Reggie Fils-Aimé on Disrupting the Game & Top Gun in Microsoft Flight Sim

LARRY HRYB: Hi, it's Larry Hryb, Xbox's Major Nelson. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you for liking, subscribing, and joining us on this journey. And joining me today over there is Jeff and Rebecca, my lovely co-hosts.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Aah.

LARRY HRYB: Just a sort of yay. Great to see you all, as usual.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I was reacting to the crowd, as usual. It was a warm welcome.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Jeff, I love the Cuphead shirt. I actually-- the restaurant I went to last weekend for dinner, my server had a Cuphead tattoo. And I was like, oh, is that a Cuphead tattoo? And he was like, no one here knows what this is. So I'm like, I got you. [LAUGHS]

LARRY HRYB: Wow, did you tell--

REBECCA GORDIUS: It was really cool.

LARRY HRYB: Yeah, that's a fantastic-- was it Cuphead and Mugman or just Cuphead?

REBECCA GORDIUS: No, it was-- so I don't remember the character name. It's the bad guy, the dice. Isn't that the bad guy?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Diceman.

REBECCA GORDIUS: It's been a long time since I played. Yeah, Diceman. Yeah, he had the Diceman right here on his forearm. And he was like, oh, that's my favorite character. And I was like, wait a second. Wasn't that the bad guy?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: That's the guy that makes the game hard.

LARRY HRYB: But we're kind of cooking along here. We've got some good interviews this week. We're going talk about-- this is fascinating-- we're going to talk about Top Gun, which came out in 1986, Top Gun content now available for Microsoft Flight Simulator, which came out in, what, 1992-- or 1982. So it's a little bit of a throwback episode.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Larry, there's a new Top Gun movie. It's out now.

LARRY HRYB: I know.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Top Gun-- Maverick.

LARRY HRYB: It's out now.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Crowds love it.

LARRY HRYB: It's out now. So we're going to talk--

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Seriously, like, a 10-minute standing ovation at Cannes. I'd be exhausted.

LARRY HRYB: Did it?

REBECCA GORDIUS: Really?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah. No, at least, that's what I read.

LARRY HRYB: All right.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Oh, I wasn't planning to see it. But maybe I-- maybe I should.

LARRY HRYB: Theaters only-- only theaters.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: You have to stand up and give the standing ovation in the theater afterwards.

LARRY HRYB: For Tom Cruise.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Otherwise, Tom Cruise will come find me. Yeah.

LARRY HRYB: [LAUGHS] So we're going to talk about-- so we're going talk to Jorg Neumann. And then this next interview, which you probably saw from the metadata, look at this. Reggie is joining the show.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: What?

LARRY HRYB: So this is legendary Reggie. So we're going to-- and we're going to talk about-- I'm going to surprise him with a little photo and a blast from the past that he and I have together that I don't think he's ever going to remember, but I do. So excited. Got a pretty good show.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: My body is ready.

LARRY HRYB: Exactly. Thank you, Jeff. Thank you. He's--

REBECCA GORDIUS: I'm excited for the interview.

LARRY HRYB: Thank you. Yeah, it's really great to have him on and talk to him. He's such another great ambassador for the industry. So we'll do that later on today. But we're going to jump into it right now and talk about what we're playing. We got some news going on. We'll throw it right to Mr. Fortnite, Jeff. What are you playing?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Actually, well, in honor of Reggie, we play-- obviously, I play a ton of Xbox, but I have everything. And over here on my Switch, I finally beat, after 50 hours, I want to say, I beat Triangle Strategy. If you like strategy RPGs, Final Fantasy tactics, one of my favorite all-time games. I love this game.

And after I beat it, I immediately started New Game Plus. And I can't say I do that very often for very many games. And so that's pretty much the highest recommendation I could possibly give. So that's my treadmill game. It's my travel game. So big fan of that.

But then, also, I was talking to-- there was a game that came out on Game Pass for PC called Vampire Survivor into game preview. And someone on my team, Sean, was saying, hey, you should check this out. And I was talking to Gameranx. I was talking to Jake Baldino from Gameranx about something else. He's like, have you played Vampire Survivor?

And I was like, not yet. And he goes, just make sure you don't have some place you have to be before you start. And I was like, all right, well, Jake Baldino literally ranks the games. It's what he does. So I should try this out.

So last night, I fired up Vampire Survivor, a very svelte, 200 meg download. And this is the most minimalist game. This is like the platonic ideal of don't judge a book by its cover. Because if you were to look at screenshots of this, which I did, I was like, this looks like something from the time you met Reggie the first time, Larry, or when Top Gun was in the theaters is what this game looks like.

It looks very reminiscent of like OG Castlevania. And basically, there's, out of the whole controller-- how many buttons are on this controller?-- you use approximately zero of them. All you use is the left stick.

[CLICKS]

LARRY HRYB: That's it?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So you're controlling this little person.

LARRY HRYB: So we should get you an old-school Atari joystick, right, and see. Because that's all you need.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: You could do that. Or maybe your flight-- actually, it'd be great with a flight sim throttle control. So what you do is-- or yoke, I guess. Don't put me in front of the plane. So you control this little avatar--

LARRY HRYB: Can confirm.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: --who's like a little not Simon Belmont but Simon Belmont who goes around and is completely surrounded by waves and waves, originally, of bats. And they just keep coming in, and automatically--

LARRY HRYB: Sounds like Robotron.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Very, very reminiscent. And so he'll do a move, which he starts out with a whip. You unlock other characters. And every, like, three seconds, just whi-- and you just position him in a place where you can do it.

LARRY HRYB: [IMITATES WHIP SNAP]

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: And every enemy drops a little XP gem. And after you level up, you get a second move. And you get to choose from one of three moves. So it could be throwing an ax or throwing a boomerang.

LARRY HRYB: This is on Game Pass for PC right now.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: This is a Game Pass for PC. Or whipping out of both sides. And then, every time you level up, you get a little stronger, and so do the enemies. And then you're finding-- there's going to be points in this game where you're surrounded by, like, a thousand bats.

And you're barely weaving your way through. And all you're doing is just using the left stick while this character automatically attacks. And it is mesmerizing. It is somehow incredibly chill.

