, and then you can do the things you want to do, including game. And if you do that elegantly, it's almost impossible to define it. It's something you feel, and one way to make that true was keep that familiarity, but make enough subtle and then some major changes, whether it's rounded corners, that use of materials, colors, the positioning of an icon, the way the product Windows just then under the covers, think about what we did with some of the features specific for gaming, if you will. You can draw from all that, but at the end of the day, it was meant to feel like home. That was an important element.

Panos Panay:
I talked about this at launch, some people kind of grasp it, but others, I think, look at me funny. But it is that idea that those things that you're familiar with modernized, and so let's say taking you back to your childhood, one of the things that you loved so much, they've probably evolved by now, but they still feel familiar and it's still innate to you. You still understand how to either turn the doorknob, or you know where the light switch was in your home, or you know what table you loved at the restaurant you used to go to. The table's probably there, but it's probably a new table, the light switch is probably still there, but maybe the walls have been painted.

Panos Panay:
And it is the essence of those changes around you, that evolution, that evolution of technology that's so important to all of us to help us move forward, to help us get things done that we want to get done, to help us get to our most creative self, to be the best gamer that we can be. All of that is part of this tech coming together, and at the same time, the tech getting out of your way. And so the design ethos around Windows 11 was somewhere in that area. It's a lot simpler than that, and like anything, it starts unbelievably primitive and then it gets unbelievably complex, and then we end up in a simple space, and I think what you're seeing with Windows 11 is quite a bit of complexity reduced to its simplest form and now it's powerful. It's powerful for people to use and create off of.

Larry Hryb:
And more importantly, for this audience, gaming. I mean, that's-

Panos Panay:
Huge.

Larry Hryb:
People often forget and I will tell people this, it's like, "Hey, Windows is Microsoft's other gaming platform because millions of people are gaming on Windows every single day." I mean, it's arguably the largest gaming platform out there.

Panos Panay:
I think you can say that almost definitively.

Larry Hryb:
Yeah. So I mean, now you're kind of rolling into the gaming space. Tell me about working with Phil and our team, the Xbox team, and what it means to bring that Xbox gaming experience, or part of it?

Panos Panay:
Let's start with Phil. First off, he's both a mentor to me and an incredible inspiration at the same time, and sometimes those conflict, because they can get a little bit... But boy, he's helped me through not only my career and thinking about how to make hard decisions and do the right things for people and organizations, but he's also inspired me on how to make products, how to think about doing the best you can do for your customer. He's an extraordinary, extraordinary human being, extraordinary leader, and he probably won't want to hear that, so if you want to just cut that out, that's fine. He's so humble. He'll probably be like, "What are you doing?" And I'm sorry, Phil. Hopefully, he cuts it, but if he doesn't, I'm sorry.

Larry Hryb:
I'm not going to do it. It's all true.

Panos Panay:
Yeah, maybe you shouldn't. But the idea that we can build a product for gamers with Windows 11, that was so important. It was one of the anchoring tenants of... When you think about it, we talked about something familiar, you build something, it feels familiar, feels calm in all the beauty and the aesthetic and so forth, that was important, but then you have just anchoring tenants on the product. I won't get into all of them, but one of them was gaming. Straight up. We know Windows needs to be great for gamers, period, and so just the features of DirectStorage, which basically gets your game faster, period.

Panos Panay:
It's very quite simple. That's what we needed, that's what we wanted. The Xbox team, Phil's vision, I mean, did incredible work, and they bring it to life. You think about DirectX 12 Ultimate, and what it means to gamers, you can push boundaries of Auto HDR, so the refresh rates where you get the light, and the ultimate pieces for gaming and feeling like you're part of that game. I'm a novice gamer at best. I don't know what that means. I'm terrible gamer, my son will tell you. Whatever. I thought I was good at one point, but-

Larry Hryb:
That's okay. You game, that's the most important thing.

Panos Panay:
Not so much. I think the ultimate piece was just the... I'm not sure what the right words are, but that blend of hardware and software, I think of Xbox Game Pass coming to life on the product, and then when you start taking and you start stacking up, whether it's Game Pass, DirectX, DirectStorage or HDR, you're in this zone of, "Wow! We've got the best Windows ever for gamers." And then you got OEMs who are building devices and who are pumped about, whether it's-

Larry Hryb:
So OEMs, for those who don't know, original equipment manufacturers.

Panos Panay:
Well done. Well done. I'm lost in myself. I'm lost in myself.

Larry Hryb:
It's okay.

Panos Panay:
You've got Lenovo's Legion, you have Dell Alienware, and I won't tell you... I love them all and I try and use them all, so don't even ask me, "Which one do you use?" Please don't do that.

