The Future of Cloud Gaming, Eiyuden Chronicles & API Heritage Month

ANNOUNCER: Games in this podcast range from E to M.

LARRY HRYB: Hi, it's Larry Hryb, Xbox's Major Nelson. Welcome to the official Xbox podcast. You are along for the ride with me and my wonderful-- I don't know-- you're more host than co-host, Jeff over there on the left, and Rebecca over there on the right. Hi, gang.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: The left and the right, you know?

LARRY HRYB: I'm looking in a mirror here, so it's really hard to figure it out, so Jeff and Rebecca. How's that?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: There we go. You nailed it.

REBECCA GORDIUS: That works, yeah.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Wait, did we just get promoted, by the way, from co-host to host?

REBECCA GORDIUS: Only took a year-- nice.

LARRY HRYB: Well, you're on the trajectory. Watch--

REBECCA GORDIUS: Well, for me.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I'm on year seven.

LARRY HRYB: That's not true-- is it year seven, Jeff?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I think so.

LARRY HRYB: I think you're right.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I probably showed up on this maybe 2014, 2015.

LARRY HRYB: And here we are, and I still can't get rid of you.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Here we are.

LARRY HRYB: Here we go.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Forever a bridesmaid.

LARRY HRYB: It's great. We got a good show this week for you. We got a bunch of interviews. We've got talk about xCloud, Fortnite on xCloud. We talked about that last week. Jeff, you've got an interesting interview with Eiyuden Chronicles Rising. I know you did a stream on that last week.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, it's a JRPG companion piece. We'll be talking a lot more about it. It's definitely my most played game this week, having a ton of fun with it. And it is great to see Japan develop games on Game Pass on our platform, and there's so much to play and enjoy.

REBECCA GORDIUS: This month is Asian Pacific Islander Heritage Month. And so we have Ava from the Minecraft team. She has great history with Lucasfilms, and Mojang Studios, and Xbox. So it was great to just talk to her about her career and all the things she's doing within the Asian community at Xbox, too.

LARRY HRYB: And those will all come up later on. But first we're going to kind of get into what we're playing. I guess I'll kind of kick it off, because I'm not playing much. Because the new Halo Infinite season is out with a little bit of Last Man Standing-- or Last Spartan Standing, I should say.

So I'm playing quite a bit of that. For some reason I just kind of go in there. I have not gotten the coveted number one position yet. I've gotten number two by kind of turtling it. But, you know, what am I going to do?

REBECCA GORDIUS: That's OK. You'll get there next week.

LARRY HRYB: Next week, I know. Plenty of time to do that.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: It's hard to get those solo wins. When you're playing in a group, if you're running duos or quads, sometimes you can sleep on it a little bit and be carried to victory. When you're running solo, it is all you.

LARRY HRYB: It's all you. Now, you're playing--

REBECCA GORDIUS: No one to watch your back.

LARRY HRYB: If I remember, Jeff, you said you were playing Fortnite solo, right?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, I've been just running a lot, trying it out on Cloud Gaming and just playing really a ton throughout the weekend. I want the Doctor Strange skin. That's what I want. And actually the Battle Pass is really loaded this month. There's some really good stuff.

And in fact, they had brought last week back, as the game became available through Cloud Gaming-- just go to xbox.com/play. That's all you need. Just go. They put all of the Xbox heroes back into the game-- so Master Chief, who I had bought Master Chief when that was first announced back at the Game Awards-- 2020, 2021.

But also, I had not picked up-- I had missed out when Marcus Fenix and Kait Diaz from Gears had been brought into the game. And so I was able to pick them up, and I was getting all of their stuff. And I ended up-- I mean, I spent a bunch of v-bucks this weekend.

I ended up getting the Gravity Hammer. And so you can equip that as your harvester. So anyway, having a lot of fun. They put a bunch of Star Wars stuff in last week, that I did not expect, so you're running around with--

LARRY HRYB: May the 4th.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Well, yes. So you can have-- and it's temporary, I think, last week and this week. You can get a lightsaber, which can be used both offensively and defensively. And I hadn't really been using it that much. Because I'm like, defense, I don't do that. And then yesterday, I got a little too close to somebody.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Like to repel bullets, or--

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: You can do that. You can do it defensively. And you can repel a certain amount of those. After a while, you can get broken down. Someone got on top of me with Kylo Ren's crosshatch saber that he's got with the-- what are those things called? The hand guards, or whatever.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Vents, yeah.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Sure, yeah. It was over very quickly. It was not great. So that's cool. But then there's this blaster which completely changed the meta. You have, I think, it's the Stormtrooper Blaster. It doesn't need to reload. And it fires really quickly?

LARRY HRYB: Does it have low accuracy?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: And so--

LARRY HRYB: That's a stormtrooper reference.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I'll blame the gun. Very good, very good. All right, but I did get a couple of second place finishes in that. I would say that coupled with the drum shoddy, it's a good place to be right now.

LARRY HRYB: But you're playing that-- and we'll hear a little bit more about that later on in that interview. I said Catherine talks about some of those skins. So if you have a chance, go to, as Jeff said, xbox.com/play. Other than that, Jeff, what are you playing?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, well, Eiyuden Chronicle, which I had mentioned, currently available on Game Pass. It's a companion piece. We'll talk a little bit more about it. But it's an action RPG made by the folks that are--

LARRY HRYB: It's available now.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, and it's just really relaxing and fun because you're building up a world, so the action is in there. And there's some bosses. It's not Dark Souls. It's not Elden Ring. You're not going to be throwing your controller or anything like that.

But there's some technique to it, which is really fun. And I don't know. You just keep building up this town. And as a result, I'm just finding it very relaxing and playing a ton of it. So I expect to see that one all the way through.

LARRY HRYB: It's funny. You had mentioned throwing the controller. And I got one of the pink controllers that we announced a couple weeks ago.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I wouldn't throw that one.

LARRY HRYB: So I know this is quite the--

REBECCA GORDIUS: Lucky.