LARRY HRYB: I was going to say, does it get to be very, very-- does it get to be very calming as you're going through this?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Zen! Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. And I ended up just put on a podcast, or you could even be doing something, and just sitting there with the left stick. I had it-- because you can run it in a window. It's a very low demand on your GPU. You could probably play this on-- I haven't tried it on my--

LARRY HRYB: You don't need a 3080 for this.

REBECCA GORDIUS: On the work computer yet?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yes, exactly. You don't need to get a new graphics card and upgrade your RAM. Don't download any new RAM.

LARRY HRYB: [LAUGHS]

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: And it's just very-- it's just very relaxing. So Vampire Survivor, check it out. Let me know what you think. And if you don't like it, I mean, it's on Game Pass.

LARRY HRYB: Let's put a link in the-- let's make sure we put a link in the show notes on the blog. Let's make sure we do that.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So that's what I'm playing. Rebecca, have you had a chance to play anything this week?

REBECCA GORDIUS: Yeah. So I actually played the new Minecraft Angry Birds DLC with a couple folks last weekend. And it really surprised all three of us. It's a really, really fun experience. I would definitely recommend it.

It's pretty similar to the mobile game, but there's this whole-- there's this whole world that was created within. So it's kind of-- I mean, it's really more of a mini game than a DLC. Because there's this world, and there's a nursery. And then there's a guy giving out free hugs. And there were all these random little-- it's like a village.

And then you can get into two different game modes. And you can unlock other bird characters. And those birds have different abilities. And then there's the classic mode, which is really just going after different challenges. They get progressively harder or different materials.

But it is so cute. And it's so funny. And they really revamped the gameplay in a way that's interesting to play with multiple people. And in a 3D-- I don't know if 3D environment is right. But so for example, you have, instead of with the mobile game, it used to just be like, OK, here's the challenge. You're on this side, and then you have to just slingshot in one direction.

But now, it's in the middle. And then there's four slingshots on each side. And so you can attack it from different angles, which is actually really cool. And then you can also see-- you can play it cooperatively with friends.

And so I invited these two friends to my realm. And so we played together. And so I could see them and see how badly they were shooting or how well they were doing. And you share different-- the number of slingshots between whoever is in the world. So you have to be really strategic about it. You can't just-- so at one point, I definitely wasted a shot. And then that took one away from all of us.

So it's a really cool experience. I think kids would love it, but it's also just really fun to play together, too. So I think I'm going to try out the mission mode. I think that this would be another one that my roommate would like. Because it's pretty simple. You're just using the slingshot and looking at the trajectory. But yeah, it was really fun. So you guys should check it out.

LARRY HRYB: Now, do you get to come--

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: It's the reason why Angry Birds was the biggest game in the world mobilely--

LARRY HRYB: That's true.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: --for a while. So there's just something tried and true about that gameplay. But adding that extra dimension sounds really cool.

LARRY HRYB: Now, at any point, do you take the perspective of the bird, so you're being thrown?

REBECCA GORDIUS: Yeah, yeah, so you're-- oh, well, actually, I'm trying to remember.

LARRY HRYB: You know what I mean?

REBECCA GORDIUS: I think you're like-- yeah. You're definitely in the bird's perspective when you're in the slingshot and you're aiming, and you can see the dotted line for the trajectory. But then you kind of stay in the slingshot space. And then you see where your bird went.

LARRY HRYB: I see. I see.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Cool.

REBECCA GORDIUS: So that way, you can see the progress. That would be really funny, though, if your view is from the bird and, yeah, going into the pigs.

LARRY HRYB: That mechanic already exists a little bit in Sea of Thieves, when you can shoot yourself out of a cannon. So that's kind of what I was thinking of.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Same, same.

LARRY HRYB: Yeah, same, same. But that's cool.

REBECCA GORDIUS: What about you, Larry? What have you been playing?

LARRY HRYB: I've been playing-- Halo Infinite has their new season, and they have their new mode, Land Grab, which I played quite a bit over the past couple of nights. Jeff, you and I haven't had a chance to play it. And certainly, Rebecca, you and I haven't had a chance to play it, but Land Grab is kind of my new favorite mode right now, where you have to grab a series of--

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Land?

LARRY HRYB: Yes. Points on the map.

REBECCA GORDIUS: [LAUGHS] Spoiler.

LARRY HRYB: And then, anyway, that's all been a lot of fun. And then, what else? Little Witch in the Woods is in Game Preview. And I've been playing that on my console. So I've been kind of checking that out.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: What's that like? Because I saw some creators talking about that. What's the game like?

LARRY HRYB: It's not that-- I'm trying to figure it out, to be honest with you. So I'm actually-- and what's great is because you can stream from a lot of the games on Game Pass directly to your console, you don't have to do the install. So you can play it immediately.

So I'm going to render my verdict not yet. Because I'm starting to go through and just starting to really understand it. But I want-- I need to come back with you. And I'm going to be traveling next week, so I may play this next week as I'm traveling. So stay tuned, Jeff. Stay tuned.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Well, we have a long weekend coming up. So let's--

LARRY HRYB: In the US, we do.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Let's try and get some-- let's grab some lands or shoot some angry birds.

LARRY HRYB: Birds.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Do we want do the news now, or do we want to talk to Reggie now? Because I feel like I want to talk to Reggie.

LARRY HRYB: Well, you know what? We can just start getting into it. You know what? Let's start rolling in there. Rebecca, why don't you set us up for the interviews, if you would, please.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Sure. All right, we have Jorg Neumann, who's going to talk about Microsoft Flight Simulator and the new Top Gun content that's just come out within the game, which is available now. And then the movie itself is also out if you want to check that out.

And then, finally, the main attraction, we have Reggie Fils-Aimé, who's going to talk about Disrupting the Game. And hopefully, Larry can embarrass him a little bit. So let's get into it.

LARRY HRYB: I am beyond pleased to be joined today by a gaming legend. Let's bring him in. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Reggie Fils-Aimé. Reggie, good to see you-- new book.

REGGIE FILS-AIME: Good to see you. Yes, a new book ripping up the charts. Wall Street Journal best-seller.

LARRY HRYB: I mean, this is unbelievable. For those of you who don't know it, Reggie has released a book. Of course, Reggie is a gaming legend in everybody's mind, former leader of Nintendo of North America. And you left there a few years ago, Reggie. And it was-- what a run you had, first of all. Congratulations. It was an amazing, amazing success you had there. What was that like when you kind of said, you know what? I think I'm done.

