Larry: Welcome to show number 614. My name's Larry Herback Xbox Live's Major Nelson. We're rolling here with the end of January, beginning of February 2018. Thank you for joining us. We've got Laura with us. Hi, Laura.
Laura: Hello.
Larry: Hello, how are you doing?
Laura: Good.
Larry: Let me give you a little volume over there.
Laura: Oh, sweet.
Larry: I was playing around with your volume a little bit.
Laura: Crank me up.
Larry: Well, I don't want to do that. You don't want to blow everyone out. Then across from you, the man I have to turn down all the time, Mr. Jeff Rubenstein.
Jeff: I was just going to say that.
Larry: Hello, Jeffrey.
Jeff: Hi, from mute land.
Larry: This is an awkward show.
Laura: Why is that?
Larry: Well, it's a couple things. We're recording this at the end of the week, and in just a few days is the Superb Owl.
Jeff: Yes, you've never seen an Owl like this.
Laura: Oh, the Superb Owl.
Jeff: Never.
Larry: Which is the Eagles versus the Patriots, and for those of you in the United States, you know it's the Super Bowl, big deal. Jeff is a huge Eagles fan.
Jeff: I don't know if you know but there is an indicator that is just very reliable on who's going to win the Super Bowl, and that is Cherry Picked, the Xbox live session that they do where they pick one player from one team versus one player from the other team in Madden on Xbox One.
Larry: Yeah, this has been going on for years.
Jeff: Right, oh my God, since the first Super Bowl in the 60s.
Larry: I think the first one was Lombardi, right?
Jeff: Yeah, I think it was ... whoever, some guy from the Packers, Bart Star was playing Xbox. This happened this week, and I will link out and you can watch LeGarrette Blount, the running back who came over from the Patriots, wised up and came down to Philly, and is playing for the NFC Champion Eagles, and against some guy who's going by Gronk?
Larry: Yes, I don't know, good old Rob Gronkowski. I know him.
Jeff: I know.
Larry: He and I have done some stuff together.
Laura: You went to one of these before, I remember.
Larry: We did an event, Rob and I did a couple of events. One of them was a Halo event, where I flew out to Gillette Stadium, which is right down the street from where my sister lives, so that was a tough one. Rob's a great guy. We just had a grand time. We had fun, that's all I'll say.
Jeff: If you don't know who won, I won't spoil it, but I will link out to it in the show notes. You should watch that.
Laura: Do you have a history of how accurate this predictor has been?
Jeff: No, I have no idea. I was just making this up because the Eagles have to win, that's it. That's it.
Larry: Laura's going with hard data, as any good analytical scientist. She's like, give me the data.
Laura: I want to see.
Jeff: I like the art of making stuff up, and if Laura selective data sets, and you actually want to know the facts.
Larry: Well, that's why you show up in a clown suit and she's in a lab coat.
Jeff: This is a tee shirt, one of my better tee shirts.
Larry: Well, anyway, we're here. We're having a good time. It's great to be back. Were we here last week?
Laura: No.
Larry: No, we weren't.
Jeff: There was no show.
Larry: By the way, a lot of emails have been asking us, also folks asking on Twitter, working on the next video show.
Laura: Oh really?
Larry: Yeah, we don't have a date yet, or else I would have told you guys, but I know that that is a request. I'm headed out to Rare next week to talk Sea of Thieves, which I've been playing. Laura, you've been playing that a little bit.
Laura: I have. We'll talk about it later .... or now, if you want to talk about it now.
Larry: Sure, why don't ... you know what, let's-
Jeff: We're here.
Larry: .. let's go ahead. We're here. We're among friends.
Laura: We've already dove right in. We've already walked the plank on this one.
Larry: Why don't you ... Thank you. Well done, Laura.
Laura: It was the other night-
Larry: Yes. The other evening.
Laura: ... I finally had time to play.
Larry: Yes you're busy.
Laura: I was really excited to play Sea of Thieves and guess who was online? Larry was online.
Larry: It was me.
Laura: Larry was playing Sea of Thieves.
Jeff: Did you two play together?
Laura: No.
Larry: No.
Jeff: I'm representing the fans. The listeners who want you two to play together.
Larry: It actually gets better. So Laura texts me like, "Hey, do you want to play Sea of Thieves?" We were in the middle of an epic sea battle, of which there are many in Sea of Thieves. I finally responded to her like 10 or 15 minutes later.
Laura: So I said, "Can I join your crew? Yaaar."
Larry: She was having a little bit of fun.
Laura: You said, "We're full. Sorry."
Jeff: Always in character this one.
Laura: I know.
Larry: I felt terrible because we were full.
Laura: It was late.
Larry: So you went out on the high seas kind of alone.
Laura: We did.
Larry: You're a strong, young woman.
Laura: Adventurous.
Larry: Adventurous.
Laura: Try out my sea legs on my own and so just hit the random button and then joined a random team.
Larry: So I go into match making frequently. I know you've done it. So you did it this time. So tell us what happened.
Laura: Yeah. So the first crew I joined was three guys who had lost their fourth. I don't know how, but I randomly showed up in their game.
Larry: They have no idea-
Laura: Super surprised.
Larry: ... How lucky they were that you show up. They have no idea.
Laura: They're like, "Who's this person? Who's this lollipop person?" I'm like, hello. They're like, "Hi." They were nice and so we adventured to an island.
Larry: You had your headset on. They all had their headsets. You guys are rolling full voice.
Jeff: That's the way to play.
Laura: Exactly. Rolling full force. They were trying to, they had already started a mission.
Larry: Sure. So you came in mid mission.
Laura: I came in mid mission and they had just landed on an island and they had their clues and they had found out the first clue, they were still working on the second clue.
Larry: As you solve the first one, the second one will reveal itself on the scroll in a very dramatic fashion.
Laura: Exactly. So, I pulled out the clue. "I know what we should do. We should, we have to find this cave with an overhang and then it said raise a torch. We all have lanterns. We can try raising our lanterns up and jumping around and seeing if that will reveal it." So we're scouring the island looking for this cave.
Larry: They have no idea how lucky these guys were. They have no idea. Do you remember their gamer tags? You should go look on recent players.
Laura: I should look on recent players and say who they were. They were really kind. Unfortunately while we're running around the island looking for the cave someone says, "Hey. Where's our ship?"
Larry: Classic Sea of Thieves moment.
Laura: Where did the ship go? I was like, "I just saw it. It was right over there." So we all run back.
Larry: To the beach.
Laura: To the beach. Sure enough, no ship.
Larry: What happened?
Laura: We don't know.
Larry: There's a couple things that could have happened.
Jeff: This has happened to me a few times. You're wandering on the island and someone just comes in there and lights it up.
Laura: Swoops in and off they go.
Larry: They can basically hijack your ship and they can either sink it or sail it away.
Laura: Unfortunately they let me on, the really bad news about that, they had already made three missions completed and they had three chests in that ship.
Larry: So you got jacked.
Laura: They were gone.
Larry: Jeff is right. We learn that a long time ago. You gotta leave one person on the ship so you can ring the alarm bell.
Laura: If attackers come.
Larry: If attackers come.
Laura: I figured out. I tweeted this as well. We didn't know what to do. We have no ship. We're just stranded on this island. What do we do?
Larry: Options and then scuttle ship.
Laura: No. You can actually go to the menu?
Larry: Yup.
Laura: I didn't know that. Awesome. That's faster. Apparently there is a mermaid that starts swimming to show you where you are.
Larry: Right, when you lose your ship.
Laura: When you're too far away from your ship.
Larry: Believe it's a merman.
Jeff: I think it's a merperson.
Larry: It's tough to say.
Jeff: Not really sure. I don't know that there is binary there.
Larry: Usually you don't have a lot to check them out because you're trying to swim to get out of the water because usually there's a shark on your backside.
Laura: Exactly. So they are swimming in the water with a flair and [crosstalk 00:07:36].
Jeff: There's siren song.
Larry: Siren song, thank you.
Laura: A siren song, which usually you go away from, not towards, but in this case you go towards the merperson and then there's an option once you get to that merperson to return back to your ship. So we did that and it turns out we spawned back at the beginning.
Jeff: When you do that you can't bring your chest. What we discovered when this happened to us.
Larry: Something similar happened to Jeff and I.
Jeff: I can't remember exactly, it might have been we came to an island where there were NPC, skeletons.
Laura: Yes, I got attacked by skeletons.
Jeff: That were launching cannons and we jumped off and I think they sunk the ship.
Laura: The skeletons sunk the ship?
Jeff: Yeah.
Laura: OH no.
Jeff: We went to teleport back and well what ended up happening is we realized, we were streaming actually, people were like you're not going to be able to bring the chest with you, but everyone in the comments-
Larry: Craig Duncan was watching. The head of Rare was watching us.
Jeff: ... we were very incompetent.
Laura: The pressure of that.
Larry: Well we found a bug.
Jeff: We were told, come back, the chest will be there. The chest will be there.
Larry: The chest was there.
Jeff: It was there.
Laura: Oh really?
Jeff: It took us a little while to find it and we were already off.
Laura: Was it on the ship?
Larry: No it was basically suspended underwater, but we couldn't pick it up. It was invisible or like we would swim through it.
Jeff: Indivisible.
Larry: Indivisible.
Jeff: So this happened to me later. I was flying solo and I found a chest and during that time someone came over, they saw me, they saw my ship, they didn't know where I was and they just lit up my ship and took off. So I placed it on a very specific rock that I thought was out of the way, but easy for me to find again and I went to the merperson. I sailed back to the island and the chest was sitting right there.
Laura: Oh really?
Jeff: I was able to bring it back and cash it in.
Laura: Interesting. So if the ship disappears, the chest will appear will the ship had disappeared?
Jeff: I don't know-
Laura: Island?
Jeff: ... if I had kept the chest on the ship then I'm not sure what would have happened.
Larry: Right.
Jeff: What happened is that I had no ship and so I essentially re hid it.
Laura: You put the chest down.
Jeff: I put the chest down.
Laura: Teleported back.
Jeff: Exactly. If you're holding it, actually I think what happened that time is we were swimming with it and went to the merperson and it teleported me without it and we went back and it was roughly in that spot.
Larry: It was roughly in that spot, right.
Laura: So pro tip, put your chest down before you teleport.
Larry: Or to make it an even better pro tip, leave somebody on the ship.
Jeff: Don't lose your ship.
Larry: Don't lose your ship in the first place.
Jeff: Ounce of prevention.
Larry: So you saw the beauty and the awesomeness that was Sea of Thieves, which is the closed beta this week. I think it's over by the time the show will be up. Right?
Jeff: It's over this minute.
Laura: It is a gorgeous game I must say. I was appreciating the sunsets and then when it became dark, the skeletons came out. I didn't know skeletons come out at night, but they came out and they found me and I had to run away. I had to run away.
Larry: They will find you.
Laura: Yes they will find me.
Larry: I didn't know, we talked about it being a closed beta was a lot of fun. We played a lot. Jeff and I streamed it a little bit. We had a lot of fun with it. It is beautiful. You get, the storms are real. Seasick is a real issue.
Laura: It's a real thing.
Larry: Do you get seasick?
Laura: Yes I do.
Larry: You do.
Laura: I am really sensitive to motion sickness.
Larry: Wow, okay.
Laura: Fortunately while I was playing I didn't feel motion sick, but anybody who was watching me, they couldn't stand in the room for a minute.
Larry: It was, it can be a little brutal.
Laura: I didn't have any problems with it.
Larry: I am going to go on record as saying when it released in March, we will play Laura. You and I, and Jeff will find a fourth. Maybe we'll get Ian here, but I promise you we will play. We will schedule. You're schedule's busy. Mine's busy. Jeff's busy, but we need to do this.
Laura: We do need to do this.
Jeff: I'm not that busy.
Larry: Sure, hunting monsters and we'll talk about that. What else you playing Laura?
Laura: That is pretty much it. The other thing I, the only other game I played this week was strange enough, jumping back into Dance Central Three.
Larry: Strangely enough. Strange for who? That'd be strange for me, not for you.
Laura: Maybe, but it turns out I actually didn't get into Dance Central Three. I thought I had and completed the story, but I think I was-
Jeff: The story?
Laura: ... Yeah there's a story.
Jeff: Do you have to save the gym? The mobile rec center from the big bad developer?
Laura: There's a joke about that in the story, but I didn't realize there was story so when I back into Dance Central Three I found it and it turns out you are time traveling dance crime agents.
Larry: Time traveling dance crime agents. I do remember this, yes.
Laura: Yes so you go back in time and you're trying to figure out the crisis of that time period. So you'd go back to the seventies and you're trying to discover what the crisis are and you're trying to nail these moves.
Larry: So they're disco. It's the seventies.
Laura: There's a dance battle at the end.
Larry: They're seventies.
Laura: That's what the seventies is. So it's the hustle.
Larry: From the late seventies.
Laura: Spoiler, it was the hustle.
Larry: (singing)
Laura: So they make you discover the hustle.
Jeff: Listening to XM49, 250.
Laura: Then you dance the hustle at the end and then you're done with the seventies and you teleport back to the present. Then you gotta go back to the eighties and then there's a joke about trying to save the local gym.
Jeff: Good.
Laura: So it was in there. It was really fun. I had a lot of fun.
Larry: Good.
Laura: Dancing all the songs I actually didn't get to when I was playing Dance Central. It was fun.
Larry: So that's what you're playing.
Laura: Yeah.
Larry: As we talked a little bit earlier, playing Sea of Thieves now over. I'm headed out to Rare next week, talk about that later in the show. Playing Pub G. They announce, last week they announced four million folks playing Pub G on Xbox, which is a big, big deal.
Laura: Congrats Pub G.
Larry: To celebrate that, anybody that purchased the game by the end of January, they get 30,000 battle points, which is a lot of battle points Laura. So go sign into Pub G and you should look in the upper right hand corner and you should have enough to go on a shopping spree to get yourself a sweet set of kicks, as Jeff says.
Jeff: Or to just shoot your friend in the back.
Larry: No, we're not going to talk about this, are we?
Laura: What?
Jeff: I just happened to bring up when we had played earlier this week.
Larry: Have you seen this?
Laura: No, what happened?
Jeff: Oh my god. So we broadcast on Mixer.
Laura: Oh look, you were streaming.
Jeff: Here's the exact part where Larry stabs me in the back, literally with a gun.
Laura: What happened Larry? Oh no.
Larry: I am not much for precision in that game in terms of in the heat of the moment I will just let it rip. This has happened, actually Laura, consider yourself lucky. Every single I have been playing with recently has been, has fallen to my-
Jeff: Here it comes. Friendly fire.
Laura: Friendly fire.
Larry: ... bullets. So, I apologize.
Laura: It's the heat of the moment. You were trying to save.
Larry: Save him. When in fact, I killed him.
Laura: When in fact the opposite happened.
Larry: In a lot of ways.
Laura: No.
Jeff: I'll link out to that.
Larry: You don't need to. So anyway, playing a lot of Pub G. Overwatch, Four K Overwatch update is out. Jeff, we need to get back into that. I know you played a little bit of that. I played a little bit of that as well. We're doing that. That's kind of what's doing. It's been a lot of that going on.
Laura: Absolutely.
Larry: Jeff, I got into Monster Hunter. I started it. The character creation is overwhelming.
Jeff: Yes it is.
Larry: You got deeper into it than I did.
Jeff: It's true. I'd never played a Monster Hunter game and they've been going on for quite some time. I had been hearing that this was a very accessible version, at least by Monster Hunter standards. So, I jumped in over the weekend. Went through that character creator and cat character creator.
Larry: You make everything a kitty cat.
Jeff: At the beginning.
Laura: You get to be a cat at the beginning?
Jeff: Well you have a cat side kick at all times, but these are cats that run on two feet, cook delicious dishes. By the way, this is my favorite, the best part of the game is when you go to the cook, and he makes you something. Have you seen this animation?
Larry: No. Is it like the Zelda one?
Jeff: Imagine you were being, you're delicious meal was being prepared by a trio of culinary cats. Some fruity felines and it's I can't think of any other words or I would do it. It's just so funny. It is my everything at this point. I'm also allergic to cats. This is the closest I get to really be with them. It's a pretty cool game. It's a game that I can definitely see myself getting sucked into. It demands your time. There's systems upon systems and you immediately start by choosing one of 14 different weapons. I'm like, okay, I don't know which weapon's gonna be good.
Larry: It's complicated.
Jeff: There's a lot to it.
Larry: They're kind of silly comic book oversized.
Jeff: Oh my god, yes.
Larry: I pulled one out. I was like, what. This thing was like four times the size of my-
Jeff: Did you pick a katana?
Larry: Maybe.
Jeff: We all pick the katana first. The katana's 10 feet long. It makes Cloud from Final Fantasy Seven look like he's carrying a pocket knife, or a pocket watch. What I will link out to, if you're interested in the game I will say yes, it's definitely the most accessible of any Monster Hunter that has come out and there is a polygon put together, like a here's what you need to know in the first 10 hours. It's written by eight four. These are folks, they do localization for a lot of Japanese games for America. Some good folks. Actually hung out with them when I was in Japan recently. They wrote a pretty comprehensive guide for Polygon. So if you're thinking of jumping into the game, highly recommend it. I'll link out to it in notes. Having a good time with it.
Larry: I look forward to getting into that, but like I said, I'm headed out. Traveling to Rare next week to go. I've never been to Rare. You've been right?
Laura: Yeah. I've been. You've not been?
Larry: I have never been.
Laura: I thought you had.
Larry: I have never been. I have an open invitation for 10 plus years and I've never had the chance to go.
Laura: Really?
Larry: I know. Now I'm going out there.
Laura: Where did you get your pirate name from?
Larry: When they came here we were doing something. I don't even remember. Admiral Nelson right?
Jeff: Yes.
Larry: What was yours Jeff?
Jeff: Rum Rubenstein.
Larry: That sounds about right.
Jeff: You know me to well.
Larry: What was yours Laura?
Laura: Mine was Seven Lashes Laura.
Jeff: So what we're talking about is years ago-
Larry: Awkward pause.
Jeff: ... we got to. That is interesting.
Laura: We went there and they gave me a pirate name and that was what it was.
Jeff: They let us see the game some time ago in order, before announced to just sort of take a look and share some feedback and stuff like that. For everyone who participated they put together a little pirate poster. They took a picture of you and photoshopped you as a pirate and gave you a pirate name. They're going all out.
Laura: They've been going all out for years.
Larry: I just got a text. It's funny, I'm sitting here and I just got a text from my wife who is actually shopping and she's sending me Laura, pictures of pirate shirts. So she's like, this will be good for your trip to Rare next week.
Jeff: Have fun storming the castle.
Larry: I've got-
Jeff: Wow.
Laura: That's pretty awesome.
Larry: ... So stay tuned.
Laura: I think I want to keep that one.
Larry: Stay tuned. I'll give you more details on what that's all about. It's coming soon. So there you go about that.
Laura: It should be a really fun trip.
Larry: Got a lot of news this week. We talked a little bit about it. Pub G update. We've got an Overwatch update. Jeff you have some more updates to manage and tell us all about and what not.
Jeff: Yeah I do. One update that I thought was pretty interesting and I know a lot of folks were really excited about was to see that Moana characters were coming to Minecraft.
Larry: For those of you who don't know Moana is from ...
Jeff: Polynesia maybe? It's Disney movie.
Larry: It's a Disney movie. Stars Dwayne Johnson.
Jeff: Dwayne the Rock Johnson. Other people as well. You can use him, I think he's characters name Maui. There was like a chicken. I'm just looking, obviously Moana. You can use. I'd imagine might be, there's a pretty high crossover between Moana fans and Minecraft fans. There's even the crab that was voiced by the dude from, what was that New Zealand show? It's going to drive me nuts. Anyway, they've won Oscars. It was a parody.
Larry: The Flight of the Concords?
Jeff: Flight of the Concords. Yes. Thank you.
Laura: How did you? On the same page.
Jeff: There's not a lot of New Zealand mockumentary sort of fake novelty.
Larry: To be clear, I think that's the only one from New Zealand I would ever know. I was just waiting for him to say enough data for me to go, that's the one.
Jeff: Anyway, that was just announced. Actually, yeah you can just go in there and get after it. It is available now. Another update since we last spoke. The announcement of the Xbox Live Games with gold for February. So by the time you're listening to this, you'll be able to get them. So for Xbox One at the beginning of February will be Shadow Warrior and then February 16th will be Assassins Creed Chronicles India. Through backward compatibility, Split Seconds. Did you ever play this game?
Laura: No.
Jeff: It was a fun game. It was a racing game that a lot of epic moments with cut scenes so you're driving through a factory where things are falling apart all over the place. It was a pretty cool game. Then, keeping that theme going, Crazy Taxi.
Larry: Good old Crazy Taxi.
Jeff: The dreamcast. What a great game that was. Both those were Xbox 360 games, which are available through the magic of backward compatibility and coming this month free for gold members.
Larry: You know we didn't have this show last week so we can take a moment to talk about the updates to game pass. Jeffrey, bit stuff coming. I know you saw this.
Jeff: So huge announcement. Game changing announcement. That is, Xbox game pass members will be able to play our first party releases, such as Sea of Thieves, such as State of Decay, such as Crackdown Three. State Decay I should say. When they come out, day one. So it was already, probably just about the best value in gaming about $10 bucks a month you have access to about 150 games, which you can download. You don't have to stream. For our first party games to be available on that, our new ones, on day one, like it's kind of a no brainer.
Larry: That was all the news. I have all the information up at news.xbox.com or over at my blog at majornelson. You're a game pass subscriber right Laura, or you don't need to be because you got a lot of games, right?
Laura: Probably should be one. 150 games.
Larry: Why not?
Jeff: It's a really good, and they're constantly updating. So, we're coming up like Darksiders Three is going to be coming out pretty soon and so they've recently made the Xbox One remaster of Darksiders, one had already been there, Darksiders Two. So you can play through those two games getting ready for Darksiders Three.
Larry: Are you getting ready?
Jeff: I've never, I've played a little bit of Darksiders One and I really need to go back. They're really well loved and from what I've heard about the games they're kind of like Zeldaesque, old school Zeldaesque and I don't know why I haven't played them.
Another game.
Larry: Yes.
Jeff: There's another beta. So last week it was all about the Sea, and this week, all about the Sea of Thieves beta. Now we are in the middle of the Age of Empire's definitive edition beta.
Larry: I need to download that so I can play it on the plane.
Jeff: So, yeah.
Laura: Good idea.
Jeff: That's for Windows 10. If you haven't gotten into there, at this point, because it's already started, the way to get in would be to pre order the game. Then you can go on there and people are going to be streaming it. You can see all that. If you miss out on that, we're still only less than three weeks away from release to be out. February 20th. So, definitely looking forward to that. That was the first artsy esque game I had ever played.
Larry: A lot of people did that as well.
Jeff: That was '96.
Laura: Think my first was Warcraft.
Jeff: That was good too.
Laura: That was a good game.
Larry: I don't even know what mine was. I'm completely blank. I put myself on the spot here. I gotta get back to you on that one.
Laura: Maybe Command and Conquer?
Larry: Could be.
Jeff: Oh yeah.
Laura: That's really good.
Jeff: I was so into those that both of those.
Laura: Really enjoyed Command and Conquer.
Jeff: You didn't think that's the type of game? That's why I like Halo Wars.
Larry: Okay, that's right. You do like you some Halo Wars.
Jeff: Couple other pieces of news from the idea Xbox side. Announcement of a game that looks really cool that's going to be coming to Xbox One soon is Roguevania called Deadcells. So I've just been seeing a lot. I'm going to link to it. It looks really cool.
Laura: I've played lots of Deadcell.
Jeff: Oh you have?
Laura: It's a-
Jeff: Tell us.
Laura: ... favorite in our house. It is a rogue like, where it's every time you play the world is different, but you accrue gold and you accrue skills that you can keep past your deaths. It's got a fantastic graphics and sort of old school, but still looks really fancy graphics and it's really fun game play.
Larry: I had heard good things.
Laura: Repeatability for sure.
Larry: All right. Fun.
Jeff: That will be coming out soon. Couple of other games that have hit in the last week. Wolverblade, Railway Empire, this seems like something you would be into aside your farming simulator, I think driving trains.
Larry: I played that the other day. I was playing Farming Simulator.
Jeff: Farming Simulator I believe also part of Xbox game pass.
Laura: Which one?
Larry: I don't know what it was. All I know I was out plowing the field and I brought the tractor around and realize I should never plow a field again. It looked like I was under the influence.
Laura: Did you have to hook up the plow to the tractor?
Larry: Yes.
Laura: That's one of the hardest parts.
Larry: Yeah.
Laura: To get the plow hooked up and then adding the front weight so that it doesn't.
Larry: You know a little too much information. You know a little too much about this.
Laura: You know I like the farming simulator games.
Larry: That's cause I think you've done most of this in real life. That's the strange part. You are but a farmer. Farmer's daughter.
Laura: My family does have a ranch with some tractors.
Larry: I want to go down there and just drive around.
Laura: My father will be happy to teach you how to drive the tractor. He'll give you a task like, go pull down that tree.
Larry: On the way. I'm sorry Jeff. We got sidetracked with tractor talk.
Jeff: Another game that came out last week, which people, this one I'll admit flew completely under my radar. People are already talking about it as a potential game of the year candidate. An early one. Celeste. So this is a really challenging platformer. In the vein of a super meat boy or something like that where it's from the people who made Towerfall, which was very well loved when it came out a few years ago. [inaudible 00:25:48]
Anyway, so this game is, it's available. It's a relative inexpensive title that is an Idea Xbox title that people are talking about it. I wouldn't judge it by the screens, which make it look like, I mean it is a platform. I've seen some videos, it looks like incredibly challenging. Like, you sort of bend your mind. You come into a screen and it's like, how could I ever do that, and then you watch someone do that and it's like, oh that's how you do it. I think it will see some amazing runs at summer games [inaudible 00:26:17] on this one. Anyway, getting a ton of buzz. So keep an eye out for Celeste.
Laura: Cool.
Jeff: That's pretty much it. Oh, EA Sports UFC Three is also now available for Xbox One.
Larry: All right. Delightful.
Laura: That's a lot of news.
Larry: Lot of news.
Laura: A lot of news.
Larry: I wish you had joined us on our stream when we ran Sea of Thieves.
Laura: That would have been fun. Just couldn't make it work.
Larry: That's fine. We just, Jeff and I had quite the time on the high seas.
Laura: Did you just do the two player version?
Larry: Yeah, we just did the two player, the two player ship.
Laura: Yes there is a two player ship, which is more nimble.
Larry: There's a one and two player ship, which is the same ship and then there's the four player.
Laura: I didn't do the single player ship.
Larry: The four player ship is just massive.
Laura: It's really big.
Larry: It's a boat.
Laura: Did you guys do the single player? Have you tried that out yet?
Larry: Yeah.
Laura: Okay.
Larry: I've gone on a few missions and it feels lighter and what not.
Laura: Is there a cannon on the single?
Larry: Yeah, there's one on each side.
Jeff: There's one on each side. You're not gonna really want to use. Unless you're fighting another ship of equal size, you're better off just running and hiding. It's great for moving quickly and I went on a number of solo missions. I went to try it out on Windows 10 because it was a game that you seamlessly can play from one to the other. You know it worked out great and I just was running around in the solo ship and cashed in a few treasures and leveled up my faction standing.
Larry: When's that coming out Jeff?
Jeff: Coming out March 20th.
Larry: March 20th.
Jeff: One month after Age of Empires.
Larry: Little, month and a half or so. Little under a month and half, two months away.
Laura: Awesome.
Jeff: Getting real excited.
Larry: All right. We're cooking along on this show. We don't have any special guests this week. You, you listener are our special guest because we can devote more time to you. All right, Name the Game. We're going to give folks another week to win that.
Laura: That's right.
Larry: So here's the Name the Game sound from the last time, but we're going to give you another chance. Very few people got it right.
Laura: It was a hard one this time. We'll give you another try. Here we go.
Larry: All right, that was Name the Game from a couple weeks ago. We're giving you guys another chance. We like to do that one, only a few people get right.
Laura: That's right. So if you already answered, don't worry about. We got your entry.
Larry: You're still in.
Laura: If you didn't get a chance to answer.
Larry: Now's your chance. You get a second chance.
Laura: Second chance.
Larry: There's very few second chances in life Laura.
Laura: That's true.
Larry: We're giving you one. We're giving you one. So there you go.
Laura: You think you know what game the sounds are from, give me an email, lollipop@xbox.com and CC major@xbox.com.
Larry: That's all you gotta do.
Laura: Pretty easy.
Larry: Don't mention it on Twitter because that doesn't count as an entry.
Laura: That's correct.
Larry: You can say hello to us on Twitter, but it doesn't count as an entry.
Laura: That's right. You have to send us an email. The email.
Larry: Are you around next week? I'm not around next week.
Laura: You're going to UK.
Jeff: You gone the whole week?
Larry: I'm leaving on Tuesday, land there Wednesday.
Jeff: You're gone the whole week.
Larry: Yeah, I'm there the whole week.
Laura: It takes at least a day.
Larry: It's a schlep.
Jeff: You going to take in a soccer match?
Larry: I can't do that without you. I can't do that without you.
Jeff: You're doing to be in a soccer rich area.
Larry: Very much so.
Jeff: A lot of teams around there.
Larry: I would love, if I'm there, I'm flying back on Saturday so I'm missing the football day.
Jeff: Might be some Friday night matches. I'll do some research for you.
Larry: Anyway, I was going to say if you guys want to do a show or stream you're welcome to, Laura, Jeff as I look at you both.
Jeff: Without you? You're the straw that stirs the drink.
Larry: No I'm not. I'm merely, I'm the bubbles in your soda.
Jeff: It wouldn't be soda without the bubbles. Flat.
Laura: Still water.
Larry: Every part of what we have here. You are all part of the ingredients.
Jeff: Are you saying you might want to stream from the UK?
Larry: I would love to, I just don't think I'll have time because my schedule there is pretty, pretty, pretty packed.
Laura: I can imagine it is packed.
Jeff: Also we don't have Sea of Thieves so I don't know what we would stream. Hey, Rare, mind if we load up Overwatch or Pub G?
Larry: Not cool. Although I could just stream from my, I've got the Mixer app. Mixer create on my phone.
Jeff: I'm sure you'll do it.
Larry: I can just go bam to a few million people.
Jeff: You know what you did back when Periscope was new.
Larry: Yes.
Jeff: Getting used to living in a live world. I remember you just went through the prices of all the things.
Larry: When I played the price is right on the mini bar.
Jeff: What was funny, that was the number one thing on Periscope at that moment. It was crazy how many people were watching that.
Larry: I should do that again. You never saw that Laura.
Laura: No I didn't see it
Larry: You know when you travel, when you travel in most hotels they have a mini bar and the stuff is so ridiculously expensive. I did the price is right using, how much is this snickers bar? Oh it's $1, $2, no it's $7.99. It's ridiculous prices.
Jeff: I think it's called something else over there.
Larry: What the mini bar?
Jeff: No, snickers.
Larry: I don't know. Maybe I'll do that when I'm over there. It's a good idea.
Laura: Sounds fun.
Larry: So anyway, so if you guys want to do something next week but we've got to wrap up the show in a little bit because Laura's got to run to a meeting. I've got to run. Jeff has to-
Jeff: I just sit here until next week. Twiddling my thumbs. Waiting for the next show.
Larry: You want to talk about some technology though. We haven't talked.
Jeff: We haven't talked about tech in awhile.
Larry: We haven't. So what do you want to talk about?
Jeff: I got the best Christmas present that I didn't expect.
Larry: Did you hear about this Laura?
Laura: No.
Larry: This is Jeff.
Jeff: I got, actually I got two. So I got back from a long trip, we were in Japan and I got back on New Years Eve, give or take. I was given a gift. I was like, what is this? Some close friends got me an Ember.
Laura: What is that?
Jeff: An Ember is a coffee cup that keeps your coffee warm. First I was like, this is the dumbest thing I've ever seen. You have to, first I had to update the firmware on my coffee cup, which is some real Black Mirror stuff right there.
Laura: Firmware. On a coffee cup.
Jeff: I've seen everything now. On a Saturday morning when I have coffee, a lot of times what I do is I spend the morning, usually playing Overwatch in the house.
Larry: With his daughter.
Jeff: I only have a chance to sip when I die, not that often and I have six seconds. That cup will last an hour, normally by the time I've played three or four matches that coffee's cold. Well, no more.
Larry: No more.
Jeff: Stays at crisp-
Larry: This first world problem has been solved.
Jeff: ... 130 degrees and you can adjust. Has an app.
Laura: It's too hot.
Jeff: No it's the right temperature.
Laura: There's an app for the coffee cup?
Jeff: Yeah.
Larry: You can change the LED color.
Jeff: Believe me, I came in saying this is the most ridiculous extra type of gift ever, but for the coffee person who thinks they have everything, this is a thing. It's a great gift. Nobody needs this, but as a bizarre quality of life thing, I'm wasting a lot less coffee these days.
Laura: Awesome. How long does the battery last?
Jeff: Probably about 90 minutes.
Larry: I think it's about an hour. Depends on what your temperature is.
Jeff: So just like the night before I'll go ahead and put it on. The charger is a saucer, which is a really nice touch.
Laura: So it's not a plug in.
Jeff: You plug the saucer into the wall.
Larry: Then you drop it. We'll put a link in the show notes.
Jeff: I'll put it. You know what, I love it.
Larry: Ironically I don't drink coffee. I drink espresso, which is a very different type of drink. It's a much more classier type of drink.
Jeff: Except you drink it like a shot. It's gone in 10 seconds.
Larry: That's true. So anyway, my wife drinks coffee. So I actually bought her one of these unbeknownst that Jeff had one. So when he was tweeting it out I sent him a photo. She loves it too.
Laura: You knew all about it.
Larry: I was like wow, that's weird.
Laura: So they're LED lights on the cup?
Larry: Yeah, there's a little one on the bottom.
Jeff: You can change the color of it. Mine's purple. It looks like this.
Larry: Did you get the travel one or the white ceramic one?
Jeff: The white ceramic one. Wait, I didn't know they had a travel one.
Larry: Yeah, they have a travel one.
Jeff: I might need that.
Larry: It's got a dial on the bottom. Dial up the, you didn't know they had a travel one?
Jeff: No. I don't know these things.
Laura: Now you can put that on your birthday list. Need it as another gift. Travel version.
Jeff: Look at that. Man you just cost me money.
Larry: It's expensive. It's like twice as expensive as the regular one.
Jeff: Nobody needs this.
Larry: Ember.
Laura: Awesome.
Larry: Ember. I don't need one of those.
Jeff: I'll put a link to it. It's just really bizarre, but kind of great.
Larry: Do you have anything you want to talk about in the technology side Laura.
Laura: I'm trying to think if I've gotten anything. I don't think I have.
Larry: The last thing I got, the Razor phone. I've been playing around with the Razor phone. Razor sent me a couple of their new keyboards. One of them's crazy pink.
Laura: Cool.
Jeff: Did they send you any of the diva stuff they make? The headset.
Larry: No.
Jeff: They have a whole diva line. Diva from Overwatch.
Larry: Overwatch. I know your daughter's a big Diva fan.
Jeff: Diva costs me a lot of money every month. Whether it be Loot boxes, in shirts or whatever.
Larry: In merchandise or otherwise. So yeah, I haven't really done anything. I'm working on some more home networking stuff that I'm always futzing.
Laura: You're always messing with that.
Larry: I'm always futzing. Is that the proper term?
Jeff: That's a big Yiddish there. Hold on, mazel tov.
Larry: Look, I'm always futzing.
Jeff: You're just futzing.
Larry: I need to stop futzing. I've got a few more things that I'm working on. The Amazon Show. Have you seen, that's the Amazon Alexa with the screen. So when we play Jeopardy now, you now have the question right in front of you.
Laura: So you can read the question.
Larry: Right, in addition to her telling you. So it does make it easier.
Laura: Did you know that if you're on Prime you can play the previous days of Jeopardy.
Larry: Yes, yes.
Laura: Which makes things much easier.
Larry: And you get extra questions. I will say this, with the Show I'm convinced that the questions are actually harder than if you don't, I think it's a different set of questions because they're asking, we got like four out of 12. Right?
Laura: I play [crosstalk 00:36:25] they were much harder.
Larry: If you have Alexa than you need to add this.
Jeff: They have one also, we did this an Escape Room that you can do. It plays out like an old school text adventure where you're literally like-
Laura: On Alexa?
Jeff: ... On Alexa. Look forward and you see. You have to escape from one, I think you have to escape from an office that you're locked into. Another one you wake up in a car that has been somehow boarded up and you have to escape from it. It's kind of fun.
Larry: Jeff and I, remember I was telling you about the escape room we did?
Laura: Yes.
Larry: Jeff was with me.
Laura: Oh you were in the escape room?
Larry: I was telling Laura about it because she would totally dig this. We did one here in Seattle, Jeff and I and our teams last week.
Laura: I would love to do that.
Jeff: They were really elaborate. One you had escape from prison basically and you're in individual cells with steel bars.
Laura: Oh my goodness.
Jeff: Kind of nuts.
Larry: With that one I don't want to give too much away. I don't know if I told you this Laura but, yeah I think I did. With that one Jeff, when we did it we got locked in different cells. There were four cells, two in each and one part of the cell is, one part of the puzzle, the beginning's you have to find the key, which is this long rod, remember? You have to push it into the hole to unlock the secret door. Well, unbeknownst to me when we got loaded up into our cells, my cellmate who will remain nameless, they had a water glass or a water bottle and they put it over the hole. So we could not find it until all of the sudden we moved it, oh here it is. It was lot of fun.
Jeff: That's why they don't allow bottled water.
Laura: In jails.
Jeff: In jail.
Larry: Now you know. The more you know. Puzzle rooms. So that's about it. I'm working on a few more projects. I got so much technology that I gotta look at. Hoping to get my hands on the new surface. I don't have the new surface book yet. A bunch of you called that out when we did the stream last.
Jeff: The surface book two
Larry: Surface book two.
Jeff: Which has a pretty nice graphics card in there. You can run some games on that.
Larry: Sea of Thieves when I'm on the way.
Laura: Yes. Just go talk to the surface team.
Larry: Hopefully we'll get a hold of that and a few others things. Anyway, we're going to wrap the show up. We wanted to get together and give you a show. It's the highlight of my week to hang out in a small windowless room with Laura and Jeff. So, hopefully it's the highlight of yours as well. Jeffery. What are you doing?
Jeff: I'm looking at the travel thing.
Larry: You're looking at the over under on the game this weekend, aren't you?
Jeff: I'm also looking at, there's also some interesting soccer stuff trending. This is the last day of the transfer window Larry. It's important. I'm looking at this travel mug you just cost me money.
Larry: There you go. Word of mouth. We won't see you next week because I'm headed to Rare and Jeff and Laura can barely get here when I'm doing the show. They're not going to get here by themselves. We'll work on a video show for you in the future. Lot of good stuff planned for this year. So, find us on social. You can find Jeffery at ...
Jeff: @jeffrubenstein.
Larry: That's also the complaint desk. You can find Laura.
Laura: I am @lauralollipop.
Larry: That's the suggestion desk. I'm Larry. Xbox Live's Major Nelson. You can find me @majornelson. We'll see you next time. Bye-bye everybody.
Laura: Bye bye.

Larry: Hi it's Larry here at Xbox Live's major Nelson. Welcome to the podcast, show number 613. This is an audio only show.
Jeffrey: Larry, I can't see you.
Larry: Yes, I know.
Jeffrey: I can't see you.
Larry: It's audio only. For the past two shows we've done video and of course, we've taken the audio off the video and put it up on the audio. Anyway, here we are. We've been doing the past couple shows on Mixer. You've joined us Jeffrey.
Jeffrey: Happily.
Larry: Of course Laurie you've joined us.
Laura: Hello.
Larry: Then joining us this week is special guest Graham Boyd. Hi Graham.
Graham Boyd: Hi, how's it going?
Larry: We decided to say, I know when I asked you to be on the show it was kind of awkward because we've done the last two shows on video and you haven't quite worked your way up to that show yet. So, we'll get you there.
Graham Boyd: Yeah I was going to ask you about that.
Jeffrey: Not wearing all that flannel. Wardrobe!
Graham Boyd: My mom always said I had a face for radio.
Larry: Here we are. It's nice to have everybody back together in a normal show format. A lot of questions, a lot of great feedback. Did you have a chance to watch the shows Graham? Even though you weren't on them?
Graham Boyd: Absolutely. I was watching them On Demand. In fact, you came up to my desk weren't you. I was doing something else and Larry asked me, "Have you watched the show?" I was like, yeah honestly I'm just about to watch it. I had the tab open.
Larry: So you can hit that under mixer.commajornelson. I've got on my YouTube. We're going to do those, a lot of requests to do them. We love doing them. I think we do. I don't want to speak for you Laurie or Jeffrey.
Laura: Yeah, it's fun.
Larry: It's just a little more, there's a little more overhead because there's a crew involved. There's a studio.
Jeffrey: And we have to do it live. We can't edit things out. I burped five times in the time that since the show started, but we edited them out every time.
Larry: Graham was using all sorts of crazy vernacular.
Jeffrey: Couldn't understand, we're like, nope.
Larry: We had to edit it out.
Graham Boyd: That's the seventh time we've tried this.
Larry: We do it live and it's a lot of fun, but we'll be doing more of those in the future. The goal is maybe do them once every month or two months. Whenever schedules allow. I'm looking at you Laurie and you Jeff. We'd love to have you on in a future show if you can-
Jeffrey: Shave.
Graham Boyd: You've got cheek.
Jeffrey: I know, I'm trying to cover it up with the beard.
Graham Boyd: My goodness.
Jeffrey: You have much better facial hair.
Graham Boyd: I love how you're making lots of visual references about me when we are actually on the radio.
Jeffrey: I know.
Graham Boyd: Too many flannel shirts. I have to have a shave.
Jeffrey: Actually, I like flannel shirts.
Larry: We're back here after the holidays. We talked a little bit. We had Phil on last week. I gotta tell you this funny story. We always talk about how we're very careful about things we talk about in the show and I read this weird story on some blog last night about, they basically took everything that Phil had said verbatim and posted it and was trying to make news out of it. There really wasn't, Phil didn't really say anything. He was just coming on to the show. So, that's why we have to do it, be careful. It was great to have Phil on. We're looking forward to some of the cool stuff we've got at E3 this year.
Graham Boyd: E3.
Larry: I know, you've already had meetings on that.
Graham Boyd: Absolutely.
Larry: I've had meetings. Jeff's had meetings. Laura hasn't had any meetings yet. You'll come in later.
Laura: I come in later.
Larry: She'll come in later. We're looking forward to that and it's quite a ways away, but let's jump off on our normal show agenda here. We're talk about what we're playing. I don't know who wants to structure. Should we have Graham start?
Laura: I think we should.
Larry: Graham.
Laura: Special guest should start.
Larry: Special frequent guest.
Graham Boyd: That's very [crosstalk 00:03:43].
Larry: You're the Charles Nelson Riley of the show.
Graham Boyd: I don't know who that is.
Jeffrey: Neither do anyone who is listening to this show. Me and Larry probably.
Graham Boyd: I'll take it as a compliment though.
Larry: Okay.
Graham Boyd: Well surprise, surprise I'll be playing Pub G.
Larry: We haven't been played together yet.
Graham Boyd: No, I know. I've only ever played solo. I have yet to do [crosstalk 00:04:08]
Jeffrey: You can actually look at your inventory and not worry about getting shot in the back.
Graham Boyd: It would be a completely different game for me completely.
Laura: It is a little different. It's a little less anxious. A little less stressful.
Larry: So you're playing Pub G, which is just this past week they got their fourth update since they've launched a month ago. It's a bit amazing.
Graham Boyd: Actually, that update's great because it added the second controller.
Larry: Type B.
Graham Boyd: Type B.
Jeffrey: I use it.
Graham Boyd: I was loving it anyway, but that's changed the game for me. It feels much more fluid to me now.
Larry: You know what?
Graham Boyd: What's that?
Larry: I went back to Type A.
Graham Boyd: Did you?
Larry: I tried Type B for about three days, about 10 matches and I just, what happened was I found myself in a close quarters combat with the Shaka and when I pulled the left trigger, all of the sudden I'm-
Jeffrey: You're ADSing.
Larry: ... yeah I'm ADS so I didn't want to do it, so I went back.
Jeffrey: In general I feel like I've done better since we went to Type B.
Larry: Try it out because it's got some nice flexibility in there.
Graham Boyd: I think you're right enough. It will be trickier when you're indoors.
Larry: I just have to rethink my approach.
Graham Boyd: Why not? I'm loving it. Absolutely loving it. I've got my first chicken dinner. Two nights ago. Thank you very much.
Jeffrey: Solo?
Graham Boyd: Solo, yeah.
Laura: Wow, solo? Nice job.
Larry: Well done.
Graham Boyd: It was a funny one as well because we were right down to the last circle. There was four of us left. It was basically, it was on one of the farmhouses.
Larry: For those of you who can't see this, he's holding his hands up about the size of a half dollar.
Graham Boyd: [crosstalk 00:05:32] I didn't realize that when you get to the end game like that, if you wait long enough, the circle completely collapses.
Larry: So here's what happened. Let me tell you a funny story and we'll get to yours. I was playing with a friend of mine. I don't know who it was, it was one of my friends. We're doing Duos and we got, we're juggling through and we're down to the last few, he says, "Let's go to that". You know those funny little octagonal houses that are two levels? They're kind scattered around the map.
Graham Boyd: Yes.
Larry: We get upstairs and we hunker down. Sure enough, the circle starts closing in on the house. Now here's what happened. There was another team of two in the lower level.
Laura: The same house?
Larry: In the same house. So it kept, you're right, it kept getting smaller and smaller. All of the sudden the circle is inside the room and we're throwing grenades down, they're throwing them up. No one's leaving because we know we're going to die. You're right, all of the sudden it started just slowly closing down to nothing and one of us had to jump out and kill. It was a mad race those last 10 seconds.
Graham Boyd: Totally. I was kind of stuck outside the walls of this farmhouse. My assumption was the other three people were actually inside the farmhouse, but there was nothing happening. It was dead quiet and I'm thinking well, I need to do something. Going to have to rush the farmhouse at one point. Then the indicator came up saying play zone collapsing in five seconds or whatever. So, it forced me, I just had to vomit inside the house.
Larry: So the circle kept going inside the house.
Graham Boyd: Yes, yes.
Larry: I see.
Graham Boyd: It was just collapsing on top of me. I was literally sprinting inside the house.
Larry: With it coming behind you.
Graham Boyd: The wave, the edge of the circle. There was a dude in the house just as I came around the corner so I managed to tag him once and then he was actually playing just to be the last person in the collapsing circle. The other two people died.
Larry: Play Zone took it.
Graham Boyd: I head shotted him. I swear the second I head shot him, I died as well.
Larry: But you got the win?
Graham Boyd: I got the win.
Larry: That's exactly what happened.
Laura: Wow, wow.
Jeffrey: You put this on Twitter.
Graham Boyd: I put it on Twitter, yeah, for the last 30 seconds on Twitter.
Laura: Nice.
Graham Boyd: I was like, I saw myself die and I thought, I've missed it again, I'm number two. Then it was winner, winner, chicken dinner. I thought yeah!
Larry: You don't get to enjoy the chicken.
Graham Boyd: It was midnight at that point and I had an 8AM meeting the next morning but I couldn't sleep for like three hours.
Jeffrey: You can't sleep after playing that game.
Graham Boyd: Oh my god I'm so pumped.
Larry: You get so amped up playing.
Graham Boyd: It was great. It's just like, it's one of those games that just is story, after story, after story and every single time I play it's completely different. [crosstalk 00:07:50] where you land and you get taken out within the first two minutes. It's still an interesting story.
Laura: I'd love to know your strategy because I found myself in the situation, I was curious what anybody else would do. Say, it's been just a minute after you landed and you're running up to a house, but right before you get into that house you see somebody else run into that house. What do you do?
Larry: You keep running and just make sure you can pick something up as fast as possible.
Jeffrey: You have something or you don't have any weapon?
Laura: Say you have a simple weapon like a melee weapon or something that you just picked up along the way.
Jeffrey: I'd probably go somewhere else.
Laura: Would you go somewhere else or do you follow him in?
Larry: No we go in. I absolutely go in.
Laura: You go in?
Larry: I go in and if I can't find a weapon or the other individual finds a weapon first, I'll make sure I know how to get out.
Jeffrey: I live to fight another day. I feel like when we play with Larry we're either, we're out in the upper 80s, like we're out real quick or we make it into the top ten.
Larry: We go the distance.
Graham Boyd: What I was doing initially , was I was working really hard to land somewhere isolated, away from other players so I could get settled, get all my gear and stuff. I think recently I've kind of flipped that because I want to get into more gun fights early, basically to practice. I was finding that I would be in a game with no kills for 25 minutes and then as soon as I got into a gun fight-
Jeffrey: Sounds like me.
Graham Boyd: ... actually getting earlier.
Laura: Practice.
Graham Boyd: To practice [crosstalk 00:09:09].
Larry: There's two data points that I would use on playing the game is, one I usually use the roomba method, which is I start on the outside of the islands and work my way in.
Graham Boyd: Nice.
Larry: If you have a roomba, you know what that means. Laura I know you know what that means. The other thing is, I also make sure I make a mental note of the flight path.
Graham Boyd: Yes.
Larry: Because that usually dictates, plus or minus five or ten degrees off either side is where a bulk of the people will land. So you want to make sure you stay out of the flight path and go away on opposite sides of that. I'm very cognizant of that.
Graham Boyd: I like that because you know, you've got a better sense of where players are coming from.
Larry: Precisely.
Graham Boyd: If you're going away from the flight path you can pretty much be certain that there's not players coming towards you.
Larry: Precisely.
Graham Boyd: As long as you're watching your back you can have a good sense of where people are.
Larry: Precisely.
Graham Boyd: It's such a good game.
Larry: Anyway-
Laura: There's a lot of strategy to it.
Graham Boyd: Yeah, wicked.
Larry: Wicked. That's exactly what I say. What else you playing?
Graham Boyd: Force Horizon Three, Xbox one x enhanced.
Larry: It says right there on the splash screen, Xbox One X enhanced. It's funny I was in Albert Pinnella's office the other day and I should get him on to talk about this because he booted it up and he was looking at it. Albert's a car nut. I don't know if you know that. I was talking to him about this-
Laura: We know that because he told us the story of he named the S controller.
Larry: ... After his car experience. He was telling me how he plays Force Horizon completely opposite than anybody else.
Laura: Seriously?
Jeffrey: What do you mean?
Larry: He'll only use cars that he owns.
Laura: What?
Larry: Most people use it to play cars that they want to own or have this fantasy car. This very expensive, nope.
Graham Boyd: How many cars does he own?
Larry: Apparently-
Jeffrey: Enough to have a pretty good collection.
Graham Boyd: There's like 700 cars in the game.
Larry: The answer is, the answer is he owns 30. He's collected them for many, many years. He owns more car in real life than I do actually in [inaudible 00:10:55]. It's unreal. So it's just so funny. It looks phenomenal. It was fantastic.
Graham Boyd: Incredible. To be honest, it looked amazing already.
Larry: It always looked great.
Graham Boyd: To see it in four k is just, is another level all together.
Larry: Your eyes melt.
Jeffrey: I'm just hoping one day I have a car nice enough to make it into [inaudible 00:11:12].
Graham Boyd: Yeah, there you go.
Jeffrey: That would be, still no Prius huh? Okay, all right.
Graham Boyd: I used to have a Mini. I suppose that was in, wasn't it?
Jeffrey: Yeah.
Graham Boyd: It's absolutely gorgeous and actually I'm glad I had a reason to actually go back and play it because it's one of those game, I've played it like pretty consistently since it came out 18 months ago now. I was looking at my stats the other night. I'm only 52% complete on that game.
Larry: Really?
Graham Boyd: I haven't even done the final showcase. I'm like 70% towards the final showcase.
Jeffrey: You did Hot Wheels and [crosstalk 00:11:44].
Graham Boyd: Yeah.
Jeffrey: Both so good.
Graham Boyd: My three year old son loves Horizon as well. So, often we go in and play co pilot with him and he just, we just basically blitz around the island. It's really cool. It's nice to go back. I played the showcase where you're racing against the vertical take off and landing jet.
Larry: The V tall.
Graham Boyd: Which is nuts.
Larry: The harrier, yeah.
Graham Boyd: So good. Headphones on.
Jeffrey: [inaudible 00:12:09] four K screens.
Graham Boyd: Absolutely love it. It's so good. Well done to the team on that because it looks incredible. Then, aside from that. I finished college at World War Two about a week ago. I was playing that-
Larry: I need to get back to that.
Graham Boyd: I really enjoyed it. Campaign. Really enjoyed it. It's the fresh campaign in the college at E game I've completed for, I would say maybe the last three or four.
Larry: Yeah.
Graham Boyd: I really dug it. I thought, they tried to do some interesting, brave things with the campaign story like that. I think it landed pretty well. Some really brilliant set pieces like battle of the bulge.
Larry: I've heard about that. I'm not there yet, but I've heard about that. You've seen the films. The movies, right? It's just epic.
Graham Boyd: About a year ago I went through, we've talked about this, I went through a mad sort of World War Two history reading phase.
Larry: We talked about that because, we didn't do this on the air, but we talked about the fact, I don't know if this was with you Laura, but when you're, I don't know this, maybe it's true, but you reach a certain age as a guy where all of the sudden anything that's on TV or around World War Two you stop dead in your tracks.
Laura: Really?
Larry: It's the weirdest thing.
Graham Boyd: You become Tony Soprano is what happens.
Larry: It's the craziest thing. Is that right Jeff?
Jeffrey: I'll let you know when I get to that phase.
Graham Boyd: Such a youngster.
Laura: Not there yet.
Larry: Well you're kind of there already because you're having this Wolfenstein experience. We'll talk about that later.
Jeffrey: This is true. I've learned a lot about World War Two.
Larry: See?
Jeffrey: Playing Wolfenstein.
Larry: Okay, there you go.
Jeffrey: Quite the documentary that one.
Graham Boyd: It was good. It felt very, you know there's a great episode of Band of Brothers where they're in Bastion and it's Battle of the Bulge type. It felt very much like that and it does one of those things at college where it completely changes the pace halfway through the mission and you actually end up in a fighter plane escorting bombers.
Laura: Have you been to the Museum of Flight?
Graham Boyd: No.
Laura: You should go.
Larry: Here in Seattle.
Graham Boyd: My Dad's coming in two weeks and yeah, I'm going to take him. We're really excited about it.
Laura: Lots of World War Two there.
Larry: Museum of Flight is obviously what it is, it's a museum of flights here in Seattle. It's nice. You ever come to Seattle, you want to take that in.
Laura: It is definitely a place to stop. It's right next to the Boeing factory.
Larry: One of them.
Laura: One of them, yes, one of them. It's got a ton of World War Two planes.
Larry: You know what it has there? It has one of the original Air Force One jets.
Laura: Yes it goes. The one that Nixon and-
Larry: Lyndon Johnson.
Laura: ... Lyndon Johnson and let's see if I remember the other one. A couple Presidents.
Larry: JFK?
Laura: I don't know if JFK flew on that one. Some of the Presidents for sure.
Larry: Did you go into it?
Laura: I did. They let you in and you can walk around in it.
Larry: Do you remember seeing that, how you knew is was Lyndon Johnson's?
Laura: His hat was there.
Larry: Not only that. They point out where the Presidents desk was, to the right was a little clip and that's where he would put his hat. He would clip his hat. I just want you to appreciate that being from Texas.
Laura: His hat is still there. Exactly. His hat is still there by the way.
Jeffrey: I don't think he wore a ten gallon hat?
Laura: He wore a Texas cowboy hat.
Jeffrey: Well I'm going to look that up.
Laura: Yeah, you should. It's really cool. Anyway, he's in a flight.
Jeffrey: That question has not been on HQ yet. What kind of hat does Lyndon Johnson wear? [crosstalk 00:15:08]
Yes, exactly.
Laura: Goodness. Definitely carve some time out there. I took my father there once and he's a big history-
Larry: See, see. It happened to him too.
Laura: ... it happened to him. It happened to him. We had to leave him behind because he wanted to spend much more time looking at all the planes and the exhibits than we did.
Larry: You're going to have a great time with [inaudible 00:15:30]. It's unbelievable. Most of it's indoors.
Laura: Most of it is. The really interesting exhibits like the Concord and the [crosstalk 00:15:38] are outside.
Larry: The Concord, that's right.
Laura: They have a Concord and I had never been in the Concord before.
Larry: It's claustrophobic isn't it?
Laura: Yes it is.
Larry: It's like so tiny.
Laura: It is so tiny. It tapers to a point.
Jeffrey: But you're in it for an hour.
Graham Boyd: Well not anymore. Cool. Exciting. So there's that. There you go.
Larry: Visuals.
Jeffrey: Cowboy hat and a one piece coverall.
Larry: Okay, that's Lyndon Johnson. All right.
Jeffrey: Pull off all the looks.
Graham Boyd: My last one really quickly is a total change of pace. Is City Skylines.
Laura: I'm playing that on iPhone actually.
Graham Boyd: Are you? I didn't know it was on iPhone.
Laura: Yeah it is.
Larry: It's on most everywhere.
Graham Boyd: I need to get that then.
Larry: Yeah you do.
Graham Boyd: I've always loved city building games and I was really excited for it coming out. Last year, was it last year?
Larry: Last year.
Graham Boyd: I never had the chance-
Larry: What are you building? Are you building a real thriving metropolis? Is it more urban, suburban?
Graham Boyd: ... Good question. It's called Aberdeen. It's inspired by my hometown.
Larry: Are you trying to put the main building in and building around that? So trying to duplicate.
Graham Boyd: I'm not trying to duplicate it. I would like it to be a thriving metropolis. I'm building it slowly. I've kicked off a lot of farming industry and some logging.
Larry: Is it young Graham Boyd's memory of Aberdeen?
Graham Boyd: I think it is. It's a romanticized version of Aberdeen.
Jeffrey: You live right next to the football stadium?
Graham Boyd: I haven't got football stadium yet, but in theory yes. Nice river front. Couple of rivers running through it. It's good. I'm really enjoying it. I like the sedate pace. Over Christmas with a nice cup of tea or maybe a little whiskey. That was a nice game to play in amongst all the college Es and Pub Gs and all the others.
Laura: Probably what you want to play after.
Jeffrey: You were painting a nice picture. I would like to do be doing that.
Laura: You definitely need to chill out.
Larry: I have this mental picture of Graham in his smoking jacket with the fire on.
Graham Boyd: I was wearing my onesie.
Larry: A whiskey, brandy snifter and you're just playing.
Graham Boyd: In a leather armchair. Something like that, yeah.
Jeffrey: Foundry goes there.
Graham Boyd: I do find the older I'm getting I like games where I can actually just enjoy a cup of tea while I'm playing it. There's not many. There's like, City Skylines is one. Xcomm is good for it.
Jeffrey: Absolutely.
Graham Boyd: It's nice. Enjoy a cuppa. Play a bit of video games.
Laura: I recommend Slime Rancher for that.
Graham Boyd: I keep meaning to play that.
Laura: It's really fun.
Graham Boyd: I think my son Finn would love that.
Laura: He probably would.
Graham Boyd: Okay. I'll get it installed.
Laura: It's very slow paced. It's one of those games that you play after you finish something like Pub G to just wind down before you go to bed.
Graham Boyd: That's funny isn't it.
Laura: It just slows the heart pace down and gets you into a zen mindset. It's really fun.
Jeffrey: You've sold me on Slime Rancher.
Graham Boyd: Good.
Laura: It's pretty fun.
Larry: Well this is a sequeway. That's what you're playing?
Graham Boyd: That's it.
Larry: That will sequeway into what Laura's playing, which sounds like more Slime Rancher.
Laura: It's a really good game. I very much enjoy that. I am up probably up into the medium or high level of being a rancher. I've got lots of good slimes. I've got all the little hybrids of slimes. If you don't know the game, the economy building game and you basically farm your slimes for money because you feed them and then they poo out money. Then you go buy upgrades to your farm.
Jeffrey: Where can I get me some of these slimes?
Laura: I want some of those slimes too for real.
Jeffrey: Daddy wants some more shoes.
Graham Boyd: Did you play Stardew? Stardew Valley.
Laura: I did a little bit, but that one, didn't hook me as much.
Graham Boyd: Really?
Laura: I know.
Jeffrey: Did you have a mayonnaise machine? That's where the money starts rolling in.
Graham Boyd: It's some delicious mayonnaise.
Laura: I know. That should have been right up my street. Probably didn't give it enough time because there was something that had come out at that time and I just didn't get hooked into Stardew Valley.
Jeffrey: There's romance.
Laura: It's a farming game.
Jeffrey: A fight against a oligarch retail giant. There's a lot. There's a lot to it. It's not just all turnips and radishes.
Graham Boyd: That was my most played game of last year.
Laura: Was it?
Larry: Really?
Graham Boyd: When you review the Xbox Live stats thing. The email that went out. That was my most played game.
Larry: Did you work on that?
Graham Boyd: 130 hours.
Larry: Did you work on that project?
Graham Boyd: I worked on it. So it was a team over in the UK that actually did that.
Larry: That makes sense now because for some reason, in America the year goes from January until December.
Graham Boyd: You're touching on a sore part here. That was the biggest piece of feedback I'd say we got from the community was that a year in review should be 12 months rather than nine months. There's a ton of-
Larry: First three quarters.
Graham Boyd: ... there's some-
Larry: Learnings for next year.
Graham Boyd: ... big data reasons behind that. You know what, if people are listening and they did see that and frustrated by it or whatever-
Larry: We know why.
Graham Boyd: ... we heard that feedback-
Larry: We hear you.
Graham Boyd: ... and we're looking at options, yeah.
Jeffrey: AC Bongo's on Twitter. Hit him up.
Graham Boyd: Give me all your year in review feedback. Sorry Laura. The reason I asked was I was interested to know, because it sounds kind of similar in terms of that farming to Stardew Valley. I wondered how close it was to that, but maybe not very.
Laura: I don't know. I didn't get too much into it. I only planted a few plants in Stardew Valley. I didn't probably spend three or four hours in it. Sounds like you spent hundreds.
Graham Boyd: 130.
Laura: That's a lot of hours. Good for drinking tea.
Larry: Again, tea.
Graham Boyd: Stardew Valley.
Larry: Tea.
Laura: I think rivals Larry's 120 hours in Fallout.
Larry: Oh yeah. Fallout.
Laura: Last year.
Larry: I think absolutely. I'm still going. Actually, I think probably the Witcher is up there as well now. I'm bumping against that as well. We'll talk about that.
Laura: I don't have too much to talk about this week. It's been busy. Busy week. I just played sort of normal games that you've already heard me talk about before like Diablo and Dungeon Avengers Two. Actually, jumped into multi player finally on Dungeon Avengers Two.
Larry: You know, I got all-
Laura: You did text me to say hey let's play Pub G.
Larry: I feel terrible after that. I really do. I just got a lot of people emailing me, how could you not play? I feel terrible. My sister, who you met, Sue she's like, "I listened to the show, what the hell?" I'm like, what? What? I'm getting it from all sides.
Laura: Well, thanks community for sticking up for me, but to come to Larry's defense, you did try and organize [crosstalk 00:21:55]
Larry: I will continue.
Laura: This last week. He did try and it was my calendar didn't line up.
Larry: I will continue. I understand, things don't work out.
Jeffrey: Larry's guilt trip game it hard. Really hard core. Someone will invite me out to something and I'll be like, "I'm going to have to tell Larry that I can't play tonight."
Larry: This is actually a structural difference between you and I. We never really talked about this. I went through the phase where when I was working in radio I was out every night until two, three, four o'clock in the morning. I'm done with that. When I go home at night, I mean I like race to get in my sweatpants. Right? I'm like, I'm ready to go. You-
Jeffrey: I go home, I suit up.
Larry: Exactly the opposite. It's like I don't even want to know. I generally know when I text you or send you message, there's a 5% chance that you're going to show up. You've got a very active social life and I respect that.
Jeffrey: I feel bad because it's like, I'm like, we're playing. I want to. All I think about is Pub G for the most part. We have such a great time when we play and I'm like, tonight's going to be the night and my wife just texts me 20 minutes ago and I have to break the news to Larry, we have a parent teacher conference.
Larry: That's fine. I get that.
Jeffrey: I'm like, does my kid really need this? My kid needs chicken dinners.
Larry: No, no. When it comes to your family I understand that. It's when you're out for your seventh bowl of sushi that week.
Jeffrey: They don't put it in bowls.
Larry: Plate.
Graham Boyd: Bowls [crosstalk 00:23:22].
Jeffrey: I guess you could have a surashi bowl. He's not wrong, he's not wrong.
Larry: I'm telling you.
Graham Boyd: At least you two get texts. Here's me grinding away. Solo Pub G.
Jeffrey: Not true.
Graham Boyd: Lone wolf.
Jeffrey: Did I text you say, hey come on the show this week? Did I text you say, hey I'll bring you over to the studio?
Graham Boyd: Yeah you did. That's fair. You haven't asked me to be in your Pub G circle.
Larry: You know what, that's because I don't have an excuse. I was waiting-
Jeffrey: You're lone wolf. We know you're a lone wolf.
Larry: I'll tell you this. I'm holding up this mental list in the air in front of me. It says Jeff, Laura and Graham. I'm going to take Graham and slide him right to the top.
Graham Boyd: Great, thank you. I appreciate it. Literally no one has ever [crosstalk 00:24:05].
Larry: Let's find out the man that people say his voice doesn't match his appearance.
Jeffrey: I don't know what that means. Could that be a compliment? I don't feel like it does. Somebody said you weren't as fat as you sounded. I don't know what that means. Did you read that? Believe me I'm working on it. Great. It's certainly not from eating all the chicken dinners. Although I finally did get one. Mostly by happenstance. I was playing with a couple folks that were very good. I felt like I had a pretty contribution and then we got the chicken dinner and the stat came up and I think I scored less points that anyone in history getting a chicken dinner. No kills. I had my hip score was three. I think someone was maybe spooked by one of my bullets. Didn't actually hit anybody.
Larry: It grazed a building that somebody was in.
Jeffrey: All I had wanted for so long was to take a screen grab of my first chicken dinner and post it. I'm like, I can't post this. I've had significantly better games where I've finished in 50th then in that one. I just happened to watch better people win and I was on their team. So, but I did get it.
Graham Boyd: Hey there's always players on the football who contribute a lot, but don't necessarily show up in the score.
Jeffrey: I was the holder for the kicker, basically.
Graham Boyd: Okay, yeah.
Jeffrey: Maybe. Maybe.
Laura: You were part of the team.
Jeffrey: I'm not even the long snapper. Anyway, it's a very important position. So besides that, you had mentioned the Witcher. I'd finished up Hearts of Stone, which was just exceptional. This not exactly a spoiler alert seeing how that came out 18 months ago, give or take. I was the first DLC for the Witcher Three, just amazing.
Larry: It's Xbox One X enhanced.
Jeffrey: Yes. I went back.
Larry: I'm just going to say this. Imagine playing one of the best games of this generation on the most powerful console of this generation on four k it looks phenomenal .
Jeffrey: You don't even need to imagine. It's real. It's real.
Larry: Go home.
Jeffrey: Been on sale a number of times. I don't know if it is right now.
Larry: Why are you playing this?
Graham Boyd: What blows my mind is that game's two years old now, almost two years old.
Jeffrey: Three.
Laura: What!
Jeffrey: It came out in 2015.
Graham Boyd: 2015.