LARRY HRYB: Lucky? Well, we're going to talk about lucky, Ms. Rebecca, because you've got quite-- you've got something to show off later in the show.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Yes, that's true. I have a nice, big surprise over here next to me.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: What have you been playing?

LARRY HRYB: Yeah, what have you been playing, Rebecca?

REBECCA GORDIUS: Yeah, so I started playing Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion, and I loved it. I feel like I've played games that have been similar. It looks very cute. You can go on tasks. But I really enjoyed it. I really enjoy a nice, offbeat sense of humor.

So there was a point where I'm going through, and then there's these snails. And then a sign says, watch out. The snails are vegetarians. In my head I'm like, OK. That's nice. I walk by and the snail bites me. I'm like, oh, I'm a turnip. That makes sense. They're vegetarians. They're going to eat me.

[LAUGHING]

But it was pretty cute. I liked it a lot. So I actually started playing it-- I had an hour in between some meetings. And so I was like, OK, I'll try to squeeze in some game time. And I played it for the full hour, so I think I want to keep playing it. It was pretty good. I'd recommend it. It's out on Game Pass.

And then I was going to check out the Halo Infinite Lone Wolf mode. But I have not played Halo Infinite in a long time, and there was about an hour's worth of updating. So I'm going to come back to that one later. But instead, I started Life is Strange: True Colors.

I read about it on last week's-- I mean, obviously I've heard of the game before. But it's featured in our Asian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month collection on Xbox, and it's on Game Pass. And the protagonist, her name's Alex Chen. I believe she's also bisexual, and she's Asian-American.

So it's nice intersectionality seeing life through her eyes, making decisions through her eyes. And my roommate was sitting next to me when I was playing, who is-- she's not a gamer. And so she was like, this game is kind of like a movie. This is really interesting. And then give it two more decisions, and she's like, no-- push X, push X. Do that one instead.

LARRY HRYB: Oh, really?

REBECCA GORDIUS: Yeah. It's a good game. And it seems like it's a really good game to play with folks who maybe aren't gamers and are just more curious in the story. So again, I recommend folks check it out. I assume that you guys have both played it. I think, Jeff, you had said you had, maybe?

LARRY HRYB: I think I think I played quite a bit of that actually. So yeah, I do need to go back. It's a very different type of game than, obviously, Infinite or any of the other ones. So yeah, I do need to go back to that. It is exactly like a movie, where the beautifully scripted cut scenes and camera angles, and you get to move through the environment and make those decisions. So it's definitely worth a moment to check it out.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I am wondering how much tax evasion you can get done in an hour. It's not enough time to--

LARRY HRYB: With a turnip.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: With a turnip. It's not enough time to set up a shell company in the Caymans or anything. Do you just doctor some receipts or something? You know? The name alone, what I have in my mind, cannot possibly be the game, right?

REBECCA GORDIUS: So I think you've done all the tax evading right from the beginning. And so then you're kind of doing these tasks to try to--

LARRY HRYB: You're on the lamb.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Yeah, get off the hook. It kind of reminds me of Cuphead in that sense, where you're kind of starting the game out from in debit or something.

LARRY HRYB: A deficit position.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Right. But it's such a cute game. Every time you get a letter, it has it up on the screen. And then you have the option to just put it away, or you can rip it up. And I rip it up every single time. And I got an achievement for ripping up enough pieces of paper.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: You have to store those documents for 10 years. You never know when you'll be audited, turnip boy.

LARRY HRYB: Document retention, Rebecca, document retention.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Nope, me and turnip boy, we're one in the same.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: If Rebecca's not on the show in the future, we'll know why.

LARRY HRYB: Yes.

[LAUGHING]

Anyway, well, that's great. So you've had a busy week out in New York. Sounds like the weather's been good, too. I've been checking the weather out there.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Yeah, it's been nice, hoping for some sunshine and not rain. I've been telling them all about my leaking apartment problems. But yeah. It's been pretty nice. But it's like I said, I have a couple more games I want to play this coming weekend, though. So hopefully the weather isn't too nice.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: The ever-compelling Larry asks about the weather segment on the show, which everyone really wants to know. What was the weather like where one of the hosts was at four days ago?

LARRY HRYB: All right, all right, all right.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: That's a good question.

[LAUGHTER]

I have to -- I'm legally mandated to --

REBECCA GORDIUS: Should we use this opportunity to go into the interviews?

LARRY HRYB: Well, we got a little bit of news first, and then we'll go into the interviews. So, Jeff, I know you've got some news there. So I guess the ever-compelling Jeff will bring it in and bring us into the news.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: First of all, I do want to let everyone know that it's 51 degrees and sunny. Thanks, Windows 11 for letting me know that. Partly sunny, I should say, which also would mean partly cloudy. How does that even work? I should probably know.

So hey, busy week here with news. Really cool reveal that I would recommend you check out on Xbox Wire. Gotham Knights had a big gameplay reveal where they showed off Nightwing and Red Hood. Getting very excited for this one. This one is going to be out.

It's a next-gen-only game-- Xbox Series X and S. And it's going to be coming out in late October. So I mean, I'm very excited to see how that game comes together. We haven't got to play a cool DC game in a long time. So look for that one, Gotham Knights.

LARRY HRYB: Gotham Knights.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: A couple of games, new releases. Evil Dead: The Game is out now. It's inspired by the original Evil Dead films, which I saw entirely too young as a child, but probably could handle that a little bit better now. Also based on the show that's on Starz called Ash versus the Evil Dead.

Also launched a game called Soundfall, which is a rhythm-based combat game where there's hundreds of songs, and you loot and shoot. And that sounds really interesting to me. So maybe I'll try that this week and tell you about it next week.

LARRY HRYB: I'm looking forward to looting and shooting to the sound of the Bee Gees.

[LAUGHING]

I mean, I have no idea what the music is.

REBECCA GORDIUS: (SINGING) Staying alive, staying alive.