REGGIE FILS-AIME: It was a difficult decision. But it was years in the making. And I say that because the run of DS to Wii to 3DS, even the challenges with Wii U and then the massive launch and success of the Switch, as you well know, launching all of these systems takes a lot out of you. You really have to be on your A game to effectively launch a new system.

And back in 2015, my good friend Satoru Iwata had passed away. And that really was the beginning of my thinking about what I wanted to do in my next phase. Because I wanted to do more beyond, certainly, all the great work at Nintendo. I wanted to touch a larger audience. I wanted to impact people in a broader way. So that was the impetus and the start.

I also remember, from my own days joining Nintendo of America in 2003, that it's important to leave the business in great hands. When I joined in 2003, obviously, the original Xbox was putting tremendous pressure on Nintendo, especially Nintendo of America.

The first round of leaders from the Nintendo of America era had retired as I was coming on board. And so I wanted to make sure that the organization was in great hands and had a system that could certainly continue driving the business for a number of years.

So all of this was the impetus to do the hard thinking and to say, look, this is the right time. The team's in place. The product is going to sell well, certainly, for at least a few years. And it was the right time.

LARRY HRYB: And it was great because you cover a lot of that in your book, which is available now. We just talked about it, on The Wall Street Journal best-sellers list. I mean, as you said, it's going crazy here.

But some of the things you go over here are so personal to me. Because, as you said, being on the Xbox side-- and it's funny, a lot of folks don't know this, or maybe they do-- is that the Xbox offices, or some of the offices, and the Nintendo offices are literally hundreds of feet apart. You're right down on the street there.

And seeing you put into words what many of us at Xbox had gone through with the launch of the original Xbox, Xbox 360, and Xbox One, it was really interesting. And so that's why I strongly urge folks, until I write my book in a few years, to pick this one up and kind of go through and hear some of your learnings.

Now, I have to share this with you, something-- it was about 2005 or '05. I had just joined the Xbox team. And you were doing an event at the Bellevue Square. Do you remember this event?

REGGIE FILS-AIME: Well, I remember doing an event at Bellevue Square. It was for the launch of Mario Kart DS. And my memory is you were at that event. And as you say, I think you were still fairly new to the industry. Because I certainly didn't connect you, your face, with Xbox at the time. But I remember you tweeted about it, or you did some messaging about it after the fact.

LARRY HRYB: I sure did. Well, not only that, but look at this. I found the photo--

REGGIE FILS-AIME: Wow, look at that classic photo.

LARRY HRYB: --of you and I together. I mean, you and I are-- you and I are looking a little bit younger there. But more importantly, you signed my DS, which was, to me, as a video game fan, it was great to have that. And that is actually one of my real treasures that I have here.

So it was such a fun moment, and I'm so glad that you remember that. It was just a-- I really appreciate all of that all the time. And you were so gracious then. And you and I were at different parts of our career at the beginning. And just to see you do what you did with Nintendo was just so incredible.

REGGIE FILS-AIME: Well, thank you for that. And you mentioned the physical proximity between the two offices. But other things that people don't understand-- so we live in the same community. We run into each other. Certainly, from an industry perspective, all of the major companies have conversations around what's best for the industry.

And even though today, the video game business is a $200 billion business, in terms of the key executives, it's a pretty small group. And so we're constantly running into each other at airports, airplanes, whatever the case may be. And I have always found that to be a really positive element of this great industry.

LARRY HRYB: Yeah. You talk about that. And I remember, actually, I think it was you and I were at the same health club once. And I believe I saw you across the locker room. And that was a great moment.

But you're right. The industry is so small. And I still talk to probably someone you and I talked to, who's Peter Moore, who used to head up the Xbox business who's now gone on to great things.

But certainly, Nintendo has an incredible, incredible fan base and passion. That must have been really exciting for you to see that explode as social became such a part of the games industry in the late 2000s.

REGGIE FILS-AIME: Well, that's absolutely true. And as you stated, the company has always had this massive fan base, including me before I was in the industry. I played Nintendo content. I played original Xbox content. I played PS2 content. But fans in this industry do associate themselves with either one particular platform or a series of particular games.

And as social media enabled the executives to connect with fans in a whole new way, all of that was just a massive change within the industry. And you know, I always talk about it from my perspective-- I don't know if this is true for you-- but it was never planned for me to be one of the three key faces of Nintendo with Satoru Iwata and Shigeru Miyamoto. It wasn't the plan.

The plan was for this brash American, this marketer, this executive, to help drive the business forward. But it really was the embrace of the fans and the community that enabled me to play that other role as a key communicator and a key face for the corporation.

LARRY HRYB: And not only playing that role but doing it so well. I mean you talked about Sony. And of course, Microsoft-- Microsoft and Xbox and yourself and Nintendo, it was such a lovely narrative and a lovely conversation we would have in social, whether we were at E3-- and I know that there's, unfortunately, there's no longer an E3 as we know it.

And that was always a great moment to see Nintendo. You guys had your booth with the big curtain around it and what was going to happen that morning when you dropped it.

But to take that conversation off of the floor of E3 and bring it into this social atmosphere and having it available sometimes 24/7/365, it's humbling to be representing the brand. But it's, also, it's really exciting to be able to talk to folks and, wherever you go, run into to fans of your product.

REGGIE FILS-AIME: Oh, absolutely. And the ability to engage with the fan base-- and even for me today, for me to go to South by Southwest, where I was in March, to be approached by a fan with a Mother 3 cartridge from the Japan Gameboy Advance and to have a conversation with the fan, sign that cartridge for him, those types of things really are magical.

And again, it's the nature of our industry. It's the nature of, certainly, the role I was able to play within the industry and the fact that I continue to be connected to the industry. I continue to support a variety of different companies. I've done a couple projects for Microsoft and Xbox. And so it's a great way for me to continue to engage with an industry that I love.

LARRY HRYB: In your book, Disrupting the Game, which is available now, you talk about some of the moments that you've had. And I've got some notes here. And we're not going to go through all of them because people need to read the book themselves. And really, it's a great read. It's a quick read.

But one of them was about authenticity earning respect. And that just really rang through to me as somebody who's always tried to do that on behalf of Xbox. And you just nailed that on behalf-- when you were at Nintendo before. Tell us a little bit about that and why you felt that that was one of these big so what moments.