Jeffrey: It's 2018.
Graham Boyd: Oh my god.
Larry: I remember in 2015, I remember in 2015 if you guys remember we had some of the guys from the Witcher team on our podcast at Pax East.
Jeffrey: Oh my god.
Laura: That's right.
Larry: We were talking about it and I was like, I had this feeling it was going to be big. I never knew it was going to be this big.
Jeffrey: No. Absolutely one of the very, very best games of the generation. It still is good. Then I started Blood and Wine and it's a whole new map. There's a whole bunch of other stuff to do and so I feel like that will be another, I mean, Hearts of Stone I probably sunk in 20 hours into that.
Larry: Yeah, that was beefy.
Jeffrey: This one seems like [crosstalk 00:26:52].
Larry: I'm at the point where I'm well North of 120 hours into the Witcher. Well north of that.
Jeffrey: You finished Blood and Win?
Larry: No. I stopped playing it about six months ago when the enhanced version came out I booted up by save, and I was in a dungeon, and I've totally forgot what quest I was doing. It took me 20 minutes to relearn all of the controls, and I'm like oh I gotta change this, I need that. Anyway, so-
Laura: Did you get out?
Larry: ...I got out. I finished that quest. I'm now top side again, so, I was underwater.
Graham Boyd: Did you see the tweet from cyberpunk4077?
Larry: No. Were they saying something about E3 right?
Graham Boyd: Well the tweet just literally says "beep" but it's got 50,000 likes and-
Laura: Interesting.
Jeffrey: When did that come out?
Graham Boyd: The 10th of January.
Jeffrey: So today, recording, that's about a week ago.
Graham Boyd: The first tweet for, oh my god, their first tweet for five years.
Laura: Five years.
Graham Boyd: Have I read that? It was their first, that's nuts. I didn't even realize that.
Laura: That's a long time.
Graham Boyd: That is significant isn't it? So their first tweet for five years on the 10th of January, 2018 was "beep".
Larry: Beep.
Graham Boyd: 18,000 retweets, 50,000 likes.
Laura: And you're one of those likes?
Graham Boyd: I am indeed, yeah. I was in about that. All right, so that will be interesting to watch.
Larry: Yes Jeffrey.
Jeffrey: So, I can't wait for that. I don't know anything about it other than CD project red is making it. So, I'm in. So this weekend was the NFL playoffs, week two, the first one I had to worry about because we had a first round by. I found I had too much nervous energy because I'm from Philly and we just wait for the sweet relief of when we finally lose and don't have to worry about it again. Every win means another week of agony. So, while we were watching and you know when you're watching the NFL there's a lot of stoppages of play, replays and half time and commercial break. So was playing Super Lucky's Tail.
Larry: Yeah you were.
Jeffrey: I found I just had it. I was playing on my laptop. It's an Xbox play anywhere game.
Larry: Were you enjoying tea?
Graham Boyd: You can have tea with Super Lucky's Tail.
Jeffrey: I had something a little stronger than tea at the time. Actually, almost done with that. So, hopefully, maybe about by half time of Eagles Vikings I'll finish Super Lucky's Tail this weekend.
The opposite of my palate cleanser, the most unrelaxing game you can play besides Pub G was Wolfenstien Two, which I'm very close to beating, but I played through two moments that were just mind blowing and staggering, and you know, if you've played the game you know what I'm talking about. If you haven't, nothing can prepare you for the things that you will see because oh my god. I mean, you don't play a lot of shooters I think for the story. This is a shooter I'm playhing for the story.
Larry: And it's a great shooter.
Jeffrey: The mechanics are great.
Larry: And it's fun.
Jeffrey: It's really fun and very visceral, but oh my god, some of the things that happen. We have to talk about that some other time. The last thing, I spent a lot of time watching Overwatch League, which kicked off last week.
Larry: I did too.
Jeffrey: So did a lot of people. I think they over 400,000 concurrent on day one. There was a Philly team. Philadelphia Fusion, which-
Larry: There's a Boston team. Boston Uprising.
Jeffrey: ... that's right. I may have to get a Jersey .
Larry: Is there an Austin team? I know you didn't live in Austin but-
Laura: It's Houston and a Dallas team. So it's right in between.
Graham Boyd: The London team. London Spitfires.
Jeffrey: They're very good. They're very good. I would say them and Seoul seem to just be like, you watch them, it's like running into a buzzsaw. The two teams are just so good.
Graham Boyd: One thing about the teams I wasn't sure about. Are the players related to those geographical regions or is it-
Larry: Doesn't appear to be.
Jeffrey: No more than, it's where the ownership is. So the Philadelphia team's owned by Comcast, which is based in Philly. Robert Kraft who owns the Patriots owns the Boston Uprising. So the ownership teams, right now all the teams are playing in Los Angeles in a very nice stadium.
Larry: You know who's stage that is?
Jeffrey: I think it was purpose built in Burbank.
Larry: That's the old Tonight Show.
Jeffrey: It's the Johnny Carson stage.
Larry: It's the old Johnny Carson stage.
Jeffrey: I had a friend who went to one of the tapings.
Graham Boyd: Video screens they've got.
Larry: Yeah. It's beautiful.
Jeffrey: It's very nice.
Larry: Beautiful production. Beautiful production.
Jeffrey: You need to figure out a way to go to one of those. I believe in future seasons they will play a home and away and it will be home arenas and stuff like that. That will tie it more to the cities.
Larry: Nice.
Jeffrey: So definitely looking forward to that. I don't know if you got your free skin. I think it's still going.
Larry: I did.
Jeffrey: Exactly, I got my Philly skin for soldier-
Larry: Boston Uprising.
Jeffrey: ... anyway.
Larry: Fun?
Jeffrey: Yeah. So after that I started playing the game a lot more.
Larry: You play with your daughter?
Jeffrey: Yeah. She's quite good.
Larry: She's very good.
Jeffrey: For an eight year old. She's up there in the eight year old pro league I think.
Graham Boyd: That makes me feel better because Finley was playing a lot last year and I was a little bit like, shoot Finley can play this?
Larry: Wait a minute, wait a minute we need to get those guys playing together. Who does Finley play as.
Graham Boyd: Soldier.
Jeffrey: She's diva.
Larry: Here we go.
Jeffrey: I won't let her play any other shooter, but it's so cartoony and otherwise friendly. Anyway, so that, there's actually new-
Larry: I've played with your daughter.
Jeffrey: ... You did.
Larry: We had a good time.
Jeffrey: She's good.
Larry: She's legit.
Jeffrey: So there's a new map coming. There's Blizzard World, which is coming next week. Looks really cool and it wraps in a number of different Blizzard franchises like Diablo and Hearthstone and Starcraft and World of Warcraft and everything else they do. So there's a lot of interesting crossover skins and they just keep making the game very appealing to come back to.
Graham Boyd: That's a really smart map isn't it? It's really clever. Use all the right [inaudible 00:32:24] like that. I remember, I saw a trailer for it and I was half paying attention. I actually thought it was a new IP they were launching.
Larry: No.
Laura: I was confused as well. I thought it was actual events. Is there Blizzard World?
Larry: You texted me.
Laura: What's the new world?
Larry: I'm like, it's a new map. She's like, "Oh".
Laura: I was hoping it would be a Disney World, but for Blizzard I would totally go.
Larry: Yup.
Laura: Spend a whole week there.
Graham Boyd: Well you can go in Overwatch.
Laura: Yeah, there you go.
Larry: We should continue playing that. What else do we have?
Jeffrey: That's it from what I'm playing.
Larry: So I've been playing pretty much everything we've been talking about here. The Pub G. Looking forward to next week because I'll be streaming Sea of Thieves, the beta, the alpha, what is it?
Jeffrey: It is the closed beta.
Larry: Even though it's closed they have agreed to let people stream. So I will be screaming and there's been a request for us to play, I'm looking at you Laura, I'm looking at you Graham. Would you like to play?
Graham Boyd: Yeah.
Jeffrey: Well look there's room for four on the set.
Graham Boyd: I love that.
Laura: I would too.
Graham Boyd: When?
Larry: We'll kick it off, I think it starts the 24th? Which is a Wednesday. Middle of the week next week and maybe we should do that Wednesday evening.
Jeffrey: That would fun.
Laura: That would be so fun.
Graham Boyd: I would love to do that.
Larry: We an co stream, we can do all sorts of crazy stuff. So I know I'll stream from the Major Nelson studio in Seattle, Washington. It's a lot of fun. I know we've been playing the internal version and Jeff and I, Laurie you haven't played at all?
Laura: I have not.
Larry: It's so fun.
Laura: I've only played it with you at PAX.
Larry: The build has come such a long way. Such a long way. This game looks so-
Laura: Have they fixed the compass?
Larry: ... Yes. Well, you know what, I stand corrected. I don't know because you don't know if the compass is fixed.
Laura: That's right.
Graham Boyd: What was wrong with the compass?
Larry: Laura and I, we were playing the game at PAX East, or I'm sorry, PAX here in Seattle.
Laura: PAX here, yes.
Larry: We're playing it and we had a quest, because you get a quest and you have to solve the riddle and it unveils the next part of the quest. What was the quest Laura?
Laura: We were looking for-
Larry: Seven paces east or something.
Laura: ... some kind of buried treasure. So the puzzle is a series of steps. You unlock step one and it reveals more about step two. We were at the final step to try and find the buried treasure and the instructions were to start at the camp fire and take seven paces or something due east and then dig. I was there, I'm near the campfire, I've got my compass.
Larry: She's digging away like, I don't see anything. She's in a hole. I just see dirt coming out the top. She's like, "I don't see it!"
Laura: I was digging and then Larry's like, "I'll give it a try. I'll follow the instructions." It turns out your East was different than my East.
Larry: Just ever so slightly and sure enough, first one, dink. I hit the top of the chest. So Laura-
Laura: I blame the compass.
Larry: ... was crying foul on the compass. Joe was there right? It was Joe, he was like, scratching his head.
Laura: Laura doesn't know how to read a compass. I do, I promise.
Larry: We're looking forward to streaming that of course. If you're in the beta, the closed one earlier this year, or you're an insider, you're going to get access, but if you want in, you can pre order.
Jeffrey: Exactly.
Larry: So, if you're hearing us talk about it and it sounds interesting , all you need to do is pre order the game and boom.
Graham Boyd: You're in.
Larry: You're in.
Graham Boyd: It will be nice to talk about it and stream it.
Larry: We've been having a lot of fun in that thing and just some of the laughing moments. There are a lot of moments. We played it two years ago at Games Con, right? It was you and me, and Benny, and Ellen. We had a good time.
Graham Boyd: Some of the rare guys on the-
Larry: Anyway it promises-
Graham Boyd: ... it's a lot of fun.
Larry: ... if you have a crew that you normally play with, I highly recommend you role with a nice crew. Now, what's great about it is, I don't know if they've talked about this so maybe I'm giving up a little too much, is that if you play by yourself or just with two people there's a smaller vessel you can use, which is perfectly manageable with one or two people. I actually prefer it. It's small.
Jeffrey: Larry likes and intimate. Too many people on this big[crosstalk 00:36:28].
Larry: Too much going on. Where's Graham? He's under down below having tea. That'll happen next week on Wednesday the 24th, that'll go live. Look for details on that. Follow me at Major Nelson, I'll be tweeting out when that happens and when we stream. Looking at you all across the table.
Laura: It's super exciting.
Graham Boyd: We got to talk about the Sea of Thieves controller as well.
Larry: It's the car isn't it?
Jeffrey: We had it on the video podcast that you still haven't watched.
Larry: We had it in the video podcast.
Graham Boyd: Was watching selected highlights.
Larry: I've got that.
Graham Boyd: It's a beauty isn't it?
Larry: Yeah, in fact I've got one that I'll be playing with on the stream next week when we do it together. I'll show that off on the stream.
Graham Boyd: Matches your jumper today. Doesn't it?
Larry: So jumper's kind of a feminine term in the US.
Graham Boyd: Is it?
Larry: Yeah, it is, but it's okay. It is.
Graham Boyd: I mean, you said it.
Larry: I didn't say it. It's fine.
Graham Boyd: Sweater? Pull over?
Larry: Yes pull over. That's fine. Anyway, whatever I don't care. Look. Google tells me I look like Eleanor Roosevelt.
Jeffrey: One of our finest first ladies.
Larry: I've, no.
Jeffrey: She was very distinguished.
Larry: Actually I sent that Laurie, you know what her response was? Should I call you the first lady now? I think you should.
Laura: His response was blocked.
Graham Boyd: Unsubscribe.
Larry: So, yeah. Did you download that thing and look at what you look like?
Graham Boyd: I haven't done it, no.
Larry: So we're going to do it right now. For those of you who don't know what we're talking about. If you have an IOS or an Android device, Google our friends that run that search engine. They have an app that you can download, and if I can unlock my phone I will show it to you and it is called Arts and Culture. So I'm going to hand this to you Laura and you can show them how to use it. So, you scroll down, is your portrait in a museum? So we're going to go ahead, go ahead and show them.
Laura: What it does is it takes a picture, well you take a selfie.
Larry: And then hand it back to me. Don't look at it.
Laura: You take a selfie and then what it does is it tries to recognize the features of your face and match that to a painting. Oh that's nice.
Graham Boyd: Thanks. One of my best selfies actually.
Larry: So I got, we are going to, you look like Issac Crosby Trot or Anthony Dewail or-
Jeffrey: You look like Filch from Harry Potter.
Larry: ... Jose Rodriguez [inaudible 00:38:53].
Jeffrey: You don't know who he is?
Graham Boyd: I don't know Harry Potter. Sorry.
Larry: This is self portrait with flowered wallpaper. I kind of like that.
Jeffrey: He's also in-
Graham Boyd: He's quite a dandy that guy.
Laura: Painting doppelganger.
Larry: So basically it looks at all of these famous portraits, some of which are unnamed and they're just beautiful pieces of art and it looks at-
Graham Boyd: That ones pretty close isn't it?
Jeffrey: That's quite a mustache.
Larry: So I did mine and it showed me as Eleanor Roosevelt. Have you done yours Jeff?
Jeffrey: I am Francisco [inaudible 00:39:23] from the Netherlands. I don't know. It doesn't look like that much like me. Maybe a little. He looks shifty, which maybe is the closest thing.
Larry: You're right, you're right. In any event, Laura, what did you?
Laura: I tried a couple of different poses with my head and always got different results. Some of them were quite disturbing.
Larry: Well, you're telling me. Want to see mine? I'll do mine right now for you.
Laura: One of, I had a 54% match with David, with the head of Goliath.
Larry: No.
Laura: That one.
Larry: Really?
Laura: Very unexpected.
Jeffrey: That's a very close up picture of you. Very mug shotesque.
Laura: I had one of an abstract art woman and another one with a very colonial looking man who had a stove pipe hat.
Jeffrey: Buckles on your shoes.
Laura: Yes I think they have a little ways to go for actually matching.
Larry: Well this is quite incredible. Look at this one.
Laura: What?
Graham Boyd: Nice.
Larry: That is Colonel TE Lawrence from Lawrence of Arabia who I'm actually named after. My mother.
Laura: Really?
Jeffrey: Now I'm happy.
Larry: Now I'm happy. Eleanor Roosevelt, boo. Boo.
Jeffrey: He looked more like Eleanor Roosevelt.
Graham Boyd: I think the headphones have confused it.
Larry: Oh stop it.
Graham Boyd: Not so sure about that one.
Larry: Maybe.
Graham Boyd: What's that noise.
Larry: Maybe. Jeff's being kind, I can tell. Anyway, you can download that and it's interesting to see what you may or may not look like. Eleanor Roosevelt.
Graham Boyd: I'm going to be Wikipediaing Isaac Crosby Trot.
Larry: Yes.
Graham Boyd: Today.
Larry: In fact we are going to put that as the special guest in the show notes for this week. Instead of Graham Boyd.
Graham Boyd: Spinning in his grave right now.
Larry: How did we get on that? I have news, let's talk about news shall we?
Jeffrey: We don't normally talk more about what we're playing and what games are coming out and about things, but there's news of a person this week and that is a new corporate vice president of Microsoft studios. Matt Booty.
Larry: Matt Booty, yeah.
Jeffrey: This is someone we should have on the show.
Larry: I've actually, Matt will come on the show. I reached out to him earlier in the week and he said, I've known him for a long time and he's like, "Yeah, I'll come on, when I have something to talk about." He just doesn't want to come on and, but he's really interesting. I got a lot of stories about him.
Jeffrey: He comes over from the Minecraft team and oh you heard it there. Once we have more to talk about, he'll come on.
Larry: He was on Midway. He's got quite the pedigree.
Jeffrey: Yeah I was talking with Craig Duncan from Rare and apparently he was Craig's boss back at Midway.
Larry: Oh really?
Jeffrey: He's like, "Oh, I'm reporting to him again."
Larry: That's fun. That's the games industry.
Jeffrey: Yeah, exactly.
Graham Boyd: Congratulations.
Jeffrey: So back to the stuff we're playing and we'll just go from stuff that's available now or new things that are coming out now through I guess, next week actually. So there's actually a beta, a lot of beta's in the next week or so. One for Metal Gear Survive and this is a co-op type of game. You're going to try out the co-op mode and it's going from the 18th to the 21st of January and you can just go to MajorNelson.com and find the download and you can just go ahead and start playing that.
Another game that was just announced, actually we're going to go to another game had actually just come out. That is Full Metal Fury. This is a game we talked about a little bit last week and that is going to be an Xbox play anywhere game. It looks pretty cool and as they were saying, it's a game that when you beat it you only just start to see the beginning. Sort of like, number of other games where you gotta beat multiple times to really see everything that's coming out. It's a fun game that you can play with multiple players in couch setting. Sort of a beat em up. I had a lot of fun playing this at game, not games con, at GDC last year. So definitely looking forward to that.
Some big announcements on Xbox Game Pass. Some really good titles have come to the collection. I've already downloaded a bunch of these. NBA 2K17 and WWE 2K17. I believe 16 might have been, for NBA at least, had been there previously so now you have newer stuff to do. Halo Wars Two.
Graham Boyd: Nice.
Jeffrey: Has dropped the collection. I know at one point we were talking about over a 100 games. Now we're up to 150 games for one low price. Dark Siders Two, the Remasters, Dark Siders One, the War Mastered edition was already and is still in the service in Xbox Game Pass. Now if you had beaten that, Dark Siders two the remastered version is in there and ready to go. Rhyme, which came out over the summer and a number of other titles. Anyway, just there's a ton to play and there's more all the time. I would say this has really been, one of the better months in terms of more stuff getting added and don't forget there is, you can play free. There is a trial for 14 days if you don't already have Xbox Game Pass. Find more details on news.xbox.com and of course, majornelson.com.
Larry: We gave away some free one year passes last week on the show.
Laura: We did.
Larry: Didn't we? Phil gave some away.
Laura: I gave one away.
Larry: You gave one away.
Laura: They all ended in Z.
Larry: They all ended in zebra.
Laura: Zulu.
Larry: Zulu.
Graham Boyd: I did enjoy you reading them out in, what were you calling it?
Larry: NATO.
Laura: NATO.
Larry: It's the NATO.
Jeffrey: People were correcting you on that, we just let that go.
Larry: That's fine.
Graham Boyd: On every single [crosstalk 00:44:52].
Laura: It's hard to remember.
Graham Boyd: You were doing really well. This is what I always do. When I'm on the phone to customer service, somewhere or wherever and you're like-
Larry: Trying to read something off.
Graham Boyd: ... how do you spell your name? So I very confidently start doing it in phonetic alphabet.
Larry: B as in boy.
Graham Boyd: Golf, Romeo and then you get to the point where M is always the one I forget right.
Larry: What is it? Is it Mary?
Jeffrey: Mike.
Larry: Mike.
Graham Boyd: Mother is used sometimes as well, right? You get to that point where you're talking very confidently and you're like, I can't remember what M is. It's okay, I've got an M, fine. Next. You were there the whole way through.
Larry: I did the same thing with my last name because they can't pronounce it or spell it. So I'm like hotel, romeo, yankee, bravo. There's always dead silence.
Jeffrey: I get it.
Larry: I like foxtrot.
Jeffrey: Always a fun one.
Larry: That's a fun one. Hotel.
Jeffrey: Hotel.
Graham Boyd: Bravo would just.
Jeffrey: Zulu. Whiskey. Anyway.
Larry: The NATO alphabet. You should put a link into the NATO alphabet Wikipedia page so people know what we're talking about.
Jeffrey: I'll put a link to that.
Just announced this week Assassins Creed Rogue remastered is going to be coming to Xbox One on March 20th and it will indeed be enhanced for Xbox One. [inaudible 00:45:58] post up on that on Xbox wired where you can take a look. We finally have a date now for Age of Empires definitive edition. We don't have too much longer to wait, about a month. It will be out on February 20th and that one, we've been waiting for this one for a little bit.
Graham Boyd: Definitely, yeah.
Jeffrey: That's going to be coming to Windows 10PCs for $19.99.
Graham Boyd: Bargain.
Jeffrey: That was a lot of peoples first RT.
Graham Boyd: We did the Age of Empire's event at Games Con last year. We had [inaudible 00:46:30]Vampires Four and talked about definitive edition two and three definitive editions as well. That event was nuts.
Larry: I missed that. I watched it because I was busy. That looked like a lot of fun.
Graham Boyd: It was like 300 Age fans, 400 Age fans in the room and the atmosphere was incredible. There was people in the room who Age is the only game they've really ever played, but they love it so, so, so much. They traveled to be at Games Con. The nostalgia, the lover in that game's amazing. So yeah, great to have a date, Feb 20th.
Jeffrey: So [inaudible 00:47:05] Champion of the Realms, this is a game that is by, who are the folks that did, the big moba, they did Smite. It's the team from Smite.
Graham Boyd: High Res is it?
Jeffrey: Yeah, High Res and it seems to be that if you're a fan of Overwatch of which, we are, it seems to be very much in that vein with very colorful and very different type of characters and that team is High Res studios. So, that, the X edition bundle is now available for Xbox One.
Another game that came out this week that looks really interesting and maybe I'm going to have to give it a go was Innerspace. It looks really pretty. Looks like a very calm, relaxing idea-
Larry: Perhaps even tea worthy.
Jeffrey: Perhaps.
Graham Boyd: We could do a new segment of [crosstalk 00:47:50] reviews.
Jeffrey: This title is tea approved.
Graham Boyd: Two teas out of five.
Jeffrey: Seems like you pilot different-
Graham Boyd: Made of teabags.
Larry: Leaves.
Jeffrey: We'll have to see. Next week I'll let you know which tea works. It might be a chai game. Feel like it might be a chai game.
Two big games coming out. In about a week, week from tomorrow, depending on when you're listening to this. On the same day, January 26th Monster Hunter World and Dragon Ball Fighterz, with a z, both coming to Xbox One and both of them, pretty darn good.
Graham Boyd: I've never played a Monster Hunter Game so I'm excited for World. Think I'll give that a shot.
Jeffrey: I watched a translation of an in depth, when they revealed the last trailer and some game play and stuff, and it looks really interesting.
Graham Boyd: First time it's been on an Xbox that series.
Jeffrey: First one I can remember.
Larry: Good question. We'll have to internet fact check that please.
Jeffrey: I'll take a look. That's coming out next week.
Larry: Those are the headlines. A lot going on this week as always. We're looking forward to getting back into the video studio. Do the video show, because last week we, the last couple shows we've done Laura, we've done Name the Game, but in a different way. We've shown the video clip to make it even easier.
Laura: To make it significantly easier for those that tune in, watch it in the video form. We don't exclude anybody who is listening in the audio form or normal listeners who also get a chance to play Name the Game, but of course, if you want an extra hint you can watch the video.
Larry: You can go watch the video on demand and go, maybe I need a clue, but not this week. Let's award the prize for last week.
Laura: Okay, let's do Name the Game from last week.
Larry: You have all the information in front of you right?
Laura: I do have all the information, but we need to role the sound effects from last week.
Speaker 5: I need healing.
Laura: So that was the Name of the Game from last week and the game was, the Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing Three.
Larry: Which? It's a game with golds title this month.
Laura: It is a game of golds title so if you want to try this out for yourself. Go ahead and download it. If you're a gold member, it will be free.
Larry: It's incredible adventures Jeff.
Laura: The incredible adventures.
Jeffrey: The mundane adventures. We don't think about that.
Larry: Van Helsing does laundry.
Graham Boyd: You can say he's really raised the stakes.
Larry: Yes, yes.
Laura: Back to Name the Game.
Larry: Just leaving him hanging there.
Jeffrey: Oh, is that what that was.
Laura: The high five.
Graham Boyd: Not video this week.
Laura: Get back to Name the Game guys.
Larry: Sorry, sorry. We have a winner. A lot of people who correctly identified it, but only one of you gets to be a winner.
Laura: That's correct. We take all the correct guesses and then we choose a random winner and this week the winner is Shaun from Maryland.
Larry: Did you say Mary-land. It's Maryland.
Laura: Says you from the East coast.
Larry: Maryland.
Jeffrey: Is that what you called it in Texas?
Laura: Mary-land. Yeah. Is that surprising? Have you not heard that before?
Jeffrey: We called it growing up, Or-e-gon and that's not, now that I'm on the West coast, I said that exactly once before getting laughed and shamed.
Laura: Oh no.
Larry: I think there was a class in Syracuse, one of our broadcasting classes where my radio teacher made us pronounce all of the states and the capitals and the regions so that we would have very non distinct, non regional dialects. So, anyway.
Laura: Well I haven't taken that training.
Larry: Mary-land.
Laura: I still have the southern accent.
Larry: Meanwhile in Mary-land.
Laura: So Shaun, who's gamer tag is MJCaboose91, congratulations on winning. We have a lot of prizes for you. I was able to dig around Larry's office.
Larry: What do we got? What do we have?
Laura: Find a basket of games.
Larry: Basket o'games.
Laura: To give to you Shaun, but first I'm going to give you over 150, sounds like, games that you can go try on Xbox Game Pass for three months. So I've got an Xbox Game Pass [crosstalk 00:52:10].
Larry: All you can eat.
Laura: The basket of games that I found was a big bundle of ID8 Xbox titles.
Larry: For some reason when you say basket of games, I just have this mental image of you arranging him a nice basket with some crepe paper and a little bow on the top.
Graham Boyd: Nice wicker hamper.
Larry: Right? You're just painting such a wonderful picture Laura.
Graham Boyd: Preserves in there or something?
Laura: Exactly.
Graham Boyd: Crackers.
Laura: Maybe popcorn. Sorry I don't have popcorn for you Shaun. Probably. Just want the games, that's okay because all I got are games here. We have a copy of the ID Xbox game Full Metal Furies. The copy of 2064 read only memories.
Larry: RAM.
Laura: A copy of the, exactly, a copy of the Aquatic Adventure of the Last Human.
Larry: We need the Aquatic Adventures of Van Helsing.
Jeffrey: You obviously haven't played all the way through.
Laura: That's not all Shaun. I also have a copy of the Vanishing of Ethan Carter, which I'm excited to go try out. It came out recently. I have a copy of a game called Vesta, a game called Beholder, Innerspace, which is what we were chatting about earlier. That gorgeous game.
Jeffrey: I should have won. I should have played.
Laura: T worthy game. And that's not all. I also have a copy of Fortnight Founders Pack.
Jeffrey: Nice.
Laura: Exactly. So if you want to get into some Fortnight, I got you covered.
Larry: All I can think of when I hear Innerspace is that movie from the eighties.
Jeffrey: Martin Short.
Larry: He gets shrunk down. Was that Martin Short?
Laura: Innerspace. It was called Innerspace.
Larry: Was it Martin Short? Dennis Quaid.
Jeffrey: Dennis Quaid.
Larry: Meg Ryan. I'm looking at it right now. I just looked it up.
Graham Boyd: Great movie.
Jeffrey: Was Martin Short in there? I just made it up.
Larry: It got him an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. All right, anyway congratulations.
Laura: Exactly. Congratulations Shaun. You've got a lot of games to go try out. Thank you very much for playing. Should we do a Name the Game for this week?
Larry: I think we should do a Name the Game for this week. You ready?
Laura: I am ready. Let's roll the sound effects for this week.
So that was Name the Game for this week. It's really simple to enter. All you have to do is listen to the sound effects and guess what game that is. Send us an email. You can send me an email, lollipops@xbox.com and cc Major@xbox.com.
Larry: Now it's a little different this week because we're going old school. You only have the audio. No visuals. So you gotta figure that out. Listen carefully. One entry per person please. More than one entry all of them disqualified.
Laura: Not exactly. Send us an email.
Larry: All those entries go.
Jeffrey: Unless you're from Mary-land.
Larry: Unless you're from Mary-land. Mary land.
Jeffrey: Isn't Maryland named after Mary Queen of Scots.
Graham Boyd: Yes. It is the land of Mary.
Laura: Good luck to all you Name the Gamers out there. We don't take entries over Twitter so please send me an email.
Larry: You can certainly do that but [crosstalk 00:55:36].
Jeffrey: You're just not going to win.
Laura: You're not going to win if you send them to me on Twitter. Send it to me on email.
Larry: Now Mary land. If you're from Mary land, but maybe you're even from Blizzard World. There's all these lands.
Jeffrey: I don't know where you're going with this.
Larry: I don't know where I'm going either. So let's, beep, beep, beep. Back up. Thanks Laura.
Laura: You're welcome.
Larry: What else do we have this week before we wrap this lovely show up Jeffrey? Do you have anything you want to add?
Jeffrey: No, I've contributed far too little.
Larry: Really?
Laura: I am wondering ...
Larry: Yes, dear. Yes, yes, yes Laura.
Laura: I think I saw this announcement from Nintendo.
Larry: The cardboard announcement. You want to go over that?
Graham Boyd: You sound so excited.
Laura: You sound excited.
Jeffrey: You may not be the target market.
Larry: I looked at it and I was like, I'm paying what for cardboard?
Laura: I hadn't looked at the prices of any of these things.
Larry: Go ahead.
Laura: We all have switches in the room. Do you have a switch?
Graham Boyd: I do.
Laura: So we all have Nintendo Switches.
Larry: But have you finished Zelda?
Graham Boyd: You know what, I haven't had the chance.
Laura: Laura?
Graham Boyd: My son has completely stolen it.
Laura: I have not finished Zelda no.
Larry: Jeffrey?
Laura: I started it.
Jeffrey: Not yet.
Larry: I started it after you did. Remember that fateful flight.
Jeffrey: I sunk in probably like 80 hours into it.
Larry: Cross country.
Jeffrey: I just haven't finished it yet.
Larry: I was sitting in the middle seat and you were so irritated with me.
Jeffrey: I don't like airplanes.
Larry: You were so irritated.
Jeffrey: It was so frustrating to watch.
Larry: The link dying simulators.
Graham Boyd: Fin finished Super Mario Odyssey like two days ago.
Larry: Also good.
Graham Boyd: After about two weeks.
Larry: I'm sorry Laura you're talking about Nintendo cardboard. What's the name of it?
Laura: So maybe I need your pronunciation skills, but it looks like Nintendo Lavo.
Larry: I don't know what it is either because all I can think of is Gabo.
Jeffrey: For someone who doesn't like clowns. I guess puppets probably fall in the same thing.
Laura: Anyway, they announced it recently. Nintendo Lavo, we'll just call it Lavo. I don't know if that's how you pronounce it. It is a series of build it yourself experiences. So it looks like they ship you a flat piece of cardboard and you build a contraption to put your Switch into to help you play a game or play an experience. So the examples they showed on some of their videos was building a 13 key piano out of cardboard and putting a Switch into it and then you can play the keys that are made of cardboard and magic happens and it actually plays the piano, which is pretty cool.
Larry: Magic happens.
Laura: I know. Magic happens. Somehow.
Larry: Step one cardboard, step two question marks, step three, profit.
Jeffrey: I think it's just one and two. It's just cardboard and profit.
Laura: So there are some that have the joycon controller separately then. The Switch tablet screen itself where I saw a remote control robot that would pilot the joycon control around.
Jeffrey: A fishing game.
Laura: You can construct a fishing rod out of cardboard.
Graham Boyd: Did you see the one it was just a little cardboard cutout of a man and you put one of the joycons on his back and the game appears to be to make him face plant.
Laura: Oh yeah.
Graham Boyd: I'll say interesting.
Larry: This was referred to as one of the most Nintendo things ever. They always come up with interesting things and I will say this, I can't speak to this, but maybe you guys can. Jeff and Graham is that, kids nowadays, they spend so much of their time with their faces in their devices. So the fact that the Nintendo is doing something to get people to be creative and build and what not is really cool.
Laura: That's what I liked a lot about it. The creativity aspect of it. Where instead of it being just a traditional controller and screen that your kids bury their faces into. This is now bringing it back into the world to something a bit more realistic, a bit more human if you will, you're now playing with things and building things. Just the creativity of it. They're able to extend that platform into now 3D things like a robot where I actually think is really creative.
Jeffrey: I don't know if they gave us a date on that.
Laura: It looks like, I'm looking at an article here.
Graham Boyd: You can pre order the packs now. There's two packs available.
Laura: April 20th in North America and April 27th in Europe.
Larry: Delightful.
Graham Boyd: I want to show it to Fin. He hasn't seen the video yet. I'm really interested to see what his response to it will be because he plays a lot of Switch. He's seven and a half years old. So I think it will be a good read on what he takes. The rumor I'd heard was that it was going to be a Lego style [inaudible 00:59:55] build your own things and then have an interactive and I was really excited about that. I thought that sounds really cool and I could sort of see the connections from what they've done with [inaudible 01:00:04] and then they've got some [inaudible 01:00:05] that they've had over the past few months as well. I was buzzing. I was a little bit, when I saw the video, was a bit like, okay. You know, let's see.
The one thing that concerns me about kid though as well, particularly there is one pack is like a robot pack which looks really cool.
Jeffrey: You put it on right?
Graham Boyd: You put it on. It's a backpack and it seems to have string.
Laura: Here's a picture of it.
Larry: What did you guys, when you were growing up what did you have to play with? I remember I had an erector set.
Graham Boyd: Excuse me.
Larry: It was called an erector set.
Graham Boyd: Okay. What did you do with that?
Larry: I played with it with my jumper.
Jeffrey: It was Legos that were made out of steel.
Laura: Metal.
Graham Boyd: Like Mechanco. I think we called it Mechano.
Larry: It was interesting though, it was steel with little nuts and bolts. Things that would never get away today because people swallow them. Back then, there was a little more self, you had to take care of yourself and figure it out. What did you have Laura growing up? Did you have Legos Laura?
Laura: I did have Legos. I played with blocks, a lot of blocks and I had Barbies as well. Little Barbie houses that we would make with Barbies. I didn't have anything cool.
Larry: You had the Barbie bus and all that stuff.
Laura: No. I had a Barbie mansion. It was pretty sweet.
Larry: She has one. That's Dallas like.
Laura: I didn't get my first console until the Sega Genesis when I was a bit of an older kid.
Larry: Right.
Laura: We had to play with things and Legos and blocks and stuff, which I think was really beneficial actually.
Jeffrey: It was surprising to find out that I had got an Atari when I was five and never really looked back.
Larry: We had one too, we had one too.
Jeffrey: I remember the day my grandparents brought it in and they were like, "Here you go" and figuring out what it was.
Larry: You know people aren't going to know, people don't know today Jeffrey the struggle. Channel 3 or Channel 4?
Jeffrey: It's true.
Larry: With the RF switch. I don't know.
Graham Boyd: The one program you want to watch all week is on and your Mom calls you for tea.
Larry: Right.
Graham Boyd: You've got no DVR, you can't find a VHS tape, you've missed your chance you're never going to see it again. Ever.
Jeffrey: Everybody tomorrow at school's going to talk about it.
Larry: How olds Fin?
Graham Boyd: Seven.
Jeffrey: Did you have to have the same conversation I had to have, which is explaining to my kid that something on TV was live and no, I couldn't watch it later or couldn't skip the commercials. I was like, yeah, yeah. They have no concept.
Graham Boyd: They can't even imagine what that's like. I'm bored of talking to him about it because it's just like, he doesn't get it.
Jeffrey: Now sports helped, but he's like let's skip the commercials here, what are we doing? I'm like, we're watching this live. No one has ever seen this thing before, this episode or whatever it was.
Graham Boyd: Unbelievable.
Jeffrey: That was a concept.
Larry: I'm sorry I don't know how we, anyway thank you for that wrap up Laura. The Nintendo stuff. Interesting news this week.
Graham Boyd: Just a little thing on toys. There's a show on Netflix called The Toys that [crosstalk 01:03:12]
Larry: Oh I've seen it.
Graham Boyd: So good.
Larry: Yeah, I've seen it.
Graham Boyd: There's four episodes I think. There's a Barbie one.
Larry: There's a Barbie one.
Graham Boyd: He-Man, Star Wars and GI Joe and they are phenomenal. Really nicely handled. Like really in depth documentary's about the making of those toys, and the history, and the market and how they sold an then how they eventually flopped as well. I guess Barbie's still going strong. It's really nicely handled. It's funny. [crosstalk 01:03:38]
Larry: Especially the Star Wars one and the story of them. It's must watch.
Graham Boyd: It's really emotional at the end as well.
Larry: For those of us who are a little older, we grew up with those things and we never really knew. They were just toys. Now we know the story and the people that designed them. Fascinating.
Graham Boyd: If you're a child of the eighties like me-
Larry: Of the child of seventies like me.
Graham Boyd: ... there you go.
Larry: Or the nineties like Laura.
Jeffrey: We should do a Laura reacts. One thing I actually just hit around-
Graham Boyd: Child of the fifties, Jeff. He had a hoop and a stick.
Larry: And a shotgun.
Jeffrey: Now it got turned on me. Anyway.
Graham Boyd: A shotgun did you say? My gosh.
Jeffrey: We had cap guns.
Larry: I did too.
Jeffrey: They did not have an orange tip. So right before we started recording here the tomb raider movie, the second trailer just dropped with Alicia Vikander as Lara. It looked really good. It looks like this movie very closely seems to be very similar to the Tomb Raider reboot from 2013, which is fantastic game. If you like that, this looks like definitely the first trailer was, eh, this one is good. Plus it has a redo of Survivor by Destiny's Child. So, yeah, it works.
Graham Boyd: Cool. I need to catch up on that.
Jeffrey: You should. Two minutes and 24 seconds. I'll link to it out in the show notes.
Graham Boyd: How are you feeling about Ready Player One?
Jeffrey: All right. So I read the book like three years ago. When we came back, when we were in the desert.
Larry: That started this whole thing.
Jeffrey: Yeah. The book had already been out at that point.
Larry: That started the whole movie thing. That's right. Do you know the story?
Graham Boyd: No, I don't think so.
Larry: When Jeff and I went out to the desert.
Jeffrey: To uncover ET.
Larry: To uncover ET and the stench, Ernie Cline shows up in his delorean.
Jeffrey: Not his delorean. In George R.R Martin's delorean.
Larry: With the doors up. Do you remember? You and I were standing together, we heard this racket. I was like what the hell is that? Here he comes screaming into this landfill.
Jeffrey: The doors were going up blasting the ET theme song.
Larry: He shows up ready. So it was really nice. We had a nice chat with him. He met Zac.
Jeffrey: Zac Pen.
Larry: Zac Pen, the director.
Laura: Of the documentary.
Larry: The ET thing.
Laura: The documentary he was making on ET.
Larry: So that's all great. The documentary comes out. Everything is great. Years later, this past summer when I was in Comic Con, Zac comes up to me and puts his arms around, "It's great to see you again. We had such a great time. It was such a great thing. I want to thank you." What are you talking about? He said, "Because of that event, which Microsoft helped bring to the public" he had met Ernie Cline and when Spielberg came and wanted to do the movie, Ernie said, "I want Zac to write it" because they had met up there. So it was this bizarre.
Graham Boyd: A kickback.
Larry: You're telling me. Something. I was like, I got a little excited when he told me. Really? I'm still a nerd at heart. I'm really excited. I haven't watched that much because-
Jeffrey: Almost none.
Laura: Zero of any of the trailers. I'm trying to avoid it.
Jeffrey: I read the book a few years ago and I enjoyed it. I wasn't like, literature, but it was a fun read. I feel like there's a been a huge backlash that I don't understand. I'm from the camp of, if you don't like it, but other people like it, let them like it. Why do you care? I don't know. People take things a little too personally I think with pop culture. Star Wars being another one. Whatever. I'm going to see the movie.
Graham Boyd: Me too. I'm a fan.
Laura: Either way, right?
Graham Boyd: I read the book after there was news about the movie. I think after the first trailer as well. I sort of thought, I should catch up on this. I enjoyed it, but as I was reading it, I was thinking, if they do this movie right this could be phenomenal.
Larry: So we'll see. I'm going to try to email them and see if I can get us a screening to go see it before it comes out if you guys want to see it.
Jeffrey: Finally using your powers for good.
Larry: Stop it. Anyway, we got to wrap up the show because we got to let folks go here. You all have to get back to work. I need to get back to work. Did I just do a y'all?
Laura: I think you did.
Larry: Oh wow, sorry about that Laura.
Jeffrey: Take it back.
Larry: You all need to get back to Mary land. So, listen Graham, thank you for coming by.
Graham Boyd: My pleasure, thank you.
Larry: It's always good to see you. Maybe you're join us on a future show when we do it on the TV.
Graham Boyd: I would love to. I will change my shirt, have a shave, make sure I dress up accordingly.
Larry: Well, whatever you do is great.
Graham Boyd: Actually, I might do cosplay as my Google dude Trot.
Larry: Do that. Joining us today, special guest, we need to find out what his story his. I'll look him up. Laura thank you for joining us.
Laura: Thank you.
Larry: Of course Jeff. You can find everybody on Twitter. Jeff why don't you tell where they can find you. If you have any suggestions or complaints you can send them to ...
Jeffrey: The complaint desk @jeffrubenstein.
Larry: You can find Laura at ...
Laura: You can find me on Twitter @lauralollipop.
Larry: Graham.
Graham Boyd: On Twitter and Instagram @acbongs.
Larry: Of course I'm also on all those things as majornelson as well. All right gang, we'll talk to you next time and thank you for listening. Bye bye everybody.
Graham Boyd: See you later.

Larry: Thank you. All right, welcome to the show. My name is Larry Hyrb, Xbox Live's Major Nelson. How was that for an opening? Really excited you could join us, we have a new outlet, we have of course, Mixer, mixer.com/majornelson. We are on Twitch, the lovely folks over there on Twitch are carrying us now, and now, Facebook! Welcome everybody.
Anyway, welcome to see you guys, why don't we open up and show everybody. Of course, we have the great hosts here, I have Laura and Jeff. Now, listen, we are not stable geniuses, we are a stable of geniuses, and really smart.
Jeff: I was going to get to that, and you beat me to it!
We need an animation for that. When I hear that HBO music from way back in the day, it reminds me that one, I'm doing something I shouldn't be doing, which is watching HBO, I was like six and it was bad stuff-
Larry: Now, question: were you watching it with a full screen, or were you watching it when it was squiggly? Did you pay for it? Remember [crosstalk 00:01:11]-
Laura: I remember that! Oh, I sure do.
Jeff: It was on a TV that had wood on it.
Larry: Woo! What a show we've got for you!
Anyway, well, welcome back! We haven't been on the air in month, we've been traveling, we've had the holiday. Last show we did was right here on Mixer and we had so much fun. I know you had fun, Laura.
Laura: It was a ton of fun!
Larry: And everybody here had fun, and of course, you at home had fun, so we said, "We're going to do it again!"
Laura: Yeah, let's give it a try again.
Larry: And here we are.
Jeff, what are you reading? You're not reading the chatroom are you?
Jeff: I am reading the chatroom [CornWolf 00:01:36] says, "Jeff doesn't really sound like he looks." Well what do I look like?
Larry: Some people said that you don't sound like you look. "You sound smarter than you look," was one of the quotes I read.
Laura: What? That's mean.
Jeff: Okay. I don't know that I sound smart. I certainly don't look smart, so I don't know if it's a compliment or not.
[CornWolf 00:01:53], please elaborate, I need this.
Larry: Anyway, well, welcome to the show. We're going to talk about what we're playing, we're going to do Name the Game; we had a great Name the Game from last time. We're giving stuff away. If you're watching us anywhere else, if you're watching us on Facebook or Twitch, you might want to swing over to mixer.com/majornelson because we're going to give stuff away in the chat. We're also going to give some stuff away here, so you can double your chances.
Look at this! I have 12 months of Game Pass to give away.
Laura: You do? That's a fantastic gift!
Larry: Should we give it away now?
Laura: I think we should, what do you think?
Jeff: Right to the giveaways!
Larry: Right to the giveaways!
Okay, it's a code on the back, here. You can't read it because I'm going to read it to you in NATO format: Romeo, Tango, Hotel, Seven, Tango, Seven, Four, Three, Tango, Charlie, Papa, Hotel ... What's M? Mike. Mike, Kilo, Three, Four, Nine, X as in X-ray, Three, Mother, Juliet, Four, Two.
Jeff: Is that a sneak peak of Call of Duty DLC?
Larry: There's one more. I've held off for this very last one so long. I'll let you come up with one for the last character.
Laura: Well, I know the NATO pronunciations, I-
Larry: Right, good! Whatever you want to do it!
Laura: Okay, it's Zulu!
Larry: Okay, there you go. So that is one.
Laura: I think you should have practiced your NATO before we did this.
Larry: You know, I try it all the time and-
Jeff: I have no idea what that is, nobody's going to get that.
Larry: We actually have someone on the staff, as you know, who is a NATO expert. He's been in the military, and he talks NATO and he always just shakes his head when I try to do this, so, I'm sorry.
Anyway, we're going to talk about what we're playing, we're going to do Name the Game, we're going to go over some gadgets, we're going go to talk about our holiday, hopefully y'all had a great holiday. And then we may, I don't know because scheduling's kind of tough, we may have a special guest come by. I don't actually know if this person will come by?
Laura: Secret special guest!
Jeff: Well, he said maybe. Let's not raise the hopes.
Larry: Yeah, maybe. We'll deal with that towards the show.
We're going to hang out with you for an hour, we'll have our eye on the chatroom at mixer.com/majornelson, so feel free to drop some questions in there. Keep it civil, please! Do I have to say that anymore?
Laura: I think you do.
Jeff: That's what the [inaudible 00:03:55] are for.
Larry: Yeah, exactly.
And away we go! What are you playing, Laura? Let's just get right to it.
Laura: Right into it. Right into what you're playing.
So it's been ... how long has it been? About a month since we've been-?
Jeff: Almost exactly.
Larry: I just said that at the top of the show!
Jeff: Larry, we don't listen!
Larry: I know, I know!
Jeff: It took this format for you to realize.
Larry: Can we bring up the console up here? This is my dashboard.
So, I think you're playing this game in just a bit, alright? One of the moment the guys bring it up here.
Laura: Drum roll, please!
Larry: Drum roll, please!
Jeff: The crew loves it when he directs from the stage.
Larry: I guess it's not going to go up, there it is!
Laura: There it is!
Larry: Are you playing PUBG? You're playing PUBG.
Laura: I am.
Larry: Yeah, do you want to tell your PUBG story?
Laura: Yes, I do.
Larry: Please, please, go ahead.
Laura: So, it's been a couple weeks since we've had PUBG on Xbox, it's been great! I've had a chance to jump in and play some single player. And I did pretty well on single player. I'd say greater than 50%, which I think is a win.
Larry: Not bad.
Laura: Not bad. Not bad for your first couple of rounds. And I saw, one night when I was playing, that Larry was online and he was playing PUBG-
Jeff: Like he does, literally every night.
Laura: Like he does, all the time. And I sent him a text and said, "Hey Larry, can I join? I'd love to play as a group!" and what did Larry say? "No, sorry, group's full!" Off you go!
Larry: And by the way, I want to point out that this is probably the first time in five years that Laura's asked to play with me.
Laura: Well, that's a bit of an exaggeration.
Larry: It's sure feels like that!
Laura: It's an exaggeration.
Larry: It sure feels like that.
Laura: But I figured that the time that I would actually text you to say, "Hey, I'm free. Let's actually do this, let's play!" you're like, "No, sorry, I've got a crew. And I'm going to bed, so, off you go."
Jeff: Here's what I've noticed about Larry is, he'll get very absorbed in a particular game, and he did this with Overwatch. And we'll say, "Hey, let's all meet up, let's play at 9," and then I get on at 9:00, 9:01, 9:15, and you're already gone! You've already taken off, you've got a full group with a bunch of other people-
Larry: Well, let's be clear, that gets back to, and we've talked about this, it drives me crazy when people aren't on time.
Laura: That's true. You're very punctual.
Larry: And you guys know that it's my broadcast, but it's like, "Okay, 9 o'clock means 9 clock." It doesn't mean 9:01, it doesn't mean 9:15.
Jeff: So says the guy who started the show at 1:05-
Larry: That started the show five minutes after 1:00.
Jeff: "Cause I wanted to make sure people were joining us." You really stepped in it this time!
Larry: Yeah, I did. I set you up. But, guilty as charged! So I owe Laura-
Laura: Next time, Larry.
Larry: Well why don't we get me, you, Jeff, and we'll get somebody from our team. I think I got this guy a great ringer. And we'll talk about that when we get to ROM play.
Laura: So, I had to join into PUBG on my own. I wanted to try teams because teams is a different mechanic that single.
Larry: They're very different mechanics.
Laura: So I wanted to try teams. So I jumped in-
Larry: Have you seen this commercial, by the way, that the team-
Laura: I haven't seen this one.
Larry: This is an amazing commercial that our Marketing team did, which just kind of shows - I'm sorry to cut you off but it's just that they're playing it right now - the essence of PUBG which is like, we all get on a plane, we have nothing, and we're all going to jump out of the plane onto this island, and we all have to find stuff.
Laura: And that's how it feels.
Larry: Right?
Laura: You've got nothing and you have to [inaudible 00:06:51] it.
Larry: Right? Have you swiveled the camera to go behind the plane, so you can see everybody in there? You can see all hundred people in there.
Laura: Really? I haven't done that.
Jeff: I've never done that.
Larry: Come down low, and when the hatch opens, you can look in and you can see them all lined up.
Laura: That's kinda cool. And then you can see when people are jumping out. You can maybe time your jump-out when nobody else is jumping out. That's my strategy.
So I jumped into team multiplayer on my own. So I joined up with three other random people.
Larry: So you did a squad.
Laura: I did a squad, yeah. You play with four people on your same team, and you have to go, of course, kill everybody else in the game. And I wanted to be friendly with my team and actually stay with them and play with them, since I had not played it before, and I'm not sure if the other people on my team had ever played the game before.
Larry: Uh-oh.
Laura: Because we were hanging out in a house, looking for all of our equipment-
Larry: You're scavenging.
Laura: Yeah, scavenging. Trying to get everybody with a good quality gun and some ammo and some armor. Then I notice the timer keeps saying, "Hey, one minute till the ring collapses, 30 seconds till the ring collapses." My teammates, now they're just hanging outside the-
Larry: But are you in the circle? Do you have circle advantage, Laura?
Laura: No, we were outside, that's the key point. We were outside of the circle, and I'm starting to panic a bit. And about 10 seconds until the circle collapsed, my teammate starts running, and I'm like, "Okay, finally, we're all going to run together, we're going advance on the frontline together-"
Larry: And if you notice, the map actually will give you a tip; it'll give you a dotted line of which direction to go.
Laura: But I haven't figured out how to zoom out the map and see how far away the line is.
Larry: Down on the deep end.
Jeff: You'll get there.
Larry: I'll help you, I promise.
Laura: Thank you. I had to go in by myself.
Larry: Oh, now I feel bad.
Laura: So I didn't know how far away we were, and I was just trusting my team, that we were going to stay together, that we were going to fight everybody together. And it turns out, we only left about 10 seconds before the circle collapsed, so we took off running in the straight beeline direction that the dotted line shows you to run-
Larry: "Go here!"
Laura: And then all of a sudden, here comes the-
Jeff: The Blue Zone.
Laura: The Blue Zone of death, it's come, it's come, and it overtook us. And I am running as fast as I can, and I am bee lining it, and I'm saying, "Come on, come on, run faster!" And unfortunately, I didn't make it. Neither did my other teammates.
Jeff: We've all had that story before.
Laura: My other teammates didn't make it either, so, come on team.
Jeff: Sometimes you've got to leave them behind.
Laura: So that was really sad.
Larry: Well here's something you need to know, is that the game's in game preview, and since it launched, I think it's had three or four pretty major updates.
Jeff: Indeed, there was a new update just yesterday.
Larry: Do you have the details on that?
Jeff: As a matter of fact, I do.
Laura: Before you bring that up, I want to give out my pro tip which is, even if your teammates aren't leaving when they should, you should leave, otherwise you will die, and it will be all for nought.
Jeff: Or, or, get better teammates.
Laura: Or get better teammates, that too! And I'm looking at you people to help me-
Jeff: I'm not [inaudible 00:09:40].
So Larry's like my mother-in-law in, well probably many ways, but here's the thing, if my gas tank - the rare times that I'm driving her around - is anything less than 3/4, she starts getting nervous. She's like, "There's a gas station there," and I'm like, "Yep!"
Larry: She's going to be even worse about it now that you have an electric car!
Jeff: She's not been in it. A Bolt, big fan.
So Larry's like, "Time's ticking down, gentlemen! Time's ticking, we should get going, right?" And it's like, "Oh, we've got plenty of time!"
Larry: I'm actually going to play the game live on the air here, while we're doing the game, so I can show you some of the things we're talking about.
Jeff: I knew you were going to do that. He's tuning us out.
Larry: No, I'm listening.
Jeff: So let's talk about the PUBG Xbox game preview, Patch Notes. It's the fourth update, and so a couple new features that have come into this, as you can see there-
Larry: They're right on the screen!
Jeff: Right, so, "Aim acceleration can now be adjusted by players by in-game option." Definitely recommend tweaking this to find the feel that is going to work for you.
This is a big one, maybe the biggest one out of all of these, which is "Player weapon damage has been increased against vehicles," something that we see towards the end of matches a lot of times-
Larry: People just driving around in a circle.
Jeff: Folks are in cars and you get a bit of a Mad Max type of thing.
Larry: That's the car meta game.
Jeff: Yes. So-
Laura: I've been around the cars, it's really interesting.
Jeff: So anyway, this makes it more likely that you're going to be able to mess that car as someone who's not in a vehicle-
Larry: So I'm actually going to start here in just a minute, we'll bring this full screen. I'll show you what I'm talking about where you can look in the back there, then you can continue with the notes. I don't know if we can flip those around there, have the studio ... So there's the plane. It may be too dark to see them, but you can actually see everybody in there. I think on this monitor, I don't know how it's coming through, if we could go full screen-
Jeff: Maybe the sun is on a different plane there.
Larry: Let's see [inaudible 00:11:22], we'll just ... ready? Can you see? I don't think you can see.
Laura: So what is your strategy for jumping out of the plane?
Larry: It depends where ... apparently the peanut gallery is talking now.
It depends where I'm coming in from. So I will go, here's what I do-
Laura: Do you go exactly for the center or do you go-?
Larry: No, I got off the plane tip. So I usually drop a marker down here like this and then I'll wait till it lines up on the plane tip, you can see it coming along on the plane tip at the top. Once that gets roughly where it is, I will hit B and then I'll basically spin it around. And I will do this, this will get you the most distance if you're looking up under yourself here.
Jeff: And this is by pushing the left stick forward?
Larry: Pushing the left stick forward. Then I'll drop and hit the ground. So while I do that, you can see I hit back for the menu, you can hit up on the D-pad, see?
Laura: You can zoom in and out. Yeah, thank you! Pro tips.
Jeff: Anyway, so a few other things. There's now a first-person perspective solo matchmaking queue made available for a few of the regions and they're going to be opening other modes in those regions as concurrency allows as well.
There is a couple of, I would say, typical bug fixes that you would see. On the server and client-side, some increases in FPS and a music on-off option has been added. This is already the fourth update and this game has only been out less than a month, so I think we're going to continue to see-
Larry: Yeah, I want to point out the updates that you just talked about. With the aim, you can actually hit those by hitting the menu button and then if you hold the menu button down again, you'll see them in here under Settings.
So here, you can see Sound at the top, and then down here at the bottom, we've got Aim Acceleration.
Let's turn that up to ten. So, there you go.
Alright, let's get back to the show.
Jeff: Forgot to check in for-
Larry: If you didn't tune us to see us play games, you're-
Jeff: They're on Mixer, they're here to watch people play games. It's a fair bet.
Larry: Okay, fair point.
Alright, so anyways. Continue on with what you're playing.
Laura: Oh, okay. Was that all the updates that we needed to cover?
Jeff: Oh yeah, just for that, go for it!
Laura: So another game that I jumped into, which I don't know if you guys had a chance to play yet, but it is Dungeon Defenders II. Did you guys get a chance to play Dungeon Defenders I or hear about it?
Larry: I did play the first one, quite a while ago. It had a long life. You have a history with this game.
Laura: I do. I played a lot of the first version and I was really excited to see the second version came out. So if you haven't played Dungeon Defenders, it is a first-person tower defense game. So you are a person that runs around the world, you have powers. And you can place all kinds of towers, and then you have to protect your core, and there are enemies that come along certain paths, just like a tower defense game, and you have to make sure that the tower are there to kill all the enemies that are walking down the path. I think this one is a really interesting game because it's first-person, and you can either decide to go attack the enemies yourself, or you can build up more towers.
The second version of this game, I think, is just a lot more polished than the first game. I didn't play with anyone, so I played solo, on my own, but in this version of the game you can switch between the four main characters, which gives you a bunch of different towers that you can go place, or different spells that you can cast against the enemies. I've spent a lot of time playing this and upgrading all of my little characters ... There we go! We got the film up now.
You can see you run around and you collect coins, and you collect equipment, so there is kind of an RPG element of it, and that, again, sort of scratches my Diablo itch of upgrading loot and collecting loot.
So if you're into tower defense games, this is a nice twist on a tower defense where you play in first-person.
Larry: Yeah, you never get to see it on ground level like that. Normally you have the view of God and you're just dropping stuff down. Fun!
Yay, good for you!
Laura: It's really fin, so I played a lot of that. I think it was a game with gold one week in December, so I downloaded it.
Larry: Okay, good for you.
Laura: I've also been, of course, playing some Diablo, as you guys know, and some Dance Central 2, as you guys know, because I had some family up.
Larry: That's right. Dance party at Laura's house!
Laura: Dance party! It's a fun a party game.
Larry: Except for me.
Laura: So that's pretty much it. Except for you, of course. You probably choose other games to play-
Larry: People get social anxiety. I know there's some people that are nervous talking to a camera and whatnot, I don't have any of that. Dancing! That will paralyze me.
Laura: That's your anxiety.
Larry: Yeah, that's like, "No, no, no, that's not good, stop."
Laura: Alright, so that's it for me.
Larry: How you doing over there, Jeffrey? How's your bot?
Jeff: I'm doing good! Let's not talk about that.
Larry: There's a question in the chatroom about it!
Laura: What?
Jeff: I'm just having fun in the chat here.
Yeah, so for most of ... almost the entire time since our last show, and since we've been back here, I've been in Japan, something I've been planning for a long time. I always wanted to go snowboarding in Japan because I heard it was really soft snow - why is that funny, Larry?
Larry: Because I saw some of the photos of your expectations and reality.
Jeff: What do you mean?
Larry: Just that there was a lot of snow.
Jeff: There was more snow than you could possibly imagine.
Larry: Be careful what you wish for!
Jeff: I know! The thing is, I'm not particularly good at snowboarding, I don't like falling, I'm tall, I'm 6'2" and a half maybe, that's a long way to fall down! It's a pain in the butt to get back up. Here, you have this wonderful ... it's like falling asleep on a Sleep Number bed. You just land and you're like, "Oh, I'm going to stay right here," and then you realize your head could get hit by someone on a snowboard.
Larry: In your ear, did you hear a Hello Kitty "uh-oh!"?
Jeff: There's stories there because Hello Kitty was everywhere.
One of the cool things ... wow look at this, thank you!
We were in [Niseko 00:16:54] which is in [Hokkaido 00:16:55] in the northern island of Japan. I highly recommend that if you ever get the opportunity, it's totally a different world, but it was just great to be able to do that. Now, I'm pretty much ruined for snowboarding anywhere else in the world.
So while I was out there, of course, on the way, I wish I had been able to bring ... it looked like [hoff 00:17:13], it was just snowing non-stop. It was really cool
Larry: And what is that we're looking at? Is that the-
Jeff: You're looking at the thousand meters. There was hut where you could get food and you could eat Japanese curry and Udon when you're skiing, which is just amazing to have, instead of chili cheese fries, which-
Larry: That'll sit in the gut!
Jeff: It does, it does. But you've earned those calories.
Anyway, on the way out there, it's a long trip, so I did bring my Switch and had a ... one of these days, I'll beat Zelda, one of these days.
Larry: You know I'm at the end of it, right?
Jeff: Are you? And you just haven't beaten it yet?
Larry: So, Zelda, it's an open world game and you have this final Boss Battle, and I know that it's there and I keep doing other tasks because I know if I go there, the game's over. So I'm like, "Yep, I see you. No problem, catch you later!" Then I go off and do something else.
Jeff: So while we were at the Game Awards, I wanted to play some of the DLC hits, so I downloaded it and realized, you can't actually play that stuff until you've beaten the main game. So I was like, "I'll make some progress," and I did, but a long ways to go there.
Also got super into Darts. Darts is really big in Japan. And I-
Larry: Like, pub Darts?
Laura: Real darts?
Jeff: Well, plastic darts, cause you can see-
Larry: Because it's Japan, it has to electronically tally.
Jeff: Yes, it was electronic, and it would talk to you in Japanese, and after every throw-
Larry: "Uh-oh!"
Jeff: -it would show a picture of famous dart players in Japan, which is a thing. And for whatever reason, if-
Larry: Is there a photo of this?
Jeff: It's called DARTSLIVE2-
Larry: Did you order one? Are they on Amazon?
Jeff: I have a feeling, because it's something that shows up ... they have Dart arcades everywhere.
Larry: They're called "Pubs" in the UK.
Jeff: I mean, yes, there's pubs and other stuff, but the main reason to go there was to play Darts, not to sit around and drink hand-drawn lager-
Larry: You need to get a dart board!
Jeff: So now I've come back, I want a Dartboard. I want to do it.
Laura: Were you any good?
Jeff: Define 'good'. I'm not like one of those people that's like, triple twenty, triple thirty-
Larry: Did you embarrass yourself?
Jeff: No.
Larry: Okay. Did you always get them on the board?
Laura: Yes, that's my definition of 'good'.
Jeff: Most of the time. So the plastic ones, which they use, and that's the way they do the auto scoring. Sometimes they bounce out, or they'll bend, so you have an endless supply of new tips you can put onto the dart and then throw it. But I didn't hit anybody. That would have been embarrassing if I had hit somebody at-
Laura: Yeah.
Larry: You would have been escorted off.
Jeff: Yeah. So I won a couple of games.
Anyway, so Darts. Darts is huge there. And I was like, "Oh, I'll be able to find all kinds of cool console games," games are much more expensive there. So I was like, "Oh, maybe I'll buy a new controller for my switch. No, I'll ... wait till I come back home." So I did that. But it was really good to get home, because while I was there, the one thing, the one thing that made me wish that I was back home, was seeing that The Witcher had upgraded or been enhanced for Xbox One X, with 4K, HDR, and a number of anti-[inaudible 00:19:56] and occlusion effects and things like that. Anyway, means it looks better!
So I came back, and literally, the first game I loaded up was The Witcher. I had never played Hearts of Stone, I'd never played Blood and Wine. Jumped right back in. Hearts of Stone is amazing, I'm nearly done, I think I'm winding up there-
Larry: Oh, it's great, isn't it?
Jeff: Definitely top three favorite game of all time, for sure.
These were some of the most memorable missions in there. If it's been a long time since you played the Witcher ... I got the controls back pretty quickly, after having beaten Dark Souls, which was kind of easy, I think, at this point. But you're playing it for the fun and for the storyline and for the things that Geralt says.
There's a couple of things that you do in Hearts of Stone that we haven't done, I know you've done it. You are completely different than anything you've done in the main storyline, which I've beaten. So huge, huge fan of that, and I'll be done with Hearts of Stone soon, I'll jump into Blood and Wine right after that.
Also, Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, is something that I've been blowing through. The few times I'm not playing The Witcher, and you're not online playing PUBG, I'll try to get that in because there's definitely some really crazy moments that have been happening in that game.
Larry: I did the same thing with The Witcher when the enhancement came out. It was right before Christmas, I-
Jeff: Yeah, it was December 20th.
Larry: And I was like, "Oh, I've got to get back in," so I booted up, and make sure the 4K is on, and I get in there, and apparently my previous save, which was over four months ago, I was in a dungeon and I completely forgot what quest I was doing, what was going, what am I doing. So, okay, great.
It looks great! The inside of the dungeon looks great.
Jeff: Well you'll get it back. I was a little worried because I'd beaten the game in July of 2016, because I'd looked up my last save time and the last achievement I had unlocked. And I came back-
Larry: Oh, Wolfenstein. Here's your Wolfenstein [inaudible 00:21:44]
Jeff: Wolfenstein, though, the humor in the game. For a game that's incredibly disgusting, incredibly violent at times, gory, can be very funny.
Larry: It's got a dark humor, you're right.
Jeff: It's not often, I would say, you play a first-person shooter to see what happens to the characters, but this is definitely one of those situations.
Larry: It's interesting, you brought up, when you were in japan, about buying then bringing it over. I had the same exact thing happen to me when I was in Japan. Did I ever tell you the story, Jeff?
Jeff: No.
Larry: What's equivalent to the public television in Japan, I believe it's NK, the-
Jeff: Oh, NHK.
Larry: NHK, right.
Jeff: You can get that here!
Larry: Do you know what their mascot is?
Jeff: No.
Larry: Domo-kun.
Jeff: Oh, yeah, yeah.
Larry: The little brown ... you probably don't know the name, but you probably know what's going on there.
Oh, hello! Apparently we're a through-area here-
Jeff: It's lunchtime, apparently.
Larry: So I wanted to go get a Domo-kun, which is this little character, and I walked, I spent half a day going to the Japanese train station, because they only have them available at one place, and they didn't have the one I wanted. Long story short, I come home a week later, I'm in Target, and they have them in Target.
Laura: Really?
Larry: Yeah.
Laura: Oh, goodness.
[crosstalk 00:22:57].
Larry: Pardon me?
Laura: They're super cute. But it's too bad you spent so much time looking for it.
Larry: I know, I spent a ridiculous amount of time.
Jeff: I did go to a Pokemon Center to get gifts for a friend of mine.
Laura: What is a Pokemon Center?
Jeff: Well, I mean, in the game that's a thing, but then they actually have, in a neighborhood called Ikebukuro, this giant Pokemon store that's freaking huge. They have a plush of every single one. I wanted to get something for someone we work with's kid, who's not even one. I wanted to get a baby Slowbro because we call him "Slowbro" for many reasons, and I was able to find it because they have everything there.
I miss it. I miss it already, but-
Larry: Welcome back.
Jeff: Welcome back.
Larry: We're talking about what we're playing. I'm playing, of course, we've talked about PUBG, in fact we're going to bring up the full screen in just a second. This is one of many.
Laura: Did you save a screenshot?
Larry: Look! Right there! Chicken dinner!
Laura: Nice job, Larry.
Jeff: I'll have a chicken dinner.
Laura: Did you share that chicken dinner?
Larry: Well, no, no I didn't.