[LAUGHING]

LARRY HRYB: There we go. Thank you.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: You got there first, Rebecca. Good job. Do you all play Hurdle at all?

LARRY HRYB: Oh.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: All right, Larry, I can tell that's a knowing laugh.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Did you see I left the chat?

LARRY HRYB: Jeff knows I play it because he and I have had many high spirited discussions about our musical knowledge.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I still play Wordle. That's a family thing. We do at around dinner. And I still have the worst average in the house somehow. But Hurdle is kind of the same thing, where you hear one second of a song, and you have to guess. And if you're wrong, then you get another second. And it goes up to-- I don't know-- 30 seconds or something like that.

And all of them, I either get it in one second or I don't get it at all. And today was a "don't get it at all" song. But well, anyway, highly recommended. But it's always funny to see which ones Larry gets. If it's a '90s R&B or pop hit, Larry's gonna get it in one second every time. If it came out after 1999--

LARRY HRYB: The line is October 1999. It's very, very specific.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, it's pretty good. So anyway, good times, recommend you check it out. So that's also not coming out on Game Pass this week, but--

LARRY HRYB: That's the ever-compelling Hurdle segment.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: While you're downloading your updates, you can play your Hurdle for the day. We have an ongoing chat. So a couple of Game Pass games, besides Eiyuden Chronicle, which we had talked about, that are now available this week-- Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair Anniversary Edition. This is a game that-- we've all been in the situation where we go on a class trip to an island, and it turns into a life or death game show. Anyway, now you can play that as part of Game Pass.

This War of Mine: Final Cut, which is remastered for Xbox Series X and S. And timely is the wrong word, but definitely, I think, perspective building in what-- when we're playing games and you're kind of playing in-- you generally take the role of people with power, I guess you would say. You're the one firing the gun.

And I think games have the ability to put you into a place or to show you perspectives that you really just could never see otherwise. And This War of Mine is one of those games. So you're playing a group of civilians trying to survive in a besieged city. And you're struggling with how do you stay alive? How do you get the necessities you need, trading and things like that? And there's danger from hostile troops in the area.

So a very different type of game and worth checking out to think about things, maybe, on a different perspective than you tend to see, I think, just in pop culture most of the time. And lastly, hard right turn here, NHL '22 is now available with Game Pass.

LARRY HRYB: One would call it a power play, even.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I probably should've changed the orders-- oh, there we go. So it's part of-- if you have Game Pass Ultimate, via EA Play, and if you're a member, you can get NHL '22 rewards including new gear sets and other stuff like that. So there you go. That is the news. Oh, last thing, Larry, speaking of the '90s--

LARRY HRYB: Yes.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: --how old-- test for the two of you, Price is Right rules-- get to the year without going over. What year did Microsoft Solitaire officially become part of Windows? Because it had its anniversary this week. Rebecca, you go first.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Why are you making me go first?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: All right, Larry, you go first.

LARRY HRYB: I'm gonna say--

REBECCA GORDIUS: I have no idea.

LARRY HRYB: 32 years?

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

I'm gonna say 30 years, 30 years.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Oh, my God.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Well, give me a year, 1990-what?

REBECCA GORDIUS: See, this is why I didn't want to answer first. I was gonna say 2002.

LARRY HRYB: No, no, I'll say '94.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: OK, well if it was price is right rules, you both went over. It is the 32nd anniversary, Larry, So you were right. Go with your gut.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Oh, my gosh, yeah.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: On May 22, 1990--

REBECCA GORDIUS: Nice job, Larry.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: --Microsoft Solitaire first made its way onto Windows 3.0. You probably installed it day one, Larry.

LARRY HRYB: That day one update.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So it is the most-played video game of all time.

LARRY HRYB: Well, do you know what its purpose was?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I believe I know. And I believe it has something to do with this.

LARRY HRYB: That's exactly right.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: But you can tell me if I'm incorrect.

LARRY HRYB: You're exactly right. It was originally designed-- because that was at the beginning of the graphical user interface era for computing. So this was designed to show people a fun way of how to click, and drag, and move your mouse, because people didn't know how to do that before.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Oh, wow.

LARRY HRYB: So this was a way to interact.

REBECCA GORDIUS: That's so cool.

LARRY HRYB: And I don't know this, but I've been told that-- because, again, I've been working on Microsoft for quite some time-- that this was a Bill Gates project that he liked, because he loves Solitaire and he wanted it in there. So that's-- I don't know.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Wow, that's fun trivia.

LARRY HRYB: There you go.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, I was a fun child. I used to play Solitaire with cards. And if you messed up, it's like --

LARRY HRYB: I never understood any of the other versions of it. There's Klondike.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Oh, they're really good.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Me neither.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I highly recommend Spider Solitaire, Vegas Rules. Can you play Solitaire in Vegas for money?

LARRY HRYB: No.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: If you could, I would do it in a second, I think, because you start off in the hole, $1 a card, negative 52. And every card that you put into the top-- I know it has a name. The bank, whatever it is-- you get $5 back.

LARRY HRYB: Right.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Now, most games you're at a deficit, but then if you win, you get $250, right? 52 times 5, something like that. Anyway, I would do it, but sometimes you get into a real big hole, and anyway, this is what I play on planes, so.

LARRY HRYB: Solitaire, there we. Thank you.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Has anyone ever been as excited as solitaire as I was in that moment?

LARRY HRYB: No.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Maybe.

REBECCA GORDIUS: No, definitely not.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Maybe back in 1990.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Maybe you and Bill Gates.

LARRY HRYB: I'm trying to remember, did Solitaire-- because I remember back in the '90s-- maybe you remember, Rebecca. Jeff, I certainly remember. There was always the boss key.

LARRY HRYB: I actually do know what you're talking about even though I was a small child. Tell me if I have this right. So I had a Texas Instruments computer that was a hand-me-down from my uncle in the really late '80s. And we'd play math games and Burger Time time on it.