REGGIE FILS-AIME: You know, I've worked in a range of different industries. And in some of those situations, I've observed executives who just try too hard. They really aren't committed to the business or the industry. And people can sniff it out, whether it's other executives-- now, in this era of social communities, the community can sniff it out.

And I was just so fortunate in entering the industry that I had played games since my youth, the earliest, earliest video games-- Pong and CalecoVision. I played Donkey Kong on arcade. In my home, I had a Super Nintendo Entertainment System with approaching 80 games. I had an N64. I had a PS2. I had a Sega Genesis. I had the original Microsoft. I had all of the systems in my home.

And so whether it was speaking to internal employees, speaking with passion about the franchises, speaking with passion about the industry, whether it's speaking to other executives, whether it's speaking to the fan base, it was clear that I had knowledge, and I was authentically passionate about the work I was doing.

And I believe whatever you do-- whether you're a student, whether you're a mechanic, whether you're an executive-- whatever you do, I believe you have to have this authentic passion for the moment and the work being done. Otherwise, it gets sniffed out, and you become less and less effective.

So I do talk about that extensively in the book. I give a number of different examples. And really, my hope is to coach folks on how to really find their passion, find what it is that makes them excited to get up and to do their work every day. Because if you find that, then it isn't work, right? It's something that you're just enjoying in the moment and celebrating as you move things forward.

LARRY HRYB: It's interesting because you put into words so eloquently, right now and within the book, pretty much my path and how I approach what I do with Xbox. And you're right. You can't hide that passion. And I love, much like you do, traveling the world and meeting fans.

And I don't want to go-- there's so many, so many great moments in the book. But there's something else I want to talk to you about, which is really interesting. And one of them you talk about is being open to alternative paths and outcomes. And to me, that is Nintendo in a nutshell.

Because sitting at Xbox every E3 or when I would go to TGS, it's like, what are they going to-- they've got two screens now. Or they now have this motion control. It was always a different way.

And to me, what you state here about being open to alternative paths and it returned so much success in so many ways-- sometimes it was more successful than others-- but it was the experiment. Sometimes there were failures, and sometimes there weren't. So I just want to see if you could talk about that a little bit. Because that, to me, is so crystal clear what Nintendo is all about, in some regards.

REGGIE FILS-AIME: Well, absolutely. So when I talk about being open to alternatives, this is something that is just so incredibly personal to me. And I'll just share one small story. So when I was an undergraduate at Cornell University, I saw my path to be working in the financial industry, working as an international banker. I had interned at banks. I had job offers from banks. I saw that clearly as my path forward.

And an alternative appeared. It was an invitation to interview with Procter & Gamble, the consumer products giant. And I knew nothing about Procter & Gamble until I received that offer to come interview. But the more I looked into the company's brand management program, the more I saw that the program fit my long-term objective.

I wanted to run a business. I wanted to learn all aspects of the business. And that's what their brand management program offered me. Plus, it was a situation where, typically, it would be offered to MBA candidates. I was an undergraduate. If I had pursued this path and was successful, I would be cutting years off of my progression in my journey, and I could achieve things sooner.

And so I chose that alternative path. And it became a hallmark for me. The decision to join Nintendo was an alternative path. I was counseled not to take the job. I was counseled that, at the time-- 2003-- the video game industry was still small. Only about one out of every three people in the United States played video games. Now, it's closer to eight out of 10.

But the decision to take an alternative path really has set me up for so many of my successes. From a Nintendo perspective, they talk about it in terms of doing something different, always being innovative, always taking a differentiated view to create new experiences for the consumer.

And I was just so fortunate to be in a situation where my own personal values linked up with the company values of being innovative, in trying new things. It really was a perfect marriage.

LARRY HRYB: It's interesting because you talk about it, a little bit about your journey from-- and in fact, it's even in the headline, from the Bronx to the top of Nintendo-- because I grew up in the East Coast. I grew up in Connecticut. I went to school in upstate New York, much like you, at Syracuse, just up the road from Cornell.

So we had kind of similar paths in some regards. We kind of ended up in the same industry. And I agree with you. There's certain opportunities that open that lead you. Like if somebody had told, when I was at Syracuse University, you're going to work in video games. I would have gone, really?

Well, that doesn't even seem a thing back then. When you and I were younger, to your point, one out of three people were doing it. Now, there's so many people doing it. If you could go back and talk to Reggie at Cornell right now, what would you tell him? Would you just say, just keep doing what you're doing, it's going to success? Or would you maybe change a couple things?

REGGIE FILS-AIME: The one thing I would change-- and again, it dates back to the situations that I found myself in as a young man. I was constantly being thrust into new situations. I had to figure them out on my own. I had to figure out how to decide where to go to school, the application process. I had to figure out how I would pay for college.

My parents were not in a position to help me. My parents emigrated from Haiti, so they didn't even have a good understanding of the US collegiate system to offer guidance. I had to do all of this myself.

And that type of mentality of always trying to figure it out by myself is something that I continued to do through my early days at P&G and even my early days in the restaurant industry. So the one piece of counsel I would give my younger self is to be more aggressive in seeking out mentors, seeking out coaches, being more aggressive in being vulnerable and asking for help.

It takes a lot for me to ask for help, even today. But that would be one just small piece of insight, one little behavioral change, that I would share with my younger self. Just be willing to ask for help instead of always trying to be the one to figure it out on your own.

LARRY HRYB: That's such an inspirational story about trying to figure out how to get into college, how to pay for it, and do all of that. I mean, that's really the game on hard mode, in a lot of ways. But you figured it out.

REGGIE FILS-AIME: Well, that's exactly right.

LARRY HRYB: Go ahead.

REGGIE FILS-AIME: No, it's exactly right.

LARRY HRYB: It's interesting because you mentioned the restaurant industry. And a lot of people may not know-- of course, you go over this in the book. Tell us a little bit about the restaurant industry and what you learned from that.

REGGIE FILS-AIME: Well, so as I transitioned from consumer packaged goods to the restaurant industry, it really drove home an insight about what makes me tick. So the consumer packaged goods industry is pretty slow-moving, meaning you're growing your top line revenue 3% or 4%. You're generating 2 or 3 points of cost savings. So your profitability is increasing in the low single digits. And if you're able to do that consistently, you're a hero.