Playing a little bit of PUBG, let's see what else we're playing. I've been so busy, I haven't had a chance to figure out what I'm planning to talk about. Of course, playing Overwatch, they've got some new stuff. There's some Overwatch news-
Jeff: Yeah, there is some Overwatch news if you want to jump into that.
Larry: Yeah, why don't you share that with us.
Jeff: If you've fired up Overwatch recently - and I know a lot of people are playing PUBG, as are we, but we still love Overwatch in our house 0 the Overwatch League is something that is going to be launching really soon. Really soon, actually. So, even if you're not interested in eSports and spectating with some of the teams that they've got, you can get some new outfits. So there are, I think, 12 teams and right now, if you log in, on your Xbox, between now and February 13, they will give a hundred of this currency that is involved with the League, and that allows you to buy uniform of any of the teams for any of your players.
The thing I like about what they're doing with the League, and instead of it being just some names that are sort of generic - and a lot of these teams they find a following across the world - these are allied with cities, so I think they're sort of like-
Laura: That's really cool.
Jeff: -there's infinity there.
Larry: There's a Boston team!
Jeff: There is a Boston team, the Boston uprising. Are you going to be a Dallas Fuel fan or a Houston Outlaws fan? It could go either way.
Larry: Where do you fall on that spectrum, Laura?
Laura: Oh, man. So that aligns with the NFL, which we'll get into. All kinds of wars, I'm sure.
Larry: Yes you will.
Laura: So I won't got there. Dallas and Houston are probably equidistant, in my mind, from Austin, so we'll see.
Jeff: There's nothing in Seattle, but there's a Philadelphia Fusion team, so probably I'd go with that. Of course, I do like the logo for the Florida Mayhem, which is just a very perfect name for Florida.
Larry: What's the logo? I don't know if we can pull it up.
Jeff: It's a bomb who's wick is a palm tree.
Laura: That's great.
Jeff: [Crosstalk 00:25:45].
Yeah, there it is! So I think that is quite fitting in many ways. If I had to name a Florida team, mayhem sounds about right.
Of course, L.A. has two teams because it is L.A.
Laura: Of course it does.
Jeff: Anyway, so, actually I like the San Francisco Shock logo, and I used to live there, so-
Larry: Question now from Mixer chatroom, mixer.com/majornelson, asking if we are going to PAX South. Unfortunately, we're not able to go there, but we will, as usual, be at PAX East, right?
Jeff: Have we talked about this?
Laura: We haven't talked about it.
Jeff: Oh, okay.
Larry: We're talking about it now!
If you can make it, we'll be there. Jeff, if you can make it, we're going to be there. We'll be there at PAX East, which I believe is in April this year.
Laura: Okay, that's a few months.
Jeff: Well, as long as it's not as cold because-
Laura: If it's snowing-
[Crosstalk 00:26:29]
Larry: Well, you know, my family's back there now. Last week when I was there, it was -11, -12 degrees.
Jeff: That wast the bomb cyclone?
Larry: Yeah, I got out right ahead of the bomb cyclone.
Jeff: So, the first time I heard that, I saw something about a bomb cyclone, and I thought it was like a Boston area weatherman was like, "Yeah it's a bomb cyclone, it's wicked, wicked strong." And no, it's actually called that.
Larry: It's a meteorological term which is disappointing because for those of you that keep track of the show, know that Jeff was a weatherman.
Laura: Were you?
Jeff: I was.
Laura: What? How did I not know this?
Jeff: How did you not know this?
Larry: Oh, it gets even better. I haven't been able to do this, you don't know because you're just learning this information ... internet.
Jeff: No, no, no. No. No.
Laura: Yes!
Larry: Apparently there's video of him as a weatherman online somewhere.
Laura: Find it! Let's all know. I want to see.
Jeff: Larry, there is a ... hold on let me check the radar. I think there's an 80% chance of me smacking you in the face for setting people up with that. Oh, wait, no, it's 100%.
Yeah, that was something that I did in my senior year of college and my side hustle was at a TV channel and I was able to do that.
Laura: What was the channel?
Jeff: I'm not going to give these people any hints!
Larry: I think I know what it was, but I won't say it.
It's funny, you and I ran parallel lives. Because when I was at Syracuse University studying Communications and all those other things I did, my dad - I don't know if I told you this story - I would come home and my dad would always tell me, "So how's school?" He's like, "Have you every thought about meteorology?".
Laura: What?
Larry: And I was like, "No?". For four or five semesters, I'd come home, "How about a weatherman? Do you want to be a weatherman?" And I finally said to him, "Dad, what's the deal? Why do you want me to be a weatherman?" He kind of looked at me, and he goes, "Well, there'll always be weather," and I couldn't argue with him.
Laura: Aw. No, that's true.
Larry: So there you go, you can always be a weatherman.
Jeff: So I did it for about six months, and during that six months, there were three hurricane near-misses in the area. When it's that type of storm and you live on the East Coast, it's not like they do the News and then they do the Sports, and then let's kick to Weather for three minutes.
Larry: Weather is the top of the show.
Jeff: They're like, "Here's the two anchors," and like, "We're gonna kick it to Jeff," and I'm like, "Great". You have 10 minutes you have to fill. Filling 10 minutes live ... I mean, we have our computer here and there's three of us and we're not doing really anything of import here - this is very important work we're doing here today - that's really hard because you end up having to memorize the order or the maps that are coming through, and people are wanting to know, "Should I evacuate or not," and it's on you-
Larry: And they're looking at you!
Jeff: And I'm like, "I am not qualified to be doing this," I didn't have a meteorological degree.
There's two things: there's a meteorologist, who you should listen to, and then there's a weatherman or weatherperson. A weatherperson is someone who does not have a meteorological degree, they're just reading whatever the computer said. That was me, I was just like, "Oh, it says it's going to be 74," it could be like January and I'm like, "Look, the computer said 74, so just deal with that. Take it up with the computer. Take it up with AccuWeather."
This is why I work at Microsoft now, and I'm not a Weatherman.
Larry: Were you ever that person who, when it's 100 mph winds, you're holding on as you're trying to do your report?
Jeff: Why do people do that?
Larry: I don't know!
Jeff: Then again, if they don't do that, you need Jim Cantore to get out there and have lawn chairs blowing past him, otherwise I don't know it's a real hurricane.
Larry: Anyway, so cyclone bomb or whatever.
Jeff: Bomb Cyclone.
Larry: Also, I spent some time - this is going to sound terrible - but I spent some time in Boston when I was growing up. We would go out to Martha's Vineyard or Nantucket, and apparently there's sewage coming up, and it's frozen.
Laura: Ew.
Larry: Frozen sewage. You never want to hear either of those words apart, how about them together?
Laura: Ew, no thanks.
Jeff: Yeah, so East Coast.
Laura: Going back to Florida-
Larry: Yes, getting back to Florida, apparently, iguanas were freezing recently? Did you know anything about that?
Jeff: So when I was in high school, and I lived in Miami for three years, and ... five years? Whatever. I want to forget it that much. There weren't iguanas, there weren't very many of them. They were an invasive species, but over the course of the last 20 years or whatever, there's iguanas everywhere. And they're big?
Larry: Where do they come from?
Jeff: They're native in parts of Mexico, Central America, South America, and some of the islands. But the way it works is Florida's warm enough that if you let a pet go, like, "Oh my god, my pet viper got too big. I'm gonna dump it out." It's gonna live, and it's gonna make babies.
Larry: But the bigger question I have is, why do you have a pet viper? But they do?
Jeff: People do.
Larry: This is part of the Florida ...
Jeff: And that's why ... A couple years ago, I was visiting my folks, and we were walking down to the Chik-Fil-A like you do, and I saw one of those lizards that goes up on two feet, running past. And I'm like, "That should not be here."
Larry: Right.
Jeff: They probably have those in Texas.
Laura: No.
Jeff: No? Well, whatever those are, it's really funny.
Laura: There's no roadrunners.
Jeff: I looked at my brother, I'm like, "Did you just see that?"
Larry: Right.
Jeff: An eight-foot alligator in a swimming pool, that's normal. You're supposed to see that. But a two-legged ... no. Apparently it got so cold, 'cause my grandma was freezing. She had her heat on, it was in the mid-60s.
Laura: Oh no.
Jeff: Wish I was joking. The lizards were falling out of the trees, and they had to tell everyone, "It may not be dead. Don't touch the lizard, 'cause it might wake up and bite you."
Larry: 'Cause they're cold blooded, right?
Jeff: Yeah.
Larry: So their body does something different.
Jeff: They just shut down.
Larry: And they just go into this ... it's like putting your computer to sleep, or hibernating, right? Wakes up.
Jeff: Yes. You control-alt-delete the iguana and it wakes up.
Larry: I am not an amphibian expert.
Laura: I saw a news article that said a Florida man, I immediately thought of you, Jeff.
Jeff: Thank you.
Laura: Had gone around and collected all these frozen iguanas, and then was surprised when they woke up in his van, and he [crosstalk 00:32:16].
Jeff: Of course it's a van, by the way. None of that story [crosstalk 00:32:20]
Laura: I'm sure there was.
Jeff: I actually kind of like the iguanas. They're really big. You'll see them if you're ... sunning themselves on a wall. Wow, you just turned into an iguana. That was amazing. Anyway, Florida. It's a place you can go.
Larry: I'm sorry, JC [Cappas 00:32:40], I don't know what this is either.
Laura: We should take a break, and we should give away another Game Pass.
Larry: Oh yeah, let's give another one away.
Jeff: Let's do that.
Larry: Ready?
Laura: Let's give another Game Pass away.
Larry: Jeffrey, will you do the honors?
Jeff: Alright. I'm gonna read these in ...
Larry: Reptilian. They need to be reptiles.
Jeff: Yes. [crosstalk 00:32:55] Should I just show it to them and you zoom in? Isn't that a little easier, and I'll cover the last five?
Larry: Well, look, if you don't wanna read ...
Jeff: Never mind, I'll just read it. Hey, everybody. JFX2XFCJ6R22JHH3JF29 ...
Larry: Hold that last character.
Jeff: I know. M4VT ... that's it. I'm not telling you the last one. It's one of the 26 letters of the English alphabet.
Larry: Let me see what it is. It is O.
Jeff: Spoiler alert: it's the same one as the last one.
Larry: The same one as the last one, which is the last one of all of them.
Jeff: Yes.
Larry: How's that for a present?
Laura: Wow. You can be a [inaudible 00:33:44].
Jeff: Someone said they redeemed it.
Larry: Yeah.
Jeff: Dark Stalker, well done.
Laura: Congratulations.
Larry: Congratulations. We'll do another one a little bit later on. Let's keep going through the news, 'cause I have no idea what we're doing here, where we are.
Laura: We went way off track.
Jeff: When do we ever ...
Larry: If you guys, if you're in the chat, or if you're on mixer.com/majornelson, if not, you should be, if you're on your console, feel free to say hello. If you're watching us from Facebook, hey, Facebook. If you're watching us from Twitch, hello. Let us know where you're from. I'd love to know where you guys are watching us from. I know that it's really cold in the Eastern United States. It's cold in Europe. And it's really hot down in Australia.
Jeff: Oh, I know.
Larry: It's 100 degrees Fahrenheit down there.
Jeff: They said it was like 43, and I'm like, "I don't know Celsius."
Larry: Australia, I got somebody from Massachusetts. Rob wants to know, is that the Surface Book one or two?
Laura: The one that Jeff has?
Jeff: This is a Surface laptop.
Larry: Laptop.
Laura: This is the Surface Book one.
Larry: Yeah, so there we go.
Laura: The OG.
Jeff: Look at these Philly people. Represent.
Larry: Rochester, New York, home of some of the greatest wings I've ever had at the Anchor Bar.
Jeff: Isn't that where they're from?
Larry: That's where they were invented.
Jeff: Was that Rochester? I thought that was Buffalo, but I could be ... was it Buffalo?
Larry: I think you're right.
Jeff: I could be wrong. I'm sure the wings in Rochester are phenomenal, too. It's on the Finger Lakes, I think. Is it? Yeah, I think. [crosstalk 00:34:57]
Laura: Should I get to the news?
Larry: Yes.
Jeff: Oh yeah, the news.
Laura: Back to the news.
Jeff: This time of year, obviously, you're big, huge titles, your AAAs, all the things we've been waiting for and that you hear about A3, those games come out around Christmas, typically. And then it's a little slower, and you get a chance to see some indie games. There's a few games that are coming out in the next couple of weeks, or have just recently come out, that I wanted to bring your attention to. One of them, looked really interesting, is sci-fi mystery The Station, which is coming out both for Xbox One and Windows 10.
Larry: Like space station?
Jeff: Yes, like a space station. As someone who played ... yes, if that helps you, Larry. It's not train station, it's not Grand Central. I really enjoyed Tacoma, when that came out last summer I wanna say, and I'm sort of getting some vibes from that. It's a first person mystery game set on a space station, and there it is right there, to study [inaudible 00:35:53] alien civilization. That is going to be coming out. And of course, any game coming out on Xbox One and Windows 10 is something that makes it that much easier for me to play it when I'm on the road. I'm looking forward to that.
Another one, OK K.O.! Let's Play Heroes. This is based on a Cartoon Network show called OK K.O. Let's Go Heroes. The reason I'm talking about a licensed game is because one: the Cartoon Network studio has actually been putting out some really good games of late. But two: because this game is made by Capy. Capy Games makes some phenomenal games. Super Time Force was one of them that came out early in the Xbox One cycle.
Larry: I remember that.
Jeff: Quite a good game. And they also made probably one of my favorite licensed games, which came out on 360 quite some time ago, which was ... oh my god, now ... Might and Magic Clash of Heroes HD is what it was. Capy is also working on Below.
Larry: Oh, I forgot about that.
Jeff: This is a studio with a really good pedigree, and I'm a really big fan of what they do. They make really good looking games. Even though I'm not exactly familiar with OK K.O.! on Cartoon Network, I will play this game, simply because of the Capy pedigree. That definitely gets them pretty far in my book. They're really good at making 2D games, if you played Super Time Force, and they're really good at working with animated stuff. I'm looking at it now, and it seems like something I would probably play.
Laura: It does seem right up your street.
Jeff: Yes. Another game that's coming out very soon is The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, which is a first person story-driven mystery game, which has been getting, I believe, released on PC and had some really good feedback. I think we're saying it's critically acclaimed, would be the easiest way to say that. Looking forward to that. That's coming out in about a week and a half, on January 18th. It's currently available for pre-order on Xbox One pre-order pre-download.
And one last one, and this is a game that I played at, it might have been either at GDC last year, or perhaps at PAX or E3. Anyway, Full Metal Furies, this is a game that has been in the works for some time, is coming to Xbox One on January 17th, just a shade over a week from now. And this is a game that four people can play together, and it's definitely ... if you like Double Dragon back in the day, or maybe Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Arcade, those types of games, this is a type of game that I think might be up your alley. Full Metal Furies, coming out in just over a week. Keep an eye out for it.
Larry: Delightful.
Jeff: Yeah.
Larry: By the way, I just got an email from the PUBG team.
Laura: Just now?
Larry: Yeah, they gave us some codes to give away in the chatroom. So we have some PUBG codes. We'll randomly give those away in the chatroom, so thank you, PUBG team. Apparently they're watching.
Jeff: That's cool.
Laura: Hello.
Jeff: We like your game.
Larry: It's amazing how many people tune in and watch this show.
Jeff: Oh, there's Full Metal Furies, by the way.
Larry: Oh, look at that. That looks cool.
Jeff: They have vastly different ... it's not like everyone's exactly the same. There's more tank type of players. There's a number of different folks that you control, and they have different abilities that can come into play, and you have to work together. So right now, you're just seeing a single player, but you can play four players at once. I had a lot of fun with this. I think it was GDC, now that I'm thinking about it, that I played that. God, we're almost getting ready for the next GDC.
Laura: Almost time.
Larry: Next month. Game Developer Conference down there in San Francisco. I haven't been there in a while.
Jeff: We need to go. We should go down there.
Larry: I think we need to go. Laura, if you're around there, we'll go down.
Laura: It's been a few years.
Larry: Jeff will take you to this place that has great ice cream.
Jeff: Actually, I will.
Larry: I know.
Jeff: You know we're getting a Salt & Straw up here? That's really good ice cream, too.
Laura: That sounds pretty good.
Jeff: We'll talk later.
Larry: Alright, so we're moving right along here. We've got ... should we do another one?
Laura: We should. Should I read this one out this time?
Larry: Yeah, an entire year of Xbox Game Pass, which has over 100 games, endless play, we're gonna give away a code right now. If you're watching this on Facebook, Twitch, or Mixer, get ready, 'cause here comes the code. Oh, Laura.
Laura: Ready?
Larry: Yes.
Laura: Here we go. The code is MY7P6KQ3J93RPRH3GJDQ2F63 and the last character ...
Larry: What's the last one? Here we go. Drum roll please, is ...
Laura: The same last character as all the rest of them. [crosstalk 00:40:33]
Larry: Are we giving out the same code over and over again?
Laura: I hope it's not the same code.
Larry: No, but you're right. They're all the same final character.
Laura: Really?
Larry: We're gonna have to switch it up.
Laura: Oh, my gosh.
Larry: That's bizarre. I've never seen that.
Laura: I'm gonna tear this one in half.
Larry: Yeah, tear that one in half.
Laura: Did anybody redeem it on the chat stream?
Jeff: Someone said, "I was so close." So, it's possible that somebody else already had gotten it.
Laura: Somebody redeemed it. Well, congratulations, watchers.
Larry: Congratulations. I'll take that.
Laura: Enjoy 12 months of Xbox Game Pass.
Larry: So do we have any other news? 'Cause I thought it was gonna be [crosstalk 00:41:00]. Oh, we have to do Name the Game, too.
Laura: Don't forget Name the Game.
Jeff: I don't think, because it's been so long since we did a show, I don't think we really talked about the Games of Gold for January.
Larry: Make it so.
Jeff: We're already about halfway through. Actually, I think it was the very first game that was released this calendar year, was Adventures of Van Helsing 2. The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing 2, I'm really selling them short. Or three, my god. I'm just ...
Larry: Are these incredible adventures?
Jeff: These are incredible adventures. These are not the regular ... it would have been the second one if it was just the regular adventures. The third incredible adventures. That's free right now, with your Gold subscription, as is Tomb Raider Underworld, which has become available through the magic of backward compatibility. And then coming up on January 16, will be Zombie, which I believe is actually coming to Xbox One, I wanna say it was one of the big Wii-U hits back in the day. I don't think it was on any other platform until now.
Larry: I think you're right.
Jeff: So there's Zombie. And then Army of Two, which was a huge game back in the early Xbox 360 days. That'll be in the middle of the month. It was three. Van Helsing three.
Larry: If you wanna keep up on all the news, you need to go to news.xbox.com, or my blog majornelson.com, or you can follow me on Twitter at @majornelson.
Jeff: Yeah. We're all here for you, Larry.
Larry: No. We're all here for everybody there, you at home, right? What else do we have to go ... we have a lot going on here. I'm just noticing that, yeah, they're all ending in Z.
Laura: That's really funny.
Larry: Could we do one more? I'm gonna do something different.
Laura: Okay.
Larry: Okay, ready? This one's gonna be a little harder, gang. This is for a free one year of Xbox Game Pass. I'm gonna read the code backwards.
Laura: Oh no.
Jeff: Larry, it's hard enough to get ... I couldn't do that.
Larry: I'm gonna read it straight across. Ready? Starting from, the first letter I'm gonna give you is gonna be the last of the five by fives. Here we go, you ready? Z, Golf, Victor, Romeo, Six, Mother, Six, Whiskey, Two, Niner ... gotta say niner, right?
Jeff: Maybe?
Larry: Mother, Papa, Two, Kilo, Queen, Tango, Queen, Two, Golf, Kilo, Romeo, Papa, Juliet, X-ray, Seven. There you go.
Laura: Nice job.
Jeff: Did I hear a niner in there? What was that from? That was Tommy Boy.
Larry: I wanna thank you guys for joining us. We're having quite a day here. We're hanging out with you. We got a lot of requests to do this show live every week. Unfortunately, we can't do it every week.
Jeff: Why? Why did you request this?
Larry: It's a little harder to get us all in here, and we gotta look presentable. Sometimes, Jeff shows up in just shorts and flip flops.
Jeff: This is the first time I've worn pants all year.
Larry: He may have shorts and flip flops on for now, for all you know.
Jeff: No.
Larry: To be really news-y. We'll do another show in the future, maybe next month, whenever we get around to it. We got a lot to do. Wanna do Name the Game?
Laura: I am ready for Name the Game.
Larry: Let's see if they ... it's a little more complicated, 'cause we're gonna play the clip from last time, and then we're gonna tell you who won it. So if you guys are ready up there in the control booth, go ahead and play the clip from last time.
I don't know if our audio's hot. Doesn't need to be.
Alright, now that was a little tricky, right, Laura?
Laura: Yes it was. That was a trick one.
Larry: We decided to put our collective heads together and Laura came up with this ... well, we all came up to decide to do a trick.
Laura: It was a group effort.
Larry: Why don't you go ahead and give the answer to that.
Laura: So that was Name the Game from last time. And the answer is Wolfstone 3D. So that is the mini game which is found inside of Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus.
Larry: So it was a game within a game.
Laura: Game within a game.
Larry: And so we had a lot of people that got it wrong, 'cause they guessed one game or the other, but you had to have that whole thing.
Laura: So we took all the correct answers and we chose a random winner. This time's winner is David, and his gamer tag is oniongum. Congratulations, David. Good job figuring out our puzzle.
Larry: Does it say where he's from?
Laura: No, it doesn't say where he's from.
Larry: That's fine. Doesn't matter.
Laura: That's okay. We don't need to know. So David, you've won a lot of great prizes. We've got a copy of Wolfenstein for you. This is the two pack, which includes both Wolfenstein: The New Order and The Old Blood. We have a copy of Madden NFL 2018, and that also comes with the ultimate team starter pack. But that's not all. We also have a copy of Star Wars Battlefront 2, which I am also looking forward to playing. I haven't had a chance to play it yet.
Larry: It's really good.
Laura: I head it's fantastic. And this is another game that I'm looking forward to playing, but I'm gonna share with you, David, instead of playing it myself. This is a copy of Okami HD. Have you had a chance to play that one yet, Jeff?
Jeff: Yeah. I haven't had a lot of time with it, but it looks so beautiful.
Laura: And that's not all. You're also, David, getting a copy of PUBG, which is in game preview.
Larry: Player Unknown Battleground.
Laura: Which we've been chatting about at length here.
Larry: Oh, we have something else.
Laura: I'll send him an Xbox Game Pass that we've been giving away here.
Larry: A free year of Xbox Game Pass, which is 100 games.
Laura: 12 months, 100 games, all for you. And then, I've got one more thing.
Larry: I'll let Laura do the reveal. Are you ready? There you go, putting it under here.
Laura: I'm super jealous about this. David, this is for you. This is the Sea of Thieves special edition controller. And I am mega jealous you're gonna get this.
Larry: It's cool, 'cause controllers are interesting design. It has the controller version of a gold pirate tooth. Show that off, Jeff.
Jeff: Oh, yeah. One of the right trigger ... look at that zoom, you guys ... is gold, and the left trigger is nearly obsidian, but I also love it. It's kinda hard to tell here just how glowy this skull is, but it's [crosstalk 00:47:26].
Larry: I'm not gonna ask the team to turn down the lights, but I think it glows in the dark, right? I don't know. You'll have to find out. Let us know.
Laura: It is a fantastic controller. Does it glow in the dark? Okay, thanks for checking that out, Jeff.
Jeff: Yeah. Some real deductive work here.
Larry: Oh, yeah, it glowed.
Jeff: I'm on the case.
Laura: Alright, so congratulations, David, or oniongum. Great job getting through our puzzle. I'm gonna pry that away from Jeff.
Larry: Congratulations. So that means we have another Name the Game. Right, Laura?
Laura: That's right. We're gonna do it again, and the people here watching us live, you're gonna have the advantage of seeing the clip as well as hearing it.
Larry: If you're listening to this on my regular podcast feed or anywhere else, then you need to go to mixer.com/majornelson to see it if you need that extra help. There's audio here, of course, as there has been doing this feature for 13, 14 years.
Laura: I'm gonna ask the chatroom, please be kind. Do not answer in the chatroom. That does not get you anything. [crosstalk 00:48:30] It spoils your chances.
Larry: Actually, it will.
Laura: What does it do?
Larry: It gets you kicked out.
Laura: Oh no. It also spoils your chances of winning, 'cause you're just giving someone else the opportunity to enter into our contest, so don't answer in the chat.
Larry: Just be cool.
Laura: Be cool.
Larry: Why don't we go ahead and roll, ready to roll the name?
Laura: I'm ready if you're ready.
Larry: Alright, let's roll Name the Game for this week.
I need healing.
Laura: Alright, so that was Name the Game for this week. If you think you know what game those sounds or those clips are from, all you have to do is send me an email, lollipop@xbox.com. Tell me what game that is.
Jeff: [For Neck 00:49:30] spoiled it, Hello Kitty Island Adventure.
Laura: Nice try.
Jeff: Thanks, guys. You blew it for everybody. [crosstalk 00:49:37]
Laura: So email lollipop@xbox.com, CC major@xbox.com so we both get it, and good luck to all you guys out there. We'll choose a random winner, and you, too, could win fabulous prizes.
Larry: I wanna show you this thing. This was sent to me, Laura, from Geek Made Designs.
Laura: Those are awesome.
Larry: You've probably seen these on social. It's this peculiar little thing. You put it down like this. Can we get a zoom on this, Bryce? You put your controller in, and it fits so nicely in here like that. Look at that. Isn't that amazing?
Laura: That is a fantastic display case.
Larry: It just fits right in, and it just locks right in there, unlike that controller.
Laura: We could have used one for that one.
Jeff: See, you needed another one.
Larry: This is from geekmadedesigns.com. I wanna thank them for sending this over here. And there's actually, if you go to the left here, you can see there's another one. This one is a separate one that he made for me, which is also for two. So when you have that player two in your life, this is where he and/or she can store their controller.
Jeff: I like how it looks like if you had a baby duck and you got its feet bronzed or something like that. By itself, it's a real conversation piece.
Laura: I love the detail of burning in the logo at the top.
Larry: We've got the one over here. Get the zoom in on that, if you could, and then the other one. I wanna thank him, he sent those over here. And I think you can order them on his site, can't you? Do you have that information?
Laura: It looks like you can find the website at geekmadedesigns.com.
Larry: Yep. This is the way it goes, so there you go. They sent this here for free. They're not paying us to be on here. I just thought, I felt this thing and it feels good, right?
Laura: Yeah, it's a solid chunk of wood.
Larry: It's a nice solid piece of wood, so, that's kind of awesome.
Laura: The logo on the back. Yeah, this is great. I would love one for myself.
Larry: If you're a single player, you play by yourself, or you play with others, there you go.
Jeff: That's some good Dremel work. I was terrible in wood shop.
Larry: He's got a video on his ...
Laura: Is it a laser cutter? It looks laser [crosstalk 00:51:27].
Larry: We were looking this up yesterday, and he's got this laser, he's got a video that shows.
Jeff: I just thought he was really good at whittling. Sitting there with a pocketknife.
Laura: That would take forever.
Jeff: I'm impressed.
Larry: Anyway, there you go. Major@xbox.com is the email again. Thank you, if you're watching us on Facebook. Thank you, if you're watching us on Mixer. Thank you, if you're watching us on Twitch. We're having a good time here.
Jeff: We never found out what you were up to over [crosstalk 00:51:52].
Larry: Thank you for asking. I kind of alluded to this at the top of the show. I went over to Massachusetts. I saw my family. I was in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont, and New Hampshire.
Laura: Goodness gracious.
Jeff: So every place but Maine.
Larry: Every place but Maine for the New England states. I did an event at the New Hampshire Microsoft store. I knew it was cold. I don't know if I told you this, Laura. I knew it was cold when I was doing the event, and it was inside the shopping mall in Salem. And there were people coming in from the cold at eight o'clock at night in full snow suits.
Laura: Wow.
Jeff: Salem, Mass?
Larry: Salem, New Hampshire.
Jeff: Oh.
Larry: Salem, Mass is the witches.
Jeff: I went there when I was little.
Larry: I did another event at a store in Burlington, Massachusetts, which is a good store. You and I have been to that one. Have we?
Jeff: We have.
Larry: Oh, no, you're right. We have. I forgot about that. So we went up there, and I remember when I was going into New Hampshire, one of the last times I was in New Hampshire was also with you.
Jeff: Yeah, when we went to see Ralph Baer.
Laura: Oh, yeah.
Larry: That was probably ... Jeff and I have done a lot of stuff together. Of course, we did the ET dig, we did a lot of things together, but that was ...
Jeff: Most of the seminal creators of our craft, the people we all have to thank, Nolan Bushnell was another one that we got to meet.
Larry: That's right. Nolan and I are friends on Facebook, and it's weird.
Jeff: It's like, "You invented Chuck E. Cheese." I think I met him, and I said, "You invented Chuck E. Cheese. Thank you."
Laura: Did you say that to him?
Jeff: We did. He was the founder of Chuck E. Cheese, and other things as well, Atari.
Larry: Atari, Pong.
Laura: That's a big deal.
Larry: It was a busy time. I spent a lot of time with my sisters and my mom, and of course my wife and my new daughter. It was our first Christmas together. She's great.
Jeff: Did she get anything good?
Larry: No. Well, yeah, she got a few things, but she's ...
Jeff: I should have bought her something.
Larry: No, please. You don't have to worry about that. Anyway, we've got quite a full chatroom. Apparently we're ... are we on channel one in Mixer right now on the console? I think we are.
Jeff: Definitely up there.
Larry: So, we're moving right along here. It's just about two o'clock here in the Pacific coast, which is five o'clock out there on the East coast.
Jeff: 10pm GMT.
Larry: Is it? We've only got a few more minutes. We're supposed to have a special guest, so we're kind of just buying time that maybe this person will stop by. I don't know. I haven't got ... have we gotten a text message from him, or let me just check my text messages.
Jeff: Tell you what, in the mean time, I'm gonna get your back here, Laura. When you said Wolfstone 3D, people were like, "It's Wolfenstein." Well, of course it is.
Larry: Oh, here we go.
Jeff: But it's called Wolfstone.
Laura: Inside the game, it is.
Larry: This is what I like, is I come in here, and I say, "Come on over." I come in here and I say, "We're gonna have a special guest," and then joining us, ladies and gentlemen, Phil Spencer.
Laura: Phil Spencer, yay. Hey, Phil.
Phil: I've never been in here.
Jeff: You've never been in here?
Laura: It's your first time here?
Phil: I think so. Larry doesn't invite me anywhere.
Larry: That's not true at all. In fact, I've been trying to schedule this for a while, but you were away for the holiday.
Phil: I was.
Larry: Let's get into the microphone.
Phil: Sorry. [crosstalk 00:55:05] What is this?
Larry: Look at the controller holder there, a guy in the community made.
Laura: No, I didn't. I'm not that talented.
Larry: He made one over here for two of them, with the Xbox logo on it.
Phil: Can you buy them?
Larry: Yeah.
Laura: You can.
Larry: He sells them on his website, but he sent them over here. Isn't that cool?
Phil: That is. You get all the good stuff.
Larry: I was sharing it. In fact, we gave that Sea of Thieves controller away to someone.
Phil: Who'd you give it to?
Laura: The Name the Game winner. They got my really difficult Name the Game correct.
Phil: What was it?
Laura: So the last one was a game within a game. It was Wolfstone 3D inside of Wolfenstein.
Larry: So the next one, we can't tell you the next one. They have to guess it. Anyway, how was your holiday?
Phil: It was good. I spent some time away.
Larry: You were traveling. In fact, we were talking about me, you and I went to opposite directions. I was in Massachusetts, where it was negative 11, and I think you were someplace sunny, where it was not negative 11.
Phil: I was in Hawaii. I was spending some time ... I usually spend some time over the holidays away, just thinking about stuff that's gone well, what we need to do better at. So for me, it's good to unplug. I did play a lot, though.
Larry: What did you play?
Phil: I think I'm 65 hours in now on Assassin's Creed [crosstalk 00:56:17]. I'm on level 40, and I got to level 40 right as they're not doing the weekly events right now, so I'm waiting. But I just saw today, I think there's a new piece of story content coming, which will be awesome.
Larry: Yeah, they announced that.
Phil: Which will be awesome, but it's just an amazing game. You are playing PUBG.
Larry: I've been trying to get you to ... in fact, Laura ...
Laura: He's exclusive. Yes, he is. He's hard to get into [inaudible 00:56:41].
Phil: You didn't let Laura play?
Laura: No.
Larry: She texted me for the first time in two years, and she's like, "Hey, have you got room?" And I'm like, "No, all full." [crosstalk 00:56:49] I know, I feel so bad.
Laura: And then he went to bed.
Larry: And then I was like, "Gotta go." You know when you're gonna text somebody, and they're like, "Oh, you don't wanna play one?" And then they sign off immediately? You're like, "Oh. Waiting for you, Larry." We should play. You know what? In fact, here is the four. We can play as a squad right here.
Laura: We could do this.
Phil: When do you play? What night?
Larry: We'll play any night you want. It's all around your schedule. You're a big executive, and you've got all this time, and you got ready for all this stuff coming up.
Phil: So there's a great story. I'm in Hawaii, and I meet somebody who is a gamer.
Larry: So you're just out on the beach sunning yourself?
Phil: Yeah. He's 17 years old. And I say, "What do you play?" And he's telling me about what he plays, has all the consoles, happens to be an Xbox player mainly. He said, "What do you do?" And I said, "I work at Xbox." And he looks at me, literally, "Do you work for Major Nelson?" And of course, I said, "Yes, I do. We all work for Major Nelson." I thought it was awesome. And it's a true story. I hope he's watching, so he can actually validate. Yes I do.
Larry: You've made his year. We're gonna be hearing about this forever.
Laura: That's true.
Phil: And I said, "He's a hard guy to work for, but [crosstalk 00:58:10]." It was great, in so many ways.
Larry: It's funny because I was traveling, I was telling these guys, I did a bunch of events at Microsoft stores in Massachusetts and ...
Phil: How'd that go?
Larry: Great. We did a Fortnight event. We did a Call of Duty event, and it was a lot of fun. People are so excited. They're actually asking about you. It's funny, because I was on the other side of the planet and they were asking about you. "Is Phil gonna be here? What shirt is he gonna wear at E3 this year?" It was bizarrely specific.
Phil: Yeah? My E3 shirts are ...
Larry: They're legendary.
Laura: Apparently. Huge fans of the E3 shirts. [crosstalk 00:58:46] You have a Game Pass.
Larry: You know what that means.
Phil: I don't know.
Larry: We got a bunch of 12 month codes to give away for Game Pass, so every time we talk about Game Pass ...
Phil: I love Game Pass. I love to see what people ...
Larry: Bryce, can you zoom in on this?
Phil: Is that how they do it? Look at that. And then nobody can scrub it.
Larry: Yeah, exactly. So hopefully we can zoom in on that. But yeah, Game Pass, you've got the Game Pass hoodie. It's doing really well, isn't it? A lot of people really like it.
Phil: It's good. For us, from the beginning, we've talked about giving people choice, and I think Game Pass for some people is a choice of what games they get to play, how they wanna pay to play those games, whether they want a subscription or go buy the games. I love the idea that people are asking for more choice to play games. The other thing I loved in Game Pass is, when I look at what games people are playing, it's not always the games that you'd expect. There are some games that people missed, and that maybe came out at the wrong time, or in the shadow of a bigger game or something else. It's cool to see some great games that got missed when they launched regaining some users and players.
Larry: You can go back, and you can pick up some achievements that maybe you missed.
Jeff: Yeah, a few friends of mine, or friends of friends, or family, they'll be like, "Oh, I just got an Xbox for the first time." They're just starting the [inaudible 01:00:10]. Like, "What should I play?" And I was like, "PUBG and, oh by the way, here's 100 games for you."
Larry: You send them to PUBG first?
Jeff: Yeah.
Laura: That's a bit of a rough landing, there.
Jeff: I was amazed. We have some friends that actually just joined your team, and we had them over. I've known them for a long time. They came to visit.
Larry: You should give them Cuphead, too. You should go PUBG, and then Cuphead.
Jeff: And they came over just to meet my family, and one of the kids sits down. He doesn't even ask. He just turns on my Xbox in the living room, and I'm like, "Are you alright?" He's like, "Yeah, I'm good." He just loads PUBG. I'm like, "Do you know what--" He's like, "Yeah. I got this." And I was like, "Okay."
Phil: So yeah, we had a good holiday. You had a good holiday. We're getting ready. It's great to come back after the holiday with your mind cleared out, and you're ready to go.
Larry: I'm always anxious. I always come back, and we had our first big leadership team meeting this morning of the year, and everybody's back. Some people are [CS 01:01:00], but everybody's back. We don't have a lot of [CS 01:01:02]. There's '17, we obviously had goals around shipping X, and getting Game Pass out, and all this stuff that we were doing, and we have some big goals in '18. I wanna get going. I think they hate me on the first, 'cause I'm just like, things have to take time, but I'm like "Come on. Let's go."
Phil: You're chomping at the bit, which I think is good. If that doesn't happen at some point, just put me out to pasture.
Larry: It's funny, because I stopped by to see you right before the holiday, right before I left.
Phil: Yeah, you did. I was here.
Larry: We were up in your office, and you were playing Forza. Let me set the stage for you. I walk into Phil's office. He's got his computer up and he's doing email, and you're probably replying to Sati or something, and then you got Forza up on your big screen.
Phil: Well, they ran this competition on, did you see this, where I was a rival?
Larry: Yeah.
Phil: And it did really well. A lot of people destroyed me in my time, but I was pretty bad. They picked a track I don't love. I love the car, but I didn't love the track.
Laura: Which track was it?
Phil: Hockenheim, which I'm not great at.
Laura: That's hard.
Phil: Yeah, I like Road America. So I was trying to get used to ... I finally went to manual shifting, which had me gain some seconds. That helps. But I think I still fell in the 50 percentile of the group.
Larry: Not worst, not best.
Phil: No. Fair to middling, it's kind of my approach to life.
Larry: It's great, because I walked in there, and you and I just sat down and chatted for a half hour, 45 minutes. But we were just talking about the great year that we had, all the games that have come out. We just finished the Game Awards. I had just come back from the Game Awards, if I remember correctly, with Jeff.
Phil: Which I think ended up being the biggest Game Awards they had yet.
Larry: Yeah, Jeff did a great job with that. For those of you that tuned in, it was an entertaining watch.
Jeff: I know what you're referring to.
Larry: But there was a lot going on.
Phil: Was that the Joseph moment?
Larry: Yeah. Joseph's a good guy. I like Joseph a lot. He and I are friends. I actually wasn't there at the Game Awards, and then it was my wife's birthday, so I couldn't go. Shouldn't go, and didn't wanna go. I wanted to go to my wife's birthday. But I think Joseph had a point of view that he wanted to share. But I think the show looked like it was great.
Phil: Cuphead did great.
Larry: Congrats to all the teams that won. I thought there were a lot of great games this year, if I just look. I love Cuphead, obviously, but Zelda, Mario, Horizon. There were just a lot of very good games that are launching. And I'm seeing some of the things, I got to see one early this morning that's coming in '18 from a third party. I think this is looking like it's gonna be another good year for games.
Phil: It's funny. When I was at the Game Awards, we didn't even really talk about this in the show, but I saw Reggie. And Reggie was asking about you.
Larry: Friend of mine.
Phil: I was over in the corner, and I was starting to tweet something out 'cause I was with Felicia Day, and he's like, "Oh, he's tweeting." I was trying to give him an Xbox pin for a Zelda pin, but his security people pulled him away.
Larry: We should give him a Twitter handle, 'cause I actually think my friend Reggie is not on Twitter right?
Phil: You're right, he [crosstalk 01:04:02].
Larry: I try to tweet him sometimes, because obviously, [Shoo 01:04:07] and I will ... I know [Shoo 01:04:10], I've known him for a long time, and I try to share some things with Reggie, and silence.
Phil: We'll work on that. So 2018's coming up. I was just looking at the calender. I think I've had my fourth E3 meeting already.
Larry: We started in December.
Phil: Started in December.
Larry: And it always seems like we start earlier and we're further behind.
Phil: Yeah.
Larry: And we're starting to see some of the content, some of the plans that we have, getting the changes for us this year, which I don't think we've talked about yet, but I think will be some positive changes at E3.
Phil: Yeah.
Larry: Are you going to E3 this year?
Laura: Maybe.
Larry: Maybe.
Laura: I like being mysterious.
Larry: Yeah, okay.
Phil: Tough to pin down.
Larry: Jeff will be there, obviously.
Phil: I'm a lady of mystery.
Larry: I think this year's E3 could be fun for us. It'll be a nice change.
Phil: I always love the event. It just feels like all of a sudden, you lift your head up, and you're like, "We're three weeks away." [crosstalk 01:05:09] But it's also great being surrounded. You talked about you feel like you're behind, but it's great being surrounded by people who are overachievers. I know that I was in a meeting like, "Okay, here's the show rundown." I'm like, "How do you have that already?"
Laura: Wow.
Larry: The chiclets, they call it. "This is going to be this amount of time, and this is going to be this amount of time."
Phil: And then you're looking at hand drawn stick figures for certain things.
Larry: What the stage will look like and stuff like that.
Phil: And by the time that we get there, there's a stage that's amazing.
Larry: It's magical.
Phil: Teams do a great job showing up.
Larry: You of course should be able to watch it on Mixer.
Phil: I keep looking at this. How much HypeZone have you watched?
Larry: I've watched quite a bit.
Phil: I love HypeZone.
Larry: Yeah, generally just leave it on the background.
Phil: I know. I do, too. I think it's so funny to watch the person who, when HypeZone pipes in, all of a sudden, somebody will say, "Oh, you're on HypeZone now." And the nerves start kicking up. I think it's great. [crosstalk 01:06:02]
Larry: They're nervous that they're 10 or five left, and now all of a sudden [crosstalk 01:06:09].
Phil: This massive influx of people.
Larry: All of a sudden, the internet is now watching you, 'cause here's DM21 Gaming is on HypeZone.
Laura: You don't need that extra level of pressure. It's hard enough getting there on your own.
Larry: I do not reach HypeZone. I am Dead Zone.
Laura: I'm Dead Zone too.
Phil: We need to do HypeZone for more games.
Laura: It's really fun.
Larry: I can't really say anything more, but I'll say Phil and I were talking about the HypeZone before the holiday, and you had some great ideas. You had some really cool ideas about how to plus it up.
Phil: I just think there's ... some people like to follow one streamer, and I think that's awesome. You can go, and you can subscribe to them, and do all the things. Other people like to focus on a game. I think the idea that we could use the analytics in the game and the game could actually tell us when it's at its most interesting point. Some things like how many people are left, that's a fairly easy one. But there are other things you could do as we build better telemetry with the game developers, and those are the conversations we're having now. I think it will lead to some pretty cool things in this space.
Larry: There's just so much going on. This is just ... I haven't played this map yet. This map will be coming to Xbox [crosstalk 01:07:21].
Phil: Myanmar.
Larry: I appreciate you coming by. I know you're running in between meetings. I don't wanna keep you too long.
Phil: Well, that's okay. I like that you invited me. It's good to see everybody I don't see that often.
Laura: Yeah, thanks for coming by.
Phil: Happy New Year.
Laura: Thank you.
Larry: 2018's gonna be a great year for Xbox as always, right? We've got so much stuff planned.
Phil: Sea of Thieves will be good. [crosstalk 01:07:42]
Larry: March 20th.
Phil: From the technical alpha, you saw the controller, but the technical alpha's coming up. Jeff's gonna give the details. I played a build about a week ago.
Laura: You did?
Larry: Solo, or did you go ...
Phil: Oh, I went solo.
Larry: And what do you think?
Phil: This game is so beautiful. I had it booted up, and I was actually taking screenshots of it for my wallpaper, 'cause it's so beautiful. It's so much fun. The water, you've heard me go on and on about the water. I actually got seasick at one point. Seriously.
Larry: Is that a feature?
Phil: I was up in the crow's nest, and I was going back and forth, I was like, "I gotta come down. I'll be right back."
Jeff: It is exhilarating standing near the prowl of the ship, though, and the spray is coming in when you're going up and down.
Phil: It was like flying.
Larry: It's your Titanic moment.
Laura: Oh, my goodness.
Larry: That's awesome. They gotta build that animation in. Titanic mode. We can talk to Craig about it.
Jeff: So on January 24th, set your alarm early, for those of us at least on the West Coast, 'cause at 4am Pacific is when the Sea of Thieves closed beta is going to launch. That's noon GMT. I guess 7am on the East Coast. For a full five days ahead of the March 20th launch, we're gonna be testing a nice chunk of the game during this closed beta phase. You wonder how do you get into it, so if you're already a Sea of Thieves insider, and you have been since December, you're already in. But if not, the way to get in is to pre-order. There's a lot more details on seaofthieves.com, but that's what we're going to be playing from January 24th to the 29th.
Larry: I mean, the fun of shooting yourself out of a cannon never gets old, like you see right here. Beware, there's sharks in the water. I will say this, I'm working ... I probably shouldn't say this in front of Phil, but I'll say it. We're working on putting together a video package for Sea of Thieves, and I told the team, "Look, I am not doing a Sea of Thieves video unless we go to the Caribbean and find a real pirate ship."
Phil: There you go. Go to the Bahamas, that's good. Little black flag.
Larry: Hopefully, we'll do that. But I know you've been playing it, right?
Phil: Yeah, it's awesome. I have a great time with it. I played a ton of Destiny last year, I love the cooperative quest space games. [crosstalk 01:09:57]
Larry: And the puzzles.
Phil: Puzzle stuff I think has come out. I love the video they did where they started to talk about some of the depth that we've known about for a while, 'cause most of my friends that are pinging me socially about, "Hey, is this gonna be a game I wanna play?" It's really is the depth going to be there? And I think when they went through the different factions and how you can level in each of those, and the way that the quests are shared. I thought their response to that was good. As more of the game gets unveiled, I think people will get more and more positive on what's there.
Larry: It's coming up, and you can get in if you pre-order the game, right?
Jeff: Yeah, if you pre-order the game, or if you're already a Sea of Thieves insider, and so that closed beta, once again, just two weeks away.
Larry: It's interesting. It's a closed beta, but it's also, they're gonna allow people to stream it.
Jeff: Yeah. You're gonna see a ton of it on Mixer and other channels as well. It's gonna be free. You're gonna be able to take screenshots, clips, whatever, and put it everywhere. I think you're gonna see a ton of Sea of Thieves at that point.
Larry: If you wanna see us playing as a squad or a team or a boat or galleon or whatever their term is.
Jeff: If you let us in.
Laura: Yeah. If you answer [crosstalk 01:10:59].
Jeff: Ship's full.
Phil: Three of us will be playing together. Somebody else won't.
Larry: Not true. I actually had a great experience. I forgot to mention this at the beginning of the show. Second or third week of December, playing PUBG, and they just had squads go live or something like that. I had three of us, and you all weren't around. You were sunning yourself or talking to somebody, and y'all were ... anyway, I tweet it out, I'm like, "Hey, I need a fourth." And it's always risky when you go on Twitter, right? You don't know what you're gonna get.
Phil: I don't know what you're talking about.
Larry: I'm just saying. This one guy came back, a bunch of people came back, and this one guy ... I think his gamer tag is huntertv, he says, "Yeah, I'll join." So I add him to my friends list, we brought him in. This guy was pro legit expert, great guy, nice guy, lives on the West Coast United States, not that that matters. But he was really great. We were just going through it, and we got our first chicken dinner with him.
Laura: Wow.
Phil: He carried you.
Larry: Totally. Absolutely.
Phil: I find some of the best people online when I play, and you really meet some genuine people that love gaming, just wanna play together. For us that are here, we don't feel like we're working the whole time we're playing with people. You can just be yourself. I love that about our community. I think our community, for the most part, is a very fun place to play with some really great people.
Larry: It was a great experience, as always. We just went in and we had some fun. We won some chicken dinners. Did you get yours yet? Do you have a chicken dinner?
Phil: No, I'm dead zone. I am not in the HypeZone.
Laura: I'm not in the HypeZone either.
Larry: I can bring you into a team that can get you a chicken dinner. I just can't guarantee ... I don't think I can carry the whole team.
Phil: I have lived my life with people carrying me through raids, [crosstalk 01:12:38] you're gonna end up with the, "Okay, I can get you a chicken dinner." I will learn to play and build ... I've just been stuck in Assassin's.
Larry: I'll tell you what else is amazing, not just dwelling on PUBG too much. But we're talking about four updates in less than a month.
Phil: They've been doing a good job.
Larry: They are just grinding away. It's in game preview, so that's part of it.
Phil: CH and I, we did stay in touch over the holidays, CH being the executive producer for the game, really head of PUBG corp now. And talking to him about his plans, and it's so cool to see a team, 'cause game development can be a hard space. You work on a game sometimes as a ship. You work on a game sometimes and hit your goals. You work on a game and it becomes PUBG, and they've sold a jillion copies in nine months or whatever it is. And it's just a team that has the excitement of all the success they've had. The fear of we're running downhill faster than our legs will take us, but they're doing a good job. They're doing a good job with the updates, both on PC and on Xbox. Not everything's perfect all the time, but they communicate the things that they're working on, and I think that's what we should both expect, and it's great to see them delivering on it.
Larry: I have one question for you, and I didn't prep you with this one, so I apologize. [crosstalk 01:13:49] You sit on a leadership team for Microsoft the company. You report to [Satiya 01:13:55]. What's that like being at the table with all these heavy hitters. Not that you're not, but I'm just thinking, you're the gaming expert, right?
Phil: Yeah, I don't get a lot of gaming questions from the leadership team, so I don't know if the expertness matters. As some people know, I've been at the company for quite a long time. Sitting there and now getting re-exposed to some of the questions and challenges and opportunities the company has has been awesome. I'll say the thing I love the most has been how interested and supportive the leadership team is for what we're trying to do here.
Larry: In gaming.
Phil: In gaming. And I know four or five years ago, there were some questions about what are we doing in this space? Does it link to what Microsoft strategy is? I missed last Friday's 'cause I wasn't back yet, but the leadership team had all worn their Xbox jacket. They sent me a picture. So it's just nice to see, from [Satiya 01:14:54], Amy Hood, the CFO, Peggy Johnson, who runs business development, Kathleen, who runs HR, Scott [inaudible 01:15:02]. They've really been supportive of what can Microsoft do to help us in the gaming space? Help us do better, help us deliver on our goals, and it's just great. They have been very supportive. I chime in every once in a while on an Office 365 issue.
Larry: What's the squiggly line in my Word?
Phil: But it's been awesome. It's been five months now, but the support that we're getting, the ambition that the company has here, and hopefully 2018 will show some of that.
Larry: Well, on that note, we're gonna have to wrap it up, 'cause I know you have to run to another meeting, and we've kept people far too long already. Any final words you wanna say before we let you go?
Phil: I just wanna know how I did, boss.
Larry: Thanks again for watching. For Laura, Jeff, and of course Phil here, I wanna thank you guys. We'll see you next time, and hopefully we'll see you on the Sea of Thieves technical alpha or PUBG. But I'll be streaming. I stream a lot now, you know.
Phil: I know you do. You're gonna be a partner now.
Larry: Alright guys, we'll see you next time. Bye-bye, everybody.
Laura: Bye-bye.

Larry Hryb: Hey, it's Larry Hryb, Xbox Live's Major Nelson. Welcome, this is the very first episode of Major Nelson Radio on video. Joining me today of course, Laura. Hello, Laura.
Laura: Hello.
Larry Hryb: Nice to see you.
Laura: Awesome to be here. Nice to see you, too.
Larry Hryb: And seeing you, everybody at home, wherever you are. I don't know how you're watching this, you're watching this on your device, you're watching this at home, you're watching it ... Please don't watch it at school. Stay in school. And sitting over there on the right is Jeffrey Rubenstein. Hi, Jeff.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, yeah, this is really weird. Hi. This is great. We're live.
Larry Hryb: Now, we've been doing this show, Laura and I have been doing the show for a long time. Jeff joined us when he joined the company, but the show's been on the air for more than 10 years.
Laura: Has it been 10 years?
Jeff Rubenstein: It's been ... It's an institution.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, so who wants to be an institution, I believe is the old line. There's been a lot of requests from people for us to do this live and on Mixer, so who are we to say no?
Laura: We'll give it a try and see how it goes.
Larry Hryb: We'll give it a try. We're gonna do a normal show. We've got chat room open here. Jeff, do you have the chat room open? Laura, do you have it open?
Jeff Rubenstein: I do have it open [crosstalk 00:01:12]
Laura: I do, I see the comments right here.
Larry Hryb: I have it open as well so-
Laura: Thanks for joining us, guys [crosstalk 00:01:14]
Larry Hryb: Nice to see you, guys. Yeah, Streetbreaker wants to know, "Your right or our right?" So I guess it's stage right, stage left. Either way, we're here, we're live, we're here in Seattle.
Jeff Rubenstein: Doing it live!
Larry Hryb: We're doing it live. And we're in Seattle, we're hanging out with you guys. For those of you joining us on Xbox the console, hello, welcome, nice to see you guys. If you follow me there, you probably got a notification that we're broadcasting. If you're joining us on Twitch, you can head over to Mixer.com/majornelson we're gonna give away some stuff later on.
Laura: Are we?
Jeff Rubenstein: What kind of stuff? [crosstalk 00:01:40] Good stuff?
Larry Hryb: We'll talk about that.
Jeff Rubenstein: I'm looking at it. It's actually really good stuff.
Larry Hryb: No, no, no [crosstalk 00:01:44] We're not giving that stuff away.
Jeff Rubenstein: What? What are you talking about?
Laura: I've got some good stuff to give away.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, Laura's got some good stuff. Anyway-
Laura: Right here next to me.
Larry Hryb: We usually stop the ... We usually start the show with what we're playing, so I figured we'd do that. Now, I wanna be clear. We talk about how much we don't see each other and this is the first time I've seen Laura in a week and the first I've seen Jeff in two weeks? Or three?
Jeff Rubenstein: Since before Thanksgiving.
Larry Hryb: You were in Japan, you were-
Laura: That's right [crosstalk 00:02:01]
Larry Hryb: Yeah, how was your Thanksgiving by the way, Laura?
Laura: It was good. I had some family come up and there were no turkey disasters, which is always good.
Larry Hryb: Okay.
Laura: Everything went-
Jeff Rubenstein: Did you cook the turkey?
Laura: As well as planned. Yes, I cooked for all the family that came up.
Larry Hryb: How many people?
Laura: There were eight eaters in total.
Larry Hryb: Eight ... So that's interesting she says eight eaters. As opposed to eight guests, there were eight eaters.
Jeff Rubenstein: That's programming talk right there.
Laura: I just see them as mouths to feed, what can I say?
Larry Hryb: Right exactly. I love that it's like some weird game. Okay, you got eight eaters. That's it, eight. How about ... So go ahead.
Laura: Well, one of them was not a meat eater, so there was seven meat eaters, one non-meat eater.
Larry Hryb: Now I have to ask because we have this conversation around my family table at Thanksgiving, are you of the cranberry sauce in the can or not?
Jeff Rubenstein: No, I wanna look at ... I wanna see an actual berry.
Larry Hryb: Okay.
Laura: Really? Because I love it out of the can.
Larry Hryb: Okay, so there you go. I'll pretty much eat either way, so it doesn't really matter to me.
Laura: Oh, that's where cranberry is born, right? It's in the can?
Larry Hryb: MK the Worst. Hi, MK. Oh, MK's in there. Hey, how you doing? She likes both.
Laura: Yeah, you can't ... Cranberry sauce is really good, no matter where it comes from.
Larry Hryb: Cranberry sauce is really good. But anyway, Thanksgiving feels like it's like years ago, because after Thanksgiving, you went to Japan!
Jeff Rubenstein: Yes, like for a week and then I went to a place where I can't sleep at all, so yeah, I had an amazing time in Japan. I was just there for meetings, it was nothing specifically Xbox related but got to meet a whole bunch of folks over there. And man, arcades, still huge over there.
Larry Hryb: Oh yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: Which is crazy. And I feel like when you go to Japan, you see what is a little bit ahead of the curve. And for arcades there, like they had arcades way before I feel like we did, or at least to the size we do. And everything is a VR arcade right now.
Laura: Really?
Larry Hryb: Oh that's cool.
Jeff Rubenstein: Everywhere. And they're made by Sega, they're made by [Tidal 00:03:40], they're made by all these other companies that you know from home games but tons of stuff. They had Mario Kart-
Laura: Wait.
Larry Hryb: That's the first time I ever-
Laura: Was there a real Mario Kart?
Jeff Rubenstein: So they had that too and we saw that, just like people motoring down the street. And it's winter, it's not warm there. But they're dressed up like Mario and Luigi and everybody-
Laura: Really?
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, so-
Laura: That is my dream, is to actually play Mario Kart with go-karts.
Jeff Rubenstein: So I read about it and I read people there, they hate it because it's like the traffic ... This is a city [crosstalk 00:04:04]
Larry Hryb: It interrupts the traffic.
Jeff Rubenstein: You don't want to ... I would never drive in New York and I'm a pretty awful driver.
Larry Hryb: I love driving in New York.
Jeff Rubenstein: What is wrong with you? Nobody should love driving in New York.
Laura: Do you?
Larry Hryb: It's the real deal because you go in there and you're like, okay, let's go.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, it's like you get honked and it's still red, guy, but-
Larry Hryb: You guys have driven with me, so you know I have a weakness ... Just a tinge of my New York-
Jeff Rubenstein: You like torque.
Larry Hryb: New York rage. I like torque but I also like, "Get outta my way, people." Yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: So you fit in in Seattle just great. But the drivers are terrible.
Larry Hryb: Are we giving stuff away in the chat room already?
Jeff Rubenstein: What? Huh? What? Good. Hey, let's do it.
Larry Hryb: All right, let's do some stuff.
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh, by the way, someone thinks you're wearing a jumper.
Larry Hryb: No-
Laura: That is a jumper.
Larry Hryb: This is a-
Jeff Rubenstein: It's a sweater.
Larry Hryb: It's a sweater.
Jeff Rubenstein: You're representing Syracuse.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, I got my orange sweater. I don't know why ... It doesn't feel very holiday like, but I was feeling very orange today. And Laura, you dressed up.
Laura: I, well...
Larry Hryb: But how to be clear, [crosstalk 00:04:55] this is not how we looked when we're doing the audio version of the podcast.
Jeff Rubenstein: I usually stumble in a bathrobe.
Larry Hryb: That's right, that's right.
Laura: Well, to be clear, I have a big, important customer meeting today [crosstalk 00:05:03]
Larry Hryb: Oh, so this is not for us? For everyone here?
Laura: Sorry, I wouldn't be this nice. [crosstalk 00:05:07]
Larry Hryb: Well we just happen to be that white. Xbox quick, Mikey Barr's in there. How was the kiddo's first Thanksgiving? Thank you for asking.
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh yeah.
Larry Hryb: I have a new daughter. It was great. We had a nice time. She behaved. She's delightful, and I don't want to be that guy that talks about their child all the time, so she was great.
Laura: I'm glad it was good.
Larry Hryb: Yeah. We had a great time. Thank you for asking, Mike. Mike, by the way, this ... We'll talk about this a little bit later in the show. Mikey Barr. Xbox Quick on Twitter. Huge, huge PUBG fan. PUBG's coming to Xbox 1 next week!
Jeff Rubenstein: Next week.
Larry Hryb: Game preview coming next week. We're very excited about that and I may or may not have played it already.
Jeff Rubenstein: You may or may not be pretty darn good at it.
Larry Hryb: Eh.
Jeff Rubenstein: You have like a very conservative sort of gameplay style that seems to find you in the top five very often.
Larry Hryb: Well yeah. My conservative gameplay style is camp. A lot.
Laura: Hide, do you mean?
Jeff Rubenstein: When in doubt stand behind me, and let me get shot first.
Larry Hryb: Right. It works very well, but I'm really excited. PUBG's coming next week to Game Preview. Coming to Xbox, and I've got to tell you, it plays great. It's a lot of fun. I'll be on ... We'll talk about that later. We're going to the video game awards this week, but Monday, Tuesday, starting Tuesday we'll be off, right?
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh absolutely.
Larry Hryb: We'll play duos. We'll play team lore. Have you played the game?
Laura: I've not played PUBG on Xbox yet. I'm not as privileged.
Larry Hryb: Well. I mean but you can play on your PC.
Laura: Yes. I've played it on the PC.
Larry Hryb: Okay. So you understand the concept.
Laura: I know what it is, yes.
Larry Hryb: So look at it right here.
Jeff Rubenstein: It feels good. [crosstalk 00:06:31] It looks good.
Larry Hryb: You can see it right here on the screen, here, I mean this is it right here. I don't see anybody with the pan. That happened to me last night.
Jeff Rubenstein: We don't have this level of teamwork I feel like.
Larry Hryb: That happened to me last night. That's pretty much the teamwork right there.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah. Exactly.
Larry Hryb: But I had an experience recently. I won't say last night. Recently.
Jeff Rubenstein: We're live, Larry. Don't ruin it. First and last live show ever.
Larry Hryb: [crosstalk 00:06:50] but where I had this grenade. All of a sudden I hear is tink, tink, tink, and looked down. I was like uh-oh!
Laura: Oh no.
Jeff Rubenstein: And that's what great about, you died.
Larry Hryb: Anyway, PUBG coming next week. So anyway, nice to see you again Laura. Again, I'm glad you had a nice Thanksgiving. Now Jeff, you had your Thanksgiving. You had a ...
Jeff Rubenstein: Actually I had a guest over from ... So Sid Schuman, who runs ...
Larry Hryb: Sid! Hopefully Sid's watching.
Jeff Rubenstein: So I had hired, [crosstalk 00:07:11] PlayStation ... Actually he might be. And so he's been a good friend of mine and I always had an open invite. Really any of my friends, we have an open door policy with Thanksgiving especially, where it's just, come over.
Larry Hryb: Did you ever get that invite, Laura? Because I don't think I did.
Laura: Uh-uh.
Jeff Rubenstein: You guys live here. You have families. And so all of my loser friends with no friends and family can all get ...
Larry Hryb: Your gamer friends.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, that went ... can come over at any time. And I get a call, and he's like, "You mind if I come over Thanksgiving?" And I'm like, "Uh, sure?" You know. I was like fine with it actually, but you know, I had to ask my wife.
Larry Hryb: Was there a kids table?
Jeff Rubenstein: Uh, no. We had [crosstalk 00:07:43]
Larry Hryb: Because it's not a legit Thanksgiving meal if you ... Did you have a kids table.
Laura: I think I did.
Larry Hryb: Yeah. Okay.
Jeff Rubenstein: We just jammed in there pretty good. Anyway so it was great. Sid's one of the best conversationalists in the gaming industry. We just sat there and talked gaming for three days straight, and it was a good time.
Laura: That's pretty awesome.
Jeff Rubenstein: And play some games. I'm actually looking now in, on my Xbox. Everything he jumped into. Played a little bit of Cup Head together, and he got really into State of Decay.
Larry Hryb: This is actually my ... I should go up here and take a look here. This is actually my count right up here. I should go through and see. See all my achievements, if we can bring this up here, this should be great.
Jeff Rubenstein: I like this lighting.
Larry Hryb: Let's see who I'm basically, what I've been playing here.
Laura: Oh, by the way.
Jeff Rubenstein: Get up there and do your weather stuff.
Larry Hryb: That's kind of your thing. You know, you can kind of see him play Cup Head, Overwatch. I've got to tell you, Bioshock.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah?
Laura: You've played it recently?
Larry Hryb: Well of course I finished it ten years ago, but there's a newer version out, which is in HD, and it is ... Because it's got three things which I love. I love scuba diving. I love kind of that forties music. And I love.
Jeff Rubenstein: Hand drills! You're big into hand drills.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, who isn't? And I just love the architecture. So I was in there, was like, "Let me just see what it looks like." I was like, "Oh, wow." And I just started playing it and it's unlocking achievements left and right.
Laura: This is in 4k that you're playing in ...
Larry Hryb: Well it's not 4k, but it's enhanced like it's not that compact. So it's not fully enhanced and it's not that compact. It's like somewhere in the slider in the middle there.
Laura: That is a beautiful game. It's just so beautiful.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, it's really ... I love Bioshock, so playing that. I finished up Wolfenstein 2, the New Colossus.
Jeff Rubenstein: Woo. Yeah, I started playing that a couple days ago. Alright. Let's be honest here. Let's level set. What level did you beat the game at? And there's no wrong answer here.
Larry Hryb: The default level.
Jeff Rubenstein: The default level? So like bring them on, or whatever?
Larry Hryb: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the way [crosstalk 00:09:19]
Jeff Rubenstein: Because I love the animation it begins with. There's like one of those like, "Can I play, Daddy?" Where it's just like a bonnet and a pacifier. Yeah. And it goes down into like, "Mein Leben." And you know, you have blood all over your face. And I was like, I always try to find what is medium. And I got my butt kicked on default. I think just bring them on. So I ended up ... I just wanted to see the game, and I have just a couple days to play and you know what? I'm not ashamed to admit, I'm a little ashamed to admit that I down-leveled it, not to the baby one, but to ...
Larry Hryb: I won't judge.
Jeff Rubenstein: Just about.
Larry Hryb: Are we judging? Are we judging?
Laura: This is not a judgemental ...
Jeff Rubenstein: You're judging. Yeah totally judging.
Larry Hryb: If you're gonna judge Jeff, please let us know.
Jeff Rubenstein: You know what? Judge me because I just want the see the game. Death Incarnate [crosstalk 00:09:57] well, okay. Maybe not. Maybe everyone's better than me.
Larry Hryb: So Wolfenstein. Fallout 4. That is enhanced. I went back in and been playing that as enhanced.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yes!
Larry Hryb: It's great to see that again.
Laura: Oh my goodness.
Larry Hryb: It looks phenomenal, and of course below that is Assassin's Creed: Origins, which is great. Jackpot's Party Pack. You and I played that.
Laura: We did play that.
Larry Hryb: Did you watch it?
Jeff Rubenstein: I did watch it. So it was like Saturday morning, like 6:00am in Japan. And I couldn't sleep.
Larry Hryb: Which was Friday at 3:00 here.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, something like that. And so I was like you know what? I'm gonna tune it in to see, and I watched you guys play, and you had a good audience, and it was ... I felt a little left out.
Laura: Yup. Aww.
Jeff Rubenstein: And then I looked out the window, and I was like okay, well this is not terrible either.
Larry Hryb: You were right on the Tokyo Bay.
Jeff Rubenstein: And then I got a bowl of ... Yeah, right off ... It was one of these things where it's like, you're not in the city, where it's like a cool place to be, but you can look at the city, which is beautiful.
Larry Hryb: The city's right there.
Jeff Rubenstein: Like the best view of New York is from New Jersey. But I did have a bowl of ramen and that made me feel better. It was good.
Larry Hryb: That tends to be always your excuse.
Laura: Yeah.
Larry Hryb: That always makes you feel better. That's like your chicken soup for the soul. Ramen for the soul.
Jeff Rubenstein: I know. Now, chicken ramen, now you're talking. We can have our cake and eat it too.
Larry Hryb: So anyway, what are you playing. We kind of went right into mine because I had my list up.
Laura: So we have been playing the Jack Box games, which is really fun. You know I got a chance to play that with Shannon Loftis.
Larry Hryb: For Extra Life. We raise money for Extra Life. If you stop by the Extra Life, make sure she may want to thank you on behalf of Seattle Children's Hospital and everyone here at Xbox. Thank you for that.