And there was a button you could hit. And if you hit it, a bunch of janky looking graphs, business graphs, would pop up or something like that. Was that with the ball?

LARRY HRYB: Yeah. So essentially what it was, in the '90s, people were starting to get personal computers at home. But at work, you could play a game. And it had a special key, a keystroke-- every game was different-- where you could hit this keystroke, and it would pop up a faux Excel picture or something, because it was before a browser. So that's why they call it-- because when the boss shows up, you hit the button. It's called the boss key, boom, done.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So they couldn't tell you were playing games?

LARRY HRYB: Right, so they couldn't tell you were playing games.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Right. So it looked like you were working hard. And then when they left, then you would go back to playing Burger Time.

LARRY HRYB: Boss key. So anyway, all right, we've sufficiently dated ourselves. Let's bring us back into 2022. Rebecca, we've got some interviews. Do you want to bring us into the interviews this week? We've got quite a collection.

REBECCA GORDIUS: All right, in this week to chat with us for the xCloud team, we have Catherin Gluckstein. We also have Steven Takowsky from Eiuyden Chronicles, and Ada Duan from Mojang studios.

LARRY HRYB: All right, Fortnite on iOS, iPadOS, Android phones, tablets, and Windows PC. You can play with xCloud for free. Joining us today, Catherine Gluckstein, who is the VP of xCloud. Great to see you, Catherine.

CATHERINE GLUCKSTEIN: It's so nice to be here, Larry.

LARRY HRYB: It's funny. You and I have worked together for a long time. And we were just talking before we started recording. It's taken five years to get you on the show because you've been so busy working on a lot of things. I'm just thrilled to have you. Thanks for joining us.

CATHERINE GLUCKSTEIN: I'm thrilled to be here. I was just thinking you didn't want to invite me, Larry, or something.

LARRY HRYB: Oh, no. It's just funny. Everybody else comes on. I've had Phil on frequently and so forth. But it was the right moment. I've had Kareem, on because you've worked with Kareem with xCloud in the past. But I wanted to get you on to talk about this great news.

Of course, this news came out last week. This news dropped after we recorded last week's show. So I was like, I got to get Catherine on. Tell us a little bit about the headlines just to remind people what we did last week, because it's kind of exciting.

CATHERINE GLUCKSTEIN: It was awesome. It was us coming together with our friends at Epic to bring Fortnite back to mobile phones. And so we've been working with them for a number of months to build an incredible experience for our players.

So you have these native flight touch controls. So it's just like you're playing the game, as if it was native on your mobile phone, but it's streamed from the cloud. And so just terrific to be able to make that game so accessible around the world on the devices that people want to play on.

LARRY HRYB: Yeah. It's been fascinating on the xCloud journey for so long. And you've been over there working on that with the team. And your team has been building some amazing products. And not just building it and moving up, but you're refining it, and you're taking the learnings. And so it's really been quite the journey for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members, hasn't it?

CATHERINE GLUCKSTEIN: Totally. And I think that's so well said, Larry. We really view this as a journey. It's about all those incremental gains that you make. And we've seen some terrific improvements as we put our V3 set-- or I should say our Series X and S servers into data centers. Internally, we call them V3. That's our code name.

But as we put that in, just the quality of the experience, the near-native type quality of the experience, it's just astonishing work by so many people across Team Xbox, as you know. And just to be on this journey with everybody, and bringing these games to people who haven't necessarily been able to play some of them before, it's just incredible. I mean, you know the reception we got when we went to Brazil. It kind of blew our minds-- just amazing, amazing, amazing.

LARRY HRYB: And I know that a lot of folks in the US watch the show or listen to the show. But xCloud is in many, many regions. And I know you have-- I get hit up on Twitter all the time, as I'm sure you probably do. When is it coming to my region? And we've got global plans. We want to bring it to everybody that wants it, right?

CATHERINE GLUCKSTEIN: That's exactly right. I mean Phil, as you know, you've had him on. We'll talk about our quest to reach 3 billion gamers across the planet. I just really think of this with the player. What does the player want, what content? Where do they want to play it, on what devices? And how do we bring their friends with them?

And that's really the work we're all engaged with. And so if we haven't reached your region yet, rest assured, we're on our way. And all those great-- I get great feedback on Twitter, and I love it. And just know, we've got a lot of exciting things in the works.

LARRY HRYB: I mean, we talked about being-- right now, we're in 26 different countries in beta, and that's amazing. But really the news last week was the fact, as you just said, again, that you can play Fortnite on iOS, iPadOS, Android phones and tablets, and Windows PC with Xbox Cloud Gaming for free in a browser.

I mean, that's pretty extraordinary technology that we're using on our stack. There's a lot going on there. But it's amazing that you're bringing it to so many devices.

CATHERINE GLUCKSTEIN: That's exactly right. I mean, today we reach more than a billion devices, which is a figure that's just huge, right? And you're absolutely right. Just a ton of work's gone on to make sure that this is a great experience.

And that was our number one thing as we came to market with this was making it a really, really great experience for players. And the reception and feedback we've been getting the last few days has been amazing. And as you also importantly say, this is the first game that we've made available outside of Game Pass Ultimate.

So you can come and you can just try this for free. Come and try it out with us, and let us know what we think. As you talked about, this is a journey. We get better with feedback, and we want to keep growing.

LARRY HRYB: Yeah, and I also-- we talked about this a moment ago before we started recording-- is that it's also exciting because you worked with Epic and the Fortnite team to put some unique skins in there. Tell us about that.

CATHERINE GLUCKSTEIN: Yeah, no, really cool, especially for Xbox players. We put skins around Master Chief and also Gears of War, Kait and Marcus. And if you play on xCloud, you get a special matte design skin-- so just really cool stuff. And we've got more of these things in the works with Epic. It's all about really honing that experience and making it just such a great place for our players to play.