But I have to say, I found myself bored with that type of business. It just wasn't challenging enough for me versus the restaurant industry and, certainly, later in the video game industry-- so incredibly fast paced. So in restaurants, you could make a change today and see your results tomorrow as you look at your receipts. That mentality of fast testing, read the results, course correct, just became something that was core to the way I think about business.

You know, I am not a slow-moving type of guy in terms of driving business results and driving business change. So that was a key learning and a key insight for me and something that, absolutely, I was able to apply to my days in the video game industry.

LARRY HRYB: You've been out of the video game industry for a few years, working on a lot of different projects, including the book. Do you miss it? Do you miss the drama of the video game industry? Tell me about that.

REGGIE FILS-AIME: Well, look, in many respects, I'm still involved in the video game industry. And I say that in terms of being an advisor to a small publisher and developer. And that work keeps me incredibly engaged. I've got a SPAC-- a Special Purpose Acquisition Company-- that's focused on the digital entertainment space. So what that means is I'm having conversations with private companies to see if they're ready to be taken public through this SPAC vehicle.

So that's keeping me engaged not only with the video game industry but the broader creator economy and the blockchain economy, all of these elements that are very interesting and, at times, very interconnected within the video game industry. So I'm not completely out of it.

So from that standpoint, I don't miss it. But I love what I get to do today. I love the opportunity to share my lessons with other people. I love the opportunity to advise executives in my board service role. I love the ability to get back not only on the Cornell campus but on other university campuses and engage with administrators, engage with professors, engage with students.

I continue to be extraordinarily passionate about the power of education. I'm very involved in that here in our state of Washington. So for me, retirement has given me the opportunity to do all the things that I love and to do it with people that I enjoy working with.

LARRY HRYB: That's well said. I mean, you're right. People think that, oh, he's not on stage anymore or he's not at a big reveal on one of the Nintendo directs, that he's out of the industry. But you're actually probably more active now, horizontally, across all the different parts of the industry, than perhaps when you were at Nintendo.

REGGIE FILS-AIME: That's absolutely true, right. And that's the other thing that people don't understand. Running Nintendo of America was a 24/7 job, not only in terms of size and scale but dealing with the executives in Kyoto, Japan, on a 16- 17-hour time difference. So in my evening would be their morning, so that would drive activity late into the evening here in the Pacific Northwest. I'd be having conversations with the European teams. So that's my morning. So it makes for a long day. And there was no way that I could do all of the things that I do in retirement and still be an executive at a company like Nintendo.

LARRY HRYB: I talk to a lot of developers and a lot of people in the industry, so I have to ask. With all that you're doing-- with the book and all of the things you just mentioned-- what are you playing now? And it doesn't have to be Xbox.

REGGIE FILS-AIME: Yeah, so here's what's interesting. So I continue to play all of the latest content, even if it's just for a little while. I've stated that I invested time in Elden Ring, even though that type of game isn't typically the type of game I like to play. I mean, FromSoftware makes these incredibly difficult games, these games that, by definition, your character is going to die hundreds of times if not a thousand times.

LARRY HRYB: Well, they've created their own genre with the Dark Souls, right? It's kind of like everybody calls Dark Souls-like.

REGGIE FILS-AIME: Exactly. And so I play those games. I play more casual games. I play a lot of indie content, in part because I've been on juries, judging independent content. I did that for Tribeca last year. And we just did a major program with IGN, this kind of Shark Tank meets developers concept that was really successful.

So I'm playing a range of different things. And again, I always have, even during my days at Nintendo. And I enjoy just getting my hands on any controller and seeing just what's fresh out in the industry.

LARRY HRYB: I couldn't have said it better. I mean, that's the same thing with me. I've got my Switch over here. I've got my PS5 and my Xbox and, of course, PC gaming. It's everywhere. It's great.

And I love the fact-- I know you talk to Phil frequently-- but I love the fact that what we're doing is trying to bring the console gaming experience to as many devices as possible with xCloud or putting it on your phone and what have you. So it's great that, to your point, more and more people are playing games than ever before. And it's only going up, right? It's only going up.

REGGIE FILS-AIME: That's absolutely right. And I have to compliment the team. The work that the broad Xbox team is doing just to make games accessible to as many people as possible, and accessible not only from a controller standpoint but also just the variety of different screens and the ability to access it that way. So in the end, more people playing games is great for the industry, and it's great for all of the teams making fantastic content.

LARRY HRYB: I need to get you back to Elden Ring. So I don't want to take any more of your time. But I really appreciate, Reggie, you coming on and talking about your book, Disrupting the Game. It's available now. It's pretty much everywhere now. It's also an audio book, if I recall correctly, right?

REGGIE FILS-AIME: It's on audio book. And I narrated the audio book, which was tremendous fun and tremendous work all at the same time. So for anyone who misses hearing my voice, get the audio book.

LARRY HRYB: Is it the ASMR version of Reggie reading Disrupting the Game?

REGGIE FILS-AIME: It's not quite-- not quite that. I do put a fair amount of passion and energy into the reading. The reviews of the audio book have been off the charts. It's really great to see.

LARRY HRYB: Yeah, I have it downloaded. I'm looking forward to reading it again as I listen to it. So Reggie, thank you so much for your time today. We'll catch up with you on social. And maybe we can have you on again in the future?

REGGIE FILS-AIME: That sounds great. Looking forward to it. Take care, Larry.

LARRY HRYB: Of course, we've been talking about Microsoft Flight Simulator for quite some time. It's always great to talk to that team, and you are going to get him in here in just a moment. But this week, big week because-- I feel like I need some walk-on music for you, Jorg-- look at this. Jorg is all Top Gunned out. Jorg, good to see you.

JORG NEUMANN: Hey, how's it going? Welcome to the zone.

LARRY HRYB: It's great to see you, Jorg. You're the head of Microsoft Flight Simulator, which just has been on fire for the past couple of years. So thank you for joining us. But we want to get you on. We got this great new-- I mean, is it an expansion pack? Is it an experience? How do you talk about it?

JORG NEUMANN: It's an expansion. So basically, it really embraces Top Gun. I don't know how much you follow the movie. It's a really great movie, back after 34 years or whatever. And it's been a wonderful partnership with Paramount.

And both franchises, both Top Gun and Flight Sim really stand for something. For a lot of us, it's the beginning of the love for aviation. You know, Flight Sim came out in 1982, Top Gun 1986. And so when we started talking to them, it was really like two minds melding in our love for aviation and what we could do. And yeah.