Laura: For sure. It was a ton of fun and we raised a couple thousand dollars I think, for the Children's Hospital, which is great. Super fantastic. And we had a lot of fun playing with the audience and the other people that were able to join in and participate, which is super fun.
Larry Hryb: And the games finished like right at ... We only had an hour and we finished like right on the hour.
Laura: Yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: That's very important in a radio guy like yourself.
Larry Hryb: I like to bring it in on time.
Jeff Rubenstein: At the top of the hour, you've got to drop the ...
Larry Hryb: Let's go. Gotta go.
Jeff Rubenstein: The station identification.
Larry Hryb: That's why I have this here. To let people know that we're on the air. This is live in case you're just tuning in obviously. There's been a lot of requests from to audience and everyone to, "Hey, let's take this, one of the longest running game podcasts ever, and put it on Mixer." And we're here. We're live. We're taking your questions, so drop them down there. Jeff and Laura will take a look at those. We're gonna kind of motor on through what else we're playing. I asked you what you're playing and then I stopped.
Laura: That's okay.
Larry Hryb: Okay. Go ahead.
Laura: You ready now?
Larry Hryb: Yes I am.
Laura: Okay. The other game I've been playing is actually going back into Slime Rancher because it turns out ... Don't give me the eye roll.
Larry Hryb: Turns out.
Laura: Because it turns out there's a lot of rare achievements that you can get.
Larry Hryb: Yes there are.
Laura: In that game.
Larry Hryb: I will not eye roll you.
Laura: And you know you love that rare achievement sound effect. Like it's just so satisfying.
Larry Hryb: Do we have that? Could we play that? I think, Dave, you've got that don't you? The rare achievement sound.
Laura: Oh, it's so satisfying.
Jeff Rubenstein: You better Dave, because it's live and we're really counting on you.
Larry Hryb: I know I gave it to him, but he wasn't planning on playing it, so if he can ...
Laura: He does have it.
Larry Hryb: Okay.
Laura: We'll let's see, anyway.
Jeff Rubenstein: Just get it in later. For the VOD.
Larry Hryb: We can't do that. It's live.
Laura: Finishing post. But yeah. Super fun game. And the rare achievements are actually pretty easy to do. I just snuck a peek at the achievement list and found like there was five or ten achievable rare achievements. I thought, "Hey. Why not?" I love the little diamond next to them. I love it when it pops up and it spins.
Jeff Rubenstein: It does the flourish.
Laura: Yes. And there's a flourishing sound effect that accompanies it. Just makes you feel, ah, happy on the inside. So I've been playing that and if you look at my recently played games list, you'll also see that I've been playing Diablo. As usual.
Jeff Rubenstein: Whoa! Is this a new development?
Laura: No. It's actually not a new development. And the other game I still sort of got back into, which we talked about last time was Dance Central 2. I've been going back into that.
Larry Hryb: How are you playing it?
Laura: How do you mean, how am I playing it?
Jeff Rubenstein: Like this? Mm, mm, mm. Like a lot of that?
Larry Hryb: Okay don't ever do that.
Laura: No.
Larry Hryb: Okay on the podcast it's okay. Not the video.
Jeff Rubenstein: We have video! We have to play to the video audience.
Larry Hryb: I'm sorry.
Jeff Rubenstein: I should never do that. I should never do that.
Laura: Uh, no. Not the disco moves, but no, what was that? Goodness gracious. Throwing all kinds of moves at me. No, just normal. However you play Dance Central 2. You move the coffee table out of the way.
Larry Hryb: Was that for Thanksgiving?
Laura: Yes.
Larry Hryb: Because our Thanksgiving around the table was playing the Jack Box Party Games and that was yours?
Laura: Ours was getting around the Kinect.
Larry Hryb: We're a little more sloth like.
Laura: Working out those calories.
Jeff Rubenstein: You should lay down on the floor.
Laura: Digesting.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Laura: Very slowly. But no. We got some exercise in, and played some Dance Central, which is super fun.
Larry Hryb: Looking at some of the questions we got the chatroom right. Is this you in Dance Central?
Laura: Oh my gosh. How'd they ... Were they capturing me while I was playing.
Larry Hryb: It could be. I don't know. Rejectking, Jerkblocker. Jerkblocker? What is that?
Jeff Rubenstein: You've gotta, yeah ...
Laura: Oh yeah. I've played that song a bunch.
Larry Hryb: I don't know what that is.
Jeff Rubenstein: The Sir Douglas Step. Everyone's favorite dance move from the Victorian Era, yes. "Well you must do the Sir Douglas Step, sir." "Mm. Righto."
Laura: Where have we gone? Where have we gone?
Larry Hryb: So I want to go back to Slime Rancher for a second. So when you're playing Slime Rancher, do you look at the number of mouths to feed?
Laura: I like you bringing that full circle. Yes actually I do.
Jeff Rubenstein: [crosstalk 00:14:35] dipsy doodle. Yeah.
Laura: Yes I do. Because you're supposed to feed them, and then they poo out money, essentially.
Larry Hryb: Poo out money.
Laura: Yes.
Jeff Rubenstein: I need to get me one of those slimes.
Larry Hryb: Poo emoji! Put the poo emoji in.
Laura: So you've got to feed them. That's how you get money. And that's how you upgrade your ranch.
Jeff Rubenstein: Slime Rancher. Check it out.
Laura: Yeah. It's really fun.
Larry Hryb: Usually we go through what we're playing. We kind of talk about that.
Laura: Yes! There's Slime Rancher. They got it up there.
Larry Hryb: Now I see Master Chaos has put in Connecticut. Yes, I was from Connecticut. That's where I lived. I don't know why that's in there now. We've got the chatroom open. Clove an Casey, no I have not played PUBG with Quick yet. I should. I'm frightened to because he's really good.
Jeff Rubenstein: Well you need to like team up with him.
Laura: Be on the same team.
Jeff Rubenstein: Ride it onto that chicken dinner.
Larry Hryb: I've played duos. Have you played? Duos is fun.
Jeff Rubenstein: I have. I have on PC.
Larry Hryb: Duos is fun. What else?
Laura: That's it for me. We should probably talk about Jeff.
Jeff Rubenstein: We should.
Larry Hryb: Jeff, you haven't had a lot of chance to play have you because you've been ...
Jeff Rubenstein: Shh! Come on man! Well so, obviously ...
Laura: Did you play on the plane?
Jeff Rubenstein: Yes. On the plane. So I brought my switch, and i picked up Mario, because everyone's playing Mario. And then the day before, I got like sort of a wild hair and I ended up picking up Mario vs. Rabids, and that has completely taken over my time. So if you're a strategy fan, like Ex-Com ... Ex-Com is one of my top three or four favorite franchises ever. I love a strategy RPG, and Rabids totally scratches that itch. And it's very funny. Like for something using the Mario IP, it's a little edgy. It is not what I expected. It is not a cutesy little thing.
Larry Hryb: Take his shirt off?
Jeff Rubenstein: No, I did that in Odyssey.
Larry Hryb: I did too.
Jeff Rubenstein: And so I ended up playing for the entirety of my flight. Like 16 hours. I probably played almost the entire time. They have internet now, by the way, when you're flying on the Pacific. And I wanted my time and I'm getting texted, and I'm like, "Leave me alone."
Larry Hryb: I didn't know that. I would've texted you.
Jeff Rubenstein: That's why I didn't tell you.
Larry Hryb: That's why you didn't tell me. That's right. Look at this. Here it is right here.
Jeff Rubenstein: Look at this. This is amazing. It's really like I had no love for the Rabids themselves until this game, and you know what? Congrats to Ubisoft and Nintendo. You did a fantastic job on this. It's a great game for on the go. Soon as I got back now, I have like about ten days, so I'm really focused on Wolfenstein.
Larry Hryb: That's looks like a lot of fun.
Jeff Rubenstein: But then something dropped today for Destiny 2.
Laura: That's right.
Jeff Rubenstein: Not just the Curse of Osiris, but also ...
Larry Hryb: Wait, there's more.
Jeff Rubenstein: There is more. If you're noticing that patch is about six gigabytes. Well the reason for that is because it is now Xbox 1 X enhanced, with both 4k and HDR.
Laura: Awesome.
Jeff Rubenstein: And apparently I loaded up and I confirmed that it was there before I sent a tweet this morning and then literally jumped in the car and came here. But I saw a couple tweets replying. They're like, "Oh, when you see the traveler, you will know you have been enhanced, because it's just looks spectacular." So, definitely gonna load that up tonight and figure out exactly how far behind I am in the legendary route.
The other game I've been playing is NBA 2K18.
Laura: What's your ...
Larry Hryb: The return. Is he back.
Laura: Is he back.[crosstalk 00:17:23] Jeffery Dean.
Jeff Rubenstein: Look. The story mode ... I love how all sports games now, Madden, FIFA, NBA, they all have story modes now, where you can just create a player and this one is just so off the wall and ridiculous. I got to join the Sixers, which is great, and the whole thing is about how, at least early on in the season, how the guy, the usher who welcomes you back down the tunnel after the game, keeps ignoring your player. And it just keeps driving your player nuts. And it's like, "Why won't this guy give me a fist bump?" And you keep embarrassing yourself and then every time you go back to your house, you have a roommate, who I'm trying to figure out. She's like ...
Larry Hryb: Look at that three point.
Jeff Rubenstein: And she's like having a hip hop themed sort of acting class happening in your apartment. Like she just keeps mooching off of you. None of this has anything to do with basketball and it's hilarious.
Larry Hryb: Okay.
Jeff Rubenstein: I also have really good shoes. I have the Air Jordan 32s on there, so anyway, I would say, and it's an RPG, it's phenomenal. NBA 2K18 is amazing.
Larry Hryb: If you're just joining us, my name's Larry Hryb. Xbox Live's Major Nelson joining me. This is the podcast. This is what we de. I've got Jeffery down there on the end of the desk, and Laura right here in the middle, keeping us apart because we'll go at it. I want to thank you guys for joining us. This is live! It's currently 19 minutes after the hour.
Laura: Are you on radio?
Larry Hryb: I don't know what happened.
Jeff Rubenstein: If he says radio, he's going to keep it radio. We're gonna have a check. Traffic and weather together on the eights.
Larry Hryb: Right. Hey, I want to let people know this is what they're getting into. This is really what it's all about. We've got about almost 600 people in the chatroom. We're giving away some things in the chatroom. We're going to do the news in just a little bit. But first I want to talk about something really cool. Jeff and I are headed down to Los Angeles for The Game Awards. That's right, the Game Awards. Geoff Keighley's Game Awards are gonna be this Thursday night. They will be on Mixer. Jeff and I will be down there in Los Angeles at the Microsoft Theater.
Jeff Rubenstein: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Larry Hryb: Looking forward to that.
Jeff Rubenstein: Have you ever been in there?
Larry Hryb: No.
Jeff Rubenstein: I don't know if I have either.
Larry Hryb: We always walk by it at E3, but we've never been there. You know where it is, right Laura?
Laura: No.
Larry Hryb: It's right behind the JW.
Laura: Okay.
Larry Hryb: So it's like the next building. Anyway, but you can watch it on Mixer at mixer.com/xbox. We're gonna have some interactivity on there so bookmark it. I'd probably go ahead and re-stream it on my channel. Also mixer.com/thegameawards. So either on will get you where you need to go, but we'd love you to tune in. They're gonna do Mix Pot, which is where they give away some stuff on air, so that's where you're gonna want to watch it. It's also low late. Like this is really low late.
Jeff Rubenstein: No. I'm like looking at myself and I'm looking at the screen and by the time I point down, it's already there and this is ...
Larry Hryb: That's why I can tell people ...[crosstalk 00:19:59]
Laura: Wow.
Jeff Rubenstein: Wow, I'm a real hand talker.
Larry Hryb: Because it'll actually be 20 minutes after the hour. There's Geoff right here. Our good friend Geoff Keighley. He's going to ... Best audio design.
Jeff Rubenstein: So you should vote by the way.
Larry Hryb: Yep.
Jeff Rubenstein: So if you go to thegameawards.com, we're sort of like all, sort of all over the place, but why not because we're live. Then you can vote, and there's a lot of really cool stuff there. And of course there's your normal categories like, Game of the Year and Best Xbox Game, Best Driving Game. It's Forza 7. I'm just going to ... It is. But you can vote for things like trending game, and there's some people that I know in there and it's really cool. You can vote, I think once a day.
Larry Hryb: Cup Head's up for quite a few.
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh yeah. And Cup Head, they deserve it. They've won a couple of Indie Awards. In fact I think they won something today.
Larry Hryb: Yeah. [crosstalk 00:20:42] Cup Head
Jeff Rubenstein: Do you think Phoenix is gonna perform? That's pretty great. So yeah. I'm looking forward to it. And Goeff Keighley puts on an amazing show. And there's gonna be a lot of [crosstalk 00:20:52] that are gonna be there.
Larry Hryb: He always does. In fact, I got a text. I should text him right now and let him know that we're pimping his show out.
Jeff Rubenstein: I'm sure he would appreciate that.
Larry Hryb: He's deep in his getting his show ready. So anyway Video Game Awards. That's Thursday night at mixer.com/game awards. Is it "The" Game Awards, or Game Awards?
Jeff Rubenstein: I'll put it in the show notes. We still do the show notes. Thegameawards.com.
Larry Hryb: The Game Awards. Thank you. The Game Awards.
Jeff Rubenstein: TGA.
Larry Hryb: I just want to make sure I understand what we're doing. Make sure everybody's going to the right place. Hey I want to talk about a couple of things. Oh I'm sorry, something else.
Jeff Rubenstein: We can talk about your thing, but there's one other game I'm playing that's very different that I think is like pretty awesome, and we should get off the stream in 39 minutes for HQ. Have you played HQ at all?
Laura: Yes I have. So has Larry.
Jeff Rubenstein: So we've all been playing it.
Larry Hryb: In fact, I've had it on my phone and Laura and I have been talking about it.
Jeff Rubenstein: For those of you who haven't played, it's a streaming ...
Larry Hryb: It's my game.
Jeff Rubenstein: It's a quiz game.
Larry Hryb: Right now this should be my game. I should be the host for this game.
Laura: Also it's part of my game too.
Larry Hryb: Is it?
Laura: Because it's a little bit of nerd trivia.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, exactly. So it's ...
Larry Hryb: You need to get on there. Lauren's got the tech. I've got the ... I don't really have the talent.
Laura: You have the talent.
Larry Hryb: I don't know about that.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah. I think if you put the two of you together, [crosstalk 00:21:52] trivia.
Larry Hryb: I know. Trust me, we've been talking about it.
Laura: With a live host.
Jeff Rubenstein: And then, you know, Scott knows his Yiddish. I think if you combine the three of us, we're HQ. If only we were[crosstalk 00:22:01]
Larry Hryb: Maybe next time we do the show here on Mixer maybe we should do a nerd trivia outlet. We could bring a little mini nerd trivia fact to the chatroom. What do you guys think?
Jeff Rubenstein: Looking at the chat, people like the nerd trivia. They miss it, they want to see it.
Laura: Aw, thanks guys.
Jeff Rubenstein: Let's do it.
Larry Hryb: Yes, yes, yes.
Laura: Thank you for playing. That makes my heat feel happy.
Jeff Rubenstein: There it is. We got HQ right away. What is the term for brains of a computer?
Laura: That's an easy one. It has to be Q1 or Q4.
Jeff Rubenstein: That's Q1 or Q2. I got knocked out in like question number three.
Larry Hryb: I made it up to six.
Speaker 4: Five.
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh really?
Laura: They get really hard at four.
Jeff Rubenstein: You got Mercury. Because it was like, "What's the hottest planet in our solar system?"
Laura: I imagine the one that's closest to the sun.
Jeff Rubenstein: As would I. Nope. Venus.
Laura: Okay. I got that wrong.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah. And I've been to both these places in Destiny, and I will tell you they look [crosstalk 00:22:45]
Larry Hryb: Alright, I'm gonna work. Laura and I are gonna work on something to do like this okay. So if you want that, drop it in the chatroom. Send us an email, major@xbox.com and let us know what you think.
Alright. You're playing HQ. I'm playing HQ. Hey, what are ...
Jeff Rubenstein: I wouldn't do it, but it's free.
Larry Hryb: Can I ... I want to get this guy in here, because I'm gonna give one of these away on my blog. Check this out. I found a few extra Scorpio editions.
Laura: Can I have it?
Larry Hryb: Look at that.
Laura: Can I just put it into my pocket please?
Larry Hryb: No you can't have this.
Laura: No?
Larry Hryb: But I've got a few extra Project Scorpio editions, and I'm going to be giving them away on my blog at majornelson.com over the next few weeks, because why? Because it's what I do. I want to talk about game gifting. You can now gift games on Xbox.
Jeff Rubenstein: I've done it.
Larry Hryb: And to make sure people know that, I want to set you up and make sure you have one of these beautiful Project Scorpio editions, and then I want to thank you very much.
Laura: Jealous.
Jeff Rubenstein: What? [crosstalk 00:23:31] I don't know if I have Scorpio edition.
Larry Hryb: [crosstalk 00:23:33] on my blog later and, yeah I do have a few extra. Quick, you don't need the console. You have one. God, look at these people. Unbelievable.
Laura: I know right. We're so needy.
Larry Hryb: Watching the chatroom right now, we're giving away things in the chatroom as well. We're randomly choosing people out. We're giving some things away.
Jeff Rubenstein: I've seen a few prizes hit already.
Larry Hryb: Do you want to go through some headlines, because I've got another cool thing I want to do maybe after the headlines before we get to Name the Game.
Laura: Sounds good.
Larry Hryb: We're doing actually, Name the Game. I know something we don't do it live. We're gonna do it.
Jeff Rubenstein: We barely were able to pull that off on tape, so just the same.
Larry Hryb: 11:24. 24 minutes after 11. Jeffery, what do you got.
Jeff Rubenstein: Alright, so ...
Larry Hryb: At the news desk.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yes, we're just one week away from PUBG, Player Unknown: Battlegrounds, and that'll be coming to Xbox Game Preview. We've talked about it. We're excited. I'm sure you'll see a bunch more. Everyone's gonna be playing it next Tuesday so ...
Larry Hryb: I also ...
Jeff Rubenstein: We should stream. Why don't we do that.
Larry Hryb: Yeah. We're gonna co-stream. What I'd like to do is remind people that when it starts launching, because you need a full match go to so if you download it right away, it may take a little bit for you to get into a match because everyone's got to download it. But either way, we're really excited about it.
Jeff Rubenstein: I'm sure within an hour everyone's just gonna be jumping in and it's gonna be great.
Larry Hryb: Probably even before that.
Jeff Rubenstein: So that's not the only news. And actually we talked about Destiny being Xbox 1 X enhanced. Dead Rising 4 also. So it's been almost a year since that came out, which I had a great time playing that last year. There's a lot more content that's come to the game, so right now, it is Xbox 1 X enhanced. Actually, that update and new game mode came today so it's really live. Instead of this going end? Well by the time you listen. Anyway, it's live now. I like it. No ambiguity.
Larry Hryb: The chatroom is saying my sweater reminds them of summer.
Jeff Rubenstein: There has been more comments on your sweater than anything else.
Laura: I think it's a lovely sweater.
Larry Hryb: Thank you. Thank you.
Jeff Rubenstein: It's like pumpkin.
Laura: It's lovely.
Jeff Rubenstein: She drawl at all?
Larry Hryb: You wanna see something even better? Check this out. You gotta own it.
Laura: Oh yeah, the socks.
Larry Hryb: Matching socks. So I gotta match the socks to the sweater. I think that's what you're supposed to do, right?
Jeff Rubenstein: More of your leg. Now we've to to change this to rated T.
Larry Hryb: Anyway.
Laura: Yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: It was rated E for everyone.
Larry Hryb: Marco sleepy, come on!
Jeff Rubenstein: Alright so, what else? Well Forza Motorsports 7 has released their December update as well, so leagues are coming and so for people that want to get super competitive, that's there. And also the Doritos car pack.
Laura: Ooh.
Jeff Rubenstein: So I don't know if it's coincidence, but the first car that was mentioned in the Doritos car pack was the Porsche Cayenne Turbo, so I'm just assuming that that's themed.
Larry Hryb: I'm actually disappointed that, I'm hoping that when you drive the cars, the Dorito car pack, that you take your hands from the wheel and they're covered in nacho cheese.
Laura: Cheese?
Jeff Rubenstein: Nacho cheese sauce. Do you have something. Yeah, no, it's good.
Larry Hryb: Anyway, really excited. We're broadcasting on Mixer. There's been some notes in the chat. We'll get back to you in a second Jeff. Some comments in the chatroom about the quality so I apologize for the awesome video quality. This is what we look like.
Jeff Rubenstein: We like, downgraded to 480p.
Laura: Can we get some confession in there.
Larry Hryb: Laura, you look lovely as always. Jeff you look, yeah, okay. Jeff and I on the other hand, don't look so. Now wait a minute, wait a minute. I do not look like the carrot boss in Cup Head.
Laura: Oh no!
Jeff Rubenstein: You do do that thing with your eyes, you know.
Larry Hryb: Oh, boy.
Laura: I think it looks nice.
Jeff Rubenstein: At least Portugal still loves you, Larry.
Laura: Be nice sun stream.
Larry Hryb: Alright, going back to the news, what else you got Jeff?
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, alright so. This weekend, if you haven't played the Div ion, yet another game that's been Xbox 1 x enhanced, that will be free for Xbox Live gold members, so you can jump in there, I want to say starting on Friday. Actually, heck, starting on Wednesday, December 6th, all the way through Sunday the 10th. We had a lot of fun with the Division when I first came out.
Larry Hryb: That's right, I forgot about that.
Jeff Rubenstein: We spent a lot of time in New York.
Larry Hryb: That was right after.
Jeff Rubenstein: And then we were like, "Wait." That's, yeah ...
Larry Hryb: That's right after we did that event at that location, which was the home base.
Jeff Rubenstein: Exactly.
Larry Hryb: At the post office.
Jeff Rubenstein: It's like some major postal annex.
Larry Hryb: We spend a lot of time in here.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yes. I want to talk about another game that's coming out next week. Now PUBG, obviously going to dominate the headlines. It's the game that everyone is going to be playing, but a game that I'm really, really excited about is coming out for Xbox for the first time, is Okami. Okami, it's not just because I came back from Japan, but one of the best games. It came out two generations ago. I think it debuted on PS2 and there was a re-release on PS3. Well now we're gonna get the best version on Xbox. It's Xbox 1 x enhanced.
Larry Hryb: Yes, it is enhanced, I see that in the chatroom.
Jeff Rubenstein: Onc of the best games. It was made by Clover, which is like a, it's almost sort of like a super group of Japanese game developers who have since gone their separate ways, but it, this is just ... Man. The video guys are so on it.
Larry Hryb: I don't know who these guys are.
Jeff Rubenstein: It plays a little bit like ... Well first of all, you're using like the cutest doj ever, named Amatirasu, who is like a god.
Larry Hryb: Well done, well done.
Jeff Rubenstein: I just got back, Larry. I can pronounce all the train stations, let me tell you. And you use this drawing mechanic, and it's very artistic and you end up learning these moves where you sort of draw directly onto the screen and then as you can see right here, things happen. But there's actually a lot of action game play.
Larry Hryb: Wow, this looks beautiful.
Jeff Rubenstein: It's very much like a Zelda type of game in terms of ...
Larry Hryb: When's this coming out?
Jeff Rubenstein: It's coming out next week on the 12th. You can preorder it now. It's only 19.99. In fact I'm hitting that preorder button as we speak because I'm so excited for this game. When I'm gonna find time to play it, I don't ... I'm really hitting the preorder button.
Laura: He really is. I can see, I'm watching him.
Jeff Rubenstein: Because it's just fantastic. And it is a long game. God, it'll take like a good 40 hours to beat this one.
Laura: Oh, man.
Jeff Rubenstein: So you're gonna want to get on it if you can, and I'm very, very excited.
Laura: It looks so beautiful.
Larry Hryb: But PUBG'S out next week? That's on ...
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah. So ...
Larry Hryb: The games are still coming out, even though we're in the holiday, games are still coming out. Great games are still coming out. There's lots going on. We're really excited. Thank you for joining us today. It's currently, we're about half way through the show.
Jeff Rubenstein: Wow, that was quick.
Larry Hryb: Well what's a little different, a little behind the scenes action, is when we do our show, our regular podcast, the audio only version, we do it in chunks. We never do it fully like this, right? So this is the ...
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh yeah. One of us has to get up and go to the bathroom.
Larry Hryb: Jeff's like, "Oh, I've gotta go. I've gotta go take this call. Am I gonna go order those sneakers? They just went on sale, so
Jeff Rubenstein: I did do that.
Larry Hryb: So we have to stop the show, but either way.
Jeff Rubenstein: I did.
Larry Hryb: But a a result of us doing video, we get to do cool things like this. I want to bring in this box right now, so check this out. You guys are gonna love this.
Laura: What's happening. This is exciting.
Larry Hryb: This was sent to me. Check this out. I tweeted this. I put this out on my Instagram earlier. This is the Mega Man.
Laura: No way.
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh my god.
Larry Hryb: 30th anniversary and I had them send hats, so we're gonna put hats on.
Jeff Rubenstein: Thank you.
Laura: That's a good video stunt. Hats.
Larry Hryb: We'll put our little video hats on. There we go. Mega Man. Make sure it faces the right way.
Laura: It's really been 30 years?
Larry Hryb: Yeah, it's been 30 years.
Laura: Of Mega Man.
Jeff Rubenstein: What's your favorite Mega Man game?
Laura: Oh my goodness. They're all really, really good .
Jeff Rubenstein: Really hard.
Laura: And difficult and really difficult.
Larry Hryb: So this is actually cool. It came with a card. Check this card out. Ta da tada tada tadadada!
Laura: That's amazing.
Larry Hryb: So I opened it up and in here was a copy of Mega Man the Legacy Collection on Xbox 1. That's amazing, isn't it?
Laura: Awesome.
Jeff Rubenstein: Look at that. Can I have that.
Larry Hryb: I'll let you guys take a look at that. Of course it has Mega Man Legacy Collection 2.
Laura: Stop stealing it Jeff.
Larry Hryb: Also available on Xbox 1. I should give these away.
Laura: Okay. Hey, hey, I want one.
Larry Hryb: If that's not all, check this out, Laura. This is a pair of Mega Man Limited Edition headphones. I don't open those up because I want to give them away.
Laura: No way. Oh my goodness.
Larry Hryb: So there you go. Hopefully when you put them on ...
Laura: That's super cool.
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh man! Like they actually, it looks like ...
Laura: Can I see the card?
Larry Hryb: Yeah. There you go.
Jeff Rubenstein: But I guess we should say congratulations to Inafune-san. We were lucky enough to get to work with Inafune-san on ReCore.
Laura: That's right.
Jeff Rubenstein: And remember I was working on that title during announce and got to spent time with him and it was just awesome because he's made over the past 30 years, just some amazing [crosstalk 00:31:07].
Larry Hryb: How many streams celebrate a birthday like this? With hats and all.
Jeff Rubenstein: I gotta tell you probably none. [crosstalk 00:31:13] birthday channel.
Larry Hryb: Probably none.
Jeff Rubenstein: You're missing out on that.
Larry Hryb: But anyway this is ... Oh very nice.
Laura: Thank you.
Larry Hryb: I think the last time I wore one of these, I was in kindergarten.
Laura: Same.
Larry Hryb: But any for Mega Man, we had to do it.
Jeff Rubenstein: Mega Man 2. That was my all time favorite. I know I can't beat it now, but ...
Laura: Yeah. Me neither.
Larry Hryb: Alright, so let's get this back in the box. You know what, I'm gonna give this away. Maybe I'll give it away at a future show, but I definitely want to give this away, so don't open those headphones up.
Laura: Oh, really?
Jeff Rubenstein: Should we keep the hats on?
Larry Hryb: Alright. Are you getting ...
Jeff Rubenstein: I'm not keeping that on.
Laura: I'm getting a little ...
Jeff Rubenstein: My oxygen supply is [crosstalk 00:31:43].
Laura: It is a bit tight.
Larry Hryb: Let us take this off. Jeff, okay, we're taking this.
Jeff Rubenstein: Ah, ah, ah.
Larry Hryb: Now after this, we've got ... I can take your hat off, Laura.
Laura: Okay.
Jeff Rubenstein: Dad, you're embarrassing me!
Larry Hryb: We'll put everything back in here.
Laura: There we go.
Larry Hryb: You know, we've got a few more headlines to go, and then ...
Laura: I am jealous of whoever wins this.
Jeff Rubenstein: They have Neodymium optimized superior audio performance. We're living in the Neodymium age now, Larry.
Larry Hryb: You know I've heard that that's what it is. I don't know what it is, but I love it. So we'll get those. Now we'll get back to the regular show. Thank you very much. By the way this crew here is amazing.
Laura: They are.
Larry Hryb: Isn't it the Mixer studio.
Laura: They are amazing.
Jeff Rubenstein: I feel like just name some games. Let's see how quickly they can get them. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, York, Mega Man 11.
Larry Hryb: I know. They're in there. I don't know how they're doing it. Look Mega Man 11.
Laura: Oh yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: That's great.
Larry Hryb: They just got Mega Man up there. I love that. Right on it. So this is coming late 2018.
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh yeah. So that was just announced as part of the 30th anniversary, is like a new game. A new Mega Man game and it looks like modern visuals along with the classic game play, which is, that's what we all want.
Larry Hryb: Now, normally about this is where we're about halfway through the show, we do Name the Game.
Laura: Yes.
Larry Hryb: Now Name the Game, if you don't know, on the podcast, we play an audio clip, and then you send us emails and guess what it is. And then we award prizes. So we're gonna do that because the last show we did was an audio only show.
Laura: That's true.
Larry Hryb: So we're gonna play that clip in just a second. I'll ask the guys in the booth to get that ready. And then we've got the prize. But this time because we're doing video, now I'm gonna take this audio and post it as a regular podcast anyway, but because we're doing video, we are going to show you a clip and you have to guess the name of the game. Now don't guess it in the chat. We'll tell you how to enter in just a minute.
Jeff Rubenstein: You know people are gonna put it in the chat.
Laura: Please don't.
Larry Hryb: Well they can, but it doesn't matter.
Jeff Rubenstein: It's like HQ, that's true.
Laura: Please don't ruin it.
Larry Hryb: You can do anything you want in there. It just doesn't matter.
Laura: That's right. You're just giving away what the game is, and then other people can see it and then enter, and then they could win.
Larry Hryb: Right. You're decreasing your chances of going home with cool stuff.
Laura: That's correct.
Larry Hryb: And you don't want to do that. Alright, do you have Name the Game ready? Do you want to play the clip from last time Laura?
Laura: I am ready to play the clip.
Larry Hryb: If the booth is ready, let's go ahead and play the clip from last week. Hear that? Bring it up a little bit.
That was it? Little more. I think it may be a driving game.
Laura: You think so?
Jeff Rubenstein: I don't know about that. Could be a dental.
Larry Hryb: Alright, that's about enough of that. Alright, now because we're video, we're gonna pay off that ... We're gonna tell you who the winner is from last time, and then we'll have another brand new Name the Game, which is ... You know what? This actually Name the Game is enhanced because it's gonna have video.
Laura: That's true.
Larry Hryb: Laura, what do you have? Laura has a package.
Laura: I have a pack of prizes. It says "boom" on it, which is appropriate.
Larry Hryb: Let's announce who the winner is first.
Laura: So this is the winner of that Name the Game that you just heard, which sounded like some kind of driving game. Let's find out what it was.
Larry Hryb: Laura's got a little card here. On the card is the winner.
Laura: That's true. I've got a card which has ...
Jeff Rubenstein: I knew it.
Laura: Stop cheating. The Name the Game answer from last time ...
Larry Hryb: That you just heard.
Laura: That you just heard, was Need for Speed: Payback. Need for Speed: Payback. So it was indeed a driving game. Good job guys. We got a lot of correct answers and from those correct answers we pulled out a random winner, and the random winner for this time is Michael from San Antonio, Texas.
Larry Hryb: Michael.
Laura: Congratulations, Michael.
Larry Hryb: Down in your home state of Texas. The Lone Star State.
Laura: Indeed. Michael's gamer tag is Omegatronix.
Larry Hryb: Maybe he's in the chatroom, Omegatron. If not, congratulations now.
Laura: Congratulations.
Larry Hryb: You won some cool stuff. Laura's gonna tell you what you won.
Jeff Rubenstein: You won the boom.
Larry Hryb: Laura?
Laura: First is an Xbox game pass for one month, right here.
Larry Hryb: Wow.
Jeff Rubenstein: Over 100 games.
Larry Hryb: Which is over 100 games to play right away.
Laura: Exactly. Also won a couple of copies of games. One of them is Hand of Fate 2. Another one is one I'm looking forward to playing, and haven't had a chance to play yet. It's Star Wars Battlefront 2.
Jeff Rubenstein: Campaign is very fun.
Larry Hryb: That's right. But our good friend Janina Gavankar, she's in it.
Laura: Yes. That's not all. You also get a copy of The Sims 4, and there's some stuff in here.
Larry Hryb: There's stuff in here. On the show we talk about giving stuff away, but here we're actually gonna show it.
Laura: Yes. Exactly. So I'm gonna pull out a few things that you've also won, Michael from San Antonio. You wanna help me out here, Jeff?
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, yeah.
Laura: Look at that!
Jeff Rubenstein: Larry had to really think about this.
Laura: Is this an Xbox hoodie? Well yes it is!
Jeff Rubenstein: Wait, where does it say Xbox on it?
Laura: It says Xbox on the sleeve here.
Jeff Rubenstein: Very subtle.
Larry Hryb: It's very subtle the way we like it.
Laura: Xbox 1.
Jeff Rubenstein: See you could wear this to a wedding. It doesn't look like it's just gaming gear. It's good and suitable for ...
Laura: I like the more trendy looking things, so I think this is perfect.
Jeff Rubenstein: I want a giant Xbox on it.
Laura: Wow, there's a lot of stuff in here. Let's keep going here. We also get an Xbox 1 hat.
Larry Hryb: A hat?
Jeff Rubenstein: Alright, one of you put all these things on. How many things can you wear?
Larry Hryb: You put it on!
Jeff Rubenstein: I don't wanna be sweating.
Larry Hryb: I don't want stuff that has my sweat on it!
Ooh!
Laura: A copy of [crosstalk 00:36:24] 2.
Jeff Rubenstein: That's great!
Laura: I may or may not have just visited Larry's office and thrown a bunch of stuff into his pack.
Larry Hryb: Unbelievable.
Jeff Rubenstein: Can I play Daddy.
Laura: Sorry Larry.
Jeff Rubenstein: Pro tip.
Laura: Alright, what else we got in here?
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh!
Laura: Look how cool this is. The Xbox controller.
Larry Hryb: You know what's cool about this one?
Laura: The Minecraft edition.
Larry Hryb: There's a lot of things. Can you see the back? It's got a tail.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah.
Laura: Amazing.
Larry Hryb: Yeah. It's got a little tail on the back, as it's supposed to.
Jeff Rubenstein: Even inside the batter cover. This is a lot of ...
Laura: Super cool. I'm jealous. I'm jealous of these things. I kind of want that one. And that's not all. I also have an Xbox water bottle.
Jeff Rubenstein: Woo!
Larry Hryb: Ooh!
Laura: Which is super great.
Jeff Rubenstein: You gotta hydrate.
Laura: Man, this is some great swag here.
Larry Hryb: Wow, you really cleaned everything out.
Laura: I did clear out your house. And that's it.
Jeff Rubenstein: Do they get the Boom Bag?
Laura: I don't know. I might have to keep this Boom Bag for later.
Jeff Rubenstein: It could be a thing. We should do this more often.
Larry Hryb: So congratulations to Mike from San Antonio, Texas. You just cleaned up and grabbed all that stuff. We'll be in touch with you and how you win it. Now, your probably sitting in the chatroom, or if you're listening to this after the show saying, "Listen Major, I love that stuff. How do I win?" Well it's really simple. If you're watching on Mixer, we're gonna play a video clip. If you're not watching on Mixer, if you're listening to the show after the fact, you're just gonna have to listen. Use your listening ears, and you are going to have to guess that way.
So why don't we go ahead and play, full screen, the Name the Game clip. This is the first ever video clip we've done, right?
Laura: It is.
Larry Hryb: Wow. So this is cool. Go ahead. Anytime you're ready, go ahead and roll that.
Jeff Rubenstein: God, this brings me back. Find the secret door.
Larry Hryb: Well there you go.
Jeff Rubenstein: That used to scare me.
Larry Hryb: Don't give the name.
Laura: Don't give it out.
Jeff Rubenstein: I just said it used to scare me.
Larry Hryb: That is the Name the Game for this week.
Laura: No spoilers.
Larry Hryb: If you're watching on Mixer now, you kind of had the advantage of seeing the visuals. If you're just listening on the podcast, like normal, you have to listen with your audio because that's all you got.
Jeff Rubenstein: Good luck.
Larry Hryb: How do they enter?
Laura: So people watching, you gotta really big hint by being able to see the video, but we wanted to be as inclusive as possible because not everybody can watch us live. We wanted to make sure that people who are listening afterwords also get a chance to enter. So the way that you can win these fabulous prizes is to simply send me an email. Lolipop@xbox.com and CC Major@xbox.com.
Larry Hryb: That's me.
Laura: All you have to do is tell us what game those clips were from. It's easy as that. If you can hear our voice, or see our faces, you can enter. It's as easy as that. And if you want to, you can include your gamer tag, or if you don't want to, that's totally fine too.
Larry Hryb: And you could win some cool stuff, like our friend down in San Antonio, Texas. Michael from San Antonio, Texas. So congratulations.
Hey, if you're watching this on the console, because I know a lot of people follow me on the console, you get a notification that I'm broadcasting, drop something in the chat. I'd love to know if you're on the console. Of course, if you're watching this on Twitch, I believe we're on Facebook and wherever else. We're over at Mixer.com/majornelson. That's where you tune in to win some fabulous prizes. We're gonna give some stuff away now in the chatroom.
About 700 people are joining us. I want to thank you guys.
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh my god. Woo!
Larry Hryb: It's really kind of, woo!
Jeff Rubenstein: Now I'm feeling the weight of all those people.
Larry Hryb: You want a little aspirin powder?
Jeff Rubenstein: You got a little mister?
Larry Hryb: Little spritz.
What else you wanna talk about?
Laura: I do want to give a shout out to my sister, who's watching. Hi Kristen.
Larry Hryb: Oh, she's watching? Oh, hey. What's up Kristen.
Jeff Rubenstein: Nobody I know is watching. I'd like to give a shout out to my wife if she was watching, but she's ...
Laura: She's not.
Jeff Rubenstein: No.
Larry Hryb: She's shopping.
Jeff Rubenstein: She probably is, actually. I wanted to say one thing about that arcade thing that I got to do. I was very lucky when I was over there. Actually a couple friends of mine who work in Japan were like, "Hey, do you want to meet us down at this arcade that is based on the Kowloon walled city. So the Kowloon walled city, it was this giant building in Hong Kong that was like, have you seen The Raid: Redemption? I think it was supposed to take place in this, where like 50,000 people live in this one building.
Larry Hryb: And it was like one square block.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah. You look at this, and you're like, how did people live in this. But it was amazing. And I think there were like restaurants and stores. And when I say restaurants and stores, it sounds really nice, but it was not.
Larry Hryb: It was not like you were living in a mall.
Jeff Rubenstein: It looked like this bombed out relic, and eventually they tore it down because it was extremely dangerous.
Larry Hryb: Here it is. Geez guys! How are they doing this?
Jeff Rubenstein: This is where I was at!
Larry Hryb: Really?
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah. So oh my god. I was seriously there, like two days ... You guys are gods! So if you go up to the third floor, find the ... I knew it was right! Oh my god!
So when you first walk in, there's like a rusted out steel door, and I'm like, "This can't be right." And then I hit a button and it opened, and then you see a hallway and it's just graffiti covered. It looks like ... The person who I was meeting out there goes, "If you think you're in the wrong place, you're in the right place." So I was like, let's power through this and we went up the steps, and then I saw Street Fighter, I knew I was in the right place. And we ended up playing darts.
Larry Hryb: Look at this.
Jeff Rubenstein: But it is amazing.
Larry Hryb: Where is it?
Jeff Rubenstein: It's in a place called Kawasaki, which is about halfway between Tokyo and Yokohama. I had never been anywhere near there. And we took a train. We were there with a bunch of commuters. It was like a Friday night, and ended up there. I was like, this can't be right, this can't be right. And then my phone was like at 2% battery. I was like, I'm gonna die here tonight.
Larry Hryb: That's an amateur move. Usually you power up.
Jeff Rubenstein: I usually do, but I was burning through my batter because ...
Larry Hryb: Well you weren't posting photos, so I don't know what you were doing.
Jeff Rubenstein: That's not true. Don't you follow me on Instagram, Larry?
Larry Hryb: I do. Between the shoes, and the food.
Jeff Rubenstein: It's shoes, coffee, and the occasional Japanese arcade.
Larry Hryb: Did you really find a blue bottle over there?
Jeff Rubenstein: I did.
Larry Hryb: Is it [crosstalk 00:42:09]. Is that where it is?
Jeff Rubenstein: It's in Shinagawa train station. So I'm like a huge coffee nerd, and so the first thing we did is go to my favorite coffee shop, which is based on the bay area, where I used to live.
Larry Hryb: We've been to the one in New York.
Jeff Rubenstein: We've been to the one in New York. San Francisco's. A number of them. Anyway, and you get to sit above this train station. Like thousands of people are walking under you. There's a Dean and Deluca there. It's amazing what American brands, stuff that is rare even here, are big in Japan. And I saw a number of Krispy Kremes.
Larry Hryb: It's kind of like this show. This show's big in Japan. Rare here. Big in Japan.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yes. Fortunately we have seven hundred fans here, but Japan's really propping up the show at this point
Laura: Did you play anything in this arcade?
Jeff Rubenstein: We ended up playing a lot of darts mostly. Like electronic darts. They have electronic ones. And I haven't played in very long time. And drinking sensory malts. And you know what? That's not a bad way to spend a day.
Larry Hryb: Look at this.
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh my ... Geez!
Laura: Wow!
Jeff Rubenstein: Alright well that's a picture that my wife asked me ...
Larry Hryb: What are you doing here?
Jeff Rubenstein: So I went to the robot show.
Larry Hryb: Wait a minute. Stop the presses. I want to get out of this show. The robot show?
Laura: There's a robot show?
Jeff Rubenstein: Alright, so there is, and I'd seen this on Anthony Bourdain, where he went and it was like this crazy robot show. And it's a bit of a tourist attraction but ...
Larry Hryb: Wait a minute. If I posted I was at a robot show, you know what I would get from you from a tweet? You would respond with, "Larry."
Jeff Rubenstein: Larry. Period. Probably.
Larry Hryb: Jeff!
Jeff Rubenstein: Between the last time I saw you, and today, my life has hit a peak. It is literally all downhill from there because once you go to the robot show, everything else seems pedestrian, boring, vanilla by comparison.
Laura: Wow.
Jeff Rubenstein: You descend, first there's a good picture opportunity there. And then you descend about 15 flights of stairs. Like you are in the mantle, the earth's mantle at this point. And you come out into a stage that is not much bigger than this.
Larry Hryb: Is this like Cirque de Soleil? Like a robot version?
Jeff Rubenstein: If Cirque de Soleil had an off brand Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, a mermaid riding a shark, a sort of like Samurai robot, and a number of people singing and dancing. I'd had no idea what was going on. And it was like no photo, no video can do it justice. You have to go. It was just amazing. And then every twenty minutes, everything wheels out and then they roll in a cart with popcorn and chuhai which is sort of like alcoholic lemonade, and a number of other snacks. And the entire time, I just sat there with my mouth agog.
Larry Hryb: Anybody who's ever been to Japan, that's pretty much like, what have I ... You feel like you're living in the future.
Jeff Rubenstein: You do! Everything. From the toilets on up. And let me just tell you ... Oh.
Larry Hryb: Now what happened here? I saw this. This is you and some Sumo wrestlers.
Laura: Wow.
Jeff Rubenstein: I got to meet some Sumo folks. So we had a meeting and we had a dinner, and they wanted to educate us about Sumo. And what I did not know is Sumo has existed for like 2000 years. Like the history there. I'm like, nothing has been in this country for more than about ... I'm from Philly, which is one of the oldest, and you're from Boston, which has been around since like the late 16 early 1700s.
Larry Hryb: A couple hundred years.
Jeff Rubenstein: And that would be considered old.
Larry Hryb: Everything over there is centuries.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, exactly. Centuries if not millennia, and they brought out ...
Laura: Antiques.
Larry Hryb: It's even worse for you in Texas because everything's new in Texas.
Laura: Pretty much.
Larry Hryb: So twenty years old is like, oh my lord.
Laura: It's been here forever.
Larry Hryb: Right. It's been forever.
Jeff Rubenstein: So they have a couple of retired Sumo out there. And let me tell you, these guys were flexible. They were full on doing the splits and everything. I can't bend down to tie my shoe without cracking a vertebrae, and these guys are massive, like 200 kilograms and I'm sure it is a lot. I don't really know my metric. And man, they showed how it works. And let me tell you, Sumo is a sport.
Laura: For sure.
Larry Hryb: Oh, it's real.
Jeff Rubenstein: They showed everything you can and can't do and it was awesome. So Japan. You have to go.
Larry Hryb: Did you come back with a belt? Next time you need to wear the Sumo belt.
Jeff Rubenstein: I didn't meet Yokozuna, from like WWE in the 90s, but that would have been awesome too. Actually, as soon as I get there I pop on the TV because you've gotta try and stay awake. What was on? WWE. And I ended up watching some recap show, and you know, wrestling's big there.
Larry Hryb: Wanna thank everybody on the chatroom. I see a lot of folks posting that they're watching this on the console. Thank you for joining us regardless of where you are joining us, whether you're on Twitch, or over on Mixer.com/majornelson, I believe. Did we ever get to Facebook. Did we ever get it out to Facebook? No, we didn't get to Facebook. Oh we did, we didn't. Okay, whatever. If we did, then you're here, but otherwise, thank you guys for joining us. This is the live video version of the podcast. It's currently 47 minutes after the hour. That's 13 minutes before the top of the hour Jeff.
Laura: Thanks for doing the math, Larry. Appreciate it.
Jeff Rubenstein: That's the only math I can do easily. So we both worked in radio, and you're constantly, you're just obsessed with the clock. And you're just always looking.
Larry Hryb: Well I know because you have to remember normally when we go in and do the podcast, the audio only, it's the three of us in a room, and I take the audio and I edit it together and post it, but here we've got one, two, three, four, five ... There's like seven or eight people in our view already to make this show happen and bring it to you. The Mixer team, I've got to tell you guys, this Mixer team is amazing. It's phenomenal so thank you guys. It's just been delightful.
Jeff Rubenstein: And I don't know who's bringing up the video, but man, you are great.
Laura: You're on point.
Jeff Rubenstein: Thank you.
Larry Hryb: His name's Lennox. Lennox is nailing it back there. Well the whole team is nailing it. So hopefully, I don't know. Should we do this again sometime? Laura?
Laura: I think it's going well. What do you guys think in the comments?
Larry Hryb: Yeah, what do you guys think in the comments?
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah. This is like an experiment. I think it would be cool, is to do this and maybe integrate a little bit of game play, and like in the future maybe play through something.
Laura: That would be fun.
Jeff Rubenstein: We could do a live round.
Larry Hryb: You what I'd love to do is, I'm actually gonna propose this as we do the show live, and we're gonna co-stream with one of you.
Laura: Ooh.
Jeff Rubenstein: I like that idea.
Laura: That would be amazing. The three of us.
Larry Hryb: Maybe we'll do PUBG sometime.
Jeff Rubenstein: Well it seems like the stream seems to be into this.
Larry Hryb: That would be a lot of fun.
Jeff Rubenstein: No, this is really fun. And I think if we do something more interactive, and something where we're playing some games, because there's always the point of the podcast where we just go off the rails.
Laura: Yes. We find some topic and just ...
Jeff Rubenstein: Which we of course do. And I'm seeing the comments. Getting the live feedback, people wanna play games. People want Larry to buy a hockey jersey.
Larry Hryb: Why do I want a hockey jersey?
Jeff Rubenstein: I don't know. Yes I will buy Larry a hockey ... Oh no.
Larry Hryb: Oh, you know who that is? That's Bill. That's Bill Stillwell.
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh, okay.
Larry Hryb: The back and pack guy. Bill I'm not wearing ... That's your department. You're Mr. Hockey Jersey. Oh, man.
Alright, where are we?
Jeff Rubenstein: Where are we?
Larry Hryb: Where are we?
Laura: We wrapped up the news.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah. The news is done.
Laura: We wrapped up Name of the Game.
Larry Hryb: Normally when we talk about some gadgets, actually I don't know if you can bring up my Instagram, but I put on there, and I don't have it with me because I haven't moved into it yet, but Razor sent me their new phone.
Laura: Oh!
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh, yeah!
Laura: I saw your tweet about it.
Jeff Rubenstein: That was like a surprise announcement.
Larry Hryb: Yeah. I was like, wow. I mean they announced last month, you can bring it up on my Instagram, @majornelson on Instagram, but it's a beautiful, beautiful phone. It's running at 120 hertz, so it plays games really well. It's got a really nice ... I'm playing around with it. You know when you move phones, it's like it's a big deal, right? Because you don't want to be splitting phones.
Jeff Rubenstein: I heard the speakers are phenomenal on that.
Larry Hryb: It's got Dolby audio. Because I think Razor owns THX. So it's got really, really nice audio. In fact here's ... If you click to the right on these images, you'll see that's the box it came in. And you kind of see the unboxing because there's multiple images in here. Yeah, there it is. Actually that's the Invoke. I got Invoke too!
Laura: You got lots of new things.
Larry Hryb: Hey Cortana.
Jeff Rubenstein: It's on sale, like 50% off during Black Friday.
Larry Hryb: It's really quite nice. So that. I don't know why the pictures aren't coming up here, but anyway if you go to my Instagram you can see all that on there.
Laura: About how big is the phone?
Larry Hryb: It's a big phone. I mean it's one of the larger phones that I've held, so it is much larger. Well look at that. Just scrolling through my Instagram if you want to see what's going on there. There you go. There's some cool stuff.
Anyway, so yeah. I got the Razor phone. What's your holiday plans Laura? We should talk about the holiday plans because we've got that ... There's my donuts. Oh god.
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh, man.
Laura: I thought you didn't tweet pictures of food. Or Instagram.
Larry Hryb: Sitting at a restaurant, that was some that were outside, so I felt okay. I don't want to be like setting up this whole gear at a restaurant. Like E does that.
Laura: Get the lighting.
Larry Hryb: Gotta get the lighting just right and take tow, and oh no, bring it out again. I just don't like that.
Jeff Rubenstein: No, you gotta do that. You do it for the Gram.
Laura: Were they good, donuts.
Larry Hryb: Oh, they're excellent. You've had the donuts I've brought in.
Laura: Have I?
Larry Hryb: The ones I get in Massachusets. The cider donuts.
Laura: Did you bring them in?
Larry Hryb: Yeah, a long time ago.
Laura: I don't remember.
Larry Hryb: A couple of times. I have to hand carry them from these because if you're out in New England and you can get cider donuts, get them. If you want to send them here, we wouldn't mind that. We would eat them.
Jeff Rubenstein: They have vitamin C in them, so it's healthy.
Larry Hryb: Alright, so we should probably start wrapping things up because we're running out of time.
Laura: Okay.
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh. Hey.
Larry Hryb: You've got to get to, apparently, your big meeting. I thought you dressed for the show and for the audience. Apparently, she's dressed for a meeting.
Jeff Rubenstein: Well now you've set the bar real high.
Laura: Gotta bring your blazers, guys.
Jeff Rubenstein: Full black tie now. Actually, Larry ...
Larry Hryb: I need to give you one of my Xbox buttons.
Laura: Yeah, I need a little pin for my lapel.
Jeff Rubenstein: What I think is funny is everyone's talking about your sweater, and because when you're on video, you can't wear anything with a lot of pattern, so we're all wearing like pretty basic stuff. Larry typically would wear something that would make your eyes bleed. Like in a good way.
Larry Hryb: Anyway, we're having ...
Laura: Wardrobe discussions?
Larry Hryb: Yes we are. We're having wardrobe discussion. But we're going to talk about our show schedule because this week we're not doing the show because this is the show. I'll be posting this as the video.
Are you going away for the holidays?
Laura: I think I'm staying around here.
Larry Hryb: Alright. What about you, Jeff?
Jeff Rubenstein: I'm going back to Japan, actually.
Larry Hryb: Oh, that's right! You are.
Jeff Rubenstein: Because I'm gonna be there for like 15 days.
Larry Hryb: This is personal, that was business.
Jeff Rubenstein: That was business, and now I'm going back for ... You wouldn't know it by the fact that I went to arcades and coffee shops, and Sumo wrestlers, but yeah. So I'll be going back. We're gonna try and find some cool gadgets. I'll go to Akihabara.
Larry Hryb: I haven't been to Akihabara in like five years.
Jeff Rubenstein: No. It's been a long time.
Larry Hryb: You and I actually weren't working together when we were over there at the same time.
Jeff Rubenstein: We were. Like TGS2009 or something like that. I remember you guys did a big thing. You guys, however, I don't know how it works. Time is confusing, but yeah. We need to hang out in Japan one time. I think we'd have a good time. And I know you love the food.
Larry Hryb: I love the food. I love the Japanese toilets. We don't want to get into that.
Jeff Rubenstein: Do you though? That's amazing.
Larry Hryb: Maybe I need to set up a separate Mixer channel for my Japanese gadget podcast.
Laura: Yes, or a separate podcast. Just for your toilets.
Larry Hryb: Look at this! What is this?
Jeff Rubenstein: We travel together. We travel well. That was when we were going out to the Xbox 1 X Lodge.
Larry Hryb: This violates one of my rules. Well it almost violates one of my rules. I have a no selfie rule, but you took the picture, so does it really ... I was gonna ask you for a ruling on this. Does this count?
Laura: No, it doesn't count.
Jeff Rubenstein: Also you're looking very disapproving there. So no.
Laura: You have the unhappy face.
Larry Hryb: I don't want to look disapproving.
Alright so the next question is, when is the next show? We don't know. We'll just ... Subscribe on, go to my blog at majornelson.com/podcast they'll automatically pop up there.
Jeff Rubenstein: Can I put you on the spot?
Larry Hryb: Please.
Jeff Rubenstein: Can we maybe do a, like a co-stream, on the launch day of PUBG.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, so we'll do that. We'll definitely do that next week, so if you're watching this on the console, you may be following me already, and you'll just get an automatic notification, or you can just follow the channel here, and when I do it, it will automatically happen, so that's kind of cool.
So apparently somebody, a wrathofseamus, keeps spamming the chat with he wants a job. Well you know what? I don't know about you, so there you go. Go to microsoft.com/careers.
Jeff Rubenstein: You can start by being a mod.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, you can start by being ... That's rule number one. Don't spam. You already lost the job.
Alright, what else? You got anything else, or should we just ...
Laura: Do you have anymore gadgets?
Larry Hryb: No, that's really it. I mean it's getting into the holiday season. I should probably bring things in and show them off. I know the Mega Man guys are really nice for sending us stuff, so we should probably ... I should save all the real visual things for when we're doing the show, like now.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah. Because you have that giant Wolfenstein box on your ...
Larry Hryb: Oh, I left that on my desk at the office. But you saw that.
Jeff Rubenstein: I did.
Larry Hryb: It's a limited edition.
Jeff Rubenstein: Because I usually sneak in and I work out of your desk.
Larry Hryb: Yeah. When I'm not there.
Jeff Rubenstein: Because it's the most comfortable chair.
Larry Hryb: So that's what happens when I'm not at my office. Jeff works out of my desk, or Laura comes over and takes prizes for you.
Laura: I steal things.
Larry Hryb: That's the way it goes. So everybody wins, right?
Jeff Rubenstein: And we certainly don't keep any of them for ourselves.
Larry Hryb: Anyway, just a reminder that we've got The Game Awards this Thursday. They will be on at mixer.com/thegameawards.
Jeff Rubenstein: That's gonna be a good time.
Larry Hryb: Right?
Jeff Rubenstein: Tune in for Phoenix.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, we'll be there.
Jeff Rubenstein: And the winners. Phoenix the band. The French band.
Larry Hryb: Oh, that's right. That's right. Thank you.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yup. They have some good songs. They've been around for like 15 years, Larry.
Larry Hryb: I've been out of radio for awhile.
Jeff Rubenstein: I guess you have.
Larry Hryb: I know you probably couldn't tell that. Now wait a minute. Are you calling this an ugly sweater? I'm looking at the chatroom right now.
Laura: Oh. I think it's a lovely sweater.
Larry Hryb: Okay. Alright. I don't know about that.
Jeff Rubenstein: You don't like pumpkin spice items, and then you wear that sweater.
Larry Hryb: I'm an Orangeman. I went to Syracuse University.
Jeff Rubenstein: That's true.
Larry Hryb: And you went to Florida.
Jeff Rubenstein: UF. I'm with the orange and blue.
Laura: We are all orange colors by the way.
Larry Hryb: That's the denominator in this entire conversation.
Jeff Rubenstein: Orange.
Larry Hryb: Orange.
Laura: I'm a little darker orange. Burnt orange.
Jeff Rubenstein: You're a little more creamsicle.
Laura: What? No. Burnt orange.
Larry Hryb: It's burnt orange.
Jeff Rubenstein: No, but the white. It's creamsicle.
Larry Hryb: Vibrant orange.
Laura: Yeah. Orange and white.
Larry Hryb: They want us to do an ugly sweater show next week.
Jeff Rubenstein: I have a number of horrible sweater.
Laura: I have one. It says, "Oh deer," and had a picture of Rudolph on it.
Larry Hryb: Do the lights light up? Or the nose? Does the nose light up?
Laura: No. It's not that outlandish, but it does say, "Oh deer," spelled d-e-e-r. I think it's cute.
Larry Hryb: Alright. We're gonna wrap it up here. I want to thank everybody for joining us. This is the first ever video podcast from Major Nelson Radio. Thank you to Laura. Laura, thank you for joining us.
Laura: Thanks so much for having me.
Larry Hryb: Jeff, thank you for joining us as always. Good to see you.
Jeff Rubenstein: I showered for you.
Larry Hryb: Everybody at home, thank you for watching. Wherever you are, make sure you follow the channel. Jeff and I will be doing a co-stream next week of PUBG. PUBG launches on Xbox 1 next week!
Jeff Rubenstein: The 12th. Seven days from today.
Larry Hryb: Is it seven days?
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah.
Larry Hryb: Oh, I guess it is. Wow.
Anyway, of course The Video Game Awards are this week. We've got a lot going on. You can follow Laura on Twitter. We can put it up on the screen right now. How do they find you on Twitter.
Jeff Rubenstein: Look at that!
Laura: They can find me on Twitter @lauralollipop, right there on the screen too.
Larry Hryb: Jeff they can find you?
Jeff Rubenstein: At, what is it? Oh, yeah. @jeffrubinstein.
Larry Hryb: Look at that!
Jeff Rubenstein: You guys are spoiling me, man. You're ruining me for everything else.
Larry Hryb: I'm telling you, man. We're not the talent. The people over there are all the talent.
Of course, you can follow me @majornelson. You'll find out all the latest Xbox news and information there, so on behalf of everybody here at Xbox, I wanna thank you all. We'll be talking again soon. Have a great holiday.
Jeff Rubenstein: Thanks for watching.
Larry Hryb: Why don't we bring up the music, and kind of bring us out. We've got this little.
Jeff Rubenstein: They call it a bed.
Larry Hryb: There it is. That's the bed. So we'll be on next week. You can always follow us here on Mixer at mixer.com/majornelson. Win cool stuff, et cetera, et cetera. So that's it for the show. Say goodbye everybody.
Jeff Rubenstein: Goodbye everybody.
Laura: Thanks for watching.
Larry Hryb: We'll see you next time! Bye bye.

Larry Hryb: Hi, it's Larry Hryb, XBox's Live's Major Nelson. It's November 2017. We just launched the Xbox One X. We're back on the podcast, and we've got Jeff here.
Jeff Rubenstein: We have to upgrade. Are we gonna be enhancing this podcast?
Larry Hryb: Well, we actually are. We'll talk about that later. And we have a new member on the staff. No it's not, it's just Laura.
Laura: New member?
Larry Hryb: Well your voice sounds different.
Laura: It does.
Larry Hryb: Your people are probably listening going, “Who is that woman?”
Laura: "Who is this person?"
Larry Hryb: That's Laura.
Laura: That's me, it's Laura.
Larry Hryb: What happened?
Laura: I just am recovering from a cold.
Larry Hryb: Did you catch it from something or someone or somewhere?
Laura: There's a nasty bug.
Jeff Rubenstein: She invented it. She ginned it up in a lab. She caught it.
Laura: I did. Now it's in me. No, it's just a bug that's going around at work. A lot of other people have it. I caught it.
Larry Hryb: Well you know what we normally do when we record the show and there's a bug.
Laura: You should put me in the other end of the room.
Larry Hryb: Yeah exactly. That's why Jeffrey, you and I may be in trouble here.
Laura: I was gonna say, no I'm already sick. So Larry maybe if you were in the office more you would have it.
Larry Hryb: Well I've been on the road.
Laura: It's a sign of solidarity.
Larry Hryb: I've been on the road. We launched Xbox One X last week. Was it last week?
Jeff Rubenstein: It was last week.
Laura: That's right.
Larry Hryb: Wow.
Laura: Very exciting.
Larry Hryb: Jeff and I were in New York, Laura you unfortunately-
Laura: I was here.
Larry Hryb: -couldn't join us. We had-
Laura: [inaudible 00:01:28] germs.
Larry Hryb: We had- yeah, launching germs. We had quite the time in New York. It was a heck of a time on Fifth Avenue, wasn't it?
Jeff Rubenstein: Yes. I talked to Method Man.
Laura: Who's Method Man?
Larry Hryb: Did you?
Jeff Rubenstein: “Who's Method Man?” Don't “Who's Method Man” me.
Larry Hryb: You didn't tell me this.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, we talked shoes for a good five minutes. I got a fist bump.
Laura: Who's Method Man?
Jeff Rubenstein: He is perhaps the most prominent member of the Wu-Tang Clan. Certainly the most prominent living member.
Larry Hryb: Did he have any comments about that album?
Jeff Rubenstein: Pour one out for ODB. We're lucky enough that when we're- in our line of work, it's very popular among not just us gamers, but among celebrities and musicians-
Larry Hryb: Everybody.
Jeff Rubenstein: And athletes and everybody, and from time to time when we're doing something huge, and this is the biggest thing we've done in years, launching the Xbox One X. You know what, there was some star power out there supporting us. I'm not just gonna go up to somebody and go “Hey, selfie.” In fact, we purposely don't do that, but if I have something to say to somebody, something where I feel like I can make their life a little bit better, then I'm gonna do that.
Larry Hryb: And what did you say? What was this pearl of wisdom you were ready to dish out?
Jeff Rubenstein: Excuse me.
Larry Hryb: Please.
Jeff Rubenstein: So we were in our venue and I saw someone go by and they had a pair of Nike's that I have. The top three pick, it was Air Jordan, one of my favorite pairs. And I don't see those two often, so that caught my attention. And it was a really tall guy and he looked over in my direction and then moved on, and I was like “Man, that kinda looked like Method Man.” But I don't know how tall Method Man is, I never been in a room with him before.
Larry Hryb: You don't know.
Jeff Rubenstein: Saw the Rizza live before but never Method Man, and so I had to then- I actually punched in my phone “How tall is Method Man?"
Larry Hryb: Why didn't you just ask somebody? You had the guest list.
Jeff Rubenstein: Well, look, I was just- I was pretty confident, but I was like “That guy's really tall.” And it came out six three and I was like “Oh my God."
Larry Hryb: That's him.
Jeff Rubenstein: That's him. So a few minutes later I was by there and I just said “Hey, nice Kicks.” And I was wearing my Xbox-themed adidas-
Larry Hryb: That's right, I remember those. I love those.
Jeff Rubenstein: Rod Lavers, yes.
Larry Hryb: Yup, the Rod Lavers.
Jeff Rubenstein: And he was like “Oh, thank you.” And I was like “I don't know if you saw, but a recent upgraded version of those, or a new version of those, a new color way was announced at ComplexCon last week.” And he was like “No, I didn't.” And I'm nervously typing it up and bringing up a picture and I showed it to him and he's like “I have to talk to my guy at Flight Club”, which is this shoe store. And I got a fist bump, and he thanked me. I feel like there was more to it than that, but there probably wasn't. I think time slowed down, it was probably a 15 second interaction. But it was great.
Larry Hryb: We just milked it for a five minute bit.
Jeff Rubenstein: See? There you go. And this is probably the fiftieth time I've told it.
Laura: Sure. Did he comment on your shoes?
Larry Hryb: They're Rod Lavers.
Jeff Rubenstein: No, no he didn't. He might have glanced down, looked down and might not have realized what they were.
Larry Hryb: In disdain.
Laura: That they were the Xbox ones?
Jeff Rubenstein: No, they were not, but yeah.
Larry Hryb: While you were hanging out with Method Man, I was up on Fifth Avenue at the Microsoft store with our fans. With a bunch of other celebrities that came parading through there, and more importantly-
Jeff Rubenstein: Method Man is a fan.
Larry Hryb: He is. The Xbox One X launching last week. It's off to a gangbusters start. Enhanced titles everywhere. Wow.
Jeff Rubenstein: It's a pretty good series that's been running on Xbox Wire about not just saying “Hey, these games have been enhanced,” but actually going into what the team's attempted to do, and we've been hitting them pretty rapidly. This week, Mafia 3 released and there was a nice article from the Hangar 17 guys and I'm very excited actually to go back to New Bordeaux and try that one again. Hitman I hear looks fantastic.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, E was talking about that one.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yes, that's where I heard it. And ARK: Survival Evolved which remember we played like two years ago at that- it was I think the- Xbox game preview.
Laura: Right, I remember that story.
Larry Hryb: That was like a version point oh one or something.
Jeff Rubenstein: I know, and we were running around-
Larry Hryb: In underwear and poo.
Jeff Rubenstein: In loincloths, bashing fish with a stick, and then eating them raw. And now we can play in beautiful four K and it looks phenomenal and you can ride dinosaurs and you have guns and things like that. So we should play that again.
Larry Hryb: Look, we can't even get together to play any other games. I would love- don't get me wrong, I would love to, but the scheduling has been ridiculous. With the travel- we talked about I was in New York. I don't know if you listen- you definitely didn't hear this, Laura. The next day I went over to Sirius X-M, I have a lot of friends over there and I did an appearance on Shade 45.
Laura: What is Shade 45?
Larry Hryb: Jeffrey?
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh, so it's a channel on X-M. I listen to 47 a lot, X-M fly, which is throwback hip-hop tracks, cause you can hear "This Is How We Do It" every day if you need to. Or actually it's probably twice an hour.
Larry Hryb: And apparently you need to?
Jeff Rubenstein: You know, certain tracks-
Laura: [inaudible 00:06:12]
Jeff Rubenstein: 45 is more-
Larry Hryb: It's Eminem's channel. Eminem's channel.
Laura: Oh, that's Shade 45?
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh, like Shady.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, Shade 45. I was on with Lord Sear, who there's afternoon guy, and went in there and we just talked Xbox. I was on for about a half hour, 45 minutes, I don't remember. We took calls and people- we just had a lot of fun.