LARRY HRYB: Having a free-to-play game that's free for everybody on xCloud gaming is an extraordinary jump. And I'm sure we're not really ready to talk about numbers. But we had a few numbers that we talked about in the Microsoft earnings last week. I mean, they're pretty big. I don't know if you want to talk about those, or if you can.

CATHERINE GLUCKSTEIN: Yeah. No, absolutely. So Satya, I mean it is awesome when Satya is talking about the business that we're building, right? Talked about that we've had 10 million uniques playing on xCloud. I can tell you that number is moving very nicely, indeed. And really what I think about--

LARRY HRYB: Moving up.

[LAUGHTER]

CATHERINE GLUCKSTEIN: Yes. Thanks, Larry. Absolutely moving up. And what I think about with that is a number of things. We are seeing people play with us who've never played in the Xbox ecosystem before.

And equally, as we see those numbers moving up, we also see the total number of hours moving faster than that. So we're seeing this become a real place that people want to play many, many of their games, which is an incredible thing.

LARRY HRYB: And I think-- I've played on xCloud. I've got my Backbone. And I play on my iPhone and whatnot. And it's really great to be able to just jump in. But the fact that there's people listening right now that may not have a Game Pass subscription-- I don't know why, because you should have that-- but they can open it up.

And it's funny when I go over and I look at, over the past few days, and I look at some of the Apple blogs and people talking about these. There's a lot of conversation about, wait a minute, what happened here? This is really one of the only ways you can play really console quality games on your iPhone and your iPad, right?

CATHERINE GLUCKSTEIN: Totally. And to make it even easier than that, as you know, we've built many of these native touch controls.

LARRY HRYB: Right.

CATHERINE GLUCKSTEIN: On Fortnite, a vast majority of our players are playing on mobile phones with native touch controls, not even using a controller. And that to me is all about accessibility. You don't need anything other than your phone, browser, and the internet, and you are playing the game you want to play with your friends.

LARRY HRYB: And the beautiful part about the touch controls, they're customized to the game. Right?

CATHERINE GLUCKSTEIN: Yeah.

LARRY HRYB: It's not just like the A, B, X, Y. You can kind of say jump or shoot or do whatever you're going to do. So it's really customized. So it really tries. Again, when we hold one of these in our hands it's like, oh, which one does what again? Whereas with on screen controls, it tells you exactly this is jump. Right?

CATHERINE GLUCKSTEIN: Totally. And that is-- I mean, more than 150 of these games we've worked with the developers to do these touch controls. And in the case of Fortnite, they are completely native, so that all the menus work with touch, the camera settings. Everything that you are doing works natively.

So it literally feels like native game play. And I mean, honestly some of the team members who have made this happen alongside our partners-- I think I've said it before. But it does blow my mind what they're able to do, just incredible things.

LARRY HRYB: We'll put a link off to the blog post. Which again, this was announced last week. And you had a blog post that you wrote up on Xbox Wire. We'll put a link off to that. Wanted to get you on this week. Catherine, I want to thank you on behalf of all the gamers for bringing more games to more people everywhere on all the different devices that we own.

And I know your team is hard at work on even more exciting things. So we can't say much more right now. But I want to thank you for all your work on that. And again, congratulations on the recent launch of Fortnite on xCloud. Thanks again.

CATHERINE GLUCKSTEIN: Well thank you, Larry. And thank you for the support. This really is one team across TeamXbox just the incredible people coming together to build the vision of gaming. Right?

LARRY HRYB: Absolutely. We'll get you on again, right?

CATHERINE GLUCKSTEIN: I would love that, Larry. Hopefully not five years, right?

LARRY HRYB: Absolutely. All right. We'll see you next time. Thank you, Catherine.

REBECCA GORDIUS: It's my pleasure today to welcome to the podcast Ada Duan, who is the General Manager of Social Impact and Partnerships at Mojang Studios and has a really great history in the gaming industry. And I'm very lucky to call you my team member. So welcome to the podcast.

ADA DUAN: So happy to be here. Thanks, Rebecca.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Yeah. So first, do you mind just explaining what your role entails? What exactly is social impact, and what kind of work do you do with partnerships?

ADA DUAN: Absolutely. So I lead social impact and partnerships for Mojang Studios. And that means I get to look at ways that we can leverage the Minecraft game and franchise to do good in this world. So there are many things that we can do. Obviously, there are so many different social challenges that we could tackle, but really we're focused on three areas that we think that Minecraft can uniquely and authentically have impact in this world.

And that's really around education, equity, and sustainability. So very excited to be in this role. I've been doing partnerships for a very long time. And we think that it's not-- we don't want to have impact just in terms of what Mojang is doing, but we're going to do a lot of that through partnerships. And that's where we can have the most impact in this world.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Yeah. That's a great point, because we could do a lot on our own but there are already so many great organizations that are out there. They're established. They have channels that they can reach people in need. So it's great that we're looking for folks that we can team up with.

And I don't know about you personally, but for me, that's one thing I really enjoy about working on the Minecraft team. I like to say, it's a very aggressive team that wants to give back and wants to have a good impact in the world. So, yeah. I just I love the work that you're leading. So thank you for that.

ADA DUAN: Yeah, of course. And also when we talk about partnerships, we have so many great internal partnerships as well-- we work with TeamXbox, we work with brother Microsoft, and our community as well. There's so much good that our community already does with our games. So we're so excited to be able to amplify that and support that with what we're doing.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Let's see. And so before Mojang Studios, you were with Lucasfilm. And I actually googled, and I found you on a bunch of different Star Wars game credits. Can you tell us about your work with them?

ADA DUAN: Absolutely. So I started in the games industry more than 15 years ago at Lucasarts, the video game publishing arm of Lucasfilm, back when we were making games for Xbox 360, PlayStation 2, Nintendo DS, and PlayStation Portable. So not to date myself, but yes, been working on a lot of Star Wars and Indiana Jones games. And it was super fun.