LARRY HRYB: I mean, this is one of those, I hesitate to call it a mashup because it's such a natural connection between Top Gun and Flight Sim. But it's available now, so if you're on Flight Sim. Tell us what this expansion pack consists of. Because there's some really cool stuff in there.

JORG NEUMANN: Yeah, so the very first meetings we had with the director, Kosinski, and Jerry Bruckheimer, I thought they were really good connections. Because they immediately said, hey, Jorg, we made a great movie. Please make it great game that is connecting. It's additive. So we're not retelling the story of the movie. We're making you-- we make you become a top gun. That's literally what it is.

So we started researching, talking to top guns out there in the world, researching what they actually do, and then figured out exactly how to unlock this. So we started with some training because it's hard. We have an F/A-18 plane is a really sophisticated plane.

And we go through some afterburner take-offs and split S maneuvers, which is a sort of like a twist, a half roll and a return, and also a ridge-crossing maneuver, where you turn over the rail. Because basically, top gun pilots, they obviously go fast, and they also stay low. That's one of the main things.

And that led to our challenges. And the challenges are there's something called low-altitude flying. That's what the top guns do. They have some famous canyons, like the Sidewinder Canyon. There's Atoyebi Canyon. Both of them, they're in the movie. We have five of those.

And we split those up into sectors. So think about it almost a Formula 1 race. There's sectors, and you get scored by how fast you go, how low you go, how close you hug to the terrain. And then the aggregate gets you an overall score. It's really fun, really challenging, totally new to Flight Sim. And then how you maneuver the afterburners is actually, also, key. So it's really, when they say the need for speed, oh, yeah.

LARRY HRYB: Now, Flight Sim has such a-- I know you and I have been talking for a few years now, since you launched. It feels like every six months, you have this update. You guys are always updating. The team is always updating the game.

But this is a little bit beyond. Because you've got jumbo jets in there and large aircrafts and small aircraft. But now you've got this F/A-18E Super Hornet. I mean, this thing is a monster, right?

JORG NEUMANN: It's a monster. And we've took it-- so we expanded it quite a bit. We went really far in the functionality. Because it's a sim. We're not at all an arcade game. This is not what we are. So the other buttons-- the cockpit avionics, all those things-- are pretty close to the pin, actually, as close as you are allowed to go, really.

And then there's another plane. So maybe just-- in the F/A-18s, there's the low canyon flying, which is super fun, and then what a lot of people think is the hardest thing in aviation is to land one of those babies on an aircraft carrier that's moving.

LARRY HRYB: Right, and going up and down in the water with the wind and the whole thing.

JORG NEUMANN: And -- and the guy, the controller on the carrier, tells you you're too low, too low, and splash you in the water. But it's super fun, too. It's super rewarding once you actually landed it. Because it's this itty-bitty-- when you think about it-- it's this itty-bitty piece of terrain in the middle of water.

So that's the F/A-18. And then, I don't know if you've seen the movie, but there is something in the movie. It's called the Dark Star. And the Dark Star, it's a fictional plane. Some people look at it and they are reminded of the SR-71 Blackbird. And it's super interesting. It's a hypersonic plane. The friction is it goes Mach 10-- 10 times the speed of sound.

LARRY HRYB: That's crazy.

JORG NEUMANN: And so we got to work-- and that was so cool-- we got to work with the manufacturer. There is no real manufacturer but the manufacturers who did the SR-71. And there was an expert. He's literally a plane creator. His name is Spock, of all things, Spock.

And Spock literally designed-- because the outside, you couldn't forget it from the movie that it has a shape, and it looks cool-- but it's really just about the equipment and the inside of the cockpit. Is that real? Does it feel right?

So he designed the cockpit for us. Like, what are the instruments? What do you actually do to actually maneuver this crazy craft that goes Mach 10-- so that's glowing on the outside? And that was super fun. Actually getting to work with an aircraft designer was awesome.

LARRY HRYB: So you've got this-- so there's a whole bunch of stuff in this update. First of all, of course, the movie is out now in theaters. You can download the add-on for Microsoft Flight Simulator. And it's got the F/A-18E Hornet. You've got a bunch of tasks you can do and maneuvers and things you've never been able to do before in Flight Simulator, including landing on a carrier, which is unbelievable.

Then you just talked about the Mach 10. That allows you to go-- and check my numbers on me-- you just said it was Mach 10, but it goes 150,000 feet above sea level. Is that right?

JORG NEUMANN: That's right. That's right, yeah. That's where you go-- and that's when you put in the scramjet. And so for those of you who love aviation and geek out on tech, it's all in there. And it's never been-- we've never gone this fast in Flight Simulator.

LARRY HRYB: Well, this fast or this high.

JORG NEUMANN: This high. When you see the curvature of the Earth, you're like, wow.

LARRY HRYB: Yeah, well, that's the whole thing. I mean, at that point, when you're 150,000 feet up above sea level, aren't you in space? Where's the line?

JORG NEUMANN: It's at the edge of space. It's starts to be thin out there. But that's why, also, you can go so fast. There's no friction.

LARRY HRYB: I want to congratulate you again on you and the team for just constantly-- Microsoft Flight Simulator, we've always talked about this on the show, and you and I have talked about it. Gone are the days of let's just put something in a box and sell it. Because you guys are constantly updating it. And this is a great example.

And can you go through. I haven't had you on for a few months, but go through some of the recent updates. Because people may not have had a chance to check out Microsoft Flight Simulator in quite some time.

JORG NEUMANN: Oh, Yeah. So the last, let's just say the last year-- so we launched on Xbox in July last year-- that brought in a whole bunch of new players. And they are starting to be simos, which is cool.

And then we have monthly updates that we do to the sim. That's the sim updates and world updates. And we've done one every single month since we launched-- literally 21 in 21 months. And we do these world updates. And world updates, in the last few months, it was Australia in January. It was Iberia, so Spain, Portugal, and --.

LARRY HRYB: So tell us a little bit about the world updates. What are those? Because it's not like Australia wasn't there and you added it. You went in and made it better, right?

JORG NEUMANN: That's right. Basically, when we launched in 2020, we had really good data. But there's always better data.

LARRY HRYB: It's always coming in, yeah.