Laura: Oh, wow, so you did live questions.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, you know I love doing that. It's my old radio style going in. It was just fun being over there and being around, seeing people I know. I've never worked with Lord Sear before, but it was great to be in the studio with him, and I have an open invitation to go back next time. Jeffrey, you and I-
Jeff Rubenstein: I would love to come in.
Larry Hryb: I was trying to get you on your way to the airport.
Jeff Rubenstein: To the airport, I had to go home.
Larry Hryb: And I was like "Come on, come with me." And it's just as well, it's Midtown traffic. Midtown traffic was brutal. Yeah, I was sitting right in the lobby. I was sitting right in front of where Howard Stern has his studio, waiting to go on the air. But it was a lot of fun.
Jeff Rubenstein: Wait, who did you see? Didn't you say you saw someone in the lobby?
Larry Hryb: Oh, unrelated to Howard Stern and Shade 45 I'm sitting there and coming in and sitting down next to me with this very tall woman with this incredible entourage of people. "Oh, who's this?" I kind of scoot over a little bit. It was Carol Burnett, classic T-V star from the seventies, I guess she was-
Laura: What was she doing there?
Larry Hryb: She was doing an interview with- they got 150, 200 channels, everything under the Sun.
Jeff Rubenstein: There's an all soccer channel, Larry, I'm sure you listen to X-M 85, Sirius X-M F-C all the time?
Larry Hryb: All the time. It's my favorite number two, after my eighties channel. So anyways it was just fun being up there and I was trying to get Jeff to go up but he was headed out to the airport he didn't wanna stay in town with me. So I'll be back Sirius X-M, working on a couple things with them. That's all I can say about that.
Laura: Really?
Larry Hryb: Yes, that's all I can say about that. Well, I used to have a show on there. Do you remember that?
Laura: Used to have a Sirius X-M show?
Larry Hryb: We used to have a- what was it on? It was on one of their channels we had a video game show that I hosted for about a year and a half. Yeah, it was great. It was me and a couple guys-
Laura: What year?
Larry Hryb: This had to be 2007, 2008?
Laura: Okay, that was before I was on the podcast.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, what channel was it? I used to do it once a week. We hooked it up with Skype and the whole routine and it was fantastic.
Laura: That sounds awesome.
Larry Hryb: We had a great time. We took calls, it was just playing around, it was funny. Now it's serious over there, so.
Jeff Rubenstein: Sirius X-M.
Larry Hryb: Sirius X-M. All right, Laura, how you doing? You okay?
Laura: I'm making it through.
Larry Hryb: Did you miss us?
Laura: I did miss you guys.
Larry Hryb: No you didn't.
Laura: I did.
Larry Hryb: You didn't, you really- what were you playing? Oh we gotta talk about this.
Laura: What? What?
Larry Hryb: Was my feed filled up with you getting Slime Rancher achievements? What are you doing?
Laura: Yes.
Larry Hryb: What are you doing?
Laura: Oh, my goodness.
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh, my God.
Laura: That game is super fun.
Jeff Rubenstein: That's why you lost your voice.
Laura: I know, just being super excited about Slime Rancher. So I've been out sick, as you can probably ascertain from the quality of my voice. So I've been trying to just chill out and relax and recover from this cold, so I didn't wanna play anything that was really aggressive, that would get my adrenaline pumping, I just wanted something chill and fun.
Larry Hryb: Mini Metro.
Laura: Yeah, that's pretty chill. I think I'm at a stage now that I'm super advanced and I start getting stressed out.
Larry Hryb: Right. It's chill to a point.
Laura: How does the people stack up on their stations?
Larry Hryb: Get out of there, people.
Laura: “Oh, no.” Hit pause, and I saw that I had downloaded Slime Rancher, I think from one of the games on Gold a while ago.
Larry Hryb: So you were like "Oh, let me check it out."
Laura: "I'm gonna check out Slime Rancher." Oh, my gosh is it fun. It is right up my alley.
Larry Hryb: Really?
Laura: It's a farming game.
Larry Hryb: It is. Okay, did you turn around and jump off the back?
Laura: No.
Larry Hryb: Because I think there's an easy achievement when you come out of your little house you turn around and jump off the cliff. I think you get an achievement if I remember, it's a-
Laura: But do you remember what it is?
Larry Hryb: I don't.
Laura: No.
Larry Hryb: I don't.
Laura: But, it does give you lots of achievements, which is really, really nice. But yeah, it's a super fun farming game. Really, really chill, it's got some chill music in the background.
Larry Hryb: And it's just a bunch of little characters.
Laura: Yeah, cute little characters that you go and-
Larry Hryb: You're ranching slime.
Laura: Yeah, exactly.
Larry Hryb: Do you have a little slime cowboy hat?
Laura: You don't see yourself. Maybe.
Jeff Rubenstein: This reminds me of an episode of Futurama, I feel like.
Laura: Could be.
Jeff Rubenstein: I feel like they were slime ranchers.
Laura: Yes.
Larry Hryb: On Mars.
Laura: It could be, it could be. But yeah, you got a little vacuum gun and you run outside your farm and into the wilderness and you vacuum up slimes and food and chickens.
Larry Hryb: And put them in a pen. See, I made the mistake when I first started playing is I put them in a pen. I didn't realize you couldn't mix different types.
Laura: You can't.
Larry Hryb: And it was chaos.
Laura: It is chaos. If you put too many of the different types in the pen.
Larry Hryb: It was chaos in a pen.
Laura: It's just- everything goes nuts. Yes, but it's super fun.
Larry Hryb: Good, so you've just been chilling and relaxing.
Laura: I've been chilling and relaxing.
Larry Hryb: Have you had a chance to check out Diablo 3 in four K enhanced?
Laura: No.
Larry Hryb: What are you doing?
Laura: I don't have an Xbox One X. But I did play Diablo. I did download the update.
Larry Hryb: Really?
Laura: To start a new season, they started season 12. So now I'm playing a season 12 character. So I do have the new update but I don't have an Xbox.
Larry Hryb: How does she not have an Xbox One X, Jeffrey?
Jeff Rubenstein: What are you looking at me? Like I'm the font of the- oh, I'm actually sitting on one.
Larry Hryb: There's one right here.
Laura: Could I have that one? I wondered why you were sitting up taller.
Jeff Rubenstein: Well, you've been busy with other things so we'll see if we can straighten that one out.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, I can tell you where to buy them.
Jeff Rubenstein: You want the Amazon link? You want the Microsoft store link?
Larry Hryb: Make sure you use code Major Nelson. Tell them Larry sent you.
Laura: Exactly. Yup, I did, but during Xbox One X launch I did get a little nostalgic for another Xbox launch, which was Kinect for me. So I fired up my Xbox 360 and played some Dance Central.
Larry Hryb: Oh, you and Dance Central. You and Dance Central.
Laura: I went O-G and Dance Central 1 and played a few of those songs and then fired up Dance Central 2 and played a few of those songs. Yeah, it was good.
Larry Hryb: Have you ever seen Laura play Dance Central?
Jeff Rubenstein: I don't believe I have.
Larry Hryb: Maybe we'll do that at Pax East again.
Laura: Can I battle you?
Larry Hryb: No, you did that once. I failed miserably. You can battle Jeff, you can battle Jeffrey.
Laura: Jeff, are you up for a battle?
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, I would do it. I just need to practice first. The only one I still remember the dance for was probably "Poker Face" or something.
Laura: Yes, that was the [inaudible 00:12:12]
Jeff Rubenstein: Lady Gaga. That was like the first song.
Laura: That was the first song.
Jeff Rubenstein: That was like playing Guitar Hero and "I Love Rock and Roll".
Larry Hryb: Is that sky frosting?
Laura: No, it has a move called select which mimics the action of selecting in the menu and there's a move called back which is mimicking the back gesture.
Larry Hryb: You know what we could do? This would be a heck of a co-stream.
Jeff Rubenstein: I suppose it could be.
Larry Hryb: Or something.
Jeff Rubenstein: The problem is people can capture- they capture things now. They didn't used to. Back when Dance Central first came out, those things didn't live forever.
Larry Hryb: Now they do.
Laura: Now they do, forever on the Internet.
Larry Hryb: So do you think you got sick from doing Dance Central?
Laura: No, surely not.
Jeff Rubenstein: She caught dance fever.
Larry Hryb: Did you put on your legwarmers and your headband?
Jeff Rubenstein: Is this a topical reference?
Larry Hryb: What?
Jeff Rubenstein: Is this Flashdance? 1984?
Laura: They don't have Footloose or anything like that on Dance Central. That's a big missed opportunity. But I did have to move the coffee table out of the way. Good old Kinect. It's really fun, I love my Dance Central days.
Larry Hryb: Yes you do, you- nobody was dancing like you. You missed an opportunity, you could have been a solid gold dancer in your day.
Laura: I could have been, yes. Perhaps.
Larry Hryb: Jeffrey, you wanna-
Jeff Rubenstein: We're going further back. Flashdance, who knew? It's the seventies.
Larry Hryb: We're just gonna keep going.
Laura: Oh goodness. Shall we just continue in what I'm saying?
Larry Hryb: Yes, please.
Laura: You sort of lumbered in there with that reference to Slime Rancher, which is really fun. I have that theme music stuck in my head now because I've been playing so many hours of it. It's very relaxing. If you want anything chill, highly recommend it.
Jeff Rubenstein: Do you play Stardew Valley?
Laura: I did, but I didn't get into it.
Jeff Rubenstein: Who are you?
Laura: I know.
Jeff Rubenstein: Needed more slime? There are slimes in Stardew Valley.
Laura: It was too much waiting and it wasn't enough of a reward loop in Stardew Valley to get me hooked.
Jeff Rubenstein: Got it. I guess there's that. Maybe it's because you didn't win the heart of any of the villages.
Laura: Maybe.
Jeff Rubenstein: And neither did I.
Laura: I know, it was too much.
Larry Hryb: What else you playing Laura?
Laura: I tried out Fortnite, I played a demo of Fortnite in their Battle Royale mode, which is very similar to PUBG. I had never played an of that so I jumped into that and it's very really fun, it's very different type of gameplay [inaudible 00:14:20] at you. It's very similar to PUBG where you start and you all- 100 people fly into a map and you choose where you're going to land and then a storm comes and it shrinks the size of the map and forces you to run into the middle. It's also very timely cause I just finished reading all the Hunger Games books. It reminds me of Hunger Games.
Larry Hryb: That's an odd selection.
Laura: Have you guys read Hunger Games? Have you read it?
Larry Hryb: No.
Jeff Rubenstein: I think I read the first one and then I watched the movies and that was good enough.
Larry Hryb: Does that count?
Jeff Rubenstein: It has to count.
Laura: The movies, I think were very very similar to the books. The books are really good. They're a really fast read. I think I read it on a plane flight. I read an entire book over six hours. It's a fast read.
Jeff Rubenstein: It is a young adult.
Laura: It is young adult and it's one of those that you just can't put down.
Larry Hryb: Y-A.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yes.
Laura: But there is some adult stuff in there though.
Jeff Rubenstein: Young adult, young adult.
Laura: I don't know if I would want teens reading that. There's some adult-
Jeff Rubenstein: I've asked my sister the librarian how she handles that in her high school.
Laura: That'd be great to know because they are written more for a younger reading level but the content in there is pretty mature.
Larry Hryb: It's definitely not the low reading level.
Laura: It's pretty mature. Anyway, so back to Fortnite. It was really fun, I played three matches. The first match I was out within 10 minutes. Probably the number where you'd be out.
Jeff Rubenstein: That's good.
Laura: I take Larry's approach to these, I think, which is hide.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, run.
Laura: Hide.
Larry Hryb: Prone. Run, prone, run, prone, run, run, run, prone.
Laura: Be very, very careful. Go and run around slowly stocking up on all the guns and tools.
Larry Hryb: Stick to the edges, stick to the buildings.
Jeff Rubenstein: That's the right way to do it.
Larry Hryb: It got me number three.
Laura: It's very stealthy and my last match I got number two.
Larry Hryb: What?
Laura: I know.
Jeff Rubenstein: Nice.
Larry Hryb: Using that strategy?
Laura: Yes.
Larry Hryb: Nice work.
Laura: Just sneaking around, hiding in the houses as the storm came. Being very strategic about where I went, but the person who won had gotten to the center of the storm much faster than I did and gotten the higher ground.
Larry Hryb: They were hunkered down, yeah.
Laura: They had gotten the higher ground and I started shooting uphill and they were shooting downhill.
Larry Hryb: That's all we know from Star Wars, that doesn't work, does it?
Laura: I know, so I didn't win it, but I was able to get to number two which I was excited about.
Larry Hryb: Good for you. Good for you.
Laura: Yeah, so that was fun. So I had some fun time playing games while you guys were traveling.
Larry Hryb: Well, we were playing a different type of game traveling, Jeff and I were. I don't even think we grabbed a meal together in New York.
Jeff Rubenstein: We didn't.
Laura: Did you guys see each other?
Jeff Rubenstein: At a meeting.
Larry Hryb: No, we-
Jeff Rubenstein: At the store.
Larry Hryb: Oh, it's a funny story. We'll talk about it now. So we go to the Microsoft store and this is where the center of activity was for a lot of our activities. And the Microsoft store is the first floor is retail, the second floor's retail, third floor is something else, fourth floor is like the storage and the back room. And then the fifth floor is a bunch of meeting rooms and up on this fifth floor is an IMAX room.
Laura: Cool. Oh I saw your pictures, is this where the pictures are from?
Larry Hryb: Yes. A real IMAX. Apparently IMAX now, the company that puts this high-end stuff in museums and theaters to watch your movies, they have a home edition.
Laura: Wow, that is so cool.
Larry Hryb: And there's one of these, and what is it 9 people that were seated in that room?
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh, I wasn't allowed up there, I didn't have access.
Larry Hryb: Why didn't you tell me? I would have brought you in.
Jeff Rubenstein: Well, we were busy.
Larry Hryb: So anyway, I wish Albert was here, cause this is a pretty funny story. So we go in, we watch the Sunday Night Football in there and it's massive and they've got real IMAX content. So I look on this- they've got a tablet there and you can browse it and we have the console playing. Anyways, so I bring Albert in and we're browsing the content and they have a Star Wars trailer.
Laura: Which one?
Larry Hryb: It was the- which one was it? It was Rogue One, but it was one of the early trailers where a lot of the stuff in the trailer wasn't in the movie. So anyway we watch- this was about two minutes- so we get in, we put the 3D glasses on and I'm like "Albert, watch this," and I jack the audio up and it has got full surround. It's the whole nine yards, and we're just like- our hair's blowing back and we're like "Oh my god." They come running in, somebody comes running in, the door flies open and goes "What are you guys doing?" We're like "We're watching the trailer." They're like "Turn it down, Phil Spencer's in meetings." Apparently the entire building was rumbling cause Albert and I were- we were in trouble.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, it'll happen.
Larry Hryb: But it was a lot of fun. So I looked it up online, and apparently it's about a million dollars to get this installed in your house. Cause I was like "I could get one of these." No, no.
Jeff Rubenstein: Not yet. Your wife is out of town for like a month.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, but that would not go unnoticed on the credit card bill. I'll just say that.
Jeff Rubenstein: Think of the points, though.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, that's true.
Jeff Rubenstein: You're playing the long game.
Larry Hryb: But we had a lot of fun there. So anyway, real quickly I haven't had a lot of chance to play anything. I'm playing a little bit of Wolfenstein, Assassin's Creed: Origins. Wolfenstein is just so much fun. So much fun. Call of Duty, of course, there's just enhanced games. I'll tell you this. I started Wolfenstein before I left for New York, Laura, and I've been having fun with it cause it's just mindless shooting and shooting. That's a fun story too. And I got back, and between the time I went to New York and the time I got back, the enhanced update had come through and I forgot about it. The first time I booted it up and started playing the game when I got back, I actually went "Oh my God." It was that dramatic on Xbox One X, it just really kind of stunned me so that's kind of what I've been playing. Jeffrey, what about you?
Jeff Rubenstein: Well since the last time we spoke I sunk 36 hours into Middle Earth: Shadow of War.
Laura: Oh, you did?
Larry Hryb: Laura, why aren't you playing that? Is that too stressful?
Laura: It was too stressful for me. I had to relax.
Larry Hryb: Poor Laura.
Jeff Rubenstein: I feel like the skills that we developed in the first game definitely do you well here, but I still died 17 times. It keeps track. I do love the Xbox app. And also killed 3,270 Uruk-hai, Olegs and spiders and stuff.
Larry Hryb: Did you avenge my death at all?
Jeff Rubenstein: You? Are you a- what are you talking about? Oh, I did avenge- cause it'll bring in-
Larry Hryb: Some people from your playlist.
Jeff Rubenstein: So one of- my favorite thing from the first game is if someone's who's on your list is killed by an Orc, sometimes they'll show up as a mission in yours and you can avenge them and I did. I forget who I avenged. It might have been you.
Larry Hryb: No.
Jeff Rubenstein: No, I would have captured you if I did.
Larry Hryb: You would have captured it.
Laura: That's one of my favorite features in Diablo when they'll bring in the nemesis who's killed Major Nelson and he's so hard.
Jeff Rubenstein: And I got to the point- there's so many different Orcs and personalities in that game it's crazy. And I finally got the one that's voiced by Kumail Nanjiani literally in my last hour of gameplay and I accidentally killed him. I wanted to convert him. I wanted to recruit him so I could hear him some more and it didn't work out. I accidentally poisoned him and he just- that was it. He ran away and- oh well, I didn't get him.
Laura: That's too bad.
Jeff Rubenstein: But yeah, very cool and if haven't played the game and you were at E3 and you saw, I think the star. Maybe the star of our E3 presentation in terms of characters might have been Bruce the Chopper from that game. So there's a lot more of him in the game than just what they showed there. He's one of the few Orcs that you're guaranteed to meet. And there were some other nice fun characters in that.
Larry Hryb: I need to get back to that. There's just too many games. There are too many.
Jeff Rubenstein: There are. I haven't gotten a chance to play Wolfenstein yet and I want to. I have Assassin's Creed waiting for me.
Larry Hryb: Star Wars is out this week.
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh, that was the other game I jumped into so as soon as I finished Middle Earth I was like "Let me play the campaign on E-A access, let me start." And I got really sucked into that campaign very quickly. I'm a big Janina Gavankar fan and-
Larry Hryb: I emailed her, I'm trying to get her on the show.
Laura: Cool.
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh, that would be awesome.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, totally, cause we chatted when I was down at the Star Wars [inaudible 00:22:04] at D23. So she's just wonderful.
Jeff Rubenstein: So she's great in that role. You look and it looks just like her, and I'm having a lot of fun with that. I think in a lot of the Star Wars games that we've played before it's like "Oh we're gonna do the Hoth battle again or we're gonna do a strafing run on the-"
Larry Hryb: How far are you? I'm two hours in.
Jeff Rubenstein: Okay, I think I'm three hours in.
Larry Hryb: So I'll just say this Laura, it's- of course we've all watched the Star Wars films. It's interesting cause some of the points that we're playing- like I did the Endor battle and in the Endor battle, we all remember Endor, right, from-
Jeff Rubenstein: Return of the Jedi.
Larry Hryb: Return of the- thank you.
Laura: Yes, with the trees.
Larry Hryb: And at one point the characters, there's a cut scene where they look up and they see the Death Star exploding. So this is actually taking place during that time and it's very interesting.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, it fills in a lot of gaps like what happened after Return of the Jedi like what did the Empire do? It's like "Well, that's kind of interesting." And yeah, it was fun to be able to play battles that you haven't done before but then you still get to, at different times-
Larry Hryb: Things are familiar.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, you get to use characters that are familiar and I'm having a good time with it.
Laura: We only have one more month to wait until the next Star Wars movie.
Larry Hryb: Oh, that's right.
Jeff Rubenstein: So I got an invitation to go see the movie at Cinerama, which is the best theater maybe in the west coast.
Larry Hryb: I would agree with you, it is my preferred location. I have seen every Star Wars since 2001 there.
Jeff Rubenstein: Wow.
Larry Hryb: And it's phenomenal.
Jeff Rubenstein: And I've seen the last two with you actually, both times and we saw Mad Max there together which was great. Anyway, and I got the invite and I'm like "Oh, that'll be great." And then I realize I'm gonna be out of town.
Laura: Oh, boo.
Jeff Rubenstein: I'm gonna be in Japan, so maybe I'll go see it in Japan.
Laura: You should have scheduled your vacation-
Larry Hryb: Yeah, poor planning.
Laura: Around Star Wars.
Larry Hryb: Poor planning. I actually have two tickets. I had bought two for Cinerama and I don't wanna take this in a direction we weren't expecting, but one of the tickets actually was for Steptoe. He and I were gonna go see it together but he- anyway, so it's sad. All right, see? I made it sad, I'm sorry Laura. Jeffrey, get us up please.
Jeff Rubenstein: Okay.
Larry Hryb: Pull up, pull up, pull up, sorry.
Laura: [inaudible 00:24:14]
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, I've been playing Super Lucky still, that's very cheerful.
Larry Hryb: Ooh, I forgot about that, I'm playing that too. You know what I played on the airplane? On the way back cause you and I were kibitzing on the way out.
Laura: That's right, you were supposed to sit next to each other again on the way out.
Jeff Rubenstein: We did.
Larry Hryb: We did.
Laura: Did you?
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Laura: What happened? Did you get sick?
Larry Hryb: No, no, no.
Jeff Rubenstein: No, I was well. It was flu season.
Larry Hryb: What was I watching?
Jeff Rubenstein: What were you watching? You very quickly get absorbed into a number of different things.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, I move- when I'm on an airplane and I know that there's nothing else I can do, so I set my watch to count down the length of the flight and then I just dive right in. I think I was plowing through some- it wasn't Stranger Things 2, I was just consuming a bunch of other stuff.
Jeff Rubenstein: Which I still haven't finished.
Larry Hryb: Anyway, but I've been playing a lot of Mario Odyssey.
Laura: You have?
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Laura: And what do you think?
Larry Hryb: I'm having a great time with it. Fortunately, I had a really great time with it the other night playing on the airplane cause I got home and we had no power. Fortunately my Switch had power so I sat there for like six hours in the dark, freezing, playing Mario.
Laura: I imagine you have gotten to New Donk City and there's apparently a very special moment with the festival.
Larry Hryb: Yeah there is, it's in-
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh, I haven't gotten that far.
Larry Hryb: Oh, it is as awesome as you'd want it to be. I'll just say that.
Jeff Rubenstein: I think that's the next world I'm going to and I just stopped and I was like "Oh, I'll pick this up." I'm going to Asia twice in the next three weeks, once for work and once for fun.
Laura: Plenty of time to play.
Jeff Rubenstein: So I was like "That's what I'm gonna be doing." Might pick up the Rabbids game too, just to get that Xcom fix. Anyway, just saying. That's what we're playing.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, I don't know what else- you've got some headlines in front of you, don't you?
Jeff Rubenstein: I do.
Larry Hryb: We talked about Xbox One X launching this massive list of enhanced titles. You can pick those up or check them out by going to my blog, majornelson.com, and at the very top is a link cause I know no one really likes to search or look around so I try to put everything I can at the top, and there's a link that says, Jeffrey? What does it say?
Jeff Rubenstein: Now I'm going back to your blog. I scrolled down.
Larry Hryb: It just says Xbox One X enhanced.
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh, it's along the top bar there, it used to be a bigger pin.
Larry Hryb: And you go through there and it'll show you all the titles that are listed and all the-
Jeff Rubenstein: A rapidly growing list.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, every time I get a note from our team they're like "Okay, let's add more titles."
Jeff Rubenstein: Really is a lot of games.
Larry Hryb: So it's pretty clear what you need to do there. Of course you can also, if you've got your console, go to my games and apps and there's a filter where you can show which games you already own that are ready to be enhanced once you get your Xbox One X.
Jeff Rubenstein: You have Wolfenstein 2 in there twice. Is it just cause you like it that much?
Larry Hryb: Well, it's two. The first one and the second one.
Jeff Rubenstein: Well, someone just asked. Anyway, oh Injustice. Injustice updated and I really I think that'll be one of the games that I wasn't planning on picking up but just because I wanna support a game that- first of all, the new character. Did you see they unveiled- the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are coming into that game?
Larry Hryb: Yes, yes.
Laura: Are they?
Jeff Rubenstein: Yes, and it looks great.
Laura: What?
Jeff Rubenstein: It looks really good.
Laura: Cool.
Jeff Rubenstein: The game is a phenomenal game, I played it a few months ago at a friend's house and I was like "Oh, this is really cool. I think I may get it for Thanksgiving cause we'll have people over." We should talk about Thanksgiving.
Larry Hryb: Am I coming over?
Jeff Rubenstein: You're gonna be on the east coast.
Larry Hryb: Oh I won't be here. Yeah, I won't be here.
Jeff Rubenstein: You're always welcome.
Larry Hryb: Oh, you're very kind.
Jeff Rubenstein: You're always welcome. Yeah, but there's a number of us who are too cheap to go back to the east coast to visit our families, so I think this'll be my tenth Thanksgiving in a row.
Larry Hryb: To be honest with you, this is my first one in a long time.
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh, going- oh, that's right, you were gonna come last year, and the neighbors cooked for you.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, my neighbors always come over and they do some cool stuff.
Laura: Oh, nice.
Larry Hryb: Are you going away for the holiday Laura?
Laura: No, I'm staying here.
Larry Hryb: This is the American Thanksgiving.
Laura: American Thanksgiving, that's right.
Larry Hryb: Not to be confused with the Canadian one.
Jeff Rubenstein: I always miss Canadian Thanksgiving.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, it was about a month ago, wasn't it?
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, it's in October. Wow. Do they eat turkey for Canadian Thanksgiving also?
Laura: I think they do.
Larry Hryb: They eat Tim Horton's.
Jeff Rubenstein: Chunky poutine? Oh, Tim Horton's. Man, I need to go back to Canada. All right, so there's a lot of news, and I didn't even know what to start with, so I said-
Larry Hryb: Just pull one. Just go.
Jeff Rubenstein: I know my audience.
Larry Hryb: Just go.
Jeff Rubenstein: And my audience is the two of you plus whoever's listening, and so I went-
Larry Hryb: And your mother, your mother's listening.
Jeff Rubenstein: She probably is. How's that Captain Morgan doing?
Larry Hryb: That's what she calls me.
Jeff Rubenstein: Every time. Every time.
Laura: You're Captain Morgan?
Larry Hryb: Yes, she does that.
Jeff Rubenstein: Well, the first time she did it accidentally. Now she does it because it's funny.
Laura: Great. Nice.
Jeff Rubenstein: So I think she follows two people on Twitter and you're one of them.
Larry Hryb: Really? Oh God.
Laura: Oh my goodness.
Jeff Rubenstein: Now available on Xbox One, Farming Simulator 17 Platinum Edition.
Laura: Yes.
Larry Hryb: And I would like to take a moment. First of all, I'm sorry Jeff, I need- this is actually pretty important, I need to say this right at the top. One of the new features that we rolled out last week, earlier this week actually, is the ability for gifting. So Laura, I can send you a gift. You can send- anyway, we can all- it's really easy. Just pull up the store and you'll see by and right next to it is send as gift.
Laura: And I was one of the most top requested managers.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, so anyway we got that. I love every single one of you, but please don't send me any gifts, okay? I don't need any games, I get a copy of all the games anyway.
Jeff Rubenstein: Are they sending you the Nickelback pack from Rock Band?
Larry Hryb: People are sending me- so I'm just gonna take it and I'm gonna go ahead and turn around and give them away on Free Code Friday, but I-
Laura: That was nice of you.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, but what I'm saying is the thoughts are very nice, but you know what folks? You don't need to send me any gifts and Laura, I'm showing him an email, people said-
Jeff Rubenstein: You've got a million dollar IMAX at home, you don't need this.
Larry Hryb: No, I do not have that. So I get an email, and those are just a few of them that came in last night.
Laura: Very kind of them.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, very kind, nice folks, but you know what? Find another friend. You know what, you can send them to any of your other friends.
Laura: Oh, that's a nice phone you have there.
Jeff Rubenstein: I think we should roll them into one of the prize packs or something.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, well that's what we'll give away on this show, Laura, with Name the Game later on.
Laura: Yeah, Name the Game.
Larry Hryb: How's that sound?
Laura: That sounds great.
Larry Hryb: So thank you, thanks.
Jeff Rubenstein: Pay it forward.
Larry Hryb: So on behalf of some of the winners, and people that are sending me codes, thank you on behalf of them. All right, so-
Jeff Rubenstein: So the gift that everyone's gonna be sending you that you don't want them to send is gonna be Farming Simulator 17.
Larry Hryb: Well, I've already got a few of those.
Jeff Rubenstein: I'm sure you do, but you can now plow South American fields, which you've wanted to do.
Laura: Super fun.
Jeff Rubenstein: Soy beans.
Laura: Ask me how I love farming games.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, well you know. All right.
Larry Hryb: Except Stardew Valley.
Jeff Rubenstein: Probably the biggest news-
Laura: Except Stardew Valley.
Jeff Rubenstein: Depending on when you're listening to this, and if you're listening to this before Saturday morning at nine A-M pacific, noon eastern, eight P-M maybe, London time? Minecon Earth is this weekend, and there's gonna be a 90 minute live stream, and you're gonna be able to watch. They always announce cool stuff, I honestly don't know what those things are-
Larry Hryb: We have no idea what they are.
Jeff Rubenstein: Because I'm not privileged, but I know I will be watching, I'm gonna wake up super early, watch the arsenal match. First spurs, come on. And then I'm gonna watch Minecon Earth, live from Atlanta. I have a number of friends there, so that should be really fun. So I'll put a link there, but something-
Larry Hryb: Depending upon when you listen to this you can go to my blog at majornelson.com. I'm giving away an Xbox One X Minecraft bundle.
Laura: Oh, cool.
Jeff Rubenstein: I think that's the best console design we've ever done.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, the whole thing is just perfect.
Jeff Rubenstein: With the glass block and the red stuff. Anyway, and then after you're done that, it's actually, if you're an Xbox Live Gold member and of course you are if you're listening to this, you can play Rainbow Six Siege free.
Larry Hryb: Free.
Jeff Rubenstein: This weekend.
Larry Hryb: Free, you've got no money?
Jeff Rubenstein: Yes, it's already there, it's already waiting for you. So that will be- it runs until Monday at midnight and it actually started- by the time you listen to this, it will already have started. Started-
Larry Hryb: We're good to go.
Jeff Rubenstein: Last night. So yeah, should be a good time and they have some new contact coming. That game just keeps trucking along. And then another big thing we announced this week was our Black Friday deals. The Xbox One S is gonna be available at the lowest price ever.
Larry Hryb: Ever, ever.
Jeff Rubenstein: How low would you go?
Larry Hryb: Would you go 250, Laura, would you go to 225?
Jeff Rubenstein: Too low, too low.
Laura: Too low.
Larry Hryb: It's too high.
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh, it's too high. Well, surely we can't go lower than 189 dollars.
Larry Hryb: What?
Jeff Rubenstein: 189 dollars.
Laura: That is a deal.
Jeff Rubenstein: Xbox Live Gold and Xbox Gamepass will be available for one dollar each.
Laura: Wow, where can I buy these things?
Larry Hryb: I will tell you, just follow me on Twitter and I'll have links to my blog.
Jeff Rubenstein: And we'll link out to the overview posts on this, they'll be up to 68. Every year we have huge sales right around Black Friday and right around the end of the year as well, where digital games are incredibly affordable. So we list a couple of the titles and what those discounts are gonna be. Like 20 dollars off Forza Motorsports 7 and Halo Wars 2 will be $19.99. Forza Horizon 3, $29.99. Even off of Super Lucky's Tale will be 35 percent off, so there's a lot- there's gonna be, like we'll list all of them out as we get there, but if you follow Larry, Major Nelson on Twitter undoubtedly you will see some great deals.
Larry Hryb: Do you use that Twitter?
Jeff Rubenstein: The Twitters? That's a bit of a fad but I may give it a shot.
Laura: [inaudible 00:32:59]
Larry Hryb: You don't remember those days.
Laura: I remember those days.
Larry Hryb: Laura remembers.
Jeff Rubenstein: I just hit my ten year anniversary on Twitter.
Larry Hryb: Well, the days I'm talking about is when it first started, I was on it and Laura was of course part of the show and he was part of the show. He was emphatic, he didn't understand it. Right?
Laura: Yes, he refused.
Larry Hryb: He refused, he's like “I don't understand.” And now he's all over it. Now he's Instagramming pictures of his food and his dog.
Jeff Rubenstein: Well, that was the thing, when it first came out I was like “Who wants to see what I ate for lunch?” Meanwhile, I'm the biggest offender of that right now.
Larry Hryb: You are, you are.
Jeff Rubenstein: I'm terrible. That belongs on Instagram.
Larry Hryb: Especially if it has a fish head or a noodle, you're on it.
Jeff Rubenstein: What's wrong with those things?
Larry Hryb: Just merely pointing it out.
Jeff Rubenstein: I went to a Korean fried chicken place last night randomly, it was awesome. You should have been, you should have been, they had karaoke.
Larry Hryb: No, don't even talk to me about that. They went to this barbecue place in New York, I didn't even get an invite.
Jeff Rubenstein: It was all right.
Larry Hryb: Okay then.
Jeff Rubenstein: I'm pretty picky with barbecue, okay? And New York is 500 miles north of-
Larry Hryb: Any place where there's-
Jeff Rubenstein: The next place I would go for barbecue. Anyway. So yeah, Rainbow Six Siege. Oh, a free update if you've played City Skylines on Xbox One, the Xbox One edition is adding snowfall in there. And that's a really good game, I actually only just got into it very recently. That's another game I will probably end up playing on the way out to Japan.
Laura: Yeah, I think I've played that too.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, I have it on my laptop on Windows 10. It's really good.
Larry Hryb: Yeah?
Jeff Rubenstein: It's just, it's fun. You should do that.
Larry Hryb: Fun?
Jeff Rubenstein: And a couple of releases, we are getting towards really the tail end of the really big titles here, but Lego Marvel Superheroes 2 came out this week, L-A Noire, which has been enhanced for Xbox One X.
Laura: Awesome.
Jeff Rubenstein: The Sims 4, this is the first Sims game to come out on Xbox, definitely this generation, and maybe- it's been a long time. And of course Star Wars Battlefront 2, so all those games and there's a number of others will be available by the time you hear the soothing sound of my voice.
Larry Hryb: Dun dun dun.
Laura: And not mine, sorry.
Larry Hryb: And not Laura, Laura's voice not soothing, not so much on the soothing. Needs to be soothed.
Jeff Rubenstein: Needs to be soothed.
Larry Hryb: But not soothing.
Jeff Rubenstein: If only we could fix this.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, sorry. I'm sorry. If you have any suggestions-
Jeff Rubenstein: We need a lozenge dispenser in here.
Laura: I don't know if that would help.
Larry Hryb: Maybe not.
Laura: Maybe there's new technology that could help.
Larry Hryb: I don't think. I think it's just the-
Jeff Rubenstein: You're the smartest one in the room, so if you can't figure it out-
Larry Hryb: Yeah, you figure it out.
Jeff Rubenstein: We're in trouble.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, it's true. All right, so those are some of the headlines. Should we go Name the Game and then we'll kind of-
Laura: Yeah. It's been a long time for Name the Game.
Larry Hryb: It's been a few weeks, yes it has Laura, so are you ready?
Laura: Yeah, let's play Name the Game from last time.
Speaker 4: Whoa, hyah. Hyah. Whoa.
Laura: So that was Name the Game from last time, and it was Assassin's Creed: Origins. Pretty easy one.
Larry Hryb: It looks so good.
Laura: I know. And you've been playing that one, haven't you?
Larry Hryb: Been playing a little bit of that, yeah. I'm peanut buttering my games right now, I need to stop and just-
Laura: Go deeper on more of them.
Larry Hryb: Dedicate, yeah.
Laura: All right, so the winner-
Larry Hryb: Winner.
Laura: Is Florian from Paris.
Larry Hryb: Florian, oh. Congratulations.
Laura: Yep, gamer tag is halobiscuit.
Larry Hryb: Nice.
Jeff Rubenstein: That's a good name. That's cool.
Laura: And Florian, you've won a fun pack of games here.
Larry Hryb: Some of which may have been gifted to me.
Laura: Perhaps. Perhaps. Let's see, you've got a copy of Skyforge standard founders pack, which is an I-D Xbox game.
Larry Hryb: Nice.
Laura: Assault Android Cactus, which is also an I-D Xbox game. You have a copy of Black, which is now on Xbox back-compat.
Larry Hryb: Nice.
Laura: Fantastic. That's not all, you also get a copy of Zoo Tycoon, the ultimate animal collection, a copy of Disneyland Adventures, a copy of Rush, a Disney-Pixar Adventure. Those are all the new games that came out for Xbox that no longer need the Kinect controller, is that right?
Larry Hryb: Correct.
Laura: And that's not all, you also get a copy of Star Wars: Battlefront 2.
Larry Hryb: Woo-hoo!
Laura: So you'll have a lot of fun games to play.
Larry Hryb: Wow, lot going on there. Congratulations.
Laura: Congratulations.
Larry Hryb: And that means that you, dear listener, are ready for another Name the Game, right Laura?
Laura: Are we gonna do another one?
Larry Hryb: Yeah, if you want to yeah. Is your voice up to it?
Laura: Let's see.
Jeff Rubenstein: You have to sing this one.
Laura: Oh, gosh. I wouldn't be up for it. All right, let's roll the Name the Game for this week.
Speaker 5: See, y'all never had a chance.
Laura: So that was Name the Game for this time. Again if you, listener, would like to win fabulous prizes-
Larry Hryb: I do.
Laura: Super easy to enter, all you have to do is send us an email, lollypop@xbox.com and cc major@xbox.com-
Larry Hryb: Hello.
Laura: And let us know what game those sounds are from. As easy as that. If you want to you can include your name and your gamer tag or if you don't want to, that's cool too. We also love to know where our listeners are from, so include maybe if you want to, where you're from. Easy as that.
Larry Hryb: Good luck.
Laura: But I don't think there's a show next week, is that right? Cause it is Thanksgiving.
Larry Hryb: Well, it'd be on a future show, yeah. We'll do it on a future show.
Laura: So maybe two weeks. You have two weeks to enter.
Larry Hryb: Two weeks to enter. At the very least. Thank you Laura.
Laura: Yeah.
Larry Hryb: When I was back east last week I went up to New England and I went to a ComicCon. I went to Rhode Island ComicCon.
Jeff Rubenstein: The old R-I-C-C.
Laura: Rhode Island's the smallest state in America.
Larry Hryb: That is.
Laura: With the smallest [inaudible 00:39:11]
Larry Hryb: My sister reminds me that at low tide it grows three percent in volume.
Laura: That's amazing.
Jeff Rubenstein: Is that true?
Larry Hryb: I don't know. It's a line she's been using on me for years. It's a great little state and it was a fun ComicCon to be at and it was just fun.
Laura: Awesome.
Larry Hryb: It was fun to go there and see a lot of B and C level celebrities charging 20 dollars for a selfie.
Laura: How big was the ComicCon?
Jeff Rubenstein: How much were you charging?
Larry Hryb: I do not charge for selfies, Jeffrey, you know that. I don't know, there had to be maybe 50 or 60 thousand people there.
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh, it was that big?
Larry Hryb: Yeah, it was a big boy. It was a big- it was much larger than I was expecting.
Jeff Rubenstein: That's probably more than three percent of the population.
Larry Hryb: You're right, it is actually a large percentage of the population of Rhode Island. But folks were from all over and it was really fun there. Lot of gaming stuff and just a lot of- it's always fun to go to ComicCons, so I'll be back. Laura, you talked about next week is a holiday week so we won't have a show next week because we're gonna be celebrating the American Thanksgiving here in the United States, so we'll have turkey and stuffing. Did you see the tweet I put out earlier this week about the Pringles and their turkey and stuffing potato chips?
Laura: No, I missed that.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, go take a look at it. Yeah, Jeff wheeled his head around “What?” Yeah, go onto my Twitter.
Laura: [inaudible 00:40:25]
Larry Hryb: Pardon me?
Laura: Like turkey and stuffing Pringles?
Larry Hryb: Yeah, and it was actually an entire meal.
Jeff Rubenstein: Then they have Walkers Crisps, which is like the English version of Lays. I think it's the same company, similar logo. They have always the craziest flavors compared to what us deprived folks have here in the States, and they have a turkey and stuffing flavor.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, this was a Thanksgiving-
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh my God, that's crazy.
Laura: Pringle Thanksgiving dinner. Oh, goodness.
Jeff Rubenstein: Each of the stacks have a different flavor.
Laura: Wow. Actually, I'm intrigued.
Larry Hryb: Are you?
Jeff Rubenstein: Especially if it came with gravy that you could reconstitute in the microwave. I think that's what would bring it home.
Laura: Like a poutine?
Larry Hryb: If I can find it, it's got turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes. Eight delicious flavors inside.
Laura: I'm intrigued. I'm kind of curious how they got that into a potato chip.
Larry Hryb: The whole food science lately is kind of frightening. When I was back east I went to get some- they used to have these potato chips we would eat when we were kids called State Line, which were made on the state line between Connecticut and Massachusetts. So I always remember them and they're just a light airy chip and my wife and I got a bag of them and we were eating them at lunch one day and she stopped and she pushed them across the table at me. I'm like “What happened, what's wrong? Did you get one of those green ones?” Remember you used to get the green ones, you're like “What is that, why is that green?” And it was- on the front of it it was labeled that it was made with biogenetic material. Biogenetically enhanced, and she's like “I don't know what that means.” And I'm like “Well, they legally have to put it there, I don't know what it means either.” So, it was just scary.
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh man, it's not available at retail, but according to this headline it tasted crazily close to the real thing.
Laura: Wait, who, what?
Larry Hryb: Why are they making things that you can't get at retail?
Laura: So how do you get a hold of it?
Jeff Rubenstein: I don't know, raise awareness for Pringles, maybe?
Larry Hryb: Is that a problem?
Jeff Rubenstein: Maybe, I feel like the kids don't talk about Pringles nearly as much as they used to.
Larry Hryb: You're right, so this is-
Jeff Rubenstein: I couldn't go five minutes without someone talking about popping until they couldn't stop.
Larry Hryb: They are consuming valuable time on this very show.
Laura: Yeah they are.
Jeff Rubenstein: Indeed they are. Hashtag ad.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, hashtag not an ad, and what the hell? Oh boy, Laura, so anyway there we go. That's us. So next week, we're gonna try to come back. In a couple weeks, we're gonna have a special show for you.
Laura: We are?
Larry Hryb: We are.
Jeff Rubenstein: For Laura?
Larry Hryb: Us, this show.
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh.
Laura: Are we gonna do the extreme version?
Larry Hryb: We are gonna go on Mixer. We are gonna do this show live on Mixer on a Thursday. I think we'll do it on a Thursday afternoon. So I will give you details as we get closer to that so you'll be able to actually see us in addition to hearing us, and it'll be live. We'll take questions. Maybe-
Laura: It'll be fun.
Jeff Rubenstein: Maybe we'll have hair and makeup?
Laura: Right?
Larry Hryb: No. Maybe we'll even do a Name the Game live. Maybe we'll do a video clip.
Laura: That would be really fun.
Larry Hryb: Like a vid clip?
Laura: Yeah.
Larry Hryb: So I'll see if the studio can handle that.
Jeff Rubenstein: You gonna use that camera?
Larry Hryb: No, no, we're actually using the big studio that they have over there.
Laura: Yeah, they have a proper studio.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, it's like a big deal. Big boy's studio.
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh good, because this one is-
Laura: It's a little messy.
Jeff Rubenstein: No, it's quiet. It does that part. It needs some work.
Larry Hryb: It's cozy, Laura. It's very cozy.
Jeff Rubenstein: Will we have camera people?
Larry Hryb: Yes. No, they're robocams.
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh, good, because if a person had to sit there and watch us-
Larry Hryb: No.
Jeff Rubenstein: That would be not a great job.
Larry Hryb: We'll talk about this-
Jeff Rubenstein: I'm excited.
Larry Hryb: When we're ready to do it. Assuming you'll have time.
Laura: Yes, of course.
Jeff Rubenstein: He was speaking to the viewers at that point.
Larry Hryb: Yes, well I know you guys will. Anyway, should we talk gadgets at all?
Laura: We should talk gadgets.
Larry Hryb: Okay, you wanna go?
Jeff Rubenstein: You got one.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, so I picked up the iPhone ten. I talked about this on social media because I have the Xbox One X. I have a car that is a Model X, and now I have a phone that is not a Model X, it's a model ten.
Jeff Rubenstein: And now you can watch the X-Files on it.
Larry Hryb: So now I can watch the-
Jeff Rubenstein: On any of those devices, really.
Larry Hryb: Anyway, so I picked it up cause I was to check out a new phone.
Laura: It has a beautiful screen.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, it's got the OLED screen, it's beautiful and so it's fun, Laura. Is it worth $1000? I'll just say this. I both did the same thing with you when I got the phone which was I sent you both individually the animated emoji, and which you both rolled your eyes, so that was it.
Jeff Rubenstein: Well, it was poop. It wasn't talk.
Larry Hryb: Did I send you the poop one, Laura?
Laura: No, you sent me a talk.
Jeff Rubenstein: See, I get the unfiltered Larry.
Larry Hryb: Come on, I didn't wanna totally offend Laura right off the bat with animated poop.
Laura: A little bit of talking poop.
Larry Hryb: It's a nice phone.
Laura: You just said something. It's very fast.
Larry Hryb: And the screen is beautiful and-
Laura: The screen is a whole different thing.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, a lot of the apps are being updated. I don't mind the notch.
Laura: And then how do you-
Larry Hryb: Swipe up.
Laura: There's no home button, so how do you-
Larry Hryb: Swipe up.
Laura: So you swipe up, and then back down.
Larry Hryb: Swipe up to it.
Laura: Cool, I can launch an app first. Yeah, that actually works pretty well.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, it does. So, anyway, it's fun. The Xbox app will be updated soon, there's a bunch of great apps on there. The Microsoft Outlook app is being updated if you use it for email.
Laura: How fast is Face I-D?
Larry Hryb: So let's be clear, Laura. I have headphones on, and I have glasses on.
Jeff Rubenstein: It's like a one Mississippi.
Laura: That was maybe a second.
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh wait, it was done?
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Laura: Yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh.
Larry Hryb: So if you look at the top you can see the little padlock opening. You ready again?
Jeff Rubenstein: Yup.
Larry Hryb: Okay, so it's on. Bring it up.
Jeff Rubenstein: That was about a second.
Laura: Has to be [inaudible 00:45:31] maybe. Or half a second.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, it's actually a little bit slower cause I have all this gear. I have all this headphones and glasses on and so there's that.
Jeff Rubenstein: Are you gonna have headphones on when we do the live broadcast?
Larry Hryb: I'll probably have my broadcast earpieces in.
Jeff Rubenstein: Can we get Janina in for that one?
Laura: Can I have one of those?
Larry Hryb: What? You want an I-F-B?
Laura: Yes.
Larry Hryb: Wow, okay.
Laura: Those are really fun.
Larry Hryb: Well, it depends who's on the other end, I'll tell you. Fun is one way of looking at it, I guess I never thought about that. Yeah, I'm trying to get Janina. I don't know if we're gonna have her on for that, I'm gonna try to get her on for a show. If she can, we'll absolutely bring her in.
Jeff Rubenstein: Thank you. What?
Larry Hryb: She and I, we've been exchanging emails over a few things, so we're trying to get her in. Do you wanna talk anything else about gadgets and technology?
Laura: I don't believe I have a new gadget. I don't think I do.
Larry Hryb: It's getting into the holiday season. What's on your Christmas list, Laura.
Laura: Oh my goodness, I hadn't even thought about the Christmas list yet.
Larry Hryb: Really?
Laura: Yeah. Too busy thinking about Thanksgiving first.
Larry Hryb: Jeffrey, what's on your Christmas list?
Jeff Rubenstein: I don't want anything. I've got everything I- I've got my X, I got my game. I just want time to play it, and honestly I don't need anything.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, I'm pretty much the same way. I have a lovely beautiful daughter.
Jeff Rubenstein: That you do.
Larry Hryb: So she's consuming up a lot of my time. My wife's time especially.
Jeff Rubenstein: Wait, you just wait.
Larry Hryb: What?
Jeff Rubenstein: Wait til you're driving to soccer practice three times a week.
Larry Hryb: It's fun, I love her.
Jeff Rubenstein: No, you'll get there.
Larry Hryb: All right, well listen, we're gonna wrap up. Thanks for coming in for the show Laura.
Laura: Yeah, thanks for-
Larry Hryb: Even though your voice was a little bit of a challenge.
Laura: Thanks for listening to me even though I had a challenge.
Larry Hryb: Jeff, thanks for coming in even though I know it was a challenge for you.
Jeff Rubenstein: It's a challenge for you when I'm here.
Larry Hryb: You didn't finish your sandwich.
Jeff Rubenstein: We're good. We're good.
Larry Hryb: You sure? All right, well gang listen we'll see you guys in a couple weeks. We won't be around next week. You can follow us on social media. You can find Laura at-
Laura: At Lauralollypop.
Larry Hryb: Jeffrey at-
Jeff Rubenstein: At jeffrubenstein.
Larry Hryb: Which is also, coincidentally, the same account you can tweet complaints to for Xbox.
Jeff Rubenstein: I get them. Believe me, I get them. They usually copy you too.
Larry Hryb: And you can hit me up at majornelson. Just a reminder you're gonna wanna make sure you follow me or at least check out my blog cause I'll be posting all the Black Friday deals for Xbox, and we've got some really- Jeff talked about them earlier-
Jeff Rubenstein: Can you show me the list?
Larry Hryb: I'm gonna show you after. Off the air, off the air.
Jeff Rubenstein: I'll keep it quiet.
Larry Hryb: We've got some good stuff coming, some great games so you'll be ready to go this holiday. All right gang, have a great- if you're in the U-S have a great Thanksgiving. If not, have a great next Thursday and we'll just talk to you next time. Bye-bye everybody.
Laura: Bye-bye.
Jeff Rubenstein: Insert turkey sound here.

Larry Hyrb: Welcome to the show, everybody. My name is Larry Hryb, Xbox Live's Major Nelson. This is show number Xbox One X. We're restarting-
Jeff: We are.
Larry Hyrb: We're doing it all new. We've got here ... Jeff is with us, Laura's with us. Hi, Laura.
Laura: Hello.
Larry Hyrb: We are ready. We're just a few days away ... Well, depending on when you listen to this, either it's a few days away from Xbox One X launch or it's out already.
Jeff: We may be in the future, future, future.
Larry Hyrb: Great to have you guys back, we haven't been back for ... Let me just look, let me just pull it up here and take a look ...
Laura: Pull out the calendar and see how long it's been.
Larry Hyrb: Looks like the last time we were together was, wow, a month ago.
Laura: It's been a long time.
Larry Hyrb: Yeah, with my travel, your travel, Jeff's travel-
Jeff: You've aged. You look like a young Moff Tarkin.
Larry Hyrb: Are we gonna do that right now?
Jeff: Yeah
Larry Hyrb: Are we really ... Do you know what he's talking about?
Laura: No, I haven't watched any of the trailers. [crosstalk 00:01:24]
Jeff: Don't watch the trailers, they'll ruin the movie for you!
Larry Hyrb: Don't watch the trailers.
Jeff: Really don't.
Larry Hyrb: There was ... So, I don't know exactly how it started, but I was talking to Gary Whitta, who was the screen ... I think he was the story writer.
Jeff: I think on Rogue One.
Laura: Okay.
Larry Hyrb: On Rogue One. He's done some Walking Dead stuff, and he was asking ... He says, "I need to get an Xbox One X console." I said, "Well, look, I can probably work something out if you write me into the next screenplay in the Star Wars." But I said, "But I have to be a rebel. I'm not gonna be on the dark side." And then it started this whole ... It devolved into this conversation. Somebody posted a picture. I'm sure Jeffrey's pulling it up now-
Jeff: Yes.
Larry Hyrb: Of me as Grand Moff Tarkin.
Laura: Oh, no.
Jeff: So I ended up ... I was down in San Francisco this week, meeting with Greg Miller, the kinda funny crew, along with Albert, and Gary Whitta was there. And so he-
Larry Hyrb: Which is so bizarre.
Jeff: So we started talking about it, he's like, "He really does look like he would be part of the Empire." I couldn't argue.
Laura: That is so funny.
Larry Hyrb: So, anyway, that's-
Laura: Be careful what you wish for, Larry.
Larry Hyrb: I don't know. Yeah, don't watch the trailer, Laura. Don't watch the trailer. You know, I have my tickets and actually, let's ... Can we stop for a moment, just have a serious conversation? ... I'm sure you've probably seen if you follow me on Twitter, Laura, or Jeff, or E, former member of the show, we lost somebody. StepTo, who's a long time member of the show and will always be a member of the show, unfortunately passed away.
Laura: Very sad news.
Larry Hyrb: Last week surprised quite a few people. I mean, we've had him on the show to talk about ... He had some health issues. He was in coma, and he knew he was on borrowed time, unfortunately. Laura and I and E are going to get together in a future show. We're not going to do it today, but we want to make sure we recognize. We're going to get together and talk about him.
Laura: That's right.
Larry Hyrb: You okay with that?
Laura: Yeah, I'm okay with that.
Larry Hyrb: We'll probably do that when we get back, because we have the Xbox One X launch, but we're going to talk about StepTo. We have some great stories. I don't think we've ever told some of these stories before. We'll do that in a future show, but we do miss him. Sad times. Let's take a moment, take a breath and okay. Here we go.
Do a little reset. Hi Jeffrey.
Jeff: Hi.
Laura: Hello.
Jeff: You know, it's hard to follow that u[.
Larry Hyrb: It is. It is but we'll do our best.
Laura: We do miss him a lot.
Larry Hyrb: You know, you're welcome to join us on that show, Jeffrey.
Jeff: Yeah, yeah, I'd love to.
Larry Hyrb: If you've got time. Looks like we've got ... Laura, I'm going to ask you to step out if you would.
Laura: Oh, [crosstalk 00:03:51]
Larry Hyrb: Our guest here. Albert Panelo's joining us, so you're going to go retrieve him. Because we all have special access to the inner sanctum-
Laura: I'll be right back.
Larry Hyrb: But Albert, who's going to join us on the show, does not. You can hear the door opening. Laura's going to go down the hall there and get Albert. You were down in San Francisco with Albert, right Jeff?
Jeff: Yeah, I was. Yeah.
Larry Hyrb: You do the podcast [inaudible 00:04:12] with ...
Jeff: That's when we ... Actually, if anyone fanboyed out over meeting Gary Whitta, it was Albert. At some point I had to go, it was like 6 pm.
Larry Hyrb: Did you tell him about this?
Jeff: He was there when we had the conversation, yeah. At some point, I had to go and they just kept going.
Larry Hyrb: Once you wind Albert up about Star Aars or anything like that, he'll just go.
Jeff: Exactly.
Larry Hyrb: He's on his way in. Laura's out to get him. He's on his way in. We're going to talk about Xbox One X, coming soon or out now, depending upon when you're listening to this.
Jeff: Nobody knows more about the Xbox One X than Albert Panelo.
Larry Hyrb: Well, Albert ... He's one of the few people that's been at Xbox longer than I have.
Jeff: That is ... He'd also be working for the empire.
Larry Hyrb: No, now come on.
Jeff: It's really more about hair color, you know. Also, full credit to you, everyone in the empire ... They seem to hold on ... Outside of Darth Vader, they have a nice head of hair.
Larry Hyrb: And Albert does. Congratulations, we started without you Albert. Have a seat.
Albert Panelo: Are we live right now?
Larry Hyrb: We are, well we're live to tape.
Jeff: I brought some Sour Patch Kids.
Larry Hyrb: We're just ... Thank you Laura for going out and getting Albert.
Laura: You're welcome.
Larry Hyrb: I was just explaining. Apparently you were fanboying out down there in San Francisco?
Albert Panelo: Oh, yeah. What a great day. Did you rat me out?
Jeff: Yeah.
Albert Panelo: What a fun day. What a great group of guys. I had never met the kind of funny crew before.
Larry Hyrb: I haven't either.
Jeff: Get that done.
Albert Panelo: Had a blast, and got to spend some time with Gary, Gary Whitta.
Jeff: So we were just talking about the back and forth we had on Twitter. Did he tell you about that?
Albert Panelo: Uh-uh (negative).
Jeff: Okay, well we'll tell you about it later. We just already went over it. Apparently he thinks I look like a young Tarkin.
Albert Panelo: Well, someone did a little Photoshop job, just to sort of confirm that.
Larry Hyrb: You did see that, okay.
Albert Panelo: I wouldn't say it's looks as much as attitude, really.
Laura: Oh, dear. It's early, the jabs are coming.
Albert Panelo: But Gary's a good dude. The funny story with Gary is that I actually ... He didn't remember but, when I was at EA when I was a young lad, I had actually pitched a bunch of games to him when he was the editor of PC Gamer.
Larry Hyrb: Really?
Albert Panelo: Yeah, and of course it all came back because we sort of knew of each other through mutual friends. I had reminded him, I go, "Yeah, I was the marketing guy for the Jayne's Flight Simulators on PC." He was like, "That was you? That was forever ago." It was fumy to sort of catch up on that.
Larry Hyrb: Yeah, it's a small world. We were just setting things up, depending upon ... This'll go out today, and depending on when people listen to this, they're either getting ready for their Xbox One X or they've already got it.
Jeff: They're busy playing.
Larry Hyrb: One of the things we want to talk about, because you and I talked about this earlier in the week, was this really cool ... Can we call it an app, an experience? What are we calling it?
Albert Panelo: That's a great question. I'll call it a demo.
Larry Hyrb: Okay. Demo.
Albert Panelo: Let's call it a demo.
Larry Hyrb: So, have you seen this Laura?
Laura: No.
Larry Hyrb: It's called Insects.
Laura: No.
Larry Hyrb: And this is ... I've got a video that'll got out on Monday but we're kind of doing a little preview here. Shall we?
Albert Panelo: Yeah for sure. Yeah.
Larry Hyrb: This is an experience, a demo that ... Albert actually worked on this, getting it together. Why don't you tell us about it Albert?
Albert Panelo: Yeah, there was this idea. We knew early on that people were going to have a lot of question about HDR and wide color gamut. The biggest challenge that you face is that you can't show it if you can't display it. When people say, "Show me HDR," you need to have an HDR screen and then I can turn it on and off and show you the difference or I can show you wide color gamut. We knew that that was gonna be a big thing that people were gonna both ask, and then we were going to have difficulty demonstrating.
The advanced technology group, that's the group that works in our engineering org who interfaces a lot with our development partners, had built this demo of a ladybug that was authored from the get go with wide color gamut and HDR in mind. It was also authored to run on both an Xbox One S and an Xbox One X. It was a just a tech demo, like "Here's how the code works and heres what your authoring path needs to look like." But it was amazing, because now you have all this power sort of rendering a flower and a lady bug. When we first saw it we thought it was a scene out of Planet Earth. We thought it was a movie.
Larry Hyrb: Or A bug's life.
Laura: To be clear, it wasn't filmed.
Albert Panelo: No, it is all computer generated.
Larry Hyrb: And it's all in engine render.
Albert Panelo: Yeah, it's not a movie.
Larry Hyrb: This is real time.
Albert Panelo: It's real time.
Larry Hyrb: In fact, not only is it real time, but as a result of the fact that it's real time, you can manipulate it.
Albert Panelo: That's right, you can pause it. You can zoom in and out. You can change the color of the ladybug, the color of the flowers, time of day. We said, "Oh my gosh. If we can get this out into people's hands, this would look awesome being displayed on TVs, it'd be an awesome way ..." When your family comes over and you want to show off your new 4K TV, you're not like scrambling for like "What's the piece of content," or like, "Where do I get to that part in the game where it looks really good?" You just turn this thing on and it goes.
We work with our advanced technology team, so I'll give a shout out to [Arthur 00:09:04] and to [James 00:09:04] for really spearheading this on the team, and got something that we can ship. It is gorgeous, it is beautiful, it's unexpected. I think the tech heads are gonna love it, because it's technologically very interesting, but my daughter who is three now always asks if she can watch the ladybug movie. It's just beautiful. It's something you can just run and show to anyone, and it's amazing.
Jeff: Like I said, depending on when you listen to the show, this will be available. It's a free download.
Albert Panelo: It's totally free, and it's small. I think it's only two gigs, so it's a really small download.
Jeff: You'll be able to download it starting when Xbox One X launches on Monday, the [crosstalk 00:09:42]-
Albert Panelo: Yeah, and if you're one of the lucky Taco Bell winners, you've got your console, you'll have it the night before.
Jeff: That's right. Anyway-
Laura: How do you find it?
Jeff: That's a great question.
Albert Panelo: Insects in the store. It's called Insects: An Xbox One X Enhanced Experience.
Jeff: I will put a link out on my Twitter, as well as on my blog, to download it, so people can download it.
Albert Panelo: I think we're gonna host it up on the dash as well, so that when you unbox and get it home, it'll be right there for you.
Jeff: The only time you're gonna want Insects on your Xbox One X, I can assure you.
Larry Hyrb: It's the only time you want bugs.
Albert Panelo: Thank you.
Larry Hyrb: Sorry.
Jeff: I will say this: like I told you, Laura, it's real time. You can toggle things on and off. It's just so interesting to watch the detail. You'll see ... This is the beauty of the technology. It's real time. It's gorgeous. Albert and I were talking, it's like ... Remember back in 1999, we're like, "Oh, this game's gonna look like a POne Xar movie." This looks like a POne Xar movie. It's not a game, but I'm just saying, it looks unbelievable.
Larry Hyrb: Yeah. 100% of the people that have seen this assume that we have done some photography and gone and filmed something and that it's a movie. Then I pause it, and then I change the ladybug's color or something.
Jeff: Real time.
Laura: [crosstalk 00:10:53] camera angle?
Larry Hyrb: A little bit, a little bit. It's all designed to show that it's in real time. You can zoom in and you can sort of manipulate things. It's not a playable thing. I like it. It's kind of it's own experience.
Jeff: Yeah. Then the other thing is, you can actually go in there and there's a setting to split the screen, so you can kind of see [HDR 00:11:16], [SDR 00:11:16] ...
Laura: Basically before and after?
Jeff: Yeah. You can see the side of the screen that's HDR, non HDR, so as it pans over, you'll see the lighting. You can turn wide color [gamut 00:11:23] on and off. You can make it render real time in 4K or 1080P, so you can see super-sampling. You can see the texture differences. There's even some advanced stuff in there for the guys that really get into it. If you want to see what part of the scene is displaying wide color gamut, you can filter it so that you can see the colors that would only be visible because of wide color gamut. There is a lot of really neat technical things you can do.
Albert Panelo: I thought of a sequel we can make for this. It is really cool to see the stuff, but I mean you can only look at ladybugs for so ... Your daughter, she will enjoy it for a while. After she gets out of the ladybug phase, can I suggest the sequel, which would be Empire Major Nelson in 4K. You can change him-
Jeff: It'll be like Rogue One. We CG his face and we can zoom in, put him in different scenes in the movies.
Laura: I hadn't seen that picture [crosstalk 00:12:15]-
Larry Hyrb: Would you prefer a target, a military target? Anyway.
Jeff: I thought I smelled your foul stench when I was brought on board.
Laura: Yes, I was just about to say that.
Albert Panelo: I don't know how we got into this. Thanks, Jeffrey.
Jeff: No, it's what I do. I keep us off target.
Albert Panelo: Insects is gonna be available at the launch of Xbox One X. You need an Xbox One X or an S. Does it work on the original?
Larry Hyrb: Yeah, it works on every console.
Albert Panelo: Everything in the Xbox One X family? [crosstalk 00:12:37]
Larry Hyrb: That's right. You will be able to see HDR on Xbox One S. There'll be [atmos 00:12:43] on all the consoles. That's the other thing, sorry. It also does spacial audio, so you can test that out if you've got headphones. We rendered it in spacial audio, the audio. It works on all the consoles, so here we are.
Albert Panelo: That's ... On the eve.
Larry Hyrb: We are on the eve of launching. What number console is this for you? How do you measure them? Because I was trying to figure this out. I've done a few, Laura's done a few, Jeff's done a couple.
Albert Panelo: It just depends on how impressive I'm trying to make my resume seem.
Larry Hyrb: Buff up your LinkedIn for us, will you?
Albert Panelo: Well, I mean, it's the third gen and a half. Then if you count things like the Xbox 360 S, [Trinity 00:13:19] [inaudible 00:13:20]. If you count Kinect, which felt a lot like a console launch ... We're at four, five, six of these. I would just say all of them.
Larry Hyrb: Are you gonna be with me in New York?
Albert Panelo: Yes. You're leaving tomorrow, right?
Larry Hyrb: Yeah, Jeff and I are leaving tomorrow. Are you leaving tomorrow?
Albert Panelo: Sunday.
Larry Hyrb: Okay, so we'll see you out there on Monday. In fact, I just did the show rundown yesterday. There's a lot going on.
Jeff: What's funny is everybody's Facebook feed that does the memories, it's been showing up the last couple of days seven years ago, and we're all in New York on the Kinect launch. I was like, "Oh, we're gonna be reliving these memories."
Larry Hyrb: Here we are in New York again. I have the details on my blog about what we're doing. We're doing a global launch. We've got a lot of things going on around the world.
Jeff: Yeah. I think Australia just opened up a little hotel you can go stay at and just play [crosstalk 00:14:06]-
Larry Hyrb: They did?
Laura: Really?
Jeff: Yeah. It's some sort of pop up hotel thing.
Laura: [crosstalk 00:14:10] amazing.
Jeff: I saw their tweet. It seems really cool. There's a lot of fan fests going on. All over the world we're doing things, and then in the US we're gonna have a bunch of folks out in New York at the Microsoft store. You can come and stand in line and play games and meet people. There'll be celebrities there.
Larry Hyrb: Phil's gonna be there.
Jeff: Like I said, celebrities will be there. Albert'll be there. Handlers and lower level people in the organization will be there, and I think there will be some surprise celebrities will be there. [inaudible 00:14:38] we've announced them.
Albert Panelo: I'm the fact checker here, we need that the whole time. There's something in Xbox Australia called the Xbox Stay and Play event. There's these pods. I've stayed in smaller hotel rooms in New York than this.
Jeff: If you've ever been to Japan [crosstalk 00:14:54]-
Albert Panelo: It's almost one of those capsules.
Larry Hyrb: Do they have capsule ... I got to take a look at this. Wonder who's going down for that.
Albert Panelo: I'll throw that in the show notes.
Larry Hyrb: Anyway, we're really excited about the launch. I wanted to get Albert in here, just to kind of walk us through ... We talked some about the Insects demo, the experience that people are gonna be able to download. A lot of questions, I've seen a lot of questions on Twitter. No more Scorpio editions. Those are done, right?
Jeff: Yeah. We sort of knew that when the standard editions came out people would swap, or there would be stragglers as orders kind of came through. I do think you might get lucky and sort of get the golden ticket and find one pop up [crosstalk 00:15:33]. I think I saw someone at Reddit that saw at a store ... There was a handful. Yeah, just when you're talking about the volume of units that we're doing, the fact that there might be dozens or hundreds of them that still show up in store.
If you find one, grab it, because those are done. We don't make those anymore. Whatever you see is what was part of the original batch that managed to make its way into stores. I want to remind ... If you're this weekend and you're getting ready for your Xbox One X, this is a perfect time to get ready. We can do that with the console, right Albert?