And after we were acquired by Disney, I actually led the interactive team. And we were the first team to bring Star Wars Battlefront. I'm working with a very talented group at DICE to bring Battlefront 10 years after Battlefront II. So it was just really such a privilege to be able to do that.

REBECCA GORDIUS: That's so cool. Yeah, you've worked on some of the coolest projects in the gaming industry I think. I can only imagine what kind of swag you must have at home also.

ADA DUAN: Definitely a lot-- a lot of it's with my kids right now. But yes, they love it.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Yeah. I also saw that you're wearing the Women in Gaming shirt. It's funny. I almost wore that same shirt today.

[LAUGHTER]

ADA DUAN: We could've been twins.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Yeah. That's another thing I wanted to chat with you about, because Microsoft has all these awesome ERGs. One of them is the Women in Gaming, which you and I are both part of. But you're also the executive sponsor for Asians at Xbox, which I'm also part of. Can you tell us a little bit about what that entails and what kind of work you do with Asians at Xbox?

ADA DUAN: Yeah, I'm super excited. Asians at Xbox is one of our gaming for everyone communities and one of the newer communities that we've established here at Xbox just over two years ago. And as an executive sponsor, I work very closely with our colleagues who actually do a lot of planning for the year in terms of all the things we would like to do with the community.

And that's everything from supporting each other in career development to coming together to talk about hard issues like we did last year when the rise against Asian-American hate crimes were happening, and how do we support each other and lift each other during times like that, and absolutely get together for celebrations, so Lunar New Year and holiday celebrations. So there's so much that we can do to celebrate this diverse and rich community that we have here at Xbox.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Yeah. I can't wait until next year when maybe we start to do things in-person again. And I can come back, and especially because the food will be so good for these different celebrations. But, yeah. I think that I personally have been so happy to join Asians of Xbox.

I joined a year and a half ago, something like that. I just think it's so important that for a company like Xbox or Microsoft that talks about the importance of having a healthy external community and fostering a good network within our gaming community.

It's so important to have that to be reflected internally as well. And I think that there are just so many good resource groups and just different communities internally that are being hosted like Women in Gaming, like Asians at Xbox. So I just personally love that kind of work. I think it's so crucial to having the change inside and then seeing that reflected outside too.

ADA DUAN: Absolutely. Like I think that's one of the roles that we play here. I mean, when I mentioned I first started in the gaming industry, there were not as many women in the industry and certainly fewer Asian women. And so it's just really nice to see the diversity continue to expand not only across the industry, and here at Xbox have the ability to be able to support our growing diverse community as well.

And to your point, I think one of the things that's so important about that is that we start to represent the population of gamers that are out there playing our games. And so I've been in situations, whereas I've noticed the people who sit around the table and make decisions about games we choose to market or games we choose to invest in, or start to be different because you have more and different voices at that table making decisions. And so it's been really exciting and rewarding to see that.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Yeah, absolutely. I think even within the Mojang Studios' team, so I've been working either with Minecraft in some capacity or on the Minecraft team for I think like seven years now. It's been a really long time. And just even seeing the way that our team leadership has changed has been really inspiring to see. I guess what do you think is next for Mojang Studios just as far as social impact and the work that you're doing? Yeah.

ADA DUAN: Yeah, absolutely. So I think there are a lot of things as I mentioned earlier, the key areas that we're looking into. I think we already have such a strong presence with our Minecraft education product. And I think we're using that as also one of the platforms to actually raise awareness on some of the issues that we're seeing today. And so we're looking at even combining the different focus areas that we have.

So an example of what we're doing with our education product is we've released content called Climate Futures, where players can go in and look at in different biomes and see how their actions have an actual real world impact on climate change. So we're raising awareness there. And one of the big things we want to do is we have such a large community around the world that we want to also activate our community to have greater impact and bring more ways that they can contribute to have a positive impact in this world as well.

REBECCA GORDIUS: I love that. OK. Well, one final question for you. And I just love to ask people who, like myself, do not come from a technical background. I don't know how to code. As someone who works on the business side of gaming, what kind of advice would you give for someone who also wants to pursue a non-technical business related role in the gaming industry?

ADA DUAN: Yeah. I mean my thought there is really just reach out, and make connections, and talk to somebody in the studio. And it's that we're here to actually provide more visibility. When I first started in the industry, I wasn't aware of all the different roles that are available within a game studio. And so create that network. And once you make one connection, they probably know three or four other people you can talk to. So continue to build out your network and have the conversations.

The one last thing I would actually just add there too is that we are looking for more and more people who don't just come from a gaming background, because I think where we're going in the future isn't where we've been in the past. And gaming itself is becoming more and more broad. And so it's exciting to get the different perspectives, not only in terms of just backgrounds, but people who have different experiences from all different kinds of industries.

REBECCA GORDIUS: You're totally right. I mean, I was just on another call today where I was telling some folks how our marketing and community team have doubled or tripled in size in the last five years, like just the amount of people that we need. Obviously, we still need people to make the games. Right?

But then the people we need to help them reach the right audiences and communicate with our fan base, that's super important too. Well, I think that's all our time. So thank you so much, Ada. This has been a great chat. I've been looking forward to this all week. And I really appreciate you joining us.

ADA DUAN: So nice to be here. Thank you so much, Rebecca.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: One of the most anticipated JRPGs that is coming our way is Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes. This is a game with a tremendous pedigree. We're going to be talking about this in a second. It's coming out in 2023.

But there's great news for those of us who cannot wait for it, and that is a prelude, a companion game. Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising is available now and is included with Xbox Game Pass. And here to tell us all about it is Stephen Takowsky from 505 Games. Stephen, thanks so much for joining us here on the show.

STEPHEN TAKOWSKY: Thanks, Jeff, for having me. I really appreciate the opportunity.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So I've been playing a ton of Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising. I'm one of those people that's been very excited, looking forward to Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes. But first, can we back up a little bit and talk about the pedigree of the team that is developing this item Chronicle, really, universe?