JORG NEUMANN: We have thousands of satellites floating around, taking pictures, and planes flying overhead. So we are collecting new aerial data that's sometimes from airplanes, sometimes from satellites. Then we get new height data, which, basically, we work, oftentimes with the governments. They give us new terrain height fields, basically.

And then we make famous places. We go talk to the people in the country, like Australia, talk to a bunch of Australians. What are the famous places? And then we hand build those. And to make all that shine, we make missions to showcase those things.

We have discovery flights that take you across Sydney or Melbourne or whatever, bush trips, which take you into the countryside, which is what people do. And then we have landing challenges, some of the hardest airports-- super windy, right by the ridge or something. So we do those, as well. And that's essentially a world update.

And then, on top of that, we actually launch a plane every month. And for world updates, we launch a plane. We call them local legends. These are planes that are local heroes. For Australia, for example, it was the Fokker F-VII Southern Cross, which was a famous Australian aviator, flew from California-- first time-- over the Pacific to Australia, and super well known.

And so we make all these things every few months. And what's beautiful about it is we get to engage with this local audience. I mean, obviously, we have a worldwide audience. But the local people who live there really appreciate that we highlight their country or countries and that we make it more beautiful and really bring them closer to the public. And it's been great fun.

We actually launched Italy last week, Italy and Malta. And we're launching, actually, another one very, very soon here right after our keynote. So I can't say what it is yet.

LARRY HRYB: Yeah, stay tuned.

JORG NEUMANN: But what we've got going super cool. And just to say, because you say congratulate us, congratulate the community. We have a community of super dedicated, highly engaged flight enthusiasts. They give us feedback all the time. And that collaboration is what's driving all this. Their input, their drive to us to be better, to keep improving the sim.

And it's really fun. It really is a totally different way to make a game. And I can't even imagine going back, honestly. It's the most energy, I think, a team has ever felt. And our audience keeps growing. We're now three times as big as an audience as we were when we launched.

So when we launched, we always said there was-- the simos came and checked it out because it's their hobby. But then, with Xbox and especially also with xCloud, more and more people are coming in to check it out.

And Top Gun is so interesting because I get a bunch of pings and things. I've gotten pings from completely different people for Top Gun. They are like, man, this movie means so much to me. And the new one looks great. I'm playing this. And so we're really excited to see what's going to happen. It started today.

LARRY HRYB: Now, you also-- again, it's available now, as you listen to this-- but you mentioned a moment-- this is Flight Simulator's first time it's really been on the console and certainly the first time you're able to play it via xCloud. So it really opens it up to people that can play on their mobile devices like never before, right?

JORG NEUMANN: Yeah. I mean, I honestly think it's beautiful. It's just the beginning, from what I can see. The xCloud has reached other players in other countries. We know this because they talk to us. And I can sort of see the path. It goes to--

LARRY HRYB: The flight path.

JORG NEUMANN: Yeah, the flight path. It goes through all the countries in the world. And it's very frictionless to play it. I'm playing on my-- I have my Backbone. And I'm playing it, literally, all the time. Because it's so convenient. I play it on my Xbox downstairs. I have, obviously, a big PC here. And then I play it on my phone.

So I can play-- I can access-- Flight Sim anywhere-- in the car, you know.

LARRY HRYB: Not only that, but it also, all of your progression, your save, your campaign, all of that is just there, right? You don't have to-- it's not like you're running four different versions or four different game saves. It's all one.

JORG NEUMANN: Exactly. It's on the cloud. I flew to Washington, DC the other day. And I was playing Flight Sim in the plane. And you can basically replay the exact flight you're on. And it's just-- it's awesome. You sit there in your plane with your phone, playing. And looking outside, it looks identical. It's mind-blowing.

LARRY HRYB: That's kind of meta. Well, again, I want to congratulate you and the team and, as you said, the community for such a great little add-on for this community. And like I said, for those of us that are a little bit older, we know what Top Gun means to us from the mid-'80s.

And hopefully, a brand new audience will get into it and enjoy flight. And Flight Simulator's a great, great way to do it. So Jorg, thanks so much. We'll have you on again. I mean, it's always great to talk to you. I break out the special cloud background just for you.

JORG NEUMANN: Thank you.

LARRY HRYB: So thank you, Jorg. And we'll chat with you again later this year.

JORG NEUMANN: Awesome. Thanks. It's good to see you. Bye, everyone.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So cool to have Reggie on the show. Never thought we'd see the day, so that's really cool. And definitely want to pick up his book and see what he's learned over the last decade-plus in the industry. And also wanted to say a huge thanks to Jorg for joining us. Larry, you're reading the inside cover. There's no words on that-- OK, it's fine.

LARRY HRYB: There is.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Oh, there we go. There we go. Did you read the whole book before the interview?

LARRY HRYB: I read most of it. It's a quick read. It's like 200 pages. And I think I got to page 140. So I'm almost done.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: OK.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Nice work. You did your homework.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: You're further in than Little Witch in the Woods. That's the important thing. Real quick, I want to follow up on-- I'm not giving you a chance to reply-- so one of the cool things, I know you were talking about Top Gun, but also, we have a partnership with Stranger Things.

And as soon as we're done on the show here, I'm jumping on a plane. I'm heading to LA. And we're doing a really cool thing with Netflix and the Stranger Things team at LA Live where you can actually channel your inner Eleven and summon out of the rift.

Because there's a rift opened up, I heard. Just at the Xbox Plaza, it was just spontaneously. And you can fish out, if you have the power within you, a customized Xbox Series S. So that sounds cool.

LARRY HRYB: What?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I'm heading down there. We're going to be doing a live show.

LARRY HRYB: You're going down there?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yep, with negaoryx, who's really awesome. So it's just going to be-- it's going to be really--

LARRY HRYB: And that'll be on the air. That'll be on the Xbox Twitch channel, right?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: That'll be on the Xbox Twitch channel. But if you're down in LA Live Friday night, which I guess is tonight, depending on when you're listening to this, then yeah, head on down. It'd be great to meet you.

LARRY HRYB: Look for Jeff, too.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Yeah, can't miss him-- tall guy.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I'll be wearing the Cuphead shirt. I should probably change my shirt before I get down there.