Larry Hryb:
There's something for everybody.

Panos Panay:
HP's incredible in their gaming line. Acer, Asus.

Larry Hryb:
You mentioned Min-Liang and Razer.

Panos Panay:
Yup. And Min does incredible work with his PCs and peripherals, and he's making this cool COVID mask right now.

Larry Hryb:
I saw that too. I don't know what he's doing with that.

Panos Panay:
It's pretty funny. Yeah, there's some pretty cool stuff.

Larry Hryb:
But yeah, I mean, it's amazing that you know we talk about Windows as this amazing platform, but now that kind of it's been Xbox and Windows is over here. Over the past few years, we've brought on Game Bar and things like that, but now the Game Pass is there and you can stream your console games, and even from the cloud, stream them onto your-

Panos Panay:
So both important. So for the gamers that are Xbox gamers and you want to stream from your console, my son does this. When he comes home, when I try and get him home on the weekends when I can, that's how I see him gaming, on his Surface from an Xbox. Pretty cool. Or you can stream direct from the cloud. They're both awesome. I mean, the tech is mind-blowing and the gameplay's perfect.

Larry Hryb:
Yeah, and it's just going to get even better.

Panos Panay:
Yeah, it's just going to keep getting better. I mean, the team is so focused on it and just it's pretty awesome.

Larry Hryb:
And that's the beautiful part. I mean, we talked about game streaming. This week you know we released out to insiders the ability, you're going to be able to stream games to your console from the cloud while it's loading in the background, and you can stream games to your PC without ever installing them. I mean, there's just games... I know folks have heard me say this, I know you've heard Phil say this is that when everybody plays, we all win, and that means-

Panos Panay:
That's so inspiring, right? When you hear that, it's so inspiring.

Larry Hryb:
It's such a fascinating statement because it's... Everybody plays, meaning whether you're on an Android device, an iOS device, an iPad, whatever you're on, or when you look at our adaptive controller work with accessibility, right?

Panos Panay:
Yeah, that's one's near and dear to my heart.

Larry Hryb:
And you guys did some great work the last a couple weeks ago when you announced the Surface adaptive kit, which is kind of... Tell me a little bit about this, because this is really interesting.

Panos Panay:
It's very similar to the sense of when everyone games, we all win. When everyone can be productive, a very similar kind of ethos. At the end of the day, you want to design products for everyone. You think about designing a product for over a billion people, that's-

Larry Hryb:
That's the closest thing to one size fits all that there is, right?

Panos Panay:
I love that. Who's your customer for Windows? I'm like, "Oh. Well, I mean, there's over one billion.."

Larry Hryb:
Here's the globe.

Panos Panay:
But one of the things is making products accessible to everybody, and that's in my team's bones. We have this cultural and then we talked about being human, and being human is not only how we treat each other, not only how we care for each other, but it's also how we build products for people, what inclusive design means, and the adaptive kit is just one example of many. I think there's nuance in every product when we think about how do we make these products more accessible, how does everybody get a chance to use them, how do we make sure we're taking the right feedback for those and very clear. There's nothing better than the feedback of, "This doesn't work for me, this does work for me," and so forth.

Larry Hryb:
But also no better feedback than when you see someone with that adaptive controller who has never been able to game before.

Panos Panay:
Are you kidding me? There's no greater joy as a product maker to see somebody use your product, and whether there was the adaptive controller. Come on. So special. It's just real. It's so real. And with the adaptive kit, it was one of the simplest things we talked about. Sometimes the smallest things have the biggest impact. Here we're talking about sticker, we're talking about a lever, if you will, or a hook, just something where it makes it easier for lower dexterity to be able to open a kickstand or even the lid of your laptop, and it works for everybody. And now you start making a true difference for people's lives.

Panos Panay:
And if you want to make a difference, like for me, one of the main purposes is how do I make a difference? What are the differences I get to make in this world? What are the things that I can impact? The adaptive kid, I'm quite sensitive about it and I'm very proud of the team and what they've done and how they've accomplished it, the design ethos around it. And for those that saw the launch video, we have some pretty incredible leaders as well they just strive to the depth of what the product can be, and now you have something that... I don't know.

Larry Hryb:
Everybody can get one of these.

Panos Panay:
How do we get it to as many people as we can that need it, and that's where we're at now.

Larry Hryb:
We talked a little bit, we started with the Surface adaptive kit, but you had a whole amazing range of devices you announced a couple weeks ago yeah. I'm using one of them right here with the Surface laptops, with the pen and I'm all ready to go here, but it's an amazing device, but there's a whole bunch of different devices. There's a lot of really cool stuff your team is working on, including the Duo 2 with this amazing camera and NFC and everything.