STEPHEN TAKOWSKY: Sure. So the development team is Rabbit and Bear Studios. And they're well-known for the Suikoden series. And Mr. Maruyama-- Yoshitaka Maruyama is a very well respected in the JRPG world. Suikoden is considered one of the top JRPGs of all time, so a huge fan base, major community, and it's just incredible pedigree from a JRPG standpoint.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So I know that Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes went up on Kickstarter in, I want to say, 2020. A tremendous response, I think, number three most backed game of all time. I think there's definitely a pent up demand here. But at what point did the team say, hey, we have an opportunity to deliver even more in this world with this companion game, Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising?

STEPHEN TAKOWSKY: So Rabbit and Bears Studios, after seeing the response from the community, which was truly incredible-- I mean number one back Kickstarter game of 2020, number three backed game of all time on Kickstarter-- it really came down to them saying, how can we reward our fans? How can we reward the people who made this happen?

And that's where this companion game came from. And Rising goes into back story for some of the companions you're going to have, and Hundred Heroes. And they felt that this was a great way to reward the community while they wait.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: All right. So let's dive into Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising. I've been playing it. We did a stream actually last week, which was really fun. And then I went home. And I started the game over again when it launched on Xbox Game Pass this week.

And I'm about three, four hours in. I've been having a great time. This is a different genre entirely though from what I Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes is going to be. It's much more action oriented. Could you just tell us really how the game works?

STEPHEN TAKOWSKY: Sure. So it is an action RPG, which is obviously very different than Hundred Heroes, which is a JRPG. And in Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising, you play three characters, and they are CJ, Isha, and Garoo. And they are helping to rebuild the town. There's a lot of exploration.

Unlike most RPGs where you're upgrading just characters, in Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising, you're upgrading an entire town. And you're upgrading shops and so forth. So it's a pretty fun and unique experience.

It's all about the story though. We're talking about 20-plus hours of gameplay. And it looks beautiful. It's 2.5D. And while there's a difference, you still have a great story that's included.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, I'm really having, like I said, a great time with it. There's some really-- I would say, it starts off very simple. I found it sort of relaxing. You're mostly using CJ early on. And traversing these worlds I would definitely recommend. And I'm hoping we'll see some footage in here.

Just the level of animation that's taking place all throughout the background in different layers, and it seems a lot of loving touches here to this world. But this is actually going to ultimately end up connecting to Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes, not just in terms of lore and story, but actually in a more tangible way. Can you talk to us about that?

STEPHEN TAKOWSKY: Sure. So you will be able to transfer content from Rising to Hundred Heroes as long as you stay on the same platform. For example, if you completed Rising on Xbox, you will have transferable contents for Hundred Heroes if you continue to play on Xbox. So we felt that was another cool way to reward.

You don't have to play Rising to play Hundred Heroes. And you don't need the content necessarily. But it's just very cool to have. And it adds to the whole value and experience. So we thought it would be fun to connect the two games together like that.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah. I would, again, highly recommend you throughout. I'm just having just a really good time. I'm finding it to be both relaxing. But now as I'm getting further into the game, there's more challenge in the combat. And when you have the multiple characters, you can string together really cool combos where you switch from characters on the fly. You can even use that even for traversal in some situations, which I found to be really cool.

Something that I think when people are outside of the industry and they look in and they will say, hey, I want this thing, but you're doing this thing-- why don't you just focus on the thing that I want? But you all have thought ahead about this, and its different teams actually that are working on Hundred Heroes and that put together Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising, correct?

STEPHEN TAKOWSKY: Correct. So we didn't want to detract from the core focus, which is Hundred Heroes. So Rabbit and Bear Studios are focused on Hundred Heroes. But we have this companion game. And so Natsume Atari was brought in. They are the developers of the game.

However, Rabbit and Bear studios are still supervising over that development to make sure that everything properly fits into the Eiyuden Chronicle world, and it's just not a side piece that's not at all relevant. I mean, there's value. You have actual characters who are in Hundred Heroes who are going to be your main characters in Rising. And even the shopkeepers are going to play a function in Hundred Heroes and so forth. So it's all part of the overall world of all run.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: And again, if you're excited about Hundred Heroes, I really just highly recommend that you jump into Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising and get a feel for it-- the music, the animation, the art style, and the characters, some of which I'm like, they put a lot of work into that character. I think I'm going to see them again down the line. So for those who are going to play Rising and are going to be looking forward to Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes, how do they stay in contact with the development team?

STEPHEN TAKOWSKY: Sure. So the development team is very open. They're active on Discord as one platform. And we have AMAs. You could see them log on. They're interacting with the community. We're very open to feedback as well. So if you have suggestions or either for this title or for future title, come in, talk, discuss.

We're active on all platforms. And Xbox will definitely be the official club for Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising and Hundred Heroes. It's definitely a place where you can jump in, provide comments, interact. And we look forward to hearing feedback from the whole community.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: And, Stephen, we look forward to having you back as we get closer to the release of Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes. Thank you so much for taking time. And enjoy Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising, available on Game Pass right now.

STEPHEN TAKOWSKY: Thank you, Jeff. Appreciate it. Have a good one.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Thank you, Ada, Stephen, and Catherine. Now, we've been talking about playing-- we've been talking about playing Fortnite through the Cloud. And at the end of that Battle Pass that I've been working on is Doctor Strange. And I'm still working on it. I'm like maybe 60% of the way there. But you've got Doctor Strange stuff now. You've already unlocked your Battle Pass. Is that right, Rebecca?

LARRY HRYB: Well. Wait a minute. Let's be clear. Usually, I'm the one who gets all the swag and everything. But we decided to send because Rebecca has maybe the smallest room between the three of us-- we sent her the largest box. So why don't you show us what you got there?

REBECCA GORDIUS: All right. I need to actually move my mic. One sec.

LARRY HRYB: Yeah we'll try--

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Does Doctor Strange lives in New York? And actually it does looks huge.