LARRY HRYB: We'll stay away. That's fun. That sounds like a lot of fun. Looking forward to seeing that. We've got some news that we want to kind of pop through here before we wrap things up. Jeff, what do we have in the news?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, I know. It's a long show, so I'm going to really quick hit it here. So Roller Champions, free-to-play team sports game by Ubisoft. It's available now, 3v3. It's free to play. Check it out. A Mootroidvania--

REBECCA GORDIUS: [LAUGHS] I love that.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So Moo Lander-- yes.

LARRY HRYB: Oh, moo!

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I've written this story for the clients. It's called Moo Lander. It's a 2D adventure platformer featuring alien cows. And four-player local multiplayer. I wonder how that works. Well, that's out now.

LARRY HRYB: It's all animals.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Larry, this is preparing for you. This is for you. You should practice this before you head to Australia. Kao the Kangaroo Is available now. It's a classic 3D platforming action, takes you to Australia to rescue your missing family. So Larry, again, just to prepare you for super spiders.

LARRY HRYB: I can't imagine what the enemies are like in that game. [LAUGHS]

REBECCA GORDIUS: Probably pretty vicious. It's Australia.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, exactly. Next-- oh, this was a cool announcement-- so Temtem. This is a collectible them all type of game.

LARRY HRYB: Oh, I get that when I go to Australia, right?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Exactly, yeah.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Ha ha.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Don't bring any-- you can't bring anything back. You can't bring any wood products back. Don't ask me how I know that. So Temtem was announced back in 2020. We have a date now. It's coming out on September 6. And so that looks really cool for those of you who like to catch them all.

Lost Sands, a Sea of Thieves adventure is available now to play. It's a limited time, through June 9. So it's sort of a mystery. You're going to side with Merrick to track down vital supplies and help restore a stricken outpost. Or you could be the bad guy and ally with the serpent of the flame to ensure that it remains in ruins.

A couple other updates here. We talked about Top Gun with Flight Simulator. Top Gun-- Maverick is also doing something with Ace Combat 7-- Skies Unknown. I'm assuming it's going to be a little bit more action-oriented, as opposed to exploration-oriented, as it is a very different flight type of game.

No Man's Sky has a new update. How many times have we said that? This is maybe the best supported game in the last generation--

LARRY HRYB: Just keeps going.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: The Leviathan Expedition is a narrative adventure. And so that's available. All right, two other things. One, Minecraft Marketplace is celebrating its fifth anniversary. And now through the 12th of, I'm assuming, June, you can delve into these fan favorites. And there's limited discounts, and there's a free tycoon map. What do you know about that, Rebecca?

LARRY HRYB: Wow.

REBECCA GORDIUS: I don't know much about the free map. But if you play Minecraft or you're interested in Minecraft, I would definitely recommend checking out the marketplace right now. It's been growing. I mean, it sounds really obvious, but the Marketplace is really cool. Because it's where we enable creators. We work with outside folks. But there's also a lot of partner DLCs. So we have Star Wars content, this Angry Birds map that I keep talking about.

LARRY HRYB: Is that where you find the Angry Birds content that you talked about earlier?

REBECCA GORDIUS: Yes. Yeah, so you can find, even if you don't want to go around punching trees and fighting zombies or building anything, there are a lot of actual mini games or different content within the marketplace. So highly recommend folks check it out. And again, Angry Birds DLC-- just saying, it's pretty cool.

LARRY HRYB: Plug it.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: All right. And last thing-- and Larry, I think they wanted to send it to you, but the mail did not arrive in time, so there's no gloves for you-- but SteelSeries has announced the Arctis Nova Pro wireless headset. You have the gloves. They are unused.

LARRY HRYB: I have the headset.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: But I'm sure once we see these-- what I'll say about SteelSeries, I think they make the most comfortable headphones. Because they have this double headband that moves with you. Because I had a pair of SteelSeries a few years ago, and I liked that.

So now it's the Arctis Pro Nova Pro wireless for Xbox. And it has spatial audio, noise cancellation, a dual battery system. Anyway, hopefully, they'll send you a pair or even better, they'll send me or Rebecca a pair, and we'll talk about it. After your unboxing from Doctor Strange, Rebecca, I feel like SteelSeries should have noticed.

REBECCA GORDIUS: I would like-- yeah, send me more things. I'll invest in a pair of gloves.

LARRY HRYB: I'll get you a pair of gloves, and you can do it. In fact, next time you come out here, we're going to make sure that you both have a pair of gloves so that you're all ready for the unboxing.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Will they be signed by Reggie?

LARRY HRYB: You never know. You never know.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Signed by Larry.

LARRY HRYB: No. Anyway, thank you for covering the news that week. We're getting into a lot of news. And as we get closer, I talked about the Xbox-Bethesda Showcase, which is happening in June, in just a few weeks. So we're looking forward to that.

Well, of course, I'm headed down to Melbourne, Australia for our FanFest related to that down there. So very excited about that. And yeah, you guys, you're going to be-- Rebecca, you and Jeff will be here in Seattle when I'm still in Melbourne. So we're going to try to do a show after our showcase. Cool.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I'll be in LA if anyone's coming to the FanFest on June 12 in LA. So that would be cool. But would love to see you. I'll wear my Cuphead shirt again. Why not?

LARRY HRYB: Again?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I don't know.

LARRY HRYB: I think by then, you should at least-- I think by then, you should get the Diceman tattoo.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Oh, that's a good idea. That's a good idea. And by the way, just so you don't run with it, just because I'm wearing a Cuphead shirt doesn't mean anything. It's not an announcement. It's not a hint. I don't even know what's in the showcase. So I'm just trying to head things off. I'm trying to-- you know how it is. You know how it goes.

LARRY HRYB: Don't I ever. We all do. So anyway. Well, thank you, guys, for joining us on the show this week. And thank you, dear listener and viewer, if you're listening to this on Apple Podcasts or Google Podcasts or anywhere else. We're available on video on Spotify, as well as on YouTube.

You can go to majornelson.com/podcast, and that's where you can find all the links and all the fun stuff there, including some of the things we mentioned in the show. We have a full transcript if you prefer to read what we talked about. I don't know why, but if you want to do that, we've got a transcript over there. We're trying to find ways that we can meet you where you are.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Love it.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Even if it's in the mall, where they're eating ice cream.

LARRY HRYB: Even if it's in the mall in front of an ice cream shop.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Get your tshirt signed.

LARRY HRYB: All right, we'll see you guys next time. Thanks for watching and listening, everybody. Bye-bye.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Bye.