Panos Panay:
That's a rad product. There's a lot going on. We have the Pro 8, we have the Laptop Studio, we have the Duo 2, we have the Go 3, and the idea that there's a product for everyone, the same idea, our OEMs have this range of devices that's incredible. They're all tied to Windows 11, so the launch of Windows 11's October 5th, the launch of the Surface devices, October 5th. Ton of new OEM devices coming, some already announced, some to be announced. That's both gaming and non-gaming, if you will. The Surface Laptop Studio, just speaking to gamers, it's an incredible gaming device. I get in trouble because it's not defined as a gaming device.

Larry Hryb:
No, it's not a game device, but I've been playing Deathloop on it and I'm having a great time. I bind controller up and away I go.

Panos Panay:
Yeah, I play Fortnite on it. I have to tell you, the screen is incredible, and when you get to the Auto HDR, you start to feel Windows 11 come to life and it gets pretty rad. It's pretty rad.

Larry Hryb:
You and I have talked frequently over the years, but I always talk to your team members about your passion around hinges is unmatched. So I love the fact that you've really... At least with the Surface Studio and with Surface and Duo, you're always doing something interesting in the physicality of the space.

Panos Panay:
So there is a blend of hardware and software that's needed and there is something about products that can adapt to you, and it just so happens if the product adapts to you, you'll be more productive, you'll find your flow. You can be more creative because you don't want to have to think about what position you want the device in, if you're going to use your pen, your keyboard, your mouse, you're going to speak, you're going to touch the screen. You shouldn't have to think about it, you should just be able to flow through your day and what you're trying to do. Part of that is a little bit of physicality, it's the hinge. Of course, there's a lot of memes out there like, "Oh, my God. They love their hinges, don't they?" I believe maybe the best mechanical engineers on the planet that work in Surface and Xbox, and getting a hinge right from a friction, feel, sound, reliability... Oh, my goodness. Are you kidding?

Panos Panay:
Every little detail there, and we have a history. I think the first Surface we launched had a kickstand, the Surface RT, and it had one click stop on the kickstand, and what we had learned so quickly was this thing has to adapt further to different positions, different people, what they needed, and it came down to the perfection of a hinge to bring that to life. And now you'll see hinges in products all over the planet, you'll see them on all kinds of two-in-ones, you'll see him on different keyboards, different setups and so forth. A lot inspired, I think, by the original Surface thinking.

Larry Hryb:
Well, I know you and I can go on for an hour about a hinge. We don't want to talk about that.

Panos Panay:
Yeah, you don't want to get into hinges [crosstalk 00:52:13].

Larry Hryb:
We'll let you get going in a little bit, but I want to find... We talked about Windows launching next week, Windows 11, which is an upgrade for some folks and great new devices, both your team and all of our OEMs have done. We need to get you on Xbox though. So we want to know what are you playing now. Let's talk about that.

Panos Panay:
I've said this before, I actually posted my first Victory Royale on Fortnite. I was so proud. My daughter quickly told me, "It's because you're not good. That's how you play."

Larry Hryb:
Tryhard.

Panos Panay:
Gaming's been pretty special to me in that sense, so my connection to two of my daughters is through Fortnite in many ways. We sit down, we play it together like, "Do you want to play, dad? Do you want to play?" That kind of bled into Among Us, and so they got me into Among Us. So on my PC, we do a lot of... I feel like I'm pretty good at Among Us, but I can't go too far into that. And then I play Call of Duty. That's more for myself at the end of the day because one, I get so frustrated building in Fortnite because by the time I've gotten to structures, there's somebody who's got 30 and I'm... I don't know what happened. But Call of Duty is that one, and I think you find this... I don't know if this is accurate because I don't study it, but it's this huge tension relief, and it's because there's so much stress when I'm playing. Is that weird?

Larry Hryb:
No, that's fine.

Panos Panay:
I get so stressed.

Larry Hryb:
Have you ever rage quit?

Panos Panay:
Oh. Should I admit that?

Larry Hryb:
Maybe, maybe not.

Panos Panay:
I haven't... Yes, I have actually. I have. But when I get sniped and I don't know even where it came from, I don't... That's all I want to do, but I can't. My trigger's not quite right.

Larry Hryb:
I know we need to let you go, but we're doing this weekend, depending when you're listening or watching this, we're doing the Halo multiplayer this weekend for the beta. We need to get you in on that.

Panos Panay:
I would love to. I was going to go out of town this weekend, but I don't think I am now. So I might be able to sit down and do it, and by the way, my son called me of the day and he said he was on the Halo Infinite beta.