Albert Panelo: Yeah. I mean, that's one of the things I really love about what the team has done, and this whole idea about making this a family of devices, is that you can actually get ready for the launch now. You can get ready early. If you have an external hard drive, you can start backing up your settings. You can move your games over. If you know you're getting an X, you can start taking the 4K updates. There's already dozens of games where the 4K updates are already up on the service. We know people are out playing them now. You can actually download those to your Xbox One S.
I went through the experience just like a customer. I hadn't done anything at home. Probably one of the fastest out of box time between start and playing a game that we have had for probably since the original. Certainly in this day and age of updates we have a very small day one update that you'll take, but if you have the hard drive plugged in and if you know what your Xbox Live password is ... That's the two things. Please know your Xbox Live password. Laura's laughing because she knows what I major issue that is for some people who forget. Have your password, have your games on a hard drive, have your 4K updates downloaded. You will be playing games in 15 or 20 minutes from the time that you plug that thing in.
Laura: That's really fast.
Albert Panelo: It's amazing. [crosstalk 00:17:21]
Larry Hyrb: I also want to point out-
Albert Panelo: Congrats to the team on that.
Larry Hyrb: There's a lot of folks that may be picking up an Xbox One X at launch or maybe this holiday, for Christmas or Hanukkah or whatever you celebrate, in the gift giving season. There's a little bit of confusion out there that I've seen, like, "Wait a minute. I want to get an Xbox One X, but I don't have a 4K TV."
Albert Panelo: No problemo.
Larry Hyrb: Yeah.
Albert Panelo: It's all good.
Larry Hyrb: Tell people about that and super sampling and what it means.
Albert Panelo: Yeah. I think one of the things that I always remind people, being someone that's been in the business for a long time, consoles have never output the graphics based on the TV you were looking at. If you think about Xbox 360, which was right in the nexus of ... There were still people with analog televisions and digital at the same time.
Laura: They were spending a lot of time testing on both types of TVs.
Albert Panelo: Yeah. The small font problem ...
Laura: Yeah, small font problems, [inaudible 00:18:10] green space on the two TVs, then this beautiful big flat screen TVs.
Albert Panelo: Yeah, and no one ever asked, "Am I only gonna get the analog 480P assets on my TV on my Xbox?" It's like, "No, the consoles always output the best graphics." There is so much more that the games are doing beyond resolutions, with lighting and frame rate and textures. All of these incremental improvements that they're making that are still gonna show up on a 1080P TV.
If you want the best gaming experience, you don't need a 4K TV to see all of the enhancements the developers are doing. Then there is this technique called super-sampling, which basically shrinks the screen down so that all the detail and a lot of the anti-aliasing will go away. A 4K super-sampled picture is better than a 1080P picture.
Larry Hyrb: Right.
Albert Panelo: Plus, oh my gosh, the faster load times and the better texture filtering on 360 games and all of those things. You still get all of those advantages when you get an Xbox One X, even if you don't have a 4K TV.
Larry Hyrb: I think this really reveals itself, that people are starting to notice that. Recently when we started shipping the original Xbox games, there were details in those games that existed that nobody ever saw until we brought them over to the Xbox One, right?
Albert Panelo: Yeah. That's been one of the fun discoveries [crosstalk 00:19:37]-
Larry Hyrb: Have you heard about this, Laura?
Laura: No.
Albert Panelo: Have you played Fusion Frenzy on an Xbox One X?
Laura: Not yet.
Albert Panelo: Okay. There was the level ... What is the tower level?
Laura: That's my favorite one. Jump and duck.
Albert Panelo: The jump and duck. Most people were playing an original Xbox. We were probably fortunate, even in those days, that we were playing them on early HD sets-
Larry Hyrb: With the HD advance pack.
Albert Panelo: With the HD advance pack, or the VGA adapter. Trademark copyright Microsoft corporation.
If you remember, you would jump and this little yellow light would come around and you would duck. Well, when they first started getting it up and running on an Xbox One, they realized that that is actually a duck texture. It is not a yellow light.
Laura: Really?
Albert Panelo: You couldn't make it out at all on a regular TV. You could sort of see it if you had an HD set. What they've discovered is, not only was it a duck texture, but when they got it on an Xbox One X, the duck had an eye and an orange bill. That was all art that existed, so on an Xbox One X [crosstalk 00:20:42]-
Larry Hyrb: That no one's ever seen.
Albert Panelo: On an Xbox One X, not only does it look like a duck, but it has an orange bill and an eyeball. That was in the art 17 years ago. No one ever knew it was there until they started getting these games up and running.
When you see even what we did with the 360 Xbox One X enhanced games like Halo, you bring a lot of the team over to see that and ... I didn't realize that the Covenant pods that were dropped had a leather covering on them. It always kind of just looked like a texture. When you're moving away, you're not sure if it's anti-aliasing, whatever, but it turns out, the things are wrapped in leather. You're like, "Oh my God, that's a leather texture that I never even noticed was on this item that had existed the whole time.
Jeff: Much more luxurious than we thought.
Albert Panelo: Rich Corinthian leather.
Jeff: Exactly. I've really changed my mind on the Covenant.
Albert Panelo: They're more stylish than [crosstalk 00:21:34]-
Jeff: Details are very important, Larry.
Albert Panelo: It is fun to go back and look at those old games and realize that these developers were way ahead of their time in the creation. Now we've got a machine that can show it.
Larry Hyrb: Did I see correctly that a game that I had played probably a dozen years ago, and my first ever 1K, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion has been upgraded for Xbox One X?
Albert Panelo: Yes.
Larry Hyrb: My head's exploding right now. If this was a video podcast, [crosstalk 00:22:07]-
Jeff: I'm sure there's a filter we can put on it. I'm sure he's got an animated gif in his documents [crosstalk 00:22:10]
Albert Panelo: Someone edit it up so Larry's got some ammunition against Jeff.
Larry Hyrb: When I saw that written, I was like, "Somebody made a mistake. I need to refresh this, because that game came out in 2005." That's crazy that that's possible, that it was there.
Albert Panelo: Those games did a bunch of interesting things. There's a reason we're only doing a handful of these, because again, in those cases, the developers almost had to be living in the future, because there has to be ... I call it DNA in the game that makes it possible to do these kind of enhancements. Many of these games, especially for developers at that time that had PC backgrounds, like in the case of [Bungee 00:22:49] who had been building PC games and Bethesda who did their stuff on PC, their art was authored in 10 bit color instead of 8 bit color. The Xbox 360 couldn't display, and there were no TVs that could display it, so the console at the last minute would basically take the colors and remap them. The emulator now doesn't remap them, so you basically have ... The technical guys will get on me, but you basically have HDR and wide color gamut that existed in these old games that we're kind of unlocking.
The colors are more vibrant, the contrast ratio is higher in these titles. Again, the other thing that's interesting ... Everybody talked about textures in those days, where I'd get right up to the wall and I would see these amazing textures, but then the machines would have to store multiple layers of these textures, because they didn't have enough power to put a high res texture half a mile away on a building.
Laura: Yeah, like the level of detail.
Albert Panelo: The level of detail. One of the things that they're able to do is they're able to basically increase the level of detail, so you are getting better textures all the way through the image.
Laura: Oh, that's great.
Albert Panelo: You're able to see details and draw distances that were just impossible to do on the 360. All of that stuff ... This isn't a remaster. The original developers aren't going back and doing anything. This existed in the game, and the geniuses, the emulation ninjas, have figured out how to unlock that stuff so people can see it.
Larry Hyrb: It's like finding an old wallet, and there's 1000 dollars in it. It's just unbelievable.
Jeff: Bonus.
Albert Panelo: That's our new marketing tagline.
Larry Hyrb: There we go.
Albert Panelo: Xbox One X Enhanced: it's like finding a wallet with 1000 dollars in it. That's good, I like it. You're in marketing, so that'll work.
Larry Hyrb: I am now. I am now.
Jeff: Here we are, Xbox One X. Now Albert, of course we've talked to ... We just had you on two shows ago. We have done shows frequently enough. I was just looking back. We had you on a couple shows ago, where you were talking about naming the X after ... This concept you came up with, the nomenclature of that and the letter after the product.
Albert Panelo: The whole Xbox One S story?
Jeff: Yeah.
Albert Panelo: I told this story.
Larry Hyrb: [Controller 00:24:52] S.
Albert Panelo: [crosstalk 00:24:53] The Controller S.
Larry Hyrb: The [Akebono 00:24:54].
Albert Panelo: The Akebono.
Laura: [inaudible 00:24:56]
Albert Panelo: And how I was marketing guy S, and they all hated that name. Oh, the engineering team hated that name so much.
Larry Hyrb: Who's laughing now, Albert?
Albert Panelo: Who's laughing now? They've come to love it.
I told the story. I needed a name for the new controller we were doing, and the only reason we needed it was so that when people called up technical support, the call centers would know which controller they were talking about. It was never supposed to be the name, it was more a model designation. No one knew, because we were [inaudible 00:25:28] everything at the time. I think I got a call the day before we needed to print that was like, "We need to have another name."
Laura: You had one day to figure [crosstalk 00:25:36]-
Albert Panelo: No, I mean ... As we were driving in, there was an Acura type S or something right before ... I'm a car guy, as you guys know. I've said this many times. I was like, "Type S. I like that. It's sporty, S is kind of an open vessel. Could mean second, could mean small, could mean slim, doesn't really mean anything, but it means everything. Xbox controller S." I'm like, "Yeah, it rolls off the tongue."
I just went back and like, "That's what we're gonna do." That was the testing. That was the clearancing. It was it. Now we've got Windows 10 S, which sort of traces its roots all the way back to-
Jeff: You sitting in traffic.
Albert Panelo: On my way to millennium.
Larry Hyrb: I've now gotten to hear you tell the story three or four times. Can you tell the part about the prank that was pulled on you after this?
Albert Panelo: Oh, yeah. I told you, the engineering team absolutely hated it. I came back to my office after. After it had gotten printed, so it was done. I had sticky notes all over, covering my wall, that said "Marketing guy S" all over my wall. They did not like that name at all.
Larry Hyrb: Maybe we should legally change your initials to Albert S. Panelo.
Albert Panelo: Albert S. Panelo.
Larry Hyrb: Anyway, it sounds like you had a good time. I'm just looking to hear ... You had a busy time down in San Francisco. You were on all the different podcasts. You saw Ryan [Mcafree 00:26:58] again, it's always good to see Ryan.
Albert Panelo: Yeah, I love Ryan. He's great.
Larry Hyrb: He's a lot of fun.
Albert Panelo: We saw him a lot too, because he came up and did the [crosstalk 00:27:05]
Larry Hyrb: Yeah, we had him in here kind of secretly. We couldn't talk about it until he had talked about that publicly.
Albert Panelo: He was the perfect guy to do that.
Larry Hyrb: Yeah.
Albert Panelo: I mean, when we were talking about doing this story, his name was ... It just popped [crosstalk 00:27:16]-
Larry Hyrb: There was nobody else.
Albert Panelo: Well, he had just such an amazing history with Xbox, as one of the few people that's still in the industry that's not at Xbox that's kind of been around since the very beginning-
Larry Hyrb: Doing Xbox stuff, doing gaming stuff, right.
Albert Panelo: If you want to talk to someone who's gonna have a passion and sort of remember and a fondness for those titles-
Larry Hyrb: Not only that, but I remember when you were showing him Ninja Gaiden, right?
Albert Panelo: Yeah.
Larry Hyrb: I walked in the room and I was kind of hanging out in the back. He was playing it, and he remembered the moves.
Albert Panelo: It was unbelievable. He was clearing through that game.
Larry Hyrb: Yeah.
Albert Panelo: I spent forever jumping on the wall, trying to figure out where the try was and getting stuck. He's like [inaudible 00:27:50] He's like [crosstalk 00:27:52]-
Larry Hyrb: [Unidrop 00:27:53]. That was the move. That was the move.[inaudible 00:27:55]
Albert Panelo: Yeah. He was unbelievable, and actually KOTOR II, he was playing through, knew what choices to make. It was really a blast. The best part about that is you always kind of do the beginning of the day ... You know what you're gonna show and everything. In the beginning of the day, I remember asking him, "What do you expect to see today?" You always are wondering, "Am I gonna over deliver or under deliver?" He's like, "Well, it's gonna be great and I'm looking forward to meeting everybody, but I really want to see Knights of the Old Republic, and if you guys do Ninja Gaiden that would be amazing." [inaudible 00:28:26]
Larry Hyrb: "Have a good day brother. Here [crosstalk 00:28:30]-
Albert Panelo: "Have we got surprises for you."
Larry Hyrb: Here we go. We're really excited. We've got a few days ahead of us before we get to New York and start launching this thing. People start unboxing their consoles. Earlier this week, you were probably surprised when you saw it, the pre-boot animation.
Albert Panelo: Oh yeah, they gave that to you and let you put that up.
Larry Hyrb: Yeah, it was one of those things where ... Because I remember you and I talked about it, but you're right. People started getting their consoles and I went to the right people like, "Hey, we just got to get this out there. I want to show people," so boom, out it went.
Albert Panelo: It's funny. I was thinking about you. You put out the boot animations for 360 and OG as well, so at this point [crosstalk 00:29:08]-
Larry Hyrb: I'm the boot guy.
Albert Panelo: We actually have given everyone pretty high resolution videos of all three boot animations.
Larry Hyrb: Yeah, I showed the boot animation for when you put in original Xbox titles in Xbox One. I had the team send it over to me. It just looks so beautiful. I always love to tell the stories. I don't know if you remember this story, because you don't see this in the original Xbox because you can't get to the dashboard like you can with 360, but the dashboard ... If you remember correctly, one of the iterations ... I think it was the Tsunami release. You were around for that right, Laura?
Laura: Yes I was.
Larry Hyrb: Yeah, I think it was before that. Anyway, the background sounds. Do you remember those?
Albert Panelo: The ambient chatter.
Larry Hyrb: Yeah, what those were ... Because I always ... Because as an audio guy, I was always bothered. I don't remember who did them, but I went and found the person who did them and I said, "What's going on here? I got to know." He says, "Yeah, we needed some background ambience sound, so we got some publicly available NASA transmissions and just modified them." That's actually astronauts in NASA.
Laura: Oh, really?
Albert Panelo: No way.
Larry Hyrb: Yes.
Albert Panelo: I had no idea.
Larry Hyrb: Yeah, so if you listen, they sped them up [crosstalk 00:30:13]-
Albert Panelo: So all that [inaudible 00:30:14].
Larry Hyrb: Yeah, that's actually ... Those are public domain NASA transmissions.
Albert Panelo: Get out of here.
Larry Hyrb: Yeah. That's one of my favorite pieces of trivia, because it's ...
Laura: Oh my goodness.
Albert Panelo: You just dropped a knowledge bomb on me.
Larry Hyrb: Boom. You're not the only ones.
Albert Panelo: It is funny how ... As we were preparing for the back-compat story to release and trying to put out assets and things like that, a lot of that stuff doesn't exist anymore. One of the challenges ... I was talking to the guy who's in charge of marketing for the back-compat stuff. As we were putting these videos out, we wanted to put the console logos on it so that you could see what version [crosstalk 00:30:48] wipes and stuff.
He comes back to my office. I was like, "Hey, I was looking at the videos. We should put these one." He's like, "Yeah, no one's got it." I went to our [markom 00:31:00] team, I went to all the art teams, and nobody has the logos.
Larry Hyrb: The old Xbox logo [crosstalk 00:31:03]
Albert Panelo: The old Xbox logos.
Larry Hyrb: Like this one I have?
Albert Panelo: Yeah, like the one on your shirt. I thought about it. I said, "Hold on a second." I started clicking through a bunch of folders on my computer, and I go, "Oh, here you go. Here's all the fonts, here's the art files, here's the layers for all the old logos." Nobody else had it, but I had it on a folder on my desktop.
Laura: Are you a digital hoarder?
Albert Panelo: I am. Well, you know, I would call it more like a historian. [crosstalk 00:31:26]
Larry Hyrb: Xbox librarian, I believe we prefer.
Albert Panelo: That's right. Digital hoarder does take up a lot less space than an actual hoarder, however. Hard drives are cheap.
Larry Hyrb: Of which he's also as well, if you've been to his office. He's a real ... anyways.
Albert Panelo: Thanks, Larry.
Larry Hyrb: Now it's back on me. Let's talk about Grand Moff Tarkin.
Albert Panelo: Yeah, I have a bunch of old ... Now of course, I regret that I didn't just grab it like everything. There's other stuff I wish I still had, but I have a treasure trove of documents and art files and things from back in those days.
Larry Hyrb: We should release those.
Laura: I do the same thing.
Larry Hyrb: We should release some of those.
Albert Panelo: On the anniversary, I think on the 10th, I went back through and found a bunch of stuff.
Larry Hyrb: I remember that.
Albert Panelo: A bunch of old TV commercials. Of course, they're all ... Back then, when they'd send you TV commercial to review, it was like the potato quality. It's like, "Oh my God, this thing is like 20 Megs. No one could download this thing. It's gonna take forever."
Larry Hyrb: And you need to download Real Player.
Albert Panelo: Yeah, that's right, or the QuickTime whatever plugin. I've got a bunch that have actually been challenging-
Larry Hyrb: Dark Master.
Albert Panelo: I have a bunch of those, but I can't do anything with them because they're so small, because they were the [crosstalk 00:32:37]-
Laura: Terrible.
Larry Hyrb: Postage stamp.
Albert Panelo: That's how you would go and [crosstalk 00:32:41]-
Larry Hyrb: Review.
Albert Panelo: Of course and your monitor resolution wasn't that big either, so-
Jeff: 624x768, top of the line.
Albert Panelo: It all scaled up at the time. To look at them now it's painful, but it is fun to go back and watch Dark Master and those old techno commercials.
Larry Hyrb: You [crosstalk 00:32:54] talked a moment about the generations. What do we ... This is a half generation, it's a mid generation. We talk about the family of devices. How are you thinking about it?
Albert Panelo: Well, I think about it as a mid generation upgrade. We said that the name really tells the story. When people ask, "Is this a next-gen console?" Well, the answer is it's an Xbox One. We called it an Xbox One. I think I said this on IGN, too. It was always gonna be Xbox One something, because there was no way that you were gonna be able to tell the story you wanted to tell around compatibility and how the games work and forwards and backwards if it was called something else. Everyone would have just immediately said, "Oh, they're starting Gen 9."
It was always gonna be Xbox One something, then it was a question of which Xbox One it was. It's part of the same family. It is the 1080 to the Xbox One's 1060. They're part of the same family. Everybody always says, "Oh, are you gonna make exclusive games for the Xbox One X?" It's like, "No, they're literally... " If you tried to build an Xbox One X exclusive game, you would get an Xbox One S version of the game. It's how we architected the system.
Larry Hyrb: I just want to ... Oh. That's my ringtone. Do you know what that is?
Albert Panelo: Is it NASA transmissions?
Laura: Sped up?
Larry Hyrb: That's actually from Totoro.
Laura: Oh.
Albert Panelo: Oh.
Laura: [inaudible 00:34:16].
Larry Hyrb: Big Totoro fan.
Jeff: As a former audio professional, leaving your ringer on, man? Come on.
Larry Hyrb: I had it on because I was working in here earlier and I wanted to make sure I could hear it if Albert texted us, because [crosstalk 00:34:29] wasn't coming.
Jeff: If it was one of us, we'd already be out the door.
Albert Panelo: By the way, it snowed this morning.
Laura: It did.
Albert Panelo: We talked about this. I woke up to my daughter going, "Daddy, daddy, it's snowing, it's snowing." What are you ... Are you having a dream? What's going on? It's November One. It hasn't snowed anywhere.
Jeff: Sure enough, there it is.
Albert Panelo: I live just ... Seattle, for those in the middle of the country where things are flattish, Washington is quite hilly. You can live very close to Seattle, which is close to sea level, and be quite a bit above sea level. We are just enough above sea-
Jeff: Are you the same altitude I am, roughly? [inaudible 00:35:07] on a hill, you know.
Albert Panelo: Yeah. Up there ... Yeah, probably almost 900 feet above sea level.
Larry Hyrb: I told Laura, I opened up the garage this morning. I wasn't even expecting it, and I actually went "Holy what?" I couldn't believe it. I screamed it out loud.
Albert Panelo: The nice thing is you've got an SUV, and I just have a regular car. Usually I have to prepare myself for snow. I [inaudible 00:35:30] slope driveway. This is all things nobody cares about [inaudible 00:35:33]. Unless you live in Seattle, you really ... Of course, people in the Midwest are like, "Ha ha ha, you and your snow."
Larry Hyrb: "I'm under six feet of snow right now."
Albert Panelo: "Your light dusting."
Larry Hyrb: I just got a text from someone on my team who just moved up here from LA, and it was just all caps, "HOLY S, THERE'S SNOW." Probably has not seen it in a decade.
Albert Panelo: As somebody who grew up in New England, this is not snow. It's merely a [crosstalk 00:35:53]-
Jeff: It looks like someone spilled a snow cone.
Albert Panelo: Yeah.
Jeff: But it is nice to have actual seasons.
Albert Panelo: It is nice.
Jeff: But it does bring traffic to a screeching halt.
Larry Hyrb: I wanted to talk about ... Before I let you go, Albert, because I know you got a busy day as you prep for launch, is ... One of the things that the team focused on was making sure that they knew what titles were gonna run really well on Xbox once they're enhanced.
Albert Panelo: Yeah. I mean, right now the support that we've seen from developers has been unbelievable. We created a very specific dev kit. All of the components and all of the specs that we have in the box were designed to do that. The result is just an unbelievable games lineup.
We're gonna have right around 50 titles on launch day that take advantage of Xbox One X Enhanced. We're tracking to about 70 titles in the first week or so. If you think about ... This is where I will talk about a traditional console launch. Typically when you launch a new console, you get 15 titles, 18, maybe 20.
Larry Hyrb: You have to buy new games.
Albert Panelo: Not only do you have to buy new games, but there's maybe only 20 titles that actually take advantage of the new stuff. We're gonna have between 50 and 70 games available. Many of them you already own.
Larry Hyrb: You're sitting right there.
Albert Panelo: That are taking advantage of the power of the new box. Over 160 announced so far, on top of 200 exclusives, 1300 titles, game pass, OG. There is so much to play.
Larry Hyrb: [inaudible 00:37:19] Gold every month.
Albert Panelo: Yeah, plus [inaudible 00:37:21] Gold. There's so much to play on Xbox One. To have 50 plus titles, around 50 titles on launch day is just remarkable. They all look amazing.
Larry Hyrb: Yeah, and you can just go into your console and go into your game collection and you can sort by, filter, which ones are Xbox One X Enhanced. Bam, there they are.
Jeff: It's funny, because it's like ... Literally everyday it's being updated what games there are. There's a website, which I will link to. What I do is I just hit Ctrl+F, and type in "Avail," like for "Available," and every day it's taking me longer and longer to get to the bottom of the list. There's some pretty amazing games on there.
Albert Panelo: Yeah, there was ... Call of Duty just launched last night.
Larry Hyrb: The Witcher.
Albert Panelo: They just launched with their enhancements. Their enhanced version's already out. The Witcher they just did, Titanfall 2, which is right above 4K and actually does super-sampling from 6K down to 4K in some scenes. That's a whole nother thing we'll talk about. Actually, the Titanfall engine in certain scenes can render higher than 4K.
Remember how we would talk about dynamic resolution and it would be between 900 and 1080P? Their dynamic resolution is 4K and above. They actually in some scenes have super-sampling above 4K down to 4K. Yeah, the list is great. We're updating it every day.
Larry Hyrb: Every day.
Albert Panelo: The other thing that I like to say is, if you have an Xbox One S and you're curious, we also allow Xbox One X enhanced filters on the Xbox One S. If you're someone who's like, "Hey, I made this investment in games. What do I have? How many games to I own that are gonna take advantage of the new box we allow people to see?" It's almost like being able to see in the future. If I want to get one, how much of my content is [inaudible 00:39:10].
Larry Hyrb: It's also cool in the ready to install, you can also sort by that. Which games do I not have currently downloaded?
Albert Panelo: And which ones do I want to prioritize?
Larry Hyrb: Exactly. You can go back and go, "Oh, that one ..." [inaudible 00:39:20] download that and take another look. I've been very impressed with FIFA 18, by the way. They got [inaudible 00:39:27] you can see the blades of grass [inaudible 00:39:28].
Albert Panelo: Blades of grass.
Larry Hyrb: It's all about that.
Jeff: How's your Reinaldo?
Larry Hyrb: He looks ... It's funny because it was the first time ... I knew that they were updating, and the very first match they throw you in ... He is a beautiful man in 4K. I made sure as quickly as possible to slide tackle someone horrifically and get him sent off so I didn't have to look at him. Still won 4-1. Still won 4-1.
Jeff: I'm Jeff [inaudible 00:39:51] on Twitter. You can find it.
Larry Hyrb: I'm are principal man.
Jeff: Anyway, you're welcome to hang out with us. We're just gonna kind of tick through some of the news and do some housekeeping, if you have time.
Albert Panelo: I have to go. [crosstalk 00:40:01]
Larry Hyrb: You're busy? What?
Albert Panelo: It's a crazy time. This is always the best. I love seeing you guys.
Larry Hyrb: Albert Panelo on Twitter. You're actual the man ... I actually consider you one of the key people behind Xbox One X.
Albert Panelo: Thank you. There are lots of hard working-
Larry Hyrb: I know there are, but I just remember coming to you many, many years ago. You and I were sitting in your office and I'd stop by all the time. You would show me these ... And you're like, "What if you took your games with you?" I'm like, "What?" And here we are. Remember those conversations?
Albert Panelo: Larry, true story, Larry was a good sounding board. I've said this, that one of the great things about this journey for me personally ... Again, I have to say it, there's real smart people doing real work. The men and women here that are actually grinding, like Laura, doing real work and making sure this thing works, is not me. I'm just the guy out there telling people about it. But it has been a fun journey, because I've been fortunate enough to be there from the beginning. I always say, one of the most exciting parts was asking ourselves the same questions that we're getting asked now.
Larry ... Which probably now I can say it, because no one can get mad at me, because I probably shouldn't have told him at the time, but every idea we would have ... I would call Larry and I would say, "How do you think ... What if we did this? What if we did that? What do you think people will say? What would you like to see?" Larry was actually a great sounding board for me for many years on a lot of this stuff.
Larry Hyrb: It's a great partnership. You're right, we have a lot of smart people here. We're gamers. We just want to play great games [crosstalk 00:41:22]. Everybody here is about that. Anyway Albert, thank you, man. I'll let you run. I'll see you in New York.
Albert Panelo: Alright.
Larry Hyrb: Jeff and I [crosstalk 00:41:26] okay man.
Laura: Bye.
Larry Hyrb: Be careful out there, because it's snowing.
Jeff: It's snowing. There's a light dusting.
Larry Hyrb: There's a light dusting. Be careful with that.
Alright, we're gonna [inaudible 00:41:34] ... Jeffrey's got some headlines. While Albert ... You don't have to be quiet, they know you're leaving.
Laura: Bye.
Albert Panelo: Bye.
Larry Hyrb: You can let the door slam. Why don't you go ahead and tick through some of the headlines for us, and we'll keep going?
Jeff: It took me a long time to even figure out what to start with first. Since we're on the subject, let's talk about 4K upgrades and 4K enhancements. One of them that jumps out towards the top of the list is Halo 5, is a game that I cannot wait to see. It's already been updated. By the time you get this ... You have an Xbox One X, you have Halo ... Of course you have Halo 5. You do need to see it in beautiful, enhanced joy.
We're actually ... The Xbox [Wired 00:42:14] team has been putting together a series of stories on what different teams are doing, including Titanfall. I'm gonna link over to the story about Inside Xbox One X Enhanced: The Witcher 3, because this is the game that I cannot wait to see in 4K. I've been saving ... I've seen a number of people talking about this ... Saving the DLCs, Blood and Wine, and Hearts of Stone, I want to say, to see these in all their Xbox One X Enhanced glory.
I'll link out to that. It's really cool to see what [inaudible 00:42:45] Project Red is doing. We've also heard from Respawn, we've heard from the Halo Wars 2 Team. There's an ongoing thing.
Again, if you just want to see quickly, at a glance, what games are being enhanced, we've linked out to it. There's just so many games coming and so many games ... Literally every day, I'm getting an email internally like, "Hey, this one's live. This one's live. Assassin's Creed's live." I need to play Assassin's Creed.
Laura: Oh my goodness. So many awesome games.
Jeff: The other big news that is not directly talking about Xbox One X, although it kind of is ... Coming out of Paris this week, news from the French guys, is-
Larry Hyrb: Dateline Paris.
Jeff: Bonjour.
Larry Hyrb: The Axis have been pushed back.
Jeff: Oh, you got your news reader on, there. "And that's the way it is."
Player Unknown's Battlegrounds, the kids call it PUPG, has a date, and it's hard to even forget it because it's 12/12. 12/12. We will be playing with a joystick, with our favorite ... I'm gonna be playing with an [Elite 00:43:43] controller, because that's what I've been wanting to do. Really, it's only a little over a month now.
Larry Hyrb: I've got to get higher than three. I've gotten as high as three in the game on PC.
Laura: No chicken dinners for you?
Jeff: Really? That's really good.
Larry Hyrb: Yeah. Well ...
Jeff: That's really good.
Larry Hyrb: I said it. I have not been private about this. Camping is a strategy.
Laura: Yeah, it is.
Jeff: Oh, absolutely.
Laura: It's a big strategy.
Jeff: I try to be in the top 50 before I've even seen anybody. The goal is to get above the bell curve.
Larry Hyrb: Get halfway there.
Jeff: Yeah, exactly, before I even have to pull a trigger. There's actually a lot going on, and talking about what it's gonna look like on Xbox One. I'm just gonna link out to a story, but it really tells you everything you need to know about PUPG 1.0, what is gonna be on the Xbox One at launch, because it's gonna be part of the Xbox game preview program. I'll leave the details to that post, but the story will be linked out in the show notes.
Larry Hyrb: You talked about all the Xbox One Enhanced games coming up, been giving those away all week. I've been giving away ... I don't know if you've seen this on Twitter. I've been giving away copies of enhanced games all week long. Monday for the launch of Xbox One X, make sure you check in on Twitter. I've got something very special to give away.
Laura: Oh, do you?
Jeff: Oh.
Larry Hyrb: It's gonna be big.
Jeff: Can you tell me on the flight out?
Larry Hyrb: I will.
Jeff: Alright.
Larry Hyrb: Do you know, we're sitting next to each other on the flight out to New York?
Laura: Oh, you are?
Larry Hyrb: In fact we-
Laura: [inaudible 00:45:00] play Zelda again.
Larry Hyrb: Well, no.
Laura: [inaudible 00:45:02].
Jeff: It'll probably be Mario.
Larry Hyrb: We're gonna be playing Mario. I'm gonna bring my Switch, we're gonna play Mario.
Laura: Very good. You have Mario?
Larry Hyrb: I do. Have you played it?
Laura: I have only watched someone play it. Haven't had a chance to play it myself, but I hear is the best game a lot of people have ever played.
Larry Hyrb: It's a lot of fun. This is really the question that Jeff and I ... Frankly, this is the first time we've discussed it. It's a little awkward. Am I the hat, or are you the hat?
Jeff: What?
Laura: What? Okay, I played it at Pax.
Larry Hyrb: That's how you play it.
Jeff: That's how you play?
Laura: No, what?
Jeff: I've always been your hat, Larry.
Larry Hyrb: No, no, it's like if you're playing it together, co-op.
Laura: Do you?
Larry Hyrb: That's the way I understand it.
Jeff: Alright, let's try it out.
Larry Hyrb: We'll let you know.
Jeff: We'll see.
Larry Hyrb: We'll report from 30,000 feet up.
Laura: Please do.
Jeff: You'll be waiting with bated breath.
Laura: I will. [crosstalk 00:45:43]
Larry Hyrb: I know Laura and I-
Jeff: It is a delightful game.
Laura: [inaudible 00:45:44]
Larry Hyrb: I know you won't be sleeping until you get the answer to this question. Moving along.
Jeff: This was another piece of news. Because I've been so busy, we've all been focused on Xbox One X, I didn't even know it was coming until I saw it show up on your blog, [majornelson.com 00:45:57].
Larry Hyrb: That's right.
Jeff: NFL Customized Xbox Design Lab controllers.
Laura: Controllers.
Jeff: For some reason, and I can't figure out why-
Larry Hyrb: Fly, Eagles, Fly.
Jeff: Thank you. The seven to one Eagles, the best record in the league. Can you imagine if we had an Eagles-Patriots Superbowl rematch? I really don't want that, because Tom Brady ... I have bad memories of that. But yes, the Eagles one looks phenomenal. Of course we don't have it in picture, we have the Seahawks one, but this looks really good. I'll link out to a couple pictures of those, but yeah. This is something that I didn't realize I needed.
Larry Hyrb: I knew you needed this. I knew these were coming.
Jeff: I didn't know I wanted it until I saw someone with the Eagles one. There's someone here who actually works on the Xbox One X team, on the hardware team. He's a huge Eagles fan, and he tweeted out a picture of that controller.
Larry Hyrb: Jealousy ensued.
Jeff: Yeah. The money quickly flew out of my wallet.
Larry Hyrb: Do we ... Go ahead, keep going through.
Jeff: No, no.
Larry Hyrb: We haven't really talked about what we're playing, and I don't know if we have time for that.
Jeff: No, let's do that.
Larry Hyrb: Do you want to talk about what you're playing, Laura?
Jeff: [crosstalk 00:47:01] news desk?
Larry Hyrb: I don't know, maybe.
Jeff: Let me just tick through the new releases [crosstalk 00:47:05]-
Larry Hyrb: Okay, tick through the new release, and then we'll do Laura.
Jeff: The biggest game, no surprise, it is the first week in November therefore a Call of Duty game is out. This one people are very excited about: Call of Duty: World War II. I downloaded it last night, haven't had a chance to jump on yet, but we should at least play a little bit of the war mode. I played that in beta, played it at E3. A series of different objectives of happen where you're holding down a bridge and the other side is trying to build the bridge, you're trying to stop a tank ... There's a lot of different things happening. It's pretty fun. We should play, at least a little bit.
Larry Hyrb: Yeah.
Laura: That'd be fun.
Jeff: Let's at least give it a go, and then we'll get destroyed and then we'll [crosstalk 00:47:43]-
Larry Hyrb: You and I ... Laura and I haven't played since someone else was in the White House. It's been a long time.
Jeff: That was only a year ago.
Larry Hyrb: Beyond that.
Jeff: Two regimes back.
Larry Hyrb: You and I haven't played in probably a month or so.
Jeff: At least.
Laura: [inaudible 00:47:59]
Larry Hyrb: Because travel, my travel.
Jeff: Yeah. Let's get a couple matches in. Let's do that. I think, if you haven't played a Call of Duty game in a while, this is one ... It's very different than the last several, I feel like, so it might be worth a shot. Anyway, that's out now.
Larry Hyrb: [crosstalk 00:48:14] Do the loot crates really land on the beach?
Jeff: I've seen the gif. I haven't gotten there yet, but I'll let you know.
Larry Hyrb: Okay.
Jeff: Assuming I can actually earn one of the ... A kill streak. A few other games ... These ones, good for the kids-
Larry Hyrb: [inaudible 00:48:28]
Jeff: Three titles that are for Xbox One S and X, and they are Xbox Play Anywhere games. Three of them ... Disney POne Xar Rush, Disneyland Adventures, and Zoo Tycoon: Ultimate Animal Collection.
Larry Hyrb: You may remember the Disney and the Pixar games from the [Kinect 00:48:48] days.
Laura: I do.
Larry Hyrb: [crosstalk 00:48:49] These have been updated for Xbox One.
Jeff: I remember you sent me one.
Larry Hyrb: Did I?
Jeff: When I worked at the competitor.
Larry Hyrb: Did I?
Jeff: Yes.
Larry Hyrb: Okay.
Jeff: I ran it. Everyone that went to E3 press conference 2010 ...
Larry Hyrb: [crosstalk 00:49:02]
Laura: Yeah, that was the one I was onstage.
Jeff: Yes, that's right.
Larry Hyrb: Were you in the audience when she was onstage?
Jeff: I was in the audience.
Larry Hyrb: No. Did I know this?
Jeff: Here's the thing. There's always a couple people from Sony at the Xbox [crosstalk 00:49:11] couple people from X and Nintendo. Everyone attends everyone else's. I always went. I ran into you.
Larry Hyrb: That's right.
Laura: [inaudible 00:49:19] me.
Jeff: There was an announcement at one point. This was when the Xbox 360 S was ...
Laura: [crosstalk 00:49:24]
Jeff: Albert had his [crosstalk 00:49:25]
Larry Hyrb: Reveal, yeah.
Jeff: Everyone was gonna be getting one. I ran into you afterwards and I was like, "Even me, Larry?" And you were like ... You were in a big rush, of course, because it had just ended. You were probably gonna be doing a live hit or something. You were like, "Do you need it now? I can get it for you now if you need it now." Still the same Larry. I was like, "Larry, I can wait. It'll be fine." Then a month later it showed up at PlayStation Headquarters. I unboxed it and I went home, and actually I did play-
Larry Hyrb: It's a good console.
Jeff: Yeah. Kinect Sports was the game that we all played together. Anyway, it's funny how things work out.
Larry Hyrb: It's the weirdest thing. Here you are. You were in the audience watching Laura, and I was somewhere [crosstalk 00:50:02]-
Laura: You were backstage.
Larry Hyrb: That's right, because I remember talking to you, and Cliff was ...
Laura: I shared.
Larry Hyrb: She shared a dressing room with Cliff [Blazinsky 00:50:07].
Laura: I did, and Peter [Molineaux 00:50:09].
Larry Hyrb: And Peter Molineaux
Laura: [crosstalk 00:50:12]
Jeff: I don't even know what to say.
Larry Hyrb: You know what? Jeff, you and I should go away and work up a treatment for a TV series, because it feels like that could be a sitcom.
Laura: The green room of E3.
Larry Hyrb: Right. "Laura, Cliff Blazinsky, and Peter Molineaux. What'll happen? It's zany. Tonight, on must watch TV."
Laura: Oh, weird. Well.
Jeff: I don't even know what to say, which is very rare, isn't it? One last game I wanted to call out ... There was actually a lot of indie games that hit in the last week as well. One sort of caught my eye that just went into game preview. That is Mutant League Football. This was a game that ... I feel like back in the day it ran off the Madden engine. I'm talking back in the Genesis and Super Nintendo games, where it was sort of monsters playing football. It was sort of over the top. It was brought back by ... It was the people that made that game. Yeah, it was a Genesis game. [crosstalk 00:51:09]-
Laura: Yeah, I think I played it. It sounds familiar.
Jeff: I feel like we all did as kids. Anyway, it's in game preview now. I'm gonna have to take a look at it. Nostalgia is a big driving force in games, so definitely something probably worth checking out, if you look back on that game fondly, as I do. Awkward segue to, "What are we playing?"
Larry Hyrb: Well, we got a quick "What are we playing?" Because then we gotta go to "Name the game." We gotta wrap things up, unfortunately, because we're almost going an hour long and I know you've got to go and I've got to go.
Laura: You have a plane to catch soon.
Larry Hyrb: We got to pack and ... Yeah, it's a little crazy. I'm doing some cool stuff in New York with you, Jeffrey.
Jeff: Yeah.
Larry Hyrb: Stay in New York, come on.
Jeff: I would love to.
Larry Hyrb: I know, I know. Alright, what are you playing, Laura?
Laura: [crosstalk 00:51:51]
Larry Hyrb: Besides ... What you're playing, not what you're watching someone play, okay?
Laura: Fair enough. I'll tell a quick story. I went back into Thimbleweed Park. Do you guys remember that game?
Larry Hyrb: I do.
Jeff: I do.
Larry Hyrb: Of course.
Laura: Do you remember how I ran into Ron [Gilmour 00:52:04] the creator of that game at PAX?
Larry Hyrb: Yeah, and you were concerned ... Did you go pick up the phone?
Laura: I went to try and find the phone, so I went back in. As you guys know, I was stuck and I asked Ron Gilmore for help. He said, "The way you can find help in the game is you go find a pay phone and then you call the help line on the pay phone."
Larry Hyrb: As you do in the 80s or 90s.
Laura: Exactly. I ran around the map and I found the posters that talked about the help line. Pro tip: you can also find the help line in the phone book, which is-
Larry Hyrb: Under?
Laura: Game Help.
Larry Hyrb: Okay.
Jeff: Which surprised me, because this phone book starts at like, "A, Aaronson" or something. It's not like there's 10 numbers in there.
Laura: No, there's a lot of numbers in it, and I imagine it might have been all the backers from the Kickstarter. I don't know, but there's a lot of names in the phone book, so you have to search pretty hard for it, but I found the number.
Larry Hyrb: For those of you that know what a phone book is.
Laura: Right. I found the number, and then I went to dial the number, and it said, "Phones out of order." I was like, "What? It's out of order? How do I get help?"
Larry Hyrb: Oh no.
Laura: I'm now stuck again, because I don't know how to get help. Unfortunately then, at that point I was like, "Alright, fine. I'm gonna go search a wiki and a walkthrough to try and figure out how to get past this."
Larry Hyrb: Even Laura has to do it.
Laura: I know, but unfortunately the wiki did not help, because I am ... I think I might have gotten myself stuck.
Larry Hyrb: Oh.
Laura: Yeah. I think I might have found a way [crosstalk 00:53:19]-
Larry Hyrb: Do you want me to give you Ron's email address? Is that what you're saying? Is that what this is?
Laura: Potentially. Yeah, the walkthrough said you're supposed to do this before you do that, and I had done that before I did this. [crosstalk 00:53:30]-
Larry Hyrb: Story of my life.
Jeff: And here we are.
Laura: I had done it in the wrong order, so I might be screwed. I don't know. I'll keep searching. I'll have to try [crosstalk 00:53:39]-
Larry Hyrb: Good luck.
Laura: [crosstalk 00:53:41]
Larry Hyrb: If you have any tips, hit Laura up on Twitter.
Laura: Yeah, if you know how to get the phone to not be out of order, maybe help me out.
Jeff: Maybe there's gum in the ...
Larry Hyrb: Did you put a dime in it?
Jeff: Coin slot.
Laura: I have a nickel, and ...
Larry Hyrb: Okay.
Laura: It didn't work. It does take a dime [crosstalk 00:53:57]-
Larry Hyrb: Good luck.
Laura: Nickel. That's part of the problem.
Larry Hyrb: Okay, there you go. See? See? We're puzzling this out together.
Laura: I know, but the way you get the additional is ... Anyway. I'm stuck. I'm stuck.
Larry Hyrb: Okay.
Laura: Yeah. The other game I've been starting to play is Shadow Wars, finally.
Larry Hyrb: Which looks great.
Laura: It's amazing. Oh my gosh, it's so much fun. So much fun. It's great to be back in the world. It's great to be running around killing orcs and conquering things. Oh my gosh, it's so much fun, but I haven't had enough time put into it to really get completely into it and start leveling my character up. I'm back in the weak stage, trying to sneak around and not get killed the other day.
Jeff: That's the game I've spent far and away the most amount of time with. In fact, I'm looking up right now on the Xbox app on Windows 10 how much time I've put into it. 22 hours so far.
Larry Hyrb: Which sounds about right.
Jeff: I'm still on Act II, because I'm doing the collectibles and all the stuff. They all have a nice little story that goes with them [inaudible 00:54:51] [VIO 00:54:52]. The voice acting in this game is phenomenal. I always want to hear what thing Kela [Brimbor 00:54:57] wants to say that sort of dismisses everything. He's just so surly. He is dead, he is a ghost, had everything taken away from him, from Sauron, but can he smile a little bit, Kela Brimbor?
Laura: He's grumpy. He's a grumpy guy.
Jeff: He is. I love this game, and I've spent just a ton of time with it. I feel like I don't want to start anything else new, as badly as I want to play Wolfenstein, as badly as I want to play Assassin's Creed [crosstalk 00:55:22]-
Larry Hyrb: Wolfenstein is so good.
Jeff: I know, and I'm going to. I'm going to play all these games-
Larry Hyrb: I'll talk about that in a minute.
Jeff: South Park, all of these games I want to play, I know. Because Middle Earth, Shadow Wars, tough. If I walk away from it, I'm gonna lose my skill. I need to string these combos to get-
Larry Hyrb: Health bar.
Jeff: You've playing South Park.
Larry Hyrb: No, I haven't. Here's my memory of South Park, is when Jeff and I went out to Alan [Magordo 00:55:43]. He took his console. I just remember ...
Jeff: Yeah, I traveled with it.
Larry Hyrb: He was in a few rooms down and I was texting him. He was telling me all about the game. I hadn't had a chance. Did you finish it on that trip?
Jeff: I did finish it on that trip.
Larry Hyrb: I remember that. You just were loving that game.
Jeff: I mean, we were in the middle of nowhere. Literally the landmark that we saw was a landfill. I wanted to finish South Park, I was very into it, so I brought my 360 out. I must have played 30 hours in a three day trip while we were there.
Laura: [inaudible 00:56:13]
Larry Hyrb: I know that was gonna be one of the greatest trips we were gonna go on.
Jeff: It was. I don't remember what I had for dinner last night, but I remember every detail of that trip. I've never been dirtier.
Larry Hyrb: Filthy. Filthy.
Jeff: Anyways, Shadow War is awesome.
Laura: Oh my gosh, [crosstalk 00:56:31]
Jeff: If you get to it, please get to it. It just really opens up once you get into the middle of Act II.
Laura: [inaudible 00:56:39] open it up, yeah.
Larry Hyrb: What else have you played? Those are the headlines?
Laura: Those are the headlines. There's a lot of little games in there, but ...
Jeff: The one week when the game you always play has upgraded for Enhanced for Xbox One X and you haven't played it yet.
Laura: I know [inaudible 00:56:53]
Jeff: I'm gonna buy-
Larry Hyrb: She doesn't have an Xbox One X. That's the problem. She doesn't have hers yet.
Jeff: I feel foolish now.
Larry Hyrb: Rubbing it in her face.
Laura: Rubbing it in my face.
Larry Hyrb: Wow, that was cold.
Jeff: Yeah.
Larry Hyrb: I'm gonna do a quick little ... I'm play Wolfenstein II: the New Colossus, which is great. It's just ridiculously fun. I'm playing a little Assassin's Creed Origins. I was in New York a couple weeks ago for that with Ash. That games looks ... Your eyes will melt, how beautiful that game is. Its so, so beautiful. That's really what's taking up a lot of my time right now, in addition to the travel for the game launches and whatnot.
Laura: Been a busy man.
Larry Hyrb: Xbox One X, I'll be in New York all next week. Headed back up to New England to see family for a little bit. I'll be back, but Jeff, what are you playing?
Jeff: Literally, Shadow ... I've been testing out a few games here and there. I played a little bit of Forts of [Seven 00:57:39]. I wanted to see what that one looked like on the Xbox One X. Spoiler alert: stunning. I play a lot of our Xbox Play Anywhere games on PC. I travel a lot, and I bring ... I have a pretty nice laptop that makes games look beautiful. I've gotten used to really good looking games, but to be able to see in that resolution on a big TV in a living room setting is really, really, really impressive. I have a feeling, my laptop, other than when I'm traveling, is probably gonna get neglected now, because I'm gonna want to see Forts just enveloping me in the beautiful frame rate, 4K 60 and all these things. It's glorious. And FIFA, FIFA looks so good. Right now it's just ... The pile of shame is just ever growing.
Laura: That time of year.
Jeff: I'm stressed out about it. We have a vacation coming up at the end of the year. I'll be gone for [crosstalk 00:58:39]-
Larry Hyrb: You're going overseas.
Jeff: Yeah. I'll be going to Japan. I don't get to take a lot ... We work kind of crazy through the summer, so we just kind of take one big vacation a year. I'm almost dreading at. That is a good period of time I could be playing these games that I'm not gonna be able to do. I'm gonna go into January and ...
Laura: [inaudible 00:58:56]
Jeff: Some amazing game, some game of the year candidate, I will not even have started yet. It's just ...
Laura: Well, play anywhere. Play it on your laptop. [crosstalk 00:59:05] glorious 4K.
Jeff: No, no. You all go out and see the palace. I'm just cleaning up some achievements.
Laura: It's a long flight.
Jeff: Yeah, that's true.
Larry Hyrb: Alright, we're gonna wrap things up a little bit year. We haven't named the game to [inaudible 00:59:18], Laura.
Laura: Oh, that's right. Almost forgot to do that.
Larry Hyrb: We do. We haven't ...
Laura: It's been so long.
Larry Hyrb: It's been so long. This one was actually fairly easy. We had a lot of entries for this. Why don't you go ahead and play the ... You ready for the clip?
Laura: Yeah, let's play the old Name the Game.
Larry Hyrb: This is Laura's Name the Game payoff. Any time you're ready.
Laura: That was Name the Game from last time. Super easy one.
Larry Hyrb: Super easy one to guess, but it's a hard game.
Laura: That's true, it's a hard game to play. The answer was, Cuphead. Congratulations to our winner, Scott from Louisiana.
Larry Hyrb: Scott, Louisiana. You've been to Louisiana, Jeffrey?
Jeff: Yeah, quite a few time. A number of Mardi ... What'd be plural for Mardi Gras? Mardis Gras? Fat Tuesdays. Yeah, it's a great ... First of all, amazing food, really nice people ... I enjoyed Louisiana. It's been too long.
Larry Hyrb: This segment brought to you by the Louisiana Department of Travel and Commerce. I wasn't expecting a whole soundbite on it.
Jeff: Yeah.
Laura: It's a good state.
Jeff: Right, it's a great state.
Larry Hyrb: I've never been.
Laura: Scott ...
Jeff: Also, the best over Schlotsky's I ever went to. [crosstalk 01:00:51] nowhere. I think I was in either Monroe Louisiana or Hammond, one of the two. Man, I got the drive through and I went back in and I said, "Look, can I speak to the manager? I just want to say, this is the best sandwich I've ever had in my life." They appreciated that.
Larry Hyrb: Thank you.
Jeff: Louisiana, good memories.
Larry Hyrb: Brought to you by Schlotsky's. Really, Jeffrey?
Laura: I'm sure Scott [crosstalk 01:01:12]
Jeff: Look, you asked, I'm going to tell you.
Laura: Scott is wondering what he won.
Larry Hyrb: Yeah, he's sitting there going, "Wait a minute, I won? What did I win?" Shut up Jeff and tell him what he won. That's what he's saying.
Jeff: A turkey original.
Laura: No, no sandwiches for you, Scott, but we have much better things. We have a copy of Cuphead, of course, a copy of Mutant Football League, which you heard about earlier-
Jeff: Oh, hey. I'm glad I talked that up.
Laura: Exactly. A copy of Black, which is an original Xbox back compat game, and a copy of Titanfall 2. That's not all. You also get a copy of ASsassin's Creed Origins, and a copy of Call of Duty: World War II.
Larry Hyrb: What?
Jeff: What didn't he get?
Larry Hyrb: I know.
Laura: I know. All of [crosstalk 01:01:49].
Larry Hyrb: I get all these codes and you give them away. Now I know why I don't have any codes.
Jeff: Not included: all of time to play all of those times. It's hundreds of hours of gameplay.
Laura: It's true. Find your own time.
Larry Hyrb: You're on your own there, pal. Congratulations to Scott down there in Louisiana. That means we clear the deck for another Name the Game, right?
Laura: Is it time for another one?
Larry Hyrb: I'm ready if you're ready. Hey listeners, are you ready?
Laura: I think listeners are ready.
Larry Hyrb: Let's do it.
Laura: Let's roll the tape.
That was Name the Game. If you, too, would like to win a large number of fabulous prizes, it's super easy. All you have to do is send us an email. Lollipop@xbox.com, and CC: Major@xbox.com. All you have to do is let us know what game those sounds are from. That simple.
Larry Hyrb: That's it.
Laura: If you want to, include your name or your gamer tag-
Larry Hyrb: Where you're from-
Laura: Or you don't have to, if you don't want to. If you can hear our voice, you can enter the game.
Larry Hyrb: Very simple, very simple. Everybody can play. In fact, why aren't you sending us an email right now? By the way, don't tweet at us. We only accept email entries. You can tweet at us, but it doesn't count as an entry.
Laura: That's true. It has to be to our emails. And that's it. That's it for Name the Game.
Larry Hyrb: It is. I'm just going through the list here, thinking of all the things Jeff and I have to do before we go to New York. You're not gonna go with us. You haven't been on the road with us in a while.
Laura: I know. It's been a long time.
Larry Hyrb: You came with us to PAX.
Laura: Yes.
Jeff: I don't think I've seen you on the road since E3 2010. That was a callback to earlier in the show. Yes, PAX.
Laura: I see. Funny.
Jeff: See what ... Yeah. Edit that out, Larry.
Larry Hyrb: I got it. No, it's staying in.
Laura: Too late, staying in.
Jeff: We don't have editing.
Larry Hyrb: Too late, stay ... No.
Laura: There's no editing staff.
Larry Hyrb: Editing is for chumps.
Laura: We're doing it live.
Larry Hyrb: We're doing it live. In fact, I want to talk to you guys about that. I haven't talked to you ... I'm completely sideswiping you guys. We have not talked about this before. There was a request, multiple, multiple requests for us to do the show on MOne Xer.
Laura: Really?
Larry Hyrb: Do you guys want to do a live video show on MOne Xer one time, just try it out?
Laura: Yeah.
Jeff: One time?
Larry Hyrb: Okay. Alright.
Jeff: People need to see this visage. I need an excuse to brush my hair. We should do that.
Larry Hyrb: Because this certainly isn't it.
Jeff: All the time we joked about it. I'm like, "Oh..." We're constantly doing "Bad radio" by pantomiming or showing visuals.
Larry Hyrb: Let's do it.
Jeff: Let's do it.
Larry Hyrb: Let's do it. Okay. We will do this when Jeff and I come back from New York, maybe the second week of November. Is that alright?
Laura: Yeah, sounds great.
Larry Hyrb: Third week we'll figure it out. Are you around over the holidays-
Laura: I am.
Larry Hyrb: Christmas? Alright. Jeff, when do you go on your ...
Jeff: Middle of December.
Larry Hyrb: Okay, so we'll definitely do it before we all leave. Before the end of the year, we're gonna do it once. We'll commit to that.
Jeff: Okay.
Larry Hyrb: Can we all commit to that?
Laura: Yes.
Larry Hyrb: Alright, there we go. Alright. Sadly guys, we got to wrap things up, because we have a lot of work to do and we have to get ready for Xbox One X launch. I want to thank everybody for all the support. Jeff and I may or may not see you in New York. You don't have to be there. You can watch the stream, MOne Xer.com/Xbox. Check out my blog. Jeff, did you put a link to it? We've got [crosstalk 01:05:30]-
Jeff: To your blog?
Larry Hyrb: No, no, we've got all-
Jeff: I think they know.
Larry Hyrb: I think there's a pinned post at the top that talks about all-
Jeff: The livestream? I'll go ahead and put that in there.
Larry Hyrb: The global events. Hopefully by then Laura will have picked up a console.
Laura: We'll see.
Larry Hyrb: Yeah, we'll see. We'll see.
Laura: If I'm lucky.
Larry Hyrb: Yeah, no gadgets this week. You know, we're gonna do this. We're gonna do this live thing. I'm excited about this live video thing.
Laura: Yeah, that should be exciting.
Larry Hyrb: People have been asking for it. Jeff will comb his hair.
Laura: I'll find good lighting.
Larry Hyrb: You'll find ... Well-
Jeff: My hair cutter left the country for like three months, and you can tell.
Larry Hyrb: It shows. It shows.
Jeff: I know you can tell.
Larry Hyrb: You're looking a little ...
Jeff: I'm like, "I'm glad you're finding yourself in Paris and taking a class in the [inaudible 01:06:07], but look at me. I'm hideous."
Larry Hyrb: "No, don't look at me."
Alright gang, we'll talk to you next time. Thanks for ... You can follow Laura on Twitter at:
Laura: @Lauralollipop.
Larry Hyrb: You can send all your complaints and suggestions to Jeff at:
Jeff: @JeffRubenstein. You're already doing it.
Larry Hyrb: And I'm Major Nelson. We'll talk to you guys next time. Bye bye, everybody.
Laura: Bye.
Jeff: Bye.

Larry Hryb: Hello.
Laura Massey: Hi, Larry.
Larry Hryb: We're just coming off of the, uh, the intro music, kind of chill right now.
Laura Massey: Yeah.
Larry Hryb: I was trying to, I was experimenting with a new intro there, that was one that we used at, uh, PAX.
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh, can you dance to it?
Larry Hryb: Um, you can, you can. I wouldn't.
Jeff Rubenstein: (Laughs)
Laura Massey: Larry ...
Larry Hryb: La- Laura can, I can't.
Laura Massey: Larry wouldn't.
Larry Hryb: As, uh ...
Laura Massey: We've already discussed this.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, so this is the ...
Jeff Rubenstein: Waltzes only for this gentlemen.
Larry Hryb: Welcome ...
Laura Massey: (Laughs) no ...
Jeff Rubenstein: Wearing a suit.
Larry Hryb: No, no ... Not at all, it's just that, just that I ...
Jeff Rubenstein: You're wearing a suit.
Laura Massey: Waltz are the best, don't dis waltzes.
Larry Hryb: I'm not dissing waltzes, I'm just saying dancing is not, as, as has been, um, proven, and on a public stage, that is not my thing, I'm not best at it.
Laura Massey: You know, I would say, yeah, dancing by yourself, super difficult.
Larry Hryb: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Laura Massey: But partner dancing is actually really fun ...
Larry Hryb: It is fun.
Laura Massey: Not nearly as intimidating.
Larry Hryb: Show number 608 here talking about dancing, it's the dancing edition.
Laura Massey: (Laughs)
Larry Hryb: The dancing with no stars edition.
Laura Massey: Finally, a dancing podcast.
Larry Hryb: (Laughs)
Laura Massey: I've found my calling.
Jeff Rubenstein: Just Dance, 20-
Larry Hryb: You know, I, um ...
Jeff Rubenstein: 2018. I'm sure it's all ...
Laura Massey: (Laughs)
Larry Hryb: It's, it's, it's interesting because, um, have you ever, have you ever gone square dancing?
Laura Massey: Maybe.
Jeff Rubenstein: Is this the, the spin your partner round and round?
Laura Massey: (Laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: Is that really a thing, by the way, or is that just ...
Larry Hryb: Well, all I know is I remember when I was in Connecticut I was, I was, uh, this, uh, person that I was, uh, dating, she, her dad was a, uh, a big time caller.
Laura Massey: That's right.
Larry Hryb: Right?
Jeff Rubenstein: A caller?
Larry Hryb: Yeah, he was a big time caller, because that's the, because that's the term. They're callers.
Laura Massey: Yes.
Jeff Rubenstein: Just Dance 2018 is, is coming out.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, there's a demo coming out for Just Dance 2018.
Laura Massey: (Laughs)
Larry Hryb: That's the segue, gang, in case you're listening to this going, "What are they talking about?"
Jeff Rubenstein: Hashtag spawn, uh, yeah.
Larry Hryb: Yes. Anyway, so, uh ...
Jeff Rubenstein: October 24th.
Larry Hryb: Do we have any photos of you doing the square dancing, Laura?
Laura Massey: I don't think so.
Larry Hryb: In a pinafore or something?
Laura Massey: No, I don't think there's any photos that exist. Unfortunately.
Larry Hryb: You, you know, you, you were right at the end of the digital era ...
Laura Massey: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Larry Hryb: Where there were, people were taking pictures, like, obviously I have a daughter now, and Jeff has a daughter, and, you know, taking pictures were, you were doing it on your phone ...
Laura Massey: Constantly, yeah.
Larry Hryb: Like I got, I got 50 pictures today, alone, of my daughter. So, it's ... (Laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: I, I feel like being a square dance caller is like one of those things you would have loved to do. There's game show host, there's auctioneer ...
Laura Massey: Yes.
Jeff Rubenstein: And I think that anything where you use that voice and you're talking really fast and then ... Yes, Larry. Is. The. Guy.
Larry Hryb: No, I, I ... I just, you know, and I, I never went to see, you know ... I've never experienced the square dancing thing, but the game show thing, that's, that's my jam.
Laura Massey: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Larry Hryb: So, I've got the microphone ...
Laura Massey: True that.
Larry Hryb: And I'm really bummed, because, you know, I do, went back to, was down in L.A. this week, last week, and did, uh, the, the Cuphead and the Force thing, I could have brought my, my microphone.
Laura Massey: You could have, yes.
Larry Hryb: And I, I completely forgot, I'm just an ...
Laura Massey: What were you thinking?
Larry Hryb: I'm an idiot, I'm an idiot.
Jeff Rubenstein: You need doors that you have to open. You could have revealed a car, that would be a great microphone for revealing a car.
Larry Hryb: It's a new car!
Jeff Rubenstein: (Laughs)
Larry Hryb: All right, we're here talking about what we're playing. Uh, we've got a lot going on this week. It's, um, we're, we're marching towards the release of Xbox OneX next month, November.
Jeff Rubenstein: And we're in the middle of like all these games ...
Larry Hryb: It's October, which ...
Laura Massey: It's a good place.
Jeff Rubenstein: It's a good time, this is a good place.
Larry Hryb: Which is a, which is a big month. I know Laura, you're a big, uh, Halloween fan?
Laura Massey: I am, (Laughs) I know you're not, but I am.
Larry Hryb: I app-
Laura Massey: I make up for ... (Laughs)
Larry Hryb: I appreciate your passion. We balance each other.
Laura Massey: We average out.
Jeff Rubenstein: You're going to be. You're going to be a Halloween fan.
Larry Hryb: No.
Jeff Rubenstein: Because you gotta dress up that little grub that you have at home.
Laura Massey: (Laughs) Yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: Perhaps like a ...
Laura Massey: Cute Halloween costumes.
Jeff Rubenstein: Gears of War grub I, I would recommend.
Larry Hryb: I will, I will, I will explain off the air what, how I've solved that problem.
Jeff Rubenstein: Okay.
Laura Massey: (Laughs)
Larry Hryb: So ... (Laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: All right, fair enough. Now I'm interested.
Larry Hryb: Anyway, Halloween's here ...
Laura Massey: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Larry Hryb: It's or, on its way. Um, surprise, it's October.
Laura Massey: I know.
Larry Hryb: Right, Laura?
Jeff Rubenstein: It doesn't feel like it.
Laura Massey: When did it become October?
Larry Hryb: Uh, after September?
Jeff Rubenstein: (Laughs)
Laura Massey: Oh, that's right.
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh, they really shuffle that one around.
Larry Hryb: (Laughs)
Laura Massey: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Larry Hryb: Oh, boy. So anyway, we've got Xbox OneX going on in about a month.
Laura Massey: Yes.
Larry Hryb: I was down in L.A., we launched Cuphead.
Laura Massey: Which is awesome.
Larry Hryb: Which is, this game is, it's, these guys did such a great job with it. I was, I was doing the live stream with, uh, the two boys, with the two, the two brothers from ...
Jeff Rubenstein: The Moldenhauers.
Larry Hryb: The Moldenhauers ...
Laura Massey: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Larry Hryb: And, um, I don't know, did you watch the stream on Friday night? Because I was, I was ... Also joining us was special guest star, Clint Eastwood's son, Scott Eastwood.
Laura Massey: Really?
Larry Hryb: Yeah, so, if, if ... Did you see any ... I sent you some of the photos, didn't I?
Laura Massey: No, I didn't see a single photo.
Larry Hryb: Oh, boy. I posted a couple on Twitter, but yeah, I mean ...
Jeff Rubenstein: What's he up to?
Larry Hryb: He's, he's actually, he's in some of the Fast and the Furious films, he is ... Here you go, Laura. Look, take, take a look.
Laura Massey: Is he a big gamer?
Jeff Rubenstein: So we'll see him in 2020.
Larry Hryb: I mean, if you look at him, he looks like, he looks like Clint Eastwood. "Get off my lawn."
Laura Massey: Oh, my gosh, he does.
Larry Hryb: And go to the, if you scroll to the, I think one way or the other you'll see more.
Laura Massey: Yeah.
Larry Hryb: So ...
Laura Massey: (Laughs)
Larry Hryb: So anyway, we had a great time ...
Laura Massey: He does.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, and it was great because he, you know, he's, he's in, um, uh ... Oh, what ...
Jeff Rubenstein: I thought that was you, I thought you meant you ... He really does look like him.
Larry Hryb: I'm just, I'm blanking out.
Laura Massey: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Larry Hryb: What's, what's, the, uh, what's the big robot movie? Pacific Rim.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yes.
Laura Massey: Okay.
Larry Hryb: So he's in, he's in Pacific Rim, and he was doing re-shoots for that. It comes out next year, so we were, he wanted to come down and play the game. And he's a hardcore gamer, he's telling me stories on the air and a little bit off the air about, um, how his dad has a bunch of cabinets, you know, arcade cabinets ...
Jeff Rubenstein: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Oh ...
Larry Hryb: That he's collected in all his different houses, so I was like, well ...
Laura Massey: Cool.
Jeff Rubenstein: Have us over, Clint.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, right?
Laura Massey: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Larry Hryb: Well, that's Scott, so ...
Jeff Rubenstein: Well, I know, but if his dad has them ... I mean, Scott seems nice, but I'm going to go where the arcade cabinets are.
Laura Massey: (Laughs)
Larry Hryb: A, a fair point. So anyway, we played, we played a lot of Cuphead, that was Friday night. We did it at Meltdown Comics, which is this ... Jeff and I've done an event at Meltdown ...
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, we've been there. We did, uh, Ori, actually I think we had the launch there ...
Larry Hryb: We did Ori and the Blind Forest, uh, which is right on Sunset.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah.
Larry Hryb: Right on Sun ...
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, that's a great store.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, it's a great store.
Jeff Rubenstein: That was, I didn't tell you, when we were there ... So I was, I, we, we ... I mean, we're going back a couple years. But I, uh, I was talking with Hank Baskett, former Philadelphia Eagle ...
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: And he does a lot, he's a huge gamer ...
Larry Hryb: Yeah, I know Hank.
Jeff Rubenstein: And he does some stuff with like these games cases, he's up here, uh, he's, he's married to, uh, a former Playmate, um, not Holly, the other one.
Laura Massey: I don't know.
Jeff Rubenstein: From, from ...
Larry Hryb: Not Holly, they only have two names, Holly and the other one. Crystal? (Laughs) Bambi?
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh, my wife's going to kill me.
Laura Massey: (Laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: My wife's going to kill me. Anyway, at one point I, I ... We don't do a lot of things at Meltdown Comics ...
Larry Hryb: Right.
Jeff Rubenstein: And so I was just going into the back to get like, another sticker for Ori or something, and I walk into the wrong door, and I walked into them just like, look, talk, having a conversation in the back. And I just got a look, and it was like my one experience with, uh, The Girls Next Door, it was like, "Why are you in our, our greenroom?" And I was just ...
Larry Hryb: Oh, that little greenroom in the back, there?
Jeff Rubenstein: I thought that ... Yeah. So, you, you're familiar with the greenroom. Now I gotta look this up.
Larry Hryb: So, Laura, that was a fantastic example of a story not really paying off.
Jeff Rubenstein: Didn't really pay off.
Larry Hryb: (Laughs)
Laura Massey: (Laughs)
Larry Hryb: Yeah he ... It just, it just was like you couldn't remember the name, facts weren't quite ...
Jeff Rubenstein: Kendra! It was Kendra.
Laura Massey: Okay.