REBECCA GORDIUS: It's very fitting

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Oh, my God. Is that a--

LARRY HRYB: Look at the size of this thing. I have not seen this yet, Jeff. You haven't seen it yet.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Is that a 55 gallon drum?

REBECCA GORDIUS: I saw the package downstairs. And I was like, oh, that giant thing can't possibly be for me. But then I caught a glimpse of the two tag. And I was like, oh, my gosh.

LARRY HRYB: So this is the special custom Xbox console and controllers that you can enter to win at Xbox Wire. We've teamed up with Marvel Studios' the Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. It's in theaters now, Jeff. Have you seen-- oh my, look. Oh, my goodness. Look at that thing.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Wow. OK. Why don't you tell us about it?

LARRY HRYB: Yeah, show us what you got there, Rebecca.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Show us and tell us.

LARRY HRYB: You have a Series S.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Yes, here we have the Xbox Series S custom with-- I can't remember the name. So I haven't seen the movie yet. I was actually going to see it last weekend, but the seats were all reserved. And so I had a hard time getting in. But so this is the new some kind of like intergalactic monster--

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Shuma-Gorath. And I know that because Shuma-Gorath was in Marvel vs. Capcom, I want to say.

REBECCA GORDIUS: I watched like five breakdown videos on YouTube of the Doctor Strange trailer for like little Easter eggs and stuff. And so I saw this thing attacking America Chavez. Speaking of which, this one is for America Chavez. It's very American and rugged looking. This one must be Wanda, because it's got like the dark--

LARRY HRYB: Yep, dark for sure.

REBECCA GORDIUS: --magic, dark matter?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Scarlet Witch.

REBECCA GORDIUS: And they all have the movie logo on the back. This one must be Doctor Strange, because it's got the-- gosh, I'm doing really bad at my nerd trivia today. I don't remember what the thing is called-- "The Eye of something."

LARRY HRYB: Jeff?

REBECCA GORDIUS: The thing that holds the time stone.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: It's where it used to have the time stone. Yeah, I don't know what it is called.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Yeah. It's for Wong. So I think those are just supposed to be just like robes. And one thing that's pretty cool and very extra is that-- so there's the note explaining what's in the package. And then on the back of it-- nothing, right? But then using this flashlight, which is blue light or black light, there's an Xbox Game Pass code. So I'll actually--

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Put it up there.

REBECCA GORDIUS: I'll put that code out.

LARRY HRYB: Yeah, let's put it up there.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: How do we follow you by the way, Rebecca?

REBECCA GORDIUS: I'm on Twitter.

[LAUGHTER]

LARRY HRYB: There it is.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Thank you, Larry.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: How about Twitter?

[LAUGHTER]

REBECCA GORDIUS: I've never done a giveaway before. So I'm like, can I do this? Can I just say I'm going to tweet it out?

LARRY HRYB: Yeah, you could do that.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Anyway, but yeah. So thank you to Marvel Studios for working with us on this very cool and very large-- I know wouldn't it be awful if I dropped it?

LARRY HRYB: Don't do that. But if you really like what you're seeing, then you should head over to Xbox Wire at news.xbox.com. You have until May 20, everybody. It is region specific. So we'll read the official sweepstakes, terms, and conditions to find out what's going on there. But we would love for someone on the show to enter, and win, and show off your controller as well. Yes, Jeff?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: And in the meantime, Rebecca's got a new dining room table.

[LAUGHTER]

REBECCA GORDIUS: Yeah.

LARRY HRYB: Well, yeah. She's got an end table, but either way it's quite a luxurious gift, isn't it?

REBECCA GORDIUS: Yeah. I mean, I'm going to break down the box as much as I can, but still my-- I'm sure my janitor in the building is going to be like, what the heck is this. So--

LARRY HRYB: Well there you go. I got a little something that is unscheduled and not on our show notes that I'd like to share.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Oh--

LARRY HRYB: I tweeted and kind of buried it on a Friday afternoon last week, and tweeted it out. But I want to make sure I remind folks. I am headed to Australia. I'm going to be going down to Melbourne for our FanFest down there. We announced the FanFest as part of our showcase activities.

And I am going to be headed to Melbourne, Australia, second week of June. I'll be there for a few days. I'm looking forward to that. So I don't know how we're going to do the show. We've got to figure that part out.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: How does that work?

REBECCA GORDIUS: You don't want to just take us to Australia with you?

LARRY HRYB: I would love to, but I've seen the schedule. We're all quite busy in the second week of June. Let's be clear. But it's going to be fun. I'll have more details on that. But you can go to news.xbox.com, and you'll see the FanFest post on there. So I'm excited to do that. You'll miss me, won't you Jeff?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Well, I was just thinking about how if we did somehow remote the show I'd be like, Larry go into the bathroom. I want to see which way the toilet flushes.

LARRY HRYB: I will happily do that for you. There's nothing like toilet humor, weather and toilet humor.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: That's what you get with the science. It's the Coriolis effect and I want to know.

LARRY HRYB: Anyway. So I'll talk more about that in future shows. We're looking forward to doing that. So anyway. All right, we've got to wrap it up here. Rebecca, thanks for joining us from New York and I'm glad you'll be able to haul that up to your place. And, Jeff, thank you. By the way--

REBECCA GORDIUS: My first unboxing.

LARRY HRYB: Thank you both for your time with those interviews. Great to have those folks on the show and learn more about their projects. And we'll be back next week. We've got a pretty interesting show coming up over the next few weeks. So we've got some really cool stuff planned. So Jeff, I hope you'll join us.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I mean, if there's really cool stuff, that I would like to know what those things are.

LARRY HRYB: And weather permitting, Rebecca will join us, so--

REBECCA GORDIUS: I was going to say, it depends on the weather. It depends on the toilets, no?

LARRY HRYB: It depends on something.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Anyway. All right, gang. We'll see you guys next week. Thanks for watching. But bye, everybody.

LARRY HRYB: Bye.

[MUSIC PLAYING]