Larry Hryb:
Yeah, we did one last weekend with... And you're not playing it?

Panos Panay:
No! I'm like, "What are you talking about?" When he told me, I'm like, "What are you talking about?"

Larry Hryb:
Send a note off to Phil.

Panos Panay:
Yeah, I'm like, "How come I'm not on that Halo Infinite beta?" That was driving me nuts.

Larry Hryb:
Well, you're a little busy building... You're making sure Windows is shipping and getting these products out the door, so you're a little bit busy.

Panos Panay:
You know what I do love playing, by the way? Here's another one for you. I love playing Madden Mobile. So I'm an NFL fan. Surface is part of the NFL. I mean, I love it. And I always wonder, "I spend too much money buying packs on that thing." It's pretty awesome.

Larry Hryb:
That's the loop.

Panos Panay:
Yeah, I got stuck. I'm addicted. I play it on my Surface too. It's pretty dang cool.

Larry Hryb:
It's a lot of fun. Talking about Surface 2. We need to let you go. I love... I posted this on my Twitter just doing the touch controls that we're bringing with cloud. It's amazing.

Panos Panay:
Yeah, so this is another kind of Xbox vision piece. Pretty amazing work from the Xbox team. Top screen has the game, bottom screen is the controller. It's a classic form factor from when I was a kid.

Larry Hryb:
Right. I mean, the dual screens.

Panos Panay:
Yep, and then you have Game Pass that comes to life. It's super awesome. It's one of those disappearing into it. My daughter's asking me for a Surface Duo, and I haven't... It's just about to launch.

Larry Hryb:
Come on, dad.

Panos Panay:
I know. It's her birthday, I'm like, "Gosh, do I really get a say? Am I really going to do that?" But I think there's a pretty good amount of energy around that product right now, and especially for gamers, if you haven't seen it, check it out. It's pretty amazing. I don't know if you can put B roll on this or not, but it's a pretty cool experience.

Larry Hryb:
I'll put some stuff on my Twitter. Anyway. Panos, I need to let you go. I know they're getting you out of here. Really appreciate you coming on the podcast. Can you get you on again?

Panos Panay:
You can get me anytime. I would love to just come talk to you. I mean, I don't know if this is entertaining for anyone or if they think it's interesting, but being here with you is like a dream and talking about Xbox, one of my favorite products on the planet, and being able to reflect the team and hopefully some of their values is pretty inspiring.

Larry Hryb:
Congratulations on the launch of Windows and all the great Surface devices. Panos, thanks again.

Panos Panay:
You bet.

Rebecca Gordius:
Thank you to Panos, Katie and Ashley for joining us this week. A lot of great interviews and good news, but that's not all the news that we have. So first up, we have September 30th...

Larry Hryb:
Nice segue.

Rebecca Gordius:
Oh, thank you. I know. I've been working on it. So this week released Marvel's Avengers is coming to Xbox Game Pass for PC, console and cloud. That includes the newest expansion, which is Black Panther: War for Wakanda. So that includes the full game and all of the heroes and missions that have launched after release. Again, that's out on Xbox Game Pass now. We also have a bunch of new games with Gold for October. So we have Aero, Hover, and then on back-compat, we have Castlevania: Harmony of Despair, Resident Evil Code: Veronica X. And as a reminder, games with Gold are available for anyone that's on Xbox Live Gold or Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members. I think the-

Jeff Rubenstein:
I never beat Code: Veronica.

Larry Hryb:
You never did?

Jeff Rubenstein:
No.

Larry Hryb:
You need to do that.

Jeff Rubenstein:
I...

Larry Hryb:
It's a good one. It's a classic.

Jeff Rubenstein:
I know. No excuse now.

Larry Hryb:
We got a lot of news this week. Do you have anything over there? I know Jeff's been... Let me put it this way, folks, for those of you tuning in, Jeff normally does the news. There's so much news this week, we had to split it. We kind of had that one this way and one that way.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Couldn't carry the load on my own.

Larry Hryb:
I didn't want you to buckle. So what do you got, Jeff?

Jeff Rubenstein:
Oh, just sort of... I just wanted to tie up some loose ends. So a few months ago, we had some folks from Lemnis Gate, which is sort of a shooter game where... Actually, not completely unlike Deathloop, where you replay something multiple times and you build on your previous things. It looks a lot like All-Star Brawl apparently.