Jeff Rubenstein: Just edit it out.
Larry Hryb: No.
Laura Massey: (Laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: Just edit it right on out.
Larry Hryb: Gotta leave it in, gotta leave it in.
Jeff Rubenstein: Look, I got to meet Hank Baskett that day, and we talked about the, the Eagles, you know, chances under Chip Kelly, and we saw how that worked out.
Larry Hryb: Speaking of the Eagles, uh ...
Jeff Rubenstein: My family was impressed.
Larry Hryb: Jeff, Jeff and I have a, uh, we're gonna get to what we're playing ... We had a three ...
Jeff Rubenstein: Eww.
Laura Massey: God.
Larry Hryb: (Laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: See, I was just ...
Larry Hryb: That was the segue ...
Jeff Rubenstein: I forgot about that.
Larry Hryb: That we had at, we played our annual Madden tournament ...
Laura Massey: Yes.
Larry Hryb: Which is, in this case was the best of three. New England versus Eagles.
Laura Massey: Patriots versus Eagles.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, so we played, it was, uh, we played ...
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh, all right, so first game ...
Larry Hryb: First game at Gillette Stadium.
Jeff Rubenstein: Gillette Stadium, we, so we play every year.
Laura Massey: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Jeff Rubenstein: We shouldn't have played like one match. (Laughs)
Larry Hryb: Right. (Laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: And, and Larry usually wins. So, so first game ...
Larry Hryb: Yup.
Jeff Rubenstein: Uh, Tom Brady, awful game, throws four interceptions ...
Laura Massey: What?
Jeff Rubenstein: Just the, the Gillette crowd was booing him.
Larry Hryb: Yes, it was rough.
Jeff Rubenstein: They won 28 to nothing.
Larry Hryb: (Laughs)
Laura Massey: (Laughs)
Larry Hryb: Exactly.
Jeff Rubenstein: (Laughs) So then I was like, "All right ..."
Larry Hryb: Then we, then we took it to, not the vet, we took it to ...
Jeff Rubenstein: We took it to the Linc.
Larry Hryb: The Linc in, uh, in ...
Jeff Rubenstein: Lincoln Financial Field ...
Larry Hryb: In Philadelphia.
Jeff Rubenstein: And, and I won that one, I want to say 17 to seven ...
Larry Hryb: Yeah, it was completely ...
Jeff Rubenstein: Uh, yeah, so fewer points in that one.
Larry Hryb: And then ...
Jeff Rubenstein: And then ...
Larry Hryb: And then we went to a neutral place. We decided to go to the newest stadium in the league, which is ...
Jeff Rubenstein: Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta.
Laura Massey: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Jeff Rubenstein: The Benz, they don't call it.
Laura Massey: (Laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: Um, probably. And this one ...
Larry Hryb: Oh, it was a, it was a nail biter.
Jeff Rubenstein: We were at the top of our game and ...
Larry Hryb: It was a nail biter.
Jeff Rubenstein: It was a, it was a baseball score.
Larry Hryb: (Laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: Uh, I won on a, a game winning field goal 10 to nine, the Eagles ...
Larry Hryb: Yeah, it was close.
Jeff Rubenstein: Over the Patriots.
Larry Hryb: It was close.
Jeff Rubenstein: We, we, I really think we got worse game after game.
Laura Massey: (Laughs)
Larry Hryb: (Laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: I think on average there was about seven turnovers per game.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, each of us was just ...
Jeff Rubenstein: With, with four minute quarters.
Larry Hryb: Our games were decaying.
Laura Massey: (Laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: We had a lot of fun though.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, we did. We had a lot of fun.
Jeff Rubenstein: A ton of fun.
Larry Hryb: Madden is definitely a different look this year.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, I, I will give you that. And I will say one thing I really enjoyed was, uh, they clearly were, were putting in new commentary. So when I kicked that field goal, that, that massive, uh, 23-yard field goal that I kicked, they, they referenced Jake Elliot, who is on the Eagles, who kicked a 61-yard, game winning field goal like two weeks ago ...
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Laura Massey: Are they like real time ...
Jeff Rubenstein: And they like, referenced that in, and they were talking all about it ...
Laura Massey: Really?
Larry Hryb: Yeah, yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: And it was really cool to ...
Laura Massey: Wow.
Larry Hryb: Yeah it was. Well not real time, but it was very contemporary.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yes, so ...
Laura Massey: Oh my goodness. How do they get that voice acting in there?
Larry Hryb: Well, they, you're down, you down ... Well, Jeff and I were talking about it, you download rosters ...
Laura Massey: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Larry Hryb: So they must have just, it was part, it must have been part of the roster payload.
Laura Massey: That's great.
Jeff Rubenstein: Mm-hmm (affirmative) But it happened real fast, and, and I was like, "Oh, I wonder if that means they're adding new commentary in?" And indeed, context sensitive, so well done, well done to good folks that ...
Larry Hryb: To the Madden team, our friends up, up in, your, your neck of the woods, your former neck of the woods.
Jeff Rubenstein: I, I was just there.
Larry Hryb: I know you were, you were down in Orlando, you went down to Miami.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, I was, I was definitely freaking out, being away from Xbox when all these games came out. And good thing ...
Larry Hryb: Right.
Jeff Rubenstein: I brought my, I brought my laptop, my gaming laptop.
Larry Hryb: And I had ...
Jeff Rubenstein: And I had Cuphead.
Larry Hryb: You had Cuphead.
Jeff Rubenstein: And I had Forza 7.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: And I had a few other things.
Larry Hryb: Bunch of other things. You had Ori.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah. Uh, I had Ori and the, Ori and the Blind Forest Definitive Edition.
Laura Massey: Awesome.
Larry Hryb: Anyway, so we played our Madden. Uh, been playing ... So, I really haven't had a lot of chance, of course, been playing Cuphead. Have you had a chance to play Cuphead, Laura?
Laura Massey: Not yet.
Larry Hryb: Laura ...
Laura Massey: I know.
Larry Hryb: Well you, I, I don't recall this, are you an animated cartoon fan?
Laura Massey: I do like animation. It's fantastic.
Larry Hryb: Like old school animation?
Laura Massey: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Larry Hryb: Okay, so, like, I, I'm a huge, I think we've talked about this, my ...
Jeff Rubenstein: You're a Tex Avery man.
Larry Hryb: Tex A, absolutely. We, my sisters and I grew up on Bugs Bunny, and we to this day, we still quote Bugs Bunny.
Laura Massey: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Larry Hryb: It's still part of our normal lexicon.
Laura Massey: (Laughs)
Larry Hryb: Um, so they, this, this, the, the Cuphead, I'm sure you've seen the videos, a lot of people have been raving about it. It's, it is, it is pitch perfect, I believe is the best way to describe it.
Jeff Rubenstein: Hm.
Laura Massey: Wow. That's high marks.
Larry Hryb: The game, the game itself, the gameplay is, is unforgiving.
Laura Massey: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Larry Hryb: But the neat part about it is, again, it's an Xbox Play Anywhere title ... The, the mad-, the, the, the levels are like 90 seconds, two minutes long, Jeff?
Jeff Rubenstein: If, yeah, it's one of those things. You're never going to, unlikely you're going to beat something on its first attempt, so you can put in hours and hours and hours, and, and we all did. Except for you, Laura.
Laura Massey: (Laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: And, um, but then when you actually have like a good run and you actually beat a, a boss, a lot of times it's under two minutes.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: Um, and you're graded on, on your, your skill, your parries, how many hit points you have left and your time.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, so anyways, so check it out. Cuphead, you'll see all the videos, it's as good as people think it is. You've gotta play it, Laura.
Laura Massey: Oh, yes. Fantastic art. Just absolutely mind blowing.
Larry Hryb: I've gotta get some artwork done. I changed my computer profile picture. I've gotta change it back to my, uh, clips one. The one with the Xbox logo ...
Laura Massey: Yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: Are you Cuphead or Mugman? Which one are you?
Larry Hryb: I'm both, I'm both.
Jeff Rubenstein: Okay, that's, that's fair.
Larry Hryb: I'm Cuphead and Mugman, so ...
Jeff Rubenstein: That's, uh, I kind of expected ...
Larry Hryb: Right down the middle, right down the middle.
Laura Massey: Yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: That's good.
Larry Hryb: What else am I playing? Ah, of course Forza Motorsport 7 is out ...
Laura Massey: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Larry Hryb: That is just beautiful, I play ... Oh, man, um, I'm playing it on, I got a chance to play it on Xbox OneX and it looks just phenomenal, doesn't it?
Laura Massey: Oh, awesome.
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh, yeah.
Larry Hryb: The rain is unbelievable. I think our ...
Jeff Rubenstein: I'm actually playing in dash. I never play in dash, because it's a little harder to play in dash.
Laura Massey: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Jeff Rubenstein: But it looks so good.
Larry Hryb: First person. Yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yes, you know there's a couple different like, sort of, there's the hood view and then there's like the chase cam and then the wider chase cam. But the one where you actually see your ... Because you can customize your drivers now for the first time. And so I want to see the driving gloves that I, you know, that, and the outfit that I picked out. The, just like the ...
Larry Hryb: What do you, what are you, what are you wearing if I may?
Jeff Rubenstein: Uh, I switch like every other race. So I think I was wearing something very like, southwestern themed I think it, it was ...
Larry Hryb: Like cowboy boots?
Jeff Rubenstein: Like a cactus almost thing.
Laura Massey: Really?
Jeff Rubenstein: And then I was running one like, uh, Forza Horizon 3 skin for a while. I'm, I'm constantly swapping them out. Like it, when you level up, um, there's a couple different sort of like level meters. One is like how good your, your car collection is, and then another one is uh, uh, on just like, you know, how much, you know from your racing prowess. But, like every time you get a choice of like, you get to choose either money, uh, a, a car, or the outfit, I'm almost always going for the outfit.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, I've got, I got a chance to do this, we did it at the, um, we did the, the stream from the Peterson Car Museum.
Jeff Rubenstein: The museum, yeah.
Larry Hryb: Which you've been to.
Jeff Rubenstein: I, I've only driven by it.
Larry Hryb: Oh, okay.
Jeff Rubenstein: It's part of the ... It looks amazing.
Larry Hryb: Oh, it's, it's phenomenal. Laura, you haven't been there.
Laura Massey: Where is that?
Larry Hryb: It's in L.A.
Laura Massey: Okay, then I ...
Larry Hryb: It is, it is an unbelievable car museum. Got a chance to speak with those guys I was there with. Tanner Faust, who I've worked with ...
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh, I've worked with him, too.
Laura Massey: Really?
Larry Hryb: You remember Tanner.
Laura Massey: He ...
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, he's a, a drift king of ...
Larry Hryb: Yeah, he is.
Laura Massey: He was on American Top Gear.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, he ...
Laura Massey: He's probably the, the best driver that's probably been on American Top Gear. (Laughs)
Larry Hryb: Yeah he was, he was busting my chops about ... Because, remember, I don't know, were you here? I think you joined us, Jeff. Remember when I had the, the jumpsuit?
Laura Massey: Yes.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yes.
Larry Hryb: You, okay ...
Laura Massey: I remember the jumpsuit.
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh ... (Laughs)
Larry Hryb: (Laughs) I know you can't ... Sorry.
Laura Massey: Did he remember the jumpsuit?
Larry Hryb: Yes, oh, he did.
Laura Massey: Oh no. (Laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah.
Larry Hryb: Oh he did. So Tanner was there, and also Josef Newgarden who, uh, won the Indy, Indy 500.
Jeff Rubenstein: Hmm.
Laura Massey: Hmm.
Larry Hryb: He was a huge gamer, in fact he started, apparently he started getting into racing from Forza, like back in the day.
Laura Massey: Really? That's cool.
Jeff Rubenstein: That's amazing, yeah.
Larry Hryb: So he was real-, and he was really good. So I got to race with those guys, and I, I promptly lost. Um, which is expected.
Jeff Rubenstein: That ... If, you know, if you had won I'd worry.
Laura Massey: And curious ...
Larry Hryb: Yeah, so they, they, it was great to be with those guys. Anyway, Forza Motorsport 7 out. And again, Xbox Play Anywhere title, play it on your, if you got a PC that's powerful enough, it looks stunning. Uh, this is an Xbox OneX Enhanced title, so if you buy the title now, when you, and you wanna, and you purchase an Xbox OneX, there's going to be more stuff to make it look better. (Laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: It's gonna look amazing. It's running 4K, 60 ...
Larry Hryb: That's my official marketing term: More stuff to make it look better.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yes. Let's put that on the box.
Laura Massey: (Laughs)
Larry Hryb: And so ... (Laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: Like, maybe with you winking ala Cuphead?
Larry Hryb: More stuff make it look better.
Laura Massey: (Laughs)
Larry Hryb: Anyways, so that's what I'm playing now. What are you playing, Laura.
Laura Massey: So I'm still stuck in Destiny. I've been going back to that.
Larry Hryb: Stuck?
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh ...
Laura Massey: Well, like, I haven't had a chance to play all the new, the new things, yet.
Jeff Rubenstein: You still play it? Yeah.
Laura Massey: Because I'm still working my way through Destiny.
Larry Hryb: How do you, why do you not play with us? Why won't you play with Jeff and I?
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, what's your light level?
Laura Massey: I think, I seem ... Uh, but I'm level eight at the moment, so not a massive ...
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh, so you have to finish the story.
Laura Massey: I do. I still have to finish the story.
Larry Hryb: I'll, I'll power level you.
Laura Massey: I'm not 20 yet. (Laughs)
Larry Hryb: Okay, come on.
Laura Massey: It seems that we play at different times, because when I play it's earlier on in the evenings and you guys seem to log in a lot later. But that's okay. Maybe we can coordinate something one of these days.
Larry Hryb: If we, if you, if you tell me, I can rearrange my schedule as best I can.
Jeff Rubenstein: We can, we can run you through the campaign and, uh ...
Larry Hryb: Assuming we're not throwing hail Mary's and ... (Laughs)
Laura Massey: I know, right? (Laughs) [inaudible 00:13:59]
Jeff Rubenstein: I don't know, I kind of wouldn't mind going back.
Larry Hryb: I know.
Laura Massey: What? Are you filming in Madden football ...
Larry Hryb: It is, well, I was just ... What?
Laura Massey: (Laughs)
Larry Hryb: I was just saying, I'm just saying, if we're, if we're not playing ... Yeah, I would love to play with you Laura. I would love to ... Where, what, and you, you're rolling as Titan or Warlock?
Laura Massey: Warlock.
Larry Hryb: Warlock, right.
Laura Massey: Awoken Warlock, yes. And it's probably an obvious choice for me, but I'm actually really enjoying it, it's really great.
Larry Hryb: There's nothing obvious about you at all.
Laura Massey: I know.
Larry Hryb: (Laughs)
Laura Massey: And then I am also trying to finish my Season 11 challenges in Diablo 3.
Larry Hryb: Right, right. You're chipping away at that.
Laura Massey: Chipping away. Still trying to get through. I'm having trouble with the very last one for Chapter Four.
Larry Hryb: Okay.
Laura Massey: Which is to get through a level 20 rift on your own.
Larry Hryb: Oh.
Laura Massey: I know.
Larry Hryb: I was going to say, let's, let's get to the community to help you out, but nope, can't do that.
Laura Massey: No, can't do it. So I'm playing a Demon Hunter and they are usually a support character.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Laura Massey: One that hangs out in the back and just takes out everybody.
Larry Hryb: So, yeah you, but you, you have no one to hang out in the back of.
Laura Massey: Well, what do you, you know, I know.
Larry Hryb: You're front lines.
Laura Massey: So I have to somehow work my way through getting better gear to be able to get through this rift on my own. So, I, that's my last one before I get all of the awesome gifts.
Larry Hryb: Yes.
Laura Massey: For completing ...
Larry Hryb: Yes.
Laura Massey: The Season 11 challenges.
Larry Hryb: Keep us updated.
Laura Massey: I know.
Larry Hryb: Keep us updated.
Laura Massey: Can't wait to finish it.
Larry Hryb: Well you have, you have to hurry up and finish it, because you have ...
Laura Massey: I know.
Larry Hryb: You have a new Middle Earth coming out.
Laura Massey: Oh, I know.
Larry Hryb: Right, Jeffrey?
Laura Massey: I know.
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh, so soon.
Laura Massey: I got just to play that at PAX. I gotta play it at PAX ...
Jeff Rubenstein: Five days.
Laura Massey: It's going to be so much fun.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: Five days left.
Laura Massey: Oh ...
Larry Hryb: In fact, I think I'm supposed to go ... I just remembered my ...
Jeff Rubenstein: They're right down the street.
Larry Hryb: I'm supposed to go over there and do a stream.
Laura Massey: Yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: Why don't we go over there and pick up our copies? Right? Yeah ...
Larry Hryb: I was supposed to go over there and do a stream when those guys ...
Laura Massey: Can I, uh, join you on that one?
Larry Hryb: Oh, oh now you want to join us?
Laura Massey: (Laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: Actually, I think I'm ...
Larry Hryb: Now you want to join us. Anyway, uh, yeah so we got that coming out, and I know Jeff's excited about that, right?
Laura Massey: Yes.
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh yeah. And, the previous one, Shadow of Mordor was definitely my favorite game of 2014.
Laura Massey: It was mine as well.
Jeff Rubenstein: We had so much fun with that game.
Laura Massey: It sure was.
Jeff Rubenstein: Avenging each other and everything. And from what I've seen of the game, yeah, oh yeah, there is a stream on Monday that we're part of, I think. At least I'm part of it. Are you going to be joining me?
Larry Hryb: Uh, I ... Is it at Monolith?
Jeff Rubenstein: No, it's, it's from here on, ah, the Xbox, um, Mixer channel.
Larry Hryb: Oh, yeah.
Laura Massey: Awesome.
Larry Hryb: If I'm here I'll do it.
Jeff Rubenstein: All right, well we'll, uh, I'll ...
Larry Hryb: Wanna come, you wanna come join us Laura, for you ...
Laura Massey: Yeah, send me the invite.
Larry Hryb: Oh, come on, really.
Laura Massey: Forward me the invite.
Larry Hryb: Okay, all right. All right. Well, I, and of course, you, dear listener, you're welcome to join us as well. Just, uh ...
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah.
Larry Hryb: Go over to Mixer.com/xbox.
Jeff Rubenstein: Xbox, Monday afternoon.
Larry Hryb: You can join us as well and see what happens there.
Jeff Rubenstein: Well, that's going to be fun.
Larry Hryb: It could be fun. Monday afternoon I'm shooting, shooting a couple things, but anyway. So, anyway, so that's what you're playing.
Laura Massey: Yeah, that's pretty much it.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Laura Massey: Looking forward to getting ahold of all the awesome games that are coming out, like Cuphead ...
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Laura Massey: Forza 7 and Shadow of Mordor.
Larry Hryb: Talking about Jeff's playing Destiny, what else you playing?
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh, a ton of Destiny ...
Larry Hryb: Destiny.
Jeff Rubenstein: Got my light level up like 20 points in the last day. It's like, it's my favorite ...
Laura Massey: What is your light level?
Jeff Rubenstein: It's conference call season. Two, it's only like 264?
Larry Hryb: Yeah, I'm at two ...
Laura Massey: I'm not too far behind, now.
Jeff Rubenstein: No, well ...
Laura Massey: We're only around like 110 or something like that.
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh, okay.
Larry Hryb: 240, 250 I think is where I am.
Jeff Rubenstein: All right, yeah.
Laura Massey: Not too behind.
Jeff Rubenstein: So I'm ready to run a Nightfall, we'll do that pretty soon. We should do that.
Laura Massey: Awesome.
Jeff Rubenstein: Um, so I'm playing a stylistic shooter. Some people are saying it's a little bit too difficult. It's an indy game, it's too ...
Larry Hryb: Who's saying that? Who?
Laura Massey: (Laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: Two dimensional, ah, really fast-paced, tough bosses. I'm of course talking about, um, Ruiner ...
Larry Hryb: Wha?
Jeff Rubenstein: Hm? Record scratch. Ah ...
Larry Hryb: Yeah, exactly. (Laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, man, Cuphead's not that hard.
Laura Massey: (Laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: So, uh, so Ruiner is from Devolver Digital's uh, uh, a, an, Xbox Play Anywhere game, and while I was traveling, uh, this came out. Ah, and it is a, it's a really cool game. It has a, sort of like a Blade Runner aesthetic. And you have a helmet with messages on it. You, I'm assuming you're some futuristic Daft Punk, uh, cast off. Ah, pretty interesting. One, a game that I totally had to put the difficulty down from normal, was like too crazy. But, uh, it's sort of a, if you, uh, there's a little bit of Hotline: Miami in this, there's a little bit of, like, Dead Nation, if you ever played that game, which is a cool, uh, sort of, kind of like a twin stick shooter, but not really.
Uh, definitely worth checking out, look at some of the videos. Um, and that's available uh, again, both on Xbox One, and on Windows 10, so ...
Larry Hryb: Kind of, kind of seguing into some of the new stuff ...
Jeff Rubenstein: You can't beat that.
Larry Hryb: Of what Jeff's got some of the headlines.
Jeff Rubenstein: Well, of, of course I do. Ah, but yeah, there's been actually just really a lot of Xbox Play Anywhere games in the last couple weeks. So there, there was Ruiner, there was Cuphead.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: There was, uh, Forza ...
Larry Hryb: Forza.
Jeff Rubenstein: Uh, Hor-, Forza Motorsport 7.
Larry Hryb: Motorsport, mm-hmm (affirmative) ...
Jeff Rubenstein: Uh, and there was, uh, two or three other indy games that were, were available, um, yeah all around the same time. And also, actually, Gwent ...
Larry Hryb: Oh.
Jeff Rubenstein: The Windows 10 version of Gwent.
Larry Hryb: It's, it's in game preview.
Jeff Rubenstein: Is in game preview ...
Laura Massey: Cool.
Jeff Rubenstein: It's a free download and it syncs up with your Xbox version, so go ahead and just ...
Larry Hryb: I just, I, I so worry about going back to that game. Because once I ...
Jeff Rubenstein: And we're going to have to do it.
Larry Hryb: Once I enter the Witcher universe, you just are gone.
Laura Massey: Mmm.
Jeff Rubenstein: Do, so you beat The Witcher, though, right?
Larry Hryb: Uh, well, I finished all of the main line.
Jeff Rubenstein: Okay, so you did beat the ...
Larry Hryb: Um, I haven't done the DLC yet.
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh, see I'm saving the DLCs for the Xbox One Enhanced Edition.
Larry Hryb: Oh, the DLCs, it is, I'm, I'm only about halfway through one, I, I finished the first DLC ...
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah.
Larry Hryb: And, I, I'm a little bit through the second, so ...
Jeff Rubenstein: That may be the first thing I jump back into.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: Because I cannot wait for that.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: And I heard they're just so good. So yes. Uh, anyway so one, that was one of the news bits is that Gwent is available. Do we want to segue, are we doing the full thing?
Larry Hryb: Yeah, let's, let's ...
Jeff Rubenstein: Did you play the stinger? You know, whatever?
Larry Hryb: Jeffery to the news desk.
Laura Massey: (Laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh, all right, yeah, yeah, now I feel better. So, uh, you mentioned Halloween's coming up ...
Larry Hryb: I did.
Jeff Rubenstein: And, uh, well, it wouldn't be Halloween without the Overwatch Halloween Terror 2017, and it is coming, uh, very soon. October 10th, we're only a few days away.
Laura Massey: Mmm.
Jeff Rubenstein: So, um, new skins. I, I, I feel like they, everyone jumps back into Overwatch every time there's a big, uh ... I mean, God, Summer Games, it, it was insane how many people were playing, so, um ...
Larry Hryb: Yeah, I remember playing with you and you're like, "Okay, I got my skin. Done."
Jeff Rubenstein: No, I ended up playing a ton over the summer.
Laura Massey: (Laughs)
Larry Hryb: No, you did, you did.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah.
Larry Hryb: But I remember it ...
Jeff Rubenstein: Well, yeah, but it took ... Ah, God, I must have spent $100 on loot boxes. I need to not to do that again, probably. Um, so I'm sure there, there's going to be new skins, I'm sure there going to bring back, uh, Dr. Junkenstein's Revenge. What changes may come, I don't know, but, uh, I jumped back in recently to try out the new D'Va sort of loadout with the misses and, and, um, Mercy with her completely revamped look, she's actually ...
Larry Hryb: I, I love my Mercy you know that.
Jeff Rubenstein: New Mercy is really good. They're going to nerf her slightly, I think because she's too good. But, um, battle Mercy is like, I'm, I'm all about it. Anyway, so, uh, Overwatch Halloween, new skins, can't wait to see what they look like.
Larry Hryb: Yes.
Jeff Rubenstein: All right. A lot of people talking about Battle Royale games. Of course, we've got PUBG we've been talking about, um ...
Laura Massey: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Jeff Rubenstein: Um, the Battle Royale version of Fortnite ...
Larry Hryb: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Jeff Rubenstein: Uh, which has been very popular, uh, and is now available on Xbox One. Um, The Culling ... So that was the first Battle Royale on console that I can think of.
Laura Massey: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Jeff Rubenstein: Uh, that came out last spring, it's sort of, it's more melee focused.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, I think it sounds about right, yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: Uh, and that was part of Game Preview, and now they've gone 1.0 so, achievements and all the like, uh, are ready to go. So, um, if you wanna scratch that Battle Royale itch, maybe could have picked a better analogy, uh, this is a good time to do it.
Larry Hryb: Yes.
Jeff Rubenstein: Uh, couple other games out, now, by the way. Uh, Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen, this is game that there's just dozens and dozens of hours. It came out in the 360 era, uh, and now it's sort of a, a remastered version.
Larry Hryb: That was a good era, I like that era.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, it was a good era.
Larry Hryb: (Laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: And through the magic of backwards compatibility you can still live in it.
Larry Hryb: That's right.
Laura Massey: That's true, that's great.
Larry Hryb: That's right, you can always go back.
Jeff Rubenstein: Uh, so Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen, that would be a game that you potentially my want to ... Definitely like, I'd say something about cult hit, but like, so much gameplay for this. Um, Batman The Enemy Within: Episode Two. This is the Telltale story ...
Laura Massey: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Jeff Rubenstein: Uh, uh, so Episode Two is now available on Xbox One. Uh, an indy game that I've heard a lot of good things about, N++, you may have played N+ ...
Laura Massey: Yeah.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: On, uh, on 360.
Laura Massey: We did.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: Uh, so N++ is now available on Xbox One.
Laura Massey: Awesome.
Larry Hryb: People were excited about that. They were like, "Wait a minute, I thought I was going to have to wait." Yeah, I saw some noise on, uh, some Twitter people were like very excited about that.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yes.
Larry Hryb: N++.
Jeff Rubenstein: Um, and another indy game that, um ... This is not my scene, but then again golf is not my scene and I love playing golf games. Uh, this look, this game looks really good, I've seen people play it. And that is: The Hunter Call of the Wild.
Larry Hryb: Not a golf game.
Jeff Rubenstein: Not a golf game ...
Larry Hryb: (Laughs)
Laura Massey: (Laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: But it's, I'm not a hunter, I, I don't, I don't, you know, I don't own ...
Larry Hryb: You are ...
Jeff Rubenstein: I don't go into Bass Pro Shops that often.
Larry Hryb: I, actually I disagree.
Jeff Rubenstein: Really?
Larry Hryb: You're a different type of hunter. I've seen you, when we go to Germany, you're hunting for those sneakers.
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh, well that's true.
Larry Hryb: (Laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: It's kind of the same thing, you have to go and you have to find like rare NMDs and, and Yeezys and stuff ...
Larry Hryb: Right.
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh, no, you have to shoot deer in the neck, but hey, it looks really cool.
Laura Massey: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Jeff Rubenstein: So, um, if you're a fan of hunting games, this one looks, uh, the graphics are just phenomenal. And really, it's better to kill like, fake animals than real ones, probably.
Larry Hryb: Yep.
Jeff Rubenstein: I, I mean, maybe, I don't know. I hear there's a lot of deer out there. I'm not the person to ask. Uh, and then finally ... Well, like if you took out the predators, you know, and there's not wolves to take off the ...
Laura Massey: (Laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: Everything gets out of whack. Kill the fake animals, please.
Laura Massey: (Laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: And finally a new Xbox One S, the Assassin's Creed Origins Bundle has been announced.
Larry Hryb: Yes it is. Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Jeff Rubenstein: Beautiful box.
Laura Massey: Oh, cool.
Jeff Rubenstein: The key art for Assassin's Creed Origins is phenomenal. Uh, and that launches October 27th, along with the game. So, uh ...
Larry Hryb: Can we talk about it for a second?
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, let's do it?
Larry Hryb: Here's a little tip ...
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh ...
Larry Hryb: I don't think anybody's told, I don't think this is public yet ...
Jeff Rubenstein: Shh, let's keep this one ...
Larry Hryb: I will be in New York on the evening of the 26th at the New York Microsoft store on beautiful 5th Avenue.
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh, that's just wonderful.
Larry Hryb: Ah, on the evening of the 26th, so if you're in the area I'll have more details on that probably next week or the week after. But there's just, block your calendars off, I'm coming to New York.
Jeff Rubenstein: So a little bit about this bundle. It's, ah, it's not, you would think, "Oh, it's just going to be an Xbox One S, with, or with Assassin's in ..." Of course ...
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: But, uh, two different versions. There's a one terabyte or a 500 gig, uh, hard drive. Has Assassin's Creed Origins download code of course, but also Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege, which, enjoying a very long life. Uh, a month of Xbox Game Pass subscription.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Jeff Rubenstein: And, uh, Xbox Live Gold, a 14-day trial experience if, if somehow you're listening to this show and don't have Gold, then, uh, well, that's one way to do it.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: It's going to be available for $349.00 USD, and, uh, you know, other, other values as well depending on your region and, and the size of the, the hard drive that you're looking for.
Larry Hryb: Uh, so there's a lot of selections and choices.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah. Oh, actually in the story it does mention it has the details on, uh, the, the launch event in New York, so ...
Larry Hryb: Oh it does?
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah.
Larry Hryb: Oh, okay, I didn't if we were ...
Jeff Rubenstein: Your name's not ... Oh, your name's on it.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Laura Massey: (Laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: All right, I'll just link out to it, how about that?
Larry Hryb: What? Why, why was it disa-, did I disappoint you?
Jeff Rubenstein: No, I thought that they had left you out of it. You're the ...
Larry Hryb: Oh, no, no.
Jeff Rubenstein: You're the real draw.
Larry Hryb: Ah, no, Assassin's Creed is the draw, I am merely just a vessel to deliver it. Or something like that.
Laura Massey: (Laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: Yes. Larry, he's a real vessel.
Larry Hryb: Ah. All right, what else you got there for news, Jeffrey?
Jeff Rubenstein: I think that's more than enough, don't we also ...
Larry Hryb: Really?
Jeff Rubenstein: Did I leave something out?
Larry Hryb: Is it? You know we're, what are we? Five or six weeks away from Xbox OneX launch? I'll be sharing ...
Jeff Rubenstein: Four, four weeks.
Larry Hryb: Four weeks.
Jeff Rubenstein: Nah, well a month. We'll just say a month.
Larry Hryb: I'll be, I'll be the, I'll be sharing details of where I'm going to be for launch for that. Laura? Let's do that probably in the next couple weeks.
Jeff Rubenstein: I don't know where I'm going to be.
Larry Hryb: You're going to be with me, right?
Jeff Rubenstein: I hope so.
Larry Hryb: Laura, you can come with us. Well can't say where it is yet, so ...
Laura Massey: Yeah, oh. Secret location.
Larry Hryb: It's not here. It's not here.
Laura Massey: Okay.
Larry Hryb: You will have to get on an air-o-plane to visit it.
Laura Massey: Ooh.
Jeff Rubenstein: Mmm, fancy.
Larry Hryb: That's, that's all I can say.
Jeff Rubenstein: Fly the friendly skies.
Laura Massey: Hope there's hints coming ...
Larry Hryb: All right, gang ...
Laura Massey: (Laughs)
Larry Hryb: Yes, so, we're going to, moving along here, I want to talk about, uh, after, we're going to do Name the Game now, if you're okay with ...
Laura Massey: Oh, okay, so time for Name the Game?
Larry Hryb: Yeah, time for Name the Game.
Laura Massey: Sure.
Larry Hryb: After that I'm going to tell you about, uh, I got a chance to see a preview of a movie that's out this weekend.
Jeff Rubenstein: What?
Larry Hryb: Blade Runner.
Laura Massey: Did you see Blade Runner?
Larry Hryb: I saw Blade ...
Laura Massey: You saw Blade Runner?
Larry Hryb: Yes.
Laura Massey: Awesome, can't wait to hear about it.
Larry Hryb: So, we'll talk about that in a second. All right, you ready?
Laura Massey: Yes, let's do Name the Game from last time ...
So that was Name the Game from last time, and the game was Maize.
Larry Hryb: Yes. I've been playing that.
Laura Massey: Spelled like co-, the corn maize ...
Larry Hryb: Right, right.
Laura Massey: Not the puzzle ...
Larry Hryb: M-A-Z-E, not M-A-Z-E.
Laura Massey: Correct.
Larry Hryb: Although it is, there is some puzzles in here.
Laura Massey: There is sort of a ...
Larry Hryb: There is a corn maze in Maize.
Laura Massey: Wow, that's great. But it is a good, uh ...
Jeff Rubenstein: That's gonna freak me out though.
Laura Massey: (Laughs). Exactly it's a good seasonal pick.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, that's true.
Laura Massey: With Halloween coming up.
Larry Hryb: It's thematic.
Jeff Rubenstein: A lot of corn mazes up here.
Laura Massey: Great game. There are, aren't there?
Jeff Rubenstein: We like the corn mazes.
Laura Massey: So, who was the winner?
Larry Hryb: Who was the winner? I'm asking you? Don't ask me.
Laura Massey: The winner was Grant from Cleveland, Ohio.
Larry Hryb: Cleveland ...
Laura Massey: Congratulations, Grant. His Gamertag is Sarcastic Junk. So, way to go ...
Larry Hryb: Yes ...
Laura Massey: Good job getting the answer correct.
Larry Hryb: What did, what did Grant win?
Laura Massey: Oh, my goodness, so ...
Jeff Rubenstein: A new Gamertag?
Laura Massey: (Laughs) No, not that. He got a lot of awesome stuff here. I got a big list. He got a copy of N++, which you chatted about before. He also got a copy of Inverse Deluxe, which is an ID Xbox game. A copy of Zombie Party, also a good seasonal pick, ID Xbox game. That's not all, he got a copy of Cuphead, a copy of FIFA 18 ...
Larry Hryb: Wow.
Laura Massey: The Ronaldo Edition.
Larry Hryb: That's Jeff's favorite.
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh ...
Laura Massey: Jeff's favorite.
Jeff Rubenstein: He's a good looking man.
Laura Massey: And you also, Grant, you also get a copy of Forza Motor, Motorsport 7, Ultimate Edition.
Larry Hryb: All right.
Laura Massey: Fantastic. Grant you also get a copy of an Xbox Live Prepaid one month EA Access membership, and ...
Larry Hryb: Wow, this is games, this is so many games.
Laura Massey: And, that's not all, you also get a copy of an Xbox Game Pass for three months.
Larry Hryb: Wow, so not ...
Laura Massey: So ...
Larry Hryb: So 100 games in there, plus all the rest of the games, this is ...
Laura Massey: So many games.
Larry Hryb: Grant, my Lord.
Laura Massey: You get so many games.
Larry Hryb: Busy, you are gonna be busy in Cleveland, my friend.
Laura Massey: That's right.
Larry Hryb: You are going to be busy in Cleveland.
Laura Massey: So many awesome games are on the list.
Jeff Rubenstein: I mean, when your Browns are O and four, you know, why don't you turn your attention to games?
Laura Massey: (Laughs)
Larry Hryb: Aw ...
Jeff Rubenstein: Games are good.
Larry Hryb: What about the Indians?
Jeff Rubenstein: The Indians are good.
Larry Hryb: The Indians are ...
Jeff Rubenstein: I know, I haven't played attention to the playoffs, are they doing all right? Let's just hope, let's hope so.
Laura Massey: All right, well ...
Larry Hryb: Thank you, Laura. (Laughs)
Laura Massey: Should we do another Name the Game?
Larry Hryb: Yes, to get out of this silly sports talk, yes.
Laura Massey: (Laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: Dancing or sports, you've had your choice.
Laura Massey: Oh, goodness. So if you, listener, would like to win those fabulous prizes, so many games, it's really easy: All you have to do is listen to these sound effects that I'm about to play, and then guess what game that is. So let's roll the sound effects ...
So that was Name the Game for this time. Again, you too could win fabulous prizes.
Larry Hryb: Fabulous.
Laura Massey: Super easy, all you have to do is send me an email ...
Larry Hryb: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Laura Massey: Lollipop@xbox.com, and CC Major@Xbox.com, and let us know what game that's from.
Larry Hryb: And what do they have to do when they email us? Because why don't you go through that a little ...
Laura Massey: Very easy; subject line: Name the Game, in the body of the email, what game that, those sounds are from. If you want to you can include your name and include your Gamertag, but all you have to do, just send us an email. Really simple. And if you can hear our voice ...
Larry Hryb: Yes.
Laura Massey: You can enter this contest.
Larry Hryb: That's it.
Jeff Rubenstein: I also apologize if you can hear our voice ...
Laura Massey: (Laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: It's ... You, you've made some decisions that you may not be happy with.
Laura Massey: You, you have, they've made some commitments ...
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah.
Laura Massey: But hey, they could win prizes for listening.
Jeff Rubenstein: That's true. That makes it worth more.
Larry Hryb: And to, and to quote Blake from Glengarry Glen Ross: "It's just waiting for you. Go pick up these prizes." He, it was the Alec Baldwin character.
Laura Massey: (Laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh, I only remember the, the, uh, the part about coffee being for closers.
Larry Hryb: Well it's the, it's in the same speech.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, yes.
Larry Hryb: And of course, you know ... Anyway, so, the, the prizes are waiting for you. Send us an email. All right, Laura?
Laura Massey: That's it.
Jeff Rubenstein: How about coffee? We should send coffee next time.
Laura Massey: I don't know if our listeners would enjoy coffee with their games.
Jeff Rubenstein: You gotta stay up late and grind out that light level, maybe a little bit more coffee and you'd be running a Nightfall with us tonight.
Laura Massey: Yeah, maybe. Maybe ...
Jeff Rubenstein: See? See? I can rationalize anything.
Laura Massey: (Laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: I had too much coffee, I think.
Larry Hryb: What, whatever you need ... Yeah, trust me, he has, he's on his ...
Laura Massey: Is his coffee right here? I can smell it.
Larry Hryb: Yes.
Jeff Rubenstein: yeah.
Laura Massey: (Laughs)
Larry Hryb: That's, that's coffee right there. I mean, I thought I drank a lot, you, you're just a ...
Jeff Rubenstein: It's good for you.
Larry Hryb: You're just an animal.
Jeff Rubenstein: That's what they ...
Laura Massey: I don't know if it is good for you ...
Jeff Rubenstein: They keep coming out, it's, it's ... All right, well, we'll find out eventually.
Laura Massey: I suppose we will.
Larry Hryb: So a couple things, ah, I teased this at the top of the show; I had a chance to see a screening ... By the time this airs, uh, it'll be out, is, uh, I saw, uh, Blade Runner, the new Blade Runner. 2047?
Laura Massey: That's super awesome.
Jeff Rubenstein: 2040 ...
Laura Massey: 2049.
Larry Hryb: 2049.
Jeff Rubenstein: Nine.
Larry Hryb: Right, I'm sorry about that. I don't know where 47 came from. Uh, so that's a lot of fun. I was thinking that this is the ... I've done, I've done a lot of press screenings. I've been, I've been doing movie press screenings for 25 years ...
Laura Massey: Awesome.
Larry Hryb: Just a long time.
Jeff Rubenstein: Back when they called them Talkies.
Laura Massey: (Laughs)
Larry Hryb: That's ... Can't, you can't see me, dear listeners, but I'm flipping Jeff off. (Laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: (Laughs) He is. He, he is.
Larry Hryb: Um, but I, I remember, this is the first screening I've ever been to where some, the representative from the marketing, or the studio came out and basically said, "If you talk about the film we'd like you not to include any plot details, or basically tell ... " Basically we can just say that we saw the film, that's it.
Laura Massey: Oh, really?
Larry Hryb: Yeah, it was very strange because there's a lot of ...
Laura Massey: It's not even under embargo.
Larry Hryb: I will say the, the film's beautiful and it's, it feels 80s sci-fi that's, okay, I've said enough.
Laura Massey: Awesome.
Jeff Rubenstein: I, you've sold me.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: Uh, the less I know the better ...
Laura Massey: I agree.
Larry Hryb: I will say this, though, Laura, when I, you know, one of the questions, because I've been doing this so long, I always ask, "So, how long is the film?" This film's two hours and 40 minutes.
Laura Massey: Woo.
Jeff Rubenstein: So, uh, you may wanna make a pit stop right before you head on in ...
Larry Hryb: Yeah, and so ... And hit, hit, hit ..
Jeff Rubenstein: And don't get the big soda.
Laura Massey: Yeah, nope.
Larry Hryb: Hit the little, you're gonna wanna hit the little developer's room on the way in there ...
Laura Massey: (Laughs) Oh, my God.
Larry Hryb: Because it, it is (Laughs) it is, it is, uh, woo, it's a long one. So, make sure you, uh, plan appropriately.
Laura Massey: Thanks for the tip.
Larry Hryb: You're gonna see that next week.
Laura Massey: Yes.
Larry Hryb: Ah, what else? You know what else I'm watching, is, um, is, I've been watching, uh, the Ken Burns Vietnam series.
Laura Massey: Oh, really?
Larry Hryb: Have you watched this on PBS?
Laura Massey: No, Mm-mm (negative).
Larry Hryb: Phenomenal. On the United States Public Broadcasting System. It is, I think I'm six or seven episodes in, and I don't know about you, Laura, or you Jeff, but, there's a lot I learned from this that kind of wasn't mentioned in my high school history classes, to be honest with you.
Laura Massey: Oh, really?
Larry Hryb: Yeah, there's, I was like, "Oh, really? Uh, what?"
Laura Massey: Do they just have the dope, or ...
Larry Hryb: Yeah, a lot, a lot of high level stuff was left over this, this, so if you get a chance to watch Ken Burns' Vietnam, I highly recommend it. Did you see it, Jeff?
Jeff Rubenstein: No, I'm going to rent Blade Runner. It's only on the Windows 10 like Movies and TV store it's $4.00, I'm just going to go ahead and rent it and I'm going to watch it.
Laura Massey: Yeah, it's a good precursor.
Jeff Rubenstein: I need to, I need to catch up.
Laura Massey: To remind yourself ...
Jeff Rubenstein: You got me excited for it. Ah, no, but I did watch that documentary on Netflix.
Larry Hryb: Oh, the one I, we were talking about, that right I, I tweeted that out ...
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, called The Longshot.
Larry Hryb: Longshot, have you seen this one, Laura?
Laura Massey: No.
Larry Hryb: This is a fascinating documentary. It's only about 40 minutes long, right Jeff?
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, yeah.
Larry Hryb: 40, 45 minutes long and it's a ... Go ahead.
Jeff Rubenstein: I feel like the less, all right ... Involved Larry David from ...
Larry Hryb: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Laura Massey: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Jeff Rubenstein: Curb Your Enthusiasm, and someone wrongly accused of murder.
Larry Hryb: That's all you need to know.
Jeff Rubenstein: That's all you need to ... And Dodger's Stadium.
Laura Massey: (Laughs)
Larry Hryb: That's all you need to know.
Jeff Rubenstein: You don't need to know anything else.
Larry Hryb: And, and go watch it, because it, it's on Netflix ...
Jeff Rubenstein: It ... yeah.
Larry Hryb: It's on Netflix.
Jeff Rubenstein: It was, it was really good.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: And maybe a little moving.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: So ...
Larry Hryb: It was, it was ... You know, I really don't want to say anything more than that.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah.
Laura Massey: Okay.
Larry Hryb: But go watch, 45 minutes.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah.
Laura Massey: Eh, that's not too bad.
Larry Hryb: Okay? Okay? In fact that, there's your homework, folks. Go watch the Vietnam on PBS, go watch, um, Longshot on ... I did a lot of stuff while I was traveling, I guess.
Laura Massey: That's because you had lots of time to watch ...
Larry Hryb: Well yeah, yeah in the airplane and the ...
Laura Massey: Watching movies and things.
Larry Hryb: Of course the plane was delayed and all the rest of that stuff.
Jeff Rubenstein: The usual, for Larry.
Laura Massey: So Larry has, so ...
Larry Hryb: Well it's funny because I work, somebody I work with, Ryan ...
Laura Massey: Yes.
Larry Hryb: Who's our, one of our video editors, when I arrived in Seattle on Sunday, I was, he ... Because I knew he was all, "Hey, are you going somewhere?" He was, he was headed down to San Francisco for the virtual reality event ...
Laura Massey: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Larry Hryb: Uh, that we had earlier in the week.
Laura Massey: Right.
Larry Hryb: And he said, "Oh, yeah, I'm, I'm at, at, I think I'm at gate 810." And I said, "Oh, that's my plane. I'm, you know, you're gonna take my plane down to San Francisco." So, I have a, we, it's well documented I have terrible travel karma.
Laura Massey: You do.
Jeff Rubenstein: The worst.
Larry Hryb: You never want to see me getting on your airplane, because that means there's gonna be a problem. Sure enough, uh, Ryan texts me like an hour later. They were stuck at the gate for like an hour and a half or so, because there was a problem. So, I was, even when I'm not on the plane, my karma stink stays there.
Laura Massey: (Laughs)
Larry Hryb: (Laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, that one time we flew together.
Larry Hryb: Right?
Jeff Rubenstein: I got sick. That was ...
Larry Hryb: So ...
Jeff Rubenstein: That was not about, at first I thought it was about me, because I normally assumed ...
Larry Hryb: Which, which, when was this?
Jeff Rubenstein: When we went to PAX East ...
Larry Hryb: Oh, no.
Jeff Rubenstein: That was about making your flight miserable.
Larry Hryb: No, but then there was the ...
Jeff Rubenstein: You had the middle chair and I was gonna vomit on you for five hours.
Larry Hryb: That's, that's right. Well that was when we were playing Switch and you were getting angry at me. (Laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: Yes, oh my God, I don't want to think about that.
Laura Massey: That reminds me ...
Larry Hryb: Yes.
Laura Massey: I finally got a Switch and I've been playing Zelda.
Larry Hryb: Oh.
Jeff Rubenstein: That's a good one.
Laura Massey: I just, just started. It's so good.
Larry Hryb: Now you know why we were talking about it at PAX, right?
Laura Massey: Yes, exactly. It's fantastic. Huge world, so much to do, and like I think what you were saying about it, like if you have an idea of what you could do, you could do it.
Larry Hryb: It, it's the game that says, "Yes."
Laura Massey: (Laughs) The game that says, "Yes." But, yes ...
Jeff Rubenstein: That's a good way of putting it.
Larry Hryb: It's the game that always just says, "Yep, you wanna do that? Yes you can. You wanna go over there? Yes you can. You wanna die like that? Yes you can." (Laughs)
Laura Massey: Yeah, yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: (Laughs) Can and will.
Larry Hryb: I think, I think actually have some, I don't know if I have them on here ... I had some Zelda sounds ...
Laura Massey: Yes, the sounds are iconic.
Larry Hryb: So how ... Yeah, well, well some of them are just, I mean, the sound design in that particular game is just, is just phenomenal anyway.
Laura Massey: Oh, it is.
Larry Hryb: Do I have any in here.
Laura Massey: And you can probably guess what I started doing immediately.
Larry Hryb: What, fishing?
Laura Massey: Collecting things and cooking them.
Larry Hryb: Oh, yeah.
Laura Massey: Farming.
Larry Hryb: Oh, oh, yes.
Laura Massey: (Laughs)
Larry Hryb: So you need to learn how to cook things properly ...
Laura Massey: Yes.
Larry Hryb: Because there's a lot of, uh ...
Laura Massey: Huge recipes ...
Larry Hryb: There's a lot of ...
Laura Massey: I've been experimenting.
Larry Hryb: There's a lot of recipes you could, you could do really well with, so ...
Laura Massey: Yeah, I'd love to get that list, because I've just been guessing and checking.
Larry Hryb: No, no, there's, there's some good stuff there. Because there, you get, have you gotten the bonus yet? Where it kind of goes ...
Laura Massey: Yes. And then you, and then you get five ...
Larry Hryb: And Link gets really excited.
Laura Massey: Yes, and you get a five ...
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Laura Massey: Hearts instead of just the two that you were expecting.
Larry Hryb: Yeah. Anyway, so we don't want to talk too much about that, because you're gonna have fun with that.
Laura Massey: Yes.
Larry Hryb: Because you're never gonna, you're never gonna finish your other games, because that, that game, that game sucked me in for like two months.
Jeff Rubenstein: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Laura Massey: That game is ...
Jeff Rubenstein: I still never made it.
Laura Massey: Huge.
Jeff Rubenstein: I feel terrible about that.
Larry Hryb: Anyway, what, what I was talking about is we've been on more planes, what about the time we went to Alamogordo?
Jeff Rubenstein: That was a, I mean, that, we, we were on time, but then we had to go to the remote terminal ...
Larry Hryb: That was a bizarre one. That's where we actually had to walk out on the tarmac at LAX.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yes.
Larry Hryb: Remember that?
Jeff Rubenstein: And ...
Larry Hryb: (Laughs)
Laura Massey: Oh, my goodness.
Jeff Rubenstein: It was probably ...
Larry Hryb: It was like 90 degrees.
Jeff Rubenstein: Maybe the bumpiest flight I've ever had ...
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: The one going into El Paso.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Jeff Rubenstein: Um, but then we ...
Laura Massey: When you went to ...
Larry Hryb: Alamogordo ...
Jeff Rubenstein: The ET Dig.
Laura Massey: Yes.
Larry Hryb: The ET Dig.
Laura Massey: The, the ET thing. The dump where you were digging up trash.
Larry Hryb: Yes, oh, God.
Jeff Rubenstein: And then we went to a fast food restaurant in El Paso and they immediately recognized you.
Laura Massey: (Laughs)
Larry Hryb: It happens.
Jeff Rubenstein: And, and didn't hook it up.
Laura Massey: Oh, my goodness, that's amazing.
Larry Hryb: Yes, yes, I'm that guy.
Jeff Rubenstein: The tea had never been sweeter.
Larry Hryb: You ... (Laughs)
Laura Massey: (Laughs)
Larry Hryb: Anyway, it was ... Did we, didn't we get stopped? Remember there was that weird ...
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh, we did, yeah.
Larry Hryb: That weird border control, which is nowhere near the border.
Jeff Rubenstein: Like in the middle of nowhere, yeah.
Larry Hryb: In the middle of nowhere there's a border control place.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah.
Laura Massey: Oh.
Larry Hryb: That you have to pull over.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yep.
Larry Hryb: And we got waved through.
Jeff Rubenstein: That we did.
Laura Massey: Good.
Larry Hryb: "Where you boys going?" (Laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: A landfill, sir. (Laughs)
Laura Massey: Going to the dump. (Laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: All right.
Larry Hryb: "What you doing?" Digging up cartridges.
Laura Massey: Okay ...
Larry Hryb: Have a nice day. (Laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: (Laughs)
Laura Massey: Off you go.
Larry Hryb: Anyways, so, uh, I want to hear more about your Link experience.
Laura Massey: Yes.
Larry Hryb: Um, did you, did you, did you send me your Friend's Code?
Laura Massey: No.
Larry Hryb: I'll send you my Friend's Code.
Laura Massey: Okay.
Larry Hryb: Because it's ...
Laura Massey: Is there any kind of multiplayer?
Larry Hryb: Not, not with that game, but at least I can ...
Laura Massey: Okay.
Larry Hryb: You can, I can creep on you and see how long, how many hours you play.
Laura Massey: (Laughs)
Larry Hryb: I can't, there's not rich presents, but I can see that you played the game ...
Laura Massey: I see ..
Larry Hryb: And how many hours you play, that's it.
Laura Massey: That's all you can see? That part?
Larry Hryb: Yeah, so ... Are you ...
Laura Massey: How many hours have you put into it?
Larry Hryb: Ooh, well north of 120.
Laura Massey: Goodness gracious.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, well north of that.
Laura Massey: How long does it take?
Jeff Rubenstein: He's a traveling man.
Laura Massey: Yes, how long does (Laughs) ... That's true. How long did take to finish the story?
Larry Hryb: I, so here's the thing, and I, I don't know if I've mentioned this, uh, I have not finished the story.
Laura Massey: 100 hours, and not finished.
Larry Hryb: Because I know ...
Jeff Rubenstein: Also you can basically after like the first hour, if you wanted to, and were amazing, you could just run straight towards Ganon and kill him.
Laura Massey: Oh.
Larry Hryb: So there's, there's a ... Yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: I wouldn't recommend it.
Laura Massey: No.
Larry Hryb: There, I know that there's a castle in the center of the map, but I know that I have to go there to finish it, and I keep, I'm like, "Yeah, okay. I'm okay ..."
Jeff Rubenstein: I'm not ready, yeah.
Larry Hryb: I'm going to go over here, and I'm going to do this thing, and I'm going to go over here and do this thing, and I'm gonna ... I just, I just, I'm having so much fun in the world.
Laura Massey: Yes.
Larry Hryb: So I'm like I'm kind of, I'm kind of putting off the inevitable. So ...
Laura Massey: I see.
Larry Hryb: Anyway, uh, I look forward to hearing what you say about that, so ...
Laura Massey: Cool.
Larry Hryb: Uh, what else can I tell you? Um, gee whiz. Hey, you know what I loading on my phone, Laura? Take a look at this, I was showing, showing Jeffery this at lunch. That you can now, you can now get ... Down here. You can now get the Edge browser ...
Laura Massey: Edge.
Larry Hryb: On your, on your IOS device, and your Android device.
Laura Massey: Yes. Awesome.
Jeff Rubenstein: And I think the best part about that, I believe there's like a functionality where if you're looking at something on your desktop, or your laptop, then you can pick it right up there on your phone.
Larry Hryb: And vice versa.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah.
Laura Massey: Oh, that's a fantastic feature.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yes.
Larry Hryb: Right?
Laura Massey: Pick up where you left off.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Jeff Rubenstein: Exactly.
Larry Hryb: I think I, I think all I end up doing is I think I either, whatever I, whatever I'm reading, and I want to remember to go look at it later, I think I text it to one of you guys.
Laura Massey: (Laughs)
Larry Hryb: Hey, did you see this? Why is he sending me that? That's so I can look at it later.
Laura Massey: (Laughs)
Larry Hryb: So, you're, you're my living book, uh, bookmarks gang.
Jeff Rubenstein: (Laughs)
Larry Hryb: Somewhat. Anyway, what else do we have to discuss, Jeffrey?
Jeff Rubenstein: No, nothing, I think I'm good.
Laura Massey: So I little bit of news.
Larry Hryb: Oh.
Jeff Rubenstein: Wha?
Larry Hryb: Oh, news.
Jeff Rubenstein: This is a surprise. Unrehearsed.
Larry Hryb: This is.
Laura Massey: Yep. And rehearsed. You guys know or remember me talking about an application that we built for Holland called Onsite?
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah.
Larry Hryb: The Mars ...
Laura Massey: Yeah, that's the tool that we worked with JPL to allow their scientists to better explore Mars.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Laura Massey: That was nominated for a Unity Award. Unity is the engine that we built that experience in.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, a lot of games are built using Unity.
Laura Massey: A lot of games and, um, mixed reality and VR games are built in Unity.
Larry Hryb: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Laura Massey: That was up for an award.
Larry Hryb: Oh.
Laura Massey: Mixed reality, best augmented reality or mixed reality experience.
Larry Hryb: Who, do you remember who else was in that category.
Laura Massey: There was some other games. A mural drawer, I can't remember the others. I didn't really look through ...
Larry Hryb: They didn't send you to Mars, though.
Laura Massey: Yes ...
Larry Hryb: None of them sent, only yours sent you to Mars.
Laura Massey: Exactly. So I was really excited to be even nominated.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Laura Massey: To be considered as part of one of the best mixed reality experiences that have been made on Unity.
Larry Hryb: That was one of my very first, uh, holo lens experiences.
Laura Massey: That's right. And I, and I think I worked with you then.
Larry Hryb: You did.
Laura Massey: Yep.
Larry Hryb: Because, remember I was like crawling all over the place.
Laura Massey: You, you were. (Laughs)
Larry Hryb: I was like an animal.
Laura Massey: Yes.
Jeff Rubenstein: That seems like something you would do.
Larry Hryb: I remember Laura standing on the desk saying, "What the fudge is he doing?"
Jeff Rubenstein: (Laughs)
Laura Massey: Yeah, and I think I told you afterwards like you were the most mobile person ...
Larry Hryb: (Laughs) Right.
Laura Massey: That I had taken through that demo.
Larry Hryb: Right, I was, I was trying to break it. (Laughs)
Laura Massey: Yeah. (Laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: Well, and we actually forgot a news bit that you just jogged my memory ... We had a big mixed reality moment in San Francisco this week, where, Samsung unveiled their ...
Larry Hryb: We'll get back to Laura, hold on.
Jeff Rubenstein: Their mixed reality headset.
Larry Hryb: Jeff's just T-boning your conversation.
Laura Massey: Right?
Jeff Rubenstein: No, I thought we wrapped up. Congratulations ... No, I'll back off.
Larry Hryb: Did she, did she say she won.
Jeff Rubenstein: No.
Larry Hryb: She was building up to that ... (Laughs)
Laura Massey: (Laughs) I was ...
Jeff Rubenstein: You won, yeah of course you won.
Laura Massey: Yeah, Onsite won.
Larry Hryb: Yay.
Laura Massey: Yay, we are now an award-winning application.
Larry Hryb: Yes. Good for you.
Laura Massey: Which is awesome.
Larry Hryb: Now, how do people if they, if they, how do they, can they experience this now?
Laura Massey: No, it's only, you have to be a scientist working at JPL?
Larry Hryb: But, but is it still down at NASA?
Laura Massey: Mm-mm (negative)
Larry Hryb: It's, they pulled out of Florida?
Laura Massey: There was a version of it that was ...
Larry Hryb: Right.
Laura Massey: Created at, at a story-telling experience that you could go to Kennedy Space Center in Florida ...
Larry Hryb: Right.
Laura Massey: Called Destination Mars ...
Larry Hryb: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Laura Massey: And be able to walk around Mars and ...
Larry Hryb: Yup.
Laura Massey: See the same version of Mars that the scientists see. But that was much more of a, an entertainment and, and story telling experience because Buzz Aldrin, the second man on the moon ...
Larry Hryb: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Laura Massey: Narrated you through it, and you saw a hologram of him just, uh, captured in, in true life, you get to see him ...
Larry Hryb: I remember, I remember when they were shooting that.
Laura Massey: You do.
Larry Hryb: With, with Buzz, yeah.
Laura Massey: Yeah.
Larry Hryb: I remember when they were shooting that.
Laura Massey: Did you get to meet him then?
Larry Hryb: I was, I was in awe. I was, I was complete, I was ... Very few people will stop me dead in my tracks, he was one of them.
Laura Massey: Oh, yes.
Larry Hryb: Anyway.
Laura Massey: So much charisma.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Laura Massey: Like, just amazing. Oh, yeah, so there was an experience that you could have gone to see, but I think that's closed now.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Laura Massey: It closed in January, I think of this year.
Larry Hryb: Sad face.
Laura Massey: Yeah.
Larry Hryb: Sad face.
Laura Massey: But, good news is that JPL is still using the application.
Larry Hryb: Yep.
Laura Massey: And now it's an award-winning one ...
Jeff Rubenstein: Yay, well congratulations to you, Laura, that's ...
Larry Hryb: Congratulations.
Laura Massey: Thank you.
Larry Hryb: Yes Jeffrey, now would you like to talk about ... (Laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah there's some other mixed reality stuff that's cool.
Laura Massey: (Laughs)
Larry Hryb: No, no, go through it a little bit.
Jeff Rubenstein: Well, uh, sorry about that.
Laura Massey: That's all right, continue.
Jeff Rubenstein: Um, she said mixed reality, I was like, "Oh, my God, how did I forget that?"
Laura Massey: Yeah, we had the October 3rd event.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah.
Laura Massey: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Jeff Rubenstein: Um, and you made the mistake of taking an inhalation of breath to continue your story and I was like, "She's done."
Laura Massey: (Laughs)
Larry Hryb: (Laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: Um, so yes, Samsung, so a number of our partners like Acer and, and Dell and Asus, and ... Have, have, have announced, um, uh, over the, the course of, of several months, uh, a number of different headsets, and now Samsung has joined with the HMD Odyssey, which is cool. Look, it has these, uh, built-in headphones, uh ...
Laura Massey: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Jeff Rubenstein: Or earphones, rather, which looks really cool. Uh, we've, uh, AltspaceVR has joined Microsoft, which is cool.
Laura Massey: Yep.
Jeff Rubenstein: In terms of like uh, a community building.
Laura Massey: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Jeff Rubenstein: Uh, and, and I found that having an avatar, you know, on Xbox is cool, and we all know each other's avatars and we can see who's online and things like that. But when you're in VR, having that, that avatar really like, brings home that you're talking to another person, and it really adds like a really awesome extra.
Larry Hryb: Unless, unless you've seen my Xbox Live avatars.
Jeff Rubenstein: Well, when you've used the clown ...
Laura Massey: Um, you, you've had some creepy ones.
Larry Hryb: Or the care, or the carrot.
Laura Massey: I remember the carrot.
Larry Hryb: Or the butter covered clown. (Laughs)
Laura Massey: Oh ...
Larry Hryb: Change it back to ...
Laura Massey: Yeah, you had the gold clown that was butter covered.
Larry Hryb: (Laughs)
Laura Massey: I will steer clear of your avatar.
Larry Hryb: Woo.
Laura Massey: It's a little scary.
Larry Hryb: I just find the most disturbing things and try to put them out there.
Laura Massey: Have you dressed as a clown? Because I know you were scared of clowns, just like many other people, like ...
Larry Hryb: Well, I'm ... Could you, could you be a little more specific in your question, your line of questioning, your honor? (Laughs)
Laura Massey: Has your avatar (Laughs) dressed as a clown?
Larry Hryb: Yes, once.
Laura Massey: How did that make you feel?
Larry Hryb: It, it, it kept me up at night.
Laura Massey: Yeah. (Laughs)
Larry Hryb: I'll be honest with you, it kept me up at night. No I do not like clowns.
Laura Massey: Nope.
Larry Hryb: I haven't seen, what's the clown movie? It?
Laura Massey: It? Oh, goodness gracious, no. I saw lots of pictures of people who were at the early screenings of It and they'd walk into the theater ...
Larry Hryb: Right.
Laura Massey: The first person in, completely dark, you know, previews haven't started rolling ...
Larry Hryb: Right.
Laura Massey: And there's a clown with a red balloon ...
Larry Hryb: Yeah, yeah.
Laura Massey: And he's sitting in the back.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Laura Massey: I would have just turned around and walked out.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, that's it, I'm done.
Laura Massey: No thanks.
Larry Hryb: Jeff, I know you love clowns.
Jeff Rubenstein: They don't bother me the way they bother you, but I'm just not a fan.
Larry Hryb: Oh, they will. They will. You'll grow into it.
Laura Massey: (Laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: Is it something that happens, like a late life phobia?
Larry Hryb: Yeah, exactly ... (Laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: Like developing a, an allergy to sunlight or something? It happens.
Larry Hryb: Yes.
Jeff Rubenstein: Um, yeah. And then the last thing is like, so what are you going to play? What are you going to do on the, on these mixed reality headsets?
Laura Massey: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Jeff Rubenstein: Well, quite a few things. So a number of things over the, and other apps of course, but you know, we're, this is Xbox, so ... Um, games like Space Pirate Trainer, which I'm a huge fan of. Superhot, uh, Arizona Sunshine ...
Laura Massey: Which, Superhot won for the best VR game on Unity Awards.
Jeff Rubenstein: It's so good, it's so ... I mean it was a great game on ID at Xbox, in VR it's phenomenal, too.
Larry Hryb: Oh, yeah, it's the one where you're moving around and your shooting, right ...
Laura Massey: It's intense like ...
Jeff Rubenstein: And, and nothing moves unless you move, yeah.
Larry Hryb: Right, right, right, right. That's cool.
Jeff Rubenstein: Um, ah, and then, like big announcement was that, um, Halo Recruit, like an introduction into the world of Halo, uh, in, in mixed reality, that got announced and people got to try it out. And I didn't get to try it out, yet. Did you get to try it out, yet?
Larry Hryb: I have not, um, I actually was in a meeting about a month ago, they were talking about it, I was like, "I need to try that."
Jeff Rubenstein: You need to, why don't we prioritize that? We should do that.
Larry Hryb: You want I should get us a demo?
Jeff Rubenstein: I, I wouldn't say no.
Laura Massey: (Laughs)
Larry Hryb: Okay. Laura do you know anybody who can give us a demo?
Laura Massey: I think I do.
Larry Hryb: Oh, see.
Jeff Rubenstein: Hmm.
Larry Hryb: She was being quiet until asked.
Laura Massey: I know, I might be able to find a way.
Larry Hryb: All right.
Jeff Rubenstein: So anyway these uh, these headsets, the Acer, Dell, HP, Lenovo and Samsung, all available now for pre-order. And, um, also I believe shipping this holiday, including like, this month. So, uh, there's a lot of MR and VR things, so I'll just link out to that in the notes. It's an exciting time to be alive, Larry.
Laura Massey: It sure is. Lots of awesome things happening.
Larry Hryb: But you can't go to Mars.
Jeff Rubenstein: Not yet.
Laura Massey: Unless you're a scientist at JPL.
Larry Hryb: Unless you're a scientist at JPL.
Laura Massey: (Laughs)
Larry Hryb: All right then ...
Laura Massey: Maybe soon though.
Larry Hryb: I think ...
Laura Massey: I hear Elon Musk is really hot on it.
Larry Hryb: Is he? Is he?
Laura Massey: Yes, yes.
Larry Hryb: He's, he's got his hands full.
Jeff Rubenstein: He's a busy guy.
Larry Hryb: He's got his hands full right now.
Laura Massey: Yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: Give me my three first ...
Larry Hryb: He needs to learn how to, (Laughs) he needs how to learn how to say no.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah.
Laura Massey: (Laughs)
Larry Hryb: Right. He needs to learn how to say, "No, I think we're gonna focus on this thing right now." But good for Elon.
Laura Massey: (Laughs)
Larry Hryb: I think he listens to, I wonder if he listens to the show. I know, I know, I'm pretty sure he plays Xbox. Somebody told me he plays Xbox, yeah.
Laura Massey: Really?
Jeff Rubenstein: Really? Does he follow you? Can you DM him?
Larry Hryb: Uh, I don't recall if he does, I'll go check. Yeah.
Laura Massey: (Laughs)
Larry Hryb: I should know that.
Jeff Rubenstein: Maybe you follow him ...
Larry Hryb: If he does, I, I'm pretty sure he doesn't because otherwise I'd be sending him feature requests for my Model X.
Laura Massey: (Laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: Ah.
Larry Hryb: Because I've already got about two pages of feature requests, so ...
Laura Massey: (Laughs)
Larry Hryb: There you go with that. All right, Laura, we're gonna wrap things up here.
Laura Massey: Okay.
Larry Hryb: We'll be, we'll be back next ... Unless you have anything else. Do you have any other awards you want to talk about?
Laura Massey: No. (Laughs) no.