Larry Hryb:
That's coming up later. I just wanted to punch that in there because I'm so excited about it.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Well, we can get to that as soon as we can. Anyway, Lemnis Gate seems really interesting. Great game for Game Pass because it's one of those games that's a little bit tough to explain, and so you can just try it out and figure it out for yourself. Is it for you? Maybe it is. This is another very exciting. This was sort of a late-breaking tweet that we saw this week. Disco Elysium, which PC Games... I think it was either PC Games and/or PC Gamer recently put it the top of the 100 games of all time. Well, it was not out on Xbox. It is coming out on Xbox and very soon. Digital version October 12th, physical edition November 9th. Very excited about that one. I'm sure we'll be talking more about it because I mean, I'll be playing it. Rebecca, you talked about a Castlevania game. Was it Harmony of Dissonance. Was that the one?

Rebecca Gordius:
Harmony of Despair, yeah.

Larry Hryb:
Harmony of Despair.

Jeff Rubenstein:
There's another one with dissonance, I swear. So anyway, there's four new classic Castlevania games from the DS and the Game Boy Advance, and they were some really good ones back in the day and it's called the Castlevania Advanced Collection. It has Circle of the Moon, Harmony of Dissonance, Aria of Sorrow and Dracula X, which was from the Japanese TurboGrafx-16. Anyway, kind of cool piece of history there and those are also out. So maybe if you like what you really play with Harmony of Despair, you can see where that one came from.

Larry Hryb:
Yeah. I mean, as we were talking about it, we're now... It's October, folks. It's now October when you listen to this and beyond. So we are what we like to say in the industry, we're in the shoot. There are a lot of games happening and it's just going to be bang, bang, bang, bang, right, Jeff? Right, Rebecca?

Jeff Rubenstein:
Yeah, and speaking of, this is the time of year where you get to play FIFA. So the new FIFA 22, the Ultimate Edition came available a little bit early. By the time you hear this one, I believe the more regular retail version will be out as well. So tons of stuff there. I've got it, I need to play it. It's got Kylian Mbappé on the front. He's sort of the new the new Messi, at least when it comes to FIFA covers. So tell me if you remember this: We've all gone to Gamescom recently, and usually, we end up flying-

Rebecca Gordius:
Well, not recently.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Not recently, a few years ago. I'm sad now. And flying out to Dusseldorf, I recall there's always been a lounge in there called the Hugo Junkers Lounge, and I was just like, "Do you remember that?"

Larry Hryb:
You and I spent a lot of time in the Junkers Lounge.

Jeff Rubenstein:
And I was like, "Well, what is this name? Who is Hugo Junkers?" Well, I think I know because Microsoft Flight Simulator has released its first aircraft in the Local Legends series, and so the Junkers Ju 52 airplane-

Larry Hryb:
Junkers [crosstalk 01:01:29]. Junkers.

Jeff Rubenstein:
No, we're not in Yonkers. Rebecca's in New York City. J-U-N-K-E-R-S. I took French, so I don't know. It's Junkers. Anyway. Okay. Hunkers, is that what you're saying?

Larry Hryb:
Junkers.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Now you're adding Y's.

Rebecca Gordius:
Now, it's changing.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Well, anyway. It's a famous German plane from the 1930s, and the New world update, world update 6, was focused on Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and to complement that, why not fly over it in a classic German plane, which is now available. Just check news.xbox.com. We've got all your Flight Sim news there.

Larry Hryb:
Go back a couple weeks when I had Jörg on from the Flight Sim team. He actually talks all about this, and Jeff, I don't know if we talked about this on the air during the interview, but Jörg told me that that plane for a long time, the original plane, was at that airport.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Oh, at Dusseldorf's airport?

Larry Hryb:
Yeah, it was stored somewhere else. That particular airport had some significance to the Junkers, and it's not there anymore, but it used to be a long time ago. So that's the end of the story.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Wait, now you're saying Junkers and Junkers. You're just messing with me. You're just messing with me.

Rebecca Gordius:
Yes.

Larry Hryb:
So Flight Sim, lots of good stuff coming with Flight Sim.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Lots of games coming out now, big games, small games. One I did want to call out: Hot Wheels Unleashed. I always really loved the Hot Wheels expansion for Forza Horizon... Was it four?

Rebecca Gordius:
Four.

Jeff Rubenstein:
No, three. It was three, I think, because four was Legos, which was also just amazing. But there's a Hot Wheels Unleashed game, and it's really cool because you're racing these small matchbox-sized cars, but they're in rooms, it's like tracks or setups. You're not just outside, it's like you're racing through a mansion where these cool tracks have been set up.

Larry Hryb:
And those infinite yellow tracks that used to click together when you were a little kid, remember those?

Jeff Rubenstein:
And the cars would go flying off because you would-

Rebecca Gordius:
You're not on the track, yeah.

Larry Hryb:
You didn't understand physics and you didn't care.

Jeff Rubenstein:
I didn't care. But it does look like they're doing all kinds of... There's a Back to the Future car, there is a-

Larry Hryb:
It's a DeLorean.

Jeff Rubenstein:
It doesn't say specifically [crosstalk 01:03:53]. There's a Charlie Brown car. I'm trying not to do any copyright infringement here.

Larry Hryb:
Charlie Brown car? Charlie Brown doesn't even drive a car.

Rebecca Gordius:
I know. I don't any cars.

Jeff Rubenstein:
I'm looking at a picture here, Larry, and it is literally... Well, it's more like Snoopy, if Snoopy's... That red doghouse that he would sleep in in the cartoons, if that was mounted on four wheels with an external engine, that's the car.

Rebecca Gordius:
That's kind of cool.

Larry Hryb:
And he would fight the Red Baron.

Jeff Rubenstein:
That was a plane. So imagine-

Larry Hryb:
Over at Dusseldorf.

Jeff Rubenstein:
You're bringing it... You know what, Larry? It just looks really cool, and I just wanted to call it out.

Larry Hryb:
I'm sure it does. I don't have a picture of that, or I'd show you. I'm sorry.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Anyway. And then lastly... Wait, do we have a reveal? Are we breaking news here?

Larry Hryb:
I have to tell you something. We get approached by everybody across the gaming industry that to be on the show, and we have to say no a lot of times and we say yes a lot of times. That's very true. But yes, we do have a reveal. In fact, Rebecca is going to share with us details of this reveal right now. Rebecca, what have you got?

Rebecca Gordius:
Yeah. So Nickelodeon All-Stars Brawl is going to be launching next week on October 5th, and two new characters that have been revealed are Aang and... Oh, I'm waiting for it. Are you going to reveal it? There's a button, Larry.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Our new characters are cartoon violence and comic mischief.

Larry Hryb:
I've got video here of both of them, and not one of them together. So Aang and Korra, as Rebecca said, are coming to Nickelodeon All-Stars Brawl. Both of them are available Xbox Series X and S and Xbox One on October 5th. Let's play this one now, so you kind of see them both.

Jeff Rubenstein:
You have to wonder what kind of luck would Doug or SpongeBob have against Aang or Korra, who are martial artists with special abilities.

Rebecca Gordius:
Well, this is great. I'm really curious-

Jeff Rubenstein:
I feel like I could take them in a fight.

Rebecca Gordius:
I'm curious what... Oh!

Larry Hryb:
There you go. There's Aang.

Rebecca Gordius:
Okay, I'm waiting to see if he's doing anything besides airbending. It doesn't look like it. Whereas Korra, it's interesting. Korra I definitely saw... Oh, wait. There we go.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Didn't he master all of the different elements?

Rebecca Gordius:
I mean, yeah. To be the Avatar, you have to master all the elements, but he does mostly just use airbending, whereas it looks like Korra is using all of them.

Larry Hryb:
This is ridiculously small, but those are all the moves.

Rebecca Gordius:
Okay. Okay, so it is just airbending. Okay, it's all good.

Larry Hryb:
And here are Korra's moves.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Yeah, you're right. Korra is using flame and water. You're right.

Larry Hryb:
Anyway.

Rebecca Gordius:
Interesting.

Jeff Rubenstein:
So I'm looking at the line up, it's pretty interesting.

Larry Hryb:
Oh, so you looked at the whole lineup? Because a lot of your favorites are in there, a lot of the Nickelodeon characters.

Jeff Rubenstein:
There's some obscure stuff, like Powdered Toast Man from Ren and Stimpy, which was...

Larry Hryb:
That's a deep cut.

Jeff Rubenstein:
It's a very deep cut, and I always thought it was funny because every time he bent over, he would fart and so I wonder if they put that in there. Ren and Stimpy, it is the grossest cartoon ever made. That was the least of it. Anyway, I want to play this game.

Larry Hryb:
I think it's important to point out... Rebecca, do you have the details? If you pre-order it, what happens?

Rebecca Gordius:
Thank you. Thank you, Larry. Yeah, if you pre-order now, then you get 20% off the game. Check it out.

Larry Hryb:
Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl coming with those great... Aang from Last Avatar, and Korra from Legend of Korra announced right here on this... We only get the best, the bestest. We only get the bestest.

Jeff Rubenstein:
I mean, those are probably the top two characters. So there you go. From Farting Powdered Toast Man.

Larry Hryb:
All right. We got a lot going on, don't we, gang? I know you're busy. Rebecca, how are things over... You work on the Minecraft business. How are things on Minecraft?