Jeff Rubenstein: I'll cut you off.
Larry Hryb: All right.
Jeff Rubenstein: I'll do it.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Laura Massey: (Laughs)
Larry Hryb: It's like (Laughs) don't, don't tempt him.
Laura Massey: That is a fantastic offer-
Larry Hryb: So this is the, uh, this is the show that is the award-winning ... We talk about awards ... (Laughs)
Laura Massey: (Laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: Do we? Did we win an award? The Streamies?
Larry Hryb: You know you can find us on, you know you can find us on Spotify.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yes.
Laura Massey: Oh? That's awesome.
Larry Hryb: This, this show is now on Spotify, so if you're a Spotify subscriber just go over there, look up podcasts, search on Major Nelson, bam! Be right there. So it's pretty straight forward, so we'd love to, uh ...
Jeff Rubenstein: Like and subscribe.
Laura Massey: (Laughs)
Larry Hryb: Like ... No, I don't do that thing. I, but I will say this is, uh, you know I have my playlist over on, uh, Spotify, Jeff, you that.
Jeff Rubenstein: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Laura Massey: Which playlist?
Larry Hryb: The, my, my gaming playlist.
Laura Massey: I didn't know you published a playlist.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, I did it last month.
Laura Massey: Oh.
Larry Hryb: You don't listen to me. You don't listen to me Laura.
Laura Massey: You didn't tweet it out.
Larry Hryb: Oh, I did. (Laughs)
Laura Massey: Maybe when, not in the hours I'm awake.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, exactly, and maybe you were too busy doing something else.
Jeff Rubenstein: Were you the one telling me about the Cuphead soundtrack?
Larry Hryb: Mm-mm (negative), is that ...
Jeff Rubenstein: Apparently this Cuphead soundtrack is charted on like the Billboard jazz records.
Larry Hryb: God bless them.
Laura Massey: That's awesome.
Jeff Rubenstein: It's a great soundtrack, it's so good.
Larry Hryb: It's on vinyl but anyway, uh, my, I refreshed my playlist on there as well.
Jeff Rubenstein: Well that should be on there, put some Cuphead tracks ...
Larry Hryb: I have a lot of good stuff on there. I think it is. It's, it's gaming themed and ... Go ahead, look for it, Laura.
Laura Massey: I will look for it.
Larry Hryb: Go ahead and look for it while we wrap things up.
Laura Massey: (Laughs)
Larry Hryb: All right Jeff, any final words before we, uh, we, we, um fade to ...
Jeff Rubenstein: I said more than enough.
Larry Hryb: Fade to black.
Jeff Rubenstein: Too much, one would say. Edit me out.
Larry Hryb: Laura?
Laura Massey: Thanks for listening.
Larry Hryb: Gang, we'll see you guys next time. We don't know when or where that will be, but we'll see you there. Thanks for listening. Have a great time, and we'll see you on Xbox live. Bye, bye everybody.
Laura Massey: Bye.
Jeff Rubenstein: Bye.

Larry Hryb: Hi, it's Larry Hyrb. Xbox Live's Major Nelson, Show 607. The gang is here. It's Fall up here in the Northern Hemisphere. We're getting ready for the launch of Xbox One X. So a lot's going on here. Hi, Laura.
Laura Massey: Hello.
Larry Hryb: Did I get it all out in time? I feel like I just blurted a bunch of stuff.
Laura Massey: Just all-
Jeff Rubenstein: At the top of the hour-
Larry Hryb: And then Jeffrey's here.
Jeff Rubenstein: Hi.
Larry Hryb: Jeffrey's here.
Jeff Rubenstein: How are you, sir?
Larry Hryb: It's nice to see you. We're back in the ... You know we have a special guest this week?
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, actually he's so special-
Larry Hryb: How special is he?
Jeff Rubenstein: ... that VICE UK has penned up an introduction. Let's talk a little bit about Albert Penello. A word on Albert, I'm now quoting: "Albert is possibly the most enthusiastic and American man I've ever, ever met-"
Larry Hryb: Enthusiastic and American?
Jeff Rubenstein: "... and I want to deeply be his best friend, but as our conversation unfolds, it becomes clear that he already has a best friend, and that best friend is the Xbox One X, available November 7th and unless I have the capability to render 4K-quality footage of a non-4K TV, it is sadly gonna be a very one-sided match in terms of who gets to be Albert's best friend, with me, once again, losing to an Xbox."
Larry Hryb: Well this is ... That was beautiful. Can we put a link to that?
Albert Penello: Why am I friends with you guys?
Larry Hryb: That is extraordinary.
Jeff Rubenstein: I will link to that.
Albert Penello: I'm getting no end of grief about that quote.
Laura Massey: Aww.
Albert Penello: Who was the author? His name is just escaping me right now. I want to just let him know ... I'll tell him I'm making room, I'm booting off a best friend.
Larry Hryb: Do you remember this interview?
Albert Penello: I do. Well, I remember a lot of interviews.
Larry Hryb: Sure.
Albert Penello: And yeah, I am very enthusiastic and I've been on the road, which I'm sure we'll talk about. I've been on the road a lot with Mr. Rubes himself, so I did a lot of interviews and I guess I was pretty enthusiastic, evidently.
Larry Hryb: So as you've probably figured out, Albert's here to talk about ... This past week, Xbox One X pre-orders lit up around the world-
Albert Penello: Around the world.
Larry Hryb: Which is unbelievable. We're actually shipping ... You would know this, because you've been here a little bit longer than I have, this console will ship to the most regions we've ever shipped to at one time, correct? Is that accurate?
Albert Penello: I'd have to go back and look. 360 was pretty close. We might have launched in more regions in 360 but we had very few units.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, I just remember with 360 ... The one thing I remember about that, and you'll remember this, we're gonna get into old-school stuff here, Laura.
Laura Massey: Back in the day.
Larry Hryb: Back in the day. I remember, in a meeting with Peter Moore and we had to airlift the consoles in, remember?
Albert Penello: Oh, yeah.
Larry Hryb: Because they were produced and we needed to get them into the country so fast, and you know, most people that come over from production overseas, you put on a boat because it's cheap. Flying consoles in, not cheap.
Laura Massey: Not cheap at all.
Albert Penello: Not cheap, no. They were heavy pallets of consoles, yes.
Larry Hryb: But we're not doing that. In fact, we're not doing-
Jeff Rubenstein: Did they parachute in? You know, like an airdrop?
Larry Hryb: So we just airdropped them in,
Albert Penello: Yeah, that's what it sounds like.
Larry Hryb: But anyway, Albert's here to talk about Xbox One X, which we had a lot of press. You were out doing interviews and a lot of that stuff came off embargo this week, so-
Albert Penello: Yeah, yesterday. We've been out for ... I've been at my house for like a sum total of four days in the last six or eight weeks, I think.
Laura Massey: My goodness.
Albert Penello: So yeah, it's-
Laura Massey: How do you do your laundry?
Albert Penello: How do ... Well, I have a wonderful wife who, you know, when we talk about what games we're playing, the game I'm playing is hide and seek with my daughter. I'd like to be playing Destiny, but my wife says, "Your destiny is to play with your daughter."
Larry Hryb: There you go.
Jeff Rubenstein: I had to do the same thing, but I said, "Honey, why don't you go hide? Da-da's gonna be in this room, playing Destiny."
Larry Hryb: Count to a thousand. See, and as somebody who has a new little girl, I can't do any of that yet because she's too young. So I'll get there eventually.
Laura Massey: You can't hide yet.
Larry Hryb: But it's great to have you back on the show. We're gonna talk about what you're doing and obviously we teed it up a little bit but a lot of really exciting stuff here.
Albert Penello: Yep, tons of stuff.
Larry Hryb: There's the consoles, Phil tweeted out Panos is over in China, they're starting to come off the line.
Albert Penello: Touching stuff.
Larry Hryb: Touching stuff for some reason. Anyway, it's funny because we were getting ready for you to come in here and Laura came in here and sat down, cause this is actually a true story. Today ... This is the first time I've seen Jeff in a week plus since the last show and this is the first time Laura I've seen you since the last show.
Laura Massey: That's right, we've been busy.
Larry Hryb: We've been all busy around here but, you know, when Laura came in I said "Hey, Albert's coming by" she said "Oh, great! What's he gonna talk about?" I said "Well, you know, Xbox One X." She's like "Yeah, yeah, yeah." And I said "We're gonna talk about Xbox One X Enhanced." She's like "What's that?"
Albert Penello: Come on.
Laura Massey: Yes, that's what I said.
Larry Hryb: She's been busy.
Laura Massey: And then I asked if there's a new acronym for it and you were like "No."
Larry Hryb: So I said "Well, we'll talk to Albert about it." Usually we start the top of the show talking about what we're playing. We talked a little but about Destiny. I finished that game. Have you finished it?
Laura Massey: You finished it? Already?
Larry Hryb: I finished the-
Jeff Rubenstein: The campaign.
Larry Hryb: The campaign.
Jeff Rubenstein: Which is very well done.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, it's delightful.
Jeff Rubenstein: I'm actually on the last part.
Larry Hryb: So you're on the last mission.
Laura Massey: I'm still working through it.
Larry Hryb: Okay, and Albert, we know, is playing hide and seek with his daughter.
Albert Penello: Yeah, and Sonic Mania is actually the game ... I was using my own gamertag, so I really was, been playing a bit of Sonic Mania.
Jeff Rubenstein: There was the time where ... So, your console was the one that wasn't loaded with a non, you know, prototype game or beta game? And so at some point someone came in to the LA stop we were at and they were like "Who loaded Destiny onto this?" And I just sorta slinked out of the room.
Albert Penello: Yeah, he downloaded Destiny onto my account, which is wonderful of him. Jeff is a real bro there. [crosstalk 00:05:19] He's a real pal but I haven't had a chance to play it yet. Well, the funny thing is I actually worked at Sega back when they launched the original Sonic.
Laura Massey: Oh, really?
Albert Penello: So I have an affinity for Sonic media, it's fun to watch.
Laura Massey: I have an affinity for Sonic, too.
Larry Hryb: Now what is your affinity? Laura, tell me about your affinity.
Laura Massey: The Sega Genesis was my first console. I wasn't allowed a console growing up but then finally my father gave in to the family and we got a Sega Genesis [crosstalk 00:05:42]
Larry Hryb: It's a great choice.
Laura Massey: Of course Sonic was the best game to play.
Larry Hryb: Oh yeah.
Albert Penello: That was the best game. That was your first console? I was in college.
Laura Massey: How old does that make you feel?
Albert Penello: I am way too old. That's the console I brought to college.
Jeff Rubenstein: I did see you-
Laura Massey: I was honestly an older kid. I was in middle school, I think at that point.
Albert Penello: Okay, so I don't feel so bad.
Jeff Rubenstein: So you were there when Sonic launched?
Albert Penello: I was at Sega answering telephones-
Jeff Rubenstein: Okay.
Albert Penello: - when Sonic launched.
Laura Massey: Do you know all the secrets still?
Albert Penello: This is a story for another time, but yes I actually ... This is how much of nerd I am. I'm from the Bay Area. I used to call Sega when I was in high school and I would beat the games before they did so I would call them and tell them how to beat the boss.
Laura Massey: What?!
Albert Penello: So then when I went to work at Sega I would see tips for games that they took from me over the phone.
Laura Massey: No way!
Albert Penello: Yeah, that's actually, that's totally true.
Larry Hryb: It's a true story.
Albert Penello: 100% true story. I think might still have my binder somewhere, cause back then it was all on paper. So someone would call up and ask how to beat the game and you'd have to flip through your tabbed binder and those were written by people who would go and get the games right before they came out cause cartridges, you know, they have to be manufactured.
Laura Massey: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Larry Hryb: Right.
Albert Penello: And so they'd play them and then you'd have to beat them and write down how to beat it so that when someone called ... So for a bunch of games I would beat them before they would so I had to call and tell them how to do it.
Larry Hryb: Look at that!
Laura Massey: Wow.
Larry Hryb: See, you thought Albert was just a pretty face, didn't you? You were saying that. "That Albert-"
Albert Penello: "Just a pretty face."
Jeff Rubenstein: Now [crosstalk 00:06:55] cause GameFAQs came out.
Larry Hryb: You know, it's funny, cause I actually have a connection to Sonic as well. I had a Genesis before, but one of my very good friends who I used to do radio with, at Syracuse University, is the voice of Doctor Eggman.
Laura Massey: Is he?
Larry Hryb: He's the cartoon voice, name is Mike Pollock, and he and I did a lot of radio together and we were in classes together. He is one of the voices of Doctor, he does a lot of other voices, as well.
Laura Massey: Super cool.
Albert Penello: What video game character should Larry be the voice of?
Laura Massey: That's a great question.
Larry Hryb: That's a great question.
Jeff Rubenstein: You were in a game.
Larry Hryb: Well I've been in-
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh yeah, you were in ...
Larry Hryb: I was in Explosion Man.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yes and you were in Kinect Sports Rivals.
Laura Massey: What were you in Explosion Man?
Larry Hryb: I was ...
Laura Massey: You were live action.
Larry Hryb: Right, I did, I was at the end ... I was the reverend-
Laura Massey: The priest.
Larry Hryb: - the priest, right. I was doing the wedding at the end. Oh, that's right!
Laura Massey: Spoiler alerts, by the way.
Jeff Rubenstein: With your hair color though you'd have to be the bad guy if it was a Japanese game. You know, that's mandatory.
Albert Penello: I don't know about that.
Larry Hryb: So people with gray hair are always the bad guy?
Jeff Rubenstein: Gray and white-ish hair, you're almost always the bad guy. Except in Devil May Cry and even then.
Albert Penello: So, we're villains.
Jeff Rubenstein: In a morally gray area.
Albert Penello: What Jeff's really saying is we're villains.
Larry Hryb: Cause you and I share a similar tuft of hair.
Albert Penello: Yes.
Larry Hryb: As it were.
Jeff Rubenstein: At least you have hair.
Albert Penello: Not share it as in we take it off of a head and then share it between us. Share it as in we have similar-
Larry Hryb: Similar.
Jeff Rubenstein: We're talking about this now.
Albert Penello: We're not actually sharing hair, to the listeners out there.
Larry Hryb: Anyway- [crosstalk 00:08:14]
Jeff Rubenstein: One of my favorite stories is you were in Kinect Sports Rivals-
Larry Hryb: That's right.
Jeff Rubenstein: And in the demo-
Larry Hryb: Oh, God. I was so angry over that.
Jeff Rubenstein: And you would always, like your character, your NPC, would always finish in seventh place.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Jeff Rubenstein: And I believe you went and had a talk with Rare.
Larry Hryb: Right! I talked to them, I was like "Look, I know that I can't win all the time but could you not make me come in dead last every single time?"
Jeff Rubenstein: And they boosted you, didn't they?
Larry Hryb: They did and then the other thing that irritated me is that when they put me in that game they put me in that onesie.
Jeff Rubenstein: It was a wet suit.
Larry Hryb: It was-
Jeff Rubenstein: Look, you liked scuba diving!
Larry Hryb: I do, but, you know.
Jeff Rubenstein: They took care of you.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, okay. Anyway.
Albert Penello: This is off the rails.
Larry Hryb: [inaudible 00:08:47] What we do! It's what we do here, Albert. Laura, what are you playing? Are you playing anything other than Destiny? Let me try to get it back.
Laura Massey: I am playing a lot of Destiny and I'm also still playing Diablo.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, yeah, I see you playing Diablo.
Laura Massey: I'm still playing Diablo, getting through season 11. I'm almost done with all that's left of season 11.
Albert Penello: Are you playing Path of Exile? Where are you on the Path of Exile versus Diablo debate that's raging online?
Laura Massey: Well, I haven't tried-
Larry Hryb: She hasn't tried it.
Laura Massey: Path of Exile.
Albert Penello: I hear that it's, according to some people, better than Diablo.
Laura Massey: I don't know if that's possible.
Larry Hryb: Ryan [tried 00:09:14] on the team is playing it and he's ... He hasn't rendered his final verdict yet but he's leaning in that direction.
Laura Massey: I must give it a try then.
Larry Hryb: So you must, yeah.
Albert Penello: It's supposed to be good.
Laura Massey: Super good. But I did run into ... one of my favorite things in the game, which I didn't know existed. I love finding out new things about this game.
Larry Hryb: Yes.
Laura Massey: You know how there are shrines in the game? You run up to it, it's a little spire that gives you a power up like you can run faster or you can pick up gold with more radius. Well there is such a thing as a treasure goblin shrine.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, that's right. Your treasure goblin. I remember you talked about this.
Laura Massey: No, I didn't know there's a shrine!
Larry Hryb: Oh, there's a shrine?
Laura Massey: A shrine!
Larry Hryb: Oh!
Laura Massey: And it spawns treasure goblins!
Larry Hryb: Well, what's wrong with that?
Laura Massey: Exactly! I had no idea this could [inaudible 00:09:54] so I ran up to it and like ... Treasure goblin spire? What is that? Click. Treasure goblin spawn, oh my gosh get the treasure goblin! Another one spawned, then another one, then another one, then 15 spawned and you're like "What do I do?!"
Larry Hryb: I don't know, what do you do?
Laura Massey: What do you do?
Larry Hryb: What do you do?
Laura Massey: So, you have to pick your battles and can't kill them all.
Larry Hryb: Treasure goblin.
Laura Massey: Unfortunately I didn't pick the right battle and I ended up having all of them run away and escape.
Larry Hryb: Okay.
Laura Massey: It was very sad, but if you ever find a treasure goblin shrine get ready because it's going to be a big battle.
Larry Hryb: It's delightful.
Laura Massey: It's really fun. Really good.
Larry Hryb: Fun.
Laura Massey: I'm playing a lot of Destiny. I logged in last night and ... I finally took part in my first public event. Have you guys done a public event?
Larry Hryb: Sure, quite a few.
Jeff Rubenstein: I mean I did during a conference call today.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, you did one, it was a true story. I was watching him do it.
Laura Massey: I wish I could play games during conference calls.
Larry Hryb: Try it.
Laura Massey: I just wish [inaudible 00:10:44]
Larry Hryb: It's good.
Jeff Rubenstein: This is what happens when you're non-essential versus a very essential person in calls.
Albert Penello: Who's doing the real work in this crowd, ladies and gentlemen? The one who can't play games while they're doing work.
Laura Massey: Right, but I'm running the meeting. And unfortunately I was the only one who was doing this public event.
Larry Hryb: It's funny, Jeff did one and he was the only one as well.
Laura Massey: I felt really sad and lonely.
Larry Hryb: Well.
Jeff Rubenstein: That seems to be a rare occurrence.
Laura Massey: It is rare.
Larry Hryb: You are welcome to join, you know, do Jeff and I ... I played last night for an hour and a half or so, you're welcome anytime you want to join just let us know and Albert, whenever you're ready to do a public event ...
Albert Penello: Yeah, one of these days.
Larry Hryb: I know, I know.
Laura Massey: It does take a few hours to get through the extended tutorial when the world opens up.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, like 20 levels.
Laura Massey: Really?
Larry Hryb: That's what it feels like, it feels like ... just the whole campaign is basically a big tutorial for the whole thing is what it feels like sometimes.
Laura Massey: I see. 20 is the highest, is that right?
Larry Hryb: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Laura Massey: I'm at eight, I think.
Larry Hryb: Okay, you're getting there.
Laura Massey: Yeah, getting there.
Larry Hryb: Little less than half way, for those of you having trouble with math.
Laura Massey: Thanks for the math.
Larry Hryb: No problem!
Albert Penello: Hashtag did the math.
Larry Hryb: Alright.
Jeff Rubenstein: Speaking of math, a friend of mine just sent me a countdown timer, it's just until Xbox One X releases. He pre-ordered his Project Scorpio Edition, cannot wait for it [crosstalk 00:11:54] for 47 days.
Laura Massey: Wow.
Albert Penello: Yeah, like six weeks, right?
Larry Hryb: We're gonna talk about that in a minute with Albert. We're gonna talk about what you're playing and then we're gonna go right into the Albert section.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, of course.
Larry Hryb: Albert brings the goods.
Jeff Rubenstein: I've been traveling, so bringing my laptop with me and during that time, when I have downtime in the hotel room playing ReCore Definitive Edition, the Eye of the Obsidian content. I feel like the platform in that game is just so good and ... It's just really fun to keep coming back to it and I've been doing a lot of the races. It took me a while to figure out that the tank ... robot, or Corebot, you can hold down B and boost and I was like "Man, I am having a hard time with these races" and then I realized, though, I can ... you can boost with B. B for boost.
Laura Massey: Hit the button to go faster.
Jeff Rubenstein: It's a little mnemonic. Then I got home and, in addition to Destiny, NBA 2K18 came out.
Larry Hryb: [crosstalk 00:12:40] That was your game.
Jeff Rubenstein: Everyone was tweeting about 2K Day and I love [crosstalk 00:12:42] So, I'm happy to ... I scanned myself in-
Larry Hryb: Jeffrey Dean Chamillionaire.
Jeff Rubenstein: Jeffrey Dean Chamillionaire. This time, the scan came out a little bit better. I look shifty, though, in this. I look like ...
Larry Hryb: Shifty-er?
Jeff Rubenstein: Well, I looked like very dumb, I would say, in my previous scan and this one I just look like I'm up to something, you know? So maybe I'm gonna be-
Larry Hryb: So, far more accurate.
Jeff Rubenstein: A lot of jersey, but yeah. Actually, yeah, it's pretty accurate. I've made it, I'm a walk on for the Sixers, so let's see what happens if Joel Embiid can play this year. We're going all the way. I just feel like we're gonna go all the way with me on the team. That was the missing piece, for the reason we worst team at basketball.
Larry Hryb: NBA 2K18.
Jeff Rubenstein: It's so good, it's so good. And then ... Wow, FIFA 18's coming out real soon, too.
Larry Hryb: It's actually available now if you have EA Access.
Jeff Rubenstein: If you have EA Access so get on it and if you have the Ronaldo Edition that'll be unlocking very soon as well, so [inaudible 00:13:36]
Larry Hryb: And I know you're a big Ronaldo fan.
Jeff Rubenstein: No, but ... I was forced to do it because I want to get back into the ... The big thing in sports games is story modes and they're like, for me, the most fun. I love the one in Madden. I mean, would you imagine ever, five years ago, if I said to you "You're going to be playing Madden and five years from now there's gonna be a scene where you're singing a Miley Cyrus song, The Climb, as part of the scene and you know what? It worked. Oh, it worked"
Laura Massey: Really?
Jeff Rubenstein: Yes. See!
Albert Penello: Really?
Jeff Rubenstein: You gotta play the Madden! You're like a good old boy from Texas, trying to make it into the NFL and when you're in your pick-up truck, you leave on Miley Cyrus. You do that.
Larry Hryb: When are we playing?
Jeff Rubenstein: Let's play it soon cause, you know what? I want us to do a-
Larry Hryb: Co-stream.
Jeff Rubenstein: I want us to do a co-stream on Mixer and we can use it with maybe a USB camera.
Larry Hryb: Okay. Did you see that news this week, Albert?
Albert Penello: Yes, of course.
Larry Hryb: It finally came out, yep. Laura, so now you can use, for alpha members, right?
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, it's just for alpha, those are coming [crosstalk 00:14:33]
Jeff Rubenstein: We'll link to the details [crosstalk 00:14:34]
Albert Penello: Not the mic, though. Just the camera.
Larry Hryb: Just the camera. Mic soon. One feature at a time, gang.
Laura Massey: One step at a time.
Larry Hryb: One step at a time.
Jeff Rubenstein: Well, most webcams do not have noise canceling and it would be very echo-y unlike the Kinect which has like a whole matrix of [crosstalk 00:14:48]
Larry Hryb: And Array has-
Jeff Rubenstein: An Array.
Albert Penello: An Array microphone.
Larry Hryb: Array microphone, thank you. Much like the top of the new iPhone X, it's got a little Kinect.
Laura Massey: It does have a little Kinect.
Albert Penello: That would be the iPhone 10.
Larry Hryb: The iPhone-
Albert Penello: We're the Xbox One X-
Larry Hryb: I'm gonna call it the X.
Albert Penello: They're the iPhone 10.
Larry Hryb: I'm gonna call it the X.
Laura Massey: It's the year of the X.
Larry Hryb: It's the year of the X, we talked about that. So, alright-
Albert Penello: We started it.
Larry Hryb: So, here we are. I'm gonna talk to Albert about, are you all set with the headlines or do you want to come back to them?
Jeff Rubenstein: We'll come back for the headlines.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, I want to get Albert cause I know he's gotta get out of here but we brought you over because you and I did a video, Xbox One X Enhanced. They were just about some of the new titles. I wanted to see if you could, for those people that haven't watched the video and they don't really understand this whole YouTube thing.
Albert Penello: There's an amazing new technology where video stream from the internet.
Larry Hryb: What?
I wanted to talk to you about the program and obviously we have someone here who hasn't really been familiar-
Laura Massey: That's right.
Larry Hryb: - with the program because, again, essential versus non-essential.
Albert Penello: That's right. Also, doesn't know YouTube.
Larry Hryb: No, that's not true.
Albert Penello: Yeah, look, I mean, yeah we shot a video, which was quite fun and shooting videos with Larry are always ...
Larry Hryb: We have fun.
Laura Massey: I bet there were good times.
Albert Penello: We're always the guest. In fact, the first, my favorite one was the very first edit we saw, the very rough edit.
Larry Hryb: Where they left a bunch of stuff-
Albert Penello: Where they left the sort of, like, after we ended we left the trail off.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Albert Penello: Where, you know, it's like, you know, you can see both of us just shut off.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Albert Penello: And then we're like "Okay" and then we're just randomly looking around and we're-
Larry Hryb: Voices are coming off camera.
Albert Penello: Answering questions that you can't hear that are being asked in the background and it's really fun.
Larry Hryb: We fixed it.
Albert Penello: We did, it was good. [crosstalk 00:16:18]
Yeah, I mean we shot the video, I don't want to sort of re-do the video here now live but there was a ... We're doing something new, obviously, with Xbox One X and launching sort of a console with a different level of performance and so one of the things you want to do is you have to sort of help guide people to understand what's gonna work and what's gonna take advantage of all the power and it's always a balance of trying to make a program simple.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Albert Penello: So that people understand it but also be accurate in what you're communicating and so we established what we're calling Xbox One X Enhanced, which to me, basically is just a way of telling people this game is the developer's done work to take advantage of the horsepower.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Albert Penello: Because of course all the games work.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Albert Penello: So, you've got sort of two almost conflicting things you're trying to tell people. One: if it says Xbox One on it, it works and probably works better on Xbox One X and then two: there's a bunch of games that are doing work to take advantage of all the advanced features and capabilities of the GPU.
Larry Hryb: And there's a lot of different, we talked about this in the video, it's funny but before we continue on this I want to let you know. I had to get my haircut this past week, cause you know I gotta look good.
Albert Penello: Our hair.
Larry Hryb: Our hair, that's right.
Laura Massey: It is shared hair.
Larry Hryb: I was getting our hair cut last week and there was a guy sitting next to me who didn't really recognize me cause I wasn't ... paying attention.
Jeff Rubenstein: Not everyone recognizes you, Larry.
Larry Hryb: Which is fine, but they were talking about Project Scorpio and they said "Well, I don't know if I'm gonna pick a new one up because, you know, it doesn't work, you know, unless you have a 4K TV, it doesn't matter." And that's actually not true!
Albert Penello: That is not true.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, so talk about that.
Albert Penello: So, yeah, I mean it's, we know a lot of people haven't upgraded yet and so we had to be real thoughtful-
Larry Hryb: Upgraded their television.
Albert Penello: Upgraded their television yet to 4K and so that is one of the top questions that we see over and over again is like well, the system was built for 4K so that's great that people understand that but if I don't have 4K do I need to upgrade and the answer to that is yes. There's lots of reasons why you might want to upgrade to an Xbox One X even if your TV isn't upgraded. Some of them are hardware specific with, we have a 50% faster hard drive so loading times will be better. Your existing games will run faster if you have variable frame rate or variable resolution.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Albert Penello: Those will run at higher settings. We have some texture filtering improvements in the SOC to make texture-
Larry Hryb: System on a chip.
Albert Penello: Yeah, the Scorpio engine has ... a better texture filtering for existing titles so just if you like the game library you already have, an Xbox One X is gonna amp up all those games.
Jeff Rubenstein: And we've got quite a, there's a whole list that we'll link to of games that are supporting or are enhanced for Xbox One X and there's some great titles on there.
Albert Penello: Yeah, so we have the Xbox One X Enhanced list, we have a new webpage that we just released that breaks this down and in those cases then we have this thing that we call supersampling, which is effectively a technique that downscales the 4K content onto a 1080p TV.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Albert Penello: We've got some examples that we've shown but basically a lot of the jaggies are gone so you have better anti-aliasing, but also all the better lighting, all the better textures, all the better effects that are in the 4K versions you can still see even if you don't have a 1080p television.
Larry Hryb: Sure.
Albert Penello: So, even if you haven't upgraded yet there's still a lot of good reasons to get an Xbox One X and our video is just spending time sort of talking people through what those features are.
Larry Hryb: When I was getting our haircut, I went over and I told this guy I said "Well, actually," and then I introduced myself and he felt like an idiot but that's fine. We just talked about, I said "Actually, there is reason," I gave a much, a worse version of what you just explained about how it's okay if you have a 1080p TV then your games are gonna look better and I want to point out the list that Jeff talked about, that we'll put a link off to, that includes previous games so there's some games in your Xbox library right now that are gonna be Xbox Enhance-ified. Enhanced.
Jeff Rubenstein: Quite a few.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: And a lot of like major titles.
Larry Hryb: And then a bunch of ones coming up, right?
Albert Penello: Yeah! And we're gonna ... We've seen unbelievable support and there's two things, sorry, like my mind is rattling thinking of two different things. The first is Xbox One X Enhanced doesn't just mean old games that are getting upgraded.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Albert Penello: That's actually a thing that I think people confused because when we talked about it at E3 we talked about it mostly in reference to existing titles.
Larry Hryb: Sure.
Albert Penello: So, Tomb Raider, Gears of War-
Jeff Rubenstein: Fallout 4, Final Fantasy XV-
Larry Hryb: Fallout 4's getting it?
Jeff Rubenstein: Forza-
Laura Massey: Yes!
Jeff Rubenstein: Gears of War 4-
Albert Penello: Yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: The Witcher 3. Oh I can't wait.
Albert Penello: So those are existing games that are coming [crosstalk 00:20:33]
Larry Hryb: - be back.
Albert Penello: But all the new games that are coming out, like Forza 7, is also Xbox One X Enhanced and all the new titles like Crackdown 3 and all these games are Xbox, so Xbox One X Enhanced-
Larry Hryb: Assassin's Creed.
Albert Penello: Assassin's Creed, so new titles and existing titles fall under the banner of Xbox One X Enhanced.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Albert Penello: So when you're trying to figure out what games are gonna take advantage of this new box that I just bought, search for Xbox One X Enhanced.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, we're linking.
Albert Penello: Oh, we're gonna link to the site.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, where you'll be able to see it-
Larry Hryb: We'll link off to it and all of that stuff. You were out there talking to a lot of the media, we heard at the top of the show about your-
Albert Penello: My new best friend?
Larry Hryb: Your new best friend over at Vice. Was it Vice UK?
Jeff Rubenstein: It was Vice UK.
Larry Hryb: We're gonna link off to that story. We need to.
You went through, what were some of the things you were hearing? What were some themes that when you were talking to some folks?
Albert Penello: It was great cause we were in ... Sydney, New York-
Larry Hryb: You went to Sydney?
Albert Penello: I didn't go but we had people there so, like, we're kind of like huddling up and taking calls back and forth but I was in London, LA ... San Francisco.
Larry Hryb: Did you do New York?
Albert Penello: No, we had someone else was in New York and someone else was in Sydney.
Jeff Rubenstein: I don't know if you made any best friends but he was good. Ryan was good.
Albert Penello: Ryan was good, yeah Ryan on my team went to New York and Kevin Gammill went to Sydney.
Larry Hryb: Oh boy, wow.
Albert Penello: Lucky bastard.
Laura Massey: Wow.
Albert Penello: It was really good, you know, people-
Larry Hryb: Until you do the flight, trust me.
Albert Penello: Well then once you arrive ...
Larry Hryb: Right, right.
Albert Penello: No, it was really great talking to people and I think everybody's been really awesome about ... just asking really good questions and I love that people have really thoughtful opinions and questions that get asked and so even if they're not questions that are favorable, I mean, people can be critical of us of things and I like those kind of questions too, cause I think it keeps us on our toes.
So, for me, going out on the road is a chance to talk to people that I normally don't get to talk to cause normally the people I've talked to are you guys.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Albert Penello: It's people inside and so getting an external perspective is always really exciting and people ask really good questions and I make new best friends, but we showed the new UI.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Albert Penello: And then we got to talk about all the cool new features, all new personalization, all the speed of the new UI. It was a good chance for me to give some demos, we have some supersampling demos.
Larry Hryb: Oh, you do?
Albert Penello: That show sort of what supersampling looks like.
Larry Hryb: I think we saw one, Jeff. You and I saw one a while ago?
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, it was a ... A bee was involved, yes?
Albert Penello: A ladybug.
Jeff Rubenstein: A ladybug, yes.
Larry Hryb: I thought it was a beetle.
Albert Penello: It's a ladybug.
Larry Hryb: Anyway, maybe it's a ladybug now.
Jeff Rubenstein: Named Bee.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, her name is Bee.
Jeff Rubenstein: I took the time to get to know the lady.
Albert Penello: Look, I want to honestly, there's actually some really, really great videos that other people have done about supersampling that just show, sort of, how it works that have nothing to do with us that I would encourage people to go take a look at.
Larry Hryb: When you were talking with some folks, I know that last year that ... the PlayStation had their PlayStation Pro come out.
Albert Penello: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Larry Hryb: Which a lot of people have looked at the consoles and say "Well, it's kind of the same thing," but your response to that is what?
Albert Penello: Oh, man. Is there a lot of PlayStation listeners to this podcast? Cause every time-
Jeff Rubenstein: There's gamers!
Laura Massey: There's some, there's gamers.
Albert Penello: No, I mean, I always say the thing I find most interesting is one of the handful of people that has been involved in Project Scorpio since it was conceived many years ago is that we didn't know what they were doing so when I and the team were putting together this idea for what Project Scorpio might be it was never relative to something else.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Albert Penello: We actually thought that we were coming up with something totally unique so I think it's super interesting that both Sony and us that arrived a similar idea of doing this mid generation platform. They took a different approach and ... I think we built a much more powerful box and I think that now is something that people have seen and we did work with Digital Foundry on unveiling the box, so they're not the same box. I think we, for people who want the absolute best versions of games you're gonna want to play on an Xbox One X. They're the best versions of their party titles. The best versions of their own titles will be on Xbox One X.
Larry Hryb: You know it's funny cause Albert talked about when they were planning Project Scorpio and it's true cause I would come by Albert's office, remember? I'd come by, and I'd shut the door like "Alright, what do you got?" And he'd bust open these crazy powerpoints, and he would explain to me how your games are gonna work, and they're gonna look better. I'm like "that's magical, let's do it."
Albert Penello: It's true, cause Larry-
Larry Hryb: Right?
Albert Penello: One of the best, you know this is a story we don't tell very often but one of the things I think was most exciting about working on Project Scorpio was, it was a blank slate and from the idea, and we got to ask ourselves all these questions, all these questions that people are asking us now are questions we asked ourselves, and the truth is, is like Larry's ... I would use Larry as a proxy for like if we did A or did B, you know, and he wasn't even really [tented 00:25:01] on the program but Larry would come in, and I would say-
Larry Hryb: Right, then we'd talk around it.
Albert Penello: We'd talk around it, I'd say like "What if we did this versus doing that, how do you think people would respond to that?" And so that's why now it's exciting just for me to have, like, remember all the ideas and all the hard questions we asked ourselves and we gotta do this right. We're gonna do it, we gotta do it the right way and working with, and even asking Larry, like there's different answers to questions.
Larry Hryb: Sure.
Albert Penello: We could do it this way or that way, and now to see it come to pass and I think people are really responding well to like ... thinking about where the port locations are and that the power cable's the same and then all the games work and all the accessories work and all the old games are better and now we've got these new more powerful games and how we did the development kit.
It's exciting cause it was really a blank slate and so much of what is shipping was reflective on our original ideas for what we wanted to do.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, it's also, we talked about the new dashboard. There's also a ton of new features that they're putting in, to help make for those of you who own an Xbox One or an Xbox One S the transfer easier, we're doing over network copying over network and a bunch of other really cool things.
Albert Penello: Oh, the hard drive. Yeah, the hard drive and network transfer, thank you for bringing this up because this to me is something, this is, I think, will be one of the most unsung features and as the marketing guy for the console I'm sure that this team is listening they're like "Albert! Do your job!" Is getting people to get a hard drive. Without a doubt ... the experience between moving between an Xbox One or an Xbox One S to an Xbox One X with a hard drive is gonna be-
Larry Hryb: Seamless.
Albert Penello: - so much better and it's not just, I'm not trying to make people spend more money, like I know you can probably get a two terabyte now for about a hundred bucks
Larry Hryb: You can get like four or five like $105.
Albert Penello: Yeah and ... for people that download a lot of games, keeping that stuff on your external hard drive, even on your current box, the load times are faster.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, it's amazing. Like as someone who has swapped out boxes or if I travel with it, not having to download again, especially if you're a multi Xbox household. I have level caps. I can only download so much and when we come to this time of year I'm definitely pushing up against that but I can download it once and then bring it downstairs.
Larry Hryb: What happens at this time of the year?
Jeff Rubenstein: When all of the [00:27:05] play games.
Albert Penello: When all of the titles come out.
Larry Hryb: You don't have the unlimited package on your home [inaudible 00:27:08]
Jeff Rubenstein: Nah ... I don't live in ... behind the high hedges of Larry Land out there.
Albert Penello: So, for people who don't live in the high hedges of Larry Land I highly recommend, no I mean really like guys, go get a hard drive. It's gonna be -
Larry Hryb: Before you even send somebody out, you just need a USB 3 hard drive, there may be one lying around your house.
Albert Penello: Yeah, in fact, I gotta tell you. I have a bunch, I went and spent like $29 on Amazon on a Clamshell case.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Albert Penello: And I took old hard drives that I have that lying around and plug them in a case and now I've a ton of USB 3 hard drives that really didn't cost me anything. Just upgrading the one on my PC, I format it, put it in a case and now I've got a USB 3 hard drive.
Laura Massey: That's a great tip.
Albert Penello: Yeah, so getting your stuff on a hard drive you will save so much time re-downloading. We have a really awesome, the team has put together a really awesome sort of like upgrade process where you can basically backup your settings if you haven't moved it, it'll just do one button press and it'll move all of your games over to the hard drive so when you get ready for Xbox One X all you're gonna have to do is put in your log in with your gamertag and your MSA password and there'll be a day one update, it'll be very small it's not gonna be a huge update, and then boom! The console's yours again, everything will just be restored and all your games are there and ready to go.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, I want to talk about that because we've talked a little bit about the transfer, of course when you have your games on an external hard drive we'll have the option, you'll get an update soon, to transfer the settings.
Albert Penello: Yes, that's one of the big things that's changing now.
Larry Hryb: Cause there's three components that I look at. So, the games obviously you download those and you put them on a hard drive. You put them on an external hard drive, unplug it, plug it in, done. Settings are more of the what's my background, kinda that stuff, right Albert?
Albert Penello: Yeah, and some of that stuff is stored in the cloud. We'll have more details about what all settings are gonna get transferred over.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Albert Penello: But, yeah, it's just gonna save you so much time on that first day experience and for people who are bandwidth limited.
Larry Hryb: Right, and there's a lot of people that are.
Albert Penello: And there's a lot of people that they're gonna, like you won't have to re-download all your stuff, so the only downloads you'll take are the ones for the Xbox One X Enhanced titles but we're even allowing people to do that ahead of time on the Xbox One S.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Albert Penello: So if you know you're gonna upgrade, maybe you're not gonna upgrade for a while, maybe you didn't get your pre-order, you're not gonna get one on launch day.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Albert Penello: You can still go ahead and manage your bandwidth caps by taking those updates early on an Xbox One S so that when you plug it into the Xbox One X you're, like, not only are you ready to go but the 4K upgrades are there as well.
Larry Hryb: The other thing, there's a third category of things ... that we forgot about, because we were one of the very first to do it and that is, of course, your game saves. You know you never have to think about game saves anymore, right?
Jeff Rubenstein: They're just there.
Laura Massey: That's true.
Larry Hryb: Back in the old day we used to have those, what were those little-
Albert Penello: Memory units.
Laura Massey: The MU's.
Larry Hryb: The MU's, right.
Albert Penello: The MU's.
Larry Hryb: And we're like "Where's my Halo save? And where's this save?" No, we haven't had to think about that for years.
Laura Massey: It's true, I remember carrying it ... carrying it on my keyring.
Larry Hryb: We had the little cases, right?
Laura Massey: Yeah.
Albert Penello: The keyring, yeah. You had a key chain for them.
Laura Massey: Yeah, and freaking out if I lost it like "Ah! That's everything! That's everything."
Larry Hryb: Right, cause that's all your games. Now you don't have to worry about that.
Laura Massey: Now, no more.
Larry Hryb: But yeah, so obviously that'll all work-
Albert Penello: I think it's gonna be, like for people that are, for games that are coming out now that are gonna get enhanced, what's gonna be awesome is just this concept that you're like in the middle of a game ... You're gonna get an Xbox One X, you're gonna get the 4K update, you're gonna pick up that game exactly where you left off-
Jeff Rubenstein: But your cataracts have been removed.
Albert Penello: That's right.
Jeff Rubenstein: You're seeing it for real.
Albert Penello: Your vision is so much more clear. There's just so much cool stuff that we're doing and it's fun to talk to people about this stuff and I can't, you know, we're not that far away from [crosstalk 00:30:36]
Larry Hryb: Yeah we're getting ready, we're getting ready, of course, and then we talked about, of course, this week pre-orders lit up.
Albert Penello: That's right we had our second round of pre-orders, so and I've talked a little bit about this. Pre-orders are interesting because there's, you know, you're trying to execute these globally, like all around the world. You're trying to coordinate times and you've got different retailers with different customers and so with the Xbox One X Project Scorpio Edition that we announced at Gamescon, that was our program.
Larry Hryb: Sure.
Albert Penello: Like we worked really closely with retailers, it was primarily done online, we wanted people, we knew there was gonna be a lot of enthusiasm, we wanted people to get online and those things, we sold more of those units faster than any Xbox ever and I've been here from the get go, so I know.
Larry Hryb: You've seen them all.
Albert Penello: I've seen them all. Then we had people asking "Well, what if I want the standard edition, the one without the Project Scorpio packaging and the ID changes?" And so that's what we launched yesterday on the, well now on the 20th.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Albert Penello: And so that is really run by retail, so what we do is we tell our retailers "Okay, this is how many units you're gonna get on November 7th, you obviously want to have some in store for people to go shopping and it's up to you how many you want to decide to pre-order." So, this program, what I'm telling people is like I think go to the stores if you can't find them online, they're probably not sold out. A lot more retailers are gonna want you to go in-store so that you can pick yours up on launch day. So, if you're having a hard time finding one check your old fashioned brick and mortar store.
Larry Hryb: Yeah and I've got a link on my website on the pre-order post. I've got a link off to Amazon and the Microsoft store and Target and Best Buy and GameStop and the rest of those, so.
Albert Penello: Yeah.
Larry Hryb: There you go, so that's exciting.
Albert Penello: It is exciting.
Larry Hryb: So that's that. Now it's all done, now we just got to launch it. Right?
Albert Penello: Now it's about games and getting the console out and demand and making sure we got enough for all the people that want them and, you know, it's all the logistics of getting them shipped over from ... from factories.
Larry Hryb: From overseas, yeah.
Albert Penello: And getting them in peoples hands.
Larry Hryb: What happens now, so does this mean you get to hang out at home and finish Destiny now for the next few weeks? Since you've been on the road?
Jeff Rubenstein: One never finishes Destiny.
Albert Penello: I'm hoping that I have some more time to play games and now I'm in that, one of the most interesting questions I got, which I'm probably breaking into jail, was "What do you tell people who want to play the Xbox One X versions before the Xbox One X is out? What do you do?"
Larry Hryb: Right.
Albert Penello: So now I'm probably the guy who's just gonna backlog everything and just wait until the console comes out and then, cause I'm gonna want to play everything. I'm not gonna have time to replay everything, so anything I finish or beat or just get done with now I won't go back so part of me just wants to wait til the box comes out.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, there's a ... that is a little challenge, right? You want to enjoy it.
Albert Penello: It's kind of like a six week problem.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Albert Penello: Because really, like, there's a lot of games coming out over the next six weeks but once the Xbox One X is out then the decision is easier so, you know what, I'm gonna tell myself I'm gonna play Destiny but I'll probably just gonna wait and play it when the Xbox One X comes out. That's my excuse anyway.
Larry Hryb: That's cool, that's cool.
Laura Massey: Sounds like you're gonna have to take some vacation to get through your backlog.
Albert Penello: To get through my backlog. Spend some time with my family as well, try not to get divorced.
Larry Hryb: I can't even think about, I mean I'm thinking about all the events that I have to do between now and launch-
Albert Penello: Oh yeah, we're all over the place.
Larry Hryb: You know, I've got a New York, I think I'm going to Mexico again. I've got a bunch of stuff going on so we've ... There's no shortage of things to do and places to be and stuff to talk about.
Albert Penello: Oh, yeah the two or three weeks leading up to launch, you and I and you guys are-
Larry Hryb: Everybody-
Albert Penello: We're all gonna be-
Larry Hryb: Laura's gonna be back here doing-
Albert Penello: Doing work.
Larry Hryb: - smart stuff.
Albert Penello: Making sure the thing actually works.
Larry Hryb: That's true! Anyway, alright Albert well listen I appreciate you coming by. You're welcome to hang out if you-
Albert Penello: It's always a pleasure. I am going to bail.
Larry Hryb: Okay.
Albert Penello: Because I actually do have work. This is one of those days
Jeff Rubenstein: You gotta spend time with your best friend.
Albert Penello: I have to spend time with my best friend, the Xbox One X. Launching on November 7th.
Larry Hryb: Alright, actually, so we're gonna take a break now, don't go yet. Why don't we take a break and we'll do name the game.
Laura Massey: We should do Name the Game, it's been a long time.
Larry Hryb: Then while we're rolling that you can step out so we don't have to-
Albert Penello: Sounds good, thanks.
Larry Hryb: Are you ready?
Laura Massey: Yeah, let's do Name the Game from a long time ago.
So, that was Name the Game from a long time ago and it was actually a pretty difficult one.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Laura Massey: It was Black The Fall.
Larry Hryb: It was so difficult we only actually got like a handful of correct entries.
Laura Massey: That's right.
Larry Hryb: And the winner is, I have their name in front of me, is-
Laura Massey: You have to pull it up [inaudible 00:35:23]
Larry Hryb: His name is Dylan!
Laura Massey: Dylan! Congratulations Dylan!
Larry Hryb: Dylan has not provided a gamertag or location, he asked us to refrain from that so we will respect your privacy, Dylan. So you'll be in touch, you'll get an email from me at major@xbox.com and with all the prizes and there's actually quite a few prizes here, Laura. Let's take a look at that, watch them all plugged in here, so.
Laura Massey: Okay, so, Dylan.
Larry Hryb: Yes.
Laura Massey: You have won a copy of Morphite which is an ID@Xbox ... ID@Xbox game, right?
Larry Hryb: Correct, yes.
Laura Massey: Yes, okay. And ... Pankapu.
Larry Hryb: Pankapu.
Laura Massey: Which is another ID@Xbox game.
Larry Hryb: Yes.
Laura Massey: That's not all. You also get a copy of XCOM 2 plus the War of the Chosen DLC.
Larry Hryb: Nice.
Laura Massey: Which is a fun game.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Laura Massey: And ... Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite.
Larry Hryb: So there you go.
Laura Massey: Wow.
Larry Hryb: What, there's more?
Laura Massey: Well, there is more.
Larry Hryb: There is more.
Laura Massey: Jeff will like this one.
Larry Hryb: Yes.
Laura Massey: Dylan, you also get a copy of FIFA 18 the Ronaldo Edition.
Larry Hryb: Jeff! Is that your copy?
Jeff Rubenstein: Just make sure you have to look in the mirror and you have to, like, you have to give it blue steel before the game will load up. That's just part of playing with Ronaldo.
Laura Massey: I see, I see. Oh, so I'm feeling generous.
Larry Hryb: Oh, you are?
Laura Massey: I am.
Larry Hryb: You have more? What do you go, now you got something off your computer. What do you got there?
Laura Massey: I also have a copy of ... a one month EA Access Membership-
Jeff Rubenstein: Nice!
Laura Massey: - and the Xbox Game Pass for three months.
Larry Hryb: What? That's like a hundred plus games.
Laura Massey: You killed it today.
Larry Hryb: Dylan, well-
Laura Massey: It was a super hard one.
Larry Hryb: You know, we felt bad because we haven't done a Name the Game since July-
Laura Massey: That's true.
Larry Hryb: - because we were on holiday and God only knows what else.
Jeff Rubenstein: And Dylan is the recipient of your large [crosstalk 00:36:54]
Larry Hryb: Of that bounty! Of that bounty, so alright well, there you go. Congratulations Dylan, we'll be in touch. You'll get an email from us with the information on how you get all your games.
Laura Massey: That's great, and should we do another Name the Game?
Larry Hryb: This is your feature.
Laura Massey: We should because that one was a really hard one.
Larry Hryb: Alright here we go.
Laura Massey: So, let's do another Name the Game.
So that was the Name the Game for this week. Super easy to win fabulous prizes. All you have to do is tell me what game those sounds are from.
Larry Hryb: That's it.
Laura Massey: Super easy.
Larry Hryb: That's it.
Laura Massey: Send us an email lollipop@xbox.com and CC major@xbox.com.
Larry Hryb: Let us know your name, where you're from and your gamertag if you'd like us to announce that on the air or not if you don't want to.
Laura Massey: That's right. We do respect your privacy.
Larry Hryb: This is like, by the way, this is like this weird thing I'm playing with on my desk, that's that sound you hear. This is like the poor man's fidget spinner. You've got the real fidget spinner.
Laura Massey: I've got the real fidget spinner.
Jeff Rubenstein: It's just a bolt.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, it's just a piece of hardware. It's a microphone-
Jeff Rubenstein: It's really glossy, though.
Larry Hryb: It is. I like my microphones-
Jeff Rubenstein: That's a high-end thing.
Larry Hryb: Anyway, so go ahead and enter, let us know. Drop us an email, that's the way. Don't hit us on Twitter, I mean you're welcome to do that but it doesn't count as an entry.
Laura Massey: That's right, we only accept email entries for this one.
Larry Hryb: Only. If you want to win more prizes you can actually follow me on Twitter @majornelson, every Friday free code Friday.
Laura Massey: You do free code Friday.
Larry Hryb: Which I've been doing free code Friday for about a decade now.
Laura Massey: I know, right?
Larry Hryb: It's been forever, Laura.
Laura Massey: Goodness, it has been forever.
Larry Hryb: I'm not gonna say it to you, Laura, because I respect you too much. Jeff, we're getting old.
Jeff Rubenstein: What is this "we" business?
Larry Hryb: What?
Laura Massey: I know, right?
Jeff Rubenstein: No, I've-
Larry Hryb: I have some hair for you.
Jeff Rubenstein: I could use it.
Larry Hryb: Oh boy, alright. So, there we go. That's what's going on. That's the show this week. Jeff, you got some more headlines, you got some news to kind of wrap up here, that we could-
Jeff Rubenstein: I do, indeed. It's a very newsworthy week.
Larry Hryb: Yeah!
Jeff Rubenstein: First of all, for you Minecraft fans all many, many millions of you ... The Minecraft Better Together update is here. So, basically it allows people that are playing Minecraft on Xbox, on mobile, you know, on IOS or Android-
Larry Hryb: Pretty much everybody-
Jeff Rubenstein: - VR, Windows 10.
Larry Hryb: Pretty much everybody except one of the large major electronic manufacturers in Japan.
Jeff Rubenstein: I can't even figure out what that would be.
Larry Hryb: So, you ...
Jeff Rubenstein: Can play together! So, there's a lot of, there's details and information and all that stuff but it is overwhelmingly a good thing.
Larry Hryb: Better together.
Jeff Rubenstein: We have a link to Mincraft.net with details on the Better Together update.
Larry Hryb: Better together.
Jeff Rubenstein: But there's a song for it, apparently. Here's something you can play for free right now, which looks beautiful. It's called the Forza Motorsport 7 Demo on both Xbox One and on Windows 10 and, you know, you can play it now. Get that demo, get ready, the game's coming out rather soon.
Larry Hryb: Yes.
Jeff Rubenstein: First week in October and a little earlier if you've got, if you've pre-ordered the Bells and Whistles Edition. Make sure that you ... It's actually a pretty meaty demo, I've been playing it so you definitely want to get on that.
You know what else is coming up?
Larry Hryb: What?
Jeff Rubenstein: In just about a week and change. Cuphead!
Laura Massey: That's right! Cuphead's coming.
Jeff Rubenstein: Cuphead is coming.
Larry Hryb: I'm gonna be down in, I think I'm going to LA for the-
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh are you going to that? Cause I was actually gonna talk about it.
Larry Hryb: Are you going?
Jeff Rubenstein: Well, if you're going I might have to go.
Larry Hryb: Laura?
Jeff Rubenstein: Join us.
Laura Massey: I'd love to go.
Larry Hryb: Join us!
Laura Massey: I'd love to go.
Jeff Rubenstein: So they're at Meltdown Comics in LA-
Larry Hryb: Have we announced this?
Jeff Rubenstein: - which is a pretty awesome thing. Oh, yeah. I'm reading it off of a-
Larry Hryb: Okay.
Jeff Rubenstein: - off of a public site.
Larry Hryb: I'll be there.
Jeff Rubenstein: There's a party going on at 7 o'clock on September 29th, which is launch day ... on Windows 10, on Xbox and Steam. And so you should come out to this party-
Larry Hryb: To say hello.
Jeff Rubenstein: - if you have the means to be there, it will be worth it. I've been hearing about some of the interesting things they'll be doing at the party.
Larry Hryb: Do you know if they're gonna have parked in the back?
Jeff Rubenstein: A taco truck?
Larry Hryb: No. I think, I think if I heard correctly, and please don't hold this to me. I think they're gonna bring in the mobile In-N-Out truck.
Laura Massey: There's such a thing?
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh, yeah. It's a popular thing to rent out at weddings in California. I think I've been to one of those.
Larry Hryb: Really?
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah.
Larry Hryb: Huh.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah.
Larry Hryb: Okay, there you go.
Laura Massey: I wish they had them up here, you know.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, yes we do.
Laura Massey: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jeff Rubenstein: Here's pro tip: skip the fries. You heard it here first.
Larry Hryb: We have been-
Jeff Rubenstein: Great burgers though.
Larry Hryb: Yes, great burgers. Fries are, fries are ... you know.
Laura Massey: Ask for them well done, that's the tip.
Jeff Rubenstein: The fries are an acquired taste.
Larry Hryb: I've tried that, I've tried that.
Laura Massey: Double well done?
Larry Hryb: Double, how much do you want to-
Jeff Rubenstein: Is that a thing?
Larry Hryb: Double well done. I'm not gonna have them until the place is burning down!
Jeff Rubenstein: So, anyway that's happening down in LA and I'll go ahead and link to that so you have a little bit more details.
Larry Hryb: I'll be there, I'd love to see you. Jeff may be there, Laura's gonna be here doing work. I've already made the decision for you.
Laura Massey: Okay.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, dude, we're a little less mission critical.
Larry Hryb: Mission critical.
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh my God we've been spending too much time together.
Guess what-
Larry Hryb: What?
Jeff Rubenstein: - is now available on backwards compatibility?
Larry Hryb: Oh boy.
Jeff Rubenstein: [Two 00:42:12] Halo's.
Laura Massey: I saw that!
Jeff Rubenstein: So, your Xbox 360 Halo's. Halo 3, Halo 3 ODST, Halo 4 and Halo Combat Evolved Anniversary are all now backwards compatible for Xbox One, you probably have those. So you can try that out.
We played a bunch of Ghost Recon last spring. Ghost Recon ... Wildlands and a new version-
Larry Hryb: Was that last spring?
Jeff Rubenstein: - is coming. It was last spring ... and so now, that was mostly PVE you would jump in with three friends and you would go and you would wreak havoc in fictional Bolivia. They're adding a PVE, or a PVP version where you can play against other folks. It's coming for free and there's an open beta on Xbox One and you can try that, actually you can try it even if you've never played Wildlands you can get into that beta and I'll link out for more details on that.
We're in the middle of silly season of crazy amounts of games coming out, like I mentioned, Cuphead and Forza and FIFA are coming out in the next week and change. Out this week NBA 2K18, Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite, which is a very interesting looking game and I'm hearing good things ... and I actually can't wait to see how that one, how professionals are doing cool tag ins and outs with that.
And Minecraft Season 2, Story Mode, Season 2 Episode 3 is now available for X-one, and of course Xbox 360.
Larry Hryb: You know you can catch up on all the latest Xbox news each week,
Laura Massey: Where can I do that?
Larry Hryb: There's a lot that happens on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday, of course, we have our show that we release but every Friday morning, at least on the West Coast, Friday midday on the East Coast, and then everywhere else around the world. You can catch it on This Week on Xbox.
Jeff Rubenstein: You had to think about that for a second.
Larry Hryb: Occasionally hosted by Jeffrey.
Jeff Rubenstein: Occasionally, and then it's really funny. So, I read the YouTube comments, you're never supposed to do that.
Laura Massey: No and you always do, eh?
Jeff Rubenstein: And they weren't too terrible, the first week I did it a couple listeners of the show or whatever were like "Oh hey Jeff's doing it this week, that's cool."
Week two.
Larry Hryb: Uh oh.
Jeff Rubenstein: People were like "Are you trying to usurp Larry?"
Laura Massey: Oh no!
Jeff Rubenstein: "Has a coup happened? What did you do with Larry?"
Larry Hryb: "What's going on?"
Jeff Rubenstein: "This isn't cool!" Once is like "Oh, just a one off." Two? That's a trend and it was a trend. Most people did not want ... and then when you came back it was like "Oh my God, thank God, Larry. We missed you." Sometimes you have to, I think, disappear for a little bit. They don't know how much they love you til you're gone.
Larry Hryb: You know what I'd love to do? I would love to have Laura host one of the shows.
Laura Massey: Oh I'd love to!
Larry Hryb: Would you?
Laura Massey: Yeah, that'd be super fun. Super fun.
Larry Hryb: Just don't read the comments.
Laura Massey: No, no. I stay, steer clear of that.
Larry Hryb: So anyway, This Week on Xbox you can catch it on your console or I put it up on Twitter in the afternoons, Xbox YouTube channel, it's quite the thing. There's plenty of ways to catch up on the news, you don't have to worry about hitting F5 and refreshing your browser on every news site on Monday through Friday. We'll take care of that for you, we'll give you the straight dope.
Laura Massey: Is that still a thing?
Larry Hryb: It is now, I'm bringing it back.
Jeff Rubenstein: Alright.
Larry Hryb: What else do you got Jeffrey?
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh, I think that's more than enough for this week.
Laura Massey: That's the news.
Jeff Rubenstein: That was the news. That was it. I've linked twice.
Larry Hryb: So, I gotta tell you a funny story.
Laura Massey: I'd love to hear your funny story.
Larry Hryb: I was, where is it ... I had a meeting over in Bellevue earlier this week.
Laura Massey: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Larry Hryb: And, where is it? Hold on a second.
Laura Massey: That's like a 10 minute drive from ...
Larry Hryb: Yeah, it's just right next door. I had a meeting and I realized that I had a meeting in ... the same building that E works in.
Laura Massey: Oh, really?
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh, really?
Larry Hryb: So, basically-
Jeff Rubenstein: Pokémon central. You were at the Pokécenter.
Larry Hryb: So I texted him like "Hey! I'm in your building, you want to get together?" So look at that Laura, so you see it says "I'm in London." And then, so basically what I did is I went up to his floor cause I needed to get some work done and I'm trying to get on his Wifi. You can see the screenshot, I'm asking him for his Wifi.
Laura Massey: You did, you asked for the access code. He didn't even reply.
Larry Hryb: He never responded, he never even responded.
Laura Massey: He didn't even reply!
Jeff Rubenstein: He would be a terrible network engineer if he gave you that password.
Larry Hryb: Anyway, that was just a funny, I enjoyed it.
Laura Massey: That's hilarious.
Larry Hryb: You never know what I'm gonna be up to.
Laura Massey: Nope!
Larry Hryb: Alright, well, that's kind of the show this week. Next week we'll hopefully be back, do you have anything else you want to talk about before we roll on out?
Laura Massey: I think I don't, no.
Larry Hryb: You all set?
Laura Massey: No new gadgets.
Larry Hryb: No new gadgets. I'm still, you know we got a couple of emails and a couple of tweets about your ... your Roomba.
Laura Massey: Oh, that's funny.
Larry Hryb: And your inability to name said Roomba.
Laura Massey: I still haven't-
Larry Hryb: Just give it a name!
Jeff Rubenstein: The public demands it.
Larry Hryb: Alright, you know what I'm gonna name it?
Laura Massey: Give me your good names.
Larry Hryb: Steven.
Laura Massey: That's boring.
Larry Hryb: It's a better name than-
Laura Massey: No offense to the Steven's in the world-
Larry Hryb: No offense to the Steven's.
Laura Massey: - but a Roomba ...
Jeff Rubenstein: I think, like, Jeeves or something.
Larry Hryb: That's so obvious.
Jeff Rubenstein: Is it?
Laura Massey: Too cliché.
Larry Hryb: Of course, it could be Rosie.
Jeff Rubenstein: Steven.
Laura Massey: Roomba. Rosie Roomba.
Jeff Rubenstein: Little Jetson's-
Larry Hryb: Yeah, like from the Jetson's.
Jeff Rubenstein: - from the Jetson's.
Laura Massey: Yep, not too bad.
Jeff Rubenstein: Marvin.
Larry Hryb: Also a good cartoon reference.
Jeff Rubenstein: I was going with-
Larry Hryb: The martian?
Jeff Rubenstein: - Marvin the paranoid android from Hitchhiker's Guide.
Laura Massey: Oh, right.
Larry Hryb: Well I was going with Marvin the Martian from the Warner Brothers.
Jeff Rubenstein: Either way it works.
Laura Massey: Mm-hmm (affirmative), it does work.
Larry Hryb: Anyway, that's it for that. And meanwhile, Jeff how's your life living the life electric?
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh, it's been good. I think spent $2.48 this week, quote on quote, gassing up.
Laura Massey: Nice!
Jeff Rubenstein: I like that, that money's going straight into games.
Larry Hryb: Yep, that you can't play because you don't have time.
Jeff Rubenstein: Well we don't need to talk about that.
Larry Hryb: Alright gang, we'll be back next week. Laura will join us, I hope.
Laura Massey: Yep.
Larry Hryb: Jeff, you'll be here?
Jeff Rubenstein: Nope.
Larry Hryb: Where you gonna be?
Jeff Rubenstein: I'm gonna be in Orlando.
Larry Hryb: What are you doing in Orlando?
Jeff Rubenstein: I'm going down for a non Xbox thing.
Larry Hryb: You've got some business down there?
Jeff Rubenstein: For some of the other parts of my job.
Larry Hryb: I wish I could go down.
Jeff Rubenstein: Then I'm gonna drive down to Miami to see the folks.
Larry Hryb: To see your folks.
Jeff Rubenstein: I'm bringing my laptop.
Larry Hryb: I haven't really been paying attention, I only had a-
Laura Massey: Yeah, are your folks okay?
Larry Hryb: Yeah, everything else okay?
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, they're doing okay. I feel, my heart goes out to the folks in Puerto Rico. I have some, I don't have any direct relatives in Puerto Rico-
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: - but I have a lot of friends who do and-
Larry Hryb: Well we went down there! You and I went to Puerto Rico.
Jeff Rubenstein: We did!
Larry Hryb: Right? We had-
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh my God.
Larry Hryb: - that holiday.
Jeff Rubenstein: We had a great time. Met the nicest people. It was beautiful there, it's just terrible what's happening there.
Larry Hryb: This weather is crazy.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah.
Larry Hryb: Everywhere, I mean there's so much goes out to everybody.
Jeff Rubenstein: I'm lucky that ... my relatives in Florida, they got a brush with it and obviously it made a mess but they're alright.
Larry Hryb: I was listening to this story, I think it was on the BBC, and they were interviewing this woman who was an alligator wrangler.
Laura Massey: Cool!
Larry Hryb: Who apparently, when some of the waters got, came up in Florida because there's salt water, there's regular, there's alligators in every body of water is what they all said.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, there's over a million alligators in Florida.
Larry Hryb: And apparently this woman, like she got calls to go take alligators out of peoples houses.
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh, yeah. Occasionally you get them in a swimming pool or something like that.
Laura Massey: Oh my goodness.
Larry Hryb: That's like a nightmare.
Laura Massey: Yes it is.
Larry Hryb: Because those things are like pretty historic, right?
Jeff Rubenstein: They are. I mean, and they ... they're tough. You don't want to mess with a gator.
Laura Massey: No!
Larry Hryb: No, you want to go the other way.
Jeff Rubenstein: Good eatin', though.
Larry Hryb: That's nice.
Laura Massey: I haven't had them. I hear that they are very healthy, like to eat.
Jeff Rubenstein: They're ... I don't know if that's the case. They're tasty.
Laura Massey: The fat to protein ratio.
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh, that's good. I think they also have mercury in them so, you know, you win some you lose some.
Laura Massey: Yeah, you might lose some too.
Larry Hryb: Alright, if you want to hit up-
Jeff Rubenstein: I got a good recipe for you for a gator burrito.
Larry Hryb: - @jeffrubenstein is you want to talk to him about gator stuff.
Jeff Rubenstein: Now I'm hungry.
Larry Hryb: How do they find you on social media, Laura?
Laura Massey: You can find me on Twitter @lauralollipop.
Larry Hryb: Yes you can, you can find Jeffrey @JeffreyRubenstein.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, not rey r-e-y, there is probably that person.
Larry Hryb: There is a Jeffrey Rubenstein.
Jeff Rubenstein: It's Jeff Rubenstein, thanks.
Larry Hryb: That's also, he also handles all of the complaints for the show.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yes, all complaints can go to @JeffreyRubenstein.
Larry Hryb: Of course, you can find me @majornelson and we'll see you, if I don't see you on Friday during This Week on Xbox ... then I will, did you see, by the way before we sign off and let me bring the music back down. Did you see the video I did with Aaron Greenberg? No, you didn't see it.
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh, I saw it.
Laura Massey: I don't think so.
Jeff Rubenstein: And LEGIQN.
Larry Hryb: That's right and LEGIQN.
Jeff Rubenstein: Jordan Payton.
Larry Hryb: Jordan Payton.
Jeff Rubenstein: Good guy.
Larry Hryb: Go watch that one.
Laura Massey: You recommend it?
Larry Hryb: I'll let Jeff do it.
Jeff Rubenstein: You know, I'm gonna link to it.
Larry Hryb: Okay, let's link to it. Alright gang, we'll talk to you next time. I don't know, maybe Laura and I won't do a show next week cause Jeffrey won't be here, we'll figure it out. We'll talk to you next time.
Buh-bye everybody!
Laura Massey: Buh-bye!