Rebecca Gordius:
It's really busy right now. I mean, Minecraft is kind of perpetually busy, but we actually have Minecraft Live coming up in a few weeks. So October 16th, it's going to be our... It's our annual broadcast, it's where we announce the next update to the game, we're going to be doing another mob vote, we have a lot of different YouTubers and streamers who are going to be joining too. It's pretty cool. It's October 16th. I'm definitely going to be plugging it for the next two episodes also.

Larry Hryb:
That's why I wanted to just say.

Rebecca Gordius:
Yeah, I know. Thank you, Larry.

Larry Hryb:
Are going to be in it?

Rebecca Gordius:
Not this year. I had very small background roles. I was the annoyed studio or stage manager for one year being like, "Where's this person in the intro video, but I'm not going to be there."

Larry Hryb:
[crosstalk 01:08:55] the llama in there?

Rebecca Gordius:
Yes, that was, and Will Arnett, yeah. It was an interesting show. I like where we've landed now instead with YouTubers and stuff in it. It seems a little bit more natural.

Larry Hryb:
Well, as Rebecca said, you'll be hearing more about that on future shows, and then when we get closer, we'll remind you how, when and where to tune into to watch that, right?

Rebecca Gordius:
Yeah, for sure.

Larry Hryb:
Okay, good. Good stuff. All right. Jeff, you got something you'd like...

Jeff Rubenstein:
I'm finding one other thing, and I didn't know if you wanted to talk about it. Found it in the notes and that is about the Xbox cloud gaming beta, which depending on what level of insider you are, if you're one of those deep alpha level insiders, you might have access to this now. This is something that I saw it on the Insider blog, we've talked about it, but ultimately, there's a section within the Game Pass section of your Xbox, you go in the dashboard and you'll see games and it's like, "Stream it right now." And you might think, "Well, why would I do that?" But it's really cool to be able to see, "Let me just try this game," so you have a minute with it before I commit to a 30 gig download, or something like that, and then-

Larry Hryb:
Let me see what it's like before I commit to pressing A, right?

Jeff Rubenstein:
Try before you buy, exactly.

Larry Hryb:
Yeah, that's actually true, Jeff. And that'll be rolling out as we get closer in the coming week/month to everybody else, but it's on Insider, so sign up for Insider if you want to do this. It's really kind of cool as you go through and you can even see it in the store, and it's like, "Hey, do you want to stream this right? Click A, and..."

Jeff Rubenstein:
Instead, it'll say, "Install," which it normally says now if you're looking in the Game Pass, but next to it, it'll say, "Play," and then you just hit it, and then you see if you've used cloud gaming on your phone or browser, PC, whatever it might be. You see that rocket ship going.

Larry Hryb:
I don't know where that rocket came from. That rocket doesn't mean anything. I looked at that, I'm like, "Why is there a rocket here?"

Jeff Rubenstein:
Because the game is rocketing through the internet to come and-

Larry Hryb:
Why isn't it a little controller dancing across the screen or something? I don't know.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Does your controller dance?

Larry Hryb:
My rocket doesn't horizontal.

Jeff Rubenstein:
You're just showing off that you have that controller.

Rebecca Gordius:
Yeah, that's a cheat.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Let me just flex. Let me just grab the nearest controller to me. Oh, this one? This old thing?

Larry Hryb:
That's the one I use. Don't tell me you wouldn't-

Jeff Rubenstein:
If I had it, I'd use it too.

Larry Hryb:
Exactly, exactly. All right, gang. We got, like I say, got a bunch of big few weeks coming up. We got Far Cry coming out in the future, we've got what else... Do you have a list? Can you pull that up, either one of you pull up a list of what we've got coming out in October? I don't know if it's-

Jeff Rubenstein:
Yeah. Well, I mean, at the end of the month we've got Age of Empires 4, which would be coming out on the 28th/9th/7th. Towards the very end there. So very excited about that. Remember, Battlefield did push out a little bit. That's a really good question, what else we've got coming.

Larry Hryb:
Well, I'm not going to put you on the spot, Jeff or Rebecca. I'll come back and we can...

Jeff Rubenstein:
You already did. You can't put someone on the spot and go, "I'm not going to do this with you."

Larry Hryb:
You can. With editing, I can remove it.

Rebecca Gordius:
Jeff was rising to the challenge.

Jeff Rubenstein:
He won't, he won't.

Larry Hryb:
No.

Jeff Rubenstein:
I've got. Our good friends at USA Today. Metroid Dread. Looking forward to that one, heard good things. Back 4 Blood, that was the other one. So that's October 12th, coming to Xbox Game Pass with Far Cry on the 7th. We'll probably be able to talk about that next show, next time we're here. And then Back 4 Blood I really want to play with you guys. I got to play it with some folks from Destructoid and someone else on my team during a media preview. Oh, and then there was the beta, and I ended up playing through it again. So I really had a lot of fun with it and it's pure co-op. Let's do it.

Larry Hryb:
Pure co-op. Let's do it. We're going to do it. But this weekend... Do you have anything else you want to add, Rebecca, before we wrap up here?

Rebecca Gordius:
No. This weekend's going to be Big Team Battle, Halo event.

Larry Hryb:
We're going to get you into Big Team Battle, right? We'll get Jeff in it. We'll meet, all three of us. You weren't on this email, Rebecca, but I'll share a little bit of insight as well to see. I sent it to Jeff. We arranging a play date on Friday night, which is when the show airs tonight, trying to get Jeff on... I'm trying to get Phil Spencer to play Big Team Battle with us. I think he's in, Jeff.

Jeff Rubenstein:
That'd be great. Although, I'm still a little bit... When Rainbow Six Siege first came out and we ran with Phil, that's a very tense game and we were sort of waiting... I think we were on defense and we're waiting for the other team to come and invade, and I was so nervous and I ended up pulling the trigger and shooting Phil in the back. I didn't kill him, but he noticed because he said, "Did someone just shoot me in the back?" And I just... I couldn't find my voice at that point. And he knows. He knows.

Larry Hryb:
Jeff has quit the game.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Jeff has-

Rebecca Gordius:
Left the chat.

Larry Hryb:
So it's funny. During the interview that I did with Panos that we aired earlier today, earlier in the show, I was talking with him before, or maybe was after, and I was telling him about the Big Team, and he was like, "Oh, invite me. I want to play with Phil." So I've Panos that wants to. We're going to be rolling with a pretty big squad hopefully over the weekend. Stay tuned.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Real quickly, because you did call us into it, NHL will be coming out.. Alan Wake Remastered, and I don't recall, did we talk about that last week?

Larry Hryb:
We talked a little bit about it. I'm trying to line up a interview with Sam Lake, so stay tuned for that.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Oh, that'd be great because this is an awesome game. Obviously, it's available via backward compatibility, so you may have already played on Xbox. I actually played it last summer. Had I known, I would have waited with the remaster, but I will say the action and the horror and everything definitely holds up, and with it being remastered, it will not look like a game from 2007/8. I can't remember what it was.

Larry Hryb:
A while ago. Let's just say a decade ago.

Jeff Rubenstein:
At least, at least.

Larry Hryb:
Yeah, we've got a lot of interviews. I know each one of you were on a separate email thread about that, so we got some really good interviews, as always, lined up for the future because we'd like to do some good stuff there and talk to some developers about the game, so you guys can learn more about them. All right, we're going to wrap it up.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Larry, what say you and I get out of here and just we roll on down to Midtown, we just skate on through. We can visit Rebecca. If you hear wheels coming, two sets of wheels, it's because we figured out how to put wheels on this thing and we also learned how to skate. We came to visit. Just a few steps, a few small steps to make it happen.

Larry Hryb:
Oh.

Rebecca Gordius:
All right. Just wear helmets, guys. You're not kids anymore. I'm sorry.

Larry Hryb:
I'm going to go with a Michelin Man outfit. All right, we'll see you guys on... Everybody, hopefully we'll see you on Big Team Battle this weekend. We had a lot of fun with you all last weekend, and look forward to running into you on the battlefield. Jeff and Rebecca, unless you guys have anything else you want to do, like and subscribe. We kind of did that at the top of the show, Jeff.

Jeff Rubenstein:
We did, so we don't need to do it now.

Larry Hryb:
They know how to find us.

Rebecca Gordius:
So don't like and subscribe.

Larry Hryb:
No, don't say that!

Rebecca Gordius:
Did I do it, guys?

Larry Hryb:
Oh, and if you're looking for us on social, and this is how you find us on social, it's pretty easy to figure it out. So just follow me, follow Jeff, follow Rebecca. Rebecca's got some great tips for living in the city, I guess.

Jeff Rubenstein:
She does?

Rebecca Gordius:
All right. Thank you.

Larry Hryb:
If you want to check out the latest in Saturday and Sunday morning football action, Jeff's your man.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Yeah. North London is red, and you'll either know what that means or not, and that's fine.

Larry Hryb:
All right, gang. We'll see you guys next week. Have a great weekend in Big Team Battle, and whatever you're playing, I hope you're having fun. Play fair, file a feedback, and we'll see you online. Bye-bye, everybody.